GENERALIZATION OF PRINCIPLES. 89 



question excited any general notice. The Academy 

 of Sciences of Paris in 1724 proposed as a subject 

 for their prize dissertation the laws of the impact 

 of bodies. Bernoulli, as a competitor, wrote a trea- 

 tise, upon Leibnitzian principles, which, though not 

 honoured with the prize, was printed by the Aca- 

 demy with commendation 14 . The opinions which 

 he here defended and illustrated were adopted by 

 several mathematicians ; the controversy extended 

 from the mathematical to the literary world, at 

 that time more attentive than usual to mathema- 

 tical disputes, in consequence of the great struggle 

 then going on between the Cartesian and the New- 

 tonian system. It was, however, obvious, that by 

 this time the interest of the question, so far as the 

 progress of dynamics was concerned, was ^at an 

 end ; for the combatants all agreed as to the re- 

 sults in each particular case. The Laws of Motion 

 were now established; and the question was, by 

 means of what definitions and abstractions could 

 they be best expressed; a metaphysical, not a 

 physical discussion, and therefore one in which "the 

 paper philosophers," as Galileo called them, could 

 bear a part. In the first volume of the Transactions 

 of the Academy of St. Petersburg^ published in 

 1728, there are three Leibnitzian memoirs by Her- 

 mann, Bullfinger, and Wolff. In England, Clarke 

 was an angry assailant of the German opinion, 

 which S'Gravesande maintained. In France, Mairan 

 14 Discours sur les Loix dc la Communication du Mouvcmenl. 



