Simon Stevin: Definition

“The sixt Definition. A Whole number is either a unitie, or a compounded multitude of unities.”

Disme: the Art of Tenths, Or, Decimall Arithmetike (1608)

“The second Definition. Number is that which expresseth the quantitie of each thing.”

Disme: the Art of Tenths, Or, Decimall Arithmetike (1608)

“The seventh Definition. The Golden Rule, or Rule of three, is that by which to three tearmes given, the fourth proportionall tearme is found.”

Simon Stevin

Disme: the Art of Tenths, Or, Decimall Arithmetike (1608)

“We call the wise age that in which men had a wonderful knowledge of science which we recognize without fail by certain signs, although without knowing who they were, or in what place, or when. …It has become a matter of common usage to call the barbarous age that time which extends from about 900 or a thousand years up to about 150 years past, since men were for 700 or 800 years in the condition of imbeciles without the practice of letters or sciences—which condition had its origin in the burning of books through troubles, wars, and destructions; afterwards affairs could, with a great deal of labor, be restored, or almost restored, to their former state; but although the afore-mentioned preceding times could call themselves a wise age in respect to the barbarous age just mentioned, nevertheless we have not consented to this definition of such a wise age, since both taken together are nothing but a true barbarous age in comparison to that unknown time at which we state that it [i. e., the wise age] was, without any doubt, in existence.”

Simon Stevin

Géographie, in Les Oeuvres Mathématiques de Simon Stevin de Bruges (1634) ed. Girard, p. 106-108, as quoted by Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra (1968)

“The first Part. Of the Definitions of the Dismes. The first Definition. Disme is a kind of Arithmeticke, invented by the tenth progression, consisting in Characters of Cyphers; whereby a certaine number is described, and by which also all accounts which happen in humane affayres, are dispatched by whole numbers, without fractions or broken numbers.”

Simon Stevin

Disme: the Art of Tenths, Or, Decimall Arithmetike (1608)