| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 - "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William"
Author: Various
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 - "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William"" ***
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; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.
(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:
ARTICLE EVELYN, JOHN: "He was admitted to the Middle Temple in
February 1637, and in May he became a fellow commoner of Balliol
College, Oxford." 'he' amended from 'be'.
ARTICLE EVOLUTION: "The supposition that sensation thus rests on a
material process of absorption from external bodies naturally led
up to the idea that plants and even inorganic substances are
precipient, and so to an indistinct recognition of organic life as
a scale of intelligence." 'substances' amended from 'subtances'.
ARTICLE EVOLUTION: "The conception of evolution was henceforward
irrepressible, and it incessantly reappears, in one shape or
another, up to the year 1858, when Charles Darwin and A.R. Wallace
published their Theory of Natural Selection." 'irrepressible'
amended from 'irrespressible'.
ARTICLE EVOLUTION: "And those of the eighth group are not only
unintelligible without the assumption of evolution, but can be
proved never to be discordant with that hypothesis, while, in some
cases, they are exactly such as the hypothesis requires."
'unintelligible' amended from 'unin-intelligible'.
ARTICLE EVORA: "From 1663 to 1665 it was held by the Spaniards. In
1832 Dom Miguel, retreating before Dom Pedro, took refuge in Evora;
and here was signed the convention of Evora, by which he was
banished." 'From' amended from 'Fom'.
ARTICLE EWING, JULIANA HORATIA ORR: "From this time until her death
(13th May 1885), previously to which she had been a constant
invalid, Mrs Ewing produced a number of charming children's
stories." 'May' amended from 'may'.
ARTICLE EXAMINATIONS: "In many universities of the United States
there is a definite understanding that emoluments shall only be
accepted by those needing them." 'In' amended from 'It'.
ARTICLE EXECUTION: "There may still be imprisonment in England,
under the writ--rarely used in practice--ne exeat regno, which
issues to prevent a debtor from leaving the kingdom." 'kingdom'
amended from 'kindgom'.
ARTICLE EXECUTION: "Under the German Code of Civil Procedure (Arts.
796 et seq.), both the goods and (if the goods do not offer
adequate security) the person of the debtor may be seized (the
process is called arrest) as a guarantee of payment." 'Procedure'
amended from 'Prodecure'.
ARTICLE EZRA, THIRD BOOK OF: "The Apocalypse is called 1 Esdras,
our author 2 Esdras, and Ezra and Nehemiah 3 Esdras, or 3 and 4
Esdras." 'Apocalypse' amended from 'Apocalyspe'.
ARTICLE EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF: "It is difficult to follow its
progress clearly, and the account ceases abruptly in. vi. 17-19
with the notice of the conspiracy of Tobiah and the nobles of
Judah." 'progress' amended from 'progrees'.
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
FIRST edition, published in three volumes, 1768-1771.
SECOND " " ten " 1777-1784.
THIRD " " eighteen " 1788-1797.
FOURTH " " twenty " 1801-1810.
FIFTH " " twenty " 1815-1817.
SIXTH " " twenty " 1823-1824.
SEVENTH " " twenty-one " 1830-1842.
EIGHTH " " twenty-two " 1853-1860.
NINTH " " twenty-five " 1875-1889.
TENTH " ninth edition and eleven
supplementary volumes, 1902-1903.
ELEVENTH " published in twenty-nine volumes, 1910-1911.
COPYRIGHT
in all countries subscribing to the Bern Convention
by
THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
_All rights reserved_
THE
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF
ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME X
EVANGELICAL CHURCH to FRANCIS JOSEPH
New York
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
342 Madison Avenue
Copyright, in the United States of America, 1910,
by
The Encyclopædia Britannica Company.
VOLUME X, SLICE I
Evangelical Church Conference to Fairbairn, Sir William
ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:
EVANGELICAL CHURCH CONFERENCE EXPULSION
EVANGELICAL UNION EXTENSION
EVANS, CHRISTMAS EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES
EVANS, EVAN HERBER EXTERRITORIALITY
EVANS, SIR GEORGE DE LACY EXTORTION
EVANS, SIR JOHN EXTRACT
EVANS, OLIVER EXTRADITION
EVANSON, EDWARD EXTRADOS
EVANSTON EXTREME UNCTION
EVANSVILLE EYBESCHÜTZ, JONATHAN
EVARISTUS EYCK, VAN
EVARTS, WILLIAM MAXWELL EYE (English town)
EVE EYE (organ)
EVECTION EYEMOUTH
EVELETH EYLAU
EVELYN, JOHN EYRA
EVERDINGEN, ALLART VAN EYRE, EDWARD JOHN
EVEREST, SIR GEORGE EYRE, SIR JAMES
EVEREST, MOUNT EYRIE
EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL EZEKIEL
EVERETT, CHARLES CARROLL EZRA
EVERETT, EDWARD EZRA, THIRD BOOK OF
EVERETT (Massachusetts, U.S.A.) EZRA, FOURTH BOOK OF
EVERETT (Washington, U.S.A.) EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF
EVERGLADES EZZO
EVERGREEN EZZOLIED
EVERLASTING F
EVERSLEY, CHARLES SHAW LEFEVRE FABBRONI, ANGELO
EVESHAM FABER
EVIDENCE FABER, BASIL
EVIL EYE FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM
EVOLUTION FABER, JACOBUS
EVORA FABER, JOHANN
ÉVREUX FABERT, ABRAHAM DE
EWALD, GEORG HEINRICH AUGUST VON FABIAN, SAINT
EWALD, JOHANNES FABIUS
EWART, WILLIAM FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS
EWE FABLE
EWELL, RICHARD STODDERT FABLIAU
EWING, ALEXANDER FABRE, FERDINAND
EWING, JULIANA HORATIA ORR FABRE D'ÉGLANTINE, FRANÇOIS NAZAIRE
EWING, THOMAS FABRETTI, RAPHAEL
EXAMINATIONS FABRIANI, SEVERINO
EXARCH FABRIANO
EXCAMBION FABRICIUS, GAIUS LUSCINUS
EXCELLENCY FABRICIUS, GEORG
EXCHANGE FABRICIUS, HIERONYMUS
EXCHEQUER FABRICIUS, JOHANN ALBERT
EXCISE FABRICIUS, JOHANN CHRISTIAN
EXCOMMUNICATION FABRIZI, NICOLA
EXCRETION FABROT, CHARLES ANNIBAL
EXECUTION FABYAN, ROBERT
EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS FAÇADE
EXEDRA FACCIOLATI, JACOPO
EXELMANS, RENÉ JOSEPH ISIDORE FACE
EXEQUATUR FACTION
EXETER, EARL, MARQUESS & DUKE OF FACTOR
EXETER (England) FACTORY ACTS
EXETER (New Hampshire, U.S.A.) FACULA
EXETER BOOK FACULTY
EXHIBITION FAED, THOMAS
EXHUMATION FAENZA
EXILARCH FAEROE
EXILE FAESULAE
EXILI FAFNIR
EXMOOR FOREST FAGGING
EXMOUTH, EDWARD PELLEW FAGGOT
EXMOUTH FAGNIEZ, GUSTAVE CHARLES
EXODUS, BOOK OF FAGUET, ÉMILE
EXODUS, THE FA-HIEN
EXOGAMY FAHLCRANTZ, CHRISTIAN ERIK
EXORCISM FAHRENHEIT, GABRIEL DANIEL
EXORCIST FAIDHERBE, LOUIS LÉON CÉSAR
EXOTIC FAIENCE
EXPATRIATION FAILLY, PIERRE LOUIS CHARLES DE
EXPERT FAIN, AGATHON JEAN FRANÇOIS
EXPLOSIVES FAIR
EXPRESS FAIRBAIRN, ANDREW MARTIN
EXPROPRIATION FAIRBAIRN, SIR WILLIAM
INITIALS USED IN VOLUME X. TO IDENTIFY INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTORS,[1] WITH
THE HEADINGS OF THE ARTICLES IN THIS VOLUME SO SIGNED.
A. B. R.
ALFRED BARTON RENDLE, M.A., D.SC, F.R.S., F.L.S.
Keeper, Department of Botany, British Museum. Author of _Text Book
on Classification of Flowering Plants_; &c.
Flower.
A. D.
AUSTIN DOBSON, LL.D.
See the biographical article: DOBSON, H. AUSTIN.
Fielding, Henry.
A. F. B.
ALDRED FARRER BARKER, M.SC.
Professor of Textile Industries at Bradford Technical College.
Felt.
A. F. P.
ALBERT FREDERICK POLLARD, M.A., F.R.HIST.SOC.
Professor of English History in the University of London. Fellow
of All Souls' College, Oxford. Assistant Editor of the _Dictionary
of National Biography_, 1893-1901. Lothian Prizeman, Oxford, 1892;
Arnold Prizeman, 1898. Author of _England under Protector
Somerset_; _Henry VIII._; _Life of Thomas Cranmer_; &c.
Ferrar, Bishop;
Fox, Edward;
Fox, Richard.
A. G.
MAJOR ARTHUR GEORGE FREDERICK GRIFFITHS (d. 1908).
H.M. Inspector of Prisons, 1878-1896. Author of _The Chronicles of
Newgate_; _Secrets of the Prison House_; &c.
Finger Prints.
A. Go.*
REV. ALEXANDER GORDON, M.A.
Lecturer on Church History in the University of Manchester.
Faber, Basil, Jacobus and Johann;
Familists;
Farel, G.;
Flacius.
A. H.-S.
SIR A. HOUTUM-SCHINDLER, C.I.E.
General in the Persian Army. Author of _Eastern Persian Irak_.
Fars;
Firuzabad.
A. L.
ANDREW LANG.
See the biographical article: LANG, ANDREW.
Fairy;
Family.
A. L. B.
ALFRED LYS BALDRY.
Art Critic of the _Globe_, 1893-1908. Author of _Modern Mural
Decoration_ and biographies of Albert Moore, Sir H. von Herkomer,
R.A., Sir J. E. Millais, P.R.A., Marcus Stone, R.A., and G. H.
Boughton, R.A.
Fortuny.
A. N.
ALFRED NEWTON, F.R.S.
See the biographical article: NEWTON, ALFRED.
Falcon;
Fieldfare;
Finch;
Flycatcher;
Fowl.
A. S.
ARTHUR SMITHELLS, F.R.S.
Professor of Chemistry in the University of Leeds. Author of
Scientific Papers on Flame and Spectrum Analysis.
Flame.
A. M. C.
AGNES MARY CLERKE.
See the biographical article: CLERKE, A. M.
Flamsteed.
A. W.
ARTHUR WATSON.
Secretary in the Academic Department, University of London.
Examinations (_in part_).
A. W. R.
ALEXANDER WOOD RENTON, M.A., LL.B.
Puisne Judge of the Supreme Court of Ceylon. Editor of
_Encyclopaedia of the Laws of England_.
Fixtures;
Flat.
A. W. W.
ADOLPHUS WILLIAM WARD, D.LITT., LL.D.
See the biographical article: WARD, A. W.
Foote, Samuel;
Ford, John.
C. El.
SIR CHARLES NORTON EDGCUMBE ELIOT, K.C.M.G., C.B., M.A., LL.D., D.C.L.
Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University. Formerly Fellow of
Trinity College, Oxford. H.M.'s Commissioner and
Commander-in-Chief for the British East Africa Protectorate; Agent
and Consul-General at Zanzibar; Consul-General for German East
Africa, 1900-1904.
Finno-Ugrian.
C. F. B.
CHARLES FRANCIS BASTABLE, M.A., LL.D.
Regius Professor of Laws and Professor of Political Economy in the
University of Dublin. Author of _Public Finance_; _Commerce of
Nations_; _Theory of International Trade_; &c.
Finance.
C. F. C.
C. F. CROSS, B.SC. (Lond.), F.C.S. F.I.C.
Analytical and Consulting Chemist.
Fibres.
C. F. R.
CHARLES FRANCIS RICHARDSON, A.M., PH.D.
Professor of English at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire,
U.S.A. Author of _A Story of English Rhyme_; _A History of
American Literature_; &c.
Fiske, John.
C. H. T.*
CRAWFORD HOWELL TOY, A.M.
See the biographical article: TOY, CRAWFORD HOWELL.
Ezekiel.
C. J.
CHARLES JOHNSON, M.A.
Clerk in H.M. Public Record Office. Joint Editor of the _Domesday
Survey_ for the _Victoria County History: Norfolk_.
Exchequer (_in part_).
C. J. B. M.
CHARLES JOHN BRUCE MARRIOTT, M.A.
Clare College, Cambridge. Secretary of the Rugby Football Union.
Football: _Rugby_ (_in part_).
C. J. N. F.
CHARLES JAMES NICOL FLEMING.
H.M. Inspector of Schools, Scotch Education Department.
Football: _Rugby_ (_in part_).
C. L. K.
CHARLES LETHBRIDGE KINGSFORD, M.A., F.R.HIST.SOC., F.S.A.
Assistant Secretary to the Board of Education. Author of _Life of
Henry V._ Editor of _Chronicles of London_ and Stow's _Survey of
London_.
Fabyan;
Fastolf.
C. P. I.
SIR COURTENAY PEREGRINE ILBERT, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., C.I.E.
Clerk of the House of Commons. Chairman of Statute Law Committee.
Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury, 1899-1901. Legal Member of
Council of Governor-General of India, 1882-1886; President, 1886.
Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Fellow and Tutor of
Balliol College, Oxford. Author of _The Government of India_;
_Legislative Method and Forms_.
Evidence.
C. W. A.
CHARLES WILLIAM ALCOCK. (d. 1907).
Formerly Secretary of the Football Association, London.
Football: _Association_ (_in part_).
D. H.
DAVID HANNAY.
Formerly British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Author of _Short
History of the Royal Navy_; _Life of Emilio Castelar_; &c.
First of June, Battle of the;
Fox, Charles James.
D. Mn.
REV. DUGALD MACFADYEN, M.A.
Minister of South Grove Congregational Church, Highgate. Director
of the London Missionary Society.
Excommunication.
D. N. P.
DIARMID NOEL PATON, M.D., F.R.C.P. (Edin.).
Regius Professor of Physiology in the University of Glasgow.
Formerly Superintendent of Research Laboratory of Royal College of
Physicians, Edinburgh. Biological Fellow of Edinburgh University,
1884. Author of _Essentials of Human Physiology_; &c.
Fever.
D. S. M.*
DAVID SAMUEL MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., D.LITT.
Laudian Professor of Arabic, Oxford. Fellow of New College. Author
of _Arabic _Papyri of the Bodleian Library_; _Mohammed and the
Rise of Islam_; _Cairo, Jerusalem_ and Damascus_.
Fatimites.
E. B.
EDWARD BRECK, M.A., PH.D.
Formerly Foreign Correspondent of the _New York Herald_ and the
_New York Times_. Author of _Fencing_; _Wilderness Pets_;
_Sporting in Nova Scotia_; &c.
Foil-fencing;
Football: _American_ (_in part_).
E. Ca.
EGERTON CASTLE, M.A., F.S.A.
Trinity College, Cambridge. Author of _Schools and Masters of
Fence_; &c.
Fencing.
Ed. C.*
THE HON. EDWARD EVAN CHARTERIS.
Barrister-at-Law, Inner Temple.
Fair (_in part_).
E. C. B.
RT. REV. EDWARD CUTHBERT BUTLER, O.S.B., M.A., D.LITT.
Abbot of Downside Abbey, Bath. Author of "The Lausiac History of
Palladius," in _Cambridge Texts and Studies_, vol. vi.
Fontevrault;
Francis of Assisi, St;
Francis of Paola, St.
E. C. Q.
EDMUND CROSBY QUIGGIN, M.A.
Fellow and Lecturer in Modern Languages and Monro Lecturer in
Celtic, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Finn mac Cool.
E. D. R.
LIEUT.-COLONEL EMILIUS C. DELMÉ RADCLIFFE.
Author of _Falconry: Notes on the Falconidae used in India in
Falconry_.
Falconry.
E. E. A.
ERNEST E. AUSTEN.
Assistant in Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum, South
Kensington.
Flea.
E. E. H.
REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
See the biographical article: HALE, E. E.
Everett, Edward.
E. G.
EDMUND GOSSE, LL.D.
See the biographical article: GOSSE, EDMUND.
Ewald, Johannes;
Fabliau;
Fabre, Ferdinand;
Feuillet;
Finland: _Literature_;
FitzGerald, Edward;
Flaubert;
Flemish Literature;
Forssell.
E. H. P.
EDWARD HENRY PALMER, M.A.
See the biographical article: PALMER, E. H.
Firdousi (_in part_).
