MATERIA MEDICA 



MATHEW 



91 



methods of physical science. But physical science, 

 like (say ) economic or theological or mental science, 

 takes a one-side<l or ' abstract ' view of experience. 

 All sciences ' abstract ' from the concrete whole of 

 experience contain facts which they propose to 

 investigate in detail. Physicists, like metaphysi- 

 cians and theologians, are apt to become dogmatical 

 about spheres of inquiry of which they know pro- 

 fessedly nothing. 



BlBLIOGBAPHT. Text-books of Materialism which have 

 not already been mentioned are : Gassendi, De Vita, 

 Moriliui, ft Dnrtrinis Epicuri ( Leyden, 1647 ) ; Lamettrie, 

 L'Homme Machine (Lryden, 1748): Haeckel, Natiirliche 

 Schopfungvjetckichte (1868; Eng. trans. 2d ed. 1875-76) ; 

 Wiener, GrundzOge der Weltordnunii (lh63-69); and 

 Huxley'g Address at Belfast, 1875. For an examination 

 of Materialism, see any account of Kant's Critical Phito- 

 tophy ; or the statement of Dogmatism civcn > n Fickle, 

 by Adamson ( Blackwood's ' Philosophical Classics ' ) ; also 

 As regard* ProtopUunn, by Dr Hutchison Stirling ; Con- 

 cept* of Modern Phynict, by J. B. Stalls, containing a 

 sifting examination of the atomic theory ; Reiyn of Law, 

 by the Duke of Argyll ; and St George Mivart's books. 

 The best history of Materialism is Langc's Getchichte det 

 ifaterialinmut ( Eng. trans. 1878-81 ). 



Mnterla Nedlca is that department of the 

 science of medicine, belonging partly to pharma- 

 cology, partly to therapeutics, which treats of the 

 materials employed for the alleviation and cure of 

 disease, their properties, physiological actions, and 

 uses. See PHARMACOPEIA, POISON, MEDICINE, 

 APERIENTS, and articles on the various drugs. 



.llatlU'llliltics (Gr. matheina, 'learning'), the 

 science which has for its subject-matter the pro- 

 perties of magnitude and number. It is usually 

 divided into pure and mixed or applied; the first 

 including all deductions from the abstract, self- 

 evident relations of magnitude and numlier, the 

 second the results arrived at by applying the 

 principles so established to certain relations found 

 by observation to exist among the phenomena of 

 natnre. The branches of pure mathematics which 

 were first developed were, naturally, Arithmetic, 

 or the science of number, and Geometry, or the 

 science of quantity (in extension). The latter of 

 t lii-si- wns tin- only brunch of mathematics cultivated 

 by the Greeks, their cumbrous notation opposing 

 a barrier to any effective progress in the former 

 science. Algebra or the science of numbers in its 

 most general form is of much later growth, and 

 was at first merely a kind of universal arithmetic, 

 general symbols taking the place of numbers ; but 

 its extraordinary development within the last two 

 centuries has established for it a right to be con- 

 sidered as a distinct science, the science of opera- 

 tions. Combinations of these three have given 

 rise to trigonometry and analytical geometry. All 

 those sciences in which a few simple axioms are 

 mathematically shown to be sufficient for the 

 deduction of the most important natural pheno- 

 mena are regarded as l>elnii'_'iM;_' to applied mathe- 

 matics. This delinition includes those sciences 

 which treat of pressure, motion, light, heat, sound, 

 electricity, and magnetism usually called I'/ii/sics 

 and excludes chemistry-, geology, political econ- 

 omy, and the other brandies of science, which, 

 however, receive more or less aid from mathematics. 

 .See GEOMETRY, and the works there cited ; as also, 

 besides articles on the subjects named above, and 

 many others, the following : 



Massachusetts, June 21, 1639, graduated at Harvard 

 College in 1656, and again at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, in 1658. His first charge, at Great Tpr- 

 rington in Devonshire, was given him on the advice 

 of John Howe. He next preached in Guernsey, 

 but in 1661, finding it impossible to conform, re- 

 turned to America, and in 1664 was ordained 

 as pastor of the North Church, Boston, where he 

 remained till his death, August 23, 1723. In 1681 

 he was also chosen president of Harvard College. 

 An industrious student, he published no less than 

 136 separate works, most of which are now very 

 scarce. Of these the most interesting, Remarkable 

 Providences (1684), was reprinted in London in 

 1856. The History of the \Viir with the Indians 

 (1676) was reprinted at Boston in 1862. Mather's 

 influence was great in the colony, and in 1689 he 

 was sent to England to lay its grievances before the 

 king. He was successful in obtaining a new charter 

 from William III., and on his return was thanked 

 by the speaker of the general assembly. The same 

 year he became the first D.D. of Harvard. To his 

 cn-dit he was far less an alarmist about witchcraft 

 than his son, and he had the good fortune to 

 be absent in England during the time of fiercest 

 excitement in the Salem mania. His Cause* of 

 Conscience concerning Witchcraft (1693) did much 

 to cool the heated imaginations of the New Eng- 

 land colonists, and saved lives by refuting the 

 doctrine of 'spectral evidence.' 



His son, COTTON MATHER, was born in Boston, 

 February 12, 1663, and graduated in 1678 at Har- 

 vard, where his precocious learning and piety 

 excited great expectations. He entered upon a 

 course of fasting and vigils, cured a habit of stam- 

 mering by speaking with 'dilated deliberation,' 

 studied theology, and became the colleague of his 

 father in the ministry of the North Church at 

 Boston. His industry was phenomenal and his 

 learning remarkable, while his vanity and fluency 

 enabled him to pour from the press as many as 382 

 lx)oks. He took a fatal interest in witchcraft, and 

 his Memorable I'mviilences relating to Witchcraft 

 and Possessions ( 1 685 ) did much to fan the cruel 

 fury of the New Englanders. The first phenomena 

 of the notorious Salem witchcraft mania occurred 

 in 1692, and Mather plunged into the discussion, 

 and to convince the world wrote his Wonders of 

 the Invisible World (1692). While it is true 

 that his contemporaries fully shared his belief in 

 witchcraft, none pursued the inquiry with such 

 hateful zeal, and on the head of none rests a 

 heavier burden of bloodguiltiness. Even himself 

 afterwards confessed that ' there had been a going 

 too far in that affair.' Mather died February 13, 

 1728. 



The chief of his works is Magnolia Chriiti Americana 

 (1702), an undigested mass of materials for the church 

 history of New England. His feeble Essays to do Hood 

 (1710) was much esteemed by Franklin. His life was 

 written by his son, Hainuel Mather (1729). See also 

 Charles \V. Upham, Hittory of the Ifalcm Dilution, 

 1G92 ( 1831 ) ; and the Kev. Enoch Pond, The Mather 

 Family (1844). 



Mathrw, THEOBALD, commonly known as 

 FATHER MATHEW, an eminent Irish apostle of 

 temperance, was born at Thomastown in Tipperary, 

 Octolwr 10, 1790. He studied for the Roman 

 Catholic priesthood at Kilkenny and for a short 

 time at Maynooth, but relinquished the secular 

 priesthood for the religions order of the Capuchins, 

 in which he took priest's orders in 1814, and was 

 sent to the church of his order in the city of Cork. 

 Here he devoted himself to the ceaseless labours of 

 his calling with untiring zeal, and, finding that the 

 poverty and degradation of his people were to a 

 great extent directly due to over-drinking, was 

 driven by his enthusiastic temper to advocate the 



