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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 7 - "Equation" to "Ethics"
Author: Various
Language: English
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Transcriber's notes:
(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.
(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.
(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.
(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.
(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [oo] for infinity; [alpha],
[gamma], etc. for greek letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE ESTÉBANEZ CALDERÓN, SERAFÍN: "His most interesting work,
Escenas andaluzas (1847), is in a curiously affected style ..."
'curiously' amended from 'curiouly'.
ARTICLE ESTERHÁZY OF GALÁNTHA: "He was minister for foreign affairs
in the first responsible Hungarian ministry (1848), but resigned
his post in September because he could see no way of reconciling
the court with the nation." 'because' amended from 'bcause'.
ARTICLE ETHER: "The principal symptoms symptons of chronic
ether-drinking are a weakening of the activity of the special
senses ..." 'symptons' amended from 'symptons'.
ARTICLE ETHEREDGE, SIR GEORGE: "It is partly in rhymed rhymned
heroic verse, like the stilted tragedies of the Howards and
Killigrews ..." 'rhymned' amended from 'rhymned'.
ARTICLE ETHICS: "... or the glory of merely secular gifts and
acquirements, it is one aspect of the unworldliness which we have
already noticed ..." 'unworldliness' amended from 'unwordliness'.
ARTICLE ETHICS: "It will be seen that these changes, however
profoundly important, were, ethically considered, either negative
which all duty should be done." 'relating' amended from 'ralating'.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME IX, SLICE VII
Equation to Ethics
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
EQUATION ESCHEAT
EQUATION OF THE CENTRE ESCHENBURG, JOHANN JOACHIM
EQUATION OF TIME ESCHENMAYER, ADAM KARL AUGUST VON
EQUATOR ESCHER VON DER LINTH, ARNOLD
EQUERRY ESCHSCHOLTZ, JOHANN FRIEDRICH
EQUIDAE ESCHWEGE
EQUILIBRIUM ESCHWEILER
EQUINOX ESCOBAR Y MENDOZA, ANTONIO
EQUITES ESCOIQUIZ, JUAN
EQUITY ESCOMBE, HARRY
EQUIVALENT ESCORIAL
ÉRARD, SÉBASTIEN ESCOVEDO, JUAN DE
ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS ESCUINTLA
ERASTUS, THOMAS ESCUTCHEON
ERATOSTHENES OF ALEXANDRIA ESHER, WILLIAM BALIOL BRETT
ERBACH ESHER
ERBIUM ESKER
ERCILLA Y ZÚNIGA, ALONSO DE ESKILSTUNA
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN ESKIMO
ERDÉLYI, JÁNOS ESKI-SHEHR
ERDMANN, JOHANN EDUARD ESMARCH, JOHANNES FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON
ERDMANN, OTTO LINNÉ ESNA
EREBUS ESOTERIC
ERECH ESPAGNOLS SUR MER, LES
ERECHTHEUM ESPALIER
ERECHTHEUS ESPARTERO, BALDOMERO
ERESHKIGAL ESPARTO
ERETRIA ESPERANCE
ERETRIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY ESPERANTO
ERFURT ESPINAY, TIMOLÉON D'
ERGOT ESPINEL, VICENTE MARTINEZ
ERIC XIV ESPIRITO SANTO
ERICACEAE ESPRONCEDA, JOSÉ IGNACIO ENCARNACIÓN DE
ERICHSEN, SIR JOHN ERIC ESQUIRE
ERICHT, LOCH ESQUIROL, JEAN ÉTIENNE DOMINIQUE
ERICSSON, JOHN ESQUIROS, HENRI FRANÇOIS ALPHONSE
ERIDANUS ESS, JOHANN HEINRICH VAN
ERIDU ESSAY, ESSAYIST
ERIE (lake) ESSEG
ERIE (city) ESSEN
ERIGENA, JOHANNES SCOTUS ESSENES
ERIGONE ESSENTUKI
ERIN ESSEQUIBO
ERINNA ESSEX, EARLS OF
ERINYES ESSEX, ARTHUR CAPEL
ERIPHYLE ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX
ERIS ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX
ERITH ESSEX, WALTER DEVEREUX
ERITREA ESSEX
ERIVAN (government of Russia) ESSEX, KINGDOM OF
ERIVAN (town of Russia) ESSLINGEN
ERLANGEN ESTABLISHMENT
ERLE, SIR WILLIAM ESTABLISHMENT OF A PORT
ERLKÖNIG ESTAING, CHARLES HECTOR
ERMAN, PAUL ESTATE
ERMANARIC ESTATE AND HOUSE AGENTS
ERMELAND ESTATE DUTY
ERMELO ESTCOURT, RICHARD
ERMINE ESTE (family)
ERMINE STREET ESTE (town)
ERMOLDUS NIGELLUS ESTÉBANEZ CALDERÓN, SERAFÍN
ERNE ESTELLA
ERNEST I ESTERHÁZY OF GALÁNTHA
ERNEST II ESTERS
ERNEST AUGUSTUS ESTHER
ERNESTI, JOHANN AUGUST ESTHONIA
ERNESTI, JOHANN GOTTLIEB ESTIENNE
ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM ESTON
ERODE ESTOPPEL
EROS (planet) ESTOUTEVILLE, GUILLAUME D'
EROS (god of love) ESTOVERS
ERPENIUS, THOMAS ESTRADA, LA
ERROLL, FRANCIS HAY ESTRADE
ERROR ESTRADES, GODEFROI
ERSCH, JOHANN SAMUEL ESTREAT
ERSKINE, EBENEZER ESTRÉES, GABRIELLE D'
ERSKINE, HENRY ESTREMADURA
ERSKINE, JOHN (Scottish divine) ESTREMOZ
ERSKINE, JOHN (of Carnock) ESTUARY
ERSKINE, JOHN (of Dun) ESZTERGOM
ERSKINE, RALPH ÉTAGÈRE
ERSKINE, THOMAS (of Linlathen) ETAH
ERSKINE, THOMAS ERSKINE ÉTAMPES, ANNE DE PISSELEU D'HEILLY
ERUBESCITE ÉTAMPES
ERYSIPELAS ÉTAPLES
ERYTHRAE ETAWAH
ERYTHRITE ETCHING
ERZERUM ETEOCLES
ERZGEBIRGE ETESIAN WIND
ERZINGAN ÉTEX, ANTOINE
ESAR-HADDON ETHER
ESAU ETHEREDGE, SIR GEORGE
ESBJERG ETHERIDGE, JOHN WESLEY
ESCANABA ETHERIDGE, ROBERT
ESCAPE ETHERS
ESCHATOLOGY ETHICS
EQUATION (from Lat. _aequatio_, _aequare_, to equalize), an expression
or statement of the equality of two quantities. Mathematical equivalence
is denoted by the sign =, a symbol invented by Robert Recorde
(1510-1558), who considered that nothing could be more equal than two
equal and parallel straight lines. An equation states an equality
existing between two classes of quantities, distinguished as known and
unknown; these correspond to the data of a problem and the thing sought.
It is the purpose of the mathematician to state the unknowns separately
in terms of the knowns; this is called solving the equation, and the
values of the unknowns so obtained are called the roots or solutions.
The unknowns are usually denoted by the terminal letters, ... x, y, z,
of the alphabet, and the knowns are either actual numbers or are
represented by the literals a, b, c, &c..., i.e. the introductory
letters of the alphabet. Any number or literal which expresses what
multiple of term occurs in an equation is called the coefficient of that
term; and the term which does not contain an unknown is called the
absolute term. The degree of an equation is equal to the greatest index
of an unknown in the equation, or to the greatest sum of the indices of
products of unknowns. If each term has the sum of its indices the same,
the equation is said to be homogeneous. These definitions are
exemplified in the equations:--
(1) ax² + 2bx + c = 0,
(2) xy² + 4a²x = 8a³,
(3) ax² + 2hxy + by² = 0.
In (1) the unknown is x, and the knowns a, b, c; the coefficients of x²
and x are a and 2b; the absolute term is c, and the degree is 2. In (2)
the unknowns are x and y, and the known a; the degree is 3, i.e. the sum
of the indices in the term xy². (3) is a homogeneous equation of the
second degree in x and y. Equations of the first degree are called
_simple_ or _linear_; of the second, _quadratic_; of the third, _cubic_;
of the fourth, _biquadratic_; of the fifth, _quintic_, and so on. Of
equations containing only one unknown the number of roots equals the
degree of the equation; thus a simple equation has one root, a quadratic
two, a cubic three, and so on. If one equation be given containing two
unknowns, as for example ax + by = c or ax² + by² = c, it is seen that
there are an infinite number of roots, for we can give x, say, any value
and then determine the corresponding value of y; such an equation is
called _indeterminate_; of the examples chosen the first is a linear and
the second a quadratic indeterminate equation. In general, an
indeterminate equation results when the number of unknowns exceeds by
unity the number of equations. If, on the other hand, we have two
equations connecting two unknowns, it is possible to solve the equations
separately for one unknown, and then if we equate these values we obtain
an equation in one unknown, which is soluble if its degree does not
exceed the fourth. By substituting these values the corresponding values
of the other unknown are determined. Such equations are called
_simultaneous_; and a simultaneous system is a series of equations equal
in number to the number of unknowns. Such a system is not always
soluble, for it may happen that one equation is implied by the others;
when this occurs the system is called _porismatic_ or _poristic_. An
_identity_ differs from an equation inasmuch as it cannot be solved, the
terms mutually cancelling; for example, the expression x² - a² = (x -
a)(x + a) is an identity, for on reduction it gives 0 = 0. It is usual
to employ the sign [Identical to] to express this relation.
An equation admits of description in two ways:--(1) It may be regarded
purely as an algebraic expression, or (2) as a geometrical locus. In
the first case there is obviously no limit to the number of unknowns
and to the degree of the equation; and, consequently, this aspect is
the most general. In the second case the number of unknowns is limited
to three, corresponding to the three dimensions of space; the degree
is unlimited as before. It must be noticed, however, that by the
introduction of appropriate hyperspaces, i.e. of degree equal to the
number of unknowns, any equation theoretically admits of geometrical
visualization, in other words, every equation may be represented by a
geometrical figure and every geometrical figure by an equation.
Corresponding to these two aspects, there are two typical methods by
which equations can be solved, viz. the algebraic and geometric. The
former leads to exact results, or, by methods of approximation, to
results correct to any required degree of accuracy. The latter can
only yield approximate values: when theoretically exact constructions
are available there is a source of error in the draughtsmanship, and
when the constructions are only approximate, the accuracy of the
results is more problematical. The geometric aspect, however, is of
considerable value in discussing the theory of equations.
_History._--There is little doubt that the earliest solutions of
equations are given, in the Rhind papyrus, a hieratic document written
some 2000 years before our era. The problems solved were of an
arithmetical nature, assuming such forms as "a mass and its 1/7th makes
19." Calling the unknown mass x, we have given x + (1/7)x = 19, which is
a simple equation. Arithmetical problems also gave origin to equations
involving two unknowns; the early Greeks were familiar with and solved
simultaneous linear equations, but indeterminate equations, such, for
instance, as the system given in the "cattle problem" of Archimedes,
were not seriously studied until Diophantus solved many particular
problems. Quadratic equations arose in the Greek investigations in the
doctrine of proportion, and although they were presented and solved in
a geometrical form, the methods employed have no relation to the
generalized conception of algebraic geometry which represents a curve by
an equation and vice versa. The simplest quadratic arose in the
construction of a mean proportional (x) between two lines (a, b), or in
the construction of a square equal to a given rectangle; for we have the
proportion a:x = x:b; i.e. x² = ab. A more general equation, viz. x² -
ax + a² = 0, is the algebraic equivalent of the problem to divide a line
in medial section; this is solved in _Euclid_, ii. 11. It is possible
that Diophantus was in possession of an algebraic solution of
quadratics; he recognized, however, only one root, the interpretation of
both being first effected by the Hindu Bhaskara. A simple cubic equation
was presented in the problem of finding two mean proportionals, x, y,
between two lines, one double the other. We have a:x = x:y = y:2a, which
gives x² = ay and xy = 2a²; eliminating y we obtain x³ = 2a³, a simple
cubic. The Greeks could not solve this equation, which also arose in the
problems of duplicating a cube and trisecting an angle, by the ruler and
compasses, but only by mechanical curves such as the cissoid, conchoid
and quadratrix. Such solutions were much improved by the Arabs, who also
solved both cubics and biquadratics by means of intersecting conics; at
the same time, they developed methods, originated by Diophantus and
improved by the Hindus, for finding approximate roots of numerical
equations by algebraic processes. The algebraic solution of the general
cubic and biquadratic was effected in the 16th century by S. Ferro, N.
Tartaglia, H. Cardan and L. Ferrari (see ALGEBRA: _History_). Many
fruitless attempts were made to solve algebraically the quintic equation
until P. Ruffini and N.H. Abel proved the problem to be impossible; a
solution involving elliptic functions has been given by C. Hermite and
L. Kronecker, while F. Klein has given another solution.
In the geometric treatment of equations the Greeks and Arabs based their
constructions upon certain empirically deduced properties of the curves
and figures employed. Knowing various metrical relations, generally
expressed as proportions, it was found possible to solve particular
equations, but a general method was wanting. This lacuna was not filled
until the 17th century, when Descartes discovered the general theory
which explained the nature of such solutions, in particular those
wherein conics were employed, and, in addition, established the most
important facts that every equation represents a geometrical locus, and
conversely. To represent equations containing two unknowns, x, y, he
chose two axes of reference mutually perpendicular, and measured x along
the horizontal axis and y along the vertical. Then by the methods
described in the article GEOMETRY: _Analytical_, he showed that--(1) a
linear equation represents a straight line, and (2) a quadratic
represents a conic. If the equation be homogeneous or break up into
factors, it represents a number of straight lines in the first case, and
the loci corresponding to the factors in the second. The solution of
simultaneous equations is easily seen to be the values of x, y
corresponding to the intersections of the loci. It follows that there is
only one value of x, y which satisfies two linear equations, since two
lines intersect in one point only; two values which satisfy a linear and
quadratic, since a line intersects a conic in two points; and four
values which satisfy two quadratics, since two conics intersect in four
points. It may happen that the curves do not actually intersect in the
theoretical maximum number of points; the principle of continuity (see
GEOMETRICAL CONTINUITY) shows us that in such cases some of the roots
are imaginary. To represent equations involving three unknowns x, y, z,
a third axis is introduced, the z-axis, perpendicular to the plane xy
and passing through the intersection of the lines x, y. In this notation
a linear equation represents a plane, and two linear simultaneous
equations represent a line, i.e. the intersection of two planes; a
quadratic equation represents a surface of the second degree. In order
to graphically consider equations containing only one unknown, it is
convenient to equate the terms to y; i.e. if the equation be [f](x) = 0,
we take y = [f](x) and construct this curve on rectangular Cartesian
co-ordinates by determining the values of y which correspond to chosen
values of x, and describing a curve through the points so obtained. The
intersections of the curve with the axis of x gives the real roots of
the equation; imaginary roots are obviously not represented.
In this article we shall treat of: (1) Simultaneous equations, (2)
indeterminate equations, (3) cubic equations, (4) biquadratic equations,
(5) theory of equations. Simple, linear simultaneous and quadratic
equations are treated in the article ALGEBRA; for differential equations
see DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.
I. _Simultaneous Equations._
Simultaneous equations which involve the second and higher powers of
the unknown may be impossible of solution. No general rules can be
given, and the solution of any particular problem will largely depend
upon the student's ingenuity. Here we shall only give a few typical
examples.
1. _Equations which may be reduced to linear equations.--Ex._ To solve
x(x - a) = yz, y(y - b) = zx, z(z - c)=xy. Multiply the equations by
y, z and x respectively, and divide the sum by xyz; then
a b c
-- + -- + -- = 0 ... (1).
z x y
Multiply by z, x and y, and divide the sum by xyz; then
a b c
-- + -- + -- = 0 ... (2).
y z x
From (1) and (2) by cross multiplication we obtain
1 1 1 1
---------- = ---------- = ---------- = -------- (suppose)(3).
y(b² - ac) z(c² - ab) x(a² - bc) [lambda]
Substituting for x, y and z in x(x - a) = yz we obtain
1 3abc - (a³ + b³ + c³)
-------- = ---------------------------;
[lambda] (a² - bc)(b² - ac)(c² - ab)
and therefore x, y and z are known from (3). The same artifice solves
the equations x² - yz = a, y² - xz = b, z² - xy = c.
2. _Equations which are homogeneous and of the same degree._--These
equations can be solved by substituting y = mx. We proceed to explain
the method by an example.
_Ex._ To solve 3x² + xy + y² = 15, 31xy - 3x² - 5y² = 45. Substituting
y = mx in both these equations, and then dividing, we obtain 31m - 3 -
5m² = 3(3 + m + m²) or 8m² - 28m + 12 = 0. The roots of this quadratic
are m = ½ or 3, and therefore 2y = x, or y = 3x.
Taking 2y = x and substituting in 3x² + xy + y² = 0, we obtain y²(12 +
2 + 1) = 15; :. y² = 1, which gives y = ±1, x = ±2. Taking the second
value, y = 3x, and substituting for y, we obtain x²(3 + 3 + 9) = 15;
:. x² = 1, which gives x = ±1, y = ±3. Therefore the solutions are x =
±2, y = ±1 and x = ±1, y = ±3. Other artifices have to be adopted to
solve other forms of simultaneous equations, for which the reader is
referred to J.J. Milne, _Companion to Weekly Problem Papers_.
II. _Indeterminate Equations._
1. When the number of unknown quantities exceeds the number of
equations, the equations will admit of innumerable solutions, and are
therefore said to be _indeterminate_. Thus if it be required to find
two numbers such that their sum be 10, we have two unknown quantities
x and y, and only one equation, viz. x + y = 10, which may evidently
be satisfied by innumerable different values of x and y, if fractional
solutions be admitted. It is, however, usual, in such questions as
this, to restrict values of the numbers sought to positive integers,
and therefore, in this case, we can have only these nine solutions,
x = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9;
y = 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1;
which indeed may be reduced to five; for the first four become the
same as the last four, by simply changing x into y, and the contrary.
This branch of analysis was extensively studied by Diophantus, and is
sometimes termed the Diophantine Analysis.
2. Indeterminate problems are of different orders, according to the
dimensions of the equation which is obtained after all the unknown
quantities but two have been eliminated by means of the given
equations. Those of the first order lead always to equations of the
form
ax ± by = ±c,
where a, b, c denote given whole numbers, and x, y two numbers to be
found, so that both may be integers. That this condition may be
fulfilled, it is necessary that the coefficients a, b have no common
divisor which is not also a divisor of c; for if a = md and b = me,
then ax + by = mdx + mey = c, and dx + ey = c/m; but d, e, x, y are
supposed to be whole numbers, therefore c/m is a whole number; hence m
must be a divisor of c.
Of the four forms expressed by the equation ax ± by = ±c, it is
obvious that ax + by = -c can have no positive integral solutions.
Also ax - by = -c is equivalent to by - ax = c, and so we have only to
consider the forms ax ± by = c. Before proceeding to the general
solution of these equations we will give a numerical example.
To solve 2x + 3y = 25 in positive integers. From the given equation
we have x = (25 - 3y)/2 = 12 - y - (y - 1)/2. Now, since x must be a
whole number, it follows that (y - 1)/2 must be a whole number. Let us
assume (y - 1)/2 = z, then y = 1 + 2z; and x = 11 - 3z, where z might
be any whole number whatever, if there were no limitation as to the
signs of x and y. But since these quantities are required to be
positive, it is evident, from the value of y, that z must be either 0
or positive, and from the value of x, that it must be less than 4;
hence z may have these four values, 0, 1, 2, 3.
If z = 0, z = 1, z = 2, z = 3;
Then x = 11, x = 8, x = 5, x = 2,
y = 1, y = 3, y = 5, y = 7.
3. We shall now give the solution of the equation ax - by = c in
positive integers.
Convert a/b into a continued fraction, and let p/q be the convergent
immediately preceding a/b, then aq - bp = ±1 (see CONTINUED FRACTION).
([alpha]) If aq - bp = 1, the given equation may be written
ax - by = c(aq - bp);
:. a(x - cq) = b(y - cp).
Since a and b are prime to one another, then x - cq must be divisible
by b and y - cp by a; hence
(x - cq) / b = (y - cq)/a = t.
That is, x = bt + cq and y = at + cp.
Positive integral solutions, unlimited in number, are obtained by
giving t any positive integral value, and any negative integral value,
so long as it is numerically less than the smaller of the quantities
cq/b, cp/a; t may also be zero.
(ß) If aq - bp = -1, we obtain x = bt - cq, y = at - cp, from which
positive integral solutions, again unlimited in number, are obtained
by giving t any positive integral value which exceeds the greater of
the two quantities cq/b, cp/a.
If a or b is unity, a/b cannot be converted into a continued fraction
with unit numerators, and the above method fails. In this case the
solutions can be derived directly, for if b is unity, the equation may
be written y = ax - c, and solutions are obtained by giving x positive
integral values greater than c/a.
4. To solve ax + by = c in positive integers. Converting a/b into a
continued fraction and proceeding as before, we obtain, in the case of
aq - bp = 1,
x = cq - bt, y = at - cp.
Positive integral solutions are obtained by giving t positive integral
values not less than cp/a and not greater than cq/b.
In this case the number of solutions is limited. If aq - bp = -1 we
obtain the general solution x = bt - cq, y = cp - at, which is of the
same form as in the preceding case. For the determination of the
number of solutions the reader is referred to H.S. Hall and S.R.
Knight's _Higher Algebra_, G. Chrystal's _Algebra_, and other
text-books.
5. If an equation were proposed involving three unknown quantities, as
ax + by + cz = d, by transposition we have ax + by = d - cz, and,
putting d - cz = c', ax + by = c'. From this last equation we may find
values of x and y of this form,
x = mr + nc', y = mr + n'c',
or x = mr + n(d - cz), y = m'r + n'(d - cz);
where z and r may be taken at pleasure, except in so far as the values
of x, y, z may be required to be all positive; for from such
restriction the values of z and r may be confined within certain
limits to be determined from the given equation. For more advanced
treatment of linear indeterminate equations see COMBINATORIAL
ANALYSIS.
6. We proceed to indeterminate problems of the second degree: limiting
ourselves to the consideration of the formula y² = a + bx + cx², where
x is to be found, so that y may be a rational quantity. The
possibility of rendering the proposed formula a square depends
altogether upon the coefficients a, b, c; and there are four cases of
the problem, the solution of each of which is connected with some
peculiarity in its nature.
_Case_ 1. Let a be a square number; then, putting g² for a, we have y²
= g² + bx + cx². Suppose [root](g² + bx + cx²) = g + mx; then g² + bx
+ cx² = g² + 2gmx + m²x², or bx + cx² = 2gmx + m²x², that is, b + cx =
2gm + m²x; hence
2gm - b cg - bm + gm²
x = -------, y = [root](g² + bx + cx²) = -------------,
c - m² c - m²
_Case_ 2. Let c be a square number = g²; then, putting [root](a + bx +
g²x²) = m + gx, we find a + bx + g²x² = m² + 2mgx + g²x², or a + bx =
m² + 2mgx; hence we find
m² - a bm - gm² - ag
x = -------, y = [root](a + bx + g²x²) = -------------.
b - 2mg b - 2mg
_Case_ 3. When neither a nor c is a square number, yet if the
expression a + bx + cx² can be resolved into two simple factors, as f
+ gx and h + kx, the irrationality may be taken away as follows:--
Assume [root](a + bx + cx²)=[root]{(f + gx)(h + kx)} = m(f + gx), then
(f + gx)(h + kx) = m²(f + gx)², or h + kx = m²(f + gx); hence we find
fm² - h (fk - gh)m
x = -------, y = [root]{(f + gx)(h + kx)} = ----------;
k - gm² k - gm²
and in all these formulae m may be taken at pleasure.
_Case_ 4. The expression a + bx + cx² may be transformed into a
square as often as it can be resolved into two parts, one of which is
a complete square, and the other a product of two simple factors; for
then it has this form, p² + qr, where p, q and r are quantities which
contain no power of x higher than the first. Let us assume [root](p² +
qr) = p + mq; thus we have p² + qr = p² + 2mpq + m²q² and r = 2mp +
m²q, and as this equation involves only the first power of x, we may
by proper reduction obtain from it rational values of x and y, as in
the three foregoing cases.
The application of the preceding general methods of resolution to any
particular case is very easy; we shall therefore conclude with a
single example.
_Ex._ It is required to find two square numbers whose sum is a given
square number.
Let a² be the given square number, and x², y² the numbers required;
then, by the question, x² + y² = a², and y = [root](a² - x²). This
equation is evidently of such a form as to be resolvable by the method
employed in case 1. Accordingly, by comparing [root](a² - x²) with the
general expression [root](g² + bx + cx²), we have g = a, b = 0, c =
-1, and substituting these values in the formulae, and also -n for +m,
we find
2an a(n² - 1)
x = ------, y = ---------.
n² + 1 n² + 1
If a = n² + 1, there results x = 2n, y = n² - 1, a = n² + 1. Hence if
r be an even number, the three sides of a rational right-angled
triangle are r, (½r)² - 1, (½r)² + 1. If r be an odd number, they
become (dividing by 2) r, ½(r² - 1), ½(r² + 1).
For example, if r = 4, 4, 4 - 1, 4 + 1, or 4, 3, 5, are the sides of a
right-angled triangle; if r = 7, 7, 24, 25 are the sides of a
right-angled triangle.
III. _Cubic Equations_.
1. Cubic equations, like all equations above the first degree, are
divided into two classes: they are said to be _pure_ when they contain
only one power of the unknown quantity; and _adfected_ when they
contain two or more powers of that quantity.
Pure cubic equations are therefore of the form x³ = r; and hence it
appears that a value of the simple power of the unknown quantity may
always be found without difficulty, by extracting the cube root of
each side of the equation. Let us consider the equation x³ - c³ = 0
more fully. This is decomposable into the factors x - c = 0 and x² +
cx + c² = 0. The roots of this quadratic equation are ½(-1 ±
[root]-3)c, and we see that the equation x³ = c³ has three roots,
namely, one real root c, and two imaginary roots ½(-1 ± [root]-3)c. By
making c equal to unity, we observe that ½(-1 ± [root]-3) are the
imaginary cube roots of unity, which are generally denoted by [omega]
and [omega]², for it is easy to show that (½(-1 - [root]-3))² = ½(-1 +
[root]-3).
2. Let us now consider such cubic equations as have all their terms,
and which are therefore of this form,
x³ + Ax² + Bx + C = 0,
where A, B and C denote known quantities, either positive or negative.
This equation may be transformed into another in which the second term
is wanting by the substitution x = y - A/3. This transformation is a
particular case of a general theorem. Let x^n + Ax^(n - 1) + Bx^(n -
2) ... = 0. Substitute x = y + h; then (y + h)^n + A(y + h)^(n - 1)
... = 0. Expand each term by the binomial theorem, and let us fix our
attention on the coefficient of y^(n - 1). By this process we obtain 0
= y^n + y^(n - 1)(A + nh) + terms involving lower powers of y.
Now h can have any value, and if we choose it so that A + nh = 0, then
the second term of our derived equation vanishes.
Resuming, therefore, the equation y³ + qy + r = 0, let us suppose y =
v + z; we then have y³ = v³ + z³ + 3vz(v + z) = v³ + z³ + 3vzy, and
the original equation becomes v³ + z³ + (3vz + q)y + r = 0. Now v and
z are any two quantities subject to the relation y = v + z, and if we
suppose 3vz + q = 0, they are completely determined. This leads to v³
+ z³ + r = 0 and 3vz + q = 0. Therefore v³ and z³ are the roots of the
quadratic t² + rt - q²/27 = 0. Therefore
v³ = -½r + [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²];
z³ = -½r - [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²];
v = [root 3]{-½r + [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²]};
z = [root 3]{-½r - [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²]};
and
y = v + z = [root 3]{-½r + [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²]} +
[root 3]{-½r - [root][(1/27)q³ + ¼r²]}.
Thus we have obtained a value of the unknown quantity y, in terms of
the known quantities q and r; therefore the equation is resolved.
3. But this is only one of three values which y may have. Let us, for
the sake of brevity, put
A = -½r + [root]((1/27)q³ + ¼r²), B = -½r - [root]((1/27)q³ + ¼r²),
and put
[alpha] = ½(-1 + [root]-3),
ß = ½(-1 - [root]-3).
Then, from what has been shown (§ 1), it is evident that v and z have
each these three values,
v = [root 3]A, v = [alpha][root 3]A, v = ß[root 3]A;
z = [root 3]B, z = [alpha][root 3]B, z = ß[root 3]B.
To determine the corresponding values of v and z, we must consider
that vz = -(1/3)q = [root 3](AB). Now if we observe that [alpha]ß = 1,
it will immediately appear that v + z has these three values,
v + z = [root 3]A + [root 3]B,
v + z = [alpha][root 3]A + ß[root 3]B,
v + z = ß[root 3]A + [alpha][root 3]B,
which are therefore the three values of y.
The first of these formulae is commonly known by the name of Cardan's
rule (see ALGEBRA: _History_).
The formulae given above for the roots of a cubic equation may be put
under a different form, better adapted to the purposes of
arithmetical calculation, as follows:--Because vz = -(1/3)q, therefore
z = -(1/3)q × 1/v = -(1/3)q / [root 3]A; hence v + z = [root 3]A -
(1/3)q / [root 3]A; thus it appears that the three values of y may
also be expressed thus:
y = [root 3]A - (1/3)q / [root 3]A
y = [alpha][root 3]A - (1/3)qß / [root 3]A
y = ß[root 3]A - (1/3)q[alpha] / [root 3]A.
See below, _Theory of Equations_, §§ 16 et seq.
IV. _Biquadratic Equations_.
1. When a biquadratic equation contains all its terms, it has this
form,
x^4 + Ax³ + Bx² + Cx + D = 0,
where A, B, C, D denote known quantities.
We shall first consider pure biquadratics, or such as contain only the
first and last terms, and therefore are of this form, x^4 = b^4. In
this case it is evident that x may be readily had by two extractions
of the square root; by the first we find x² = b², and by the second x
= b. This, however, is only one of the values which x may have; for
since x^4 = b^4, therefore x^4 - b^4 = 0; but x^4 - b^4 may be
resolved into two factors x² - b² and x² + b², each of which admits of
a similar resolution; for x² - b² = (x - b)(x + b) and x² + b² = (x -
b[root]-1)(x + b[root]-1). Hence it appears that the equation x^4 -
b^4 = 0 may also be expressed thus,
(x - b)(x + b)(x - b[root]-1)(x + b[root]-1) = 0;
so that x may have these four values,
+b, -b, +b[root]-1, -b[root]-1,
two of which are real, and the others imaginary.
2. Next to pure biquadratic equations, in respect of easiness of
resolution, are such as want the second and fourth terms, and
therefore have this form,
x^4 + qx² + s = 0.
These may be resolved in the manner of quadratic equations; for if we
put y = x², we have
y² + qy + s = 0,
from which we find y = ½{-q ± [root](q² - 4s)}, and therefore
x = ±[root]½{-q ± [root](q² - 4s)}.
3. When a biquadratic equation has all its terms, its resolution may
be always reduced to that of a cubic equation. There are various
methods by which such a reduction may be effected. The following was
first given by Leonhard Euler in the _Petersburg Commentaries_, and
afterwards explained more fully in his _Elements of Algebra_.
We have already explained how an equation which is complete in its
terms may be transformed into another of the same degree, but which
wants the second term; therefore any biquadratic equation may be
reduced to this form,
y^4 + py² + qy + r = 0,
where the second term is wanting, and where p, q, r denote any known
quantities whatever.
That we may form an equation similar to the above, let us assume y =
[root]a + [root]b + [root]c, and also suppose that the letters a, b, c
denote the roots of the cubic equation
z³ + Pz² + Qz - R = 0;
then, from the theory of equations we have
a + b + c = -P, ab + ac + bc = Q, abc = R.
We square the assumed formula
y = [root]a + [root]b + [root]c,
and obtain
y² = a + b + c + 2([root]ab + [root]ac + [root]bc);
or, substituting -P for a + b + c, and transposing,
y² + P = 2([root]ab + [root]ac + [root]bc).
Let this equation be also squared, and we have
y^4 + 2Py² + P² = 4(ab + ac + bc) + 8([root]a²bc + [root]ab²c +
[root]abc²);
and since
ab + ac + bc = Q,
and
[root]a²bc + [root]ab²c + [root]abc² = [root]abc([root]a + [root]b +
[root]c) = [root]R·y,
the same equation may be expressed thus:
y^4 + 2Py² + P² = 4Q + 8[root]R·y.
Thus we have the biquadratic equation
y^4 + 2Py² - 8[root]R·y + P² - 4Q = 0,
one of the roots of which is y = [root]a + [root]b + [root]c, while a,
b, c are the roots of the cubic equation z³ + Pz² + Qz - R = 0.
4. In order to apply this resolution to the proposed equation y^4 +
py² + qy + r = 0, we must express the assumed coefficients P, Q, R by
means of p, q, r, the coefficients of that equation. For this purpose
let us compare the equations
y^4 + py² + qy + r = 0,
y^4 + 2Py² - 8[root]Ry + P² - 4Q = 0,
and it immediately appears that
2P = p, -8[root]R = q, P² - 4Q = r;
and from these equations we find
P = ½p, Q = (1/16)(p² - 4r), R = (1/64)q².
Hence it follows that the roots of the proposed equation are generally
expressed by the formula
y = [root]a + [root]b + [root]c;
where a, b, c denote the roots of this cubic equation,
p p² - 4r q²
z³ + -- z² + ------- z - -- = 0.
2 16 64
But to find each particular root, we must consider, that as the square
root of a number may be either positive or negative, so each of the
quantities [root]a, [root]b, [root]c may have either the sign + or -
prefixed to it; and hence our formula will give eight different
expressions for the root. It is, however, to be observed, that as the
product of the three quantities [root]a, [root]b, [root]c must be
equal to [root]R or to -(1/8)q; when q is positive, their product must
be a negative quantity, and this can only be effected by making either
one or three of them negative; again, when q is negative, their
product must be a positive quantity; so that in this case they must
either be all positive, or two of them must be negative. These
considerations enable us to determine that four of the eight
expressions for the root belong to the case in which q is positive,
and the other four to that in which it is negative.
5. We shall now give the result of the preceding investigation in the
form of a practical rule; and as the coefficients of the cubic
equation which has been found involve fractions, we shall transform it
into another, in which the coefficients are integers, by supposing z =
¼v. Thus the equation
p p² - 4r q²
z³ + -- z² + ------- z - -- = 0
2 16 64
becomes, after reduction,
v³ + 2pv² + (p² - 4r)v - q² = 0;
it also follows, that if the roots of the latter equation are a, b, c,
the roots of the former are ¼a, ¼b, ¼c, so that our rule may now be
expressed thus:
Let y^4 + py² + qy + r = 0 be any biquadratic equation wanting its
second term. Form this cubic equation
v³ + 2pv² + (p² - 4r)v - q² = 0,
and find its roots, which let us denote by a, b, c.
Then the roots of the proposed biquadratic equation are,
when q is negative, when q is positive,
y = ½([root]a + [root]b + [root]c), y = ½(-[root]a - [root]b - [root]c),
y = ½([root]a - [root]b - [root]c), y = ½(-[root]a + [root]b + [root]c),
y = ½(-[root]a + [root]b - [root]c), y = ½([root]a - [root]b + [root]c),
y = ½(-[root]a - [root]b + [root]c), y = ½([root]a + [root]b - [root]c).
See also below, _Theory of Equations_, § 17 et seq. (X.)
V. _Theory of Equations_.
1. In the subject "Theory of Equations" the term _equation_ is used to
denote an equation of the form x^n - p1x^(n - 1) ... ± p_n = 0, where p1,
p2 ... p_n are regarded as known, and x as a quantity to be determined;
for shortness the equation is written [f](x) = 0.
The equation may be _numerical_; that is, the coefficients p1, p2^n, ...
p_n are then numbers--understanding by number a quantity of the form
[alpha] + ßi ([alpha] and ß having any positive or negative real values
whatever, or say each of these is regarded as susceptible of continuous
variation from an indefinitely large negative to an indefinitely large
positive value), and i denoting [root]-1.
Or the equation may be _algebraical_; that is, the coefficients are not
then restricted to denote, or are not explicitly considered as denoting,
numbers.
1. We consider first numerical equations. (Real theory, 2-6; Imaginary
theory, 7-10.)
_Real Theory_.
2. Postponing all consideration of imaginaries, we take in the first
instance the coefficients to be real, and attend only to the real roots
(if any); that is, p1, p2, ... p_n are real positive or negative
quantities, and a root a, if it exists, is a positive or negative
quantity such that a^n - p1a^(n - 1) ... ± p_n = 0, or say, [f](a) = 0.
It is very useful to consider the curve y = [f](x),--or, what would come
to the same, the curve Ay = [f](x),--but it is better to retain the
first-mentioned form of equation, drawing, if need be, the ordinate y on
a reduced scale. For instance, if the given equation be x³ - 6x² + 11x -
6.06 = 0,[1] then the curve y = x³ - 6x² + 11x - 6.06 is as shown in
fig. 1, without any reduction of scale for the ordinate.
It is clear that, in general, y is a continuous one-valued function of
x, finite for every finite value of x, but becoming infinite when x is
infinite; i.e., assuming throughout that the coefficient of x^n is +1,
then when x = [oo], y = +[oo]; but when x = -[oo], then y = +[oo] or
-[oo], according as n is even or odd; the curve cuts any line whatever,
and in particular it cuts the axis (of x) in at most n points; and the
value of x, at any point of intersection with the axis, is a root of the
equation [f](x) = 0.
If ß, [alpha] are any two values of x ([alpha] > ß, that is, [alpha]
nearer +[oo]), then if [f](ß), [f]([alpha]) have opposite signs, the
curve cuts the axis an odd number of times, and therefore at least once,
between the points x = ß, x = [alpha]; but if [f](ß), [f]([alpha]) have
the same sign, then between these points the curve cuts the axis an even
number of times, or it may be not at all. That is, [f](ß), [f]([alpha])
having opposite signs, there are between the limits ß, [alpha] an odd
number of real roots, and therefore at least one real root; but [f](ß),
[f]([alpha]) having the same sign, there are between these limits an
even number of real roots, or it may be there is no real root. In
particular, by giving to ß, [alpha] the values -[oo], +[oo] (or, what is
the same thing, any two values sufficiently near to these values
respectively) it appears that an equation of an odd order has always an
odd number of real roots, and therefore at least one real root; but that
an equation of an even order has an even number of real roots, or it may
be no real root.
If [alpha] be such that for x = or > a (that is, x nearer to +[oo])
[f](x) is always +, and ß be such that for x = or < ß (that is, x nearer
to -[oo]) [f](x) is always -, then the real roots (if any) lie between
these limits x = ß, x = [alpha]; and it is easy to find by trial such
two limits including between them all the real roots (if any).
3. Suppose that the positive value [delta] is an inferior limit to the
difference between two real roots of the equation; or rather (since the
foregoing expression would imply the existence of real roots) suppose
that there are not two real roots such that their difference taken
positively is = or < [delta]; then, [gamma] being any value whatever,
there is clearly at most one real root between the limits [gamma] and
[gamma] + [delta]; and by what precedes there is such real root or there
is not such real root, according as [f]([gamma]), [f]([gamma] + [delta])
have opposite signs or have the same sign. And by dividing in this
manner the interval ß to [alpha] into intervals each of which is = or <
[delta], we should not only ascertain the number of the real roots (if
any), but we should also separate the real roots, that is, find for each
of them limits [gamma], [gamma] + [delta] between which there lies this
one, and only this one, real root.
In particular cases it is frequently possible to ascertain the number
of the real roots, and to effect their separation by trial or
otherwise, without much difficulty; but the foregoing was the general
process as employed by Joseph Louis Lagrange even in the second
edition (1808) of the _Traité de la résolution des équations
numériques_;[2] the determination of the limit [delta] had to be
effected by means of the "equation of differences" or equation of the
order ½n(n - 1), the roots of which are the squares of the differences
of the roots of the given equation, and the process is a cumbrous and
unsatisfactory one.
4. The great step was effected by the theorem of J.C.F. Sturm
(1835)--viz. here starting from the function [f](x), and its first
derived function [f]'(x), we have (by a process which is a slight
modification of that for obtaining the greatest common measure of these
two functions) to form a series of functions
[f](x), [f]'(x), [f]2(x), ... [f]_n(x)
of the degrees n, n - 1, n - 2 ... 0 respectively,--the last term
[f]_n(x) being thus an absolute constant. These lead to the immediate
determination of the number of real roots (if any) between any two given
limits ß, [alpha]; viz. supposing [alpha] > ß (that is, [alpha] nearer
to +[oo]), then substituting successively these two values in the series
of functions, and attending only to the signs of the resulting values,
the number of the changes of sign lost in passing from ß to [alpha] is
the required number of real roots between the two limits. In particular,
taking ß, [alpha] = -[oo], +[oo] respectively, the signs of the several
functions depend merely on the signs of the terms which contain the
highest powers of x, and are seen by inspection, and the theorem thus
gives at once the whole number of real roots.
And although theoretically, in order to complete by a finite number of
operations the separation of the real roots, we still need to know the
value of the before-mentioned limit [delta]; yet in any given case the
separation may be effected by a limited number of repetitions of the
process. The practical difficulty is when two or more roots are very
near to each other. Suppose, for instance, that the theorem shows that
there are two roots between 0 and 10; by giving to x the values 1, 2, 3,
... successively, it might appear that the two roots were between 5 and
6; then again that they were between 5.3 and 5.4, then between 5.34 and
5.35, and so on until we arrive at a separation; say it appears that
between 5.346 and 5.347 there is one root, and between 5.348 and 5.349
the other root. But in the case in question [delta] would have a very
small value, such as .002, and even supposing this value known, the
direct application of the first-mentioned process would be still more
laborious.
5. Supposing the separation once effected, the determination of the
single real root which lies between the two given limits may be effected
to any required degree of approximation either by the processes of W.G.
Horner and Lagrange (which are in principle a carrying out of the method
of Sturm's theorem), or by the process of Sir Isaac Newton, as perfected
by Joseph Fourier (which requires to be separately considered).
First as to Horner and Lagrange. We know that between the limits ß,
[alpha] there lies one, and only one, real root of the equation;
[f](ß) and [f]([alpha]) have therefore opposite signs. Suppose any
intermediate value is [theta]; in order to determine by Sturm's
theorem whether the root lies between ß, [theta], or between [theta],
[alpha], it would be quite unnecessary to calculate the signs of
[f]([theta]),[f]'([theta]), [f]2([theta]) ...; only the sign of
[f]([theta]) is required; for, if this has the same sign as [f](ß),
then the root is between ß, [theta]; if the same sign as [f]([alpha]),
then the root is between [theta], [alpha]. We want to make [theta]
increase from the inferior limit ß, at which [f]([theta]) has the sign
of [f](ß), so long as [f]([theta]) retains this sign, and then to a
value for which it assumes the opposite sign; we have thus two nearer
limits of the required root, and the process may be repeated
indefinitely.
Horner's method (1819) gives the root as a decimal, figure by figure;
thus if the equation be known to have one real root between 0 and 10,
it is in effect shown say that 5 is too small (that is, the root is
between 5 and 6); next that 5.4 is too small (that is, the root is
between 5.4 and 5.5); and so on to any number of decimals. Each figure
is obtained, _not_ by the successive trial of all the figures which
precede it, but (as in the ordinary process of the extraction of a
square root, which is in fact Horner's process applied to this
particular case) it is given presumptively as the first figure of a
quotient; such value may be too large, and then the next inferior
integer must be tried instead of it, or it may require to be further
diminished. And it is to be remarked that the process not only gives
the approximate value [alpha] of the root, but (as in the extraction
of a square root) it includes the calculation of the function
[f]([alpha]), which should be, and approximately is, = 0. The
arrangement of the calculations is very elegant, and forms an integral
part of the actual method. It is to be observed that after a certain
number of decimal places have been obtained, a good many more can be
found by a mere division. It is in the progress tacitly assumed that
the roots have been first separated.
Lagrange's method (1767) gives the root as a continued fraction a +
1/b + 1/c + ..., where a is a positive or negative integer (which may
be = 0), but b, c, ... are positive integers. Suppose the roots have
been separated; then (by trial if need be of consecutive integer
values) the limits may be made to be consecutive integer numbers: say
they are a, a + 1; the value of x is therefore = a + 1/y, where y is
positive and greater than 1; from the given equation for x, writing
therein x = a + 1/y, we form an equation of the same order for y, and
this equation will have one, and only one, positive root greater than
1; hence finding for it the limits b, b + 1 (where b is = or > 1), we
have y = b + 1/z, where z is positive and greater than 1; and so
on--that is, we thus obtain the successive denominators b, c, d ... of
the continued fraction. The method is theoretically very elegant, but
the disadvantage is that it gives the result in the form of a
continued fraction, which for the most part must ultimately be
converted into a decimal. There is one advantage in the method, that a
commensurable root (that is, a root equal to a rational fraction) is
found accurately, since, when such root exists, the continued fraction
terminates.
6. Newton's method (1711), as perfected by Fourier(1831), may be
roughly stated as follows. If x = [gamma] be an approximate value of
any root, and [gamma] + h the correct value, then [f]([gamma] + h) =
0, that is,
h h²
[f]([gamma]) + -- [f]'([gamma]) + --- [f]"([gamma]) + ... = 0;
1 1·2
and then, if h be so small that the terms after the second may be
neglected, [f]([gamma]) + h[f]'([gamma]) = 0, that is, h =
{-[f]([gamma])/[f]'([gamma])}, or the new approximate value is x =
[gamma] - {[f]([gamma])/[f]'([gamma])}; and so on, as often as we
please. It will be observed that so far nothing has been assumed as to
the separation of the roots, or even as to the existence of a real
root; [gamma] has been taken as the approximate value of a root, but
no precise meaning has been attached to this expression. The question
arises, What are the conditions to be satisfied by [gamma] in order
that the process may by successive repetitions actually lead to a
certain real root of the equation; or that, [gamma] being an
approximate value of a certain real root, the new value [gamma] -
{[f]([gamma])/[f]'([gamma])} may be a more approximate value.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
Referring to fig. 1, it is easy to see that if OC represent the
assumed value [gamma], then, drawing the ordinate CP to meet the curve
in P, and the tangent PC' to meet the axis in C', we shall have OC' as
the new approximate value of the root. But observe that there is here
a real root OX, and that the curve beyond X is convex to the axis;
under these conditions the point C' is nearer to X than was C; and,
starting with C' instead of C, and proceeding in like manner to draw a
new ordinate and tangent, and so on as often as we please, we
approximate continually, and that with great rapidity, to the true
value OX. But if C had been taken on the other side of X, where the
curve is concave to the axis, the new point C' might or might not be
nearer to X than was the point C; and in this case the method, if it
succeeds at all, does so by accident only, i.e. it may happen that C'
or some subsequent point comes to be a point C, such that CO is a
_proper_ approximate value of the root, and then the subsequent
approximations proceed in the same manner as if this value had been
assumed in the first instance, all the preceding work being wasted. It
thus appears that for the proper application of the method we require
_more_ than the mere separation of the roots. In order to be able to
approximate to a certain root [alpha], =OX, we require to know that,
between OX and some value ON, the curve is always convex to the axis
(analytically, between the two values, [f](x) and [f]"(x) must have
always the same sign). When this is so, the point C may be taken
anywhere on the proper side of X, and within the portion XN of the
axis; and the process is then the one already explained. The
approximation is in general a very rapid one. If we know for the
required root OX the two limits OM, ON such that from M to X the curve
is always _concave_ to the axis, while from X to N it is always convex
to the axis,--then, taking D anywhere in the portion MX and (as
before) C in the portion XN, drawing the ordinates DQ, CP, and joining
the points P, Q by a line which meets the axis in D', also
constructing the point C' by means of the tangent at P as before, we
have for the required root the new limits OD', OC'; and proceeding in
like manner with the points D', C', and so on as often as we please,
we obtain at each step two limits approximating more and more nearly
to the required root OX. The process as to the point D', translated
into analysis, is the ordinate process of interpolation. Suppose OD =
ß, OC = [alpha], we have approximately [f](ß + h) = [f](ß) +
h{[f]([alpha]) - [f](ß)} / ([alpha] - ß), whence if the root is ß + h
then h = - ([alpha] - ß)[f](ß) / {[f]([alpha]) - [f](ß)}.
Returning for a moment to Horner's method, it may be remarked that the
correction h, to an approximate value [alpha], is therein found as a
quotient the same or such as the quotient [f]([alpha]) ÷ [f]'([alpha])
which presents itself in Newton's method. The difference is that with
Horner the integer part of this quotient is taken as the presumptive
value of h, and the figure is verified at each step. With Newton the
quotient itself, developed to the proper number of decimal places, is
taken as the value of h; if too many decimals are taken, there would
be a waste of work; but the error would correct itself at the next
step. Of course the calculation should be conducted without any such
waste of work.
_Imaginary Theory_.
7. It will be recollected that the expression _number_ and the
correlative epithet _numerical_ were at the outset used in a wide
sense, as extending to imaginaries. This extension arises out of the
theory of equations by a process analogous to that by which number, in
its original most restricted sense of positive integer number, was
extended to have the meaning of a real positive or negative magnitude
susceptible of continuous variation.
If for a moment number is understood in its most restricted sense as
meaning positive integer number, the solution of a simple equation leads
to an extension; ax - b = 0 gives x = (b/a), a positive fraction, and we
can in this manner represent, not accurately, but as nearly as we
please, any positive magnitude whatever; so an equation ax + b = 0 gives
x = -(b/a), which (approximately as before) represents any negative
magnitude. We thus arrive at the extended signification of number as a
continuously varying positive or negative magnitude. Such numbers may be
added or subtracted, multiplied or divided one by another, and the
result is always a number. Now from a quadric equation we derive, in
like manner, the notion of a complex or imaginary number such as is
spoken of above. The equation x² + 1 = 0 is not (in the foregoing sense,
number = real number) satisfied by any numerical value whatever of x;
but we assume that there is a number which we call i, satisfying the
equation i² + 1 = 0, and then taking a and b any real numbers, we form
an expression such as a + bi, and use the expression number in this
extended sense: any two such numbers may be added or subtracted,
multiplied or divided one by the other, and the result is always a
number. And if we consider first a quadric equation x² + px + q = 0
where p and q are real numbers, and next the like equation, where p and
q are any numbers whatever, it can be shown that there exists for x a
numerical value which satisfies the equation; or, in other words, it can
be shown that the equation has a numerical root. The like theorem, in
fact, holds good for an equation of any order whatever; but suppose for
a moment that this was not the case; say that there was a cubic equation
x³ + px² + qx + r = 0, with numerical coefficients, not satisfied by any
numerical value of x, we should have to establish a new imaginary j
satisfying some such equation, and should then have to consider numbers
of the form a + bj, or perhaps a + bj + cj² (a, b, c numbers [alpha] +
ßi of the kind heretofore considered),--first we should be thrown
back on the quadric equation x² + px + q = 0, p and q being now numbers
of the last-mentioned extended form--_non constat_ that every such
equation has a numerical root--and if not, we might be led to _other_
imaginaries k, l, &c., and so on _ad infinitum_ in inextricable
confusion.
But in fact a numerical equation of any order whatever has always a
numerical root, and thus numbers (in the foregoing sense, number =
quantity of the form [alpha] + ßi) form (_what real numbers do not_) a
universe complete in itself, such that starting in it we are never led
out of it. There may very well be, and perhaps are, numbers in a more
general sense of the term (quaternions are not a case in point, as the
ordinary laws of combination are not adhered to), but in order to have
to do with such numbers (if any) we must start with them.
8. The capital theorem as regards numerical equations thus is, every
numerical equation has a numerical root; or for shortness (the meaning
being as before), every equation has a root. Of course the theorem is
the reverse of self-evident, and it requires proof; but provisionally
assuming it as true, we derive from it the general theory of numerical
equations. As the term root was introduced in the course of an
explanation, it will be convenient to give here the formal definition.
A number a such that substituted for x it makes the function x1^n -
p1x^(n - 1) ... ±p_n to be = 0, or say such that it satisfies the
equation [f](x) = 0, is said to be a root of the equation; that is, a
being a root, we have
a^n - p1a^(n - 1) ... ±p_n = 0, or say [f](a) = 0;
and it is then easily shown that x - a is a factor of the function
[f](x), viz. that we have [f](x) = (x - a)[f]1(x), where [f]1(x) is a
function x^(n - 1) - q1x^(n - 2) ... ±q_(n - 1) of the order n - 1,
with numerical coefficients q1, q2 ... q_(n - 1).
In general a is not a root of the equation [f]1(x) = 0, but it may be
so--i.e. [f]1(x) may contain the factor x - a; when this is so, [f](x)
will contain the factor (x - a)²; writing then [f](x) = (x -
a)²[f]2(x), and assuming that a is not a root of the equation [f]2(x)
= 0, x = a is then said to be a double root of the equation [f](x) =
0; and similarly [f](x) may contain the factor (x - a)³ and no higher
power, and x = a is then a triple root; and so on.
Supposing in general that [f](x) = (x - a)^[alpha] F(x) ([alpha] being
a positive integer which may be = 1, (x - a)^[alpha] the highest power
of x - a which divides [f](x), and F(x) being of course of the order n
- [alpha]), then the equation F(x) = 0 will have a root b which will
be different from a; x - b will be a factor, in general a simple one,
but it may be a multiple one, of F(x), and [f](x) will in this case be
= (x - a)^[alpha] (x - b)^ß [Phi](x) (ß a positive integer which may
be = 1, (x-b)^ß the highest power of x - b in F(x) or [f](x), and
[Phi](x) being of course of the order n - [alpha] - ß). The original
equation [f](x) = 0 is in this case said to have [alpha] roots each =
a, ß roots each = b; and so on for any other factors (x - c)^[gamma],
&c.
We have thus the _theorem_--A numerical equation of the order n has in
every case n roots, viz. there exist n numbers, a, b, ... (in general
all distinct, but which may arrange themselves in any sets of equal
values), such that [f](x) = (x - a)(x - b)(x - c) ... identically.
If the equation has equal roots, these can in general be determined,
and the case is at any rate a special one which may be in the first
instance excluded from consideration. It is, therefore, in general
assumed that the equation [f](x) = 0 has all its roots unequal.
If the coefficients p1, p2, ... are all or any one or more of them
imaginary, then the equation [f](x) = 0, separating the real and
imaginary parts thereof, may be written F(x) + i[Phi](x) = 0, where
F(x), [Phi](x) are each of them a function with real coefficients; and
it thus appears that the equation [f](x) = 0, with imaginary
coefficients, has not in general any real root; supposing it to have a
real root a, this must be at once a root of each of the equations F(x)
= 0 and [Phi](x) = 0.
But an equation with real coefficients may have as well imaginary as
real roots, and we have further the _theorem_ that for any such
equation the imaginary roots enter in pairs, viz. [alpha] + ßi being a
root, then [alpha] - ßi will be also a root. It follows that if the
order be odd, there is always an odd number of real roots, and
therefore at least one real root.
9. In the case of an equation with real coefficients, the question of
the existence of real roots, and of their separation, has been already
considered. In the general case of an equation with imaginary (it may be
real) coefficients, the like question arises as to the situation of the
(real or imaginary) roots; thus, if for facility of conception we regard
the constituents [alpha], ß of a root [alpha] + ßi as the co-ordinates
of a point _in plano_, and accordingly represent the root by such point,
then drawing in the plane any closed curve or "contour," the question is
how many roots lie within such contour.
This is solved theoretically by means of a theorem of A.L. Cauchy
(1837), viz. writing in the original equation x + iy in place of x,
the function [f](x + iy) becomes = P + iQ, where P and Q are each of
them a rational and integral function (with real coefficients) of (x,
y). Imagining the point (x, y) to travel along the contour, and
considering the number of changes of sign from - to + and from + to -
of the fraction corresponding to passages of the fraction through zero
(that is, to values for which P becomes = 0, disregarding those for
which Q becomes = 0), the difference of these numbers gives the number
of roots within the contour.
It is important to remark that the demonstration does not presuppose
the existence of any root; the contour may be the infinity of the
plane (such infinity regarded as a contour, or closed curve), and in
this case it can be shown (and that very easily) that the difference
of the numbers of changes of sign is = n; that is, there are within
the infinite contour, or (what is the same thing) there are in all n
roots; thus Cauchy's theorem contains really the proof of the
fundamental theorem that a numerical equation of the nth order (not
only has a numerical root, but) has precisely n roots. It would appear
that this proof of the fundamental theorem in its most complete form
is in principle identical with the last proof of K.F. Gauss (1849) of
the theorem, in the form--A numerical equation of the nth order has
always a root.[3]
But in the case of a finite contour, the actual determination of the
difference which gives the number of real roots can be effected only
in the case of a rectangular contour, by applying to each of its sides
separately a method such as that of Sturm's theorem; and thus the
actual determination ultimately depends on a method such as that of
Sturm's theorem.
Very little has been done in regard to the calculation of the
imaginary roots of an equation by approximation; and the question is
not here considered.
10. A class of numerical equations which needs to be considered is that
of the binomial equations x^n - a = 0 (a = [alpha] + ßi, a complex
number).
The foregoing conclusions apply, viz. there are always n roots, which,
it may be shown, are all unequal. And these can be found numerically
by the extraction of the square root, and of an nth root, of _real_
numbers, and by the aid of a table of natural sines and cosines.[4]
For writing
/ [alpha] ß \
[alpha] + ßi = [root]([alpha]² + ß²) ( --------------------- + ---------------------i ),
\[root]([alpha]² + ß²) [root]([alpha]² + ß²) /
there is always a real angle [lambda] (positive and less than 2[pi]),
such that its cosine and sine are = [alpha] / [root]([alpha]² + ß²)
and ß / [root]([alpha]² + ß²) respectively; that is, writing for
shortness [root]([alpha]² + ß²) = [rho], we have [alpha] + ßi =
[rho](cos[lambda] + i sin[lambda]), or the equation is x^n =
[rho](cos[lambda] + i sin [lambda]); hence observing that (cos
[lambda]/n + i sin [lambda]/n )^n = cos[lambda] + i sin[lambda], a
value of x is = [root n][rho] (cos [lambda]/n + i sin [lambda]/n). The
formula really gives all the roots, for instead of [lambda] we may
write [lambda] + 2s[pi], s a positive or negative integer, and then we
have
/ [lambda] + 2s[pi] [lambda] + 2s[pi] \
x = [root n][rho] ( cos ----------------- + i sin ----------------- ),
\ n n /
which has the n values obtained by giving to s the values 0, 1, 2 ...
n - 1 in succession; the roots are, it is clear, represented by points
lying at equal intervals on a circle. But it is more convenient to
proceed somewhat differently; taking one of the roots to be [theta],
so that [theta]^n = a, then assuming x = [theta]y, the equation
becomes y^n - 1 = 0, which equation, like the original equation, has
precisely n roots (one of them being of course = 1). And the original
equation x^n - a = 0 is thus reduced to the more simple equation x^n -
1 = 0; and although the theory of this equation is included in the
preceding one, yet it is proper to state it separately.
The equation x^n - 1 = 0 has its several roots expressed in the form
1, [omega], [omega]², ... [omega]^(n - 1), where [omega] may be taken
= cos 2[pi]/n + i sin 2[pi]/n; in fact, [omega] having this value, any
integer power [omega]^k is = cos 2[pi]k/n + i sin 2[pi]k/n, and we
thence have ([omega]^k)^n = cos 2[pi]k + i sin 2[pi]k, = 1, that is,
[omega]^k is a root of the equation. The theory will be resumed
further on.
By what precedes, we are led to the notion (a numerical) of the
radical a^(1/n) regarded as an n-valued function; any one of these
being denoted by [root n]a, then the series of values is [root n]a,
[omega][root n]a, ... [omega]^(n - 1)[root n]a; or we may, if we
please, use [root n]a instead of a^(1/n) as a symbol to denote the
n-valued function.
As the coefficients of an algebraical equation may be numerical, all
which follows in regard to algebraical equations is (with, it may be,
some few modifications) applicable to numerical equations; and hence,
concluding for the present this subject, it will be convenient to pass
on to algebraical equations.
_Algebraical Equations._
11. The equation is
x^n - p1x^(n - 1) + ... ±p_n = 0,
and we here _assume_ the existence of roots, viz. we assume that there
are n quantities a, b, c ... (in general all of them different, but
which in particular cases may become equal in sets in any manner), such
that
x^n - p1x^(n - 1) + ... ± p_n = 0;
or looking at the question in a different point of view, and starting
with the roots a, b, c ... as given, we express the product of the n
factors x - a, x - b, ... in the foregoing form, and thus arrive at an
equation of the order n having the n roots a, b, c.... In either case we
have
p1 = [Sigma]a, p2 = [Sigma]ab, ... p_n = abc ...;
i.e. regarding the coefficients p1, p2 ... p_n as given, then we assume
the existence of roots a, b, c, ... such that p1 = [Sigma]a, &c.; or,
regarding the roots as given, then we write p1, p2, &c., to denote the
functions [Sigma]a, [Sigma]ab, &c.
As already explained, the epithet algebraical is not used in
opposition to numerical; an algebraical equation is merely an equation
wherein the coefficients are not restricted to denote, or are not
explicitly considered as denoting, numbers. That the abstraction is
legitimate, appears by the simplest example; in saying that the
equation x² - px + q = 0 has a root x = ½{p + [root](p² - 4q)}, we
mean that writing this value for x the equation becomes an identity,
[½{p + [root](p² - 4q)}]² - p[½{p + [root](p² - 4q)}] + q = 0; and the
verification of this identity in nowise depends upon p and q meaning
numbers. But if it be asked what there is beyond numerical equations
included in the term algebraical equation, or, again, what is the full
extent of the meaning attributed to the term--the latter question at
any rate it would be very difficult to answer; as to the former one,
it may be said that the coefficients may, for instance, be symbols of
operation. As regards such equations, there is certainly no proof that
every equation has a root, or that an equation of the nth order has n
roots; nor is it in any wise clear what the precise signification of
the statement is. But it is found that the assumption of the existence
of the n roots can be made without contradictory results; conclusions
derived from it, if they involve the roots, rest on the same ground as
the original assumption; but the conclusion may be independent of the
roots altogether, and in this case it is undoubtedly valid; the
reasoning, although actually conducted by aid of the assumption (and,
it may be, most easily and elegantly in this manner), is really
independent of the assumption. In illustration, we observe that it is
allowable to express a function of p and q as follows,--that is, by
means of a rational symmetrical function of a and b, this can, as a
fact, be expressed as a rational function of a + b and ab; and if we
prescribe that a + b and ab shall then be changed into p and q
respectively, we have the required function of p, q. That is, we have
F([alpha], ß) as a representation of [f](p, q), obtained as if we had
p = a + b, q = ab, but without in any wise assuming the existence of
the a, b of these equations.
12. Starting from the equation
x^n - p1x^(n - 1) + ... = x - a·x - b. &c.
or the equivalent equations p1 = [Sigma]a, &c., we find
a^n - p1a^(n - 1) + ... = 0,
b^n - p1b^(n - 1) + ... = 0;
. . .
. . .
. . .
(it is as satisfying these equations that a, b ... are said to be the
roots of x^n - p1x^(n - 1) + ... = 0); and conversely from the
last-mentioned equations, assuming that a, b ... are all different, we
deduce
p1 = [Sigma]a, p2 = [Sigma]ab, &c.
and
x^n - p1x^(n - 1) + ... = x - a·x - b. &c.
Observe that if, for instance, a = b, then the equations a^n - p1a^(n -
1) + ... = 0, b^n - p1b^(n - 1) + ... = 0 would reduce themselves to a
single relation, which would not of itself express that a was a double
root,--that is, that (x - a)² was a factor of x^n - p1x^(n - 1) +, &c;
but by considering b as the limit of a + h, h indefinitely small, we
obtain a second equation
na^(n - 1) - (n - 1)p1a^(n - 2) + ... = 0,
which, with the first, expresses that a is a double root; and then the
whole system of equations leads as before to the equations p1 =
[Sigma]a, &c. But the existence of a double root implies a certain
relation between the coefficients; the general case is when the roots
are all unequal.
We have then the _theorem_ that every rational symmetrical function of
the roots is a rational function of the coefficients. This is an easy
consequence from the less general theorem, every rational and integral
symmetrical function of the roots is a rational and integral function of
the coefficients.
In particular, the sums of the powers [Sigma]a², [Sigma]a³, &c., are
rational and integral functions of the coefficients.
The process originally employed for the expression of other functions
[Sigma]a^[alpha] b^ß, &c., in terms of the coefficients is to make
them depend upon the sums of powers: for instance, [Sigma]a^[alpha]
b^ß = [Sigma]a^[alpha] [Sigma]a^ß - [Sigma]a^([alpha] + ß); but this
is very objectionable; the true theory consists in showing that we
have systems of equations
p1 = [Sigma]a,
p2 = [Sigma]ab,
p1² = [Sigma]a² + 2[Sigma]ab,
p3 = [Sigma]abc,
p1p2 = [Sigma]a²b + 3[Sigma]abc,
p1³ = [Sigma]a³ + 3[Sigma]a²b + 6[Sigma]abc,
where in each system there are precisely as many equations as there
are root-functions on the right-hand side--e.g. 3 equations and 3
functions [Sigma]abc, [Sigma]a²b, [Sigma]a³. Hence in each system the
root-functions can be determined linearly in terms of the powers and
products of the coefficients:
[Sigma]ab = p2,
[Sigma]a² = p1² - 2p2,
[Sigma]abc = p3,
[Sigma]a²b = p1p2 - 3p3,
[Sigma]a³ = p1³ - 3p1p2 + 3p3,
and so on. The other process, if applied consistently, would derive
the originally assumed value [Sigma]ab = p2, from the two equations
[Sigma]a = p, [Sigma]a² = p1² - 2p2; i.e. we have 2[Sigma]ab =
[Sigma]a·[Sigma]a - [Sigma]a²,= p1² - (p1² - 2p2), = 2p2.
13. It is convenient to mention here the theorem that, x being
determined as above by an equation of the order n, any rational and
integral function whatever of x, or more generally any rational function
which does not become infinite in virtue of the equation itself, can be
expressed as a rational and integral function of x, of the order n - 1,
the coefficients being rational functions of the coefficients of the
equation. Thus the equation gives x^n a function of the form in
question; multiplying each side by x, and on the right-hand side writing
for x^n its foregoing value, we have x^(n + 1), a function of the form
in question; and the like for any higher power of x, and therefore also
for any rational and integral function of x. The proof in the case of a
rational non-integral function is somewhat more complicated. The final
result is of the form [phi](x)/[psi](x) = I(x), or say [phi](x)
-[psi](x)I(x) = 0, where [phi], [psi], I are rational and integral
functions; in other words, this equation, being true if only [f](x) = 0,
can only be so by reason that the left-hand side contains [f](x) as a
factor, or we must have identically [phi](x) - [psi](x)I(x) =
M(x)[f](x). And it is, moreover, clear that the equation
[phi](x)/[psi](x) = I(x), being satisfied if only [f](x) = 0, must be
satisfied by each root of the equation.
From the theorem that a rational symmetrical function of the roots is
expressible in terms of the coefficients, it at once follows that it
is possible to determine an equation (of an assignable order) having
for its roots the several values of any given (unsymmetrical) function
of the roots of the given equation. For example, in the case of a
quartic equation, roots (a, b, c, d), it is possible to find an
equation having the roots ab, ac, ad, bc, bd, cd (being therefore a
sextic equation): viz. in the product
(y - ab)(y - ac)(y - ad)(y - bc)(y - bd)(y - cd)
the coefficients of the several powers of y will be symmetrical
functions of a, b, c, d and therefore rational and integral functions
of the coefficients of the quartic equation; hence, supposing the
product so expressed, and equating it to zero, we have the required
sextic equation. In the same manner can be found the sextic equation
having the roots (a - b)², (a - c)², (a - d)², (b - c)², (b - d)², (c
- d)², which is the equation of differences previously referred to;
and similarly we obtain the equation of differences for a given
equation of any order. Again, the equation sought for may be that
having for its n roots the given rational functions [phi](a),
[phi](b), ... of the several roots of the given equation. Any such
rational function can (as was shown) be expressed as a rational and
integral function of the order n - 1; and, retaining x in place of any
one of the roots, the problem is to find y from the equations x^n - p1
x^(n - 1) ... = 0, and y = M0x^(n - 1) + M1x^(n - 2) + ..., or, what
is the same thing, from these two equations to eliminate x. This is in
fact E.W. Tschirnhausen's transformation (1683).
14. In connexion with what precedes, the question arises as to the
number of values (obtained by permutations of the roots) of given
unsymmetrical functions of the roots, or say of a given set of letters:
for instance, with roots or letters (a, b, c, d) as before, how many
values are there of the function ab + cd, or better, how many functions
are there of this form? The answer is 3, viz. ab + cd, ac + bd, ad + bc;
or again we may ask whether, in the case of a given number of letters,
there exist functions with a given number of values, 3-valued, 4-valued
functions, &c.
It is at once seen that for any given number of letters there exist
2-valued functions; the product of the differences of the letters is
such a function; however the letters are interchanged, it alters only
its sign; or say the two values are [Delta] and -[Delta]. And if P, Q
are symmetrical functions of the letters, then the general form of
such a function is P + Q[Delta]; this has only the two values P +
Q[Delta], P - Q[Delta].
In the case of 4 letters there exist (as appears above) 3-valued
functions: but in the case of 5 letters there does not exist any
3-valued or 4-valued function; and the only 5-valued functions are
those which are symmetrical in regard to four of the letters, and can
thus be expressed in terms of one letter and of symmetrical functions
of all the letters. These last theorems present themselves in the
demonstration of the non-existence of a solution of a quintic equation
by radicals.
The theory is an extensive and important one, depending on the notions
of _substitutions_ and of _groups_ (q.v.).
15. Returning to equations, we have the very important theorem that,
given the value of any unsymmetrical function of the roots, e.g. in the
case of a quartic equation, the function ab + cd, it is in general
possible to determine rationally the value of any similar function, such
as (a + b)³ + (c + d)³.
The _a priori_ ground of this theorem may be illustrated by means of a
numerical equation. Suppose that the roots of a quartic equation are
1, 2, 3, 4, then if it is given that ab + cd = 14, this in effect
determines a, b to be 1, 2 and c, d to be 3, 4 (viz. a = 1, b = 2 or a
= 2, b = 1, and c = 3, d = 4 or c = 3, d = 4) or else a, b to be 3, 4
and c, d to be 1, 2; and it therefore in effect determines (a + b)³ +
(c + d)³ to be = 370, and not any other value; that is, (a + b)³ + (c
+ d)³, as having a single value, must be determinable rationally. And
we can in the same way account for cases of failure as regards
particular equations; thus, the roots being 1, 2, 3, 4 as before, a²b
= 2 determines a to be = 1 and b to be = 2, but if the roots had been
1, 2, 4, 16 then a²b = 16 does not uniquely determine a, b but only
makes them to be 1, 16 or 2, 4 respectively.
As to the _a posteriori_ proof, assume, for instance,
t1 = ab + cd, y1 = (a + b)³ + (c + d)³,
t2 = ac + bd, y2 = (a + c)³ + (b + d)³,
t3 = ad + bc, y3 = (a + d)³ + (b + c)³:
then y1 + y2 + y3, t1y1 + t2y2 + t3y3, t1²y1 + t2²y2 + t3²y3 will be
respectively symmetrical functions of the roots of the quartic, and
therefore rational and integral functions of the coefficients; that
is, they will be known.
Suppose for a moment that t1, t2, t3 are all known; then the equations
being linear in y1, y2, y3 these can be expressed rationally in terms
of the coefficients and of t1, t2, t3; that is, y1, y2, y3 will be
known. But observe further that y1 is obtained as a function of t1,
t2, t3 symmetrical as regards t2, t3; it can therefore be expressed as
a rational function of t1 and of t2 + t3, t2t3, and thence as a
rational function of t1 and of t1 + t2 + t3, t1t2 + t1t3 + t2t3,
t1t2t3; but these last are symmetrical functions of the roots, and as
such they are expressible rationally in terms of the coefficients;
that is, y1 will be expressed as a rational function of t1 and of the
coefficients; or t1 (alone, not t2 or t3) being known, y1 will be
rationally determined.
16. We now consider the question of the algebraical solution of
equations, or, more accurately, that of the _solution of equations by
radicals_.
In the case of a quadric equation x² - px + q = 0, we can by the
assistance of the sign [root]( ) or ( )^½ find an expression for x as
a 2-valued function of the coefficients p, q such that substituting
this value in the equation, the equation is thereby identically
satisfied; it has been found that this expression is
x = ½{p ± [root](p² - 4q)},
and the equation is on this account said to be algebraically solvable,
or more accurately solvable by radicals. Or we may by writing x = -½p
+ z reduce the equation to z² = ¼(p² - 4q), viz. to an equation of the
form x² = a; and in virtue of its being thus reducible we say that the
original equation is solvable by radicals. And the question for an
equation of any higher order, say of the order n, is, can we by means
of radicals (that is, by aid of the sign [root m]( ) or ( )^(1/m),
using as many as we please of such signs and with any values of m)
find an n-valued function (or any function) of the coefficients which
substituted for x in the equation shall satisfy it identically?
It will be observed that the coefficients p, q ... are not explicitly
considered as numbers, but even if they do denote numbers, the
question whether a numerical equation admits of solution by radicals
is wholly unconnected with the before-mentioned theorem of the
existence of the n roots of such an equation. It does not even follow
that in the case of a numerical equation solvable by radicals the
algebraical solution gives the numerical solution, but this requires
explanation. Consider first a numerical quadric equation with
imaginary coefficients. In the formula x = ½{p ± [root](p² - 4q)},
substituting for p, q their given numerical values, we obtain for x an
expression of the form x = [alpha] + ßi ± [root]([gamma] + [delta]i),
where [alpha], ß, [gamma], [delta] are real numbers. This expression
substituted for x in the quadric equation would satisfy it
identically, and it is thus an algebraical solution; but there is no
obvious _a priori_ reason why [root]([gamma]+[delta]i) should have a
value = c + di, where c and d are real numbers calculable by the
extraction of a root or roots of real numbers; however the case is
(what there was no _a priori_ right to expect) that [root]([gamma] +
[delta]i) has such a value calculable by means of the radical
expressions [root]{[root]([gamma]² + [delta]²) ± [gamma]} : and hence
the algebraical solution of a numerical quadric equation does in every
case give the numerical solution. The case of a numerical cubic
equation will be considered presently.
17. A cubic equation can be solved by radicals.
Taking for greater simplicity the cubic in the reduced form x³ + qx -
r = 0, and assuming x = a + b, this will be a solution if only 3ab = q
and a³ + b³ = r, equations which give (a³ - b³)² = r² - (4/27)q³, a
quadric equation solvable by radicals, and giving a³ - b³ = [root](r²
- (4/27)q³), a 2-valued function of the coefficients: combining this
with a³ + b³ = r, we have a³ = ½{r + [root](r² - (4/27)q³)}, a
2-valued function: we then have a by means of a cube root, viz.
a = [root 3][½{r + [root](r² - (4/27)q³)}],
a 6-valued function of the coefficients; but then, writing q = b/3a,
we have, as may be shown, a + b a 3-valued function of the
coefficients; and x = a + b is the required solution by radicals. It
would have been wrong to complete the solution by writing
b = [root 3][½{r - [root](r² - (4/27)q³)}],
for then a + b would have been given as a 9-valued function having
only 3 of its values roots, and the other 6 values being irrelevant.
Observe that in this last process we make no use of the equation 3ab
= q, in its original form, but use only the derived equation 27a³b³ =
q³, implied in, but not implying, the original form.
An interesting variation of the solution is to write x = ab(a + b),
giving a³b³(a³ + b³) = r and 3a³b³ = q, or say a³ + b³ = 3r/q, a³b³ =
(1/3)q; and consequently
3/2 4 3/2 4
a³ = --- {r + [root](r² - --q³)}, b³ = --- {r - [root](r² - --q³)},
q 27 q 27
i.e. here a³, b³ are each of them a 2-valued function, but as the only
effect of altering the sign of the quadric radical is to interchange
a³, b³, they may be regarded as each of them 1-valued; a and b are
each of them 3-valued (for observe that here only a³b³, not ab, is
given); and ab(a + b) thus is in appearance a 9-valued function; but
it can easily be shown that it is (as it ought to be) only 3-valued.
In the case of a numerical cubic, even when the coefficients are real,
substituting their values in the expression
x = [root 3][½{r + [root](r² - (4/27)q³)}] + (1/3)q ÷
[root 3][½{r + [root](r² - (4/27)q³)}],
this may depend on an expression of the form [root 3]([gamma] +
[delta]i) where [gamma] and [delta] are real numbers (it will do so if
r² - (4/27)q³ is a negative number), and then we _cannot_ by the
extraction of any root or roots of real positive numbers reduce [root
3]([gamma] + [delta]i) to the form c + di, c and d real numbers; hence
here the algebraical solution does not give the numerical solution,
and we have here the so-called "irreducible case" of a cubic equation.
By what precedes there is nothing in this that might not have been
expected; the algebraical solution makes the solution depend on the
extraction of the cube root of a number, and there was no reason for
expecting this to be a real number. It is well known that the case in
question is that wherein the three roots of the numerical cubic
equation are all real; if the roots are two imaginary, one real, then
contrariwise the quantity under the cube root is real; and the
algebraical solution gives the numerical one.
The irreducible case is solvable by a trigonometrical formula, but
this is not a solution by radicals: it consists in effect in reducing
the given numerical cubic (not to a cubic of the form z³ = a, solvable
by the extraction of a cube root, but) to a cubic of the form 4x³ - 3x
= a, corresponding to the equation 4 cos³[theta] - 3 cos[theta] = cos
3[theta] which serves to determine cos[theta] when cos 3[theta] is
known. The theory is applicable to an algebraical cubic equation; say
that such an equation, if it can be reduced to the form 4x³ - 3x = a,
is solvable by "trisection"--then the general cubic equation is
solvable by trisection.
18. A quartic equation is solvable by radicals, and it is to be remarked
that the existence of such a solution depends on the existence of
3-valued functions such as ab + cd of the four roots (a, b, c, d): by
what precedes ab + cd is the root of a cubic equation, which equation is
solvable by radicals: hence ab + cd can be found by radicals; and since
abcd is a given function, ab and cd can then be found by radicals. But
by what precedes, if ab be known then any similar function, say a + b,
is obtainable rationally; and then from the values of a + b and ab we
may by radicals obtain the value of a or b, that is, an expression for
the root of the given quartic equation: the expression ultimately
obtained is 4-valued, corresponding to the different values of the
several radicals which enter therein, and we have thus the expression by
radicals of each of the four roots of the quartic equation. But when the
quartic is numerical the same thing happens as in the cubic, and the
algebraical solution does not in every case give the numerical one.
It will be understood from the foregoing explanation as to the quartic
how in the next following case, that of the quintic, the question of
the solvability by radicals depends on the existence or non-existence
of k-valued functions of the five roots (a, b, c, d, e); the
fundamental theorem is the one already stated, a rational function of
five letters, if it has less than 5, cannot have more than 2 values,
that is, there are no 3-valued or 4-valued functions of 5 letters: and
by reasoning depending in part upon this theorem, N.H. Abel (1824)
showed that a general quintic equation is not solvable by radicals;
and _a fortiori_ the general equation of any order higher than 5 is
not solvable by radicals.
19. The general theory of the solvability of an equation by radicals
depends fundamentally on A.T. Vandermonde's remark (1770) that,
supposing an equation is solvable by radicals, and that we have
therefore an algebraical expression of x in terms of the coefficients,
then substituting for the coefficients their values in terms of the
roots, the resulting expression must reduce itself to any one at
pleasure of the roots a, b, c ...; thus in the case of the quadric
equation, in the expression x = ½{p + [root](p² - 4q)}, substituting
for p and q their values, and observing that (a + b)² - 4ab = (a -
b)², this becomes x = ½{a + b + [root](a - b)²}, the value being a or
b according as the radical is taken to be +(a - b) or -(a - b).
So in the cubic equation x³ - px² + qx - r = 0, if the roots are a, b,
c, and if [omega] is used to denote an imaginary cube root of unity,
[omega]² + [omega] + 1 = 0, then writing for shortness p = a + b + c,
L = a + [omega]b + [omega]²c, M = a + [omega]²b + [omega]c, it is at
once seen that LM, L³ + M³, and therefore also (L³ - M³)² are
symmetrical functions of the roots, and consequently rational
functions of the coefficients: hence
½{L³ + M³ + [root](L³ - M³)²}
is a rational function of the coefficients, which when these are
replaced by their values as functions of the roots becomes, according
to the sign given to the quadric radical, = L³ or M³; taking it = L³,
the cube root of the expression has the three values L, [omega]L,
[omega]²L; and LM divided by the same cube root has therefore the
values M, [omega]²M, [omega]M; whence finally the expression
(1/3)[p + [root 3]{½(L³ + M³ + [root](L³ - M³)²)} + LM ÷
[root 3]{½L³ + M³ + [root](L³ - M³)²}]
has the three values
(1/3)(p + L + M), (1/3)(p + [omega]L + [omega]²M),
(1/3)(p + [omega]²L + [omega]M);
that is, these are = a, b, c respectively. If the value M³ had been
taken instead of L³, then the expression would have had the same three
values a, b, c. Comparing the solution given for the cubic x³ + qx - r
= 0, it will readily be seen that the two solutions are identical, and
that the function r² - (4/27)q³ under the radical sign must (by aid of
the relation p = 0 which subsists in this case) reduce itself to (L³ -
M³)²; it is only by each radical being equal to a rational function of
the roots that the final expression _can_ become equal to the roots a,
b, c respectively.
20. The formulae for the cubic were obtained by J.L. Lagrange
(1770-1771) from a different point of view. Upon examining and comparing
the principal known methods for the solution of algebraical equations,
he found that they all ultimately depended upon finding a "resolvent"
equation of which the root is a + [omega]b + [omega]²c + [omega]³d +
..., [omega] being an imaginary root of unity, of the same order as the
equation; e.g. for the cubic the root is a + [omega]b + [omega]²c,
[omega] an imaginary cube root of unity. Evidently the method gives for
L³ a quadric equation, which is the "resolvent" equation in this
particular case.
For a quartic the formulae present themselves in a somewhat different
form, by reason that 4 is not a prime number. Attempting to apply it to
a quintic, we seek for the equation of which the root is (a + [omega]b +
[omega]²c + [omega]³d + [omega]^4 e), [omega] an imaginary fifth root of
unity, or rather the fifth power thereof (a + [omega]b + [omega]²c +
[omega]³d + [omega]^4 e)^5; this is a 24-valued function, but if we
consider the four values corresponding to the roots of unity [omega],
[omega]², [omega]³, [omega]^4, viz. the values
(a + [omega]b + [omega]²c + [omega]³d + [omega]^4 e)^5,
(a + [omega]²b + [omega]^4 c + [omega]d + [omega]³e)^5,
(a + [omega]³b + [omega]c + [omega]^4 d + [omega]²e)^5,
(a + [omega]^4 b + [omega]³c + [omega]²d + [omega]e)^5,
any symmetrical function of these, for instance their sum, is a 6-valued
function of the roots, and may therefore be determined by means of a
sextic equation, the coefficients whereof are rational functions of the
coefficients of the original quintic equation; the conclusion being that
the solution of an equation of the fifth order is made to depend upon
that of an equation of the sixth order. This is, of course, useless for
the solution of the quintic equation, which, as already mentioned, does
not admit of solution by radicals; but the equation of the sixth order,
Lagrange's resolvent sextic, is very important, and is intimately
connected with all the later investigations in the theory.
21. It is to be remarked, in regard to the question of solvability by
radicals, that not only the coefficients are taken to be arbitrary, but
it is assumed that they are represented each by a single letter, or say
rather that they are not so expressed in terms of other arbitrary
quantities as to make a solution possible. If the coefficients are not
all arbitrary, for instance, if some of them are zero, a sextic equation
might be of the form x^6 + bx^4 + cx² + d = 0, and so be solvable as a
cubic; or if the coefficients of the sextic are given functions of the
six arbitrary quantities a, b, c, d, e, f, such that the sextic is
really of the form (x² + ax + b)(x^4 + cx³ + dx² + ex + f) = 0, then it
breaks up into the equations x² + ax + b = 0, x^4 + cx³ + dx² + ex + f =
0, and is consequently solvable by radicals; so also if the form is (x -
a)(x - b)(x - c)(x - d)(x - e)(x - f) = 0, then the equation is solvable
by radicals,--in this extreme case rationally. Such cases of solvability
are self-evident; but they are enough to show that the general theorem
of the non-solvability by radicals of an equation of the fifth or any
higher order does not in any wise exclude for such orders the existence
of particular equations solvable by radicals, and there are, in fact,
extensive classes of equations which are thus solvable; the binomial
equations x^n - 1 = 0 present an instance.
22. It has already been shown how the several roots of the equation
x^n - 1 = 0 can be expressed in the form cos 2s[pi]/n + i sin
2s[pi]/n, but the question is now that of the algebraical solution (or
solution by radicals) of this equation. There is always a root = 1; if
[omega] be any other root, then obviously [omega], [omega]², ...
[omega]^(n - 1) are all of them roots; x^n - 1 contains the factor x -
1, and it thus appears that [omega], [omega]², ... [omega]^(n - 1) are
the n - 1 roots of the equation
x^(n - 1) + x^(n - 2) + ... x + 1 = 0;
we have, of course, [omega]^(n - 1) + [omega]^(n - 2) + ... + [omega]
+ 1 = 0.
It is proper to distinguish the cases n prime and n composite; and in
the latter case there is a distinction according as the prime factors
of n are simple or multiple. By way of illustration, suppose
successively n = 15 and n = 9; in the former case, if [alpha] be an
imaginary root of x³ - 1 = 0 (or root of x² + x + 1 = 0), and ß an
imaginary root of x^5 - 1 = 0 (or root of x^4 + x³ + x² + x + 1 = 0),
then [omega] may be taken = [alpha]ß; the successive powers thereof,
[alpha]ß, [alpha]²ß², ß³, [alpha]ß^4, [alpha]², ß, [alpha]ß²,
[alpha]²ß³, ß^4, [alpha], [alpha]²ß, ß², [alpha]ß³, [alpha]²ß^4, are
the roots of x^14 + x^13 + ... + x + 1 = 0; the solution thus depends
on the solution of the equations x³ - 1 = 0 and x^5 - 1 = 0. In the
latter case, if [alpha] be an imaginary root of x³ - 1 = 0 (or root of
x² + x + 1 = 0), then the equation x^9 - 1 = 0 gives x³ = 1, [alpha],
or [alpha]²; x³ = 1 gives x = 1, [alpha], or [alpha]²; and the
solution thus depends on the solution of the equations x³ - 1 = 0, x³
- [alpha] = 0, x³ - [alpha]² = 0. The first equation has the roots 1,
[alpha], [alpha]²; if ß be a root of either of the others, say if ß³ =
[alpha], then assuming [omega] = ß, the successive powers are ß, ß²,
[alpha], [alpha]ß, [alpha]ß², [alpha]², [alpha]²ß, [alpha]²ß², which
are the roots of the equation x^8 + x^7 + ... + x + 1 = 0.
It thus appears that the only case which need be considered is that of
n a prime number, and writing (as is more usual) r in place of
[omega], we have r, r², r³, ... r^(n - 1) as the (n - 1) roots of the
reduced equation
x^(n - 1) + x^(n - 2) + ... + x + 1 = 0;
then not only r^n - 1 = 0, but also r^(n - 1) + r^(n - 2) + ... + r +
1 = 0.
23. The process of solution due to Karl Friedrich Gauss (1801) depends
essentially on the arrangement of the roots in a certain order, viz. not
as above, with the indices of r in arithmetical progression, but with
their indices in geometrical progression; the prime number n has a
certain number of prime roots g, which are such that g^(n - 1) is the
lowest power of g, which is [equivalent to] 1 to the modulus n; or, what
is the same thing, that the series of powers 1, g, g², ... g^(n-2), each
divided by n, leave (in a different order) the remainders 1, 2, 3, ... n
- 1; hence giving to r in succession the indices 1, g, g², ... g^(n - 2),
we have, in a different order, the whole series of roots r, r²,
r³, ... r^(n - 1).
In the most simple case, n = 5, the equation to be solved is x^4 + x³
+ x² + x + 1 = 0; here 2 is a prime root of 5, and the order of the
roots is r, r², r^4, r³. The Gaussian process consists in forming an
equation for determining the periods P1, P2, = r + r^4 and r² + r³
respectively;--these being such that the symmetrical functions P1 +
P2, P1P2 are rationally determinable: in fact P1 + P2 = -1, P1P2 = (r
+ r^4)(r² + r³), = r³ + r^4 + r^6 + r^7, = r³ + r^4 + r + r², = -1.
P1, P2 are thus the roots of u² + u - 1 = 0; and taking them to be
known, they are themselves broken up into subperiods, in the present
case single terms, r and r^4 for P1, r² and r³ for P2; the symmetrical
functions of these are then rationally determined in terms of P1 and
P2; thus r + r^4 = P1, r·r^4 = 1, or r, r^4 are the roots of u² - P1u
+ 1 = 0. The mode of division is more clearly seen for a larger value
of n; thus, for n = 7 a prime root is = 3, and the arrangement of the
roots is r, r³, r², r^6, r^4, r^5. We may form either 3 periods each
of 2 terms, P1, P2, P3 = r + r^6, r³ + r^4, r² + r^5 respectively; or
else 2 periods each of 3 terms, P1, P2 = r + r² + r^4, r³ + r^6 + r^5
respectively; in each ease the symmetrical functions of the periods
are rationally determinable: thus in the case of the two periods P1 +
P2 = -1, P1P2 = 3 + r + r² + r³ + r^4 + r^5 + r^6, = 2; and the
periods being known the symmetrical functions of the several terms of
each period are rationally determined in terms of the periods, thus r
+ r² + r^4 = P1, r·r² + r·r^4 + r²·r^4 = P2, r·r²·r^4 = 1.
The theory was further developed by Lagrange (1808), who, applying his
general process to the equation in question, x^(n - 1) + x^(n - 2) + ...
+ x + 1 = 0 (the roots a, b, c ... being the several powers of r, the
indices in geometrical progression as above), showed that the function
(a + [omega]b + [omega]²c + ...)^(n - 1) was in this case a given
function of [omega] with integer coefficients.
Reverting to the before-mentioned particular equation x^4 + x³ + x² +
x + 1 = 0, it is very interesting to compare the process of solution
with that for the solution of the general quartic the roots whereof
are a, b, c, d.
Take [omega], a root of the equation [omega]^4 - 1 = 0 (whence [omega]
is = 1, -1, i, or -i, at pleasure), and consider the expression
(a + [omega]b + [omega]²c + [omega]³d)^4,
the developed value of this is
= a^4 + b^4 + c^4 + d^4 + 6(a²c² + b²d²) + 12(a²bd + b²ca + c²db + d²ac)
+[omega] {4(a³b + b³c + c³ + d³a) + 12(a²cd + b²da + c²ab + d²bc)}
+[omega]²{6(a²b² + b²c² + c²d² + d²a²) + 4(a³c + b³d + c³a + d³b) + 24abcd}
+[omega]³{4(a³d + b³a + c³b + d³c) + 12(a²bc + b²cd + c²da + d²ab)}
that is, this is a 6-valued function of a, b, c, d, the root of a
sextic (which is, in fact, solvable by radicals; but this is not here
material).
If, however, a, b, c, d denote the roots r, r², r^4, r³ of the special
equation, then the expression becomes
r^4 + r³ + r + r² + 6(1 + 1)+12(r² + r^4 + r³ + r)
+ [omega] {4(1 + 1 + 1 + 1) + 12(r^4 + r³ + r + r²)}
+ [omega]²{6(r + r² + r^4 + r³) + 4(r² + r^4 + r³ + r)}
+ [omega]³{4(r + r² + r^4 + r³) + 12(r³ + r + r² + r^4)}
viz. this is
= -1 + 4[omega] + 14[omega]² - 16[omega]³,
a completely determined value. That is, we have
(r + [omega]r² + [omega]²r^4 + [omega]³r³) = -1 + 4[omega] +
14[omega]² - 16[omega]³,
which result contains the solution of the equation. If [omega] = 1, we
have (r + r² + r^4 + r³)^4 = 1, which is right; if [omega] = -1, then
(r + r^4 - r² - r³)^4 = 25; if [omega] = i, then we have {r - r^4 +
i(r² - r³)}^4 = -15 + 20i; and if [omega] = -i, then {r - r^4 - i(r² -
r³)}^4 = -15 - 20i; the solution may be completed without difficulty.
The result is perfectly general, thus:--n being a prime number, r a root
of the equation x^(n - 1) + x^(n - 2) + ... + x + 1 = 0, [omega] a root
of [omega]^(n - 1) - 1 = 0, and g a prime root of g^(n - 1) [equivalent]
1 (mod. n), then
{r + [omega]r^g + ... + [omega]^(n - 2) r^g^(n - 2)}^(n - 1)
is a given function M0 + M1[omega] ... + M_(n - 2)[omega]^(n - 2) with
integer coefficients, and by the extraction of (n - 1)th roots of this
and similar expressions we ultimately obtain r in terms of [omega],
which is taken to be known; the equation x^n - 1 = 0, n a prime number,
is thus solvable by radicals. In particular, if n - 1 be a power of 2,
the solution (by either process) requires the extraction of square roots
only; and it was thus that Gauss discovered that it was possible to
construct geometrically the regular polygons of 17 sides and 257 sides
respectively. Some interesting developments in regard to the theory were
obtained by C.G.J. Jacobi (1837); see the memoir "Ueber die
Kreistheilung, u.s.w.," _Crelle_, t. xxx. (1846).
The equation x^(n - 1) + ... + x + 1 = 0 has been considered for its own
sake, but it also serves as a specimen of a class of equations solvable
by radicals, considered by N.H. Abel (1828), and since called Abelian
equations, viz. for the Abelian equation of the order n, if x be any
root, the roots are x, [theta]x, [theta]²x, ... [theta]^(n - 1)x
([theta]x being a rational function of x, and [theta]^nx = x); the
theory is, in fact, very analogous to that of the above particular case.
A more general theorem obtained by Abel is as follows:--If the roots
of an equation of any order are connected together in such wise that
_all_ the roots can be expressed rationally in terms of any one of
them, say x; if, moreover, [theta]x, [theta]1x being any two of the
roots, we have [theta][theta]1x = [theta]1[theta]x, the equation will
be solvable algebraically. It is proper to refer also to Abel's
definition of an _irreducible_ equation:--an equation [phi]x = 0, the
coefficients of which are rational functions of a certain number of
known quantities a, b, c ..., is called irreducible when it is
impossible to express its roots by an equation of an inferior degree,
the coefficients of which are also rational functions of a, b, c ...
(or, what is the same thing, when [phi]x does not break up into
factors which are rational functions of a, b, c ...). Abel applied his
theory to the equations which present themselves in the division of
the elliptic functions, but not to the modular equations.
24. But the theory of the algebraical solution of equations in its most
complete form was established by Evariste Galois (born October 1811,
killed in a duel May 1832; see his collected works, _Liouville_, t. xl.,
1846). The definition of an irreducible equation resembles Abel's,--an
equation is reducible when it admits of a rational divisor, irreducible
in the contrary case; only the word _rational_ is used in this extended
sense that, in connexion with the coefficients of the given equation, or
with the irrational quantities (if any) whereof these are composed, he
considers any number of other irrational quantities called "adjoint
radicals," and he terms rational any rational function of the
coefficients (or the irrationals whereof they are composed) and of these
adjoint radicals; the epithet irreducible is thus taken either
absolutely or in a relative sense, according to the system of adjoint
radicals which are taken into account. For instance, the equation x^4 +
x³ + x² + x + 1 = 0; the left hand side has here no rational divisor,
and the equation is irreducible; but this function is = (x² + ½x + 1)² -
(5/4)x², and it has thus the irrational divisors x² + ½(1 + [root]5)x +
1, x² + ½(1 - [root]5)x + 1; and these, if we _adjoin_ the radical
[root]5, are rational, and the equation is no longer irreducible. In the
case of a given equation, assumed to be irreducible, the problem to
solve the equation is, in fact, that of finding radicals by the
adjunction of which the equation becomes reducible; for instance, the
general quadric equation x² + px + q = 0 is irreducible, but it becomes
reducible, breaking up into rational linear factors, when we adjoin the
radical [root](¼p² - q).
The fundamental theorem is the Proposition I. of the "Mémoire sur les
conditions de résolubilité des équations par radicaux"; viz. given an
equation of which a, b, c ... are the m roots, there is always a group
of permutations of the letters a, b, c ... possessed of the following
properties:--
1. Every function of the roots invariable by the substitutions of the
group is rationally known.
2. Reciprocally every rationally determinable function of the roots is
invariable by the substitutions of the group.
Here by an invariable function is meant not only a function of which
the form is invariable by the substitutions of the group, but further,
one of which the value is invariable by these substitutions: for
instance, if the equation be [phi](x) = 0, then [phi](x) is a function
of the roots invariable by any substitution whatever. And in saying
that a function is rationally known, it is meant that its value is
expressible rationally in terms of the coefficients and of the adjoint
quantities.
For instance in the case of a general equation, the group is simply
the system of the 1.2.3 ... n permutations of all the roots, since, in
this case, the only rationally determinable functions are the
symmetric functions of the roots.
In the case of the equation x^(n - 1) ... + x + 1 = 0, n a prime
number, a, b, c ... k = r, r^g, r^g² ... r^g^(n - 2), where g is a
prime root of n, then the group is the cyclical group abc ... k, bc
... ka, ... kab ... j, that is, in this particular case the number of
the permutations of the group is equal to the order of the equation.
This notion of the group of the original equation, or of the group of
the equation as varied by the adjunction of a series of radicals,
seems to be the fundamental one in Galois's theory. But the problem of
solution by radicals, instead of being the sole object of the theory,
appears as the first link of a long chain of questions relating to the
transformation and classification of irrationals.
Returning to the question of solution by radicals, it will be readily
understood that by the adjunction of a radical the group may be
diminished; for instance, in the case of the general cubic, where the
group is that of the six permutations, by the adjunction of the square
root which enters into the solution, the group is reduced to abc, bca,
cab; that is, it becomes possible to express rationally, in terms of
the coefficients and of the adjoint square root, any function such as
a²b + b²c + c²a which is not altered by the cyclical substitution a
into b, b into c, c into a. And hence, to determine whether an
equation of a given form is solvable by radicals, the course of
investigation is to inquire whether, by the successive adjunction of
radicals, it is possible to reduce the original group of the equation
so as to make it ultimately consist of a single permutation.
The condition in order that an equation of a given prime order n may
be solvable by radicals was in this way obtained--in the first
instance in the form (scarcely intelligible without further
explanation) that every function of the roots x1, x2 ... x_n,
invariable by the substitutions x_(ak + b) for x_k, must be rationally
known; and then in the equivalent form that the resolvent equation of
the order 1.2 ... (n - 2) must have a rational root. In particular,
the condition in order that a quintic equation may be solvable is that
Lagrange's resolvent of the order 6 may have a rational factor, a
result obtained from a direct investigation in a valuable memoir by E.
Luther, _Crelle_, t. xxxiv. (1847).
Among other results demonstrated or announced by Galois may be
mentioned those relating to the modular equations in the theory of
elliptic functions; for the transformations of the orders 5, 7, 11,
the modular equations of the orders 6, 8, 12 are depressible to the
orders 5, 7, 11 respectively; but for the transformation, n a prime
number greater than 11, the depression is impossible.
The general theory of Galois in regard to the solution of equations
was completed, and some of the demonstrations supplied by E. Betti
(1852). See also J.A. Serret's _Cours d'algèbre supérieure_, 2nd ed.
(1854); 4th ed. (1877-1878).
25. Returning to quintic equations, George Birch Jerrard (1835)
established the theorem that the general quintic equation is by the
extraction of only square and cubic roots reducible to the form x^5 + ax
+ b = 0, or what is the same thing, to x^5 + x + b = 0. The actual
reduction by means of Tschirnhausen's theorem was effected by Charles
Hermite in connexion with his elliptic-function solution of the quintic
equation (1858) in a very elegant manner. It was shown by Sir James
Cockle and Robert Harley (1858-1859) in connexion with the Jerrardian
form, and by Arthur Cayley (1861), that Lagrange's resolvent equation of
the sixth order can be replaced by a more simple sextic equation
occupying a like place in the theory.
The theory of the modular equations, more particularly for the case n =
5, has been studied by C. Hermite, L. Kronecker and F. Brioschi. In the
case n = 5, the modular equation of the order 6 depends, as already
mentioned, on an equation of the order 5; and conversely the general
quintic equation may be made to depend upon this modular equation of the
order 6; that is, assuming the solution of this modular equation, we can
solve (not by radicals) the general quintic equation; this is Hermite's
solution of the general quintic equation by elliptic functions (1858);
it is analogous to the before-mentioned trigonometrical solution of the
cubic equation. The theory is reproduced and developed in Brioschi's
memoir, "Über die Auflösung der Gleichungen vom fünften Grade," _Math.
Annalen_, t. xiii. (1877-1878).
26. The modern work, reproducing the theories of Galois, and
exhibiting the theory of algebraic equations as a whole, is C.
Jordan's _Traité des substitutions et des équations algébriques_
(Paris, 1870). The work is divided into four books--book i.,
preliminary, relating to the theory of congruences; book ii. is in two
chapters, the first relating to substitutions in general, the second
to substitutions defined analytically, and chiefly to linear
substitutions; book iii. has four chapters, the first discussing the
principles of the general theory, the other three containing
applications to algebra, geometry, and the theory of transcendents;
lastly, book iv., divided into seven chapters, contains a
determination of the general types of equations solvable by radicals,
and a complete system of classification of these types. A glance
through the index will show the vast extent which the theory has
assumed, and the form of general conclusions arrived at; thus, in book
iii., the algebraical applications comprise Abelian equations,
equations of Galois; the geometrical ones comprise Q. Hesse's
equation, R.F.A. Clebsch's equations, lines on a quartic surface
having a nodal line, singular points of E.E. Kummer's surface, lines
on a cubic surface, problems of contact; the applications to the
theory of transcendents comprise circular functions, elliptic
functions (including division and the modular equation), hyperelliptic
functions, solution of equations by transcendents. And on this last
subject, solution of equations by transcendents, we may quote the
result--"the solution of the general equation of an order superior to
five cannot be made to depend upon that of the equations for the
division of the circular or elliptic functions"; and again (but with a
reference to a possible case of exception), "the general equation
cannot be solved by aid of the equations which give the division of
the hyperelliptic functions into an odd number of parts." (See also
GROUPS, THEORY OF.) (A. Ca.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For the general theory see W.S. Burnside and A.W.
Panton, _The Theory of Equations_ (4th ed., 1899-1901); the Galoisian
theory is treated in G.B. Matthews, _Algebraic Equations_ (1907). See
also the _Ency. d. math. Wiss._ vol. ii.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The coefficients were selected so that the roots might be nearly
1, 2, 3.
[2] The third edition (1826) is a reproduction of that of 1808; the
first edition has the date 1798, but a large part of the contents is
taken from memoirs of 1767-1768 and 1770-1771.
[3] The earlier demonstrations by Euler, Lagrange, &c, relate to the
case of a numerical equation with real coefficients; and they consist
in showing that such equation has always a real quadratic divisor,
furnishing two roots, which are either real or else conjugate
imaginaries [alpha] + ßi (see Lagrange's _Équations numériques_).
[4] The square root of [alpha] + ßi can be determined by the
extraction of square roots of positive real numbers, without the
trigonometrical tables.
EQUATION OF THE CENTRE, in astronomy, the angular distance, measured
around the centre of motion, by which a planet moving in an ellipse
deviates from the mean position which it would occupy if it moved
uniformly. Its amount is the correction which must be applied positively
or negatively to the mean anomaly in order to obtain the true anomaly.
It arises from the ellipticity of the orbit, is zero at pericentre and
apocentre, and reaches its greatest amount nearly midway between these
points. (See ANOMALY and ORBIT.)
EQUATION OF TIME, the difference between apparent time, determined by
the meridian passage of the real sun, and mean time, determined by the
passage of the mean sun. It goes through a double period in the course
of a year. Its amount varies a fraction of a minute for the same date,
from year to year and from one longitude to another, on the same day.
The following table shows an average value for any date and for the
Greenwich meridian for a number of years, from which the actual value
will seldom deviate more than 20 seconds until after 1950. The + sign
indicates that the real sun reaches the meridian _after_ mean noon; the
- sign _before_ mean noon.
_Table of the Equation of Time._
m. s. m. s. m. s.
Jan. 1 +3 26 Mar. 1 +12 39 May 1 -2 55
6 5 45 6 11 35 6 -3 27
11 7 51 11 10 20 11 -3 46
16 9 43 16 8 58 16 -3 51
21 11 19 21 7 30 21 -3 40
26 12 36 26 5 59 26 -3 16
Feb. 1 +13 42 Apr. 1 +4 9 June 1 -2 32
6 14 14 6 2 40 6 -1 44
11 14 25 11 +1 15 11 -0 48
16 14 17 16 -0 3 16 +0 14
21 13 52 21 -1 12 21 1 19
26 13 11 26 -2 10 26 2 24
July 1 +3 26 Sept. 1 +0 9 Nov. 1 -16 18
6 4 21 6 -1 28 6 -16 19
11 5 8 11 -3 10 11 -15 58
16 5 44 16 -4 55 16 -15 15
21 6 8 21 -6 41 21 -14 12
26 6 18 26 -8 25 26 -12 49
Aug. 1 +6 10 Oct. 1 -10 5 Dec. 1 -11 7
6 5 47 6 -11 38 6 - 9 9
11 5 9 11 -13 2 11 - 6 57
16 4 17 16 -14 14 16 - 4 35
21 3 12 21 -15 11 21 - 2 7
26 1 55 26 -15 52 26 + 0 23
EQUATOR (Late Lat. _aequator_, from _aequare_, to make equal), in
geography, that great circle of the earth, equidistant from the two
poles, which divides the northern from the southern hemisphere and lies
in a plane perpendicular to the axis of the earth; this is termed the
"geographical" or "terrestrial equator." In astronomy, the "celestial
equator" is the name given to the great circle in which the plane of the
terrestrial equator intersects the celestial sphere; it is consequently
equidistant from the celestial poles. The "magnetic equator" is an
imaginary line encircling the earth, along which the vertical component
of the earth's magnetic force is zero; it nearly coincides with the
terrestrial equator.
EQUERRY (from the Fr. _écurie_, a stable, through its older form
_escurie_, from the Med. Lat. _scuria_, a word of Teutonic origin for a
stable or shed, cf. Ger. _Scheuer_; the modern spelling has confused the
word with the Lat. _equus_, a horse), a contracted form of "gentleman of
the equerry," an officer in charge of the stables of a royal household.
At the British court, equerries are officers attached to the department
of the master of the horse, the first of whom is called chief equerry
(see HOUSEHOLD, ROYAL).
EQUIDAE, the family of perissodactyle ungulate mammals typified by the
horse (_Equus caballus_); see HORSE. According to the older
classification this family was taken to include only the forms with
tall-crowned teeth, more or less closely allied to the typical genus
_Equus_. There is, however, such an almost complete graduation from the
former to earlier and more primitive mammals with short-crowned
cheek-teeth, at one time included in the family _Lophiodontidae_ (see
PERISSODACTYLA), that it has now become a very general practice to
include the whole "phylum" in the family _Equidae_. The _Equidae_, in
this extended sense, together with the extinct _Palaeotheriidae_, are
indeed now regarded as forming one of four main groups into which the
Perissodactyla are divided, the other groups being the Tapiroidea,
Rhinocerotoidea and Titanotheriide. For the horse-group the name
Hippoidea is employed. All four groups were closely connected in the
Lower Eocene, so that exact definition is almost impossible.
In the Hippoidea there is generally the full series of 44 teeth, but the
first premolar is often deciduous or wanting in the lower or in both
jaws. The incisors are chisel-shaped, and the canines tend to become
isolated so as in the now specialized forms to occupy nearly the middle
of a longer or shorter gap between the incisors and premolars. In the
upper molars the two outer columns of the primitive tubercular molar
coalesce to form an outer wall, from which proceed two crescentic
transverse crests; the connexion between the crests and the wall being
imperfect or slight, and the crests themselves sometimes tubercular.
Each of the lower molars carries two crescentic ridges. The number of
toes ranges from four to one in the fore-foot, and from three to one in
the hind-foot. The paroccipital, postglenoid and post-tympanic processes
of the skull are large, and the latter always distinct. Normally there
are no traces of horn-cores. The calcaneum lacks the facet for the
fibula found in the Titanotheroidea.
In the earlier _Equidae_ the teeth were short-crowned, with the
premolars simpler than the molars; but there is a gradual tendency to an
increase in the height of the crowns of the teeth, accompanied by
increasing complexity of structure and the filling up of the hollows
with cement. Similarly the gap on each side of the canine tooth in each
jaw continues to increase in length; while in all the later forms the
orbit is surrounded by a ring of bone. A third modification is the
increasing length of limb (as well as in general bodily size),
accompanied by a gradual reduction in the number of toes from three or
four to one.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--a, Side view of second upper molar tooth of
_Anchitherium_ (brachyodont form); b, corresponding tooth of horse
(hypsidont form).]
All the existing members of the family, such as the domesticated horse
(_Equus caballus_) and its wild or half-wild relatives, the asses and
the zebras, are included in the typical genus. In all these the crowns
of the cheek-teeth are very tall (fig. 1, b) and only develop roots late
in life; while their grinding-surfaces (fig. 2, b and c) are very
complicated and have all the hollows filled with cement. The summits of
the incisors are infolded, producing, when partially worn, the "mark."
In the skull the orbit is surrounded by bone, and there is no distinct
depression in front of the same. Each limb terminates in one large toe;
the lateral digits being represented by the splint-bones, corresponding
to the lateral metacarpals and metatarsals of _Hipparion_. Not
unfrequently, however, the lower ends of the splint-bones carry a small
expansion, representing the phalanges.
Remains of horses indistinguishable from _E. caballus_ occur in the
Pleistocene deposits of Europe and Asia; and it is from them that the
dun-coloured small horses of northern Europe and Asia are probably
derived. The ancestor of these Pleistocene horses is probably _E.
stenonis_, of the Upper Pliocene of Europe, which has a small depression
in front of the orbit, while the skull is relatively larger, the feet
are rather shorter, and the splint-bones somewhat more developed. In
India a nearly allied species (_E. sivalensis_), occurs in the Lower
Pliocene, and may have been the ancestor of the Arab stock, which shows
traces of the depression in front of the orbit characteristic of the
earlier forms. In North America species of _Equus_ occur in the
Pleistocene and from that continent others reached South America during
the same epoch. In the latter country occurs _Hippidium_, in which the
cheek-teeth are shorter and simpler, and the nasal bones very long and
slender, with elongated slits at the side. The limbs, especially the
cannon-bones, are relatively short, and the splint-bones large. The
allied Argentine _Onohippidium_, which is also Pleistocene, has still
longer nasal bones and slits, and a deep double cavity in front of the
orbit, part of which probably contained a gland. _Onohippidium_ is
certainly off the direct line of descent of the modern horses, and, on
account of the length of the nasals and their slits, the same probably
holds good for _Hippidium_.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--a, Grinding surface of unworn right upper molar
tooth of _Anchitherium_; b, corresponding surface of unworn molar of
young horse; c, the same tooth after it has been some time in use. The
uncoloured portions are the dentine or ivory, the shaded parts the
cement filling the cavities and surrounding the exterior. The black line
separating these two structures is the enamel or hardest constituent of
the tooth.]
Species from the Pliocene of Texas and the Upper Miocene (Loup Fork) of
Oregon were at one time assigned to _Hippidium_, but this is incorrect,
that genus being exclusively South American. The name _Pliohippus_ has
been applied to species from the same two formations on the supposition
that the foot-structure was similar to that of _Hippidium_, but Mr J.W.
Gidley is of opinion that the lateral digits may have been fully
developed.
Apparently there is here some gap in the line of descent of the horse,
and it may be suggested that the evolution took place, not as commonly
supposed, in North America, but in eastern central Asia, of which the
palaeontology is practically unknown; some support is given to this
theory by the fact that the earliest species with which we are
acquainted occur in northern India.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Successive stages of modification of the left
fore-feet of extinct forms of horse-like animals, showing gradual
reduction of the outer and enlargement of the middle toe (III).
a, _Hyracotherium_ (Eocene).
b, _Mesohippus_ (Oligocene).
c, _Anchitherium_ (Miocene).
d, _Hipparion_ (Pliocene).
e, _Equus_ (Pleistocene).]
Be this as it may, the next North American representatives of the family
constitute the genera _Protohippus_ and _Merychippus_ of the Miocene, in
both of which the lateral digits are fully developed and terminate in
small though perfect hoofs. In both the cheek-teeth have moderately tall
crowns, and in the first named of the two those of the milk-series are
nearly similar to their permanent successors. In _Merychippus_, on the
other hand, the milk-molars have short crowns, without any cement in the
hollows, thus resembling the permanent molars of the under-mentioned
genus _Anchitherium_. From the well-known _Hipparion_, or
_Hippotherium_, typically from the Lower Pliocene of Europe, but also
occurring in the corresponding formation in North Africa, Persia, India
and China, and represented in the Upper Miocene Loup Fork beds of the
United States by species which it has been proposed to separate
generically as _Neohipparion_, we reach small horses which are now
generally regarded as a lateral offshoot from the _Merychippus_ type.
The cheek-teeth, which have crowns of moderate height, differ from those
of all the foregoing in that the postero-internal pillar (the projection
on the right-hand top corner of c in fig. 2) is isolated in place of
being attached by a narrow neck to the adjacent crescent. The skull,
which is relatively short, has a large depression in front of the orbit,
commonly supposed to have contained a gland, but this may be doubtful.
In the typical, and also in the North American forms these were
complete, although small, lateral toes in both feet (fig. 3, d), but it
is possible that in _H. antilopinum_ of India the lateral toes had
disappeared. If this be so, we have the development of a monodactyle
foot in this genus independently of _Equus_.
The foregoing genera constitute the subfamily _Equinae_, or the
_Equidae_ as restricted by the older writers. In all the dentition is of
the hypsodont type, with the hollows of the cheek-teeth filled by
cement, the premolars molariform, and the first small and generally
deciduous. The orbit is surrounded by a bony ring; the ulna and radius
in the fore, and the tibia and fibula in the hind-limb are united, and
the feet are of the types described above. Between this subfamily and
the second subfamily, _Hyracotheriinae_, a partial connexion is formed
by the North American Upper Miocene genera _Desmatippus_ and _Anchippus_
or _Parahippus_. The characteristics of the group will be gathered from
the remarks on the leading genera; but it may be mentioned that the
orbit is open behind, the cheek-teeth are short-crowned and without
cement (fig. 1, a), the gap between the canine and the outermost
incisor is short, the bones of the middle part of the leg are separate,
and there are at least three toes to each foot.
The longest-known genus and the one containing the largest species is
_Anchitherium_, typically from the Middle Miocene of Europe, but also
represented by one species from the Upper Miocene of North America. The
European _A. aurelianense_ was of the size of an ordinary donkey. The
cheek-teeth are of the type shown in a of figs. 1 and 2; the premolars,
with the exception of the small first one, being molar-like; and the
lateral toes (fig. 3, c) were to some extent functional. The summits of
the incisors were infolded to a small extent. Nearly allied is the
American _Mesohippus_, ranging from the Lower Miocene to the Lower
Oligocene of the United States, of which the earliest species stood only
about 18 in. at the shoulder. The incisors were scarcely, if at all,
infolded, and there is a rudiment of the fifth metacarpal (fig. 3, b).
By some writers all the species of _Mesohippus_ are included in the
genus _Miohippus_, but others consider that the two genera are distinct.
_Mesohippus_ and _Miohippus_ are connected with the earliest and most
primitive mammal which it is possible to include in the family _Equidae_
by means of _Epihippus_ of the Uinta or Upper Eocene of North America,
and _Pachynolophus_, or _Orohippus_, of the Middle and Lower Eocene of
both halves of the northern hemisphere. The final stage, or rather the
initial stage, in the series is presented by _Hyracotherium_
(_Protorohippus_), a mammal no larger than a fox, common to the Lower
Eocene of Europe and North America. The general characteristics of this
progenitor of the horses are those given above as distinctive of the
group. The cheek-teeth are, however, much simpler than those of
_Anchitherium_; the transverse crests of the upper molars not being
fully connected with the outer wall, while the premolars in the upper
jaw are triangular, and thus unlike the molars. The incisors are small
and the canines scarcely enlarged; the latter having a gap on each side
in the lower, but only one on their hinder aspect in the upper jaw. The
fore-feet have four complete toes (fig. 3, a), but there are only three
hind-toes, with a rudiment of the fifth metatarsal. The vertebrae are
simpler in structure than in _Equus_. From _Hyracotherium_, which is
closely related to the Eocene representatives of the ancestral stocks of
the other three branches of the Perissodactyla, the transition is easy
to _Phenacodus_, the representative of the common ancestor of all the
Ungulata.
See also H.F. Osborn, "New Oligocene Horses," _Bull. Amer. Mus._ vol.
xx. p. 167 (1904); J.W. Gidley, _Proper Generic Names of Miocene
Horses_, p. 191; and the article PALAEONTOLOGY. (R. L.*)
EQUILIBRIUM (from the Lat. _aequus_, equal, and _libra_, a balance), a
condition of equal balance between opposite or counteracting forces. By
the "sense of equilibrium" is meant the sense, or sensations, by which
we have a feeling of security in standing, walking, and indeed in all
the movements by which the body is carried through space. Such a feeling
of security is necessary both for maintaining any posture, such as
standing, or for performing any movement. If this feeling is absent or
uncertain, or if there are contradictory sensations, then definite
muscular movements are inefficiently or irregularly performed, and the
body may stagger or fall. When we stand erect on a firm surface, like a
floor, there is a feeling of resistance, due to nervous impulses
reaching the brain from the soles of the feet and from the muscles of
the limbs and trunk. In walking or running, these feelings of resistance
seem to precede and guide the muscular movements necessary for the next
step. If these are absent or perverted or deficient, as is the case in
the disease known as locomotor ataxia, then, although there is no loss
of the power of voluntary movement, the patient staggers in walking,
especially if he is not allowed to look at his feet, or if he is
blind-folded. He misses the guiding sensations that come from the limbs;
and with a feeling that he is walking on a soft substance, offering
little or no resistance, he staggers, and his muscular movements become
irregular. Such a condition maybe artificially brought about by washing
the soles of the feet with chloroform or ether. And it has been observed
to exist partially after extensive destruction of the skin of the soles
of the feet by burns or scalds. This shows that tactile impulses from
the skin take a share in generating the guiding sensation. In the
disease above mentioned, however, tactile impressions may be nearly
normal, but the guiding sensation is weak and inefficient, owing to the
absence of impulses from the muscles. The disease is known to depend on
morbid changes in the posterior columns of the spinal cord, by which
impulses are not freely transmitted upwards to the brain. These facts
point to the existence of impulses coming from the muscles and tendons.
It is now known that there exist peculiar spindles, in muscle, and
rosettes or coils or loops of nerve fibres in close proximity to
tendons. These are the end organs of the sense. The transmission of
impulses gives rise to the _muscular sense_, and the guiding sensation
which precedes co-ordinated muscular movements depends on these
impulses. Thus from the limbs streams of nervous impulses pass to the
sensorium from the skin and from muscles and tendons; these may or may
not arouse consciousness, but they guide or evoke muscular movements of
a co-ordinated character, more especially of the limbs.
In animals whose limbs are not adapted for delicate touch nor for the
performance of complicated movements, such as some mammals and birds and
fishes, the guiding sensations depend largely on the sense of vision.
This sense in man, instead of assisting, sometimes disturbs the guiding
sensation. It is true that in locomotor ataxia visual sensations may
take the place of the tactile and muscular sensations that are
inefficient, and the man can walk without staggering if he is allowed to
look at the floor, and especially if he is guided by transverse straight
lines. On the other hand, the acrobat on the wire-rope dare not trust
his visual sensations in the maintenance of his equilibrium. He keeps
his eyes fixed on one point instead of allowing them to wander to
objects below him, and his muscular movements are regulated by the
impulses that come from the skin and muscles of his limbs. The feeling
of insecurity probably arises from a conception of height, and also from
the knowledge that by no muscular movements can a man avoid a
catastrophe if he should fall. A bird, on the other hand, depends
largely on visual impressions, and it knows by experience that if
launched into the air from a height it can fly. Here, probably, is an
explanation of the large size of the eyes of birds. Cover the head, as
in hooding a falcon, and the bird seems to be deprived of the power of
voluntary movement. Little effect will be produced if we attempt to
restrain the movements of a cat by covering its eyes. A fish also is
deprived of the power of motion if its eyes are covered. But both in the
bird and in the fish tactile and muscular impressions, especially the
latter, come into play in the mechanism of equilibrium. In flight the
large-winged birds, especially in soaring, can feel the most delicate
wind-pressures, both as regards direction and force, and they adapt the
position of their body so as to catch the pressure at the most efficient
angle. The same is true of the fish, especially of the flat-fishes. In
mammals the sense of equilibrium depends, then, on streams of tactile,
muscular and visual impressions pouring in on the sensorium, and calling
forth appropriate muscular movements. It has also been suggested that
impulses coming from the abdominal viscera may take part in the
mechanism. The presence in the mesentery of felines (cats, &c.) of large
numbers of Pacinian corpuscles, which are believed to be modified
tactile bodies, favours this supposition. Such animals are remarkable
for the delicacy of such muscular movements, as balancing and leaping.
There is another channel by which nervous impulses reach the sensorium
and play their part in the sense of equilibrium, namely, from the
semicircular canals, a portion of the internal ear. It is pointed out in
the article HEARING that the appreciation of sound is in reality an
appreciation of variations of pressure. The labyrinth consists of the
vestibule, the cochlea and the semicircular canals. The cochlea receives
the sound-waves (variations of pressure) that constitute musical tones.
This it accomplishes by the structures in the ductus cochlearis. In the
vestibule we find two sacs, the saccule next to and communicating with
the ductus cochlearis, and the utricle communicating with the
semicircular canals. The base of the stapes communicates pressures to
the utricle. The membranous portion of the semicircular canals consists
of a tube, dilated at one end into a swelling or pouch, termed the
ampulla, and each end communicates freely with the utricle. On the
posterior wall of both the saccule and of the utricle there is a ridge,
termed in each case the macula acustica, bearing a highly specialized
epithelium. A similar structure exists in each ampulla. This would
suggest that all three structures have to do with hearing; but, on the
other hand, there is experimental evidence that the utricle and the
canals may transmit impressions that have to do with equilibrium.
Pressure of the base of the stapes is exerted on the utricle. This will
compress the fluid in that cavity, and tend to drive the fluid into the
semicircular canals that communicate with that cavity by five openings.
Each canal is surrounded by a thin layer of perilymph, so that it may
yield a little to this pressure, and exert a pull or pressure on the
nerve-endings in each ampulla. Thus impulses may be generated in the
nerves of the ampullae.
The three semicircular canals lie in the three directions in space, and
it has been suggested that they have to do with our appreciation of the
direction of sound. But our appreciation of sound is very inaccurate: we
look with the eyes for the source of a sound, and instinctively direct
the ears or the head, or both, in the direction from which the sound
appears to proceed. But the relationship of the canals on the two sides
must have a physiological significance. Thus (1) the six canals are
parallel, two and two; or (2) the two horizontal canals are in the same
plane, while the superior canal on one side is nearly parallel with the
posterior canal of the other. These facts point to the two sets of
canals and ampullae acting as one organ, in a manner analogous to the
action of two retinae for single vision.
We have next to consider how the canals may possibly act in connexion
with the sense of equilibrium. In 1820 J. Purkinje studied the vertigo
that follows rapid rotation of the body in the erect position on a
vertical axis. On stopping the rotation there is a sense of rotation in
the opposite direction, and this may occur even when the eyes are
closed. Purkinje noticed that the position of the imaginary axis of
rotation depends on the axis around which the head revolves. In 1828
M.J.P. Flourens discovered that injury to the canals causes disturbance
to the equilibrium and loss of co-ordination, and that sections of the
canals produce a rotatory movement of a kind corresponding to the canal
that had been divided. Thus division of a membranous canal causes
rotatory movements round an axis at right angles to the plane of the
divided canal. The body of the animal always moves in the direction of
the cut canal. Many other observers have corroborated these experiments.
F. Goltz was the first who formulated the conditions necessary for
equilibration. He put the matter thus:--(1) A central co-ordinating
organ--in the brain; (2) centripetal fibres, with their peripheral
terminations--in the ampullae; and (3) centrifugal fibres, with their
terminal organs--in the muscular mechanisms. A lesion of any one of
these portions of the mechanism causes loss or impairment of balancing.
Cyon also investigated the subject, and concluded:--(1) To maintain
equilibrium, we must have an accurate notion of the position of the head
in space; (2) the function of the semicircular canals is to communicate
impressions that give a representation of this position--each canal
having a relation to one of the dimensions of space; (3) disturbance of
equilibrium follows section; (4) involuntary movements following section
are due to abnormal excitations; (5) abnormal movements occurring a few
days after the operation are caused by irritation of the cerebellum.
On theoretical considerations of a physical character, E. Mach,
Crum-Brown and Breuer have advanced theories based on the idea of the
canals being organs for sensations of acceleration of movement, or for
the sense of rotation. Mach first pointed out that Purkinje's phenomena,
already alluded to, were in all probability related to the semicircular
canals. "He showed that when the body is moved in space, in a straight
line, we are not conscious of the velocity of motion, but of variations
in this velocity. Similarly, if a body is rotated round a vertical axis,
we perceive only angular acceleration and not angular velocity. The
sensations produced by angular acceleration last longer than the
acceleration itself, and the position of the head during the movements
enables us to determine direction." Both Mach and Goltz state that
varying pressures of the fluid in the canals produced by angular
rotation produce sensations of movement (always in a direction opposite
to the rotation of the body), and that these, in turn, cause the vertigo
of Purkinje and the phenomena of Flourens. Mach, Crum-Brown and Breuer
advance hydrodynamical theories in which they assume that the fluids
move in the canals. Goltz, on the other hand, supports a hydrostatical
theory in which he assumes that the phenomena can be accounted for by
varying pressures. Crum-Brown differs from Mach and Breuer as
follows:--(1) In attributing movement or variation of pressure not
merely to the endolymph, but also to the walls of the membranous canals
and to the surrounding perilymph; and (2) in regarding the two
labyrinths as one organ, all the six canals being required to form a
true conception of the rotating motion of the head. He sums up the
matter thus: "We have two ways in which a relative motion can occur
between the endolymph and the walls of the cavity containing it--(1)
When the head begins to move, here the walls leave the fluid behind; (2)
when the head stops, here the fluid flows on. In both cases the
sensation of rotation is felt. In the first this sensation corresponds
to a real rotation, in the second it does not, but in both it
corresponds to a real acceleration (positive or negative) of rotation,
using the word acceleration in its technical kinematical sense."
Cyon states that the semicircular canals only indirectly assist in
giving a notion of spatial relations. "He holds that knowledge of the
position of bodies in space depends on nervous impulses coming from the
contracting ocular muscles; that the oculomotor centres are in intimate
physiological relationship with the centres receiving impulses from the
nerves of the semicircular canals; and that the oculomotor centres, thus
excited, produce the movements of the eyeballs, which then determine our
notions of spatial relations." These views are supported by experiments
of Lee on dog-fish. When the fish is rotated round different axes there
are compensating movements of the eyes and fins. "It was observed that
if the fish were rotated in the plane of one of the canals, exactly the
same movements of the eyes and fins occurred as were produced by
experimental operation and stimulation of the ampulla of that canal."
Sewall, in 1883, carried out experiments on young sharks and skates with
negative results. Lee returned to the subject in 1894, and, after
numerous experiments on dog-fish, in which the canals or the auditory
nerves were divided, obtained evidence that the ampullae contain
sense-organs connected with the sense of equilibrium.
It has been found by physicians and aurists that disease or injury of
the canals, occurring rapidly, produces giddiness, staggering, nystagmus
(a peculiar twitching movement of the muscles of the eyeballs),
vomiting, noises in the ear and more or less deafness. It is said,
however, that if pathological changes come on slowly, so that the canals
and vestibule are converted into a solid mass, none of these symptoms
may occur. On the whole, the evidence is in favour of the view that from
the semicircular canals nervous impulses are transmitted, which,
co-ordinated with impulses coming from the visual organs, from the
muscles and from the skin, form the bases of these guiding sensations on
which the sense of equilibrium depends. These impulses may not reach the
level of consciousness, but they call into action co-ordinated
mechanisms by which complicated muscular movements are effected.
Full bibliographical references are given in the article on "The Ear"
by J.G. McKendrick, in Schäfer's _Textbook of Physiology_, vol. ii. p.
1194. (J. G. M.)
