The law of Scotland makes no distinction between the accessory to any crime and the principal (see Art and Part). Except in the case of treason, accession after the fact is not noticed by the law of Scotland, unless as an element of evidence to prove previous accession.
ACCIAJUOLI, DONATO (1428–1478), Italian scholar, was born at Florence in 1428. He was famous for his learning, especially in Greek and mathematics, and for his services to his native state. Having previously been entrusted with several important embassies, he became Gonfalonier of Florence in 1473. He died at Milan in 1478, when on his way to Paris to ask the aid of Louis XI. on behalf of the Florentines against Pope Sixtus IV. His body was taken back to Florence, and buried in the church of the Carthusians at the public expense, and his daughters were portioned by his fellow-citizens, the fortune he left being, owing to his probity and disinterestedness, very small. He wrote a Latin translation of some of Plutarch’s Lives (Florence, 1478); Commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics; and the lives of Hannibal, Scipio and Charlemagne. In the work on Aristotle he had the co-operation of his master Argyropulus.
ACCIDENCE (a mis-spelling of “accidents,” from the Latin neuter plural accidentia, casual events), the term for the grammatical changes to which words are subject in their inflections as to gender, number, tense and case. It is also used to denote a book containing the first principles of grammar, and so of the rudiments of any subject or art.
ACCIDENT (from Lat. accidere, to happen), a word of widely variant meanings, usually something fortuitous and unexpected; a happening out of the ordinary course of things. In the law of tort, it is defined as “an occurrence which is due neither to design nor to negligence”; in equity, as “such an unforeseen event, misfortune, loss, act or omission, as is not the result of any negligence or misconduct.” So, in criminal law, “an effect is said to be accidental when the act by which it is caused is not done with the intention of causing it, and when its occurrence as a consequence of such act is not so probable that a person of ordinary prudence ought, under the circumstances, to take reasonable precaution against it” (Stephen, Digest of Criminal Law, art. 210). The word may also have in law the more extended meaning of an unexpected occurrence, whether caused by any one’s negligence or not, as in the Fatal Accidents Act 1846, Notice of Accidents Act 1894. See also Contract, Criminal Law, Employers’ Liability, Insurance, Tort, &c.
In logic an “accident” is a quality which belongs to a subject but not as part of its essence (in Aristotelian language κατὰ συμβεβηκός, the scholastic per accidens). Essential attributes are necessarily, or causally, connected with the subject, e.g. the sum of the angles of a triangle; accidents are not deducible from the nature, or are not part of the necessary connotation, of the subject, e.g. the area of a triangle. It follows that increased knowledge, e.g. in chemistry, may show that what was thought to be an accident is really an essential attribute, or vice versa. It is very generally held that, in reality, there is no such thing as an accident, inasmuch as complete knowledge would establish a causal connexion for all attributes. An accident is thus merely an unexplained attribute. Accidents have been classed as (1) “inseparable,” i.e. universally present, though no causal connexion is established, and (2) “separable,” where the connexion is neither causally explained nor universal. Propositions expressing a relation between a subject and an accident are classed as “accidental,” “real” or “ampliative,” as opposed to “verbal” or “analytical,” which merely express a known connexion, e.g. between a subject and its connotation (q.v.).
ACCIDENTALISM, a term used (1) in philosophy for any system of thought which denies the causal nexus and maintains that events succeed one another haphazard or by chance (not in the mathematical but in the popular sense). In metaphysics, accidentalism denies the doctrine that everything occurs or results from a definite cause. In this connexion it is synonymous with Tychism (τύχη, chance), a term used by C. S. Peirce for the theories which make chance an objective factor in the process of the Universe. Opponents of this accidentalism maintain that what seems to be the result of chance is in reality due to a cause or causes which, owing to the lack of imagination, knowledge or scientific instruments, we are unable to detect. In ethics the term is used, like indeterminism, to denote the theory that mental change cannot always be ascribed to previously ascertained psychological states, and that volition is not causally related to the motives involved. An example of this theory is the doctrine of the liberum arbitrium indifferentiae (“liberty of indifference”), according to which the choice of two or more alternative possibilities is affected neither by contemporaneous data of an ethical or prudential kind nor by crystallized habit (character). (2) In painting, the term is used for the effect produced by accidental lights (Ruskin, Modern Painters, I. 11. 4, iii. § 4, 287). (3) In medicine, it stands for the hypothesis that disease is only an accidental modification of the healthy condition, and can, therefore, be avoided by modifying external conditions.
ACCIUS, a Latin poet of the 16th century, to whom is attributed a paraphrase of Aesop’s Fables, of which Julius Scaliger speaks with great praise.
ACCIUS, LUCIUS, Roman tragic poet, the son of a freedman, was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 B.C. The year of his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great age, since Cicero (Brutus, 28) speaks of having conversed with him on literary matters. He was a prolific writer and enjoyed a very high reputation (Horace, Epistles, ii. 1, 56; Cicero, Pro Plancio, 24). The titles and considerable fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been preserved. Most of these were free translations from the Greek, his favourite subjects being the legends of the Trojan war and the house of Pelops. The national history, however, furnished the theme of the Brutus and Decius,—the expulsion of the Tarquins and the self-sacrifice of Publius Decius Mus the younger. The fragments are written in vigorous language and show a lively power of description.
Accius wrote other works of a literary character: Didascalicōn and Pragmaticōn libri, treatises in verse on the history of Greek and Roman poetry, and dramatic art in particular; Parerga and Praxidica (perhaps identical) on agriculture; and an Annales. He also introduced innovations in orthography and grammar.
See Boissier, Le Poète Accius, 1856; L. Müller, De Accii fabulis Disputatio (1890); Ribbeck, Geschichte der römischen Dichtung (1892); editions of the tragic fragments by Ribbeck (1897), of the others by Bährens (1886); Plessis, Poésie latine (1909).
ACCLAMATION (Lat. acclamatio, a shouting at), in deliberative or electoral assemblies, a spontaneous shout of approval or praise. Acclamation is thus the adoption of a resolution or the passing of a vote of confidence or choice unanimously, in direct distinction from a formal ballot or division. In the Roman senate opinions were expressed and votes passed by acclamation in such forms as Omnes, omnes, Aequum est, Justum est, &c.; and the praises of the emperor were celebrated in certain pre-arranged sentences, which seem to have been chanted by the whole body of senators. In ecclesiastical councils vote by acclamation is very common, the question being usually put in the form, placet or non placet. The Sacred College has sometimes elected popes by acclamation, when the cardinals simultaneously and without any previous consultation “acclaimed” one of their number as pontiff. A further ecclesiastical use of the word is in its application to set forms of praise or thanksgiving in church services, the stereotyped responses of the congregation. In modern parliamentary usage a motion is carried by acclamation when, no amendment being proposed, approval is expressed by shouting such words as Aye or Agreed.
ACCLIMATIZATION, the process of adaptation by which animals and plants are gradually rendered capable of surviving and flourishing in countries remote from their original habitats, or under meteorological conditions different from those which they have usually to endure, and at first injurious to them.
The subject of acclimatization is very little understood, and some writers have even denied that it can ever take place. It
