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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 73, Napier, and Hooker:
August 16, 2004:
Let us go to Scotland now for a look at John Napier, Lord of Merchiston. (1550-1617). Napier was a mathematician who made two major contributions to the development of modern mathematics. He invented logarithms and he introduced the use of the decimal point in writing numbers. Most of us know what a decimal point is. What about logarithms? For what it's worth, here it is from Microsoft's Bookshelf:
A logarithm is the power to which a number, called the base, must be raised in order to obtain a given positive number. For example, the logarithm of 100 to the base 10 is 2, because 102 = 100. Common logarithms use 10 as the base; natural, or Napierian, logarithms (for John Napier) use the number "e" as the base.
"e" is an irrational number occurring widely in mathematics and science, approximately equal to the value 2.71828; it is the base of natural, or Naperian, logarithms. Like pi, e is transcendental, i.e., not a root of any algebraic equation. It is defined as the limit of the expression (1 + 1/n)n as n becomes infinitely large. Expressions of the form ex, known as the exponential function, occur in applications ranging from statistics to nuclear physics.
Was this guy a genius or what?
What we know about Napier concerns his adult life. The activities of his youth are undiscovered or unrecorded. We do know that he was an adamant protestant and anti-papist in the extreme. There were some serious religious contests going on at the time and Napier was involved. It had to do with some suspected collusion between James VI of Scotland and Philip II of Spain. Yes, this is the same Philip II who sought to invade England with his infamous Spanish Armada. It seems the nominal Calvinist James wanted to be king of England and was willing to collude with a Catholic King to bring it about.
As an official of the Scottish Church, Napier was among the delegation who petitioned King James to call it off. These folks were concerned for the survival of their church and saw any hint of Scottish Spanish cooperation as a threat. Catholics were seen as enemies of God's Church to be dealt with firmly. To that end, Napier wrote his Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John, This was clearly a work intended to influence James.
After that he retired to his estate to work. Although he puttered around with ideas for military inventions to defend Scotland, his main effort was devoted to mathematics. In that, he was much more effective. It was his invention of logarithms that made him famous. He expounded his findings in two major technical works, (Description of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms and Construction of the Marvelous Canon of Logarithms. Napier did other work in mathematics, but we know him principally for his marvelous invention of logarithms.
We can remain on the English side of the Channel to check out Richard Hooker (1554-1600). Hooker was an English writer and theologian. A skilled practitioner of language and legal ideas he created the definitive Anglican theology. His major work was, Of the lawes of ecclesiasticall politie. Though not finished when he died it was a strong defense of the Church of England against Roman Catholics and puritans.
At that time, The Church of England had a very definite Calvinist stance. The biggest influence was Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion. Thus, Hooker's earlier training was Calvinist Protestantism. It was a bit too conservative for Hooker and he went beyond that in his reading and studies. This is how he became a true Renaissance man. He let go of the narrow limits of Calvinist doctrines.
In this time, he was also appointed Master of the Temple Church. In that position he had a strong adversary Walter Travers who was the prototype arch conservative Calvinist. Travers was also a preacher at the Temple. This produced an ongoing joust between the two. When the English fleet whipped the Spanish Armada in 1588 the threat of Catholic influence was over and Calvinism became the main enemy for Hooker. The scholastic jousting took a serious turn.
It was an uphill battle for Travers because Hooker remained
Master of the Temple until 1591. Still the puritans continued.
There was a struggle to reform the Church of England along Calvinist
lines which was resisted by the liberals. It all became a long
drawn out snorting contest with Hooker and many liberals on one
side and the puritan hard liners on the other. There was a series
of books, pro and con, written over a few years. It was then that
Hooker decided to retire to his father-in-law's home to write
his major work, Of the lawes of ecclesiasticall politie. This,
though incomplete, became the final answer to the controversy.
For us it may be religious philosophical nitpicking. For these
folks, it was serious.
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