rose gardens cover several square miles. In 1349 a great part of Maimand and of three little villages belonging to it became wakf (pious endowment) of the shrine at Shiraz of Mïr Ahmed, surnamed Shah Chiragh, a son of Musa Kazim, the seventh imām of the Shiahs, and the remainder of the Maimand grounds was given to the shrine by Mīr Habbib Ullah Sharifi and by Shah Ismail in 1504; the administration of the Maimand property as well as the guardianship of the shrine is still with the descendants of Mīr Habbib Ullah.
MAIMBOURG, LOUIS (1610–1686), French Jesuit and
historian, was born at Nancy. He entered the Society of
Jesus at the age of sixteen, and after studying at Rome became a
classical master in the Jesuit college at Rouen. He afterwards
devoted himself to preaching, but with only moderate success.
After having taken some part in minor controversies he threw
himself with energy into the dispute which had arisen as to the
Gallican liberties; for his Traité historique sur les prérogatives
de l’Église de Rome (1682) he was by command of Innocent XI.
expelled from the Society, but rewarded by Louis XIV. with a
residence at the abbey of St Victor, Paris, and a pension. He
died on the 13th of August 1686. His numerous works include
histories of Arianism, the iconoclastic controversy, the Greek
schism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and of the pontificates of
Leo I. and Gregory I.; they are mere compilations, written
indeed in a very lively and attractive style, but inaccurate
and untrustworthy.
The History of Arianism was published in English (1728–1729) by William Webster, with an appendix on the English writers in the Socinian and Arian controversies.
MAIMING, mutilation, a physical injury which involves the loss of, or incapacity to use, a bodily member. The verb “to maim,” in M. E. maynhe, mahayme, mayme, &c. was adopted from O. Fr. mahaignier: cf. It. magagnars, Med. Lat. mahemiare, mahennare, &c. (see Du Cange, Gloss., s.v. “Mahamium”). Maiming or mutilation is and has been practised by many races with various ethnical and religious significances, and was a customary form of punishment on the principle of an “eye for an eye” (see Mutilation). In law “maiming” is a criminal offence; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was “mayhem” (q.v.), an Anglo-French variant form of the word. Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offences generally grouped as “malicious damage.” For the purpose of the law as to this offence animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes. The punishment for maiming of cattle is three to fourteen years’ penal servitude. Malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanour punishable on summary conviction. For a second offence the penalty is imprisonment with hard labour for over twelve months. (Malicious Damage Act 1861.) Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.
MAIMON, SALOMON (1754–1800), German philosopher,
was born of Jewish parentage in Polish Lithuania, and died
at Nieder-Siegersdorf on the 22nd of November 1800. He
married at the age of twelve, and studied medicine in Berlin.
In 1770 he severed his connexion with his orthodox co-religionists
by his critical commentary on the Moreh Nebuḥim of Maimonides,
and devoted himself to the study of philosophy on the lines of
Wolff and Moses Mendelssohn. After many vicissitudes he
found a peaceful residence in the house of Count Kalkreuth at
Nieder-Siegersdorf in 1790. During the ensuing ten years
he published the works which have made his reputation as a
critical philosopher. Hitherto his life had been a long struggle
against difficulties of all kinds. From his autobiography,
it is clear that his keen critical faculty was developed in great
measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal. It
was not till 1788 that he made the acquaintance of the Kantian
philosophy, which was to form the basis of his lifework, and
as early as 1790 he published the Versuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie,
in which he formulates his objections to the system.
He seizes upon the fundamental incompatibility of a consciousness
which can apprehend, and yet is separated from, the
“thing-in-itself.” That which is object of thought cannot be
outside consciousness; just as in mathematics is an unreal
quantity, so “things-in-themselves” are ex hypothesi outside
consciousness, i.e. are unthinkable. The Kantian paradox he
explains as the result of an attempt to explain the origin of
the “given” in consciousness. The form of things is admittedly
subjective; the mind endeavours to explain the material of the
given in the same terms, an attempt which is not only impossible
but involves a denial of the elementary laws of thought. Knowledge
of the given is, therefore, essentially incomplete. Complete
or perfect knowledge is confined to the domain of pure thought,
to logic and mathematics. Thus the problem of the “thing-in-itself”
is dismissed from the inquiry, and philosophy is limited
to the sphere of pure thought. The Kantian categories are,
indeed, demonstrable and true, but their application to the
given is meaningless and unthinkable. By this critical scepticism
Maimon takes up a position intermediate between Kant and
Hume. Hume’s attitude to the empirical is entirely supported
by Maimon. The casual concept, as given by experience,
expresses not a necessary objective order of things, but an
ordered scheme of perception; it is subjective and cannot be
postulated as a concrete law apart from consciousness. The
main argument of the Transcendentalphilosophie not only drew
from Kant, who saw it in MS., the remark that Maimon alone
of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy,
but also directed the path of most subsequent criticism.
Maimon’s chief works, in addition to the above quoted, are Philos. Wörterbuch (1791); Streifereien im Gebiete der Philos. (1793); Über die Progresse der Philos. (1793); Die Kategorien des Aristoteles mit Anmerkungen erläutert (1794); Versuch einer neuen Logik (1794 and 1798); Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschl. Geist (1797). See S. Maimons Lebensgeschichte von ihm selbst beschrieben (1792, ed. K. P. Moritz; Eng. trans. by J. C. Murray, 1888); Wolff, Maimoniana (1813); Witte, S. Maimon (1876).
MAIMONIDES, the common name of Rabbi Moses ben
Maimon (1135–1204), also known from the initials of these last words as Rambam, Jewish philosopher. His life falls into three epochs, which may be typified by the towns in which they were passed, viz. Cordova, Fez and Cairo. He was born in Cordova on the 20th of March 1135, the eve of Passover; he had a brother, David, and one sister. His early years were spent in his native town, which had then just passed the zenith of its glory. The Arab rulers had fostered the development of science, art, medicine, philosophy, literature and learning. All these influences played their part in the education of Maimonides, whose father, besides training him in all branches of Hebrew and Jewish scholarship, implanted in the youth a sound knowledge of these secular studies as well. In 1148 Cordova was taken from the last Fatimite caliph by the victorious Almohades, who had spread over Spain from N. Africa. These militant revivalists strove to re-establish Islam in what they considered its primitive simplicity. They laid great stress on the unity of God, and tolerated neither schism within the faith nor dissent without. The position of the orthodox Spanish Jews became intolerable, and Maimon, after ten years of hardships, wanderings and escapes, decided to take his family out of the country. He settled in Fez. The years which Maimonides spent there (1160–1165) were memorable for his friendship with Abdul Arab Ibn Muisha—a Moslem poet and theologian—and for the commencement of his literary activity. His energies were diverted towards stimulating the religious feelings of his brethren and combating assimilation. In consequence he became alarmed for his own safety, and in 1165 left for Egypt, where he settled after a passing visit to the Holy Land. Cordova taught him the humanities; Fez humanity. Cairo, besides giving him prominence at court and in the Jewish community, was the centre of the almost world-wide influence which he exercised over Jewry by his monumental writings and dominant personality. By 1177 Maimonides was the recognized chief of the Cairene congregation and consulted on important matters by communities far and wide. Here he was joined by his most
