Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/272

 and the languishing style is greatly spoiled by the difficulty of appreciating the points involved and indeed of distributing the dialogue (a not uncommon crux in Persius). The remaining satires handle in order (2) the question as to what we may justly ask of the gods (cf. Plato’s second Alcibiades), (3) the importance of having a definite aim in life, (4) the necessity of self-knowledge for public men (cf. Plato’s first Alcibiades), (5) the Stoic doctrine of liberty (introduced by generous allusions to Cornutus' teaching), and (6) the proper use of money. The Life tells us that the Satires were not left complete; some lines were taken (presumably by Cornutus or Bassus) from the end of the work so that it might be quasi finitus. This perhaps means that a sentence in which Persius had left a line imperfect, or a paragraph which he had not completed, had to be omitted The same authority says that Cornutus definitely blacked out an offensive allusion to the emperor’s literary taste, and that we owe to him the reading of the MSS. in Sat. 1. 121,—“auriculas asini quis non [for Mida rex] habet!” Traces of lack of revision are, however, still visible; cf. e g. v. 176 (sudden transition from ambition to superstition) and vi. 37 (where criticism of Greek doctores has nothing to do with the context). The parallels to passages of Horace and Seneca are recorded in the commentaries in view of what the Life says about Lucan, the verbal resemblance of Sat iii. 3 to Phars. x. 163 is interesting. Examples of bold language or metaphor. 1. 25, rupto iecore exierit caprificus, 60, linguae quantum sitiat canis; iii. 42, intus palleat, 81, silentia rodunt, v 92, ueteres auiae de pulmone reuello. Passages like iii. 87, 100 sqq, show elaboration carried beyond the rules of good taste. “Popular” words baro, cédo, ebullire, gluto, lallare, mamma, muttire, obba, palpo, stloppus. Fine lines, &c, in i. 116 sqq., ii. 6 sqq., 61 sqq, 73 sqq, iii. 39 sqq.

.—The MSS. of Persius fall into two groups, the one represented by two of the best of them, the other by that of Pithoeus, so important for the text of Juvenal. Since the publication of J. Bieger’s ''de Persii cod pith. recte aestimando'' (Berlin, 1890) the tendency has been to prefer the tradition of the latter.

The important editions are. (1) with explanatory notes Casaubon (Paris, 1605, enlarged edition by Dubner, Leipzig, 1833); O. Jahn (with the scholia and valuable prolegomena, Leipzig, 1843); Conington (with translation, 3rd ed, Oxford, 1893); B. L. Gildersleeve (New York, 1875), G. Némethy (Buda-Pesth, 1903); (2) with critical notes. Jahn-Bücheler (3rd ed., Berlin, 1893), S. G. Owen (with Juyenal, Oxford, 1902). Translations into English by Dryden (1693); Conington (loc. cit.) and Hemphill (Dublin, 1901). Criticism, &c, in Martha, Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain (5th ed, Paris, 1886), Nisard, Poètes latins de la decadence (Paris, 1834); Hirzel, Der Dialog (Leipzig, 1895); Saintsbury, History of Criticism, i. 248, Henderson, Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (London, 1903); and the histories of Roman literature (especially Schanz, §§ 382 sqq.) A Bibliography of Perseus, by M. H. Morgan (Cambridge, U.S.A., 1893).

 PERSON, OFFENCES AGAINST THE. This expression is used in English law to classify crimes involving some form of assault or personal violence or physical injury, i.e. offences affecting the life, liberty or safety of an individual, but it is also extended to certain offences against morality which cannot technically be described as assaults. The bulk of the offences thus classified, so far as their definition or punishment depends upon statute law, are included in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100), and in the Criminal Law Amendment Acts of 1880 and 1885, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act 1904. The classification in these statutes is not scientific: e.g. bigamy is within the act of 1861 (s. 57), and certain offences involving assault, e.g. robbery, are to be found in other statutes. The particular offences dealt with by the acts above named are discussed under their appropriate titles, e.g. abortion, assault, bigamy, homicide, rape, &c. In the Indian penal code most of the offences above referred to fall under the head “offences against the human body” (ch. xvi.). In his Digest of the Criminal Law Sir James Stephen includes most of these offences under the title “offences against the person, the conjugal and parental rights, and the reputation of individuals,” a classification also to be found in the English draft code of 1880 and adopted in the Queensland code of 1899 In working out this classification offences not involving assault are relegated to another and perhaps more appropriate title, “offences against morality.”

PERSONALITY (from Lat. persona, originally an actor’s mask, from personare, to sound through), a term applied in philosophy and also in common speech to the identity or individuality which makes a being (person) what he is, or marks him off for all that he is not. The term “person,” which is technically used not only in philosophy but also in law, is applied in theology (Gr.  ) to the three hypostases of the Trinity. It was first introduced by Tertullian, who implied by it a single individual, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were three personae though of one and the same substance (unitas substantiae). The nature of this unity in difference exercised the minds of the early Christian theologians, and was the subject of many councils and official pronouncements, according as emphasis was laid on the unity or on the separateness of the persons. There was perpetual schism between the Unitarians and Trinitarians (see for example ). The natural sense of the word “person” is undoubtedly individuality; hence those who found a difficulty in the philosophic conception of the three-in-one naturally tended to lay emphasis on the distinctions between the members of the Trinity (see ;, , &c.). A further theological question arises in Connexion with the doctrine of (q.v.), and it is argued that immortality is meaningless unless the soul of the dead man is self-conscious throughout.

In philosophy the term has an important ethical significance. The Greek moralists, attaching little importance to individual citizens as such, found the highest moral perfection in the subordination of the individual to the state. Man, as  , is good only when he is a good . Subsequent ethical systems on the contrary have la1d stress on the moral worth of personality, finding the summum bonum in the highest realization of the self. This view is specially characteristic of the Neo-hegelian school (e.g. T. H. Green), but it belongs also in various degrees to all intuitional and idealistic systems. Utilitarian universalistic hedonism and evolutionist ethics so far resemble the Greek theory that they tend to minimize the importance of personality, by introducing ulterior reasons (e.g. the perfection of the social organism, of humanity) as the ultimate sanctions of moral principles, whereas the intuitionists by making the criterion abstract and absolute limit goodness to personal obedience to the a priori moral law.

Still more important problems are connected with the psychological significance of personality. What is the origin and character of the consciousness of the self? The consciousness of the identity of another person is comparatively simple; but one’s own individuality consists partly in being aware of that ind1v1duality; a man cannot use the word “I” unless he is conscious of the unity of his “self,” and yet there is involved in the word “I” something more than this consciousness. In what does the unity of the “self” consist prior to its being recognized in consciousness, how does the consciousness arise? The answer to this problem is to be found—in so far as it can be found—in the subject-object relation, in the distinction between the external world and the subjective processes of knowing and willing which that relation involves. I will something, and afterwards perceive a corresponding change within the unity of my external world. Hence, we may suppose, arises the consciousness of a permanent self and not-self. It should be observed that self-consciousness varies according to the intellectual development, and the term “personality” is usually connected only with the self-consciousness of an advanced type, not, for example, with that of an animal. Even among human beings there is considerable difference. The most elementary form of human self-consciousness includes in the self not only the soul but also the body, while to the developed self-consciousness the physical self is part of the external or objective world. Finally it is necessary to refer to the Kantian distinction of the pure and the empirical ego, the latter (“the Me known”) being an object of thought to the former (“the I knowing”).

From the use of the term “person” as distinguishing the