the rights and claims of humanity and the practice of public and private virtue.” Among its early members Cogers Hall reckoned John Wilkes, one of its first presidents, and Curran, who in 1773 writes to a friend that he spent a couple of hours every night at the Hall. Later Dickens was a prominent member.
See Peter Rayleigh, History of Ye Antient Society of Cogers (London, 1904).
COGHLAN, CHARLES FRANCIS (1841–1899), Irish actor,
was born in Paris, and was educated for the law. He made his first London appearance in 1860, and became the leading actor
at the Prince of Wales’s. He went to America in 1876, where
he remained for the rest of his life, playing first in Augustin
Daly’s company and then in the Union Square stock company,
during the long run of The Celebrated Case. He also played with
his sister, and in support of Mrs Langtry and Mrs Fiske, and in
1898 produced a version of Dumas’ Kean, called The Royal Box,
in which he successfully starred during the last years of his life.
He died in Galveston, Texas, on the 27th of November 1899.
His sister, the actress Rose Coghlan (1853– ), went to America in 1871, was again in England from 1873 to 1877, playing with Barry Sullivan, and then returned to America,
where she became prominent as Countess Zicka in Diplomacy,
and Stephanie in Forget-me-not. She was at Wallack’s almost
continuously until 1888, and subsequently appeared in melodrama in parts like the title-rôle of The Sporting Duchess.
COGNAC, a town of south-western France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Charente, on the left
bank of the river Charente, 32 m. W. of Angoulême on the
Ouest-État railway, between Angoulême and Saintes. Pop. (1906)
18,389. The streets of the old town—which borders the river—are
narrow and tortuous, but the newer parts are well provided
with open spaces. The chief of these is the beautiful Parc
François 1er overlooking the Charente. In one of the squares
there is a statue of Francis I., who was born here. The chief
building is a church of the 12th century dedicated to St Leger,
which preserves a fine Romanesque façade and a tower of the
15th century. A castle of the 15th and 16th centuries, once the
residence of the counts of Angoulême, now a storehouse for
brandy, and a medieval gate stand in the older part of the
town. Cognac is the seat of a subprefect and has tribunals of
first instance and of commerce, a council of trade arbitrators,
a chamber of commerce, and consulates of the United States,
Spain and Portugal. Its most important industry is the distillation
of the brandy (q.v.) to which the town gives its name. Large quantities are carried, by way of the river, to the neighbouring port of Tonnay-Charente. The industries subsidiary
to the brandy trade, such as the making of cases and bottles,
occupy many hands. Ironware is also manufactured, and a
considerable trade is maintained in grain and cattle. In 1526
Cognac gave its name to a treaty concluded against Charles V.
by Francis I., the pope, Venice and Milan. Its possession was
contested during the wars of religion, and in 1570 it became one
of the Huguenot strongholds. In 1651 it successfully sustained
a siege against Louis II., prince of Condé, leader of the Fronde.
See Le Pays du Cognac, by L. Ravaz, for a description of the district and its viticulture.
COGNITION (Latin cognitio, from cognoscere, to become
acquainted with), in psychology, a term used in its most general
sense for all modes of being conscious or aware of an object,
whether material or intellectual. It is an ultimate mode of
consciousness, strictly the presentation (through sensation or
otherwise) of an object to consciousness; in its complete form,
however, it seems to involve a judgment, i.e. the separation
from other objects of the object presented. The psychological
theory of cognition takes for granted the dualism of the mind
that knows and the object known; it takes no account of the
metaphysical problem as to the possibility of a relation between
the ego and the non-ego, but assumes that such a relation does
exist. Cognition is therefore distinct from emotion and conation;
it has no psychological connexion with feelings of pleasure and
pain, nor does it tend as such to issue in action.
