ALTMEYER, JEAN-JACQUES. - Belgian philosopher and historian, b. in Luxembourg in 1804, d. in Brussels in 1877. Having earned degrees in philosophy and in law (1831-32), he was appointed to teach history and Greek and Latin antiquities at the University of Brussels from its foundation. He also gave courses there in political economy and commercial history. He was a freethinker and, in politics, a liberal.
Two of his works were condemned by the Index: Introduction à l'étude philosophique de l'histoire de l'humanité (Brussels 1837; decree 28 Jan. 1842); and Cours de philosophie de l'histoire fait publiquement à l'Université de Bruxelles (ibid. 1840; decree 16 Sept. 1841). In them he indeed shows himself an exaggerated champion of human progress, and wholly pervaded by a natural optimism, which experience belies every day; he denies the origin of evil as professed by the Faith; he proclaims the Church the cause of the Protestant schism; he reduces Christianity to love alone and makes it consist in the agreement of evangelical doctrine with reason and nature, which would be the two revelations of God in the finite world; he condemns individualism and patriotism as narrow ideas, because we are all children of one and the same Father. He also wrote: Histoire des relations commerciales et diplomatiques des Pays-Bas avec le Nord de l'Europe pendant le XVIe siècle, ibid. 1840; Les précurseurs de la Réforme aux Pays-Bas (ibid. 1885).
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