In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments – originating social contract theory. Leviathan was written during the English Civil War; much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war.

Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and the passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the st...

At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon, the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundr...

Sincerely do I hope that the issue of this little book may prove useful in drawing the attention of the public to the mental and physical condition of the unfortunates who form such a large proportion of our prison population.

To our authorities the sad plight of this mass of smitten humanity is well known. Year after year our Prison Commissioners, in presenting their reports, have not failed to impress upon the State the great part physical and mental afflictions play in the production of c...

At last, however, the Queen proved with child, and was brought to bed of a daughter. There was a very fine christening; and the Princess had for her godmothers all the Fairies they could find in the whole kingdom (they found seven), that every one of them might give her a gift, as was the custom of Fairies in those days, and that by this means the Princess might have all the perfections imaginable.

After the ceremonies of the christening were over, all the company returned to the King's pala...

History does not inform us when and how this beautiful peninsula—called Hispania by the Romans—first became in-habited. Whether the earliest emigrants crossed the straits of Gibraltar from Africa, or came from Asia, coasting the shores of the Mediterranean, or descended from France through the defiles of the Pyrenees, can now never be known. The first glimpse we catch of Spain, through the haze of past ages, reveals to us the country inhabited by numerous barbaric tri-bes, fiercely hostil...

"The Spanish Tragedy", or "Hieronimo" is Mad Again is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592. Highly popular and influential in its time, The Spanish Tragedy established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy. Its plot contains several violent murders and includes as one of its characters a personification of Revenge.

"The Spanish Tragedy" was often referred to (or parodied) in works written by other Elizabethan playwrights, including W...

That department of anatomical research to which the name topographical strictly applies, as confining itself to the mere account of the form and relative location of the several organs comprising the animal body, is almost wholly isolated from the main questions of physiological and transcendental interest, and cannot, therefore, be supposed to speak in those comprehensive views which anatomy, taken in its widest signification as a science, necessarily includes.

While the anatomist contents...

In this book I have ventured to wander in some degree from the well-trodden road and to lead the reader by other ways to the comprehension of his subject. My intention has been to induce him to think of the bones as they exist in the body rather than as they lie on the table before him, and to do this I have laid stress because he must use the prepared specimens on the meaning of small details and on the relations of the bone, and have relegated the pure description of the dry bone to a secon...

DRAWING is the expression of an idea: “Art must come from within, and not from without. This fact has led some to assert that the study of nature is not essential to the student, and that careful training in the study of the representation of the actual appearance is mechanical and harmful. Such persons forget that all art ideas and sentiments must be based upon natural objects, and that a person who cannot represent truly what he sees will be entirely unable to express the simplest ideal c...

HENRY GRAY [1827 – 1861] was an English anatomist and surgeon most notable for publishing the book Gray's Anatomy. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25.

While still a student, Gray secured the triennial prize of Royal College of Surgeons in 1848 for an essay entitled The Origin, Connexions and Distribution of nerves to the human eye and its appendages, illustrated by comparative dissections of the eye in other vertebrate animals.

In 1852, at the early age of...