Note 72 — Chapter XII

M. Biot states that Sir Isaac Newton caused this edition of the Commercium Epistolicum to be printed; that Sir Isaac placed at the head of it a partial abstract of the collection; and that this abstract appeared to have been written by himself. These groundless charges may be placed, without any refutation, beside the assertion of Montucla, that Newton wrote the notes (les notes) on the Commercium Epistolicum; and the equally incorrect statement of La Croix, that Newton added to it notes (des notes), with his own hand. We should not have noticed the charges of M. Biot, had he not adduced them as proofs of Newton’s animosity to Leibnitz after his death. See Mr. Herschel’s History of Mathematics in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. xiii. p. 368, note.