Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/447

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TUEPIN


TYNDALL


hearing a lecture by Turner that Joseph Priestley turned to chemistry. Turner was one of the founders of the Liverpool Academy of Art, and lectured there occa sionally. He was a gifted man, of many accomplishments, and " an Atheist " (Diet. Nat. Biog.}. In 1782 he published, under the pseudonym of "William Hammon," An Answer to Dr. Priestley s Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, in which he thoroughly refuted Priestley s Theistic arguments. The work was republished by Eichard Carlile in 1826. Turner, who was an eminent surgeon and anatomist, was a Eepublican as well as an Atheist a rare boldness for a professional man in those dark days. D. 1788 or 1789.

TURPIN, Professor Frangois Henri,

French writer. B. 1709. Turpin was at first a professor at Caen University. The district was fanatically Catholic, and he went to Paris and became a well-known figure among the philosophers. He was a great friend of Helvetius. He translated into French E. W. Montague s History of Government in the Ancient Republics (1769), and wrote a number of historical and archaeological works (chiefly La France illustrce, ou le Plutarque Franqais, 5 vols., 1777-90). D. 1799.

TYLOR, Sir Edward Burnett, D.Sc., D.C.L., F.E.S., anthropologist. B. Oct. 2, 1832. Ed. Quaker School, Grove House, Tottenham. In 1848 he entered his father s business (brass-founding) at London, but he became consumptive and was forced to abandon it. In 1855-56 he travelled in America, and he visited Mexico with Henry Christy and began to take an interest in anthropology. His early results were published in Anahuac ; or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern (1861). Four years later his Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865) laid the foundation of his reputation, and gave the first sketch of his Eationalistic theory of the origin of religion (Animism). His most important work, Primitive Culture, 821


appeared in 1871, and his more popular Anthropology in 1881. He was admitted to the Eoyal Society in 1871, and received a degree in Civil Law from Oxford in 1875. In 1883 he was appointed keeper of the University Museum at Oxford, and in 1884 reader in anthropology. In 1888 he was the first Gifford Lecturer at Aberdeen. In 1891 he was President of the Anthro pological Society, and in 1895 he became professor of anthropology at Oxford. He received an honorary degree in science from Cambridge University in 1905 and the Huxley Memorial Medal in 1907 ; and he was knighted in 19 L2. Tylor abstained from controversial writing ; but a large share of his chief works is taken up with his Eationalist view of the purely natural evolution of religion. His theory of the origin of religion is that primitive man first began to regard all things as animated, like himself, and passed from that to a belief in individual animating spirits. D. Jan. 2, 1917.

TYNDALL, John, Ph.D., LL.D., F.E.S., physicist. B. Aug. 2, 1820. Ed. Leighlin Bridge National School. Tyndall was born in Ireland of a family whose ancestors had come from England in the seventeenth century. His father was a small land owner. After a good mathematical training at the local school, he entered the Ordnance Survey of Ireland as Civil Assistant. He proved to be one of the best draughtsmen of his Department, and in 1832 he was transferred to the English Survey. At Preston he attended the Mechanics Insti tute, and enlarged his education. About this time he read Carlyle, and his orthodoxy was undermined. In 1847 he was appointed teacher of mathematics and surveying at Queenwood College. Mr. (later Sir) Edward Frankland was teaching chemistry there, and the two went together to Marburg University in 1848. Tyndall took his degree in philosophy there in 1850. He completed his studies at Berlin in 1851, and returned to Queenwood for two years as lecturer on mathematics and natural

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