JEVONS, FRANK BYRON. — English philologist, specializing particularly in classical literature, scholar of philosophy and the comparative history of religions, and educationalist, born on 9 September 1858 and died on 29 February 1936.
A student at the famous Wadham College, Oxford, he subsequently taught classical philology at the University of Durham from 1882 to 1910 and philosophy from 1910 to 1930. For a certain period he was also responsible for the non-collegiate students, that is, those not affiliated with any college, of the same University of Durham; and from 1896 to 1923 he was principal of Hatfield Bishop’s College, while simultaneously serving as vice-chancellor (1910–11) and pro-vice-chancellor (from 1911 onward).
His first publications dealt with classical historical-literary problems, but in a broader sense, extending as far as the prehistoric Aryan phase: The development of the Athenian democracy... A history of Greek literature (3rd ed. 1909); The prehistoric antiquities of the aryan peoples (1890); Plutarch's Roman questions (1892); A manual of Greek antiquities (1895).
His publications concerning religious and philosophical problems are, more or less without exception, approached from an ethnographic perspective, but they address the religious problem from an exclusively phenomenological point of view. Religions are nothing other than the organic development of animism and totemism, an original and monotheism (v.), the perfect and definitive form. This evolution was interrupted by three great personalities: Jesus Christ, Muhammad, and Buddha, who created separate, individual religions, outside the natural and spontaneous evolution (cf. An introduction to the history of religion, 1896 [3rd ed. 1921]; Evolution, 1900; Evolution in religion, 1906; Study of comparative religion, 1913; Comparative religion, 1913; Personality, 1913; Philosophy: what is it?, 1914; Polytheism, 1916). The author is not unknown in Italy: one of his brief works was translated by U. Pestalozza (L'idea di Dio nelle religioni primitive, Milan 1914); and his manner of presenting and interpreting religious-philosophical phenomena secured him a large readership among the less scientifically prepared classes.