EQUINOX (from the Lat. _aequus_, equal, and _nox_, night), a term used
to express either the moment at which, or the point at which, the sun
apparently crosses the celestial equator. Since the sun moves in the
ecliptic, it is in the last-named sense the point of intersection of the
ecliptic and the celestial equator. This is the usual meaning of the
term in astronomy. There are two such points, opposite each other, at
one of which the sun crosses the equator toward the north and at the
other toward the south. They are called vernal and autumnal
respectively, from the relation of the corresponding times to the
seasons of the northern hemisphere. The line of the equinoxes is the
imaginary diameter of the celestial sphere which joins them.
The vernal equinox is the initial point from which the right ascensions
and the longitudes of the heavenly bodies are measured (see ASTRONOMY:
_Spherical_). It is affected by the motions of Precession and Nutation,
of which the former has been known since the time of Hipparchus. The
actual equinox is defined by first taking the conception of a fictitious
point called the Mean Equinox, which moves at a nearly uniform rate,
slow varying, however, from century to century. The true equinox then
moves around the mean equinox in a period equal to that of the moon's
nodes. These two motions are defined with greater detail in the articles
PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES and NUTATION.
_Equinoctial Gales._--At the time of the equinox it is commonly believed
that strong gales may be expected. This popular idea has no foundation
in fact, for continued observations have failed to show any unusual
prevalence of gales at this season. In one case observations taken for
fifty years show that during the five days from the 21st to the 25th of
March and September, there were fewer gales and storms than during the
preceding and succeeding five days.
EQUITES ("horsemen" or "knights," from _equus_, "horse"), in Roman
history, originally a division of the army, but subsequently a distinct
political order, which under the empire resumed its military character.
According to the traditional account, Romulus instituted a cavalry
corps, consisting of three _centuriae_ ("hundreds"), called after the
three tribes from which they were taken (Ramnes, Tities, Luceres),
divided into ten _turmae_ ("squadrons") of thirty men each. The
collective name for the corps was _celeres_ ("the swift," or possibly
from [Greek: kelês], "a riding horse"); Livy, however, restricts the
term to a special body-guard of Romulus. The statements in ancient
authorities as to the changes in the number of the equites during the
regal period are very confusing; but it is regarded as certain that
Servius Tuillus found six centuries in existence, to which he added
twelve, making eighteen in all, a number which remained unchanged
throughout the republican period. A proposal by M. Porcius Cato the
elder to supplement the deficiency in the cavalry by the creation of
four additional centuries was not adopted. The earlier centuries were
called _sex suffragia_ ("the six votes"), and at first consisted
exclusively of patricians, while those of Servius Tullius were entirely
or for the most part plebeian. Until the reform of the comitia
centuriata (probably during the censorship of Gaius Flaminius in 220
B.C.; see COMITIA), the equites had voted first, but after that time
this privilege was transferred to one century selected by lot from the
centuries of the equites and the first class. The equites then voted
with the first class, the distinction between the _sex suffragia_ and
the other centuries being abolished.
Although the equites were selected from the wealthiest citizens, service
in the cavalry was so expensive that the state gave financial
assistance. A sum of money (_aes equestre_) was given to each eques for
the purchase of two horses (one for himself and one for his groom), and
a further sum for their keep (_aes hordearium_); hence the name _equites
equo publico_. In later times, pay was substituted for the _aes
hordearium_, three times as much as that of the infantry. If competent,
an eques could retain his horse and vote after the expiration of his ten
years' service, and (till 129 B.C.) even after entry into the senate.
As the demands upon the services of the cavalry increased, it was
decided to supplement the regulars by the enrolment of wealthy citizens
who kept horses of their own. The origin of these _equites equo privato_
dates back, according to Livy (v. 7), to the siege of Veii, when a
number of young men came forward and offered their services. According
to Mommsen, although the institution was not intended to be permanent,
in later times vacancies in the ranks were filled in this manner, with
the result that service in the cavalry, with either a public or a
private horse, became obligatory upon all Roman citizens possessed of a
certain income. These _equites equo privato_ had no vote in the
centuries, received pay in place of the _aes equestre_, and did not form
a distinct corps.
Thus, at a comparatively early period, three classes of equites may be
distinguished: (a) The patrician equites _equo publico_ of the _sex
suffragia_; (b) the plebeian equites in the twelve remaining centuries;
(c) the equites _equo privato_, both patrician and plebeian.
The equites were originally chosen by the curiae, then in succession by
the kings, the consuls, and (after 443 B.C.) by the censors, by whom
they were reviewed every five years in the Forum. Each eques, as his
name was called out, passed before the censors, leading his horse. Those
whose physique and character were satisfactory, and who had taken care
of their horses and equipments, were bidden to lead their horse on
(_traducere equum_), those who failed to pass the scrutiny were ordered
to sell it, in token of their expulsion from the corps. This inspection
(_recognitio_) must not be confounded with the full-dress procession
(_transvectio_) on the 15th of July from the temple of Mars or Honos to
the Capitol, instituted in 304 B.C. by the censor Q. Fabius Maximus
Rullianus to commemorate the miraculous intervention of Castor and
Pollux at the battle of Lake Regillus. Both inspection and procession
were discontinued before the end of the republic, but revived and in a
manner combined by Augustus.
In theory, the twelve plebeian centuries were open to all freeborn
youths of the age of seventeen, although in practice preference was
given to the members of the older families. Other requirements were
sound health, high moral character and an honourable calling. At the
beginning of the republican period, senators were included in the
equestrian centuries. The only definite information as to the amount of
fortune necessary refers to later republican and early imperial times,
when it is known to have been 400,000 sesterces (about £3500 to £4000).
The insignia of the equites were, at first, distinctly military--such as
the purple-edged, short military cloak (_trabea_) and decorations for
service in the field.
With the extension of the Roman dominions, the equites lost their
military character. Prolonged service abroad possessed little attraction
for the pick of the Roman youth, and recruiting for the cavalry from the
equestrian centuries was discontinued. The equites remained at home, or
only went out as members of the general's staff, their places being
taken by the _equites equo privato_, the cavalry of the allies and the
most skilled horsemen of the subject populations. The first gradually
disappeared, and Roman citizens were rarely found in the ranks of the
effective cavalry. In these circumstances there grew up in Rome a class
of wealthy men, whose sole occupation it was to amass large fortunes by
speculation, and who found a most lucrative field of enterprise in state
contracts and the farming of the public revenues. These tax-farmers (see
PUBLICANI) were already in existence at the time of the Second Punic
War; and their numbers and influence increased as the various provinces
were added to the Roman dominions. The change of the equites into a body
of financiers was further materially promoted (a) by the lex Claudia
(218 B.C.), which prohibited senators from engaging in commercial
pursuits, especially if (as seems probable) it included public contracts
(cf. FLAMINIUS, GAIUS); (b) by the enactment in the time of Gaius
Gracchus excluding members of the senate from the equestrian centuries.
These two measures definitely marked off the aristocracy of birth from
the aristocracy of wealth--the landed proprietor from the capitalist.
The term equites, originally confined to the purely military equestrian
centuries of Servius Tullius, now came to be applied to all who
possessed the property qualification of 400,000 sesterces.
As the equites practically monopolized the farming of the taxes, they
came to be regarded as identical with the _publicani_, not, as Pliny
remarks, because any particular rank was necessary to obtain the farming
of the taxes, but because such occupation was beyond the reach of all
except those who were possessed of considerable means. Thus, at the time
of the Gracchi, these _equites-publicani_ formed a close financial
corporation of about 30,000 members, holding an intermediate position
between the nobility and the lower classes, keenly alive to their own
interests, and ready to stand by one another when attacked. Although to
some extent looked down upon by the senate as following a dishonourable
occupation, they had as a rule sided with the latter, as being at least
less hostile to them than the democratic party. To obtain the support of
the capitalists, Gaius Gracchus conceived the plan of creating friction
between them and the senate, which he carried out by handing over to
them the control (a) of the jury-courts, and (b) of the revenues of
Asia.
(a) Hitherto, the list of jurymen for service in the majority of
processes, both civil and criminal, had been composed exclusively of
senators. The result was that charges of corruption and extortion
failed, when brought against members of that order, even in cases where
there was little doubt of their guilt. The popular indignation at such
scandalous miscarriages of justice rendered a change in the composition
of the courts imperative. Apparently Gracchus at first proposed to
create new senators from the equites and to select the jurymen from this
mixed body, but this moderate proposal was rejected in favour of one
more radical (see W.W. Fowler in _Classical Review_, July 1896). By the
lex Sempronia (123 B.C.) the list was to be drawn from persons of free
birth over thirty years of age, who must possess the equestrian census,
and must not be senators. Although this measure was bound to set
senators and equites at variance, it in no way improved the lot of those
chiefly concerned. In fact, it increased the burden of the luckless
provincials, whose only appeal lay to a body of men whose interests were
identical with those of the _publicani_. Provided he left the
tax-gatherer alone, the governor might squeeze what he could out of the
people, while on the other hand, if he were humanely disposed, it was
dangerous for him to remonstrate.
(b) The taxes of Asia had formerly been paid by the inhabitants
themselves in the shape of a fixed sum. Gracchus ordered that the taxes,
direct and indirect, should be increased, and that the farming of them
should be put up to auction at Rome. By this arrangement the provincials
were ignored, and everything was left in the hands of the capitalists.
From this time dates the existence of the equestrian order as an
officially recognized political instrument. When the control of the
courts passed into the hands of the property equites, all who were
summoned to undertake the duties of judices were called equites; the
_ordo judicum_ (the official title) and the _ordo equester_ were
regarded as identical. It is probable that certain privileges of the
equites were due to Gracchus; that of wearing the gold ring, hitherto
reserved for senators; that of special seats in the theatre,
subsequently withdrawn (probably by Sulla) and restored by the lex
Othonis (67 B.C.); the narrow band of purple on the tunic as
distinguished from the broad band worn by the senators.
Various attempts were made by the senate to regain control of the
courts, but without success. The lex Livia of M. Livius Drusus (q.v.),
passed with that object, but irregularly and by the aid of violence, was
annulled by the senate itself. In 82 Sulla restored the right of serving
as judices to the senate, to which he elevated 300 of the most
influential equites, whose support he thus hoped to secure; at the same
time he indirectly dealt a blow at the order generally, by abolishing
the office of the censor (immediately revived), in whom was vested the
right of bestowing the public horse. To this period Mommsen assigns the
regulation, generally attributed to Augustus, that the sons of senators
should be knights by right of birth. By the lex Aurelia (70 B.C.) the
judices were to be chosen in equal numbers from senators, equites and
tribuni aerarii (see AERARIUM), (the last-named being closely connected
with the equites), who thus practically commanded a majority. About this
time the influence of the equestrian order reached its height, and
Cicero's great object was to reconcile it with the senate. In this he
was successful at the time of the Catilinarian conspiracy, in the
suppression of which he was materially aided by the equites. But the
union did not last long; shortly afterwards the majority ranged
themselves on the side of Julius Caesar, who did away with the tribuni
aerarii as judices, and replaced them by equites.
Augustus undertook the thorough reorganization of the equestrian order
on a military basis. The _equites equo privato_ were abolished
(according to Herzog, not till the reign of Tiberius) and the term
equites was officially limited to the _equites equo publico_, although
all who possessed the property qualification were still considered to
belong to the "equestrian order." For the _equites equo publico_ high
moral character, good health and the equestrian fortune were necessary.
Although free birth was considered indispensable, the right of wearing
the gold ring (_jus anuli aurei_) was frequently bestowed by the emperor
upon freedmen, who thereby became _ingenui_ and eligible as equites.
Tiberius, however, insisted upon free birth on the father's side to the
third generation. Extreme youth was no bar; the emperor Marcus Aurelius
had been an eques at the age of six. The sons of senators were eligible
by right of birth, and appear to have been known as _equites illustres_.
The right of bestowing the _equus publicus_ was vested in the emperor;
once given, it was for life, and was only forfeitable through
degradation for some offence or the loss of the equestrian fortune.
Augustus divided the equites into six _turmae_ (regarded by Hirschfeld
as a continuation of the _sex suffragia_). Each was under the command of
a _sevir_ ([Greek: hilarchos]), who was appointed by the emperor and
changed every year. During their term of command the _seviri_ had to
exhibit games (_ludi sevirales_). Under these officers the equites
formed a kind of corporation, which, although not officially recognized,
had the right of passing resolutions, chiefly such as embodied acts of
homage to the imperial house. It is not known whether the _turmae_
contained a fixed number of equites; there is no doubt that, in
assigning the public horse, Augustus went far beyond the earlier figure
of 1800. Thus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions 5000 equites as
taking part in a review at which he himself was present.
As before, the equites wore the narrow, purple-striped tunic, and the
gold ring, the latter now being considered the distinctive badge of
knighthood. The fourteen rows in the theatre were extended by Augustus
to seats in the circus.
The old _recognitio_ was replaced by the _probatio_, conducted by the
emperor in his censorial capacity, assisted by an advisory board of
specially selected senators. The ceremony was combined with a
procession, which, like the earlier _transvectio_, took place on the
15th of July, and at such other times as the emperor pleased. As in
earlier times, offenders were punished by expulsion.
In order to provide a supply of competent officers, each eques was
required to fill certain subordinate posts, called _militiae equestres_.
These were (1) the command of an auxiliary cohort; (2) the tribunate of
a legion; (3) the command of an auxiliary cavalry squadron, this order
being as a rule strictly adhered to. To these Septimius Severus added
the centurionship. Nomination to the _militiae equestres_ was in the
hands of the emperor. After the completion of their preliminary military
service, the equites were eligible for a number of civil posts, chiefly
those with which the emperor himself was closely concerned. Such were
various procuratorships; the prefectures of the corn supply, of the
fleet, of the watch, of the praetorian guards; the governorships of
recently acquired provinces (Egypt, Noricum), the others being reserved
for senators. At the same time, the abolition of the indirect method of
collecting the taxes in the provinces greatly reduced the political
influence of the equites. Certain religious functions of minor
importance were also reserved for them. In the jury courts, the equites,
thanks to Julius Caesar, already formed two-thirds of the judices;
Augustus, by excluding the senators altogether, virtually gave them the
sole control of the tribunals. One of the chief objects of the emperors
being to weaken the influence of the senate by the opposition of the
equestrian order, the practice was adopted of elevating those equites
who had reached a certain stage in their career to the rank of senator
by _adlectio_. Certain official posts, of which it would have been
inadvisable to deprive senators, could thus be bestowed upon the
promoted equites.
The control of the imperial correspondence and purse was at first in
the hands of freedmen and slaves. The emperor Claudius tentatively
entrusted certain posts connected with these to the equites; in the time
of Hadrian this became the regular custom. Thus a civil career was open
to the equites without the obligation of preliminary military service,
and the emperor was freed from the pernicious influence of freedmen.
After the reign of Marcus Aurelius (according to Mommsen) the equites
were divided into: (a) _viri eminentissimi_, the prefects of the
praetorian guard; (b) _viri perfectissimi_, the other prefects and the
heads of the financial and secretarial departments; (c) _viri egregii_,
first mentioned in the reign of Antoninus Pius, a title by right of the
procurators generally.
Under the empire the power of the equites was at its highest in the time
of Diocletian; in consequence of the transference of the capital to
Constantinople, they sank to the position of a mere city guard, under
the control of the prefect of the watch. Their history may be said to
end with the reign of Constantine the Great.
Mention may also be made of the _equites singulares Augusti_. The
body-guard of Augustus, consisting of foreign soldiers (chiefly Germans
and Batavians), abolished by Galba, was revived from the time of Trajan
or Hadrian under the above title. It was chiefly recruited from the pick
of the provincial cavalry, but contained some Roman citizens. It formed
the imperial "Swiss guard," and never left the city except to accompany
the emperor. In the time of Severus, these equites were divided into two
corps, each of which had its separate quarters, and was commanded by a
tribune under the orders of the prefect of the praetorian guard. They
were subsequently replaced by the _protectores Augusti_.
See further article ROME: _History_; also T. Mommsen, _Römisches
Staatsrecht_, iii.; J.N. Madvig, _Die Verfassung des römischen
Staates_, i.; R. Cagnat in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des
antiquités_, where full references to ancient authorities are given in
the footnotes; A.S. Wilkins in Smith's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman
Antiquities_ (3rd ed., 1891); E. Belot, _Histoire des chevaliers
romains_ (1866-1873); H.O. Hirschfeld, _Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete
der römischen Verwaltungsgeschichte_ (Berlin, 1877); E. Herzog,
_Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung_ (Leipzig,
1884-1891); A.H. Friedländer, _Sittengeschichte Roms_, i. (1901);
A.H.J. Greenidge, _History of Rome_, i. (1904); J.B. Bury, _The
Student's Roman Empire_ (1893); T.M. Taylor, _Political and
Constitutional History of Rome_ (1899). For a concise summary of
different views of the _sex suffragia_ see A. Bouché-Leclercq's
_Manuel des antiquités romaines_, quoted in Daremberg and Saglio; and
on the _equites singulares_, T. Mommsen in _Hermes_, xvi. (1881), p.
458. (J. H. F.)
EQUITY (Lat. _aequitas_), a term which in its most general sense means
equality or justice; in its most technical sense it means a system of
law or a body of connected legal principles, which have superseded or
supplemented the common law on the ground of their intrinsic
superiority. Aristotle (_Ethics_, bk. v. c. 10) defines equity as a
better sort of justice, which corrects legal justice where the latter
errs through being expressed in a universal form and not taking account
of particular cases. When the law speaks universally, and something
happens which is not according to the common course of events, it is
right that the law should be modified in its application to that
particular case, as the lawgiver himself would have done, if the case
had been present to his mind. Accordingly the equitable man ([Greek:
epieikês]) is he who does not push the law to its extreme, but, having
legal justice on his side, is disposed to make allowances. Equity as
thus described would correspond rather to the judicial discretion which
modifies the administration of the law than to the antagonistic system
which claims to supersede the law.
The part played by equity in the development of law is admirably
illustrated in the well-known work of Sir Henry Maine on _Ancient Law_.
Positive law, at least in progressive societies, is constantly tending
to fall behind public opinion, and the expedients adopted for bringing
it into harmony therewith are three, viz. legal fictions, equity and
statutory legislation. Equity here is defined to mean "any body of rules
existing by the side of the original civil law, founded on distinct
principles, and claiming incidentally to supersede the civil law in
virtue of a superior sanctity inherent in those principles." It is thus
different from legal fiction, by which a new rule is introduced
surreptitiously, and under the pretence that no change has been made in
the law, and from statutory legislation, in which the obligatory force
of the rule is not supposed to depend upon its intrinsic fitness. The
source of Roman equity was the fertile theory of natural law, or the law
common to all nations. Even in the Institutes of Justinian the
distinction is carefully drawn in the laws of a country between those
which are peculiar to itself and those which natural reason appoints for
all mankind. The connexion in Roman law between the ideas of equity,
nature, natural law and the law common to all nations, and the influence
of the Stoical philosophy on their development, are fully discussed in
the third chapter of the work we have referred to. The agency by which
these principles were introduced was the edicts of the praetor, an
annual proclamation setting forth the manner in which the magistrate
intended to administer the law during his year of office. Each
successive praetor adopted the edict of his predecessor, and added new
equitable rules of his own, until the further growth of the irregular
code was stopped by the praetor Salvius Julianus in the reign of
Hadrian.
The place of the praetor was occupied in English jurisprudence by the
lord high chancellor. The real beginning of English equity is to be
found in the custom of handing over to that officer, for adjudication,
the complaints which were addressed to the king, praying for remedies
beyond the reach of the common law. Over and above the authority
delegated to the ordinary councils or courts, a reserve of judicial
power was believed to reside in the king, which was invoked as of grace
by the suitors who could not obtain relief from any inferior tribunal.
To the chancellor, as already the head of the judicial system, these
petitions were referred, although he was not at first the only officer
through whom the prerogative of grace was administered. In the reign of
Edward III. the equitable jurisdiction of the court appears to have been
established. Its constitutional origin was analogous to that of the star
chamber and the court of requests. The latter, in fact, was a minor
court of equity attached to the lord privy seal as the court of chancery
was to the chancellor. The successful assumption of extraordinary or
equitable jurisdiction by the chancellor caused similar pretensions to
be made by other officers and courts. "Not only the court of exchequer,
whose functions were in a peculiar manner connected with royal
authority, but the counties palatine of Chester, Lancaster and Durham,
the court of great session in Wales, the universities, the city of
London, the Cinque Ports and other places silently assumed extraordinary
jurisdiction similar to that exercised in the court of chancery." Even
private persons, lords and ladies, affected to establish in their
honours courts of equity.
English equity has one marked historical peculiarity, viz. that it
established itself in a set of independent tribunals which remained in
standing contrast to the ordinary courts for many hundred years. In
Roman law the judge gave the preference to the equitable rule; in
English law the equitable rule was enforced by a distinct set of judges.
One cause of this separation was the rigid adherence to precedent on the
part of the common law courts. Another was the jealousy prevailing in
England against the principles of the Roman law on which English equity
to a large extent was founded.
When a case of prerogative was referred to the chancellor in the reign
of Edward III., he was required to grant such remedy as should be
consonant to honesty (_honestas_). And honesty, conscience and equity
were said to be the fundamental principles of the court. The early
chancellors were ecclesiastics, and under their influence not only moral
principles, where these were not regarded by the common law, but also
the equitable principles of the Roman law were introduced into English
jurisprudence. Between this point and the time when equity became
settled as a portion of the legal system, having fixed principles of its
own, various views of its nature seem to have prevailed. For a long time
it was thought that precedents could have no place in equity, inasmuch
as it professed in each case to do that which was just; and we find this
view maintained by common lawyers after it had been abandoned by the
professors of equity themselves. G. Spence, in his book on the
_Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery_, quotes a case in
the reign of Charles II., in which chief justice Vaughan said:
"I wonder to hear of citing of precedents in matter of equity, for if
there be equity in a case, that equity is an universal truth, and
there can be no precedent in it; so that in any precedent that can be
produced, if it be the same with this case, the reason and equity is
the same in itself; and if the precedent be not the same case with
this it is not to be cited."
But the lord keeper Bridgeman answered:
"Certainly precedents are very necessary and useful to us, for in them
we may find the reasons of the equity to guide us, and besides the
authority of those who made them is much to be regarded. We shall
suppose they did it upon great consideration and weighing of the
matter, and it would be very strange and very ill if we should disturb
and set aside what has been the course for a long series of times and
ages."
Selden's description is well known: "Equity is a roguish thing. 'Tis all
one as if they should make the standard for measure the chancellor's
foot." Lord Nottingham in 1676 reconciled the ancient theory and the
established practice by saying that the conscience which guided the
court was not the natural conscience of the man, but the civil and
political conscience of the judge. The same tendency of equity to settle
into a system of law is seen in the recognition of its limits--in the
fact that it did not attempt in all cases to give a remedy when the rule
of the common law was contrary to justice. Cases of hardship, which the
early chancellors would certainly have relieved, were passed over by
later judges, simply because no precedent could be found for their
interference. The point at which the introduction of new principles of
equity finally stopped is fixed by Sir Henry Maine in the chancellorship
of Lord Eldon, who held that the doctrines of the court ought to be as
well settled and made as uniform almost as those of the common law. From
that time certainly equity, like common law, has professed to take its
principles wholly from recorded decisions and statute law. The view
(traceable no doubt to the Aristotelian definition) that equity
mitigates the hardships of the law where the law errs through being
framed in universals, is to be found in some of the earlier writings.
Thus in the _Doctor and Student_ it is said:
"Law makers take heed to such things as may often come, and not to
every particular case, for they could not though they would;
therefore, in some cases it is necessary to leave the words of the law
and follow that reason and justice requireth, and to that intent
equity is ordained, that is to say, to temper and mitigate the rigour
of the law."
And Lord Ellesmere said:
"The cause why there is a chancery is for that men's actions are so
divers and infinite that it is impossible to make any general law
which shall aptly meet with every particular act and not fail in some
circumstances."
Modern equity, it need hardly be said, does not profess to soften the
rigour of the law, or to correct the errors into which it falls by
reason of its generality.
To give any account, even in outline, of the subject matter of equity
within the necessary limits of this article would be impossible. It will
be sufficient to say here that the classification generally adopted by
text-writers is based upon the relations of equity to the common law, of
which some explanation is given above. Thus equitable jurisdiction is
said to be exclusive, concurrent or auxiliary. Equity has _exclusive_
jurisdiction where it recognizes rights which are unknown to the common
law. The most important example is trusts. Equity has _concurrent_
jurisdiction in cases where the law recognized the right but did not
give adequate relief, or did not give relief without circuity of action
or some similar inconvenience. And equity has _auxiliary_ jurisdiction
when the machinery of the courts of law was unable to procure the
necessary evidence.
"The evils of this double system of judicature," says the report of the
judicature commission (1863-1867), "and the confusion and conflict of
jurisdiction to which it has led, have been long known and
acknowledged." A partial attempt to meet the difficulty was made by
several acts of parliament (passed after the reports of commissions
appointed in 1850 and 1851), which enabled courts of law and equity both
to exercise certain powers formerly peculiar to one or other of them. A
more complete remedy was introduced by the Judicature Act 1873, which
consolidated the courts of law and equity, and ordered that law and
equity should be administered concurrently according to the rules
contained in the 26th section of the act. At the same time many matters
of equitable jurisdiction are still left to the chancery division of the
High Court in the first instance. (See CHANCERY.)
AUTHORITIES.--The principles of equity as set out by the following
writers may be consulted: J. Story, J.W. Smith, H.A. Smith and W.
Ashburner; and for the history see G. Spence, _The Equitable
Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery_ (2 vols., 1846-1849); D.M.
Kerly, _Historical Sketch of the Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court
of Chancery_ (1890).
EQUIVALENT, in chemistry, the proportion of an element which will
combine with or replace unit weight of hydrogen. When multiplied by the
valency it gives the atomic weight. The determination of equivalent
weights is treated in the article STOICHIOMETRY. (See also CHEMISTRY.)
In a more general sense the term "equivalent" is used to denote
quantities of substances which neutralize one another, as for example
NaOH, HCl, ½H2SO4, ½Ba(OH)2.
ÉRARD, SÉBASTIEN (1752-1831), French manufacturer of musical
instruments, distinguished especially for the improvements he made upon
the harp and the pianoforte, was born at Strassburg on the 5th of April
1752. While a boy he showed great aptitude for practical geometry and
architectural drawing, and in the workshop of his father, who was an
upholsterer, he found opportunity for the early exercise of his
mechanical ingenuity. When he was sixteen his father died, and he
removed to Paris where he obtained employment with a harpsichord maker.
Here his remarkable constructive skill, though it speedily excited the
jealousy of his master and procured his dismissal, almost equally soon
attracted the notice of musicians and musical instrument makers of
eminence. Before he was twenty-five he set up in business for himself,
his first workshop being a room in the hotel of the duchesse de
Villeroi, who gave him warm encouragement. Here he constructed in 1780
his first pianoforte, which was also one of the first manufactured in
France. It quickly secured for its maker such a reputation that he was
soon overwhelmed with commissions, and finding assistance necessary, he
sent for his brother, Jean Baptiste, in conjunction with whom he
established in the rue de Bourbon, in the Faubourg St Germain, a piano
manufactory, which in a few years became one of the most celebrated in
Europe. On the outbreak of the Revolution he went to London where he
established a factory. Returning to Paris in 1796, he soon afterwards
introduced grand pianofortes, made in the English fashion, with
improvements of his own. In 1808 he again visited London, where, two
years later, he produced his first double-movement harp. He had
previously made various improvements in the manufacture of harps, but
the new instrument was an immense advance upon anything he had before
produced, and obtained such a reputation that for some time he devoted
himself exclusively to its manufacture. It has been said that in the
year following his invention he made harps to the value of £25,000. In
1812 he returned to Paris, and continued to devote himself to the
further perfecting of the two instruments with which his name is
associated. In 1823 he crowned his work by producing his model grand
pianoforte with the double escapement. Érard died at Passy, on the 5th
of August 1831. (See also HARP and PIANOFORTE.)
ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS (1466-1536), Dutch scholar and theologian, was born
on the night of the 27/28th of October, probably in 1466; but his
statements about his age are conflicting, and in view of his own
uncertainty (_Ep._ x. 29: 466) and the weakness of his memory for dates,
the year of his birth cannot be definitely fixed. His father's name
seems to have been Rogerius Gerardus. He himself was christened
Herasmus; but in 1503, when becoming familiar with Greek, he assimilated
the name to a fancied Greek original, which he had a few years before
Latinized into Desyderius. A contemporary authority states that he was
born at Gouda, his father's native town; but he adopted the style
_Rotterdammensis_ or _Roterodamus_, in accordance with a story to which
he himself gave credence. His first schooling was at Gouda under Peter
Winckel, who was afterwards vice-pastor of the church. In the dull round
of instruction in "grammar" he did not distinguish himself, and was
surpassed by his early friend and companion, William Herman, who was
Winckel's favourite pupil. From Gouda the two boys went to the school
attached to St Lebuin's church at Deventer, which was one of the first
in northern Europe to feel the influence of the Renaissance. Erasmus was
at Deventer from 1475 to 1484, and when he left, had learnt from
Johannes Sinthius (Syntheim) and Alexander Hegius, who had come as
headmaster in 1483, the love of letters which was the ruling passion of
his life. At some period, perhaps in an interval of his time at
Deventer, he was a chorister at Utrecht under the famous organist of the
cathedral, Jacob Obrecht.
About 1484 Erasmus' father died, leaving him and an elder brother Peter,
both born out of wedlock, to the care of guardians, their mother having
died shortly before. Erasmus was eager to go to a university, but the
guardians, acting under a perhaps genuine enthusiasm for the religious
life, sent the boys to another school at Hertogenbosch; and when they
returned after two or three years, prevailed on them to enter
monasteries. Peter went to Sion, near Delft; Erasmus after prolonged
reluctance became an Augustinian canon in St Gregory's at Steyn, a house
of the same Chapter near Gouda. There he found little religion and less
refinement; but no serious difficulty seems to have been made about his
reading the classics and the Fathers with his friends to his heart's
content. The monastery once entered, there was no drawing back; and
Erasmus passed through the various stages which culminated in his
ordination as priest on the 25th of April 1492.
But his ardent spirit could not long be content with monastic life. He
brought his attainments somehow to the notice of Henry of Bergen, bishop
of Cambrai, the leading prelate at the court of Brussels; and about 1494
permission was obtained for him to leave Steyn and become Latin
secretary to the bishop, who was then preparing for a visit to Rome. But
the journey was abandoned, and after some months Erasmus found that even
with occasional chances to read at Groenendael, the life of a court was
hardly more favourable to study than that of Steyn. At the suggestion of
a friend, James Batt, he applied to his patron for leave to go to Paris
University. The bishop consented and promised a small pension; and in
August 1495 Erasmus entered the "domus pauperum" of the college of
Montaigu, which was then under the somewhat rigid rule of the reformer
Jan Standonck. He at once introduced himself to the distinguished French
historian and diplomatist Robert Gaguin (1425-1502) and published a
small volume of poems; and he became intimate with Johann Mauburnus
(Mombaer), the leader of a mission summoned from Windesheim in 1496 to
reform the abbey of Château-Landon. But the life at Montaigu was too
hard for him. Every Lent he fell ill and had to return to Holland to
recover. He continued to read nevertheless for a degree in theology, and
at some time completed the requirements for the B.D. After a year or two
he left Montaigu and eked out his money from the bishop by taking
pupils. One of these, a young Englishman, William Blount, 4th Baron
Mountjoy (d. 1534), persuaded him to visit England in the spring of
1499.
Being without a benefice, he had no settled income to look to, and apart
from the precarious profits of teaching and writing books, could only
wait on the generosity of patrons to supply him with the leisure he
craved. The faithful Batt had sought a pension for him from his own
patroness, Anne of Borsselen, the Lady of Veere, who resided at the
castle of Tournehem near Calais, and whose son Batt was now teaching.
But as nothing promised at once, Erasmus accepted Mountjoy's offer, and
thus a tie was formed which led Mountjoy then or a few years later to
grant him a pension of £20 for life. Otherwise the visit to England gave
no hope of preferment; and in the summer Erasmus prepared to leave. He
was delayed, and used the interval to spend two or three months at
Oxford, where he found John Colet lecturing on the Epistle to the
Romans. Discussions between them on theological questions soon convinced
Colet of Erasmus' worth, and he sought to persuade him to stay and teach
at Oxford. But Erasmus could not be content with the Bible in Latin.
Oxford could teach him no Greek, so away he must go.
In January 1500 he returned to Paris, which though it could offer no
Greek teacher better than George Hermonymus, was at least a better
centre for buying and for printing books. The next few years were spent
still in preparation, supported by pupils' fees and the dedications of
books; the _Collectanea adagiorum_ in June 1500 to Mountjoy, and some
devotional and moral compositions to Batt's patroness and her son. When
the plague drove him from Paris, he went to Orleans or Tournehem or St
Omer, as the way opened. From 1502 to 1504 he was at Louvain, still
declining to teach publicly; among his friends being the future Pope
Adrian VI. In January 1504 the archduke Philip gave him fifty livres for
the Panegyric which "_ung religieux de l'ordre de St Augustin_" had
composed on his Spanish journey; and in October, ten more, for the
maintenance of his studies.
He had been working hard at Greek, of which he now felt himself master,
at the Fathers (above all at Jerome), and at the Epistles of St Paul,
fulfilling the promise made to Colet in Oxford, to give himself to
sacred learning. But the bent of his reading is shown by the manuscript
with which he returned to Paris at the close of 1504--Valla's
_Annotations on the New Testament_, which Badius printed for him in
1505.
Shortly afterwards Lord Mountjoy invited him again to England, and this
visit was more successful. He found in London a circle of learned
friends through whom he was introduced to William Warham, archbishop of
Canterbury, Richard Foxe, bishop of Winchester and other dignitaries.
John Fisher (bishop of Rochester), who was then superintending the
foundation of Christ's College for the Lady Margaret, took him down to
Cambridge for the king's visit; and at length the opportunity came to
fulfil his dream of seeing Italy. Baptista Boerio, the king's physician,
engaged him to accompany his two sons thither as supervisor of their
studies. In September 1506 he set foot on that sacred soil, and took his
D.D. at Turin. For a year he remained with his pupils at Bologna, and
then, his engagement completed, negotiated with Aldus Manutius for a new
edition of his _Adagia_ upon a very different scale. The volume of 1500
had been jejune, written when he knew nothing of Greek; 800 adages put
together with scanty elucidations. In 1508 he had conceived a work on
lines more to the taste of the learned world, full of apt and recondite
learning, and now and again relieved by telling comments or lively
anecdotes. Three thousand and more collected justified a new
title--_Chiliades adagiorum_; and the author's reputation was now
established. So secure in public favour did the book in time become,
that the council of Trent, unable to suppress it and not daring to
overlook it, ordered the preparation of a castrated edition.
To print the _Adagia_ he had gone to Venice, where he lived with Andrea
Torresano of Asola (Asulanus) and did the work of two men, writing and
correcting proof at the same time. When it was finished, with an ample
re-dedication to Mountjoy, a new pupil presented himself, Alexander
Stewart, natural son of James IV. of Scotland--perhaps through a
connexion formed in early days at Paris. They went together to Siena and
Rome and then on to Campania, thirsty under the summer sun. When they
returned to Rome, his pupil departed to Scotland, to fall a few years
later by his father's side at Flodden; Erasmus also found a summons to
call him northwards.
On the death of Henry VII. Lord Mountjoy, who had been companion to
Prince Henry in his studies, had become a person of influence. He wrote
to Erasmus of a land flowing with milk and honey under the "divine"
young king, and with Warham sent him £10 for journey money. At first
Erasmus hesitated. He had been disappointed in Italy, to find that he
had not much to learn from its famed scholarship; but he had made many
friends in Aldus's circle--Marcus Musurus, John Lascaris, Baptista
Egnatius, Paul Bombasius, Scipio Carteromachus; and his reception had
been flattering, especially in Rome, where cardinals had delighted to
honour him. But to remain in Rome was to sell himself. He might have the
leisure which was so indispensable, but at price of the freedom to read,
think, write what he liked. He decided, therefore, to go, though with
regrets; which returned upon him sometimes in after years, when the
English hopes had not borne fruit.
In the autumn he reached London, and in Thomas More's house in
Bucklersbury wrote the witty satire which Milton found "in every one's
hands" at Cambridge in 1628, and which is read to this day. The _Moriae
encomium_ was a sign of his decision. In it kings and princes, bishops
and popes alike are shown to be in bondage to Folly; and no class of men
is spared. Its author was willing to be beholden to any one for leisure;
but he would be no man's slave. For the next eighteen months he is
entirely lost to view; when he reappears in April 1511, he is leaving
More's house and taking the _Moria_ to be printed privily in Paris.
Wherever they were spent, these must have been months of hard work, as
were the years that followed. His time was now come. The long
preparation and training, bought by privation and uncongenial toil, was
over, and he was ready to apply himself to the scientific study of
sacred letters. His English patrons were liberal. Fisher sent him in
August 1511 to teach in Cambridge; Warham gave him a benefice, Aldington
in Kent, worth _£_33, 6_s._ 8_d._ a year, and in violation of his own
rule commuted it for a pension of £20 charged on the living; and the
dedications of his books were fruitful. In Cambridge he completed his
work on the New Testament, the Letters of Jerome, and Seneca; and then
in 1514, when there seemed no prospect of ampler preferment, he
determined to transfer himself to Basel and give the results of his
labours to the world.
The origin of Erasmus's connexion with Johann Froben is not clear. In
1511 he was preparing to reprint his _Adagia_ with Jodocus Badius, who
in the following year was to have also Seneca and Jerome. But in 1513
Froben, who had just reprinted the Aldine _Adagia_, acquired through a
bookseller-agent Erasmus' amended copy which had been destined for
Badius. That the agent was acting entirely on his own responsibility may
be doubted; for within a few months Erasmus had decided to betake
himself to Basel, bearing with him Seneca and Jerome, the latter to be
incorporated in the great edition which Johannes Amerbach and Froben had
had in hand since 1510. In Germany he was widely welcomed. The
Strassburg Literary Society fêted him, and Johannes Sapidus, headmaster
of the Latin school at Schlettstadt, rode with him into Basel. Froben
received him with open arms, and the presses were soon busy with his
books. Through the winter of 1514-1515 Erasmus worked with the strength
of ten; and after a brief visit to England in the spring, the New
Testament was set up. Around him was a circle of students, some young,
some already distinguished--the three sons of Froben's partner, Johannes
Amerbach, who was now dead, Beatus Rhenanus, Wilhelm Nesen, Ludwig Ber,
Heinrich Glareanus, Nikolaus Gerbell, Johannes Oecolampadius--who looked
to him as their head and were proud to do him service.
Though from this time forward Basel became the centre of occupation and
interest for Erasmus, yet for the next few years he was mainly in the
Netherlands. On the completion of the New Testament in 1516 he returned
to his friends in England; but his appointment, then recent, as
councillor to the young king Charles, brought him back to Brussels in
the autumn. In the spring of 1517 he went for the last time to England,
about a dispensation from wearing his canonical dress, obtained
originally from Julius II. and recently confirmed by Leo X., and in May
1518 he journeyed to Basel for three months to set the second edition of
the New Testament in progress. But with these exceptions he remained in
proximity to the court, living much at Louvain, where he took great
interest in the foundation of Hieronymus Busleiden's Collegium
Trilingue. His circumstances had improved so much, by pensions, the
presents which were showered upon him, and the sale of his books, that
he was now in a position to refuse all proposals which would have
interfered with his cherished independence. The general ardour for the
restoration of the arts and of learning created an aristocratic public,
of which Erasmus was supreme pontiff. Luther spoke to the people and the
ignorant; Erasmus had the ear of the educated class. His friends and
admirers were distributed over all the countries of Europe, and presents
were continually arriving from small as well as great, from a donation
of 200 florins, made by Pope Clement VII., down to sweetmeats and
comfits contributed by the nuns of Cologne (_Ep._ 666). From England, in
particular, he continued to receive supplies of money. In the last year
of his life Thomas Cromwell sent him 20 angels, and Archbishop Cranmer
18. Though Erasmus led a very hard-working and far from luxurious life,
and had no extravagant habits, yet he could not live upon little. The
excessive delicacy of his constitution, not pampered appetite, exacted
some unusual indulgences. He could not bear the stoves of Germany, and
required an open fireplace in the room in which he worked. He was
afflicted with the stone, and obliged to be particular as to what he
drank. Beer he could not touch. The white wines of Baden or the Rhine
did not suit him; he could only drink those of Burgundy or
Franche-Comté. He could neither eat, nor bear the smell of, fish. "His
heart," he said, "was Catholic, but his stomach was Lutheran." For his
constant journeys he required two horses, one for himself and one for
his attendant. And though he was almost always found in horse-flesh by
his friends, the keep had to be paid for. For his literary labours and
his extensive correspondence he required one or more amanuenses. He
often had occasion, on his own business, or on that of Froben's press,
to send special couriers to a distance, employing them by the way in
collecting the free gifts of his tributaries.
Precarious as these means of subsistence seem, he preferred the
independence thus obtained to an assured position which would have
involved obligations to a patron or professional duties which his weak
health would have made onerous. The duke of Bavaria offered to dispense
with teaching, if he would only reside, and would have named him on
these terms to a chair in his new university of Ingolstadt, with a
salary of 200 ducats, and the reversion of one or more prebendal stalls.
The archduke Ferdinand offered a pension of 400 florins, if he would
only come to reside at Vienna. Adrian VI. offered him a deanery, but the
offer seems to have been of a possible and not an actual deanery.
Offers, flattering but equally vague, were made from France, on the part
of the bishop of Bayeux, and even of Francis I. "Invitor amplissimis
conditionibus; offeruntur dignitates et episcopatus; plane rex essem, si
juvenis essem" (_Ep._ xix. 106; 735). Erasmus declined all, and in
November 1521 settled permanently at Basel, in the capacity of general
editor and literary adviser of Froben's press. As a subject of the
emperor, and attached to his court by a pension, it would have been
convenient to him to have fixed his residence in Louvain. But the
bigotry of the Flemish clergy, and the monkish atmosphere of the
university of Louvain, overrun with Dominicans and Franciscans, united
for once in their enmity to the new classical learning, inclined Erasmus
to seek a more congenial home in Basel. To Froben his arrival was the
advent of the very man whom he had long wanted. Froben's enterprise,
united with Erasmus's editorial skill, raised the press of Basel, for a
time, to be the most important in Europe. The death of Froben in 1527,
the final separation of Basel from the Empire, the wreck of learning in
the religious disputes, and the cheap paper and scamped work of the
Frankfort presses, gradually withdrew the trade from Basel. But during
the years of Erasmus's co-operation the Froben press took the lead of
all the presses in Europe, both in the standard value of the works
published and in style of typographical execution. Like some other
publishers who preferred reputation to returns in money, Froben died
poor, and his impressions never reached the splendour afterwards
attained by those of the Estiennes, or of Plantin. The series of the
Fathers alone contains Jerome (1516), Cyprian (1520), Pseudo-Arnobius
(1522), Hilarius (1523), Irenaeus (Latin, 1526), Ambrose (1527),
Augustine (1528), Chrysostom (Latin, 1530), Basil (Greek, 1532, the
first Greek author printed in Germany), and Origen (Latin, 1536). In
these editions, partly texts, partly translations, it is impossible to
determine the respective shares of Erasmus and his many helpers. The
prefaces and dedications are all written by him, and some of them, as
that to the Hilarius, are of importance for the history as well of the
times as of Erasmus himself. Of his most important edition, that of the
Greek text of the New Testament, something will be said farther on.
In this "mill," as he calls it, Erasmus continued to grind incessantly
for eight years. Besides his work as editor, he was always writing
himself some book or pamphlet called for by the event of the day, some
general fray in which he was compelled to mingle, or some personal
assault which it was necessary to repel. But though painfully conscious
how much his reputation as a writer was damaged by this extempore
production, he was unable to resist the fatal facility of print. He was
the object of those solicitations which always beset the author whose
name upon the title page assures the sale of a book. He was besieged for
dedications, and as every dedication meant a present proportioned to the
circumstances of the dedicatee, there was a natural temptation to be
lavish of them. Add to this a correspondence so extensive as to require
him at times to write forty letters in one day. "I receive daily," he
writes, "letters from remote parts, from kings, princes, prelates and
men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I was
ignorant." His day was thus one of incessant mental activity; but hard
work was so far from breeding a distaste for his occupation, that
reading and writing grew ever more delightful to him (_literarum
assiduitas non modo mihi fastidium non parit, sed voluptatem; crescit
scribendo scribendi studium_).
Shortly after Froben's death the disturbances at Basel, occasioned by
the zealots for the religious revolution which was in progress
throughout Switzerland, began to make Erasmus desirous of changing his
residence. He selected Freiburg in the Breisgau, as a city which was
still in the dominion of the emperor, and was free from religious
dissension. Thither he removed in April 1529. He was received with
public marks of respect by the authorities, who granted him the use of
an unfinished residence which had been begun to be built for the late
emperor Maximilian. Erasmus proposed only to remain at Freiburg for a
few months, but found the place so suited to his habits that he bought a
house of his own, and remained there six years. A desire for change of
air--he fancied Freiburg was damp--rumours of a new war with France, and
the necessity of seeing his _Ecclesiastes_ through the press, took him
back to Basel in 1535. He lived now a very retired life, and saw only a
small circle of intimate friends. A last attempt was made by the papal
court to enlist him in some public way against the Reformation. On the
election of Paul III. in 1534, he had, as usual, sent the new pope a
congratulatory letter. After his arrival in Basel, he received a
complimentary answer, together with the nomination to the deanery of
Deventer, the income of which was reckoned at 600 ducats. This
nomination was accompanied with an intimation that more was in store for
him, and that steps would be taken to provide for him the income, viz.,
3000 ducats, which was necessary to qualify for the cardinal's hat. But
Erasmus was even less disposed now than he had been before to barter his
reputation for honours. His health had been for some years gradually
declining, and disease in the shape of gout gaining upon him. In the
winter of 1535-1536 he was confined entirely to his chamber, many days
to his bed. Though thus afflicted he never ceased his literary activity,
dictating his tract _On the Purity of the Church_, and revising the
sheets of a translation of Origen which was passing through the Froben
press. His last letter is dated the 28th of June 1536, and subscribed
"Eras. Rot. aegra manu." "I have never been so ill in my life before as
I am now,--for many days unable even to read." Dysentery setting in
carried him off on the 12th of July 1536, in his 70th year.
By his will, made on the 12th of February 1536, he left what he had to
leave, with the exception of some legacies, to Bonifazius Amerbach,
partly for himself, partly in trust for the benefit of the aged and the
infirm, or to be spent in portioning young girls, and in educating young
men of promise. He left none of the usual legacies for masses or other
clerical purposes, and was not attended by any priest or confessor in
his last moments.
Erasmus's features are familiar to all, from Holbein's many portraits or
their copies. Beatus Rhenanus, "summus Erasmi observator," as he is
called by de Thou, describes his person thus: "In stature not tall, but
not noticeably short; in figure well built and graceful; of an extremely
delicate constitution, sensitive to the slightest changes of climate,
food or drink. After middle life he suffered from the stone, not to
mention the common plague of studious men, an irritable mucous membrane.
His complexion was fair; light blue eyes, and yellowish hair. Though his
voice was weak, his enunciation was distinct; the expression of his face
cheerful; his manner and conversation polished, affable, even charming."
His highly nervous organization made his feelings acute, and his brain
incessantly active. Through his ready sympathy with all forms of life
and character, his attention was always alive. The active movement of
his spirit spent itself, not in following out its own trains of thought,
but in outward observation. No man was ever less introspective, and
though he talks much of himself, his egotism is the genial egotism which
takes the world into its confidence, not the selfish egotism which feels
no interest but in its own woes. He says of himself, and justly, "that
he was incapable of dissimulation" (_Ep._ xxvi. 19; 1152). There is
nothing behind, no pose, no scenic effect. It may be said of his letters
that in them "tota patet vita senis." His nature was flexible without
being faultily weak. He has many moods and each mood imprints itself in
turn on his words. Hence, on a superficial view, Erasmus is set down as
the most inconsistent of men. Further acquaintance makes us feel a unity
of character underlying this susceptibility to the impressions of the
moment. His seeming inconsistencies are reconciled to apprehension, not
by a formula of the intellect, but by the many-sidedness of a highly
impressible nature. In the words of J. Nisard, Erasmus was one of those
"dont la gloire a été de beaucoup comprendre et d'affirmer peu."
This equal openness to every vibration of his environment is the key to
all Erasmus's acts and words, and among them to the middle attitude
which he took up towards the great religious conflict of his time. The
reproaches of party assailed him in his lifetime, and have continued to
be heaped upon his memory. He was loudly accused by the Catholics of
collusion with the enemies of the faith. His powerful friends, the pope,
Wolsey, Henry VIII., the emperor, called upon him to declare against
Luther. Theological historians from that time forward have perpetuated
the indictment that Erasmus sided with neither party in the struggle for
religious truth. The most moderate form of the censure presents him in
the odious light of a trimmer; the vulgar and venomous assailant is sure
that Erasmus was a Protestant at heart, but withheld the avowal that he
might not forfeit the worldly advantages he enjoyed as a Catholic. When
by study of his writings we come to know Erasmus intimately, there is
revealed to us one of those natures to which partisanship is an
impossibility. It was not timidity or weakness which kept Erasmus
neutral, but the reasonableness of his nature. It was not only that his
intellect revolted against the narrowness of party, his whole being
repudiated its clamorous and vulgar excesses. As he loathed fish, so he
loathed clerical fanaticism. Himself a Catholic priest--"the glory of
the priesthood and the shame"--the tone of the orthodox clergy was
distasteful to him; the ignorant hostility to classical learning which
reigned in their colleges and convents disgusted him. In common with all
the learned men of his age, he wished to see the power of the clergy
broken, as that of an obscurantist army arrayed against light. He had
employed all his resources of wit and satire against the priests and
monks, and the superstitions in which they traded, long before Luther's
name was heard of. The motto which was already current in his lifetime,
"that Erasmus laid the egg and Luther hatched it," is so far true, and
no more. Erasmus would have suppressed the monasteries, put an end to
the domination of the clergy, and swept away scandalous and profitable
abuses, but to attack the church or re-mould received theology was far
from his thoughts. And when out of Luther's revolt there arose a new
fanaticism--that of evangelism, Erasmus recoiled from the violence of
the new preachers. "Is it for this," he writes to Melanchthon (_Ep._
xix. 113; 703), "that we have shaken off bishops and popes, that we may
come under the yoke of such madmen as Otto and Farel?" Passages have
been collected, and it is an easy task, from the writings of Erasmus to
prove that he shared the doctrines of the Reformers. Passages equally
strong might be culled to show that he repudiated them. The truth is
that theological questions in themselves had no attraction for him. And
when a theological position was emphasized by party passion it became
odious to him. In the words of Drummond: "Erasmus was in his own age the
apostle of common sense and of rational religion. He did not care for
dogma, and accordingly the dogmas of Rome, which had the consent of the
Christian world, were in his eyes preferable to the dogmas of
Protestantism.... From the beginning to the end of his career he
remained true to the purpose of his life, which was to fight the battle
of sound learning and plain common sense against the powers of ignorance
and superstition, and amid all the convulsions of that period he never
once lost his mental balance."
Erasmus is accused of indifference. But he was far from indifferent to
the progress of the revolution. He was keenly alive to its pernicious
influence on the cherished interest of his life, the cause of learning.
"I abhor the evangelics, because it is through them that literature is
everywhere declining, and upon the point of perishing." He had been born
with the hopes of the Renaissance, with its anticipation of a new
Augustan age, and had seen this fair promise blighted by the irruption
of a new horde of theological polemics, worse than the old scholastics,
inasmuch as they were revolutionary instead of conservative. Erasmus
never flouted at religion nor even at theology as such, but only at
blind and intemperate theologians.
In the mind of Erasmus there was no metaphysical inclination; he was a
man of letters, with a general tendency to rational views on every
subject which came under his pen. His was not the mind to originate,
like Calvin, a new scheme of Christian thought. He is at his weakest in
defending free will against Luther, and indeed he can hardly be said to
enter on the metaphysical question. He treats the dispute entirely from
the outside. It is impossible in reading Erasmus not to be reminded of
the rationalist of the 18th century. Erasmus has been called the
"Voltaire of the Renaissance." But there is a vast difference in the
relations in which they respectively stood to the church and to
Christianity. Voltaire, though he did not originate, yet adopted a moral
and religious scheme which he sought to substitute for the church
tradition. He waged war, not only against the clergy, but against the
church and its sovereigns. Erasmus drew the line at the first of these.
He was not an anticipation of the 18th century; he was the man of his
age, as Voltaire of his; though Erasmus did not intend it, he
undoubtedly shook the ecclesiastical edifice in all its parts; and, as
Melchior Adam says of him, "pontifici Romano plus nocuit jocando quam
Lutherus stomachando."
But if Erasmus was unlike the 18th century rationalist in that he did
not declare war against the church, but remained a Catholic and mourned
the disruption, he was yet a true rationalist in principle. The
principle that reason is the one only guide of life, the supreme arbiter
of all questions, politics and religion included, has its earliest and
most complete exemplar in Erasmus. He does not dogmatically denounce the
rights of reason, but he practically exercises them. Along with the
charm of style, the great attraction of the writings of Erasmus is this
unconscious freedom by which they are pervaded.
It must excite our surprise that one who used his pen so freely should
have escaped the pains and penalties which invariably overtook minor
offenders in the same kind. For it was not only against the clergy and
the monks that he kept up a ceaseless stream of satiric raillery; he
treated nobles, princes and kings with equal freedom. No 18th century
republican has used stronger language than has this pensioner of Charles
V. "The people build cities, princes pull them down; the industry of
the citizens creates wealth for rapacious lords to plunder; plebeian
magistrates pass good laws for kings to violate; the people love peace,
and their rulers stir up war." Such outbursts are frequent in the
_Adagia_. These freedoms are part cause of Erasmus's popularity. He was
here in sympathy with the secret sore of his age, and gave utterance to
what all felt but none dared to whisper but he. It marks the difference
between 1513 and 1669 that, in a reprint of the _Julius Exclusus_
published in 1669 at Oxford, it was thought necessary to leave out a
sentence in which the writer of that dialogue, supposed by the editor to
be Erasmus, asserts the right of states to deprive and punish bad kings.
It is difficult to say to what we are to ascribe his immunity from
painful consequences. We have to remember that he was removed from the
scene early in the reaction, before force was fully organized for the
suppression of the revolution. And his popular works, the _Adagia_, and
the _Colloquia_ (1524), had established themselves as standard books in
the more easy going age, when power, secure in its unchallenged
strength, could afford to laugh with the laughers at itself. At the date
of his death the Catholic revival, with its fell antipathy to art and
letters, was only in its infancy; and when times became dangerous,
Erasmus cautiously declined to venture out of the protection of the
Empire, refusing repeated invitations to Italy and to France. "I had
thought of going to Besançon," he said, "ne non essem in ditione
Caesaris" (_Ep._ xxx. 74; 1299). In Italy a Bembo and a Sadoleto wrote a
purer Latin than Erasmus, but contented themselves with pretty phrases,
and were careful to touch no living chord of feeling. In France it was
necessary for a Rabelais to hide his free-thinking under a disguise of
revolting and unintelligible jargon. It was only in the Empire that such
liberty of speech as Erasmus used was practicable, and in the Empire
Erasmus passed for a moderate man. Upon the strength of an established
character for moderation he enjoyed an exceptional licence for the
utterance of unwelcome truths; and in spite of his flings at the rich
and powerful, he remained through life a privileged person with them.
But though the men of the keys and the sword let him go his way
unmolested, it was otherwise with his brethren of the pen. A man who is
always launching opinions must expect to be retorted on. And when these
judgments were winged by epigram, and weighted by the name of Erasmus,
who stood at the head of letters, a widespread exasperation was the
consequence. Disraeli has not noticed Erasmus in his _Quarrels of
Authors_, perhaps because Erasmus's quarrels would require a volume to
themselves. "So thin-skinned that a fly would draw blood," as the prince
of Carpi expressed it, he could not himself restrain his pen from
sarcasm. He forgot that though it is safe to lash the dunces, he could
not with equal impunity sneer at those who, though they might not have
the ear of the public as he had, could yet contradict and call names.
And when literary jealousy was complicated with theological differences,
as in the case of the free-thinkers, or with French vanity, as in that
of Budaeus, the cause of the enemy was espoused by a party and a nation.
The quarrel with Budaeus was strictly a national one. Cosmopolitan as
Erasmus was, to the French literati he was still the Teuton. Étienne
Dolet calls him "enemy of Cicero, and jealous detractor of the French
name." The only contemporary name which could approach to a rivalry with
his was that of Budaeus (Budé), who was exactly contemporary, having
been born in the same year as Erasmus. Rivals in fame, they were unlike
in accomplishment, each having the quality which the other wanted.
Budaeus, though a Frenchman, knew Greek well; Erasmus, though a
Dutchman, very imperfectly. But the Frenchman Budaeus wrote an execrable
Latin style, unreadable then as now, while the Teuton Erasmus charmed
the reading world with a style which, though far from good Latin, is the
most delightful which the Renaissance has left us.
The style of Erasmus is, considered as Latin, incorrect, sometimes even
barbarous, and far removed from any classical model. But it has
qualities far above purity. The best Italian Latin is but an echo and an
imitation; like the painted glass which we put in our churches, it is
an anachronism. Bembo, Sadoleto and the rest write purely in a dead
language. Erasmus's Latin was a living and spoken tongue. Though Erasmus
had passed nearly all his life in England, France and Germany, his
conversation was Latin; and the language in which he talked about common
things he wrote. Hence the spontaneity and naturalness of his page, its
flavour of life and not of books. He writes from himself, and not out of
Cicero. Hence, too, he spoiled nothing by anxious revision in terror
lest some phrase not of the golden age should escape from his pen. He
confesses apologetically to Christopher Longolius (_Ep._ iii. 63; 402)
that it was his habit to extemporize all he wrote, and that this habit
was incorrigible; "effundo verius quam scribo omnia." He complains that
much reading of the works of St Jerome had spoiled his Latin; but, as
Scaliger says (_Scalig^a 2^a_), "Erasmus's language is better than St
Jerome's." The same critic, however, thought Erasmus would have done
better "if he had kept more closely to the classical models."
In the annals of classical learning Erasmus may be regarded as
constituting an intermediate stage between the humanists of the Latin
Renaissance and the learned men of the age of Greek scholarship, between
Angelo Poliziano and Joseph Scaliger. Erasmus, though justly styled by
Muretus (_Varr. Lectt._ 7, 15) "eruditus sane vir, ac multae lectionis,"
was not a "learned" man in the special sense of the word--not an
"érudit." He was more than this; he was the "man of letters"--the first
who had appeared in Europe since the fall of the Roman empire. His
acquirements were vast, and they were all brought to bear upon the life
of his day. He did not make a study apart of antiquity for its own sake,
but used it as an instrument of culture. He did not worship, imitate and
reproduce the classics, like the Latin humanists who preceded him; he
did not master them and reduce them to a special science, as did the
French Hellenists who succeeded him. He edited many authors, it is true,
but he had neither the means of forming a text, nor did he attempt to do
so. In editing a father, or a classic, he had in view the practical
utility of the general reader, not the accuracy required by the gild of
scholars. "His Jerome," says J. Scaliger, "is full of sad blunders"
(_Scalig^a 2^a_). Even Julien Garnier could discover that Erasmus "falls
in his haste into grievous error in his Latin version of St Basil,
though his Latinity is superior to that of the other translators" (Pref.
in _Opp. St. Bas._, 1721). It must be remembered that the commercial
interests of Froben's press led to the introduction of Erasmus's name on
many a title page when he had little to do with the book, e.g. the Latin
_Josephus_ of 1524 to which Erasmus only contributed one translation of
14 pages; or the _Aristotle_ of 1531, of which Simon Grynaeus was the
real editor. Where Erasmus excelled was in prefaces--not philological
introductions to each author, but spirited appeals to the interest of
the general reader, showing how an ancient book might be made to
minister to modern spiritual demands.
Of Erasmus's works the Greek Testament is the most memorable. It has no
title to be considered as a work of learning or scholarship, yet its
influence upon opinion was profound and durable. It contributed more to
the liberation of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy than
all the uproar and rage of Luther's many pamphlets. As an edition of the
Greek Testament it has no critical value. But it was the first, and it
revealed the fact that the Vulgate, the Bible of the church, was not
only a second-hand document, but in places an erroneous document. A
shock was thus given to the credit of the clergy in the province of
literature, equal to that which was given in the province of science by
the astronomical discoveries of the 17th century. Even if Erasmus had
had at his disposal the MSS. subsidia for forming a text, he had not the
critical skill required to use them. He had at hand a few late Basel
MSS., one of which he sent straight to press, correcting them in places
by collations of others which had been sent to him by Colet in England.
In four reprints, 1519, 1522, 1527, 1535, Erasmus gradually weeded out
many of the typographical errors of his first edition, but the text
remained essentially such as he had first printed it. The Greek text
indeed was only a part of his scheme. An important feature of the
volume was the new Latin version, the original being placed alongside as
a guarantee of the translator's good faith. This translation, with the
justificatory notes which accompanied it, though not itself a work of
critical scholarship, became the starting-point of modern exegetical
science. Erasmus did nothing to solve the problem, but to him belongs
the honour of having first propounded it.
Besides translating and editing the New Testament, Erasmus paraphrased
the whole, except the Apocalypse, between 1517 and 1524. The paraphrases
were received with great applause, even by those who had little
appreciation for Erasmus. In England a translation of them made in 1548
was ordered to be placed in all parish churches beside the Bible. His
correspondence is perhaps the part of his works which has the most
permanent value; it comprises about 3000 letters, which form an
important source for the history of that period. For the same purpose
his _Colloquia_ may be consulted. They are a series of dialogues,
written first for pupils in the early Paris days as formulae of polite
address, but afterwards expanded into lively conversations, in which
many of the topics of the day are discussed. Later in the century they
were read in schools, and some of Shakespeare's lines are direct
reminiscences of Erasmus.
His complete works have been printed twice; by the Froben firm under
the direction of his literary executors (9 vols., Basel, 1540); and by
Leclerc at Leiden (11 vols., 1703-1706). For his life the chief
contemporary sources are a _Compendium vitae_ written by himself in
1524, and a sketch prefixed by Beatus Rhenanus to the Basel edition of
1540. Of his writings he gives an account in his _Catalogus
lucubrationum_, composed first in January 1523 and enlarged in
September 1524; and also in a letter to Hector Boece of Aberdeen,
written in 1530. An elaborate bibliography, entitled _Bibliotheca
Erasmiana_, was undertaken by the officials of the Ghent University
Library; it is divided into three sections, for Erasmus's writings,
the books he edited, and the literature about him. _Listes sommaires_
were issued in 1893; and since 1897 the completed volumes have been
appearing at intervals. There is an excellent sketch of Erasmus's life
down to 1519 in F. Seebohm's _Oxford Reformers_ (3rd ed., 1887); and
of the many biographies those by S. Knight (1726), J. Jortin (2 vols.,
1758-1760) and R.B. Drummond (2 vols., 1873) may be mentioned. There
are also two volumes (1901-1904) of translations by F.M. Nichols from
Erasmus's letters down to 1517, with an ample commentary which amounts
almost to a biography; and an edition of the letters, in Latin, was
begun by the Oxford University Press in 1906 (vol. ii., 1910).
(M. P.; P. S. A.)
ERASTUS, THOMAS (1524-1583), German-Swiss theologian, whose surname was
Lüber, Lieber, or Liebler, was born of poor parents on the 7th of
September 1524, probably at Baden, canton of Aargau, Switzerland. In
1540 he was studying theology at Basel. The plague of 1544 drove him to
Bologna and thence to Padua as student of philosophy and medicine. In
1553 he became physician to the count of Henneberg, Saxe-Meiningen, and
in 1558 held the same post with the elector-palatine, Otto Heinrich,
being at the same time professor of medicine at Heidelberg. His patron's
successor, Frederick III., made him (1559) a privy councillor and member
of the church consistory. In theology he followed Zwingli, and at the
sacramentarian conferences of Heidelberg (1560) and Maulbronn (1564) he
advocated by voice and pen the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper,
replying (1565) to the counter arguments of the Lutheran Johann Marbach,
of Strassburg. He ineffectually resisted the efforts of the Calvinists,
led by Caspar Olevianus, to introduce the Presbyterian polity and
discipline, which were established at Heidelberg in 1570, on the Genevan
model. One of the first acts of the new church system was to
excommunicate Erastus on a charge of Socinianism, founded on his
correspondence with Transylvania. The ban was not removed till 1575,
Erastus declaring his firm adhesion to the doctrine of the Trinity. His
position, however, was uncomfortable, and in 1580 he returned to Basel,
where in 1583 he was made professor of ethics. He died on the 31st of
December 1583. He published several pieces bearing on medicine,
astrology and alchemy, and attacking the system of Paracelsus. His name
is permanently associated with a posthumous publication, written in
1568. Its immediate occasion was the disputation at Heidelberg (1568)
for the doctorate of theology by George Wither or Withers, an English
Puritan (subsequently archdeacon of Colchester), silenced (1565) at Bury
St Edmunds by Archbishop Parker. Withers had proposed a disputation
against vestments, which the university would not allow; his thesis
affirming the excommunicating power of the presbytery was sustained.
Hence the treatise of Erastus. It was published (1589) by Giacomo
Castelvetri, who had married his widow, with the title _Explicatio
gravissimae quaestionis utrum excommunicatio, quatenus religionem
intelligentes et amplexantes, a sacramentorum usu, propter admissum
facinus arcet, mandato nitatur divino, an excogitata sit ab hominibus_.
The work bears the imprint Pesclavii (i.e. Poschiavo in the Grisons) but
was printed by John Wolfe in London, where Castelvetri was staying; the
name of the alleged printer is an anagram of Jacobum Castelvetrum. In
the Stationers' Register (June 20, 1589) the printing is said to have
been "alowed" by Archbishop Whitgift. It consists of seventy-five
_Theses_, followed by a _Confirmatio_ in six books, and an appendix of
letters to Erastus by Bullinger and Gualther, showing that his _Theses_,
written in 1568, had been circulated in manuscript. An English
translation of the _Theses_, with brief life of Erastus (based on
Melchior Adam's account), was issued in 1659, entitled _The Nullity of
Church Censures_; it was reprinted as _A Treatise of Excommunication_
(1682), and, as revised by Robert Lee, D.D., in 1844. The aim of the
work is to show, on Scriptural grounds, that sins of professing
Christians are to be punished by civil authority, and not by withholding
of sacraments on the part of the clergy. In the Westminster Assembly a
party holding this view included Selden, Lightfoot, Coleman and
Whitelocke, whose speech (1645) is appended to Lee's version of the
_Theses_; but the opposite view, after much controversy, was carried,
Lightfoot alone dissenting. The consequent chapter of the Westminster
Confession ("Of Church Censures") was, however, not ratified by the
English parliament. "Erastianism," as a by-word, is used to denote the
doctrine of the supremacy of the state in ecclesiastical causes; but the
problem of the relations between church and state is one on which
Erastus nowhere enters. What is known as "Erastianism" would be better
connected with the name of Grotius. The only direct reply made to the
_Explicatio_ was the _Tractatus de vera excommunicatione_ (1590) by
Theodore Beza, who found himself rather savagely attacked in the
_Confirmatio thesium_; e.g. "Apostolum et Mosen adeoque Deum ipsum audes
corrigere."
See A. Bonnard, _Thomas Éraste et la discipline ecclésiastique_
(1894); Gass, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biog._ (1877); G.V. Lechler and
R. Stähelin, in A. Hauck's _Realencyklop. für prot. Theol. u. Kirche_
(1898). (A. Go.*)
ERATOSTHENES OF ALEXANDRIA (c. 276-c. 194 B.C.), Greek scientific
writer, was born at Cyrene. He studied grammar under Callimachus at
Alexandria, and philosophy under the Stoic Ariston and the Academic
Arcesilaus at Athens. He returned to Alexandria at the summons of
Ptolemy III. Euergetes, by whom he was appointed chief librarian in
place of Callimachus. He is said to have died of voluntary starvation,
being threatened with total blindness. Eratosthenes was one of the most
learned men of antiquity, and wrote on a great number of subjects. He
was the first to call himself Philologos (in the sense of the "friend of
learning"), and the name Pentathlos was bestowed upon him in honour of
his varied accomplishments. He was also called _Beta_ as being second in
all branches of learning, though not actually first in any. In
mathematics he wrote two books _On means_ ([Greek: Peri mesotêtôn])
which are lost, but appear, from a remark of Pappus, to have dealt with
"loci with reference to means." He devised a mechanical construction for
two mean proportionals, reproduced by Pappus and Eutocius (Comm. on
Archimedes). His [Greek: koskinon] or _sieve_ (_cribrum Eratosthenis_)
was a device for discovering all prime numbers. He laid the foundation
of mathematical geography in his _Geographica_, in three books. His
greatest achievement was his measurement of the earth. Being informed
that at Syene (Assuan), on the day of the summer solstice at noon, a
well was lit up through all its depth, so that Syene lay on the tropic,
he measured, at the same hour, the zenith distance of the sun at
Alexandria. He thus found the distance between Syene and Alexandria
(known to be 5000 stadia) to correspond to 1/50th of a great circle, and
so arrived at 250,000 stadia (which he seems subsequently to have
corrected to 252,000) as the circumference of the earth. He is credited
by Ptolemy and his commentator Theon with having found the distance
between the tropics to be 11/83 rds. of the meridian circle, which gives
23° 51' 20" for the obliquity of the ecliptic. His astronomical poem
_Hermes_ began apparently with the birth and exploits of Hermes, then
passed to the legend of his having ordered the heavens, the zones and
the stars, and gave a history of the latter. His _Erigone_, of which a
few fragments are also preserved, is sometimes spoken of as a separate
poem, but it may have belonged to the _Hermes_, which appears also to
have been known by other names such as _Catalogi_. The still extant
_Catasterismi_, containing the story of certain stars in prose, is
probably not by Eratosthenes.
Eratosthenes was the founder of scientific chronology in his [Greek:
chronographia] in which he endeavoured to fix the dates of the chief
literary and political events from the conquest of Troy. An important
work was his treatise on the old comedy, dealing with theatres and
theatrical apparatus generally, and discussing the works of the
principal comic poets themselves. Works on moral philosophy, history,
and a number of letters were also attributed to him.
There is a complete edition of the fragments of Eratosthenes by
Bernhardy (1822); poetical fragments, Hillier (1872); geographical,
Seidel (1799) and Berger (1880); [Greek: katasterismoi], Schaubach
(1795) and Robert (1878). See Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ i. (1906).
(T. L. H.)
ERBACH, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt, on the
Mümling, 22 m. S.E. of Darmstadt. It has cloth mills and ivory-turning,
for which last branch it possesses a technical school. Wool and cattle
fairs are held twice a year. Pop. 2800. The castle contains an
interesting collection of weapons and pictures, and in the chapel are
the coffins of Einhard, the friend and biographer of Charlemagne, and
his wife, Emma.
Erbach has long been the residence of the counts of Erbach, who trace
their descent back to the 12th century, and who held the office of
cupbearer to the electors palatine of the Rhine until 1806. In 1532 the
emperor Charles V. made the county a direct fief of the Empire, on
account of the services rendered by Count Eberhard during the Peasants'
War. Since 1717 the family has been divided into the three lines of
Erbach-Fürstenau, Erbach-Erbach and Erbach-Schönberg, who rank for
precedence, not according to the age of their descent, but according to
the age of the chief of their line. In 1818 the counts of Erbach-Erbach
inherited the county of Wartenberg-Roth, and in 1903 the count of
Erbach-Schönberg was granted the title of prince. The county was
mediatized in 1806, and is now incorporated with the duchy of
Hesse-Darmstadt.
See Simon, _Die Geschichte der Dynasten und Grafen zu Erbach_
(Frankfort, 1858).
ERBIUM (symbol, Er; atomic weight, 165-166), one of the metals of the
rare earths. The first of the rare earth minerals was discovered in 1794
by J. Gadolin and was named gadolinite from its discoverer. In 1797
Ekeberg showed that gadolinite contained another rare earth, which was
given the name yttria. Yttria is an exceedingly complex mixture, which
has been decomposed, yielding as an intermediate product terbia. This
latter substance in its turn has been split by J.L. Soret, P.T. Cleve,
Lecoq de Boisbaudran and others into erbia, holmia, thulia and
dysprosia, but it is still doubtful whether any one of these four
splitting products is a single substance. The rare earth metals are
found in the minerals gadolinite, samarskite, fergusonite, euxenite and
cerite. They are separated from the minerals by converting them into
oxalates, which by ignition give the corresponding oxides. The oxides
are then converted into double sulphates which are separated from each
other by repeated fractional crystallization or by fractional
precipitation with ammonia or some other base. Erbium forms
rose-coloured salts and a rose-coloured oxide. The oxide dissolves
slowly in acids; it is not reduced by hydrogen and is infusible. The
salts show a characteristic absorption spectrum.
See J.F. Bahr and R. Bunsen (_Ann._, 1866, 137, p. 1); A. v. Welsbach
(_Monats._, 1883, 4, p. 641; 1884, 5, p. 508; 1885, 6, p. 477); P.T.
Cleve (_Comptes rendus_, 1879, 89, p. 478; 1880, 91, pp. 328, 381;
1882, 95, p. 1225; _Bull. de la soc. chim._, 1874, 21, p. 196; 1883,
39, p. 287); C. Marignac (_Ann. Chim. phys._, 1849 [3] 27, p. 226); B.
Brauner (_Monats._, 1882, 3, p. 13); W. Crookes (_Proc. Roy. Soc._,
1886, 40, p. 502); Lecoq de Boisbaudran (_Comptes rendus_, 1886, 102,
p. 1005); A. Bettendorf (_Ann._, 1892, 270, p. 376); M. Muthmann
(_Ber._, 1898, 31, p. 1718; 1900, 33, p. 42); G. Krüss (_Zeit. f.
anorg. Chem._, 1893, 3, p. 108).
ERCILLA Y ZÚNIGA, ALONSO DE (1533-1595), Spanish soldier and poet, was
born in Madrid on the 7th of August 1533. In 1548 he was appointed page
to the heir-apparent, afterwards Philip II. In this capacity Ercilla
visited Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, and was present in 1554 at
the marriage of his master to Mary of England. Hearing that an
expedition was preparing to subdue the Araucanians of Chile, he joined
the adventurers. He distinguished himself in the ensuing campaign; but,
having quarrelled with a comrade, he was condemned to death in 1558 by
his general, Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza. The sentence was commuted to
imprisonment, but Ercilla was speedily released and fought at the battle
of Quipeo (14th of December 1558). He returned to Spain in 1562, visited
Italy, France, Germany, Bohemia, and in 1570 married Maria de Bazán, a
lady distantly connected with the Santa Cruz family; in 1571 he was made
knight of the order of Santiago, and in 1578 he was employed by Philip
II. on a mission to Saragossa. He complained of living in poverty but
left a modest fortune, and was obviously disappointed at not being
offered the post of secretary of state. His principal work is _La
Araucana_, a poem based on the events of the wars in which he had been
engaged. It consists of three parts, of which the first, composed in
Chile and published in 1569, is a versified narrative adhering strictly
to historic fact; the second, published in 1578, is encumbered with
visions and other romantic machinery; and the third, which appeared in
1589-1590, contains, in addition to the subject proper, a variety of
episodes mostly irrelevant. This so-called epic lacks symmetry, and has
been over-praised by Cervantes and Voltaire; but it is written in
excellent Spanish, and is full of vivid rhetorical passages. An analysis
of the poem was given by Hayley in his _Essay on Epic Poetry_ (1782).
A good biography precedes the _Morceaux choisis_ (Paris, 1900) by Jean
Ducamin.
ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN, the joint names of two French writers whose
collaboration made their work that of, so to speak, one personality.
ÉMILE ERCKMANN (1822-1899) was born on the 20th of May 1822 at
Phalsbourg, and LOUIS GRATIEN CHARLES ALEXANDRE CHATRIAN (1826-1890) on
the 18th of December 1826 at Soldatenthal, Lorraine. In 1847 they began
to write together, and continued doing so till 1889. Chatrian died in
1890 at Villemomble near Paris, and Erckmann at Lunéville in 1899. The
list of their publications is a long one, ranging from the _Histoires et
contes fantastiques_ (1849; reprinted from the _Démocrate du Rhin_),
_L'Illustre Docteur Mathéus_ (1859), _Madame Thérèse_ (1863), _L'Ami
Fritz_ (1864), _Histoire d'un conscrit de 1813_ (1864), _Waterloo_
(1865), _Le Blocus_ (1867), _Histoire d'un paysan_ (4 vols., 1868-1870),
_L'Histoire du plébiscite_ (1872), to _Le Grand-père Lebigue_ (1880);
besides dramas like _Le Juif polonais_ (1869) and _Les Rantzau_ (1882).
Without any special literary claim, their stories are distinguished by
simplicity and genuine descriptive power, particularly in the battle
scenes and in connexion with Alsatian peasant life. They are marked by a
genuine democratic spirit, and by real patriotism, which developed after
1870 into hatred of the Germans. The authors attacked militarism by
depicting the horrors of war in the plainest terms.
See also J. Claretie, _Erckmann-Chatrian_ (1883), in the series of
"Célébrités contemporaines."
ERDÉLYI, JÁNOS (1814-1868), Hungarian poet and author, was born in 1814
at Kapos, in the county of Ungvár, and educated at the Protestant
college of Sárospatak. In 1833 he removed to Pest, where he was, in
1839, elected member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His literary
fame was made by his collection of Hungarian national poems and
folk-tales, _Magyar Népköltési Gyüjtemény, Népdalok és Mondák_ (Pest,
1846-1847). This work, published by the Kisfaludy Society, was
supplemented by a dissertation upon Hungarian national poetry,
afterwards partially translated into German by Stier (Berlin, 1851).
Erdélyi also compiled for the Kisfaludy Society an extensive collection
of Hungarian proverbs--_Magyar Közmondások könyve_ (Pest, 1851),--and
was for some time editor of the _Szépirodalmi Szemle_ (_Review of Polite
Literature_). In 1848 he was appointed director of the national theatre
at Pest; but after 1849 he resided at his native town. He died on the
23rd of January 1868. A collection of folklore was published the year
after his death, entitled _A Nép Koltészete népdalok, népmesék és
közmondások_ (Pest, 1869). This work contains 300 national songs, 19
folk-tales and 7362 Hungarian proverbs.
ERDMANN, JOHANN EDUARD (1805-1892), German philosophical writer, was
born at Wolmar in Livonia on the 13th of June 1805. He studied theology
at Dorpat and afterwards at Berlin, where he fell under the influence of
Hegel. From 1829 to 1832 he was a minister of religion in his native
town. Afterwards he devoted himself to philosophy, and qualified in that
subject at Berlin in 1834. In 1836 he was professor-extraordinary at
Halle, became full professor in 1839, and died there on the 12th of June
1892. He published many philosophical text-books and treatises, and a
number of sermons; but his chief claim to remembrance rests on his
elaborate _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_ (2 vols., 1866),
the 3rd edition of which has been translated into English. Erdmann's
special merit is that he does not rest content with being a mere
summarizer of opinions, but tries to exhibit the history of human
thought as a continuous and ever-developing effort to solve the great
speculative problems with which man has been confronted in all ages. His
chief other works were: _Leib und Seele_ (1837), _Grundriss der
Psychologie_ (1840), _Grundriss der Logik und Metaphysik_ (1841), and
_Psychologische Briefe_ (1851).
ERDMANN, OTTO LINNÉ (1804-1869), German chemist, son of Karl Gottfried
Erdmann (1774-1835), the physician who introduced vaccination into
Saxony, was born at Dresden on the 11th of April 1804. In 1820 he began
to attend the medico-chirurgical academy of his native place, and in
1822 he entered the university of Leipzig where in 1827 he became
extraordinary professor, and in 1830 ordinary professor of chemistry.
This office he held until his death, which happened at Leipzig on the
9th of October 1869. He was particularly successful as a teacher, and
the laboratory established at Leipzig under his direction in 1843 was
long regarded as a model institution. As an investigator he is best
known for his work on nickel and indigo and other dye-stuffs. With R.F.
Marchand (1813-1850) he also carried out a number of determinations of
atomic weights. In 1828, in conjunction with A.F.G. Werther (1815-1869),
he founded the _Journal für technische und ökonomische Chemie_, which
became in 1834 the _Journal für praktische Chemie_. He was also the
author of _Über das Nickel_ (1827), _Lehrbuch der Chemie_ (1828),
_Grundriss der Waarenkunde_ (1833), and _Über das Studium der Chemie_
(1861).
EREBUS, in Greek mythology, son (according to Hesiod, _Theog._ 123) of
Chaos, and father of Aether (upper air) and Hemera (day) by his sister
Nyx (night). The word, which signifies darkness, is in Homer the gloomy
subterranean region through which the departed shades pass into Hades.
The entrance to it was in the extreme west, on the borders of Ocean, in
the mythical land of the Cimmerians. It is to be distinguished from
Tartarus, the place of punishment for the wicked.
ERECH (_Uruk_ in the Babylonian inscriptions; Gr. _Orchoë_), the
Biblical name of an ancient city of Babylonia, situated E. of the
present bed of the Euphrates, on the line of the ancient Nil canal, in a
region of marshes, about 140 m. S.S.E. from Bagdad. It was one of the
oldest and most important cities of Babylonia, and the site of a famous
temple, called E-Anna, dedicated to the worship of Nana, or Ishtar.
Erech played a very important part in the political history of the
country from an early time, exercising hegemony in Babylonia at a period
before the time of Sargon. Later it was prominent in the national
struggles of the Babylonians against Elam (2000 B.C. and earlier), in
which it suffered severely; recollections of these conflicts are
embodied in the Gilgamesh epic, as it has come down to us through the
library of Assur-bani-pal. Erech enjoyed much distinction in the later
times, as a seat of learning and of the worship of Ishtar, and
Assur-bani-pal drew largely on its literary stores for his library at
Nineveh, from which we derive our principal information concerning
ancient Babylonian literature. The inscriptions found here show that it
continued in existence through the Persian and Seleucid periods. The
ruins of the ancient site, known as Warka, which are among the largest
in all Babylonia, forming an irregular circle nearly 6 m. in
circumference, bounded by a wall, still standing in some places to the
height of 40 ft., were explored and partially excavated by W.K. Loftus
in 1850 and 1854. The most conspicuous ruin, now called Abu-Berdi,
"Father of Marsh Grass," or Buwariye, "reed matting," because of the
layers of reeds between each twelve courses of unbaked brick, is the
_ziggurat_ (tower) of the ancient temple of E-Anna. It is about 100 ft.
in height, and strikingly resembles in general appearance the ruins of
the ziggurat of the temple of Enlil at Nippur. Second to this in size
was the ruin called Wuswas, a walled quadrangle, including an area of
more than seven and a half acres, within which was an edifice 246 ft.
long and 174 ft. wide, elevated on an artificial platform 50 ft. in
height. The south-west façade, still standing in some places to the
height of 23 ft., exhibited an interesting use of half columns, and
stepped recesses for purposes of decoration. In another ruin Loftus
found a wall, 30 ft. long, composed entirely of small yellow terra-cotta
nail-headed cones, such as have been discovered in great numbers,
inscribed and uninscribed, used for votive purposes in connexion with
walls at Tello and elsewhere in Babylonia. His excavations being
superficial, the Babylonian inscriptions found by him, about one hundred
in all, exclusive of the ancient Ur-Gur bricks from the temple, belong
in general to the neo-Babylonian, Persian and Seleucid periods. The
older remains are buried deep beneath the huge mass of later debris.
Loftus also discovered at Erech, almost everywhere within and without
the walls, great numbers of clay coffins, piled one above another, to
the height of over 30 ft., forming a vast and, on the whole,
well-ordered cemetery belonging to the Persian, Parthian and later
occupations of Babylonia, during which period Erech, like other cities
of the south, evidently became a necropolis for a large extent of
country. After Loftus's time the mounds were visited by various
travellers, but no further excavations have been conducted. Work on this
important part of the site is attended with very great difficulties,
owing to the inaccessible position of the ruins, the unsettled character
of the country, the frequent sand-storms, and above all, the immense
mass of material of later periods which must be removed before a
systematic excavation of the more ancient and interesting ruins could be
undertaken. A curious feature of the Warka neighbourhood is the
existence of conical sand-hills, rising to a considerable height, so
compact as to be almost like stone. These hills extend from Warka
northward as far as Tel Ede.
See W.K. Loftus, _Chaldaea and Susiana_ (1857); J.P. Peters, _Nippur_
(1897); E. Sachau, _Am Euphrat und Tigris_ (1900). Cf. also NIPPUR and
authorities there quoted. (J. P. Pe.)
ERECHTHEUM, a temple (commonly called after Erechtheus, to whom a
portion of it was dedicated) on the acropolis at Athens, unique in plan,
and in its execution the most refined example of the Ionic order. There
is no clear evidence as to when the building was begun, some placing it
among the temples projected by Pericles, others assigning it to the time
after the peace of Nicias in 421 B.C. The work was interrupted by the
stress of the Peloponnesian War, but in 409 B.C. a commission was
appointed to make a report on the state of the building and to undertake
its completion, which was carried out in the following year.
The peculiar plan of the Erechtheum has given rise to much speculation.
It may be due partly to the natural conformation of the rock and the
differences of level, partly to the necessity of enclosing within a
single building several objects of ancient sanctity, such as the mark of
Poseidon's trident and the spring that arose from it, the sacred olive
tree of Athena, and the tomb of Cecrops. But there are some features
which cannot be so explained, and which have led Professor W. Dörpfeld
and others to believe that the plan, as we now have it, is a
modification or abridgment of the original design, due to the same
conservative influences as led to the curtailment of the plan of the
Propylaea (q.v.).
[Illustration: Plan pf the Erechtheum.]
The building as completed consisted of a temple of the ordinary type,
opening by a door and two windows to the east front, before which stood
a portico of six Ionic columns. This part was the temple of Athena
Polias. Adjoining it on the west was the central chamber, on a lower
level; this chamber was separated by a partition, originally of wood and
later of marble, from the western compartment of the temple, which was
of peculiar construction. The west end was formed by a wall, on which
stood four columns between antae; but the main entrance to this western
compartment was through a large and very ornate doorway on the north;
and a large Ionic portico, consisting of four columns in the front, and
one in the return on each side, was placed in front of this door. At the
south end of the western compartment was a smaller door, with steps
leading up to the higher level, within a projecting space enclosed by a
low wall and covered with a projecting porch carried by six "maidens" or
caryatides. The construction of the building at this south-western
corner shows that there was some sacred object that had to be bridged
over by a huge block of marble; this we know from inscriptions to have
been the Cecropeum or tomb of Cecrops. In the north portico a square
hole in the floor, with a corresponding hole in the roof above it, must
have given access to another sacred object, the mark of Poseidon's
trident in the rock. The sacred olive tree probably stood just outside
the temple to the west in the Pandroseion. The Ionic order, as used in
this temple, is of the most ornate Attic type. The bases of the columns
are either reeded or decorated with a plait-pattern; the capital has the
broad channel between the volutes subdivided by a carefully-profiled
incision; and the top of the shafts is ornamented by a broad band of
palmette or honeysuckle pattern. A similar band of ornament runs round
the top of the walls outside, and at their base is a reeded torus. The
frieze consisted of white marble figures in relief, affixed to a
background of black Eleusinian stone.
The contents of the Erechtheum are described by Pausanias. It contained
the ancient image of Athena Polias, and three altars, one to Poseidon
and Erechtheus, one to Butes and one to Hephaestus; there were portraits
of the family of the Butadae on the walls. Within it was also the gold
lamp of Callimachus, which burnt for a year without refilling, and had a
chimney in the form of a palm-tree.
The Erechtheum was damaged by a fire, soon after its completion, in 406
B.C., but was repaired early in the following century. The west end
appears to have been damaged in Roman times and to have been replaced by
the attached columns with windows between them which appear in old
drawings and are still partially extant. It was used as a church in
Christian times, and under Turkish rule as the harem of the governor of
Athens. Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801-1803, one of the
columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were
replaced later by terra-cotta casts. During the siege of the Acropolis
in 1827, the roof of the north portico was thrown down and the building
was otherwise much damaged. It was partially rebuilt between 1838 and
1846; the west front was blown down in a storm in 1852. Since 1900 the
project of rebuilding the Erechtheum as far as possible with the
original blocks has again been undertaken.
See Stuart, _Antiquities of Athens_; Inwood, _The Erechtheum_; H.
Forster in _Papers of American School at Athens_, i. (1882-1883); J.H.
Middleton, _Plans and Drawings of Athenian Buildings_ (1900), pls.
xiv.-xxii.; E.A. Gardner, _Ancient Athens_, chap. viii.; W. Dörpfeld,
"Der ursprungliche Plan des Erechtheion" in _Mitteil. Athen._, 1904,
p. 101, taf. 6; G.P. Stevens, "The East Wall of the Erechtheum," in
_American Journ. Arch._, 1906, pls. vi.-ix. (E. Gr.)
ERECHTHEUS, in Greek legend, a mythical king of Athens, originally
identified with Erichthonius, but in later times distinguished from him.
According to Homer, who knows nothing of Erichthonius, he was the son of
Aroura (Earth), brought up by Athena, with whom his story is closely
connected. In the later story, Erichthonius (son of Hephaestus and
Atthis or Athena herself) was handed over by Athena to the three
daughters of Cecrops--Aglauros (or Agraulos), Herse and Pandrosos--in a
chest, which they were forbidden to open. Aglauros and Herse disobeyed
the injunction, and when they saw the child (which had the form of a
snake, or round which a snake was coiled) they went mad with fright, and
threw themselves from the rock of the Acropolis (or were killed by the
snake). Athena herself then undertook the care of Erichthonius, who,
when he grew up, drove out Amphictyon and took possession of the kingdom
of Athens. Here he established the worship of Athena, instituted the
Panathenaea, and built an Erechtheum. The Erechtheus of later times was
supposed to be the grandson of Erechtheus-Erichthonius, and was also
king of Athens. When Athens was attacked by the Thracian Eumolpus (or by
the Eleusinians assisted by Eumolpus) victory was promised Erechtheus if
he sacrificed one of his daughters. Eumolpus was slain and Erechtheus
was victorious, but was himself killed by Poseidon, the father of
Eumolpus, or by a thunderbolt from Zeus. The contest between Erechtheus
and Eumolpus formed the subject of a lost tragedy by Euripides;
Swinburne has utilized the legend in his _Erechtheus_. The scene of the
opening of the chest is represented on a Greek vase in the British
Museum. The name Erichthonius is connected with [Greek: chthôn]
("earth") and the representation of him as half-snake, like Cecrops,
indicates that he was regarded as one of the autochthones, the ancestors
of the Athenians who sprung from the soil.
See Apollodorus iii. 14. 15; Euripides, _Ion_; Ovid, _Metam._ ii. 553;
Hyginus, _Poët. astron._ ii. 13; Pausanias i. 2. 5. 8; E. Ermatinger,
_Die attische Autochthonensage_ (1897); article by J.A. Hild in
Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_; B. Powell in
_Cornell Studies_, xvii. (1906), who identifies Erechtheus,
Erichthonius, Poseidon and Cecrops, all denoting the sacred serpent of
Athena, whose cult she first contested, but then amalgamated with her
own. The birth of Erichthonius (as a corn-spirit) is interpreted by
Mannhardt as a mythical way of describing the growth of the corn, and
by J.E. Harrison (_Myths and Monuments of Ancient Athens_,
xxvii.-xxxvi.) as a fiction to explain the ceremony performed by the
two maidens called Arrephori. See also Farnell, _Cults of the Greek
States_, i. 270; and Frazer's _Pausanias_, ii. 169.
ERESHKIGAL, also known as ALLATU, the name of the chief Babylonian
goddess of the nether-world where the dead are gathered. Her name
signifies "lady of the nether-world." She is known to us chiefly through
two myths, both symbolizing the change of seasons, but intended also to
illustrate certain doctrines developed in the temple-schools of
Babylonia. One of these myths is the famous story of Ishtar's descent to
Irkalla or Aralu, as the lower world was called, and her reception by
her sister who presides over it; the other is the story of Nergal's
offence against Ereshkigal, his banishment to the kingdom controlled by
the goddess and the reconciliation between Nergal and Ereshkigal
through the latter's offer to have Nergal share the honours of the rule
over Irkalla. The story of Ishtar's descent is told to illustrate the
possibility of an escape from Irkalla, while the other myth is intended
to reconcile the existence of two rulers of Irkalla--a goddess and a
god.
It is evident that it was originally a goddess who was supposed to be in
control of Irkalla, corresponding to Ishtar in control of fertility and
vegetation on earth. Ereshkigal is therefore the sister of Ishtar and
from one point of view her counterpart, the symbol of nature during the
non-productive season of the year. As the doctrine of two kingdoms, one
of this world and one of the world of the dead, becomes crystallized,
the dominions of the two sisters are sharply differentiated from one
another. The addition of Nergal represents the harmonizing tendency to
unite with Ereshkigal as the queen of the nether-world the god who, in
his character as god of war and of pestilence, conveys the living to
Irkalla and thus becomes the one who presides over the dead. (M. Ja.)
ERETRIA (mod. _Aletria_), an ancient coast town of Euboea about 15 m.
S.E. of Chalcis, opposite to Oropus. Eretria, like its neighbour Chalcis
(q.v.), early entered upon a commercial and colonizing career. Besides
founding townships in the west and north of Greece, it acquired
dependencies among the Cyclades and joined the great mercantile alliance
of Miletus and Aegina. Since the so-called Lelantine War (7th century
B.C.) against the coming league of Chalcis, it began to be overshadowed
by its rivals. The interference of Eretria in the Ionian revolt (498)
brought upon it the vengeance of the Persians, who captured and
destroyed it shortly before the battle of Marathon (490). The city was
soon rebuilt, and as a member of both the Delian Leagues attached itself
by numerous treaties to the Athenians. The latter, through their general
Phocion, rescued it from the tyrants suborned by Philip of Macedon (354
and 341). Under Macedonian and Roman rule Eretria fell into
insignificance; for a short period under Mark Antony, the triumvir, it
became a possession of Athens. Eretria was the birthplace of the
tragedian Achaeus and of the "Megarian" philosopher Menedemus.
The modern village, which is sometimes called Nea Psará because the
inhabitants of Psará were transferred there in 1821, is on unhealthy
low-lying ground near the sea. The excavation of the site was carried
out by the American School of Athens (1890-1895). At the foot of the
Acropolis Hill, where the ground begins to rise, the theatre lies; and
though the material of which this was built is rough, and only seven
imperfect rows of seats remain, a good part of the scena and of the
chambers behind it is preserved, and beneath these there runs a tunnel,
which, together with other peculiar features, has raised interesting
questions in connexion with the arrangement of the Greek theatre, the
orchestra being at present on a level about 12 ft. below that of the
rooms in the scena. Near by are the substructions of a temple of
Dionysus and a large altar, and also a gymnasium with arrangements for
bathing. Besides these, in 1900 the substructions of a temple of Apollo
Daphnephoros were unearthed. Both the northern and the southern side of
the hill are flanked by walls, which seem to have reached the sea, where
there was a mole and a harbour; and the wall of the acropolis itself
remains in one part to the height of eight courses.
AUTHORITIES.--Strabo x. 447 f.; Herodotus v. 99, vi. 101; _Corpus
Inscr. Atticarum_, i. 339, iv. (2), pp. 5, 10, 22; H. Heinze, _De
rebus Eretriensium_ (Göttingen, 1869); W.M. Leake, _Travels in
Northern Greece_ (London, 1835), ii. 266, 443; B.V. Head, _Historia
numorum_ (Oxford, 1887), pp. 305-308; _Papers of the American School
at Athens_, vol. vi. (E. Gr.)
ERETRIAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY. This Greek school was the continuation of
the Elian school, which was transferred to Eretria by Menedemus. It was
of small importance, and in the absence of certain knowledge must be
supposed to have adhered to the doctrines of Socrates. (See MENEDEMUS.)
ERFURT, a city of Germany, in Prussian Saxony, on the Gera, and the
railway Halle-Bebra, about midway between Gotha and Weimar, which are 14
m. distant. Pop. (1875) 48,025; (1905) 100,065. The city, which is
dominated on the west by the two citadels of Petersberg and Cyriaxburg,
is irregularly built, the only feature in its plan, or want of plan,
being the Friedrich Wilhelmsplatz, a broad open space of irregular shape
abutting on the Petersberg. On the south-western side of this square,
which contains a monument to the elector Frederick Charles Joseph of
Mainz (1719-1802), is the Domberg, an eminence on which stand, side by
side, the cathedral and the great church of St Severus with its three
spires (14th century). The churches are approached by a flight of
forty-eight stone steps, the grouping of the whole mass of buildings
being exceedingly impressive. The cathedral (_Beatae Mariae Virginis_)
is one of the finest churches in Germany. It was begun in the 12th
century, but the nave was rebuilt in the 13th in the Gothic style. The
magnificent chancel (1349-1372), with the 14th-century crypt below,
rests on massive substructures, known as the _Cavate_. The twin towers
are set between the chancel and nave. The cathedral contains, besides
fine 15th-century glass, some very rich portal sculptures and bronze
castings, among others the coronation of the Virgin by Peter Vischer. In
one of its towers is the famous bell, called Maria Gloriosa, which bears
the date 1497, and weighs 270 cwt. Besides the cathedral and St Severus,
which are Roman Catholic, Erfurt possesses several very interesting
medieval churches, now Evangelical. Among these may be mentioned the
Predigerkirche, dating from the latter half of the 12th century; the
Reglerkirche, a Romanesque building (restored in 1859) with a
12th-century tower; and the Barfüsserkirche, a Gothic building
containing fine 14th-century monuments. All these were originally
monastic churches. Of the former religious houses there survive a
Franciscan convent, with a girls' school attached, and an Ursuline
convent. The Augustinian monastery, in which Luther lived as a friar, is
now used as an orphanage, under the name of the _Martinsstift_. The cell
of Luther was destroyed by fire in 1872. A bronze statue of the reformer
was erected in the Anger, the chief street of the town, in 1890. At one
time Erfurt had a university, of which the charter dated from 1392; but
it was suppressed in 1816, and its funds devoted to other purposes,
among these being the endowment of an institution founded in 1758 and
now called the royal academy of sciences, and the support of the royal
library, which now contains 60,000 volumes and over 1000 manuscripts. On
the W. and S.W. extensive new quarters have grown up within recent
years, e.g. Hirschbrühl. The interior of the town hall (1869-1875) is
adorned with legendary and historical frescoes by Kämpfer and Peter
Janssen. Erfurt possesses also a picture gallery and an antiquarian
collection.
The educational establishments of the town include a gymnasium, a
realgymnasium, a realschule, technical schools for building and
handicrafts, a high-class commercial school, a school of agriculture,
and an academy of music. The most notable industry of Erfurt is the
culture of flowers and of vegetables, which is very extensively carried
on. This industry had its origin in the large gardens attached to the
monasteries. It has also important and growing manufactures of ladies'
mantles, boots and shoes, machines, furniture, woollen goods, musical
instruments, agricultural machinery and implements, leather, tobacco,
chemicals, &c. Brewing, bleaching and dyeing are also carried on on a
large scale, and there are extensive railway works and a government
rifle factory.
Erfurt (Med. _Erpesfurt_, _Erphorde_, Lat. _Erfordia_) is a town of
great antiquity. Its origin is obscure, but in 741 it was sufficiently
important for St Boniface to found a bishopric here, which was, however,
after the martyrdom of the first bishop, Adolar, in 755, reabsorbed in
that of Mainz. In 805 the place received certain market rights from the
emperor Charlemagne. Later the overlordship was claimed by the
archbishops of Mainz, on the strength of charters granted by the emperor
Otto I., and their authority in Erfurt was maintained by a burgrave and
an _advocatus_, the office of the latter becoming in the 12th century
hereditary in the family of the counts of Gleichen. In spite of many
vicissitudes (from 1109 to 1137, for instance, the town was subject to
the landgraves of Thuringia), and of a charter granted in 1242 by the
emperor Frederick II., the archbishops succeeded in upholding their
claims. In 1255, however, Archbishop Gerhard I. had to grant the city
municipal rights, the burgraviate disappeared, and Erfurt became
practically a free town. Its power was at its height early in the 15th
century, when it joined the Hanseatic League. It had acquired by force
or purchase various countships and other fiefs in the neighbourhood, and
ruled a considerable territory; and its wealth was so great that in 1378
it established a university, the first in Europe that embraced the four
faculties. By the end of the century, however, its prosperity had sunk
owing to the perpetual feud with Mainz, the internecine war in Saxony,
and the consequent dwindling of trade. By the convention of Amorbach in
1483 the overlordship of Erfurt was ultimately transferred by the
electors of Mainz to Saxony. The political and religious quarrels of the
16th century still further depressed the city, in which the reformed
religion was established in 1521. Then came the Thirty Years' War,
during which Erfurt was for a while occupied by the Swedes. After the
peace of Westphalia (1648) the city was assigned by the emperor to the
elector of Mainz, and, on its refusal to submit, it was placed under the
ban of the Empire (1660). In 1664 it was captured by the troops of the
archbishop of Mainz, and remained in the possession of the electorate
till 1802, when it came into the possession of Prussia. In 1808 it was
the scene of the memorable interview between Napoleon and the emperor
Alexander I. of Russia, at which the kings of Bavaria, Saxony,
Westphalia and Württemberg also assisted, which is known as the congress
of Erfurt. Here in 1850 the parliament of the short-lived Prussian
Northern Union (known as the Erfurt parliament) held its sittings. In
1902 the 100th anniversary of the city's incorporation with Prussia was
celebrated.
See W.J.A. von Tettau, _Erfurt in seiner Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_
(Erfurt, 1880); C. Beyer, _Geschichte der Stadt Erfurt_ (Erfurt,
1900); and F.W. Kampschulte, _Die Universität Erfurt in ihrem
Verhältnisse zu dem Humanismus und der Reformation_ (1856-1858). For a
detailed bibliography see U. Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources.
Topo-bibliographie_ (Montebéliard, 1894-1899), s.v.
ERGOT, or SPURRED RYE, the drug _ergota_ or _Secale cornutum_ (Ger.
_Mutterkorn_; Fr. _seigle ergoté_), consisting of the sclerotium (or
hard resting condition) of a fungus, _Claviceps purpurea_, parasitic on
the pistils of many members of the Grass family, but obtained almost
exclusively from rye, _Secale cereale_. In the ear of rye that is
infected with ergot a species of fermentation takes place, and there
exudes from it a sweet yellowish mucus, which after a time disappears.
The ear loses its starch, and ceases to grow, and its ovaries become
penetrated with the white spongy tissue of the mycelium of the fungus
which towards the end of the season forms the sclerotium, in which state
the fungus lies dormant through the winter.
The drug consists of grains, usually curved (hence the name, from the O.
Fr. _argot_, a cock's spur), which are violet-black or dark-purple
externally, and whitish with a tinge of pink within, are between 1/3 and
1½ in. long, and from 1 to 4 lines broad, and have two lateral furrows,
a close fracture, a disagreeable rancid taste, and a faint, fishy odour,
which last becomes more perceptible when the powder of the drug is mixed
with potash solution. Ergot should be kept in stoppered bottles in order
to preserve it from the attacks of a species of mite, and to prevent the
oxidation of its fatty oil.
The extremely complex composition of this drug has been studied in great
detail, and with such important results that instead of giving ergot
itself by the mouth in doses of 20 to 60 grains, it is now possible to
obtain much more rapid and certain results by giving one three-hundredth
of a grain of one of its constituents hypodermically. This constituent
is the alkaloid cornutine, which is the valuable ingredient of the drug.
Other ingredients are a fixed oil, present to the extent of 30%,
ergotinic acid, a glucoside, trimethylamine, which gives the drug its
unpleasant odour, and sphacelinic acid, a non-nitrogenous resinoid body.
Of the numerous preparations only two need be mentioned--the liquid
extract (dose 10 minims to 2 drachms or more), and the hypodermic
injection. The latter does not keep well, and the best way of using
ergot is to dissolve tablets obtained from a reputable maker, and
containing some of the active principles, in pure water, the solution
being injected subcutaneously.
Ergot has no external action. Given internally it stimulates the
intestinal muscles and may cause diarrhoea. After absorption it slows
the pulse by stimulation of the vagus nerves. It has indeed been
asserted that the slow pulse characteristic of the puerperal period is
really due to the common administration of ergot at that time. This is
probably an exaggeration. The important actions of ergot are on the
blood-vessels and the uterus. The drug greatly raises the blood-pressure
by causing extreme contraction of the arteries. This is mainly due to a
direct action on the muscular coats of the vessels, but is also partly
of central origin, since the drug also stimulates the vaso-motor centre
in the medulla oblongata. This action on the vessels is so marked as to
constitute the drug a haemostatic, not only locally but also remotely.
It may arrest bleeding from the nose, for instance, when injected
hypodermically. Nearly all the constituents share in causing this
action, but the sphacelinic acid is probably the most potent. Ergot is
the most powerful known stimulant of the pregnant uterus. The action is
a double one. At least four of its constituents act directly on the
muscular fibre of the uterus, whilst the cornutine acts through the
nerves. Of great practical importance is the fact that the cornutine
causes rhythmic contractions such as naturally occur, whilst the
sphacelinic acid produces a _tonic_ contraction of the uterus, which is
unnatural and highly inimical to the life of the foetus. Ergot is used
in therapeutics as a haemostatic, and is very valuable in haemoptysis
and sometimes in haematemesis. But its great use is in obstetrics. The
drug should regularly be given hypodermically, and it is important to
note that if the injection be made immediately under the skin, an
abscess, or considerable discomfort, may ensue. The injection should be
intra-muscular, the needle being boldly plunged into a muscular mass,
such as that of the deltoid or the gluteal region. The indications for
the use of ergot in obstetrics are highly complex and demand detailed
treatment. It can only be said here that the drug should only in the
rarest possible cases be given whilst the child is still _in utero_.
This rule is necessitated by the sphacelinic acid, which causes an
unnatural state of the organ. When it is possible to obtain pure
cornutine, which is unfortunately very expensive, the precautions
necessary in other cases may be abrogated.
_Chronic poisoning_, or _ergotism_, used frequently to occur amongst the
poor fed on rye infected with the _Claviceps_. As it is practically
impossible to reproduce the symptoms of ergotism nowadays, whether
experimentally in the lower animals, or when the drug is being
administered to a human being for some therapeutic purpose, it is
believed that the symptoms of ergotism were rendered possible only by
the semi-starvation which must have ensued from the use of such
rye-bread; for the grain disappears as the fungus develops. There were
two types of ergotism. In the gangrenous form various parts of the body
underwent gangrene as a consequence of the arrest of blood-supply
produced by the action of sphacelinic acid on the arteries. In the
spasmodic form the symptoms were of a nervous character. The initial
indications of the disease were cutaneous itching, tingling and
formication, which gave place to actual loss of cutaneous sensation,
first observed in the extremities. Amblyopia and some loss of hearing
also occurred, as well as mental failure. With weakness of the voluntary
muscles went intermittent spasms which weakened the patient and
ultimately led to death by implication of the respiratory muscles. The
last-known "epidemic" of ergotism occurred in Lorraine and Burgundy in
the year 1816.
ERIC XIV. (1533-1577), king of Sweden, was the only son of Gustavus Vasa
and Catherine of Saxe-Lauenburg. The news of his father's death reached
Eric as he was on the point of embarking for England to press in person
his suit for the hand of Queen Elizabeth. He hastened back to Stockholm,
after burying his father, summoned a _Riksdag_, which met at Arboga on
the 15th of April 1561, and adopted the royal propositions known as the
Arboga articles, considerably curtailing the authority of the royal
dukes, John and Charles, in their respective provinces. Two months
later Eric was crowned at Upsala, on which occasion he first introduced
the titles of baron and count into Sweden, by way of attaching to the
crown the higher nobility, these new counts and barons receiving
lucrative fiefs adequate to the maintenance of their new dignities.
From the very beginning of his reign Eric's morbid fear of the upper
classes drove him to give his absolute confidence to a man of base
origin and bad character, though, it must be admitted, of superior
ability. This was Göran Persson, born about 1530, who had been educated
abroad in Lutheran principles, and after narrowly escaping hanging at
the hands of Gustavus Vasa for some vile action entered the service of
his son. This powerful upstart was the natural enemy of the nobility,
who suffered much at his hands, though it is very difficult to determine
whether the initiative in these prosecutions proceeded from him or his
master. Göran was also a determined opponent of Duke John, with whom
Eric in 1563 openly quarrelled, because John, contrary to the royal
orders, had married (Oct. 4, 1562) Catherine, daughter of Sigismund I.
of Poland, engaging at the same time to assist the Polish king to
conquer Livonia. This act was a flagrant breach of that paragraph of the
Arboga articles which forbade the royal dukes to contract any political
treaty without the royal assent. An army of 10,000 men was immediately
sent by Eric to John's duchy of Finland, and John and his consort were
seized, brought over to Sweden and detained as prisoners of state in
Gripsholm Castle. But Eric did not stop here. His suspicion suggested to
him that, if his own brother failed him, the loyalty of the great
nobles, especially the members of the ancient Sture family, who had been
notable in Sweden when the Vasas were unknown, could not be depended
upon. The head of the Sture family at this time was Count Svante, who
had married a sister of Gustavus Vasa's second wife, and had by her a
numerous family, of whom two sons, Nils and Eric, still survived. The
dark tragedy, known as the Sture murders, began with Eric XIV.'s strange
treatment of young Count Nils. In 1566 he was summoned before a newly
erected tribunal and condemned to death for gross neglect of duty,
though not one of the frivolous charges brought against him could be
substantiated. The death penalty was commuted into a punishment worse
because more shameful than death. On the 15th of June 1566 the
unfortunate youth, bruised and bleeding from shocking ill-treatment, was
placed upon a wretched hack, with a crown of straw on his head, and led
in derision through the streets of Stockholm. The following night he was
sent a prisoner to the fortress of Örbyhus. A few days later he was
appointed ambassador extraordinary, and despatched to Lorraine to resume
the negotiations for Eric's marriage with the princess Renata. Before he
returned, however, Eric had resolved to marry Karin, or Kitty
Månsdatter, the daughter of a common soldier, who had been his mistress
since 1565. In January 1567 Eric extorted a declaration from two of his
senators that they would assist him to punish all who should try to
prevent his projected marriage; and, in the middle of May, a _Riksdag_
was summoned to Upsala to judge between the king and those of the
aristocracy whom he regarded as his personal enemies. Eric himself
arrived at Upsala on the 16th in a condition of incipient insanity. On
the 19th he opened parliament in a speech which, as he explained, he had
to deliver extempore owing to "the treachery" of his secretary. Two days
later Nils Sture arrived at Upsala fresh from his embassy to Lorraine,
and was at once thrown into prison, where other members of the nobility
were already detained. On the following day Eric murdered Nils in his
cell with his own hand, and by his order the other prisoners were
despatched by the royal provost marshal forthwith. These murders were
committed so promptly and secretly that it is doubtful whether the
estates, actually in session at the same place, knew what had been done
when, on the 26th of May, under violent pressure from Göran Persson,
they signed a document declaring that all the accused gentlemen under
detention had acted like traitors, and confirming all sentences already
passed or that might be passed upon them.
During the greater part of 1567 Eric was so deranged that a committee
of senators was appointed to govern the kingdom. One of his illusions
was that not he was king but his brother John, whom he now set at
liberty. When, at the beginning of 1568, Eric recovered his reason, a
reconciliation was effected between the king and the duke, on condition
that John recognized the legality of his brother's marriage with Karin
Månsdatter, and her children as the successors to the throne. A month
later, on the 4th of July, he was solemnly married to Karin at Stockholm
by the primate. The next day Karin was crowned queen of Sweden and her
infant son Gustavus proclaimed prince-royal. Shortly after his marriage
Eric issued a circular ordering a general thanksgiving for his delivery
from the assaults of the devil. This document, in every line of which
madness is legible, convinced most thinking people that Eric was unfit
to reign. The royal dukes, John and Charles, had already taken measures
to depose him; and in July the rebellion broke out in Östergötland. Eric
at first offered a stout resistance and won two victories; but on the
17th of September the dukes stood before Stockholm, and Eric, after
surrendering Göran Persson to the horrible vengeance of his enemies,
himself submitted, and resigned the crown. On the 30th of September 1568
John III. was proclaimed king by the army and the nobility; and a
_Riksdag_, summoned to Stockholm, confirmed the choice and formally
deposed Eric on the 25th of January 1569. For the next seven years the
ex-king was a source of the utmost anxiety to the new government. No
fewer than three rebellions, with the object of releasing and
reinstating him, had to be suppressed, and his prison was changed half a
dozen times. On the 10th of March 1575, an assembly of notables, lay and
clerical, at John's request, pronounced a formal sentence of death upon
him. Two years later, on the 24th of February 1577, he died suddenly in
his new prison at Örbyhus, poisoned, it is said, by his governor, Johan
Henriksen.
See _Sveriges Historia_, vol. iii. (Stockholm, 1880); Robert Nisbet
Bain, _Scandinavia_, cap. 4-6 (Cambridge, 1905); Eric Tegel, _Konung
Eriks den XIV. historia_ (Stockholm, 1751). (R. N. B.)
ERICACEAE, in botany, a natural order of plants belonging to the higher
or gamopetalous division of Dicotyledons. They are woody plants,
sometimes with a slender creeping stem as in bilberry, _Vaccinium_ (fig.
1), or _Andromeda_ (fig. 2), or forming low bushes as in the heaths, or
larger, sometimes becoming tree-like, as in species of _Rhododendron_.
The leaves are alternate, opposite or whorled in arrangement, and in
their form and structure show well-marked adaptation for life in dry or
exposed situations. Thus in the true heaths they are needle-like, with
the margins often rolled back to form a groove or an almost closed
chamber on the under side. In others such as _Rhododendron_ or _Arbutus_
they are often leathery and evergreen, the strongly cuticularized upper
surface protecting a water-storing tissue situated above the green
layers of the leaf. The flowers are sometimes solitary and axillary or
terminal as in _Andromeda_, but are generally arranged in racemose
inflorescences at the end of the branches as in _Arbutus_ and
_Rhododendron_, or on small lateral shoots as in _Erica_. They are
hermaphrodite and generally regular with parts in 4 or 5, thus: sepals
4 or 5, petals 4 or 5, stamens 8 or 10 in two series, the outer of which
is opposite the petals, and carpels 4 or 5. The corolla is usually more
or less bell-shaped, and in the heaths persists in a dry state in the
fruit. The petals with the stamens are situated on the outer edge of a
honey-secreting disk. The anthers show a very great variety in shape,
the halves are often more or less free and often appendaged; they open
to allow the escape of the pollen by a terminal pore or slit. The
carpels are united to form a 4- to 5-chambered ovary, which bears a
simple elongated style ending in a capitate stigma; each ovary-chamber
contains one to many ovules attached to a central placenta. The brightly
coloured corolla, the presence of nectar and the scent render the
flowers attractive to insects, and the projection of the stigma beyond
the anthers favours crossing. The fruit is generally a capsule
containing many seeds, as in _Erica_ (fig. 3) or _Rhododendron_;
sometimes a berry as in _Arbutus_.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--_Vaccinium vitis-idaea_, with leaf and flower,
nat. size. 1, Flower of _V. myrtillus_, cut lengthwise. 2, Fruit of
same.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--_Andromeda Hypnoides_, nat. size. 1, Flower; 2,
Unripe fruit cut across; 3, Stamen--all enlarged.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.
1, Flowering shoot of _Erica cinerea_, about 1½ nat. size.
2, Flower cut lengthwise.
3, Stamen showing appendages and porous dehiscence of anther.
4, Capsule showing the loculicidal dehiscence; a few seeds remain
attached to the central axis.
5, Diagram of the flower having four sepals, four divisions of the
corolla, eight stamens in two rows, and four divisions of the
pistil.]
The order falls into four distinct tribes, which are characterized by
the relative position of the ovary and by the fruit and seed. They are
as follows:--
1. _Rhododendron tribe_, characterized by capsular fruit, seed with a
loose coat, deciduous petals and anthers without appendages. It consists
mainly of the great genus _Rhododendron_ (in which _Azalea_ is included
by recent botanists), which is chiefly developed in the mountains of
eastern Asia, many species occurring on the Himalayas. _Dabeocia_, St
Dabeoc's heath, occurs in Ireland.
2. _Arbutus Tribe._--Fruit a berry or capsule, petals deciduous and
anthers with bristle-like appendages, chiefly north temperate to arctic
in distribution. _Arbutus Unedo_, the strawberry-tree, so called from
its large scarlet berry, is a southern European species which extends
into south Ireland. _Arctostaphylos_ (bearberry) and _Andromeda_ are
arctic and alpine genera occurring in Britain. _Epigaea repens_ is the
trailing arbutus or mayflower of Atlantic America.
3. _Vaccinium Tribe._--Ovary inferior, fruit a berry. Extends from the
north temperate zone to the mountains of the tropics. _Vaccinium_, the
largest genus, has four British species: _V. Myrtillus_ is the bilberry
(q.v.), blaeberry or whortleberry, _V. Vitis-Idaea_ the cowberry, and
_V. Oxycoccos_ the cranberry (q.v.). This tribe is sometimes regarded as
a separate order Vacciniaceae, distinguished by its inferior ovary.
4. _Erica Tribe._--Fruit usually a capsule, seeds round, not winged;
corolla persisting round the ripe fruit; anthers often appendaged. The
largest genus is _Erica_, the true heath (q.v.), with over 400 species,
the great majority of which are confined to the Cape; others occur on
the mountains of tropical Africa and in Europe and North Africa,
especially the Mediterranean region. _E. cinerea_ (purple heather) and
_E. Tetralix_ (cross-leaved heath) are common British heaths. _Calluna_
is the ling or Scotch heather.
ERICHSEN, SIR JOHN ERIC, Bart. (1818-1896), British surgeon, born on the
19th of July 1818 at Copenhagen, was the son of Eric Erichsen, a member
of a well-known Danish family. He studied medicine at University
College, London, and at Paris, devoting himself in the early years of
his career to physiology, and lecturing on general anatomy and
physiology at University College hospital. In 1844 he was secretary to
the physiological section of the British Association, and in 1845 he was
awarded the Fothergillian gold medal of the Royal Humane Society for his
essay on asphyxia. In 1848 he was appointed assistant surgeon at
University College hospital, and in 1850 became full surgeon and
professor of surgery, his lectures and clinical teaching being much
admired; and in 1875 he joined the consulting staff. His _Science and
Art of Surgery_ (1853) went through many editions. He rose to be
president of the College of Surgeons in 1880. From 1879 to 1881 he was
president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He was created a
baronet in 1895, having been for some years surgeon-extraordinary to
Queen Victoria. As a surgeon his reputation was world-wide, and he
counts (says Sir W. MacCormac in his volume on the Centenary of the
Royal College of Surgeons) "among the makers of modern surgery." He was
a recognized authority on concussion of the spine, and was often called
to give evidence in court on obscure cases caused by railway accidents,
&c. He died at Folkestone on the 23rd of September 1896.
ERICHT, LOCH, a lake partly in Inverness-shire and partly in Perthshire,
Scotland, lying between the districts of Badenoch on the N. and Rannoch
on the S. The boundary line is drawn from a point opposite to the mouth
of the Alder, and follows the centre of the longitudinal axis
north-eastwards to 56° 50' N., where it strikes eastwards to the shore.
All of the lake to the S. and E. of this line belongs to Perthshire, the
rest, forming the major portion, to Inverness-shire. It is a lonely
lake, situated in extremely wild surroundings at a height of 1153 ft.
above the sea, being thus the loftiest lake of large size in the United
Kingdom. It is over 14½ m. long, with a mean breadth of half a mile and
over 1 m. at its maximum. Its area amounts to some 7¼ sq. m., and it
receives the drainage of an area of nearly 50½ sq. m. The mean depth is
189 ft., and the maximum 512 ft. It has a general trend from N.E. to
S.W., the head lying 1 m. from Dalwhinnie station on the Highland
railway. It receives many streams, and discharges at the south-western
extremity by the Ericht. Salmon and trout afford good fishing. The
surrounding mountains are lofty and rugged. Ben Alder (3757 ft.) on the
west shore is the chief feature of the great Corrour deer forest. The
only point of interest on the banks is the cavern, near the mouth of the
Alder, in which Prince Charles Edward concealed himself for a time after
the battle of Culloden.
ERICSSON, JOHN (1803-1889), Swedish-American naval engineer, was born at
Langbanshyttan, Wermland, Sweden, on the 31st of July 1803. He was the
second son of Olaf Ericsson, an inspector of mines, who died in 1818.
Showing from his earliest years a strong mechanical bent, young
Ericsson, at the age of twelve, was employed as a draughtsman by the
Swedish Canal Company. From 1820 to 1827 he served in the army, where
his drawing and military maps attracted the attention of the king, and
he soon attained the rank of captain. In 1826 he went to London, at
first on leave of absence from his regiment, and in partnership with
John Braithwaite constructed the "Novelty," a locomotive engine for the
Liverpool & Manchester railway competition at Rainhill in 1829, when the
prize, however, was won by Stephenson's "Rocket." The number of
Ericsson's inventions at this period was very great. Among other things
he worked out a plan for marine engines placed entirely below the
water-line. Such engines were made for the "Victory," for Captain
(afterwards Sir) John Ross's voyage to the Arctic regions in 1829, but
they did not prove satisfactory. In 1833 his caloric engine was made
public. In 1836 he took out a patent for a screw-propeller, and though
the priority of his invention could not be maintained, he was afterwards
awarded a one-fifth share of the £20,000 given by the Admiralty for it.
At this time Captain Stockton, of the United States navy, gave an order
for a small iron vessel to be built by Laird of Birkenhead, and to be
fitted by Ericsson with engines and screw. This vessel reached New York
in May 1839. A few months later Ericsson followed his steamer to New
York, and there he resided for the rest of his life, establishing
himself as an engineer and a builder of iron ships. In 1848 he was
naturalized as a citizen of the United States. He had many difficulties
to contend with, and it was only by slow degrees that he established his
fame and won his way to competence. At his death he seems to have been
worth about £50,000. The provision of defensive armour for ships of war
had long occupied his attention, and he had constructed plans and a
model of a vessel lying low in the water, carrying one heavy gun in a
circular turret mounted on a turntable. In 1854 he sent his plans to the
emperor of the French. Louis Napoleon, however, acting probably on the
advice of Dupuy de Lôme, declined to use them. The American Civil War,
and the report that the Confederates were converting the "Merrimac" into
an ironclad, caused the navy department to invite proposals for the
construction of armoured ships. Among others, Ericsson replied, and as
it was thought that his design might be serviceable in inland waters,
the first armoured turret ship, the "Monitor," was ordered; she was
launched on the 30th of January 1862, and on the 9th of March she fought
the celebrated action with the Confederate ram "Merrimac." The peculiar
circumstances in which she was built, the great importance of the
battle, and the decisive nature of the result gave the "Monitor" an
exaggerated reputation, which further experience did not confirm. In
later years Ericsson devoted himself to the study of torpedoes and sun
motors. He published _Solar Investigations_ (New York, 1875) and
_Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition_ (New York, 1877). He died
in New York on the 8th of March 1889, and in the following year, on the
request of the Swedish government, his body was sent to Stockholm and
thence into Wermland, where, at Filipstad, it was buried on the 15th of
September.
A _Life of Ericsson_ by William Conant Church was published in
New York in 1890 and in London in 1893.
ERIDANUS, or FLUVIUS ("the river"), in astronomy, a constellation of the
southern hemisphere, mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus
(3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy catalogued 34 stars in it. [theta]
_Eridani_, a fine double star of magnitudes 3.5 and 5.5, is now of the
third magnitude. It is supposed to be identical with the _Achernar_ of
Al-Sufi, who described it as of the first magnitude; this star has
therefore decreased in brilliancy in historic times. The star [omicron]2
_Eridani_ (numbered 40 by Flamsteed) was discovered to be a ternary
star group by Herschel in 1783; it consists of a close pair, of
magnitudes 9.2 and 10.9, revolving in a period of 180 years, associated
with a star of magnitude 4.5, which is distant from the pair by 82";
these stars have an exceptionally swift proper motion, about 4" per
annum. Eridanus was the ancient name of the river Po.
ERIDU, one of the oldest religious centres of the Sumerians, described
in the ancient Babylonian records as the "city of the deep." The special
god of this city was Ea (q.v.), god of the sea and of wisdom, and the
prominence given to this god in the incantation literature of Babylonia
and Assyria suggests not only that many of our magical texts are to be
traced ultimately to the temple of Ea at Eridu, but that this side of
the Babylonian religion had its origin in that place. Certain of the
most ancient Babylonian myths, especially that of Adapa, may also be
traced back to the shrine of Ea at Eridu. But while of the first
importance in matters of religion, there is no evidence in Babylonian
literature of any special political importance attaching to Eridu, and
certainly at no time within our knowledge did it exercise hegemony in
Babylonia. The site of Eridu was discovered by J.E. Taylor in 1854, in a
ruin then called by the natives Abu-Shahrein, a few miles
south-south-west of Moghair, ancient Ur, nearly in the centre of the dry
bed of an inland sea, a deep valley, 15 m. at its broadest, covered for
the most part with a nitrous incrustation, separated from the alluvial
plain about Moghair by a low, pebbly, sandstone range, called the Hazem,
but open toward the north to the Euphrates and stretching southward to
the Khanega wadi below Suk-esh-Sheiukh. In the rainy season this valley
becomes a sea, flooded by the discharge of the Khanega; in summer the
Arabs dig holes here which supply them with brackish water. The ruins,
in which Taylor conducted brief excavations, consist of a platform of
fine sand enclosed by a sandstone wall, 20 ft. high, the corners toward
the cardinal points, on the N.W. part of which was a pyramidal tower of
two stages, constructed of sun-dried brick, cased with a wall of
kiln-burned brick, the whole still standing to a height of about 70 ft.
above the platform. The summit of the first stage was reached by a
staircase on the S.E. side, 15 ft. wide and 70 ft. long, constructed of
polished marble slabs, fastened with copper bolts, flanked at the foot
by two curious columns. An inclined road led up to the second stage on
the N.W. side. Pieces of polished alabaster and marble, with small
pieces of pure gold and gold-headed copper nails, found on and about the
top of the second stage, indicated that a small but richly adorned
sacred chamber, apparently plated within or without in gold, formerly
crowned the top of this structure. Around the whole tower was a pavement
of inscribed baked bricks, resting on a layer of clay 2 ft. thick. On
the S.E. part of the terrace were the remains of several edifices,
containing suites of rooms. Inscriptions on the bricks identified the
site as that of Eridu. Since Taylor's time the place has not been
visited by any explorer, owing to the unsafe condition of the
neighbourhood; but T.K. Loftus (1854) and J.P. Peters (1890) both report
having seen it from the summit of Moghair. The latter states that the
Arabs at that time called the ruin Nowawis, and apparently no longer
knew the name Abu-Shahrein. Through an error, in many recent maps and
Assyriological publications Eridu is described as located in the
alluvial plain, between the Tigris and the Euphrates. It was, in fact,
an island city in an estuary of the Persian Gulf, stretching up into the
Arabian plateau. Originally "on the shore of the sea," as the old
records aver, it is now about 120 m. from the head of the Persian Gulf.
Calculating from the present rate of deposit of alluvium at the head of
that gulf, Eridu should have been founded as early as the seventh
millennium B.C. It is mentioned in historical inscriptions from the
earliest times onward, as late as the 6th century B.C. From the evidence
of Taylor's excavations, it would seem that the site was abandoned about
the close of the Babylonian period.
See J.E. Taylor, _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. xv.
(1855); F. Delitzsch, _Wo lag das Paradies?_ (1881); J.P. Peters,
_Nippur_ (1897); M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_
(1898); H.V. Hilprecht, _Excavations in Assyria and Babylonia_ (1904);
L.W. King, _A History of Sumer and Akkad_ (1910). (J. P. Pe.)
ERIE, the most southerly of the Great Lakes of North America, between
41° 23' and 42° 53' N., and 78° 51' and 83° 28' W., bounded W. by the
state of Michigan, S. and S.E. by Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, and
N. by the province of Ontario. It is nearly elliptical, the major axis,
250 m. long, lying east and west; its greatest breadth is 60 m.; its
area about 10,000 sq. m.; and the total area of its basin 34,412 sq. m.
Its elevation above mean sea-level is 573 ft.; and its surface is nearly
9 ft. below that of Lake Huron, which discharges into it through St
Clair river, Lake St Clair and Detroit river, and is 327 ft. above that
of Lake Ontario, this great difference being absorbed by the rapids and
falls in the Niagara river, which joins the two lakes. Lake Erie is very
shallow, and may be divided into three basins, the western extending to
Point Pelee and including all the islands, containing about 1200 sq. m.,
with a comparatively flat bottom at 5 to 6 fathoms; the main basin,
between Point Pelee and the narrows at Long Point, containing about 6700
sq. m., and having a marked shelving bottom deepening gradually to 14
fathoms; and the portion east of the narrows, containing about 2100 sq.
m., having a depression 30 fathoms deep just east from Long Point, with
an extensive flat of 11 fathoms depth between it and the main basin. The
Canadian shore is low and flat throughout, the United States shore is
low but bordered by an elevated plateau through which the rivers have
cut deep channels. The lake basin is relatively so small that the rivers
are without importance; Grand river, on the north shore, is the largest
tributary. The flat alluvial soil bordering on the lake is very fertile,
and the climate is well adapted for fruit cultivation. Large quantities
of peaches, grapes and small fruits are grown; the islands in the west
end have a climate much warmer and more equable than the adjoining
mainland, and are practically covered with vineyards. The low clayey or
sandy shores are subject to erosion by waves. In severe storms the water
near shore is filled with sand, which is deposited where the currents
are checked around the ends of jetties in such a way as to form bars out
into the lake across improved channels. This shoaling has rendered
continuous dredging necessary at every harbour on the lake west of Erie,
Pa. In consequence of the shallowness of the lake its waters are easily
disturbed, making navigation very rough and dangerous, and causing large
fluctuations of surface. Strong winds are frequent, as nearly every
cyclonic depression traversing North America, either from the westward
or the Gulf of Mexico, passes near enough to Lake Erie to be felt.
