390 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I/IQ. 



Isaac Newton himself, who bids you defiance in express terms, as you shall 

 see by his letter. 



I would fain see you at a good understanding with each other. The public 

 reaps no advantage from disputes, but loses irretrievably, for several ages, all 

 the discoveries of which it is deprived by such disputes. 



His Majesty was pleased to desire, I should inform him of all that passed 

 between Sir Isaac Newton and you; I have done it to the best of my power, 

 and I could wish it were with success for both. 



Your problem was very easily resolved in a little time by several geometri- 

 cians, both at London and Oxford. The solution is general, extending to all 

 sorts of curves, either geometrical or mechanical. The problem is proposed a 

 little equivocally; and I believe Mr. De Moivre is not mistaken, in saying, that 

 we must necessarily fix the idea of a series of curves. For instance, supposing 

 they have the same subtangent for the same abscissa; this will agree not only 

 with the conic sections, but also with a vast many other curves, both geome- 

 trical and mechanical. And other suppositions may still be made for fixing 

 this idea. 



I shall take another opportunity to speak of Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy. 

 We must previously agree on the method of philosophising, and carefully 

 distinguish between Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy, and the consequences 

 several people draw from it without the least foundation. They ascribe to 

 this great man several things, he by no means admits, as he has made appear 

 to the French gentlemen who came to London, on account of the great 

 eclipse. 



N. B. M. I'Abbe Conti also spent some hours in looking over the old letters 

 and letter-books, kept in the archives of the Royal Society, in order to see if 

 he could find any thing, which made either for M. Leibnitz, or against Sir 

 Isaac Newton, and had been omitted in the Commercium epistolicum Collinii 

 et aliorum ; but he could find nothing of that kind. 



M. Leibnitz returned the following answer to M. I'Abbe Conti, in a letter 

 dated at Hanover the J 4th of April 1 7 1 6. 



I have answered the letter you honoured me with, and at the same time 

 that Mr. Newton wrote to you; and have sent the whole to M. Remond at Paris, 

 who will not fail to convey it to you. I have taken this way, in order to 

 have indifferent persons, and such as understand our dispute, as evidences in 

 the affair; and M. Remond will also communicate it to others. I have likewise 

 sent him a duplicate of your letter and^ Sir Isaac Newton's: after which 

 you may judge if the chicanery of some of your new friends embarrasses 

 me much. 



