Baha'ism is a religion founded in Iran by Baha'ullah with about five million adherents throughout the world. Following the suppression of the millenarian Babi movement Babism in Iran and the execution of its leader, the Bab, in 1850, Baha'ullah declared himself in 1863 to be the new prophet heralded by the Bab. Baha'ullah acknowledged the revelations of earlier prophets such as Jesus and Muhammad, but held that the single identity of God must be re-taught by new prophecy to each generation.
Baha'is believe in the spiritual progression of the world to unity and their ideal is an international community with one language. Baha'i temples are open to the faithful of all creeds. A Universal House of Justice administers the religion, with its centres in Haifa and Akko (Acre) in Israel. There is no clergy or ritual; spiritual practice includes daily private prayer and an annual period of fasting, which ends with the festival of Now Ruz, the Persian New Year at the spring equinox. Baha'is stress the equality of women and the importance of monogamous family life.
Although Baha'is regard the Koran and Muhammad with reverence, to Muslims the Baha'is are heretics who have displaced the Koran from its position as the final and most important revelation; this has led to persecution in Iran since the religion's inception, with renewed force since the Islamic revolution of 1979. Furthermore, the location of the Baha'is world centre in Israel has led to an association of Baha'is with that country and made the Baha'is a target of anti-Semitic sentiment. Research Baha'ism
An original study into the science of attraction among the English.
A young person on a Friday night dresses up and goes to town seeking a mate. They would argue that their choice of clothes and presentation are conscious. Decisions made in the light of current fashion trends and their own perception of what they look good in. In fact, the choices have already been made by nature. Biological programming by nature steers that young person as surely as the winds and tides steer a ship without a rudder. To understand these unconscious motivations one must review the role of humans as animals. All animals are programmed with the primary intention of helping the species to survive long-term. Long term survival of any species is accomplished through it's adaptation and development. A species adapts from one generation to the next through the mixing of genes. Breeding between many different partners. Nature programs all animals to encourage the combination of genes which are most likely to assist the species. Strong animals breed together and restrict the breeding of weaker animals. Creative and perceptive, but weak individuals covertly breed.
In this way both strength, and creativity are passed on. The notion of 'the survival of the fittest' is quite untrue. Speed, strength and mental ability all assist survival. Human animals are no different in their programming to any other species. They are as much victims to the primary directive of species survival as are the amoeba, the ant and the elephant. When two animals, be they human or otherwise, breed the parents pass on to the offspring characteristics from themselves. The offspring is then a mixture of characteristics from the parents. Human animals have an insatiable desire to pass on their characteristics. It is programmed into them just as it is with all animals. Certainly the human ability to think and to rationalise gives rise to conflicts between this animal desire and social acceptability, but the urge remains none-the-less.
To examine how the desire to satisfy this primary directive motivates humans in perhaps everything they do one must first review the basic roles of the sexes. The female human, like all female mammals is fertilised by the male and carries the young inside herself for a while before giving birth. Human' s give birth prematurely, as do all advanced animals. If the human mother was to carry her offspring until such time as it was capable of self sufficiency her gestation period would be in the region of twelve years, rather than nine months. Quite impossible, so the young is born early and dependant upon the mother, for she produces milk, for support. In a primitive society, a nursing mother is incapable of supporting her offspring and gathering food and shelter for herself. The human mother, like most other animals relies upon the support of a partner - usually the male father of the offspring - who will collect food, shelter and provide protection against predators. The two roles are quite clearly defined by nature: The female nurtures the offspring. The male provides for the female during the nurturing period With civilisation, the roles
become confused. A male may nurture the offspring once it has been born while the female support him. Two males or females may acquire an offspring and live together. But the basic situation is the same; two adults co-operating for the benefit of producing new offspring for the species. Gregarious co-operation with family units supporting single parents may also appear. But even in these circumstances responsibility for an offspring will be taken by one or two adults. Realising these basic roles of the two sexes one can see what each looks for in the other as a partner.
