Her dainty paps, which, like young fruit in May, Now little 'gan to swell; and being tyed Through her thin weed, their places only signified. FORM, n. s. & v. a. Faerie Queene. Fr. forme; Swed. and Dan. form; Lat. forma; probably from φορημα, δ popew, to bear, signifies properly the image borne or stamped. It is used with its derivatives, in a great variety of senses, which all however recognise the primary definition. Its generic meaning is being, as modified by a particular shape, or rather it is the essential, specifical, or distinguishing modification of the matter of which any thing is composed, so as thereby to give it such a peculiar manner of existence.' Thus it is applied to the external shape or appearance of any thing; to mere appearance; empty show; to elegance and beauty; to order, regularity, and method; to ceremonies and external rites; to established usage; ritual and prescribed mode. To form, signifies not merely to impress, to shape, and to methodise; but also to make out of materials, or out of nothing. The proper meaning of formal is, done according to established modes, rules, and methods: not irregular; not sudden; not extemporaneous; it also signifies ceremonious; solemn; precise; exact to affectation. The illustrations will show the various senses in which the other derivatives of form are used. Formalist is one who practises external ceremony; one who prefers appearance to reality; one who seems what he is not. Haue thou the fourme of hoolsum wordis whiche thou herdist of me in feith and loue in Crist Iesus. Wiclif. 2 Tymo. ii. And the earth was without form, and void. Genesis i. 2. God formed man of the dust of the ground. Id. ii. 7. It stood still; but I could not discern the form thereof. Job iv. 16. He hath no form nor comeliness. Chaucer. The Shipmannes Tale. The same spirit which anointed the blessed soul of our Saviour Christ, doth so formalize, unite, and actuate his whole race, as if both he and they were so many limbs compacted into one body. Hooker. In definitions, whether they be framed larger to augment, or stricter to abridge the number of sacraments, we find grace expressly mentioned as their true essential form, and elements as the matter whereunto that form did adjoin itself. Id. He who affirmeth speech to be necessary amongst all men, throughout the world, doth not thereby import that all men must necessarily speak one kind of language; even so the necessity of policy and regimen in all churches may be held, without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all. Id. You and your followers do stand formally divided against the authorised guides of the church, and the rest of the people. Id. VOL. IX. The Justice, lu fair round belly, with good capon lined, Shakspeare. As You Like It. Formal in apparel, Till I have used the approved means I have; With wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers, To make of him a formal man again. Id, When noble benefits shall prove Not well disposed, the mind grown once corrupt, They turn to vicious forms, ten times more ugly Than ever they were fair. Id. Henry VIII. As there are formal and written leagues, respective to certain enemies; so there is a natural and tacit confederation amongst all men against the common enemies of human society, so as there needs no intimation or denunciation of the war; but all these formalities the law of nature supplies, as in the case of pirates. Bacon. It is a ridiculous thing, and fit for a satyr to persons of judgment, to see what shifts formalists have, and what prospectives to make superficies to seem a body that hath depth and bulk. Id. Ceremonies be not to be omitted to strangers and formal natures; but the exalting them above the mean is not only tedious, but doth diminish the credit of him that speaks. Id. A long table, and a square table, or a seat about the walls, seem things of form, but are things of substance; for at a long table, a few at the upper end, in effect, sway all the business; but in the other form, there is more use of the counsellors' opinions that sit lower. Id. Essays. They inferred, if the world were a living creature, it had a soul and spirit, by which they did not intend God, for they did admit of a deity besides, but only the soul, or essential form of the universe. Id. Natural History. That the parliaments of Ireland might want no decent or honourable form used in England, he caused a particular act to pass, that the lords of Ireland should appear in parliament robes. Davies. Nor are constant forms of prayer more likely to flat and hinder the spirit of prayer and devotion, than unpremeditated and confused variety to distract and lose it. King Charles. Formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are never more studied and elaborate than in desperate designs, Id. Their general used, in all dispatches made by himself, to observe all decency in their forms. Clarendon. The liquid ore he drained Into fit molds prepared; from which he formed First his own tools; then, what might else be wrought. Milton. Creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet. Id. To fix on God the formality of faculties, or affections, is the imposture of our fancies, and contradictory to his divinity. Gianville's Scepsis. 