itz, reflecting upon these statements on the part of Newton,
arrived by a somewhat different path at the Differential and Integral
Calculus, reasoning, however, concerning infinitely great and infinitely
small quantities in general, viewing the problem algebraically instead
of geometrically,--and immediately imparted the result of his studies to
the English mathematician. In the Preface to the _first_ edition of
the "Principia," Newton says, "It is ten years since, being in
correspondence with M. Leibnitz, and having instructed him that I was
in possession of a method of determining tangents and solving questions
involving _maxima_ and _minima_, a method which included irrational
expressions, and having concealed it by transposing the letters,
he replied to me that he had discovered a similar method, which he
communicated, differing from mine only in the terms and signs, as
well as in the generation of the quantities." This would seem to be
sufficient to set at rest any conceivable controversy, establishing an
equal claim to originality, conceding priority of discovery to Newton.
Thus far all had been open and honorable. The petty complaint, that,
while Leibnitz freely imparted his discoveries to Newton, the latter
churlishly concealed his own, would deserve to be considered, if it were
obligatory upon every man of genius to unfold immediately to the world
the results of his labor. As there may be many reasons for a different
course, which we can never know, perhaps could never hope to appreciate,
if we did know them, let us pass on, merely recalling the example of
Galileo. When the first faint glimpses of the rings of Saturn floated
hazily in the field of his imperfect telescope, he was misled into the
belief that three large bodies composed the then most distant light of
the system,--a conclusion which, in 1610, he communicated to Kepler in
the following logograph:--

SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEVMIBVNENGTTAVIRAVS.

It is not strange that the riddle was unread. The old problem, Given the
Greek alphabet, to find an Iliad, differs from this rather in degree
than in kind. The sentence disentangled runs thus:--

ALTISSIMVM PLANETAM TERGEMINVM OBSERVAVI.

And yet we have never heard that Kepler, or, in fact, Leibnitz himself,
felt aggrieved by such a course.

But Leibnitz made his discovery public, neglecting to give Newton _any_
credit whatever; and so it happened that various patriotic Englishmen
raised the cry of plagiarism