Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/211

 HOBHOUSE

HODGSON

he met most of the Continental thinkers. He was also a friend of Lord Herbert. The Civil Law bent his thoughts to political philosophy, and he published De Give in 1642, and began to write the Leviathan. His Behemoth was, at the King s request, withheld from publication until 1679. Living in a dangerous age, and timid by temperament, he protested against the charge of heterodoxy, which was based upon occasional passages of his writings, but it is admitted that he was at most a Deist (see J. M. Eobertson s Short History of Freethought, ii, 71-3). His psychology also suggests that he questioned or denied the immortality of the soul, which is inconsistent with it. His woi k greatly stimulated the growth of Eation- alism in Europe. D. Dec. 4, 1679.

HOBHOUSE, Arthur, first Baron Hob- house of Hadspen, judge. B. Nov. 10, 1819. Ed. Eton and Oxford (Balliol). He was called to the Bar in 1845, and became Q.C. in 1862. He was a Charity Commissioner 1866-72, law member of the Council of the Governor General of India 1872-77, on the judicial committee of the Privy Council 1881-1901, and was created legal peer in 1885. A man of high charac ter and public feeling, he served as Vestry man of St. George s, member of the London School Board (1882-84), and Alderman of the L.C.C. (1888). He was a strong humanitarian and an advanced Eationalist, and his name appears in the list of benefactors of the E. P. A. His letters to Holyoake in his later years (Lord Hobhouse : A Memoir, by L. T. Hobhouse and J. L. Hammond, 1905) are drastically anti-ecclesiastical, and they show a belief only in a great ruling power of the universe.&quot; Shortly before his death he wrote to a clergyman that, the more he reflected, &quot; the more my mind is led away from your objects and fixed upon others &quot; (p. 258). D. Dec. 6, 1904.

HOBHOUSE, Professor Leonard Tre- lawney, Litt.D., sociologist. B. 1864

349

(son of the Yen. Archdeacon Hobhouse and nephew of Baron Hobhouse). Ed. Oxford (Merton). He was assistant tutor at Oxford (C. C. C.) for some years, and was then on the editorial staff of the Manchester Guardian (1897-1902) and the Tribune (1906-1907). He was secretary of the Free Trade Union 1903-1905, and was for some years editor of the Socio logical Review. In 1907 he was appointed professor of sociology at London Univer sity. Professor Hobhouse s chief works are Mind in Evolution (1901) and Morals in Evolution (2 vols., 1906). In his Development and Purpose (1913) he defines God as &quot; that of which the highest known embodiment is the distinctive spirit of humanity&quot; (p. 371).

HOBSON, John Atkinson, M.A., econo mist. B. July 6, 1858. Ed. Derby School and Oxford (Lincoln). He was classical master at Faversham and Exeter from 1880 to 1887, then University Extension Lecturer (Oxford and London) in English literature and economics from 1887 to 1897. Besides his well-known economic and political works he has published several volumes of a literary character (John Buskin, 1898, etc.). Mr. Hobson is a regular lecturer for the South Place Ethical Society, and an influential writer in the Press (Manchester Guardian, etc.).

HOCHART, Polydore, French historian. M. Hochart has made valuable studies of the alleged evidence in Eoman writers in favour of Christ and early Christianity. In 1885 he published Etudes au sujet de la persecution des Chretiens sous Neron and Etudes sur la vie de Seneque. In 1890 and 1894 he issued learned researches into the authenticity of Tacitus.

HODGSON, Brian Houghton, orien talist. B. Feb. 1, 1800. Ed. Macclesfield Grammar School, Eichmond, and East India Company s College, Haileybury. He reached India in 1818, and was appointed assistant commissioner at Kumaon. From 350