FACULTY, power or capacity of mind or body, for particular kinds of activity, feeling, etc. In the early history of psychology the term was applied to various mental processes considered as causes or conditions of the mind—a treatment of class concepts of mental phenomena as if they were real forces producing these phenomena. In mediaeval Latin facultas was used to translate Svvaµcs in the Aristotelian application of the word to a branch of learning or knowledge, and thus it is particularly applied to the various departments of knowledge as taught in a university and to the body of teachers of the particular art or science taught and finally to the entire teaching body. A further extension of this use is to the body of members cef any profession.
In law, "faculty" is a dispensation or licence to do that which is not permitted by the common law. The word in this sense is used only in ecclesiastical law. (See BENEFICE ; MARRIAGE ; LI CENCE; NOTARY PUBLIC.) Any alteration in a church, such as an addition or diminution in the fabric or the utensils or ornaments, cannot strictly be made without the legal sanction of the ordinary, which can be expressed only by the issue of a faculty. So a faculty would be required for a vault, for the removal of a body, for the purpose of erecting monuments, for alterations in a parsonage house, for brick graves, for the apportionment of a seat, etc. Cathedrals, however, are exempt. The court of faculties is the court of the archbishop for granting faculties. In Scotland the society of advocates of the court of session, and local bodies of legal practitioners, are described as faculties.