Note 263 — Chapter II

See Andrès, the Archæologia, vol. viii., and the Encyclopædias, Britannic and Metropolitan, on one side, against Gerbert; Montucla, i. 502, and Kästner, Geschichte der Mathematik, i. 35, and ii. 695, in his favour. The latter relies on a well-known passage in William of Malmsbury concerning Gerbert: Abacum certe primus a Saracenis rapiens, regulas dedit, quæ a sudantibus abacistis vix intelliguntur; upon several expressions in his writings, and upon a manuscript of his geometry, seen and mentioned by Pez, who refers it to the twelfth century, in which Arabic numerals are introduced. It is answered, that the language of Malmsbury is indefinite, that Gerbert’s own expressions are equally so, and that the copyist of the manuscript may have inserted the cyphers.