2 F It will be necessary to see and examine those work. which have given so great a reputation to the masters of the first form. Id. Lucretius taught him not to form his heroe, to give him piety or valour for his manners. Id. Many a worthy man sacrifices his peace to formulities of compliment and good manners. L'Estrange. He that will look into many parts of Asia and America, will find men reason there perhaps as acutely as himself, who yet never heard of a syllogism, nor can reduce any one argument to those forms. Locke. The wonderful art and providence of the contriver and former of our bodies, appears in the multitude of intentions he must have in the formation of several parts for several uses. Ray on the Creation. A grave, staunch, skilfully managed face, set upon a grasping aspiring mind, having got many a sly form alist the reputation of a primitive and severe piety. South. Rowe. The Heathens and the Christians may agree in material acts of charity; but that which formally makes this a Christian grace, is the spring from which it flows. Smalridge. It lengthens out every act of worship, and produces more lasting and permanent impressions in the mind, than those which accompany any transient form of words that are uttered in the ordinary method of religious worship. Addison. Have you observed a sitting hare, Of horns and hounds, clap back her ear, Prior. To be stiff and formally reserved, as if the company did not deserve our familiarity, is a dowuright challenge of hoinage. Collier on Pride. The matter discharged forth of volcanos, and other spiracles, contributes to the formation of meteors. Woodward. Nor was his attendance on divine offices a matter of formality and custom, but of conscience. Atterbury. The very life and vital motion, and the formal essence and nature of man, is wholly owing to the Bentley. power of God. As we have established our assertion of the seminal production of all kinds of animals; so likewise we affirm, that the meanest plant cannot be raised without seed, by any formative power residing in the soil. Id. Sermons. They were young heirs sent only for forms from schools where they were not suffered to stay three months. Id. Complicated ideas, growing up under observation, give not the same confusion, as if they were all offered to the mind at once, without your observing the original and formation of them. Watts. If a chair be defined a seat for a single person, with a back belonging to it, then a stool is a seat for a single person without a back; and a form is a seat for seve ral persons, without a back. Id. Windows and doors in nameless sculptures drest, With order, symmetry, or taste unblest, Forms like some bedlam statuary's dream The crazed creation of misguided whim. Burns So when ill-fated Orpheus tuned to woe His Highness, the sublimest of mankind,- Some seek devotion, toil, war, good, or crime, According as their souls were formed to sink or climt. Id. But Juan seasoned, as he might well be, By former voyages, stood to watch the skiffs Which passed, or catch the first glimpse of the cliffs. Id. FORM, among sportsmen, is the spot in which the hare takes her seat at the dawn of day, to secrete herself. When found sitting, she is said to be in her form. Hares vary their places of sitting according to the season, the sun, and the wind. Soon after harvest they are found in wheat, barley, and oat stubbles, and in reshy grass moors: when these become bare, they retire to coverts, banks, and hedges In the spring months, dry fallows, particularly those lying towards the sun with an ascent, are seldom without hares. FORM, in law, the rules established and requisite to be observed in legal proceedings.-The formal part of the law, or method of proceeding, cannot be altered but by parliament for if once these outworks were demolished, there would be an inlet to all manner of innovation in the body of the law itself. FORM is also used among mechanics for a sort of mould whereon any thing is fasnioned or wrought. Thus, the Hatter's form is a large block or piece of wood, of a cylindrical figure; the top thereof rounded, and the bottom quite flat. Its use is to mould or fashion the crown of the hat, after the matter thereof has been beaten and fulled. Printer's form, a number of pages of types, few or many, according to the size of the book, laid in order, by the compositor, enclosed in an iron chase, and firmly locked by quoins of wood, so as the whole may at once be laid on the press, for printing. Two forms are required for every sheet; one for each side; but, in many of the sizes of books, both sides of a sheet may be printed on the same form, by laying the pages in a different order, so as those in one end or side of the chase may answer exactly those in the other, when the sheet is turned. This is called half sheet work, because each half of the sheet, when printed, contains a complete copy of the number of pages in the form. FORM, in physics, denotes the manner of being peculiar to each body; or that which constitutes it such a particular body, and distinguishes it from every other. Mr. Harris uses the term form likewise in another sense, as an efficient animating principle; These animating forms,' says he, are of themselves no objects either of the ear or of the eye; but their nature or character is understood in this, that were they never to exert their proper energies on their proper subjects, the marble on which the sculptor exercises his art would remain for ever shapeless, and the harp from which the harper calls forth sounds would remain for ever silent:' that is, in plain language, the former would have no peculiar form, and the latter no sound. Then why waste words and render language unintelligible, by such an ambiguous use of the word form? Philosophy, we humbly apprehend, can never be advanced by