The philosophy of mathematics · Auguste Comte
ORDINARY ANALYSIS, OR ALGEBRA.
The _Calculus of direct Functions_, or _Algebra_, is (as was shown at the end of the preceding chapter) entirely sufficient for the solution of mathematical questions, when they are so simple that we can form directly the equations between the magnitudes themselves which we are considering, without its being necessary to introduce in their place, or conjointly with them, any system of auxiliary quantities _derived_ from the first. It is true that in the greatest number of important cases its use requires to be preceded and prepared by that of the _Calculus of indirect Functions_, which is intended to facilitate the establishment of equations. But, although algebra has then only a secondary office to perform, it has none the less a necessary part in the complete solution of the question, so that the _Calculus of direct Functions_ must continue to be, by its nature, the fundamental base of all mathematical analysis. We must therefore, before going any further, consider in a general manner the logical composition of this calculus, and the degree of development to which it has at the present day arrived. _Its Object._ The final object of this calculus being the _resolution_ (properly so called) of _equations_, that is, the discovery of the manner in which the unknown quantities are formed from the known quantities, in accordance with the _equations_ which exist between them, it naturally presents as many different departments as we can conceive truly distinct classes of equations. Its appropriate extent is consequently rigorously indefinite, the number of analytical functions susceptible of entering into equations being in itself quite unlimited, although they are composed of only a very small number of primitive elements.
_Classification of Equations._ The rational classification of equations must evidently be determined by the nature of the analytical elements of which their numbers are composed; every other classification would be essentially arbitrary. Accordingly, analysts begin by dividing equations with one or more variables into two principal classes, according as they contain functions of only the first three couples (see the table in chapter i., page 51), or as they include also exponential or circular functions. The names of _Algebraic_ functions and _Transcendental_ functions, commonly given to these two principal groups of analytical elements, are undoubtedly very inappropriate. But the universally established division between the corresponding equations is none the less very real in this sense, that the resolution of equations containing the functions called _transcendental_ necessarily presents more difficulties than those of the equations called _algebraic_. Hence the study of the former is as yet exceedingly imperfect, so that frequently the resolution of the most simple of them is still unknown to us,[7] and our analytical methods have almost exclusive reference to the elaboration of the latter. [Footnote 7: Simple as may seem, for example, the equation _a^x_ + _b^x_ = _c^x_, we do not yet know how to resolve it, which may give some idea of the extreme imperfection of this part of algebra.]
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