It never entered into my head till now to adorn the front of any book
of mine with an eminent name: and the reason I take to be, that I have
hitherto never chanced to write a separate work[1] upon any subject
with which the name of one individual was especially associated in the
minds of those who study it. But you are the only Englishman now living
who is known, by the proof of publication, to have investigated both
the scientific and bibliographical history of Arithmetic: and this
compliment, be the same worth more or less, is your due, and would have
been, though my knowledge of you had been confined to your writings.
And it is the more cordially paid from the remembrance of nearly a
quarter of a century of personal acquaintance, and of many acts of
friendship on your part.
[1] Had the regulations of the work in which it appeared permitted,
it would have been most peculiarly appropriate to have inscribed my
treatise on the _Calculus of Functions_ to my friend Mr. Babbage.
I have rather grown than made this catalogue. It never occurred
to me to publish on the subject, till I found, on a casual review
of what I had collected, that I could furnish from my own books
a more extensive list than Murhard, Scheibel, Heilbronner, or
any mathematical bibliographer of my acquaintance, has described
_from his own inspection_. Knowing, from sufficient experience,
the general inaccuracy and incompleteness of scientific lists, I
therefore determined to do what I could towards the correction of
both, by describing as many works as I could manage to see. From the
Royal Society’s library, the stock of Mr. Maynard the mathematical
bookseller, and my own collections, with a few from the British Museum
and the libraries of private friends, including three or four of
great rarity from yourself, I have accordingly compiled the present
catalogue. I have also given in the Index, in addition to the names
of the authors whom I have examined, those of all whom I could find
recorded as having written on the subject of Arithmetic, whether as
teachers, historians, or compilers of special tables for aid in the
main operations, independently of logarithms and trigonometry.
A great number of persons are employed in teaching arithmetic in the
United Kingdom. In publishing this work, I have the hope of placing
before many of them more materials for the prevention of inaccurate
knowledge of the literature of their science than they have hitherto
been able to command, without both expense and research. Your History,
unfortunately for them, is locked up in the valuable, but bulky
and costly, Encyclopædia for which it was written. I may have the
gratification of knowing that some, at least, of the class to which
I belong, have been led by my catalogue to make that comparison of
the minds of different ages which is one of the most valuable of
disciplines, and without which the man of _science_ is not the man of
_knowledge_.
The most worthless book of a bygone day is a record worthy of
preservation. Like a telescopic star, its obscurity may render it
unavailable for most purposes; but it serves, in hands which know how
to use it, to determine the places of more important bodies.
The effect of this work which would please me best, would be, that
the professed bibliographer should find it too arithmetical, and
that the student of the history of the science should find it too
bibliographical. I might certainly have entered more into the methods
of the several works, with advantage to the reader. But I could not
attempt to write the complete annals of arithmetic; this would require
still more books: neither could I, without losing sight of my plan
altogether, combine the information here presented with that derived
from other sources. That plan has been, to attempt some rectification
of the numerous inaccuracies of existing catalogues, by recording
only what I have seen myself. And it is a sufficient justification of
the course I have taken, that I have produced in this way a _larger_
catalogue than yet exists among those devoted, in whole or in part, to
this particular subject.
None but those who have confronted the existing lists with the works
they profess to describe, know how inaccurate the former are; and none
but those who have tried to make a catalogue know how difficult it is
to attain common correctness. There is now a prospect of this country
possessing in time _such a record of books as can be safely consulted
in aid of the history of literature_,—I refer to the intended catalogue
of the library in the British Museum. I, for one, can only hope that
the chance will not be lost by any attempt to expedite its formation,
in deference to the opinion of those who either are not aware how bad
existing lists are, or are willing to take more than a chance of having
nothing better. If, through negligence or fear on the part of those who
have really compared book-lists and books, the expression of public
feeling which any _primâ facie_ case against public officers so easily
obtains, should succeed in hurrying the execution of this national
undertaking, the result will be one more of those magazines from which
non-existing books take their origin, and existing ones are consigned
to oblivion by incorrect description. However extensive the demand
for spoiled paper may be, it should be remembered that the supply is
immense, and that there is no need to insist on Parliament, at least,
furnishing a larger contingent than it is obliged to do already.
I make no apology for troubling you to read this diatribe: it is your
affair, and mine, and that of every one who believes accuracy to be an
essential characteristic of useful knowledge.
I remain,
My dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,