See Man (1904), No. 68; Folklore, xiii. 134; Myers in Proc. S.P.R. ix. 26, xii. 277, xv. 403; Flournoy, Des Indes à la planète Mars and in Arch. de Psychologie; Myers, Human Personality.
(N. W. T.)
AUTOMATON (from αὐτός, self, and μάω, to seize), a self-moving machine, or one in which the principle of motion is contained within the mechanism itself. According to this description, clocks, watches and all machines of a similar kind, are automata, but the word is generally applied to contrivances which simulate for a time the motions of animal life. If the human figure and actions be represented, the automaton has sometimes been called specially an androides. We have very early notices of the construction of automata, e.g. the tripods of Vulcan, and the moving figures of Daedalus. In 400 B.C., Archytas of Tarentum is said to have made a wooden pigeon that could fly, and during the middle ages numerous instances of the construction of automata are recorded. Regiomontanus is said to have made of iron a fly, which would flutter round the room and return to his hand, and also an eagle, which flew before the emperor Maximilian when he was entering Nuremberg. Roger Bacon is said to have forged a brazen head which spoke, and Albertus Magnus to have had an androides, which acted as doorkeeper, and was broken to pieces by Aquinas. Of these, as of some later instances, e.g. the figure constructed by Descartes and the automata exhibited by Dr Camus, not much is accurately known. But in the 18th century, Jacques de Vaucanson, the celebrated mechanician, exhibited three admirable figures,—the flute-player, the tambourine-player, and the duck, which was capable of eating, drinking, and imitating exactly the natural voice of that fowl. The means by which these results had been produced were clearly seen, and a great impulse was given to the construction of similar figures. Knauss exhibited at Vienna an automaton which wrote; a father and son named Droz constructed several ingenious mechanical figures which wrote and played music; Frederick Kaufmann and Leonard Maelzel made automatic trumpeters who could play several marches. The Swiss have always been celebrated for their mechanical ingenuity, and they construct most of the curious toys, such as flying and singing birds, which are frequently met with in industrial exhibitions. The greatest difficulty has generally been experienced in devising any mechanism which shall successfully simulate the human voice (not to be compared with the gramophone, which reproduces mechanically a real voice). No attempt has been thoroughly successful, though many have been made. A figure exhibited by Fabermann of Vienna remains the best. Kempelen's famous chess-player for many years astonished and puzzled Europe. This figure, however, was no true automaton, although the mechanical contrivances for concealing the real performer and giving effect to his desired movements were exceedingly ingenious. J. N. Maskelyne, in more recent times (1875-1880), has been prominent in exhibiting his automata, Psycho (who played cards) and Zoe (who drew pictures), at the Egyptian Hall, London, but the secret of these contrivances was well kept. (See Conjuring.)
AUTOMORPHISM (from Gr. αὐτός, self, and μορφή, form), the conception and interpretation of other people's habits and ideas on the analogy of one's own.
AUTONOMY (Gr. αὐτός, self, and νόμος, law), in general, freedom from external restraint, self-government. The term is usually coupled with a qualifying adjective. Thus, political autonomy is self-government in its widest sense, independence of all control from without. Local autonomy is a freedom of self-government within a sphere marked out by some superior authority; e.g. municipal corporations in England have their administrative powers marked out for them by acts of parliament, and in so far as they govern themselves within these limits exercise local autonomy. Administrative or constitutional autonomy, such as exists in the British colonies, implies an extent of self-government which falls short only of complete independence. The term is used loosely even in the case of e.g. religious bodies, individual churches and other communities
which enjoy a measure of self-government in certain specified respects.
In philosophy, the term (with its antithesis "heteronomy") was applied by Kant to that aspect of the rational will in which, qua rational, it is a law to itself, independently alike of any external authority, of the results of experience and of the impulses of pleasure and pain. In the sphere of morals, the ultimate and only authority which the mind can recognize is the law which emerges from the pure moral consciousness. This is the only sense in which moral freedom can be understood. (See Ethics; Kant.) Though the term "autonomy" in its fullest sense implies entire freedom from causal necessity, it can also be used even in determinist theories for relative independence of particular conditions, theological or conventional.
AUTOPSY (Gr. αὐτός, self, and ὄψις, sight, investigation), a personal examination, specifically a post-mortem ("after death") examination of a dead body, to ascertain the cause of death, &c. The term "necropsy" (Gr. νεκρός, corpse) is sometimes used in this sense. (See Coroner and Medical Jurisprudence.)
AUTRAN, JOSEPH (1813-1877), French poet, was born at Marseilles on the 20th of June 1813. In 1832 he addressed an ode to Lamartine, who was then at Marseilles on his way to the East. The elder poet persuaded the young man's father to allow him to follow his poetic bent, and Autran remained from that time a faithful disciple of Lamartine. His best known work is La Mer (1835), remodelled in 1852 as Les Poèmes de la mer. Ludibria ventis (1838) followed, and the success of these two volumes gained for Autran the librarianship of his native town. His other most important work is his Vie rurale (1856), a series of pictures of peasant life. The Algerian campaigns inspired him with verses in honour of the common soldier. Milianah (1842) describes the heroic defence of that town, and in the same vein is his Laboureurs et soldats (1854). Among his other works are the Paroles de Salomon (1868), Épîtres rustiques (1861), Sonnets capricieux, and a tragedy played with great success at the Odéon in 1848, La Fille d'Eschyle. A definitive edition of his works was brought out between 1875 and 1881. He became a member of the French Academy in 1868, and died at Marseilles on the 6th of March 1877.
AUTUN, a town of east-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Saône-et-Loire, 62 m. S.W. of Dijon on the Paris-Lyon railway to Nevers. Pop. (1906) 11,927. Autun is pleasantly situated on the slope of a hill at the foot of which runs the Arroux. Its former greatness is attested by many Roman remains, the chief of which are two well-preserved stone gateways, the Porte d' Arroux and the Porte St André, both pierced with four archways and surmounted by arcades. There are also remains of the old ramparts and aqueducts, of a square tower called the Temple of Janus, of a theatre and of an amphitheatre. A pyramid in the neighbouring village of Couhard was probably a sepulchral monument. The chapel of St Nicolas (12th century) contains many of the remains discovered at Autun. The cathedral of St Lazare, once the chapel attached to the residence of the dukes of Burgundy, is in the highest part of the town. It belongs mainly to the 12th century, but the Gothic central tower and the chapels were added in the 15th century by Nicolas Rolin, chancellor of Burgundy, born at Autun. The chief artistic features of the church are the group of the Last Judgment sculptured on the tympanum above the west door, and the painting by Ingres representing the martyrdom of St Symphorien, which took place at Autun in 179. In the cathedral square stands the fountain of St Lazare, a work of the Renaissance. The hôtel Rolin, a house of the 15th century, contains the collections of the "Aeduan literary and scientific society." The hôtel de ville, containing a museum of paintings, the law-court and the theatre are modern buildings. Autun is the seat of a bishopric, of tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and has an ecclesiastical seminary, a communal college and a cavalry school. Among the industries of the town are the extraction of oil from the bituminous schist obtained in the neighbourhood, leather manufacture, metal-founding, marble-working, and the manufacture of machinery and furniture. Autun is the commercial centre for a large part of the Morvan, and has considerable trade in timber and cattle.