Chapter III: THE SOUTHERN ZONE.--Characterized by absence of Cyprinidae and (11)

ILOILO, a town, port of entry and the capital of the province of Iloilo, Panay, Philippine Islands, at the mouth of Iloilo river, on the S.E. coast. Pop. (1903) 19,054. In 1903, after the census had been taken, the population of the town was more than doubled by the addition of the municipalities of La Paz (pop. 5724), Mandurriao (pop. 4482), Molo (pop. 8551) and Jaro (pop. 10,681); in 1908 Jaro again became a separate town. The town is built on low sandy ground, is irregularly laid out, and its streets are not paved. It has a good government house and a fine church. The harbour, suitable for ships of 15 ft. draught, is well protected by the island of Guimaras, and ocean-going vessels can lie in the channel. The surrounding country, which is traversed by gravel roads leading to the principal towns of the province, is fertile and well cultivated, producing sugar, tobacco and rice in abundance. In commercial importance Iloilo ranks next to Manila among Philippine cities; it has manufactures of piña, jusi, coconut oil, lime, vinegar and various articles made from palm wood. Much of the town was burned by Filipino insurgents soon after its capture by American troops in February 1899.

ILSENBURG, a village and health resort of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, romantically situated under the north foot of the Harz Mountains, at the entrance to the Ilsethal, 6 m. N.W. from Wernigerode by the railway to Goslar. Pop. (1900) 3868. It has an Evangelical church, a modern château of the princes of Stolberg, with pretty grounds, and a high grade school, and manufactures metal wares, machines and iron screws and bolts.

Owing to its charming surroundings and its central position in the range, Ilsenburg is one of the most frequented tourist resorts in the Harz Mountains, being visited annually by some 6000 persons. The old castle, Schloss Ilsenburg, lying on a high crag above the town, was originally an imperial stronghold and was probably built by the German king Henry I. The emperor Otto III. resided here in 995, Henry II. bestowed it in 1003 upon the bishop of Halberstadt, who converted it into a Benedictine monastery, and the school attached to it enjoyed a great reputation towards the end of the 11th century. After the Reformation the castle passed to the counts of Wernigerode, who restored it and made it their residence until 1710. Higher still, on the edge of the plateau rises the Ilsenstein, a granite peak standing about 500 ft. above the valley, crowned by an iron cross erected by Count Anton von Stolberg-Wernigerode in memory of his friends who fell in the wars of 1813-1815. Around this rock cluster numerous legends.

See Jacobs, _Urkundenbuch des Klosters Ilsenburg_ (Halle, 1875);
Brandes, _Ilsenburg als Sommeraufenthalt_ (Wernigerode, 1885); and H.
Herre, _Ilsenburger Annalen_ (Leipzig, 1890).

IMAGE (Lat. _imago_, perhaps from the same root as _imitari_, copy, imitate), in general, a copy, representation, exact counterpart of something else. Thus the reflection of a person in a mirror is known as his "image"; in popular usage one person is similarly described as "the very image" of another; so in entomology the term is applied in its Latin form _imago_ to an insect which, having passed through its larval stages, has achieved its full typical development. The term is in fact susceptible of two opposite connotations; on the one hand, it implies that the thing to which it is applied is only a copy; on the other that as a copy it is faithful and accurate.

Psychology (q.v.) recognizes two uses of the term. The simplest is for the impression made by an observed object on the retina, the eye; in this connexion the term "after-image" (better "after-sensation") is used for an image which remains when the eye is withdrawn from a brilliantly lighted object; it is called positive when the colour remains the same, negative when the complementary colours are seen. The strict psychological use of the term "image" is by analogy from the physiological for a purely mental idea which is taken as being observed by the eye of the mind. These images are created or produced not by an external stimulus, such as is necessary for a visual image (even the after-image is due to the continued excitement of the same organ), but by a mental act of reproduction. The simplest ideational image, which has been described as the primary memory-image, is "the peculiarly vivid and definite ideal representation of an object which we can maintain or recall by a suitable effort of attention immediately after perceiving it" (Stout). For this no external stimulus is required, and as compared with the after-image it represents the objects in perspective just as they might be seen in perception. This is characteristic of all mental images. The essential requisite for this primary image is that the attention should have been fixed upon the impressions.

The relation between sense-impressions and mental images is a highly complicated one. Difference in intensity is not a wholly satisfactory ground of distinction; abnormal physical conditions apart, an image may have an intensity far greater than that of a sense-given impression. On the other hand, Hume is certainly right in holding that the distinctive character of a percept as compared with an image is in all ordinary cases the force and liveliness with which it strikes the mind--the distinction, therefore, being one of quality, not of degree. A distinction of some importance is found in the "superior steadiness" (Ward) of impressions; while looking at any set of surroundings, images of many different scenes may pass through the mind, each one of which is immediately distinguished from the impression of the actual scene before the eyes. This arises partly, no doubt, from the fact that the perception has clear localization, which the image has not. In many cases indeed an image even of a most familiar scene is exceedingly vague and inaccurate.

