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GASKELL, ELIZABETH CLEGHORN (1810-1865)

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 504 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GASKELL, See also:ELIZABETH CLEGHORN (1810-1865) , See also:English novelist and biographer, was See also:born on the 29th of See also:September 1810 in See also:Lindsay See also:Row, See also:Chelsea, See also:London, since destroyed to make way for See also:Cheyne Walk. Her See also:father, See also:William See also:Stevenson (1772-1829), came from See also:Berwick-on-See also:Tweed, and had been successively Unitarian See also:minister, See also:farmer, boarding-See also:house keeper for students at See also:Edinburgh, editor of the Scots See also:Magazine, and contributor to the See also:Mechanical Name of See also:Year. Dimensions ' Indicated See also:Brake Type of See also:Engine. Efficiency. Experimenter. of Motor Thermal Thermal Cylinders. Efficiency. Efficiency. Per cent. Diam. Stroke. Per cent.

Per cent. 84 See also:

Garrett 1884 9' X 20' 16.4 14 . Clerk-See also:Sterne See also:Stockport Co. 1884 .. I I.2 See also:Andrews & Co. 83 Clerk . 1887 9" X 15" 20.2 16.9 Clerk-See also:Tangye See also:Atkinson . . . 1885 7i" 15 Atkinson 75 See also:Meyer 1903 26l"X(2"X371') 38 29 Oechelhauser 75 See also:Mather & See also:Platt 1907 .. .. 30.6 23 Koerting v v r-' and if vjv =1/r, the See also:compression ratio, then r and assumes that the working fluid is See also:air, that its specific See also:heat Thus in all three symmetrical cycles of See also:constant temperature, constant pressure and constant See also:volume the thermal efficiency of 4 maximum volume before com- pression to the volume after com- pression; and, given this ratio, called I/r, which does not depend in any way upon temperature determinations but only upon the construction and See also:valve-setting of the engine, we have a means of settling the ideal efficiency proper for the particular engine. Any desired ideal efficiency may be obtained from any of the cycles by selecting a suitable compres- See also:sion ratio.

Table III., giving the theoretical thermal efficiency for these three symmetrical cycles of constant temperature, pressure and volume, extends from a compression ratio of ; to iath. Such compression ratios as Cycles of Constant Temperature, Pressure and Volume. I/r E .. 0.246 . 0.36 0.43 . . . . 0.48 Edinburgh See also:

Review, before he received the See also:post of Keeper of the Records to the See also:Treasury, which he held until his See also:death. His first wife, Elizabeth See also:Holland, was Mrs Gaskell's See also:mother. She was a Holland of Sandlebridge, See also:Knutsford, See also:Cheshire, in which See also:county the See also:family name had See also:long been and is still of See also:great See also:account. Mrs Stevenson died a See also:month after her daughter was born, and the babe was carried into Cheshire to Knutsford to be adopted by her aunt, Mrs Lumb. Thus her childhood was spent in the pleasant environment that she has idealized in Cranford. At fifteen years of See also:age she went to a boarding-school at See also:Stratford-on-See also:Avon, kept by See also:Miss Byerley, where she. remained until her seventeenth year.

Then came occasional visits to London to see her father and his second wife, and after her father's death in 1829 to her See also:

