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de la Perpétuité de la Foi sur l'Eucharistie.' [CLAUDE.] This involved him in a controversy with the writers of PortRoyal, and laid the foundation of that opposition which he afterwards met with from the learned of his own communion. His next publication, which came out under the assumed name of Recared Simeon, was a French translation of the work of Leo of Modena: Cérémonies et Coutumes qui s'observent aujourd'hui parmi les Juifs,' Paris, 1674, 12mo. A second edition appeared in 1681, under the name of the Sieur de Simonville, containing also a supplement respecting the Caraites and the Samaritans, and a comparison between the ceremonies of the Jews and the discipline of the Church. In 1675 he published the 'Voyage de Mont Liban,' from the Italian of Dandini, with notes, and about the same time his Factum du Prince de Neubourg, abbé de Feschamps, contre les Religieux de cette Abbaye,' in which work, as was usual with him, he took an opportunity to attack the Benedictines. But the work which rendered him most famous is his 'Histoire Critique du Vieux Testament,' which immediately after its publication (Paris, 1678, 8vo.) was suppressed on the ground that it contained doctrines dangerous to religion and the Church. The work however was so much admired for its learning and criticism, that it was reprinted the year after, and translated into Latin at Amsterdam, 1681, and into English at London, 1682, 4to., by John Hampden. After the publication of his 'Histoire Critique,' Simon left the Congregation of the Oratory, and repaired to Belleville, a village near Caux, where he held a curacy; but in 1682 he resigned his office and removed to Dieppe, and thence to Paris to renew his studies and make arrangements for the publication of other works. In 1684 he published at Frankfort, Histoire de l'Origine et du Progrès des Revenues Ecclésiastiques,' under the name of Jerome à Costa, of which a second edition appeared at the same place in 1709, in 2 vols. 8vo. In the same year (1684) he printed in London his 'Disquisitiones Criticæ de variis per diversa Loca et Tempora Bibliorum Editionibus,' which was immediately translated into English. In 1688 he published at Frankfort, under the name of John Reuchlin, Dissertation Critique sur la Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Ecclésiastiques par Du Pin,' in which he defends some opinions contained in his 'Histoire Critique,' which had been controverted by Du Pin. His next publication was Histoire Critique du Nouveau Testament,' Rotterdam, 1689, 4to., an English version of which appeared the same year at London. Besides the above, Simon was the author or editor of many other works. He was unquestionably a man of profound learning and great acuteness, and he contributed in no small degree to lessen the authority of his own church; but a love of controversy, in all its bitterness, and too great a propensity to depreciate and abuse those who happened not to acquiesce in his opinions, rendered him equally obnoxious to Protestants and Roman Catholics. He died at Dieppe, in April, 1712, in the seventyfourth year of his age.

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SIMONIDES was a native of Iulis, in the island of Ceos, and was born about B.C. 556. His father's name was Leoprepes, and his grandfather's Simonides, who was also a poet.

Simonides is said to have obtained great fame as a poet at an early age. He appears to have remained in Ceos till about B.C. 525, when he removed to Athens, where he was honourably received by Hipparchus, and became acquainted with Anacreon and Lasus (Plato, Hipparch., p. 228; Aelian, Var. Hist., viii. 2). After the murder of Hipparchus, he took refuge with the Aleuadae and Scopadae in Thessaly, whose praises he celebrated in some of his poems (Theocrit., xvi. 34, &c., with the Schol. ; compare Plato, Protagor., p. 333). How long Simonides remained in Thessaly is not known; but after the battle of Marathon (B.C. 499) we find him again at Athens. For the next ten years he appears to have lived chiefly at Athens, and to have been actively engaged in the pursuit of his art. After the banishment of Themistocles and the death of Pausanias, with both of whom he lived,on intimate terms, he retired to Hieron's court at Syracuse (Aelian, Var. Hist., ix. 1; iv. 15), where he died, B.C. 467, in his ninetieth year.

Most of the poems of Simonides are lost; but enough have come down to us to enable us to form some opinion of the merits of his poetry, and to justify the panegyrics which the antient writers bestow upon him. He was one of the most distinguished of the elegiac poets, and particularly excelled in the pathetic, as we see in his 'Lament of Danae' and

in other remains of his poetry. He is stated to have had the superiority over Aeschylus in an elegy which he com posed in honour of those who died at Marathon, when the Athenians instituted a contest of the chief poets. But some of Simonides's best poems are epigrams, which species of poetry he carried to greater perfection than any of his predecessors. The Persian war gave constant employment to this muse, as he was frequently employed by the different states of Greece to adorn with inscriptions the tombs of those who fell, and the votive offerings which were dedicated in the various temples. We still possess several of his epigrams belonging to this period. Of these one of the most celebrated is upon the Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ: 'Stranger, tell the Lacedæmonians that we are lying here in obedience to their laws;' and another upon the Athenians who fell at Marathon: Fighting in the van of the Greeks, the Athenians at Marathon destroyed the power of the glittering Medians.' Simonides also celebrated the sea-fights of Artemisium and Salamis in two larger poems, which are often referred to by antient writers, but of which no fragments have come down to us.