E. K.
EDMUND KNECHT, PH.D., M.SC.TECH. (Manchester), F.I.C.
Professor of Technological Chemistry, Manchester University. Head
of Chemical Department, Municipal School of Technology,
Manchester. Examiner in Dyeing, City and Guilds of London
Institute. Author of _A Manual of Dyeing_; &c. Editor of _Journal
of the Society of Dyers and Colourists_.
Finishing.
E. M. Ha.
ERNEST MAES HARVEY.
Partner in Messrs. Allen Harvey & Ross, Bullion Brokers, London.
Exchange.
E. O.*
EDMUND OWEN, M.B., F.R.C.S., LL.D., D.SC.
Consulting Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, London, and to the
Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, London. Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour. Late Examiner in Surgery at the University of
Cambridge, London and Durham. Author of _A Manual of Anatomy for
Senior Students_.
Fistula.
E. O. S.
EDWIN OTHO SACHS, F.R.S. (Edin.), A.M.INST.M.E.
Chairman of the British Fire Prevention Committee. Vice-President,
National Fire Brigades Union. Vice-President, International Fire
Service Council. Author of _Fires and Public Entertainments_; &c.
Fire and Fire Extinction.
E. Pr.
EDGAR PRESTAGE.
Special Lecturer in Portuguese Literature at the University of
Manchester. Commendador, Portuguese Order of S. Thiago.
Corresponding Member of Lisbon Royal Academy of Sciences and
Lisbon Geographical Society.
Falcao;
Ferreira.
E. Re.
ELISÉE RECLUS.
See the biographical article: RECLUS, J. J. E.
Fire.
E. Tn.
REV. ETHELRED LEONARD TAUNTON, (d. 1907).
Author of _The English Black Monks of St Benedict_; _History of
the Jesuits in England_.
Feckenham;
Fisher, John.
E. W. H.
ERNEST WILLIAM HOBSON, M.A., D.SC., F.R.S., F.R.A.S.
Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics, Christ's College, Cambridge.
Stokes Lecturer in Mathematics in the University.
Fourier's Series.
F. C. C.
FREDERICK CORNWALLIS CONYBEARE, M.A., D.TH. (Giessen).
Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Fellow of University
College, Oxford. Author of _The Ancient Armenian Texts of
Aristotle_; _Myth, Magic and Morals_; &c.
Extreme Unction.
F. G. P.
FREDERICK GYMER PARSONS, F.R.C.S., F.Z.S., F.R.ANTHROP.INST.
Vice-President, Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Lecturer on Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital and the London School
of Medicine for Women. Formerly Hunterian Professor at the Royal
College of Surgeons.
Eye: _Anatomy_.
F. J. H.
FRANCIS JOHN HAVERFIELD, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A.
Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford.
Fellow of Brasenose College. Ford's Lecturer, 1906-1907. Fellow of
the British Academy. Author of Monographs on Roman History,
especially Roman Britain; &c.
Fosse.
F. J. W.
FREDERICK JOSEPH WALL, F.C.S.
Secretary to the Football Association.
Football: _Association_ (_in part_).
F. R. C.
FRANK R. CANA.
Author of _South Africa from the Great Trek to the Union_.
France: _Colonies_.
F. S.
FRANCIS STORR, M.A.
Editor of the _Journal of Education_, London. Officier d'Académie,
Paris.
Fable.
G. A. B.
GEORGE A. BOULENGER, D.SC., PH.D., F.R.S.
In charge of the Collections of Reptiles and Fishes, Department of
Zoology, British Museum. Vice-President of the Zoological Society
of London.
Flat-fish.
G. A. Be.
GEORGE ANDREAS BERRY, M.B., F.R.C.S., F.R.S. (Edin.).
Hon. Surgeon Oculist to His Majesty in Scotland. Formerly Senior
Ophthalmic Surgeon, Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and Lecturer on
Ophthalmology in the University of Edinburgh. Vice-President,
Ophthalmological Society. Author of _Diseases of the Eye_; _The
Elements of Ophthalmoscopic Diagnosis_; _Subjective Symptoms in
Eye Diseases_; &c.
Eye: _Diseases_.
G. B. A.
GEORGE BURTON ADAMS, A.M., B.D., PH.D., LITT.D.
Professor of History, Yale University. Editor of _American
Historical Review_. Author of _Civilization during the Middle
Ages_; _Political History of England_, 1066-1216; &c.
Feudalism.
G. C. L.
GEORGE COLLINS LEVEY, C.M.G.
Member of Board of Advice to Agent-General of Victoria. Formerly
Editor and Proprietor of the _Melbourne Herald_. Secretary,
Colonial Committee of Royal Commission to Paris Exhibition, 1900.
Secretary, Adelaide Exhibition, 1887. Secretary, Royal Commission,
Hobart Exhibition, 1894-1895. Secretary to Commissioners for
Victoria at the Exhibitions in London, Paris, Vienna, Philadelphia
and Melbourne, 1873, 1876, 1878, 1880-1881.
Exhibition.
G. E.
REV. GEORGE EDMUNDSON, M.A., F.R.HIST.S.
Formerly Fellow and Tutor of Brasenose College, Oxford. Ford's
Lecturer, 1909. Hon. Member, Dutch Historical Society, and Foreign
Member, Netherlands Association of Literature.
Flanders.
G. F. Z.
GEORGE FREDERICK ZIMMER, A.M.INST.C.E.
Author of _Mechanical Handling of Material_.
Flour and Flour Manufacture.
G. G. P.*
GEORGE GRENVILLE PHILLIMORE, M.A., B.C.L.
Christ Church, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law, Middle Temple.
Fishery, Law of.
G. P.
GIFFORD PINCHOT, A.M., D.SC., LL.D.
Professor of Forestry, Yale University. Formerly Chief Forester,
U.S.A. President of the National Conservation Association. Member
of the Society of American Foresters, Royal English Arboricultural
Society, &c. Author of _The White Pine_; _A Primer of Forestry_;
&c.
Forests and Forestry: _United States_.
G. W. T.
REV. GRIFFITHS WHEELER THATCHER, M.A., B.D.
Warden of Camden College, Sydney, N.S.W. Formerly Tutor in Hebrew
and Old Testament History at Mansfield College, Oxford.
Fairuzabadi;
Fakhr ud-Din Razi;
Farabi;
Farazdaq.
H. B. S.
REV. HENRY BARCLAY SWETE, M.A., D.D., LITT.D.
Regius Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University. Fellow of
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Fellow of King's College,
London. Fellow of British Academy. Hon. Canon of Ely Cathedral.
Author of _The Holy Spirit in the New Testament_; &c.
Fathers of the Church.
H. Ch.
HUGH CHISHOLM, M.A.
Formerly Scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Editor of the
11th Edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_; Co-Editor of the
10th edition.
Forster.
H. De.
HIPPOLYTE DELEHAYE, S.J.
Assistant in the compilation of the Bollandist publications:
_Analecta Bollandiana_ and _Acta Sanctorum_.
Fiacre, Saint;
Florian, Saint.
H. F. G.
HANS FRIEDRICH GADOW, F.R.S., PH.D.
Strickland Curator and Lecturer on Zoology in the University of
Cambridge. Author of "Amphibia and Reptiles," in the _Cambridge
Natural History_.
Flamingo.
H. L. S.
H. LAWRENCE SWINBURNE (d. 1909).
Flag.
H. St.
HENRY STURT, M.A.
Author of _Idola Theatri_; _The Idea of a Free Church_; _Personal
Idealism_.
Fechner;
Feuerbach, Ludwig A.
H. W. C. D.
HENRY WILLIAM CARLESS DAVIS, M.A.
Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, 1895-1902. Author of _England under the Normans
and Angevins_; _Charlemagne_.
Fitz Neal;
Fitz Peter, Geoffrey;
Fitz Stephen, William;
Fitz Thedmar;
Flambard;
Florence of Worcester.
H. W. S.
H. WICKHAM STEED.
Correspondent of _The Times_ at Vienna. Correspondent of _The
Times_ at Rome, 1897-1902.
Fabrizi.
I. A.
ISRAEL ABRAHAMS, M.A.
Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature, University of
Cambridge. President, Jewish Historical Society of England. Author
of _A Short History of Jewish Literature_; _Jewish Life in the
Middle Ages_.
Exilarch;
Eybeschutz.
J. A. C.
SIR JOSEPH ARCHER CROWE, K.C.M.G.
See the biographical article: CROWE, SIR JOSEPH A.
Eyck, Van.
J. A. H.
JOHN ALLEN HOWE, B.SC.
Curator and Librarian of the Museum of Practical Geology, London.
Author of _The Geology of Building Stones_.
France: _Geology_.
J. A. S.
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, LL.D.
See the biographical article: SYMONDS, JOHN A.
Ficino;
Filelfo.
J. B.*
JOSEPH BURTON.
Partner in Pilkington's Tile and Pottery Co., Clifton Junction,
Manchester.
Firebrick (_in part_).
J. B. P.
JAMES BELL PETTIGREW, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.P. (Edin.) (1834-1908).
Chandos Professor of Medicine and Anatomy, University of St
Andrews, 1875-1908. Author of _Animal Locomotion_; &c.
Flight and Flying (_in part_).
J. Bt.
JAMES BARTLETT.
Lecturer on Construction, Architecture, Sanitation, Quantities,
&c., at King's College, London. Member of Society of Architects.
Member of Institute of Junior Engineers.
Foundations.
J. C. M.
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL, LL.D.
See the biographical article: MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK.
Faraday.
J. E. C. B.
JOHN EDWARD COURTENAY BODLEY, M.A.
Balliol College, Oxford. Corresponding Member of the Institute of
France. Author of _France_; _The Coronation of Edward VII._; &c.
France: _History_, 1870-1910.
J. E. P. W.
JOHN EDWARD POWER WALLIS, M.A.
Puisne Judge, Madras. Vice-Chancellor of Madras University. Inns
of Court Reader in Constitutional Law, 1892-1897. Formerly Editor
of _State Trials_.
Extradition.
J. F. St.
JOHN FREDERICK STENNING, M.A.
Dean and Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. University Lecturer in
Aramaic. Lecturer in Divinity and Hebrew at Wadham College.
Exodus, Book of.
J. G. H.
JOSEPH G. HORNER, A.M.I.MECH.E.
Author of _Plating and Boiler Making_; _Practical Metal Turning_;
&c.
Forging;
Founding.
J. G. R.
JOHN GEORGE ROBERTSON, M.A., PH.D.
Professor of German at the University of London. Formerly Lecturer
on the English Language, Strassburg University. Author of _History
of German Literature_; &c.
Fouqué, Baron.
J. H. P.*
JOHN HUNGERFORD POLLEN, M.A. (d. 1908).
Formerly Professor of Fine Arts in Catholic University of Dublin.
Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. Cantor Lecturer, Society of
Arts, 1885. Author of _Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork_;
_Ancient and Modern Gold and Silversmith's Work_; _The Trajan
Column_; &c.
Fan.
J. Hl. R.
JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, M.A., LITT.D.
Lecturer on Modern History to the Cambridge University Local
Lectures Syndicate. Author of _Life of Napoleon I._; _Napoleonic
Studies_; _The Development of the European Nations_; _The Life of
Pitt_; chapters in the _Cambridge Modern History_.
Fouché.
J. H. R.
JOHN HORACE ROUND, M.A., LL.D. (Edin.).
Author of _Feudal England_; _Studies in Peerage and Family
History_; _Peerage and Pedigree_; &c.
Ferrers: _Family_;
Fitzgerald: _Family_.
J. I.
JULES ISAAC.
Professor of History at the Lycée of Lyons.
Francis I. of France.
J. K. L.
SIR JOHN KNOX LAUGHTON, M.A., LITT.D.
Professor of Modern History, King's College, London. Secretary of
the Navy Records Society. Served in the Baltic, 1854-1855; in
China, 1856-1859. Mathematical and Naval Instructor, Royal Naval
College, Portsmouth, 1866-1873; Greenwich, 1873-1885. President,
Royal Meteorological Society, 1882-1884. Honorary Fellow, Gonville
and Caius College, Cambridge. Fellow, King's College, London.
Author of _Physical Geography in its Relation to the Prevailing
Winds and Currents_; _Studies in Naval History_; _Sea Fights and
Adventures_; &c.
Farragut;
Fitzroy.
J. L. B.
JULIAN LEVETT BAKER, F.I.C.
Analytical and Consulting Chemist. Examiner in Brewing to the City
and Guilds of London Institute, Department of Technology. Hon.
Secretary of the Institute of Brewing. Author of _The Brewing
Industry_; &c.
Fermentation.
J. Ma.
JOHN MACDONALD.
Fair (_in part_).
J. M. S.
JAMES MONTGOMERY STUART.
Author of _The History of Free Trade in Tuscany_; _Reminiscences
and Essays_.
Foscolo.
J. Pa.
JAMES PATON, F.L.S.
Superintendent of Museums and Art Galleries of Corporation of
Glasgow. Assistant in Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh,
1861-1876. President of Museums Association of United Kingdom,
1896. Editor and part-author of _Scottish National Memorials_,
1890.
Feather (_in part_).
J. P. E.
JEAN PAUL HIPPOLYTE EMMANUEL ADHÉMAR ESMEIN.
Professor of Law in the University of Paris. Officer of the Legion
of Honour. Member of the Institute of France. Author of _Cours
élémentaire d'histoire du droit français_; &c.
France: _Law and Institutions_.
J. R. C.
JOSEPH ROGERSON COTTER, M.A.
Assistant to the Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy,
Trinity College, Dublin. Editor of 2nd edition of Preston's
_Theory of Heat_.
Fluorescence.
J. R. F.*
JOSEPH R. FISHER.
Editor of the _Northern Whig_, Belfast. Author of _Finland and the
Tsars_; _Law of the Press_; &c.
Finland.
J. R. J. J.
JULIAN ROBERT JOHN JOCELYN.
Colonel, R.A. Formerly Commandant, Ordnance College; Member of
Ordnance Committee; Commandant, Schools of Gunnery.
Fireworks: _History_.
J. S. Bl.
REV. JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK, M.A., LL.D.
Assistant Editor, 9th edition, _Encyclopaedia Britannica_. Joint
Editor of the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_. Translated Ritschl's
_Critical History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification and
Reconciliation_.
Fasting;
Feasts and Festivals.
J. S. F.
JOHN SMITH FLETT, D.SC, F.G.S.
Petrographer to the Geological Survey. Formerly Lecturer on
Petrology in Edinburgh University. Neill Medallist of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh. Bigsby Medallist of the Geological Society
of London.
Felsite;
Flint.
J. S. K.
JOHN SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D., F.S.S.. F.S.A. (Scot.).
Secretary, Royal Geographical Society. Knight of Swedish Order of
North Star. Commander of the Norwegian Order of St Olaf. Hon.
Member, Geographical Societies of Paris, Berlin, Rome, &c. Editor
of _Statesman's Year Book_. Editor of the _Geographical Journal_.
Finland (_in part_);
Flinders.
J. T. Be.
JOHN T. BEALBY.
Joint Author of Stanford's _Europe_. Formerly Editor of the
_Scottish Geographical Magazine_. Translator of Sven Hedin's
_Through Asia, Central Asia and Tibet_; &c.
Fens;
Ferghana (_in part_).
K. S.
KATHLEEN SCHLESINGER.
Author of _The Instruments of the Orchestra_.
Fiddle;
Fife;
Flageolet;
Flute (_in part_).
L. D.*
LOUIS DUCHESNE.
See the biographical article: DUCHESNE, L. M. O.
Formosus.
L. F. S.
LESLIE FREDERIC SCOTT, M.A., K.C.C.
Barrister-at-Law, Inner Temple.
Factor.
L. J.
LIEUT.-COLONEL LOUIS CHARLES JACKSON, R.E., C.M.G.
Assistant Director of Fortifications and Works, War Office.
Formerly Instructor in Fortification, R.M.A., Woolwich. Instructor
in Fortification and Military Engineering, School of Military
Engineering, Chatham
Fortification and Siegecraft.
L. V.*
LUIGI VILLARI.
Italian Foreign Office (Emigration Dept.). Formerly Newspaper
Correspondent in east of Europe. Italian Vice-Consul in New
Orleans, 1906; Philadelphia, 1907; Boston, U.S.A., 1907-1910.
Author of _Italian Life in Town and Country_; _Fire and Sword in
the Caucasus_; &c.
Faliero;
Fanti, Manfredo;
Farini, Luigi Carlo;
Farnese: _Family_;
Ferdinand I. and IV. of Naples;
Ferdinand II. of the Two Sicilies;
Fiesco; Filangieri, C.;
Florence;
Foscari;
Fossombroni;
Francis II. of the Two Sicilies;
Francis IV. and V. of Modena.
