Ciruelo on the Names "Arithmetical" and "Geometrical" Proportions and

Progressions

Florian Cajori

Isis, Vol. 10, No. 2. (Jun., 1928), pp. 363-366.

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Ciruelo on the names " Arithmetical "
and Geometrical Proportions
" "

and Progressions.

No history of mathematics offers explicit information on the

question, why the adjectives arithmetical )) and (( geometrical 1)
((

came to be used in naming certain progressions and proportions.

As far as the present writer has noticed, mathematical authors,
both ancient and modern, are silent on this subject, except a
noted Spaniard, PEDROSANCHEZCIRUELO,of the close of the
fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries. I n his
mathematical book, the Cursus (I), he explicitly asks the question,
on the margin of one of his unnumbered pages, Quare dicitur
arithmetica, and on the margin of the next page, Quare dicitur
geometrica. I n the text he answers the first query as follows : (2)
((... 2. 6 . 10 . 14 . 18. &c. This series of numbers they name
in practical arithmetic ... a progression of numbers. Such an ag-
gregation of numbers is also called an arithmetical proportionality ;
not that it alone holds in numbers and all others (3) in magnitudes.
For indeed all species of proportionalities are found in numbers

(I) Cursus quatuor Mathematicavzi Artit2 Liberalit2 : quas recollegit a t q z c o r ~ e x i t

Magister PETR'CIRUELUS Darocisis Theologus simul et philosophus. 1 5 2 6 Tractatus
sechdus secundi libri de pportionalitatibus, caput primum, d 11. First edition
Alcalh, 1516, also Paris 1516.
(2) ...2. 6 . 10. 14. 1 8 &c. I-IZc etiii numerorum seri&in arithmetica practica df q
algorismus vel abacus pgression6 numeror/ vocant. Dicir ant& talis numeror/
aggregatio pportionalitas arithmetica : n8 q ipsa sola i numeris casistat & aliae
oEs in magnitudinibus : qAquidC oOs pportionalitath spSs i numeris o&sqzi magnitu-
dinib' iueniant: sed df arithmetica quia solti attBdit numer/ vnitath excessus iter
pricipales numeros q cdparanf. I n geometrica vero portionalitate s q n t e n6 curites
de numero illarh vitatum p quas pricipales numeri sese excedunt atqz excedunt' :
principal 'r attgdimus quota pars sit ille excessus respectu nCieri excedctis ve
excessi : & hoc siue excessus iile sit vnitas siue binarlj siue ternari' &c. vA nd
immerito haec pportionalitas arithmetuica'. i. numeratiua excessus df : seques
vero geometrica. i. merisuratiua eiusd& excessus. 1,
(3) Late Greek arithmeticians considered some ten different proportions
364 FLORIAN CAJORI

and all in magnitudes. But it is called arithmetical, because it

deals merely with the number of units of excess in the principal
numbers which are being compared. I n geometrical proportiona-
lities which follow later, not being concerned with the number
of units by which the principal numbers exceed each other or are
exceeded, we inquire principally what part that excess is of the
number exceeding or exceeded. But here, whether this excess (4)
be unity, or twice that, or thrice that, etc., this proportionality
alone can properly be called arithmetical or numerative in its
kind of excess ; similarly indeed, the one following is called geo-
metrical in its kind of excess. ))

On the next page CIRUELO repeats, that geometrical or metrical 8

((

proportion, (dike all others, is applied in arithmetical science, as

well as in geometry, hence the adjectives arithmetical and geometri-
cal in proportionalities are not named after the sciences in which
they are used, but are due to the attitude towards the excess of
one number over the other, an excess which we regard differently
in one proportionality than we do in the other. )) His explanation
implies that the notion of difference of two numbers is more
primarily arithmetical than is the notion of the ratio of two num-
bers ; the former certainly is more primitive, if we take counting
genetically to preceed measuring.
CIRUELO'Sexplanation is different from that which would
naturally suggest itself to many of us, namely, that the terms
(( arithmetical )) and (( geometrical 1) were introduced, because
they indicated the field (arithmetic or geometry) in which each
of the proportions in question found its most specific application.
I t is precisely this explanation which CIRUELOrejects.
Looking into history, one finds that the Greek equivalents
of the adjectives arithmetical 1) and geometrical )) were not
(( ((

applied to proportions by EUCLID,APOLLONIUS OF PERGA,and

ARCHIMEDES. These men used the term proportion 1) ( 6 v d o y l a )
((

without any qualifying adjective, and they always meant by it our

geometrical proportion. T h e phrasing used by ARCHIMEDES in
tbe case of magnitudes in arithmetical progression is that the
magnitudes exceed each other by an equal (amount) a, or they
((

