Part 25 (1/2)
Poe (Edgar Allan), American poet, grandson of General Poe, who figured in the war of independence, b. Boston, 19 Jan. 1809. His mother was an actress. Early left an orphan. After publis.h.i.+ng Tamerlane and other Poems, '27, he enlisted in the United States Army, but was cas.h.i.+ered in '31. He then took to literary employment in Baltimore and wrote many stories, collected as the Tales of Mystery, Imagination, and Humor. In '45 appeared The Raven and other Poems, which proved him the most musical and dextrous of American poets. In '48 he published Eureka, a Prose Poem, which, though comparatively little known, he esteemed his greatest work. It indicates pantheistic views of the universe. His personal appearance was striking and one of his portraits is not unlike that of James Thomson. Died in Baltimore, 7 Oct. 1849.
Poey (Andres), Cuban meteorologist and Positivist of French and Spanish descent, b. Havana, 1826. Wrote in the Modern Thinker, and is author of many scientific memoirs and a popular exposition of Positivism (Paris, 1876), in which he has a chapter on Darwinism and Comtism.
Pompery (Edouard), French publicist, b. Courcelles, 1812. A follower of Fourier, he has written on Blanquism and opportunism, '79, and a Life of Voltaire, '80.
Pomponazzi (Pietro) [Lat. Pomponatius], Italian philosopher, b. Mantua, of n.o.ble family, 16 Sept. 1462. He studied at Padua, where he graduated 1487 as laureate of medicine. Next year he was appointed professor of philosophy at Padua, teaching in concurrence with Achillini. He afterwards taught the doctrines of Aristotle at Ferrara and Bologna. His treatise De Immortalitate Animae, 1516, gave great offence by denying the philosophical foundation of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The work was burnt by the hangman at Venice, and it is said Cardinal Bembo's intercession with Pope Leo X. only saved Pomponazzi from ecclesiastical procedure. Among his works is a treatise on Fate, Free Will, etc. Pomponazzi was a diminutive man, and was nicknamed ”Peretto.” He held that doubt was necessary for the development of knowledge, and left an unsullied reputation for upright conduct and sweet temper. Died at Bologna, 18 May, 1525, and was buried at Mantua, where a monument was erected to his memory.
Ponnat (de), Baron, French writer, b. about 1810. Educated by Jesuits, he became a thorough Freethinker and democrat and a friend of A. S. Morin, with whom he collaborated on the Rationaliste of Geneva. He wrote many notable articles in La Libre Pensee, Le Critique, and Le Candide, for writing in which last he was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. He published, under the anagram of De Pontan, The Cross or Death, a discourse to the bishops who a.s.sisted at the Ec.u.menical Council at Rome (Brussels, '62). His princ.i.p.al work is a history of the variations and contradictions of the Roman Church (Paris, '82). Died in 1884.
Porphyry, Greek philosoper of the New Platonic school, b. Sinia, 233 A.D. His original name was Malchus or Melech--a ”King.” He was a pupil of Longinus and perhaps of Origen. Some have supposed that he was of Jewish faith, and first embraced and then afterwards rejected Christianity. It is certain he was a man of learning and intelligence; the friend as well as the disciple of Plotinus. He wrote (in Greek) a famous work in fifteen books against the Christians, some fragments of which alone remain in the writings of his opponents. It is certain he showed acquaintance with the Jewish and Christian writings, exposed their contradictions, pointed out the dispute between Peter and Paul, and referred Daniel to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.
He wrote many other works, among which are lives of Plotinus and Pythagorus. Died at Rome about 305.
Porzio (Simone), a disciple of Pomponazzi, to whom, when lecturing at Pisa, the students cried ”What of the soul?” He frankly professed his belief that the human soul differed in no essential point from the soul of a lion or plant, and that those who thought otherwise were prompted by pity for our mean estate. These a.s.sertions are in his treatise De Mente Humana.
”Posos (Juan de),” an undiscovered author using this pen-name, expressed atheistic opinions in a book of imaginary travels, published in Dutch at Amsterdam in 1708, and translated into German at Leipsic, 1721.
Post (Amy), American reformer, b. 1803. From '28 she was a leading advocate of slavery abolition, temperance, woman's suffrage and religious reform. Died Rochester, New York, 29 Jan. 1889.
Potter (Agathon Louis de). See De Potter (A. L.)
Potter (Louis Antoine Joseph de). See De Potter (L. A. J.)
Potvin (Charles), Belgian writer b. Mons. 2 Dec. 1818, is member of the Royal Academy of Letters, and professor of the history of literature at Brussels. He wrote anonymously Poesie et Amour '58, and Rome and the Family. Under the name of ”Dom Jacobus” he has written an able work in two volumes on The Church and Morality, and also Tablets of a Freethinker. He was president of ”La Libre Pensee” of Brussels from '78 to '83, is director of the Revue de Belgique and has collaborated on the National and other papers.
Pouchet (Felix Archimede), French naturalist, b. Rouen 26 Aug. 1800. Studied medicine under Dr. Flaubert, father of the author of Mme. Bovary, and became doctor in '27. He was made professor of natural history at the Museum of Rouen, and by his experiments enriched science with many discoveries. He defended spontaneous generation and wrote many monographs and books of which the princ.i.p.al is ent.i.tled The Universe, '65. Died at Rouen, 6 Dec. 1872.
