Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/164

 1 52 LEIBNITZ AS A LIBRARIAN. part on concrete motion was dedicated to the Royal Society, the second on abstract motion to the French Academy. The book was printed by John Martyn, who was appointed printer to the Royal Society in 1 664.' Leibnitz had made good friends with the leading lights of the Royal Society this was a few years before the seeds of his dispute with Sir Isaac Newton were sown and the influence of these friends no doubt led to the book being brought out in London. It is common knowledge that foreign authors residing in England, like Jean Paul Marat, or, when in exile, like Voltaire, have had their works published in this country, but I do not know of such being the case with one who was only on a ' flying visit ' like Leibnitz. The dispute about the priority of invention of what Sir Isaac Newton termed c fluxions,' and Leibnitz the ' differential calculus/ upon which perhaps the last word will never be said, concerns us from one point only, which is this. However undignified from the ethical standpoint the quarrels of the learned may be, they have the advantage of compelling a bibliographical accuracy of statement as regards books, scientific memoirs and corre- spondence. The advocates of both sides, and the impartial critic of posterity, whose interest in the dispute is academic, have all emulated one another in turning the Newton-Leibnitz question inside out, so that the dossier is as complete and as correct 1 Weld: * History of the Royal Society,' 1848, i, p. 178.