[1] In solid geometry infinity is a plane--its intersection with any
given plane being the right line which is the infinity of this given
plane.
CURVILINEAR, in architecture, that which is formed by curved or flowing
lines; the roofs over the domes and vaults of the Byzantine churches
were generally curvilinear. The term is also given to the flowing
tracery of the Decorated and the Flamboyant styles.
CURWEN, HUGH (d. 1568), English ecclesiastic and statesman, was a native
of Westmorland, and was educated at Cambridge, afterwards taking orders
in the church. In May 1533 he expressed approval of Henry VIII.'s
marriage with Anne Boleyn in a sermon preached before the king. In 1541
he became dean of Hereford, and in 1555 Queen Mary nominated him to the
archbishopric of Dublin, and in the same year he was appointed lord
chancellor of Ireland. He acted as one of the lords justices during the
absence from Ireland of the lord deputy, the earl of Sussex, in 1557. On
the accession of Elizabeth, Curwen at once accommodated himself to the
new conditions by declaring himself a Protestant, and was continued in
the office of lord chancellor. He was accused by the archbishop of
Armagh of serious moral delinquency, and his recall was demanded both by
the primate and the bishop of Meath. In 1567 Curwen resigned the see of
Dublin and the office of lord chancellor, and was appointed bishop of
Oxford. He died on the 1st of November 1568.
See John Strype, _Life and Acts of Archbishop Parker_ (3 vols.,
Oxford, 1824), and _Memorials of Thomas Cranmer_ (2 vols., Oxford,
1840); John D'Alton. _Memoirs of the Archbishops of Dublin_ (Dublin,
1838).
CURWEN, JOHN (1816-1880), English Nonconformist minister and founder of
the Tonic Sol-Fa system of musical teaching, was born at Heckmondwike,
Yorkshire, of an old Cumberland family. His father was a Nonconformist
minister, and he himself adopted this profession, which he practised
till 1864, when he gave it up in order to devote himself to his new
method of musical nomenclature, designed to avoid the use of the stave
with its lines and spaces. He adapted it from that of Miss Sarah Ann
Glover (1785-1867) of Norwich, whose Sol-Fa system was based on the
ancient gamut; but she omitted the constant recital of the alphabetical
names of each note and the arbitrary syllable indicating key
relationship, and also the recital of two or more such syllables when
the same note was common to as many keys (e.g. "C, Fa, Ut," meaning that
C is the subdominant of G and the tonic of C). The notes were
represented by the initials of the seven syllables, still in use in
Italy and France as their names but in the "Tonic Sol-Fa" the seven
letters refer to key relationship and not to pitch. Curwen was led to
feel the importance of a simple way of teaching how to sing by note by
his experiences among Sunday-school teachers. Apart from Miss Glover,
the same idea had been elaborated in France since J. J. Rousseau's time,
by Pierre Galin (1786-1821), Aime Paris (1798-1866) and Emile Cheve
(1804-1864), whose method of teaching how to read at sight also depended
on the principle of "tonic relationship" being inculcated by the
reference of every sound to its tonic, by the use of a _numeral_
notation. Curwen brought out his _Grammar of Vocal Music_ in 1843, and
in 1853 started the Tonic Sol-Fa Association; and in 1879, after some
difficulties with the education department, the Tonic Sol-Fa College was
opened. Curwen also took to publishing, and brought out a periodical
called the _Tonic Sol-fa Reporter_, and in his later life was occupied
in directing the spreading organization of his system. He died at
Manchester on the 26th of May 1880. His son John Spencer Curwen (b.
1847), who became principal of the Tonic Sol-Fa College, published
_Memorials of J. Curwen_ in 1882. The Sol-Fa system has been widely
adopted for use in education, as an easily teachable method in the
reading of music at sight, but its more ambitious aims, which are
strenuously pushed, for providing a superior method of musical notation
generally, have not recommended themselves to musicians at large.
CURZOLA (Serbo-Croatian _Korcula_ or _Karkar_), an island in the
Adriatic Sea, forming part of Dalmatia, Austria; and lying west of the
Sabionicello promontory, from which it is divided by a strait less than
2 m. wide. Its length is about 25 m.; its average breadth, 4 m. Curzola
(_Korcula_), the capital and principal port, is a fortified town on the
east coast, and occupies a rocky foreland almost surrounded by the sea.