Westerly gales are more frequent, and have more effect on the water
surface than easterly ones, lowering the water as much as 7 to 8 ft. at
the west end and raising it 5 to 8 ft. at the east end. The worst storms
occur in autumn, when the immense quantity of shipping on the lake makes
them specially destructive. There are no tides, and usually only a
slight current towards the outlet, though powerful currents are
temporarily produced by the rapid return of waters after a storm, and
during the height of a westerly gale there is invariably a reflex
current into the west end of the lake. There is an annual fluctuation in
the level of the lake, varying from a minimum of 9 in. to a maximum of 2
ft., the normal low level occurring in February and the high level in
midsummer. Standard high water (of 1838) is 575.11 ft. above mean
sea-level, and the lowest record was 570.8 in November 1895. The
harbours and exits of the lake freeze over, but the body of the lake
never freezes completely.
Ice-breaking car ferries run across the lake all winter. General
navigation opens as a rule in the middle of April and closes in the
middle of December. The volume of traffic is immense, because
practically all freight from the more westerly lakes finds terminal
harbours in Lake Erie. Official statistics of commerce passing through
the Detroit river into the lake during the season of 1906 show that
35,128 vessels, having a net register of 50,673,897 tons, carried
63,805,571 (short) tons of freight, valued at $662,971,053. The 1175
vessels engaged in this business were valued at $106,223,000. Over 90%
of the whole traffic is in United States ships to United States ports.
Fine passenger steamers run nightly between Buffalo and Cleveland and
Detroit, and there are many shorter passenger routes.
The large traffic on Lake Erie has brought into existence a number of
important harbours on the south shore, nearly all artificially made and
deepened, with entrances between two breakwaters running into the lake
at right angles to the coast line. The principal of these are Toledo,
Sandusky, Huron, Vermilion, Lorain, Cleveland, Fairport, Ashtabula,
Conneaut, Erie (a natural harbour), Dunkirk and Buffalo, Rondeau, Port
Stanley, Port Burwell, Port Dover, Port Maitland and Port Colborne. The
Miami and Erie canal, leading from Maumee river to Cincinnati, 244½ m.,
with a branch to Port Jefferson, 14 m., with locks 90 by 15 by 4 ft.,
connects with Lake Erie through Toledo. The Erie canal leading from
Buffalo to the Hudson river at Troy, and connecting with Lake Ontario at
Oswego, had a capacity for boats 98 ft. long, 17 ft. 10 in. beam, with 6
ft. draught, until in 1907 the State of New York undertook its deepening
to accommodate boats of 1000 tons capacity. Buffalo from its position at
the eastern limit of deep draught lake navigation is a city of first
rate commercial importance. Its harbour is formed by an artificial
breakwater, built parallel with the shore about half a mile distant from
it. It receives practically all the Lake Erie grain shipments besides
large quantities of iron ore, lumber and copper, and is a large shipping
port for coal, principally anthracite. It has over 600 m. of railway
tracks to accommodate lake freights. The Welland canal, 26¾ m. long,
connecting Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, with locks 270 by 45 by 14 ft.,
leaves Lake Erie at Port Colborne, where the Canadian government have
constructed an artificial harbour and elevators for transhipment of
grain from upper lake freighters to lighters of canal capacity.
Fishing operations are carried on extensively in Lake Erie, the fish
being taken with gill nets, seines and pound nets. Each state touching
the lake has its own fishery regulations, which differ amongst
themselves as well as from those of the Dominion. Both nations maintain
a Fishery Protection Service, and the fisheries are replenished from
artificial hatcheries. The most numerous and valuable fish are the
lesser white fish (_Coregonus artedi_, Le Sueur), pickerel
(_Stizostedion vitreum_, Walb.), pike (_Lucius lucius_, L.), and white
fish (_Coregonus clupeiformis_, Mitchill), in the order named. The fish
caught are estimated to be worth annually $1,000,000. They are collected
in fishing tugs and distributed by rail throughout the United States and
Canada.
_Bibliography._--_Bulletin No. 17, Survey of Northern and
North-western Lakes_, U.S. Lake Survey Office, War Dept. (Detroit,
1907); _U.S. Hydrographic Office, Publication No. 108D, Sailing
Directions for Lake Erie, &c._ (Washington, 1902); _Sailing Directions
for the Canadian Shore of Lake Erie_, Department of Marine and
Fisheries (Ottawa, 1897); J.O. Curwood, _The Great Lakes_ (New York,
1909); E. Channing and M.F. Lansing, _The Great Lakes_ (New York,
1909). (W. P. A.)
ERIE, a city, a port of entry, and the county-seat of Erie county,
Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on Lake Erie, 148 m. by rail N. of Pittsburg and
near the N.W. corner of the state. Pop. (1890) 40,634; (1900) 52,733, of
whom 11,957 were foreign-born, including 5226 from Germany and 1468 from
Ireland, and 26,797 were of foreign parentage (both parents
foreign-born), including 13,316 of German parentage and 4203 of Irish
parentage; (1910 census) 66,525. Erie is served by the New York, Chicago
& St Louis, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Erie & Pittsburg
(Pennsylvania Company), the Philadelphia & Erie (Pennsylvania railway),
and the Bessemer & Lake Erie railways, and by steamboat lines to many
important lake ports. The city extends over an area of about 7 sq. m.,
which for the most part is quite level and is from 50 to 175 ft. above
the lake. Erie has a fine harbour about 4 m. in length, more than 1 m.
in width, and with an average depth of about 20 ft.; it is nearly
enclosed by Presque Isle, a long narrow strip of land of about 3000
acres from 300 ft. to 1 m. in width, and the national government has
protected its entrance and deepened its channel by constructing two long
breakwaters. Most of the streets of the city are 60 ft. wide--a few are
100 ft.--and nearly all intersect at right angles; they are paved with
brick and asphalt, and many in the residential quarters are shaded with
fine elms and maples. The city has four parks, in one of which is a
soldiers' and sailors' monument of granite and bronze, and not far away,
along the shore of lake and bay, are several attractive summer resorts.
Among Erie's more prominent buildings are the United States government
building, the city hall, the public library, and the county court house.
The city's charitable institutions consist of two general hospitals,
each of which has a training school for nurses; a municipal hospital, an
orphan asylum, a home for the friendless, two old folks' homes, and a
bureau of charities; here, also, on a bluff, within a large enclosure
and overlooking both lake and city, is the state soldiers' and sailors'
home, and near by is a monument erected to the memory of General Anthony
Wayne, who died here on the 15th of December 1796.
Erie is the commercial centre of a large and rich grape-growing and
agricultural district, has an extensive trade with the lake ports and by
rail (chiefly in coal, iron ore, lumber and grain), and is an important
manufacturing centre, among its products being iron, engines, boilers,
brass castings, stoves, car heaters, flour, malt liquors, lumber,
planing mill products, cooperage products, paper and wood pulp, cigars
and other tobacco goods, gas meters, rubber goods, pipe organs, pianos
and chemicals. In 1905 the city's factory products were valued at
$19,911,567, the value of foundry and machine-shop products being
$6,723,819, of flour and grist-mill products $1,444,450, and of malt
liquors $882,493. The municipality owns and operates its water-works.
On the site of Erie the French erected Fort Presque Isle in 1753, and
about it founded a village of a few hundred inhabitants. George
Washington, on behalf of the governor of Virginia, came in the same year
to Fort Le Boeuf (on the site of the present Waterford), 20 m. distant,
to protest against the French fortifying this section of country. The
protest, however, was unheeded. The village was abandoned in or before
1758, owing probably to an epidemic of smallpox, and the fort was
abandoned in 1759. It was occupied by the British in 1760, but on the
22nd of June 1763 this was one of the several forts captured by the
Indians during the Conspiracy of Pontiac. In 1764 the British regained
nominal control and retained it until 1785, when it passed into the
possession of the United States. The place was laid out as a town in
1795; in 1800 it became the county-seat of the newly-erected county of
Erie; it was incorporated as a borough in 1805, the charter of that year
being revised in 1833; and in 1851 it was incorporated as a city. At
Erie were built within less than six months most of the vessels with
which Commodore Oliver H. Perry won his naval victory over the British
off Put-in-Bay on the 10th of September 1813.
ERIGENA, JOHANNES SCOTUS (c. 800-c. 877), medieval philosopher and
theologian. His real name was Johannes Scotus (Scottus) or John the
Scot. The combination Johannes Scotus Erigena has not been traced
earlier than Ussher and Gale; even Gale uses it only in the heading of
the version of St Maximus. The date of Erigena's birth is very
uncertain, and there is no evidence to show definitely where he was
born. The name Scotus, which has often been taken to imply Scottish
origin, really favours the theory that he was an Irishman according to
the then usage of _Scotus_ or _Scotigena_. Prudentius, bishop of Troyes,
definitely states that he was of Irish extraction. The pseudonym
commonly read Erigena, used by himself in the titles of his versions of
Dionysius the Areopagite, is _Ierugena_ (in later MSS. Erugena and
Eriugena), formed apparently on the analogy of _Graiugena_
("Greek-born"), which he applies to St Maximus. There seems no reason to
doubt that Eriugena is connected with Erin, the name for Ireland, and
Ierugena suggests the Greek [Greek: hieros, hieros nêsos] being a common
name for Ireland. On the other hand, William of Malmesbury prefers to
read Heruligena, which would make Scotus a Pannonian, while Bale says he
was born at St David's, Dempster connects him with Ayr, and Gale with
Eriuven in Hereford. Some early writers thought there were two persons,
John Scotus and John Erigena.
Of Erigena's early life nothing is known. Bale quotes the story that he
travelled in Greece, Italy and Gaul, and studied not only Greek, but
also Arabic and Chaldaean. Since, however, Bale describes him as "ex
patricio genitore natus," it is a reasonable inference (so R.L. Poole)
that Bale confused him with one John, the son of Patricius, a Spaniard,
who tells much the same story of his own travels. The knowledge of Greek
displayed in Erigena's works is not such as to compel us to conclude
that he had actually visited Greece. That he had a competent
acquaintance with Greek is manifest from his translations of Dionysius
the Areopagite and of Maximus, from the manner in which he refers to
Aristotle, and from his evident familiarity with Neoplatonist writers
and the fathers of the early church. Roger Bacon, in his severe
criticism on the ignorance of Greek displayed by the most eminent
scholastic writers, expressly exempts Erigena, and ascribes to him a
knowledge of Aristotle in the original.
Among other legends which have at various times been attached to Erigena
are that he was invited to France by Charlemagne, and that he was one of
the founders of the university of Paris. The only portion of Erigena's
life as to which we possess accurate information was that spent at the
court of Charles the Bald. Charles invited him to France soon after his
accession to the throne, probably in the year 843, and placed him at the
head of the court school (_schola palatina_). The reputation of this
school seems to have increased greatly under Erigena's leadership, and
the philosopher himself was treated with indulgence by the king. William
of Malmesbury's amusing story illustrates both the character of Scotus
and the position he occupied at the French court. The king having asked,
"Quid distat inter sottum et Scottum?" Erigena replied, "Mensa tantum."
The first of the works known to have been written by Erigena during this
period was a treatise on the eucharist, which has not come down to us
(by some it has been identified with a treatise by Ratramnus, _De
corpore et sanguine Domini_). In it he seems to have advanced the
doctrine that the eucharist was merely symbolical or commemorative, an
opinion for which Berengarius was at a later date censured and
condemned. As a part of his penance Berengarius is said to have been
compelled to burn publicly Erigena's treatise. So far as we can learn,
however, Erigena's orthodoxy was not at the time suspected, and a few
years later he was selected by Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, to defend
the doctrine of liberty of will against the extreme predestinarianism of
the monk Gottschalk (Gotteschalchus). The treatise _De divina
praedestinatione_, composed on this occasion, has been preserved, and
from its general tenor one cannot be surprised that the author's
orthodoxy was at once and vehemently suspected. Erigena argues the
question entirely on speculative grounds, and starts with the bold
affirmation that philosophy and religion are fundamentally one and the
same--"Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem,
conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam." Even more
significant is his handling of authority and reason, to which we shall
presently refer. The work was warmly assailed by Drepanius Florus, canon
of Lyons, and Prudentius, and was condemned by two councils--that of
Valence in 855, and that of Langres in 859. By the former council his
arguments were described as _Pultes Scotorum_ ("Scots porridge") and
_commentum diaboli_ ("an invention of the devil").
Erigena's next work was a Latin translation of Dionysius the Areopagite
(see DIONYSIUS AREOPAGITICUS) undertaken at the request of Charles the
Bald. This also has been preserved, and fragments of a commentary by
Erigena on Dionysius have been discovered in MS. A translation of the
Areopagite's pantheistical writings was not likely to alter the opinion
already formed as to Erigena's orthodoxy. Pope Nicholas I. was offended
that the work had not been submitted for approval before being given to
the world, and ordered Charles to send Erigena to Rome, or at least to
dismiss him from his court. There is no evidence, however, that this
order was attended to.
The latter part of his life is involved in total obscurity. The story
that in 882 he was invited to Oxford by Alfred the Great, that he
laboured there for many years, became abbot at Malmesbury, and was
stabbed to death by his pupils with their "styles," is apparently
without any satisfactory foundation, and doubtless refers to some other
Johannes. Erigena in all probability never left France, and Hauréau has
advanced some reasons for fixing the date of his death about 877.
Erigena is the most interesting figure among the middle-age writers. The
freedom of his speculation, and the boldness with which he works out his
logical or dialectical system of the universe, altogether prevent us
from classing him along with the scholastics properly so called. He
marks, indeed, a stage of transition from the older Platonizing
philosophy to the later and more rigid scholasticism. In no sense
whatever can it be affirmed that with Erigena philosophy is in the
service of theology. The above-quoted assertion as to the substantial
identity between philosophy and religion is indeed repeated almost
_totidem verbis_ by many of the later scholastic writers, but its
significance altogether depends upon the selection of one or other term
of the identity as fundamental or primary. Now there is no possibility
of mistaking Erigena's position: to him philosophy or reason is first,
is primitive; authority or religion is secondary, derived. "Auctoritas
siquidem ex vera ratione processit, ratio vero nequaquam ex auctoritate.
Omnis enim auctoritas, quae vera ratione non approbatur, infirma videtur
esse. Vera autem ratio, quum virtutibus suis rata atque immutabilis
munitur, nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indiget" (_De
divisione naturae_, i. 71). F.D. Maurice, the only historian of note who
declines to ascribe a rationalizing tendency to Erigena, obscures the
question by the manner in which he states it. He asks his readers, after
weighing the evidence advanced, to determine "whether he (Erigena) used
his philosophy to explain away his theology, or to bring out what he
conceived to be the fullest meaning of it." These alternatives seem to
be wrongly put. "Explaining away theology" is something wholly foreign
to the philosophy of that age; and even if we accept the alternative
that Erigena endeavours speculatively to bring out the full meaning of
theology, we are by no means driven to the conclusion that he was
primarily or principally a theologian. He does not start with the datum
of theology as the completed body of truth, requiring only elucidation
and interpretation; his fundamental thought is that of the universe,
nature, [Greek: to pan], or God, as the ultimate unity which works
itself out into the rational system of the world. Man and all that
concerns man are but parts of this system, and are to be explained by
reference to it; for explanation or understanding of a thing is
determination of its place in the universal or all. Religion or
revelation is one element or factor in the divine process, a stage or
phase of the ultimate rational life. The highest faculty of man, reason,
_intellectus_, _intellectualis visio_, is that which is not content with
the individual or partial, but grasps the whole and thereby comprehends
the parts. In this highest effort of reason, which is indeed God
thinking in man, thought and being are at one, the opposition of being
and thought is overcome. When Erigena starts with such propositions, it
is clearly impossible to understand his position and work if we insist
on regarding him as a scholastic, accepting the dogmas of the church as
ultimate data, and endeavouring only to present them in due order and
defend them by argument.
Erigena's great work, _De divisione naturae_, which was condemned by a
council at Sens, by Honorius III. (1225), who described it as
"swarming with worms of heretical perversity," and by Gregory XIII. in
1585, is arranged in five books. The form of exposition is that of
dialogue; the method of reasoning is the syllogistic. The leading
thoughts are the following. _Natura_ is the name for the universal,
the totality of all things, containing in itself being and non-being.
It is the unity of which all special phenomena are manifestations. But
of this nature there are four distinct classes:--(1) that which
creates and is not created; (2) that which is created and creates; (3)
that which is created and does not create; (4) that which neither is
created nor creates. The first is God as the ground or origin of all
things, the last is God as the final end or goal of all things, that
into which the world of created things ultimately returns. The second
and third together compose the created universe, which is the
manifestation of God, God _in processu_, _Theophania_. Thus we
distinguish in the divine system beginning, middle and end; but these
three are in essence one--the difference is only the consequence of
our finite comprehension. We are compelled to envisage this eternal
process under the form of time, to apply temporal distinctions to that
which is extra- or supra-temporal. The universe of created things, as
we have seen, is twofold:--_first_, that which is created and
creates--the primordial ideas, archetypes, immutable relations, divine
acts of will, according to which individual things are formed;
_second_, that which is created and does not create, the world of
individuals, the effects of the primordial causes, without which the
causes have no true being. Created things have no individual or
self-independent existence; they are only in God; and each thing is a
manifestation of the divine, _theophania_, _divina apparitio_.
God alone, the uncreated creator of all, has true being. He is the
true universal, all-containing and incomprehensible. The lower cannot
comprehend the higher, and therefore we must say that the existence of
God is above being, above essence; God is above goodness, above
wisdom, above truth. No finite predicates can be applied to him; his
mode of being cannot be determined by any category. True theology is
negative. Nevertheless the world, as the _theophania_, the revelation
of God, enables us so far to understand the divine essence. We
recognize his being in the being of all things, his wisdom in their
orderly arrangement, his life in their constant motion. Thus God is
for us a Trinity--the Father as substance or being ([Greek: ousia]),
the Son as wisdom ([Greek: dynamis]), the Spirit as life ([Greek:
energeia]). These three are realized in the universe--the Father as
the system of things, the Son as the word, i.e. the realm of ideas,
the Spirit as the life or moving force which introduces individuality
and which ultimately draws back all things into the divine unity. In
man, as the noblest of created things, the Trinity is seen most
perfectly reflected; _intellectus_ ([Greek: nous]), _ratio_ ([Greek:
logos]) and _sensus_ ([Greek: dianoia]) make up the threefold thread
of his being. Not in man alone, however, but in all things, God is to
be regarded as realizing himself, as becoming incarnate.
The infinite essence of God, which may indeed be described as
_nihilum_ (nothing) is that from which all is created, from which all
proceeds or emanates. The first procession or emanation, as above
indicated, is the realm of ideas in the Platonic sense, the word or
wisdom of God. These ideas compose a whole or inseparable unity, but
we are able in a dim way to think of them as a system logically
arranged. Thus the highest idea is that of _goodness_; things are,
only if they are good; being without well-being is naught. _Essence_
participates in goodness--that which is good has being, and is
therefore to be regarded as a species of good. _Life_, again, is a
species of essence, _wisdom_ a species of life, and so on, always
descending from genus to species in a rigorous logical fashion.
The ideas are the eternal causes, which, under the moving influence of
the spirit, manifest themselves in their effects, the individual
created things. Manifestation, however, is part of the being or
essence of the causes, that is to say, if we interpret the expression,
God of necessity manifests himself in the world and is not without the
world. Further, as the causes are eternal, timeless, so creation is
eternal, timeless. The Mosaic account, then, is to be looked upon
merely as a mode in which is faintly shadowed forth what is above
finite comprehension. It is altogether allegorical, and requires to be
interpreted. Paradise and the Fall have no local or temporal being.
Man was originally sinless and without distinction of sex. Only after
the introduction of sin did man lose his spiritual body, and acquire
the animal nature with its distinction of sex. Woman is the
impersonation of man's sensuous and fallen nature; on the final return
to the divine unity, distinction of sex will vanish, and the spiritual
body will be regained.
The most remarkable and at the same time the most obscure portion of
the work is that in which the final return to God is handled.
Naturally sin is a necessary preliminary to this redemption, and
Erigena has the greatest difficulty in accounting for the fact of sin.
If God is true being, then sin can have no substantive existence; it
cannot be said that God knows of sin, for to God knowing and being are
one. In the universe of things, _as_ a universe, there can be no sin;
there must be perfect harmony. Sin, in fact, results from the will of
the individual who falsely represents something as good which is not
so. This misdirected will is punished by finding that the objects
after which it thirsts are in truth vanity and emptiness. Hell is not
to be regarded as having local existence; it is the inner state of the
sinful will. As the object of punishment is not the will or the
individual himself, but the misdirection of the will, so the result of
punishment is the final purification and redemption of all. Even the
devils shall be saved. All, however, are not saved at once; the stages
of the return to the final unity, corresponding to the stages in the
creative process, are numerous, and are passed through slowly. The
ultimate goal is _deificatio_, _theosis_ or resumption into the divine
being, when the individual soul is raised to a full knowledge of God,
and where knowing and being are one. After all have been restored to
the divine unity, there is no further creation. The ultimate unity is
that which neither is created nor creates.
EDITIONS.--There is a complete edition of Erigena's works in J.P.
Migne's _Patrologiae cursus completus_ (vol. cxxii.), edited by H.J.
Floss (Paris, 1853). The _De divina praedestinatione_ was published in
Gilbert Mauguin's _Veterum auctorum qui nono saeculo de
praedestinatione et gratia scripserunt opera et fragmenta_ (Paris,
1650). The commentary ("Expositiones") on Dionysius' _Hierarchiae
caelestes_ appeared in the _Appendix ad opera edita ab A. Maio_ (ed.
J. Cozza, Rome, 1871). Of the _De divisione naturae_, editions have
been published by Thomas Gale (Oxford, 1681); C.B. Schlüter (Münster,
1838); and in Floss's _Opera omnia_; there is a German translation by
Ludwig Noack, _Johannes Scotus Erigena über die Eintheilung der Natur_
(3 vols., 1874-1876). Erigena was also the author of some poems edited
by L. Traube in _Monumenta Germaniae historica. Poëtae Latini aevi
Carolini_, iii. (1896). A commentary on the _Opuscula sacra_ of
Boëtius is attributed to him and edited by E.K. Rand (1906).
Monographs on Erigena's life and works are numerous; see St René
Taillandier, _Scot Érigène et la philosophie scholastique_ (1843); T.
Christlieb, _Leben u. Lehre des Johannes Scotus Erigena_ (Gotha,
1860); J.N. Huber, _Johannes Scotus Erigena_ (Munich, 1861); W.
Kaulich, _Das speculative System des Johannes Scotus Erigena_ (Prague,
1860); A. Stöckl, _De Joh. Scoto Erigena_ (1867); L. Noack, _Über
Leben und Schriften des Joh. Scotus Erigena: die Wissenschaft und
Bildung seiner Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1876); R.L. Poole, _Medieval Thought_
(1884), and article in _Dictionary of National Biography_; T.
Wotschke, _Fichte und Erigena_ (Halle, 1896); M. Baumgartner in Wetzer
and Welte's _Kirchenlexikon_, x. (1897); Alice Gardner's _Studies in
John the Scot_ (1900); J. Dräseke, _Joh. Scotus Erigena und seine
Gewährsmänner_ (Leipzig, 1902); S.M. Deutsch in Herzog-Hauck's
_Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie_, xviii. (1906); J.E.
Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_ (1906), pp. 491-495. See also
the general works on scholastic philosophy, especially Hauréau, Stöckl
and Kaulich. An admirable résumé is given by F.D. Maurice, _Medieval
Phil._ pp. 45-79. (R. Ad.; J. M. M.)
ERIGONE, in Greek mythology, daughter of Icarius, the hero of the Attic
deme Icaria. Her father, who had been taught by Dionysus to make wine,
gave some to some shepherds, who became intoxicated. Their companions,
thinking they had been poisoned, killed Icarius and buried him under a
tree on Mount Hymettus (or threw his body into a well). Erigone, guided
by her faithful dog Maera, found his grave, and hanged herself on the
tree. Dionysus sent a plague on the land, and all the maidens of Athens,
in a fit of madness, hanged themselves like Erigone. Icarius, Erigone
and Maera were set among the stars as Boötes (or Arcturus), Virgo and
Procyon. The festival called Aeora (the "swing") was subsequently
instituted to propitiate Icarius and Erigone. Various small images (in
Lat. _oscilla_) were suspended on trees and swung backwards and
forwards, and offerings of fruit were made (Hyginus, _Fab._ 130, _Poët.
astron._ ii. 4; Apollodorus iii. 14). The story was probably intended to
explain the origin of these _oscilla_, by which Dionysus, as god of
trees (Dendrites), was propitiated, and the baneful influence of the
dog-star averted (see also OSCILLA).
ERIN, an ancient name for Ireland. The oldest form of the word is Ériu,
of which Érinn is the dative case. Ériu was itself almost certainly a
contraction from a still more primitive form _Iberiu_ or _Iveriu_; for
when the name of the island was written in ancient Greek it appeared as
[Greek: Iouernia] (Ivernia), and in Latin as _Iberio_, _Hiberio_ or
_Hibernia_, the first syllable of the word Ériu being thus represented
in the classical languages by two distinct vowel sounds separated by _b_
or _v_. Of the Latin variants, _Iberio_ is the form found in the most
ancient Irish MSS., such as the _Confession_ of St Patrick, and the same
saint's _Epistle to Coroticus_. Further evidence to the same effect is
found in the fact that the ancient Breton and Welsh names for Ireland
were Ywerddon or Iverdon. In later Gaelic literature the primitive form
Ériu became the dissyllable Éire; hence the Norsemen called the island
the land of Éire, i.e. Ireland, the latter word being originally
pronounced in three syllables. (See IRELAND: _Notices of Ireland in
Greek and Roman writers_.) Nothing is known as to the meaning of the
word in any of its forms, and Whitley Stokes's suggestion that it may
have been connected with the Sanskrit _avara_, meaning "western," is
admittedly no more than conjecture. There was, indeed, a native Irish
legend, worthless from the standpoint of etymology, to account for the
origin of the name. According to this myth there were three kings of the
Dedannans reigning in Ireland at the coming of the Milesians, named
MacColl, MacKecht and MacGrena. The wife of the first was Eire, and from
her the name of the country was derived. Curiously, Ireland in ancient
Erse poetry was often called "Fodla" or "Bauba," and these were the
wives of the other two kings in the legend.
ERINNA, Greek poet, contemporary and friend of Sappho, a native of
Rhodes or the adjacent island of Telos, flourished about 600 (according
to Eusebius, 350 B.C.). Although she died at the early age of nineteen,
her poems were among the most famous of her time and considered to rank
with those of Homer. Of her best-known poem, [Greek: Êlakatê] (the
_Distaff_), written in a mixture of Aeolic and Doric, which contained
300 hexameter lines, only 4 lines are now extant. Three epigrams in the
Palatine anthology, also ascribed to her, probably belong to a later
date.
The fragments have been edited (with those of Alcaeus) by J.
Pellegrino (1894).
ERINYES (Lat. _Furiae_), in Greek mythology, the avenging deities,
properly the angry goddesses or goddesses of the curse pronounced upon
evil-doers. According to Hesiod (_Theog._ 185) they were the daughters
of Earth, and sprang from the blood of the mutilated Uranus; in
Aeschylus (_Eum._ 321) they are the daughters of Night, in Sophocles
(_O.C._ 40) of Darkness and Earth. Sometimes one Erinys is mentioned,
sometimes several; Euripides first spoke of them as three in number, to
whom later Alexandrian writers gave the names Alecto (unceasing in
anger), Tisiphone (avenger of murder), Megaera (jealous). Their home is
the world below, whence they ascend to earth to pursue the wicked. They
punish all offences against the laws of human society, such as perjury,
violation of the rites of hospitality, and, above all, the murder of
relations. But they are not without benevolent and beneficent
attributes. When the sinner has expiated his crime they are ready to
forgive. Thus, their persecution of Orestes ceases after his acquittal
by the Areopagus. It is said that on this occasion they were first
called Eumenides ("the kindly"), a euphemistic variant of their real
name. At Athens, however, where they had a sanctuary at the foot of the
Areopagus hill and a sacred grove at Colonus, their regular name was
Semnae (venerable). Black sheep were sacrificed to them during the night
by the light of torches. A festival was held in their honour every year,
superintended by a special priesthood, at which the offerings consisted
of milk and honey mixed with water, but no wine. In Aeschylus, the
Erinyes are represented as awful, Gorgon-like women, wearing long black
robes, with snaky locks, bloodshot eyes and claw-like nails. Later, they
are winged maidens of serious aspect, in the garb of huntresses, with
snakes or torches in their hair, carrying scourges, torches or sickles.
The identification of Erinyes with Sanskrit Saranyu, the swift-speeding
storm cloud, is rejected by modern etymologists; according to M. Bréal,
the Erinyes are the personification of the formula of imprecation
([Greek: ara]), while E. Rohde sees in them the spirits of the dead, the
angry souls of murdered men.
See C.O. Müller, _Dissertations on the Eumenides of Aeschylus_, (Eng.
tr., 1835); A. Rosenberg, _Die Erinyen_ (1874); J.E. Harrison,
_Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_ (1903); and _Journal of
Hellenic Studies_, xix. p. 205, according to whom the Erinyes were
primarily local ancestral ghosts, potent for good or evil after death,
earth genii, originally conceived as embodied in the form of snakes,
whose primitive haunt and sanctuary was the omphalos at Delphi; E.
Rohde, _Psyche_ (1903); A. Rapp in Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_,
and J.A. Hild in Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_,
s.v. FURIAE.
ERIPHYLE, in Greek mythology, sister of Adrastus and wife of Amphiaraus.
Having been bribed by Polyneices with the necklace of Harmonia, she
persuaded her husband to take part in the expedition of the Seven
against Thebes, although he knew it would prove fatal to him. Before
setting out, the seer charged his sons to slay their mother as soon as
they heard of his death. The attack on Thebes was repulsed, and during
the flight the earth opened and swallowed up Amphiaraus together with
his chariot. His son Alcmaeon, as he had been bidden, slew his mother,
and was driven from place to place by the Erinyes, seeking purification
and a new home (Apollodorus iii. 6. 7).
ERIS, in Greek mythology, a sister of the war-god Ares (Homer, _Iliad_,
iv. 440), and in the Hesiodic theogony (225) a daughter of Night. In the
later legends of the Trojan War, Eris, not having been invited to the
marriage festival of Peleus and Thetis, flings a golden apple (the
"apple of discord") among the guests, to be given to the most beautiful.
The claims of the three deities Hera, Aphrodite and Athena are decided
by Paris in favour of Aphrodite, who as a reward assists him to gain
possession of Helen (Hyginus, _Fab._ 92; Lucian, _Charidemus_, 17).
Hesiod also mentions (_W. and D._ 24) a beneficent Eris, the
personification of honourable rivalry. In Virgil (_Aeneid_, viii. 702)
and other Roman poets Eris is represented by Discordia.
ERITH, an urban district in the north-western parliamentary division of
Kent, England, 14 m. E. by S. of London, on the South Eastern & Chatham
railway. Pop. (1891) 13,414; (1901) 25,296. It lies on the south bank of
the Thames and extends up the hills above the shore, many villas having
been erected on the higher ground. The park of a former seat, Belvedere,
was thus built over (c. 1860), and the mansion became a home for
disabled seamen. The church of St John the Baptist, though largely
altered by modern restoration, retains Early English to Perpendicular
portions, and some early monuments and brasses. Erith has large
engineering and gun factories, and in the neighbourhood are gunpowder,
oil, glue and manure works. The southern outfall works of the London
main drainage system are at Crossness in the neighbouring lowland called
Plumstead Marshes. Erith is the headquarters of several yacht clubs.
Erith, the name of which is commonly derived from A.S. _Ærra-hythe_ (old
haven), was anciently a borough, and was granted a market and fairs in
1313. Down to the close of the 17th century it was of some importance as
a naval station.
ERITREA, an Italian colony on the African coast of the Red Sea. It
extends from Ras Kasar, a cape 110 m. S. of Suakin, in 18° 2' N., as far
as Ras Dumeira (12° 42' N.), in the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, a
coast-line of about 650 m. The colony is bounded inland by the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Abyssinia and French Somaliland. It consists of
the coast lands lying between the capes named and of part of the
northern portion of the Abyssinian plateau. The total area is about
60,000 sq. m. The population is approximately 450,000, of which,
exclusive of soldiers, not more than 3000 are whites.
The land frontier starting from Ras Kasar runs in a south-westerly
direction until in about 14° 15' N., 36° 35' E. it reaches the river
Setit, some distance above the junction of that stream with the Atbara.
This, the farthest point inland, is 198 m. S.W. of Massawa. The frontier
now turns east, following for a short distance the course of the river
Setit; thence it strikes north-easterly to the Mareb, and from 38° E.
follows that river and its tributaries the Belesa and Muna, until within
42 m. of the sea directly south of Annesley Bay. At this point the
frontier turns south and east, crossing the Afar or Danakil country at a
distance of 60 kilometres (37.28 m.) from the coast-line. About 12° 20'
N. the French possessions in Somaliland are reached. Here the frontier
turns N.E. and so continues until the coast of the Red Sea is again
reached at a point south of the town of Raheita. In the southern part of
the colony are small sultanates, such as those of Aussa and Raheita,
which are under Italian protection. The Dahlak archipelago and other
groups of islands along the coast belong to Eritrea.
_Physical Features._--The coast-line is of coral formation and is, in
the neighbourhood of Massawa, thickly studded with small islands. The
chief indentations are Annesley Bay, immediately south of Massawa, and
Assab Bay in the south. The colony consists of two widely differing
regions. The northern division is part of the Abyssinian highlands.
The southern division, part of the Afar or Danakil country, includes
all the territory of the colony south of Annesley Bay. These two
regions are connected by a narrow strip of land behind Annesley Bay,
where the Abyssinian hills approach close to the sea. From this bay
the coast-line trends S.E. so that at Tajura Bay the distance between
the Abyssinian hills and the sea is over 200 m. The Afar country is
part of the East African rift-valley, and in the southern parts of the
valley its surface is diversified by ranges of hills, frequently
volcanic, and by lakes. The plains, however, extend over large areas,
they are generally arid and are often covered with mimosa trees which
form a kind of jungle called by the natives _khala_. The torrents
which descend from the Abyssinian plateau usually fail to reach the
sea. They are mostly bordered by dense vegetation; in the dry season
water is found in pools in the river beds or can be obtained by
digging. The principal rivers enter and are lost in one or other of
two salt plains or basins, that of Asali in the north and that of
Aussa in the south. The Hawash flows through the Aussa country in a
N.E. direction, but is lost in lakes Abbebad and Aussa (see
ABYSSINIA). The Raguali and other rivers drain into the Asali basin.
This basin, like that of Aussa, is in places 200 ft. below sea-level.
On the west the Asali basin reaches to the Abyssinian foot-hills; in
its southern part is the small lake Alelbad. The eastern edge of the
basin is formed by a ridge of gypsum and on its margin grow palms. In
parts the salt lies thick on the plain, which then has the appearance
of a lake frozen over. South of Lake Alelbad is a volcano called
Artali or Erta-alé ("the smoky"), and farther to the S.E., in about
13° 15' N., is the peak of Afdera, which was in eruption in June 1907.
The hills, 1000 to 4000 ft. in height, which run more or less parallel
to and a few miles from the coast, include the volcano of Dubbi
(reported active in 1861), some 30 m. S. of the port of Edd (Eddi). In
14° 52' N., 39° 53' E. and near the northern end of the zone of
depression the volcano of Alid (2985 ft.) rises from the trough. Its
chief crest forms an elongated ring and encloses a crater over half a
mile in diameter and with walls 350 ft. high. North and south of Alid
extends a vast lava field. Dubbi and Alid are in Italian territory;
the greater part of Afar belongs to Abyssinia.
At Annesley Bay the narrow coast plain is succeeded by foothills
separated by small valleys through which flow innumerable streams.
From these hills the ascent to the plateau which constitutes northern
Eritrea is very steep. This tableland, which has a general elevation
of about 6500 ft., is fairly fertile despite a desert region--Sheb--to
the S.E. of Keren. It is characterized by rich, well-watered valleys,
verdant plains and flat-topped hills with steep sides, running in
ranges or isolated. The highest hills in Eritrean territory rise to
about 10,000 ft. The plateau is known by various names, the region
directly west of Massawa being called Hamasen. To the west and north
the plateau sinks in terraces to the plains of the Sudan, and eastward
falls more abruptly to the Red Sea, the coast plain, known as the
Samhar, consisting of sandy country covered with mimosa and, along the
khors, with a somewhat richer vegetation.
The colony contains no navigable streams. For a short distance the
Setit (known in its upper course as the Takazze), a tributary of the
Atbara, forms the frontier, as does also in its upper course the Gash
or Mareb (see ABYSSINIA). The Mareb, often dry in summer, in the
floods is a large and impassable river. Both the Setit and Mareb have
a general westerly course across the Abyssinian plateau. The Baraka
(otherwise Barka) and Anseba rise in the Hamasen plateau near Asmara
within a short distance of each other. The Baraka flows west and then
north; the Anseba, which has a more easterly course, also flows
northward and joins the Baraka a little N. of 17° N. A few miles below
the confluence the Baraka leaves Italian territory. It is (as is the
Anseba) an intermittent stream. After heavy rain it discharges some of
its water into the Red Sea north of Tokar. The whole of the hill
country north of Asmara belongs to the drainage area of the Baraka or
Anseba. Of the numerous streams which, north of the Danakil country,
run direct from the hills to the Red Sea, the Hadas may be mentioned,
as along the valley of that stream is one of the most frequented
routes to the tableland. The Hadas, in time of flood, reaches the
ocean near Adulis in Annesley Bay.
_Climate._--The climate in different parts of the colony varies
greatly. Three distinct climatic zones are found:--(1) that of the
coastlands, including altitudes up to 1650 ft., (2) that of the
escarpments and valleys, and (3) that of the high plateau and alpine
summits. In the coast zone the heat and humidity are excessive during
most of the year, June, September and October being the hottest
months. Rains occur between November and April, during which time the
temperature is lower. In this zone malarial fevers prevail in winter.
The heat is greatest at Massawa, where the mean temperature averages
88° F., but where, in summer, the thermometer often rises to 120° F.
in the shade. In the second zone the climate is more temperate and
there is considerable variation in temperature owing to nocturnal
radiation. This zone falls within the régime of the summer monsoon
rains, while those districts adjoining the coast zone enjoy also
winter rains. August is the most rainy and May the hottest month. On
the high plateau, i.e. the third zone, the climate is generally
moderately cool. Slight rain falls in the spring and abundant monsoon
rains from June to September. The heat is greatest in the dry season,
November to April. Above 8500 ft. the climate becomes sub-alpine in
character.
_Flora and Fauna._--In the low country the flora differs little from
that of tropical Africa generally, whilst on the plateau the
vegetation is characteristic of the temperate zone. The olive tree
grows on the high plateau and covers the flanks of the hills to within
3000 ft. of sea-level. The sycamore-fig tree grows to enormous
proportions in parts of the plateau. Lower down durra, maize and
bultuc grow in profusion. In the northern part of the colony,
especially along the Khor Baraka, the dom palm flourishes. The fauna
includes, in the low country, the lion, panther, elephant, camel, and
antelope of numerous species. On the plateau the fauna is that of
Abyssinia (q.v.).
_Inhabitants._--The inhabitants of the plains and foothills are for
the most part semi-nomad shepherds, living on durra and milk. In the
north these people are largely of Arab or Hamitic stock, such as the
Beni-Amer, but include various negro tribes. Afar and Somali form the
population of the southern regions. The inhabitants of the plateau are
Abyssinians. The nomads are Mussulmans and are, as a rule, docile and
pacific, though the Danakils are given to occasional raiding. The
Abyssinians are more warlike, but they have settled down under Italian
rule. Among the native industries are mat-weaving, cotton-weaving,
silver-working and rudimentary iron and leather working. (See AFARS;
SOMALILAND and ABYSSINIA.)
_Towns._--The principal places on the coast are Massawa (q.v.), pop.
about 10,000, the chief seaport of the colony, Assab, chief town of
the Danakil region, to which converges the trade from Abyssinia across
the Aussa country, and Zula (q.v.), identified with the ancient
Adulis. The chief town in the interior is Asmara (q.v.), the capital
of the colony and under the Abyssinians capital of the province of
Hamasen, and favourite headquarters of Ras Alula (see below and also
ABYSSINIA). It is situated 7800 ft. above the sea, and has something
of the aspect of a European town. Keren, 50 m. N.W. of Asmara, is the
centre for a district (Bogos) fertilized by the upper course of the
Anseba; Agordat, on the river Baraka, on the road from Keren to
Kassala, is the centre of the Beni-Amer, Algheden and Sabderat tribes;
Mogolo, on the lower Mareb, is the rendezvous of the Baria and Baza
tribes. Towards Abyssinia the chief towns are Saganeiti (capital of
the Okulé-Kusai province), Godofelassi and Adi-Ugri, the two latter
situated in the fertile plain of the Seraé; Adiquala, on the edge of
the Mareb gorge; and Arrasa, the centre of the districts constituting
the province of Deki-Tesfa.
_Agriculture and Trade._--The nomads of the plains possess large herds
of cattle and camels. The low country is almost entirely pastoral and
unsuited for the cultivation of crops. On the other hand almost all
European cereals flourish in the intermediate zone and on the high
plateau, and the Abyssinian is a good agriculturist and understands
irrigation. Numbers of emigrants from Italy possess farms on the
plateau. Experiments in the cultivation of coffee, tobacco and cotton
have given good results in the intermediate zone. Besides camels and
oxen, sheep and goats are numerous, and meat, hides and butter are
articles of local trade. Hides are the principal export (about £50,000
a year). Wax, gum, coffee and ivory are also exported. Pearl fishing
is carried on at Massawa and the Dahlak islands. The annual value of
the fisheries is about £40,000 (pearls £10,000, mother of pearl
£30,000). Gold mines are worked near Asmara. Salt, obtained from the
salt lakes in the Aussa and Danakil countries, is a valuable article
of commerce. Cotton goods are the chief imports. There is a little
trade with northern Abyssinia, but it is undeveloped. For the five
years 1901-1905 the average value of the external trade was £456,000
per annum. The imports more than doubled the exports.
_Communications._--A railway, 65 m. long, connects Massawa with
Asmara. An extension of the line is planned from Asmara to Sabderat
and Kassala. The whole territory is crossed by camel and mule paths
between the sea and the high plateau, and between the various centres
of population. Every valley that brings water to the Red Sea has a
route leading to the high plateau. The great arteries, however, number
three, which, starting from Massawa by way of Asmara, run, two to
Abyssinia, and one to Kassala and Khartum. They are all more or less
practicable for carts, and are flanked by a good telegraph line as
long as they lie in Italian territory. There are also two caravan
routes from Assab Bay, across the Danakil country to southern
Abyssinia. The northern leads by a comparatively easy ascent to Yejju,
the more southern follows the valley of the Hawash. A telegraph line
500 m. long connects Massawa with Adis Ababa via Asmara. Massawa is
also telegraphically connected with the outside world by a cable to
Perim via Assab. There is regular steamship communication with Italy.
_Administration._--Eritrea is administered by a civil governor
responsible to the ministry of foreign affairs at Rome. It is divided
into six provinces, each governed by a regional commissioner. Some
tracts of frontier territory are detached from the various regions and
entrusted to political residents, as, for instance, on the Sudan
frontier and also on the Abyssinian boundary, where strict
surveillance is necessary to repress raiding incursions from Tigré,
and where the chief intelligence department is established. The six
regions or principal provinces are:--Asmara, which includes Hamasen
and other small districts; Keren, which comprises the high territories
to the north of Asmara, i.e. the Bogos country; Massawa, extending
over all the tribes between the high plateau and the sea from the
Hababs to the Danakil; Assab, which extends from Edd to Raheita;
Okulé-Kusai, the plateau country S.E. of Asmara; Seraé, including
Deki-Tesfa, the country S.W. of Asmara. The regional commissioners and
the political residents act either by means of the village headmen
(_Shum_ or _Chicca_), by the chiefs of districts in the few localities
where villages are still organized in districts, or by the headmen of
tribes, and by the councils of the elders wherever these remain.
Revenue is derived from customs duties, direct taxation and tribute
paid by the nomad tribes. The local revenue, which for the period
1897-1907 was about £100,000 a year, is supplemented by grants from
Italy, the total cost of the administration being about £400,000
yearly. Nearly half the expenditure is on the military force
maintained.
_Justice._--Civil justice for natives is administered, in the first
instance, by the headmen of villages, provinces, tribes, or by
councils of notables (_Shumagalle_); in appeal, by the residents and
regional tribunals, and, in the last instance, by the colonial court
of appeal. Europeans are entirely under Italian jurisdiction. Penal
justice is administered by Italian judges only. An administrative
tribunal settles, without appeal, questions of tribute, disputes
concerning family, village or tribal landmarks, as well as suits
involving the colonial government. The civil laws for the natives are
those established by local usage. Europeans are answerable to the
Italian civil code. Penal laws are the same as in Italy, except where
modified by local usages. Appeal to the Rome court of cassation is
admitted against all penal and civil sentences.
_Defence._--Defence is entrusted to a corps of colonial troops, partly
Italian and partly native; to a militia (_milizia mobile_) formed by
natives who have already served in the colonial corps; and to the
_chitet_ or general levy which, in time of war, places all male
able-bodied inhabitants under arms. The regional commissioners and
political residents have at their disposal some hundreds of irregular
paid soldiers under native chiefs. In war time these irregulars form
part of the colonial corps, but in time of peace serve as frontier
police. The colonial corps, about 5000 strong, garrisons the chief
places of strategic importance, such as Asmara, Keren and Saganeiti.
The irregular troops, on foot, or mounted on camels, number about 1000
men. The militia consists of 3500 men of all arms, and is intended in
time of war to reinforce the various divisions of the colonial corps.
The _chitet_ yields between 3000 and 4000 men, to be employed on the
lines of communication or in caravan service. All these troops are
intended to ward off a first attack, so as to allow time for the
arrival of reinforcements from Italy. The customs and political
surveillance along the coast is entrusted, afloat, to the Massawa
naval station, and, ashore, to a coastguard company 400 strong
stationed at Meder, with detachments at Assab, Massawa, Raheita, Edd
and Taclai.
_History._--Traces of the ancient Eritrean civilization are scarce.
During the prosperous periods of ancient Egypt, Egyptian squadrons
asserted their rule over the west Red Sea coast, and under the Ptolemies
the port of Golden Berenice (Adulis?) was an Egyptian fortress,
afterwards abandoned. During the early years of the Roman empire,
Eritrea formed part of an important independent state--that of the
Axumites (Assamites). At the end of the reign of Nero, and perhaps even
earlier, the king of the Axumites ruled over the Red Sea coast from
Suakin to the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and traded constantly with Egypt.
This potentate called himself "king of kings," commanded an army and a
fleet, coined money, adopted Greek as the official language, and lived
on good terms with the Roman empire. The Axumites belonged originally to
the Hamitic race, but the immigration of the Himyaritic tribes of
southern Arabia speedily imposed a new language and civilization.
Therefore the ancient Abyssinian language, Geez, and its living
dialects, Amharic and Tigrina, are Semitic, although modified by the
influence of the old Hamitic Agau or Agao. Adulis (Adovlis), slightly to
the north of Zula (q.v.), was the chief Axumite port. From Adulis
started the main road, which led across the high plateau to the capital
Axomis (Axum). Along the road are still to be seen vestiges of cities
and inscribed monuments, such as the Himyaritic inscriptions on the high
plateau of Kohait, the six obelisks with a Saban inscription at Toconda,
and an obelisk with an inscription at Amba Sait. Other monuments exist
elsewhere, as well as coins of the Axumite period with Greek and
Ethiopian inscriptions. After the rise of the Ethiopian empire the
history of Eritrea is bound up with that of Ethiopia, but not so
entirely as to be completely fused. The documents of the Portuguese
expedition of the 16th century and other Ethiopian records show that all
the country north of the Mareb enjoyed relative autonomy under a vassal
of the Ethiopian emperor.
Michael, counsellor of Solomon, who was king of the country north of the
Mareb, usurped the throne of Solomon during the reign of the Emperor
Atzié Jasu II. (1729-1753), and, after proclaiming himself ras of Tigré
and "protector of the empire," ceded the North Mareb country to an enemy
of the rightful dynasty. Hence a long struggle between the dispossessed
family and the occupants of the North Mareb throne. The coast regions
had meantime passed from the control of the Abyssinians. In the 16th
century the Turks made themselves masters of Zula, Massawa, &c., and
these places were never recovered by the Abyssinians. In 1865 Massawa
and the neighbouring coast was acquired by Egypt, the khedive Ismail
entertaining projects for connecting the port by railway with the Nile.
The Egyptians took advantage of civil war in Abyssinia to seize Keren
and the Bogos country in 1872[1], an action against which the negus
Johannes (King John), newly come to the throne, did not at the time
protest. In 1875 and 1876 the Egyptians, who sought to increase their
conquests, were defeated by the Abyssinians at Gundet and Gura. Walad
Michael, the hereditary ruler of Bogos, fought as ally of King John at
Gundet and of the Egyptians at Gura. For two years Walad Michael
continued to harass the border, but in December 1878 he submitted to
King John, by whose orders he was (Sept. 1879) imprisoned upon an amba,
or flat-topped mountain, whence he only succeeded in escaping in 1890.
In 1879 his territory was given by King John to Ras Alula, who retained
it until, in August 1889, the Italians occupied Asmara (see ABYSSINIA:
_History_).
An Egyptian garrison remained at Keren in the Bogos country until 1884,
when in consequence of the revolt of the Mahdi it was withdrawn, Bogos
being occupied by Abyssinia on the 12th of September of that year. On
the 5th of February 1885 an Italian force, with the approval of Great
Britain, occupied Massawa, the Egyptian garrison returning to Egypt.
This occupation led to wars with Abyssinia and finally to the
establishment of the colony in its present limits. The history of the
Italian-Abyssinian relations is fully told in the articles ITALY and
ABYSSINIA (history sections).
It was not, however, at Massawa that Italy first obtained a foothold in
eastern Africa. The completion of the Suez Canal led Italy as well as
Great Britain and France to seek territorial rights on the Red Sea
coasts. The purchase of Assab and the neighbouring region for £1880,
from the sultan Berehan of Raheita for use as a coaling station by the
Italian Rubattino Steamship Company, in March 1870, formed the nucleus
of Italy's colonial possessions. This purchase was protested against by
Egypt, Turkey and Great Britain; the last named power being willing to
recognize an Italian commercial settlement, but nothing more. (The
Indian government viewed the establishment of the Italians on the new
highway to the East with a good deal of ill-humour.) Eventually, the
British opposition being overcome and that of Egypt and Turkey
disregarded, Assab, by a decree of the 5th of July 1882, was declared an
Italian colony. Between 1883 and 1888 various treaties were concluded
with the sultan of Aussa ceding the Danakil coast to Italy and
recognizing an Italian protectorate over the whole of his
country--through which passes the trade route from Assab Bay to Shoa.
On the 1st of January 1890 the various Italian possessions on the coast
of the Red Sea were united by royal decree into one province under the
title of the Colony of Eritrea--so named after the Erythraeum Mare of
the Romans. At first the government of the colony was purely military,
but after the defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians at Adowa, the
administration was placed upon a civil basis (1898-1900). The frontiers
were further defined by a French-Italian convention (24th of January
1900) fixing the frontier between French Somaliland and the Italian
possessions at Raheita, and also by various agreements with Great
Britain and Abyssinia. A tripartite agreement between Italy, Abyssinia
and Great Britain, dated the 15th of May 1902, placed the territory of
the Kanama tribe, on the north bank of the Setit, within Eritrea. A
convention of the 16th of May 1908 settled the Abyssinian-Eritrean
frontier in the Afar country, the boundary being fixed at 60 kilometres
from the coast. The task of reconstructing the administration on a civil
basis and of developing the commerce of the colony was entrusted to
Signor F. Martini, who was governor for nine years (1898-1906). Under
civil rule the colony made steady though somewhat slow progress.
AUTHORITIES.--See B. Melli, _La Colonia Eritrea dalle sue origini al
anno 1901_ (Parma, 1901); G.B. Penne, _Per l'Italia Africana. Studio
critico_ (Rome, 1906); R. Perini, _Di qua dal Marèb_ (Florence, 1905),
a monograph on the Asmara zone; F. Martini, _Nell' Africa Italiana_
(3rd ed., Milan, 1891); A.B. Wylde, _Modern Abyssinia_, chaps. v.-ix.
(London, 1901); E.D. Schoenfeld, _Erythräa und der ägyptische Sudân_,
chaps. i.-xii. (Berlin, 1904); Luigi Chiala, _La Spedizione di
Massana_ (Turin, 1888); _Abyssinian Green Books_ published at
intervals in 1895 and 1896, covering the period from 1870 to the end
of the Italo-Abyssinian War; Vico Mantegazza, _La Guerra in Africa_
(Florence, 1896); General Baratieri, _Memorie d'Africa_ (Rome, 1898);
C. de la Jonquière, _Les Italiens en Érythrée_ (Paris, 1897); G.F.H.
Berkeley, _The Campaign of Adowa_ (London, 1902). For orography and
geology see an article by P. Verri in _Boll. Soc. geog. italiana_,
1909, and for climate an article in _Rivista coloniale_ (1906), by A.
Tancredi. A. Allori compiled a _Piccolo Dizionario eritreo,
italiano-arabo-amarico_ (Milan, 1895).
For Afar consult W. Munzinger, "A Journey through the Afar Country" in
_Journ. Royal Geog. Soc._ for 1869; V. Bottego, "Nella Terra dei
Danakil," in _Boll. Soc. Geog. Italiana_, 1892; Count C. Rossini, "Al
Rágali" in _L'Espl. Comm._ of Milan, 1903-1904; and articles by G.
Dainelli and O. Marinelli in the _Riv. Geog. Italiana_ of Florence for
1906-1908, dealing with the volcanic regions.
Bibliographies will be found in G. Fumagalli's _Bibliografia Etiopica_
(Milan, 1893) and in the _Riv. Geog. Italiana_ for 1907.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] During the Second Empire unsuccessful efforts were made by France
to obtain a Red Sea port and a foothold in northern Abyssinia. (See
SOMALILAND: _French_.)
ERIVAN, a government of Russia, Transcaucasia, having the province of
Kars on the W., the government of Tiflis on the N., that of Elisavetpol
on the N. and E., and Persia and Turkish Armenia on the S. It occupies
the top of an immense plateau (6000-8000 ft.). Continuous chains of
mountains are met with only on its borders, and in the E., but the whole
surface is thickly set with short ridges and isolated mountains of
volcanic origin, of which Alagöz (14,440 ft.) and Ararat (16,925 ft.)
are the most conspicuous and the most important. Both must have been
active in Tertiary times. Lake Gok-cha (540 sq. m.) is encircled by such
volcanoes, and the neighbourhood of Alexandropol is a "volcanic
amphitheatre," being entirely buried under volcanic deposits. The same
is true of the slopes leading down to the river Aras; and the valley of
the upper Aras is a stony desert, watered only by irrigation, which is
carried on with great difficulty owing to the character of the soil. The
government is drained by the Aras, which forms the boundary with Persia
and flows with great velocity down its stony bed, the fall being 17-22
ft. per mile in its upper course, and 9 ft. at Ordubad, where it quits
the government, while lower down it again increases to 23 ft. Many of
the small lakes, filling volcanic craters, are of great depth. Timber is
very scarce. A variety of useful minerals exists, but only rock-salt is
obtained, at Nakhichevan and Kulp. The climate is extremely varied, the
following being the average temperatures and mean annual rainfall at
Alexandropol (alt. 5078 ft.) and Aralykh (2755 ft.) respectively: year
42°, January 12°, July 65°, mean rainfall 16.2 in.; and year 53°,
January 20.5°, July 79°, rainfall 6.3 in. The population numbered
829,578 in 1897 (only 375,086 women), of whom 82,278 lived in the towns.
An estimate in 1906 gave a total of 909,100. They consist chiefly of
Armenians (441,000), Tatars (40%), Kurds (49,389), with Russians, Greeks
and Tates. Most of the Armenians belong to the Gregorian (Christian)
Church, and only 4020 to the Armenian Catholic Church. The Tatars are
mostly Shiite Mussulmans, only 27,596 being Sunnites; 7772 belong to the
peculiar faith of the Yezids. While barley only can be grown on the high
parts of the plateau, cotton, mulberry, vines and all sorts of fruit are
cultivated in the valley of the Aras. Cattle-breeding is extensively
carried on; camels also are bred, and leeches are collected out of the
swamps and exported to Persia. Industry is in its infancy, but cottons,
carpets, and felt goods are made in the villages. A considerable trade
is carried on with Persia, but trade with Asia Minor is declining. The
government is divided into seven districts--Erivan, Alexandropol,
Echmiadzin (chief town, Vagarshapat), Nakhichevan, Novobayazet, Surmali
(chief town, Igdyr), and Sharur-daralagöz (chief town, Norashen). The
principal towns are Erivan (see below), Alexandropol (32,018 inhabitants
in 1897), Novobayazet (8507), Nakhichevan (8845), and Vagarshapat
(3400).
ERIVAN, or IRWAN, in Persian, _Rewan_, a town of Russia, capital of the
government of the same name, situated in 40° 14' N., 44° 38' E., 234 m.
by rail S.S.W. of Tiflis, on the Zanga river, from which a great number
of irrigation canals are drawn. Altitude, 3170 ft. Pop. (1873) 11,938;
(1897) 29,033. The old Persian portion of the town consists mainly of
narrow crooked lanes enclosed by mud walls, which effectually conceal
the houses, and the modern Russian portion is laid out in long ill-paved
streets. On a steep rock, rising about 600 ft. above the river, stand
the ruins of the 16th-century Turkish fortress, containing part of the
palace of the former Persian governors, a handsome but greatly
dilapidated mosque, a modern Greek church and a cannon foundry. One
chamber, called the Hall of the Sardar, bears witness to former
splendour in its decorations. The finest building in the city is the
mosque of Hussein Ali Khan, familiarly known as the Blue Mosque from the
colour of the enamelled tiles with which it is richly encased. At the
mosque of Zal Khan a passion play is performed yearly illustrative of
the assassination of Hussein, the son of Ali. Erivan is an Armenian
episcopal see, and has a theological seminary. The only manufactures are
a little cotton cloth, leather, earthenware and blacksmiths' work. The
fruits of the district are noted for their excellence--especially the
grapes, apples, apricots and melons. Armenians, Persians and Tatars are
the principal elements in the population, besides some Russians and
Greeks. The town fell into the power of the Turks in 1582, was taken by
the Persians under Shah Abbas in 1604, besieged by the Turks for four
months in 1615, and reconquered by the Persians under Nadir Shah in the
18th century. In 1780 it was successfully defended against Heraclius,
prince of Georgia; and in 1804 it resisted the Russians. At length in
1827 Paskevich took the fortress by storm, and in the following year the
town and government were ceded to Russia by the peace of Turkman-chai. A
Tatar poem in celebration of the event has been preserved by the
Austrian poet, Bodenstedt, in his _Tausend und ein Tage im Orient_
(1850).
ERLANGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, on a fertile
plain, at the confluence of the Schwabach and the Regnitz, 11 m. N.W. of
Nuremberg, on the railway from Munich to Bamberg. Pop. (1905) 23,720. It
is divided into an old and a new town, the latter consisting of wide,
straight and well-built streets. The market place is a fine square. Upon
it stand the town-hall and the former palace of the margraves of
Bayreuth, now the main building of the university. The latter was
founded by the margrave Frederick (d. 1763), who, in 1742, established a
university at Bayreuth, but in 1743 removed it to Erlangen. A statue of
the founder, erected in 1843 by King Louis I. of Bavaria, stands in the
centre of the square and faces the university buildings. The university
has faculties of philosophy, law, medicine and Protestant theology.
Connected with it are a library of over 200,000 volumes, geological,
anatomical and mineralogical institutions, a hospital, several clinical
establishments, laboratories and a botanical garden. Among the churches
of the town (six Protestant and one Roman Catholic), only the new town
church, with a spire 220 ft. high, is remarkable. The chief industries
of Erlangen are spinning and weaving, and the manufacture of glass,
paper, brushes and gloves. The brewing industry is also important, the
beer of Erlangen being famous throughout Germany and large quantities
being exported.
Erlangen owes the foundation of its prosperity chiefly to the French
Protestant refugees who settled here on the revocation of the edict of
Nantes and introduced various manufactures. In 1017 the place was
transferred from the bishopric of Würzburg to that of Bamberg; in 1361
it was sold to the king of Bohemia. It became a town in 1398 and passed
into the hands of the Hohenzollerns, burgraves of Nuremberg, in 1416.
There for nearly three centuries it was the property of the margraves of
Bayreuth, being ceded with the rest of Bayreuth to Prussia in 1791. In
1810 it came into the possession of Bavaria. Erlangen was for many years
the residence of the poet Friedrich Rückert, and of the philosophers
Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schnelling.
See Stein and Müller, _Die Geschichte von Erlangen_ (1898).
ERLE, SIR WILLIAM (1793-1880), English lawyer and judge, was born at
Fifehead-Magdalen, Dorset, on the 1st of October 1793, and was educated
at Winchester and at New College, Oxford. Having been called to the bar
at the Middle Temple in 1819 he went the western circuit, became counsel
to the Bank of England, sat in parliament from 1837 to 1841 for the city
of Oxford, and, although of opposite politics to Lord Lyndhurst, was
made by him a judge of the common pleas in 1845. He was transferred to
the queen's bench in the following year, and in 1859 came back to the
common pleas as chief justice upon the promotion of Sir Alexander
Cockburn. He retired in 1866, receiving the highest eulogiums for the
ability and impartiality with which he had discharged the judicial
office. He died at his estate at Bramshott, Hampshire, on the 28th of
January 1880, and a monument without his name but in his memory
(sometimes erroneously supposed to mark the place where an old gibbet
was) stands on the top of Hindhead.
See E. Manson, _Builders of our Law_ (1904).
ERLKÖNIG, or ERL-KING, a mythical character in modern German literature,
represented as a gigantic bearded man with a golden crown and trailing
garments, who carries children away to that undiscovered country where
he himself abides. There is no such personage in ancient German
mythology, and the name is linguistically nothing more than the
perpetuation of a blunder. It first appeared in Herder's _Stimmen der
Völker_ (1778), where it is used in the translation of the Danish song
of the _Elf-King's Daughter_ as equivalent to the Danish _ellerkonge_,
or _ellekonge_, that is, _elverkonge_, the king of the elves; and the
true German word would have been _Elbkönig_ or _Elbenkönig_, afterwards
used under the modified form of _Elfenkönig_ by Wieland in his _Oberon_
(1780). Herder was probably misled by the fact that the Danish word
_elle_ signifies not only elf, but also alder tree (Ger. _Erle_). His
mistake at any rate has been perpetuated by both English and French
translators, who speak of a "king of the alders," "un roi des aunes,"
and find an explanation of the myth in the tree-worship of early times,
or in the vapoury emanations that hang like weird phantoms round the
alder trees at night. The legend was adopted by Goethe as the subject of
one of his finest ballads, rendered familiar to English readers by the
translations of Lewis and Sir Walter Scott; and since then it has been
treated as a musical theme by Reichardt and Schubert.
ERMAN, PAUL (1764-1851), German physicist, was born in Berlin on the
29th of February 1764. He was the son of the historian Jean Pierre Erman
(1735-1814), author of _Histoire des réfugiés_. He became teacher of
science successively at the French gymnasium in Berlin, and at the
military academy, and on the foundation of the university of Berlin in
1810 he was chosen professor of physics. He died at Berlin on the 11th
of October 1851. His work was mainly concerned with electricity and
magnetism, though he also made some contributions to optics and
physiology. His son, GEORG ADOLF ERMAN (1806-1877), was born in Berlin
on the 12th of May 1806, and after studying natural science at Berlin
and Königsberg, spent from 1828 to 1830 in a journey round the world, an
account of which he published in _Reise um die Erde durch Nordasien und
die beiden Ozeane_ (1833-1848). The magnetic observations he made during
his travels were utilized by C.F. Gauss in his theory of terrestrial
magnetism. He was appointed professor of physics at Berlin in 1839, and
died there on the 12th of July 1877. From 1841 to 1865 he edited the
_Archiv für wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland_, and in 1874 he
published, with H.J.R. Petersen, _Die Grundlagen der Gauss'schen Theorie
und die Erscheinungen des Erdmagnetismus im Jahre 1829_.
His son JOHANN PETER ADOLF ERMAN (1854- ), a famous Egyptologist, was
born in Berlin on the 31st of October 1854. Educated at Leipzig and
Berlin, he became extraordinary professor in 1883 and ordinary professor
in 1892 of Egyptology in the university of Berlin, and in 1885 he was
appointed director of the Egyptian department of the royal museum. For
an account of the Egyptological work of Erman and his school, see EGYPT:
_Language_.
ERMANARIC (fl. 350-376), king of the East Goths, belonged to the Amali
family, and was the son of Achiulf. His name occurs as Ermanaricus
(Jordanes), Aírmanareiks (Gothic), _Eormenríc_ (A. Sax.), Jörmunrek
(Norse), Ermenrîch (M.H. German). Ermanaric built up for himself a vast
kingdom, which eventually extended from the Danube to the Baltic and
from the Don to the Theiss. He drove the Vandals out of Dacia, compelled
the allegiance of the neighbouring tribes of West Goths, procured the
submission of the Herules, of many Slav and Finnish tribes, and even of
the Esthonians on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In his later days
the west Goths threw off his yoke, and, on the invasion of the Huns,
rather than witness the downfall of his kingdom he is said by Ammianus
Marcellinus to have committed suicide. His fate early became the centre
of popular tradition, which found its way into the narrative of
Jordanes or Jornandes (_De rebus geticis_, chap. 24), who compared him
to Alexander the Great and certainly exaggerated the extent of his
kingdom. He is there said to have caused a certain Sunilda or Sanielh to
be torn asunder by wild horses on account of her husband's traitorous
conduct. Her brothers Sarus and Ammius sought to avenge her. They
succeeded in wounding, not in killing the Gothic king, whose death
supervened in his one hundred and tenth year from the joint effects of
his wound and fear of the Hunnish invasion. This is evidently a
paraphrase of popular story which sought to supply plausible reasons for
Ermanaric's end. In German legend Ermanaric became the typical cruel
tyrant, and references to his crimes abound in German epic and in
Anglo-Saxon poetry. He is made to replace Odoacer as the enemy of
Dietrich of Bern, his nephew, and his history is related in the Norse
_Vilkina_ or _Thidrekssagà_, which chiefly embodies German tradition.
His evil genius, Sifka, Sibicho or Bicci, brings about the death of his
three sons. The Harlungs, Imbrecke and Fritile,[1] are his nephews, whom
he has strangled for the sake of their treasure, the Brîsingo meni.
Sonhild or Svanhild becomes the wife of Ermanaric, and the motive for
her murder is replaced by an accusation of adultery between Svanhild and
her stepson. The story was already connected with the Nibelungen when it
found its way to the Scandinavian north by way of Germany. In the
_Völsunga Saga_ Svanhild is the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun. She is
given in marriage to the Gothic king Jörmunrek (Ermanaric), who sends
his son Randver as proxy wooer in company of Bicci, the evil counsellor.
Randver is persuaded by Bicci to take his father's bride for himself.
Randver is hanged and Svanhild trampled to death by horses in the gate
of the castle. Gudrun eggs on Sörli and Hamdir or Hamtheow, her two sons
by her third husband, Jonakr the Hun, to avenge their sister. On the way
they slay their half-brother Erp, whom they suspect of lukewarmness in
the cause; arrived in the hall of Ermanaric they make a great slaughter
of the Goths, and hew off the hands and feet of Ermanaric, but they
themselves are slain with stones. The tale is told with variations by
Saxo Grammaticus (_Historia Danica_, ed. Müller, p. 408, &c.), and in
the Icelandic poems, the _Lay of Hamtheow_, _Gudrun's Chain of Woe_, and
in the prose _Edda_.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--W. Grimm, in _Die deutsche Heldensage_ (2nd ed.,
Berlin, 1867), quotes the account given by Jordanes, references in
Beowulf, in the _Wanderer's Song_, _Exeter Book_, in _Parcival_, in
_Dietrichs Flucht_, the account given in the _Quedlinburg Chronicle_,
by Ekkehard in the _Chronicon Urspergense_, by Saxo Grammaticus, &c.
See also Vigfússon and Powell, _Corpus poëticum boreale_, vol. i.
(Oxford, 1883), and H. Symons, "Die deutsche Heldensage" in Paul's
_Grundriss d. german. Phil._ vol. iii. (Strassburg, 1900).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Emerka and Fridla (Beowulf, _Quedlingburg Chron._), Aki and
Etgard (_Vilkina Saga_). In the original myth the Harlungs, who are
not to be confused with the Hartung brothers, were sent to bring home
Surya, the bride of the sky-god, Irmintiu.
ERMELAND, or ERMLAND (_Varmia_), a district of Germany, in East Prussia,
extending from the Frisches Haff, a bay in the Baltic, inland towards
the Polish frontier. It is a well-wooded sandy tract of country, has an
area of about 1650 sq. m., a population of 240,000, and is divided into
the districts of Braunsberg, Heilsberg, Rössel and Allenstein.
Ermeland was originally one of the eleven districts of old Prussia and
was occupied by the Teutonic Knights (_Deutscher Orden_), being made in
1250 one of the four bishoprics of the country under their sway. The
bishop of Ermeland shortly afterwards declared himself independent of
the order, and became a prince of the Empire. In 1466 Ermeland, together
with West Prussia, was by the peace of Thorn attached to the crown of
Poland, and the bishop had a seat in the Polish senate. In 1772 it was
again incorporated with Prussia. Among the bishops of the see, which
still exists, with its seat in Frauenberg, may be mentioned Aeneas
Sylvius Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius II., and Cardinal Stanislaus
Hosius (1504-1579), the founder of the Jesuit college in Braunsberg.
See Hipler, _Literaturgeschichte des Bisthums Ermeland_ (Braunsberg,
1873); the _Monumenta historiae Warmiensis_ (Mainz, 1860-1864, and
Braunsberg, 1866-1872, 4 vols.); and Buchholz, _Abriss einer
Geschichte des Ermlands_ (Braunsberg, 1903.)
ERMELO, a district and town of the Transvaal. The district lies in the
south-east of the province and is traversed by the Drakensberg. In it
are Lake Chrissie, the only true lake in the country, and the sources of
the Vaal, Olifants, Komati, and Usuto rivers, which rise within 30 m. of
one another. The region has a general elevation of about 5500 ft. and is
fine agricultural and pastoral country, besides containing valuable
minerals, including coal and gold. Ermelo town, pop. (1904) 1451, is by
rail 175 m. S.E. of Johannesburg, and 74 m. S.S.W. of Machadodorp on the
Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway. A government experimental farm, with some
1000 acres of plantations, is maintained here.
ERMINE, an alternative name for the stoat (_Putorius ermineus_),
apparently applicable in its proper sense only when the animal is in its
white winter coat. This animal measures 10 in. in length exclusive of
the tail, which is about 4 in. long, and becomes bushy towards the
point. The fur in summer is reddish brown above and white beneath,
changing in the winter of northern latitudes to snowy whiteness, except
at the tip of the tail, which at all seasons is black. In Scottish
specimens this change in winter is complete, but in those found in the
southern districts of England it is usually only partial, the ermine
presenting during winter a piebald appearance. The white colour is
evidently protective, enabling the animals to elude the observations of
their enemies, and to steal unobserved on their prey. It also retains
heat better than a dark covering, and may thus serve to maintain an
equable temperature at all seasons within the body. The colour change
seems to be due to phagocytes devouring the pigment-bodies of the hair,
and not to a moult.
[Illustration: Ermine or Stoat (_Putorius ermineus_).]
The species is a native of the temperate and subarctic zones of the Old
World, and is represented in America by a form which can scarcely be
regarded as specifically distinct. It inhabits thickets and stony
places, and frequently makes use of the deserted burrows of moles and
other underground mammals. Exceedingly sanguinary in disposition, and
agile in its movements, it feeds principally on rats, water-rats and
rabbits, which it pursues with pertinacity and boldness, hence the name
_stoat_, signifying bold, by which it is commonly known. It takes
readily to water, and will even climb trees in pursuit of prey. It is
particularly destructive to poultry and game, and has often been known
to attack hares, fixing itself to the throat of its victim, and defying
all the efforts of the latter to disengage it. The female brings forth
five young ones about the beginning of summer. The winter coat of the
ermine forms one of the most valuable of commercial furs, and is
imported in enormous quantities from Norway, Sweden, Russia and Siberia.
It is largely used for muffs and tippets, and as a trimming for state
robes, the jet black points of the tails being inserted at regular
intervals as an ornament. In the reign of Edward III. the wearing of
ermine was restricted to members of the royal family; but it now enters
into almost all state robes, the rank and position of the wearer being
in many cases indicated by the presence or absence, and the disposition,
of the black spots. (See also FUR.)
ERMINE STREET. Documents and writers of the 11th and succeeding
centuries occasionally mention four "royal roads" in Britain--Icknield
Street, Erning or Ermine Street, Watling Street and Foss Way--as
standing apart from all other existing roads and enjoying the special
protection of the king. Unfortunately these authorities are not at all
agreed as to their precise course; the roads themselves do not occur as
specially privileged in actual legal or other practice, and it is likely
that the category of Four Roads is the invention of a lawyer or an
antiquary. The names are, however, attested to some extent by early
charters which name them among other roads, as boundaries. From these
charters we know that Icknield Street ran along the Berkshire downs and
the Chilterns, that Ermine Street ran more or less due north through
Huntingdonshire, that Watling Street ran north-west across the midlands
from London to Shrewsbury, and Foss diagonally to it from Lincoln or
Leicester to Bath and mid-Somerset. This evidence only proves the
existence of these roads in Saxon and Norman days. But they all seem to
be much older. Icknield Street is probably a prehistoric ridgeway along
the downs, utilized perhaps by the Romans near its eastern end, but in
general not Roman. Ermine Street coincides with part of a line of Roman
roads leading north from London through Huntingdon to Lincoln. This line
is followed by the Old North Road through Cheshunt, Buntingford,
Royston, and Huntingdon to Castor near Peterborough; and thence it can
be traced through lanes and byways past Ancaster to Lincoln. Watling
Street is the Roman highway from London by St Alban's (Verulamium) to
Wroxeter near Shrewsbury (Viroconium). Foss is the Roman highway from
Lincoln to Bath and Exeter. Hence it has been supposed, and is still
frequently alleged, that the Four Roads were the principal highways of
Roman Britain. This, however, is not the case. Icknield Street is not
Roman and the three roads which follow Roman lines, Ermine Street,
Watling Street, and Foss, held no peculiar position in the
Romano-British road system (see BRITAIN: _Roman_). In later times, the
names Ermine Street, Icknield Street and Watling Street have been
applied to other roads of Roman or supposed Roman origin. This, however,
is wholly the work of Elizabethan or subsequent antiquaries and deserves
no credence.
The derivations of the four names are unknown. Icknield, Ermine and
Watling may be from English personal names; Foss, originally Fos, seems
to be the Lat. _fossa_ in its occasional medieval sense of a bank of
upcast earth or stones, such as the _agger_ of a road. (F. J. H.)
ERMOLDUS NIGELLUS, or ERMOLD THE BLACK, was a monk of Aquitaine, who
accompanied King Pippin, son of the emperor Louis I., on a campaign into
Brittany in 824. Subsequently he was banished from Pippin's court on a
charge of inciting the king against his father, and retired to
Strassburg, where he sought to regain the emperor's favour by writing a
poem on his life and deeds. About 830 he obtained his recall, and has
been identified with Hermoldus, who appears as Pippin's chancellor in
838. Ermoldus was a cultured man with a knowledge of the Latin poets,
and this poem, _In honorem Hludovici imperatoris_, has some historical
value. It consists of four books and deals with the life and exploits of
Louis from 781 to 826. He also wrote two poems in imitation of Ovid,
which were addressed to Pippin.
His writings are published in the _Monumenta Germaniae historica,
Scriptores_, Band 2 (Hanover, 1826 fol.); by J.P. Migne in the
_Patrologia Latina_, tome 105 (Paris, 1844); and by E. Dümmler in the
_Poëtae Latini aevi Carolini_, Band 2 (Berlin, 1881-1884). See W.O.
Henkel, _Über den historischen Werth der Gedichte des Ermoldus
Nigellus_ (Eilenburg, 1876); W. Wattenbach, _Deutschlands
Geschichtsquellen_, Band 1 (Berlin, 1904); and A. Potthast,
_Bibliotheca historica_, pp. 430-431 (Berlin, 1896).
ERNE, the name of a river and two lakes in the north-west of Ireland.
The river rises in Lough Gowna, county Longford, 214 ft. above
sea-level, flows north through Lough Oughter with a serpentine course
and a direction generally northward, and then broadens into the Upper
Lough Erne, a shallow irregular sheet of water 13 m. long, so beset with
islands as to present the appearance of a number of water-channels
ramifying through the land. The river then winds past the town of
Enniskillen on its island, and enters Lough Erne, a beautiful lake
nearly 18 m. long and 5 m. in extreme width, containing many islands,
but less closely covered with them than the upper lough. One of them,
Devenish, is celebrated for its antiquarian remains (see ENNISKILLEN).
The river then runs westward to Donegal Bay, forming a fine fall at
Ballyshannon (q.v.). Lough Erne contains trout and pike. These waters
admit of navigation by small steamers, but little trade is carried on.
The area of the Erne basin, which includes a vast number of small
loughs, is about 1600 sq. m., and it covers part of the counties Cavan,
Longford, Leitrim, Fermanagh and Donegal. The length of the Erne valley
is about 70 m.
ERNEST I. [ERNST ANTON KARL LUDWIG], duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
(1784-1844), was the son of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and
was born on the 2nd of January 1784. At the time of his father's death
(9th of December 1806) the duchy of Coburg was occupied by Napoleon as
conquered territory, and Ernest did not come into his inheritance till
after the peace of Tilsit (July 1807). Owing to the part he had played
in assisting the Prussians at the battle of Auerstädt he continued out
of favour with Napoleon, and he threw himself with vigour into the war
of liberation against the French. After the battle of Leipzig he was
given the command of the V. army corps and reduced Mainz by blockade; he
also commanded the Saxon troops during the campaign of 1815. By the
congress of Vienna he was rewarded with the principality of Lichtenberg
on the left bank of the Rhine, which received a slight augmentation
after the second peace of Paris. These territories he sold to Prussia in
1834. In 1826, in the division of the territories of the duchy of
Saxe-Gotha which followed the death of its last duke (February 1825), he
received the duchy of Gotha, ceding that of Saalfeld to the duke of
Meiningen; and he now exchanged his style of Ernest III. of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld for that of Ernest I. of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In 1821
he had given a constitution to Coburg, but he did not interfere with the
traditional system of estates at Gotha. He died on the 29th of January
1844.
Duke Ernest, who was not only a good soldier and keen sportsman, but an
enlightened patron of the arts and sciences, did much for the economic,
educational and constitutional development of his territories; and his
advice always carried great weight in the councils of the other German
sovereigns. It was, however, for the splendid international position
attained by the house of Coburg under him that his reign is chiefly
distinguished. His younger brother Leopold (q.v.) became king of the
Belgians; his brother Ferdinand (b. 1785) married the wealthy princess
Antoinette von Kohary (1816) and was the father of the duchess of
Nemours and of the future King Ferdinand of Portugal. Of his sisters,
Antoinette (1779-1824) married Duke Alexander of Württemberg; Juliane
[Alexandra Feodorovna] (1781-1860) married the Russian cesarevich
Constantine, from whom she was, however, divorced in 1820; and Victoria
(1786-1861), wife of Edward Augustus, duke of Kent, became the mother of
Queen Victoria. Duke Ernest was twice married: (1) in 1817 to Louise,
daughter of Duke Augustus of Saxe-Gotha, whom he finally divorced in
1826; (2) in 1831 to Maria, daughter of Duke Alexander of Württemberg.
Of his sons, by his first wife, Ernest succeeded him in the duchy, and
Albert married Queen Victoria.
ERNEST II., duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1818-1893), was born at Coburg on
the 21st of June 1818, being the eldest son of Duke Ernest I. He enjoyed
a varied education; he studied at the university of Bonn with his
brother Albert; his military training he received in the Saxon army. The
widespread connexions of his family opened to him many courts of Europe,
and after he became of age he travelled much. The position of his uncle
Leopold, who was king of the Belgians, and especially the marriage of
his brother Albert to the queen of England, his cousin, gave him
peculiar opportunities for becoming acquainted with the political
problems of Europe. In 1840-1841 he undertook a journey to Spain and
Portugal; in the latter country another cousin, Ferdinand, was
king-consort. In 1844 he succeeded his father. His own character and the
influence of the king of the Belgians made him one of the most Liberal
princes in Germany. He was able to bring to a satisfactory conclusion
disputes with the Coburg estates. He passed through the ordeal of the
revolution of 1848 with little trouble, for he anticipated the demands
of the people of Gotha for a reform, and in 1852 introduced a new
constitution by which the administration of his two duchies was
assimilated in many points. The government of his small dominions did
not afford sufficient scope for his restless and versatile ambition;
his desire to play a great part in German affairs was probably increased
by the feeling that, though he was the head of his house, he was to some
extent overshadowed by the younger branches of the family which ruled in
Belgium, England and Portugal. He was one of the foremost supporters of
every attempt made to reform the German constitution and bring about the
unity of Germany. He took a warm interest in the proceedings of the
Frankfort parliament, and it was often said, probably without reason,
that he hoped to be chosen emperor himself. However that may be, he
strongly urged the king of Prussia to accept that position when it was
offered him in 1849; he took a very prominent part in the complicated
negotiations of the following year, and it was at his suggestion that a
congress of princes met at Berlin in 1850. He highly valued the
opportunities which this and similar meetings gave him for exercising
political influence, and he would have felt most at home as a member of
a permanent council of the German princes.
Ambitious also of military distinction, and sympathizing with the rising
of the people of Schleswig-Holstein against the Danes in 1849, Ernest
accepted a command in the federal army. In the engagement of Eckernförde
in April 1849 the troops under his orders succeeded in capturing two
Danish frigates, a remarkable feat of which he was justly proud. His
greatest services to Germany were performed during the years of reaction
which followed; almost alone among the German princes he remained
faithful to the Liberal and National ideals, and he allowed his
dominions to be used as an asylum by the writers and politicians who had
to leave Prussia and Saxony. The reactionary parties looked on him with
great suspicion, and it was at this time that he formed a friendship
with Gustav Freytag, the celebrated novelist, whom he protected when the
Prussian government demanded his arrest. His connexion with the English
court gave him a position of much influence, but no one was more purely
German in his feelings and opinions. The marriage of his niece Victoria
with Frederick, the heir to the Prussian throne, strengthened his
connexion with Prussia, but caused the Conservative party to look with
increased suspicion on the Coburg influence. He was the first German
prince to visit Napoleon III., and was present when Orsini made his
celebrated attempt on the emperor's life. After 1860 he became the chief
patron and protector of the _National Verein_; he encouraged the
newly-formed rifle clubs, and notwithstanding the strong disapproval of
his fellow-monarchs, allowed his court to become the centre of the
rising national agitation. Still a warm adherent of Prussia, in 1862 he
set an example to the other princes by voluntarily making an agreement
by which his troops were placed in war under the command of the king of
Prussia. Like all the other Nationalists, he was much embarrassed by the
policy of Bismarck, and the democratic opinions of the Coburg court,
which were shared by the crown prince Frederick, were a serious
embarrassment to that minister. The opposition became more accentuated
when the duke allowed his dominions to be used as the headquarters of
the agitation in favour of Frederick, duke of Augustenburg, who claimed
the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, and it was at this time that
Bismarck is reported to have said that if Frederick the Great had been
alive the duke would have been in the fortress of Spandau. In 1863 he
was present at the _Fürstentag_ in Frankfort, and from this time was in
more frequent communication with the Austrian court, where his cousin
Alexander, Count Mensdorff, was minister. However, when war broke out in
1866, he at once placed his troops at the disposition of Prussia;
Bismarck had in an important letter explained to him his policy and
tactics. He was personally concerned in one of the most interesting
events of the war; for the Hanoverian army, in its attempt to march
south and join the Bavarians, had to pass through Thuringia, and the
battle of Langensalza was fought in the immediate neighbourhood of
Gotha. His troops took part in the battle, which ended in the rout of
the Prussians, the duke, who was not present during the fight, in vain
attempting to stop it. He bore an important share in the negotiations
before and after the battle, and his action at this time has been the
subject of much controversy, for it was suggested that while he offered
to mediate he really acted as a partisan of Prussia. For his services to
Prussia he received as a present the forest of Schmalkalden. He was with
the Prussian headquarters in Bohemia during the latter part of the war.
With the year 1866 the political rôle which Ernest had played ended. The
result was perhaps not quite equal to his expectations, but it must be
remembered how difficult was the position of the minor German princes;
and he quoted with great satisfaction the words used in 1871 by the
emperor William at Versailles, that "to him in no small degree was due
the establishment of the empire." He was a man of varied tastes, a good
musician--he composed several operas and songs--and a keen sportsman, a
quality in which he differed from his brother. Notwithstanding his
Liberalism, he had a great regard for the dignity of his rank and
family, and in his support of constitutional government would never have
sacrificed the essential prerogatives of sovereignty. He died at
Reinhardsbrunn on the 22nd of August 1893. In 1842 the duke married
Alexandrine, daughter of the grandduke of Baden; there were no children
by this marriage and the succession to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha passed
therefore to the children of his younger brother Albert. By Albert's
marriage contract the duchy could not be held together with the English
crown; thus his eldest son, afterwards Edward VII., was passed over and
it came to his second son, Alfred, duke of Edinburgh (1844-1900). When
Alfred died without sons in July 1900 the succession to the duchy passed
to a younger brother Arthur, duke of Connaught; but the duke and his
son, Arthur, passed on their claim to Charles Edward, duke of Albany (b.
1884), who became duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in succession to his uncle
Alfred. In 1905 Charles Edward married Victoria Adelaide (b. 1885),
princess of Schleswig-Holstein, by whom he has a son John Leopold (b.
1906).
Duke Ernest was something of a writer. He brought out an account of the
travels in Egypt and Abyssinia which he undertook in 1862 as _Reise des
Herzogs Ernst von Sachsen-Koburg-Gotha nach Ägypten_ (Leipzig, 1864);
and he published his memoirs, _Aus meinem Leben und aus meiner Zeit_
(Berlin, 1887-1889). This work is in three volumes and contains much
valuable information on a most critical period of German history; there
is an English translation by P. Andreae (1888-1890).
See also Sir T. Martin, _Life of H.R.H. the Prince Consort_
(1875-1880); Hon. C. Grey, _Early Years of the Prince Consort_ (1867);
A. Ohorn, _Herzog Ernst II., ein Lebensbild_ (Leipzig, 1894); and E.
Tempeltey, _Herzog Ernst von Koburg und das Jahr 1866_ (Berlin, 1898).
(J. W. He.)
ERNEST AUGUSTUS (1771-1851), king of Hanover and duke of Cumberland,
fifth son of the English king George III., was born at Kew on the 5th of
June 1771. Having studied at the university of Göttingen, he entered the
Hanoverian army, serving as a leader of cavalry when war broke out
between Great Britain and France in 1793, and winning a reputation for
bravery. He lost the sight of one eye at the battle of Tournai in May
1794, and when Hanover withdrew from the war in 1795 he returned to
England, being made lieutenant-general in the British army in 1799. In
the same year he was created duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale and
granted an allowance of £12,000 a year, after which he held several
lucrative military positions in England, and began to attend the
sittings of the House of Lords and to take part in political life. A
stanch Tory, the duke objected to all proposals of reform, especially to
the granting of any relief to the Roman Catholics, and had great
influence with his brother the prince regent, afterwards King George
IV., in addition to being often consulted by the Tory leaders. In 1810
he was severely injured by an assassin, probably his valet Sellis, who
was found dead; and subsequently two men were imprisoned for asserting
that the duke had murdered his valet. Recovering from his wounds,
Cumberland again proceeded to the seat of war; and having been made a
British field-marshal, was in command of the Hanoverian army during the
campaigns of 1813 and 1814, being present, although not in action, at
the battle of Leipzig. In May 1815 Ernest married his cousin, Frederica
(1778-1841), daughter of Charles II. duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and
widow of Frederick, prince of Solms-Braunfels, a union which was very
repugnant to his mother Queen Charlotte, and was disliked in England,
where the duke's strong Toryism had made him unpopular. Parliament
refused to increase his allowance from £18,000, to which it had been
raised in 1804, to £24,000 a year, and indignant at the treatment he
received the duke spent some years in Berlin. Returning to England after
the accession of George IV. in 1820, his political power was again
considerable, while deaths in the royal family made it likely that he
would succeed to the throne. Although his personal influence with the
sovereign ceased upon the death of George IV. in 1830, the duke
continued to oppose all measures for the extension of civil and
religious liberty, including the Reform Bill of 1832; and his
unpopularity was augmented by suspicions that he had favoured the
formation of Orange lodges in the army. When William IV. died in June
1837, the crowns of Great Britain and Hanover were separated; and
Ernest, as the nearest male heir of the late king, became king of
Hanover. At once cancelling the constitution which William had given to
his kingdom in 1833, he acted as an absolute monarch, and the
constitution which he sanctioned in 1840 was permeated with his own
illiberal ideas. In German politics he was vigilant and active, and
mindful of the material interests of his country. His reign, however,
was a stormy one, and serious trouble between king and people had arisen
when he died at Herrenhausen on the 18th of November 1851 (see HANOVER:
_History_). In spite of his arbitrary rule and his reactionary ideas the
king was popular among his subjects, and his statue in Hanover bears the
words "_Dem Landes Vater sein treues Volk_." Ernest, who is generally
regarded as the ablest of the sons of George III., left an only child,
George, who succeeded him as king of Hanover.
See C.A. Wilkinson, _Reminiscences of the Court and Times of King
Ernest of Hanover_ (London, 1886); von Malortie, _König Ernst August_
(Hanover, 1861); and the various histories of Great Britain and
Hanover for the period.
ERNESTI, JOHANN AUGUST (1707-1781), German theologian and philologist,
was born on the 4th of August 1707, at Tennstädt in Thuringia, of which
place his father was pastor, besides being superintendent of the
electoral dioceses of Thuringia, Salz and Sangerhausen. At the age of
sixteen he was sent to the celebrated Saxon cloister school of Pforta
(Schulpforta). At twenty he entered the university of Wittenberg, and
studied afterwards at the university of Leipzig. In 1730 he was made
master in the faculty of philosophy. In the following year he accepted
the office of conrector in the Thomas school of Leipzig, of which J.M.
Gesner was then rector, an office to which Ernesti succeeded in 1734. He
was, in 1742, named professor _extraordinarius_ of ancient literature in
the university of Leipzig, and in 1756 professor _ordinarius_ of
rhetoric. In the same year he received the degree of doctor of theology,
and in 1759 was appointed professor _ordinarius_ in the faculty of
theology. Through his learning and his manner of discussion, he
co-operated with S.J. Baumgarten of Halle (1706-1757) in disengaging the
current dogmatic theology from its many scholastic and mystical
excrescences, and thus paved a way for a revolution in theology. He
died, after a short illness, in his seventy-sixth year, on the 11th of
September 1781.
It is perhaps as much from the impulse which Ernesti gave to sacred and
profane criticism in Germany, as from the intrinsic excellence of his
own works in either department, that he must derive his reputation as a
philologist or theologian. With J.S. Semler he co-operated in the
revolution of Lutheran theology, and in conjunction with Gesner he
instituted a new school in ancient literature. He detected grammatical
niceties in Latin, in regard to the consecution of tenses which had
escaped preceding critics. His canons are, however, not without
exceptions. As an editor of the Greek classics, Ernesti hardly deserves
to be named beside his Dutch contemporaries, Tiberius Hemsterhuis
(1685-1766), L.C. Valckenaer (1715-1785), David Ruhnken (1723-1798), or
his colleague J.J. Reiske (1716-1774). The higher criticism was not even
attempted by Ernesti. But to him and to Gesner is due the credit of
having formed, by discipline and by example, philologists greater than
themselves, and of having kindled the national enthusiasm for ancient
learning. It is chiefly in hermeneutics that Ernesti has any claim to
eminence as a theologian. But here his merits are distinguished, and, at
the period when his _Institutio Interpretis N. T._ was published (1761),
almost peculiar to himself. In it we find the principles of a general
interpretation, formed without the assistance of any particular
philosophy, but consisting of observations and rules which, though
already enunciated, and applied in the criticism of the profane writers,
had never rigorously been employed in biblical exegesis. He was, in
fact, the founder of the grammatico-historical school. He admits in the
sacred writings as in the classics only one acceptation, and that the
grammatical, convertible into and the same with the logical and
historical. Consequently he censures the opinion of those who in the
illustration of the Scriptures refer everything to the illumination of
the Holy Spirit, as well as that of others who, disregarding all
knowledge of the languages, would explain words by things. The "analogy
of faith," as a rule of interpretation, he greatly limits, and teaches
that it can never afford of itself the explanation of words, but only
determine the choice among their possible meanings. At the same time he
seems unconscious of any inconsistency between the doctrine of the
inspiration of the Bible as usually received and his principles of
hermeneutics.
Among his works the more important are:--I. In classical literature:
_Initia doctrinae Solidioris_ (1736), many subsequent editions;
_Initia rhetorica_ (1730); editions, mostly annotated, of Xenophon's
_Memorabilia_ (1737), Cicero (1737-1739), Suetonius (1748), Tacitus
(1752), the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes (1754), Homer (1759-1764),
Callimachus (1761), Polybius (1764), as well as of the _Quaestura_ of
Corradus, the Greek lexicon of Hedericus, and the _Bibliotheca Latina_
of Fabricius (unfinished); _Archaeologia litteraria_ (1768), new and
improved edition by Martini (1790); Horatius Tursellinus _De
particulis_ (1769). II. In sacred literature: _Antimuratorius sive
confutatio disputationis Muratorianae de rebus liturgicis_
(1755-1758); _Neue theologische Bibliothek_, vols. i. to x.
(1760-1769); _Institutio interpretis Nov. Test._ (3rd ed., 1775);
_Neueste theologische Bibliothek_, vols. i. to x. (1771-1775). Besides
these, he published more than a hundred smaller works, many of which
have been collected in the three following publications:--_Opuscula
oratoria_ (1762, 2nd ed., 1767); _Opuscula philologica et critica_
(1764, 2nd ed., 1776); _Opuscula theologica_ (1773). See Herzog-Hauck,
_Realencyklopädie_; J.E. Sandys, _Hist. of Class. Schol._ iii. (1908).
ERNESTI, JOHANN CHRISTIAN GOTTLIEB (1756-1802), German classical
scholar, was born at Arnstadt, Thuringia, and studied under his uncle,
J.A. Ernesti, at the university of Leipzig. On the 5th of June, 1782, he
was made supplementary professor of philosophy at his own university;
and on the death of his cousin August Wilhelm in 1801 he was for five
months professor of rhetoric. He died on the 5th of June of the
following year.
His principal works are:--Editions of Aesop's _Fabulae_ (1781); of the
_Glossae sacrae of Hesychius_ (1785) and _Suidas and Phavorinus_
(1786); and of _Silius Italicus Punica_ (1791-1792); _Lexicon
Technologiae Graecorum rhetoricae_ (1795); _Lexicon technologiae
Latinorum rhetoricae_ (1797), and Cicero's _Geist und Kunst_
(1799-1802).
ERNST, HEINRICH WILHELM (1814-1865), German violinist and composer, was
born at Brünn, in Moravia, in 1814. He was educated at the
Conservatorium of Vienna, studying the violin under Joseph Böhm and
Joseph Mayseder, and composition under Ignaz von Seyfried. At the age of
sixteen he made a concert tour in south Germany, which established his
reputation as a violinist of the highest promise. In 1832 he went to
Paris, where he lived for several years. During this period he formed an
intimacy with Stephen Heller, which resulted in their charming joint
compositions--the _Pensées fugitives_ for piano and violin. In 1843 he
paid his first visit to London. The impression which he then made as a
violinist was more than confirmed in the following year, when his rare
powers were recognized by the musical public. Thenceforward he visited
England nearly every year, until his health broke down owing to
long-continued neuralgia of a most severe kind. The last seven years of
his life were spent in retirement, chiefly at Nice, where he died on the
8th of October 1865. As a violinist Ernst was distinguished by his
almost unrivalled executive power, loftiness of conception, and
intensely passionate expression. As a composer he wrote chiefly for his
own instrument, and his _Elegie_ and _Otello Fantasia_ rank among the
most treasured works for the violin.
ERODE, a town of British India, in the Coimbatore district of Madras,
situated on the right bank of the river Cauvery, which is here crossed
by an iron railway girder bridge of 22 spans. Pop. (1901) 15,529. Here
the South Indian railway joins the South-Western line of the Madras
railway, 243 m. from Madras. There are exports of cotton and saltpetre;
and the town has a steam cotton press.
EROS, a minor planet discovered by Witt at Berlin on the 14th of August
1898, and, so far as yet known, unique in that its perihelion lies far
within the orbit of Mars.
EROS, in Greek mythology, the god of love. He is not mentioned in Homer;
in Hesiod (_Theog._ 120) he is one of the oldest and the most beautiful
of the gods, whose power neither gods nor men can resist. He also
evolves order and harmony out of Chaos by uniting the separated
elements. This cosmic Eros, who in Orphic cosmogony sprang from the
world-egg which Chronos, or Time, laid in the bosom of Chaos, and which
is the origin of all created beings, degenerated in later mythology into
the capricious god of sexual passion, the son of Aphrodite and Zeus,
Ares or Hermes. He is commonly represented as a mischievous boy, the
tormentor of gods and men, even his own mother not being proof against
his attacks. His brother is Anteros, the god of mutual love, who
punishes those who do not return the love of others, without which Eros
could not thrive; he is sometimes described as the opponent of Eros. The
chief associates of Eros are Pothos and Himeros (Longing and Desire),
Peitho (Persuasion), the Muses and the Graces; he himself is in constant
attendance on Aphrodite. Later writers (Euripides being the first)
assumed the existence of a number of Erotes (like the Roman Amores and
Cupidines) with similar attributes. According to the philosophers, Eros
was not only the god of sexual love, but also of the loyal and devoted
friendship of men; hence the Theban "Sacred Band" was devoted to him,
and the Cretans and Spartans offered sacrifice to him before going into
battle (Athenaeus xiii. p. 561). In Alexandrian poetry Eros is at one
time the powerful god who conquers all, at another the elfish god of
love. For the Roman adaptation of Eros see Cupid, and for the later
legend of Cupid and Psyche see PSYCHE.
In art Eros is represented as a beautiful youth or a winged child. His
attributes are the bow and arrows and a burning torch. The rose, the
hare, the cock and the goat are frequently associated with him. The most
celebrated statue of him was at Thespiae, the work of Praxiteles. Other
famous representations are the Vatican torso and Eros trying his bow (in
the Capitoline museum).
See J.E. Harrison, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_
(1903); G.F. Schömann, _De Cupidine Cosmogonico_ (1852); E. Gerhard,
_Über den Gott Eros_ (1850); articles in Roscher's _Lexikon der
Mythologie_, Daremberg and Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquités_, and
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopädie_.
ERPENIUS (original name VAN ERPE), THOMAS (1584-1624), Dutch
Orientalist, was born at Gorcum, in Holland, on the 11th of September
1584. After completing his early education at Leiden, he entered the
university of that city, and in 1608 took the degree of master of arts.
By the advice of Scaliger he studied Oriental languages whilst taking
his course of theology. He afterwards travelled in England, France,
Italy and Germany, forming connexions with learned men, and availing
himself of the information which they communicated. During his stay at
Paris he contracted a friendship with Casaubon, which lasted during his
life, and also took lessons in Arabic from an Egyptian, Joseph Barbatus,
otherwise called Abu-dakni. At Venice he perfected himself in the
Turkish, Persic and Ethiopic languages. After a long absence, Erpenius
returned to his own country in 1612, and on the 10th of February 1613 he
was appointed professor of Arabic and other Oriental languages, Hebrew
excepted, in the university of Leiden. Soon after his settlement at
Leiden, animated by the example of Savary de Brèves, who had established
an Arabic press at Paris at his own charge, he caused new Arabic
characters to be cut at a great expense, and erected a press in his own
house. In 1619 the curators of the university of Leiden instituted a
second chair of Hebrew in his favour. In 1620 he was sent by the States
of Holland to induce Pierre Dumoulin or André Rivet to settle in that
country; and after a second journey he was successful in inducing Rivet
to comply with their request. Some time after the return of Erpenius,
the states appointed him their interpreter; and in this capacity he had
the duty imposed upon him of translating and replying to the different
letters of the Moslem princes of Asia and Africa. His reputation had now
spread throughout all Europe, and several princes, the kings of England
and Spain, and the archbishop of Seville made him the most flattering
offers; but he constantly refused to leave his native country. He was
preparing an edition of the Koran with a Latin translation and notes,
and was projecting an Oriental library, when he died prematurely on the
13th of November 1624.
Among his works may be mentioned his _Grammatica Arabica_, published
originally in 1613 and often reprinted; _Rudimenta linguae Arabicae_
(1620); _Grammatica Ebraea generalis_ (1621); _Grammatica Chaldaica et
Syria_ (1628); and an edition of Elmacin's _History of the Saracens_.
ERROLL (or ERROL), FRANCIS HAY, 9TH EARL OF (d. 1631), Scottish
nobleman, was the son of Andrew, 8th earl, and of Lady Jean Hay,
daughter of William, 6th earl. The date of his birth is unrecorded, but
he succeeded to the earldom (cr. 1453) in 1585, was early converted to
Roman Catholicism, and as the associate of Huntly joined in the Spanish
conspiracies against the throne of Elizabeth. A letter written by him,
declaring his allegiance to the king of Spain, having been intercepted
and sent by Elizabeth to James in February 1589, he was declared a rebel
by the council. He engaged with Huntly and Crawford in a rebellion in
the north of Scotland, but their forces surrendered at Aberdeen on the
arrival of the king in April; and in July Erroll gave himself up to
James, who leniently refrained from exacting any penalty. In September
of the same year he entered into a personal bond with Huntly for mutual
assistance; and in 1590 displeased the king by marrying, in spite of his
prohibition, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter of the earl of Morton. He
was imprisoned on suspicion of complicity in the attempt made by Gray
and Bothwell to surprise the king at Falkland in June 1592; and though
he obtained his release, he was again proclaimed a rebel on account of
the discovery of his signature to two of the "Spanish Blanks," unwritten
sheets subscribed with the names of the chief conspirators in a plot for
a Spanish invasion of Scotland, to be filled up later with the terms of
the projected treaty. After a failure to apprehend him in March 1593,
Erroll and his companions were sentenced to abjure Romanism or leave the
kingdom; and on their non-compliance were in 1594 declared traitors. On
the 3rd of October they defeated at Glenlivet a force sent against them
under Argyll; though Erroll himself was severely wounded, and Slains
Castle, his seat, razed to the ground. The rebel lords left Scotland in
1595, and Erroll, on report of his further conspiracies abroad, was
arrested by the states of Zealand, but was afterwards allowed to escape.
He returned to Scotland secretly in 1596, and on the 20th of June 1597
abjured Romanism and made his peace with the Kirk. He enjoyed the favour
of the king, and in 1602 was appointed a commissioner to negotiate the
union with England. His relations with the Kirk, however, were not so
amicable. The reality of his conversion was disputed, and on the 21st of
May 1608 he was confined to the city of Perth "for the better resolution
of his doubts," being subsequently declared an obstinate "papist,"
excommunicated, deprived of his estate, and imprisoned at Dumbarton; and
after some further vacillation was finally released in May 1611. Lord
Erroll died on the 16th of July 1631, and was buried in the church of
Slains. He married (1) Anne, daughter of John, 4th earl of Atholl; (2)
Margaret, daughter of the regent Murray; and (3) Elizabeth, daughter of
William, 6th earl of Morton. By his third wife he had several children,
of whom his eldest son, William, succeeded him. The dispute which began
in his lifetime concerning the hereditary office of lord high constable
between the families of Erroll and of the Earl Marischal was settled
finally in favour of the former; thus establishing the precedence
enjoyed by the earls of Erroll next after the royal family over all
other subjects in Scotland.
See _The Erroll Papers_ (Spalding Club Miscellany, vol. ii. 211);
Andrew Lang, _Hist. of Scotland_, vol. ii.; _Hist. MSS. Comm. MSS. of
Earl of Mar and Kellie_; D. Calderwood's _Hist. of the Church of
Scotland_; John Spalding's _Memorials_ (Spalding Club, 1850);
_Collected Essays_ of T.G. Law, ed. by P.H. Brown (1904); _Treason and
Plot_, by M.A.S. Hume (1901).
ERROR (Lat. _error_, from _errare_, to wander, to err), a mistake, a
departure or deviation from what is true, exact or right. For the legal
process by which a judgment could be reversed on the ground of error,
known as a "writ of error," see WRIT and APPEAL. The words "error
excepted" or "errors and omissions excepted" (contracted to "E.E." "E. &
O.E."), are frequently placed at the end of a statement of account or an
invoice, so that the accounting party may reserve the right to correct
any errors or omissions which may be subsequently discovered, or make
further claims in respect of them. In mathematics, "error" is the
deviation of an observed or calculated quantity from its true value. The
calculus of errors leads to the formulation of the "law of error," which
is an analytical expression of the most probably true value of a series
of discordant values (see PROBABILITY).
ERSCH, JOHANN SAMUEL (1766-1828), the founder of German bibliography,
was born at Grossglogau, in Silesia, on the 23rd of June 1766. In 1785
he entered the university of Halle with the view of studying theology;
but soon his whole attention became engrossed by history, bibliography
and geography. At Halle he made the acquaintance of J.E. Fabri,
professor of geography; and when the latter was made professor of
history and statistics at Jena, Ersch accompanied him thither, and aided
him in the preparation of several works. In 1788 he published the
_Verzeichnis aller anonymischen Schriften_, as a supplement to the 4th
edition of Meusel's _Gelehrtes Deutschland_. The researches required for
this work suggested to him the preparation of a _Repertorium über die
allgemeinen deutschen Journale und andere periodische Sammlungen für
Erdbeschreibung, Geschichte, und die damit verwandten Wissenschaften_
(Lemgo, 1790-1792). The fame which this publication acquired him led to
his being engaged by Schütz and Hufeland to prepare an _Allgemeines
Repertorium der Literatur_, published in 8 vols. (Jena and Weimar,
1793-1809), which condensed the literary productions of 15 years
(1785-1800), and included an account not merely of the books published
during that period, but also of articles in periodicals and magazines,
and even of the criticisms to which each book had been subjected. While
engaged in this great work he also projected _La France littéraire_,
which was published at Hamburg in 5 vols., from 1797 to 1806. In 1795 he
went to Hamburg to edit the _Neue Hamburger Zeitung_, founded by Victor
Klopstock, brother of the poet, but returned in 1800 to Jena to take
active part in the _Allgemeine Literaturzeitung_. He also obtained in
the same year the office of librarian in the university, and in 1802 was
made professor of philosophy. In 1803 he accepted the chair of geography
and statistics at Halle, and in 1808 was made principal librarian. He
here projected a _Handbuch der deutschen Literatur seit der Mitte des
18. Jahrh. bis auf die neueste Zeit_ (Leipzig, 1812-1814) and, along
with Johann Gottfried Gruber (q.v.), the _Allgemeine Encyklopädie der
Wissenschaften und Künste_ (Leipzig, 1818 ffg.) which he continued as
far as the 21st volume. The accuracy and thoroughness of this monumental
encyclopaedia make it still an indispensable book of reference. Ersch
died at Halle on the 16th of January 1828.
ERSKINE, EBENEZER (1680-1754), Scottish divine, the chief founder of the
Secession Church (formed of dissenters from the Church of Scotland), was
born on the 22nd of June 1680, most probably at Dryburgh, Berwickshire.
His father, Henry Erskine, who was at one time minister at Cornhill,
Durham, was ejected in 1662 by the Act of Uniformity, and, after
suffering some years' imprisonment, was after the Revolution appointed
to the parish of Chirnside, Berwickshire. After studying at the
university of Edinburgh, Ebenezer became minister of Portmoak,
Kinross-shire. There he remained for twenty-eight years, after which,
in the autumn of 1731, he was translated to the West Church, Stirling.
Some time before this, he, along with some other ministers, was "rebuked
and admonished," by the general assembly, for defending the doctrines
contained in the _Marrow of Modern Divinity_ (see BOSTON, THOMAS). A
sermon which he preached on lay patronage before the synod of Perth in
1733 furnished new grounds of accusation, and he was compelled to shield
himself from rebuke by appealing to the general assembly. Here, however,
the sentence of the synod was confirmed, and after many fruitless
attempts to obtain a hearing, he, along with William Wilson of Perth,
Alexander Moncrieff of Abernethy and James Fisher of Kinclaven, was
suspended from the ministry by the commission in November of that year.
Against this sentence they protested, and constituted themselves into a
separate church court, under the name of the associate presbytery. In
1739 they were again summoned before the assembly, and in their
corporate capacity declined to acknowledge the authority of the church,
and were deposed in the following year. They received numerous
accessions to their communion, and remained in harmony with each other
till 1747, when a division took place in regard to the nature of the
oath administered to burgesses. Erskine joined with the "burgher"
section, and became their professor of theology. He continued also to
preach to a numerous congregation in Stirling till his death, which took
place on the 2nd of June 1754. Erskine was a very popular preacher, and
a man of considerable force of character; he acted throughout on
principle with honesty and courage. The burgher and anti-burgher
sections of the Secession Church were reunited in 1820, and in 1847 they
united with the relief synod in forming the United Presbyterian Church.
Erskine's published works consist chiefly of sermons. His _Life and
Diary_, edited by the Rev. Donald Fraser, was published in 1840. His
_Works_ were published in 1785.
ERSKINE, HENRY (1746-1817), lord advocate of Scotland, the second son of
Henry David, 10th earl of Buchan and brother of the lord chancellor
Erskine, was born in Edinburgh on the 1st of November 1746. He was
educated at the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh, and
was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1768. His
reputation as a clever and fluent speaker was first made in the debates
of the general assembly, of which he had been early elected an elder. In
1783 he was appointed to the office of lord advocate, which he held
during the brief coalition ministry of Fox and North. In 1785 he was
elected dean of the faculty of advocates, and was re-elected annually
till 1796, when his conduct in moving a series of resolutions at a
public meeting, condemning the government's sedition and treason bills,
brought on him the opposition of the ministerial party, and he was
deposed in favour of Robert Dundas. On the formation of the Grenville
ministry in 1806 he again became lord advocate and was returned to
parliament for the Haddington burghs, which he exchanged at the general
election of the same year for the Dumfries burghs. His tenure of the
lord advocateship ended in March 1807 on the downfall of the ministry.
In 1811 he gave up his practice at the bar and retired to his country
residence of Almondel, in Linlithgowshire, where he died on the 8th of
October 1817.
His eldest son, Henry David (1783-1857), succeeded as 12th earl of
Buchan on his uncle's death in 1829.
Erskine's reputation will survive as the finest and most eloquent orator
of his day at the Scottish bar; added to a charming forensic style was a
most captivating wit, which, as Lord Jeffrey said, was "all argument,
and each of his delightful illustrations a material step in his
reasoning." Erskine was also the author of some poems, of which the best
known is "The Emigrant" (1783).
See Lieut.-Col. A. Fergusson's _Henry Erskine_ (1882).
ERSKINE, JOHN (1721-1803), Scottish divine, son of John Erskine of
Carnock, was born on the 2nd of June 1721. He studied law for a time
after completing his course in arts at the university of Edinburgh, but
was eventually licensed to preach in 1743; and was successively parish
minister of Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, Culross, in Fifeshire (1753),
New Greyfriars church in Edinburgh (1758), and Old Greyfriars church in
1768, where he became the colleague of Principal Robertson, the
historian. Here he remained until his death, which took place on the
19th of January 1803. Dr Erskine's writings consist chiefly of
controversial pamphlets on theological subjects. His sermons are clear,
vigorous expositions of a moderate Calvinism, in which metaphysical
argument and practical morality are happily blended. In church politics
he was the leader of the evangelical party; and was much beloved for his
high character and amiability.
For his life and works see Sir H. Moncreiff Wellwood, _Life and
Writings of J. Erskine, D.D._ (Edinburgh, 1818).
ERSKINE, JOHN, of Carnock (1695-1768), Scottish jurist, son of
Lieut.-Colonel John Erskine, was born in 1695. He was admitted a member
of the faculty of advocates in 1719. Although he never enjoyed much
practice at the bar, he acquired a high reputation as a sound and
learned lawyer, and in 1737 was appointed professor of Scots law in the
university of Edinburgh. In 1754 he published his _Principles of the Law
of Scotland_. He retired from his chair in 1765; and during the
remainder of his uneventful life he occupied himself with the
preparation of his great work, the _Institutes of the Law of Scotland_,
which he did not live to publish. He died at Cardross, Perthshire, on
the 1st of March 1768.
Erskine's _Institutes_, although not exhibiting the grasp of principle
which distinguished his great predecessor Lord Stair, is so conspicuous
for learning, accuracy and sound good sense, that it has always been
esteemed of the highest authority on the law of Scotland. The first
edition appeared in 1773 and it has been many times reprinted. The
_Principles_, although published first, is substantially an abridgment
of the larger work, and is in some respects superior to it, being more
concise and direct. It retains its place as the text-book on Scots law,
and is frequently being re-edited.
ERSKINE, JOHN, of Dun (1509-1591), Scottish reformer, the son of Sir
John Erskine, laird of Dun, was born in 1509, and was educated at King's
College, Aberdeen. At the age of twenty-one Erskine was the
cause--probably by accident--of a priest's death, and was forced to go
abroad, where he came under the influence of the new learning. It was
through his agency that Greek was first taught in Scotland by Petrus de
Marsiliers at Montrose. This fact counted for much in the progress of
the Reformation. Erskine was also drawn towards the new faith, being a
close friend of George Wishart, the reformer, from whose fate he was
saved by his wealth and influence, and of John Knox, whose advice openly
to discountenance the mass was given in the lodgings of the laird of
Dun. In the stormy controversies of the time of Mary Stuart and James
VI. Erskine was a conspicuous figure and a moderating influence. He was
able to soothe the queen when her feelings had been outraged by Knox's
denunciations--being a man "most gentill of nature"--and frequently
acted as mediator both between the catholic and reforming parties, and
among the reformers themselves. In 1560 he was appointed--though a
layman--superintendent of the reformed church of Scotland for Angus and
Mearns, and in 1572 he gave his assent to the modified episcopacy
proposed by Morton at the Leith convention. Though never himself
ordained, he was held in such high esteem by the leaders of the church
as to be more than once elected moderator of the general assembly (first
in 1564), and he was amongst those who in 1578 drew up the _Second Book
of Discipline_. From 1579 he was a member of the king's council. He died
in 1591. Erskine owed his peculiar influence among the Scottish
reformers to the union--rare in those days--of steadfast convictions
with a conciliatory manner; Queen Mary described him as "a mild and
sweet-natured man, with true honesty and uprightness."
See the "Dun Papers" in the _Spalding Club Miscellany_, vol. iv.
(1849), and the article by T.F. Henderson in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._
ERSKINE, RALPH (1685-1752), Scottish divine, brother of Ebenezer Erskine
(q.v.), was born on the 18th of March 1685. After studying at the
university of Edinburgh, he was in 1711 ordained assistant minister at
Dunfermline. He homologated the protests which his brother laid on the
table of the assembly after being rebuked for his synod sermon, but he
did not formally withdraw from the establishment till 1737. He was also
present, though not as a member, at the first meeting of the associate
presbytery. When the severance took place on account of the oath
administered to burgesses, he adhered, along with his brother, to the
burgher section. He died after a short illness on the 6th of November
1752.
His works consist of sermons, poetical paraphrases and gospel sonnets.
The _Gospel Sonnets_ have frequently appeared separately. His _Life
and Diary_, edited by the Rev. D. Fraser, was published in 1842.
ERSKINE, THOMAS, of Linlathen (1788-1870), Scottish theologian, youngest
son of David Erskine, writer to the signet in Edinburgh, and of Anne
Graham, of the Grahams of Airth, was born on the 13th of October 1788.
He was a descendant of John, 1st or 6th earl of Mar, regent of Scotland
in the reign of James VI., a grandson of Colonel John Erskine of
Carnock. After being educated at the high school of Edinburgh and at
Durham, he attended the literary and law classes at the university of
Edinburgh, and becoming in 1810 a member of the Edinburgh faculty of
advocates, he for some time enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of
Cockburn, Jeffrey, Scott and other distinguished men whose talent then
lent lustre to the Scottish bar. In 1816 he succeeded to the family
estate of Linlathen, near Dundee, and devoted himself to theology. The
writings of Erskine, especially his published letters, are distinguished
by a graceful style, and possess originality and interest. His
theological views have a considerable similarity to those of Frederick
Denison Maurice, who acknowledges having been indebted to him for his
first true conception of the meaning of Christ's sacrifice. Erskine had
little interest in the "historical criticism" of Christianity, and
regarded as the only proper criterion of its truth its conformity or
nonconformity with man's spiritual nature, and its adaptability or
non-adaptability to man's spiritual needs. He considered the incarnation
of Christ as the necessary manifestation to man of an eternal sonship in
the divine nature, apart from which those filial qualities which God
demands from man could have no sanction; by _faith_ as used in Scripture
he understood to be meant a certain moral or spiritual activity or
energy which virtually implied salvation, because it implied the
existence of a principle of spiritual life possessed of an immortal
power. This faith, he believed, could be properly awakened only by the
manifestation, through Christ, of love as the law of life, and as
identical with an eternal righteousness which it was God's purpose to
bestow on every individual soul. As an interpreter of the mystical side
of Calvinism and of the psychological conditions which correspond with
the doctrines of grace Erskine is unrivalled. During the last
thirty-three years of his life Erskine ceased from literary work. Among
his friends were Madame Vernet, the duchess de Broglie, the younger Mdme
de Stael, M. Vinet of Lausanne, Edward Irving, Frederick D. Maurice,
Dean Stanley, Bishop Ewing, Dr John Brown and Thomas Carlyle. His wide
influence was due to his high character and unassuming earnestness. He
died at Edinburgh on the 20th of March 1870.
His principal works are _Remarks on the Internal Evidence for the
Truth of Revealed Religion_ (1820), an _Essay on Faith_ (1822), and
the _Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel_ (1828). These have all
passed through several editions, and have also been translated into
French. He is also the author of the _Brazen Serpent_ (1831), the
_Doctrine of Election_ (1839), several "Introductory Essays" to
editions of _Christian Authors_, and a posthumous work entitled
_Spiritual Order and Other Papers_ (1871). Two vols. of his letters,
edited by William Hanna, D.D., with reminiscences by Dean Stanley and
Principal Shairp, appeared in 1877.
ERSKINE, THOMAS ERSKINE, 1ST BARON (1750-1823), lord chancellor of
England, was the third and youngest son of Henry David, 10th earl of
Buchan, and was born in Edinburgh on the 10th of January 1750. From an
early age he showed a strong desire to enter one of the learned
professions; but his father, owing to his straitened circumstances, was
unable to do more than give him a good school education at the high
school of Edinburgh and the grammar school of St Andrews. In 1764 he
was sent as a midshipman on board the "Tartar," but on finding, when he
returned to this country after four years' absence in North America and
the West Indies, that there was little immediate chance of his rank of
acting lieutenant being confirmed, he quitted the service and entered
the army, purchasing a commission in the 1st Royals with the meagre
patrimony which had been left to him. But promotion here was as slow as
in the navy; while in 1770 he had added greatly to his difficulties by
marrying the daughter of Daniel Moore, M.P. for Marlow, an excellent
wife, but as poor as himself. However, an accidental visit to an assize
court in the town in which he was quartered, and an interview with Lord
Mansfield, the presiding judge, confirmed his resolve to quit the army
for the law. Accordingly on the 26th of April 1775 he was admitted a
student of Lincoln's Inn. He also on the 13th of January following
entered himself as a gentleman commoner on the books of Trinity College,
Cambridge, but merely that by graduating he might be called two years
earlier.
He read in the chambers of Francis Buller (afterwards Mr Justice Buller)
and George (afterwards Baron) Wood, and was called to the bar on the 3rd
of July 1778. His success was immediate and brilliant. An accident was
the means of giving him his first case, _Rex_ v. _Baillie_, in which he
appeared for Captain Thomas Baillie, the lieutenant-governor of
Greenwich hospital, who had published a pamphlet animadverting in severe
terms upon the abuses which Lord Sandwich, the first lord of the
admiralty, had introduced into the management of the hospital, and
against whom a rule had been obtained from the court of king's bench to
show cause why a criminal information for libel should not be filed.
Erskine was the junior of five counsel; and it was his good fortune that
the prolixity of his leaders consumed the whole of the first day,
thereby giving the advantage of starting afresh next morning. He made
use of this opportunity to deliver a speech of wonderful eloquence,
skill and courage, which captivated both the audience and the court. The
rule was discharged, and Erskine's fortune was made. He received, it is
said, thirty retainers before he left the court. In 1781 he delivered
another remarkable speech, in defence of Lord George Gordon--a speech
which gave the death-blow to the doctrine of constructive treason. In
1783, when the Coalition ministry came into power, he was returned to
parliament as member for Portsmouth. His first speech in the House of
Commons was a failure; and he never in parliamentary debate possessed
anything like the influence he had at the bar. He lost his seat at the
dissolution in the following year, and remained out of parliament until
1790, when he was again returned for Portsmouth. But his success at the
bar continued unimpaired. In 1783 he received a patent of precedence.
His first special retainer was in defence of Dr W.D. Shipley, dean of St
Asaph, who was tried in 1784 at Shrewsbury for seditious libel--a
defence to which was due the passing of the Libel Act 1792, laying down
the principle that it is for the jury, and not for the judge to decide
the question whether or no a publication is a libel. In 1789 he was
counsel for John Stockdale, a bookseller, who was charged with seditious
libel in publishing a pamphlet in favour of Warren Hastings, whose trial
was then proceeding; and his speech on this occasion, probably his
greatest effort, is a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a
jury. Three years afterwards he brought down the opposition alike of
friends and foes by defending Thomas Paine, author of _The Rights of
Man_--holding that an advocate has no right, by refusing a brief, to
convert himself into a judge. As a consequence he lost the office of
attorney-general to the prince of Wales, to which he had been appointed
in 1786; the prince, however, subsequently made amends by making him his
chancellor. Among Erskine's later speeches may be mentioned those for
Horne Tooke and the other advocates of parliamentary reform, and that
for James Hadfield, who was accused of shooting at the king. On the
accession of the Grenville ministry in 1806 he was made lord chancellor,
an office for which his training had in no way prepared him, but which
he fortunately held only during the short period his party was in
power. Of the remainder of his life it would be well if nothing could
be said. Occasionally speaking in parliament, and hoping that he might
return to office should the prince become regent, he gradually
degenerated into a state of useless idleness. Never conspicuous for
prudence, he aggravated his increasing poverty by an unfortunate second
marriage.
His first wife had died in 1805, and he married at Gretna Green a Miss
Mary Buck. The date of this marriage is not definitely known. Once
only--in his conduct in the case of Queen Caroline--does he recall his
former self. He died at Almondell, Linlithgowshire, on the 17th of
November 1823, of pneumonia, caught on the voyage to Scotland.
Erskine's great forensic reputation was, to a certain extent, a
concomitant of the numerous political trials of the day, but it was also
due to his impassioned eloquence and undaunted courage, which so often
carried audience and jury and even the court along with him. As a judge
he did not succeed; and it has been questioned whether under any
circumstances he could have succeeded. For the office of chancellor he
was plainly unfit. As a lawyer he was well read, but by no means
profound. His strength lay in the keenness of his reasoning faculty, in
his dexterity and the ability with which he disentangled complicated
masses of evidence, and above all in his unrivalled power of fixing and
commanding the attention of juries. To no department of knowledge but
law had he applied himself systematically, with the single exception of
English literature, of which he acquired a thorough mastery in early
life, at intervals of leisure in college, on board ship, or in the army.
Vanity is said to have been his ruling personal characteristic; but
those who knew him, while they admit the fault, say that in him it never
took an offensive form, even in old age, while the singular grace and
attractiveness of his manner endeared him to all with whom he came in
contact.
By his first wife he had four sons and four daughters. His eldest son,
David Montagu (1776-1855), was a well-known diplomatist; his second son,
Henry David (1786-1859), was dean of Ripon; and his third son, Thomas
(1788-1864), became a judge of the court of common pleas. By his second
wife he had one son, born in 1821.
In 1772 Erskine published _Observations on the Prevailing Abuses in
the British Army_, a pamphlet which had a large circulation, and in
later life, _Armata_, an imitation of _Gulliver's Travels_. His most
noted speeches have repeatedly appeared in a collected form. See
Campbell's _Lives of the Chancellors_; Moore's _Diaries_; Fergusson's
_Henry Erskine_ (1882); Dumerit's _Henry Erskine, a Study_ (Paris,
1883); Lord Brougham's _Memoir_, prefixed to Erskine's _Speeches_
(1847); Romilly's _Memoirs_; the _Croker Papers_; Lord Holland's
_Memoirs_.
ERUBESCITE, a native copper-iron sulphide, Cu5FeS4, of importance as an
ore of copper. It crystallizes in the cubic system, the usual form being
that of interpenetrating cubes twinned on an octahedral plane. The faces
are usually curved and rough, and the crystals confusedly aggregated
together. Compact and granular masses are of more frequent occurrence.
The colour on a freshly fractured surface is bronzy or coppery, but in
moist air this rapidly tarnishes with iridescent blue and red colours;
hence the names purple copper ore, variegated copper ore (Ger.
_Buntkupfererz_), horse-flesh ore, and erubescite (from the Lat.
_erubescere_, "to grow red"). The lustre is metallic, and the streak
greyish-black; hardness 3; sp. gr. 5.0. Bornite (after Baron Ignaz von
Born, b. 1742, d. 1791) is a name in common use for this mineral, and it
predates erubescite, the name given by J.D. Dana in 1850, but afterwards
rejected by him; French authors use the name phillipsite, after the
English mineralogist, R. Phillips, who analysed the mineral; both these
earlier names had, however, been previously used for other minerals.
Owing to the frequent presence of mechanically admixed chalcopyrite and
chalcocite, the published analyses of erubescite show wide variations,
the copper, for example, varying from 50 to 70%. Even the best Cornish
crystals enclose a nucleus of chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), and an analysis of
these made in 1839 led to the long-accepted formula Cu3FeS3. Recently,
B.J. Harrington has analysed carefully selected material and obtained
the formula Cu5FeS4.
Erubescite occurs in copper-bearing veins, and has been mined as an ore
of copper at Redruth in Cornwall, Montecatini in the province of Pisa,
Tuscany, Bristol in Connecticut, Acton in Canada, and other localities
in North America. The best crystallized specimens are from the Carn Brea
mine and other copper mines in the neighbourhood of Redruth, and from
Bristol in Connecticut. Recently a few large isolated crystals with the
form of icositetrahedra have been found with calcite and albite in a
gold-vein on Frossnitz-Alpe in the Gross-Venediger, Tirol.
(L. J. S.)
ERYSIPELAS (a Greek word, probably derived from [Greek: erythros], red,
and [Greek: pella], skin)--synonyms, _the Rose_, _St Anthony's Fire_--an
acute contagious disease, characterized by a special inflammation of the
skin, caused by a streptococcus. Erysipelas is endemic in most
countries, and epidemic at certain seasons, particularly the spring of
the year. The poison is not very virulent, but it certainly can be
conveyed by bedding and the clothes of a third person. Two varieties are
occasionally described, a traumatic and an idiopathic, but the disease
seems to depend in all cases upon the existence of a wound or abrasion.
In the so-called idiopathic variety, of which _facial erysipelas_ is the
best known, the point of entry is probably an abrasion by the lachrymal
duct.
When the erysipelas is of moderate character there is simply a redness
of the integument, which feels somewhat hard and thickened, and upon
which there often appear small vesications. This redness, though at
first circumscribed, tends to spread and affect the neighbouring sound
skin, until an entire limb or a large area of the body may become
involved in the inflammatory process. There is usually considerable
pain, with heat and tingling in the affected part. As the disease
advances the portions of skin first attacked become less inflamed, and
exhibit a yellowish appearance, which is followed by slight desquamation
of the cuticle. The inflammation in general gradually disappears.