In Art the term is used for a representation or likeness of an animate or inanimate object, particularly of the figure of a person in sculpture or painting. The most general application of the word is to such a representation when used as an object of religious worship or adoration, or as a decorative or architectural ornament in places of religious worship. The worship of images, or idolatry, from the point of view of comparative religion, is treated in the article IMAGE-WORSHIP, and the history of the attitude of the Christian church, outside the post-Reformation church of England, towards the use of images as objects of worship and religion in the article ICONOCLASTS. With regard to the Pre-Reformation period in England, it is of interest to note that by the constitutions of Archbishop Winchelsey, 1305, it was the duty of the parish to provide for the parish church, among other objects, the images of Christ on the Cross, of the saint to whom the church was dedicated, to be placed in the chancel, and of other saints. The injunctions of Edward VI., 1547, ordered the destruction of all images that had been the objects of superstitious use, and the act of 1549 (3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 10) declared all such images illegal. This act, repealed in Mary's reign, was revived in 1604 (1 James I. c. 25) and is still in force. The present effect of this unrepealed act, as stated in _Boyd_ v. _Philpotts_ (L.R. 6 P.C. 449), is that it only referred to the images then subject to abuse, which had been ordered to be removed, and did not refer to the subsequent use or abuse of other images. In Article XXII. of the Articles of Religion it is laid down that "the Romish Doctrine concerning ... Worshipping and Adoration as well of Images as of Reliques ... is a fond thing mainly invented and grounded on no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." The law in regard to images, which in this connexion include pictures and stained-glass windows, but not sculptured effigies on monuments or merely ornamental work, is contained in various judicial decisions, and is not defined by statute. The effect of these decisions is thus summarized in the report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Discipline, 1906: "Such images are lawful as objects of decoration in a church, but are unlawful if they are made, or are in danger of being made, objects of superstitious reverence, contrary to Article XXII. against the worshipping and adoration of images. In accordance with this view, crosses, if not placed on the Holy Table, and also crucifixes, if part only of a sculptured design or architectural decoration, have been declared lawful. The question whether a crucifix or rood standing alone or combined with figures of the Blessed Virgin and St John can, in any circumstances, be regarded as merely decorative, has given rise to a difference of judicial opinion and appears to be unsettled." Speaking generally, articles of decoration and embellishment not used in the services cannot lawfully be introduced into a church without the consent of the ordinary given by a faculty, the granting of which is subject to the judicial discretion of the chancellor or commissary, sitting as judge of the bishop's court. By section 8 of the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, complainants may take proceedings if it is considered that "any alteration in, or addition to, the fabric, ornaments or furniture has been made without legal authority, or that any decoration forbidden by law has been introduced into such church ... provided that no proceedings shall be taken ... if such alteration or addition has been completed five years before the commencement of such proceedings." The following are the principal cases on the subject: in _Boyd_ v. _Philpotts_, 1874 (L.R., 4 _Ad. & Ec._ 297; 6 P.C. 435), the Exeter reredos case, the privy council, reversing the bishop's judgment, allowed the structure, which contained sculptures in high relief of the Ascension, Transfiguration and Descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, together with a cross and angels; in _R._ v. _the Bishop of London_, 1889 (23 _Q.B.D._ 414, 24 _Q.B.D._ 213), the St Paul's reredos case, the bishop refused further proceedings against the legality of a structure containing sculptured figures of Christ on the Cross and the Virgin and Child. In _Clifton_ v. _Ridsdale_, 1876 (1 P. & D., 316), a metal crucifix on the centre of the chancel screen was declared illegal as being in danger of being used superstitiously, and in the same case pictures or rather coloured reliefs representing the "Stations of the Cross" were ordered to be removed on the ground that they had been erected without a faculty, and were also considered unlawful by Lord Penzance as connected with certain superstitious devotion authorized by the Roman church.

IMAGE WORSHIP. It is obvious that two religious votaries kneeling together before a statue may entertain widely different conceptions of what the image is and signifies, although their outward attitude is the same. The one may regard it as a mere image, picture or representation of the higher being, void in itself of value or power. It is to him, like the photograph hung on a wall of one we love, cherished as a picture and no more. But the other may regard it, as a little girl regards her doll, as an animated being, no mere picture, but as tenement and vehicle of the god and fraught with divine influence. The former is the attitude which the Latin Church officially inculcates towards sacred pictures and statues; they are intended to convey to the eyes of the faithful, especially to the illiterate among them, the history of Jesus, of the Virgin and of the saints. The other attitude, however, is that into which simple-minded Latin peasants actually lapse, as it is also that which characterizes other religions ancient or modern which use pictures or sculptures of gods, demons, men, brutes, or of particular parts and organs of the same. With the latter attitude alone does the present article deal, and it may conveniently be called idolatry or image worship. For the history of the use of images in Christian worship see ICONOCLASTS.

The image or idol differs from the fetish, charm, talisman, phylactery or miraculous relic, only in this, that either in the flat or the round it _resembles_ the power adored; it has a prototype capable of being brought before the eye and visualized. This is not necessarily the case with the worshipper of _aniconic_ or unshaped gods. The Semite or savage who sets up a sacred stone or Bethel believes indeed that a divine power or influence enters the stone and dwells in it, and he treats the stone as if it were the god, kisses it, anoints it with oil, feeds the god in it by pouring out over it the blood of victims slain. But he is not an idolater, for he has not "made unto himself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above or in the water beneath or in the water under the earth."

