DICTIONARY OF
PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Conation [Lat. conatus, from conare, to attempt]: Ger. Streben; Fr. volonté; Ital. conato, facoltà conativa (E.M.). The theoretical active element of consciousness, showing itself in tendencies, impulses, desires, and acts of volition. Stated in the most general form, conation is unrest. It exists when and so far as a present state of consciousness tends by its intrinsic nature to develop into something else. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Used by Hamilton to include desires and volitions (Lects. on Met., xi). Hamilton's editors (Mansel and Veitch) point out that the adjective Conative was used by Cudworth (Treatise on Free Will, ed. Allen, 1838, 31). In concrete cases conation is indicated by the special terms (q.v.) given in the definition. The term will is often used (corresponding to the German Wille) in the same sense, but it is impossible to keep it free from confusion with volition, and it is, perhaps, better to have the term conation set aside with this general meaning.

In German, Streben is the best equivalent on the whole, although the usage in German writers is conflicting. The principal question is between Begehren (Kant, Wundt, Höfler, notably in compounds) and Streben (Lipps, Beneke, Höffding, Jodl, and many others, who devote Begehren to DESIRE, q.v.). Wundt's use of Streben, in narrow contrast with Widerstreben (both as subheads under Trieb), has nothing to commend it; nor has Titchener's (Amer. J. of Psychol., vii., 1895, 84) translation of Streben by Effort, the recognized German word for Effort being Anstrengung. The principal German terms for conative processes as recommended in this work are: Antrieb (conatus), tendency (of bodies); Anstrengung, effort; Begehren (Begehrung, Begehrungsvermögen), desire; Begierde, sensuous conations; Gemüths- (in compounds: Kant's Begehrungsvermögen), conative-affective; Streben, conation; Trieb, impulse; Wahl, choice; Wille, will; Willens- (in compounds), volitional; Willkür- (in compounds), voluntary; Wollen, volition.

Literature: (using the term): WARD, Encyc. Brit., art. Psychology, 42 f.; LADD, Psychol., Descrip. and Explan., chap. xi; STOUT, Analytic Psychol., and Manual of Psychol.; HAMILTON and CUDWORTH, as cited above; MORSELLI, Semej. malat. ment., ii. Of the thing, the general treatises on psychology. See also literature under WILL, and BIBLIOG. G. e, e. For literature from 1894, see also the Psychological Index. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Conatus [Lat.]: Ger. Antrieb, streben (as verb); Fr. tendance; Ital. tendenza. The analogue of conation attributed to bodies and to nature generally.

The term is much used by Spinoza (Ethics), and its equivalent by those, notably in Germany, whose philosophy of nature is animistic and voluntaristic, e.g. Schopenhauer and Hartmann (Wille), Wundt, Paulsen (Trieb, Antrieb). The more neutral word TENDENCY (q.v.) is free from this animistic implication, but the German Tendenz seems to have it. (J.M.B.)

Concatenation (neural) [Lat. con- + catena, chain]: no foreign equivalents in use. Ital. concatenazione suggested (E.M.). The serial association of a number of nervous elements to form a single path or tract.

The term has been suggested to cover those cases where nervous impulses are translated from element to element without the necessity of a continuous fibre. It is becoming more and more evident that a large number of impulses are conveyed by this method, and it appears that in lower forms and embryos the concatenation is less complete than in higher or adult types. The simplest form of neural concatenation is seen in those cases where a series of neurocytes is formed with the terminal arborizations of a neurite from one cell communicating by contiguity with those of the dendrite of a second, and so on. Cf. the figures under SPINAL CORD and Fig. 6 under NERVOUS SYSTEM. The extreme case is seen in those peripheral nerves which are formed by the fusion of a moniliform series of proliferating cells (cf. PROLIFERATION), while their nuclei become detached and remain in the wall in a state of latency until called upon to repair injuries or assist in metabolism. Yet it should be noted that this method of nerve formation is denied by some authorities. The original method by which various segments of the cord become united into paths of nervous translation is doubtless that which receives the above name.

Literature: C. L. HERRICK, Development of Medullated Nerve Fibres, J. of Compar. Neurol., iii. No. 1 (1893); JULIA B. PLATT, Ontogenetic Differentiations of the Ectoderm in Necturus, Study ii, Quart. J. Microsc. Sci., N. S., xxxviii. (1896) 536-40. (H.H.)

Conceit: see PRIDE.

Conceivability and Inconceivability: see TESTS of TRUTH.

Concentration [Lat. con- + centrum, centre]: Ger. Konzentration; Fr. concentration; Ital. concentrazione. A state of exclusive and persistent attention.

The term is also used of consciousness or the mind generally, but in all cases during concentration of mind or of consciousness the attention is being used as the vehicle of it. In concentration the attention is restricted to certain definite elements of content, which are thus much reinforced, while the inhibiting result of attention upon the presentations not attended to is also very marked. This two-fold result is called by Wundt 'narrowing of consciousness' (Engerung des Bewusstseins); both aspects of it are seen in ABSENT-MINDEDNESS (q.v.). The other results of attention are likewise present in different degrees according to the amount of concentration, which thus becomes a statement of the degree of attention.

Literature: see ATTENTION. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Concentration (of studies). The adjustment of certain studies regarded as subordinate to others conceived to be principal.

Ziller is the father of the doctrine of concentration. He regarded history, religion, and literature as the central core of a proper curriculum of studies, the sequence of their topics to be determined in accordance with his doctrine of CULTURE EPOCHS (q.v.). The subject-matter having been selected, he proposed that the topics in the remaining studies, such as natural science, geography, mathematics, &c., should be selected in accordance with the intimacy of their relations to those of the central core. The ground for such an arrangement he found in the supposed psychical needs of the child, rather than in any rational correlation of the subject-matter itself. For similar reasons, others have proposed like schemes of instruction, but with different central cores, such as natural science and geography. Cf. CORRELATION, and COORDINATION.

Literature: F. McMURRY, First Year-Book of Herbart Soc.; PARKER, Talks on Pedagogics, or Theory of Concentration; C. A. McMURRY, Gen. Meth., 69-89; DE GARMO, Herbart and the Herbartians; REIN, Outline of Pedagogics, 101-35; HARRIS, Report of the Committee of Fifteen. (C.DE.G.)

Concept (in logic): see TERM (logical)

Conception, with (1) Concept, and (2) Universal [Lat. concipere, to take together]: Ger. Begriffsbildung, with (1) Begriff, and (2) Allgemeinbegriff (cf. NOTION); Fr. conception, with (1) concept, and (2) conception universelle. Ital. concezione, with (1) concetto, and (2) concetto universale. (1) Cognition of a universal as distinguished from the particulars which it unifies. The universal apprehended in this way is called a Concept.

(2) The term Universal stands for any mode in which particular experiences are unified so as to form a single whole which is identified as the same throughout the variety of its parts, phases, or aspects.

The individual marked by a proper name is a universal. Any individual man, John Jones or Richard Roe, is the unity of manifold states, qualities, activities, and relations. He remains the same man whether he is eating or sleeping, sitting or standing, struggling or triumphant, &c. The proper name marks the connecting unity as distinguished from the multiform ways in which it is particularized. Hence the proper name stands for a universal. Generality (see GENERALIZATION) is one kind, but only one kind, of universality. It consists in the repetition of like characters in numerically distinct examples or instances. So far as a plurality of otherwise distinct existences have a like nature, the likeness is a connecting unity, and from this point of view they can be apprehended as a single object of consciousness. Universals of this kind are called general concepts, and the mode of thinking by which they are cognized is called general conception.

Every general conception is a conception of what is general, i.e. of a like nature actually or possibly repeated in a plurality of particular cases. But besides this, each general conception also involves another kind of universal, inasmuch as in each case comprehended by it there is a distinction between the connecting unity and the particulars unified by it. The concept triangle comprehends an indefinite multiplicity of actual or possible triangles which are the particulars combined in it as examples or instances. But the like nature which is repeated in these several instances is itself a universal -- a universal which is expressed in the form of combination or rule of construction given in the definition of a triangle. The particulars unified by this universal are not particular triangles, but the general constituents of any triangle -- lines, angles, &c. We thus see that the general concept includes, besides its mere generality, a kind of universal analogous to that of the individual concept. On the other hand, it is equally true that the individual concept presupposes and includes general concepts. The various states, activities, relations, &c., which are connected in the unity of a continuous individual existence, are severally cases coming under general classes of states, activities, relations, &c. John is at present walking: his walking is a particular phase in the unity of his total existence, and so comes under the individual concept as such. But the present act is also an instance of a general kind of activity. Other people may walk as well as John, and he himself may repeat the act at various times.

There is one point in our definition of conception which requires to be specially emphasized. Conception is the 'cognition of a universal as distinguished from the particulars which it unifies.' The words 'as distinguished from' are of essential importance. The mere presence of a universal element in cognition does not constitute a concept. Otherwise all cognition would be conceptual. The simplest perception includes a universal. In perceiving the colour red I recognize it as the same in various moments of its appearance. In order to conceive red, I must do more than this; I must draw a distinction between its general nature and its particular appearances. The universal must be apprehended in antithesis to the particulars which it unifies. This is a process which probably cannot take place except in a very rudimentary form without the aid of language.

This is the best use in psychology. For the psychologist the term Conception implies a distinction between the universal and the particular. But in philosophy it is common to apply the word more widely, so as to cover the universal element in knowledge under all its forms, whether it is consciously disengaged from its particular embodiment or not. Thus the Kantian categories, considered merely as universal formative principles, are called in philosophical terminology concepts, even when they are not supposed to be distinguished by reflective analysis. Cf. ABSTRACTION, and GENERALIZATION. (G.F.S.- J.M.B.)

Literature: the textbooks of psychology, and BIBLIOG. C, 2, g.

Conceptual: Ger. begrifflich; Fr. conceptuel; Ital. concettuale. The adjective corresponding to concept, denoting a process in which concepts are co-operating factors; and also the adjective of Conception, denoting the process of conceiving, i.e. by which a concept is reached. (J.M.B.)

Conceptualism: see GENERAL IDEA, NOMINALISM, and REALISM (1).

Conclusion [Lat. con- + cludere, to close]: Ger. Schlussatz; Fr. conclusion; Ital. conclusione. A relative term, designating a judgment viewed in relation to the premises or asserted truths on which it is rested or from which it follows. (R.A.)

Concomitance (logical) [Lat. con- + comes, companion]: Ger. Funktionsverhältniss; Fr. concomitance; Ital. concomitanza. The relation among facts, events, or qualities of objects, expressed by their definite conjunction, and specially by their covariation. In the logic of induction the method of concomitant variations is founded on the general principle that if two facts are found constantly to vary together they are constantly connected. In practice the study of such conjoint variation is serviceable (1) as suggesting a law of connection, (2) as enabling a hypothetical law of connection to be tested, and, if valid, to be expressed in quantitative form. This method is theoretically a series of applications of the METHOD OF DIFFERENCE (q.v.), and is correspondingly more effective. (R.A.)

Concomitance (in theology): Ger. Konkomitanz; Fr. concomitance, consubstantiation; Ital. concomitanza. The doctrine according to which (1) the presence of Christ's body in the Eucharist implies the presence of his blood also, and (2), Christ being both God and man, he as both God and man is present in the Eucharist when either his body or his blood are there.

This doctrine forms the basis for the communion in one kind (the withholding of the cup) as concerns the laity in the Roman Catholic Church. (R.M.W.)

Concomitant Sensation: Ger. Mitempfindung; Fr. sensation associée; Ital. sensazione concomitante (or associata). (1) In general, any sensation that accompanies another adequately stimulated sensation, in the absence of its own adequate stimulus; another name for SYNAESTHESIA (q.v.), which is to be preferred. Special meanings are: --

(2) A sensation set up at one part of the skin by stimulation of another part; characterized by brief duration, and by the intermixture of the pain quality. See Wundt, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), i. 140, 179.

(3) Sensations set up through stimulation (Miterregung) by way of the centrifugal paths in the opticus and acusticus nerves, after stimulation of the peripheral organ (Wundt, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), i. 517). (E.B.T.)

Concrete [Lat. concrescere, to grow together]: Ger. concret; Fr. concret; Ital. concreto. A relative term, varying in sense with the conception formed of the nature of real existence and in degree with the range of thought about existence. To think concretely is to represent general relations as embodied in particular instances; and so to delineate the object thought of after the fashion and with the determining details of immediate perceptive experience. A concrete term is often defined as the name of a thing. (R.A.)

Concupiscence [Lat. concupiscentia, from concupiscere]: Ger. sinnliche Begierde, Sinnenlust; Fr. concupiscence; Ital. concupiscenza. Excessive or passionate desire; desire for an object which appeals to the senses.

It is found in Tertullian, who also uses concupiscentivus as a translation of epiqnmhtikoV. In agreement with this usage, the term became a technical term in the scholastic psychology and ethics. Aquinas distinguishes the affections or emotions of man (passiones) into concupiscibiles and irascibiles -- following the Platonic distinction of epiqnmhtikon and qnmoeideV. Of the former, love (amor) is placed first. But concupiscentia, in its special signification, is distinct from love. Love, regarded strictly, is amor amicitiae, and seeks the good of its object. It is thus distinguished from amor concupiscentiae, in which an object of desire is sought by us for our own sake. In this special sense, concupiscentia is held to be a distinct emotion (passio), and to be always connected with sensitive appetite. Accordingly it was said to be the material cause of original sin, as want of original righteousness was its formal cause.

Literature: AQUINAS, Summa, II. 1, Q. 23, art. 1; Q. 52, art. 2; Q. 26, art. 4; Q. 30; Q. 82, art. 3. Cf. ZIEGLER, Gesch. d. chr. Eth., 286 ff. (W.R.S.)

Concurrence (divine). Rendering of the Latin phrase concursus dei. See ASSISTANCE.

