EAMSEY
EASPAIL
modern times. He won the Nobel Prize
in 1904, had honorary degrees from four
teen universities, and received the Davy,
Hofmann, Grosse Goldene Wilhelm IT,
Association Francaise, Elliot Cresson,
Longstaff, Barnard, Leconte, and other
medals. He was an Officer of the Legion
of Honour, and member of more than forty
Scientific Academies and other learned
bodies. Ramsay s pious biographer, Sir
W. A. Tilden, does not emphasize his
complete rejection of Christianity, but he
admits that he was an Agnostic, or wavered
between a liberal Theism and Agnosticism
(Sir William Ramsay, 1918). He quotes
a letter, of the year 1903, in which Eamsay
illustrates his attitude towards religion by
two long quotations (p. 292). One is a
thoroughly Agnostic passage from W. D.
Howells, and the other a thinly Theistic
passage (but Agnostic as to a future life)
from Jerome K. Jerome. Five years later
Ramsay wrote to a friend : " Life has been
pretty good to us perhaps I should say
God. I feel inclined to" (p. 300). A
few pages later Sir W. A. Tilden closes
his account of Ramsay s career with a
crudely orthodox Christian motto ! D.
July 23, 1916.
RAMSEY, William James, publisher. B. June 8, 1844. Ramsey joined the Secularist movement in early life, and sold literature at the London Hall of Science. Later he was manager of the Freethought Publishing Company. He established a business of his own, and published the freethinker. He was involved in the prosecution of Mr. Foote in 1882, and w T as in the following March sentenced to nine months in prison. He afterwards printed the paper, and took a keen and active interest in themovement. D. Nov. 26, 1916.
RANG, Arthur, French writer and politician. B. Dec. 20, 1831. Ed. Poitiers College and Paris University. Trained in law, Ranc was dragged into the political j whirlpool of the forties. He was im prisoned for a year (1853-54), and at the 635
close of his term returned to the study of
law. In 1856 he was again in conflict
with the authorities, and was transported
to Africa. He escaped, and for some years
taught in Switzerland. At the amnesty of
1859 he returned to France, and in 1867
he was again in prison for four months.
During the siege of Paris in 1870 Ranc
left the city in a balloon, and he was
appointed head of the police at Tours.
He was elected to the National Assembly
in 1871, but his opposition to the new
reactionaries brought upon him a fresh
prosecution. After spending six years in
Belgium, he went back to France and
entered the Chambre. He was promoted
to the Senate in 1903, and two years later
he succeeded Clemenceau as editor of the
Aurore. D. Aug. 10, 1908.
RAPISARDI, Professor Mario, Italian poet. B. Feb. 25, 1844. He is professor of literature at Cataneo University, and a poet of distinction. Rapisardi has not only rendered Lucretius, Tibullus, and Shelley in Italian verse, but he has written many volumes of poetry, including a series of philosophic poems (Palingenesi, 1868 ; Lucifero, 1877 ; Giobbe, 1884 ; and Atlan- tide, 1892), in which he deals very inde pendently with Christian ideas. Lucifero chants the victory of the devil over the Christian God. He is mystic, but entirely outside Christianity.
RASPAIL, Francois Vincent, French chemist and politician. B. Jan. 24, 1794. Ed. Catholic Seminary, Avignon. Raspail entered the lower stages of the Catholic ministry, and was professor of philosophy at the Avignon Seminary. He became a Rationalist, quitted the Church (1813), and took to lecturing on science at Paris. Equally advanced in politics, as the politi cal world was then wholly clerical, he took an active part in the Revolutions of 1830 and 1848, and was more than once im prisoned. Louis Philippe offered to admit him to the Legion of Honour, but he refused the gift at such hands. In
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