a general sense, implies nearly the same thing with act.*—Grammarians, however, observe some distinction between action and act; the former being generally restricted to the common or ordinary transactions, whereas the latter is used to express those which are remarkable. Thus, we say it is a good action to comfort the unhappy; it is a generous act to deprive ourselves of what is necessary, for their sake. The wise man proposes to himself an honest end in all his actions; a prince ought to mark every day of his life with some act of greatness. The Abbé Girard makes a further distinction between the words action and act. The former, according to him, has more relation to the power that acts than the latter; whereas the latter has more relation to the effect produced than the former; and hence the one is properly the attribute of the other. Thus we may properly say, "Be sure to preserve a presence of mind in all your actions; and take care that they are all acts of equity."

mechanics, implies either the effort which a body or power makes against another body or power, or the effect itself of that effort.

As it is necessary in works of this kind to have a particular regard to the common language of mechanics and philosophers, we have given this double definition; but the proper signification of the term is the motion which a body really produces, or tends to produce, in another; that is, such is the motion it would have produced, had nothing hindered its effect.

All power is nothing more than a body actually in motion, or which tends to move itself; that is, a body which would move itself if nothing opposed it. The action therefore of a body is rendered evident to us by its motion only; and consequently we must not fix any other idea to the word action, than that of actual motion, or a simple tendency to motion. The famous question relating to vis viva, and vis mortua, owes, in all probability, its existence to an inadequate idea of the word action; for had Leibnitz and his followers observed, that the only precise and distinct idea we can give to the word force or action, reduces it to its effect, that is, to the motion it actually produces or tends to produce, they would never have made that curious distinction.

Quantity of Action, a name given by M. de Maupertuis, in the Memoirs of the Parisian Academy of Sciences for 1744, and those of Berlin for 1746, to the product of the mass of a body by the space which it runs through, and by its velocity. He lays it down as a general law, "that, in the changes made in the state of a body, the quantity of action necessary to produce such change is the least possible." This principle he applies to the investigation of the laws of refraction, of equilibrium, &c. and even to the ways of acting employed by the Supreme Being. In this manner M. de Maupertuis attempts to connect the metaphysics, physics of final causes with the fundamental truths of mechanics, to shew the dependence of the collision of both elastic and hard bodies upon one and the same law, which before had always been referred to separate laws; and to reduce the laws of motion, and those of equilibrium, to one and the same principle.

**Action**, in ethics, denotes the external signs or expressions of the sentiments of a moral agent.

**Action**, in poetry, the same with subject or fable. Critics generally distinguish two kinds, the principal and the incidental. The principal action is what is generally called the fable; and the incidental an epistle.

**Action**, in oratory, is the outward deportment of the orator, or the accommodation of his countenance, voice, and gesture, to the subject of which he is treating. See Oratory, Part IV.

**Action**, in a theatrical scene. See Declamation, Art. IV.

**Action for the Pulpit.** See Declamation, Art. I.

**Action**, in painting and sculpture, is the attitude or position of the several parts of the face, body, and limbs of such figures as are represented, and whereby they seem to be really actuated by passions. Thus we say, the action of such a figure finely expresses the passions with which it is agitated: we also use the same expression with regard to animals.

**Action**, among physicians, is applied to the functions of the body, whether vital, animal, or natural.

The vital functions, or actions, are those which are absolutely necessary to life, and without which there is no life, as the action of the heart, lungs, and arteries. On the action and reaction of the fluids and solids on each other, depend the vital functions. The pulse and respiration are the external signs of life. Vital diseases are all those which hinder the influx of the venous blood into the cavities of the heart, and the expulsion of the arterial blood from the same. — The natural functions are those which are instrumental in repairing the several losses which the body sustains; for life is destructive of itself, its very offices occasioning a perpetual waste. The manducation of food, the deglutition and digestion thereof, also the separation and dilution of the chyle and excrementitious parts, &c., are under the head of natural functions, as by these our aliment is converted into our nature. They are necessary to the continuance of our bodies. — The animal functions are those which we perform at will, as muscular motion, and all the voluntary actions of the body: they are those which constitute the senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing; perception, reasoning, imagination, memory, judgment, affections of the mind. Without any, or all of them, a man may live, but not so comfortably as with them.

