Memoirs of John Napier ofMerchislon. ^73 



tributes to him processes of bisection which are not his, and 

 were subsequently employed by Briggs. We might expect to 

 find a juster estimate in the History of Astronomy by Delambre, 

 who was neither deficient in his knowledge of the existing me- 

 thods of logarithms, nor in his love of truth. But by a defect 

 in philosophy too characteristic of his work, he does not merely 

 make use of the simplicity of our modern formulae to illustrate 

 Napier''s ideas, which would be their legitimate use ; he trans- 

 lates, imperfectly, those ideas into modern formulae, thus giving 

 them for their base an empirical approximation, which does not 

 belong to them, and which is positively opposed to the genius 

 of Napier. Thus disfigured he submits him to inspection, 

 makes him answerable for inaccuracies which he has not com- 

 mitted, for faults which he attributes to him through blunders 

 of his own, and then pronounces a judgment not the less 

 false, that it is very kind and complimentary.* His recent 

 Scotch biographer relies much upon this authority to enhance 

 the glory of Napier, and exultingly quotes it against some few 

 writers, especially English, who, from sincere scientific opinion, 

 or from national prejudice, have, as he supposes, pretended 

 to depreciate the Scotchman, in attributing the first idea of the 

 discovery of logarithms to an obscure mathematician of the 

 Continent, named Juste Byrge, of whom, indeed, Kepler utters 

 a single word in the introduction to the Rudolphine Tables, 

 as if he had, upon some occasion, imagined something of the 

 kind that he had never published.-f* But of what use is it 



• Delambre's History of Astronomy is one of the greatest* works of modem 

 continental philosophy, as its author is one of the greatest names. The an- 

 alysis of logarithms in that work, however liable to the objections here some- 

 what harshly pointed out by M. Biot, is a work that would, of itself, have 

 stamped the author as a great mathematical writer ; and we cannot see that 

 Mr Napier's reference to it was altogether so rash as M. Biot's observations 

 would imply. — Translator. 



t Here is the passage in Kepler ; he is speaking of the geometrical sexage. 

 simal progressions employed by the ancient astronomers, and of which the 

 successive terms are designed by the characters of degrees, minutes, seconds, 

 thirds, &c. ; then he adds, " Fui etiam apices logistici Justo Byrgio multis an- 

 nis ante editionem Neperianam viam proeiverunt ad ipsos logarithmos. Etsi 

 homo cunctator et secretorum suorum custos foetum in partu destituit, non 

 ad usus publicos educavit." ( Tab. Rud. cap. iii. p. 1 1 , in fol.) It may be 

 presumed, upon the evidence of this passage, that Juste Byrge had, indeed, 