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The remains of the poems of Simonides have been published by Schneidewin, under the the title of Simonidis Carminum Reliquiæ,' Bruns., 1835, 8vo. The Greek letters E, Y, Q, are said to have been invented by Simonides, who is also stated to have converted the sign of the aspirate H into a long e.

Simonides of Ceos must not be confounded with Simonides of Amorgus, which is an island not far from Paros. The latter was a contemporary of Archilochus, and flourished from B.C. 693 to 662. He wrote iambics, in which he attacked private persons, and of which a few fragments have come down to us. He also wrote a satirical poem upon women in the iambic metre, which is still extant. The fragments of his poems have been published by Welcker Bonn, 1835.

(Müller's History of the Literature of Greece, p. 125, &c., 140; Bode's Geschichte der Lyrischen Dichtkunst der Hellenen, vol. i., p. 318, &c.; vol. ii., p. 122, &c.)

SIMONY is the buying or selling for money or other corrupt consideration any ecclesiastical benefice, dignity, or preferment, or the causing a clerk to obtain or to relinquish such benefice or preferment for corrupt consideration. The word is derived from Simon, who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles' (viii., 18-24) as having offered money to Peter and John in order that he might obtain from them apostolical powers.

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Whether Simony was an offence at common law is at least doubtful. Lord Coke, it is true, repeatedly says that the common law doth abhor Simony, and adduces as evidence of this repugnance the fact that a patron of a living could not by the common law recover a pecuniary compensation for being impeded in his presentation. It is certain that Simony is a great ecclesiastical offence by the canons both of the Roman Catholic and of the Anglican church. The 40th canon of the latter (A.D. 1603), 'to avoid the detestable crime of Simony, and because the buying and selling of spiritual and ecclesiastical functions, &c. is execrable before God,' prescribes an oath to be ministered to every person assuming such offices, by which he denies that he has made any Simoniacal payment, contract, or promise, directly or indirectly, for procuring such ecclesiastical office, or that he will perform any such contract made on his behalf without his knowledge.

But the offence now depends on the statute 31 Elizabeth, c. 6, although the word Simony is not mentioned in the act. By that statute any person presenting to a benefice for profit or any such corrupt cause' forfeits to the crown that presentation and double the value of one year's profit of the benefice, and the person paying the price is rendered incapable of holding that benefice (§ 5). Any person so corruptly admitting or instituting another is subject to the like pecuniary penalty, and the benefice is 'eftsoons merely void,' and the presentation reverts to the patron as though the party so admitted were dead (§ 6). An incumbent resigning or exchanging a benefice with cure of souls for profit, and the person with whom the bargain is made, both forfeit double the price, together with two years' profit of the benefice (§ 8). Any person obtaining for such corrupt consideration the ordaining of a minister, forfeits 407., and the minister so corruptly ordained forfeits 10. and is incapable of holding any ecclesiastical preferment for seven years. The modifications which that enactment has under

gone by subsequent statutes and decisions will be found 1 It has been translated into English by Dr. G. Stanhope, under the head BENEFICE (p. 223-6). London, 1704, 8vo. ; into French by Dacier, Paris, 1715; and into German by Schulthess, Zürich, 1778. SIMPLON. [SWITZERLAND.]

The indignation of ecclesiastical authorities against Simony, excepting in so far as relates to the admission of persons into the ministry, seems somewhat unreasonable, and is certainly inefficacious, for the trafficking in ecclesiastical preferment is extensively pursued. Provided that the qualification of persons for holy orders is carefully investigated before their admission to the ministry, and that the discipline of the church can be strictly and easily enforced by the bishops and other ecclesiastical authorities, the reason why a minister who has been admitted to a benefice for a pecuniary consideration should be disqualified for his office is not very obvious, especially in a country where advowsons are by law a marketable commodity, and the legislature recognises a bargain for compelling a minister to resign a benefice in favour of another person, provided the latter is within certain degrees of consanguinity to the patron.

(Rogers's Ecclesiastical Law; Bacon's Abridgment, 'Simony.')

SIMOOM. [SAMIELI.]

