Dutton (Thomas), M.A., theatrical critic, b. London, 1767. Educated by the Moravians. In 1795 he published a Vindication of the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. He translated Kotzebue’s Pizarro in Peru, 1799, and edited the Dramatic Censor, 1800, and the Monthly Theatrical Reporter, 1815.
Duvernet (Théophile Imarigeon), French writer, b. at Ambert 1730. He was brought up a Jesuit, became an Abbé, but mocked at religion. Duvernet became tutor to Saint Simon. For a political pamphlet he was imprisoned in the Bastille. While here he wrote a curious and rare romance, Les Devotions de Mme. de Bethzamooth. He wrote on Religious Intolerance, 1780, and a History of the Sorbonne, 1790, but is best known by his Life of Voltaire (1787). In 1793 he wrote a letter to the Convention, in which he declares that he renounces the religion “born in a stable between an ox and an ass.” Died in 1796.
Dyas (Richard H.), captain in the army. Author of The Upas. He resided long in Italy and translated several of the works of C. Voysey.
Eaton (Daniel Isaac), bookseller, b. about 1752, was educated at the Jesuits’ College, St. Omer. Being advised to study the Bible, he did so, with the result of discarding it as a revelation. In 1792 he was prosecuted for publishing Paine’s Rights of Man, but the prosecution fell through. He afterwards published Politics for the People, which was also prosecuted, 1793, as was his Political Dictionary, 1796. To escape punishment, he fled to America, and lived there for three years and a half. Upon returning to England, his person and property were seized. Books to the value of £2,800 were burnt, and he was imprisoned for fifteen months. He translated from Helvetius and sold at his “Rationcinatory or Magazine for Truths and Good Sense,” 8 Cornhill, in 1810, The True Sense and Meaning of the System of Nature. The Law of Nature had been previously translated by him. In ’11 he issued the first and second parts of Paine’s Age of Reason, and on 6 March, ’12, was tried before Lord Ellenborough on a charge of blasphemy for issuing the third and last part. He was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment and to stand in the pillory. The sentence evoked Shelley’s spirited Letter to Lord Ellenborough. Eaton translated and published Freret’s Preservative against Religious Prejudices, 1812, and shortly before his death, at Deptford, 22 Aug. 1814, he was again prosecuted for publishing George Houston’s Ecce Homo.
Eberhard (Johann August), German Deist, b. Halberstadt, 31 Aug. 1739, was brought up in the church, but persecuted for heresy in his New Apology for Socrates, 1772, was patronised by Frederick the Great, and appointed Professor of Philosophy at Halle, where he opposed the idealism of Kant and Fichte. He wrote a History of Philosophy, 1788. Died Halle, 7 Jan. 1809.
Eberty (Gustav), German Freethinker, b. 2 July, 1806. Author of some controversial works. Died Berlin, 10 Feb. 1887.
Echtermeyer (Ernst Theodor), German critic, b. Liebenwerda, 1805. He studied at Halle and Berlin, and founded, with A. Ruge, the Hallische Jahrbücher, which contained many Freethought articles, 1837–42. He taught at Halle and Dresden, where he died, 6 May, 1844.
Edelmann (Johann Christian), German Deist, b. Weissenfels, Saxony, 9 July, 1698; studied theology in Jena, joined the Moravians, but left them and every form of Christianity, becoming an adherent of Spinozism. His principal works are his Unschuldige Wahrheiten, 1735 (Innocent Truths), in which he argues that no religion is of importance, and Moses mit Aufgedecktem Angesicht (Moses Unmasked), 1740, an attack on the Old Testament, which, he believed, proceeded from Ezra; Die Göttlichkeit der Vernunft (The Divinity of Reason), 1741, and Christ and Belial. His works excited much controversy, and were publicly burnt at Frankfort, 9 May, 1750. Edelmann was chased from Brunswick and Hamburg, but was protected by Frederick the Great, and died at Berlin, 15 Feb. 1767. Mirabeau praised him, and Guizot calls him a “fameux esprit fort.”
Edison (Thomas Alva), American inventor, b. Milan, Ohio, 10 Feb. 1847. As a boy he sold fruit and papers at the trains. He read, however, Gibbon, Hume and other important works before he was ten. He afterwards set up a paper of his own, then became telegraph operator, studied electricity, invented electric light, the electric pen, the telephone, microphone, phonograph, etc. Edison is known to be an Agnostic and to pay no attention to religion.
Eenens (Ferdinand), Belgian writer, b. Brussels, 7 Dec. 1811. Eenens was an officer in the Belgian army, and wrote many political and anti-clerical pamphlets. He also wrote La Vérité, a work on the Christian faith, 1859; Le Paradis Terrestre, ’60, an examination of the legend of Eden, and Du Dieu Thaumaturge, ’76. He used the pen names “Le Père Nicaise,” “Nicodème Polycarpe” and “Timon III.” Died at Brussels in 1883.