Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/438

 TONNIES

TOLLEMACHE, The Honourable Lionel Arthur, writer. B. 1838 (son of Baron Tollemache). Ed. Harrow and Oxford (Balliol). He was Balliol Scholar in 1856, and first-class Classics and honorary class in Mathematics in 1860. A friend of Charles Austin, he was at one time a prominent figure in the progressive movement in London. His Safe Studies (1884), Stones of Stumbling (1884), and Mr. Bomanes s Catechism (1887) give his Rationalist views.

TOLSTOI, Count Lew Nikolaievich,

Russian reformer. B. Aug. 28, 1828. Ed. Kazan University. From 1853 to 1856 Tolstoy served in the Crimean War. He gradually outgrew the frivolity of his class, and in 1875 he organized the peasant schools of Russia on a more effective basis. His religious crisis or &quot;conversion&quot; (from absolute scepticism to Theism) occurred in 1878-79, and aftsr that date he held that the high artistic skill, of which he had already given evidence in various stories, must have a moral purpose. From 1885 to 1895 he devoted himself to securing cheaper literature for the people in Russia. In 1891-92 he organized the relief in the area of famine. In 1895 he gave up his property and began to live more or less the life of a peasant. Apart from his novels, he constantly produced small works on religious, ethical, and social questions which, with the dramatic events of his career, made him known all over the world. Whether he is to be termed a Rationalist or no depends on one s defini tion. He scourged the Orthodox Church so severely that he was excommunicated by the Holy Synod in 1901 ; nor is there any branch of the Christian Church to which he could have belonged. He pro fessed Christianity, in other words, only in an ethical (and quite uncritical) sense, and was an anti-supernaturalist Theist, though mystic rather than Rationalistic in mood and method. The very rapid disappearance of his name after his death showed that his influence had never been so deep and 803

wide as was generally believed. D. Nov. 20, 1910.

TONE, Theobald Wolfe, B.A., LL.B., Irish Deist. B. June 20, 1763. Ed. private school and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1787 Wolfe Tone entered the Middle Temple, but he returned to Dublin to complete his legal studies, and was called to the Irish Bar in 1789. He always disliked the law, and knew little about it- He preferred politics, wrote a few pam phlets, and joined the United Irishmen. He was already a Rationalist and Repub lican, with a warm admiration of the French Revolution. In 1795 he, to escape prosecution in Ireland, went to America, and from there he sailed for France, to beg French help in the establishment of an Irish Republic. He became an adjutant- general in the French army. In 1796 ho was with the French fleet which set out for Ireland, but was driven back by storms. He returned to Ireland for the rebellion of 1798, and was taken prisoner. He attempted to commit suicide in prison. &quot;I am sorry I have been so bad an anatomist,&quot; he coolly said when he was discovered alive ; but he died of the wounds. Tone was one of the many Irishmen of the time who embraced French Deism along with French Republicanism. His Diaries (published by Barry O Brien as The Auto biography of Wolfe Tone, 1893) frequently refer to religion, and dissociate him plainly from both Catholics and Protestants. &quot; Horrible thing these religious discords,&quot; he writes (i, 114 ; see also pp. 40-45, 143, etc.). He had no religious minister when he was dying. D. Nov. 19, 1798.

TONNIES, Professor Ferdinand, Ger man sociologist. 5.1855. Tonnies occupies a chair at Kiel University. He holds a modified version of Schopenhauer s theory of reality, which he calls &quot; Critical Volun tarism.&quot; Will is the ultimate reality, and all sound knowledge is rationalistic and empirical (Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1887 ; Hobbes Leben und Lehre, 1896 ; Das 804