The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 252

ILLUMINATION, THE, the name given to the "advanced" thinking cla.s.s who pride themselves in their emanc.i.p.ation from all authority in spiritual matters, the a.s.sumption of which they regard as an outrage not only against the right of private judgment, but the very const.i.tution of man, which, they argue, is violated when respect is not before all paid to individual conviction. See AUFKLaRUNG.

ILLYRIA, the name anciently given to a broad stretch of mountainous country of varying extent lying E. of the Adriatic Sea. The Illyrians were the last Balkan people to be civilised; becoming a Roman province 35 B.C., Illyria furnished several emperors, among them the notorious Diocletian. Constantine extended the province to include all the country S. of the Danube; at the division of the empire, Greece and Macedonia went to the East, the rest to the West; the name was revived by Napoleon, but has since been dropped.

ILUS, a legendary king of Troy, the grandson of Darda.n.u.s, and the founder of Ilium.

IMAGE WORs.h.i.+P in the Christian Church is reverence, as distinct from the supreme adoration of the Deity, paid to the crucifix and to pictures, images, or statues of saints and martyrs, and understood really as offered through these to the personages whom they represent. The practice, unknown in apostolic or sub-apostolic times, was prevalent in the 4th century, provoked by its excesses a severe reaction in the 8th century, but carefully defined by the second Council of Nice (787), has continued since both in the Greek and Roman communion; there is still controversy as to its propriety in the Anglican Church; the Lutherans still use the crucifix freely, but other Protestant Churches have entirely repudiated the practice. See ICONOCLASTS.

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, a remarkable work by Landor, in 6 vols., much appreciated by many.

IMAGINATION, the name appropriate to the highest faculty of man, and defined by Ruskin as "mental creation," in the exercise of which the human being discharges his highest function as a responsible being, "the defect of which on common minds it is the main use," says Ruskin, "of works of fiction, and of the drama, as far as possible, to supply."

IMaM is the t.i.tle of the officer who leads the devotions in Mohammedan mosques, and in Turkey conducts marriage and funeral services, as well as performs the ceremonies connected with circ.u.mcision; the office was filled and the t.i.tle borne by Mahomet, hence it sometimes signifies head of the faith, and is so applied to the Sultan of Turkey; good Mohammedans believe in the future advent of an Imam--the hidden Imam--who shall be greater than the Prophet himself.

IMAUS, a name the ancients gave to any large mountain chain in Asia, more particularly one bordering on India, or looking down upon it, as the home of the Aryans.

IMITATION OF CHRIST, a book of pious reflections, unique in its kind, and much esteemed by piously thoughtful people; ascribed to THOMAS a KEMPIS (q. v.).

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, the doctrine held by the Roman Catholic Church that the Virgin Mary was conceived and born without taint of sin; first distinctly propounded in the 12th century, at which time a festival was introduced in celebration of it, and which became matter of dispute in the 14th century, and it was only in 1854 that it became by a bull an article of the Catholic faith.

IMMANENCE, the idea that the creative intelligence which made, with the regulative intelligence which governs, the universe, is inherent in it and pervades it.

IMMENSITIES, CENTRE OF, an expression of Carlyle's to signify that wherever any one is, he is in touch with the whole universe of being, and is, if he knew it, as near the heart of it there as anywhere else he can be.

IMMENSITY, THE TEMPLE OF, the universe as felt to be in every corner of it a temple consecrated to wors.h.i.+p in with wonder and awe.

IMMERMANN, KARL LEBERECHT, German novelist and dramatist, born at Magdeburg; fought at Waterloo; entered the public service of Prussia and obtained an appointment at Dusseldorf, where he died; his fame rests upon his miscellaneous tales and satirical novels, such as "Munchausen"; his dramas consisted of both tragedies and comedies (1796-1840).

IMMORTALITY, the doctrine of the continued existence of the soul of each individual after death, a doctrine the belief of which is, in one form or another, common to most religious systems; even to those which contemplate absorption in the Deity as the final goal of existence, as is evident from the prevalence in them of the doctrine of transmigration or reincarnation.

