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Baader, Franz Xavier von.
German philosopher and Roman Catholic theologian, a follower of Jacob Böhme
and opponent of Hegel and Schelling. He was professor of philosophy at
Bâbüsm: see SUNNITES AND SHI'ITES.
Babylonia (religion in):
see ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY (Babylonio-Assyrian).
Bacon, Francis. (1561-1629.) Studied
at Trinity College, Cambridge, and there formed a dislike for Aristotle's
philosophy. Visited France to study law and was admitted to the bar in
1582; became counsel-extraordinary to the queen in 1590. Elected to Parliament
in 1584, he sat in every Parliament until 1614. The Cecils procured the
reversion of registrar of the Star Chamber for him; it fell to him during
the reign of King James. Knighted in 1603, he became one of the counsel
of King James I. Married in 1606; became solicitor-general, 1607; attorney-general
and member of the privy council, 1613; keeper of the great seal, 1617;
lord high chancellor of England, 1618; in this year he became Baron Verulam
and took his seat in the House of Peers; Viscount St. Albans, 1620. After
his sixtieth birthday, he pleaded guilty to the charge of having accepted
bribes as judge, and retired on a pension of £ 120,000, devoting
his time until death to study. His great influence was all directed toward
the 'new era' of science; but his real services are variously estimated.
See BACONIAN METHOD.
Bacon, Roger. (1214-cir. 1292.) An
English philosopher and monk, possibly the greatest philosopher of the
13th century. Educated at Oxford and Paris, he joined the Franciscan order
at the former place. In 1278 a Franciscan council condemned his writings
and committed him to prison, where he remained for ten years.
Baconian Method. The method of investigating experience which proceeds from given particular facts, and applies no general conceptions that have not themselves been gained from and tested by comparison with particulars. See INDUCTION. In the more special sense it names the special form of induction advocated by Francis Bacon.
The salient features are: (a) the investigation begins with a collection of particular instances, and for its perfect working out requires an exhaustive collection; (b) from the collected instances there are excluded by comparison all elements that do not accompany the phenomenon investigated; (c) the result of the exclusion or elimination of the non-essential is to disclose that simpler 'form' or more general characteristic of reality of which the phenomenon investigated is a specification; (d) the work of exclusion is a gradual one, and explanation therefore proceeds regularly from less to more general propositions; (e) were the collection of instances exhaustive, the comparison and exclusion would lead in all cases to a true result. Bacon's method is defective on two sides; his conception of nature retains so much of the Aristotelian and scholastic doctrine of causes (though his 'forms' are intended to be physical and are not abstractions) that his rules for exclusion are too narrowly framed; he did not allow for the free action of thought and its necessary function in theorizing. It is to be said also that Bacon's total failure to grasp the significance of the mechanical element in natural process prejudices his view and method.
Literature: ELLIS in the Introd. to vol. i of Ellis and Spedding's ed.
of Bacon's Works; FOWLER, ed. of Bacon's Nov. Org. (1878); LEIBIG, Fr. Bacon
(1863); SIGWART, in Preuss. Jahrb. (1863); HEUSSLER, Fr. Bacon u. seine geschichtl.
Stellung (1889); NATGE, F. Bacon's Formenlehre (1891); LEUCKFELD, Arch. f. Gesch.
d. Philos., viii. (R.A.)
Baer, Karl Ernst von. (1792-1876.)
A Russian naturalist belonging to a German family. Professor in zoology
at Königsberg in 1819. Became librarian of the Academy of Sciences
at St. Petersburg in 1834. Cf. v. BAER'S LAW.
v. Baer's Law: Ger. Baer' sches Gesetz; Fr. loi de Baer; Ital. legge di Baer (dello sviluppo). In the development both of the organism and of its parts there is progress from the simple to the complex, and from an unspecialized to a more specialized condition. The embryo passes through a series of stages in which it resembles the embryos of lower forms.
This generalization, based upon careful observation and prolonged research, Agassiz among the anti-evolutionists and Haeckel among the evolutionists regarded as of fundamental importance in organic development. See RECAPITULATION.
Literature: v. BAER, Beobachtungen u. Reflexionen ü. die Entwickelungsgesch.
d. Thiere (1829); LOUIS AGASSIZ, Zool. Gén. (1854); ERNST HAECKEL, Gen.
Morphol. (1866); A. SEDGWICK, On the Law of Development, Quart. J. Microsc.
Sci., xxxvi. (1894). (C.LL.M.)
Bahnsen, Junius Friedrich
August. (1830-81.) A German philosopher. Educated at Kiel and at Tübingen,
he became a disciple of Schopenhauer, and an ardent advocate of his doctrines.
Balance (in aesthetics) [Lat. bi-lanx, two scales]: Ger. Gleichgewicht; Fr. équilibre; Ital. bilancio, equilibrio. Equivalence of value in the respective parts of a spatial or temporal whole, when contrasted or set over against each other with alternating attention.
It is an important factor in harmony. Its aesthetic value is probably closely connected with the feelings arising from bodily equilibrium and the rhythm of respiration.
It does not, like symmetry, imply an exact correspondence of point with point,
nor does it refer primarily to the relation of part to whole, but rather involves
that the general impression of the one part shall be of equivalent strength
to that of the other. It is applied to the divisions of a line or surface, as
in architecture, to the disposition of figures in painting and sculpture, to
the strength of different parts of an orchestra or chorus, and to the parts
of a line, stanza, or period in verse or prose. Cf. HARMONY, PROPORTION, and
Balance of Trade: Ger. Handelsbilanz; Fr. balance du commerce; Ital. bilancio del commercio. The difference between the value of the merchandise exported from a given country within a specified period, and the value of the merchandise imported into the same country during the same period. When the exports exceed the imports the balance is said to be favourable; in the reverse case it is said to be unfavourable.
Most of the economists of the 17th and 18th centuries thought that the exports of a country correspond to the sales of a merchant, and its imports to the purchases of a merchant; that the net income of the merchant or of the country was represented by the excess of sales over purchases; that if a country had such an excess, it would be prosperous, and get gold or silver from other nations; that if it had a deficiency instead of an excess, it was unprosperous, and would lose its gold and silver. These views constituted what is known as the mercantile system. Their fallacy was exposed by the Physiocrats, by Adam Smith, and by J. B. Say. These writers showed that many other elements besides exports and imports combined to deter mine the movement of the precious metals; and also that this movement was a far less important index of national prosperity than the adherents of the Mercantile System had supposed.
Literature: COSSA, Introd. to the Study of Polit. Econ. (3rd ed., trans.
by Dyer), 201-10; SMITH, Wealth of Nations, Bk. IV; GOSCHEN, The Theory of the
Foreign Exchanges. (A.T.H.)
Balfour, James (of Pilrig).
(1705-95.) A Scottish jurist and philosophical writer. He was appointed
professor of moral philosophy in Edinburgh University, 1754, and of law,
1764. He became the friend of Hume.
Balfour, Robert. (cir. 1550-cir.
1625.) A Scottish philosopher of the 17th century, who wrote commentaries
on Aristotle and edited the works of Cleomedes. Professor of Greek and
principal of Guienne (cir. 1586).
Bamalip: see MOOD (in logic).
Baptism [Gr. baptizein, to dip]: Ger. Taufe; Fr. baptême; Ital. battesimo. Baptism is one of the seven sacraments recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, and one of the two sacraments recognized by the majority of Protestants. Its detailed treatment belongs to the doctrinal department of systematic theology, and there falls in the section dealing with the functions of the Church.
From the point of view of theology, baptism is a condition of salvation. Its due treatment involves these considerations: (1) the material -- water; (2) the form or formula, including the question of institution by Jesus; (3) the result -- regeneration, or gift of new life; (4) the subjective condition requisite for its reception. According to the Roman Catholic doctrine, baptism gives entrance to the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation. With Protestants it is a sign, which has no effect in itself, but depends on the co-operant faith of the recipient. Cf. SACRAMENTS.
Literature: for full treatment and literature, see Herzog's Real-Encyc.;
on the philosophical aspects of the matter, see MOZLEY, Review of the Baptismal
Baptists: Ger. Täufer, Baptisten; Fr. Baptistes; Ital. Battisti. Those who regard baptism as the ceremony special to a public confession of belief in the central dogmas of Christianity, and make use of the custom of 'dipping' or submersion, not that of sprinkling.
From the standpoint of history of religions, the matter has interest on its mainly philological and archaeological side.
Literature: art. in Herzog's Real-Encyc.; the works of W. WALL, MOSES
STUART, E. BEECHER, A. CARSON, A. CAMPBELL, T. J. CONANT, J. W. DALE, on Baptism.
Barbara: see MOOD (in logic).
Bardesanes of Edessa,
155-223). An orthodox Christian who enjoyed great favour at the court at
Edessa. An astrologer, and strongly influenced by the Gnosticism of Valentinus.
Missionary to Armenia in 217.
Bardili, Christoph Gottfried.
A German philosopher, who opposed Kant and favoured a philosophy of identity.
Professor of philosophy at Stuttgart, 1794.
Bargain: Ger. handeln; Fr. marchander; Ital. patteggiare. To offer a low price for a commodity with the contemplated possibility of paying a higher one; or conversely, to ask a high price for a commodity with the contemplated possibility of accepting a lower one. Opposed to the one-price system.
In isolated transactions bargaining is all but universal. If A wishes
to sell a house of a peculiar character, and B is the only man who, for
the moment, wishes to buy that kind of house, it may happen that the maximum
price which B is willing to pay is greater than the minimum which A
is willing to accept. In view of this possibility, A is reluctant to
name the lowest price at which he will sell until he sees whether B cannot
be induced to pay more, while B is equally reluctant to name his highest
price until he sees whether A may be induced to sell for less. But if
there are other house-owners in the same situation as A, or other buyers
in the same situation as B, the matter assumes a different aspect. A
is afraid to ask an exorbitant price for fear B may buy of some one else;
B is afraid to begin with an unduly low figure for fear A may
sell to some other buyer. Competition tends to take the place of bargaining.
Baroco (Barocco, Baroque) [a rough pearl; deriv. uncertain]: Ger. Barok; Fr. baroque; Ital. barocco. Odd, wilfully peculiar; more specifically in aesthetics, a species of the peculiar or abnormal, in which this effect of peculiarity seems to be intentionally or systematically sought.
The term has been applied especially to the architecture of the 17th and 18th
centuries. At its best, this was characterized by grandeur, massiveness, picturesqueness
of effect, and richness of detail; often, however, by exaggeration, over-luxuriance,
contorted scrollwork, and generally inorganic ornamentation. Cf. Lübke,
Hist. of Art (Eng. trans., 1877), ii. 159 ff. (J.H.T.)
Baroco (in logic): see MOOD (in
Barter [O.F. barat]: Ger. Naturaltausch, Naturalwirthschaft; Fr. troc; Ital. baratto. The exchange of one commodity or group of commodities for another without the intervention of MONEY (q.v.).
The difficulties attendant upon a system of barter are so great as to make
extensive trade by this method impossible. It requires 'a double coincidence
of wants and possessions.' If a hat is to be bartered for a pair of shoes, there
must be at once a producer of shoes who wants a hat, and a producer of hats
who wants a pair of shoes. As a natural consequence, we find the invention and
use of money to have been almost coincident with the development of exchange;
and where money is lacking, we see a resort to some form of credit, however
insecure, rather than a lapse into the régime of barter. (A.T.H.)
