The Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum is an Italian academy founded in Florence in 1582 by the writer Antonio Francesco Grazzini. It aimed at purifying and cultivating Italian language and literature, and its Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca (first published in 1612) is still a model for works of the kind. The French Academy was modelled on this one. Research Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum
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
Agriculture is the art of cultivating the ground, more especially with the plough and in large areas or fields, in order to raise grain and other crops for man and beast; including the art of preparing the soil, sowing and planting seeds, removing the crops, and also the raising and feeding of cattle or other live stock. This art is the basis of all other arts, and in all countries coeval with the first dawn of civilization. At how remote a period it must have been successfully practised in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China we have no means of knowing, but archaeologists have found evidence of agriculture being practised around 7000 BC. Egypt was renowned as a corn country in the time of the Jewish patriarchs, who themselves were keepers of flocks and herds rather than tillers of the soil. Naturally very little is known of the methods and details of agriculture in early times, though field archaeologists at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire have been conducting experiments for some years.
Among the ancient Greeks the implements of agriculture were very few and simple. Hesiod, who wrote a poem on agriculture as early as the eighth century BC, mentions a plough consisting of three parts, the share-beam, the draught-pole, and the plough-tail, but antiquarians are not agreed as to its exact form. The ground received three ploughings, one in autumn, another in spring, and a third immediately before sowing the seed. Manures were applied, and the advantage of mixing soils, as sand with clay or clay with sand, was understood. Seed was sown by hand, and covered with a rake. Grain was reaped with a sickle, bound in sheaves, thrashed, then winnowed by wind, laid in chests, bins, or granaries, and taken out as wanted by the family, to be ground.
Agriculture was highly esteemed among the ancient Romans. Cato, the censor, who was celebrated as a statesman, orator, and general, derived his highest honours from having written a voluminous work on agriculture. In his Georgics Virgil has thought the subject of agriculture worthy of being treated in the most graceful and harmoniousverse. The Romans used a great many different implements of agriculture. The plough is represented by Cato as of two kinds, one for strong, the other for light soils. Yarro mentions one with two mould-boards, with which, he says, 'when they plough, after sowing the seed, they are said to ridge'. Pliny mentions a plough with one mould-board, and others with a coulter, of which he says there were many kinds. Fallowing was a practice rarely deviated from by the Romans. In most cases a fallow and a year's crop succeeded each other. Manure was collected from nearly or quite as many sources as have been resorted to by the moderns. Irrigation on a large scale was applied both to arable and grasslands.
The Romans introduced their agricultural knowledge among the Britons, though it is known that the Britons were already practising agriculture, and during the most flourishing period of the Roman occupation large quantities of corn were exported from Britain to the Continent. During the time that the Angles and Saxons were extending their conquests over the country agriculture may have been neglected; but afterwards it was practised with some success among the Anglo-Saxon population, especially, as was generally the case during the middle ages, on lands belonging to the church. Swine formed at this time a most important portion of the live stock, finding plenty of oak and beech mast to eat.
The feudal system introduced by the Normans, though beneficial in some respects as tending to ensure the personal security of individuals, operated powerfully against progress in agricultural improvements. War and the chase, the two ancient and deadliest foes of husbandry, formed the most prominent occupations of the Norman princes and nobles. Thriving villages and smiling fields were converted into deer forests, vexatious imposts were laid on the farmers, and the serfs had no interest in the cultivation of the soil. But the monks of every monastery retained such of their lands as they could most conveniently take charge of, and these they cultivated with great care, under their own inspection, and frequently with their own hands. The various operations of husbandry, such as manuring, ploughing, sowing, harrowing, reaping, thrashing, winnowing, etc, are incidentally mentioned by the writers of those days; but it is impossible to collect from them a definite account of the manner in which those operations were performed.
The first English treatise on husbandry and the best of the early works on the subject was published in the reign of Henry VIII in 1534, by Sir A Fitzherbert, judge of the Common Pleas. It is entitled the Book of Husbandry, and contains directions for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, for enriching the soil, and rendering it fit for tillage. Lime, marl, and fallowing are strongly recommended. The subject of agriculture attained some prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I. The principal writers of that period were Tusser, Googe, and Sir Hugh Platt. Tusser's Five Hundredth Points of Good Husbandry (first complete edition published in 1580) conveys much useful instruction in metre, but few works of this time contain much that is original or valuable.
