Antoine (Nicolas). Martyr. Denied the Messiahship and divinity of Jesus, and was strangled and burnt at Geneva, 20 April, 1632.
Antonelle (Pierre Antoine) Marquis d’, French political economist, b. Arles 1747. He embraced the revolution with ardor, and his article in the Journal des Hommes Libres occasioned his arrest with Babœuf. He was, however, acquitted. Died at Arles, 26 Nov. 1817.
Antoninus (Marcus Aurelius). See Aurelius.
Apelt (Ernst Friedrich), German philosopher, b. Reichenau 3 March, 1812. He criticised the philosophy of religion from the standpoint of reason, and wrote many works on metaphysics. Died near Gorlitz, 27 Oct. 1859.
Aquila, a Jew of Pontus, who became a proselyte to Christianity, but afterwards left that religion. He published a Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures to show that the prophecies did not apply to Jesus (A.D. 128). The work is lost. He has been identified by E. Deutsch with the author of the Targum of Onkelos.
Arago (Dominique François Jean), French academician, politician, physicist and astronomer, b. Estagel, 26 Feb. 1786. He was elected to the French Academy of Sciences at the age of twenty-three. He made several optical and electro-magnetic discoveries, and advocated the undulatory theory of light. He was an ardent Republican and Freethinker, and took part in the provisional Government of 1848. He opposed the election of Louis Napoleon, and refused to take the oath of allegiance after the coup d’état of December, 1851. Died 2 Oct. 1853. Humboldt calls him a “zealous defender of the interests of Reason.”
Ardigo (Roberto), Italian philosopher, b. at Casteldidone (Cremona) 28 Jan. 1828, was intended for the Church, but took to philosophy. In 1869 he published a discourse on Peitro Pomponazzi, followed next year by Psychology as a Positive Science. Signor Ardigo has also written on the formation of the solar system and on the historical formation of the ideas of God and the soul. An edition of his philosophical works was commenced at Mantua in 1882. Ardigo is one of the leaders of the Italian Positivists. His Positivist Morals appeared in Padua 1885.
Argens (Jean Baptiste de Boyer) Marquis d’, French writer, b. at Aix, in Provence, 24 June 1704. He adopted a military life and served with distinction. On the accession of Frederick the Great he invited d’Argens to his court at Berlin, and made him one of his chamberlains. Here he resided twenty-five years and then returned to Aix, where he resided till his death 11 June, 1771. His works were published in 1768 in twenty-four volumes. Among them are Lettres Juives, Lettres Chinoises and Lettres Cabalistiques, which were joined to La Philosophie du bon sens. He also translated Julian’s discourse against Christianity and Ocellus Lucanus on the Eternity of the World. Argens took Bayle as his model, but he was inferior to that philosopher.
Argental (Charles Augustin de Ferriol) Count d’, French diplomat, b. Paris 20 Dec. 1700, was a nephew of Mme. de Tencin, the mother of D’Alembert. He is known for his long and enthusiastic friendship for Voltaire. He was said to be the author of Mémoires du Comte de Comminge and Anecdotes de la cour d’Edouard. Died 5 Jan. 1788.
Aristophanes, great Athenian comic poet, contemporary with Socrates, Plato, and Euripides, b. about 444 B.C. Little is known of his life. He wrote fifty-four plays, of which only eleven remain, and was crowned in a public assembly for his attacks on the oligarchs. With the utmost boldness he satirised not only the the political and social evils of the age, but also the philosophers, the gods, and the theology of the period. Plato is said to have died with Aristophanes’ works under his pillow. Died about 380 B.C.
Aristotle, the most illustrious of ancient philosophers, was born at Stagyra, in Thrace, 384 B.C. He was employed by Philip of Macedon to instruct his son Alexander. His inculcation of ethics as apart from all theology, justifies his place in this list. After the death of Alexander, he was accused of impiety and withdrew to Chalcis, where he died B.C. 322. Grote says: “In the published writings of Aristotle the accusers found various heretical doctrines suitable for sustaining their indictment; as, for example, the declaration that prayer and sacrifices to the gods were of no avail.” His influence was predominant upon philosophy for nearly two thousand years. Dante speaks of him as “the master of those that know.”
Arnold of Brescia, a pupil of Abelard. He preached against the papal authority and the temporal power, and the vices of the clergy. He was condemned for heresy by a Lateran Council in 1139, and retired from Italy. He afterwards returned to Rome and renewed his exertions against sacerdotal oppression, and was eventually seized and burnt at Rome in 1155. Baronius calls him “the patriarch of political heretics.”
Arnold (Matthew), LL.D. poet and critic, son of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, b. at Laleham 24 Dec. 1822. Educated at Winchester, Rugby, and Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize. In 1848 he published the Strayed Reveller, and other Poems, signed A. In 1851 he married and became an inspector of schools. In 1853 appeared Empedocles on Etna, a poem in which, under the guise of ancient teaching he gives much secular philosophy. In 1857 he was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1871 he published an essay entitled St. Paul and Protestantism; in 1873 Literature and Dogma, which, from its rejection of supernaturalism, occasioned much stir and was followed by God and the Bible. In 1877 Mr. Arnold published Last Essays on Church and State. Mr. Arnold has a lucid style and is abreast of the thought of his age, but he curiously unites rejection of supernaturalism, including a personal God, with a fond regard for the Church of England. He may be said in his own words to wander “between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born.” Died 15 April, 1888.
Arnould (Arthur), French writer, b. Dieuze 7 April, 1833. As journalist he wrote on l’Opinion Nationale, the Rappel, Reforme and other papers. In 1864 he published a work on Beranger, and in ’69 a History of the Inquisition. In Jan. 1870 he founded La Marseillaise with H. Rochefort, and afterwards the Journal du Peuple with Jules Valles. He was elected to the National Assembly and was member of the Commune, of which he has written a history in three volumes. He has also written many novels and dramas.
Arnould (Victor), Belgian Freethinker, b. Maestricht, 7 Nov. 1838, advocate at the Court of Appeal, Brussels. Author of a History of the Church 1874, and a little work on the Philosophy of Liberalism 1877.
Arouet (François Marie). See Voltaire.
Arpe (Peter Friedrich). Philosopher, b. Kiel, Holstein, 10 May, 1682. Wrote an apology for Vanini dated Cosmopolis (i.e., Rotterdam, 1712). A reply to La Monnoye’s treatise on the book De Tribus Impostoribus is attributed to him. Died, Hamburg, 4 Nov. 1740.
Arthur (John) is inserted in Maréchal’s Dictionnaire des Athées as a mechanic from near Birmingham, who took a prize at Paris and republished the Invocation to Nature in the last pages of the System of Nature. Julian Hibbert inserted his name in his Chronological Tables of Anti-Superstitionists, with the date of death 1792.
Asseline (Louis). French writer, b. at Versailles in 1829, became an advocate in 1851. In 1866 he established La Libre Pensée, a weekly journal of scientific materialism, and when that was suppressed La Pensée Nouvelle. He was one of the founders of the Encyclopédie Générale. He wrote Diderot and the Nineteenth Century, and contributed to many journals. After the revolution of 4 Sept. 1870 he was elected mayor of the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris, and was afterwards one of the Municipal Council of that city. Died 6 April, 1878.
Assezat (Jules). French writer, b. at Paris 21 Jan. 1832 was