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Maignan, Emanuel

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Maigrot, Charles

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a Roman Catholic ecclesiastic, noted as a philosopher, was born at Toulouse, in France, in 1601; was educated at the College of the Jesuits in that place, where he evinced extraordinary ability as a mathematician and philosopher. A strong inclination to a religious life led him to seek the monastery for his retreat. In 1636, however, he was called to fill a professor's chair of mathematics in Rome; returned from Rome to Toulouse in 1650, and was created by his countrymen provincial in the same year. He died in 1676. Maignan published De Perspectiva Horaria (Toulouse, 1648), and a Course of Philosophy (Toulouse, 1652, 4 vols. 8vo; 2d edit. 1673, folio), enlarged by two Treatises on the same subject in 1673. He opposed Des Cartes in his theory of the Creation, and to refute it the more completely, he invented a machine "which showed by its movements that Des Cartes's supposition concerning the manner in which the universe was formed, or might have been formed, and concerning the. centrifugal force, was entirely without foundation." See Gen. Biog. Dict. 9, I, s.v.; Thomas, Dict. Biog. and Mythol. s.v.