uncle, See also:Swinton Holland. Two winters seem to have been spent in See also:Newcastle-on-See also:Tyne in the family of William See also:Turner, a Unitarian minister, and a third in Edinburgh. On the 3oth of See also:August 1832 she was married in the See also:parish See also:church of Knutsford to William Gaskell, minister of the Unitarian See also:chapel in See also:Cross See also:Street, See also:Manchester, and the author of many See also:treatises and sermons in support of his own religious See also:denomination. Mr Gaskell held the See also:chair of English See also:history and literature in Manchester New See also:College. Henceforth Mrs Gaskell'slife belonged to Manchester. She and her See also:husband lived first in See also:Dover Street, then in See also:Rumford Street, and finally in 185o at 84 See also:Plymouth See also:Grove. Her See also:literary See also:life began with See also:poetry. She and her husband aspired to emulate See also:George See also:Crabbe and write the See also:annals of the Manchester poor. One poetic " See also:Sketch," which appeared in See also:Blackwood's Magazine for See also:January 1837, seems to have been the only outcome of this ambition. Henceforth, while in perfect See also:union in all else, husband and wife were to go their See also:separate literary ways, Mrs Gaskell to become a successful novelist, whose books were to live See also:side by side with those of greater masters, Mr Gaskell to be a distinguished Unitarian divine, whose sermons, lectures and See also:hymns are now all but forgotten. In her earlier married life Mrs Gaskell was mainly occupied with domestic duties—she had seven children—and philanthropic See also:work among the poor. Her first published See also:prose effort was probably a See also:letter that she addressed to William Howitt on See also:hearing that he contemplated a volume entitled Visits to Remarkable Places.

She then told the See also:

legend of Clopton See also:Hall, See also:Warwickshire, as she had heard it in schooldays, and Howitt incorporated the letter in that See also:book, which was published in 1840. Serious authorship, however, does not seem tohavebeen commenced until four or five years later. In 1844 Mr and Mrs Gaskell visited See also:North See also:Wales, where their only son " Willie " died of See also:scarlet See also:fever at the age of ten months, and it was, it is said, to distract Mrs Gaskell from her sorrow that her husband suggested a long work of fiction, and See also:Mary See also:Barton was begun. There were earlier See also:short stories in Howitt's See also:Journal, where " Libbie See also:Marsh'sThree Eras" and "The See also:Sexton's See also:Hero" appeared in 1847. But it was Mary Barton: A See also:Tale of Manchester Life that laid the See also:foundation of Mrs Gaskell's literary career. It was completed in 1847 and offered to a publisher who returned it unread. It was then sent to See also:Chapman & Hall, who retained the See also:manuscript for a year without See also:reading it or communicating with the author. A reminder, however, led to its being sought for, considered and accepted, the publishers agreeing to pay the author boo for the See also:copyright. It was published anonymously in two volumes in 1848. This See also:story had a wide popularity, and its author secured first the praise and then the friendship of See also:Carlyle, See also:Landor and See also:Dickens. Dickens indeed asked her in 1850 to become a contributor to his new magazine See also:Household Words, and here the whole of Cranford appeared at intervals from See also:December 1851 to May 1853, exclusive of one sketch, reprinted in the " See also:World's See also:Classics " edition (1907), that was published in .411 the Year See also:Round for See also:November 1863. Earlier than this, indeed, for the very first number of Household Words she had written "Lizzie See also:Leigh." Mrs Gaskell's second book, however, was The Moorland Cottage, a dainty little volume that appeared* at See also:Christmas 1850 with illustrations by Birket See also:Foster.

In the Christmas number of Household Words for 1853 appeared " The See also:

Squire's Story," reprinted in Lizzie Leigh and other Tales in 1865. In 1853 appeared another long novel, See also:Ruth, and the incomparable Cranford. This last—now the most popular of her books—is an idyll of See also:village life, largely inspired by girlish memories of Knutsford and its See also:people. In Ruth, which first appeared in three volumes, Mrs Gaskell turned to a delicate treatment of a girl's betrayal and her subsequent See also:rescue. Once more we are introduced to Knutsford, thinly disguised, and to the little Unitarian chapel in that See also:town where the author had worshipped in See also:early years. In 1855 North and See also:South was published. It had previously appeared serially in Household Words. Then came—in 1857-the Life of See also:Charlotte See also:Bronte, in two volumes. Miss Bronte, who had enjoyed the friendship of Mrs Gaskell and had exchanged visits, died in See also:March 1855. Two years earlier she had begged her publishers to postpone the issue of her own novel Villelte in See also:order that her friend's Ruth should not suffer. This See also:biography, by its vivid presentation of the sad, See also:melancholy and indeed tragic story of the three Bronte sisters, greatly widened the See also:interest in their writings and gave its author a considerable See also:place among English biographers. But much See also:matter was contained in the first and second See also:editions that was withdrawn from the third.

