Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/126

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CONSTANT DE EEBECQUE


CONYBEAEE


ing year he published his first story, Almayer s Folly. In Some Reminiscences (1912) Conrad professes a mild Theism, yet says : " The ethical view of the universe involves us at last in so many cruel and

absurd contradictions that I have come

to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be ethical at all" (p. 163).

CONSTANT DE REBECQUE, Henri

Benjamin, French statesman. B. Oct. 25, 1767. Ed. Lausanne, Oxford, Erlangen, and Edinburgh Universities. He settled in France in 1795, and won repute by his political writings. He was exiled by Bona parte, and travelled with Mme. de Stiiel (embodying his experience in his novel Adolphe, 1816). After the Eestoration he was one of the leaders of the Liberal opposition in Parliament. Constant was a nominal Protestant and opposed the Voltaireans, but his work, De la religion consider ee dans sa source, ses formes, et ses developpements (5 vols., 1824-31), rejects all sacerdotalism and is Theistic. D. Dec. 8, 1830.

CONTA, Professor Basil, LL.D., Euma- nian philosopher. B. Nov. 27, 1845. Ed. Jassy and Brussels Universities. Conta was of poor parentage, and won his educa tion by his own great efforts and sacrifices. He practised law in the Court of Appeal at Jassy, and in 1873 became professor of civil law at Jassy. He endorses Mate rialism in his Theorie du fatalisme, Essai de philosophic matcrialiste, etc. See Leben und Philosophic Conta s, by J. A.Eadulescu- Pogoneanu (1902). D. 1882.

" CONWAY, Hugh." See FARGUS, F. J.

CONWAY, Moncure Daniel, D.D.,

author. B. (Virginia) Mar. 17, 1832. Ed. Fredericksburg Academy and Dickinson College. He entered the Methodist minis try in 1850, but he quickly outgrew the creed. He then graduated at Harvard Divinity School and became a Unitarian minister. He was compelled to leave 179


Virginia for befriending a fugitive slave, and he then took a church at Washington, which, in turn, he was obliged to exchange for one in Cincinnati. He was now con spicuous in the anti-slavery struggle, and was in 1863 invited to lecture in England. There he succeeded W. J. Fox at the South Place Chapel and completed the humanitarian development of that cradle of the Ethical Movement in London. He became a complete Agnostic, and his eloquent and learned discourses had a great and beneficent influence. He resigned and returned to America in 1897. Dr. Con- way s numerous writings include Demono- logy and Devil Lore (2 vols., 1879), an edition of Paine s works (4 vols., 1894-96), a Life of Paine (2 vols., 1892), Autobio graphy (2 vols., 1904), etc. D. Nov. 14, 1907.

CONWAY, Sir William Martin, M.A., F.S.A., F.E.G.S., writer and traveller. B. 1856. Ed. Eepton and Cambridge (Trinity College). He was a University Extension Lecturer 1882-85, professor of art at the Liverpool University College 1885-88, Honorary Secretary of the Art Congress 1888-90, Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge 1901-1904, and Pre sident of the Alpine Club 1902-1904. Sir Martin has climbed the Himalaya, the Alps, and the Andes, and has travelled in Spitzbergen and Tierra del Fuego. In his work, The Crowd in Peace and War (1915), he defines religion as " man s description of his ideas about the great unknown, his projection on the darkness of what he conceives that darkness to contain " (p. 214), and he rejects the Christian dogmas and revelation. He writes with equal charm and authority on painting, climbing, and the geography of little-known regions.

CONYBEARE, Frederick Cornwall,

M.A., D.D., LL.D., orientalist. B. 1856. Ed. Tonbridge School and Oxford (Univer sity College). He became a Fellow and Praelector in 1881, and a Fellow of the 180