The Analyst : A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician

By Berkeley, George

Book Id: WPLBN0000632899
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.5 MB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	The Analyst : A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician
Author:	Berkeley, George
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Classic Literature Collection, Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Berkeley, Bishop Of Cloyn, B. G. (n.d.). The Analyst : A Discourse Addressed to an Infidel Mathematician. Retrieved from https://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
Excerpt: Whereas then it is supposed that you apprehend more distinctly, consider more closely, infer more justly, and conclude more accurately than other men, and that you are therefore less religious because more judicious, I shall claim the privilege of a Free?thinker; and take the liberty to inquire into the object, principles, and method of demonstration admitted by the mathematicians of the present age, with the same freedom that you presume to treat the principles and mysteries of Religion; to the end that all men may see what right you have to lead, or what encouragement others have to follow you. It hath been an old remark, that Geometry is an excellent Logic. And it must be owned that when the definitions are clear; when the postulata cannot be refused, nor the axioms denied; when from the distinct contemplation and comparison of figures, their properties are derived, by a perpetual well?connected chain of consequences, the objects being still kept in view, and the attention ever fixed upon them; there is acquired a habit of reasoning, close and exact and methodical: which habit strengthens and sharpens the mind, and being transferred to other subjects is of general use in the inquiry after truth. But how far this is the case of our geometrical analysts, it may be worth while to consider.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: The Analyst: a Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician, 1 -- George Berkeley, 1 -- THE ANALYST: A Discourse addressed to an Infidel Mathematician, 1 -- Query 1. Whether the object of geometry be not the proportions of assignable extensions? And -- whether there be any need of considering quantities either infinitely great or infinitely small?, 16