SIMPLE BODIES. [ATOMIC THEORY.] SIMPLE CONTRACT debts are those which are contracted without any engagement under the seal of the debtor or of his ancestor, and which are not of record by any judgment of a court. Money due for goods bought by the debtor is the most usual of simple contract debts; and the declaration against a defendant, in an action for goods sold, usually alleges that the defendant undertook (or contracted) to pay the plaintiff the sum due. Simple contract debts are the last which are payable out of a deceased person's estate, when the assets are insufficient. [EXECUTOR.]

SIMPLICIUS, a native of Tibur, succeeded Hilarius as bishop of Rome, A.D. 467. He had a controversy with Acacias, Patriarch of Constantinople, about precedence. Simplicius dedicated several churches at Rome to particular saints, and he also framed several regulations concerning the discipline of the clergy of Rome. He died A.D. 483. SIMPLICIUS was a native of Cilicia, and lived in the reign of Justinian. He had been trained in the study of philosophy by Ammonius, and appears to have been engaged in teaching at Athens when Justinian issued the decree which imposed perpetual silence on the few yet remaining votaries of heathen science and superstition in that city. Simplicius and six of his philosophic friends, who were resolved not to abandon the religion of their forefathers, left Athens, to seek in a foreign land the freedom which was denied to them at home. They went to Persia, where Chosroes then reigned, expecting to find all their hopes realised; but when they saw the actual state of affairs in the East, they repented of the steps which they had taken, and declared that they would rather die on the borders of the empire than enjoy the favours and the wealth which the barbarian monarch might bestow upon them. They returned to their country; and Chosroes, in a treaty which he at the time concluded with the Greek emperor, nobly stipulated that the seven philosophers who had visited his court should be exempt from the penal laws which Justinian enacted against his pagan subjects. Simplicius and his friends, after their return, lived in peace and retirement at Athens, where they devoted the remainder of their lives to the study of philosophy, enjoying the reputation of being wise and virtuous

men.

Simplicius wrote Commentaries on Aristotle's Categogoriæ, Physica, De Coelo, and De Anima. One of his objects in these commentaries is to reconcile the Platonic and Stoic systems with the Peripatetic school, to which he himself belonged. They are the most valuable of all the extant Greek commentaries on Aristotle; for Simplicius possessed a profound knowledge of his author, as well as of other philosophical writers of antiquity; and as he frequently quotes the opinions of antient philosophers whose works are no longer extant, his commentaries are a fruitful source for those who wish to study the history of antient philosophy. His commentaries are printed in some of the early editions of Aris. totle; they are also contained in 'Scholia in Aristotelem, collegit Ch. A. Brandis,' Berlin, 1836, &c.

Simplicius also wrote a Commentary on the Enchiridion of Epictetus, which for its pure and noble principles of morality has commanded the admiration of all ages. The best separate edition of this commentary is that by Schweighauser, with a Latin translation, in 2 vols., Leipzig, 1800. P C., No. 1363.

SIMPSON, THOMAS, a distinguished English mathematician, was born at Market-Bosworth in Leicestershire, August 20, 1710. He appears even in his boyhood to have had a strong inclination for acquiring information by reading and conversation; but his father, who was a weaver, intending that he should follow that occupation, endea voured to divert him from a pursuit which interfered with the labour of his hands. The impulse of genius however prevailed over the remonstrances of the parent, and the youth, having quitted his father's house, went to reside at Nuneaton, where, in the exercise of his trade, he obtained the means of subsisting, and during the intervals of leisure he indulged his taste for the acquisition of knowledge.

Young Simpson was led to the study of mathematics by having accidentally obtained possession of a copy of Cocker's 'Arithmetic,' to which was annexed a short treatise on algebra; and, similarly to what is related of Tycho Brahe, it is said that he applied himself to astronomy from admiration of the science in consequence of the occurrence (in 1724) of a great eclipse of the sun at the time, which had been predicted. It is added that an itinerant pedlar and fortune-teller instructed him at the same time in the mysteries of judicial astrology, and this art he occasionally practised during several years.

While yet a stripling he married a woman about fifty years of age, the widow of a tailor and the mother of two children, of whom the younger was his senior by two years · all the family however appear to have lived together in harmony, Simpson working at his trade by day, and increasing his income by keeping a private school in the evenings. In 1733 he went to reside at Derby, where he continued to follow the united avocations of weaver and schoolmaster, and where he found means to increase his knowledge of mathematics. With arithmetic, geometry, and algebra he was already acquainted; and now, having obtained a loan of Stone's translation of the Marquis de l'Hôpital's 'Analyse des Infinimens Petits,' he was enabled by the force of genius and unremitting application to make himself master of the direct and inverse method of fluxions. Being thus qualified, he began in or before the year 1735 to write answers to the mathematical questions in the 'Ladies' Diary,' and even to propose questions for solution in that work. Some of the questions have a certain degree of intricacy, and they afford evidence that, at this time, the scientific attainments of Simpson, considering his means, must have been very extensive.

