Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/280

 MAETINEAU

MAEX

to Secularism. She was a lady of some culture, and had written The Exiles of Piedmont and translated a work of Guic- ciardini. The persecution of the Owenites fired her zeal, and she became a very effective and eloquent speaker in the early Secularist movement. She wrote Baptism a Pagan Eite (1843) and a number of Eationalist tracts. D. Oct. 1851.

MARTINEAU, Harriet, writer. B. June 12, 1802. Ed. privately. The Martineau family was descended from refugee Huguenots, and had embraced Unitarianism. In her youth Harriet was a zealous follower of Lant Carpenter, and she wrote pious works. In 1829 she met W. J. Fox, of South Place Chapel, and began to advance, though in 1830 and 1831 she won the three prizes offered by the Central Unitarian Association for pro pagandist essays. Her Illustrations of Political Economy (9 vols., 1832-34) laid the foundation of her high literary reputa tion. In spite of continual illness, she three times refused a Government pension, and supported herself by her pen. In 1844 she believed that she owed much to mesmerism, and the study of it brought her into touch with H. G. Atkinson [SEE] , who completed her development into an Agnostic. She collaborated with him in writing the Letters on the Laws of Man s Social Nature and Development (1851), which alienated her brother, James Martineau. For a time she sustained the influence of Comte, and wrote The Philo sophy of Comte (2 vols., 1851). In her Autobiography, which was published after her death (1877), she describes herself as &quot; an Atheist in the vulgar sense that of rejecting the popular theology but not in the philosophic sense of denying a First Cause&quot; (ii, 351). She rejected the idea of immortality, and was severe on Christianity. Miss Martinean was probably the ablest woman Eationalist we have yet had, and her Autobiography reflects a character of fine impulses and moral delicacy. D. June 27, 1876.

487

MARTINS, Professor Charles Fre deric, M.D., French botanist. B. Feb. 6, 1806. After practising medicine for a time, he devoted himself to the study of science, and he was in 1846 appointed professor of botany at Montpellier. In 1863 he was admitted as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences. He wrote much on botany, meteorology, and natural history, and translated Goethe s works on natural history. In an intro duction to Lamarck s Philosophic Zoolo- gique (2 vols., 1873) he professes Agnos ticism, and is severe against myths and Churches. He rejects both Materialism and Spiritualism, as we know nothing about the nature of either matter or spirit (p. Ixxxiii). D. Mar. 8, 1889.

MAR YIN, Francis Sydney, M.A., F.E.H.S., Positivist writer. B. Aug. 6, 1863. Ed. Merchant Taylors School and Oxford (St. John s College). For some years he taught in elementary schools and lectured for the University Extension Movement. In 1890 he became an in spector of schools, and from 1903 to 1915 he was Divisional Inspector and Inspector of Training Colleges. He has organized a large number of courses of lectures for teachers. Mr. Marvin, who is a Positivist, has written The Living Past (1913) and other works, and edited a number of volumes.

MARX, Karl, economist. B. May 5, 1818 (of Jewish extraction). Ed. Bonn and Berlin Universities. In 1842 he became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, which was suppressed in the following year. He went to Paris, and there founded the famous Socialist paper Vorwdrts (1844). Being expelled from France at the instance of the Prussian Government, he spent three years at Brussels in the study of economics. In 1847 he joined Engels in founding the Communist League. After sharing in the unsuccessful German Eevo- lution of 1848, he returned to Paris, but was again expelled, and he spent the 488