Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

TO THE READER.
To write of Trigonometry, and not make mention of the illustrious Lord Neper of
Marchiston, the inventer of Logarithms, were to be unmindfull of him that is our
daily benefactor ; these artificiall numbers by him first excogitated and perfected, being
of such incomparable use, that by them we may operate more in one day, and with
lesse danger of errour, then can be done without them in the space of a whole week.
A secret which would have beene so precious to antiquity, that Pythagoras, all the
seven wise men of Greece, Archimedes, Socrates, Plato, Euclid, and Aristotle, had,
if coasvals, joyntly adored him, and unanimously concurred to the deifying of the re-
vealer of so great a mystery ; and truly, besides them, a great many other learned
men, who for the laboriousnesse of long and various Multiplications, Divisions, and
Radicall extractions of severall sorts, were deterred from the prosecuting and divulging
of their knowledge in the chiefest and most noble parts of the Mathematicks, would
have left behind them diverse exquisite volumes, of an incomprehensible value, if the
Arithmetical equality of diiference, agreeable to every continued Geometricall pro-
portion, had been made known unto them.
Wherefore, I am infallibly perswaded, that in the estimation of scientifically disposed
spirits, the philosophers stone is but trash to this invention, which will alwayes, in
their judicious opinions, be accounted of more worth to the Mathematicall world, then
was the finding out of America to the King of Spaine, or the discovery of the nearest
way to the East Indies would be to the Northerly Occidentall merchants.
What the merit then of the Author is, let the most envious judge; for my owne
part, I doe not praise him so much for that he is my compatriot, as I must extoll the
happinesse of my countrey for having produced so brave a spark, in whom alone, I
may with confidence averre, it is more glorious then if it had beene the conquering-