xxviii TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



lost. When you see them, my father, you 

 yourself will acknowledge it. Now I can not 

 say more, only so much: that from nothing I 

 have created another wholly new world. All 

 that I have hitherto sent you compares to this 

 only as a house of cards to a castle. 



"P. S. I dare to judge absolutely and with 

 conviction of these works of my spirit before 

 you, my father; I do not fear from you any 

 false interpretation (that certainly I would 

 not merit), which signifies that, in certain 

 regards, I consider you as a second self." 



From the Bolyai MSS., now the property of 

 the College at Maros-Vasarhely, Fr. Schmidt 

 has extracted the following statement by 

 Janos : 



"First in the year 1823 have I pierced 

 through the problem in its essence, though 

 also afterwards completions yet were added. 



' * I communicated in the year 1825 to my 

 former teacher, Herr Johann Walter von Eck- 

 wehr (later k. k. General) [in the Austrian 

 Army], a written treatise, which is still in 

 his hands. 



4 ' On the prompting of my father I trans- 

 lated my treatise into the Latin language, and 



