8G PRESTET. 



52. Thus the theory of combinations is not applied by Wallis 

 in any manner that materially bears upon our subject. In fact 

 the influence of Format seems to have been more powerful than 

 that of Pascal ; and the Theory of Numbers more cultivated than 

 the Theory of Probability. 



The judgment of Montmort seems correct that nothing of any 

 importance in the Theory of Combinations previous to his own 

 Avork had been added to the results of Pascal. Montmort, on his 

 page XXXV, names as writers on the subject Prestet, Tacquet, and 

 Wallis. I have not seen the works of Prestet and Tacquet ; 

 Gouraud refers to Prestet's Nouveaux elements de mathematiqiies, 

 2® ed., in the following terms, Le pere Prestet, enfin, fort habile 

 geom^tre, avait explique avec infiniment de clart^, en 1689, les 

 principaux artifices de cet art ingenieux de composer et de varier 

 les grandeurs. Gouraud, page 23. 