M. Ha.
MARCUS HARTOG, M.A., D.SC, F.L.S.
Professor of Zoology, University College, Cork. Author of
"Protozoa," in _Cambridge Natural History_; and papers for various
scientific journals.
Flagellate;
Foraminifera.
N. W. T.
NORTHCOTE WHITBRIDGE THOMAS, M.A.
Government Anthropologist to Southern Nigeria. Corresponding
Member of the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris. Author of _Thought
Transference_; _Kinship and Marriage in Australia_; &c.
Faith Healing;
Fetishism;
Folklore.
O. H.*
OTTO HEHNER, F.I.C., F.C.S.
Public Analyst. Formerly President of Society of Public Analysts.
Vice-President of Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and
Ireland. Author of works on Butter Analysis; Alcohol Tables; &c.
Food Preservation.
O. M.
DAVID ORME MASSON, M.A., D.SC, F.R.S.
Professor of Chemistry, Melbourne University. Author of papers on
chemistry in the transactions of various learned societies.
Fireworks: _Modern_.
P. A.
PAUL DANIEL ALPHANDÉRY.
Professor of the History of Dogma, École Pratique des Hautes
Études, Sorbonne, Paris. Author of _Les Idées morales chez les
hétérodoxes latines au début du XIII^e siècle_.
Flagellants.
P. A. K.
PRINCE PETER ALEXEIVITCH KROPOTKIN.
See the biographical article: KROPOTKIN, P. A.
Ferghana (_in part_);
Finland (_in part_).
P. C. Y.
PHILIP CHESNEY YORKE, M.A.
Magdalen College, Oxford.
Falkland;
Fanshaw;
Fawkes, Guy;
Fell, John;
Fortescue, Sir John.
P. C. M.
PETER CHALMERS MITCHELL, F.R.S., F.Z.S., D.SC, LL.D.
Secretary to the Zoological Society of London. University
Demonstrator in Comparative Anatomy and Assistant to Linacre
Professor at Oxford, 1881-1891. Examiner in Zoology to the
University of London, 1903. Author of _Outlines of Biology_; &c.
Evolution.
P. G. K.
PAUL GEORGE KONODY.
Art Critic of the _Observer_ and the _Daily Mail_. Formerly Editor
of _The Artist_. Author of _The Art of Walter Crane_; _Velasquez,
Life and Work_; &c.
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo;
Fragonard.
P. J. H.
PHILIP JOSEPH HARTOG, M.A., L. ÈS SC. (Paris).
Academic Registrar of the University of London. Author of _The
Writing of English_, and articles in the Special Reports on
educational subjects of the Board of Education.
Examinations (_in part_).
P. W.
PAUL WIRIATH.
Director of the École Supérieure Pratique de Commerce et
d'Industrie, Paris.
France: _History to_ 1870.
R. Ad.
ROBERT ADAMSON, LL.D.
See the biographical article: ADAMSON, R.
Fichte;
Fourier, F. C. M.
R. A. S. M.
ROBERT ALEXANDER STEWART MACALISTER, M.A., F.S.A.
St John's College, Cambridge. Director of Excavations for the
Palestine Exploration Fund.
Font.
R. H. C.
REV. ROBERT HENRY CHARLES, M.A., D.D., D.LITT. (Oxon.).
Grinfield Lecturer and Lecturer in Biblical Studies, Oxford.
Fellow of the British Academy. Formerly Senior Moderator of
Trinity College, Dublin. Author and Editor of _Book of Enoch_;
_Book of Jubilees_; _Apocalypse of Baruch_; _Assumption of Moses_;
_Ascension of Isaiah_; _Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs_; &c.
Ezra: _Third and Fourth Books of_.
R. J. M.
RONALD JOHN MCNEILL, M.A.
Christ Church, Oxford. Barrister-at-Law. Formerly Editor of the
_St James's Gazette_, London.
Fenians;
Fitzgerald, Lord Edward;
Flood, Henry.
R. L.*
RICHARD LYDEKKER, F.R.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S.
Member of the Staff of the Geological Survey of India, 1874-1882.
Author of _Catalogue of Fossil Mammals, Reptiles and Birds in
British Museum_; _The Deer of all Lands_; _The Game Animals of
Africa_; &c.
Flying-Squirrel; Fox.
R. N. B.
ROBERT NISBET BAIN (d. 1909).
Assistant Librarian, British Museum, 1883-1909. Author of
_Scandinavia: the Political History of Denmark, Norway and Sweden,
1513-1900_; _The First Romanovs, 1613-1725_; _Slavonic Europe: the
Political History of Poland and Russia from 1469 to 1796_; &c.
Fersen, Counts von.
R. Po.
RENÉ POUPARDIN, D. ÈS L.
Secretary of the École des Chartes. Honorary Librarian at the
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Author of _Le Royaume de Provence
sous les Carolingiens_; _Recueil des chartes de Saint-Germain_;
&c.
Franche-Comté.
R. P. S.
R. PHENÉ SPIERS, F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A.
Formerly Master of the Architectural School, Royal Academy,
London. Past President of Architectural Association. Associate and
Fellow of King's College, London. Corresponding Member of the
Institute of France. Editor of Fergusson's _History of
Architecture_. Author of _Architecture: East and West_; &c.
Flute: _Architecture_.
R. S. C.
ROBERT SEYMOUR CONWAY, M.A., D.LITT. (Cantab.).
Professor of Latin and Indo-European Philology in the University
of Manchester. Formerly Professor of Latin in University College,
Cardiff; and Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Author of _The Italic Dialects_.
Falisci.
R. Tr.
ROLAND TRUSLOVE, M.A.
Formerly Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. Fellow, Dean and
Lecturer in Classics at Worcester College, Oxford.
France: _Statistics_.
S. A. C.
STANLEY ARTHUR COOK, M.A.
Editor for Palestine Exploration Fund. Lecturer in Hebrew and
Syriac, and formerly Fellow, Gonville and Caius College,
Cambridge. Examiner in Hebrew and Aramaic, London University,
1904-1908. Author of _Glossary of Aramaic Inscriptions_; _The Laws
of Moses and the Code of Hammurabi_; _Critical Notes on Old
Testament History_; _Religion of Ancient Palestine_; &c.
Exodus, The;
Ezra and Nehemiah, Books of.
S. C.
SIDNEY COLVIN, LL.D.
See the biographical article: COLVIN, S.
Fine Arts;
Finiguerra;
Flaxman.
St C.
VISCOUNT ST CYRES.
See the biographical article: IDDESLEIGH, 1ST EARL OF
Fénelon.
S. E. B.
HON. SIMEON EBEN BALDWIN, M.A., LL.D.
Professor of Constitutional and Private International Law in Yale
University. Director of the Bureau of Comparative Law of the
American Bar Association. Formerly Chief Justice of Connecticut.
Author of _Modern Political Institutions_; _American Railroad
Law_; &c.
Extradition: U.S.A.
S. E. S.-R.
STEPHEN EDWARD SPRING-RICE, M.A., C.B. (1856-1902).
Formerly Principal Clerk, H.M. Treasury, and Auditor of the Civil
List. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Exchequer (_in part_).
T. A. I.
THOMAS ALLAN INGRAM, M.A., LL.D.
Trinity College, Dublin.
Explosives: _Law_.
T. As.
THOMAS ASHBY, M.A., D.LITT. (Oxon.), F.S.A.
Director of British School of Archaeology at Rome. Formerly
Scholar of Christ Church, Oxford. Craven Fellow, 1897.
Corresponding Member of the Imperial German Archaeological
Institute. Author of the _Classical Topography of the Roman
Campagna_; &c.
Faesulae;
Falerii;
Falerio;
Fanum Fortunae;
Ferentino;
Fermo;
Flaminia Via;
Florence: _Early History_;
Fondi;
Fonni;
Forum Appii.
T. Ba.
SIR THOMAS BARCLAY, M.P.
Member of the Institute of International Law. Member of the
Supreme Council of the Congo Free State. Officer of the Legion of
Honour. Author of _Problems of International Practice and
Diplomacy_; &c. M.P. for Blackburn, 1910.
Exterritoriality.
T. H. H.*
SIR THOMAS HUNGERFORD HOLDICH, K.C.M.G., K.C.I.E., D.SC., F.R.G.S.
Colonel in the Royal Engineers. Superintendent, Frontier Surveys,
India, 1892-1898. Gold Medallist, R.G.S., London, 1887. H.M.
Commissioner for the Persia-Beluch Boundary, 1896. Author of _The
Indian Borderland_; _The Gates of India_; &c.
Everest, Mount.
T. K. C.
REV. THOMAS KELLY CHEYNE, D.D.
See the biographical article: CHEYNE, T. K.
Eve (_in part_).
T. Se.
THOMAS SECCOMBE, M.A.
Lecturer in History, East London and Birkbeck Colleges, University
of London. Stanhope Prizeman, Oxford, 1887. Formerly Assistant
Editor of _Dictionary of National Biography_, 1891-1901.
Joint-author of _The Bookman History of English Literature_.
Author of _The Age of Johnson_; &c.
Fawcett, Henry.
T. Wo.
THOMAS WOODHOUSE.
Head of Weaving and Textile Designing Department, Technical
College, Dundee.
Flax.
V. M.
VICTOR CHARLES MAHILLON.
Principal of the Conservatoire Royal de Musique at Brussels.
Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.
Flute (_in part_).
W. A. B. C.
REV. WILLIAM AUGUSTUS BREVOORT COOLIDGE, M.A., F.R.G.S., Ph.D. (Bern).
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. Professor of English History,
St David's College, Lampeter, 1880-1881. Author of _Guide to
Switzerland_; _The Alps in Nature and in History_; &c. Editor of
the _Alpine Journal_, 1880-1889.
Feldkirch.
W. A. P.
WALTER ALISON PHILLIPS, M.A.
Formerly Exhibitioner of Merton College and Senior Scholar of St
John's College, Oxford. Author of _Modern Europe_; &c.
Excellency;
Faust;
Febronianism.
W. B.*
WILLIAM BURTON, M.A., F.C.S.
Chairman, Joint Committee of Pottery Manufacturers of Great
Britain. Author of _English Stoneware and Earthenware_; &c.
Firebrick (_in part_).
W. Ca.
WALTER CAMP, A.M.
Member of Yale University Council. Author of _American Football_;
_Football Facts and Figures_; &c.
Football: _American_ (_in part_).
W. Ga.
WALTER GARSTANG, M.A., D.SC.
Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds. Scientific
Adviser to H.M. Delegates on the International Council for the
Exploration of the Sea, 1901-1907. Formerly Fellow of Lincoln
College, Oxford. Author of _The Races and Migrations of the
Mackerel_; _The Impoverishment of the Sea_; &c.
Fisheries.
W. He.
WALTER HEPWORTH.
Formerly Commissioner of the Council of Education, Science and Art
Department, South Kensington.
Fool.
W. M. R.
WILLIAM MICHAEL ROSSETTI.
See the biographical article: ROSSETTI, DANTE G.
Ferrari, Gaudenzio;
Fielding, Copley;
Franceschi, Piero;
Francia.
W. P. P.
WILLIAM PLANE PYCRAFT, F.Z.S.
Assistant in the Zoological Department, British Museum. Formerly
Assistant Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Oxford.
Vice-President of the Selborne Society. Author of _A History of
Birds_; &c.
Feather (_in part_).
W. N. S.
WILLIAM NAPIER SHAW, M.A., LL.D., D.SC, F.R.S.
Director of the Meteorological Office. Reader in Meteorology in
the University of London. President of Permanent International
Meteorological Committee. Member of Meteorological Council,
1897-1905. Hon. Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Fellow of
Emmanuel College, 1877-1899; Senior Tutor, 1890-1899. Joint Author
of _Text Book of Practical Physics_; &c.
Fog.
W. P. R.
HON. WILLIAM PEMBER REEVES.
Director of London School of Economics. Agent-General and High
Commissioner for New Zealand, 1896-1909. Minister of Education,
Labour and Justice, New Zealand, 1891-1896. Author of _The Long
White Cloud, a History of New Zealand_; &c.
Fox, Sir William.
W. R. S.
WILLIAM ROBERTSON SMITH, LL.D.
See the biographical article: SMITH, W. R.
Eve (_in part_).
W. R. E. H.
WILLIAM RICHARD EATON HODGKINSON, PH.D., F.R.S.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Ordnance College, Woolwich.
Formerly Professor of Chemistry and Physics, R.M.A., Woolwich.
Part Author of Valentin-Hodgkinson's _Practical Chemistry_; &c.
Explosives.
W. Sch.
SIR WILHELM SCHLICH, K.C.I.E., M.A., PH.D., F.R.S., F.L.S.
Professor of Forestry at the University of Oxford. Hon. Fellow of
St John's College. Author of _A Manual of Forestry_; _Forestry in
the United Kingdom_; _The Outlook of the World's Timber Supply_;
&c.
Forests and Forestry.
W. W. F.*
WILLIAM WARDE FOWLER, M.A.
Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford. Sub-rector, 1881-1904. Gifford
Lecturer, Edinburgh University, 1908. Author of _The City-State of
the Greeks and Romans_; _The Roman Festivals of the Republican
Period_; &c.
Fortuna.
W. W. R.*
WILLIAM WALKER ROCKWELL, LIC. THEOL.
Assistant Professor of Church History, Union Theological Seminary,
New York. Author of _Die Doppelehe des Landgrafen Philipp von
Hessen_.
Ferrara-Florence, Council of.
Principal Unsigned Articles
Evil Eye. Fault. Fig. Fontenoy.
Excise. Federal Government. Filigree. Foot and Mouth
Execution. Federalist Party. Fir. Disease.
Executors and Fehmic Courts. Fives. Forest Laws.
Administrators. Felony. Fleurus. Forfarshire.
Exeter. Fez. Florida. Forgery.
Exile. Fezzan. Foix. Formosa.
Eylau. Fictions. Fold. Foundling
Famine. Fife. Fontenelle. Hospitals.
Fountain.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] A complete list, showing all individual contributors, appears in
the final volume.
ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME X
EVANGELICAL CHURCH CONFERENCE, a convention of delegates from the
different Protestant churches of Germany. The conference originated in
1848, when the general desire for political unity made itself felt in
the ecclesiastical sphere as well. A preliminary meeting was held at
Sandhof near Frankfort in June of that year, and on the 21st of
September some five hundred delegates representing the Lutheran, the
Reformed, the United and the Moravian churches assembled at Wittenberg.
The gathering was known as _Kirchentag_ (church diet), and, while
leaving each denomination free in respect of constitution, ritual,
doctrine and attitude towards the state, agreed to act unitedly in
bearing witness against the non-evangelical churches and in defending
the rights and liberties of the churches in the federation. The
organization thus closely resembles that of the Free Church Federation
in England. The movement exercised considerable influence during the
middle of the 19th century. Though no _Kirchentag_, as such, has been
convened since 1871, its place has been taken by the _Kongress für
innere Mission_, which holds annual meetings in different towns. There
is also a biennial conference of the evangelical churches held at
Eisenach to discuss matters of general interest. Its decisions have no
legislative force.
EVANGELICAL UNION, a religious denomination which originated in the
suspension of the Rev. James Morison (1816-1893), minister of a United
Secession congregation in Kilmarnock, Scotland, for certain views
regarding faith, the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation, and the
extent of the atonement, which were regarded by the supreme court of his
church as anti-Calvinistic and heretical. Morison was suspended by the
presbytery in 1841 and thereupon definitely withdrew from the Secession
Church. His father, who was minister at Bathgate, and two other
ministers, being deposed not long afterwards for similar opinions, the
four met at Kilmarnock on the 16th of May 1843 (two days before the
"Disruption" of the Free Church), and, on the basis of certain doctrinal
principles, formed themselves into an association under the name of the
Evangelical Union, "for the purpose of countenancing, counselling and
otherwise aiding one another, and also for the purpose of training up
spiritual and devoted young men to carry forward the work and 'pleasure
of the Lord.'" The doctrinal views of the new denomination gradually
assumed a more decidedly anti-Calvinistic form, and they began also to
find many sympathizers among the Congregationalists of Scotland. Nine
students were expelled from the Congregational Academy for holding
"Morisonian" doctrines, and in 1845 eight churches were disjoined from
the Congregational Union of Scotland and formed a connexion with the
Evangelical Union. The Union exercised no jurisdiction over the
individual churches connected with it, and in this respect adhered to
the Independent or Congregational form of church government; but those
congregations which originally were Presbyterian vested their government
in a body of elders. In 1889 the denomination numbered 93 churches; and
in 1896, after prolonged negotiation, the Evangelical Union was
incorporated with the Congregational Union of Scotland.
