The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood.
- Date:
- 1876
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The vocabulary of philosophy, mental, moral, and metaphysical : with quotations and references for the use of students / by William Fleming ; edited by Henry Calderwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![ABILITY and INABILITY— all ethical law—Ed.] It is the disposition to use rightly the powers and opportunities which God has given ; as when it is written, “ It is a joy to the just to do judgment.” Inability, Mor. [Deficiency in ethical motive consequent upon want of harmony between personal inclination and moral requirements.—Ed.] It is the want of a right disposition; as in those of whom it is written, “ They have eyes full of adultery, and cannot cease from sin.” “ That which prevents a man from doing as he will, is natural inability. That which prevents him from doing as he ought, is moral ina- bility.”—Day, On the Will, p. 97. ABROGATION (abrogo, to recall) is the annulling or recalling of a law. ABSCISSIO INFINTTI.—A series of arguments in which we go on excluding, one by one, certain suppositions, or certain classes of things, from that whose real nature we are seeking to ascer- tain. Thus, certain symptoms, suppose, exclude “small- pox; ” that is, prove this not to be the patient’s disorder; other symptoms, suppose, exclude “ scarlatina,” &c., and so one may proceed by gradually narrowing the range of pos- sible suppositions.—Whately, Logic, bk. ii. ch. iii. sec. 4, and ch. v. sec. 1, subs. 7 ; Bacon, Novum Organum, bk. ii. 26. ABSOLUTE (absolutum, from ah and solvo, to free or loose from) signifies what is free from restriction or limit. [Properly, self- sufficient, independent both in nature and in action.—Ed.] “ We must know what is to be meant by absolute or absolute- ness ; whereof I find two main significations. First, absolute signifieth perfect, and absoluteness, perfection; hence we have in Latin this expression—Perfectum est omnibus numeris absolutum. And in our vulgar language we say a thing is absolutely good when it is perfectly good. Next, absohite signifieth/ree/rom tie or bond, which in Greek is u.rrdhihv(itvov.’ — Knox, Hist, of Reform., Pref. 1. What is complete or perfect in itself, as opposed to what is relative. 2. What is free from restriction, as opposed to what exists secundum quid. The soul of man is immortal absolutely ; man is immortal only as to his soul. 3. What is underived. It thus denotes self-existence, and is predicable only of the First Cause.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2199531x_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
