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APRIL

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 231 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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APRIL , the second See also:

month of the See also:ancient See also:Roman, and the See also:fourth of the See also:modern See also:calendar, containing See also:thirty days. The derivation of the name is uncertain. The traditional See also:etymology from See also:Lat. aperire, " to open," in allusion to its being the See also:season when trees and See also:flowers begin to " open," is supported by comparison with the modern See also:Greek use of avocEis (opening) for See also:spring. This seems very possible, though, as all the Roman months were named, in See also:honour of divinities, and as April was sacred to See also:Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunae Virilis being held on the first See also:day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her Greek name See also:Aphrodite. See also:Jacob See also:Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical See also:god or See also:hero, Aper or Aprus. On the fourth and the five following days, See also:games (Ludi !Llegalenses) were celebrated in honour of See also:Cybele; on the fifth there was the Festum Fortunae Publicae; on the tenth (?) games in the See also:circus, and on the nineteenth equestrian combats, in honour of See also:Ceres; on the twenty-first—which was regarded as the birthday of Rome—the Vinalia See also:urbana, when the See also:wine of the previous autumn was first tasted; on the twenty-fifth, the Robigalia, for the averting of See also:mildew; and on the twenty-eighth and four following days, the riotous Floralia. The Anglo-See also:Saxons called April Oster-monath or Eostur-monath, the See also:period sacred to Eostre or Ostara, the See also:pagan Saxon goddess of spring, from whose name is derived the modern See also:Easter. St See also:George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St See also:Mark's See also:Eve,' with its superstition that the ghosts of those who are doomed to See also:die within the See also:year will be seen to pass into the See also:church, falls on the twenty-fourth. In See also:China the symbolical ploughing of the See also:earth by the See also:emperor and princes of the See also:blood takes See also:place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to our April; and in See also:Japan the feast of Dolls is celebrated in the same month. The " days of April " (journees d'avril) is a name appropriated in See also:French See also:history to a See also:series of insurrections at See also:Lyons, See also:Paris and elsewhere, against the See also:government of See also:Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive See also:measures, and to a famous trial known as the proces d'avril. See See also:Chambers's See also:Book of Days; Grimm's Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, Cap. " Monate"; also APRIL-See also:FooLs' DAY.

APRIL-FOOLS' DAY, or ALL-FooLS' DAY, the name given to the 1st of April in allusion to the See also:

custom of playing See also:practical jokes on See also:friends and neighbours on that day, or sending them on fools' errands. The origin of this custom has been much disputed, and many ludicrous solutions have been suggested, e.g. that it is a farcical See also:commemoration of See also:Christ being sent from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to See also:Pilate, from Pilate to See also:Herod, and from Herod back again to Pilate, the crucifixion having taken place about the 1st of April. What seems certain is that it is in some way or other a relic of those once universal festivities held at the vernal See also:equinox, which, beginning on old New Year's day, the 25th of See also:March, ended on the 1st of April. This view gains support from the fact that the exact counterpart of April-fooling is found to have been an immemorial custom in See also:India. The festival of the spring equinox is there termed the feast of Huli, the last day of which is the 31st of March, upon which the See also:chief amusement is the befooling of See also:people by sending them on fruitless errands. It has been plausibly suggested that See also:Europe derived its April-fooling from the French. They were the first nation to adopt the reformed calendar, See also:Charles IX. in 1564 decreeing that the year should begin with the 1st of See also:January. Thus the New Year's gifts and visits of felicitation which had been the feature of the 1st of April became associated with the first day of January, and those who disliked the See also:change were See also:fair butts for those wits who amused themselves by sending See also:mock presents and paying calls of pretended ceremony on the 1st of April. Though the 1st of April appears to have been anciently observed in See also:Great See also:Britain as a See also:general festival, it was apparently not until the beginning of the 18th See also:century that the making of April-fools was a See also:common custom. In See also:Scotland the custom was known as " See also:hunting the gowk," i.e. the See also:cuckoo, and April-fools were " April-gowks," the cuckoo being there, as it is in most lands, a See also:term of contempt. In See also:France the See also:person befouled is known as See also:Poisson d'avril. This has been explained from the association of ideas arising from the fact that in April the See also:sun quits the zodiacal sign of the See also:fish.

A far more natural explanation would seem to be that the April fish would be a See also:

young fish and therefore easily caught. A PRIORI (Lat. a, from, See also:prior, See also:Arius, that which is before, precedes), (I) a phrase used popularly of a See also:judgment based on general considerations in the See also:absence of particular See also:evidence; (2) a logical term first used, apparently, by See also:Albert of See also:Saxony (14th century), though the theory which it denotes is as old as See also:Aristotle. In the See also:order of human knowledge the particular facts of experience come first and are the basis of generalized See also:laws or causes (the Scholastic notiora nobis); but in the order of nature the latter See also:rank first as the self-existent, fundamental truths of existence (notiora naturae). Thus to Aristotle the a priori See also:argument is from See also:law or cause to effect, as opposed to what we See also:call a posteriori (posterior, subsequent, derived), from effect to cause. Since See also:Kant the two phrases have become purely adjectival (instead of adverbial) with a technical controversial sense, closely allied to the Aristotelian, in relation to knowledge and judgments generally. A priori is applied to judgments which are regarded as See also:independent of experience, and belonging to the essence of thought; a posteriori to those which are derived from particular observations. The distinction is analogous to that between See also:analysis and See also:synthesis, See also:deduction and See also:induction (but there may be a synthesis of a priori judgments, cf. Kant's " Synthetic Judgment a priori "). See also:Round this distinction a rather barren controversy has raged, and almost all modern philosophers have labelled themselves either " Intuitionalist " (a priori) or " Empiricist " (a posteriori) according to the view they take of knowledge. In fact, however, the See also:rival See also:schools are generally arguing at See also:cross purposes; there is a knowledge based on particulars, and also a knowledge of laws or causes. But the two See also:work in different See also:spheres, and are complementary. The observation of isolated particulars gives not See also:necessity, but merely strong See also:probability; necessity is purely intellectual or " transcendental." If the empiricist denies the intellectual See also:element in scientific knowledge, he must not claim See also:absolute validity for his conclusions; but he may hold against the intuitionalist that absolute laws are impossible to the human See also:intellect.

On the other See also:

hand, pure a priori knowledge can be nothing more than See also:form without content (e.g. formal See also:logic, the laws of thought). The See also:simple fact at the bottom of the controversy is that in all empirical knowledge there is an intellectual element, without which there is no correlation of empirical data, and every judgment, however simple, postulates a correlation of some sort if only that between the predicate and its contradictory.

End of Article: APRIL

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