ICICAWK. 



IDEALISM. 



814 



II-HMNK. [HUMS.] 



NoiiKAl'llY ((nun luunr and 7f l). description of images 

 ad their attribute*. The term iconography applies generally to 

 Juilii4im of the figure* represented in ancient Mulpture and painting, 

 but it i* frequently restricted to description! of the image* which are 

 found in monument* of medieval art. ID this sense iconography, or, 

 M it M more accurately designated, Christian iconography , explain! and 

 illustrate*, by mean* of written description, and pictorial representa 

 ticoa, the image*, whether historical, legendary, allegorical, or *ym- 

 bolical, of the three peraon* of the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, saints, 

 ingrih. demon*, ""-t- and natural object*, which are found repre- 

 sented in the church**, church furniture, earrings, picture*, stained- 

 glui window*, funeral monument*, illuminated manuscripts, Ac., from 

 the eariic*t period of Christian art downward* to the 16th century. 

 Work* like E. Q. Visconti's ' L'Iconographie ancienne ; ou recucil ds 

 portrait* authentique* dei empereun, roi* et homines illustres de 

 1'antiqurU,' 3 Tola, folio, Par. 1808-26; Montfaucon's ' L'AntiquiW 

 Bxpliqaee et Keprt*entee en Figures,' and Muller's ' Denkmalcr der 

 Alten Kunst,' may be quoted as illustrations of the iconography of 

 Greek and Roman art ; whilst as examples of Christian iconography we 

 may cite M. Didron's ' loonographie Chretienne ' (vol. L, 4to., 1843), 

 which forms a volume of the 'Collections in&tits sur I'Histoire de 

 France,' and of which an English translation has appeared in Bohn's 

 ' Illustrated Library;' the iconographic portion of De Caumont's 

 ' Cours d'Antiquite* Monumentale*,' Uuenebault's ' Dictionuaire Icono- 

 graphiqiie,' and perhaps Mrs. Jameson'* more popular volumes on 

 Legendary and Sacred Art.' 



The term has also been applied to representations of object* in the 

 n'">l and vegetable kingdom in a manner which will be best explained 

 by the title of the work of M. Gu<?rin Meneville, ' L'Iconographie du 

 Begne Animal de Cuvier ; ou, representation d'apres nature de 1'une 

 de* especes les plus remarkable et souvent non encore figurees, de 

 chaque genre d'animaux. Avec un texte dcscriptif,' 3 vols. Svo, Paris, 

 1829-44. 



IOONOLOOY (from tucttr and \oyos) the explanation of symbols, 

 type* and emblems, and of allegorical figures with their attributes. Of 

 this kind are the ' Iconologie par figures ; ou TraiKS coinplet des 

 Allegories, Emblemes, Ac.,' of M M. Gravelot [H. F. Bourguignon]. 

 and Cochin, 4 vols. 8vo., Paris, 1796; the 'Iconologie historique,' of 

 X. C. Delafosse, 2 vols. folio, Paris, 1768 ; and the ' Iconologia,' of F. 

 Pistrucci, Milan 1819-21, of which an English translation, in one voL 

 folio, was published in 1824 under the title of ' Iconology ; or the Art 

 of representing by allegorical figures the various abstract conceptions 

 of the mind.' The term is not much used now. 

 ICOSAHEDROX. [SOLIDS, REGULAR.] 

 ICTERUS. [JACXDICE.] 



IDEA (iSw, from the root IS, to see), in its widest and now generally 

 received acceptation, is employed to indicate every representation of 

 outward objects through the senses, and whatever is the immediate 

 object of thought. Like many other terms of mental philosophy, it in 

 derived from the most eminent of the senses, that of vision. In the 

 Platonic philosophy, the word idea possessed a higher import, and 

 signified, primarily, the archetypes of all created things as they subsist 

 in the divine intellect ; and, secondarily, the conceptions of the human 

 understanding, by means of which the essence of a thing is conceived. 

