Butler, WILLIAM ARCHER

Butler, WILLIAM ARCHER, a religious and philosophical writer, was born in 1814 at Annerville, near Clonmel, Ireland. The child of a mixed marriage, he turned Protestant while still a schoolboy at Clonmel, and two years later entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he was appointed professor of Moral Philosophy in 1837. In addition to his professional duties, he acted as a clergyman of the Church of Ireland at Clondahorky and Raymoghy, and during the Irish famine of 1846-47 he was unwearied in his exertions as a relieving-officer. He died 5th July 1848. The work on which his reputation is based is the Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy (2 vols. 1856; 2d ed. 1875). Other posthumous works were his Sermons (2 vols. 1849), with a memoir by Woodward; Letters on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1850), a reply to Newman's Essay on Development; and Letters on Romanism (1854).