Hagen (Benjamin Olive), Socialist, b. 25 June, 1791. About the year 1841 his attention was attracted to the Socialists by the abuse they received. Led thus to inquire, he embraced the views of Robert Owen, and was their chief upholder for many years in the town of Derby, where he lived to be upwards of seventy years of age. His wife also deserves mention as an able lady of Freethought views. Halley (Edmund), eminent English astronomer, known in his lifetime as "the Infidel Mathematician," b. Haggerston, London, 29 Oct. 1656; educated at Oxford. At twenty he had made observations of the planets and of the spots on the sun. In Nov. '76 he went to St. Helena where he prepared his Catalogue of Southern Stars, '79. He also found how to take the sun's parallax by means of the transits of Mercury or Venus. In '78 he was elected a F.R.S. Two years later he made observation on "Halley's comet," and in '83 published his theory of the variation of the magnet. He became a friend of Sir Isaac Newton, whom he persuaded to publish his Principia. In '98 he commanded a scientific expedition to the South Atlantic. In 1713 he was made sec. of the Royal Society and in 1720 Astronomer-royal. He then undertook a task which required nineteen years to perform, viz: to observe the moon throughout an entire revolution of her nodes. He lived to finish this task. Died 14 Jan. 1742. Halley was the first who conceived that fixed stars had a proper motion in space. Chalmers in his Biographical Dictionary says, "It must be deeply regretted that he cannot be numbered with those illustrious characters who thought it not beneath them to be Christians." Hammon (W.), pseudonym of Turner William, q. v. Hamond or Hamont (Matthew), English heretic, by trade a ploughwright, of Hethersett, Norfolk, burnt at Norwich, May 1579, for holding "that the New Testament and the Gospel of Christ were pure folly, a human invention, a mere fable." He had previously been set in the pillory and had both his ears cut off. Hannotin (Emile), French Deist, b. Bar le Duc in 1812, and some time editor of the Journal de la Meuse. Author of New Philosophical Theology, '46; Great Questions, '67; Ten Years of Philosophical Studies, '72; and an Essay on Man, in which he seeks to explain life by sensibility. Hanson (Sir Richard Davies), Chief Justice of South Australia, b. London, 5 Dec. 1805. He practised as attorney for a short time in London, and wrote for the Globe and Morning Chronicle. In 1830 he took part in the attempt to found a colony in South Australia. In 1851 he became Advocate-General of the colony, and subsequently in 1861 Chief Justice. In 1869 he was knighted. He wrote on Law in Nature 1865, The Jesus of History 1869, and St. Paul 1875. Hanson wrote Letters to and from Rome A.D. 61, 62 and 63. Selected and translated by C.V.S. 1873. Died at Adelaide 10 Mar. 1876.