Page:The Analyst; or, a Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician.djvu/68

58 in the firt place, it is uppoed that the Abcies z and x are unequal, without which uppoition no one tep could have been made; and in the econd place, it is uppoed they are equal; which is a manifet Inconitency, and amounts to the ame thing that hath been before confidered. And there is indeed reaon to apprehend, that all Attempts for etting the abtrue and fine Geometry on a right Foundation, and avoiding the Doctrine of Velocities, Momentums, &c. will be found impracticable, till uch time as the Object and End of Geometry are better undertood, than hitherto they eem to have been. The great Author of the Method of Fluxions felt this Difficulty, and therefore he gave into thoe nice Abtractions and Geometrical Metaphyics, without which he aw nothing could be done on the received Principles; and what in the way of Demontration he hath done with them the Reader will judge. It mut, indeed, be acknowledged, that he ued Fluxions, like the Scaffold of a building, as things to be laid aide or got rid of, as oon as finite Lines were found nal