CLEMENS
CLIFFORD
was so relentless a parliamentary critic
that he was called " the Tiger." His motto
throughout life has been "No Compromise."
He is rather an Agnostic than a dogmatic
Materialist, and the best exposition of his
creed is in the prefaces to his La MeUe
Sociale (1895) and La Grand Pan (1896),
his finest work. All his work is sternly
anti-clerical and humanitarian. He
returned to the Chambre in 1902, became
Minister of the Interior in 1906, and Prime
Minister in 1917. Clemenceau has ren
dered almost as much service to Eation-
alism as to French civilization. All his
works drastically reject, not only Chris
tianity, but every shade of Theism ; and as
most of the chapters appeared originally in
the press, his readers are very numerous.
In the last two decades of the nineteenth
century he was one of the most powerful
and prolific journalists in France. In con
junction with Zola he took up, against the
Church, the defence of Dreyfus, and it might
almost be said that the revision of the
sentence was due to his tireless campaign
during six years. His articles on the case
number more than a thousand. An
Agnostic of the most uncompromising
order, a statesman of inflexible principles,
Clemenceau astonished the world by the
energy with which he saved France during
his Premiership (1917-20), at the close of
his eighth decade of life. See Hyndman s
Clemenceau, the Man and His Time (1919),
- md McCabe s Georges Clemenceau (1919).
CLEMENS, Samuel Langhorne
("Mark Twain"), American humorist. B. Nov. 30, 1835. Ed. Florida (Mo.) elementary school. He was in early life a compositor, then (1851) a pilot on the Mississippi. .The phrase " Mark Twain " was used in making soundings on the river, -and had previously been used as a pen- name. In successive years he became a reporter, a miner, and a humorous writer and lecturer. His first notable book was The Jumping Frog (1867), followed by The Innocents Abroad in 1869. From 1884 to .1894 he was interested in an enterprise 165
which failed, and he redeemed his debt by
a world lecturing tour. His thorough
Rationalism finds expression in his
Christian Science (1903), Eve s Diary
(1906), What is Man? (1906), and The
Mysterious Stranger (1918). He rejected
every form of religion and Theism. His
disdainful sentiments towards Christianity
are, naturally, most freely expressed in his
Letters (2 vols., 1917). It is enough to
quote one of Aug. 28, 1908 (eighteen months
before he died), in reply to a man who
asked if he would include Jesus among the
hundred greatest men. He replies Yes, and
Satan also, and more emphatically. He
thinks that " these two gentlemen " have
had more influence on a fifth of the race
for 1,500 years than all other powers com
bined ; and ninety-nine per cent, of the
influence was Satan s, who " was worth
very nearly a hundred times as much to
the business as was the influence of all the
rest of the Holy Family put together "
(ii, 817). D, Apr. 21, 1910.
CLIFFORD, Martin, Master of the Charterhouse. B. early in the 17th cent. Ed. Westminster and Cambridge (Trinity College). Clifford led an idle and adventur ous life in London until 1671, when he was appointed Master of the Charterhouse. In 1674 he published anonymously A Treatise of Humane Reason, in which he recognizes reason as the only guide in religious matters. Although he calls himself a Christian, he has some shrewd criticisms of Christianity. He seems to have been a Deist. D. Dec. 10, 1677.
CLIFFORD, Professor William
Kingdon, F.R.S., mathematician. B.
May 4, 1845. Ed. Exeter, King s College,
London, and Cambridge (Trinity College).
He was second in the mathematical tripos.
Clifford was at first a devout Anglican, but
at Cambridge he read Darwin and Spencer,
and in 1868 began to modify his creed.
He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1868,
professor of applied mathematics at Uni
versity College (London) in 1871, and Fellow
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