Certain statements made by the writer as to the school of Charlotte Bronte's See also:

infancy, an See also:identification of the " Lowood " of Jane See also:Eyre with the existing school, and the See also:acceptance of the story of See also:Bramwell Bronte's ruin having been caused by the woman in whose house he had lived as See also:tutor, brought threats of See also:libel actions. Apologies were published, and the third edition of the book was modified, as Mrs Gaskell declares, by " another See also:hand." The book in any See also:case remains one of the best See also:biographies in the See also:language. An introduction by Mrs Gaskell to the then popular novel, Mabel See also:Vaughan, was also included in her work of this year 1857, but no further book was published by her until 185g, when, under the See also:title of Round the See also:Sofa, she collected many of her contributions to periodical literature. Round the Sofa appeared in two volumes, the first containing only " My See also:Lady See also:Ludlow," the second five short stories. These stories reappeared the same year in one volume as My Lady Ludlow and other Tales. In the next year 186o appeared yet another volume of short stories, entitled Right at Last and other Tales. The title story had appeared two years earlier in Household Words as " The See also:Sin of a Father." In 1862 Mrs Gaskell wrote a See also:preface to a little book by See also:Colonel Vecchj, translated from the - Italian—Garibaldi and See also:Caprera, and in 1863 she published her last long novel, Sylvia's Lovers, dedicated " to My dear Husband by her who best knows his Value." After this we have—in 1863—a one-volume story, A Dark See also:Night's Work, and in the same year See also:Cousin Phyllis and other Tales appeared. Reprinted short stories from All the Year Round, Cornhill Magazine, and other publications, tend to lengthen the number of books published by Mrs Gaskell during her lifetime. The See also:Grey Woman and other Tales appeared in 1865. Mrs Gaskell died on the 12th of November 1865 at Holyburn, See also:Alton, See also:Hampshire, in a house she had just See also:purchased with the profits of her writings as a See also:present for her husband. She was buried in the little graveyard of the Knutsford Unitarian church. Her unfinished novel Wives and Daughters was published in two volumes in 1866.

_ Mrs Gaskell has enjoyed an ever gaining popularity since her death. Cranford has. been published in a See also:

hundred forms and with many illustrators. It is unanimously accepted as a classic. Scarcely less recognition is awarded to the Life of Charlotte Bronte, which is in every library. The many volumes of novels and stories seemed of less secure permanence until the falling in of their copyrights revealed the fact that a dozen publishers thought them See also:worth reprinting. The most See also:complete editions, however, are the " Knutsford Edition," edited with introductions,by A.W. See also:Ward, in eight volumes (See also:Smith, See also:Elder), and the " World's Classics " edition, edited by See also:Clement Shorter, in to volumes (See also:Henry See also:Froude, 4908). There is no biography of Mrs Gaskell, she having forbidden the publication of any of her letters. See, however, the See also:biographical introduction to the " Knutsford " Mary Barton by A. W. Ward; the Letters of See also:Charles Dickens; See also:Women Writers, by C. J.