See _The Evangelical Union Annual; History of the Evangelical Union_,
by F. Ferguson (Glasgow, 1876); _The Worthies of the E. U._ (1883); W.
Adamson, _Life of Dr James Morison_ (1898).
EVANS, CHRISTMAS (1766-1838), Welsh Nonconformist divine, was born near
the village of Llandyssul, Cardiganshire, on the 25th of December 1766.
His father, a shoemaker, died early, and the boy grew up as an
illiterate farm labourer. At the age of seventeen, becoming servant to a
Presbyterian minister, David Davies, he was affected by a religious
revival and learned to read and write in English and Welsh. The
itinerant Calvinistic Methodist preachers and the members of the Baptist
church at Llandyssul further influenced him, and he soon joined the
latter denomination. In 1789 he went into North Wales as a preacher and
settled for two years in the desolate peninsula of Lleyn,
Carnarvonshire, whence he removed to Llangefni in Anglesey. Here, on a
stipend of £17 a year, supplemented by a little tract-selling, he built
up a strong Baptist community, modelling his organization to some extent
on that of the Calvinistic Methodists. Many new chapels were built, the
money being collected on preaching tours which Evans undertook in South
Wales.
In 1826 Evans accepted an invitation to Caerphilly, where he remained
for two years, removing in 1828 to Cardiff. In 1832, in response to
urgent calls from the north, he settled in Carnarvon and again undertook
the old work of building and collecting. He was taken ill on a tour in
South Wales, and died at Swansea on the 19th of July 1838. In spite of
his early disadvantages and personal disfigurement (he had lost an eye
in a youthful brawl), Christmas Evans was a remarkably powerful
preacher. To a natural aptitude for this calling he united a nimble mind
and an inquiring spirit; his character was simple, his piety humble and
his faith fervently evangelical. For a time he came under Sandemanian
influence, and when the Wesleyans entered Wales he took the Calvinist
side in the bitter controversies that were frequent from 1800 to 1810.
His chief characteristic was a vivid and affluent imagination, which
absorbed and controlled all his other powers, and earned for him the
name of "the Bunyan of Wales."
His works were edited by Owen Davies in 3 vols. (Carnarvon,
1895-1897). See the _Lives_ by D.R. Stephens (1847) and Paxton Hood
(1883).
EVANS, EVAN HERBER (1836-1896), Welsh Nonconformist divine, was born on
the 5th of July 1836, at Pant yr Onen near Newcastle Emlyn,
Cardiganshire. As a boy he saw something of the "Rebecca Riots," and
went to school at the neighbouring village of Llechryd. In 1853 he went
into business, first at Pontypridd and then at Merthyr, but next year
made his way to Liverpool. He decided to enter the ministry, and studied
arts and theology respectively at the Normal College, Swansea, and the
Memorial College, Brecon, his convictions being deepened by the
religious revival of 1858-1859. In 1862 he succeeded Thomas Jones as
minister of the Congregational church at Morriston near Swansea. In 1865
he became pastor of Salem church, Carnarvon, a charge which he occupied
for nearly thirty years despite many invitations to English pastorates.
In 1894 he became principal of the Congregational college at Bangor. He
died on the 30th of December 1896. He was chairman of the Welsh
Congregational Union in 1886 and of the Congregational Union of England
and Wales in 1892; and by his earnest ministry, his eloquence and his
literary work, especially in the denominational paper _Y Dysgedydd_, he
achieved a position of great influence in his country.
See _Life_ by H. Elvet Lewis.
EVANS, SIR GEORGE DE LACY (1787-1870), British soldier, was born at
Moig, Limerick, in 1787. He was educated at Woolwich Academy, and
entered the army in 1806 as a volunteer, obtaining an ensigncy in the
22nd regiment in 1807. His early service was spent in India, but he
exchanged into the 3rd Light Dragoons in order to take part in the
Peninsular War, and was present in the retreat from Burgos in 1812. In
1813 he was at Vittoria, and was afterwards employed in making a
military survey of the passes of the Pyrenees. He took part in the
campaign of 1814, and was present at Pampeluna, the Nive and Toulouse;
and later in the year he served with great distinction on the staff in
General Ross's Bladensburg campaign, and took part in the capture of
Washington and of Baltimore and the operations before New Orleans. He
returned to England in the spring of 1815, in time to take part in the
Waterloo campaign as assistant quartermaster-general on Sir T. Picton's
staff. As a member of the staff of the duke of Wellington he accompanied
the English army to Paris, and remained there during the occupation of
the city by the allies. He was still a substantive captain in the 5th
West India regiment, though a lieutenant-colonel by brevet, when he went
on half-pay in 1818. In 1830 he was elected M.P. for Rye in the Liberal
interest; but in the election of 1832 he was an unsuccessful candidate
both for that borough and for Westminster. For the latter constituency
he was, however, returned in 1833, and, except in the parliament of
1841-1846, he continued to represent it till 1865, when he retired from
political life. His parliamentary duties did not, however, interfere
with his career as a soldier. In 1835 he went out to Spain in command of
the Spanish Legion, recruited in England, and 9600 strong, which served
for two years in the Carlist War on the side of the queen of Spain. In
spite of great difficulties the legion won great distinction on the
battlefields of northern Spain, and Evans was able to say that no
prisoners had been taken from it in action, that it had never lost a gun
or an equipage, and that it had taken 27 guns and 1100 prisoners from
the enemy. He received several Spanish orders, and on his return in 1839
was made a colonel and K.C.B. In 1846 he became major-general; and in
1854, on the breaking-out of the Crimean War, he was made
lieutenant-general and appointed to command the 2nd division of the Army
of the East. At the battle of the Alma, where he received a severe
wound, his quick comprehension of the features of the combat largely
contributed to the victory. On the 26th of October he defeated a large
Russian force which attacked his position on Mount Inkerman. Illness and
fatigue compelled him a few days after this to leave the command of his
division in the hands of General Pennefather; but he rose from his
sick-bed on the day of the battle of Inkerman, the 5th of November, and,
declining to take the command of his division from Pennefather, aided
him in the long-protracted struggle by his advice. On his return
invalided to England in the following February, Evans received the
thanks of the House of Commons. He was made a G.C.B., and the university
of Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. In 1861 he was promoted
to the full rank of general. He died in London on the 9th of January
1870.
EVANS, SIR JOHN (1823-1908), English archaeologist and geologist, son of
the Rev. Dr A.B. Evans, head master of Market Bosworth grammar school,
was born at Britwell Court, Bucks, on the 17th of November 1823. He was
for many years head of the extensive paper manufactory of Messrs John
Dickinson at Nash Mills, Hemel Hempstead, but was especially
distinguished as an antiquary and numismatist. He was the author of
three books, standard in their respective departments: _The Coins of the
Ancient Britons_ (1864); _The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and
Ornaments of Great Britain_ (1872, 2nd ed. 1897); and _The Ancient
Bronze Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain and Ireland_
(1881). He also wrote a number of separate papers on archaeological and
geological subjects--notably the papers on "Flint Implements in the
Drift" communicated in 1860 and 1862 to _Archaeologia_, the organ of the
Society of Antiquaries. Of that society he was president from 1885 to
1892, and he was president of the Numismatic Society from 1874 to the
time of his death. He also presided over the Geological Society,
1874-1876; the Anthropological Institute, 1877-1879; the Society of
Chemical Industry, 1892-1893; the British Association, 1897-1898; and
for twenty years (1878-1898) he was treasurer of the Royal Society. As
president of the Society of Antiquaries he was an _ex officio_ trustee
of the British Museum, and subsequently he became a permanent trustee.
His academic honours included honorary degrees from several
universities, and he was a corresponding member of the Institut de
France. He was created a K.C.B. in 1892. He died at Berkhamsted on the
31st of May 1908.
His eldest son, ARTHUR JOHN EVANS, born in 1851, was educated at
Brasenose College, Oxford, and Göttingen. He became fellow of Brasenose
and in 1884 keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. He travelled in
Finland and Lapland in 1873-1874, and in 1875 made a special study of
archaeology and ethnology in the Balkan States. In 1893 he began his
investigations in Crete, which have resulted in discoveries of the
utmost importance concerning the early history of Greece and the eastern
Mediterranean (see AEGEAN CIVILIZATION AND CRETE). He is a member of all
the chief archaeological societies in Europe, holds honorary degrees at
Oxford, Edinburgh and Dublin, and is a fellow of the Royal Society. His
chief publications are: _Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script_
(1896); _Further Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script_ (1898); _The
Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult_ (1901); _Scripta Minoa_ (1909 foll.);
and reports on the excavations. He also edited with additions Freeman's
_History of Sicily_, vol. iv.
EVANS, OLIVER (1755-1819), American mechanician, was born at Newport,
Delaware, in 1755. He was apprenticed to a wheelwright, and at the age
of twenty-two he invented a machine for making the card-teeth used in
carding wool and cotton. In 1780 he became partner with his brothers,
who were practical millers, and soon introduced various labour-saving
appliances which both cheapened and improved the processes of
flour-milling. Turning his attention to the steam engine, he employed
steam at a relatively high pressure, and the plans of his invention
which he sent over to England in 1787 and in 1794-1795 are said to have
been seen by R. Trevithick, whom in that case he anticipated in the
adoption of the high-pressure principle. He made use of his engine for
driving mill machinery; and in 1803 he constructed a steam dredging
machine, which also propelled itself on land. In 1819 a disastrous fire
broke out in his factory at Pittsburg, and he did not long survive it,
dying at New York on the 21st of April 1819.
EVANSON, EDWARD (1731-1805), English divine, was born on the 21st of
April 1731 at Warrington, Lancashire. After graduating at Cambridge
(Emmanuel College) and taking holy orders, he officiated for several
years as curate at Mitcham. In 1768 he became vicar of South Mimms near
Barnet; and in November 1769 he was presented to the rectory of
Tewkesbury, with which he held also the vicarage of Longdon in
Worcestershire. In the course of his studies he discovered what he
thought important variance between the teaching of the Church of England
and that of the Bible, and he did not conceal his convictions. In
reading the service he altered or omitted phrases which seemed to him
untrue, and in reading the Scriptures pointed out errors in the
translation. A crisis was brought on by his sermon on the resurrection,
preached at Easter 1771; and in November 1773 a prosecution was
instituted against him in the consistory court of Gloucester. He was
charged with "depraving the public worship of God contained in the
liturgy of the Church of England, asserting the same to be superstitious
and unchristian, preaching, writing and conversing against the creeds
and the divinity of our Saviour, and assuming to himself the power of
making arbitrary alterations in his performance of the public worship."
A protest was at once signed and published by a large number of his
parishioners against the prosecution. The case was dismissed on
technical grounds, but appeals were made to the court of arches and the
court of delegates. Meanwhile Evanson had made his views generally known
by several publications. In 1772 appeared anonymously his _Doctrines of
a Trinity and the Incarnation of God, examined upon the Principles of
Reason and Common Sense_. This was followed in 1777 by _A Letter to Dr
Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, wherein the Importance of the Prophecies of
the New Testament and the Nature of the Grand Apostasy predicted in them
are particularly and impartially considered_. He also wrote some papers
on the Sabbath, which brought him into controversy with Joseph
Priestley, who published the whole discussion (1792). In the same year
appeared Evanson's work entitled _The Dissonance of the four generally
received Evangelists_, to which replies were published by Priestley and
David Simpson (1793). Evanson rejected most of the books of the New
Testament as forgeries, and of the four gospels he accepted only that of
St Luke. In his later years he ministered to a Unitarian congregation at
Lympston, Devonshire. In 1802 he published _Reflections upon the State
of Religion in Christendom_, in which he attempted to explain and
illustrate the mysterious foreshadowings of the Apocalypse. This he
considered the most important of his writings. Shortly before his death
at Colford, near Crediton, Devonshire, on the 25th of September 1805, he
completed his _Second Thoughts on the Trinity_, in reply to a work of
the bishop of Gloucester.
His sermons (prefaced by a Life by G. Rogers) were published in two
volumes in 1807, and were the occasion of T. Falconer's _Bampton
Lectures_ in 1811. A narrative of the circumstances which led to the
prosecution of Evanson was published by N. Havard, the town-clerk of
Tewkesbury, in 1778.
EVANSTON, a city of Cook county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the shore of Lake
Michigan, 12 m. N. of Chicago. Pop. (1900) 19,259, of whom 4441 were
foreign-born; (1910 U.S. census) 24,978. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western, and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by two
electric lines. The city is an important residential suburb of Chicago.
In 1908 the Evanston public library had 41,430 volumes. In the city are
the College of Liberal Arts (1855), the Academy (1860), and the schools
of music (1895) and engineering (1908) of Northwestern University,
co-educational, chartered in 1851, opened in 1855, the largest school of
the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. In 1909-1910 it had
productive funds amounting to about $7,500,000, and, including all the
allied schools, a faculty of 418 instructors and 4487 students; its
schools of medicine (1869), law (1859), pharmacy (1886), commerce (1908)
and dentistry (1887) are in Chicago. In 1909 its library had 114,869
volumes and 79,000 pamphlets (exclusive of the libraries of the
professional schools in Chicago); and the Garrett Biblical Institute had
a library of 25,671 volumes and 4500 pamphlets. The university maintains
the Grand Prairie Seminary at Onarga, Iroquois county, and the Elgin
Academy at Elgin, Kane county. Enjoying the privileges of the
university, though actually independent of it, are the Garrett Biblical
Institute (Evanston Theological Seminary), founded in 1855, situated on
the university campus, and probably the best-endowed Methodist Episcopal
theological seminary in the United States, and affiliated with the
Institute, the Norwegian Danish Theological school; and the Swedish
Theological Seminary, founded at Galesburg in 1870, removed to Evanston
in 1882, and occupying buildings on the university campus until 1907,
when it removed to Orrington Avenue and Noyes Street. The Cumnock School
of Oratory, at Evanston, also co-operates with the university. By the
charter of the university the sale of intoxicating liquors is forbidden
within 4 m. of the university campus. The manufacturing importance of
the city is slight, but is rapidly increasing. The principal
manufactures are wrought iron and steel pipe, bakers' machinery and
bricks. In 1905 the value of the factory products was $2,550,529, being
an increase of 207.3% since 1900. In Evanston are the publishing offices
of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Evanston was
incorporated as a town in 1863 and as a village in 1872, and was
chartered as a city in 1892. The villages of North Evanston and South
Evanston were annexed to Evanston in 1874 and 1892 respectively.
EVANSVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Vanderburg county, Indiana,
U.S.A., and a port of entry, on the N. bank of the Ohio river, 200 m.
below Louisville, Kentucky--measuring by the windings of the river,
which double the direct distance. Pop. (1890) 50,756; (1900) 59,007;
(1910 census) 69,647. Of the total population in 1900, 5518 were
negroes, 5626 were foreign-born (including 4380 from Germany and 384
from England), and 17,419 were of foreign parentage (both parents
foreign-born), and of these 13,910 were of German parentage. Evansville
is served by the Evansville & Terre Haute, the Evansville &
Indianapolis, the Illinois Central, the Louisville & Nashville, the
Louisville, Henderson & St Louis, and the Southern railways, by several
interurban electric lines, and by river steamboats. The city is situated
on a plateau above the river, and has a number of fine business and
public buildings, including the court house and city hall, the Southern
Indiana hospital for the insane, the United States marine hospital, and
the Willard library and art gallery, containing in 1908 about 30,000
volumes. The city's numerous railway connexions and its situation in a
coal-producing region (there are five mines within the city limits) and
on the Ohio river, which is navigable nearly all the year, combine to
make it the principal commercial and manufacturing centre of Southern
Indiana. It is in a tobacco-growing region, is one of the largest
hardwood lumber markets in the country, and has an important shipping
trade in pork, agricultural products, dried fruits, lime and limestone,
flour and tobacco. Among its manufactures in 1905 were flour and grist
mill products (value, $2,638,914), furniture ($1,655,246), lumber and
timber products ($1,229,533), railway cars ($1,118,376), packed meats
($998,428), woollen and cotton goods, cigars and cigarettes, malt
liquors, carriages and wagons, leather and canned goods. The value of
the factory products increased from $12,167,524 in 1900 to $19,201,716
in 1905, or 57.8%, and in the latter year Evansville ranked third among
the manufacturing cities in the state. The waterworks are owned and
operated by the city. First settled about 1812, Evansville was laid out
in 1817, and was named in honour of Robert Morgan Evans (1783-1844), one
of its founders, who was an officer under General W.H. Harrison in the
war of 1812. It soon became a thriving commercial town with an extensive
river trade, was incorporated in 1819, and received a city charter in
1847. The completion of the Wabash & Erie Canal, in 1853, from
Evansville to Toledo, Ohio, a distance of 400 m., greatly accelerated
the city's growth.
