[Philosophy], the science of sciences or of things in general, properly an attempt to find the absolute in the contingent, the immutable in the mutable, the universal in the particular, the eternal in the temporal, the real in the phenomenal, the ideal in the real, or in other words, to discover "the single principle that," as Dr. Stirling says, "possesses within itself the capability of transition into all existent variety and varieties," which it presupposes can be done not by induction from the transient, but by deduction from the permanent as that spiritually reveals itself in the creating mind, so that a Philosopher is a man who has, as Carlyle says, quoting Goethe, "stationed himself in the middle (between the outer and the inner, the upper and the lower), to whom the Highest has descended and the Lowest mounted up, who is the equal and kindly brother of all." "Philosophy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the divinity of the inmost shrine; her dictates descend among men, but she herself descends not; whoso would behold her must climb with long and laborious effort; may still linger in the forecourt till manifold trial have proved him worthy of admission into the interior solemnities." Indeed philosophy is more than [science] (q. v.); it is a divine wisdom instilled into and inspiring a thinker's life. See [Thinker, The].
[Philoxenus], a Greek poet who lived at the court of Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse; condemned to prison for refusing to praise some verses of the tyrant, he was led forth to criticise others, but returned them as worse, begging the officers who handed them to lead him back, which when the tyrant was told, he laughed and released him.
[Philpotts, Henry], bishop of Exeter, born in Bridgwater, a keen Tory and uncompromising High-Churchman, the chief actor in the celebrated [Gorham case] (q. v.), and noted for his obstinate opposition to political reform as the opening of the floodgates of democracy, which he dreaded would subvert everything that was dear to him (1778-1869).
[Philtre], the name given to certain concoctions of herbs, often deleterious and poisonous, supposed to secure for the person administering it the love of the person to whom it was administered; these love potions were popular in the declining days of Greece and Rome, throughout mediæval Europe, and continue to be compounded to this day in the superstitious East.
[Phiz], the pseudonym of Hablot K. Browne, the illustrator of the first edition of the "Pickwick Papers" of Dickens.
[Phlegethon], in the Greek mythology a river in the lower world which flowed in torrents of fire athwart it, and which scorched up everything near it.
[Phlogiston], a name given by the old chemists to an imaginary principle of fire, latent in bodies, and which escaped during combustion.
[Phocas], a common soldier who raised himself by the aid of a faction to the throne of the East, and for twenty years defied attempts to dethrone him, but, being deserted by his party, was taken, subjected to torture, and beheaded in 610. "His reign," says Gibbon, "afflicted Europe with ignominious peace, and Asia with desolating war."
[Phocion], a distinguished Athenian general and statesman, a disciple of Plato and Xenocrates; was wise in council as well as brave in war; opposed to the democracy of Athens, led on by Demosthenes in the frantic ambition of coping with Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander; and pled for a pacific arrangement with them; but having opposed war with Antipater, the successor of the latter, he was accused of treason, and condemned to drink hemlock; the Athenians afterwards repented of the crime, raised a bronze statue to his memory, and condemned his accuser to death.
[Phocis], a province of ancient Greece, W. of Boeotia, and N. of the Gulf of Corinth; was traversed by the mountain range of Parnassus, and contained the oracle of Apollo at Delphi; allied to Athens in the Peloponnesian War, the Phocians were crushed in the "Sacred War" after ten years' fighting by Philip of Macedon, 346 B.C.