Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/600

538 soil. Various opinions appear to prevail, e.g., as to grass growing on the surface and minerals found beneath. The difficulty as to religious services does not exist. On the other hand, the religious character of the ground is hostile to many of the legal rights recognized by the English Law.  BURIAL RITES. See.  BURIATS, a Mongolian race, who dwell in the vicinity of the Baikal Lake, for the most part in the government of Irkutsk and the Trans-Baikal territory. They are divided into various tribes or clans, which generally take their names from the locality they frequent. These tribes are subdivided according to kinship. In 1857 the Buriats numbered 190,000, about two-thirds of whom were in the Trans-Baikal territory. They have high cheek-bones, broad and flat noses, and sparse hair on the chin. The men shave their heads like the Chinese, and leave a tail at the top. In summer they dress in silk and cotton gowns, in winter in furs and sheepskins. Their principal occupation is the rearing of cattle ; and some of them possess about 500 oxen and nearly 1000 horses. Some tribes, especially the Idinese, the Kudinese, the Alarese, and the Khorinese, also engage in agriculture, a department of activity which was totally neglected till 1796, when the last-mentioned tribe first turned its attention to it. As early as 1802 the produce of the Irkutsk government was no less than 9800 quarters of grain; and in 1839 the Buriats had 229,500 acres under cultivation. Their soil is generally fertile, and they have an elaborate system of irrigation by canals and trenches. Their only implements are the ploiigh and the harrow. Wheat, rye, spring corn, and oats are their principal crops ; and a large quantity of hay is made for their cattle. A good deal of activity is also shown in trapping and fishing. In religion the Buriats are mainly Buddhists; and their head lama (Khambo Lama) lives at the Goose Lake (Gusinoe Ozero). Others are Shamanists, and their most sacred spot is the Shamanic stone at the mouth of the River Angar. A few only, about 9000 or 10,000, are Christians. A knowledge of reading and writing is diffused, especially among the Trans-Baikal Buriats, who possess books of their own, chiefly translated from the Thibetan. Their own language is Mongolian, and presents three distinct dialects, of which the Selengese is nearest to the written form. The Russians became acquainted with the Buriats in the beginning of the 16th century. In 1631 there was built in their territory, for the purpose of bringing them into subjection, the Bratski block-house, whence arose the Russian designa tion of Bratski applied to the Buriats. This building was followed by the Kanski block-house in 1640, the Ver- kholenski in 1641, the Udinski in 1648, the Balaganski in 1654, and finally in 1661 by Irkutsk itself. The Buriats frequently besieged these posts and attacked the Russians, and in 1661 they even slew the Russian ambassador, Zabolotski ; but in the end of the 17th century they were finally subdued. (See Gmelin, Siberia ; Pallas, Mongol. Volkersch. ; Castren, Versuch einer Buratisch. Sprachlehre.)  BURIDAN,, a celebrated philosopher who flourished in the 14th century, was born at Bethune in Artois, but in what year is not known. He studied at Paris under William of Occam, and became an ardent nominalist. The legend which represents him as having been involved, when a student, in the terrible drama of the Tour de Neslo has no discoverable historical basis. He long held the office of professor of philosophy in the university of Paris; in 1327 he was its rector; in 1345 he was deputed to defend its interests before Philip of Valois and at Rome. He was alive in 1358, but the year of his death has not been recorded. The tradition that he was forced to flee from France along with other nominalists, and that ho settled in Vienna, and there founded the -BUR university in 1356, is unsupported by evidence and in contradiction to the fact that the university of Vienna was founded by Frederick II. in 1237. An ordinance of Louis XL, in 1473, directed against the nominalists, prohibited the reading of his works. These works treat of logic, metaphysics, physics, ethics, and politics; theology is deliberately avoided on the ground that it does not rest on reason alone, and does not proceed exclusively by argumenta tion. In philosophy Buridan acknowledged no other authority than that of reason. He followed Occam in resolutely denying all objective reality to universals. He held that singulars or individuals alone exist, and that universals are mere words. &quot; Genera et species non sunt nisi termini apud animam existentes vel etiam termini vocales aut scripti, qui non dicuntur genera aut species nisi secundum attributionem ad terminos mentales quos desig- nant.&quot; Occam had not gone so far. The chief aim of his logic is commonly represented as having been the devising of rules for the easy and rapid discovery of syllogistic middle terms, the construction of a dialectical j)ons asinorum, but there is nothing in his writings to warrant this representation. The parts of logic which he has treated with most minuteness and subtility are the doctrines of modal propositions and of modal syllogisms. In comment ing on Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics he dealt in a very independent and interesting manner with the question of free will. The conclusions at which he arrived are remarkably similar to those long afterwards reached by John Locke. The only liberty which he ascribes to the soul is a certain power of suspending the deliberative process and determining the direction of the intellect. Otherwise the will is entirely dependent on the view of the mind, the last result of examination. The comparison of the will unable to act between two equally balanced motives to a hungry ass unable to eat between two equal and equidistant bundles of hay is not found in any of his works, and may have been invented by his opponents to ridicule his determinism. His works are Summula de dialectics, 1487 ; Compendium logicce, 1489 ; Qucestiones in viii. libros physicorum, &c., 1516 ; In Aristotelis Metaphysica, 1518; Qucestiones in x. libros ctliicorum Aristotelis, 1489 ; Qucestiones in viii. libros politicorum Aristotelis, 1500. There may be consulted regarding him, besides the general histories of philosophy, Bayle s Dictionary, art. &quot; Buridan &quot;; Prantl s Geschichte der Logik, bk. iv. 14-38 ; and Stockl s Geschichte der Philosophic, des Mittclalters, Bd. ii. 1023- 1028.  BURKE,, one of the greatest names in the history of political literature. There have been many more important statesmen, for he was never tried in a position of supreme responsibility. There have been many more effective orators, for lack of imaginative suppleness prevented him from penetrating to the inner mind of his hearers ; defects in delivery weakened the intrinsic persuasiveness of his reasoning ; and he had not that commanding authority of character and personality which has so often been the secret of triumphant eloquence. There have been many stibtler, more original, and more systematic thinkers about the conditions of the social union. But no one that ever lived used the general ideas of the thinker more successfully to judge the particular problems of the statesman. No one has ever come so close to the details of practical politics, and at the same time remembered that these can only bo understood and only dealt with by the aid of the broad conceptions of political philosophy. And what is more than all for perpetuity of fame, he was one of the great masters of the high and difficult art of elaborate composition. A certain doubtfulness hangs over the circumstances of Burke s life previous to the opening of his public career. 