Barni (Jules Romain). French philosophic writer, b. Lille, 1 June, 1818. He became secretary to Victor Cousin, and translated the works of Kant into French. He contributed to La Liberté de Penser (1847–51) and to l’Avenir (1855). During the Empire he lived in Switzerland and published Martyrs de la Libre Pensée (1862), La Morale dans la Démocratie (1864), and a work on the French Moralists of the Eighteenth Century (1873). He was elected to the National Assembly, 1872; and to the Chamber of Deputies, 1876. Died at Mers, 4 July, 1878. A statue is erected to him at Amiens.
Barnout (Hippolyte). French architect and writer, b. Paris 1816, published a Rational Calendar 1859 and 1860. In May 1870 he established a journal entitled L’Athée, the Atheist, which the clerical journals declared drew God’s vengeance upon France. He is also author of a work on aerial navigation.
Barot (François Odysse). French writer, b. at Mirabeau 1830. He has been a journalist on several Radical papers, was secretary to Gustave Flourens, and has written on the Birth of Jesus (1864) and Contemporary Literature in England (1874).
Barrett (Thomas Squire). Born 9 Sept. 1842, of Quaker parents, both grandfathers being ministers of that body; educated at Queenwood College, obtained diploma of Associate in Arts from Oxford with honors in Natural Science and Mathematics, contributed to the National Reformer between 1865 and 1870, published an acute examination of Gillespie’s argument, à priori, for the existence of God (1869), which in 1871 reached a second edition. He also wrote A New View of Causation (1871), and an Introduction to Logic and Metyphysics (1877). Mr. Barrett has been hon. sec. of the London Dialectical Society, and edited a short-lived publication, The Present Day, 1886.
Barrier (F. M.). French Fourierist, b. Saint Etienne 1815, became professor of medicine at Lyons, wrote A Sketch of the Analogy of Man and Humanity (Lyons 1846), and Principles of Sociology (Paris 1867), and an abridgment of this entitled Catechism of Liberal and Rational Socialism. Died Montfort-L’Amaury 1870.
Barrillot (François). French author, b. of poor parents at Lyons in 1818. An orphan at seven years of age, he learnt to read from shop signs, and became a printer and journalist. Many of his songs and satires acquired popularity. He has also wrote a letter to Pope Pius IX. on the Œcumenical Council (1871), signed Jean Populus, and a philosophical work entitled Love is God. Died at Paris, 11 Dec. 1874.
Barthez (Paul Joseph), French physician, b. Montpelier 11 Dec. 1734. A friend of D’Alembert, he became associate editor of the Journal des Savants and Encyclopédie Méthodique. He was made consulting physician to the king and a councillor of State. Shown by the Archbishop of Sens a number of works relating to the rites of his see he said, “These are the ceremonies of Sens, but can you show me the sense [Sens] of ceremonies.” His principal work is New Elements of the Science of Man. Died 15 Oct. 1806.
Basedow (Johann Bernhard), German Rationalist and educational reformer, b. at Hamburg 11 Sept. 1723. He studied theology at Leipsic, became professor at the Academy of Sora, in Denmark, 1753–1761, and at Altona, 1761–1768. While here he published Philalethea, the Grounds of Religion, and other heterodox works, which excited so much prejudice that he was in danger of being stoned. He devoted much attention to improving methods of teaching. Died at Magdeburg 25 July, 1790.
Baskerville (John), famous printer, b. Sion Hill, Wolverley, Worcestershire, 28 Jan. 1706. Lived at Birmingham. He was at first a stone-mason, then made money as an artistic japanner, and devoted it to perfecting the art of type-founding and printing. As a printer-publisher he produced at his own risk beautiful editions of Milton, Addison, Shaftesbury, Congreve, Virgil, Horace, Lucretius, Terence, etc. He was made printer to Cambridge University 1758. Wilkes once visited him and was “shocked at his infidelity” (!) He died 8 Jan. 1775, and was buried in a tomb in his own garden. He had designed a monumental urn with this inscription: “Stranger, beneath this cone in unconsecrated ground a friend to the liberties of mankind directed his body to be inurned. May the example contribute to emancipate thy mind from the idle fears of superstition and the wicked arts of priesthood.” His will expresses the utmost contempt for Christianity. His type was appropriately purchased to produce a complete edition of Voltaire.
