DUNCKER
DUEUY
Eegistrar of Madras University, in 1884
Principal of Presidency College, in 1892
Director of Public Instruction, in 1894
member of the Legislative Council, and
in 1899 Vice-Chancellor of Madras Uni
versity. His Life and Letters of Herbert
Spencer (1908) is of great value, and suf
ficiently shows his adherence to the great
Eationalist s philosophy.
DUNCKER, Maximilian Wolfgang,
German historian. B. Oct. 15, 1811. Ed. Bonn and Berlin Universities. He became a teacher at Halle 1839, professor in 1842, joint editor of the Allgemeine Litteratur- zeitung in 1843, deputy in the National Assembly in 1848, professor at Tubingen in 1857, Political Councillor to the Crown Prince in 1861, Director of the Prussian State Archives in 1867, and Historio grapher of Brandenburg in 1884. The most important of his numerous historical works, Geschichte des AUertums (4 vols., 1852-57, Eng. trans, by E. Abbot), is plainly Eationalistic. D. July 21, 1886.
DUPONT, Jacob Louis, French mathe matician. B. Dec. 9, 1755. He was a priest, the Abbe de Jumeaux, who quitted the Church at the Eevolution, and sat in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. In the debates on Education he declared himself an Atheist, and pressed for the abolition of Christianity. D. 1813.
DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Pierre Samuel, French economist. B. Dec. 14, 1739. He was educated in medicine, but he turned to political economy and followed the Quesnay school. He attacked abuses with great courage, and in 1766 his oppo nents got him deprived of the editorship of Le Journal de V agriculture. He then edited the Ephemerides (1768-72), and in 1772 he went to Poland as secretary of the Council of Public Instruction. He returned in 1774, and in 1786 became State-Councillor. Dupont de Nemours accepted the Eevolution, and in 1795 he joined the Council of the Ancients, but the 229
excesses of the crowd disgusted him and he
went to America. His Physiocratie (2 vols.,
1768) gave its name to " the Physiocratie
School," while his fine and courageous
Eationalism is best seen in his Philosophie
de I univers (1796). He was a Deist, and
was not less elevated in character than
distinguished in his science. D. Aug. 6,
1817.
DUPUIS, Professor Charles Francois,
French writer. B. Oct. 26, 1742. Ed. College d Harcourt, Paris. He became, after a brilliant course of study, a Catholic priest and professor of rhetoric, but in 1770 he quitted the Church and began to study astronomy. In his Memoire sur I origine des constellations (1781) he attempts to trace nearly all religious legends to astro nomical facts. In 1787 he became pro fessor of Latin oratory at the College de France. During the Eevolution he sat in the Convention and the Council of Five Hundred, and he was for a time President of the Legislative Assembly. He further developed his theory of religion in his Origines de tous les cultes (3 vols., 1794). A man of fine character and great humanity, he saved many from the fury of the extremists. D. Sep. 29, 1809.
DURKHEIM, Professor Emile, French sociologist. B. Apr. 15, 1858. Ed. College d Epinal, Lycee Louis le Grand, and Ecole Normale Superieure. He taught philosophy at, in succession, Sens, Saint Quentin, and Troyes. In 1885 he turned to sociology. He was appointed professor of social science at Bordeaux in 1886, and he succeeded Buisson as professor of the science of education at Paris in 1902. Durkheim has of recent years attracted much attention by his theory of the influ ence of social forces in the origin of reli gions (chiefly in his Formes elementaires de la vie religieuse, 1912). He thinks religion eternal, though the creeds (which he rejects) will die.
DURUY, Professor Jean Victor,
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