John Napier

“ You have then (kind Reader) in this little book most amply unfolded the theory of the construction of logarithms, there called by him artificial numbers, for he had this treatise written out beside him several years before the word Logarithm was invented,) in which their nature, characteristics, and various relations to their natural numbers, are clearly demonstrated.
It seemed desirable also to add to the theory an Appendix as to the construction of another and better kind of logarithms (mentioned by the Author in the preface to his Rabdologiæ) in which the logarithm of unity is 0. ”

“ Nor do I doubt, but that this posthumous work would have seen the light in a much more perfect and finished state, if God had granted a longer enjoyment of life to the Author, my most dearly loved father, in whom, by the opinion of the wisest men, among other illustrious gifts this showed itself pre-eminent, that the most difficult matters were unravelled by a sure and easy method, as well as in the fewest words. ”