libraries. The most important of his works is that noticed by Averroes, who promised a complete discussion of it, but unfortunately neither the treatise nor the exposition has come down to us. Our knowledge of it is almost entirely drawn from the notices given by Moses of Narbonne, a Jewish writer of the 14th century, in his commentary on the somewhat similar work of Ibn Tofail. The title of the work may be translated as the Regime or C onduct of the Solitary, understanding by that the organised system of rules, by obedience to which the individual may rise from the mere life of the senses to the perception of pure intelligible principles, and may participate in the divine thought which sustains the world. These rules for the individual are but the image or reflex of the political organisation of the perfect or ideal state ; and the man who strives to lead this life is called the solitary, not because he withdraws from society, but because, while in it, he remains a stranger to its ways, and guides himself by reference to a higher state, an ideal society. Avempace does not develop at any length this curious Platonic idea of the perfect state. His object is to discover the highest end of human life, and with this view he classifies the various activities of the human soul, rejects such as are material or animal, and then analyses the various spiritual forms to which the activities may be directed. He points out the graduated scale of such forms, through which the soul may rise, and shows that none are final or complete in themselves, except the pure intelligible forms, the ideas of ideas. These the intellect can grasp, and in so doing it becomes what he calls intellectus acquisitus, and is in a measure divine. This self-consciousness of pure reason is the highest object of human activity, and is to be attained by the speculative method. The intellect has in itself power to know ultimate truth and intelligence, and does not require a mystical illumination as Algazali taught. Avempace s principles, it is clear, lead directly to the Averroistic doctrine of the unity of intellect, but the obscurity and incompleteness of the Regime do not permit us to judge how far he anticipated the later thinker. (See Munk, Melanges de Phil. Juiveet Arabe, pp. 383-410.)
AVENBRUGGER, or AUENBRUGGER, LEOPOLD, a phy
sician of Vienna, the discoverer of the important mode of
investigating diseases of the chest and abdomen by auscul
tation. His method was to apply the ear to the chest, and
to note the sounds it afforded on percussion by the hand,
or what is called immediate auscultation. His Latin trea
tise, Inventum novum ex Percussione Thoracis Humani
Interni Pectoris Morbos detegendi, published in 1761,
excited little attention, until it was translated and illus
trated by Corvisart, in 1808, when it soon led the way to
Laennec s great improvement of aiding the ear by the
stethoscope, or mediate auscultation. The great value of
the method introduced by Avenbrugger, in the diagnosis
of internal diseases, is now universally acknowledged. He
was born at Griitz in 1722, and died in 1809.
AVENTINUS [JOHANN THURMAYR], author of the
Annals of Bavaria, was born in the year 1466 at Abens-
berg. He studied first at Ingoldstadt, and afterwards in
the university of Paris. In 1503 he privately taught
rhetoric and poetry at Vienna, and in 1507 he publicly
taught Greek at Cracow, in Poland. In 1509 he read
lectures on some of Cicero s works at Ingoldstadt, and in
1512 was appointed preceptor to Prince Ludwig and Prince
Ernst, sons of Albert the Wise, duke of Bavaria, and
travelled with the latter of these princes. After spending
several years in the collection of materials he undertook to
write the Annales Boiorum, or Annals of Bavaria, being
encouraged by the dukes of that territory, who settled a
pension upon him, and gave him hopes that they would
defray the expenses of publication. He finished, but did
not publish, his work in 1528, and in the following year
he was imprisoned on suspicion of heresy. He was soon
released from confinement, but the indignity he had suf
fered seriously affected him. He died in 1534 at Ratisbon.
His history, which has gained for him considerable repu
tation as a writer, was published, but with some important
omissions, in 1554, by Ziegler, professor of poetry in the
university of Ingoldstadt. These passages, which were
adverse to the Roman Catholics, were all restored in the
edition published at Basle in 1580, by Nicholas Cisner.
Besides his other writings, Gesner attributes to him a
curious work, entitled Numerandi per digitos manusque
Veterum Gonsuetudines.
AVENZOAR [ABU MERWAN ABDALMALEC IBN ZOHR],
an eminent Arabian physician, who flourished about the
end of the llth or beginning of the 12th century, was born
at Seville, where he exercised his profession with great
reputation. His ancestors had been celebrated as physi
cians for several generations, and his son was afterwards
held by the Arabians to be even more eminent in his pro
fession than Avenzoar himself. He was contemporary
with Averroes, who, according to Leo Africanus, heard his
lectures and learned physic of him. This seems probable,
because Averroes more than once gives Avenzoar very high
and partly deserved praise, calling him admirable, glorious,
the treasure of all knowledge, and the most supreme in
physic from the time of Galen to his own. Avenzoar, not
withstanding, is by the generality of writers reckoned an
empiric ; but Dr Freind observes that this character suits
him less than any other of the Arabian physicians. Aven
zoar belonged, in many respects, to the Dogmatists or
Rational School, rather than to the Empirics. He was a
great admirer of Galen ; and in his writings he protests
emphatically against quackery and the superstitious re
medies of the astrologers. He shows no inconsiderable
knowledge of anatomy in his remarkable description of
inflammation and abscess of the mediastinum in his own
person, and its diagnosis from common pleuritis as well as
from abscess and dropsy of the pericardium. In cases of
obstruction or of palsy of the gullet, his three modes of
treatment are ingenious. He proposes to support the
strength by placing the patient in a tepid bath of nutritious
liquids, that might enter by cutaneous imbibition, but does
not recommend this. He speaks more favourably of the
introduction of food into the stomach by a silver tube ; and
he strongly recommends the use of nutritive enemata.
From his writings it would appear that the offices of physi
cian, surgeon, and apothecary were already considered as
distinct professions. He wrote a book entitled The Method
of Preparing Medicines and Diet, which was translated into
Hebrew in the year 1280, and thence into Latin by Para-
vicius, whose version, first printed at Venice 1490, has
passed through several editions.
AVERAGE, a term used in maritime commerce to
signify damages or expenses resulting from the accidents
of navigation. Average is either general or particular.
General average arises when sacrifices have been made, or
expenditures incurred, for the preservation of the ship,
cargo, and freight, from some peril of the sea, or from its
effects. It implies a subsequent contribution, from all the
parties concerned, rateably to the values of their respective
interests, to make good the loss thus occasioned. Particular
average signifies the damage or partial loss happening to
the ship, goods, or freight by some fortuitous or unavoidable
accident. It is borne by the parties to whose property the
misfortune happens, or by their insurers. The term average
originally meant what is now distinguished as general
average ; and the expression " particular average," although
not strictly accurate, came to be afterwards used for the
convenience of distinguishing those damages or partial
