BYELINSKY
CABANIS
for the Church and became a lay reader ;
but he lost his orthodoxy and emigrated to
New Zealand (1859), where he was later a
prosperous sheep-breeder. Keturning to
London in 1864, he applied himself to art
and letters. His chief works, Ereiohon
(1872), The Fair Haven (1873), Life and
Habit (1877), Erewhon Revisited (1901),
and The Way of all Flesh (1903), are
generally biting satires of Christianity ; but
Butler equally detested Darwinism and
science (much as his disciple, Mr. G. B.
Shaw, does), and held an isolated position.
He professed to find a mind and purpose
in the universe, but was not a Theist.
D. June 18, 1902.
BYELINSKY, Yissarion Grigorye- Yitch, Russian literary critic. B. 1810. Ed. Penza Gymnasium and Moscow University. At Moscow he joined Herzen and Bakunin, and was expelled for attack ing serfdom (1832). In 1834 he began to write his Literary Reveries. Migrating to Pefcrograd in 1839, he issued a series of brilliant literary works, in which all con ventions and hypocrisies and creeds were fiercely assailed. See Comte de Vogue, Le Boman Russe, p. 218. He emitted rebellion with volcanic glow and energy until consumption prematurely closed his career. D. 1848.
BYRON, Lord George Gordon. B. Lou- don, Jan. 22, 1788. Ed. private schools, Aberdeen Grammar School, Harrow, and Cambridge (Trinity). He embraced the Deism of the French Rationalists in his youth, and in 1806 published his first volume of poems. In 1808, after gradua ting at Cambridge and taking his seat in the House of Lords, he made the tour of the continent, and began to compose his Childe Harold. The first part (published 1812) was so successful that he turned entirely from politics to literature and became the idol of London. His conduct was irregular, but the gross calumnies of his wife, a religious woman from whom he was forced to separate, so exaggerated the 133
facts that he left England for Italy. With
out being a democrat (except in his earlier
years), he heartily attacked the tyranny of
the Holy Alliance, was an enthusiast for
liberty, and lost his life in an attempt to
assist the Greek rebels. In his earlier
years he was, as we find in his published
letters, very scornful about Christianity
and a future life. His feeling moderated
in later years, but he remained a Deist,
and to the end rejected the idea of personal
immortality. " Byron was, to the last, a
sceptic," says Moore in his authoritative
biography. In a letter of June 18, 1813,
he expressly says that he " doubted the
immortality of man " (quoted in Robert
son s Short History of Freethought, ii, 444).
See also an article by Foote in the Free
thinker (Aug. 2, 1908) amply refuting Cecil
Chesterton s claim that Byron was a
Christian. His Cain, for which he was
refused copyright, is the boldest of his
poetical expressions of his views. D. Apr.
19, 1824.
CABANIS, George Paul Sylvester, Ger man poet. B. Dec. 31, 1859. His earlier years were devoted to art- colouring, but he passed to poetry, and since 1910 he has cultivated letters only. He has written a humanist Life of Christ and many other works. Cabanis is a Monist and a great admirer of Haeckel, and has a high repu tation in Germany.
CABANIS, Pierre Jean Georges, French
medical and philosophical writer. B. June 5, 1757. Ed. College de Brives. Cabanis passed from letters to medicine, in which he graduated in 1783 ; and he wrote a series of medical works which had a profound influence in France. His philo sophy is entirely naturalistic, if not mate rialistic ; but the current statement that he described the brain as " secreting " thought is inaccurate. He wrote : " We must regard the brain as a special organ, specially destined to produce thought, just as the stomach and intestines are destined to effect digestion." In later years he
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