Page:The Analyst; or, a Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician.djvu/27

Rh difficult. There can be nothing done till you have got rid of the Quantity ab. In order to this the Notion of Fluxions is hifted: It is placed in various Lights: Points which hould be clear as firt Principles are puzzled' and Terms which hould be teadily ued are ambiguous. But notwithtanding all this addres and skill the point of getting rid of ab cannot be obtained by legitimate reaoning. If a Man by Methods, not geometrical or demontrative, hall have atisfied himelf of the uefulnes of certain Rules; which he afterwards hall propoe to his Diciples for undoubted Truths; which he undertakes to demontrate in a ubtile manner, and by the help of nice and intricate Notions; it is not hard to conceive that uch his Diciples may, to ave themelves the trouble of thinking, be inclined to confound the uefulnes of a Rule with the certainty of a Truth, and accept the one for the other; epecially if they are Men accutomed rather to compute than to think; earnet rather to go on fat and far, than olicitous to et out warily and ee their way ditinctly.

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