Before Chrift 324. 77 



a people of elegant manners, and cultivated tafte, improved by ages of 

 refinement. In moral and natural piiilofopby they are acknowleged 

 to have been the maflers of the Grecian fages, the greateft of whom, 

 notwithftunding the vaft length and labour of the journey, traveled to 

 India, that they might drink the dreams of wifdom and learning pure 

 at the fountain. In the eminently-ufeful and moft perfed: fcience of 

 ARITHMETIC the ufcd the fimple and comprehenfive fyftem of nine 

 figures and a cypher, now common among us, which is fo infinitely fu- 

 perior to the tedious and clumfy numerical notation of the Greeks and 

 Romans by letters *. They alfo underfi:ood that more abftrufe fpecies of 

 arithmetic, called algebra, which they appear to have communicated to 

 the reft of the world. The rotundity of the earth was known to them. 

 Their aftronomical calculations, which include the moft profound know- 

 lege of arithmetic and trigonometry, rife up to a height of antiquity, 

 which may ftagger credibility, and which, if infallibly proved to be ge- 

 nuine, (and they have ftood the teft of very ftri6l examination by fome 

 great aftronomers) go far to overturn the authenticity of our generally- 

 received moft antient chronology ; for they exceed the antiquity of the 

 Babylonian calculations by alnioft nine centuries. (See above, page 3.) 

 And here it is proper to obferve, that the fanciful figures, alligned to 

 the twelve divifions of the zodiak, appear, from recent difcoveries .of 

 very antient monuments, to have been copied by the Greeks, or their 

 authors, from the Indian aftronomers ; though we have all along fup- 

 pofed them fprung from the fabulous mythology of Greece f. 



* ' According to a new though probable no- ninth century, who fays, that the Arabs have re- 



' tion, maintained by M. de Villoifon, {^Aiiecdula tained the Greek numerals, Iniving no charaSas in 



' Grteca, torn, n, p. 152 — 157) our cyphers are not their own language for marking numbers. \_Huetiana, 



•of Indian or Arabic invention. They were a;7. 48.] And lo we are to believe, on the authority 



' ufed by the Greek and Latin arithmeticians long of Thcophanes, (' the father of many a lie,' Gibbon, 



' before the age of Boethius. After the extinc- V.\\,p. 253) that the Arabian merchants, who ap- 



' tion of fcience in the Weft, they were adopted by pear from the books of Genefis and Job, from Aga- 



' the Arabic verfions from the original MSS. and tharchides, the Peiiplus of the Erythrsan fea, Stra- 



* rejlorcd to the Latins about the xith century.' bo, Pliny, S:c. to have been the firll, and, for ieveral ■ 



{Gibbon's Hijlory of the Roman empire, ed. 1 79 1, thoufands of years, the greateft importers of Indian 



V, y., p. ?i, nole.~\ goods, and the band of connection between the 



The celebrated Huet had nearly the fame notion eaftern and weftcrn parts of the world, were def- 



with Villoifon. He fays, that, though it is the titute of figures to keep their accounts, till they 



opinion of all learned men, that the numeral figures learned them from the Greeks ! 

 now in ufe were brought into Spain by the Moors, ♦ The Arabians, not long after their fettlement 



who had them from the Arabs, who had them ' in Spain, introduced this mode of notation into 



from the Indians; and, though he agrees that ' Europe, and were candid enough to acknowledge, 



the Spaniards learned them from the Moors, ' that they derived the knowledge of it from the 



and they from the Arabs, he maintains, that ' Indians.' {Rohertfon' s Difquifition, p. 288, ed. 



the Indians learned them from the Arabs, and 1794 — Vindise Montucia, Hiji. de mathematiques,V, 



the Arabs from the Greeks, from whom they i,/>. 360.] 



alfo derived all their learning : but they had fo "I- There is a curious paflage in Ammlanus 

 much altered the forms of the figures from thofe Marcellinus, [Z. xxiii] wherein he fays, that 

 of the Greek numeral letters, that they can fcarcc- Hyftafpes, the father of Darius, traveled into In- 

 ly be recognized in their imitations of them (which, dia, and was inllrucled by the Erachmans (or 

 to be fure, is no wonder, for there is no likenefs). Bramins) in the knowlcge of the mundane fyftem 

 And for all this he adduces the authority of and the motions of the liars, as well as the pure 

 Theophanes, a Conftantinopolitan writer of the rites of religion. 4 



