[Mathematics]

LECT. 5th. QUANTITY WHICH IS THE SUBJECT OF WHICH MATHEMATICS TREATS IS ONE OF THE MOST GENERAL ABSTRACTIONS FORMED BY THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. [caption title, and first lines of text]

nd. A manuscript lecture on the principles of mathematics and the "two great branches- Arithmetic or the science of Numbers, & Geometry or the science of extension." Stitched sheets, 15 pp., approx. 3750 words, in a neat hand, all but one page written on rectos only. A few ink and pencil corrections, a few pages starting away from the amateur stitching. The unidentified scribe records notes on the origin of Arithmetic, the introduction of commerce and the advancements of society calculations, the binary scale, the decimal scale, etc. Along the way he discusses the Greeks, Leibnitz, Charles XII of Sweden, Roman numerals, Dr. Nicholas Saunderson, the blind professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, and the abacus. The scribe concludes that through mathematics "all nations however various in manners of language or laws united in the use of these symbols have secured to themselves in trade all the advantages of a universal language." Item #66753

Price: $175.00