Page:The Analyst; or, a Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician.djvu/34

24 the celebrated Author, the Invetigation of the firt or lat Proportions of nacent and evanecent Quantities, by intituting the Analyis in finite ones. I repeat it again: You are at liberty to make any poible Suppoition: And you may detroy one Suppoition by another: But then you may not retain the Conequences, or any part of the Conequences of your firt Suppoition o detroyed. I admit that Signs may be made to denote either any thing or nothing: And conequently that in the original Notation x + o, o might have ignified either an Increment or nothing. But then which of thee oever you make it ignify, you mut argue conitently with uch its Signification, and not proceed upon a double Meaning: Which to do were a manifet Sophim. Whether you argue in Symbols or in Words, the Rules of right Reaon are till the ame. Nor can it be uppoed, you will plead a Privilege in Mathematics to be exempt from them.

XVI. If you aume at firt a Quantity increaed by nothing, and in the  ion