Note 384 — Chapter V

Simson was appointed in 1711; and even before he began to lecture, he drew up ‘a translation of the three first books of L'Hospital's Conic Sections, in which geometrical demonstrations are substituted for the algebraical of the original, according to Mr. Simson's early taste on this subject.’ Trail's Life and Writings of Robert Simson, 1812, 4to. p. 4. This was probably the rudiment of his work on Conic Sections, published in 1735. Montucla, Histoire des Mathématiques, vol. iii. p. 12. On the difference between the ancient and modern schemes, there are some ingenious, though perhaps scarcely tenable, remarks in Dugald Stewart's Philosophy of the Mind, vol. ii. pp. 354 seq. and p. 380. See also Comte, Philosophie Positive, vol. i. pp. 383–395. Matthew Stewart, the mathematical professor at Edinburgh, was the father of Dugald. See, respecting him and his crusade against the modern analysis, Bower's History of the University of Edinburgh, vol. ii. pp. 357–360, vol. iii. p. 249; and a strange passage in First Report of the British Association, p. 59.