'Examination of an Infer ption

By the feveral perfons who engaged in the controverfy it was agreed that the Arabic figures were firft ufed in this country iji agronomical tables and^erther mathematical writings ; and, fays Dr. Wallis, it was by little and little they came into common ufe, and common practice p ; but, as already obferved, he fixes this com- mon ufe to the thirteenth century, though it is undeniable there is a want of evidence to afcertain this practice either in the two firft rules of arithmetic, or in fpccifying dates and other particulars that required numeration. Had a country mechanic in the tenth century been in the habit of noting the year of building a tower or a gate, it is fcarccly credible that thefe figures fo applied mould not have been found in fome part of every manufcript that recorded the foundation and endowment of a monaftery. And if, as the lines cited from Chaucer's Dremc may import, thefe figures then newe, were ufed in addition and fubftra<ftion towards the end of as well as in Bede's books, de compute, might be defigned in numeral letters, and fo in one copy I find it to be. But in others, the numbers are defigned by the numeral figures, and (thefe appearing otherwife to have been in ufe at that time) we may as well think, they were fo ufed in this, yet fo as that the numeral letters were in ufe alfo, as even to this day they are. Ibid. p. 1 1 , 12. [o] Ibid. p. 9. " As to tile time when thefe numeral figures began firft to be in ufe amongft us, Voffius tells us that they have not been in ufe above 350 years, at leaft not 400 years at the utmoft i. e. they were not in ufe till the year 1 300, or at farthefl before 1250. But I take them to be fomewhat more ancient than fo, not in common ufe, but at leaft in agronomical tables, which we tranfcribed from the Moors or Arabs, and afterwards by degrees came into common ufe, till at length they became generally ufed in all arithmetical computations, as being much more convenient for that, than otherways of defigning numbers." " Upon the whole matter, therefore, I judge that about the middle of the eleventh century, or between the year of our Lord 1000 and 1 100, thefe figures came into ufe amongft us in Europe, together with other Ara- bic learning, firft on the account of aftronomical tables and other mathematical books, and then by little and Irttle into common practice." Ibid. p. 13, 14. the