"It is but right... to apprise you that, diffident of my own decision, the favorable opinion I favor of your performance is founded rather on the explicit and ample testimonies of Gentlemen confessedly possessed of great mathematical knowledge, than on the partial and incompetent attention I have been able to pay to it myself.—But I must be permitted to remark that the subject, in my estimation, holds a higher rank in the literary scale than you are disposed to allow.—The science of figures, to a certain degree, is not only indispensably requisite in every walk of civilised life; but investigation of mathematical truths accustoms the mind to method and correctness in reasoning, and is an employment peculiarly worthy of rational beings. In a clouded state of existence, where so many things appear precarious to the bewildered research, it is here that the rational faculties find a firm foundation to rest upon. From the high ground of mathematical and philosophical demonstration, we are insensibly led to far nobler speculations and sublimer meditations."