Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 01.djvu/775

APPARENT. as well as upon its real magnitude. A planet seen from the surface of the earth seems nearer the horizon tlian if seen from tlie centre of the earth: what is seen from the surface of the earth is the apparent altitude of the planet; its real altitude would be seen if an observation could be made from the centre of the earth. The apparent altitiule differs from the true on ac- count of paralla.x and refraction (qq.v.). Appar- ent noon is when the visible sun is on the merid- ian; true or mean noon is tlie time wlien the sun would be on the meridian if his motion in the heavens were uniform and parallel to the equator. (See Equation of Time.) The daily and annual motions of the sun in the heavens are both apparent motions, caused by two real mo- tions of the earth. In general, apparent phe- nomena are the phenomena of the actual visible heavenly bodies, while the corresponding true phenomena are what the former would be if cer- tain disturbing causes were eliminated. See also Appearance. AP'PARI'TION (Lat. apparitio, an appearance, from ad. to + parere, to come forth, be visible). An illusion or hallucination in which objects, conuiionly human beings, are seen with such vividness as to be regarded as real. The hallucinations of delirium or insanity are not included under this term. Before the diftusion of modern science, there existed a well-nigh universal belief in the reality of apparitions. Greek and Roman poetry abounds with instances; folklore owes nuich of its attractiveness to its wealth of spectres and phantoms, fairies and brownies, and its witches and ghost-haunted houses. Dr. Johnson voices the universality of this belief, and, incidentally, gives us a glimpse of a vein of superstition and credulity in his nature when, in his Kasselas, he causes Imlac to say: "That the dead are seen no more I will not undertake to maintain against the concurrent testimony of all ages and all nations. There is no people, rude and unlearned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed." It is not difficult to imdcrstand how the untutored savage, encouraged by the events of his di'eam conscious- ness which led him to believe in a spirit-self ex- isting apart from its body-self, should come to have an equally strong belief in the external- ity of the apparitions which he saw in his wak- ing consciousness. Indeed, authorities are not wanting who see in the attitude of earlj' man to apparitions the most important, if not the unique, origin of religion. Whether this be true or not, we know that many social phenomena which present religious phases (e.g., witchcraft), have owed the possibility of their existence large- ly to a widespread belief in apparitions. The reign of universal superstition has, it is true, given way before the onward progress of the scientific spirit; but the more subtle variations of the belief in apparitions have not as yet en- tirely disappeared. There still prevails a belief in the supernormal nature of apparitions as man- ifested in clairvoyance (q.v. ), telepathy (q.v.), and spiritualism. We need refer, for example, only to the birth in 1847 of modern spiritualism, as a direct descendant of the belief in "haunted houses." In 1882 the Society for Psychical Research was instituted in England. One of its express purposes was to collect data upon the subject of apparitions. Much material has been published in the "Proceedings" of the Society, and in book form by Gurney, Myers, and Pod- more. These authors express the relation of apparitions to telepathy in the following passage: "This book, then, claims to show ( 1 ) that experimental telepathy exists, and (2) that appartitions at death, etc., are a result of something beyond chance, whence it follows (3) that these experimental and these spontaneous cases of the action of mind on mind are in some way allied." The opposing position is that of Buckley, who asserts that "before endeavoring to explain how phenomena exist, it is necessary to determine precisely what exists; and so long as it is possible to find a rational explanation of what unquestionably is, there is no reason to suspect, and it is superstition to assume, the operation of supernatural causes." If we apply this cri- terion to the lately collected evidence for appari- tions, we must discount for errors of observa- tion, for errors of memory, and for the strong influence of autosuggestion (q.v. ). We shall then find that we have left certain unexplained phenomena. Those who do not believe in ap- paritions account for these as illusions or hal- lucinations (q.v.).

. Buckley. Faith Healing, Christian f<eience, and Kindred Phenomena (New York. 1892) ; Hibbert, Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions (London, 1824) ; Gurney. Myers, and Podmore, Phantasms of the Living (London, 188G) ; Podmore, Apparitions and Thonght-Transference (Lomlon. 1S!)5): Tylor, Primitive Cult are (New York, !S71).

APPEAL' (from Lat. appcUarc, to address, appeal to, call, summon). In English legal procedure, a term that has two distinct meanings.

(1) It denotes an accusation by a private person against another for some heinous crime, demanding punishment on acount of the injury to the appellor, rather than for the public oil'ense. This method of prosecution remained in force until abolished by act of Parliament in 1819 (59 Geo. III., c. 46), although it had been used but rarely for a century prior thereto. The last appeal of murder brought in England (which led to the enactment of the statute above referred to) was that of Ashford vs. Thornton, instituted in 1818, and reported in 1 Barnwell and Alderson, 405. See Blackstone, Conuncniaries.

(2) The other signification, attached to the term by Blackstone, is that of a complaint to a superior court of an injustice done by an inferior one. The object of such an appeal is td secure the reversal or modification of the decision of the inferior court through the intervention of a superior tribunal. Originally, the word was confined to a proceeding for the'review of a decision in an equity, an admiralty, or an ecclesiastical cause. Common-law judgments were reviewed by a writ of error. Thechief distinction between a writ of error and an appeal was that the former brought before the higher court only errors of law in the court below, while the latter brought up questions of fact as well as of law. The tendency of modern legislation is toward the abolition of forms of action and the substitution of an appeal for a writ of error. The grounds of ajipeal, the courts to which an appeal nmy be taken, and the methods of prosecuting appeals, are regulated in the various jurisdictions by statutes and court rules. These are so diverse that no attempt will be made here, to state their provisFons. See Court; Pleading.