Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/902

* ELEGIT. 786 ever small, works a satisfaction of the debt, how- ever large. The creditor seeks, therefore, to ex- haust all the personal jjroperty of tlic debtor be- fore enforcing an elegit against his land. The writ is employed in only a few of onr States. Consult the coniniciitaries of Kent and Black- stone, and the authorities referred to under ExE- CLTIOX. ELEGY (Lat. clcykt, Gk. Ae-)e(o. elegcia, elegj-. from ee7o!, vknos. mourning song). A word eni])loye(i at an early ])eriod by the Greeks to designate any poem written in distichs. The alternation, peculiar to this measure, of the hexameter with the pentameter (known, specif- ically, as "elegiiic verse") gives to this species of poetry its individual character. Earnest, long- sustained feelings, rarely violent ])assions. are expressed in the elegy. Of the numerous elegies of the Greeks, few have come down to us. Those still e.xtant consist partly of encouragements to patriotism, as in Callinus and Tyrtteus, and partly of lessons of practical wisdom, as in Solon and Theognis. This was especially the case at Alexandria. Among the Romans. Catullus was the first good elegiac writer; after him came Propcrtins. TibuUus. and Ovid. Tibullus. in particular, brought the erotic eleg' to its highest perfection. In modern times the term elegy is applied to any .serious piece where a tone of melanclioly ])ervades the sentiments, whether grief is actually expressed or not. Elegy, in music, is a composition depicting feelings of mourning, sadness, longing or ardent dc~ire, and love. ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. A ipoem written by Thomas (ii.iy (i|.v. 1. It was finished in 1750, although it is said to have been begun seven or eight years before. The original churchyard is thought to have been that of Stoke-Pogis. in Bucking- hamshire. The poem first appeared on February l(i. 17.51, and rapidly ran through a numl)er of editions. In 17.53 it was published, together with five others of Gray's poems, in a folio vohnne with remarkable illustrations by Richard I?ent- ley. Since then the poem has been frequently re- printed and illustrated. ELEMENTAL SPIRITS. Beings who. ac- cording to the |)opular lielief of the Middle Ages, presided over the four "elements.' living in and rjding them. In a work attril>uted to Paracelsus, the elemental spirits of fire are called salaman- ders; those of water, undines: those of the air, sylphs : and those of the earth, gnomes. ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. See Common Schools: Si uooi.s. ELEMENTS. In astronomy, the numerical quantities employed in the construction of tables of the jdanetary motions. They include: (I) The semi-major axis of the orbit; (2) the eccen- tricity; (.")) the inclination of the orbital plane to the ecliptic plane: (4) the longitude of the ascending node; (3) the longitude of the peri- helion; (fi) the epoch; (7) the period, or the angular daily motion. See Comets: Pl.xets; Orbit. ELEMENTS, CiiEMic-vi. See Chemistry ; Atomic Wkiciits; Pehiooic Law. ELEMENTS, CoN.sciofs. One of the prin- cipal problems of psychology is to analyze into their simplest constituent processes the mental ELEMI. coniple.xes (perceptions, ideas, emotions, actions) that occur in everyday experience. These sim- plest, unanalyzable processes are termed the "ele- ments of consciousness." See Coxscioisness. We must, first of all, get a clear understanding of the elements of mind. (I) Tlicrc is practical- ly universal agreement among experimental psy- chologists that the structural elements of mind are two — sensaticm and allection (see these terms). All intellectual experiences reduce to sensation; all emotional and volitional experi- ences are compounds of sensation and affection. The mental organism is, so to speak, made up of these two ty]ics of process, as the bodily organ- ism is made up, from the anatomical standpoint, of certain forms of cells. Both elements are de- termined by analysis and abstraction; neither occurs alone in conscious experience. In the case of affection, the final court of appeal is in- trospection: that is simple which self-ob.servation declares to be simple. In the case of sensation there are two possibilities of decision. We may regard sensation (a) as a psychological ultimate, or (b) as a psychophysical ultimate. (See P.STCHOPiiY.sics.) Thus, the color "reil" and the temperature quality "hot" arc unanalyzable in intros{x>ction ; they are psychological sensations. But in psyehophysics red is the resultant of a chromatic (red) and an achromatic (white or gray) excitatory process, and hot is aroused by sinuiltaneous stimulation of both warm and cold "spots' upon the skin. Psychophysically. there- fore, the color and the heat are fusion qualities — perceptions, not sensations. It is immaterial which of the two "ultimates' we take as the basis of our reconstruction of mind from the ele- ments; but we must be careful not to confuse them. (2) Psychologists, again, are fairly well agreed upon the question of the principal mental functions, though they differ as to which of these should be considered elemental. Brentano posits three ultimate functions — i)resentation or idea, judgment or belief, and interest or emotion (love and hate). Stout recognizes cognitiim (includ- ing, as integral constituents, sentience, simple apprehension, and lx>lief) and volition: this lat- ter includes the fundamentally distinct functions of feeling (l>eing pleased and displeased) and conation (desire and aversion). Wundt, on the other hand, regards impulse, a volitional process compounded structurally of sensation and affec- tion, as the one tvpical form of mental function from which all the rest are derivative. (.S) Im- pulse is further, for Wundt. the primordial mani- festation of mind. This view is. of course, not shared by those who regard the reflex movement as primitive, and believe that mind has in some way been superinduced upon unconscious bodily activity. See AcTiox. Consult: Stout. Aiinli/tir Psycholniji/ (London. lSfl(i) ; Brentano, Psycholoijie (Leipzig, 1874) ; Wundt. OutUnen of Psiicholof])! ( Eng. trans. London. ISOS) ; id.. Physiologische Pst/rholoflie (Leipzig. ISO."!). ELEMENTS, Er.ECTRO-CnEMic.vL Order of. See EiK< Tito Chemistry. Gexer.l: Chemistry. ELEMENTS, Sacrajiextal. See Lord's Srp- itr. ELEMI, el'Ami (Fr. ^U'mi, of doubtful efy- m(dogj). A fragrant resinous substance, ob- tained from different plants of the order Bur- seraceip. It was formerlv brought chiefiy from