PERIODICALS PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHY. 



467 



ordinate parts should each serve for the more dis- 

 tinct explanation of the preceding, and should not 

 be too much accumulated ; 4. the ideas to be con- 

 veyed should be presented in a certain gradation, 

 from the less distinct to the more distinct, from the 

 weaker to the stronger, the less important to the 

 more important, except the contrary effect is express- 

 ly intended. Important as the logical and gramma- 

 tical arrangement of a period is, the musical and 

 rythmical is by no means to be neglected. Much 

 depends here upon tact, but study can much improve 

 this. There is a harmony in language which, if it can- 

 not convince, yet can strongly affect, can carry the read- 

 er along, or impress a sentiment indelibly. Yet undue 

 refinement, an overlaboured choice of phrase, is to 

 be studiously avoided. The rhythm of a period (the 

 numerus) corresponds to the metre in poetry, and is 

 important for all languages, particularly for those 

 which, like the Greek or German, have a real pro- 

 sody. Only a few general rules can be given for 

 rhythm : the ear of the writer or speaker must be 

 his principal guide. The beginning of a period 

 should be fitted to gain the attention of the hearer. 

 Hence it is well to choose such words as fill the ear : 

 e. g. in languages which have a prosody, the first 



pxon ( -~^ ^ ^), the ionicus a major e ( -' 



), the third epitrites ( - ), and some 



others. The conclusion ought to satisfy the ear by 

 its firm and full sound. The following feet are there- 

 fore desirable: the fourth paon (^'^*^ ), the 



amphibrachys ( -^), the antibacchius ( < ), 



the dactylus iambus ( -~^ ^- ^ ), the ditrochaus 

 ( ^ ^), which it is best to have in one word, 



and the dactylus trochaus ( *~' ^~), which, 



however, on account of its hexametrical form, is to 

 be used with great caution. The period should 

 have a proper proportion of pauses, so as to be 

 equally removed from total irregularity, and from a 

 constantly-returning symmetry which approaches to 

 metrical rhythm. The construction of sentences at- 

 tained a perfection with the Greeks, which has not 

 been reached by any other nation, for two reasons, 

 their deep and universal feeling of the beautiful, 

 and the richness of their charming idiom in parti- 

 ciples and well-sounding terminations. The Romans 

 imitated the Greeks, but the example of Cicero is 

 not to be closely followed, as he amplifies his phrases 

 too much. 



In physiology, periods designate the various stages 

 in the development and decay of the animal organ- 

 ization, which are distinguished by a marked char- 

 acter ; as the period of childhood, of puberty, &c. 

 Periods also denote, in medicine, those repetitions of 

 phenomena which we observe in certain diseases, 

 e. g. in intermittent fevers, the increase of the dis- 

 order in the evening, &c. Periodical diseases are 

 such as, at certain times, make regular attacks, or 

 are attended with regular aggravations. This pro- 

 perty is very common, and there is hardly a disease 

 in which it has not been observed in the case of 

 some individual. On the contrary, there is no dis- 

 ease which always pursues its course periodically. 



PERIODICALS, in the proper sense of the word, 

 are all publications which appear at regular inter- 

 vals ; and in the wide sense which the word has now 

 received, it may even be considered as embracing 

 those publications which, as is not unfrequently the 

 case in Germany, appear from time to time, yet 

 neither at regular intervals nor in numbers of a 

 fixed amount of pages (Zwanglose Hefte). The 

 periodical press, comprising newspapers, reviews, 

 magazines, annual registers, &c., devoted to reli- 

 gion, politics, the sciences, arts, amusements, hus- 

 bandry, &c., is one of the most interesting and most 

 momentous consequences of the invention of the art 



of printing. At first, slips of paper containing a 

 few particulars, intended principally for the gratifi- 

 cation of curiosity, periodicals have now become 

 one of the most important parts of the machinery of 

 society, particularly in Britain, France, and America. 

 Without an acquaintance with this department of 

 literature, the present state of knowledge and civi- 

 lization cannot be understood, and the historian will 

 find it essential to a comprehension of the great 

 movements of our time. We have given, in the 

 article Newspapers, a sketch of the history and 

 present state of that branch of periodical literature. 

 The first journal of the character of a review was 

 the Journal des Savants, established in 1C63. Its 

 success gave rise to Les Nouvelles de la EepuUique 

 des Letlres, by Bayle; Le Mercure, by Vise; Le 

 Journal de Trevoux, set up by P. Catrou, a Jesuit ; 

 in Italy, to the Giornale de' Literati ; in Germany, 

 to the Acta Eruditorum. In Britain, the first 

 review of this sort was the Monthly, commenced in 

 1749, and still published. (For further information,. 

 see the article Review.) The utility of periodicals 

 has been very great ; they have spread knowledge 

 through quarters to which the bulky productions of 

 the sixteenth and seventeenth century never could 

 have penetrated. The reviews, in particular, have 

 done much to promote the cause of truth and just 

 thinking. But the periodical press, like everything 

 else in the world, has its bad side as well as its good, 

 and one of its bad consequences has been a taste for 

 superficial accomplishment. Periodicals, however, 

 have become a matter of necessity, as the circle of 

 civilization has widened, as the various nations have 

 become more and more interested in each other, and 

 as the great interests of mankind have been more 

 deeply investigated and more universally discussed. 

 For a citizen of Athens, the market and the gymnasia 

 may have afforded a sufficient supply of news to keep 

 him acquainted with the events generally interesting 

 to his community ; the wits of Florence may have 

 found the shop of Burchiello (q. v.) a sufficient 

 centre of intelligence ; but our times require much 

 more regular, extensive, and effectual means for the 

 diffusion of information on the events and produc- 

 tions of the day, and for the discussion of the num- 

 berless important subjects which occupy the minds 

 of men. 



PERIOSTEUM. See Bone. 



PERIPATETIC PHILOSOPHY. The philoso- 

 phy of Aristotle received this name either from his 

 custom of teaching while walking (rt^artiv'), or 

 from the place where it was taught a walk planted 

 with trees. We can give but a brief sketch of the 

 system of this powerful mind. Philosophy was to 

 Aristotle the science of knowledge. Direct know- 

 ledge, by which we know immediately the general 

 and necessary, rests on experience. According to 

 him, logic, as a preparatory science, as the organ of 

 all science, has the precedence of all. Logic either 

 treats of appearances, and is then called dialectics ; 

 or of truth, and is then called analytics. In his 

 Physics, he opposes the two systems then prevailing 

 (that of emanation, which taught that all things 

 emanated from God ; and the atomic, which ex- 

 plained the origin of things by the concourse of 

 atoms, eternal, like God), and assumes the eternity 

 of the world. According to him, the heavens are of 

 a more perfect and divine nature than other bodies. 

 In the centre of the heavens is the earth, round and 

 stationary. The stars, like the sky, beings of a 

 higher nature, but of grosser matter, move, though 

 not of themselves, but by the impulse of the primttm 

 mobile. Every change presupposes a substratum 

 (substance), that by which a thing becomes possi- 

 ble ; a form, by which a thing becomes real ; and 

 2o2 