Sometimes, however, it breaks out again, and passes over the area
originally affected the second time. But besides the skin, the subjacent
tissues may become involved in the inflammation, and give rise to the
formation of pus. This is termed _phlegmonous erysipelas_, and is much
more apt to occur in connexion with the traumatic variety of the
disease. Occasionally the affected parts become gangrenous. Certain
complications are apt to arise in erysipelas affecting the surface of
the body, particularly inflammation of serous membranes, such as the
pericardium or pleura.
Erysipelas of the face usually begins with symptoms of general illness,
the patient feeling languid, drowsy and sick, while frequently there is
a distinct rigor followed with fever. Sore throat is sometimes felt, but
in general the first indication of the local affection is a red and
painful spot at the side of the nose or on one of the cheeks or ears.
Occasionally it would appear that the inflammation begins in the throat,
and reaches the face through the nasal fossae. The redness gradually
spreads over the whole surface of the face, and is accompanied with
swelling, which in the lax tissues of the cheeks and eyelids is so great
that the features soon become obliterated and the countenance wears a
hideous expression. Advancing over the scalp, the disease may invade the
neck and pass on to the trunk, but in general the inflammation remains
confined to the face and head. While the disease progresses, besides the
pain, tenderness and heat of the affected parts, the constitutional
symptoms are very severe. The temperature rises often to 105° or higher,
remains high for four or five days, and then falls by crisis. Delirium
is a frequent accompaniment. The attack in general lasts for a week or
ten days, during which the inflammation subsides in the parts of the
skin first attacked, while it spreads onwards in other directions, and
after it has passed away there is, as already observed, some slight
desquamation of the cuticle.
Although in general the termination is favourable, serious and
occasionally fatal results follow from inflammation of the membranes of
the brain, and in some rare instances sudden death has occurred from
suffocation arising from oedema glottidis, the inflammatory action
having spread into and extensively involved the throat. One attack of
this disease, so far from protecting from, appears rather to predispose
to others. It is sometimes a complication in certain forms of exhausting
disease, such as phthisis or typhoid fever, and is then to be regarded
as of serious import. A very fatal form occasionally attacks new-born
infants, particularly in the first four weeks of their lives. In
epidemics of puerperal fever this form of erysipelas has been specially
found to prevail.
The treatment of erysipelas is best conducted on the expectant system.
The disease in most instances tends to a favourable termination; and
beyond attention to the condition of the stomach and bowels, which may
require the use of some gentle laxative, little is necessary in the way
of medicine. The employment of preparations of iron in large doses is
strongly recommended by many physicians. But the chief point is the
administration of abundant nourishment in a light and digestible form.
Of the many local applications which may be employed, hot fomentations
will be found among the most soothing. Dusting the affected part with
powdered starch, and wrapping it in cotton wadding, is also of use.
In the case of phlegmonous erysipelas complicating wounds, free
incisions into the part are necessary.
ERYTHRAE [mod. _Litri_], one of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor,
situated on a small peninsula stretching into the Bay of Erythrae, at an
equal distance from the mountains Mimas and Corycus, and directly
opposite the island of Chios. In the peninsula excellent wine was
produced. The town was said to have been founded by Ionians under
Knopos, son of Codrus. Never a large city, it sent only eight ships to
the battle of Lade. The Erythraeans owned for a considerable time the
supremacy of Athens, but towards the close of the Peloponnesian war they
threw off their allegiance to that city. After the battle of Cnidus,
however, they received Conon, and paid him honours in an inscription,
still extant. Erythrae was the birthplace of two prophetesses--one of
whom, Sibylla, is mentioned by Strabo as living in the early period of
the city; the other, Athenais, lived in the time of Alexander the Great.
The ruins include well-preserved Hellenistic walls with towers, of which
five are still visible. The acropolis (280 ft.) has the theatre on its
N. slope, and eastwards lie many remains of Byzantine buildings. Modern
Litri is a considerable place and port, extending from the ancient
harbour to the acropolis. The smaller coasting steamers call, and there
is an active trade with Chios and Smyrna.
ERYTHRITE, the name given to (1) a mineral composed of a hydrated cobalt
arsenate, and (2) in chemistry, a tetrahydric alcohol. (1) The mineral
erythrite has the formula Co3(AsO4)2·8H2O, and crystallizes in the
monoclinic system and is isomorphous with vivianite. It sometimes occurs
as beautiful radially-arranged groups of blade-shaped crystals with a
bright crimson colour and brilliant lustre. On exposure to light the
colour and lustre deteriorate. There is a perfect cleavage parallel to
the plane of symmetry, on which the lustre is pearly. Cleavage flakes
are soft (H = 2), sectile and flexible; specific gravity 2.95. The
mineral is, however, more often found as an earthy encrustation with a
peach-blossom colour, and in this form was early (1727) known as
cobalt-bloom (Ger. _Kobaltblüthe_). The name erythrite, from [Greek:
erythros], "red," was given by F.S. Beudant in 1382. Erythrite occurs as
a product of alteration of smaltite (CoAs2) and other cobaltiferous
arsenides. The finest crystallized specimens are from Schneeberg in
Saxony. The earthy variety has been found in Thuringia and Cornwall and
some other places. (2) The alcohol erythrite has the constitutional
formula HO·H2C·CH(OH)·CH(OH)·CH2OH; it is also known as erythrol,
erythroglucin and phycite. It corresponds to tartaric acid, and, like
this substance, it occurs in four stereo-isomeric forms. The internally
compensated modification, _i_-erythrite, corresponding to mesotartaric
acid, occurs free in the algae _Protococcus vulgaris_, and as the
orsellinate, erythrin, C4H6(OH)2(O·C8H7O3)2, in many lichens and algae,
especially _Roccella montagnei_. It has a sweet taste, melts at 126°,
and boils at 330°. Careful oxidation with dilute nitric acid gives
erythrose or tetrose, which is probably a mixture of a trioxyaldehyde
and trioxyketone. Energetic oxidation gives erythritic acid and
mesotartaric acid. _i_-Erythrite and the racemic mixture of the dextro
and laevo varieties were synthesized by Griner in 1893 from divinyl.
ERZERUM, or ARZRUM (Arm. _Garin_), the chief town of an important
vilayet of the same name in Asiatic Turkey. It is a military station and
a fortress of considerable strategical value, closing the roads from
Kars, Olti and other parts of the frontier. Several important routes
from Trebizond and various parts of Anatolia converge towards it from
the west. It is situated at the eastern end of an open bare plain, 30 m.
long and about 12 wide, bordered by steep, rounded mountains and
traversed by the Kara Su, or western Euphrates, which has its source in
the Dumlu Dagh a few miles north of that town, which lies at an
elevation of 6250 ft. above sea-level, while the near hills rise to
10,000 ft. The scenery in the neighbourhood is striking, lofty bare
mountains being varied by open plains and long valleys dotted with
villages. Just east of the town is the broad ridge of the Deveboyun
("Camel's Neck"), across which the road passes to Kars. To the south is
the Palanduken range, from which emerge numerous streams, supplying the
town with excellent water. In the plain to the north the Kara Su
traverses extensive marshes which afford good wildfowl-shooting in the
spring.
The town is surrounded by an earthen enceinte or rampart with some forts
on the hills just above it, and others on the Deveboyun ridge facing
east, the whole forming a position of considerable strength. The old
walls and the citadel have disappeared. Inside the ramparts the town
lies rather cramped, with narrow, crooked streets, badly drained and
dirty; the houses are generally built of dark grey volcanic stone with
flat roofs, the general aspect, owing to the absence of trees, being
somewhat gloomy. The water-supply from Palanduken is distributed by
wooden pipes to numerous public fountains. The town has a population of
about 43,000, including about 10,000 Armenians, 2000 Persians and a few
Jews. It has a garrison in peace of about 5000 men. It is the seat of
the British consulate for Kurdistan, and there are other European
consulates besides an American mission with schools. The great altitude
accounts for very severe winter cold, occasionally 10° to 25° below zero
F., accompanied by blizzards (_tipi_) sometimes fatal to travellers
overtaken by them. The summer heat is moderate (59° to 77°).
There are several well-built mosques (none older than the 16th century),
public baths, and several good khans. There are Armenian and Catholic
churches, but the most beautiful building is a _medresse_ erected in the
12th century by the Seljuks, with ornamental doorway and two graceful
minarets known as the _Chifte Minare_.
Situated on the main road from Trebizond into north-west Persia, the
town has always a large caravan traffic, principally of camels, but
since the improvement of communications in Russia this has declined. A
good carriage-road leads to the coast at Trebizond, the journey being
made in five or six days. There are also roads to Kars, Bayazid,
Erzingan and Kharput. Blacksmiths' and coppersmiths' work is better here
than in most Turkish towns; horse-shoes and brasswork are also famous.
There are several tanneries, and Turkish boots and saddles are largely
made. Jerked beef (_pasdirma_) is also prepared in large quantities for
winter use. The plain produces wheat, barley, millet and vegetables.
Wood fuel is scarce, the present supply being from the Tortum district,
whence surface coal and lignite are also brought; but the usual fuel is
_tezek_ or dried cow-dung. The bazaars are of no great interest. Good
Persian carpets and similar goods can be obtained.
Erzerum is a town of great antiquity, and has been identified with the
Armenian Garin Kalakh, the Arabic Kalikale, and the Byzantine
Theodosiopolis of the 5th century, when it was a frontier fortress of
the empire--hence its name _Erzen-er-Rum_. It was captured by the
Seljuks in 1201, when it was an important city, and it fell into Turkish
possession in 1517. In July 1829 it was captured by the Russian general
Paskevich, and the occupation continued until the peace of Adrianople
(September 1829). The town was unsuccessfully attacked by the Russians
on the 9th of November 1877 after a victory gained by them a short time
previously on the Deveboyun heights; it was occupied by them during the
armistice (7th of February 1878) and restored to Turkey after the treaty
of Berlin. In 1859 a severe earthquake destroyed much of the town, and
another in November 1901 caused much damage.
The Erzerum vilayet extends from the Persian frontier at Bayazid, all
along the Russian frontier and westward into Anatolia at Baiburt and
Erzingan. It is divided into the three sanjaks of Bayazid, Erzerum, and
Erzingan. It includes the highest portion of the Armenian plateau, and
consists of bare undulating uplands varied by lofty ranges. The deep
gorges of the Chorokh and Tortum streams north of the town alone have a
different appearance, being well wooded in places. Both arms of the
Euphrates have their rise in this country as well as the Aras (Araxes)
and the Chorokh (Acampsis). It is an agricultural country with few
industries. Besides forests, iron, salt, sulphur and other mineral
springs are found. Some of the coal and lignite mines in Tortum have
been recently worked to supply fuel for Erzerum. The population is
largely Armenian and Kurd with some Turks (Moslems 500,000, Christians
140,000). (C. W. W.; F. R. M.)
ERZGEBIRGE, a mountain chain of Germany, extending in a W.S.W. direction
from the Elbe to the Elstergebirge along the frontier between Saxony and
Bohemia. Its length from E.N.E. to W.S.W. is about 80 m., and its
average breadth about 25 m. The southern declivity is generally steep
and rugged, forming in some places an almost perpendicular wall of the
height of from 2000 to 2500 ft.; while the northern, divided at
intervals into valleys, sometimes of great fertility and sometimes
wildly romantic, slopes gradually towards the great plain of northern
Germany. The central part of the chain forms a plateau of an average
height of more than 3000 ft. At the extremities of this plateau are
situated the highest summits of the range:--in the south-east the
Keilberg (4080 ft.); in the north-east the Fichtelberg (3980 ft.); and
in the south-west the Spitzberg (3650 ft.). Between the Keilberg and the
Fichtelberg, at the height of about 3300 ft., is situated Gottesgab, the
highest town in Bohemia. Geologically, the Erzgebirge range consists
mainly of gneiss, mica and phyllite. As its name (Ore Mountains)
indicates, it is famous for its mineral ores. These are chiefly silver
and lead, the layers of both of which are very extensive, tin, nickel,
copper and iron. Gold is found in several places, and some arsenic,
antimony, bismuth, manganese, mercury and sulphur. The Erzgebirge is
celebrated for its lace manufactures, introduced by Barbara Uttmann in
1541, embroideries, silk-weaving and toys. The climate is in winter
inclement in the higher elevations, and, as the snow lies deep until the
spring, the range is largely frequented by devotees of winter sport,
ski, toboganning, &c. In summer the air is bracing, and many climatic
health resorts have sprung into existence, among which may be mentioned
Kipsdorf, Bärenfels and Oberwiesenthal. Communication with the
Erzgebirge is provided by numerous lines of railway, some, such as that
from Freiberg to Brüx, that from Chemnitz to Komotau, and that from
Zwickau to Carlsbad, crossing the range, while various local lines serve
the higher valleys.
The Elstergebirge, a range some 16 m. in length, in which the Weisse
Elster has its source, runs S.W. from the Erzgebirge to the
Fichtelgebirge and attains a height of 2630 ft.
See Grohmann, _Das Obererzgebirge und seine Städte_ (1903), and
Schurtz, _Die Pässe des Erzgebirges_ (1891); also Daniel,
_Deutschland_, vol. ii., and Gebauer, _Länder und Völkerkunde_, vol.
i.
ERZINGAN, or ERZINJAN (_Arsinga_ of the middle ages), the chief town of
a sanjak in the Erzerum vilayet of Asiatic Turkey. It is the
headquarters of the IV. army corps, being a place of some military
importance, with large barracks and military factories. It is situated
at an altitude of 3900 ft., near the western end of a rich well-watered
plain through which runs the Kara Su or western Euphrates. It is
surrounded by orchards and gardens, and is about a mile from the right
bank of the river, which here runs in two wide channels crossed by
bridges. One wide street traverses the town from east to west, but the
others are narrow, unpaved and dirty, except near the new government
buildings and the large modern mosque of Hajji Izzet Pasha to the north,
which are the only buildings of note. The principal barracks, military
hospital and clothing factory are at Karateluk on the plain and along
the foot-hills to the north 3 m. off, one recent addition to the
business buildings having electric power and modern British machinery;
some older barracks and a military tannery and boot factory being in the
town. The population numbers about 15,000, of whom about half are
Armenians living in a separate quarter. The principal industries are the
manufacture of silk and cotton and of copper dishes and utensils. The
climate is hot in summer but moderate in winter. A carriage-road leads
to Trebizond, and other roads to Sivas, Karahissar, Erzerum and Kharput.
The plain, almost surrounded by lofty mountains, is highly productive
with many villages on it and the border hills. Wheat, fruit, vines and
cotton are largely grown, and cattle and sheep are bred. Water is
everywhere abundant, and there are iron and hot sulphur springs. The
battle in which the sultan of Rum (1243) was defeated by the Mongols
took place on the plain, and the celebrated Armenian monastery of St
Gregory, "the Illuminator," lies on the hills 11 m. S.W. of the town.
Erzingan occupies the site of an early town in which was a temple of
Anaitis. It was an important place in the 4th century when St Gregory
lived in it. The district passed from the Byzantines to the Seljuks
after the defeat of Romanus, 1071, and from the latter to the Mongols in
1243. After having been held by Mongols, Tatars and Turkomans, it was
added to the Osmanli empire by Mahommed II. in 1473. In 1784 the town
was almost destroyed by an earthquake. (C. W. W.; F. R. M.)
ESAR-HADDON [Assur-akhi-iddina, "Assur has given a brother"], Assyrian
king, son of Sennacherib; before his accession to the throne he had also
borne another name, Assur-etil-ilani-yukin-abla. At the time of his
father's murder (the 20th of Tebet, 681 B.C.) he was commanding the
Assyrian army in a war against Ararat. The conspirators, after holding
Nineveh for 42 days, had been compelled to fly northward and invoke the
aid of the king of Ararat. On the 12th of Iyyar (680 B.C.) a decisive
battle was fought near Malatia, in which the veterans of Assyria won the
day, and at the close of it saluted Esar-haddon as king. He returned to
Nineveh, and on the 8th of Sivan was crowned king. A good general,
Esar-haddon was also an able and conciliatory administrator. His first
act was to crush a rebellion among the Chaldaeans in the south of
Babylonia and then to restore Babylon, the sacred city of the West,
which had been destroyed by his father. The walls and temple of Bel were
rebuilt, its gods brought back, and after his right to rule had been
solemnly acknowledged by the Babylonian priesthood Esar-haddon made
Babylon his second capital. A year or two later Media was invaded and
Median chiefs came to Nineveh to offer homage to their conqueror. He now
turned to Palestine, where the rebellion of Abdi-milkutti of Zidon was
suppressed, its leader beheaded, and a new Zidon built out of the ruins
of the older city (676-675 B.C.). All Palestine now submitted to
Assyria, and 12 Syrian and 10 Cyprian princes (including Manasseh of
Judah) came to pay him homage and supply him with materials for his
palace at Nineveh. But a more formidable enemy had appeared on the
Assyrian frontier (676 B.C.). The Cimmerii (see SCYTHIA) under Teuspa
poured into Asia Minor; they were, however, overthrown in Cilicia, and
the Cilician mountaineers who had joined them were severely punished. It
was next necessary to secure the southern frontier of the empire.
Esar-haddon accordingly marched into the heart of Arabia, to a distance
of about 900 m., across a burning and waterless desert, and struck
terror into the Arabian tribes. At last he was free to complete the
policy of his predecessors by conquering Egypt, which alone remained to
threaten Assyrian dominion in the West. Baal of Tyre had transferred his
allegiance from Esar-haddon to the Egyptian king Tirhaka and opened to
the latter the coast road of Palestine; leaving a force, therefore, to
invest Tyre, Esar-haddon led the main body of the Assyrian troops into
Egypt on the 5th of Adar, 673 B.C. The desert was crossed with the help
of the Arabian sheikh. Egypt seems to have submitted to the invader and
was divided into twenty satrapies. Another campaign, however, was needed
before it could be finally subdued. In 670 B.C. Esar-haddon drove the
Egyptian forces before him in 15 days (from the 3rd to the 18th of
Tammuz) all the way from the frontier to Memphis, thrice defeating them
with heavy loss and wounding Tirhaka himself. Three days after Memphis
fell, and this was soon afterwards followed by the surrender of Tyre and
its king. In 668 B.C. Egypt again revolted, and while on the march to
reduce it Esar-haddon fell ill and died on the 10th of Marchesvan. His
empire was divided between his two sons Assur-bani-pal and
Samas-sum-yukin, Assur-bani-pal receiving Assyria and his brother
Babylonia, an arrangement, however, which did not prove to be a success.
Esar-haddon was the builder of a palace at Nineveh as well as of one
which he erected at Calah for Assur-bani-pal.
AUTHORITIES.--E.A.W. Budge, _History of Esarhaddon_ (1880); E.
Schrader, _Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek_, ii. (1889) (Abel and
Winckler in ii. pp. 120-153); G. Maspero, _Passing of the Empires_,
pp. 345 sqq.; F. von Luschan, "Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli," i.
(_Mitteilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen_, 1893).
(A. H. S.)
ESAU, the son of Isaac and Rebecca, in the Bible, and the elder twin
brother of Jacob. He was so called because he was red (_admoni_) and
hairy when he was born, and the name Edom (red) was given to him when he
sold his birthright to Jacob for a meal of _red_ lentil pottage (Gen.
xxv. 21-34). Another story of the manner in which Jacob obtained the
superiority is related in Gen. xxvii. Here the younger brother
impersonated the elder, and succeeded in deceiving his blind father by
imitating the hairiness of his brother. He thus gained the blessing
intended for the first-born, and Esau, on hearing how he had been
forestalled, vowed to kill him. Jacob accordingly fled to his mother's
relatives, and on his return, many years later, peace was restored
between them (xxxii. sq.). These primitive stories of the relations
between the eponymous heads of the Edomites and Israelites are due to
the older (Judaean) sources; the late notices of the Priestly school
(see GENESIS) preserve a different account of the parting of the two
(Gen. xxxvi. 6-8), and lay great stress upon Esau's marriages with the
Canaanites of the land, unions which were viewed (from the writer's
standpoint) with great aversion (Gen. xxvi. 34 sq., xxvii. 46). For
"Esau" as a designation of the Edomites, cf. Jer. xlix. 8, Obad. _vv._
6, 8, and on their history, see EDOM.
Esau's characteristic hairiness (Gen. xxv. 25, xxvii. 11) has given
rise to the suggestion that his name is properly _'eshav_, from a root
corresponding to the Arab. _'athiya_, to have thick or matted hair. Mt
Seir, too, where he resided, etymologically suggests a "shaggy"
mountain-land. According to Hommel (_Sud-arab. Chrestom._ p. 39 sq.)
the name Esau has S. Arabian analogies. On the possible identity of
the name with Usoos, the Phoenician demi-god (Philo of Byblus, ap.
Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._ i. 10), see Cheyne, _Encyc. Bib._ col. 1333;
Lagrange, _Études sur les religions sémitiques_, p. 416 (Paris, 1905);
Ed. Meyer, _Israeliten_, 278 sq. (and, on general questions, _ib._ 128
sq., 329 sqq.). (S. A. C.)
ESBJERG, a seaport of Denmark in the _amt_ (county) of Ribe, 18 m. from
the German frontier on the west coast of Jutland. It has railway
communication with the east and north of Jutland, and with Germany. It
was granted municipal rights in 1900, having grown with astonishing
rapidity from 13 inhabitants in 1868 to 13,355 in 1901. This growth it
owes to the construction of a large harbour in 1868-1888. It is the
principal outlet westward for S. Jutland; exports pork and meat, butter,
eggs, fish, cattle and sheep, skins, lard and agricultural seeds, and
has regular communication with Harwich and Grimsby in England. Three
miles S.E. is Nordby on the island of Fanö, the northernmost of the
North Frisian chain. It is an arid bank of heathland and dunes, but both
Nordby and Sönderho in the south are frequented as seaside resorts. The
former has a school of navigation. The fisheries are valuable.
ESCANABA, a city and the county-seat of Delta county, Michigan, U.S.A.,
on Little Bay de Noquette, an inlet of Green Bay, about 60 m. S. of
Marquette. Pop. (1890) 6808; (1900) 9549, of whom 3214 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 13,194. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western and the Escanaba & Lake Superior railways. It is built on
a picturesque promontory which separates the waters of Green Bay from
Little Bay de Noquette, and its delightful summer climate, wild
landscape scenery and facilities for boating and trout fishing make it a
popular summer resort. Escanaba has a water front of 8 m., and is an
important centre for the shipment of iron-ore, for which eight large and
well-equipped docks are provided--there is an ore-crushing plant here;
considerable quantities of lumber and fish are also shipped, and
furniture, flooring (especially of maple) and wooden ware (butter-dishes
and clothes-pins) are manufactured. There is a large tie-preserving
plant here. Good water power is supplied by the Escanaba river. Escanaba
was settled in 1863, was incorporated as a village in 1883, and was
first chartered as a city in the same year.
ESCAPE (in mid. Eng. _eschape_ or _escape_, from the O. Fr. _eschapper_,
modern _échapper_, and _escaper_, low Lat. _escapium_, from _ex_, out
of, and _cappa_, cape, cloak; cf. for the sense development the Gr.
[Greek: ekduesthai], literally to put off one's clothes, hence to slip
out of, get away), a verb meaning to get away from, especially from
impending danger or harm, to avoid capture, to regain one's liberty
after capture. As a substantive, "escape," in law, is the regaining of
liberty by one in custody contrary to due process of law. Such escape
may be by force, if out of prison it is generally known as
"prison-breach" or "prison-breaking," or by the voluntary or negligent
act of the custodian. Where the escape is caused by the force or fraud
of others it is termed "rescue" (q.v.). "Escape" is used in botany of a
cultivated plant found growing wild. The word is also used of a means of
escape, e.g. "fire-escape," and of a loss or leakage of gas, current of
electricity or water.
ESCHATOLOGY (Gr. [Greek: eschatos], last, and [Greek: logos], science;
the "doctrine of last things"), a theological term derived from the New
Testament phrases "the last day" ([Greek: en tê eschatê hêmera], John
vi. 39), "the last times" ([Greek: ep eschatôn tôn chronôn], 1 Peter i.
20), "the last-state" ([Greek: tà eschata], Matt. xii. 45), a conception
taken over from ancient prophecy (Is. ii. 2; Mal. iv. 1). It was the
common belief in the apostolic age that the second advent of Christ was
near, and would give the divine completion to the world's history. The
use of the term, however, has been extended so as to include all that is
taught in the Scriptures about the future life of the individual as well
as the final destiny of the world. The reasons for the belief in a life
after death are discussed in the article IMMORTALITY. The present
article, after a brief glance at the conceptions of the future of the
individual or the world found in other religions, will deal with the
teaching of the Old and New Testaments, the Jewish and the Christian
Church regarding the hereafter.
There is a bewildering variety in the views of the future life and world
held by different peoples. The future life may be conceived as simply a
continuation of the present life in its essential features, although
under conditions more or less favourable. It may also be thought of as
retributive, as a reversal of present conditions so that the miserable
are comforted, and the prosperous laid low, or as a reward or punishment
for good or evil desert here. Personal identity may be absorbed, as in
the transmigration of souls, or it may even be denied, while the good or
bad result of one life is held to determine the weal or woe of another.
The scene of the future life may be thought of on earth, in some distant
part of it, or above the earth, in the sky, sun, moon or stars, or
beneath the earth. The abodes of bliss and the places of torment may be
distinguished, or one last dwelling-place may be affirmed for all the
dead. Sometimes the good find their abiding home with the gods;
sometimes a number of heavens of varying degrees of blessedness is
recognized (see F.B. Jevons, _An Introduction to the History of
Religion_, chs. xxi. and xxii., 1902; and J.A. MacCulloch's _Comparative
Theology_, xiv., 1902).
Eastern Religions.
(1) Confucius, though unwilling to discuss any questions concerning the
dead, by approving ancestor-worship recognized a future life. (2) Taoism
promises immortality as the reward of merit. (3) _The Book of the
Dead_--a guide-book for the departed on his long journey in the unseen
world to the abode of the blessed--shows the attention the Egyptian
religion gave to the state of the dead. (4) Although the Babylonian
religion presents a very gloomy view of the world of the dead, it is not
without a few faint glimpses of a hope that a few mortals at least may
gain deliverance from the dread doom. (5) A characteristic feature of
Indian thought is the transmigration of the soul from one mode of life
to another, the physical condition of each being determined by the moral
and religious character of the preceding. But deliverance from this
cycle of existences, which is conceived as misery, is promised by means
of speculation and asceticism. Denying the continuance of the soul,
Buddhism affirmed a continuity of moral consequences (_Karma_), each
successive life being determined by the total moral result of the
preceding life. Its doctrine of salvation was a guide to, if not
absolute non-existence, yet cessation of all consciousness of existence
(_Nirvana_). Later Buddhism has, however, a doctrine of many heavens and
hells. (6) In Zoroastrianism not only was continuance of life
recognized, but a strict retribution was taught. Heaven and hell were
very clearly distinguished, and each soul according to its works passed
to the one or to the other. But this faith did not concern itself only
with the future lot of the individual soul. It was also interested in
the close of the world's history, and taught a decisive, final victory
of Ormuzd over Ahriman, of the forces of good over the forces of evil.
It is not at all improbable that Jewish eschatology in its later
developments was powerfully influenced by the Persian faith. (7)
Mahommedanism reproduces and exaggerates the lower features of popular
Jewish and Christian eschatology (see the separate articles on these
religions).
Old Testament.
In the Old Testament we can trace the gradual development of an ever
more definite doctrine of "the final condition of man and the world."
This is regarded as the last stage in a moral process, a redemptive
purpose of God. The eschatology of the Old Testament is thus closely
connected with, but not limited by, Messianic hope, as there are
eschatological teachings that are not Messianic. As the Old Testament
revelation is concerned primarily with the elect nation, and only
secondarily (in the later writings) with the individual persons
composing it, we follow the order of importance as well as of time in
dealing first with the people. The universalism which marks the promise
to the seed of the woman (Gen. iii. 15) appears also in the blessing of
Noah (ix. 25). In the promise to Abraham (xii. 3) this universal good is
directly related to God's particular purpose for His chosen people; so
also in the blessing of Jacob (xlix.) and of Moses (Deut. xxxiii.).
David's last words (2 Sam. xxiii.) blend together his desire that his
family should retain the kingship, and his aspiration for a kingdom of
righteousness on earth. The conception of the "Day of the Lord" is
frequent and prominent in the prophets, and the sense given to the
phrase by the people and by the prophets throws into bold relief the
contrast between popular beliefs and the prophetic faith. The people
simply expected deliverance from their miseries and burdens by the
intervention of Yahweh, because He had chosen Israel for His people. The
prophets had an ethical conception of Yahweh; the sin of His own people
and of other nations called for His intervention in judgment as the
moral ruler of the world. But judgment they conceived as preparing for
redemption. The day of the Lord is always an eschatological conception,
as the term is applied to the final and universal judgment, and not to
any less decisive intervention of God in the course of human history. In
the pre-exilic prophets the judgment of God is "primarily on Israel,
although it also embraces the nations"; during the Exile and at the
Restoration the judgment is represented as falling on the nations while
redemption is being wrought for God's people; after the Restoration the
people of God is again threatened, but still the warning of judgment is
mainly directed towards the nations and deliverance is promised to
Israel. As the manifestation of God in grace as well as judgment, the
day of the Lord will bring joy to Israel and even to the world. As a
day of judgment it is accompanied by terrible convulsions of nature (not
to be taken figuratively, but probably intended literally by the
prophets in accordance with their view of the absolute subordination of
nature to the divine purpose for man). It ushers in the Messianic age.
While the moral issues are finally determined by this day, yet the world
of the Messianic age is painted with the colours of the prophet's own
surroundings. Israel is restored to its own land, and to it the other
nations are brought into subjugation, by force or persuasion. The
contributions of the Old Testament to Christian eschatology embrace
these features: "(1) The manifestation or advent of God; (2) the
universal judgment; (3) behind the judgment the coming of the perfect
kingdom of the Lord, when all Israel shall be saved and when the nations
shall be partakers of their salvation; and (4) the finality and eternity
of this condition, that which constitutes the blessedness of the saved
people being the Presence of God in the midst of them--this last point
corresponding to the Christian idea of heaven" (A.B. Davidson, in
Hastings's _Bible Dictionary_, i. p. 738). This hope is for the people
on this earth though transfigured.
To the individual it would seem at first only old age is promised (Is.
lxv. 20; Zech. viii. 4), but the abolition of death itself is also
declared (Is. xxv. 8). The resurrection, which appears at first as a
revival of the dead nation (Hos. vi. 2; Ez. xxxvii. 12-14), is
afterwards promised for the pious individuals (Is. xxvi. 19), so that
they too may share in the national restoration. Only in Daniel xii. 2 is
taught a resurrection of the wicked "to shame and everlasting contempt"
as well as of the righteous to "everlasting life." It was only at the
Exile, when the nation ceased to be, that the worth of the individual
came to be recognized, and the hopes given to the nation were claimed
for the individual. In dealing with the individual eschatology we must
carefully distinguish the popular ideas regarding death and the
hereafter which Israel shared with the other Semitic peoples, from the
intuitions, inferences, aspirations evoked in the pious by the divine
revelation itself. The former have not the moral significance or the
religious value of the latter. The starting-point of the development was
the common belief that the dead continued to exist in an unsubstantial
mode of life, but cut off from fellowship with God and man; but faith
left this far behind. Sheol is the common abode of the righteous and the
ungodly: life there is shadowy and feeble, but seems to continue in a
wavering and dim reflection features of this life. As the present life
is, however, determined by moral issues, and as death does not change
man's relation to God, moral considerations could not be absolutely
excluded from the future life. A forward step had to be taken. Pious
men, in fellowship with God, when they faced the fact of death, were led
either to challenge its right, or to give a new meaning to it. Either
there was a protest against death itself, and a demand for immortality
(Ps. xvi. 9-11), or death was conceived as something different for the
saint and for the sinner; fellowship with God would not and could not be
interrupted (Ps. xlix. 14, 15, lxxiii. 17-28). The vision of God is
anticipated after death's sleep (Ps. xvii. 15; Job xix. 25-27). This
belief in individual immortality is expressed poetically and obscurely:
it is later than the eschatology of the people. It assumes the moral
distinction of the righteous and the ungodly, and seeks a solution for
the problem of the lack of harmony of present character and condition.
Its deepest motive, however, is religious. The soul once in fellowship
with God cannot even by death be separated from God. The individual
hoped that he would live to share the nation's good, and thus the two
streams of Old Testament eschatology at last flow together.
Apocryphal and Apocalyptic books.
It is in the apocryphal and apocalyptic literature of Judaism that the
fullest development of eschatology can be traced. Four words may serve
to express the difference of the doctrine of these writings and the
teaching of the Old Testament. Eschatology was _universalized_ (God was
recognized as the creator and moral governor of all the world),
_individualized_ (God's judgment was directed, not to nations in a
future age, but to individuals in a future life), _transcendentalized_
(the future age was more and more contrasted with the present, and the
transition from the one to the other was not expected as the result of
historical movements, but of miraculous divine acts), and _dogmatized_
(the attempt was made to systematize in some measure the vague and
varied prophetic anticipations). Only a very brief summary of the
conceptions current in these writings can be given. The coming of the
Messiah will be preceded by the Last Woes. The Messiah is very variously
conceived: (1) "a passive, though supreme member of the Messianic
Kingdom"; (2) "an active warrior who slays his enemies with his own
hand"; (3) "one who slays his enemies by the word of his mouth, and
rules by virtue of his justice, faith and holiness"; (4) a supernatural
person, "eternal Ruler and Judge of Mankind" (R.H. Charles in Hastings's
_Bible Dictionary_, i. p. 748). In some of the writings no Messianic
kingdom is looked for; in others only a temporal duration on earth is
assigned to it; in others still it abides for ever either on earth as it
is, or on earth transformed. The dispersion among the nations is to
return home. Sometimes the Resurrection is narrowed down to the
resurrection of the righteous, at others widened out to the resurrection
of all mankind for the last judgment. A blessed immortality after
judgment, or even after death itself, is sometimes taught without
reference to any resurrection. Retribution in human history is
recognized, but attention is specially concentrated on the final
judgment, which is usually conceived as taking place in two stages. (1)
The Messianic is executed by the Messiah or the saints by victory in
war, or by judicial sentence. (2) The final remains in God's hands; but
in one writing (the _Ethiopic Enoch_) is represented as Messiah's
function. This judgment either closes the Messianic age, if thought of
as temporal, or ushers it in, if conceived as eternal, or closes the
world's history, if no Messianic age is expected. The place of torment
for the wicked was called Gehenna (the valley of Hinnom or the Sons of
Hinnom, where the bodies of criminals were cast out, is described in Is.
lxvi. 24). Here corporal as well as spiritual punishment was endured; it
was inflicted on apostate Jews or the wicked generally; the righteous
witnessed its initial stages but not its final form. In later Judaism it
was the purgatory of faithless Jews, who at last reached Paradise, but
it remained the place of eternal torment for the Gentiles. Paradise was
sometimes regarded as the division of Sheol to which the righteous
passed after death, but at others it was conceived as the heavenly abode
of Moses, Enoch and Elijah, to which other saints would pass after the
last judgment.
New Testament.
Pharisees and Sadducees.
The eschatology of the New Testament attaches itself not only to that of
the Old Testament but also to that of contemporary Judaism, but it
avoids the extravagances of the latter. Not at all systematic, it is
occasional, practical, poetical and dominantly evangelical, laying
stress on the hope of the righteous rather than the doom of the wicked.
The teaching of Jesus centres, according to the Synoptists, in the great
idea of the "Kingdom of God," which is already present in the teacher
Himself, but also future as regards its completion. In some parables a
gradual realization of the kingdom is indicated (Matt. xiii.); in other
utterances its consummation is connected with Christ's own return, His
Parousia (Matt. xxiv. 3, 37, 39), the time of which, however, is unknown
even to Himself (Mark xiii. 32). In this eschatological discourse (Matt.
xxiv., xxv.) He speaks of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the end of
the world as near, and seemingly as one. This is in accordance with the
characteristic of prophecy, which sees in "timeless sequence" events
which are historically separated from one another. While the Return is
represented in the Synoptists as an external event, it is conceived in
the fourth gospel as an internal experience in the operation of the
Spirit on the believer (John xiv. 16-21); nevertheless here also the
Parousia in the synoptic sense is looked for (John xxi. 22; cf. 1 John
ii. 28). The object of the Second Coming is the execution of judgment by
Christ (Matt. xxv. 31), both individual (xxii. 1-14) and universal
(xiii. 36-42). The present subjective judgment, in which men determine
their destiny by their attitude to Christ, on which the fourth gospel
lays stress (John iii. 17-21, ix. 39), is not inconsistent with the
anticipation of a final judgment (John xii. 48, v. 27). This judgment
presupposes the resurrection, belief in which was rejected by the
Sadducees, but accepted by the Pharisees and the majority of the Jewish
people, and confirmed by Christ, not only as an individual spiritual
renovation (John v. 25, 26), but as a universal physical resuscitation
(28 and 29; Matt. xxii. 30). This resurrection is of the unjust as well
as the just (Matt. v. 29, 30, x. 28; Luke xiv. 14). On the _Intermediate
State_ Jesus does not speak clearly. He uses the term Hades twice
metaphorically (Matt. xi. 23, xvi. 18), and once in a parable, the "Rich
Man and Lazarus" (Luke xvi. 23), in which he employs the current phrases
such as "Abraham's bosom" (verse 22), without any definite doctrinal
intention, to unveil the secrets of the hereafter by confirming with His
authority the common beliefs of His time. The term Paradise (Luke xxiii.
43) seems to be used "in a large and general sense as a word of hope and
comfort," and we need not attach to it any of the more definite
associations which it had in Jewish eschatology. When he speaks of death
as "sleep" (Luke viii. 52; John xi. 11) it is to give men gentler and
sweeter thoughts of it, not to inculcate the doctrine of an intermediate
state as an unconscious condition. There are words which suggest rather
the hope of an immediate entrance of the just into the Father's house
and glory (John xiv. 2, 3, xvii. 24). He spoke frequently and distinctly
both of final reward for the righteous and final penalty for the wicked.
"The recompense of the righteous is described as an inheritance,
entrance into the kingdom, treasure in heaven, an existence like the
angelic, a place prepared, the Father's house, the joy of the Lord,
life, eternal life and the like; and there is no intimation that the
reward is capable of change, that the condition is a terminable one. The
retribution of the wicked is described as death, outer darkness, weeping
and wailing and gnashing of teeth, the undying worm, the quenchless
fire, exclusion from the kingdom, eternal punishment and the like"
(S.D.J. Salmond in Hastings's _Bible Dictionary_, p. 752). Degrees of
award are recognized (Luke xii. 47, 48). Gehenna is applied to the
condition of the lost (Matt. xviii. 9). Two sayings are held to point to
a terminable penalty (Matt. v. 25, 26, xii. 31, 32), but the one is so
figurative and the other so obscure, that we are not warranted in
drawing any such definite conclusion from either of them. The finality
of destiny seems to be unmistakably expressed (Matt. vii. 23, x. 33,
xiii. 30, xxv. 46, xxvi. 24; Mark ix. 43-48, viii. 36; Luke ix. 26; John
iii. 16, viii. 21, 24). No second opportunity for deciding the issue of
life or death is recognized by Jesus.
The apostolic eschatology presents resemblance amid difference. Jude (v.
6), as well as 2 Peter (ii. 4), refers to the judgment of the fallen
angels. 2 Peter describes the place of their detention as Tartarus, and
teaches that Christ's _Parousia_ is to bring the whole present system of
things to its conclusion, and the world itself to an end (iii. 10, 13).
After the destruction of the existing order by fire, "a new heaven and a
new earth" will appear as the abode of righteousness. The question of
greatest interest in 1 Peter is the relation of two passages in it, the
preaching to the spirits in prison (iii. 18-22) and the preaching of the
Gospel to the dead (iv. 6) to the "larger hope." Peter's discourse also
contains a phrase which suggests the belief of a descent of Christ into
Hades in the interval between His death and His resurrection (Acts ii.
31). No certainty has been reached in the interpretation of these
passages, but they may suggest to the Christian mind the expectation
that the final destiny of no soul can be fixed until in some way or
other, in this life or the next, the opportunity of decision for or
against Christ has been given. The phrase "the times of restoration of
all things" (iii. 21) is too vague in itself, and is too isolated in its
context to warrant the dogmatic teaching of universalism, although there
are other passages which seem to point towards the same goal. While
John's Apocalypse is distinctly eschatological, the Epistles and the
Gospels often give these conceptions an ethical and spiritual import,
without, however, excluding the eschatological. Life is present while
eternal (1 John v. 12, 13), but it is also future (ii. 25). There is
expected a future manifestation of Christ as He is, and what the
believer himself will be does not yet appear (iii. 2). The writer speaks
of the last hour (ii. 18), the Antichrist that cometh (ii. 22, iv. 3),
and the Christian's full reward (2 John v. 8) as well as the Parousia (1
John ii. 28). The Apocalypse reproduces much of the current Jewish
eschatology. A millennial reign of Christ on earth is interposed between
the first resurrection, confined to the saints and especially the
martyrs, and the second resurrection for the rest of the dead. A final
outburst of Satan's power is followed by his overthrow and the Last
Judgment.
Although Paul sometimes describes the Kingdom of God as present (Rom.
xiv. 17; 1 Cor. iv. 20; Col. i. 13), it is usually represented as
future. The Parousia fills a large place in his thought, and, if more
prominent in his earlier writings, is not altogether absent from his
later, although the expectation of personal survival does seem to grow
less confident (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 51 and Phil. i. 20-24). The doctrines of
the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, the Reward of the Righteous and the
Punishment of the Wicked are not less distinctly expressed than in the
other apostolic writings. Peculiar elements in Paul's eschatology are
the doctrines of the Rapture of the Saints (1 Thess. iv. 17) and the Man
of Sin (2 Thess. ii. 3-6), but these have affinities elsewhere. A
reference to the millennial reign of Christ in the period between the
two resurrections is sometimes sought in 1 Cor. xv. 22-24; but it is not
a chronology of the last things Paul is here giving. So also a
justification for the doctrine of purgatory is sought in iii. 12-15; but
the day and the fire are of the last judgment. A descent of Christ into
Hades, implying an extension of the opportunity of grace such as is
supposed to be taught in 1 Peter, is also discovered in the obscure
statements in Rom. x. 7 (where Paul is freely quoting Deut. xxx. 11-14),
and Eph. iv. 10 (where he is commenting on Ps. lxviii. 18). Universal
restoration is inferred from 1 Cor. xv. 24-28, "God all in all," Phil.
ii. 10-11, every knee bowing to, and every tongue confessing Jesus
Christ, Eph. i. 9, 10, the summing up of all things in Christ, Col. i.
20, God reconciling all things unto Himself in Christ. These passages
inspire a hope, but do not sustain a certainty. Paul's shrinking from
the disembodied state and longing to be clothed upon at death in 2 Cor.
v. 1-8, cannot be regarded as a proof of an _interim_ body prior to and
preparatory for the resurrection body. Paul links the human resurrection
with a universal renovation (Rom. viii. 19-23). Paul's eschatology is
not free of obscurities and ambiguities; and in the New Testament
eschatology generally we are forced to recognize a mixture of inherited
Jewish and original Christian elements (see ANTICHRIST).
During the first century of the existence of the Gentile Christian
Church, "the hope of the approaching end of the world and the glorious
kingdom of Christ" was dominant, although warnings had to be given
against doubt and indifference. Redemption was thought of as still
future, as the power of the devil had not been broken but rather
increased by the First Advent, and the Second Advent was necessary to
his complete overthrow. The expectations were often grossly
materialistic, as is evidenced by Papias's quotation as the words of the
Lord of a group of sayings from the Apocalypse of Baruch, setting forth
the amazing fruitfulness of the earth in the Messianic time.
Gnostics.
Montanism.
The Gnostics rejected this eschatology as in their view the enlightened
spirit already possessed immortality. Marcion expected that the Church
would be assailed by Antichrist; a visible return of Christ he did not
teach, but he recognized that human history would issue in a separation
of the good from the bad. Montanism sought to form a new Christian
commonwealth which, separated from the world, should prepare itself for
the descent of the Jerusalem from above, and its establishment in the
spot which by the direction of the Spirit had been chosen in Phrygia.
While Irenaeus held fast the traditional eschatological beliefs, yet his
conception of the Christian salvation as a deification of man tended to
weaken their hold on Christian thought. The Alogi in the 2nd century
rejected the Apocalypse on account of its chiliasm, its teaching of a
visible reign of Christ on earth for a thousand years. Montanism also
brought these apocalyptic expectations into discredit in orthodox
ecclesiastical circles. The Alexandrian theology strengthened this
movement against chiliasm. Clement of Alexandria taught that justice is
not merely retributive, that punishment is remedial, that probation
continues after death till the final judgment, that Christ and the
apostles preached the Gospel in Hades to those who lacked knowledge, but
whose heart was right, that a spiritual body will be raised. Origen
taught that a germ of the spiritual body is in the present body, and its
development depends on the character, that perfect bliss is reached only
by stages, that the evil are purified by pain, conscience being
symbolized by fire, and that all, even the devil himself, will at last
be saved. Both regarded chiliasm with aversion. But in the 5th century
there were rejected as heretical (1) "the doctrine of universalism, and
the possibility of the redemption of the devil; (2) the doctrine of the
complete annihilation of evil; (3) the conception of the penalties of
hell as tortures of conscience; (4) the spiritualizing version of the
resurrection of the body; (5) the idea of the continued creation of new
worlds" (A. Harnack, _History of Dogma_, iii. p. 186).
Epiphanius, following Methodius, insisted on the most perfect identity
between the resurrection body and the material body; and this belief,
enforced in the West by Jerome, soon established itself as alone
orthodox. Augustine made experiments on the flesh of a peacock in order
to find physical evidence for the doctrine. He held fast to eternal
punishment, but allowed the possibility of mitigations. Some believers,
he taught, may pass through purgatorial fires; and this middle class may
be helped by the sacraments and the alms of the living. "There are many
souls not good enough to dispense with this provision, and not bad
enough to be benefited by it" (op. cit. v. 233). This doctrine was
sanctioned and developed by Gregory the Great. "After God has changed
eternal punishments into temporary, the justified must expiate these
temporary penalties for sin in purgatory" (p. 268). This view was
inferred indirectly from Matt. xii. 31, and directly from 1 Cor. iii.
12-15. Afterwards purgatory took more and more the place of hell, and
was subject to the control of the church. As regards the saints,
different degrees of blessedness were recognized; they were supposed to
wait in Hades for the return of Christ, but gradually the belief gained
ground, especially in regard to the martyrs, that their souls at once
entered Paradise. The primitive Christian eschatology was preserved in
the West as it was not in the East, and in times of exceptional distress
the expectation of Antichrist emerged again and again. In the middle
ages there was an extravagance of speculation on this subject, which may
be seen in the last division of Aquinas' _Summa Theologiae_. He proposes
thirty questions on these matters, among which are the following:
"whether souls are conducted to heaven or hell immediately after death";
"whether the limbus of hell is the same as Abraham's bosom"; "whether
the sun and moon will be really obscured at the day of judgment";
"whether all the members of the human body will rise with it"; "whether
the hair and nails will reappear"; could thought become "more lawless
and uncertain"?
In Protestant Theology.
While rejecting purgatory, Protestantism took over this eschatology.
Souls passed at once to heaven or to hell; a doctrine even less adequate
to the complex quality of human life. Luther himself looked for the
passing away of the present evil world. Socinianism taught a new
spiritual body, an intermediate state in which the soul is near
non-existence, an annihilation of the wicked, as immortality is the gift
of God. Swedenborg discards a physical resurrection, as at death the
eyes of men are opened to the spiritual world in which we exist now, and
they continue to live essentially as they lived here, until by their
affinities they are drawn to heaven or hell. The doctrine of _eternal
punishment_ has been opposed on many grounds, such as the disproportion
between the offence and the penalty, the moral and religious immaturity
of the majority of men at death, the diminution of the happiness of
heaven involved in the knowledge of the endless suffering of others
(Schleiermacher), the defeat of the divine purpose of righteousness and
grace that the continued antagonism of any of God's creatures would
imply, the dissatisfaction God as Father must feel until His whole
family is restored. It has been argued that the term "eternal" has
reference not to duration of time but quality of being (Maurice); but it
does seem certain that the writers in the Holy Scriptures who used it
did not foresee an end either to the life or to the death to which they
applied the term. The contention should not be based on the meaning of a
single word, but on such broader considerations as have been indicated
above. The doctrine of _conditional_ immortality taught by Socinianism
was accepted by Archbishop Whately, and has been most persistently
advocated by Edward White, who "maintains that immortality is a truth,
not of reason, but of revelation, a gift of God" bestowed only on
believers in Christ; but he admits a continued probation after death for
such as have not hardened their hearts by a rejection of Christ.
According to Albrecht Ritschl "the _wrath_ of God means the resolve of
God to annihilate those men who finally oppose themselves to redemption,
and the final purpose of the kingdom of God." He thus makes immortality
conditional on inclusion in the kingdom of God. The doctrine of
_universal restoration_ was maintained by Thomas Erskine of Linlathen on
the ground of the Fatherhood of God, and Archdeacon Wilson anticipates
such discipline after death as will restore all souls to God. C.I.
Nitzsch argues against the doctrine of the annihilation of the wicked,
regards the teaching of Scripture about eternal damnation as
hypothetical, and thinks it possible that Paul reached the hope of
universal restoration. I.A. Dorner maintains that hopeless perdition can
be the penalty only of the deliberate rejection of the Gospel, that
those who have not had the opportunity of choice fairly and fully in
this life will get it hereafter, but that the right choice will in all
cases be made we cannot be confident. The attitude of theologians
generally regarding individual destiny is well expressed by Dr James
Orr, "The conclusion I arrive at is that we have not the elements of a
complete solution, and we ought not to attempt it. What visions beyond
there may be, what larger hopes, what ultimate harmonies, if such there
are in store, will come in God's good time; it is not for us to
anticipate them, or lift the veil where God has left it down" (_The
Christian View of God and the World_, 1893, p. 397).
Although in recent theological thought attention has been mainly
directed to individual destiny, yet the other elements of Christian
eschatology must not be altogether passed over. History has offered the
authoritative commentary on the prophecy of the Parousia of Christ. The
presence and power of His Spirit, the spread of His Gospel, the progress
of His kingdom have been as much a fulfilment of the eschatological
teaching of the New Testament as His life and work on earth were a
fulfilment of Messianic prophecy, for fulfilment always transcends
prophecy. Even if the common beliefs of the apostolic age have not
modified the evangelist's reports of Jesus' teaching, it must be
remembered that He used the common prophetic phraseology, the literal
fulfilment of which is not to be looked for. Some parables (the leaven,
the mustard seed) suggest a gradual progressive realization of His
kingdom. The Fourth Gospel interprets both judgment and resurrection
spiritually. Accordingly the general resurrection and the last judgment
may be regarded as the temporal and local forms of thought to express
the universal permanent truths that life survives death in the
completeness of its necessary organs and essential functions, and that
the character of that continued life is determined by personal choice of
submission or antagonism to God's purpose of grace in Christ, the
perfect realization of which is the Christian's hope for himself,
mankind and the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--In addition to the works referred to above the
following will be found useful: S.D.F. Salmond, _The Christian
Doctrine of Immortality_ (4th ed., 1901); R.H. Charles, _A Critical
History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in
Christianity_ (1899); L.N. Dahle, _Life after Death and the Future of
the Kingdom of God_ (Eng. tr. by J. Beveridge, 1895); J.A. Beet, _The
Last Things_ (new ed., 1905); W.G.T. Shedd, _Doctrine of Endless
Punishment_ (New York, 1886); F.W. Farrar, _The Eternal Hope_ (1892);
E. Pétavel, _The Problem of Immortality_ (Eng. tr. by F.A. Freer,
1892); E. White, _Life in Christ_ (3rd ed., 1878); also the relevant
sections in books on biblical and systematic theology. (A. E. G.*)
ESCHEAT (O. Fr. _eschete_, from _escheoir_, to fall to one's share; Lat.
_excidere_, to fall out), in English law, the reversion of lands to the
next lord on the failure of heirs of the tenant. "When the tenant of an
estate in fee simple dies without having alienated his estate in his
lifetime or by his will, and without leaving any heirs either lineal or
collateral, the lands in which he held his estate escheat, as it is
called, to the lord of whom he held them" (Williams on the _Law of Real
Property_). This rule is explained by the conception of a freehold
estate as an interest in lands held by the freeholder from some lord,
the king being lord paramount. (See ESTATE.) The granter retains an
interest in the land similar to that of the donor of an estate for life,
to whom the land reverts after the life estate is ended. As there are
now few freehold estates traceable to any mesne or intermediate lord,
escheats, when they do occur, fall to the king as lord paramount.
Besides escheat for defect of heirs, there was formerly also escheat
_propter delictum tenentis_, or by the corruption of the blood of the
tenant through attainder consequent on conviction and sentence for
treason or felony. The blood of the tenant becoming corrupt by attainder
was decreed no longer inheritable, and the effect was the same as if the
tenant had died without heirs. The land, therefore, escheated to the
next heir, subject to the superior right of the crown to the forfeiture
of the lands,--in the case of treason for ever, in the case of felony
for a year and a day. All this was abolished by the Felony Act 1870,
which provided for the appointment of an administrator to the property
of the convict. Escheat is also an incident of copyhold tenure. Trust
estates were not subject to escheat until the Intestates' Estates Act
1884, but now by that act the law of escheat applies in the same manner
as if the estate or interest were a legal estate in corporeal
hereditaments.
ESCHENBURG, JOHANN JOACHIM (1743-1820), German critic and literary
historian, was born at Hamburg on the 7th of December 1743. After
receiving his early education in his native town, he studied at Leipzig
and Göttingen. In 1767 he was appointed tutor, and subsequently
professor, at the Collegium Carolinum in Brunswick. The title of
"Hofrat" was conferred on him in 1786, and in 1814 he was made one of
the directors of the Carolinum. He is best known by his efforts to
familiarize his countrymen with English literature. He published a
series of German translations of the principal English writers on
aesthetics, such as J. Brown, D. Webb, Charles Burney, Joseph Priestley
and R. Hurd; and Germany owes also to him the first complete translation
(in prose) of Shakespeare's plays (_William Shakespear's Schauspiele_,
13 vols., Zürich, 1775-1782). This is virtually a revised edition of the
incomplete translation published by Wieland between 1762 and 1766.
Eschenburg died at Brunswick on the 29th of February 1820.
Besides editing, with memoirs, the works of Hagedorn, Zachariä and other
German poets, he was the author of a _Handbuch der klassischen
Literatur_ (1783); _Entwurf einer Theorie und Literatur der schönen
Wissenschaften_ (1783); _Beispielsammlung zur Theorie und Literatur der
schönen Wissenschaften_ (8 vols., 1788-1795); _Lehrbuch der
Wissenschaftskunde_ (1792); and _Denkmäler altdeutscher Dichtkunst_
(1799). Most of these works have passed through several editions.
Eschenburg was also a poet of some pretensions, and some of his
religious hymns, e.g. _Ich will dich noch im Tod erheben_ and _Dir trau'
ich, Gott, und wanke nicht_, are contained in many hymnals to this day.
ESCHENMAYER, ADAM KARL AUGUST VON (1768-1852), German philosopher and
physicist, was born at Neuenburg in Württemberg in July 1768. After
receiving his early education at the Caroline academy of Stuttgart, he
entered the university of Tübingen, where he received the degree of
doctor of medicine. He practised for some time as a physician at Sulz,
and then at Kirchheim, and in 1811 he was chosen extraordinary professor
of philosophy and medicine at Tübingen. In 1818 he became ordinary
professor of practical philosophy, but in 1836 he resigned and took up
his residence at Kirchheim, where he devoted his whole attention to
philosophical studies. Eschenmayer's views are largely identical with
those of Schelling, but he differed from him in regard to the knowledge
of the absolute. He believed that in order to complete the arc of truth
philosophy must be supplemented by what he called "non-philosophy," a
kind of mystical illumination by which was obtained a belief in God that
could not be reached by mere intellectual effort (see Höffding, _Hist.
of Mod. Phil._, Eng. trans. vol. 2, p. 170). He carried this tendency to
mysticism into his physical researches, and was led by it to take a deep
interest in the phenomena of animal magnetism. He ultimately became a
devout believer in demoniacal and spiritual possession; and his later
writings are all strongly impregnated with the lower supernaturalism.
His principal works are--_Die Philosophie in ihrem Übergange zur
Nichtphilosophie_ (1803); _Versuch die scheinbare Magie des
thierischen Magnetismus aus physiol. und psychischen Gesetzen zu
erklären_ (1816); _System der Moralphilosophie_ (1818); _Psychologie
in drei Theilen, als empirische, reine, angewandte_ (1817, 2nd ed.
1822); _Religionsphilosophie_ (3 vols., 1818-1824); _Die Hegel'sche
Religionsphilosophie verglichen mit dem christl. Princip_ (1834); _Der
Ischariotismus unserer Tage_ (1835) (directed against Strauss's _Life
of Jesus_); _Konflikt zwischen Himmel und Hölle, an dem Dämon eines
besessenen Mädchens beobachtet_ (1837); _Grundriss der
Naturphilosophie_ (1832); _Grundzüge der christl. Philosophie_ (1840);
and _Betrachtungen über den physischen Weltbau_ (1852).
ESCHER VON DER LINTH, ARNOLD (1807-1872), Swiss geologist, the son of
Hans Conrad Escher (1767-1823), was born at Zürich on the 8th of June
1807. In 1856 he became professor of geology at the École Polytechnique
at Zürich. His researches led him to be regarded as one of the founders
of Swiss geology. With B. Studer he produced (1852-1853) the first
elaborate geological map of Switzerland. He was the author also of
_Geologische Bemerkungen über das nördliche Vorarlberg und einige
angrenzenden Gegenden_, published at Zürich in 1853. He died on the 12th
of July 1872.
ESCHSCHOLTZ, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1793-1831), Russian traveller and
naturalist, was born in November 1793, at Dorpat, where he died in May
1831. He was naturalist and physician to Otto von Kotzebue's exploring
expedition during 1815-1818. On his return he was appointed
extraordinary professor of anatomy (1819) and director of the zoological
museum of the university at Dorpat (1822), and in 1823-1826 he
accompanied Kotzebue on his second voyage of discovery. He became
ordinary professor of anatomy at Dorpat in 1828. Among his publications
were the _System der Akalephen_ (1829), and the _Zoologischer Atlas_
(1829-1833). The botanical genus _Eschscholtzia_ was named by Adelbert
von Chamisso in his honour.
ESCHWEGE, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau,
on the Werra, and the railway Treysa-Leinefelde, 28 m. S.E. of Cassel.
Pop. (1905) 11,113. It consists of the old town on the left, the new
town on the right, bank of the Werra, and Brückenhausen on a small
island connected with the old and new town by bridges. It is a thriving
manufacturing town, its chief industries being leather-making,
yarn-spinning, cotton- and linen-weaving, the manufactures of cigars,
brushes, liquors and oil, and glue- and soap-boiling. It has two ancient
buildings, the Nikolai-turm, built in 1455, and the old castle. After
being part of Thuringia, Eschwege passed to Hesse in 1263. It was
recovered by the landgrave of Thuringia in 1388, but soon reverted to
Hesse, and it became the residence of one of the branches of the Hessian
royal house, a branch which died out in 1655.
ESCHWEILER, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the
Inde, and the railways Cologne-Herbesthal and Munich-Gladbach-Stolberg,
about 8 m. E.N.E. from Aix-la-Chapelle. Pop. (1905) 20,643. The town has
an Evangelical and four Roman Catholic churches, a gymnasium and an
orphanage. The manufacture of iron and steel goods is carried on; other
industries include the manufacture of zinc wares, tanning, distilling
and brewing. In the neighbourhood there are valuable coal mines.
See Koch, _Geschichte der Stadt Eschweiler_ (Frankfort, 1890).
ESCOBAR Y MENDOZA, ANTONIO (1589-1669), Spanish churchman of illustrious
descent, was born at Valladolid in 1589. He was educated by the Jesuits,
and at the age of fifteen took the habit of that order. He soon became a
famous preacher, and his facility was so great that for fifty years he
preached daily, and sometimes twice a day. In addition he was a
voluminous writer, and his works fill eighty-three volumes. His first
literary efforts were Latin verses in praise of Ignatius Loyola (1613)
and the Virgin Mary (1618); but he is best known as a writer on
casuistry. His principal works belong to the fields of exegesis and
moral theology. Of the latter the best known are _Summula casuum
conscientiae_ (1627); _Liber theologiae moralis_ (1644), and _Universae
theologiae moralis problemata_ (1652-1666). The first mentioned of these
was severely criticised by Pascal in the fifth and sixth of his
_Provincial Letters_, as tending to inculcate a loose system of
morality. It contains the famous maxim that purity of intention may be a
justification of actions which are contrary to the moral code and to
human laws; and its general tendency is to find excuses for the majority
of human frailties. His doctrines were disapproved of by many Catholics,
and were mildly condemned by Rome. They were also ridiculed in witty
verses by Molière, Boileau and La Fontaine, and gradually the name
Escobar came to be used in France as a synonym for a person who is
adroit in making the rules of morality harmonize with his own interests.
Escobar himself is said to have been simple in his habits, a strict
observer of the rules of his order, and unweariedly zealous in his
efforts to reform the lives of those with whom he had to deal. It has
been said of him that "he purchased heaven dearly for himself, but gave
it away cheap to others." He died on the 4th of July 1669.
ESCOIQUIZ, JUAN (1762-1820), Spanish ecclesiastic, politician and
writer, was born in Navarre in 1762. His father was a general officer
and he began life as a page in the court of King Charles III. He entered
the church and was provided for by a prebend at Saragossa. Godoy in his
memoirs asserts that Escoiquiz sought to gain his favour by flattery.
There is every reason to believe that this is an accurate statement of
the case. The mere fact that he was selected to be the tutor of the
heir-apparent, Ferdinand, afterwards King Ferdinand VII., is of itself a
proof that he exerted himself to gain the goodwill of the reigning
favourite. In 1797 he published a translation of Young's _Night
Thoughts_, which does not of itself show that he was well acquainted
with English, for the version may have been made with the help of the
French. In 1798 he published a long and worthless so-called epic on the
conquest of Mexico. Escoiquiz was in fact a busy and pushing member of
the literary clique which looked up to Godoy as its patron. But his
position as tutor to the heir to the throne excited his ambition. He
began to hope that he might play the part of those court ecclesiastics
who had often had an active share in the government of Spain. As
Ferdinand grew up, and after his marriage with a Neapolitan princess, he
became the centre of a court opposition to Godoy and to his policy of
alliance with France. Escoiquiz was the brains, as far as there were any
brains, of the intrigue. His activity was so notorious that he was
exiled from court, but was consoled by a canonry at Toledo. This half
measure was as ineffective as was to have been expected. Escoiquiz
continued to be in constant communication with the prince. Toledo is
close to Madrid, and the correspondence was easily maintained. He had a
large share in the conspiracy of the Escorial which was detected on the
28th of October 1807. He was imprisoned and sent for trial with other
conspirators. But as they had appealed to Napoleon, who would not suffer
his name to be mentioned, the government had to allow the matter to be
hushed up, and the prisoners were acquitted. After the outbreak at
Aranjuez on the 17th of March 1808, in which he had a share, he became
one of the most trusted advisers of Ferdinand. The new king's decision
to go to meet Napoleon at Bayonne was largely inspired by him. In 1814
Escoiquiz published at Madrid his _Idea Sencilla de las razones que
motivaron el viage del Rey Fernando VII. à Bayona_ (Honest
representation of the causes which inspired the journey of King
Ferdinand VII. to Bayonne). It is a valuable historical document, and
contains a singularly vivid account of an interview with Napoleon.
Escoiquiz was far too firmly convinced of his ingenuity and merits to
conceal the delusions and follies of himself and his associates. He
displays his own vanity, frivolity and futile cleverness with much
unconscious humour, but, it is only fair to allow, with some literary
dexterity. When the Spanish royal family was imprisoned by Napoleon,
Escoiquiz remained with Ferdinand at Valençay. In 1813 he published at
Bourges a translation of Milton's _Paradise Lost_. When Ferdinand was
released in 1814 he came back to Madrid in the hope that his ambition
would now be satisfied, but the king was tired of him, and was moreover
resolved never to be subjected by any favourite. After a very brief
period of office in 1815 he was sent as a prisoner to Murcia. Though he
was afterwards recalled, he was again exiled to Ronda, where he died on
the 27th of November 1820.
ESCOMBE, HARRY (1838-1899), South African statesman, a member of a
Somersetshire family, was born at Notting Hill, London, on the 25th of
July 1838, and was educated at St Paul's school. After four years in a
stockbroker's office, he emigrated, in 1859, to the Cape. The following
year he moved to Natal, and, after trying other occupations, qualified
as an attorney. He became recognized as the ablest pleader in the
colony, and, in 1872, was elected for Durban as a member of the
legislative council, and subsequently was also placed on the executive
council. In 1880 he secured the appointment of a harbour board for
Natal, and was himself made chairman. The transformation of the port of
Durban into a harbour available for ocean liners was due entirely to his
energy. In 1888-1889 he defended Dinizulu and other Zulu chiefs against
a charge of high treason. For several years he opposed the grant of
responsible government to Natal, but by 1890 had become convinced of its
desirability, and on its conferment in 1893 he joined the first ministry
formed, serving under Sir John Robinson as attorney-general. In February
1897, on Sir John's retirement, Escombe became premier, remaining
attorney-general and also holding the office of minister of education
and minister of defence. In the summer of that year he was in London
with the other colonial premiers at the celebration of the Diamond
Jubilee of Queen Victoria, and was made a member of the privy council.
Cambridge University conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. The
election that followed his return to Natal proved unfavourable to his
policy, and he resigned office (October 1897). Throughout his life he
took an active interest in national defence. He had served in the Zulu
War of 1879, was commander of the Natal Naval Volunteers and received
the volunteer long service decoration. In October 1899 he went to the
northern confines of the colony to take part in preparing measures of
defence against the invasion by the Boers. He died on the 27th of
December 1899.
The _Speeches of the late Right Hon. Harry Escombe_ (Maritzburg,
1903), edited by J.T. Henderson, contains brief biographical notes by
Sir John Robinson and the editor.
ESCORIAL, or ESCURIAL, in Spain, one of the most remarkable buildings in
Europe, comprising at once a convent, a church, a palace and a
mausoleum. The Escorial is situated 3432 ft. above the sea, on the
south-western slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, and thus within the
borders of the province of Madrid and the kingdom of New Castile. By the
Madrid-Ávila railway it is 31 m. N.W. of Madrid. The surrounding country
is a sterile and gloomy wilderness exposed to the cold and blighting
blasts of the Sierra.
According to the usual tradition, which there seems no sufficient reason
to reject, the Escorial owes its existence to a vow made by Philip II.
of Spain (1556-1598), shortly after the battle of St Quentin, in which
his forces succeeded in routing the army of France. The day of the
victory, the 10th of August 1557, was sacred to St Laurence; and
accordingly the building was dedicated to that saint, and received the
title of _El real monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial_. The last
distinctive epithet was derived from the little hamlet in the vicinity
which furnished shelter, not only to the workmen, but to the monks of St
Jerome who were afterwards to be in possession of the monastery; and
the hamlet itself is generally but perhaps erroneously supposed to be
indebted for its name to the _scoriae_ or dross of certain old iron
mines. The preparation of the plans and the superintendence of the work
were entrusted by the king to Juan Bautista de Toledo, a Spanish
architect who had received most of his professional education in Italy.
The first stone was laid in April 1563; and under the king's personal
inspection the work rapidly advanced. Abundant supplies of _berroqueña_,
a granite-like stone, were obtained in the neighbourhood, and for rarer
materials the resources of both the Old and the New World were put under
contribution. The death of Toledo in 1567 threatened a fatal blow at the
satisfactory completion of the enterprise, but a worthy successor was
found in Juan Herrera, Toledo's favourite pupil, who adhered in the main
to his master's designs. On the 13th of September 1584 the last stone of
the masonry was laid, and the works were brought to a termination in
1593. Each successive occupant of the Spanish throne has done something,
however slight, to the restoration or adornment of Philip's
convent-palace, and Ferdinand VII. (1808-1833) did so much in this way
that he has been called a second founder. In all its principal features,
however, the Escorial remains what it was made by the genius of Toledo
and Herrera working out the grand, if abnormal, desires of their master.
The ground plan of the building is estimated to occupy an area of
396,782 sq. ft., and the total area of all the storeys would form a
causeway 1 metre in breadth and 95 m. in length. There are seven towers,
fifteen gateways and, according to Los Santos, no fewer than 12,000
windows and doors. The general arrangement is shown by the accompanying
plan. Entering by the main entrance the visitor finds himself in an
atrium, called the Court of the Kings (_Patio de los reyes_), from the
16th-century statues of the kings of Judah, by Juan Bautista Monegro,
which adorn the façade of the church. The sides of the atrium are
unfortunately occupied by plain ungainly buildings five storeys in
height, awkwardly accommodating themselves to the upward slope of the
ground. Of the grandeur of the church itself, however, there can be no
question: it is the finest portion of the whole Escorial, and, according
to Fergusson, deserves to rank as one of the great Renaissance churches
of Europe. It is about 340 ft. from east to west by 200 from north to
south, and thus occupies an area of about 70,000 sq. ft. The dome is 60
ft. in diameter, and its height at the centre is about 320 ft. In
glaring contrast to the bold and simple forms of the architecture, which
belongs to the Doric style, were the bronze and marbles and pictures of
the high altar, the masterpiece of the Milanese Giacomo Trezzo, almost
ruined by the French in 1808. Directly under the altar is situated the
pantheon or royal mausoleum, a richly decorated octagonal chamber with
upwards of twenty niches, occupied by black marble _urnas_ or
sarcophagi, kept sacred for the dust of kings or mothers of kings. There
are the remains of Charles V. (1516-1556), of Philip II., and of all
their successors on the Spanish throne down to Ferdinand VII., with the
exception of Philip V. (1700-1746) and Ferdinand VI. (1746-1759).
Several of the sarcophagi are still empty. For the other members of the
royal family there is a separate vault, known as the _Panteon de los
Infantes_, or more familiarly by the dreadfully suggestive name of _El
Pudridero_. The most interesting room in the palace is Philip II.'s
cell, from which through an opening in the wall he could see the
celebration of mass while too ill to leave his bed.
[Illustration: Views and Plan of the Escorial.[1]
CHURCH
1. Principal entrance and portico.
2. Court of the kings (_Patio de los reyes_).
3. Vestibule of the church.
4. Choir of the seminarists.
5. Centre of the church and projection of the dome.
6. Greater chapel.
7. High altar.
8. Chapel of St John.
9. Chapel of St Michael.
10. Chapel of St Maurice.
11. Chapel of the Rosary.
12. Tomb of Louisa Carlota.
13. Chapel of the _Patrocinio_.
14. Chapel of the _Cristo de la buena muerte_.
15. Chapel of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.
16. Former Chapel of the _Patrocinio_.
17. Sacristy.
PALACE
18. Principal court of the palace.
19. Ladies' tower.
20. Court of the masks.
21. Apartments of the royal children.
22. Royal oratory.
23. Oratory where Philip II. died.
SEMINARY
24. Entrance to seminary.
25. Classrooms.
26. Old philosophical hall.
27. Old theological hall.
28. Chamber of secrets.
29. Old refectory.
30. Entrance to the college.
31. College yard.
CONVENT
32. Clock tower.
33. Principal cloister.
34. Court of the evangelists.
35. Prior's cell.
36. Archives.
37. Old church.
38. Visitors' hall.
39. Manuscript library.
40. Convent refectory.]
The library, situated above the principal portico, was at one time one
of the richest in Europe, comprising the king's own collection, the
extensive bequest of Diego de Mendoza, Philip's ambassador to Rome, the
spoils of the emperor of Morocco, Muley Zidan (1603-1628) and various
contributions from convents, churches and cities. It suffered greatly in
the fire of 1671, and has since been impoverished by plunder and
neglect. Among its curiosities still extant are two New Testament
Codices of the 10th century and two of the 11th; various works by
Alphonso the Wise (1252-1284), a Virgil of the 14th century, a Koran of
the 15th, &c. Of the Arabic manuscripts which it contained in the 17th
century a catalogue was given in J.H. Hottinger's _Promptuarium sive
bibliotheca orientalis_, published at Heidelberg in 1658, and another in
the 18th, in M. Casiri's _Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispanica_ (2 vols.,
Madrid, 1760-1770). Of the artistic treasures with which the Escorial
was gradually enriched, it is sufficient to mention the frescoes of
Peregrin or Pellagrino Tibaldi, Luis de Carbajal, Bartolommeo Carducci
or Carducho, and Luca Giordano, and the pictures of Titian, Tintoretto
and Velasquez. These paintings all date from the 15th or the 17th
century. Many of those that are movable have been transferred to Madrid,
and many others have perished by fire or sack. The conflagration of
1671, already mentioned, raged for fifteen days, and only the church, a
part of the palace, and two towers escaped uninjured. In 1808 the whole
building was exposed to the ravages of the French soldiers under General
La Houssaye. On the night of the 1st of October 1872, the college and
seminary, a part of the palace and the upper library were devastated by
fire; but the damage was subsequently repaired. In 1885 the conventual
buildings were occupied by Augustinian monks.
The reader will find a remarkable description of the emotional
influence of the Escorial in E. Quinet's _Vacances en Espagne_ (Paris,
1846), and for historical and architectural details he may consult the
following works:--Fray Juan de San Geronimo, _Memorias sobre la
fundacion del Escorial y su fabrica_, in the _Coleccion de documentos
ineditos para la historia de España_, vol. vii.; Y. de Herrera,
_Sumario y breve declaracion de los diseños y estampas de la fab. de
S. Lorencio el Real del Escurial_ (Madrid, 1589); José de Siguenza,
_Historia de la orden de San Geronyno_, &c. (Madrid, 1590). L. de
Cabrera de Cordova, _Felipe Segundo_ (Madrid, 1619); James Wadsworth,
_Further Observations of the English Spanish Pilgrime_ (London, 1629,
1630); Ilario Mazzorali de Cremona, _Le Reali Grandezze del Escuriale_
(Bologna, 1648); De los Santos, _Descripcion del real monasterio_, &c.
(Madrid, 1657); Andres Ximenes, _Descripcion_, &c. (Madrid, 1764); Y.
Quevedo, _Historia del Real Monasterio_, &c. (Madrid, 1849); A.
Rotondo, _Hist. artistica, ... del monasterio de San Lorenzo_ (Madrid,
1856-1861); W.H. Prescott, _Life of Philip II._ (London, 1887); J.
Fergusson, _History of the Modern Styles of Architecture_ (London,
1891-1893); Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, _Annals of the Artists of Spain_
(London, 1891).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Reduced from a large plan of the Escorial in the British Museum,
_Monasterio del Escorial_, published at Madrid in 1876.
ESCOVEDO, JUAN DE (d. 1578), Spanish politician, secretary of Don John
of Austria, and chiefly notable as having been the victim of one of the
mysteries of the 16th century, began life in the household of Ruy Gomez
de Silva, prince of Eboli, the most trusted minister of the early years
of the reign of Philip II. By the will of the prince he was endowed for
life with the post of _Regidor_, or legal representative of the king in
the municipality of Madrid. He was also associated with Antonio Perez as
one of the secretaries who acted as the agents of the king in all
dealings with the various governing boards which formed the Spanish
administration. When Don John of Austria, after the battle of Lepanto in
1571, began to launch on a policy of self-seeking adventure, Escovedo
was appointed as his secretary with the intention that he should act as
a check on these follies. Unhappily for himself and for Don John he went
heart and soul into all the prince's schemes. He began to disobey orders
from Madrid and became entangled in intrigues to manage or even to
coerce the king. In July 1577, and contrary to the king's orders, he
came to Spain from Flanders, where Don John was then governor. It is
said that he discovered the love intrigue between Antonio Perez and the
widowed princess of Eboli, Ana Mendoza de la Cerda. This is, however,
mere gossip and supposition. There can be no doubt that he was a busy
intriguer, or that the king, acting on the then very generally accepted
doctrine that the sovereign has a right to act for the public interest
without regard to forms of law, gave orders to Antonio Perez that he was
to be put out of the way. After two clumsy attempts had been made to
poison him at Perez's table, he was killed by bravos on the night of
Easter Monday, the 31st of March 1578. According to an old tradition the
murder took place outside the church of St Maria in Madrid, which was
pulled down in 1868.
See Gaspar Muro, _La Princesse d'Eboli_ (Paris, 1878); and W.H.
Prescott, _Reign of Philip II._ (1855-59).
ESCUINTLA, the capital of the department of Escuintla, Guatemala; on the
southern slope of the Sierra Madre, 45 m. S.W. of Guatemala city. Pop.
(1905) about 12,000. Escuintla is locally celebrated for its hot mineral
springs. It is the commercial centre of a fertile district, which
produces coffee, cane-sugar and cocoa; it has also a brisk transit trade
in most of the products of Guatemala, owing to its position on the
interoceanic railway between Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic and San José
(30 m. S.) on the Pacific. A branch railway which goes westward to San
Augustin meets this line at Escuintla.
ESCUTCHEON (O. Fr. _escucheon_, _escusson_, modern _écusson_, through a
Late Lat. form from Lat. _scutum_, shield), an heraldic term for a
shield with armorial bearings displayed (see HERALDRY). The word is also
applied to the shields used on tombs, in the spandrils of doors or in
string-courses, and to the ornamented plates from the centre of which
door-rings, knockers, &c., are suspended, or which protect the wood of
the key-hole from the wear of the key. In medieval times these were
often worked in a very beautiful manner.
ESHER, WILLIAM BALIOL BRETT, 1ST VISCOUNT (1817-1899), English lawyer
and master of the rolls, was a son of the Rev. Joseph G. Brett, of
Chelsea, and was born on the 13th of August 1817. He was educated at
Westminster and at Caius College, Cambridge. Called to the bar in 1840,
he went the northern circuit, and became a Q.C. in 1861. On the death of
Richard Cobden he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a Conservative,
but in 1866 was returned for Helston in unique circumstances. He and his
opponent polled exactly the same number of votes, whereupon the mayor,
as returning officer, gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate.
As this vote was given after four o'clock, however, an appeal was
lodged, and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their
seats. Brett rapidly made his mark in the House, and in 1868 he was
appointed solicitor-general. On behalf of the crown he prosecuted the
Fenians charged with having caused the Clerkenwell explosion. In
parliament he took a leading part in the promotion of bills connected
with the administration of law and justice. He was (August 1868)
appointed a justice in the court of common pleas. Some of his sentences
in this capacity excited much criticism, notably so in the case of the
gas stokers' strike, when he sentenced the defendants to imprisonment
for twelve months, with hard labour, which was afterwards reduced by the
home secretary to four months. On the reconstitution of the court of
appeal in 1876, Brett was elevated to the rank of a lord justice. After
holding this position for seven years, he succeeded Sir George Jessel as
master of the rolls in 1883. In 1885 he was raised to the House of Lords
as Baron Esher. He opposed the bill proposing that an accused person or
his wife might give evidence in their own case, and supported the bill
which empowered lords of appeal to sit and vote after their retirement.
The Solicitors Act of 1888, which increased the powers of the
Incorporated Law Society, owed much to his influence. In 1880 he
delivered a remarkable speech in the House of Lords, deprecating the
delay and expense of trials, which he regarded as having been increased
by the Judicature Acts. Lord Esher suffered, perhaps, as master of the
rolls from succeeding a lawyer of such eminence as Jessel. He had a
caustic tongue, but also a fund of shrewd common sense, and one of his
favourite considerations was whether a certain course was "business" or
not. He retired from the bench at the close of 1897, and a viscounty was
conferred upon him on his retirement, a dignity never given to any
judge, lord chancellors excepted, "for mere legal conduct since the time
of Lord Coke." He died in London on the 24th of May 1899.
Lord Esher was succeeded in the title by his only surviving son,
Reginald Baliol Brett (b. 1852), who was secretary to the office of
works from 1895 to 1902, but subsequently came into far greater public
prominence in 1904 as Chairman of the war office reconstitution
committee after the South African War.
ESHER, a township in the Epsom parliamentary division of Surrey,
England, 14½ m. S.W. of London by the London & South Western railway
(Esher and Claremont station). It is pleasantly situated on rising
ground above the river Mole, 3 m. from its junction with the Thames. To
the north-west lie the grounds of Esher Place. Of the mansion-house
founded by William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester (c. 1450), in
which Cardinal Wolsey resided for three or four weeks after his sudden
fall from power in 1529, only the gatehouse remains. It is known as
Wolsey's Tower, but is apparently part of Waynflete's foundation. A new
mansion was erected in 1803. To the south is Claremont Palace, built by
the great Lord Clive (1769) on the site of a mansion of Sir John
Vanbrugh. In 1816 it was the residence of Princess Charlotte, wife of
Prince (afterwards King) Leopold. She died here in 1817, and on the
death of her husband in 1865 the property passed to the crown. Louis
Philippe, ex-king of the French, resided here from 1848 until his death
in 1850. In 1882 Claremont became the private property of Queen
Victoria. Christ Church, Esher, contains fine memorials of King Leopold
and others, and one of its three bells is said to have been brought from
San Domingo by Sir Francis Drake. To the north near the railway station
is Sandown Park, where important race meetings are held. Esher is
included in the urban district of Esher and The Dittons, of which Thames
Ditton is a favourite riverside resort. The whole district is largely
residential. Pop. (1901) 9489.
ESKER (O. Irish _eiscir_), a local name for long mounds of glacial
gravel frequently met with in Ireland. Eskers (the Swedish _åsar_) are
among the occasionally puzzling relics of the British glacial period.
They wind from side to side across glaciated country and have evidently
been formed by channels upon or under the ice. "Where streams of
considerable size form tunnels under or in the ice these may become more
or less filled with wash, and when the ice melts the aggraded channels
appear as long ridges of gravel and sand known as _eskers_. It has been
thought that similar ridges are sometimes formed in valleys cut in the
ice from top to bottom, and even that they rise from gravel and sand
lodged in super-glacial channels. The latter at least is probably rare,
as the surface streams have usually high gradients, swift currents and
smooth bottoms, and hence give little opportunity for lodgment. In the
case of ice-sheets, too, in which eskers are chiefly developed, there is
usually no surface material except at the immediate edge, where the ice
is thin and its layers upturned" (T.C. Chamberlin and R.D. Salisbury,
_Geology, Processes and their Results_). Eskers are to be distinguished
from kames (q.v.).
ESKILSTUNA, a town of Sweden in the district (_län_) of Södermanland, on
the Hjelmar river, which unites lakes Hjelmar and Mälar, 65 m. W. of
Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900) 13,663. The place is mentioned in the
13th century, and is said to derive its name from Eskil, an English
missionary who suffered martyrdom on the spot. It rose into importance
in the reign of Charles X., who bestowed on it considerable privileges,
and gave the first impulse to its manufacturing activity. It is the
chief seat in Sweden of the iron and steel industries, its cutlery being
especially noted, while damascened work is a specialty. There is a
technical school for the metal industries. There are, in the town or its
neighbourhood, great engineering, gun-making, and rolling and polishing
works and breweries. The largest mechanical works are those of Munktell
and Tunafors. The Karl Gustaf Stads rifle factory was established in
1814.
ESKIMO, ESKIMOS or ESQUIMAUX (a corruption of the Abnaki Indian
_Eskimantsic_ or the Ojibway _Ashkimeq_, both terms meaning "those who
eat raw flesh": they call themselves "Innuit," "the people"), a North
American Indian people, inhabiting the arctic coast of America from
Greenland to Alaska, and a small portion of the Asiatic shore of Bering
Strait. On the American shores they are found, in broken tribes, from
East Greenland to the western shores of Alaska--never far inland, or
south of the region where the winter ice allows seals to congregate.
Even on hunting expeditions they never travel more than 30 m. from the
coast. Save a slight admixture of European settlers, they are the only
inhabitants of both sides of Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. They extend as
far south as about 50° N. lat. on the eastern side of America, and in
the west to 60° on the eastern shore of Bering Strait, while 55° to 60°
are their southern limits on the shore of Hudson Bay. Throughout all
this range there are no other tribes save where the Kennayan and
Ugalenze Indians (of western America) come down to the shore to fish.
The Aleutians are closely allied to the Eskimo in habits and language.
H.J. Rink divides the Eskimo into the following groups, the most eastern
of which would have to travel nearly 5000 m. to reach the most western:
(1) The East Greenland Eskimo, few in number, every year advancing
farther south, and coming into contact with the next section. (2) The
West Greenlanders, civilized, living under the Danish crown, and
extending from Cape Farewell to 74° N. lat. (3) The Northern-most
Greenlanders--the Arctic Highlanders of Sir John Ross--confined to
Smith, Whale, Murchison and Wolstenholme Sounds, north of the Melville
Bay glaciers. These--the most isolated and uncivilized of all the
Eskimo--had no boats or bows and arrows until about 1868. (4) The
Labrador Eskimo, mostly civilized. (5) The Eskimo of the middle regions,
occupying the coasts from Hudson Bay to Barter Island, beyond Mackenzie
river, inhabiting a stretch of country 2000 m. in length and 800 in
breadth. (6) The Western Eskimo, from Barter Island to the western
limits in America. (7) The Asiatic Eskimo.
The Eskimo are not a tall race, their height varying from 5 ft. 4 in. to
5 ft. 10 in., but men of 6 ft. are met. Both men and women are muscular
and active, the former often inclining to fat. The faces of both have a
pleasing, good-humoured expression, and not infrequently are even
handsome. The typical face is broadly oval, flat, with fat cheeks;
forehead not high, and rather retreating; teeth good, though, owing to
the character of the food, worn down to the gums in old age; nose very
flat; eyes rather obliquely set, small, black and bright; head largish,
and covered with coarse black hair, which the women fasten up into a
knot on the top, and the men clip in front and allow to hang loose and
unkempt behind. Their skulls are of the mesocephalic type, the height
being greater than the breadth; according to Davis, 75 is the index of
the latter and 77 of the former. Some of the tribes slightly compress
the skulls of their new-born children laterally (Hall), but this
practice is a very local one. The men have usually a slight moustache,
but no whiskers, and rarely any beard. The skin has generally a "bacony"
feel, and when cleaned of the smoke, grease and other dirt--the
accumulation of which varies according to the age of the individual--is
only so slightly brown that red shows in the cheeks of the children and
young women. The hands and feet are small and well formed. The Eskimo
dress entirely in skins of the seal, reindeer, bear, dog, or even fox,
the first two being, however, the most common. The men's and women's
dress is much the same, a jacket suit, the trousers tucked into
seal-skin boots. The jacket has a hood, which in cold weather is used to
cover the head, leaving only the face exposed. The women's jacket has a
large hood for carrying a child and an absurd-looking tail behind, which
is, however, usually tucked up. The women's trousers are usually
ornamented with eider-duck neck feathers or embroidery of native dyed
leather; their boots, which are of white leather, or (in Greenland) dyed
of various colours, reach over the knees, and in some tribes are very
wide at the top, thus giving them an awkward appearance and a clumsy
waddling walk. In winter two suits are worn, one with the hair inside,
the other with it outside. They also sometimes wear shirts of
bird-skins, and stockings of dog or young reindeer skins. Their clothes
are very neatly made, fit beautifully, and are sewn with "sinew-thread,"
with a bone needle if a steel one cannot be had. In person the Eskimo
are usually filthy, and never wash. Infants are, however, sometimes
cleaned by being licked by their mother before being put into the bag of
feathers which serves as their bed, cradle and blankets.
In summer the Eskimo live in conical skin tents, and in winter usually
in half-underground huts of stone, turf, earth and bones, entered by a
long tunnel-like passage, which can only be traversed on all fours.
Sometimes, if residing temporarily at a place, they will erect neat
round huts of blocks of snow with a sheet of ice for a window. In the
roof are deposited their spare harpoons, &c; and from it is suspended
the steatite basin-like lamp, the flame of which, the wick being of
moss, serves as fire and light. On one side of the hut is the bench
which is used as sofa, seats and common sleeping place. The floor is
usually very filthy, a pool of blood or a dead seal being often to be
seen there. Ventilation is almost non-existent; and after the lamp has
blazed for some time, the heat is all but unbearable. In the summer the
wolfish-looking dogs lie outside on the roof of the huts, in the winter
in the tunnel-like passage just outside the family apartment. The
Western Eskimo build their houses chiefly of planks, merely covered on
the outside with green turf. The same Eskimo have, in the more populous
places, a public room for meetings. "Council chambers" are also said to
exist in Labrador, but are only known in Greenland by tradition.
Sometimes in south Greenland and in the Western Eskimo country the
houses are made to accommodate several families, but as a rule each
family has a house to itself.
The Eskimo are solely hunters and fishers, and derive most of their food
from the sea. Their country allows of no cultivation; and beyond a few
berries, roots, &c., they use no vegetable food. The seal, the reindeer
and the whale supply the bulk of their food, as well as their clothing,
light, fuel, and frequently also, when driftwood is scarce or
unavailable, the material for various articles of domestic economy. Thus
the Eskimo canoe is made of seal-skin stretched on a wooden or whalebone
frame, with a hole in the centre for the paddler. It is driven by a
bone-tipped double-bladed paddle. A waterproof skin or entrail dress is
tightly fastened round the mouth of the hole so that, should the canoe
overturn, no water can enter. A skilful paddler can turn a complete
somersault, boat and all, through the water. The Eskimo women use a
flat-bottomed skin luggage-boat. The Eskimo sledge is made of two
runners of wood or bone--even, in one case on record, of frozen salmon
(Maclure)--united by cross bars tied to the runners by hide thongs, and
drawn by from 4 to 8 dogs harnessed abreast. Some of their weapons are
ingenious--in particular, the harpoon, with its detachable point to
which an inflated sealskin is fastened. When the quarry is struck, the
floating skin serves to tire it out, marks its course, and buoys it up
when dead. The bird-spears, too, have a bladder attached, and points at
the sides which strike the creature should the spear-head fail to wound.
An effective bow is made out of whale's rib. Altogether, with meagre
material the Eskimo show great skill in the manufacture of their
weapons. Meat is sometimes boiled, but, when it is frozen, it is often
eaten raw. Blood, and the half-digested contents of the reindeer's
paunch, are also eaten; and sometimes, but not habitually, blubber. As a
rule this latter is too precious: it must be kept for winter fuel and
light. The Eskimo are enormous eaters; two will easily dispose of a seal
at a sitting; and in Greenland, for instance, each individual has for
his daily consumption, on an average, 2½ lb. of flesh with blubber, and
1 lb. of fish, besides mussels, berries, sea-weed, &c., to which in the
Danish settlements may be added 2 oz. of imported food. Ten pounds of
flesh, in addition to other food, is not uncommonly consumed in a day in
time of plenty. A man will lie on his back and allow his wife to feed
him with tit-bits of blubber and flesh until he is unable to move.
The Eskimo cannot be strictly called a wandering race. They are nomadic
only in so far that they have to move about from place to place during
the fishing and shooting season, following the game in its migrations.
They have, however, no regular property. They possess only the most
necessary utensils and furniture, with a stock of provisions for less
than one year; and these possessions never exceed certain limits fixed
upon by tradition or custom. Long habit and the necessities of their
life have also compelled those having food to share with those having
none--a custom which, with others, has conduced to the stagnant
conditions of Eskimo society and to their utter improvidence.
Their intelligence is considerable, as their implements and folk-tales
abundantly prove. They display a taste for music, cartography and
drawing, display no small amount of humour, are quick at picking up
peculiar traits in strangers, and are painfully acute in detecting the
weak points or ludicrous sides of their character. They are excellent
mimics and easily learn the dances and songs of the Europeans, as well
as their games, such as chess and draughts. They gamble a little--but in
moderation, for the Eskimo, though keen traders, have a deep-rooted
antipathy to speculation. When they offer anything for sale--say at a
Danish settlement in Greenland--they always leave it to the buyer to
settle the price. They have also a dislike to bind themselves by
contract. Hence it was long before the Eskimo in Greenland could be
induced to enter into European service, though when they do they pass to
almost the opposite extreme--they have no will of their own. Public
licentiousness or indecency is rare among them. In their private life
their morality is, however, not high. The women are especially erring;
and in Greenland, at places where strangers visit, their extreme laxity
of morals, and their utter want of shame, are not more remarkable than
the entire absence of jealousy or self-respect on the part of their
countrymen and relatives. Theft in Greenland is almost unknown; but the
wild Eskimo make very free with strangers' goods--though it must be
allowed that the value they attach to the articles stolen is some excuse
for the thieves. Among themselves, on the other hand, they are very
honest--a result of their being so much under the control of public
opinion. Lying is said to be as common a trait of the Eskimo as of other
savages in their dealings with Europeans. They have naturally not made
any figure in literature. Their folk-lore is, however, extensive, and
that collected by Dr Rink shows considerable imagination and no mean
talent on the part of the story-tellers. In Greenland and Labrador most
of the natives have been taught by the missionaries to read and write
in their own language. Altogether, the literature published in the
Eskimo tongue is considerable. Most of it has been printed in Denmark,
but some has been "set up" in a small printing-office in Greenland, from
which about 280 sheets have issued, beside many lithographic prints. A
journal (_Atuagagldliutit nalinginarmik tusaruminásassumik univkat_,
i.e. "something for reading, accounts of all entertaining subjects") has
been published since 1861.
The Eskimo in Greenland and Labrador are, with few exceptions, nominally
at least, Christians. The native religion is a vague animism, and
consists of a belief in good and evil spirits, limited each to its own
sphere; in a Heaven and Hell; and a childish faith is placed in the
native wizards, who are regarded as intermediaries between mankind and
the spirit-powers. The worship of the whale-spirit, so important a
factor in their daily economy, is prevalent.
As regards language, the idiom spoken from Greenland to north-eastern
Siberia is, with a few exceptions, the same; any difference is only that
of dialect. It differs from the whole group of European languages, not
merely in the sound of the words, but more especially, according to
Rink, in the construction. Its most remarkable feature is that a
sentence of a European language is expressed in Eskimo by a single word
constructed out of certain elements, each of which corresponds in some
degree to one of our words. One specimen commonly given to visitors to
Greenland may suffice: _Savigiksiniariartokasuaromaryotittogog_, which
is equivalent to "He says that you also will go away quickly in like
manner and buy a pretty knife." Here is one word serving in the place of
17. It is made up as follows: _Savig_ a knife, _ik_ pretty, _sini_ buy,
_ariartok_ go away, _asuar_ hasten, _omar_ wilt, _y_ in like manner,
_otit_ thou, _tog_ also, _og_ he says.
The Eskimo have no chiefs or political and military rulers. Fabricius
concisely described them in his day: "_Sine Deo, domino, reguntur
consuetudine_." The government is mainly a family one, though a man
distinguished for skill in the chase, and for strength and shrewdness,
often has considerable power in the village. No political or social tie
is recognized between the villages, though general good-fellowship seems
to mark their relations. They never go to war with each other; and
though revengeful and apt to injure an enemy secretly, they rarely come
to blows, and are morbidly anxious not to give offence. Indeed, in their
intercourse with each other, all Eskimo indulge in much hyperbolical
compliment. But they are not without courage. On the Coppermine and
Mackenzie rivers, where they sometimes come into collision with their
American-Indian kinsmen, they fight fiercely. Polygamy is rare, but the
rights of divorce and re-marriage are unrestricted. The Eskimo have
intricate rules governing the ownership of property and the rights of
the hunter. As a race they are singularly undemonstrative. When they met
each other they used to rub noses together, but this, though a common
custom still among the wild Eskimo, is entirely abandoned in Greenland
except for the petting of children. There is, in Greenland at least, no
national mode of salutation, either on meeting or parting. When a guest
enters a house, commonly not the least sign is made either by him or his
host. On leaving a place they sometimes say "inûvdluaritse," i.e. live
well, and to a European "aporniakinatit," i.e. do not hurt thy head,
viz. against the upper part of the doorway. The Eskimo, excluding the
few on the Asiatic coast, are estimated at about 29,000.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Dr H.J. Rink, _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_
(1875); _Danish Greenland; its People and its Products_ (1877);
_Eskimo Tribes_ (1887); J. Richardson, _Polar Regions_ (1861), pp.
298-331; Sir Clements Markham, _Arctic Papers of the R. G. S._ (1875),
pp. 163-232; Simpson, _ibid._ pp. 233-275; "Hans Hendriks the Eskimo's
Memoirs," _Geographical Magazine_ (Feb. 1878, et seq.); Fridtjof
Nansen, _Eskimo Life_ (1894); R.E. Peary, _Northward over the Great
Ice_, vol. i. appendix ii.; F. Boas, "The Central Eskimo," _Sixth
Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology_ (1884-1885); J. Murdoch, "The
Point Barrow Eskimo," _Ninth Annual Report_ (1887-1888); E.W. Nelson,
"The Eskimo about Bering Strait," _Eighteenth Annual Report_, part 1
(1896-1897).
ESKI-SHEHR, a town of Asia Minor, in the Kutaiah sanjak of the Brusa
(Khudavendikiar) vilayet. It is a station on the Haidar Pasha-Angora
railway, 194½ m. from the former and 164 m. from Angora, and the
junction for Konia; and is situated on the right bank of the Pursak Su
(_Tembris_), a tributary of the Sakaria, at the foot of the hills that
border the broad treeless valley. Pop. 20,000 (Moslems 15,000,
Christians 5000). Eski-Shehr, i.e. "the old town," lies about a mile
from the ruins of the ancient Phrygian Dorylaeum. The latter is
mentioned in connexion with the wars of Lysimachus and Antigonus (about
302 B.C.), and frequently figures in Byzantine history as an imperial
residence and military rendezvous. It was the scene of the defeat of the
Turks under Kilij-Arslan by the crusaders in 1097, and fell finally to
the Turks of Konia in 1176. The town is divided by a small stream into a
commercial quarter on low ground, in which are the bazaars, khans and
the hot sulphur springs (122° F.) which are mentioned as early as the
3rd century by Athenaeus; and a residential quarter on the higher
ground. The town is noted for its good climate, the Pursak Su for the
abundance of its fish, and the plain for its fertility. About 18 m. to
the E. are extensive deposits of meerschaum. The clay is partly
manufactured into pipes in the town, but the greater proportion finds
its way to Europe and especially to Germany. The annual output is valued
at £272,000.
See Murray's _Hdbk. to Asia Minor_ (1893); V. Cuinet, _Turquie d'Asie_
(Paris, 1894).
ESMARCH, JOHANNES FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON (1823-1908), German surgeon, was
born at Tönning, in Schleswig-Holstein, on the 9th of January 1823. He
studied at Kiel and Göttingen, and in 1846 became B.R.K. von Langenbeck's
assistant at the Kiel surgical hospital. He served in the
Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848 as junior surgeon, and this directed his
attention to the subject of military surgery. He was taken prisoner, but
afterwards exchanged, and was then appointed as surgeon to a field
hospital. During the truce of 1849 he qualified as _Privatdocent_ at
Kiel, but on the fresh outbreak of war he returned to the troops and was
promoted to the rank of senior surgeon. In 1854 he became director of the
surgical clinic at Kiel, and in 1857 head of the general hospital and
professor at the university. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864
Esmarch rendered good service to the field hospitals of Flensburg,
Sundewitt and Kiel. In 1866 he was called to Berlin as member of the
hospital commission, and also to take the superintendence of the surgical
work in the hospitals there. When the Franco-German War broke out in 1870
he was appointed surgeon-general to the army, and afterwards consulting
surgeon at the great military hospital near Berlin. In 1872 he married
Princess Henrietta of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, aunt of
the Empress Auguste Victoria. In 1887 a patent of nobility was conferred
on him. He died at Kiel on the 23rd of February 1908. Esmarch was one of
the greatest authorities on hospital management and military surgery. His
_Handbuch der kriegschirurgischen Technik_ was written for a prize
offered by the empress Augusta, on the occasion of the Vienna Exhibition
of 1877, for the best handbook for the battlefield of surgical appliances
and operations. This book is illustrated by admirable diagrams, showing
the different methods of bandaging and dressing, as well as the surgical
operations as they occur on the battlefield. Esmarch himself invented an
apparatus, which bears his name, for keeping a limb nearly bloodless
during amputation. No part of Esmarch's work is more widely known than
that which deals with "First Aid," his _First Aid on the Battlefield_ and
_First Aid to the Injured_ being popular manuals on the subject. The
latter is the substance of a course of lectures delivered by him in 1881
to a "Samaritan School," the first of the kind in Germany, founded by
Esmarch in 1881, in imitation of the St John's Ambulance classes which
had been organized in England in 1878. These lectures were very generally
adopted as a manual for first aid students, edition after edition having
been called for, and they have been translated into numerous languages,
the English version being the work of H.R.H. Princess Christian. No
ambulance course would be complete without a demonstration of the
Esmarch bandage. It is a three-sided piece of linen or cotton, of which
the base measures 4 ft. and the sides 2 ft. 10 in. It can be used folded
or open, and applied in thirty-two different ways. It answers every
purpose for temporary dressing and field-work, while its great
recommendation is that the means for making it are always at hand.
ESNA, or ESNEH, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank of the Nile, 454 m.
S.S.E. of Cairo by rail, the railway station being on the opposite side
of the river. Pop. (1897) 16,000, mostly Copts. Esna, one of the
healthiest towns in Egypt, is noted for its manufactures of pottery and
its large grain and live stock markets. It formerly had a large trade
with the Sudan. A caravan road to the south goes through the oasis of
Kurkur. The trade, almost stopped by the Mahdist Wars, is now largely
diverted by railway and steamboat routes. There is, however,
considerable traffic with the oasis of Kharga, which lies almost due
west of the town. Nearly in the centre of the town is the Ptolemaic and
Roman temple of the ram-headed Khnum, almost buried in rubbish and
houses. The interior of the pronaos is accessible to tourists, and
contains the latest known hieroglyphic inscription, dating from the
reign of Decius (A.D. 249-251). With Khnum are associated the goddesses
Sati and Neith. In the neighbourhood are remains of Coptic buildings,
including a subterranean church (discovered 1895) in the desert half a
mile beyond the limits of cultivation. The name Esna is from the Coptic
_Sne_. By the Greeks the place was called Latopolis, from the worship
here of the latus fish. In the persecutions under Diocletian A.D. 303,
the Christians of Esna, a numerous body, suffered severely. In later
times the town frequently served as a place of refuge for political
exiles. The so-called Esna barrage across the Nile (built 1906-1908) is
30 m. higher up stream at Edfu.
ESOTERIC, having an inner or secret meaning. This term, and its
correlative "exoteric," were first applied in the ancient Greek
mysteries to those who were initiated ([Greek: esô], within) and to
those who were not ([Greek: exô], outside), respectively. It was then
transferred to a supposed distinction drawn by certain philosophers
between the teaching given to the whole circle of their pupils and that
containing a higher and secret philosophy which was reserved for a
select number of specially advanced or privileged disciples. This
distinction was ascribed by Lucian (_Vit. Auct._ 26) to Aristotle
(q.v.), who, however, uses [Greek: exôterikoi logoi] (_Nic. Ethics_)
merely of "popular treatises." It was probably adopted by the
Pythagoreans and was also attributed to Plato. In the sense of mystic it
is used of a secret doctrine of theosophy, supposed to have been
traditional among certain disciples of Buddhism.
ESPAGNOLS SUR MER, LES, the name given to the naval victory gained by
King Edward III. of England over a Spanish fleet off Winchelsea, on the
29th of August 1350. Spanish ships had fought against England as the
allies or mercenaries of France, and there had been instances of
piratical violence between the trading ships of both nations. A Spanish
merchant fleet was loading cargoes in the Flemish ports to be carried to
the Basque coast. The ships were armed and had warships with them. They
were all under the command of Don Carlos de la Cerda, a soldier of
fortune who belonged to a branch of the Castilian royal family. On its
way to Flanders the Spanish fleet had captured a number of English
trading ships, and had thrown the crews overboard. Piratical violence
and massacre of this kind was then universal on the sea. On the 10th of
August, when the king was at Rotherhithe, he announced his intention of
attacking the Spaniards on their way home. The rendezvous of his fleet
was at Winchelsea, and thither the king went by land, accompanied by his
wife and her ladies, by his sons, the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, as
well as by many nobles. The ladies were placed in a convent and the king
embarked on his flagship, the "Cog Thomas," on the 28th of August. The
English fleet did not put to sea but remained at anchor, waiting for the
appearance of the Spaniards. Its strength is not known with certainty,
but Stow puts it at 50 ships and pinnaces. Carlos de la Cerda was
obviously well disposed to give the king a meeting. He might easily
have avoided the English if he had kept well out in the Channel. But he
relied on the size and strength of his 40 large ships, and in
expectation of an encounter had recruited a body of mercenaries--mostly
crossbowmen--in the Flemish ports. In the afternoon of the 29th of
August he bore down boldly on King Edward's ships at anchor at
Winchelsea. When the Spaniards hove in sight, the king was sitting on
the deck of his ship, with his knights and nobles, listening to his
minstrels who played German airs, and to the singing of Sir John
Chandos. When the look-out in the tops reported the enemy in sight, the
king and his company drank to one another's health, the trumpet was
sounded, and the whole line stood out. All battles at that time, whether
on land or sea, were finally settled by stroke of sword. The English
steered to board the Spaniards. The king's own ship was run into by one
of the enemy with such violence that both were damaged, and she began to
sink. The Spaniard stood on, and the "Cog Thomas" was laid alongside
another, which was carried by boarding. It was high time, for the king
and his following had barely reached the deck of the Spaniard before the
"Cog Thomas" went to the bottom. Other Spaniards were taken, but the
fight was hot. La Cerda's crossbowmen did much execution, and the
higher-built Spaniards were able to drop bars of iron or other weights
on the lighter English vessels, by which they were damaged. The conflict
was continued till twilight. At the close the large English vessel
called "La Salle du Roi," which carried the king's household, and was
commanded by the Fleming, Robert of Namur, afterwards a knight of the
Garter, was grappled by a big Spaniard, and was being dragged off by
him. The crew called loudly for a rescue, but were either not heard or,
if heard, could not be helped. The "Salle du Roi" would have been taken
if a Flemish squire of Robert of Namur, named Hannequin, had not
performed a great feat of arms. He boarded the Spaniard and cut the
halyards of her mainsail with his sword. The Spanish ship was taken.
King Edward is said to have captured 14 of the enemy. What his own loss
was is not stated, but as his own vessel, and also the vessel carrying
the Black Prince, were sunk, and from the peril of "La Salle du Roi," we
may conclude that the English fleet suffered heavily. There was no
pursuit, and a truce was made with the Basque towns the next year.
The battle with "the Spaniards on the sea" is a very typical example of
a medieval sea-fight, when the ships were of the size of a small coaster
or a fishing smack, were crowded with men, and when the personal prowess
of a single knight or squire was an important element of strength.
The only real authority for the battle is Froissart, who was at
different times in the service of King Edward or of his wife, Philippa
of Hainaut, and of the counts of Namur. He repeated what was told him
by men who had been present, and dwells as usual on the "chivalry" of
his patrons. See his _Chroniques_, iv. 91. (D. H.)
ESPALIER (a French word, derived from the Ital. _spalliera_, something
to rest the _spalla_ or shoulder against; the word is ultimately the
same as _épaulière_, a shoulder-piece), a lattice-work or row of stakes,
originally shoulder high, on which fruit trees, shrubs and flowers,
particularly roses and creepers, are trained. Espaliers are usually made
of larch or other wood, iron and metal rails being too great conductors
of heat and cold. The advantage of this method of training is that the
fruit, &c, is more easily got at, and while protected from wind, is
freely exposed to sun and air, and not so open to extreme changes of
temperature as when trained on a wall. (See HORTICULTURE.)
ESPARTERO, BALDOMERO (1792-1879), duke of Vitoria, duke of Morella,
prince of Vergara, Count Luchana, knight of the Toison d'Or, &c. &c.,
Spanish soldier and statesman, was born at Granatulu, a town of the
province of Ciudad Real, on the 27th of February 1792. He was the ninth
child of a carter, who wanted to make him a priest, but the lad at
fifteen enlisted in a battalion of students to fight against the armies
of Napoleon I. In 1811 Espartero was appointed a lieutenant of Engineers
in Cadiz, but having failed to pass his examination he entered a line
regiment. In 1815 he went to America as a captain under General Morillo,
who had been made commander-in-chief to quell the risings of the
colonies on the Spanish Main. For eight years Espartero distinguished
himself in the struggle against the colonists. He was several times
wounded, and was made major and colonel on the battlefields of
Cochabamba and Sapachni. He had to surrender to Sucre at the final
battle of Ayacucho, which put an end to Castilian rule. He returned to
Spain, and, like most of his companions in arms, remained under a cloud
for some time. He was sent to the garrison town of Logroño, where he
married the daughter of a rich landowner, Doña Jacinta Santa Cruz, who
eventually survived him. Henceforth Logroño became the home of the most
prominent of the Spanish political generals of the 19th century.
Espartero became in 1832, on the death of King Ferdinand VII., one of
the most ardent defenders of the rights of his daughter, Isabella II.
The government sent him to the front, directly the Carlist War broke
out, as commandant of the province of Biscay, where he severely defeated
the Carlists in many encounters. He was quickly promoted to a divisional
command, and then made a lieutenant-general. At times he showed
qualities as a _guerillero_ quite equal to those of the Carlists, like
Zumalacarregui and Cabrera, by his daring marches and surprises. When he
had to move large forces he was greatly superior to them as an organizer
and strategist, and he never disgraced his successes by cruelty or
needless severity. Twice he obliged the Carlists to raise the siege of
Bilbao before he was appointed commander-in-chief of the northern army
on the 17th of September 1836, when the tide of war seemed to be setting
in favour of the pretender in the Basque provinces and Navarre, though
Don Carlos had lost his ablest lieutenant, the Basque Zumalacarregui.
His military duties at the head of the principal national army did not
prevent Espartero from showing for the first time his political
ambition. He displayed such radical and reforming inclinations that he
laid the foundations of his popularity among the lower and middle
classes, which lasted more than a quarter of a century, during which
time the Progressists, Democrats and advanced Liberals ever looked to
him as a leader and adviser. In November 1836 he again forced the
Carlists to raise the siege of Bilbao. His troops included the British
legion under Sir de Lacy Evans. This success turned the tide of war
against Don Carlos, who vainly attempted a raid towards Madrid.
Espartero was soon at his heels, and obliged him to hurry northwards,
after several defeats. In 1839 Espartero carefully opened up
negotiations with Maroto and the principal Carlist chiefs of the Basque
provinces. These ended in their accepting his terms under the famous
convention of Vergara, which secured the recognition of their ranks and
titles for nearly 1000 Carlist officers. Twenty thousand Carlist
volunteers laid down their arms at Vergara; only the irreconcilables led
by Cabrera held out for a while in the central provinces of Spain.
Espartero soon, however, in 1840, stamped out the last embers of the
rising, which had lasted seven years. He was styled "El pacificador de
España," was made a grandee of the first class, and received two
dukedoms.
During the last three years of the war Espartero, who had been elected a
deputy, exercised from his distant headquarters such influence over
Madrid politics that he twice hastened the fall of the cabinet, and
obtained office for his own friends. At the close of the war the queen
regent and her ministers attempted to elbow out Espartero and his
followers, but a _pronunciamiento_ ensued in Madrid and other large
towns which culminated in the marshal's accepting the post of prime
minister. He soon became virtually a dictator, as Queen Christina took
offence at his popularity and resigned, leaving the kingdom very soon
afterwards. Directly the Cortes met they elected Espartero regent by 179
votes to 103 in favour of Arguelles, who was appointed guardian of the
young queen. For two years Espartero ruled Spain in accordance with his
Radical and conciliatory dispositions, giving special attention to the
reorganization of the administration, taxation and finances, declaring
all the estates of the church, congregations and religious orders to be
national property, and suppressing the _diezma_, or tenths. He
suppressed the Republican risings with as much severity as he did the
military _pronunciamientos_ of Generals Concha and Diego de Leon. The
latter was shot in Madrid. Espartero crushed with much energy a
revolutionary rising in Barcelona, but on his return to Madrid was so
coldly welcomed that he perceived that his prestige was on the wane. The
advanced Progressists coalesced with the partisans of the ex-regent
Christina to promote _pronunciamientos_ in Barcelona and many cities.
The rebels declared Queen Isabel of age, and, led by General Narvaez,
marched upon Madrid. Espartero, deeming resistance useless, embarked at
Cadiz on the 30th of July 1843 for England, and lived quietly apart from
politics until 1848, when a royal decree restored to him all his honours
and his seat in the senate. He retired to his house in Logroño, which he
left six years later, in 1854, when called upon by the queen to take the
lead of the powerful Liberal and Progressist movement which prevailed
for two years. The old marshal vainly endeavoured to keep his own
Progressists within bounds in the Cortes of 1854-1856, and in the great
towns, but their excessive demands for reforms and liberties played into
the hands of a clerical and reactionary court and of the equally
retrograde governing classes. The growing ambition of General O'Donnell
constantly clashed with the views of Espartero, until the latter, in
sheer disgust, resigned his premiership and left for Logroño, after
warning the queen that a conflict was imminent between O'Donnell and the
Cortes, backed by the Progressist militia. O'Donnell's _pronunciamiento_
in 1856 put an end to the Cortes, and the militia was disarmed, after a
sharp struggle in the streets of the capital. After 1856 Espartero
resolutely declined to identify himself with active politics, though at
every stage in the onward march of Spain towards more liberal and
democratic institutions he was asked to take a leading part. He refused
to allow his name to be brought forward as a candidate when the Cortes
of 1868, after the Revolution, sought for a ruler. Espartero, strangely
enough, adopted a laconic phrase when successive governments on their
advent to power invariably addressed themselves to the venerable
champion of liberal ideas. To all--to the Revolution of 1868, the
Constituent Cortes of 1869, King Amadeus, the Federal Republic of 1873,
the nameless government of Marshal Serrano in 1874, the Bourbon
restoration in 1875--he simply said: "Cumplase la voluntad nacional"
("Let the national will be accomplished"). King Amadeus made him prince
of Vergara. The Restoration raised a statue to him near the gate of the
Retiro Park in Madrid. Spaniards of all shades, except Carlists and
Ultramontanes, paid homage to his memory when he passed away at his
Logroño residence on the 8th of January 1879. His tastes were singularly
modest, his manners rather reserved, but always kind and considerate for
humble folk. He was a typical Spanish soldier-politician, though he had
more of the better traits of the soldier born and bred than of the arts
of the statesman. His military instincts did not always make it easy for
him to accommodate himself to courtiers and professional politicians.
(A. E. H.)
ESPARTO, or SPANISH GRASS, _Stipa tenacissima_, a grass resembling the
ornamental feather-grass of gardens. It is indigenous to the south of
Spain and the north of Africa (where it is known as Halfa or Alfa), and
is especially abundant in the sterile and rugged parts of Murcia and
Valencia, and in Algeria, flourishing best in sandy, ferruginous soils,
in dry, sunny situations on the sea coast. Pliny (_N.H._ xix. 2)
described what appears to have been the same plant under the name of
_spartum_, whence the designation _campus spartarius_ for the region
surrounding New Carthage. It attains a height of 3 or 4 ft. The stems
are cylindrical, and clothed with short hair, and grow in clusters of
from 2 to 10 ft. in circumference; when young they serve as food for
cattle, but after a few years' growth acquire great toughness of
texture. The leaves vary from 6 in. to 3 ft. in length, and are
grey-green in colour; on account of their tenacity of fibre and
flexibility they have for centuries been employed for the making of
ropes, sandals, baskets, mats and other articles. Ships' cables of
esparto, being light, have the quality of floating on water, and have
long been in use in the Spanish navy.
Esparto leaves contain 56% by weight of fibre, or about 10% more than
straw, and hence have come into requisition as a substitute for linen
rags in the manufacture of paper. For this purpose they were first
utilized by the French, and in 1857 were introduced into Great Britain.
When required for paper-making the leaves should be gathered before they
are quite matured; if, however, they are obtained too young, they
furnish a paper having an objectionable semi-transparent appearance. The
leaves are gathered by hand, and from 2 to 3 cwt. may be collected in a
day by a single labourer. They are generally obtained during the dry
summer months, as at other times their adherence to the stems is so firm
as often to cause the uprooting of the plants in the attempt to remove
them. Esparto may be raised from seed, but cannot be harvested for
twelve or fifteen years after sowing.
Another grass, _Lygeum Spartum_, with stiff rush-like leaves, growing in
rocky soil on the high plains of countries bordering on the
Mediterranean, especially of Spain and Algeria, is also a source of
esparto.
For the processes of the paper manufacturer esparto is used in the dry
state, and without cutting; roots and flowers and stray weeds are first
removed, and the material is then boiled with caustic soda, washed, and
bleached with chlorine solution. Sundry experiments have been made to
adapt esparto for use in the coarser textile fabrics. Messrs A. Edger
and B. Proctor in 1877 directed attention to the composition of the slag
resulting from the burning of esparto, which they found to be strikingly
similar to that of average medical bottle glass, the latter yielding on
analysis 66.3% of silica and 25.1% of alkalies and alkaline earths, and
the slag 64.6 and 27.45% of the same respectively.
ESPERANCE, a small seaport on a fine natural harbour on the south coast
of West Australia, 275 m. north-east from Albany. It is a summer resort,
and in the neighbourhood are interesting caves. Its importance as a
seaport is due to its being on the high road between the eastern states
and the gold-fields, and the nearest place for the shipment of gold from
the Coolgardie fields.
ESPERANTO, an artificial international auxiliary language (see UNIVERSAL
LANGUAGES), first published in 1887, seven years after the appearance of
its predecessor Volapük (q.v.), which it has now completely supplanted.
Its author was a Russian physician, Dr L. Zamenhof, born in 1859 at
Bielostok, where the spectacle of the feuds of the four races--each
speaking different languages--which inhabit it (Russians, Poles, Germans
and Jews) at an early date suggested to him the idea of remedying the
evil by the introduction of a neutral language, standing apart from the
existing national languages. His first idea was to resuscitate some dead
language. Then he tried to construct a new language on an a priori
basis. At the same time he made what he appears to have considered the
great discovery that the bulk of the vocabulary of a language consists
not of independent roots, but of compounds and derivatives formed from a
comparatively small number of roots.
At first he tried to construct his roots a priori by arbitrary
combinations of letters. Then he fell back on the plan of taking his
roots ready-made from existing languages, as the inventor of Volapük had
done before him. But instead of taking them mainly from one language, he
has selected them from the chief European languages, but not
impartially. Like all inventors of artificial languages, he is more
ready to experiment with foreign languages than with his own; and hence
the Slavonic roots in Esperanto are much less numerous than those taken
from the other European languages. Here his choice has been to some
extent guided by considerations of internationality, although he has not
fully grasped the importance of the principle of maximum
internationality, so well worked out in the latest rival of
Esperanto--Idiom Neutral (see UNIVERSAL LANGUAGES). Thus he adopts a
large number of international words--generally unaltered except in
spelling--such as _teatr_, _tabak_, even when it would be easy to form
equivalent terms from the roots already existing in the language. Where
there is no one international word, he selects practically at random,
keeping, however, a certain balance between the Romance words, taken
chiefly from Latin (_tamen_) and French (_trotuar_), on the one hand,
and the Germanic on the other hand, the latter being taken sometimes
from German (_nur_, "only"), sometimes from English, the words being
generally written more or less phonetically (_rajt_ = right). Most of
the Germanic words are badly chosen from the international point of
view. Thus the German word quoted above would not be intelligible to any
one ignorant of German. Indeed, from the international point of view all
specially German words ought to be excluded, or else reduced to the
common Germanic form; thus _trink_ ought to be made into _drink_, the
_t_ being a specially German modification of the _d_, preserved not only
in English but in all the remaining Germanic languages. This incongruous
mixture of languages is not only jarring and repulsive, but adds greatly
to the difficulty of mastering the vocabulary for the polyglot as well
as the monolingual learner.
The inventor has taken great pains to reduce the number of his roots to
a minimum; there are 2642 of them in his dictionary, the _Universala
Vortaro_ (from Ger. _Wort_, "word"), which does not include such
international words as _poezio_, _telefono_; these the learner is
supposed to recognize and form without help. The most eccentric feature
of the vocabulary, and the one to which it owes much of its brevity, is
the extensive use of the prefix _mal-_ to reverse the meaning of a word,
as in _malamiko_, "enemy," and even _malbona_, "bad."
The phonology of the language is very simple. The vowels are only five
in number, _a_, _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_, used without any distinction of
quantity, as in Russian. There are six diphthongs, expressed by an
unnecessarily complicated notation. The consonant-system is simple
enough in itself, but is greatly complicated in writing by the excessive
and mostly unnecessary use made of diacritical letters not only for
simple sounds but also for consonant-groups. _c_ is used for _ts_, as in
Polish.
The grammar is, like that of Volapük, partly borrowed from existing
languages, partly _a priori_ and arbitrary. The use of the final vowels
belongs to the latter category. The use of _-a_ to indicate adjectives
and of _-o_ to indicate nouns as in _kara amiko_, "dear (male) friend,"
is a source of confusion to those familiar with the Romance languages,
and has proved a bar to the diffusion of Esperanto among the speakers of
these languages. On the other hand, the following paradigm will show how
faithfully Esperanto can reproduce the defects of conventional European
grammar:--
Singular. Plural.
Nominative _la bona patro_ _la bonaj patroj_
Accusative _la bonan patron_ _la bonajn patrojn._
It is difficult to see why the accusative should be kept when all the
other cases are replaced by prepositions.
The verb is better than the noun. Its inflections are _-as_ present,
_-is_ preterite, _-os_ future, _-us_ conditional, _-u_ imperative and
subjunctive, _-i_ infinitive, together with the following participles:--
Active. Passive.
Present _-anta_ _-ata_
Preterite _-inta_ _-ita_
Future _-onta_ _-ota_
The inventor has followed the good example of his native language in
using _esti_, "to be," as the auxiliary verb both in the passive, where
it is combined with passive participles, and in the secondary tenses of
the active (perfect, pluperfect, &c.), where it is of course combined
with the active participles. The participles can be made into nouns and
adverbs by changing the final _-a_ into _-o_ and _-e_ respectively: thus
_tenonto_, "the future holder," _perdinte_, "through having lost."
The table of the forty-five correlative pronouns, adjectives and adverbs
is also elaborate and ingenious.
Much ingenuity is displayed in the syntax, as well as some happy
simplifications. But, on the other hand, there is much in it that is
fanciful, arbitrary and vague, as in the use of the definite
article--where the author has unfortunately followed French rather than
English usage--and in the moods of the verb.
The following specimens will show the general character of this
easy-flowing but somewhat heavy and monotonous language--"bad Italian,"
as it is called by its detractors:--
Patro nia, kiu estas en la cielo, sankta estu via nomo; venu regeco
via; estu volo via, kiel en la cielo, tiel ankau sur la tero. Panon
nian ciutagan donu al ni hodiau; kaj pardonu al ni suldojn niajn, kiel
ni ankau pardonas al niaj suldantoj; kaj ne konduku nin en tenton, sed
liberigu nin de la malbono.
Estimata Sinjoro. Per tiu ci libreto mi havas la honoron prezenti al
vi la lingvon internacian Esperanto. Esperanto tute ne havas la
intencon malfortigi la lingvon naturan de ia popolo. Gi devas nur
servi por la rilatoj internaciaj kaj por tiuj verkoj au produktoj,
kiuj interesas egale la tutan mondon.
In summing up the merits and defects of Esperanto we must begin by
admitting that it is the most reasonable and practical artificial
language that has yet appeared. Its inventor has had the double
advantage of being able to profit by the mistakes of his predecessors,
and of being himself, by force of circumstances, a better linguist. It
must further be admitted that he has made as good a use of these
advantages as was perhaps possible without systematic training in
scientific philology in its widest sense. This last defect explains why
the enthusiasm which his work has excited in the great world of
linguistic dilettantes has not been shared by the philologists: in spite
of its superiority to Volapük, they see in it the same radical defects.
Whether they are rash or not in predicting for it a similar fate,
remains to be seen. The Esperantists, warned by the fate of Volapük,
have adopted the wise policy of suppressing all internal disunion by
submitting to the dictatorship of the inventor, and so presenting a
united front to the enemy. One thing is clear: either Esperanto must be
taken as it is without change, or else it must crumble to pieces; its
failure to work out consistently the principle of the maximum of
internationality for its root-words is alone enough to condemn it as
hopelessly antiquated even from the narrow point of view which regards
"international" as synonymous with "European"--a view which political
development in the Far East has made equally obsolete. (H. Sw.)
ESPINAY, TIMOLÉON D' (1580-1644), French soldier, was the eldest of the
four sons of François d'Espinay, seigneur de Saint Luc (1554-1597), and
was himself marquis de Saint Luc. In 1603 he accompanied Sully in his
embassy to London. In 1622, in his capacity as vice-admiral of France,
he gained some advantages over the defenders of La Rochelle, obliging
the Huguenot commander, Benjamin de Rohan, seigneur de Soubise, to
evacuate the islands of Ré and Oléron. In 1627 he was named
lieutenant-general of Guienne and marshal of France.
ESPINEL, VICENTE MARTINEZ (1551-1624), Spanish poet and novelist, was
baptized on the 28th of December 1551, and educated at Salamanca. He was
expelled from the university in 1572, and served as a soldier in
Flanders, returning to Spain in 1584 or thereabouts. He took orders in
1587, and four years later became chaplain at Ronda, absented himself
from his living, and was deprived of his cure; but his musical skill
obtained for him the post of choirmaster at Plasencia. His _Diversas
Rìmas_ (1591) are undeniably good examples of technical accomplishment
and caustic wit. Espinel, however, survives as the author of a clever
picaresque novel entitled _Relaciones de la vida del Escudero Marcos de
Obregón_ (1618). It is, in many passages, an autobiography of Espinel
with picturesque embellishments. Marcos is not a chivalresque "esquire,"
but an adventurer who seeks his fortune by attaching himself to great
men; and the object of the author is to warn young men against such a
life. Apart from the unedifying confessions of the hero, the book
contains curious anecdotes concerning prominent contemporaries, and the
episodical stories are told with great spirit; the style is extremely
correct, though somewhat diffuse. Le Sage has not scrupled to borrow
from _Marcos de Obregón_ many of the incidents and characters in _Gil
Blas_--a circumstance which induced Isla to give to his Spanish
translation of Le Sage's work the jesting title, _Gil Blas restored to
his Country and his Native Tongue_. In the 1775 edition of the _Siècle
de Louis XIV._ Voltaire grossly exaggerates in saying that _Gil Blas_ is
taken entirely from _Marcos de Obregón_. Espinel was a clever musician
and added a fifth string to the guitar. He revived the measure known as
_décimas_ or _espinelas_, consisting of a stanza of ten octosyllabic
lines. Most of the poems which he left in manuscript remain unpublished
owing to their licentious character.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--J. Perez de Guzmán's edition of _Marcos de Obregón_
(Barcelona, 1881) includes a valuable introduction; Léo Claretie, _Le
Sage romancier_ (Paris, 1890), discusses exhaustively the question of
Le Sage's indebtedness to Espinel. For some previously unpublished
poems see Pedro Salvá y Mallén, _Catálogo de la biblioteca de Salvá_
(Valencia, 1872).
ESPIRITO SANTO, a maritime state of Brazil, bounded N. by Bahia, E. by
the Atlantic Ocean, S. by Rio de Janeiro, and W. by Minas Geraes. Pop.
(1890) 135,997; (1900) 209,783; area, 17,316 sq. m. With the exception
of Sergipe it is the smallest of the Brazilian states. The western
border of the state is traversed by low ranges of mountains forming a
northward continuation of the Serra do Mar. The longest and most
prominent of these ranges, which are for the most part the eastern
escarpments of the great Brazilian plateau, is the Serra dos Aymores,
which extends along fully two-thirds of the western frontier. Farther S.
the ranges are much broken and extend partly across the state toward the
seaboard; the more prominent are known as the Serra do Espigão, Serra da
Chibata, Serra dos Pilões and Serra dos Purys. The eastern and larger
part of the state belongs to the coastal plain, in great part low and
swampy, with large areas of sand barrens, and broken by isolated groups
and ranges of hills. With the exception of these sandy plains the
country is heavily forested, even the mountain sides being covered with
vegetation to their summits. The northern and southern parts are
fertile, but the central districts are comparatively poor. The coastal
plain comprises a sandy, unproductive belt immediately on the coast,
back of which is a more fertile tertiary plain, well suited, near the
higher country, to the production of sugar and cotton. The inland
valleys and slopes are very fertile and heavily forested, and much of
the Brazilian export of rosewood and other cabinet woods is drawn from
this state. There is only one good bay on the coast, that of Espirito
Santo, on which the port of Victoria is situated. The river-mouths are
obstructed by sand bars and admit small vessels only. The principal
rivers of the state are the Mucury, which rises in Minas Geraes and
forms the boundary line with Bahia, the Itaunas, São Domingos, São
Matheus, Doce, Timbuhy, Santa Maria, Jucú, Benevente, Itapemirim, and
Itabapoana, the last forming the boundary line with Rio de Janeiro. The
Doce, São Matheus, and Itapemirim rise in Minas Geraes and flow entirely
across the state. The lower courses of these rivers are generally
navigable, that of the Rio Doce for a distance of 90 m. The climate of
the coastal zone and deeper valleys is hot, humid and unhealthy,
malarial fevers being prevalent. In the higher country the temperature
is lower and the climate is healthy. Espirito Santo is almost
exclusively agricultural, sugar-cane, coffee, rice, cotton, tobacco,
mandioca and tropical fruits being the principal products. Agriculture
is in a very backward condition, however, and the state is classed as
one of the poorest and most unprogressive in the republic. The rivers
and shallow coast waters are well stocked with fish, but there are no
fishing industries worthy of mention. There are three railway lines in
operation in the state--one running from Victoria to Cachoeira do
Itapemirim (50 m.), and thence, by another line, to Santo Eduardo in Rio
de Janeiro (58 m.), where connexion is made with the Leopoldina system
running into the national capital, and a third running north-westerly
from Victoria to Diamantina, Minas Geraes, about 450 m. The chief cities
and towns of the state, with their populations in 1890, are Victoria,
São Matheus (municipality, 7761) on a river of the same name 16 m. from
the sea, Serra (municipality, 6274), Guarapary (municipality, 5310), a
small port S. by W. of the capital, Conceicão da Barra (municipality,
5628), the port of São Matheus and Cachoeira do Itapemirim (4049), an
important commercial centre in the south.
