Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal
inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough
to the ultramontane party, but demurring nevertheless to
Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself
was better than its premisses implied. Acton's letters led
to another storm in the English Roman Catholic world, but once
more it was considered prudent by the Vatican to leave him
alone. In spite of his reservations, he regarded ``communion
with Rome as dearer than life.'' Thenceforth he steered clear
of theological polemics. He devoted himself to persistent
reading and study, combined with congenial society. With
all his capacity for study he was a man of the world, and a
man of affairs, not a bookworm. Little indeed came from his
pen, his only notable publications being a masterly essay
in the Quarterly Review of January 1878 on ``Democracy in
Europe''; two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on ``The
History of Freedom in Antiquity'' and ``The History of Freedom
in Christianity''--these last the only tangible portions put
together by him of his long-projected ``History of Liberty'';
and an essay on modern German historians in the first number
of the English Historical Review, which he helped to found
(1886). After 1879 he divided his time between London, Cannes
and Tegernsee in Bavaria, enjoying and reciprocating the
society of his friends. In 1872 he had been given the honorary
degree of doctor of philosophy by Munich University; in 1888
Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of LL.D., and in 1889
Oxford the D.C.L.; and in 1890 he was made a fellow of All
Souls. His reputation for learning had gradually been
spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence. The
latter found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892,
when the Liberal government came in, Lord Acton was made a
lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John
Seeley, Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship
of Modern History at Cambridge. The choice was an excellent
one. His inaugural lecture on ``The Study of History,''
afterwards published with notes displaying a vast erudition,
made a great impression in the university, and the new
professor's influence on historical study was felt in many
important directions. He delivered two valuable courses of
lectures, on the French Revolution and on Modern History,
but it was in private that the effects of his teaching
were most marked. The great Cambridge Modern History,
though he did not live to see it, was planned under his
editorship, and all who came in contact with him testified
to his stimulating powers and his extraordinary range of
knowledge. He was taken ill, however, in 1901, and died on
the 19th of June 1902, being succeeded in the title by his
son. Richard Maximllian Dalberg Acton, 2nd Baron Acton
(b.1870). Lord Acton has left too little completed original
work to rank among the great historians; his very learning
seems to have stood in his way; he knew too much and his
literary conscience was too acute for him to write easily,
and his copiousness of information overloads his literary
style. But he was one of the most deeply learned men of his
time, and he will certainly be remembered for his influence on
others. His extensive library, formed for use and not for
display, and composed largely of books full of his own
annotations, was bought immediately after his death by Mr
Andrew Carnegie, and presented to Mr John Morley, by whom
it was forthwith given to the university of Cambridge.
See Mr Herbert Paul's excellent Introductory Memoir to the
interesting volume of Lord Acton's Letters to Mrs Drew
(1904), and the authorities cited there; also Dom Gasquet's
Lord Acton and his Circle (1906). A Bibliography of
the works of Lord Acton, by W. A. Shaw, was published by
the Royal Historical Society in 1903. The Edinburgh Review
of April 1903 contains a luminous essay; and Mr Bryce has a
chapter on Acton in his Studies of Contemporary Biography
(1903). Lord Acton's Lectures on Modern History, edited
by J. N. Figgis and R. V. Laurence, appeared in 1906; and
his History of Freedom and other Essays and Historical
Essay's and Studies (by the same editors) in 1907. (H. CH.)
ACTON, SIR JOHN FRANCIS EDWARD, BART. (1736--1811). prime
minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV., was the son of Edward
Acton, a physician at Besancon, and was born there in 1736,
succeeding to the title and estates in 1791, on the death of
his cousin in the third degree, Sir Richard Acton of Aldenham
Hall, Shropshire. He served in the navy of Tuscany, and in
1775 commanded a frigate in the joint expedition of Spain and
Tuscany against Algiers, in which he displayed such courage and
resource that he was promoted to high command. In 1779 Queen
Maria Carolina of Naples persuaded her brother the Grand-Duke
Leopold of Tuscany to allow Acton, who had been recommended
to her by Prince Caramenico, to undertake the reorganization
of the Neapolitan navy. The ability displayed by him in this
led to his rapid advancement. He became commander-in-chief
of both services, minister of finance, and finally prime
minister. His policy was devised in concert with the English
ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, and aimed at substituting the
influence of Austria and Great Britain for that or Spain, at
Naples, and consequently involved open opposition to France and
the French party in Italy. The financial and administrative
measures which were the outcome of a policy which necessitated
a great increase of armament made him intensely unpopular,
and in December 1798 he shared the flight of the king and
queen. For the reign of terror which followed the downfall
of the Parthenopean Republic, five months later, Acton has
been held responsible. In 1804 he was for a short time
deprived of the reins of government at the demand of France;
but he was speedily restored to his former position, which
he held till, in February 1806, on the entry of the French
into Naples, he had to flee with the royal family into
Sicily. He died at Palermo on the 12th of August 1811.
