British Society for the Philosophy of Science

Berkeley's Criticism of the Infinitesimal

Author(s): J. O. Wisdom
Source: The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, No. 13, George Berkeley
Bicentenary (May, 1953), pp. 22-25
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of British Society for the Philosophy of
Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/686042
Accessed: 03-02-2016 15:01 UTC

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 BERKELEY'S CRITICISM OF THE INFINITESIMAL

J. O. WISDOM
INhis two notebooks,now known as Philosophical Commentaries,which
contain the raw materialsof his thought when he was a very young
man, Berkeley made a number of criticalremarksabout mathematics.
It was more than twenty-five years, however, before he developed
these and publishedhis tract TheAnalyst(1734). Historiansof mathe-
matics have recognised its value, but philosophers have generally
supposed that he was indulging in a futile trial of strength with
Newton on Newton's home ground.
Berkeleyattackedthe logic of the method offluxions or infinitesimal
calculus,holding that the infinitesimalwas a zero-increment,a finite
quantity of no size, that it was treated at one stage as finite and at
another as zero as convenience dictated, that its effects were retained
after it was made to vanish--that in fact it was self-contradictory.
His two ways of bringing this out are the acme of lucidity; one
concernsthe fluxion of a power, the other that of a product.
He deals with the fluxion of xn, using the binomial expansion.
For brevity I will make his point by consideringx2. When x' flows ',
as he puts it, he calls the increment o. The incrementaryratio is
o o
(2x. + 02)/10or 2x + o. He notes that is here supposed to be
'something '. The next step, however, is to let o become zero, so as
to produce the fluxion 2x. Of this Berkeley says there is now intro-
duced a suppositioncontrary to the first, namely, that there is now
no increment of x (or that o is now nothing), so that it is invalid to
retainthe result2x, becausethis was arrivedat by supposingthe o was
something. In short, if o is something what is obtainedis not 2x by
2x + o where o is not zero; while, if o equals zero, nothing at all is
obtained.
Thus Berkeley dismissedfluxions as 'ghosts of departed quanti-
ties '. This was a majorachievementof logical criticism,even though
he did not recognise that Newton's intuition was pointing in a most
significant direction or that a satisfactorytheory of limits might be
possible. Still, he went to the heartof the flaw in the Newtonian (and
Leibnizian)presentation.
The error involved has a living interest, seeing that nearly all
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 BERKELEY'S CRITICISM OF THE INFINITESIMAL

elementary textbooks on the differentialcalculus written in English

develop the first stepsincorrectly. A certainamount of mathematical
analysisis required for cases where it looks permissible to put the
incrementequal to zero.
With regard to Newton's method of obtaining the fluxion of
product, Berkeley showed that with a little ingenuity any number of
differentresultscould be obtained. As late as 1862 the greatmathema-
tician, SirWilliam Rowan Hamilton, wrote to De Morgan suggesting
that Berkeley was right and that Newton's way of getting the right
answer involved 'artifice' and was 'sophistical', 'although I should
not like to say so publicly'.
The ensuing controversy in which Berkeley joined was violent
andprolonged. Mathematicianswere rangedon both sides,Maclaurin
being on Berkeley's. The problem was resolved, so far as Berkeley's
criticismwas concerned,in 182I by Cauchy'stheory of limits (though
further refinementshave continued to follow). The outcome is that
Berkeley has been proved correctin his criticism: the concept of the
infinitesimal had to be eliminated from the theory. At the same
time it became clear that Newton's theory, with suitableamendments
and additions,could be soundly based.
It seems to me that in the field of contributionsof well-nigh the
highest rank, Berkeley'scriticism,despiteits being purely destructive,
is one of the most important.

Berkeley went on to enquirehow the method of fluxions, assumed

to be faulty, could produce correct resultsin geometry. To explain
this he produced an ingenious thesis that there is a compensationof
errors,that is, the one error introducedinto the incrementaryratio is
compensatedby one error in the expressionof geometricalproperties
in terms of infinitesimals. He gives well-constructed examples to
support this, and interestinglyenough his interpretationwas accepted
by such eminent mathematiciansas Lagrangeand LazareCarnot.
Berkeley and Carnotshowed that the calculationof the subtangent,
for instance, can be set out in such a way as to contain two finite
quantities that cancel each other. Newton treated these quantities
as infinitesimals, that is, he made them vanish. According to
Berkeley's fundamental contribution this was illegitimate. Hence
Newton's method was one in which two cancelling quantitieswere
not cancelled but ignored. The explanation of the correct results
given by Berkeley and Carnot was thus that the ignored quantities
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 J. O. WISDOM
if restored would cancel. This is correct; but it is not the only
explanation. An alternative,which would seem to be more funda-
mental,is that Newton's correctresultscan be obtainedwith a rigorous
theory of limits.
How are we to interpretNewton's own procedure? It is not true
that he was attempting to work with finite quantitiesalone or that
he realised these quantitieswould cancel. Thus the explanation of
correct results as due to compensating errors does not constitute an
interpretationof what Newton was trying to do (nor did Berkeley
supposethat it was). Newton ignored the suspectquantities; none-
theless, though this rightly evoked Berkeley's criticism, he ignored
them, it would seem, becausehe was working with an intuitive con-
ception of a limit which seemed to justify his equating them to zero.
Thus Newton's method, as he appearsto have conceived it, would be
justified not by its being a telescopedversion of one in which errors
cancel but by its being a confusedversion of one in which a precisely
definedlimit is attained.
That Lagrangeand Carnot were satisfiedwith the interpretation
of the method of fluxions as based on a compensationof errorsshows
how unsurein their understandingof the differentialcalculusmathe-
maticianswere at the end of the eighteenthcentury.

Berkeley was but little creative as a mathematician,and he seems

to have had limited power of thinking in generalmathematicalterms.
On the other hand, this is a merit in a critic, and he certainly gave
illustrationsof his contentions. Though schoolboys read the differ-
ential calculus today, we must remember, in assessingBerkeley's
work, that they arepresentedwith a theory that is not fully intelligible,
as Berkeley showed. In this field he was in the best sensean amateur,
but not amateurish. In the history of mathematicshe finds a respected
place, and he is allottedthis by both Cantorand Cajoriin theirhistories
of the subject.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Worksof GeorgeBerkeley,Bishop of Cloyne; vol. I, ed. A. A. Luce,
London and Edinburgh, I948 (contains'Philosophical Commentaries');
vol. IV, ed. A. A. Luce, London and Edinburgh, 1951 (contains all
Berkeley's mathematicalwritings).
Florian Cajori, A Historyof the Conceptionsof Limits and Fluxions in Great
Britainfrom Newton to Woodhouse,Chicago, I919.
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 BERKELEY'S CRITICISM OF THE INFINITESIMAL

J. O. Wisdom, 'The Analyst Controversy: Berkeley's Influence on the

Development of Mathematics', Hermathena,Dublin, 1939, No. liv.
J. O. Wisdom, 'The Compensation of Errorsin the Method of Fluxions ',
Hermathena,Dublin, 1941, No. Ivii.
J. O. Wisdom,' The AnalystControversy : Berkeley as a Mathematician',
Hermathena,Dublin, I942, No. lix.
Many furtherreferenceswill be found in the precedingfour writings.
The LondonSchoolof Economicsand PoliticalScience
HoughtonStreet,Aldwych,London,W.C.2

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