Aesthetics is the philosophy of the beautiful; the name given to the branch of philosophy or of science which is concerned with that class of emotions, or with those attributes, real or apparent, of objects generally comprehended under the term beauty, and other related expressions. The term aesthetics first received this application from Baumgarten (1714-1762), a German philosopher, who was the first modern writer to treat systematically on the subject, though the beautiful had received attention at the hands of philosophers from early times. Socrates, according to Xenophon, regarded the beautiful as coincident with the good, and both as resolvable into the useful. Plato, in accordance with his idealistic theory, held the existence of an absolute beauty, which is the ground of beauty in all things. He also asserted the intimate union of the good, the beautiful, and the true.
Aristotle treated of the subject in much more detail than Plato, but chiefly from the scientific or critical point of view. In his treatises on Poetry and Rhetoric he lays down a theory of art, and establishes principles of beauty. His philosophical views were in many respects opposed to those of Plato. He does not admit an absolute conception of the beautiful; but he distinguishes beauty from the good, the useful, the fit, and the necessary. He resolves beauty into certain elements, as order, symmetry, definiteness. A distinction of beauty, according to him, is the absence of lust or desire in the pleasure it excites. Beauty has no utilitarian or ethical object; the aim of art is merely to give immediate pleasure; its essence is imitation. Plotinus agrees with Plato, and disagrees with Aristotle, in holding that beauty may subsist in single and simple objects, and consequently in restoring the absolute conception of beauty. He differs from Plato and Aristotle in raising art above nature.
Baumgarten's treatment of aesthetics is essentially Platonic. He made the division of philosophy into logic, ethics, and aesthetics; the first dealing with knowledge, the second with action (will and desire), the third with beauty. He limits aesthetics to the conceptions derived from the senses, and makes them consist in confused or obscured conceptions, in contradistinction to logical knowledge, which consists in clear conceptions. Kant defines beauty in reference to his four categories, quantity, quality, relation, and modality. In accordance with the subjective character of his system he denies an absolute conception of beauty, but his detailed treatment of the subject is inconsistent with the denial. Thus he attributes a beauty to single colours and tones, not on any plea of complexity, but on the ground of purity. He holds also that the highest meaning of beauty is to symbolize moral good, and arbitrarily attaches moral characters to the seven primary colours. The value of art is mediate, and the beauty of art is inferior to that of nature.
The treatment of beauty in the systems of Schelling and Hegel could with difficulty be made comprehensible without a detailed reference to the principles of these remarkable speculations. English writers on beauty are numerous, but they rarely ascend to the heights of German speculation. Shaftesbury adopted the notion that beauty is perceived by a special internal sense; in which he was followed by Hutcheson, who held that beauty existed only in the perceiving mind, and not in the object. Numerous English writers, among whom the principal are Alison and Jeffrey, have supported the theory that the source of beauty is to be found in association - a theory analogous to that which places morality in sympathy. The ability of its supporters gave this view a temporary popularity, but its baselessness has been effectively exposed by successive critics. Dugald Stewart attempted to show that there is no common quality in the beautiful beyond that of producing a certain refined pleasure; and Bain agrees with this criticism, but endeavours to restrict the beautiful within a group of emotions chiefly excited by association or combination of simpler elementary feelings. HerbertSpencer has a theory of beauty which is subservient to the theory of evolution. He makes beauty consist in the play of the higher powers of perception and emotion, denned as an activity not directly subservient to any processes conducive to life, but being gratifications sought for themselves alone. He classifies aesthetic pleasures according to the complexity of the emotions excited, or the number of powers duly exercised; and he attributes the depth and apparent vagueness of musical emotions to associations with vocal tones built up during vast ages. Among numerous writers who have made valuable contributions to the scientific discussion of aesthetics may be mentioned Winckelmann, Lessing, Bichter, the Schlegels, Gervinus, Helmholtz, and Kuskin. Research Aesthetics
Creationism is the doctrine that a soul is specially created for each humanfoetus as soon as it is formed in the womb, as opposed to Traducianism, which teaches that the souls of children as well as their bodies are begotten by the parents; and to Infusionism, which holds that souls are pre-existent, and that a soul is divinely infused into each human fcetus as soon as it is formed by generation.
The term Creationism is also now widely applied to that theory of the origin of the universe which is opposed to Evolution, that is the literal theory put forward in the book of Genesis in the bible. Research Creationism
Creative Evolution is a tenet of philosophy put forward by Bergson that asserts that evolution is not purely mechanistic (as Darwin claimed) but that inherited characteristics and the effect of the environment are used by the individual, perhaps unconsciously, in an act of self-creation. Research Creative Evolution
Criminal law is the law relating to crimes. The general theory of the common law is, that all wrongs are divisible into two species: first, civil or private wrongs or torts; secondly, criminal or public wrongs. The former are to be redressed by private suits or remedies instituted by the parties injured. The latter are redressed by the state acting in its sovereign capacity.