In the year 1735 or 1736 Simpson came to London and took lodgings in Spitalfields, where at first he both worked at the loom and gave instruction, as he had done in the country; but his great abilities becoming known to the world, and being perhaps more conspicuous from the obscurity of his situation, he was enabled to give up his trade and devote himself wholly to science. Having brought his family to the metropolis, he established himself there as a teacher of the mathematics, and employed his leisure hours in extending his researches into the highest branches of the science.

On the death of Dr. Derham, Mr. Simpson was, in 1743, appointed professor of mathematics in the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich; and this post he heid during nearly all the rest of his life. He is said to have been successful in acquiring the friendship and esteem of his pupils; and while exerting himself diligently in fulfilling his public duties, he found time to compose numerous works on the most abstruse points in the mathematical and physical sciences.

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In 1746 he was admitted a fellow of the Royal Society, and on account of the mediocrity of his circumstances he was excused the payment of the admission fee and the annual subscriptions: several of his mathematical papers were printed in the Transactions,' but most of them were afterwards republished in the volumes of his works. In 1760, when the present bridge at Blackfriars was about to be built, Mr. Simpson was consulted with other mathematicians concerning the form which would be most advantageous for the arches; he appears in consequence to have taken some pains in investigating the conditions of the stability of vaults, and to have given the preference to those VOL. XXII-F

As Mr. Simpson advanced in life, he became gradually a prey to melancholy, which appears to have been increased by the influence of bad habits; his mental faculties were at length so far impaired that he became incapable of performing the duties of his professorship, and in the beginning of the year 1761 he was prevailed on to retire to his native town. The fatigues of the journey increased his disorder, and he died May 14, in that year, in the fifty-first year of his age.

of a hemi-cylindrical form, but he did not live to complete | nation of the elements of the orbits of the earth, moon, and the work, and the results of his researches have never been planets; these bodies being supposed to perturbate each made public. other's motions by their mutual attractions, as well as to be subject to the general attraction of the sun. In the prosecution of the research, the mathematicians Clairaut, D'Alembert, and Euler particularly investigated the effect of the sun's attraction in causing a progression of the apogee of the moon's orbit, which progression, being a remarkable consequence of perturbation, was considered as a test of the correctness of the general principle and law of attraction which had been assumed by Newton. The first efforts of M. Clairaut showed an amount of progression in the period of a revolution of the moon about the earth, equal to about half only of that which had been determined from astronois remarkable that both D'Alembert and Euler obtained at the same time a like erroneous result. This circumstance at first caused some doubts to be entertained of the truth of Newton's hypothesis, that the force of attraction varies inversely as the square of the distance: but the process employed by the three mathematicians being one of successive approximations only, it was afterwards discovered by Clairaut that, on continuing the process, the second step in the approximation produced a quantity nearly equal to that which had been obtained by the first step; and thus the computed progression was found to coincide with the results of observation. Now Simpson, employing a differential equation of motion like that which had been used by the foreign mathematicians, obtained the values of its terms by means of indeterminate coefficients; a method which entirely avoided the inaccuracy resulting from the species of approximation which they had adopted; and thus he arrived at once at the true value of the progression.

Considering the circumstances attending Simpson's early life, and the laborious occupation in which he was afterwards engaged, it is not without surprise that we contem-mical observations ('Mémoires de l'Académie,' 1747); and it plate the number of works which he wrote, and the profound research those works display. His first publication, which came out in 1737, was entitled 'A New Treatise of Fluxions, in which the direct and inverse methods, as they were called, are demonstrated with considerable precision and perspicuity, and agreeably to the manner of Newton; the work also contains several useful applications of the calculus to subjects in natural philosophy and astronomy, Thirteen years afterwards, that is, in 1750, he published The Doctrine and Applications of Fluxions, which he dedicated to the earl of Macclesfield, and which, though it embraces the same subjects as form the body of the Treatise,' must, from the numerous improvements it contains, be considered as a separate work.

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In 1740 Simpson published A Treatise on the Nature and Laws of Chance,' besides Essays on several subjects in pure and mixed Mathematics; and two years afterwards The Doctrine of Annuities and Reversions, with tables

showing the values of single and joint lives. These works

were followed, in 1743, by Mathematical Dissertations on Physical and Analytical Subjects, among which will be found an investigation of the figure of a planet revolving on its axis, and of the force of attraction at the surfaces of bodies which are nearly spherical; also a theory of the tides and of astronomical refractions. These dissertations were dedicated to Martin Folkes, Esq., the president of the Royal Society.

