100 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



11. 



Continental 

 methods in 

 mathe- 

 matics. 



can only be secured by an academic organisation and by 

 endowment of research was wanting. No one since the 

 time of Bacon had been more impressed with this neces- 

 sary condition of modern progress than Newton's great 

 rival, Leibniz,^ much of whose time was spent in pro- 

 moting academies all over Europe in Berlin, St Peters- 

 burg, Dresden, and Vienna and who had himself been 

 early attracted to Paris and London by the scientific 

 fame of their learned societies, though he significantly 

 pointed out the want of activity and efficiency in the 

 early history of the Eoyal Society. 



There was, moreover, another and independent line 

 of scientific thought which had centred in Prance, 

 the development of which came greatly to the aid of 

 the students of Newton's work. This was the purely 

 mathematical elaboration of the various infinitesimal 

 methods of the French and English mathematicians, by 

 which they were all brought together, simplified, and 

 united into a calculus with strict rules, a practical nota- 

 tion, and an easy algorithm. Newton himself had for the 

 purposes of his great work invented a new and powerful 



^ A collection of Leibniz's writ- 

 ings on this subject will be found 

 in the 7th volume of M. Foucher de 

 Careil's edition of Leibniz's Works, 

 Paris, 1875. Of the projects of 

 Leibniz, only the Academy of Berlin 

 came into existence during his life- 

 time (1700 and 1701) ; the others 

 were discussed at great length with 

 the Elector of Saxonj-, with the Em- 

 peror, and with Peter the Great. 

 The Academy of St Petersburg was 

 founded in 1724, eight years after 

 the death of Leibniz. The Academy 

 of Vienna did not come into life till 



1846, and in the same year that of 

 Saxony was founded, which has its 

 seat at Leipsic. Leibniz had the 

 largest views on academic life and 

 work : they were to embrace the 

 historical and philosophical studies 

 as well as the purely scientific, and 

 were to stand in relation with the 

 higher and lower educational in- 

 stitutions. His ideas are best 

 realised at Berlin. See Jacob 

 Grimm's interesting discourse, en- 

 titled 'Ueber Schule Universitiit 

 Akademie' (Kleine Schriften, vol, 

 i. p. 211, &c.) 



