Eduardo J. Dubuc writes:
. . . The notion of universal property first appears in Bourbaki, . . .
The notion and name (well "universal mappinga") first appears in: @article {MR0025152, AUTHOR = {Samuel, P.}, TITLE = {On universal mappings and free topological groups}, JOURNAL = {Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.}, FJOURNAL = {Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society}, VOLUME = {54}, YEAR = {1948}, PAGES = {591--598}, ISSN = {0002-9904}, MRCLASS = {56.0X}, MRNUMBER = {0025152 (9,605f)}, MRREVIEWER = {S. Mac Lane}, } Of course Samuel was a member of Bourbaki at the time but this seems to be the influence of Samuel on Bourbaki rather than the other way around. Note that Mac Lane reviewed this and he was quick to use both the notion and the terminology in his own writings. -- Bob -- Robert L. Knighten 541-296-4528 RLK@knighten.org [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]