M . Biofs Abstract of Mr Napier^s 

 sense revolts, and which, thank God, do not belong to the pre- 



sent age. 



Unquestionably Napier was a theologian, a learned theolo- 

 gian, and unquestionably, also, his religious belief was perfectly 

 sincere. His moral character is entitled to this concession. The 

 importance of the arithmetical invention, which we owe to him, 

 is also very great ; already we have established that fact by in- 

 disputable consequences, and we shall presently have another 

 occasion to be more precise in our specification of its merits, 

 when we come to characterize the discovery. But does it fol- 

 low that, with the arithmetic, we must accept the theology ; or 

 must we of necessity, for example, like his Scotch biographer, 

 pronounce Napier's Commentary on the Apocalypse admirable ?* 

 because he, too, before the time of Newton, wrote a similar 

 commentary, where, in like manner, he undertakes to establish, 

 by force of reason, that the Pope is Antichrist, and Christian 

 Rome the Whore of Babylon. As for the rest, it was not new 

 at this epoch, being equally the favourite disputatious theme of 

 that thundering Presbyterian preacher Knox (who called the 

 charming Mary Stuart a Jezebel) ; and did not King James VI. 

 himself, in like manner, exert his theological learning to prove 

 that point ? It was then a current idea. But that which is 

 peculiar to Napier, in this arduous controversy, is the having 

 introduced a form of argumentation altogether mathematical,— 

 a march of discussion logically knit, placing as a preliminary in 

 the very front of his treatise, a table of Postulata, to support 

 him in the interpretation of the Divine symbols ; which Postulata 

 themselves he takes the greatest possible pains to establish upon 

 a host of learned authorities. I have not the temerity to enter 

 the lists with such gifted persons, nor even to examine too punc- 



• I could not find in Paris the original edition of that work, but only the 

 French translation, published at Rochelle in 1602, under this title ; " Ouver- 

 ture de tous les secrets de r Apocalypse de Saint Jean^ par deux traites ; Pun 

 recherchans et prouvant la vraie interpretation d'icelle ; Tautre appliquant 

 au texte cette interpretation paraphrastiquement et historiquement. Par 

 Jean Napeir, c'est-a-dire, Non Pareil, sieur de Merchiston, revue par 

 lui-mesme, et mise en Fran9aise par George Thomson, Escossois." The re- 

 visal of this translation by Napier himself, gives it nearly the authenticity 

 of the original edition ; and, indeed, in the comparisons which I have had an 

 opportunity of making with the original passages quoted by his Scotch bio- 

 grapher, it appears to be a very faithful translation M. Biot. 