See also:

Hamilton, second See also:series; H. B. See also:Stowe's Life and Letters, edited by Annie See also:Fields; Autobiography of Mrs See also:Fletcher; Mrs Gaskell and Knutsford, by G. A. See also:Payne; Cranford, with a preface by See also:Anne See also:Thackeray See also:Ritchie; Ecrivains modernes de l'Angleterre, by ):mile See also:Montegut. (C. K. S.) 1852. His collected See also:works, of which the most important is the Syntagma philosophicum (See also:Opera, i. and ii.), were published in 1658 by Montmort (6 vols., See also:Lyons). Another edition, also in 6 See also:folio volumes, was published by N. Averanius in 1727. The first two are occupied entirely with his Syntagma philosophicum; the third contains his See also:critical writings on See also:Epicurus, See also:Aristotle, See also:Descartes, See also:Fludd and See also:Lord See also:Herbert, with some occasional pieces on certain problems of physics; the See also:fourth, his Institutio astronomica, and his See also:Commentarii de See also:rebus celestibus; the fifth, his commentary on the tenth book of See also:Diogenes Laertius, the biographies of Epicurus, N.

C. F. de Peiresc, Tycho See also:

Brahe, See also:Copernicus, Georg von Peuerbach, and See also:Regiomontanus, with some tracts on the value of See also:ancient See also:money, on the See also:Roman See also:calendar, and on the theory of See also:music, to all which is appended a large and prolix piece entitled Notitia ecclesiae Diniensis; the See also:sixth volume contains his See also:correspondence. The Lives, especially those of Copernicus, Tycho and Peiresc, have been justly admired. That of Peiresc has been repeatedly printed; it has also been translated into English. Gassendi was one of the first after the revival of letters who treated the literature of See also:philosophy in a lively way. His writings of this See also:kind, though too laudatory and somewhat diffuse, have great merit; they abound in those anecdotal details, natural yet not obvious reflections, and vivacious turns of thought, which made See also:Gibbon See also:style him, with some extravagance certainly, though it was true enough up to Gassendi's time—" le meilleur philosophe See also:des litterateurs, et le meilleur litterateur des philosophes." Gassendi holds an See also:honourable place in the history of See also:physical See also:science. He certainly added little to the stock of human knowledge, but the clearness of his exposition and the manner in which he, like See also:Bacon, urged the importance of experimental See also:research, were of inestimable service to the cause of science. To what extent any place can be assigned him in the history of philosophy is more doubtful. The Exercitationes on the whole seem to have excited more See also:attention than they deserved. They contain little or nothing beyond what had been already advanced against Aristotle. The first book expounds clearly, and with much vigour, the evil effects of the See also:blind acceptance of the Aristotelian dicta on physical and philosophical study; but, as is the case with so many of the See also:anti-Aristotelian works of this See also:period, the objections show the usual See also:ignorance of Aristotle's own writings. The second book, which contains the review of Aristotle's See also:dialectic or See also:logic, is throughout Ramist in See also:tone and method.

The objections to Descartes—one of which at least, through Descartes's statement of it in the appendix of objections in the Meditationes has become famous—have no speculative value, and in See also:

general are the outcome of the crudest See also:empiricism. His labours on Epicurus have a certain See also:historical value, but the want of consistency inherent in the philosophical See also:system raised on Epicurean-ism is such as to deprive it of genuine worth. Along with strong expressions of empiricism we find him holding doctrines absolutely irreconcilable with empiricism in any See also:form. For while he maintains constantly his favourite See also:maxim " that there is nothing in the See also:intellect which has not been in the senses " (nihil in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu), while he contends that the imaginative See also:faculty (phantasia) is the counterpart of sense—that, as it has to do with material images, it is itself, like sense, material, and essentially the same both in men and brutes; he at the same See also:time admits that the intellect, which he affirms to be immaterial and immortal—the most characteristic distinction of humanity—attains notions and truths of which no effort of sensation or See also:imagination can give us the slightest See also:apprehension (Op. ii. 383). He instances the capacity of forming " general notions "; the very conception of universality itself (ib. 384); to which he says brutes, who partake as truly as men in the faculty called phantasia, never attain ; the notion of See also:God, whom he says we may imagine to be corporeal, but understand to be in-corporeal; and lastly, the reflex See also:action by which the mind makes its own phenomena and operations the See also:objects of attention. The Syntagma philosophicum, in fact, is one of those eclectic systems which unite, or rather place in juxtaposition, irreconcilable dogmas from various See also:schools of thought. It is divided, according to the usual See also:fashion of the Epicureans, into logic (which, with Gassendi as with Epicurus, is truly canonic), physics and See also:ethics. The logic, which contains at least one praiseworthy portion, a sketch of the history of the science, is divided into theory of right apprehension (bene imaginari), theory of right See also:judgment (bene proponere), theory of right inference (bene colligere), theory of right method (bene ordinare). The first See also:part contains the specially empirical positions which Gassendi afterwards neglects or leaves out of account. The senses, the See also:sole source of knowledge, are supposed to yield us immediately See also:cognition of individual things; phantasy (which Gassendi GASSENDI' [GASSENDI, See also:PIERRE (1592-1655), See also:French See also:philo- See also:bronze statue of hi t1 was erected by subscription at See also:Digne in sopher, scientist and mathematician, was born of poor parents at Champtercier, near Digne, in See also:Provence, on the 22nd of January 1 592.

