44 DISSERTATION SECOND. [partii. 



tory as might have been expected. Perhaps it is not too 

 much to assert, that this was not completely done till La 

 Grange's Theory of Functions appeared. Thus, if the author 

 of the Analyst has had the misfortune to enrol his name on 

 the side of error, he has also had the credit of proposing diffi- 

 culties of which the complete solution is only to be derived 

 from the highest improvements of the calculus. 



This controversy made some noise in England, but I do 

 not think that it ever drew much attention on the Continent. 

 The Analyst, I imagine, notwithstanding its acuteness, never 

 crossed the Channel. Montucla evidently knows it only by 

 report, and seems as little acquainted with the work as with its 

 author, of whom he speaks very slightly, and supposes he has 

 sufficiently described him by saying, that he has written a book 

 against the existence of matter, and another in praise of tar- 

 water. But it is less from the opinions which men support 

 than from the manner in which they support them, that their 

 talents are to be estimated, If we judge by this criterion, 

 we shall pronounce Berkeley to be a man of genius, whether 

 he be employed in attacking the infinitesimal analysis, in dis- 

 proving the existence of the external world, or in celebrating 

 the virtues of tar-water. 1 



1 Though Berkeley reasons very plausibly, and with conside- 

 rable address, he hurts his cause by the comparison so often in- 

 troduced between the mysteries of religion and what he accounts 

 the mysteries of the new geometry. From this it is natural to 

 infer, that the author is avenging the cause of religion on the in- 

 fidel mathematician to whom his treatise is addressed, and an ar- 

 gument that is suspected to have any other object than that at 

 which it is directly aimed, must always lose somewhat of its 

 weight. 



The dispute here mentioned did not take place till about the 

 year 1734 ; so that I have here treated of it by anticipation, be- 

 ing unwilling to resume the subject of controversies which, 

 though perhaps useful at first for the purpose of securing the 

 foundations of science, are long since set to rest, and never like- 

 ly to be revived. 



