Firmin Abauzit
Firmin Abauzit (* November 12, 1679 in Uzes, France, † March 20, 1767 in Geneva) was a French scholar who worked on physics, theology and philosophy. For four decades, he was a librarian in Geneva. Abauzit is also known as a proofreader of writings of Isaac Newton and other scholars.
Life
Abauzit was born the son of Protestant parents at Uzes in Languedoc. His father died when he was two years old. Due to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the French authorities took steps to educate him in the Roman Catholic faith, but his mother allowed his escape.
Two years he and his brother lived as refugees in the mountains of Cévennes. Recently they reached Geneva, where she met her mother, who was in turn just escaped from jail, where she had been since the flight of their children.
Abauzit acquired at a young age considerable knowledge of several languages , physics and theology. In 1698 he went to the Netherlands, where he made the acquaintance of Pierre Bayle, Pierre and Jacques Jurieu Basnage. In England, he was introduced to Sir Isaac Newton, who was one of the first defense of his discoveries in Abauzit. Newton corrected in the second edition of his " Principia " a mistake, had discovered the Abauzit.
The reputation Abauzits induced William III. to ask him if he would like to move to England. Abauzit not agreed to this, but returned to Geneva. Here he supported a society, which he had co-molded to the New Testament translated into French. In 1723 he turned down an offer for the chair of philosophy, but accepted the offer in 1727 for the post of librarian in Geneva. In the same city he died in 1767 at the age of 87 years.
The judgment about the importance Abauzits is extremely uneven. Because of its free-spirited attitude in religious matters ruled as the Protestant theologian William David Fuhrmann:
"It strives Abauzit with all his might to overthrow the essential teachings of the Christhenthums; the divinity of the Son, the deity of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, and so many other mysteries of revealed religion are ill-treated by him on most horrific way, and we must warn against this man. "
Jean -Jacques Rousseau, however, saw in him the only known him "true philosophers ", the " this philosophical Century" have spawned. From Voltaire is reported that he had, as a foreign visitor told him he had come to see a great man replies, if he had seen Abauzit.
Work
Abauzits work demonstrates extraordinary versatility. However, it is handed down only to a small extent. His heirs are said to have annihilated the entire handwritten discount because their religious beliefs differed from those Abauzits. A few theological, archaeological and astronomical articles by him appeared in the Journal Helvetique and elsewhere, and he contributed some articles for Rousseau's Dictionnaire de musique ( 1767) at.
He also wrote a work which questioned the canonical authority of the Apocalypse expressed that aroused a response from Leonard Twells. He edited J. Spon 's Histoire de la republique de Geneve and also added some accessories. A collection of his works was published in Geneva in 1770 ( Oeuvres de feu M. Abauzit ) and another edition in 1773 in London ( Oeuvres diverses de M. Abauzit ).
- Discours historique de l' Apocalipse. London 1770 ( the factory is 1730 in English and in French appeared only in 1770 ).