"1. To give the general Principles and Rules of the Science, in the shortest, and at the same time, the most clear and cemprehensive Manner that was possible. Agreeable to this, though every Rule is properly exemplified, yet he does not launch out into what we may call, a Tautology of Examples. He rejects some Applications of Algebra, that are commonly to be met with in other Writers; because the Number of such Applications is endless: And, however usefull they may be in Practice, they cannot, by the Rules of good Method, have place in an Elementary Treatise. He has likewise omitted the Algebraical Solution of particular Geometrical Problems, as requiring the Knowledge of the Elements of Geometry; from which those of Algebra ought to be kept, as they really are, entirely distinct; reserving to himself to treat of the mutual Relation of the two Sciences in his Third Part, and, more generally still, in the Appendix. He might think too, that such an Application was the less necessary, that Sir Isaac Newton's excellent Collection of Examples is in every body's Hands, and that there are few Mathematical Writers, who do not furnish numbers of the same kind."
January 1, 1970
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Colin_Maclaurin