translation of some of Plutarch's Lives (Florence, 1478);
Commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics and Politics; and the
lives of Hannibal, Scipio and Charlemagne. In the work on
Aristotle he had the co-operation of his master Argyropulus.
ACCIDENCE (a mis-spelling of ``accidents,'' from the Latin
neuter plural accidentia, casual events), the term for
the grammatical changes to which words are subject in their
inflections as to gender, number, tense and case. It is
also used to denote a book containing the first principles
of grammar, and so of the rudiments of any subject or art.
ACCIDENT (from Lat. accidere, to happen), a word of widely
variant meanings, usually something fortuitous and unexpected;
a happening out of the ordinary course of things. In the
law of tort, it is defined as ``an occurrence which is due
neither to design nor to negligence''; in equity, as ``such
an unforeseen event, misfortune, loss, act or omission, as
is not the result of any negligence or misconduct.'' So, in
criminal law, ``an effect is said to be accidental when the
act by which it is caused is not done with the intention
of causing it, and when its occurrence as a conseiguence
of such act is not so probable that a person of ordinary
prudence ought, under the circumstances, to take reasonable
precaution against it'' (Stephen, Digest of Criminal Law,
art. 210).The word may also have in law the more extended
meaning of an unexpected occurrence, whether caused by
any one's negligence or not, as in the Fatal Accidents Act
1846, Notice of Accidents Act 1894. See also CONTRACT,
CRIMINAL LAW, EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY, INSURANCE, TORT, &c.
In logic an ``accident'' is a quality which belongs to a
subject but not as part of its essence (in Aristotelian
language kata sumbebekos, the scholastic per accidens).
Essential attributes are necessarily, or causally, connected
with the subject, e.g. the sum of the angles of a triangle;
accidents are not deducible from the nature, or are not part
of the necessary connotation, of the subject, e.g. the
area of a triangle. It follows that increased knowledge,
e.g. in chemistry, may show that what was thought to
be an accident is really an essential attribute, or vice
versa. It is very generally held that, in reality, there is
no such thing as an accident, inasmuch as complete knowledge
would establish a causal connexion for all attributes. An
accident is thus merely an unexplained attribute. Accidents
have been classed as (1) ``inseparable,'' i.e. universally
present, though no causal connexion is established, and (2)
``separable,'' where the connexion is neither causally explained
nor universal. Propositions expressing a relation between
a subject and an accident are classed as ``accidental,''
``real'' or ``ampliative,'' as opposed to ``verbal'' or
``analytical,'' which merely express a known connexion,
e.g. between a subject and its connotation (q.v.).
ACCIDENTALISM, a term used (1) in philosophy for any system
of thought which denies the causal nexus and maintains that
events succeed one another haphazard or by chance (not in
the mathematical but in the popular sense). In metaphysics,
accidentalism denies the doctrine that everything occurs
or results from a definite cause. In this connexion it is
synonymous with Tychism (tuchu, chance), a term used by
C. S. Peirce for the theories which make chance an objective
factor in the process of the Universe. Opponents of this
accidentalism maintain that what seems to be the result
of chance is in reality due to a cause or causes which,
owing to the lack of imagination, knowledge or scientific
instruments, we are unable to detect. In ethics the term is
used, like indeterminism, to denote the theory that mental
change cannot always be ascribed to previously ascertained
psychological states, and that volition is not causally
related to the motives involved. An example of this theory
is the doctrine of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae
(``liberty of indifference''), according to which the choice
of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither
by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind
nor by crystallized habit (character). (2) In painting, the
term is used for the effect produced by accidental lights
(Ruskin, Modern Painters, I. II. 4, iii. sec. 4, 287).
(3) In medicine, it stands for the hypothesis that disease is
only an accidental modification of the healthy condition, and
can, therefore, be avoided by modifying external conditions.
ACCIUS, a Latin poet of the 16th century, to whom
is attributed a paraphrase of Aesop's Fables, of
which Julius Scaliger speaks with great praise.
ACCIUS, LUCIUS, Roman tragic poet, the son of a freedman,
was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 B.C. The year of
his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great
age, since Cicero (Brutus, 28) speaks of having conversed
with him on literary matters. He was a prolific writer and
enjoyed a very high reputation (Horace, Epistles, ii. 1,
56; Cicero, Pro Plancio, 24). The titles and considerable
fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been
preserved. Most of these were free translations from the
Greek, his favourite subjects being the legends of the
Trojan war and the house of Pelops. The national history,
however, furnished the theme of the Brutus and Decius,
---the expulsion of the Tarquins and the self-sacrifice of
Publius Decius Mus the younger. The fragments are written
in vigorous language and show a lively power of description.
Accius wrote other works of a literary character:
Didascalicon and Pragmaticon libri, treatises
in verse on the history of Greek and Roman poetry, and
dramatic art in particular; Parerga and Praxidica
(perhaps identical) on agriculture; and an Annales. He
also introduced innovations in orthography and grammar.
