Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/378

 tators who have written upon him; whereas no Man ever doubted of the precise meaning of the Writings of Des Cartes and Rohault, though all Men are not of their Opinion. In Mathematicks the thing is yet more visible; how long and tedious are Euclids Demonstrations, either in Greek, or as they are commented upon by Clavius, in Comparison of Tacquets or Barrow's? Tacquet has made Astronomy intelligible with a very little Help; which before was not to be attained without a Master, and a World of Patience; the same has Varenius done in the Mathematical Part of Geography, Tacquet in Practical Geometry, Opticks, and Catoptricks. The Doctrine of the Conic Sections in Apollonius Pergæus is so intricate, the Demonstrations are so long and so perplexed, that they have always deterred all but First-Rate Geometers: This Pensioner De Witte, has made so easie in his Elements of Curve Lines (i), that it is readily mastered by any Man who has read the First Six Books of Euclid. Such Abridgments save Abundance of Labour, and make Knowledge pleasant to those, who in the last Age were so exceedingly frightned with the