The question arises: must the stage of aniconic gods historically precede and lead up to that of pictures and images? Are the latter a development of the former? In the history of human religions can we trace, as it were, a law of transition from sacred stock and stone up to picture and image? Is it true to say that the latter is characteristic of a later and higher stage of religious development? It was perhaps the facility with which a pillar of stone or wood can be turned into an image by painting or sculpturing on it eyes, ears, mouth, marks of sex and so on, which led anthropologists of an earlier generation to postulate such a law of development; but facts do not bear it out. In the first place, what we are accustomed to call higher religions deliberately attach greater sanctity to aniconic gods than to iconic ones, and that from no artistic incapacity. The Jews were as well able as their neighbours to fashion golden calves, snakes and the minor idols called teraphim, when their legislator, in the words we have just cited, forbade the ancillary use of all plastic and pictorial art for religious purposes. And of our own Christianity, Robertson Smith remarks as follows: "The host in the Mass is artistically as much inferior to the Venus of Milo as a Semitic _Masseba_ was, but no one will say that medieval Christianity is a lower form of religion than Aphrodite worship."

Here then in the most marked manner the aniconic sacrament has ousted pictures and statues. It is the embodiment and home of divine personality and power, and not they. Equally contradictory of any such law of development is the circumstance that the Greeks of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., although Pheidias and other artists were embodying their gods and goddesses in the most perfect of images, nevertheless continued to cherish the rude aniconic stocks and stones of their ancestors. If any such law ever operated in human religious development, how can we explain the following facts. In the shadowy age which preceded the Stone age and hardly ended later than 10,000 B.C., the cave-dwellers of the Dordogne could draw elks, bisons, elephants and other animals at rest or in movement, with a freshness and realism which to-day only a Landseer can rival. And yet in the European Stone age which followed, the age in which the great menhirs and cromlechs were erected, in which the domestication of animals began and the first corn was sown, we find in the strata no image of man or beast, big or little.

Whence this seeming blight and decay of art? Salomon Reinach, guided by the analogy of similar practices among the aborigines of Australia, and noticing that these primitive pictures represent none but animals that formed the staple food of the age and place, and that they are usually found in the deepest and darkest recesses of the caves where they could only be drawn and seen by torchlight, has argued that they were not intended for artistic gratification (a late motive in human art), but were magical representations destined to influence and perhaps attract the hunter's quarry. In a word this earliest art was ancillary to the chase. It is a common practice in the magic of all ages and countries to acquire control and influence over men and animals by making images of them. The prototype is believed to suffer whatever is done to the image. Reinach, therefore, supposes that in the Stone age which succeeded, pictorial art was banned because it had got into the hands of magicians and had come to be regarded as inevitably uncanny and malefic. This is certainly the secret of the ordinary Mahommedan prohibition of pictures and statues, which goes even to the length of denying to poor little Arab girls the enjoyment of having dolls. It is felt that if you have got a picture of any one, you have some power of harming him through it; you can bind or loose him, just as you can a Djinn whose name you have somehow learned. It is as dangerous for your enemy to have a picture of you as for him to know your name. The old Hebrew prohibition of graven images was surely based on a like superstition, so far as it was not merely due to the physical impossibility for nomads of heavy statues that do not admit of being carried from camp to camp and from pasture to pasture. Possessing no images of Yahweh the Jews were also not exposed to the same risk as were idolaters of having their gods stolen by their foes and used against them. Lastly, the restriction to aniconic worship saved them from much superstition, for there is nothing which so much stimulates the growth of a mythology as the manufacture of idols. The artist must indeed start with imaginative types, revealed to him in visions or borrowed from current myths. But the tendency of his art is to give rise to new tales of the gods. There is perpetual action and reaction between picture and myth; and a legislator desiring to purify and raise his countrymen's religion must devote no less attention to their plastic art than to their hymnology.

Motives drawn from homoeopathic magic may thus explain the occasional disuse and prohibition of pictorial and plastic art in cult; they may equally explain its genesis and rise in certain ages and countries. Prayer is much more hopeful and efficacious for a worshipper who has means of bringing near to himself, and even coercing the god he worships. An image fashioned like a god, and which has this advantage over a mere stock and stone that it declares itself and reveals at a glance to what god it is sacred, must surely attract and influence the god to choose it as his home and tenement. And having the god thus at hand and imprisoned in matter, the simple-minded worshipper can punish him if his prayers are left unanswered. Dr E. B. Tylor accordingly (in his chapter on "Idolatry" in _Primitive Culture_, ii. 170), reminds us of "the negro who feeds ancestral images and brings them a share of his trade profits, but will beat an idol or fling it into the fire if it cannot give him luck or preserve him from sickness." So Augustus Caesar, having lost some ships in a storm, punished Neptune by forbidding his image to be carried in procession at the Circensian games (Sueton. _Aug._ 16).

In certain cases the wish to carry elsewhere the cult of a favourite or ancestral cult, may have dictated the manufacture of images that declare themselves and reveal at a glance whose they are. Thus a Phoenician colonist might desire to carry abroad the cult of a certain Baal or Astarte who lived in a conical stone or pillar. Pilgrims visiting Paphos, the original home and temple of Astarte, could of course be in no doubt about which of the heavenly powers inhabited the cone of stone in which she was there held to be immanent; nor was any Semite ever ignorant as to which Baal he stood before. It was necessarily the Baal or Lord of the region. But small portrait statues must surely have been made to be carried about or used in private worship. Meanwhile the shapeless cone remained the object of public adoration and pilgrimage.

The Egyptian writer Hermes Trismegistus (c. 250), in a work called _Asclepius_ (cited by Augustine, _De civit. Dei_, viii. 26), claims that his ancestors discovered the art of making gods, and since they could not create souls, they called up the souls of demons or angels and introduced them into the holy images and divine mysteries, that through these souls the idols might possess powers of doing good and harm. This was the belief of the pagans, and the Christians for centuries shared it with them. Not a few Christian martyrs sought and won the palm by smashing the idols in order to dislodge the indwelling devil; occasionally their zeal was further gratified by beholding it pass away like smoke from its ruined home.

