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ACTION. affective formations — emotions and sentiments; the feelings of obscurity, of contradiction, of resolve, of decision; the characteristic oscillatory emotion of doubt; the emotions of relief, of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, of hope, of disappointment; the sentiments of power, of pride, of æsthetic fitness, of moral rightness. (See Emotion.) And in place of the passive attention which the single impulse-motive commands, we have an active, effortful attention divided among the various potential motives contained in the "situation." It is the business of descriptive psychology to unravel the processes of these motive-consciousnesses, and to trace the single pattern (the impulse pattern) that runs through them all. It is the business of experimental psychology to examine the impulse under standard conditions; to build it up from the given elements, and to construct artificial selective and volitional actions from a number of simple impulses. This task it accomplishes by aid of the reaction experiment. Consult: A. Bain, The Emotions and the Will (London, 1880); H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology (New York, 1881); W. Wundt, Vorlesungen über die Menschen- und Tierseele (3d ed., ib., 1897: trans. as Human and Animal Psychology, London, 1896); id., Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie (5th ed., Leipzig, 1902).

AC'TIUM, ak'shl-ilm, now. A town and promontory on the west coast of Greece at the tntrance of the Ambracian Gulf, now the Gulf of Arta. It is memorable for the sea fight which took place near it September 2d, 31 B.C. between Octavius (afterward the Emperor Augustus) and Marcus Antonius. These two had for some time ruled the Roman world jointly, the former in the west, the latter in the east. It now came to a struggle for the sole sovereignty. The two armies were encamped on the opposite shores of the gulf. Octavius had 80,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 260 ships of war; Antony, 100,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 220 ships. Antony's ships were large and well provided with engines for throwing missiles, but clumsy in their movements: Octavius's were smaller and more agile. Antony was supported by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, with sixty vessels, who induced him, against the opinion of his most experienced generals, to determine upon a naval engagement. The battle continued for some hours undecided; at last Agrippa, who commanded Octavius's fleet, succeeded by a skillful manœuvre in compelling Antony to extend his line of battle, the compactness of which had hitherto resisted all attempts of the enemy to break through. Cleopatra, whose ships were stationed behind Antony's line, apprehensive of that line's being broken, took to flight with her auxiliary fleet, and Antony recklessly followed her with a few of his ships. The deserted fleet continued to resist bravely for some time, but was finally vanquished; the land army, after waiting in vain seven days for Antony's return, surrendered to Octavius. As a memorial of the victory that had given him the empire of the world, and out of gratitude to the gods, Octavius enlarged the temple of Apollo at Actium, dedicated the trophies he had taken, and instituted games (Ludi Actiaci) to be celebrated every five years. He also built on the spot where his army had been encamped the town of Nicopolis (city of victory), near where Prevesa now stands. The battle of Actium is described in Greek by Plutarch (Life of Antony) and by Dion Cassius (bk. 1.). See Antonius, Marcus; Augustus; Cleopatra.

ACT OF FAITH. See.

ACT OF PARLIAMENT, par'li-ment. A resolution or law passed by all tlie three branches of the English legislature, the king (or queen), lords, and commons; or, as it is formally expressed, "by the King's Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same." An act of parliament thus made is the highest legal authority acknowledged by the constitution. It binds every subject, and, with a few exceptions, every alien in the land, and even the sovereign himself, if named therein. And in England it cannot be altered, amended, dispensed with, suspended, or repealed but in the same forms and by the same authority of parliament. In Scotland, however, a long course of contrary usage or of disuse may have the effect of depriving a statute of its obligation ; for by the Scotch law a statute may become obsolete by disuse and cease to be legally binding. It was formerly held in England that the King might in many cases dispense with statutes, especially such as were of a penal character; but by the statute 1 W. and M.. st. 2, c. 2, it is declared that the suspending or dispensing with laws by royal authority without consent of parliament is illegal.

An act of parliament is either public or private. A public act regards the whole empire or one of its main subdivisions, in which case it is general; or a subordinate part, in which case it is local; but the operation of a private act is confined to particular persons and private concerns. As the law till lately stood, the courts of law were bound ex officio to take judicial notice, as it is called, of public acts — that is, to recognize these acts as known and published law, without the necessity of their being specially pleaded and proved; but it was otherwise in regard to private acts, so that in order to claim any advantage under a private act it was necessary to plead it and set it forth particularly. But now, by the 13 and 14 Vict. c. 21, s. 7, every act of parliament is to be taken to be a public one, and judicially noticed as such unless the contrary be expressly declared.

An act of parliament begins to operate from the time when it receives the royal assent, unless some other time be fixed for the purpose by the act itself. The rule on this subject in England was formerly different, for at common law every act of parliament which had no provision to the contrary was considered as soon as it passed (i.e., received the royal assent) as having been in force retrospectively from the first day of the session of parliament in which it passed, though in fact it might not have received the royal assent, or even been introduced into parliament, until long after that day; and this strange principle was rigidly observed for centuries. The ancient acts of the Scotch parliament were proclaimed in all the county towns, burghs, and even in the baron courts. This mode of promulgation was, however, gradually dropped as the use of printing became common, and in 1581 an act was passed declaring publication at the Market Cross of Edinburgh to be sufficient. British statutes require no formal promulgation, and in order to fix the time from which they shall become binding it was enacted