Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/99

 BUECKHAEDT

BURGERS

attention both by his inventiveness and his keen study of nature. In 1875 he moved from Massachusetts to California, and it was not long before he established the experimental farms at Santa Rosa which (with his later enterprises) have spread his name all over the world. He has created countless new species of vege tables, trees, fruit, grasses, and flowers. To-day (1920) he raises more than a million plants annually. He is Special Lecturer on Evolution at Leland Stanford University, Life-Fellow of the A. A. S., Honorary Member of the Swedish and Italian Royal Agricultural Societies, etc. He describes his life-work in Luther Burbank, His Methods and Discoveries (12 vols., 1914). Burbank is as rare in character as he is in genius. He works for the good of humanity, and is idolized by those who know him. He is an Emer sonian Theist, and has a profound regard for his ethical teacher. See, especially, New Creations in Plant Life, by W. S. Harwood, 1905.

BURCKHARDT, Professor Jakob,

Swiss historian. B. May 25, 1818. Ed. Basle and Berlin. He was professor of history and of the history of art at Basle University in 1845-47, 1849-55, and 1858-93, spending the intervals in Italy in preparation of his famous works on the Italian Renaissance (Die Kultur der Renais sance in Italien, 1860, and Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien, 1867). In these and other works published during his life the learned historian reserves his personal opinions on religion, but in his posthumous Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (1905) he rejects all Churches and creeds. D. Aug. 7, 1897.

BURDACH, Professor Karl Friedrich,

German physiologist. B. June 12, 1776. Ed. Leipzig University. He was succes sively professor of physiology at Leipzig (1806), Dorpat (1811), and Konigsberg (1815), and wrote a number of important works on the science. One of these was 125

put on the Index for its Materialistic tendency. D. July 16, 1847.

BURDETT, Sir Francis, reformer. B. Jan. 25, 1770. Ed. Westminster and Oxford. He entered Parliament in 1796, and took a prominent place among the reforming Liberals. He attacked the French War, advocated parliamentary reform, and exposed the evils of prison life. On one occasion he was imprisoned in the Tower, and on another fined 2,000 for defying the reactionary authorities. Few reforms of the time did not receive his generous aid and personal advocacy. The foundation of the Birkbeck Mechanics Institution was largely due to him. Burdett was a close friend of Bentham, Place, and H. Tooke, and shared their Rationalism. He was, says Mrs. de Morgan, &quot; what in these days would be called an Agnostic &quot; (Threescore Years and Ten, p. 12). D. Jan. 23, 1844.

BURDON, William, M.A., Deist. B. 1764. Ed. Newcastle and Cambridge (Emmanuel). He was elected a Fellow of Emmanuel, but he declined to take orders and resigned (1796). Having wealth and leisure, he devoted himself to philo sophic writing and political pamphlets. His Deism is plainly expressed in his Materials for Thinking (1806). D. May 30, 1818.

BURGERS, Thomas Francis, D.D.,

President of the Transvaal Republic. B. Apr. 15, 1834. Ed. Utrecht University. On his return to South Africa he entered the ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1864 he was suspended for heresy, but he successfully appealed. &quot; His creed,&quot; says Theal, &quot; was not in unison with that of nineteen-twentieths of the people of the Republic &quot; (History of the South African Republic, 1908, iv, 400). It appears from his posthumous volume of stories (Toneelen uit ons Dorp, 1882) that he was really an Agnostic. In 1872 the Boers, says Theal, overlooked his heresies 126