Besides the interesting church (formerly a cathedral), dating from the
12th or 13th century, the _loggia_ or council chambers, and the palace
of its former Venetian governors, it possesses the noble mansion of the
Arnieri, and other specimens of the domestic architecture of the 15th
and 16th centuries, together with the massive walls and towers, erected
in 1420, and the 15th-century Franciscan monastery, with its beautiful
Venetian Gothic cloister. The main resources of the islanders are
boat-building (for which they are celebrated throughout the Adriatic),
fishing and sea-faring, the cultivation of the vine, corn and olives,
and breeding of mules. Pop. (1900) of island, 17,377; of capital (town
and commune), 6486. Prehistoric grave-mounds are common on the hills of
the interior, and in later times Curzola may have been a Phoenician
settlement. Its early history is very obscure, but it was certainly
colonized by Greeks from Cnidus. The present name is a corruption of the
Gr. [Greek: Kerkyra Melaina], or Lat. _Corcyra Nigra_, "Black Corcyra";
and is perhaps due to the dark pines which still partly cover the
island. In 998 Curzola first came under Venetian suzerainty. During the
12th century it was ruled by Hungary and Genoa in turn, and enjoyed a
brief period of independence; but after 1255 its hereditary counts again
submitted to Venice. The Roman Catholic see of Curzola, created in 1301,
was only suppressed in 1806. Curzola surrendered to the Hungarians in
1358, was purchased by Ragusa (1413-1417), and finally declared itself
subject to Venice in 1420. In 1571 it defended itself so gallantly
against the Turks that it obtained the designation _fidelissima_. From
1776 to 1797 it succeeded Lesina as the main Venetian arsenal in this
region. During the Napoleonic wars it was ruled successively by
Russians, French and British, ultimately passing to Austria in 1815.
CURZON OF KEDLESTON, GEORGE NATHANIEL, 1ST BARON (1859- ), English
statesman, eldest son of the 4th baron Scarsdale, rector of Kedleston,
Derbyshire, was born on the 11th of January 1859, and was educated at
Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford he was president of the
Union, and after a brilliant university career was elected a fellow of
All Souls College in 1883. He became assistant private secretary to Lord
Salisbury in 1885, and in 1886 entered parliament as member for the
Southport division of S.W. Lancashire. He was appointed under secretary
for India in 1891-1892 and for foreign affairs in 1895-1898. In the
meantime he had travelled in Central Asia, Persia, Afghanistan, the
Pamirs, Siam, Indo-China and Korea, and published several books
describing central and eastern Asia and the political problems connected
with those regions. In 1895 he married Mary Victoria Leiter (d. 1906),
daughter of a Chicago millionaire. In January 1899 he was appointed
governor-general of India, where his extensive knowledge of Asiatic
affairs showed itself in the inception of a strong foreign policy, while
he took in hand the reform of every department of Indian administration.
He was created an Irish peer on his appointment, the creation taking
this form, it was understood, in order that he might remain free during
his father's lifetime to re-enter the House of Commons. Reaching India
shortly after the suppression of the frontier risings of 1897-98, he
paid special attention to the independent tribes of the north-west
frontier, inaugurated a new province called the North West Frontier
Province, and carried out a policy of conciliation mingled with firmness
of control. The only trouble on this frontier during the period of his
administration was the Mahsud Waziri campaign of 1901. Being mistrustful
of Russian methods he exerted himself to encourage British trade in
Persia, paying a visit to the Persian Gulf in 1903; while on the
north-east frontier he anticipated a possible Russian advance by the
Tibet Mission of 1903, which rendered necessary the employment of
military force for the protection of the British envoys. The mission,
which had the ostensible support of China as suzerain of Tibet,
penetrated to Lhasa, where a treaty was signed in September 1904. In
pursuance of his reforming policy Lord Curzon appointed a number of
commissions to inquire into Indian education, irrigation, police and
other branches of administration, on whose reports legislation was
based during his second term of office as viceroy. With a view to
improving British relations with the native chiefs and raising the
character of their rule, he established the Imperial Cadet corps,
settled the question of Berar with the nizam of Hyderabad, reduced the
salt tax, and gave relief to the smaller income-tax payers. Lord Curzon
exhibited much interest in the art and antiquities of India, and during
his viceroyalty took steps for the preservation and restoration of many
important monuments and buildings of historic interest. In January 1903
he presided at the durbar held at Delhi in honour of the coronation of
King Edward VII. It was attended by all the leading native princes and
by large numbers of visitors from Europe and America; and the
magnificence of the spectacle surpassed anything that had previously
been witnessed even in the gorgeous ceremonial of the East. On the
expiration of his first term of office, Lord Curzon was reappointed
governor-general. His second term of office was marked by the passing of
several acts founded on the recommendations of his previous commissions,
and by the partition of Bengal (1905), which roused bitter opposition
amongst the natives of that province. A difference of opinion with the
commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener, regarding the position of the
military member of council in India, led to a controversy in which Lord
Curzon failed to obtain support from the home government. He resigned
(1904) and returned to England. In 1904 he was appointed lord warden of
the Cinque Ports; in the same year he was given the honorary degree of
D.C.L. by Oxford University, and in 1908 he was elected chancellor of
the university. In the latter year he was elected a representative peer
for Ireland, and thus relinquished any idea of returning to the House of
Commons. In 1909-1910 he took an active part in defending the House of
Lords against the Liberals. Lord Curzon's publications include _Russia
in Central Asia_ (1889); _Persia and the Persian Question_ (1892);
_Problems of the Far East_ (1894; new ed., 1896).