Espirito Santo formed part of one of the original captaincies which were
given to Vasco Fernandes Coutinho by the Portuguese crown. The first
settlement (1535) was at the entrance to the bay of Espirito Santo, and
its name was afterwards given to the bay and captaincy. It once included
the municipality of Campos, now belonging to the state of Rio de
Janeiro.
The islands of Trinidade and Martim Vaz, which lie about 715 m. E. of
Victoria, belong politically to this state. They are uninhabited, but
considerable importance is attached to the former because Great Britain
has twice attempted to take possession of it. It rises 1200 ft. above
sea-level and is about 6 m. in circumference, but it has no value other
than that of an ocean cable station. An excellent description of this
singular island is to be found in E.F. Knight's _Cruise of the "Alerte"_
(London, 1895).
ESPRONCEDA, JOSÉ IGNACIO JAVIER ORIOL ENCARNACIÓN DE (1808-1842),
Spanish poet, son of an officer in the Bourbon regiment, was born at or
near Almendralejo de los Barros on the 25th of March 1808. On the close
of the war he was sent to the preparatory school of artillery at
Segovia, and later became a pupil of the poet Lista, then professor of
literature at St Matthew's College in Madrid. In his fourteenth year he
had attracted his master's attention by his verses, and had joined a
secret society. Sentenced to five years' seclusion in the Franciscan
convent at Guadalajara, he began an epic poem entitled _Pelayo_, of
which fragments survive. He escaped to Portugal and thence to England,
where he found the famous Teresa whom he had met at Lisbon; here, too,
he became a student of Shakespeare, Milton and Byron. In 1830 he eloped
with Teresa to Paris, took part in the July revolution, and soon after
joined the raid of Chapalangarra on Navarre. In 1833 he returned to
Spain and obtained a commission in the queen's guards. This, however, he
soon forfeited by a political song, and he was banished to Cuéllar,
where he wrote a poor novel entitled _Sancho Saldaña ó el Castellano de
Cuéllar_ (1834). He took an active part in the revolutionary risings of
1835 and 1836, and, on the accession to power of the Liberal party in
1840, was appointed secretary of legation at the Hague; in 1842 he was
elected deputy for Almería, and seemed likely to play a great part in
parliamentary life. But his constitution was undermined, and, after a
short illness, he died at Madrid on the 23rd of May 1842. His poems,
first published in 1840, at once gained for him a reputation which still
continues undiminished. The influence of Byron pervades Espronceda's
life and work. It is present in an ambitious variant on the Don Juan
legend, _El Estudiante de Salamanca_, Elvira's letter being obviously
modelled on Julia's letter in _Don Juan_; the _Canción del Pirata_ is
suggested by _The Corsair_; and the Byronic inspiration is not wanting
even in the noble fragment entitled _El Diablo Mundo_, based on the
story of Faust. But in _El Mendigo_, in _El Reo de Muerte_, in _El
Verdugo_, and in the sombre vehement lines, _A Jarifa en una orgía_,
Espronceda approves himself the most potent and original lyrical poet
produced by Spain during the 19th century.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Obras poéticas y escritos en prosa_ (Madrid, 1884),
edited by Blanca Espronceda de Escosura, the poet's daughter (the
second volume has not been published); E. Rodriguez Solís,
_Espronceda; su tiempo, su vida, y sus obras_ (Madrid, 1883); E.
Piñeyro, _El Romanticismo en España_ (Paris, 1904).
ESQUIRE (O. Fr. _escuyer_, Mod. Fr. _écuyer_, derived through the form
_escudier_ from Med. Lat. _scutarius_, "shield-bearer"), originally the
attendant on a knight, whose helm, shield and lance he carried at the
tournament or in the field of battle. The esquire ranked immediately
below the knight bachelor, and his office was regarded as the apprentice
stage of knighthood. The title was regarded as one of function, not of
birth, and was not hereditary. In time, however, its original
significance was lost sight of, and it came to be a title of honour,
implying a rank between that of knight and valet or gentleman, as it
technically still remains. Thus in the later middle ages esquire
(_armiger_) was the customary description of holders of knight's fees
who had not taken up their knighthood, whence the surviving custom of
entitling the principal landowner in a parish "the squire" (see SQUIRE).
Camden, at the close of the 16th century, distinguished four classes
entitled to bear the style: (1) The eldest sons of knights, and their
eldest sons, in perpetual succession; (2) the eldest sons of the younger
sons of peers, and their eldest sons, in like perpetual succession; (3)
esquires created by royal letters patent or other investiture, and their
eldest sons; (4) esquires by office, e.g. justices of the peace and
others who bear any office of trust under the crown. To these the
writer in the 3rd edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (1797) added
Irish peers and the eldest sons of British peers, who, though they bear
courtesy titles, have in law only the right to be styled esquires.
Officers of the king's courts, and of the royal household, counsellors
at law and justices of the peace he described as esquires only "by
reputation"; and justices of the peace have the title only as long as
they are in commission; while certain heads of great landed families are
styled "esquires" by prescription. "But the meaner ranks of people," he
adds indignantly, "who know no better, do often basely prostitute this
title; and, to the great confusion of all rank and precedence, every man
who makes a decent appearance, far from thinking himself in any way
ridiculed by finding the superscription of his letters thus decorated,
is fully gratified by such an address."
It is clear, however, that the title of esquire was very loosely used at
a much earlier date. On this point Selden is somewhat scornfully
explicit. "To whomsoever, either by blood, place in the State or other
eminency, we conceive some higher attribute should be given, than that
sole Title of Gentleman, knowing yet that he hath no other honorary
title legally fixed upon him, we usually style him an _Esquire_, in such
passages as require legally that his degree or state be mentioned; as
especially in Indictments and Actions whereupon he may be outlawed.
Those of other nations who are Barons or great Lords in their own
Countries, and no knights, are in legal proceedings stiled with us,
Esquires only. Some of our greatest Heralds have their divisions of
Esquires applied to this day. I leave them as I see them, where they may
easily be found." Coke, too, says that every one is entitled to be
termed esquire who has the legal right to call himself a gentleman (2.
_Institutes_, 688).
At the present time the following classes are recognized as esquires on
occasions of ceremony or for legal purposes:--(1) All sons of peers and
lords of parliament during their fathers' lives, and the younger sons of
such peers, &c., after their fathers' deaths; the eldest sons of peers'
younger sons, and their eldest sons for ever. (2) Noblemen of all other
nations. (3) The eldest sons of baronets and knights. (4) Persons
bearing arms and the title of esquire by letters patent. (5) Esquires of
the Bath and their eldest sons. (6) Barristers-at-law. (7) Justices of
the peace and mayors while in commission or office. (8) The holders of
any superior office under the crown. (9) Persons styled esquires by the
sovereign in their patents, commissions or appointments.[1] (10)
Attorneys in colonies where the functions of counsel and attorney are
united (in England solicitors are "gentlemen," not "esquires").
In practice, however, the title of esquire, now to all intents and
purposes meaningless, is given to any one who "can bear the port, charge
and countenance of a gentleman." The word has followed the same course
as that of "gentleman" (q.v.), and for very similar reasons. It is still
not customary in Great Britain to address e.g. a well-to-do person
engaged in trade as esquire at his shop; it would be offensive not to do
so at his private residence. In America, on the other hand, the use of
the word "esquire" is practically obsolete, "Mr" ("Mister" or "Master,"
at one time the title special to a "gentleman") being the general form
of address.
See Selden, _Titles of Honor_ (1672); Camden, _Britannia_ (ed. London,
1594); Coke, _Institutes_; _Enc. of the Laws of England_, s.
"Esquire"; Du Cange, _Glossarium_ (ed. 1886), s. "Scutarius,"
"Scutifer" and "Armiger"; _New English Dictionary_, s. "Esquire."
(W. A. P.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In practice this means every one receiving such a patent,
commission or appointment.
ESQUIROL, JEAN ÉTIENNE DOMINIQUE (1772-1840), French alienist, was born
at Toulouse on the 3rd of February 1772. In 1794 he became a pupil of
the military hospital of Narbonne, and subsequently studied in Paris at
the Salpêtrière under P. Pinel, whose assistant he became. In 1811 he
was chosen physician to the Salpêtrière, and in 1817 he began a course
of lectures on the treatment of the insane, in which he made such
revelations of the abuses existing in the lunatic asylums of France that
the government appointed a commission to inquire into the subject.
Esquirol in this and other ways greatly assisted Pinel's efforts for the
introduction of humaner methods. The asylums of Rouen, Nantes and
Montpellier were built in accordance with his plans. In 1823 he became
inspector-general of the university of Paris for the faculties of
medicine, and in 1826 chief physician of the asylum at Charenton. He
died at Paris on the 13th of December 1840. Besides contributing to the
_Dictionnaire des sciences médicales_ and the _Encyclopédie des gens du
monde_, Esquirol wrote _Des maladies mentales, considérées sous les
rapports médical, hygiénique, et médico-légal_ (2 vols., Paris, 1838).
ESQUIROS, HENRI FRANÇOIS ALPHONSE (1812-1876), French writer, was born
in Paris on the 23rd of May 1812. After some minor publications he
produced _L'Évangile du peuple_ (1840), an exposition of the life and
character of Jesus as a social reformer. This work was considered an
offence against religion and decency, and Esquiros was fined and
imprisoned. He was elected in 1850 as a social democrat to the
Legislative Assembly, but was exiled in 1851 for his opposition to the
Empire. Returning to France in 1869 he was again a member of the
Legislative Assembly, and in 1876 was elected to the senate. He died at
Versailles on the 12th of May 1876. He turned to account his residence
in England in _L'Angleterre et la vie anglaise_ (5 vols., 1859-1869).
Among his numerous works on social subjects may be noted:--_Histoire des
Montagnards_ (2 vols., 1847); _Paris, ou les sciences, les institutions
et les moeurs au XIX^e siècle_ (2 vols., 1847); and _Histoire des
martyrs de la liberté_ (1851).
ESS, JOHANN HEINRICH VAN (1772-1847), German Catholic theologian, was
born at Warburg, Westphalia, on the 15th of February 1772. He was
educated at the Dominican gymnasium of his native town, and in 1790
entered, as a novice, the Benedictine abbey of Marienmünster, in the
bishopric of Paderborn. His Benedictine name was Leander. He was priest
at Schwalenberg from 1799 to 1812, after which he became extraordinary
professor of theology and joint-director of the teachers' seminary at
Marburg. In 1818 he received the doctorate of theology and of canonical
law. In 1807, in conjunction with his cousin Karl van Ess, he had
published a German translation of the New Testament, and, as its
circulation was discountenanced by his superiors, he published in 1808 a
defence of his views, entitled _Auszüge aus den heiligen Vätern und
anderen Lehrern der katholischen Kirche über das nothwendige und
nützliche Bibellesen_. An improved edition of this tractate was
published in 1816, under the title _Gedanken über Bibel und Bibellehre_,
and in the same year appeared _Was war die Bibel den ersten Christen?_
In 1822 he published the first part of a German translation of the Old
Testament, which was completed in 1836. In 1822 he resigned his offices
at Marburg in order to devote his whole time to the defence of his views
regarding Bible reading by the people, and to endeavour to promote the
circulation of the scriptures. He was associated first with the Catholic
Bible Society of Regensburg, and then with the British and Foreign Bible
Society. He died at Affolderbach in the Odenwald on the 13th of October
1847.
ESSAY, ESSAYIST (Fr. _essai_, Late Lat. _exagium_, a weighing or
balance; _exigere_, to examine; the term in general meaning any trial or
effort). As a form of literature, the essay is a composition of moderate
length, usually in prose, which deals in an easy, cursory way with the
external conditions of a subject, and, in strictness, with that subject,
only as it affects the writer. Dr Johnson, himself an eminent essayist,
defines an essay as "an irregular, undigested piece"; the irregularity
may perhaps be admitted, but want of thought, that is to say lack of
proper mental digestion, is certainly not characteristic of a fine
example. It should, on the contrary, always be the brief and light
result of experience and profound meditation, while "undigested" is the
last epithet to be applied to the essays of Montaigne, Addison or Lamb.
Bacon said that the Epistles of Seneca were "essays," but this can
hardly be allowed. Bacon himself goes on to admit that "the word is
late, though the thing is ancient." The word, in fact, was invented for
this species of writing by Montaigne, who merely meant that these were
experiments in a new kind of literature. This original meaning, namely
that these pieces were attempts or endeavours, feeling their way towards
the expression of what would need a far wider space to exhaust, was lost
in England in the course of the eighteenth century. This is seen by the
various attempts made in the nineteenth century to coin a word which
should express a still smaller work, as distinctive in comparison with
the essay as the essay is by the side of the monograph; none of these
linguistic experiments, such as _essayette_, _essaykin_ (Thackeray) and
_essaylet_ (Helps) have taken hold of the language. As a matter of fact,
the journalistic word _article_ covers the lesser form of essay,
although not exhaustively, since the essays in the monthly and quarterly
reviews, which are fully as extended as an essay should ever be, are
frequently termed "articles," while many "articles" in newspapers,
dictionaries and encyclopaedias are in no sense essays. It may be said
that the idea of a detached work is combined with the word "essay,"
which should be neither a section of a disquisition nor a chapter in a
book which aims at the systematic development of a story. Locke's _Essay
on the Human Understanding_ is not an essay at all, or cluster of
essays, in this technical sense, but refers to the experimental and
tentative nature of the inquiry which the philosopher was undertaking.
Of the curious use of the word so repeatedly made by Pope mention will
be made below.
The essay, as a species of literature, was invented by Montaigne, who
had probably little suspicion of the far-reaching importance of what he
had created. In his dejected moments, he turned to rail at what he had
written, and to call his essays "inepties" and "sottises." But in his
own heart he must have been well satisfied with the new and beautiful
form which he had added to literary tradition. He was perfectly aware
that he had devised a new thing; that he had invented a way of
communicating himself to the world as a type of human nature. He
designed it to carry out his peculiar object, which was to produce an
accurate portrait of his own soul, not as it was yesterday or will be
to-morrow, but as it is to-day. It is not often that we can date with
any approach to accuracy the arrival of a new class of literature into
the world, but it was in the month of March 1571 that the essay was
invented. It was started in the second story of the old tower of the
castle of Montaigne, in a study to which the philosopher withdrew for
that purpose, surrounded by his books, close to his chapel, sheltered
from the excesses of a fatiguing world. He wrote slowly, not
systematically; it took nine years to finish the two first books of the
essays. In 1574 the manuscript of the work, so far as it was then
completed, was nearly lost, for it was confiscated by the pontifical
police in Rome, where Montaigne was residing, and was not returned to
the author for four months. The earliest imprint saw the light in 1580,
at Bordeaux, and the Paris edition of 1588, which is the fifth, contains
the final text of the great author. These dates are not negligible in
the briefest history of the essay, for they are those of its revelation
to the world of readers. It was in the delightful chapters of his new,
strange book that Montaigne introduced the fashion of writing briefly,
irregularly, with constant digressions and interruptions, about the
world as it appears to the individual who writes. The _Essais_ were
instantly welcomed, and few writers of the Renaissance had so instant
and so vast a popularity as Montaigne. But while the philosophy, and
above all the graceful stoicism, of the great master were admired and
copied in France, the exact shape in which he had put down his thoughts,
in the exquisite negligence of a series of essays, was too delicate to
tempt an imitator. It is to be noted that neither Charron, nor Mlle de
Gournay, his most immediate disciples, tried to write essays. But
Montaigne, who liked to fancy that the Eyquem family was of English
extraction, had spoken affably of the English people as his "cousins,"
and it has always been admitted that his genius has an affinity with the
English. He was early read in England, and certainly by Bacon, whose is
the second great name connected with this form of literature. It was in
1597, only five years after the death of Montaigne, that Bacon published
in a small octavo the first ten of his essays. These he increased to 38
in 1612 and to 58 in 1625. In their first form, the essays of Bacon had
nothing of the fulness or grace of Montaigne's; they are meagre notes,
scarcely more than the headings for discourses. It is possible that when
he wrote them he was not yet familiar with the style of his predecessor,
which was first made popular in England, in 1603, when Florio published
that translation of the _Essais_ which Shakespeare unquestionably read.
In the later editions Bacon greatly expanded his theme, but he never
reached, or but seldom, the freedom and ease, the seeming formlessness
held in by an invisible chain, which are the glory of Montaigne, and
distinguish the typical essayist. It would seem that at first, in
England, as in France, no lesser writer was willing to adopt a title
which belonged to so great a presence as that of Bacon or Montaigne. The
one exception was Sir William Cornwallis (d. 1631), who published essays
in 1600 and 1617, of slight merit, but popular in their day. No other
English essayist of any importance appeared until the Restoration, when
Abraham Cowley wrote eleven "Several Discourses by way of Essays," which
did not see the light until 1668. He interspersed with his prose,
translations and original pieces in verse, but in other respects Cowley
keeps much nearer than Bacon to the form of Montaigne. Cowley's essay
"Of Myself" is a model of what these little compositions should be. The
name of Bacon inspires awe, but it is really not he, but Cowley, who is
the father of the English essay; and it is remarkable that he has had no
warmer panegyrists than his great successors, Charles Lamb and Macaulay.
Towards the end of the century, Sir George Mackenzie (1636-1691) wrote
witty moral discourses, which were, however, essays rather in name than
form. Whenever, however, we reach the eighteenth century, we find the
essay suddenly became a dominant force in English literature. It made
its appearance almost as a new thing, and in combination with the
earliest developments of journalism. On the 12th of April 1709 appeared
the first number of a penny newspaper, entitled the _Tatler_, a main
feature of which was to amuse and instruct fashionable readers by a
series of short papers dealing with the manifold occurrences of life,
_quicquid agunt homines_. But it was not until Steele, the founder of
the _Tatler_, was joined by Addison that the eighteenth-century essay
really started upon its course. It displayed at first, and indeed it
long retained, a mixture of the manner of Montaigne with that of La
Bruyère, combining the form of the pure essay with that of the
character-study, as modelled on Theophrastus, which had been so popular
in England throughout the seventeenth century. Addison's early _Tatler_
portraits, in particular such as those of "Tom Folio" and "Ned Softly,"
are hardly essays. But Steele's "Recollections of Childhood" is, and
here we may observe the type on which Goldsmith, Lamb and R.L. Stevenson
afterwards worked. In January 1711 the _Tatler_ came to an end, and was
almost immediately followed by the _Spectator_, and in 1713 by the
_Guardian_. These three newspapers are storehouses of admirable and
typical essays, the majority of them written by Steele and Addison, who
are the most celebrated eighteenth-century essayists in England. Later
in the century, after the publication of other less successful
experiments, appeared Fielding's essays in the _Covent Garden Journal_
(1752) and Johnson's in the _Rambler_ (1750), the _Adventurer_ (1752)
and the _Idler_ (1759). There followed a great number of polite
journals, in which the essay was treated as "the bow of Ulysses in which
it was the fashion for men of rank and genius to try their strength."
Goldsmith reached a higher level than the Chesterfields and Bonnel
Thorntons had dreamed of, in the delicious sections of his _Citizen of
the World_ (1760). After Goldsmith, the eighteenth-century essay
declined into tamer hands, and passed into final feebleness with the
pedantic Richard Cumberland and the sentimental Henry Mackenzie. The
_corpus_ of eighteenth-century essayists is extremely voluminous, and
their reprinted works fill some fifty volumes. There is, however, a
great sameness about all but the very best of them, and in no case do
they surpass Addison in freshness, or have they ventured to modify the
form he adopted for his lucubrations. What has survived of them all is
the lightest portion, but it should not be forgotten that a very large
section of the essays of that age were deliberately didactic and
"moral." A great revival of the essay took place during the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, and foremost in the history of this
movement must always be placed the name of Charles Lamb. He perceived
that the real business of the essay, as Montaigne had conceived it, was
to be largely personal. The famous _Essays of Elia_ began to appear in
the _London Magazine_ for August 1820, and proceeded at fairly regular
intervals until December 1822; early in 1823 the first series of them
were collected in a volume. The peculiarity of Lamb's style as an
essayist was that he threw off the Addisonian and still more the
Johnsonian tradition, which had become a burden that crushed the life
out of each conventional essay, and that he boldly went back to the rich
verbiage and brilliant imagery of the seventeenth century for his
inspiration. It is true that Lamb had great ductility of style, and
that, when he pleases, he can write so like Steele that Steele himself
might scarcely know the difference, yet in his freer flights we are
conscious of more exalted masters, of Milton, Thomas Browne and Jeremy
Taylor. He succeeded, moreover, in reaching a poignant note of personal
feeling, such as none of his predecessors had ever aimed at; the essays
called "Dream Children" and "Blakesmoor" are examples of this, and they
display a degree of harmony and perfection in the writing of the pure
essay such as had never been attempted before, and has never since been
reached. Leigh Hunt, clearing away all the didactic and pompous elements
which had overgrown the essay, restored it to its old _Spectator_ grace,
and was the most easy nondescript writer of his generation in
periodicals such as the _Indicator_ (1819) and the _Companion_ (1828).
The sermons, letters and pamphlets of Sydney Smith were really essays of
an extended order. In Hazlitt and Francis Jeffrey we see the form and
method of the essay beginning to be applied to literary criticism. The
writings of De Quincey are almost exclusively essays, although many of
the most notable of them, under his vehement pen, have far outgrown the
limits of the length laid down by the most indulgent formalist. His
biographical and critical essays are interesting, but they are far from
being trustworthy models in form or substance. In a sketch, however
rapid, of the essay in the nineteenth century, prominence must be given
to the name of Macaulay. His earliest essay, that on Milton, appeared in
the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1825, very shortly after the revelation of
Lamb's genius in "Elia." No two products cast in the same mould could,
however, be more unlike in substance. In the hands of Macaulay the essay
ceases to be a confession or an autobiography; it is strictly
impersonal, it is literary, historical or controversial, vigorous,
trenchant and full of party prejudice. The periodical publication of
Macaulay's Essays in the _Edinburgh Review_ went on until 1844; when we
cast our eyes over this mass of brilliant writing we observe with
surprise that it is almost wholly contentious. Nothing can be more
remarkable than the difference in this respect between Lamb and
Macaulay, the former for ever demanding, even cajoling, the sympathy of
the reader, the latter scanning the horizon for an enemy to controvert.
In later times the essay in England has been cultivated in each of these
ways, by a thousand journalists and authors. The "leaders" of a daily
newspaper are examples of the popularization of the essay, and they
point to the danger which now attacks it, that of producing a purely
ephemeral or even momentary species of effect. The essay, in its best
days, was intended to be as lasting as a poem or a historical monograph;
it aimed at being one of the most durable and precious departments of
literature. We still occasionally see the production of essays which
have this more ambitious aim; within the last quarter of the nineteenth
century the essays of R.L. Stevenson achieved it. His _Familiar Studies_
are of the same class as those of Montaigne and Lamb, and he approached
far more closely than any other contemporary to their high level of
excellence. We have seen that the tone of the essay should be personal
and confidential; in Stevenson's case it was characteristically so. But
the voices which please the public in a strain of pure self-study are
few at all times, and with the cultivation of the analytic habit they
tend to become less original and attractive. It is possible that the
essay may die of exhaustion of interest, or may survive only in the
modified form of accidental journalism.
The essay, although invented by a great French writer, was very late in
making itself at home in France. The so-called _Essais_ of Leibnitz,
Nicole, Yves Marie André and so many others were really treatises.
Voltaire's famous _Essai sur les moeurs des nations_ is an elaborate
historical disquisition in nearly two hundred chapters. Later, the
voluminous essays of Joseph de Maistre and of Lamennais were not essays
at all in the literary sense. On the other hand, the admirable
_Causeries du lundi_ of Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869) are literary essays in
the fulness of the term, and have been the forerunners of a great army
of brilliant essay-writing in France. Among those who have specially
distinguished themselves as French essayists may be mentioned Théophile
Gautier, Paul de Saint-Victor, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître, Ferdinand
Brunetière and Émile Faguet. All these are literary critics, and it is
in the form of the analysis of manifestations of intellectual energy
that the essay has been most successfully illustrated in France. All the
countries of Europe, since the middle of the 19th century, have adopted
this form of writing; such monographs or reviews, however, are not
perfectly identical with the essay as it was conceived by Addison and
Lamb. This last, it may be supposed, is a definitely English thing, and
this view is confirmed by the fact that in several European languages
the word "essayist" has been adopted without modification.
In the above remarks it has been taken for granted that the essay is
always in prose. Pope, however, conceived an essay in heroic verse. Of
this his _Essay on Criticism_ (1711) and his _Essay on Man_ (1732-1734)
are not good examples, for they are really treatises. The so-called
_Moral Essays_ (1720-1735), on the contrary, might have been
contributed, if in prose, either to the _Spectator_ or the _Guardian_.
The idea of pure essays, in verse, however, did not take any root in
English literature. (E. G.)
ESSEG, ESSEGG or ESSEK (Hung. _Esszék_; Croatian _Osjek_), a royal free
town, municipality, and capital of the county of Virovitica (_Veröcze_),
in Croatia-Slavonia, on the right bank of the Drave, 9 m. W. of its
confluence with the Danube, and 185 m. S. of Buda-Pest by rail. Pop.
(1900) 24,930; chiefly Magyars and Croats, with a few Germans and Jews.
At Esseg the Drave is crossed by two bridges, and below these it is
navigable by small steamers. The upper town, with the fortress, is under
military authority; the new town and the lower town, which is the
headquarters of commerce, are under civil authority. The only buildings
of note are the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, Franciscan and
Capuchin monasteries, synagogue, gymnasium, modern school, hospital,
chamber of commerce, and law-courts. Esseg has a thriving trade in
grain, fruit, live-stock, plum-brandy and timber. Tanning, silk-weaving
and glass-blowing are also carried on.
Esseg owes its origin to its fortress, which existed as early as the
time of the Romans under the name of _Mursia_; though the present
structure dates only from 1720. At the beginning of the Hungarian
revolution of 1848 the town was held by the Hungarians, but on the 4th
of February 1849 it was taken by the Austrians under General Baron
Trebersberg.
ESSEN, a manufacturing town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province,
22 m. N.E. from Düsseldorf, on the main line of railway to Berlin, in an
undulating and densely populated district. Pop. (1849) 8813; (1875)
54,790; (1905) 229,270. It lies at the centre of a network of railways
giving it access to all the principal towns of the Westphalian iron and
coal fields. Its general aspect is gloomy; it possesses few streets of
any pretensions, though those in the old part, which are mostly narrow,
present, with their grey slate roofs and green shutters, a picturesque
appearance. Of its religious edifices (twelve Roman Catholic, one Old
Catholic, six Protestant churches, and a synagogue) the minster, dating
from the 10th century, with fine pictures, relics and wall frescoes, is
alone especially remarkable. This building is very similar to the
Pfalz-Kapelle (_capella in palatio_) at Aix-la-Chapelle. Among the
town's principal secular buildings are the new Gothic town-hall, the
post office and the railway station. There are several high-grade
(classical and modern) schools, technical, mining and commercial
schools, a theatre, a permanent art exhibition, and hospitals. Essen
also has a beautiful public park in the immediate vicinity. The town
originally owed its prosperity to the large iron and coal fields
underlying the basin in which it is situated. Chief among its industrial
establishments are the famous iron and steel works of Krupp (q.v.), and
the whole of Essen may be said to depend for its livelihood upon this
firm, which annually expends vast sums in building and supporting
churches, schools, clubs, hospitals and philanthropic institutions, and
in other ways providing for the welfare of its employees. There are also
manufactories of woollen goods and cigars, dyeworks and breweries.
Essen was originally the seat of a Benedictine nunnery, and was formed
into a town about the middle of the 10th century by the abbess Hedwig.
The abbess of the nunnery, who held from 1275 the rank of a princess of
the Empire, was assisted by a chapter of ten princesses and countesses;
she governed the town until 1803, when it was secularized and
incorporated with Prussia. In 1807 it came into the possession of the
grand dukes of Berg, but was transferred to Prussia in 1814.
See Funcke, _Geschichte des Fürstenthums und der Stadt Essen_
(Elberfeld, 1851); Kellen, _Die Industriestadt Essen in Wort und Bild_
(Essen, 1902); and A. Shadwell, _Industrial Efficiency_ (London,
1906).
ESSENES, a monastic order among the Jews prior to Christianity. Their
first appearance in history is in the time of Jonathan the Maccabee
(161-144 B.C.). How much older they may have been we have no means of
determining, but our authorities agree in assigning to them a dateless
antiquity. The name occurs in Greek, in the two forms [Greek: Essênoi]
and [Greek: Essaioi]. [Greek: Essênoi] is used by Josephus fourteen
times, [Greek: Essaioi] six, but the latter is the only form used by
Philo (ii. 457, 471, 632). [Greek: Essênoi] is also used by Synesius and
Hippolytus, and its Latin equivalent by Pliny and Solinus; [Greek:
Essaioi] by Hegesippus and Porphyry. In Epiphanius we find the forms
[Greek: Ossaioi, Ossênoi], and [Greek: Iessaioi]. There is a place named
Essa mentioned by Josephus (Ant. xiii. 15, § 3), from which the name may
have been formed, just as the Christians were originally called [Greek:
Nazarênoi] or [Greek: Nazôraioi], from Nazara. This etymology, however,
is not much in favour now. Lightfoot explains the name as meaning "the
silent ones," others as meaning "physicians." Perhaps there is most
authority in favour of deriving it from the Syriac [Hebrew: chseich],
which in the emphatic state becomes [Hebrew: chaseia], so that we have a
Semitic correspondence to both the Greek forms [Greek: Essênoi] and
[Greek: Essaioi]. This etymology makes the word mean "pious." It has
also been urged in excuse for Philo's absurd derivation from [Greek:
hosios].
The original accounts we have of them are confined to three
authors--Philo, Pliny the Elder, and Josephus. Philo describes them in
his treatise known as _Quod omnis probus liber_ (§§ 12, 13; ii.
457-460), and also in his "Apology for the Jews," a fragment of which
has been preserved by Eusebius (_Praep. Ev._ viii. 11, 12). Pliny
(_N.H._ v. 17) has a short but striking sketch of them, derived in all
probability from Alexander Polyhistor, who is mentioned among the
authorities for the fifth book of his _Natural History_. This historian,
of whom Eusebius had a very high opinion (_Praep. Ev._ ix. 17, § 1),
lived in the time of Sulla. Josephus treats of them at length in his
_Jewish War_ (ii. 8), and more briefly in two passages of his
_Antiquities_ (xiii. 5, § 9; xviii. 1, § 5). He has also interesting
accounts of the prophetic powers possessed by three individual members
of the sect--Judas (_B.J._ i. 3, § 5; _Ant._ xiii. 11, § 2), Menahem
(_Ant._ xv. 10, § 5), and Simon (_B.J._ ii. 7, § 3; _Ant._ xvii. 13, §
3). Besides this he mentions an Essene Gate in Jerusalem (_B.J._ v. 4, §
2) and a person called John the Essene, one of the bravest and most
capable leaders in the war against the Romans (_B.J._ ii. 20, § 4; iii.
2, § 1). Josephus himself made trial of the sect of Essenes in his
youth; but from his own statement it appears that he must have been a
very short time with them, and therefore could not have been initiated
into the inner mysteries of the society (_De vita sua_, 2). After this
the notices that we have of the Essenes from antiquity are mere
reproductions, except in the case of Epiphanius (died A.D. 402), who,
however, is so confused a writer as to be of little value. Solinus, who
was known as "Pliny's Ape," echoed the words of his master about a
century after that writer's death, which took place in A.D. 79.
Similarly Hippolytus, who lived in the reign of Commodus (A.D. 180-192),
reproduced the account of Josephus, adding a few touches of his own.
Porphyry (A.D. 233-306) afterwards did the same, but had the grace to
mention Josephus in the context. Eusebius quoted the account as from
Porphyry, though he must have known that _he_ had derived it from
Josephus (_Praep. Ev._ ix. 3, §§ 1, 13). But Porphyry's name would
impress pagan readers. There is also a mention of the Essenes by
Hegesippus (Eus. _H.E._ iv. 22) and by Synesius in his life of Dio
Chrysostom. It has been conjectured that the Clementine literature
emanated from Essenes who had turned Christian. (See EBIONITES.)
The Essenes were an exclusive society, distinguished from the rest of
the Jewish nation in Palestine by an organization peculiar to
themselves, and by a theory of life in which a severe asceticism and a
rare benevolence to one another and to mankind in general were the most
striking characteristics. They had fixed rules for initiation, a
succession of strictly separate grades within the limits of the society,
and regulations for the conduct of their daily life even in its minutest
details. Their membership could be recruited only from the outside
world, as marriage and all intercourse with women were absolutely
renounced. They were the first society in the world to condemn slavery
both in theory and practice; they enforced and practised the most
complete community of goods. They chose their own priests and public
office-bearers, and even their own judges. Though their prevailing
tendency was practical, and the tenets of the society were kept a
profound secret, it is perfectly clear from the concurrent testimony of
Philo and Josephus that they cultivated a kind of speculation, which not
only accounts for their spiritual asceticism, but indicates a great
deviation from the normal development of Judaism, and a profound
sympathy with Greek philosophy, and probably also with Oriental ideas.
At the same time we do our Jewish authorities no injustice in imputing
to them the patriotic tendency to idealize the society, and thus offer
to their readers something in Jewish life that would bear comparison at
least with similar manifestations of Gentile life.
There is some difficulty in determining how far the Essenes separated
themselves locally from their fellow-countrymen. Josephus informs us
that they had no single city of their own, but that many of them dwelt
in every city. While in his treatise _Quod omnis_, &c., Philo speaks of
their avoiding towns and preferring to live in villages, in his "Apology
for the Jews" we find them living in many cities, villages, and in great
and prosperous towns. In Pliny they are a perennial colony settled on
the western shore of the Dead Sea. On the whole, as Philo and Josephus
agree in estimating their number at 4000 (Philo, _Q.O.P.L._ § 12; Jos.
_Ant._ xviii. 1, § 5), we are justified in suspecting some exaggeration
as to the many cities, towns and villages where they were said to be
found. As agriculture was their favourite occupation, and as their
tendency was to withdraw from the haunts and ordinary interests of
mankind, we may assume that with the growing confusion and corruption of
Jewish society they felt themselves attracted from the mass of the
population to the sparsely peopled districts, till they found a
congenial settlement and free scope for their peculiar view of life by
the shore of the Dead Sea. While their principles were consistent with
the neighbourhood of men, they were better adapted to a state of
seclusion.
The Essenes did not renounce marriage because they denied the validity
of the institution or the necessity of it as providing for the
continuance of the human race, but because they had a low opinion of the
character of women (Jos. _B.J._ ii. 8, § 2; Philo, "Apol. for the Jews"
in Eus. _Praep. Ev._ viii. 11, § 8). They adopted children when very
young, and brought them up on their own principles. Pleasure generally
they rejected as evil. They despised riches not less than pleasure;
neither poverty nor wealth was observable among them; at initiation
every one gave his property into the common stock; every member in
receipt of wages handed them over to the funds of the society. In
matters of dress the asceticism of the society was very pronounced. They
regarded oil as a defilement, even washing it off if anointed with it
against their will. They did not change their clothes or their shoes
till they were torn in pieces or worn completely away. The colour of
their garments was always white. Their daily routine was prescribed for
them in the strictest manner. Before the rising of the sun they were to
speak of nothing profane, but offered to it certain traditional forms of
prayer as if beseeching it to rise. Thereafter they went about their
daily tasks, working continuously at whatever trade they knew till the
fifth hour, when they assembled, and, girding on a garment of linen,
bathed in cold water. They next seated themselves quietly in the dining
hall, where the baker set bread in order, and the cook brought each a
single dish of one kind of food. Before meat and after it grace was said
by a priest. After dinner they resumed work till sunset. In the evening
they had supper, at which guests of the order joined them, if there
happened to be any such present. Withal there was no noise or confusion
to mar the tranquillity of their intercourse; no one usurped more than
his share of the conversation; the stillness of the place oppressed a
stranger with a feeling of mysterious awe. This composure of spirit was
owing to their perfect temperance in eating and drinking. Not only in
the daily routine of the society, but generally, the activity of the
members was controlled by their presidents. In only two things could
they take the initiative, helpfulness and mercy; the deserving poor and
the destitute were to receive instant relief; but no member could give
anything to his relatives without consulting the heads of the society.
Their office-bearers were elected. They had also their special courts of
justice, which were composed of not less than a hundred members, and
their decisions, which were arrived at with extreme care, were
irreversible. Oaths were strictly forbidden; their word was stronger
than an oath. They were just and temperate in anger, the guardians of
good faith, and the ministers of peace, obedient to their elders and to
the majority. But the moral characteristics which they most earnestly
cultivated and enjoined will best appear in their rules of initiation.
There was a novitiate of three years, during which the intending member
was tested as to his fitness for entering the society. If the result was
satisfactory, he was admitted, but before partaking of the common meal
he was required to swear awful oaths, that he would reverence the deity,
do justice to men, hurt no man voluntarily or at the command of another,
hate the unjust and assist the just, and that he would render fidelity
to all men, but especially to the rulers, seeing that no one rules but
of God. He also vowed, if he should bear rule himself, to make no
violent use of his power, nor outshine those set under him by superior
display, to make it his aim to cherish the truth and unmask liars, to be
pure from theft and unjust gain, to conceal nothing from his
fellow-members, nor to divulge any of their affairs to other men, even
at the risk of death, to transmit their doctrines unchanged, and to keep
secret the books of the society and the names of the angels.
Within the limits of the society there were four grades so distinct that
if any one touched a member of an inferior grade he required to cleanse
himself by bathing in water; members who had been found guilty of
serious crimes were expelled from the society, and could not be received
again till reduced to the very last extremity of want or sickness. As
the result of the ascetic training of the Essenes, and of their
temperate diet, it is said that they lived to a great age, and were
superior to pain and fear. During the Roman war they cheerfully
underwent the most grievous tortures rather than break any of the
principles of their faith. In fact, they had in many respects reached
the very highest moral elevation attained by the ancient world; they
were just, humane, benevolent, and spiritually-minded; the sick and
aged were the objects of a special affectionate regard; and they
condemned slavery, not only as an injustice, but as an impious violation
of the natural brotherhood of men (Philo ii. 457). There were some of
the Essenes who permitted marriage, but strictly with a view to the
preservation of the race; in other respects they agreed with the main
body of the society.
It will be apparent that the predominant tendency of the society was
practical. Philo tells us expressly that they rejected logic as
unnecessary to the acquisition of virtue, and speculation on nature as
too lofty for the human intellect. Yet they had views of their own as to
God, Providence, the soul, and a future state, which, while they had a
practical use, were yet essentially speculative. On the one hand,
indeed, they held tenaciously by the traditional Judaism: blasphemy
against their lawgiver was punished with death, the sacred books were
preserved and read with great reverence, though not without an
allegorical interpretation, and the Sabbath was most scrupulously
observed. But in many important points their deviation from the strait
path of Judaic development was complete. They rejected animal sacrifice
as well as marriage; the oil with which priests and kings were anointed
they accounted unclean; and the condemnation of oaths and the community
of goods were unmistakable innovations for which they found no hint or
warrant in the old Hebrew writings. Their most singular feature,
perhaps, was their reverence for the sun. In their speculative hints
respecting the soul and a future state, we find another important
deviation from Judaism, and the explanation of their asceticism. They
held that the body is mortal, and its substance transitory; that the
soul is immortal, but, coming from the subtlest ether, is lured as by a
sorcery of nature into the prison-house of the body. At death it is
released from its bonds, as from long slavery, and joyously soars aloft.
To the souls of the good there is reserved a life beyond the ocean, and
a country oppressed by neither rain, nor snow, nor heat, but refreshed
by a gentle west wind blowing continually from the sea (cf. Hom. _Od._
iv. 566-568), but to the wicked a region of wintry darkness and of
unceasing torment. Josephus tells us too that the Essenes believed in
fate; but in what sense, and what relation it bore to Divine Providence,
does not appear.
The above evidence has left students in doubt as to whether Essenism is
to be regarded as a pure product of the Jewish mind or as due in part to
some foreign influence. On the one hand it might be maintained that the
Essenes out-Pharisee'd the Pharisees. They had in common with that sect
their veneration for Moses and the Law, their Sabbatarianism, their
striving after ceremonial purity, and their tendency towards fatalism.
But if the Pharisees abstained from good works on the Sabbath, the
Essenes abstained even from natural necessities (Jos. _B.J._ ii. 8, §
9); if the Pharisees washed, the Essenes bathed before dinner; if the
Pharisees ascribed some things to Fate, the Essenes ascribed all (Jos.
_Ant._ xiii. 5, § 9). But on the other hand the Essenes avoided
marriage, which the Pharisees held in honour; they offered no
animal-sacrifices in the Temple; they refrained from the use of oil,
which was customary among the Pharisees (Luke vii. 46); above all, they
offered prayers to the sun, after the manner denounced in Ezekiel (viii.
16). These and other points of divergences are not explained by
Ritschl's interesting theory that Essenism was an organized attempt to
carry out the idea of "a kingdom of priests and an holy nation" (Ex.
xix. 6).
Granting then that some foreign influence was at work in Essenism, we
have four theories offered to us--that this influence was Persian,
Buddhist, Pythagorean, or lastly, as maintained by Lipsius, that of the
surrounding Syrian heathenism. Each of these views has had able
advocates, but it must not be supposed that they are mutually exclusive.
If we consider how Philo, while remaining a devout Jew in religion, yet
managed to assimilate the whole Stoic philosophy, we can well believe
that the Essenes might have been influenced, as Zeller maintained that
they were, by Neo-Pythagoreanism. But as Pythagoras himself came from
Samos, and his doctrines have a decidedly Oriental tinge, it may very
well be that both he and the Essenes drew from a common source; for
there is no need to reject, as is so commonly done, the statements of
our authorities as to the antiquity of the Essenes. This common source
we may believe with Lightfoot to have been the Persian religion, which
we know to have profoundly influenced that of Israel, independently of
the Essenes.
The fact that the Pharisees and Sadducees so often figure in the pages
of the New Testament, while the Essenes are never mentioned, might
plausibly be interpreted to show that the New Testament emanated from
the side of the Essenes. So far as concerns the Epistle of St James this
interpretation would probably be correct. That work contains the
doctrine common to the Essenes with Plato, and suggestive of Persian
Dualism, that God is the author of good only. There are also certain
obvious points of resemblance between the Essenes and the early
Christians. Both held property in common; both had scattered communities
which received guests one from the other; both avoided a light use of
oaths; both taught passive obedience to political authority. The list
might be enlarged, but it would not necessarily prove more than that the
early Christians shared in the ideas of their age. Christianity was to
some extent a popularization of Essenism, but there is little reason for
believing that Jesus himself was an Essene. De Quincey's contention that
there were no Essenes but the early Christians is now a literary
curiosity.
The original sources of our knowledge of the Essenes have been
mentioned at the beginning of this paper; the best modern discussions
of them are to be found in such works as Zeller's _Philosophie der
Griechen_, vol. iii.; Ewald, _Geschichte d. V. Israël_, iii. 419-428;
Reuss, _La Théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique_, i. 122-131;
Keim, _Life of Jesus of Nazara_, vol. i.; Lightfoot on the Colossians;
Lucius, _Der Essenismus in seinem Verhältniss zum Judenthum_;
Wellhausen, _Israelitische und jüdische Geschichte_; Ed. Schürer, _The
Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ_, div. ii. vol. ii. § 30.
The copious bibliography in Conybeare's edition of Philo's _De vita
contemplativa_ bears upon the Essenes as well as upon the Therapeutes.
For a specially Jewish view of the Essenes see Kohler's article in the
_Jewish Encyclopaedia_. They are there regarded as being "simply the
rigorists among the Pharisees." But we are also told that "the
Pharisees characterized the Essene as 'a fool who destroyed the
world.'" (T. K.; St G. S.)
ESSENTUKI, a watering-place of south Russia, in the government of Terek,
11 m. by rail W. from Pyatigorsk; altitude, 2096 ft. Its alkaline and
sulphur-alkaline mineral waters, similar to those of Ems, Selters and
Vichy, are much visited in summer. The climate shows great variations in
temperature. Pop. (1897) 9974.
ESSEQUIBO, or ESSEQUEBO, one of the three settlements of British Guiana,
taking its name from the river Essequibo. (See GUIANA.)
ESSEX, EARLS OF. The first earl of Essex was probably Geoffrey de
Mandeville (q.v.), who became earl about 1139, the earldom being
subsequently held by his two sons, Geoffrey and William, until the death
of the latter in 1189. In 1199 Geoffrey Fitzpeter or Fitzpiers (d.
1213), who was related to the Mandevilles through his wife Beatrice,
became earl of Essex, and on the death of Geoffrey's son William in 1227
the earldom reverted for the second time to the crown. Then the title to
the earldom passed by marriage to the Bohuns, earls of Hereford, and
before 1239 Humphrey de Bohun (d. 1275) had been recognized as earl of
Essex. With the earldom of Hereford the earldom of Essex became extinct
in 1373; afterwards it was held by Thomas of Woodstock, duke of
Gloucester, a son of Edward III. and the husband of Eleanor de Bohun;
and from Gloucester it passed to the Bourchiers, Henry Bourchier (d.
1483), who secured the earldom in 1461, being one of Gloucester's
grandsons. The second and last Bourchier earl was Henry's grandson
Henry, who died early in 1540. A few weeks before his execution in 1540
Thomas Cromwell (q.v.) was created earl of Essex; then in 1543 William
Parr, afterwards marquess of Northampton, obtained the earldom by right
of his wife Anne, a daughter of the last Bourchier earl. Northampton
lost the earldom when he was attainted in 1553; and afterwards it passed
to the famous family of Devereux, Walter Devereux, who was created earl
of Essex in 1572, being related to the Bourchiers. Robert, the 3rd and
last Devereux earl, died in 1646. In 1661 Arthur Capel was created earl
of Essex, and the earldom is still held by his descendants.
ESSEX, ARTHUR CAPEL, 1ST[1] EARL OF (1632-1683), English statesman, son
of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel of Hadham (c. 1641), executed in 1649, and
of Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Charles Morrison of Cashiobury in
Hertfordshire, was baptized on the 28th of January 1632. In June 1648,
then a sickly boy of sixteen, he was taken by Fairfax's soldiers from
Hadham to Colchester, which his father was defending, and carried every
day round the works with the hope of inducing Lord Capel to surrender
the place. At the restoration he was created Viscount Malden and earl of
Essex (20th of April 1661), with special remainder to the male issue of
his father, and was made lord-lieutenant of Hertfordshire and a few
years later of Wiltshire.[2]
He early showed himself antagonistic to the court, to Roman Catholicism,
and to the extension of the royal prerogative, and was coupled by
Charles II. with Holles as "stiff and sullen men," who would not yield
against their convictions to his solicitations. In 1669 he was sent as
ambassador to King Christian V. of Denmark, in which capacity he gained
credit by refusing to strike his flag to the governor of Kronborg. In
1672 he was made a privy councillor and lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He
remained in office till 1677, and his administration was greatly
commended by Burnet and Ormonde,[3] the former describing it "as a
pattern to all that come after him." He identified himself with Irish
interests, and took immense pains to understand the constitution and the
political necessities of the country, appointing men of real merit to
office, and maintaining an exceptional independence from solicitation
and influence. He held a just balance between the Roman Catholics, the
English Church and the Presbyterians, protecting the former as far as
public opinion in England would permit, and governing the native Irish
with firmness and moderation. The purity and patriotism of his
administration were in strong contrast to the hopeless corruption
prevalent in that at home and naturally aroused bitter opposition, as an
obstacle to the unscrupulous employment of Irish revenues for the
satisfaction of the court and the king's expenses. In particular he came
into conflict with Lord Ranelagh, to whom had been assigned the Irish
revenues on condition of his supplying the requirements of the crown,
and whose accounts Essex refused to pass. He opposed strongly the lavish
gifts of forfeited estates to court favourites and mistresses, prevented
the grant of Phoenix Park to the duchess of Cleveland, and refused to
encumber the administration by granting reversions. Finally the
intrigues of his enemies at home, and Charles's continual demands for
money, which Ranelagh undertook to satisfy, brought about his recall in
April 1677. He immediately joined the country party and the opposition
to Danby's government, and on the latter's fall in 1679 was appointed a
commissioner of the treasury, and the same year a member of Sir William
Temple's new-modelled council. He followed the lead of Halifax, who
advocated not the exclusion of James, but the limitation of his
sovereign powers, and looked to the prince of Orange rather than to
Monmouth as the leader of Protestantism, incurring thereby the hostility
of Shaftesbury, but at the same time gaining the confidence of Charles.
He was appointed by Charles together with Halifax to hear the charges
against Lauderdale. In July he wrote a wise and statesmanlike letter to
the king, advising him to renounce his project of raising a new company
of guards. Together with Halifax he urged Charles to summon the
parliament, and after his refusal resigned the treasury in November, the
real cause being, according to one account,[4] a demand upon the
treasury by the duchess of Cleveland for £25,000, according to another
"the niceness of touching French money," "that makes my Lord Essex's
squeasy stomach that it can no longer digest his employment."[5]
Subsequently his political attitude underwent a change, the exact cause
of which is not clear--probably a growing conviction of the dangers
threatened by a Roman Catholic sovereign of the character of James. He
now, in 1680, joined Shaftesbury's party and supported the Exclusion
Bill, and on its rejection by the Lords carried a motion for an
association to execute the scheme of expedients promoted by Halifax. On
the 25th of January 1681 at the head of fifteen peers he presented a
petition to the king, couched in exaggerated language, requesting the
abandonment of the session of parliament at Oxford. He was a jealous
prosecutor of the Roman Catholics in the popish plot, and voted for
Stafford's attainder, on the other hand interceding for Archbishop
Plunket, implicated in the pretended Irish plot. He, however, refused to
follow Shaftesbury in his extreme courses, declined participation in the
latter's design to seize the Tower in 1682, and on Shaftesbury's
consequent departure from England became the leader of Monmouth's
faction, in which were now included Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney, and
Lord Howard of Escrick. Essex took no part in the wilder schemes of the
party, but after the discovery of the Rye House Plot in June 1683, and
the capture of the leaders, he was arrested at Cashiobury and imprisoned
in the Tower. His spirits and fortitude appear immediately to have
abandoned him, and on the 13th of July he was discovered in his chamber
with his throat cut. His death was attributed, quite groundlessly, to
Charles and James, and the evidence points clearly if not conclusively
to suicide, his motive being possibly to prevent an attainder and
preserve his estate for his family. He was, however, undoubtedly a
victim of the Stuart administration, and the antagonism and tragic end
of men like Essex, deserving men, naturally devoted to the throne,
constitutes a severe indictment of the Stuart rule.
He was a statesman of strong and sincere patriotism, just and unselfish,
conscientious and laborious in the fulfilment of public duties,
blameless in his official and private life. Evelyn describes him as "a
sober, wise, judicious and pondering person, not illiterate beyond the
rule of most noblemen in this age, very well versed in English history
and affairs, industrious, frugal, methodical and every way
accomplished"; and declares he was much deplored, few believing he had
ever harboured any seditious designs.[6] He married Lady Elizabeth
Percy, daughter of Algernon, 10th earl of Northumberland, by whom,
besides a daughter, he had an only son Algernon (1670-1710), who
succeeded him as 2nd earl of Essex.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--See the Lives in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_ and in
_Biographia Britannica_ (Kippis), with authorities there collected;
Essex's Irish correspondence is in the _Stow Collection_ in the
British Museum, Nos. 200-217, and selections have been published in
_Letters written by Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex_ (1770) and in the
_Essex Papers_ (Camden Society, 1890), to which can now be added the
_Calendars of State Papers, Domestic_, which contain a large number of
his letters and which strongly support the opinion of his
contemporaries concerning his unselfish patriotism and industry; see
also _Somers Tracts_ (1813), x., and for other pamphlets relating to
his death the catalogue of the British Museum.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] i.e. in the Capel line.
[2] _Hist. MSS. Comm. ser._; _Duke of Beaufort's MSS._ 45.
[3] _Life of Ormonde_, by T. Carte, viii. 468 (1851), vol. iv. p. 529.
[4] _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 7th Rep. app. 477b.
[5] _Ib._ 6th Rep. app. 741b.
[6] _Diary and Corresp._ (1850), ii. 141, 178.
ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX, 2ND[1] EARL OF (1566-1601), son of the 1st
Devereux earl, was born at Netherwood, Herefordshire, on the 19th of
November 1566. He entered the university of Cambridge and graduated in
1581. In 1585 he accompanied his stepfather, the earl of Leicester, on
an expedition to Holland, and greatly distinguished himself at the
battle of Zutphen. He now took his place at court, where so handsome a
youth soon found favour with Queen Elizabeth, and in consequence was on
bad terms with Raleigh. In 1587 he was appointed master of the horse,
and in the following year was made general of the horse and installed
knight of the Garter. On the death of Leicester he succeeded him as
chief favourite of the queen, a position which injuriously affected his
whole subsequent life, and ultimately resulted in his ruin. While
Elizabeth was approaching the mature age of sixty, Essex was scarcely
twenty-one. Though well aware of the advantages of his position, and
somewhat vain of the queen's favour, his constant attendance on her at
court was irksome to him beyond all endurance; and when he could not
make his escape to the scenes of foreign adventure after which he
longed, he varied the monotony of his life at court by intrigues with
the maids of honour. He fought a duel with Sir Charles Blount, a rival
favourite of the queen, in which the earl was disarmed and slightly
wounded in the thigh.
In 1589, without the queen's consent, he joined the expedition of Drake
and Sir John Norris against Spain, but in June he was compelled to obey
a letter enjoining him at his "uttermost peril" to return immediately.
In 1590 Essex married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, but in dread of
the queen's anger he kept the marriage secret as long as possible. When
it was necessary to avow it, her rage at first knew no bounds, but as
the earl did "use it with good temper," and "for her majesty's better
satisfaction was pleased that my lady should live retired in her
mother's house," he soon came to be "in very good favour." In 1591 he
was appointed to the command of a force auxiliary to one formerly sent
to assist Henry IV. of France against the Spaniards; but after a
fruitless campaign he was finally recalled from the command in January
1592. For some years after this most of his time was spent at court,
where he held a position of unexampled influence, both on account of the
favour of the queen and from his own personal popularity. In 1596 he
was, after a great many "changes of humour" on the queen's part,
appointed along with Lord Howard of Effingham, Raleigh and Lord Thomas
Howard, to the command of an expedition, which was successful in
defeating the Spanish fleet, capturing and pillaging Cadiz, and
destroying 53 merchant vessels. It would seem to have been shortly after
this exploit that the beginnings of a change in the feelings of the
queen towards him came into existence. On his return she chided him that
he had not followed up his successes, and though she professed great
pleasure at again seeing him in safety, and was ultimately satisfied
that the abrupt termination of the expedition was contrary to his advice
and remonstrances, she forbade him to publish anything in justification
of his conduct. She doubtless was offended at his growing tendency to
assert his independence, and jealous of his increasing popularity with
the people; but it is also probable that her strange infatuation
regarding her own charms, great as it was, scarcely prevented her from
suspecting either that his professed attachment had all along been
somewhat alloyed with considerations of personal interest, or that at
least it was now beginning to cool. Francis Bacon, at that time his most
intimate friend, endeavoured to prevent the threatened rupture by
writing him a long letter of advice; and although perseverance in a long
course of feigned action was for Essex impossible, he for some time
attended pretty closely to the hints of his mentor, so that the queen
"used him most graciously." In 1597 he was appointed master of the
ordnance, and in the following year he obtained command of an expedition
against Spain, known as the Islands or Azores Voyage. He gained some
trifling successes, but as the Plate fleet escaped him he failed of his
main purpose; and when on his return the queen met him with the usual
reproaches, he retired to his home at Wanstead. This was not what
Elizabeth desired, and although she conferred on Lord Howard of
Effingham the earldom of Nottingham for services at Cadiz, the main
merit of which was justly claimed by Essex, she ultimately held out to
the latter the olive branch of peace, and condescended to soothe his
wounded honour by creating him earl marshal of England. That,
nevertheless, the irritated feelings neither of Essex nor of the queen
were completely healed was manifested shortly afterwards in a manner
which set propriety completely at defiance. In a discussion on the
appointment of a lord deputy to Ireland, Essex, on account of some
taunting words of Elizabeth, turned his back upon her with a gesture
indicative not only of anger but of contempt, and when she, unable to
control her indignation, slapped him on the face, he left her presence
swearing that such an insult he would not have endured even from Henry
VIII.
In 1599, while Ulster was in rebellion under the earl of Tyrone, the
office of lieutenant and governor-general of Ireland was conferred on
Essex, and a large force put at his command. His campaign was an
unsuccessful one, and by acting in various ways in opposition to the
commands of the queen and the council, agreeing with Tyrone on a truce
in September, and suddenly leaving the post of duty with the object of
privately vindicating himself before the queen, he laid himself open to
charges more serious than that of mere incompetency. For these
misdemeanours he was brought in June 1600 before a specially constituted
court, deprived of all his high offices, and ordered to live a prisoner
in his own house during the queen's pleasure. Chiefly through the
intercession of Bacon his liberty was shortly afterwards restored to
him, but he was ordered not to return to court. For some time he hoped
for an improvement in his prospects, but when he was refused the renewal
of his patent for sweet wines, hope was succeeded by despair, and half
maddened by wounded vanity, he made an attempt (Feb. 7, 1601) to incite
a revolution in his behalf, by parading the streets of London with 300
retainers, and shouting, "For the queen! a plot is laid for my life!"
These proceedings awakened, however, scarcely any other feelings than
mild perplexity and wonder; and finding that hope of assistance from the
citizens was vain, he returned to Essex House, where after defending
himself for a short time he surrendered. After a trial--in which Bacon,
who prosecuted, delivered a speech against his quondam friend and
benefactor, the bitterness of which was quite unnecessary to secure a
conviction entailing at least very severe punishment--he was condemned
to death, and notwithstanding many alterations in Elizabeth's mood, the
sentence was carried out on the 25th of February 1601.
Essex was in person tall and well proportioned, with a countenance
which, though not strictly handsome, possessed, on account of its bold,
cheerful and amiable expression, a wonderful power of fascination. He
was a patron of literature, and himself a poet. His carriage was not
very graceful, but his manners are said to have been "courtly, grave and
exceedingly comely." He was brave, chivalrous, impulsive, imperious
sometimes with his equals, but generous to all his dependants and
incapable of secret malice; and these virtues, which were innate and
which remained with him to the last, must be regarded as somewhat
counterbalancing, in our estimation of him, the follies and vices
created by temptations which were exceptionally strong.
See Hon. W.B. Devereux, _Lives of the Earls of Essex_ (1853); and
_Bacon and Essex_, by E.A. Abbott (1877). Also the article BACON,
FRANCIS, and authorities there.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] i.e. in the Devereux line.
ESSEX, ROBERT DEVEREUX, 3RD[1] EARL OF (1591-1646), son of the
preceding, was born in 1591. He was educated at Eton and at Merton
College, Oxford. Shortly after the arrival of James I. in London, Essex
(whose title was restored, and the attainder on his father removed, in
1604) was placed about the prince of Wales, as a sharer both in his
studies and amusements. At the early age of fifteen he was married to
Frances Howard, daughter of the earl of Suffolk, but she was his wife
only in name; during his absence abroad (1607-1609) she fell in love
with Sir Robert Carr (afterwards earl of Somerset), and on her charging
her husband with physical incapacity, the marriage was annulled in 1613.
A second marriage which he contracted in 1631 with Elizabeth, daughter
of Sir William Paulet, also ended unhappily. From 1620 to 1623 he served
in the wars of the Palatinate, and in 1625 he was vice-admiral of a
fleet which made an unsuccessful attempt to capture Cadiz. In 1639 he
was lieutenant-general of the army sent by Charles against the Scottish
Covenanters; but on account of the irresolution of the king no battle
occurred, and the army was disbanded at the end of the year. Essex was
discharged "without ordinary ceremony," and refused an office which at
that time fell vacant, "all which," says Clarendon, "wrought very much
upon his rough, proud nature, and made him susceptible of some
impressions afterwards which otherwise would not have found such easy
admission." Having taken the side of the parliament against Charles, he
was, on the outbreak of the civil war in 1642, appointed to the command
of the parliamentary army. At the battle of Edgehill he remained master
of the field, and in 1643 he captured Reading, and relieved Gloucester;
but in the campaign of the following year, on account of his hesitation
to fight against the king in person, nearly his whole army fell into the
hands of Charles. In 1645, on the passing of the self-denying ordinance,
providing that no member of parliament should hold a public office, he
resigned his commission; but on account of his past services his annuity
of £10,000 was continued to him for life. He died on the 14th of
September 1646, of a fever brought on by over-exertion in a stag-hunt in
Windsor Forest; his line becoming extinct.
See the "Life of Robert Earl of Essex," by Robert Codrington, M.A.,
printed in _Hart. Misc._; Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, and
Hon. W.B. Devereux, _Lives of the Earls of Essex_ (1853).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] i.e. in the Devereux line.
ESSEX, WALTER DEVEREUX, 1ST[1] EARL OF (1541-1576), the eldest son of
Sir Richard Devereux, was born in 1541. His grandfather was the 2nd
Baron Ferrers, who was created Viscount Hereford in 1550 and by his
mother was a nephew of Henry Bourchier, a former earl of Essex. Walter
Devereux succeeded as 2nd Viscount Hereford in 1558, and in 1561 or 1562
married Lettice, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys. In 1569 he served as
high marshal of the field under the earl of Warwick and Lord Clinton,
and materially assisted them in suppressing the northern insurrection.
For his zeal in the service of Queen Elizabeth on this and other
occasions, he in 1572 received the Garter and was created earl of Essex,
the title which formerly belonged to the Bourchier family. Eager to give
proof of "his good devotion to employ himself in the service of her
majesty," he offered on certain conditions to subdue and colonize, at
his own expense, a portion of the Irish province of Ulster, at that time
completely under the dominion of the rebel O'Neills, under Sir Brian
MacPhelim and Tirlogh Luineach, with the Scots under their leader Sorley
Boy MacDonnell. His offer, with certain modifications, was accepted, and
he set sail for Ireland in July 1573, accompanied by a number of earls,
knights and gentlemen, and with a force of about 1200 men. The beginning
of his enterprise was inauspicious, for on account of a storm which
dispersed his fleet and drove some of his vessels as far as Cork and the
Isle of Man, his forces did not all reach the place of rendezvous till
late in the autumn, and he was compelled to entrench himself at Belfast
for the winter. Here, by sickness, famine and desertions, his troops
were diminished to little more than 200 men. Intrigues of various sorts,
and fighting of a guerilla type, followed with disappointing results,
and Essex had difficulties both with the deputy Fitzwilliam and with the
queen. Essex was in straits himself, and his offensive movements in
Ulster took the form of raids and brutal massacres among the O'Neills;
in October 1574 he treacherously captured MacPhelim at a conference in
Belfast, and after slaughtering his attendants had him and his wife and
brother executed at Dublin. Elizabeth, instigated apparently by
Leicester, after encouraging Essex to prepare to attack the Irish chief
Tirlogh Luineach, suddenly commanded him to "break off his enterprise";
but, as she left him a certain discretionary power, he took advantage of
it to defeat Tirlogh Luineach, chastise Antrim, and massacre several
hundreds of Sorley Boy's following, chiefly women and children,
discovered hiding in the caves of Rathlin. He returned to England in the
end of 1575, resolved "to live henceforth an untroubled life"; but he
was ultimately persuaded to accept the offer of the queen to make him
earl marshal of Ireland. He arrived in Dublin in September 1576, and
three weeks afterwards died of dysentery. There were suspicions that he
had been poisoned by Leicester, who shortly after his death married his
widow, but these were not confirmed by the post-mortem examination. The
endeavours of Essex to better the condition of Ireland were a dismal
failure; and the massacres of the O'Neills and of the Scots of Rathlin
leave a dark stain on his reputation.
See Sidney Lee's article in the _Dict. Nat. Biog.; Lives of the
Devereux Earls of Essex_, by Hon. Walter B. Devereux (1853); Froude's
_History of England_, vol. x.; J.S. Brewer, _Athenaeum_ (1870), part
i. pp. 261, 326.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] i.e. in the Devereux line.
ESSEX, an eastern county of England, bounded N. by Cambridgeshire and
Suffolk, E. by the North Sea, S. by the Thames, dividing it from Kent,
W. by the administrative county of London and by Hertfordshire. Its area
is 1542 sq. m. Its configuration is sufficiently indicated by the
direction of its rivers. Except that in the N.W. the county includes the
heads of a few valleys draining northward to the Cam and so to the Great
Ouse, all the streams, which are never of great size, run southward and
eastward, either into the Thames, or into the North Sea by way of the
broad, shallow estuaries which ramify through the flat coast lands. The
highest ground lies consequently in the north-west, between the Cam
basin and the rivers of the county. Its principal southward extension is
that between the Lea (which with its tributary the Stort forms a great
part of the western boundary) and the Roding, and east of the Roding
valley. The other chief rivers may be specified according to their
estuaries, following the coast northward from Shoeburyness at the Thames
mouth. That of the Roach ramifies among several islands of which
Foulness is the largest, but its main branch joins the Crouch estuary.
Next follows the Blackwater, which receives the Chelmer, the Brain and
other streams. Following a coast of numerous creeks and islets, with the
large island of Mersea, the Colne estuary is reached. The Colne and
Blackwater may be said to form one large estuary, as they enter the sea
by a well-marked common mouth, 5 m. in width, between Sales Point and
Colne Point. There is a great irregular inlet (Hamford Water) receiving
no large stream, W. of the Naze promontory, and then the Stour, bounding
the county on the north, joins its estuary to that of the Orwell near
the sea. There are several seaside watering-places in favour owing to
their proximity to London, of which Southend-on-Sea above the mouth of
the Thames, Clacton-on-Sea, Walton-on-the-Naze, and Dovercourt adjoining
Harwich are the chief. These and other stations on the estuaries are
also in favour with yachtsmen. The sea has at some points seriously
encroached upon the land within historic times. The low soft cliffs at
various points are liable to give way against the waves; in other parts
dykes and embankments are necessary to prevent inundation. Inland, that
is apart from the flat coast-district, the country is pleasantly
undulating and for the most part well wooded. It was formerly, indeed,
almost wholly forested, the great Waltham Forest stretching from
Colchester to the confines of London. Of this a fragment is preserved in
Epping Forest (see EPPING) between the Lea and the Roding. On the other
side of the Roding Hainault Forest is traceable, but was disafforested
in 1851. The oak is the principal tree; a noteworthy example was that of
Fairlop in Hainault, which measured 45 ft. in girth, but was blown down
in 1820.
_Geology._--The geological structure of the county is very simple: the
greater part is occupied by the London clay with underlying Reading
beds and Thanet sands, with here and there small patches of Bagshot
gravels on elevated tracts, as at High Beech, Langdon Hill, Brentwood
and Rayleigh; and occasionally the same beds are represented by the
large boulder-like Sarsen stones on the lower ground. In the north,
the chalk, which underlies the Tertiary strata over the whole county,
appears at the surface and forms the downs about Saffron Walden,
Birdbrook and Great Yeldham; it is brought up again by a small
disturbance at Grays Thurrock where it is quarried on a large scale
for lime, cement and whiting. Small patches of Pleistocene Red Crag
rest upon the Eocene strata at Beaumont and Oakley, and are very well
exposed at Walton-on-the-Naze where they are very fossiliferous. Most
of the county is covered by a superficial deposit of glacial drifts,
sands, gravel and in places boulder clay, as at Epping, Dunmow and
Hornchurch where the drift lies beneath the Thames gravel. An
interesting feature in relation to the glacial drift is a deep trough
in the Cam valley revealed by borings to be no less than 340 ft. deep
at Newport; this ancient valley is filled with drift. In the southern
part of the county are broad spreads of gravel and brick earth, formed
by the Thames; these have been excavated for brick-making and building
purposes about Ilford, Romford and Grays, and have yielded the remains
of hippopotamus, rhinoceros and mammoth. More recent alluvial deposits
are found in the valley at Walthamstow and Tilbury, in which the
remains of the beaver have been discovered.
The roads of this county with a clay soil foundation were for
generations repaired with flints picked by women and children from the
surface of the fields. Gravel is difficult of access. With the
exception of chalk for lime (mainly obtained at Ballingdon in the
north and Grays in the south), septaria for making cement, and clay
for bricks, the underground riches of the county are meagre.
_Agriculture._--As an agricultural county Essex ranks high. Some
four-fifths of the total area is under cultivation, and about one-third
of that area is in permanent pasture. Wheat, barley and oats, in that
relative order, are the principal grain crops, Essex being one of the
chief grain-producing counties. The wheat and barley are in particularly
high favour, the wheat of various standard species being exported for
seed purposes, while the barley is especially useful in malting. Beans
and peas are largely grown, as are vegetables for the London market.
Hop-growing was once important. From the comparative dryness of the
climate Essex does not excel in pasturage, and winter grazing receives
the more attention. The numbers of cattle increase steadily, and store
bullocks are introduced in large numbers from Norfolk, Lincolnshire,
Ireland and Wales. Of sheep there are but few distinct flocks, and the
numbers decrease. Pigs are generally of a high-class Berkshire type.
_Other Industries._--The south-west of the county, being contiguous to
London, is very densely populated, and is the seat of large and varied
industries. For example, there are numbers of chemical works, the
extensive engine shops and works of the Great Eastern railway at
Stratford, government powder works in the vicinity of Waltham Abbey, and
powder stores at Purfleet on the Thames. The extensive water-works for
east London, by the Lea near Walthamstow, may also be mentioned. The
docks at Plaistow and Tilbury on the Thames employ many hands. Apart
from this industrial district, there are considerable engineering works,
especially for agricultural implements, at Chelmsford, Colchester and
elsewhere; several silk works, as at Braintree and Halstead; large
breweries, as at Brentwood, Chelmsford and Romford; and lime and cement
works at Grays Thurrock. The oyster-beds of the Colne produce the famous
Colchester natives, and there are similar beds in the Crouch and Roach,
for which Burnham-on-Crouch is the centre; and in the Blackwater
(Maldon).
_Communications._--Railway communications are supplied principally by
the Great Eastern railway, of which the main line runs by Stratford,
Ilford, Romford, Brentwood, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester, and
Manningtree. The Cambridge and northern line of this company, following
the Lea valley, does not touch the county until it diverges along the
valley of the Stort. The chief branches are those to Southend and
Burnham, Witham to Maldon, Colchester to Brightlingsea, to Clacton and
to Walton, and Manningtree to Harwich, on the coast; and Witham to
Braintree and Bishop's Stortford, and Mark's Tey to Sudbury and beyond,
inland; while there are several branch lines among the manufacturing and
residential suburbs in the south-west, to Walthamstow and Buckhurst
Hill, Chigwell, Loughton, Epping, Ongar, &c. The London, Tilbury &
Southend railway, following the Thames, serves the places named, and the
Colne Valley railway runs from Chappel junction near Mark's Tey by
Halstead to Haverhill.
On the Thames, besides the great docks at Plaistow (Victoria and Albert)
and the deep-water docks at Tilbury, the principal calling places for
vessels are Grays, Purfleet and Southend, while Barking on the Roding
has also shipping trade, and the Lea affords important water-connexions.
Elsewhere, the principal port is Harwich, at the mouth of the Stour, one
of the chief ports of England for European passenger traffic. Other
towns ranking as lesser estuarine ports are: Brightlingsea and Wivenhoe
on the Colne, forming a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich;
Colchester, Maldon on the Blackwater, and Burnham-on-Crouch. The Stour,
Chelmer, and Lea and Stort are the principal navigable inland waterways.
_Population and Administration._--The area of the ancient county is
986,975 acres, with a population in 1891 of 785,445 and in 1901 of
1,085,771. The area of the administrative county is 979,532 acres. The
county contains nineteen hundreds. It is divided into eight
parliamentary divisions, and it also includes the parliamentary boroughs
of Colchester and West Ham, the latter consisting of two divisions. Each
of these returns one member. The county divisions are--Northern or
Saffron Walden, North-eastern or Harwich, Eastern or Maldon, Western or
Epping, Mid or Chelmsford, South-eastern, Southern or Romford,
South-western or Walthamstow, returning one member each. The municipal
boroughs are--Chelmsford (12,580), Colchester (38,373), East Ham
(96,018), Harwich (10,070), Maldon(5565), Saffron Walden (5896),
Southend-on-Sea (28,857), and one county borough, West Ham (267,358).
The following are the other urban districts--Barking Town (21,547),
Braintree (5330), Brentwood (4932), Brightlingsea (4501), Buckhurst Hill
(4786), Burnham-on-Crouch (2919), Chingford (4373), Clacton (7456),
Epping (3789), Frinton-on-Sea (644), Grays Thurrock (13,834), Halstead
(6073), Ilford (41,234), Leigh-on-Sea (3667), Leyton (98,912), Loughton
(4730), Romford (13,656), Shoeburyness (4081), Waltham Holy Cross
(6549), Walthamstow (95,131), Walton-on-the-Naze (2014), Wanstead
(9179), Witham (3454), Wivenhoe (2560), Woodford (13,798). Essex is in
the South-eastern circuit, and assizes are held at Chelmsford. The
boroughs of Harwich and Southend-on-Sea have separate commissions of the
peace, and the boroughs of Colchester, Maldon, Saffron Walden and West
Ham have, in addition, separate courts of quarter sessions. The county
is ecclesiastically within the diocese of St Albans (with a small
portion within that of Ely) and is divided into two archdeaconries;
containing 452 parishes or districts wholly or in part. There are 399
civil parishes.
There is a military station and depot for recruits at Warley, and a
garrison at Tilbury. At Shoeburyness there are a school of gunnery and
an extensive ground for testing government artillery of the largest
calibre.
_History_ (see also below under ESSEX, KINGDOM OF).--ESSEX probably
originated as a shire in the time of Æthelstan. According to the
Domesday Survey it comprised nineteen hundreds, corresponding very
closely in extent and in name with those of the present day. The
additional half-hundred of Thunreslan on the Suffolk border has
disappeared; Witbrictesherna is now Dengie; and the liberty of
Havering-atte-Bower appears to have been taken out of Becontree. Essex
and Hertfordshire were under one sheriff until the time of Elizabeth. At
the time of the Survey Count Eustace held a vast fief in Essex, and the
court of the Honour of Boulogne was held at Witham. Bentry Heath in
Dagenham, Hundred Heath in Tendring and Castle Hedingham in Hinckford
were the meeting-places of their respective hundreds. The stewardship of
the forest of Essex was held by the earls of Oxford until deprived of it
for adherence to the Lancastrian cause. In 1421 certain parts of Essex
inherited by Henry V. from his mother were brought under the
jurisdiction of the duchy of Lancaster.
Essex was part of the see of London from the time of the foundation of
the bishopric in the 7th century. The archdeaconries are first mentioned
in 1108; that of Essex extended over the south of the county and in 1291
included eight deaneries; the north of the county was divided between
the archdeaconries of Middlesex and Colchester, comprising three and six
deaneries respectively. Colchester was constituted a suffragan bishopric
by Henry VIII. In 1836 Essex was transferred to the diocese of
Rochester, with the exception of nine parishes which remained in London.
In 1845 the archdeacon of Middlesex ceased to exercise control in Essex,
and the deaneries were readjusted. In 1875 Essex was transferred to the
newly created diocese of St Albans, and in 1877 the archdeaconry of
Essex was subdivided into eighteen deaneries and that of Colchester into
sixteen.
Owing to its proximity to the capital Essex was intimately associated
with all the great historical struggles. The nobility of Essex took a
leading part in the struggle for the charter, and of the twenty-four
guardians of the charter, four were Essex barons. The castles of
Pleshey, Colchester, and Hedingham were held against the king in the
Barons' War of the reign of Henry III., and 5000 Essex men joined the
peasant rising of 1381. During the Wars of the Roses the Lancastrian
cause was supported by the de Veres, while the Bourchiers and Lord
Fitz-Walter were among the Yorkist leaders. Several Essex men were
concerned in the Gunpowder Plot, and in the Civil War of the 17th
century the county rendered valuable aid to the parliament.
After the Conquest no Englishman retained estates in Essex of any
importance, and the chief lay barons at the time of the Survey were
Geoffrey de Mandeville and Aubrey de Vere. The de Veres, earls of
Oxford, were continuously connected with the county until the extinction
of the title two centuries ago. Pleshey was the stronghold of the
Mandevilles, and, although the house became extinct in 1189, its
descendants in the female line retained the title of earls of Essex. The
Honour of Hatfield Peverel held by Ranulf Peverel after the Conquest
escheated to the crown in the reign of Henry I., and in the same reign
the fief of Robert Gernon passed to the house of Mountfichet.
Essex has always been mainly an agricultural county, and the ordinary
agricultural pursuits were carried on at the time of the Domesday
Survey, which also mentions salt-making, wine-making, bee-culture and
cheese-making, while the oyster fisheries have been famous from the
earliest historic times. The woollen industry dates back to Saxon times,
and for many centuries ranked as the most important industry.
Cloth-weaving was introduced in the 14th century, and in the 16th
century Colchester was noted for its "bays and says." Colchester also
possessed a valuable leather industry in the 16th century, at which
period Essex was considered an exceptionally wealthy and prosperous
county; Norden, writing in 1594, describes it as "moste fatt, frutefull,
and full of all profitable things." The decline of the cloth industry in
the 17th century caused great distress, but a number of smaller
industries began to take its place. Saffron-culture and silk-weaving
were extensively carried on in the 17th century, and the 18th century
saw the introduction of the straw-plait industry, potash-making,
calico-printing, malting and brewing, and the manufacture of Roman
cement.
The county returned four members to parliament in 1290. From 1295 it
returned two members for the county and two for Colchester. Maldon
acquired representation in 1331 and Harwich in 1604. Under the Reform
Act of 1832 the county returned four members in four divisions. Under
the Representation of the People Act of 1868 Maldon and Harwich each
lost one member, and the county returned six members in three divisions.
_Antiquities._--It is supposed by many antiquaries that Saxon masonry
can be detected in the foundations of several of the Essex churches,
but, with the exception of Ashingdon church tower, believed to have been
erected by Canute after his victory over Edmund Ironside, there is no
obviously recognizable building belonging to that period. This is
probably to be in part ascribed to the fact that the comparative
scarcity of stone and the unusual abundance of timber led to the
extensive employment of the latter material. Several of the Essex
churches, as Blackmore, Mountnessing, Margaretting, and South Benfleet,
have massive porches and towers of timber; and St Andrew's church,
Greenstead, with its walls of solid oak, continues an almost unique
example of its kind. Of the four round churches in England one is in
Essex at Little Maplestead; it is both the smallest and the latest. The
churches of South Weald, Hadleigh, Blackmore, Heybridge and Hadstock may
be mentioned as containing Norman work; with the church of Castle
Hedingham for its fine Transitional work; Southchurch, Danbury and
Boreham as being partly Early English; Ingatestone, Stebbing and Tilty
for specimens of Decorated architecture; and Messing, Thaxted, Saffron
Walden, and the church of St Peter ad Vincula at the small town of
Coggeshall, near Colchester, as specimens of Perpendicular. Stained
glass windows have left their traces in several of the churches, the
finest remains being those of Margaretting, which represent a tree of
Jesse and the daisy or herb Margaret. Paintings have evidently been
largely used for internal decoration: a remarkable series, probably of
the 12th century, but much restored in the 14th, exists in the chancel
of Copford church; and in the church at Ingatestone there was discovered
in 1868 an almost unique fresco representation of the seven deadly sins.
The oldest brasses preserved in the county are those of Sir William
Fitz-Ralph at Pebmarsh, about 1323; Richard of Beltown, at Corringham,
1340; Sir John Gifford, at Bowers Gifford, 1348; Ralph de Kneyton, at
Aveley, 1370; Robert de Swynbourne, at Little Horkesley, 1391; and Sir
Ingelram de Bruyn, at South Ockendon, 1400. The brass of Thomas Heron,
aged 14, at Little Ilford, though dating only from 1517, is of interest
as a picture of a schoolboy of the period. Ancient wooden effigies are
preserved at Danbury, Little Leighs and Little Horkesley.
Essex was rich in monastic foundations, though the greater number have
left but meagre ruins behind. The Benedictines had an abbey at Saffron
Walden, nunneries at Barking and Wickes, and priories at Earl's or
Monk's Colne and Castle Hedingham; the Augustinian canons had an abbey
at Waltham (see WALTHAM ABBEY; the portion remaining shows Norman work
of the finest character), priories at Thoby, Blackmore, Bicknacre,
Little Leighs, Little Dunmow and St Osyth (see BRIGHTLINGSEA); there
were Cistercian abbeys at Coggeshall, Stratford and Tilty; the Cluniac
monks were settled at Prittlewell, the Premonstratensians at Beleigh
Abbey, and the Knights Hospitallers at Little Maplestead. Barking Abbey
is said to date its first origin from the 7th century; most of the
others arose in the 12th and 13th centuries. Besides the keep at
Colchester there is a fine Norman castle at Castle Hedingham, and two
dilapidated round towers still stand at Hadleigh near Southend. Ongar,
the house of the de Lacys, and Pleshey, the seat of the earls of Essex,
have left only mounds. Havering-atte-Bower, the palace that was occupied
by many queens, is replaced by a modern house; Wickham, the mansion of
the bishops of London, no longer stands. New Hall, which was
successively occupied by Henry VIII., Elizabeth, the earl of Essex,
George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, and Cromwell, is now a nunnery of
the order of the Holy Sepulchre. Audley End, the mansion of Lord
Braybrooke, is a noble example of the domestic architecture of the
Jacobean period; Layer Marney is an interesting proof of the Italian
influences that were at work in the time of Wolsey. Horeham Hall was
built by Sir John Cutt in the reign of Henry VII., and Gosfield Hall is
of about the same date.
See Norden, _Speculi Britanniae Pars: an Hist. and Geogr. Descrip. of
the County of Essex_ (1594) (edited for the Camden Society by Sir
Henry Ellis, 1840, from the original MS. in the Marquis of Salisbury's
library at Hatfield); Nicholas Tindal, _Hist. of Essex_ (1720); N.
Salmon, _The Hist. and Antiq. of Essex_ (London, 1740)--based on the
collections of James Strangman of Hadleigh (v. _Trans. of Essex Arch.
Soc._ vol. ii.); P. Morant, _Hist. and Antiq. of the County of Essex_
(London, 1768); P. Muilman, _New and Complete Hist. of Essex from a
late Survey, by a Gentleman_ (Chelmsford, 6 vols., 1770-1772, London,
1779); Elizabeth Ogbourne, _Hist. of Essex_ (London, part i., 1814);
_Excursions through Essex, illustrated with one hundred engravings_ (2
vols., London, 1818); T. Wright, _Hist. and Topography of Essex_
(1831); W. Berry, _Pedigrees of Families in Essex_ (1841); A.
Suckling, _Memorials of the Antiquities, &c., of the County of Essex_
(London, 1845); W. Andrews (ed.), _Bygone Essex_ (London, 1892); J.T.
Page (ed.), _Essex in the Days of Old_ (London, 1898); _Victoria
County History, Essex; Transactions of the Essex Arch. Soc._ from
1858. An account of various MS. collections connected with the county
is given by H.W. King in vol. ii. of the _Transactions_ (1863).
ESSEX, KINGDOM OF, one of the kingdoms into which Anglo-Saxon Britain
was divided, properly the land of the East Saxons. Of its origin and
early history we have no record except the bare statement of Bede that
its settlers were of the Old Saxon race. In connexion with this it is
interesting to notice that the East Saxon dynasty claimed descent from
Seaxneat, not Woden. The form Seaxneat is identical with Saxnot, one of
three gods mentioned in a short continental document probably of Old
Saxon origin. Bede does not mention this kingdom in his narrative until
604, the year of the consecration of Mellitus to the see of London. The
boundaries of Essex were in later times the rivers Stour and Thames, but
the original limits of the kingdom are quite uncertain; towards the west
it probably included most if not the whole of Hertfordshire, and in the
7th century the whole of Middlesex. In 604 we find Essex in close
dependence upon Kent, being ruled by Saberht, sister's son of
Æthelberht, under whom the East Saxons received Christianity. The three
sons of Saberht, however, expelled Mellitus from his see, and even after
their death in battle against the West Saxons, Eadbald of Kent was
unable to restore him. In the year 653 we find North-umbrian influence
paramount in Essex, for King Sigeberht at the instance of Oswio became a
Christian and received Cedd, the brother of St Chad, in his kingdom as
bishop, Tilbury and _Ythanceastere_ (on the Blackwater) being the chief
scenes of his work. Swithhelm, the successor of Sigeberht, was on terms
of friendship with the East Anglian royal house, King Æthelwald being
his sponsor at his baptism by Cedd. It was probably about this time that
Erconwald, afterwards bishop of London, founded the monastery of
Barking. Swithhelm's successors Sigehere and Sebbe were dependent on
Wulfhere, the powerful king of Mercia, who on the apostasy of Sigehere
sent Bishop Jaruman to restore the faith. There are grounds for
believing that an East Saxon conquest of Kent took place in this reign.
A forged grant of Ceadwalla speaks of the fall of Kent before Sigehere
as a well-known event; and in a Kentish charter dated 676 a king of Kent
called Swebhard grants land with the consent of his father King Sebbe.
In 692 or 694 Sebbe abdicated and received the monastic vows from
Waldhere, the successor of Erconwald at London. His sons Sigeheard and
Swefred succeeded him as kings of Essex, Sigehere being apparently dead.
As the laws of Ine of Wessex speak of Erconwald as "my bishop," it is
possible that the influence of Wessex for a short time prevailed in
Essex; but a subsequent charter of Swefred is approved by Coenred of
Mercia, and Offa, the son of Sigehere, accompanied the same king to Rome
in 709. From this time onwards the history of Essex is almost a blank.
In 743 or 745 Æthelbald of Mercia is found granting privileges at the
port of London, and perhaps the western portion of the kingdom had
already been annexed, for henceforward London is frequently the
meeting-place of the Mercian council. The violent death of Selred, king
of Essex, is mentioned in the _Saxon Chronicle_ under the year 746; but
we have no more information of historical importance until the defeat of
the Mercian king Beornwulf in 825, when Essex, together with Kent,
Sussex and Surrey, passed into the hands of Ecgbert, king of Wessex.
After 825 we hear of no more kings of Essex, but occasionally of earls.
About the year 870 Essex passed into the hands of the Danes and was left
to them by the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum. It was reconquered by
Edward the Elder. The earldom in the 10th century apparently included
several other counties, and its most famous holder was the ealdorman
Brihtnoth, who fell at the battle of Maldon in 991.
The following is a list of kings of Essex of whom there is record:
Saberht (d. c. 617); three sons of Saberht, including probably Saweard
and Seaxred; Sigeberht (Parvus); Sigeberht II.; Swithhelm (d. c. 664);
Sigehere (reigned perhaps 664-689); Sebbe, son of Seaxred (664-694);
Sigeheard (reigning in 693-694); Swefred (reigning in 693-694 and in
704); the two last being sons of Sebbe; Swebriht (d. 738); Selred (d.
746); Swithred, grandson of Sigeheard (succ. 746); Sigeric, son of
Selered (abd. 798); Sigered, son of Sigeric (reigning in 823).
See Bede, _Hist. Eccl._, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896), ii. 3,
5; _Saxon Chronicle_ (Earle and Plummer, Oxford, 1899), _s.a._ 823,
894, 904, 913, 921, 994; William of Malmesbury, _Gesta Regum_, Rolls
Series (ed. Stubbs, 1887-1889); _Simeon of Durham, s.a._ 746 (ed. T.
Arnold, 1882) and appendix, _s.a._ 738; Florence of Worcester (ed. B.
Thorpe, London, 1848-1849); H. Sweet, _Oldest English Texts_, p. 179
(London, 1885). (F. G. M. B.)
ESSLINGEN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, in a
fertile district on the Neckar, 9 m. S.E. from Stuttgart, on the railway
to Ulm. Pop. (1905) 29,750. It is surrounded by medieval walls with
towers and bastions, and has thirteen suburbs, one lying on an island in
the river. On a commanding height above the town lies the old citadel.
The inner town has an old (1430) and a new Rathaus, the latter, formerly
a palace, an exceedingly handsome edifice. The church of Our Lady
(Frauenkirche) is a fine Gothic building of the 15th century, and has a
beautifully sculptured doorway and a lattice spire 240 ft. high. The
church of St Dionysius dated from the 13th century, and possesses a fine
screen and a ciborium of 1486. Esslingen possesses several schools, a
theatre and a richly endowed hospital, while its municipal archives
contain much valuable literature bearing especially on the period of the
Reformation. The town has railway, machine and electrical works; cloth,
gloves and buttons are also manufactured here, and there are
spinning-mills. There is a large lithographic establishment, and a
considerable trade is done in wine and fruit, the wines of Esslingen
being very famous.
Esslingen, which dates from the 8th century, became a town in 886. It
was soon a place of importance; it became a free imperial city in 1209
and was surrounded with walls by order of the emperor Frederick II. Its
liberty was frequently threatened by the rulers of Württemberg, but it
did not become part of that country until 1802.
See K.H.S. Pfaff, _Geschichte der Reichsstadt Esslingen_ (Esslingen,
1852); and Ströhmfeld, _Esslingen in Wort und Bild_ (Esslingen, 1902).
ESTABLISHMENT (O. Fr. _establissement_, Fr. _établissement_, late Norm.
Fr. _establishement_, from O. Fr. _establir_, Fr. _établir_, Lat.
_stabilire_, to make stable), generally the act of establishing or fact
of being established, and so by transference a thing established. Thus
we may speak of the establishment (i.e. setting up) of a business, the
"long establishment" of a business, and of the manager of "the
establishment." In a special sense the word is applied, with something
of all the three above-mentioned connotations, to certain religious
bodies in their relation to the state. It is with this latter that the
present article is concerned.
Perhaps the best definition which can be given, and which will cover all
cases, is that establishment implies the existence of some definite and
distinctive relation between the state and a religious society (or
conceivably more than one) other than that which is shared in by other
societies of the same general character. Of course, a certain
relationship must needs exist between the state and every society,
religious or secular, by virtue of the sovereignty of the state over
each and all of its members. Every society must possess certain
principles or perform certain acts, and the state may make the
profession of such principles unlawful, or impose a penalty upon the
performance of such acts; and, moreover, every society is liable before
the law as to the fulfilment of its obligations towards its members and
the due administration of its property should it possess any. With all
this establishment has nothing to do. It is not concerned with what
pertains to the religious society _qua_ society, or with what is common
to all religious societies, but with what is exceptional. It denotes any
special connexion with the state, or privileges and responsibilities
before the law, possessed by one religious society to the exclusion of
others; in a word, establishment is of the nature of a monopoly. But it
does not imply merely privilege. The state and the Church have mutual
obligations towards one another: each is, to some extent, tied by the
existence of this relationship, and each accepts the limitations for the
sake of the advantages which accrue to itself. The state does so in view
of what it believes to be the good of all its members; for "the true end
for which religion is established is not to provide for the true faith,
but for civil utility" (Warburton), even if the latter be held to be
implied in the former. On the other hand, the Church accepts these
relations for the facilities which they involve, i.e. for its own
benefit. It will be seen that this definition excludes, and rightly,
many current presuppositions. Establishment affirms the _fact_, but does
not determine the precise _nature_, of the connexion between the state
and the religious society. It does not tell us, for example, when or how
it began, whether it is the result of an unconscious growth (as with the
Gallican Church previous to the French Revolution), or of a determinate
legislative act (as with the same Church re-established by the Concordat
of 1801). It does not tell us whether an endowment of the religious
society by the state is included; what particular privileges are enjoyed
by the religious society; and what limitations are placed upon the free
exercise of its life. These things can only be ascertained by actual
inquiry; for the conditions are precisely similar in no two cases.
To proceed to details. At the present day there is no established
religion in the United States, the German empire as a whole, Holland,
Belgium, France and Austria-Hungary (saving, indeed, "the rights of the
sovereign arising from ecclesiastical dignity"[1]); whereas there are
religious establishments in Russia, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Denmark,
Prussia,[2] Spain, Portugal and even in Italy, as well as in England and
Scotland. These, however, differ greatly amongst themselves. In Russia
the "Orthodox Catholic Eastern" is the state religion. The emperor is,
by the fundamental laws of the empire, "the sovereign defender and
protector of the dogmas of the dominant faith, who maintains orthodoxy
and holy discipline within the Church," although, of course, he cannot
modify either its dogmas or its outward order. Further, "the autocratic
(i.e. imperial) power acts in the ecclesiastical administration by means
of the Most Holy Ruling Synod, created by it"; and all the officers of
the Church are appointed by it. The enactments of the Synod do not
become law till they have received the emperor's sanction, and are then
published, not in its name but in his; and a large part of the revenues
of the Church is derived from state subsidies. In Greece "the dominant
religion ([Greek: Eh epikratousa thrêskeia]) is that of the Eastern
Orthodox Church of Christ"; and although toleration is otherwise
complete, no proselytism from the Church of Greece is allowed. The king
swears to protect it, but no powers pertain to him with regard to it
such as those which the tsar enjoys; the present king is not a member of
it, but his successors must be. In Sweden, Lutheranism was adopted as
the state religion by the synod of Upsala (_Upsala möte_) in 1593, and
the king must profess it. The "Lutheran Protestant Church" retains an
episcopal order, and is supported out of its own revenues. Archbishops
and bishops are chosen by the king out of those names submitted to him,
and he also nominates to royal peculiars. The ecclesiastical law
(_Kyrkolag_), first constituted in 1686, is part of the law of the
state, but may not be modified or abrogated without consent of a General
Synod; and although _ad interim_ interpretations of that law may be
given by the king on the advice of the Supreme Court, since 1866 these
have been subject to review and rejection by the next General Synod. In
Norway the "Evangelical-Lutheran" is the "official religion," but the
Church is supported by the state, its property having been secularized.
It is also more subject to the king, who by the constitution is to
"regulate all that concerns divine service and the clergy," and to see
that the prescribed order is carried out. It is much the same in
Denmark, where, however, the "Evangelical-Lutheran Church" has since the
fundamental constitutional law of the 5th of June 1849 been officially
described as the National Church (_Folkekirche_) instead of the State
Church (_Statskirche_) as formerly, and the constitution provides for
its regulation by further legislation, which has not yet been passed.
For Prussia, see under that heading; it need only be added that
self-government still tends to increase, but that the emperor William
II. has exercised his office as _summus episcopus_ more freely than most
of his predecessors. In Spain the "Catholic, Apostolic and Roman"
religion is that of the state, "the nation binds itself to maintain its
worship and its ministers," and the rites of any other religion are only
permitted in private. The patriarch of the Indies and the archbishops
are senators by right, and the king may nominate others from amongst the
bishops; only laymen may sit in the chamber of deputies. Convents were
suppressed, and their property confiscated, in 1835 and 1836; in 1859
the remaining ecclesiastical property was exchanged for untransferable
government securities and the support of the clergy of the State Church
is assured by an unrepealed law previous to the present constitution. In
Portugal it is much the same, but all the home bishops sit in the upper
chamber as peers (_Pares do Reino_) by right, and there is no
restriction on membership of the chamber of deputies. A more important
point is that the king confers all ecclesiastical benefices and
nominates the bishops, instead of their being chosen, as in Spain, by
agreement between the civil power and the papacy. In Italy, in spite of
the feud between the papacy and the civil power, the fact remains that,
by the _Statuto fondamentale_, "the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman
religion is the sole religion of the state," and the king may nominate
"archbishops and bishops of the state" to be senators. The _Legge sulle
prerogative del Summo Pontifice_, &c., or "Law of Guarantees," by which
the papal prerogatives are secured, has been declared by the Council of
State to be a fundamental law; and while many civil restrictions upon
the activities of the Church are removed by it, outside Rome and the
suburbicarian dioceses the royal _exequatur_ is still required before a
bishop is installed. Moreover, the bulk of Church property having been
secularized, the Italian clergy receive a stipend from the state.
Church and State in Britain.
Establishment is, of course, a distinctively English term, but it
implies precisely the same thing as "Staatsreligion" or "église
dominante" does elsewhere, neither more nor less. It denotes the
existence of a special relationship between Church and state without
defining its precise nature. The statement that the Church of England or
the Scottish Kirk is "established by law" denotes that it has a peculiar
status before the law; but that is all. (a) There is no basis whatever
for the once popular assumption that the word "established" as applied
to the Church means "created," or the like; on the contrary, the modern
use of the word in this sense is a misleading perversion. To _establish_
is to make firm or stable; and a thing cannot be established unless it
is already in existence. A few examples will make it clear that this is
the true sense of the word, and that in which it is used here. "Stablish
the thing, O God, that thou hast wrought in us" (Ps. lxviii. 28, P.B.;
A.V. and R.V. "strengthen") implies that the thing is already wrought;
it could not be "stablished" else. "Stablish your hearts" (Jas v. 8)
implies that the hearts are already in existence. "Until he had her
settled in her raine With safe assuraunce and establishment" (_Faerie
Queene_, v. xi. 35) would have been impossible unless the reign had
already begun. This is the meaning of the words in many Tudor acts of
parliament, "be it enacted, ordained and established," or the like (21
Hen. VIII. c. 1; 27 Hen. VIII. c. 28, s. 9; 28 Hen. VIII. c. 13
[Ireland]; 28 Hen. VIII. c. 18 [Ireland]; 33 Hen. VIII. c. 27; 1 Eliz.
c. 1, ss. 15, 17; 1 Eliz. c. 4, s. 4); that which is then and there
enacted is to be valid for the future. (b) Nor is it necessarily implied
that establishment is a process completed once for all. Every law
touching the Church slightly alters its conditions; everything that
affects the relations of Church and state may be regarded as a measure
of establishment or the reverse. When the two Houses of Parliament, in
an address to William III. after his coronation, spoke of their proposed
measures of toleration, the king said in his reply, "I do hope that the
ease which you design to Dissenters will contribute very much to the
establishment of the Church" (Cobbett, _Parl. Hist._ v. 218). And Defoe
(in 1702) published an ironical tract with the title, _The Shortest Way
with the Dissenters, or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church_.
(c) Nor is it necessarily implied that there was any specific time at
which establishment took place. Such may indeed be the case, as with the
Kirk in Scotland; but it certainly cannot be said that the English
Church was established at any particular time, or by any particular
legislative act. There were, no doubt, periods when the existing
relations between Church and state were modified or re-defined, notably
in the 16th and 17th centuries; but the relations themselves are far
older. In fact, they existed from the very first: the English Church and
state grew up side by side, and from the beginning they were in close
relations with one another. But although the state of things which it
represented was there from the first, the term "established" or
"established by law" only came into use at a later date. Until there was
some other religious society to be compared with it such a distinctive
epithet would have had no point. As, however, there arose religious
societies which had no status before the law, it became more natural;
and yet more so when the formularies of the Church came to be
"established" by civil sanctions (the Books of Common Prayer by 5 and 6
Edw. VI. c. 1, s. 4, &c; the Articles by 13 Eliz. c. 12; the new Ordinal
by 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4, title). Accordingly the Church itself came
to be spoken of as established by law; first, it would seem, in the
Canons of 1604, and subsequently in many statutes (Act of Settlement, 6
Anne, c. 8 and c. 11, &c). In all such cases the Church is described as
already established, not as being established by the particular canon or
statute. In other words, the constitutional status of the Church is
affirmed, but nothing is said as to how it arose.
The legislative changes of the 16th and 17th centuries brought
"establishment" into greater prominence and greatly modified its
conditions, but a moment's thought will show that it did not begin then.
If, e.g., all post-Reformation ecclesiastical statutes were
non-existent, the relations between Church and state would be very
different, but there would still be an "establishment." The bishops
would sit in the House of Lords, the clergy would tax themselves in
convocation, the Church courts would possess coercive jurisdiction, and
so on. The present relations of Church and state in England may be
briefly summed up as follows:--(1) _The personal relation of the crown
to the Church_, including (a) restraints upon the action of convocation
(formulated by 25 Hen. VIII. c. 19); (b) nomination of bishops, &c. (25
Hen. VIII. c. 20); (c) power of supervision as visitor, long disused (26
Hen. VIII. c. 1; 1 Eliz. c. 1, s. 17); (d) power of receiving appeals as
the fount of civil justice (25 Hen. VIII. c. 19, &c). In connexion with
these, it must be borne in mind that (a) the holder of the crown
receives coronation from the church and takes an oath having reference
to it (1 Will. III. c. 6), and (b) the crown is held on the condition of
communion with the Church of England (Act of Settlement; the conditions
of communion are laid down in the Prayer Book, which itself is
sanctioned by law). (2) _The relation of the Church to the crown in
parliament._ No change has been permitted in its doctrine or formularies
without the sanction of an act of parliament. (3) _Privileges of the
Church and clergy._ Of these may be mentioned (a) the coercive
jurisdiction of the Church courts; (b) the right of bishops to sit in
the House of Lords. It need hardly be said that establishment in England
does not include an endowment of the Church by the state. Nothing of the
kind ever took place on any large scale, and the grants for Church
purposes in the 18th century are comparable with the _regium donum_ to
Nonconformists.
The position of the Church of Ireland until its disestablishment (see
below) was not dissimilar. With Scotland the case is different. The
establishment of the Kirk was an entirely new process, carried out by a
more or less definite series of legislative and administrative acts. The
Convention of Estates which met at Edinburgh in 1560 ordered the drawing
up of a new Confession of Faith, which was done in four days by a
committee of preachers, and on the 24th of August it passed three acts,
one abolishing the pope's authority and all jurisdiction of Catholic
prelates, another repealing the old statutes in favour of the Old
Church, the third forbidding the celebrating and hearing of mass under
penalty of imprisonment, exile and death. The intention was to make a
clean sweep of the Old Church, which was denounced as "the Kirk
Malignant."[3] The new model thus set up was confirmed by the Scottish
act of 1567, c. 6, which declared it to be "the onely true and halie
kirk of Jesus Christ within this realme." Again, after the revolution of
1688 had put an end to the attempts of the Stuart kings to impose the
episcopal model on Scotland, by the act of 1690, c. 5, the crown and
estates "ratifie and establish the Confession of Faith, ... as also they
do establish, ratifie and confirm the Presbyterian government and
discipline." The "Act of Security" of 1705, as incorporated in the Act
of Union 1706, speaking of it "as now by law established," says that
"Her Majesty ... doth hereby establish and confirm" it, and finally
declares this act, "with the Establishment therein contained," to be "a
fundamental and essential condition of the Union." Nevertheless, the
conditions of establishment in the Scottish Kirk are much easier than
those of the Church of England. It is bound by the statutes sanctioning
its doctrine and order, but within these limits its legislative and
judicial freedom is unimpaired. A royal commissioner is present at the
meetings of the general assembly, but he need not be a member of the
Kirk; and there is no constitutional tie between the crown and the Kirk
such as there is in England. There is what may accurately be described
as a state endowment, the bulk of the property of the Old Church having
been conferred upon the Scottish Kirk.
The Colonies.
Not unnaturally the organization of Anglican Churches in the colonies
was followed in some cases by their establishment, which included
endowment. It was so, for example, in the East and West Indies; and the
disestablishment of the West Indian Church in 1868 was followed, in
1873, by a re-establishment of the Church in Barbados by the colonial
legislature. India is the only other part of the empire (outside Great
Britain) in which there is to-day a religious establishment.
Disestablishment.
_Disestablishment_ is in theory the annulling of establishment; but
since an established Church is usually rich, disestablishment generally
includes disendowment, even where there is no state endowment of
religion. It is, in short, the abrogation of establishment, coupled with
such a confiscation of Church property as the state thinks good in the
interests of the community. The disestablishment of the West Indian
Church in 1868 has already been referred to; in 1869 the Irish Church
Disestablishment Bill was passed. Private bills relating to Scotland
have more than once been brought forward. In 1895 the Liberal government
introduced a suspensory bill, intended as the preliminary step towards
disestablishing and disendowing the Church in Wales; it was withdrawn,
however, in the same session, and the question of Welsh disestablishment
slumbered until in 1906 a royal commission was appointed by the Liberal
government to inquire into the subject, and in 1909 a bill was
introduced on much the same lines as in 1895.
The case of the Irish Church will illustrate the process of
disestablishment, although, of course, the precise details would vary in
other cases. The Irish Church Act was passed in 1869 by Gladstone's
first government, after considerable opposition, and provided that from
January 1, 1871, the union created by statute between the Churches of
England and Ireland should be dissolved, and the Church of Ireland
should "cease to be established by law." Existing ecclesiastical
corporations were dissolved, and their rights ceased, compensation being
given to all individuals and their personal precedence being secured for
life. All rights of patronage, including those of the crown, were
abolished, with compensation in the case of private patrons; and the
archbishops and bishops ceased to have the right of summons to the House
of Lords. All laws restraining the freedom of action of the Church were
repealed; the ecclesiastical law, however, to subsist by way of contract
amongst the members of the Church (until altered by a representative
body). Provision was made for the incorporation by charter of the
representative body of the Church, should such a body be found, with
power to hold landed property. All existing ecclesiastical property was
vested in a commission, which was to give compensation for life
interests, to transfer to the new representative body the churches,
glebe houses, and £500,000 in compensation for endowments by private
persons since 1660, and to hold the rest for such purposes as parliament
might thereafter determine.
AUTHORITIES.--F.R. Dareste, _Les Constitutions modernes_ (Paris,
1891); H. Geffcken, _Church and State_, trans. by E.F. Taylor (London,
1877); P. Schaff, _Church and State in the United States_ (Papers of
the American Hist. Association, vol. ii. No. 4), (New York, 1888); L.
Minghetti, _Stato e Chiesa_ (Milan, 1878), French translation, with
Introd. by E. de Laveleye (Paris, 1882); C. Cadorna, _Religione,
diritto, libertà_ (Milan, 1893); F. Nippold, _Die Theorie der
Trennung von Kirche und Staat_ (Bern, 1881); W. Warburton, _Alliance
between Church and State_ (London, 1741) (_Works_, vol. iv., ed. Hurd,
London, 1788); _Church Problems_ (ed. by H.H. Henson) (London, 1900);
Essays on "Establishment" and "Disendowment"; W.R. Anson, _Law and
Custom of the Constitution_, vol. ii. chap. ix. (Oxford, 1892);
Phillimore, _Ecclesiastical Law_ (London, 1895); J.S. Brewer,
_Endowments and Establishment of the Church of England_ (ed. by L.T.
Dibdin, London, 1885); A.T. Innes, _Law of Creeds in Scotland_
(Edinburgh, 1867); E.A. Freeman, _Disestablishment and Disendowment_
(London, 1883); G. Harwood, _Disestablishment_ (London, 1876);
_Annales de l'école libre des Sciences politiques_, tom. i. (Paris,
1885), art. "La Séparation de l'Église et de l'État en Angleterre," by
L. Ayral. (W. E. Co.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In effect this involves the establishment of all religious
denominations, for none can exist without the express authorization
of the state, and all are subject to more or less interference on its
part. Thus the emperor-king is, in his capacity of head of the state,
technically "bishop" of the Evangelical Church, the constitution of
which was fixed by an imperial patent in 1866 and modified by.
another in 1891 (see Herzog-Hauck, _Realencykl._ ed. 1904, _s._
"Österreich").--[ED.]
[2] Also in the other German Protestant states. The relations of the
Roman Catholic Church with the various governments are settled by
separate concordats with the papacy (see CONCORDAT).
[3] Andrew Lang, _Hist. of Scotland_, ii. p. 75 ff. Compare with this
the position of the reformers generally in England, where even so
stout a Puritan as William Harrison (_Description of England_, 1570)
does not dream of separating the organic life of the Church of
England from that of the pre-Reformation Church. (Ed).
ESTABLISHMENT OF A PORT, the technical expression for the time that
elapses between the moon's transit across the meridian at new or full
moon at a given place and the time of high water at that place. The
interval (constant at any one place) may vary from 6 mins. (Harwich) to
11 hrs. 45 mins. (North Foreland). At London Bridge it is 1 hr. 58 mins.
(See also TIDE.)
ESTAING, CHARLES HECTOR, COMTE D' (1729-1794), French admiral, was born
at the château of Ruvel, Auvergne, in 1729. He entered the army as a
colonel of infantry, and in 1757 he accompanied count de Lally to the
East Indies, with the rank of brigadier-general. In 1759 he was made
prisoner at the siege of Madras, but was released on parole. Before the
ratification of his exchange he obtained command of some vessels, and
conducted various naval attacks against the English; and having, on his
return to France in 1760, fallen accidentally into their hands, he was,
on the ground of having broken his parole, thrown into prison at
Portsmouth, but as the charge could not be properly substantiated he was
soon afterwards released. In 1763 he was named lieutenant-general in the
navy, and in 1777 vice-admiral; and in 1778 he obtained the command of a
fleet intended to assist the United States against Great Britain. He
sailed on the 13th of April, and between the 11th and the 22nd of July,
blockaded Howe at Sandy Hook, but did not venture to attack him, though
greatly superior in force. In concert with the American generals, he
planned an attack on Newport, preparatory to which he compelled the
British to destroy some war vessels that were in the harbour; but before
the concerted attack could take place, he put to sea against the English
fleet, under Lord Howe, when owing to a violent storm, which arose
suddenly and compelled the two fleets to separate before engaging in
battle, many of his vessels were so shattered that he found it necessary
to put into Boston for repairs. He then sailed for the West Indies on
the 4th of November. After a feeble attempt to retake Santa Lucia from
Admiral Barrington, he captured St Vincent and Grenada. On the 6th of
July 1779 he fought a drawn battle with Admiral John Byron, who retired
to St Christopher. Though superior in force, D'Estaing would not attack
the English in the roadstead, but set sail to attack Savannah. All his
attempts, as well as those of the Americans, against the town were
repulsed with heavy loss, and he was finally compelled to retire. He
returned to France in 1780. He was in command of the combined fleet
before Cadiz when the peace was signed in 1783; but from that time his
chief attention was devoted to politics. In 1787 he was elected to the
assembly of the notables; in 1789 he was appointed commandant of the
national guard; and in 1792 he was chosen admiral by the National
Assembly. Though in favour of national reform he continued to cherish a
strong feeling of loyalty to the royal family, and on the trial of Marie
Antoinette in 1793 bore testimony in her favour. On this account, and
because of certain friendly letters which had passed between him and the
queen, he was himself brought to trial, and was executed on the 28th of
April 1794.
See _Marins et soldats français en Amérique_, by the Viscomte de
Noailles (1903); Beatson, _Naval and Military Memoirs of Great
Britain_, vol. v.
ESTATE (through O. Fr. _estat_, mod. _état_, from Lat. _status_, state,
condition, position, _stare_, to stand), the state or condition in which
a man lives, now chiefly used poetically and in such phrases as "man's
estate," or "of high estate"; "state" has superseded most of the uses of
the word except (1) in property and (2) in constitutional law.
1. In the law of property the word is employed in several senses. In the
widest sense a man's estate comprises his entire belongings; so much of
it as consists of land and certain other interests associated therewith
is his "real estate"; the rest is his "personal estate." The word is
more particularly applied to interests in land, and in popular and
general use "an estate" means the land itself. The strict technical
meaning of "an estate" is an interest in lands, and this conception lies
at the root of the English theory of property in land. "The first thing
that the student has to do," says Joshua Williams (_Law of Real
Property_), "is to get rid of the idea of absolute ownership. Such an
idea is quite unknown to the English law. No man is in law the absolute
owner of lands. He can only hold an estate in them." That is, the notion
of tenure, of holding by a tenant from a lord, prevails. The last lord
of all from whom all land was ultimately held was the king. Persons
holding directly from the king and granting to others were the king's
tenants _in capite_, and were the mesne lords of their tenants.
Estates in land may be classified according to (1) the quantity of their
interest or duration, (2) the time of enjoyment, and (3) the number and
connexion of the tenants. According to (1), an estate may be either a
freehold of inheritance or a freehold not of inheritance. A freehold of
inheritance may be (_a_) an estate in fee simple, which is the largest
estate a man can hold in English law, and comes close to the idea of
absolute ownership, repudiated by Williams; an estate in fee simple is
inheritable by a man's heirs generally, he has full powers of
disposition over it, and may alienate the whole or part. (_b_) It may
also be in limited fees, which are again subdivided into (i.) qualified
or base fee, (ii.) fee conditional, so called at the common law,
afterwards, on the passing of the statute _De Donis Conditionalibus_,
fee tail, which may be general as to the heirs of a man's body, or
special, as to the heirs _male_ (or _female_) of his body. A freehold
not of inheritance may be either (1) conventional, as an estate for
life, which may be either an estate for one's own life or for the life
of another (_pur autre vie_); (2) legal, or created by operation of law,
as tenancy in tail after possibility of issue extinct (i.e. where an
estate is given to a man and the heirs of his body by his present wife,
and the wife dies without issue, the husband becomes tenant in tail
after possibility of issue extinct); tenancy by curtesy (see CURTESY);
tenancy in dower (see DOWER).
Estates not of freehold or less than freehold are subdivided into (i.)
estates for years (often called estates for a term of years, the
instrument creating it being termed a _lease_ or demise, and the estate
itself a _leasehold interest_); (ii.) estates at will, that is, where
lands or tenements are let by one man to another to have and to hold at
the will of the lessor; (iii.) estates at sufferance, where one comes
into possession of land under a lawful title, and continues in
possession after his title has determined.
According to (2), estates are either in possession or in expectancy.
Estates in expectancy are either (_a_) in remainder, which may be vested
or contingent, or (_b_) in reversion (see REMAINDER, REVERSION).
According to (3), estates may be either (i.) in severalty, that is, the
holding of an estate by a person in his own right only, without any
other person being joined or connected with him in point of interest
therein; (ii.) estates in joint tenancy (see JOINT); (iii.) coparcenary
(q.v.); and (iv.) tenancy in common, where two or more hold the same
land, by several and distinct titles, but with unity of possession. (See
also REAL PROPERTY.)
2. In constitutional law an estate is an order or class having a
definite share as such in the body politic, and participating either
directly or by its representatives in the government. The system of
representation by estates took its rise in western Europe during the
13th century, at a time when the feudal system was being broken up
through various causes, notably the growing wealth and power of the
towns. In the feudal council the clergy and the territorial nobles had
alone had a voice; but the 13th century, to quote Stubbs (_Const. Hist_.
ii. 168, ed. 1875), "turns the feudal council into an assembly of
estates, and draws the constitution of the third estate from the ancient
local machinery which it concentrates." This is, allowing for
differences of detail, true of other countries as well as England. To
the two estates already existing, clergy and nobles, is added a third,
that of the commons (burgesses and knights of the shire) in England,
that of the _roturiers_ in France (known as the _tiers état_). This
division into three estates became the norm, but it was not universal,
nor inevitable.[1] Even in England there was a tendency to create other
estates, the king for instance treating with the merchants separately
for grants of money to be raised by taxing the general body of merchants
in the country; and there was a similar tendency on the part of the
lawyers. But for the accident of their sitting and voting together, the
burgesses and knights of the shire would also have formed separate
estates. In Aragon the cortes contained four estates (_brazos_ or arms),
the clergy, the great barons (_ricos hombres_), the minor barons
(knights or _infanzones_), and the towns. The Swedish diet had also
four--clergy, barons, burghers and peasants.
The system of estates, based on the medieval conception of society as
divided into definite orders, formed the basis of whatever
constitutional forms survived in Europe till the French Revolution. In
England, of course, it had early become obscured, the House of Commons
representing the whole nation outside the narrow order of the peers. The
creation of an estate of lesser nobles or landowners had been prevented
by the fusion of the knights of the shire with the burgesses; the
spiritual estate was ruled out by the determination of the clergy to
deliberate and tax themselves in their own convocation, leaving the
bishops, as spiritual peers, to represent their interests in parliament.
The phrase "the three estates of the realm" still survives, but to most
men it conveys no clear meaning. The erroneous conception early
arose--Hallam says it was current among the popular lawyers of the 17th
century--that the "three estates" were king, lords and commons, as
representing the three great divisions of legislative authority. Such a
conception might be possible in Hungary, where the crown of St. Stephen
symbolizes not so much the royal power as the co-ordination of the
powers of all the organs of the state, including the king; but in
England the king represents the whole nation and in no sense a separate
interest within it, which is the essence of an estate. The phrase "three
estates" as applied to the English constitution at present is, in fact,
misleading. It is now usually understood of the lords spiritual, the
lords temporal, and the commons.
The conception of the "three estates of the realm" as the great
divisions of legislative authority led in England to the coining of the
phrase "fourth estate," to indicate some power of corresponding
magnitude in the state distinct from them. Fielding thus spoke of "the
mob," and Hazlitt of Cobbett; but the phrase is now usually applied to
the press, a usage originating in a speech by Burke (Carlyle,
_Hero-worship_, Lect. v.).
In the constitutional struggles of the European continent, from the
Revolution onward, the rival theories of representation by estates and
of popular representation have played a great part. The crucial moment
of the French Revolution was when the vote according to "order" was
rejected and the estates of the clergy and nobles were merged with the
_tiers état_, the states-general thus becoming the National Assembly.
This was the precedent followed, generally speaking, during the 19th
century in the other countries in which constitutional government was
established. In most of them the medieval estates lingered on in
provincial diets (_Landtage_),[2] and the famous Article XIII. of the
Federal Act (_Bundesakte_) of Vienna decreed that "assemblies of
estates" should be set up, wherever not already existing, in the German
states. The efforts of Metternich and the statesmen of his school were
directed, not so much to abolishing the constitutional model, as to
establishing it, if need were, on traditional and conservative lines.
This is what was meant by the famous reply of the emperor Francis I. to
the Magyar deputation; "All the world is playing the fool and demanding
fanciful constitutions." When the need for making constitutional
concessions became urgent, the attempt was accordingly made to base them
on the system of estates. But the central diet convoked in 1847 by
Frederick William IV. to Berlin, technically a concentration of
provincial estates, quickly converted itself as Metternich had
prophesied--into a national assembly; and precisely the same thing
happened in the case of the first Austrian parliament in 1848. In
Hungary the revolution was in some respects more conservative in
character. The March Laws of 1848 preserved the general character of the
House of Magnates, comparable to the British House of Lords, but
converted the Lower House from what was practically representative of
the estate of the lesser nobles into a national representative assembly.
Of all the sovereign states of Europe only the grand-duchies of
Mecklenburg still (1909) retain the ancient system of estates untouched.
The diet, which is common to the two duchies, consists of the
_Ritterschaft_, in which all tenants in chivalry (_Rittergutsbesitzer_),
whether noble or non-noble, have a voice, and the _Landschaft_, which
consists of the chief magistrates of the towns. The former is taken as
representative of the peasant proprietors and copy-holders
(_Hintersassen_), the latter of the burghers.
The plural form ESTATES or STATES (Fr. _états_, Ger. _Stände_) is the
name commonly given to an assembly of estates (_assemblée des états_,
_Ständeversammlung_). When such an assembly is not merely local or
provincial it is called the estates-general or states-general (_états
généraux_), e.g. in France the assembly of the deputies of the three
estates of the realm as distinct from the provincial estates which met
periodically in the so-called _pays d'états_.
For further details about the estates in England and elsewhere see W.
Stubbs, _Constitutional History_, vol. ii. (1896); H. Hallam, _The
Middle Ages_ (1855); F.W. Maitland, _Constitutional History of
England_ (1908); A. Luchaire, _Histoire des institutions monarchiques
de la France_ (1883-1885); G. Waitz, _Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte_
(Kiel, 1865-1878); and A.S. Rait, _The Scottish Parliament_ (1901).
See also REPRESENTATION.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] In Scotland the three estates were the prelates, the
tenants-in-chief and the burgesses, the third estate joining the
others for the first time about the beginning of the 14th century. In
1428 commissioners of shires, men elected by the minor
tenants-in-chief, were ordered to appear in parliament; the greater
tenants-in-chief then coalesced with the prelates and the three
estates were the lords, clerical and lay, the commissioners of shires
and the burgesses. From 1640 to 1660 parliament was reorganized, the
prelates being excluded, but at the Restoration the old order was
re-established. The Scottish parliament was accustomed to depute much
of its work to a committee, composed of members from each of the
three orders, and the committee of the estates was very prominent
during the struggle between Charles I. and his people.
[2] These diets are, wherever they still exist, survivals of the
"parliaments" of separate territorial units.
ESTATE AND HOUSE AGENTS. A person exercising the calling of a house
agent in England is required, under a penalty of £20, to take out yearly
a licence upon which £2 is charged as a duty of excise, unless he is
licensed as an auctioneer or appraiser, or is an agent employed in the
management of landed estates, or a solicitor or conveyancer who has
taken out his annual certificate as such. In this connexion a person is
deemed to be a house agent if he advertises for sale or for letting, or
in any way negotiates for the selling or letting of any furnished house
or part of any furnished house (any storey or flat rated and let as a
separate tenement being for this purpose a house); subject, however, to
the qualification that no one is to be deemed to be a house agent by
reason of his letting, or offering to let, or in any way negotiating for
the letting of, any house the annual rent or value of which does not
exceed £25.
A house agent who is merely instructed to act in the usual way of his
calling has no authority to bind his employer by a contract. His
business is to endeavour to find a person willing to become a purchaser
or tenant and then to communicate his offer to the owner. Unless express
authority is given to the agent to sell or let, and for that purpose to
enter into a binding contract, the principal reserves his right to
accept or refuse the offer. As a rule, a house or estate agent has no
authority to receive payment on behalf of the principal. Where he is
employed to procure a tenant, he must use reasonable diligence to
ascertain that the person to whom the property is let through his agency
is fit to be a tenant. He does not, however, in any way guarantee the
payment of the rent. A house agent may not, for or in expectation of
payment, prepare any deed relating to the sale or letting of real or
personal estate. There is, however, no similar prohibition as to
agreements not under seal, and it is a common practice for house agents
to charge for the preparation of them.
House agents are usually remunerated by way of commission. The scale
adopted by the Institute of Estate and House Agents embodies the rates
usually charged. In the absence of express provision upon the subject
between the principal and the agent, commission is payable only when the
latter has found a purchaser or tenant. If, however, he had found a
person willing to buy or take property upon the terms upon which the
principal intimated to him his willingness to sell or let it, the
principal will be liable to pay the amount of the commission, even
though in fact he refuses or is unable to sell or let it. Where the
agent can show that he has brought about a sale or tenancy he will be
entitled to the commission notwithstanding the fact that another agent
has been paid, or has recovered in an action, commission in respect of
the same sale or tenancy. The agent's authority may be revoked at any
time; but, where he has already performed the service for which he was
employed, the principal cannot defeat his right to be paid the amount of
the commission by subsequently revoking his authority. If the agent is
unsuccessful in finding a purchaser or tenant, as the case may be, he
will not, as a rule, have any right to remuneration for his efforts in
the matter.
Most auctioneers, in addition to holding auctions, carry on the business
of house and estate agency. The number of licences issued to house
agents and appraisers in England for the year ended 31st March 1899 was
4429, and for the year ended 31st March 1909, 4618. The number of
licences issued to auctioneers in England for the corresponding periods
was 6389 and 6543 respectively. (H. Ha.)
ESTATE DUTY. For purposes of the national revenue in the United Kingdom,
the Finance Act 1894 imposed on all property passing by death after the
1st of August 1894 a duty called estate duty, in lieu of certain other
duties previously payable. The objects of the act were--(1)
simplification of the death duties and equalization as between real and
personal property, and (2) aggregation of all the property passing on a
death, and taxation at rates graduated according to the value of the
whole. Before the act a duty (probate duty) was taken on the free
personal property of deceased persons in the hands of the executor or
administrator, without regard to the subsequent distribution. The legacy
and succession duties were levied on distribution of the property
passing on the death, from the persons taking any property under the
will or intestacy of the deceased, or under settlement, or by devolution
of title on his death. These two latter duties were mutually exclusive,
and together covered practically all property passing by death. They
were levied at rates graduated according to consanguinity. In 1888 an
attempt was made to equalize the rates of the death duties as between
property which paid the probate and legacy duties, and property which
paid succession duty only. But the Finance Act 1894 replaced the probate
duty by a duty extending to all property real or personal passing on or
by reference to death, whether by disposition of the deceased or not,
without regard to its tenure or destination. The Finance Acts of 1907
and 1909-1910 increased the scale of duties laid down in 1894.
For this purpose all property passing on a death is aggregated to form
one estate, on the capital value of which the duty is charged, at rates
graduated from 1 to 15% according to the aggregate value. Besides the
property of which the deceased was competent to dispose at his death,
the aggregated estate includes property in which he had an interest
ceasing on his death, from the cesser of which a benefit accrues, or
which was disposed of by him within twelve months of death, or at any
time, with reservation of an interest to himself. The extent to which
property is deemed to pass on the cesser of a limited interest is
measured by the proportion of the income to which the interest extended,
without regard to the tenure of the deceased or his successor. Property
may therefore be included in the aggregate estate at its capital value
owing to the passing of a life-interest only, the property being settled
so that the absolute ownership does not pass at all. But when the duty
has once been paid on property passing under a settlement, the property
does not again become chargeable until it passes on the death of a
person who is or has been competent to dispose of it. To compensate for
this advantage, when property passing under a settlement made after the
act pays the estate duty, a further duty of 2% (settlement estate duty)
is taken, except where the only subsequent life-interest is that of the
wife or husband of the deceased.
The rate of duty being fixed according to the aggregate capital value of
the whole estate, the charge is distributed according to the different
modes of disposition of the property comprised in the estate. The duty
on the personalty which passes to the executor as such is paid by him,
as the probate duty was, and comes out of the general estate. For the
other property passing, trustees, or any person to whom it passes for a
beneficial interest in possession, are made accountable, and are
required to bring in an account of the property and pay the duty. The
duty is a first charge on such property, and, when it is paid by a
person having a life-interest only, he may charge the _corpus_ of the
property with it. The duty on real property included in an account is
payable by eight yearly or sixteen half-yearly instalments, becoming due
twelve months after the death, and bearing interest at 3% from that
date. On other property, except in a few special cases, the duty bears
interest at 3% from the date of the death. When the estate duty has been
paid no further duty is chargeable on property comprised in the estate
which passes to lineal relations of the deceased. But on property
passing to collaterals or strangers legacy or succession duty, as the
case may be, is payable by the devisees or successors, at a rate (which
is the same whichever duty be payable) fixed according to consanguinity.
For a detailed account of the provisions of the act of 1894 and
subsequent amending acts, and of the practical working of the duty,
reference is made to Austen-Cartmell, _Finance Acts_ (1894-1907);
Hanson, _Death Duties_ (London, 1904); Soward, _Handbook to the Estate
Duty_ (4th ed., London, 1900); and to the reports of the commissioners
of Inland Revenue for 1894-1895 and subsequent years.
ESTCOURT, RICHARD (1668-1712), English actor, began by playing comedy
parts in Dublin. His first London appearance was in 1704 as Dominick, in
Dryden's _Spanish Friar_, and he continued to take important parts at
Drury Lane, being the original Pounce in Steele's _Tender Husband_
(1705), Sergeant Kite in Farquhar's _Recruiting Officer_, and Sir
Francis Gripe in Mrs Centlivre's _Busybody_. He was an excellent mimic
and a great favourite socially. Estcourt wrote a comedy, _The Fair
Example, or the Modish Citizen_ (1703), and _Prunella_ (1704), an
interlude.
ESTE, one of the oldest of the former reigning houses of Italy. It is in
all probability of Lombard origin, and descended, according to Muratori,
from the princes who governed in Tuscany in Carolingian times. The
lordship of the town of Este was first acquired by Alberto Azzo II., who
also bore the title of marquis of Italy[1] (d. c. 1097); he married
Kunitza or Kunegonda, sister of Welf or Guelph III., duke of Carinthia.
Welf died without issue, and was succeeded by Welf IV., son of Kunitza,
who married a daughter of Otto II., duke of Bavaria, and who obtained
the duchy of Bavaria in 1070. Through him the house of Este became
connected with the princely houses of Brunswick and Hanover, from which
the sovereigns of England are descended. The Italian titles and estates
were inherited by Folco I. (1060-1135), son of Alberto Azzo by his
second wife Gersende, daughter of Herbert I., count of Maine.[2] The
house of Este played a great part in the history of medieval and
Renaissance Italy, and it first comes to the front in the wars between
the Guelphs and Ghibellines; as leaders of the former party its princes
received at different times Ferrara, Modena, Reggio and other fiefs and
territories.
