FARQUHAR
FAWCETT
able " (p. 84), which rejects Christianity and
accepts only " the unknown God." In a
letter to Mrs. Lynn Linton he congratulates
her on having made " a great step towards
the destruction of illogical creeds," and
says of his friends that " with scarcely one
exception those intellectually worth their
salt are Agnostics " (Mrs. L. Linton, by
G. S. Layard, 1901, p. 214). D. May 15,
1885.
FARQUHAR, John, philanthropist. B. 1751. Of poor Aberdeenshire parents, he took up military service in India, but, being wounded, became a very prosperous manu facturer there and a confidant of Warren Hastings. He returned to England a millionaire, but lived in such eccentric simplicity that he was often taken for a beggar. He gave away very large sums in philanthropy, and attained a remark able command of classical literature and mathematics. Farquhar offered Aberdeen 100,000 to establish a college without religious teaching, but the offer was refused. He admired Brahmanism and rejected Christianity (Biog. Diet, of Eminent Scots men}. D. July 6, 1826.
FAUCHE, Hippolyte, French orien talist. B. May 23, 1797. He devoted his attention to Sanscrit literature, and trans lated a number of the Hindu sacred books. It was his intention to translate the whole of the Maha Bharata, but only ten volumes were completed. He contributed to the Rationalist periodical, Liberte de Penser. D. Feb. 28, 1869.
FAURE, Francois Felix, sixth Presi dent of the French Republic. B. Jan. 30, 1841. Ed. Paris and England. He was apprenticed to tanning at an early age, then set up a shipbuilding business at Havre and prospered, becoming head of the Havre Chamber of Commerce. In 1881 he joined the anti-clerical body in Parliament, and in the following year he was appointed Under-Secretary for the Colonies. He was Vice-President of the 245
Chambre in 1893, Minister of Marine in
1894, and President of the Republic from
1895 to 1899. Faure was a tactful and
high-minded statesman and a good econo
mist. Except in regard to the Dreyfus
affair, which he stubbornly refused to
re-open in the hope that this would ensure
peace, he led France wisely and kept the
Church in check. He was assassinated
Feb. 16, 1899.
FAURE, Sebastien, French writer. B. 1858. Ed. Jesuit College. He entered the Jesuit novitiate, but left it in 1880 and took to business. Becoming an anarchist (of the philosophical school) as well as a Rationalist, he won great influence by the eloquence of his lectures. He founded the Journal du Peuple and wrote La douleur universelle, etc.
FAWCETT, Edgar, American poet and novelist. B. 1847. Ed. Columbia Uni versity. He took to letters and journalism, and his numerous novels and several volumes of verse were very popular in America. In his later years he lived in London. Fawcett called himself an " Ag nostic Christian," but the second word must be taken only in a moral sense. See his Agnosticism and Other Essays (1889) and Songs of Doubt and Dreams (1891). He was a warm admirer of Ingersoll (Arena, Dec., 1893). D. May 2, 1904.
FAWCETT, the Right Honourable Henry, F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L., statesman. B. Aug. 26, 1833. Ed. Queenwood College, King s College, and Cambridge (Peter- house). He entered Lincoln s Inn in 1856, but he lost his sight in 1868 and turned to political economy. In 1863 he won high repute by his Manual of Political Economy, and he was appointed professor at Cambridge. He was returned to Par liament, as Liberal member for Brighton, in 1865, and he warmly supported such reforms as the abolition of religious tests at universities, general secular education, and Indian reform. In 1880 he was
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