DELEYEE
DENIS
an abler Foreign Minister in Europe.
He has written a few works on foreign
politics.
DELEYRE, Alexandra, Encyclopedist. B. Jan. 6, 1720. Ed. Jesuit College. He intended to become a Jesuit, and for a time wore their habit, but he withdrew from the Society and joined the Encyclopaedists at Paris. In 1793 he was a member of the National Convention, and in 1795 of the Council of Ancients. He was also a member of the Institut, and he wrote on Bacon and Montesquieu. Deleyre pro fessed Atheism. D. Mar. 27, 1797.
DE MORGAN, Professor Augustus,
mathematician. B. June, 1806. Ed. private school and Cambridge (Trinity College). At Cambridge, where he refused to graduate on account of the theological tests, he abandoned orthodoxy and called himself an "unattached Christian." He remained throughout life a Theist, and declined to join the Unitarians. From 1828 to 1866 he was professor of mathe matics at London University. From 1843 to 1846 he was on the committee of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Know ledge. His writings on mathematics and logic are very numerous and important, and Jevons says (article " De Morgan " in Enc. Brit.) that he was even greater as a reformer of logic than as a mathematician. De Morgan is often quoted as a Spiritualist, but wrongly (see his preface to his wife s book). He merely took a sympathetic interest in it. D. Mar. 18, 1871.
DENHAM, Sir James Steuart, political economist. B. Oct. 21, 1712. Ed. North Berwick and Edinburgh University. He was a son of Sir J. Steuart, but in later life he took the name of Denham with certain estates which he inherited. In 1735 he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates, but he espoused the cause of the Pretender and was proscribed in 1745. In 1763 he was permitted to return to Scotland, and, having spent his exile in the 205
study of political economy, he published
what is regarded as the first systematic
work on that science in the English
language (Inquiry into the Principles of
Political Economy, 2 vols., 1767). Lady
Mary W. Montagu, who knew him well,
speaks of him in one of her letters (p. 510)
as an Atheist," and the most outspoken
of her letters are addressed to him.
Denham seems, however, to have been a
Deist. In his " Observations on Dr.
Beattie s Essay " (Works, 1805, vol. vi) he
accepts the bare existence of God, but is
Agnostic beyond that point. In his
" Critical Remarks on Holbach s System of
Nature" he declines to "personify" the
First Cause and rejects revelation. D.
Nov. 26, 1780.
DENIKER, Joseph, D. es So., French anthropologist. B. May 6, 1852. Ed. Astrakan and Petrograd. Deniker became an engineer, travelling all over Europe and Asia, and speaking ten languages. In 1886 he settled at Paris and graduated in science. He was for many years Librarian of the Museum d Histoire Naturelle, and wrote numerous works on botany, geo graphy, and (especially) anthropology. His chief work, Les Races et les Peuples de la Terre (1900), contains candid expressions of his Rationalism (ch. vii).
DENIS, Professor Hector, Belgian sociologist. B. Apr. 29, 1842. Ed. Brussels. Professor Denis, who taught at the Brussels University, worked with the Positivists in his earlier years, collaborating with Littre in his Philosophic Positive. In later years he was an aggressive Agnostic and Socialist. He took an active part in the Rome Congress of 1904, and in his eloquent speech said : " Positive science arrays itself against religion, destroying the myths and fables which confine humanity in ignorance and delusion " (Wilson s Trip to Rome, p. 151). He was a Socialist Member of the Brussels Muni cipal Council, and his work in practical reforms is hardly less distinguished than 206
