120 
Mr, Sainfs Hejoinder t 9 Mr. Taylor^ 
[Sept. 1, 
gentlemen declaimed with fluency con¬ 
cerning the Cestui que Trust, in a sense 
which turned the tables on my under¬ 
standing. To my astonishment, the pre¬ 
siding judge in that court, adopted their 
sense of the term, aiid spake of the 
Cestui que Trust, as of the person enti¬ 
tled to the use and profits of the land. I 
need scarcely add that this reversal of my 
preconceived ideas throw me quite out of 
the train of argument; and I should be 
greatly obliged to any of your correspon¬ 
dents, who would inform me how the 
term Cestui que Trust came to be used, 
in our courts of law, in a sense directly 
opposed to that annexed to it by Black- 
stone: aho by Giles Jacob, in his Law 
Dictionary; a work of much general, as 
well as legal, information, which no li¬ 
brary should be without. 
A PRIVATE GENTLEMAN, 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
T ?HISTOIRE des Imaginations Ex- 
J|_^ travagantes de Monsr. Oofle. 
12mo. Am.stm. 1710,” is a satire on the 
belief in magic spectres, &c. and on the 
superstitious practices founded thereon. 
It is full of amusing notes, quoting the 
books from which the supposed Mr, 
Oufle drew his mass of absurd notions 
and experiments. 
I think there is an English translation. 
St. Newington, May 6. 1811. D, B. 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
TO THOMAS TAYLOR, ESQ. of WALWORTH, 
SIR, 
I HAVE read with attention your re¬ 
ply to my remarks on your “ Ele¬ 
ments of the True Arithmetic of Infi¬ 
nites,” and, in answer to your letter, I 
beg leave to trouble you with the follow¬ 
ing observations: 
Your reply begins with noticing the 
animadversions which I made on your 
iourth postulate^, or rather definition, and 
I perceive that at first you seem more 
than half willing to concede that that de¬ 
finition is erroneous, but that afterwards, 
either from the disadvantage which you 
wT)uld, in consequenceofsuch concession, 
labour under in your arguments to sup¬ 
port your “ true arithmetic,” or from a 
certain consciousness of the awkward 
appearance it would have to be obliged 
to concede to your opponent in the very 
outset, you determine, after fluctuating 
in your opinion through half a page, to 
agree with tiie modern mathematicians, 
that m.uhiplied by 2 is the same thing 
as adding 6 to Itself twice,” ,Now really, , 
JMr. I’aylor, if you will resolutely persist 
in maintaining this absurdity, it will be . 
totally unnecessary on my part to use any 
arguments topersuade you to relinquish this 
your favourite tenet: I cannot Ijcrwever re¬ 
frain from asking you how much 6 added to 
itselfo?icewill produce? Should your an¬ 
swer tothisquesiion bed, then I mustleave 
you to reconcile this contradiction—how 
a number when added to itself, produces . 
no increase ! and if your answer be 12,—• 
then I must be content co leave you in the 
full possession of your opinion that twice 
6 is 18 !! While on this point you say, 
' “ Perhaps, Sir, you may be of opinion, 
that a* for instance, is not the second 
power of a.” No, Mr. Taylor, I main¬ 
tain that a* is the second power of a, be¬ 
cause the small figure 2 at the head of tlie 
letter is the mt/ej: of the power; bul l 
deny that the second power of a or is 
the product which arises from multiplying 
a twice by itself, since a multiplied once 
by itself, or aX«gives I should ra¬ 
ther say that the second power of a is a 
multiplied twice into unity or 1. I can¬ 
not help remarking here, sir, that it is 
a curious circumstance that, while ex¬ 
erting your eiforts to destroy the edifice 
whicl) has been erected by modern ma¬ 
thematicians, you should have stolen a 
rotten brick from that edifice, and have 
laid this brick as the basis of your own 
more firm and durable superstructure. 
Plaving thus dispensed with the first 
part of your reply, I have to tiiank yoa 
for your correction of two supposed er¬ 
rors in the press, and to express mv sur¬ 
prise at the manner in which you have 
evaded the point at issue with respect to 
the position of the subtrahend. I did not 
maintain, sir, that from a difference of 
position in the subtrahend a remainder 
would result differing in value, but I con¬ 
tended,, as I still contend, that, by this 
change of position, you would no longer 
obtain a remainder consisting of a repe¬ 
tition of the binomial 1—1, or composed 
of an infinite series of your favourite infi¬ 
nitesimals; and it will be manifest to 
every one who will attend to yuur first 
proposition that unless you obtain such a 
, series you fail in your object, and that 
your whole system becomes a “ baseless 
fabric, leaving not a wreck behind.” 
You proceed by saying “ whiy you exult 
so much at my having by a very obvious 
deduction, shewn the truth of my method 
of finding the last term of an infinite 
series, I cannot conceive.” Not con¬ 
ceive, Sir! why I thought I had stated 
sutficieut 
