BUCHANAN
BUEN Y DEL COS
Stoics, and was well acquainted with
Greek science as it became known to
Europe through the Arabs and during the
Renaissance. He adopted the Copernican
theory. His philosophy was Pantheistic
and far in advance of that of any other
thinker of the time. In 1592 he returned
to Italy and was arrested by the Inquisition.
After seven years in prison he was burned
at the stake. The modern Romans have
redeemed the stain by erecting a statue to
him in the Campo dei Fiori (June 9, 1889)
and issuing his works at the public expense
(1879-91). D. Feb. 17, 1600.
BUCHANAN, Robert, Owenite. B. 1813. Buchanan gave up a position as schoolmaster to become an Owenite lec turer, and worked devotedly in the north | of England. Among other works, he pub lished A Concise History of Modern Priest craft (1840). He contributed to the Chartist Press, and after the decline of Owenism he edited a journal at Glasgow. D. Mar. 4, 1866.
BUCHANAN, Robert, poet and novelist, son of the preceding. B. Aug. 18, 1841. Ed. private schools and Glasgow Academy, High School, and University. Migrating to London, he applied himself to journalism and letters, with little success for many years. His Idylls and Legends of Inverburn (1865) and London Poems (1866) inaugu rated a more successful period, and his novels and dramas were greatly esteemed. He was, however, improvident, and died in want. " He was loyal throughout life to the anti-religious tradition in which he was bred " (Diet. Nat. Biog.). D. June 10, 1901.
BUCHNER, Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig, M.D., author of Force and Matter. B. Mar. 28, 1824. Ed. Giessen, Strassburg, Wiirzburg, and Vienna Universities. Dr. Biichner was a private teacher of medicine at Tubingen University when, in 1855, he published his famous work, Kraft und Stoff (Force and Matter). He was deprived of 121
his position, and he took up medical
practice at Darmstadt, occasionally pub
lishing further scientific and Rationalist
works. He did not profess Materialism,
but Monism (Last Words on Materialism,
Eng. trans. 1901, p. 273). He was a man
of marked poetical and idealist nature, and
in 1885 published a volume of verse entitled
The Neio Hamlet. D. May 1, 1899.
BUCHNER, Professor Alexander,
German writer, brother of Ludwig Biichner. B. Oct. 25, 1827. Ed. Zurich University. He taught philosophy at Zurich, but in 1857 he entered the service of France, and in 1862 became professor of foreign literature at Caen University. Biichner was a high authority on the English poets, and wrote a History of English Poetry as well as works on Shakespeare, Chatterton, Heine, etc. In a preface to the English trans lation of his brother s essays, Last Words on Materialism (1901), he genially expresses his own Rationalism.
BUCKLE, Thomas, historian. B. Nov. 24, 1821. Ed. privately. At the age of seventeen he entered his father s ship ping business, but the death of his father in the following year gave him means to travel and study. Gifted with a phenomenal memory and great diligence, he devoted fourteen years to gathering the material of his History of Civilization, the first volume of which appeared in 1856 and was an immediate success. Buckle read nine teen languages, and was one of the first chess-players of Europe. In 1859 he warmly attacked Sir J. Coleridge for his severe sentence on Pooley for blasphemy. The second volume of his History appeared in 1861, and was followed by a few other works. Helen Taylor published a collected edition of his works in 1872, in three volumes. He was a Theist, and admitted the idea of personal immortality, but was not a Christian. D. May 29, 1862.
BUEN Y DEL COS, Professor Odon de,
Spanish geographer. B. Nov. 18, 1863. 122
