ago — — [That may be, Sir, that I must by you have to suspend my judgement in the case, until I have seen your solution.][1] But pray, Sir, is that a very good argument because one singular case of a problem may have been solved before, the solution being kept secret, therfore there is no discovery at all in a systematical writing, intended to explain the whole theory?
It concerns not me, then, or the question before us, whether you have found out by theory the proper figures of your double glasses or no. But since you pretend to have done it, and since you use that pretention as an argument [for depriving me of that discovery and vindicating it to yourself],[2] it concernes you, Sir, to make good that pretention. I do not know, if Mr. Maskelyn be a propre judge or Witness in the case; but that I know from Mr. Ferners letter, that you have told him, that neither you nor Mr. Maskelyn have been able to make your rules agree with mine.[3] [The most natural way of assuring this other discovery to yourself would have been to have published it to the World, at least it should be expected that you have no occasion now to keep it a secret no longer. If you refuse to publish it that would cause some desavantageous reflexions to be made].
Dear Mr. Dollond. The discovery of the different
- ↑ [ ] fattas i koncept 2.
- ↑ I koncept 2 står: of vindicating to you the Discovery of my Paper.
- ↑ Här följer i 2: and that upon a second examination of our equations Mr. Maskelyn had found them to differ from one another, which I take to be a Witness against you, my Rules being certainly right. However, Sir, it seemes to be a more natural and unexceptionable way of assuring a discovery to Ones self, to publish it to the world, than to rely on the testimony of another. You would very much olige the mathematicians by giving your solution and your method in print, and I for my part I desire earnestly you would no longer keep it a secret. It is always to the advantage to the sciences, to see the same Truth found out by different methods and treated in different ways. I hope the more to be complyed with in this my demand, as you will thereby prevent some very obvious and disadvantageos reflections.
