a matter of no difficulty. The next step was, supposing a series of lines in arithmetical progression, and squares to be described on each of them, to find what ratio the sum of all these squares bears to the greatest square, taken as often as there are terms in the progression. Cavalleri showed, that when the number of terms is infinitely great, the first of these sums is just one-third of the second; which led to the cubature of many solids. He then sought for the sum of the cubes of the same lines, and found it to be one-fourth of the greatest, taken as often as there are terms; and, continuing this investigation, he was able to assign the sum of the nth powers of a series in arithmetical progression, supposing always the difference of the terms to be infinitely small, and their number to be infinitely great. He thus gave, over geometrical problems of the higher class, the same power which the integral calculus, or the inverse method of fluxions does, in the case when the exponent of the variable quantity is an integer. The method of indivisibles, however, was not without difficulties, and could not but be liable to objection, with those accustomed to the rigorous exactness of the ancient geometry. In strictness, lines, however multiplied, can never make an area, or any thing but a line; nor can areas, however they may be added together, compose a solid, or any thing but an area. This is certainly true, and yet the conclusions of Cavalleri, deduced on a contrary supposition, are true also. It was the doctrine of infinitely small quantities carried to the extreme, and gave at once the result of an infinite series of successive approximations. Nothing, perhaps, more ingenious, and certainly nothing more happy, ever was contrived, than to arrive at the conclusion of all these approximations, without going through the approximations themselves.

The Cycloid afforded a number of problems, well calculated to exercise the proficients in the geometry of indivisibles, or of infinites. It is the curve described by a point in the circumference of a circle, while the circle itself rolls in a straight line along a plane. It is not quite certain when this curve, so remarkable for its curious properties, and for the place which it occupies in the history of geometry, first drew the attention of mathematicians. In the year 1639, Galileo informed his friend Torricelli, that, forty years before that time, he had thought of this curve, on account of its shape, and the graceful form it would give to arches in architecture. The same philosopher had endeavoured to find the area of the cycloid; but though he was one of those who first introduced the consideration of infinites into geometry, he was not expert enough in the use of that doctrine, to be able to resolve this problem. It is still more extraordinary, that the same problem proved too difficult for Cavalleri, though he certainly was in complete possession of the principles by which it was to be resolved. It is, however, not easy to determine whether it be to Torricelli, the scholar of Cavalleri, and his successor in genius and talents, or to Roberval, a French mathematician of the same period, and a man also of great originality and

The

invention, that science is indebted for the first quadrature of the cycloid, or the proof that its area is three times that of its generating circle. Both these mathematicians laid claim to it. French and Italians each took the part of their own countryman; and in their zeal have so perplexed the question, that it is hard to say on which side the truth is to be found. Torricelli, however, was a man of a mild, amiable, and candid disposition; Roberval of a temper irritable, violent, and envious; so that, in as far as the testimony of the individuals themselves is concerned, there is no doubt which ought to preponderate. They had both the skill and talent which fitted them for this, or even for more difficult researches. The properties of this curve, its tangents, its length, its curvature, &c. exercised the ingenuity, not only of the geometers just mentioned, but of Wren, Wallis, Huygens, and, even after the invention of the integral calculus, of Newton, Leibnitz, and Bernoulli. Fermat, who, in his inventive resources, as well as in the correctness of his mathematical taste, yielded to none of his contemporaries, applied at this period infinitely small quantities to determine the waxima and minima of the ordinates of curves, as also their tangents.

