Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/108

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

CAENOT


CAEOLINE


ethics and philosophy. His views coincide with those of Haeckel (cf. Sittlichkeit und Darwinismus, p. 341, etc.), and he was one of the founders of the Monistic Association. D. May, 1909.

CARNOT, Lazare Hippolyte, French statesman. B. Oct. 6, 1801. Ed. Magde burg, where his father, Count Carnot, was in exile. On his return to France he practised law, edited a Saint-Simonian journal, and entered Parliament. At the Eevolution of 1848 he became Minister of Public Instruction, and he later sat in the Legislative Assembly (1851-70), the National Assembly of 1871, and the Senate (1876). He was a resolute anti-clerical and Eepublican all his life. D. Mar. 16, 1888.

CARNOT, Count Lazare Nicolas Marguerite, French statesman, father of preceding. B. May 13, 1753. A military engineer of distinction, Carnot at once sided with the Eevolution when it broke out, and in 1791 entered the Legislative Assembly. In 1793 he was entrusted with the control of the armies, and he became a member of the Directorate. Napoleon made him Director of War Material, then Minister of War. During the Hundred Days he received the title of Count, and was Napoleon s Minister of the Interior, for which the restored monarchy exiled him. Arago tells us in his HiograpTriie de Carnot (1850) that from a strict Catholic he became a Free thinker (p. 7). D. Aug. 3, 1823.

CARNOT, Marie Francois Sadi, fourth President of the French Eepublic, eldest son of Lazare H. Carnot. B. Aug. 11, 1837. Ed. Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees. At first a civil engineer, Carnot became in 1870 Prefect of the Department of the Lower Seine, and in 1871 a member of the National Assembly. True to the Eepublican and Eationalist tradition of his family, he sat on the Left in the Chambre. In 1880 he became Minister of Public Works, and in 1885 Minister of Finance. In 1887 he was, by 143


616 out of 827 votes, elected President of the Eepublic. He was a progressive and strictly constitutional ruler, a firm anti clerical, and a man of great probity. In the height of his popularity he was assas sinated by an Italian anarchist on June 24, 1894.

CARNOT, Sadi Nicolas Leonard,

French physicist, son of Count L. N. M. Carnot. B. June 1, 1796. Ed. Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. In 1814 he entered the army as an engineer, but the revolu tionary and anti-clerical ideas he had inherited prevented his advancement. He resigned in 1828 and devoted himself to scientific studies, the brilliant promise of which was cut short by premature death. His one work, Reflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu (1824), containing what is known as " Carnot s Principle," laid the foundations of the science of thermo dynamics. D. Aug. 24, 1832.

CARO, Professor Elme, French philo sopher. B. Mar. 4, 1826. After teaching for some years in Angers, Eouen, and Eennes, Caro became professor at the Ecole Normale in 1858, and at the Sor- bonne in 1874. He was a spiritualist eclectic, in the style of Cousin. In his Idee de Dieu (1864) he rejects the belief in a personal God or personal immortality, and in his Materialisme et la Science (1868) equally combats Materialism. He was elected to the Academy in 1875. It is Caro who penned the great phrase : " Science has conducted God to its frontiers, thanking him for his provisional services." D. July 13, 1887.

CAROLINE, Queen of England. B. Mar. 1, 1683, daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. It was proposed to marry her to an Austrian Archduke, and a Jesuit was sent to instruct her in the Catholic faith, but, coached by Leibnitz, she routed the Jesuit. She married the Prince of Hanover in 1705, and reached England as Princess of Wales in 1714.

144