MAIMBOURG, LOUIS (1610-1686), French Jesuit and historian, was born at Nancy. He entered the Society of Jesus at the age of sixteen, and after studying at Rome became a classical master in the Jesuit college at Rouen. He afterwards devoted himself to preaching, but with only moderate success. After having taken some part in minor controversies he threw himself with energy into the dispute which had arisen as to the Gallican liberties; for his Traité historique sur les prérogatives de l’Église de Rome (1682) he was by command of Innocent XI. expelled from the Society, but rewarded by Louis XIV. with a residence at the abbey of St Victor, Paris, and a pension. He died on the 13th of August 1686. His numerous works include histories of Arianism, the iconoclastic controversy, the Greek schism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and of the pontificates of Leo I. and Gregory I.; they are mere compilations, written indeed in a very lively and attractive style, but inaccurate and untrustworthy.
The History of Arianism was published in English (1728-1729) by William Webster, with an appendix on the English writers in the Socinian and Arian controversies.
MAIMING, mutilation, a physical injury which involves the loss of, or incapacity to use, a bodily member. The verb “to maim,” in M. E. maynhe, mahayme, mayme, &c. was adopted from O. Fr. mahaignier: cf. It. magagnars, Med. Lat. mahemiare, mahennare, &c. (see Du Cange, Gloss., s.v. “Mahamium”). Maiming or mutilation is and has been practised by many races with various ethnical and religious significances, and was a customary form of punishment on the principle of an “eye for an eye” (see [Mutilation]). In law “maiming” is a criminal offence; the old law term for a special case of maiming of persons was “mayhem” (q.v.), an Anglo-French variant form of the word. Maiming of animals by others than their owners is a particular form of the offences generally grouped as “malicious damage.” For the purpose of the law as to this offence animals are divided into cattle, which includes horses, pigs and asses, and other animals which are either subjects of larceny at common law or are usually kept in confinement or for domestic purposes. The punishment for maiming of cattle is three to fourteen years’ penal servitude. Malicious injury to other animals is a misdemeanour punishable on summary conviction. For a second offence the penalty is imprisonment with hard labour for over twelve months. (Malicious Damage Act 1861.) Maiming of animals by their owner falls under the Cruelty to Animals Acts.
MAIMON, SALOMON (1754-1800), German philosopher, was born of Jewish parentage in Polish Lithuania, and died at Nieder-Siegersdorf on the 22nd of November 1800. He married at the age of twelve, and studied medicine in Berlin. In 1770 he severed his connexion with his orthodox co-religionists by his critical commentary on the Moreh Nebuḥim of Maimonides, and devoted himself to the study of philosophy on the lines of Wolff and Moses Mendelssohn. After many vicissitudes he found a peaceful residence in the house of Count Kalkreuth at Nieder-Siegersdorf in 1790. During the ensuing ten years he published the works which have made his reputation as a critical philosopher. Hitherto his life had been a long struggle against difficulties of all kinds. From his autobiography, it is clear that his keen critical faculty was developed in great measure by the slender means of culture at his disposal. It was not till 1788 that he made the acquaintance of the Kantian philosophy, which was to form the basis of his lifework, and as early as 1790 he published the Versuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie, in which he formulates his objections to the system. He seizes upon the fundamental incompatibility of a consciousness which can apprehend, and yet is separated from, the “thing-in-itself.” That which is object of thought cannot be outside consciousness; just as in mathematics √−1 is an unreal quantity, so “things-in-themselves” are ex hypothesi outside consciousness, i.e. are unthinkable. The Kantian paradox he explains as the result of an attempt to explain the origin of the “given” in consciousness. The form of things is admittedly subjective; the mind endeavours to explain the material of the given in the same terms, an attempt which is not only impossible but involves a denial of the elementary laws of thought. Knowledge of the given is, therefore, essentially incomplete. Complete or perfect knowledge is confined to the domain of pure thought, to logic and mathematics. Thus the problem of the “thing-in-itself” is dismissed from the inquiry, and philosophy is limited to the sphere of pure thought. The Kantian categories are, indeed, demonstrable and true, but their application to the given is meaningless and unthinkable. By this critical scepticism Maimon takes up a position intermediate between Kant and Hume. Hume’s attitude to the empirical is entirely supported by Maimon. The casual concept, as given by experience, expresses not a necessary objective order of things, but an ordered scheme of perception; it is subjective and cannot be postulated as a concrete law apart from consciousness. The main argument of the Transcendentalphilosophie not only drew from Kant, who saw it in MS., the remark that Maimon alone of his all critics had mastered the true meaning of his philosophy, but also directed the path of most subsequent criticism.
