Page:A History of Mathematics (1893).djvu/104

 which, though well adapted to aid the memory of him who already understood the subject, was often unintelligible to the uninitiated. Although the great Hindoo mathematicians doubtless reasoned out most or all of their discoveries, yet they were not in the habit of preserving the proofs, so that the naked theorems and processes of operation are all that have come down to our time. Very different in these respects were the Greeks. Obscurity of language was generally avoided, and proofs belonged to the stock of knowledge quite as much as the theorems themselves. Very striking was the difference in the bent of mind of the Hindoo and Greek; for, while the Greek mind was pre-eminently geometrical, the Indian was first of all arithmetical. The Hindoo dealt with number, the Greek with form. Numerical symbolism, the science of numbers, and algebra attained in India far greater perfection than they had previously reached in Greece. On the other hand, we believe that there was little or no geometry in India of which the source may not be traced back to Greece. Hindoo trigonometry might possibly be mentioned as an exception, but it rested on arithmetic more than on geometry.

An interesting but difficult task is the tracing of the relation between Hindoo and Greek mathematics. It is well known that more or less trade was carried on between Greece and India from early times. After Egypt had become a Roman province, a more lively commercial intercourse sprang up between Rome and India, by way of Alexandria. A priori, it does not seem improbable, that with the traffic of merchandise there should also be an interchange of ideas. That communications of thought from the Hindoos to the Alexandrians actually did take place, is evident from the fact that certain philosophic and theologic teachings of the Manicheans, Neo-Platonists, Gnostics, show unmistakable likeness to