The female when seeking a male partner looks for the following characteristics: 1) Desirability by other females. This ensures that resultant offspring will also attractive and will have the maximum chance of spawning.
2) Fidelity. To ensure the maximum purity of the offspring.
3) Steadfastness. This ensures that the male will support her during the gestation period and while the offspring is dependant upon her. Otherwise, she and the offspring may not survive.
4) Mental ability. Mental ability is important to assist the species to develop.
5) Strength. Physical strength is necessary for the survival of both the offspring and the species.
6) Social Status. In an advanced society this may be realised as wealth. A perceived high social status implies success, which in turn inspires confidence in the off spring' s chances of survival.
The male human seeks the following from a female mate:
1) Desirability by other males. This ensures that resultant offspring will also attractive and will have the maximum chance of spawning.
2) Fidelity. To ensure the maximum purity of the offspring.
3) Steadfastness. This ensures that the female will provide and nourish the offspring ensuring its survival.
4) Mental ability. Mental ability is important to assist the species to develop.
5) Strength. Physical strength is necessary for the survival of both the offspring and the species.
Despite the desire for fidelity in our partner, mankind has also been programmed to spread our genes as far and wide as possible. This programming is responsible for the phases humans go through with our desires at times for 'older' and 'younger' partners, and also for ' exotic' or foreign partners. The problem of inbreeding has been taken care of with our variance in what humans find desirable. If all humans found the same attributes attractive in a person, the scope of reproduction would be severely limited. However, by programming humans to find different attributes more or less attractive, nature ensures a good spread of reproduction. Personality takes a part. Our programming to benefit the species leads one to resist personalities with attributes which do not consider beneficial to the species, and to bias towards personalities with attributes which are found beneficial. As with all animals, humans have a problem with finding a mate. Potential mates must be satisfied with our desirability. And while this can be circumscribed through force and deceit (rape or plying the mate with alcohol or drugs to numb the mind), generally humans preen and parade themselves as other animals do.
Humans embarrass attractiveness through covering our bodies with perfumes, clothes and paint. Males will appear successful through driving a suitable vehicle, or wearing suitable clothes. Suitable being items which trigger the notion of success in the potential mate's mind. The female human, being on the whole passive in the mate selection process, will display herself in front of potential mates to attract attention. She implies receptability through the display and emphasis of her erogenous regions. Homosexuality: While the divisions between the male and female sexes in humans is clearly defined biologically, psychologically the male and female sexes are confused, blended and fused. The advancement of the humananimal has been a partial result of the blending of psychological characteristics of parents in their offspring. Thus, all humans posses male and female characteristics in varying degrees, forming a shaded psyche rather than the clearly defined male/female roles
of less complex organisms. This may account for the comparatively large number of human homosexuals compared to other animals, and indeed observation and interviews with homosexual men over many years has led to the belief that male homosexuals are essentially of the male physical sex, but female mental sex, consisting of a much higher proportion of female psychological attributes than traditional men. Research Biological Programming In Human Sexual Relationships
Cosmogony (from the Greek, kosmos, world, and gone, generation), is a theory of the origin or formation of the universe. Such theories may be comprehended under three classes: 1. The first represents the world as eternal, in form as well as substance. 2. The matter of the world is eternal, but not its form. 3. The matter and form of the universe is ascribed to the direct agency of a spiritual cause; the world had a beginning, and shall have an end.
Aristotle appears to have embraced the first theory; but the theory which considers the matter of the universe eternal, but not its form, was the prevailing one among the ancients, who, starting from the principle that nothing could be made out of nothing, could not admit the creation of matter, yet did not believe that the world had been always in its present state. The prior state of the world, subject to a constant succession of uncertain movements which chance afterwards made regular, they called chaos. The Phoenicians, Babylonians, and also Egyptians, seem to have adhered to this theory. One form of this theory is the atomic theory, as taught by Leucippus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. According to it atoms or indivisible particles existed from eternity, moving at hazard, and producing, by their constant meeting, a variety of substances. After having given rise to an immense variety of combinations they produced the present organization of bodies. The third theory of cosmogony makes God, or some deity, the Creator of the world out of nothing. This is an ancient and widely-spread theory, and is that taught in the book of Genesis. Anaxagoras was the first among the Greeks who taught that God created the universe from nothing. Around 1900 the most popular theory for the origin of the universe was the nebular hypothesis, which was strikingly similar to the later big bang theory propagated at the end of the 20th century. Research Cosmogony
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
Engraving is the art of representing objects and depicting characters on metal, wood, precious stones, etc, by means of incisions made with instruments variously adapted to the substances operated upon and the description of work intended.
