advanc'd with mighty Steps in his Geometry, and was arriv'd at the very Borders of Infinity; but went no farther. Dr. Wallis about the Middle of the laſt Century, was the firſt who reduc'd a Fraction by a perpetual Diviſion to an infinite Series.
The Lord Brounker employ'd this Series to ſquare the Hyperbola.
Mercator publiſh'd a Demonſtration of this Quadrature, much about which Time, Sir Iſaac Newton being then twenty three Years of Age, had invented a general Method to perform, on all geometrical Curves, what had juſt before been try'd on the Hyperbola.
'Tis to this Method of ſubjecting every where Infinity to algebraical Calculations, that the Name is given of differential Calculations or of Fluxions, and integral Calculation. 'Tis the Art of numbring and meaſuring exactly a Thing whoſe Exiſtence cannot be conceiv'd.
And, indeed, would you not imagine that a Man laugh'd at you, who ſhould declare that there are Lines infinitely
