CiiAP. VI.] Mailitmaiics. 6<) 



sequence of this publication, is well known to have 

 been one of the most curious and interesting of the 

 age *. It seems to have been long and generally 

 agreed, that the credit of this celebrated invention 

 is due to the illustrious British philosopher; and, 

 of course, that the claim of his German rival was 

 unfounded f . 



Within the period under consideration, several 

 new and valuable branches of mathematics, now in 

 use, have been either wholly discovered, or placed 

 on a footing, in a great measure, if not entirely, 



* Soon after Newton published his doctrine of Fluxions, his 

 book was reviewed in the Acta Eruditvrum of Leipsic. In the 

 course of tliis review^ an intimation vras given that he had bor- 

 rowed from Leibnitz, and that the honour of the invention pro- 

 perly belonged to the latter. Dr. Keill, professor oi" astronomy in 

 the University of Oxford, undertook the defence of his country- 

 man. After a number of controversial papers had been exchanged 

 on the subject, Leibnitz complained to the Royal Societ;' of in- 

 justice on the part of Newton and his friends. The Srx^ety 

 appointed a committee of its members to investigate the questions 

 in dispute j who, after examining all the letters and other papers 

 relating to it, decided in favour of Newton and KeiJl. These 

 papers were published in l7l^j under the title of Commcrciuni, 

 Eplsloliciun. 8vo, 



f In the eloquent and comprehensive Enlogiuvi upon Dr. David 

 Rittenhouse, the late president of the American Philosophical 

 Society, pronounced by Dr. Rush, at the request of the Society, 

 there is the following passage : '' It was during the residence of 

 our ingenious philosopher with his father in the country, that he 

 became acquainted v/iththe science of Fluxions, of which sublime 

 invention he believed himself for a while to be the author ; nor 

 did he know, for some years afterward, that a contest had been 

 carried on between sir Isaac Newton and Leibnitz, for the honour 

 of that great and useful discovery. What a mind was here I 

 Without literary friends or society, and but two or three books, he 

 became, before he had reached his four and twentieth year, tlm 

 rival of the two greatest mathematicians in Europe," 