J. (1805-95.) A French philosopher, statesman, and oriental scholar.
He first held office under the Minister of Finance, contributing meanwhile
to the Globe and the Nation. In 1838 he was elected to the
chair of Greek and Roman philosophy in the Collége de France. In
1839 he became a member of the Academy of Moral and Political Science.
In 1848 he entered the Assembly, and at the coup d'état was
imprisoned. Upon his release he resigned his chair. In 1871 he entered
the Assembly at Bordeaux and supported Thiers. In 1876 the Assembly elected
him life-member of the Senate, and in 1880-1 he held the portfolio of Foreign
Affairs. His greatest service to philosophy is a French translation of
Aristotle's works. He contributed much to Western knowledge of Indian philosophy
by his works on the Vedas, on Buddhism, and on Buddha and his Religion.
Basal Ganglia: see BRAIN (Glossary).
Basedow, Johann Bernhard
(originally Johann Berend Bassedau). (1723-90.) A famous German educational
reformer or revolutionist. Born in Hamburg; educated at Leipzig; professor
in the Academy at Soröe, Denmark, 1753. Transferred to the Gymnasium
at Altona in 1761. Rousseau's Émile suggested certain improvements
in textbooks, and, soliciting aid from interested friends, he published
his Elementarwerk with 100 copper-plate illustrations. 'Everything
according to nature' might be said to be his watchword. In 1771 he was
called to Dessau by Prince Leopold, and in 1774 took charge of the famous
Philanthropinum. Manual training, gymnastics, the conversational language-method,
the free use of pictures for illustration, the dialogue form of textbooks,
&c., were introductions of his. Owing to lack of tact, he was forced
to retire from the school in 1776, and lived an irregular life afterwards.
Basel (Confession of): Ger. Baseler Konfession; Fr. Confession de Bâle; Ital. Confessione di Basilea. A Confession belonging to the Zwinglian branch of the reformed theology, first drafted by John Oecolampadius in 1531; further elaborated by Oswald Myconius in 1532; and promulgated in 1534. The Confession is remarkable for its simplicity, for its freedom from influences due to dogmatic disputes (except that with the Anabaptists), and for its comparative surbordination of Protestant bibliolatry.
Literature: SCHAFF, Creeds of Christendom, i. 385. (R.M.W.)
Bashfulness [ME. bashen, for abashen, to abash]: Ger. Schüchternheit; Fr. timidité spontanée (or instinctive); Ital. timidità istinctiva. Those mental and physical attitudes of instinctive and spontaneous timidity shown by young children in the presence of persons more or less strange.
Bashfulness characterizes the attitudes of the child before the sense of self is sufficiently developed to arouse reflective attitudes of MODESTY (q.v.). Cf. COYNESS, SHAME, TIMIDITY.
Literature: see under SHYNESS. (J.M.B.-
Basil, or Basilius,
Saint. (cir. 329-79 A.D.) One of the 'three lights of the church of
Cappadocia,' called Basil the Great. He was a follower and great admirer
of Origen, Born in Caesarea, Cappadocia, he studied in Athens, 351-5. After
extensive travels, he spent seven years in monastic retirement in Pontus.
In 370 he became bishop of Caesarea, and held the office until his ascetic
habits brought on death. He was the brother of Gregory of Nyssa, and an
intimate friend of Gregory Nazianzen.
Basilides. The events of his life are
unknown. He lived in Egypt in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, from about
100 to about 140 A.D. He was a Gnostic, and founded the sect of Basilidians.
Bathmism [Gr. baqmoV, a step] (not in use in other languages). 'All the mechanisms necessary to the mature life of the individual are constructed by the activity of a special form of energy known as growth-energy or bathmism.' -- E. D. Cope (Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, 1896). Hence bathmogenesis, bathmic energy, &c.
It is one of the newer attempts to designate VITALISM (q.v.), of which 'self-adaptation'
(Henslow) and 'genetic energy' (Williams) are others; they seem, however, to
lose nothing of the essential obscureness of the vitalistic conception. (C.LL.M.-
Bauer, Bruno. (1809-82.) A German
rationalistic, theological, and historical writer. He belonged to the younger
group of Hegelians, the Hegelians of the 'left' (Strauss), who taught that
immortality is merely the eternity of the universal reason; that the God-man
is simply humanity; that the God-head attains self-consciousness first
in human spirits. After 1834 he devoted himself to the scientific 'criticism'
of the Bible.
Gottlieb. (1714-62.) A German philosopher, born and schooled in Berlin.
At the Orphanage in Halle, he was much influenced by A. H. Francke, Breithaupt,
and Lange. He early began writing poetry. A strong prejudice against Wolff,
received in Halle, led him to carefully study the system, and he became
an adherent in his twenty-first year. He lectured in Halle, 1735-40. He
then became, and remained until his death, professor of philosophy in Frankfort-on-the-Oder.
His writings constitute a sort of completion of the work which Wolff began
-- an encyclopaedic review of all the sciences. He made numerous contributions
to the modern German philosophical vocabulary, as e.g. the expression an
und für sich (a modification of Wolff's vor und an sich)
and the term Aesthetics, denoting both the science of the lower forms of
knowledge and the science of the beautiful.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian.
A German Protestant theologian, Bible critic, and historian. Studied theology
at Blaubeuren Theological Seminary and at the University at Tübingen.
In 1817 he became professor of theology in the former institution and in
1826 in the latter. He is the founder of the 'Tübingen school' of
Bible critics and Hegelian thinkers. A profound scholar and a strong constructive
critic, he is chiefly known for his bold views in biblical criticism.
Bayle, Pierre. (1647-1706.) A French
sceptical philosopher and critic. The son of a Protestant minister, he
studied at the college at Toulouse, and was for several years a private
tutor at Geneva and Rouen. Professor of philosophy in the Protestant College
of Sedan after 1675; professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam after
1681; editor of a critical monthly review, 1684-87. Deprived of his professorship
in 1693 on account of his religious views.
Baynes, Thomas Spencer. (1823-87.)
An English philosophical writer. He studied at a private school, at Bristol
College, and at the University of Edingburgh. He was professor of logic
at Edingburgh, 1851-55, and professor of logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics
in the University of St. Andrews after 1864. He was assistant editor of
the London Daily News, 1857-64, and editor of the 9th ed. of the
Beasley, Frederick. (1777-1845.)
An American clergyman in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Educated at Princeton
College, he became professor of mental and moral philosophy in the University
of Pennsylvania and Provost of the University, 1813-28.
Beats [AS. betan]: Ger. Schwebungen, Tonstösse; Fr. battements; Ital. battimenti. When two or more tones are sounded simultaneously their sound-waves interfere; and the result, when the difference between their vibration rates is slight, is a rhythmical intensive variation in the total impression. This is termed 'beating.'
Their rapidity depends on the difference of the vibration rates of the tones. The limits of distinguishable beats seem to be about thirty per second for the deepest, and sixty for the highest tones of the musical scale.
Beats have been divided by König into lower and upper, on the following formula:
n1 is the vibration rate of the lower, n2 that of the higher tone. N is a whole number. Then the vibration rates are:
Lower beats, n2 - N. n1;
Upper beats, (N + 1) n1 - n2.
Literature: WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), i. 466 ff.; SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol., expts. 79-81; EBBINGHAUS, Psychol., i. 301. See also works cited under ACOUSTICS, especially KÖNIG, Quelques Expériences d'Acoustique (1882), chaps. ix, x. (E.B.T.)
Also KÖNIG, Poggendorff's Annalen, clvii. 177 ff.; STUMPF, Tonpsychologie,
ii; KÜLPE, Outlines of Psychol., § 45; HELMHOLTZ, Tonempfindungen,
4. Aufl.; HENSEN in Hermann's Handb. d. Physiol., iii; NUEL, art. Audition,
in Richet's Dict. de Physiol. (with extensive bibliography). See Literature
under HEARING. On the questions of subjective and central localization involved
see WUNDT, loc. cit.; K. L. SCHÄFER, Pflüger's Arch., lxi. 544, and
Wiedermann's Annalen, lviii. 785; MEINONG and WITASEK, Zeitsch. f. Psychol.,
xv. (1897), 189 ff.; M. MEYER and EBBINGHAUS, ibid., xvi. (1897), i. 152; STUMPF,
ibid., xv. (1897), 289; M. MEYER, ibid., xvii. (1898), 401; xvi. (1898), 196;
(with STUMPF), ibid., xviii. (1898), 274, 294, 302; Beitr. z. Ak. u. Musikwiss.,
ii. (1898), 25; STUMPF, ibid., i. (1898), I. (J.M.B.)
Beattie, James. (1735-1803.) A Scottish
poet and philosophical writer. He was born at Laurencekirk, and educated
at Marischal College, Aberdeen. He became school-master of Fordoun in 1753,
and under-master in the grammar school at Aberdeen, 1758. He was appointed
professor of moral philosophy in Marischal College in 1760, and entered
into intimate philosophical intercourse with Reid, Campbell, Gerard, and
others. In 1770, he published his famous Essay on the Nature and Immutability
of Truth, attacking Helvetius and Hume and advocating what was afterwards
called the doctrine of Common Sense.
Beat tone: Ger. Stosston; Fr. son résultant; Ital. suono (or tono) di battimento. At a certain rapidity of succession, beats may themselves form a tone -- the beat tone. These are 'upper' and 'lower.'
If N is 1 (see BEATS), the first lower beat tone is the difference tone of the first order (n2 - n1). No other beat tones coincide, in cases of simple tones, with audible combination tones; in cases of compound tones there may be coincidence. The beat tones are heard most clearly in dissonances. (E.B.T.)
Literature: WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), i. 471; SANFORD, Course
in Exper. Psychol., expt. 82; EBBINGHAUS, Psychol., i. 312. Also the citations
under BEATS, especially the references to KÖNIG, and under ACOUSTICS. (E.B.T.-
Beauty and The Beautiful [Lat. bellus, pretty, charming]: Ger. Schönheit, das Schöne, (schön as adj. is broader than 'beautiful'; rather = 'fine'); Fr. beauté, le beau; Ital. bellezza, il bello. (1) That quality which is apprehended as a specific value, the marks or characteristics of which are discussed under AESTHETIC and FEELING (aesthetic). In this broad sense it is used as a generic term including, as subordinate species, the sublime, the beautiful in narrower senses, the graceful, comic, tragic, &c.
(2) Various narrower senses of which the most important are: (a) That portion of aesthetic value which excludes the predominant aspect of magnitude or power (the Sublime) and the mingled unpleasant features of the tragic, comic, pathetic, &c., while including the pleasure derived from expression, as well as that from form or colouring. (b) That portion of aesthetic value which depends solely on form, or on form and sensuous elements combined, as contrasted with the value derived from the idea or characteristic expressed. Other shades of meaning are indicated below. Cf. EXPRESSION, CHARACTERISTIC, SUBLIME, FITNESS, and ART (II and III).
The three main points of view from which the subject has been treated have been stated under the tile AESTHETIC (q.v.) as (1) that of the psychology of beauty, which considers especially the nature and origin of aesthetic experience; (2) that of an analysis (a) of the form and content of objects judged beautiful, and (b) of the nature of the aesthetic judgment itself, in order to find the distinguishing marks or categories of beauty; (3) that of the metaphysics of beauty, i.e. the relation of beauty to ultimate reality. Discussions of beauty may be roughly grouped as follows: I. Ancient writers, who deal mainly with problems (2, a) and (3), above; II. Modern writers prior to Kant, dealing especially with (I) and (2, a); III. Kant, who investigated (2, b); IV. German writers following Kant and developing various lines, especially (3); V. Recent investigation, dealing especially with (I).
