Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/457

 VERWORN

VICO

he was compelled to quit the post in the reaction of 1851, and became a private teacher. He was a strong opponent of the Second Empire. For a few years he edited La liberte, and in 1868 began to edit the Progres de Lyon. In 1871 he founded, at Lyons, La France Republicaine, which was suppressed, and in 1876 he founded L avant-garde at Paris. In his later years he was General Inspector of Museums and editor of L Art. He wrote many works, but his Agnostic views are best seen in his Progres intellectual dans I humanite (1862), La morale (1884), and especially Histoire naturelle des religions (2 vols., 1885 in the &quot; Bibliotheque Materialiste &quot;). Veron was an aesthetist of some authority. D. May 26, 1889.

YERWORN, Professor Max, Sc.D., Ph.D., M.D., LL.D., German physiologist. B. Nov. 4, 1863. Ed. Berlin and Jena Universities. At the end of his academic course Verworn completed his studies by research in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. He began to teach physiology at Jena in 1891, and was appointed extra ordinary professor at Jena University in 1895. In 1901 he became professor of physiology at Gottingen, and in 1910 at Bonn, where he still is. Professor Verworn is one of the most brilliant physiologists of his country. His Allgemeine Physiologie (1895) is a classic of the science ; and his many other works and papers are of great importance. He has honorary degrees from Cambridge and St. Andrews Univer sities ; and he is a member of the Gottin gen Science Society, the Moscow Imperial Society of Scientists, the Geographical Societies of Jena and Thuringia, the Buda pest Royal Society of Medicine, the Cologne Anthropological Society, the Italian Acca- demia dei Lincei, and other learned bodies. He has always been a courageous and outspoken Agnostic, and his views are&quot; plainly expressed in his Naturwissenschaft und Weltanschauung (1904), Die Frage nach den Grenzen der Erkenntniss (1908), and Entivickelung des menschlichen Geistes 841

(1912). In the Haeckel Memorial Volume (Was Wir Ernst Haeckel Verdanken, ii, 329-32) Professor Verworn explains that he discarded religion while he was a youth at college, and he pays a warm tribute to Professor Haeckel. He contributes occa sionally to the organ of the Monists.

YIARDOT, Louis, French writer. B. July 31, 1800. Ed. Dijon and Paris. Viardot was trained in law, and was called to the Bar, but he deserted the law for literature. He wrote in the Globe, National, etc., and contributed to the Rationalistic Liberte de Penser. He translated many works from the Spanish and Russian, and wrote several valued volumes on Spanish art, which he had studied in Spain. In 1841 he co-operated with George Sand in founding the Revue Independante. For some years he was Director of the Theatre Italien. Viardot travelled in nearly every country of Europe, and was a man of very wide culture. He was a member of the Spanish Academy and a Commander of the Order of Charles III. His Jtsuites juges (1857) is a very anti-clerical work ; but his Rationalism is most plainly given in his Apologie d un incredule (1869). D. May 5, 1883.

YICO, Professor Giovanni Battista,

Italian jurist and philosopher. B. June 23, 1668. Ed. Naples University. Vico had a thorough training in law, history, and philosophy, and he became tutor to the nephews of the Bishop of Ischia. In 1697 he was appointed professor of rhetoric to Naples University, where he came to be regarded as one of the first scholars of Italy at that time. In 1725 he published the book by which he is still widely known, Principii di una scienza nuova d intorno alia commune natura delle nazioni (2 vols.), one of the first sociological works in European literature. It was not only an attempt to trace natural law in the development and decay of nations, but a very clear exclusion of supernatural laws and ideas of Providence. Vico wrote also 842