The most comprehensive view of Rosmini’s philosophical standpoint is to be found in his Sistema filosofico, in which he set forth the conception of a complete encyclopedia of the human knowable, synthetically conjoined, according to the order of ideas, in a Perfectly harmonious whole. Contemplating the position of recent philosophy from Locke to Hegel, and having his eye directed to the ancient and fundamental problem of the origin, truth and certainty of our ideas, he wrote: “If philosophy is to be restored to love and respect, I think it will be necessary, in part, to return to the teachings of the ancients, and in part to give those teachings the benefit of modern methods” (Theodicy, n. 18). He examined and analysed the fact of human knowledge, and obtained the following results: (1) that the notion or idea of being or existence in general enters into, and is presupposed by, all our acquired cognition’s, so that, without it, they would be impossible; (2) that this idea is essentially objective, inasmuch as what is seen in it is as distinct from and opposed to the mind that sees it as the light is from the eye that looks at it; (3) that it is essentially true, because “being” and “truth” are convertible temis, and because in the vision of it the mind cannot err, since error could only be committed by a judgment, and here there is no judgment, but a pure intuition affirming nothing and denying nothing; (4) that by the application of this essentially objective and true idea. the human being intellectually perceives, first, the animal body individually conjoined with him, and then, on occasion of the sensations produced in him not by himself, the causes of those sensations, that is, from the action felt he perceives and affirms an agent, a being, and therefore a true thing, that acts on him, and he thus gets at the external world,—these are the true primitive judgments, containing (a) the subsistence of the particular being (subject), and (b) its essence or species as determined by the quality of the action felt from it (predicate); (5) that reflection, by separating the essence or species from the subsistence, obtains the full specific idea (universalization), and then from this, by leaving aside some of its elements, the abstract specific idea (abstraction); (6) that the mind, having reached this stage of development, can proceed to further and further abstracts, including the first principles of reasoning, the principles of the several sciences, complex ideas, groups of ideas, and) so on without end; (7) finally, that the same most universal idea of being, this generator and formal element of all acquired cognition’s, cannot itself be acquired, but must be innate in us, implanted by God in our nature. Being, as naturally shining to our mind, must therefore be what men call the light of reason. Hence the name Rosmini gives it of ideal being; and this he laid down as the fundamental principle of all philosophy and the supreme criterion of truth and certainty. This he believed to be the teaching of St Augustine, as well as of St Thomas, of whom he was an ardent admirer and defender.
Of his numerous works, of which a collected edition in 17 volumes was issued at Milan (1842–44), supplemented by Opere posturne in 5 vols. (Turin, 1859–74), the most important are the New Essay on the Origin of Ideas (Eng. trans., 1883) The Principles of Moral Science (1831); The Restoration of Philosophy in Italy (1836); The Philosophy of Right (1841–45). The following have also been translated into English: A Catholic Catechism, by W. S. Agar (1849); The Five Wounds of the Holy Church (abridged trans. with introd. by H. P. Liddon, 1883); Maxims of Christian Perfection, by W. A. Johnson (1889); Psychology (Anonymous) (1884–88); Sketch of Modern Philosophy, by Lockhart (1882); The Ruling Principle of Method Applied to Education, by Mrs W. Grey (Boston, Mass., 1887); Select. Letters, by D. Gazzola. Rosmini’s Sistema filosofico has been translated into English by Thos. Davidson (Rosmini’s Philosophical System, 1882, with a biographical sketch and complete bibliography); see also Lives by G. S. Macwalter (1883) and G. B. Pagani (1907); C. Werner, Die Italienische Philosophie des 19. Jahrhunderts (1884); F. X. Kraus, “Antonio Rosmini: sein Leben, seine Schriften,” in Deutsche Rundschau, liv. lv. (1888); “Church Reformation in Italy” in the Edinburgh Review, cxiv. (July 1861); and numerous recent Italian works, for which Baldwin’s Dictionary of Philosophy or Pagliani’s Catalogo Generale (Milan, 1905) should be consulted.
