Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/320

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OEAGE


OETMANN


French-Jewish orientalist. B. July 9, 1825. Ed. Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, and Kiel Universities. After brilliant studies in Hebrew, Arabic, Sanscrit, and Zend, Oppert, who was of German - Jewish parents, settled in France in 1847, as Germany offered no career to a Jew, and taught German at Laval. His papers on oriental inscriptions attracted the atten tion of the Institut, and in 1854 he was associated with the Government s scientific expedition to Mesopotamia. He shares with Eawlinson the prestige of finding the key to the cuneiform inscriptions, and he was one of the most successful scholars in deciphering them. In 1855-56 the French Government sent him to study the Assyrian remains in the museums of England and Germany, and nominated him professor of Sanscrit. In 1873 he was appointed pro fessor of Assyrian philology and archaeology at the College de France. His works and papers on Sanscrit, Persian, Assyrian, and Hebrew literature are very numerous and important. Oppert shed his Hebrew creed and adopted no other. D. Aug. 21, 1905.

ORAGE, Alfred Richard, editor of the New Age. B. Jan. 22, 1873. Ed. privately. Orage was trained as a teacher (certificated in 1893), and he taught under the Leeds County Council until 1905. In the follow ing year he migrated to London, and engaged in journalism. He is now pro prietor and editor of the New Age. He has written several sympathetic works on Nietzsche (chiefly Friedrich Nietzsche and the Dionysian Spirit of the Age, 1905, and Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism, 1907) and a few economic works.

ORELLI, Professor Johann Kaspar von, Swiss philologist. B. Feb. 13, 1787. Ed. Zurich and Pestalozzi s School at Yverdun. Orelli came of Italian Protes tants who had taken refuge in Switzerland. He entered the Calvinist ministry, and from 1807 to 1814 was a pastor at Bergamo. He developed Eationalist views, and left the Church for teaching. In 1819 567


he was appointed professor of eloquence and hermeneutics at the Zurich Carolinum; in 1833 professor of philology at the Zurich University, which he had helped to found. Orelli became one of the most learned and distinguished classical scholars of his time. He edited Cicero (7 vols., 1826-38), Horace (2 vols., 1837-38), and Tacitus (2 vols., 1846-47), and wrote a large number of works on his subject. The collection of Latin Inscriptions which he edited (1828) was of great importance. He remained a Eationalist, and strongly supported the appointment of Strauss, when he was compelled to leave Germany, to the chair of dogmatic theology at Zurich. D. Jan. 6, 1849.

ORENSE, Jose Maria, Marquis d Albaida, Spanish statesman. B. 1800. Of a roble and wealthy Spanish family, Orense entered the army and joined in the efforts of the Liberals to dislodge the clerical-royalist reaction which followed Waterloo. The triumph of the reactionaries drove him to England, but he returned to Spain after the death of Ferdinand VII, and was a Eepublican deputy in the Cortes. In 1848 he was expelled for taking part in a Eepublican conspiracy, and he fled to France. Expelled from there in 1851, he joined Victor Hugo in Brussels. He returned to Spain in 1854, but his splendid spirit brought upon him a fresh sentence of expulsion. After the Eevolution of 1868 the Marquis was at length free to settle in his country. He became President of the Cortes, and after the accession of Alfonso XII he was the leader of the democratic and anti-clerical opposition. D. Nov. 7, 1880.

ORTMANN, Professor Arnold Edward,

Ph.D., Sc.D., American zoologist. B. Apr. 8, 1863. Ed. Jena, Kiel, and Strass- burg Universities. Born in Magdeburg, Ortmann served his term in the German Army (1882-83) and then continued his studies. In 1890 he was appointed zoolo gist and palaeontologist to the German 568