Présentation de l'éditeur
This book is precisely described by the title, and is mainly the outgrowth of a conviction that the logic of algebra is a very much neglected study. Partly because the processes of algebra are simple and easily taught, partly because both arithmetic and algebra are generally studied for the sake of the processes rather than for the sake of discipline, the reasoning which underlies the processes has come to be very generally slurred over or even absolutely ignored. This fault would be somewhat overcome if geometry were taught; before or along with algebra, so that geometric illustrations could constantly be given of algebraic principles. The conceptions of geometry are less abstract and so more easy to grasp than those of algebra, and the reasoning of geometry is correspondingly more simple. Furthermore, geometry is usually presented as a fixed and settled science received in all its perfection from the hands of the immortal Euclid. The student does not learn one definition of a triangle and then unlearn it for another: is not told that straightness is only a special case of crookedness; that the inside of a circle is only the outside looked at in a peculiar way. A lgebra, on the other hand, shows everywhere traces of its origin and development. Numbers are, first, integral and positive ;afterwards, negative, fractional, incommensurable, imaginary, and double. There is a corresponding series of meanings to the words sum, difference, product, quotient, power, root, and logarithm. Moreover, these extensions of meaning are all more or less arbitrary, and some of them at first sight contradictory.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)
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Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.
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