[1815]. Geometry is the science created to give understanding and mastery of the external relations of things; to make easy the explanation and description of such relations and the transmission of this mastery.—Halsted, G. B.
Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1904), p. 359.
[1816]. A mathematical point is the most indivisible and unique thing which art can present.—Donne, John.
Letters, 21.
[1817]. It is certain that from its completeness, uniformity and faultlessness, from its arrangement and progressive character, and from the universal adoption of the completest and best line of argument, Euclid’s “Elements” stand pre-eminently at the head of all human productions. In no science, in no department of knowledge, has anything appeared like this work: for upward of 2000 years it has commanded the admiration of mankind, and that period has suggested little toward its improvement.—Kelland, P.
Lectures on the Principles of Demonstrative Mathematics (London, 1843), p. 17.
[1818]. In comparing the performance in Euclid with that in Arithmetic and Algebra there could be no doubt that Euclid had made the deepest and most beneficial impression: in fact it might be asserted that this constituted by far the most valuable part of the whole training to which such persons [students, the majority of which were not distinguished for mathematical taste and power] were subjected.—Todhunter, I.
Essay on Elementary Geometry; Conflict of Studies and other Essays (London, 1873), p. 167.
[1819]. In England the geometry studied is that of Euclid, and I hope it never will be any other; for this reason, that so much has been written on Euclid, and all the difficulties of geometry have so uniformly been considered with reference to the form in which they appear in Euclid, that the study of that author is a better key to a great quantity of useful reading than any other.—De Morgan, A.