French lawyer and statesman, son of D. F. J. Arago. B. Aug. 6, 1812. He at first turned to letters, but at an early age lie deserted literature for the bar and became a distinguished lawyer. As he fully shared the opinions of his father and uncle, he took part in the Revolution of 1848, and he afterwards joined the advanced anti-clerical group which attacked the clerical policy of the Government in the Chambre. In 1871 he was elected a member of the Provisional Government, and he sat in the National Assembly from 1871 to 1876. From the Chambre he passed in the latter year to the Senate, and from 1880 to 1894 he was French ambassador to Switzerland. D. Nov. 26 1896.
Aranda, Pedro Pablo Abaraca y Bolea, Count d', Spanish statesman. B. Dec. 18, 1718. After some years in the army, and then as ambassador to Poland, he became Governor of Valencia (1764) and President of the Council of Castile and First Minister of Spain (1765). Thoroughly imbued with the ideas of Voltaire (with whom he corresponded) and the other French humanitarians, he carried out a large number of reforms and regenerated his decaying country. He curbed the excesses of the monks, lessened the power of the Inquisition, and expelled the Jesuits (1767). The clergy drove him from office, and they repeated the intrigue when he was recalled to power in 1792. Count d'Aranda, one of the greatest and most enlightened of Spanish statesmen, was imprisoned at Granada and threatened with trial by the Inquisition, though the plot was defeated, and he lived quietly on his estate for a few years. D. Jan. 9, 1798.
Arbuthnot, Forster Fitzgerald, orientalist. B. May 21, 1833. Ed. Anhalt and Geneva. He was in the Indian Civil Service 1853-1878, and on his return to England he joined Burton in the Kama Shastra Society for the issue of unexpurgated translations of Eastern works. He initiated the Oriental Translation Fund (1891), and was a trustee of the Royal Asiatic Society. A very generous and philanthropic man, his memory is preserved in the Arbuthnot Institute at Shenley Green. He was an Agnostic (personal knowledge, and see the dedication to vol. ii of The Assemblies of Al Hariri, 1898). D. May 25, 1901.
Archer, William, M.A., dramatic critic. B. Dec. 23, 1856. Ed. Edinburgh University. After a period of journalism in Edinburgh and a short stay in Australia he settled in London in 1878. He was dramatic critic of the Figaro 1879-81, and was called to the bar (Middle Temple) in 1883. Pie continued to be dramatic critic on, in succession, the World (1884-1905), the Tribune, the Nation, and the Star. Besides his own numerous works (notably Real Conversations, 1904, and The Life, Trial, and Death of Francisco Ferrer, 1911), he has translated most of Ibsen's plays, and he has edited Ibsen's Prose Dramas (5 vols., 1890) and Collected Works (11 vols., 1906, etc.). He has also translated works of Maeterlinck, Kielland, Hauptmann, Brandes, etc. His Agnostic views are best given in his God and Mr. Wells (1918). Mr. Archer is an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association, and a fearless and powerful advocate of advanced causes. He has contributed to the R. P. A. Annual for many years.
Ardigó, Professor Roberto, Italian philosopher. B. Jan. 28, 1828. He became a Catholic priest (1851) and canon of Mantua Cathedral (1863), but a profound study of philosophy emancipated him, and he left the Church in 1870 to become the most learned and most honoured leader of the Italian Positivists. In 1881 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at Padua University, though the clergy denounced this "glorification of Atheism." Ardigo was a man of austere and lofty ideals and an original thinker. His works (Opere filosofiche, 11 vols., 1882-1912)