ROSNY, JOSEPH HENRY, a pseudonym covering the collaboration of the French novelists, Joseph Henri Honoré Boëx, born at Brussels in 1856, and his brother Séraphin Justin François Boëx, born at Brussels in 1859. The novels of J. H. Rosny are full of scientific knowledge, of astronomy, anthropology, zoology and, above all, sociology. The stories are approached from the point of view of society rather than of the individual, but the characters, strongly individualized and intensely real, are only incidentally typical. The elder Rosny was the sole author of the earlier novels, and began novel writing as an avowed disciple of Zola. Nell Horn, membre de l’armée du salut (1885) is a picture of London life and social reform; Le Bilatéral (1886) and Marc Fane (1888) describe the revolutionary and anarchist parties of Paris; L’Immolation (1887) is a brutal story of peasant life; Le Termite (1890) is a picture of literary life in Paris; and Vamireh (1891), with Erymah (1895), and Les Profondeurs de Kyamo (short stories, 1896) and others deal with prehistoric man. MM. Rosny were among the writers who in 1887 entered a formal protest in the Figaro against Zola’s La Terre, and they were designated by Edmond de Goncourt as original members of his academy. Among their later novels the more famous are: Daniel Valgraive (1891), a study in the possibilities of personal sacrifice; L’Impérieuse Bonté (1894), an indictment of Parisian charity; L’Indomptée (1895), the history of a girl medical student in Paris; Le Serment (1896, dramatized 1897); Les Ames perdues (1899), another anarchist novel; La Charpente (1900); Thérèse Degaudy (1902); Le Crime du docteur (1903); Le Docteur Harambur (1904); Le Millionaire (1905); and Sous le fardeau (1906).
ROSS, ALEXANDER (1699–1784), Scottish poet, was born on the 13th of April 1699 at Kincardine-O’Neil, Aberdeenshire. He was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen, and became tutor to the children of Sir William Forbes of Craigievar. He became in 1732 schoolmaster of Lochlee, Angus, where the rest of his life was spent. He 'had long been in the habit of writing verse for his own amusement, when in 1768 he published, at the suggestion of James Beattie, The Fortunate Shepherdess . . . to which is (sic) added a few songs. This is a pastoral narrative poem, written in obvious imitation of Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd. Its affectations are chiefly on the surface. The background of shepherd life as known to Ross, and the rather sordid motives of the characters, despite their high-sounding names of Helenore, Rosalind, &c., are depicted with uncompromising
truth. He died at Lochlee, and was buried on the 26th of May 1784.
See Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, edited by John Longmuir (1866); also H. Walker, Three Centuries of Scottish Literature (1893), ii. 28–34. The bulk of Ross’s writings remain in MS.
ROSS, GEORGE WILLIAM (1841–), Canadian politician, was born near Nairn, Middlesex county, Ontario, on the 18th of September 1841, the son of James Ross and Ellen M‘Kinnon, natives of Ross-shire, Scotland. From 1872–1883 he was a Liberal member of the Federal House; from 1883–99 minister of education in the legislature of the province of Ontario; and from 1899–1905 premier and treasurer of that province. In 1905 his government was defeated, and in 1907 he retired to the Canadian Senate. He was for many years an advocate of total abstinence, and a well-known speaker on imperial questions.
ROSS, SIR HEW DALRYMPLE (1779–1868), British soldier, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1793, and passed out into the Royal Artillery two years later. With the Royal Horse Artillery he saw active service during the Irish rebellion of 1798, and after eleven years’ service was promoted captain and appointed to command “A” troop R.H.A. (afterwards famous as the “Chestnut Troop”). In 1809 the troop landed at Lisbon and at once set out to join Wellington’s army, reaching the front two days after Talavera. Ross’s guns were attached to the Light Division, and, with Craufurd, took part in the actions on the Coa and the battle of Busaco. When Masséna began his famous retreat from the lines of Torres Vedras, Ross’s troop was amongst the foremost in the pursuit; at Redinha and Pombal, at Sabugal and Fuentes d’Onor, the “Chestnuts” earned great distinction, and in December 1811 their commander received a brevet-majority for his services. He was present at Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, at the Salamanca forts and the battle of Salamanca, still attached to the Light Division. In the campaign of Vittoria, Ross’s guns were continually with the most advanced troops, and after Vittoria they captured the only piece of artillery that remained to the defeated French. A further brevet-promotion and a good service reward came to Ross for his part in the campaign. At Vera in the Pyrenees Ross’s troop was one of the three which played a decisive part in the action, and Vera remains a classical example of the action of horse artillery. “A” troop was engaged at St Pierre and Orthez, and at the conclusion of peace returned to England. It was engaged at Waterloo, and though half its guns were disabled the remainder
