System der Metaphysik (1824), Die Geschichte der Philosophie (1837–1840).
Fries’s point of view in philosophy may be described as a
modified Kantianism, an attempt to reconcile the criticism of Kant
and Jacobi’s philosophy of belief. With Kant he regarded Kritik,
or the critical investigation of the faculty of knowledge, as the
essential preliminary to philosophy. But he differed from Kant
both as regards the foundation for this criticism and as regards the
metaphysical results yielded by it. Kant’s analysis of knowledge
had disclosed the a priori element as the necessary complement of
the isolated a posteriori facts of experience. But it did not seem to
Fries that Kant had with sufficient accuracy examined the mode in
which we arrive at knowledge of this a priori element. According
to him we only know these a priori principles through inner or
psychical experience; they are not then to be regarded as transcendental
factors of all experience, but as the necessary, constant
elements discovered by us in our inner experience. Accordingly
Fries, like the Scotch school, places psychology or analysis of consciousness at the foundation of philosophy, and called his criticism
of knowledge an anthropological critique. A second point in which
Fries differed from Kant is the view taken as to the relation between
immediate and mediate cognitions. According to Fries, the understanding
is purely the faculty of proof; it is in itself void; immediate
certitude is the only source of knowledge. Reason contains principles
which we cannot demonstrate, but which can be deduced, and are
the proper objects of belief. In this view of reason Fries approximates
to Jacobi rather than to Kant. His most original idea is the
graduation of knowledge into knowing, belief and presentiment.
We know phenomena, how the existence of things appears to us in
nature; we believe in the true nature, the eternal essence of things
(the good, the true, the beautiful); by means of presentiment
(Ahnung) the intermediary between knowledge and belief, we
recognize the supra-sensible in the sensible, the being in the phenomenon.
See E. L. Henke, J. F. Fries (1867); C. Grapengiesser, J. F. Fries, ein Gedenkblatt and Kant’s “Kritik der Vernunft” und deren Fortbildung durch J. F. Fries (1882); H. Strasosky, J. F. Fries als Kritiker der Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie (1891); articles in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie and Allgemeine deutsche Biographie; J. E. Erdmann, Hist. of Philos. (Eng. trans., London, 1890), vol. ii. § 305.
FRIES, JOHN (c. 1764–1825), American insurgent leader, was
born in Pennsylvania of “Dutch” (German) descent about
1764. As an itinerant auctioneer he became well acquainted
with the Germans in the S.E. part of Pennsylvania. In July
1798, during the troubles between the United States and France,
Congress levied a direct tax (on dwelling-houses, lands and
slaves) of $2,000,000, of which Pennsylvania was called upon to
contribute $237,000. There were very few slaves in the state,
and the tax was accordingly assessed upon dwelling-houses and
land, the value of the houses being determined by the number
and size of the windows. The inquisitorial nature of the proceedings
aroused strong opposition among the Germans, and
many of them refused to pay. Fries, assuming leadership,
organized an armed band of about sixty men, who marched
about the country intimidating the assessors and encouraging
the people to resist. At last the governor called out the
militia (March 1799) and the leaders were arrested. Fries and
two others were twice tried for treason (the second time before
Samuel Chase) and were sentenced to be hanged, but they were
pardoned by President Adams in April 1800, and a general
amnesty was issued on 21st May. The affair is variously known
as the “Fries Rebellion,” the “Hot-Water Rebellion”—because
hot water was used to drive assessors from houses—, and the
“Home Tax Rebellion.” Fries died in Philadelphia in 1825.
See T. Carpenter, Two Trials of John Fries ... Taken in Shorthand (Philadelphia, 1800); the second volume of McMaster’s History of the United States (New York, 1883); and W. W. H. Davis, The Fries Rebellion (Doylestown, Pa., 1899).
FRIESLAND, or Vriesland, a province of Holland, bounded
S.W., W. and N. by the Zuider Zee and the North Sea, E. by
Groningen and Drente, and S.E. by Overysel. It also includes
the islands of Ameland and Schiermonnikoog (see Frisian Islands).
