The Way To Geometry

Plato saith "tov peov akei gewmetreiv", That "God doth alwayes worke by Geometry", that is, as the wiseman doth interprete it, Sap. XI. 21. Omnia in mensura & numero & pondere disponere. Dispose all things by measure, and number, and weight: Or, as the learned Plutarch speaketh; He adorneth and layeth out all the parts of the world according to rate, proportion, and similitude.



Now who, I pray you, understandeth what these termes meane, but he which hath some meane skill in Geometry? Therefore none but such an one, may be able to declare and teach these things unto others.



How many things are there in holy Scripture which may not well be understood without some meane skill in Geometry? The Fabricke and bignesse of Noah's Arke: The Sciagraphy of the Temple set out by Ezechiel, Who may understand, but he that is skilfull in these Arts? I speake not of many and sundry words both in the New and Old Testaments, whose genuine and proper signification is merely Geometricall: And cannot well be conceived but of a Geometer.



To the Reader:



Friendly Reader, that which is here set forth to thy view, is a Translation out of Ramus. Formerly indeed Translated by one Mr. Thomas Hood, but never before set forth with the Demonst-rations and Diagrammes, which being cut before the Authors death, and the Worke it selfe finished, the Coppie I having in mine hands, never had thought for the promulgation of it, but that it should have died with its Author, considering no small prejudice usually attends the printing of dead mens Workes, and wee see the times, the world is now all eare and tongue, the most given with the Athenians, to little else than to heare and tell newes:



And if Apelles that skilfull Artist alwayes found so-mewhat to be amended in those Pictures which he had most curiously drawne; surely much in this Worke might have beene amended if the Authour had lived to refine it..



Petrus Ramus (1515 – 1572) was a French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was a victim of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.



Early life



He was born at the village of Cuts, Picardy; his father was a farmer. He gained admission at age twelve (thus about 1527) to the Collège de Navarre, working as a servant. A reaction against scholasticism was in full tide, at a transitional time for Aristotelianism. On the occasion of receiving his M.A. degree in 1536, Ramus allegedly took as his thesis Quaecumque ab Aristotele dicta essent, commentitia esse (Everything that Aristotle has said is false), which Walter J. Ong paraphrases as follows:



All the things that Aristotle has said are inconsistent because they are poorly systematized and can be called to mind only by the use of arbitrary mnemonic devices. According to Ong this kind of spectacular thesis was in fact routine at the time. Even so, Ong raises questions as to whether Ramus actually ever delivered this thesis.