EVARISTUS, fourth pope (c. 98-105), was the immediate successor of
Clement.
EVARTS, WILLIAM MAXWELL (1818-1901), American lawyer, was born in Boston
on the 6th of February 1818. He graduated at Yale in 1837, was admitted
to the bar in New York in 1841, and soon took high rank in his
profession. In 1860 he was chairman of the New York delegation to the
Republican national convention. In 1861 he was an unsuccessful candidate
for the United States senatorship from New York. He was chief counsel
for President Johnson during the impeachment trial, and from July 1868
until March 1869 he was attorney-general of the United States. In 1872
he was counsel for the United States in the "Alabama" arbitration.
During President Hayes's administration (1877-1881) he was secretary of
state; and from 1885 to 1891 he was one of the senators from New York.
As an orator Senator Evarts stood in the foremost rank, and some of his
best speeches were published. He died in New York on the 28th of
February 1901.
EVE, the English transcription, through Lat. _Eva_ and Gr. [Greek: Eua],
of the Hebrew name [Hebrew: Hava] Havvah, given by Adam to his wife
because she was "mother of all living," or perhaps more strictly, "of
every group of those connected by female kinship" (see W.R. Smith,
_Kinship_, 2nd ed., p. 208), as if Eve were the personification of
mother-kinship, just as Adam ("man") is the personification of mankind.
[The abstract meaning "life" (LXX. [Greek: Zôê]), once favoured by
Robertson Smith, is at any rate unsuitable in a popular story.
Wellhausen and Nöldeke would compare the Ar. _hayyatun_, "serpent," and
the former remarks that, if this is right, the Israelites received their
first ancestress from the Hivvites (Hivites), who were originally the
serpent-tribe (_Composition des Hexateuchs_, p. 343; cf. _Reste
arabischen Heidentums_, 2nd ed., p. 154). Cheyne, too, assumes a common
origin for Havvah and the Hivvites.]
Creation of Eve.
[The account of the origin of Eve (Gen. iii. 21-23) runs thus: "And
Yahweh-Elohim caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept.
And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its stead, and
the rib which Yahweh-Elohim had taken from the man he built up into a
woman, and he brought her to the man." Enchanted at the sight, the man
now burst out into elevated, rhythmic speech: "This one," he said, "at
length is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," &c.; to which the
narrator adds the comment, "Therefore doth a man forsake his father and
his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they become one flesh (body)."
Whether this comment implies the existence of the custom of _beena_,
marriage (W.R. Smith, _Kinship_, 2nd ed., p. 208), seems doubtful. It is
at least equally possible that the expression "his wife" simply reflects
the fact that among ordinary Israelites circumstances had quite
naturally brought about the prevalence of monogamy.[1] What the narrator
gives is not a doctrine of marriage, much less a precept, but an
explanation of a simple and natural phenomenon. How is it, he asks, that
a man is so irresistibly drawn towards a woman? And he answers: Because
the first woman was built up out of a rib of the first man. At the same
time it is plain that the already existing tendency towards monogamy
must have been powerfully assisted by this presentation of Eve's story
as well as by the prophetic descriptions of Yahweh's relation to Israel
under the figure of a monogamous union.]
New Testament application.
[The narrator is no rhetorician, and spares us a description of the
ideal woman. But we know that, for Adam, his strangely produced wife was
a "help (or helper) matching or corresponding to him"; or, as the
Authorized Version puts it, "a help meet for him" (ii. 18b). This does
not, of course, exclude subordination on the part of the woman; what is
excluded is that exaggeration of natural subordination which the
narrator may have found both in his own and in the neighbouring
countries, and which he may have regarded as (together with the pains of
parturition) the punishment of the woman's transgression (Gen. iii. 16).
His own ideal of woman seems to have made its way in Palestine by slow
degrees. An apocryphal book (Tobit viii. 6, 7) seems to contain the only
reference to the section till we come to the time of Christ, to whom the
comment in Gen. ii. 24 supplies the text for an authoritative
prohibition of divorce, which presupposes and sanctifies monogamy (Matt.
x. 7, 8; Matt. xix. 5). For other New Testament applications of the
story of Eve see 1 Cor. xi. 8, 9 (especially); 2 Cor. xi. 3; 1 Tim. ii.
13, 14; and in general cf. ADAM, and _Ency. Biblica_, "Adam and Eve."]
Imaginative or legendary developments.
[The seeming omissions in the Biblical narrative have been filled up by
imaginative Jewish writers.] The earliest source which remains to us is
the Book of Jubilees, or Leptogenesis, a Palestinian work (referred by
R.H. Charles to the century immediately preceding the Christian era; see
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE). In this book, which was largely used by
Christian writers, we find a chronology of the lives of Adam and Eve and
the names of their daughters--Avan and Azura.[2] The Targum of Jonathan
informs us that Eve was created from the thirteenth rib of Adam's right
side, thus taking the view that Adam had a rib more than his
descendants. Some of the Jewish legends show clear marks of foreign
influence. Thus the notion that the first man was a double being,
afterwards separated into the two persons of Adam and Eve (_Berachot_,
61; _Erubin_, 18), may be traced back to Philo (_De mundi opif._ §53;
cf. _Quaest. in Gen._ lib. i. §25), who borrows the idea, and almost the
words, of the myth related by Aristophanes in the Platonic _Symposium_
(189 D, 190 A), which, in extravagant form, explains the passion of love
by the legend that male and female originally formed one body.
[A recent critic[3] (F. Schwally) even holds that this notion was
originally expressed in the account of the creation of man in Gen. i.
27. This involves a textual emendation, and one must at least admit that
the present text is not without difficulty, and that Berossus refers to
the existence of primeval monstrous androgynous beings according to
Babylonian mythology.] There is an analogous Iranian legend of the true
man, which parted into man and woman in the Bundahish[4] (the Parsí
Genesis), and an Indian legend, which, according to Spiegel, has
presumably an Iranian source.[5]
Course of Jewish and Christian interpretation.
[It has been remarked elsewhere (ADAM, §16) that though the later Jews
gathered material for thought very widely, such guidance as they
required in theological reflection was mainly derived from Greek
culture. What, for instance, was to be made of such a story as that in
Gen. ii.-iv.? To "minds trained under the influence of the Jewish
Haggada, in which the whole Biblical history is freely intermixed with
legendary and parabolic matter," the question as to the literal truth of
that story could hardly be formulated. It is otherwise when the Greek
leaven begins to work.]
Josephus, in the prologue to his _Archaeology_, reserves the problem of
the true meaning of the Mosaic narrative, but does not regard everything
as strictly literal. Philo, the great representative of Alexandrian
allegory, expressly argues that in the nature of things the trees of
life and knowledge cannot be taken otherwise than symbolically. His
interpretation of the creation of Eve is, as has been already observed,
plainly suggested by a Platonic myth. The longing for reunion which love
implants in the divided halves of the original dual man is the source of
sensual pleasure (symbolized by the serpent), which in turn is the
beginning of all transgression. Eve represents the sensuous or
perceptive part of man's nature, Adam the reason. The serpent,
therefore, does not venture to attack Adam directly. It is sense which
yields to pleasure, and in turn enslaves the reason and destroys its
immortal virtue. This exposition, in which the elements of the Bible
narrative become mere symbols of the abstract notions of Greek
philosophy, and are adapted to Greek conceptions of the origin of evil
in the material and sensuous part of man, was adopted into Christian
theology by Clement and Origen, notwithstanding its obvious
inconsistency with the Pauline anthropology, and the difficulty which
its supporters felt in reconciling it with the Christian doctrine of the
excellence of the married state (Clemens Alex. _Stromata_, p. 174).
These difficulties had more weight with the Western church, which, less
devoted to speculative abstractions and more deeply influenced by the
Pauline anthropology, refused, especially since Augustine, to reduce
Paradise and the fall to the region of pure _intelligibilia_; though a
spiritual sense was admitted along with the literal (Aug. _Civ. Dei_,
xiii. 21).[6]
The history of Adam and Eve became the basis of anthropological
discussions which acquired more than speculative importance from their
connexion with the doctrine of original sin and the meaning of the
sacrament of baptism. One or two points in Augustinian teaching may be
here mentioned as having to do particularly with Eve. The question
whether the soul of Eve was derived from Adam or directly infused by the
Creator is raised as an element in the great problem of traducianism and
creationism (_De Gen. ad lit._ lib. x.). And it is from Augustine that
Milton derives the idea that Adam sinned, not from desire for the
forbidden fruit, but because love forbade him to dissociate his fate
from Eve's (_ibid._ lib. xi. _sub fin._). Medieval discussion moved
mainly in the lines laid down by Augustine. A sufficient sample of the
way in which the subject was treated by the schoolmen may be found in
the _Summa_ of Thomas, pars i. qu. xcii. _De productione mulieris_.
The Reformers, always hostile to allegory, and in this matter especially
influenced by the Augustinian anthropology, adhered strictly to the
literal interpretation of the history of the Protoplasts, which has
continued to be generally identified with Protestant orthodoxy. The
disintegration of the confessional doctrine of sin in last century was
naturally associated with new theories of the meaning of the biblical
narrative; but neither renewed forms of the allegorical interpretation,
in which everything is reduced to abstract ideas about reason and
sensuality, nor the attempts of Eichhorn and others to extract a kernel
of simple history by allowing largely for the influence of poetical form
in so early a narrative, have found lasting acceptance. On the other
hand, the strict historical interpretation is beset with difficulties
which modern interpreters have felt with increasing force, and which
there is a growing disposition to solve by adopting in one or other form
what is called the _mythical_ theory of the narrative. But
interpretations pass under this now popular title which have no real
claim to be so designated. What is common to the "mythical"
interpretations is to find the real value of the narrative, not in the
form of the story, but in the thoughts which it embodies. But the story
cannot be called a myth in the strict sense of the word, unless we are
prepared to place it on one line with the myths of heathenism, produced
by the unconscious play of plastic fancy, giving shape to the
impressions of natural phenomena on primitive observers. Such a theory
does no justice to a narrative which embodies profound truths peculiar
to the religion of revelation. Other forms of the so-called mythical
interpretation are little more than abstract allegory in a new guise,
ignoring the fact that the biblical story does not teach general truths
which repeat themselves in every individual, but gives a view of the
purpose of man's creation, and of the origin of sin, in connexion with
the divine plan of redemption. Among his other services in refutation of
the unhistorical rationalism of last century, Kant has the merit of
having forcibly recalled attention to the fact that the narrative of
Genesis, even if we do not take it literally, must be regarded as
presenting a view of the beginnings of the history of the human race
(_Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte_, 1786) Those who
recognize this fact ought not to call themselves or be called by others
adherents of the mythical theory, although they also recognize that in
the nature of things the divine truths brought out in the history of the
creation and fall could not have been expressed either in the form of
literal history or in the shape of abstract metaphysical doctrine; or
even although they may hold--as is done by many who accept the narrative
as a part of supernatural revelation--that the specific biblical truths
which the narrative conveys are presented through the vehicle of a story
which, at least in some of its parts, may possibly be shaped by the
influence of legends common to the Hebrews with their heathen
neighbours. (W. R. S.; [T. K. C.])
FOOTNOTES:
[1] That polygamy had not become morally objectionable is shown by
the stories of Lamech, Abraham and Jacob.
[2] See West's authoritative translation in _Pahlavi Texts_ (Sacred
Books of the East).
[3] "Die bibl. Schöpfungsberichte" (_Archiv für
Religionswissenschaft_, ix. 171 ff.).
[4] Spiegel, _Erânische Alterthumskunde_, i. 511.
[5] Muir, _Sanscrit Texts_, vol. i. p. 25; cf. Spiegel, vol. i. p.
458.
[6] Thus in medieval theology Eve is a type of the church, and her
formation from the rib has a mystic reason, inasmuch as blood and
water (the sacraments of the church) flowed from the side of Christ
on the cross (Thomas, _Summa_, par. i. qu. xcii.).
EVECTION (Latin for "carrying away"), in astronomy, the largest
inequality produced by the action of the sun in the monthly revolution
of the moon around the earth. The deviation expressed by it has a
maximum amount of about 1° 15' in either direction. It may be considered
as arising from a semi-annual variation in the eccentricity of the
moon's orbit and the position of its perigee. It was discovered by
Ptolemy.
EVELETH, a city of St Louis county, Minnesota, U.S.A., about 71 m.
N.N.W. of Duluth. Pop. (1900) 2752; (1905, state census) 5332, of whom
2975 were foreign-born (1145 Finns, 676 Austrians and 325 Swedes);
(1910) 7036. Eveleth is served by the Duluth, Missabe & Northern and the
Duluth & Iron Range railways. It lies in the midst of the great red and
brown hematite iron-ore deposits of the Mesabi Range--the richest in the
Lake Superior district--and the mining and shipping of this ore are its
principal industries. The municipality owns and operates the
water-works, the water being obtained from Lake Saint Mary, one of a
chain of small lakes lying S. of the city. Eveleth was first chartered
as a city in 1902.
EVELYN, JOHN (1620-1706), English diarist, was born at Wotton House,
near Dorking, Surrey, on the 31st of October 1620. He was the younger
son of Richard Evelyn, who owned large estates in the county, and was in
1633 high sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. When John Evelyn was five years
old he went to live with his mother's parents at Cliffe, near Lewes. He
refused to leave his "too indulgent" grandmother for Eton, and when on
her husband's death she married again, the boy went with her to
Southover, where he attended the free school of the place. He was
admitted to the Middle Temple in February 1637, and in May he became a
fellow commoner of Balliol College, Oxford. He left the university
without taking a degree, and in 1640 was residing in the Middle Temple.
In that year his father died, and in July 1641 he crossed to Holland. He
was enrolled as a volunteer in Apsley's company, then encamped before
Genep on the Waal, but his commission was apparently complimentary, his
military experience being limited to six days of camp life, during
which, however, he took his turn at "trailing a pike." He returned in
the autumn to find England on the verge of civil war. Evelyn's part in
the conflict is best told in his own words:--
"12th November was the battle of Brentford, surprisingly fought.... I
came in with my horse and arms just at the retreat; but was not
permitted to stay longer than the 15th by reason of the army marching
to Gloucester; which would have left both me and my brothers exposed
to ruin, without any advantage to his Majesty ... and on the 10th
[December] returned to Wotton, nobody knowing of my having been in his
Majesty's army."
At Wotton he employed himself in improving his brother's property,
making a fishpond, an island and other alterations in the gardens. But
he found it difficult to avoid taking a side; he was importuned to sign
the Covenant, and "finding it impossible to evade doing very unhandsome
things," he obtained leave in October 1643 from the king to travel
abroad. From this date his _Diary_ becomes full and interesting. He
travelled in France and visited the cities of Italy, returning in the
autumn of 1646 to Paris, where he became intimate with Sir Richard
Browne, the English resident at the court of France. In June of the
following year he married Browne's daughter and heiress, Mary, then a
child of not more than twelve years of age. Leaving his wife in the
care of her parents, he returned to England to settle his affairs. He
visited Charles I. at Hampton Court in 1647, and during the next two
years maintained a cipher correspondence with his father-in-law in the
royal interest. In 1649 he obtained a pass to return to Paris, but in
1650 paid a short visit to England. The defeat of Charles II. at
Worcester in 1651 convinced him that the royalist cause was hopeless,
and he decided to return to England. He went in 1652 to Sayes Court at
Deptford, a house which Sir Richard Browne had held on a lease from the
crown. This had been seized by the parliament, but Evelyn was able to
compound with the occupiers for £3500, and after the Restoration his
possession was secured. Here his wife joined him, their eldest son,
Richard, being born in August 1652. Under the Commonwealth Evelyn amused
himself with his favourite occupation of gardening, and made many
friends among the scientific inquirers of the time. He was one of the
promoters of the scheme for the Royal Society, and in the king's charter
in 1662 was nominated a member of its directing council. Meanwhile he
had refused employment from the government of the Commonwealth, and had
maintained a cipher correspondence with Charles. In 1659 he published an
_Apology for the Royal Party_, and in December of that year he vainly
tried to persuade Colonel Herbert Morley, then lieutenant of the Tower,
to forestall General Monk by declaring for the king. From the
Restoration onwards Evelyn enjoyed unbroken court favour till his death
in 1706; but he never held any important political office, although he
filled many useful and often laborious minor posts. He was commissioner
for improving the streets and buildings of London, for examining into
the affairs of charitable foundations, commissioner of the Mint, and of
foreign plantations. In 1664 he accepted the responsibility for the care
of the sick and wounded and the prisoners in the Dutch war. He stuck to
his post throughout the plague year, contenting himself with sending his
family away to Wotton. He found it impossible to secure sufficient money
for the proper discharge of his functions, and in 1688 he was still
petitioning for payment of his accounts in this business. Evelyn was
secretary of the Royal Society in 1672, and as an enthusiastic promoter
of its interests was twice (in 1682 and 1691) offered the presidency.
