NADEN
NAPIER
NADEN, Constance Caroline Woodhill,
poet. B. Jan. 24, 1858. Ed. private school, Birmingham. Miss Naden first took up painting, but her efforts were not very successful, and she turned to litera ture. She taught herself French, German, Latin, and Greek, and she followed the courses of science at Mason College, Birmingham, in 1881. For a time the Pantheistic mysticism of James Hinton influenced her, but her education in science led her on to a great admiration of Herbert Spencer. She won the Paxton Prize for a geological essay in 1885, and the Heslop Gold Medal for an essay (induction and Deduction) in 1887 ; and she was a member of the Aristotelian Society. Her Ration alism is often expressed in Songs and Sonnets (1881) and The Modern Apostle (1887; especially in her Pantheist s Song of Immortality). Her " Pantheism " differs little from Spencer s Agnosticism, and she rejects personal immortality. D. Dec. 23, 1889.
NAIGEON, Jacques Andre, French philosophical writer. B. 1738. Naigeon was at first a student of the fine arts, but he was drawn into the Encyclopaedist group, with Holbach and Diderot, and wrote a number of articles for them. La Harpe called him "the ape of Diderot," but he was an original and weighty writer. He styled himself an Atheist, and bitterly opposed Robespierre s cult of the Supreme Being. He was admitted to the Institut in 1795 ; and he edited the works of Diderot and Holbach and Montaigne s Essays (1802), and wrote a Dictionnaire de philosophie ancienne et moderne (1791) and other works. Naigeon defined the theological virtue of charity as "to love above all things a god whom we do not know and priests whom we know too well." D. Feb. 28, 1810.
NANSEN, Professor Fridtjof, G.C.V.O., D.Sc., D.C.L., Ph.D., F.R.G.S., Norwegian explorer. B. Oct. 10, 1861. Ed. Chris tiania University. He made his first voyage, 545
to the Greenland Sea, in 1882, and on his
return he was appointed Curator of the
Bergen Natural History Museum. He
returned to Greenland in 1888, and was
then for four years Curator of the Museum
of Comparative Anatomy at Christiania
University. It was from 1893 to 1896
that he made his most famous expedition
to the Arctic, reaching the highest latitude
yet known. After his return he was for
some years professor of zoology at Chris
tiania University, and from 1906 to 1908
he was Norwegian Minister at St. James s.
Since 1908 he has been professor of oceano
graphy at Christiania University, of which
he is now Rector Magnificus. Nansen has
described his expeditions in The Norwegian
North Polar Expedition (1893-96) and
Northern Mists (1911). He is a Rationalist
of the school of Bjornson, an outspoken
Agnostic, as one may read in his lecture
(published by the R. P. A., 1909) Science
and the Purpose of Life. He thinks that
" the religion of one age is, as a rule, the
literary entertainment of the next" (p. 3).
NAPIER, General Sir Charles James,
G.C.B., soldier. B. Aug. 10, 1782. Ed. privately. In 1794 he got a commission in the 33rd Regiment, and in 1805 he was appointed A.D.C. to General H. E. Fox. His position brought him into touch with Charles James Fox (a cousin of the General) and the Deists of the time, and Napier joined them in discarding Chris tianity. He served in the Peninsular War from 1808 to 1811, and was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel. After a year in the American War, he was in 1814 made C.B., and he continued in military appointment until 1822, when he was made resident at Cephalonia. Napier won distinction by his humane and enlightened administra tion during eight years. He became Major-General in 1837, and K.C.B. in 1838. From 1841 to 1851 he held a command in India. He was " the con queror of Sind," and he showed prodigious energy in reorganizing the country. He was created G.C.B. in 1843. The writer
546 u