See Caldwell Lipsett, _Lord Curzon in India_, 1898-1903 (1906); and C.
J. O'Donnell, _The Failure of Lord Curzon_ (1903).
CUSANUS, NICOLAUS (NICHOLAS OF CUSA) (1401-1464), cardinal, theologian
and scholar, was the son of a poor fisherman named Krypffs or Krebs, and
derived the name by which he is known from the place of his birth, Kues
or Cusa, on the Moselle, in the archbishopric of Trier (Treves). In his
youth he was employed in the service of Count Ulrich of Manderscheid,
who, seeing in him evidence of exceptional ability, sent him to study at
the school of the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, and
afterwards at the university of Padua, where he took his doctor's degree
in law in his twenty-third year. Failing in his first case he abandoned
the legal profession, and resolved to take holy orders. After filling
several subordinate offices he became archdeacon of Liege. He was a
member of the council of Basel, and dedicated to the assembled fathers a
work entitled _De concordantia Catholica_, in which he maintained the
superiority of councils over popes, and assailed the genuineness of the
False Decretals and the Donation of Constantine. A few years later,
however, he had reversed his position, and zealously defended the
supremacy of the pope. He was entrusted with various missions in the
interests of Catholic unity, the most important being to Constantinople,
to endeavour to bring about a union of the Eastern and Western churches.
From 1440 to 1447 he was in Germany, acting as papal legate at the diets
of 1441, 1442, 1445 and 1446. In 1448, in recognition of his services,
Nicholas V. raised him to the cardinalate; and in 1450 he was appointed
bishop of Brixen against the wish of Sigismund, archduke of Austria, who
opposed the reforms the new bishop sought to introduce into the diocese.
In 1451 he was sent to Germany and the Netherlands to check
ecclesiastical abuses and bring back the monastic life to the original
rule of poverty, chastity and obedience--a mission which he discharged
with well-tempered firmness. Soon afterwards his dispute with the
archduke Sigismund in his own diocese was brought to a point by his
claiming certain dues of the bishopric, which the temporal prince had
appropriated. Upon this the bishop was imprisoned by the archduke, who,
in his turn, was excommunicated by the pope. These extreme measures
were not persisted in; but the dispute remained unsettled at the time of
the bishop's death, which occurred at Lodi in Umbria on the 11th of
August 1464. In 1459 he had acted as governor of Rome during the absence
of his friend Pope Pius II. at the assembly of princes at Milan; and he
wrote his _Crebratio Alcorani_, a treatise against Mahommedanism, in
support of the expedition against the Turks proposed at that assembly.
Some time before his death he had founded a hospital in his native place
for thirty-three poor persons, the number being that of the years of the
earthly life of Christ. To this institution he left his valuable
library.
Although one of the great leaders in the reform movement of the 15th
century, Nicholas of Cusa's interest for later times lies in his
philosophical much more than in his political or ecclesiastical
activity. As in religion he is entitled to be called one of the
"Reformers before the Reformation," so in philosophy he was one of those
who broke with scholasticism while it was still the orthodox system. In
his principal work, _De docta ignorantia_ (1440), supplemented by _De
conjecturis libri_ duo published in the same year, he maintains that all
human knowledge is mere conjecture, and that man's wisdom is to
recognize his ignorance. From scepticism he escapes by accepting the
doctrine of the mystics that God can be apprehended by intuition
(_intuitio, speculatio_), an exalted state of the intellect in which all
limitations disappear. God is the absolute maximum and also the absolute
minimum, who can be neither greater nor less than He is, and who
comprehends all that is or that can be ("deum esse omnia, ut non possit
esse aliud quam est"). Cusanus thus laid himself open to the charge of
pantheism, which did not fail to be brought against him in his own day.
His chief philosophical doctrine was taken up and developed more than a
hundred years later by Giordano Bruno, who calls him the divine Cusanus.
