Part 909

4. That which is brought under thought or examination; that which is taken up for discussion, or concerning which anything is said or done. "This subject for heroic song." Milton.

Make choice of a subject, beautiful and noble, which . . . shall afford an ample field of matter wherein to expatiate.

Dryden.

The unhappy subject of these quarrels.

Shak.

5. The person who is treated of; the hero of a piece; the chief character.

Writers of particular lives . . . are apt to be prejudiced in favor of their subject.

C. Middleton.

6. (Logic & Gram.) That of which anything is affirmed or predicated; the theme of a proposition or discourse; that which is spoken of; as, the nominative case is the subject of the verb.

The subject of a proposition is that concerning which anything is affirmed or denied.

I. Watts.

7. That in which any quality, attribute, or relation, whether spiritual or material, inheres, or to which any of these appertain; substance; substratum.

That which manifests its qualities -- in other words, that in which the appearing causes inhere, that to which they belong - - is called their subject or substance, or substratum.

Sir W. Hamilton.

8. Hence, that substance or being which is conscious of its own operations; the mind; the thinking agent or principal; the ego. Cf. Object, n., 2.

The philosophers of mind have, in a manner, usurped and appropriated this expression to themselves. Accordingly, in their hands, the phrases conscious or thinking subject, and subject, mean precisely the same thing.

Sir W. Hamilton.

9. (Mus.) The principal theme, or leading thought or phrase, on which a composition or a movement is based.

The earliest known form of subject is the ecclesiastical cantus firmus, or plain song.

Rockstro.

10. (Fine Arts) The incident, scene, figure, group, etc., which it is the aim of the artist to represent.

Sub*ject" (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Subjected (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Subjecting.] 1. To bring under control, power, or dominion; to make subject; to subordinate; to subdue.

Firmness of mind that subjects every gratification of sense to the rule of right reason.

C. Middleton.

In one short view subjected to our eye, Gods, emperors, heroes, sages, beauties, lie.

Pope.

He is the most subjected, the most &?;nslaved, who is so in his understanding.

Locke.