COLLIN
COMBE
COLLIN, Professor Christen Christian
Dreyer, Norwegian writer. B. Nov. 21,
1857. Ed. Tromso, and in England and
France. In 1895 he was appointed pro
fessor of European literature at Christiania,
and he is a member of the historical-philo
sophical faculty of that university. He
has written a large number of works of
literary criticism (chiefly B. Bjornson,
2 vols., 1907), and has co-operated in the
Ethical Movement.
COLLINS, Anthony, Deist. B June 2 1 , 1676. Ed. Eton and Cambridge (King s College). He became a friend of Locke and developed Locke s principles into Deism. In his Essay Concerning the Use of Reason (1707), Discourse of Freethinking (1713), and Discourse on the Grounds and Beasons of the Christian Religion (1724), he gradually deploys a stringent criticism of Christianity. Collins was a country gentleman of high character and a great force in early Eationalism. D. Dec. 13, 1729.
COLLINS, Professor John Churton,
LL.D., literary critic. B. Mar. 26, 1848. Ed. Chester, Birmingham (King Edward s School), and Oxford (Balliol). He rejected the orthodox creed in his youth, and was, mainly because he refused to enter the Church, disinherited by his uncle. He turned to teaching and journalism, and in 1874 opened a brilliant literary career with a work on Sir Joshua Eeynolds. Among his works are sympathetic studies of Bolingbroke and Voltaire. In 1904 he was appointed professor of English literature at Birmingham University. In the memoir by his son, which is prefixed to The Life and Memoirs of J. C. Collins (1912, p. x ; see also p. 230), it is stated that he was a non-Christian Theist and sceptical about a future life, as one would gather from his genial treatment of the great English and French Deists. D. Sep. 12, 1908.
COLMAN, Lucy, American reformer. B. July 26, 1817. Mrs. Colman, a teacher, was one of the brave band of American 173
women, mostly Eationalists, who fought
for woman s right to take public part in the
campaign against slavery and public life
generally. She was an outspoken Eation-
alist, contributing to the Boston Investi
gator and the New York Truthseeker. See
her Life of a Reformer of Fifty Years. She
had been for some years a Spiritualist, but
she outgrew this and became an Agnostic.
COMAZZI, Count Giovanni Battista,
Italian writer. The details of Comazzi s life seem to be unknown, but, besides a few other works (written about the year 1680), he published The Morals of Princes (Eng. trans. 1729), a commentary on the lives of the Eoman Emperors, with heterodox reflections.
COMBE, Andrew, physiologist. B. Oct. 27, 1797. Ed. Edinburgh High School and University. He completed his studies of medicine and Surgery at Paris and in Switzerland, and adopted phrenology, joining his brother George in editing The Phreno logical Journal. Combe had a very success ful practice at Edinburgh, and in 1836 he was appointed physician to the King of Belgium. His Physiology Applied to Health and Education (1834) had a wide circulation. He was, like his brother, a Theist. D. Aug. 9, 1847.
COMBE, George, phrenologist. B. Oct. 21, 1788. Ed. Edinburgh High School and University. He became a writer s clerk, and in 1812 a writer. In 1815 Spurzheim lectured on phrenology at Edin burgh, and Combe became its chief British exponent. He founded the Phrenological Society in 1820 and the Phrenological Journal in 1821. His Essay on the Con stitution of Man (1828) had a remarkable circulation, and was heatedly assailed by the clergy. Phrenology seemed to him of great social and educational importance. He was a Theist, but rejected the idea of personal immortality (see his Relations between Science and Religion, 1857). D. Aug. 14, 1858.
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