"Berkeley Bishop of Cloyne was a man of first-rate talents, distinguished as a metaphysician, a philosopher, and a divine. His geometrical knowledge, however, which, for an attack on the , was more essential than all his other accomplishments, seems to have been little more than elementary. The motive which induced him to enter on discussions so remotely connected with his usual pursuits has been variously represented; but whatever it was, it gave rise to , in which the author professes to demonstrate, that the new analysis is inaccurate in its principles, and that, if it ever lead to true conclusions, it is from an accidental compensation of errors that cannot be supposed always to take place. The argument is ingeniously and plausibly conducted, and the author sometimes attempts ridicule with better success than could be expected from the subject; thus when he calls ultimate ratios the ghosts of departed quantities, it is not easy to conceive a witty saying more happily fastened on a mere mathematical abstraction."
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, The Works of John Playfair Esq. Vol. 2, Dissertation, exhibiting a general view of the progress of mathematical and physical science since the revival of letters in Europe (1822) pp. 321-322.
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Abstraction (mathematics)
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