An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning: In a Letter From a Gentleman in the City, to His Friend at Oxford

by John Arbuthnot

Excerpt from An Essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning: In a Letter From a Gentleman in the City, to His Friend at Oxford

But, notwithfianding their Excellency and Re putation, they have not been taught nor fiudy'd lo univerfally, as fome of the reft; whichi take to have proceed from the following Caufes The Aver/ion of the greatqfl Part of Mankind to ferions Attention, and clay} arguing, Their not comprehending fuficientty the Neccfit), or great efficine/f, cf the]? In other Parts of Learning An Opinion that this Study requires a particular Genius and Turn of Head, which flow are fit happy as to he horn uithz, And the ivant of public Encouragement, and able Aiajiers. For thefe, and perhaps fome other Reafons, this Study hath been generally neglected, and regarded only by fome few Perfons, whofe happy Genius and Cu riofity have prompted them to it, or who have been forced upon it by its immediate Subferviency to fome particular Art or Office.

Therefore I think I cannot do better Service to Learning, Youth, and the Nation in general, than by Ihewing, That the Mathematics, of all Parts of human Knowt'cge, for the Improvement of the Mind, for their suh/ereicncy to other Arts, and their lz/cful nefi to the Commonwealth, dcfirve mofi to he encou raged. I know a Difcourfe of this Nature will be offenfive to fome, who, while they are ignorant of Mathematics, yet think themfelves Matters of all valuable Learning: But their Difpleafure mufi not deter me from delivering an ufeful Truth.

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41 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2018

About the author

Law Is a Bottomless Pit , later retitled The History of John Bull , in 1712 published satirical anti-Whig pamphlets of noted Scottish physician and writer John Arbuthnot.

People best remember contributions of this polymath in London to mathematics. As member in the Scriblerus club, he inspired book III of Gulliver's Travels of Jonathan Swift's book III and Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry, Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus of Alexander Pope and possibly The Dunciad . He invented the figure.

Quickly after an author died, Edmund Curll commissioned and invented a biography; Arbuthnot, complaining in his mid-life of this work, said, "Biography is one of the new terrors of death," so his own reluctance to leave records makes a difficult biography of Arbuthnot. According to Alexander Pope to Joseph Spence, Arbuthnot allowed his infant children to play with documents and even burnt them. Throughout his professional life, Arbuthnot exhibited a strong humility and conviviality, and his friends complained that he took not credit for his own work.

Arbuthnot went in 1691 to London, where he supposedly taught mathematics, his formal course of study, for support. He lodged with William Pate, whom Jonathan Swift knew and called a "bel esprit." From De ratiociniis in ludo aleae of Christiaan Huygens, he translated his Of the Laws of Chance in 1692. This first work described probability in English. The work, a success, applied the field of probability to common games, and Arbuthnot privately tutored Edward Jeffreys, son of Jeffrey Jeffrey, a member of Parliament. Edward in 1694 attended University College, Oxford, where his tutor met the variety of scholars, including John Radcliffe, Isaac Newton, and Samuel Pepys, , then teaching mathematics and medicine. Already informally well educated, Arbuthnot, however, lacked the money to study full time. He went to the University of Saint Andrews and enrolled as a doctoral student in medicine on 11 September 1696. On the very same day, he defended seven theses on medicine for the award of the doctorate.

Arbuthnot praised mathematics as a method of freeing the mind from superstition.

Arbuthnot of the members founded the Scriblerus club, and the other wits of the group regarded this funniest member, who left least literature with an ease, a humanity, and an apparent sympathy. Similar styles of Swift and Arbuthnot preferred direct sentences and clear vocabulary with a feigned frenzy of lists and taxonomies, and people sometimes attribute their works. People attributed the treatise on political lying definitely of Arbuthnot for example to Swift in the past. Arbuthnot generally attacks the same targets as Swift without as much viciousness or nihilism, and both refuse to hold up a set of positive norms for their readers.

Insistence of Arbuthnot on lack of recognition causes difficulty in speaking definitively of his literary significance. He at the heart of many of the greatest of his age conducted a great many of the finest literary accomplishments of a half century, but Arbuthnot zealously received no credit.