Scot (Reginald), English rationalist, author of The Discoverie of Witchcraft, 1584, the first English work to question the existence of witches. It was burnt by order of King James I, and was republished in 1886. Scot died in 1599.
Scott (Thomas), English scholar, b. 28 April 1808. In early life he travelled widely, lived with Indians and had been page to Chas. X, of France. Having investigated Christianity, he in later life devoted himself to Freethought propaganda by sending scholarly pamphlets among the clergy and cultured classes. From ’62–77, he issued from Mount Pleasant, Ramsgate, over a hundred different pamphlets by Bp. Hinds, F. W. Newman, Kalisch, Lestrange, Willis, Strange, etc., most of which were given away. He issued a challenge to the Christian Evidence Society, and wrote with Sir G. W. Cox, The English Life of Jesus ’71. Altogether his publications extend to twenty volumes. Little known outside his own circle, Thomas Scott did a work which should secure him lasting honor. Died at Norwood, 30 Dec. 1878.
Seaver (Horace Holley), American journalist, b. Boston, 25 Aug. 1810. In ’37 he became a compositor on the Boston Investigator, and during Kneeland’s imprisonment took the editorship, which he continued for upwards of fifty years during which he battled strenuously for Freethought in America. His articles were always very plain and to the point. A selection of them has been published with the title Occasional Thoughts (Boston, ’88). With Mr. Mendum, he helped the erection of the Paine Memorial Hall, and won the esteem of all Freethinkers in America. Died, 21 Aug. 1889. His funeral oration was delivered by Colonel Ingersoll.
Sebille (Adolphe), French writer, who, under the pseudonym of “Dr. Fabricus,” published God, Man, and his latter end, a medico-psychological study, 1868, and Letters from a Materialist to Mgr. Dupanloup, 1868–9.
Sechenov or Setchenoff (Ivan), Russian philosopher, who, in 1863, published Psychological Studies, explaining the mind by physiology. The work made a great impression in Russia, and has been translated into French by Victor Derély, and published in ’84 with an introduction by M. G. Wyrouboff.
Secondat (Charles de). See [Montesquieu].
Seeley (John Robert), English historian and man of letters, b. London, 1834, educated at City of London School and Cambridge, where he graduated in ’57. In ’63, he was appointed Professor of Latin in London University. In ’66, appeared his Ecce Homo, a survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ, published anonymously, and which Lord Shaftesbury denounced in unmeasured terms as vomitted from the pit of hell. In ’69, he became professor of modern history at Cambridge, and has since written some important historical works as well as Natural Religion (’82). Prof. Seeley is president of the Ethical Society.
Segond (Louis August), French physician and Positivist, author of a plan of a positivist school to regenerate medicine, 1849, and of several medical works.
Seidel (Martin), Silesian Deist, of Olhau, lived at the end of the sixteenth century. He held that Jesus was not the predicted Messiah, and endeavored to propagate his opinion among the Polish Socinians. He wrote three Letters on the Messiah, The Foundations of the Christian Religion, in which he considered the quotation from the Old Testament in the new, and pointed out the errors of the latter.
Sellon (Edward), English archæologist, author of The Monolithic Temples of India; Annotations on the Sacred Writings of the Hindus, 1865, and other scarce works, privately printed.