ARITHMETIC (i-rith'mti•trk), or, as the word derived from the Greek dprOpos, number, signifies, the science of numbers or reckoning, was unques tionably practised as an art in the damn of civili zation; since to put things, or their symbols, to gether (addition), and to take uric thing from an other (subtraction), must have been coeval with the earliest efforts of the human mind ; and what are termed multiplication and division are only abbreN totted forms of addition and subtraction.
The origin, however, of the earliest and most necessary of the arts and sciences is lost in the shades of antiquity. since it arose long before the period when men began to take specific notice and make some kind of record of their discoveries and pursuits. In the absence of positive information we seem authorized in referring the first knowl edge of arithmetic to the East. From India, Chaldaa. Phoenicia, and Egypt. the science passed to the Greeks, who extended its laws, improved its process, and widened its sphere. To what ex tent the Orientals carried their acquaintance with arithmetic cannot be determined. The greatest discovery in this department of the mathematics, namely, the establishment of our system of ci phers, or of figures considered as distinct from the letters of the alphabet, belongs undoubtedly not to Arabia, as is generally supposed, but to the remote East, probably India. It is to be regretted that the name of the discoverer is unknown, for the invention must be reckoned among the greatest of human achievements. Our numerals were made known to these westc.n parts by the Arabians,
who, though they were nothing more than the medium of transmission, have enjoyed the honor of giving them their name. These numerals were unknown to the Greeks, who made use of the let ters of the alphabet for arithmetical purposes.
The Hebrews were not a scientific, but a relig ious and practical nation. What they borrowed from others of the arts of life they used without surrounding it with thcoryor expanding and fram ing it into a system. So with arithmetic, by them called manah, from a word signifying to deter mine, limit, and thence to number. Of their knowledge of this science little is known more than may be fairly inferred from the pursuits and trades which they carried on. for the successful prosecution of which some skill at least in its simpler processes must have been absolutely neces sary; and the large amounts which appear here and there in the sacred hooks serve to show that their acquaintance with the art of reckoning was considerable. Even in fractions they were not in experienced (Gesenius, Lehrgeb. p. 7o4). For fig ures, the Jews, after the Babylonish exile, made use of the letters of the alphabet, as appears from the inscriptions on the so-called Samaritan coins (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. i, 468) ; and it is not unlikely that the ancient Hebrews did the same, a., well as the Greeks, who borrowed their alphabet from the Phernicians, neighbors of the. Israelites, and employed it instead of numerals.