Page images
PDF
EPUB

CONTAINING

THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF EUCLID,

Translated into English, from the Edition of Peyrard.

TO WHICH ARE ADDed,

ALGEBRAIC DEMONSTRATIONS AND DEDUCTIONS;

WITH

NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY.

BY GEORGE PHILLIPS,

QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY.

1826. り

the simplicity of its operations, no wonder that such a system should be universally adopted.

When the Editor first thought of undertaking the work, he purposed to make his translation from the Oxford copy, edited by Dr. David Gregory in 1703; but, after consulting the edition recently published at Paris under the superintendance of Peyrard, and reading the lectiones variantes of that work, the Editor fully resolved to make his translation from it: first, because it came out under the strongest recommendations of the best mathematicians on the Continent, such as Lagrange, Legendre, &c.; and, secondly, because the learned M. Peyrard himself bestowed the greatest labour in examining and collating all the existing MSS. and oldest editions.

The Editor has bestowed the greatest care in the execution of his undertaking; he has availed himself of the assistance of several eminent mathematicians; and he trusts that the public, in reviewing his labours, will, after an impartial criticism, be enabled to bestow upon him some commendation, the only reward which he can hope to receive.

INTRODUCTION.

THE term Geometry is derived from two Greek words, which literally signify the art of measuring the earth: it does not, however, so much imply the ascertaining the measure of the whole globe as that of certain parts of its surface; and hence we are informed by historians that the finding of the dimensions of lands, and other plane figures, with some of the most simple and obvious methods of determining their contents and relative proportions, were the first uses made of this science by the ancients. It has, however, since been extended to numberless other speculations; insomuch that, together with analysis, Geometry forms the principal foundation of all the mathematics.

Like many other arts and sciences, the origin of Geometry is involved in considerable obscurity, some authors fixing it at one period, and others at another. Most, however, assign Egypt for its birth-place, and that the annual inundations of the Nile first excited attention to this science among the inhabitants of that nation; for the waters bearing away the boundaries of the land, in the lower and most fertile parts of the country, and laying waste their estates, the people were obliged to devise some method for ascertaining the

« PreviousContinue »