A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN RATIONALISTS
Abauit, Firmin, Swiss writer. Born (France) Nov. 11, 1679. Educated Geneva. The Abauzit family, of Arabic extraction, was Protestant, and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) compelled it to fly from France to Switzerland. Firmin made brilliant progress in every branch of culture at Geneva, and he completed his education by a tour of Europe, in the course of which he won the esteem of Bayle, Newton, and many of the most distinguished men of the time. William III tried to retain him at London, but he returned to Switzerland. He refused the offer of a chair in the Academy and all paid offices, and was for fifty years honorary librarian for the city of Geneva and one of the most eminent scholars in Europe. Leibnitz and Voltaire greatly esteemed him; and Rousseau, who rarely praised anybody, inserts a remark able eulogium of Abauzit in his Nouvelle Heloise. His Deistic views are expressed in his Rèflexions impartiales sur les evangiles (1774), but his more pronounced manuscripts were burned by his heirs. There are English translations of his Miscellanies (1774) and his Essays (1823). Died March 20, 1767.
Abbe, Professor Ernst, German physicist and philanthropist. B. Jan. 23, 1840. Ed. Jena and Gottingen Universities. After a few years as assistant at Göttingen University Observatory, he began, in 1863, to teach mathematics, physics, and astronomy at Jena University, and in 1870 he was appointed professor. Eight years later he became Director of the Astronomical and Meteorological Observatories at Jena. His connection with the famous Zeiss optical works, the world-repute of which was mainly due to Abbe s discoveries, had begun in 1866. He was admitted to partnership in 1875; and in 1891, at the death of Zeiss, he became sole proprietor. Being a man of singularly high character and social idealism, Abbe then drew up one of the most generous schemes (the "Carl Zeiss Stiftung") of profit-sharing in Europe. Indeed, he virtually handed over the immense concern to the workers and the University. Up to date the University has derived more than 100,000 from the scheme. Professor Haeckel, his intimate friend, describes him as " a Monistic philosopher and social reformer, with just the same ideas and aims as the late Francisco Ferrer" (F. Ferrer, by Leonard Abbott, 1910, p. 75). Abbe was one of the greatest promoters of optical science in the second half of the nineteenth century. D. Jan. 1905.
Abbot, Francis Ellingwood, American writer. B. Nov. 6, 1836. Ed. Harvard University and Meadville Theological School. He entered the Unitarian ministry in 1863, but abandoned it five years later and founded The Index, a journal of "free religious inquiry" or "scientific theism." It was transferred to Boston in 1874, and Abbot edited it until 1880. By his Impeachment of Christianity (1872) and other works, his journal, and his numerous lectures, he rendered great service to the cause of Rationalism (on Theistic lines) in