Through his influence Henry Howard, duke of Norfolk, was induced to
present the Arundel marbles to the university of Oxford (1667) and the
valuable Arundel library to Gresham College (1678). In the reign of
James II., during the earl of Clarendon's absence in Ireland, he acted
as one of the commissioners of the privy seal. He was seriously alarmed
by the king's attacks on the English Church, and refused on two
occasions to license the illegal sale of Roman Catholic literature. He
concurred in the revolution of 1688, in 1695 was entrusted with the
office of treasurer of Greenwich hospital for old sailors, and laid the
first stone of the new building on the 30th of June 1696. In 1694 he
left Sayes Court to live at Wotton with his brother, whose heir he had
become, and whom he actually succeeded in 1699. He spent the rest of his
life there, dying on the 27th of February 1706. Evelyn's house at Sayes
Court had been let to Captain, afterwards Admiral John Benbow, who was
not a "polite" tenant. He sublet it to Peter the Great, who was then
visiting the dockyard at Deptford. The tsar did great damage to Evelyn's
beautiful gardens, and, it is said, made it one of his amusements to
ride in a wheelbarrow along a thick holly hedge planted especially by
the owner. The house was subsequently used as a workhouse, and is now
alms-houses, the grounds having been converted into public gardens by Mr
Evelyn in 1886.
It will be seen that Evelyn's politics were not of the heroic order. But
he was honourable and consistent in his adherence to the monarchical
principle throughout his life. With the court of Charles II. he could
have had no sympathy, his dignified domestic life and his serious
attention to religion standing in the strongest contrast with the
profligacy of the royal surroundings. His _Diary_ is therefore a
valuable chronicle of contemporary events from the standpoint of a
moderate politician and a devout adherent of the Church of England. He
had none of Pepys's love of gossip, and was devoid of his all-embracing
curiosity, as of his diverting frankness of self-revelation. Both were
admirable civil servants, and they had a mutual admiration for each
other's sterling qualities. Evelyn's _Diary_ covers more than half a
century (1640-1706) crowded with remarkable events, while Pepys only
deals with a few years of Charles II.'s reign.
Evelyn was a generous art patron, and Grinling Gibbons was introduced by
him to the notice of Charles II. His domestic affections were very
strong. He had six sons, of whom John (1655-1699), the author of some
translations, alone reached manhood. He has left a pathetic account of
the extraordinary accomplishments of his son Richard, who died before he
was six years old, and of a daughter Mary, who lived to be twenty, and
probably wrote most of her father's _Mundus muliebris_ (1690). Of his
two other daughters, Susannah, who married William Draper of Addiscombe,
Surrey, survived him.
Evelyn's _Diary_ remained in MS. until 1818. It is in a quarto volume
containing 700 pages, covering the years between 1641 and 1697, and is
continued in a smaller book which brings the narrative down to within
three weeks of its author's death. A selection from this was edited by
William Bray, with the permission of the Evelyn family, in 1818, under
the title of _Memoirs illustrative of the Life and Writings of John
Evelyn, comprising his Diary from 1641 to 1705/6, and a Selection of
his Familiar Letters_. Other editions followed, the most notable being
those of Mr H.B. Wheatley (1879) and Mr Austin Dobson (3 vols., 1906).
Evelyn's active mind produced many other works, and although these
have been overshadowed by the famous _Diary_ they are of considerable
interest. They include: _Of Liberty and Servitude_ ... (1649), a
translation from the French of Francois de la Mothe le Vayer, Evelyn's
own copy of which contains a note that he was "like to be call'd in
question by the Rebells for this booke"; _The State of France, as it
stood in the IXth year of ... Louis XIII._ (1652); _An Essay on the
First Book of T. Lucretius Carus de Rerum Natura_. _Interpreted and
made English verse by J. Evelyn_ (1656); _The Golden Book of St John
Chrysostom, concerning the Education of Children_. _Translated out of
the Greek by J.E._ (printed 1658, dated 1659); _The French Gardener:
instructing how to cultivate all sorts of Fruit-trees_ ... (1658),
translated from the French of N. de Bonnefons; _A Character of
England_ ... (1659), describing the customs of the country as they
would appear to a foreign observer, reprinted in _Somers' Tracts_ (ed.
Scott, 1812), and in the _Harleian Miscellany_ (ed. Park, 1813); _The
Late News from Brussels unmasked_ ... (1660), in answer to a libellous
pamphlet on Charles I. by Marchmont Needham; _Fumifugium, or the
inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of London dissipated_ (1661), in
which he suggested that sweet-smelling trees should be planted in
London to purify the air; _Instructions concerning erecting of a
Library_ ... (1661), from the French of Gabriel Naudé; _Tyrannus or
the Mode, in a Discourse of Sumptuary Laws_ (1661); _Sculptura: or the
History and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper_ ... (1662);
_Sylva, or a Discourse of Forest Trees ... to which is annexed Pomona
... Also Kalendarium Hortense_ ... (1664); _A Parallel of the Ancient
Architecture with the Modern_ ... (1664), from the French of Roland
Fréart; _The History of the three late famous Imposters, viz. Padre
Ottomano, Mahomed Bei, and Sabatei Sevi_ ... (1669); _Navigation and
Commerce ... in which his Majesties title to the Dominion of the Sea
is asserted against the Novel and later Pretenders_ (1674), which is a
preface to a projected history of the Dutch wars undertaken at the
request of Charles II., but countermanded on the conclusion of peace;
_A Philosophical Discourse of Earth_ ... (1676), a treatise on
horticulture, better known by its later title of _Terra_; _The
Compleat Gardener_ ... (1693), from the French of J. de la Quintinie;
_Numismata_ ... (1697). Some of these were reprinted in _The
Miscellaneous Writings of John Evelyn_, edited (1825) by William
Upcott. Evelyn's friendship with Mary Blagge, afterwards Mrs
Godolphin, is recorded in the diary, when he says he designed "to
consecrate her worthy life to posterity." This he effectually did in a
little masterpiece of religious biography which remained in MS. in the
possession of the Harcourt family until it was edited by Samuel
Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, as the _Life of Mrs Godolphin_ (1847),
reprinted in the "King's Classics" (1904). The picture of Mistress
Blagge's saintly life at court is heightened in interest when read in
connexion with the scandalous memoirs of the comte de Gramont, or
contemporary political satires on the court. Numerous other papers and
letters of Evelyn on scientific subjects and matters of public
interest are preserved, a collection of private and official letters
and papers (1642-1712) by, or addressed to, Sir Richard Browne and his
son-in-law being in the British Museum (_Add. MSS._ 15857 and 15858).
Next to the _Diary_ Evelyn's most valuable work is _Sylva_. By the
glass factories and iron furnaces the country was being rapidly
depleted of wood, while no attempt was being made to replace the
damage by planting. Evelyn put in a plea for afforestation, and
besides producing a valuable work on arboriculture, he was able to
assert in his preface to the king that he had really induced
landowners to plant many millions of trees.
EVERDINGEN, ALLART VAN (1621-?1675), Dutch painter and engraver, the son
of a government clerk at Alkmaar, was born, it is said, in 1621, and
educated, if we believe an old tradition, under Roeland Savery at
Utrecht. He wandered in 1645 to Haarlem, where he studied under Peter de
Molyn, and finally settled about 1657 at Amsterdam, where he remained
till his death. It would be difficult to find a greater contrast than
that which is presented by the works of Savery and Everdingen. Savery
inherited the gaudy style of the Breughels, which he carried into the
17th century; whilst Everdingen realized the large and effective system
of coloured and powerfully shaded landscape which marks the precursors
of Rembrandt. It is not easy on this account to believe that Savery was
Everdingen's master, while it is quite within the range of probability
that he acquired the elements of landscape painting from de Molyn.
Pieter de Molyn, by birth a Londoner, lived from 1624 till 1661 in
Haarlem. He went periodically on visits to Norway, and his works, though
scarce, exhibit a broad and sweeping mode of execution, differing but
slightly from that transferred at the opening of the 17th century from
Jan van Goyen to Solomon Ruysdael. His etchings have nearly the breadth
and effect of those of Everdingen. It is still an open question when de
Molyn wielded influence on his clever disciple. Alkmaar, a busy trading
place near the Texel, had little of the picturesque for an artist except
polders and downs or waves and sky. Accordingly we find Allart at first
a painter of coast scenery. But on one of his expeditions he is said to
have been cast ashore in Norway, and during the repairs of his ship he
visited the inland valleys, and thus gave a new course to his art. In
early pieces he cleverly represents the sea in motion under varied, but
mostly clouded, aspects of sky. Their general intonation is strong and
brown, and effects are rendered in a powerful key, but the execution is
much more uniform than that of Jacob Ruysdael. A dark scud lowering on a
rolling sea near the walls of Flushing characterizes Everdingen's "Mouth
of the Schelde" in the Hermitage at St Petersburg. Storm is the marked
feature of sea-pieces in the Staedel or Robartes collections; and a
strand with wreckers at the foot of a cliff in the Munich Pinakothek may
be a reminiscence of personal adventure in Norway. But the Norwegian
coast was studied in calms as well as in gales; and a fine canvas at
Munich shows fishermen on a still and sunny day taking herrings to a
smoking hut at the foot of a Norwegian crag. The earliest of
Everdingen's sea-pieces bears the date of 1640. After 1645 we meet with
nothing but representations of inland scenery, and particularly of
Norwegian valleys, remarkable alike for wildness and a decisive depth of
tone. The master's favourite theme is a fall in a glen, with mournful
fringes of pines interspersed with birch, and log-huts at the base of
rocks and craggy slopes. The water tumbles over the foreground, so as to
entitle the painter to the name of "inventor of cascades." It gives
Everdingen his character as a precursor of Jacob Ruysdael in a certain
form of landscape composition; but though very skilful in arrangement
and clever in effects, Everdingen remains much more simple in execution;
he is much less subtle in feeling or varied in touch than his great and
incomparable countryman. Five of Everdingen's cascades are in the museum
of Copenhagen alone: of these, one is dated 1647, another 1649. In the
Hermitage at St Petersburg is a fine example of 1647; another in the
Pinakothek at Munich was finished in 1656. English public galleries
ignore Everdingen; but one of his best-known masterpieces is the
Norwegian glen belonging to Lord Listowel. Of his etchings and drawings
there are much larger and more numerous specimens in England than
elsewhere. Being a collector as well as an engraver and painter, he
brought together a large number of works of all kinds and masters; and
the sale of these by his heirs at Amsterdam on the 11th of March 1676
gives an approximate clue to the date of the painter's death.
His two brothers, Jan and Caesar, were both painters. CAESAR VAN
EVERDINGEN (1606-1679), mainly known as a portrait painter, enjoyed some
vogue during his life, and many of his pictures are to be seen in the
museums and private houses of Holland. They show a certain cleverness,
but are far from entitling him to rank as a master.
EVEREST, SIR GEORGE (1790-1866), British surveyor and geographer, was
the son of Tristram Everest of Gwerndale, Brecknockshire, and was born
there on the 4th of July 1790. From school at Marlow he proceeded to the
military academy at Woolwich, where he attracted the special notice of
the mathematical master, and passed so well in his examinations that he
was declared fit for a commission before attaining the necessary age.
Having gone to India in 1806 as a cadet in the Bengal Artillery, he was
selected by Sir Stamford Raffles to take part in the reconnaissance of
Java (1814-1816); and after being employed in various engineering works
throughout India, he was appointed in 1818 assistant to Colonel Lambton,
the founder of the great trigonometrical survey of that country. In
1823, on Colonel Lambton's death, he succeeded to the post of
superintendent of the survey; in 1830 he was appointed by the court of
directors of the East India Company surveyor-general of India; and from
that date till his retirement from the service in 1843 he continued to
discharge the laborious duties of both offices. During the rest of his
life he resided in England, where he became fellow of the Royal Society
and an active member of several other scientific associations. In 1861
he was made a C.B. and received the honour of knighthood, and in 1862 he
was chosen vice-president of the Royal Geographical Society. He died at
Greenwich on the 1st of December 1866. The geodetical labours of Sir
George Everest rank among the finest achievements of their kind; and
more especially his measurement of the meridional arc of India, 11½° in
length, is accounted as unrivalled in the annals of the science. In
great part the Indian survey is what he made it.
His works are purely professional:--A paper in vol. i. of the _Memoirs
of the Royal Astronomical Society_, pointing out a mistake in La
Caille's measurement of an arc of the meridian which he had discovered
during sick-leave at the Cape of Good Hope; _An account of the
measurement of the arc of the meridian between the parallels of 18° 3'
and 24° 7', being a continuation of the Grand Meridional Arc of India,
as detailed by Lieut.-Col. Lambton in the volumes of the Asiatic
Society of Calcutta_ (London, 1830); _An account of the measurement of
two sections of the Meridional Arc of India bounded by the parallels
of 18° 3' 15", 24° 7' 11", and 20° 30' 48"_ (London, 1847).
EVEREST, MOUNT, the highest mountain in the world. It is a peak of the
Himalayas situated in Nepal almost precisely on the intersection of the
meridian 87 E. long. with the parallel 28 N. lat. Its elevation as at
present determined by trigonometrical observation is 29,002 ft., but it
is possible that further investigation into the value of refraction at
such altitudes will result in placing the summit even higher. It has
been confused with a peak to the west of it called Gaurisankar (by
Schlagintweit), which is more than 5000 ft. lower; but the observations
of Captain Wood from peaks near Khatmandu, in Nepal, and those of the
same officer, and of Major Ryder, from the route between Lhasa and the
sources of the Brahmaputra in 1904, have definitely fixed the relative
position of the two mountain masses, and conclusively proved that there
is no higher peak than Everest in the Himalayan system. The peak
possesses no distinctive native name and has been called Everest after
Sir George Everest (q.v.), who completed the trigonometrical survey of
the Himalayas in 1841 and first fixed its position and altitude.
(T. H. H.*)
EVERETT, ALEXANDER HILL (1790-1847), American author and diplomatist,
was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 19th of March 1790. He was the
son of Rev. Oliver Everett (1753-1802), a Congregational minister in
Boston, and the brother of Edward Everett. He graduated at Harvard in
1806, taking the highest honours of his year, though the youngest member
of his class. He spent one year as a teacher in Phillips Academy,
Exeter, New Hampshire, and then began the study of law in the office of
John Quincy Adams. In 1809 Adams was appointed minister to Russia, and
Everett accompanied him as his private secretary, remaining attached to
the American legation in Russia until 1811. He was secretary of the
American legation at The Hague in 1815-1816, and _chargé d'affaires_
there from 1818 to 1824. From 1825 to 1829, during the presidency of
John Quincy Adams, he was the United States minister to Spain. At that
time Spain recognized none of the governments established by her
revolted colonies, and Everett became the medium of all communications
between the Spanish government and the several nations of Spanish origin
which had been established, by successful revolutions, on the other side
of the ocean. Everett was a member of the Massachusetts legislature in
1830-1835, was president of Jefferson College in Louisiana in 1842-1844,
and was appointed commissioner of the United States to China in 1845,
but did not go to that country until the following year, and died on the
29th of May 1847 at Canton, China. Everett, however, is known rather as
a man of letters than as a diplomat. In addition to numerous articles,
published chiefly in the _North American Review_, of which he was the
editor from 1829 to 1835, he wrote: _Europe, or a General Survey of the
Political Situation of the Principal Powers, with Conjectures on their
Future Prospects_ (1822), which attracted considerable attention in
Europe and was translated into German, French and Spanish; _New Ideas on
Population_ (1822); _America, or a General Survey of the Political
Situation of the Several Powers of the Western Continent, with
Conjectures on their Future Prospects_ (1827), which was translated into
several European languages; a volume of _Poems_ (1845); and _Critical
and Miscellaneous Essays_ (first series, 1845; second series, 1847).
EVERETT, CHARLES CARROLL (1829-1900), American divine and philosopher,
was born on the 19th of June 1829, at Brunswick, Maine. He studied at
Bowdoin College, where he graduated in 1850, after which he proceeded to
Berlin. Subsequently he took a degree in divinity at the Harvard
Divinity School. From 1859 to 1869 he was pastor of the Independent
Congregational (Unitarian) church at Bangor, Maine. This charge he
resigned to take the Bussey professorship of theology at Harvard
University, and, in 1878, became dean of the faculty of theology.