Concurrence (in theology) [Lat. con + courrere, to run]: Ger. Mitwirkung; Fr. coopération; Ital. concorrenza. The doctrine, descending from Augustine and adopted by Calvin, that prior to man's 'apostasy,' in the Fall, his spiritual life and moral wholeness were maintained by the support, or concurrence, of the Divine Spirit. When by the plan of salvation this support is restored to men, for the purpose of renewing their moral and spiritual life, the concurrence under the changed circumstances is called GRACE (q.v.). (R.M.W.)

Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de Mably de. (1715-80.) French philosopher. Born at Grenoble, he was the early associate and friend of Rousseau and Diderot. He became abbé of Mureaux. In 1768 he was chosen a member of the French Academy. He introduced Locke to his fellow countrymen.

Condition and Conditional (in logic) [Lat. con + dare, to give]: Ger. Voraussetzung; Fr. condition; Ital. condizione. A condition is the content of an assertion which is put forward by way of supposition, or hypothetically. The conditions are those represented circumstances which, did they hold good in any sense of that term, would establish the holding good in like manner of what is called, relatively, the conditioned or consequent. Any proposition which asserts the relation between a supposed content and that which is dependent thereon is conditional in form, and any reasoning which turns upon the same relation is conditional; although the assertion of the relation is categorical.

From the time of Boethius and his Latin predecessors (cf. Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, i. 580, 678, 691 ff.) there has been confusion in the use of the terms conditional and hypothetical. These have been now identified, now distinguished, and that either by making the genus conditional and the species hypothetical, or vice versa (see Hamilton, Discussions, 150 ff.), or by defining each as having a distinct province and principle (see Keynes, Formal Logic, Bk. II. chap. viii). The variation points to the real difficulty of determining the precise import of the hypothetical or conditional assertion, a point on which logicians are still distractingly at variance. (R.A.)

Condition and Conditioned: Ger. Bedingung, bedingt; Fr. condition, conditionné; Ital. condizione. A condition is (1) a sine qua non, an 'essential' thing or event without which another (conditioned) cannot be, or (2) that which is 'sufficient' but not essential to the being of the other. See NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT CONDITION. (J.M.B.)

The conception is more negative than cause, which is looked on as an active principle, while a condition is often a limiting and defining principle. J. S. Mill defines the conditions of a thing as the entire setting in which the thing exists. Kant speaks of experience as conditioned by time and space. With Schelling and Hegel to be conditioned is equivalent to existing as a finite being. Cf. FINITE AND INFINITE, and FORCE AND CONDITION. (R.H.S.)

Hamilton called Philosophy of the Unconditioned the work in which he developed his view that 'to think is to condition. He means by this that we determine everything we are able to conceive and comprehend by its relation to something else by which it is conditioned and limited. Our knowledge deals with the conditionally limited' (Höffding, Hist. of Mod. Philos., Eng. trans., ii. 386 f.). (J.M.B.)

Conditional Immortality: Ger. konditionale Unsterblichkeit; Fr. immortalité conditionelle; Ital. immortalità condizionale. The doctrine according to which man is not naturally immortal. The conception of natural immortality of the soul is an error due to uncritical acceptance of Greek, especially Platonic, philosophical ideas. On the contrary, man was created subject to death.

There is a possibility of rising above this mortality, and if he either can or will not take advantage of this possibility, he will pass to extinction either at the moment of physical death, or after judgment at a subsequent period. This doctrine may be called the 'aristocratic' idea of immortality, in the sense that only the fit survive to endless life. It has affinities with some modern idealistic systems -- witness the adherence of Richard Rothe -- but the entire weight of theological authority is against it. Cf. ANNIHILATION.

Literature: see ANNIHILATION; R. ROTHE, Dogmatik, iii. 133-69, 291-336; Theol. Ethik, §§ 471, 596; KABISCH, Die Eschatologie d. Paulus; SALMOND, Christian Doctrine of Immortality, 599 f.; PETAVEL, L'Immortalité conditionnelle. (R.M.W.)

Conditional Morality: see ABSOLUTE ETHICS, and ETHICAL THEORIES.

Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat, Marquis de. (1743-94.) French mathematician and philosopher. Born at Ribemont; educated at the College of Navarre. In 1769 was admitted to the Academy of Sciences. In 1777 he became permanent secretary of the Academy of Sciences, and five years later was admitted to the French Academy. He was a friend of d'Alembert, and had a large share in the Encyclopédie. Elected to the National Convention, 1792, he voted usually with the Girondists. In May, 1793, he was prescribed by the Jacobins, and concealed himself for eight months in the house of a friend, where he wrote his greatest work. He left his prison early in 1794 to enjoy a country outing, was arrested, and thrown into the Bourgla-Reine, where he was soon afterwards found dead, supposedly from self-poisoning. Lamartine calls him the Seneca of modern times.

Conduct [Lat. conductus, lead]: Ger. Handlung; Fr. action morale; Ital. azione morale, condotta (pathological -- E.M.). The sum of an individual's ethical actions, either generally or in relation to some special circumstance.

According to the different tendencies of their thought moralists sometimes regard conduct or moral actions, sometimes character or motives, as the subject-matter with which ethics deals. Bentham is an example of the former; Kant, T. H. Green, and Martineau are examples of the latter method. But as conduct both proceeds from and tends to form character, both conceptions are required. Even by Utilitarian writers the actions which go to make up moral or immoral conduct are held to be not external results but intentions (J. S. Mill, Utilitarianism, 27). Thus 'conduct' is said by S. Alexander to be 'a state of mind' and not 'a mere outward act.' 'Conduct and character are in reality identical. A good character cannot exist except in its conduct, nor are there any actions approved by morality which do not proceed from a character which wills them.' (W.R.S.)

Conduct is popularly used also for action of any sort, but its restriction, as a technical term, to moral action is recommended. (J.M.B.)

Literature: H. SPENCER, Princ. of Eth., Part I ('Data'), chap. i; ALEXANDER, Moral Order and Progress, Bk. I. chap. ii.; treatises on ethics generally. (W.R.S.)

Conduction (nervous): see NERVE STIMULATION AND CONDUCTION.

Confession [Lat. con + fateri, to own]: Ger. Beichte; Fr. confession; Ital. confessione. This term is used in several senses: (1) in relation to faith, as 'confession of faith,' when it means profession (see CREED); (2) in relation to sin, which is the customary usage. In this connection it is of two kinds: (a) Public confession, or confession before the whole congregation or meeting. This was a usage of the early Christian Church, and was closely connected with repentance and turning from ungodly ways of life. It now survives under the name of Penance in ecclesiastical circles; and in times of religious (pietistic) revival, it is frequently employed much as it was in the early Church -- parties who are converted or repentant relating their 'experiences.' (b) Private, or auricular, confession. In the Roman Catholic Church this is a part of the Sacrement of Penance. As a legalized practice it dates from the time of Leo the Great. Confession, practically of this kind, has been retained by some of the Reformed churches as a preliminary to admission to communion.

Literature: BINTERIM, Denkwürdigkeiten; KLEE, Die Beichte; SIEMERS, Die Sacrament-Beichte; DALLAEUS, De Sacramentalis Auric. Confessione. (R.M.W.)

Confirmation [Lat. con- + firmare, to strengthen]: Ger. Firmelung, Confirmation; Fr. confirmation; Ital. cresima. In the Roman Catholic Church, the second of the seven sacraments; in the Reformed churches which retain the practice, a renewal of the baptismal vows, usually in preparation for a first communion.

In the practice of the Reformed churches the principal element in confirmation is catechetical. In the Roman Catholic Church the anointment of the candidate by the bishop with the chrism or holy oil is the essential feature. This custom grew out of historical conflicts concerning the nature and implications of confirmation and baptism, which at last resulted in reservation of the confirmation ceremony (laying on of hands and anointing) to the hierarchy, while baptism could be celebrated by any priest. (R.M.W.)

Conflict (mental): see INHIBITION (mental).

Conflict of Laws (Conflictus legum was Huber's phrase in his Praelectiones iuris Romani): Ger. Collision der Privatrechtsgesetze verschiedener Staaten; Fr. droit international privé, droit civil international; Ital. conflitto di leggi. That branch of law declaring the rules for determining the selection of the law to be applied in cases directly affecting private interests, where there is a question between domestic or foreign law, or different foreign laws (see Holland, Jurisprudence, chap. xviii. 353 ff.). Among the leading subjects are marriage, divorce, contracts by persons under some legal disability, foreign judgments, and succession.

This head of law is the work of the last two centuries, and mainly of the nineteenth. So far as any state accepts any rules upon this subject, they become part of its municipal law.

Literature: WHARTON, on the Conflict of Laws; STORY, on the same; DICEY, on the Laws of England, with reference to the same; SAVIGNY, on the same (trans. by Guthrie, 1880). (S.E.B.)

Conflict of Motives: see MOTIVE.

Confucianism: see CONFUCIUS, and ORIENTAL PHILOSOPHY (China).

Confucius. (551-478 B.C.) A Chinese teacher and philosopher. After his eighteenth year he held two subordinate posts in the government. At twenty-two he became a public teacher, and came to have, it is said, 3,000 disciples. Owing to the political disorders of the time, he devoted much attention to the principles of good government. In 500 B.C. he was made chief magistrate of Chung-tu. Owing to his marked success he was made assistant superintendent of public works, and afterwards minister of crime in Lu. The jealousy and fears of neighbouring states necessitated his retirement from office. For thirteen years he travelled from one state to another, usually honoured, but nowhere followed, by the rulers with whom he conversed. From 483 to 478 he was occupied with literary work.

Confusion (logical) [Lat. confundere, to confound]: Ger. Verworrenheit; Fr. confusion; Ital. confusione. Confusion in thinking indicates two conditions: (a) a lack of adequate determination of the contents of the several thoughts (i.e. notions or judgments) constituting the total apprehension; (b) specially, the lack of adequate determination of the all-important relation of order in these contents. As a result of (a), confused thinking is characterized by its capacity for identifying or distinguishing without sufficient grounds, a weakness to which the ambiguity of words contributes. As a result mainly of (b), confusion in thought exhibits itself in the various fallacies which rest upon an imperfect apprehension of the bearing of evidence upon a conclusion, e.g. PETITIO PRINCIPI and IGNORATIO ELENCHI (see those terms).

The definitions of clear, distinct, confused, &c., as quantities of notions, first laid down in Leibnitz' tract (Meditat. de Cognitione, Virtute et Ideis, 1684, trans. by Baynes, in App. to Port Royal Logic), found their way into all the textbooks of the Kantian school, and thence through Hamilton (Logic, §§ 9-10) into English philosophy.

Literature: good remarks, which supplement usefully Leibnitz' rather scholastic definitions, are in LOCKE, Essay, Bk. II. chap. xxix. See also MILL, Logic, Bk. V. chap. vii. (R.A.)

Confusion (mental): Ger. Verwirrtheit; Fr. confusion mentale; Ital. confusione mentale. (1) As a symptom: a condition of embarrassment, distraction, or lack of clearness of thought and appropriateness of action.

As a momentary condition it occurs frequently and normally in the transition from sleep to wakefulness, in recovery from faintness, or as an effect of anaesthetics. In weakened conditions of the nervous system, as in neurasthenia, a sense of confusion in mental orientation may be a recurrent symptom; while as a more or less serious and chronic condition with intervening lucid intervals it characterizes various forms of insanity, particularly those which involve dementia (cf. KATATONIA). See Schüle, Klinische Psychiatrie (1886). (J.J.)

(2) A form of mental disease, clinically and nosologically distinguished by modern German, Italian, and French alienists (see the works of Kraepelin, Chaslin, Ballet, Morselli). It is a variety of 'amentia' described by Meynert, called also 'confusional amentia.' Another variety is stupidity, or amentia stupida (dementia acuta). A third variety is hallucinatory acute insanity, or the 'hallucinatorischer Wahnsinn' of the German authors. (E.M.)

Congenital [Lat. con- + genitus, born]: Ger. angeboren; Fr. congénital; Ital. congenito. Congenital characters are those which are directly due to heredity, as contrasted with those which are acquired in the course of individual life. They need not be CONNATE (q.v.), i.e. manifested at birth, but may often be 'deferred' to a comparatively late stage of development, as in the case of the secondary sexual characters. See ACQUIRED AND CONGENITAL CHARACTERS (also for literature).

The clear distinction between congenital and acquired has been rendered of importance in view of the question whether acquired characters are inherited. If, as the Lamarckian school contend, this takes place, the acquired characters of one generation may become the congenital characters of the next.

Literature: A. WEISMANN, Essays upon Heredity, and Contemp. Rev., 1xiv (1893); H. SPENCER, Princ. of Biol., and Contemp. Rev., 1xiii (1893); LLOYD MORGAN, Habit and Instinct (1896). (C.LL.M.)

Congestion [Lat. con- + gerere, to crowd together]: Ger. Congestion; Fr. congestion; Ital. congestione. An abnormal accumulation of blood in an organ or part; hyperaemia. (C.F.H.)

Congruent [Lat. congruere, to come together]: Ger. Deckbild, Deckpunkte; Fr. image de recouvrement, points de recouvrement; Ital. immagine da congruenza. A congruent or total image is an image which rests upon a number of congruent points. Congruent points are points whose impressions are, in the given case, referred to a single point of external space.

Literature: WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), ii. 173; HELMHOLTZ (identifies CORRESPONDING POINTS, q.v., and congruent points), Physiol. Optik, 2nd ed., 844. See also IDENTICAL POINTS. (E.B.T.)

Congruity [Lat. congruere, to agree]: Ger. Kongruenz; Fr. congruence; Ital. congruenza. The property or quality of agreement among the parts of an aesthetic whole, involving, as compared with harmony, relatively greater emphasis upon the mere absence of the inappropriate, and relatively less emphasis upon the presence of factors mutually complementary. (Cf. HARMONY. (J.R.A.)

Congruity and Condignity [Lat. meritum de congruo, merit on account of agreement with; meritum de condigno, merit on account of likeness to]. These are scholastic phrases, belonging to the period subsequent to Thomas Aquinas, and employed for the purpose of expressing with point and brevity the whole doctrine of grace. Congruity implies that, of its own natural constitution, human nature has the power to be obedient to God, and to originate certain lower acts of obedience which tend to draw it in the direction of divine grace. Condignity means that, after God has given his grace to men, they possess power to perform works of obedience of a kind so much higher as to be pleasing to God. (R.M.W.)

