Vickipedia

excerpts from the 1888 Chambers’s Encyclopedia of Universal Knowledge

April 28, 2006

KING

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KING- (Saxon Cyning; Sanscrit, Ganaka, father, from the root Gan, to beget: ‘ what the husband was in his house, the lord, the strong protector, the king was among his people ‘—Max Müller), the person vested with supreme power in a state. According to feudal usages, the king was the source from which all command, honor, and authority flowed; and he delegated to his followers the power by which they exercised subordinate rule in certain districts. The kingdom was divided into separate baronies, in each of which a baron ruled, lord both of the lands, which he held under the obligation of rendering military service to the king, and in many cases also of the people, who were vassals of the soil, and his liege subjects. In modern times, the kingly power often represents only a limited measure of sovereignty, various constitutional checks being in operation in different countries to control the royal prerogative. The king may succeed to the throne by descent or inheritance, or he may be elected by the suffrages of the nation, or by the suffrages of some body of persons selected out of the nation, as was the case in Poland. Even when the kingly power is hereditary, some form is gone through on the accession of a new king, to signify a recognition by the people of his right, and a claim that he should pledge himself to perform certain duties, accompanied by a religious ceremony, in which anointing with oil and placing a crown on his head are included as acts. By the anointing, a certain sacredness is supposed to be thrown round the royal person, while the coronation symbolizes his supremacy. There is now no very clearly-marked distinction between a king and an Emperor (q. v.). A queen-regnant, or princess who has inherited the sovereign power in countries where female succession to the throne is recognized, possesses all the political rights of a king.

In England, it is said that the king never dies, which means, that lie succeeds to the throne immediately on the death of his predecessor, without the necessity of previous recognition on the part of the people. He makes oath at his coronation to govern according to law, to cause justice to be administered, and to maintain the Protestant Church. He is the source from which all hereditary titles are derived, and he nominates judges and other officers of state, officers of the army and navy, governors of colonies, bishops and deans. He must concur in every legislative enactment, and sends embassies, makes treaties, and even enters into wars, without consulting parliament. The royal person is sacred, and the king cannot be called to account for any of his acts; but he can only act politically by his ministers, who are not protected by the same irresponsibility. A further control on the royal prerogative is excised by the continual necessity of applying to parliament for supplies of money, which practically renders it necessary to obtain the sanction of that body to every important public measure.

The Crown (q. v.) now in use as the emblem of sovereignty differs considerably in form in different countries of modern Europe; but in all cases it is distinguished from the coronets of the nobility in being closed above. The royal crown of Great Britain, here represented, is described under article CROWN”. The helmet placed by the sovereign over his arms is of burnished gold, open-faced, and with bars. For the arms of the sovereign, see GREAT BRITAIN.

April 27, 2006

MEMORY, DISEASES OF

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MEMORY, DISEASES OF. Memory, or the power of reproducing mental impressions, is impaired by age, wounds, or injuries to the head or nervous system, fevers, intemperance, and various physical conditions. It is perhaps affected in all kinds of mental derangement, but is in a most signal manner obliterated or enfeebled in Dementia. There are, however, examples of recollection surviving all other faculties, and preserving a clear and extensive notion of long and complicated series of events amid the general darkness and ruin of mind. Incoherence owes some of its features to defective or irregular memory. Cases of so marvelous an exaltation and extension of this capacity, as where a whole parliamentary debate could be recalled, suggest the suspicion of unhealthy action. There appear, however, to be special affections of the faculty. It may be suspended while the intelligence remains intact. Periods of personal or general history may elude the grasp, and even that continuity of impressions which goes far to constitute the feeling of personal identity, is broken Up, and a duality or multiplicity of experiences may appear to be conjoined. The converse of this may happen, and knowledge that had completely faded away may, under excitement or cerebral disease, return. There are, besides, states in which this power is partially affected, as in the instances where the numbers 5 and 7 were lost, and where a highly educated man could not retain any conception of the letter F; secondly, where, it appears perverted, recalling images inappropriately, and in an erroneous sequence of order or time, and different from what are desired; and thirdly, where, while the written or printed signs of ideas can be used, the oral or articulate signs are utterly forgotten. All these deviations from health appear to depend upon changes generally of an apoplectic nature in the anterior lobes of the brain.—Crichton on Mental Derangement; Teuchtersleben, Medical Psychology; Ribot, Les Maladies de la Memoire (1881).

MEMORY

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MEMORY. This is one name for the great and distinctive fact of mind, namely, the power of retaining impressions made through the senses, and of reviving them at after-times without the originals, and by mental forces alone. The conditions of this power have been already stated (seeASSOCIATION OF IDEAS, HABIT).We shall advert here to some of the arts and devices that have been propounded from time to time, for aiding our recollection in the various kinds of knowledge.

Perhaps the commonest remark on this subject is, that memory depends on Attention, or that the more we attend to a thing, the better we remember it. This is true with reference to any special acquisition : if we direct the forces of the mind upon one point, we shall necessarily give that point the benefit of the concentration, but this does not affect memory as a whole : we merely take power from one thing to give it to another. Memory at large can be improved only by increasing the vigor and freshness of the nervous system, and by avoiding all occasions of exhaustion, undue excitement, and other causes of nervous waste. We may do this by general constitutional means, or by stimulating the brain at the expense of the other functions; this last method is, however, no economy in the end. Every man’s system has a certain fund of plastic power, which may be husbanded, but cannot be materially increased on the whole; the power being greatest in early life, and diminishing with advancing years. If it is strongly drawn upon for one class of acquisitions, we must not expect it to be of equal avail for others.

But there may be ways and means of presenting and arranging the matters of our knowledge, so as to make them retained at a smaller cost of the plastic power of the brain. These include the arts of teaching, expounding, and educating in general, and also certain more special devices commonly known as the arts of Memory, or Mnemonics. A brief account of these last may be given here.

The oldest method of artificial memory is said to have been invented by the Greek poet Simonides, who lived in the 5th c. B.C. It is named the topical, or locality memory, from the employment of known places as the medium of recollection. As given by Quintilian, it is in substance as follows : You choose a very spacious and diversely arranged place—a large house, for instance, divided into several apartments. You impress on the mind with care whatever is remarkable in it; so that the mind may run through all the parts without hesitation and delay. Then, if you have to remember a series of ideas, you place the first in the hall, the second in the parlor, and so on with the rest, going over the windows, the chambers, to the statues and several objects. Then when you wish to recall the succession, you commence going over the house in the order fixed, and in connection with each apartment you will find the idea that you attached to it. The principle of the method is, that it is more easy for the mind to associate a thought with a well-known place, than to associate the same thought with the next thought without any medium whatever. Orators are said to have used the method for remembering their speeches. The method has been extensively taught by writers on mnemonics in modern times. Probably, for temporary efforts of memory, it may be of some vise; the doubtful point always is, whether the machinery of such systems is not more cumbrous than helpful.

Much labor has been spent on mnemonic devices for assisting in the recollection of numbers, one of the hardest efforts of memory. The principal method for this purpose is to reduce the numbers to words, by assigning a letter for each of the ten ciphers. This method was reduced to system by Gregor von Feinaigle, a German monk, and was taught by him in various parts of Europe, and finally published in 1812. He made a careful choice of the letters for representing the several figures, having in view some association between the connected couple, for more easy recollection. For the figure 1, he used the letter t, as being’ a single stroke; for 2, n, as being two strokes combined; 3, m, three strokes; 4, r, which is found in the word denoting ‘ four’ in the European languages; 5, I, from the Roman numeral L, signifying fifty, or five tens; 6, d, because the written d resembles 6 reversed; 7, k, because k resembles two 7’s joined at top; in place of this figure is also used on occasion g, q, c (hard) as all belonging to the guttural class of k; 8, &, from a certain amount of similarity, also w, for the same reason, and sometimes v, or the half w; 9 h p, from similarity, and also/, both of which are united in the word puff, which proceeds from a. pipe, like a 9 figure; 0 is s, x, or z, because it resembles in its roundness a grindstone, which gives out a hissing noise like these letters. The letters of the alphabet not employed in representing figures are to be used in combination with these, but with the understanding that they have no meaning of themselves. Suppose, then, that a number is given, say 547; 5 is l,4 is r, 7 is k; which makes I, r, k; among these letters we insert an unmeaning vowel, as a, to make up an intelligible word, LaRK, which remains in the memory far more easily than the numerical form. In making up the words by the insertion of the unmeaning or dumb letters, we should also have regard to some connection with the subject that the number refers to, as, for example, in chronology. Thus, America was discovered in 1492; the letters here are t, r, p, n; they may be made into To RapiNe, because that discovery led to rapine by the first Spaniards. There is, of course, great room for ingenuity in the formation of these suggestive words. Also, a series of numbers may be joined together in some intelligible sentence, which can be easily remembered. Such combinations, however, should be formed once for all, in the case of any important series of numbers, as the dates of our sovereigns and other historical epochs. It is too much to expect pupils to construct these felicitous combinations. Feinaigle combined the topical method with the above plan in fixing a succession of numbers in the memory.

Dr. Edward Pick, a recent lecturer on mnemonics, has called attention to a peculiar mode of arranging lists of words that are to be fixed in the memory, as the exceptions to grammar rules, &c. He proposes to choose out such words as have some kind of connection with one another, and to arrange them in a series, so that each shall have a meaning in common with the next, or be contrasted with it, or be related to it by any other bond of association- Thus, he takes the French irregular verbs, which are usually arranged in the alphabetical order (which is itself, however, a mnemonic help), and puts them into the following series, where a certain connection of meaning exists between every two: as sew, sit down, move, go, go away, send, follow, run, shun, &c. In a case where two words have no mutual suggestiveness, he proposes to find out some intermediate idea that would bring about a connection. Thus, if the words were garden, hair, watchman, philosophy, he would interpolate other words; thus—garden, plant, hair of a plant—hair; hair, bonnet, watchman; watchman, wake, study—philosophy; and so on. Of course, the previous method is the one that should be aimed at, as the new words are to a certain extent a burden to the mind. Dr. Pick further suggests as a practical hint, in committing to memory, that the attention should be concentrated successively upon each two consecutive members of the series; the mind should pause upon the first and the second, until they have been made coherent; then abandoning the first, it should in the same way attend to the second and the third, the third and the fourth, &c. Of course, if every successive link is in that way made sufficiently strong, the whole chain is secure.

There are various examples of effective mnemonic combinations. The whole doctrine of the syllogism (q. v-) is contained in five lines of Latin verse; as regards amount of meaning in small compass, these lines have never been surpassed, if, indeed, they have been equalled. The versification of the rules of the Latin grammar has the same end in view, but all that is gained by this is merely the help from the association of the sounds of the verse in the ear; in comparison with a topical memory, this might be called a rhythmical memory. The well-known rule for the number of days in the different months of the year (’ Thirty days hath September, ‘ &c.) is an instance of mnemonic verse.

