two sides against a vertical gable. Sometimes a compromise is made between the two, half the roof being hipped and half resting on the vertical wall; this gives much more room inside the roof, and externally a most picturesque effect, which is one of the great attractions of domestic architecture in the south of England, and is rarely found in other countries.
HIPPEL, THEODOR GOTTLIEB VON (1741–1796), German
satirical and humorous writer, was born on the 31st of January
1741, at Gerdauen in East Prussia, where his father was rector
of a school. He enjoyed an excellent education at home, and in
his sixteenth year he entered Königsberg university as a student
of theology. Interrupting his studies, he went, on the invitation
of a friend, to St Petersburg, where he was introduced at the
brilliant court of the empress Catherine II. Returning to
Königsberg he became a tutor in a private family; but, falling
in love with a young lady of high position, his ambition was
aroused, and giving up his tutorship he devoted himself with
enthusiasm to legal studies. He was successful in his profession,
and in 1780 was appointed chief burgomaster in Königsberg,
and in 1786 privy councillor of war and president of the town.
As he rose in the world, however, his inclination for matrimony
vanished, and the lady who had stimulated his ambition was
forgotten. He died at Königsberg on the 23rd of April 1796,
leaving a considerable fortune. Hippel had extraordinary
talents, rich in wit and fancy; but his was a character full of
contrasts and contradictions. Cautiousness and ardent passion,
dry pedantry and piety, morality and sensuality; simplicity
and ostentation composed his nature; and, hence, his literary
productions never attained artistic finish. In his Lebensläufe
nach aufsteigender Linie (1778–1781) he intended to describe the
lives of his father and grandfather, but he eventually confined
himself to his own. It is an autobiography, in which persons
well known to him are introduced, together with a mass of
heterogeneous reflections on life and philosophy. Kreuz- und
Querzüge des Ritters A bis Z (1793–1794) is a satire levelled against
the follies of the age—ancestral pride and the thirst for orders,
decoration and the like. Among others of his better known
works are Über die Ehe (1774) and Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung
der Weiber (1792). Hippel has been called the fore-runner
of Jean Paul Richter, and has some resemblance to this
author, in his constant digressions and in the interweaving of
scientific matter in his narrative. Like Richter he was strongly
influenced by Laurence Sterne.
In 1827–1838 a collected edition of Hippel’s works in 14 vols., was issued at Berlin. Über die Ehe has been edited by E. Brenning (Leipzig, 1872), and the Lebensläufe nach aufsteigender Linie has in a modernized edition by A. von Öttingen (1878), gone through several editions. See J. Czerny, Sterne, Hippel und Jean Paul (Berlin, 1904).
HIPPIAS OF ELIS, Greek sophist, was born about the middle
of the 5th century B.C. and was thus a younger contemporary
of Protagoras and Socrates. He was a man of great versatility
and won the respect of his fellow-citizens to such an extent that
he was sent to various towns on important embassies. At
Athens he made the acquaintance of Socrates and other leading
thinkers. With an assurance characteristic of the later sophists,
he claimed to be regarded as an authority on all subjects, and
lectured, at all events with financial success, on poetry, grammar,
history, politics, archaeology, mathematics and astronomy.
He boasted that he was more popular than Protagoras, and was
prepared at any moment to deliver an extempore address on
any subject to the assembly at Olympia. Of his ability there
is no question, but it is equally certain that he was superficial.
His aim was not to give knowledge, but to provide his pupils
with the weapons of argument, to make them fertile in discussion
on all subjects alike. It is said that he boasted of wearing
nothing which he had not made with his own hands. Plato’s
two dialogues, the Hippias major and minor, contain an exposé
of his methods, exaggerated no doubt for purposes of argument
but written with full knowledge of the man and the class which
he represented. Ast denies their authenticity, but they must
have been written by a contemporary writer (as they are
mentioned in the literature of the 4th century), and undoubtedly
represent the attitude of serious thinkers to the growing influence
of the professional Sophists. There is, however, no question
that Hippias did a real service to Greek literature by insisting
on the meaning of words, the value of rhythm and literary style.
