Balmes, Jaime Lucio

Balmes, Jaime Lucio a Spanish theologian, born Aug. 28, 1810, at Vich in Catalonia, died there July 9,1848. He was for some time teacher of mathematics at Vich, was exiled under the regency of Espartero, and founded in 1844, at Madrid, a political weekly, El Pensamiento de la Nacion, as an organ of the Conservative or Catholic party. In 1847 a pamphlet in favor of the political reforms of Pius IX (Pio IX, Madrid and Paris, 1847) brought him into conflict with his party. His principal works are a comparison of the relation of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism to European civilization (El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilisacion Europea, 3 vols. 8vo, Madrid, 1848; Engl. transl. London, 1849, 8vo); a Filosofia fondamental (Barcelona, 1846, 4 vols.; translated into French, 3 vols. 1852; into English, by H. F. Brownson, 2 vols. New York, 1857); and a Curso de Filosofia Elemental (Madrid, 1837). See A. de Blanche-Raffin, Jacques Balmes, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1850); North British Review, May, 1852, art. 4.