The general description of the private wrongs is, that they comprehend those injuries which affect the rights and property of the individual, and terminate there; that of public wrongs or offences being, that they comprehend such acts as injure, not merely individuals, but the community at large, by endangering the peace, the comfort, the good order, the policy, and even the existence of society. In the first, therefore, so far as the law is concerned, the compensation of the individual whose rights have been infringed is held to be a sufficient atonement; but in the second class of offences it is demanded that the offender make satisfaction to the community as acting prejudicially to its welfare. The exact boundaries between these classes are not, however, always easy to be discerned, even in theory; for there are few private wrongs which do not exert an influence beyond the individual whom they directly injure. The divisions, torts and crimes, are thus not necessarily mutually exclusive, cases sometimes occurring in which the person injured obtains damages, while at the same time the criminal is subjected to punishment, not as against the individual, but as against the state. It is, moreover, obvious that legal criminality is not in any strict sense the measure of the morality of actions, though the legal enactment tends to enforce itself as a moral law. In large part it is only an approximate expression of the current sense of justice, this expression being both aided and hindered by the historical and constantly reflexive character of legal method.
The basis of the criminal law of Great Britain is to be found in a series of loose definitions and descriptions, of which many, and those among the more important, date from the 13th century. The irregular superstructure reared upon these consists mainly of parliamentary enactments which originated in the 18th century, but have been twice re-enacted in the 19th century - the first time between 1826 and 1832, and the second time in 1861, with an intermediary attempt at amendment in 1837. The laws as formulated, however, by no means always represent the law as interpreted, the whole system being further complicated by a mass of judicial comments and particular constructions. Thus while there is a statutory division of crimes into treasons, felonies, and misdemeanours, the distinctions between them are so uncertain that it is possible to regard the first head as merely the isolation of a sub-case of felony; while in respect of the second and third classes, the distinction can only be clearly marked by an enumeration of the crimes arbitrarily assigned to each in the common law and judges' decisions.
Even in severity of punishment a misdemeanour may rank as high as a felony. The Criminal Statutes Consolidation Acts - the result of a series of commissions extending over thirty years - accomplished little more in the way of systematization than the introduction of greater exactitude into the definition of certain individual offences and the gradation of penalties. The aim of criminal law as at present constituted, and since the end of the 19th century, is both retributive and preventive - in its former aspect being based upon the primitive passion of retaliation, in the latter primarily upon the fundamental instinct of self-preservation. The prevention of crime may, however, be effected in a threefold manner: by imposing a penalty which shall operate by fear to deter people from committing crimes, or by rendering it physically impossible for a person of known criminal tendency to repeat an offence, or by the reformation of the criminal. With the higher evolution of society the principle of retaliation has fallen into theoretic disrepute, though still a practical legal factor; and the problems of penology are made to turn almost exclusively upon the principle of prevention in these three aspects, and especially on the two last. The discovery in the 19th century that fear of a penalty only operated up to a certain point, beyond which an excessive punishment exercised a brutalizing tendency, led to a large mitigation of penal severity accompanied by a wide desire for the abolition of capital punishment, though this took almost one hundred years to be realised in Great Britain; while, on the other hand, various schemes have been devised for making punishment reformatory. These original changes in criminal law date in a large measure from the publication of Beccaria's Dei Delitti e delle Pene (On Offences and Penalties) in 1764. Research Criminal Law
Heredity is the transmission from parent to offspring of physical and intellectual characters. This has been at all times believed in, but it was only in Victorian times that the conviction was, for the first time, in the hands of Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and Wallace, been methodized so as to embody an important zoological doctrine. The Victorian view of evolution in biology rested upon the belief that acquired peculiarities, or differences which may arise between parent and offspring, could be transmitted with some probability of permanence, especially if the variation presented by the young was determined by external conditions, or if it was such as to adapt the possessor more thoroughly to the conditions under which it is placed. On the other hand, while variations may be thus permanently transmitted by heredity, yet this very tendency of the young to repeat the characters of the parent is also a check on variability, or the tendency of structure and attributes to change with the environment. It may be noted that while the strong tendency to hereditary transmission works in the majority of cases so as to perpetuate those most fitted to survive, it secures the same result in other cases by a converse action. The descent of disease in families tends ultimately to purify the race by accumulating incapacities which end in the extinction of the enfeebled strain. The discovery of genetics in the 20th century built upon the earlier theories of heredity, and explained, to a degree, the transport of the passing on of the characteristics. Research Heredity
History (from the Greek historia, from historeo, meaning I inquire into) is a term first used by Herodotus in the sense which it has since retained, of a narrative of events and circumstances relating to man in his social or civic condition. A. record of bare facts by themselves does not constitute history. Such a record (forming a chronicle or annals) is chronologically valuable; but to attain the dignity of history we must have social events and evolution detailed with considerable fulness, and the growth and movements of society, from one phase to another, distinctly traced and recorded.
