And as this has been the occasion of my delay in publishing... I hope it will serve for an apology, if some mistakes have escaped me in treating of s… - Colin MacLaurin

This determined me, immediately after that Piece came to my hands, and before I knew any thing of what was intended by others in answer to it, to attempt to deduce those Elements after the manner of the Antients, from a few unexceptionable principles, by Demonstrations of the strictest form.

After these came to be relished, an infinite scale of infinites and s (ascending and descending always by infinite steps) was imagined and proposed to be received into geometry, as of the greatest use for penetrating into its abstruse parts. Some have argued for quantities more than infinite; and others for a kind of quantities that are said to be neither finite nor infinite, but of an intermediate and indeterminate nature.

The science being now vastly enlarged, and applied with success to philosophy and the arts, it is of greater importance than ever that its evidence be preserved perfect.