"Newton, gifted by nature with superiour intellect, and born at a time when Harriot, Wren, Wallis, Barrow, and others, had already rendered the mathematical sciences flourishing in England, enjoyed likewise the advantage of receiving lessons from Barrow in his early youth at Cambridge. The whole bent of early youth was toward studies of this kind, and the success he obtained was prodigious. ... Leibnitz, who was four years younger, found but moderate assistance in his studies in Germany. He formed himself alone. His vast and devouring genius, aided by an extraordinary memory, took in every branch of human knowledge; literature, history, poetry, the law of nations, the mathematical sciences, natural philosophy, &c. This multiplicity of pursuits necessarily checked the rapidity of his progress in each; and accordingly he did not appear as a great mathematician till seven or eight years after Newton. Both these great men were in possession of the new analysis long before they made it known to the world. If priority of publication determined priority of discovery, Leibnitz would have completely gained his cause: but this is not sufficient..."
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History of calculus
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