METIC.
There is one thing which deserves par ticular notice, in regard to this subject, and that is, the great advantage that may re dound to science by a happy notation, or expression of our thoughts. It is owing en tirely to this, and the method of denoting the several combinations of numbers, by figures standing in different places,that the most complicated operations in arithmetic are managed with so much ease and dis patch. Nor is it less apparent that the discoveries made by algebra are wholly to be imputed to that symbolical lan guage made use of in it : fur by this means we are enabled to represent things in the form of equations : and by vari ously proceeding with these equations, to trace out, step by step, the several par ticulars we want to know. Add to all this, that by such a notation, the eyes and imagination are also made subservient to the discovery of truth ; for the thoughts of the mind rise up and disappear, accord ing as we set ourselves to call them into view ; and, therefore, without some par ticular method of fixing and ascertaining them as they occur, the retrieving them when out of sight would be no less pain ful, than the very first exercise of deduc ing them one from another. As, there fore, we have frequent occasion to look back upon the discoveries already made, could these be no otherwise brought into view, than by the same course of thinking in which they were first traced, so many different attentions at once must needs greatly distract the mind, and be attend ed with infinite trouble and fatigue. But
now, the method of fixing and ascertain ing our thoughts by a happy and well chosen notation, entirely removes all those obstacles ; fur thus, when we have occasion to turn to any former discovery, as care is taken all along to delineate them in proper characters, we need only . cast our eye on that part of the process where they stand expressed, which will lay them at once open to the mind in their true and genuine form. By this means we can take, at any time, a quick and ready survey of our progress, and running over the several conclusions already gain ed, see more distinctly what helps they furnish towards obtaining those others we are still in pursuit of Nay, further, as the amount of every step of the inves tigation lies before us, by comparing them variously among themselves, and adjusting them one to another, we come at length to discern the result of the whole, and are enabled to form our several dis coveries into an uniform and well con nected system of truths, which is the end and aim of all our inquiries.