See Boissier, Le Poete Accius, 1856; L. Muller,
De Accii fabulis Disputatio (1890); Ribbeck,
Geschichte der romischen Dichtung (1892); editions
of the tragic fragments by Ribbeck (1897), of the others
by Bahrens (1886); Plessis, Poesue Latine (1909).
ACCLAMATION (Lat. acclamatio, a shouting at), in
deliberative or electoral assemblies, a spontaneous shout of
approval or praise. Acclamation is thus the adoption of a
resolution or the passing of a vote of confidence or choice
unanimously, in direct distinction from a formal ballot or
division. In the Roman senate opinions were expressed and
votes passed by acclamation in such forms as Omnes, omnes,
Aequum est, Justum est, &c.; and the praises of the emperor
were celebrated in certain pre-arranged sentences, which
seem to have been chanted by the whole body of senators. In
ecclesiastical councils vote by acclamation is very common,
the question being usually put in the form, placet or non
placet. The Sacred College has sometimes elected popes by
acclamation, when the cardinals simultaneously and without
any previous consultation ``acclaimed'' one of their number as
pontiff. A further ecclesiastical use of the word is in its
application to set forms of praise or thanksgiving in church
services, the stereotyped responses of the congregation.
In modern parliamentary usage a motion is carried by
acclamation when, no amendment being proposed, approval
is expressed by shouting such words as Aye or Agreed.
ACCLIMATIZATION, the process of adaptation by which animals
and plants are gradually rendered capable of surviving and
flourishing in countries remote from their original habitats,
or under meteorological conditions different from those which
they have usually to endure, and at first injurious to them.
The subject of acclimatization is very little understood,
and some writers have even denied that it can ever take
place. It is often confounded with domestication or
with naturalization; but these are both very different
phenomena. A domesticated animal or a cultivated plant
need not necessarily be acclimatized; that is, it need not
be capable of enduring the severity of the seasons without
protection. The canary bird is domesticated but not
acclimatized, and many of our most extensively cultivated
plants are in the same category. A naturalized animal or
plant, on the other hand, must be able to withstand all
the vicissitudes of the seasons in its new home, and it may
therefore be thought that if must have become acclimatized.
But in many, perhaps most cases of naturalization (see
Appendix below) there is no evidence of a gradual adaptation
to new conditions which were at first injurious, and this is
essential to the idea of acclimatization. On the contrary,
many species, in a new country and under somewhat different
climatic conditions, seem to find a more congenial abode than
in their native land, and at once flourish and increase in
it to such an extent as often to exterminate the indigenous
inhabitants. Thus L. Agassiz (in his work on Lake Superior)
tells us that the roadside weeds of the north-eastern United
States, to the number of 130 species, are all European,
the native weeds having disappeared westwards; while in New
Zealand there are, according to T. Kirk (Transactions of
the New Zealand Institute, vol. ii. p. 131), no less than
250 species of naturalized plants, more than 100 of which
spread widely over the country and often displace the native
vegetation. Among animals, the European rat, goat and pig
are naturalized in New Zealand, where they multiply to such
an extent as to injure and probably exterminate many native
productions. In none of these cases is there any indication
that acclimatization was necessary or ever took place.
On the other hand, the fact that an animal or plant cannot
be naturalized is no proof that it is not acclimatized.
It has been shown by C. Darwin that, in the case of most
animals and plants in a state of nature, the competition of
other organisms is a far more efficient agency in limiting
their distribution than the mere influence of climate. We
have a proof of this in the fact that so few, comparatively,
of our perfectly hardy garden plants ever run wild; and even
the most persevering attempts to naturalize them usually
fail. Alphonse de Candolle (Geographic botanique, p.
798) informs us that several botanists of Patis, Geneva,
and especially of Montpellier, have sown the seeds of many
hundreds of species of exotic hardy plants, in what appeared
to be the most favourable situations, but that in hardly a
single case has any one of them become naturalized. Attempts
have also been made to naturalize continental insects in
Britain, in places where the proper food-plants abound and
the conditions seem generally favourable, but in no case
do they seem to have succeeded. Even a plant like the
potato, so largely cultivated and so perfectly hardy, has not
established itself in a wild state in any part of Europe.
Different Degrees of Climatal Adaptation in Animals and
Plants.---Plants differ greatly from animals in the closeness
of their adaptation to meteorological conditions. Not only
will most tropical plants refuse to live in a temperate
climate, but many species are seriously injured by removal a
few degrees of latitude beyond their natural limits. This is
probably due to the fact, established by the experiments of
A. C. Becquerel, that plants possess no proper temperature,
but are wholly dependent on that of the surrounding medium.
Animals, especially the higher forms, are much less sensitive
to change of temperature, as shown by the extensive range
from north to south of many species. Thus, the tiger
