arose who understood the word Lord in an inferior sense, and then it became necessan,' to assert that God and Lord, as applied to our blessed Saviour, are synonj-mous terms. And sound theologians will still occasionally use the term Mother of God, lest Nestorianism should be held unconsciously by persons who wish to be orthodox ; and people forget the great truth expressed by Paul that 'God purchased the Church with his own blood; and that Christ is over aU, God blessed forever.' " See, how- ever, the article Makiolathy in this Cyclopcedia, voL v.
Mother of God, Congregation of the, a
monastic order instituted alioui l."i74 at Lucca, in Tus- cany, by John Leonard!. Their purpose is to save tlie lost of all conditions by any and all spiritual means, as tlie preaching of the Gospel, catechetical instruction, and visiting. They especially aim to reach the sick and tlie dying, and make the hospitals tlieir princi- pal fields of labor. Their founder was particularly de- voted to the mother of Christ, and he provided in the • constitution of the order that every day at 1 P.M. the litanies of the Holy Virgin be recited, and other like religious devotions be paid to her memorj*. The order was approved by pope Clement VIII in 1595, and con- firmed by pope Paul V. Pope (Jregorj- XV, anxious to spread the order throughout Italy, permitted its mem- bers to take the three monastics vows. Their dress is very much like the common monastic garb. See Hist, du Clerge seculier et 7-C(julier (Amst. 171G), iii, 123-125.
Ilabit of a Monk of the " Congiegation of the Mother of God."
Mother Goddess (Latin, Mater dea). The pa- gans gave tiic name of mother to certain goddesses of the first rank, particularly to Cybcle, Ceres, Juno, and Vesta. Cicero speaks of a famous temple erected in the city of Engytnn, in Sicily, to the (jreat Motlier, or sim- ply The Jlothers. Concerning tliis temple, tlie Engy- ans entertained a strange superstition. It was confi- dently affirmed that certain goddesses, called The Jloth- ers, frequently ajiijcared there. They relate a story of one Nicius, a man of wit, and a consideralile person of tlie city, who liad frequently laughed at tliis pre- tended ajiparition. One day, as he was haranguing in public, he fell down, roared like a madman, and reut
MOTHERING SUNDAY
697
MOTIVE
his clothes in pieces. Upon this he was thought possessed by the furies, and every one acknowledged the vengeance of the injured goddesses. ■ However, it ^v'as found afterwards that this was onlj' a pretended delirium, and an expedient to deliver himself out of the hands of his persecutors, who had thoughts of destroy- ing him, under pretence of punishing him for his im- piety in denying the apparition of The Mothers; for, being suffered to go out of the city, he made his escape to the Koman general Marcellus. In that temple were shown javelins and brazen helmets, with inscriptions which liiade some believe that Murunes and Ulysses had consecrated these to the goddesses styled The Mothers. See Broughton, Bibliotheca Ilistorico-Sacra, ii, 1-15.
Mothering Sunday (or Midlent Sunday),
supposed to be the day on which, in popish times, peo- ple visited the mother-church and made their annual offering. In more recent times children and servants in England obtain leave to visit their parents on this day. This custom, according to some, originated in this Sunday being the Dominica Rpfectionis, or Sunday of Itefroshment, the gospel for the day being the record of the miraculous banquet to the five thousand in the desert. On that day the guests used to eat frumenty, consisting of whole grains of wheat, boiled in milk, and sweetened and spiced.
Motive, that which moves, excites, or invites the mind to volition. It may be one thing singly, or many things conjointly. Some call it a faculty of the mind, by which we pursue good and avoid evil. Aristotle de- fines motive thus : " The deliberate preference by which we are moved to act, and not the object for the sake of which we act, is the principle of action ; and desire and reason, v^hich is for the sake of something, is the origin of deliberate preference" {Ethic, lib. vi, cap. 2), Kant distinguishes between the subjective principle of appe- tition, which he calls the mobile or spring (die Trieh- feder), and the objective principle of the will, which he calls motive or determining reason (beweyyrund) ; hence the difference between subjective ends, to which we are pushed by natural disposition, and objective ends, which are common to us with all beings endowed with reason (Willm, Hist, de la Philosoph. Allemande, i, 357). This seems to be the difference expressed in French between mobile and motif. "A motive is an object so operating upon the mind as to produce either desire or aversion" (lord Kames, Essay on Liberty and Necessity). " By motive," says Edwards (^Inquiry, pt. i, § 2), " I mean the whole of that which moves, excites, or invites the mind to volition, whether that be one thing singly, or many tilings conjunctly. Many particular things may concur an<l unite their strength to induce the mind ; and when it is so, all together are, as it were, one complex motive. . . . Whatever is a motive, in this sense, must be some- thing that is extant in the view oi- ajiprehension of the luiderstanding, or perceiving faculty. Nothing can in- duce or invite the mind to will or act anything anj' fur- ther than it is perceived, or is in some way or other in the mind's view; for what is wholly unperceived, and perfectly out of the mind's view, cannot affect the mind at all." Hence it has been common to distinguish mo- tives as external or objective, and as internal or subjective. Kegarded objectively, motives are those external objects or circumstances which, when contemplated, give rise to views or feelings which prompt or influence the will. llegarded subjectively, motives are those internal vie^^■s or feelings which arise on the contemplation of exter- nal objects or circumstances. In common language, the term motive is applied indifferently to the external ob- ject and to the state of mind to which the apprehen- sion or contemplation of it may give rise. The expla- nation of Edwards includes botli. Dr. Reid (Corre- spondence prefixed to his Works, p. 87) said that he " un- derstood a motive, when applied to a human being, to be that for the sake of which he acts, and therefore that what lie never was conscious of can no more be a motive I