April 26, 2006

LIBRARIES’ ACTS

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LIBRARIES’ ACTS. Though there is no systematic provision of libraries for public use, at the expense of the state, except the British Museum Library in London, an attempt has been made by the legislature of late years to empower districts to establish libraries, and to tax the inhabitants for that purpose. The act, 13 and 14 Vict. c. 65, passed in 1850 for England, has repealed by subsequent amended and extended acts, the last of which is 29 and 30 Vict. c. 114, in 1866. It is applicable to any burgh, district, or parish, whatever the amount of the population a meeting of the ratepayers may be obtained by the requisition of ten of their number addressed to the town-council, or other board, and the adoption of the act is decided by a simple majority of those present at the meeting. The rate to be levied in all such cases is not to exceed 1d. in the pound. All such libraries to be open to the public, free of all charge. A similar act extended the first English act to Ireland and Scotland; but by amended acts, passed in 1867 and 1871, Scotland has been on a similar footing to England for the adoption of the act.

LIBRARIES

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LIBRARIES. The term library is applied indifferently to buildings, &c., destined to contain books, and to the books themselves deposited in these buildings. In the present article, it is used chiefly, if not exclusively, in the latter sense.

Passing over the ‘ libraries of clay,’ as the collection of inscribed bricks and tiles of the Assyrians and Babylonians have been aptly designated, the first library, properly so called, of which we have any knowledge, is that which, according to Diodorus Siculus, was formed by the Egyptian king Osymandyas. The existence of this establishment, with its appropriate inscription, Psyches iatreion—the storehouse of medicine for the mind—was long regarded as fabulous; but the researches of Champollion, Wilkinson, and other modern investigators, go far to prove that the account of Diodorus, thus perhaps exaggerated, is at least based upon truth. A more celebrated Egyptian library was that founded at Alexandria by Ptolemy Sorer, for an account of which see ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY.The library of Pergamus, a formidable rival to that of Alexandria, was founded probably by Attains I., and was largely increased by the fostering care of his successors. As stated in the article just referred to, it was ultimately removed to Alexandria, being sent to Antony as a gift to Cleopatra. At the time that this transference took place; it contained, according to Plutarch, 200,000 volumes.

The first public library established at Athens is said to have been founded by Pisistratus; but the information we possess regarding this and other Grecian libraries is meagre and unsatisfactory. The earliest Roman libraries were those collected by Lucullus and by Asinius Pollio. The latter was a public library, in the fullest sense; and the former, though private property, was administered with so much liberality as to place it nearly on the same footing. Various other libraries were founded at Rome by Augustus and his successors; the most important, perhaps, being the Ulpian Library of the Emperor Trajan. The private collections of Emilius Paulus, Sulla, Lucullus (already mentioned), and Cicero, are well known to every student of the classics.

The downfall first of the Western, and subsequently of the Eastern Empire, involved the destruction or dispersion of these ancient libraries. The warlike hordes by whom these once mighty monarchies were overthrown, had neither time nor inclination for the cultivation of letters; but even in the darkest of the dark ages, the lamp of learning continued to shine, if with a feeble, yet still with a steady light. Within the sheltering walls of the monasteries, the books which had escaped destruction, the salvage, if we may so express it, of the general wreck, found a safe asylum; and not only were they carefully preserved, but so multiplied by the industry of the transcriber, as to be placed beyond all risk of loss for the future. Amongst the conventual libraries of the middle ages especially worthy of notice are those of Christ Church, and of the monastery of St. Augustine, Canterbury; of the abbeys of Fleury and Clugni, in France; of Monte Cassino, in Italy; and of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Private collectors, too, existed then as now, though, of course, their number was small. Amongst these, Richard de Bury, Bishop of Durham, holds a distinguished place.

The revival of learning in the 14th and 15th centuries, followed immediately by the invention of the art of printing, led naturally to a vast increase in the production of books, and introduced a new era in the history of public libraries. The number of these establishments which have since sprung into existence is immense, and is constantly increasing; so much so, that; a bare list of them would far exceed the limits of an article like the present. All, therefore, that we propose to do is to give a short account of the most important and interesting amongst them.

First among the libraries of Great Britain, and second to few, if to any abroad, is that of the British Museum. For an account of this magnificent collection, see BRITISH MUSEUM. Next in rank is the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which has been already described. See BODLEYAN or BODLEIAN LIBRARY. The third and fourth places are occupied by the Public, or University, Library of Cambridge, and the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh, which are nearly on a par as regards extent and value. A more particular notice of the latter will be found under the heading ADVOCATES’ LIBRARY; the number of volumes which it contains a present may be stated as not less than 265,000. The Library of Trinity College, Dublin, with about 192,000 volumes, is the largest and most valuble in Ireland. These five libraries have long been, and still are, entitled by statute to a copy of every book published in the empire; the act of parliament by which the privilege is at present regulated is the 5 and 6 Vict. c. 45. Besides the above, six other libraries had been in the enjoyment of the same privilege up to the year 1836. By the act 6 and 7 Will. IV. c. 110, which was then passed, the number was reduced from eleven to five; compensation for the loss of the privilege being allowed, in the form of an annual grant of money charged on the Consolidated Fund. The amount of this grant was, in each case, determined by a computation of the average annual value of the books received during the three years immediately preceding the passing of the act. The names of the libraries referred to, with the number of volumes they at present contain, and the annual sum received in lieu of the privilege, are as folows :

Edinburgh University ………… 140,000

£575

Glasgow

&nbsp&nbsp”

………… 100,000

&nbsp 707

St. Andrew’s&nbsp” …………&nbsp 70,000

&nbsp 630

Aberdeen

…………&nbsp 50,000*

320

King’s Inn’s, Dublin ………….&nbsp 60,000

&nbsp 433

Sion College, London ………….&nbsp 55,000

&nbsp 363

The minor libraries of Great Britain are so numerous, that a mere list of their names would exceed the limits within which an article like the present must be confined. Amongst those deserving special notice are the Library of the Society of Writers to the Signet, Edinburgh, containing upwards of 70.000 volumes; the Hunterian Library, Glasgow, with about 13,000 volumes, including many choice specimens of early printing; the Chetham Library, Manchester, upwards of 18,000 volumes; Dr. Williams’s Library, Red Cross Street, London, with more than 20,000 volumes, freely open to the public; the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, containing at least 27,000 volumes; Marsh’s Library, Dublin, with about”l8,000 volumes; the Library of the Dublin Royal Society; and the libraries belonging to the different colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, some of which are of considerable extent and value. The Public Libraries’ Acts have been adopted by several of the large towns in Britain—Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool, and Glasgow being the most important. The free libraries established in these places under the provisions of the acts just named are in a flourishing condition. Of private libraries in England, it will be sufficient to name that of Earl Spencer, at Althorp, containing upwards of 50,000 volumes, many of extreme rarity and value, and all in admirable condition.

The great national library of France, La Bibliotheque du Roi, as it used to be called, La Bibliotheque Nationale, as it is called at present, is one of the largest and most valuable collections of books and manuscripts in the world. Attempts to form a library had been made by Louis XI. and his successors with considerable success; but the appointment of De Thou to the office of chief librarian by Henry IV. may be regarded as the foundation of the establishment as it now exists. The number of printed volumes contained in it is estimated at nearly 2,500,000, and of manuscripts at about 150,000. Amongst libraries of the second class in Paris, the Arsenal Library with 300,000 volumes, the Library of Ste Genevieve with 200,000, and the Mazarine Library with 160,000, are the chief. Many excellent libraries are to be found in the provincial towns of France, particularly at Rouen, Bordeaux, and Lyon.

Italy is rich in important libraries, amongst which that of the Vatican at Rome stands pre-eminent. The number of printed volumes is only about 200,000; but in the manuscript department the number amounts to no less than 25,000, the finest collection in the world. The Casanata Library, also at Rome, is said to contain upwards of 120,000 volumes. The Ambrosian Library, at Milan, has a collection of nearly 140,000 volumes; and the Brera Library of the same city, one of about 180,000. At Florence we find the Laurentian Library, consisting almost entirely of manuscripts; and the Magliabechi Library, with about 200,000 volumes. Amongst the other libraries of Italy worthy of notice are the Royal Library at Naples, with 200,000 volumes, and that of St. Mark at Venice, with 120,000, and 10,000 manuscripts.

The principal libraries of Spain are the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid, numbering nearly 430,00 volumes, and the Library of. the Escorial, which has been already noticed. See ESCURIAL.—Of the libraries of Portugal, no trustworthy statistics can be obtained.

The Imperial Library at Vienna, founded by the Emperor Frederick III., in the year 1440, is a noble collection of not fewer than 400,000 volumes; of which 15,000 are of the class called incunabula, or books printed before the year 1500. The Royal Library at Munich owes its origin to Albert V., Duke of Bavaria, about the middle of the 16th century-. The number of volumes is estimated at 900,000, including 13,000 incunabula, and 22.000 manuscripts. It is worthily lodged in the splendid building erected by the late king, Ludwig I., in the Ludwig Strasse. The Royal Library at Dresden is a collection of about 500,000 volumes, amongst which are included some of the scarcest specimens of early printing, amongst others the Mainz Psalter of 1457, the first book printed with a date. The foundation of the Royal Library at Berlin dates from about the year 1650. It now extends to about 700,000 volumes of printed books, and 15,000 volumes of manuscripts. Of the other libraries of Germany, it will perhaps be enough to notice that of the university of Gottingen, with upwards of 500,000 volumes; the ducal library of Wolfenbüttel with about 270,000; and the university library at Strassburg, which, though founded only in 1871, had 513,000 books and manuscripts in 1882.

In Holland, the principal library is the Royal Library at the Hague, containing about 200,000 printed volumes, of which about 1500 are good specimens of early printing, and 4000 manuscripts.

The Royal Library at Copenhagen was founded about the middle of the 16th century. Its contents are now estimated at nearly 550,000 volumes. The University Library possesses nearly 200,-000 volumes; and Classen’s Library, also in Copenhagen, about 30.000.

In Sweden, the largest library is that of the university of Upsala, consisting of nearly 200,000 volumes. One of its chief treasures is the famous manuscript of the Gothic Gospels of Ulfilas, commonly known as the Codex Argenteus. The Royal Library at Stockholm is next in size, numbering upwards of 96,000 volumes.

The library of the university of Christiania in Norway, founded in 1811, contains upwards of 200,000 volumes.

The Imperial Library of St. Petersburg was founded about the beginning of the 18th century. In the year 1795, it was largely increased by the addition of the Zaluski Library of Warsaw which was seized and carried off to St, Petersburg by Suwaroff, At present the total number of volumes is estimated at and about 35,000 manuscripts.

In the United States of America, though there are no libraries equalling those of the first rank in Europe, there are still not few of considerable magnitude and value. The oldest and one of the largest among them is that of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has been in existance for more than years, and contains about 260,000 volumes. Libraries are attached to the other collegiate institutions of the country. The Astor Library, New York, named after its liberal founder, was opened in 1854 with a collection of about 80,000 volumes, since increased to upwards of 190,000. It is in the fullest sense a free public library. The Library of Congress, the only library supported by government, to which a copy of every copyright book must be sent, is naturally the largest in the States, numbering about 400,000 volumes and 130.000 pamphlets. The Smithsonian Institution at Washington embraces in its plan the formation of an extensive library. But little progress has been made in carrying out this part of the scheme. The proprietary libraries numerous, and several of them are of considerable extent; that of Philadelphia, in the foundation of which Franklin was largely concerned, numbers upwards of 120,000 volumes; and that of the Boston Athenæum, founded in 1806, has 123,000. The Boston Public Library is the second largest, and perhaps the most widely useful library in the States; it now numbers 260,000 volumes. The New York Mercantile Library possesses 200,000 volumes.