confounding cause and effect, as Mr. Harris seems to do in the following definition: The animating form of a natural body is r.either its organisation nor its figure, nor any other of those inferior forms which make up the system of its visible qualities; but it is the power, which is yet able to produce, preserve, and employ these.' If words conveying so very different and opposite ideas, as form and power, are to be thus used synonymously, there will soon be an end of all accuracy in philosophical language. Philosophers generally allow two principles of bodies: matter, as the common basis or substratum of all; and form, as that which specifies and distinguishes each; and which, added to a quantity of common matter, determines or denominates it this or that; wood, or fire, or ashes, &c. Substantial forms seem to have been first broached by the followers of Aristotle, who thought matter, under different modes or modifications, not sufficient to constitute different bodies; but that something substantial was necessary to set them at a greater distance; and thus introduced substantial forms, on the footing of souls, which specify and distinguish animals. What led to this erroneous notion was the circumstances of life and death: for observing that, as soon as the soul was departed out of a man, all motion, respiration, nutrition, &c., immediately ceased, they concluded that all these functions depended on the soul, and consequently that the soul was the form of the animal body, or that which constituted it such that the soul was a substance independent of matter, nobody doubted; and hence the forms of other bodies were concluded equally substantial. But to this it is answered, that though the soul be that by which man is man, and consequently is the form of the human body, as human; yet it does not follow, that it is properly the form of this body of ours, as it is a body; nor of the several parts thereof, considered as distinct from each other: for those several parts have their proper forms so closely connected with their matter, that it remains inseparable therefrom long after the soul has quitted the body: thus, flesh has the form of flesn, bone of bone, &c., long after the soul is removed, as well as before. The truth is, the body does not become incapable of performing its accustomed functions because the soul has deserted it; but the soul takes its leave because the boay is not in a condition to perform its functions. The ancient and modern corpuscular philosophers, therefore, with the Cartesians, exclude the notion of substantial forms; and show, by many arguments, that the form is only the modus, or manner of the primary modes of matter, viz. figure, rest, and motion, with two others arising therefrom, viz. magnitude and situation, the form of all bodies they hold to consist therein; and suppose the variations these modes are capable of, sufficient to present all the variety observable in bodies. Forms are usually distinguished into essential and accidental. FORMS, ACCIDENTAL, are those really inherent in bodies, but in such a manner as that the body may exist in all its perfection without them. Such as whiteness on a wall, heat in water, a figure of a man in wax, &c. FORMS, ESSENTIAL. Though the five modes above mentioned, generally taken, be adventitious; yet to this or that body, e.g. to fire or water, they are essential; thus, it is accidental to iron to have this or that magnitude, figure, or situation, since it might exist in different ones; yet to a knife or hammer, the figure, magnitude, and position of parts which constitute it a hammer or knife are essential; and they cannot exist or be conceived without them. Hence it is infeired, that though there be no substantial, there are essential, forms, whereby the several species of bodies become what they are, and are distinguished from all others. FORMA PAUPERIS, is when a person has just cause of suit, but is so poor that he cannot de fray the usual charges of suing at law or in equity; in which case, on making oath that he is not worth £5 in the world, on all his debts being paid, and producing a certificate from some law yer that he has good cause of suit, the judge will admit him to sue in formâ pauperis; that is, without paying any fee to counsellors, attorneys, or clerk; the statute 11 Hen. VII. c. 12, having enacted, that counsel and attorneys, &c., shall be assigned to such poor persons gratis. Where it appears that any pauper has sold or contracted for the benefit of his suit, whilst it is depending in court, such cause shall be thenceforth totally dismissed; and a person suing in forma pauperis shall not have a new trial granted him, but is to acquiesce in the judgment of the court. FORMAN (Andrew), archbishop of St. Andrews, earl of Pittenweem, and of Cottingham in England, and primate of all Scotland. He was employed in 1501, along with archbishop Blackader, and Patrick, earl of Bothwell, to negociate a match between James IV. of Scotland, and Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII. of England; which was next year ratified by the Scottish ambassadors. He was afterwards employed as Scots ambassador to Rome, England, and France, upon the most important occasions. In 1502 he was appointed archbishop of Moray, and in 1514 archbishop of St. Andrew's. Previous to this last promotion, he was employed as mediator betwixt pope Julius II. and Louis XII. of France, and he succeeded in conciliating the difference. Having taken leave of the pope, he passed through France, where he was