The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Bowen, Francis

BOWEN, Francis, an American author, born at Charlestown, Mass., Sept. 8, 1811. He graduated at Harvard college in 1833, and during four years was instructor there in intellectual philosophy and political economy. In 1843 he

succeeded Dr. Palfrey as editor and proprietor of the “North American Review,” which he conducted till 1854. He was rejected in 1850 by the board of overseers of Harvard college as professor of history on account of his unpopular views on politics and on the Hungarian struggle for independence, but was almost unanimously confirmed in 1853 as Dr. Walker's successor in the Alford professorship of natural religion, moral philosophy, and civil polity. In 1848-'9 he delivered lectures before the Lowell institute on the application of metaphysical and ethical science to the evidences of religion (published in 1849; revised and enlarged edition, 1855); in 1850, on political economy; in 1852, on the origin and development of the English and American constitutions; and subsequently on English philosophers from Bacon to Sir William Hamilton. He supports Locke and Berkeley, and opposes Kant, Fichte, Cousin, Comte, and John Stuart Mill. Mr. Mill, in the third edition of his “Logic,” makes elaborate comments on Mr. Bowen's antagonistic views. Among his works are: an annotated edition of Virgil; a volume of “Critical Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy” (1842); an abridged edition of Dugald Stewart's “Philosophy of the Human Mind;” “Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from Magna Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789” (1854); contributions to Sparks's “Library of American Biography;” “Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, Resources, and Institutions of the American People” (1856), in which he opposes the theories of Adam Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo, as inapplicable to the United States; and a revised edition of Reeve's translation of De Tocqueville's “Democracy in America” (2 vols. 8vo, 1862). In 1872 he made an extended tour in Europe.