Impressions from metal plates are named engravings, prints, or plates those printed from wood being called indifferently wood engravings and wood-cuts. While, however, these impressions are not altogether dissimilar in appearance, the processes are distinct. In plates the lines intended to print are incised, and in order to take an impression the plate is daubed over with a thick ink which fills all the lines. The surface is then wiped perfectly clean, leaving only the incised lines filled with ink. A piece of damp paper is now laid on the face of the plate, and both are passed through the press, which causes the ink to pass from the plate to the paper. This operation needs to be repeated for every impression, for the wood block, on the contrary, the spaces between the lines of the drawing are cut out, leaving the lines standing up like type, the printing being from the inked surface of the raised lines, and effected much more rapidly than plate printing.
Engraving on wood, intended for printing or taking impressing from, long preceded engraving on metals. The art is of eastern origin, and at least as early as the 10th century engraving and printing from wood blocks was common in China. We first hear of wood engraving being cultivated in Europe by the Italians and Germans in the 13th century. For a hundred and fifty years, however, there is small indication of the practice of the art, which was at first confined to the production of block-books, playing cards, and religious prints. In the 15th century the art of printing from engraved plates was discovered in Florence by Maso Finiguerra.
Engraving had long been used as a means of decorating armour, metal vessels, etc, the engravers generally securing duplicates of their works before laying in the niello (a species of metallic enamel) by filling the lines with dark colour, and taking casts of them in sulphur. The discovery of the practicability of taking impressions upon paper led to engraving upon copper plates for the purpose of printing from.
The date of the earliest known niello proof upon paper is 1452. The work of the Florentine engravers, however, was almost at once surpassed in Venice and elsewhere in North Italy by Andrea Mantegna, Girolamo Mocetto, Giovanni Batista del Porto, and others. In Marc Antonio Raimondi, who wrought under the guidance of Raphael, and reproduced many of his works, the art reached its highest point of the earlier period, and Rome became the centre of a new school, which included Marco da Ravenna, Giulio Bonasone, and Agostino de Musis.
In the meantime, in Germany the progress of the art had been not less rapid. Of the oldest school the most important engraver is Martin Schongauer. He was, however, surpassed a generation later by Albert Durer who excelled both in copper and wood engraving, especially in the latter. Among his most famous contemporaries and successors were Burgkmair and Lucas Cranach. The Dutch and Flemish schools, of which Durer's contemporary Lucas van Leyden was the head, did much to enlarge the scope of the art, either by paying increased attention to the rendering of light and shade, and the expression of local colour, as in the case of Cornelius Cort and Bloemart; or by developing freedom and expression of line, as in the case of Goltzius and his pupils.
Rubens influenced engraving through the two Bolswerts, Vorstermann, Pontius, and de Jode, who engraved many of his works on a large size. Towards the end of the 17th century etching, which had before been rarely used, became more common, and was practised with great success by Rembrandt and other painters of that period. In France Noel Garnier founded a school of engraving about the middle of the 16th century; but it produced no work of any high distinction until the reign of Louis XIV, when Nanteuil's pupil Gerard Edelinck and Gerard Audran flourished. The former was skilled in using his graver to produce colour effects, the latter is famed for his engravings from Nicolas Poussin and Le Brun. But these were all surpassed about the middle of the 18th century by Wille, a German resident in Paris.
