APRICOT, the fruit of Prunus armeniaca (Linn.) or Armeniaca vulgaris, according to others. Under the one name it is a species of the genus to which the plums belong, the other establishes it as a distinct genus of the natural order Rosaceæ. The apricot is, like the plum, a stone fruit, cultivated generally throughout temperate regions, and used chiefly in the form of preserves and in tarts. The tree is said to be a native of Armenia (hence the name Armeniaca), and it is found commonly in mountainous countries throughout Asia. It flowers very early in the season, and is a hardy tree, but the fruit will scarcely ripen in Britain unless the tree is trained against a wall. A great number of varieties of the apricot, as of most cultivated fruits, are distinguished by cultivators. The kernels of several varieties are edible, and in Egypt those of the Musch-Musch variety form a considerable article of commerce. The French liqueur Eau de Noyaux is prepared from bitter apricot kernels.
APRIES (Ἀπρίης), the name by which Herodotus and Diodorus designate Pharaoh-Hophra, the eighth king of the twenty-sixth Egyptian dynasty. See Egypt.
APRIL was, in the old Roman reckoning, the second month of the year, but is counted in the Julian calendar as the fourth. The derivation of the name is unknown, though as far back as Varro we find the traditional etymology, omnia aperit, “it opens everything,” which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of ἄνοιξις (opening) for spring; while some would make out a connection with Aphrodite (Venus), and Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus. Among the Romans this month was sacred to Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunæ Virilis being held on the first day. On the fourth and the five following days, games (Ludi Megalenses) were celebrated in honour of Cybele; on the fifth there was the Festum Fortunæ Publicæ; on the tenth (?) games in the circus, and on the nineteenth, equestrian combats, in honour of Ceres; on the twenty-first—which was regarded as the birthday of Rome—the Vinalia urbana, when the wine of the previous autumn was first tasted; on the twenty-fifth, the Robigalia, for the averting of mildew; and on the twenty-eighth and four following days, the riotous Floralia. In many countries of Europe, as England, France, and Germany, the first of April has for long been appropriated to a facetious custom, for which no very satisfactory origin has been assigned. To send an unsuspecting or ignorant person on some bootless errand is the great endeavour of the day. In Scotland the unfortunate subject of the trick is called a gowk—which has now, though the words were probably at one time different, the meaning both of “fool” and “cuckoo,”—and the mischievous errand-sending is “hunting a gowk.” In France the dupe is called poisson d'Avril, or April-fish. One remarkable theory traces the custom to Noah, as sending out his dove on such a quest; it is also referred either to the miracle plays representing the sending of our Saviour from Annas to Caiaphas and from Pilate to Herod, or to the change, in France, in 1564, of New Year's day to the first of January, which left the first of April destitute of anything but a burlesque of its former festivities; and more recently an identification has been attempted with the Hindoo festival of Huli, which is celebrated in a similar manner on the 31st of March. No references to all-fools'-day have been found in our earlier literature; and it seems that both England and Germany have derived the fashion from France. St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve, with its superstition about those who were doomed to die, falls on the twenty-fourth. In China the symbolical ploughing of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood takes place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to our April; and in Japan a pleasant domestic festival, called the feast of Dolls, is celebrated in the same month. The days of April (journées d'Avril) is a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris, and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the Procès d'Avril. (See Chambers's Book of Days; Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, cap. “Monate.”)
distinction expressed by these terms is to be explained by referring to the phraseology of Aristotle. According to him there may be a double starting-point in knowledge. When our individual progress in learning is chiefly considered, the things Avith which we are first and best acquainted may be termed earlier and prior; whereas the truths of a more general, primary, and fundamental character, to which wo are subsequently led, have a later and posterior position. But if we lose sight of our personal interest in knowledge, then the priority may be more justly claimed by whatever is the cause or principle from which something else springs. In this sense the causal, original, and primary in the objec tive world is by nature prior (irporepov vo-et) ; whilst the secondary and derivative existence is posterior. Priority in the first acceptation is only relative to us, and for general purposes may be called accidental ; in the second acceptation, the priority is absolute, and without qualifica tion. It is the second acceptation which Aristotle laid down as the properly philosophical one, and which regulates the usage of the phrases a priori and a posteriori by the schoolmen. In that sense of the term there can evidently be no a priori demonstration of first and fundamental principles. According to Aquinas, for example, there can be no a priori knowledge of God ; because He, as uncaused and uncreated, cannot be deduced from anything prior in causation to Himself, and can only be apprehended ration ally by means of that which is consequent upon His action, viz., the creatures of the natural world. In other words, our knowledge of Him must be a posteriori. It is obvious that science in the highest sense must be a priori, if vere scire est per causas scire ; i.e., the knowledge must spring from an insight into causes, which are the true primaries. By an extension of this usage an argument is said to follow an a priori path, when from the basis of some conception it proceeds to evolve by analysis all or some of the logical consequences ; whereas, the mode of reasoning, which endeavours to gather into a single formula the various facts of observation, is described as a posteriori. The argument of Anselm, which, from the mere conception of God, pro poses to deduce his existence, is an example of a priori reasoning. An a priori reasoner has to predict what is or will be, by considering what ought to be in accordance with certain presuppositions. He tries by argument to assign beforehand the place of a fact which may not yet have been discovered by observation. From the analysis of certain given conditions, or by constructing the total product from some given elements, he seeks to anticipate experience. Of course, if the original conception be bad or defective, the
conclusions will be false or inadequate. Often too, what