The modern school of historians devote much attention to the social life of the people; their method being further characterized by the utmost accuracy of research, the extreme importance assigned to contemporary documentary evidence, and careful weighing of data. The field of history proper is so far restricted as to its subject, that only the doings of a community possessing something of an independent organic life can constitute it.
History may be conveniently divided into ancient, mediaeval, and modern; but these divisions have little scientific value. The first includes the Jewish history and that of the nations of antiquity, reaching down to the destruction of the Roman Empire in 476 AD; the second begins with 476 and comes down to the discovery of America in 1492, or to the Reformation; the third section extends from either of these eras to our own times. The earliest written history is found graven on the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, etc. These, though of the barest description, have the value of contemporary chronicles. Next come the histories found in the canonical books of the Old Testament; but the real inventors of the artistic form of history were the Greeks. Research History
Kinship is human relations based on biological descent and marriage. Kinship is founded on social differences and cultural creations. In all societies, the links between blood relatives and relatives by marriage are assigned certain legal, political, and economic significance that does not depend on biology. At the basis of kinship is the primary mother-child bond to which diverse cultures have added different familial relations. Additional kin are recruited to this basic unit by the principle of descent, which connects one generation to the other in a systematic way and which determines certain rights and obligations across generations. Descent groups can be traced through both sexes (that is, ambilaterally) or through only the male or the female link (unilaterally). In unilaterally traced groups the descent is known as patrilineal if the connection is through the male line or matrilineal if it is through the female line.
Less frequent forms for tracing descent are the parallel system, in which males and females each trace their ancestry through their own sex; and the cognatic method, in which the relatives of both sexes are considered, with little formal distinction between them. The study of kinship has directed much attention to the terms people use to classify and identify their relatives. Kin are everywhere categorised into distinct groups with specific roles and behaviour. The way in which people classify their kin has many practical applications. Thus, the familial relationships peculiar to a society will largely determine the allocation of rights and their transmission from one generation to the next. The succession of office and titles and the inheritance of property are implicit in the kinship system. Property can pass across generations in several ways, as, for example, from the mother's brother to the sister's son (in matrilineal societies); from the father to the father's younger brother (in some patrilineal cultures); or from the father to his son (in many patrilineal societies).
In some societies, kinship terms may also indicate how the family is split over the inheritance of goods and property. The Iatmul of New Guinea, for instance, assign five different terms to designate the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth child. In any quarrels over patrimony, the first and third children are expected to join forces against the second and the fourth. The evolution of kinship and its terminology has interested anthropologists since the mid- 1800s, when the American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan developed his theory of kinship. He held that kinship terminology used in non-literate societies reflected a low level of culture and that the terminology common in civilised societies indicated an advanced stage of development. This theory was abandoned when the discovery was made that the limited number of kinship systems in use are found among both technologically simple and advanced peoples.
Some non-evolutionary theories see kinship terms as a result of culture borrowings and modifications, as a means of understanding aspects of the history of a particular society, or even as a linguistic phenomenon. The most common anthropological view, however, is a functional one that relates kinship terms to contemporary behaviour. In this theory, the terms are considered tools for understanding the ties between-and values of- people in any given society. Kinship is important in anthropological study because it is universal. It connotes certain basic human attachments made by all people, and it reflects the way in which people give meaning and ascribe importance to human interactions. Research Kinship
Memetic evolution is the theory of the spread and development of memes (units of ideas, behaviours, habits and culture that are self-replicating and changeable. That pass through the ages from person to person by non-genetic means). Religion is an example of a meme, the development of Christianity through the ages may be seen as the memetic evolution of Christianity, as new ideas are proposed and accepted, and as interpretations of dogmas are amended, suggested and adopted. The word 'meme' was first proposed by the British biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, 'The Selfish Gene'. A key supporter of the concept of memes and of memetic evolution is the psychologist Susan Blackmore. Memes are still a theoretical abstract providing a label to group together those parts of behaviour and philosophy which are passed from generation to generation and person to person. Many scientists believe that describing abstract entities in such a physical manner, liking ideas to biological genes, is misleading. Research Memetic Evolution
The word 'museum' means a temple of the Muses, and in ancient times was applied to any building for the study of literature or art, and so was applied to institutions such as the university of ancient Alexandria which was founded in 280 BC. Generally in English speaking countries the term
museum is not generally understood to include picture and sculpture galleries. Books and manuscripts in so far as they convey ideas by language, pertain to the library; but as examples of printing, binding or illumination they are suitable items for a museum.
Museums may be classified according to their contents, thus there is a broad distinction between art and science museums, but the technical collections, illustrating the application of science to art, belong as much to one side as to the other. A piece of pottery may be said to be art pure and simple, or may be viewed from the scientific in respect of the potters craft, as archaeological evidence or as an illustration of ethnology. Thus this division is based upon ideas rather than materials. To this end we find
museums of all topics; religion, nature, the evolution of man, toys and so on. Research Museum
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Aesthetics
