chaos, were put in motion by an eternal, immaterial, spiritual, elementary being, Nous (Intelligence), from which motion the world was produced. His conception of Nous as the first cause of movement marks a great advance in the history of philosophical thought, for he thus placed spirit above matter. The stars were, according to him, of earthy materials; the sun a glowing mass, about as large as the Peloponnesus; the earth was flat; the moon a dark, inhabitable body, receiving its light from the sun; the comets wandering stars.
Anaximan´der, an ancient Greek (Ionic) philosopher, was born at Miletus in 611 B.C., and died 547. The fundamental principle of his philosophy is that the source of all things is an undefined substance infinite in quantity. The firmament is composed of heat and cold, the stars of air and fire. The sun occupies the highest place in the heavens, has a circumference twenty-eight times larger than the earth, and resembles a cylinder, from which streams of fire issue. The moon is likewise a cylinder, nineteen times larger than the earth. The earth has the shape of a cylinder, and is placed in the midst of the universe, where it remains suspended. His philosophy is thus a step in advance of the theories of Thales, the conception of the Infinite, however vague, being superior to the idea of water constituting the first principle of all things. Anaximander occupied himself a great deal with mathematics and geography. To him is credited the invention of geographical maps and the first application of the gnomon or style fixed on a horizontal plane to determine the solstices and equinoxes.
Anaximenes (an-aks-im´e-nēz) of Miletus, an ancient Greek (Ionic) philosopher, according to whom air was the first principle of all things. Finite things were formed from the infinite air by compression and rarefaction produced by eternally existent motion; and heat and cold resulted from varying degrees of density of the primal element. He flourished about 550 B.C.
Anbury (an´be-ri) (called also Club-root and Fingers and Toes), a disease in turnips, in which knobs or excrescences are formed on the root, which is then useless for feeding purposes. Some authorities distinguish anbury proper from 'fingers and toes' in turnips, setting it down as a distinct disease due to a fungus, while in the other case the roots simply assume a bad habit of growth through some unknown influence.
Ancachs (a˙n-ka˙ch´), a department of Peru, between the Andes and the Pacific; area, 16,562 sq. miles. Capital Hararaz. Pop. 500,000.
Ancestor-worship, an ancient and widespread practice, displayed in its most characteristic form in modern China and ancient Rome, which apparently was based upon the belief that dead parents or ancestors, represented by images or 'ancestral tablets', could be revived by appropriate ceremonies, such as burning incense or offering libations, and give the benefit of their wisdom to their descendants who performed the vitalizing ritual and asked for their advice upon, or their sanction for, actions affecting the welfare of the family. The earliest deity was a dead king (Osiris), whose advice was sought by his son and successor. Hence in primitive religions, in which an endless variety of modifications of these more ancient beliefs has arisen, ancestor-worship may take the form of pious devotion to an actual ancestor or to a supernatural deity. As many of the most ancient gods were identified with animals, the dead ancestor, or his soul, is believed by many peoples to become incarnate in the appropriate animal, which is accorded the special veneration of a god or supernatural adviser, and set apart as sacred. Ancestor-worship still survives in a great variety of forms among various peoples.—Bibliography: E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture; F. B. Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion; D. G. Brinton, Religions of Primitive Peoples.
Anchises (an-kī´sēz), the father of the Trojan hero Æneas, who carried him off on his shoulders at the burning of Troy and made him the companion of his voyage to Italy. This voyage, which is not mentioned in the Homeric legend, is described by Virgil in his Æneid. He died at Drepanum, in Sicily.
An´chor, an implement for holding a ship or other vessel at rest in the water. In ancient times large stones or crooked pieces of wood heavily weighted with metal were used for this purpose. The anchor now used is of iron, formed with a strong shank, at one extremity of which is the crown, from which branch out two arms, terminating in broad palms or flukes, the sharp extremity of which is the peak or bill; at the other end of the shank is the stock (fixed at right angles to the plane of the arms), behind which is the ring, to which a cable can be attached. The principal use of the stock is to
cause the arms to fall so as one of the flukes shall enter the ground. Many anchors are made nowadays without a stock. The anchors of the largest size carried by men-of-war are the best and small bowers, the sheet, and the spare, to which are added the stream and the kedge, which are used for anchoring in a stream or other sheltered place and for warping the vessel from one place to another. Many improvements and novelties in the shape and construction of anchors have been introduced within recent times. The principal names connected with those alterations are those of Lieutenant Rodgers, who introduced the hollow-shanked anchor with the view of increasing the strength without adding to the weight; Porter, who made the arms and flukes movable by pivoting them to the stock instead of fixing them immovably, causing the anchor to take a readier and firmer hold, and avoiding the chance of the cable becoming foul; Trotman, who further improved on Porter's invention; and M. Martin, whose anchor is of very peculiar form, and is constructed so as to be self-canting, the arms revolving through an angle of 30° either way, and the sharp points of the flukes being always ready to enter the ground.