and the languishing style is greatly spoiled by the difficulty of
appreciating the points involved and indeed of distributing the
dialogue (a not uncommon crux in Persius). The remaining
satires handle in order (2) the question as to what we may justly
ask of the gods (cf. Plato’s second Alcibiades), (3) the importance
of having a definite aim in life, (4) the necessity of self-knowledge
for public men (cf. Plato’s first Alcibiades), (5) the Stoic doctrine
of liberty (introduced by generous allusions to Cornutus' teaching),
and (6) the proper use of money. The Life tells us that the Satires
were not left complete; some lines were taken (presumably by
Cornutus or Bassus) from the end of the work so that it might be
quasi finitus. This perhaps means that a sentence in which Persius
had left a line imperfect, or a paragraph which he had not completed,
had to be omitted The same authority says that Cornutus
definitely blacked out an offensive allusion to the emperor’s literary
taste, and that we owe to him the reading of the MSS. in Sat. 1. 121,—“auriculas
asini quis non [for Mida rex] habet!” Traces of
lack of revision are, however, still visible; cf. e.g. v. 176 (sudden
transition from ambition to superstition) and vi. 37 (where criticism
of Greek doctores has nothing to do with the context). The parallels
to passages of Horace and Seneca are recorded in the commentaries
in view of what the Life says about Lucan, the verbal resemblance
of Sat iii. 3 to Phars. x. 163 is interesting. Examples of bold
language or metaphor. 1. 25, rupto iecore exierit caprificus, 60,
linguae quantum sitiat canis; iii. 42, intus palleat, 81, silentia rodunt,
v. 92, ueteres auiae de pulmone reuello. Passages like iii. 87, 100 sqq,
show elaboration carried beyond the rules of good taste. “Popular”
words baro, cédo, ebullire, gluto, lallare, mamma, muttire, obba,
palpo, stloppus. Fine lines, &c, in i. 116 sqq., ii. 6 sqq., 61 sqq., 73 sqq., iii. 39 sqq.
Authorities.—The MSS. of Persius fall into two groups, the one represented by two of the best of them, the other by that of Pithoeus, so important for the text of Juvenal. Since the publication of J. Bieger’s de Persii cod pith. recte aestimando (Berlin, 1890) the tendency has been to prefer the tradition of the latter.
The important editions are: (1) with explanatory notes Casaubon (Paris, 1605, enlarged edition by Dübner, Leipzig, 1833); O. Jahn (with the scholia and valuable prolegomena, Leipzig, 1843); Conington (with translation, 3rd ed., Oxford, 1893); B. L. Gildersleeve (New York, 1875), G. Némethy (Buda-Pesth, 1903); (2) with critical notes. Jahn-Bücheler (3rd ed., Berlin, 1893), S. G. Owen (with Juvenal, Oxford, 1902). Translations into English by Dryden (1693); Conington (loc. cit.) and Hemphill (Dublin, 1901). Criticism, &c, in Martha, Les Moralistes sous l’empire romain (5th ed., Paris, 1886), Nisard, Poètes latins de la decadence (Paris, 1834); Hirzel, Der Dialog (Leipzig, 1895); Saintsbury, History of Criticism, i. 248, Henderson, Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero (London, 1903); and the histories of Roman literature (especially Schanz, §§ 382 sqq.) A Bibliography of Persius, by M. H. Morgan (Cambridge, U.S.A., 1893). (W. C. Su)
PERSON, OFFENCES AGAINST THE. This expression is
used in English law to classify crimes involving some form of assault or personal violence or physical injury, i.e. offences affecting the life, liberty or safety of an individual, but it is also extended to certain offences against morality which cannot technically be described as assaults. The bulk of the offences
thus classified, so far as their definition or punishment depends upon statute law, are included in the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. 100), and in the Criminal Law Amendment Acts of 1880 and 1885, and the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children Act 1904. The classification in these statutes
is not scientific: e.g. bigamy is within the act of 1861 (s. 57),
and certain offences involving assault, e.g. robbery, are to be
found in other statutes. The particular offences dealt with
by the acts above named are discussed under their appropriate
titles, e.g. abortion, assault, bigamy, homicide, rape, &c. In
the Indian penal code most of the offences above referred to
fall under the head “offences against the human body” (ch.
xvi.). In his Digest of the Criminal Law Sir James Stephen
includes most of these offences under the title “offences against
the person, the conjugal and parental rights, and the reputation
of individuals,” a classification also to be found in the English
draft code of 1880 and adopted in the Queensland code of 1899
In working out this classification offences not involving assault
are relegated to another and perhaps more appropriate title,
“offences against morality.”