Image worship then is a sort of animism. It is a continuance by adults of their childish games with dolls. In the Roman religion, on a feast of thanksgiving for a great victory, couches were spread in the temples for the gods, whose images were taken down from their pedestals and laid on the couches, and tables set before them loaded with delicate viands. This was called a _Lectisternium_. So Marco Polo (i. chap. 53) relates how the Tatars had each a figure of Natigay, the god of the earth, who watched over their children, cattle and crops. The image was made of felt and cloth, and similar images of his wife and children were set on his left hand and in front of him. "And when they eat, they take the fat of the meat and grease the god's mouth withal, as well as the mouths of his wife and children." The old Greek statues moved of themselves, shook their spears, kneeled down, spoke, walked, wept, laughed, winked, and even bled and sweated,--a mighty portent. Images of Christ, of the Virgin and saints have achieved many a similar miraculous portent. A figure of Christ has been known even to give its shoes to a poor man, and a Virgin to drop a ring off her finger to a suppliant. In Umbrian villages on Easter Sunday the images of Jesus and His Mother are carried in rival processions from their respective chapels, and are made to bow when they meet face to face. The spectators applaud or hiss according as they make their bow well or ill. In antiquity it was a common ceremony to arrange a holy marriage between male and female images, and such unions acted on the earth as a fertility charm. Much of a priest's time was given up to the toilet of the god or goddess. Thus Isis was dressed and coiffed every day by her special attendants according to Apuleius (_Met._ xi. 9). Like the statue of St Agatha of Catania to-day, her image was loaded with jewels, and an inscription of Cadiz (_C.I.L._ ii. 3386) contains an inventory of the jewels with which Isis had been endowed by Spanish devotees.

Idolatrous cults repose so largely on make-believe and credulity that the priests who administered them, perhaps oftener than we know, fell into the kind of imposture and trickery of which the legend of Bel and the dragon represents a classical example. "Thinkest thou not," said King Astyages, "that Bel is a living god? Or seest thou not how much he eateth and drinketh every day? Then Daniel laughed, and said, O King, be not deceived: for this is but clay within, and brass without, and did never eat or drink anything." In the sequel Daniel proves to the king that the priests with their wives and children came in through privy doors and consumed the viands set before the god; and the king, angered at their trickery, slew them all and gave Bel over to Daniel for destruction.

The invectives against idolatry of the early Jewish and Christian apologists, of Philo, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Arnobius, Lactantius and others, are very good reading and throw much light on the question how an ancient pagan conceived of his idols. One capital argument of the Christians was the absurdity of a man making an idol and then being afraid of or adoring the work of his own hands. Lactantius preserves the answer of the pagans so attacked (_De origine Erroris_, ii. 2): We do not, they said, fear the images themselves, but those beings after whose likeness they were fashioned and by whose names they were consecrated. Few such rites of consecration remain, but they must have been similar to those used in India to-day. There the Brahmin invites the god to dwell within the image, specially made hollow to contain him, "performing the ceremony of _adhivasa_ or inhabitation, after which he puts in the eyes and the _prana_, i.e. breath, life or soul."[1] Similarly Augustine (_De civ. Dei_, viii. 23) relates how, according to Hermes, the spirits entered by invitation (_spiritus invitatos_), so that the images became bodies of the gods (_corpora deorum_). Thus the invisible spirits by a certain art are so joined unto the visible objects of corporeal matter that the latter become as it were animated bodies, images dedicated to those spirits and controlled by them (see CONSECRATION). Such statues were animated with sense and full of spirit, they foresaw the future, and foretold it by lot, through their priests, in dreams and in other ways.

See E. B. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, ed. 1903 (list of authorities
and sources vol., p. 171); L. R. Farnell, _The Evolution of Religion_
(London, 1905); Jacob Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, translation by J.
S. Stallybrass. (F. C. C.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Tylor, _Prim. Culture_, ii. 178.

IMAGINATION, in general, the power or process of producing mental pictures or ideas. The term is technically used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind percepts of objects formerly given in sense perception. Since this use of the term conflicts with that of ordinary language, some psychologists have preferred to describe this process as "imaging" or "imagery" or to speak of it as "reproductive" as opposed to "productive" or "constructive" imagination (see IMAGE and PSYCHOLOGY). The common use of the term is for the process of forming in the mind new images which have not been previously experienced, or at least only partially or in different combinations. Thus the image of a centaur is the result of combining the common percepts of man and horse: fairy tales and fiction generally are the result of this process of combination. Imagination in this sense, not being limited to the acquisition of exact knowledge by the requirements of practical necessity, is up to a certain point free from objective restraints. In various spheres, however, even imagination is in practice limited: thus a man whose imaginations do violence to the elementary laws of thought, or to the necessary principles of practical possibility, or to the reasonable probabilities of a given case is regarded as insane. The same limitations beset imagination in the field of scientific hypothesis. Progress in scientific research is due largely to provisional explanations which are constructed by imagination, but such hypotheses must be framed in relation to previously ascertained facts and in accordance with the principles of the particular science. In spite, however, of these broad practical considerations, imagination differs fundamentally from belief in that the latter involves "objective control of subjective activity" (Stout). The play of imagination, apart from the obvious limitations (e.g. of avoiding explicit self-contradiction), is conditioned only by the general trend of the mind at a given moment. Belief, on the other hand, is immediately related to practical activity: it is perfectly possible to _imagine_ myself a millionaire, but unless I _believe_ it I do not, therefore, act as such. Belief always endeavours to conform to objective conditions; though it is from one point of view subjective it is also objectively conditioned, whereas imagination as such is specifically free. The dividing line between imagination and belief varies widely in different stages of mental development. Thus a savage who is ill frames an ideal reconstruction of the causes of his illness, and attributes it to the hostile magic of an enemy. In ignorance of pathology he is satisfied with this explanation, and actually _believes_ in it, whereas such a hypothesis in the mind of civilized man would be treated as a pure effort of imagination, or even as a hallucination. It follows that the distinction between imagination and belief depends in practice on knowledge, social environment, training and the like.

