"What, then, is the purpose of this science?" I said. They, wondering at my stupidity, began one after the other to tell me marvellous tales. One said he could tell me how many geese were flying in a flock without counting them; another said he could tell in how many hours a cistern, flowing out through five pipes, would empty itself. A third man said he could tell me how many "groschen" I had in my pouch without looking at it, and so forth. Then at last one appeared who undertook to count the sands of the sea, and immediately wrote a book about this (Archimedes). Another, following his example (but endeavouring to show more subtlety), busied himself with counting the atoms of dust that fly in the sun (Euclid). And I was amazed; and they, trying to assist me in understanding this, said these men had laws called "regulæ trium, societatis, alligationis, falsi." These things I but dimly understood. But when they wanted to teach me the deepest of all, which was called Algebra or Cossa,[1] I saw such a heap of weird and crooked writings that giddiness nearly overcame me, and shutting my eyes, I begged that I might be led elsewhere.
(Among the Geometricians.)
9. And we come to another lecture-room, over which was written, "Ουδεις ἀγεωμέτρητος εἰσίτω,"
- ↑ From the Italian word "cosa," which the Italian mathematicians of the sixteenth century used to designate the unknown quantity.
