MORGAN
MOEIN
deal with animal psychology, on which he
is one of the leading British authorities.
His Eationalist views are best seen in an
article in the Contemporary Review, June,
1904. He had been invited to demolish
Professor Haeckel s Riddle of the Universe,
and his response disconcerted the orthodox.
He admits only an impersonal " First
Cause," rejects personal immortality, and
thinks that " the general trend of Haeckel s
constructive scheme of scientific inter
pretation is on lines which are winning,
or have won, acceptance " (p. 776).
MORGAN, Thomas, M.D., physician and writer. B. last quarter of the seventeenth century. Of Welsh origin, Morgan first appears as a poor working lad in the house of a Somersetshire farmer. A dissenting minister gave him education, and in 1716 he entered the Presbyterian ministry. He had a chapel at Marlborough, but in 1720 he was deposed for heresy, and he took to the study of medicine and settled in practice at Bristol. In his later years he adopted Deism he called himself a " Christian Deist " and published several works of admirable boldness for the time. His Moral Philosopher (1737) is a plea for a rational ethic and a moderate attack on revelation and the supernatural. He replied to his critics in A Further Vindication of Moral Truth and Reason (1739). D. Jan. 14, 1743.
MORGAN, Sir Thomas Charles, M.D.,
F.R.C.P., physician and writer. B. 1783. Ed. Eton, the Charterhouse, and Cambridge (Peterhouse). He practised as a surgeon at London for many years, and he then accompanied the Marquis of Abercorn, as physician, to Ireland. In 1812 he was appointed physician to the Marshalsea, Dublin. Morgan spent many years abroad, and was in close friendship with the French Materialists, Bichat and Cabanis. He sought to recommend their ideas in his Sketches of the Philosophy of Life (1818) and Sketches of the Philosophy of Morals (1822). The clergy so violently assailed 531
him for his Materialism that he lost his
practice. In 1835 he was a member of the
Commission on Irish Fisheries. Morgan
was an outspoken champion of religious
liberty and tolerance. D. Aug. 28, 1843.
MORIER, The Right Honourable Sir Robert Burnett David, K.C.B., P.C., LL.D., diplomatist. B. Mar. 31, 1826. Ed. private school and Oxford (Balliol College). In 1851 he entered the Educa tion Department, but in the following year he passed to the diplomatic service. He became attache at the Vienna Embassy in 1853, second secretary at the same Embassy in 1862, and British Commissioner for the arrangement of the tariff in 1865. In the latter year he passed to Frankfort as secretary of legation, and he subsequently became charge d affaires at Stuttgart (1871), the same at Munich (1872), Minister Pleni potentiary to the King of Portugal (1876), Minister at Madrid (1881), and Minister at Petrograd (1884). Sir Robert was a most conscientious, but unconventional, diplo matist, and it is said that his genial and liberal ways annoyed Bismarck. He was created K.C.B. in 1882 and Privy Coun cillor in 1885. He had also the Grand Cross of St. Michael and St. George (1886) and the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (1887). He was a very warm friend of Jowett, and not less liberal and high- minded, as their correspondence shows (Jowett s Letters, p. 182, etc.). In 1892 (the year before Sir Robert s death) Jowett wrote him : " I fear that we are both rather tending to some sort of agnosticism " (p. 236). He was an impersonal Platonist Theist, like Jowett. D. Nov. 16, 1893.
MORIN, Andre Saturnin, French writer. B. Nov. 28, 1807. Morin practised as a lawyer until the Revolution of 1848, in which he applauded the victory over the clerical reaction. He was appointed a sub-commissary of the Republic, then a sub-Prefect. When the Empire was restored he returned to the opposition, and was for twenty years one of the most 532