Conjugate Deviation: see DEVIATION.

Conjugation (in biology) [Lat. coniugatio]: Ger. Conjugation; Fr. conjugaison; Ital. conjugazione. The temporary union or permanent fusion of two unicellular organisms, a process which is usually followed by increased multiplication by fission.

The chief biological interest of this process lies in its relation to reproduction. It is accompanied by a partial or complete mixture of nuclear matter, and is regarded by many as foreshadowing the union of spermatozoon and ovum in the higher many-celled organisms.

Literature: WEISMANN. Essays upon Heredity; MAUPAS, Le rajeunissement karyogamique chez les Ciliés, Arch. Zool. expér. et gén., 2^e sér., vii. No. 12, 13 (1889). (C.LL.M.)

Conjugation (linguistic). The union under a connected scheme of all the inflectional forms of a given verb.

The Latin word conjugatio is merely a direct translation of the Greek suzugia (syzygy), a term applied by the Greek grammarians, first, to any systematic collection of related grammatical forms, then to a systematic collection of verb-forms, and especially to a classification uniting verbs of like inflection; thus, in Latin, the 'four conjugations.'

Verb-forms are primarily classified in conjugation according to voice, mood, tense. Distinctions of voice refer to the attitude or relation which the action of the verb set forth through the subject bears to that subject. The assertion of a man-striking, for instance, i.e. of the act of striking displayed in the case of a man, may mean (1) that the man does the striking, either without further information concerning the object struck, leaving that to inference, or passing it by as not involved in the matter to be stated, as in the man strikes, -- or with statement of the object, as in the man strikes a dog; this is called the active voice. (2) That the man himself is the object upon which the action completes itself, as in the man is struck, the subject being left unstated. If it is necessary to state it, a phrase is added, as in the man is struck by somebody. This is called the passive voice, and is a linguistic device for avoiding a statement of the subject or for throwing the object into prominence. (3) That the man does the striking, i.e. that the action of striking is exemplified in him, and that he also represents the sphere in which the action is satisfied or comes to its effect. This is called the middle voice, in imitation of the helplessness of the old Greek terminology (mesothV). It is closely allied to the passive, being in language-history generally the category out of which the passive is gradually isolated into an independent existence. The subject may be the sphere in which the action is satisfied in the sense (a) that the action returns upon the subject, as he strikes himself; (b) that the action returns upon something associated with the subject in its sphere, as Gr. ekoyato thn kefalhn, he strikes himself in the head; louomai touV podaV, I wash my feet; but louw touV podaV, I wash the feet (of some one else); (c) that the action returns upon the subject as a participant, as in diadikazetai, he becomes a party to a law-suit; as against dikazei, he passes judgment; (d) that the action returns upon the subject as an interested party: thus daneizei (act.), he lends; but daneizetai, he borrows; (e) that the action returns upon the subject in the sense that it is kept within the subjective sphere, involving an intenser participation of the subject in its operation: thus orw, I see (of the objective 'seeing'); but orwmai, I see, appreciate, and feel. This is common in verbs expressing the sensuous and spiritual activities.

The Mood of a verb concerns the tone of the assertion. The predicate may be asserted of the subject in various attitudes, tones, or moods. The earlier attempts, led by Gottfried Hermann (1772-1848), to identify the moods with the Kantian categories have, with the displacing of logic by psychology as a guide in grammatical study, been entirely discontinued. The inflectional mechanism of the different languages variously adapts itself to the few simple and often vaguely defined modal distinctions seeking expression in the folk-mind. The Indo-European languages recognize the following: -- The indicative is the mood which presents the assertion in the guise of reality. The subjunctive is originally the mood of the willed idea, i.e. it involves assurance, promise, and a consciousness of personal control, and is distinguished thus from the future indicative, which states a foresight of fact, a prophecy. In Latin grammar the term subjunctive is used in a much wider sense. Here is designates a class of grammatical forms in which the subjunctive and optative, and probably also future uses, have nearly blended. It is therefore in Latin the mood of the non-real. It introduces the assertion as a conception of the mind. The optative mood originally represented the predicate as a desire. The imperative, originally not a mood in the proper sense, used a form of the verb for the expression of a demand, without reference to a subject.

The moods were originally independent of the tenses, and the creation of orderly paradigms, in which forms have both mood and tense, is apparently a secondary development. The optative appears first only as a present, i.e. without tense; the subjunctive in the earliest record is limited to present and aorist. The development of moods for perfect and future is relatively late.

The Tense of a verb concerns the relation of the verbal action to the matter of time. Tense may express (1) the date of action, i.e. its location in time relatively to the time of speaking, as past, present, future; (2) various aspects of the action relative to its use of time: thus an action may be presented as going on in time present, past, or future; as completed in present past, or future; as simply occurring; as consisting of repeated actions, &c. The inflectional languages have generally an insufficient supply of forms to serve for all the conceptions which might demand expression; hence two or more are frequently quartered upon a single form. The paradigm is a resultant of compromises between supply and demand.

Literature: B. DELBRÜCK, Vergleichende Syntax der Indogermanischen Sprachen (2 vols., 1893-7); references under PHILOLOGY. (B.I.W.)

Conjugation (logical). An obsolete term used by Apuleius (De Doct. Platonis, Bk. III. 208, ed. Bipont, 1788) to indicate the connection of propositions with a common term as premises of a syllogism. The term is evidently coined from the Greek suzugia. (R.A.)

Conjunctive (in logic): see DISJUNCTIVE.

Connate [Lat. con- + natus, born]: Ger. (1) verwachsen, (2) angeboren; Fr. (1) conné, (2) inné; Ital. innato, connato (suggested -- E.M.). (1) In botany: congenitally united, e.g. of leaves united at the base. (2) In zoology: applied to congenital characters which appear at or shortly after birth.

The word connate is frequently used in zoology as synonymous with congenital. It has been suggested that the meaning should be restricted, as in definition (2), in which case those characters or modes or instinctive response which are congenital fall into two classes, (a) connate, (b) deferred. See Lloyd Morgan, Habit and Instinct (1896). (C.LL.M.)

Connection [Lat. connectio]: Ger. Verbindung; Fr. connexion; Ital. connessione. Used in psychology for different sorts of COMBINATION (q.v.). The latter term is preferred. (J.M.B., G.F.S.)

Connotation [Lat. con- + notare, to mark]: Ger. Miteinbegreifen, Mitbezeichnung, connotativ (adj.); Fr. connotation; Ital. connotazione (suggested -- E.M.). The term is open to more than one interpretation. (1) The scholastic logicians, from the time of Occam, and perhaps a little earlier, used the word to indicate an aspect of terms opposed to absolute.

Homo stood simpliciter or absolutely for man; iustus stood primarily for a quality; secondarily, or connotatively, for the subject of that quality.

(2) Modern logicians, following J. S. Mill, have so far reversed this. Looking to the function of general terms, they define connotation as the attributes making up the meaning of the term, what is implied; and contrast with that the denotative aspect, the sphere of application of the term. The distinction is clear and important, so far as class terms or common nouns are concerned. See MEANING, and SIGNIFICANCE. (R.A.)

Conscience [Lat. con- + scientia, knowledge]: Ger. Gewissen; Fr. conscience (consciousness, for conscience morale); Ital. coscienza. The consciousness of moral worth or its opposite as manifested in character or conduct, together with the consciousness of personal obligation to act in accordance with morality and the consciousness or merit or guilt in acting. More precisely defined as the recognition by the individual of the moral value of character or conduct, or the recognition of the ultimate moral laws or principles upon which moral judgments concerning character or conduct rest, together with the attendant consciousness of personal obligation and of merit or guilt.

The term conscience, like its Greek equivalent suneidhoiV, and Latin equivalent conscientia, means literally 'knowledge with'; but it has a specifically ethical significance which the Greek and Latin terms only gradually acquired. The French term conscience, though also used as an equivalent of the English 'conscience,' commonly means simply 'consciousness.' In the New Testament the term suneidhoiV is frequently used in the ethical sense, i.e. not merely for 'consciousness of one's own state or acts,' but for 'consciousness of their moral worth or value.'

But the term is not used as a technical term of ethics by the classical philosophers. In Aristotle's Ethics the conception which approaches most nearly to the modern English use of 'conscience' is fronhoiV, often translated 'prudence,' but usually, in the Ethics, more nearly equivalent to 'moral insight.' It was in connection with the greater stress laid, especially by the Stoic philosophers, upon the rational nature of moral law that special prominence came to be attached to the subjective witness to morality in the individual's consciousness. Thus the self-dependent Wise Man of the Stoics is distinguished by a consciousness of his rational and moral worth. But his consciousness of the moral law is designated simply as reason, or the ruling part of the soul. The elaboration of the doctrine of conscience is due to the scholastic writers, who made dominant in their ethics the conception of moral laws as laws of God revealed by him in the soul of man, for the regulation of human conduct. Two characteristics distinguished the scholastic doctrine of conscience. In the first place, a distinction was drawn between (a) the consciousness of the universally binding rules of conduct, to which the same SYNDERESIS (q.v.) was given; and (b) the relation to this general rule of the particular case: the latter being called specifically conscientia. This distinction is, in essence, adopted by leading modern moralists of the Intuitional school. But the terminology is changed. The term synderesis has fallen out of use; and the term conscience includes (if it is not always restricted to) the consciousness of the universal law or laws of morality, while the term 'moral judgment' is sometimes used for the application of the general rule to the particular case. In the second place, conscience was interpreted as an intellectual power. The moral quality of an action was said to be recognized by subsuming the act under the general rule formulated by conscience. In this way rules of conduct came to be systematized after a juridical pattern. Actions (whether real or possible) were classified and referred to their appropriate principles or moral rules. In carrying out this systematization difficulties arose as to the rules under which certain actions should be subsumed; and thus conflicts of opinion were brought to light concerning the moral worth of such actions. These came to be known as 'cases of conscience.' The difficulty of applying the formal principles to the details of conduct, and the differences of moral judgment which arose in this way, gave rise to the science of CASUISTRY (q.v.).

Both the above characteristics may be traced in the view of conscience held by the writers described by Sidgwick (Meth. of Eth., I. viii. 3) as dogmatic intuitionists. But the doctrine of conscience elaborated by the English moralists has a different origin. Adam Smith remarks (Mor. Sent., VII. iii. 3) that 'the word conscience does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove. Conscience supports, indeed, the existence of some such faculty, and properly signifies our consciousness of having acted agreeably or contrary to its directions' -- a statement which harmonizes with the forgotten scholastic usage. In Hobbes, and even in Shaftesbury, the word cannot be said to have been used as a technical term; and it is noticeable that, when used, it has commonly (if not always) the signification of a consciousness of wrong-doing, not of right (cf. Shaftesbury, Inquiry, II. ii. 1). But it was through the prominence given by Shaftesbury to the 'moral sense' that the doctrine of conscience, as held by the English moralists, arose. This doctrine was first elaborated by Butler. According to him, conscience does not, of itself and immediately, tend to action: it is the 'principle in man by which he approves or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions'; 'to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belong to it;' and it is from this supremacy of conscience that we get the idea of human nature as a system or constitution -- and a constitution adapted to virtue.

In two respects at least Butler's account is imperfect: as regards the relation of the subjective principle, called conscience, to the objective moral law, and as regards the constitution of the principle itself. In the first respect Butler asserts strongly (though not quite uniformly, when he speaks of its relation to self-love) the supremacy of conscience -- assuming, therefore, that the individual conscience is in harmony with objective moral law: 'he hath the rule of right within, what is wanting is only that he honestly attend to it.'

A negative answer would thus seem to be required to the question of the schools: 'can conscience be educated?' This negative answer is expressly given by Kant (Werke, ed. Hartenstein, vii. 204; Abbot's trans., 310), although he allows that 'it is possible to err in the judgment whether something is a duty or not'; conscience being thus distinguished from particular moral judgments and identified with the ultimate principle of PRACTICAL REASON (q.v.). Subsequent ethical analysis has been largely occupied with the endeavour to bring out in detail the relation of this inner response of conscience to the external order of the social environment. Hence the attempts to trace the gradual evolution of conscience, made by J. S. Mill, A. Bain, H. Spencer, and many others. From this point of view conscience is held (with many differences in detail) to be a social consciousness gradually built up in the individual by the influence of his environment: the specifically moral element entering, according to Spencer, when a less evolved feeling is controlled by a more evolved feeling.

This psychological view is accompanied by a modification of the doctrine to which Butler tended concerning the rational constitution of conscience. The rational or reflective element, it is held, comes last in the synthesis. It is preceded by an emotional and active response to surrounding conditions, exhibiting itself in a variety of moral and quasi-moral sentiments, only at a later stage rounded off and reduced to a formula by intellectual reflection. This account succeeds in giving an explanation of the historical and individual divergences of 'conscientious judgments'; it needs to be supplemented in order to explain the universal authority claimed by conscience -- what Butler called its 'supremacy.' The social influence which determines the development of conscience almost entirely in its earlier stages is itself transcended in the rational or self-conscious organization of the moral life; so that conscience becomes not merely a social self, but an ideal self.

Literature: JOSEPH BUTLER, Sermons, and Diss. on Virtue; J. S. MILL, Utilitarianism, chap. iii; A. BAIN, Emotions (3rd ed.), 285 ff.; H. SPENCER, Princ. of Eth., Pt. I ('Data'), chap. vii; T. H. GREEN, Proleg. to Eth., Bk. IV. chap. ii; ELSENHAUS, Wesen und Entstehung des Gewissens. Also literature cited under ETHICS. (W.R.S.)

Conscious Illusion Theory (in aesthetics): see ART AND ART THEORIES, and SEMBLANCE.

Consciousness: Ger. Bewusstein; Fr. conscience; Ital. coscienza. The distinctive character of whatever may be called mental life.