Before the middle of the 17th century England produced little noteworthy work, availing herself principally of the work of foreign engravers, of whom many took up temporary and even permanent residence. The first English engraver of marked importance was William Hogarth, whose works are distinguished for character and expression. Vivares, a Frenchman by birth, laid the foundation of the English school of landscape-engraving, which was still further developed by William Woollet, who was also an excellent engraver of the human figure.
In historical engraving a not less remarkable advance was made by Sir Robert Strange, and Richard Earlom produced some admirable works in mezzotint. In succession to these came William Sharp, James Bazire, Bartolozzi, James Heath, Bromley, Raimbach, and others.
The substitution of steel for copper plates around 1820 to 1830 gave the power of producing a much larger number of fine impressions, and opened new possibilities for highly-finished work.
During the closing years of the 18th century line engraving attained a depth of colour and fulness of tone in which earlier works generally are deficient, and during the following century it reached a perfectness of finish which it had not previously attained. A picture, whether figure or Landscuape, may be translated by line engraving with all its depth of colour, delicacy of tone, and effect of light and shade; the various textures, whether of naked flesh, silk, satin, woollen, or velvet, all successfully rendered by ingenious modes of laying the lines and combinations of lines of varying strength, width, and depth. Among engraverswho have produced historical works of large size and in the line manner the names of Raphael Mrghen, Longhi, Anderloni, Garavaglia, and Toschi, in Italy; of Forster, Henriquel-Dupont, Bridoux, and Blanchard, in France; of John Burnet, J H Robinson, Doo, J H Watt, and Lumb Stocks, in England, stand pre-eminent.
Among historical and portrait engravers in the stipple or dotted manner the names of H T Ryall, Henry Robinson, William Holl and Francis Holl, may well be mentioned.
In the period 1820 to 1860 landscape engraving attained a perfection in Great Britain which it had not attained in any other country, or at any other time. Among landscape engravers the names of George Gooke, William Miller, E Goodall, J Cousen, K Brandard, and William Forrest hold the foremost places. In mezzotinto engraving Samuel Cousins is unrivalled.
In the period 1830 to 1845 various publications called Annuals, composed of light literature in prose and verse, and illustrated by highly-finished engravings in steel, were very popular. The engravings were necessarily of small size, and are generally of great excellence. A number of them both figure and landscape are executed with such finish and completeness as to be esteemed perfect works. The unrivalled illustrations of Rogers' Poems and Rogers' Italy after Turner and Stothard belong to this period. Many of the originals of the engravings in the Annuals were finished pictures of large size.
A great part of the difficulty in engraving on a small scale from a large picture, consists in determining what details can be left out, and still preserve the full effect and character of the original. The most noted engravers for work of small size are Charles Heath, Charles Bolls, W Finden, E Finden, E. Portbury, J Goodyear, F Engleheart, Henry Le Keux, E Goodall, and W Miller.
After 1870 many plates were produced by a combination of etching and dry point, a comparatively cheap and rapid process. Such works were fashionable and very popular with collectors. But while some of them have been excellent of their kind, the process is of limited resource, and the best works in this manner will not stand comparison with the masterpieces of line engraving. Through lack of encouragement, change of fashion, and the adoption of other methods of reproduction such as photography, line engraving rapidly becoming a lost art in Great Britain. The men who made line engraving famous died, and there was no sufficient inducement for younger men to pursue that art. In France and in Germany some able line engravers were still in practice at the start of the 20th century.
Line Engraving, as implied by the term, is executed entirely in lines. The tools are few and simple. They consist of the graver or burin, the point, the scraper, and the burnisher; an oil-stone or hone, dividers, a parallel square, a magnifying lens; a bridge on which to rest the hand; a blind or shade of tissue paper, to make the light fall equally on the plate, callipers for levelling important erasures, a small steelanvil, a small pointed hammer, and punches. In etching, the following articles are required: a resinous mixture called etching-ground, capable, when spread very thinly over the plate, of resisting the action of the acids used; a dauber for laying the ground equally; a hand-vice; some hair-pencils of different sizes, and bordering wax, made of burgundy-pitch, bees'-wax, and a little oil.
