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HISTORY OF ALGEBRA.

TRACT 33 .

and signifies tlie redaction of broken numbers or fractions tointegers.

But Peter Ramus, in the beginning of his algebra, says“ the name algebra is Syriac, signifying 1 the art and doc-trine of an excellent man. For Geber, in Syriac, is a nameapplied to men, and is sometimes a term ot honour, asmaster or doctor among us. That there was a certainlearned mathematician, who sent his algebra, written in theSyriac language, to Alexander the Great, and he named itAlmucabala, that is, the book of dark or mysterious things,which others would rather call the doctrine of algebra.And to this day the same book is in great estimation amongthe learned in the oriental nations, and by the Indians whocultivate this art it is exiled aljabra, and alboret; thoughthe name of the author himself is not known.” But Ramusgives no authority for this singular paragraph. It has how-ever on various occasions been distinguished by other names.Lucas Paciolus, or de Burgo, in Italy, called it l’Arte Ma-giore: ditta dal vulgo la Regola de la Cosa over Alghebra eAlmucabala; calling it l’Arte Magiore, or the greater art,to distinguish it from common arithmetic, which is called1’Arte Minore, or the lesser art. It seems too that it hadbeen long and commonly known in his country by the nameRegola de la Cosa, or Rule of the Thing; whence cameour rule of coss, cosic numbers, and such like terms. Someof his countrymen followed his denomination of the art;but other Italian and Latin writers called it Regula rei 8 ccensus, the rule of the thing and the product, or the. rootand the square, as the unknown quantity in their equationscommonly ascended no higher than the square or secondpower. From this Italian word census, pronounced chensus,came the barbarous word zenzus, used by the Germans andothers, for quadratics; with the several zenzic or squareroots. And hence ty, 5 , jf, which are derived from theletters r, z, c, the initials of res, zenzus, cubus, or root,-square, cube, came to be the signs or characters of these