See the Transactions and Proceedings of the Library Associatioj of the United Kingdom, and its Monthly notes.

 

* About three-fourths of these are lodged in King’s College, and the remainder in Marischal College.

April 25, 2006

LUNACY

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LUNACY. By the law of England, as well as of all other countries, the presumption is in favor of a man’s sanity, even though he be born deaf, dumb, and blind; and if the fact is disputed, it always lies on the party alleging it to prove it. Sometimes a person in a state supposed to be that of a lunatic makes a contract, and is sued upon it; in such a case, he may set up as a defence that he was a lunatic, and the proof will consist of his conduct and actions at and previous to the time in question. If, however, the other party did not know of the lunacy, and took no advantage, the lunatic will not be allowed to recover back moneys which have been paid by him in pursuance of his contract. Though the presumption is in favor of the sanity of a person, yet, when once insanity has existed, the presumption is reversed, and then the law presumes no lucid interval or restoration to sanity until it is proved; and it is extremely difficult to prove a lucid interval, for the law requires very clear and conclusive proof of that fact, and all the circumstances must be carefully scanned. It is difficult or impossible to define in words what is insanity or lunacy, it being a negative state, and merely an inference from the acts, conduct, and bodily condition of the person. An idiot is said to be a person who was born with a radical infirmity of mind, and whose state is one of perpetual infirmity, incapable of cure or restoration; whereas a lunatic is one who is sometimes of good and sound mind, and sometimes not; he has lucid intervals, and is assumed to be more or less capable of restoration to sanity. A person is said to be, in legal phraseology, of unsound mind, who is not an idiot, nor a lunatic, nor yet of a merely weak mind, but, by reason of a morbid condition of intellect, is as incapable of managing his affairs as if he were a lunatic. Though it is difficult to define lunacy or insanity, there are various testswhich are more or less accepted in everyday life as strong evidence. Idiocy is accompanied by a vacant look, &c., while insanity is accompanied by some frenzy or extravagant delusion. The physiology of idiocy and lunacy is a separate subject of investigation, and is part of medical jurisprudence, to which a few medical men confine their attention, and their assistance is often required by courts of law when inquiring into this state of mind, though their theories are jealously scrutinized.

As a general rule, an idiot or a lunatic is subject to civil incapacity. He cannot enter into contracts or transact general business, and what he does is a nullity. Thus he cannot make or revoke a will, or enter into marriage, or act as an executor or administrator, or become a bankrupt, or be a witness in a court of justice, or vote at elections, and such like. But, as a general rule, a lunatic is liable in damages for committing a wrong, such as a trespass, and he is liable for necessaries supplied to him, and he may be arrested for debt, and his property may be taken in such cases, as in the case of sane persons. With regard to criminal responsibilty, the law was fully considered in the case of M’Naughton, who, in 1843, shot Mr. Drummond at Charing Cross by mistake for Sir Robert Peel, and the English judges were called on by the House of Lords to state their opinion as to the right mode of putting the questions to a jury when the defence of insanity is raised. The judges said that a person laboring under an insane delusion as to one subject is liable to punishment, if at the time of committing the crime he knew he was acting contrary to law. In general cases, to establish want of responsibility, it must be proved that the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that lie did not know he was doing what was wrong. Where the party is laboring under an insane delusion as to existing facts, and commits a crime in consequence thereof, it depends on the nature of the delusion whether he is excused. Thus, if he insanely believes that A intended to kill him, and he kills A, as he supposes, in self-defence, he would be exempt from punishment. But if his delusion was that A had inflicted a serious injury to his character and fortune, and he killed A in revenge for such supposed injury, then he would be liable to punishment. When a person is acquitted of crime on the ground of insanity, he is liable to be confined in prison during her Majesty’s pleasure.

So long as a person is not actually declared insane or an idiot, he has a right to manage his own affairs; and the only way, in England, in which he can be deprived of such right used to be by a writ de lunatico inquirendo, issuing out of Chancery, which authorized the empannelling of a jury to decide whether he was a lunatic or not. The custody and care of lunatics were vested in the crown; and the Lord Chancellor, as the depositary of this jurisdiction, issued the writ on petition.

The practice has now been considerably altered by various statutes, but, as a general rule, it is still the law, that, unless a person has been officially declared a lunatic, either by the verdict of a jury, or by a certificate of a master in lunacy, he is still entitled to manage his own affairs. In England and Ireland, there is no intermediate state called imbecility or weakness of mind, with which the law interferes, as there is in Scotland (seeINTERDICTION,IMBECILITY), and hence, if a weak person is imposed on, it is treated merely as a case of fraud, the weakness forming an element of such fraud; but there is no machinery for restraining the natural right, even of weak-minded persons, to do what they like with their property. As regards idiots and lunatics, the mode in which they are judicially declared to be so, is as follows : There are certain persons called masters in lunacy, whose business it is to conduct the inquiries which are necessary, and preside over the jury, and they also visit lunatics in certain cases. The commissioners of lunacy form a Board, which supervises generally the lunatic asylums and licensed houses for reception of lunatics. The incapacity of a lunatic or idiot is conclusive established by the verdict of a jury under an inquisition de lunatico inquirendo, held before a master of lunacy; or, if the case is too clear for a jury, and where the party has not mental capacity to declare his wish on the subject, by a certificate of a master in lunacy. The Lord Chancellor may direct the trial to take place before one of the common-law judges, and the evidence is to be confined to the lunatic’s conduct during the previous two years only. The costs of the trial are in the Lord Chancellor’s discretion. If the party has property, the Lord Chancellor then appoints, on petition, a committee of the estate or of the person of the lunatic, and the visitors in lunacy must visit such lunatic at least once a year, unless the lunatic is in a private house unlicensed, in which case he must be visited four times each year. The lunatic is thus kept under the immediate control of the Court of Chancery, which manages his property through the agency of the committee and of the visitors in lunacy. But as many lunatics have no property, or property of a trifling nature, it has long been found necessary to provide asylums and registered houses for the reception of lunatics, all which are more or less under control of the commissioners in lunacy. Houses kept for the reception of lunatics are either provided by the counties, and calledcounty asylums, or they are hospitals founded by charitable donors, or they are mere private houses, kept for purposes of profit t>y individuals. County asylums were first established in 1808 {seeLUNATIC ASYLUM).The justices of every county are bound to provide such an asylum, or to join with some other parties in keeping one, the expense being defrayed out of the county rates, and a committee of justices being appointed as visitors, to see that the statute is complied with.

The object of the county asylum is to receive the lunatic paupers of the county. As a general rule, it is incumbent on the parish officers of each parish to report to the neighboring justices any case of a lunatic pauper being in their parish. In some cases of a harmless description, such paupers may be kept in the workhouse; but in other cases, on the matter being reported to the justices, the latter order the paupers to be brought before them or examination, and then send them to the county asylum; the parish to which the pauper belongs—i.e., in which he is legally settled—being liable to defray the maintainance; but if the parish which is legally bound to support the pauper cannot be discovered, then the expense is to be charged to the county. If the pauper cannot be examined by the justices, the medical officer and a clergyman may sign a certificate, which is taken to be evidence of the lunacy. As to private houses, no person is allowed to receive two or more lunatics, unless such house has been previously licensed by the commissioners in lunacy, which license is only given after inspection, and a report as to its sanitary arrangements and other items of management. No person can be legally received into such licensed house without a written order from the person sending him, and the medical certificates of two physicians, surgeons, or apothecaries. The keepers of such houses are liable to visitation by the commissioners, and to render regular reports as to all particulars concerning the admission, death, removal, discharge, or escape of patients. The commissioners have power to visit at unexpected times, and to receive reports from other visitors. The commissioners may discharge persons who seem to be detained without sufficient cause.

In Scotland, the law differs in several respects from the above. Idiots and lunatics are often called fatuous and furious persons respectively; and there is an intermediate state called imbecility or weakness of mind, upon evidence of which the relations may apply to the Court of Session for Judicial Interdiction (q. v.), which has the effect of protecting the imbecile from squandering ‘his heritable property. The care and custody of lunatics and idiots belong to the Court of Session, which may appoint a curator bonis or judicial factor to take charge of the estate, and a curator or tutor dative to take charge of the lunatic’s person. A party is cognosced as a fatuous or furious person by a jury presided over by the sheriff. The recent statutory provisions concerning Scotch lunatics are contained in the statutes 20 and 21 Vict. c. 71, 31 and 22 Vict. c. 89, and 25 and 26 Vict. c. 54. There is also a Board called the Commissioners in Lunacy for Scotland, who may grant licenses for private asylums. They may also give special licenses to occupiers of houses for the reception of lunatics, not exceeding four in number, subject to rules and regulations. Counties and parishes may contract for accommodation of their lunatic paupers. Minute provisions are contained in these statutes as to the mode of treatment and visitation of lunatics. For the various kinds of mental alienation, see INSANITY.

April 24, 2006

KING-AT-ARMS

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KING-AT-ARMS, or KING-OF-ARMS. The principal heraldic officer of any country. There are four kings-at-arms in England, named respectively Garter, Clarencieux, Norroy, and Bath, but the first three only are members of the College of Arms.

Garter principal king-of-arms was instituted by Henry V., 1417 A.D., for the service of the order of the Garter. His duties include the regulation of the arms of peers and the knights of the Bath. In the capacity of king-of-arms of the order of the Garter, he has apartments within the castle of Windsor, and a mantle of blue satin, with the arms of St. George on the left shoulder, besides a badge and sceptre. His official costume as principal king-of-arms of England is a surcoat of velvet, richly embroidered with the arms of the sovereign, a crown and a collar of SS-The insignia of the office are borne by Garter impaled with his paternal arms, the latter on the dexter side of the shield. These are argent, St. George’s cross, on the chief gules a ducal coronet encircled with a garter, between the lion of England on the dexter side and a fleur-de-lis on the sinister, all or.

Clarencieux and Norroy are provincial kings-of-arms, with jurisdiction to the south and north of the Trent respectively. They arrange and register alone or conjointly with Garter the arms of all below the rank of peerage. The official arms of Clarencieux are argent St. George’s cross, on a chief gules a lion of England ducally crowned or. Those of Norroy are argent St. George’s cross, on a chief per pale azure and gules a lion of England ducally crowned between a fleur-de-lis on the dexter side, and a key, wards in chief, on the sinister, all or. Both provincial kings have a crown collar and surcoat. The crown is of silver gilt.