The first half of the seventeenth century produced no systematic work on agriculture, though several on different branches of the subject. About 1645 the field cultivation of red clover was introduced into England, the merit of this improvement being due to Sir Richard Weston, author of a Discourse on the Husbandry of Brabant and Flanders. The Dutch had devoted much attention to the improvement of winter roots, and also to the cultivation of clover and other artificial grasses, and the farmers and proprietors of England soon saw the advantages to be derived from their introduction. The cultivation of clover soon spread, and Sir Richard Weston seems also to have introduced turnips. Potatoes had been introduced during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but were not for long in general cultivation. A number of writers on agriculture appeared in England during the Commonwealth, the most important works on the subject being Blythe's Improver Improved and Hartlib's Legacy. The former writer speaks of a rotation, or rather alternation of crops, and well knew the use of lime, as also of other manures. In the eighteenth century the first name of importance in British agriculture is that of Jethro Tull, a gentleman of Berkshire, who began to drillwheat and other crops about the year 1701, and whose Horse-hoeing Husbandry was published in 1731.
Jethro Tull was a great advocate of the system of sowing crops in rows or drills with an interval between every two or three rows wide enough to allow of ploughing or hoeing to be carried on. After the time of Jethro Tull's publication no great alteration in British agriculture took place, until Robert Bakewell and others effected some important improvements in the breeds of cattle, sheep, and swine, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. The raising and maintenance of live stock, especially of sheep, was a characteristic of English farming from a very early time, and for several centuries the country had almost a monopoly in the supply of wool. To Bakewell we owe the breed of Leicestersheep. By the end of the nineteenth century it was a common practice to alternate green crops with grain crops, instead of exhausting the land with a number of successive crops of corn. A well-known writer on agriculture at this period, and one who did a great deal of good in diffusing a knowledge of the subject, was Arthur Young.
Scotland was for a long time behind England in agricultural progress. Great progress was made during the eighteenth century, however, especially in the latter half of it, turnips being introduced as a field-crop, and new implements such as the swing-plough and the thrashing-machine coming into general use. The construction of good roads through the country also gave agriculture a great impulse. During the wars caused by the French revolution of 1795 to 1814 the high price of agricultural produce led to an extraordinary improvement in agriculture all over Britain. The establishment of the institution called the National Board of Agriculture was also of very great service to British husbandry at this period. Though a private association it was assisted by an annual parliamentary grant, and prizes were given by it for the encouragement of experiments and improvements in agriculture. It existed from 1793 to 1816.
Among other societies which have greatly furthered the progress of agriculture in Britain, the chief are the Royal Agricultural Society of England, established in 1838; the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, founded in 1783; and the Royal Agricultural Society of Ireland, instituted in 1841. The objects of these and similar societies were such as the following: to encourage the introduction of improvements in agriculture; to encourage the improvement of agricultural implements and farm buildings; the application of chemistry to agriculture; the destruction of insects injurious to vegetation; to promote the discovery and adoption of new varieties of grain, or other useful vegetables; to collect information regarding the management of woods, plantations, and fences; to improve the education of those supported by the cultivation of the soil; to improve the veterinary art; to improve the breeds of live stock, etc. Shows are held, at which prizes are distributed for live stock, implements, and farm produce.
Through the efforts of the above-mentioned and other societies, the investigations of scientific men, the general diffusion of knowledge among all classes, and the necessity of competing with producers in foreign countries, agriculture made vast strides in Britain during the nineteenth century. Among the chief improvements were deep ploughing and thoroughdraining By the introduction of new or improved implements the labour necessary to the carrying out of agricultural operations was greatly diminished, as by the steam thrashing-machine, the steam-plough, and the reaping-machine. The nineteenth century saw also the introduction of chemistry into agriculture in Britain. The organization of plants, the primary elements of which they are composed, the food on which they live, and the constituents of soils, were all investigated, and most important results obtained particularly with regard to manures and rotations. Artificial manures, in great variety to supply the elements wanted for plant growth, came into common use at the end of the nineteenth century, not only increasing the produce of lands previously cultivated, but extending the limits of cultivation itself. An improvement in all kinds of stock became more and more general, feeding was conducted on more scientific principles, and improved varieties of plants used as field crops were introduced at the same time. At the end of the nineteenth century was introduced the system of ensilage for preserving fodder in a green state. However, by the start of the 20th century writers were proclaiming that, chiefly owing to foreign competition, agriculture had become a very unprofitable industry in Britain.
It is only since the nineteenth century that much progress was made in perfecting implements and machinery for cultivating the soil, sowing seed, drilling, rolling, hoeing, reaping, digging, etc. The first application of steam to ploughing dates from 1770, when Richard Edgeworth took out a patent for a steam ploughing machine, but it was 1852 before such application proved of any economic value. As early as 1829 a reaping-machine was invented by the Reverend Mr. Bell of Carmylie, Forfarshire, which, in an improved form, was still in use at the start of the twentieth century when numerous mowing and reaping-machines of ingenious construction were also introduced, many of which not only cut down the grain, but also bind it up into sheaves. At the start of the twentieth century steam was extensively used as a motive power in thrashing, in chaff-cutting, turnip-slicing, and even in churning. Only to be replaced after the invention of the combustion engine with petrol-power. Mechanisation led to the enlargement of fields, with small fields being amalgamated by the destruction of separating hedgerows to enable mechanical tractors and other farm vehicles to operate efficiently. The effect upon wildlife in Britain was devastating, and public concern started to grow.