**Action**, in commerce, is a term used abroad for a certain part or share of a public company's capital stock. Thus, if a company has 400,000 livres capital stock, this may be divided into 400 actions, each consisting of 1,000 livres. Hence a man is said to have two, four, &c., actions, according as he has the property of two, four, &c., 1,000 livres capital stock. The transferring of actions abroad is performed much in the same manner as stocks are with us. See Stocks.

**Action**, in law, is a demand made before a judge for obtaining what we are legally entitled to demand, and is more commonly known by the name of law-suit or process.

**Actionary**, or **Actionist**, a proprietor of stock in a trading company.

**Actions**, among merchants, sometimes signify moveable effects; and we say the merchant's creditors have seized on all his actions, when we mean that they have taken possession of all his active debts.

**Active**, denotes something that communicates action or motion to another; in which acceptation it stands opposed to passive.

**Active**, in grammar, is applied to such words as express actions; and is therefore opposed to passive. The active performs the action, as the passive receives it. See Grammar.

**Active Principles**, in chemistry, such as are supposed to act without any affluence from others; as mercury, sulphur, &c.

**Activity**, in general, denotes the power of acting, or the active faculty. See Active.

**Sphere of Activity**, the whole space in which the virtue, power, or influence, of any object, is exerted.

**Actium**, (anc. geogr.) a town situated on the coast of Acanthia, in itself inconsiderable, but famous for a temple of Apollo, a safe harbour, and an adjoining promontory of the same name, in the mouth of the Sinus Ambracius, over against Nicopolis, on the other side of the bay: it afterwards became more famous on account of Augustus's victory over Antony and Cleopatra; and for quinquennial games instituted there, called Attia, or Ludi Attiaci. Hence the epithet Attius, given to Apollo, (Virgil.) Attica era, a computation of time from the battle of Actium. The promontory is now called Capo di Figalo.

**Actius**, in mythology, a surname of Apollo, from Actium, where he was worshipped.

**Acton**, a town near London, where is a well that affords a purging water, which is noted for the pungency of its salt. This water is whitish, to the taste it is sweetish, with a mixture of the same bitter which is in the Epsom water. The salt of this water is not quite so soft as that of Epsom, and is more calcareous than it, being more of the nature of the salt of lime: for a quantity of the Acton water being boiled high, on being mixed with a solution of sublimate in pure water, threw down a yellow sediment. The salt of the Acton water is more nitrous than that of Epsom; it strikes a deep red, or purple, with the tincture of logwood in brandy, as is usual with nitrous salts; it does not precipitate silver out of the spirit of nitre, as common salt does: 1 lb. of this water yields 48 grains of salt.

**Actor**, in general, signifies a person who acts or performs something.

**Actor**, in the drama, is a person who represents some part or character upon the theatre. The drama consisted originally of nothing more than a simple chorus, who sung hymns in honour of Bacchus; so that the primitive actors were only singers and musicians. Thespis was the first that, in order to ease this unformed chorus, introduced a declaimer, who repeated some heroic or comic adventure. Aeschylus, finding a single person tiresome, attempted to introduce a second, and changed the ancient recitals into dialogues. He also dressed his actors in a more majestic manner, and introduced the choranthus or buskin. Sophocles added a third, in order to represent the various incidents in a more natural manner; and here the Greeks stopped, at least we do not find in any of their tragedies above three. three persons in the same scene: perhaps they looked upon it as a rule of the dramatic poem never to admit more than three speakers at a time on the stage; a rule which Horace has expressed in the following verse:

*Nec quarta loqui persona laboret.*

This however did not prevent their increasing the number of actors in comedy. Before the opening of a play, they named their actors in full theatre, together with the parts they were to perform. The ancient actors were masked, and obliged to raise their voice extremely, in order to make themselves heard by the innumerable crowd of people who filled the amphitheatres: they were accompanied with a player on the flute, who played a prelude, gave them the tone, and played while they declaimed. Actors were highly honoured at Athens; and despised at Rome, where they were not only denied all rank among the citizens, but even when any citizen appeared upon the stage, he was expelled his tribe, and deprived of the right of suffrage by censors. Cicero, indeed, extols the talents of Roscius; but he values his virtues still more: virtues which distinguished him so remarkably above all others of his profession, that they seemed to have excluded him from the theatre. The French have, in this respect, adopted the ideas of the Romans; and the English those of the Greeks.

**Actors**, the name of several persons in fabulous history. One Actor among the Aurunci is described by Virgil, as an hero of the first rank. *Aen. xii.*

**Actorum tabulae**, in antiquity, were tables instituted by Servius Tullius, in which the births of children were registered. They were kept in the treasury of Saturnus.

