SIMSON, Dr. Robert, professor of mathematics in the university of Glasgow, was born in the year 1687, of a respectable family, which had held a small estate in the county of Lanark for some generations. He was, we think, the second son of the family. A younger brother was professor of medicine in the university of St. Andrews, and is known by some works of reputation, particularly a Dissertation on the Nervous System, occasioned by the dissection of a brain completely ossified.

Dr. Simson was educated in the university of Glasgow under the eye of some of his relations who were professors. Eager after knowledge, he made great progress in all his studies; and, as his mind did not, at the very first openings of science, strike into that path which afterwards so strongly attracted him, and in which he proceeded so far almost without a companion, he acquired in every walk of science a stock of information, which, though it had never been much augmented afterwards, would have done credit to a professional man in any of his studies. He became at a very early period, an adept in the philosophy and theology of the schools, was able to supply the place of a sick relation in the class of oriental languages, was noted for historical knowledge, and one of the most accomplished botanists of his time.

It was during his theological studies, as preparatory for his entering into orders, that mathematics took hold of his fancy. He used to tell in his convivial moments how he amused himself when preparing his exercises for the divinity hall. When tired with vague speculation, in which he did not meet with certainty to reward his labours, he turned up a book of oriental philology, in which he found something which he could discover to be true or to be false, without going out of the line of study which was to be of ultimate use to him. Sometimes even this could not relieve his fatigue. He then had recourse to mathematics, which never failed to satisfy and refresh him. For a long while he restricted himself to a very moderate use of the cordial, fearing that he would soon exhaust the small stock which so limited and abstract a science could yield; till at last he found, that the more he learned, a wider field opened to his view, and scenes that were inexhaustible. Becoming acquainted with subjects far beyond the elements of the science, and with numbers of names celebrated during that period of ardent research all over Europe, he found it to be a manly and important study, by which he was as likely to acquire reputation as by any other. About this time, too, a prospect began to open of making mathematics his profession for life. He then gave himself up to it without reserve.

His original incitement to this stuoy as a treat, as something to please and refresh his mind in the midst of more severe tasks, gave a particular turn to his mathematical studies, from which he never could afterwards deviate. Perspicuity and elegance are more attainable, and more discernible, in pure geometry, than in any other parts of the science of measure. To this therefore he chiefly devoted himself. For the same reason he preferred the ancient mode of studying pure geometry, and even felt a dislike to the Cartesian method of substituting symbols for operations of the mind, and still more was he disgusted with the substitution of symbols for the very objects of discussion, for lines, surfaces, solids, and their affections. He was rather disposed, in the solution of an algebraical problem, where quantity alone was considered, to substitute figure and its affections for the algebraical symbols, and to convert the algebraic formula into an analogous geometrical theorem. And he came at last to consider algebraic analysis as little better than a kind of mechanical knack, in which we proceed without ideas of any kind, and obtain a result without meaning, and without being conscious of any process of reasoning, and therefore without any conviction of its truth. And there is no denying, that if genuine unsophisticated taste alone is to be consulted, Dr. Simson was in the right; for though it must also be acknowledged, that the reasoning in algebra is as strict as in the purest geometry of Euclid or Apollonius, the expert analyst has little perception of it as he goes on, and his final equation is not felt by himself as the result of ratiocination, any more than if he had obtained it by Pascal’s arithmetical mill. This does not in the least diminish our admiration of the algebraic analysis; for its almost boundless grasp, its rapid and certain procedure, and the delicate metaphysics and great address which may be displayed in conducting it. Such, however, was the ground of the strong bias of Dr. Simeon’s mind to the analysis of the ancient geometers. It increased as he went forward; and his veneration for the ancient geometry was carried to a degree of idolatry. His chief labours were exerted in efforts to restore the works of the ancient geometers; and he has nowhere bestowed much pains in advancing the modern discoveries in mathematics. The noble inventions, for example, of fluxions and of logarithms, by which our progress in mathematical knowledge, and in the useful application of this knowledge, is so much promoted, attracted the notice of Dr. Simson; but he has contented himself with demonstrating their truth on the genuine principles of the ancient geometry. Yet was he thoroughly acquainted with all the modem discoveries; and there are to be seen amongst his papers, discussions and investigations in the Cartesian method, which show him thoroughly acquainted with all the principles, and even expert in the tours de main, of the most refined symbolical analysis.^[1. In 1732 the writer of tbis article, being then bis scholar, requested him to examine an account which he gave him of what he thought a new curve (a conchoid having a circle for its base.) Dr. Simson returned it next day with a regular list of its leading properties, and the investigation of such as be thought his scholar would not so easily trace. In this hasty scrawl the lines related to the circle were familiarly considered as arithmetical fractions of the radius considered only as unity. This was before Euler published his Arithmetic of the Sines and Tangents, now in universal use. ]

