Cayley in 1858 published Memoir on the theory of matrices which is remarkable for containing the first abstract definition of a matrix. He shows that the coefficient arrays studied earlier for quadratic forms and for linear transformations are special cases of his general concept. Cayley gave a matrix algebra defining addition, multiplication, scalar multiplication and inverses. He gave an explicit construction of the inverse of a matrix in terms of the determinant of the matrix. Cayley also proved that, in the case of 2 × 2 matrices, that a matrix satisfies its own characteristic equation. He stated that he had checked the result for 3 × 3 matrices, indicating its proof, but says:-