"On an attentive examination of the methods adopted by modern elementary writers, in laying down the first principles of ratios and proportion, and especially in commenting upon Euclid, I long since experienced a conviction of the extremely unsatisfactory nature of most of their views; and this chiefly, as appearing to me to involve inadequate ideas of Euclid's real principle in treating of proportionals in his 5th book, and of the nature of the quantities which form the subject of investigation."