conclusion of this great affair, you will have opportunities to employ them in trade and business, and access (according to merit) to the best posts of Great Britain? As for your tenants, the necessity of their masters is the occasion of their poverty; trade will enable them to let longer leases, and you to take them; and conform you in time to English customs, where masters govern a free people, and are duly paid their rents; and tenants enjoy what remains with equal security. As for your tradesmen, the value of your manufacture will be raised, you will have the opportunity to dispose of it, not only over all the island, but over all the world: you are ingenious, industrious, and live cheap, what then can hinder you to be more rich than those who have less of all these qualities? Where there are hands to work, and simples to work upon, and vent for the manufacture, it is impossible but there must be trade: if our own stock is not sufficient, you will be assisted by that of England: the very novelty of the thing will in some measure contribute to this; for all the branches of traffic in England, being traded bare, where there are new subjects of trade, merchants will try new projects; their interest will never suffer them to be partial to this or that country, but they will spend their money where they can have the best bargain. And your poor labourers may expect to raise their wages considerably. You see, the objections used by the opposers of an union are either frivolous, founded upon gross falsehoods, or do plainly prove the contrary of what they are adduced for. And I have that opinion of the understanding of several of the anti-uniters, that they do not so much as convince themselves: they are only a veil drawn over your eyes, to hide from you your present poverty and slavery, and the glorious prospect which an union with England presents you with. You are used only as tools and machines, to bring about their factious and ambitious designs. However, I shall beseech all such gentlemen and persons of quality to consider, that it is not a slight matter to sacrifice the present and future prosperity of their country to an unreasonable humour; to make a numerous people and their posterity, beggars and slaves for ages to come; and perhaps their country a field of blood, by endeavouring to entail this upon their neighbours as well as themselves or if they are swayed with some reason of less importance, as the treaty not being of their own framing, I desire them to consider, that this is so very childish, that a senator should be ashamed to own it. If the pretty little masters, their children, should take their fathers' places in Parliament, such a reason would hardly be allowed to pass current among them: an union is a matter of great weight and importance, and very good or bad in itself. If it is a bad thing, our most intimate friends the treaters can never recommend it; if it is a good thing, it is so great a good, that we ought not to refuse it from those against whom our personal resentments run highest. Among the opposers of the union, I know a great many persons of honour, who have as true a sense of liberty, and as great a concern for the welfare of their country as any; such need only lay aside some few prejudices, and reflect; their judgments will quickly inform them of the true value of the proposal. To such as are afraid of the Church and religion, I shall only say, that the religion of the Church of England is imposed upon no man within the dominions of England. As for the squeamishness of sitting in Parliament with prelates, and the fear of being disarmed of all other weapons, but what are allowed by the Gospel; these are such unchristian dissuasives from an union, that to mention them only is to refute them. The putting an end to uncharitable and unreasonable divisions about our trifling differences in religion, is one of the great benefits Scotland will reap by this union. I am not so much terrified at the vision of a noble lord', as he is himself, but heartily wish to see a plantation of as rich Jews as any in Amsterdam, as rich Independents, Quakers, and Anabaptists as any in England, settled in all the trading towns of the kingdom. Not but that I think all motives that are not penal ought to be used for their conversion, but I would not have churchmen afraid of the increase of their manufacture too; for heretics are properly the subject which they are to work upon: to be afraid to live among heretics, is to refuse the task their Master has imposed upon them. Their predecessors, the Apostles, used to go, at the hazard of their persons, to preach the Gospel to the Jews; they are afraid the Jews should come to them, where they run no risk at all in attempting their conversion. In a word, if 1 The Lord Belhaven's Speech in the Scotch Parliament, Saturday, the 2nd of November, on the subject matter of an Union,' 1706. any unjust tyranny over the persons, estates, or consciences of men be the motive which prevails with some to oppose this union, I would have such consider, that to govern a free people, is a more noble and honourable character, than to insult over slaves and beggars; and if any such there be, who hug their chains, and are fond of their rags, and, as a wretched people once did by the Romans, refuse their liberty when offered, they are unworthy of so generous and beneficial a proposal. Lastly, if this is only a scuffle raised