PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 533 



Now the less I am pleased with these minute mathematicians, the more I 

 should wish for a library of this kind, as being the only method of curing that 

 licentious itch of scribbling. For these prating pretenders, ever trifling in a 

 childish manner, while they would seem to accommodate themselves to the 

 capacity of youth, may see that there are already too many who have compiled 

 rudiments of this kind. And those who fondly aim at advancing the mathema- 

 tical sciences by an infinity of new discoveries, when they see so many empty 

 paradoxes, which have been condemned and ridiculed by the public, may take 

 warning by the miscarriages of others. But especially the plagiaries, those 

 pests of all true literature, will not have the impudence to vend, as their own, 

 any old books, or any part of them, which perhaps have not been printed more 

 than once. On the other hand, men of candour and ingenuity, capable of de- 

 livering their thoughts in a handsome manner, when they see so many have 

 gone before them, on almost every subject, will be cautious not to produce any 

 thing to the public, but what is new and their own invention. Now what has 

 been treated of already may be easily known, either by consulting such an ample 

 library, or, with less trouble, they may be informed by the librarian himself, to 

 whose custody it has been committed. And these are the reasons in general, 

 which I cannot retract, why I prefer such an universal library as is described above. 



P. Mersennes Answer, declaring his Satisfaction. Dec. ]0, 1639. Ibid. p. 143. 



I had no sooner read your letter, learned Sir, than I became wholly yours, 

 and was ready to subscribe to your opinion, which I entirely approve. I was 

 also impelled by an unusual ardor of mind; so that I would recommend this 

 great project of yours to the potentates of the earth, if I had access to them. 

 But where is the king that will make a beginning? For I cannot but call it 

 truly royal work. 



M. Descartes^ Judgment and Approbation of the same. Feb.lQAO. Ibid. p. 144. 



I inspected the mathematical idea only by the bye ; and now only recollect, 

 that I found nothing in it that I should dissent from ; and I much approved 

 both the catalogue of the mathematical apparatus as there exhibited, and the 

 self-sufficient mathematician there described, as containing every thing in him- 

 self. Nearly in the same sense I am accustomed to distinguish two things in 

 the mathematics, the History and the Science. By the history I mean whatever 

 is already discovered, and is committed to books. And by the science, the skill 

 of resolving all questions, and thence of investigating by our own industry 

 whatever may be discovered in that science by human ingenuity. He who pos- 



