36
The PRESENT STATE
Pope Sylvester the eleventh, wrote a treatise on the sphere, on arithmetic, and geometry, published some years since at Paris.
Michael Psellus lived in this age, whose books in the sciences, I will not scruple to assert, contain more learning than those of any one of the earlier ages of antiquity: his erudition was indeed amazing, and he was as voluminous as he was learned. The character given him by Allatius has, perhaps, more truth in it than will be granted by those who have seen none of his productions. There was, says he, no science with which he was unacquainted, none which he did not write something upon, and none which he did not leave better than he found it. To mention his works, would be endless.His
