Milner

Silvestre François Lacroix, Traité des différences et des séries , faisant suite au traité du Calcul différential et du Calcul integral (Paris, 1800).

When Milner reached Cambridge, mathematics had been regarded by some as a gentlemanly pursuit. The emergence of the mathematical tripos, and the emphasis placed upon mathematical competence in the Senate House examinations during the eighteenth century lent increasing importance to the discipline. However, with the almost universal acceptance of the Newtonian system in England, mathematics as an area of research had fallen behind that of France and elsewhere on the Continent.

For all Milner’s much vaunted opposition to Continental ‘systemising’ the presence in his library of Lacroix’s books on calculous together with many other representatives of the ‘new’ French mathematics suggests Milner’s awareness of ideas that would prove highly influential in the nineteenth century.