Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/74

Rh 58 A B S A B S relation to its contradictory (as not man) within the universe of being; the correlatives, under less general notions, being then generally expressed positively as con traries (woman, boy, master, brute, and so forth, for man). If there is thus no name or notion that can strictly be called absolute, all knowledge may be said to be relative, or of the relative. But the knowledge of an absolute has also been held impossible, on the ground that knowing is itself a relation between a subject and an object; what is known only in relation to a mind cannot be known as absolute. This doctrine, now commonly spoken of under the name of the Relativity of Knowledge, may, indeed, be brought under the former view, in which subject-object marks the relation of highest philosophical significance within the whole universe of things. Keeping, however, the two views apart, we may say with double force that of the absolute there is no knowledge, (1), because, to be known, a thing must be consciously discriminated from other things; and (2), because it can be known only in relation with a knowing mind. Notwithstanding, there have been thinkers from the earliest times, who, in dif ferent ways, and more or less explicitly, allow of no such restriction upon knowledge, or at least consciousness, but, on the contrary, starting from a notion, by the latter among them called the absolute, which includes within it the opposition of subject and object, pass therefrom to the explanation of all the phenomena of nature and of mind. In earlier days the Eleatics, Plato, and Plotinus, in modern times Spinoza, Leibnitz, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Cousin, all have joined, under whatever dif ferent forms, in maintaining this view. Kant, while denying the absolute or unconditioned as an object of knowledge, leaves it conceivable, as an idea regulative of the mind s intellectual experience. It is against any such absolute, whether as real or conceivable, that Hamilton and Mansel have taken ground, the former in his famous review of Cousin s philosophy, reprinted in his Discussions, the latter in his Bampton Lectures on The Limits of Religious Thought, basing their arguments indifferently on the positions as to the Relativity of Knowledge indicated above. For absolute in its more strictly metaphysical use, see METAPHYSICS. (G. c. E.) ABSOLUTION, a term used in civil and ecclesiastical law, denotes the act of setting free or acquitting. In a criminal process it signifies the acquittal of an accused person on the ground that the evidence has either dis proved or failed to prove the charge brought against him. It is now little used except in Scotch law, in the forms assoilzie and absolvitor. The ecclesiastical usage of the word is essentially different from the civil. It refers to sin actually committed, and denotes the setting of a person free from its guilt, or from its penal consequences, or from both. It is invariably connected with penitence, and some form of confession, the Scripture authority, to which the Roman Catholics, the Greek Church, and Protestants equally appeal, being found in John xx. 23, James v. 16, &c. In the primitive church the injunction of James was literally obeyed, and confession was made before the whole congregation, whose presence and concurrence were reckoned necessary to the validity of the absolution pro nounced by the presbyter. In the 4th century the bishops began to exercise the power of absolution in their own right, without recognising the congregations. In conse quence of this the practice of private confession (confessio auricularis) was established, and became more and more common, until it was rendered imperative once a year by a decree of the fourth Lateran Council (1215). A dis tinction, indeed, was made for a time between peccata vcnialia, which might be confessed to a layman, and tfeccata mortalia, which could only be confessed to a priest; but this waS ultimately abolished, and the Roman Canon Law now stands, Nee venialia nee mortalia possumus confiteri sacramentaliter, nisi sacerdoti, A change in the form of absolution was almost a logical sequence of the change in the nature of the confession. At first the priest acted ministerially as an intercessory, using the formula absolutionis precativa or deprecative!, which consisted of the words : Dominus absolvat te Misereatur tui omnipotent Deus et dimittat tibi omnia peccata tua. This is still the only form in the Greek Church, and it finds a place in the Roman Catholic service, though it is no longer used in the act of absolution. The Romish form was altered in the 13th century, and the Council of Trent decreed the use of the formula absolutionis indicativa, where the priest acts judicially, as himself possessed of the power of bind ing and loosing, and says, Ego absolvo te. Where a form of absolution is used in Protestant Churches, it is simply declarative, the state being only indicated, and in no sense or degree assumed to be caused by the declaration. ABSORPTION, in the animal economy, the function possessed by the absorbent system of vessels of taking up nutritive and other fluids. See PHYSIOLOGY. ABSTEMII, a name formerly given to such persons as could not partake of the cup of the eucharist on account of their natural aversion to wine. Calvinists allowed these to communicate in the species of bread only, touching the cup with their lip; which was by the Lutherans deemed a profanation. Among several Protestant sects, both in Great Britain and America, abstemii on a some what different principle have recently appeared. These are total abstainers, who maintain that the use of stimu lants is essentially sinful, and allege that the wine used by Christ and his disciples at the supper was unfermented. They accordingly communicate in the unfermented &quot;juice of the grape.&quot; The difference of opinion on this point has led to a good deal of controversy in many congrega tions, the solution generally arrived at being to allow both wine and the pure juice of the grape to be served at the communion table. ABSTRACTION, in Psychology and Logic, is a word used in several distinguishable but closely allied senses. First, in a comprehensive sense, it is often applied to that process by which we fix the attention upon one part of what is present to the mind, to the exclusion of another part ; abstraction thus conceived being merely the nega tive of ATTENTION (q. v.) In this sense we are able in thought to abstract one object from another, or an attribute from an object, or an attribute perceived by one sense from those perceived by other senses. Even in cases when thoughts or images have become inseparably associated, we possess something of this power of abstract ing or turning the attention upon one rather than another. Secondly, the word is used, with a more special significa tion, to describe that concentration of attention upon the resemblances of a number of objects, which constitutes classification. And thirdly, not to mention other less important changes of meaning, the whole process of generalisation, by which the mind forms the notions expressed by common terms, is frequently, through a curious transposition of names, spoken of as abstraction. Especially when understood in its less comprehensive connection, the process of abstraction possesses a peculiar interest. To the psychologist it is interesting, because there is nothing he is more desirous to understand than the mode of formation and true nature of what are called general notions. And fortunately, with regard to the abstractive process by which these are formed, at least in its initial stages, there is little disagreement ; since every one describes it as a process of comparison, by which the mind is enabled to consider the objects confusedly pre-