Maimon’s chief works, in addition to the above quoted, are Philos. Wörterbuch (1791); Streifereien im Gebiete der Philos.(1793); Über die Progresse der Philos. (1793); Die Kategorien des Aristoteles mit Anmerkungen erläutert (1794); Versuch einer neuen Logik (1794 and 1798); Kritische Untersuchungen über den menschl. Geist (1797). See S. Maimons Lebensgeschichte von ihm selbst beschrieben (1792, ed. K. P. Moritz; Eng. trans. by J. C. Murray, 1888); Wolff, Maimoniana (1813); Witte, S. Maimon (1876).
MAIMONIDES, the common name of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135-1204), also known from the initials of these last words as Rambam, Jewish philosopher. His life falls into three epochs, which may be typified by the towns in which they were passed, viz. Cordova, Fez and Cairo. He was born in Cordova on the 20th of March 1135, the eve of Passover; he had a brother, David, and one sister. His early years were spent in his native town, which had then just passed the zenith of its glory. The Arab rulers had fostered the development of science, art, medicine, philosophy, literature and learning. All these influences played their part in the education of Maimonides, whose father, besides training him in all branches of Hebrew and Jewish scholarship, implanted in the youth a sound knowledge of these secular studies as well. In 1148 Cordova was taken from the last Fatimite caliph by the victorious Almohades, who had spread over Spain from N. Africa. These militant revivalists strove to re-establish Islam in what they considered its primitive simplicity. They laid great stress on the unity of God, and tolerated neither schism within the faith nor dissent without. The position of the orthodox Spanish Jews became intolerable, and Maimon, after ten years of hardships, wanderings and escapes, decided to take his family out of the country. He settled in Fez. The years which Maimonides spent there (1160-1165) were memorable for his friendship with Abdul Arab Ibn Muisha—a Moslem poet and theologian—and for the commencement of his literary activity. His energies were diverted towards stimulating the religious feelings of his brethren and combating assimilation. In consequence he became alarmed for his own safety, and in 1165 left for Egypt, where he settled after a passing visit to the Holy Land. Cordova taught him the humanities; Fez humanity. Cairo, besides giving him prominence at court and in the Jewish community, was the centre of the almost world-wide influence which he exercised over Jewry by his monumental writings and dominant personality. By 1177 Maimonides was the recognized chief of the Cairene congregation and consulted on important matters by communities far and wide. Here he was joined by his most famous disciple, Joseph Aknin. But his early life in Egypt was fraught with deep sorrow. His father died soon after their arrival, and Maimonides himself suffered severely from prostration and sickness. His brother David, jointly with whom he carried on a trade in gems, was shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean. With him perished the entire fortune of the family. Forced to earn a livelihood, Maimonides turned to medicine. The fame of his skill eventually brought him the appointment of body physician to Saladin, to whom, it is said, he was so attached that when Richard I. wrote from Ascalon, offering him a similar post at the English court, Maimonides refused. He married the sister of Ibn al Māli, one of the royal secretaries. In 1186, his son Abraham was born. His remaining years were spent in ceaseless activity and in controversy, which he sought to avoid. He died amidst universal sorrow and veneration.
The works of Maimonides fall into three periods: (a) To the Spanish period belong his commentary on the whole Talmud (not fully carried out), a treatise on the calendar (Maamar ha-ibbur), a treatise on logic (Milloth Higgayon), and his commentary on the Mishnah (this was called Siraj or Maor, i.e. “Light”: begun 1158, completed 1168 in Egypt). (b) While he was in Fez, he wrote an essay on the Sanctification of the Name of God (Maamar Kiddush Hashem, Iggereth Hashemad). (c) The works written in Egypt were: Letter to the Yemenites (Iggereth Teman or Pethaḥ Tiqvah); Responsa on questions of law; Biblical and Rabbinical Code (Misnheh Torah or Yad Hahazaka, completed 1180); Sepher hamitzvoth, an abbreviated handbook of the preceding; and his great philosophical work Moreh Nebuḥim or “the guide of the perplexed” (1190). To these must be added certain portions of the Mishnah commentary, such as the “Eight Chapters,” the discussion on reward and punishment and immortality, the Jewish Creed, which have acquired fame as independent works.