'It is the point of division between mind and not mind' (Baldwin, Elements of Psychol., 57). Wherever there is not total unconsciousness, in the sense in which we attribute unconsciousness to a table or a log of wood, the existence of some form of mind we denote by the word consciousness. 'Whatever we are when we are awake, as contrasted with what we are when we sink into a profound and dreamless sleep, that it is to be conscious. What we are less and less, as we sink gradually down into dreamless sleep, or as we swoon slowly away; and what we are more and more, as the noise of the crowd outside tardily arouses us from our after-dinner nap, or as we come out of the midnight of the typhoid fever crisis,' that is consciousness (Ladd, Psychol., Descrip. and Explan., 30).

In the earlier English psychologists the word signifies the mind's direct cognizance of its own states and processes. Thus Locke: 'Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind' (Essay, Bk. II. chap. i. 19); Reid: 'That immediate knowledge which we have of all the present operations of our mind' (Works, Hamilton's ed., i. 222). The wider usage which is now generally adopted is due to the Associationist School.

Literature: BAIN, Appendix to Emotions and Will; HAMILTON, Metaphysics, Lects. ix, xi-xiii; SIGWART, Logic (Eng. trans.), ii. 130-4; WUNDT, Grundriss, 238; BENEKE, Die neue Psychol., 171-206; LEWES, Physical Basis of Mind, 353 ff. (G.F.S., J.M.B.)

Consciousness of Kind: Ger. (1) Artsinn or Artbewusstsein (suggested. Analogies: Artbegriff in logic, der Art Leute, Leute aller Art (J.M.B.), Gattungsbewusstsein (Barth)), (2) Bewusstsein der Gleichheit; Fr. (1) conscience de classe (J.M.B.), esprit de corps, (2) conscience de similitude; Ital. (1) coscienza di classe (J.M.B.), spirito di corpo, (2) coscienza della similitudine (della rassomiglianza). (1) Consciousness of self, however vague, as having something in common with another.

This definition is preferred to that below (2), inasmuch as it does not attempt detailed analysis of this form of SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS (q.v.). See also SOCIUS. The French term esprit de corps has been used in the three languages for the phenomenon in this broad sense, but with emphasis on the side of action, and on some special bond of union; so that it is well to have a recognized English equivalent. This definition, moreover, is not incompatible with the second (2), since it leaves to further discussion the various psychological factors involved, and permits disagreement in regard to them. The French and German equivalents (2) recommended by F.H.G. seem psychologically ambiguous and unavailable, for each of them is equivalent to 'consciousness of resemblance,' which means quite another thing in current discussion. (J.M.B., G.F.S.)

(2) A complex state of mind combining (a) organic sympathy, (b) perception of resemblances and classification, (c) reflective sympathy, (d) affection, (e) desire for recognition and for affection or sympathy; and awakened by the presence or the thought of an individual who, in important respects, resembles oneself.

Introduced by Giddings (Princ. of Sociol., 1896), and by him made the fundamental postulate of sociology. More fully analysed, described, and applied in Elements of Sociol. (1898). The phenomenon, though not called by this name, was recognized by Aristotle, Nic. Eth., Bk. VIII. chap. ii; Dante, Il Convito, Treatise III, chap. i; Spinoza, Ethics, Part III, props. xxvii, xxxiii, xlvi, lix, def. xviii; Spencer, Princ. of Psychol., § 504; Baldwin, Handb. of Psychol., Feeling and Will (1891), 193, and Social and Eth. Interpret. (1897) chap. xii and App. D. Spinoza's propositions are particularly clear.

Literature: titles cited above. See also SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS, and SOCIUS. (F.H.G.)

Consensual Actions and Movements [Lat. consensus, agreement]: Ger. (2) Mitbewegung; Fr.(2) movements associés, syncinésie (P.J.); Ital. (2) movimenti consentanei. (1) In psychology: reflex and instinctive actions which are stimulated by clearly conscious sensations. In this sense there are no exact foreign equivalents in use; those given for SENSORIMOTOR are nearest.

(2) In physiology: involuntary movements correlated with or accompanying a voluntary movement. See ACCOMPANYING MOVEMENTS.

(1) Used by Carpenter (Ment. Physiol., 82 f.), who contrasts such actions, as to their seat in the nervous system (above the spinal cord but beneath the cerebrum), with the spinal reflexes. Shadworth Hodgson (Met. of Experience, iii. 134, iv. 150) uses the term in the wider sense, although quoting Carpenter, of actions which are themselves clearly known, and whose end is foreseen, but which involve no inhibition, effort, or volition (largely Hartley's 'secondarily automatic' actions). That is, Hodgson seems to include 'idiomotor' actions, while Carpenter uses 'sensorimotor' as equivalent to consensual. Cf. Conscious Reflex under REFLEX. As these latter terms are more exact, 'consensual' is not needed. The Latin form consensus was early used for the union or 'harmony' of parts of the animal organism: cf. Baumerus, De consensu partium humani corporis (Amstelodami, 1556). (J.M.B.)

Consensus gentium [Lat.]. Universal consent, common consent, or catholicity, considered a proof or test of certain principles. See TESTS OF TRUTH. (J.M.B.)

Consent [Lat. con- + sentire, to feel]: Ger. Einwilligung; Fr. consentement; Ital. consenso. The volition to allow something to take place. I consent to an action; I assent to a proposition; a distinction involving that between belief and will. Cf. BELIEF. (G.F.S.- J.M.B.)

Consentience [Lat. con- + sentire, to feel]: Ger. Gesammtempfindung, niedriges I chgefühl; Fr. sentiment du moi primitif ou organique; Ital. sentimento fondamentalle dell' io organico. The felt unity of consciousness considered as arising on the basis of sensation, apart from all intellectual processes.

Mivart speaks of consentience as 'a feeling resulting from the unobserved synthesis of our sensations' (Proc. Zool. Soc., London, 1884, 463; quoted in Century Dict.), and as an 'unintellectual sense of self.' The term was also used by Lewes, but is not in general use. It might conveniently be adopted, seeing that it denotes the condition of unity of which other writers describe particular phrases by such phases (q.v.) as 'Anoetic Unity of Consciousness' (Stout), 'Passive consciousness,' 'Passivity' of consciousness (Bradley, Baldwin), 'Consensual' (Carpenter, S. Hodgson), 'Organic Self' (Ribot, Mackensie). (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Consequence [Lat. con- + sequere, to follow]: Ger. (nothwendige) Folge; Fr. conséquence; Ital. conseguenza. A general term for different forms of conditioning or resulting. See CAUSE AND EFFECT, and CONSEQUENCE (logical). It is contrasted with sequence, in that it includes the idea of necessary connection, which the latter does not. We speak of a 'mere sequence' which is not a consequence. Cf. also FORCE AND CONDITION. (J.M.B.)

Consequence (in ethics). The results of an action, so far as they are distinguishable from the action itself.

The line between an action and its consequences can only be drawn in a more or less arbitrary way. The clearest distinction might seem to be to limit the term consequences to those results which are not foreseen or intended by the agent; but this definition is excluded by the familiar usage of the term, especially by Utilitarian writers. One set of consequences can be with tolerable clearness distinguished in (though hardly from) the action: namely, its effects upon the feelings of other conscious persons. The Utilitarian morality, inasmuch as it makes the worth of conduct depend upon its effects, is frequently called a 'morality of consequences.' In this sense the term is used by Bentham. 'The general tendency of an act is more or less pernicious according to the sum-total of its consequences. . . . Among the consequences of an act . . . such only, by one who views them in the capacity of a legislator, can be said to be material, as either consist of pain or pleasure, or have an influence in the production of pain or pleasure.' See Bentham, Princ. of Mor. and Legisl., chap. vii. (W.R.S.)

Consequent and Consequence (logical): Ger. logische Folge, Consequenz; Fr. conséquent; Ital. conseguente. A relative term, designating a judgment, the context of which is asserted to hold good, as following from the assumption that the context asserted in another judgment, called relatively the ANTECEDENT (q.v.), holds good. To the relation between propositions, so connected that the position of the one carries with it the position of another, the abstract name Consequence may be given, and evidently the abstract name may be used in application to all cases in which the truth of one judgment is asserted on supposal of the truth of one or more other judgments.

On the term consequentia and the scholastic elaboration of the doctrine connected with it, see Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, iii. 137 ff. (R.A.)

Conservation (in psychology) [Lat. con- + servare, to keep]: Ger. Erhaltungsvermögen; Fr. conservation; Ital. conservazione dei ricordi. An older term for what is now called RETENTION (q.v.).

Used to describe the group of functions by which mental experiences are 'conserved.' Hamilton (Lects. on Met., xxx) treats of the 'Conservative or Retentive Faculty' as 'Memory proper' (see his learned notes on earlier usage). Cf. Rabier, Leçons de Psychol., chap. xiv. The term retention is now used by most psychologists; the abstract form retentiveness (Bain) being also available and convenient. (J.M.B.)

Conservation of Energy or Conservation of Force: Ger. Erhaltung der Kraft (der Energie); Fr. conservation des forces (de l'énergie); Ital. conservation delle forze (dell' energia). The general law that, in a system of bodies neither acted upon by, nor acting upon, anything outside of itself, the total energy of the system remains invariable, only changing from one form into another. See ENERGY.

The system of bodies under consideration may be a swinging pendulum, the whole earth with everything on it, the solar system, or the entire universe. It should be said that no system of bodies less than the entire universe can be wholly isolated from outside action, because, do what we will, heat will be conducted or radiated away. The most we can do is to make the amount of heat received equal to that radiated, and then the law will hold. Intimations of this law are to be found very early. It first attained the dignity of a scientific doctrine through the investigations of Meyer (1842) and Joule (1843). (S.N.- H.B.F.)

Literature: discussed from a philosophical point of view by SPENCER, First Princ.; LOTZE, Metaphysics; WUNDT, Syst. d. Philos.; WARD, Naturalism and Agnosticism, ii. (J.M.B.)

Conservatism: Ger. Conservatismus; Fr. conservatisme; Ital. conservatismo. (1) The strong love of what is old, customary, and familiar, in opinion, social life and organization, religion, morals, &c. (2) In sociology: habitual opposition to change in social institutions, usages, or manners.

'We scruple not to express the belief that a truer spirit of conservatism, as to everything good in the principles and professed objects of our old institutions, lives in many who are determined enemies of those institutions in their present state, than in most of those who are themselves conservatives' (J.S. Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, i. 202). See LIBERALISM.

Literature: see under SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, and SOCIOLOGY. (F.H.G., J.M.B.)

Consideration (in law) [Lat. consideratio]: Ger. Gegenleistung; Fr. cause; Ital. considerazione. The material cause of an obligatory contract; that which a promiser considers, and the law admits to be, a sufficient equivalent for what he promises to do or forbear. The law requires it to have some value, but it need not be an adequate compensation.

Its legal value is measured by the detriment which it works to the promisee. See Smith on Right and Law, § 184. Natural love and affection is a sufficient consideration to make an executed gift of land, by deed, fully effectual, and is termed a 'good' consideration. Under most governments certain legal forms may supply the want of a consideration. By the common law, such an effect is produced by executing a contract under seal.

The obligation of a contract, in early society, comes from its form. A consideration is not admitted to be sufficient to support a contract to be performed in the future, until a somewhat advanced stage of civilization.

Literature: MAINE, Ancient Law; HOLMES, The Common Law, sects. 7, 8. (S.E.B.)

Consistency (topical) [Lat. con- + stare, to stand]: Ger. Uebereinstimmung, Folgerichtigkeit; Fr. consistance; Ital. congruenza. A relative term, applicable to a series or group of connected propositions, and expressing the fact that their connection conforms to the general laws of inference. It implies more than compossibility, and it is evidently one condition, at least, of truth. The logic of consistency, or Formal Logic, is a statement of the general rules to which a group or series of propositions must conform, if it is to secure the first and simplest condition of truth. (R.A.)

Consonance [Lat. con- + sonare, to sound]: Ger. Consonanz; Fr. consonance; Ital. accordi consonanti. The relative unitariness or diversity of the total impression produced by a compound tone or chord is called respectively Consonance or Dissonance. They are popularly distinguished as being pleasant and unpleasant. (C.L.F.- J.M.B.)

The INTERVALS (q.v.) allowed by the laws of musical harmony are of three kinds: perfect consonances, imperfect consonances, and dissonances. Perfectly consonant are octave (1 : 2), fifth (2 : 3), and fourth (3 : 4); imperfectly consonant, major third (4 : 5), minor third (5 : 6), major sixth (3 : 5), minor sixth (5 : 8); all the rest are dissonant.

Consonance and dissonance have been explained: (1) by an unconscious apprehension of, and conscious satisfaction and dissatisfaction with, simple and complex vibration ratios (Lipps); (2) by presence or absence of BEATS (q.v.) (Helmholtz); (3) by degree of direct tone relationship (Wundt); (4) by degree of fusion of constituent tones (Stumpf, Külpe).

Literature: STUMPF, Tonpsychologie, ii. 231 f.; Beitr. z. Ak. u. Musikwiss.; KÜLPE, Outlines of Psychol., 304; WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), ii. 71; HELMHOLTZ, Sensations of Tone, 226; LIPPS, Grundthatsachen d. Seelenlebens, 269 f.; Psych. Stud. (1885), 92; Zeitsch. f. Psychol., xix. 1; SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol., expts. 83, 93, 94. (E.B.T.)

Consonant (vocal): see ALPHABET, and PHONETIC.

Constant Error: Ger. konstanter Fehler; Fr. erreur constante; Ital. errore costante. See ERRORS OF OBSERVATION.

Constant Quantity: see VARIABLE.

Constant Return: see INCREASING RETURN.

Constituent Society: see SOCIOLOGY.

Constitution [Lat. constituere, to establish]: Ger. Constitution; Fr. constitution; Ital. costituzione. The entire group of determining factors of a thing in so far as they are internal or organic to it. Cf. ORGANISM.

