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 MOLIEEE

MOLTENO

and statesman. B. May 23, 1810. Ed. Edinburgh and Cambridge (St. John s and Trinity Colleges). He entered Parliament in 1832, and worked with the reformers. In 1835 he founded the London Eeview as an organ of the Philosophic Eadicals, and in 1836 he amalgamated it with the West minster Beview, which he purchased. He quitted Parliament, after nine years excel lent work, in 1841, but returned in 1845. In 1853 he became First Commissioner of the Board of Works in which capacity he secured the opening of Kew Gardens on Sundays and in 1855 Colonial Secretary. He brought out at his own expense and edited the works of Hobbes (16 vols., 1839-45). Moles worth was an intimate friend of Mill, Grote, and all the great Eationalists of the time, and he was very far from concealing his Agnostic senti ments. J. S. Mill says that he &quot; died a firm adherent of anti-religious opinions,&quot; and begged Mill to see that his opinions were respected in regard to any inscription on his grave (Letters of J. S. Mill, i, 187). Harriet Grote says that he &quot; repudiated the Christian mysteries, refused to attend church, and laughed at those who did&quot; (The Philosophical Radicals, 1866, p. 3). He had discarded all religious beliefs at Cambridge. A man of means, he sought earnestly all his life to further reform movements and better the lot of others, under a purely Utilitarian inspiration. D. Oct. 22, 1855.

MOLIERE, Jean Baptists Poquelin,

French poet. B. Jan. 1622. Ed. College de Clermont. Jean Baptiste Poquelin he took the name of Moliere later, when he joined the stage was the son of a royal valet. He made at college a close study of philosophy under Gassendi, and was especially fond of Lucretius. At the close of his schooling he succeeded his father as valet to the King, but in 1643 he took to the stage and became manager of a travelling company (1647-58). In the latter year his company settled at Paris, and Moliere found great favour with the King. From 515

that time he began to produce the comedies which place him among the world s greatest writers Les precieuses ridicules (1659), Don Juan (1665), Le misanthrope (1666), Tartuffe (1667), etc. In these comedies Moliere shows in creasing boldness in attacking religion. The last scene of Don Juan so plainly ridicules the idea of hell that a Christian writer of the time describes the play as &quot; a school of Atheism in which, after making a clever Atheist say the most horrible impieties, he entrusts the cause of God to a valet who says ridiculous things.&quot; The play had to be modified. In Le mis anthrope there are two lines from Lucretius (Act ii, sc. iv, 723-24). But Tartuffe is a piece of Eationalism from beginning to end, a satire on piety. Moliere first made the ridiculous hero a priest. This he was forced to alter, but the comedy was so drastic an attack on the religious who came to be called &quot; Les Tartuffes &quot; that it was proscribed for five years, and some of the clergy demanded that Moliere be burned alive. He was excommunicated (1667), and only the King s favour pro tected him from the usual dreadful punish ment. Even when he lay dying, and his wife sent for the clergy, they refused to attend; and it was only under pressure from the King that they buried him by night, in the cemetery for suicides, with curtailed ceremonies. He had died excom municated. Now the Catholic Encyclo paedia shamelessly claims him as a Catholic. For the details about his beliefs and end see Lanson s Histoire de la lit- terature franc. aise (1896, p. 520), Trollope s Life of Moliere (1905), and the admirable articles in Larousse and the Grande Encyclopedic. D. Feb. 17, 1673.

MOLTENO, Sir John Charles, K.C.M.G.,

first Premier of Cape Colony. B. June 5, 1814. Ed. private school, Ewell. The Molteno family was of Italian origin, but had long been domiciled in London. Young Molteno, after a short term of schooling, was put in a shipping office, and 516