I. The Greek term for beauty (to kalon) seems to have been applied at first to objects of sight (so in Russian until very recently), especially to the human form (Hesiod uses it of the female, not of the male). In consequence of the religious associations of the word which was applied to many of the gods and goddesses, and more especially because of the prominence in Greek life of manly beauty and of artistic creation in nearly every form, the term came to embody for the Greek nearly all that was of highest value. It represented not an abstract quality nor an occasional pleasure, but the real value of life, in which he measured the various 'goods.' As, however, intellectual and moral life gained in importance the concept 'beautiful' came to widen its scope to include these, and finally to give them the pre-eminence. This made the constant interchange of aesthetic, moral, and metaphysical points of view a natural occurrence. Finally, the laws of tectonics and of plastic art emphasized the characteristics of symmetry, and of unity in variety, as the essential marks of beautiful forms.
Socrates, according to Xenophon, examined the conception of kalokagathia, 'fair and good,' in which the Greek ideal of the 'best people' found expression, decided that no such connection between beauty of outward form and goodness of inner character as the popular view implied could be verified, and concluded that the concept, if true at all, must apply as a whole to the inner life. He also urged that the beautiful, like the good, must be useful and fit for its end, and refused to regard as adequate any abstract criterion, such as the 'well-proportioned.'
Plato, although dealing with beauty only incidentally (except in the dialogue Hippias Major, of doubtful authenticity), brought out nearly all aspects of the Greek aesthetic consciousness. Under (I), psychological aesthetics, he names as aesthetic senses vision, hearing, and, in a lesser degree, smell. These senses yield 'pure pleasures,' unmixed with any pain or want. More specifically, these pure pleasures are given by beauty of colour and form, and by sounds which are smooth and clear and have a single pure tone. Tragedy and comedy excite a feeling less purely aesthetic, because it contains a mixture of pain with pleasure. As to (2), the characteristics of beauty, Plato in the Gorgias advances the view that objects are beautiful in proportion as they either (a) are useful, or (b) give delight when contemplated (en tw qewreisqai cairein). In the Philebus he distinguishes from things which are relatively beautiful (proV te kala) those which are intrinsically and absolutely beautiful (kala kaq' anta). As to the marks of this latter class he seems to adopt two attitudes. At one time he specifies a number of characteristic marks, e.g. beautiful forms are 'straight lines, circles, and figures formed out of them by rulers,' &c. (where measure or symmetry seems to be the essential feature), or sounds smooth and clear (simplicity? purity?). 'Measure and symmetry,' he declares, 'are beauty,' a doctrine forced upon him no doubt by the whole development of Greek art, and by the experimental and theoretical considerations of the Pythagoreans. The Greek word from which we derive the two different terms 'cosmos' (cosmic) and 'cosmetic' shows the two ideas 'order' and 'decoration' fused. Variety is also an aesthetic element. At another time, he seems to reject these considerations, regards it as confusing and illogical to say that colour or form or any such thing is the source of beauty (i.e. to explain a single concept by several various marks), and falls back on the statement that it is the presence of beauty which makes things beautiful. This would naturally force a modern to conclude that beauty must be defined in terms of subjective value, but it leads with Plato to (3), his metaphysics of beauty. For beauty is thus identified with the Platonic Ideas. It is distinguished from wisdom in that it is visible, perceptible by sense. It 'shines.' It is easiest seen in the human form. From this the seeker of beauty may pass on to beauty of all forms, then to beauty of soul, then to beauty of institutions and laws, then to beauty of science, until finally the vision of beauty absolute, separate, and eternal is reached. Plato's depreciatory view of poetry did not affect the value which he set upon beauty. The lover of beauty is of the same class with the philosopher.
Aristotle treats beauty only incidentally. Its main characteristics are said to be 'order, symmetry, definite limitation,' and hence it is not alien to mathematics. A certain magnitude is also a condition of beauty, especially in the human form. 'Small men may be well proportioned, but cannot be called beautiful.' Subjective definitions are also given: 'the beautiful is chosen for itself and is worthy of praise (like the good)'; or, 'that good which is pleasant because good.' The virtues, or rather the excellences or admired qualities, are said to be beautiful, -- especially the crowning quality of 'nobility of soul,' which is a kind of lustre of beauty. Real beauty is also distinguished from a beauty which has reference only to desire, as manifested in sexual preference.
Cicero rendered a twofold service in the definition of beauty. He distinguished clearly the concept of beauty from that of adaptation or fitness to an end; and secondly he noted the division of beauty (pulchritudo), as a generic term, into its species, dignity (dignitas) and grace or loveliness (venustas), the masculine and womanly aspects. Plato had prepared the way for this by distinguishing two classes of the beautiful, the manly or energetic (oxnV), and the calm or modulated or well-ordered (kosmioV). But the Latin 'dignitas' is a more adequate expression than the Greek oxnV. A similar distinction was made by Vitruvius in his characterization of the three styles of architecture. The Doric is strong and severe, the Corinthian ornate and graceful, the Ionic between the two. A great number of aesthetic terms were developed by the rhetoricians, especially Quintilian, to describe the three main styles, and it was in this connection that the concept of the SUBLIME (q.v.) received its treatment in the treatise ascribed to Longinus.
The most important contribution of Plotinus to the theory of beauty was his sharp delimitation of beauty from the good. Using a suggestion of Plato, he characterizes the good as awakening desire (a) for its possession, and (b) for possession of it as reality. The beautiful on the contrary (a) belongs not to the observer but to itself; and (b) it is enough to have the screening or appearance of beauty. Beauty is therefore objective, disinterested, and is thus essentially an appearance, i.e. a sensuously apprehended quality. In aesthetic enjoyment, we do not distinguish reality from semblance.
Beauty in its ultimate or metaphysical character is an expression, a shining forth, of spirit in some particular form or shape. The ground of aesthetic pleasure is that the soul perceives in the beautiful object a trace of its own nature as rational, participating in 'form' or 'idea.' Unity in variety is thus pleasing because the soul is such a unity. Bodily beauty is, however, inferior to beauty of soul, and this in turn receives its charm from reason (nouV). Hence symmetry is quite inadequate as explanation of beauty. Beauty consists rather in the light, the life, that streams forth in connection with the symmetry; and this in turn derives its value from its ultimate source, the good.
This general conception of beauty as a manifestation of the good under sensuous conditions was influential with mediaeval writers. Thomas Aquinas names as its objective characteristics, 'clearness or brightness of colour' and 'symmetry'; 'brilliance of form' (resplendentia formae), in addition to materials proportionally divided, or to diverse powers or actions; harmony in diversity. The beautiful is distinguished from the good in that whereas, in the case of the good, desire is satisfied by the possession of its object; in the case of the beautiful, desire is satisfied, not by the possession, but by the aspect or cognition of the object. Vision and hearing are the aesthetic senses because they are the cognitive senses.
II. The influence of Greek conceptions is also manifest in the earliest modern writers on beauty in England and France. In France beauty was usually discussed incidentally to the treatment of art. But in art the authoritative canon was held to be 'imitation of nature'; hence the beauty of a work of art was its truth -- 'rien n'est beau que le vrai' (Boileau). In England, Shaftesbury, like Plotinus, distinguishes successive grades of beauty, from dead forms up to God. Beauty is in the form, not in the matter. More specifically, 'all beauty is truth'; 'what is beautiful is harmonious and proportionable.' Its essence is to be found in the study of 'inward numbers and proportions.'
A more systematic attempt to define the psychological basis of aesthetic feeling was made by Hutcheson (1725), who anticipated most of the categories later elaborated by Kant. Beauty is apprehended by a 'sense,' i.e. it is immediately perceived, and does not arise from any knowledge of principles or of the usefulness of the object, nor can it be altered by it. The categories of the aesthetic are subjective; it is (1) not a quality in the object, 'without relation to any mind which perceives it'; it denotes a perception. (2) Beauty may be original, or comparative. The formal law of original beauty is uniformity in variety. Comparative, or relative, beauty is felt on the comparison of some object with its original, which may be either some object in nature (as in imitative arts), or some idea or intention (beauty of purposiveness). The suggestion that there is a harmony between reason, which seeks regularity or uniformity, and the 'sense' which finds beauty in the same, is another anticipation of Kant's theory.
Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty (1753), named as the principles which make objects beautiful, 'fitness, variety, uniformity, simplicity, intricacy, and quantity.' Of these it is variety which is the cause of pleasure in the 'line of beauty,' or in the still more intricately curving serpentine 'line of grace,' which are asserted to be at the basis of beauty in art.
Burke's Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756) marks an attempt to find a physiological explanation of aesthetic feeling. Discarding the more usually accepted principles of proportion, fitness and perfection, he names as the elements of beauty (1) smallness of size, (2) smoothness of surface, (3) gradual variation of parts, (4) delicacy, (5) brightness and mildness of colour. Discarding also the usual restriction of beauty to vision and hearing, and seeking for a common mark of aesthetic feeling in all senses, he fixes on smoothness as most important. This produces a 'relaxing' or softening effect on the body, and this in turn produces the passion of love in the mind, which is the psychological counterpart of beauty in the object. Cf. SUBLIME.
Home (Elements of Criticism, 1762) is noteworthy as developing the analytic method of treating beauty which had been suggested in Hutcheson and was later elaborated by Kant. He seeks, that is, to analyse beauty or determine its essential characteristics. First he notes that while undoubtedly subjective it is yet perceived as 'spread upon the object'; hence its restriction to vision and hearing, which do not locate the feeling in the organism. Beauty is either 'intrinsic' or 'of relation' (to some external object). Intrinsic beauty may be of colour, of figure, or of motion; and the beauty of figure has, as elements, regularity, simplicity, uniformity, proportion, and order.
Hume discussed aesthetic TASTE (q.v.), and Adam Smith incidentally called attention to the effect of custom and fashion on our ideas of beauty -- a line of thought developed by Alison and Jeffrey (see ASSOCIATION, aesthetic) and, with modifications, by Stewart.
III. In Germany, Baumgarten had written the first systematic treatise on Aesthetics (Aesthetica, 1750-8). While finding the essence of beauty in the familiar principle of 'perfection,' he yet made a psychological advance by treating it as perfection 'felt' rather than intellectually apprehended. This distinction, emphasized by Mendelssohn's accentuation of feelings as a distinct class of mental states, seems to have stated for Kant the problem of distinguishing definitely the judgments as to the beautiful, which are based on feeling, from those of science and ethics, based on intellect and will. Kant's treatment of beauty is thus distinguished from the Greek in that it is not a metaphysics of beauty -- beauty is 'subjective'; nor an attempt to find its formal elements in beautiful objects. Nor does his, like the contemporary British psychologists, seek the physiological or psychological sources of aesthetic feelings. Kant examines the judgment, 'This is beautiful,' to consider its presuppositions and distinctive character as compared with other judgments. This gives the following: (1) The beautiful, as contrasted with both the good and the agreeable, is the object of a disinterested satisfaction. (2) The beautiful is regarded as a quality of a thing, and hence as pleasing universally, not as pleasing me alone. In this it differs from the merely agreeable, which is not necessarily regarded as more than a subjective gratification. (3) The beautiful is 'purposive,' i.e. adapted to our mental powers, but is not judged as to its conformity to any definite end, subjective or objective. It differs in this from the perfect. (4) The beautiful is judged as pleasing, necessarily; we think it ought to be approved by others. Disinterestedness, objectivity, and purposiveness without consciously conceived end, are thus the essential marks. A free beauty (as of a flower), and a dependent beauty (as of a human being, which must conform to some concept of what the thing is intended to be), are also distinguished. This latter kind of beauty leads to an increased satisfaction by its addition of perfection to beauty; intellectual content and characteristic, to form.
