The life of Sir Isaac Newton; with an account of his writings / [Fontenelle (Bernard Le Bovier)].

  • Fontenelle, M. de (Bernard Le Bovier), 1657-1757.
Date:
1728
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of Sir Isaac Newton; with an account of his writings / [Fontenelle (Bernard Le Bovier)]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mature of a particular Curve, had appear d in the World, The learned Dr. Barrow, at that time refiding at Cambridge with Sir Ifaac Newton, who was then in his feven and twentieth year, recollected (freight, that he had feen the fame Theory among the Compofttions of this young Gen¬ tleman, tho* not confin’d to the Hyperbola in particular, but extended by general rules to all forts of curvilinear Figures, even to mechanical Curves, to their Quadratures, Rectifi¬ cations, and Centres of Gravity, to Solids form’d by their Revolutions, and the Surfaces of fuch Solids $ fo that if the Determinations were pofiible, the Series would terminate at a certain point, or it they did not terminate, their fums might be had by rule 5 and if the precife Determinations could not be obtain’d, yet nearer approaches might ftill be made towards Infinity 5 the happieft and moft artful Scheme which the wit of Man could have ever invented for iupply¬ ing the imperfection of his own knowledge, Twas a great treafure for a Mathematician to be poflefsd of fo fruitful and fo general a Theory ; ’twas a (till grea¬ ter glory to have been the inventor of a Theory fo furprifing and ingenious ; and ’twas natural for Sir Ifaac Newton, when he faw by Mercator’s Book, that he was upon the right pur- fuit, and that others might follow him in it, to have laid open his treafure at large, and fecur’d to himfelf the right of property, arifing from the difeovery. But he was fatisfied with the enjoyment of it, without being at all follicitous about the glory attending it. He fays himfelf in one of his letters in the Commercium Epiftolicum, that he thought his fe¬ rret had been entirely di[cover d by Mercator, or would have been by others, before he fljould have been of a proper age to have difclosdit. He fuffer’d the honour of an Invention to be ra¬ vi fil’d from him without regret, from whence he might have promis’d himlelf the largcft returns of praife; and tho* he loft no time in the purfuit of the nobleft Attempts, yet he B z waited