God is the absolute maximum and also the absolute minimum, who can be neither greater nor less than He is, and who comprehends all that is or that can be ( ;{ deum tsse omnia, ut non possit esse aliud quam est "). Cusa thus livid himself open to the charge of pantheism, which did not fail to be brought against him in his own day. His chief philosophical doctrine was taken up and developed more than a hundred years later by Giordano Bruno, who calls him the divine Cusanus. In mathematical and physical science Cusa was much in advance of his age. In a tract, Reparatio Calendarii, presented to the Council of Basel, he proposed the reform of the calendar after a method resembling that adopted by Gregory. If he was not before his own age he was not behind many in the present day in a treatise De Quadrature, Circuli, in which he professes to have solved the problem ; and the same remark applies to a prophecy that the world would come to an end in 1734, which he hazarded in his Conjectura de novissimis diebus. Most noteworthy, however, in this con nection is the fact that he anticipated Copernicus by main
taining the theory of the rotation of the earth.
The works of Cusanus were published in a complete form by Henri Petri (1 vol. fol. Basel, 1565). See Hartzheim s Vita Xicolaus de Cusa (Treves, 1730), Martini s Das Hospital Cues und (lessen Stifter (Treves, 1841), and ScharpfTs Dcr Cardinal und Bischof Nic. von Cusa als Rcformator in Kirche, Reich, und Philos. des 15 Jahrhund. (Tubingen, 1871).
CUSH, the eldest son of Ham, from whom seems to have been derived the name of the Land of Gush, which is commonly rendered by the Septuagint and by the Vulgate Ethiopia. The locality of the land of Gush is a question upon which eminent authorities have been divided ; for while Bochart maintained that it was exclusively in Arabia, Schulthess and Gesenius held that it is to be sought for nowhere but in Africa. Others again, such as Michaelis and Rosenmuller, have supposed that the name Gush was applied to tracts of country both in Arabia and Africa a circumstance which would easily be accounted for on the very probable supposition that the descendants of the primitive Cushite tribes emigrated across the Red Sea from the one continent to the other. The existence of an African Gush cannot reasonably be questioned, though the term is employed in Scripture with great latitude, sometimes denoting an extensive but undefined country (Ethiopia), and at other times one particular kingdom (Meroe). It is expressly described by Ezekiel as lying to the south of Egypt beyond Syene ; Mizraim and Gush (i.e., Egypt and Ethiopia) are often classed together by the prophets ; the inhabitants are elsewhere spoken of in connection with the Lubim and Sukkiim, which were certainly nations of Africa, for they belonged to the vast army with which Shishak, king of Egypt, " came out " against Rehoboam, king of Judah ; and, finally, in the ancient Egyptian inscriptions the country to the south of Egypt is called Keesh, or Kesh. Though there is a great lack of evidence to show that the name of Gush was ever applied to any part of Arabia, there seems no reason to doubt that a portion of the Cushite race did early settle there. In the 5th century the Himyarites, in the south of Arabia, were styled by Syrian writers Cushseans and Ethiopians. By modern scholars the name Cushitic has been adopted as the designation of the early non-Semitic language of Baby lonia ; and the reasoning of Canon Rawlinson goes to show that there was a close connection between Babylon and Egypt.
CUSTARD APPLE, a name applied to the fruit of various species of the genus Anona, natural order Anonacece. The members of this genus are shrubs or small trees having alternate, exstipulate leaves, and flowers with three small sepals, six petals arranged in a double row, and numerous stamens. The fruit of A. reticidata, the common custard apple, or " bullock s heart " of the West Indies, is dark brown in colour, and marked with depressions, which give it a quilted appearance ; its pulp is reddish-yellow, sweetish, and very soft ; the kernels of the seeds are said to be poisonous. The sour-sop, the fruit of A. muricata, growa in the West Indies, and in the neighbourhood of Bombay ; it is covered with soft prickles, is of a light-greenish hue, and has a peculiar but agreeable sour taste, and a scent resembling that of black currants. The sweet-sop, which is cultivated in both the Indies, is produced by A. squamosa ; it is an ovate fruit, with a thick rind and luscious pulp. According to Royle, an acrid principle, fatal to insects, is contained in its seeds, which, powdered and mixed with the flour of gram (Cicer arietinum), are used by the natives of India in washing the hair. A. Cherimolia furnishes the Peruvian Cherimoyer, which is held to be of very superior flavour, and is much esteemed by the Creoles. A. palustris is valued in Jamaica for its wood, which serves the same purposes as cork ; the fruit, commonly known as the alligator-apple, is not eaten, being reputed to contain a dangerous narcotic principle.
CUSTOMS DUTIES are taxes on the import and export of commodities, and rank among the most ancient, as they continue to prevail as one of the most common modes, in all countries, of levying revenue for public purposes. In an insular country like the United Kingdom customs duties came in process of time to be levied only or chiefly in the seaports, and thus .applied only to the foreign commerce, where they may be brought under the control of fair and reasonable principles of taxation. But this simplification of customs duties was only reached by degrees ; and during a long period special customs were levied on goods passing between England and Scotland; and the trade of Ireland with Great Britain and with foreign countries was subjected to fiscal regulations which could not now stand in the light of public reason. The taxes levied, on warrant of some ancient grant or privilsge, upon cattle or goods at a bridge or a ferry or other point of passage from one county or province to another, of which there are some lingering remains even in the United Kingdom, and those levied at the gates of cities on the produce of the immediate country a not uncommon form of municipal taxation on the European continent are all of the nature of customs dues. It is from the universality of this practice that our English term of "customs" appears to have been derived. In countries of extensive land frontiers the system of taxation by duties on foreign commodities becomes still more com plicated. Custom-houses have to be established along the land borders and at particular points on the rivers or the railways ; and the foreign and domestic tax-collectors are brought into immediate contact. Some European Govern ments distinguish in their rates of duty between " dry " or land ports and " wet " or sea ports ; and others vary their dues on foreign commodities according to the zones of the globe from which the commodities come. Nothing has consequently been more perplexing to the merchant than customs duties. They are a labyrinth through which he has had to steer with caution and circumspection ; while, at the same time, it has offered to the more unscrupulous traders temptations to fraud. The smuggling which proceeds under customs duties is only to be checked by the most careful administration, by a system proceeding as far as possible on the simplicity of generally recognized principles, and by duties so moderate in amount as to reduce to a minimum the temptation of fraud.
paid by the domestic consumers of the commodities. The foreign producer will not sell them at less than they cost, and the importing merchant will not bring them in unless
he obtain this cost, his own fair profit, and the import duty