About the age of twenty-five, Dr. Simson was chosen professor of mathematics in the university of Glasgow. He went to London immediately after his appointment, and there formed an acquaintance with the most eminent men of that bright era of British science. Amongst these he always mentioned Captain Halley (the celebrated Dr. Edmund Halley) with particular respect; saying, that he had the most acute penetration, and the most just taste in that science, of any man he had ever known. And, indeed, Dr. Halley has strongly exemplified both of these in his divination of the work of Apollonius de Sectione Spatii, and the eighth book of his Conics, and in some of the most beautiful theorems in Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia. Dr. Simson also admired the wide and masterly steps which Newton was accustomed to take in his investigations, and his manner of substituting geometrical figures for the quantities which are observed in the phenomena of nature. It was from Dr. Simson that the writer of this article had the[7:20:358] remark which has been oftener than once repeated in the course of this work, “That the thirty-ninth proposition of the first book of the Principia was the most important proposition that had ever been exhibited to the physicomathematical philosopher and he used always to illustrate to his more advanced scholars the superiority of the geometrical over the algebraic analysis, by comparing the solution given by Newton of the inverse problem of centripetal forces, in the forty-second proposition of that book, with the one given by John Bernoulli in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences at Paris for 1713. We have heard him say, that to his own knowledge Newton frequently investigated his propositions in the symbolical way, and that it was owing chiefly to Dr. Halley that they did not finally appear in that dress. But if Dr. Simson was well informed, we think it a great argument in favour of the symbolical analysis, when this most successful practical artist (for so we must call Newton when engaged in a task of discovery) found it conducive either to dispatch or perhaps to his very progress.

Returning to his academical chair, Dr. Simson discharged the duties of a professor for more than fifty years, with great honour to the university and to himself.

It is almost needless to say, that in his prelections he followed strictly the Euclidian method in elementary geometry. He made use of Theodosius as an introduction to spherical trigonometry. In the higher geometry, he prelected from his own Conics, and he gave a small specimen of the linear problems of the ancients, by explaining the properties, sometimes of the conchoid, sometimes of the cissoid, with their application to the solution of such problems. In the more advanced class, he was accustomed to give Napier’s mode of conceiving logarithms, that is, quantities as generated by motion, and Mr. Coats’s view of them, as the sums of ratiunculae; and to demonstrate Newton’s lemmas concerning the limits of ratios, and then to give the elements of the fluxionary calculus; and to finish his course with a select set of propositions in optics, gnomonics, and central forces. His method of teaching was simple and perspicuous, his elocution clear, and his manner easy and impressive. He had the respect, and still more the affection, of his scholars.