Interested in a variety of subjects, he devoted himself chiefly to the
philosophy of religion, and published _The Science of Thought_ (Boston,
1869; revised 1891). He also wrote _Fichte's Science of Knowledge_
(1884); _Poetry, Comedy and Duty_ (1888); _Religions before
Christianity_ (1883); _Ethics for Young People_ (1891); _The Gospel of
Paul_ (1892). He died at Cambridge on the 16th of October 1900.
EVERETT, EDWARD (1794-1865), American statesman and orator, was born in
Dorchester, Massachusetts, on the 11th of April 1794. He was the son of
Rev. Oliver Everett and the brother of Alexander Hill Everett (q.v.).
His father died in 1802, and his mother removed to Boston with her
family after her husband's death. At seventeen Edward Everett graduated
from Harvard College, taking first honours in his class. While at
college he was the chief editor of _The Lyceum_, the earliest in the
series of college journals published at the American Cambridge. His
earlier predilections were for the study of law, but the advice of
Joseph Stevens Buckminster, a distinguished preacher in Boston, led him
to prepare for the pulpit, and as a preacher he at once distinguished
himself. He was called to the ministry of the Brattle Street church
(Unitarian) in Boston before he was twenty years old. His sermons
attracted wide attention in that community, and he gained a considerable
reputation as a theologian and a controversialist by his publication in
1814 of a volume entitled _Defence of Christianity_, written in answer
to a work, _The Grounds of Christianity Examined_ (1813), by George
Bethune English (1787-1828), an adventurer, who, born in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, was in turn a student of law and of theology, an editor
of a newspaper, and a soldier of fortune in Egypt. Everett's tastes,
however, were then, as always, those of a scholar; and in 1815, after a
service of little more than a year in the pulpit, he resigned his charge
to accept a professorship of Greek literature in Harvard College.
After nearly five years spent in Europe in preparation, he entered with
enthusiasm on his duties, and, for five years more, gave a vigorous
impulse, not only to the study of Greek, but to all the work of the
college. In January 1820 he assumed the charge of the _North American
Review_, which now became a quarterly; and he was indefatigable during
the four years of his editorship in contributing on a great variety of
subjects. From 1825 to 1835 he was a member of the National House of
Representatives, supporting generally the administration of President
J.Q. Adams and opposing that of Jackson, which succeeded it. He bore a
part in almost every important debate, and was a member of the committee
of foreign affairs during the whole time of his service in Congress.
Everett was a member of nearly all the most important select committees,
such as those on the Indian relations of the state of Georgia, the
Apportionment Bill, and the Bank of the United States, and drew the
report either of the majority or the minority. The report on the
congress of Panama, the leading measure of the first session of the
Nineteenth Congress, was drawn up by Everett, although he was the
youngest member of the committee and had just entered Congress. He led
the unsuccessful opposition to the Indian policy of General Jackson (the
removal of the Cherokee and other Indians, without their consent, from
lands guaranteed to them by treaty).
In 1835 he was elected governor of Massachusetts. He brought to the
duties of the office the untiring diligence which was the characteristic
of his public life. We can only allude to a few of the measures which
received his efficient support, e.g. the establishment of the board of
education (the first of such boards in the United States), the
scientific surveys of the state (the first of such public surveys), the
criminal law commission, and the preservation of a sound currency during
the panic of 1837.
Everett filled the office of governor for four years, and was then
defeated by a single vote, out of more than one hundred thousand. The
election is of interest historically as being the first important
American election where the issue turned on the question of the
prohibition of the retail sale of intoxicating liquors. In the following
spring he made a visit with his family to Europe. In 1841, while
residing in Florence, he was named United States minister to Great
Britain, and arrived in London to enter upon the duties of his mission
at the close of that year. Great questions were at that time open
between the two countries--the north-eastern boundary, the affair of
M'Leod, the seizure of American vessels on the coast of Africa, in the
course of a few months the affair of the "Creole," to which was soon
added the Oregon question. His position was more difficult by reason of
the frequent changes that took place in the department at home, which,
in the course of four years, was occupied successively by Messrs
Webster, Legaré, Upshur, Calhoun and Buchanan. From all these gentlemen
Everett received marks of approbation and confidence.
By the institution of the special mission of Lord Ashburton, however,
the direct negotiations between the two governments were, about the time
of Everett's arrival in London, transferred to Washington, though much
business was transacted at the American legation in London.
Immediately after the accession of Polk to the presidency Everett was
recalled. From January 1846 to 1849, as the successor of Josiah Quincy,
he was president of Harvard College. On the death, in October 1852, of
his friend Daniel Webster, to whom he had always been closely attached,
and of whom he was always a confidential adviser, he succeeded him as
secretary of state, which post he held for the remaining months of
Fillmore's administration, leaving it to go into the Senate in 1853, as
one of the representatives of Massachusetts. Under the work of the long
session of 1853-1854 his health gave way. In May 1854 he resigned his
seat, on the orders of his physician, and retired to what was called
private life.
But, as it proved, the remaining ten years of his life most widely
established his reputation and influence throughout America. As early as
1820 he had established a reputation as an orator, such as few men in
later days have enjoyed. He was frequently invited to deliver an
"oration" on some topic of historical or other interest. With him these
"orations," instead of being the ephemeral entertainments of an hour,
became careful studies of some important theme. Eager to avert, if
possible, the impending conflict of arms between the North and South,
Everett prepared an "oration" on George Washington, which he delivered
in every part of America. In this way, too, he raised more than one
hundred thousand dollars, for the purchase of the old home of Washington
at Mount Vernon. Everett also prepared for the _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_ a biographical sketch of Washington, which was published
separately in 1860. In 1860 Everett was the candidate of the short-lived
Constitutional-Union party for the vice-presidency, on the ticket with
John Bell (q.v.), but received only 39 electoral votes. During the Civil
War he zealously supported the national government and was called upon
in every quarter to speak at public meetings. He delivered the last of
his great orations at Gettysburg, after the battle, on the consecration
of the national cemetery there. On the 9th of January 1865 he spoke at a
public meeting in Boston to raise funds for the southern poor in
Savannah. At that meeting he caught cold, and the immediate result was
his death on the 15th of January 1865.
In Everett's life and career was a combination of the results of
diligent training, unflinching industry, delicate literary tastes and
unequalled acquaintance with modern international politics. This
combination made him in America an entirely exceptional person. He was
never loved by the political managers; he was always enthusiastically
received by assemblies of the people. He would have said himself that
the most eager wish of his life had been for the higher education of his
countrymen. His orations have been collected in four volumes
(1850-1859). A work on international law, on which he was engaged at his
death, was never finished. Allibone records 84 titles of his books and
published addresses. (E. E. H.)
EVERETT, a city of Middlesex county, Massachusetts, U.S.A., adjoining
Chelsea and 3 m. N. of Boston, of which it is a residential suburb. Pop.
(1880) 4159; (1890) 11,068; (1900) 24,336, of whom 6882 were
foreign-born; (1910 census) 33,484. It covers an area of about 3 sq. m.
and is served by the Boston & Maine railway and by interurban electric
lines. Everett has the Frederick E. Parlin memorial library (1878), the
Shute memorial library (1898), the Whidden memorial hospital and
Woodlawn cemetery (176 acres). The principal manufactures are coke,
chemicals and boots and shoes; among others are iron and structural
steel. According to the U.S. Census of Manufactures (1905), "the coke
industry in Everett is unique, inasmuch as illuminating gas is the
primary product and coke really a by-product, while the coal used is
brought from mines located in Nova Scotia." The value of the city's
total factory product increased from $4,437,180 in 1900 to $6,135,650 in
1905 or 38.3%. Everett was first settled about 1630, remaining a part of
Malden (and being known as South Malden) until 1870, when it was
incorporated as a township. It was chartered as a city in 1892.
EVERETT, a city, a sub-port of entry, and the county-seat of Snohomish
county, Washington, U.S.A., on Puget Sound, at the mouth of the
Snohomish river, about 35 m. N. of Seattle. Pop. (1900) 7838; (1910 U.S.
census) 24,814. The city is served by the Northern Pacific and the Great
Northern railways, being the western terminus of the latter's main
transcontinental line, by interurban electric railway, and by several
lines of Sound and coasting freight and passenger steamboats. Everett
has a fine harbour with several large iron piers. Among its principal
buildings are a Carnegie library, a Y.M.C.A. building and two hospitals.
The buildings of the Pacific College were erected here by the United
Norwegian Lutheran Church in 1908. The city is in a rich lumbering,
gardening, farming, and copper-, gold- and silver-mining district. There
is a U.S. assayer's office here, and there are extensive shipyards, a
large paper mill, iron works, and, just outside the city limits, the
smelters of the American Smelters Securities Company, in connexion with
which is one of the two plants in the United States for saving arsenic
from smelter fumes. Lumber interests, however, are of most importance,
and here are some of the largest lumber plants in the Pacific Northwest.
Red-cedar shingles are an important product. Everett was settled in 1891
and was incorporated in 1893. Its rapid growth is due to its favourable
situation as a commercial port, its transportation facilities, and its
nearness to extensive forests whence the material for its chief
industries is obtained.
EVERGLADES, an American lake, about 8000 sq. m. in area, in which are
numerous half-submerged islands; situated in the southern part of
Florida, U.S.A., in Lee, De Soto, Dade and St Lucie counties. West of it
is the Big Cypress Swamp. The floor of the lake is a limestone basin,
extending from Lake Okechobee in the N. to the extreme S. part of the
state, and the lake varies in depth from 1 to 12 ft., its water being
pure and clear. The surface is above tide level, and the lake is
enclosed, probably on all sides, within an outcropping limestone rim,
averaging about 10 ft. above mean low tide, and approaching much nearer
to the Atlantic on the E. than to the gulf on the W. There are several
small outlets, such as the Miami river and the New river on the E. and
the Shark river on the S.W., but no streams empty into the Everglades,
and the water-supply is furnished by springs and precipitation. There is
a general south-easterly movement of the water. The soil of the islands
is very fertile and is subject to frequent inundations, but gradually
the water area is being replaced by land. The vegetation is luxuriant,
the live oak, wild lemon, wild orange, cucumber, papaw, custard apple
and wild rubber trees being among the indigenous species; there are,
besides, many varieties of wild flowers, the orchids being especially
noteworthy. The fauna is also varied; the otter, alligator and crocodile
are found, also the deer and panther, and among the native birds are the
ibis, egret, heron and limpkin. There are two seasons, wet and dry, but
the climate is equable.
Systematic exploration has been prevented by the dense growth of saw
grass (_Cladium effusum_), a kind of sedge, with sharp, saw-toothed
leaves, which grows everywhere on the muck-covered rock basin and
extends several feet above the shallow water. The first white man to
enter the region was Escalente de Fontenada, a Spanish captive of an
Indian chief, who named the lake Laguno del Espiritu Santo and the
islands Cayos del Espiritu Santo. Between 1841 and 1856 various United
States military forces penetrated the Everglades for the purpose of
attacking and driving out the Seminoles, who took refuge here. The most
important explorations during the later years of the 19th century were
those of Major Archie P. Williams in 1883, James E. Ingraham in 1892 and
Hugh L. Willoughby in 1897. The Seminole Indians were in 1909
practically the only inhabitants. In 1850 under the "Arkansas Bill," or
Swamp and Overflow Act, practically all of the Everglades, which the
state had been urging the federal government to drain and reclaim, were
turned over to the state for that purpose, with the provision that all
proceeds from such lands be applied to their reclamation. A board of
trustees for the Internal Improvement Fund, created in 1855 and having
as members _ex officio_ the governor, comptroller, treasurer,
attorney-general and commissioner-general, sold and allowed to railway
companies much of the grant. Between 1881 and 1896 a private company
owning 4,000,000 acres of the Everglades attempted to dig a canal from
Lake Okechobee through Lake Hicpochee and along the Caloosahatchee river
to the Gulf of Mexico; the canal was closed in 1902 by overflows. Six
canals were begun under state control in 1905 from the lake to the
Atlantic, the northernmost at Jensen, the southernmost at Ft.
Lauderdale; the total cost, estimated at $1,035,000 for the reclamation
of 12,500 sq. m., is raised by a drainage tax (not to exceed 10 cents
per acre) levied by the trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund and
Board of Drainage commissioners. The small area reclaimed prior to that
year (1905) was found very fertile and particularly adapted to raising
sugar-cane, oranges and garden truck.
See Hugh L. Willoughby's _Across the Everglades_ (Philadelphia, 1898),
and especially an article "The Everglades of Florida" by Edwin A. Dix
and John M. MacGonigle, in the _Century Magazine_ for February 1905.
EVERGREEN, a general term applied to plants which are always in leaf, as
contrasted with deciduous trees which are bare for some part of the year
(see HORTICULTURE). In temperate or colder zones where a season
favourable to vegetation is succeeded by an unfavourable or winter
season, leaves of evergreens must be protected from the frost and cold
drying winds, and are therefore tougher or more leathery in texture than
those of deciduous trees, and frequently, as in pines, firs and other
conifers, are needle-like, thus exposing a much smaller surface to the
drying action of cold winds. The number of seasons for which the leaves
last varies in different plants; every season some of the older leaves
fall, while new ones are regularly produced. The common English bramble
is practically evergreen, the leaves lasting through winter and until
the new leaves are developed next spring. In privet also the leaves fall
after the production of new ones in the next year. In other cases the
leaves last several years, as in conifers, and may sometimes be found on
eleven-year-old shoots.
EVERLASTING, or IMMORTELLE, a plant belonging to the division
_Tubuliflorae_ of the natural order Compositae, known botanically as
_Helichrysum orientale_. It is a native of North Africa, Crete, and the
parts of Asia bordering on the Mediterranean; and it is cultivated in
many parts of Europe. It first became known in Europe about the year
1629, and has been cultivated since 1815. In common with several other
plants of the same group, known as "everlastings," the immortelle plant
possesses a large involucre of dry scale-like or scarious bracts, which
preserve their appearance when dried, provided the plant be gathered in
proper condition. The chief supplies of _Helichrysum orientale_ come
from lower Provence, where it is cultivated in large quantities on the
ground sloping to the Mediterranean, in positions well exposed to the
sun, and usually in plots surrounded by dry stone walls. The finest
flowers are grown on the slopes of Bandols and Ciotat, where the plant
begins to flower in June. It requires a light sandy or stony soil, and
is very readily injured by rain or heavy dews. It can be propagated in
quantity by means of offsets from the older stems. The flowering stems
are gathered in June, when the bracts are fully developed, all the
fully-expanded and immature flowers being pulled off and rejected. A
well-managed plantation is productive for eight or ten years. The plant
is tufted in its growth, each plant producing 60 or 70 stems, while each
stem produces an average of 20 flowers. About 400 such stems weigh a
kilogramme. A hectare of ground will produce 40,000 plants, bearing from
2,400,000 to 2,800,000 stems, and weighing from 5½ to 6½ tons, or from 2
to 3 tons per acre. The colour of the bracts is a deep yellow. The
natural flowers are commonly used for garlands for the dead, or plants
dyed black are mixed with the yellow ones. The plant is also dyed green
or orange-red, and thus employed for bouquets or other ornamental
purposes.
Other species of _Helichrysum_ and species of allied genera with
scarious heads of flowers are also known as "everlastings." One of the
best known is the Australian species _H. bracteatum_, with several
varieties, including double forms, of different colours; _H. vestitum_
(Cape of Good Hope) has white satiny heads. Others are species of
_Helipterum_ (West Australia and South Africa), _Ammobium_ and _Waitzia_
(Australia) and _Xeranthemum_ (south Europe). Several members of the
natural order Amarantaceae have also "everlasting" flowers; such are
_Gomphrena globosa_, with rounded or oval heads of white, orange, rose
or violet, scarious bracts, and _Celosia pyramidalis_, with its elegant,
loose, pyramidal inflorescences. Frequently these everlastings are mixed
with bleached grasses, as _Lagurus ovatus_, _Briza maxima_, _Bromus
brizaeformis_, or with the leaves of the Cape silver tree (_Leucadendron
argenteum_), to form bouquets or ornamental groups.
