Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/161

Rh libraries. The most important of his works is that noticed by Averroes, who promised a complete discussion of it, but unfortunately neither the treatise nor the exposition has come down to us. Our knowledge of it is almost entirely drawn from the notices given by Moses of Narbonne, a Jewish writer of the 14th century, in his commentary on the somewhat similar work of Ibn Tofail. The title of the work may be translated as the Regime or C onduct of the Solitary, understanding by that the organised system of rules, by obedience to which the individual may rise from the mere life of the senses to the perception of pure intelligible principles, and may participate in the divine thought which sustains the world. These rules for the individual are but the image or reflex of the political organisation of the perfect or ideal state ; and the man who strives to lead this life is called the solitary, not because he withdraws from society, but because, while in it, he remains a stranger to its ways, and guides himself by reference to a higher state, an ideal society. Avempace does not develop at any length this curious Platonic idea of the perfect state. His object is to discover the highest end of human life, and with this view he classifies the various activities of the human soul, rejects such as are material or animal, and then analyses the various spiritual forms to which the activities may be directed. He points out the graduated scale of such forms, through which the soul may rise, and shows that none are final or complete in themselves, except the pure intelligible forms, the ideas of ideas. These the intellect can grasp, and in so doing it becomes what he calls intellectus acquisitus, and is in a measure divine. This self-consciousness of pure reason is the highest object of human activity, and is to be attained by the speculative method. The intellect has in itself power to know ultimate truth and intelligence, and does not require a mystical illumination as Algazali taught. Avempace s principles, it is clear, lead directly to the Averroistic doctrine of the unity of intellect, but the obscurity and incompleteness of the Regime do not permit us to judge how far he anticipated the later thinker. (See Munk, Melanges de Phil. Juiveet Arabe, pp. 383-410.)

 AVENBRUGGER, or AUENBRUGGER, LEOPOLD, a phy sician of Vienna, the discoverer of the important mode of investigating diseases of the chest and abdomen by auscul tation. His method was to apply the ear to the chest, and to note the sounds it afforded on percussion by the hand, or what is called immediate auscultation. His Latin trea tise, Inventum novum ex Percussione Thoracis Humani Interni Pectoris Morbos detegendi, published in 1761, excited little attention, until it was translated and illus trated by Corvisart, in 1808, when it soon led the way to Laennec s great improvement of aiding the ear by the stethoscope, or mediate auscultation. The great value of the method introduced by Avenbrugger, in the diagnosis of internal diseases, is now universally acknowledged. He was born at Griitz in 1722, and died in 1809.

 AVENTINUS [JOHANN THURMAYR], author of the Annals of Bavaria, was born in the year 1466 at Abens- berg. He studied first at Ingoldstadt, and afterwards in the university of Paris. In 1503 he privately taught rhetoric and poetry at Vienna, and in 1507 he publicly taught Greek at Cracow, in Poland. In 1509 he read lectures on some of Cicero s works at Ingoldstadt, and in 1512 was appointed preceptor to Prince Ludwig and Prince Ernst, sons of Albert the Wise, duke of Bavaria, and travelled with the latter of these princes. After spending several years in the collection of materials he undertook to write the Annales Boiorum, or Annals of Bavaria, being encouraged by the dukes of that territory, who settled a pension upon him, and gave him hopes that they would defray the expenses of publication. He finished, but did not publish, his work in 1528, and in the following year he was imprisoned on suspicion of heresy. He was soon released from confinement, but the indignity he had suf fered seriously affected him. He died in 1534 at Ratisbon. His history, which has gained for him considerable repu tation as a writer, was published, but with some important omissions, in 1554, by Ziegler, professor of poetry in the university of Ingoldstadt. These passages, which were adverse to the Roman Catholics, were all restored in the edition published at Basle in 1580, by Nicholas Cisner. Besides his other writings, Gesner attributes to him a curious work, entitled Numerandi per digitos manusque Veterum Gonsuetudines.

 AVENZOAR [ABU MERWAN ABDALMALEC IBN ZOHR], an eminent Arabian physician, who flourished about the end of the llth or beginning of the 12th century, was born at Seville, where he exercised his profession with great reputation. His ancestors had been celebrated as physi cians for several generations, and his son was afterwards held by the Arabians to be even more eminent in his pro fession than Avenzoar himself. He was contemporary with Averroes, who, according to Leo Africanus, heard his lectures and learned physic of him. This seems probable, because Averroes more than once gives Avenzoar very high and partly deserved praise, calling him admirable, glorious, the treasure of all knowledge, and the most supreme in physic from the time of Galen to his own. Avenzoar, not withstanding, is by the generality of writers reckoned an empiric ; but Dr Freind observes that this character suits him less than any other of the Arabian physicians. Aven zoar belonged, in many respects, to the Dogmatists or Rational School, rather than to the Empirics. He was a great admirer of Galen ; and in his writings he protests emphatically against quackery and the superstitious re medies of the astrologers. He shows no inconsiderable knowledge of anatomy in his remarkable description of inflammation and abscess of the mediastinum in his own person, and its diagnosis from common pleuritis as well as from abscess and dropsy of the pericardium. In cases of obstruction or of palsy of the gullet, his three modes of treatment are ingenious. He proposes to support the strength by placing the patient in a tepid bath of nutritious liquids, that might enter by cutaneous imbibition, but does not recommend this. He speaks more favourably of the introduction of food into the stomach by a silver tube ; and he strongly recommends the use of nutritive enemata. From his writings it would appear that the offices of physi cian, surgeon, and apothecary were already considered as distinct professions. He wrote a book entitled The Method of Preparing Medicines and Diet, which was translated into Hebrew in the year 1280, and thence into Latin by Para- vicius, whose version, first printed at Venice 1490, has passed through several editions.

 AVERAGE, a term used in maritime commerce to signify damages or expenses resulting from the accidents of navigation. Average is either general or particular. General average arises when sacrifices have been made, or expenditures incurred, for the preservation of the ship, cargo, and freight, from some peril of the sea, or from its effects. It implies a subsequent contribution, from all the parties concerned, rateably to the values of their respective interests, to make good the loss thus occasioned. Particular average signifies the damage or partial loss happening to the ship, goods, or freight by some fortuitous or unavoidable accident. It is borne by the parties to whose property the misfortune happens, or by their insurers. The term average originally meant what is now distinguished as general average ; and the expression &quot; particular average,&quot; although not strictly accurate, came to be afterwards used for the convenience of distinguishing those damages or partial 