As early as the beginning of the thirteenth century, Leonardo, a merchant of Pisa, having made frequent vists to the East, in the course of commercial adventure, returned to Italy enriched by the traffic, and instructed by the science of those countries. He brought with him the knowledge of ALGEBRA; in 1202. But though Algebra was brought into Europe from Arabia, it is by no means certain that this last is its native country. There is, indeed, reason to think that its invention must be sought for much farther to the East, and probably not nearer than Indostan,

Though in all this the moderns received none of their information from the Greeks, yet a work in the Greek language, treating of arithmetical questions, in a manner that may be accounted algebraic, was written by DIOPHANTUS of Alexandria, who had composed thirteen books of Arithmetical Questions, and is supposed to have flourished about 150 years after the Christian era. The investigations donot extend beyond quadratic equations; they are, however, extremely ingenious, and prove the author to have been a man of talent, though the instruments he worked with were weak and imperfect. As to the general doctrine of equations, it appears that Cardan was acquainted both with the negative and positive roots, the former of which he called by the name of false roots. He also knew that the number of positive, or, as he called them, true roots, is equal to the number of the changes of the signs of the terms; and that the co-efficient of the second term is the difference between the sum of the true and the false roots. He also had perceived the difficulty of that case of cubic equations, which cannot be reduced to his own rule. He was not able to overcome the difficulty, but showed how, in all cases, an approximation to the roots might be obtained.

The properties of algebraic equations were discovered, however,

very slowly. PELITARIUS, a French mathematician, in a treatise which bears the date of 1558, is the first who observed that the root of an equation is a divisor of the last term; and he remarked also this curious property of numbers, that the sum of the cubes of the natural numbers is the square of the sum of the numbers themselves.

VIETA was a very learned man, and an excellent mathematician, remarkable both for industry and invention. He was the first who employed letters to denote the known as well as the unknown quantities, so that it was with him that the language of algebra first became capable of expressing general truths, and attained to that extension which has since rendered it such a powerful instrument of investigation. He also gave new demonstrations of the rule for resolving cubic, and even biquadratic equations. He also discovered the relation between the roots of an equation of any degree, and the coefficients of its terms, though only in the case where none of the terms are wanting, and where all the roots are real or positive.

About the same period, Algebra became greatly indebted to ALBERT GIRRARD, a Flemish mathematician, whose principal work, Invention Nouvelle en Algebre, was printed in 1669. This ingenious author perceived a greater extent, but not yet the whole of the truth, partially discovered by Vieta, viz. the successive formation of the coefficients of an equation from the sum of the roots; the sum of their products taken two and two; the same taken three and three, &c. whether the roots be positive or negative. He appears also to have been the first who understood the use of negative roots in the solution of geometrical problems, and is the author of the figurative expression, which gives to negative quantities the name of quantities less than nothing; a phrase that has been severely censured by those who forget that there are correct ideas, which correct language can hardly be made to express. The same mathematician conceived the notion of imaginary roots, and showed that the number of the roots of an equation could not exceed the exponent of the highest power of the unknown quantity. He was also in possession of the very refined and difficult rule, which forms the sums of the powers of the roots of an equation from the coefficients of its terms.

By HARRIOT, the method of extracting the roots of equations was greatly improved; the smaller letters of the alphabet, instead of the capital letters employed by Vieta, were introduced.

The succession of discoveries, above related, brought the algebraic analysis, abstractly considered, into a state of perfection, little short of that which it has attained at the present moment. It was thus prepared for the step which was about to be taken by DESCARTES: this was the application of the algebraic analysis, to define the nature, and investigate the properties, of curve lines, and, consequently, to represent the notion of variable quantity.

This author begins with the consideration of such geometrical

problems as may be resolved by circles, and straight lines; and explains the method of constructing algebraic formula, or of translating a truth from the language of algebra into that of geometry. He then proceeds to the consideration of the problem, known among the ancients by the name of the locus ad quatuor rectas, and treated of by Apollonius and Pappus. The algebraic analysis afforded a method of resolving this problem in its full extent; and the consideration of it is again resumed in the second book. The thing required is, to find the locus of a point, from which, if perpendiculars be drawn to four lines given in position, a given function of these perpendiculars, in which the variable quantities are only of two dimensions, shall be always of the same magnitude. Descartes shows the locus, on this hypothesis, to be always a conic section; and he distinguishes the cases in which it is a circle, an ellipsis, a parabola, or a hyperbola. It was an instance of the most extensive investigation which had yet been undertaken in geometry, though, to render it a complete solution of the problem, much more detail was doubtless necessary. The investigation is extended to the cases where the function, which remains the same, is of three, four, or five dimensions, and where the locus is a line of a higher order, though it may, in certain circumstances, become a conic section. The lines given in position may be more than four, or than any given number; and the lines drawn to them may either be perpendiculars, or lines making given angles with them.

