The Way To Geometry. Petrus Ramus
with another, when the bounds of the one are bounded within the boundes of the other: That which is within, is called the inscript: and that which is without, the Circumscript.
Now followeth Adscription, whose kindes are Inscription and Circumscription; That is when one figure is written or made within another: This when it is written or made about another figure.
Homogenea, Homogenealls or figures of the same kinde onely betweene themselves rectitermina, or right bounded, are properly adscribed betweene themselves, and with a round. Notwithstanding, at the 15. booke of Euclides Elements Heterogenea, Heterogenealls or figures of divers kindes are also adscribed, to witt the five ordinate plaine bodies betweene themselves: And a right line is inscribed within a periphery and a triangle.
But the use of adscription of a rectilineall and circle, shall hereafter manifest singular and notable mysteries by the reason and meanes of adscripts; which adscription shall be the key whereby a way is opened unto that most excellent doctrine taught by the subtenses or inscripts of a circle as Ptolomey speakes, or Sines, as the latter writers call them.
The second Booke of Geometry. Of a Line.
1. A Magnitude is either a Line or a Lineate.
The Common affections of a magnitude are hitherto declared: The Species or kindes doe follow: for other then this division our authour could not then meete withall.
2. A Line is a Magnitude onely long.
As are ae. io. and uy. such a like Magnitude is conceived in the measuring of waies, or distance of one place from another: And by the difference of a lightsome place from a darke: Euclide at the 2 d j. defineth a line to be a length void of breadth: And indeede length is the proper difference of a line, as breadth is of a face, and solidity of a body.
3. The bound of a line is a point.
Euclide at the 3. d j. saith that the extremities or ends of a line are points. Now seeing that a Periphery or an hoope line hath neither beginning nor ending, it seemeth not to bee bounded with points: But when it is described or made it beginneth at a point, and it endeth at a pointe. Wherefore a Point is the bound of a line, sometime actu, in deed, as in a right line: sometime potentiâ, in a possibility, as in a perfect periphery. Yea in very deede, as before was taught in the definition of continuum, 4 e. all lines, whether they bee right lines, or crooked, are contained or continued with points. But a line is made by the motion of a point. For every magnitude generally is made by a geometricall motion, as was even now taught, and it shall afterward by the severall kindes appeare, how by one motion whole figures are made: How by a conversion, a Circle, Spheare, Cone, and Cylinder: How by multiplication of the base and heighth, rightangled parallelogrammes are made.
4. A Line is either Right or Crooked.
This division is taken out of the 4 d j. of Euclide, where rectitude or straightnes is attributed to a line, as if from it both surfaces and bodies were to have it. And even so the rectitude of a solid figure, here-after shall be understood by a right line perpendicular from the toppe unto the center of the base. Wherefore rectitude is propper unto a line: And therefore also obliquity or crookednesse, from whence a surface is judged to be right or oblique, and a body right or oblique.
5. A right line is that which lyeth equally betweene his owne bounds: A crooked line lieth contrariwise. 4. d. j.
Now a line lyeth equally betweene his owne bounds, when it is not here lower, nor there higher: But is equall to the space comprehended betweene the two bounds or ends: As here ae. is, so hee that maketh rectum iter, a journey in a straight line, commonly he is said to treade so much ground, as he needes must, and no more: He goeth obliquum iter, a crooked way, which goeth more then he needeth, as Proclus saith.
6. A right line is the shortest betweene the same bounds.
Linea recta, a straight or right line is that, as Plato defineth it, whose middle points do hinder us from seeing both the extremes at once; As in the eclipse of the Sunne, if a right line should be drawne from the Sunne, by the Moone, unto our eye, the body of the Moone beeing in the midst, would hinder our sight, and would take away the sight of the Sunne from us: which is taken from the Opticks, in which we are taught, that we see by straight beames or rayes. Therfore to lye equally betweene the boundes, that is by an equall distance: to bee the shortest betweene the same bounds; And that the middest doth hinder the sight of the extremes, is all one.
7. A crooked line is touch'd of a right or crooked line, when they both doe so meete, that being continued or drawne out farther they doe not cut one another.
Tactus, Touching is propper to a crooked line, compared either with a right line or crooked, as is manifest out of the 2. and 3. d 3. A right line is said to touch a circle, which touching the circle and drawne out farther, doth not cut the circle, 2 d 3. as here ae, the right line toucheth the periphery iou. And ae. doth touch the helix or spirall. Circles are said to touch one another, when touching they doe not cutte one another, 3. d 3. as here the periphery doth aej. doth touch the periphery ouy.
Therefore
8. Touching is but in one point onely. è 13. p 3.
This Consectary is immediatly conceived out of the definition; for otherwise it were a cutting, not touching. So Aristotle in his Mechanickes saith; That a round is easiliest mou'd and most swift; Because it is least touch't of the plaine underneath it.
9. A crooked line is either a Periphery or an Helix. This also is such a division, as our Authour could then hitte on.
10. A Periphery is a crooked line, which is equally distant from the middest of the space comprehended.
Peripheria, a Periphery, or Circumference, as eio. doth stand equally distant from a, the middest of the space enclosed or conteined within it.
Therefore
11. A Periphery is made by the turning about of a line, the one end thereof standing still, and the other drawing the line.
As in eio. let the point a stand still: And let the line ao, be turned about, so that the point o doe make a race, and it shall make the periphery eoi. Out of this fabricke doth Euclide, at the 15. d. j. frame the definition of a Periphery: And so doth hee afterwarde define a Cone, a Spheare, and a Cylinder.
Now the line that is turned about, may in a plaine, bee either a right line or a crooked line: In a sphericall it is onely a crooked line; But in a conicall or Cylindraceall it may bee a right line, as is the side of a Cone and Cylinder. Therefore in the conversion or turning about of a line making a periphery, there is considered onely the distance; yea two points, one in the center, the other in the toppe, which therefore Aristotle nameth Rotundi principia, the principles or beginnings of a round.
12. An Helix is a crooked line which is unequally distant from the middest of the space, howsoever inclosed.