ILLYRIA, the name anciently given to a broad stretch of mountainous country of varying extent lying E. of the Adriatic Sea.  The Illyrians were the last Balkan people to be civilised; becoming a Roman province 35 B.C., Illyria furnished several emperors, among them the notorious Diocletian.  Constantine extended the province to include all the country S. of the Danube; at the division of the empire, Greece and Macedonia went to the East, the rest to the West; the name was revived by Napoleon, but has since been dropped.

ILUS, a legendary king of Troy, the grandson of Dardanus, and the founder of Ilium.

IMAGE WORSHIP in the Christian Church is reverence, as distinct from the supreme adoration of the Deity, paid to the crucifix and to pictures, images, or statues of saints and martyrs, and understood really as offered through these to the personages whom they represent.  The practice, unknown in apostolic or sub-apostolic times, was prevalent in the 4th century, provoked by its excesses a severe reaction in the 8th century, but carefully defined by the second Council of Nice (787), has continued since both in the Greek and Roman communion; there is still controversy as to its propriety in the Anglican Church; the Lutherans still use the crucifix freely, but other Protestant Churches have entirely repudiated the practice.  See ICONOCLASTS.

IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS, a remarkable work by Landor, in 6 vols., much appreciated by many.

IMAGINATION, the name appropriate to the highest faculty of man, and defined by Ruskin as “mental creation,” in the exercise of which the human being discharges his highest function as a responsible being, “the defect of which on common minds it is the main use,” says Ruskin, “of works of fiction, and of the drama, as far as possible, to supply.”

IMAM is the title of the officer who leads the devotions in Mohammedan mosques, and in Turkey conducts marriage and funeral services, as well as performs the ceremonies connected with circumcision; the office was filled and the title borne by Mahomet, hence it sometimes signifies head of the faith, and is so applied to the Sultan of Turkey; good Mohammedans believe in the future advent of an Imam—­the hidden Imam—­who shall be greater than the Prophet himself.

IMAUS, a name the ancients gave to any large mountain chain in Asia, more particularly one bordering on India, or looking down upon it, as the home of the Aryans.

IMITATION OF CHRIST, a book of pious reflections, unique in its kind, and much esteemed by piously thoughtful people; ascribed to THOMAS A KEMPIS (q. v.).

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, the doctrine held by the Roman Catholic Church that the Virgin Mary was conceived and born without taint of sin; first distinctly propounded in the 12th century, at which time a festival was introduced in celebration of it, and which became matter of dispute in the 14th century, and it was only in 1854 that it became by a bull an article of the Catholic faith.