 According to another, though a more questionable definition, the 

 Platonic ideas denoted certain absolute qualities, which are regarded 

 as real because they are capable of becoming objects of true knowledge. 

 Plato's own definition is very extensive : " an idea may be attributed 

 to whatever, as a plurality, may be indicated by the same name " (tJSos 

 yaf wtii TI {murrey tiiMajnx Tf0r0at vipl imurra ra iroAAd, ots ToCric 

 Irojta iwifipontr. ' De Rep.' x. 596 a). For in Plato's loose phraseology 

 the terms tfJot and i8'a are employed indifferently in the same sense. 

 This being remembered, there is little objection to Plutarch's historical 

 account of these idea*, which we here give in the English of Holland. 

 " Idea U a bodiless substance, which of itself has no subsistence, but 

 giveth form and figure to shapeless matters, and becometh the cause 

 that bringrth them into show and evidence. Socrates and Plato 

 opposed that these be substances separate and distinct from matter, 

 howbeit subsisting in the thought* and imaginations of Hod, that is to 

 say, of mind and understanding. Aristotle admitteth verily these forms 

 and ide**, howbeit not separate from matter, as being ]>atterns of all 

 that Uod hath made. The Stoics, such at least as were of the school 

 f /^ no, have delivered that our thoughts and conceits arc the idea*," 

 (Plutarch, ch. x., fol. 66 ; ' Opinions of Philosophers.') 



Those ide** by means of which perception is obtained were 

 commonly supposed to be really images or resemblances of external 

 object*. By the Peripatetics however they were held to be immaterial, 

 while Epicurus and his followers made them to partake of the matter 

 as well as of the form of their originals (teuui reruin simulacra). See 

 C'ic. ' *<l Alt Kp.,' ii. :<. i For the term idea the schoolmen employed 

 the word ifxrui, by which, Cicero tells us, it was usually rendered in 

 Latin (' Top.' 7i, although he himself proposed "farm." which has been 

 in Liter time* adopted by Kant and his followers to designate tluit 

 constant element in the perceiitiou of outward objects which 

 independent of matter, and which the mind presents to itself in 

 accordance with it* own laws. These species the schoolmen divided 

 into sensible and intelligible, of which we shall here extract Hobbet's 



clear and succinct account. " The philosophy schools teach tli 



the cause of vi-i. >n tin- thins; seen sendeth forth on every side a visible 



xpecies, (in Kn.-li.-li) a visible show, apparition, or aspect, or a being 



een, the receiving of which into the eye i* seeing Nay for 



the cause of understanding also the tlmiK understood sendeth forth an 

 intelligible species, that is, an intelligible being seen, which coming into 

 the understanding makes it understood." (' Of Man,' part i., c. 1.) 



The term idea was again introduced into philosophy by Des Cartes, 

 with whom and his followers it is nearly synonymous with the specie* 

 of the schoolmen. According to Locke, " Ideas are whatever is the 

 ibject of the understanding, whatever a man thinks, or whatever it is 

 the mind can be employed about thinking." (Letter to the Bishop of 

 Worcester, ' Works,' vol. iv.) In this large sense the word is generally 

 employed by English and French writers, and also by the Germans 

 before the time of K-uit, for the father of the critical philosophy 

 ascribe* to idea a higher but limited signification. By idea Kant 

 eminently designated every conception formed by the reason (a* 

 distinct from the understanding), and raised above all sensuous percep- 

 tion. These idrai he subdivides into, 1st, empirical, which have an 

 element drawn from experience, for instance, organisation, a state, a 

 church ; and 2nd, pure, which are totally free from all that is sensible 

 or empirical, such as liberty, immortality, holiness, felicity. 

 Another division of the Kantian ideas is into theoretical and practical, 

 according to a similar division of the reason itself. Thus the idea of 

 truth is a theoretical idea, that of morality a practical idea. 



