[Greek: autokrateia], absolute power), a term applied to
that form of government which is absolute or irresponsible, and vested in
one single person. It is a type of government usually found amongst eastern
peoples; amongst more civilized nations the only example is that of Russia,
where the sovereign assumes as a title "the autocrat of all the Russias."

AUTO-DA-FE, more correctly AUTO-DE-FE (act of faith), the name of the
ceremony during the course of which the sentences of the Spanish
inquisition were read and executed. The auto-da-fe was almost identical
with the _sermo generalis_ of the medieval inquisition. It never took place
on a feast day of the church, but on some famous anniversary: the accession
of a Spanish monarch, his marriage, the birth of an infant, &c. It was
public: the king, the royal family, the grand councils of the kingdom, the
court and the people being present. The ceremony comprised a procession in
which the members of the Holy Office, with its familiars and agents, the
condemned persons and the penitents took part; a solemn mass; an oath of
obedience to the inquisition, taken by the king and all the lay
functionaries; a sermon by the Grand Inquisitor; and the reading of the
sentences, either of condemnation or acquittal, delivered by the Holy
Office. The handing over of impenitent persons, and those who had relapsed,
to the secular power, and their punishment, did not usually take place on
the occasion of an auto-da-fe, properly so called. Sometimes those who were
condemned to the flames were burned on the night following the ceremony.
The first great auto-da-fes were celebrated when Thomas de Torquemada, was
at the head of the Spanish inquisition (Seville 1482, Toledo 1486, &c.).
The last, subsequent to the time of Charles III., were held in secret;
moreover, they dealt with only a very small number of sentences, of which
hardly any were capital. The isolated cases of the torturing of a
revolutionary priest in Mexico in 1816, and of a relapsed Jew and of a
Quaker in Spain during 1826, cannot really be considered as auto-da-fes.

(P. A.)

AUTOGAMY (from Gr. [Greek: autos], self, and [Greek: gamia], marriage), a
botanical term for self-fertilization. (See ANGIOSPERMS.)

AUTOGENY, AUTOGENOUS (Gr. [Greek: autogenes]), spontaneous generation,
self-produced. Haeckel distinguished _autogeny_ and _plasmogeny_, applying
the former term when the formative fluid in which the first living matter
was s