ments. An extravagant or unnatural gesture is termed a gesticulation; a sycophant, who wishes to cringe into favor with the great, deals largely in gesticulation to mark his devotion; a buffoon who attempts to imitate the gestures of another will use gesticulation; and the monkey who apes the actions of human beings does so by means of gesticulations; Neither the judges of our laws, nor the representatives of the people, would be much affected by laboured gesticulation, or believe any man the more, because he rolled his eyes, or puffed his cheeks.' JOHNSON.

Posture is a mode of placing the body more or less differing from the ordinary habits; attitude is the manner of keeping the body more or less suitable to the existing circumstances. A posture, however convenient, is never assumed without exertion; it is therefore willingly changed: an attitude, though not usual, is still according to the nature of things; it is therefore Beadily preserved. A posture is singular; it has something in it which departs from the ordinary carriage of the body, and makes it remarkable; Falsehood in a short time found by experience, that her superiority consisted only in the celerity of her course, and the change of her posture.' JOHNSON. An attitude is striking; it is the natural expression of character or impression; Falsehood always endeavoured to copy the mien and attitudes of truth.' JOHNSON. A brave man will put himself into a posture of defence, without assuming an attitude of defiance.

Strange and forced positions of the body are termed postures; noble, agreeable, and expressive forms of carriage, are called attitudes: mountebanks and clowns put themselves into ridiculous postures in order to excite laughter; actors assume graceful attitudes to represent their characters. Postures are to the body what grimaces are to the face; attitudes are to the body what air is to the figure: he who in attempting to walk assumes the attitude of a dancer, puts himself into a ridiculous posture; a graceful and elegant attitude in dancing becomes an affected and laughable posture in another case.

Postures are sometimes usefully employed in stage dancing; the attitudes are necessarily employed by painters, sculptors, dancing masters, and other artists. Posture is said of the whole body; the rest, of particular limbs or parts. Attitude and posture are figuratively applied to other objects besides the body: armies assume a menacing attitude; in a critical posture of affairs, extraordinary skill is required on the part of the government; Milton has presented this violent spirit (Moloch) as the first that rises in that assembly to give his opinion upon their present posture of affairs.' ADDISON.

Position, when compared with posture, is taken only in regard to persons, in which case the posture, as observed above, is a species of position, namely, an artificial position: if a person stands tiptoe, in order to see to a greater distance, he may be said to put himself into that position; but if a dancer do the same,

as a part of his performance, it becomes a posture : so, likewise, when one leans against the wall it is a leaning position; leaning position; Every step, in the progression of existence, changes our position with respect to the things about us. JOHNSON. But when one theatrically bends his body backward or forward, it is a posture : one may, in the same manner, sit in an erect position, or in a reclining posture; When I entered his room, he was sitting in a contemplative posture, with his eyes fixed upon the ground; after he had continued in his reverie near a quarter of an hour, he rose up and seemed by his gestures to take leave of some invisible guest.' HAWKESWORTH.

ACTION, AGENCY, OPERATION. Action (v. To act) is the effect, agency the cause. Action is inherent in the subject;

O noble English that could entertain

With half their forces the full power of France,
And let another half stand laughing by,

All out of work, and cold for action. SHAKSPEARE.

Agency is something exterior; it is, in fact, putting a thing into action: in this manner, the whole world is in action through the agency of the Divine Being; A few advances there are in the following papers tending to assert the superintendance and agency of Providence in the natural world.' WOODWARD. Sometimes the word action is taken in the sense of acting upon, when it approaches still nearer to agency; 'It is better therefore that the earth should move about its own centre, and make those useful vicissitudes of night and day, than expose always the same side to the action of the sun.' BENTLEY. Operation, from the Latin operatio, and opera labor or opus need, signifying the work that is needful, is action for a specific end, and according to a rule; as the operation of nature in the article of vegetation ;

The tree whose operation brings
Knowledge of good and ill, shun thou to taste.

MILTON.

ACTIVE, DILIGENT, INDUSTRIOUS,
ASSIDUOUS, LABORIOUS.