He had married, by papal dispensation, the eldest daughter
of his brother, General Joseph Edward Acton (b. 1737), who
was in the Neapolitan service, and left three children, the
elder son, Sir Richard, being the father of the first Lord
Acton. The second son, Charles Januarius Edward (1803-1847),
after being educated in England and taking his degree at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, in 1823, entered the Academia
Ecclesiastica at Rome. He left this with the rank of prolate,
in 1828 was secretary to the nuncio at Paris and was made
vice-legate of Bologna shortly afterwards. He became secretary
of the congregation of the Disciplina Regolare, and auditor
of the Apostolic Chamber under Gregory XVI., by whom he was
made a cardinal in 1842. Cardinal Acton was protector of the
English College at Rome, and had been mainly instrumental in
the increase, in 1840, of the English vicariates-general to
eight, which paved the way for the restoration of the hierarchy
by Pius IX. in 1850. He died on the 23rd of June 1847.
ACTON, an urban district in the Ealing parliamentary
division of Middlesex, England, suburban to London, 9 m. W.
of St. Paul's Cathedral. Pop. (1861) 3151; (1901) 37,744.
Its appearance is now wholly that of a modern residential
suburb. The derivation offered for its name is from Oak-town,
in reference to the extensive forest which formerly covered the
locality. The land belonged from early times to the see of
London, a grant being recorded in 1220. Henry III. had a
residence here. At the time of the Commonwealth Acton was
a centre of Puritanism. Philip Nye (d. 1672) was rector;
Richard Baxter, Sir Matthew Hale (Lord Chief-Justice), Henry
Fielding the novelist and John Lindley the botanist (d. 1865)
are famous names among residents here. Acton Wells, of saline
waters, had considerable reputation in the 18th century.
ACT ON PETITION, the term for a part of the procedure in the
Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, now of infrequent
occurrence. It was more freely used in the old Admiralty and
Divorce courts before the Judicature Acts. (See PLEADING.)
ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. This book of the Bible, which now
stands fifth in the New Testament, was read at first as the
companion and sequel of the Gospel of Luke. Its separation
was due to growing consciousness of the Gospels as a unit
of sacred records, to which Acts stood as a sort of
appendix. Historically it is of unique interest and
value: it has no fellow within the New Testament or without
it. The so-called Apocryphal Acts of certain apostles, while
witnessing to the impression produced by our Acts as a type
of edifying literature, only emphasize this fact. It is the
one really primitive Church history, primitive in spirit as in
substance; apart from it a connected picture of the Apostolic
Age would be impossible. With it, the Pauline Epistles are
of priceless historical value; without it, they would remain
bafflingly fragmentary and incomplete, often even misleading.
1. Plan and Aim.---All agree that the Acts of the Apostles
is the work of an author of no mean skill, and that he has
exercised careful selection in the use of his materials, in
keeping with a definite purpose and plan. It is of moment,
then, to discover from his emphasis, whether by iteration
or by fulness of scale, what objects he had in mind in
writing. Here it is not needful to go farther back than F.
C. Baur and the Tubingen school, with its theory of sharp
antitheses between Judaic and Gentile Christianity, of which
they took the original apostles and Paul respectively as
typical. Gradually their statement of this position underwent
serious modifications, as it became realized that neither
Jewish nor Gentile Christianity was a uniform genus, but
included several species, and that the apostolic leaders from
the first stood for mutual understanding and unity. Hence
the Tubingen school did its chief work in putting the needful
question, not in returning the correct answer. Their answer
could not be correct, because, as Ritschl showed (in his
Altkath. Kirche, 2nd ed., 1857 ), their premisses were
inadequate. Still the attitude created by the Tubingen
theory largely persists as a biassing element in much that
is written about Acts. On the whole, however, there is a
disposition to look at the book more objectively and to follow
up the hints as to its aim given by the author in his opening
verses. Thus (1) his second narrative is the natural sequel
to his first. As the earlier one set forth in orderly sequence
(kathexes) the providential stages by which Jesus was led,
``in the power of the Spirit,'' to begin the establishment
of the consummated Kingdom of God, so the later work aims at
setting forth on similar principles its extension by means
of His chosen representatives or apostles. This involves
emphasis on the identity of the power, Divine and not merely
human, expressed in the great series of facts from first to
last. Thus (2) the Holy Spirit appears as directing and
energizing throughout the whole struggle with the powers
of evil to be overcome in either ministry, of Master or
disciples. But (3) the continuity is more than similarity of
activity resting on the same Divine energy. The working of
the energy in the disciples is conditioned by the continued
life and volition of their Master at His Father's right
hand in heaven. The Holy Spirit, ``the Spirit of Jesus,''
is the living link between Master and disciples. Hence
