In The Analyst, Berkeley pounced on Newton’s (and Leibniz’s) dirty tricks with zeros. Calling infinitesimals “ghosts of departed quantities,” Berkeley showed how making these infinitesimals disappear with impunity can lead to a contradiction. He concluded that “he who can digest a second or third fluxion, a second or third difference, need not, methinks, be squeamish about any point in divinity.”
