16 DISSERTATION SECOND. [part ii. 



to fix on Newton a charge of plagiarism, which was refuted 

 by such a chain of evidence, by so many dates distinctly as- 

 certained, and so many concessions of their own. A candid 

 review of the evidence led to the conviction, that both New- 

 ton and Leibnitz were original inventors. When the English 

 mathematicians accused Leibnitz of borrowing from Newton, 

 they were, therefore, going much farther than the evidence 

 authorized them, and were mistaking ■ their own partialities 

 for proofs. They maintained what was not true, but what, 

 nevertheless, was not physically impossible, the discovery of 

 Newton being certainly prior to that of Leibnitz. The Ger- 

 man mathematicians, on the other hand, when they charged 

 Newton with borrowing from Leibnitz, were maintaining what 

 was not only false, but what involved an impossibility. This 

 is the only part of the dispute, in which any thing that could 

 be construed into mala fides can be said to have appeared. 

 I am far, however, from giving it that construction ; men of 

 such high character, both for integrity and talents, as Leib- 

 nitz and Bernoulli, ought not to be lightly subjected to so 

 cruel an imputation. Partiality, prejudice, and passion, are 

 sufficient to account for much injustice, without a decided 

 intention to do wrong. 



In the state of hostility to which matters were now brought, 

 the new analysis itself was had recourse to, as affording to 

 either side abundant means of annoying its adversaries, by an 

 inexhaustible supply of problems, accessible to those alone 

 who were initiated in the doctrines, and who could command 

 the resources of that analysis. The power of resolving such 

 problems, therefore, seemed a test whether this analysis was 

 understood or not. Already some questions of this kind had 

 been proposed in the Leipsic Journal, not as defiances, but 

 as exercises in the new geometry. Such was the problem of 

 the Catenaria, or the curve, which a chain of uniform weight 

 makes when suspended from two points. This had been 



