Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/301

Rh A G E A G E 279 eminent modern philosophers have divided the whole course of human history. According to Fichte s scheme there are five ages, distinguished by the relative predomi nance which instinct, external authority, and reason have in them respectively, instinct being supreme in the first and reason in the last. Comte s scheme distinguishes three ages according to the state of knowledge in each, and he supposes that we are now entering upon the third of these. In the first age of his scheme knowledge is super natural or fictitious; in the second it is metaphysical or abstract; in the third it is positive or scientific. Schemes somewhat similar have been proposed by other philosophers, chiefly of France and Germany, and seem to be regarded by them as essential to any complete science of history. In relation to individual as well as to social life, age is used with a considerable variety of application. It frequently denotes the total duration of life in man, animals, or plants, and in this sense belongs to the subject of LONGEVITY (q.v.) It also denotes in man the various periods into which his life may be divided, either from a physiological or from a legal point of view. In the former aspect perhaps the most common division is into the four ages of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. These again have been increased to six or seven by some physiologists infancy, childhood, boyhood or girlhood, adolescence, manhood or womanhood, age, and old age or second childhood. While both schemes have a sufficient basis of scientific accuracy, they have also each attracted the fancy of the poet. Ovid in his Metamor phoses (xv. 198-213) makes a beautiful comparison between the four ages of a man s life and the four seasons of the year, in a passage which has been frequently imitated ; and the sevenfold division has been exquisitely cast into poetic form by Shakespeare in -4* You Like It, act ii. scene 7. The division of human life into periods for legal purposes is naturally more sharp and definite than the foregoing. It would be unscientific in the physiologist to name any pre cise year for the transition from one of his stages to another, inasmuch as that differs very considerably among different nations, and even to some extent among different indi viduals of the same nation. But the law must necessarily be fixed and uniform, and even where it professes to pro ceed according to nature, must be more precise than nature. The Roman law divided human life for its purposes into four chief periods, which had their subdivisions (1.) Infantia, lasting till the close of the seventh year; (2.) The period between infantia and pubertas, males becoming puberes at fourteen and females at twelve; (3.) Adolescentia, the period between pubertyand majority; and(4.)The period after the twenty-fifth year, when males become majores. The first period was one of total legal incapacity ; in the second period a person could lawfully do certain specified acts, but only with the sanction of his tutor or guardian; in the third the restrictions were fewer, males being permitted to manage their own property, contract marriage, and make a will; but majority was not reached until the age of twenty- five. By English law there are two great periods into which life is divided infancy, which lasts in both sexes until the twenty-first year, and manhood or womanhood. The period of infancy, again, is divided into several stages, marked by the growing development both of rights and obligations. Thus at twelve years of age a male may take the oath of allegiance; at fourteen both sexes are held to have arrived at years of discretion, and may therefore choose guardians, give evidence, and consent or disagree to a marriage. A female has the last privilege from the twelfth year, but the marriage cannot be celebrated until the majority of the parties without the consent of parents or guardians. At fourteen, too, both sexes are fully re sponsible to the criminal law. Between seven and fourteen there is responsibility only if the accused be proved doli capax, capable of discerning between right and wrong, the principle in that case being that malitia supplet ititatem. At twenty-one both males and females obtain their full legal rights, and become liable to all legal obligations. A seat in the British Parliament may be taken at twenty-one. Certain professions, however, demand as a qualification in entrants a more advanced age than that of legal manhood. In the church a candidate for deacon s orders must be twenty-three, and for priest s orders twenty-four yearn of age; and no clergyman is eligible for a bishopric under thirty. In Scotland infancy is not a legal term. The time previous to majority, which, as in England, is reached by both sexes at twenty-one, is divided into two stages : pupilccye lasts until the attainment of puberty, which the law fixes at fourteen in males and twelve in females; minority lasts from these ages respectively until twenty-one. Minority obviously corresponds in some degree to the English years of discretion, but a Scotch minor has more personal rights than an English infant in the last stage of- his infancy, e.g., he may dispose by will of moveable property, make contracts, carry on trade, and, as a neces sary consequence, is liable to be declared a bankrupt. Among foreign nations the law on this matter is somewhat varied. In France the year of majority is twenty- one, and the nubile age, according to the Code Napoleon, eighteen for males and fifteen for females, with a restriction as to the consent of guardians. In Germany majority is usually reached at twenty-four, though in some states (Bavaria, Saxony, Wiirtemburg, and Baden) the age is twenty-one. In the United States the age qualification for a president is thirty-five, for a senator thirty, and for a representative twenty-five. AG EL AD AS, an eminent statuary of Argos, and the instructor of the three great sculptors, Phidias, Myron, and Polycletus. There is considerable difference in the state ments of the date when he flourished. Thiersch meets the difficulty by supposing that there was another artist of the same name. AGELNOTH, ^THELNOTH, or ETHELNOTII, known also as Achelnotus, son of Egelmaer the Earl, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Canute, was trained in the monastery at Glastonbury, for which he afterwards obtained new privileges from the king. According to William of Malmesbury, he exercised a great and salutary influence over Canute in the way both of encouragement and restraint. He was appointed dean of Canterbury and chaplain to the king, and was raised to the archbishopric on the death of Living in 1020. He wisely counselled Canute to that course of policy which ultimately led to the fusion of Danes and Saxons, and their united resistance to the invasion of the Normans; and similar pacific counsels in the church brought about a temporary cessation of the mutual persecution on the part of the Benedictine and secular clergy. It being necessary that the archbishop should visit Rome in person to receive the pall, he repaired thither in 1022, and was received by Pope Benedictine VIII. with every mark of honour. At Pavia, on his way home, he purchased a relic, which was said to be the right arm of St Augustine of Hippo, at the cost of 100 talents of silver and 1 of gold. This he sent as a present to Leofric, the young Earl of Mercia. With his own wealth and liberal grants from Canute he restored and adorned his cathedral. When Canute died, he made the archbishop promise to be faithful to his sons by Emma, and the pro mise was so truly kept that Harold, the usurper, remained unconsecrated until after the death of Agelnoth (1038). AGEN, the chief town of the department of Lot-et- Garonne in France, is situated on the right bank of the Garonne, 73 miles S.E. of Bordeaux. Through its ex cellent water communication it affords an outlet for the-