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An Elementary Treatise on Algebra' was published in 1745; The Elements of Geometry, in 1747; and in the next year A Tract on Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, with the Theory of Logarithms. With the elements of geometry are given notes in which are suggested improvements on some of the demonstrations of Euclid; but in making occasional observations on the notes given in the first edition of Dr. Robert Simson's Euclid, for example on the note to the first proposition of the eleventh book, he has fallen into some slight inaccuracies which have been remarked on in the succeeding editions of the latter work. A second edition of Thomas Simpson's 'Geometry' was published in 1760.

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In the year 1752 he published Select Exercises in Mathematics, in which are given many geometrical and algebraical problems with their solutions, and a theory of gunnery; but his last and most valuable work was that which is entitled Miscellaneous Tracts' (1754). This consists of eight separate papers, four of which relate to pure mathematics, and the others to physical astronomy. The first paper contains investigations for determining the precession of the equinoxes and the nutations of the earth's axis; the second contains equations for correcting the place of a planet in its orbit on the hypotheses of Bullialdus and Seth Ward; and the third is on the manner of transferring the motion of a comet from a parabolical to an elliptical orbit. In the fourth paper are explained the advantages, in point of accuracy, which arise from using a mean of several astronomical observations instead of one single observation. The fifth contains the determination of certain fluents; the sixth, the resolution of algebraic equations by means of surd divisors; and the seventh, a general rule for the resolution of isoperimetrical propositions. The eighth paper contains the resolution of some important problems in astronomy; the propositions in the third and ninth sections of the first book of Newton's 'Principia' are demonstrated, and the general equations are applied to the determination of the lunar orbit.

In order that the merit of this last paper may be rightly appreciated, it is necessary to observe that about the year 1745 the modern analysis was first applied to the determi

The Tracts' were not published till seven years after Clairaut's Mémoire' came out, and it appears that, in the interval, that mathematician during a visit to England had an interview with Simpson; the latter states however, in the preface to his Tracts, that previously to having had any communication with M. Clairaut, he had discovered that the movement of the moon's apogee could be accounted for on the Newtonian law of gravitation. There is therefore no reason to doubt that Simpson had the merit of arriving at a determination which served to confirm the truth of that law by a process entirely his own: the whole investigation exhibits profound mathematical skill, and fully entitles him to the character of having been one of the ablest analysts, for all the purposes of practical science, of which the country can boast.

Mr. Simpson continued during the whole of his life his contributions to the Ladies' Diary, of which work he was the editor from 1754 to 1760.

"SIMSON, ROBERT, one of the many mathematicians who bave given a lustre to the universities of Scotland, was a son of Mr. John Simson, of Kirton Hall in Ayrshire, and was born in October, 1687. About the year 1701 he was sent to the university of Glasgow, where he acquired that proficiency in the learned languages which he retained during all his life, and at the same time he made considerable progress in moral philosophy and theology, being destined by his father for the church. Young Simson soon however found a pursuit more congenial to his taste in the study of mathematics, and chiefly of the antient geometry: to this subject he applied himself at first as a relief from what he considered as a more laborious occupation, and it became at length almost the sole employment of his life.

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In 1710 Mr. Simson made a visit to London, where he remained about a year, and where he became acquainted with Dr. Halley, Mr. Caswell, Dr. Jurin, and Mr. Ditton; from the conversation of the last gentleman, who was then mathematical master of Christ's Hospital, he gained, not as à pupil, but as a friend, a considerable accession to his knowledge of science.

On the resignation of Dr. Robert Sinclair, Mr. Simson was appointed, in 1711, to succeed him as professor of mathematics in the university of Glasgow. He then applied himself to the duties of his office, and regularly gave lectures on five days in each week during the session of seven months. This practice he continued for nearly fifty years; but in 1758, being then seventy-one years of age, he was obliged to employ an assistant, and three years afterwards the Rev. Dr. Williamson, who had been one of his pupils, was appointed his successor.

In 1735 Dr. Simson published in 4to. a Treatise on Conic

Sections,' and a second edition in 1750: in this work the investigations are conducted agreeably to the spirit of the antient geometry, and propositions are introduced expressly that it might serve as an introduction to the treatise of Apollonius on the same subject.

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and those sins which are only those of contemplation and thought: since the Christian rule commands us not to neglect the performance of our duties, and to keep a watch over the thoughts as well as over the actions and words.

