KINDĪ [Abū Yūsuf Ya’qūb ibn Ishāq ul-Kindī, sometimes called pre-eminently “The Philosopher of the Arabs”] flourished in the 9th century, the exact dates of his birth and death being unknown. He was born in Kufa, where his father was governor under the Caliphs Mahdi and Harun al-Rashīd. His studies were made in Baṣra and Bagdad, and in the latter place he remained, occupying according to some a government position. In the orthodox reaction under Motawakkil, when all philosophy was suspect, his library was confiscated, but he himself seems to have escaped. His writings—like those of other Arabian philosophers—are encyclopaedic and are concerned with most of the sciences; they are said to have numbered over two hundred, but fewer than twenty are extant. Some of these were known in the middle ages, for Kindī is placed by Roger Bacon in the first rank after Ptolemy as a writer on optics. His work De Somniorum Visione was translated by Gerard of Cremona (q.v.) and another was published as De medicinarum compositarum gradibus investigandis Libellus (Strassburg, 1531). He was one of the earliest translators and commentators of Aristotle, but like Fārābī (q.v.) appears to have been superseded by Avicenna.
See G. Flügel, Al Kindi genannt der Philosoph der Araber (Leipzig, 1857), and T. J. de Boer, Geschichte der Philosophie im Islam (Stuttgart, 1901), pp. 90 sqq.; also [Arabian Philosophy].
(G. W. T.)
KINEMATICS (from Gr. κίνημα, a motion), the branch of mechanics which discusses the phenomena of motion without reference to force or mass (see [Mechanics]).
KINETICS (from Gr. κινεῖν, to move), the branch of mechanics which discusses the phenomena of motion as affected by force; it is the modern equivalent of dynamics in the restricted sense (see [Mechanics]).
KING, CHARLES WILLIAM (1818-1888), English writer on ancient gems, was born at Newport (Mon.) on the 5th of September 1818. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1836; graduated in 1840, and obtained a fellowship in 1842; he was senior fellow at the time of his death in London on the 25th of March 1888. He took holy orders, but never held any cure. He spent much time in Italy, where he laid the foundation of his collection of gems, which, increased by subsequent purchases in London, was sold by him in consequence of his failing eyesight and was presented in 1881 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. King was recognized universally as one of the greatest authorities in this department of art. His chief works on the subject are: Antique Gems, their Origin, Uses and Value (1860), a complete and exhaustive treatise; The Gnostics and their Remains (2nd ed. by J. Jacobs, 1887, which led to an animated correspondence in the Athenaeum); The Natural History of Precious Stones and Gems and of the Precious Metals (1865); The Handbook of Engraved Gems (2nd ed., 1885); Early Christian Numismatics (1873). King was thoroughly familiar with the works of Greek and Latin authors, especially Pausanias and the elder Pliny, which bore upon the subject in which he was most interested; but he had little taste for the minutiae of verbal criticism. In 1869 he brought out an edition of Horace, illustrated from antique gems; he also translated Plutarch’s Moralia (1882) and the theosophical works of the Emperor Julian (1888) for Bonn’s Classical Library.