(4) If a, b, c , d are in geometrical proportton, then a -b .b =. c - d : d, ot

ora-b:a =c-d:c.
 CIRUELO 365
are (( magnitudes exceeding by the equal (difference). u ( 5 ) But
there is evidence to show that the adjectives (( geometrical D,
(( arithmetical s and (( harmonical were used occasionally in con-
nection with means n and (( proportions )) before the time of
((

EUCLID.NICOMACHUS who was an arithmetician of a late period

in Greece states that the Pythagoreans, also PLATOand ARISTOTLE,
dealt with arithmetical, geometrical and harmonical proportions (6).
JAMBLICHUS (7), a still later writer, states that the Pythagoreans
used three means, the arithmetical, the geometrical, and a third
((

which was known by the name of (( subcontrary D, but which

ARCHYTAS a nd HIPPASUSdesignated as harmonical, since it ap-
peared to include the ratios concerning harmony and melody. 11
Thus the name harmonical 1) is pre-Euclidean. As to the names
((

(( arithmetical and geometrical 11, it might be claimed that they

((

were not pre-Euclidean, and that NICOMACHUS and JAMBLICHUS

used a terminology originating after the beginning of the Christian
era to describe mathematical notions held by the Pythagoreans
before the time of EUCLID.That such a contention is invalid
follows from quotations from ARISTOTLEwho uses the names
(( geometrical proportion o and arithmetical proportion )) in his
((

Nicomachean Ethics, where he applies mathematics to the study

of ethics (8). T h e distribution of justice implies four proportional
terms. H e defines a proportion A : B = C : D as an equality of ((

ratio n, and says : Mathematicians call this kind of proportion

((

geometrical, for in geometrical proportion it comes to pass that

has to the other n, i.e., that A -,

the whole has the same ratio to the whole which each of the parts
B : C -i D = A : C. Further
on ARISTOTLEexplains that in corrective justice arithmetical
proportion is observed. (( But the just which exists in transactions
is something equal, and the unjust something unequal, but not
according to geometrical but arithmetical proportion ... ; the law
looks to the difference of the hurt alone. (9) ))
(5) T. L. HEATH,T he IVorks of Archimedes, 1897, p. CLXXXVI.
(6) NICOMACI-IUS OF GERASA, I7ztroduction to A ~ i t h n ~ e t i ctranslated.
, .. by M.L
D ' O O G E , F. E. ROBBINS and L . C .KARPINSKI, New York, 1926, Chap. XXII,
p. 265. See Isis, IX, 120-3).
(7) JAMBLICHUS, I n NICOMACF~I arithmeticam int~odtlctionemliber. Ed. H. PISTELI.I
1894,p. loo.
(8) The Nicomachean Ethics of ARISTOTLE,translated by R . W. BROWNE, London,
1880, Bk. V, Chap. 111, y. 125.
(9) Loc. Cit.,Bk. V, Chap. IV p. 126.
366 FLORIAN CAJORI

Here all doubt about the early use of the names (( arithmetical
))

and (( geometrical proportion is removed, since these terms

))

occur in a work doubtless written before EUCLID,certainly not

after EUCLID.I t is noteworthy that the statements in ARISTOTLE
are in harmony with CIRUELO'S contentions ; the name geometri-
((

cal proportion was used because it referred to the ratio of a

))

part to the whole, thus primary consideration being given to a

metrical relation which occurs in arithmetic as well as in geometry.
I n Pythagorean time and, more generally, in pre-Euclidean time
in Greece, arithmetic and geometry were not segregated ; they
constituted one science. T h e word geometrical had reference,
(( ))

not to a branch of mathematics, but to the process of measurement.

U n i v ~ s i t yof California. FLORIANCAJORI.