248 JEROME CARDAX. 



soon as I shall have finished my labour upon Euclid 

 already commenced, I am intending to compose a work 

 on the practice of arithmetic, and together with it a new 

 algebra, in which I propose not only to publish to every 

 man all my said discoveries concerning new cases, but 

 many others, to which I hope to attain, and I hope to 

 show the rule for investigating an infinity of other 

 things, which I hope will be a good and useful work. 

 That is the reason why I deny my rules to everybody, 

 though I at present make no use of them (being, as I 

 said, occupied on Euclid), and if I taught them to any 

 speculative person like your excellency, he could easily 

 from such evidence find other cases to join to the dis- 

 covered ones, and publish with them as himself their dis- 

 coverer, by doing which he would spoil all my design. So 

 that this is the chief reason why I have been so dis- 

 courteous towards your excellency, and the rather, as you 

 are now printing your work on the same subjects, and 

 have written to me that you propose to publish such my 

 inventions under my name, and to make me known as 

 the discoverer. Which, in fact, does not at all please me, 

 because I wish to publish such my discoveries in my own 

 works and not in the works of other people. 



M. HIERONIMO. And I also wrote to you that if you 

 were not content that I should publish them, I would 

 keep them secret. 



