Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

development it has now attained. I gave up its practical pursuit soon after I resided in London, but I have never regretted the time I bestowed upon it at the commencement of my career. I had hoped to have long continued to enjoy the friendship of my entertaining and valued instructor, and to have profited by his introducing me to the science of the metropolis, but his tragical fate deprived me of that advantage. Whilst riding with General Bulow across a drawbridge at Boulogne, the bolt having been displaced, Smithson Tennant was precipitated to the bottom, and killed on the spot. The General, having an earlier warning, set spurs to his horse, and just escaped a similar fate. 〈TRANSLATION OF LACROIX.〉 My views respecting the notation of Leibnitz now (1812) received confirmation from an extensive course of reading. I became convinced that the notation of fluxions must ultimately prove a strong impediment to the progress of English science. But I knew, also, that it was hopeless for any young and unknown author to attempt to introduce the notation of Leibnitz into an elementary work. This opinion naturally {39} suggested to me the idea of translating the smaller work of Lacroix. It is possible, although I have no recollection of it, that the same idea may have occurred to several of my colleagues of the Analytical Society, but most of them were so occupied, first with their degree, and then with their examination for fellowships, that no steps were at that time taken by any of them on that subject. Unencumbered by these distractions, I commenced the task, but at what period of time I do not exactly recollect. I had finished a portion of the translation, and laid it aside, when, some years afterwards, Peacock called on me in Devonshire Street, and stated that both Herschel and himself were convinced that the change from the dots to the d’s would not be accomplished until some foreign work of eminence should be translated into English. Peacock then proposed that I should either finish the translation which I had commenced, or that Herschel and himself should complete the remainder of my translation. I suggested that we should toss up which alternative to take. It was determined by lot that we should make a joint translation. Some months after, the translation of the small work of Lacroix was published. For several years after, the progress of the notation of Leibnitz at Cambridge was slow. It is true that the tutors of the two largest colleges had adopted it, but it was taught at none of the other colleges. 〈COLLECTION OF EXAMPLES.〉 It is always difficult to think and reason in a new language, and this difficulty discouraged all but men of energetic minds. I saw, however, that, by making it their interest to do so, the change might be accomplished. I therefore proposed to make a large collection of examples of the differential and integral calculus, consisting merely of the statement of each problem and its final solution. I foresaw that if such a {40} publication existed, all those tutors who did not approve of the change of the Newtonian notation would yet, in order to save their own time and trouble, go to this collection of examples to find problems to set to their pupils. After a short time the use of the new signs would become familiar, and I anticipated their general adoption at Cambridge as a matter of course. I commenced by copying out a large portion of the work of Hirsch. I then communicated to Peacock and Herschel my view, and proposed that they should each contribute a portion. Peacock considerably modified my plan by giving the process of solution to a large number of the questions. Herschel prepared the questions in finite differences, and I supplied the examples to the calculus of functions. In a very few years the change was completely established; and thus at last the English cultivators of math­e­mat­i­cal science, untrammelled by a limited and imperfect system of signs, entered on equal terms into competition with their continental rivals.