The crown of a king-of-arms is of silver gilt, and consists of a circle inscribed with the words, Miserere mei Deus secundum magnam misericordiam tuam, supporting 16 oak leaves, each alternate leaf higher than the rest. Within the crown is a cap of crimson satin turned up with ermine, and surmounted by a tassal wrought of gold silk. Kings-of-arms were formerly entitled to wear their crowns on all occasions when the sovereign wore his; now they assume them only when peers put on their coronets. The installation of kings-at-arms anciently took place with great state, and always on a Sunday or festival-day, the ceremony being performed by the king, the earl-marshal, or some other person duly appointed by royal warant.

Bath King-of-arms, though not a member of the college, takes precedence next after Garter. His office was created in 1725 for the service of the order of the Bath. On the 14th January 1726, he was constituted Gloucester King-of-arms (an office originally created by Richard III., in whose reign it also became extinct), and principal herald of Wales. He was at the same time empowered, either alone, or jointly with Garter, to grant arms to persons residing within the Principality.

The chief heraldic officer for Scotland is called Lyon King-of-arms (q. v.), who since the Union has ranked next to Garter. His title is derived from the lion rampant in the Scottish royal insignia, and he holds his office immediately from the sovereign, and not as the English king-at-arms, from the Earl Marshal. His official costume includes a crimson velvet robe embroidered with the royal arms, a triple row of gold chains round the neck with an oval gold medal, with the royal arms on one side, and St. Andrew’s cross on the other; and a baton of gold enamelled green, powdered with the badges of the kingdom. His crown is of the same form with the Imperial crown of the kingdom, but not set with stones. Before the Revolution he was crowned by the sovereign, or his commissioner, on entry on office.

There is one king-of-arms in Ireland, named Ulster. In the 14th c., there existed a king-of-arms called Ireland, but the office seems to have become extinct, and Edward VI. created Ulster to supply the deficiency. His arms are argent, St. George’s cross, upon a chief gules a lion between a harp and a portcullis, ail or. The royal ordinance relative to the order of St. Patrick, issued 17th May, 1833, declares that in all ceremonials and assemblies, Ulster King-of-arms shall have place immediately after the Lyon.

April 21, 2006

LIGHTNING

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LIGHTNING- (Fr. eclair, Ger. Blitz), the name given to the sudden discharge of electricity between one group of clouds and another, or between the clouds and the ground. It is essentially the same, though on a much grander scale, as the spark obtained from an electric machine. Clouds charged with electricity are-called thunder-clouds, and are easily known by their peculiarly dark and dense appearance. The height of thunder-clouds is very various : sometimes they have been seen as high as 25,700 feet, and a thunder-cloud is recorded whose height was only 89 feet above the ground. According to Arago, there are three kinds of lightning, which he names lightning of the first, second, and third classes. Lightning of the first class is familiarly known as forked-lightning (Fr. Eclair en zig-zag}. It appears as a broken line of light, dense, thin, and well defined at the edges. Occasionally, when darting between the clouds and the earth, it breaks-up near the latter into one or two forks, and is then called bifurcate or trifurcate. The terminations of these branches are sometimes several thousand feet from each other. On several occasions, the length of forked-lightning has been tried to be got at trigonometrically, and the result gave a length of several miles. Lightning of the second class is what is commonly called sheet-lightning (Ger. Flachenblitz). It has no definite form, but seems to be a great mass of light. It has not the intensity of lightning of the first class. Sometimes it is tinged decidedly red, at other times, blue or violet. When it occurs behind a cloud, it lights up its outline only. Occasionally, it illumines the world of clouds,, and appears to come forth from the heart of them.

Sheet-lightning is very much more frequent than forked-lightning. Lightning of the third kind is called ball-lightning (Fr. globes defeu, Ger. Kugelblitz). This so-called lightning describes, perhaps, more a meteor, which, on rare occasions, accompanies electric discharge, or lightning proper, than a phenomenon in itself electrical. It is said to occur in this way : After a violent explosion of lightning, a ball is seen to proceed from the region of the explosion, and to make its way to the earth in a curved line like a bomb. When it reaches the ground, it either splits up at once, and disappears, or it rebounds like an elastic ball several times before doing so. It is described as being very dangerous, readily setting fire to the building on which it alights; and a lightning-conductor is no protection against it. Ball-lightning lasts for several seconds, and, in this respect, differs very widely from lightning of the first and second classes, which are, in the strictest sense, momentary.

The thunder (Fr. tonnerre, Ger. Donner) which accompanies lightning, as well as the snap attending the electric spark, has not yet been satisfactorily accounted for. Both, no doubt, arise from a commotion of the air brought about by the passage of electricity; but it it is difficult to understand how it takes place. Suppose this difficulty cleared, there still remains the prolonged rolling of the thunder, and its strange rising and falling to account for. The echoes sent between the clouds and the earth, or between objects on the earth’s surface, may explain this to some extent, but not fully. A person in the immediate neighborhood of a flash of lightning, hears only one sharp report, which is peculiarly sharp when an object is struck by it. A person at a distance hears the same report as a prolonged peal, and persons in different situations hear it each in a different way. This may be so far explained. The path of the lightning may be reckoned at one or two miles in length, and each point of the path is the origin of a separate sound. Suppose, for the sake of simplicity, that the path is a straight line, a person at the extremity of this line must hear a prolonged report; for though the sound originating at each point of the path is produced at the same instant, it is some time before the sound coming from the more distant points of the line reaches the ear. A person near the middle of the line hears the whole less prolonged, because he is more equidistant from the different parts of it. Each listener in this way hears a different peal, according to the position he stands in with reference to the line. On this supposition, however, thunder ought to begin at its loudest, and gradually die away, because, the sound comes first from the nearest points, and then from points more and more distant. Such, however, it is well known, is not the case.

Distant thunder at the beginning is just audible, and no more; then it gradually swells into a crashing sound, and again grows fainter, till it ceases. The rise and fall are not continuous, for the whole peal appears to be made up of several successive peals, which rise and fall as the whole. Some have attempted to account for this modulation from the forked form of the lightning, which makes so many different centers of sound, at different angles with each other, the waves coming from which interfere with each other, at one time moving in opposite directions, and obliterating the sound, at another in the same way, and then strengthening the sound, produced by each. Thunder has never been heard more than 14 miles from the flash. The report of artillery has been heard at much greater distances. It is said that the canonading at the battle of Waterloo was heard at the town of Creil, in the north of France, about 115 miles from the field.

April 20, 2006

GENERATIONS, ALTERNATION OF

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aphis, which in the perfect state possess wings, a large proportion of the individuals never acquire these organs, but remain in the condition of larvae. These without any sexual union (none of them, indeed, being males) bring forth during the summer living young ones resembling themselves; and these young ones repeat the process, till ten or eleven successive broods are thus produced; the last progeny, towards the end of the summer, being winged males and female”>

GENERATIONS,alteration of, a phrase devised by Steenstrup, a Danish naturalist, about the year 1840, to signify ‘the remarkable and till now inexplicable natural phenomenon of an animal producing an offspring, which at no time resembles its parent, but which, on the other hand, itself brings forth a progeny which returns in its form and nature to the parent animal, so that the maternal animal does not meet with its resemblance in its own brood, but in its descendants in the second, third, or fourth degree of generation; this always taking place in the different animals which exhibit the phenomenon in a determinate generation, or with the intervention of a determinate number of generations.’

The phenomenon has been observed in many of the Jiydrozoa, in various entozoa, in annelids, in molluscoids (salpce), and in insects (aphides); and its nature will be best understood by our giving one or two illustrations.

We commence with the development of the medusae or jelly fishes, which belong to the class Tcydrozoa. The medusa discharges living young, which, after having burst the covering of the egg, swim about freely for some time in the body of the mother. When first discharged or born, they have no resemblance whatever to the perfect medusae, but are little cylindrical bodies (fig. 1, a), covered with cilia, moving with considerable rapidity, and resembling infusoria. After moving freely in the water for some days, each little animal fixes itself to some object by one extremity (e), while at the opposite extremity a depression is gradually formed, the four corners (b, /) becoming elongated,

a n d gradually transformed into tentacles (c). These tentacles increase in number till the whole of the upper margin is covered with them (g). Transverse wrinkles are then seen on the body at regular intervals, appearing first above, and then extending downwards. As these wrinkles grow deeper, the edge of each segment presents a toothed appearance, so that the organism resembles an ar-tichoke or pine-cone, surmounted by a tuft of tentacles (Ti). The segments gradually become more separated, until they are united by only a very slender axis, when they resemble a pile of shallow cups placed within each other (i). At length the upper segment disengages itself, and then the others in succession. Each segment (d) continues to develop itself until it becomes a complete medusa (&); while the basis or stalk remains, and produces a new colony. Here, then, we have the egg of the medusa gradually developed into the polypoid organism (A), to which the term strofiila (from strobilos, a pine-cone) has been given. This polype, by gemmation and fission, yields medusas with reproductive organs.

The phenomenon of alternation of generations in the Cestoid Worms (q. v.),and in certain Trematoid Worms (see fluke),has already been noticed, and will be further discussed in the articletapeworms.The fission of certain annelids (Syllis and Myri-anida), (seereproduction),presents an example, although at first sight a less obvious one, of alternation of generations, the non-sexual parent worm yielding by fissure progeny containing spermatozoa and ova, from which again a non-sexual generation is produced.

The Salpa (mollusca or molluscoids belonging to the family Tuni-cata) are usually regarded as affording a good illustration of the phenomenon under consideration. It was in these animals that it was originally noticed by Chamisso, who accompanied Kotzebue in his voyage round the world (1815 — 1818).

TheSalpse (from twenty to forty in number) are united together by special organs of attachment, so as to form long chains, which float in the sea, the mouth(to),however, being free in each. The individuals thus joined in chains (fig. 2, A) produce eggs; one egg

being generally developed in the body of each animal. This egg, when hatched, produces a little mollusc (fig. 2, B), which remains solitary, differs in many respects from the parent, does not produce an egg, but propagates by a kind of internal gemmation, which gives rise to chains already seen within the body

of the parent, which finally bursts and liberates them. These chains, again, bring forth solitary individuals.

The chief instance in which this phenomenon occurs in animals so highly organized as insects is in the Aphides, or Plant-lice. In many species of the genus aphis, which in the perfect state possess wings, a large proportion of the individuals never acquire these organs, but remain in the condition of larvae. These without any sexual union (none of them, indeed, being males) bring forth during the summer living young ones resembling themselves; and these young ones repeat the process, till ten or eleven successive broods are thus produced; the last progeny, towards the end of the summer, being winged males and females, which produce fruitful eggs that retain their vitality during the winter, and give birth to a new generation in the spring, long after their parents have perished. Another instance is the Gynips or Gallfly. Hof meister discovered an alternation of generations in plants. For generation other than by impregnation, Owen invented the termparthenogenesis.

Cycle of Generationsis a truer term than alternation of generations; as there may be four changes between one several generation and the next for several series. Many authorities object to the term ‘ alternation of generations.’ The detached portions of the stock originating in a single generative act are termed Zb’oids by these writers, whilst by the term animal or entire animal (the equivalent of Zoori) they understand in the lower tribes, as in the higher, the collective product of a single generative act. Here they include under the title of one generation all that intervenes between one generative act and the next. ‘ If,’ says Dr. Carpenter, ‘ the phenomena be viewed under this aspect, it will be obvious that the so-called ” alternation of generations” has no real existence; since in every case the whole series of forms which is evolved by continuous development from one generative act repeats itself precisely in the products of the next generative act. The alter, nation, which is very frequently presented in the forms of the lower animals, is between the products of the generative act and the products of gemmation, and the most important difference between them usually consists in this—that the former do not con. tain the generative apparatus which is evolved in the latter alone.

