377 



CYNAPINE. 



CZAR. 



378 



SulpJiocymolic acid (C^H^O.). \Vhen heated with moderately 

 strong nitric acid it is changed into toluic acid (C 10 H 8 0,) and nitro- 

 luic acid (C,,H 7 (N0 4 )0,). By the action of a mixture of sulphuric 

 and nitric acids, it is converted into binitrocymole (C 20 H 12 (N0 4 ) J ) a 

 substance which crystallises in iridescent rhombic plates. 



CYNAPINE, an alkaloid said to be found in the false parsley 

 (jEthusa cynapium). Its composition is unknown. 



CYNENE (C 24 H 18 ). A hydrocarbon oil, obtained by distilling 

 the essence of semen-contra (Artemisia castra) from anhydrous phos- 

 phoric acid. It is a very fluid colourless oil, soluble in ether, but 

 insoluble in water. Its specific gravity is '825, and it boils about 

 345 Fahr. 



CYNICS, the name of a sect of Greek philosophers who were pro- 

 duced by the school of Socrates, and were so called according to one 

 interpretation of the word (xwtKol, dog-like) from their snarling dispo- 

 sition, though it is possible that the name may have been derived from 

 the gymnasium called Cynosarges, in which Antisthenes, the founder 

 of this school, used to lecture. [ANTISTHENES, in BIOG. Div.] Their 

 doctrines were the exact opposite of those of the Cyreuaics, who were 

 also an offshoot of the Socratic philosophy. [CYRENAICS.] They held 

 that virtue was not only the highest but the only object at which men 

 ought to aim, and that most of the sciences and arts, as they do not 

 tend to make men virtuous, but sometimes on the contrary interfere 

 with the attainment of it, are unprofitable and pernicious. The true 

 philosopher, according to their notions, was he who could discard all 

 the comforts and charities of life and triumph over his bodily wants, so 

 as to be enabled to live only for virtue without any interruptions either 

 to the contemplation or the practice of it. The result of these prin- 

 ciples was great strictness of morals, and voluntary penances worthy of 

 the fanaticism of an eastern dervise ; and as long as these characteristics 

 were coupled with ability in the professors and consistent philosophy 

 in what they taught, the sect maintained its place by the side of other 

 philosophical systems, and some members of it, for instance Antisthenes 

 and Diogenes, deserved and obtained great celebrity. [DIOGENES, in 

 BIOG. Div.] At length, however, the morality of the Cynics degene- 

 rated into the most shameless profligacy (see the case of ' Crates and 

 Hipparchia' in Diogen. Laert. vi. 97), and they became so disgusting 

 from their impudence, dirty habits, and begging, that they ceased to 

 be regarded with any respect, and the sect dwindled away into ob- 

 scurity. Of their speculative opinions we know very little : indeed it 

 does not appear that they had any theories, except on the science of 

 logic. The great merit of the Cynic philosophy was that it paved the 

 way for the establishment of Stoicism, which succeeded and superseded 

 it, just as the philosophy of Epicurus supplanted that of Aristippus. 

 The connection of this school with the philosophy of Socrates appears 

 to have consisted in their developing the idea of science as applied to 

 morality (to which object the labours of Socrates were mainly directed), 

 but they did so to the exclusion of all those other principles which 

 Socrates admitted as useful adjuncts, and his sneers at the austerity 

 and affected negligence of Antisthenes may be taken as a proof of the 

 low opinion which he entertained of this narrow application of his 

 doctrines. (Diogen. Laert., vi., 8; ii., 36.) The classical reader will 

 find in Lucian's ' Cyuicus' an attempt to justify some of the peculiar 

 views of this school, especially in regard to their neglect of the con- 

 veniences of life, though it is not to be supposed that Lucian was 

 inclined to the Cynical philosophy, for he elsewhere ridicules it. (See 

 the ' Lapithse ' and the ' Vitarum Auctio.' See also Hitter's * Geschichte 

 der Philosophic,' Hegel's ' Geschichte der Philosophic," and G. H. 

 Lewes's ' Biographical History of Philosophy.') 



CYNODIN. A non-azotised crystallisable body of unknown com- 

 position, found in dog-grass (Cynodon dact>tlnn ). 



CYNOSU'RA (xufbs oufd, the tail of the dog), a name given to the 

 lesser Bear. According to Aratus and Hyginus, Cynosura was one of 

 the nymphs of Mount Ida, who nursed Jupiter. But it is at least as 

 probable that before the Greeks adapted their mythology to the con- 

 stellations, they had from some oriental source the habit of figuring 

 Ursa Minor as a dog, and that the tail of the dog was the pole star. 

 [URSA MINOR.] Many persons may probably know this word only 

 from the two lines of Milton's ' Allegro ' 



Where perhaps some beauty lies, 

 The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes. 



These lines may have puzzled some readers, though the reference to 

 the pole star and the property of the magnet gives the image a degree 

 of fitness for poetry which the etymology of the word alone would 

 hardly suggest. 



CYKAMETURIC ACID. [CYANOGEN.] 



CYRENA'ICS, a school of philosophers among the Greeks, who 

 derived their name from the birth-place of their founder Aristippus. 

 [ARISTIPPUS, in Bloo. Div.] Like the Cynics, their doctrines were a 

 partial development of those of Socrates ; but the view they took of their 

 predecessor's philosophy was quite different from the Cynical. [CYNICS.] 

