ALGEBRA

An important branch of the mathematical sciences, and maybe defined to be the method of calculating indeterminate quantities. It is a sort of universal arithmetic, founded on the same principles as common arithmetic, and proceeding by rules and operations precisely similar. But it is not confined merely to questions relating to numbers, being applied generally to investigate the relations that subsist among quantities of all kinds, whether arithmetical or geometrical. The reasoning is carried on by general symbols; and it is to the complete system of notation, which has been introduced by its succe ive cultivators and improvers, that it owes its immense superiority over the ancient analysis. 30 [s. 43]