' SIDIO'DA (Lowland), a harbor of Japan, at the southern extremity of Cape Idzu, and about 80 at. from Yedo, opentd to foreign commerce by the Americans in 1854. In 1854 the town was nearly destroyed by at earthquake. 1,‘ Idle the harbor was so scoured out that hardly any lidding-gm:tad was left for ships on the granite bottom. The pop. was formerly estimated at 80.000, but is now reekonr at about 4,000.
. SIMON„luLEs (JULES FRANcoIs SmssE-StmoN), b. France, 1814; received his edu cation at the colleges of Lorient and Vannes; and was tutor of philosophy in the lyceum of Caen in 1836. colleges became a disciple of Cousin, who invited him to Paris, and whose place he supplied at the Sorbonne, ii the department of the history of philosophy. He was decorated with the legion of honor in 1845, and became a member of the academy Of moral and political sciences in 1863. Simon entered into politics in 1846, and was elected a member of the assembly two years later, as a moderate republican, In 1849 he was elected a member of the council of state, but only held the position fora few ntonths, when he went out of office. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to the empire after the coup d'etat, and his lectures before the Sorbonne were accordingly sus pended. In 1863 he was sent to the corps legishuif, and soon became the chief of the republican party. In the cabinet of M. Tillers lie held the portfolio of piddle instruc tion. In 1875 he was elected a member of the French academy. In 1876 he was director of the Siècle newspaper, and leader of the republican left in the national assembly; and in that year, called to form a ministry, he became president of the council, and minister i of the interior. M. Simon's most recent act was his determined opposition to the rinnesty bill for the communists, in July, 1880. He is the author of many works on philosophy.
G7.27.X7, 7.,:ca.k:ID, a distinguished' orientalist and critical scholar, was born at Dieppe, May 13. 1638. Having completed his studies, he entered the congregation of the oratory in 1619. but soon afterward withdrew. He returned. however, in the latter part of 1662. For a time he delivered lectures on philosophy in the college of Juilly; but his studies eventually turned upon theOlogy, oriental languages, and biblical criticism. At one tame he thought of entering the Jesuit order, but he remained in the oratory; and it was while still a member of that congregation dint he published Ids well-known work on the doctrine of the oriental church regarding the eucharist, designed as a supplement to the celebrated Thfense ( f the Perpetuity of the Faith in the Blessed Eucharist, by Arnauld and Nicole. but criticising that work very severely. This and other controversies to which
his later writings gave rise led to his again withdrawing from the oratory in 1678. In that year he retired to Belleville, as cure; but in 1682 he resigned his parish, and lived in literary retirement, first at Dieppe, and afterward in Paris. His health having given way, he returned once again to his native place, Dieppe, where he died in April, 1712. Few writers of his are played so prominent a part in the world of letters, and especially in its polemics. There is hardly a critical or theological scholar among his contempora ries with whom he did not break a lance—Spaulichn, Le Clerc, Du Pin, Jurieu, and Jurien's great antagonist, Bossuet. The principal work of Simon is his Ilistoire Critique de Vieux Testament(Paris, 1678), in which he anticipates the most important eonclusirs of all the later rationalistic scholars of Germany, and also their method of investigation. For example. he conceives himself to have disproved the Ylo authorship of the Pen tat endt. and assigns its romposit itin to the scribes of the time of Ezra. Other writings of Simon's are: Th:Ntore Critique du Texte the. lcoeveau Testament (Rotterd. 1689); Disqui sdiones Critiem de rants Miaow in Edition ioes (1684); De l' Inspiration des Litres Sacrgsf (Rotten]. 1687): and L'Ilbdoire Critique des Principeanx Commen talcum du Nouveau Tes tament (Rotten!. 1692), in which he assails the theology of the fathers, and particularly that of Augustine, as a departure front the simple and loss rigid doctrines of the primi tive church. A1110112: the fathers, Ids most esteemed authority was Chusostom. Bos suet replied to this last work by Ids Afrnse de la Tradition et des Saints Pens. Simon frequently published under assumed names—as his Dissertation Critique on Dupin's Library of Erelesia4fral Writers under the name of .Jean lienehlin; a work, Ristoire Crit ique la et des Conte1711P8 des _Nations (le Levant, under the anagram of Monis; and a !]moire de l'Origine et du Progris des Reveries EerVsiastiques under the name of Jerome Acosta. No collected edition of his works has ever appeared: in the natural progress of the science of criticism, the most famous of them have lost most of their prestige, and are displaced by recent, and often second-hand, compilations upon the sub jects, which, in the days of Simon, were comparatively new and unexplored; but still there is much to be learned even from such of his works as have been forgotten by ordi nary students.