ὲξ ἑτέρας ὑποστάσεως ἢ οὐσίας. Alongside, however, of this persistent interchange there was a desire to distinguish between the terms, and to confine ὑπόστασις to the Divine persons. This tendency arose in Alexandria, and its progress may be seen in comparing the early and later writings of Athanasius. That writer, in view of the Arian trouble, felt that it was better to speak of οὐσία as “the common undifferentiated substance of Deity,” and ὑπόστασις as “Deity existing in a personal mode, the substance of Deity with certain special properties” (οὐσία μετά τινων ἰδιωμάτων). At the council of Alexandria in 362 the phrase τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις was permitted, and the work of this council was supplemented by Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa in the formula μία οὐσία, τρεῖς ὑποστάσεις or μία οὐσία ἐν τρίσιν ὑποστάσεσιν.
The results arrived at by these Cappadocian fathers were stated in a later age by John of Damascus (De orth. fid. iii. 6), quoted in R. L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, ii. 257.
HYPOSTYLE, in architecture, the term applied to a hall,
the flat ceiling of which is supported by columns, as in the Hall
of Columns at Karnak. In this case the columns flanking the
central avenue are of greater height than those of the side aisles,
and this admits of openings in the wall above the smaller columns,
through which light is admitted over the aisle roof, through
clerestory windows.
HYPOSULPHITE OF SODA, the name originally given to
the substance known in chemistry as sodium thiosulphate,
Na2S2O3; the earlier name is still commonly used, especially by
photographers, who employ this chemical as a fixer. In systematic
chemistry, sodium hyposulphite is a salt of hyposulphurous
acid, to which Schutzenberger gave the formula H2SO2, but
which Bernthsen showed to be H2S2O4. (See Sulphur.)
HYPOTHEC (Lat. hypotheca, Gr. ὑποθήκη), in Roman law,
the most advanced form of the contract of pledge. A specific
thing may be given absolutely to a creditor on the understanding
that it is to be given back when the creditor’s debt is paid;
or the property in the thing may be assigned to the creditor
while the debtor is allowed to remain in possession, the creditor
as owner being able to take possession if his debt is not discharged.
Here we have the kind of security known as pledge
and mortgage respectively. In the hypotheca, the property
does not pass to the creditor, nor does he get possession, but he
acquires a preferential right to have his debt paid out of the
hypothecated property; that is, he can sell it and pay himself
out of the proceeds, or in default of a purchaser he can become
the owner himself. The name and the principle have passed
into the law of Scotland, which distinguishes between conventional
hypothecs, as bottomry and respondentia, and tacit hypothecs
established by law. Of the latter the most important is the
landlord’s hypothec for rent (corresponding to distress in the law
of England), which extends over the produce of the land and the
cattle and sheep fed on it, and over stock and horses used in
husbandry. The law of agricultural hypothec long caused much
discontent in Scotland; its operation was restricted by the
Hypothec Amendment (Scotland) Act 1867, and finally by the
Hypothec Abolition (Scotland) Act 1880 it was enacted that
the “landlord’s right of hypothec for the rent of land, including
the rent of any buildings thereon, exceeding two acres in extent,
let for agriculture or pasture, shall cease and determine.” By
the same act and by the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act
1883 other rights and remedies for rent, where the right of
hypothec had ceased, were given to the landlord.
HYPOTHESIS (from Gr. ὑποτιθέναι, to put under; cf.
Lat. suppositio, from sub-ponere), in ordinary language, an
explanation, supposition or assumption, which is put forward
in the absence of ascertained facts or causes. Both in ordinary
life and in the acquisition of scientific knowledge hypothesis
is all-important. A detective’s work consists largely in forming
and testing hypothesis. If an astronomer is confronted by some
phenomenon which has no obvious explanation he may postulate
some set of conditions which from his general knowledge of the
subject would or might give rise to the phenomenon in question;
he then tests his hypothesis until he discovers whether it does
or does not conflict with the facts. An example of this process
is that of the discovery of the planet Neptune: certain perturbations
of the orbit of Uranus had been observed, and it was seen
that these could be explained on the hypothesis of the existence
of a then unknown planet, and this hypothesis was verified
by actual observation. The progress of inductive knowledge is
by the formation of successive hypotheses, and it frequently
happens that the demolition of one or even many hypotheses
is the direct road to a new and accurate hypothesis, i.e. to fresh
knowledge. A hypothesis may, therefore, turn out to be entirely
wrong, yet it may be of the greatest practical use.
The recognition of the importance of hypotheses has led to various attempts at drawing up exact rules for their formation, but logicians are generally agreed that only very elementary principles can be laid down. Thus a hypothesis must contain nothing which is at variance with known facts or principles: it should not postulate conditions which cannot be verified empirically. J. S. Mill (Logic III. xiv. 4) laid down the principle that a hypothesis is not “genuinely scientific” if it is “destined always to remain a hypothesis”: it must “be of such a nature as to be either proved or disproved by comparison with observed facts”: in the same spirit Bacon said that in searching for causes in nature “Deum semper excipimus.” Mill’s principle, though sound in the abstract, has, except in a few cases, little practical value in determining the admissibility of hypotheses, and in practice any rule which tends to discourage hypothesis is in general undesirable. The most satisfactory check on hypothesis is expert knowledge in the particular field of research by which rigorous tests may be applied. This test is roughly of two kinds, first by the ultimate principles or presuppositions on which a particular branch of knowledge rests, and second by the comparison of correlative facts. Useful light is shed on this distinction by Lotze, who contrasts (Logic, § 273) postulates (“absolutely necessary assumptions without which the content of the observation with which we are dealing would contradict the laws of our thought”) with hypotheses, which he defines as conjectures, which seek “to fill up the postulate thus abstractly stated by specifying the concrete causes, forces or processes, out of which the given phenomenon really arose in this particular case, while in other cases maybe the same postulate is to be satisfied by utterly different though equivalent combinations of forces or active elements.” Thus a hypothesis may be ruled out by principles or postulates without any reference to the concrete facts which belong to that division of the subject to explain which the hypothesis is formulated. A true hypothesis, therefore, seeks not merely to connect or colligate two separate facts, but to do this in the light of and subject to certain fundamental principles. Various attempts have been made to classify hypotheses and to distinguish “hypothesis” from a “theory” or a mere “conjecture”: none of these have any great practical importance, the differences being only in degree, not in kind.
The adjective “hypothetical” is used, in the same sense, both loosely in contradistinction to “real” or “actual,” and technically in the phrases “hypothetical judgment” and “hypothetical syllogism.” (See Logic and Syllogism.)
See Naville, La Logique de l’hypothèse (1880), and textbooks of logic, e.g. those of Jevons, Bosanquet, Joseph; Liebmann, Der Klimax d. Theorien.
HYPOTRACHELIUM (Gr. ὑποτραχήλιον, the lower part of
the neck, τράχηλος), in classical architecture, the space between
the annulet of the echinus and the upper bed of the shafts,
including, according to C. R. Cockerell, the three grooves or
sinkings found in some of the older examples, as in the temple
of Neptune at Paestum and the temple of Aphaea at Aegina;
there being only one groove in the Parthenon, the Theseum and
later examples. In the temple of Ceres and the so-called Basilica
at Paestum the hypotrachelium consists of a concave sinking
carved with vertical lines suggestive of leaves, the tops of which
project forward. A similar decoration is found in the capital
of the columns flanking the tomb of Agamemnon at Mycenae,
but here the hypotrachelium projects forward with a cavetto
moulding, and is carved with triple leaves like the buds of a
