Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2016
E. Cartan has proved that the prolonged system of a Pfaffian system in involution is also in involution. But he has treated only the case of a Pfaffian system of some special type. On the other hand in his book [3] he has reduced the solution of any differential system to the solution of a Pfaffian system of the type mentioned above, and this reduction is precisely the method of the prolongation of a differential system. Therefore it seems to be disirable to establish the above mentioned theorem in the case of an arbitrary differential system.