ÆSOP (ē´sop), a Greek fabulist, who lived in the 7th century B. C. According to tradition, he was a captive of war, and for a part of his life a slave. Many of his fables have been traced to Egyptian and Indian sources. Socrates, during his imprisonment, put into verse a portion of the Æsopian fables.
ÆSTHETICS or ESTHETICS, the science which treats of the beautiful and the pleasing. The term was first used in its present sense by Wolf, about the middle of the 18th century. According to Herbert Spencer, one characteristic of æsthetic feelings is that they are separated from the functions requisite to sustain life, and it is not till the latter have had proper scope accorded them that the former gain power enough to act. The delight in painting, music, sculpture, poetry, and the drama is æsthetic; and the science investigates the origin of such sensations, the laws which characterize them, and the excellent effects which, when they are not abused, result from their operation to humanity.
ÆSTIVATION, in botany, a term used of the manner in which the parts of a blossom are arranged within a flower bud before the opening of the latter. It is more rarely called prefloration. The word æstivation is separately applied to the calyx, the corolla, the stamens, and the pistil, but not to the flower in general.
ÆTNA. See ETNA.
ÆTOLIA (ē-tō´lē-a), a district of ancient Greece, lying on the N. coast of the Gulf of Corinth. The country had few cities; was, except on the coast, generally wild and barren. Here, according to the legend, Meleager slew the Calydonian boar. The Ætolians make a great figure in the heroic age of Greece; but, at the time of the Peloponnesian War, they were rude and barbarous. The Ætolian confederacy, first called into existence about 323 B. C., became an important rival to the Achæan League. Their assembly was styled the Panætolicon. They were subjugated by the Romans in 189 B. C. Along with Acarnania, Ætolia now forms a department of the modern kingdom of Greece, with a united area of over 3,000 square miles. The chief towns are Missolonghi and Lepanto.
AFFIDAVIT, a voluntary affirmation or solemn declaration, sworn to before a person at liberty to administer an oath. The affidavit must give the name and address of the person stating the facts within his own cognizance, and the exact sources from which other facts are drawn.
AFFINITY. (1) Neighborhood; (2) relationship by marriage; (3) union, connection.
In ordinary language and law, literally, the relationship contracted by marriage between a husband and his wife's kindred, or between a wife and her husband's kindred. It is opposed to consanguinity, or natural relationship by blood. It is of three kinds: (1) Direct, viz., that subsisting between a husband and his wife's blood relations, and vice versa; (2) secondary, or that which subsists between a husband and his wife's relations by marriage; and (3) collateral, or that which subsists between a husband and the relations of his wife's relations.
In biology, a resemblance, or resemblances, on essential points of structure, between species, genera, orders, classes, etc., really akin to each other, and which should be placed side by side in any natural system of classification. Affinity differs from analogy, the latter term being applied to resemblances between animals or plants not really akin, but which ought to be more or less widely separated in classifications. Thus the falcons, the hawks, the eagles, etc., are related to each other by genuine affinity; but the similarity on certain points, such as the possession of retractile claws, between the raptorial birds and the feline race of mammals, is one only of analogy.
In chemistry, chemical affinity, or chemical attraction, is the force by which union takes place between two or more elements to form a chemical compound.