For the analysis of cognition-reactions see O. Külpe, Outlines of Psychology (Eng. trans., 1895), pp. 411 foll.; E. B. Titchener, Experimental Psychology (1905), ii. 187 foll. On cognition generally, G. F. Stout’s Analytic Psychology and Manual of Psychology; W. James’s Principles of Psychology (1890), i. 216 foll.; also article Psychology.
COGNIZANCE (Lat. cognoscere, to know), knowledge, notice,
especially judicial notice, the right of trying or considering a
case judicially, the exercise of jurisdiction by a court of law.
In heraldry a “cognizance” is an emblem, badge or device,
used as a distinguishing mark by the body of retainers of a
royal or noble house.
COHEN (Hebrew for “priest”), a Jewish family name,
implying descent from the ancient Hebrew priests. Many
families claiming such descent are, however, not named Cohen.
Other forms of the name are Cohn, Cowen, Kahn.
See J. Jacobs, Jewish Encyclopedia, iv. 144.
COHN, FERDINAND JULIUS (1828–1898), German botanist,
was born on the 24th of January 1828 at Breslau. He was
educated at Breslau and Berlin, and in 1859 became extraordinary,
and in 1871 ordinary, professor of botany at Breslau
University. He had a remarkable career, owing to his Jewish
origin. He was contemporary with N. Pringsheim, and worked
with H. R. Goeppert, C. G. Nees von Esenbeck, C. G. Ehrenberg
and Johannes Müller. At an early date he exhibited astonishing
ability with the microscope, which he did much to improve, and
his researches on cell-walls and the growth and contents of
plant-cells soon attracted attention, especially as he made
remarkable advances in the establishment of an improved cell-theory,
discovered the cilia in, and analysed the movements of,
zoospores, and pointed out that the protoplasm of the plant-cell
and the sarcode of the zoologists were one and the same physical
vehicle of life. Although these early researches were especially
on the Algae, in which group he instituted marked reforms of the
rigid system due to F. T. Kützing, Cohn had already displayed
that activity in various departments which made him so famous
as an all-round naturalist, his attention at various times being
turned to such varied subjects as Aldorovanda, torsion in trees,
the nature of waterspouts, the effects of lightning, physiology
of seeds, the proteid crystals in the potato, which he discovered,
the formation of travertin, the rotatoria, luminous worms, &c.
It is, however, in the introduction of the strict biological and philosophical analysis of the life-histories of the lower and most minute forms of life that Cohn’s greatest achievements consist, for he applied to these organisms the principle that we can only know the phases of growth of microscopic plants by watching every stage of development under the microscope, just as we learn how different are the youthful and adult appearances of an oak or a fern by direct observation. The success with which he attempted and carried out the application of cultural and developmental methods on the Algae, Fungi and Bacteria can only be fully appreciated by those familiar with the minute size and elusive evolutions of these organisms, and with the limited appliances at Cohn’s command. Nevertheless his account of the life-histories of Protococcus (1850), Stephanosphaera (1852), Volvox (1856 and 1875), Hydrodictyon (1861), and Sphaeroplea (1855–1857) among the Algae have never been put aside. The first is a model of what a study in development should be; the last shares with G. Thuret’s studies on Fucus and Pringsheim’s on Vaucheria the merit of establishing the existence of a sexual process in Algae. Among the Fungi Cohn contributed important researches on Pilobolus (1851), Empusa (1855), Tarichium (1869), as well as valuable work on the nature of parasitism of Algae and Fungi.
It is as the founder of bacteriology that Cohn’s most striking claims to recognition will be established. He seems to have been always attracted particularly by curious problems of fermentation and coloration due to the most minute forms of life, as evinced by his papers on Monas prodigiosa (1850) and “Über blutähnliche Färbungen” (1850), on infusoria (1851 and 1852), on organisms in drinking-water (1853), “Die Wunder des Blutes” (1854), and had already published several works on insect epidemics (1869–1870) and on plant diseases, when his first specially bacteriological memoir (Crenothrix) appeared in
