Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/92

 BEIDGES

BEISSOT

migrated to America, and has since then led the Chicago Ethical Society. He is also a Trustee of the Booth House. He has written The Ethical Movement (1911), Criticisms of Life (1913), and The Religion of Experience (1916).

BRIDGES, John Henry, M.D., Posi- tivist. B. Oct. 11, 1832. Ed. private schools, Eugby, and Oxford (Wadham College). He took his degree in 1855 and became a Fellow of Oriel, and in 1856 he gained the Arnold prize. He then studied medicine and went to practise in Australia, but his wife died, and he returned and settled in Bradford. In 1870 he was appointed metropolitan medical inspector in London. At Wadham Bridges had embraced Positivism, under the influence of Dr. Congreve, and he translated several of Comte s works and lectured frequently for the Positivists. He edited Bacon s Opus Majus (1897), and wrote several works. In 1892 he gave the Harveian Oration at the Eoyal College of Physicians. D. June 15, 1906.

BRIEUX, Eugene, French dramatist. B. Jan. 19, 1858. He devoted himself in his early years to journalism, and worked on the Patrie, the Gaulois, and the Figaro. In 1890 he produced Menage d&quot; artistes, the first of the series of realistic plays which have made him famous. He is a member of the French Academy and an officer of the Legion of Honour. Brieux s attitude towards religion is sufficiently shown in his play La Foi (1912, in English False Gods), an Egyptian drama depicting the power and obstinacy of priestcraft in face of a demand for the reform of religion.

BRINTON, Daniel Garrison, M.D., American ethnologist. B. May 13,1837. Ed. Yale, Jefferson Medical College, Paris, and Heidelberg. After some years of service as army-surgeon, he became editor of the Medical and Surgical Reporter (1867-88), professor of ethnology at the Pennsylvania Academy (1884), professor of American 111

linguistics at the University of Pennsyl vania (1886), and President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Brinton wrote a large number of works on ethnology and comparative religion. He was a Theist, but he rejected personal immortality and all &quot; crumbling theo logies &quot; (The Religious Sentiment : its Sources and Aims, 1876). D. July 31, 1899.

BRISSON, Adolphe, French writer. B. Apr. 17, 1860. He was dramatic critic to Le Temps, and he succeeded his father as editor of the Annales Politiques et Littcraires. From 1893 to 1901 he edited the Revue Illustree. Brisson, who is an officer of the Legion of Honour and Presi dent of the Association de la critique dramatique, gives many sympathetic and lively sketches of distinguished French Eationalists in his Portraits Intimes (5 vols., 1894-1900) and Les Prophetes (1903).

BRISSON, Eugene Henri, French states man. B. July 31, 1835. From practice at the Parisian bar Brisson passed to politics, and in 1870 he was appointed Deputy Mayor of Paris. In 1871 he entered Parliament, sitting among the anti-clericals of the extreme Left ; and he rose to the highest dignities except the Presidency of the Eepublic, for which he was twice a candidate. He was twice President of the Chambre (1881-85 and 1895-98), and twice Premier (1885 and 1898). A pronounced Eationalist, Brisson was very active in the secularization of the French schools and the later separation of Church and State. He was a states man of high ideals and recognized character, and he took no small part in exposing the Panama scandal. D. Apr. 14, 1912.

BRISSOT, Jacques Pierre, French re former. B. Jan. 14, 1754. Ed. Chartres. Brissot migrated to Paris and joined the Deistic school, taking a keen interest in penal reform and drastically opposing the 112