The generating zooid may be merely a segment cast off from the body at large, as in the case of the Tape-worms (q. v.), or it may contain a combination of generative and locomotive organs, as in the self-dividing Annelide. It may possess, however, not merely locomotive organs, but a complete nutritive apparatus of its own, which is the case in all those instances in which the zSoid is cast off in an early stage of its development, and has to attain an increased size, and frequently also to evolve the generative organs, subsequently to its detachment; of this we have examples in the Medusas budded off from Hydroid Polypes, and in the aggregate Salpce-’ For fuller details see Balfour’s Embryoloqy (1880-81).

April 19, 2006

ANIMALS, WORSHIP OF

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ANIMALS,WORSHIP OF,a stage in the religious evolution, characteristic of many of the less cultured races, which has some-lines held its place in the higher stages of civilization. It origins in Animism (q. v.), or spirit-worship, which is a universal phenomenon of humanity. Among primitive peoples, all animals are supposed to be endowed with souls, which in many cases have formerly animated human beings.

Hence a likeness is often recognized between an animal and some deceased friend, and the animal is addressed as the person would have been, and honored with a kind of worship. The case of an ancestral soul, worshiped as incarnate in an animal body, thus forms a link between manes-worship and beast-worship; and we find this connection otherwise in the veneration of a particular species of animal by a particular family, clan, or tribe. Many tribes call themselves by the name of, and even derive their pedigree from some animal. Its cries become the omens of the tribe, and thus originate the divination and augury of more civilized nations. This curious and widespread belief in a descent from animals in connection with a belief in transmigration into other forms, goes far to explain such phenomena as lycanthropy (see WERE-WOLF)and the unions between animals and human beings so common in folk-lore, and has doubtless originated in totemism (see TOTEM).The division of a tribe into the families of the bear, crane, turtle, &c., indicates a time when families claiming descent from ancestors holding those names, have banded themselves together for the common interest; and that an ancestor should be called the bear, or turtle, or crane, indicates a time still further back, when the name was given him for some reason. Many ethnologists, notably Sir John Lubbock and Herbert Spencer, suppose these names to have been originally personal epithets, designating qualities or characteristics of the individual (thus, a slow man would be called a turtle, a very long-legged man a crane), which became family surnames, and eventually gave rise to myths of the families being actually descended from the animals, in question as ancestors; while popular mystification between the great ancestor and the creature whose name he held and handed down to his race, led to veneration for the creature itself, and thence to full animal-worship. Though such nicknaming as this, has occurred, totemism must have had a much broader and deeper foundation. Perhaps the best explanation is that suggested by the worship of personal deities, seen in its greatest development in the North American native races. The manitou of the Indian is almost always an animal, and is chosen by each individual at his coming of age, being pointed out to him in a dream, produced by the greatest religious act of his life—his first fast. This animal then becomes an object of worship, and its skin is carried about the person as a fetich, and its likeness painted on the body, or sculptured on the weapons. Thus arise tattooing and heraldry— forms of worship—and the superstitious fear the savage entertains of killing or eating his manitou, or patron-animal. The manitou develops into the totem, or sacred-animal, of the gens or family which descends from that person, and worship is paid to all representatives of its species. Equally strong evidence is obtained from the ancient nations. Some facts are preserved in the signs of the Zodiac, the majority of which are animals, and compounds of human and animal forms. There is nothing in the grouping of the stars to suggest animal forms, and the probability is, that in ancient as in modern times, stars, when named, were given names of distinction that commanded respect, if not veneration; therefore that the animals whose names were transferred to the stars were, on earth, highly, if not religiously venerated.

This is borne out by the legends of the transference to the heavens of particular animals. The frequency, also, of animal-names, and of representations of the same animals upon coins, point to the same conclusion. In the old Egyptian animal-worship, also, the theory of tribe-fetiches and deified totems is borne out. We find deities patronizing special sacred animals, incarnate in their bodies or represented in their figures; while many of the sacred creatures are worshiped in one locality, yet killed and eaten with impunity elsewhere. In the modern world., the most civilized people among whom animal-worship vigorously survives lie within the range of Brahmanism. Here the sacred cow is not merely to be spared; she is, as a deity, worshiped and bowed to daily by the pious Hindu. Siva is incarnate in Hanuman, the monkey-god; the divine king of birds, Garuda, is Vishnu’s vehicle; and the forms of fish, and boar, and tortoise are assumed in the avatar-legends of Vishnu, which are at the intellectual level of those Red Indian myths which they so curiously resemble. Perhaps no worship has prevailed more widely than that of the serpent. It had its place in. Egypt and among the Hebrews ; in Greece and Rome; among the Celts and Scandinavians in Europe; in Persia and India; in China and Tibet; in Mexico and Peru; in Africa, where it still flourishes as the state religion in Dahomey; in Java and Ceylon; among the Fijians, and elsewhere in Oceania. And even within the limits of Christianity, we find the sect of the Ophites, who continued or renewed snake-worship, blended curiously with purer*rites. It is evident, however, that although some animals may have received a preference, yet all had a share in the superstitious reverence of primitive peoples; and this broad universality of their worship militates against any other theory of its origin, except that based on the theory of the transmigration of souls. See Fergus-son’s Tree and Serpent Worship (1868); M’Lennan in the Fortnightly Review for 1869 and 1870; Herbert Spencer in the Fortnightly for 1870; Dr. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871); Dr. Robertson Smith in the Journal of Philology (1880); and Dorman’s Origin of Primitive Superstitions (Philadelphia, 1881).

April 18, 2006

EMPEROR

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E’MPEROR (Lat. imperator). The original signification of this, which in the modern world has become the highest title of sovereignty, can be understood only when it is taken in conjunction with imperium, which in the Roman political system had a peculiar and somewhat technical meaning. The imperium of a magistrate, be he king or consul, was the power which he possessed of bringing physical force in operation for the fulfilment of his behests. This power was conferred by a lex curiata, and it required this authorization to entitle a consul to act as the commander of an army. In the case of the kings also, the imperium was not implied in their election, but was conferred separately, by a separate act of the national will. ‘ On the death of King Pompilius,’ says Cicero, ‘ the populus in the comitia curiata elected Tullus Hostilius king, upon the rogation of an interrex; and the king, following the example of Pompilius, took the votes of the populus, according to their curiæ, on the question of his imperium.’ —Republic, ii. 17. Now, it was in virtue of this imperium that the title imperator was given to its possessor. Far from being an emperor in the modern sense, he might be a consul or a pro-consul; and there were, in fact, many imperatores, even after the title had been assumed as a prenomen by Julius Caesar. It was this assumption which gradually gave to the title its modern signification. In republican times, it had followed the name, and indicated simply that its possessor was an imperator, or one possessed of the imperium now it preceded it, and signified that he who arrogated it to himself was the emperor. In this form, it appears on the coins of the successors of Julius.

After the times of the Antonines, the title grew into use as ex-pressing the possessor of the sovereignty of -the Roman world, in which sense Princeps also was frequently employed. In the Introduction to the Institutes, Justinian uses both, in speaking of himself, in the same paragraph. From the emperors of the West, the title passed to Charlemagne, the founder of the German empire. When the Carlovingian family expired in the German branch, the imperial crown became elective, and continued to be so till it ceased—Francis II., who in 1804 had declared himself hereditary Emperor of Austria, having laid it down in 1806. In addition to the Emperor of Austria, there are now in Europe the Emperor of Russia and Emperor of Germany, the latter of whom, was, on Jan. 18, 1871, proclaimed under this title within the Hall of Mirrors, in the palace of the French kings at Versailles, in the presence of the German princes, and the standards of the German army which was beleaguering Paris. In 1876 the Queen of England assumed the title of Empress of India, in addition to those which she bore previously.

April 17, 2006

EMOTION

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 10:03 am

EMO’TION- This is the name for one of the comprehensive departments of the human mind. It is now usual to make a threefold division of the mind—Emotion, or Feeling; Volition, or Action prompted by Feelings; and Intellect, or Thought. It is not meant that these can be manifested in absolute separation; or that we can be at one time all emotion, another time all volition, and again all thought, without either of the other two. But although our living mind is usually a concurrence, in greater or less degree, of all of them, still they can be distinguished as presenting very different appearances, according as one or other predominates. Wonder, Anger, Fear, Affection, are emotions; the Acts that we perform to procure pleasurable feelings, and avoid painful, are volitions, or exercises of Will; Memory and Reasoning are processes of Thought, or Intellect.

Emotion is essentially a condition of the waking, conscious mind. When asleep, or in a faint, or in any of those states called ‘ being unconscious,’ we have no emotion; to say that we have would be a contradiction, which shows that ‘ emotion’ is a very wide and comprehensive word. In fact, whenever we are mentally excited ‘anyhow,’ we may be said to be under emotion. Our active movements and intellectual processes can sometimes go on with very little consciousness; we may walk and scarcely be aware of it; trains of thought may be proved to have passed through the mind while we are unconscious of them. Now, it is these unconscious modes of Volition and Intellect that present the greatest contrast to emotion; showing how nearly co-extensive this word is with mental wakefulness, or consciousness, in its widest signification.

Emotion, then, is of the very essence of mind, although not expressing the whole of mind. There are three distinct kinds or divisions of it: Pleasures, Pains, and Excitement that is neither pleasurable nor painful.

Every kind of Pleasure is included under emotion in its widest acceptation. The pleasures of the Senses are as much of an emotional character as those pleasures that are not of the senses—as, :or example, those of Power, Pride, Affection, Malevolence, Knowledge, Fine Art, &c. Every one of our senses may be made to yield pleasurable emotion; and all those other susceptibilities, sometimes called the special emotions, of which a classification is given below, are connected with our pleasures or our pains. What pleasure is in its inmost nature, each one must find from his own experience; it is an ultimate fact of the human consciousness which cannot be resolved into anything more fundamental, although, as will be seen, we can lay down the laws that connect it with the other manifestations of mind—namely, action and thought, and with the facts of our corporeal life.