It was this comprehensive and most excellent law which was in the mind of the Apostle when he said that 'sin was transgression of the law,' or at least that other divine law which bound the conscience of the Jews. But the expression may be taken to express more generally any law which a person holds in his conscience to be binding upon him, whether it be a law of nature only, or a law in which the natural perception of right and wrong is modified by and mixed with what is received as the will of God concerning us by direct revelation from him.

By the advice, it is said, of Dr. Halley, Simson early directed his attention to a restoration of the works of the Greek geometers, and his first effort was made on the porisms of Euclid: a branch of the antient analysis which is only known from the short account in the works of Pappus. In this difficult task however he succeeded, but his Tract' on the subject was not published till after his death. Having acquired a sort of key to that analysis, he undertook a restoration of the 'loci plani' of Apollonius, and this he completed about the year 1738. The work was When the word sin is however applied to any act, it is first published in 1746, and Dr. Simson acquired by it the always, among correct writers or speakers, used with referreputation of being one of the most elegant geometers of ence, either expressed or implied, to religious obligation, the age. Another subject on which the peculiar talents of and to the responsibility in which we stand to God, and the Dr. Simson were exercised, was the 'sectio determinata' of liability in which we are to future punishment. To do Apollonius, and this also he was so fortunate as to restore. wrong' would express the same act as to commit sin;' but The work appears to have been commenced at an early pe- we use the former phrase without thinking of the offence riod of his life, but it was only published, along with the which is done against God in any act of the kind; not so Porisms, after his death. when we use the other phrase.

A perfect edition of the principal part of Euclid's 'Elements' was the next object of Dr. Simson's labours. Numerous errors were known to exist in the Greek copies, and the correction of these was a task worthy of a scholar who had made the antient geometry almost exclusively his study. An edition of the Elements' and of the Data' was published in 4to. about 1758, and the work has always enjoyed a high character both for precision in the definitions and accuracy in the demonstrations. It is probable that the British mathematician has even corrected errors which existed in the original text, though his high regard for Euclid has led him to assume that all those which he has discovered have arisen from the negligence or unskilfulness of the antient editors or copyists. Having been very generally used for the purposes of elementary instruction, many editions of this work have since been published.

After his retirement Dr. Simson employed himself chiefly in correcting his mathematical writings; but though he had several works nearly fit for publication, he printed none except a new edition of Euclid's 'Data.' He was seriously ill only during a few weeks previously to his death, which took place October 1, 1768, in the eighty-first year of his age.

In 1776 Earl Stanhope published, at his own expense, and for private circulation, the above-mentioned restorations of Euclid's books of Porisms, and of the two books of Apollonius De Sectione Determinata:' together with these works the same nobleman published a tract on the limits of ratios and another on logarithms, both of which had also been written by Dr. Simson. An edition of the works of Pappus was found among the Doctor's MSS., and was sent by his executors to the University of Oxford.

Dr. Simson, though devoted to geometry, was well acquainted with the modern analysis, and the latter was occasionally the subject of his college lectures; it is how ever to be regretted that so much of his time was spent in the effort to restore the precise works of the antients, when it might have been more profitably employed in forming a connected system of their analysis, and in showing its application to the solution of problems relating to physical science. He was never married, and the greater part of his long life was spent within the walls of the college; his hours of study, his exercises, and even his amusements being regulated with great precision. In his disposition he was cheerful and sociable; and his conversation, which was animated, abounded with literary anecdote and good humour, though he was subject, when in company, to occasional fits of absence. He was a man of strict integrity and pure morals, and he appears to have had just impressions of religion, though he never allowed the subject to be introduced in mixed society.

SIN. One of the few passages of Scripture in which we have something which approaches to the character of a definition relates to this word: Sin is the transgression of the law.' (1 John, iii. 4.) Within this definition would be comprehended all actual sins, when the word law is interpreted to mean the Christian law, the rule by which the minds of all who profess Christianity are bound; and not merely open palpable offences against the law, such as murder, theft, lying, and the like, but sinful omissions of duty,

Under this definition it is evident that there may be degrees in sin: and we mention this to remove what we deem an erroneous opinion on this subject, which goes the length of saying that there is really no difference between the slightest violation of any moral obligation and the more heinous transgressions. The error on this point arises out of one of the commonest mistakes in respect of language-confounding words in their abstract with words in their concrete state. It is true that sin in the abstract is one and indivisible, and there are no degrees in it; it expresses that which is most offensive in the sight of a pure, holy, and judging God. But when we say 'a sin,' we then refer to some particular act; and common sense tells us that in all acts in which the law is transgressed there is not the same amount of moral turpitude, the same amount of defiance to the Divine Power, the same injury to society or to our neighbour, and consequently not the same amount of offence in the sight of God. At the same time it cannot be too strongly inculcated upon all to keep a watchful guard upon themselves lest they commit even the smaller offences; for nothing is more certain in the philosophy of mind, than that small offences lead imperceptibly to the toleration of greater, so that the man who thinks little of small offences may become, before he is aware, guilty of those of the most heinous nature.