Although, however, the absence of objective restraint, i.e. a certain unreality, is characteristic of imagination, none the less it has great practical importance as a purely ideational activity. Its very freedom from objective limitation makes it a source of pleasure and pain. A person of vivid imagination suffers acutely from the imagination of perils besetting a friend. In fact in some cases the ideal construction is so "real" that specific physical manifestations occur, as though imagination had passed into belief or the events imagined were actually in progress.

IMAM, an Arabic word, meaning "leader" or "guide" in the sense of a "pattern whose example is followed, whether for good or bad." Thus it is applied to the Koran, to a builder's level and plumb-line, to a road, to a school-boy's daily task, to a written record. It is used in several of these, senses in the Koran, but specifically several times of leaders and (ii. 118) of Abraham, "Lo, I make thee a pattern for mankind." _Imam_ thus became the name of the head of the Moslem community, whose leadership and patternhood, as in the case of Mahomet himself, is to be regarded as of the widest description. His duty is to be the lieutenant, the Caliph (q.v.) of the Prophet, to guard the faith and maintain the government of the state. Round the origin and basis of his office all controversies as to the Moslem state centre. The Sunnites hold that it is for men to appoint and that the basis is obedience to the general usage of the Moslem peoples from the earliest times. The necessity for leaders has always been recognized, and a leader has always been appointed. The basis is thus agreement in the technical sense (see MAHOMMEDAN LAW), not Koran nor tradition from Mahomet nor analogy. The Shi'ites in general hold that the appointment lies with God, through the Prophet or otherwise, and that He always has appointed. The Kharijites theoretically recognize no absolute need of an Imam; he is convenient and allowable. The Motazilites held that reason, not agreement, dictated the appointment. Another distinction between the Sunnites and the Shi'ites is that the Sunnites regard the Imam as liable to err, and to be obeyed even though he personally sins, provided he maintains the ordinances of Islam. Effective leadership is the essential point. But the Shi'ites believe that the divinely appointed Imam is also divinely illumined and preserved (_ma'sum_) from sin. The above is called the greater Imamate. The lesser Imamate is the leadership in the Friday prayers. This was originally performed by the Imam in the first sense, who not only led in prayers but delivered a sermon (_khutba_); but with the growth of the Moslem empire and the retirement of the caliph from public life, it was necessarily given over to a deputy--part of a gradual process of putting the Imamate or caliphate into commission. These deputy Imams are, in Turkey, ministers of the state, each in charge of his own parish; they issue passports, &c., and perform the rites of circumcision, marriage and burial. In Persia among Shi'ites their position is more purely spiritual, and they are independent of the state. A few of their leaders are called _Mujtahids_, i.e. capable of giving an independent opinion on questions of religion and canon law. A third use of the term Imam is as an honorary title. It is thus applied to leading theologians, e.g. to Abu Hanifa, ash-Shafi'i, Malik ibn Anas, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (these are called "the four Imams"), Ghazali.

See McG. de Slane's transl. of Ibn Khaldun's _Prolégomènes_, i. 384
seq., 402 seq., 426 seq., 445; iii. 35, 58 seq.; Ostrorog's transl. of
Mawardi's _Ahkam_ i. 89 seq.; Haarbrücker's transl. of Shahrastani by
index; Juynboll's _De Mohammedanische Wet_, 316 seq.; Sell's _Faith of
Islam_, 95 seq.; Macdonald's _Development of Muslim Theology_, 56 seq.
(D. B. Ma.)

IMBECILE (through the French from Lat. _imbecillus_ or _imbecillis_, weak, feeble; of unknown origin), weak or feeble, particularly in mind. The term "imbecility" is used conventionally of a condition of mental degeneration less profound than "idiotcy" (see INSANITY).

IMBREX (Latin for "tile"), in architecture the term given to the covering tile of the ancient roof: the plain tile is turned up on each side and the imbrex covers the joint. In the simpler type of roof the imbrex is semicircular, but in some of the Greek temples it has vertical sides and an angular top. In the temple of Apollo at Bassae, where the tiles were in Parian marble, the imbrex on one side of the tile and the tile were worked in one piece out of the solid marble.

IMBROS, a Turkish island in the Aegean, at the southern end of the Thracian Chersonese peninsula. It forms with Samothrace, about 17 m. distant, a caza (or canton) in the sanjak of Lemnos and province of the Archipelago Isles. Herodotus (v. 26) mentions it as an abode of the historic Pelasgians (q.v.). It was, like Samothrace, a seat of the worship of the Cabeiri (q.v.). The island is now the seat of a Greek bishopric. There is communication with the mainland by occasional vessels. The island is of great fertility--wheat, oats, barley, olives, sesame and valonia being the principal products, in addition to a variety of fruits. Pop. about 92,000, nearly all Turks.