In the next place, Pain is a species of emotion. We know this condition as being the opposite of Pleasure, as the source of activity directed to its removal or abatement, and as the cause of a peculiar outward appearance, known as the Expression or Physiognomy of Pain. All the inlets of pleasure are also inlets of pain. The various sensibilities of the mind, whether the outward senses, or the more inward emotions, give rise at one time to pleasure, at other times to pain, the conditions of each being generally well understood by us; we can define the agencies that cause pleasure or suffering through the skin, the ear, or the eye. But it is requisite, further, to recognize certain modes of Neutral Excitement, in order to exhaust the compass of emotion. We are very often roused, shocked, excited, or made mentally alive, when we can hardly say that we are either pleased or put to pain. The mind is awakened and engrossed with some one thing, other things are excluded; and the particular cause or the excitement is impressed upon us so as to be afterwards remembered, while all the time we are removed alike from enjoyment and from suffering. This is a kind of emotion that has its principal value in the sphere of intellect. The emotion of Wonder or Astonishment is not seldom of this nature; for although we sometimes derive pleasure, and sometimes the opposite, from a shock of surprise, we are very frequently affected in neither way, being simply impressed. The strange appearance of a comet gives far more of this neutral effect than of the others. It is a thing that possesses our mind at the time, and is afterwards vividly remembered by us, and these are the chief consequences of its having roused our wonder. The Physical Accompaniments of emotion are a part of its nature. It has been remarked in all ages, that every strong passion has a certain outward expression or embodiment, which is the token of its presence to the beholder. The child soon learns to interpret the signs of feeling. Joy, Grief, Affection, Fear, Rage, Wonder, have each a characteristic expression; and painters, sculptors, and poets, have adopted the demeanor of passion as a subject for their art. There must be some deep connection in the human frame between the inward states of consciousness and the physical or corporeal activities, to produce results so uniform throughout the human race. When we study the facts closely, we obtain decisive proof of the concurrence of the following members and organs in the manifestation of feeling.

In the first place, the muscles or moving organs are affected. Under strong excitement, the whole body is animated to gesticulation; in less powerful feelings, the expression confines itself more to the features or the movements of the face. These last have been analyzed by Sir Charles Bell. The face has three centers of movement—the Mouth, Eyes, and Nose; the mouth being most susceptible, and therefore the most expressive feature. In the Eyes, expression is constituted by the two opposite movements of the eyebrows; the one raising and arching them (prompted by a muscle of the scalp, occipitofrontalis), the other corrugating and “wrinkling them. The one movement is associated with pleasing states, the other with painful. The Nose is acted on by several muscles, the most considerable of which is one that raises the wing together with the upper lip, and is brought into play under the disgust of a bad smell and in expressing dislike generally.

The Mouth is principally made up of one ring-like muscle (orbicularis), from which nine pairs radiate to the cheeks and face. In pleasing emotions, the mouth is drawn out by the action of two pairs of muscles, named the buccinator and zygomatic, situated in the cheek. The expression of pain is determined by the contraction of the aperture of the mouth, through the relaxation of those muscles, and the contraction of the ring-like muscle that constitutes the flesh of the lips; and by two muscles in the chin, one depressing the angle of the mouth, and the other raising the middle of the lower lip, as in pouting. Besides the features, the Voice is instinctively affected under strong feelings; the shouts of hilarious excitement, the cry of sharp pain, and the moan of protracted agony, .are universally known. Another important muscle of expression is the Diaphragm, or midriff, a large muscle dividing the chest from the abdomen, and regularly operating in expiration. In laughter, this muscle is affected to convulsion.

In the second place, the organic functions of the system are decidedly influenced for good or evil under emotion. The glandular and other organs acted on in this way comprehend the most important viscera of the body. The Lachrymal Secretion is specifically affected under passion; the flow of tears being accelerated to a rush, instead of pursuing the tranquil course of keeping the eyeball moist and clean. The states of the Sexual Organs are connected with the strongest feelings of the mind, being both the cause and the effect of mental excitement. The Digestion is greatly subject to the feelings, being promoted by joy and hilarity, not in too great excess, and arrested and disturbed under pain, grief, terror, anger, and intense bodily or mental occupation. The Skin is known to respond to the condition of the mind; The cold sweat in fear is a derangement of its healthy functions. The Respiration maybe quickened or depressed according to the feelings. The action of the Heart and the Circulation of the Blood are subject to the same causes. The nature of this influence was explained under BLUSHING. Lastly, in women, the Lacteal Secretion participates in the states of emotion, being abundant, healthy, and a source of pleasure in a tranquil condition of mind, while grief and strong passions change it to a deleterious quality.

The connection between mental emotion and bodily states being thus a fact confirmed by the universal experience of mankind, can we explain this connection upon any general law or principle of the human constitution? Have we any clue to the mysterious selection of some actions as expressing pleasure, and others as expressing pain? The reply is, that there is one principle or clue that unravels much of the complexity of this subject—namely, that states of pleasure are usually accompanied with an increase in some or all of the vital functions, and states of pain with a depression or weakening of vital functions. This position may be maintained on a very wide induction of facts, many of them very generally recognized, and others open to any careful observer; there being, however, some appearances of an opposite kind, which have to be satisfactorily accounted for, before we can consider it as fully established.

If we consider first the respective agents or causes of pleasure and pain, we must acknowledge that they are very generally of a nature to accord with the view now stated. How many of the sources of pleasure are obviously sources of increased energy of some vital organs. The case of Food is too obvious to need any .comment. Warmth within limits both confers pleasure and stimulates the skin, the digestion, and other functions. Fresh air exhilarates the mind, while quickening the respiratory function. Light is believed to stimulate the vital actions no less than the mental tone. And if there be some pleasures of sense, such as mere sweetness of taste, fragrant odors, music, &c., that do not obviously involve greater energy of vital function, they might be seen to do so, if we knew more than we do respecting the operation of the various organs, and we are certain that they do not have the opposite effect. Medical authorities are so much impressed with the general tendency of pleasures, that they include them in the list of stimulants in cases of low vitality. If we pass from the senses to the special emotions, such as Wonder, Power, Tender Affection, Taste, we find that when those are pleasing, they also increase the animal forces at some point or other. A stroke of victory sends a thrill through the whole system; and if the pulse were examined at that moment, we should find that it beats stronger. The illustration for Pains is exactly parallel, but still more striking. It is notorious that hurts, wounds, fatigue, ill-health, hunger, dullness, nauseous tastes and odors, the silence of a prison, the gloom of utter darkness, failure, humiliation, contumely, deprivation of one’s usual comforts and pleasures— while causing pain, cause in a corresponding degree a depression of the powers of the system. There are some apparent exceptions, as in the stimulus of the whip, the bracing agency of cold, and the effect of misery generally in rousing men from lethargy to action, but these could all be shown to be quite compatible with the main principle.

If we turn from the agents to the expression, or modes of manifestation, of the opposing mental conditions, we shall find that the facts are of the same general tenor, although with some seeming exceptions. Joy makes a man spontaneously active, erect, animated, and energetic. It is as if a flush of power were diffused through his members; and the efforts he is then prompted to, lead to no painful exhaustion. The opening up of the features, by the elevation of the eyebrows and the retraction of the mouth, indicates that the stream of energy has coursed over the face. In a still greater shock, the convulsiveness of laughter, by which respiration is quickened, attests the superabundance of the animal spirits. The body stands more erect, and every act done is done with more emphasis. Grief and depression are the opposite in every particular. The frame is languid and stooping, the features lifeless, the voice is a feeble wail; and although there is a species of convulsion attending on this condition of mind, it is a marked contrast to the other. The sob is caused by the partial paralysis of the diaphragm, which necessitates great voluntary efforts in order that breathing may proceed. The choking sensation at the throat is also a species of paralysis from loss of vital power. The convulsions arising under such circumstances are productive of an exhausting reaction, which is the case with all the energetic movements stimulated by extreme pain.

Such is undoubtedly the general fact. But why should pain stimulate, or give strength to some special muscles, such as the corrugator of the eyebrow, and the depressor of the angle of the mouth? This has appeared a great difficulty to the ablest physiologists. It would look as if pleasure coincided with an energetic wave sent to some muscles, and pain with an energetic wave sent to others; so that the opposite conditions of mind are equally accompanied by an accession of power to some bodily member. But if we examine the matter more narrowly, it will probably turn out that the muscles that seem to be stimulated under pain, are not so in reality, but obtain the upper hand through the general relaxation of the system. Thus, take the mouth. We know the state of the mouth in languor, inaction, and sleep. We know that when we are roused in any way, the muscles of the face operate and draw the mouth asunder in a variety of forms. Pleasure corresponds with our energetic moods, pain causes a collapse towards the sleepy and exhausted condition which represents a state of departed energy. So the collapse of the body might seem an exertion of the flexor muscles, or those that bend the frame forward; but we are well aware that such collapse takes place when the system is totally lifeless. A renewed energy, as a matter of course, makes us stand erect.

This is a part of the case in reply to the objections arising from a specific expression of pain, but not the whole; and the answer to the difficulties still remaining is furnished by a fact that, if well authenticated, will probably dispose of nearly all the exceptions to the general principle now contended for. It is the organic functions, more than the muscular system, whose increased vitality coincides with pleasurable feeling, and their diminished action with pain. Muscular exercise is often highly agreeable, but the pleasure of resting after exercise is still more so. Now, there can be little doubt that what happens in the state of healthy repose is this: the amount of vital force stimulated by exercise—the increased energy derived from plying the lungs and heart—is now allowed to leave the active members, and to pass to the other organs—the digestion, skin, and various secreting glands—and it is their .aggrandizement that is associated with the comfortable sensations of repose and sinking into sleep. Thus, the abating of muscular energy may be a cause of pleasure, provided the organic functions are raised in consequence; but it may be maintained as a highly probable supposition, that a certain health and energy of some or all of these functions (it is difficult to draw a specific line) is essential to pleasurable feeling. We may doubt whether even mental causes can materially raise the tone of enjoyment, if they do not also raise the activity of some of these organs.

Not only may a person be very happy and comfortable in the prostration of the muscular energy, even in a sick-bed, but one way of procuring comfort is to induce a total inaction of the moving members, to allow all the available nervous power to pass to the viscera and secretions. Hence a forced relaxation of the muscles generally, by the employment of some of them, is a means of soothing the mind under pain. Thus, the active intervention of certain small muscles—such as the corrugator of the eyebrows, the orbicular muscle of the mouth, and the depressor of the angle of the mouth—by relaxing a much greater body of muscle, is the means of setting free vital energy for behoof of the other parts of the system. This would explain the mental relief furnished by an assumed sadness of feature, and a voluntary collapse of the body generally.

It would appear, then, that the stimulus of muscle is not necessarily or immediately a cause of pleasure; while the stimulus of the organic functions is so. Thus, a bracing cold quickens the activities, but is apt to cause a shock of pain, by temporarily checking the action of the skin; when the reaction arrives, this check is converted into stimulation, and the mental state is altered in like manner. A bitter tonic must be supposed to act on the same principle.

The emotions of the human mind may be classified under two heads :

First—The pleasures, and pains, and modes of excitement growing out of the exercise of the Senses, the Movements, and the Appetites. See SENSES. The five senses, commonly recognized, are partly sources of pleasure and pain, in which case they yield Emotion, and partly sources of Knowledge, by which they are related to the Intellect. There are other sensibilities not included in the five senses, but ranking with them in those particulars—as the feelings of Muscular Exercise and Repose, and the sensations of Digestion, Respiration, &c.

The second head comprises the Special Emotions not arising immediately out of Sensation, although connected therewith. These have been variously classified. The following is one mode of laying them out: 1. Feelings of Liberty and Restraint; 2, Wonder; 3. Terror; 4. Tender Affections; 5. Emotions of Self-complacency, Love of Approbation, &c.; 6. Sentiment of Power; 7. Irascibility; 8. Emotions of Action, including the interest of Pursuit or Plot; 9. Emotions of Intellect, Love of Knowledge, Consistency, and Inconsistency; 10. Fine Art Emotions, or Taste; 11. The Moral Sense.

