BENDA, JULIEN ), French essayist and novel ist, was born in Paris on Dec. 26, 1868. His first work appeared in 1898, a commentary on the Dreyfus affair, published in the Revue Blanche. He contributed to Cahiers de la Quinzaine by Charles Peguy. His first important work is L'Ordination (1912), an analytical novel, profound and concise, reminiscent of Benja min Constant's L'Adolphe, but his chief claim to notice is his systematic opposition to the Bergsonian philosophy (Le Berg sonisme, 1912 ; and Sur le Succes du Bergsonisme, 1917) . In his eyes this doctrine was the apotheosis of irrational instincts or the mere reactions of the senses ; he countered it with a conceptualist rationalism, in the manner rather of the French aetiologists than of the great traditional philosophers. His most important work is the Trahison des Clercs (1927)—an indictment against the prostitution of intelligence in the service of political passions, which he considers real moral treason. This brilliant pamphlet made a great impression at the time of its publication.