Baron of Merchiston. 163 



with his method ; and, if this assertion should appear too 

 much strained to modern analysts, I hope to he ahle shortly 

 to afford such proofs as will overcome their objections. 



But, in order to have a just notion of the work of Napier, 

 it is necessary to study it from these books, especially in 

 the second, where he explains his method ; and not to trust 

 to the abstracts which have been given by authors. Of all 

 these abstracts, the best, that is to say, the most faithful 

 and elaborate is, in my opinion, that published by Hutton 

 in his introduction to the mathematical tables of Sherwinn, 

 and which is re-printed with this introduction in the first 

 volume of the " Scriptores Logarithmici." The path followed 

 by Napier is there strictly followed, such as it is charac- 

 terized in his principle, and appreciated in his results, com- 

 paratively with our actual methods. Now, this is what 

 we wish to know of a first inventor. Montucla, the historian 

 of the Mathematics, we should almost be tempted to believe, 

 had never inspected the posthumous work of Napier, for 

 he attributes to him methods of bi-section which were not 

 his, and which were employed afterwards by Briggs. We 

 might expect to find a more just estimate in the history of 

 Astronomy by Delambre, who was neither deficient in a 

 knowlege of the actual logarithmic methods, nor in the 

 love of truth. But, by a defect in philosophy, which is but 

 too remarkable in his work, he employs not only the sim- 

 plicity of our modern formulae to exhibit the ideas of Napier 

 — what should be their true use, but translates imperfectly 

 these ideas into modern formulae, and thus gives them as a 

 basis, an empirical approximation which they do not possess, 

 and which is positively opposed to the spirit of Napier's 

 method. Thus disfigured, he examines the latter, demands 

 an explanation for want of exactness which Napier has not 

 committed, and for faults which he attributes to him from 

 his own errors. The neV Scotch biographer endeavours to 

 rescue the honour^ of Napier from the criticisms of this 

 author, and opposes, successfully, the small number of 

 writers, especially English, who, from a sincere scientific 

 opinion, or from national prejudice have, according to him, 

 endeavoured to depreciate Scotland, by attributing the first 

 idea of the discovery of logarithms to an obscure mathema- 

 tician of the continent, called Justus Byrg<\ of whom Kepler 



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