The limiting cases are illustrated (1) in biology, in that a new-born organism is said to inherit its entire constitution, and (2) in e.g. a drove of sheep, herded by dogs, which has no constitution at all. The conception is illustrated also in theories of knowledge which distinguish principles that are 'constitutive' from those that are 'regulative.' The newborn organism inherits its constitutive principles, but adds regulative ones when it comes into contact with an environment; the flock of sheep has in the dogs its regulative principles, but gets a constitutive one as soon as the individual sheep begin to follow the bell-wether. In various sorts of ORGANIZATION (q.v.) the regulative is emphasized, while in a true organism it is the constitutive. Cf. the remarks made under FORCE AND CONDITION. (J.M.B.)

Constitution (in law): Ger. Staatsverfassung, Staatsgrundgesetz, Grundverfassung; Fr. constitution; Ital. costituzione. The fundamental and supreme law, or laws and institutions, constituting the rule of organization and government of some particular association of persons; e.g. a state, or kingdom, or a private society. It may be written or unwritten; arranged in systematic form, as in the American plan, or made up of certain historic documents and national usages and traditions, as in the case of Great Britain. The term is also used, with less accuracy, to signify the terms of association by which a confederacy of sovereign powers is established.

In Roman law, a constitutio was that which the emperor had constituted by a decree, edict, or epistle; also an interlocutory praetorian edict (Gaius, i. 5).

The constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land, and overrides any Act of Congress, treaty, state constitution, or state statute, which is in conflict with it, but only to the extent of such conflict. Each of the United States has a constitution of its own.

The office of a written constitution cannot properly be extended beyond drawing the outlines of the government, and laying down the main rules of administration. 'A constitution, to contain an accurate detail of all the subdivisions of which its great powers will admit, and of all the means by which they may be carried into execution, would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. It would probably never be understood by the public. Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.' See McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton's United States Reports, 316.

The first written constitution in history is that adopted by the planters of Connecticut in 1639. They did not, however, possess, and hardly claimed, political independence. The first written constitution framed for themselves by a people asserting their own sovereignty was that of the state of Virginia, adopted June 29, 1776. (S.E.B.)

Literature: POMEROY, Constitutional Law, Instructions (1875); SCHOULER, Constitutional Studies (1897); BURGESS, Polit. Sci. and Constitutional Law (1890); S. E. BALDWIN, Mod. Polit. Instit., chaps. i and iv (1898); GNEIST, Hist. of the English Constitution (Eng. trans.) (1886); TUCKER, The Constitution of the United States: a critical Discussion of its Genesis, Development, and Interpretation, i. chaps. iv and v (1899); TAMBARO, Le Relazioni fra la Costituzione e l'Amministrazione (1898).

Constitutional Law: Ger. Staatsrecht; Fr. droit public, loi constitutionnelle, loi organique (a law of constitutional nature); Ital. diritto costituzionale. The law prescribed for a political society by its organic constitution: the law applicable to questions of constitutional right and duty.

In Great Britain the constitution is made up of certain historic usages, traditions, and documents; of the latter, Magna Charta, the Petition of Right assented to by Charles I, and the Bill or Rights of 1688, being the chief. It can virtually be altered by Act of Parliament. In the United States, constitutional law is derived from the written constitutions of the several states, and of the United States; and their provisions can only be altered by constitutional amendments, adopted in the manner provided in each constitution for itself, or by a constitutional convention, duly called, in which the whole people are represented by their delegates. 'Constitutional law, in the form which it has taken in the United States, is an American graft on English jurisprudence. Its principles and rules are mainly the work of the present (19th) century. They rest on the fundamental conception of a supreme law, expressed in written form, in accordance with which all private rights must be determined and all public authority administered' (State v. Main, 69 Connecticut Reports).

The construction of every written document is a matter for the judges, not for the jury, in the trial of a cause. That of a constitution, therefore, always presents a judicial question, and as no statute can be valid if in conflict with the constitution, it is in the power of the judiciary to refuse to enforce or respect any statute which is contrary to the constitution, as they construe it.

Some of the Presidents of the United States have asserted that, so far as their official duty is concerned, they have a right to construe the constitution of the United States for themselves, with no regard to any construction which the Supreme Court of the United States may have placed upon it, except such as the reasoning of the court may demand. This doctrine is most explicitly set forth in President Jackson's Veto Message, on the occasion of the passage of the Bill to re-charter the United States Bank, in 1832.

Judges will not decide that a statute is unconstitutional, unless the case is plain.

The conception of a law restraining the legislature, and capable of enforcement by executive or judicial officers, in contravention of an act of legislation, is essentially an American one. Constitutional law can only exist in a state where the powers of sovereignty are divided between different departments, each possessing a certain independence of the others. (S.E.B.)

Literature: BLACKSTONE, Commentaries on the Law of England, i. chap. ii; POLLOCK, First Book of Jurisprudence, Part II. chap. iii; ROSSI, Cours de Droit Constitutionnel (1866); COOLEY, Constitutional Limitations (1890); COXE, Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislature (1893); DICEY, Law of the Constitution (1889); THAYER, Cases in Constitutional Law, i. chap. i. (1894).

Constraint: see RESTRAINT AND CONSTRAINT.

Constraint (social): Ger. Zwang; Fr. contrainte; Ital. coercizione. The direct compelling influence of one personality or of the social environment upon another personality, considered as a source, or the only source, of SOCIAL ORGANIZATION (q.v.).

The constraint theory is usually traced to Hegel's 'master and slave' doctrine. Its principal and ablest advocate is Durkheim.

Literature: HEGEL, Encyclopädie, Part III. §§ 431-3 (Philosophy of Mind, Wallace's trans., 55 f.); DURKHEIM, De la division du travail social, and Le Suicide; BARTH (critical), Die Philos. d. Gesch., i. 289 ff.; BALDWIN (critical), Social and Eth. Interpret., § 317. (J.M.B.)

Construct [Lat. construere, to heap up]: no foreign equivalents in use. A word used by Lloyd Morgan (Animal Life and Intelligence) to indicate the fact that in the familiar objects of experience the mind supplements what is directly presented to sense by the addition of representative elements integrated therewith through association; such a product is called a Construct.

When for example a man sees a sheep on a distant slope of down, the word sheep stands for a construct formed through the suggestive force of a retinal stimulus under certain given circumstances. The word was not proposed as a technical term, but was used for purposes of exposition. (C.LL.M.)

Constructive Imagination: see IMAGINATION.

Constructiveness: Ger. productive or schöpferische Thätigkeit; Fr. fonction constructive ou créatrice; Ital. funzione costruttrice, facultà di costruzione (mentale). Mental constructiveness exists if, and so far as, the ideas and conceptions which enter into a train of thought become systematically modified or newly combined in the process of thinking. (G.F.S.- J.M.B.)

Consumer [Lat. con- + sumere, to take]: Ger. Consument; Fr. consommateur; Ital. consumatore. Man in his capacity as a recipient of the services of others. Cf. the second of the definitions of CONSUMPTION.

There is no class of consumers to be sharply distinguished in extenso from a corresponding class of producers. Nearly all men are producers and consumers by turns; but so many economic events affect men, in their capacity as consumers, in a different manner from that in which they affect their capacity as producers, that it is often convenient to make an abstraction of the former relation, and study a group of men in this light solely. Such study is specially needed in dealing with problems of practical economics, many of which have suffered from a neglect of this aspect. (A.T.H.)

Consumer's Rent: the English term is generally used in the other languages without translation. The excess of the price which a person would be willing to pay for a thing, rather than go without it, over that which he actually does pay (Marshall).

It has long been obvious that, if the same article represents different costs of production to different sellers, those who can produce more cheaply will enjoy a gain corresponding to their advantage over their competitors. This gain, so far as it is due to advantage of location, was recognized by Ricardo under the name of economic rent; and the Ricardian conception was extended by Mangoldt, and by Walker, to cover the results of other advantages besides those of location. But it was reserved for Marshall to emphasize the fact that the same article may represent different degrees of utility to different buyers; and that those who consume with greater pleasure or advantage enjoy a gain in utility as consumers, which bears a striking analogy to the saving in cost to certain producers. Marshall therefore extended the term rent to cover consumer's gains of this kind. It may be doubted whether the extension is a wise one. Rent represents differences in expense of production rather than in cost of production; and utility, which is in some sense the converse of cost, is in no sense the converse of expense. Consumer's Gain or Surplus seems a better term than Consumer's Rent (and is also used by Marshall). (A.T.H.)

Consumption: Ger. Consumption; Fr. consommation; Ital. consumo. The destruction, wholly or in part, of any portion of wealth (Malthus).

Consumption may be regarded as negative production. Just as man can produce only utilities, so he can consume nothing more. He can produce services and other immaterial products, and he can consume them (Marshall).

The study of consumption of wealth is much more recent and less developed than the study of production. It dates from Malthus as a beginner; it was somewhat developed by the French economists in the early part of the 19th century; but its modern scientific form was first indicated by Gossen (1854) and Jevons (1871). In its theoretical aspects, it has been carefully studied by the Austrian school of economists (Menger, Wieser), and by Clark; its practical bearings have been developed by Marshall, Smart, and Patten. It is not fully settled whether the application of the term should be confined to material goods, as in the first of the definitions given, or extended to things immaterial, as in the second. Modern practice tends towards the latter usage.

Literature: MARSHALL, Princ. of Econ., Bk. III. (A.T.H.)

Contact Sensation [Lat. contactus, from con- + tangere, to touch]: Ger. Berührungs. empfindung; Fr. sensation de contact; Ital. sensazione di contatto. A sensation made up probably (Dessoir) of TOUCH SENSATION (q.v.) and PRESSURE SENSATION (q.v.).

Literature: DESSOIR, Du Bois-Reymond's Arch. (1892); SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol., expt. 22; SERGI, Psychol. physiol. (1888), 82. (J.M.B.)

Contagion (social and mental) [Lat. con- + tangere, to touch]: Ger. (sociale und psychische) Ansteckung; Fr. contagion (sociale et mentale); Ital. contagio (sociale e psichico). (1) In sociology: the imitative repetition of mental states, generally of impulsive or emotional sorts, from person to person, when exhibited on a large scale. While contagion thus understood is a social phenomenon of mimetic RESEMBLANCE (q.v.), the marks by which it may be more closely defined must be taken from psychology.

(2) In psychology: a form of imitative suggestion; a point of view which explains the character of being widespread which is essential to contagion considered as a sociological fact (see above). Both meanings are based on the pathological analogy of the contagion of disease.

Literature: see under CROWD, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, SUGGESTION; also the manuals of mental pathology; VIERKANDT, Die psychische Ansteckung, in Naturvölker und Culturvölker, 89. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

(3) In psychiatry: a form of immediate imitation of delusions, erroneous conceptions, and pathological feelings. Generally this contagion is the product of family life, or of identical moral and social conditions. (E.M.)

The impulse which develops into contagion may be regarded as the common and fundamental impulse of IMITATION (q.v.). In its lowest form, to which there is also a morbid analogue, imitation is mechanical, and consists in the blind and unreflective repetition of what is presented to the senses. In a more developed and less direct form, it is represented by the moulding, in greater or less part, of one's actions and beliefs in accordance with the actions performed and the beliefs held by those among whom we live and move. Amongst movements in which mental contagion plays a prominent part, some are merely amusing as illustrating the vagaries to which the spell of contagion renders mankind liable; such as the tulipomania of the 17th century, the wild speculations of the Mississippi scheme and of the South Sea Bubble, and the endless fashions in dress and manners; while others have a serious and sad import for the history of culture. The various epidemics of witchcraft, the dancing mania, the Flagellants, the search for the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, and in part the Crusades, represent instances in which it is not always clear what is normal and what abnormal.

On the strictly abnormal side, mental contagion, as exaggerated imitation, may appear in idiocy in the form of a senseless imitation of all acts and sounds (see ECHOLALIA). It appears in persons of a susceptible and neurotic temperament, in their tendency to be unduly affected by the actions of others, particularly actions which present an element of novelty or bizarrerie, or involve emotional excitement. Religious excitement offers many instances of this kind (see EPIDEMICS, mental), while the fact that suicides, murders, or any unusual forms of crime tend to be imitated is well known. Another class of extreme cases are those in which distinct insanity is communicated by contagion. Cases are known in which constant association with an insane person brings on a similar form of insanity, or in which the shock, which arises from witnessing insanity in another, produces insanity. Likewise, the simultaneous affection of two or more persons -- called by the French folie à deux -- may be cited as instances of contagion, acting probably on a predisposed nature. In certain mental disorders, particularly HYSTERIA (q.v.), morbid contagion is a most prominent and complicated factor of the disease.

Literature: arts. Communicated Insanity, and Imitation, in Tuke's Dict. of Psychol. Med. (and references there given); also references under IMITATION and SUGGESTION; HIRSCH, Epidemics of Hysteria, in Pop. Sci. Mo. (1896), 544; MACKAY, Hist. of extraordinary Popular Delusions (1852); E. KRÖNER, Die Folie à deux, Allg. Zeitsch. f. Psychiat., xl. 634; ARNAUD, La Folie à deux, &c., Ann. Méd.- Psychol. (1893); PROUST, Étude sur la Folie à deux, Thèse de Paris (1893); BABCOCK, Communicated Insanity, Amer. J. of Insan., li. 518; IRELAND, The Blot on the Brain (1893), 206, and elsewhere; SIDIS, Psychol. of Suggestion (1898), also Century Mag. (1896), 849; LEHMANN, Aberglaube u. Zauberei (1898); A. D. WHITE, A Hist. of the Warfare of Sci. with Theol., chap. xvi, and elsewhere; FIGUIER, Les Mystères de la Sci.; P. REGNARD, Les maladies épidémiques de l'esprit (1887). (J.J.)

Also CH. FÉRÉ, La Famille névropathique (1894), on predispositions to the same mental derangements); H. MARION, La Solidarité morale; LARÈQUE and FALRET, La Folie à deux, ou Folie communiquée, Ann. Méd.- Psychol. (1877); RÉGIS, La Folie à deux, ou Folie simultanée (1880). On psychic epidemics see CALMEIL, De la Folie, ii (1856); also SIGHELE, Folla delinquente, 'Delinquenza settaria.' (L.M.- E.M.)

