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 LAMB

LAMENNAIS

He was appointed Eoyal Botanist in 1781, and professor of invertebrate zoology at the Natural History Museum in 1793. His famous Philosophie Zoologique, which contains an early theory of evolution that is not without distinguished advocates (in modified form) to-day, appeared in 1809. The Catholic Encyclopedia claims Lamarck as orthodox, but he was quite clearly a Deist. The Catholic writer ignores entirely his mature work (published in 1830), Systeme analytique des connaissances posi tives de t homme, which (apart from the existence of God) is purely Positivist. &quot; All knowledge that is not the real product of observation, or of consequences deduced from observation, is entirely groundless and illusory,&quot; he says (p. 84) ; and he expressly describes spiritual things as unknowable. The distinguished anthro pologist Quatrefages, in a careful and docu mented study of his views, says that he was &quot;essentially Deistic &quot; (Emules de Darwin, 1894, i, 12). D. Dec. 18, 1829.

LAMB, Charles, essayist. B. Feb. 10, 1775. Ed. Christ s Hospital School. An impediment in his speech prevented Lamb from going to the university, and he became a clerk. He was in the accoun tant s office at East India House for thirty- three years. His poems and other publi cations had little success until he and his sister wrote, for Mr. Godwin, Tales from Shakespeare. The Essays of Elia appeared in 1823, and to the 1879 and later editions is appended a reply to Southey, in which he says : &quot; The last sect with which you can remember me to have made common profession were the Unitarians &quot; (1879 ed., ii, 430). He had therefore abandoned Unitarianism, and he was not even a very firm Theist. E. V. Lucas quotes two letters of the year 1801, in one of which Lamb says that he is not an &quot; enemy to all religion,&quot; while in the other he is com pletely Agnostic (Life of C. Lamb, 1905, pp. 210-11). D. Dec. 27, 1834.

LAMB, William, second Viscount Mel-

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bourne, statesman. B. 1779. Ed. Eton, Cambridge (Trinity College), and Glasgow. He abandoned his early religious beliefs while studying law at Glasgow, as he inti mates in a letter to his mother (Lord Melbourne s Papers, 1889, pp. 28-9). He was admitted to the Bar in 1804, and to Parliament in 1805. In 1827 he became Chief Secretary for Ireland. Passing to the House of Lords in 1828, he took charge of the Home Office in 1830, and was Prime Minister from 1834 to 1841. Melbourne directed the early years of Queen Victoria with great conscientious ness. Greville [SEE], who knew him intimately and often discussed religion with him, says, commenting on his death : He never succeeded in arriving at any fixed belief, or in anchoring himself on any system of religious belief &quot; (Memoirs, vi, 254). W. Allen, another intimate at Holland House, said that Melbourne had &quot; a perfect conviction of unbelief &quot;(Greville, iii, 331). Melbourne s Agnosticism was not a matter of indifference, for he was, as Greville shows, a keen student of theology all his life. D. Nov. 24, 1848.

LAMENNAIS, Hugues Felicite Robert

de, French writer. B. June 19, 1782. Ed. privately and at Saint Sulpice. A teacher of mathematics at Paris, Lamennais was very devout in his early years. He wrote several religious works, and was ordained priest in 1816. Two years later he was violently attacked by the orthodox for publishing his Essai sur I indifference en matiere de religion. In the ensuing contro versy he severely criticized the clergy and urged the reform of the Church. He was twice admonished by Eome, and he twice submitted ; but his Paroles d un croyant (1834) put him definitely outside the Church. He was a democratic Deist. The Catholic Encyclopedia says that &quot; numerous attempts were made to bring him back to religion and repentance, but in vain. He died rejecting all religious minis tration.&quot; His funeral was, by his express direction, purely secular. D. Feb. 27, 1854. 418 o