To Crates and Dicæarchus it seemed that there was none at all;[…] To Plato, that it was a substance moving of it selfe: To Thales, a Nature without rest; To Asclepiades, an exercitation of the senses[…].

If a musician were going to give a lecture upon the mathematical part of his art, he would find a very elegant substitute for the monochord in the Chinese kin.

a shaky spot in a marsh

A master of simple, solid, apoetical, reportorial English.