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rhetorical pomp: the Arab, on the contrary, is remarkably rich in examples, but he introduces them with the same perspicuous simplicity of style which distinguishes his rules. In solving their problems, the Hindus are satisfied with pointing at the result, and at the principal intermediate steps which lead to it: the Arab shows the working of each example at full length, keeping his view constantly fixed upon the two sides of the equation, as upon the two scales of a balance, and showing how any alteration in one side is counterpoised by a corresponding change in the other.
Besides the few facts which have already been mentioned in the course of this preface, little or nothing is known of our Author’s life. He lived and wrote under the caliphat of Al Mamun, and must therefore be distinguished from Abu Jafar Mohammed ben Musa[1],
- ↑ The father of the latter, Musa ben Shaker, whose native country I do not find recorded, had been a robber or bandit in the earlier part of his life, but had afterwards found means to attach himself to the court of the Caliph Al-Mamun; who, after Musa’s death, took care of