Contemplation [Lat. contemplare, to contemplate]: Ger. Contemplation; Fr. contemplation; Ital. contemplazione. (1) A state of intuition of the divine, or of absorption in one's own mental life, as in MYSTICISM (q.v.).

(2) Used loosely for more or less persistent meditation and introspection. In this sense the contemplative life is contrasted with the active; and certain modes of experience (e.g. the aesthetic) are said to be contemplative, as not apparently involving conation. (J.M.B.)

Content [Lat. contentus, contained]: Ger. Inhalt; Fr. matière, contenu; Ital. contenuto. (1) Whatever in any way forms part of a total consciousness considered in abstraction from its form, its relations, and all of its implications; or the whole together with its constituents. Yet the form or relations, considered as a whole, may be a content.

(2) A constituent of any kind of presented whole.

(3) An object meant or intended by the subject (Bradley, Bosanquet). See INTENT for this meaning, content being reserved for sense (1).

(1) This is a term which has recently come to be used to secure a neutral way of referring to what is in the mind, without designating its elements (whether cognitive, affective, or conative), and without raising the question as to the mind's ultimate relation to the matter and to its form. Content may thus be characterized as 'felt,' 'presented,' 'willed' content in this case or that. It is convenient, as allowing the question as to whether this or that aspect of experience is a content or, is some way, only an attribute of a content; as in the discussion as to whether 'mental activity' is a content, and, if so of what sort. So also in questions of mental functional process or procedure (as in argumentation), we may distinguish conveniently the presented content (argued about), and the process (the arguing), going on to ask whether the latter is also found in consciousness as a content. The utility of the term may also be seen in the question as to how changes, development, &c., in content are possible.

(2) There has been a tendency to restrict the term content to what is called above presented content, i.e. the matter of cognitive and intellectual processes (Münsterberg). This has arisen possibly from the distinction between 'revived' and 'presented' or 'original' content, where the revival is understood to be intellectual revival, by images. It is advisable, however, it would seem, to leave open the possibility that experiences not cognitive may be intellectually revived (e.g. 'felt content' revived as 'represented content'), and also that all sorts of content may be revived in other than intellectual (e.g. affective in form). (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Literature (rather on topics involving the conception of content than on the term itself): MÜNSTERBERG, Die Willenshandlung; WARD, Encyc. Brit., art. Psychology; STOUT, Analytic Psychol., i. 143 f.; BALDWIN, Elements of Psychol., Glossary. Also literature under ACTIVITY (mental). (G.F.S.- J.M.B.)

Contiguity (law of) [Lat. con- + tangere, to touch]: Ger. Gesetz der Berührungsassociation; Fr. loi d'association par contiguité; Ital. legge dell' associazione di contiguità. This law may be stated as follows: when presentations, or other associable contents of consciousness, occur simultaneously or in immediate sequence, the corresponding mental dispositions become associated. Cf. ASSOCIATION (of ideas). (G.F.S., J.M.B.)

Contingent [Lat. con- + tangere, to touch]: Ger. (1) abhängig, (2) zufällig; Fr. contingent; Ital. contingente. (1) CONDITIONED (q.v.). Also (2) synonymous with the adjectives CHANCE (q.v., first meaning) and fortuitous (see PROBABILITY).

It is recommended that contingent be confined to meaning (1), which includes the conception of chance (second meaning only), as defined in the theory of probability. The substantives contingence (abstract) and contingency are then synonymous with chance in its scientific meaning. (J.M.B.)

Contingent (logical): see MODALITY.

Continuity [Lat. continuare, to join together]: Ger. Continuität, Stetigheit; Fr. continuité; Ital. continuità. Relative sameness through a series of changes, stages, or positions: in so far as any of the determining conditions of an aspect of reality remain unchanged, in so far that aspect is said to be continuous.

More special cases of the notion of continuity in mathematics and biology are given under the following topics, and in psychology under the term CONTINUUM (q.v.). In philosophy the term uniformity has served in the doctrines of UNIFORMITY OF NATURE (q.v.) and UNIFORMITARIANISM (q.v.) to express this meaning. Cf. literary citations in Eisler, Wörterb. d. philos. Begriffe, Stetigkeit. (J.M.B.)

Continuity (in biology): (1) Of life. The doctrine of BIOGENESIS (q.v.) summed up in the dictum, omne vivum e vivo.

(2) Of cells. The doctrine that every living cell is derived from a living cell: omnis cellula e cellula (see CELL THEORY).

(3) Of germ-plasm. The doctrine that any cell, or group of cells, capable of developing into a complete organism, contains nuclear matter directly continuous with that from which the organism of which they are the products was developed. This doctrine is the basis of Weismann's studies of heredity (Die Kontinuität des Keimplasma, 1885; Germ-Plasm, 1893), to which it owes much of its currency. Cf. HEREDITY. Or, more particularly, as applied to the germ-cells, the doctrine that the germ-plasma in the offspring is not formed away, but derived directly through cell-division from the germ-plasm of the germ-cells of the parent or parents. (C.LL.M.- E.S.G.)

(4) Of variation. The doctrine that the sort of variation which is effective in producing evolution is by small and continued increments in the same direction, as opposed to the view that it is by sudden well-marked leaps (so-called 'discontinuous variation,' on which see Bateson, Materials for the Study of Variation, 1895). Cf. VARIATION. (C.LL.M.- J.M.B.)

Continuity (in geometry): the points of a right line constitute an ordinal assemblage of points, which is called continuous because it possesses the following attributes: --

(1) Between any two points of the line there are other points of the line.

(2) If all the points of the line are distributed in accordance with any given law into two assemblages, A and B, so related that each point in A lies to the left of every point in B, either the assemblage A will possess a last point to the right, or the assemblage B a first point to the left.

In other words, it is not only the case, as Aristotle would have said, and as follows from (1), that there cannot be both a last point, P, in A, limiting A to the right, and a first point, Q, in B, distinct from P, limiting B to the left; but also that either A or B must have a limiting point, that a definite point exists at which the separation of the points of the line into the assemblages A and B occurs, and at which the line itself is separated into two distinct parts.

Every other ordinal assemblage which possesses these or analogous attributes is also called continuous. Thus the points of a line segment, the points of an unbroken curved line, the totality of the real numbers, both rational and irrational, all constitute continuous assemblages.

The significance of the first attribute is at once apparent. It is equivalent to the infinite divisibility of a line segment, which Aristotle maintained and Epicurus denied, and which Kant made the definition of continuity.

But this attribute alone is not sufficient for continuity. Thus the assemblage of the rational numbers -- or of those points of a right line by which they may be represented -- possesses it, but is evidently discontinuous. This assemblage does not possess the attribute (2).

Thus since there is no rational number whose cube is 2, we may distribute all the rational numbers into an assemblage A, consisting of those whose cubes are less than 2, and an assemblage B, consisting of those whose cubes are greater than 2. Evidently each number in A is less than every number in B. But there is no greatest number in A; for when any rational number has been assigned whose cube is less than 2, it is always possible to find a greater rational whose cube is also less than 2. And, in like manner, there is no least number in B.

We obtain an assemblage of numbers which possesses the attribute (2), and is therefore continuous, only when to the rationals we add the number "cube root of 2" and all other irrational numbers; and, in like manner, a continuous assemblage of points, when to the points which represent the rational numbers we add a point for every irrational number.

This subtle attribute (2) of continuity escaped notice until very recently. It was first brought to light independently in the early seventies by G. Cantor and Dedekind.

The extension of this analysis of continuity to two and three dimensional space is obvious. Thus the assemblage of all the right lines in a plane which pass through one and the same point is ordinal, and possesses attributes analogous to (1) and (2). And every point of the plane lies on one or other of these lines. The points of the plane may, therefore, in a variety of ways, be distributed among the elements of a continuous assemblage of one dimension -- assemblages which are themselves continuous. See SPACE, and CONTINUUM.

Literature: DEDEKIND, Stetigkeit u. Irrationale Zahlen; G. CANTOR, Grundlagen einer allg. Mannichfaltigkeitslehre. (H.B.F.)

Continuous Quantity: see CONTINUITY, and CONTINUUM.

Continuum [Lat.]. That which has the property of CONTINUITY (q.v.).

In psychology the conception of continuum has been developed mainly by Ward (Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., art. Psychology), who maintains that there is in all mental change or development a progressive differentiation of that which was before less differentiated back to a theoretical state, before specific experience, in which there was an undifferentiated field; a sensory or presentation continuum, and a motor continuum. 'Working backward,' says Ward (loc. cit., 35), 'we are led . . . to the conception of a totum obiectivum, or objective continuum, which is gradually differentiated. . . . Actual presentation consists in this continuum being differentiated.' The meaning of this position is seen in its opposition to the so-called atomistic view represented by Condillac and the Associationists, which depicts mental growth and change as a progressive uniting of elements before separate and discontinuous. See MIND-STUFF THEORY. The conception of a continuum is also extended to each of the qualitative sense-fields -- an auditory, a visual, a touch, a colour, &c. continuum, each of them being conceived as having a continuous field of its own, not broken in upon by events from other fields -- within which the presentations of the same quality or class, while differentiated, are nevertheless held together by continuous gradation. With Ward's view it is interesting to compare that contained in Cornelius's Psychol. als Erfahrungswissenschaft. Cornelius does not use the word continuum; but he gives a view of mental development essentially analogous to Ward's, except that he denies subconsciousness, and identifies all differentiation with conscious distinction.

Literature: WARD and CORNELIUS (as cited above); JAMES, Princ. of Psychol., i. chap. xiii. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Contra-conative: see ACTION, and INVOLUNTARY.

Contract [Lat. contractus, from con- + trahere, to draw]: Ger. Vertrag; Fr. contrat; Ital. contratto. (1) A coincident expression of will by two or more persons, intended by all, or naturally calculated and by some of them intended, to alter the legal relations of all to each other; an agreement between two or more parties to do or not to do a certain thing (Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheaton's U. S. Reports, 117).

The act of agreeing is the contract; the consequent change of relations expresses the obligation which proceeds from it.

(2) A written document executed by the contracting parties, setting forth the terms of their agreement.

In the Roman law there could be no contract without a consequent obligation. An obligation was of the essence of every contract. Agreements without an obligation, which would support an action, were styled conventions (conventio) or pacts (pactum, pactio). They might have a defensive force, in case of an action by one of the parties against the other. An agreement expressed with certain forms, or founded upon certain transactions, became a contractus. 'Sed cum nulla subest causa propter conventionem, hic constat non posse constitui obligationem. Igitur nuda pactio obligationem non parit, sed parit exceptionem' (Dig, ii. 14, de Pactis, 7, § 4). Our definition of contract corresponds to the Roman definition of a convention, and may be compared with Savigny's definition of an agreement (Vertrag) as 'the union of several persons in one concurrent declaration of will, whereby their legal relations are determined.' In English and American law, while a contract not founded on a sufficient consideration, unless expressed in writing under seal, cannot support an action, it is none the less a contract. We recognize illegal contracts, and void contracts, as contracts (cf. Anson, Principles of Contract). Cf. CONSIDERATION. (S.E.B.)

Contract involves not a mere promise (nudum pactum), but an obligation at law (obligatio). It involves a relation of free persons. To Roman law and to Kant, marriage was a contract, and to Hobbes and other philosophers the union of men in states or even societies is founded on contract. See SOCIAL CONTRACT. Wherever there has been law there has been contract, but the present exactness of the notion of contract is due to Roman law (of nexum, later contractus). Scottish law and the Code Napoleon follow Roman law more closely than does the English.

Literature: SAVIGNY, Das neuere Römische Recht; MARKBY, Elements of Law; MAINE, Ancient Law; MACKENZIE, Roman Law; JUSTINIAN, Institutes, III. Tit. xiv., De Obligationibus, treating of oblig. ex contractu, quasi ex contractu, ex maleficio, quasi ex maleficio -- or express and implied contracts, intentional and unintentional injuries; HOLMES. Common Law, Lects. 7, 8, 9. (J.B.- S.E.B.)

Contractility (muscular) [Lat. con- + trahere, to draw together]: Ger. Contractionsfähigkeit; Fr. contractilité; Ital. contrattilità. The property or function of living tissues to react in some way when a proper stimulus is applied. See VITAL PROPERTIES, and MUSCLE. (C.F.H.)

Contraction (muscular) and Contracture: Ger. Zusammenziehung, (more exactly) Verkürzung; Fr. contraction; Ital. contrazione. Action of a muscle by which its ends are brought closer together. Contracture is a condition in which the muscle fails to elongate normally after a contraction; also called 'contraction-remainder' (Hermann). See MUSCLE. (C.F.H.)

Contradiction (law, principle, or axiom of, in logic) [Lat. contra + dicere, to speak]: Ger. Grundsatz des Widerspruchs; Fr. principe de contradiction; Ital. legge di contraddizione. The Principle of Contradiction is but the explicit statement of a simple condition under which thinking can claim to attain its end, truth; or, negatively, without which thinking may not attain its end. To any assertion in which it is declared that some thought-content holds good, there is conceivable an opposed assertion, which does no more than declare that such thought-content does not hold good. Assertions so opposed are called technically Contradictories; and the Principle of Contradiction only expresses in generalized fashion their relation to truth by the formula: Contradictory judgments cannot both be true. The simplicity of the condition to be expressed, and the variety of ways of approaching its determination, account for difference of formulation. See also PROPOSITION.

All discussions of the principle lead backwards to the first formal and elaborate statement of it in Aristotle, whose method of treatment keeps wonderfully clear from both the strictly formal and subjective view and the ontological and objective. The best accounts of his view are in Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, i. 119, 130 ff.; Grote, Aristotle (2nd ed.), App. iii; Maier, Die Syllogistik des Arist., Pt. I. (1896), 41-73. A full notion of the various ways in which it has been expressed, with references to the main discussions concerning its scope, will be found in Ueberweg's Logik, § 77. On the difference between the Aristotelian point of view and that of formal logic, which takes its origin in the Kantian work, see Sigwart (Logik, § 23); on the principle in empirical logic, see Mill (Exam. of Hamilton, 471) and Venn (Empirical Logic). Bain (Ded. Logic, 14-17) tends to lay needless stress on consistency in language. (R.A.)

