Online Encyclopedia

APHORISM (from the Gr. a4oA'ecv, to d...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 165 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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APHORISM (from the Gr. a4oA'ecv, to define)  , literally a distinction or a definition, a
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term used to describe a principle expressed tersely in a few telling words or any general truth conveyed in a short and pithy sentence, in such a way that when once heard it is unlikely to pass from the memory . The name was first used in the Aphorisms of
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Hippocrates, a long series of propositions concerning the symptoms and diagnosis of disease and the
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art of healing and
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medicine . The term came to be applied later to other sententious statements of
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physical science, and later still to statements of all kinds of principles . Care must be taken not to confound aphorisms with axioms . Aphorisms came into being as the result of experience, whereas axioms are self-evident truths, requiring no proof, and appertain to pure reason . Aphorisms have been especially used in dealing with subjects to which no methodical or scientific treatment was applied till
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late, such as art, agriculture, medicine, jurisprudence and politics . The Aphorisms of Hippocrates form far the most celebrated as well as the earliest collection of the kind, and it may be interesting to quote a few examples .

End of Article: APHORISM (from the Gr. a4oA'ecv, to define)
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