 The only particular in which the two sects agreed with the original 



system and with one another was that they all three made virtue 

 consist in knowledge ; in other words they were all three attempts to 

 awaken and develop the idea of science ; but while the Cynics con- 

 sidered all sublunary enjoyment and most branches of knowledge as 

 impediments to the knowledge, and consequently, according to Socrates, 

 to the practice, of virtue, the Cyrenaics, on the other hand, were not 

 contented with the mere knowledge of the good as a general term, but 

 sought for it in the separate particulars, and deemed him to have 

 performed his proper functions most consistently with his nature 

 who had succeeded in amassing the greatest number -of particular good 

 things. In regard to the idea of science, they did not look upon it as a 

 speculative conception, but as a merely empirical result, as the aggre- 

 gation of successive experiences ; in other words, not as an intuition 

 but as a combination of perceptions ; and while Plato, and in some 

 measure the Cynics also, placed the summtim bonum in the attainment, 

 by means of dialectics, of the abstract idea of the good, the Cyrenaics 

 placed it in the collection of the greatest number of agreeable 

 perceptions, and the true philosopher, according to them, was one 

 who actively, methodically, and successfully carried on the pursuit 

 of pleasure. Consequently, as agreeable perceptions were continually 

 to be sought as good and the contrary to be avoided as bad in them- 

 selves, perception of sensible objects became the criterion of all know- 

 ledge and the object of all action, and therefore truth both theoretical 

 and practical. (Sextus Empir. ' adv. Mathematicos,' vii., 191-200.) 

 The chief successors of Aristippus were Theodorus, Hegesias, and 

 Anniceris. Theodorus perceived the necessity for some principle, in 

 addition to the mere collection of agreeable sensations ; for without 

 some effort of the understanding to determine which of many gratifica- 

 tions was to be preferred, it would be impossible, he thought, to 

 obtain the maximum of gratification ; and he therefore set the under- 

 standing over the senses as a regulating and restraining faculty. He 

 is said to have been banished from Athens for denying the existence of 

 the gods. (Diog., Laert., ii., 97.) Hegesias, following in the steps of 

 Theodorus, insisted still more than he did upon the inadequacy of the 

 senses as the criteria of the desirable, and at last even went so far as to 

 assert that nothing was in itself either agreeable or the contrary, and 

 that life and everything in life should be a matter of indifference to 

 the wise man. In this assertion of the principle of indifference he 

 made an approach to the doctrines of Epicurus and the Stoics in the 

 point in which those two opposite systems met. Cicero tells us (' TuscuL 

 Disput.,' i., c. 34) that his book called aaroicaprtpav caused BO many 

 suicides that he was forbidden by one of the Ptolemies to lecture on 

 the worthlessness of b'fe. In the philosophy of Anuiceris and his 

 followers the original principles of the Cyrenaics were quite lost, and 

 though he also, in a popular way recommended the pursuit of the 

 agreeable, he denied that it depended in any way upon mere sensible 

 impressions, for that the wise man might be happy in spite of all 

 annoyances ; that friendship was to be sought, not for the sake of any 

 immediate advantage to be derived from it, but on account of the 

 good-will which it generated ; and that for a friend's sake a man should 

 encounter even annoyances and troubles. (Diog. Laert. ii., 96, 97.) 

 These are the doctrines of a mere popular morality, and can hardly be 

 ascribed to one school more than to any other. It will be remarked 

 by every one that the original tenets of this school were very similar 

 to those of Epicurus ; indeed, with the exception of the atomic system 

 which he borrowed from Democritus and Leucippus, the two systems 

 differed only in this : the Cyrenaics placed the great object of man in 

 the positive and active pursuit of the agreeable, while Epicurus made 

 it consist in a perfect rest of mind and in freedom from pain ; for he 

 considered the agreeable as something merely negative, as the pleasing 

 harmony produced by exemption from all passion and appetite. The 

 philosophy of Epicurus may therefore be considered as the successor, 

 in one point of view, of the system of Aristippus. 



(See also Hitter's Geschichte der Philosophic ; Hegel's GesMchte der 

 Philosophic ; and G. H. Lewes's Bioijraphical Uistori/ of Philosophy.) 



CYSTIN (C^HjjNjO.S, ?), Cystic Oxide. A crystalline substance 

 constituting a very rare form of human calculus. It is neutral, fusible 

 by heat, and furnishes by destructive distillation a very fetid ammo- 

 niacal water. It is insoluble in water and in alcohol, but the fixed 

 alkalies and their carbonates dissolve it readily. Cystin is also soluble 

 in many of the acids. 



CYTISIN. A non-azotised bitter substance, extracted from the 

 Cytitas laburnum. It appears to be identical with cathartin. 

 [CATHARTIX.] 



CZAR, or TZAR, the Russian title of the monarch of Russia. Some 

 have supposed it to be derived from Csesar or Kaisar, but the Russians 

 distinguish between Czar and Kesar, which last they use for emperor. 

 The sovereign of Russia styles himself also Autocrat of all the Russias. 

 It is only since the time of Peter the Great that the title of emperor 

 has been given to him by the senate, and afterwards by the other 

 courts of Europe. Before Peter's time, the sovereign of Russia was 

 styled grand duke in European diplomacy. The consort of the czar is 

 styled czarina. 