At a very early age he gave indications of remarkable See also:

mental See also:powers and was sent to the college at Digne.. He showed particular aptitude for See also:languages and See also:mathematics, and it is said that at the age of sixteen he was invited to lecture on See also:rhetoric at the college. Soon afterwards he entered the university of See also:Aix, to study philosophy under P. Fesaye. In 1612 he was called to the college of Digne to lecture on See also:theology. Four years later he received the degree of See also:doctor of theology at See also:Avignon, and in 1617 he took See also:holy orders. In the same year he was called to the chair of philosophy at Aix, and seems gradually to have withdrawn from theology. He lectured principally on the Aristotelian philosophy, conforming as far as possible to the orthodox methods. At the same time, however, he followed with interest the discoveries of Galileo and See also:Kepler, and became more and more dissatisfied with the Peripatetic system. It was the period of revolt against the Aristotelianism of the schools, and Gassendi shared to the full the empirical tendencies of the age. He, too, began to draw up objections to the Aristotelian philosophy, but did not at first venture to publish them. In 1624, however, after he had See also:left Aix for a canonry at See also:Grenoble, he printed the first part of his Exercitationes paradoxicae adversus Aristoteleos.

A fragment of the second book was published later at La Haye (1659), but the remaining five were never composed, Gassendi apparently thinking that after the Discussiones Peripateticae of See also:

Francesco See also:Patrizzi little See also:field was left for his labours. After 1628 Gassendi travelled in See also:Flanders and Holland. During this time he wrote, at the instance of See also:Mersenne, his examination of the mystical philosophy of See also:Robert Fludd (Epistolica dissertatio in qua praecipua principia philosophiae Ro. Fluddi deteguntur, 1631), an See also:essay on parhelia (Epistola de parheiiis), and some valuable observations on the transit of See also:Mercury which had been foretold by Kepler. He returned to See also:France in 1631, and two years later became See also:provost of the See also:cathedral church at Digne. Some years were then spent in travelling through Provence with the See also:duke of See also:Angouleme, See also:governor of the See also:department. The only literary work of this period is the Life of Peiresc, which has been frequently reprinted, and was translated into English. In 1642 he was engaged by Mersenne in controversy with Descartes. His objections to the fundamental propositions of Descartes were published in 1642; they appear as the fifth in the series contained in the works of Descartes. In these objections Gassendi's tendency towards the empirical school of See also:speculation appears more pronounced than in any of his other writings. In 1645 he accepted the chair of mathematics in the College Royal at See also:Paris, and lectured for many years with great success. In addition to controversial writings on physical questions, there appeared during this period the first of the works by which he is known in the history of philosophy.