by the united force of the Skillin and Louis d'Or, let such consider, that both of them are not to be put in the balance with the Guinea, which they may get by their industry. Consider then, in this your day, the happy condition of your neighbouring nation: survey their verdant fields, their beautiful plantations and sumptuous gardens, where culture, art, and expenses reign; their populous and flourishing cities. View the magnificence of their public structures; the neatness, cleanliness, conveniency, and costly furniture of their private houses consider the liberty and plenty of their meanest commoners; the comfortable estates which even the lowest of their tradesmen leave to their families; the immense riches of their merchants; the grandeur and magnificence of the learned societies; the prodigious stocks of their trading companies; the unconquerable force of their fleets and armies ; the justice and exact execution of their laws; and the wise administration of their government: ponder all these things, and then sure you will not reckon them your enemies, who offer you a partnership in so great blessings; but will conclude with the wise man in my text, 'Better is he that laboureth, and aboundeth in all things, than he that boasteth himself, and wanteth bread.' AN ESSAY ON THE USEFULNESS OF MATHEMATICAL LEARNING, IN A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN IN THE CITY TO HIS FRIEND IN OXFORD1. I AM glad to hear from you that the study of the mathematics is promoted and encouraged among the youth of your University. The great influence which these sciences have on philosophy and all useful learning, as well as the concerns of the public, may sufficiently recommend them to your choice and consideration; and the particular advantages which you of that place enjoy, give us just reason to expect from you a suitable improvement in them. I have here sent you some short reflections upon the usefulness of mathematical learning, which may serve as an argument to incite you to a closer and more vigorous pursuit of it. In all ages and countries where learning hath prevailed, the mathematical sciences have been looked upon as the most considerable branch of it. The very name Málŋous implies no less; by which they were called either for their excellency, or because of all the sciences they were first taught, or because they were judged to comprehend πάντα τὰ Μαθήματα. And amongst those that are commonly reckoned to be the seven liberal arts, four are mathematical, to wit, arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. But notwithstanding their excellency and reputation, they have not been taught nor studied so universally as some of the rest; which I take to have proceeded from the following causes : the aversion of the greatest part of mankind to serious attention and close arguing; their not comprehending sufficiently the necessity or great usefulness of these in other parts of learning; 1 See pages, 24-26. an opinion that this study requires a particular genius and turn of head, which few are so happy as to be born with; and the want of public encouragement, and able masters. For these, and perhaps some other reasons, this study hath been generally neglected, and regarded only by some few persons whose happy genius and curiosity have prompted them to it, or who have been forced upon it by its immediate subserviency to some particular art or office. Therefore I think I cannot do better service to learning, youth, and the nation in general, than by shewing that the mathematics of all parts of human knowledge, for the improvement of the mind, for their subserviency to other arts, and their usefulness to the commonwealth, deserve most to be encouraged. I know a discourse of this nature will be offensive to some, who, while they are ignorant of mathematics, yet think themselves masters of all valuable learning; but their displeasure must not deter me from delivering an useful truth. The advantages which accrue to the mind by mathematical studies consist chiefly in these things: first, in accustoming it to attention; secondly, in giving it a habit of close and demonstrative reasoning; thirdly, in freeing it from prejudice, credulity, and superstition. First, the mathematics make the mind attentive to the objects which it considers. This they do by entertaining it with a great variety of truths which are delightful and evident, but not obvious. Truth is the same thing to the understanding, as music to the ear, and beauty to the eye. The pursuit of it does really as much gratify a natural faculty implanted in us by our wise Creator, as the pleasing of our senses; only in the former case, as the object and faculty are more spiritual, the delight is the more pure, free from the regret, turpitude, lassitude and intemperance that commonly attend sensual pleasures. The most part of other sciences consisting only of probable reasonings, the mind has not where to fix; and wanting sufficient principles to pursue its searches upon, gives them over as impossible. Again, as in mathematical investigations truth may be found, so it is not always obvious: this spurs the mind, and makes it diligent and attentive. In Geometria (says Quintilian, 1. i. c. 10) partem fatentur esse utilem teneris aetatibus: agitari namque animos, atque acui ingenia, et celeritatem percipiendi venire inde concedunt. And Plato (in Repub. lib. vii.) observes, that the youth who |