WILLIAM

See also:

• ARCHER, WILLIAM (1856— )

ARCHER

See also:

• BUTLER
• BUTLER (or BOTELER), SAMUEL (1612–168o)
• BUTLER (through the O. Fr. bouteillier, from the Late Lat. buticularius, buticula, a bottle)
• BUTLER, ALBAN (1710-1773)
• BUTLER, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1818-1893)
• BUTLER, CHARLES (1750–1832)
• BUTLER, GEORGE (1774-1853)
• BUTLER, JOSEPH (1692-1752)
• BUTLER, NICHOLAS MURRAY (1862– )
• BUTLER, SAMUEL (1774-1839)
• BUTLER, SAMUEL (1835-1902)
• BUTLER, SIR WILLIAM FRANCIS (1838– )
• WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER (1814-1848)

BUTLER (1814-1848)  , Irish historian of philosophy, was born at Annerville, near Clonmel in Ireland, probably in 1814 . His father was a Protestant, his mother a Roman Catholic, and he was brought up as a Catholic . As a boy he was imaginative and poetical, and some of his early verses were remarkable . While yet at Clonmel school he became a Protestant . Later he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he had a brilliant career . He specially devoted himself to literature and metaphysics, and was noted for the beauty of his style . In 1834 he gained the ethical moderatorship, newly instituted by Provost Lloyd, and continued in residence at college . In 1837 he decided to enter the Church, and in the same year he was elected to the professorship of moral philosophy, specially founded for him through Lloyd's exertions . About the same time he was presented to the prebend of Clondahorky, Donegal, and resided there when not called by his professorial duties to Dublin . In 1842 he was promoted to the rectory of Raymochy . He died on the 5th of July 1848 . His Sermons (2 vols., 1849) were remarkably brilliant and forceful .

The Lectures on the

History of Ancient Philosophy, edited by W . Hepworth Thompson (2 vols., 1856; 2nd ed., 1 vol . 1875), take a high place among the few British works on the history of philosophy . The introductory lectures, and those on the early Greek thinkers, though they evidence wide reading, do not show the complete mastery that is found in Schwegler or Zeller; but the lectures on Plato are of considerable value . Among his other writings were papers in the Dublin University Magazine (1834–1837); and " Letters on Development " (in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, 1845), a reply to Newman's famous Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine . See Memoir of W . A . Butler, prefixed by Rev . J . Woodward to first series of Sermons .