A Treatife gT Algebra, both Hifiorical and Pra^ 
meat. JOHN WALLIS, P.P. PrO' 
fefor 0/ Geometry in the Vniverfity of Oxford ; 
and a Member of the Roy al Society, London. 
THE Author^ in his Preface to the l^eader, has given 
us a full account of this learned VForJ^^ which JhaR 
be here Imprinted in his own words . 
It contains an Account of the Original, Progrefs, and 
Advancement of (what we now callj ^/^^^r^, from time 
to timej fhewing its true Antiquity( as far as I have been 
able to trace it; ) and by what Steps it hath attained to 
the Height at which now it is. 
That it was in ufe of old among xht Grecians, we need 
not doubt ,* but ftudioufly concealed (by them j as a great 
Secret. 
Examples we have of it in Euclid, at leaft in Theo, upon 
him y who afcribes the invention of it ( amongft th^m) to 
Plato* 
OtherExamples wehave of it in Pappus, and the ef- 
fects of it in Archimedes, ApoUonius^ and others, though 
obfcurely covered and difguifed. 
But we have no profefled Treatife of it( among them ) 
ancienter than that of D/o/^/^^Tz^^/j-, firft publiftied (in L^- 
tin) by Xy lander, ^wAiincQ (inGw^^and Latin) by Ba» 
chetus, with divers Additions of his own J and Re-print- 
ed lately with fome Additions of Monfieur per mat. 
That it was of ancient ufe alfo among the Arabs, we 
have reafon to believe/^and perhaps looner than amongft 
the Greeks i ) which they are fuppofcd to have received 
(not from the Gr^^i-j, butj from xhtPerJians^ and thefe 
from the Indians, 
From the Arabs (by means of the Saracens and Moors) 
it was brought into <S'/'^/«, and thence into England (to- 
R r gether 
