Adventures of Baron de Fæneste. 62. It is very possible that some small works belonging to this extensive class have been omitted, which my readers, or myself, on second consideration, might think not unworthy of notice. It is also one so miscellaneous that we might fairly doubt as to some which have a certain claim to be admitted into it. Such are the Adventures of the Baron de Fæneste, by the famous Agrippa d’Aubigné (whose autobiography, by the way, has at least the liveliness of fiction); a singular book written in dialogue, where an imaginary Gascon baron recounts his tales of the camp and the court. He is made to speak a patois not quite easy for us to understand, and not perhaps worth the while; but it seems to contain much that illustrates the state of France about the beginning of the seventeenth century. Much in this book is satirical; and the satire falls on the Catholics, whom Fæneste, a mere foolish gentleman of Gascony, is made to defend against an acute Hugonot.
CHAPTER XXV.
HISTORY OF MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE FROM 1600 TO 1650.
Sect. I.
Invention of logarithms by Napier—New geometry of Kepler and Cavalieri—Algebra—Harriott—Descartes—Astronomy—Kepler—Galileo— Copernican system begins to prevail—Cartesian theory of the world—Mechanical discoveries of Galileo—Descartes—Hydrostatics—Optics.
State of science in 16th century. 1. In the second volume of this work, we have followed the progress of mathematical and physical science down to the close of the sixteenth century. The ancient geometers had done so much in their own province of lines and figures, that little more of importance could be effected, except by new methods extending the limits of the science, or derived from some other source of invention. Algebra had yielded a more abundant harvest to the genius of the sixteenth century; yet something here seemed to be wanting to give that science a character of utility and reference to general truth; nor had the formulæ of letters and radical signs that preceptible beauty which often wins us to delight in geometrical theorems of as little apparent usefulness in their results. Meanwhile, the primary laws, to which all mathematical reasonings, in their relation to physical science, must be accommodated, lay hidden, or were erroneously conceived; and none of these sciences, with the exception of astronomy, were beyond their mere infancy, either as to observation or theory.[601]
[601] In this chapter my obligations to Montucla are so continual that I shall make no single reference to his Histoire des Mathématiques, which must be understood to be my principal authority.
Tediousness of calculations. 2. Astronomy, cultivated in the latter part of the sixteenth century with much industry and success, was repressed, among other more insuperable obstacles, by the laborious calculations it required. The trigonometrical tables of sines, tangents, and secants, if they were to produce any tolerable accuracy in astronomical observation, must be computed to six or seven places of decimals, upon which the regular processes of multiplication and division were perpetually to be employed. The consumption of time, as well as risk of error which this occasioned, was a serious evil to the practical astronomer.
Napier’s invention of logarithms. 3. John Napier, laird of Merchiston, after several attempts to diminish this labour by devices of his invention, was happy enough to discover his famous method of logarithms. This he first published at Edinburgh, in 1614, with the title, Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, seu Arithmeticarum Supputationum Mirabilis Abbreviatio. He died in 1618, and in a posthumous edition, entitled Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, 1618, the method of construction, which had been at first withheld, is given; and the system itself, in consequence perhaps of the suggestion of his friend Briggs, underwent some change.