On this subject, see Muller’s Physiology, Movements due to the Passions of the Mind; Bell’s Anatomy of Expression; Stewart on the Active Powers; Bain on the Emotions and the Will, &c.

April 14, 2006

MOHILEV, or MOGILEV

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 9:06 am

MOHI’LEV, or MOGILEV, a government of European Russia. lying between Minsk and Smolensk, contains 18,500 English square miles, with a pop. (1880) of 1,092,500. The inhabitants are mostly Rusniaks, though there are also many Russians, Germans, Jews, and even Bohemians. The country is generally a plain, with here and there an occasional undulation) the soil is very fertile, and the climate most agreeably mild. Agriculture has here reached a high degree of perfection, and the same may be said of arboriculture and horticulture. The natural pasturage is of fine quality, and affords abundant nourishment to immense herds of cattle. The forests are extensive. The country is watered from the Dnieper and its numerous affluents, which form the means of communication with the Black Sea ports, and of the transit of corn, timber, and masts, of which last large quantities are annually floated down to Kherson. Bog iron-ore is found in abundance. The inhabitants are celebrated for their activity and industry; and M., from its great natural advantages has now become one of the richest provinces of Russia.

In early times, M. belonged to the territory of the Russian prince of Smolensk, but was subsequently conquered by the Grand Duke of Lithuania, and was, along with Lithuania, united to the kingdom of Poland. In 1772, it was seized by Russia at the first partition of Poland; and in 1796, was joined to the government of Vitebsk, under the name of White Russia; but since 1802. it has formed a separate government.

April 13, 2006

MOHAMMEDAN SECTS

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 8:43 am

MOHAMMEDAN SECTS. ‘My community,’ Mohammed is reported to have said, ‘will separate itself into seventy-three sects; one only will be saved, all the others shall perish.’ This prophecy shall be largely fulfilled. Even during the illness, and immediately after the death of the founder, many differences of opinion arose among his earliest adherents. We have endeavored to show, both under KORAN and MOHAMMEDANISM, how the fundamental book of Islam left certain points undecided by the very fact of its poetical wording, and how, further, the peculiarity of the Arabic idiom at times allowed many interpretations to be put upon one cardinal and dogmatic sentence. To add to this uncertainty, a vast number of oral traditions sprang up and circulated as an expansive corollary to the Koran. Political causes soon came to assist the confusion and contest, and religion was made the pretext for faction-lights, which in reality had their origin in the ambition of certain men of influence. Thus ‘ sects ‘ increased in far larger numbers even than the Prophet had foretold, and though their existence was but short-lived in most instances, they yet deserve attention, were it only as signs and tokens of the ever-fresh life of the human spirit, which, though fettered a thousand times by marrow and hard formulas, will break these fetters as often, and prove its everlasting right to freedom of thought and action.

The bewildering mass of these currents of controversy, has by the Arabic historians been brought under four chief heads or fundamental bases. The first of these relates to the divine attributes and unity. Which of these attributes are essential or eternal? Is the omnipotence of God absolute? If not, what are its limits? Further, as to the doctrine of God’s predestination and man’s liberty — a question of no small purport, and one which has been controverted in nearly all ‘revealed’ religions — How far is God’s decree influenced by man’s own will? How far can God countenance evil? And questions of a similar kind belonging to this province. The third is perhaps the most comprehensive ‘ basis,’ and the one that bears most directly upon practical doctrines —viz., the promises and threats, and the names of God, together with various other questions chiefly relating to faith, repentance, infidelity, and error. ‘The fourth is the one that concerns itself with the influence of reasons and history upon the transcendental realm of faith. To this chapter belong the mission of prophets, the office of Imam, or Head of the Church, and such intricate subtleties as to what constitutes goodness and badness, how far actions are to be condemned on the ground of reason or the ‘ Law; ‘ &c.

One broad line, however, came to be drawn, in the course of time, among these innumerable religious divisions, a line that separated them all into orthodox sects and heterodox sects; orthodox being those only who adopted the oral traditions, or Sunna (see

Much more numerous than the orthodox divisions are the heterodox ones. Immediately after Mohammed’s death, and during the early conquests, the contest was chiefly confined to the question of the Imamat. But no sooner were the first days of warfare over, than thinking minds began to direct themselves to a closer examination of the faith itself, for which and through which the world was to be conquered, and to the book which preached it, the Koran. The earliest germs of a religious dissension are found in the revolt of the Kharejites against Ali, in the 37th year of the Hedjrah; and several doctors shortly afterwards broached heterodox opinions about the predestination and the good and evil to be ascribed to God. These new doctrines were boldly and in a very advanced form, openly preached by Wasil Ibn Ata, who, for uttering a moderate opinion in the matter of the ‘ sinner,’ had been expelled from the rigorous school of Basra. He then formed a school of his own — that of the Separatists or Motazilites (q. v.), who, together with a number of other ‘ heretical ‘ groups, are variously counted as one, four, or seven sects.

We now come to the second great heretic group, the Sefatians. The Sefatians (attributionists) held a precisely contrary view to that of the Motazilites. With them, God’s attributes, whether essential or operative, or what they afterwards called declarative or historical, i.e., used in historical narration (eyes, face, hand), anthropomorphisms, in fact, were considered eternal. But here, again, lay the germs for more dissensions and more sects in their own midst. Some taking this notion of God’s attributes in a strictly literal sense, assumed a likeness between God and created things; others giving it a more allegorical interpretation, without, however, entering into any particulars beyond the reiterated doctrine, that God had no companion or similitude. The different sects into which they split were, first; the Asharians, so called from Abul Hasan al Ashari. who, at first a Motazilite, disagreed with his masters on the point of God’s being bound to do always that which is best. He became the founder of a new school, which held (1) that God’s attributes are to be held distinct from his essence, and that any literal understanding of the words that stand for God’s limbs in the Koran is reprehensible. (2) That predestination must be taken in its more literal meaning, i.e., that God pre-ordains everything. The opinions on this point of man’s free will are, however, much divided, as indeed to combine a predestination which ordains every act with man’s free choice is not easy; and the older authors hold it is well not to inquire too minutely into these things, lest all precepts, both positive and negative, be argued away. The middle path, adopted by the greater number of the doctors, is expressed in this formula: There is neither compulsion nor free liberty, but the way lies between the two; the power and will being both created by God, though the merit or guilt be imputed to man.

Regarding mortal sin, it was held by this sect, that if a believer die guilty of it without repentance, he will not, for all that, always remain a denizen of hell. God will either pardon him, or the Prophet will intercede on his behalf, as he says in the Koran: ‘My intercession shall be employed for those among my people who shall have been guilty of grievous crimes;’ and further, that he in whose heart there is faith but of the weight of an ant, shall be delivered from hell-fire. From this more philosophical opinion, however, departed a number of other Sefatian sects, who, taking the Koranic words more literally, transformed God’s attributes into grossly corporeal things, like the Mosshabehites, or Assimilators, who conceived God to be a figure composed of limbs like those of created beings, either of a bodily or spiritual nature, capable of local motion, ascent, or descent, &c. The notions of some actually went so far as to declare God to be ‘ hollow from the crown of the head to the breast, and solid from the breast downward; he also had black curled hair.’ Another sub-division of this sect were the Jabarians, who deny to man all free agency, and make all his deeds dependent on God. Their name indicates their religious tendency sufficiently, meaning ‘Necessitarians.’

The third principal division of ‘ heretical sects ‘ is formed by the Kharejites, or ‘ Rebels’ from the lawful Prince—i.e., Ali— the first of whom were the 12,000 men who fell away from him after having fought under him at the battle of Seffein, taking offence at his submitting the decision of his right to the califate (against Moawiyyah) to arbitration. Their ‘ heresy ‘ consisted, first, in their holding that any man might be called to the Imamat though he did not belong to the Koreish, nor was even a freeman, provided he was a just and pious man, and fit in every other respect. It also followed that an unrighteous Imam might be deposed, or even put to death; and further, that there was no absolute necessity for any Imam in the world.

Of the fourth principal sect, the Shiites, or’ Sectaries,’ the followers of Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, we have spoken under that special heading.

It remains only to mention a few of the many pseudo-prophets who arose from time to time in the bosom of Islam, drawing a certain number of adherents around them, and threatening to undermine the church founded by Mohammed, by either declaring themselves his legal successors, or completely renouncing his doctrines. The first, and most prominent among these, was Mosaylima (q. v.). Next to him stands Al-Aswad, originally called Aihala, of the tribe of Ans, of which, as well as of that of a number of other tribes, he was governor. He pretended to receive certain revelations from two angels, Sohaik and Shoraik. Certain feats of legerdemain, and a natural eloquence, procured him a number of followers, by whose aid he had made himself master of several provinces. A counter-revolution, however, broke out the night before Mohammed’s death, and Al-Aswad’s head was cut off; whereby an end was put to a rebellion of exactly four months’ duration, but already assuming large proportions. In the same year (11 Hedjrah), but after Mohammed’s death, a man named Toleiha set up as prophet, but with very little success. He, his tribe, and followers were met in open battle by Khalid, at the head of the troops of the Faithful, and being beaten, had all finally to submit to Islam.

A few words ought also to be said regarding the ‘Veiled Prophet,’ Al-Mokanna, or Borkai, whose real name was Hakem Ibn Hashem, at the time of Al-Mohdi, the third Abbaside calif. He used to hide the deformity of his face (he had also but one eye) by a gilded mask, a circumstance which his followers explained by the splendor of his countenance being too brilliant (like that of Moses) to be borne by ordinary mortals. Being a proficient in jugglery besides, which went for the power of working miracles, he soon drew many disciples and followers around him. At last he arrogated the office of the Deity itself, which by continual transmigrations from Adam downwards, had at last resided in the body of Abn Moslem, the governor of Khorassan, whose secretary this new prophet had been. The calif, finding him growing-more and more formidable every day, sent a force against him, which filially drove him back into one of his strongest fortresses, where he first poisoned and then burned all his family; after which he threw himself into the flames, which consumed him completely, except his hair. He had left a message, however, to the effect that he would reappear in the shape of a gray man riding on a gray beast, and many of his followers for many years after expected his reappearance. They wore, as a distinguishing mark, nothing but white garments. He died about the middle of the 2d c. Hedjrah.

