(1887-96). Since 1896 he has been professor of the history of philosophy at Home. He is a brilliant lecturer and writer on philosophy, "a sort of Italian Cousin, attracted by Taine and Spencer to the positive school" (Gubernatis). His David Lazzaretti, which Renan greatly admired, is on the Index. For some years he has been on the Superior Council of Public Instruction for the Kingdom of Italy.
Basedow, Johann Bernhard, educationist. B. Sep. 11, 1723. Ed. Leipzig. He lost his place as teacher by his out spoken Deism and violent criticism of Christianity, and became an intimate friend of Goethe. Inspired by Rousseau, he worked for the reform of education in Germany and wrote on the subject. The Prince of Anhalt-Dessau embodied his ideas in a school at Dessau. D. July 25, 1790.
Bashkirtseff, Marie, Russian artist. B. Nov. 23, 1860. She belonged to a wealthy and noble Russian family, and spent her early years in France and Italy. From 1877 she studied painting in Paris under Fleury and Bastien-Lepage, and made notable progress, which was cut short by consumption. She is chiefly known by her Journal, which she began to write in her thirteenth year. In the latter part (and especially in the suppressed fragments which were published in the Revue des Reviles, Feb. and Sep., 1900) she freely expresses her scepticism. D. Oct. 31, 1884.
Baskerville, John, printer. B. Jan. 28, 1706. Baskerville was, successively, a footman, teacher, and stone cutter before he established a japanning-business, at which he made a fortune. In 1750 he took up type-founding and printing, and he became one of the most famous printers of his time. The "Baskerville Bible" (which Dibdin calls "one of the most beautifully printed books in the world") was produced in 1763. Baskerville directed that he should be buried in unconsecrated ground, and he wrote for his tomb an inscription which warns the visitor to "emancipate thy mind from the idle fears of Superstition and the wicked arts of Priesthood." D. Jan. 8, 1775.
Bastian, Professor Adolf, German anthropologist. B. June 26, 1826. Ed. Heidelberg, Berlin, Jena, Würzburg, and Prague Universities. Bastian, whom Achelis describes as "the spiritual father and founder of modern ethnology," spent a large part of his life travelling over the earth, and his observations and studies of races are recorded in no less than sixty important volumes. He visited the whole of Asia and Africa, and was President of the Berlin Geographical Society (1871-73), professor at the Berlin Museum of Anthropology, and joint editor of the Zeitschrift für Ethnologic. Ho was one of the most distinguished anthropologists of Europe, and a man of " winning uprightness of life and personal veracity," as Professor Achelis says (Adolf Bastian, 1892). That he was an Agnostic, and drastically opposed to all creeds, is very emphatically expressed in his chief work, Der Mensch in der Geschichte (3 vols., 1860). "We have," he says, " unmasked the lie that would deceive us with its mirages; we have no longer to endure the tyrannical moods of a jealous God; we no longer fear when a mighty foe shakes our protector from his heaven, to sink with him into an abyss of annihilation. The yoke is broken, and we are free…… The artificial horizon of fairy-tales and mythologies has been destroyed by science" (I, 29). Professor Achelis [see] adds, after quoting this fine passage, that it is " from the scientific point of view an entirely sound conception." D. Feb. 3, 1905.
Bastian, Professor Henry Charlton, M.A., M.D., F.L.S., F.R.S., physician. B. Apr. 26, 1837. Ed. London University College. From 1860 to 1863 he was assistant-curator at the college. He then served for two years as assistant medical officer at Broadmoor, and from 1867 to 1887 he was professor of the Principles and
