Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/286

Rh R A M R A M shortly afterwards bound apprentice to a mathematical instrument maker. He afterwards started business on his own account and acquired great celebrity as an artist. He died on 5th November 1800. Ramsden's speciality was divided circles, which began to super- sede the quadrants in observatories towards the end of the 18th century. His most celebrated work was a 5-feet vertical circle, which "was finished in 1789 and was used by Piazzi at Palermo in constructing his well-known catalogue of stars. He was the first to carry out in practice a method of reading off angles (first suggested in 1768 by the duke of Chaulnes) by measuring the distance of the index from the nearest division line by means of a micrometer screw which moves one or two fine threads placed in the focus of a micro- scope. Ramsden's transit instruments were the first which were illuminated through the hollow axis ; the idea was suggested to him by Professor Ussher in Dublin. RAMSGATE, a seaport and watering-place of England, in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, and a " vill " of the old Cinque Port of Sandwich, is finely situated between chalk cliffs at the northern extremity of Pegwell Bay, on the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, 79 miles east-south-east of London. It possesses a fine stretch of sand, and is much frequented as a watering-place. It first rose into import- ance in the beginning of the 18th century through its trade with Russia. In 1749 it was selected as a harbour of refuge for the Downs, and the erection of a pier under the direc- tion of Smeaton was begun in 1787. The harbour has been improved at various periods, and now (1885) covers an area of 51 acres, enclosed by two piers, one about 1200 and the other about 1500 feet in length, accommodation being afforded for as many as 400 sail. The limits of the port were extended in 1882. A considerable shipping trade in coal and provisions is carried on, and there is also a fleet of 150 vessels engaged in the North Sea fishery. A fine promenade pier was erected in 1881. The town possesses a town-hall (1839), assembly rooms, and exten- sive bathing establishments. The church of St George was built in 1826. There is a small Roman Catholic cathedral, built by Welby Pugin. The neighbouring Peg- well Bay, famed for its shrimps, is supposed to have been the scene of the landing of Hengist and Horsa, and at Cliff's End (Ebbs Fleet) a monolithic cross marks the landing-place of St Augustine in 596. On the summit of Osengal Hill, about a mile to the west of the town, a graveyard of the early Saxon settlers was discovered during the cutting of the railway. Ramsgate was incorporated as a borough in 1884. The population of the urban sanitary district (area 2278 acres) in 1871 was 19,640, and in 1881 22,683, or, including 638 fishermen at sea, 23,321. RAMUS, PETER, or PIERRE DE LA RAMEE (1515-1572), logician, was born at the village of Cuth in Picardy in the year 1515. He was descended from a noble family, which had fallen, however, into such poverty that his father earned his livelihood as a field-labourer. The early death of his father increased Ramus's difficulties in obtain- ing the education for which he thirsted. But at last his perseverance was rewarded by admission, in a menial capacity, to the college of Navarre. He worked with his hands by day and carried on his studies at night. The reaction against scholasticism was still in full tide ; it was the transition time between the old and the new, when the eager and forward-looking spirits had first of all to do battle with scholastic Aristotelianism. In the domain of logic men like Laurentius Valla, Rudolphus Agricola, and Ludovicus Vives, imbued with the spirit of the Renais- sance, had already invoked Cicero against the barbarous Latinity of the scholastic compends ; and, following the same prototype, they had proposed various innovations which tended to assimilate logic to rhetoric. Ramus out- did his predecessors in the impetuosity of his revolt. He signalized himself on the occasion of taking his degree (1536) by victoriously defending the daring thesis Every- thing that Aristotle taught is false. This (our d? force was followed up by the publication in 1543 of Aristotelicss Animadversiones and Dialectics Partitiones, the former a criticism on the old logic and the latter a new text-book of the science. What are substantially fresh editions of the Partitiones appeared in 1547 as Institutiones Dialectics^, and in 1548 as Scholx Dialectics; his Dialectique, a French version of his system, is the earliest work on the subject in the French language. Meanwhile Ramus, as graduate of the university, had opened courses of lectures ; but his audacities drew upon him the determined hostility of the conservative party in philosophy and theology. He was accused of undermining the foundations of philosophy and religion, and the matter was brought before the parlemcnt of Paris, and finally before the king. By him it was re- ferred to a commission of five, who found Ramus guilty of having "acted rashly, arrogantly, and impudently," and interdicted his lectures (1544). He withdrew from Paris, but soon afterwards returned, the decree against him being cancelled through the influence of the cardinal of Lorraine. In 1551 Henry II. appointed him professor of philosophy and eloquence at the College de France, where for a considerable time he enjoyed free scope for his energies. His incessant literary activity is proved by the fifty works which he published in his lifetime, to which must be added nine that appeared after his death. In 1561, however, the slumbering enmity against Ramus was suddenly fanned into flame by his adoption of Protestant- ism. He had to flee from Paris for his life ; and, though he found an asylum in the palace of Fontainebleau, his house was pillaged and his library burned in his absence. He resumed his chair after this for a time, but in 1568 the position of affairs was again so threatening that he found it advisable to ask permission to travel. He travelled mainly in Switzerland and Germany, residing some time in Basel, Heidelberg, Geneva, and Lausanne, and meeting everywhere with the most flattering reception. Returning to France, Ramus at last fell a victim to the inveterate hate of his opponents : he perished by the hands of hired assassins in the massacre of St Bartholomew (1572). The logic of Ramus enjoyed a great celebrity for a time, and there existed a school of Ramists boasting numerous adherents in France, Germany, and Holland. As late as 1626 Burgersdyck divides the logicians of his day into the Aristotelians, the Ramists, and the Semi-Ramists, who endeavoured, like Goclenius of Mar- burg, to mediate between the contending parties. Ramus's works appear among the logical text-books of the Scottish universities, and he was not without his followers in England in the 17th cen- tury. There is even a little treatise from the hand of Milton, published two years before his death, called Artis Logicse Plcnior Institutio ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata. It cannot be said, however, that Ramus's innovations mark any epoch in the history of logic ; and, though some of his additions have maintained their ground, he has made no contribution of fundamental importance to the science. His rhetorical leaning is seen in the definition of logic as the "ars disserendi " ; he maintains that the rules of logic may be better learned from observation of the way in which Cicero persuaded his hearers than from a study of the Organon. The dis- tinction between natural and artificial logic, i.e., between the im- plicit logic of daily speech and the same logic made explicit in a system, passed over into the logical handbooks. Logic falls, accord- ing to Ramus, into two parts invention (treating of the notion and definition) and judgment (comprising the judgment proper, syllogism, and method). This division gave rise to the jocular designation of judgment or mother-wit as the " secunda Petri. " He is, perhaps, most suggestive in his emendations of the syllogism. He admits only the first three figures, as in the original Aristotelian scheme, and in his later works he also attacks the validity of the third figure, following in this the precedent of Laurentius Valla. Ramus also set the modern fashion of deducing the figures from the position of the middle term in the premises, instead of basing them, as Aristotle does, upon the different relation of the middle to the so-called major and minor term. On the whole, however, though Ramus may be allowed to have advanced logical study by the wholesome fermentation of thought which he caused, we are Jj m