Ralph Lever, D.D., canon of Durham Cathedral and master of Sherburn Hospital, was a gifted Cambridge graduate with Puritan leanings who took on important ecclesiastical positions in the bishopric of Durham. During much of his life he was involved in controversies of different kinds. Today Lever is chiefly remembered as the author of The Arte of Reason, rightly termed, Witcraft, teaching a perfect way to Argue and Dispute (1573), an early English work on logic within the Aristotelian tradition. His efforts at finding English rather than Latin terms for traditional logical concepts have aroused the interest of many linguists and language historians.

Little is known about Lever's early years, and the year of his birth is not known. Judging from the career of one of his older brothers, Thomas, who was born in 1521 and graduated with a B.A. from St. John's College of the University of Cambridge...