First

Lateran Council, First, 1123, 9th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, summoned by Pope Calixtus II to signal the end of the investiture controversy by confirming the Concordat of Worms (1122). It was held in the Lateran Palace, Rome, making it the first council to be held in Western Europe. Many of the council's decrees became part of the evolving corpus of medieval Latin canon law.

Vatican Council, First, 1869-70, the 20th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church (see council, ecumenical), renowned chiefly for its enunciation of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Convening and Meetings

The council was convened by Pope Pius IX, who announced his intention in 1864. Because of the Italian political situation (the Papal States were the only bar to a united Italy), the advisability of having a council at all was questioned by the Catholic powers, who traditionally opposed strong action on the part of the church. In 1868 it was widely rumored in Europe that the enunciation of papal infallibility as a dogma was the purpose of the council and that it would confirm the papal denunciations of modernistic rationalism and liberalism. As a result there was a widespread attack on the prospective council in non-Catholic circles of France, Great Britain, and Germany. Within the church several prominent persons denounced the enunciation of infallibility as a dogma. Chief of these were Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger in Germany, Lord Acton in England, and the comte de Montalembert in France.

The council was convened Dec. 8, 1869, in St. Peter's, and it was attended by some 600 of the higher clergy (patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, generals of orders, and theologians) from all over the world. The Eastern Churches in schism were invited, and the Protestants were officially informed. Late in 1870 the council was brought to a halt by the entrance of Italian soliders into Rome, and a month later the pope prorogued the council indefinitely; it was never reconvened.

Constitutions of Faith and Infallibility

Two constitutions were promulgated by the Vatican Council and confirmed by the pope. The first was on the faith, consisting of four chapters holding chiefly that God is personal, that man knows God by reason and revelation, that faith is a supernatural virtue, and that faith and reason are complementary, never contradictory. The second constitution concerned the papacy; after defining the primacy of papal jurisdiction it goes on to enounce definitively the dogma of infallibility. This, the one official statement of the doctrine, reads in its significant part as follows: "The Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is, when he, in the exercise of his office of his supreme apostolic authority, decides that a doctrine concerning faith or morals is to be held by the entire Church, he possesses, in consequence of the divine aid promised him in St. Peter, that infallibility which the Divine Savior wished to have His Church furnished for the definition of doctrines concerning faith or morals; and that definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not in consequence of the Church's consent, irreformable." Past definitions are included in the statement.

In the council there was a long dispute over the enunciation. In the first vote it stood 451 in favor, 88 opposed, and 62 conditionally in favor; at the last vote 433 were in favor of the promulgation, two opposing, 55 abstaining. All the fathers of the council accepted the dogma as true. After the council a great deal of discussion of infallibility took place among non-Catholics; violent attacks were made on the pope, the church, and the council. Within the church the papal infallibility had been generally believed for many centuries. A few groups departed from the church. The most important was the Old Catholics in Germany, under Döllinger; in France a small group headed by Père Hyacinthe (Charles Loyson) also seceded. The political results were numerous: Otto von Bismarck gave the definition as the reason for the Kulturkampf, and Austria used it as an excuse to abrogate its concordat with the Holy See. The French government denounced it in a memorandum, which was acceded to by Britain, Spain, and Portugal. The anger of the states reflected the chief political effect of the enunciation of papal infallibility: since the doctrine made Gallicanism and similar claims obsolete, governments could no longer use them to interfere in church affairs.

Sino-Japanese War, First, 1894-95, conflict between China and Japan for control of Korea in the late 19th cent. The Li-lto Convention of 1885 provided for mutual troop withdrawals and advance notification of any new troop movements into Korea. Accordingly, when a Korean revolt erupted in 1894, both countries sent troops. However, after the insurrection had been suppressed, Japan refused to withdraw its troops and induced the Korean court to abrogate its agreement with China. The fighting that ensued between Chinese and Japanese forces ended with an easy victory for the more modern Japanese army.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895) declared Korea independent and provided for the cession of Taiwan, the Pescadores, and the Liaodong peninsula by China to Japan. China also had to pay a large indemnity. Within a week of the treaty signing, however, the diplomatic intervention of Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China. Under a subsidiary commercial treaty (1896), China yielded to Japanese nationals the right to open factories and engage in manufacturing in the trade ports. This right was automatically extended to the Western maritime powers under the most-favored-nation clause.

Principle of physics according to which the energy of interacting bodies or particles in a closed system remains constant, though it may take different forms (e.g., kinetic energy, potential energy, thermal energy, energy in an electric current, or energy stored in an electric field, in a magnetic field, or in chemical bonds [see bonding]). With the advent of relativity physics in 1905, mass was recognized as equivalent to energy. When accounting for a system of high-speed particles whose mass increases as a consequence of their speed, the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of mass become one conservation law. Seealso Hermann von Helmholtz.

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Wife of the president of the U.S. Although the first lady's role has never been codified or officially defined, she figures prominently in the country's political and social life. Representative of her husband on official and ceremonial occasions both at home and abroad, the first lady is closely watched for some hint of her husband's thinking and for a clue to his future actions. The wife of the president played a public role from the founding of the U.S., but the h1 first lady did not come into general use until much later, near the end of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, the h1 had been absorbed into other languages and was often used, without translation, for the wife of a country's leader—even in countries where the leader's consort received far less attention and exerted much less influence than did her counterpart in the U.S. Although unpaid and unelected, she is able to influence behaviour and opinion, and some first ladies have used their influence to affect legislation on important matters such as temperance reform, housing improvement, and women's rights.

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In philosophy, the uncreated or self-created cause to which every series of causes must ultimately be traced. Used by ancient Greek thinkers, the concept was adopted by the Christian tradition and became the basis of one version of the cosmological argument for the existence of God. According to this argument, every observed event is the result of a series of causes that must end in a first cause, which is God. The argument was given its classic formulation by St. Thomas Aquinas. It was rejected by many later thinkers, including David Hume and Immanuel Kant.

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(1869–70) 20th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Pius IX (1846–78) to address the rising influence of rationalism, materialism, and liberalism. The council, which was never formally dissolved, promulgated two doctrinal constitutions: Dei filius, which deals with faith, reason, and their interrelations; and Pastor aeternus, which treats the authority of the pope. After long debate, the council approved the doctrine of papal infallibility. The council recessed in the summer of 1870 but was unable to reconvene because Italian troops had occupied Rome. Pius suspended the council indefinitely on Oct. 20, 1870.

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(1869–70) 20th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. It was convoked by Pope Pius IX (1846–78) to address the rising influence of rationalism, materialism, and liberalism. The council, which was never formally dissolved, promulgated two doctrinal constitutions: Dei filius, which deals with faith, reason, and their interrelations; and Pastor aeternus, which treats the authority of the pope. After long debate, the council approved the doctrine of papal infallibility. The council recessed in the summer of 1870 but was unable to reconvene because Italian troops had occupied Rome. Pius suspended the council indefinitely on Oct. 20, 1870.

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