and, (c) the great Logos doctrine as the explanation of
the relation between God and the material universe. From
these three arguments he developed an elaborate theosophy
which was a syncretism of oriental mysticism and pure Greek
metaphysic, and may be regarded as representing the climax
of Jewish philosophy. (2) The first purely philosophical
phenomenon of the Alexandrian school was Neo-Pythagoreanism,
the second and last Neo-Platonism. Leaving all detailed
descriptions of these schools to special articles devoted to
them, it is sufficient here to say that their doctrines were a
synthesis of Platonism, Stoicism and the later Aristotelianism
with a leaven of oriental mysticism which gradually became
more and more important. The world to which they spoke had
begun to demand a doctrine of salvation to satisfy the human
soul. They endeavoured to deal with the problem of good and
evil. They therefore devoted themselves to examining the
nature of the soul, and taught that its freedom consists in
communion with God, to be achieved by absorption in a sort
of ecstatic trance. This doctrine reaches its height in
Plotinus, after whom it degenerated into magic and theurgy
in its unsuccessful combat with the victorious Christianity.
Finally this pagan theosophy was driven from Alexandria back
to Athens under Plutarch and Proclus, and occupied itself
largely in purely historical work based mainly on the attempt
to re-organize ancient philosophy in conformity with the
system of Plotinus. This school ended under Damascius when
Justinian closed the Athenian schools (A.D. 529). (3)
The eddies of Neo-Platonism had a considerable effect on
certain Christian thinkers about the beginning of the 3rd
century. Among these the most important were Clement of
Alexandria and Origen. Clement, as a scholar and a theologian,
proposed to unite the mysticism of Neo- Platonism with the
practical spirit of Christianity. He combined the principle
of pure living with that of free thinking, and held that
instruction must have regard to the mental capacity of the
hearer. The compatibility of Christian and later Neo-Platonic
ideas is evidenced by the writings of Synesius, bishop of
Ptolemais, and though Neo-Platonism eventually succumbed to
Christianity, it had the effect, through the writings of
Clement and Origen, of modifying the tyrannical fanaticism
and ultra- dogmatism of the early Christian writers.
AUTHORITIES.--Matter, Histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie,
2nd ed. (3 vols., 1840-1844); Simon, Histoire de L'ecole
d'Ajexandrie (2 vols., 1844-1845); Vacherot, Histoire critique
de l'ecole d'Ajexandrie (3 vols., 1846-1851); Kingsley,
Alexandria and her Schools (1854); Gfrorer, Philo und
die Alexandrinische Theosophie (1835) Dahne, Geschict.
Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religionsphilosophie
(1834); Histories of Philosophy by Zeller, Uberweg,
Windelband, &c., and Bibliography of CHURCH HISTORY, &c.
1 A considerable fragment of his epic Hecale
has been discovered in the Rainer papyrus.
ALEXANDRIA TROAS (mod. Eski Stambul), an ancient Greek city
of the Troad, situated on the west coast at nearly its middle
point, a little south of Tenedos. It was built by Antigonus,
perhaps about 310 B.C., and was called by him Antigonia
Troas. Early in the next century the name was changed by
Lysimachus to Alexandria Troas, in honour of Alexander's
memory. As the chief port of north-west Asia Minor, the place
prospered greatly in Roman times, and the existing remains
sufficiently attest its former importance. Thence St Paul
sailed for Europe for the first time, and there occurred
later the episode of the raising of Eutychus (Acts xx.
5-12). The site is now covered with valonia oaks, and has
been much plundered, e.g by Mahommed IV., who took columns
to adorn his new Valideh mosque in Stambul; but the circuit
of the old walls can be traced, and in several places they
are fairly well preserved. They had a circumference of about
six English miles, and were fortified with towers at regular
intervals. Remains of some ancient buildings, including a
bath and gymnasium, can be traced within this area. Trajan
built an aqueduct which can still be traced. The harbour had
two large basins, now almost choked with sand. A Roman colony
was sent to the place, as Strabo mentions, in the reign of
Augustus. The abridged name ``Troas'' (Acts xvi. 8) was
probably the current one in later Roman times. (D. G. H.)
ALEXANDRINE VERSE, a name given to the leading measure in
French poetry. It is the heroic French verse, used in epic
narrative, in tragedy and in the higher comedy. There is
some doubt as to the origin of the name; but most probably
it is derived from a collection of romances, collected in
the 12th century, of which Alexander of Macedon was the
hero, and in which he was represented, somewhat like the
British Arthur, as the pride and crown of chivalry. Before
the publication of this work most of the trouvere romances
appeared in octosyllabic verse. There is also a theory that
the form was invented by a poet named Alexander. The new
work, which was henceforth to set the fashion to French
literature, was written in lines of twelve syllables,
but with a freedom of pause which was afterwards greatly
curtailed. The new fashion, however, was not adopted all at
once. The metre fell into disuse until the reign of Francis
I., when it was revived by Jean Antoine de Baif, one of the
seven poets known as the Pleiades. Jodelle mingled episodical
Alexandrines with the vers communs of his tragedies and so
introduced them into drama. It was Ronsard, however, who made
the verse popular, and gave it vogue in France. From his time
it became the recognized vehicle for all great poetry, and
the regulation of its pauses became more and more strict.
