- Industry: Library & information science
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
The course on which were celebrated the great games (foot-racing, wrestling, etc.) of ancient Greece, held at Olympia, Athens, and other places; the most famous was that laid out at Olympia; length 600 Greek feet, which was adopted as the Greek standard of measure, and equalled 606½ English feet.
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Summer and winter, the two recurring periods of the year at which the sun is farthest distant N. or S. from the equator, which mark midsummer and midwinter, the times being the 21st of June and 22nd of December; also applied to the two points in the ecliptic, which the sun appears to reach on these two dates.
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The doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, particularly in reference to predestination and grace.
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Theatre in the Palais Royal, Paris, where the French classic plays are produced and rendered by first-class artistes.
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The largest province of China, lies in the W. between Thibet (NW.) and Yunnan (SW.); more than twice the size of Great Britain; a hilly country, rich in coal, iron, etc., and traversed by the Yangtse-kiang and large tributaries; Chingtu is the capital; two towns have been opened to foreign trade, opium, silk, tobacco, musk, white wax, etc., being chief exports.
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Systematiser and unifier of scientific knowledge up to date, born at Derby, son of a teacher, who early inoculated him with an interest in natural objects, though he adopted at first the profession of a railway engineer, which in about eight years he abandoned for the work of his life by way of literature, his first effort being a series of "Letters on the Proper Sphere of Government" in the Nonconformist in 1842, and his first work "Social Statics," published in 1851, followed by "Principles of Psychology" four years after; in 1861 he published a work on "Education," and his "First Principles" the following year, after which he began to construct his system of "Synthetic Philosophy," which fills a dozen large volumes, and has established his fame as the foremost scientific philosopher of the time. Following in the lines of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, he takes a wider sweep than either of them, fills the field he occupies with fuller and riper detail, resolves the whole of science into still more ultimate principles, and works the whole up into a more compact and comprehensive system. He is valiant before all for science, and relegates everything and every interest to Agnosticism that cannot give proof of its scientific rights. "What a thing is in itself," he says, "cannot be known, because to know it we must strip it of all that it becomes, of all that has come to adhere to it." The ultimate thus arrived at he finds to be, and calls, Energy, and that therefore, he says, we don't and can't know. That a thing is what it becomes seems never to occur to him, and yet only the knowledge of that is the knowledge of the ultimate of being, which is the thing he says we cannot know. To trace life to its roots he goes back to the cell, whereas common-sense would seem to require us, in order to know what the cell is, to inquire at the fruit. This is the doctrine of St. John, "The Word was God." In addition to agnosticism another doctrine of Spencer's is Evolution, but in maintaining this he fails to see he is arguing for an empty conception barren of all thought, which thought is the alpha and omega of the whole process, and is as much an ultimate as and still more so than the energy in which he absorbs God. Indeed, his philosophy is what is called the Aufklarung in full bloom, and in which he strips us of all our spiritual content or Inhalt, and under which he would lead us out of "Houndsditch", not with, but without, all that properly belongs to us; born 1820.
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The doctrine of the extreme Calvinists, that the decree of God as regards the eternal salvation of some and the eternal reprobation of others is unconditional.
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The pantheism of Spinoza, which regards God as the one self-subsistent substance, and both matter and thought attributes of Him.
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The name under which Swift has immortalised Hester Johnson, the story of whose life is inseparably entwined with that of the great Dean; was the daughter of a lady-companion of Lady Gifford, the sister of Sir William Temple, who, it is conjectured, was her father. Swift first met her, a child of seven, when he assumed the duties of amanuensis to Sir William Temple in 1688, and during his subsequent residence with Sir William (1696-1699) stood to her in the progressive relationship of tutor, friend, and lover; but for some unaccountable reason it would seem they never married, although their mutual affection and intimacy endured till her death; to her was addressed, without thought of publication, the immortal "Journal to Stella," "the most faithful and fascinating diary the world has ever seen," which throws an invaluable flood of light on the character of Swift, revealing unsuspected tendernesses and affections in the great satirist (1681-1728).
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The longest river of Hungary and largest of the affluents of the Danube; is formed in East Hungary by the confluence of the White Theiss and the Black Theiss, both springing from south-western slopes of the Carpathians; after a great sweep to the NW. bends round to the S., and flows steadily southward through the centre of Hungary until it joins the Danube 20 m. above Belgrade, after a course of 750 m.; with its greater tributaries, the Maros and the Bodrog, it forms a splendid means of internal commerce.
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