Page:The Construction of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms.djvu/19

INTRODUCTION. xv in the way of systematising and developing the sciences of arithmetic and algebra, probably some years before the publication of ‘A plaine discovery,’ appears in the manuscript published in 1839 under the title ‘De Arte Logistica.’ From this work it appears that his investigations in equations had led him to a consideration of imaginary roots, a subject he refers to as a great algebraic secret. He had also discovered a general method for the extraction of roots of all degrees.

The decimal system of numeration and notation had been introduced into Europe in the tenth century. To complete the system, it still remained to extend the notation to fractions. This was proposed, though in a cumbrous form, by Simon Stevin in 1585, but Napier was the first to use the present notation. Towards the end of the sixteenth century, however, the further progress of science was greatly impeded by the continually increasing complexity and labour of numerical calculation. In consequence of this, Napier seems to have laid aside his work on Arithmetic and Algebra before its completion, and deliberately set himself to devise some means of lessening this labour. By 1594 he must have made considerable progress in his undertaking, as in that year, Kepler tells us, Tycho Brahe was led by a Scotch correspondent to entertain hopes of the publication of the Canon or Table of Logarithms. Tycho’s informant is not named, but is