IMERETIA, or IMERITIA a district in Russian Transcaucasia, extends from the left bank of the river Tskheniz-Tskhali to the Suram range, which separates it from Georgia on the east, and is bounded on the south by Akhaltsikh, and thus corresponds roughly to the eastern part of the modern government of Kutais. Anciently a part of Colchis, and included in Lazia during the Roman empire, Imeretia was nominally under the dominion of the Greek emperors. In the early part of the 6th century it became the theatre of wars between the Byzantine emperor Justinian and Chosroes, or Khosrau, king of Persia. Between 750 and 985 it was ruled by a dynasty (Apkhaz) of native princes, but was devastated by hostile incursions, reviving only after it became united to Georgia. It flourished until the reign of Queen Thamar, but after her death (1212) the country became impoverished through strife and internal dissensions. It was reunited with Georgia from 1318 to 1346, and again in 1424. But the union only lasted forty-five years; from 1469 until 1810 it was governed by a Bagratid dynasty, closely akin to that which ruled over Georgia. In 1621 it made the earliest appeal to Russia for aid; in 1650 it acknowledged Russian suzerainty and in 1769 a Russian force expelled the Turks. In 1803 the monarch declared himself a vassal of Russia, and in 1810 the little kingdom was definitively annexed to that empire. (See GEORGIA.)

IMIDAZOLES, or GLYOXALINES, organic chemical compounds containing the ring system

/ CH = CH
HN / | .
\ CH = N

Imidazole itself was first prepared by H. Debus (_Ann._ 1858, 107, p. 254) by the action of ammonia on glyoxal, 2C2H2O2 + 2NH3 = C3H4N2 + H2CO2 + 2H2O. The compounds of this series may be prepared by the condensation of ortho-diketones with ammonia and aldehydes

R·C - N \\
R·CO·CO·R + 2NH3 + R´·CHO = 3H2O + || \\ C·R´;
R·C - NH /

from thioimidazolones by oxidation with dilute nitric acid (W. Marckwald, _Ber._, 1892, 25, p. 2361); by distillation of hydrobenzamide and similarly constituted bodies; and by the action of phosphorus pentachloride on symmetrical dimethyloxamide, a methylchlorglyoxaline being formed (O. Wallach, _Ann._, 1877, 184, p. 500).

The glyoxalines are basic in character, and the imide hydrogen is replaceable by metals and alkyl groups. They are stable towards reducing agents, and acidyl groups are only introduced with difficulty.

_Imidazole_ (glyoxaline), C3H4N2, crystallizes in thick prisms which
melt at 88-89° C. and boil at 253° C., and are readily soluble in
alcohol and in water. It is unaffected by chromic acid, but potassium
permanganate oxidizes it to formic acid. It forms salts with acids.

_Lophine_ (triphenylglyoxaline),

C6H5·C-N \\
|| \\ C·C6H5,
C6H5·C-NH /

is formed by the dry distillation of hydrobenzamide, or by saturating
an alcoholic solution of benzil and benzaldehyde (at a temperature of
40° C.) with ammonia. It crystallizes in needles which melt at 275° C.
It is a weak base. When heated to 300° C. with hydriodic acid and
hydrochloric acid, in the presence of some red phosphorus, it yields
benzoic acid.

The keto-glyoxalines are known as imidazolones and are prepared by the
action of acids on acetalyl thioureas (W. Marckwald, Ber., 1892, 25,
p. 2357). _Benzimidazole_,

/ N \\
C6H4 / \\ CH,
\ NH /

is the simplest representative of the benzoglyoxalines and is prepared
by the condensation of formic acid with ortho-phenylene diamine. It
forms rhombic crystals which melt at 170° C. It is basic in character,
and on oxidation with potassium permanganate yields a small amount of
glyoxaline dicarboxylic acid,

HOOC·C - N \\
|| \\ CH.
HOOC·C - NH /

(E. Bamberger, _Ann._, 1893, 273, p. 338).

IMITATION (Lat. _imitatio_, from _imitari_, to imitate), the reproduction or repetition of an action or thought as observed in another person or in oneself, or the construction of one object in the likeness of another. By some writers (e.g. Preyer and Lloyd Morgan) the term "imitation" is limited to cases in which one person copies the action or thought of another; others have preferred a wider use of the term (i.e. including "self-imitation"), and have attempted to classify imitative action into various groupings, e.g. as cases of "conscious imitation," "imitative suggestion," "plastic imitation" (as when the members of a crowd subconsciously reproduce one another's modes of thought and action), and the like. The main distinction is that which takes into account the question of attention (q.v.). In _conscious_ imitation, the attention is fixed on the act and its reproduction: in _unconscious_ imitation the reproduction is entirely mechanical and the agent does not "attend" to the action or thought which he is copying: in _subconscious_ imitation the action is not deliberate, though the necessary train of thought would immediately follow if the attention were turned upon it under normal conditions. Imitation plays an extremely important part in human and animal development, and a clear understanding of its character is important both for the study of primitive peoples, and also in the theories of education, art and sociology. The child's early development is in large measure imitative: thus the first articulate sounds and the first movements are mainly reproductions of the words and actions of parents, and even in the later stages that teacher is likely to achieve the best results who himself gives examples of how a word should be pronounced or an action done. The impulse to imitate is, however, not confined to children: there is among the majority of adults a tendency to assimilate themselves either to their society or to those whom they especially admire or respect: this tendency to shun the eccentric is rooted deeply in human psychology. Moreover, even among highly developed persons the imitative impulse frequently overrides the reason, as when an audience, a crowd, or even practically a whole community is carried away by a panic for which no adequate ground has been given, or when a cough or a yawn is imitated by a company of people. Such cases may be compared with those of persons in mesmeric trances who mechanically copy a series of movements made by the mesmerist. The universality of the imitative impulse has led many psychologists to regard it as an instinct (so William James, _Principles of Psychology_, ii. 408; cf. INSTINCT), and in that large class of imitative actions which have no obvious ulterior purpose the impulse certainly appears to be instinctive in character. On the other hand where the imitator recognizes the particular effect of a process and imitates with the deliberate intention of producing the same effect, his action can scarcely be classed as instinctive. A considerable number of psychologists have distinguished imitative from instinctive actions (e.g. Baldwin, and Sully). According to Darwin the imitative impulse begins in infants at the age of four months. It is to be noted, however, that the child imitates, not every action indiscriminately, but especially those towards which it has a congenital tendency. The same is true of animals: though different kinds of animals may live in close proximity, the young of each kind imitate primarily the actions of their own parents.

