Edmund Montgomery

Edmund Duncan Montgomery (March 19 1835 - April 17 1911) was a Scottish philosopher, scientist and physician. It is reputed that he was the son of Isabella Davidson Montgomery and a prominent Scottish jurist, Duncan McNeill, later Lord Colonsay. He was born in Edinburgh and later moved to Germany to learn medicine at the University of Heidelberg, where he met his future wife, the noted sculptor Elisabet Ney, in 1853. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the University of Wurzburg on February 18, 1858.

After being diagnosed with tuberculosis, he moved to Madeira for his health, marrying Ney there in 1863. He emigrated to the United States in 1870 with his wife. After spending two years in Thomasville, Georgia, they settled near Hempstead, Texas where they moved into the Liendo Plantation. He was active in local politics and events, was involved in the founding of Prairie View A&M, and later became a U.S. citizen. In 1903, he was elected president of the Texas Academy of Science. He died and was buried at Liendo.

His work in medicine included the study of cell theory.

His study of philosophy complemented his work as a physical scientist. Montgomery saw life as the ability of certain chemical compounds to resist damage. He commented on conceptions of knowledge and self in over sixty journal articles and five books. He was an advocate of humanitarianism and a "religion of life," focusing on the idea that man must not ignore the potential of his own yet-to-be-completed evolutionary process.

2. American biologist.
* Edmund Montgomery. The Substantiality of Life. Mind 1881 os-VI: 321-349; doi:10.1093/mind/os-VI.23.321 http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/os-VI/23/321 - need registration
* Edmund Montgomery. To Be Alive, What Is It? "The Monist," Vol. V, No. 2. 50 cents.)

References

*I.K. Stephens, "The Hermit Philosopher of Liendo". Dallas 1951.

External links

* [http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/elisabetney/html/montgomery_biography.html Biography] at the Elisabet Ney Museum site