SIMSON. 163 



He bequeathed his mathematical library and manu- 

 scripts to the University of Glasgow, with special direc- 

 tions touching their disposition, custody, and use. They 

 form, it is believed, the most complete collection of 

 books and papers in that department of science any- 

 where to be seen. 



The extraordinary genius of Dr. Simson for mathe- 

 matical pursuits has been fully described in recording 

 his achievements in that difficult branch of science. 

 That he greatly furthered the progress of mathematical 

 knowledge by his excellent publications of the ele- 

 mentary works of Euclid and Apollonius cannot be 

 denied ; nor can it be doubted that to him we owe a 

 revival of the taste for the ancient analysis, the pure 

 geometry, and the means now afforded of gratifying it. 

 At the same time there is some room for lamenting 

 that his great powers of mind and his patient industry 

 of research were not devoted to the pursuit of more 

 useful objects ; and there is good reason to agree in 

 the opinion expressed by one of his most eminent 

 pupils, Professor Robison, that he might have better 

 succeeded in his favourite object of recovering the 

 purely geometrical methods of investigation, had he 

 relaxed a little more from their rigour in applying 

 them to the present state of science, and shown the 

 ancient analytical investigation disencumbered of its 

 prolixity, relieved from its extreme scrupulousness, and 

 subservient to the investigations of the problems now 

 become the main subjects of mathematical inquiry. 

 This has in a great measure been performed by the 

 most celebrated of his school, Matthew Stewart, who 

 actually has solved Kepler's problem, and treated al- 

 most the whole doctrine of central forces by means of 

 the ancient method.* At the same time we have only 

 to cast our eye upon his diagrams to be convinced that 



* His paper on the sim's distance, in which he also employs the ancient 

 analysis, has been long since proved erroneous by my friend Mr. Dawson 

 of Sedbergh, who wrote anonymously a demonstration of the error in 1772. 



