Book Description
Everybody who is interested in the fundamentals of the Calculus should read this ably written little book. Starting with the works of Newton that contain mention of fluxions, we are led, through a chapter on printed books and articles on the subject which were published before 1734, to the controversy between Berkeley on the one side and Jurin and Walton on the other. Then we have the controversy, Robins and Pemberton versus Jurin, which really produced valuable results; these, leading immediately to several texts on fluxions, ultimately caused the production of Maclaurin's Treatise of 1742. We are then given a bibliography of books published between 174S and 1761, with extracts and short discussions; of these Professor Cajori remarks that only two were of any real interest, namely, those of Simpson and Emerson. These two works lead to a controversy between Robert Heath and others as partizans of Emerson and John Turner and others as partizans of Simpson; this controversy had little to commend it. The final chapters deal with abortive attempts at arithmetization, later books and articles on fluxions, and criticisms by British writers; a summary of the whole by the author, under the chapter-heading Merits and Defects," closes a most interesting volume.