In mathematical and physical science Cusanus was much in advance of his
age. In a tract, _Reparatio Calendarii_, presented to the council of
Basel, he proposed the reform of the calendar after a method resembling
that adopted by Gregory. In his _De Quadratura Circuli_ he professed to
have solved the problem; and in his _Conjectura de novissimis diebus_ he
prophesied that the world would come to an end in 1734. Most noteworthy,
however, in this connexion is the fact that he anticipated Copernicus by
maintaining the theory of the rotation of the earth.
The works of Cusanus were published in a complete form by Henri Petrie
(1 vol. fol., Basel, 1565). See F. A. Scharpff's _Der Kardinal und
Bischof Nikolaus von Cusa als Reformator in Kirche, Reich, und Philos.
des 15. Jahrhund_. (Tubingen, 1871); J. M. Dux, _Der deutsche Kard.
Nicolaus von Cusa und die Kirche seiner Zeit_ (Regensburg, 1848); R.
Falckenberg, _Grundzuge d. Philos. d. Nikolaus Cusanus_ (Breslau,
1880) and _Aufgabe und Wesen d. Erkenntniss bei Nikolaus von Kues_
(Breslau, 1880); T. Stumpf, _Die politischen Ideen des Nikolaus von
Cues_ (Cologne, 1865); M. Glossner, _Nikolaus von Cusa und Marius
Nizolius als Vorlaufer der neueren Philosophie_ (Munster, 1891); F.
Fiorentino, _Il Risorgimento filosofico nel quattro cento_ (Naples,
1885); Axel Herrlin, _Studier i Nicolaus af Cues' Filosofi_ (Lund,
1892); H. Hoffding, _Hist. of Mod. Phil._ (Eng. trans., 1900), bk. i.
chap. x.; F. J. Clemens, _Giordano Bruno und Nikolaus Cusanus_ (Bonn,
1847); R. Zimmermann, _Der Card. Nikolaus Cusanus als Vorlaufer
Leibnitzens_ (Vienna, 1852); J. Ubinger, Philosophie des Nikolaus
Cusanus (Wurzburg, 1881); art. by R. Schmid in Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyk._ s.v. "Cusanus"; see also MYSTICISM.
CUSH, the eldest son of Ham, in the Bible, from whom seems to have been
derived the name of the "Land of Cush," commonly rendered "Ethiopia" by
the Septuagint and by the Vulgate. The locality of the land of Cush has
long been a much-vexed question. Bochart maintained that it was
exclusively in Arabia; Schulthess and Gesenius held that it should be
sought for nowhere but in Africa (see ETHIOPIA). Others again, like
Michaelis and Rosenmuller, have supposed that the name Cush was applied
to tracts of country both in Arabia and in Africa, but the defective
condition of the ancient knowledge of countries and peoples, as also the
probability of early migrations of "Cushite" tribes (carrying with them
their name), will account for the main facts. The existence of an
African Cush cannot reasonably be questioned, though the term is
employed in the Old Testament with some latitude. The African Cush
covers Upper Egypt, and extends southwards from the first cataract
(Syene, Ezek. xxix. 10). That the term was also applied to parts of
Arabia is evident from Gen. x. 7, where Cush is the "father" of certain
tribal and ethnical designations, all of which point very clearly to
Arabia, with the very doubtful exception of Seba, which Josephus (_Ant._
ii. 10. 2) identifies with Meroe.[1] Even in the 5th century A.D. the
Himyarites, in the south of Arabia, were styled by Syrian writers
Cushaeans and Ethiopians. Moreover, the Babylonian inscriptions mention
the Kashshi, an Elamite race, whose name has been equated with the
classical [Greek: Kossaioi], [Greek: Kissioi], and it has been held that
this affords a more appropriate explanation of Cush (perhaps rather
Kash), the ancestor of (the Babylonian) Nimrod in Gen. x. 8. Although
decisive evidence is lacking, it seems extremely probable that several
references to Cush in the Old Testament cannot refer to Ethiopia,
despite the likelihood that considerable confusion existed in the minds
of early writers. The Cushite invasion in 2 Chron. xiv. (see ASA) is
intelligible if the historical foundation for the story be a raid by
Arabians, but in xvi. 8 the inclusion of Libyans shows that the enemy
was subsequently supposed to be African. In several passages the
interpretation is bound up with that of Mizraim (q.v.), and depends in
general upon the question whether Ethiopia at a given time enjoyed the
prominence given to it.
On Num. xii. I see JETHRO; and consult H. Winckler, _Keil. u. das alte
Test._, 3rd ed., p. 144 sq., and _Im Kampfe um den alten Orient_, ii.
pp. 36 seq., and the literature cited under MIZRAIM. (S. A. C.)