Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/217

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HOUGHTON
HOWE

was appointed to the staff of the University Hospital. From 1884 to 1890 he was Professor-Superintendent of the Brown Institution, and it was during these years that he carried out the important research, especially in localizing brain functions and investigating the thyroid gland, which gave him a European reputation. In 1885 he was secretary to the Royal Commission on Hydrophobia. He was admitted to the Royal Society in 1886, and was elected Surgeon to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy. In 1890 he gave the Croonian Lecture for the Royal Society; from 1891 to 1893 he was Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution; in 1892 he was President of the Medical Section of the British Association; and from 1893 to 1896 he was Professor of Pathology at University College. He was awarded the Cameron Prize of Edinburgh University in 1893, the Gold Medal of the Royal Society in 1894, and the Lannelongue Prize in 1911. Horsley was, in fact, one of the most brilliant surgeons of his time, and his hundreds of scientific papers obtained for him the honorary membership of many learned bodies. At the same time he was an ardent reformer and idealist, especially working for temperance and women suffrage. Mr. Stephen Paget records in his life (Sir Victor Horsley, 1919) that he rejected the Christian creed in his boyhood, and remained an Agnostic until he died. " If he had cared to be labelled," Mr. Paget says, "he would have written the label himself, Agnostic …… Popular theology and sham metaphysics were utterly distasteful to him " (p. 261). Altruistic to the end, Horsley volunteered for arduous service during the war, and his brilliant career was closed by heat stroke in Mesopotamia on July 16, 1916.

Houghton, Baron. See Milnes, E. M.

Houten, Samuel van, Dutch states man. B. Feb. 17, 1837. Ed. Groningen. He studied and practised law, and was in 1869 elected to the Second Chamber. In 1893 he became Minister of the Interior, and he greatly liberalized the Dutch franchise. In the same year he began to edit Vragen des Tijds. He passed to the First Chamber in 1904. His Rationalist views are best expressed in his Bijdragen tot den strijt over God, eigendom, en familie (1878).

Houtin, Albert, French writer. Houtin is one of the Modernist priests who quitted the Church, and he has since written a number of important critical works (L'Americanisme, 1903; La question biblique chez les Catholiques de France au XIX siecle, 1902; La question biblique an XX siecle, 1906; etc.). He is a Rationalist, and is now a librarian in Paris.

Hovelacque, Alexandre Abel, French philosopher. B. Nov. 14, 1843. He studied for eight years in a seminary, but he became a Rationalist and left the Church. He then studied law, comparative anatomy, and oriental languages. In 1867 he founded La revue linguistique, and, with Asseline, Mortillet, and other Rationalists, he established the Bibliothèque des sciences anthropologiques and various other series of works. He was a high authority on Zend and Sanscrit (Grammaire de la langue Zende, 1869, etc.), a Socialist member of the Chambre, and an ardent Rationalist. He published extracts from Voltaire and Diderot, and contributed to the Bibliothèque Matérialiste. D. Feb. 22, 1896.

Howe, Edgar Watson, American editor. B. May 3, 1854. Howe received only an elementary education, and entered a printing office at the age of twelve. Seven years later he owned and edited the Golden Globe. From 1877 to 1911 he owned and edited the Atchison Daily Globe. He retired in 1911, but continues to issue a little monthly (E. W. Howe's Monthly) which is delightfully independent. He says: "Religion is like an oil well—a promise of great happiness and prosperity in the future. But

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