CEOCE
CUMONT
CROCE, Benedetto, Italian philosopher.
B. Feb. 26, 1866. Ed. Naples. He first
devoted himself to letters and history,
translated Erasmus, and wrote a number
of historical monographs. In later years
he has been chiefly occupied with philo
sophy, in which he has felt the influence
of Hegel. He is secretary of the Neapolitan
Historical Society, and founder and editor
of La Critica. Mr. H. Wildon Carr says in
his Philosophy of Benedetto Croce : " The
religious activity has no place in it
Eeligion is mythology" (p. 172). Croce is one of Italy s most distinguished writers on philosophy.
CROLY, David Goodman, American journalist. B. Nov. 3, 1829. Ed. New York University. Mr. Croly owned and edited the Eockford Daily Neivs 1858-59, and was then city editor, later managing editor, of the New York World (1860-72). From 1871 to 1873 he edited The Modern Thinker. He was a Positivist, and has written A Primer of Positivism (1876) and other works. D. Apr. 29, 1889.
CROMPTON, Henry, B.A., lawyer. B. Aug. 27, 1836. Ed. University College School, London, private school, Bonn, and Cambridge (Trinity College). He studied medicine, and was appointed clerk of assize on the Chester and North Wales circuit, a position he occupied for forty-three years. Crompton was an active Positivist after 1859, succeeding Congreve in London in 1899. He rendered such aid to the Trade Union Movement that he was in 1868 admitted to the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners. His chief work is Letters on Social and Political Subjects (1870). D. Mar. 15, 1904.
CROSS, Mary Ann or Marian (" George Eliot "), novelist. B. Nov. 22, 1819. Ed. boarding schools Attleborough, Nuneaton, and Coventry. Miss Evans, as she was until she married Cross late in life, had a brilliant and promising youth. She learned Greek, Latin, Italian, and German after she 169
had left school. In 1840 she published a
deeply religious poem, but her acquaintance
with the Brays [see BRAY, CHARLES] at
Coventry initiated her Eationalistic develop
ment soon afterwards. She translated
Strauss s Life of Jesus (1844-46), and in
1851 joined the staff of the Westminster
Beviciv ; and she became a prominent and
highly-esteemed figure among the great
Eationalists of her generation. It was in
1854 that she joined G. H. Lewes, wisely
disdaining a priest-made law which would
bind a man for life to an impossible wife.
At Lewes s instigation she wrote her first
story, Amos Barton (1856). In the follow
ing year her Adam Bede placed her in the
front rank of British novelists. Lewes
died in 1878, and she then married J. W.
Cross, a banker. Against the ignorant
libels of clerical writers we may put the
spontaneous tribute of Jowett, who knew
her well. She was, he said, " the gentlest,
kindest, and best of women " (Life and
Letters, ii, 144). She was an Agnostic,
like Lewes, with a leaning to Positivism.
D. Dec. 22, 1880.
CROZIER, John Beattie, M.D., LL.D., historian. B. (Canada) 1849. Ed. Gait Grammar School and Toronto University. He was University medallist and State medallist in medicine. He settled in medical practice in London in 1873, and published his first work, The Eeligion of the Future, in 1880. Grower s chief work, The History of Intellectual Development (3 vols.), was published 1897-1901. Toronto University gave him the honorary degree of LL.D. He is a Theist, but he speaks in his Last Words on Great Issues (1917) of " this pale and somewhat watery Theism of mine," which is merely a belief in "an Unchangeable Something " (p. 224).
CUMONT, Franz Yalery Marie, D.es L., Belgian archaeologist. B. Jan. 3, 1868. Ed. Brussels Athenaeum, and Ghent, Bonn, Berlin, Paris, and other universities. Cumont was professor at Ghent 1892-1910, and he is one of the most distinguished
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