BENNETT
BEEGSON
erected a monument over his grave.
D. Dec. 6, 1882.
BENNETT, Enoch Arnold, novelist and playwright. B. Staffordshire, May 27, 1867. Ed. Newcastle Middle School and London University. He began to study law in his father s office, and in 1889 he entered a solicitor s office in London. In 1893 he abandoned law for journalism, and from 1896 to 1900 was the editor of Woman. A Nan from the North (1898), his first no^el, opened to him a more distinguished career. His first play, Cupid and Common Sense, appeared in 1908. From 1900 to 1908 he lived at Fontainebleau. Mr. Bennett is an Honorary Associate of the E. P. A. and an Agnostic. His genial philosophy of life is best seen in The Human Machine (1908), but the general humanism of his stories must have a fine influence on his millions of readers.
BENTHAM, Jeremy, jurist and reformer. B. London, Feb. 15, 1748. Ed. by his father he began to learn Latin at four Westminster School, and Queen s College (Oxford). In later years he expressed his lively disgust of the theological atmosphere of " mendacity and insincerity," and declared these vices " the sure, and only sure, element of an English University education." He took his B.A. in his six teenth year, and M.A. in 1766. In 1767 he was called to the bar, but he was little less disgusted with the legal atmosphere, and he quitted it. In 1775 he wrote his Rationale of Punishments and Rewards, and from 1776 to 1780 he was busy on his great work, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, in which he ex pounded the utilitarian philosophy. To his zeal for the rational reform of law and prisons he joined a keen interest in political reform, the poor-law, education, the aboli tion of the oath, and other social ideals. In 1792 his father left him a large fortune, and he devoted his life to the cause of reform. In the same year the National Assembly at Paris made him a citizen of 65
France. He was known throughout
Europe as one of the most distinguished
humanitarians of the time, and he had a
profound influence on social progress and
the advance of Eationalism in England.
He was a declared Atheist, holding Chris
tianity in such contempt that in some of
his manuscripts it is called " Jug [gernaut] "
(Stephen s Utilitarians, ii, 339). His rejec
tion of all religion is fully expressed in a
little work which he wrote in collaboration
with Grote (under the pseudonym of
"Philip Beauchamp "), Analysis of the
Influence of Natural Religion on the Tem
poral Happiness of Mankind (published
1822). He was the first to design the cir
cular prison, and he continued to the end
of his life to work laboriously for reform.
D. June 6, 1832, leaving his body for the
use of science.
BERANGER, Pierre Jean de, French poet. B. Aug. 19, 1780. He had no schooling, and was apprenticed at the age of fourteen to a printer, when he learned to read and write. He settled at Paris in 1 797, and, his early poems winning some esteem, became a Secretary at the University (1809-21). The first volume of his songs appeared in 1815, and had a great success. From that date he wrote gay and unceasing satires on the clergy and reactionaries who had succeeded Napoleon, and his second volume (1821) got for him three months in prison. His fourth volume was visited by a heavier sentence, but he continued to fire the people against " the enemies of progress and freedom." After the Eevolution of 1830 he refused all offers of office, and after 1848 declined the seat in Parliament for which he was returned. He did incalcu lable work for the anti-clericals and demo crats, and at his death was granted the funeral honours of a marshal. D. July 16, 1857.
BERGSON, Professor Henri Louis,
D. es L., French philosopher. B. Paris, Oct. 18, 1859. Ed. Lycee Condorcet and Ecole Normale Superieure. He has been 66 E
