sciences. We learn, however, that he communicated to his intimate acquaintance the knowledge and the significations of these figures; and from the brief explanation given of them by the historian, who has likewife contrasted them with two other kinds of numerals, it may, I think, be demonstrated that he must have meant the Greek figures. This, observes the historian, was the thing most to be admired in them, that by a single figure any number is represented, a position that a passage in the Appendix to the Lexicon by Scapula, p. 233, has a tendency to illustrate.
Græci utuntur notis numerorum literis alphabeticis; idque tribus modis. Primo singulis elementis secundum alphabeti seriem loci sub numerum significantibus. Nam quorum in ordine alphabeti locum quæque litera sortita est, ejusdem numerum representat, ut a primum, c secundum, et ita deinceps usque W. quod 24 symbolum habet." But, continues the historian, this is not the case with the Latin numerals, non est in Latino; and the difference is obvious, there being no more than seven Latin letters used, viz. M. for a thoufand; D. for five hundred; C for one hundred; L. for fifty; X. for ten; V. for five; and I. for units; so that there are seven of the first ten numbers not noted by a single figure, or letter. Matt. Paris concludes with remarking, vel Algorismo, or in Algoriam; clearly contrasting the figures he had before described with a third class. To make what he calls the Greek letters the same with the characters in Algorismo is to suggest a distinction without any difference: and Algorismus is a word agreed by the glossarists to be of Arabic etymology, and to denote numbering; and therefore Arabic figures must be here meant, which primâ facie cover only nine figures; the ○ being a mere cypher, without any signification, except from its relative pofition to the other cha-racters
