ROBERTY DE LA CEEDA
ROBINET
few, especially among self-educated men,
have attained such reputable command of so
many branches of culture.
ROBERTY DE LA CERDA, Professor
Eugene de, Russian sociologist. B. 1843. Ed. St. Petersburg, Heidelberg, and Jena Universities. Professor de Roberty settled at Paris, and associated with Littr6 and the Positivists, though he did not accept their Church in the religious sense. He was a professor at the Free University of Brussels, and later at the Paris Ecole Russe des Hautes Etudes. He wrote in the Revue de Philosophic Positiviste, and nearly all his works reflect his Positivist ideals. They were suppressed in Russia. His chief works are his Etude d economie politique (1869) and Sociologie (1880) ; but his Rationalism is best given in his L lncon- naissable, sa metaphysique, sa psychologie (1889). Osip-Lurie, the historian of Russian literature, remarks that, while Roberty is " generally called a Positivist, he is rather an Agnostic." Himself a Russian noble, Professor de Roberty in 1906 proposed to his fellow nobles at Tver that they should voluntarily surrender all their privileges. Had they followed his advice, the history of Russia would have run differently.
ROBESPIERRE, Maximilien Francois Marie Isidore de, French politician. B. May 6, 1758. Ed. College d Arras and Lycee Louis le Grand. Robespierre was the son of a lawyer, and he made a brilliant course in the study of philosophy and law, and won a number of scholarships. He practised as barrister in his native town, Arras, and made many enemies by his inflexible integrity. He was a man of con siderable culture, a member of the Arras Academy ; and two of his papers were crowned by the Royal Society of Metz and the Amiens Academy. From early years he followed the teaching of Rousseau, and impressed all by his earnestness. " That man will go far he believes what he says," Mirabeau observed, when he appeared in the States General in 1789. Marat named 669
him "the Incorruptible." Carlyle, who
misrepresents him, does not say that, as
Attorney General of the Republic, he tried
to secure the abolition of the death sentence
and other reforms. He became President
of the Convention, and got his Deism (the
cult of the Supreme Being) substituted for
the cult of Reason. Atheism, he said, was
an .aristocratic fad. His rivals united
against him, and he was guillotined July 28,
1794.
ROBIN, Professor Charles Philippe,
M.D., French anatomist. B. June 4, 1821. Ed. Paris University. In 1847 he was appointed professor of the Paris Faculty of Medicine. He was an avowed Positivist, and, in spite of his very marked ability, the clericals made strenuous efforts to dis lodge him. The students fought (literally) for him, and, in the teeth of sustained hostility, he remained and earned admission to the Academy of Medicine (1858) and Academy of Sciences (1866). In 1862 he had passed to the chair of histology, and he did magnificent work in that branch of anatomy. Clemenceau was one of his pupils. He became President of the Faculty, and his works (Dictionnaire de medicine, 1855 ; Anatomie micro scopique, 1868 ; Traite du microscope, 1871 ; etc.) were of very high authority. He collabo rated with Littre in founding the French Sociological Society in 1871, and in 1876 he was raised to the Senate. Robin never wrote on religion ; but he was so notorious an Agnostic that from 1872 to 1876 (a period of reaction at Paris) his name was struck off the list of Paris jurymen on the express ground that he did not believe in God. D. Oct. 5, 1885.
ROBINET, Jean Baptiste Rene, French writer. B. June 23, 1735. Robinet was a Jesuit priest, but he adopted Deism, left the Church, and wrote a Rationalist work entitled De la nature. It was published in Holland, anonymously, in 1776, and created a sensation in Paris. The chief thesis is eccentric that everything in the 670