In 1647 he published the See also:

treatise De vita, moribus, et doctrina Epicuri libri octo. The work was well received, and two years later appeared his commentary on the tenth book of Diogenes Laertius, De vita, moribus, et placitis Epicuri, seu Animadversiones in X. librum Diog. Lab.. (Lyons, 1649; last edition, 1675). In the same year the more important Syntagma philosophise Epicuri (Lyons, 1649; See also:Amsterdam, 1684) was published. In 1648 See also:ill-See also:health compelled him to give up his lectures at the College Royal. He travelled in the south of France, spending nearly two years at See also:Toulon, the See also:climate of which suited him. In 1653 he returned to Paris and resumed his literary work, See also:publishing in that year lives of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. The disease from which he suffered, See also:lung complaint, had, how-ever, established a See also:firm hold on him. His strength gradually failed, and he died at Paris on the 24th of See also:October 1655. A 1 It was formerly thought that Gassendi was really the genitive of the Latin form Gassendus. C.

Giittler, however, holds that it is a modernized form of the O. Fr. Gassendy (see See also:

paper quoted in bibliography). takes to be material in nature) reproduces these ideas; under-See also:standing compares these ideas, which are particular, and frames general ideas. Nevertheless, he at the same time admits that the senses yield knowledge—not of things—but of qualities only, and holds that we arrive at the See also:idea of thing or substance by See also:induction. He holds that the true method of research is the See also:analytic, rising from See also:lower to higher notions; yet he See also:sees clearly, and admits, that inductive reasoning, as conceived by Bacon, rests on a general See also:pro-position not itself proved by induction. He ought to hold, and in disputing with Descartes he did apparently hold, that the See also:evidence of the senses is the only convincing evidence; yet he maintains, and from his See also:special mathematical training it was natural he should maintain, that the evidence of See also:reason is absolutely satisfactory. The whole See also:doctrine of judgment, See also:syllogism and method is a mixture of Aristotelian and Ramist notions. In the second part of the Syntagma, the physics, there is more that deserves attention; but here, too, appears in the most glaring manner the inner See also:contradiction between Gassendi's fundamental principles. While approving of the Epicurean physics, he rejects altogether the Epicurean negation of God and particular See also:providence. He states the various proofs for the existence of an immaterial, See also:infinite, supreme Being, asserts that this Being is the author of the visible universe, and strongly defends the doctrine of the fore-knowledge and particular providence of God. At the same time he holds, in opposition to Epicureanism, the doctrine of an immaterial rational soul, endowed with See also:immortality and capable of See also:free determination.

It is altogether impossible to assent to the supposition of See also:

Lange (Gesch. des Materialismus, 3rd ed., i. 233), that all this portion of Gassendi's system contains nothing of his own opinions, but is introduced solely from motives of self-See also:defence. The See also:positive exposition of atomism has much that is attractive, but the See also:hypothesis of the calor vitalis (vital heat), a See also:species of anima mundi (world-soul) which is introduced as physical explanation of physical phenomena, does not seem to throw much See also:light on the special problems which it is invoked to solve. Nor is his theory of the See also:weight essential to atoms as being due to an inner force impelling them to See also:motion in any way reconcilable with his general doctrine of mechanical causes. In the third part, the ethics, over and above the discussion on freedom, which on the whole is indefinite, there is little beyond a milder statement of the Epicurean moral See also:code. The final end of life is happiness, and happiness is See also:harmony of soul and See also:body (tranquillitas animi et indolentia corporis). Probably, Gassendi thinks, perfect happiness is not attainable in this life, but it may be in the life to come. The Syntagma is thus an essentially unsystematic work, and clearly exhibits the See also:main characteristics of Gassendi's See also:genius. He was critical rather than constructive, widely read and trained thoroughly both in languages and in science, but deficient in speculative See also:power and See also:original force. Even in the department of natural science he shows the same inability steadfastly to retain principles and to work from them; he wavers between the systems of Brahe and Copernicus. That his revival of Epicureanism had an important See also:influence on the general thinking of the 17th See also:century may be admitted; that it has any real importance in the history of philosophy cannot be granted.

End of Article: GASKELL, ELIZABETH CLEGHORN (1810-1865)

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