IV. The immediate successors of Kant in Germany were influenced in their treatment of beauty (a) by the great contemporaneous interest in art, and (b) by metaphysical motives. The former factor made the beauty of art the primary object of consideration, whereas Kant had emphasized the free beauty of nature. But consideration of the beauty of art, especially in connection with the newly awakened historic interest, brought to the fore the conception of the 'ideal' embodied in the art, and this in turn lent itself readily to metaphysical definitions of beauty in terms of the idea or ideal. Cf. IDEAL IDEALISM (Schelling, Hegel). So Schelling defined beauty as 'the infinite represented in finite form'; Hegel, as 'the ideal as it shows itself to sense'; Schopenhauer, as an objectification of will, considered not as a particular, but as representative of the Idea. Jouffroy represented a similar standpoint in France. This 'idealism' may be either abstract, if the tendency is to regard the 'idea' by itself or in isolation from sensuous form, as the highest or true beauty (so with Schelling, Schopenhauer, Solger, Weisse, Lotze, according to Hartmann); or concrete, in which the unity of idea and sensuous form is insisted upon as essential (Hegel, Trahndorf, Schleiermacher, Deutinger, Ersted, Vischer, Zeising, Carriere, Schasler). The chief importance of all this group is in connection with art. Their most important contribution to the theory of beauty was their emphasis upon the element of the significant of CHARACTERISTIC (q.v.). The emotional element received less attention.
In contrast with idealism, which he rejected as 'mystical' aesthetics, Herbart considered it a more scientific procedure to study the formal elements in beauty, and this was carried out systematically by his disciple Zimmermann. Not the 'what' but the 'how' is the proper object of aesthetic inquiry. Cf. FORM, and FORMALISM.
V. Recent writers have followed, in the main, one of the two general lines, attempting either (a) to define more sharply and accurately the exact nature of the beautiful; and this generally by examining especially the subjective condition -- the line marked out by Kant; or (b) to find the psychological and physiological causes of specific aesthetic pleasures. Of the first class, Bergmann (Über das Schöne, 1887) emphasizes the contemplative attitude as the essential factor; Siebeck (Das Wesen der ästhetischen Anschauung, 1875) deduces the beautiful from the Herbartian theory of apperception, as the interpenetration of sensuous and spiritual presented as illusion in the process of apperception, where there is a seeming appearance of personality beneath the form. Lotze (Ueber den Begriff der Schönheit, 1845; Outlines of Aesth., 1884, trans. 1886) maintains that the beautiful is not to be sharply separated from the agreeable, but is one of a continuous series of higher and higher values. From another standpoint beauty is the appearance to immediate intuition of a unity underlying ideal, means, and necessary laws -- a unity which cannot be discovered completely by cognition.
Begg (The Devel. of Taste, 1887) considers the question of the subjective or objective character of beauty, and criticizes the association theory. Dimetresco (Der Schönheitsbegriff, 1877) argues for a recognition that there is both a beauty of ideal content added to form. Guyau (Les problèmes de l'esthétique contemporaine, 1884) urges a broadening of the field accorded to beauty, and its closer affiliation with other pleasurable feelings, rather than its delimitation from them. He insists (against the 'play theory') that 'all that is serious and useful, real and living, may become beautiful.' 'The beautiful is a perception or an action which stimulates life within us under its three forms simultaneously (i.e. sensibility, intelligence, and will), and produces pleasure by the swift consciousness of this general stimulation; as contrasted with a sensuous or intellectual object, which stimulates only part.' Köstlin (Aesth., 1869; Ueber den Schönheitsbegriff, 1878; Prolegomena z. Aesth., 1889) has discriminated in great detail the various aspects and manifestations of the beautiful and its allied concepts. Von Hartmann (Philos. des Schönen, 1887) asks, what is the object to which we attribute beauty? -- and declares it to be neither things objective in ordinary sense, nor subjective feeling, but rather a middle something which he calls 'der aesthetische Schein,' aesthetic SEMBLANCE (q.v.), or appearance. This may be of the eye, of the ear, or, as in the beauty of poetry, of the fancy. Grades of formal and concrete beauty are set forth in great detail, and the related aesthetic concepts analysed. Groos (Einleitung in die Aesth.) adopts the conception of 'aesthetischer Schein,' and defines it as 'inner imitation' of outer data. This has also been called 'illusion' and 'make-believe.' Semblance is recommended in this work. It is the product of the imagination.
When now a sensuously agreeable datum is taken up into the aesthetic image, illusion, or semblance, we have the beautiful; when a sensuously disagreeable, the ugly. The conception of semblance or illusion is further developed by Konrad Lange (Die bewusste Selbsttäuschung als Kern des aesthetischen Genusses, 1895) into the conception of 'conscious self-illusion.' Marshall (Pain, Pleasure, and Aesthetics, 1894) discusses rather aesthetic feeling (see FEELING, aesthetic) than the beautiful. He finds aesthetic pleasures to be those which are relatively permanent in revival. Santayana (The Sense of Beauty, 1896) defines beauty as 'value positive, intrinsic, and objectified,' or 'pleasure regarded as the quality of a thing,' and distinguishes beauty of material, beauty of form, and beauty of expression.
The writers last named in many cases might be properly included also in the second class of recent writers, as defined above, viz. those who seek not merely to define the concept of the beautiful, but to find psychological or physiological explanations of specific beauties, or more broadly of aesthetic feeling in general. Typical examples only of this second class can be named. Darwin treated of the sense of beauty in connection with sexual selection. Spencer and Allen give a biological explanation of various aesthetic pleasures (Spencer, Psychol., ii; Essays, ii; Allen, Physiol. Aesth., 1877; The Colour sense, 1878). Allen defines the beautiful as 'that which affords the maximum of stimulation with the minimum of fatigue or waste.' Colour is beautiful, because our frugivorous ancestors lived on bright coloured fruits, and so naturally learned to be attracted by colour.
Helmholtz (Sensations of Tone, 1863), Stumpf (Tonpsychologie, 1883), Edmund Gurney (The Power of Sound, 1880), J. Sully (Sensation and Intuition, 1874), have treated especially the problems of tones and of harmony and beauty in MUSIC (q.v.). Fechner (Zur experimentalen Aesth., 1871; Vorschule d. Aesth., 1876) made a notable attempt to define methods for an experimental determination of pleasing figures, and emphasized again the importance of ASSOCIATION (q.v.). He found the rectangle whose sides bore the ratio of the GOLDEN SECTION (q.v.) to be regarded as the most beautiful by the largest number of persons experimental upon. Similar experiments have been made by Witmer (Wundt's Philos. Stud., ix) and discussed by Helwig (Eine Theorie des Schönen, 1897), who holds that the maximum of beauty is a mean between extremes.
Vernon Lee and Anstruther-Thomson (Contemp. Rev., 1897) seek a physiological basis for beauty in the furtherance of equilibrium, respiration, and circulation produced by the contemplation of beautiful forms. The general standpoint of this class of investigations is stated by Souriau (L'esthétique du mouvement, 1889). The beautiful is something so complex that it is impossible to determine its nature a priori. Aesthetics will become a science only when the experimental method is applied to it. Biological science has made it possible to explain many of the simpler instances of beauty by showing their relation either to the welfare of the organism as a whole, to the mechanism of the special senses, or to the sex instincts. Cf. the topics SUBLIME, COMIC, TRAGIC, PATHOS, UGLY, ASSOCIATION, ART, AESTHETICS, FEELING (aesthetic).
Literature: KNIGHT, Philos. of the Beautiful, i. (1891; a brief but
comprehensive outline of the history of theories); BOSANQUET (Hist. of Aesth.,
1892) emphasizes rather theories of art than of beauty; J. SULLY, art. Aesthetics,
in Encyc. Brit.; WALTER, Gesch. d. Aesth. im Alterthum (1893; very complete);
SCHASLER, Krit. Gesch. d. Aesth. (1872; the most thorough general work); ZIMMERMANN,
Gesch. d. Aesth. (1858; a valuable supplement to the preceding); LOTZE, Gesch.
d. Aesth. in Deutschland (1868; critical and suggestive); VON HARTMANN, Die
deutsche Aesth. seit Kant (1886; fuller on recent writers); C. HERMANN, Die
Aesth. in ihrer Gesch. u. als wiss. Syst. (1876); H. STEIN, Die Entstehung d.
neueren Aesth. (1886; 17th and 18th centuries); SOMMER, Grundzüge einer
Gesch. d. deutschen Psychol. u. Aesth. (1892; Baumgarten to Schiller); CHAIGNET,
Les Principes de la Science du Beau (1860); LEVÊQUE, La Science du Beau
(1862; contains historical sketches); D. STEWART, Essays (Works, ed. Hamilton,
v); MARSHALL, Pain, Pleasure, and Aesth. (1894); NEUDECKER, Stud. z. Gesch.
d. deutsch. Aesth. seit Kant (1878). The last three have historical discussions.
See also recent Psychologies, especially those of VOLKMANN, WUNDT, SULLY, BAIN,
LADD, and BALDWIN, the literature under the topics referred to, and BIBLIOG.
Beck, Jacob Sigismund. (1761-1840.)
An important German Kantian; an opponent of Reinhold. He was born near
Danzig, in Lissau, and educated at Königsberg. He read at Halle (1791-9),
and was professor of philosophy at Rostock in the later years of his life.
As a pupil, he stood in the closest proximity to Kant, and wrote a work
on the philosophy of his master, which the Kantians used as a compendium.
Becoming [AS. becuman]: Ger. Werden; Fr. devenir; Ital. (il) divenire. (1) Any process by which a definite new stage, form, or condition is reached.
It is opposed to mere change, which is a more general notion, and involves no notion of a limiting condition to be reached; and to growth, which implies that the new stage is an advance.
(2) In a more general sense for any change or flux. Thus being in contrasted
with Becoming in characterizing the Eleatics and Heraclitus (cf. Weber's Hist.
of Philos.). See CHANGE. (R.H.S.)
Begging the Question: see
Being [AS. beon]: Ger. Sein; Fr. (l')être; Ital. (l') essere, Ente. (1) The most general predicate possible and to be affirmed of anything whatever. So in Hegel's 'being equals nothing' (Sein gleich Nichts): cf. HEGEL'S TERMINOLOGY, Glossary, Sein.
(2) Affirmed of that which exists or may exist or have reality. This meaning always involves some unity and determinateness in the existent. So in Aristotle's 'Esse in Potentia' and 'Esse in Actu.'
(3) Existence in time or space (ens, entity) as opposed to idea or representation. From this point of view the question may be raised whether any being corresponds to a certain idea, i.e. whether the idea has being or not.
As a fundamental conception in every philosophy, the word has had as many specific
definitions as there are philosophers. The materialists make being equivalent
to matter; the idealists make it equivalent to mind. For Herbart, relations
have no place in being; for Lotze, to be is to be in relations. Cf. REALITY
AND EXISTENCE, and see the extensive citations given in Eisler, Wörterb.
d. philos. Begriffe, Sein. (R.H.S.)
