Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ARNOULD
ASHURST

and was a member of the Eiksdag (Swedish Parliament) from 1882 to 1887. For his splendid work in the cause of peace he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908; and with characteristic unselfishness he applied the money to the cause. He founded the Swedish Society for Peace and Arbitration. There is an English translation of his Pax Mundi (1892). Arnoldson was a devoted Rationalist, and worked just as energetically against Churches as against armies. D. Feb. 20, 1916.

Arnould, Arthur, French novelist. B. April 7, 1833. Ed. Paris. Arnould, author of Bèrenger (2 vols., 1864), Histoire de l'Inquisition (1869), etc., was one of the most fiery critics of the clergy under Napoleon III, and was prosecuted several, times. He was a member of the Commune in 1871, and wrote, in three volumes, one of the most valuable histories of it. It is aggressively Rationalist on every page of the three volumes. He wrote also a large number of novels and dramas.

Arnould, Victor, Belgian lawyer. B. Nov. 7, 1838. Ed. Liège University. He practised at the Brussels Court of Appeal, edited La Liberté (1868-73), and con tributed to the Rationalistic periodicals of France and Belgium. Arnould was President of the International Freethought Federation (1875-78 and 1887-88), and was for some years Member of Parliament (in the anti-clerical group). He published a number of Rationalist works. D. Jan. 17, 1894.

Arouet, François Marie. See Voltaire.

Arrhenius, Professor Svante August, Swedish chemist and Nobel Prize winner. B. Feb. 19, 1859. Ed. Upsala University. He taught at Upsala from 1884 to 1886, and then spent three years at various universities under the leading chemists of Germany and Holland. In 1891 he was appointed professor of physics at Stockholm University. In 1903 he won the Nobel Prize for chemical research, and in 1905 he became Director of the Nobel Physico-Chemical Institute. Arrhenius discovered the process of electrolytic dissociation after years of research, and is in the first rank of his science. His works show a remark able range of knowledge and speculative independence. Two of them (Worlds in the Making, 1908, and The Life of the Universe, 1909) have appeared in English. He holds that "conceptions of an all-embracing Nature and of freedom and manhood advance and recede together" (The Life of the Univ., p. 261). He is a Monist, and contributes to the journal of the German Monistenbund.

Arriaga, Manoel Jose d', LL.D., first President of the Portuguese Republic. B. July 8, 1839. Ed. Coimbra University. Through his mother he traced his descent from the royal houses of Castile and France, but at the university lie adopted Rationalist and Republican views, and he was disinherited by his father. King Louis offered him the position of tutor to the royal princes, but lie refused the bribe. He was a brilliant lawyer and speaker, a very versatile and prolific writer. Republican Deputy for Funchal 1882-84, and for Lisbon 1890-92, he was put forward by the moderate Republicans for the Presidency in 1911, and was elected on Aug. 24. He held the office for a full term of four years, and initiated a long series of progressive and anti-clerical measures. D. Mar. 5, 1917.

Ashurst, William Henry, reformer. B. Feb. 11, 1792. He was at an early age placed in a solicitor's office at London, and he won his articles and became an eminent solicitor. A friend of R. Owen, Holyoake, Mazzini, and other reformers, he shared their enthusiasm and generously aided all who were persecuted. He it was who supplied the funds and the labour for securing Rowland Hill's scheme of postal reform. In his youth he had joined the

31
32