Obizzo I., son of Folco, was the first to bear the title of marquis of
Este. He entered into the Guelphic league against the emperor Frederick
I., and was comprehended in the treaty of Venice of 1177 by which
municipal _podestàs_ (foreigners chosen as heads of cities to administer
justice impartially) were instituted. He was elected podestà of Padua in
1178, and in 1184 he was reconciled with Frederick, who created him
marquis of Genoa and Milan, a dignity somewhat similar to that of
imperial vicar. By the marriage of his son Azzo to the heiress of the
Marchesella family (the story that she was carried off to prevent her
marrying an enemy of the Este is a pure legend), he came to acquire
great influence in Ferrara, although he was opposed by the hardly less
powerful house of Torelli.
Obizzo died in 1194 and Azzo V. having predeceased him, the marquisate
devolved on his grandson Azzo VI. (1170-1212), who became head of the
Guelph party, and to him the people of Ferrara sacrificed their liberty
by making him their first lord (1208). But during his lifetime civil war
raged in the city, between the Este and the Torelli, each party being
driven out again and again. Azzo (also called Azzolino) died in 1212 and
was succeeded by Aldobrandino I., who in 1213 concluded a treaty with
Salinguerra Torelli, the head of that house, to divide the government of
the city between them. On his death in 1215 he was succeeded by his
brother Azzo VII. (1205-1264), surnamed Novello, but Salinguerra Torelli
usurped all power in Ferrara and expelled Azzo (1222). In 1240 Pope
Gregory IX. determined on another war against the emperor Frederick II.,
but deemed it wise to begin by crushing the chief Ghibelline houses.
Thus Azzo found himself in league with the pope and various Guelph
cities in his attempt to regain Ferrara. That town underwent a four
months' siege, and was at last compelled to surrender; Salinguerra was
sent to Venice as a prisoner, and Azzo ruled in Ferrara once more. The
Ghibelline party was annihilated, but the city enjoyed peace and
happiness within, although her citizens took part in the wars raging
outside. The Guelph cause triumphed, Frederick being defeated several
times, and after his death Azzo helped in crushing the terrible Eccelino
da Romano (q.v.) who upheld the imperial cause, at the battle of Cassano
(1259). He died in 1264 and was succeeded by Obizzo II. (1240-1293) his
grandson, who in 1288 received the lordship of Modena, and that of
Reggio in 1289. He was a capable but cruel ruler, and while professing
devotion to the Guelph cause, did homage to the German king Rudolph I.
when he descended into Italy.
Obizzo II. died in 1293 and was succeeded by his son Azzo VIII., but the
latter's brothers, Aldobrandino and Francesco, who were to have shared
in the government, were expelled and became his bitter enemies. The
misgovernment of Azzo led to the revolt of Reggio and Modena, which
shook off his yoke. Enemies arose on all sides, and he spent his last
years in perpetual fighting. He died in 1308, and having no legitimate
children, his brothers, his natural son Fresco, and others disputed the
succession. A papal legate was appointed, and though the Este returned
they were placed under pontifical tutelage.
The history of the house now becomes involved and of little interest
until we come to Nicholas III. (1384-1441), who exercised sway over
Ferrara, Modena, Parma and Reggio, waged many wars, was made general of
the army of the Church, and in his later years governor of Milan, where
he died, not without suspicion of poison. To him succeeded Lionello
(1407-1450), a wise and virtuous ruler and a patron of literature and
art; then Borso (1413-1471), his brother, who was created duke of Modena
and Reggio by the emperor Frederick III., and duke of Ferrara by the
pope. In spite of the wars by which all Italy was torn, Ferrara enjoyed
a period of peace and prosperity under Borso; he patronized literature,
established a printing-press at Ferrara, surrounded himself with learned
men, and his court was of unparalleled splendour. He also protected
industry and commerce, and ruled with great wisdom. His brother Ercole
I. (1431-1505), who succeeded him in 1471, was less fortunate, and had
to engage in a war with Venice, owing to a dispute about the salt
monopoly, with the result that by the peace of 1484 he was forced to
cede the district of Polesine to the republic. But the last years of his
life were peaceful and prosperous, so that afterwards men looked back to
the days of Ercole I. as to a golden age; his capital was noted both for
its luxury and as the resort of men eminent in literature and art.
Boiardo the poet was his minister, and Ariosto obtained his patronage.
Ercole's daughter Beatrice d'Este (1475-1497), duchess of Milan, one of
the most beautiful and accomplished princesses of the Italian
Renaissance, was bethrothed at the age of five to Lodovico Sforza (known
as _il Moro_), duke of Bari, regent and afterwards duke of Milan, and
was married to him in January 1491. She had been carefully educated, and
availed herself of her position as mistress of one of the most splendid
courts of Italy to surround herself with learned men, poets and artists,
such as Niccolò da Correggio, Bernardo Castiglione, Bramante, Leonardo
da Vinci and many others. In 1492 she visited Venice as ambassador for
her husband in his political schemes, which consisted chiefly in a
desire to be recognized as duke of Milan. On the death of Gian Galeazzo
Sforza, Lodovico's usurpation was legalized, and after the battle of
Fornovo (1495) both he and his wife took part in the peace congress of
Vercelli between Charles VIII. of France and the Italian princes, at
which Beatrice showed great political ability. But her brilliant career
was cut short by death through childbirth, on the 3rd of January 1497.
She belongs to the best class of Renaissance women, and was one of the
culture influences of the age; to her patronage and good taste are due
to a great extent the splendour of the Castello of Milan, of the Certosa
of Pavia and of many other famous buildings in Lombardy.
Her sister Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), marchioness of Mantua, was
carefully educated both in letters and in the arts like Beatrice, and
was married when barely sixteen to Francesco Gonzaga, marquis of Mantua
(1490). She showed great diplomatic and political skill, especially in
her negotiations with Cesare Borgia (q.v.), who had dispossessed
Guidobaldo da Montefeltro, duke of Urbino, the husband of her
sister-in-law and intimate friend Elisabetta Gonzaga (1502). She
received the deposed duke and duchess, as well as other princes in the
same condition, at her court of Mantua, which was one of the most
brilliant in Italy, and like her sister she gathered together many
eminent men of letters and artists, Raphael, Andrea Mantegna and Giulio
Romano being among those whom she employed. Both she and her husband
were greatly influenced by Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529), author of
_Il Cortigiano_, and it was at his suggestion that Giulio Romano was
summoned to Mantua to enlarge the Castello and other buildings. Isabella
was "undoubtedly, among all the princesses of the 15th and 16th
centuries, the one who most strikingly and perfectly personified the
aspirations of the Renaissance" (Eugène Müntz); but her character was
less attractive than that of her sister, and in her love of collecting
works of art she showed a somewhat grasping nature, being ever anxious
to cut down the prices of the artists who worked for her.
To Ercole I. succeeded his son Alphonso I. (1486-1534), the husband of
Lucrezia Borgia (q.v.), daughter of Pope Alexander VI. During nearly the
whole of his reign he was engaged in the Italian wars, but by his
diplomatic skill and his military ability he was for many years almost
always successful. He was gifted with great mechanical skill, and his
artillery was of world-wide reputation. On the formation of the league
of Cambrai against Venice in 1508, he was appointed to the supreme
command of the papal troops by Julius II.; but after the Venetians had
sustained a number of reverses they made peace with the pope and joined
him against the French. Alphonso was invited to co-operate in the new
combination, and on his refusal war was declared against him; but
although he began by losing Modena and Reggio, he subsequently inflicted
several defeats on the papal troops. He fought on the side of the
French at the battle of Ravenna (1512), from which, although victorious,
they derived no advantage. Soon afterwards they retired from Italy, and
Alphonso, finding himself abandoned, tried to make his peace with the
pope, through the mediation of Fabrizio Colonna. He went to Rome for the
purpose and received absolution, but on discovering that Julius meant to
detain him a prisoner, he escaped in disguise, and the pope's death in
1513 gave him a brief respite. But Leo X. proved equally bent on the
destruction of the house of Este, when he too was cut off by death.
Alphonso availed himself of the troubles of the papacy during the reign
of the equally hostile Clement VII. to recapture Reggio (1523) and
Modena (1527), and was confirmed in his possession of them by the
emperor Charles V., in spite of Clement's opposition.
He died in 1534, and was succeeded by his son Ercole II. (1508-1559),
who married Renée, daughter of Louis XII. of France, a princess of
Protestant proclivities and a friend of Calvin. On joining the league of
France and the papacy against Spain, Ercole was appointed
lieutenant-general of the French army in Italy. The war was prosecuted,
however, with little vigour, and peace was made with Spain in 1558. The
duke and his brother, Cardinal Ippolito the Younger, were patrons of
literature and art, and the latter built the magnificent Villa d' Este
at Tivoli. He was succeeded by Alphonso II. (1533-1597), remembered for
his patronage of Tasso, whom he afterwards imprisoned. He reorganized
the army, enriched the public library, encouraged agriculture, but was
extravagant and dissipated. With him the main branch of the family came
to an end, and although at his death he bequeathed the duchy to his
cousin Cesare (1533-1628), Pope Clement VIII., renewing the Church's
hostility to the house of Este, declared that prince to be of
illegitimate birth (a doubtful contention), and by a treaty with
Lucrezia, Alphonso's sister, Ferrara was made over to the Holy See.
Cesare held Modena and Reggio, but with him the Estensi cease to play an
important part in Italian politics. For two centuries this dynasty had
been one of the greatest powers in Italy, and its court was perhaps the
most splendid in Europe, both as regards pomp and luxury and on account
of the eminent artists, poets and scholars which it attracted.
The subsequent heads of the family were: Alphonso III., who retired to a
monastery in 1629 and died in 1644; Francis I. (1610-1658), who
commanded the French army in Italy in 1647; Alphonso IV. (1634-1662),
the father of Mary Beatrice, the queen of James II. of England, who
fought in the French army during the Spanish War, and founded the
picture gallery of Modena; Francis II. (1660-1694), who originated the
Este library, also at Modena, and founded the university; Rinaldo
(1655-1737), through whose marriage with Charlotte Felicitas of
Brunswick-Lüneburg the long-separated branches of the house of Este were
reunited; Francis III. (1698-1780), who married the daughter of the
regent Philip of Orleans. Francis III. wished to remain neutral during
the war between Spain and Austria (1740), but the imperialists having
occupied and devastated his duchy, he took the Spanish side and was
appointed _generalissimo_ of the Spanish army in Italy. He was
re-established in his possessions by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
(1748), and on being reconciled with the empress Maria Theresa, he
received from her the title of governor of Lombardy in 1754. With his
son Ercole III. Rinaldo (1727-1803), who at the peace of Campoformio
lost his duchy, the male line of the Estensi came to an end. His only
daughter, Marie Beatrice (d. 1829), was married to the archduke
Ferdinand, third son of the emperor Francis I. Ferdinand was created
duke of Breisgau in 1803, and at his death in 1806 he was succeeded by
his son Francis IV. (q.v.), to whom the duchy of Modena was given at the
treaty of Vienna in 1814. He died in 1846 and was succeeded by Francis
V. (q.v.), who lost his possessions by the events of 1859. With his
death in 1875 the title and estates passed to the archduke Francis
Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The children of Lady
Augusta Murray, daughter of the earl of Dunmore, by her marriage with
Augustus Frederick, duke of Sussex, sixth son of George III. of Great
Britain, assumed the old name of d' Este, and claimed recognition as
members of the royal family; but as the marriage was in violation of the
royal marriages act of 1773, it was declared invalid, and their claims
were set aside.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--G. Antonelli, _Saggio di una bibliografia storica
ferrarese_ (Ferrara, 1851); L.A. Muratori, _Delle antichità estensi ed
italiane_ (3 vols., 1717, &c.), the chief and most reliable authority
on the subject, containing a quantity of documents; A. Frizzi,
_Memorie per la storia di Ferrara_ (2nd ed., Ferrara, 1847); A.
Solerti, _Ferrara e la corte estense nella seconda metà del sec. XVI._
(Città di Castello, 1900); C. Antolini, _Il dominio estense in
Ferrara_ (Ferrara, 1896), which deals with the siege of 1240 and other
special points; E.G. Gardner, _Princes and Poets of Ferrara_ (London,
1904), a bulky volume dealing only with the Renaissance period, full
of interesting and unpublished matter, especially about the literary
and artistic associations of the house, but not well put together
(contains good bibliography); G. Bertoni, _La Biblioteca estense e la
coltura ferrarese ai tempi del duca Ercole I._ (Turin, 1903), useful
for the literary aspect of the subject; P. Litta, _Le Celebri Famiglie
italiane_, vol. iii. (Milan, 1831), still a valuable work; E. Noyes,
_The Story of Ferrara_ (London, 1904); Julia Cartwright's _Isabella
d'Este_ (London, 1903), and _Beatrice d'Este_ (1899), pleasantly
written but amateurish volumes based on A. Luzio's _Mantova e Urbino_
(Turin, 1893); A. Luzio and R. Renier, "Delle relazioni di Isabella
d'Este Gonzaga con Lodovico e Beatrice Sforza" (Milan, 1890, _Archivio
Storico Lombardo_, xvii.). (L. V.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] i.e. Margrave of the Empire (_marchio Sancti Imperii_) in Italy.
(See MARQUESS.)
[2] Another son of Azzo and Gersende became count of Maine as Hugh
III. (d. 1131).
ESTE (anc. Ateste, q.v.), a town and episcopal see of Venetia, Italy, in
the province of Padua, 20 m. S.S.W. of it by rail. Pop. (1901) 8671
(town); 10,779 (commune). It lies 49 ft. above sea-level below the
southern slopes of the Euganean Hills. The external walls of the castle
still rise above the town on the N., but the interior is now occupied by
the cattle-market. A fragment of the once enormous Palazzo Mocenigo, of
the 16th century, is now occupied by the important archaeological museum
(see ATESTE). The cathedral was erected in 1690-1720, on the site of an
older building destroyed by an earthquake in 1688. S. Martino is a
church in the Lombard Romanesque style. The archives in the Palazzo
Comunale are important.
After the Roman period the history of Este is a blank until the Lombard
period, in which it was dependent on Monselice. In the 10th century the
family of Este (see above) established itself in the castle above the
town. At the end of the 13th century Padua, which had already captured
Este more than once, became definitely mistress of it. When the Carrara
family succumbed in 1405, Este voluntarily surrendered to Venice and was
allowed its independence, under a podestà; and thenceforth it followed
the fortunes of Venetia.
ESTÉBANEZ CALDERÓN, SERAFÍN (1799-1867), a Spanish author, best known by
the pseudonym of "El Solitario," was born at Málaga on the 27th of
December 1799. His first literary effort was _El Listón verde_, a poem
signed "Safinio" and written to celebrate the revolution of 1820. He was
called to the bar, and settled for some time at Madrid, where he
published a volume of verses in 1831 under the assumed name of "El
Solitario." He obtained an exaggerated reputation as an Arabic scholar,
and played a minor part in the political movements of his time. He died
at Madrid on the 5th of February 1867. His most interesting work,
_Escenas andaluzas_ (1847), is in a curiously affected style, the
vocabulary being partly archaic and partly provincial; but, despite its
eccentric mannerisms, it is a vivid record of picturesque scenes and
local customs. Estébanez Calderón is also the author of an unfinished
history, _De la conquista y pérdida de Portugal_ (1883), issued
posthumously under the editorship of his nephew, Antonio Cánovas del
Castillo.
ESTELLA, a town of northern Spain, in the province of Navarre, on the
left bank of the river Ega, 15 m. W.S.W. of Pamplona. Pop. (1900) 5736.
Estella, which occupies the site of a Roman town of uncertain name,
contains several monasteries and churches, a medieval citadel, and a
college which was formerly a university. Its principal industries are
the manufacture of woollen and linen fabrics and brandy-making; and it
has a considerable trade in fruit, wine and cattle. Estella commands
several defiles on the roads from Castile and Aragon, and on that
account occupies a position of considerable strategic importance. It was
long the headquarters of Don Carlos, who was proclaimed king here in
1833. In 1873 it was the chief stronghold of the Carlists, and in 1874,
when driven from other places, they succeeded in retiring to Estella. On
the 16th of February 1876 the Carlists in the town surrendered
unconditionally. For an account of the Carlist rising see SPAIN:
_History_.
ESTERHÁZY OF GALÁNTHA, a noble Magyar family. Its origin has been
traced, not without some uncertainty, to Salamon of Estoras, whose sons
Péter and Illyés divided their patrimony in 1238. Péter founded the
family of Zerházy, and Illyés that of Illyesházy, which became extinct
in the male line in 1838. The first member of the family to emerge
definitely into history was Ferencz Zerházy (1563-1594), vice
lord-lieutenant of the county of Pressburg, who took the name of
Esterházy when he was created _Freiherr_ of Galántha, an estate acquired
by the family in 1421. His eldest son, Dániel (d. 1654), founded the
house of Czesznek, the third, Pál (d. 1641), the line of Zólyom
(Altsohl), and the fourth, Miklós, that branch of the family which
occupies the most considerable place in Hungarian history, that of
Fraknó or Forchtenstein.
This MIKLÓS [Nicholas] ESTERHÁZY of Galántha (1582-1645) was born at
Galántha on the 8th of April 1582. His parents were Protestants, and he
himself, at first, followed the Protestant persuasion; but he
subsequently went over to Catholicism and, along with Cardinal Pázmány,
his most serious rival at court, became a pillar of Catholicism, both
religiously and politically, and a worthy opponent of the two great
Protestant champions of the period, Gabriel Bethlen and George I.
Rákóczy. In 1611 he married Orsolyá, the widow of the wealthy Ferencz
Mágocsy, thus coming into possession of her gigantic estates, and in
1622 he acquired Fraknó. Matthias II. made him a baron (1613), count of
Beregh (1617), and lord-lieutenant of the county of Zólyom and _magister
curiae regiae_ (1618). At the coronation of Ferdinand II., when he
officiated as grand-standard-bearer, he received the order of the Golden
Fleece and fresh donations. At the diet of Sopron, 1625, he was elected
palatine of Hungary. As a diplomatist he powerfully contributed to bring
about the peace of Nikolsburg (1622) and the peace of Linz (1645) (see
HUNGARY: _History_). His political ideal was the consolidation of the
Habsburg dynasty as a means towards freeing Hungary from the Turkish
yoke. He himself, on one occasion (1623), defeated the Turks on the
banks of the Nyitra; but anything like sustained operations against them
was then impossible. He was also one of the most eminent writers of his
day. He died at Nagy-Heflán on the 11th of September 1645, leaving five
sons.
See _Works of Nicholas Esterházy_, with a biography by Ferencz Toldi
(Hung.) (Pest, 1852); _Nicholas Count Esterházy, Palatine of Hungary_
(a biography, Hung.) (Pest, 1863-1870).
His third son PÁL [Paul] (1635-1713), prince palatine, founded the
princely branch of the family of Esterházy. He was born at Kis Marton
(Eisenstadt) on the 7th of September 1635. In 1663 he fought, along with
Miklós Zrinyi, against the Turks, and distinguished himself under
Montecuculi. In 1667 he was appointed commander-in-chief in south
Hungary, where he defeated the malcontents at Leutschau and Györk. In
1681 he was elected palatine. In 1683 he participated in the deliverance
of Vienna from the Turks, and entered Buda in 1686 at the head of 20,000
men. Thoroughly reactionary, and absolutely devoted to the Habsburgs, he
contributed more than any one else to the curtailing of the privileges
of the Magyar gentry in 1687, when he was created a prince of the
Empire, with (in 1712) succession to the first-born of his house. His
"aulic tendencies" made him so unpopular that his offer of mediation
between the Rákóczy insurgents and the government was rejected by the
Hungarian diet, and the negotiations, which led to the peace of Szatmár
(see HUNGARY: _History_), were entrusted to János Pállfy. He died on the
26th of March 1713. He loved the arts and sciences, wrote several
religious works, and was one of the chief compilers of the _Trophaeum
Domus Inclytae Estoratianae_.
See Lajos Merényi, _Prince Paul Esterházy_ (Hung.) (Budapest, 1895).
Prince PÁL ANTAL, grandson of the prince palatine Pál, was a
distinguished soldier, who rose to the rank of field-marshal in 1758. On
his death in 1762 he was succeeded by his brother.
Prince MIKLÓS JÓZSEF [Nicholas Joseph] (1714-1790), also a brilliant
soldier, is perhaps best remembered as a patron of the fine arts. For
his services in command of an infantry brigade at Kolin (1757) he was
specially mentioned by Count Daun, and became one of the original
members of the order of Maria Theresa. In 1762 he was appointed captain
of Maria Theresa's Hungarian body-guard, in 1764 _Feldzeugmeister_, and
in 1768 field marshal. His other honours included the Golden Fleece and
the grade of commander in the order of Maria Theresa. Joseph II.
conferred the princely title, which had previously been limited to the
eldest-born of the house, on all his descendants, male and female.
Esterházy died in Vienna on the 28th of September 1790. He rebuilt in
the Renaissance style Schloss Esterházy, the splendour of which won for
it the name of the Hungarian Versailles. Haydn was for thirty years
conductor of his private orchestra and general musical director, and
many of his compositions were written for the private theatre and the
concerts of this prince.
His grandson, Prince MIKLÓS [Nicholas] (1765-1833) was born on the 12th
of December 1765. He began life as an officer in the guards,
subsequently making the grand tour, which first awakened his deep
interest in art. He quitted the army for diplomacy after reaching the
rank of _Feldzeugmeister_, and was employed as extraordinary ambassador,
on special occasions, when he displayed a magnificence extraordinary
even for the Esterházys. He made at Vienna an important collection of
paintings and engravings, which came into the possession of the
Hungarian Academy at Budapest in 1865. At his summer palace of Kis
Marton (Eisenstadt) he erected a monument to Haydn. His immense
expenditure on building and the arts involved the family in financial
difficulties for two generations. When the French invaded Austria in
1797, he raised a regiment of 1000 men at his own expense. In 1809, when
Napoleon invited the Magyars to elect a new king to replace the
Habsburgs, overtures were made to Prince Nicholas, who refused the
honour and, further, raised a regiment of volunteers in defence of
Austrian interests. He died at Como on the 24th of November 1833.
His son, Prince PÁL ANTAL [Paul Anthony] (1786-1866), entered the
diplomatic service. In 1806 he was secretary of the embassy in London,
and in 1807 worked with Prince Metternich in the same capacity in Paris.
In 1810 he was accredited to the court of Dresden, where he tried in
vain to detach Saxony from Napoleon, and in 1814 he accompanied his
father on a secret mission to Rome. He took a leading part in all the
diplomatic negotiations consequent upon the wars of 1813-1815,
especially at the congress of Châtillon, and on the conclusion of peace
was, at the express desire of the prince regent, sent as ambassador to
London. In 1824 he represented Austria as ambassador extraordinary at
the coronation of Charles X., and was the premier Austrian commissioner
at the London conferences of 1830-1836. In 1842 he quitted diplomacy for
politics and attached himself to "the free-principles party." He was
minister for foreign affairs in the first responsible Hungarian ministry
(1848), but resigned his post in September because he could see no way
of reconciling the court with the nation. The last years of his life
were spent in comparative poverty and isolation, as even the
Esterházy-Forchtenstein estates were unequal to the burden of supporting
his fabulous extravagance and had to be placed in the hands of curators.
The cadet branch of the house of Fraknó, the members of which bear the
title of count, was divided into three lines by the sons of Ferencz
Esterházy (1641-1683).
The eldest of these, Count ANTAL (1676-1722), distinguished himself in
the war against Rákóczy in 1703, but changed sides in 1704 and commanded
the left wing of the Kuruczis at the engagements of Nagyszombat (1704)
and Vereskö (1705). In 1706 he defeated the imperialist general Guido
Stahremberg and penetrated to the walls of Vienna. Still more successful
were his operations in the campaign of 1708, when he ravaged Styria,
twice invaded Austria, and again threatened Vienna, on which occasion
the emperor Joseph narrowly escaped falling into his hands. In 1709 he
was routed by the superior forces of General Sigbert Heister at Palota,
but brought off the remainder of his arms very skilfully. In 1710 he
joined Rákóczy in Poland and accompanied him to France and Turkey. He
died in exile at Rodosto on the shores of the Black Sea. His son Bálint
József [Valentine Joseph], by Anna Maria Nigrelli, entered the French
army, and was the founder of the Hallewyll, or French, branch of the
family, which became extinct in the male line in 1876 with Count
Ladislas.
See _Count Esterházy's Campaign Diary_ (Hung.), ed. by K. Thaly (Pest,
1901).
Count BÁLINT MIKLÓS (1740-1805), son of Bálint József, was an
enthusiastic partisan of the duc de Choiseul, on whose dismissal, in
1764, he resigned the command of the French regiment of which he was the
colonel. It was Esterházy who conveyed to Marie Antoinette the portrait
of Louis XVI. on the occasion of their betrothal, and the close
relations he maintained with her after her marriage were more than once
the occasion of remonstrance on the part of Maria Theresa, who never
seems to have forgotten that he was the grandson of a rebel. At the
French court he stood in high favour with the comte d'Artois. He was
raised to the rank of maréchal de camp, and made inspector of troops in
the French service in 1780. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, he
was stationed at Valenciennes, where he contrived for a time to keep
order, and facilitated the escape of the French _emigrés_ by way of
Namur; but, in 1790, he hastened back to Paris to assist the king. At
the urgent entreaty of the comte d'Artois in 1791 he quitted Paris for
Coblenz, accompanied Artois to Vienna, and was sent to the court of St
Petersburg the same year to enlist the sympathies of Catherine II. for
the Bourbons. He received an estate from Catherine II., and although the
gift was rescinded by Paul I., another was eventually granted him. He
died at Grodek in Volhynia on the 23rd of July 1805.
See _Mémoires_, ed. by E. Daudet (Fr.) (Paris, 1905), and _Lettres_
(Paris, 1906).
Two other sons of Count Ferencz (d. 1685), Ferencz and József, founded
the houses of Dotis and Cseklész (Landschütz) respectively. Of their
descendants, Count MÓRICZ (1807-1890) of Dotis, Austrian ambassador in
Rome until 1856, became in 1861 a member of the ministry formed by Anton
Schmerling and in 1865 joined the clerical cabinet of Richard Belcredi.
His bitter hostility to Prussia helped to force the government of Vienna
into the war of 1866. His official career closed in 1866, but he
remained one of the leaders of the clerical party.
See also Count János Esterházy, _Description of the Esterházy Family_
(Hung., Budapest, 1901). (R. N. B.)
ESTERS, in organic chemistry, compounds formed by the condensation of an
alcohol and an acid, with elimination of water; they may also be
considered as derivatives of alcohols, in which the hydroxylic hydrogen
has been replaced by an acid radical, or as acids in which the hydrogen
of the carboxyl group has been replaced by an alkyl or aryl group. In
the case of the polybasic acids, all the hydrogen atoms can be replaced
in this way, and the compounds formed are known as "neutral esters." If,
however, some of the hydrogen of the acid remain undisplaced, then "acid
esters" result. These acid esters retain some of the characteristic
properties of the acids, forming, for example, salts, with basic oxides.
Esters may be prepared by heating the silver salt of an acid with an
alkyl iodide; by heating the alcohols or alcoholates with an acid
chloride; by distilling the anhydrous sodium salt of an acid with a
mixture of the alcohol and concentrated sulphuric acid; or by heating
for some hours on the water bath, a mixture of an acid and an alcohol,
with a small quantity of hydrochloric or sulphuric acids (E. Fischer and
A. Speier, _Ber_., 1896, 28, p. 3252).
The esters of the aliphatic and aromatic acids are colourless neutral
liquids, which are generally insoluble in water, but readily dissolve in
alcohol and ether. Many possess a fragrant odour and are prepared in
large quantities for use as artificial fruit essences. They hydrolyse
readily when boiled with solutions of caustic alkalies or mineral acids,
yielding the constituent acid and alcohol. When heated with ammonia,
they yield acid amides (q.v.). They form unstable addition products with
sodium ethylate or methylate. With the Grignard reagent, they form
addition compounds which on the addition of water yield tertiary
alcohols, except in the case of ethyl formate, where a secondary alcohol
is obtained.
OMgBr OMgBr R'
/ / \
R·CO2C2H5 --> R·C--OC2H5 --> R·C--R' --> R'--C·OH.
\ \ /
R' R' R'
OMgBr OMgBr R'
/ / \
H·CO2C2H5 --> H·C--OC2H5 --> H·C--R' --> CH·OH.
\ \ /
R' R' R'
N. Menschutkin (_Ber._, 1882, 15, p. 1445; _Ann._, 1879, 195, p. 334)
examined the rate of esterification of many acids with alcohols. It
was found that the normal primary alcohols were all esterified at
about the same rate, the secondary alcohols more slowly than the
primary, and the tertiary alcohols still more slowly. The
investigation also showed that the nature of the acid used affected
the result, for in an homologous series of acids it was found that as
the molecule of the acid became more complex, the rate of
esterification became less. The formation of an ester by the
interaction of an acid with an alcohol is a "reversible" or "balanced"
action, for as M. Berthelot and L. Péan de St Gilles (_Ann. Chim.
Phys._, 1862 (3), 65, p. 385 et seq.) have shown in the case of the
formation of ethyl acetate from ethyl alcohol and acetic acid, a point
of equilibrium is reached, beyond which the reacting system cannot
pass, unless the system be disturbed in some way by the removal of one
of the products of the reaction. V. Meyer (_Ber._, 1894, 27, p. 510 et
seq.) showed that in benzenoid compounds ortho-substituents exert a
great hindering effect on the esterification of alcohols by acids in
the presence of hydrochloric acid, this hindering being particularly
marked when two substituents are present in the ortho positions to the
carboxyl group. In such a case the ester is best prepared by the
action of an alkyl halide on the silver salt of the acid, and when
once prepared, can only be hydrolysed with great difficulty.
Ethyl formate, H·CO2C2H5, boils at 55° C. and has been used in the
artificial preparation of rum. Ethyl acetate (acetic ether),
CH3·CO2C2H5, boils at 75° C. Isoamylisovalerate, C4H9·CO2C5H11, boils
at 196° C. and has an odour of apples. Ethyl butyrate, C3H7·CO2C2H5,
boils at 121° C. and has an odour of pineapple. The fats (q.v.) and
waxes (q.v.) are the esters of the higher fatty acids and alcohols.
The esters of the higher fatty acids, when distilled under atmospheric
pressure, are decomposed, and yield an olefine and a fatty acid.
Esters of the mineral acids are also known and may be prepared by the
ordinary methods as given above. The neutral esters are as a rule
insoluble in water and distil unchanged; on the other hand, the acid
esters are generally soluble in water, are non-volatile, and form
salts with bases. _Ethyl hydrogen sulphate_ (sulphovinic acid),
C2H5·HSO4, is obtained by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid on
alcohol. The ester is separated from the solution by means of its
barium salt, and the salt decomposed by the addition of the calculated
amount of sulphuric acid. It is a colourless oily liquid of strongly
acid reaction; its aqueous solution decomposes on standing and on
heating it forms diethyl sulphate and sulphuric acid. _Dimethyl
sulphate_, (CH3)2SO4, is a colourless liquid which boils at 187°-188°
C., with partial decomposition. It is used as a methylating agent (F.
Ullmann). Great care should be taken in using dimethyl and diethyl
sulphates, as the respiratory organs are affected by the vapours,
leading to severe attacks of pneumonia. _Ethyl nitrate_, C2H5·ONO2, is
a colourless liquid which boils at 86.3° C. It is prepared by the
action of nitric acid on ethyl alcohol (some urea being added to the
nitric acid, in order to destroy any nitrous acid that might be
produced in secondary reactions and which, if not removed, would cause
explosive decomposition of the ethyl nitrate). It burns with a white
flame and is soluble in water. When heated with ammonia it yields
ethylamine nitrate, and when reduced with tin and hydrochloric acid it
forms hydroxylamine (q.v.) (W.C. Lossen). _Ethyl nitrite_, C2H5·ONO,
is a liquid which boils at 18° C.; the crude product obtained by
distilling a mixture of alcohol, sulphuric and nitric acids and copper
turnings is used in medicine under the name of "sweet spirits of
nitre." _Amyl nitrite_, C5H11·ONO, boils at 96° C. and is used in the
preparation of the anhydrous diazonium salts (E. Knoevenagel, _Ber._,
1890, 23, p. 2094). It is also used in medicine.
ESTHER. The _Book of Esther_, in the Bible, relates how a Jewish maiden,
Esther, cousin and foster-daughter of Mordecai, was made his queen by
the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes) after he had divorced Vashti; next,
how Esther and Mordecai frustrated Haman's endeavour to extirpate the
Jews; how Haman, the grand-vizier, fell, and Mordecai succeeded him; how
Esther obtained the king's permission for the Jews to destroy all who
might attack them on the day which Haman had appointed by lot for their
destruction; and lastly, how the feast of Purim (Lots?) was instituted
to commemorate their deliverance. Frequent incidental references are
made to Persian court-usages (explanations are given in i. 13, viii. 8),
while on the other hand the religious rites of the Jews (except
fasting), and even Jerusalem and the temple, and the name of Israel,
are studiously ignored. Even the name of God is not once mentioned,
perhaps from a dread of its profanation during the Saturnalia of Purim.
The early popularity of the book is shown by the interpolated passages
in the Septuagint and the Old Latin versions.
The criticism of _Esther_ began in the 18th century. As soon as the
questioning spirit arose, the strangeness of many statements in the book
leaped into view. A moderate scholar of our day can find no historical
nucleus, and calls it a sort of historical romance.[1] The very first
verses in the book startle the reader by their exaggerations, e.g. a
banquet lasting 180 days, "127 provinces." Farther on, the
improbabilities of the plot are noticeable. Esther, on her elevation,
keeps her Jewish origin secret (ii. 10; cf. vii. 3 ff.), although she
has been taken from the house of her uncle, who is known to be a Jew
(iii. 4; cf. vi. 13), and has remained in constant intercourse with him
(ii. 11, 19, 20, 22; cf. iv. 4-17). We are further told that the
grand-vizier was an Agagite or Amalekite (iii. 1, &c.); would the
nobility of Persia have tolerated this? Or did Haman too keep his
non-Persian origin secret? Also that Mordecai offered a gross affront to
Haman, for which no slighter punishment would satisfy Haman than the
destruction of the whole Jewish race (iii. 2-6). Of this savage design
eleven months' notice is given (iii. 12-14); and when the danger has
been averted by the cleverness of Esther, the provincial Jews are
allowed to butcher 75,000, and those in the capital 800 of their Persian
fellow-subjects (ix. 6-16).
It is urged, on the other hand, that the assembly mentioned in i. 3 may
be that referred to by Herodotus (vii. 8) as having preceded the
expedition against Greece. This hypothesis, however, requires us to
suppose that Xerxes had returned from Sardis to Susa by the tenth month
of the seventh year of his reign, which is barely credible. In the
reckoning of 127 provinces (cf. Dan. vi. 1; 1 Esd. iii. 2) satrapies and
sub-satrapies may be confounded. It is at any rate correct to include
India among the provinces; this is justified, not only by Herodotus
(iii. 94), but by the inscriptions of Darius at Persepolis and
Naksh-i-Rustam. Herodotus again (vii. 8) confirms the custom referred to
in Esth. ii. 12. But what authority can make the conduct of Mordecai
credible? To-day the harem is impenetrable, while "any one declining to
stand as the grand-vizier passes is almost beaten to death."[2] This,
surely, is what a real Mordecai would have suffered from a real Haman.
Even the capricious Xerxes would never have permitted the entire
destruction of one of the races of the empire, nor would a vizier have
proposed it.
Serious difficulties of another kind remain. Mordecai is represented as
a fellow-captive of Jeconiah (597 B.C.), and grand-vizier in Xerxes's
twelfth year (474 B.C.)! This is parallel to the strange statement in
Tobit xiv. 15. And how can we find room for Esther as queen by the side
of Amestris (Herod. vii. 14, ix. 112)? How, too, can a Jewess have been
a legal queen (see Herod. iii. 84)? Then take the supposed Persian
proper names. "Ahasuerus" may no doubt stand, but very few of the rest
(see Nöldeke, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1402). As to the style, the general
verdict is that it points to a late date (see Driver, Introd.^6, p.
484). Altogether, critics decline to date the book earlier than the 3rd
or even 2nd century B.C.
So far we have only been carrying on 18th-century criticism. In more
recent years, however, new lines of inquiry have been opened up. First
of all by the great Semitic scholar Lagarde. His thesis (seldom defended
now) was that Purim corresponds to Furdigan, the name of the old Persian
New Year's and All Souls' festival held in spring, on which the Persians
were wont to exchange presents (cf. Esth. ix. 19). In 1891 came a new
explanation of Esther from Zimmern. It is true that in its earlier form
his theory was very incomplete. But in justice to this scholar we may
notice that from the first he looked for light to Babylonia, and that
many other critics now take up the same position. There is also another
new point which has to be mentioned, viz. that, judging from our
experience elsewhere, the Book of Esther has probably passed through
various stages of development. Here, then, are two points which call for
investigation, viz. (1) a possible mythological element in Esther, and
(2) possible stages of development prior to that represented by the
Hebrew text.
As to the first point. The Second Targum (on Esth. ii. 7) long ago
declared that Esther was so called "because she was like the planet
Venus." Recent scholars have expressed the same idea more critically.
Esther is a modification of Ishtar, the name of the Babylonian goddess
of fertility and of the planet Venus, whose myth must have been
partially known to the Israelites even in pre-exilic times,[3] and after
the fall of the state must have acquired a still stronger hold on Jewish
exiles. A general knowledge of the myth of Marduk among the Israelites
cannot indeed be proved. Singularly enough, the Babylonian colonists in
the cities of Samaria are said to have made idols, not of Marduk, but of
a deity called Succoth-benoth[4] (2 Kings xvii. 30). Nor does the Second
Targum help us here; it gives a wild explanation of Mordecai as "pure
myrrh." Still it is plain that the name of the god Marduk (Merodach) was
known to the Jews, and the Cosmogony in Gen. i. is considered by critics
to have ultimately arisen out of the myth of Marduk's conflict with the
dragon (see COSMOGONY). At any rate the name Mordecai (the vocalization
is uncertain) looks very much like Marduk, which, with terminations
added, often occurs in cuneiform documents as a personal name.[5] Add to
this, that, according to Jensen, Ishtar in mythology was the cousin of
Marduk, just as the legend represents Esther as the cousin of
Mordecai.[6] The same scholar also accounts for Esther's other name
Hadassah (Esth. ii. 7); _hadasshatu_ in Babylonian means "bride," which
may have been a title of Ishtar.
But we cannot stop short here. Unless the mythological key can also
explain Haman and Vashti, it is of no use. Jensen, now followed by
Zimmern, is equal to the occasion. Haman, he says, is a corruption of
Hamman or Humman or Uman, the name of the chief deity of the Elamites,
in whose capital (Susa) the scene of the narrative is laid, while Vashti
is Mashti (or Vashti), probably the name of an Elamite goddess.
Following the real or fancied light of these names, Prof. Jensen holds
that the Esther-legend is based on a mythological account of the victory
of the Babylonian deities over those of Elam, which in plain prose means
the deliverance of ancient Babylonia from its Elamite oppressors, and
that such an account was closely connected with the Babylonian New
Year's festival, called Zagmuk, just as the Esther-legend is connected
with the festival of Purim.
We are bound, however, to mention some critical objections. (1) The
Babylonian festival corresponding to Purim was not the spring festival
of Zagmuk, but the summer festival of Ishtar, which is probably the
Sacaea of Berossus, an orgiastic festival analogous to Purim. (2)
According to Jensen's theory, Mordecai, and not Esther, ought to be the
direct cause of Haman's ruin. (3) No such Babylonian account as Jensen
postulates can be indicated. (4) The identifications of names are
hazardous. Fancy a descendant of Kish called Marduk, and an "Agagite"
called Hamman! Elsewhere Mordecai (Ezra ii. 2; Neh. vii. 7) occurs among
names which are certainly not Persian (Bigvai is no exception), and
Haman (Tobit xiv. 10) appears as a nephew of Achiachar, which is not a
Persian name. Esther, moreover, ought to be parallel to Judith; fancy
likening the representative of Israel to the goddess Ishtar!
Next, as to the preliminary literary phases of Esther. Such phases are
probable, considering the later phases represented in the Septuagint.
There may have once existed in Hebrew a story of the deadly feud between
Mordecai (if that be the original name) and Haman, with elements
suggested by the story of the battle between the Supreme God and the
dragon (see COSMOGONY). As the legend stands, Mordecai and Esther seem
to be in each other's way. In a passage (i. 5 in LXX.) only found in the
Septuagint, but which may have belonged to the original Esther,
reference is made to a dream of Mordecai respecting two great dragons,
i.e. Mordecai and Haman (x. 7). This seems to confirm the view here
mentioned. If so, however, there must also have been an Esther-legend,
which was afterwards worked up with that of Mordecai. This is, in fact,
the view of Erbt. Winckler takes a different line. Linguistic facts and
certain points in the contents seem to him to show that our Esther is a
work of the age of the Seleucidae; more precisely he thinks of the time
of the revolt of Molon under Antiochus III. Of course there was a Book
of Esther before this, and even in its redacted form our Esther reflects
the period of three Persian kings, viz. Cyrus, Cambyses and Darius.
Lastly, Cheyne (_Ency. Bib._ "Purim," § 7), while agreeing with Winckler
that the book is based on an earlier narrative, holds that that earlier
text differed more widely from the present in its geographical and
historical setting than Winckler seems to suppose. The problem of the
origin of the name Purim, however, can hardly be said to have received a
final solution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Kuenen, _History of Israel_, iii. (1875), 148-153;
Lagarde, _Purim_ (1887); Zimmern in Stade's _Zeitschrift_, xi. (1891),
pp. 157-169, and _Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_^(3), 485,
515-520, Jensen in Wildeboer's _Esther_ (in Marti's series, 1898), pp.
173-175; Winckler, _Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_^(3), p.
288, _Altorientalische Forschungen_, 3rd ser. i. 1-64; Erbt, _Die
Purimsage_ (1900); _Ency. Biblica_, articles "Esther" and "Purim" (a
composite article). (T. K. C.)
ADDITIONS TO BOOK OF ESTHER. These "additions" were written originally
in Greek and subsequently interpolated in the Greek translation of the
Book of Esther. Here the principle of interpolation has reached its
maximum. Of 270 verses, 107 are not to be found in the Hebrew text.
These additions are distributed throughout the book in the Greek, but in
the Latin Bible they were relegated to the end of the canonical book by
Jerome--an action that has rendered them meaningless. In the Greek the
additions form with the canonical text a consecutive history. They were
made probably in the time of the Maccabees, and their aim was to supply
the religious element which is so completely lacking in the canonical
work. The first, which gives the dream of Mordecai and the events which
led to his advancement at the court of Artaxerxes, precedes chap. i. of
the canonical text: the second and fifth, which follow iii. 13 and viii.
12, furnish copies of the letters of Artaxerxes referred to in these
verses; the third and fourth, which are inserted after chap. iv.,
consist of the prayers of Mordecai and Esther, with an account of
Esther's approach to the king. The last, which closes the book, tells of
the institution of the feast of Purim. The Greek text appears in two
widely-differing recensions. The one is supported by AB[Hebrew: alef],
and the other--a revision of the first--by codices 19, 93a, 108b. The
latter is believed to have been the work of Lucian. Swete, _Old Test. in
Greek_, ii. 755, has given the former, while Lagarde has published both
texts with critical annotations in his _Librorum Veteris Testamenti
Canonicorum_, i. 504-541 (1883), and Scholz in his _Kommentar über das
Buch Esther_ (1892).
For an account of the Latin and Syriac versions, the Targums, and the
later Rabbinic literature connected with this subject, and other
questions relating to these additions, see Fritzsche, _Exeget.
Handbuch zu den Apok._ (1851), i. 67-108; Schürer^(3), iii. 330-332;
Fuller in _Speaker's Apocr._ i. 360-402; Ryssel in Kautzsch's _Apok.
u. Pseud._ i. 193-212; Siegfried in _Jewish Encyc._ v. 237 sqq.;
Swete, _Introd. to the Old Test. in Greek_, 257 seq.; L.B. Paton, "A
Text-Critical Apparatus to the Book of Esther" in _O.T. and Semitic
Studies in Memory of W.R. Harper_ (Chicago, 1908). (R. H. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Kautzsch, _Old Testament Literature_ (1898), p. 130.
[2] So Morier, the English minister to the Persian court, quoted by
Dean Stanley.
[3] See Zimmern, _Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Test_.^(3), p. 438.
[4] _Ibid._ p. 396.
[5] Johns, _Assyrian Deeds_, iii. 198-199; _Amer. Journ. of Sem.
Languages_ (April 1902), p. 158.
[6] So too Zimmern, in Gunkel's _Schöpfung und Chaos_, p. 313, note 2.
ESTHONIA (Ger. _Ehstland_ and _Esthland_, Esthonian _Eestimaa_ and
_Meie-maa_, also _Viroma_ and _Rahvama_; Lettish _Iggaun Senna_), a
Baltic province of Russia, stretching along the south coast of the Gulf
of Finland, and having Lake Peipus and Livonia on the S. and the
government of St Petersburg on the E. An archipelago of islands, of
which Dagö is the largest, belongs to this government (Oesel belongs to
Livonia). The area is 7818 sq. m., 503 sq. m. of this being insular. The
surface is low, not exceeding 100 ft. in altitude along the coast and
alongside Lake Peipus, while in the interior the average elevation
ranges from 200 to 300 ft., and nowhere exceeds 450 ft. It was entirely
covered with the bottom moraine of the great ice-sheet of the Glacial
Epoch, resting upon Silurian sandstones and limestones. In places sands
and clays overlie the glacial deposits. The principal stream is the
Narova, which issues from Lake Peipus, flows along the eastern border,
and empties into the Gulf of Finland. The other drainage arteries are
all small, but many in number; while lakes and marshes aggregate fully
22½% of the total surface. The climate is severe, great cold being
experienced in winter, though moist west winds exercise a moderating
influence. Nevertheless the annual mean temperature ranges between 39°
and 43° Fahr. In 1878 the nobility, mostly of German descent, owned and
farmed 52% of the land; 42% was farmed, but not owned, by the peasants,
mostly Esths or Ehsts, and only 3% was owned by persons outside the
ranks of the nobility. Since then one-fourth of the peasantry have been
enabled to purchase their holdings, more than half a million acres
having passed into their possession. Agriculture is the chief
occupation, and it is, on all the larger holdings, carried on with
greater scientific knowledge than in any other part of Russia. Of the
total area about 16.6% is under cultivation; meadows and grass-lands
amount to 41.7%; and forests cover 19%. The principal crops are rye,
oats, barley and potatoes, with large quantities of vegetables.
Cattle-breeding flourishes, and meat and butter are constantly
increasing items of export. The manufactories consist chiefly of
distilleries (over 13,500,000 gallons annually), cotton (at Kränholm
falls on the Narova), woollen, flour, paper and saw mills, iron and
machinery works, and match factories. Fishing is active along the coast,
especially for anchovies. The province is intersected by a railway
running from St Petersburg to Reval, with branches from the latter city
westwards to Baltic Port and southwards into Livonia, and from Taps
south to Yuryev (Dorpat). The chief seaports are Reval, Baltic Port,
Hapsal, Kunda and Dagö. Esthonia is divided into four districts, the
chief towns of which are Reval (pop. in 1897, 66,292), the capital of
the province; Hapsal, a lively watering-place (3238); Weissenstein
(2509); and Wesenberg (5560). The population, which consists chiefly of
Ehstes (365,959 in 1897), Russians (18,000), Germans (16,000), Swedes
(5800), and some Jews, is growing fairly fast: in 1870 it numbered
323,960, and in 1897 413,747, of whom 210,199 were women and 76,315
lived in towns; in 1906 it was estimated at 451,700. Ninety-six per
cent. of the whole belong to the Lutheran Church. Education is, for
Russia, relatively high.
The Esths, Ehsts or Esthonians, who call themselves Tallopoeg and
Maamees, are known to the Russians as Chukhni or Chukhontsi, to the
Letts as Iggauni, and to the Finns as Virolaiset. They belong to the
Finnish family, and consequently to the Ural-Altaic division of the
human race. Altogether they number close upon one million, and are thus
distributed: 365,959 in Esthonia (in 1897), 518,594 in Livonia, 64,116
in the government of St Petersburg, 25,458 in that of Pskov, and 12,855
in other parts of Russia. As a race they exhibit manifest evidences of
their Ural-Altaic or Mongolic descent in their short stature, absence of
beard, oblique eyes, broad face, low forehead and small mouth. In
addition to that they are an under-sized, ill-thriven people, with long
arms and thin, short legs. They cling tenaciously to their native
language, which is closely allied to the Finnish, and divisible into
two, or according to some authorities into three, principal
dialects--Dorpat Esthonian and Reval Esthonian, with Pernau Esthonian.
Reval Esthonian, which preserves more carefully the full inflectional
forms and pays greater attention to the laws of euphony, is recognized
as the literary language. Since 1873 the cultivation of their
mother-tongue has been sedulously promoted by an Esthonian Literary
Society (_Eesti Korjameeste Selts_), which publishes _Toimetused_, or
"Instructions" in all sorts of subjects. They have a decided love of
poetry, and exhibit great facility in improvising verses and poems on
all occasions, and they sing, everywhere, from morning to night. Like
the Finns they possess rich stores of national songs. These, which bear
an unmistakable family likeness to those of the great Finnish epic of
the _Kalevala_, were collected as the Kalevi Poëg, and edited by
Kreutswald (1857), and translated into German by Reinthal (1857-1859)
and Bertram (1861) and by Löwe (1900). Other collections of _Esthnische
Volkslieder_ have been published by Neuss (1850-1852) and Kreutzwald and
Neuss (1854); while Kreutzwald (1866) and Jannsen (1888) have published
collections of legends and national tales. The earliest publication in
Esthonian was a Lutheran catechism in the 16th century. An Esthonian
translation of the New Testament was printed at Reval in 1715. Between
1813 and 1832 there appeared at Pernau twenty volumes of _Beiträge zur
genauern Kenntniss der esthnischen Sprache_, by Rosenplänter, and from
1840 onwards many valuable papers on Esthonian subjects were contributed
to the _Verhandlungen der gelehrten esthnischen Gesellschaft zu Dorpat_.
F.J. Wiedemann, who laboured indefatigably in the registration and
preservation of matters connected with Esthonian language and lore,
published an _Esthnisch-deutsches Wörterbuch_ (1865; 2nd ed. by Hurt,
1891, &c.), and in 1903 there appeared at Reval a _Deutsch-esthnisches
Wörterbuch_, by Ploompun and Kann.
The Esthonians first appear in history as a warlike and predatory race,
the terror of the Baltic seamen in consequence of their piracies. More
than one of the Danish kings made serious attempts to subdue them.
Canute VI. invaded their country (1194-1196) and forced baptism upon
many of them, but no sooner did his war-ships disappear than they
reverted to their former heathenism. In 1219 Waldemar II. undertook a
more formidable crusade against them, in the course of which he founded
the town and episcopal see of Reval. By his efforts the northern portion
of the race were made submissive to the Danish crown; but, though
conquered, they were by no means subdued, and were incessantly in
revolt, until, after a great rebellion in 1343, Waldemar IV. Atterdag
sold for 19,000 marks his portion of Esthonia in 1346, to the order of
the Knights of the Sword. These German crusaders had already, after a
quarter of a century's fighting, in 1224 gained possession of the
regions inhabited by the southern portion of the race, that is those now
included in Livonia. From that time for nearly six hundred years or more
the Esthonians were practically reduced to a state of serfdom to the
German landowners. In 1521 the nobles and cities of Esthonia voluntarily
placed themselves under the protection of the crown of Sweden; but after
the wars of Charles XII., Esthonia was formally ceded to his victorious
rival, Peter the Great, by the peace of Nystad (1721). Serfdom was
abolished in 1817 by Tsar Alexander I.; but the condition of the
peasants was so little improved that they rose in open revolt in 1859.
Since 1878, however, a vast change for the better has been effected in
their economic position (see above). The determining feature of their
recent history has been the attempt made by the Russian government
(since 1881) and the Orthodox Greek Church (since 1883) to russify and
convert the inhabitants of the province, Germans and Esths alike, by
enforcing the use of Russian in the schools and by harsh and repressive
measures aimed at their native language.
See Merkel, _Die freien Letten und Esthen_ (1820); Parrot, _Versuch
einer Entwickelung der Sprache, Abstammung, &c., der Liwen, Lätten,
Eesten_ (1839); F. Kruse, _Urgeschichte des esthnischen Volksstammes_
(1846); Wiedemann, _Grammatik der esthnischen Sprache_ (1875), and
_Aus dem innern und äussern Leben der Esthen_ (1876); Köppen, _Die
Bewohner Esthlands_ (1847); F. Müller, _Beiträge zur Orographie und
Hydrographie von Esthland_ (1869-1871); Bunge, _Das Herzogthum
Esthland unter den Königen von Dänemark_ (1877); and Seraphim,
_Geschichte Liv-, Est-, und Kurlands_ (2nd ed., 1897) and various
papers in the _Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen_.
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.; C. El.)
ESTIENNE (or ÉTIENNE; the French form of the name; anglicized to
Stephens, and latinized to Stephanus), a French family of scholars and
printers.
The founder of the race was HENRI ESTIENNE (d. 1520), the scion of a
noble family of Provence, who came to Paris in 1502, and soon afterwards
set up a printing establishment at the top of the rue Saint-Jean de
Beauvais, on the hill of Saint-Geneviève opposite the law school. He
died in 1520, and, his three sons being minors, the business was
carried on by his foreman Simon de Colines, who in 1521 married his
widow.
ROBERT ESTIENNE (1503-1559) was Henri's second son. After his father's
death he acted as assistant to his stepfather, and in this capacity
superintended the printing of a Latin edition of the New Testament in
16mo (1523). Some slight alterations which he had introduced into the
text brought upon him the censures of the faculty of theology. It was
the first of a long series of disputes between him and that body. It
appears that he had intimate relations with the new Evangelical
preachers almost from the beginning of the movement, and that soon after
this time he definitely joined the Reformed Church. In 1526 he entered
into possession of his father's printing establishment, and adopted as
his device the celebrated olive-tree (a reminiscence doubtless of his
grandmother's family of Montolivet), with the motto from the epistle to
the Romans (xi. 20), _Noli altum sapere_, sometimes with the addition
_sed time_. In 1528 he married Perrette, a daughter of the scholar and
printer Josse Bade (Jodocus Badius), and in the same year he published
his first Latin Bible, an edition in folio, upon which he had been at
work for the last four years. In 1532 appeared his _Thesaurus linguae
Latinae_, a dictionary of Latin words and phrases, upon which for two
years he had toiled incessantly, with no other assistance than that of
Thierry of Beauvais. A second edition, greatly enlarged and improved,
appeared in 1536, and a third, still further improved, in 3 vols. folio,
in 1543. Though the _Thesaurus_ is now superseded, its merits must not
be forgotten. It was vastly superior to anything of the kind that had
appeared before; it formed the basis of future labours, and even as late
as 1734 was considered worthy of being re-edited. In 1539 Robert was
appointed king's printer for Hebrew and Latin, an office to which, after
the death of Conrad Neobar in 1540, he united that of king's printer for
Greek. In 1541 he was entrusted by Francis I. with the task of procuring
from Claude Garamond, the engraver and type-founder, three sets of Greek
type for the royal press. The middle size were the first ready, and with
these Robert printed the _editio princeps_ of the _Ecclesiasticae
Historiae_ of Eusebius and others (1544). The smallest size were first
used for the 16mo edition of the New Testament known as the _O
mirificam_ (1546), while with the largest size was printed the
magnificent folio of 1550. This edition involved the printer in fresh
disputes with the faculty of theology, and towards the end of the
following year he left his native town for ever, and took refuge at
Geneva, where he published in 1552 a caustic and effective answer to his
persecutors under the title _Ad censuras theologorum Parisiensium,
quibus Biblia a R. Stephano, Typographo Regio, ex usa calumniose
notarunt, eiusdem R. S. responsio_. A French translation, which is
remarkable for the excellence of its style, was published by him in the
same year (printed in Rénouard's _Annales de l'imprimerie des
Estienne_). At Geneva Robert proved himself an ardent partisan of
Calvin, several of whose works he published. He died there on the 7th of
September 1559.
It is by his work in connexion with the Bible, and especially as an
editor of the New Testament, that he is on the whole best known. The
text of his New Testament of 1550, either in its original form or in
such slightly modified form as it assumed in the Elzevir text of 1634,
remains to this day the traditional text. But this is due rather to
its typographical beauty than to any critical merit. The readings of
the fifteen MSS. which Robert's son Henri had collated for the purpose
were merely introduced into the margin. The text was still almost
exactly that of Erasmus. It was, however, the first edition ever
published with a critical apparatus of any sort. Of the whole Bible
Robert printed eleven editions--eight in Latin, two in Hebrew and one
in French; while of the New Testament alone he printed twelve--five in
Greek, five in Latin and two in French. In the Greek New Testament of
1551 (printed at Geneva) the present division into verses was
introduced for the first time. The _editiones principes_ which issued
from Robert's press were eight in number, viz. _Eusebius_, including
the _Praeparatio evangelica_ and the _Demonstratio evangelica_ as well
as the _Historia ecclesiastica_ already mentioned (1544-1546),
_Moschopulus_ (1545), _Dionysius of Halicarnassus_ (February 1547),
_Alexander Trallianus_ (January 1548), _Dio Cassius_ (January 1548),
_Justin Martyr_ (1551), _Xiphilinus_ (1551), _Appian_ (1551), the last
being completed, after Robert's departure from Paris, by his brother
Charles, and appearing under his name. These editions, all in folio,
except the _Moschopulus_, which is in 4to, are unrivalled for beauty.
Robert also printed numerous editions of Latin classics, of which
perhaps the folio _Virgil_ of 1532 is the most noteworthy, and a large
quantity of Latin grammars and other educational works, many of which
were written by Maturin Cordier, his friend and co-worker in the cause
of humanism.
CHARLES ESTIENNE (1504 or 1505-1564), the third son of Henri, was, like
his brother Robert, a man of considerable learning. After the usual
humanistic training he studied medicine, and took his doctor's degree at
Paris. He was for a time tutor to Jean Antoine de Baïf, the future poet.
In 1551, when Robert Estienne left Paris for Geneva, Charles, who had
remained a Catholic, took charge of his printing establishment, and in
the same year was appointed king's printer. In 1561 he became bankrupt,
and he is said to have died in a debtors' prison.
His principal works are _Praedium Rusticum_ (1554), a collection of
tracts which he had compiled from ancient writers on various branches
of agriculture, and which continued to be a favourite book down to the
end of the 17th century; _Dictionarium historicum ac poëticum_ (1553),
the first French encyclopaedia; _Thesaurus Ciceronianus_ (1557), and
_De dissectione partium corporis humani libri tres_, with well-drawn
woodcuts (1548). He also published a translation of an Italian comedy,
_Gli Ingannati_, under the title of _Le Sacrifice_ (1543; republished
as _Les Abusez_, 1549), which had some influence on the development of
French comedy; and _Paradoxes_ (1553), an imitation of the _Paradossi_
of Ortensio Landi.
HENRI ESTIENNE (1531-1598), sometimes called Henri II., was the eldest
son of Robert. In the preface to his edition of Aulus Gellius (1585),
addressed to his son Paul, he gives an interesting account of his
father's household, in which, owing to the various nationalities of
those who were employed on the press, Latin was used as a common
language. Henri thus picked up Latin as a child, but by his own request
he was allowed to learn Greek as a serious study before Latin. At the
age of fifteen he become a pupil of Pierre Danès, at that time the first
Greek scholar in France. Two years later he began to attend the lectures
of Jacques Toussain, one of the royal professors of Greek, and in the
same year (1545) was employed by his father to collate a MS. of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. In 1547 he went to Italy, where he spent
three years in hunting for and collating MSS. and in intercourse with
learned men. In 1550 he visited England, where he was favourably
received by Edward VI., and then Flanders, where he learnt Spanish. In
1551 he joined his father at Geneva, which henceforth became his home.
In 1554 he gave to the world, as the first fruits of his researches, two
first editions, viz. a tract of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the
so-called "Anacreon." In 1556 he discovered at Rome ten new books
(xi.-xx.) of Diodorus Siculus. In 1557 he issued from the press which in
the previous year he had set up at Geneva three first editions, viz.
_Athenagoras, Maximus Tyrius_, and some fragments of Greek historians,
including Appian's [Greek: Annibalikê], and [Greek: Ibêrikê] and an
edition of Aeschylus, in which for the first time the _Agamemnon_ was
printed in entirety and as a separate play. In 1559 he printed a Latin
translation from his own pen of Sextus Empiricus, and an edition of
Diodorus Siculus with the new books. His father dying in the same year,
he became under his will owner of his press, subject, however, to the
condition of keeping it at Geneva. In 1566 he published his best-known
French work, the _Apologie pour Hérodote_, or, as he himself called it,
_L'Introduction au traité de la conformité des merveilles anciennes avec
les modernes ou Traité préparatif à l'Apologie pour Hérodote_. Some
passages being considered objectionable by the Geneva consistory, he was
compelled to cancel the pages containing them. The book became highly
popular, and within sixteen years twelve editions were printed. In 1572
he published the great work upon which he had been labouring for many
years, the _Thesaurus Graecae linguae_, in 5 vols. fol. The publication
in 1578 of his _Deux Dialogues du nouveau françois ilalianizé_ brought
him into a fresh dispute with the consistory. To avoid their censure he
went to Paris, and resided at the French court for a year. On his return
to Geneva he was summoned before the consistory, and, proving
contumacious, was imprisoned for a week. From this time his life became
more and more of a nomad one. He is to be found at Basel, Heidelberg,
Vienna, Pest, everywhere but at Geneva, these journeys being undertaken
partly in the hope of procuring patrons and purchasers, for the large
sums which he had spent on such publications as the _Thesaurus_ and the
_Plato_ of 1578 had almost ruined him. His press stood nearly at a
standstill. A few editions of classical authors were brought out, but
each successive one showed a falling off. Such value as the later ones
had was chiefly due to the notes furnished by Casaubon, who in 1586 had
married his daughter Florence. His last years were marked by
ever-increasing infirmity of mind and temper. In 1597 he left Geneva for
the last time. After visiting Montpellier, where Casaubon was now
professor, he started for Paris, but was seized with sudden illness at
Lyons, and died there at the end of January 1598.
Few men have ever served the cause of learning more devotedly. For
over thirty years the amount which he produced, whether as printer,
editor or original writer, was enormous. The productions of his press,
though printed with the same beautiful type as his father's books,
are, owing to the poorness of the paper and ink, inferior to them in
general beauty. The best, perhaps, from a typographical point of view,
are the _Poëtae Graeci principes_ (folio, 1566), the _Plutarch_ (13
vols. 8vo, 1572), and the _Plato_ (3 vols. folio, 1578). It was rather
his scholarship which gave value to his editions. He was not only his
own press-corrector but his own editor. Though by the latter half of
the 16th century nearly all the important Greek and Latin authors that
we now possess had been published, his untiring activity still found
some gleanings. Eighteen first editions of Greek authors and one of a
Latin author are due to his press. The most important have been
already mentioned. Henri's reputation as a scholar and editor has
increased of late years. His familiarity with the Greek language has
always been admitted to have been quite exceptional; but he has been
accused of want of taste and judgment, of carelessness and rashness.
Special censure has been passed on his _Plutarch_, in which he is said
to have introduced conjectures of his own into the text, while
pretending to have derived them from MS. authority. But a late editor,
Sintenis, has shown that, though like all the other editors of his day
he did not give references to his authorities, every one of his
supposed conjectures can be traced to some MS. Whatever may be said as
to his taste or his judgment, it seems that he was both careful and
scrupulous, and that he only resorted to conjecture when authority
failed him. And, whatever the merit of his conjectures, he was at any
rate the first to show what conjecture could do towards restoring a
hopelessly corrupt passage. The work, however, on which his fame as a
scholar is most surely based is the _Thesaurus Graecae linguae_. After
making due allowance for the fact that considerable materials for the
work had been already collected by his father, and that he received
considerable assistance from the German scholar Sylburg, he is still
entitled to the very highest praise as the producer of a work which
was of the greatest service to scholarship and which in those early
days of Greek learning could have been produced by no one but a giant.
Two editions of the _Thesaurus_ were published in the 19th century--at
London by Valpy (1815-1825) and at Paris by Didot (1831-1863).
It was one of Henri Estienne's great merits that, unlike nearly all
the French scholars who preceded him, he did not neglect his own
language. In the _Traité de la conformité du langage françois avec le
Grec_ (published in 1565, but without date; ed. L. Feugère, 1850),
French is asserted to have, among modern languages, the most affinity
with Greek, the first of all languages. _Deux Dialogues du nouveau
françois italianizé_ (Geneva, 1578; ed. P. Ristelhuber, 2 vols., 1885)
was directed against the fashion prevailing in the court of Catherine
de' Medici of using Italian words and forms. The _Project du livre
intitulé de la Précellence du langage françois_ (Paris, 1579; ed. E.
Huguet, 1896) treats of the superiority of French to Italian. An
interesting feature of the _Précellence_ is the account of French
proverbs, and, Henry III. having expressed some doubts as to the
genuineness of some of them, Henri Estienne published, in 1594, _Les
Premices ou le I. livre des Proverbes epigrammatizez_ (never reprinted
and very rare).
Finally, there remains the _Apologie pour Hérodote_, his most famous
work. The ostensible object of the book is to show that the strange
stories in Herodotus may be paralleled by equally strange ones of
modern times. Virtually it is a bitter satire on the writer's age,
especially on the Roman Church. Put together without any method, its
extreme desultoriness makes it difficult to read continuously, but the
numerous stories, collected partly from various literary sources,
notably from the preachers Menot and Maillard, partly from the
writer's own multifarious experience, with which it is packed, make it
an interesting commentary on the manners and fashions of the time. But
satire, to be effective, should be either humorous or righteously
indignant, and, while such humour as there is in the _Apologie_ is
decidedly heavy, the writer's indignation is generally forgotten in
his evident relish for scandal. The style is, after all, its chief
merit. Though it bears evident traces of hurry, it is, like that of
all Henri Estienne's French writings, clear, easy and vigorous,
uniting the directness and sensuousness of the older writers with a
suppleness and logical precision which at this time were almost new
elements in French prose. An edition of the _Apologie_ has recently
been published by Liseux (ed. Ristelhuber, 2 vols., 1879), after one
of the only two copies of the original uncancelled edition that are
known to exist. The very remarkable political pamphlet entitled
_Dìscours merveilleux de la vie et actions et déportemens de Catherine
de Medicis_, which appeared in 1574, has been ascribed to Henri
Estienne, but the evidence both internal and external is conclusive
against his being the author of it. Of his Latin writings the most
worthy of notice are the _De Latinitate falso suspecta_ (1576), the
_Pseudo-Cicero_ (1577) and the _Nizoliodidascalus_ (1578), all three
written against the Ciceronians, and the _Francofordiense Emporium_
(1574), a panegyric on the Frankfort fair (reprinted with a French
translation by Liseux, 1875). He also wrote a large quantity of
indifferent Latin verses, including a long poem entitled _Musa
monitrix Principum_ (Basel, 1590).
The primary authorities for an account of the Estiennes are their own
works. In the garrulous and egotistical prefaces which Henri was in
the habit of prefixing to his editions will be found many scattered
biographical details. Twenty-seven letters from Henri to John Crato of
Crafftheim (ed. F. Passow, 1830) have been printed, and there is one
of Robert's in Herminjard's _Correspondence des Réformateurs dans de
pays de langue française_ (9 vols. published 1866-1897), while a few
other contemporary references to him will be found in the same work.
The secondary authorities are Janssen van Almeloveen, _De vitis
Stephanorum_ (Amsterdam, 1683); Maittaire, _Stephanorum historia_
(London, 1709); A.A. Rénouard, _Annales de l'imprimerie des Estienne_
(2nd ed., Paris, 1843); the article on Estienne by A.F. Didot in the
_Nouv. Biog. gén._; Mark Pattison, _Essays_, i. 67 ff. (1889); L.
Clément, _Henri Estienne et son oeuvre française_ (Paris, 1899). There
is a good account of Henri's _Thesaurus_ in the _Quart. Rev._ for
January 1820, written by Bishop Bromfield. (A. A. T.)
ESTON, an urban district in the Cleveland parliamentary division of the
North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 4 m. S.E. of Middlesbrough, on a
branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 11,199. This is one of
the principal centres from which the great ironstone deposits of the
Cleveland Hills are worked, and there are extensive blast-furnaces,
iron-foundries and steam sawing-mills in the district. Immediately W. of
Eston lies the urban district of Ormesby (pop. 9482), and the whole
district is densely populated (see MIDDLESBROUGH). Marton, west of
Ormesby, was the birthplace of Captain Cook (1728). Numerous early
earthworks fringe the hills to the south.
ESTOPPEL (from O. Fr. _estopper_, to stop, bar; _estoupe_, mod.
_étoupe_, a plug of tow; Lat. _stuppa_), a rule in the law of evidence
by which a party in litigation is prohibited from asserting or denying
something, when such assertion or denial would be inconsistent with his
own previous statements or conduct. Estoppel is said to arise in three
ways--(1) by record or judgment, (2) by deed, and (3) by matter _in
pais_ or conduct. (1) Where a cause of action has been tried and final
judgment has been pronounced, the judgment is conclusive--either party
attempting to renew the litigation by a new action would be estopped by
the judgment. "Every judgment is conclusive proof as against parties and
privies, of facts directly in issue in the case, actually decided by the
court, and appearing from the judgment itself to be the ground on which
it was based."--Stephen's _Digest of the Law of Evidence_, Art. 41. (2)
It is one of the privileges of _deeds_ as distinguished from simple
contracts that they operate by way of estoppel. "A man shall always be
estopped by his own deed, or not permitted to aver or prove anything in
contradiction to what he has once so solemnly and deliberately avowed"
(Blackstone, 2 _Com._ 295); e.g. where a bond recited that the
defendants were authorized by acts of parliament to borrow money, and
that under such authority they had borrowed money from a certain person,
they were estopped from setting up as a defence that they did not in
fact so borrow money, as stated by their deed. (3) Estoppel by conduct,
or, as it is still sometimes called, estoppel by matter _in pais_, is
the most important head. The rule practically comes to this that, when a
person in his dealings with others has acted so as to induce them to
believe a thing to be true and to act on such belief, he may not in any
proceeding between himself and them deny the thing to be true: e.g. a
partner retiring from a firm without giving notice to the customers,
cannot, as against a customer having no knowledge of his retirement,
deny that he is a partner. As between landlord and tenant the principle
operates to prevent the denial by the tenant of the landlord's title. So
if a person comes upon land by the licence of the person in possession,
he cannot deny that the licenser had a title to the possession at the
time the licence was given. Again, if a man accepts a bill of exchange
he may not deny the signature or the capacity of the drawer. So a person
receiving goods as baillee from another cannot deny the title of that
other to the goods at the time they were entrusted to him.
Estoppel of whatever kind is subject to one general rule, that it cannot
override the law of the land; for example, a corporation would not be
estopped as to acts which are _ultra vires_.
See L.F. Everest and E. Strode, _The Law of Estoppel_; M. Cababé,
_Principles of Estoppel_.
ESTOUTEVILLE, GUILLAUME D' (1403-1483), French ecclesiastic, was bishop
of Angers, of Digne, of Porto and Santa Rufina, of Ostia and Velletri,
archbishop of Rouen, prior of Saint Martin des Champs, abbot of Mont St
Michel, of St Ouen at Rouen, and of Montebourg. He was sent to France as
legate by Pope Nicholas V. to make peace between Charles VII. and
England (1451), and undertook, _ex officio_, the revision of the trial
of Joan of Arc; he afterwards reformed the statutes of the university of
Paris. He then went to preside over the assembly of clergy which met at
Bourges to discuss the observation of the Pragmatic Sanction (see BASEL,
COUNCIL OF), finally returning to Rome, where he passed almost all the
rest of his life. He was a great builder, Rouen, Mont St Michel,
Pontoise and Gaillon owing many noble buildings to his initiative.
ESTOVERS (from the O. Fr. _estover_, _estovoir_, a verb used as a
substantive in the sense of that which is necessary; the word is of
disputed origin; it has been referred to the Lat. _stare_, to stand, or
_studere_, to desire), a term, in English law, for the wood which a
tenant for life or years may take from the land he holds for repair of
his house, the implements of husbandry, and the hedges and fences, and
for firewood. The O. Eng. word for estover was _bote_ or _boot_
(literally meaning "good," "profit," the same word as seen in "better").
The various kinds of estovers were thus known as house-bote, cart or
plough-bote, hedge or hay-bote, and fire-bote respectively. These rights
may, of course, be restricted by express covenants. Copyholders have
similar rights over the land they occupy and over the waste of the
manor, in which case the rights are known as "Commons of estovers." (See
COMMONS.)
ESTRADA, LA, a town of north-western Spain, in the province of
Pontevedra, 15 m. S. by E. of Santiago de Compostela. Pop. (1900)
23,916. La Estrada is the chief town of a densely-populated mountainous
district; its industries are agriculture, stock-breeding, and the
manufacture of linen and woollen cloth. Timber from the mountain forests
is conveyed from La Estrada to the river Ulla, 4 m. N., and thence
floated down to the seaports on Arosa Bay. The nearest railway-station
is Requeijo, 7 m. W., on the Pontevedra-Santiago railway. There are
mineral springs at La Estrada and at Caldas de Reyes, 11 m. W.S.W.
ESTRADE, a French architectural term for a raised platform (see DAIS).
In the Levant the estrade of a divan is called Sopha (Blondel), from
which comes our "sofa."
ESTRADES, GODEFROI, COMTE D' (1607-1686), French diplomatist and
marshal, was born at Agen. He was the son of François d'Estrades (d.
1653), a partisan of Henry IV., and brother of Jean d'Estrades, bishop
of Condom. He became a page to Louis XIII., and at the age of nineteen
was sent on a mission to Maurice of Holland. In 1646 he was named
ambassador extraordinary to Holland, and took part in the conferences at
Münster. Sent in 1661 to England, he obtained in 1662 the restitution of
Dunkirk. In 1667 he negotiated the treaty of Breda with the king of
Denmark, and in 1678 the treaty of Nijmwegen, which ended the war with
Holland. Independently of these diplomatic missions, he took part in the
principal campaigns of Louis XIV., in Italy (1648), in Catalonia (1655),
in Holland (1672); and was created marshal of France in 1675. He left
_Lettres, mémoires et négociations en qualité d'ambassadeur en Hollande
depuis 1663 jusqu' en 1668_, of which the first edition in 1700 was
followed by a nine-volume edition (London (the Hague), 1743).
Of the sons of Godefroi d'Estrades, Jean François d'Estrades was
ambassador to Venice and Piedmont; Louis, marquis d'Estrades (d. 1711),
succeeded his father as governor of Dunkirk, and was the father of
Godefroi Louis, comte d'Estrades, lieutenant-general, who was killed at
the siege of Belgrade, 1717.
See Felix Salomon, _Frankreichs Beziehungen zu dem Scottischen
Aufstand_ (1637-1640), containing an excursus on the falsification of
the letters of the comte d'Estrades; Philippe Lauzun, _Le Maréchal
d'Estrades_ (Agen, 1896).
ESTREAT (O. Fr. _estrait_, Lat. _extracta_), originally, a true copy or
duplicate of some original writing or record; now used only with
reference to the enforcement of a forfeited recognizance. At one time it
was the practice to extract and certify into the exchequer copies of
entries in court roils which contained provisions or orders in favour of
the treasury, hence the estreating of a recognizance was the taking out
from among the other records of the court in which it was filed and
sending it to the exchequer to be enforced, or sending it to the sheriff
to be levied by him, and then returned by the clerk of the peace to the
lords of the treasury. (See RECOGNIZANCE.)
ESTRÉES, GABRIELLE D' (1573-1599), mistress of Henry IV. of France, was
the daughter of Antoine d'Estrées, marquis of Coeuvres, and Françoise
Babou de la Bourdaisière. Henry IV., who in November 1590 stayed at the
castle of Coeuvres, became violently enamoured of her. Her father,
anxious to save his daughter from so perilous an entanglement, married
her to Nicholas d'Amerval, seigneur de Liancourt, but the union proved
unhappy, and in December 1592, Gabrielle, whose affection for the king
was sincere, became his mistress. She lived with him from December 1592
onwards, and bore him several children, who were recognized and
legitimized by him. She possessed the king's entire confidence; he
willingly listened to her advice, and created her marchioness of
Monceaux, duchess of Beaufort (1597) and Étampes (1598), a peeress of
France. The king even proposed to marry her in the event of the success
of his suit for the nullification by the Holy See of his marriage with
Margaret of Valois; but before the question was settled Gabrielle died,
on the 10th of April 1599. Poison was of course suspected; but her death
was really caused by puerperal convulsions (_eclampsia_).
See Adrien Desclozeaux, _Gabrielle d'Estrées, Marquise de Monceaux,
&c_. (Paris, 1889).
ESTREMADURA, or EXTREMADURA, an ancient territorial division of central
and western Portugal, and of western Spain; comprising the modern
districts of Leiria, Santarem and Lisbon, in Portugal, and the modern
provinces of Badajoz and Cáceres in Spain. Pop. (1900) 2,095,818; area,
23,055 sq. m. The name of Estremadura appears to be of early Romance or
Late Latin origin, and probably was applied to all the far western lands
(_extrema ora_) bordering upon the lower Tagus, as far as the Atlantic
Ocean. It is thus equivalent to _Land's End_, or _Finistère_. In popular
speech it is more commonly used than the names of the modern divisions
mentioned above, which were created in the 19th century. As, however,
there are many racial, economic and historic differences between
Portuguese and Spanish Estremadura, the two provinces are separately
described below.
1. Portuguese Estremadura is bounded on the N. by Beira, E. and S. by
Alemtejo, and W. by the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 1,221,418; area,
6937 sq. m. The greatest length of the province, from N. to S., is 165
m.; its greatest breadth, from E. to W., is 72 m. The general uniformity
of the coast-line is broken by the broad and deep estuaries of the Tagus
and the Sado, and by the four conspicuous promontories of Cape
Carvoeiro, Cape da Roca, Cape Espichel and Cape de Sines. The Tagus is
the great navigable waterway of Portuguese Estremadura, flowing from
north-east to south-west, and fed by many minor tributaries, notably the
Zezere on the right and the Zatas on the left. It divides the country
into two nearly equal portions, wholly dissimilar in surface and
character. South of the Tagus the land is almost everywhere low, flat
and monotonous, while in several places it is rendered unhealthy by
undrained marshes. The Sado, which issues into Setubal Bay, is the only
important river of this region. North of the Tagus, and parallel with
its right bank, extends the mountain chain which is known at its
northern extremity as the Serra do Aire and, where it terminates above
Cape da Roca, as the Serra da Cintra. This ridge, which is buttressed on
all sides by lesser groups of hills, and includes part of the famous
lines of Torres Vedras (q.v.), exceeds 2200 ft. in height, and
constitutes the watershed between the right-hand tributaries of the
Tagus and the Liz, Sizandro and other small rivers which flow into the
Atlantic. On its seaward side, except for the line of sheer and lofty
cliffs between Cape Carvoeiro and Cape da Roca, the country is mostly
flat and sandy, with extensive heaths and pine forests; but along the
fertile and well-cultivated right bank of the Tagus the river scenery,
with its terraced hills of vines, olives and fruit trees, often
resembles that of the Rhine in Germany. The natural resources of
Portuguese Estremadura, with its inhabitants, industries, commerce,
communications, &c., are described under PORTUGAL; for on such matters
there is little to be said of this central and most characteristic
province which does not apply to the whole kingdom. Separate articles
are also devoted to Lisbon, the capital, and Abrantes, Cintra, Leiria,
Mafra, Santarem, Setubal, Thomar, Torres Novas and Torres Vedras, the
other chief towns. The women of Peniche, a small fishing village on the
promontory of Cape Carvoeiro, have long been celebrated throughout
Portugal for their skill in the manufacture of fine laces.
2. Spanish Estremadura is bounded on the N. by Leon and Old Castile, E.
by New Castile, S. by Andalusia, and W. by the Portuguese province of
Beira and Alemtejo, which separate it from Portuguese Estremadura. Pop.
(1900) 882,410; area, 16,118 sq. m. Spanish Estremadura consists of a
tableland separated from Leon and Old Castile by the lofty Sierra de
Gredos, the plateau of Béjar and the Sierra de Gata, which form an
almost continuous barrier along the northern frontier, with its summits
ranging from 6000 to more than 8500 ft. in altitude. On the south the
comparatively low range of the Sierra Morena constitutes the frontier of
Andalusia; on the east and west there is a still more gradual transition
to the plateau of New Castile and the central plains of Portugal. The
tableland of Spanish Estremadura is itself bisected from east to west by
a line of mountains, the Sierras of San Pedro, Montanchez and Guadalupe
(4000-6000 ft.), which separate its northern half, drained by the river
Tagus, from its southern half, drained by the Guadiana. These two halves
are respectively known as Alta or Upper Estremadura (the modern
Cáceres), and Baja or Lower Estremadura (the modern Badajoz). The Tagus
and Guadiana flow from east to west through a monotonous country, level
or slightly undulating, often almost uninhabited, and covered with a
thin growth of shrubs and grass. Perhaps the most characteristic feature
of this tableland is the vast heaths of gum-cistus, which in spring
colour the whole landscape with leagues of yellow blossom, and in summer
change to a brown and arid wilderness.
The climate in summer is hot but not unhealthy, except in the swamps
which occur along the Guadiana. The rainfall is scanty; dew, however, is
abundant and the nights are cool. Although the high mountains are
covered with snow in November, the winters are not usually severe. The
soil is naturally fertile, but drought, floods and locusts render
agriculture difficult, and sheep-farming is the most important of
Estremaduran industries. (See SPAIN: _Agriculture_.) In the 19th
century, however, this industry lost much of its former importance owing
to foreign competition.
Immense herds of swine are bred and constitute a great source of support
to the inhabitants, not only supplying them with food, but also forming
a great article of export to other provinces--the pork, bacon and hams
being in high esteem. The beech, oak and chestnut woods afford an
abundance of food for swine, and there are numerous plantations of
olive, cork and fruit trees, but a far greater area of forest has been
destroyed. For an account of commerce, mining, communications, &c., in
Spanish Estremadura, with a list of the chief towns, see CÁCERES and
BADAJOZ. In character and physical type, the people of this region are
less easily classified than those of other Spanish provinces. They lack
the endurance and energy of the Galicians, the independent and
enterprising spirit of the Asturians, Basques and Catalans, the culture
of the Castilians and Andalusians. Their failure to develop a
distinctive local type of character and civilization is perhaps due to
the adverse economic history of their country. The two great waterways
which form the natural outlet for Estremaduran commerce flow to the
Atlantic through a foreign and, for centuries, a hostile territory. Like
other parts of Spain, Estremadura suffered severely from the expulsion
of the Jews and Moors (1492-1610), while the compensating treasure,
derived during the same period from Spanish America, never reached a
province so remote at once from the sea and from the chief centres of
national life. Although Cortes (1485-1547), the conqueror of Mexico and
Pizarro (c. 1471-1541), the conqueror of Peru, were both born in
Estremadura, their exploits, far from bringing prosperity to their
native province, only encouraged the emigration of its best inhabitants.
Heavy taxation and harsh land-laws prevented any recovery, while the
felling of the forests reduced many fertile areas to waste land, and
rendered worse a climate already unfavourable to agriculture. Few
countries leave upon the mind of the traveller a deeper impression of
hopeless poverty.
ESTREMOZ, a town of Portugal, in the district of Evora, formerly
included in the province of Alemtejo; 104 m. by rail E. of Lisbon, on
the Casa Branca-Evora-Elvas railway. Pop. (1900) 7920. Estremoz is built
at the base of a hill crowned by a large dismantled citadel; its
fortifications, which in the 17th century accommodated 20,000 troops and
rendered the town one of the principal defences of the frontier, are now
obsolete. There are marble quarries in the neighbourhood, and the
Estremoz _bilhas_, red earthenware jars, are used throughout Portugal as
water-holders and exported to Spain. At Ameixial (1188) and Monies
Claros, near Estremoz, the Spanish were severely defeated by the
Portuguese in 1663 and 1665. Villa Viçosa (3841), 10 m. S.E., is a town
of pre-Roman origin, containing a royal palace. The altars with Latin
inscriptions to the Iberian god Endovellicus, found at Villa Viçosa, are
preserved in the museum of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Lisbon.
ESTUARY (from the Lat. _aestuarium_, a place reached by _aestus_, the
tide), an arm of the sea narrowing inwards at the mouth of a river where
sea and fresh water meet and are mixed, i.e. the tidal portion of a
river's mouth. Structurally the estuary may represent the long-continued
action of river erosion and tidal erosion confined to a narrow channel,
most effective where most concentrated, or an estuary may be the drowned
portion of the lower part of a river-valley. In a map of Britain showing
sea-depths it will be observed that under the Severn estuary the sea
deepens in a number of steps descending by concentric V's that become
blunter towards deep water until the last is a mere indentation pointing
towards the long narrow termination of the present estuary. In this and
in similar cases the progress of the estuary is indicated upon what is
now the continental shelf. The chief interest in estuarine conditions is
the mingling of sea and fresh water. Where, as in the Severn and the
Thames, the fresh water meets the sea gradually the water is mixed, and
there is very little change in salinity at high tide. The fresh water
flows over the salt water and there is a continuous rapid change, in
salinity towards the sea, for the currents sweeping in and out mix the
water constantly. Where the river brings down a great quantity of fresh
water in a narrow channel, the change of salinity at high and low water
is very marked. "When, however, the inlet is very large compared with
the river, and there is no bar at the opening, the estuarine character
is only shown at the upper end. In the Firth of Forth, for example, the
landward half is an estuary, but in the seaward half the water has
become more thoroughly mixed, the salinity is almost uniform from
surface to bottom, and increases very gradually towards the sea. The
river-water meets the sea diffused uniformly through a deep mass of
water scarcely fresher than the sea itself, so that the two mix
uniformly, and the sea becomes slightly freshened throughout its whole
depth for many miles from land" (H.R. Mill, _Realm of Nature_, 1897).
ESZTERGOM (Ger. _Gran_; Lat. _Strigonium_), a town of Hungary, capital
of the county of the same name, 36 m. N.W. of Budapest by rail. Pop.
(1900) 16,948, mostly Magyars and Roman Catholics. It is situated on the
right bank of the Danube, nearly opposite the confluence of the Gran,
and is divided into the town proper and three suburbs. The town is the
residence of the primate of Hungary, and its cathedral, built in
1821-1870, after the model of St Peter's at Rome, is one of the finest
and largest in the country. It is picturesquely built on an elevated and
commanding position, 215 ft. above the Danube, and its dome, visible
from a long distance, is 260 ft. high, and has a diameter of 52 ft. The
interior is very richly decorated, notably with fine frescoes, and its
treasury and fine library of over 60,000 volumes are famous. Besides
several other churches and two monastic houses, the principal buildings
include the handsome palace of the primate, erected in 1883; the
archiepiscopal library, with valuable incunabula and old MSS.; the
seminary for the education of Roman Catholic priests; the residences of
the chapter; and the town-hall. The population is chiefly employed in
cloth-weaving, wine-making and agricultural pursuits. An iron bridge,
1664 ft. long, connects Esztergom with the market town of Párkány (pop.
2836) on the opposite bank of the Danube.
Esztergom is one of the oldest towns of Hungary, and is famous as the
birthplace of St Stephen, the first prince crowned "apostolic king" of
Hungary. During the early times of the Hungarian monarchy it was the
most important mercantile centre in the country, and it was the
meeting-place of the diets of 1016, 1111, 1114 and 1256. It was almost
completely destroyed by Tatar hordes in 1241, but was rebuilt and
fortified by King Béla IV. In 1543 it fell into the hands of the Turks,
from whom it was recovered, in 1595, by Carl von Mansfeld. In 1604 it
reverted to the Turks, who held it till 1683, when it was regained by
the united forces of John Sobieski, king of Poland, and Prince Charles
of Lorraine. It was created an archbishopric in 1001. During the Turkish
occupation of the town the archbishopric was removed to Tyrnau, while
the archbishop himself had his residence in Pressburg. Both returned to
Esztergom in 1820. In 1708 it was declared a free city by Joseph I. On
the 13th of April 1818 it was partly destroyed by fire.
For numerous authorities on the see and cathedral of Esztergom see V.
Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources_. _Topo-bibliogr._ s.v. "Gran." Of
these may be mentioned especially F. Knauz, _Monumenta Ecclesiae
Strigoniensis_ (3 vols., Eszterg, 1874); Joseph Dankó,
_Geschichtliches ... aus dem Graner Domschatz_ (Gran, 1880).
ÉTAGÈRE, a piece of light furniture very similar to the English
what-not, which was extensively made in France during the latter part of
the 18th century. As the name implies, it consists of a series of stages
or shelves for the reception of ornaments or other small articles. Like
the what-not it was very often cornerwise in shape, and the best Louis
XVI. examples in exotic woods are exceedingly graceful and elegant.
ETAH, a town and district of British India, in the Agra division of the
United Provinces. The town is situated on the Grand Trunk road. Pop.
(1901) 8796. The district has an area of 1737 sq. m. The district
consists for the most part of an elevated alluvial plateau, dipping down
on its eastern slope into the valley of the Ganges. The uplands are
irrigated by the Ganges canal. Between the modern bed of the Ganges and
its ancient channel lies a belt of fertile land, covered with a rich
deposit of silt, and abundantly supplied with natural moisture. A long
line of swamps and hollows still marks the former course of the river;
and above it rises abruptly the original cliff which now forms the
terrace of the upland plain. The Kali Nadi, a small stream flowing in a
deep and narrow gorge, passes through the centre of the district, and
affords an outlet for the surface drainage. Etah was at an early date
the seat of a primitive Aryan civilization, and the surrounding country
is mentioned by Hsüan Tsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim of the 7th
century A.D., as rich in temples and monasteries. But after the bloody
repression of Buddhism before the 8th century, the district seems to
have fallen once more into the hands of aboriginal tribes, from whom it
was wrested a second time by Rajputs during the course of their great
migration eastward. With the rest of upper India it passed under the
sway of Mahmud of Ghazni in 1017, and thenceforth followed the fortunes
of the Mahommedan empire. At the end of the 18th century it formed part
of the territory over which the wazir of Oudh had made himself ruler,
and it came into the possession of the British government in 1801, under
the treaty of Lucknow. During the mutiny of 1857 it was the scene of
serious disturbances, coupled with the usual anarchic quarrels among the
native princes. In 1901 the population was 863,948, showing an increase
of 23% in the decade due to the extension of canal irrigation. It is
traversed by a branch of the Rajputana railway from Agra to Cawnpore,
with stations at Kasganj and Soron, which are the two largest towns. It
has several printing presses, indigo factories, and factories for
pressing cotton, and there is a considerable agricultural export trade.
ÉTAMPES, ANNE DE PISSELEU D'HEILLY, DUCHESSE D' (1508-c. 1580),
mistress of Francis I. of France, daughter of Guillaume de Pisseleu,
sieur d'Heilly, a nobleman of Picardy. She came to court before 1522,
and was one of the maids of honour of Louise of Savoy. Francis I. made
her his mistress, probably on his return from his captivity at Madrid
(1526), and soon gave up Madame de Châteaubriant for her. Anne was
sprightly, pretty, witty and cultured, and succeeded in keeping the
favour of the king till the end of the reign (1547). The liaison
received some official recognition; when Queen Eleanor entered Paris
(1530), the king and Anne occupied the same window. In 1533 Francis gave
her in marriage to Jean de Brosse, whom he created duc d'Étampes. The
influence of the duchesse d'Étampes, especially in the last years of the
reign, was considerable. She upheld Admiral Chabot against the constable
de Montmorency, who was supported by her rival, Diane de Poitiers, the
dauphin's mistress. She was a friend to new ideas, and co-operated with
the king's sister, Marguerite d'Angoulême. She used her influence to
elevate and enrich her family, her uncle, Antoine Sanguin (d. 1559),
being made bishop of Orleans in 1535 and a cardinal in 1539.[1] The
accusations made against her of having allowed herself to be won over by
the emperor Charles V. and of playing the traitor in 1544 rest on no
serious proof. After the death of Francis I. (1547) she was dismissed
from the court by Diane de Poitiers, humiliated in every way, and died
in obscurity much later, probably in the reign of Henry III.
See Paulin Paris, _Études sur François I^er_ (Paris, 1885).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The château of Meudon, belonging to the Sanguin family, was
handed over to the duchesse d'Étampes in 1539. Sanguin was translated
to Limoges in 1546, and became archbishop of Toulouse in 1550.
ÉTAMPES, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the
department of Seine-et-Oise, on the Orléans railway, 35 m. S. by W. of
Paris. Pop. (1906) 8720. Étampes is a long straggling town hemmed in
between the railway on the north and the Chalouette on the south; the
latter is a tributary of the Juine which waters the eastern outskirts of
the town. A fine view of Étampes is obtained from the Tour Guinette, a
ruined keep built by Louis VI. in the 12th century on an eminence on the
other side of the railway. Notre-Dame du Fort, the chief church, dates
from the 11th and 12th centuries; irregular in plan, it is remarkable
for a fine Romanesque tower and spire, and for the crenellated wall
which partly surrounds it. The interior contains ancient paintings and
other artistic works. St Basile (12th and 16th centuries), which
preserves a Romanesque doorway, and St Martin (12th and 13th centuries),
with a leaning tower of the 16th century, are of less importance. The
civil buildings offer little interest, but two houses named after Anne
de Pisseleu (see above), mistress of Francis I., and Diane de Poitiers,
mistress of Henry II., are graceful examples of Renaissance
architecture. In the square there is a statue of the naturalist,
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, who was born in Étampes. The subprefecture, a
tribunal of first instance, and a communal college are among the public
institutions of Étampes. Flour-milling, metal-founding,
leather-dressing, printing and the manufacture of boots and shoes and
hosiery are carried on; there are quarries of paving-stone, nurseries
and market gardens in the vicinity, and the town has important markets
for cereals and sheep.
Étampes (Lat. _Stampae_) existed at the beginning of the 7th century and
in the early middle ages belonged to the crown domain. During the middle
ages it was the scene of several councils, the most notable of which
took place in 1130 and resulted in the recognition of Innocent II. as
the legitimate pope. In 1652, during the war of the Fronde it suffered
severely at the hands of the royal troops under Turenne.
_Lords, Counts and Dukes of Étampes._--The lordship of Étampes, in what
is now the department of Seine et Oise in France, belonged to the royal
domain, but was detached from it on several occasions in favour of
princes, or kings' favourites. St Louis gave it to his mother Blanche of
Castile, and then to his wife Marguerite of Provence. Louis, the brother
of Philip the Fair, became lord of Étampes in 1317 and count in 1327; he
was succeeded by his son and his grandson. Francis I. raised the
countship of Étampes to the rank of a duchy for his mistress Anne de
Pisseleu D'Heilly. The new duchy passed to Diane de Poitiers (1553), to
Catherine of Lorraine, duchess of Montpensier (1578), to Marguerite of
Valois (1582) and to Gabrielle d'Estrées (1598). The latter transmitted
it to her son, César of Vendôme, and his descendants held it till 1712.
It then passed by inheritance to the families of Bourbon-Conti and of
Orleans.
ÉTAPLES, a town of northern France, in the department of Pas-de-Calais,
on the right bank of the estuary of the Canche, 3 m. from the Straits of
Dover, 17 m. S. of Boulogne by rail. Pop. (1906) 5136. Étaples has a
small fishing and commercial port which enjoyed a certain importance
during the middle ages. Boat-building is carried on. There is an old
church with a statue of the Virgin much revered by the sailors. The
Canche is crossed by a bridge over 1600 ft. in length. Le Touquet, in
the midst of pine woods, and the neighbouring watering-place of
Paris-Plage, 3½ m. W. of Étaples at the mouth of the estuary, are much
frequented by English and French visitors for golf, tennis and bathing,
and Étaples itself is a centre for artists. Antiquarian discoveries in
the vicinity of Étaples have led to the conjecture that it occupies the
site of the Gallo-Roman port of _Quentovicus_. In 1492 a treaty was
signed here between Henry VII., king of England, and Charles VIII., king
of France.
ETAWAH, a town and district of British India, in the Agra division of
the United Provinces. The town is situated on the left bank of the
Jumna, and has a station on the East Indian railway, 206 m. from
Allahabad. Pop. (1901) 42,570. Deep fissures intersect the various
quarters of the town, over which broad roads connect the higher portions
by bridges and embankments. The Jama Masjid (Great Mosque) is the chief
architectural ornament of Etawah. It was originally a Hindu temple, and
was adapted to its present use by the Mahommedan conquerors. Several
fine Hindu temples also stand about the mound on which are the ruins of
the ancient fort. Etawah is now only the civil headquarters of the
district, the military cantonment having been abandoned in 1861.
Considerable trade is carried on by rail and river. The manufactures
include cotton cloth, skin-bottles, combs and horn-ware and sweetmeats.
The DISTRICT OF ETAWAH has an area of 1691 sq. m. It forms a purely
artificial administrative division, stretching across the level plain of
the Doab, and beyond the valley of the Jumna, to the gorges of the
Chambal, and the last rocky outliers of the Vindhyan range. The district
exhibits a striking variety of surface and scenery. The greater portion
lies within the Doab or level alluvial plain between the Ganges and the
Jumna. This part falls naturally into two sections, divided by the deep
and fissured valley of the river Sengar. The tract to the north-east of
that stream is rich and fertile, being watered by the Cawnpore and
Etawah branches of the Ganges canal, and other important works. The
south-western region has the same natural advantages, but possesses no
great irrigation system, and is consequently less fruitful than the
opposite slopes. Near the banks of the Jumna, the plain descends into
the river valley by a series of wild ravines and terraces, inhabited
only by a scattered race of hereditary herdsmen. Beyond the Jumna again
a strip of British territory extends along the tangled gorges of the
Chambal and the Kuari Nadi, far into the borders of the Gwalior state.
This outlying tract embraces a series of rocky glens and mountain
torrents, crowned by the ruins of native strongholds, and interspersed
with narrow ledges of cultivable alluvium. The climate, once hot and
sultry, has now become comparatively moist and equable under the
influence of irrigation and the planting of trees.
Etawah was marked out by its physical features as a secure retreat for
the turbulent tribes of the Upper Doab, and it was not till the 12th
century that any of the existing castes settled on the soil. After the
Mussulman conquests of Delhi and the surrounding country, the Hindus of
Etawah appear to have held their own for many generations against the
Mahommedan power; but in the 16th century Baber conquered the district,
with the rest of the Doab, and it remained in the hands of the Moguls
until the decay of their empire. After passing through the usual
vicissitudes of Mahratta and Jat conquests during the long anarchy which
preceded the British rule, Etawah was annexed by the wazir of Oudh in
1773. The wazir ceded it to the East India Company in 1801, but it still
remained so largely in the hands of lawless native chiefs that some
difficulty was experienced in reducing it to orderly government. During
the mutiny of 1857 serious disturbances occurred in Etawah, and the
district was occupied by the rebels from June to December; order was not
completely restored till the end of 1858. In 1901 the population was
806,798, showing an increase of 11% in the decade. The district is
partly watered by branches of the Ganges canal, and is traversed
throughout by the main line of the East Indian railway from Cawnpore to
Agra. Cotton, oilseeds and other agricultural produce are exported, and
some indigo is made, but manufacturing industry is slight.
ETCHING (Dutch, _etsen_, to eat), a form of engraving (q.v.) in which,
in contradistinction to line engraving (q.v.), where the furrow is
produced by the ploughing of the burin, the copper is eaten away or
corroded by acid.
To prepare a plate for etching it is first covered with etching-ground,
a composition which resists acid. The qualities of a ground are to be so
adhesive that it will not quit the copper when a small quantity is left
isolated between lines, yet not so adhesive that the etching point
cannot easily and entirely remove it; at the same time a good ground
will be hard enough to bear the hand upon it, or a sheet of paper, yet
not so hard as to be brittle. The ground used by Abraham Bosse, the
French painter and engraver (1602-1676) was composed as follows:--Melt 2
oz. of white wax; then add to it 1 oz. of gum-mastic in powder, a little
at a time, stirring till the wax and the mastic are well mingled; then
add, in the same manner, 1 oz. of bitumen in powder. There are three
different ways of applying an etching-ground to a plate. The
old-fashioned way was to wrap a ball of the ground in silk, heat the
plate, and then rub the ball upon the surface, enough of the ground to
cover the plate melting through the silk. To equalize the ground a
dabber was used, which was made of cotton-wool under horsehair, the
whole inclosed in silk. This method is still used by many artists, from
tradition and habit, but it is far inferior in perfection and
convenience to that which we will now describe. When the etching-ground
is melted, add to it half its volume of essential oil of lavender, mix
well, and allow the mixture to cool. You have now a paste which can be
spread upon a cold plate with a roller; these rollers are covered with
leather and made (very carefully) for the purpose. You first spread a
little paste on a sheet of glass (if too thick, add more oil of lavender
and mix with a palette knife), and roll it till the roller is quite
equally charged all over, when the paste is easily transferred to the
copper, which is afterwards gently heated to expel the oil of lavender.
In both these methods of grounding a plate, the work is not completed
until the ground has been smoked, which is effected as follows. The
plate is held by a hand-vice if a small one, or if large, is fixed at
some height, with the covered side downwards. A smoking torch, composed
of many thin bees-wax dips twisted together, is then lighted and passed
repeatedly under the plate in every direction, till the ground has
incorporated enough lampblack to blacken it. The third way of covering a
plate for etching is to apply the ground in solution as collodion is
applied by photographers. The ground may be dissolved in chloroform, or
in oil of lavender. The plate being grounded, its back and edges are
protected from the acid by Japan varnish, which soon dries, and then the
drawing is traced upon it. The best way of tracing a drawing is to use
sheet gelatine, which is employed as follows. The gelatine is laid upon
the drawing, which its transparence allows you to see perfectly, and you
trace the lines by scratching the smooth surface with a sharp point. You
then fill these scratches with fine black-lead, in powder, rubbing it in
with the finger, turn the tracing with its face to the plate, and rub
the back of it with a burnisher. The black-lead from the scratches
adheres to the etching ground and shows upon it as pale grey, much more
visible than anything else you can use for tracing. Then comes the work
of the etching-needle, which is merely a piece of steel sharpened more
or less. J.M.W. Turner used a prong of an old steel fork which did as
well as anything, but neater etching-needles are sold by artists'
colour-makers. The needle removes the ground or cover and lays the
copper bare. Some artists sharpen their needles so as to present a
cutting edge which, when used sideways, scrapes away a broad line; and
many etchers use needles of various degrees of sharpness to get thicker
or thinner lines. It may be well to observe, in connexion with this part
of the subject, that whilst thick lines agree perfectly well with the
nature of woodcut, they are very apt to give an unpleasant heaviness to
plate engraving of all kinds, whilst thin lines have generally a clear
and agreeable appearance in plate engraving. Nevertheless, lines of
moderate thickness are used effectively in etching when covered with
finer shading, and very thick lines indeed were employed with good
results by Turner when he intended to cover them with mezzotint (q.v.),
and to print in brown ink, because their thickness was essential to
prevent them from being overwhelmed by the mezzotint, and the brown ink
made them print less heavily than black. Etchers differ in opinion as to
whether the needle ought to scratch the copper or simply to glide upon
its surface. A gliding needle is much more free, and therefore
communicates a greater appearance of freedom to the etching, but it has
the inconvenience that the etching-ground may not always be entirely
removed, and then the lines may be defective from insufficient biting. A
scratching needle, on the other hand, is free from this serious
inconvenience, but it must not scratch irregularly so as to _engrave_
lines of various depth. The _biting_ in former times was generally done
with a mixture of nitric acid and water, in equal proportions; but in
the present day a Dutch mordant is a good deal used, which is composed
as follows: Hydrochloric acid, 100 grammes; chlorate of potash, 20
grammes; water, 880 grammes. To make it, heat the water, add the
chlorate of potash, wait till it is entirely dissolved, and then add the
acid. The nitrous mordant acts rapidly and causes ebullition; the Dutch
mordant acts slowly and causes no ebullition. The nitrous mordant widens
the lines; the Dutch mordant bites in depth, and does not widen the
lines to any perceptible degree. The time required for both depends upon
temperature. A mordant bites slowly when cold, and more and more rapidly
when heated. To obviate irregularity caused by difference of
temperature, it is a good plan to heat the Dutch mordant artificially to
95° Fahr. by lamps under the bath (for which a photographer's porcelain
tray is most convenient), and keep it steadily to that temperature; the
results may then be counted upon; but whatever the temperature fixed
upon, the results will be regular if it is regular. To get different
degrees of biting on the same plate the lines which are to be pale are
"stopped out" by being painted over with Japan varnish or with etching
ground dissolved in oil of lavender, the darkest lines being reserved to
the last, as they have to bite longest. When the acid has done its work
properly the lines are bitten in such various degrees of depth that they
will print with the degree of blackness required; but if some parts of
the subject require to be made paler, they can be lowered by rubbing
them with charcoal and olive oil, and if they have to be made deeper
they can be rebitten, or covered with added shading. Rebiting is done
with the roller above mentioned, which is now charged very lightly with
paste and rolled over the copper with no pressure but its own weight, so
as to cover the smooth surface but not fill up any of the lines. The oil
of lavender is then expelled as before by gently heating the plate, but
it is not smoked. The lines which require rebiting may now be rebitten,
and the others preserved against the action of the acid by stopping out.
These are a few of the most essential technical points in etching, but
there are many matters of detail for which the reader is referred to the
special works on the subject.
There are many varieties in the processes of etching, and it is only
necessary here to indicate the essential facts. A brief analysis of
different styles may be given.
(1) _Pure Line._ As there is line engraving, so there is line etching;
but as the etching-needle is a freer instrument than the burin, the line
has qualities which differ widely from those of the burin line. Each of
the two has its own charm and beauty; the liberty of the one is
charming, and the restraint of the other is admirable also in its right
place. In line etching, as in line engraving, the great masters
purposely exhibit the line and do not hide it under too much shading.
(2) _Line and Shade._ This answers exactly in etching to Mantegna's work
in engraving. The most important lines are drawn first throughout, and
the shade thrown over them like a wash with the brush over a pen sketch
in indelible ink. (3) _Shade and Texture._ This is used chiefly to
imitate oil-painting. Here the line (properly so called) is entirely
abandoned, and the attention of the etcher is given to texture and
chiaroscuro. He uses lines, of course, to express these, but does not
exhibit them for their own beauty; on the contrary, he conceals them.
Of these three styles of etching the first is technically the easiest,
and being also the most rapid, is adopted for sketching on the copper
from nature; the second is the next in difficulty; and the third the
most difficult, on account of the biting, which is never easy to manage
when it becomes elaborate. The etcher has, however, many resources; he
can make passages paler by burnishing them, or by using charcoal, or he
can efface them entirely with the scraper and charcoal; he can darken
them by rebiting or by regrounding the plate and adding fresh work; and
he need not run the risk of biting the very palest passages of all,
because these can be easily done with the _dry point_, which is simply a
well-sharpened stylus used directly on the copper without the help of
acid. It is often asserted that any one can etch who can draw, but this
is a mistaken assertion likely to mislead. Without requiring so long an
apprenticeship as the burin, etching is a very difficult art indeed, the
two main causes of its difficulty being that the artist does not see his
work properly as he proceeds, and that mistakes or misfortunes in the
biting, which are of frequent occurrence to the inexperienced, may
destroy all the relations of tone.
Etching, like line engraving, owed much to the old masters, but whereas,
with the exception of Albert Dürer, the painters were seldom practical
line engravers, they advanced etching not only by advice given to others
but by the work of their own hands. Rembrandt did as much for etching as
either Raphael or Rubens for line engraving; and in landscape the
etchings of Claude had an influence which still continues, both
Rembrandt and Claude being practical workmen in etching, and very
skilful workmen. Ostade, Ruysdael, Berghem, Paul Potter, Karl Dujardin,
etched as they painted, and so did a greater than any of them, Vandyck.
In the earlier part of the 19th century etching was almost a defunct
art, except as it was employed by engravers as a help to get faster
through their work, of which "engraving" got all the credit, the public
being unable to distinguish between etched lines and lines cut with the
burin. But from the middle of the century dates a great revival of
etching as an independent art, a revival which has extended all over
Europe.
Apart from the copying of pictures by etching--which was found
commercially preferable to the use of line engraving--a number of
artists and amateurs gradually practised original etching with
increasing success, notably Sir Seymour Haden, J.M. Whistler, Samuel
Palmer and others in England, Felix Bracquemond, C.F. Daubigny, Charles
Jacque, Adolphe Appian, Maxime Lalanne, Jules Jacquemart and others on
the continent, besides that singular and remarkable genius, Charles
Méryon. Etching clubs, or associations of artists for the publication of
original etchings, were gradually founded in England, France, Germany
and Belgium. Méryon and Whistler are two of the greatest modern etchers.
Among earlier names mention may be made of Andrew Geddes (1783-1844) and
of Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841). Geddes was the finer artist with the
needle; he it was whom Rembrandt best inspired; his work was in the
grand manner. Of the rich and rare dry-points "At Peckham Rye" and "At
Halliford-on-Thames," the deepest and most brilliant master of landscape
would have no need to be ashamed. David Wilkie's prints were, naturally,
not less dramatic than his pictures, but the etcher's particular gift
was possessed by him more intermittently: it is shown best in "The
Receipt," a strong and vivid, dexterous sketch, quite full of character.
J.S. Cotman's (1782-1842) etchings are also historically interesting
though they were "soft ground" for the most part. They show all his
qualities of elegance and freedom as a draughtsman, and much of his
large dignity in the distribution of light and shade. T. Girtin
(1775-1802), in the preparations for his views of Paris, was notably
happy. The work of Sir Francis Seymour Haden (b. 1818) had a powerful
influence on the art in England. Between 1858 and 1879 Seymour
Haden--the first president of the Royal Society of Painter
Etchers--produced the vast majority of his plates, which have always
good draughtsmanship, unity of effect and a personal impression. They
show a strong feeling for nature. If, amongst some two hundred subjects,
it were necessary to select one or two for peculiar praise, they might
be the "Breaking up of the _Agamemnon_," the almost perfect "Water
Meadow," the masterly presentment of "Erith Marshes," and the later
dry-point of "Windmill Hill." Another great etcher--Frenchman by birth,
but English by long residence--is Alphonse Legros (q.v.). Great in
expression and suggestive draughtsmanship, austere and economical in
line, Legros's work is the grave record of the observation and the fancy
of an imaginative mind. In poetic portraiture nothing can well exceed
his etched vision of G.F. Watts; "La Mort du Vagabond" is noticeable for
terror and homely pathos; "Communion dans l'Église St Médard" is perhaps
the best instance of the dignity, vigour and grave sympathy with which
he addresses himself to ecclesiastical themes. Something of these latter
qualities, in dealing with similar themes, Legros passed on to his
pupil, Sir Charles Holroyd (b. 1861)--an etcher in the true vein; whilst
an earlier pupil, prolific as himself, as imaginative, and sometimes
more deliberately uncouth--William Strang, A.R.A. (b. 1859)--carried on
in his own way the tradition of that part of Legros's practice, the
preoccupation with the humble, for which Legros himself found certain
warrant in a portion of the great _oeuvre_ of Rembrandt. Frank Short,
A.R.A. (b. 1857), as with the very touch of Turner, carried to
completion great designs that Turner left unfinished for the _Liber
studiorum_. The delicacy of "Sleeping till the Flood," the curiously
suggestive realism of "Wrought Nails"--a scene in the Black
Country--entitle him to a lasting place in the list of the fine wielders
of the etching-needle. D.Y. Cameron (b. 1865) betrays the influence of
Rembrandt in a noble etching, "Border Towers," and the influence of
Méryon in such a print as that of "The Palace, Stirling." His "London
Set" is particularly fine. The individuality of C.J. Watson is less
marked, but his skill, chiefly in architectural work, is noticeable.
Admirers of the studiously accurate portraiture of a great monument may
be able to set Watson's print of "St Étienne du Mont" by the side of
Méryon's august and mysterious and ever-memorable vision. Paul Helleu
(b. 1859) in his brilliant sketches, particularly of women, has used the
art of etching in a peculiarly individual and delightful way. Among the
numerous other modern etchers only a bare mention can be made of Oliver
Hall, Minna Bolingbroke and Elizabeth Armstrong (Mrs Watson and Mrs
Stanhope Forbes), Alfred East, Robert Macbeth, Walter Sickert, Robert
Goff, Mortimer Menpes, Percy Thomas, Raven Hill, and Prof. H. von
Herkomer, in England; in France, Roussel, J.F. Raffaëlli (b. 1850),
Besnard and J.J.J. Tissot (1836-1902).
The oldest treatise on etching is that of Abraham Bosse (1645). See
also P.G. Hamerton, _Etching and Etchers_ (1868), and _Etchers'
Handbook_ (1881); F. Wedmore, _Etching in England_ (1895); Singer and
Strang, _Etching, Engraving, &c._ (1897).
ETEOCLES, in Greek legend, king of Thebes, son of Oedipus and Jocasta
(Iocaste). After their father had been driven out of the country, he and
his brother Polyneices agreed to reign alternately for a year. Eteocles,
however, refused to keep the agreement, and Polyneices fled to Adrastus,
king of Argos, whom he persuaded to undertake the famous expedition
against Thebes on his behalf. The two brothers met in single combat, and
both were slain. The Theban rulers decreed that only Eteocles should
receive the honour of burial, but the decree was set at naught by
Antigone (q.v.), the sister of Polyneices. The fate of Eteocles and
Polyneices forms the subject of the _Seven against Thebes_ of Aeschylus
and the _Phoenissae_ of Euripides.
ETESIAN WIND (Lat. _etesius_, annual; Gr. [Greek: etos], year), a
Mediterranean wind blowing from the north and west in summer for about
six weeks annually.
ÉTEX, ANTOINE (1808-1888), French sculptor, painter and architect, was
born in Paris on the 20th of March 1808. He first exhibited in the salon
of 1833, his work including a reproduction in marble of his "Death of
Hyacinthus," and the plaster cast of his "Cain and his race cursed by
God." Thiers, who was at this time minister of public works, now
commissioned him to execute the two groups of "Peace" and "War," placed
at each side of the Arc de Triomphe. This last, which established his
reputation, he reproduced in marble in the salon of 1839. The French
capital contains numerous examples of the sculptural works of Étex,
which included mythological and religious subjects besides a great
number of portraits. His paintings include the subjects of Eurydice and
the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, and among the best known of his
architectural productions are the tomb of Napoleon I. in the Invalides
and a monument of the revolution of 1848. Étex wrote a number of essays
on subjects connected with the arts. The last year of his life was spent
at Nice, and he died at Chaville (Seine-et-Oise) on the 14th of July
1888.
See P.E. Mangeant, _Antoine Étex, peintre, sculpteur et architecte,
1808-1888_ (Paris, 1894).
ETHER, (C2H5)2O, the _Aether_ of pharmacy, a colourless, volatile,
highly inflammable liquid, of specific gravity 0.736 at 0°,
boiling-point 35° C., and freezing-point -117°.4 C. (K. Olszewski). It
has a strong and characteristic odour, and a hot sweetish taste, is
soluble in ten parts of water, and in all proportions in alcohol, and
dissolves bromine, iodine, and, in small quantities, sulphur and
phosphorus, also the volatile oils, most fatty and resinous substances,
guncotton, caoutchouc and certain of the vegetable alkaloids. The vapour
mixed with oxygen or air is violently explosive. The making of ether by
the action of sulphuric acid on alcohol was known in about the 13th
century; and later Basil Valentine and Valerius Cordus described its
preparation and properties. The name ether appears to have been applied
to the drug only since the times of Frobenius, who in 1730 termed it
_spiritus aethereus or vini vitriolatus_. It was considered to be a
sulphur compound, hence its name sulphur ether; this idea was proved to
be erroneous by Valentine Rose in about 1800. Ether is manufactured by
the distillation of 5 parts of 90% alcohol with 9 parts of concentrated
sulphuric acid at a temperature of 140°-145° C., a constant stream of
alcohol being caused to flow into the mixture during the operation. The
distillate is purified by treatment with lime and calcium chloride, and
subsequent distillation. The mechanism of this reaction was explained by
A. Williamson in 1850. For other methods of preparation see ETHERS.[1]
The presence of so small a quantity as 1% of alcohol may be detected in
ether by the colour imparted to it by aniline violet; if water or acetic
acid be present, the ether must be shaken with anhydrous potassium
carbonate before the application of the test. When heated with zinc
dust, it yields ethylene and water. Chromic acid oxidizes it to acetic
acid and ozone oxidizes it to ethyl peroxide. In contact with hydriodic
acid gas at 0° C., it forms ethyl iodide (R.D. Silva, _Ber._, 1875, 8,
p. 903), and with water and a little sulphuric acid at 180° C., it
yields alcohol (E. Erlenmeyer, _Zeit. f. chemie_, 1868, p. 343). It
forms crystalline compounds with bromine and with many metallic salts.
_Medicine._--For the anaesthetic properties of ether see ANAESTHESIA.
Applied externally, ether evaporates very rapidly, producing such
intense cold as to cause marked local anaesthesia. For this purpose it
is best applied as a fine spray, but ethyl chloride is generally found
more efficient and produces less subsequent discomfort. It aids the
absorption of fats and may be used with cod liver oil when the latter is
administered by the skin. If it be rubbed in or evaporation be
prevented, it acts, like alcohol and chloroform, as an irritant. Ten to
twenty minims of ether, subcutaneously injected, constitute perhaps the
most rapid and powerful cardiac stimulant known, and are often employed
for this purpose in cases of syncope under anaesthesia. Taken
internally, ether acts in many respects similarly to alcohol and
chloroform, but its stimulant action on the heart is much more marked,
being exerted both reflexly from the stomach and directly after its
rapid absorption. Ether is thus the type of a rapidly diffusible
stimulant. It is also useful in relieving the paroxysms of asthma. The
dose for repeated administration is from 10 to 30 minims and for a
single administration up to a drachm.
_Chronic Poisoning._--A dose of a little more than a drachm (a
teaspoonful) will produce a condition of inebriation lasting for
one-half to one hour, but the dose must soon be greatly increased. The
after-effects are, if anything, rather pleasant, and the habit of ether
drinking is certainly not so injurious as alcoholism. The principal
symptoms symptons of chronic ether-drinking are a weakening of the
activity of the special senses, and notably sight and hearing, a
lowering of the intelligence and a degree of general paresis (partial
paralysis) of motion.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See also J. v. Liebig, _Ann. Chem. Pharm._, 1837, 23, p. 39;
1839, 30, p. 129; E. Mitscherlich, _Pogg. Ann._, 1836, 31, p. 273;
1841, 53, p. 95; A.W. Williamson, _Phil. Mag._, 1850 (3), 37, p. 350.
ETHEREDGE [or ETHEREGE], SIR GEORGE (c. 1635-1691), English dramatist,
was born about the year 1635, and belonged to an Oxfordshire family. He
is said to have been educated at Cambridge, but Dennis assures us that
"to his certain knowledge he understood neither Greek nor Latin." He
travelled abroad early, and seems to have resided in France. It is
possible that he witnessed in Paris the performances of some of
Molière's earliest comedies; and he seems, from an allusion in one of
his plays, to have been personally acquainted with Bussy Rabutin. On his
return to London he studied the law at one of the Inns of Court. His
tastes were those of a fine gentleman, and he indulged freely in
pleasure.
Sometime soon after the Restoration he composed his comedy of _The
Comical Revenge_ or _Love in a Tub_, which introduced him to Lord
Buckhurst, afterwards the earl of Dorset. This was brought out at the
Duke's theatre in 1664, and a few copies were printed in the same year.
It is partly in rhymed rhymned heroic verse, like the stilted tragedies
of the Howards and Killigrews, but it contains comic scenes that are
exceedingly bright and fresh. The sparring between Sir Frederick and the
Widow introduced a style of wit hitherto unknown upon the English stage.
The success of this play was very great, but Etheredge waited four years
before he repeated his experiment. Meanwhile he gained the highest
reputation as a poetical beau, and moved in the circle of Sir Charles
Sedley, Lord Rochester and the other noble wits of the day. In 1668 he
brought out _She would if she could_, a comedy in many respects
admirable, full of action, wit and spirit, although to the last degree
frivolous and immoral. But in this play Etheredge first shows himself a
new power in literature; he has nothing of the rudeness of his
predecessors or the grossness of his contemporaries. We move in an airy
and fantastic world, where flirtation is the only serious business of
life. At this time Etheredge was living a life no less frivolous and
unprincipled than those of his Courtals and Freemans. He formed an
alliance with the famous actress Mrs Elizabeth Barry; she bore him a
daughter, on whom he settled £6000, but who, unhappily, died in her
youth. His wealth and wit, the distinction and charm of his manners, won
Etheredge the general worship of society, and his temperament is best
known by the names his contemporaries gave him, of "gentle George" and
"easy Etheredge." Rochester upbraided him for inattention to literature;
and at last, after a silence of eight years, he came forward with one
more play, unfortunately his last. _The Man of Mode or Sir Fopling
Flutter_, indisputably the best comedy of intrigue written in England
before the days of Congreve, was acted and printed in 1676, and enjoyed
an unbounded success. Besides the merit of its plot and wit, it had the
personal charm of being supposed to satirize, or at least to paint,
persons well known in London. Sir Fopling Flutter was a portrait of Beau
Hewit, the reigning exquisite of the hour; in Dorimant the poet drew the
earl of Rochester, and in Medley a portrait of himself; while even the
drunken shoemaker was a real character, who made his fortune from being
thus brought into public notice. After this brilliant success Etheredge
retired from literature; his gallantries and his gambling in a few years
deprived him of his fortune, and he looked about for a rich match. He
was knighted before 1680, and gained the hand and the money of a rich
widow. He was sent by Charles II. on a mission to the Hague, and in
March 1685 was appointed resident minister in the imperial German court
at Regensburg. He was very uncomfortable in Germany, and after three and
a half years' residence left for Paris. He had collected a library at
Regensburg, some volumes of which are in the theological college there.
His MS. despatches are preserved in the British Museum, where they were
discovered and described by Mr Gosse in 1881; they add very largely to
our knowledge of Etheredge's career. He died in Paris, probably in 1691,
for Narcissus Luttrell notes in February 1692 that "Sir George Etherege,
the late King James' ambassador to Vienna, died lately in Paris."
Etheredge deserves to hold a more distinguished place in English
literature than has generally been allotted to him. In a dull and heavy
age, he inaugurated a period of genuine wit and sprightliness. He
invented the comedy of intrigue, and led the way for the masterpieces of
Congreve and Sheridan. Before his time the manner of Ben Jonson had
prevailed in comedy, and traditional "humours" and typical
eccentricities, instead of real characters, had crowded the comic stage.
Etheredge paints with a light, faint hand, but it is from nature, and
his portraits of fops and beaux are simply unexcelled. No one knows
better than he how to present a gay young gentleman, a Dorimant, "an
unconfinable rover after amorous adventures." His genius is as light as
thistle-down; he is frivolous, without force of conviction, without
principle; but his wit is very sparkling, and his style pure and
singularly picturesque. No one approaches Etheredge in delicate touches
of dress, furniture and scene; he makes the fine airs of London
gentlemen and ladies live before our eyes even more vividly than
Congreve does; but he has less insight and less energy than Congreve.
Had he been poor or ambitious, he might have been to England almost what
Molière was to France, but he was a rich man living at his ease, and he
disdained to excel in literature. Etheredge was "a fair, slender,
genteel man, but spoiled his countenance with drinking." His
contemporaries all agree in acknowledging that he was the soul of
affability and sprightly good-nature.
The life of Etheredge was first given in detail by Edmund Gosse in
_Seventeenth Century Studies_ (1883). His works were edited by A.W.
Verity, in 1888. (E. G.)
ETHERIDGE, JOHN WESLEY (1804-1866), English nonconformist divine, was
born near Newport, Isle of Wight, on the 24th of February 1804. He
received most of his early education from his father. Though he never
attended any university he acquired ultimately a thorough knowledge of
Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Syriac, French and German. In 1824 he was placed
on the Wesleyan Methodist plan as a local preacher. In 1826 his offer to
enter the ministry was accepted, and after the usual probationary trial
he was received into full connexion at the conference of 1831. For two
years after this he remained at Brighton, and in 1833 he removed to
Cornwall, being stationed successively at the Truro and Falmouth
circuits. From Falmouth he removed to Darlaston, where in 1838 his
health gave way. For a good many years he was a supernumerary, and lived
for a while at Caen and Paris, where in the public libraries he found
great facilities for prosecuting his favourite Oriental studies. His
health having considerably improved, he became, in 1843, pastor of the
Methodist church at Boulogne. He returned to England in 1847, and was
appointed successively to the circuits of Islington, Bristol, Leeds,
Penzance, Penryn, Truro and St Austell in east Cornwall. Shortly after
his return to England he received the degree of Ph.D. from the
university of Heidelberg. He was a patient, modest, hard-working and
accurate scholar. He died at Camborne on the 24th of May 1866.
His principal works are _Horae Aramaicae_ (1843); _History, Liturgies
and Literature of the Syrian Churches_ (1847); _The Apostolic Acts and
Epistles, from the Peshito or Ancient Syriac_ (1849); _Jerusalem and
Tiberias, a Survey of the Religious and Scholastic Learning of the
Jews_ (1856); _The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan ben Uzziel_ (1st
vol. in 1862, 2nd in 1865). See _Memoir_, by Rev. Thornley Smith
(1871).
ETHERIDGE, ROBERT (1819-1903), English geologist and palaeontologist,
was born at Ross, in Herefordshire, on the 3rd of December 1819. After
an ordinary school education in his native town, he obtained employment
in a business house in Bristol. There he devoted his spare time to
natural history pursuits, and in 1850 was appointed curator of the
museum attached to the Bristol Philosophical Institution. He also became
lecturer on botany in the Bristol medical school. In 1857, through the
influence of Sir Roderick I. Murchison, he was appointed to a post in
the Museum of Practical Geology in London, and eventually became
palaeontologist to the Geological Survey. In 1865 he assisted Prof.
Huxley in the preparation of a _Catalogue of Fossils in the Museum of
Practical Geology_. His chief work for many years was in naming the
fossils collected during the progress of the Geological Survey, and in
supplying the lists that were appended to numerous official memoirs. In
this way he acquired an exceptional knowledge of British fossils, and he
ultimately prepared an elaborate work entitled _Fossils of the British
Islands, Stratigraphically and Zoologically arranged_. Only the first
volume dealing with the Palaeozoic species was published (1888).
Etheridge also was author of several papers on the Rhaetic Beds, and of
an important essay on the Physical Structure of North Devon, and on the
Palaeontological Value of the Devonian Fossils (1867). He edited, and in
the main rewrote, the second part of a new edition of John Phillips'
Manual of Geology--entitled _Stratigraphical Geology and Palaeontology_
(1885). He was elected F.R.S. in 1871, and was president of the
Geological Society in 1881-1882. In 1881 Etheridge was transferred from
the Geological Survey to the geological department of the British
Museum, where he served as assistant keeper until 1891. He died at
Chelsea, London, on the 18th of December 1903.
Memoir by Dr Henry Woodward (with list of works and portrait) in
_Geological Magazine_, January 1904; also Memoir by H.B. Woodward
(with portrait) in _Proc. Bristol Nat. Soc._ x. 175.
ETHERS, in organic chemistry, compounds of the general formula R·O·R',
where R, R' = alkyl or aryl groups. They may be regarded as the
anhydrides of the alcohols, being formed by elimination of one molecule
of water from two molecules of the alcohols; those in which the two
hydrocarbon radicals are similar are known as _simple_ ethers, and those
in which they are dissimilar as _mixed_ ethers. They may be prepared by
the action of concentrated sulphuric acid on the alcohols, alkyl
sulphuric acids being first formed, which yield ethers on heating with
alcohols. The process may be made a continuous one by running a thin
stream of alcohol continually into the heated reaction mixture of
alcohol and sulphuric acid. Benzene sulphonic acid has been used in
place of sulphuric acid (F. Krafft, _Ber._, 1893, 26, p. 2829). A.W.
Williamson (_Ann._, 1851, 77, p. 38; 1852, 81, p. 77) prepared ether by
the action of sodium ethylate on ethyl iodide, and showed that all
ethers must possess the structural formula given above (see also _Brit.
Assoc. Reports_, 1850, p. 65). They may also be prepared by heating the
alkyl halides with silver oxide.
The ethers are neutral volatile liquids (the first member, methyl ether,
is a gas at ordinary temperature). Phosphorus pentachloride converts
them into alkyl chlorides, a similar decomposition taking place when
they are heated with the haloid acids. Nitric acid and chromic acid
oxidize them in such a mariner that they yield the same products as the
alcohols from which they are derived. With chlorine they yield
substitution products.
_Methyl ether_, (CH3)2O, was first prepared by J. B. Dumas and E.
