If a mathematician were asked to name the great epoch-making works in his science, he might well hesitate in his decision concerning the product of the nineteenth century; he might even hesitate with respect to the eighteenth century; but as to the product of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and particularly as to the works of the Greeks in classical times, he would probably have very definite views.
He would certainly include the works of Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius among the products of the Greek civilization, while among those which contributed to the great renaissance of mathematics in the seventeenth century he would as certainly include La Geometrie of Descartes and the Principia of Newton.