Area, 1281 sq. m.; pop. (1900) 340,262. The soil
of Friesland falls naturally into three divisions consisting of
sea-clay in the north and north-west, of low-fen between the
south-west and north-east, and of a comparatively small area
of high-fen in the south-east. The clay and low-fen furnish a
luxuriant meadow-land for the principal industries of the province—cattle-rearing
and cheese- and butter-making. Horse-breeding
has also been practised for centuries, and the breed of black
Frisian horse is well known. On the clay lands agriculture is
also extensively practised. In the high-fen district peat-digging
is the chief occupation. The effect of this industry, however,
is to lay bare a subsoil of diluvial sand which offers little inducement
for subsequent cultivation. Despite the general productiveness
of the soil, however, the social condition of Friesland has
remained in a backward state and poverty is rife in many districts.
The ownership of property being largely in the hands of absentee
landlords, the peasantry have little interest in the land, the
profits from which go to enrich other provinces. Moreover,
the nature of the fertility of the meadow-lands is such as to
require little manual labour, and other industrial means of
subsistence have hardly yet come into existence. This state of
affairs has given rise to a social-democratic outcry on account
of which Friesland is sometimes regarded as the “Ireland of
Holland.” The water system of the province comprises a few
small rivers (now largely canalized) in the high lands in the east,
and the vast network of canals, waterways and lakes of the whole
north and west. The principal lakes are Tjeuke Meer, Sloter
Meer, De Fluessen and Sneeker Meer. The tides being lowest
on the north coast of the province, the scheme of the Waterstaat,
the government department (dating from 1879), provides for
the largest removal of superfluous surface water into the Lauwerszee.
But owing to the long distance which the water must
travel from certain parts of the province, and the continual
recession of the Lauwerszee, the drainage problem is a peculiarly
difficult one, and floods are sometimes inevitable.
The population of the province is evenly distributed in small villages. The principal market centres are Leeuwarden, the chief towns, Sneek, Bolsward, Franeker (qq.v.), Dokkum (4053) and Heerenveen (5011). With the exception of Franeker and Heerenveen all these towns originally arose on the inlet of the Middle Sea. The seaport towns are more or less decayed; they include Stavoren (820), Hindeloopen (1030), Workum (3428), Harlingen (q.v.) and Makkum (2456).
For history see Frisians.
FRIEZE. 1. (Through the Fr. frise, and Ital. fregio, from
the Lat. Phrygium, sc. opus, Phrygian or embroidered work),
a term given in architecture to the central division of the entablature
of an order (see Order), but also applied to any oblong
horizontal feature, introduced for decorative purposes and
enriched with carving. The Doric frieze had a structural origin
as the triglyphs suggest vertical support. The Ionic frieze was
purely decorative and probably did not exist in the earliest
examples, if we may judge by the copies found in the Lycian
tombs carved in the rock. There is no frieze in the Caryatide
portico of the Erechtheum, but in the Ionic temples its introduction
may have been necessitated in consequence of more height
being required in the entablature to carry the beams supporting
the lacunaria over the peristyle. In the frieze of the Erechtheum
the figures (about 2 ft. high) were carved in white marble and
affixed by clamps to a background of black Eleusinian marble.
The frieze of the Choragic monument of Lysicrates (10 in. high)
was carved with figures representing the story of Dionysus and
the pirates. The most remarkable frieze ever sculptured was
that on the outside of the wall of the cella of the Parthenon
representing the procession of the celebrants of the Panathenaic
Festival. It was 40 in. in height and 525 ft. long, being carried
round the whole building under the peristyle. Nearly the whole
of the western frieze exists in situ; of the remainder, about half
is in the British Museum, and as much as remains is either in
Athens or in other museums. In some of the Roman temples,
as in the temple of Antoninus and Faustina and the temple
of the Sun, the frieze is elaborately carved and in later work is
made convex, to which the term “pulvinated” is given.
2. (Probably connected with “frizz,” to curl; there is no historical reason to connect the word with Friesland), a thick, rough woollen cloth, of very lasting quality, and with a heavy nap, forming small tufts or curls. It is largely manufactured in Ireland.
FRIGATE (Fr. frégate, Span. and Port. fragata; the etymology
of the word is obscure; it has been derived from the Late Lat.
