Note 386 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 4)

The strange conclusions some mathematicians have deduced from their principles concerning the real quantity of matter, and the reality of space, have been noticed by Pope, in the Dunciad:—

“Mad Mathésis alone was unconfined, Too mad for mere material chains to bind: Now to pure space lifts her ecstatic stare; Now running round the circle, finds its square.” Dunciad, Book iv. ver. 31.