652 K E 
London, in 1736, at the inftance of that eminent mathe¬ 
matician M. Maupertuis, who was then in England, and 
who. fubioined to it anew hypothecs of his own, concern¬ 
ing the ring of the planet Saturn. The fame which Mr. 
Keill acquired by this performance, jullly entitled him to 
the honours which fcience had to beitow ; and, accord¬ 
ingly, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, lome 
time before the year'iyoS. In that year he publifhed, in 
the Philofophical Tranfaftions, a paper Of the Laws of At¬ 
traction, and its phyfical Principles ; which was fiiggefted 
by fome propofitions in Hr Ifaac Newton’s Principia, and 
particularly deiigned to purfue the fteps pointed out by 
fome queries of that great man at the concluiion of his 
treatife on Optics. About the fame time, meeting with 
a pa Hag e in the Acta Eruditorum of Leipfic, in which 
Newton’s claim to the fir ft invention of the method of 
fluxions was called in queftion, he zealoufly vindicated 
that claim in a paper communicated to the Royal Society, 
entitled, De Legibus Virium Centripetarum. In this piece 
Mr. Keill not only alferted that fir Ifaac firft invented the 
•method of fluxions, as appeared by his letters publifhed 
by Dr. Wallis, but that M. Leibnitz had taken this me¬ 
thod from him, only changing the name and notation. 
In the year 1709, our author went a voyage to New Eng¬ 
land, in the capacity of treafurer of the Palatines who 
were fent by government into that country ; and foon af¬ 
ter his return, in the following year, he was chofen Savi- 
lian profefTor of aftronomy at Oxford. 
Mr. Keill’s vindication of fir Ifaac Newton’s claim to 
the firlt invention of fluxions, drew on him an attack from 
M. Leibnitz, in the year 1711, who, in a letter to Dr. 
Hans Sloane, then fecretary to the Royal Society, proteft- 
ed that lie was abfolutely ignorant of the name of the 
“ Method of Fluxions,” and of the notation ufed by fir 
Ifaac, till they appeared in the mathematical works of 
Dr. Wallis. He therefore deiired the Royal Society to 
oblige Mr. Keill to difown publicly the bad fenfe which 
his words might bear. After this letter had been read in 
the Royal Society, Mr. Keill obtained their leave to ex¬ 
plain and defend what he had advanced. This he did in 
a letter to Dr. Sloane, which met with the approbation of 
Newton and the other members of the fociety, by whom 
a copy of it was directed to be fent to M. Leibnitz. The 
latter, however, found new matter of complaint in it; 
and, in a fecond letter to Dr. Sloane, reprefented, that 
Mr. Keill had attacked his candour and fmcerity more 
openly than before; adding, that it was not fuitable fora 
man of his age and experience to engage in a conteft with 
an upftart, who was unacquainted with what had paffed 
fo long before, and afted without any authority from fir 
Ifaac Newton, who was the party concerned. He con¬ 
cluded with defiring that the fociety would enjoin Mr. 
Keill filence. Our mathematician, finding himfelf thus 
contemptuoufly treated, appealed to the regifters of the 
Royal Society, which, he maintained, would afford con¬ 
vincing proofs of the juftice of his allegations. Upon this 
a fpeciai committee was appointed, who, after examining 
the authorities, concluded their report with declaring, that 
they reckoned Newton the firft inventor of the method in 
queftion, and were of opinion that Mr. Keill, in affecting 
the fame, had been no ways injurious to M. Leibnitz. 
The particulars of the proceedings in this matter may be 
feen in Collins’s Commercium Epiltolicum, with many va¬ 
luable papers of Newton, Leibnitz, Gregory, and other 
mathematicians. The difpute, however, was ftill carried 
on for fome years, particularly in the Afta Eruditorum, 
and the Journal Literaire. The laft publication of our 
author in this controverfy was a Latin epiftle to the cele¬ 
brated John Bernouilli, mathematical profeffor at Bafil, 
who had alfo attempted unjuftly to difparage Newton’s 
mathematical abilities. It was publifhed at London, in 
1720, 4to. with a thiftle, the arms of Scotland, in the ti¬ 
tle-page, and the rnotto, Nemo me impunc lacejjh . In thefe 
contefts Mr. KciU condufted himfelf with a degree of firm. 
