Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/41

 and contributions to Freethought journals, for the advancement of Rationalism in Canada. He published Travels in Faith from Tradition to Reason (1884), and other works. In 1889 he was President of the Canadian Secular Union. D. Aug., 1902.

ADAMSON, Professor Robert, Ph.D., philosopher. B. Jan. 19, 1852. Ed. Edinburgh University, where he took first-class honours in philosophy. After serving for some years as assistant to Professor Calderwood, then to A. C. Fraser, Adamson was in 1876 appointed professor of philosophy and political economy at Owen's College, Manchester. In 1893 he passed from there to the chair of logic at Aberdeen University, and from 1895 until he died he was professor of logic at Glasgow University. He is rightly described in the Cambridge History of Modern Literature as "the most learned of contemporary philosophers " (vol. xiv, p. 48), and his character was as impressive as his culture. He worked devotedly for educational and social reform. Professor Adamson was an outspoken Agnostic, and was a pure empiricist in regard to morals. In his numerous works he holds that mind and matter are merely two aspects of a Monistic reality. In an essay on "Moral! Theory and Practice" in Ethical Democracy (1900) he rules out even the most liberal notions of Deity as "intellectually unrepresentable" (p. 224), and he thinks: that "the world conquered Christianity" instead of Christianity conquering the world. There is an annual "Adamson Lecture" in his honour at Manchester University. D. Feb. 5, 1902.

ADCOCK, Arthur St. John, poet and novelist. B. Jan. 17, 1864. He definitely abandoned the law for literature in 1893, though he had before that time contributed short stories and essays to various magazines. In 1894 he published An Unfinished Martyrdom and Other Stories, and his numerous volumes since that date have won for him a considerable position in letters. He ranges from East End Idylls (1897) or Admissions and Asides (1905) to Famous Houses and Literary Shrines of London (1913) and Songs of the World-War (1916). Mr. Adcock is Acting Editor of the Bookman. He contributed an interesting article to the R.P.A. Annual for 1920.

ADICKES, Professor Erich, Ph.D., German philosopher. B. June 29, 1866. Ed. Tübingen and Berlin Universities. Adickes has been professor of philosophy at Tübingen since 1904. He had previously taught at Kiel (1898-1902) and Minister (1902-4). He is a Critical Empiricist, or moderate Kantian, and has published many important works on Kant. He was one of the prominent opponents of Professor Haeckel in Germany; but the polemic was stirred only by Haeckel's attacks on philosophy. In his Kant contra Haeckel he says: "I have no more belief than he in a personal extra-mundane God, a creation of the world by him, or an immaterial soul separated from the body" (p. 1).

ADLER, Professor Felix, Ph.D., American philosopher and founder of the American Ethical Movement. B. (Germany) Aug. 13, 1851. Ed. Berlin and Heidelberg Universities. On his return to New York, after completing his studies, young Adler was invited to succeed his father as Jewish rabbi. He was, however, a Rationalist, and refused to subscribe to the creed. In 1874 he became professor of oriental languages at Cornell University, and in 1876 he founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture, the cradle of the American Ethical Movement. Through this Society Dr. Adler has organized a great deal of social and philanthropic work in New York, and he has sat on several Government Commissions on social questions. Since 1902 he has been professor of social and political ethics at Columbia University, New York. In 1908–9 he was Roosevelt Professor at Berlin. He has