Charles Babbage

“ If, then, the process of differencing be repeated with those, we arrive at a remarkably simple series on numbers—to wit 2, 2, 2, 2, &c. And into some such simple series most tables resolve themselves when they are analyzed into orders of differences; an element—an atom, so to speak—is arrived at, from which by constant addition the numbers in the table may be formed. It was the function of Mr. Babbage's machine to perform this addition of differences by combinations of wheels acting upon each other in an order determined by a preliminary adjustment. ”

“ Weld in his History of the Royal Society, though a plain common-sense man of the world may reasonably doubt its equity, as the tools themselves had been made at the joint expense of Mr. Babbage and the Treasury. "Secondly," says the same authority, "the idea of the Analytical Engine—one that absorbed and contained as a small part of itself the Difference Engine—arose before Mr. Babbage." Of course he could not help the fact that "Alps upon Alps should arise" in such matters, and that, when one great victory was achieved, another and still greater battle remained to be faced and fought. ”

“ While, however, at Cambridge he was distinguished by his efforts, in conjunction with the late Sir John Herschel and Dean Peacock, to introduce into that University, and thereby among the scientific men of the country in general, a knowledge of the refined analytic methods of mathematical reasoning which had so long prevailed over the Continent, whereas we in our insular position, for the most part, were content with what has been styled "the cramped domain of the ancient synthesis." ”