I L L. 
nefs, penetration, and fpirit, which did him great honour, 
and fatisfaftorily repelled the attacks upon the reputation 
of our great countryman. 
About the year 1711, feveral objeftions being urged 
againft Newton’s philofophy, in fupport of Des Cartes's 
notions of a plenum, Mr. Keill drew up a paper, which 
was publifhed in the Philofophical Tranfaftions, contain¬ 
ing fome theorems “ on the Rarity of Matter, and the Te¬ 
nuity of its Compofition,” in which he ably arifwers thofe 
objections, and points out fome phenomena which cannot 
be explained upon the fuppofition of a plenum. While 
he was engaged in this difpute, queen Anne was pleafed 
to appoint him decipherer to her majefty : an office for 
which he was well qualified by his great fkill in that curi¬ 
ous art, and in which he continued under king George I. 
till the year 1716. In 1713, the univerfity of Oxford con¬ 
ferred on him the degree of M.D. and two years after¬ 
wards, he publifhed an edition of Commandine’s Euclid, 
to which he added two tracts of his own, viz. Trigonome¬ 
tric Plane et Spherica Elementa, and De Natura et Arithmctica 
Logarithmorum. Thefe were more highly elteemed by 
himfelf than any of his performances ; and it muft be ac¬ 
knowledged that, they are drawn up with peculiar elegance 
and perfpicuity. In the year 1718, Dr. Keill publifhed 
at Oxford, his IntroduElio ad veram AJlronomianr, 8vo. which 
was afterwards tranflated by himfelf into Englifb, at the 
requeft of the duchefs of Chandos, and publiihedin 1721, 
with feveral emendations, under the title of “ An Intro¬ 
duction to the true Aftronomy, or Altronomical Leftures 
read in the Aftronomical Schools of the Univerfity of Ox¬ 
ford,” 8vo. This was his laft gift to the learned world, 
and he did not long furvive it. He had married, in the 
year 1717, in a manner which had given great offence to 
his brother, the fubjeft of the next article; but a recon¬ 
ciliation foon took place between them ; and at the death 
of the latter our mathematician received a confiderable ac- 
ceflion to his fortune. This circumftance, however, did 
not prove favourable to the health of our author, fince it 
led him to indulge toa fuller diet, and to the lefs frequent 
ufe of exercife, than what he had been accuftomed to. Be¬ 
ing thus a bad fubjeft for the attack of difeafe, he was 
leized with a violent fever in the fuminer of 1721, to 
which he fell a facrifice before he had completed his fiftieth 
year. His papers in the Philofophical Tranfaclions, to 
which we have alluded in the preceding narrative, are 
contained in volumes xxvi. and xxix. 
KEILL (James), a phyfician of the mathematical feft, 
younger brother of the preceding, was born at Edinburgh 
in 1673. He received his education partly in his own 
country, and partly in foreign fchools of medicine, where 
he particularly attended to anatomy. He read leftures 
upon this fcience in both the Englifh univerfities; and in 
1698 publifhed a compendium, entitled “The Anatomy of 
the Human Body abridged,” of which many fucceflive 
editions appeared, and which was long a popular manual 
for the ufe of ftudents. The degree of M. D. was con¬ 
ferred upon him at Cambridge ; and in 1703 he fettled as 
a phyfician at Northampton, where he paffed the reft of 
his life. In 1706, he fent to the Royal Society an account 
of the diffeftion of a man reputed to be 130 years old. 
The mod confiderable fruit of his application of mathe¬ 
matical fpeculations to phyfiology appeared in 1708, in a 
work entitled “ An Account of Animal Secretion, the 
Quantity of Blood in the Human Body, and mufcular Mo¬ 
tion,” 8 vo. He eftimates the quantity of blood in the bo¬ 
dy at a rate much beyond modern calculation. This work 
he afterwards tranflated into Latin, and publifhed in an 
enlarged form, in 1718, under the title of “ Tantamina 
medico-phyfica ad ceconomiam animalem accommodata. 
Acced. Medicina ftatica Britannica,” 8vo. In this he 
gives a calculation of the force of the heart, which lie re¬ 
duced from the enormous eftimate of Borelli to eight 
ounces. In his medical ftatics he relates experiments made 
upon himfelf, and greatly reduced the quantity of ptrfpi- 
1 ration 
