Mathematical Treasure: Francis Maseres’s Doctrine of Permutations

This is the title page of The Doctrine of Permutations and Combinations, being an essential and fundamental part of the Doctrine of Chance, compiled and published by Francis Maseres, in London in 1795. Maseres (1731–1824) was a London solicitor and minor mathematician. In this book, he collects some of the writings of leading mathematicians of his time dealing with permutations and chance. Its contents include:

• an English language translation of the first three chapters of the second part of Jacob Bernoulli's Ars Conjectandi;
• Isaac Newton’s discussions of the binomial theorem;
• comments by John Wallis, Thomas Simpson, Charles Hutton, Nicholas Saunderson, Gottfried Leibniz and others.

On pages 282 and 283, Maseres began a discussion of Newton’s Binominal Theorem.

The images above are presented courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.

See images of Maseres’ Doctrine of Permutations from the Columbia University Libraries.

Index to Mathematical Treasures