Active, from the verb to act, implies a propensity to act, to be doing something without regard to the nature of the object; diligent, in French diligent, Latin diligens, participle of diligo, to choose or like, implies an attachment to an object, and consequent attention to it; industrious, in French industrieux, Latin industrius, is probably formed from intro within, and struo to build, make, or do, signifying an inward or thorough inclination to be engaged in some serious work; assiduous, in French assidu, in Latin assiduus, is compounded of as or ad, and siduus from

sedeo to sit, signifying to sit close to a thing; laborious, in French laborieux, Latin laboriosus, from labor, implies belonging to labor, or the inclination to labor.

We are active if we are only ready to exert our powers, whether to any end or not, 'Providence has made the human soul an active being.' JOHNSON. We are diligent when we are active for some specific end; A constant and unfailing obedience is above the reach of terrestrial diligence.' JOHNSON. We are industrious when no time is left unemployed in some serious pursuit; It has been observed by writers of morality, that in order to quicken human industry, Providence has so contrived that our daily food is not to be procured without much pains and labor." ADDISON. We are assiduous if we do not leave a thing until it is finished; If ever a cure is performed on a patient, where quacks are concerned, they can claim no greater share in it than Virgil's Iapis in the curing of Æneas; he tried his skill, was very assiduous about the wound, and indeed was the only visible means that relieved the hero; but the poet assures us it was the particular assistance of a deity that speeded the operation.' PEARCE. We are laborious when the bodily or mental powers are regularly employed in some hard labor; If we look into the brute creation, we find all its individuals engaged in a painful and laborious way of life to procure a necessary subsistence for themselves.' ADDISON.

A man may be active without being diligent, since he may employ himself in what is of no importance; but he can scarcely be diligent without being active, since diligence supposes some degree of activity in one's application to a useful object. A man may be diligent without being industrious, for he may diligently employ himself about a particular favorite object without employing himself constantly in the same way; and he may be industrious without being diligent, since diligence implies a free exercise of the mental as well as corporeal powers, but industry applies principally to manual labor. Activity and diligence are therefore commonly the property of lively or strong minds, but industry may be associated with moderate talents. A man may be diligent without being assiduous; but he cannot be assiduous without being diligent, for assiduity is a sort of persevering diligence. A man may be industrious, without being laborious, but not vice versâ; for laboriousness is a severer kind of industry.

The active man is never easy without an employment; the diligent man is contented with the employment he has; the industrious man goes from one employment to the other; the assiduous man seeks to attain the end of his employment; the laborious man spares no pains or labor in following his employment.

Activity is of great importance for those who have the management of public concerns: diligence in business contributes greatly to success: industry is of great value in obtaining a livelihood: without assiduity no advances can be made in science or literature; and

without laborious exertions, considerable attainments are not to be expected in many literary pursuits.

Active minds set on foot inquiries to which the industrious, by assiduous application, and diligent if not laborious research, often afford satisfactory

answers.

ACTIVE, BRISK, AGILE, NIMBLE.

Active, signifies the same as in the preceding article; brisk has a common origin with fresh, which is in Saxon fersh, Dutch frisch or bersk, Danish frisk, fersk, &c.; agile, in Latin agilis, comes from the same verb as active, signifying a fitness, a readiness to act or move; nimble is probably derived from the Saxon nemen to take, implying a fitness or capacity to take any thing by a celerity of movement.

Activity respects one's transactions; briskness, one's sports men are active in carrying on business; children are brisk in their play. Agility refers to the light and easy carriage of the body in springing; nimbleness to its quick and gliding movements in running. A rope-dancer is agile; a female moves nimbly.

Activity results from ardor of mind; There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity, that we are not sensible when the faculty is employed.' ADDISON. Briskness springs from vivacity of feeling; I made my next application to a widow, and attacked her so briskly that I thought myself within a fortnight of her.' BUDGELL. Agility is produced by corporeal vigor, and habitual strong exertion; When the Prince touched his stirrup, and was going to speak, the officer, with an incredible agility, threw himself on the earth and kissed his feet.' STEELE. Nimbleness results from an effort to move lightly;

O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way. MILTON.

