JB/018/109/001

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6 May 1815

Next, as to AlgebraAlgebra.

A seeming paradox, not to say absurdity, in
which many a mind it is believed contrives even
now to be entangled is the rule, according to which
the product of two negative quantities multiplied by each other, each of them
less than nothing, (for of in that mystery this other is
but included in part) produce a positive quantity: yea, verily and that altogether as great as if they had both
been positive.

In the third Chapter and 33d article
of his Algebra, Euclid Euler, when he has proved shown observed that that this is the only by the multiplication
of a positive by a negative, or of a negative
by a positive quantity the product result is still negative
and therefore if the effect product of two negative quantities were
not positive it would be the same with these, thinks
he has made the matter sufficiently clear. That
the conception remaining in the mind of this adept in his mind after the utterance
of these words was abundantly clear enough need not be doubted:
and equally no less clear would it have been whatever other
words it had on this same occasion happened to him to
employ. But in the mind as to a learner taught by such a demonstration,
though the chances seem many to one that he his tongue would
be silenced reduced to silence, yet the chances seem at least
as many that his mind would be rather darkened
than enlightened.

Identifier: | JB/018/109/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 18.
Date_1	1815-05-06	Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	018	Main Headings	chrestomathia
Folio number	109	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c1 / e5
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	6518
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