The Second World War revolutionized agriculture in Britain, and led to the development of intensive farming techniques known as 'factory farming' and new anonymous breeds of livestock being developed which mature very quickly. During the later half of the twentieth century the public in Britain rebelled against the inhumanity of intensive animal husbandry, typified by 'battery hens' in which thousands of hens are kept in individual tiny cages within massive warehouses, unable to stretch let alone move around, and free-range or more traditional animal husbandry started to reappear in commercial agriculture.
The twentieth century also saw the wide scale introduction of chemical fertilizers and insecticides, many of which were harmful to the consumers and from a public backlash emerged a return to traditional farming, known as organic farming. Research Agriculture
Apocalypse is the name frequently given to the last book of the New Testament, in the English version called The Revelation of St John the Divine. It is generally believed that the Apocalypse was written by the apostle John in his old age around 95 to 97 A.D. in the Isle of Patnios, whither he had been banished by the Roman Emperor Domitian. Anciently its genuineness was maintained by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and many others; while it was doubted by Dionysius of Alexandria, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysostorn, and, nearer our own times, by Luther and a majority of the eminent German commentators. The Apocalypse has been explained differently by almost every writer who has ventured to interpret it, and has furnished all sorts of sects and fanatics with quotations to support their creeds or pretensions. The modern interpreters may be divided into three schools - namely, the historical school who hold that the prophecy embraces the whole history of the church and its foes from the time of its writing to the end of the world; the Praeterists, who hold that the whole or nearly the whole of the prophecy has been already fulfilled, and that it refers chiefly to the triumph of Christianity over Paganism and Judaism; and the Futurists, who throw the whole prophecy, except the first three chapters, forward upon a time not yet reached by the church - a period of no very long duration, which is immediately to precede Christ's second coming. Research Apocalypse
A concordance is a book in which the principal words used in any work or number of works, as the Scriptures, Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, Homer, etc, are arranged alphabetically, and the book, chapter, and verse, or act, scene, line, or other subdivision in which each word occurs, are noted - similar to an index. A concordant is designed to assist an inquirer in finding any passage by means of any leading word which he can recollect, or to show the character of the language and style of any writer. Research Concordance
In literature, fable is a term applied originally to every imaginative tale, but confined in modern use to short stories, either in prose or verse, in which animals and sometimes inanimate things are feigned to act and speak with human interests and passions for the purpose of inculcating a moral lesson in a pleasant and pointed manner. The fable consists properly of two parts - the symbolical representation and the application, or the instruction intended to be deduced from it, which latter is called the moral of the tale, and must be apparent in the fable itself. The oldest fables are supposed to be the oriental; among these the Indian fables of Pilpay or Bidpai, and the fables of the Arabian Lokman, are celebrated. Amongst the Greeks, AEsop is the master of a simple but very effective style of fable. The fables of Phaedrus are a second-rate Latin version of those of AEsop. In modern times Gellert and Lessing among the Germans, Gay among the English, the Spanish Yriarte, and the Russian Ivan Kriloff, are celebrated. The first place, however, amongst modern fabulists belongs to the French writerLa Fontaine. Research Fable
The term Free Lance was originally a soldier who fought as a mercenary for anyone who would pay him for his service. Now the term is applied to anyone who works for anyone who will pay them, but is not on the regular staff of any company, such as a writer for example. Research Free Lance
Graphology is the analysis or judging of a person's character by means of their handwriting, a pursuit that first attained some vogue around 1900. The tendency to regard a certain style of writing as indicative of certain mental characteristics appears to be natural, and is certainly not of modern origin, but the term graphology is modern, being attributed to the Abbe Michot in 1868, who also expounded a corresponding system, though other French writers, besides those of other nationalities, are said to have placed it on a more secure basis. We are told that as gestures, movements of the features and the hands, the sound of the voice, etc, help to reveal a person's character, so also handwriting can give us similar help, writing being the result of a series of small gestures, and the hands being influenced by the thoughts and feelings of the writer. Research Graphology
High Church is a term applied to a party in the Church of England. It was applied first to a party among the younger clergy during the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth I who asserted that Calvinism was inconsistent with the ancient doctrine and constitution of the primitive church, and who claimed a divine right for episcopacy. Bishop Andrewes was the chief writer of this party, and Laud became its most active leader. The term now generally refers to those who exalt the authority and jurisdiction of the church, and attach great value to ecclesiastical dignities and ordinances, being more or less identified with the ritualistic party. Research High Church
Somerville College is a women's college at Oxford University. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall in memory of Mary Somerville, the Scottish technical writer and advocate of women's education. In 1894, following enlargement the name was changed to Somerville College. The college was further enlarged with a library and other buildings designed by Basil Champneys in 1904. Research Somerville College
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Accademia della Cruscaor Furfuratorum
