essayIst

[Eng.e ay; -ist.] A writer of an e ay or e ays. "I make, says a gentleman e ayist of our author's age, as great difference between Tacitus and Seneca's style and his [Cicero's], as musicians between Trench more and Lachrymæ." - Ben Jonson: Masques. ěs-sençe, s. [Fr., from Lat. e entia =a being; e e to be.] IMG:content-1145.png:[blocks in formation] "If, as thou say'st, thine e ence be as ours, We have replied in telling thee, the thing Mortals call death, hath naught to do with us." Byron: Manfred, i. 1. 2. Existence; the quality or state of being. "In such cogitations have I stood, with such a darkne and heavine of mind, that I might have been persuaded to have resigned my very e ence."-Sidney. 3. A being; an existent person. "As far as gods, and heavenly e ences Can perish.” 4. A species of existent being. IMG:content-1146.png:[blocks in formation] "She is my e ence; and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive." Shakesp.: Two Gentlemen, iii. 1. 7. The e ential principle or element of a plant, drug, ., extracted, refined, or distilled. 8. A perfume, a scent, an odor; the volatile principle which constitutes the perfume. "Our humble province is to tend the fair; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let the imprisoned e ences exhale." Pope : Rape of the Lock , ii. 91-3. 9. The most important, e ential, or characteristic part or element of anything. II. Technically : 1. Metaph.: The Schoolmen defined e ence to be id quo res est id quod est (that which makes a thing what it is), or that which answered the question Quid est? (What is it?), whence it was also termed Quiddit as . [QUIDDITY.] E ence is that which constitutes the particular nature of any ens (q. v.), whether actually existent or only conceived as po ible. The dispute between the Nominalists and the Realists was a dispute as to the meaning of the term e ence. Mill ( Logic , i. 128) says that the objective tendency of Locke's unmetaphysical mind "led him to a clear recognition of the scholastic error respecting e ence-i. e., the existence of entities corresponding to general terms Locke dis tinguished two sorts of e ences-Nominal and Real. His nominal e ences were the e ences of cla es. But he also admitted real e ences, which he supposed to be causes of the sensible properties of those objects. 'We know not,' he said, 'what these es sences are' (and this acknowledgment rendered the fiction comparatively innocuous), 'but, if we did, we could from them alone demonstrate the sensible properties of the object as the properties of the triangle are demonstrated from the definition of a triangle.'" marine; gō, põt, e ence 2. Pharm.: E entia. An alcoholic solution of volatile oil. E ence of peppermint, E entia men the piper atæ, and e ence of anise, E entia anisi , are formed by di olving one part of the volatile oil of the respective plants in four parts by volume of rectified spirit of wine. e ence d'orient, s. E ence of pearls; a liquor prepared from a nacreous substance found in the scales of a fish called the bleak. It is used in the manufacture of artificial pearls. ěs-sençe, v. t. [ESSENCE, 8.] To perfume, to scent. And tender as a girl, all e enced o'er With odors." Cowper: Task, ii. 227. Es-se'ne, s . & a . [Probably from Syriac asa = cure, recovery. So named because they claimed to be physicians of souls.] A. As subst. (chiefly in pl.): A Jewish sect having affinities to, but not identical with, the Egyptian The rape ute. They practiced voluntary poverty, had community of goods, and cultivated holine of life. They represent Judaism in the form which it a umed when the Jew of Palestine began, like his brethren abroad, to find in the Græco-Alexandrian doctrine a deeply religious conception of life. E enism prepared a congenial soil on which Christianity might work, but the two, as far as is known, never joined their forces into one. ( Baur : Church History.) B. As adj .: Pertaining or relating to the sect described under A. "Touched more or le by the E ene spirit."- Baur : Church History , i. 22. És-se-ni-an, a. [ESSENE.] The same as ESSENIC (q. v.). "What shadow of proof proof is there that nothing of the kind existed among the vain babblings of E enian speculation?"-Farrar: Life and Work of St. Paul , Excur. ix. És-se-nic, a . [Eng., ., E en(e); -ic.] Pertaining or relating to the E enes. E enic-Ebionitic, a. Pertaining to or derived from the E enes and the Ebionites. "This view is of E enic- Ebionitio origin."- Baur : Church History, i. 108. Ěs-se-nişm, s. [Eng., ., E en (e); -ism.] The system of doctrine and practice among the E enes. [ESSENE.] "Of course it cannot be thought for a moment that Christianity itself sprung from E enism."- Baur : Church History, i. 21.