Dur Debt to Greece and Rome EDITORS GEORGE DEPUE HADZSITS, PH.D. DAVID MOORE ROBINSON, PH.D., LL.D. CONTRIBUTORS TO THE "OUR DEBT TO GREECE AND ROME FUND," WHOSE GENEROSITY HAS MADE POSSIBLE THE LIBRARY Dur Debt to Greece and Rome Philadelphia DR. ASTLEY P. Č. ASHHURST HENRY H. BONNELL S. DAVIS PAGE (memorial) The Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Liberal Studies. Stacks E. S. Mccartney 1-15-59 INTRODUCTION HE history of the beginnings of mathematics in the sense in which we TH understand the term is the history of mathematics in Greece; for it was the Greeks who first conceived the notion of mathematics as a science in and for itself, and it was they who established mathematics as a logical system based upon a few elementary principles, principles which they were the first to lay down and which remain substantially unshaken to the present day. If it is true that any one who desires to get to the root of a subject should study it historically, it should seem almost superfluous to urge the student of mathematics to go to the sources. But it is not only the mathematician who should study the original works of the Greek masters. Some acquaintance with them is necessary to any one who would understand the Greek genius in all its many-sided aspects and in some sort feel the inspiration which all succeeding ages |