kindly received by Louis, who bestowed upon him the bishopric of Bourges, which brought him in 400 tons of wines, 10,000 franks of gold annually, besides other revenues. He was also liberally rewarded by Julius, who, besides the archbishopric, conferred on him the two rich abbeys of Dunfermline and Aberbrothic; and made him his legate a latere. In 1517 he was appointed by the states one of the lords of the regency, during the minority of James V., on occasion of the duke of Albany's going to France. Archbishop Forman died in 1521, and was buried at Dunfermline. According to Dempster, he wrote a book against Luther, another concerning the Stoic Philosophy, and a Collection out of Decretals. FORMEDON, in law (breve de forma donationis), a writ that lies for a person who has a right to lands or tenements, by virtue of any entail, arising from the statute of Westm. 2 Ch. II. This writ is of three kinds, viz.:-Formedon in descender lies where a tenant in tail infeoffs a stranger, or is disseised and dies, and the heir may bring this writ to recover the lands. Formedon in remainder lies where a man gives lands, &c. to a person in tail, and, for default of issue of his body, the remainder to another in tail: here if the tenant in tail die without issue, and a stranger abates and enters into the land, he in remainder shall have this writ. Formedon in reverter lies where lands are entailed on certain persons and their issue, with remainder over for want of issue; and, on that remainder failing, then to revert to the donor and his heirs: in this case, if the tenant in tail dies without issue, and also he in remainder, the donor and his heirs, to whom the reversion returns, may have this writ for the recovery of the estate, though the same be alienated, &c. FORMENTERA, the ancient Pithyusa Minor, is the second of the Pithyusa Islands, situated to the south of Ivica, from which it is separated by a channel four miles wide. It belongs to Spain, and contains about 1200 inhabitants. Long. 1° 23′ 20′ E., lat. 38° 37′ 6′ N. FOR'MER, adj. From Sax. Forma, first; FOR MERLY, adv. whence former, and formost, now commonly written foremost, as if derived from before. Foremost is generally applied to place, rank, or degree, and former only to time,' says Dr. Johnson: but both former and foremost are the degrees of Sax. Fone, anterior (either in time or place), and meaning respectively, more, and most fore. See FORE. Before another in time, or place; mentioned before another; past; as this was the custom in former times.' Thy air, Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first : Shakspeare. Macbeth. Counsel and conversation is a second education, that improves all the virtue and corrects all the vice of the former, and of nature itself. Clarendon. The places were all of them formerly the cool retirements of the Romans, where they used to hide themselves among the woods and mountains, during the excessive heats of their Summer. Addison. critick: a man may be the former merely through the A bad author deserves better usage than a bad misfortune of an ill judgment; but he cannot be the latter without both that and an ill temper. Pope. As an animal degenerates by diseases, the animal salts, formerly benign, approach towards an alkaline nature. Arbuthnot. The present point of time is all thou hast, The future doubtful, and the former past. Harte. FORMEY (John Henry Samuel), a celebrated Prussian writer, born at Berlin in 1711. He became pastor of a French church in that city, in which office he continued for several years, but resigned it on being chosen professor of philosophy in the French college; and, upon the restoration of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, hr was appointed secretary to the philosophical department, and afterwards made sole secretary. He was also chosen a privy counsellor. Formey, in conjunction with Beausobre, conducted the Bibliothéque Germanique; besides which he was the author of 1. Le Philosophe Chrétien; 2. Pensées Raisonnables; 3. Anti-Emile, against Rousseau; 4. The History of Philosophy Abridged; 5. An Abridgment of Ecclesiastical History; 6. Researches on the Elements of Matter; 7. Thoughts on the Tusculums of Cicero, &c. He died in 1797. Some of his works have been translated into English. FORMIA, or FORMIE, in ancient geography, a maritime town of the Adjected, or New Latium, on the south-east of Cajeta; built by the Lacedemonians, called originally Hormiæ, on account of its commodious harbour. It was an ancient municipium, but is now in ruins, near Mola. FORMIANI, the people of Formia, who were admitted to the liberty of the city the year in which Alexandria was built, but not to the right of suffrage till long after the second Punic war. FORMICA, in entomology, a genus of insects of the hymenoptera order, which have four feelers, with cylindrical articulations placed at the tip of the lip, which is cylindrical and membranaceous: antennæ filiform, a small erect scale between the thorax and the abdomen; males and females with wings; neuters wingless. See ENTOMO LOGY. La Marck explains the genus somewhat differently, and by the adoption of his character, several of the Linnæan and Fabrician formica are excluded. This writer lays down the essential character as follows: antennæ filiform and broken, the first joint very long; feelers unequal, the anterior pair longer; mandibles strong; tongue short, concave and truncated. To this is added, as a secondary character, that the abdomen is attached to the corselet by a pedicle, bearing