There is also what divines call Original Sin; a phrase which is differently interpreted by different persons. By some it is considered as being the act of sin committed by our first parents when they transgressed the law which had bound them not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree; and this act of sin is regarded as partaken in by all the posterity of Adam, who were, as it were, existent in him their common father, and as fixing upon all the guilt of his sin, and exposing them to punishment which would be inflicted for this particular sin, to say nothing of their own sin, but for the great redemption. There are many modifications of this notion and many intermediate shades of opinion till we arrive at the view of original sin which represents the nature of man as changed by the transgression in this particular of our common ancestor; so that a nature previously perfectly innocent and free from the least tendency to sin, became changed into one in which the disposition to sin is inherent and the repugnance to the Divine will strong and universal. There are some classes of professing Christians who do not use the phrase original sin, though they admit the proneness of man to sin, attributing it to his ignorance and imperfection, to the violence of his appetites and passions, and in general referring it to that state of probation in which it seems to them to have been the intention of their Maker to place us.

SINAI, MOUNT. [ARABIA, p. 213.]

SINA'PIS, the name of a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Cruciferæ or Brassicaceae. All the species are known by the name of mustard, a word derived from mustum ardens, in allusion to their hot and biting character. The genus is known by its siliquose fruit, which is rather terete with nerved valves; small, short, acute style; subglobose seeds disposed in one row in each cell, and spreading calyx. The leaves are of various forms, lyrate or deeply toothed. The flowers yellow, arranged on terminal bractless

tion. Water in which it is dissolved is a powerful vesicant and rubefacient. It has been recommended as a counterirritant in the same cases as sinapisms or mustard-poultices are employed. It possesses the advantage of extreme rapidity of action; and when used in cases of torpor or coma, if on the return of sensibility the patient complains of pain from the application, this can be immediately removed by washing the part with sulphuric æther, a property no other rubefacient agent possesses, and which entitles it to a preference in many cases. It is the only volatile oil of indigenous origin which is heavier than water, its specific gravity being 1015 at 68° of Falır. It possesses the same power as other volatile oils in preventing the development of fungi.

racemes. They are chiefly natives of the temperate parts | fat matter, gummy matter, sugar, colouring matter, sinaof both hemispheres of the old world. Between 40 and 50 pisin, free acid, peculiar green matter, and some salts, species of this genus are enumerated. Of these two species chiefly sulphate and phosphate of lime. The volatile oil are well known and much cultivated in this country, Sina- does not pre-exist in the mustard, but is formed, when water pis nigra and S. alba, the black and white mustard. is added, by the mutual action of the contained myrosyne S. nigra, the black mustard, is known by its smooth, even, and myronate of potash (sinapisin ?).' It may be obtained somewhat tetragonal siliques closely pressed to the pe- by distilling one part of the marc (ie. the cake of bruised duncle; lyrate lower leaves, and lanceolate upper leaves. mustard-seeds which remains after the fixed oil has been It is found in cultivated fields, waste grounds, and road-expressed) with from five to eight parts of water. It is sosides throughout Europe. The young plants of both black luble in alcohol and æther, and also, what is very singular, and white mustard are eaten as salad, and are both culti-in water, requiring however five hundred parts for its soluvated for this purpose. The black however differs from the white mustard in the flowers and seed being much smaller, and in the latter being black. But the great purpose for which the black mustard is grown is for the seeds, which when ripened and powdered form the well-known condiment mustard. To raise the seed for flour of mustard and other officinal occasions, sow either in March or April in an open compartment, or large sowings in fields, where designed for public supply. Sow moderately thick, either in drills six or twelve inches asunder, or broad-cast, after the ground has been properly ploughed and harrowed, and rake or harrow in the seed. When the plants are two or three inches high, hoe or thin them moderately where too thick, and clear them from weeds. They will soon run up to stalks, and in July, August, or September return a crop of seed ripe for gathering; being tied up in sheaves and left three or four days on the stubble.' (Don's Miller.) Rain damages the crop very much. Black mustard exhausts the soil rapidly. It is cultivated to a great extent in the county of Durham. When once grown it is difficult to extirpate on account of the great vitality of the seeds, which, if buried at almost any depth and for any length of time, will germinate when brought to the surface. In preparing the flour of mustard in this country, the black husk of the seed is separated by delicate sifting. This process, which is not gone through on the Continent, makes the British mustard of so much lighter and more agreeable colour. The mustard on the Continent however is stronger, as the greater proportion of the volatile oil on which the strength of the mustard depends resides in the testa, or husk of the seed, which in this country is thrown away.