PERSONALITY (from Lat. persona, originally an actor’s mask, from personare,[1] to sound through), a term applied in
philosophy and also in common speech to the identity or individuality
which makes a being (person) what he is, or marks
him off for all that he is not. The term “person,” which is
technically used not only in philosophy but also in law, is applied
in theology (Gr. πρόσωπον) to the three hypostases of the
Trinity. It was first introduced by Tertullian, who implied
by it a single individual, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost
were three personae though of one and the same substance
(unitas substantiae). The nature of this unity in difference
exercised the minds of the early Christian theologians, and was
the subject of many councils and official pronouncements, according
as emphasis was laid on the unity or on the separateness of
the persons. There was perpetual schism between the Unitarians
and Trinitarians (see for example Sabellius). The natural
sense of the word “person” is undoubtedly individuality;
hence those who found a difficulty in the philosophic conception
of the three-in-one naturally tended to lay emphasis on the
distinctions between the members of the Trinity (see Heresy; Monarchianism, Logos, &c.). A further theological question
arises in Connexion with the doctrine of immortality (q.v.), and
it is argued that immortality is meaningless unless the soul of
the dead man is self-conscious throughout.
In philosophy the term has an important ethical significance. The Greek moralists, attaching little importance to individual citizens as such, found the highest moral perfection in the subordination of the individual to the state. Man, as πολιτικόν, is good only when he is a good πολιτής. Subsequent ethical systems on the contrary have laid stress on the moral worth of personality, finding the summum bonum in the highest realization of the self. This view is specially characteristic of the Neo-hegelian school (e.g. T. H. Green), but it belongs also in various degrees to all intuitional and idealistic systems. Utilitarian universalistic hedonism and evolutionist ethics so far resemble the Greek theory that they tend to minimize the importance of personality, by introducing ulterior reasons (e.g. the perfection of the social organism, of humanity) as the ultimate sanctions of moral principles, whereas the intuitionists by making the criterion abstract and absolute limit goodness to personal obedience to the a priori moral law.
Still more important problems are connected with the psychological significance of personality. What is the origin and character of the consciousness of the self? The consciousness of the identity of another person is comparatively simple; but one’s own individuality consists partly in being aware of that individuality; a man cannot use the word “I” unless he is conscious of the unity of his “self,” and yet there is involved in the word “I” something more than this consciousness. In what does the unity of the “self” consist prior to its being recognized in consciousness, how does the consciousness arise? The answer to this problem is to be found—in so far as it can be found—in the subject-object relation, in the distinction between the external world and the subjective processes of knowing and willing which that relation involves. I will something, and afterwards perceive a corresponding change within the unity of my external world. Hence, we may suppose, arises the consciousness of a permanent self and not-self. It should be observed that self-consciousness varies according to the intellectual development, and the term “personality” is usually connected only with the self-consciousness of an advanced type, not, for example, with that of an animal. Even among human beings there is considerable difference. The most elementary form of human self-consciousness includes in the self not only the soul but also the body, while to the developed self-consciousness the physical self is part of the external or objective world. Finally it is necessary to refer to the Kantian distinction of the pure and the empirical ego, the latter (“the Me known”) being an object of thought to the former (“the I knowing”).
From the use of the term “person” as distinguishing the
- ↑ So Gabius Bassus in Gell Noct Att. v. 7, 1. Since, however, it is difficult to explain persōna from persŏnare (Skeat suggests by analogy from προςωπον the Greek equivalent), Walde, in Lateinisches etymologisches Worterbuch (1906), suggests a derivation from Greek ζώνη, a zone. In Roman law persona was one who had civil rights. For the ecclesiastical persona ecclesiae, see Parson.