With respect to his studies, we have already informed the reader that they got an early bias to pure geometry, and to the elegant but scrupulous methods of the ancients. We have heard Dr. Simson say, that it was in a great measure owing to Dr. Halley that he so early directed his efforts to the restoration of the ancient geometers. He had recommended this to him, as the most certain way for him, then a very young man, both to acquire reputation, and to improve his own knowledge and taste; and he presented him with a copy of Pappus’s Mathematical collections, enriched with some of his own notes. The perspicuity of the ancient geometrical analysis, and a certain elegance in the nature of the solutions which it affords, especially by means of the local theorems, soon took firm hold of his fancy, and made him, with the sanguine expectation of a young man, direct his very first efforts to the recovery of this in toto; and the restoration of Euclid’s Porisms was the first task to which he set himself. The accomplished geometer knows what a desperate task this was, from the scanty and mutilated account which we have of this work in a single passage of Pappus. It was an ambition which nothing but success could justify in so young an adventurer. He succeeded; and as early as 1718, seemed to have been in complete possession of this method of investigation, which was considered by the eminent geometers of antiquity as their surest guide through the labyrinths of the higher geometry. Dr. Simson gave a specimen of his discovery in 1723, in the Philosophical Transactions; and after this time he ceased not from his endeavours to recover that choice collection of Porisms which Euclid had collected, as of the most general use in the solution of difficult questions. What some of these must have been, was pointed out to Dr. Simson by the very nature of the general proposition of Pappus, which he has restored. Others were pointed out by the lemmas which Pappus has given as helps to the young mathematician towards their demonstration. And, being thus in possession of a considerable number, their mutual relations pointed out a sort of system, of which these made a part, and the blanks of which now remained to be filled up.

Dr. Simson, having thus gained his favourite point, had leisure to turn his attention to the other works of the ancient geometers; and the porisms of Euclid now had only an occasional share. The loci plani of Apollonius was another task which he very early engaged in, and completed about the year 1738. But, after it was printed, he imagined that he had not given the ipsissimae propositiones of Apollonius, and in the precise spirit and order of that author. The impression lay by him for some years; and it was with great reluctance that he yielded to the entreaties of his mathematical friends, and published the work, in 1746, with some emendations, where he thought he had deviated farthest from his author. He quickly repented of this scanty concession, and recalled what he could of the small number of copies which he had given to the booksellers, and the impression again lay by him for years. He afterwards recorrected the work, and still with some reluctance allowed it to come abroad as the Restitution of Apollonius. The public, however, had not been so fastidious as Dr. Simson, and the work had acquired great celebrity, and he was now considered as one of the first and the most elegant geometers of the age; for, in the meantime, he had published his Conic Sections, a work of uncommon merit, whether we consider it as equivalent to a complete restitution of the celebrated work of Apollonius Pergaeus, or as an excellent system of this important part of mathematics. It is marked with the same features as the loci plani, the most anxious solicitude to exhibit the very text of Apollonius, even in the propositions belonging to the books which had been completely lost. These could be recovered in no other way but by a thorough knowledge of the precise plan proposed by the author, and by taking it for granted that the author had accurately accomplished this plan. In this manner did Viviani proceed in the first attempt which was made to restore the conics of Apollonius; and he has given us a detail of the process of his conjectures, by which we may form an opinion of its justness, and of the probability how far he has attained the desired object. Dr. Simeon’s view in his performance was something different, deviating a little in this one case from his general track. He was not altogether pleased with the work of Viviani, even as augmented by the eighth book added by Halley, and his wish was to restore the ancient original. But, in the meantime, an academical text-book for conic sections was much wanted. He was much dissatisfied with those in common use; and he was not insensible of the advantage resulting from the considerations of these sections, independent of the cone first introduced by Dr. Wallis. He therefore composed this excellent treatise as an elementary book, not to supersede, but to prepare for the study of Apollonius; and accordingly he accommodates it to this purpose, and gives several important propositions in their proper places, expressly as restitutions of Apollonius, whom he keeps constantly in view through the whole work.