Of the Karmathians and the Ismailis, we have spoken under these special headings. We can scarcely enumerate among the prophets Abul Teyeb Ahmed Al-Motanebbi, one of the most celebrated Arabic poets, who mistook, or pretended to mistake, his-poetical inspirations for the divine afflatus, and caused several tribes to style him prophet, as his surname indicates, and to acknowledge his mission. The governor of his province, Lulu, took the promptest steps to stifle any such pretensions in the bud, by imprisoning him, and making him formally renounce all absurd pretensions to a prophetical office. The poet did so with all: speed. He was richly rewarded by the court and many princes for his minstrelsy, to which henceforth he clung exclusively; but the riches he thus accumulated became the cause of his death. Robbers attacked him while he was returning to his home in Kufa, there to live upon the treasure bestowed upon him by Adado’d-dawla, Sultan of Persia.—The last of these new prophets to be mentioned is Baba, who appeared in Amasia, in Natolia, in 638 Hedjrah, and who had immense success, chiefly with the Turkmans, his own nation, so that at last lie found himself at the head of nearly a million men, horse and foot. Their war-cry was, God is God, and Baba—not Mohammed—is his prophet. It was not until both Christians and Mohammedans combined for the purposed of self-defence, that this new and most formidable power was annihilated, its armies being routed and put to the sword, while the two chiefs were decapitated by the executioner.

April 12, 2006

FASCINATION BY SERPENTS

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 10:12 am

FASCINA’TION BY SERPENTS. A power has long been popularly ascribed to serpents, or at least to some kinds of them, of fascinating by their eye the small animals on which they prey, so as to prevent the escape of the intended victim, when its escape would otherwise be easy, and to cause it rather to run or flutter into the mouth which is open to devour it. This popular notion has been ridiculed, but is supported by a large amount of evidence, and has been full adopted by some of the most scientific observers. In the earlier part of last century, Kalm described the rattlesnake as frequently lying at the bottom of a tree, on which a squirrel is seated, and fixing its eyes on the little animal, which from that moment cannot escape, but begins a doleful outcry, comes towards the snake, runs a little bit away, comes nearer, and finally is swallowed. Le Vaillant describes a similar scene, as witnessed by him in Africa, a shrike incapable of moving away from a serpent which was gazing fixedly at it, and dying of fear, although the serpent was, killed. Dr. Andrew Smith states that the presence of a non-venomous South African tree-snake, Bucephalus viridis, in a tree, causes the birds of the neighborhood to collect around it and fly to and fro, uttering piercing cries, ‘ until some one, more terror-struck than the rest, actually scans its lips, and almost without resistance, becomes a meal for its enemy.’ He adds, ‘ whatever may be said in ridicule of fascination, it is nevertheless true that birds, and even quadrupeds, are, under certain circumstances, unable to retire from the presence of certain of their enemies; and what is even more extraordinary, unable to resist the propensity to advance from a situation of actual safety, into one of most imminent danger.

This I have often seen exemplified in the case of birds and snakes; and I have heard of instances equally curious, in which antelopes and other quadrupeds have been so bewildered by the sudden appearance of crocodiles, and by the grimaces and contortions they practised, as to be unable to fly, or even move from the spot towards which they were approaching to seize them.’ Ellis, in his Three Visits to Madagascar, records anecdotes of the same kind, and one in particular, of a frog apparently unable to move, until an object was pushed between it and the eye of the snake, when the frog immediately darted away, as if relieved from some mesmeric influence exerted over it.

April 11, 2006

LEGITIMACY, PETITION TO DECLARE

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 4:43 am

LEGI’TIMACY,PETITION TO DECLARE.In Scotland, it has always been competent for a party who wished to establish that he was a legitimate person, to raise an action of declarator of legitimacy, when the court solemnly decided the question. In England, this could not be done, except indirectly in the course of some suit for another purpose, until 1858, when the statute 21 and 22 Vict. c. 93 allowed all natural-born subjects whose legitimacy was doubted to present a petition to the Divorce Court to have the question decided. A similar act for Ireland was passed in 1868′(31 and 32 Vict. c. 20).

LEGITIMATION

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 4:43 am

LEGITIMA’TION, in Scotch (and Foreign) Law, is the rendering legitimate a person who was born illegitimate. This is done by the father subsequently marrying the mother of the child, and hence it is often called legitimation per subseqvens matrimonium. This effect, however, can only be produced provided at the time of the birth the parents might have been married, or there was no obstacle to their then marrying, if so inclined, as, for example, if they were both unmarried, and there was no impediment. Sometimes it has happened that the father, A, or mother, B, after the child’s birth, marries a third person, and has children, and after the dissolution of the marriage, A and B then marry. In this perplexing case, the courts have held that the intervening marriage with a third party does not prevent the bastard child, born before that event, from being legitimated by the subsequent marriage of A and B. But it has not been settled what are the mutual rights of the children of the two marriages in such circumstances, though it appears that the legitimate-born children cannot be displaced by the legitimated bastard. The doctrine of legitimation per subsequens matrimonium is not recognized in England or Ireland, having been solemnly repudiated by the famous statute of Merton, and the maxim prevails there, ‘once a bastard, always a bastard.’ Legitimation is also recognized in Scotland, but not in England or Ireland, where the parents were not really married, though they both bona-fide believed themselves to be married. This is called a putative marriage. The Scotch law on these subjects follows the canon law, and the French law is the same.

April 10, 2006

FASHION

Filed under: Uncategorized — Erik @ 8:07 am

FA’SHION, or, as the French term it, La Mode, admits as little of exact definition as of being referred to any intelligible principle. In every age and country, there has been a recognizable costume or general style of male and female attire, along with certain niceties in the shape, color, and texture of dress, which, fluctuating according to taste or whim, are known as the fashion—a word which etymologically signifies making in a particular form. The terms fashion and fashionable are, however, so comprehensive as to include much beyond the sphere of the toilet; as, for example, a style of speaking, living, and forming opinions; there being, to use a common phrase, ‘a fashion in everything.’ It is only in China and some other eastern countries that in consequence of dress being regulated by sumptuary laws or some equally strict traditions, the fashions of attire remain from generation to generation with little or no change.

The nature of clothing, and the necessity for its use, being treated in the articlesWEAVING-andSANITARY SCIENCE,what seems desirable here is to glance at the leading forms of dress and more conspicuous fashions that have prevailed in Western Europe, and more particularly in England, since the dawn of civilization. Our modern costume has seemingly had a double origin—that of the Romans and of the Teutonic people, who in different branches invaded France and Britain. The usual Roman dress, in the latter period of the Empire, consisted of a tunic, or loose upper garment, with a dress for the lower limbs, called braccæ; hence the modern term breeches. Over all was occasionally worn by the higher classes the toga, or mantle.

It is believed that these Roman costumes were generally copied by the greater number of British, at least among the more opulent classes. In the dress of the women, however, there was but little change. They appear in two tunics, the one reaching to the ankles, the other having short sleeves, and reaching about halfway down the thigh : in other words, they resemble a round gown, or bedgown and petticoat, though the latter, distinct from a body and sleeves, is not considered to be ancient. This tunic was called in British gwn; hence our word gown, of which we still see specimens of short dimensions worn by women of the humbler classes in England, Scotland, and Wales.

The Anglo-Saxon and Danish periods of English history are marked by new peculiarities in costume. Soon after the departure of the Romans, and the arrival of the Saxons in the 5th c., fashions of apparel were introduced from Northern Germany, which continued with no material change for several centuries, The most important improvement in the ordinary dress of the people was the introduction of the shirt, a linen garment worn next the skin, for which we are indebted to the Saxon invaders. The common dress of the 8th c. consisted, as we find, of linen shirts; tunics, or a kind of surcoat; cloaks fastened on the breast or shoulders with brooches; short drawers met by hose, over which were worn bands of cloth, linen, or leather, in diagonal crossings. Leathern sandals were worn by the early Anglo-Saxons; but afterwards the shoe became common: it was very simple, and well contrived for comfort, being opened down the instep, and there, by a thong passed through holes on each side of the slit, drawn tight round the feet like a purse. A felt or woollen cap, called hæt (hence our modern word hat), was worn by the higher class of Anglo-Saxons; but it is generally believed that the serfs or lower orders were without any other covering for the head than what nature had given them. The Anglo-Saxon tunic still exists in the smock-frock, a species of overall generally worn by the peasantry and some farmers in England. The blouse, worn by workmen in France and Switzerland, has an equally early origin.

The Norman Conquest introduced greater taste and splendor into British costume. Now, were introduced Gloves (q. v.), along with the fashions of chivalry. The engraving represents a gentleman of the reign of Henry V.: he is dressed in a short tunic, buttoned in front, with girdle, large loose sleeves, tight hose forming pantaloons, and stockings in a single piece, peaked shoes, and head cloth or cap. About this period, silks and velvets of divers colors came into use among the higher classes, by whom gold chains were generally worn. The dress of ladies was of the richest kind. Gowns were embroidered and bordered with furs or velvet; and the bodice, laced in front over a stomacher, now first appeared. But the greatest eccentricity was the lofty steeple head-dress, shown in the annexed portrait; this consisted of a roll of linen, covered with fine lawn, which hung to the ground, or was mostly tucked under the arm.

In the 16th c., the upper part of the long hose or nether garments began to be worn loose, or slashed with pieces of different colors let in, and the arms and shoulders of the doublet or jacket were fashioned in a similar style. Boots were also worn loose on the leg with the upper part falling down; hence the origin of the buskin. Ruffs or ruffles, collars, and velvet bonnets with feathers, came likewise into use, as may be seen from the paintings of Henry VIII- Hall, the chronicler, describes several of Henry’s superb dresses, and among them a frocks, or coat of velvet, embroidered all over with gold of damask, the sleeves and breast cut and lined with cloth of gold, and tied together ‘ with great buttons of diamonds, rubies, and orient pearls.’ The cloaks and mantles were of corresponding magnificence. The shirts we pinched or plaited, and embroidered with gold, silver, or silk. The term hose continued to be applied to the entire vestment, from the waist to the feet, throughout this century : the material is more distinctly stated, for Henry wore knit silk as well as cloth hose : the precise period of the separation of the hose into breeches and stockings, is not so clear as the derivation of the latter term from the ‘ stockying of hose;’ ‘ that is, adding the lower part that covered the legs and feet to that which was fastened by points to the doublet,’ and was called the stocks. The shoes and buskins were of the German fashion, very broad at the toes, and of velvet and satin, slashed and puffed. The hats, caps, and bonnets were of almost endless forms and colors. The dress of the middle ranks in the reign of Henry VIII. may be seen in prints of the time; plain russet coats, and a loose kind of kersey breeches, with stockings of the same piece, were the ordinary suit; and the London apprentices wore blue cloaks in summer, and gowns of the same color in winter, as badges of servitude; for this appears to have been the age of domestic distinctions—the relics of the feudalism of the middle ages. The women wore russet, or long woollen gowns, worsted kirtles (here-after called petticoats), and white caps and aprons; and white underlinen came into general wear. The engraving shows a man and woman in the ordinary dress of this period.

The principal novelty of the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary was the flat round bonnet or cap, of plain velvet or cloth, worn on one side of the head, and decorated with a jewel and single ostrich feather. The bonnet itself is preserved in the caps worn at the present day by the boys of Christ’s Hospital; and their blue coat and yellow stockings are such as were worn by the London apprentices at the date of the foundation of the hospital by the youthful Edward. SeeHOSIERY.

The male costume in Elizabeth’s reign was the large trunk hose, long-waisted doublet, short cloak, hat, band, and feather, shoes mill roses, and the large ruff; but the great breeches, ’stuffed with hair-like, woolsacks,’ after the separation of the hose into this garment and stockings, appear to have been worn throughout the