PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The only new features, worth mentioning, in the second edition, are the substitution of words for the symbols introduced in the first edition, and one additional review—of Mr. Henrici, to whom, if it should appear to him that I have at all exceeded the limits of fair criticism, I beg to tender my sincerest apologies.
- Ch. Ch. 1885.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
'ridentem dicere verum
Quid vetat?'
The object of this little book is to furnish evidence, first, that it is essential, for the purpose of teaching or examining in elementary Geometry, to employ one textbook only; secondly, that there are strong a priori reasons for retaining, in all its main features, and specially in its sequence and numbering of Propositions and in its treatment of Parallels, the Manual of Euclid; and thirdly, that no sufficient reasons have yet been shown for abandoning it in favour of any one of the modern Manuals which have been offered as substitutes.
It is presented in a dramatic form, partly because it seemed a better way of exhibiting in alternation the arguments on the two sides of the question; partly that I
