BUCHEZ, PHILIPPE JOSEPH BENJAMIN (1796-1865), French author and politician, was born on the 31st of March 1796 at Matagne-la-Petite, now in Belgium, then in the French department of the Ardennes. He finished his general education in Paris, and afterwards applied himself to the study of natural science and medicine. In 1821 he co-operated with Saint-Amand Bazard and others in founding a secret association, modelled on that of the Italian Carbonari, with the object of organizing a general armed rising against the government. The organization spread rapidly and widely, and displayed itself in repeated attempts at revolution. In one of these attempts, the affair at Belfort, Buchez was gravely compromised, although the jury which tried him did not find the evidence sufficient to warrant his condemnation. In 1825 he graduated in medicine, and soon after he published with Ulisse Trélat a Précis élémentaire d'hygiène. About the same time he became a member of the Saint-Simonian Society, presided over by Bazard, Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, and Olinde Rodrigues, and contributed to its organ, the Producteur. He left it in consequence of aversion to the strange religious ideas developed by its "Supreme Father," Enfantin, and began to elaborate what he regarded as a Christian socialism. For the exposition and advocacy of his principles he founded a periodical called L'Européen. In 1833 he published an Introduction à la science de l'histoire, which was received with considerable favour (2nd ed., improved and enlarged, 2 vols., 1842). Notwithstanding its prolixity, this is an interesting work. The part which treats of the aim, foundation and methods of the science of history is valuable; but what is most distinctive in Buchez's theory—the division of historical development into four great epochs originated by four universal revelations, of each epoch into three periods corresponding to desire, reasoning and performance, and of each of these periods into a theoretical and practical age—is merely ingenious (see Flint's Philosophy of History in Europe, i. 242-252). Buchez next edited, along with M. Roux-Lavergne (1802-1874), the Histoire parlementaire de la Révolution française (1833-1838; 40 vols.). This vast and conscientious publication is a valuable store of material for the early periods of the first French Revolution. There is a review of it by Carlyle (Miscellanies), the first two parts of whose own history of the French Revolution are mainly drawn from it. The editors worked under the inspiration of a strong admiration of the principles of Robespierre and the Jacobins, and in the belief that the French Revolution was an attempt to realize Christianity. In the Essai d'un traité complet de philosophie au point de vue du Catholicisme et du progrès (1839-1840) Buchez endeavoured to co-ordinate in a single system the political, moral, religious and natural phenomena of existence. Denying the possibility of innate ideas, he asserted that morality comes by revelation, and is therefore not only certain, but the only real certainty.
It was partly owing to the reputation which he had acquired by these publications, but still more owing to his connexion with the National newspaper, and with the secret societies hostile to the government of Louis Philippe, that he was raised, by the Revolution of 1848, to the presidency of the Constituent Assembly. He speedily showed that he was not possessed of the qualities needed in a situation so difficult and in days so tempestuous. He retained the position only for a very short time. After the dissolution of the assembly he was not re-elected. Thrown back into private life, he resumed his studies, and added several works to those which have been already mentioned. A Traité de politique (published 1866), which may be considered as the completion of his Traité de philosophie, was the most important of the productions of the last period of his life. His brochures are very numerous and on a great variety of subjects, medical, historical, political, philosophical, &c. He died on the 12th of August 1865. He found a disciple of considerable ability in M.A. Ott, who advocated and applied his principles in various writings.
See also A. Ott, "P.B.J. Buchez," in Journal des économistes for 1865.
BUCHHOLZ, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, 1700 ft. above the sea, on the Sehma, 18 m. S. by E. of Chemnitz by rail. Pop. (1905) 9307. It has a Gothic Evangelical church and monuments of Frederick the Wise of Saxony, and Bismarck. There is a school for instruction in lace-making, an industry dating from 1589, which still forms the chief employment of the inhabitants.
BÜCHNER, FRIEDRICH KARL CHRISTIAN LUDWIG (1824-1899), German philosopher and physician, was born at Darmstadt. He studied at Giessen, Strassburg, Würzburg and Vienna. In 1852 he became lecturer in medicine at the university of Tübingen, where he published his great work Kraft und Stoff (1855). In this work, the product, according to Lange, of a fanatical enthusiasm for humanity, he sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of matter and force, and the finality of physical force. The extreme materialism of this work excited so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his post at Tübingen. He retired to Darmstadt, where he practised as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological and physiological magazines. He continued his philosophical work in defence of materialism, and published Natur und Geist (1857), Aus Natur und Wissenschaft (vol. i., 1862; vol. ii., 1884), Fremdes und Eigenes aus dem geistigen Leben der Gegenwart (1890), Darwinismus und Socialismus (1894), Im Dienste der Wahrheit (1899). He died at Darmstadt on the 1st of May 1899. In estimating Büchner's philosophy it must be remembered that he was primarily a physiologist, not a metaphysician. Matter and force (or energy) are infinite; the conservation of force follows from the imperishability of matter, the ultimate basis of all science. Büchner is not always clear in his theory of the relation between matter and force. At one time he refuses to explain it, but generally he assumes that all natural and spiritual forces are indwelling in matter. "Just as a steam-engine," he says in Kraft und Stoff (7th ed., p. 130), "produces motion, so the intricate organic complex of force-bearing substance in an animal organism produces a total sum of certain effects, which, when bound together in a unity, are called by us mind, soul, thought." Here he postulates force and mind as emanating from original matter—a materialistic monism. But in other parts of his works he suggests that mind and matter are two different aspects of that which is the basis of all things—a monism which is not necessarily materialistic, and which, in the absence of further explanation, constitutes a confession of failure. Büchner was much less concerned to establish a scientific metaphysic than to protest against the romantic idealism of his predecessors and the theological interpretations of the universe. Nature according to him is purely physical; it has no purpose, no will, no laws imposed by extraneous authority, no supernatural ethical sanction.
