IMITATION. 484 IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. lioweveT, resort to imitation improperly, either from poverty of niusioal ideas or from pedantry, in tlie works of llie coiitrapuntiil writers of the Netherlanils examples of ri'tro^'rade imitation are found. This is liardly le^'itimale art. IMITATION OF CHRIST (Lat. L)c Imila- Hone Cliristi). The most widely road, after the liihie, of all spiritual books. It is a series of counsels for the attainment of perfection, written in a spirit of sincere and liundjic piety, inter- spersed with prayers and colloquies between 1 hrist and the devout soul. It is stranpe that the authorship of a book so pojiular and com- paratively so recent should have been the subject III one of the most curious controversies in lit- erary history. Kollowin',' his own counsels of humility, the author concealed his name. Tho oldest certainlv dated manuscripts— the Wolfen- biittel (1424)! the Gaesdonck (1427), and the Koolf (14:11) — are all anonjTiious. The book was attributed with more or less positiveness to as many as thirty-five different authors, indud- inj; Saint Hernard, Innocent HI., and .John .Scotus Erifrena. The choice finally narrowed to three — Thomas a Keiiipis, the great Chancellor Gerson (q.v.l, and a person of the name of .John f!ersen. a lienedictine abbot of Vercelli. Jlost of the fifteenth eenturv printed copies tiear the Chancellor's name; but the proportion alters in the sixteenth, and the claimant Gersen or (Jesen appears for the first time in 1004. The controversy raped acrimoniously in relipious orders, universities, and even the Parliament of I'aris. Between 1615 and 18.S7 no less than 150 works devoted to the question appeared in France alone. The weight of evidence, both internal and external, has for a long time been considered to rest on the side of Thomas a Kempis (q.v.). The book was finished in 1421, and first printed at .Augsburg probably between 1470 and 1472. The best critical edition of the text is by C. llirsohe (licrlin, 1S74; 2d ed. 1891). Consult: Kettlewell, The Authorship of the De Imilatione Cnrixti (London, 1777); jlalou, Recherches his- li.riijues et critiques sur le veritable auleur du Hire de I'Imitalion (."id ed., I.ouvain. 1S58) ; Wheatley, The Slory of the Imitatio Christi (London, 1801); and an excellent bibliography by a learned mo<lern defender of the Gersen theory, olfsgruber, in Giovanni Oersen, sein J.eben und sein Hcrfc De Imitatione Christi (.ugsburg, 1880). IMITATIVE INSANITY, iNnrcED ^fA^-IA, Insanity I!y Imitaiton. These old terms were adopted upon a mistaken notion. It has been supposed that sane people became insane through imitation of maniacs, through too constant inter- course with them, or through the efforts of a strong imagination in the sane. This is untrue. The physicians or nurses who become insane while living in institutions for those of unsound mind are affected because of stress of over- work or alcoholism, or other debilitating cause which would have been operative had they been engaged in other vocations. Insane people are imit.ative. Treque-ntly cases occur in a family in which a sister, previously unsuspected of being insane, betrays the delusions and adopts the obsessions of an avowedly maniacal sister. This is called fnlie d deux, or 'communicated insanity.' The insanity exists first, and then the imitation oc- r-T3. Imitation of crimes upon reading of them or seeing them committed is due to idiocy (q.v.) or hysteria (q.v.) in most cases. IMIiAC. A character in Dr. .Tohnson'a Raa- stlus. He is the companion of Uasselas in his wanderings, and returns with him to the happy valley. IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY. . dogma ol the Itoman Catholic Church, |)romulgatcd by Pope Pius IX. in 1854. It declares that the "doctrine which holds the blessed X'irgin Mary, from the first instiint of her conception, to have been kept free from all stain of original sin, by the singular grace and privilege of .Almighty God. in view of the mei-its of Christ .lesus the i^aviour of man- kind, is revealed by God, and therefore firmly and constantly to be believed by all the faithful." Previous to 18.'")4 Roman Catholic theologians had commonly believed in the immaculate con- ception, but it was held only as a 'pious opinion," not as a dogma. Its history may be traced from early times, and shows gradual enlargements. The New Testament is silent on the subject of Alary's conception. In the ancient Church iiuiny persons l)elieved in her perpetual virginity, and this found expression in some of the apocryphal Gospels. Belief seems next to have advanced to her sinlessness after the birth of Christ, then to sinlessness from her own birth, and finally to the idea that she was sinless from her very conception; Roman Catholics believe that the modern definition involves its having been held, at least implicitly, from the first. The fact that Mohammed seems to have known of these Christian tenets (cf. Koran, Sura, iii.) is an indication that they were widespread among the Asiatic churches at an early date. T he Eastern Cnurch, however, has not formulated the dogma, and to this day the immaculate conception remains only a pious opinion in that great branch of Christendom. In the West the history of the doctrine is closely associated with that of the feast. An effort was made in Lyons, in ll.'iO. to introduce the festival of the Im- maculate Conception, but it met with pronounced opposition from Bernard of Clairvaux, who did not accept the doctrine exactly as generally ex- plained, and urged that the feast had not received official sanction from Rome. A prolonged contro- versy broke out early in the fourteenth century, which rather involved a minute technical point of the exact moment of her sanctification than (he absolute acceptance or rejection of the main doctrine. The Schoolmen took opposite sides. Duns Scotus and the Scotists maintaining the doctrine in its exactness, while the Thomists, following their leader, Thomas .Aquinas, opposed it. The dispute extended to the two great mendi- cant orders. Scotus was a Franciscan, Thomas a Dominican. The Franciscans accordingly sided with the Scotists in supporting the doctrine: the Dominicans sided with the Thomists in opposing it. There were keen debates, and mutual charges of heresy. The influential L'niversity of Paris at first sided with the Dominicans and Thomists, but afterwards its position was reversed, and by the end of the fifteenth century it required from every candidate for its doctorate an oath to de- fend the tnith of the immaculate conception wlier- ever it was denied. .Among many other forces which worked toward the same end. we may men- tion the favorable action of the Council of Basel (1430), the pronouncements of Pope Si.xtu3 IV.
