Huber, Maria

Huber, Maria a celebrated mystic, was born at Geneva in 1694. She retired into solitude in 1712, to indulge in contemplation and mysticism. She afterwards returned to live in Geneva, joined the Roman Church, and died at Lyons in 1759. She is generally named as a deist, yet her opinions partook rather of extreme mysticism than of infidelity her principal works are Lettres sur la religion essentielle à l'homme (Amsterd. 1738; London 1739, 2 vols.) in which "she traces all religion to the moral necessities of the heart, and considers revelation a mere auxiliary to natural theology, a means of interpreting it to our own consciousness" (Hagenbach, Germ. Rationalism, p. 55 sq.) — Recueil de diverse pieces servant de supplement aox Lettres sur la religion, etc. (Berl. 1754, 2 evol.; London 1756) — Le mondefou prefere au monde sage, divise en trois parties, fisant 24 promenades (whence the work is sometimes styled Promenades) (Amst. 1731 and 1744) — Le Systeme des theologiens anciens et modernes, sur l'etat des âmes separees des corps (Amst. 1731, 1733.1739) — Reduction du Spectateur Anglais a ce qu'il referme de meilleur, etc. (Par. 1753 12mo). Senebier considers her as the author of the Histoire d'Abassay (1753, 8vo), which is generally attributed to Miss Fauque. See Senebier, Hist. litter. de Geneve, 3, 84; Haag, La France Protestante; Pierer; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Géneralé, 25, 344.