Belgic Confession: Ger. Belgische Konfession; Fr. Confession belge; Ital. Confessione belgica. The doctrinal standard of the Dutch and Belgian Reformed Churches, and of the Dutch Reformed Church in the United States.
It was drafted, in 1561, by Guido de Brès and others; adopted by the Synods of Antwerp, Wesel, Emden, Dort, and Middelburg (1566-81); purged of Arminian 'corruptions' and readopted by the Synod of Dort, 1619. In formal construction it is like the Gallican Confession, but is less dogmatic on important points such as the Incarnation and Trinity, and the Church and the Sacraments. It is important, historically, as the most representative of the moderate Calvinistic Confessions.
Literature: SCHAFF, Creeds of Christendom, i. 502, iii. 383; DERMOVT,
Geschiedenissen d. Nederlandsche Hervormde. (R.M.W.)
Belief [ME. beleve]: Ger. Glaube; Fr. croyance; Ital. credenza. Mental endorsement or acceptance of something thought of, as real.
It is one of the conquests of modern psychology that it has marked off the field of belief, and so brought to an end the historical controversies which turned upon differences of definition. There have been two great ways of distinguishing belief from other mental states: (1) The term has been used to include all states of mind in which the object presented was not explicitly declared unreal. This made it possible to say that we believe in our sensations as well as in our reasoned conclusions, in our intuitions as well as in our pictured hopes. Under this definition the uncritical attitude of the child, in not rejecting anything, is called belief or credulity. (2) Belief is considered by another school of thinkers as a positive endorsement, not merely a negative acceptance, of something as real; that is, it is an attitude over and above the uncritical consciousness of bare experience itself. On the basis of these two forms of definition theories of belief have fallen into two great classes. On the first usage belief attaches to what is psychologically immediate; on the second it does not. Cf. IMMEDIACY (psychological).
According to the first class of theories, belief is considered a spontaneous and immediate attribute of consciousness, a 'first intention,' and as such it has been considered a form of feeling (Hume's Enquiry, Ladd), of will (Bain's first view in Emotions and Will, 'Belief'), or of intelligence (James Mill, Herbart). Opposed to this general way of looking at belief is the second class of theories which consider it a matter of reflection, a 'second intention,' a new phenomenon added to mere presence in presentative consciousness. According to this view belief proper is only present when a certain complexity of the mental life affords the requisite conditions. This line of distinction is rapidly gaining ground. It is well to recognize the difference of fact between the lower form of acceptance of experience, on the one hand, called by Bain 'primitive credulity,' and described by the present writer under the term 'reality feeling,' and, on the other hand, the higher attitude of mind which accompanies the weighing of evidence, the attaining of conviction, and the asserting of a reflective judgment. If the former be called belief, the distinction might be marked by an antithesis between implicit or unformulated belief, and explicit or formulated belief. The more explicit belief, or belief proper, is marked in the German by the term Anerkennen (-ung), meaning 'acceptance as true' (Für-wahrhalten). It is belief as function of the Co-EFFICIENT (q.v.) of reality or truth (nach Merkmalen, &c., Platner, Philos. Aphor., i. § 44, quoted by Eisler) distinctly recognized as objective. See below. Anerkennung, however, means the recognition of or acceptance of a thing for what it claims to be, as the recognition of another self as a self.
As thus defined, belief is explained in various ways by different authorities. It is held (1) that belief is a sentiment, an 'emotion of conviction' (Bagehot), aroused by a complex interplay of presentations and ideas, or a feeling of "vividness' and intensity in ideas (Hume's Treatise, Taine, Dugald Stewart); or (2) it is an intellectual fact (Bain's second view, in Ment. and Mor. Sci., Appendix, 100), an 'irresistible or inseparable association' (James Mill); or (3) it is an active determination, either voluntary or spontaneous, a personal attitude toward the play of presentations. Bain's first view was one of the earliest statements. This view, as supported to-day, takes either the form of the postulate of an ultimate principle of 'assent' (J. S. Mill; Brentano's 'Judgment'; James' 'Attention' and 'Will to Believe'), or of making the attitude of belief the result of an assimilation of new elements into the group of motor processes, by which mental activity is realized, and to which it is limited. This view as held by the present writers is more fully developed below.
There are certain great departments of experience in which belief arises, and in these several departments we may look for the special marks or signs upon which the belief-attitude goes out. These marks are called 'criteria' of belief, when looked at as belonging to or adhering in the facts or objects which stimulate belief (that is, considered logically and metaphysically), and 'coefficients of reality,' when considered as guiding indications to consciousness in its attrition of reality (that is, considered psychologically and genetically). Cf. JUDGMENT, and Co-EFFICIENT. We have the spheres of judgment or beliefs in fact or truth, divided into (1) belief in the external world of fact on the basis of 'sensational' and memory' coefficients, and (2) belief in truth, on the basis of the 'intellectual' coefficient, or evidence. With these goes the other spheres of beliefs or judgments of worth or appreciation proceeding on (3) the 'ethical' coefficients, and (4) the 'aesthetic' coefficient. The last two named characterize what is called aesthetic and ethical WORTH (q.v.).
The coefficients on the basis of which belief in the reality of the external world arises have been much in dispute. The view that the external world consists in 'the permanent possibility of sensation' (J. S. Mill), has been developed (Pikler) into the statement that the test or coefficient of external reality is 'voluntary control,' i.e. the means through voluntary action of securing the sensations which are, according to Mill, a permanent possibility. On the other hand, the view (Spencer) that the belief in the external world arises through 'sensations of resistance' (Widerstandsgefühl) has been correspondingly generalized into the view that the primary coefficient of external reality is 'limitation of mental activity.'
A third view (Lipps, Stout, Baldwin) suggests that these two criteria have reference respectively to two equally necessary, though not co-ordinate, elements in external reality, i.e. (1) present fact, which involves mainly a 'limitation of activity,' presenting the coefficient of 'incontrollableness,' and (2) persistence, or possibility of sensational repetition, which proceeds mainly upon the coefficient of the 'voluntary control' through memory, of the series which a second time terminates in the resistance or limitation. To which may be added the fact that memory also includes limitation; and that present fact has a controllable or 'get-able' aspect. For the possibility of sensational repetition is an indication of external reality only in so far as the repetition depends on conditions which are incontrollable, viz. which do not depend merely on our free movements in space.
In other words, there is belief in external reality only if and so far as voluntary control involves adaptation to the incontrollable. This incontrollableness is present both in the primary perception and in the ideal representation: it is because we perceive things as existing, persisting, and changing independently of our free movements that we ideally represent them as existing, persisting, and changing independently of our position relatively to them in space, including our presence or absence. Mutatis mutandis, these remarks apply to thought-reality. Ideally represented connections are believed in, therefore, just in so far as they are for us conditions to which we must adapt ourselves in the pursuit of ends, whatever these ends may be. Thus voluntary control is bound up with belief just because belief presents us with the conditions to which voluntary control must adapt itself if it is to be effective. Belief is a condition of activity, and activity a condition of belief. The two statements express different aspects of the same fact.
If we call the former the 'sensational' and the latter the 'memory' coefficient of external reality, the two necessary factors are recognized. It is possible that in lower forms of life the sensational coefficient is all; and in these the element of persistence, or ground of possible recurrence of stimulation, is presumably wanting.
The consideration of the coefficient of thought-reality, i.e. the 'criteria of truth,' raises a similar question. Only that aspect which concerns the psychological recognition of truth as having reality is in place, however, in this connection. Of the criteria established in logic, 'consistency' or 'non-contradiction' would seem to correspond to the coefficient of 'voluntary control.' It involves, when progressively applied, the repetition and refining, by the voluntary pursuit of truth of relationships already established. The other logical criterion, 'the inconceivability of the opposite' (Spencer), appeals to the criterion of 'limitation of activity,' or 'incontrollableness' (Zwangsgefühl, Lipps).
It is through the 'memory coefficient' of reality of all sorts that the state of mind called EXPECTATION (q.v.) arises. These coefficients of reality, of both sorts, bear relation to the active attitudes of the mind, and would seem to support the view that belief is an affair of activity. On the other hand, it is possible to recognize purely sensory and affective criteria, such as sensations of resistance (Spencer), 'vividness' of memory (Taine, Rabier), as coefficients of external reality; or only cognitive criteria, such as 'inherent consistency and non-contradiction,' 'contradictory representation,' 'inhibition among ideas,' 'irresistible or indissoluble association,' as coefficients of truth. This would be to support the view that belief is an affective, or again a cognitive phenomenon. The decision between these two opposed ways of looking at the matter would seem to require a genetic examination of the concepts of REALITY and TRUTH (see those terms).
The relation of belief to WILL (q.v.) would also seem to turn upon the way we view the coefficients of reality; if we recognize only 'voluntariness' or 'control' as ground of belief, then it is very hard to distinguish between the two; so we have belief determined by 'the passional life' (James), by 'authority' (Balfour). On the other hand, if we find restriction of activity' in any of its forms (e.g. 'resistance,' 'consistency,' 'indissoluble association,' 'motor adaptation') an element in the coefficient, then belief cannot be the same as volition. Volition would represent work against limitations, belief activity within limitations and adapting itself to limitations; for the limitations are not mere negations, but positive conditions -- a point of view developed further under TRUTH.
According to Baldwin, 'There is a distinct difference in consciousness between the consent of belief and the consent of will. The consent of belief is in a measure a forced consent: it attaches to what is -- to what stands in the order of things whether I consent or no. The consent of will is a forceful consent -- a consent to what shall be through me. Further, in cases in which belief is brought about by desire and will, there is a subtle consciousness of inadequate evidence, until by repetition the item desired and willed no longer needs volition to give it a place in the series deemed objective: then it is for the first time belief, but then it is no longer will' (Handb. of Psychol., Feeling and Will, 1891, 171).
Those who hold this view would say, however, that the influence of will on belief is nevertheless real, inasmuch as the volition or control factor in the coefficient is also present, though secondary. It works by the voluntary reinstatement of motives, reasons, &c., in which personal preference and interest serve to set the attention on some data and to exclude others.
In disbelief we have a state of belief in a contrary truth. It involves the same sort of reflective determination as positive belief, and so does not differ psychologically from it. Logically expressed, disbelief is the same as 'negative judgment' based on a contrary positive judgment. The contrary of belief is accordingly not disbelief, but DOUBT (q.v.).
Conviction is a loose term whose connotation, so far as exact, is near to that here given to belief. Making up one's mind, being convinced, weighing evidence, &c., are phrases describing the complex play of ideas preparatory to belief.
As compared with the term judgment we may say that belief is the psychological, and judgment the logical or formal, side of the same state of mind, called succinctly by Stout the 'Yes-No' consciousness. See also FAITH.
Literature: HUME, Treatise on Human Nature, §§ 7ff.,
and Enquiry, § 5, Pt. II; JAMES MILL, Analysis of the Phenomena of
the Human Mind (ed. J. S. Mill); J. S. Mill, notes in preceding, i. 412 f.;
Dissertations, iii; Exam. of Hamilton, chap. xi; DUGALD STEWART, Philos. of
the Human Mind, Pt. I. chap. iii; FECHNER, Drei Motive u. Grünge des Glaubens;
ULRICI, Glauben u. Wissen; NEWMAN, Grammar of Assent; BAIN, Emotions and Will,
'Belief,' and Ment. and Mor. Sci., Appendix; WARD, Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.), art.