In this book also, an ingenious method of drawing tangents to curves is proposed by Descartes, as following from his general principles. FERMAT was far more fortunate with regard to this problem, and his method of drawing tangents to curves, is the same in effect that has been followed by all the geometers since his time.

The leading principles of algebra were now unfolded, and the notation was brought, from a mere contrivance for abridging common language, to a system of symbolical writing, admirably fitted to assist the mind in the exercise of thought. The happy idea, indeed, of expressing quantity, and the operations on quantity, by conventional symbols, instead of representing the first by real magnitudes, and enunciating the second in words, could not but make a great change on the nature of mathematical investigation. The language of mathematics, whatever may be its form, must always consist of two parts; the one denoting quantities simply, and the other denoting the manner in which the quantities are combined, or the operations understood to be performed on them. GEOMETRY expresses the first of these by real magnitudes, or by what may be called natural signs; a line by a line, an angle by an angle, an area by an area, &c.; and it describes the latter by words. ALGEBRA, on the other hand, denotes both quantity, and the operations on quantity, by the same system of conventional or arbitrary symbols. Thus, in the expression r3—a x2+b3—o, the letters a, b, x, denote quantities. but the terms 3, a1, &c. denote certain operations performed on

those quantities, as well as the quantities themselves; r3 is the quantity a raised to the cube; and ar2 the same quantity a raised to the square, and then multiplied into a, &c.; the combination, by addition or subtraction, being also expressed by the signs + and -.

Now, it is when applied to this latter purpose that the algebraic language possesses such exclusive excellence. The mere magnitudes themselves might be represented by figures, as in geometry, as well as in any way whatever; but the operations they are to be subjected to, if described in words, must be set before the mind slowly, and in succession, so that the impression is weakened, and the clear apprehension rendered difficult. In the algebraic expression, on the other hand, so much meaning is concentrated into a narrow space, and the impression made by all the parts is so simultaneous, that nothing can be more favourable to the exertion of the reasoning powers, to the continuance of their action, and their security against error. Another advantage resulting from the use of the same notation, consists in the reduction of all the different relations among quantities to the simplest of those relations, that of equality, and the expression of it by equations. This gives a great facility of generalization, and of comparing quantities with one another. A third arises from the substitution of the arithmetical operations of multiplication and division, for the geometrical method of the composition and resolution of ratios. Of the first of these, the idea is so clear, and the work so simple; of the second, the idea is comparatively so obscure, and the process so complex, that the substitution of the former for the latter could not but be accompanied with great advantage. This is, indeed, what constitutes the great difference in practice between the algebraic and the geometric method of treating quantity. When the quantities are of a complex nature, so as to go beyond what in algebra is called the third power, the geometrical expression is so circuitous and involved, that it renders the reasoning most laborious and intricate. The great facility of generalization in algebra, of deducing one thing from another, and of adapting the analysis to every kind of research, whether the quantities be constant or variable, finite or infinite, depends on this principle more than any other. Few of the early algebraists seem to have been aware of these advantages.

The use of the signs plus and minus has given rise to some dispute. These signs were at first used the one to denote addition, the other subtraction, and for a long time were applied to no other purpose. But as, in the multiplication of a quantity, consisting of parts connected by those signs, into another quantity similarly composed, it was always found, and could be universally demonstrated, that, in uniting the particular products of which the total was made up, those of which both the factors had the sign minus before them, must be added into one sum with those of which all the factors had the sign plus; while those of which one of the factors had the sign plus, and the other the sign minus, must be subtracted from the same,-this