Much about this time, Dr. Simson seriously began to prepare a perfect edition of Euclid’s Elements. The intimate acquaintance which he had by this time acquired with all the original works of the ancient geometers, and their ancient commentators and critics, encouraged him to hope that he could restore to its original lustre this leader in mathematical science; and the errors which had crept into this celebrated work, and which still remained in it, appeared of[7:20:359] magnitude sufficient to merit the most careful efforts for their removal. The data also, which were in like manner the introduction to the whole art of geometrical investigation, seemed to call more loudly for his amending hand. For it appears that the Saracens, who have preserved to us the writings of the ancients, have contented themselves with admiring these celebrated works, and have availed themselves of the knowledge which they contain; but they have shewn no inclination to add to the stock, or to promote the sciences which they had received. They could not do any thing without the synthetical books of the geometers; but, not meaning to go beyond the discoveries which they had made, they neglected all the books which related to the analytic art alone, and the greatest part of them (about twenty-five out of thirty) have irrecoverably perished. The data of Euclid have fortunately been preserved, but the book was neglected, and the only ancient copies, which are but three or four, are miserably erroneous and mutilated. Fortunately, it is no very arduous matter to reinstate this work in its original perfection. The plan is precise, both in its extent and its method. It has been restored, therefore, with success by more than one author. But Dr. Simson’s comprehensive view of the whole analytical system pointed out to him many occasions for amendment. He therefore made its restitution a joint task with that of the elements. All the lovers of true geometry will acknowledge their obligations to him for the edition of the Elements and Data which he published about 1758. The text is corrected with the most judicious and scrupulous care, and the notes are inestimable, both for their information, and for the tendency which they must have to form the mind of the student to a true judgment and taste in mathematical subjects. The more accomplished reader will perhaps be sometimes disposed to smile at the axiom which seems to pervade the notes, “that a work of Euclid must be supposed without error or defect.” If this was not the case, Euclid has been obliged to his editor in more instances than one. Nor should his greatest admirers think it impossible, that in the progress of human improvement, a geometrical truth should occur to one of these latter days, which escaped the notice of even the lynx-eyed Euclid. Such merit, however, Dr. Simson nowhere claims, but lays every blame of error, omission, or obscurity, to the charge of Proclus, Theon, and other editors and commentators of the renowned Grecian.

There is another work of Apollonius on which Dr. Simson has bestowed great pains, and has restored, as we imagine, omnibus numeris perfectum, namely, the Sectio Determinata; one of those performances which are of indispensable use in the application of the ancient analysis. This also seems to have been an early task, though we do not know the date of his labours on it. It did not appear till after his death, being then published along with the great work, the Porisms of Euclid, at the expense of the Earl Stanhope, a nobleman intimately conversant with the ancient geometry, and zealous for its reception amongst the mathematicians of the present age. He had kept up a constant correspondence with Dr. Simson on mathematical subjects; and at his death in 1768, engaged Mr. Clow, professor of logic in the university of Glasgow, to whose care the Doctor had left all his valuable papers, to make a selection of such as would serve to support and increase his well-earned reputation as the restorer of ancient geometry.