Pouchet (Henri Charles George), French naturalist, son of the proceeding, b. Rouen, 1833, made M.D. in '64, and in '79 professor of comparative anatomy in the museum of Natural History at Paris. In '80 he was decorated with the Legion of Honor. He has written on The Plurality of the Human Race, '58, and collaborated on the Siecle, and the Revue des Deux Mondes and to la Philosophie Positive.
Pouchkine (A.), see Pushkin.
Pougens (Marie Charles Joseph de), French author, a natural son of the Prince de Conti, b. Paris, 15 Aug. 1755. About the age of 24 he was blinded by small pox. He became an intimate friend of the philosophers, and, sharing their views, embraced the revolution with ardor, though it ruined his fortunes. He wrote Philosophical Researches, 1786, edited the posthumous works of D'Alembert, 1799, and worked at a dictionary of the French language. His Jocko, a tale of a monkey, exhibits his keen sympathy with animal intelligence, and in his Philosophical Letters, 1826, he gives anecdotes of Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Pechmeja, Franklin, etc. Died at Vauxbuin, near Soissons, 19 Dec. 1833.
Poulin (Paul), Belgian follower of Baron Colins and author of What is G.o.d? What is Man? a scientific solution of the religious problem (Brussels, 1865), and re-issued as G.o.d According to Science, '75, in which he maintains that man and G.o.d exclude each other, and that the only divinity is moral harmony.
Poultier D'Elmolte (Francois Martin), b. Montreuil-sur-Mer, 31 Oct. 1753. Became a Benedictine monk, but cast aside his frock at the Revolution, married, and became chief of a battalion of volunteers. Elected to the Convention he voted for the death of the King. He conducted the journal, L'Ami des lois, and became one of the Council of Ancients. Exiled in 1816, he died at Tournay in Belgium, 16 Feb. 1827. He wrote Morceaux Philosophiques in the Journal Encyclopedique; Victoire, or the Confessions of a Benedictine; Discours Decadaires, for the use of Theophilantropists, and Conjectures on the Nature and Origin of Things, Tournay, 1821.
Powell (B. F.), compiler of the Bible of Reason, or Scriptures of Ancient Moralists; published by Hetherington in 1837.
Prades (Jean Martin de), French theologian b. Castel-Sarrasin, about 1720. Brought up for the church, he nevertheless became intimate with Diderot and contributed the article Cert.i.tude to the Encyclopedie. On the 18th Nov. 1751 he presented to the Sorbonne a thesis for the doctorate, remarkable as the first open attack on Christianity by a French theologian. He maintained many propositions on the soul, the origin of society, the laws of Moses, miracles, etc., contrary to the dogmas of the Church, and compared the cures recorded in the Gospels to those attributed to Esculapius. The thesis made a great scandal. His opinions were condemned by Pope Benedict XIV., and he fled to Holland for safety. Recommended to Frederick the Great by d'Alembert he was received with favor at Berlin, and became reader to that monarch, who wrote a very anti-Christian preface to de Prades'
work on ecclesiastical history, published as Abrege de l'Histoire ecclesiastique de Fleury, Berne (Berlin) 1766. He retired to a benefice at Glogau (Silesia), given him by Frederick, and died there in 1782.
Prater (Horatio), a gentleman of some fortune who devoted himself to the propagation of Freethought ideas. Born early in the century, he wrote on the Physiology of the Blood, 1832. He published Letters to the American People, and Literary Essays, '56. Died 20 July, 1885. He left the bulk of his money to benevolent objects, and ordered a deep wound to be made in his arm to insure that he was dead.
Preda (Pietro), Italian writer of Milan, author of a work on Revelation and Reason, published at Geneva, 1865, under the pseudonym of ”Padre Pietro.”
Premontval (Andre Pierre Le Guay de), French writer, b. Charenton, 16 Feb. 1716. At nineteen years of age, while in the college of Plessis Sorbonne, he composed a work against the dogma of the Eucharist. He studied mathematics and became member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. He wrote Le Diogene de D'Alembert, or Freethoughts on Man, 1754, Panangiana Panurgica, or the false Evangelist, and Vues Philosophiques, Amst., 2 vols., 1757. He also wrote De la Theologie de L'Etre, in which he denies many of the ordinary proofs of the existence of a G.o.d. Died Berlin, 1767.
Priestley (Joseph), LL.D., English philosopher, b. Fieldhead, near Leeds, 18 March, 1733. Brought up as a Calvinist, he found his way to broad Unitarianism. Famous as a pneumatic chemist, he defended the doctrine of philosophical necessity, and in a dissertation annexed to his edition of Hartley expressed doubts of the immateriality of the sentient princ.i.p.al in man. This doctrine he forcibly supported in his Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, 1777. Through the obloquy these works produced, he lost his position as librarian to Lord Shelburne. He then removed to Birmingham, and became minister of an independent Unitarian congregation, and occupied himself on his History of the Corruptions of Christianity and History of the Early Opinions Concerning Jesus Christ, which involved him in controversy with Bishop Horsley and others. In consequence of his sympathy with the French Revolution, his house was burnt and sacked in a riot, 14 July, 1791. After this he removed to Hackney, and was finally goaded to seek an asylum in the United States, which he reached in 1794. Even in America he endured some uneasiness on account of his opinions until Jefferson became president. Died 6 Feb. 1804.