faculty, faculte

[Fr. faculté, from Lat. facultas capability of doing, a contract, from facilitas, from facilis easy; Sp. facultad; Ital. facoltà.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. The power or ability of doing anything. *2. Mechanical power or effect: as, the faculty of the wedge. 3. One of the powers of the mind or intellect, which enable it to receive or retain perceptions: as, the faculty of imagining, remembering, . [II. 2.] "The faculties of intellect and will Dispensed with equal hand, disposed with equal skill." Dryden: Sigismonda and Guiscardo, 507, 508. 4. Capacity for any natural action or function. 5. Skill, readine , ease, or dexterity in perform ance, po e ed naturally or acquired by practice; adroitne , knack, *6. Personal qualities; disposition, habit, char IMG:content-1349.png:[blocks in formation] 1. Eccles . Law : A privilege or license granted to any person by favor, and not as a right to do any act which by law he may not do. 2. Mental Phil .: A natural and active power of the human mind, as distinguished from a pa ive one, the latter being appropriately called a capacity or receptivity. ( Sir Wm . Hamilton .) 3. Scots Law : The whole body of enrolled attorneys, or lawyers: as, the faculty of advocates. 4. Universities : (1) In the United States, the body of persons who are intrusted with the government and instruction of a university or college, comprising the president, profe ors and tutors. (2) One of the departments of the arts and sciences; these are four in number: arts, divinity, law and medicine. ( Eng . ) (3) The masters and profe ors of the several departments of instruction in a university. ( Eng .) (4) Roman Theol . (pl.): Permi ion granted by an ecclesiastical superior to a duly qualified subject to hear confe ions. Such permi ion only extends to the district over which the superior has jurisdiction (q. v.). Thus, faculties are granted by bishops to the priests in their dioceses, and by the heads of religious houses to such of their subjects as they judge qualified to hear the confe ions of the community. Crabb thus discriminates between faculty , abil ity , and talent : " Faculty is a power derived from nature; ability may be derived either from circumstances or otherwise: the faculty is a permanent 1763 po e ion, it is held by a certain tenure; the ability is an incidental po e ion. The powers of seeing and hearing are faculties ; health, strength and fortune, are abilities . The faculty is some specific power which is directed to one single object; it is the power of acting according to a given form: the ability is in general the power of doing; the faculty therefore might, in the strict sense, be considered as a species of ability . A man uses the faculties with which he is endowed; he gives according to his ability : the faculty and talent both owe their being to nature, but the faculty be either physical or mental the talent is altogether mental. These terms are all used in the plural, agreeably to the above explanation: the faculties include all the endowments of body or mind, which are the inher ent properties of the being, as when we speak of a man's retaining his faculties , or having his faculties impaired: the abilities include, in the aggregate, whatever a man is able to do; hence we speak of a man's abilities in speaking, writing, learning, and the like: talents are the particular endowments of the mind, which belong to the individual." ( Crabb : Eng . Synon. )