ly subdued towards the end
of the 17th century, and are now among the most peaceful of Russian
peoples.

See J.G. Gruelin, _Siberia_; Pierre Simon Pallas, _Sammlungen historischer
Nachrichten ueber die mongolischen Volkerschaften_ (St Petersburg,
1776-1802); M.A. Castren, _Versuch einer buriatischen Sprachlehre_ (1857);
Sir H.H. Howorth, _History of the Mongols_ (1876-1888).

BURIDAN, JEAN [JOANNES BURIDANUS] (c. 1297-c. 1358), French philosopher,
was born at Bethune in Artois. He studied in Paris under William of Occam.
He was professor of philosophy in the university of Paris, was rector in
1327, and in 1345 was deputed to defend its interests before Philip of
Valois and at Rome. He was more than sixty years old in 1358, but the year
of his death is not recorded. The tradition that he was forced to flee from
France along with other nominalists, and founded the university of Vienna
in 1356, is unsupported and in contradiction to the fact that the
university was founded by Frederick II. in 1237. An ordinance of Louis XI.,
in 1473, directed against the nominalists, prohibited the reading of his
works. In philosophy Buridan was a rationalist, and followed Occam in
denying all objective reality to universals, which he regarded as mere
words. The aim of his logic is represented as having been the devising of
rules for the discovery of syllogistic middle terms; this system for aiding
slow-witted persons became known as the _pons asinorum_. The parts of logic
which he treated with most minuteness are modal propositions and modal
syllogisms. In commenting on Aristotle's _Ethics_ he dealt in a very
independent manner with the question of free will, his conclusions being
remarkably similar to those of John Locke. The only liberty which he admits
is a certain power of suspending the deliberative process and determining
the direction of the intellect. Otherwise the will is entirely dependent on
the view of the mind, the last result of examination. The comparison of the
will unable to act between two equally balanced motives to an ass dying of
hunger between two equal and equidistant bundles of hay is not found in his
works, and may have been invented by his opponents to ridicule his
determinism. That he was not the originator of the theory known as "liberty
of indifference" (_liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_) is shown in G.
Fonsegrive's _Essai sur le libre arbitre_, pp. 119, 199 (1887).

His works are:--_Summula de dialectica_ (