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Maxim (măk`sĭm), name of a family of inventors and munition makers.

Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, 1840–1916, was born near Sangerville, Maine. After launching on a career of inventing, he moved to England and there invented (1884) the Maxim machine gun. Among his numerous other inventions were a smokeless powder, a delayed-action fuse, and an airplane. His arms company was consolidated (1896) with the Vickers firm. He became a British subject in 1900 and was knighted in 1901. His brother,

Hudson Maxim, 1853–1927, was born in Orneville, Maine, and remained in the United States. A chemist, he developed numerous inventions, including a high explosive (maximite), smokeless powders (one of them stabilite), and a self-combustive compound to propel torpedoes (motorite).

Hiram Percy Maxim, 1869–1936, son of Sir Hiram, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and remained in the United States. After graduation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he held many positions as a mechanical engineer and created several inventions, among them an automobile. The most spectacular was the Maxim silencer for explosive weapons (1908), but perhaps more useful were silencers for gasoline engines and the like.

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maxim

a brief expression of a general truth, principle, or rule of conduct

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Maxim

Sir Hiram Stevens. 1840--1916, British inventor of the first automatic machine gun (1884), born in the US

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Maxim 

a generalized, profound, laconic, and polished thought of a given author that expresses a rule of conduct or a basic logical or ethical principle by which people may be guided in their actions; for example: “When in doubt, come to the truth” (Cicero); “Avoid everything your conscience does not approve” (L. N. Tolstoy). Later on, the term “maxim” was understood in a broader sense and came to mean any wise saying.

The maxims of the French moralist writers La Rochefoucauld (Memoirs and Maxims; Russian translation, 1971), La Bruyere (Characters, or The Mores of the Present Age; Russian translation, 1964), and Vauvenargues (Complete Collected Works [in Russian], vol. 2, 1968), and the German thinkers J. W. Goethe (Maxims and Reflections, 1953) and G. K. Lichtenberg (Aphorisms; Russian translation, 1965), all represent a brilliant form of philosophical statement.

Many maxims are contained in the notebooks of the Russian historian V. O. Kliuchevskii (Letters, Diaries, Aphorisms and Thoughts About History, 1968). Parodic maxims, at times concealing practical wisdom under a mask of irony, were created by Koz’ma Prutkov (Complete Collected Works, 1965). Well-known contemporary maxims include those of the Polish writer S. J. Lec (Unkempt Thoughts, 1968) and the Soviet writer Emil’ Krotkii (Excerpts From an Unwritten Work, 1966).

REFERENCES

Wilpert, G. Sachwörterbuch der Literatur, 4th ed. Stuttgart, 1964.
Encyclopédic Internationale “Focus,” vol. 3. Paris, 1964. Page 2179.

A. I. FIURSTENBERG