Among primitive man imitation plays a very important part. The savage believes that he can bring about events by imitating them. He makes, for instance, an image of his enemy and pierces it with darts or burns it, believing that by so doing he will cause his enemy's death: similarly sailors would whistle, or farmers would pour water on the ground, in the hope of producing wind or rain. This form of imitation is known as sympathetic magic (see MAGIC). The sociological importance of imitation is elaborately investigated by Gabriel Tarde (_Les Lois de l'imitation_, 2nd ed., 1895), who bases all social evolution on the imitative impulse. He distinguishes "custom imitations," i.e. imitations of ancient or even forgotten actions, and "mode imitations," i.e. imitations of current fashions. New discoveries are, in his scheme, the product of the conflict of imitations. This theory, though of great value, seems to neglect original natural similarities which, by the law of causation, produce similar consequences, where imitation is geographically or chronologically impossible.

The term "imitation" has also the following special uses:--

1. _In Art-theory._--According to Plato all artistic production is a form of imitation ([Greek: mimêsis]). That which really exists is the idea or type created by God; of this type all concrete objects are representations, while the painter, the tragedian, the musician are merely imitators, thrice removed from the truth (_Rep._ x. 596 seq.). Such persons are represented by Plato as a menace to the moral fibre of the community (_Rep._ iii.), as performing no useful function, drawing men away from reality and pandering to the irrational side of the soul. All art should aim at moral improvement. Plato clearly intends by "imitation" more than is connotated by the modern word: though in general he associates with it all that is bad and second-rate, he in some passages admits the value of the imitation of that which is good, and thus assigns to it a certain symbolic significance. Aristotle, likewise regarding art as imitation, emphasizes its purely artistic value as purging the emotions ([Greek: katharsis]), and producing beautiful things as such (see AESTHETICS and FINE ARTS).

2. _In Biology_, the term is sometimes applied to the assimilation by one species of certain external characteristics (especially colour) which enable them to escape the notice of other species which would otherwise prey upon them. It is a form of protective resemblance and is generally known as mimicry (q.v.; see also COLOURS OF ANIMALS).

3. _In Music_, the term "imitation" is applied in contrapuntal composition to the repetition of a passage in one or more of the other voices or parts of a composition. When the repetition is note for note with all the intervals the same, the imitation is called "strict" and becomes a canon (q.v.); if not it is called "free," the latter being much the more common. There are many varieties of imitation, known as imitation "by inversion," "by inversion and reversion," "by augmentation," "by diminution" (see _Grove's Dictionary of Music, s. v._, and textbooks of musical theory).

IMITATION OF CHRIST, THE (_Imitatio Christi_), the title of a famous medieval Christian devotional work, much used still by both Catholics and Protestants and usually ascribed to Thomas à Kempis. The "Contestation" over the author of the _Imitation of Christ_ is probably the most considerable and famous controversy that has ever been carried on concerning a purely literary question. It has been going on almost without flagging for three centuries, and nearly 200 combatants have entered the lists. In the present article nothing is said on the history of the controversy, but an attempt is made to summarize the results that may be looked on as definitely acquired.

Until quite recently there were three candidates in the field--Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), a canon regular of Mount St Agnes in Zwolle, in the diocese of Utrecht, of the Windesheim Congregation of Augustinian Canons; John Gerson (1363-1429), chancellor of the University of Paris; and an abbot, John Gersen, said to have been abbot of a Benedictine monastery at Vercelli in the 12th century. Towards the end of the 15th century the _Imitation_ circulated under the names of the first two; but Gerson is an impossible author, and his claims have never found defenders except in France, where they are no longer urged. The Benedictine abbot Gersen is an absolutely mythical personage, a mere "double" of the chancellor. Consequently at the present day the question is narrowed to the issue: Thomas à Kempis, or an unknown author.

The following is a statement of the facts that may be received as certain:--

1. The earliest-known dated MS. of the _Imitation_ is of 1424--it contains only Bk. I.; the earliest MSS. of the whole work of certain date are of 1427. Probably some of the undated MSS. are older; but it is the verdict of the most competent modern expert opinion that there is no palaeographical reason for suspecting that any known MS. is earlier than the first quarter of the 15th century.

2. A Latin letter of a Dutch canon regular, named Johann van Schoonhoven, exhibits such a close connexion with Bk. I. that plagiarism on the one side or the other is the only possible explanation. It is capable of demonstration that the author of the _Imitation_ was the borrower, and that the opposite hypothesis is inadmissible. Now, this letter can be shown to have been written after 1382. Therefore Bk. I. was beyond controversy written between the years 1382 and 1424.

