"In 1696 a great number of works appeared which gave a new turn to the analysis of infinites. ...and above all the celebrated work of the marquis de l'Hopital, entitled: 'The Analysis of Infinites, for the understanding of curve Lines,'... Such a work had long been a desideratum. 'Hitherto,' says Fontenelle, in his eulogy on the marquis, 'the new geometry had been only a kind of mystery, a cabbalistic science, confined to five or six persons. Frequently solutions were given in the public journals, while the method, by which they had been obtained, was concealed: and even when it was exhibited, it was but a faint gleam of the science breaking out from those clouds, which quickly closed upon it again. The public, or, to speak more properly, the small number of those who aspired to the higher geometry, were struck with useless admiration, by which they were not enlightened; and means were found to obtain their applause, while the information, with which it should have been repaid, was withheld.' The work of the marquis de l'Hopital, completely unveiling the science of the differential calculus, was received with universal encomiums, and still retains it's place among the classical works on the subject. But the time was not yet arrived for treating in the same manner the inverse method of fluxions, which is immense in it's detail, and which, notwithstanding the great progress it has made, is still far from being entirely completed. Leibnitz promised a work, which, under the title of Scientia Infiniti, was to comprise both the direct and inverse methods of fluxions: but this, which would have been of great utility at that time, never appeared."