SPIRAL SPIX. 



359 



exists a nature different from his own. Thought 

 and extension, spirit and matter, finite and infinite, 

 motion and repose, good and evil, causes and effects, 

 are attributes of this sole substance, which produces 

 nothing but modifications of itself. All that exists 

 is only a necessary succession of modes of being in 

 a substance for ever the same. It is impossible to 

 give, in a work like the present, a satisfactory 

 sketch of this system, which is very liable to be 

 misunderstood, as it often has been. We can only 

 refer the reader to the works mentioned below. 

 The morality of Spinoza is founded mainly on force 

 and utility See Jacobi's Work, The Doctrines of 

 Spinoza, in Letters to Mendelsshon (Berlin, 1785 ; 

 2ded., 1789) ; Moses Mendelsshon's Morning Hours 

 (Berlin, 2d ed., 1786); and To the Friends of Leasing, 

 an Appendix to the Correspondence ofJacobi (Ber- 

 lin, 1786) ; also God and Nature, according to the 

 System of Spinoza, by G. K. Heydenreich (Leip- 

 sic, 1789), with his Animadversiones in Mosis Men- 

 delii Filii Refutationem, etc. (Leipsic, 1786) ; also 

 Franke On the modern Fate of Spinozism and its 

 Influence on Philosophy generally (Sleswic, 1812). 



SPIRAL. Geometry usually considers two 

 curves, under the name of spirals the logarithmic 

 and that of Archimedes. The latter is generally 

 defined to be a curve of the circular kind, which in 

 its progress recedes from its centre. But it is 

 easily perceived that this definition is not mathema- 

 tically satisfactory. The spiral may be imagined to 

 be thus generated : If a right line has one end fixed 

 while the other describes the periphery of a circle, 

 and at the same time a point is conceived to ad- 

 vance continually on the right line from the fixed 

 towards the moveable end, this point, with its 

 double motion, will describe a spiral curve. The 

 spiral spring of a watch gives a good idea of this 

 curve. 



SPIRE, OR SPEYER (anciently Noviomagus, 

 and Nemetes~) ; a city of Bavaria, capital of the circle 

 of the Rhine, formerly the capital of a bishopric of the 

 same name j 12 miles south-west of Heidelberg; Ion. 

 8 26' E. ; lat. 49 19' N. ; population, 7700, chiefly 

 Lutherans. It contains an old cathedral, in the 

 Lombard or Byzantine style of architecture, begun 

 by Conrad, in 1030, and finished by Henry IV., in 

 1061, and a gymnasium. It was frequently the seat 

 of the German diet, and it was in the diet held here 

 in 1529, that a protest, entered against certain pro- 

 ceedings of the emperor, procured for the reformers 

 the name of Protestants. The Bishopric of Spire, 

 in the circle of the Upper Rhine, contained about 

 55,000 inhabitants, on 594 square miles. Much of 

 it is mountainous, and covered with forests. It was 

 secularized in 1802, and now belongs partly to Ba- 

 varia and partly to Baden. 



SPIRITUALES ; the officers who superintended 

 the observance of piety and good morals in the semi- 

 naries of the Catholic bishops, and direct the reli- 

 gious exercises ; also a branch of the Franciscans. 



SPIRITUALISM; that hypothesis in philoso- 

 phy, according to which, 1. every thing is spirit; 

 2. the physical proceeds from the spiritual, and can 

 be explained from it ; 3. the human soul, in parti- 

 cular, is opposed to matter, or the physical phe- 

 nomena can be explained from the soul. Spiritual- 

 ism is opposed to materialism, and therefore may be 

 called immaterialism. (See Matter.) The system 

 of Des Cartes had the character of spiritualism. 



SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. See the article 

 Temperance. 



SPITHEAD ; a noted roadstead for shipping in 



the British channel, situated between Portsmouth 

 and the Isle of Weight, directly facing Portsmouth 

 harbour. It is about twenty miles in extent, and 

 is said to be capable of holding 1000 vessels in great 

 security. 



SPITTLE. See Saliva. 



SPITTLER, Louis TIMOTHY, baron von, a dis- 

 tinguished German historian, was born at Stuttgart, 

 in 1752. He showed, at a very early age, a dis- 

 position for historical and critical research. From 

 1771 to 1775 he studied at Tubingen. In 1777, 

 he was an instructor in the theological seminary at 

 Tubingen. Here he produced his Critical Inquiry 

 into the 6th Loadicean Canon (Bremen, 1777); 

 History of the Cup in the Lord's Supper ; History 

 of the Canon Law to the Times of the spurious 

 Isidore (Halle, 1778), all in German; and was ap- 

 pointed professor ordinarius of philosophy at Got- 

 tingen. In 1797, he was made a privy counsellor 

 in his native country. In 1806, he was appointed 

 a minister of the Wiirtemberg government, and 

 curator of the university of Tubingen. He died in 

 1810. His chief works are Sketch of the History 

 of the Christian Church; History of Wiirtemberg 

 under the Counts and Dukes (Gottingen, 1782) ; 

 History of Wiirtemberg (ibid., 1783); History of 

 the Principality of Hanover (1786); and Outlines 

 of the History of the European States (3d ed., 

 1823) continued by Sartorius. He also wrote a 

 History of the Danish Revolution of 1660 (1796), 

 and many articles in the Gottingen Historical Ma- 

 gazine, which he edited in connexion with Meiners. 

 All his works are in German. They are full of re- 

 search, erudition, and just reflection, concise, yet 

 complete. He never colours ; the facts speak for 

 themselves. His style is not free from negligence. 

 His complete works were published by Wacher 

 (Stuttgart, 1827). Plank, Heeren, Hugo and 

 Woltmann have borne testimony to his merit. 



SPITZBERGEN, OR EAST GREENLAND; 

 a group of islands, in the Frozen sea, supposed to 

 have been first discovered by Sir Hugh Willoughby, 

 in the year 1553. They received their name from 

 their mountainous and rocky appearance. The 

 sun never sets for three mouths June, July and 

 August : for the rest of the year, it is hardly seen, 

 light being chiefly produced by the Aurora Borealis. 

 In the month of June it freezes ; l in July the heat 

 is violent ; the cold returns in August. On the 

 coasts are found whales, sea-dogs, sea-cows and 

 sea-lions, with other marine and amphibious ani- 

 mals. These islands are uninhabited. Eight Bri- 

 tish sailors, accidentally left there by a whale- 

 fishing ship, survived the winter, and were brought 

 home the next season. The Dutch attempted to 

 settle a colony there, but the settlers perished. 

 Schemeerenburg is the best harbour (in Ion. 9 51' 

 E. ; lat. 79 44' N.) in the later season of the 

 whale fishery. Lon. 6 to 16 E. ; lat, 76 30' to 

 79 40' N. See the article North Polar Expedi- 

 tions ; and Scoresby's work on the Arctic Regions. 



SPIX, JOHN BAPTIST von, a distinguished 

 German naturalist, was born at Hochstadt, in Ba- 

 varia, in 1781, and, after devoting two years to the 

 study of theology, was led, by his taste for natural 

 science, to apply himself to medicine. In 1808, the 

 Bavarian government provided him with the means 

 of visiting Paris for the purpose of studying com- 

 parative anatomy; and soon after his return appeared 

 his History of all Zoological Systems, from the time 

 of Aristotle (in German). In 1815, he published 

 his Cephalogenesis, scu Capitis ossei Structura per 



