Note 1383 — Chapter VIII

‘Says, that, after he had been five years in one of the schools of the university there, it was by accident he learned the existence of the mathematical sciences.’ Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii. p. 223. A celebrated Spanish writer of the eighteenth century, actually boasts of the ignorance of his countrymen concerning mathematics, and discerns, in their neglect of that foolish pursuit, a decisive proof of their superiority over other nations. ‘No se dexe deslumbrar con los ásperos calculos é intrincadas demostraciones geométricas, con que, astuto el entendimiento, disimula el engaño con los disfraces de la verdad. El uso de las matemáticas es la alquimia en la fisica, que da apariencias de oro á lo que no lo es.’ Forner, Oracion Apologética por la España y su Mérito Literario, Madrid, 1786, p. 38. Compare his contemptuous notice (p. 66) of those insignificant persons, who ‘con título de filósofos han dado algun aumento á las matemáticas;’ and his comparison (p. 222) of Mercado with Newton.