TEACY
TKEE
who married his sister. He sat in Parlia
ment until 1848, working energetically for
the abolition of slavery and the death j
penalty, the freedom of education, the
suppression of the hereditary peerage, and
other reforms. In 1841 he was called to
the General Council of Agriculture. He j
was a colonel of the National Guard at the i
Eevolution of 1848, and Louis Napoleon
made him Minister of Marine. He pro
tested, however, against the coup d etat of
1851, and retired to the study of scientific
agriculture, on which he wrote important
works. D. Mar. 13, 1864.
TRACY, Count Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de, French philosopher, father of the preceding. B. July 20, 1754. Ed. Strassburg University. Destutt de Tracy traced his descent from one of the families of Scottish adventurers in France in the Middle Ages, the name of which is given as Stutt, but may have been Stuart. He distinguished himself at the University, and entered the King s Musketeers, from which he passed to the regular army. He became a colonel in 1776. In 1789 he was deputy of the nobles of his province at the States General. He accepted the Eevolution, and was appointed Field Mar shal in the Eepublican army ; but the dark days of 1793 disgusted him, and he retired to the study of science. Condorcet and Cabanis [SEE] were intimate associates of his, and he shared their ideas. Im prisoned for a time as a suspect, he took up the study of philosophy, and was much influenced by Locke. He was a member of the Institut from its foundation, and he succeeded Cabanis in the Academy (1808). In 1814 he was raised to the House of Peers. De Tracy, who remained faithful all his life to his Eationalist and Eevolu- tionary principles, devoted his time to letters and philosophy after the Eestora- tion. His system (chiefly presented in his Elements d Ideologie, 4 vols., 1817-18) was purely empirical and Materialistic. He expressly said that he sought to make philosophy " a part of zoology," and
807
rejected the idea of soul. Jefferson, who-
was a friend and admirer, translated his
work into English, and strongly recom
mended it for use in American colleges.
De Tracy s chief recreation in his later
years was to have Voltaire read to him.
He was a man of fine personality and high
ideals, and detested all mysticism. D.
Mar. 9, 1836.
TRAVIS, Henry, M.D., physician and reformer. B. 1807. Dr. Travis was one of the many professional men who were drawn by Eobert Owen into his " Eational Eeligion " and other progressive associa tions. He was greatly esteemed by Owen, who made him his literary executor. He edited Eobert Owen s Journal from 1851 to 1853, contributed to the National Reformer, and wrote a number of small Eationalist books (Free Will and Law, Moral Freedom and Causation, A Manual of Social Science^ etc.). D. Feb. 4, 1884.
TREE, Sir Herbert Beerbohm, actor and writer. B. Dec. 17, 1853. Ed. Eng land and Germany. Though born in London, Tree was a son of a German, Julius Beerbohm, and he at first worked in his father s office. He drifted into amateur acting, and his success led him to adopt the stage as his profession. He made his debut at the Globe in 1877, and in a few years attained a high position in the theatrical world. In 1887 he became manager of the Comedy Theatre, and from the same year until 1896 he was manager ! of the Haymarket Theatre. In 1897 he 1 opened Her Majesty s Theatre, which he controlled until his death. He rendered special service by his frequent and splendid production of Shakespeare s plays, and he made a very successful tour in Germany in 1907 and in the United States in 1916. In his Thoughts and After- Thoughts (1913),. one of the few books he penned, Sir Herbert freely expresses his Eationalism. He believes that there will yet be but " one religion the religion of humanity " (p. 30). Speaking of Shakespeare, of whom he was, 808