Psychology; BRENTANO, Psychol., ii. chap. vii; LIPPS, Grundthatsachen des Seelenlebens,
chap. xvii; JAMES, Princ. of Psychol., ii. chap. xxi; The Will to Believe; STOUT,
Analytic Psychol., Bk. I. chap. v, and Bk. II. chap. xi; BALDWIN, Handb. of
Psychol., Feeling and Will, chap. vii; BALFOUR, The Foundations of Belief; ADAMSON,
Encyc. Brit., art. Belief; VORBRODT, Die Psychol. des Glaubens; BAGEHOT, Lit.
Stud., i. 412 f.; ROYCE, Religious Aspect of Philos., chaps. ix, x; HÖFFDING,
Outlines of Psychol., V. D. See also the references given under JUDGMENT and
in BIBLIOG. C, 2, l. Cf. the following topic. (J.M.B.,
Belief (in theology and religion): Ger. Glaube; Fr. foi; Ital. credenza, fede. This word has always been loosely used. Before proceeding to consider its theological and religious meaning, two other senses of the term, which are involved in the religious usage, are to be distinguished.
(1) The term is employed in a quasi-logical sense to denote the kind of judgment which is based not on purely intellectual grounds of affirmation, but on sentiment or will, especially in their reference to practical life. This may be illustrated by the common usage of the words 'make believe,' where, on the basis of an artificial universe, inclusions and exclusions are made according to the practical necessities of the occasion. Belief here implies an organization, which carries the subject of it beyond mere apprehension of objects or mere understanding of propositions in the direction of what has been called 'will to believe.' It has been made the basis of more or less important views classed together under the term FAITH-PHILOSOPHY (q.v.).
(2) In contrast with this is the psychological meaning of BELIEF (q.v.) given above.
(3) The theological employment of the term coincides most closely with customary usage. The theologian distinguishes two meanings: (1) probability, giving a more or less tenable opinion; (2) certainty, either (a) of a general nature, and having no very specific grounds, or (b) of special nature, and dependent either upon the report of witnesses or upon remembered facts. Roman Catholic theologians further distinguish between explicit and implicit belief. When a man believes a truth which he knows, the belief is said to be explicit; when he extends this belief to consequences involved in this truth, which he does not know, it becomes implicit. Thus there are dogmas which all Christians ought to believe explicitly -- e.g. Creation, the Trinity, the authority of the Church. On the other hand, all that flows from divine revelation -- which the Church interprets -- ought to be believed implicitly.
(4) In philosophy of religion, the implications and problems referred to under (1) and (2) have an essential place. Here belief means definite statement that a portion of human experience is of such and such a character, and that particular occurrences are explicable in such and such a manner. This belief in the nature and value of experience, or experiences, has two pivotal principles. First, the doctrine that the divine, or supernatural, can, and does, enter into relation with man. Second, the universally diffused conviction that for every effect a cause can be found. Belief consists essentially in an application of the conception of divine causality to cases where no natural cause can be traced, or to which natural causation appears to be inapplicable. In the history of religions, perception of this divine causality usually originates in the superior insight of individuals who are -- or are supposed to be -- specially gifted. This, in turn, may be translated into modern phraseology by saying that some men, simply on account of their superior power of attention, organize their experience differently from others. Cf. FAITH, MYTH.
Literature: BRENTANO, Psychol., Bk. II. chap. vii; W. JAMES, Princ.
of Psychol., ii. chap. xxi, and The Will to Believe; STOUT, Analytic Psychol.,
i. chap. v, ii. chap. xi; J. KÖSTLIN, Der Glaube, sein Wesen, Grund und
Gegenstand; O. PFLEIDERER, Grundriss d. christl. Glaubens-u. Sittenlehre; J.
CAIRD, Philos. of Religion; J. ROYCE, Religious Aspect of Philos., chap. xi;
F. B. JEVONS, Introd. to the Hist. of Religion, chap. xxvi; NEWMAN, Grammar
of Assent. See also references given under BELIEF above. (R.M.W.)
Bell and Lancaster (monitorial system): A monitorial system whereby one pupil teaches to other pupils what he himself has been taught.
This system, used by Bell in Madras, India, and begun at the same time in England by Joseph Lancaster about the beginning of the 19th century, was of great importance in introducing and furthering the cause of universal elementary education in Great Britain.
Literature: J. M. D. MEIKLEJOHN, Life of Bell (1881); Sketch of Lancaster,
Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.). (C.DE G.)
Belligerency [Lat. bellum, war]: Ger. Kriegszustand; Fr. l'état de guerre; Ital. stato di guerra, belligeranza (little used). The state, relatively to each other, of nations at war. Rebels may come to occupy this state, in relation to the government to which they refuse allegiance, if the rebellion assumes the proportions of a civil war.
The term war (bellum) is used to indicate non actio, sed status (Grotius, De Iure Belli et Pacis, i. 2). It is a status affecting neutral powers, as well as the immediate parties to the hostilities. Belligerency is the status of one enemy with respect to the other.
Literature: The Prize Cases, 2 Black's United States Reports, 673; WHARTON,
Int. Law Digest, § 69; HOLLAND, Stud. in Int. Law (1898), Pt. I. vi,
II. viii. (S.E.B.)
Benedictines: Ger. Benedictiner; Fr. Bénédictins; Ital. Benedettini. A monastic order, founded by Benedict of Nursia (480-543), at Monte Casino, in Campania, in 528. His rules, which for some centuries governed the monastic orders of the Western Church, were set forth in 529.
The Benedictines have passed through many vicissitudes. In 580, on the destruction of their buildings by the Lombards, they were scattered and fled to Rome. In the 8th century riches and social exclusiveness had seriously corrupted them till, in 817, Benedict of Aniane reinforced the original rules. In the 10th century, like reforms again became necessary. The Order passed through numerous trials till the Reformation, when it was seriously threatened by the Jesuits. It gained new life in the 17th century, when its members were the most distinguished scholars of the Roman Catholic Church. This is the connection in which it is important for philosophy. The editions of the Fathers and Doctors then superintended, chiefly by the Congregation of St. Maur, have become classical; the same Congregation also made extensive contributions to the scientific study of history. At present the Order is most active in Austria.
Literature: MABILLON, Acta Sanct. Ord. St. Bened. and Annales Ordinis
S. B.; MONTALEMBERT, Les Moines de l'Occident (Eng. trans., 1860); TASSIN, Hist.
de la Congrégation de St. Maur. (R.M.W.)
Beneke, Friedrich Eduard.
A German philosopher, born and educated in Berlin. He disappeared March
1, 1854, and his body was found in a canal in June. He had met his death
by drowning. He was a follower of Fries in basing philosophy on psychology.
While Docent in Berlin University his lectures were prohibited in consequence
of a work on ethics (1822). He taught in Göttingen, 1824-7, but returned
to Berlin to become professor extraordinary (1832). He held this position
until his death.
Benevolence [Lat. benevolentia]: Ger. Wohlthätigkeit; Fr. bienfaisance; Ital. benevolenza. The habit of voluntary activity (or virtue) which is shown in the effort to promote the good of others.
The definite recognition of benevolence as a virtue which should be placed alongside of the cardinal virtues of the ancients is a result of Christian influence: although, in the early Christian and mediaeval writers, it was usually, under the name of love or charity, added to the four CARDINAL VIRTUES (q.v.), as a 'theologic' virtue.
In Plato and Aristotle the love of, or desire for the good of, man as man found no place: the substitute for the modern virtue of benevolence was partly the minor virtue of liberality, partly the sentiment of friendship. In Aristotle's view of friendship, in which the good of one's friend is held to be identical with one's own good, the essence of benevolence may be seen. But friendship is restricted in application to one or a few; and they must bear some similarity in condition and sentiments to their friend. A wider view entered Greek philosophy with the cosmopolitanism of the Stoics and the 'philanthropy' of Xenocrates and the Academic. Benevolence may be said to be a due regard for the needs of others, as JUSTICE (q.v.) is a due regard for their rights. The difficulties connected with benevolence are chiefly: (1) the difficulty urged by Kant, of making the feeling of love a duty; beneficence but not benevolence may be commanded: the solution of which lies in the tendency of the sentiment to follow the principle of action. (2) The question whether benevolence is due to some (relatives, benefactors, &c. ) rather than others, as Butler asserts, or to all men equally. To some extent the difficulty may be due to the intermixture of the claims of justice with the call for benevolence. Practically, the difficulty arises when a man has to decide between the different groups to which he belongs, e.g. family, country, humanity. There has been in history a gradual extension of the unity of feeling between man and man, which has made for the widening of benevolence, but which at the same time carries with it the danger that the extension of the sphere of benevolence may interfere with its intensity. (3) A third difficulty is connected with the dispute as to the quality of the good which is to be sought for others. Kant asserts that it is simply their happiness, not because this is the true or unconditioned good, but on the ground that their true goodness or virtue is purely personal and cannot be affected by others: a view, however, which results from a too absolute separation of the rational from the sensitive nature of man.
The question of the 'disinterestedness' of benevolence was a constant subject of controversy with the British moralists. By Hobbes it was reduced to love of power, by Mandeville characterized as self-love under a veil of hypocrisy, while Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Butler, and Hume defended its 'disinterestedness.' By modern writers of the psychologico-hedonistic school (e.g. J. S. Mill, G. Grote), sympathy, which may be said to be the impulsive basis of benevolence, is made the bridge between desire for personal pleasure and the altruistic sentiment of benevolence.
Literature: HOBBES, Elements of Law, chap. i. 9, and Leviathan, i. 14,
15; MANDEVILLE, Fable of the Bees; BUTLER, Sermons, and Diss. on Virtue, apud
fin.; HUME, Princ. of Mor., App. ii; KANT, Met. d. Sitten.; SIDGWICK, Meth.
of Eth., III. iv; PAULSEN, Syst. d. Ethik, iii. 7, 9. (W.R.S.)
Bentham, Jeremy. (1748-1832.) An
English jurist and moral philosopher, born in London and died in Westminster.
He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and first studied law, but
later abandoned the profession without practising. In 1785-86 he travelled,
visiting Paris, Constantinople, Smyrna, and White Russia. His aim in life
was the reform of legislation. His standard of ethical judgment he expressed
in a phrase probably first used by Cumberland, viz. 'the greatest happiness
of the greatest number.' He makes the science of Ethics include public
ethics, or jurisprudence and private ethics, or morality.
Benthamism: the ethical theory which makes
the ethical end the 'GREATEST HAPPINESS (q.v.) of the greatest number,' as advocated
by Jeremy Bentham. (J.M.B.)
Tours. (998-1088.) A mediaevel theologian born at Tours; he died on
the island of St. Cosme. He was educated at the school of Chartres as a
pupil of Fulbert, 'the Socrates of the Franks.' In 1031 he became director
of the Catholic school in Tours, and in 1040 archdeacon of Angers. He was
doubtless influenced by the writings of Erigena: was of a rationalistic
turn of mind, and was twice forced by the Synod in Rome to recant, viz.
in 1059 and in 1079.
Berger, Johann Erich von.
1772-1833.) A German philosopher, who was professor at Kiel. He learned
the philosophy of Kant through Reinhold, but sympathized with Fichte, and
later with Schelling, whose follower he is considered.
Berkeley, George. (1685-1753.)
