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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: the Greek astronomers; the other, of even more practical benefit, was
the introduction of the present decimal arithmetic, instead of the
troublesome sexagesimal arithmetic of the Greeks. These ten digits,
however, seem, says Professor Whewell, by the confession of the Arabians
themselves, to be of Indian origin, and thus form no exception to the
sterility of the Arabian genius in scientific inventions. Nevertheless
we are bound, in all fairness, to set against his condemnation of the
Arabs Professor De Morgan's opinion of the Moslem, in his article on
Euclid: "Some writers speak slightingly of this progress, the results
of which they are too apt to compare with those of our own time. They
ought rather to place the Saracens by the side of their own Gothic
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