VII
Pasigraphy
The symbolic language created by Peano plays a very grand rôle in these new researches. It is capable of rendering some service, but I think M. Couturat attaches to it an exaggerated importance which must astonish Peano himself.
The essential element of this language is certain algebraic signs which represent the different conjunctions: if, and, or, therefore. That these signs may be convenient is possible; but that they are destined to revolutionize all philosophy is a different matter. It is difficult to admit that the word if acquires, when written C, a virtue it had not when written if. This invention of Peano was first called pasigraphy, that is to say the art of writing a treatise on mathematics without using a single word of ordinary language. This name defined its range very exactly. Later, it was raised to a more eminent dignity by conferring on it the title of logistic. This word is, it appears, employed at the Military Academy, to designate the art of the quartermaster of cavalry, the art of marching and cantoning troops; but here no confusion need be feared, and it is at once seen that this new name implies the design of revolutionizing logic.
We may see the new method at work in a mathematical memoir by Burali-Forti, entitled: Una Questione sui numeri transfiniti, inserted in Volume XI of the Rendiconti del circolo matematico di Palermo.
I begin by saying this memoir is very interesting, and my taking it here as example is precisely because it is the most important of all those written in the