IMMORTALS, a regiment of 10,000 foot soldiers who formed the bodyguard of the ancient Persian kings; the name given to the 40 members of the French Academy.

IMOGEN, the daughter of Cymbeline, in Shakespeare's play of the name, a perfect female character, p.r.o.nounced "the most tender and the most artless of all Shakespeare's women."

IMO'LA (12), a town in Italy, 10 m. N. of Faenza, with some fine palaces; manufactures leather, gla.s.s, silk, &c.

IMPANATION, a name employed to denote the union of the body of Christ with the bread of the Eucharist.

IMPENETRABILITY, the name given to that quality of matter whereby two bodies cannot occupy the same s.p.a.ce at the same time.

IMPERATIVE, THE CATEGORICAL. See CATEGORICAL.

IMPERIAL FEDERATION, name given to a scheme for uniting more closely together the several interests of the British Empire.

IMPERIAL INSt.i.tUTE, South Kensington, founded by the exertions of the Prince of Wales in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's jubilee, was opened by her in 1893; was intended to include a complete collection of the products of the British Empire, a grand commercial intelligence bureau, and a school of modern Oriental languages; the government to be carried on by a chartered body, whose form of const.i.tution was granted by a royal warrant of date April 21, 1891; the idea is for the present abandoned, and the premises appropriated as henceforth the seat of the London University.

IMPERIALISM, the name given by English politicians to the policy which aims at the consolidation into one empire of all the colonies and dependencies along with the mother-country.

IMPETIGO, a cutaneous eruption, generally in cl.u.s.ters, of yellow-scaled pustules, which grow thicker and larger; common among children ill fed and ill cared for.

IMPEY, SIR ELIJAH, Indian judge, born at Hammersmith; educated at Cambridge, and called to the bar in 1756; was sent out to Bengal as first Chief-Justice in 1774; he supported Warren Hastings's administration, and presided over the court which sentenced Nuncomar to death for forgery; in the quarrel over Hastings's alleged resignation he decided in favour of the governor; was recalled and impeached for his conduct of the Nuncomar trial in 1783, but was honourably acquitted; resigning in 1789, he sat in Parliament for New Romney till 1796 (1732-1809).

IMPONDERABLES, the name given to light, heat, and electricity when they were supposed to be material substances, but without weight.

IMPRESSIONISM, a term in painting that denotes the principle of a new school originating in France before 1870, and introduced into this country some 10 years later; it is a revolt against traditionalism in art, and aims at reproducing on canvas not what the mind knows or by close study observes is in nature, but the "impression" which eye and mind gather. The influence of the movement has been strong, and promises to be lasting both here and in Germany, and not the least interesting work of the kind has of late years issued from the "Glasgow School" and the "London Impressionists."

IMPRESSMENT, legalised enforcement of service in the British navy, which has for years been in abeyance, and is not likely to be ever again revived.

IMPROPRIATION, the transference of the revenues of a benefice to a layman or lay body to be devoted to spiritual uses.

IMPUTATION, the theological dogma of the transference of guilt or merit from one to another who is descended naturally or spiritually from the same stock as the former, as of Adam's guilt to us by nature or Christ's righteousness to us by faith; although in Scripture the term generally, if not always, denotes the reckoning to a man of the merit or the demerit involved in, not another's doings, but his own, as in a single act of faith or a single act of unbelief, the one viewed as allying him with all that is good, or as a proof of his essential goodness, and the other as allying him with all that is evil, or as a proof of his essential wickedness.

IN CaeNA DOMINI (i. e. in the Supper of the Lord), a papal bull promulgated in the Middle Ages, denouncing excommunication against all who dispute the claims of the Church, and the promulgation of which was felt on all hands to be intolerable; the promulgation has been discontinued since 1773.

INACHOS, in Greek legend the first king of Argos, son of Ocea.n.u.s and Tethys.