Péligot (_Ann. chim. phys._, 1835, [2] 58, p. 19) by heating methyl
alcohol with sulphuric acid. It is best prepared by heating methyl
alcohol and sulphuric acid to 140° C. and leading the evolved gas into
sulphuric acid. The sulphuric acid solution is then allowed to drop
slowly into an equal volume of water, when the methyl ether is liberated
(E. Erlenmeyer and A. Kriechbaumer, _Ber._, 1874, 7, p. 699). It is a
pleasant-smelling gas, which burns when ignited, and may be condensed to
a liquid which boils at 23.6º C. It is somewhat soluble in water and
readily soluble in alcohol, and concentrated sulphuric acid. It combines
with hydrochloric acid gas to form a compound (CH3)2O·HCl (C. Friedel,
_Comptes rendus_, 1875, 81, p. 152). _Methyl ethyl ether_, CH3·O·C2H5,
is prepared from methyl iodide and sodium ethylate, or from ethyl iodide
and sodium methylate (A. W. Williamson, _Ann._, 1852, 81, p. 77). It is
a liquid which boils at 10.8º C.
For diethyl ether see ETHER, and for methyl phenyl ether (anisole) and
ethyl phenyl ether (phenetole) see CARBOLIC ACID.
ETHICS, the name generally given to the science of moral philosophy. The
word "ethics" is derived from the Gr. [Greek: êthikos], that which
pertains to [Greek: êthos], character.
For convenience in reference, the arrangement followed in this article
may be explained at the outset:--
PAGE
I. DEFINITION AND SCOPE 809
II. HISTORICAL SKETCH 810
A. Greek and Graeco-Roman Ethics 810
The Age of the Sophists 811
Socrates and his Disciples 811
Plato 812
Plato and Aristotle 814
Aristotle 815
Stoicism 816
Hedonism (Epicurus) 818
Later Greek and Roman Ethics 818
Neoplatonism 819
B. Christianity and Medieval Ethics 820
Christian and Jewish "Law of God" 820
Christian and Pagan Inwardness 820
(Knowledge, Faith, Love, Purity)
Distinctive Particulars of Christian Morality 821
Development of Opinion in Early Christianity,
Augustine, Ambrose 823
Medieval Morality and Moral Philosophy 824
Thomas Aquinas 824
Casuistry and Jesuitry 826
The Reformation; and birth of Modern Thought 826
C. Modern Ethics 827
Grotius 827
Hobbes 827
The Cambridge Moralists 828
(Cudworth, More)
Cumberland 829
Locke 829
Clarke 829
Shaftesbury 830
Mandeville 830
Butler 831
Wollaston 831
Hutcheson 831
Hume 832
Adam Smith 833
The Intuitional School 833
(Price, Reid, Stewart, Whewell)
The Utilitarian School 835
(Paley, Bentham, Mill)
Association and Evolution 837
Free-will 837
French Influence on English Ethics 838
(Helvetius, Comte)
German Influence on English Ethics 839
(Kant, Hegel)
D. Ethics since 1879 840
III. BIBLIOGRAPHY 845
Section I. contains a general survey of the subject; it shows in what
sense ethics is to be regarded as a special field of philosophical
investigation--its relations to other departments of thought,
especially to psychology, religion and modern physical science. The
article makes no attempt to give a detailed, casuistical examination
of the matter of ethical theory. For this, reference must be made to
special articles on philosophic schools, writers and terms.
Section II. is a historical sketch in four parts tracing the main
lines of development in ethical speculation from its birth to the
present day. Here again it has been possible to notice only the
salient points or landmarks, leaving all detail to special articles as
above. All important writers whose names occur in this sketch are
treated in special biographical articles, and references are given as
often as possible to supplementary articles which illustrate and
explain points which cannot be fully treated here. This is especially
the case in connexion with technical terms (whose history and meaning
are inevitably taken for granted) and biographical information about
minor ethical writers.
I. DEFINITION AND SUBJECT-MATTER OF ETHICS
In its widest sense, the term "ethics" would imply an examination into
the general character or habits of mankind, and would even involve a
description or history of the habits of men in particular societies
living at different periods of time. Such a field of study would
obviously be too wide for any particular science or philosophy to
investigate, and moreover portions of the field are already occupied by
history, by anthropology and by the particular sciences (e.g.
physiology, anatomy, biology), in so far as the habits and character of
men depend upon the material processes which these sciences examine.
Even philosophies such as logic and aesthetic would be necessary for
such an investigation, if thought and artistic production are normal
human habits and elements in character. Ethics then is usually confined
to the particular field of human character and conduct so far as they
depend upon or exhibit certain general principles commonly known as
moral principles. Men in general characterize their own conduct and
character and that of other men by such general adjectives as good, bad,
right and wrong, and it is the meaning and scope of these adjectives,
primarily in relation to human conduct, and ultimately in their final
and absolute sense, that ethics investigates.
A not uncommon definition of ethics as the "science of conduct" is
inexact for various reasons. (1) The sciences are descriptive or
experimental. But a description of what acts or what ends of action men
in the present or the past call, or have called, "good" or "bad" is
clearly beyond human powers. And experiments in morality (apart from the
inconvenient practical consequences likely to ensue) are useless for
purposes of ethics, because the moral consciousness would itself at one
and the same time be required to make the experiment and to provide the
subject upon which the experiment is performed. (2) Ethics is a
philosophy and not a science. Philosophy is a process of reflection upon
the presuppositions involved in unreflective thought. In logic and
metaphysics it investigates either the process of apprehension itself,
or conceptions such as cause, substance, space, time, which the ordinary
scientific consciousness never criticizes. In moral philosophy the place
of the body of sciences, which philosophy as the theory of knowledge
investigates, is taken by the developed moral consciousness, which
already pronounces moral judgment without hesitation, and claims
authority to subject to continual criticism the institutions and forms
of social life which it has itself helped to create.
When ethical speculation first begins, conceptions such as those of
duty, responsibility, the will as the ultimate subject of moral
approbation and disapprobation, are already in existence and already
operative. Moral philosophy in a certain sense adds nothing to these
conceptions, though it sets them in a clearer light. The problems of the
moral consciousness at the time at which it first becomes reflective
are not strictly speaking philosophical problems at all. It is occupied
with just such questions as each individual man who wishes to act
rightly is constantly called upon to answer, e.g. questions such as
"What particular action will meet the claims of justice under such and
such circumstances?" or "What degree of ignorance will excuse this
particular person in this particular case from his responsibility?" It
tries to attain a knowledge as complete as possible of the circumstances
under which the act contemplated must be performed, the personalities of
the persons whom it may affect, and the consequences (so far as they can
be foreseen) which it will produce, and then by virtue of its own power
of moral discrimination pronounces judgment. And the ever-recurring
problem of the moral consciousness, "What ought to be done?" is one
which receives a clearer and more definite answer as men become more
able in the course of moral experience to apply those principles of the
moral consciousness which are yet employed in that experience from the
outset. Nevertheless there is a sense in which moral philosophy may be
said to originate out of difficulties inherent in the nature of morality
itself, although it remains true that the questions which ethics
attempts to answer are never questions with which the moral
consciousness as such is confronted. The fact that men give different
answers to moral problems which seem similar in character, or even the
mere fact that men disregard, when they act immorally, the dictates and
implicit principles of the moral consciousness is certain sooner or
later to produce the desire either, on the one hand, to justify immoral
action by casting doubt upon the authority of the moral consciousness
and the validity of its principles, or, on the other hand, to justify
particular moral judgments either by (the only valid method) an analysis
of the moral principle involved in the judgment and a demonstration of
its universal acceptation, or by some attempted proof that the
particular moral judgment is arrived at by a process of inference from
some universal conception of the Supreme Good or the Final End from
which all particular duties or virtues may be deduced. It may be that
criticism of morality first originates with a criticism of existing
moral institutions or codes of ethics; such a criticism may be due to
the spontaneous activity of the moral consciousness itself. But when
such criticism passes into the attempt to find a universal criterion of
morality--such an attempt being in effect an effort to make morality
scientific--and especially when the attempt is seen, as it must in the
end be seen, to fail (the moral consciousness being superior to all
standards of morality and realizing itself wholly in particular
judgments), then ethics as a _process of reflection_ upon the nature of
the moral consciousness may be said to begin. If this be true it follows
that one of the chief function of ethics must be criticism of mistaken
attempts to find a criterion of morality superior to the pronouncements
of the moral consciousness itself. The ultimate superiority of the moral
consciousness over all other standards is recognized, even by those who
impugn its authority, whenever they claim that all men ought to
recognize the superior value of the standards which they themselves wish
to substitute. Similarly, their opponents refute their arguments by
showing that they are based ultimately upon a recognition of certain
distinctions which are moral distinctions (i.e. imply a moral
consciousness capable of discriminating between right and wrong in
particular cases), and that these moral distinctions conflict with the
conclusions which they reach.
This may briefly be illustrated by reference to some of the great
fundamental controversies of ethics. None of these originates out of
conflicting statements of the moral consciousness, i.e. there is no
fundamental contradiction in morality itself. No one (if
unsophisticated) ever confused the conception of pleasure with the
conception of the Good, or thought that the claims of selfish interest
were identical with those of duty. But the controversy between hedonists
and anti-hedonists originates as soon as men reflect that a good which
is not in some sense "my" good is not good at all, or that no act can be
said to be moral which does not satisfy "me." Or, again, the reflection
that the mark or sign of the perfect performance of a particular
virtuous act or function is the presence of a characteristic pleasure
which always accompanies it, is opposed to the reflection that it is a
mark of the highest morality never to rest satisfied, and out of these
seemingly contradictory statements of the reflective consciousness might
arise a multitude of controversies either concerning pleasure and duty,
or the even more difficult and complex conceptions of merit, progress,
and the nature of the Supreme Good or Final End.
The Sciences.
Theology.
When and how fresh controversies in ethics will begin it would be
impossible for any one to foretell. Sometimes the dominance of a
particular science or branch of study is the occasion of an attempt to
apply to ethics ideas borrowed from or analogous to the conceptions of
that science. False analogies drawn between ethics and mathematics or
between morality and the perception of beauty have wrought much mischief
in modern and to some degree even in ancient ethics. The influence of
ideas borrowed from biology is everywhere manifest in the ethical
speculations of modern times. Sometimes, again, whole theories of ethics
have been formulated which can be seen in the end to be efforts to
subordinate moral conceptions to conceptions belonging properly to
institutions or departments of human thought and activity which the
moral consciousness has itself originated. Law, for instance, depends,
or at least ought to depend, upon men's need for and consciousness of
justice. And such institutions as the family and the state are created
by the social consciousness, which is the moral consciousness from
another aspect. Yet morality has been subordinated to legal and social
sanctions, and moral advance has been held to be conditioned by
political and social necessities which are not moral needs. Similarly no
one since civilization emerged from barbarism has ever really been
willing to yield allegiance to a deity who is not moral in the fullest
and highest sense of the word. God is not superior to moral law. Yet
there have been whole systems of theological ethics which have attempted
to base human morality upon the arbitrary will of God or upon the
supreme authority of a divinely inspired book or code of laws. One of
the greatest of all ethical controversies, that concerning the freedom
of the will, arose directly out of what was in reality a theological
problem--the necessity, namely, of reconciling God's foreknowledge with
human freedom. The unreflective moral consciousness never finds it
difficult to distinguish between a man's power of willing and all the
forces of circumstance, heredity and the like, which combine to form the
temptations to which he may yield or bid defiance; and such facts as
"remorse" and "penitence" are a continual testimony to man's sense of
freedom. But so soon as men perceive upon reflection an apparent
discrepancy between the utterances of their moral consciousness and
certain conclusions to which theological speculation (or at a later
period metaphysical and scientific inquiries) seems inevitably to lead
them, they will not rest satisfied until the belief in the will's
freedom (hitherto unquestioned) is upon further reflection justified or
condemned. It is clear then that the complexity of the subject-matter of
ethics is such that no sharply defined boundary lines can be drawn
between it and other branches of inquiry. Just in so far as it
presupposes the apprehension of moral facts, it must presuppose a
knowledge of the system of social relationships upon which some at least
of those facts depend. No one, for instance, could inquire into the
nature of justice without being further compelled to undertake an
examination of the nature of the state.
Psychology.
It would be difficult to decide how much of the dispute between the
advocates of pleasure theories and their opponents turns upon vexed
questions of psychology, and how much is strictly relevant to ethics.
If, as has already been said, one of the chief tasks of ethics is to
prevent the intrusion into its own sphere of inquiry of ideas borrowed
from other and alien sources, then obviously these sources must be
investigated. One example of this necessity may be given. It is
sometimes maintained that the proper method of ethics is the
psychological method; ethics, we are told, should examine as its
subject-matter moral sentiments wherever found, without raising
ultimate questions as to the nature of obligation or moral authority in
general. Now if in opposition to such arguments the ultimate character
of moral obligation be defended, it will be necessary to point out that
no one feels moral sentiments except in connexion with particular
objects of moral approbation or disapprobation (e.g. gratitude is
inexplicable apart from a particular relationship existing between two
or more persons), and that these objects are objects of the moral
consciousness alone. But such a line of argument is certain to make
necessary an inquiry into the nature of the objects of psychological
study which may produce quite unforeseen results for psychology.
Nothing therefore is to be gained by confining ethics within limits
which must from the nature of the case be arbitrary. The defender at all
events of the supremacy of moral intuitions must be prepared to follow
whither the argument leads, into whatever strange quarters it may direct
him. But this much may be said by way of delimitation of the scope of
ethics: however complicated and involved its arguments and processes of
inference may become, the facts from which they start and the
conclusions to which they point are such as the moral consciousness
alone can understand or warrant. (H. H. W.)
II. HISTORICAL SKETCH
A. _Greek and Graeco-Roman Ethics._--The ethical speculation of Greece,
and therefore of Europe, had no abrupt and absolute beginning. The naive
and fragmentary precepts of conduct, which are everywhere the earliest
manifestation of nascent moral reflection, are a noteworthy element in
the gnomic poetry of the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. Their importance is
shown by the traditional enumeration of the Seven Sages of the 6th
century, and their influence on ethical thought is attested by the
references of Plato and Aristotle. But from these unscientific
utterances to a philosophy of morals was a long process. In the
practical wisdom of Thales (q.v.), one of the seven, we cannot discern
any systematic theory of morality. In the case of Pythagoras,
conspicuous among pre-Socratic philosophers as the founder not merely of
a school, but of a sect or order bound by a common rule of life, there
is a closer connexion between moral and metaphysical speculation. The
doctrine of the Pythagoreans that the essence of justice (conceived as
equal retribution) was a square number, indicates a serious attempt to
extend to the region of conduct their mathematical view of the universe;
and the same may be said of their classification of good with unity,
straightness and the like, and of evil with the opposite qualities.
Still, the enunciation of the moral precepts of Pythagoras appears to
have been dogmatic, or even prophetic, rather than philosophic, and to
have been accepted by his disciples with an unphilosophic reverence as
the _ipse dixit_[1] of the master. Hence, whatever influence the
Pythagorean blending of ethical and mathematical notions may have had on
Plato, and, through him, on later thought, we cannot regard the school
as having really forestalled the Socratic inquiry after a completely
reasoned theory of conduct. The ethical element in the "dark"
philosophizing of Heraclitus (c. 530-470 B.C.), though it anticipates
Stoicism in its conceptions of a law of the universe, to which the wise
man will carefully conform, and a divine harmony, in the recognition of
which he will find his truest satisfaction, is more profound, but even
less systematic. It is only when we come to Democritus, a contemporary
of Socrates, the last of the original thinkers whom we distinguish as
pre-Socratic, that we find anything which we can call an ethical system.
The fragments that remain of the moral treatises of Democritus are
sufficient, perhaps, to convince us that the turn of Greek philosophy in
the direction of conduct, which was actually due to Socrates, would have
taken place without him, though in a less decided manner; but when we
compare the Democritean ethics with the post-Socratic system to which it
has most affinity, Epicureanism, we find that it exhibits a very
rudimentary apprehension of the formal conditions which moral teaching
must fulfil before it can lay claim to be treated as scientific.
The truth is that no system of ethics could be constructed until
attention had been directed to the vagueness and inconsistency of the
common moral opinions of mankind. For this purpose was needed the
concentration of a philosophic intellect of the first order on the
problems of practice. In Socrates first we find the required combination
of a paramount interest in conduct and an ardent desire for knowledge.
The pre-Socratic thinkers were all primarily devoted to ontological
research; but by the middle of the 5th century B.C. the conflict of
their dogmatic systems had led some of the keenest minds to doubt the
possibility of penetrating the secret of the physical universe. This
doubt found expression in the reasoned scepticism of Gorgias, and
produced the famous proposition of Protagoras, that human apprehension
is the only standard of existence. The same feeling led Socrates to
abandon the old physico-metaphysical inquiries. In his ease, moreover,
it was strengthened by a naive piety that forbade him to search into
things of which the gods seemed to have reserved the knowledge to
themselves. The regulation of human action, on the other hand (except on
occasions of special difficulty, for which omens and oracles might be
vouchsafed), they had left to human reason. On this accordingly Socrates
concentrated his efforts.
The Sophists.
Socrates.
Though, however, Socrates was the first to arrive at a proper conception
of the problems of conduct, the general idea did not originate with him.
The natural reaction against the metaphysical and ethical dogmatism of
the early thinkers had reached its climax in the Sophists (q.v.).
Gorgias and Protagoras are only representatives of what was really a
universal tendency to abandon dogmatic theory and take refuge in
practical matters, and especially, as was natural in the Greek
city-state, in the civic relations of the citizen. The education given
by the Sophists aimed at no general theory of life, but professed to
expound the art of getting on in the world and of managing public
affairs. In their eulogy of the virtues of the citizen, they pointed out
the prudential character of justice and the like as a means of obtaining
pleasure and avoiding pain. The Greek conception of society was such
that the life of the free-born citizen consisted mainly of his public
function, and, therefore, the pseudo-ethical disquisitions of the
Sophists satisfied the requirements of the age. None thought of [Greek:
aretê] (virtue or excellence) as a unique quality possessed of an
intrinsic value, but as the virtue of the citizen, just as good
flute-playing was the virtue of the flute-player. We see here, as in
other activities of the age, a determination to acquire technical
knowledge, and to apply it directly to the practical issue; just as
music was being enriched by new technical knowledge, architecture by
modern theories of plans and T-squares (sc. Hippodamus), the handling of
soldiers by the new technique of "tactics" and "hoplitics," so
citizenship must be analysed afresh, systematized and adapted in
relation to modern requirements. The Sophists had studied these matters
superficially indeed but with thoroughness as far as they went, and it
is not remarkable that they should have taken the methods which were
successful in rhetoric, and applied them to the "science and art" of
civic virtues. Plato's _Protagoras_ claims, not unjustly, that in
teaching virtue they simply did systematically what every one else was
doing at haphazard. But in the true sense of the word, they had no
ethical system at all, nor did they contribute save by contrast to
ethical speculation. They merely analysed conventional formulae, much in
the manner of certain modern so-called "scientific" moralists. Into this
arena of hazy popular common sense Socrates brought a new critical
spirit, showing that these popular lecturers, in spite of their fertile
eloquence, could not defend their fundamental assumptions, nor even give
rational definitions of what they professed to explain. Not only were
they thus "ignorant," but they were also perpetually inconsistent with
themselves in dealing with particular instances. Thus, by the aid of his
famous "dialectic," Socrates arrived first at the negative result that
the professed teachers of the people were as ignorant as he himself
claimed to be, and in a measure justified the eulogy of Aristotle that
he rendered to philosophy the service of "introducing induction and
definitions." This description of his work is, however, both too
technical and too positive, if we may judge from those earlier dialogues
of Plato in which the real Socrates is found least modified. The
pre-eminent wisdom which the Delphic oracle attributed to him was held
by himself to consist in a unique consciousness of ignorance. Yet it is
equally clear from Plato that there was a most important positive
element in the teaching of Socrates in virtue of which it is just to say
with Alexander Bain, "the first important name in ancient ethical
philosophy is Socrates." The union of the negative and the positive
elements in his work has caused historians no little perplexity, and we
cannot quite save the philosopher's consistency unless we regard some of
the doctrines attributed to him by Xenophon as merely tentative and
provisional. Still the positions of Socrates that are most important in
the history of ethical thought not only are easy to harmonize with his
conviction of ignorance, but even render it easier to understand his
unwearied cross-examination of common opinion. While he showed clearly
the difficulty of acquiring knowledge, he was convinced that knowledge
alone could be the source of a coherent system of virtue, as error of
evil. Socrates, therefore, first in the history of thought, propounds a
positive scientific law of conduct. Virtue is knowledge. This principle
involved the paradox that no man, knowing good, would do evil. But it
was a paradox derived from his unanswerable truisms, "Every one wishes
for his own good, and would get it if he could," and "No one would deny
that justice and virtue generally are goods, and of all goods the best."
All virtues are, therefore, summed up in knowledge of the good. But this
good is not, for Socrates, duty as distinct from interest. The force of
the paradox depends upon a blending of duty and interest in the single
notion of good, a blending which was dominant in the common thought of
the age. This it is which forms the kernel of the positive thought of
Socrates according to Xenophon. He could give no satisfactory account of
Good in the abstract, and evaded all questions on this point by saying
that he knew "no good that was not good _for something in particular_,"
but that good is consistent with itself. For himself he prized above all
things the wisdom that is virtue, and in the task of producing it he
endured the hardest penury, maintaining that such life was richer in
enjoyment than a life of luxury. This many-sidedness of view is
illustrated by the curious blending of noble and merely utilitarian
sentiment in his account of friendship: a friend who can be of no
service is valueless; yet the highest service that a friend can render
is moral improvement.
The historically important characteristics of his moral philosophy, if
we take (as we must) his teaching and character together, may be
summarized as follows:--(1) an ardent inquiry for knowledge nowhere to
be found, but which, if found, would perfect human conduct; (2) a demand
meanwhile that men should act as far as possible on some consistent
theory; (3) a provisional adhesion to the commonly received view of
good, in all its incoherent complexity, and a perpetual readiness to
maintain the harmony of its different elements, and demonstrate the
superiority of virtue by an appeal to the standard of self-interest; (4)
personal firmness, as apparently easy as it was actually invincible, in
carrying out consistently such practical convictions as he had attained.
It is only when we keep all these points in view that we can understand
how from the spring of Socratic conversation flowed the divergent
streams of Greek ethical thought.
The Socratic Schools.
Four distinct philosophical schools trace their immediate origin to the
circle that gathered round Socrates--the Megarian, the Platonic, the
Cynic and the Cyrenaic. The impress of the master is manifest on all, in
spite of the wide differences that divide them; they all agree in
holding the most important possession of man to be wisdom or knowledge,
and the most important knowledge to be knowledge of Good. Here, however,
the agreement ends. The more philosophic part of the circle, forming a
group in which Euclid of Megara (see MEGARIAN SCHOOL) seems at first to
have taken the lead, regarded this Good as the object of a still
unfulfilled quest, and were led to identify it with the hidden secret
of the universe, and thus to pass from ethics to metaphysics. Others
again, whose demand for knowledge was more easily satisfied, and who
were more impressed with the positive and practical side of the master's
teaching, made the quest a much simpler affair. They took the Good as
already known, and held philosophy to consist in the steady application
of this knowledge to conduct. Among these were Antisthenes the Cynic and
Aristippus of Cyrene. It is by their recognition of the duty of living
consistently by theory instead of mere impulse or custom, their sense of
the new value given to life through this rationalization, and their
effort to maintain the easy, calm, unwavering firmness of the Socratic
temper, that we recognize both Antisthenes and Aristippus as "Socratic
men," in spite of the completeness with which they divided their
master's positive doctrine into systems diametrically opposed. Of their
contrasted principles we may perhaps say that, while Aristippus took the
most obvious logical step for reducing the teaching of Socrates to clear
dogmatic unity, Antisthenes certainly drew the most natural inference
from the Socratic life.
Aristippus.
Aristippus (see CYRENAICS) argued that, if all that is beautiful or
admirable in conduct has this quality as being useful, i.e. productive
of some further good; if virtuous action is essentially action done with
insight, or rational apprehension of the act as a means to this good,
this good must be pleasure. Bodily pleasures and pains Aristippus held
to be the keenest, though he does not seem to have maintained this on
any materialistic theory, as he admitted the existence of purely mental
pleasures, such as joy in the prosperity of one's native land. He fully
recognized that his good was capable of being realized only in
successive parts, and gave even exaggerated emphasis to the rule of
seeking the pleasure of the moment, and not troubling oneself about a
dubious future. It was in the calm, resolute, skilful culling of such
pleasures as circumstances afforded from moment to moment, undisturbed
by passion, prejudices or superstition, that he conceived the quality of
wisdom to be exhibited; and tradition represents him as realizing this
ideal to an impressive degree. Among the prejudices from which the wise
man was free he included all regard to customary morality beyond what
was due to the actual penalties attached to its violation; though he
held, with Socrates, that these penalties actually render conformity
reasonable. Thus early in the history of ethical theory appeared the
most thorough-going exposition of hedonism.
The Cynics.
Far otherwise was the Socratic spirit understood by Antisthenes and the
Cynics (q.v.). They equally held that no speculative research was needed
for the discovery of good and virtue, and maintained that the Socratic
wisdom was exhibited, not in the skilful pursuit, but in the rational
disregard of pleasure,--in the clear apprehension of the intrinsic
worthlessness of this and most other objects of men's ordinary desires
and aims. Pleasure, indeed, Antisthenes declared roundly to be an evil;
"Better madness than a surrender to pleasure." He did not overlook the
need of supplementing merely intellectual insight by "Socratic force of
soul"; but it seemed to him that, by insight and self-mastery combined,
an absolute spiritual independence might be attained which left nothing
wanting for perfect well-being (see also DIOGENES). For as for poverty,
painful toil, disrepute, and such evils as men dread most, these, he
argued, were positively useful as means of progress in spiritual freedom
and virtue. There is, however, in the Cynic notion of wisdom, no
positive criterion beyond the mere negation of irrational desires and
prejudices. We saw that Socrates, while not claiming to have found the
abstract theory of good or wise conduct, practically understood by it
the faithful performance of customary duties, maintaining always that
his own happiness was therewith bound up. The Cynics more boldly
discarded both pleasure and mere custom as alike irrational; but in so
doing they left the freed reason with no definite aim but its own
freedom. It is absurd, as Plato urged, to say that knowledge is the
good, and then when asked "knowledge of what?" to have no positive reply
but "of the good"; but the Cynics do not seem to have made any serious
effort to escape from this absurdity.
The ultimate views of these two Socratic schools we shall have to notice
presently when we come to the post-Aristotelian schools. We must now
proceed to trace the fuller development of the Socratic theory in the
hands of Plato and Aristotle.
Plato.
The ethics of Plato cannot properly be treated as a finished result, but
rather as a continual movement from the position of Socrates towards the
more complete, articulate system of Aristotle; except that there are
ascetic and mystical suggestions in some parts of Plato's teaching which
find no counterpart in Aristotle, and in fact disappear from Greek
philosophy soon after Plato's death until they are revived and
fantastically developed in Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism. The first
stage at which we can distinguish Plato's ethical view from that of
Socrates is presented in the _Protagoras_, where he makes a serious,
though clearly tentative effort to define the object of that knowledge
which he with his master regards as the essence of all virtue. Such
knowledge, he here maintains, is really mensuration of pleasures and
pains, whereby the wise man avoids those mistaken under-estimates of
future feelings in comparison with present which we commonly call
"yielding to fear or desire." This hedonism has perplexed Plato's
readers needlessly (as we have said in speaking of the Cyrenaics),
inasmuch as hedonism is the most obvious corollary of the Socratic
doctrine that the different common notions of good--the beautiful, the
pleasant and the useful--were to be somehow interpreted by each other.
By Plato, however, this conclusion could have been held only before he
had accomplished the movement of thought by which he carried the
Socratic method beyond the range of human conduct and developed it into
a metaphysical system.
This movement may be expressed thus. "If we know," said Socrates, "what
justice is, we can give an account or definition of it"; true knowledge
must be knowledge of the general fact, common to all the individual
cases to which we apply our general notion. But this must be no less
true of other objects of thought and discourse; the same relation of
general notions to particular examples extends through the whole
physical universe; we can think and talk of it only by means of such
notions. True or scientific knowledge then must be general knowledge,
relating, not to individuals primarily, but to the general facts or
qualities which individuals exemplify; in fact, our notion of an
individual, when examined, is found to be an aggregate of such general
qualities. But, again, the object of true knowledge must be what really
exists; hence the reality of the universe must lie in general facts or
relations, and not in the individuals that exemplify them.
So far the steps are plain enough; but we do not yet see how this
logical Realism (as it was afterwards called) comes to have the
essentially ethical character that especially interests us in Platonism.
Plato's philosophy is now concerned with the whole universe of being;
yet the ultimate object of his philosophic contemplation is still "the
good," now conceived as the ultimate ground of all being and knowledge.
That is, the essence of the universe is identified with its end,--the
"formal" with the "final" cause of things, to use the later Aristotelian
phraseology. How comes this about?
Perhaps we may best explain this by recurring to the original
application of the Socratic method to human affairs. Since all rational
activity is for some end, the different arts or functions of human
industry are naturally defined by a statement of their ends or uses; and
similarly, in giving an account of the different artists and
functionaries, we necessarily state their end, "what they are good for."
In a society well ordered on Socratic principles, every human being
would be put to some use; the essence of his life would consist in doing
what he was good for (his proper [Greek: ergon]). But again, it is easy
to extend this view throughout the whole region of organized life; an
eye that does not attain its end by seeing is without the essence of an
eye. In short, we may say of all organs and instruments that they are
what we think them in proportion as they fulfil their function and
attain their end. If, then, we conceive the whole universe organically,
as a complex arrangement of means to ends, we shall understand how
Plato might hold that all things really _were_, or (as we say) "realized
their idea," in proportion as they accomplished the special end or good
for which they were adapted. Even Socrates, in spite of his aversion to
physics, was led by pious reflection to expound a teleological view of
the physical world, as ordered in all its parts by divine wisdom for the
realization of some divine end; and, in the metaphysical turn which
Plato gave to this view, he was probably anticipated by Euclid of
Megara, who held that the one real being is "that which we call by many
names, Good, Wisdom, Reason or God," to which Plato, raising to a
loftier significance the Socratic identification of the beautiful with
the useful, added the further name of Absolute Beauty, explaining how
man's love of the beautiful finally reveals itself as the yearning for
the end and essence of being.
Plato, therefore, took this vast stride of thought, and identified the
ultimate notions of ethics and ontology. We have now to see what
attitude he will adopt towards the practical inquiries from which he
started. What will now be his view of wisdom, virtue, pleasure and their
relation to human well-being?
The answer to this question is inevitably somewhat complicated. In the
first place we have to observe that philosophy has now passed definitely
from the market-place into the lecture-room. The quest of Socrates was
for the true art of conduct for a man living a practical life among his
fellows. But if the objects of abstract thought constitute the real
world, of which this world of individual things is but a shadow, it is
plain that the highest, most real life must lie in the former region and
not in the latter. It is in contemplating the abstract reality which
concrete things obscurely exhibit, the type or ideal which they
imperfectly imitate, that the true life of the mind in man must consist;
and as man is most truly man in proportion as he is mind, the desire of
one's own good, which Plato, following Socrates, held to be permanent
and essential in every living thing, becomes in its highest form the
philosophic yearning for knowledge. This yearning, he held,
springs--like more sensual impulses--from a sense of want of something
formerly possessed, of which there remains a latent memory in the soul,
strong in proportion to its philosophic capacity; hence it is that in
learning any abstract truth by scientific demonstration we merely make
explicit what we already implicitly know; we bring into clear
consciousness hidden memories of a state in which the soul looked upon
Reality and Good face to face, before the lapse that imprisoned her in
an alien body and mingled her true nature with fleshly feelings and
impulses. We thus reach the paradox that the true art of living is
really an "art of dying" as far as possible to mere sense, in order more
fully to exist in intimate union with absolute goodness and beauty. On
the other hand, since the philosopher must still live and act in the
concrete sensible world, the Socratic identification of wisdom and
virtue is fully maintained by Plato. Only he who apprehends good in the
abstract can imitate it in such transient and imperfect good as may be
realized in human life, and it is impossible that, having this
knowledge, he should not act on it, whether in private or public
affairs. Thus, in the true philosopher, we shall necessarily find the
practically good man, who being "likest of men to the gods is best loved
by them"; and also the perfect statesman, if only the conditions of his
society allow him a sphere for exercising his statesmanship.
Virtue a harmony.
The characteristics of this practical goodness in Plato's matured
thought correspond to the fundamental conceptions in his view of the
universe. The soul of man, in its good or normal condition, must be
ordered and harmonized under the guidance of reason. The question then
arises, "Wherein does this order or harmony precisely consist?" In
explaining how Plato was led to answer this question, it will be well to
notice that, while faithfully maintaining the Socratic doctrine that the
highest virtue was inseparable from knowledge of the good, he had come
to recognize an inferior kind of virtue, possessed by men who were not
philosophers. It is plain that if the good that is to be known is the
ultimate ground of the whole of things, it is attainable only by a
select and carefully trained few. Yet we can hardly restrict all virtue
to these alone. What account, then, was to be given of ordinary "civic"
bravery, temperance and justice? It seemed clear that men who did their
duty, resisting the seductions of fear and desire, must have right
opinions, if not knowledge, as to the good and evil in human life; but
whence comes this right "opinion"? Partly, Plato said, it comes by
nature and "divine allotment," but for its adequate development "custom
and practice" are required. Hence the paramount importance of education
and discipline for civic virtue; and even for future philosophers such
moral culture, in which physical and aesthetic training must co-operate,
is indispensable; no merely intellectual preparation will suffice. His
point is that perfect knowledge cannot be implanted in a soul that has
not gone through a course of preparation including much more than
physical training. What, then, is this preparation? A distinct step in
psychological analysis was taken when Plato recognized that its effect
was to produce the "harmony" above mentioned among different parts of
the soul, by subordinating the impulsive elements to reason. These
non-rational elements he further distinguished as appetitive ([Greek: to
epithumêtikon]) and spirited ([Greek: to thumoeides] or [Greek:
thumos])--the practical separateness of which from each other and from
reason he held to be established by our inner experience.
On this triple division of the soul he founded a systematic view of the
four kinds of goodness recognized by the common moral consciousness of
Greece, and in later times known as the Cardinal Virtues (q.v.). Of
these the two most fundamental were (as has been already indicated)
wisdom--in its highest form philosophy--and that harmonious and
regulated activity of all the elements of the soul which Plato regards
as the essence of uprightness in social relations ([Greek: dikaiosynê]).
The import of this term is essentially social; and we can explain
Plato's use of it only by reference to the analogy which he drew between
the individual man and the community. In a rightly ordered polity social
and individual well-being alike would depend on that harmonious action
of diverse elements, each performing its proper function, which in its
social application is more naturally termed [Greek: dikaiosynê]. We see,
moreover, how in Plato's view the fundamental virtues, Wisdom and
Justice in their highest forms, are mutually involved. Wisdom will
necessarily maintain orderly activity, and this latter consists in
regulation by wisdom, while the two more special virtues of Courage
([Greek: andreia]) and Temperance ([Greek: sôphrosynê]) are only
different sides or aspects of this wisely regulated action of the
complex soul.
Such, then, are the forms in which essential good seemed to manifest
itself in human life. It remains to ask whether the statement of these
gives a complete account of human well-being, or whether pleasure also
is to be included. On this point Plato's view seems to have gone through
several oscillations. After apparently maintaining (_Protagoras_) that
pleasure is the good, he passes first to the opposite extreme, and
denies it (_Phaedo, Gorgias_) to be a good at all. For (1), as concrete
and transient, it is obviously not the real essential good that the
philosopher seeks; (2) the feelings most prominently recognized as
pleasures are bound up with pain, as good can never be with evil; in so
far, then, as common sense rightly recognizes some pleasures as good, it
can only be from their tendency to produce some further good. This view,
however, was too violent a divergence from Socratism for Plato to remain
in it. That pleasure is not the real absolute good, was no ground for
not including it in the good of concrete human life; and after all only
coarse and vulgar pleasures were indissolubly linked to the pains of
want. Accordingly, in the _Republic_ he has no objection to trying the
question of the intrinsic superiority of philosophic or virtuous[2] life
by the standard of pleasure, and argues that the philosophic (or good)
man alone enjoys real pleasure, while the sensualist spends his life in
oscillating between painful want and the merely neutral state of
painlessness, which he mistakes for positive pleasure. Still more
emphatically is it declared in the _Laws_ that when we are "discoursing
to men, not to gods," we must show that the life which we praise as best
and noblest is also that in which there is the greatest excess of
pleasure over pain. But though Plato holds this inseparable connexion of
best and pleasantest to be true and important, it is only for the sake
of the vulgar that he lays this stress on pleasure. For in the most
philosophical comparison in the _Philebus_ between the claims of
pleasure and wisdom the former is altogether worsted; and though a place
is allowed to the pure pleasures of colour, form and sound, and of
intellectual exercise, and even to the "necessary" satisfaction of
appetite, it is only a subordinate one. At the same time, in his later
view, Plato avoids the exaggeration of denying all positive quality of
pleasure even to the coarser sensual gratifications; they are
undoubtedly cases of that "replenishment" or "restoration" to its
"natural state" of a bodily organ, in which he defines pleasure to
consist (see _Timaeus_, pp. 64, 65); he merely maintains that the common
estimate of them is to a large extent illusory, or a false appearance of
pleasure is produced by contrast with the antecedent or concomitant
painful condition of the organ. It is not surprising that this somewhat
complicated and delicately balanced view of the relations of "good" and
"pleasure" was not long maintained within the Platonic school, and that
under Speusippus, Plato's successor, the main body of Platonists took up
a simply anti-hedonistic position, as we learn from the polemic of
Aristotle. In the _Philebus_, however, though a more careful
psychological analysis leads him to soften down the exaggerations of
this attack on sensual pleasure, the antithesis of knowledge and
pleasure is again sharpened, and a desire to depreciate even good
pleasures is more strongly shown; still even here pleasure is recognized
as a constituent of that philosophic life which is the highest human
good, while in the _Laws_, where the subject is more popularly treated,
it is admitted that we cannot convince man that the just life is the
best unless we can also prove it to be the pleasantest.
Plato and Aristotle.
When a student passes from Plato to Aristotle, he is so forcibly
impressed by the contrast between the habits of mind of the two authors,
and the literary manners of the two philosophers, that it is easy to
understand how their systems have come to be popularly conceived as
diametrically opposed to each other; and the uncompromising polemic
which Aristotle, both in his ethical and in his metaphysical treatises,
directs against Plato and the platonists, has tended strongly to confirm
this view. Yet a closer inspection shows us that when a later president
of the Academy (Antiochus of Ascalon) repudiated the scepticism which
for two hundred years had been accepted as the traditional Platonic
doctrine, he had good grounds for claiming Plato and Aristotle as
consentient authorities for the ethical position which he took up. For
though Aristotle's divergence from Plato is very conspicuous when we
consider either his general conception of the subject of ethics, or the
details of his system of virtues, still his agreement with his master is
almost complete as regards the main outline of his theory of human good;
the difference between the two practically vanishes when we view them in
relation to the later controversy between Stoics and Epicureans. Even on
the cardinal point on which Aristotle entered into direct controversy
with Plato, the definite disagreement between the two is less than at
first appears; the objections of the disciple hit that part of the
master's system that was rather imagined than thought; the main positive
result of Platonic speculation only gains in distinctness by the
application of Aristotelian analysis.
Plato, we saw, held that there is one supreme science or wisdom, of which
the ultimate object is absolute good; in the knowledge of this, the
knowledge of all particular goods--that is, of all that we rationally
desire to know--is implicitly contained; and also all practical virtue,
as no one who truly knows what is good can fail to realize it. But in
spite of the intense conviction with which he thus identified
metaphysical speculation and practical wisdom, we find in his writings no
serious attempt to deduce the particulars of human well-being from his
knowledge of absolute good, still less to unfold from it the particular
cognitions of the special arts and sciences. Indeed, we may say that the
distinction which Aristotle explicitly draws between speculative science
or wisdom and practical wisdom (on its political side statesmanship) is
really indicated in Plato's actual treatment of the subjects, although
the express recognition of it is contrary to his principles. The
discussion of good (e.g.) in his _Philebus_ relates entirely to human
good, and the respective claims of Thought and Pleasure to constitute
this; he only refers in passing to the Divine Thought that is the good of
the ordered world, as something clearly beyond the limits of the present
discussion. So again, in his last great ethico-political treatise (the
_Laws_) there is hardly a trace of his peculiar metaphysics. On the other
hand, the relation between human and divine good, as presented by
Aristotle, is so close that we can hardly conceive Plato as having
definitely thought it closer. The substantial good of the universe, in
Aristotle's view, is the pure activity of universal abstract thought, at
once subject and object, which, itself changeless and eternal, is the
final cause and first source of the whole process of change in the
concrete world. And both he and Plato hold that a similar activity of
pure speculative intellect is that in which the philosopher will seek to
exist, though he must, being a man, concern himself with the affairs of
ordinary human life, a region in which his highest good will be attained
by realizing perfect moral excellence. No doubt Aristotle's demonstration
of the inappropriateness of attributing moral excellence to the Deity
seems to contradict Plato's doctrine that the just man as such is "likest
the gods," but here again the discrepancy is reduced when we remember
that the essence of Plato's justice ([Greek: dikaiosunê]) is harmonious
activity. No doubt, too, Aristotle's attribution of pleasure to the
Divine Existence shows a profound metaphysical divergence from Plato; but
it is a divergence which has no practical importance. Nor, again, is
Aristotle's divergence from the Socratic principle that all "virtue is
knowledge" substantially greater than Plato's, though it is more plainly
expressed. Both accept the paradox in the qualified sense that no one can
deliberately act contrary to what appears to him good, and that perfect
virtue is inseparably bound up with perfect wisdom or moral insight.
Both, however, recognize that this actuality of moral insight is not a
function of the intellect only, but depends rather on careful training in
good habits applied to minds of good natural dispositions, though the
doctrine has no doubt a more definite and prominent place in Aristotle's
system. The disciple certainly takes a step in advance by stating
definitely, as an essential characteristic of virtuous action, that it is
chosen for its own sake, for the beauty of virtue alone; but herein he
merely formulates the conviction that his master inspires. Nor, finally,
does Aristotle's account of the relation of pleasure to human well-being
(although he has to combat the extreme anti-hedonism to which the
Platonic school under Speusippus had been led) differ materially from the
outcome of Plato's thought on this point, as the later dialogues present
it to us. Pleasure, in Aristotle's view, is not the primary constituent
of well-being, but rather an inseparable accident of it; human well-being
is essentially well-doing, excellent activity of some kind, whether its
aim and end be abstract truth or noble conduct; knowledge and virtue are
objects of rational choice apart from the pleasure attending them; still
all activities are attended and in a manner perfected by pleasure, which
is better and more desirable in proportion to the excellence of the
activity. He no doubt criticizes Plato's account of the nature of
pleasure, arguing that we cannot properly conceive pleasure either as a
"process" or as "replenishment"--the last term, he truly says, denotes a
material rather than a psychical fact. But this does not interfere with
the general ethical agreement between the two thinkers; and the doctrine
that vicious pleasures are not true or real pleasures is so
characteristically Platonic that we are almost surprised to find it in
Aristotle.
Aristotle's ethics.
In so far as there is any important difference between the Platonic and
the Aristotelian views of human good, we may observe that the latter has
substantially a closer correspondence to the positive element in the
ethical teaching of Socrates, though it is presented in a far more
technical and scholastic form, and involves a more distinct rejection of
the fundamental Socratic paradox. The same result appears when we
compare the methods of the three philosophers. Although the Socratic
induction forms a striking feature of Plato's dialogues, his ideal
method of ethics is purely deductive; he admits common sense only as
supplying provisional steps and starting-points from which the mind is
to ascend to knowledge of absolute good, through which knowledge alone,
as he conceives, the lower notions of particular goods are to be truly
conceived. Aristotle, discarding the transcendentalism of Plato,
naturally retained from Plato's teaching the original Socratic method of
induction from and verification by common opinion. Indeed, the windings
of his exposition are best understood if we consider his literary manner
as a kind of Socratic dialogue formalized and reduced to a monologue. He
first leads us by an induction to the fundamental notion of ultimate end
or good for man. All men, in acting, aim at some result, either for its
own sake or as a means to some further end; but obviously not everything
can be sought merely as a means; there must be some ultimate end. In
fact men commonly recognize such an end, and agree to call it
well-being[3] ([Greek: eudaimonia]). But they take very different views
of its nature; how shall we find the true view? We observe that men are
classified according to their functions; all kinds of man, and indeed
all organs of man, have their special functions, and are judged as
functionaries and organs according as they perform their functions well
or ill. May we not then infer that man, as man, has his proper function,
and that the well-being or "doing well" that all seek really lies in
fulfilling well the proper function of man,--that is, in living well
that life of the rational soul which we recognize as man's distinctive
attribute?
Again, this Socratic deference to common opinion is not shown merely in
the way by which Aristotle reaches his fundamental conception; it
equally appears in his treatment of the conception itself. In the first
place, though in Aristotle's view the most perfect well-being consists
in the exercise of man's "divinest part," pure speculative reason, he
keeps far from the paradox of putting forward this and nothing else as
human good; so far, indeed, that the greater part of his treatise is
occupied with an exposition of the inferior good which is realized in
practical life when the appetitive or impulsive (semi-rational) element
of the soul operates under the due regulation of reason. Even when the
notion of "good performance of function" was thus widened, and when it
had further taken in the pleasure that is inseparably connected with
such functioning, it did not yet correspond to the whole of what a Greek
commonly understood as "human well-being." We may grant, indeed, that a
moderate provision of material wealth is indirectly included, as an
indispensable pre-requisite of a due performance of many functions as
Aristotle conceives it--his system admits of no beatitudes for the poor;
still there remain other goods, such as beauty, good birth, welfare of
progeny, the presence or absence of which influenced the common view of
a man's well-being, though they could hardly be shown to be even
indirectly important to his "well-acting." These Aristotle attempts
neither to exclude from the philosophic conception of well-being nor to
include in his formal definition of it. The deliberate looseness which
is thus given to his fundamental doctrine characterizes more or less his
whole discussion of ethics. He plainly says that the subject does not
admit of completely scientific treatment; his aim is to give not a
definite theory of human good, but a practically adequate account of its
most important constituents.
The most important element, then, of well-being or good life for
ordinary men Aristotle holds to consist in well-doing as determined by
the notions of the different moral excellences. In expounding these, he
gives throughout the pure result of analytical observation of the common
moral consciousness of his age. Ethical truth, in his view, is to be
attained by careful comparison of particular moral opinions, just as
physical truth is to be obtained by induction from particular physical
observations. On account of the conflict of opinion in ethics we cannot
hope to obtain certainty upon all questions; still reflection will lead
us to discard some of the conflicting views and find a reconciliation
for others, and will furnish, on the whole, a practically sufficient
residuum of moral truth. This adhesion to common sense, though it
involves a sacrifice of both depth and completeness in Aristotle's
system, gives at the same time an historical interest which renders it
deserving of special attention as an analysis of the current Greek ideal
of "fair and good life" ([Greek: kalokágathia]). His virtues are not
arranged on any clear philosophic plan; the list shows no serious
attempt to consider human life exhaustively, and exhibit the standard of
excellence appropriate to its different departments or aspects. He seems
to have taken as a starting-point Plato's four cardinal virtues. The two
comprehensive notions of Wisdom and Justice ([Greek: dikaiosunê]) he
treats separately. As regards both his analysis leads him to diverge
considerably from Plato. As we saw, his distinction between practical
and speculative Wisdom belongs to the deepest of his disagreements with
his master; and in the case of [Greek: dikaiosunê] again he
distinguishes the wider use of the term to express Law-observance, which
(he says) coincides with the social side of virtue generally, and its
narrower use for the virtue that "aims at a kind of equality," whether
(1) in the distribution of wealth, honour, &c., or (2) in commercial
exchange, or (3) in the reparation of wrong done. Then, in arranging the
other special virtues, he begins with courage and temperance, which
(after Plato) he considers as the excellences of the "irrational
element" of the soul. Next follow two pairs of excellences, concerned
respectively with wealth and honour: (1) liberality and magnificence, of
which the latter is exhibited in greater matters of expenditure, and (2)
laudable ambition and highmindedness similarly related to honour. Then
comes gentleness--the virtue regulative of anger; and the list is
concluded by the excellences of social intercourse, friendliness (as a
mean between obsequiousness and surliness), truthfulness and decorous
wit.
The abundant store of just and close analytical observation contained in
Aristotle's account of these notions give it a permanent interest, even
beyond its historical value as a delineation of the Greek ideal of "fair
and good" life.[4] But its looseness of arrangement and almost grotesque
co-ordination of qualities widely differing in importance are obvious.
Thus his famous general formula for virtue, that it is a mean or middle
state, always to be found somewhere between the vices which stand to it
in the relation of excess and defect, scarcely avails to render his
treatment more systematic. It was important, no doubt, to express the
need of observing due measure and proportion, in order to attain good
results in human life no less than in artistic products; but the
observation of this need was no new thing in Greek literature; indeed,
it had already led the Pythagoreans and Plato to find the ultimate
essence of the ordered universe in number. But Aristotle's purely
quantitative statement of the relation of virtue and vice is misleading,
even where it is not obviously inappropriate; and sometimes leads him to
such eccentricities as that of making simple veracity a mean between
boastfulness and mock-modesty.[5]
It ought to be said that Aristotle does not present the formula just
discussed as supplying a criterion of good conduct in any particular
case; he expressly leaves this to be determined by "correct reasoning,
and the judgment of the practically-wise man ([Greek: ho phronimos])."
We cannot, however, find that he has furnished any substantial
principles for its determination; indeed, he hardly seems to have formed
a distinct general idea of the practical syllogism by which he conceives
it to be effected.[6] The kind of reasoning which his view of virtuous
conduct requires is one in which the ultimate major premise states a
distinctive characteristic of some virtue, and one or more minor
premises show that such characteristic belongs to a certain mode of
conduct under given circumstances; since it is essential to good conduct
that it should contain its end in itself, and be chosen for its own
sake. But he has not failed to observe that practical reasonings are not
commonly of this kind, but are rather concerned with actions as means to
ulterior ends; indeed, he lays stress on this as a characteristic of the
"political" life, when he wishes to prove its inferiority to the life of
pure speculation. Though common sense will admit that virtues are the
best of goods, it still undoubtedly conceives practical wisdom as
chiefly exercised in providing those inferior goods which Aristotle,
after recognizing the need or use of them for the realization of human
well-being, has dropped out of sight; and the result is that, in trying
to make clear his conception of practical wisdom, we find ourselves
fluctuating continually between the common notion, which he does not
distinctly reject, and the notion required as the keystone of his
ethical system.
Transition to Stoicism.
On the whole, there is probably no treatise so masterly as Aristotle's
_Ethics_, and containing so much close and valid thought, that yet
leaves on the reader's mind so strong an impression of dispersive and
incomplete work. It is only by dwelling on these defects that we can
understand the small amount of influence that his system exercised
during the five centuries after his death, as compared with the effect
which it has had, directly or indirectly, in shaping the thought of
modern Europe. Partly, no doubt, the limited influence of his disciples,
the Peripatetics (q.v.), is to be attributed to that exaltation of the
purely speculative life which distinguished the Aristotelian ethics from
other later systems, and which was too alien from the common moral
consciousness to find much acceptance in an age in which the ethical
aims of philosophy had again become paramount. Partly, again, the
analytical distinctness of Aristotle's manner brings into special
prominence the difficulties that attend the Socratic effort to reconcile
the ideal aspirations of men with the principles on which their
practical reasonings are commonly conducted. The conflict between these
two elements of Common Sense was too profound to be compromised; and the
moral consciousness of mankind demanded a more trenchant partisanship
than Aristotle's. Its demands were met by the Stoic school which
separated the moral from the worldly view of life, with an absoluteness
and definiteness that caught the imagination; which regarded practical
goodness as the highest manifestation of its ideal of wisdom; and which
bound the common notions of duty into an apparently coherent system, by
a formula that comprehended the whole of human life, and exhibited its
relation to the ordered process of the universe. The intellectual
descent of its ethical doctrines is principally to be traced to Socrates
through the Cynics, though an important element in them seems
attributable to the school that inherited the "Academy" of Plato. Both
Stoic and Cynic maintained, in its sharpest form, the fundamental tenet
that the practical knowledge which is virtue, with the condition of soul
that is inseparable from it, is alone to be accounted good. He who
exercises this wisdom or knowledge has complete well-being; all else is
indifferent to him. It is true that the Cynics were more concerned to
emphasize the negative side of the sage's well-being, while the Stoics
brought into more prominence its positive side. This difference,
however, did not amount to disagreement. The Stoics, in fact, seem
generally to have regarded the eccentricities of Cynicism as an emphatic
manner of expressing the essential antithesis between philosophy and the
world; a manner which, though not necessary or even normal, might yet be
advantageously adopted by the sage under certain circumstances.[7]
Stoicism.
Wherein, then, consists this knowledge or wisdom that makes free and
perfect? Both Cynics and Stoics (q.v.) agreed that the most important
part of it was the knowledge that the sole good of man lay in this
knowledge or wisdom itself. It must be understood that by wisdom they
meant wisdom realized in act; indeed, they did not conceive the
existence of wisdom as separable from such realization. We may observe,
too, that the Stoics rejected the divergence which we have seen
gradually taking place in Platonic-Aristotelian thought from the
position of Socrates, "that no one aims at what he knows to be bad." The
stress that their psychology laid on the essential unity of the rational
self that is the source of voluntary action prevented them from
accepting Plato's analysis of the soul into a regulative element and
elements needing regulation. They held that what we call passion is a
morbid condition of the rational soul, involving erroneous judgment as
to what is to be sought or shunned. From such passionate errors the
truly wise man will of course be free. He will be conscious indeed of
physical appetite; but he will not be misled into supposing that its
object is really a good; he cannot, therefore, hope for the attainment
of this object or fear to miss it, as these states involve the
conception of it as a good. Similarly, though like other men he will be
subject to bodily pain, this will not cause him mental grief or
disquiet, as his worst agonies will not disturb his clear conviction
that it is really indifferent to his true reasonable self.
That this impassive sage was a being not to be found among living men
the later Stoics at least were fully aware. They faintly suggested that
one or two moral heroes of old time might have realized the ideal, but
they admitted that all other philosophers (even) were merely in a state
of progress towards it. This admission did not in the least diminish the
rigour of their demand for absolute loyalty to the exclusive claims of
wisdom. The assurance of its own unique value that such wisdom involved
they held to be an abiding possession for those who had attained it;[8]
and without this assurance no act could be truly wise or virtuous.
Whatever was not of knowledge was of sin; and the distinction between
right and wrong being absolute and not admitting of degrees all sins
were equally sinful; whoever broke the least commandment was guilty of
the whole law. Similarly, all wisdom was somehow involved in any one of
the manifestations of wisdom, commonly distinguished as particular
virtues; though whether these virtues were specifically distinct, or
only the same knowledge in different relations, was a subtle question on
which the Stoics do not seem to have been agreed.
Aristotle had already been led to attempt a refutation of the Socratic
identification of virtue with knowledge; but his attempt had only shown
the profound difficulty of attacking the paradox, so long as it was
admitted that no one could of deliberate purpose act contrary to what
seemed to him best. Now, Aristotle's divergence from Socrates had not
led him so far as to deny this; while for the Stoics who had receded to
the original Socratic position, the difficulty was still more patent.
This theory of virtue led them into two dilemmas. Firstly, if virtue is
knowledge, does it follow that vice is involuntary? If not, it must be
that ignorance is voluntary. This alternative is the less dangerous to
morality, and as such the Stoics chose it. But they were not yet at the
end of their perplexities; for while they were thus driven to an extreme
extension of the range of human volition, their view of the physical
universe involved an equally thorough-going determinism. How could the
vicious man be responsible if his vice were strictly pre-determined? The
Stoics answered that the error which was the essence of vice was so far
voluntary that it could be avoided if men chose to exercise their
reason. No doubt it depended on the innate force and firmness[9] of a
man's soul whether his reason was effectually exercised; but moral
responsibility was saved if the vicious act proceeded from the man
himself and not from any external cause.
With all this we have not ascertained the positive practical content of
this wisdom. How are we to emerge from the barren circle of affirming
(1) that wisdom is the sole good and unwisdom the sole evil, and (2)
that wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil; and attain some method
for determining the particulars of good conduct? The Cynics made no
attempt to solve this difficulty; they were content to mean by virtue
what any plain man meant by it, except in so far as their sense of
independence led them to reject certain received precepts and
prejudices. The Stoics, on the other hand, not only worked out a
detailed system of duties--or, as they termed them, "things meet and
fit" ([Greek: kathêkonta]) for all occasions of life; they were further
especially concerned to comprehend them under a general formula. They
found this by bringing out the positive significance of the notion of
Nature, which the Cynic had used chiefly in a negative way, as an
antithesis to the "consentions" ([Greek: nomos]), from which his
knowledge had made him free. Even in this negative use of the notion it
is necessarily implied that whatever active tendencies in man are found
to be "natural"--that is, independent of and uncorrupted by social
customs and conventions--will properly take effect in outward acts, but
the adoption of "conformity to nature" as a general positive rule for
outward conduct seems to have been due to the influence on Zeno of
Academic teaching. Whence, however, can this authority belong to the
natural, unless nature be itself an expression or embodiment of divine
law and wisdom? The conception of the world, as organized and filled by
divine thought, was common, in some form, to all the philosophies that
looked back to Socrates as their founder,--some even maintaining that
this thought was the sole reality. This pantheistic doctrine harmonized
thoroughly with the Stoic view of human good; but being unable to
conceive substance idealistically, they (with considerable aid from the
system of Heraclitus) supplied a materialistic side to their
pantheism,--conceiving divine thought as an attribute of the purest and
most primary of material substances, a subtle fiery aether. This
theological view of the physical universe had a double effect on the
ethics of the Stoic. In the first place it gave to his cardinal
conviction of the all-sufficiency of wisdom for human well-being a root
of cosmical fact, and an atmosphere of religious and social emotion. The
exercise of wisdom was now viewed as the pure life of that particle of
divine substance which was in very truth the "god within him"; the
reason whose supremacy he maintained was the reason of Zeus, and of all
gods and reasonable men, no less than his own; its realization in any
one individual was thus the common good of all rational beings as such;
"the sage could not stretch out a finger rightly without thereby
benefiting all other sages,"--nay, it might even be said that he was "as
useful to Zeus as Zeus to him."[10] But again, the same conception
served to harmonize the higher and the lower elements of human life. For
even in the physical or non-rational man, as originally constituted, we
may see clear indications of the divine design, which it belongs to his
rational will to carry into conscious execution; indeed, in the first
stage of human life, before reason is fully developed, uncorrupted
natural impulse effects what is afterwards the work of reason. Thus the
formula of "living according to nature," in its application to man as
the "rational animal," may be understood both as directing that reason
is to govern, and as indicating how that government is to be practically
exercised. In man, as in every other animal, from the moment of birth
natural impulse prompts to the maintenance of his physical frame; then,
when reason has been developed and has recognized itself as its own sole
good, these "primary ends of nature" and whatever promotes these still
constitute the outward objects at which reason is to aim; there is a
certain value ([Greek: axia]) in them, in proportion to which they are
"preferred" ([Greek: proêgmena]) and their opposites "rejected" ([Greek:
apoproêgmena]); indeed it is only in the due and consistent exercise of
such choice that wisdom can find its practical manifestation. In this
way all or most of the things commonly judged to be "goods"--health,
strength, wealth, fame,[11] &c.,--are brought within the sphere of the
sage's choice, though his real good is solely in the wisdom of the
choice, and not in the thing chosen.
The doctrine of conformity to Nature as the rule of conduct was not
peculiar to Stoicism. It is found in the theories of Speusippus,
Xenocrates, and also to some extent in those of the Peripatetics. The
peculiarity of the Stoics lay in their refusing to use the terms "good
and evil" in connexion with "things indifferent," and in pointing out
that philosophers, though independent of these things, must yet deal
with them in practical life.
So far we have considered the "nature" of the individual man as apart
from his social relations; but the sphere of virtue, as commonly
conceived, lies chiefly in these, and this was fully recognized in the
Stoic account of duties ([Greek: kathêkonta]); indeed, in their
exposition of the "natural" basis of justice, the evidence that man was
born not for himself but for mankind is the most important part of their
work in the region of practical morality. Here, however, we especially
notice the double significance of "natural," as applied to (1) what
actually exists everywhere or for the most part, and (2) what would
exist if the original plan of man's life were fully carried out; and we
find that the Stoics have not clearly harmonized the two elements of the
notion. That man was "naturally" a social animal Aristotle had already
taught; that all rational beings, in the unity of the reason that is
common to all, form naturally one community with a common law was (as we
saw) an immediate inference from the Stoic conception of the universe as
a whole. That the members of this "city of Zeus" should observe their
contracts, abstain from mutual harm, combine to protect each other from
injury, were obvious points of natural law; while again, it was clearly
necessary to the preservation of human society that its members should
form sexual unions, produce children, and bestow care on their rearing
and training. But beyond this nature did not seem to go in determining
the relations of the sexes; accordingly, we find that community of wives
was a feature of Zeno's ideal commonwealth, just as it was of Plato's;
while, again, the strict theory of the school recognized no government
or laws as true or binding except those of the sage; he alone is the
true ruler, the true king. So far, the Stoic "nature" seems in danger of
being as revolutionary as Rousseau's. Practically, however, this
revolutionary aspect of the notion was kept for the most part in the
background; the rational law of an ideal community was not distinguished
from the positive ordinances and customs of actual society; and the
"natural" ties that actually bound each man to family, kinsmen,
fatherland, and to unwise humanity generally, supplied the outline on
which the external manifestation of justice was delineated. It was a
fundamental maxim that the sage was to take part in public life; and it
does not appear that his political action was to be regulated by any
other principles than those commonly accepted in his community.
Similarly, in the view taken by the Stoics of the duties of social
decorum, and in their attitude to the popular religion, we find a
fluctuating compromise between the disposition to repudiate what is
conventional, and the disposition to revere what is established, each
tendency expressing in its own way the principle of "conforming to
nature."
Stoics and hedonists.
Among the primary ends of nature, in which wisdom recognized a certain
preferability, the Stoics included freedom from bodily pain; but they
refused, even in this outer court of wisdom, to find a place for
pleasure. They held that the latter was not an object of uncorrupted
natural impulse, but an "aftergrowth" ([Greek: epigennêma]). They thus
endeavoured to resist Epicureanism even on the ground where the latter
seems prima facie strongest; in its appeal, namely, to the natural
pleasure-seeking of all living things. Nor did they merely mean by
pleasure ([Greek: hêdonê]) the gratification of bodily appetite; we find
(e.g.) Chrysippus urging, as a decisive argument against Aristotle, that
pure speculation was "a kind of amusement; that is, pleasure." Even the
"joy and gladness" ([Greek: chara, euphrosynê]) that accompany the
exercise of virtue seem to have been regarded by them as merely an
inseparable accident, not the essential constituent of well-being. It is
only by a later modification of Stoicism that cheerfulness or peace of
mind is taken as the real ultimate end, to which the exercise of virtue
is merely a means. At the same time it is probable that the serene joys
of virtue and the grieflessness which the sage was conceived to maintain
amid the worst tortures, formed the main attractions of Stoicism for
ordinary minds. In this sense it may be fairly said that Stoics and
Epicureans made rival offers to mankind of the same kind of happiness;
and the philosophical peculiarities of either system may be traced to
the desire of being undisturbed by the changes and chances of life. The
Stoic claims on this head were the loftiest; as the well-being of their
sage was independent, not only of external things and bodily conditions,
but of time itself; it was fully realized in a single exercise of wisdom
and could not be increased by duration. This paradox is violent, but it
is quite in harmony with the spirit of Stoicism; and we are more
startled to find that the Epicurean sage, no less than the Stoic, is to
be happy even on the rack; that his happiness, too, is unimpaired by
being restricted in duration, when his mind has apprehended the natural
limits of life; that, in short, Epicurus makes no less strenuous efforts
than Zeno to eliminate imperfection from the conditions of human
existence. This characteristic, however, is the key to the chief
differences between Epicureanism and the more naïve hedonism of
Aristippus. The latter system gave the simplest and most obvious answer
to the inquiry after ultimate good for man; but besides being liable,
when developed consistently, to offend the common moral consciousness,
it conspicuously failed to provide the "completeness" and "security"
which, as Aristotle says, "one divines to belong to man's true Good."
Philosophy, in the Greek view, should be the art as well as the science
of good life; and hedonistic philosophy would seem a bungling and
uncertain art of pleasure, as pleasure is ordinarily conceived. Nay, it
would even be found that the habit of philosophical reflection often
operated adversely to the attainment of this end, by developing the
thinker's self-consciousness, so as to disturb that normal relation to
external objects on which the zest of ordinary enjoyment depends. Hence
we find that later thinkers of the Cyrenaic school felt themselves
compelled to change their fundamental notion; thus Theodorus defined the
good as "gladness" ([Greek: chara]) depending on wisdom, as distinct
from mere pleasure, while Hegesias proclaimed that happiness was
unattainable, and that the chief function of wisdom was to render life
painless by producing indifference to all things that give pleasure. But
by such changes their system lost the support that it had had in the
pleasure-seeking tendencies of ordinary men. It was clear that if
philosophic hedonism was to be established on a broad and firm basis, it
must in its notion of good combine what the plain man naturally sought
with what philosophy could plausibly offer. Such a combination was
effected, with some little violence, by Epicurus; whose system with all
its defects showed a remarkable power of standing the test of time, as
it attracted the unqualified adhesion of generation after generation of
disciples for a period of some six centuries.
Epicurus.
In the fundamental principle of his philosophy Epicurus is not original.
Aristippus (cf. also Plato in the _Protagoras_ and Eudoxus) had already
maintained that pleasure is the sole ultimate good, and pain the sole
evil; that no pleasure is to be rejected except for its painful
consequences, and no pain to be chosen except as a means to greater
pleasure; that the stringency of all laws and customs depends solely on
the legal and social penalties attached to their violation; that, in
short, all virtuous conduct and all speculative activity are empty and
useless, except as contributing to the pleasantness of the agent's life.
And Epicurus assures us that he means by pleasure what plain men mean by
it; and that if the gratifications of appetite and sense are discarded,
the notion is emptied of its significance. So far the system would seem
to suit the inclinations of the most thorough-going voluptuary. The
originality of Epicurus lay in his theory that the highest point of
pleasure, whether in body or mind, is to be attained by the mere removal
of pain or disturbance, after which pleasure admits of variation only
and not of augmentation; that therefore the utmost gratification of
which the body is capable may be provided by the simplest means, and
that "natural wealth" is no more than any man can earn. When further he
teaches that the attainment of happiness depends almost entirely upon
insight and right calculation, fortune having very little to do with it;
that the pleasures and pains of the mind are far more important than
those of the body, owing to the accumulation of feeling caused by memory
and anticipation; and that an indispensable condition of mental
happiness lies in relieving the mind of all superstitions, which can be
effected only by a thorough knowledge of the physical universe--he
introduces an ample area for the exercise of the philosophic intellect.
So again, in the stress that he lays on the misery which the most secret
wrong-doing must necessarily cause from the perpetual fear of discovery,
and in his exuberant exaltation of the value of disinterested
friendship, he shows a sincere, though not completely successful, effort
to avoid the offence that consistent egoistic hedonism is apt to give to
ordinary human feeling. As regards friendship, Epicurus was a man of
peculiarly unexclusive sympathies.[12] The genial fellowship of the
philosophic community that he collected in his garden remained a
striking feature in the traditions of his school; and certainly the
ideal which Stoics and Epicureans equally cherished of a brotherhood of
sages was most easily realized on the Epicurean plan of withdrawing from
political and dialectical conflict to simple living and serene leisure,
in imitation of the gods apart from the fortuitous concourse of atoms
that we call a world. No doubt it was rather the practical than the
theoretical side of Epicureanism which gave it so strong a hold on
succeeding generations.
Later Greek philosophy. Stoicism in Rome.
The two systems that have just been described were those that most
prominently attracted the attention of the ancient world, so far as it
was directed to ethics, from their almost simultaneous origin to the end
of the 2nd century A.D., when Stoicism almost vanishes from our view.
But side by side with them the schools of Plato and Aristotle still
maintained a continuity of tradition, and a more or less vigorous life;
and philosophy, as a recognized element of Graeco-Roman culture, was
understood to be divided among these four branches. The internal
history, however, of the four schools was very different. We find no
development worthy of notice in Aristotelian ethics (see PERIPATETICS).
The Epicureans, again, from their unquestioning acceptance of the
"dogmas"[13] of their founder, almost deserve to be called a sect rather
than a school. On the other hand, the changes in Stoicism are very
noteworthy; and it is the more easy to trace them, as the only original
writings of this school which we possess are those of the later Roman
Stoics. These changes may be attributed partly to the natural inner
development of the system, partly to the reaction of the Roman mind on
the essentially Greek doctrine which it received,--a reaction all the
more inevitable from the very affinity between the Stoic sage and the
ancient Roman ideal of manliness. It was natural that the earlier Stoics
should be chiefly occupied with delineating the inner and outer
characteristics of ideal wisdom and virtue, and that the gap between the
ideal sage and the actual philosopher, though never ignored, should yet
be somewhat overlooked. But when the question "What is man's good?" had
been answered by an exposition of perfect wisdom, the practical question
"How may a man emerge from the folly of the world, and get on the way
towards wisdom?" naturally attracted attention; and the preponderance of
moral over scientific interest, which was characteristic of the Roman
mind, gave this question especial prominence. The sense of the gap
between theory and fact gives to the religious element of Stoicism a new
force; the soul, conscious of its weakness, leans on the thought of God,
and in the philosopher's attitude towards external events, pious
resignation preponderates over self-poised indifference; the old
self-reliance of the reason, looking down on man's natural life as a
mere field for its exercise, makes room for a positive aversion to the
flesh as an alien element imprisoning the spirit; the body has come to
be a "corpse which the soul sustains,"[14] and life a "sojourn in a
strange land";[15] in short, the ethical idealism of Zeno has begun to
borrow from the metaphysical idealism of Plato.
History of Plato's school.
In no one of these schools was the outward coherence of tradition so
much strained by inner changes as it was in Plato's. The alterations,
however, in the metaphysical position of the Academics had little effect
on their ethical teaching, as, even during the period of Scepticism,
they appear to have presented as probable the same general view of human
good which Antiochus afterwards dogmatically announced as a revival of
the common doctrine of Plato and Aristotle. And during the period of a
century and a half between Antiochus and Plutarch, we may suppose the
school to have maintained the old controversy with Stoicism on much the
same ground, accepting the formula of "life according to nature," but
demanding that the "good" of man should refer to his nature as a whole,
the good of his rational part being the chief element, and always
preferable in case of conflict, but yet not absolutely his sole good. In
Plutarch, however, we see the same tendencies of change that we have
noticed in later Stoicism. The conception of a normal harmony between
the higher and lower elements of human life has begun to be disturbed,
and the side of Plato's teaching that deals with the inevitable
imperfections of the world of concrete experience becomes again
prominent. For example, we find Plutarch amplifying the suggestion in
Plato's latest treatise (the _Laws_) that this imperfection is due to a
bad world-soul that strives against the good,--a suggestion which is
alien to the general tenor of Plato's doctrine, and had consequently
been unnoticed during the intervening centuries. We observe, again, the
value that Plutarch attaches, not merely to the sustainment and
consolation of rational religion, but to the supernatural communications
vouchsafed by the divinity to certain human beings in dreams, through
oracles, or by special warnings, like those of the genius of Socrates.
For these flashes of intuition, he holds, the soul should be prepared by
tranquil repose and the subjugation of sensuality through abstinence.
The same ascetic effort to attain by aloofness from the body a pure
receptivity for supernatural influences, is exhibited in
Neo-Pythagoreanism. But the general tendency that we are noting did not
find its full expression in a reasoned system until we come to the
Egyptian Plotinus.
Neoplatonism.
The system of Plotinus (205-270 A.D.) is a striking development of that
element of Platonism which has had most fascination for the medieval and
even for the modern mind, but which had almost vanished out of sight in
the controversies of the post-Aristotelian schools. At the same time the
differences are the more noteworthy from the reverent adhesion which the
Neoplatonists always maintain to Plato. Plato identified good with the
real essence of things; with that in them which is definitely
conceivable and knowable. It belongs to this view to regard the
imperfection of things as devoid of real being, and so incapable of
being definitely thought or known; accordingly, we find that Plato has
no technical term for that in the concrete sensible world which hinders
it from perfectly expressing the abstract ideal world, and which in
Aristotle's system is distinguished as absolutely formless matter
([Greek: hulê]). And so, when we pass from the ontology to the ethics of
Platonism, we find that, though the highest life is only to be realized
by turning away from concrete human affairs and their material
environment, still the sensible world is not yet an object of positive
moral aversion; it is rather something which the philosopher is
seriously concerned to make as harmonious, good and beautiful as
possible. But in Neoplatonism the inferiority of the condition in which
the embodied human soul finds itself is more intensely and painfully
felt; hence an express recognition of formless matter ([Greek: hulê]) as
the "first evil," from which is derived the "second evil," body ([Greek:
sôma]), to whose influence all the evil in the soul's existence is due.
Accordingly the ethics of Plotinus represent, we may say, the moral
idealism of the Stoics cut loose from nature. The only good of man is
the pure existence of the soul, which in itself, apart from the
contagion of the body, is perfectly free from error or defect; if only
it can be restored to the untrammelled activity of its original being,
nothing external, nothing bodily, can positively impair its perfect
welfare. It is only the lowest form of virtue--the "civic" virtue of
Plato's _Republic_--that is employed in regulating those animal impulses
whose presence in the soul is due to its mixture with the body; higher
or philosophic wisdom, temperance, courage and justice are essentially
purifications from this contagion; until finally the highest mode of
goodness is reached, in which the soul has no community with the body,
and is entirely turned towards reason. It should be observed that
Plotinus himself is still too Platonic to hold that the absolute
mortification of natural bodily appetites is required for purifying the
soul; but this ascetic inference was drawn to the fullest extent by his
disciple Porphyry.
There is, however, a yet higher point to be reached in the upward ascent
of the Neoplatonist from matter; and here the divergence of Plotinus
from Platonic idealism is none the less striking, because it is a _bona
fide_ result of reverent reflection on Plato's teaching. The cardinal
assumption of Plato's metaphysic is, that the real is definitely
thinkable and knowable in proportion as it is real; so that the further
the mind advances in abstraction from sensible particulars and
apprehension of real being, the more definite and clear its thought
becomes. Plotinus, however, urges that, as all thought involves
difference or duality of some kind, it cannot be the primary fact in the
universe, what we call God. He must be an essential unity prior to this
duality, a Being wholly without difference or determination; and,
accordingly, the highest mode of human existence, in which the soul
apprehends this absolute, must be one in which all definite thought is
transcended, and all consciousness of self lost in the absorbing
ecstasy. Porphyry tells us that his master Plotinus attained the highest
state four times during the six years which he spent with him.
Neoplatonism, originally Alexandrine, is often regarded as Hellenistic
rather than Hellenic, a product of the mingling of Greek with Oriental
civilization. But however Oriental may have been the cast of mind that
welcomed this theosophic asceticism, the forms of thought by which these
views were philosophically reached are essentially Greek; and it is by a
thoroughly intelligible process of natural development, in which the
intensification of the moral consciousness represented by Stoicism plays
an important part, that the Hellenic pursuit of knowledge culminates in
a preparation for ecstasy, and the Hellenic idealization of man's
natural life ends in a settled antipathy to the body and its works. At
the same time we ought not to overlook the affinities between the
doctrine of Plotinus and that remarkable combination of Greek and Hebrew
thought which Philo Judaeus had expounded two centuries before; nor the
fact that Neoplatonism was developed in conscious antagonism to the new
religion which had spread from Judea, and was already threatening the
conquest of the Graeco-Roman world, and also to the Gnostic systems (see
GNOSTICISM); nor, finally, that it furnished the chief theoretical
support in the last desperate struggle that was made under Julian to
retain the old polytheistic worship.
B. _Christianity and Medieval Ethics._--In the present article we are
not concerned with the origin of the Christian religion, nor with its
outward history. Nor have we to consider the special doctrines that have
formed the bond of union of the Christian communities except in their
ethical aspect, their bearing on the systematization of human aims and
activities. This aspect, however, must necessarily be prominent in
discussing Christianity, which cannot be adequately treated merely as a
system of theological beliefs divinely revealed, and special observances
divinely sanctioned; for it claims to regulate the whole man, in all
departments of his existence. It was not till the 4th century A.D. that
the first attempt was made to offer a systematic exposition of Christian
morality; and nine centuries more had passed away before a genuinely
philosophic intellect, trained by a full study of Aristotle, undertook
to give complete scientific form to the ethical doctrine of the Catholic
church. Before, however, we take a brief survey of the progress of
systematic ethics from Ambrose to Thomas Aquinas, it may be well to
examine the chief features of the new moral consciousness that had
spread through Graeco-Roman civilization, and was awaiting philosophic
synthesis. It will be convenient to consider first the new _form_ or
universal characteristics of Christian morality, and afterwards to note
the chief points in the _matter_ or particulars of duty and virtue which
received development or emphasis from the new religion.
Christian and Jewish "law of God."
The first point to be noticed is the new conception of morality as the
positive law of a theocratic community possessing a written code imposed
by divine revelation, and sanctioned by divine promises and
threatenings. It is true that we find in ancient thought, from Socrates
downwards, the notion of a law of God, eternal and immutable, partly
expressed and partly obscured by the shifting codes and customs of
actual human societies. But the sanctions of this law were vaguely and,
for the most part, feebly imagined; its principles were essentially
unwritten, and thus referred not to the external will of an Almighty
Being who claimed unquestioning submission, but rather to the reason
that gods and men shared, by the exercise of which alone they could be
adequately known and defined. Hence, even if the notion of law had been
more prominent than it was in ancient ethical thought, it could never
have led to a juridical, as distinct from a philosophical, treatment of
morality. In Christianity, on the other hand, we early find that the
method of moralists determining right conduct is to a great extent
analogous to that of juris-consults interpreting a code. It is assumed
that divine commands have been implicitly given for all occasions of
life, and that they are to be ascertained in particular cases by
interpretation of the general rules obtained from texts of scripture,
and by inference from scriptural examples. This juridical method
descended naturally from the Jewish theocracy, of which Christendom was
a universalization. Moral insight, in the view of the most thoughtful
Jews of the age immediately preceding Christianity, was conceived as
knowledge of a divine code, emanating from an authority external to
human reason which had only the function of interpreting and applying
its rules. This law was derived partly from Moses, partly from the
utterances of the later prophets, partly from oral tradition and from
the commentaries and supplementary maxims of generations of students.
Christianity inherited the notion of a written divine code acknowledged
as such by the "true Israel"--now potentially including the whole of
mankind, or at least the chosen of all nations,--on the sincere
acceptance of which the Christian's share of the divine promises to
Israel depended. And though the ceremonial part of the old Hebrew code
was altogether rejected, and with it all the supplementary jurisprudence
resting on tradition and erudite commentary, still God's law was
believed to be contained in the sacred books of the Jews, supplemented
by the teaching of Christ and his apostles. By the recognition of this
law the church was constituted as an ordered community, essentially
distinct from the State; the distinction between the two was emphasized
by the withdrawal of the early Christians from civic life, to avoid the
performance of idolatrous ceremonies imposed as official expressions of
loyalty, and by the persecutions which they had to endure, when the
spread of an association apparently so hostile to the framework of
ancient society had at length alarmed the imperial government. Nor was
the distinction obliterated by the recognition of Christianity as the
state religion under Constantine.
Thus the jural form in which morality was conceived only emphasized the
fundamental difference between it and the laws of the state. The
ultimate sanctions of the moral code were the infinite rewards and
punishments awaiting the immortal soul hereafter; but the church early
felt the necessity of withdrawing the privileges of membership from
apostates and allowing them to be gradually regained only by a solemn
ceremonial expressive of repentance, protracted through several years.
This formal and regulated "penitence" was extended from apostasy to
other grave--or, as they were subsequently called, "deadly"--sins; while
for minor offences all Christians were called upon to express contrition
by fasting and abstinence from ordinarily permitted pleasures, as well
as verbally in public and private devotions. "Excommunication" and
"penance" thus came to be temporal ecclesiastical sanctions of the moral
law. As the graduation of these sanctions naturally became more minute,
a correspondingly detailed classification of offences was rendered
necessary, and thus a system of ecclesiastical jurisprudence was
gradually produced, somewhat analogous to that of Judaism. At the same
time this tendency to make prominent a scheme of external duties has
always been counteracted in Christianity by the remembrance of its
original antithesis to Jewish legalism. We find that this antithesis, as
exaggerated by some of the Gnostic sects of the 2nd and 3rd centuries
A.D., led, not merely to theoretical antinomianism, but even (if the
charges of their orthodox opponents are not entirely to be discredited)
to gross immorality of conduct. A similar tendency has shown itself at
other periods of church history. And though such antinomianism has
always been sternly repudiated by the moral consciousness of
Christendom, it has never been forgotten that "inwardness," rightness of
heart or spirit, is the pre-eminent characteristic of Christian
goodness. It must not, of course, be supposed that the need of something
more than mere fulfilment of external duty was ignored even by the later
Judaism. Rabbinic erudition could not forget the repression of vicious
desires in the tenth commandment, the stress laid in Deuteronomy on the
necessity of service to God, or the inculcation by later prophets of
humility and faith. "The real and only Pharisee," says the Talmud, "is
he who does the will of his Father because he loves Him." But it remains
true that the contrast with the "righteousness of the scribes and
pharisees" has always served to mark the requirement of "inwardness" as
a distinctive feature of the Christian code--an inwardness not merely
negative, tending to the repression of vicious desires as well as
vicious acts, but also involving a positive rectitude of the inner state
of the soul.
Christian and Pagan inwardness.
Faith.
In this aspect Christianity invites comparison with Stoicism, and indeed
with pagan ethical philosophy generally, if we except the hedonistic
schools. Rightness of purpose, preference of virtue for its own sake,
suppression of vicious desires, were made essential points by the
Aristotelians, who attached the most importance to outward circumstances
in their view of virtue, no less than by the Stoics, to whom all outward
things were indifferent. The fundamental differences between pagan and
Christian ethics depend not on any difference in the value set on
rightness of heart, but on different views of the essential form or
conditions of this inward rightness. In neither case is it presented
purely and simply as moral rectitude. By the pagan philosophers it was
always conceived under the form of Knowledge or Wisdom, it being
inconceivable to all the schools sprung from Socrates that a man could
truly know his own good and yet deliberately choose anything else. This
knowledge, as Aristotle held, might be permanently precluded by vicious
habits, or temporarily obliterated by passion, but if present in the
mind it must produce rightness of purpose. Or even if it were held with
some of the Stoics that true wisdom was out of the reach of the best men
actually living, it none the less remained the ideal condition of
perfect human life. By Christian teachers, on the other hand, the inner
springs of good conduct were generally conceived as Faith and Love. Of
these notions the former has a somewhat complex ethical import; it seems
to blend several elements differently prominent in different minds. Its
simplest and commonest meaning is that emphasized in the contrast of
"faith" with "sight"; where it signifies belief in the invisible divine
order represented by the church, in the actuality of the law, the
threats, the promises of God, in spite of all the influences in man's
natural life that tend to obscure this belief. Out of this contrast
there ultimately grew an essentially different opposition between faith
and knowledge or reason, according to which the theological basis of
ethics was contrasted with the philosophical; the theologians
maintaining sometimes that the divine law is essentially arbitrary, the
expression of will, not reason; more frequently that its reasonableness
is inscrutable, and that actual human reason should confine itself to
examining the credentials of God's messengers, and not the message
itself. But in early Christianity this latter antithesis was as yet
undeveloped; faith means simply force in clinging to moral and religious
conviction, whatever their rational grounds may be; this force, in the
Christian consciousness, being inseparably bound up with personal
loyalty and trust towards Christ, the leader in the battle with evil,
the ruler of the kingdom to be realized. So far, however, there is no
ethical difference between Christian faith and that of Judaism, or its
later imitation, Mahommedanism; except that the personal affection of
loyal trust is peculiarly stirred by the blending of human and divine
natures in Christ, and the rule of duty impressively taught by the
manifestation of his perfect life. A more distinctively Christian, and a
more deeply moral, significance is given to the notion in the antithesis
of "faith" and "works." Here faith means more than loyal acceptance of
the divine law and reverent trust in the lawgiver; it implies a
consciousness, at once continually present and continually transcended,
of the radical imperfection of all human obedience to the law, and at
the same time of the irremissible condemnation which this imperfection
entails. The Stoic doctrine of the worthlessness of ordinary human
virtue, and the stern paradox that all offenders are equally, in so far
as all are absolutely, guilty, find their counterparts in Christianity;
but the latter (maintaining this ideal severity in the moral standard,
with an emotional consciousness of what is involved in it quite unlike
that of the Stoic) overcomes its practical exclusiveness through faith.
This faith, again, may be conceived in two modes, essentially distinct
though usually combined. In one view it gives the believer strength to
attain, by God's supernatural aid or "grace," a goodness of which he is
naturally incapable; in the other view it gives him an assurance that,
though he knows himself a sinner deserving of utter condemnation, a
perfectly just God still regards him with favour on account of the
perfect services and suffering of Christ. Of these views the former is
the more catholic, more universally present in the Christian
consciousness; the latter more deeply penetrates the mystery of the
Atonement, as expounded in the Pauline epistles.
Love.
Purity.
But faith, however understood, is rather an indispensable pre-requisite
than the essential motive principle of Christian good conduct. This
motive is supplied by the other central notion, love. On love depends
the "fulfilling of the law," and the sole moral value of Christian
duty--that is, on love to God, in the first place, which in its fullest
development must spring from Christian faith; and, secondly, love to all
mankind, as the objects of divine love and sharers in the humanity
ennobled by the incarnation. This derivative philanthropy characterizes
the spirit in which all Christian performance of social duty is to be
done; loving devotion to God being the fundamental attitude of mind that
is to be maintained throughout the whole of the Christian's life. But
further, as regards abstinence from unlawful acts and desires prompting
to them, we have to notice another form in which the inwardness of
Christian morality manifests itself, which, though less distinctive,
should yet receive attention in any comparison of Christian ethics with
the view of Graeco-Roman philosophy. The profound horror with which the
Christian's conception of a suffering as well as an avenging divinity
tended to make him regard all condemnable acts was tinged with a
sentiment which we may perhaps describe as a ceremonial aversion
moralized--the aversion, that is, to foulness or impurity. In Judaism,
as in other, especially Oriental, religions, the natural dislike of
material defilement has been elevated into a religious sentiment, and
made to support a complicated system of quasi-sanitary abstinences and
ceremonial purifications; then, as the ethical element predominated in
the Jewish religion, a moral symbolism was felt to reside in the
ceremonial code, and thus aversion to impurity came to be a common form
of the ethico-religious sentiment. Then, when Christianity threw off the
Mosaic ritual, this religious sense of purity was left with no other
sphere besides morality; while, from its highly idealized character, it
was peculiarly well adapted for that repression of vicious desires which
Christianity claimed as its special function.
Distinctive particulars of Christian morality.
The distinctive features of Christian ethics are obedience,
unworldliness, benevolence, purity and humility. They are naturally
connected with the more general characteristics just stated; though many
of them may also be referred directly to the example and precepts of
Christ, and in several cases they are clearly due to both causes,
inseparably combined.
1. We may notice, in the first place, that the conception of morality as
a code which, if not in itself arbitrary, is yet to be accepted by men
with unquestioning submission, tends naturally to bring into prominence
the virtue of _obedience to authority_; just as the philosophic view of
goodness as the realization of reason gives a special value to
_self-determination_ and independence (as we see more clearly in the
post-Aristotelian schools where ethics is distinctly separated from
politics).
2. Again, the opposition between the natural world and the spiritual
order into which the Christian has been born anew led not merely to a
contempt equal to that of the Stoic for wealth, fame, power, and other
objects of worldly pursuit, but also, for some time at least, to a
comparative depreciation of the domestic and civic relations of the
natural man. This tendency was exhibited most simply and generally in
the earliest period of the church's history. In the view of primitive
Christians, ordinary human society was a world temporarily surrendered
to Satanic rule, over which a swift and sudden destruction was
impending; in such a world the little band who were gathered in the ark
of the church could have no part or lot,--the only attitude they could
maintain was that of passive alienation. On the other hand, it was
difficult practically to realize this alienation, and a keen sense of
this difficulty induced the same hostility to the body as a clog and
hindrance, that we find to some extent in Plato, but more fully
developed in Neoplatonism, Neopythagoreanism, and other products of the
mingling of Greek with Oriental thought. This feeling is exhibited in
the value set on fasting in the Christian church from the earliest
times, and in an extreme form in the self-torments of later monasticism;
while both tendencies, anti-worldliness and anti-sensualism, seem to
have combined in causing the preference of celibacy over marriage which
is common to most early Christian writers.[16] Patriotism, again, and
the sense of civic duty, the most elevated of all social sentiments in
the Graeco-Roman civilization, tended, under the influence of
Christianity, either to expand itself into universal philanthropy, or to
concentrate itself on the ecclesiastical community. "We recognize one
commonwealth, the world," says Tertullian; "we know," says Origen, "that
we have a fatherland founded by the word of God." We might further
derive from the general spirit of Christian unworldliness that
repudiation of the secular modes of conflict, even in a righteous cause,
which substituted a passive patience and endurance for the old pagan
virtue of courage, in which the active element was prominent. Here,
however, we clearly trace the influence of Christ's express prohibition
of violent resistance to violence, and his inculcation, by example and
precept, of a love that was to conquer even natural resentment. An
extreme result of this influence is shown in Tertullian's view, that no
Christian could properly hold the office of a secular magistrate in
which he would have to doom to death, chains, imprisonment; but even
more sober writers, such as Ambrose, extend Christian passivity so far
as to preclude self-defence even against a murderous assault. The common
sense of Christendom gradually shook off these extravagances; but the
reluctance to shed blood lingered long, and was hardly extinguished even
by the growing horror of heresy. We have a curious relic of this in the
later times of ecclesiastical persecution, when the heretic was doomed
to the stake that he might be punished in some manner "short of
bloodshed."[17]
Benevolence.
3. It is, however, in the impulse given to practical beneficence in all
its forms, by the exaltation of love as the root of all virtues, that
the most important influence of Christianity on the particulars of
civilized morality is to be found; although the exact amount of this
influence is here somewhat difficult to ascertain, since it merely
carries further a development traceable in the history of pagan
morality. This development appears when we compare the different
post-Socratic systems of ethics. In Plato's exposition of the different
virtues there is no mention whatever of benevolence, although his
writings show a keen sense of the importance of friendship as an element
of philosophic life, especially of the intense personal affection
naturally arising between master and disciple. Aristotle goes somewhat
further in recognizing the moral value of friendship [Greek: (philia)];
and though he considers that in its highest form it can be realized only
by the fellowship of the wise and good, he yet extends the notion so as
to include the domestic affections, and takes notice of the importance
of mutual kindness in binding together all human societies. Still in his
formal statement of the different virtues, positive beneficence is
discernible only under the notion of "liberality," in which form its
excellence is hardly distinguished from that of graceful profusion in
self-regarding expenditure (_Nic. Eth_. iv. 1). Cicero, on the other
hand, in his paraphrase of a Stoic treatise on external duties (_De
officiis_), ranks the rendering of positive services to other men as a
chief department of social duty; and the Stoics generally recognized the
universal fellowship and natural mutual claims of human beings as such.
Indeed, this recognition in later Stoicism is sometimes expressed with
so much warmth of feeling as to be hardly distinguishable from Christian
philanthropy. Nor was this regard for humanity merely a doctrine of the
school. Partly through the influence of Stoic and other Greek
philosophy, partly from the natural expansion of human sympathies, the
legislation of the Empire, during the first three centuries, shows a
steady development in the direction of natural justice and humanity; and
some similar progress may be traced in the general tone of moral
opinion. Still the utmost point that this development reached fell
considerably short of the standard of Christian charity. Without
dwelling on the immense impetus given to the practice of social duty
generally by the religion that made beneficence a form of divine
service, and identified "piety" with "pity," we have to put down as
definite changes introduced by Christianity--(1) the severe condemnation
and final suppression of the practice of exposing infants; (2) effective
abhorrence of the barbarism of gladiatorial combats; (3) immediate moral
mitigation of slavery, and a strong encouragement of emancipation; (4)
great extension of the eleemosynary provision made for the sick and the
poor. As regards almsgiving, however--the importance of which has
caused it to usurp, in modern languages, the general name of
"charity"--it ought to be observed that Christianity merely
universalized a duty which has always been inculcated by Judaism, within
the limits of the chosen people.
4. The same may be said of the stricter regulation which Christianity
enforced on the relations of the sexes; except so far as the prohibition
of divorce is concerned, and the stress laid on "purity of heart" as
contrasted with merely outward chastity.
5. Even the peculiarly Christian virtue of humility, which presents so
striking a contrast to the Greek "highmindedness," was to some extent
anticipated in the Rabbinic teaching. Its far greater prominence under
the new dispensation may be partly referred to the express teaching and
example of Christ; partly, in so far as the virtue is manifested in the
renunciation of external rank and dignity, or the glory of merely
secular gifts and acquirements, it is one aspect of the unworldliness
which we have already noticed; while the deeper humility that represses
the claim of personal merit even in the saint belongs to the strict
self-examination, the continual sense of imperfection, the utter
reliance on strength not his own, which characterize the inner moral
life of the Christian. Humility in this latter sense, "before God," is
an essential condition of all truly Christian goodness.
We have, however, yet to notice the enlargement of the sphere of ethics
due to its close connexion with theology; for while this added religious
force and sanction to ordinary moral obligations, it equally tended to
impart a moral aspect to religious belief and worship. "Duty to God"--as
distinct from duty to man--had not been altogether unrecognized by pagan
moralists; but the rather dubious relations of even the more orthodox
philosophy to the established polytheism had generally prevented them
from laying much stress upon it. Again,--just as the Stoics held wisdom
to be indispensable to real rectitude of conduct, while at the same time
they included under the notion of wisdom a grasp of physical as well as
ethical truth,--so the similar emphasis laid on inwardness in Christian
ethics caused orthodoxy or correctness of religious belief to be
regarded as essential to goodness, and heresy as the most fatal of
vices, corrupting as it did the very springs of Christian life. To the
philosophers (with the single exception of Plato), however, convinced as
they were that the multitude must necessarily miss true well-being
through their folly and ignorance, it could never occur to guard against
these evils by any other method than that of providing philosophic
instruction for the few; whereas the Christian clergy, whose function it
was to offer truth and eternal life to all mankind, naturally regarded
theological misbelief as insidious preventible contagion. Indeed, their
sense of its deadliness was so keen that, when they were at length able
to control the secular administration, they rapidly overcame their
aversion to bloodshed, and initiated that long series of religious
persecutions to which we find no parallel in the pre-Christian
civilization of Europe. It was not that Christian writers did not feel
the difficulty of attributing criminality to sincere ignorance or error.
But the difficulty is not really peculiar to theology; and the
theologians usually got over it (as some philosophers had surmounted a
similar perplexity in the region of ethics proper) by supposing some
latent or antecedent voluntary sin, of which the apparently involuntary
heresy was the fearful fruit.
Lastly, we must observe that, in proportion as the legal conception of
morality as a code of which the violation deserves supernatural
punishment predominated over the philosophic view of ethics as the
method for attaining natural felicity, the question of man's freedom of
will to obey the law necessarily became prominent. At the same time it
cannot be broadly said that Christianity took a decisive side in the
metaphysical controversy on free-will and necessity; since, just as in
Greek philosophy the need of maintaining freedom as the ground of
responsibility clashes with the conviction that no one deliberately
chooses his own harm, so in Christian ethics it clashes with the
attribution of all true human virtue to supernatural grace, as well as
with the belief in divine foreknowledge. All we can say is that in the
development of Christian thought the conflict of conceptions was far
more profoundly felt, and far more serious efforts were made to evade or
transcend it.
Development of opinion in early Christianity.
Augustine.
In the preceding account of Christian morality, it has been already
indicated that the characteristics delineated did not all exhibit
themselves simultaneously to the same extent, or with perfect uniformity
throughout the church. Changes in the external condition of
Christianity, the different degrees of civilization in the societies of
which it was the dominant religion, and the natural process of internal
development, continually brought different features into prominence;
while again, the important antagonisms of opinion within Christendom
frequently involved ethical issues--even in the Eastern Church--until in
the 4th century it began to be absorbed in the labour of a dogmatic
construction. Thus, for example, the anti-secular tendencies of the new
creed, to which Tertullian (160-220) gave violent and rigid expression,
were exaggerated in the Montanist heresy which he ultimately joined; on
the other hand, Clement of Alexandria, in opposition to the general tone
of his age, maintained the value of pagan philosophy for the development
of Christian faith into true knowledge (Gnosis), and the value of the
natural development of man through marriage for the normal perfecting of
the Christian life. So again, there is a marked difference between the
writers before Augustine and those that succeeded him in all that
concerns the internal conditions of Christian morality. By Justin and
other apologists the need of redemption, faith, grace is indeed
recognized, but the theological system depending on these notions is not
sufficiently developed[18] to come into even apparent antagonism with
the freedom of the will. Christianity is for the most part conceived as
essentially a proclamation through the Divine Word, to immortal beings
gifted with free choice, of the true code of conduct sanctioned by
eternal rewards and punishments. This legalism contrasts strikingly with
the efforts of pagan philosophy to exhibit virtue as its own reward; and
the contrast is triumphantly pointed out by more than one early
Christian writer. Lactantius (_circa_ 300 A.D.), for example, roundly
declares that Plato and Aristotle, referring everything to this earthly
life, "made virtue mere folly"; though himself maintaining, with
pardonable inconsistency, that man's highest good did not consist in
mere pleasure, but in the consciousness of the filial relation of the
soul to God. It is plain, however, that on this external legalistic view
of duty it was impossible to maintain a difference in kind between
Christian and pagan morality; the philosopher's conformity to the rules
of chastity and beneficence, so far as it went, was indistinguishable
from the saint's. But when this inference was developed in the teaching
of Pelagius, it was repudiated as heretical by the church, under the
powerful leadership of Augustine (354-430); and the doctrine of man's
incapacity to obey God's law by his unaided moral energy was pressed to
a point at which it was difficult to reconcile it with the freedom of
the will. Augustine is fully aware of the theoretical indispensability
of maintaining Free Will, from its logical connexion with human
responsibility and divine justice; but he considers that these latter
points are sufficiently secured if actual freedom of choice between good
and evil is allowed in the single case of our progenitor Adam.[19] For
since the _natura seminalis_ from which all men were to arise already
existed in Adam, in his voluntary preference of self to God, humanity
chose evil once for all; for which ante-natal guilt all men are justly
condemned to perpetual absolute sinfulness and consequent punishment,
unless they are elected by God's unmerited grace to share the benefits
of Christ's redemption. Without this grace it is impossible for man to
obey the "first greatest commandment" of love to God; and, this
unfulfilled, he is guilty of the whole law, and is only free to choose
between degrees of sin; his apparent external virtues have no moral
value, since inner rightness of intention is wanting. "All that is not
of faith is of sin"; and faith and love are mutually involved and
inseparable; faith springs from the divinely imparted germ of love,
which in its turn is developed by faith to its full strength, while from
both united springs hope, joyful yearning towards ultimate perfect
fruition of the object of love. These three Augustine (after St Paul)
regards as the three essential elements of Christian virtue; along with
these he recognizes the fourfold division of virtue into prudence,
temperance, courage and justice according to their traditional
interpretation; but he explains these virtues to be in their true
natures only the same love to God in different aspects or exercises. The
uncompromising mysticism of this view may be at once compared and
contrasted with the philosophical severity of Stoicism. Love of God in
the former holds the same absolute and unique position as the sole
element of moral worth in human action, which, as we have seen, was
occupied by knowledge of Good in the latter; and we may carry the
parallel further by observing that in neither case is this severity in
the abstract estimate of goodness necessarily connected with extreme
rigidity in practical precepts. Indeed, an important part of Augustine's
work as a moralist lies in the reconciliation which he laboured to
effect between the anti-worldly spirit of Christianity and the
necessities of secular civilization. For example, we find him arguing
for the legitimacy of judicial punishments and military service against
an over-literal interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount; and he took
an important part in giving currency to the distinction between
evangelical "counsels" and "commands," and so defending the life of
marriage and temperate enjoyment of natural good against the attacks of
the more extravagant advocate of celibacy and self-abnegation; although
he fully admitted the superiority of the latter method of avoiding the
contamination of sin.
Ambrose.
The attempt to Christianize the old Platonic list of virtues, which we
have noticed in Augustine's system, was probably due to the influence of
his master Ambrose, in whose treatise _De officiis ministrorum_ we find
for the first time an exposition of Christian duty systematized on a
plan borrowed from a pre-Christian moralist. It is interesting to
compare Ambrose's account of what subsequently came to be known as the
"four cardinal virtues" with the corresponding delineations in
Cicero's[20] _De officiis_ which served the bishop as a model. Christian
Wisdom, so far as it is speculative, is of course primarily theological;
it has God, as the highest truth, for its chief object, and is therefore
necessarily grounded on faith. Christian Fortitude is essentially
firmness in withstanding the seductions of good and evil fortune,
resoluteness in the conflict perpetually waged against wickedness
without carnal weapons--though Ambrose, with the Old Testament in his
hand, will not quite relinquish the ordinary martial application of the
term. "Temperantia" retains the meaning of "observance of due measure"
in all conduct, which it had in Cicero's treatise; though its notion is
partly modified by being blended with the newer virtue of humility.
Finally in the exposition of Christian Justice the Stoic doctrine of the
natural union of all human interests is elevated to the full height and
intensity of evangelical philanthropy; the brethren are reminded that
the earth was made by God a common possession of all, and are bidden to
administer their means for the common benefit; Ambrose, we should
observe, is thoroughly aware of the fundamental union of these different
virtues in Christianity, though he does not, like Augustine, resolve
them all into the one central affection of love of God.
Ecclesiastical morality in the "Dark Ages."
Under the influence of Ambrose and Augustine, the four cardinal virtues
furnished a basis on which the systematic ethical theories of subsequent
theologians were built. With them the triad of Christian graces, Faith,
Hope and Love, and the seven gifts of the Spirit (Isaiah xi. 2) were
often combined. In antithesis to this list, an enumeration of the
"deadly sins" obtained currency. These were at first commonly reckoned
as eight; but a preference for mystical numbers characteristic of
medieval theologians finally reduced them to seven. The statement of
them is variously given,--Pride, Avarice, Anger, Gluttony, Unchastity,
are found in all the lists; the remaining two (or three) are variously
selected from among Envy, Vainglory, and the rather singular sins
Gloominess (_tristitia_) and Languid Indifference (_acidia_ or _acedia_,
from Gr. [Greek: _akêdia_]). These latter notions show plainly, what
indeed might be inferred from a study of the list as a whole, that it
represents the moral experience of the monastic life, which for some
centuries was more and more unquestioningly regarded as in a peculiar
sense "religious." It should be observed that the (also Augustinian)
distinction between "deadly" and "venial" sins had a technical reference
to the quasi-jural administration of ecclesiastical discipline, which
grew gradually more organized as the spiritual power of the church
established itself amid the ruins of the Western empire, and slowly
developed into the theocracy that almost dominated Europe during the
latter part of the middle ages. "Deadly" sins were those for which
formal ecclesiastical penance was held to be necessary, in order to save
the sinner from eternal damnation; for "venial" sins he might obtain
forgiveness, through prayer, almsgiving, and the observance of the
regular fasts. We find that "penitential books" for the use of the
confessional, founded partly on traditional practice and partly on the
express decrees of synods, come into general use in the 7th century. At
first they are little more than mere inventories of sins, with their
appropriate ecclesiastical punishments; gradually cases of conscience
come to be discussed and decided, and the basis is laid for that system
of casuistry which reached its full development in the 14th and 15th
centuries. This ecclesiastical jurisprudence, and indeed the general
relation of the church to the ruder races with which it had to deal
during this period, necessarily tended to encourage a somewhat external
view of morality. But a powerful counterpoise to this tendency was
continually maintained by the fervid inwardness of Augustine,
transmitted through Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, Alcuin,
Hrabanus Maurus, and other writers of the philosophically barren period
between the destruction of the Western empire and the rise of
Scholasticism.
Medieval moral philosophy.
Scholastic ethics, like scholastic philosophy, attained its completest
result in the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. But before giving a brief
account of the ethical part of his system, it will be well to notice the
salient points in the long and active discussion that led up to it. In
the pantheistic system of Erigena (q.v.) (_circa_ 810-877) the chief
philosophic element is supplied by the influence of Plato and Plotinus,
transmitted through an unknown author of the 5th century, who assumed
the name of Dionysius the Areopagite. Accordingly the ethical side of
this doctrine has the same negative and ascetic character that we have
observed in Neoplatonism. God is the only real Being; evil is
essentially unreal and incognizable; the true aim of man's life is to
return to perfect union with God out of the degraded material existence
into which he has fallen. This doctrine found little acceptance among
Erigena's contemporaries, and was certainly unorthodox enough to justify
the condemnation which it subsequently received from Honorius III.; but
its influence, together with that of the Pseudo-Dionysius, had a
considerable share in developing the more emotional orthodox mysticism
of the 12th and 13th centuries; and Neoplatonism (or Platonism received
through a Neoplatonic tradition) remained a distinct element in medieval
thought, though obscured in the period of mature scholasticism by the
predominant influence of Aristotle. Passing on to Anselm (1033-1109), we
observe that the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and man's absolute
need of unmerited grace is retained in his theory of salvation; he also
follows Augustine in defining freedom as the "power not to sin"; though
in saying that Adam fell "spontaneously" and "by his free choice,"
though not "through its freedom," he has implicitly made the distinction
that Peter the Lombard afterwards expressly draws between the freedom
that is opposed to necessity and freedom from the slavery to sin. Anselm
further softens the statement of Augustinian predestinationism by
explaining that the freedom to will is not strictly lost even by fallen
man; it is inherent in a rational nature, though since Adam's sin it
only exists potentially in humanity, except where it is made actual by
grace.
In a more real sense Abelard (1079-1142) tries to establish the
connexion between man's ill desert and his free consent. He asserts that
the inherited propensity to evil is not strictly a sin, which is only
committed when the conscious self yields to vicious inclination. With a
similar stress on the self-conscious side of moral action, he argues
that rightness of conduct depends solely on the intention, at one time
pushing this doctrine to the paradoxical assertion that all outward acts
as such are indifferent.[21] In the same spirit, under the reviving
influence of ancient philosophy (with which, however, he was imperfectly
acquainted and the relation of which to Christianity he extravagantly
misunderstood), he argues that the old Greek moralists, as inculcating a
disinterested love of good--and so implicitly love of God as the highest
good--were really nearer to Christianity than Judaic legalism was. Nay,
further, he required that the Christian "love to God" should be regarded
as pure only if purged from the self-regarding desire of the happiness
which God gives. The general tendency of Abelard's thought was
suspiciously regarded by contemporary orthodoxy;[22] and the
over-subtlety of the last-mentioned distinction provoked vehement
replies from orthodox mystics of the age. Thus, Hugo of St Victor
(1077-1141) argues that all love is necessarily so far "interested" that
it involves a desire for union with the beloved; and since eternal
happiness consists in this union, it cannot truly be desired apart from
God; while Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) more elaborately
distinguishes four stages by which the soul is gradually led from (1)
merely self-regarding desire for God's aid in distress, to (2) love him
for his loving-kindness to it, then also (3) for his absolute goodness,
until (4) in rare moments this love for himself alone becomes the sole
all-absorbing affection. This controversy Peter the Lombard endeavoured
to compose by the scholastic art of taking distinctions, of which he was
a master. In his treatise, _Libri sententiarum_, mainly based on
Augustinian doctrine, we find a distinct softening of the antithesis
between nature and grace and an anticipation of the union of
Aristotelian and Christian thought, which was initiated by Albert the
Great and completed by Thomas Aquinas.
Thomas Aquinas.
The moral philosophy of Aquinas is Aristotelianism with a Neoplatonic
tinge, interpreted and supplemented by a view of Christian dogma derived
chiefly from Augustine. All action or movement of all things irrational
as well as rational is directed towards some end or good,--that is,
really and ultimately towards God himself, the ground and first cause of
all being, and unmoved principle of all movement. This universal though
unconscious striving after God, since he is essentially intelligible,
exhibits itself in its highest form in rational beings as a desire for
knowledge of him; such knowledge, however, is beyond all ordinary
exercise of reason, and may be only partially revealed to man here
below. Thus the _summum bonum_ for man is objectively God, subjectively
the happiness to be derived from loving vision of his perfections;
although there is a lower kind of happiness to be realized here below
in a normal human existence of virtue and friendship, with mind and body
sound and whole and properly trained for the needs of life. The higher
happiness is given to man by free grace of God; but it is given to those
only whose heart is right, and as a reward of virtuous actions. Passing
to consider what actions are virtuous, we first observe generally that
the morality of an act is in part, but only in part, determined by its
particular motive; it partly depends on its external object and
circumstances, which render it either objectively in harmony with the
"order of reason" or the reverse. In the classification of particular
virtues and vices we can distinguish very clearly the elements supplied
by the different teachings which Aquinas has imbibed. He follows
Aristotle closely in dividing the "natural" virtues into intellectual
and moral, giving his preference to the former class, and the
intellectual again into speculative and practical; in distinguishing
within the speculative class the "intellect" that is conversant with
principles, the "science" that deduces conclusions, and the "wisdom" to
which belongs the whole process of knowing the sublimest objects of
knowledge; and in treating practical wisdom as inseparably connected
with moral virtues, and therefore in a sense moral. His distinction
among moral virtues of the justice that renders others their due from
the virtues that control the appetites and passions of the agent
himself, represents his interpretation of the _Nicomachean Ethics_;
while his account of these latter virtues is a simple transcript of
Aristotle's, just as his division of the non-rational element of the
soul into "concupiscible" and "irascible" is the old Platonic one. In
arranging his list, however, he defers to the established doctrine of
the four cardinal virtues (derived from Plato and the Stoics through
Cicero); accordingly, the Aristotelian ten have to stand under the
higher genera of (1) the prudence which gives reasoned rules of conduct,
(2) the temperance which restrains misleading desire, and (3) the
fortitude that resists misleading fear of dangers or toils. But before
these virtues are ranked the three "theologic" virtues, faith, love and
hope, supernaturally "instilled" by God, and directly relating to him as
their object. By faith we obtain that part of our knowledge of God which
is beyond the range of mere natural wisdom or philosophy; naturally
(e.g.), we can know God's existence, but not his trinity in unity,
though philosophy is useful to defend this and other revealed verities;
and it is essential for the soul's welfare that all articles of the
Christian creed, however little they can be known by natural reason,
should be apprehended through faith; the Christian who rejects a single
article loses hold altogether of faith and of God. Faith is the
substantial basis of all Christian morality, but without love--the
essential form of all the Christian virtues--it is "formless"
(_informis_). Christian love is conceived (after Augustine) as primarily
love to God (beyond the natural yearning of the creature after its
ultimate good), which expands into love towards all God's creatures as
created by him, and so ultimately includes even self-love. But creatures
are only to be loved in their purity as created by God; all that is bad
in them must be an object of hatred till it is destroyed. In the
classification of sins the Christian element predominates; still we find
the Aristotelian vices of excess and defect, along with the modern
divisions into "sins against God, neighbour and self," "mortal and
venial sins," and so forth.
From the notion of sin--treated in its jural aspect--Aquinas passes
naturally to the discussion of Law. The exposition of this conception
presents to a great extent the same matter that was dealt with by the
exposition of moral virtues, but in a different form; the prominence of
which may perhaps be attributed to the growing influence of Roman
jurisprudence, which attained in the 12th century so rapid and brilliant
a revival in Italy. This side of Thomas's system is specially important,
since it is just this blending of theological conceptions with the
abstract theory of the later Roman law that gave the starting-point for
independent ethical thought in the modern world. Under the general idea
of law, defined as an "ordinance of reason for the common good,
promulgated by him who has charge of the community," Thomas
distinguishes (1) the eternal law or regulative reason of God which
embraces all his creatures, rational and irrational; (2) "natural law,"
being that part of the eternal law that relates to rational creatures as
such; (3) human law, which properly consists of more particular
deductions from natural law particularized and adapted to the varying
circumstances of actual communities; (4) divine law specially revealed
to man. As regards natural law, he teaches that God has implanted in the
human mind a knowledge of its immutable general principles; and not only
knowledge, but a disposition, to which he applies the peculiar
scholastic name _synderesis_,[23] that unerringly prompts to the
realization of these principles in conduct, and protests against their
violation. All acts of natural virtue are implicitly included within the
scope of this law of nature; but in the application of its principles to
particular cases--to which the term "conscience" should be
restricted--man's judgment is liable to err, the light of nature being
obscured and perverted by bad education and custom. Human law is
required, not merely to determine the details for which natural law
gives no intuitive guidance, but also to supply the force necessary for
practically securing, among imperfect men, the observance of the most
necessary rules of mutual behaviour. The rules of this law must be
either deductions from principles of natural law, or determinations of
particulars which it leaves indeterminate; a rule contrary to nature
could not be valid as law at all. Human law, however, can deal with
outward conduct alone, and natural law, as we have seen, is liable to be
vague and obscure in particular applications. Neither natural nor human
law, moreover, takes into account that supernatural happiness which is
man's highest end. Hence they need to be supplemented by a special
revelation of divine law. This revelation is distinguished into the law
of the old covenant and the law of the gospel; the latter of these is
productive as well as imperative since it carries with it the divine
grace that makes its fulfilment possible. We have, however, to
distinguish in the case of the gospel between (1) absolute commands and
(2) "counsels," which latter recommend, without positively ordering the
monastic life of poverty, celibacy and obedience as the best method of
effectively turning the will from earthly to heavenly things.
Duns Scotus.
William of Occam.
But how far is man able to attain either natural or Christian
perfection? This is the part of Thomas's system in which the cohesion of
the different elements seems weakest. He is scarcely aware that his
Aristotelianized Christianity inevitably combines two different
difficulties in dealing with this question: first, the old pagan
difficulty of reconciling the proposition that will is a rational desire
always directed towards apparent good, with the freedom of choice
between good and evil that the jural view of morality seems to require;
and, secondly, the Christian difficulty of harmonizing this latter
notion with the absolute dependence on divine grace which the religious
consciousness affirms. The latter difficulty Thomas, like many of his
predecessors, avoids by supposing a "co-operation" of free-will and
grace, but the former he does not fully meet. It is against this part of
his doctrines that the most important criticism, in ethics, of his rival
Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) was directed. He urged that will could not be
really free if it were bound to reason, as Thomas (after Aristotle)
conceives it; a really free choice must be perfectly indeterminate
between reason and unreason. Scotus consistently maintained that the
divine will is similarly independent of reason, and that the divine
ordering of the world is to be conceived as absolutely arbitrary. On
this point he was followed by the acute intellect of William of Occam
(d. c. 1347). This doctrine is obviously hostile to all reasoned
morality; and in fact, notwithstanding the dialectical ability of Scotus
and Occam, the work of Thomas remained indubitably the crowning result
of the great constructive effort of medieval philosophy. The effort was,
indeed, foredoomed to failure, since it attempted the impossible task of
framing a coherent system out of the heterogeneous data furnished by
Scripture, the fathers, the church and Aristotle--equally unquestioned,
if not equally venerated, authorities. Whatever philosophic quality is
to be found in the work of Thomas belongs to it in spite of, not in
consequence of, its method. Still, its influence has been great and
long-enduring,--in the Catholic Church primarily, but indirectly among
Protestants, especially in England, since the famous first book of
Hooker's _Ecclesiastical Polity_ is to a great extent taken from the
_Summa theologiae_.
Medieval mysticism.
Partly in conscious antagonism to the schoolmen, yet with close affinity
to the central ethico-theological doctrine which they read out of or
into Aristotle, the mystical manner of thought continued to maintain
itself in the church. Philosophically it rested upon Neoplatonism, but
its development in strict connexion with Christian orthodoxy begins in
the 12th century with Bernard of Clairvaux and Hugo of St Victor. It
blended the Christian element of love with the ecstatic vision of
Plotinus, sometimes giving the former a decided predominance. In its
more moderate form, keeping wholly within the limits of ecclesiastical
orthodoxy, this mysticism is represented by Bonaventura and Gerson;
while it appears more independent and daringly constructive in the
German Eckhart, advancing in some of his followers to open breach with
the church, and even to practical immorality.
Casuistry.
The Jesuits.
In the brief account above given of the general ethical view of Thomas
Aquinas no mention has been made of the detailed discussion of
particular duties included in the _Summa theologiae_; in which, for the
most part, an excellent combination of moral elevation with sobriety of
judgment is shown, though on certain points the scholastic pedantry of
definition and distinction is unfavourable to due delicacy of treatment.
As the properly philosophic interest of scholasticism faded in the 14th
and 15th centuries, the quasi-legal treatment of morality came again
into prominence, borrowing a good deal of matter from Thomas and other
schoolmen. One result of this was a marked development and
systematization of casuistry. The best known _Summae casuum
conscientiae_, compiled for the conduct of auricular confession, belong
to the 14th and 15th centuries. The oldest, the _Astesana_, from Asti in
Piedmont, is arranged as a kind of text-book of morality on a scholastic
basis; later manuals are merely lists of questions and answers. It was
inevitable that, in proportion as this casuistry assumed the character
of a systematic penal jurisprudence, its precise determination of the
limits between the prohibited and the allowable, with all doubtful
points closely scrutinized and illustrated by fictitious cases, would
have a tendency to weaken the moral sensibilities of ordinary minds; the
greater the industry spent in deducing conclusions from the diverse
authorities, the greater necessarily became the number of points on
which doctors disagreed; and the central authority that might have
repressed serious divergences was wanting in the period of moral
weakness[24] that the church went through after the death of Boniface
VIII. A plain man perplexed by such disagreements might naturally hold
that any opinion maintained by a pious and orthodox writer must be a
safe one to follow; and thus weak consciences were subtly tempted to
seek the support of authority for some desired relaxation of a moral
rule. It does not, however, appear that this danger assumed formidable
proportions until after the Reformation; when, in the struggle made by
the Catholic church to recover its hold on the world, the principle of
authority was, as it were, forced into keen, balanced and prolonged
conflict with that of reliance on private judgment. To the Jesuits, the
foremost champions in this struggle, it seemed indispensable that the
confessional should be made attractive; for this purpose
ecclesiastico-moral law must be somehow "accommodated" to worldly needs;
and the theory of "Probabilism" supplied a plausible method for
effecting this accommodation. The theory proceeded thus: A layman could
not be expected to examine minutely into a point on which the learned
differed; therefore he could not fairly be blamed for following any
opinion that rested on the authority of even a single doctor; therefore
his confessor must be authorized to hold him guiltless if any such
"probable" opinion could be produced in his favour; nay, it was his duty
to suggest such an opinion, even though opposed to his own, if it would
relieve the conscience under his charge from a depressing burden. The
results to which this Probabilism, applied with an earnest desire to
avoid dangerous rigour, led in the 17th century were revealed to the
world in the immortal _Lettres provinciales_ of Pascal.
The Reformation. Transition to modern ethical philosophy.
In tracing the development of casuistry we have been carried beyond the
great crisis through which Western Christianity passed in the 16th
century. The Reformation which Luther initiated may be viewed on several
sides, even if we consider only its ethical principles and effects. It
maintained the simplicity of Apostolic Christianity against the
elaborate system of a corrupt hierarchy, the teaching of Scripture alone
against the commentaries of the fathers and the traditions of the
church, the right of private judgment against the dictation of
ecclesiastical authority, the individual responsibility of every human
soul before God in opposition to the papal control over purgatorial
punishments, which had led to the revolting degradation of venal
indulgences. Reviving the original antithesis between Christianity and
Jewish legalism, it maintained the inwardness of faith to be the sole
way to eternal life, in contrast to the outwardness of works; returning
to Augustine, and expressing his spirit in a new formula, to resist the
Neo-Pelagianism that had gradually developed itself within the apparent
Augustinianism of the church, it maintained the total corruption of
human nature, as contrasted with that "congruity" by which, according to
the schoolmen, divine grace was to be earned; renewing the fervent
humility of St Paul, it enforced the universal and absolute
imperativeness of all Christian duties, and the inevitable unworthiness
of all Christian obedience, in opposition to the theory that "condign"
merit might be gained by "supererogatory" conformity to evangelical
"counsels." It will be seen that these changes, however profoundly
important, were, ethically considered, either negative or quite general,
relating to the tone and attitude of mind in which all duty should be
done. As regards all positive matter of duty and virtue, and most of the
prohibitive code for ordinary men, the tradition of Christian teaching
was carried on substantially unchanged by the Reformed churches. Even
the old method of casuistry was maintained[25] during the 16th and 17th
centuries; though Scriptural texts, interpreted and supplemented by the
light of natural reason, now furnished the sole principles on which
cases of conscience were decided.
Humanism.
In the 17th century, however, the interest of this quasi-legal treatment
of morality gradually faded; and the ethical studies of educated minds
were occupied with the attempt, renewed after so many centuries, to find
an independent philosophical basis for the moral code. The renewal of
this attempt was only indirectly due to the Reformation; it is rather to
be connected with the more extreme reaction from the medieval religion
which was partly caused by, partly expressed in, that enthusiastic study
of the remains of old pagan culture that spread from Italy over Europe
in the 15th and 16th centuries. To this "humanism" the Reformation
seemed at first more hostile than the Roman hierarchy; indeed, the
extent to which this latter had allowed itself to become paganized by
the Renaissance was one of the points that especially roused the
Reformers' indignation. Not the less important is the indirect stimulus
given by the Reformation towards the development of a moral philosophy
independent alike of Catholic and Protestant assumptions. Scholasticism,
while reviving philosophy as a handmaid to theology, had metamorphosed
its method into one resembling that of its mistress; thus shackling the
renascent intellectual activity which it stimulated by the double
bondage to Aristotle and to the church. When the Reformation shook the
traditional authority in one department, the blow was necessarily felt
in the other. Not twenty years after Luther's defiance of the pope, the
startling thesis "that all that Aristotle taught was false" was
prosperously maintained by the youthful Ramus before the university of
Paris; and almost contemporaneously the group of remarkable thinkers in
Italy who heralded the dawn of modern physical science--Cardanus,
Telesio, Patrizzi, Campanella, Bruno--began to propound their
Aristotelian theories of the constitution of the physical universe. It
was to be foreseen that a similar assertion of independence would make
itself heard in ethics also; and, indeed, amid the clash of dogmatic
convictions, and the variations of private judgment, it was natural to
seek for an ethical method that might claim universal acceptance from
all sects.
Grotius.
C. _Modern Ethics._--The need of such independent principles was most
strongly felt in the region of man's civil and political relations,
especially the mutual relations of communities. Accordingly we find that
modern ethical controversy began in a discussion of the law of nature.
Albericus Gentilis (1557-1611) and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) were the
first to give a systematic account. Natural law, according to Grotius
and other writers of the age, is that part of divine law which follows
from the essential nature of man, who is distinguished from animals by
his "appetite" for tranquil association with his fellows, and his
tendency to act on general principles. It is therefore as unalterable,
even by God himself, as the truths of mathematics, although its effect
may be overruled in any particular case by an express command of God;
hence it is cognizable _a priori_, from the abstract consideration of
human nature, though its existence may be known _a posteriori_ also from
its universal acceptance in human societies. The conception, as we have
seen, was taken from the later Roman jurists; by them, however, the law
of nature was conceived as something that underlay existing law, and was
to be looked for through it, though it might ultimately supersede it,
and in the meanwhile represented an ideal standard, by which
improvements in legislation were to be guided. Still the language of the
jurists in some passages (cf. _Inst. of Justinian_, ii. 1, 2) clearly
implied a period of human history in which men were governed by natural
law alone, prior to the institution of civil society. Posidonius had
identified this period with the mythical "golden age"; and such ideas
easily coalesced with the narrative in Genesis. Thus there had become
current the conception of a "state of nature" in which individuals or
single families lived side by side--under none other than those
"natural" laws which prohibited mutual injury and interference in the
free use of the goods of the earth common to all, and upheld parental
authority, fidelity of wives, and the observance of compacts freely
made. This conception Grotius took, and gave it additional force and
solidity by using the principles of this natural law for the
determination of international rights and duties, it being obvious that
independent nations, in their corporate capacities, were still in that
"state of nature" in their mutual relations. It was not, of course,
assumed that these laws were universally obeyed; indeed, one point with
which Grotius is especially concerned is the natural right of private
war, arising out of the violation of more primary rights. Still a
general observance was involved in the idea of a natural law as a
"dictate of right reason indicating the agreement or disagreement of an
act with man's rational and social nature"; and we may observe that it
was especially necessary to assume such a general observance in the case
of contracts, since it was by an "express or tacit pact" that the right
of property (as distinct from the mere right to non-interference during
use) was held by him to have been instituted. A similar "fundamental
pact" had long been generally regarded as the normal origin of
legitimate sovereignty.
The ideas above expressed were not peculiar to Grotius; in particular
the doctrine of the "fundamental pact" as the jural basis of government
had long been maintained, especially in England, where the constitution
historically established readily suggested such a compact. At the same
time the rapid and remarkable success of Grotius's treatise (_De jure
belli et pacis_) brought his view of Natural Right into prominence, and
suggested such questions as--"What is man's ultimate reason for obeying
these laws? Wherein exactly does this their agreement with his rational
and social nature consist? How far, and in what sense, is his nature
really social?"
Hobbes.
It was the answer which Hobbes (1588-1679) gave to these fundamental
questions that supplied the starting-point for independent ethical
philosophy in England. The nature of this answer was determined by the
psychological views to which Hobbes had been led, possibly to some
extent under the influence of Bacon,[26] partly perhaps through
association with his younger contemporary Gassendi, who, in two
treatises, published between the appearance of Hobbes's _De cive_ (1642)
and that of the _Leviathan_ (1651), endeavoured to revive interest in
Epicurus. Hobbes's psychology is in the first place materialistic; he
holds, that is, that in any of the psycho-physical phenomena of human
nature the reality is a material process of which the mental feeling is
a mere "appearance." Accordingly he regards pleasure as essentially
motion "helping vital action," and pain as motion "hindering" it. There
is no logical connexion between this theory and the doctrine that
appetite of desire has always pleasure (or the absence of pain) for its
object; but a materialist, framing a system of psychology, will
naturally direct his attention to the impulses arising out of bodily
wants, whose obvious end is the preservation of the agent's organism;
and this, together with a philosophic wish to simplify, may lead him to
the conclusion that all human impulses are similarly self-regarding.
This, at any rate, is Hobbes's cardinal doctrine in moral psychology,
that each man's appetites or desires are naturally directed either to
the preservation of his life, or to that heightening of it which he
feels as pleasure.[27] Hobbes does not distinguish instinctive from
deliberate pleasure-seeking; and he confidently resolves the most
apparently unselfish emotions into phases of self-regard. Pity he finds
to be grief for the calamity of others, arising from imagination of the
like calamity befalling oneself; what we admire with seeming
disinterestedness as beautiful (_pulchrum_) is really "pleasure in
promise"; when men are not immediately seeking present pleasure, they
desire power as a means to future pleasure, and thus have a derivative
delight in the exercise of power that prompts to what we call benevolent
action. Since, then, all the voluntary actions of men tend to their own
preservation or pleasure, it cannot be reasonable to aim at anything
else; in fact, nature rather than reason fixes this as the end of human
action; it is reason's function to show the means. Hence if we ask why
it is reasonable for any individual to observe the rules of social
behaviour that are commonly called moral, the answer is obvious that
this is only indirectly reasonable, as a means to his own preservation
or pleasure. It is not, however, in this, which is only the old Cyrenaic
or Epicurean answer, that the distinctive point of Hobbism lies. It is
rather in the doctrine that even this indirect reasonableness of the
most fundamental moral rules is entirely conditional on their general
observance, which cannot be secured apart from government. For example,
it is not reasonable for me to perform my share of a contract, unless I
have reason for believing that the other party will perform his; and
this I cannot have, except in a society in which he will be punished for
non-performance. Thus the ordinary rules of social behaviour are only
hypothetically obligatory; they are actualized by the establishment of a
"common power" that may "use the strength and means of all" to enforce
on all the observance of rules tending to the common benefit. On the
other hand Hobbes yields to no one in maintaining the paramount
importance of moral regulations. The precepts of good faith, equity,
requital of benefits, forgiveness of wrong so far as security allows,
the prohibition of contumely, pride, arrogance,--which may all be summed
up in the formula, "Do not that to another which thou wouldest not have
done to thyself" (i.e. the negative of the "golden rule")--he still
calls "immutable and eternal laws of nature"--meaning that, though a man
is not unconditionally bound to realize them, he is, as a reasonable
being, bound to desire that they should be realized. The pre-social
state of man, in his view, is also pre-moral; but it is therefore
utterly miserable. It is a state in which every one has a right to
everything that may conduce to his preservation;[28] but it is therefore
also a state of war--a state so wretched that it is the first dictate of
rational self-love to emerge from it into social peace and order. Hence
Hobbes's ideal constitution naturally comes to be an unquestioned and
unlimited--though not necessarily monarchical--despotism. Whatever the
government declares to be just or unjust must be accepted as such, since
to dispute its dictates would be the first step towards anarchy, the one
paramount peril outweighing all particular defects in legislation and
administration. It is perhaps easy to understand how, in the crisis of
1640, when the ethico-political system of Hobbes first took written
shape, a peace-loving philosopher should regard the claims of individual
conscience as essentially anarchical, and dangerous to social
well-being; but however strong might be men's yearning for order, a view
of social duty, in which the only fixed positions were selfishness
everywhere and unlimited power somewhere, could not but appear
offensively paradoxical.