3. It is not here assumed that the four treatises formed a single work, or even that they are all by the same author; and the date of the other three books cannot be fixed with the same certainty. But, on the one hand, before the beginning of the 15th century there is no trace whatever of their existence--a strong argument that they did not yet exist; and on the other hand, after 1424 nearly each year produces its quota of MSS. and other signs of the existence of these books become frequent. Moreover, as a matter of fact, the four treatises did commonly circulate together. The presumption is strong that Bks. II., III., IV., like Bk. I., were composed shortly before they were put into circulation.

It may then be taken as proved that the _Imitation_ was composed between 1380 and 1425, and probably towards the end rather than the beginning of that period. Having ascertained the date, we must consider the birthplace.

4. A number of idioms and turns of expression throughout the book show that its author belonged to some branch of the Teutonic race. Further than this the argument does not lead; for when the dialects of the early 15th century are considered it cannot be said that the expressions in question are Netherlandic rather than German--as a matter of fact, they have all been paralleled out of High German dialects.

5. Of the 400 MSS. of the _Imitation_ 340 come from the Teutonic countries--another argument in favour of its Teutonic origin. Again, 100 of them, including the earliest, come from the Netherlands. This number is quite disproportionate to the relative size of the Netherlands, and so points to Holland as the country in which the _Imitation_ was first most widely circulated and presumably composed.

6. There is a considerable body of early evidence, traceable before 1450, that the author was a canon regular.

7. Several of the MSS. were written in houses belonging to the Windesheim Congregation of canons regular, or, in close touch with it. Moreover there is a specially intimate literary and spiritual relationship between the _Imitation_ and writings that emanated from what has been called the "Windesheim Circle."

To sum up: the indirect evidence points clearly to the conclusion that the _Imitation_ was written by a Teutonic canon regular, probably a Dutch canon regular of the Windesheim Congregation, in the first quarter of the 15th century. These data are satisfied by Thomas à Kempis.

We pass to the direct evidence, neglecting that of witnesses who had no special sources of information.

8. There can be no question that in the Windesheim Congregation itself there was already, during Thomas à Kempis's lifetime, a fixed tradition that he was the author of the _Imitation_. The most important witness to this tradition is Johann Busch. It is true that the crucial words are missing in one copy of his "Chronicle"; but it is clear there were two redactions of the work, and there are no grounds whatever for doubting that the second with its various enlargements came from the hands of Busch himself--a copy of it containing the passage exists written in 1464, while both Busch and Thomas à Kempis were still alive. Busch passed a great part of his life in Windesheim, only a few miles from Mount St Agnes where Thomas lived. It would be hard to find a more authentic witness. Another witness is Hermann Rhyd, a German member of the Windesheim Congregation, who also had personally known Thomas. Besides, two or three MSS. originating in the Windesheim Congregation state or imply the same tradition.

9. More than this: the tradition existed in Thomas à Kempis's own monastery shortly after his death. For John Mauburne became a canon in Mount St Agnes within a few years of Thomas's death, and he states more than once that Thomas wrote the _Imitation_.

10. The earliest biographer of Thomas à Kempis was an anonymous contemporary: the _Life_ was printed in 1494, but it exists in a MS. of 1488. The biographer says he got his information from the brethren at Mount St Agnes, and he states in passing that Bk. III. was written by Thomas. Moreover, he appends a list of Thomas's writings, 38 in number, and 5-8 are the four books of the _Imitation_.

It is needless to point out that such a list must be of vastly greater authority than those given by St Jerome or Gennadius in their _De Viris Illustribus_, and its rejection must, in consistency, involve methods of criticism that would work havoc in the history of early literature of what king soever. The domestic tradition in the Windesheim Congregation, and in Mount St Agnes itself, has a weight that cannot be legitimately avoided or evaded. Indeed the external authority for Thomas's authorship is stronger than that for the authorship of most really anonymous books--such, that is, as neither themselves claim to be by a given author, nor have been claimed by any one as his own. A large proportion of ancient writings, both ecclesiastical and secular, are unquestioningly assigned to writers on far less evidence than that for Thomas's authorship of the _Imitation_.

Internal arguments have been urged against Thomas's authorship. It has been said that his certainly authentic writings are so inferior that the _Imitation_ could not have been written by the same author. But only if they were of the most certain and peremptory nature could such internal arguments be allowed to weigh against the clear array of facts that make up the external argument in favour of à Kempis. And it cannot be said that the internal difficulties are such as this. Let it be granted that Thomas was a prolific writer and that his writings vary very much in quality; let it be granted also that the _Imitation_ surpasses all the rest, and that some are on a level very far below it; still, when at their best, some of the other works are not unworthy of the author of the _Imitation_.

In conclusion, it is the belief of the present writer that the "Contestation" is over, and that Thomas à Kempis's claims to the authorship of the _Imitation_ have been solidly established.

The best account in English of the Controversy is that given by F. R.
Cruise in his _Thomas à Kempis_ (1887). Works produced before 1880 are
in general, with the exception of those of Eusebius Amort,
superannuated, and deal in large measure with points no longer of any
living interest. A pamphlet by Cruise, _Who was the Author of the
Imitation?_ (1898) contains sufficient information on the subject for
all ordinary needs; it has been translated into French and German, and
may be regarded as the standard handbook.