Finally, even disregarding the preceding important considerations, the infinitesimal method would no less evidently present by its nature the very serious defect of breaking the unity of abstract mathematics, by creating a transcendental analysis founded on principles so different from those which form the basis of the ordinary analysis. This division of analysis into two worlds almost entirely independent of each other, tends to hinder the formation of truly general analytical conceptions. To fully appreciate the consequences of this, we should have to go back to the state of the science before Lagrange had established a general and complete harmony between these two great sections.
That of Newton. Passing now to the conception of Newton, it is evident that by its nature it is not exposed to the fundamental logical objections which are called forth by the method of Leibnitz. The notion of limits is, in fact, remarkable for its simplicity and its precision. In the transcendental analysis presented in this manner, the equations are regarded as exact from their very origin, and the general rules of reasoning are as constantly observed as in ordinary analysis. But, on the other hand, it is very far from offering such powerful resources for the solution of problems as the infinitesimal method. The obligation which it imposes, of never considering the increments of magnitudes separately and by themselves, nor even in their ratios, but only in the limits of those ratios, retards considerably the operations of the mind in the formation of auxiliary equations. We may even say that it greatly embarrasses the purely analytical transformations. Thus the transcendental analysis, considered separately from its applications, is far from presenting in this method the extent and the generality which have been imprinted upon it by the conception of Leibnitz. It is very difficult, for example, to extend the theory of Newton to functions of several independent variables. But it is especially with reference to its applications that the relative inferiority of this theory is most strongly marked.
Several Continental geometers, in adopting the method of Newton as the more logical basis of the transcendental