**Actress**, a woman who performs a part upon the stage. Women actors were unknown to the ancients, among whom men always performed the female character; and hence one reason for the use of masks among them.

**Actual**, something that is real and effective, or that exists truly and absolutely. Thus philosophers use the terms actual heat, actual cold, &c., in opposition to virtual or potential. Hence, among physicians, a red-hot iron, or fire, is called an actual cautery; in distinction from cauteries, or cauteries, that have the power of producing the same effect upon the animal fluids as actual fire; these last are called potential cauteries. Boiling water is actually hot; brandy, producing heat in the body, is potentially hot, though of itself cold.

**Actual Sin**, that which is committed by the person himself, in opposition to original sin, or that which he contracted from being a child of Adam.

**Actuarie naves**, a kind of ships among the Romans, chiefly designed for swift sailing.

**Actuarius**, a celebrated Greek physician, of the 1st century, and the first Greek author who has treated of mild purgatives, such as cassia, manna, senna, &c. His works were printed in one volume folio, by Henry Stephens, in 1567.

**Actuarium**, or Actarius, a notary or officer appointed to write the acts or proceedings of a court, or the like. In the Eastern Empire, the actuarii were properly officers who kept the military accounts, received the corn from the *suffragos* or store-keepers, and delivered it to the soldiers.

**Actuate**, to bring into act, to put a thing in motion, or to stir up a person to action.

**Actus**, in ancient architecture, a measure in length equal to 120 Roman feet. In ancient agriculture, the word signified the length of one furrow, or the distance a plough goes before it turns.

**Actus Minimus**, was a quantity of land 120 feet in length, and four in breadth.

**Actus Major**, or **Actus Quadratus**, a piece of ground in a square form, whose side was equal to 120 feet, equal to half the jugerum.

**Actus Intervicinalis**, a space of ground four feet in breadth, left between the lands as a path or way.

**Aculeate**, or **Aculeati**, a term applied to any plant or animal armed with prickles.

**Aculei**, the prickles of animals or of plants.

**Aculer**, in the menage, is used for the motion of a horse, when, in working upon volts, he does not go far enough forward at every time or motion, so that his shoulders embrace or take in too little ground, and his croup comes too near the center of the volt. Horses are naturally inclined to this fault in making demi-volts.

**Acumina**, in antiquity, a kind of military omen, most generally supposed to have been taken from the points or edges of darts, swords, or other weapons.

**Acupuncture**, the name of a surgical operation among the Chinese and Japanese, which is performed by pricking the part affected with a silver needle. They employ this operation in head-aches, lethargies, convulsions, colics, &c.

**Acuna (Christopher de)**, a Spanish Jesuit, born at Burgos. He was admitted into the society in 1612, being then but 15 years of age. After having devoted some years to study, he went to America, where he assisted in making converts in Chili and Peru. In 1640, he returned to Spain, and gave the king an account how far he had succeeded in the commission he had received to make discoveries on the river of the Amazonas; and the year following he published a description of this river, at Madrid. Acuna was sent to Rome, as procurator of his province. He returned to Spain with the title of Qualificator of the Inquisition; but soon after embarked again for the West Indies, and was at Lima in 1675, when father Southwell published at Rome the Bibliotheca of the Jesuit writers. Acuna's work is intitled, *Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio de las Amazonas*; i.e. "A new discovery of the great river of the Amazons." He was ten months together upon this river, having had instructions to inquire into everything with the greatest exactness, that his majesty might thereby be enabled to render the navigation more easy and commodious. He went aboard a ship at Quito with Peter Texeira, who had already been to far up the river, and was therefore thought a proper person to accompany him in this expedition. They embarked in February 1639, but did not arrive at Para till the December following. It is thought that the revolutions of Portugal, by which the Spaniards lost all Brazil, and the colony of Para at the mouth of the river of the Amazonas, were the cause that the relation of this Jesuit was suppressed; for as it could not be of any advantage to the Spaniards, they were afraid it might prove of great service to the Portugese. The copies of this work became extremely scarce, so that the publishers of the French translation at Paris asserted, that there was not one copy of the original extant, excepting one in... the possession of the translator, and, perhaps, that in the Vatican library. M. de Gomberville was the author of this translation; it was published after his death, with a long dissertation. An account of the original may be seen in the Paris Journal, in that of Leipic, and in Chevereau's History of the World.