materIal, mater i all

& s. [French matériel, from Lat. material is material, from materia, materies=matter (q. v.); Sp. material; Ital. materiale.] A. As adjective: I. Ordinary Language: IMG:content-0993.png:[blocks in formation] des Lebens , p. 362). Vogt followed with Bilder aus dem Thierleben . Wagner appealed to a wider public in his Glauben und Wi en , to which Vogtreplied in a pamphlet, distinguished rather by sarcasm than argument: Köhlerglaube und Wis sens chaft. To this succeeded Büchner's Kraft und Stoff , which, "The elements were good enough to confine their hostility to the mere material fabric of the ship."-London Times. 2. Pertaining to, connected with, or concerning the physical nature of man, as distinguished from the moral or religious nature; relating to bodily or worldly wants or interests; as, the material wellbeing of a person. 3. Important, momentous, e ential; of moment or importance; having a bearing or influence; weighty. "That were too long their infinite contents Here to record, ne much mater i all ." Spenser: F. Q., II. x. 74. 4. Full of matter; sensible; having sense or ideas. "What thinks material Horace of his learning?" Ben Jonson: Poetaster , v. 1. II. Logic : Pertaining to the matter or e ence of a thing, not to the form. B. As substantive: 1. Anything consisting of or containing the fundamental properties of matter; the substance or matter of which anything is made, or constituted; as, Rags are the material of paper. (Frequently used in the plural.) 2. ( Pl .): The matter or subject on which a discourse, treatise, or any production of the mind or talent is founded or constructed. "Concerning the materials of seditions."-Bacon: E ays; Of Seditions . 1. Raw material : Material in its natural state, or unmanufactured. 2. Strength of materials : The power by which any substance, as a rod, beam, chain, rope, ., resists any effort to destroy the cohesion of its parts. There are four distinct strains to which every hard body may be exposed, and which are: First, a body may be pulled or torn asunder by a stretching force, applied in the direction of its fibers, as in the case of ropes, stretchers, king-posts, tie-beams, .; secondly, it may be broken acro by a transverse strain, or by a force acting either perpendicularly or obliquely to its length, as in the case of levers, joists, .; thirdly, it may be crushed by a force acting in the direction of its length, as in the case of pillars, posts, and tru -beams; fourthly, it may be twisted or wrenched by a force acting in a circular direction, as in the case of an axle of a wheel. *ma-tër-i-al, v . t . [MATERIAL, a.] To make material; to materialize. "I believe that the whole frame of a beast doth perish, and is left in the same state after death as before it was mater i a led unto life."-Browne: Religio Medici , § 37. ma-tër-I-al-işm, s. [Eng. material ; -ism.] I. Ordinary Language : 1. Matter; material bodies collectively. 2. In the same sense as II. 3. The tendency to devote care and time to the material nature, and its interests and wants, to the neglect of the spiritual nature. II. Hist . & Philos .: The system of philosophy which regards Mind as a function of matter; the mechanical theory of the Universe. The first traces of materialism as a system are to be found in the atomistic philosophy of Leu cippus and Demo crit us, which sought to comprehend all phenomena as products of matter and motion alone. Next in order comes the Epicurean School; but Epicurus differed from Demo crit us in ascribing to the atoms a certain power of individual or arbitrary self determination (Cic., de Nat . Deor ., i. 24, 25). From this time a supernatural element may be said to have found a place in every philosophical system till the seventeenth century, since which time materialism has again come to the front. Gas send i (1592-1655) sought to combine Epicureanism with Christian theology; but F. A. Lange ( Gesch . des Materialism us , p. 118) does not scruple to call him "the renewer in modern times of systematic materialism." In England, Hobbes (1588-1679) accepted materialism as the foundation of his theory ( Lewes : Hist. Phil ., ii. 234), and was followed by Hartley (1704-1757), and still later by Priest ley (1733-1804), who, like Gas send i, sought to combine materialism with Christianity. In France the System of Nature of Holbach (1723-1789) was the greatest production of materialist philosophy in the eighteenth century. In Germany, in the present day materialism has many champions, men distinguished for physical-and especially biological-research standing in the foremost ranks. Moles chott, combating Liebig, comes to the conclusion: "No matter without time the best-abused book in Europe." The chief opponents of the outburst of materialism in Germany were Wagner. Lotze, and Fichte. "Atheism may be termed Materialism in its naked, and not its transcendental sense. Materialism in its transcendental sense may indeed be imagined to be Universal Existence without beginning or end; but then this form of Materialism is in reality Pantheism."- History of Pan theism , ii. 276.