S. alba, white mustard: siliques hispid, spreading, rather narrower than the ensiform beak: leaves lyrate, smoothish; stem smooth. It is a native of Britain and most countries in the south of Europe. It is frequently cultivated, and when young is eaten as a salad. Its seeds are white, and by expression yield a bland insipid oil perfectly free from acrimony, but leaving behind a cake more pungent than the seeds themselves. In the culture of this plant for salad the seed should be sown once a week or fortnight, in dry warm situations, in February and March, and in shady borders in the heat of summer. They are best sown in shallow flat drills, from three to six inches apart. The seeds should be put in thick and regular, and covered with not more than a quarter of an inch of mould. In winter or early spring it may be grown under a hand-glass, or in hotbeds and stoves. SINAPIS. Two species of this genus are used in this country to yield the mustard of commerce, S. alba and S. nigra, or white mustard and black mustard. Both are annuals, the latter extensively cultivated in Yorkshire and Durham. Of the former the seeds are large, smooth, not veined or reticulated, and when bruised and mixed with water, do not evolve a pungent odour. The integument or skin is also thin, and the quantity of fixed oil obtained from it is less than from that of the black mustard. White mustard is of a light colour externally (but one variety is blackish), and when reduced to powder, is of a light yellow colour.

The seeds of black mustard are about the size of the head of a common pin, ovato-globose, of a reddish-brown, beautifully veined, internally yellow, oily, and yielding a yellowish-green powder. The chemical constitution of the two is essentially different, as it is only the black mustard which evolves, when bruised and mixed with water, the pungent principle which irritates the eyes, nostrils, and skin. The white mustard possesses a non-volatile principle, which is developed by the addition of water. It is the young plants from this species which are eaten with cress as a salad.

The chemical constitution of black mustard seems to be of the most complex kind. According to Dr. Pereira, it contains myronate of potash, myrosyne, fixed oil, a pearly

The fixed oil is perfectly bland, like that of olive or rape, which last it greatly resembles. It exists to the extent of 20 per cent. in white, and about 28 per cent. in black mustard-seed. To obtain it the seeds are crushed in a mill or between rollers, and the skins should be subjected to pressure as well as the farina or flour. The cake may then be sifted and reduced to a fine powder, as it retains all the pungent properties. In France the oil is generally left in the seeds, which renders them very difficult to powder, and makes it expensive. It is also less potent than English mustard in equivalent quantity. The mare or cake is sometimes used as manure, but this is a waste. The oil is valuable for burning, especially as it does not freeze, except at a temperature below zero. It also forms, with an alkali, a firm good soap. It has been supposed to be anthelmintic as well as purgative, but its medicinal properties are insignificant.

Flour of mustard, mixed with water, forms the wellknown condiment so much used with all the more indigestible articles of food, the solution of which it seems to favour by rousing the powers of the stomach. A tablespoonful of mustard in a tumbler of water forms a ready and useful emetic in many cases of poisoning, especially when narcotic poisons have been taken. Added to foot-baths, mustard has a revulsive action, which is often serviceable in the commencement of colds, and when gout has seized the stomach or brain; also when cutaneous diseases have suddenly receded.

Sinapisms are generally directed to be made with vinegar, but water of the temperature of about 100° Fahr. is preferable, and less expensive. French mustard for the table is often prepared with vinegar. Some years ago, the seeds of white mustard, taken whole, in the dose of a tablespoonful, were recommended as a cure for many complaints. This was only an old practice revived, and not free from danger, as the seeds have been known to lodge in the intestines and cause death. See Cullen's 'Materia Medica,' vol. ii., p. 170. Respecting the mustard-plant of Scripture, see Trans. of Linnean Society of London,' vol. xvii., p. 449. SINCAPORE. [SINGAPORE.]

SINCLAIR, SIR JOHN, Bart., third son of G. Sinclair, Esq., heritable sheriff of Caithness, was born at Thurso castle, in the county of Caithness, in the year 1754.

He embraced the profession of the law, and was called to the English bar in 1782, having been admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in Scotland in the year 1775.

In 1780 he was chosen member for his native county, and sat in the house during several successive parliaments, sometimes for Caithness, sometimes for other places. He was created a baronet in 1786, and in 1810 was honoured with a seat at the board of privy council. He was likewise a member of several learned societies, and became extensively known by his writings, which, for more than fifty years, issued rapidly from the press. His death took place at Edinburgh, on December 21, 1835, in the 82nd year of his age.

Sir J. Sinclair did much for the improvement of his country. He established a very useful society in Scotland

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