Euclid, Elements
Thomas L. Heath, Sir Thomas Little Heath, Ed.

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according to this signification of the term element that the elements found in Euclid were compiled, being partly those of plane geometry, and partly those of stereometry. In like manner many writers have drawn up elementary treatises in arithmetic and astronomy.

“Now it is difficult, in each science, both to select and arrange in due order the elements from which all the rest proceeds, and into which all the rest is resolved. And of those who have made the attempt some were able to put together more and some less; some used shorter proofs, some extended their investigation to an indefinite length; some avoided the method of reductio ad absurdum, some avoided proportion; some contrived preliminary steps directed against those who reject the principles; and, in a word, many different methods have been invented by various writers of elements.

“It is essential that such a treatise should be rid of everything superfluous (for this is an obstacle to the acquisition of knowledge); it should select everything that embraces the subject and brings it to a point (for this is of supreme service to science); it must have great regard at once to clearness and conciseness (for their opposites trouble our understanding); it must aim at the embracing of theorems in general terms (for the piecemeal division of instruction into the more partial makes knowledge difficult to grasp). In all these ways Euclid's system of elements will be found to be superior to the rest; for its utility avails towards the investigation of the primordial figures¹, its clearness and organic perfection are secured by the progression from the more simple to the more complex and by the foundation of the investigation upon common notions, while generality of demonstration is secured by the progression through the theorems which are primary and of the nature of principles to the things sought. As for the things which seem to be wanting, they are partly to be discovered by the same methods, like the construction of the scalene and isosceles (triangle), partly alien to the character of a selection of elements as introducing hopeless and boundless complexity, like the subject of unordered irrationals which Apollonius worked out at length², and partly developed from things handed down (in the elements) as causes, like the many species of angles and of lines. These things then have been omitted in Euclid, though they have received full discussion in other works; but the knowledge of them is derived from the simple (elements).”

Proclus, speaking apparently on his own behalf, in another place distinguishes two objects aimed at in Euclid's Elements. The first has reference to the matter of the investigation, and here, like a good Platonist, he takes the whole subject of geometry to be concerned with the “cosmic figures,” the five regular solids, which in Book XIII.