TIELE
TISSEEAND
(4 vols., 1799-1804). From 1825 onward
he composed pieces for the Dresden Court
Theatre. D. Apr. 28, 1853.
TIELE, Professor Cornelius Petrus, D.D., Dutch theologian. B. Dec. 16, 1830. Ed. Amsterdam University. Tiele entered the Protestant ministry, and from 1853 to 1872 he acted as ordinary clergyman, chiefly at Eotterdam. His sermons were noted for their liberality as well as their scholarship. From 1873 to 1877 he was Director of the Leyden Seminary, and in the latter year a chair of the history of religions was created for him at Leyden University. In 1890 he became Rector of the University. Like Kuenen and (later) van Manen, Tiele remained a Christian in the ethical, not the dogmatic, sense. He took an entirely evolutionary and naturalist view of the history of religions, and claimed only a moral superiority for Christianity. With Kuenen, with whom he co-operated in editing the Theologisch Tydschrift, he founded the Leyden school of liberal theology. His chief work, Outlines of the History of Religion (Eng. trans., 1877), was one of the best on the subject at the time, and was translated into several languages. He received honorary degrees from Dublin, Bologna, and Edinburgh Uni versities, and was a member of fifteen learned societies. His mature views are best seen in his Gifford Lectures, Elements of the Science of Religions (2 vols., 1897-99). He somewhat naively finds that the great virtue of Christianity is that it " creates ever new and higher forms," but adds that these are " ever defective because they are human " (i, 211). He is, of course, a pro nounced Theist, but he opines that the creeds have " fallen far below the level of the science and philosophy, the knowledge of the world, and the civilization of a later age" (ii, 259). D. Jan. 11, 1902.
TINDAL, Matthew, B.A., D.C.I.., lawyer and writer. B. 1657. Ed. County School and Oxford (Lincoln and Exeter Colleges). In 1678 Tindal was elected to a law-
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fellowship at All Souls . Son of a High
Church minister, he became a Roman
Catholic in the reign of James II, but in
1687 he returned to the Church of England.
He had been admitted in 1685 as an
advocate at Doctors Commons, and was
occasionally consulted by the Government
on important matters. Several pamphlets
which he published seemed to be of the
Low Church school, and in 1706 he caused
a mild sensation by issuing his Rights of the
Christian Church asserted against Romish
and all other Priests loho Claim an Indepen
dent Power over It. The clergy retorted
violently, and from that time onward libels
on the character of Tindal were frequent.
All authorities now admit that he was a
sober and honourable man. The House of
Commons ordered his book to be burned
by the hangman ; but Tindal went on, in
1730, to publish a far more drastic work,
Christianity as Old as Creation. Although
Tindal, who published it anonymously,
called himself " a Christian Deist," he now
accepted Christianity only in the ethical
sense, and severely criticized its doctrines
and mysteries. It was not a brilliant work,
but was useful to later Deists, including
Voltaire. Tindal left in manuscript a reply
to his numerous critics, but the Bishop of
London prevented the publication of this.
D. Aug. 16, 1733.
TISSERAND, Professor Francois Felix, French astronomer. B. Jan. 13, 1845. Ed. Paris. In 1866 Tisserand was appointed assistant at the Paris Observa tory, and in 1869 professor of astronomy at the Sorbonne. In 1873 he became Director of the Observatory and professor of astronomy at Toulouse University. In 1874 he went to Japan, and in 1882 to Martinique, to observe the transit of Venus for French science. From 1878 to 1892 he was head of the Paris Bureau des Longitudes and professor at the University, and in the latter year he began to teach at the Observatory. From 1884 onward he edited the Bulletin Astronomique. His Traite de mecanique celeste (4 vols., 1888-
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