He is credited with an excellent work on Homer, collections of
Greek and foreign literature, and archaeological treatises, but
nothing remains except the barest notes. He forms the connecting
link between the first great sophists, Protagoras and
Prodicus, and the innumerable eristics who brought their name
into disrepute.
For the general atmosphere in which Hippias moved see Sophists; also histories of Philosophy (e.g. Windelband, Eng. trans. by Tufts, pt. 1, c. 2, §§ 7 and 8).
HIPPO, a Greek philosopher and natural scientist, classed
with the Ionian or physical school. He was probably a contemporary
of Archelaus and lived chiefly in Athens. Aristotle
declared that he was unworthy of the name of philosopher, and,
while comparing him with Thales in his main doctrine, adds that
his intellect was too shallow for serious consideration. He held
that the principle of all things is moisture (τὸ ὑγρόν); that fire
develops from water, and from fire the material universe.
Further he denied all existence save that of material things as
known through the senses, and was, therefore, classed among the
“Atheists.” The gods are merely great men canonized by
popular tradition. It is said that he composed his own epitaph,
wherein he claims for himself a place in this company.
HIPPOCRAS, an old medicinal drink or cordial, made of wine
mixed with spices—such as cinnamon, ginger and sugar—and
strained through woollen cloths. The early spelling usual in English
was ipocras, or ypocras. The word is an adaptation of the Med.
Lat. Vinum Hippocraticum, or wine of Hippocrates, so called, not
because it was supposed to be a receipt of the physician, but from
an apothecary’s name for a strainer or sieve, “Hippocrates’
sleeve” (see W. W. Skeat, Chaucer, note to the Merchant’s Tale).
HIPPOCRATES, Greek philosopher and writer, termed the
“Father of Medicine,” was born, according to Soranus, in Cos,
in the first year of the 80th Olympiad, i.e. in 460 B.C. He was a
member of the family of the Asclepiadae, and was believed to
be either the nineteenth or seventeenth in direct descent from
Aesculapius. It is also claimed for him that he was descended from
Hercules through his mother, Phaenarete. He studied medicine
under Heraclides, his father, and Herodicus of Selymbria; in
philosophy Gorgias of Leontini and Democritus of Abdera were
his masters. His earlier studies were prosecuted in the famous
Asclepion of Cos, and probably also at Cnidos. He travelled
extensively, and taught and practised his profession at Athens,
probably also in Thrace, Thessaly, Delos and his native island.
He died at Larissa in Thessaly, his age being variously stated as
85, 90, 104 and 109. The incidents of his life are shrouded by
uncertain traditions, which naturally sprang up in the absence of
any authentic record; the earliest biography was by one of the
Sorani, probably Soranus the younger of Ephesus, in the 2nd
century; Suidas, the lexicographer, wrote of him in the 11th, and
Tzetzes in the 12th century. In all these biographies there is
internal evidence of confusion; many of the incidents related
are elsewhere told of other persons, and certain of them are
quite irreconcilable with his character, so far as it can be judged
of from his writings and from the opinions expressed of him by his
contemporaries; we may safely reject, for instance, the legends
that he set fire to the library of the Temple of Health at Cnidos, in
order to destroy the evidence of plagiarism, and that he refused
to visit Persia at the request of Artaxerxes Longimanus, during
a pestilential epidemic, on the ground that he would in so doing be
assisting an enemy. He is referred to by Plato (Protag. p. 283;
Phaedr. p. 211) as an eminent medical authority, and his opinion
is also quoted by Aristotle. The veneration in which he was held
by the Athenians serves to dissipate the calumnies which have
been thrown on his character by Andreas, and the whole tone of
his writings bespeaks a man of the highest integrity and purest
morality.
Born of a family of priest-physicians, and inheriting all its traditions and prejudices, Hippocrates was the first to cast
