Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/730

 706 L I T L I T of July 1848 he took a keen interest, and himself took part in the repression of the extreme republican party in June 1849, under the banner of order. His essays, con tributed during this period to the National, were collected together and published under the title of Conservation, Revolution, et Positivisme in 1852, and show, not only a lively faith in a good time coming, but a thorough accept ance of all the doctrines propounded by Comte. However, during the later years of his master s life, he began to perceive that he could not wholly accept all the dogmas or the more mystic ideas of his friend and master, but he studiously concealed his differences of opinion almost from himself, and Comte failed to perceive that his pupil had outgrown him, as he himself had outgrown his master Saint-Simon. Comte s death in 1858 freed Littre&quot; from any fear of embittering his master s later years, and he published his own ideas in his Paroles de la Philosophic Positive in 1859, and at still greater length in his work in Auguste Comte et la Philosophic positive in 1863. In this book he traces the origin of Comte s ideas through Turgot, Kant, and Saint-Simon, then eulogizes Comte s own life, his method of philosophy, his great services to the cause, and the effect of his works, and finally proceeds to show where he himself differs from him. He approved wholly of Comte s philosophy, his great laws of society, and his philosophical method, which indeed he defended warmly against J. S. Mill, but declared that, while he believed in a positivist philosophy, he did not believe in a religion of humanity. In the year 1863, after completing his Hippo crates and his Pliny, he set to work on his great French dictionary, bringing to the task an unexampled know ledge of old French, of modern and classical languages, and of modern philology, which were to make his dictionary unique in its interest and accuracy. In the same year he was proposed for the Acade&quot;mie Franchise, but rejected, owing to the opposition of the fiery bishop of Orleans, who denounced him as the chief of the French materialists. He also at this time started with M. Wyrouboff the PhilosopMe Positive, a review which was to enibody the views of modern positivists, and to which he largely con tributed. His life was thus absorbed in literary work, and flowed quietly on, till the overthrow of the empire called on him to take a part in politics. He felt himself too old to undergo the privations of the siege of Paris, and retired with his family to Britanny, whence he was summoned by M. Gambetta to Bordeaux, to lecture on history, and thence to Versailles to take his seat in the senate to which he had been chosen by the department of the Seine. In December 1871 he was elected a member of the Academic Frangaise in spite of the renewed opposition of the Mgr. Dupanloup, bishop of Orleans, who resigned his seat rather than receive him. His dictionary was completed in 1873, and he lived on full of years and honours, for in 1874 he was elected a life senator. The most notable of his pro ductions in these latter years were his political papers attacking and unveiling the confederacy of the Orleanists and legitimists, and in favour of the republic, his republication of many of his old articles and books, among others the Conservation, Revolution, et Positivisme of 1852 (which he reprinted word for word, appending a formal, categorical renunciation of many of the Comtist doctrines therein contained), and a little tract Pour la derniere fois, in which he maintained his unalterable belief in materialism. When it became obvious that the old man could not live much longer, his wife and daughter, who had always been fervent Catholics, strove to convert him to their religion. He had long_ interviews with Pere Mille&quot;riot, a celebrated controversialist, and was much grieved at his death; but it is hardly probable he would have ever been really converted. Nevertheless, when on the point of death, his wife had him baptized, and his funeral was conducted with the rites of the Catholic Church. He died June 2, 1881. It is almost impossible to characterize the varied learning and immense intellectual activity of Littrd As a philo sopher he had popularized and sifted the ideas of Comte, and had succeeded Comte as Comte succeeded Turgot, Kant, and Saint-Simon ; as a lexicographer he has been compared to Johnson, though his work is as far ahead of Johnson s as the philological knowledge of the 19th century is in advance of that of the 18th ; and as a man of almost universal knowledge, and a writer on every sort of subject, from barbarian learning and modern science to epic poetry and the military genius of Napoleon, he remains unrivalled, even in a country which can boast of Diderot and Comte. It would take too much space to give a complete list of all Littre s voluminous works, but the following are those of greatest import ance : his editions of Hippocrates, 1839-61, and of Pliny s Natural History, 1848-50 ; his translation of Strauss s Vie de Jesus, 1839- 40, and Miiller s Manuel de Physiologic, 1851 ; his edition of the works of Armand Carrel, with notes, 1854-58 ; the Histoire de la langue franqaise, a collection of magazine articles, 1862 ; and his Dictimmaire de la langue fran&amp;lt;;aise, 1863-72. In the domain of science must be noted his edition, with Charles Robin, of Nysten s Dictionnaire de medecine, de chirurgie, &c., 1855 ; in that of philo sophy, his Analyse raisonnee du cours de philosophic positive de M. A. Comte, 1845 ; Application de la Philosophic positive au Gouvernc- ment, 1849; Conservation, Revolution, et Positivisme, 1852 (2d edition with supplement, 1879) ; Paroles de la Philosophic positive, 1859 ; Auguste Comte et la Philosophic positive, 1863 ; La Science au point de vue philosophique, 1873 ; Fragments de philosophic et de sociologie contcmporainc, 1876 ; and his most interesting miscellaneous works, his fitudcs et Glanurcs, 1880 ; La Veriti sur la mort d Alcxandrc le Grand, 1865 ; Etudes sur Us barbares et le moyen dge, 1867 ; Mede cine et Medecins, 1871 ; Litterature et Histoire, 1875 ; and Discours de Picccption a I Academie francaise, 1873. For his life consult Sainte-Beuvo s notice, 1862, and the nume rous articles published after his death in the newspapers and reviews, of which the best are the notices of M. Durand-Greville in the Nouvelle Revue of August 1881, of M. Caso in the Revue des Deux Mondes, and of M. Frederic Godefroy in the Lcttres chri- ticnncs. (H. M. S.) LITURGY. The word &quot; Liturgy &quot; technically denotes the &quot; Order for the Celebration and Administration of the Eucharist.&quot; It has come to be used in a more popular sense to denote any or all of the various services of the Christian church, whether contained in separate volumes or bound up together in the form of a Book of Common Prayer. We propose to treat of &quot; the liturgy &quot; chiefly, but not exclusively, in the former and stricter sense, and, without further discussion of the use of the word in Biblical or patristic literature, and without entering into various questions with reference to their origin, growth, first committal to writing, &c., to give our readers some account of the principal liturgies which exist, or have existed, in the Christian church. There are five main families or groups of liturgies, three of them Eastern in origin and use, one Eastern in origin but Western in use, one Western both in origin and use. They are known either by the names of the apostles with whom they are traditionally connected, or by the names of the countries or cities in which they are known or believed to have been once or always in use. GROUP I. St James, West Syrian, Jerusalem. The prin cipal liturgies to be enumerated under this group are the Clementine, so called from being found in the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions, which have been erroneously referred to St Clement, first bishop of Rome (lib. viii. 10-15); the Greek and Syriac liturgies of St James ; the Greek liturgies of St Basil and St Chrysostom ; the Armenian liturgy of St Gregory the Illuminator, first patriarch of Armenia; a large number of later Syriac liturgies springing from the Syriac liturgy of St James. Of these liturgies, that of St Chrysostom is used now by the Orthodox Eastern Church, except on the first five Sundays in Lent, Thursday and Saturday in Holy Week,