Contradictory (in logic): see OPPOSITION.

Contradictory Representation: see INHIBITION (mental).

Contraposition [Lat. contra- + ponere, to place]: Ger. Kontraposition; Fr. contraposition; Ital. contraposizione. The process by which there is inferred from a given judgment, called the Contraponend, another judgment, called the Contrapositive, having for its subject the contradictory or negative of the original predicate, and for its predicate the negative of the original subject. (R.A.- C.L.F.)

It may be regarded, though it is a process of immediate inference, as involving two distinct steps: (1) the OBVERSION (q.v.) of the original proposition, (2) the CONVERSION (q.v.) of the obverted original. As involving conversion, the process is inapplicable to the particular affirmative proposition, the obverted form of which is the inconvertible particular negative. The contrapositions thus obtained may themselves be obverted, and the name contrapositive is often given to the form so expressed. See Keynes, Formal Logic, Pt. II. chap. iii.

The name has come into the traditional logic from Boethius (see Prantl, Gesch. d. Logik, i. 698) though the type of conversion had been recognized earlier. There has been no fixity of usage in regard to it, although the variations of opinion have been of slight importance. The name contraposition has been employed in a wider and in a narrower sense, and the process described has been designated by a variety of technical terms. (R.A.)

Contrary (in logic): see OPPOSITION.

Contrast [Lat. contra + stare, to stand]: Ger. Kontrast; Fr. contraste; Ital. contrasto. The juxtaposition of different and especially of opposite qualities or quantities, with a resulting emphasis of the characteristics of one or both the elements involved.

In sculpture and architecture applied most frequently to the disposition of masses and the arrangement of their limiting lines. In painting it is somewhat similarly, but also and especially, applied to the grouping of figures and the treatment of light, shade, and colour. In music it is applied widely either to the sequence of successive tones and chords, to the arrangement of crescendo and diminuendo, to the relations of piano and forte, to changes in tempo, to the differences in pitch and quality as between bass and soprano, and to the distinctions in timbre and quality in general. In literature it is applied very loosely to the treatment of scenes, characters, &c. (J.R.A.)

Literature: GROOS, Einleitung in die Aesth.; MARSHALL, Pain, Pleasure, and Aesth., and Aesth. Princ.; KIRSCHMANN, Psychol.- aesth. Bedeutung des Lichts- und Farbencontrastes, Philos. Stud. (1892); the general treatises on AESTHETICS (q.v.), notably v. HARTMANN, and on psychology, notably HÖFFDING. (J.R.A.- W.M.U.)

Contrast (affective). (1) The modifying, due to an affective state, of simultaneous or succeeding affective states. (2) The production of opposed or so-called contrary emotional states in connection with changes in the stimulating conditions; hope and fear, joy and sorrow, are pairs illustrating this form of contrast.

(1) The contrast effects extend to all phases of emotion -- quality, excitement, hedonic tone. It has been much discussed under the term relativity, especially with reference to pleasure and pain, since Plato's theory of the relativity of pleasure, which may be called hedonic contrast. See PAIN AND PLEASURE. The qualitative contrast effects, usually called 'emotional contrast,' are either 'successive' -- the after-effects of one emotional state upon succeeding emotional states, or 'simultaneous' -- the modification of one relatively distinguishable element in an emotional state by another. The fluctuations of hope and fear are often cited to illustrate all these sorts of contrast. It is recommended that the term affective contrast be confined to this first meaning.

(2) In normal cases, under the second definition, the changed conditions reflect new information, knowledge, &c.; changes in the cognitive contents which stimulate the emotion. In many pathological instances, however, obscure organic or subjective changes produce very marked oscillations or emotion. The effects of contrast in sense (1) are present also in these cases.

Two special forms of contrast in this sense are distinguished and illustrated with the figure under HOPE AND DESPAIR: (a) the form due to dwelling in turn upon the varying possibilities of outcome of a given situation (such as the mingled hope and fear of a partisan spectator at a closely contested athletic contest), and (b) the form due to actual changes in the exciting situation (as the national joy and sorrow attending the fortunes of an army at war). It is recommended that the phrase 'contrasted emotion' be used for all cases corresponding to this second meaning.

Literature: the textbooks of psychology; the citations given under EMOTION, and under PAIN AND PLEASURE. See also BIBLIOG. G, 2, k. (J.M.B.- G.F.S.)

Contrast (binocular): Ger. binocularer Kontrast; Fr. contraste binoculaire; Ital. contrasto binoculare. The collective name for contrast effects occurring between the images in the two eyes.

The classical instance of such contrast is the SIDE WINDOW EXPERIMENT (q.v.). A simple case is this: lay a white square of card on a black ground, bring a grey glass before the one and a blue before the other eye, and obtain double images. The one of these is, of course, blue; the other, however, is not grey, but yellowish.

Literature: FECHNER, Abhandl. d. kgl. sächs. Gesell. d. Wiss., vii. (1860) 511 ff.; HERING, in Hermann's Handb. d. Physiol., III. i. 600 f.; WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), ii. 209 ff.; HELMHOLTZ, Physiol. Optik (2nd ed.), 936 ff.; TITCHENER, Philos. Stud., viii. 231 ff.; BRÜCKE, Pogg. Ann., lxxxiv. 420 ff.; CHAUVEAU, C. R. Soc. de Biol., cxiii. 394 ff.; AUBERT, Physiol. Optik, 549. (E.B.T.)

Contrast (colour, simultaneous): Ger. simultaner Farbenkontrast (Helligkeitskontrast); Fr. contraste simultané des couleurs; Ital. contrasto dei colori. The mutal effects, in respect to colour and brightness, which simultaneously seen but separated visual areas have upon each other. (J.M.B.)

The general law of contrast is that the colour and brightness of a given object are affected by the colour and brightness of other, and especially of neighbouring, objects in the visual field, which they in turn affect in a corresponding way.

The special laws of simultaneous colour contrast are as follows: (1) the contrast effect is maximal along the line of contact (marginal contrast); (2) the increase of brightness in a bright field on dark ground is directly proportional to the brightness-difference of field and ground; (3) the more saturated the inducing ground, the more saturated the induced (contrast) colour; (4) contrast always takes the direction of greatest opposition, i.e. every colour induces its complementary (or antogonistic) colour -- black white, and white black.

Helmholtz regarded contrast as due to a 'deception of judgment.' Wundt translates this phrase into 'an instance of the law of relativity,' thus bringing contrast into line with Weber's law, &c. Opposed to these central theories is Hering's peripheral theory, according to which contrast depends upon the interaction of retinal excitations; the retina functions always as a whole, however limited the area of a given stimulation. The later hypothesis is gaining ground. See MEYER'S EXPERIMENT. According to Marillier, the phenomena of contrast were first pointed out by Chevreul. (E.B.T.)

Hering's device for obtaining different simultaneous contrast for the two eyes proves conclusively that the phenomenon is retinal (unless one could assume a right-handed and a left-handed judgment). Cf. Hering, Zeitsch. f. Psychol., i. 18, and Sanford, Course in Exper. Psychol., ? 165. But there is no reason that the principle of relativity, which holds for sensation in general, should be suspended here, and hence it is without doubt a contributing cause to the total effect of contrast. (C.L.F.)

Literature: EBBINGHAUS, Psychologie, 217 (with refs. to Hering); HELMHOLTZ, Physiol. Optik (2nd ed.), 542; WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol. (4th ed.), i. 521; SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol., expts. 152-8; HERING, Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinn (1875). (E.B.T.)

Contrast (successive colour): Ger. successiver Farbenkontrast (Helligkeitskontrast); Fr. contraste successif des couleurs; Ital. contrasto successivo dei colori. The apparent alteration of a grey or of a coloured surface by the previous stimulation of the same retinal area by some other sort of light. In other words, it is merely the effect of the AFTER-IMAGE (q.v.) when projected upon a fresh stimulating surface. (E.C.S.- C.L.F.)

After-images may be so strong as to afford especially good instances of simultaneous contrast. It is clear that, unless precautions are taken, successive contrast may interfere with the results of experiments on simultaneous contrast.

Literature: WUNDT, Physiol. Psychol (4th ed.), i. 514; HELMHOLTZ, Physiol. Optik (2nd ed.), 538; SANFORD, Course in Exper. Psychol, expts. 151-3; HERING, Zur Lehre vom Lichtsinn (1875); EBBINGHAUS, Psychologie, 230, 241 (other refs. to Hering). (E.B.T.)

Contrast (law of): Ger. Gesetz der Association durch Kontrast; Fr. loi d'association par contraste; Ital. legge dell' associazione di contrasto. The disputed law that there is a tendency of the presentations of contrasted objects, as such, to reinstate each other in consciousness. See ASSOCIATION (of ideas). (G.F.S.)

Contrast (visual space): Ger. optischer Raumkontrast, optischer Kontrast von Raumgrössen; Fr. contraste spacial optique; Ital. contrasto visivo spaziale. By an easy transference of the meaning of the term, certain phenomena of OPTICAL ILLUSIONS (q.v.), and of the estimation of spacial area, have been referred to the effect of a 'space contrast.'

Literature: MÜLLER - LYER, Zeitsch. f. Psychol., ix. I; LOEB, Pflüger's Arch., x. 509, and Zeitsch. f. Psychol., xvi. 298; HEYMANS, Zeitsch. f. Psychol., ix. 248, and Philos. Stud., xiii. 613; WUNDT, Abhandl. d. kgl. sächs. Gesell. d. Wiss., xxiv. (1898) 55, and Philos. Stud., xiv. 1; BALDWIN, Psychol. Rev., ii. 244; WARREN and SHAW, Psychol. Rev., ii. 239. (E.B.T.)

Contra-volitional: for foreign equivalents see INVOLUNTARY. Opposed to volition; applied to movements, thoughts, &c., which resist voluntary control or direction.

Equivalent to contra-conative or involuntary as contrasted with aconative or non-voluntary, in the scheme of terminology for the active functions recommended under ACTION (in psychology). (J.M.B.)

Contrition: see REPENTANCE.

Control [M. Lat. contra + rotellum, a roll]: Ger. Kontrolle; Fr. contrôle; Ital. controllo (governo di sè). Voluntary command of mind and body. As concerned with conduct in its ethical relations, see SELF-CONTROL.

The psychological questions involved in control turn about (1) control of muscular movement; (2) control of the attention; (3) control of emotion.

(1) By muscular control is meant the voluntary performance, inhibition, or modification of muscular movement in accordance with one's intention and volition. See MOVEMENT (control of).

(2) A question which is very important, both in education and in ethics, concerns the control of the attention. How far and by what means can we keep our attention under control? Of course this question can be asked only of voluntary attention; for attention which is drawn without our preparatory knowledge and intention is quite outside of our control. Of voluntary attention, one theory holds that it is also outside of our control, being a purely reflex thing, dictated by the strength of the influences which arise to call the attention in this direction or that. Admitting the fact that we seem to have a moderate degree of control or management of the direction of the attention, we may distinguish two sorts of possible control or management: first, 'direct,' and second, 'indirect' control of the attention. Under the head of direct control, those who hold that the attention is a mental principle of absolute power of mental initiation, urge the case in which we deliberate, and then choose what we will attend to. They say that all voluntary movement of the body involves attention of this sort; so also all voluntary direction of the train of thought. In this latter case, they hold that we can, by turning attention to this or that one of our moves, so reinforce it as to make it the controlling one, and thus determining our choice. In current discussion, the possibility of the mind's exercising any real initiation of changes in the flow of the mental life is put here, i.e. in the possibility of 'direct' control of the attention.

By 'indirect' control of the attention is meant the view that the mind cannot direct attention, interfere with or control the stream of thought, without preliminary motives, reasons, &c.; that its control is always indirect, or through earlier states of mind. In indirect control we proceed upon motives -- the reasons on the ground of which we wish to give the train a turn in this or that direction. That is, we are under preliminary motives, interests, preferences, even when by attention we reinforce one of a set of possible alternatives. It is true, say the advocates of this theory, that we choose by attending; but it is also true that the attention itself is determined by an earlier choice, and so on. This preceding choice sets the elements which are really operative, and it is by identifying ourselves with these elements that we get control. This indirect control is certainly a fact, whether it explains all the cases of seeming control or not. It is shown in interesting pathological cases. Patients are reduced to complete inability to move a limb, simply because they cannot attend to it, and the reason that they cannot attend to it is that, through injury to the brain, they have no images to represent the movement. This shows that the attention, so far from being a self-sufficient activity, depends upon the presence of certain equivalents of what is to be attended to, through which the controlling or setting of the direction of the mental flow takes place. No acts can be voluntarily carried out, whether by sensorial or by intellectual attention, unless the elements of earlier acts of attention in the same direction can be brought up in mind.

These elements are held to be the indirect means by which a particular case of attention is realized and held under control. Put in general psychological terms, the attention is always a function of some content in consciousness, and to carry out an act of attention this content, or something equivalent to it, must be present first. The lack of the requisites of control is also seen in cases of fixed ideas, obsessions, &c., in which the patient finds it impossible to get his attention fixed upon other ideas requisite to the inhibition of the former. Cf. KINAESTHETIC SENSATIONS, and EQUIVALENTS.

Literature, on (1) and (2): see under MOVEMENT, and ATTENTION; also PICK, Zeitsch. f. Psychol., iv. (1892), 161; IRELAND, J. of Ment. Sci. (January, 1893), 130; BALDWIN, Ment. Devel. in the Child and the Race, chap. xv. On the physical basis of control and its impairment: CARPENTER, Ment. Physiol., Bk. I. chap. ix; Bk. II. chap. xvii; RIBOT, Diseases of the Will, chaps. i, ii; E. MORSELLI, Semej. malat. ment. (1895), ii.