In engraving, the plate, which is highly polished and must be free from all scratches, is first prepared by spreading over it a thin layer of ground. The surface is then smoked, and the outline of the picture transferred to it by pressure from the paper on which it has been drawn in fine outlines by a black-lead pencil. The picture is then drawn on the ground with the etching-needle, which removes the ground in every form produced by it, and leaves the bright metal exposed. A bank of wax is then put round the plate and diluted acid poured on it, which eats out the metal from the lines from which the ground has been removed, but leaves the rest of the plate untouched. The plate is then gone over with the graver, the etched lines clearly defuned, broken lines connected, new lines added, etc. Sometimes the plate is rebitten more than once, those parts which are sufficiently bitten in the first treatment being stopped with varnish, and only the selected parts exposed to after-biting. Finally the burnisher is brought into play alternately with the graver and point to give perfectness and finish.
Such is the process for landscape engraving. In historical and portrait engraving of the highest class, the lines are first drawn on the metal with a fine point and then cut in by the graver, first making a fine line and afterwards entering and re-entering till the desired width and depth of lines is attained. Much of the excellence of such engravings depends on the mode in which the lines are laid, their relative thickness, and the manner in which they cross each other. In historical engraving etching is but little used, and then only for accessories and the less important parts.
In Soft-ground Etching the ground, made by mixing lard with common etching-ground, is laid on the plate and smoked as before, but its extreme softness renders it very liable to injury. The outline of the subject is drawn on a piece of rough paper larger than the plate. The paper is then damped, and laid gently over the ground face upwards, and the margins folded over and pasted down on the back of the plate. When the paper is dry and tightly stretched the bridge is laid across, and with a hardish pencil and firm pressure the drawing is completed in the usual manner. The pressure makes the ground adhere to the back of the paper at all parts touched by the pencil, and on. the paper being lifted carefully off, these parts of the ground are lifted with it, and the corresponding parts of the plate thus left bare are exposed to the subsequent action of the acid. The granulated surface of the paper, causing similar granulations in the touches on the ground, gives the character of a chalk-drawing. The biting-in is effected in the same manner as already described, and the subject is finished by re-biting and dotting with the graver.
Stipple, or Chalk Engraving, in its pure state, is exclusively composed of dots, varying in size and form as the nature of the subject demands, but few stipple plates are now produced without a large admixture of line in all parts, flesh excepted. A great advance, however, was made in stipple engraving by the introduction of large and varied forms of dotting in the draperies, the results almost rivalling line engraving in richness and power.
The Mixed Style is based on mezzotinto, which, still forming the great mass of shading, is in this method combined with etching in the darker, and stipple in the more delicate parts. By this combination a plate will produce a larger number of good impressions than were it done entirely in mezzotinto.
The wood best adapted for engraving is box. It is cut across the grain in thicknesses equal to the height of type, these slices being subjected to a lengthened process of seasoning, and then smoothed for use. Every wood engraving is the representative of a finished drawing previously made on the block; the unshaded parts being cut away, and the lines giving form, shading, texture, etc, left standing in relief by excavations of varied size and character, made between them by gravers of different forms. Drawings on wood are made either with black-lead pencil alone or with pencil and indian ink, the latter being employed for the broader and darker masses. It is now much the practice to photograph drawings made in black and white upon the wood instead of making the drawing on the wood block. When the drawing is put on the wood by washes or by photography instead of being entirely done by pencil lines, the engraver has to devise the width and style of lines to be employed instead of cutting in facsimile, as is the case when the drawing is made entirely in lines. The tools required for wood engraving are similar but more numerous than those of the engraver on copper or steel. Research Engraving
A generation is a single succession of human beings (or animals) who are born, grow up, and reproduce their kind; hence, the term generation is applied to an age or period of time between one succession and the next, as the third, the fourth, or the tenth generation. The length of a generation is sometimes estimated at about thirty years. Research Generation
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 Renaissance was that change in the outlook of Europe which took place during the centuries from the fourteenth to the sixteenth. In its broadest sense the Renaissance affected every department of human life. But in its narrower sense it refers to the revival of the learning of ancient Greece, and to the effects of that revival on the arts and literature of modern peoples. The Church in the Middle Ages had taught men to revere authority and to find in her teaching an answer to all the problems of life, whereas the Greeks taught men to inquire and to explore rather than to accept, and to enjoy rather than to suffer. It was this attitude of mind, more than anything else, which shook the medieval world to its foundations. The views of the ancient Greeks, now re-born into the world, were in sharp contrast with the ideals of the Middle Ages. From these ideals many men for a time turned with a feeling of contempt.
