An essay on the usefulness of mathematical learning, in a letter from a gentleman in the City to his friend in Oxford / [Anon].

  • Arbuthnot, John, 1667-1735.
Date:
1701
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the usefulness of mathematical learning, in a letter from a gentleman in the City to his friend in Oxford / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/72 (page 9)
    friends to Religion; inafmuch as they charm the paffions, reftrain the impetu- ofity of imagination, and purge the Mind from error and prejudice. Vice is error, confufion and falfe Reafbning; and all truth is more or lefs opposite to it. Be- fides, Mathematical ftudies may lerve for a pleafant entertainment for thofe hours, which young Men are apt to throw away upon their Vices; the delightfulnefs of them being fiich, as to make folitude not only eafy, but delirable. What I have faid may lerve to recom¬ mend Mathematic^ for acquiring a vi¬ gorous Conftitution of Mind; for which purpofe they are as ufeful,as exercife is for procuring Health and Strength to the Body. I proceed now to fliew their vaft extent and Ufefulnefs in other parts of knowledge. And here it might iuihce to tell you, that Mathematicks is the Sci¬ ence of quantity, or the Art of Rea foil¬ ing about things that are capable of more and /<?/>, and that the moit part of the ob¬ jects of our knowledge are fiich: as mat¬ ter, fpace, number, time, motion, gra¬ vity, &c. We have but imperfect ideas of things without quantity, and as im¬ perfect a one of quantity it felf without the