Page:Collier's Cyclopedia of Commercial and Social Information.djvu/247

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THE numerals now in use, with the mode of causing them by peculiar situation to express any number, and whereby the processes of arithmetic have been rendered so highly convenient, have heretofore been supposed to be of Indian origin, transmitted through the Persians to the Arabs, and by them introduced into Europe in the tenth century, when the Moors invaded and became masters of Spain. Such in reality appears to-have been in a great measure the true history of the transmission of these numerals; but as it has been lately found that the ancient hieroglyphical inscriptions of Egypt contain several of them, learned men are now agreed that they originated in that early seat of knowledge, between which and India there exist more points of resemblance, and more traces of intercourse, than is generally supposed, In the eleventh century, Gerbert, a Benedictine monk of Fleury, and who afterwards ascended the Papal throne under the designation of Sylvester II., traveled into Spain, and studied for several years the sciences there cultivated by the Moors. Among other acquisitions, he gained from that singular people a knowledge of what are now called the Arabic numerals, and of the mode of arithmetic founded on them, which he forthwith disclosed to the Christian world, by whom at first his learning caused him to be accused of an alliance with evil spirits. The knowledge of this new arithmetic was about the same time extended, in consequence of the intercourse which the Crusaders opened between Europe and the East, For a long time, however, it made a very slow and obscure progress. The characters themselves appear to have been long considered in Europe as dark and mysterious. Deriving their whole efficacy from the use made of the cipher, so called from the Arabic word tsaphara, denoting empty or void, this term came afterwards to express, in general, any secret mark. Hence, in more troublous times than the present, a mode of writing was practiced, by means of marks previously concerted, and called writing in cipher. The Arabic characters occur in some arithmetical tracts composed in England during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, particularly in a work by John of Halifax, or Dr Sacrobosco; but another century elapsed before they were generally adopted. They do not appear to have settled into their present form till about the time of the invention of printing.

It would be impossible to calculate, even by their own transcendent powers, the service which the Arabic numerals have rendered to mankind.

THE Arabic numerals take the following well-known forms:—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. The first nine of these, called digits, or digital numbers, represent each one of the numbers between one and nine, and when thus employed to represent single numbers, they are considered as units. The last (0), called a nought, nothing or cipher, is, in reality, taken by itself, expressive of an absence of number, or nothing; but, in connection with other numbers, it becomes expressive of number in a very remarkable manner.

The valuable peculiarity of the Arabic notation is the enlargement and variety of values which can be given to the figures by associating them. The number ten is expressed by 1 and 0 put together—thus, 10; and all the numbers from this up to a hundred can be expressed in like manner by the asso-