We have been thus particular in our account of Dr. Simson’s labours in these works, because his manner of execution, whilst it does honour to his inventive powers, and shews his just taste in mathematical composition, also confirms our former assertion, that he carried his respect for the ancient geometers to a degree of superstitious idolatry, and that his fancy, unchecked, viewed them as incapable of error or imperfection. This is distinctly to be seen in the emendations which he has given of the texts, particularly in his editions of Euclid. Not only every imperfection of the reading is ascribed to the ignorance of copyists, and every indistinctness in the conception, inconclusiveness in the reasoning, and defect in the method, is ascribed to the ignorance or mistake of the commentators; but it is all along assumed that the work was perfect in its kind, and that by exhibiting a perfect work, we restore the genuine original. This is surely gratuitous; and it is very possible that it has, in some instances, made Dr. Simson fail of his anxious purpose, and give ns even a better than the original. It has undoubtedly made him fail in what should have been his great purpose, namely, to give the world a connected system of the ancient geometrical analysis, such as would, in the first place, exhibit it in its most engaging form, elegant, perspicuous, and comprehensive; and, in the next place, such as should engage the mathematicians of the present age to adopt it as the most certain and successful conductor in those laborious and difficult researches in which the demands of modem science continually engage them. And this might have been expected, in the province of speculative geometry at least, from a person of such extensive knowledge of the properties of figure, and who had so eminently succeeded in the many trials which he had made of its powers. We might have expected that he would at least have exhibited in one systematic point of view, what the ancients had done in several detached branches of the science, and how far they had proceeded in the solution of the several successive classes of problems; and we might have hoped, that he would have instructed us in what manner we should apply that method to the solution of problems of a more elevated kind, daily presented to us in the questions of physicomathematical science. By this he would have acquired distinguished honour, and science would have received the most valuable improvement. But Dr. Simson has done little of all this; and we cannot say that great helps have been derived from his labours by the eminent mathematicians of this age, who are successfully occupied in advancing our knowledge of nature, or in improving the arts of life. He has indeed contributed greatly to the entertainment of the speculative mathematician, who is more delighted with the conscious exercise of his own reasoning powers, than with the final result of his researches. Yet we are not even certain that Dr. Simson has done this to the extent he wished and hoped. He has not engaged the liking of mathematicians to this analysis, by presenting it in the most agreeable form. His own extreme anxiety to tread in the very footsteps of the original authors, has, in a thousand instances, precluded him from using his own extensive knowledge, that he might not employ principles which were not of a class inferior to that of the question in hand. Thus, of necessity, did the method appear trammelled. We are deterred from employing a process which appears to restrain us in the application of the knowledge which we have already acquired; and, disgusted with the tedious, and perhaps indirect path, by which we must arrive at an object which we see clearly over the hedge, and which we could reach by a few steps, of the security of which we are otherwise perfectly assured. These prepossessions are indeed founded on mistake; but the mistake is such, that all fall into it, till experience has enlarged their views. This circumstance alone has hitherto prevented mathematicians from acquiring that knowledge of the ancient analysis which would enable them to proceed in their researches with certainty, dispatch, and delight. It is therefore deeply to be regretted, that this eminent genius has occupied, in this superstitious palaeology, a long and busy life, which might have been employed in original works of infinite advantage to the world, and honour to himself.

Our readers will, it is hoped, consider these observations as of general scientific importance, and as intimately connected with the history of mathematics; and therefore as[7:20:360] not improperly introduced in the biographical account of one of the most eminent writers on this science. Dr. Simeon claimed our notice as a mathematician; and his affectionate admiration of the ancient analysis is the prominent feature of his literary character. By this he is known all over Europe; and his name is never mentioned by any foreign author without some very honourable allusion to his distinguished geometrical elegance and skill. Dr. James Moor, professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow, no less eminent for his knowledge in ancient geometry than for his professional talents, put the following apposite inscription below a portrait of Dr. Simson: “Geometriam, sub Tyranno barbaro saeva servitute diu squalentem, in libertatem et decus antiquum vindicavit unus.”

Yet it must not be understood that Dr. Simeon’s predilection for the geometrical analysis of the ancients did so far mislead him as to make him neglect' the symbolical analysis of the present times; on the contrary, he was completely master of it, as has been already observed, and frequently employed it. In his academical lectures to the students of his upper classes, he used to point out its proper province, which he by no means limited by a scanty boundary, and in what cases it might be applied with safety and advantage even to questions of pure geometry. He once honoured the writer of this article with the sight of a very short dissertation on this subject, perhaps the one referred to in the preface to his conic Sections. In this piece he was perhaps more liberal than the most zealous partizans of the symbolical analysis could desire, admitting p* C as a sufficient equation of the Conic Sections L=- 5 -, where