The Renaissance was a many-sided movement: it deeply influenced learning and education, art and architecture, science and invention, geography and exploration, and, above all, religion. After the fall of Rome, a knowledge of Greek had rapidly died out in the West and no provision was made for its teaching similar to that made for Latin. In Italy, owing to the closeness of its relations with the East, the number of scholars, monks, and others, who learnt some Greek was greater than elsewhere. It is not, surprising, therefore, that the revival of learning received its main impulse from Italy. From the time of Petrarch and Boccaccio, Italian scholars became more and more devoted to ancient studies, and they began to visit Constantinople, where Greek learning had been preserved. There they hunted out, copied, and eagerly studied the precious manuscripts of the past, and these opened up a new world of thought. Further, from the time that the Turks' crossed from Asia into Europe, some of the Greeks themselves began to travel westwards and to accept well-paid teaching posts in the wealthy Italian cities. And, though the revival began in Italy, the new ideas were rapidly circulated by the new printing presses invented at the time, and every nation in due course played its part in the Renaissance.
The great and wealthy city of Florence was the centre of the Italian Renaissance. Cosimo de Medici, a merchant prince who became ruler of the city, was a patron of the New Learning, and he encouraged Greek scholars to settle in Florence. His grandson, Lorenzo de Medici, known as The Magnificent, loved to gather round him the learned men of the day; he spent 60,000 pounds a year on books; and he caused 200 rare manuscripts to be brought from the East to the Medici library. Rome was second only to Florence as a centre of the New Learning. The Popes themselves became great patrons of learning. Nicholas V founded the Vatican Library. When the son of Lorenzo de Medici became Pope as Leo X, the Renaissance in Rome reached its highest point. Leo made Rome, as he said, ' the capital of the world in literature, as it is in everything else'. He provided a hundred professors for his Greek college in Rome, and he brought his father's library to the Holy City. The library was afterwards restored to Florence by his cousin Clement VII, another member of this remarkable Medici family. The New Learning influenced England from the time of Edward IV, and it made great headway in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII when the scholars known as the Oxford Reformers were flourishing.
The first Englishman to bring Greek manuscripts to England was William Selling. One of his pupils was Thomas Linacre, who went to Florence and shared the instruction given to the young Medici princes; he read in the Vatican Library, and made the acquaintance of Aldo at Venice. Another Oxford teacher who drew his inspiration from Italian sources was William Grocyn, one of the first men to give lectures on Greek literature at his University.
One of Grocyn's pupils was John Colet, who visited Italy in 1496 and returned to lecture on the Gospels in the Greek original at Oxford. He and Sir Thomas More, were friends of Erasmus, a Dutch scholar of international fame. Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, was herself a patroness of the New Learning. She founded two Cambridge colleges, Christ's and St. John's, and two Lady Margaret Professorships of Divinity, one at Oxford and one at Cambridge. The Revival of Learning was one aspect of the Renaissance; the outburst of artistic energy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was another. The painters of the new period broke away from the conventional art of the Middle Ages and began again to draw from living models. As with the artists, so with the sculptors. Donatello 'went straight with his mighty chisel to original sources - to youth and manhood, and the love of living'. The great figures of that age - Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian - still dominate the history of European art. Examples of their works, and of many other Italian artists of the Renaissance, as well as of the Northern artists - Holbein, Durer, and others - are to be seen in the magnificent collection at the National Gallery.
