Of his works, we have mentioned his " Geometrica Organica," in which he treats of the description of curve lines by continued motion ; as also of his piece which gained the prize of the Royal Ac ademy of Sciences in 1724. In 1740, he likewise shared the prize of the same aca demy with the celebratedD. Bernoulli and Euler, for resolving the problem relating to the motion of the tides from the theory of gravity, a question which had been given out the former year without receiv ing any solution. He had only ten days to draw this paper up in, and could not find leisure to transcribe a fair copy ; so that the Paris edition of it is incorrect. He afterwards revised the whole, and in serted it in his treatise of fluxions ; as he did also the substance of the former piece. These, with the treatise of flux ions, and the pieces printed in the Medi cal Essays, and the Philos. Trans. a list of which is given above, are all the writings which our author lived to publish.
Since his death, however, two more volumes have appeared; his algebra, and his account of Sir Isaac Newton's philoso phical discoveries. The algebra, though not finished by himself, is yet allowed to be excellent in its kind; containing, within a moderate compass, a complete elementa ry treatise of that science, as far as it has hitherto been carried ; besides some neat analytical papers on curve lines. His ac
count of Newton's philosophy was occa sioned in the following manner. Sir Isaac dying in the beginning of 1728, his nephew, Mr. Conduitt, proposed to pub lish an account of his life, and desired Mr. Maclaurin's assistance. The latter, out of gratitude to his great benefactor, cheer fully undertook, and soon finished, the nistory of the progress which philosophy had made before Newton's time ; and this was the first draught of the work in hand ; which not going forward, on ac count of Mr. Conduitt's death, was re turned to Mr. Maclaurin. To this he af terwards made great additions, and left it in the state in which it now appears. His main design seems to have been, to ex plain only those parts of Newton's philo sophy which have been controverted ; and this is supposed to be the reason why his grand discoveries concerning light and colours are but transiently and generally touched upon ; for it is known, that when ever the experiments on which Ids doc trine of light and colours is founded had been repeated with due care, this doc trine had not been contested ; while his accounting for the celestial mo tions, and the other great appearances of nature, from gravity, had been mis understood, and even attempted to be ridiculed.