Such is the basis of the algebraical or modern analytical geometry.
Thus, if x= horned and y = sheep, then the successive acts of election represented by x and y, if performed on unity, give the whole of the class horned sheep. Boole showed that elective symbols of this kind obey the same primary laws of combination as algebraical symbols, whence it followed that they could be added, subtracted, multiplied and even divided, almost exactly in the same manner as numbers.
The only other algebraical symbol is A for minus; plus being expressed by merely writing terms one after another.
In his youth he went to the continent and taught mathematics at Paris, where he published or edited, between the years 1612 and 1619, various geometrical and algebraical tracts, which are conspicuous for their ingenuity and elegance.
His earliest publications, beginning with A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry (1860) and The Formulae of Plane Trigonometry (1861), were exclusively mathematical; but late in the year 1865 he published, under the pseudonym of "Lewis Carroll," Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a work that was the outcome of his keen sympathy with the imagination of children and their sense of fun.
