BROWNSON, ORESTES A. 



BUCniIOLTZ, REINUOLD. 81 



works, a largo number of articles on botanical 

 and physiological subjects. He ulso wrote the 



liiitanicnl part of the "Voyage de la Coquillo" 

 i. and " Enumeration des Genres des 

 1'lantrs cultiv6es au Museum d'Histoire Natu- 

 re I U-" (1*48). 



BBOWNSON, ORESTES AUGUSTUS, LL. D., 

 an American author, born at Stockbridge, Vt., 

 September 16, 1803; died in Detroit, Mich., 

 April 17, 1870. In his nineteenth year ho 

 joined the Presbyterian Church at Bullston, 

 N. Y., where ho was at the time attending 

 an academy ; but he afterward changed liis 

 vicus, and he became in 1825 a Universalist 

 minister. He preached in different villages in 

 Vermont and New York, and wrote for various 

 religious periodicals in support of his new 

 belief. His ecclesiastical position had grown 

 into disfavor with him, when, making the 

 acquaintance of Robert Owen, he was . fasci- 

 nated by schemes of social reform, and in 1828 

 lie was prominent in the formation of the 

 Working-men's party in New York, the design 

 of which was to relieve the poorer classes by 

 political organization ; but he presently de- 

 spaired of the effectiveness of this movement. 

 Afterward the writings of Dr. Channing drew 

 his attention to the Unitarians, and in 1832 he 

 became pastor of a congregation of that de- 

 nomination. In 1836 he organized in Boston 

 the " Society for Christian Union and Prog- 

 ress," of which he retained the pastorate till 

 he ceased preaching in 1843. Immediately 

 after removing to Boston ho published his 

 " New Views of Christianity, Society, and the 

 Church," remarkable for its protest against 

 Protestantism. In 1838 he established the 

 Boston Quarterly Review, of which he was 

 proprietor, and almost sole writer, during the 

 five years of its separate existence, and to 

 which he contributed largely during the first 

 year after it was merged in the Democratic 

 Retiew, of New York. It was designed not 

 to support any definite doctrine, but to awaken 

 thought on great subjects, with reference to 

 speedy and radical changes. To this end also 

 he published in 1840 i4 Charles Elwood, or the 

 Infidel converted," a philosophico-religious 

 treatise, in the form of a novel. In 1844 he 

 entered the Roman Catholic communion, to 

 \\liirhhe afterward remained attached. The 

 method which he adopted in his philosophical 

 system is the distinction between intuition 

 (direct perception) and reflection (indirect or 

 eflex knowledge). The mind is unconsciously 

 ituitive; it does not, in intuition, know that 

 it has intuition of this or that truth, because as 

 jn as it knows or is conscious of the intui- 

 tion it has reflex knowledge. Reflection can 

 mt.-iin nothing which is not first in intuition. 

 In order to reflect on that which we know in- 

 tuitively, we must have some sensible sign by 

 which the mind may apprehend or take hold 

 of it. Such a sign is language, both in the 

 ordinary and figurative sense of the word, 

 rhich thus holds in his metaphysics a place 

 VOL. xvi. 6 A 



corresponding to that which tradition hold in 

 his religious system. The knowledge of God, 

 he maintained, is intuitive. The ideal element 

 of every intellectual act is God creating creat- 

 ures, ens creat exiatentias. The later publi- 

 cations of Mr. Brownson are "The Spirit- 

 Rapper" (1854), "The Convert, or Leaven 

 from my Experience " (1857), and " The Amer- 

 ican Republic" (1865). From 1844 he con- 

 ducted almost single-handed, in Boston and 

 New York, Brownsori 1 * Quarterly Iteciew, de- 

 voted especially to the defense of Roman 

 Catholic doctrines, but also discussing politics 

 and literature. This periodical was suspended 

 in 1864, and revived in 1873, and continued to 

 the close of 1875. He was invited by Dr. John 

 II. Newman and others to accept a chair in 

 the new university in Dublin, but he preferred 

 to continue his labors in his native country. 

 Translations of several of his works and essays 

 have been published in Europe, where he is 

 probably better known and appreciated than in 

 this country. 



BUCHHOLTZ, REINHOLD, a German natu- 

 ralist, born in 1836 ; died April 17, 1876. Ik- 

 received his early education in the Gymnasium 

 of Konigsberg, and afterward in the Joachims- 

 thai Gymnasium in Berlin. He then studied 

 medicine as his profession, and natural history, 

 in the Universities of Berlin and Greifswalde, 

 but zoology was his favorite study. After 

 graduating at Greifswalde, he settled there as 

 practising physician, but soon went to Italy in 

 order to make in Genoa and Naples thorough 

 studies on the different animals inhabiting the 

 sea. Although he had to struggle with great 

 embarrassments, he was entirely successful, 

 bringing home with him some valuable speci- 

 mens of the animals of the Mediterranean. 

 He then took part in the North -Pole Expe- 

 dition of the Hansa, sharing all the adventures 

 and privations of that ill-fated vessel. The loss 

 of his collections and instruments on board of 

 the Hansa affected him so much that in a fit 

 of insanity he left his companions on the coast 

 of Greenland. He was found among the ice- 

 bergs, almost frozen, and was brought home by 

 the mate of the Hansa. He was placed in an 

 asylum, where he was cured in a comparative- 

 ly short time, so that he soon again resumed 

 his studies. He now wrote several articles 

 about the expedition of the Hansa, and was 

 soon after appointed professor in the Univer- 

 sity of Greifswalde. In 1872, in company with 

 two young physicians, he went to the west 

 coast of Africa to explore the mouths of the 

 Niger. One of his companions died of yellow 

 fever, while Buchholtz returned to Greifs- 

 walde in 1875, after having passed through a 

 shipwreck on the Madeira Islands, and various 

 other dangers. In 1876 he was appointed 

 ordinary professor at Greifswalde, in recog- 

 nition of his services. But the dangers and 

 privations of his travels had been too much 

 for him, and had completely undermined his 

 health. 