ACTIVE, BUSY, OFFICIOUS. Active, signifies the same as before; busy, in Saxon gebisged, from bisgian, in German beschäfftigt, from beschäfftigen to occupy, and schaffen to make or do, implies a propensity to be occupied; officious, in French officieux, Latin officiosus, from officium duty or service, signifies a propensity to perform some service or office.

Active respects the habit or disposition of the mind; busy and officious, either the disposition of the mind, or the employment of the moment: the former regards every species of employment; the latter only particular kinds of employment. An active person is ever ready to be employed; a person is busy, when he is actually employed in any object; he is officious, when he is employed for others.

Active is always taken in a good, or at least an in

different sense; it is opposed to lazy; The pursuits of the active part of mankind are either in the paths of religion and virtue, or, on the other hand, in the roads to wealth, honour, or pleasures.' ADDISON. Busy, as it respects occupation, is mostly in a good sense; We see multitudes busy in the pursuit of riches, at the expense of wisdom and virtue.' JOHNSON. It is opposed to being at leisure; as it respects disposition, it is always in a bad sense; The air-pump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to those busy spirits (politicians), as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the ship sail on without disturbance.' ADDISON. Officious is never taken in a good sense; it implies being busy without discretion. To an active disposition, nothing is more irksome than inaction; but it is not concerned to inquire into the utility of the action. It is better for a person to be busy than quite unemployed; but a busy person will employ himself about the concerns of others, when he has none of his own sufficiently important to engage his attention: an officious person is as unfortunate as he is troublesome; when he strives to serve he has the misfortune to annoy ; 'I was forced to quit my first lodgings by reason of an officious landlady, that would be asking me every morning how I had slept.' ADDISON.

SEDULOUS, DILIGENT, ASSIDUOUS. Sedulous, from the Latin sedulus and sedeo, signifies sitting close to a thing; diligent, v. Active, diligent; assiduous, v. Active, diligent.

The idea of application is expressed by these epithets, but sedulous is a particular, diligent is a general term: one is sedulous by habit; one is diligent either habitually or occasionally: a sedulous scholar pursues his studies with a regular and close application; a scholar may be diligent at a certain period, though not invariably so. Sedulity seems to mark the very essential property of application, that is, adhering closely to an object; but diligence expresses one's attachment to a thing, as evinced by an eager pursuit of it: the former, therefore, bespeaks the steadiness of the character; the latter merely the turn of one's inclination: one is sedulous from a conviction of the importance of the thing: one may be diligent by fits and starts, according to the humor of the moment.

Assiduous and sedulous both express the quality of sitting or sticking close to a thing, but the former may, like diligent, be employed on a partial occasion; the latter is always permanent: we may be assiduous in our attentions to a person; but we are sedulous in the important concerns of life. Sedulous peculiarly respects the quiet employments of life; a teacher may be entitled sedulous: One thing I would offer is that he would constantly and sedulously read Tully, which will insensibly work him into a good Latin style.' LOCKE. Diligent respects the active employments; 'I would recommend a diligent attendance on the courts of justice (to a student for the bar).' DUNNING.

One is diligent at work: assiduity holds a middle rank; it may be employed equally for that which requires active exertion, or otherwise: we may be assiduous in the pursuits of literature, or we may be assiduous in our attendance upon a person, or the performance of any office;

And thus the patient dam assiduous sits,

Not to be tempted from her tender task. THOMSON.

READY, APT, PROMPT.

Ready, from the German bereiten to prepare, sigfit; prompt, in Latin promptus, from promo to draw nifies prepared; apt, in Latin aptus, signifies literally forth, signifies literally drawn to a point. intentionally prepared for a given purpose; Ready is in general applied to that which has been

The god himself with ready trident stands
And opes the deep, and spreads the moving sands.
DRYDEN.

promptness and aptness are species of readiness, which lie in the personal endowments or disposition: hence we speak of things being ready for a journey; persons being apt to learn, or prompt to obey or to reply. Ready, when applied to persons, characterizes habits; as apt to judge by appearance, or apt to the talent; as a ready wit. Apt characterizes the decide hastily, and is also employed in the same sense envy, riches into arrogance. ADDISON. Prompt chafiguratively; Poverty is apt to betray a man into racterizes more commonly the particular action, and denotes the willingness of the agent, and the quickness with which he performs the action; as prompt in executing a command, or prompt to listen to what is said; so likewise when applied to things personal;