(3) Control of emotion is admitted by all to be a phenomenon of voluntary effort, and the two possibilities, called direct and indirect, would seem to be open here. The indirect theory has the balance of authority, however, since the two influences which are evidently strong in this sort of control are both indirect, i.e. giving the attention to something other than the object which causes the emotion (though the movement of the attention itself might then be taken to illustrate direct control), and the suppression of the physical expression of the emotion.

Literature: JAMES, Princ. of Psychol., ii. chap. xxv. (J.M.B., G.F.S.)

Control Experiment: Ger. Kontrollversuch; Fr. expérience de contrôle; Ital. esperimento di controllo (or di verifica). An experiment conducted under conditions under which the operation of a supposed cause is known to be impossible, in order to discover whether the supposed effect of that cause still occurs. A check is thus put upon inference from experiments by use of the method of DIFFERENCE (q.v.). (J.M.B.)

Control Series: see CONTROL.

Convention (social) [Lat. convenire, to come together]: Ger. (1-4, Convention, (1) Uebereinkommen, Versammlung, (2) stillschweigendes Uebereinkommen; Fr. convention; Ital. convenzione. (1) A formal or informal meeting of individuals, delegates, or representatives for a specific object. (2) An informal recognition of usage or custom. (3) A formal agreement of individuals reached after formal debate, stated in a social rule or usage, sanctioned by disapproval or social boycotting of offenders. (4) An international agreement, less formal than a treaty.

The essential meaning of convention is given in definition (2), and is best expressed by Hume (Essays and Treatises, ii. 344): 'Thus two men pull the oars of a boat by common convention for common interest, without any promise or contract. Thus gold and silver are made the measures of exchange; thus speech and words and language are fixed by human convention and agreement.' 'It has been asserted by some that justice arises from human conventions, and proceeds from the voluntary choice, consent, or combination of mankind. If by convention be here meant a promise (which is the most usual sense of the word), nothing can be more absurd than this position. . . . But if by convention be meant a sense of common interest, which sense each man feels in his own breast, which he remarks in his fellows, and which carries him, in concurrence with others, into a general plan or system of actions which tends to public utility, it must be owned that, in this sense, justice arises from human conventions' (ibid. 344). The tendency of usage, therefore, is to the emphasis of the informal side, i.e. to definition (2), as in the phrase 'recognized convention,' and in the use of the adjective 'conventional.' (F.H.G.- J.M.B.)

Convergence [Lat. convergere, to turn]: Ger. Convergenz; Fr. convergence; Ital. convergenza. A position (or movement) of the two lines of regard, in (or by) which they meet in a single fixation point.

Movements of the eyes in general are: (1) parallel movements, in which the lines of regard of the two eyes remain constantly parallel with each other; (2) convergent movements, in which they intersect at some point of objective space before the eyes; and (3) divergent movements (exceptional or pathological), in which they intersect at some point behind the eyes. Under the general heading of Convergent Movements we have, further (a) convergent movements in convergence, realized in passing from a more remote to a nearer fixation point, and (b) divergent movements in convergence, realized in passing from a nearer point to a more remote. Cf. ASYMMETRY, and EYE-MOVEMENTS. (E.B.T.)

Convergence (in biology). A term used to express the development of similar structures and forms independently of affinity.

The course of evolution which leads to such resemblances, in two or more distinct lines, is spoken of as 'parallelism.' The extreme supporters of a mechanically caused evolution have assumed convergence to be a very high importance, and have even supposed that it may lead to a true and real approximation, so that the descendant species of distinct lines may coalesce into a single genus, perhaps even into a single species. A species or genus supposed to be thus formed by coalescence is said to have a 'polyphyletic' origin. The great example which has been relied upon is the gradual evolution of the horse from a far less specialized mammalian type, which has been supposed to have gone on independently throughout the whole of the Tertiary Period in the Old World and in the New, finally arriving at two species separated by only minor structural features. Such a theory requires continuous geographical isolation to prevent the eastward and westward drift of swift and wandering animals; and yet the whole fauna and flora of North America proclaim it as a part of the great Northern Belt, and prove beyond doubt that land continuity has been a far more prevalent feature than discontinuity. Such extreme views upon convergence were the natural outcome of a theory which looked upon animal form and structure as the expression of the direct influence of environing forces -- a process referred to above as 'mechanically caused evolution.' Assume this theory and that acquired characters are hereditary, and it follows that lines of evolution, however distinct and separate at the start, will be made to approximate and even to fuse when subjected to the direct action of similar forces for a prolonged period. Those who have belief in the all-importance of natural selection, recognize the significance of convergence in producing resemblances in single parts, or even in combinations of important systems, such as the nervous, muscular, and skeletal, but they hold that the likenesses are invariably superficial, and, however striking, can always be disentangled from the results due to true affinity. The phenomena of convergence, so far as they are correctly interpreted, receive their complete explanation as the 'analogical' or 'adaptive' characters fully interpreted by Darwin in the first edition of the Origin of Species (1859). Thus, in chap. xiii. 427, he speaks of 'the very important distinction between real affinities and analogical or adaptive resemblances. . . . On my view of characters being of real importance for classification, only in so far as they reveal descent, we can clearly understand why analogical or adaptive characters, although of the utmost importance to the welfare of the being, are almost valueless to the systematist. For animals, belonging to two most distinct lines of descent, may readily become adapted to similar conditions, and thus assume a close external resemblance; but such resemblances will not reveal -- will rather tend to conceal -- their blood-relationship to their proper lines of descent.' A good example is given on p. 430, where Darwin, alluding to the striking resemblance of the marsupial wombat (Phascolomys) to a rodent, says, 'It may be strongly suspected that the resemblance is only analogical, owing to the Phascolomys having become adapted to habits like those of a rodent.' Darwin fully recognized that convergence, so far as it is correctly interpreted, was only his earlier principle. Thus, writing to Neumayr in 1877, he says, 'He [Hyatt] insists that closely similar forms may be derived from distinct lines of descent; and this is what I formerly called analogical variation.' The cases of convergence cited by W. B. Scott -- the parallel development of the Tylopoda in the New World with the Pecora and Tragulina of the Old, and the evolution of a remarkable horse-like, and yet non-perissodactyle, form in Patagonia -- would appear to be excellent examples of adaptive resemblances, the superficially similar forms taking each other's place, and undergoing corresponding adaptations to corresponding needs. It must be remembered that the paleontologist sees only the skeletal framework, and that the inferences from it to the other systems are limited. At the same time the scope of his inquiry presents a combination of systems peculiarly liable to be affected by, and thus to register, such convergent adaptations. It is probably for this reason that paleontologists have tended to magnify the importance of the principle. The zoologist with the whole animal anatomy before him sees these resemblances in their due relationship and proportion. There is no better example of convergence that that presented by the Marsupialia in relation to the higher Mammalia -- far better that any examples to be cited from the Ungulata, because the blood-relationship is so infinitely more remote. In spite of this remoteness, we find the marsupial order, having the Australian continent almost to itself, becoming split up into forms which superficially resemble the most diverse dominant types of the higher mammals. Not only is there the rodent-like wombat (Phascolomys) alluded to by Darwin, but the dog-like Thylacinus, while a recently marsupial mole (Notoryctes) has recently been discovered. And all these resemblances, and many more, correspond precisely to parallelism in habits. If all these animals were extinct, and we only knew them through their skeletons, there can be no doubt that the resemblances would be far more misleading. As it is, we have the other anatomical systems by which to correct the bias unconsciously given by the strongly convergent osseous framework. But however corrected and limited, 'parallelism and convergence of development are,' as W. B. Scott maintains, 'very real phenomena, and on this account, as well as others, we must recognize the importance of giving due weight to geographical considerations in dealing with phylogenetic and taxonomic problems.'

E. Ray Lankester distinguished between the homologies or correspondences in structure which are due to blood-relationship (homogeny) and those which are due to adaptation (homoplasy). It is here maintained that the resemblances due to convergence are homoplastic. The convergences which are here described and illustrated are also briefly mentioned under MIMICRY (q.v.), where it is suggested that the term Syntechnic may be conveniently applied to them. Other convergences of a different kind, but equally due to adaptation (homoplastic), are also described under the same head. (E.B.P.)

The operation of ORGANIC SELECTION (q.v.) is also well illustrated in these phenomena, the converging lines of descent showing the directing influence of individual accommodations which are common to two species. These accommodations shield and foster congenital variations coincident with them, and therefore also coincident with one another in the two animal forms. In such cases convergence illustrates orthoplasy, as this directing influence of organic or indirect selection has been called by two of its original advocates, Osborn and Baldwin, both of whom have also indicated its application in paleontology, (Osborn, 'The Limits of Organic Selection,' Amer. Naturalist, xxxi. 944 ff.; Baldwin, 'Determinate Evolution,' Psychol. Rev., iv., 1897, 393 ff.). (J.M.B., E.B.P.)

Literature: C. DARWIN, Origin of Species, chapter on 'Classification,' and Life and Letters; CARL VOGT, The Nat. Hist. of Animals (Eng. trans., 1887); OSCAR SCHMIDT, The Mammalia, Int. Sci. Ser. (1885); W. B. SCOTT, in Wood's Holl Biol. Lectures, 1898 (1899); E. D. COPE, The Origin of the Fittest (1887); E. RAY LANKESTER, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. (1870). (E.B.P.)

Converse: see CONVERSION (in logic).

Conversion (in Christian theology) [Lat. con- + vertere, to turn about]: Ger. Bekehrung; Fr. conversion; Ital. conversione. Conversion may be defined in the words of Acts xx. 21: 'Repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.' Cf. GRACE.

In its ordinary acceptance, it implies divine grace and human desire, that is, both elements enter into the process. The problem lies in their relation. Lutherans teach that the Scriptures and the sacraments are the means of grace; but they may be, and often are, entirely resisted. Calvinists, on the contrary, tend to hold that grace is irresistible, and so to overpower the human element by the divine. Possibly, from the point of view of theology, the former lies nearer the truth; for conversion is to be distinguished from regeneration. In the former, the human element predominates; in the latter, the divine. At the same time, the Lutheran doctrine of means may easily be pushed too far; they are secondary at best.

In Roman Catholic usage, conversion is applied to the transubstantiation which takes place in the Eucharistic elements, one substance being converted into another, while the accidents of the original substance remain. (R.M.W.)

Conversion (in logic). The process by which, from a given proposition, called the Convertend, there is educed or inferred another proposition, called the Converse, in quality the same as the original proposition, and having for its subject the predicate, and for its predicate the subject, of the original proposition.

Essentially, conversion is the mere transposition of the terms, subject and predicate, of the given proposition to be converted. When the quantity of the given proposition is taken into account, the rule that the converse cannot contain more than the convertend leads to the special results, that the universal negative and particular affirmative can be converted without change of quantity, by the simple conversion, as it is called; that the universal affirmative can only be converted into a particular affirmative by conversion per accidens or by limitation; and that the particular negative cannot be converted by either method.

The process and rules or conversion are dealt with fully by Aristotle. The term conversio per accidens comes from Boethius, whose confused chapter (Introd. ad Syllog. Cat., chap. vii) throws little light on the designation. See Baynes, New Analytic, 28-9.

Literature: UEBERWEG, Logik, §§ 84-8; KEYNES, Formal Logic, Pt. II. §§ 62-5, 130, 133, 143. (R.A.)

Convertend: see CONVERSION (in logic).

Conviction (in psychology) [Lat. convincere, to overcome]: Ger. Ueberzeugung; Fr. conviction; Ital. convinzione. Belief of which the grounds are relatively conscious and obvious. See BELIEF. (J.M.B.)

Conviction (in theology): Ger. (Sünden-) Zerknirschung; Fr. conviction; Ital. convinzione. A word used in a semi-theological, semi-ethical sense, and principally in connection with sin: conviction of sin. It means self-consciousness, generally of an overwhelming sort, that one is, or has been, in the wrong. Moral blame is registered against oneself, and this leads to renewed effort after truer belief and better conduct. The term is essentially of Calvinistic origin in this sense. (R.M.W.)

Convulsion [Lat. convulsio, cramp]: Ger. Krampf; Fr. convulsion; Ital. convulsione. A violent and purposeless contraction or paroxysm of a group of muscles.

A succession of convulsions is known as a fit; a more localized involuntary contraction is termed a spasm. Eclampsia is also used as synonymous with convulsions, although usually referring to recurring convulsions, due to other causes than primary abnormalities of the brain (Gowers). Both spasms and convulsions are either tonic (continuous, cramp-like) or clonic (short, and alternating with relaxations).

The study of convulsions has been directed by two interests, the clinical and the physiological. The clinical interest is concerned with a description of the form of the convulsions and the muscle groups involved; with their occurrence as the primary or essential symptom of the disease, or as accompanying, or sequential to other diseases; with their occurrence at special times or occasions of life -- infantile, puerperal, traumatic &c. The physiological interest is centered in the interpretation of the nature and dissemination of the convulsion as an index of the nerve 'discharge,' or 'explosion,' from special motor centres in the brain cortex. This has been most extensively studied in connection with the convulsions of EPILEPSY (q.v.), and is there considered.

Further general characteristics of convulsions are the order in which the muscle groups are affected; whether confined to one side of the body, whether involving loss of consciousness, whether preceded by premonitory symptoms or abrupt, whether isolated or one of a series of attacks, how far associated with other diseases (such as hysteria), and the like. These characteristics serve to differentiate the different forms of convulsion, and form an essential portion of the diagnosis of those diseases (epilepsy, general paralysis, cerebral lesions, elampsia, chorea, stridulus, tetanus, hydrophobia) in which convulsive symptoms are prominent. Cf. EPILEPSY, and CHOREA. (J.J.)

Literature: MONAKOW, Gehirnpathologie (1897), 341 f.; FRANÇOIS FRANCK, Leçons sur les Fonctions motrices du Cerveau (1883); CH. FÉRÉ, Les Epilepsies et les Epileptiques (1890), with full bibliography. (L.M.)