Biography taken from Appleton's 1886 Encyclopedia,
the most-quoted biographical source for 19th and early 20th century
America.
Francis Bowen
BOWEN, Francis, author, born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, 8
September
1811. He was graduated at Harvard in 1833, and from 1835 till 1839 was
instructor there in intellectual philosophy and political economy. In
the
latter year he went to Europe, and, while living in Paris, met
Sismondi,
De Gerando, and other scholars. He returned to Cambridge in 1841 and
devoted
himself to literature. In January 1843, he became editor and proprietor
of the "North American Review," which he conducted nearly eleven years,
writing, during this time, about one fourth of the articles in it. In
1848
and 1849 he delivered lectures before the Lowell institute, on the
application
of metaphysical and ethical science to the evidences of religion.
During
the latter part of Mr. Bowen's connection with the "North American
Review"
attention was attracted by his articles on the Hungarian question, of
which
he did not take the popular side, and on account of these, together
with
his views on other political subjects, the Harvard overseers failed to
confirm his appointment as McLean professor of history, made by the
corporation
in 1850. (See CARTER, ROBERT.) In the winter of this year he lectured
again
before the Lowell institute on political economy, and in 1852 on the
origin
and development of the English and American constitutions. In 1853, on
the election of Dr. Walker to the presidency of Harvard. Mr. Bowen was
appointed his successor in the Alford professorship of natural
religion,
moral philosophy, and civil polity, and was this time almost
unanimously
confirmed by the overseers. Since 1858 he has lectured before the
Lowell
institute on the English metaphysicians and philosophers from Bacon to
Sir William Hamilton. Professor Bowen has opposed in his philosophical
works the systems of Kant, Fichte, Cousin, Comte, and John Stuart Mill,
who has replied to his critic in the third edition of his "Logic." In
political
economy he has opposed the doctrines of Adam Smith on free-trade,
Malthus
on population, and Ricardo on rent. He has taken pains to trace the
influence
of our form of government and condition of society upon economical
questions.
Professor Bowen has published "Virgil, with English Notes," and
"Critical
Essays on the History and Present Condition of Speculative Philosophy"
(Boston, 1842) ; "Lowell Institute Lectures" (1849 ; revised ed., 1855)
; an abridged edition of Dugald Stewart's "Philosophy of the Hmnan
Mind"
(1854) ; "Documents of the Constitution of England and America, from
Magna
Charta to the Federal Constitution of 1789" (Cambridge, 1854); the
lives
of Steuben, Otis, and Benjamin Lincoln, in Sparks's "American
Biography";
"Principles of Political Economy, applied to the Condition, Resources,
and Institutions of the American People" (Boston, 1856); a revised
edition
of Reeve's translation of De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" (2
vols.,
Cambridge, 1862); a "Treatise on Logic" (1864) ; "American Political
Economy,"
with remarks on the finances since the beginning of the civil war (New
York, 1870) ; "Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Schopenhauer and
Hartmann"
(1877); "Gleanings from a Literary Life, 1838-1880" (1880); and "A
Layman's
Study of the English Bible, considered in its Literary and Secular
Aspect"
(1886).