6s Mathematics. [Chap. VI. 



CHAPTER VI. 



MATHEMATICS. 



rr^ 



1 HE seyentecuth century was the " golden age** 

 of mathematical science. Never, since the revival 

 of learning, lias this branch of knowledge been 

 cultivated with such brilliant success as during that 

 period. The grand inventions of Logarithms^ by 

 Napier, and of Fluxions, by Newton, together with 

 the numerous discoveries and improvements of des 

 Cartes, Huygens, Kepler, Gregory, Leibnitz, and 

 many others, must ever render the age of those 

 great men a distinguished cBra in the annals of 

 mathematics. It is even possible that the grand 

 discoveries of these philosophers, and the unusual 

 lustre of their characters, may have contributed, by 

 an influence far from being unnatural, to repress 

 the ambition and discourage the exertions of some 

 who came after them. But, although the eighteenth 

 century can boast of jiio discoveries so splendid, 

 nor of any advances so honourable, as belong to 

 the preceding, yet it produced both, in a suflicient 

 degree to secure a reputable place in the history of 

 this sublime science. 



I'hough the Fluxionary Analysis had been in- 

 vented by Newton thirty yeai's bc^fore, yet that 

 great mathematician first published his new doc- 

 trine on tliis subject in 1704. The controversy in 

 which he b'jcame .involved with Leibnitz, ia con- 