a small scale, or vertical knob; and that of each species there are three kinds, males, females, and neuters, which latter are without wings. The larva destitute of feet. The species, according to Fabricius, are above ninety. See ANT: where we have described at some length the habits of this well-known insect. We shall, however, here give a short account from Mr. Huber of the masonry and buildings of the brown ants:-Their nests are formed of parallel or concentric stories, each four or five lines in height; the partitions being about half a line in thickness, and built of such fine materials that the interior appears perfectly smooth. On examining each of these stories, we discover chambers of different sizes, having long galleries of communication. The ceilings of the larger species are supported by small pillars, sometimes by slender walls, and in other cases by arches. Some cells have but a single entrance; others have passages, which open from the story underneath. In other parts, still larger central spaces, or halls, are met with, in which a great number of passages terminate, like the streets and avenues to a market-place. The whole nest often contains twenty of these stories above the level of the ground, and at least as many below it. The use of this numerous series of rooms will appear in the sequel. The surface of the nest is covered with a thicker wall, and has several doors, admitting, in the day-time, free ingress and egress. This species of ant is unable to bear much heat. During the day, therefore, and particularly when the sun shines, their doors are closed; and they either keep at home, or venture out only through the subterraneous passages. When the dew has given freshness to the nest, and softened the earthy materials on its surface, they begin to make their appearance above ground. On the first shower of rain that occurs, the whole swarm are apprised of it, and immediately resume their architectural labors. While some are engaged in moving the earth below, others are employed in building an additional story on the top; the masons making use of the materials furnished by the miners. The plan of the cells and partitions is first traced in relief on the walls, which are seen gradually to rise, leaving empty spaces between them. The beginnings of pillars indicate the situation of the future halls; and the rising partitions show the form of the intended passages. Upon the plan thus traced, they continue building, till they have arrived at a sufficient elevation. Masses of moistened earth are then applied at right angles to the tops of the walls, on each side, and continued in a horizontal direction till they meet in the middle. The ceilings of the larger chambers are completed in the same manner; the workers beginning from the angle of the walls, and from the tops of the pillars which have been raised in the centre. The largest of these chambers, which might be compared to the town-hall, and is frequently more than two inches in diameter, is completed with appareatly as much ease as the rest. This busy crowd of masons arriving in every direction, laden with materials for the building, hastening to avail themselves of the rain to carry on their work, and yet observing the most perfect order in their operations, must present the most interesting and amusing spectacle. They raise a single story in about seven or eight hours, forming a general roof as a covering to the whole; and they go on, adding other stories, so long as the rain affords them facility of moulding the materials. FORMIC ACID. It has long been known that ants contain a strong acid which they occasionally emit; and which may be obtained from the ants, either by simple distillation, or by infusion of them in boiling water, and subsequent distillation of as much of the water as can be brought over without burning the residue. After this it may be purified by repeated rectifications, or by boiling to separate the impurities; or after rectification it may be concentrated by frost. The existence of this acid was first made known by Mr. Ray, in a correspondence with Dr. Hulse. The doctor informed him that these insects, when irritated, give out a clear liquid, which tinges blue flowers red; a fact which had been observed by others. Hence it was found to be an acid, which was obtained by bruising the insects, by distilling them, and by infusing them in water. The French chemists obtained the acid by bruising ants, and macerating them in alcohol. When the alcohol was distilled over, an acid liquor remained, which saturated with lime, mixed with sulphuric acid, and distilled, yielded a liquid that possessed all the properties of acetic acid This acid has been thought by some chemists, and especially by Margraaf, to be acetic acid, or at least to have a great analogy to vinegar; and by others to be a mixture of acetic and malic acid. A minute examination of it, however sufficiently proves, that it differs very essentially from both, whether separate or in conjunction, quite as much, indeed, as these differ from each other; it differs in its specific gravity, its effects with alkalies, its metallic salts, and its affinities. Thouvenel, on the contrary, contended, that it is very closely related to the phosphoric, or, as he calls it, the microcosmic; but he has not stated in what the relation or analogy consists. Lister affirmed that he had extracted a similar acid from wasps and bees; but Arvidson and Oehrn failed in making the attempt after him, nor has any one been able to succeed since. |