PRAXITELES 



4800 



PREDESTINATION 



Much ingenuity is shown in the digging of 

 the burrow. About the entrance is thrown up 

 a mound of earth which prevents water from 

 running into the home in time of heavy rainfall. 

 The animal then digs a steep tunnel running 

 downward for twelve feet or more. Next it 

 burrows a gallery on a horizontal plane, occa- 



PRAIRIE DOG AND HER YOUNG 



sionally making a room for the storage of 

 fodder or the accommodation of the family. 

 When the food at hand is exhausted a new 

 entrance is made nearer the base of supplies, 

 as the prairie dog has many enemies and must 

 be very cautious. It is preyed on especially 

 by snakes and ferrets. Farmers exterminate 

 these ground squirrels by dropping bisulphide 

 of carbon into their burrows and covering the 

 entrances. The fumes of this substance are 

 poisonous to the animals. 



PRAXITELES, praksit'ileez, one of the 

 greatest Greek sculptors of the fourth century 

 B. c. With his contemporary, Scopas, Praxiteles 

 led the later Attic School, so called to distin- 

 guish it from the earlier Attic School of Phidias. 

 Very little is known of the life of Praxiteles, 

 except that he was a citizen of Athens and 

 that he flourished about 350 B. c. Most of his 

 principal works have perished. He excelled 

 in the portrayal of the human form, especially 

 the female figure, and is said to have estab- 

 lished the type for Eros and the Satyr, con- 

 ceiving them in new forms of youth and 

 beauty. He also gave a new conception of the 

 beauty of Aphrodite in his statues of this god- 

 dess at Cnidus, Cos and other places. Among 

 his other notable works are numerous statues 

 of Apollo, the finest representing him as the 

 python slayer; Hermes Carrying Dionysus, 

 found at Olympia in 1877, and the group Niobe 

 and Her Children, now in Florence, which some 

 authorities attribute to Scopas. The Hermes 

 group is the only one which is known to be an 

 original. All of the others attributed to him 



are copies. The gods and goddesses of Prax- 

 iteles were ideal figures of earthly loveliness, 

 and his art replaced the more heroic concep- 

 tions of the school of Phidias, which preceded 

 him. See PHIDIAS. 



Consult Gardner's Six Greek Sculptors; Klein's 

 Praxiteles. 



PRECES'SION OF THE EQUINOXES, 



c'kwinokscs, a term used in astronomy to 

 describe the progressive motion of the equinox, 

 the point at which the equator and the ecliptic 

 intersect each other. The precession is a slow 

 westward movement of the equinox along the 

 ecliptic. In its motion the earth does not 

 maintain its axis at an absolute parallel with 

 itself, as, owing to the attraction of the sun 

 and the moon, its axis continually changes its 

 position. The change in position is equal to 

 50' 37" (five-sixths of a degree) annually and 

 would amount to a complete revolution round 

 the pole of the ecliptic in 25,791 years. Pre- 

 cession of the equinoxes, combined with nuta- 

 tion, cause the earth to pursue a deviating path 

 about the pole of the ecliptic, varying up to 200 

 or 300 miles on either side of the orbit. 



As an effect of precession, the signs of the 

 zodiac have changed their positions, each one 

 having moved backward or to the westward. 

 The "first of Aries," the vernal equinoctial 

 point, is now in the zodiacal sign of Pisces and 

 is moving further westward towards the next 

 westwardly sign of the zodiac, Aquarius. 



Related Subjects. The following articles in 

 these volumes should be consulted : 

 Ecliptic Nutation 



Equator Zodiac 



PRECIOUS, presh'us, STONES. See GEMS. 



PREDESTINA'TION, from the Latin words 

 for determining beforehand, is the doctrine of 

 Christian theology which asserts that every- 

 thing that happens has been ordered by God 

 from the beginning of time, and that man is 

 powerless to avert it. The narrower meaning, 

 and the meaning with which the word is gen- 

 erally associated, is that certain people, called 

 the elect, are by Divine will foreordained (pre- 

 destiried) to salvation (election) ; while, on the 

 other hand, certain others are predestinated to 

 everlasting punishment (reprobation). Saint 

 Augustine was the first theologian to make this 

 latter interpretation of the New Testament, 

 and he was followed by Aquinas in the Scholas- 

 tic Period. Its strongest advocate in modern 

 times has been Calvin (see CALVIN, JOHN). 



In its essence predestination is opposed to 

 free will, meaning man's power, helped by Di- 



