Person

s. (personne, Fr. persona, Lat.) 1. Individual or particular man or woman. 2. Man or woman considered as opposed to things, or distinct from them (Spraz). 3. Individual; manor woman (Pearson). 4. Human being, considered with respect to mere corporal existence (Dryden). 5. Man or woman considered as present, acting or suffering (Shakspeare). 6. A general loose term for a human being; one; a man (Clari a). 7. One’s self; not a representative (Dryden). 8. Exterior appearance (Shakspeare). 9. Man or woman represented in a fictitious dialogue (Baker). 10. Character (Hayward). 11. Character of office (South). 12. (1u grammar.) The quality of the noun that modifies the verb (South). Person is defined by some metaphysicians, a distinct substance of a rational intelligent nature. The word person, persona, is thought to be borrowed a personando, from personating or counterfeiting; and is supposed to have first signified a mask: because, as Boethius informs us, in larva concava sonus volvatur:-and hence the actors who appeared masked on the stage were sometimes called larvati and sometimes personati, He likewise says, that as the several actors represented each a single individual person, viz. C , or Chremes, or Hecuba, or Medea; for this reason, other people, who were at the same time distinguished by something in their form, character, . whereby they might be known, came likewise tobe called by the Latins persone, and by the Greeks weoowne, Again, as actors rarely represented any but great and illustrious characters, the word came at length to import the mind, as being that whose dispositions constitute the character. And thus men, angels, and even God himself, were called persons. ‘Things merely corporeal, asa stone, a plant, or a horse, were called nrypostases or supposita, but never persons. Hence the learned suppose, that the same name person came to be used to signify some dignity, whereby a person is distinguished from another: as a father, husband, judge, magistrate, . In this sense we are to understand that of Cicero: ‘¢ Caesar never speaks of Pompey but in terms of honour and respect: he does many hard and injurious. things, how~ ever, against his person.” Person we have already defined to mean ar individual substance of a reasonable nature. Now, a thing may be individual two ways 1, Logically, because it cannot be predicated of any other; as Cicero, Plato, . 2. Physically; in which sense a drop of water, separated from the ocean, may be called an individual. Person is an individual nature in each of these senses: logically, according to Boethius, because person is not spoken of universals, but only of singulars and individuals; we. do not say the person of an animal or a man, but of Cicero and Plato: and physically, since Socrates’s hand or foot are never considered as: persons. ‘Vhis last kind of individual is denos minated two ways: positively, when the person is said to be the whole principle of acting; for,’ to whatever thing action is attributed, that the philosophers calla person: and negatively, as: when we say, with the Thomists, . that a. person consists in this, that it does not exist in another as a more perfect being. Thus:a man, though he consists of two different things, viz. body and spirit, is not two persons; because neither part of itself is a complete principle of action, but one person, since the manner of his consisting of body and spirit is such as constitutes one whole principle of action; nor does he exist in any other as a more perfect being.