Theoretic Arithmetic, IN THREE BOOKS; CONTAINING THE SUBSTANCE OF ALL THAT HAS BEEN + WRITTEN ON THIS SUBJECT BY THEO OF SMYRNA, NICOMACHUS, IAM- BLICHUS, AND BOETIUS.-TOGETHER WITH SOME REMARKABLE PARTICULARS RESPECT. ING PERFECT, AMICABLE, AND OTHER NUMBERS, WHICH ARE NOT TO BE FOUND IN THE WRITINGS OF ANY ANCIENT OR MODERN MATHEMATICIANS, LIKEWISE,* A SPECIMEN OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE PYTHAGOREANS PHILOSOPHI- ZED ABOUT NU 38ERS; AND A DEVEL- OPEMENT OF THEIR MYSTI- CAL AND THEOLOGI-. CAL ARITHMETIC. /REUOp, A hes BY THOMAS TAYL 3 “Tt will be proper then Glanco, to establish by law this (arith. metic), and to persuade those who are to manage the greatest affairs of the city to apply to computation and study it, not in a common way, but till by intelligence itself they arrive at the survey of the nature of numbers, not Sor the sake of buying nor of selling, ax merchants and shopkeepers, but both for war, and for facility in the energies of the soul itself, and ite conversion from generation [or the whole of a visible naturc] to truth and estence, [or real being." Plato, Repub. Bk. vii. arg SIA. lbp London : PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, NO. 9, MANOR PLACE, WALWORTH, BY A. J. VALPY, TOOKE's COURT, CHANCERY LANE. ——— 1816.» Google <INTRODUCTION. Tr philosophy, properly so called be, according to Plato, and as I am firmly persuaded it is, the greatest good that was ever imparted by divinity to man,' he who labours to rescue it from oblivion, and transmit it to posterity, must necessarily be endeavouring to benefit his country and all mankind, in the most eminent degree. To accomplish this grand object, has been the aim of the greater part of my life; and the present + The Pythagoreans were so deeply convinced of the truth of thie assertion, that one of them beautifully observes: cwv xara pidoropiae Grapyuerrorr amodaveriey sp ocor cin, xaansp apePpociag mas vexTapor. aKngaroY E yap to an” aurwy nbv wat Ouor ao payadoduyer Svvaras oe mainy, as en aidiovg atdiwy re exioenporag. Iamblic. Protrept. p. 4. i. e. “The theorems of philosophy are to be ertjoyed as much as possible, as if they were am- brosia and néctar, For the pleasure arising from them is genuine, incorruptible and divine. They are also capable of producing tnagna- nimity, and though they cannot make us eternal beings, yet they enable us to obtain a scientific knowledge of eternal natures,”iv work was solely written with a view to promote its accom- plishment. ~ In consequence of the oblivion indeed, into which genuine Philosophy has fallen, through the abolition of her schools, the mathematical disciplines have been rather studied with a view to the wants and conveniences of the merely animal life, than to the good of intellect in which our very being and felicity consist. Hence, the Pythagoric enigma “a figure and a step, but not a figure and three oboli,” has been entirely perverted. For ‘the whole attention of those who have applied to the mathematics, has been directed to the oboli, and not to the steps of ascent; and thus as their views have been grovel- ing, they have crept where they should have soared. Hence, too, the greatest eye of the soul has been blinded and buried, “ though, as Plato elegantly observes, it is purified and resusci- tated by ‘the proper study of these sciences, and is better worth saving than ten thousand corporeal eyes, since truth becomes ‘visible through this alone.” This observation particularly applies to Theoretic Arithmetic, ‘the study of which has been almost totally neglected: for it thas been superseded by practical arithmetic, which though ‘eminently subservient to vulgar utility, and indispensably neces- sary in the shop and the counting house, yet is by no means calculated to purify, invigorate, and enlighten the mind, to flevate it from a sensible to an intellectual life, and thus pro- -mote thé most real and exalted good of man. Indeed, even with respect to geometry itself, though the theory of it is partially learnt froni the Elements of Euclid, yet it is with nov other view than that of acquiring a knowledge of the other parts of mathematics which are dependant on it, such as astro- nomy, optics, mechanics, &c. or of becoming good guagers, masons, surveyors, and the like, without having even a dreaming perception of its first and most essential use, that of enabling its votary, like a bridge, to pass over the obscurity of a material nature, as over some dark sea to the luminous regions of per: fect reality; or as Plato elegantly. expresses it, ‘“ conducting them as from some benighted day, to the true ascent to incore poreal being, which is genuine philosophy itself.”