L is the latus rectum, x is the distance of any point of the curve from the focus, p is the perpendicular drawn from the focus to the tangent in the given point, and c is the chord of the equicurve circle drawn through the focus. Unfortunately this dissertation was not found amongst his papers. He spoke in high terms of the analytical works of Cotes, and of the two Bernoullis. He was consulted by Mr. Maclaurin during the progress of his inestimable Treatise of Fluxions, and contributed not a little to the reputation of that work. The spirit of that most ingenious algebraic demonstration of the fluxions of a rectangle, and the very process of the argument, is the same with Dr. Simson’s in his dissertation on the limits of quantities. It was therefore from a thorough acquaintance with the subject, and by a just taste, that he was induced to prefer his favourite analysis, or, to speak more properly, to exhort mathematicians to employ it in his own sphere, and not to become ignorant of geometry, while he successively employed the symbolical analysis in cases which did not require it, and which suffered by its admission. It must be acknowledged, however, that in his later years, the disgust which he felt at the artificial and slovenly employment on subjects of pure geometry, sometimes hindered him from even looking at the most refined and ingenious improvements of the algebraic analysis which occur in the writings of Euler, D’Alembert, and other eminent masters. But, when properly informed of them, he never failed to give them their due praise; and we remember him speaking, in terms of great satisfaction, of an improvement of the infinitesmal calculus, by D’Alembert and D’Lagrange, in their researches concerning the propagation of sound, and the vibration of musical cords.

And that Dr. Simson was not only master of this calculus and the symbolical calculus in general, but held them in proper esteem, appears from two valuable dissertations to be found in his posthumous works; the one on logarithms, and the other on the limits of ratios. The last, in particular, shows how completely he was satisfied with respect to the solid foundation of the method of fluxions; and it contains an elegant and strict demonstration of all the applications which have been made of the method by its illustrious author to the objects of pure geometry.

We hoped to have given a much more complete and instructive account of this eminent geometer and his works, by the aid of a person fully acquainted with both, and able to appreciate their value; but an accident has deprived us of this assistance, when it was too late to procure an equivalent. And we must request our readere to accept of this very imperfect account, since we cannot do justice to Dr. Simson’s merit unless almost equally conversant in all the geometry of the ancient Greeks.

The life of a literary man rarely teems with anecdote; and a mathematician, devoted to his studies, is perhaps more abstracted than any other person from the ordinary occurrences of life, and even the ordinary topics of conversation. Dr. Simson was of this class; and, having never married, lived entirely a college life. Having no occasion for the commodious house to which his place in the university entitled him, he contented himself with chambers, good, indeed, and spacious enough for his sober accommodation, and for receiving his choice collection of mathematical writers, but without any decoration or commodious furniture. His official servant sufficed for valet, footman, and chamber-maid. As this retirement was entirely devoted to study, he entertained no company in his chambers, but in a neighbouring house, where his apartment was sacred to him and his guests.

Having in early life devoted himself to the restoration of the works of the ancient geometers, he studied them with unremitting attention; and, retiring from the promiscuous intercourse of the world, he contented himself with a small society of intimate friends, with whom he could lay aside every restraint of ceremony or reserve, and indulge in all the innocent frivolities of life. Every Friday evening was spent in a party at whist, in which he excelled, and took delight in instructing others, till increasing years made him less patient with the dulness of a scholar. The card-party was followed by an hour or two dedicated solely to playful conversation. In like manner, every Saturday he had a less select party to dinner at a house about a mile from town. The Doctor’s long life gave him occasion to see the dramatis persona of this little theatre completely changed, whilst he continued to give it a personal identity; so that, without any design or wish of his own, it became, as it were, his own house and his own family, and went by his name.

Dr. Simson was of a good stature, with a fine countenance; and even in his old age he had a graceful carriage and manner, and always, except when in mourning, dressed in light coloured clothes. He was of a cheerful disposition; and though he did not make the first advances to acquaintance, had the most affable manner, and strangers were at perfect ease in his company. He enjoyed a long course of uninterrupted health; but toward the close of life suffered from an acute disease, and was obliged to employ an assistant in his professional labours for a few years preceding his death, which happened in 1768, at the age of eighty-one. He left to the university his valuable library, which is now arranged apart from the rest of the books, and the public use of it is limited by particular rules. It is considered as the most choice collection of mathematical books and manuscripts in the kingdom, and many of them are rendered doubly valuable by Dr. Simson’s notes. (b b.b.)