There was, however, in his theory an originality, a force, an apparent
coherence which rendered it undeniably impressive; in fact, we find that
for two generations the efforts to construct morality on a philosophical
basis take more or less the form of answers to Hobbes. From an ethical
point of view Hobbism divides itself naturally into two parts, which by
Hobbes's peculiar political doctrines are combined into a coherent
whole, but are not otherwise necessarily connected. Its theoretical
basis is the principle of egoism; while, for practically determining the
particulars of duty it makes morality entirely dependent on positive law
and institution. It thus affirmed the relativity of good and evil in a
double sense; good and evil, for any individual citizen, may from one
point of view be defined as the objects respectively of his desire and
his aversion; from another, they may be said to be determined for him by
his sovereign. It is this latter aspect of the system which is primarily
attacked by the first generation of writers that replied to Hobbes. This
attack, or rather the counter-exposition of orthodox doctrine, is
conducted on different methods by the Cambridge moralists and by
Cumberland respectively. Cumberland is content with the legal view of
morality, but endeavours to establish the validity of the laws of nature
by taxing them on the single supreme principle of rational regard for
the "common good of all," and showing them, as so based, to be
adequately supported by the divine sanction. The Cambridge school,
regarding morality primarily as a body of truth rather than a code of
rules, insist on its absolute character and intuitive certainty.
The Cambridge moralists, Cudworth.
Cudworth was the most distinguished of the little group of thinkers at
Cambridge in the 17th century, commonly known as the Cambridge
Platonists (q.v.). In his treatise on _Eternal and Immutable Morality_
his main aim is to maintain the "essential and eternal distinctions of
good and evil" as independent of mere will, whether human or divine.
These distinctions, he insists, have an objective reality, cognizable by
reason no less than the relations of space or number; and he endeavours
to refute Hobbism--which he treats as a "novantique philosophy," a mere
revival of the relativism of Protagoras--chiefly by the following
_argumentum ad hominem_. He argues that Hobbes's atomic materialism
involves the conception of an objective physical world, the object not
of passive sense that varies from man to man, but of the active
intellect that is the same in all; there is therefore, he urges, an
inconsistency in refusing to admit a similar exercise of intellect in
morals, and an objective world of right and wrong, which the mind by its
normal activity clearly apprehends as such.
More.
Cudworth, in the work above mentioned, gives no systematic exposition of
the ethical principles which he holds to be thus intuitively
apprehended. But we may supply this deficiency from the _Enchiridion
Ethicum_ of Henry More, another thinker of the same school. More gives a
list of 23 _Noemata Moralia_, the truth of which will, he says, be
immediately manifest. Some of these admit of a purely egoistic
application, and appear to be so understood by the author--as (e.g.)
that goods differ in quality as well as in duration, and that the
superior good or the lesser evil is always to be preferred; that absence
of a given amount of good is preferable to the presence of equivalent
evil; that future good or evil is to be regarded as much as present, if
equally certain, and nearly as much if very probable. Objections, both
general and special, might be urged by a Hobbist against these modes of
formulating man's natural pursuit of self-interest; but the serious
controversy between Hobbism and modern Platonism related not to such
principles as these, but to others which demand from the individual a
(real or apparent) sacrifice for his fellows. Such are the evangelical
principle of "doing as you would be done by"; the principle of justice,
or "giving every man his own, and letting him enjoy it without
interference"; and especially what More states as the abstract formula
of benevolence, that "if it be good that one man should be supplied with
the means of living well and happily, it is mathematically certain that
it is doubly good that two should be so supplied, and so on." The
question, however, still remains, what motive any individual has to
conform to these social principles when they conflict with his natural
desires. To this Cudworth gives no explicit reply, and the answer of
More is hardly clear. On the one hand he maintains that these principles
express an absolute good, which is to be called intellectual because its
essence and truth are apprehended by the intellect. We might infer from
this that the intellect, so judging, is itself the proper and complete
determinant of the will, and that man, as a rational being, ought to aim
at the realization of absolute good for its own sake. In spite, however,
of possible inferences from his definition of virtue, this does not seem
to be really More's view. He explains that though absolute good is
discerned by the intellect, the "sweetness and flavour" of it is
apprehended, not by the intellect proper, but by what he calls a
"boniform faculty"; and it is in this sweetness and flavour that the
motive to virtuous conduct lies; ethics is the "art of living well and
happily," and true happiness lies in "the pleasure which the soul
derives from the sense of virtue." In short, More's Platonism appears to
be really as hedonistic as Hobbism; only the feeling to which it appeals
as ultimate motive is of a kind that only a mind of exceptional moral
refinement can habitually feel with the decisive intensity required.
Cumberland.
It is to be observed that though More lays down the abstract principle
of regarding one's neighbour's good as much as one's own with the full
breadth with which Christianity inculcates it, yet when he afterwards
comes to classify virtues he is too much under the influence of
Platonic-Aristotelian thought to give a distinct place to benevolence,
except under the old form of liberality. In this respect his system
presents a striking contrast to Cumberland's, whose treatise _De Legibus
Naturae_ (1672), though written like More's in Latin, is yet in its
ethical matter thoroughly modern. Cumberland is a thinker both original
and comprehensive, and, in spite of defects in style and clearness, he
is noteworthy as having been the first to lay down that "regard for the
common good of all" is the supreme rule of morality or law of nature. So
far he may be fairly called the precursor of later utilitarianism. His
fundamental principle and supreme "Law of Nature" is thus stated: "The
greatest possible benevolence of every rational agent towards all the
rest constitutes the happiest state of each and all, so far as depends
on their own power, and is necessarily required for their happiness;
accordingly Common Good will be the Supreme Good." It is, however,
important to notice that in his "good" is included not merely happiness
but "perfection"; and he does not even define perfection so as to
exclude from it the notion of absolute moral perfection and save his
theory from an obvious logical circle. A notion so vague could not
possibly be used with any precision for determining the subordinate
rules of morality; but in fact Cumberland does not attempt this; his
supreme principle is designed not to rectify, but merely to support and
systematize, common morality. This principle, as was said, is conceived
as strictly a law, and therefore referred to a lawgiver, God, and
provided with a sanction in its effects on the agent's happiness. That
the divine will is expressed by it, Cumberland, "not being so fortunate
as to possess innate ideas," tries to prove by a long inductive
examination of the evidences of man's essential sociality exhibited in
his physical and mental constitution. His account of the sanction,
again, is sufficiently comprehensive, including both the internal and
the external rewards of virtue and punishments of vice; and he, like
later utilitarians, explains moral obligation to lie in the force
exercised on the will by these sanctions; but as to the precise manner
in which individual is implicated with universal good, and the operation
of either or both in determining volition, his view is indistinct if not
actually inconsistent.
Locke.
The clearness which we seek in vain from Cumberland is found to the
fullest extent in Locke, whose _Essay on the Human Understanding_ (1690)
was already planned when Cumberland's treatise appeared. Yet Locke's
ethical opinions have been widely misunderstood; since from a confusion
between "innate ideas" and "intuitions," which has been common in recent
ethical discussion, it has been supposed that the founder of English
empiricism must necessarily have been hostile to "intuitional" ethics.
The truth is that, while Locke agrees entirely with Hobbes as to the
egoistic basis of rational conduct, and the interpretation of "good" and
"evil" as "pleasure" and "pain," or that which is productive of pleasure
and pain, he yet agrees entirely with Hobbes's opponents in holding
ethical rules to be actually obligatory independently of political
society, and capable of being scientifically constructed on principles
intuitively known,--though he does not regard these principles as
implanted in the mind at birth. The aggregate of such rules he conceives
as the law of God, carefully distinguishing it, not only from civil law,
but from the law of opinion or reputation, the varying moral standard by
which men actually distribute praise and blame; as being divine it is
necessarily sanctioned by adequate rewards and punishments. He does not,
indeed, speak of the scientific construction of this code as having been
actually effected, but he affirms its possibility in language remarkably
strong and decisive. "The idea," he says, "of a Supreme Being, infinite
in power, goodness, and wisdom, whose workmanship we are, and upon whom
we depend, and the idea of ourselves, as understanding rational beings,
being such as are clear in us, would, I suppose, if duly considered and
pursued, afford such foundations of our duty and rules of action, as
might place morality among the sciences capable of demonstration;
wherein, I doubt not, but from self-evident propositions, by necessary
consequences as incontestable as those in mathematics, the measure of
right and wrong might be made out." As Locke cannot consistently mean by
God's "goodness" anything but the disposition to give pleasure, it might
be inferred that the ultimate standard of right rules of action ought to
be the common happiness of the beings affected by the action; but Locke
does not explicitly adopt this standard. The only instances which he
gives of intuitive moral truths are the purely formal propositions, "No
government allows absolute liberty," and "Where there is no property
there is no injustice,"--neither of which has any evident connexion with
the general happiness. As regards his conception of the Law of Nature,
he takes it in the main immediately from Grotius and Pufendorf, more
remotely from the Stoics and the Roman jurists.
Clarke.
We might give, as a fair illustration of Locke's general conception of
ethics, a system which is frequently represented as diametrically
opposed to Lockism; namely, that expounded in Clarke's Boyle lectures on
the _Being and Attributes of God_ (1704). It is true that Locke is not
particularly concerned with the ethico-theological proposition which
Clarke is most anxious to maintain,--that the fundamental rules of
morality are independent of arbitrary will, whether divine or human. But
in his general view of ethical principles as being, like mathematical
principles,[29] essentially truths of relation, Clarke is quite in
accordance with Locke; while of the four fundamental rules that he
expounds, Piety towards God, Equity, Benevolence and Sobriety (which
includes self-preservation), the first is obtained, just as Locke
suggests, by "comparing the idea" of man with the idea of an infinitely
good and wise being on whom he depends; and the second and third are
axioms self-evident on the consideration of the equality or similarity
of human individuals as such. The principle of equity--that "whatever I
judge reasonable or unreasonable for another to do for me, that by the
same I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I in the like case should
do for him," is merely a formal statement of the golden rule of the
gospel. We may observe that, in stating the principle of benevolence,
"since the greater good is always most fit and reasonable to be done,
every rational creature ought to do all the good it can to its
fellow-creatures," Clarke avowedly follows Cumberland, from whom he
quotes the further sentence that "universal love and benevolence is as
plainly the most direct, certain and effectual means to this good as the
flowing of a point is to produce a line." The quotation may remind us
that the analogy between ethics and mathematics ought to be traced
further back than Locke; in fact, it results from the influence
exercised by Cartesianism over English thought generally, in the latter
half of the 17th century. It must be allowed that Clarke is misled by
the analogy to use general ethical terms ("fitness," "agreement" of
things, &c.), which overlook the essential distinction between what is
and what ought to be; and even in one or two expressions to overleap
this distinction extravagantly, as (e.g.) in saying that the man who
"wilfully acts contrary to justice wills things to be what they are not
and cannot be." What he really means is less paradoxically stated in the
general proposition that "originally and in reality it is natural and
(morally speaking) necessary that the will should be determined in every
action by the reason of the thing and the right of the case, as it is
natural and (absolutely speaking) necessary that the understanding
should submit to a demonstrated truth." But though it is an essential
point in Clarke's view that what is right is to be done as such, apart
from any consideration of pleasure or pain, it is to be inferred that he
is not prepared to apply this doctrine in its unqualified form to such a
creature as man, who is partly under the influence of irrational
impulses. At least when he comes to argue the need of future rewards and
punishments we find that his claim on behalf of morality is startlingly
reduced. He now only contends that "virtue deserves to be chosen for its
own sake, and vice to be avoided, though a man was sure for his own
particular neither to gain nor lose anything by the practice of either."
He fully admits that the question is altered when vice is attended by
pleasure and profit to the vicious man, virtue by loss and calamity; and
even that it is "not truly reasonable that men by adhering to virtue
should part with their lives, if thereby they deprived themselves of
all possibility of receiving any advantage from their adherence."
Thus, on the whole, the impressive earnestness with which Clarke
enforces the doctrine of rational morality only rendered more manifest
the difficulty of establishing ethics on an independent philosophical
basis; so long at least as the psychological egoism of Hobbes is not
definitely assailed and overthrown. Until this is done, the utmost
demonstration of the abstract reasonableness of social duty only leaves
us with an irreconcilable antagonism between the view of abstract reason
and the self-love which is allowed to be the root of man's appetitive
nature. Let us grant that there is as much intellectual absurdity in
acting unjustly as in denying that two and two make four; still, if a
man has to choose between absurdity and unhappiness, he will naturally
prefer the former; and Clarke, as we have already seen, is not really
prepared to maintain that such preference is irrational.[30]
Shaftesbury.
It remains to try another psychological basis for ethical construction;
instead of presenting the principle of social duty as abstract reason,
liable to conflict to any extent with natural self-love, we may try to
exhibit the naturalness of man's social affections, and demonstrate a
normal harmony between these and his self-regarding impulses. This is
the line of thought which Shaftesbury (1671-1713) may be said to have
initiated. This theory had already been advanced by Cumberland and
others, but Shaftesbury was the first to make it the cardinal point in
his system; no one had yet definitely transferred the centre of ethical
interest from the Reason, conceived as apprehending either abstract
moral distinctions or laws of divine legislation, for the emotional
impulses that prompt to social duty; no one had undertaken to
distinguish clearly, by analysis of experience, the disinterested and
self-regarding elements of our appetitive nature, or to prove
inductively their perfect harmony. In his _Inquiry concerning Virtue and
Merit_ he begins by attacking the egoism of Hobbes, which, as we have
seen, was not necessarily excluded by the doctrine of rational
intuitions of duty. This interpretation, he says, would be true only if
we considered man as a wholly unrelated individual. Such a being we
might doubtless call "good," if his impulses were adapted to the
attainment of his own felicity. But man we must and do consider in
relation to a larger system of which he forms a part, and so we call him
"good" only when his impulses and dispositions are so balanced as to
tend towards the good of this whole. And again we do not attribute
goodness to him merely because his outward acts have beneficial results.
When we speak of a man as good, we mean that his dispositions or
affections are such as tend of themselves to promote the good or
happiness of human society. Hobbes's moral man, who, if let loose from
governmental constraint, would straightway spread ruin among his
fellows, is not what we commonly agree to call good. Moral goodness,
then, in a "sensible creature" implies primarily disinterested
affections, whose direct object is the good of others; but Shaftesbury
does not mean (as he has been misunderstood to mean) that only such
benevolent social impulses are good, and that these are always good. On
the contrary, he is careful to point out, first, that immoderate social
affections defeat themselves, miss their proper end, and are therefore
bad; secondly, that as an individual's good is part of the good of the
whole, "self-affections" existing in a duly limited degree are morally
good. Goodness, in short, consists in due combination, in just
proportion, of both sorts of "affections," tendency to promote general
good being taken as the criterion of the right degrees and proportions.
This being established, the main aim of Shaftesbury's argument is to
prove that the same balance of private and social affections, which
tends naturally to public good, is also conducive to the happiness of
the individual in whom it exists. Taking the different impulses in
detail, he first shows how the individual's happiness is promoted by
developing his social affections, mental pleasures being superior to
bodily, and the pleasures of benevolence the richest of all. In
discussing this he distinguishes, with well-applied subtlety, between
the pleasurableness of the benevolent emotions themselves, the
sympathetic enjoyment of the happiness of others, and the pleasure
arising from a consciousness of their love and esteem. He then exhibits
the unhappiness that results from any excess of the self-regarding
impulses, bodily appetite, desire of wealth, emulation, resentment, even
love of life itself; and ends by dwelling on the intrinsic painfulness
of all malevolence.[31]
One more special impulse remains to be noticed. We have seen that
goodness of character consists in a certain harmony of self-regarding
and social affections. But virtue, in Shaftesbury's view, is something
more; it implies a recognition of moral goodness and immediate
preference of it for its own sake. This immediate pleasure that we take
in goodness (and displeasure in its opposite) is due to a susceptibility
which he calls the "reflex" or "moral" sense, and compares with our
susceptibility to beauty and deformity in external things; it furnishes
both an additional direct impulse to good conduct, and an additional
gratification to be taken into account in the reckoning which proves the
coincidence of virtue and happiness. This doctrine of the moral sense is
sometimes represented as Shaftesbury's cardinal tenet; but though
characteristic and important, it is not really necessary to his main
argument; it is the crown rather than the keystone of his ethical
structure.
Mandeville.
The appearance of Shaftesbury's _Characteristics_ (1713) marks a
turning-point in the history of English ethical thought. With the
generation of moralists that followed, the consideration of abstract
rational principles falls into the background, and its place is taken by
introspective study of the human mind, observation of the actual play of
its various impulses and sentiments. This empirical psychology had not
indeed been neglected by previous writers. More, among others, had
imitated Descartes in a discussion of the passions, and Locke's essay
had given a still stronger impulse in the same direction; still,
Shaftesbury is the first moralist who distinctly takes psychological
experience as the basis of ethics. His suggestions were developed by
Hutcheson into one of the most elaborate systems of moral philosophy
which we possess; through Hutcheson, if not directly, they influenced
Hume's speculations, and are thus connected with later utilitarianism.
Moreover, the substance of Shaftesbury's main argument was adopted by
Butler, though it could not pass the scrutiny of that powerful and
cautious intellect without receiving important modifications and
additions. On the other hand, the ethical optimism of Shaftesbury,
rather broadly impressive than exactly reasoned, and connected as it was
with a natural theology that implied the Christian scheme to be
superfluous, challenged attack equally from orthodox divines and from
cynical freethinkers. Of these latter Mandeville, the author of _The
Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices Public Benefits_ (1723), was a
conspicuous if not a typical specimen. He can hardly be called a
"moralist"; and though it is impossible to deny him a considerable share
of philosophic penetration, his anti-moral paradoxes have not even
apparent coherence. He is convinced that virtue (where it is more than a
mere pretence) is purely artificial; but not quite certain whether it is
a useless trammel of appetites and passions that are advantageous to
society, or a device creditable to the politicians who introduced it by
playing upon the "pride and vanity" of the "silly creature man." The
view, however, to which he gave audacious expression, that moral
regulation is something alien to the natural man, and imposed on him
from without, seems to have been very current in the polite society of
his time, as we learn both from Berkeley's _Alciphron_ and from Butler's
more famous sermons.
Butler.
The view of "human nature" against which Butler preached was not exactly
Mandeville's, nor was it properly to be called Hobbist, although Butler
fairly treats it as having a philosophical basis in Hobbes's psychology.
It was, so to say, Hobbism turned inside out,--rendered licentious and
anarchical instead of constructive. Hobbes had said "the natural state
of man is non-moral, unregulated; moral rules are means to the end of
peace, which is a means to the end of self-preservation." On this view
morality, though dependent for its actuality on the social compact which
establishes government, is actually binding on man as a reasonable
being. But the quasi-theistic assumption that what is natural must be
reasonable remained in the minds of Hobbes's most docile readers, and in
combination with his thesis that egoism is natural, tended to produce
results which were dangerous to social well-being. To meet this view
Butler does not content himself, as is sometimes carelessly supposed,
with insisting on the natural claim to authority of the conscience which
his opponent repudiated as artificial; he adds a subtle and effective
argument _ad hominem_. He first follows Shaftesbury in exhibiting the
social affections as no less natural than the appetites and desires
which tend directly to self-preservation; then reviving the Stoic view
of the _prima naturae_, the first objects of natural appetites, he
argues that pleasure is not the primary aim even of the impulses which
Shaftesbury allowed to be "self-affections"; but rather a result which
follows upon their attaining their natural ends. We have, in fact, to
distinguish self-love, the "general desire that every man hath of his
own happiness" or pleasure, from the particular affections, passions,
and appetites directed towards objects other than pleasure, in the
satisfaction of which pleasure consists. The latter are "necessarily
presupposed" as distinct impulses in "the very idea of an interested
pursuit"; since, if there were no such pre-existing desires, there would
be no pleasure for self-love to aim at. Thus the object of hunger is not
the pleasure of eating but food; hunger is therefore, strictly speaking,
no more "interested" than benevolence; granting that the pleasures of
the table are an important element in the happiness at which self-love
aims, the same at least may be said for the pleasures of love and
sympathy. Further, so far from bodily appetites (or other particular
desires) being forms of self-love, there is no one of them which under
certain circumstances may not come into conflict with it. Indeed, it is
common for men to sacrifice to passion what they know to be their true
interests; at the same time we do not consider such conduct "natural" in
man as a rational being; we rather regard it as natural for him to
govern his transient impulses. Thus the notion of natural unregulated
egoism turns out to be a psychological chimera. Indeed, we may say that
an egoist must be doubly self-regulative, since rational self-love ought
to restrain not only other impulses, but itself also; for as happiness
is made up of feelings that result from the satisfaction of impulses
other than self-love, any over-development of the latter, enfeebling
these other impulses, must proportionally diminish the happiness at
which self-love aims. If, then, it be admitted that human impulses are
naturally under government, the natural claim of conscience or the moral
faculty to be the supreme governor will hardly be denied.
But has not self-love also, by Butler's own account, a similar
authority, which may come into conflict with that of conscience? Butler
fully admits this, and, in fact, grounds on it an important criticism of
Shaftesbury. We have seen that in the latter's system the "moral sense"
is not absolutely required, or at least is necessary only as a
substitute for enlightened self-regard; since if the harmony between
prudence and virtue, self-regarding and social impulses, is complete,
mere self-interest will prompt a duly enlightened mind to maintain
precisely that "balance" of affections in which goodness consists. But
to Butler's more cautious mind the completeness of this harmony did not
seem sufficiently demonstrable to be taken as a basis of moral teaching;
he has at least to contemplate the possibility of a man being convinced
of the opposite; and he argues that unless we regard conscience as
essentially authoritative--which is not implied in the term "moral
sense"--such a man is really bound to be vicious; "since interest, one's
own happiness, is a manifest obligation." Still on this view, even if
the authority of conscience be asserted, we seem reduced to an ultimate
dualism of our rational nature. Butler's ordered polity of impulses
turns out to be a polity with two independent governments. Butler does
not deny this, so far as mere claim to authority is concerned;[32] but
he maintains that, the dictates of conscience being clear and certain,
while the calculations of self-interest lead to merely probable
conclusions, it can never be practically reasonable to disobey the
former, even apart from any proof which religion may furnish of the
absolute coincidence of the two in a future life.
Wollaston.
This dualism of governing principles, conscience and self-love, in
Butler's system, and perhaps, too, his revival of the Platonic
conception of human nature as an ordered and governed community of
impulses, is perhaps most nearly anticipated in Wollaston's _Religion of
Nature Delineated_ (1722). Here, for the first time, we find "moral
good" and "natural good" or "happiness" treated separately as two
essentially distinct objects of rational pursuit and investigation; the
harmony between them being regarded as matter of religious faith, not
moral knowledge. Wollaston's theory of moral evil as consisting in the
practical contradiction of a true proposition, closely resembles the
most paradoxical part of Clarke's doctrine, and was not likely to
approve itself to the strong common sense of Butler; but his statement
of happiness or pleasure as a "justly desirable" end at which every
rational being "ought" to aim corresponds exactly to Butler's conception
of self-love as a naturally governing impulse; while the "moral
arithmetic" with which he compares pleasures and pains, and endeavours
to make the notion of happiness quantitatively precise, is an
anticipation of Benthamism.
Hutcheson.
There is another side of Shaftesbury's harmony which Butler was
ultimately led to oppose in a more decided manner,--the opposition,
namely, between conscience or the moral sense and the social affections.
In the _Sermons_, indeed (1729), Butler seems to treat conscience and
calm benevolence as permanently allied though distinct principles, but
in the _Dissertation on Virtue_, appended to the _Analogy_ (1739), he
maintains that the conduct dictated by conscience will often differ
widely from that to which mere regard for the production of happiness
would prompt. We may take this latter treatise as representing the first
in the development of English ethics, at which what were afterwards
called "utilitarian" and "intuitional" morality were first formally
opposed; in earlier systems the antithesis is quite latent, as we have
incidentally noticed in the case of Cumberland and Clarke. The argument
in Butler's dissertation was probably directed chiefly against
Hutcheson, who in his _Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty
and Virtue_ had definitely identified virtue with benevolence. The
identification is slightly qualified in Hutcheson's posthumously
published _System of Moral Philosophy_ (1755), in which the general view
of Shaftesbury is more fully developed, with several new psychological
distinctions, including Butler's separation of "calm" benevolence--as
well as, after Butler, "calm self-love"--from the "turbulent" passions,
selfish or social. Hutcheson follows Butler again in laying stress on
the regulating and controlling function of the moral sense; but he still
regards "kind affections" as the principal objects of moral
approbation--the "calm" and "extensive" affections being preferred to
the turbulent and narrow--together with the desire and love of moral
excellence which is ranked with universal benevolence, the two being
equally worthy and necessarily harmonious. Only in a secondary sense is
approval due to certain "abilities and dispositions immediately
connected with virtuous affections," as candour, veracity, fortitude,
sense of honour; while in a lower grade still are placed sciences and
arts, along with even bodily skills and gifts; indeed, the approbation
we give to these is not strictly moral, but is referred to the "sense of
decency or dignity," which (as well as the sense of honour) is to be
distinguished from the moral sense. Calm self-love Hutcheson regards as
morally indifferent; though he enters into a careful analysis of the
elements of happiness,[33] in order to show that a true regard for
private interest always coincides with the moral sense and with
benevolence. While thus maintaining Shaftesbury's "harmony" between
public and private good, Hutcheson is still more careful to establish
the strict disinterestedness of benevolent affections. Shaftesbury had
conclusively shown that these were not in the vulgar sense selfish; but
the very stress which he lays on the pleasure inseparable from their
exercise suggests a subtle egoistic theory which he does not expressly
exclude, since it may be said that this "intrinsic reward" constitutes
the real motive of the benevolent man. To this Hutcheson replies that no
doubt the exquisite delight of the emotion of love is a motive to
sustain and develop it; but this pleasure cannot be directly obtained,
any more than other pleasures, by merely desiring it; it can be sought
only by the indirect method of cultivating and indulging the
disinterested desire for others' good, which is thus obviously distinct
from the desire for the pleasure of benevolence. He points to the fact
that the imminence of death often intensifies instead of diminishing a
man's desire for the welfare of those he loves, as a crucial experiment
proving the disinterestedness of love; adding, as confirmatory evidence,
that the sympathy and admiration commonly felt for self-sacrifice
depends on the belief that it is something different from refined
self-seeking.
It remains to consider how, from the doctrine that affection is the
proper object of approbation, we are to deduce moral rules or "natural
laws" prescribing or prohibiting outward acts. It is obvious that all
actions conducive to the general good will deserve our highest
approbation if done from disinterested benevolence; but how if they are
not so done? In answering this question, Hutcheson avails himself of the
scholastic distinction between "material" and "formal" goodness. "An
action," he says, "is _materially_ good when in fact it tends to the
interest of the system, so far as we can judge of its tendency, or to
the good of some part consistent with that of the system, whatever were
the affections of the agent. An action is _formally_ good when it flowed
from good affection in a just proportion." On the pivot of this
distinction Hutcheson turns round from the point of view of Shaftesbury
to that of later utilitarianism. As regards "material" goodness of
actions, he adopts explicitly and unreservedly the formula afterwards
taken as fundamental by Bentham; holding that "that action is best which
procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers, and the worst
which in a like manner occasions misery." Accordingly his treatment of
external rights and duties, though decidedly inferior in methodical
clearness and precision, does not differ in principle from that of Paley
or Bentham, except that he lays greater stress on the immediate
conduciveness of actions to the happiness of individuals, and more often
refers in a merely supplementary or restrictive way to their tendencies
in respect of general happiness. It may be noticed, too, that he still
accepts the "social compact" as the natural mode of constituting
government, and regards the obligations of subjects to civil obedience
as normally dependent on a tacit contract; though he is careful to state
that consent is not absolutely necessary to the just establishment of
beneficent government, nor the source of irrevocable obligation to a
pernicious one.
Hume.
An important step further in political utilitarianism was taken by Hume
in his _Treatise on Human Nature_ (1739). Hume concedes that a compact
is the natural means of peacefully instituting a new government, and may
therefore be properly regarded as the ground of allegiance to it at the
outset; but he urges that, when once it is firmly established the duty
of obeying it rests on precisely the same combination of private and
general interests as the duty of keeping promises; it is therefore
absurd to base the former on the latter. Justice, veracity, fidelity to
compacts and to governments, are all co-ordinate; they are all
"artificial" virtues, due to civilization, and not belonging to man in
his "ruder and more natural" condition; our approbation of all alike is
founded on our perception of their useful consequences. It is this last
position that constitutes the fundamental difference between Hutcheson's
ethical doctrine and Hume's.[34] The former, while accepting utility as
the criterion of "material goodness," had adhered to Shaftesbury's view
that dispositions, not results of action, were the proper object of
moral approval; at the same time, while giving to benevolence the first
place in his account of personal merit, he had shrunk from the paradox
of treating it as the sole virtue, and had added a rather undefined and
unexplained train of qualities,--veracity, fortitude, activity,
industry, sagacity,--immediately approved in various degrees by the
"moral sense" or the "sense of dignity." This naturally suggested to a
mind like Hume's, anxious to apply the experimental method to
psychology, the problem of reducing these different elements of personal
merit--or rather our approval of them--to some common principle. The old
theory that referred this approval entirely to self-love, is, he holds,
easy to disprove by "crucial experiments" on the play of our moral
sentiments; rejecting this, he finds the required explanation in the
sympathetic pleasure that attends our perception of the conduciveness of
virtue to the interests of human beings other than ourselves. He
endeavours to establish this inductively by a survey of the qualities,
commonly praised as virtues, which he finds to be always either useful
or immediately agreeable, either (1) to the virtuous agent himself or
(2) to others. In class (2) he includes, besides the Benevolence of
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, the useful virtues, Justice, Veracity and
Fidelity to compacts; as well as such immediately agreeable qualities as
politeness, wit, modesty and even cleanliness. The most original part of
his discussion, however, is concerned with qualities immediately useful
to their possessor. The most cynical man of the world, he says, with
whatever "sullen incredulity" he may repudiate virtue as a hollow
pretence, cannot really refuse his approbation to "discretion, caution,
enterprise, industry, frugality, economy, good sense, prudence,
discernment"; nor again, to "temperance, sobriety, patience,
perseverance, considerateness, secrecy, order, insinuation, address,
presence of mind, quickness of conception, facility of expression." It
is evident that the merit of these qualities in our eyes is chiefly due
to our perception of their tendency to serve the person possessed of
them; so that the cynic in praising them is really exhibiting the
unselfish sympathy of which he doubts the existence. Hume admits the
difficulty that arises, especially in the case of the "artificial"
virtues, such as justice, &c., from the undeniable fact that we praise
them and blame their opposites without consciously reflecting on useful
or pernicious consequences; but considers that this may be explained as
an effect of "education and acquired habits."[35]
So far the moral faculty has been considered as contemplative rather
than active; and this, indeed, is the point of view from which Hume
mainly regards it. If we ask what actual motive we have for virtuous
conduct, Hume's answer is not quite clear. On the one hand, he speaks of
moral approbation as derived from "humanity and benevolence," while
expressly recognizing, after Butler, that there is a strictly
disinterested element in our benevolent impulses (as also in hunger,
thirst, love of fame and other passions). On the other hand, he does not
seem to think that moral sentiment or "taste" can "become a motive to
action," except as it "gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes
happiness or misery." It is difficult to make these views quite
consistent; but at any rate Hume emphatically maintains that "_reason_
is no motive to action," except so far as it "directs the impulse
received from appetite or inclination"; and recognizes--in his later
treatise at least--no "obligation" to virtue, except that of the agent's
interest or happiness. He attempts, however, to show, in a summary way,
that all the duties which his moral theory recommends are also "the true
interest of the individual,"--taking into account the importance to his
happiness of "peaceful reflection on one's own conduct."
Adam Smith.
But even if we consider the moral consciousness merely as a particular
kind of pleasurable emotion, there is an obvious question suggested by
Hume's theory, to which he gives no adequate answer. If the essence of
"moral taste" is sympathy with the pleasure of others, why is not this
specific feeling excited by other things beside virtue that tend to
cause such pleasure? On this point Hume contents himself with the vague
remark that "there are a numerous set of passions and sentiments, of
which thinking rational beings are by the original constitution of
nature the only proper objects." The truth is, that Hume's notion of
moral approbation was very loose, as is sufficiently shown by the list
of "useful and agreeable" qualities which he considers worthy of
approbation.[36] It is therefore hardly surprising that his theory
should leave the specific quality of the moral sentiments a fact still
needing to be explained. An original and ingenious solution of this
problem was offered by his contemporary Adam Smith, in his _Theory of
Moral Sentiments_ (1759). Without denying the actuality or importance of
that sympathetic pleasure in the perceived or inferred effects of
virtues and vices he yet holds that the essential part of common moral
sentiment is constituted rather by a more direct sympathy with the
impulses that prompt to action or expression. The spontaneous play of
this sympathy he treats as an original and inexplicable fact of human
nature, but he considers that its action is powerfully sustained by the
pleasure that each man finds in the accord of his feelings with
another's. By means of this primary element, compounded in various ways,
Adam Smith explains all the phenomena of the moral consciousness. He
takes first the semi-moral notion of "propriety" or "decorum," and
endeavours to show inductively that our application of this notion to
the social behaviour of another is determined by our degree of sympathy
with the feeling expressed in such behaviour. Thus the prescriptions of
good taste in the expression of feeling may be summed up in the
principle, "reduce or raise the expression to that with which spectators
will sympathize." When the effort to restrain feeling is exhibited in a
degree which surprises as well as pleases, it excites admiration as a
virtue or excellence; such excellences Adam Smith quaintly calls the
"awful and respectable," contrasting them with the "amiable virtues"
which consist in the opposite effort to sympathize, when exhibited in a
remarkable degree. From the sentiments of propriety and admiration we
proceed to the sense of merit and demerit. Here a more complex
phenomenon presents itself for analysis; we have to distinguish in the
sense of merit--(1) a direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent,
and (2) an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of those who receive the
benefit of his actions. In the case of demerit there is a direct
antipathy to the feelings of the misdoer, but the chief sentiment
excited is sympathy with those injured by the misdeed. The object of
this sympathetic resentment, impelling us to punish, is what we call
injustice; and thus the remarkable stringency of the obligation to act
justly is explained since the recognition of any action as unjust
involves the admission that it may be forcibly obstructed or punished.
Moral judgments, then, are expressions of the complex normal sympathy of
an impartial spectator with the active impulses that prompt to and
result from actions. In the case of our own conduct what we call
conscience is really sympathy with the feelings of an imaginary
impartial spectator.
Adam Smith gives authority to his moral system by saying that "moral
principles are justly to be regarded as the laws of the Deity"; but this
he never proves. So Hume insists emphatically on the "reality of moral
obligation"; but is found to mean no more by this than the real
existence of the likes and dislikes that human beings feel for each
other's qualities. The fact is that amid the analysis of feelings
aroused by the sentimentalism of Shaftesbury's school, the fundamental
questions "What is right?" and "Why?" had been allowed to drop into the
background, and the consequent danger to morality was manifest. The
binding force of moral rules becomes evanescent if we admit, with
Hutcheson, that the "sense" of them may properly vary from man to man as
the palate does; and it seems only another way of putting Hume's
doctrine, that reason is not concerned with the ends of action, to say
that the mere existence of a moral sentiment is in itself no reason for
obeying it. A reaction, in one form or another, against the tendency to
dissolve ethics into psychology was inevitable; since mankind generally
could not be so far absorbed by the interest of psychological hypothesis
as to forget their need of establishing practical principles. It was
obvious, too, that this reaction might take place in either of the two
lines of thought, which, having been peacefully allied in Clarke and
Cumberland, had become distinctly opposed to each other in Butler and
Hutcheson. It might either fall back on the moral principles commonly
accepted, and, affirming their objective validity, endeavour to exhibit
them as a coherent and complete set of ultimate ethical truths; or it
might take the utility or conduciveness to pleasure, to which Hume had
referred for the origin of most sentiments, as an ultimate end and
standard by which these sentiments might be judged and corrected. The
former is the line adopted with substantial agreement by Price, Reid,
Stewart and other members of the still existing Intuitional school; the
latter method, with considerably more divergence of view and treatment,
was employed independently and almost simultaneously by Paley and
Bentham in both ethics and politics, and is at the present time widely
maintained under the name of Utilitarianism.
Price.
Price's _Review of the Chief Questions and Difficulties of Morals_ was
published in 1757, two years before Adam Smith's treatise. In regarding
moral ideas as derived from the "intuition of truth or immediate
discernment of the nature of things by the understanding," Price revives
the general view of Cudworth and Clarke; but with several specific
differences. Firstly, his conception of "right" and "wrong" as "single
ideas" incapable of definition or analysis--the notions "right," "fit,"
"ought," "duty," "obligation," being coincident or identical--at least
avoids the confusions into which Clarke and Wollaston had been led by
pressing the analogy between ethical and physical truth. Secondly, the
emotional element of the moral consciousness, on which attention had
been concentrated by Shaftesbury and his followers, though distinctly
recognized as accompanying the intellectual intuition, is carefully
subordinated to it. While right and wrong, in Price's view, are "real
objective qualities" of actions, moral "beauty and deformity" are
subjective ideas; representing feelings which are partly the necessary
effects of the perceptions of right and wrong in rational beings as
such, partly due to an "implanted sense" or varying emotional
susceptibility. Thus, both reason and sense of instinct co-operate in
the impulse to virtuous conduct, though the rational element is primary
and paramount. Price further follows Butler in distinguishing the
perception of merit and demerit in agents as another accompaniment of
the perception of right and wrong in actions; the former being, however,
only a peculiar species of the latter, since, to perceive merit in any
one is to perceive that it is right to reward him. It is to be observed
that both Price and Reid are careful to state that the merit of the
agent depends entirely on the intention or "formal rightness" of his
act; a man is not blameworthy for unintended evil, though he may of
course be blamed for any wilful neglect (cf. Arist., _Eth. Nic_., iii.
1), which has caused him to be ignorant of his real duty. When we turn
to the subject matter of virtue, we find that Price, in comparison with
More or Clarke is decidedly laxer in accepting and stating his ethical
first principles; chiefly owing to the new antithesis to the view of
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson by which his controversial position is
complicated. What Price is specially concerned to show is the existence
of ultimate principles _beside_ the principle of universal benevolence.
Not that he repudiates the obligation either of rational benevolence or
self-love; on the contrary, he takes more pains than Butler to
demonstrate the reasonableness of either principle. "There is not
anything," he says, "of which we have more undeniably an intuitive
perception, than that it is 'right to pursue and promote happiness,'
whether for ourselves or for others." Finally, Price, writing after the
demonstration by Shaftesbury and Butler of the actuality of
disinterested impulses in human nature, is bolder and clearer than
Cudworth or Clarke in insisting that right actions are to be chosen
because they are right by virtuous agents as such, even going so far as
to lay down that an act loses its moral worth in proportion as it is
done from natural inclination.
Reid.
On this latter point Reid, in his _Essays on the Active Powers of the
Human Mind_ (1788), states a conclusion more in harmony with common
sense, only maintaining that "no act can be morally good in which regard
for what is right has not _some_ influence." This is partly due to the
fact that Reid builds more distinctly than Price on the foundation laid
by Butler; especially in his acceptance of that duality of governing
principles which we have noticed as a cardinal point in the latter's
doctrine. Reid considers "regard for one's good on the whole" (Butler's
self-love) and "sense of duty" (Butler's conscience) as two essentially
distinct and co-ordinate rational principles, though naturally often
comprehended under the one term, Reason. The rationality of the former
principle he takes pains to explain and establish; in opposition to
Hume's doctrine that it is no part of the function of reason to
determine the ends which we ought to pursue, or the preference due to
one end over another. He urges that the notion of "good[37] on the
whole" is one which only a reasoning being can form, involving as it
does abstraction from the objects of all particular desires, and
comparison of past and future with present feelings; and maintains that
it is a contradiction to suppose a rational being to have the notion of
its Good on the Whole without a desire for it, and that such a desire
must naturally regulate all particular appetites and passions. It cannot
reasonably be subordinated even to the moral faculty; in fact, a man who
doubts the coincidence of the two--which on religious grounds we must
believe to be complete in a morally governed world--is reduced to the
"miserable dilemma whether it is better to be a fool or a knave." As
regards the moral faculty itself, Reid's statement coincides in the main
with Price's; it is both intellectual and active, not merely perceiving
the "rightness" or "moral obligation" of actions (which Reid conceives
as a simple unanalysable relation between act and agent), but also
impelling the will to the performance of what is seen to be right. Both
thinkers hold that this perception of right and wrong in actions is
accompanied by a perception of merit and demerit in agents, and also by
a specific emotion; but whereas Price conceives this emotion chiefly as
pleasure or pain, analogous to that produced in the mind by physical
beauty or deformity, Reid regards it chiefly as benevolent affection,
esteem and sympathy (or their opposites), for the virtuous (or vicious)
agent. This "pleasurable good-will," when the moral judgment relates to
a man's own actions, becomes "the testimony of a good conscience--the
purest and most valuable of all human enjoyments." Reid is careful to
observe that this moral faculty is not "innate" except in germ; it
stands in need of "education, training, exercise (for which society is
indispensable), and habit," in order to the attainment of moral truth.
He does not with Price object to its being called the "moral sense,"
provided we understand by this a source not merely of feelings or
notions, but of "ultimate truths." Here he omits to notice the important
question whether the premises of moral reasoning are universal or
individual judgments; as to which the use of the term "sense" seems
rather to suggest the second alternative. Indeed, he seems himself quite
undecided on this question; since, though he generally represents
ethical method as deductive, he also speaks of the "original judgment
that this action is right and that wrong."
The truth is that the construction of a scientific method of ethics is a
matter of little practical moment to Reid. Thus, though he offers a list
of first principles, by deduction from which these common opinions may
be confirmed, he does not present it with any claim to completeness.
Besides maxims relating to virtue in general,--such as (1) that there is
a right and wrong in conduct, but (2) only in voluntary conduct, and
that we ought (3) to take pains to learn our duty, and (4) fortify
ourselves against temptations to deviate from it--Reid states five
fundamental axioms. The first of these is merely the principle of
rational self-love, "that we ought to prefer a greater to a lesser good,
though more distinct, and a less evil to a greater,"--the mention of
which seems rather inconsistent with Reid's distinct separation of the
"moral faculty" from "self-love." The third is merely the general rule
of benevolence stated in the somewhat vague Stoical formula, that "no
one is born for himself only." The fourth, again, is the merely formal
principle that "right and wrong must be the same to all in all
circumstances," which belongs equally to all systems of objective
morality; while the fifth prescribes the religious duty of "veneration
or submission to God." Thus, the only principle which ever appears to
offer definite guidance as to social duty is the second, "that so far as
the intention of nature appears in the constitution of man, we ought to
act according to that intention," the vagueness[38] of which is obvious.
(For Reid's views on moral freedom see A. Bain, _Mental Science_, pp.
422, seq.)
Dugald Stewart.
A similar incompleteness in the statement of moral principles is found
if we turn to Reid's disciple, Dugald Stewart, whose _Philosophy of the
Active and Moral Powers of Man_ (1828) contains the general view of
Butler and Reid, and to some extent that of Price,--expounded with more
fulness and precision, but without important original additions or
modifications. Stewart lays stress on the obligation of justice as
distinct from benevolence; but his definition of justice represents it
as essentially impartiality,--a virtue which (as was just now said of
Reid's fourth principle) must equally find a place in the utilitarian or
any other system that lays down universally applicable rules of
morality. Afterwards, however, Stewart distinguishes "integrity or
honesty" as a branch of justice concerned with the rights of other men,
which form the subject of "natural jurisprudence." In this department he
lays down the moral axiom "that the labourer is entitled to the fruit of
his own labour" as the principle on which complete rights of property
are founded; maintaining that occupancy alone would only confer a
transient right of possession during use. The only other principles
which he discusses are veracity and fidelity to promises, gratitude
being treated as a natural instinct prompting to a particular kind of
just actions.
Whewell.
It will be seen that neither Reid nor Stewart offers more than a very
meagre and tentative contribution to that ethical science by which, as
they maintain, the received rules of morality may be rationally deduced
from self-evident first principles. A more ambitious attempt in the same
direction was made by Whewell in his _Elements of Morality_ (1846).
Whewell's general moral view differs from that of his Scottish
predecessors chiefly in a point where we may trace the influence of
Kant--viz. in his rejection of self-love as an independent rational and
governing principle, and his consequent refusal to admit happiness,
apart from duty, as a reasonable end for the individual. The moral
reason, thus left in sole supremacy, is represented as enunciating five
ultimate principles,--those of benevolence, justice, truth, purity and
order. With a little straining these are made to correspond to five
chief divisions of Jus,--personal security (benevolence being opposed to
the ill-will that commonly causes personal injuries), property,
contract, marriage and government; while the first, second and fourth,
again, regulate respectively the three chief classes of human
motives,--affections, mental desires and appetites. Thus the list, with
the addition of two general principles, "earnestness" and "moral
purpose," has a certain air of systematic completeness. When, however,
we look closer, we find that the principle of order, or obedience to
government, is not seriously intended to imply the political absolutism
which it seems to express, and which English common sense emphatically
repudiates; while the formula of justice is given in the tautological or
perfectly indefinite proposition "that every man ought to have his own."
Whewell, indeed, explains that this latter formula must be practically
interpreted by positive law, though he inconsistently speaks as if it
supplied a standard for judging laws to be right or wrong. The principle
of purity, again, "that the lower parts of our nature ought to be
subject to the higher," merely particularizes that supremacy of reason
over non-rational impulses which is involved in the very notion of
reasoned morality. Thus, in short, if we ask for a clear and definite
fundamental intuition, distinct from regard for happiness, we find
really nothing in Whewell's doctrine except the single rule of veracity
(including fidelity to promises); and even of this the axiomatic
character becomes evanescent on closer inspection, since it is not
maintained that the rule is practically unqualified, but only that it is
practically undesirable to formulate its qualifications.
Intuitional and utilitarian schools.
On the whole, it must be admitted that the doctrine of the intuitional
school of the 18th and 19th centuries has been developed with less care
and consistency than might have been expected, in its statement of the
fundamental axioms or intuitively known premises of moral reasoning. And
if the controversy which this school has conducted with utilitarianism
had turned principally on the determination of the matter of duty, there
can be little doubt that it would have been forced into more serious and
systematic effort to define precisely and completely the principles and
method on which we are to reason deductively to particular rules of
conduct.[39] But in fact the difference between intuitionists and
utilitarians as to the method of determining the particulars of the
moral code was complicated with a more fundamental disagreement as to
the very meaning of "moral obligation." This Paley and Bentham (after
Locke) interpreted as merely the effect on the will of the pleasures or
pains attached to the observance or violation of moral rules, combining
with this the doctrine of Hutcheson that "general good" or "happiness"
is the final end and standard of these rules; while they eliminated all
vagueness from the notion of general happiness by defining it to consist
in "excess of pleasure over pain"--pleasures and pains being regarded as
"differing in nothing but continuance or intensity." The utilitarian
system gained an attractive air of simplicity by thus using a single
perfectly clear notion--pleasure and its negative quantity pain--to
answer both the fundamental questions of mortals, "What is right?" and
"Why should I do it?" But since there is no logical connexion between
the answers that have thus come to be considered as one doctrine, this
apparent unity and simplicity has really hidden fundamental
disagreements, and caused no little confusion in ethical debate.
Paley.
In Paley's _Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy_[40] (1785),
the link between general pleasure (the standard) and private pleasure or
pain (the motive) is supplied by the conception of divine legislation.
To be "obliged" is to be "urged by a violent motive resulting from the
command of another"; in the case of moral obligation, the command
proceeds from God, and the motive lies in the expectation of being
rewarded and punished after this life. The commands of God are to be
ascertained "from scripture and the light of nature combined." Paley,
however, holds that scripture is given less to teach morality than to
illustrate it by example and enforce it by new sanctions and greater
certainty, and that the light of nature makes it clear that God wills
the happiness of his creatures. Hence, his method in deciding moral
questions is chiefly that of estimating the tendency of actions to
promote or diminish the general happiness. To meet the obvious
objections to this method, based on the immediate happiness caused by
admitted crimes (such as "knocking a rich villain on the head"), he lays
stress on the necessity of general rules in any kind of legislation;[41]
while, by urging the importance of forming and maintaining good habits,
he partly evades the difficulty of calculating the consequences of
particular actions. In this way the utilitarian method is freed from the
subversive tendencies which Butler and others had discerned in it; as
used by Paley, it merely explains the current moral and jural
distinctions, exhibits the obvious basis of expediency which supports
most of the received rules of law and morality and furnishes a simple
solution, in harmony with common sense, of some perplexing casuistical
questions. Thus (e.g.) "natural rights" become rights of which the
general observance would be useful apart from the institution of civil
government; as distinguished from the no less binding "adventitious
rights," the utility of which depends upon this institution. Private
property is in this sense "natural" from its obvious advantages in
encouraging labour, skill, preservative care; though actual rights of
property depend on the general utility of conforming to the law of the
land by which they are determined. We observe, however, that Paley's
method is often mixed with reasonings that belong to an alien and older
manner of thought; as when he supports the claim of the poor to charity
by referring to the intention of mankind "when they agreed to a
separation of the common fund," or when he infers that monogamy is a
part of the divine design from the equal numbers of males and females
born. In other cases his statement of utilitarian considerations is
fragmentary and unmethodical, and tends to degenerate into loose
exhortation on rather trite topics.
Bentham and his school.
In unity, consistency and thoroughness of method, Bentham's
utilitarianism has a decided superiority over Paley's. He considers
actions solely in respect of their pleasurable and painful consequences,
expected or actual; and he recognizes the need of making a systematic
register of these consequences, free from the influences of common moral
opinion, as expressed in the "eulogistic" and "dyslogistic" terms in
ordinary use. Further, the effects that he estimates are all of a
definite, palpable, empirically ascertainable quality; they are such
pleasures and pains as most men feel and all can observe, so that all
his political or moral inferences lie open at every point to the test of
practical experience. Every one, it would seem, can tell what value he
sets on the pleasures of alimentation, sex, the senses generally,
wealth, power, curiosity, sympathy, antipathy (malevolence), the
goodwill of individuals or of society at large, and on the corresponding
pains, as well as the pains of labour and organic disorders;[42] and can
guess the rate at which they are valued by others; therefore if it be
once granted that all actions are determined by pleasures and pains, and
are to be tried by the same standard, the art of legislation and private
conduct is apparently placed on an empirical, basis. Bentham, no doubt,
seems to go beyond the limits of experience proper in recognizing
"religious" pains and pleasures in his fourfold division of sanctions,
side by side with the "physical," "political," and "moral" or "social";
but the truth is that he does not seriously take account of them, except
in so far as religious hopes and fears are motives actually operating,
which therefore admit of being observed and measured as much as any
other motives. He does not himself use the will of an omnipotent and
benevolent being as a means of logically connecting individual and
general happiness. He thus undoubtedly simplifies his system, and avoids
the doubtful inferences from nature and Scripture in which Paley's
position is involved; but this gain is dearly purchased. For in answer
to the question that immediately arises, How then are the sanctions of
the moral rules which it will most conduce to the general happiness for
men to observe, shown to be always adequate in the case of all the
individuals whose observance is required? he is obliged to admit that
"the only interests which a man is at all times sure to find adequate
motives for consulting are his own." Indeed, in many parts of his work,
in the department of legislative and constitutional theory, it is rather
assumed that the interests of some men will continually conflict with
those of their fellows, unless we alter the balance of prudential
calculation by a readjustment of penalties. But on this assumption a
system of private conduct on utilitarian principles cannot be
constructed until legislative and constitutional reform has been
perfected. And, in fact, "private ethics," as conceived by Bentham, does
not exactly expound such a system; but rather exhibits the coincidence,
_so far as it extends_, between private and general happiness, in that
part of each man's conduct that lies beyond the range of useful
legislation. It was not his place, as a practical philanthropist, to
dwell on the defects in this coincidence;[43] and since what men
generally expect from a moralist is a completely reasoned account of
what they ought to do, it is not surprising that some of Bentham's
disciples should have either ignored or endeavoured to supply the gap in
his system. One section of the school even maintained it to be a
cardinal doctrine of utilitarianism that a man always gains his own
greatest happiness by promoting that of others; another section,
represented by John Austin, apparently returned to Paley's position, and
treated utilitarian morality[44] as a code of divine legislation;
others, with Grote, are content to abate the severity of the claims made
by "general happiness" on the individual, and to consider utilitarian
duty as practically limited by reciprocity; while on the opposite side
an unqualified subordination of private to general happiness was
advocated by J.S. Mill, who did more than any other member of the school
to spread and popularize utilitarianism in ethics and politics.
Varieties of utilitarian doctrine.
J.S. Mill.
The fact is that there are several different ways in which a utilitarian
system of morality may be used, without deciding whether the sanctions
attached to it are always adequate. (1) It may be presented as practical
guidance to all who choose "general good" as their ultimate end, whether
they do so on religious grounds, or through the predominance in their
minds of impartial sympathy, or because their conscience acts in harmony
with utilitarian principles, or for any combination of these or any
other reasons; or (2) it may be offered as a code to be obeyed not
absolutely, but only so far as the coincidence of private and general
interest may in any case be judged to extend; or again (3) it may be
proposed as a standard by which men may reasonably agree to praise and
blame the conduct of others, even though they may not always think fit
to act on it. We may regard morality as a kind of supplementary
legislation, supported by public opinion, which we may expect the
public, when duly enlightened, to frame in accordance with the public
interest. Still, even from this point of view, which is that of the
legislator or social reformer rather than the moral philosopher, our
code of duty must be greatly influenced by our estimate of the degrees
in which men are normally influenced by self-regard (in its ordinary
sense of regard for interests not sympathetic) and by sympathy or
benevolence, and of the range within which sympathy may be expected to
be generally effective. Thus, for example, the moral standard for which
a utilitarian will reasonably endeavour to gain the support of public
opinion must be essentially different in quality, according as he holds
with Bentham that nothing but self-regard will "serve for diet," though
"for a dessert benevolence is a very valuable addition"; or with J.S.
Mill that disinterested public spirit should be the prominent motive in
the performance of all socially useful work, and that even hygienic
precepts should be inculcated, not chiefly on grounds of prudence, but
because "by squandering our health we disable ourselves from rendering
services to our fellow-creatures."
Not less important is the interval that separates Bentham's polemical
attitude towards the moral sense from Mill's conciliatory position, that
"the mind is not in a state conformable to utility unless it loves
virtue as a thing desirable in itself." Such love of virtue Mill holds
to be in a sense natural, though not an ultimate and inexplicable fact
of human nature; it is to be explained by the "Law of Association" of
feelings and ideas, through which objects originally desired as a means
to some further end come to be directly pleasant or desirable. Thus, the
miser first sought money as a means to comfort, but ends by sacrificing
comfort to money; and similarly though the first promptings to justice
(or any other virtue) spring from the non-moral pleasures gained or
pains avoided by it, through the link formed by repeated virtuous acts
the performance of them ultimately comes to have that immediate
satisfaction attached to it which we distinguished as moral. Indeed, the
acquired tendency to virtuous conduct may become so strong that the
habit of willing it may continue, "even when the reward which the
virtuous man receives from the consciousness of well-doing is anything
but an equivalent for the sufferings he undergoes or the wishes he may
have to renounce." It is thus that the before-mentioned self-sacrifice
of the moral hero is conceived by Mill to be possible and actual. The
moral sentiments, on this view, are not phases of self-love as Hobbes
held; nor can they be directly identified with sympathy, either in
Hume's way or in Adam Smith's; in fact, though apparently simple they
are really derived in a complex manner from self-love and sympathy
combined with more primitive impulses. Justice (e.g.) is regarded by
Mill as essentially resentment moralized by enlarged sympathy and
intelligent self-interest; what we mean by injustice is harm done to an
assignable individual by a breach of some rule for which we desire the
violator to be punished, for the sake both of the person injured and of
society at large, including ourselves. As regards moral sentiments
generally, the view suggested by Mill is more definitely given by the
chief living representative of the associationist school, Alexander
Bain; by whom the distinctive characteristics of conscience are traced
to "education under government or authority," though prudence,
disinterested sympathy and other emotions combine to swell the mass of
feeling vaguely denoted by the term moral. The combination of
antecedents is somewhat differently given by different writers; but all
agree in representing the conscience of any individual as naturally
correlated to the interests of the community of which he is a member,
and thus a natural ally in enforcing utilitarian rules, or even a
valuable guide when utilitarian calculations are difficult and
uncertain.
Association and evolution.
This substitution of hypothetical history for direct analysis of the
moral sense is really older than the utilitarianism of Paley and
Bentham, which it has so profoundly modified. The effects of association
in modifying mental phenomena were noticed by Locke, and made a cardinal
point in the metaphysic of Hume; who also referred to the principle
slightly in his account of justice and other "artificial" virtues. Some
years earlier, Gay,[45] admitting Hutcheson's proof of the actual
disinterestedness of moral and benevolent impulses, had maintained that
these (like the desires of knowledge or fame, the delight of reading,
hunting and planting, &c.) were derived from self-love by "the power of
association." But a thorough and systematic application of the principle
to ethical psychology is first found in Hartley's _Observations on Man_
(1748). Hartley, too, was the first to conceive association as
producing, instead of mere cohesion of mental phenomena, a
quasi-chemical combination of these into a compound apparently different
from its elements. He shows elaborately how the pleasures and pains of
"imagination, ambition, self-interest, sympathy, theopathy, and the
moral sense" are developed out of the elementary pleasures and pains of
sensation; by the coalescence into really complex but apparently single
ideas of the "miniatures" or faint feelings which the repetition of
sensations contemporaneously or in immediate succession tends to produce
in cohering groups. His theory assumes the correspondence of mind and
body, and is applied _pari passu_ to the formation of ideas from
sensations, and of "compound vibratiuncules in the medullary substance"
from the original vibrations that arise in the organ of sense.[46] The
same general view was afterwards developed with much vigour and
clearness on the psychical side alone by James Mill in his _Analysis of
the Human Mind_. The whole theory has been persistently controverted by
writers of the intuitional school, who (unlike Hartley) have usually
thought that this derivation of moral sentiments from more primitive
feelings would be detrimental to the authority of the former. The chief
argument against this theory has been based on the early period at which
these sentiments are manifested by children, which hardly allows time
for association to produce the effects ascribed to it. This argument has
been met in recent times by the application to mind of the physiological
theory of heredity, according to which changes produced in the mind
(brain) of a parent, by association of ideas or otherwise, tend to be
inherited by his offspring; so that the development of the moral sense
or any other faculty or susceptibility of existing man may be
hypothetically carried back into the prehistoric life of the human race,
without any change in the manner of derivation supposed. At present,
however, the theory of heredity is usually held in conjunction with
Darwin's theory of natural selection; according to which different kinds
of living things in the course of a series of generations come gradually
to be endowed with organs, faculties and habits tending to the
preservation of the individual or species under the conditions of life
in which it is placed. Thus we have a new zoological factor in the
history of the moral sentiments; which, though in no way opposed to the
older psychological theory of their formation through coalescence of
more primitive feelings, must yet be conceived as controlling and
modifying the effects of the law of association by preventing the
formation of sentiments other than those tending to the preservation of
human life. The influence of the Darwinian theory, moreover, has
extended from historical psychology to ethics, tending to substitute
"preservation of the race under its conditions of existence" for
"happiness" as the ultimate end and standard of virtue.
Free-will.
Before concluding this sketch of the development of English ethical
thought from Hobbes to the thinkers of the 19th century, it will be well
to notice briefly the views held by different moralists on the question
of free-will,--so far, that is, as they have been put forward as
ethically important. We must first distinguish three meanings in which
"freedom" is attributed to the will or "inner self" of a human being,
viz. (1) the general power of choosing among different alternatives of
action without a motive, or against the resultant force of conflicting
motives; (2) the power of choice between the promptings of reason and
those of appetites (or other non-rational impulses) when the latter
conflict with reason; (3) merely the quality of acting rationally in
spite of conflicting impulses, however strong, the _non posse peccare_
of the medieval theologians.[47] It is obvious that "freedom" in this
third sense is in no way incompatible with complete determination; and,
indeed, is rather an ideal state after which the moral agent ought to
aspire than a property which the human will can be said to possess. In
the first sense, again, as distinct from the second, the assertion of
"freedom" has no ethical significance, except in so far as it introduces
a general uncertainty into all our inferences respecting human conduct.
Even in the second sense it hardly seems that the freedom of a man's
will can be an element to be considered in examining what it is right or
best for him to do (though of course the clearest convictions of duty
will be fruitless if a man has not sufficient self-control to enable him
to act on them); it is rather when we ask whether it is just to punish
him for wrong-doing that it seems important to know whether he could
have done otherwise. But in spite of the strong interest taken in the
theological aspect of this question by the Protestant divines of the
17th century, it does not appear that English moralists from Hobbes to
Hume laid any stress on the relation of free-will either to duty
generally or to justice in particular. Neither the doctrine of Hobbes,
that deliberation is a mere alternation of competing desires, voluntary
action immediately following the "last appetite," nor the hardly less
decided Determinism of Locke, who held that the will is always moved by
the greatest present uneasiness, appeared to either author to require
any reconciliation with the belief in human responsibility. Even in
Clarke's system, where Indeterminism is no doubt a cardinal notion, its
importance is metaphysical rather than ethical; Clarke's view being
that the apparently arbitrary particularity in the constitution of the
cosmos is really only explicable by reference to creative free-will. In
the ethical discussion of Shaftesbury and sentimental moralists
generally this question drops naturally out of sight; and the cautious
Butler tries to exclude its perplexities as far as possible from the
philosophy of practice. But since the reaction, led by Price and Reid,
against the manner of philosophizing that had culminated in Hume,
free-will has been generally maintained by the intuitional school to be
an essential point of ethics; and, in fact, it is naturally connected
with the judgment of good and ill desert which these writers give as an
essential element in their analysis of the moral consciousness. An
irresistible motive, it is forcibly said, palliates or takes away guilt;
no one can blame himself for yielding to necessity, and no one can
properly be punished for what he could not have prevented. In answer to
this argument some necessarians have admitted that punishment can be
legitimate only if it be beneficial to the person punished; others,
again, have held that the lawful use of force is to restrain lawless
force; but most of those who reject free-will defend punishment on the
ground of its utility in deterring others from crime, as well as in
correcting or restraining the criminal on whom it falls.
French influence on English ethics.
Helvetius.
In the preceding sketch we have traced the course of English ethical
speculation without bringing it into relation with contemporary European
thought on the same subject. And in fact almost all the systems
described, from Hobbes downward, have been of essentially native growth,
showing hardly any traces of foreign influence. We may observe that
ethics is the only department in which this result appears. The physics
and psychology of Descartes were much studied in England, and his
metaphysical system was certainly the most important antecedent of
Locke's; but Descartes hardly touched ethics proper. So again the
controversy that Clarke conducted with Spinoza, and afterwards with
Leibnitz, was entirely confined to the metaphysical region. Catholic
France was a school for Englishmen in many subjects, but not in
morality; the great struggle between Jansenists and Jesuits had a very
remote interest for them. It was not till near the close of the 18th
century that the impress of the French revolutionary philosophy began to
manifest itself in England; and even then its influence was mostly
political rather than ethical. It is striking to observe how even in the
case of writers such as Godwin, who were most powerfully affected by the
French political movement, the moral basis, on which the new social
order of rational and equal freedom is constructed, is almost entirely
of native origin; even when the tone and spirit are French, the forms of
thought and manner of reasoning are still purely English. In the
derivation of Benthamism alone--which, it may be observed, first becomes
widely known in the French paraphrase of Dumont--an important element is
supplied by the works of a French writer, Helvetius; as Bentham himself
was fully conscious. It was from Helvetius that he learnt that, men
being universally and solely governed by self-love, the so-called moral
judgments are really the common judgments of any society as to its
common interests; that it is therefore futile on the one hand to propose
any standard of virtue, except that of conduciveness to general
happiness, and on the other hand useless merely to lecture men on duty
and scold them for vice; that the moralist's proper function is rather
to exhibit the coincidence of virtue with private happiness; that,
accordingly, though nature has bound men's interests together in many
ways, and education by developing sympathy and the habit of mutual help
may much extend the connexion, still the most effective moralist is the
legislator, who by acting on self-love through legal sanctions may mould
human conduct as he chooses. These few simple doctrines give the ground
plan of Bentham's indefatigable and lifelong labours.
Comte.
So again, in the modified Benthamism which the persuasive exposition of
J.S. Mill afterwards made popular in England, the influence of Auguste
Comte (_Philosophie positive_, 1829-1842, and _Système de politique
positive_, 1851-1854) appears as the chief modifying element. This
influence, so far as it has affected moral as distinct from political
speculation, has been exercised primarily through the general conception
of human progress; which, in Comte's view, consists in the ever-growing
preponderance of the distinctively human attributes over the purely
animal, social feelings being ranked highest among human attributes, and
highest of all the most universalized phase of human affection, the
devotion to humanity as a whole. Accordingly, it is the development of
benevolence in man, and of the habit of "living for others," which Comte
takes as the ultimate aim and standard of practice, rather than the mere
increase of happiness. He holds, indeed, that the two are inseparable,
and that the more _altruistic_ any man's sentiments and habits of action
can be made, the greater will be the happiness enjoyed by himself as
well as by others. But he does not seriously trouble himself to argue
with egoism, or to weigh carefully the amount of happiness that might be
generally attained by the satisfaction of egoistic propensities duly
regulated; a supreme unquestioning self-devotion, in which all personal
calculations are suppressed, is an essential feature of his moral ideal.
Such a view is almost diametrically opposed to Bentham's conception of
normal human existence; the newer utilitarianism of Mill represents an
endeavour to find the right middle path between the two extremes.
It is to be observed that, in Comte's view, devotion to humanity is the
principle not merely of morality, but of religion; i.e. it should not
merely be practically predominant, but should be manifested and
sustained by regular and partly symbolical forms of expression, private
and public. This side of Comte's system, however, and the details of his
ideal reconstruction of society, in which this religion plays an
important part, have had but little influence either in England or
elsewhere. It is more important to notice the general effect of his
philosophy on the method of determining the particulars of morality as
well as of law (as it ought to be). In the utilitarianism of Paley and
Bentham the proper rules of conduct, moral and legal, are determined by
comparing the imaginary consequences of different modes of regulation on
men and women, conceived as specimens of a substantially uniform and
unchanging type. It is true that Bentham expressly recognizes the
varying influences of climate, race, religion, government, as
considerations which it is important for the legislator to take into
account; but his own work of social construction was almost entirely
independent of such considerations, and his school generally appear to
have been convinced of their competence to solve all important ethical
and political questions for human beings of all ages and countries,
without regard to their specific differences. But in the Comtian
conception of social science, of which ethics and politics are the
practical application, the knowledge of the laws of the evolution of
society is of fundamental and continually increasing importance;
humanity is regarded as having passed through a series of stages, in
each of which a somewhat different set of laws and institutions, customs
and habits, is normal and appropriate. Thus present man is a being that
can only be understood through a knowledge of his past history; and any
effort to construct for him a moral and political ideal, by a purely
abstract and unhistorical method, must necessarily be futile; whatever
modifications may at any time be desirable in positive law and morality
can only be determined by the aid of "social dynamics." This view
extends far beyond the limits of Comte's special school or sect, and has
been widely accepted.
German influence on English ethics.
When we turn from French philosophy to German, we find the influence of
the latter on English ethical thought almost insignificant until a very
recent period. In the 17th century, indeed, the treatise of Pufendorf on
the _Law of Nature_, in which the general view of Grotius was restated
with modifications, partly designed to effect a compromise with the
doctrine of Hobbes, seems to have been a good deal read at Oxford and
elsewhere. Locke includes it among the books necessary to the complete
education of a gentleman. But the subsequent development of the theory
of conduct in Germany dropped almost entirely out of the cognizance of
Englishmen; even the long dominant system of Wolff (d. 1754) was hardly
known. Nor had Kant any serious influence in England until the second
quarter of the 19th century. We find, however, distinct traces of
Kantian influence in Whewell and other writers of the intuitional
school, and at a later date it became so strong that its importance on
subsequent ethical thought can scarcely be over-estimated.
Kant.
Categorical Imperative.
The English moralist with whom Kant has most affinity is Price; in fact,
Kantism, in the ethical thought of modern Europe, holds a place somewhat
analogous to that formerly occupied by the teaching of Price and Reid
among English moralists. Kant, like Price and Reid, holds that man as a
rational being is unconditionally bound to conform to a certain rule of
right, or "categorical imperative" of reason. Like Price he holds that
an action is not good unless done from a good motive, and that this
motive must be essentially different from natural inclination of any
kind; duty, to be duty, must be done for duty's sake; and he argues,
with more subtlety than Price or Reid, that though a virtuous act is no
doubt pleasant to the virtuous agent, and any violation of duty painful,
this moral pleasure (or pain) cannot strictly be the motive to the act,
because it follows instead of preceding the recognition of our
obligation to do it.[48] With Price, again, he holds that rightness of
intention and motive is not only an indispensable condition or element
of the rightness of an action, but actually the sole determinant of its
moral worth; but with more philosophical consistency he draws the
inference--of which the English moralist does not seem to have
dreamt--that there can be no separate rational principles for
determining the "material" rightness of conduct, as distinct from its
"formal" rightness; and therefore that all rules of duty, so far as
universally binding, must admit of being exhibited as applications of
the one general principle that duty ought to be done for duty's sake.
This deduction is the most original part of Kant's doctrine. The
dictates of reason, he points out, must necessarily be addressed to all
rational beings as such; hence, my intention cannot be right unless I am
prepared to will the principle on which I act to be a universal law. He
considers that this fundamental rule or imperative "act on a maxim which
thou canst will to be law universal" supplies a sufficient criterion for
determining particular duties in all cases. The rule excludes wrong
conduct with two degrees of stringency. Some offences, such as making
promises with the intention of breaking them, we cannot even conceive
universalized; as soon as every one broke promises no one would care to
have promises made to him. Other maxims, such as that of leaving persons
in distress to shift for themselves, we can easily conceive to be
universal laws, but we cannot without contradiction will them to be
such; for when we are ourselves in distress we cannot help desiring that
others should help us.
Another important peculiarity of Kant's doctrine is his development of
the connexion between duty and free-will. He holds that it is through
our moral consciousness that we know that we are free; in the cognition
that I ought to do what is right because it is right and not because I
like it, it is implied that this purely rational volition is possible;
that my action can be determined, not "mechanically," through the
necessary operation of the natural stimuli of pleasurable and painful
feelings, but in accordance with the laws of my true, reasonable self.
The realization of reason, or of human wills so far as rational, thus
presents itself as the absolute end of duty; and we get, as a new form
of the fundamental practical rule, "act so as to treat humanity, in
thyself or any other, as an end always, and never as a means only." We
may observe, too, that the notion of freedom connects ethics with
jurisprudence in a simple and striking manner. The fundamental aim of
jurisprudence is to realize external freedom by removing the hindrances
imposed on each one's free action through the interferences of other
wills. Ethics shows how to realize internal freedom by resolutely
pursuing rational ends in opposition to those of natural inclination. If
we ask what precisely are the ends of reason, Kant's proposition that
"all rational beings as such are ends in themselves for every rational
being" hardly gives a clear answer. It might be interpreted to mean that
the result to be practically sought is simply the development of the
rationality of all rational beings--such as men--whom we find to be as
yet imperfectly rational. But this is not Kant's view. He holds, indeed,
that each man should aim at making himself the most perfect possible
instrument of reason; but he expressly denies that the perfection of
others can be similarly prescribed as an end to each. It is, he says, "a
contradiction to regard myself as in duty bound to promote the
perfection of another, ... a contradiction to make it a duty for me to
do something for another which no other but himself can do." In what
practical sense, then, am I to make other rational beings my ends?
Kant's answer is that what each is to aim at in the case of others is
not Perfection, but Happiness, i.e. to help them to attain those purely
subjective ends that are determined for each not by reason, but by
natural inclination. He explains also that to seek one's own happiness
cannot be prescribed as a duty, because it is an end to which every man
is inevitably impelled by natural inclination: but that just because
each inevitably desires his own happiness, and therefore desires that
others should assist him in time of need, he is bound to make the
happiness of others his ethical end, since he cannot _morally_ demand
aid from others, without accepting the obligation of aiding them in like
case. The exclusion of private happiness from the ends at which it is a
duty to aim contrasts strikingly with the view of Butler and Reid, that
man, as a rational being, is under a "manifest obligation" to seek his
own interest. The difference, however, is not really so great as it
seems; since in another part of his system Kant fully recognizes the
reasonableness of the individual's regard for his own happiness. Though
duty, in his view, excludes regard for private happiness, the _summum
bonum_ is not duty alone, but happiness combined with moral worth; the
demand for happiness as the reward of duty is so essentially reasonable
that we must postulate a universal connexion between the two as the
order of the universe; indeed, the practical necessity of this postulate
is the only adequate rational ground that we have for believing in the
existence of God.
Hegel.
Before the ethics of Kant had begun to be seriously studied in England,
the rapid and remarkable development of metaphysical view and method of
which the three chief stages are represented by Fichte, Schelling and
Hegel respectively had already taken place; and the system of the latter
was occupying the most prominent position in the philosophical thought
of Germany.[49] Hegel's ethical doctrine (expounded chiefly in his
_Philosophie des Rechts_, 1821) shows a close affinity, and also a
striking contrast, to Kant's. He holds, with Kant, that duty or good
conduct consists in the conscious realization of the free reasonable
will, which is essentially the same in all rational beings. But in
Kant's view the universal content of this will is only given in the
formal condition of "only acting as one can desire all to act," to be
subjectively applied by each rational agent to his own volition; whereas
Hegel conceives the universal will as objectively presented to each man
in the laws, institutions and customary morality of the community of
which he is a member. Thus, in his view, not merely natural inclinations
towards pleasures, or the desires for selfish happiness, require to be
morally resisted; but even the prompting of the individual's conscience,
the impulse to do what seems to him right, if it comes into conflict
with the common sense of his community. It is true that Hegel regards
the conscious effort to realize one's own conception of good as a higher
stage of moral development than the mere conformity to the jural rules
establishing property, maintaining contract and allotting punishment to
crime, in which the universal will is first expressed; since in such
conformity this will is only accomplished accidentally by the outward
concurrence of individual wills, and is not essentially realized in any
of them. He holds, however, that this conscientious effort is
self-deceived and futile, is even the very root of moral evil, except it
attains its realization in harmony with the objective social relations
in which the individual finds himself placed. Of these relations the
first grade is constituted by the family, the second by civil society,
and the third by the state, the organization of which is the highest
manifestation of universal reason in the sphere of practice.
Hegelianism appears as a distinct element in modern English ethical
thought; but the direct influence of Hegel's system is perhaps less
important than that indirectly exercised through the powerful stimulus
which it has given to the study of the historical development of human
thought and human society. According to Hegel, the essence of the
universe is a process of thought from the abstract to the concrete; and
a right understanding of this process gives the key for interpreting the
evolution in time of European philosophy. So again, in his view, the
history of mankind is a history of the necessary development of the free
spirit through the different forms of political organization: the first
being that of the Oriental monarchy, in which freedom belongs to the
monarch only; the second, that of the Graeco-Roman republics, in which a
select body of free citizens is sustained on a basis of slavery; while
finally in the modern societies, sprung from the Teutonic invasion of
the decaying Roman empire, freedom is recognized as the natural right of
all members of the community. The effect of the lectures (posthumously
edited) in which Hegel's "Philosophy of History" and "History of
Philosophy" were expounded, has extended far beyond the limits of his
special school; indeed, the predominance of the historical method in all
departments of the theory of practice is not a little due to their
influence. (H. S.; X.)
D. _Ethics since 1879._--Ethical controversies, like most other
speculative disputes, have, during the latter part of the 19th and the
beginning of the 20th century, centred round Darwinian theories. The
chief characteristic of English moral philosophy in its previous history
has been its comparative isolation from great movements, sometimes
contemporary movements, of philosophical or scientific thought. Ethics
in England no less than on the continent of Europe suffered until the
time of Bacon from the excessive domination of theological dogma and the
traditional scholastic and Aristotelian philosophy. But the moral
philosophy of the 18th century, freed from scholastic trammels, was a
genuine native product, arising out of the real problem of conduct and
reaching its conclusions, at least ostensibly, by an analysis of, and an
appeal to, the facts of conduct and the nature of morality. Even at the
beginning of the 19th century, when the main interest of writers who
belonged to the Utilitarian school was mainly political, the influence
of political theories upon contemporary moral philosophy was upon the
whole an influence of which the moral philosophers themselves were
unconscious; and from the nature of things moral and political
philosophy have a tendency to become one and the same inquiry. Mill, it
is true, and Comte both encouraged the idea that society and conduct
alike were susceptible of strictly scientific investigation. But the
attempt not only to treat ethics scientifically, but actually to
subordinate the principles of conduct to the principles of existing
biological science or group of sciences biological in character, was
reserved for post-Darwinian moral philosophers. That attempt has not, in
the opinion of the majority of critics, been successful, and perhaps
what is most permanent in the contribution of modern times to ethical
theory will ultimately be attributed to philosophers antagonistic to
evolutionary ethics. Nevertheless the application of the historical
method to inquiries concerning the facts of morality and the moral
life--itself part of the great movement of thought to which Darwin gave
the chief impetus--has caused moral problems to be presented in a novel
aspect; while the influence of Darwinism upon studies which have
considerable bearing upon ethics, e.g. anthropology or the study of
comparative religion, has been incalculable.
The other great movement in modern moral philosophy due to the influence
of German, and especially Hegelian, idealism followed naturally for the
most part from the revival of interest in metaphysics noticeable in the
latter half of the 19th century.
But metaphysical systems of ethics are no novelty even in England, and,
while the increased interest in ultimate issues of philosophy has
enormously deepened and widened men's appreciation of moral problems and
the issues involved in conduct, the actual advance in ethical theory
produced by such speculations has been comparatively slight. What is of
lasting importance is the re-affirmation upon metaphysical grounds of
the right of the moral consciousness to state and solve its own
difficulties, and the successful repulsion of the claims of particular
sciences such as biology to include the sphere of conduct within their
scope and methods. And both evolutionary and idealistic ethics agree in
repudiating the standpoint of narrow individualism, alike insist upon
the necessity of regarding the self as social in character, and regard
the end of moral progress as only realizable in a perfect society.
It is perhaps too much to hope that the long-continued controversy
between hedonists and anti-hedonists has been finally settled. But
certainly few modern moral philosophers would be found in the present
day ready to defend the crudities of hedonistic psychology as they
appear in Bentham and Mill. A certain common agreement has been reached
concerning the impossibility of regarding pleasure as the sole motive
criterion and end of moral action, though different opinions still
prevail as to the place occupied by pleasure in the summum bonum, and
the possibility of a hedonistic calculus.
The failure of "laissez-faire" individualism in politics to produce that
common prosperity and happiness which its advocates hoped for caused men
to question the egoistic basis upon which its ethical counterpart was
constructed. Similarly the comparative failure of science to satisfy
men's aspirations alike in knowledge and, so far as the happiness of the
masses is concerned, in practice has been largely instrumental in
producing that revolt against material prosperity as the end of conduct
which is characteristic of idealist moral philosophy. To this revolt,
and to the general tendency to find the principle of morality in an
ideal good present to the consciousness of all persons capable of acting
morally, the widespread recognition of reason as the ultimate court of
appeal alike in religion or politics, and latterly in economics also,
has no doubt contributed largely. In the main the appeal to reason has
followed the traditional course of such movements in ethics, and has
reaffirmed in the light of fuller reflection the moral principles
implicit in the ordinary moral consciousness. It is only in the present
day that there are noticeable signs of dissatisfaction with current
morality itself, and a tendency to substitute or advocate a new morality
based ostensibly upon conclusions derived from the facts of scientific
observation.
Darwin.
Darwin himself seems never to have questioned, in the sceptical
direction in which his followers have applied his principles, the
absolute character of moral obligation. What interested him chiefly, in
so far as he made a study of morality, was the development of moral
conduct in its preliminary stages. He was principally concerned to show
that in morality, as in other departments of human life, it was not
necessary to postulate a complete and abrupt gap between human and
merely animal existence, but that the instincts and habits which
contribute to survival in the struggle for existence among animals
develop into moral qualities which have a similar value for the
preservation of human and social life. Regarding the social tendency as
originally itself an instinct developed out of parental or filial
affection, he seems to suggest that natural selection, which was the
chief cause of its development in the earlier stages, may very probably
influence the transition from purely tribal and social morality into
morality in its later and more complex forms. But he admits that natural
selection is not necessarily the only cause, and he refrains from
identifying the fully developed morality of civilized nations with the
"social instinct." Moreover, he recognizes that qualities, e.g. loyalty
and sympathy, which may have been of great service to the tribe in its
primitive struggle for existence, may become a positive hindrance to
physical efficiency (leading as they do to the preservation of the
unfit) at a later stage. Nevertheless to check our sympathy would lead
to the "deterioration of the noblest part of our nature," and the
question, which is obviously of vital importance, whether we should obey
the dictates of reason, which would urge us only to such conduct as is
conducive to natural selection, or remain faithful to the noblest part
of our nature at the expense of reason, he leaves unsolved.
Spencer.
It was in Herbert Spencer, the triumphant "buccinator novi temporis,"
that the advocates of evolutionary ethics found their protagonist.
Spencer looked to ideas derived from the biological sciences to provide
a solution of all the enigmas of morality, as of most other departments
of life; and he conceived it "to be the business of moral science to
deduce from the laws of life and the conditions of existence what kinds
of action necessarily tend to produce happiness and what kinds to
produce unhappiness." It is clear, therefore, that any moral science
which is to be of value must wait until the "laws of life" and
"conditions of existence" have been satisfactorily determined,
presumably by biology and the allied sciences; and there are few more
melancholy instances of failure in philosophy than the paucity of the
actual results attained by Spencer in his lifetime in his application of
the so-called laws of evolution to human conduct--a failure recognized
by Spencer himself. His own contribution to ethics was vitiated at the
outset by the fact that he never shook himself free from the trammels of
the philosophy which his own system was intended to supersede. He began
by disclaiming any affinity to Utilitarianism on the part of his own
philosophy. He pointed out that the principle of the greatest happiness
of the greatest number is a principle without any definite meaning,
since men are nowhere unanimous in their standard of happiness, but
regard the conception of happiness rather as a problem to be solved than
a test to be applied. Universal happiness would require omniscience to
legislate for it and the "normal" or, as some would say, "perfect" man
to desire it; neither of these conditions of its realization is at
present in existence. Further, the principle that "everybody is to count
for one, nobody for more than one," is equally unsatisfactory. It may be
taken to imply that the useless and the criminal should be entitled to
as much happiness as the useful and the virtuous. While it gives no rule
for private as distinct from public conduct, it provides no real
guidance for the legislator. For neither happiness, nor the concrete
means to happiness, nor finally the conditions of its realization can be
distributed; and in the end "not general happiness becomes the ethical
standard by which legislative action is to be guided, but universal
justice." Yet the implications of this latter conclusion Spencer never
fully thought out. He accepted bodily without farther questioning the
hedonistic psychology by which the Utilitarians sought to justify their
theory while he rejected the theory itself. Good, e.g. defined by him
"as conduct conducive to life," is also further defined as that which is
"conducive to a surplus of pleasures over pains." Happiness, again, is
always regarded as consisting in feeling, ultimately in pleasant
feeling, and there is no attempt to apply the same principles of
criticism which he had successfully applied to the Utilitarians'
"happiness" to the conception of "pleasure." And, though he maintains as
against the Utilitarians the existence of certain fundamental moral
intuitions which have come to be quite independent of any present
conscious experience of their utility, he yet holds that they are the
results of accumulated racial experiences gradually organized and
inherited. Finally, side by side with a theory of the nature of moral
obligation thus fundamentally empirical and a posteriori in its outlook,
he maintains in his account of justice the existence of the idea of
justice as distinct from a mere sentiment, carrying with it an a priori
belief in its existence and identical in its a priori and intuitive
character with the ultimate criterion of Utilitarianism itself. The fact
is that any close philosophical analysis of Spencer's system of ethics
can only result in the discovery of a multitude of mutually conflicting
and for the most part logically untenable theories. It is frequently
impossible to discover whether he wishes by an appeal to evolutionary
principles to reinforce the sanctions and emphasize the absolute
character of the traditional morality which in the main he accepts
without question from the current opinions about conduct of his age, or
whether he wishes to discredit and disprove the validity of that
morality in order to substitute by the aid of the biological sciences a
new ethical code. The argument, for instance, that intuitive and a
priori beliefs gain their absolute character from the fact that they are
the result of continued transmission and accumulation of past nervous
modifications in the history of the race would, if taken seriously, lead
us to the belief that ultimate ethical sanctions are to be sought, not
by an appeal to the moral consciousness, but by the investigation of
brain tissue and the relation of man's bodily organism to its
environment. Yet such a view would be totally at variance with much that
Spencer says (especially in his treatment of justice) concerning the
trustworthiness and inevitable character of men's constant appeal to the
intuitions of their moral consciousness. Moreover, the very fact itself
of the possibility of inheriting acquired moral characteristics is still
hotly debated by those biologists with whom should rest the ultimate
verdict. Again, the argument that "conduct is good or bad according as
its total effects are pleasurable or painful," and that ultimately
"pleasure-giving acts are life-sustaining acts," seems to involve
Spencer in a multitude of unverified assumptions and contradictory
theories. In the first place it is never clear whether Spencer regards
the fact that a particular course of conduct is accompanied by a feeling
of pleasure as a test of its life-preserving and life-sustaining
character, or whether he wishes us to use as our criterion of what is
pleasant in conduct the fact that the conduct in question seems
conducive to the continued existence of man's organic life. He
apparently passes from one criterion to the other as best suits the
purpose of the moment. He does not prove the coincidence of
life-sustaining and pleasant activities. He assumes throughout that the
pleasant is the opposite of what is painful, and seems unaware of the
difficulty of determining by means of terms so highly abstract the
specific character of moral action. We find in his theory no
satisfactory attempt to discriminate between the pleasure aimed at by
the altruist and the immediate pleasure of egoistic action. Similarly he
disregards the distinction between pleasant feeling as an immediate
motive of conduct and the idea of the attainment of future pleasure
whether by the race or by the individual. Spencer is involved in effect
in most of the confusions and contradictions of hedonistic psychology.
Nor is his attempt to construct a scientific criterion out of data
derived from the biological sciences productive of satisfactory results.
He is hampered by a distinction between "absolute" and "relative" ethics
definitely formulated in the last two chapters of The _Data of Ethics_.
Absolute ethics would deal with such laws as would regulate the conduct
of ideal man in an ideal society, i.e. a society where conduct has
reached the stage of complete adjustment to the needs of social life.
Relative ethics, on the other hand, is concerned only with such conduct
as is advantageous for that society which has not yet reached the end of
complete adaptation to its environment, i.e. which is at present
imperfect. It is hardly necessary to say that Spencer does not tell us
how to bring the two ethical systems into correlation. And the actual
criteria of conduct derived from biological considerations are almost
ludicrously inadequate. Conduct, e.g., is said to be more moral in
proportion as it exhibits a tendency on the part of the individual or
society to become more "definite," "coherent" and "heterogeneous." Or,
again, we should recognize as a test of the "authoritative" character of
moral ideas or feelings the fact that they are complex and
representative, referring to a remote rather than to a proximate good,
remembering the while that "the sense of duty is transitory, and will
diminish as fast as moralization increases." In fact, no acceptable
scientific criterion emerges, and the outcome of Spencer's attempt to
ascertain the laws of life and the conditions of existence is either a
restatement of the dictates of the moral consciousness in vague and
cumbrous quasi-scientific phraseology, or the substitution of the
meaningless test of "survivability" as a standard of perfection for the
usual and intelligible standards of "good" and "right."
Leslie Stephen.
A similar criticism might fairly be passed upon the majority of
philosophers who approach ethics from the standpoint of evolution. Sir
Leslie Stephen, for instance, wishes to substitute the conception of
"social health" for that of universal happiness, and considers that the
conditions of social health are to be discovered by an examination of
the "social organism" or of "social tissue," the laws of which can be
studied apart from those laws by which the individuals composing society
regulate their conduct. "The social evolution means the evolution of a
strong social tissue; the best type is the type implied by the strongest
tissue." But on the important question as to what constitutes the
strongest social tissue, or to what extent the analogy between society
as at present constituted and organic life is really applicable, we are
left without certain guidance. The fact is that with few exceptions
evolutionary moral philosophers evade the choice between alternatives
which is always presented to them. They begin, for the most part, with a
belief that in ethics as in other departments of human knowledge "the
more developed must be interpreted by the less developed"--though
frequently in the sequel complexity or posteriority of development is
erected as a standard by means of which to judge the process of
development itself. They are not content to write a _history_ of moral
development, applying to it the principles by which Darwinians seek to
explain the development of animal life. But the search of origins
frequently leads them into theories of the nature of that moral conduct
whose origin they are anxious to find quite at variance with current and
accepted beliefs concerning its nature. The discovery of the so-called
evolution of morality out of non-moral conditions is very frequently an
unconscious subterfuge by which the evolutionist hides the fact that he
is making a priori judgments upon the value of the moral concepts held
to be evolved. To accept such theories of the origin of morality would
carry with it the conviction that what we took for "moral" conduct was
in reality something very different, and has been so throughout its
history. The legitimate inference which should follow would be the
denial of the validity of those moral laws which have hitherto been
regarded as absolute in character, and the substitution for all
customary moral terms of an entirely new set based upon biological
considerations. But it is precisely this, the only logical inference,
which most evolutionary philosophers are unwilling to draw. They cannot
give up their belief in customary morality. Professor Huxley maintained,
for example, in a famous lecture that "the ethical progress of society
depends not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away
from it, but in combating it" (_Romanes Lecture, ad fin_.). And very
frequently arguments are adduced by evolutionists to prove that men's
belief in the absolute character of moral precepts is one of the
necessary means adopted by nature to carry out her designs for the
social welfare of mankind. Yet the other alternative, to which such
reasoning points, they are reluctant to accept. For the belief that
moral obligation is absolute in character, that it is alike impossible
to explain its origin and transcend its laws, would make the search for
a scientific criterion of conduct to be deduced from the laws of life
and conditions of existence meaningless, if not absurd.
Nietzsche.
Perhaps the one European thinker who has carried evolutionary principles
in ethics to their logical conclusion is Friedrich Nietzsche. Almost any
system of morality or immorality might find some justification in
Nietzsche's writings, which are extraordinarily chaotic and full of the
wildest exaggerations. Yet it has been a true instinct which has led
popular opinion as testified to by current literature to find in
Nietzsche the most orthodox exponent of Darwinian ideas in their
application to ethics. For he saw clearly that to be successful
evolutionary ethics must involve the "transvaluation of all values," the
"demoralization" of all ordinary current morality. He accepted frankly
the glorification of brute strength, superior cunning and all the
qualities necessary for success in the struggle for existence, to which
the ethics of evolution necessarily tend. He proclaimed himself, before
everything else, a physiologist, and looked to physiology to provide the
ultimate standard for everything that has value; and though his own
ethical code necessarily involves the disappearance of sympathy, love,
toleration and all existing altruistic emotions, he yet in a sense finds
room for them in such altruistic self-sacrifice as prepares the way for
the higher man of the future. Thus, after a fashion, he is able to
reconcile the conflicting claims of egoism and altruism and succeed
where most apostles of evolution fail. The Christian virtues, sympathy
for the weak, the suffering, &c., represent a necessary stage to be
passed through in the evolution of the _Übermensch_, i.e. the stage when
the weak and suffering combine in revolt against the strong. They are to
be superseded, not so much because all social virtues are to be scorned
and rejected, as because in their effects, i.e. in their tendency to
perpetuate and prolong the existence of the weak and those who are least
well equipped and endowed by nature, they are anti-social in character
and inimical to the survival of the strongest and most vigorous type of
humanity. Consequently Nietzsche in effect maintains the following
paradoxical position: he explains the existence of altruism upon
egoistical principles; he advocates the total abolition of all altruism
by carrying these same egoistical principles to their logical
conclusion; he nevertheless appeals to that moral instinct which makes
men ready to sacrifice their own narrow personal interests to the higher
good of society--an instinct profoundly altruistic in character--as the
ultimate justification of the ethics he enunciates. Such a position is a
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the attempt to transcend the ultimate
character of those intuitions and feelings which prompt men to
benevolence. Thus, though incidentally there is much to be learned from
Nietzsche, especially from his criticism of the ethics of pessimism, or
from the strictures he passes upon the negative morality of extreme
asceticism or quietism, his system inevitably provides its own
refutation. For no philosophy which travesties the real course of
history and distorts the moral facts is likely to commend itself to the
sober judgment of mankind however brilliant be its exposition or
ingenious its arguments. Finally, the conceptions of strength, power and
masterfulness by which Nietzsche attempts to determine his own moral
ideal, become, when examined, as relative and unsatisfactory as other
criteria of moral action said to be deduced from evolutionary
principles. Men desire strength or power not as ends but as means to
ends beyond them; Nietzsche is most convincing when the _Übermensch_ is
left undefined. Imagined as ideal man, i.e. as morality depicts him, he
becomes intelligible; imagined as Nietzsche describes him he reels back
into the beast, and that distinction which chiefly separates man from
the animal world out of which he has emerged, viz. his unique power of
self-consciousness and self-criticism, is obliterated.
T.H. Green.
It was upon this crucial difficulty, i.e. the transition in the
evolution of morality from the stage of purely animal and unconscious
action to specifically human action,--i.e. action directed by
self-conscious and purposive intelligence to an end conceived as
good,--that the polemic of T.H. Green and his idealistic followers
fastened. And it is perhaps unfortunate that metaphysical doctrines
enunciated chiefly for the purposes of criticism not in themselves
vitally necessary to the theory of morality propounded should have been
regarded as the main contribution to ethical theory of idealist writers,
and as such treated severely by hostile critics. Green's principal
objection to evolutionary moral philosophy is contained in the argument
that no merely "natural" explanation of the facts of morality is
conceivable. The knowing consciousness,--i.e. so far as conduct is
concerned the moral consciousness,--can never become an object of
knowledge in the sense in which natural phenomena are objects of
scientific knowledge. For such knowledge implies the existence of a
knowing consciousness as a relating and uniting intelligence capable of
distinguishing itself from the objects to which it relates. And more
particularly the existence of the moral consciousness implies "the
transition from mere want to consciousness of wanted object, from
impulse to satisfy the want to effort for the realization of the wanted
objects, implies the presence of the want to a subject which
distinguishes itself from it." Consequently the facts of moral
development imply with the emergence of human consciousness the
appearance of something qualitatively different from the facts with
which physiology for instance deals, imply a stratum as it were in
development which no examination of animal tissues, no calculation of
consequences with regard to the preservation of the species can ever
satisfactorily explain. However far back we go in the history of
humanity, if the presence of consciousness be admitted at all, it will
be necessary to admit also the presence to consciousness of an ideal
which can be accepted or rejected, of a power of looking before and
after, and aiming at a future which is not yet fully realized. But
unfortunately the temporary exigencies of criticism made it necessary
for Green to emphasize the metaphysic of the self, i.e. to insist upon
the necessity of a critical examination of the pre-requisites of any
form of self-consciousness and especially of the knowing consciousness,
to such an extent that critics have lost sight of the real dependence of
his metaphysic upon the direct evidence of the moral consciousness. The
philosophic value, the sincerity, the breadth and depth of his treatment
of moral facts and institutions have been fully recognized. What has not
been adequately realized is that the metaphysical basis of his system of
ethics--the argument, for example, contained in the introduction to the
_Prolegomena_--is unfairly treated if divorced from his treatment of
morals as a whole, and that it can be justly estimated only if
interpreted as much as the conclusion as the starting-point of moral
theory. The doctrine of the eternity of the self, for instance, against
which much criticism (e.g. Taylor, _The Problem of Conduct_, chap. ii.)
has been directed, though it is chiefly expressed in the language of
epistemology, has its roots nevertheless in the direct testimony of
moral experience. For morality implies a power in the individual of
rising above the interests of his own narrower self and identifying
himself in the pursuit of a universal good with the true interests of
all other selves. Similarly the conception of the self as a moral unity
arises naturally out of the impossibility of finding the summum bonum in
a succession of transient states of consciousness such as hedonism for
example postulates. Good as a true universal can only be realized by a
true self, and both imply a principle of unity not wholly expressible in
terms of the particulars which it unifies. But whether the idealistic
interpretation of the nature of universal good be the true one, i.e.
whether we are justified in identifying that self-consciousness which is
capable of grasping the principle of unity with the principle of unity
which it grasps is a metaphysical and theistic problem comparatively
irrelevant to Green's moral theory. It would be quite possible to accept
his criticisms of naturalism and hedonism while rejecting many of the
metaphysical inferences which he draws. A somewhat similar answer might
be returned to those critics who find Green's use of the term
"self-realization" or "self-development" as characteristic of the moral
ideal unsatisfactory. It is quite easy to exhibit the futility of such a
conception if understood formally for the practical purposes of moral
philosophy. If the phrase be understood to mean the realization of some
capacities of the self it does not appear to discriminate sufficiently
between the good and bad capacities; while the realization under present
conditions of all the capacities of a self is impossible. And to aim so
far as is possible at all-round development would again ignore the
distinction between vice and virtue. But used in the sense in which
Green habitually uses it self-realization implies, as he puts it, the
fulfilment by the good man of his rational capacity or the idea of a
best that is in time, i.e. the distinction between the good and the bad
self is never ignored, but is the fundamental assumption of his theory.
And if it be urged that the expression is in any case tautological, i.e.
that the good is defined in terms of self-realization and
self-realization in terms of the good, it may be doubted whether any
rational system of ethics can avoid a similar imputation. Green would
admit that in a certain sense the conception of "good" is indefinable,
i.e. that it can only be recognized in the particulars of conduct of
which it is the universal form. Only, therefore, to those philosophers
who believe in the existence of a criterion of morality, i.e. a
universal test such as that of pleasure, happiness and the like, by
which we can judge of the worth of actions, will Green's position seem
absurd; since, on the contrary, such conceptions as those of
"self-development" or "self-realization" seem to have a definite and
positive value if they call attention to the metaphysical implications
of morality and accurately characterize the moral facts. What ambiguity
they possess arises from the ambiguity of morality itself. For moral
progress consists in the actualization of what is already potentially in
existence. The striking merit of Green's moral philosophy is that the
idealism which he advocates is rooted and grounded in moral habits and
institutions: and the metaphysic in which it culminates is based upon
principles already implicitly recognized by the moral consciousness of
the ordinary man. Nothing could be farther from Green's teaching than
the belief that constructive metaphysics could, unaided by the
intuitions of the moral consciousness, discover laws for the regulation
of conduct.
Taylor.
But although Green's loyalty to the primary facts of the moral
consciousness prevented him from constructing a rationalistic system of
morals based solely upon the conclusions of metaphysics, it was perhaps
inevitable that the revival of interest in metaphysics so prominent in
his own speculations should lead to a more daring criticism of ethical
first principles in other writers. Bradley's _Ethical Studies_ had
presented with great brilliancy an idealist theory of morality not very
far removed from that of Green's _Prolegomena_. But the publication of
_Appearance and Reality_ by the same author marked a great advance in
philosophical criticism of ethical postulates, and a growing
dissatisfaction with current reconciliations between moral first
principles and the conclusions of metaphysics. _Appearance and Reality_
was not primarily concerned with morals, yet it inevitably led to
certain conclusions affecting conduct, and it was no very long time
before these conclusions were elaborated in detail. Professor A.E.
Taylor's _Problem of Conduct_ (1901) is one of the most noteworthy and
independent contributions to Moral Philosophy published in recent years.
But it nevertheless follows in the main Bradley's line of criticism and
may therefore be regarded as representative of his school. There are two
principal positions in Professor Taylor's work:--(1) a refusal to base
ethics upon metaphysics, and (2) the discovery of an irreconcilable
dualism in the nature of morality which takes many shapes, but may be
summarized roughly as consisting in an ultimate opposition between
egoism and altruism. With regard to the first of these Taylor says (_op.
cit._ p. 4) that his object is to show that "ethics is as independent of
metaphysical speculation for its principles and methods as any of the
so-called 'natural sciences'; that its real basis must be sought not in
philosophical theories about the nature of the Absolute or the ultimate
constitution of the Universe, but in the empirical facts of human life
as they are revealed to us in our concrete everyday experience of the
world and mankind, and sifted and systematized by the sciences of
psychology and sociology.... Ethics should be regarded as a purely
'positive' or 'experimental' and not as a 'speculative' science." With
regard to the second position one quotation will suffice (_op. cit._ p.
183). "Altruism and egoism are divergent developments from the common
psychological root of primitive ethical sentiment. Both developments are
alike unavoidable, and each is ultimately irreconcilable with the other.
Neither egoism nor altruism can be made the sole basis of moral theory
without mutilation of the facts, nor can any higher category be
discovered by the aid of which their rival claims may be finally
adjusted."
Professor Taylor expounds these two theories with great brilliance of
argument and much ingenuity, yet neither of them will perhaps carry
complete conviction to the minds of the majority of his critics. It is
curious, in the first place, to find the independence of moral
philosophy upon metaphysics supported by metaphysical arguments. For
whatever may be the real character of the interrelation of moral and
metaphysical first principles it is obvious that Taylor's own
dissatisfaction with current moral principles arises from an inability
to believe in their ultimate rationality, i.e. a belief that they are
untenable from the standpoint of ultimate metaphysics; and perhaps the
most interesting portion of his book is the chapter entitled "Beyond
Good and Bad," in which the highest and final form of the ethical
consciousness of mankind is subjected to searching criticism. But
further, it is becoming increasingly apparent that psychology (upon
which Taylor would base morality) itself involves metaphysical
assumptions; its position in fact cannot be stated except as a
metaphysical position, whether that of subjective idealism or any other.
And the need which most philosophers have felt for some philosophical
foundation for morality arises, not from any desire to subordinate moral
insight to speculative theory, but because the moral facts themselves
are inexplicable except in the light of first principles which
metaphysics alone can criticize.
Taylor himself attempts to find the roots of ethics in the moral
sentiments of mankind, the moral sentiments being primarily feelings or
emotions, though they imply and result in judgments of approval and
disapproval upon conduct. But it may be doubted whether he succeeds in
clearly distinguishing ethical feelings from ethical judgments, and if
they are to be treated as synonymous it seems difficult to avoid the
conclusion that the implications of moral "judgment" must involve a
reference to metaphysics.
Moreover, it is obvious that a great part of Taylor's quarrel with
current moral ideals arises from the fact that they do not commend
themselves to the moral judgment, i.e. from the standpoint of real
goodness they are unsatisfactory, being tainted with evil. Hence it
appears difficult to reconcile what is in effect a belief in the
validity of the judgments of the moral consciousness with a belief that
the real source and justification of that consciousness are to be found
in the very sentiments and vague mass of floating feelings upon which it
pronounces. Scepticism seems to be the only possible result of such a
position. Taylor's polemic against metaphysical systems of ethics is
based throughout upon an alleged discrepancy and separation between the
facts of moral "experience," the judgments of the moral consciousness,
and theories as to the nature of these which the philosophers whom he
attacks would by no means accept. There is no doubt a distinction
between morality as a form of consciousness and reflection upon that
morality. But such a distinction neither corresponds to, nor testifies
to, the existence of a distinction between morality as "experience" and
morality as "theory" or "idea."
Taylor is more persuasive when he is developing his second main
thesis--that of the alleged existence of an ultimate dualism in the
nature of morality. His accounts of the genesis of the conceptions of
obligation and responsibility as of most of the ultimate conceptions
with which moral philosophy deals will be accepted or rejected to the
extent to which the main contention concerning the psychological basis
of ethics commends itself to the reader. But in his exposition of the
fundamental contradiction involved in morality elaborated with much care
and illustrative argument he appeals for the most part to facts familiar
to the unphilosophical moral consciousness. He begins by finding an
ultimate opposition between the instincts of self-assertion and
instincts which secure the production and protection of the coming
generation even in the infra-ethical world with which biology deals. He
traces this opposition into the forms in which it appears in the social
life of mankind (as, e.g., in the difficulty of reconciling the
conflicting claims of individual self-development and self-culture and
social service), and finds "a hidden root of insincerity and hypocrisy
beneath all morality" (p. 243), inasmuch as it is not possible to pursue
any one type of ideal without some departure from singleness of purpose.
And he finds all the conceptions by which men have hoped to reconcile
admitted antagonisms and divergencies between moral ideals claiming to
be ultimate and authoritative alike unsatisfactory (p. 285). Progress is
illusory; there is no satisfactory goal to which moral development
inevitably tends; religion in which some take refuge when distressed by
the inexplicable contradictions of moral conduct itself "contains and
rests upon an element of make believe" (p. 489).
With Taylor's presentation of the difficulties with which morality is
expected to grapple probably few would be found seriously to disagree,
though they might consider it unduly pessimistic. But when he turns what
is in effect a statement of certain forms of moral difficulty into an
attack upon the logical and coherent character of morality itself, he is
not so likely to command assent. For the difficulty all men meet with in
realizing goodness, or in being moral, is not in itself evidence of an
inherent contradiction in the nature of goodness as such. And what
perhaps would first strike an unprejudiced critic in Taylor's examples
of conflicting ideals or antagonistic yet ultimate moral judgments would
be the perception that they are not necessarily moral ideas or judgments
at all, and hence necessarily not ultimate.
The claims of self-culture and of social service may when considered in
the abstract or in some hypothetical case appear antagonistic and
irreconcilable. But when they present themselves to the individual moral
consciousness it may be safely asserted (1) that there can be only one
moral choice possible, i.e. that their opposition (where they are
opposed) involves no conflict of duties; and (2) that whichever ideal is
in the end preferred, opportunities will nevertheless be provided within
its realization for the concurrent realization of activities and
capacities ordinarily associated with the ideal alleged to be
contradictory. For just as there is no self-realization which does not
involve self-sacrifice, so there is no room for that species of egoism
within the confines of morality which is incompatible with social
service.
It will be clear from the foregoing account of Taylor's work that the
tendency of his thought, as of that of Bradley, is by no means directed
to the confirmation or re-establishment of those principles of conduct
recognized by the ordinary moral consciousness. Psychology or
metaphysics tend in their systems to usurp the place of authority
formerly assigned to ethics proper.
Martineau.
It would be true on the whole to assert that evolutionary systems of
ethics such as those of Herbert Spencer, Sir Leslie Stephen or Professor
S. Alexander (_Moral Order and Progress_, 1899), together with the
metaphysical theories of morals of which T.H. Green and Bradley and
Taylor are the chief representatives, have dominated the field of
ethical speculation since 1870. Nevertheless it is only necessary to
mention such a work as Martineau's _Types of Ethical Theory_ to dispel
the notion that the type of moral philosophy most characteristically
English, i.e. consisting in the patient analysis of the form and nature
of the moral consciousness itself, has given way or is likely to give
way to more ambitious and constructive efforts. Martineau's chief
endeavour was, as he himself says, to interpret, to vindicate, and to
systematize the moral sentiments, and if the actual exhibition of what
is involved, e.g., in moral choice is the vindication of morality
Martineau may be said to have been successful. It is with his
interpretation and systematization of the moral sentiments that most of
Martineau's critics have found fault. It is impossible, e.g., to accept
his ordered hierarchy of "springs of action" without perceiving that the
real principle upon which they can be arranged in order at all must
depend upon considerations of circumstances and consequences, of
stations and duties, with which a strict intuitionalism such as that of
Martineau would have no dealing.[50] Similarly the notion of Conscience
as a special faculty giving its pronouncements immediately and without
reflection cannot be maintained in the face of modern psychological
analysis and is untrue to the nature of moral judgment itself. And
Martineau is curiously unsympathetic to the universal and social aspect
of morality with which evolutionary and idealist moral philosophers are
so largely occupied. Nevertheless there have been few moral philosophers
who have, apart from the idiosyncrasies of their special prepossessions,
set forth with clearer insight or with greater nobility of language the
essential nature of the moral consciousness.
Sidgwick.
Equal in importance to Martineau's work is Professor Sidgwick's _Methods
of Ethics_ which appeared in 1874. The two works are alike in loftiness
of outlook and in the fact that they are devoted to the re-examination
of the nature of the moral consciousness to the exclusion of alien
branches of inquiry. In most other respects they differ. Martineau is
much more in sympathy with idealism than Sidgwick, whose work consists
in a restatement from a novel and independent standpoint of the
Utilitarian position. And Sidgwick has been far more successful than any
other moral philosopher with the exception of T.H. Green and Bradley in
founding a school of thought. Many of his most acute critics would be
the first to admit how much they owe to his teaching. Chief among the
more recent of these is G.E. Moore, whose book _Principia Ethica_ is an
important original contribution to ethical thought. And although Dr
Hastings Rashdall (_The Theory of Good and Evil_ Oxford, 1907) is not in
agreement with Sidgwick's own particular type of hedonistic theory in
his own philosophical position, he occupies a point of view somewhat
similar to that of Sidgwick's main attitude of Rational Utilitarianism.
Rashdall's two volumes exhibit also a welcome return on the part of
English thought to the proper business of the moral philosopher--the
examination of the nature of moral conduct. Other works, such as
Professor L.T. Hobhouse's _Morals in Evolution_ or Professor E.A.
Westermarck's _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, testify to a
continued interest in the history of morality and in the anthropological
inquiries with which moral philosophy is closely connected.
Much that is of importance for moral philosophy has recently been
written upon problems that more properly belong to the philosophy of
religion and the theory of knowledge. J.F. M'Taggart's _Studies in
Hegelian Cosmology_, and his later work, _Some Dogmas of Religion_,
contain interesting contributions to the theory of pleasure and of the
problem of free will and determinism. A notable instance of this
tendency is seen in the developments of the theory of pragmatism (q.v.),
for which F.C.S. Schiller has proposed the general term "humanism." Such
aspects as concern ethics include, for example, the limited
indeterminism involved in the theory, the attitude of the religious
consciousness expressed by William James (_Will to Believe_ and
_Pragmatism_), and the pragmatic conception of the good. And the
widespread interest in social problems has produced a revival of
speculation concerning questions partly political and party ethical in
character, e.g. the nature of justice. Finally it has become apparent
that many problems hitherto left for political economy to solve belong
more properly to the moralist, if not to the moral philosopher, and it
may be confidently expected that with the increased complexity of social
life and the disappearance of many sanctions of morality hitherto
regarded as inviolable, the future will bring a renewed and practical
interest in the theory of conduct likely to lead to fresh developments
in ethical speculation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The literature of the subject is so large in all
languages that only a small selection can be given here. For further
works reference may be made to subsidiary articles. See also Baldwin's
_Dict. of Philos. and Psychol._ vol. iii. (1905), pp. 812 foll.
(bibliography).
I. _Historical._--Sir L. Stephen, _History of English Thought in the
18th Century_ (1876, 3rd ed. 1892); W.E.H. Lecky, _History of European
Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne_ (1869, many editions); works of
Ed. Zeller (q.v.); G.H. Lewes, _History of Philosophy_ (1880); W.
Gass, _Geschichte der christlichen Ethik_ (1881); A.W. Benn, _The
Greek Philosophers_ (1882); F. Jödl, _Geschichte der Ethik in der
neueren Philos_. (2 vols., 1882-1889); L. Schmidt, _Ethik der alten
Griechen_ (1882); E. Howley, _The Old Morality traced Historically_
(1885); J. Martineau, _Types of Ethical Theory_ (Oxford, 1885, 3rd ed.
1891); Th. Ziegler, _Gesch. d. christl. Ethik_ (1886); Ch.
Letourneaux, _L'Évolution de la morale_ (1887); K. Köstlin, _Gesch.
der Ethik_ (1887); C.E. Luthardt, _Die antike Ethik in ihrer
geschichtlichen Entwicklung_ (1887), and _Hist. of Christian Ethics_
(1888); C.M. Williams, _A Review of the Systems of Ethics founded on
the Theory of Evolution_ (1893); J. Watson, _Hedonistic Theories from
Aristippus to Spencer_ (1895); L.A. Selby-Bigge, _British Moralists_
(1897); R. Mackintosh, _From Comte to Benjamin Kidd_ (1899); S.
Patten, _The Development of English Thought_ (1899); A.B. Bruce, _The
Moral Order of the World in Ancient and Modern Thought_ (1899); Sir L.
Stephen, _The English Utilitarians_ (1901); Henry Sidgwick, _Outlines
of the History of Ethics_ (5th ed., 1902); Paul Janet, _History of the
Problems of Philosophy_ (1902-1903), Eng. trans. Ada Monahan, vol. ii.
"Ethics"; W.R. Sorley, _Recent Tendencies in Ethics_ (1904).
II. _Constructive and Critical._--Besides the works mentioned above
the following may be mentioned:--J.M. Guyau, _La Morale anglaise_
(1879), _Éducation et hérédité_ (1889; Eng. trans. Greenstreet, with
introd. by G.F. Stout, 1891), _Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation
ni sanction_ (Eng. trans., 1898); G.H. Lewes, _Problems of Life and
Mind_ (1879); Sir L. Stephen, _Science of Ethics_ (1882); P. Janet,
_The Theory of Morals_ (Eng. trans., 1884); W.R. Sorley, _On the
Ethics of Naturalism_ (1885); W.L. Courtney, _Constructive Ethics_
(1886); Wilson and Fowler, _Principles of Morals_ (1886); H. Höffding,
_Ethik_ (1888), _Psychologie_ (1882, 1892; trans. Lowndes, 1892); W.
Wundt, _Ethik_ (1886; trans. Titchener and others, 1897); F. Paulsen,
_Ethik_ (1889, 1893; trans. Thilly, 1899); H. Sidgwick, _Method of
Ethics_ (1890); J.T. Bixby, _The Crisis in Morals: An Examination of
Rational Ethics_ (1891); J. Seth, _Freedom an Ethical Postulate_
(1891); J.H. Muirhead, _Elements of Ethics_ (1892); G. Simnel,
_Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_ (1892, 1893); T. Ziegler,
_Social Ethics_ (1892); T.H. Huxley, _Evolution and Ethics_ (1893); W.
Knight, _The Christian Ethic_ (1893); J.S. Mackenzie, _Manual of
Ethics_ (1893); F. Ryland, _Ethics_ (1893); J. Seth, _A Study of
Ethical Principles_ (1894, 6th ed. 1902); C.F. D'Arcy, _Short Study of
Ethics_ (1895); J.H. Hyslop, _The Elements of Ethics_ (1895); J. Kidd,
_Morality and Religion_ (1895); Sir L. Stephen, _Social Rights and
Duties_ (1896); J.M. Baldwin, _Social and Ethical Interpretations in
Mental Development_ (1897); Th. Ribot, _Psychology of Emotions_
(1897); A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, _Man's Place in the Cosmos_ (1897);
H.R. Marshall, _Instinct and Reason_ (1898); W. Wallace, _Natural
Theology and Ethics_ (1898); F. Paulsen, _Partei-politik und Moral_
(1900); A.E. Taylor, _Problem of Conduct_ (1901); G.T. Ladd,
_Philosophy of Conduct_ (1902); H. Sidgwick, _Ethics of Green,
Spencer, Martineau_ (1902); D. Irons, _Study in Psychology of Ethics_
(1903); G.E. Moore, _Principia Ethica_ (1903); R. Eucken, _Geistige
Strömungen der Gegenwart_ (1904), and other works (see EUCKEN,
RUDOLF); works of A. Fouillée (q.v.); G. Santayana, _Life of Reason_
(1905); E.A. Westermarck, _Origin and Development of Moral Ideas_
(1906); George Gore, _Scientific Basis of Morality_ (1899), and _New
Scientific Basis of Morality_ (1906), containing an interesting if
unconvincing attempt to explain ethics on purely physical principles.
(H. H. W.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This well-known phrase was originally attributed to the
Pythagoreans.
[2]
It is highly characteristic of Platonism that the issue in this
dialogue, as originally stated, is between virtue and vice, whereas,
without any avowed change of ground, the issue ultimately discussed
is between the philosophic life and the life of vulgar ambition or
sensual enjoyment.
[3] This cardinal term is commonly translated "happiness"; and it
must be allowed that it is the most natural term for what we (in
English) agree to call "our being's end and aim." But happiness so
definitely signifies a state of feeling that it will not admit the
interpretation that Aristotle (as well as Plato and the Stoics)
expressly gives to [Greek: eudaimonia]; the confusion is best avoided
by rendering the word by the less familiar "well-being."
[4] Aristotle follows Plato and Socrates in identifying the notions
of [Greek: kalos] ("fair," "beautiful") and [Greek: agathos] ("good")
in their application to conduct. We may observe, however, that while
the latter term is used to denote the virtuous man, and (in the
neuter) equivalent to End generally, the former is rather chosen to
express the quality of virtuous acts which in any particular case is
the end of the virtuous agent. Aristotle no doubt faithfully
represents the common sense of Greece in considering that, in so far
as virtue is in itself good to the virtuous agent, it belongs to that
species of good which we distinguish as beautiful. In later Greek
philosophy the term [Greek: kalon] ("honestum") became still more
technical in the signification of "morally good."
[5] The above account is considerably expanded in H. Sidgwick's
_Hist. of Ethics_ (5th ed., 1902), pp. 59-70.
[6] There is a certain difficulty in discussing Aristotle's views on
the subject of practical wisdom, and the relation of the intellect to
moral action, since it is most probable that the only accounts that
we have of these views are not part of the genuine writings of
Aristotle. Still books vi. and vii. of the _Nicomachean Ethics_
contain no doubt as pure Aristotelian doctrine as a disciple could
give, and appear to supply a sufficient foundation for the general
criticism expressed in the text.
[7] It has been suggestively said that Cynicism was to Stoicism what
monasticism was to early Christianity. The analogy, however, must not
be pressed too far, since orthodox Stoics do not ever seem to have
regarded Cynicism as the more perfect way.
[8] The Stoics were not quite agreed as to the immutability of
virtue, but they were agreed that, when once possessed, it could only
be lost through the loss of reason itself.
[9] Hence some members of the school, without rejecting the
definition of virtue = knowledge, also defined it as "strength and
force."
[10] It is apparently in view of this union in reason of rational
beings that friends are allowed to be "external goods" to the sage,
and that the possession of good children is also counted a good.
[11] The Stoics seem to have varied in their view of "good repute,"
[Greek: eudoxia]; at first, when the school was more under the
influence of Cynicism, they professed an outward as well as an inward
indifference to it; ultimately they conceded the point to common
sense, and included it among [Greek: proêgmena].
[12] It is noted of him that he did not disdain the co-operation
either of women or of slaves in his philosophical labours.
[13] The last charge of Epicurus to his disciples is said to have
been, [Greek: tôn dogmatôn memnêsthai].
[14] Epictetus.
[15] Marcus Aurelius.
[16] E.g. Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian.
[17] Citra sanguinis effusionem.
[18] To show the crudity of the notion of redemption in early
Christianity, it is sufficient to mention that many fathers represent
Christ's ransom as having been paid to the devil; sometimes adding
that by the concealment of Christ's divinity under the veil of
humanity a certain deceit was (fairly) practised on the great
deceiver.
[19] It is to be observed that Augustine prefers to use "freedom" not
for the power of willing either good or evil, but the power of
willing good. The highest freedom, in his view, excludes the
possibility of willing evil.
[20] Cicero's works are unimportant in the history of ancient ethics,
as their philosophical matter was entirely borrowed from Greek
treatises now lost; but the influence exercised by them (especially
by the _De officiis_) over medieval and even modern readers was very
considerable.
[21] Abelard afterwards retracted this view, at least in its extreme
form; and in fact does not seem to have been fully conscious of the
difference between (1) unfulfilled intention to do an act objectively
right, and (2) intention to do what is merely believed by the agent
to be right.
[22] He was condemned by two synods, in 1121 and 1140.
[23] _Synderesis_ (Gr. [Greek: suntêrêsis], from [Greek: suntêrein],
to watch closely, observe) is used in this sense in Jerome (_Com. in
Ezek_. i. 4-10).
[24] The refusal of the council of Constance to condemn Jean Petit's
advocacy of assassination is a striking example of this weakness. Cf.
Milman, _Lat. Christ_. book xiii. c. 9.
[25] As the chief English casuists we may mention Perkins, Hall,
Sanderson, as well as the more eminent Jeremy Taylor, whose _Ductor
dubitantium_ appeared in 1660.
[26] This influence was not exercised in the region of ethics.
Bacon's brief outline of moral philosophy (in the _Advancement of
Learning_, ii. 20-22) is highly pregnant and suggestive. But Bacon's
great task of reforming scientific method was one which, as he
conceived it, left morals on one side; he never made any serious
effort to reduce his ethical views to a coherent system, methodically
reasoned on an independent basis. The outline given in the
_Advancement_ was never filled in, and does not seem to have had any
effect on the subsequent course of ethical speculation.
[27] He even identifies the desire with the pleasure, apparently
regarding the stir of appetite and that of fruition as two parts of
the same "motion."
[28] In spite of Hobbes's uncompromising egoism, there is a
noticeable discrepancy between his theory of the ends that men
naturally seek and his standard for determining their natural rights.
This latter is never Pleasure simply, but always Preservation--though
on occasion he enlarges the notion of "preservation" into
"preservation of life so as not to be weary of it." His view seems to
be that in a state of nature _most_ men _will_ fight, rob, &c., "for
delectation merely" or "for glory," and that hence all men must be
allowed an indefinite right to fight, rob, &c., "for preservation."
[29] It should be noticed, however, that it is only in his treatment
of Equity and Benevolence that he really follows out the mathematical
analogy (cf. Sidgwick's _History of Ethics_, 5th ed., pp. 180-181).
[30] It should be observed that, while Clarke is sincerely anxious to
prove that most principles are binding independently of Divine
appointment, he is no less concerned to show that morality requires
the practical support of revealed religion.
[31] Three classes of impulses are thus distinguished by
Shaftesbury:--(1) "Natural Affections," (2) "Self-affections," and
(3) "Un-natural Affections." Their characteristics are further
considered in the _History of Ethics_, p. 186 seq.
[32] In a remarkable passage near the close of his eleventh sermon
Butler seems even to allow that conscience would have to give way to
self-love, if it were possible (which it is not) that the two should
come into ultimate and irreconcilable conflict.
[33] It is worth noticing that Hutcheson's express definition of the
object of self-love includes "perfection" as well as "happiness"; but
in the working out of his system he considers private good
exclusively as happiness or pleasure.
[34] Hume's ethical view was finally stated in his _Inquiry into the
Principles of Morals_ (1751), which is at once more popular and more
purely utilitarian than his earlier work.
[35] Hume remarks that in some cases, by "association of ideas," the
rule by which we praise and blame is extended beyond the principle of
utility from which it arises; but he allows much less scope to this
explanation in his second treatise than in his first.
[36] In earlier editions of the _Inquiry_ Hume expressly included all
approved qualities under the general notion of "virtue." In later
editions he avoided this strain on usage by substituting or adding
"merit" in several passages--allowing that some of the laudable
qualities which he mentions would be more commonly called "talents,"
but still maintaining that "there is little distinction made in our
internal estimation" of "virtues" and "talents."
[37] It is to be observed that whereas Price and Stewart (after
Butler) identify the object of self-love with happiness or pleasure,
Reid conceives this "good" more vaguely as including perfection and
happiness; though he sometimes uses "good" and happiness as
convertible terms, and seems practically to have the latter in view
in all that he says of self-love.
[38] E.g. Reid proposes to apply this principle in favour of
monogamy, arguing from the proportion of males and females born;
without explaining why, if the intention of nature hence inferred
excludes occasional polygamy, it does not also exclude occasional
celibacy.
[39] We may observe that some recent writers, who would generally be
included in this school, avoid in various ways the difficulty of
constructing a code of external conduct. Sometimes they consider
moral intuition as determining the comparative excellence of
conflicting motives (James Martineau), or the comparative quality of
pleasures chosen (Laurie), which seems to be the same view in a
hedonistic garb; others hold that what is intuitively perceived is
the rightness or wrongness of individual acts--a view which obviously
renders ethical reasoning practically superfluous.
[40] The originality--such as it is--of Paley's system (as of
Bentham's) lies in its method of working out details rather than in
its principles of construction. Paley expressly acknowledges his
obligations to the original and suggestive, though diffuse and
whimsical, work of Abraham Tucker (_Light of Nature Pursued_,
1768-1774). In this treatise, as in Paley's, we find "every man's own
satisfaction, the spring that actuates all his motives," connected
with "general good, the root whereout all our rules of conduct and
sentiments of honour are to branch," by means of natural theology
demonstrating the "unniggardly goodness of the author of nature."
Tucker is also careful to explain that satisfaction or pleasure is
"one and the same in kind, however much it may vary in degree, ...
whether a man is pleased with hearing music, seeing prospects,
tasting dainties, performing laudable actions, or making agreeable
reflections," and again that by "general good" he means "quantity of
happiness," to which "every pleasure that we do to our neighbour is
an addition." There is, however, in Tucker's theological link between
private and general happiness a peculiar ingenuity which Paley's
common sense has avoided. He argues that men having no free will have
really no desert; therefore the divine equity must ultimately
distribute happiness in equal shares to all; therefore I must
ultimately increase my own happiness most by conduct that adds most
to the general fund which Providence administers.
But in fact the outline of Paley's utilitarianism is to be found a
generation earlier--in Gay's dissertation prefixed to Law's edition
of King's _Origin of Evil_--as the following extracts will
show:--"The idea of virtue is the conformity to a rule of life,
directing the actions of all rational creatures with respect to each
other's happiness; to which every one is always obliged....
Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting something in order
to be happy.... Full and complete obligation which will extend to all
cases can only be that arising from the authority of God.... The will
of God [so far as it directs behaviour to others] is the immediate
rule or criterion of virtue ... but it is evident from the nature of
God that he could have no other design in creating mankind than their
happiness; and therefore he wills their happiness; therefore that my
behaviour so far as it may be a means to the happiness of mankind
should be such; so this happiness of mankind may be said to be the
criterion of virtue once removed."
The same dissertation also contains the germ of Hartley's system, as
we shall presently notice.
[41] It must be allowed that Paley's application of this argument is
somewhat loosely reasoned, and does not sufficiently distinguish the
consequence of a single act of beneficent manslaughter from the
consequences of a general permission to commit such acts.
[42] This list gives twelve out of the fourteen classes in which
Bentham arranges the springs of action, omitting the religious
sanction (mentioned afterwards), and the pleasures and pains of
self-interest, which include all the other classes except sympathy
and antipathy.
[43] In the _Deontology_ published by Bowring from MSS. left after
Bentham's death, the coincidence is asserted to be complete.
[44] It should be observed that Austin, after Bentham, more
frequently uses the term "moral" to connote what he more distinctly
calls "positive morality," the code of rules supported by common
opinion in any society.
[45] In the before-mentioned dissertation. Cf. note 2 to p. 835.
Hartley refers to this treatise as having supplied the starting-point
for his own system.
[46] It should be noticed that Hartley's sensationalism is far from
leading him to exalt the corporeal pleasures. On the contrary, he
tries to prove elaborately that they (as well as the pleasures of
imagination, ambition, self-interest) cannot be made an object of
primary pursuit without a loss of happiness on the whole--one of his
arguments being that these pleasures occur earlier in time, and "that
which is prior in the order of nature is always less perfect than
that which is posterior."
[47] It may be observed that in the view of Kant and others (2) and
(3) are somewhat confusingly blended.
[48] Singularly enough, the English writer who approaches most nearly
to Kant on this point is the utilitarian Godwin, in his _Political
Justice_. In Godwin's view, reason is the proper motive to acts
conducive to general happiness: reason shows me that the happiness of
a number of other men is of more value than my own; and the
perception of this truth affords me at least _some_ inducement to
prefer the former to the latter. And supposing it to be replied that
the motive is really the moral uneasiness involved in choosing the
selfish alternative, Godwin answers that this uneasiness, though a
"constant step" in the process of volition, is a merely "accidental"
step--"I feel pain in the neglect of an act of benevolence, because
benevolence is judged by me to be conduct which it becomes me to
adopt."
[49] In Kantism, as we have partly seen, the most important
ontological beliefs--in God, freedom and immortality of the soul--are
based on necessities of ethical thought. In Fichte's system the
connexion of ethics and metaphysics is still more intimate; indeed,
we may compare it in this respect to Platonism; as Plato blends the
most fundamental notions of each of these studies in the one idea of
good, so Fichte blends them in the one idea free-will. "Freedom," in
his view, is at once the foundation of all being and the end of all
moral action. In the systems of Schelling and Hegel ethics falls
again into a subordinate place; indeed, the ethical view of the
former is rather suggested than completely developed. Neither Fichte
nor Schelling has exercised more than the faintest and most indirect
influence on ethical philosophy in England; it therefore seems best
to leave the ethical doctrines of each to be explained in connexion
with the rest of his system.
[50] Cf. A. Seth Pringle-Pattison, _The Philosophical Radicals.
Martineau's Philosophy_, p. 92.
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