Antoine Court of Gébelin

Antoine Court of Gébelin , born with Nimes in February 1719, died with Paris the May 12th 1784, is a writer French.

Wire of the minister protesting Antoine Court, it left the ministry evangelic to be devoted to long work of scholarship.

Faithful nevertheless to the cause of its co-religionists, it founded in Paris in 1763, an office of agency intended to collect the wishes and the complaints of all the French Protestants.

It accepted the place of royal Censeur and was named president of the literary Company of the Museum which it had contributed to found.

After twenty years of assiduous studies, it started to publish the work to which it had its reputation and of which it was occupied until its death, the primitive Monde analyzed and compared with the modern world , 1773 - 1783, 9 vol. in-4°. Remained unfinished, this vast work includes/understands all that is necessary to the complete intelligence of the system of the author.

The first volume, Eastern Allegories , is an explanation of the old mythology, considered from one end to another as an allegory, having at the same time for base the agricultural work and the phenomena astronomical.

The second volume, universal Grammar , has as a fundamental idea that the word was born with the man, like a consequence necessary of its nature, and that, therefore, the first elements of all the languages, as old as humanity, consist of a certain number of natural sounds having everywhere the same direction, in spite of the modifications which they appear to undergo among various people.

In the third volume, Natural history of the word , where the author regards the vowels as representative the feelings and the consonants the ideas, it seeks to establish that, in any language, the writing was originally hieroglyphic, each letter appearing a natural object initially.

The fifth and the ninth volumes are etymological Dictionnaires of the languages Greek, Latin and French . The others deal with the primitive world with the point of view of various objects of history and science, the History of the calendar , and the answers to criticisms which had been made on the work.

There is the same one: the Toulouse ones, or historical Letters in favor of the religion reforms (Edinburgh, 1760, in-8°); Natural history of the word, or universal Grammar with the use of young people (Paris, 1776,1816, in-8°); Dictionary etymological and reasoned of the Latin languages, with the use of young people (Paris, 1780. in-8°); Duties of the prince and the citizen (Paris, 1789, in-8°).

He cooperated, with Franklin, Robinet, etc, with the publication of the Affaires of England and America (Antwerp, 1776 and suiv., 15 vol. in-8°).

Having had recourse, little before its death, with the animal Magnetism to restore its health, it tested relief and published of it in this occasion a Lettre on animal magnetism , in 1784, which made great noise.

Source

Gustave Vapereau, universal Dictionary of the literatures , Paris, Hatchet, 1876, p. 538

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