1.90

HISTORICAL VIEW OF THE

enormously increasing labour of calculation must almostnecessarily have seriously impeded, if not altogetherstopped, the progress of astronomical and physical re-search, which, in other respects, was now beginning toassume so promising an aspect. Thus, some methods ofabridging the overwhelming toil of the computer weredaily becoming of more imperious necessity ; and wenow find a remarkable example of the powers of ori-ginal inventive genius arising to remove these difficul-ties, and to supply the so much desired instrument ofcalculation, precisely at the period when it was mostneeded.

Napier _ Logarithms.

Whether we choose to estimate the value of inven-tions by their practical utility, or by their refinementof principle, we must in every sense esteem, as one ofthe very first importance, the invention of Logarithms ,by Napier of Merchiston. He was born of a noblefamily, in 1550; and enjoyed all the advantages whichthe best education attainable in those times could bestow.He appears early to have turned his mind to arith-metical and astronomical studies. He soon felt theincreasing difficulties we have just mentioned, and wasled to try various mechanical devices for abridging theseprocesses. One of these is known by the name ofNapier’s rods or bones (from the substance of whichthey were made), which afford an ingenious mechanicalhelp in multiplication. He explained this method ina work called “ Rabdologia,” in 1616; but, viewingthe subject in all its bearings, he soon perceived afar higher mathematical principle, which afforded a me-thod as simple as powerful, and which he not only dis-cussed in theory, but reduced into a practical form.

It has been said, that a hint at least of the principlemay be found in the writings of Archimedes : this,however, is only so far true as that a remark of thatphilosopher exactly serves to suggest the main difficultywhich it was Napier’s particular merit to overcome.