April (april)

[ Pg. Abril It. Aprile = = D. April = Aprille, Abrille, Abrelle, Aprill, G. April = Dan. Sw. April, April fool. See fooll . a prior i (a pri-o'ri). [L., from something prior or going before: a for ab, from; prior i, abl. of prior, neut. prius, preceding: see prior, a.] From the former; from that which precedes; hence, from antecedent to consequent, from condition to conditioned, or from cause to effect. Since the fourteenth century, the phrase dem onst ratio a prior i (first found in Albert of Saxony, died 1390) has been commonly employed, instead of the earlier expre ion dem onst ratio propter quid, to mean proof proceeding from causes or first principles: opposed to dem onst ratio a posterior i, or dem onst ratio qui a, which proceeds from effect to cause, and simply proves the fact without showing why it must be as it is. In the eighteenth century de monstratio a prior i was applied to reasoning from a given notion to the conditions which such notion involves. But since Kant, a prior i, used as an adjective and frequently placed before the noun, has been applied to cognitions which, though they may come to us in experience, have their origin in the nature of the mind, and are independent of experience. IMG:content-1016.png:[blocks in formation] General truths, which at the same time bear the character of an inward nece ity, must be independent of experience-clear and certain by themselves. They are therefore called a prior i , while that which is simply taken from experience is said to be, in ordinary parlance, known a posterior i or empirically only. Kant , Critique of Pure Reason, tr. by Max Müller. As used in a psychological sense, knowledge a posterior i is a synonym for knowledge empirical, or from experience; and, consequently, is adventitious to the mind, as subsequent to, and in consequence of, the exercise of its faculties of observation. Knowledge a prior i , on the contrary, called likewise native, pure, or transcendental knowledge, embraces those principles which, as the condition of the exercise of its faculties of observation and thought, are, consequently, not the result of that exercise. True it is that, chronologically considered, our a prior i is not antecedent to our a posterior i knowledge; for the internal con IMG:content-1017.png:[blocks in formation] II. a. Opportune; seasonable; to the purpose; pertinent; happy: as, an apropos remark. III. n. Pertinency. [Rare.]