* I have said, that the theory of geometry is only partially’ studied ; for the 10th book of Euclid, which is on incommensurable quantities, and the 18th, 14th, and 15th, which are on the five regular bodies, though they are replete with the most interest- ing information, in the truest sense of the word, yet they aré for the most part sordidly neglected, in this country at least; because they neither promote the increase of a commerce which is already so extended, nor contribute any thing to the further gratification, of sensual appetite, or the unbounded accumulation of wealth. . If the mathematical sciences, and particularly arithmetic and geometry, had been studied in this partial and ignoble mannef by the sagacious Greeks, they would never have produced a Euclid, an Apollonius, or an Archimedes,? men who carried _ Four 2a wg 10K, eux conpaney ay un migienpipn, adda June mipayeryy, ox rewripirns ig yetpas tug adnferny cov one exaredey, oy Bn giroeepian addy groper wrt, Platonis De Repub. lib. 7. > Plutarch, in his life of Marcellus, informs us, that the reason whyvi geometry to the acme of scientific perfection, and whose works, like the remains of Grecian art, are the models by which the unhallowed genius of modern times has been formed. Newton himself, as may be conjectured from what be says of Euclid, ‘was convinced of this when it was toolate, and commenced his. mathematical career with the partial study only of these geometrical heroes. “For he spoke with regret, says Dr. Hutton, of his mistake at the beginning of his mathematical studies, in applying himself to the works of Des Cartes, and Archimedes did not vouchsafe to leave any account of the admirable machines which he invented, in writing, was because “ he considered the being busied about mechanics, and in short every art which is connected with the common purposes of life, as ignoble and illiberal; and that those things alone were objects of his ambition, with which the beautiful and the excellent were present, unmingled with the necessary.” arra ty xips a poryerina TpayLaTuAy, wut RATAY OWS TELYNY Xptiag KENTON, By Kat Baraueer myrcafesver, extine waraSsoles eve rev aurey gidoripuny, ei 48 xahey nas aiprqer opoys rw emayaaioy spooters, The great accuracy and elegance in the demonstrations of Euclid and Archimedes, which have not been equalled by any of the greatest modern mathematicians, were derived from 2 deep conviction of this important truth. On the other hand, modern mathematicians, through a profound ignorance of it, and look- ing to nothing but the wants and conveniences of the animal life of man, as if the gratification of his senses was his only end, have corrup- ted pure geometry, by mingling with it algebraical calculations, and through eagerness to reduce it as much as possible to practical purposes, ave more anxiously sought after conciseness than accuracy, facility than elegance of geometrical demonstration. * See the article Newton in Hutton’s Mathematical Dictionary,vii other algebraic writers,’ before he had considered the Elements ‘of Euclid with that attention, which so excellent a writer de- serves.” Having premised thus much, I shall in the next place pre- 1 Dr. Halley also, who certainly as a mathematician ranks amongat the greatest of the moderns, appears to have had the same opinion of. the transcendency of the Grecian genius in the mathematical sciences. For in the preface to his translation of Apollonius de Sectione Rationis, (for which work he conceived so great an esteem, that he was at the pains to learn Arabic, in order to accomplish its translation into Latin) he says: “Methodus hee cum algebra speciosa facilitate contendit, evidentié vero et demonstrationum elegantia eam longe superare videturs ut abunde constabit, si quis conferat hanc Apollonii doctrinam de Sec- tione Rationis cum ejusdem Problematis Analysi Algebraica, quam ex- hibuit clarissimus Wallisius, tom. 2. Operum Math. cap. 54. p. 220.” i.e. “This method contends with specious algebra in facility, but seems far to excel it in evidence and elegance of demonstrations; as will be abundantly manifest, if this doctrine of Apollonius De Sectione Ra tionis, is compared with the algebraic analysis of the same problems which the most celebrated Wallis exhibits in the second volume of his mathematical works, chap. 54. p. 220.” And in the conclusion of his preface, he observes, “Verum perpendendum est, aliud esse problema aliqualiter resolutum dare, quod modis variis plerumque fieri potest, aliud methodo elegantissima ipsum efficere; analysi brevissima et simul perspicua; synthesi concinna, et minima operosa. i. e. “It is ‘one thing to give the solution of a problem some how or other, whicht for the most part may be accomplished in various ways, but another to effect this by the most elegant method; by an analysis the shortest, and at the same time perspicuous; by a synthesis elegant, and in the smallest degree laborious.”