See Frauenstädt, Der Materialismus (Leipzig, 1856); Janet, The Materialism of the Present Day: A Criticism of Dr Büchner's System, trans. Masson (London, 1867).
BUCHON, JEAN ALEXANDRE (1791-1849), French scholar, was born on the 21st of May 1791 at Menetou-Salon (Cher), and died on the 29th of August 1849. An ardent Liberal, he took an active part in party struggles under the Restoration, while
throwing himself with equal vigour into the great work of historical regeneration which was going on at that period. During 1822 and the succeeding years he travelled about Europe on the search for materials for his Collection des chroniques nationales françaises écrites en langue vulgaire du XIIIe au XVIe siècle (47 vols., 1824-1829). After the revolution of 1830 he founded the Panthéon litteraire, in which he published a Choix d'ouvrages mystiques (1843), a Choix de monuments primitifs de l'église chrétienne (1837), a Choix des historiens grecs (1837), a collection of Chroniques étrangères relatives aux expéditions françaises pendant le XIIIe siècle (1840), and, most important of all, a Choix de chroniques et mémoires sur l'histoire de France (1836-1841). His travels in southern Italy and in the East had put him upon the track of the medieval French settlements in those regions, and to this subject he devoted several important works: Recherches et matériaux pour servir a une histoire de la domination française dans les provinces démembrées de l'empire grec (1840); Nouvelles recherches historiques sur la principauté française de Morée et ses hautes baronnies (2 vols., 1843-1844); Histoire des conquêtes et de l'établissement des Français dans les états de l'ancienne Grèce sous es Villehardouin (1846, unfinished). None of the numerous publications which we owe to Buchon can be described as thoroughly scholarly; but they have been of great service to history, and those concerning the East have in especial the value of original research.
BUCHU, or Buka Leaves, the produce of several shrubby plants belonging to the genus Barosma (nat. order Rutaceae), natives of the Cape of Good Hope. The principal species, B. crenulata, has leaves of a smooth leathery texture, oblong-ovate in shape, from an inch to an inch and a half in length, with serrulate or crenulate margins, on which as well as on the under side are conspicuous oil-glands. The other species which yield buchu are B. serratifolia, having linear-lanceolate sharply serrulate leaves, and B. betulina, the leaves of which are cuneate-obovate, with denticulate margins. They are all, as found in commerce, of a pale yellow-green colour; they emit a peculiar aromatic odour, and have a slightly astringent bitter taste. Buchu leaves contain a volatile oil, which is of a dark yellow colour, and deposits a form of camphor on exposure to air, a liquid hydro-carbon being the solvent of the camphor within the oil-glands. There is also present a minute quantity of a bitter principle. The leaves of a closely allied plant, Empleurum serratulum, are employed as a substitute or adulterant for buchu. As these possess no glands they are a worthless substitute. The British Pharmacopoeia contains an infusion and tincture of buchu. The former may be given in doses of an ounce and the latter in doses of a drachm. The drug has the properties common to all substances that contain a volatile oil. The infusion contains very little of the oil and is of very slight value. Until the advent of the modern synthetic products buchu was valued in diseases of the urinary tract, but its use is now practically obsolete.
BUCK, CARL DARLING (1866- ), American philologist, was born on the 2nd of October 1866, at Bucksport, Maine. He graduated at Yale in 1886, was a graduate student there for three years, and studied at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1887-1889) and in Leipzig (1889-1892). In 1892 he became professor of Sanskrit and Indo-European comparative philology in the University of Chicago; but it is in the narrower field of the Italic dialects that his important work lies, including Der Vocalismus der oskischen Sprache (1892), The Oscan-Umbrian Verb-System (1895), and Grammar of Oscan and Umbrian (1904), as well as an excellent précis of the Italic languages in Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia. He collaborated with W.G. Hale (q.v.) in the preparation of A Latin Grammar (1903). Of his contributions to reviews on phonological topics, perhaps the most important is his discussion of "Brugmann's Law."