It was natural that men who sought their inspiration from the Greeks should turn with renewed interest to classical architecture. The ruins of ancient Rome provided examples ready to hand; and soon churches planned like classical temples were rising in every city in Italy. St. Peter's, Rome, was designed by Bramante, and the famous dome added by Michelangelo. But great as was the enthusiasm for this architecture Renaissance architecture did not establish itself in England until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, though Henry VII's tomb at WestminsterAbbey is an example of the Florentine art of the period.
The Renaissance period, filled as it was with a love of experiment, naturally produced a renewed interest in science. With the exception of isolated geniuses like Friar Roger Bacon, there were no medieval scientists worthy of the name. Practically no scientific discoveries had been made for centuries. Modern Science begins its history with the Renaissance and owes a good deal to Leonardo da Vinci. He was the first of a long line of experimenters whose work has continued to the present day. The greatest shock to the medieval notions of the universe was given by Copernicus. For two thousand years mankind with few exceptions had believed that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that the sun revolved round our planet every twenty-four hours. Such had been the teaching of Ptolemy, the Greek scientist. Another Greek, Pythagoras, had questioned it, and advanced the extraordinary notion that the sun, not the earth, was the centre of the universe; but there were few who accepted his theory until Copernicus turned his attention to the 'solar system'. Through slits cut in the walls of his house, Copernicus watched the movements of the planets. Just before he died in 1543 he published a book - 'The Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies' - giving to the world the results of his observations.
Twenty years later the famous Galileo was born at Pisa, and it was he who perfected the telescope. He lived to popularise the theory of Copernicus, but he was nearly put to death for his pains and was forced by the Court of Inquisition to recant. The Italian Galileo, and the English Newton who discovered the laws of gravity, were the two greatest scientists of the seventeenth century. In the realm of geographical discovery, no age in the world' s history was more momentous than the Age of the Renaissance. Columbus, who discovered America; Vasco De Gama, who found the Cape Route to India; Cabot, Cartier, and Cortez, the discoverers of Newfoundland, Canada, and Mexico; Balboa, who first sailed on the Pacific; Magellan, whose ship was the first to sail round the world - all these and many more make the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries an era without parallel in the annals of discovery.
The new ideas which came surging into the world during the Renaissance acted in many respects as disruptive forces. This was particularly true in the realm of religion. An unquestioning acceptance of authority - i.e. of the teaching of the Catholic Church - was the keynote of the medieval attitude to life, but an eager, inquiring generation began to question this attitude. Men, too, were shocked by the moral decay of the Church and of the Papacy; voices were raised demanding reforms. Some reformers, like Colet and Erasmus, tried to reconcile the new ideas with the Church of Rome and worked to reform it; others, of whom Luther was the greatest, rejected altogether its authority.
The revolution in European history known as the Reformation was an indirect result of the Renaissance - of the New Learning which invited comparison between the present and the past; of the invention of printing which scattered broadcast the new ideas; and again, of the growing idea of the Nation and with it the supremacy of the State. Research Renaissance
Spontaneous Generation or Abiogenesis is the doctrine that living matter may originate spontaneously, that under certain circumstances dead matter may build itself up into living matter without the intervention of already existing protoplasm. In the 17th century this was the dominant view, sanctioned alike by antiquity and authority, and was first assailed by Redi, an Italian philosopher. Buffon held the doctrine in a very modified degree. He held that life is the indefeasible property of certain indestructible molecules of matter which exist in all living things, and have inherent activities by which they are distinguished from not-living matter, each individual living organism being formed by their temporary combination. Of course it is only animals or plants of very low type and minute size that have been supposed thus to be produced spontaneously from dead matter; and the readiness with which such appear, in circumstances in which one might suppose no germs of them could be present, gives some countenance to the belief. Thus even during the late 19th century and beginning of the 20th century authorities were found who still declared their adherence to the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Research Spontaneous Generation
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Baha'ism