He was born at Killcrin, Ireland, and died in Oxford. He was educated at
Trinity College, Dublin, becoming a Fellow there in 1707. While a student
he formed a friendship with Dean Swift. In 1710 he published his celebrated
system of idealism. In 1713 he removed to London, but went as chaplain
with Lord Peterborough to Italy. He returned to London in 1720, and to
Ireland in 1721. In 1724 he became dean of Derry, and in 1728 married Anna,
the daughter of John Forster, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. In
the same year (1728) he sailed for Rhode Island, for the purpose of founding
a college in America for the education of missionaries to work among the
Indians of America. While in Rhode Island he officiated in Trinity Church,
Newport. When he left for England in 1732, his plans having been frustrated,
he made valuable contributions to the library and to the beneficiary resources
of Yale College. Returning to London he was made bishop of Cloyne in 1735.
Berkleianism: the form of IDEALISM
(q.v.) advocated by Bishop Berkeley.
Bernard of Chartres. A mediaeval
Platonic philosopher and theologian, the contemporary of William of Champeaux,
born about 1070-80. His second name, Sylvester, is usually omitted, his
name being based on the place of his labours. An enthusiastic Platonist
and realist, he sought to avoid any antagonism to Aristotle, whose authority
Bernard, Saint. (1091-1153.) Abbot
of Clairvaux, mediaeval philosopher and theologian, and a Doctor of the
Western Church. He was born in his father's castle at Fontaines, near Dijon,
and died in Clairvaux. He entered the monastery of Citeaux in 1113, and
in 1115 established the Order of Citeaux at Clairvaux in Champagne, becoming
the first abbot of the community. Ascetic and eloquent, pious and mystical
in his convictions, he was the relentless persecutor of Abelard of his
pupil Arnold of Brescia, of the Cathari, and of Gilbert of Poitiers. He
drew up the rule for the Order of Knights Templars, then in its infancy,
in 1128. In 1146 he stimulated Europe to the second crusade. He was canonized
in 1173 by Pope Alexander III. He wrote several beautiful Latin hymns,
English versions of which are found in every hymnal.
Bible [Gr. biblion, a book]: Ger. Bibel; Fr. Bible; Ital. Bibbia. The name given to the collection of canonical sacred books of the Jews and Christians. See CANON.
Used also, in the plural, of the sacred books of the ethnic religions -- the Bibles of religion; and, by analogy, of the greatest works of genius in literature -- Homer, Dante, Shakespere, and Goethe are the Bibles of literature.
The Bible may be discussed from two points of view, the second of which is of primary importance for philosophy and religion. (1) It may be discussed in and for itself. Here the original languages, the division and arrangement of the constituent books, the canon, the text, and the translations, form the chief objects of inquiry. (2) It may be viewed in its relation to other literature of a similar kind. Here comparative problems, and the questions of inspiration and revelation, constitute the main subjects of study.
Literature: see the arts, in any of the great Encyclopaedias, e.g. Encyc.
Brit.; Herzog (German); Lichtenberger (French); Hastings' Dict. of the Bible;
CHEYNE, Encyc. Biblica (arts. on the several books). Also the titles cited under
BIBLICAL CRITICISM. (R.M.W.)
Biblical Criticism: Ger. Bibelkritik; Fr. critique biblique; Ital. critica biblica. The theological discipline which lays the foundations for a satisfactory exegesis.
It naturally falls into three parts, from all of which preconceived and dogmatic opinions are to be rigidly excluded. (1) Investigation of the formative conception, historical constitution, nature, and authority of the collection of books known as the Canon. This discipline is usually termed Biblical Canonics. (2) Textual criticism, or investigation of the MSS., of the received text, and generally of all questions that bear upon the construction of a satisfactory text. This is often called the Lower Criticism. (3) Literary and historical criticism of single books, or of groups, usually known as the Higher Criticism. On the basis of a satisfactory text, this discipline proceeds to the investigation of questions of authorship; circumstances of historical origin, including audience, design, and peculiar character; relation of the work under consideration to others which may be fittingly classed with it. Another important office of higher criticism is investigation of the sources employed by an author and his credibility in the use of them. The key-note of higher criticism lies in its complete independence of traditional or dogmatic opinions. In this respect, like Canonics, it is of special value and interest for philosophy of religion.
Literature: on the Canon of the O. T. see the relative works of F. BUHL,
WILDEBOER (Eng. trans.), W. H. GREEN, and RYLE (Introd.); of the N. T., REUSS,
S. DAVIDSON, and WESTCOTT. On Textual Criticism of O. T. see STRACK, Prolegomena
Critica, in V. T. Hebraicum; of the N. T., SCRIVENER'S Introd., SCHAFF'S Companion,
and GREEN, Higher Criticism of the Book of Genesis. On Higher Criticism of O.
T. see CHEYNE, Founders of Criticism; ROBERTSON SMITH, O. T. in the Jewish Church;
WELLHAUSEN, Hist. of Israel (Eng. trans.); of the N. T., BLEEK, Introd. to N.
T. (Eng. trans., 2 vols.); SANDAY, Gospels in the Second Century; ABBOT, Authorship
of the Fourth Gospel; GREEN (as cited above). (R.M.W.)
Biblical Psychology: Ger. biblische Psychologie; Fr. psychologie biblique; Ital. psicologia biblica. An integral portion of theological anthropology. It consists essentially of a discussion of man's entire constitution on the basis of Scripture declarations.
Two main problems occur in it: (1) Is man composed of spirit (pnenma), soul (ynch), and body? -- or (2) Is he composed of soul and body? The Greek Fathers, taken as a whole, adopted the former view; while the Latin Fathers, thanks partly to the emergence of Gnostic and other heresies, and partly to the poverty of the Latin language (spiritus and anima hardly conveying the sense of the Greek terms), tended to the latter view, or to a discreet silence. In the course of history, Biblical psychology has been rather elbowed out by dogmatics in the Western Church. The mystics raise the question of pnenma and ynch once more; and during the last 150 years more attention has been paid to it, especially in Germany, though systematic works are few.
Literature: MELANCHTHON, Liber de Anima (1552); SERVETUS, Christianismi
Restitutio (1553); JACOB BÖHME, De Triplici Vita (1620); BONNET, Palingénésie
philos. (1767); J. F. v. MEYER, Blätter f. höhere Wahrheit (1818-32);
OLSHAUSEN, Opuscula (cir. 1825); H. SCHUBERT, Gesch. d. Seele (1830); K. F.
GÖSCHEL, Von d. Beweisen d. Unsterblichkeit d. menschl. Seele (1835); T.
J. VAN GRIETHUYZEN, Diss de notion. vocab. swma et
sarx (1846); M. F. Roos, Fundamenta Psychol. Sacrae
(1857); J. FROSCHAMMER, Ueber d. Ursprung d. menschl. Seele (1854); H. SCHULTZ,
Die Voraussetzungen d. christl. Lehre v. d. Unsterblichkeit (1861). More recent
works are: RUDLOFF, Lehre v. Menschen; BECK, Umriss d. bibl. Seelenlehre (Eng.
trans.); FRANZ DELITZSCH, Syst. d. bibl. Psychol. (Eng. trans.); I. TAYLOR,
Physical Theory of Another Life; J. B. HEARD, The Tripartite Nature of Man;
BISHOP ELLICOTT, Destiny of the Creature; J. LAIDLAW, Bible Doctrine of Man.
See, too, art. Geist in Herzog's Real-Encyc.; HOEKSTRA, in Jaarb. f. w. Th.,
vii; VAN DEN HAM, ibid., v; LOTZE, Microcosmus, Bks. II, III, V (Eng. trans.).
Biblical Theology: Ger. biblische Theologie; Fr. théologie biblique; Ital. teologia biblica. One of the more recent theological disciplines which grew out of the effort, made at the close of the 18th century, to throw aside traditional interpretations in order to arrive at the doctrines really contained in the Bible itself. It consists essentially in a species of higher exegesis which attempts to shake itself free from dogmatics. Accordingly, it may be defined as that department of theology which systematizes the doctrines contained in the sacred books of the Jews and Christians with special regard to their historical formation.
It is of the highest importance for philosophy of religion on account of the historical and ethical spirit in which it has been conducted. Biblical theology dates from the works of Zacharia (supernaturalist, 1792) and Ammon (rationalist, 1801). J. F. Gabler (1802) was the first to mark it off as a distinct discipline and to insist on its historical and non-dogmatic character. Schmidt, of Tübingen (1838), was the pioneer in pointing out its character as a higher kind of exegesis. In the history of the study, New Testament theology developed first. Ewald's Lehre der Bibel (1871-6) is the earliest satisfactory discussion of the entire field, the Old Testament included. But till the higher criticism had done its work, the Old Testament portions could not be satisfactorily treated either in the historical or ethical spirit. Recent investigations have tended to detailed presentation of parts of the entire subject, e.g. the Pauline theology; and a complete work from a single hand, covering the whole field from a single standpoint, is still lacking.
Literature: of great historical importance are: GABLER, Bib. Theol.
d. N. T. (1800-2); VATKE, Rel. d. A. T.'s nach den kanonishcen Büchern
entwickelt (1835); SCHMIDT, in Tübinger Zeitsch. f. Theol., Heft 4 (1838);
EWALD, Lehre d. Bibel v. Gott, oder Theol. d. A. u. N. Bundes (1871-6). On the
O. T.: H. SCHULTZ, O. T. Theol. (Eng. trans., 2 vols.); ED. RIEHM, Alttestamentliche
Theol. (1889); B. STADE, in Zeitsch. f. Theol. u. Kirche, Heft 1 (1893). On
the N. T.: B. WEISS, Bib. Theol. of the N. T. (Eng. trans., 2 vols.); W. BEYSCHLAG,
N. T. Theol. (Eng. trans., 2 vols). (R.M.W.)
Biel or Byll, Gabriel.
Born in Speyer, Germany; date uncertain. Died in Tübingen, 1495. A
German theologian and philosopher. Educated at Heidelberg and Erfurt; became
cathedral preacher at Mainz. In 1477 he was made provost of Urach. He was
an adviser in the establishment of the University of Tübingen, and
became professor of theology in the University in 1484. He followed William
of Occam and opposed the scholastic doctrine of sensible and intelligible
Bill [Lat. billa]: Ger. (1) Gesetzvorschlag,
Gesetzentuwurf; (2) in commerce, Wechsel; Fr. (1) project de
loi; (2) in commerce, une lettre de change; Ital. progetto di
legge. (1) In parliamentary law, a proposed statute, reduced to form, but
not yet finally enacted. A bill for an Act becomes an Act when approved by the
executive. (2) In commercial law, a bill of exchange. (3) In the law of procedure,
bill or bill in equity, a written petition to a court of equity; bill of indictment,
a written charge of crime made by a grand jury; it is prepared by the public
prosecutor, and the jury endorse it as 'a true bill.' (S.E.B.)
Binaural Hearing: Ger. binaurales Hören; Fr. audition binauriculaire; Ital. udizione binauricolare. Normal hearing with both ears.
(1) There is great individual difference in the apprehension of a given pitch by the two ears separately. In many cases the difference of hearing may amount to a musical quarter-tone. This phenomenon, diplacusis, may be induced by pathological conditions and take on a pathological import. See Stumpf, Tonpsychologie, i. 266, 274, 424; ii. 109, 221, 459, 551; Külpe, Outlines of Psychol., 299.