Bassus (Aufidus). An Epicurean philosopher and friend of Seneca in the time of Nero. Seneca praises his patience and courage in the presence of death.
Bate (Frederick), Socialist, author of The Student 1842, a drama in which the author’s sceptical views are put forward. Mr. Bate was one of the founders of the social experiment at New Harmony, now Queenswood College, Hants, and engraved a view representing the Owenite scheme of community.
Baudelaire (Charles Pierre), French poet, b. Paris, 9 April 1821, the son of a distinguished friend of Cabanis and Condorcet. He first became famous by the publication of Fleurs du Mal, 1857, in which appeared Les Litanies de Satan. The work was prosecuted and suppressed. Baudelaire translated some of the writings of E. A. Poe, a poet whom he resembled much in life and character. The divine beauty of his face has been celebrated by the French poet, Théodore de Banville, and his genius in some magnificent stanzas by the English poet, Algernon Swinburne. Died Paris 31 Aug. 1867.
Baudon (P. L.), French author of a work on the Christian Superstition, published at Brussels in 1862 and dedicated to Bishop Dupanloup under the pseudonym of “Aristide.”
Bauer (Bruno), one of the boldest biblical critics of Germany, b. Eisenberg, 6 Sept. 1809. Educated at the University of Berlin, in 1834 he received a professorship of theology. He first attained celebrity by a review of the Life of Jesus by Strauss (1835). This was followed by his Journal of Speculative Theology and Critical Exposition of the Religion of the Old Testament. He then proceeded to a Review of the Gospel History, upon the publication of which (1840) he was deprived of his professorship at Bonn. To this followed Christianity Unveiled (1843), which was destroyed at Zurich before its publication. This work continued his opposition to religion, which was carried still further in ironical style in his Proclamation of the Day of Judgement concerning Hegel the Atheist. Bauer’s heresy deepened with age, and in his Review of the Gospels and History of their Origin (1850), to which Apostolical History is a supplement, he attacked the historical truth of the New Testament narratives. In his Review of the Epistles attributed to St. Paul (1852) he tries to show that the first four epistles, which had hardly ever before been questioned, were not written by Paul, but are the production of the second century. In his Christ and the Cæsars he shows the influence of Seneca and Greco-Roman thought upon early Christianity. He died near Berlin, 13 April, 1882.
Bauer (Edgar), b. Charlottenburg, 7 Oct. 1820, brother of the preceding, collaborated in some of his works. His brochure entitled Bruno Bauer and his Opponents (1842) was seized by the police. For his next publication, The Strife of Criticism with Church and State (1843), he was imprisoned for four years. He has also written on English freedom, Capital, etc.
Baume-Desdossat (Jacques François, de la), b. 1705, a Canon of Avignon who wrote La Christiade (1753), a satire on the gospels, in which Jesus is tempted by Mary Magdalene. It was suppressed by the French Parliament and the author fined. He died 30 April, 1756.
Baur (Ferdinand Christian von), distinguished theological critic, b. 21 June, 1792, near Stuttgart. His father was a clergyman. He was educated at Tübingen, where in 1826 he became professor of Church history. Baur is the author of numerous works on dogmatic and historic theology, in which he subverts all the fundamental positions of Christianity. He was an Hegelian Pantheist. Among his more important works are Christianity and the Church in the First Three Centuries and Paul: His Life and Works. These are translated into English. He acknowledges only four of the epistles of Paul and the Revelation as genuine products of the apostolic age, and shows how very far from simplicity were the times and doctrines of primitive Christianity. After a life of great literary activity