Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/673

* INDIGO. 587 INDIVIDUALISM. Or the cloth may first be printed with a 'reserve,' a paste composed of gum, pipe-clay, and copper salts, which will prevent the deposit of indigo upon the spots which they protect, while the material passes through the vat. Artificial in- digo can again be produced by printing one chemical upon the fibre and putting the other into the bath through which it is subsequently passed. BiULioGRAPiiv. Benedikt, Chemistry of the Coal-Tar Colors (London, 1889) : Xietzki, Chem- istry of Organic Dye-stuffs (London, 1802) : Sadtler, Handbook of Industrial Organic Chem- istry (Philadelphia. 189.5). Consult also Baeyer's articles in the Berichte der deutschen chcmischen Gesellsclinft (Berlin) for 1879-90, and Lachmann in the Journal of the Smerican Chemical Society (Easton, Pa.) for 1901. INDIGO-BIRD. A North American finch {Passerina cynnea) of the Eastern United States. It breeds as far north as Nova Scotia and Min- nesota, but migrates southward in the fall to Central America, where it spends the winter. It is about 5'/'j inches in length, and the adult male is rich dark blue in color, variously tinged and shaded, the lores and angles of the chin velvety black. The female is gray brown. It frequents open places on the edges of woods, and delights to sit on the top of a high tree singing a very sweet and peculiar melody, continued late into summer, after most other birds have stopped singing. It is easily domesticated. The nest is built of grasses, leaves, bark, and long hairs, in a little bush or on weeds near the ground. The eggs are three or four, pale bluish white, without spots. See Colored Plate of Egos OF SoNG-BrBDS. INDIGO-SNAKE. See Gopheb-Snake. IN'DIUM (XcoLat.. from Lat. indicum, in- digo). A metallic element, discovered by Reich and Ricliter in 18G.3. It occurs in minute quan- tities in various zinc ores, especially in the zinc blendes of Freiberg, in some galenas from Italy, and in the flue -dust of zinc-furnaces. In the metallic state, the element may be obtained by reducing its oxide in a current of hydrogen, or by fusing the oxide with sodium. The oxide itself is obtained by dissolving Freiberg zinc in weak sulphuric acid, precipitating the solution with metallic zinc, and separating out, from the precipitate, lead, copper, and iron. With oxygen indium forms two compounds, a monoxide (InO) and a sesquioxide (In^O,). A number of its salts have been prepared, but none of them has any economic value. Jletallic indium is ductile, silver-white, and lustrous. Its specific gravity is from 7.3G to 7.42 and its melting-point is at 170° V. Its chemical symbol is In. and its atomic weight, referred to oxygen, is 114. INDIVIDTTALISM (from individual, from ML. indiridurilis; relating to an individual, from Lat. individuus. indivisilde, from in-, not -^- diridiius, divisible, irnm dividrre. to divide). The doctrine that society is only an artificial device, whose value is to be gauged by its con- duciveness to the good of the several associated members or by some other standard set by these individuals. Individualism must be distin- guished from egoism, with which it is often con- founded. While individualism perhaps is gener- ally eeoistic in character, it is not always .so. An individualist may maintain that the end which Vol,. X. —,■)«. justifies all justifiable means is "the greatest good of the greatest number;" what makes him an individualist is his conception of the great- est number as composed of independent units, the happiness of each of which is to be reckoned as a separate item in the sum total of general happiness. Such being the nature of individual- ism, it is clear that in all the sciences which deal with man as a social being there may be indi- vidualistic tendencies. And as a matter of fact individualism has been a marked characteristic of many prominent theories in political science, in economies, and in ethics. In political theory the consistent individualist regards the State as a means to subserve individ- ual ends. He m.ay be an egoistic anarchist, desir- ing to remove all restraints which the State im- poses upon his freedom of action. On the other band, he may be an absolutist, believing that the restraints imposed by a supreme government are necessary to prevent the disastrous consequences which would follow from every man's acting upon his unregulated desires, and thus involving him- .self in perpetual warfare with all his neighbors. Thus we see that the sovereignty of government, which the individualist must deny in ultimate theory, he may stoutly maintain in practical politics. Hobljes, the prime individualist of mod- ern times, was nevertheless one of the stanchest supporters of unlimited despotism when despot- ism was making its last stand against parlia- mentary government in England. Again, an al- truistic individuali-st may, like the egoistic, be either an anarchist or a believer in government. The anarchism of our day is in large measure a reaction against absolutism, a reaction motived by a sincere desire to secure for mankind at large the blessings of freedom. The trouble with it is that it conceives freedom as license, and regards license as in its nature humane when not irritated by authority. Other altruistic individualists, however, who do not share with the benevolent anarchist the optimist belief that man is by na- ture a saint and only by government a sinner, justify government as a necessary evil: an evil because individuality is more or less repressed by law, but a necessity because without some measure of such repression some individuals would make life intolerable or even impossible for others. It is thus clear that individualism as a political theory Is quite compatible with ac- quiescence in and support of almost any form of government, or even with revolt from all govern- ment. Practical individualism, on the other hand, may prevail to a large extent along with anti-individualistic theories, for it is quite logi- cally consistent for a thinker to maintain that the true end of all government is the welfare of society as an organic whole, and yet that this welfare can best be seived by allowing every individvial to pursue his own ends. In economics indi dualism has generally advo- cated the practice which is formulated in the well- known precept, laisxr^ faire. lai.ssc: pnssrr. The State is to keep hands off of the economic ma- chinery. Free competition, resulting in the sur- vival of the economically fittest, is the individual- istic ideal. Hence we find among individualists a tendency to oppose all sumptuary and other economic legislation. Compensation for service rendered is held to be a matter which concerns merely the parties immediately involved, and no general laws, it is urged, should control the unrc-