For an account of the various theories, and his opinions of them, no 

 better work can be named than the ' Lectures on Metaphysics ' by the 

 late Sir William Hamilton, published under the editorial care of the 

 Rev. H. L. Mansel and J. Veitch, 1859, &c. There is valuable matter 

 also in Sir William Hamilton's editions of the works of Dr. Thon. 1.- :!. 

 and of Dugald Stewart. 



IDEAL has two uses, philosophical and critical. In the former it 

 signifies, first, whatever belongs or relates to ideas generally. It is in 

 this sense that the word is employed in the phrase " Ideal theory," in 

 the controversy between Reid and Priestley. According to this theory, 

 the understanding does not perceive external objects themselves by 

 means of the sensuous organs, but the organs of sight and touch 

 transmit to the mind certain ideas or images of sensible objects, which 

 it perceives within itself. Locke, who received the term idea from 

 Des Cartes, seems unconsciously to have adopted, with the use of the 

 word, the scholastic doctrine which it involved. For he expressly 

 declares that our ideas of the primary qualities of bodies are resem- 

 blances of them, but that those produced by secondary qualities are no 

 resemblances at all. From this explanation of the means of perception, 

 Locke has, on the one band, been represented as the origin of modern 

 idealism ; while on the other, in consequence of the superior value 

 which he evidently gives to the testimony of sensation, his authority 

 has been claimed by the opposite school of ideology, as founded by the 

 disciples of his French commentator Condillac. The second sense of 

 the word is more limited, being confined to a peculiar class of ideas 

 created by and solely subsisting in the imagination. Connected with 

 this especial signification is its usage in the science of criticism, or 

 (esthetics. Here ideal signifies a something which, although not 

 existing in the reality of sensible things, subsists actually in thought 

 the joint creation of the reason and the imagination, the archetype and 

 pattern of supreme and perfect beauty. Although unreal in nature, 

 this ideal is not unnatural ; it is the absolute sum and unity of those 

 scattered beauties which nature, with a lavish but impartial hand, has 

 diffused among her myriad phenomena. [/ESTHETICS ; BEAUTY.] 



IDEALISM, the designation of many and different systems of 

 philosophy, which only agree in the common principle from which they 

 originate. This principle is the opposition of the ideal and the real, 

 that is, of ideas and things the contrariety of mind and body, or of 

 spirit and matter. 



1. As the essence of the mental lies in free activity and vital motion, 

 as opposed to the invariable mechanism and inertness of the corporeal, 

 the name of Idealism is rightly applied to those systems of physiology 

 which make the primal substance and original of all things to be certain 

 forces invisibly working throughout the universe. To the idealists of 

 this class belong the dynamical philosophers of the Ionian school, 

 Tbales, Anaximenes, Diogenes of Apollonia, and Heraclitus. 



The fundamental position of their several doctrines was the assump- 

 tion of a living energy which as it developes itself undergoes continuous 

 alteration both of form and quality a transmutation which is the 

 cause of all generation in nature. For water, the primary substance of 

 Tbales, was not the simple element, but water pregnant with vitality ; 

 the infinite air of Auaximcnes was an animated and animating energy ; 

 and the intellectual primary of Diogenes was not merely the atmos- 

 pheric air, but a warm and perfect breath of life which pervades and 

 ensouls the universe. While however in these philosophers the 

 philosophical idea is more or less mixed up with divers sensible con- 

 ceptions, Heraclitus seems clearly conscious of speaking figuratively of 

 tin- pi unary substance. With him a universal and absolute life in the 

 i-anw of all plii'iiMiii,-ii ,. wln.-h m<l.,', I is most strongly and openly 

 manifested in the vitality of fire and the rational soul, which is like to 

 MI-, while in other phenomena it is inherent, although not so obvious 

 and immediately cognisable. In this class of idealists among moderns 

 we must reckon Boecovich and Leibnitz. The former explained 