(2) The binaural hearing of beats, and of difference and beat tones, is of
importance for the theory of audition in general; but the facts are not yet
satisfactorily made out. See Wundt, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.),
i. 478, and the citations given under BEATS. Cf. LOCALIZATION OF SOUNDS. (E.B.T.)
Binocular Vision: Ger. binoculares Sehen; Fr. vision binoculaire; Ital. vista binoculare. Normal vision with the two eyes.
The united function of the eyes has been made the object of extended study, owing to its importance for theories of the perception of visual SPACE (q.v.). Experiments have been made on: (1) The mapping of the retina into points. See CONGRUENT, CORRESPONDING, and IDENTICAL POINTS; also DOUBLE IMAGES, HOROPTER. (2) The facts of CONVERGENCE (q.v.); also see ASYMMETRY, DEPTH (visual), PRIMARY POSITION, STEREOSCOPIC VISION. (3) Binocular COLOUR MIXTURE, AFTER-IMAGES, and CONTRAST. See these terms.
Literature: SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol., chap. vii; also under
topics referred to. (E.B.T.)
Biogenesis [Gr. bioV, life, + geneoiV, origin]: Ger. biologische Continuität; Fr. biogenèse (not in use), continuité biologique; Ital. biogenesi. The law of biogenesis gives expression to the fact that every living being (animal or plant) is derived from a living parent or parents.
The doctrine of the continuity of living substance has been firmly established, and is expressed in the aphorism omne vivum e vivo. The opposed and now discredited doctrine of abiogenesis asserted that, in certain cases, living beings arise by spontaneous generation from dead matter. Bastian is the most important recent advocate of abiogenesis.
The term Biogenesis was first proposed by Huxley in 1870. The names of Francesco Redi, Spallanzani, Pasteur, Tyndall, Roberts, and Dallinger are associated with the gradual establishment of the doctrine.
Literature: HUXLEY, Pres. Addr. Brit. Assoc. (1870), reprinted in Essays,
viii; also art. Biology, Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.), iii; M. VERWORN, Gen. Physiol.
(Eng. trans., 1899); H. C. BASTIAN, The Beginnings of Life (1872). (C.LL.M.-
Biogenetic: Ger. biogenetisch; Fr. biogénétique; Ital. biogenetico. Pertaining to the origin and evolution of life; applied also to the origin and evolution of other things, such as mind, society, &c., when interpreted in terms of life or investigated by a biological method. (J.M.B.)
The form biontogenetic is used by Morselli (Antropologia generale)
with especial reference to the origin and differentiation of the special
forms of life.
Biogenetic Law: Ger. biogenetisches Grundgesetz; Fr. loi biogénétique, loi phylogénétique (more used); Ital. legge biontogenetica. 'The organism recapitulates in the short and rapid course of its individual development (ontogeny) the most important of the form-modifications undergone by the successive ancestors of the species, in the course of their long and slow historic evolution (phylogeny), and the causal relation of the two histories is to be explained in terms of heredity and adaptation. When these are thoroughly analysed, it will be possible to say that the phylogeny is the mechanical cause of the ontogeny' (Haeckel).
This 'fundamental law of development,' formulated by Fritz Müller (1864) and developed by Haeckel (1866), carries further v. BAER'S LAW (q.v.), and has in turn served as basis for later formulations of the principle of RECAPITULATION (q.v.) The law has been criticized by many zoologists. (C.LL.M.)
The recapitulative characters which appear in ontogeny are distinguished by Haeckel as 'palingenetic' (their production, 'palingenesis'), from the 'cenogenetic' characters due to new adaptations ('cenogenesis'). (E.S.G.)
Literature: F. MÜLLER, Für Darwin; HAECKEL, Gen. Morphol.
(1866); A. MILNES MARSHALL, The Recapitulation Theory, Brit. Assoc. Lects. and
Addr. (1890), xiii; A. SEDGWICK, On the Law of Development, Quart. J. Microsc.
Sci., xxxvi; C. H. HURST, Nat. Sci. (March and May, 1893), 350, 421. (C.LL.M.
Biological Analogy (in sociology). Analogy set up between society and a biological organism.
Such an analogy has been urged as affording an explanation of social organization, mainly under the lead of Herbert Spencer, who works it out in physiological detail. Recent writers who uphold the view are Schäffle, Novikow, Worms, v. Lilienfeld, Fouillée. It has been somewhat severely criticized by writers of the 'psychological' school (Tarde, Barth, Giddings, Baldwin) and others (Mackenzie, de Greef, Lacombe). Many writers preserve the word organism as applicable to society, but refuse to interpret organism by the biological analogy; others prefer to use the term ORGANIZATION (q.v.). Cf. ORGANISM.
The arguments for and against the biological conception are usually equally analogical, points of resemblance being matched with points of difference. A real explanation would involve problems both of function, or method of growth, and of matter; such as (a) that of the essential social phenomenon, stated in its lowest terms. Is this the same as the essential biological phenomenon, stated in its lowest terms? This is the question of matter or of analysis; and the simple statement of it seems to forbid a biological view of society in strictness: for the biologists find the cell, on the whole, the lowest form of life; and to read into the cell the properties necessary for social organization is extravagant, to say the least. And (b) the method of social growth and progress presents an equally essential problem, that of genesis. Does society grow by cell-division, propagation, and heredity? Here, again, biological conceptions are strained to breaking in the presence of such facts as imitation, invention, tradition, ethical and religious sentiments, with their sanctions.
Moreover, the step from the point of view of social activity to that of vital activity or function is questionable, considered merely as scientific procedure. In order simply to ask a question about society intelligently, the investigator has to imagine and enter into a social, i.e. a psychological, situation, in which he takes the point of view of mental changes, functions, activities, &c., and not that of biological, i.e. physiological, functions. The distinction made between FORCE AND CONDITION (q.v.) has application here. See also SOCIAL FORCES and SOCIONOMIC FORCES.
Literature: see under SOCIOLOGY and SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (especially the
works of the authors cited above). BARTH, Philos. d. Gesch. als Sociol. (1897),
and WORMS, Organisme et Société (1897), may be cited as representative
writers respectively for and against the analogy. (J.M.B.)
Biological Sciences. The sciences which deal with the phenomena manifested by living organisms and by living matter. (C.LL.M.)
The following table presents a general scheme of the biological sciences: --
Literature: see references under ZOOLOGY (special subdivisions) and
BOTANY. For particular questions, see under the various topics in the table
above. Also DELAGE, Structure du Protoplasma (1895); Année Biol. (from
1895); Zool. Rec. (from 1864, also for list of journals); Zool. Jahrb. (from
1829); BAILEY, Survival of the Unlike (1896); WILSON, The Cell in Devel. and
Inheritance (1896); BROOKS, The Foundations of Zool. (1899); T. H. HUXLEY, Collected
Essays, ii, vii, viii, ix (1893-4); H. SPENCER, Princ. of Biol. (1863-7); M.
VERWORN, Gen. Physiol. (Eng. trans., 1899); E. HAECKEL, Anthropogenie, 4. Aufl.
(1891), and Natürliche Schaffungsgesch., 4. Aufl. (1892); O. HERTWIG, Zeit-
u. Streitfragen d. Biol., Pt. I (1894), Pt. II (1897); GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE,
Hist. Nat. Gén. des Règnes Organiques (1844-62); ST. GEORGE MIVART,
Genesis of Species (1871); E. PERRIER, La Philos. zool. avant Darwin (1886);
H. F. OSBORN, From the Greeks to Darwin (1894); J. V. CARUS, Gesch. d. Zool.
(1872), and Bibliotheca Zool., i. (1861), ii. (1887); works of Buffon, de Maupertuis,
Robinet, Bonnet, Harvey, Oken, Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin, Agassiz.
Biology [Gr. bioV, life, + logoV, discourse]: Ger. Biologie; Fr. biologie; Ital. biologia. The general science of life, including both plants and animals. (J.M.B.)
The term was first introduced by Lamarck (1801). Also used by Treviranus and Bichat. As now used, it comprises the more general problems of life, while more special problems fall under Zoology and Botany. Huxley claims that anthropology, sociology, and psychology are by right subdivisions of biology. Cf. the table given under the topic BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.
Literature: E. R. LANKESTER, The Adv. of Sci.; and art. Zoology, in
Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.); T. H. HUXLEY, art. Biology, in Encyc. Brit. (9th ed.).
See under ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, and the topics (with literature) given under BIOLOGICAL
SCIENCES. (C.LL.M.- J.M.B.)
Bionomic Forces: Ger. bionomische Kräfte; Fr. forces bionomiques; Ital. forze bionomiche. Forces not themselves belonging to life which yet condition or limit the development and evolution of life.
Such are the mechanical, chemical, and other forces of the environment in which
the organism develops. Mechanical strain and gravitation direct vital growth,
but are not themselves vital forces. It is the action of such extra-vital forces
as well as that of the properly vital forces that natural selection formulates.
It has often been pointed out (see Cope, Primary Factors of Evolution,
chap. vii; Cattell, Science, N.S., iii. 668; Baldwin, Psychol.
Rev. iv. 1897, 219) that natural selection in biological evolution is
not a force or cause, but a condition. Spencer's phrase, 'survival of the fittest,'
itself analyses natural selection. The fitness is assumed. It is due to earlier
real causes; the survival or selection which 'natural selection' formulates
is an ex post facto statement of results of the interaction of vital
and bionomic forces. Cf. FORCES AND CONDITIONS, and SOCIONOMIC FORCES. (J.M.B.)
Bionomics [Gr. bioV, life, + nomoV, law]: Ger. Bionomie, (Lehre der) bionomischen Verhältnisse; Fr. bionomie; Ital. bionomia. That branch of biological study which deals with the relations of organisms among themselves, and with their environment, throughout their life-history. Cf. BIONOMIC FORCES. (C.LL.M.- J.M.B.)
E. Ray Lankester, by whom the term was suggested (Adv. of Sci.; also art. Zoology, in Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., xxiv), says that Buffon (1707-88) alone, among the greater writers of the last three centuries, emphasized this way of studying organic nature. Darwin's work brought bionomics into the field of scientific inquiry, and led to a recognition of its true value. Sprengel, Wallace, Poulton, Fritz and Hermann Müller, Weismann, and others have paid special attention to this branch of biology.
Literature: see BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. (C.LL.M.)
Biophores [Gr. BioV, life, + foroV, bearing]: Ger. Biophoren; Fr. biophores; Ital. biofori. The hypothetical vital units.
First used by Weismann (Germ-Plasm, 1893; cf. also his essay 'Amphimixis' in Essays on Heredity, Eng. trans., ii, and Spencer, Princ. of Biol., 2nd ed.). More or less equivalent to the physiological units of Spencer, the gemmules of Darwin, the pangens of De Vries, the plasomes of Wiesner, the micellae of Nägeli, the plastidules of Haeckel, the bioblasts of Beale, the somacules of Foster, the idioblasts of Hertwig, the idiosomes of Whitman, the biogens of Verworn, and the gemmae of Haacke. They must not be identified with the molecules of which they are composed. In Weismann's scheme of nomenclature they combine to form DETERMINANTS (q.v.), these to form ids, and these again to form IDANTS (q.v.), which are the hypothetical equivalents of the observable CHROMOSOMES (q.v.). (C.LL.M.)
The simplest known units, capable of exhibiting the essential phenomena of
life, are the lower unicellular organisms. The hypothetical units are merely
molecular aggregates, capable of forming one of the links in the metabolism
of living matter. (E.S.G.)