The following is an example of the verse as used by Racine--
Ou suis-je? qu'ai-je fait? || que dois-je faire encore?
Quel transport me saisit? || quel chagrin me devore?
Two inexorable laws came to be established with regard to the
pauses. The first is, that each line should be divided into
two equal parts, the sixth syllable always ending with a
word. In the earlier use of this metre, on the contrary,
it frequently happened that the sixth and seventh syllables
belonged to the same word. The other is that, except under
the most stringent conditions, there should be none of
what the French critics call enjambement, that is, the
overlapping of the sense from one line on to the next.
Ronsard completely ignored this rule, which was after his time
settled by the authority of Malherbe. The latest school of
French prosody has given great attention to the breaking up
of the Alexandrine, which no longer possesses the rigidity
of authoritative form which it held until about 1880, but is
often used with a licence no less than when Ronsard wrote.
Michael Drayton, who was twenty-two years of age when Ronsard
died, seemed to think that the Alexandrine might be as
pleasing to English as it was to French ears, and in this
metre he wrote a long poem in twenty-four books called the
Polyolbion. The metre, however, failed to catch the English
ear. The principal English measure is a line of ten
syllables, and the Alexandrine is used only occasionally to
give it variety and weight. In ordinary English heroic verse
it is but rarely introduced; but in the favourite narrative
metre, known as the Spenserian, it comes in regularly as the
concluding line of each stanza. In English usage, moreover,
it is to be observed that there is no fixed rule as to the
position of the pause, though it is true that most commonly
the pause occurs at the end of the sixth syllable. Spenser
is very free in shifting the pause about; and though the
later poets who have used this stanza are not so free, yet,
with the exception of Shenstone and of Byron, they do not
scruple to obliterate all pause between the sixth and seventh
syllables. Thus Thomson (Castle of Indolenee, i. 42):--
And music lent new gladness to the morning air.
The danger in the use of the Alexandrine is that, in
attempting to give dignity to his line, the poet may
only produce heaviness, incurring the sneer of Pope--
A needless Alexandrine ends the song.
That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
The Alexandrine was the dominant metre in Dutch poetry from the
16th to the middle of the 19th century, and about the time of its
introduction to Holland it was accepted in Germany by the school of
Opitz. In the course of the 17th century, after being used
without rhyme by Seckendorf and others, it formed a transitional
station on the route to German blank verse, and has since then
been rarely employed, except occasionally in rhymed comedy.
ALEXANDRISTS, the name given to those philosophers of the
Renaissance, who, in the great controversy on the subject
of personal immortality, adopted the explanation of the De
Anima given by Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to the
orthodox Thomism of the Roman Catholic Church, Aristotle
rightly regarded reason as a facility of the individual
soul. Against this, the Averroists, led by Agostino Nito
(q.v.), introduced the modifying theory that universal
reason in a sense individualizes itself in each soul and
then absorbs the active reason into itself again. These two
theories respectively evolved the doctrine of individual and
universal immortality, or the absorption of the individual
into the eternal One. The Alexandrists, led by Pietro
Pomponazzi, boldly assailed these beliefs and denied that
either was rightly attributed to Aristotle. They held that
Aristotle considered the soul as a material and therefore
a mortal entity which operates during life only under the
authority of universal reason. Hence the Alexandrists denied
the possibillty of immortality in every shape or form.
Since the soul is organically connected with the body, the
dissolution of the latter involves the extinction of the former.
ALEXANDRITE, a variety of chrysoberyl (q.v.) discovered
in the Urals in 1833, on the day set apart for celebrating
the majority of the cesarevich, afterwards the tsar, Alexander
II., in whose honour the stone was named by Nils Gustaf
Nordenskiold, of Helsingfors. It is remarkable for being
strongly dichroic, generally appearing dark green by daylight
and raspberry-red by candle-light, or by daylight transmitted
through the stone. As red and green are the military
colours of Russia, the mineral became highly popular as a
gem-stone. The dark green crystals are usually cloudy and
cracked, and grouped in triplets presenting a pseudo-hexagonal
form. Alexandrite was found originally in the emerald- mine of
Takovaya, east of Ekaterinburg in the Urals, and afterwards
in the gold-bearing sands of the Sanarka in the southern
Urals. Subsequently it was discovered in greater abundance
in the gem-gravels of Ceylon. It has been found also in
Tasmania. Some of the Ceylon alexandrite exhibits,
when suitably cut, the Cat's-eye chatoyance, whence
it has been called alexandrite cat's-eye. (F. W. R.*)
ALEXANDROPOL, or ALEXANDRAPOL. (Turk. Gumri), a
Russian town and fortified camp in Transcaucasia, government
of Erivan, near the junction of the Arpa-chai with the
Aras, 48 m. by rail E.N.E. of Kars. Altitude 5080
ft. It has a trade in silk. Here the Russians defeated
the Turks in 1853. Pop. (1885) 22,670; (1897) 32,735.
ALEXANDROVSK. (1) A town of N. Russia, in the government
of Archangel, on the harbour of Catherine (Ekaterininsk),
on the Murman coast, 5 m. from the mouth of Kola Bay.