A reluctance to bodily exertion is common to all these terms. Inactive is the most general and unqualified term of all; it expresses simply the want of a stimulus to exertion; inert is something more positive, from the Latin iners or sine arte without art or mind; it denotes a specific deficiency either in body or mind; laxy, which has the same signification as given under the head of Idle; slothful, from slow, that is, full of slowness; and sluggish from slug, that is, like a slug, drowsy and heavy, all rise upon one another to denote an expressly defective temperament of the body which directly impedes action.

To be inactive is to be indisposed to action; that is, to the performance of any office, to the doing any specific business to be inert is somewhat more; it is to be indisposed to movement: to be lazy is to move with pain to one's self: to be slothful is never to move otherwise than slowly to be sluggish is to move in a sleepy and heavy manner.

A person may be inactive from a variety of incidental causes, as timidity, ignorance, modesty, and the like, which combine to make him averse to enter upon any business, or take any serious step; a person may be inert from temporary indisposition; but laxiness, slothfulness, and sluggishness are inherent physical defects: laziness is however not altogether independent of the mind or the will; but slothfulness and sluggishness are purely the offspring of nature, or, which is the same thing, habit superinduced upon nature. A man of a mild character is frequently inactive; he wants that ardor which impels perpetually to action; he wishes for nothing with sufficient warmth to make action agreeable; he is therefore inactive by a natural consequence;

Virtue conceal'd within our breast
Is inactivity at best. SWIFT.

Hence the term inactive is properly applied to

matter;

What laws are these? instruct us if you can;
There's one design'd for brutes, and one for man,
Another guides inactive matter's course. JENYNS.

Some diseases, particularly of the melancholy kind, are accompanied with a strong degree of inertness; since they seem to deprive the frame of its ordinary powers to action, and to produce a certain degree of torpor. Hence the term is employed to express a want of the power of action in the strongest possible

degree, as displayed in the inanimate part of the creation;

Informer of the planetary train,

Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs
Were brute, unlovely mass, inert and dead.
THOMSON.

Lazy people move as if their bodies were a burden to themselves; they are fond of rest, and particularly averse to be put in action; but they will sometimes move quickly, and perform much when once impelled to move; The first canto (in Thomson's Castle of Indolence) opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination." JOHNSON. Slothful people never vary their pace; they have a physical impediment in themselves to quick motion;

Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour?
THOMSON,

Sluggish people are with difficulty brought into action; it is their nature to be in a state of stupor; Conversation would become dull and vapid, if negligence were not sometimes roused, and sluggishness quickened by due severity of reprehension." JOHNSON.

IDLE, LAZY, INDOLENT.

Idle is in German eitel vain; lazy, in German lässig, comes from the Latin lassus weary, because weariness naturally engenders laziness; indolent, in Latin indolens, signifies without feeling, having apathy

or unconcern.

these words are connected; they differ in the cause A propensity to inaction is the common idea by which and degree of the quality: idle expresses less than lazy, and lazy less than indolent: one is termed idle who will do nothing useful; one is lazy who will do nothing at all without great reluctance; one is indolent who does not care to do any thing or set about any thing. There is no direct inaction in the idler; for a child is idle who will not learn his lesson, but he is active enough in that which pleases himself: there is an aversion to corporeal action in a laxy man, but not always to mental action; he is lazy at work, lazy in walking, or lazy in sitting; but he may not object to any employment, such as reading or thinking, which leaves his body entirely at rest: an indolent man, on the contrary, fails in activity from a defect both in the mind and the body; he will not only not move, but he will not even think, if it give him trouble; and trifling exertions of any kind are sufficient, even in prospect, to deter him from attempting to move.

Idleness is common to the young and the thoughtless, to such as have not steadiness of mind to set a value on any thing which may be acquired by exertion and regular employment; the idle man is opposed to one that is diligent; As pride is sometimes hid under humility, idleness is often covered by turbulence and