EVERSLEY, CHARLES SHAW LEFEVRE, VISCOUNT (1794-1888), speaker of the
British House of Commons, eldest son of Mr Charles Shaw (who assumed his
wife's name of Lefevre in addition to his own on his marriage), was born
in London on the 22nd of February 1794, and educated at Winchester and
at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1819, and
though a diligent student was also a keen sportsman. Marrying a daughter
of Mr Samuel Whitbread, whose wife was the sister of Earl Grey,
afterwards premier, he thus became connected with two influential
political families, and in 1830 he entered the House of Commons as
member for Downton, in the Liberal interest. In 1831 he was returned,
after a severe contest, as one of the county members for Hampshire, in
which he resided; and after the passing of the Reform Act of 1832 he was
elected for the Northern Division of the county. For some years Mr Shaw
Lefevre was chairman of a committee on petitions for private bills. In
1835 he was chairman of a committee on agricultural distress, but as his
report was not accepted by the House, he published it as a pamphlet
addressed to his constituents. He acquired a high reputation in the
House of Commons for his judicial fairness, combined with singular tact
and courtesy, and when Mr James Abercromby retired in 1839, he was
nominated as the Liberal candidate for the chair. The Conservatives put
forward Henry Goulburn, but Mr Shaw Lefevre was elected by 317 votes to
299. The period was one of fierce party conflict, and the debates were
frequently very acrimonious; but the dignity, temper and firmness of the
new speaker were never at fault. In 1857 he had served longer than any
of his predecessors, except the celebrated Arthur Onslow (1691-1768),
who was speaker for more than 33 years in five successive parliaments.
Retiring on a pension, he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Eversley
of Heckfield, in the county of Southampton. His appearances in the House
of Lords were very infrequent, but in his own county he was active in
the public service. From 1859 he was an ecclesiastical commissioner, and
he was also appointed a trustee of the British Museum. He died on the
28th of December 1888, the viscountcy becoming extinct.
His younger brother, SIR JOHN GEORGE SHAW LEFEVRE (1797-1879), who was
senior wrangler at Cambridge in 1818, had a long and distinguished
career as a public official. He was under-secretary for the colonies,
and had much to do with the introduction of the new poor law in 1834,
and with the foundation of the colony of South Australia; then having
served on several important commissions he was made clerk of the
parliaments in 1855, and in the same year became one of the first civil
service commissioners. He helped to found the university of London, of
which he was vice-chancellor for twenty years, and also the Athenaeum
Club. He died on the 20th of August 1879.
The latter's son, GEORGE JOHN SHAW LEFEVRE (b. 1832), was created Baron
Eversley in 1906, in recognition of long and prominent services to the
Liberal party. He had filled the following offices:--civil lord of the
admiralty, 1856; secretary to the board of trade, 1869-1871;
under-secretary, home office, 1871; secretary to the admiralty,
1871-1874; first commissioner of works, 1881-1883; postmaster-general,
1883-1884; first commissioner of works, 1892-1893; president of local
government board, 1894-1895; chairman of royal commission on
agriculture, 1893-1896.
EVESHAM, a market-town and municipal borough in the Evesham
parliamentary division of Worcestershire, England, 107 m. W.N.W. of
London by the Great Western railway, and 15 m. S.E. by E. of Worcester,
with a station on the Redditch-Ashchurch branch of the Midland railway.
Pop. (1901) 7101. It lies on the right (north) bank of the Avon, in the
rich and beautiful Vale of Evesham. The district is devoted to
market-gardening and orchards, and the trade of the town is mainly
agricultural. Evesham is a place of considerable antiquity, a
Benedictine house having been founded here by St Egwin in the 8th
century. It became a wealthy abbey, but was almost wholly destroyed at
the Dissolution. The churchyard, however, is entered by a Norman
gateway, and there survives also a magnificent isolated bell-tower
dating from 1533, of the best ornate Perpendicular workmanship. The
abbey walls surround the churchyard, but almost the only other remnant
is a single Decorated arch. Close to the bell-tower, however, are the
two parish churches of St Lawrence and of All Saints, the former of the
16th century, the latter containing Early English work, and the ornate
chapel of Abbot Lichfield, who erected the bell-tower. Other buildings
include an Elizabethan town hall, the grammar school, founded by Abbot
Lichfield, and the picturesque almonry. The borough includes the parish
of Bengeworth St Peter, on the left bank of the river. Evesham is
governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2265 acres.
Evesham (_Homme_, _Ethomme_) grew up around the Benedictine abbey, and
had evidently become of some importance as a trading centre in 1055,
when Edward the Confessor gave it a market and the privileges of a
commercial town. It is uncertain when the town first became a borough,
but the Domesday statement that the men paid 20s. may indicate the
existence of a more or less organized body of tradesmen. Before 1482 the
burgesses were holding the town at a fee farm rent of twenty marks, but
the abbot still had practical control of the town, and his steward
presided over the court at which the bailiffs were chosen. After the
Dissolution the manor with the markets and fairs and other privileges
was granted to Sir Philip Hoby, who increased his power over the town by
persuading the burgesses to agree that, after they had nominated six
candidates for the office of bailiff, the steward of the court
instructed by him should indicate the two to be chosen. This privilege
was contested by Queen Elizabeth, but when the case was taken before the
court of the exchequer it was decided in favour of Sir Philip's heir,
Sir Edward Hoby. In 1604 James I. granted the burgesses their first
charter, but in the following year, by a second charter, he incorporated
Evesham with the village of Bengeworth, and granted that the borough
should be governed by a mayor and seven aldermen, to whom he gave the
power of holding markets and fairs and several other privileges which
had formerly belonged to the lord of the manor. Evesham received two
later charters, but in 1688 that of 1605 was restored and still remains
the governing charter of the borough. Evesham returned two members to
parliament in 1295 and again in 1337, after which date the privilege
lapsed until 1604. Its two members were reduced to one by the act of
1867, and the borough was disfranchised in 1885.
Evesham gave its name to the famous battle, fought on the 4th of August
1265, between the forces of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, and
the royalist army under Prince Edward. After a masterly campaign, in
which the prince had succeeded in defeating Leicester in the valleys of
the Severn and Usk, and had destroyed the forces of the younger Montfort
at Kenilworth before he could effect a junction with the main body, the
royalist forces approached Evesham in the morning of the 4th of August
in time to intercept Leicester's march towards Kenilworth. Caught in the
bend of the river Avon by the converging columns, and surrounded on all
sides, the old earl attempted to cut his way out of the town to the
northward. At first the fury of his assault forced back the superior
numbers of the prince; but Simon's Welsh levies melted away and his
enemies closed the last avenue of escape. The final struggle took place
on Green Hill, a little to the north-west of the town, where the devoted
friends of de Montfort formed a ring round their leader, and died with
him. The spot is marked with an obelisk.
EVIDENCE (Lat. _evidentia_, _evideri_, to appear clearly), a term which
may be defined briefly as denoting the facts presented to the mind of a
person for the purpose of enabling him to decide a disputed question.
Evidence in the widest sense includes all such facts, and reference may
be made to the article LOGIC for the science or art of dealing with the
proper way of drawing correct conclusions and the nature of proof. In a
narrower sense, however, evidence includes in English law only such
facts as are allowed to be so presented in the course of judicial
proceedings. Thus we say that a fact is not evidence, meaning thereby
that it is not admissible as evidence in accordance with the rules of
English law. The law of legal evidence is part of the law of procedure.
It determines the kinds of evidence which may be produced in judicial
proceedings, and regulates the mode in which, and the conditions under
which, evidence may be produced and tested.
History.
The English law of evidence is of comparatively modern growth. It
enshrines certain maxims, some derived from Roman law, some invented by
Coke, who, as J.B. Thayer says, "spawned Latin maxims freely." But for
the most part it was built up by English judges in the course of the
18th century, and consists of this judge-made law, as modified by
statutory enactments of the 19th century. Early Teutonic procedure knew
nothing of evidence in the modern sense, just as it knew nothing of
trials in the modern sense. What it knew was "proofs." There were two
modes of proof, ordeals and oaths. Both were appeals to the
supernatural. The judicial combat was a bilateral ordeal. Proof
followed, instead of preceding, judgment. A judgment of the court,
called by German writers the _Beweisurteil_, and by M.M. Bigelow the
"medial judgment," awarded that one of the two litigants must prove his
case, by his body in battle, or by a one-sided ordeal, or by an oath
with oath-helpers, or by the oaths of witnesses. The court had no desire
to hear or weigh conflicting testimony. To do so would have been to
exercise critical faculties, which the court did not possess, and the
exercise of which would have been foreign to the whole spirit of the
age. The litigant upon whom the burden of furnishing proof was imposed
had a certain task to perform. If he performed it, he won; if he failed,
he lost. The number of oath-helpers varied in different cases, and was
determined by the law or by the court. They were probably, at the
outset, kinsmen, who would have had to take up the blood-feud. At a
later stage they became witnesses to character. In the cases,
comparatively rare, where the oaths of witnesses were admitted as proof,
their oaths differed materially from the sworn testimony of modern
courts. As a rule no one could testify to a fact unless, when the fact
happened, he was solemnly "taken to witness." Then, when the witness was
adduced, he came merely to swear to a set formula. He did not make a
promissory oath to answer questions truly. He merely made an assertory
oath in a prescribed form.
In the course of the 12th and 13th centuries the old formal accusatory
procedure began to break down, and to be superseded by another form of
procedure known as _inquisitio_, inquest, or _enquête_. Its decay was
hastened by the decree of the fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which
forbade ecclesiastics to take part in ordeals. The Norman administrative
system introduced into England by the Conquest was familiar with a
method of ascertaining and determining facts by means of a verdict,
return or finding made on oath by a body of men drawn from the locality.
The system may be traced to Carolingian, and even earlier, sources.
Henry II., by instituting the grand assize and the four petty assizes,
placed at the disposal of litigants in certain actions the opportunity
of giving proof by the verdict of a sworn inquest of neighbours, proof
"by the country." The system was gradually extended to other cases,
criminal as well as civil. The verdict given was that of persons having
a general, but not necessarily a particular, acquaintance with the
persons, places and facts to which the inquiry related. It was, in fact,
a finding by local popular opinion. Had the finding of such an inquest
been treated as final and conclusive in criminal cases, English criminal
procedure might, like the continental inquisition, the French _enquête_,
have taken the path which, in the forcible language of Fortescue (_De
laudibus_, &c.) "leads to hell" (_semita ipsa est ad gehennam_).
Fortunately English criminal procedure took a different course. The
spirit of the old accusatory procedure was applied to the new procedure
by inquest. In serious cases the words of the jurors, the accusing
jurors, were treated not as testimony, but as accusation, the new
indictment was treated as corresponding to the old appeal, and the
preliminary finding by the accusing jury had to be supplemented by the
verdict of another jury. In course of time the second jury were required
to base their findings not on their own knowledge, but on evidence
submitted to them. Thus the modern system of inquiry by grand jury and
trial by petty jury was gradually developed.
A few words may here be said about the parallel development of criminal
procedure on the continent of Europe. The tendency in the 12th and 13th
centuries to abolish the old formal methods of procedure, and to give
the new procedure the name of inquisition or inquest, was not peculiar
to England. Elsewhere the old procedure was breaking down at the same
time, and for similar reasons. It was the great pope Innocent III., the
pope of the fourth Lateran Council, who introduced the new
inquisitorial procedure into the canon law. The procedure was applied to
cases of heresy, and, as so applied, especially by the Dominicans,
speedily assumed the features which made it infamous. "Every safeguard
of innocence was abolished or disregarded; torture was freely used.
Everything seems to have been done to secure a conviction." Yet, in
spite of its monstrous defects, the inquisitorial procedure of the
ecclesiastical courts, secret in its methods, unfair to the accused,
having torture as an integral element, gradually forced its way into the
temporal courts, and may almost be said to have been adopted by the
common law of western Europe. In connexion with this inquisitorial
procedure continental jurists elaborated a theory of evidence, or
judicial proofs, which formed the subject of an extensive literature.
Under the rules thus evolved full proof (_plena probatio_) was essential
for conviction, in the absence of confession, and the standard of full
proof was fixed so high that it was in most cases unattainable. It
therefore became material to obtain confession by some means or other.
The most effective means was torture, and thus torture became an
essential feature in criminal procedure. The rules of evidence attempted
to graduate the weight to be attached to different kinds of testimony
and almost to estimate that weight in numerical terms. "Le parlement de
Toulouse," said Voltaire, "a un usage très singulier dans les preuves
par témoins. On admet ailleurs des demi-preuves, ... mais à Toulouse on
admet des quarts et des huitièmes de preuves." Modern continental
procedure, as embodied in the most recent codes, has removed the worst
features of inquisitorial procedure, and has shaken itself free from the
trammels imposed by the old theory and technical rules of proof. But in
this, as in other branches of law, France seems to have paid the penalty
for having been first in the field with codification by lagging behind
in material reforms. The French Code of Criminal Procedure was largely
based on Colbert's Ordonnance of 1670, and though embodying some
reforms, and since amended on certain points, still retains some of the
features of the unreformed procedure which was condemned in the 18th
century by Voltaire and the _philosophes_. Military procedure is in the
rear of civil procedure, and the trial of Captain Dreyfus at Rennes in
1899 presented some interesting archaisms. Among these were the weight
attached to the rank and position of witnesses as compared with the
intrinsic character of their evidence, and the extraordinary importance
attributed to confession even when made under suspicious circumstances
and supported by flimsy evidence.
The history of criminal procedure in England has been traced by Sir
James Stephen. The modern rules and practice as to evidence and
witnesses in the common law courts, both in civil and in criminal cases,
appear to have taken shape in the course of the 18th century. The first
systematic treatise on the English law of evidence appears to have been
written by Chief Baron Gilbert, who died in 1726, but whose _Law of
Evidence_ was not published until 1761. In writing it he is said to have
been much influenced by Locke.[1] It is highly praised by Blackstone as
"a work which it is impossible to abstract or abridge without losing
some beauty and destroying the charm of the whole"; but Bentham, who
rarely agrees with Blackstone, speaks of it as running throughout "in
the same strain of anility, garrulity, narrow-mindedness, absurdity,
perpetual misrepresentation and indefatigable self-contradiction." In
any case it remained the standard authority on the law of evidence
throughout the remainder of the 18th century. Bentham wrote his
_Rationale of Judicial Evidence, specially applied to English Practice_,
at various times between the years 1802 and 1812. By this time he had
lost the nervous and simple style of his youth, and required an editor
to make him readable. His great interpreter, Dumont, condensed his views
on evidence into the _Traité des preuves judiciaires_, which was
published in 1823. The manuscript of the _Rationale_ was edited for
English reading, and to a great extent rewritten, by J.S. Mill, and was
published in five volumes in 1827. The book had a great effect both in
England and on the continent. The English version, though crabbed and
artificial in style, and unmeasured in its invective, is a storehouse of
comments and criticisms on the principles of evidence and the practice
of the courts, which are always shrewd and often profound. Bentham
examined the practice of the courts by the light of practical utility.
Starting from the principle that the object of judicial evidence is the
discovery of truth, he condemned the rules which excluded some of the
best sources of evidence. The most characteristic feature of the
common-law rules of evidence was, as Bentham pointed out, and, indeed,
still is, their exclusionary character. They excluded and prohibited the
use of certain kinds of evidence which would be used in ordinary
inquiries. In particular, they disqualified certain classes of witnesses
on the ground of interest in the subject-matter of the inquiry, instead
of treating the interest of the witness as a matter affecting his
credibility. It was against this confusion between competency and
credibility that Bentham directed his principal attack. He also attacked
the system of paper evidence, evidence by means of affidavits instead of
by oral testimony in court, which prevailed in the court of chancery,
and in ecclesiastical courts. Subsequent legislation has endorsed his
criticisms. The Judicature Acts have reduced the use of affidavits in
chancery proceedings within reasonable limits. A series of acts of
parliament have removed, step by step, almost all the disqualifications
which formerly made certain witnesses incompetent to testify.
Before Bentham's work appeared, an act of 1814 had removed the
incompetency of ratepayers as witnesses in certain cases relating to
parishes. The Civil Procedure Act 1833 enacted that a witness should not
be objected to as incompetent, solely on the ground that the verdict or
judgment would be admissible in evidence for or against him. An act of
1840 removed some doubts as to the competency of ratepayers to give
evidence in matters relating to their parish. The Evidence Act 1843
enacted broadly that witnesses should not be excluded from giving
evidence by reason of incapacity from crime or interest. The Evidence
Act 1851 made parties to legal proceedings admissible witnesses subject
to a proviso that "nothing herein contained shall render any person who
in any criminal proceeding is charged with the commission of any
indictable offence, or any offence punishable on summary conviction,
competent or compellable to give evidence for or against himself or
herself, or shall render any person compellable to answer any question
tending to criminate himself or herself, or shall in any criminal
proceeding render any husband competent or compellable to give evidence
for or against his wife, or any wife competent or compellable to give
evidence for or against her husband." The Evidence (Scotland) Act 1853
made a similar provision for Scotland. The Evidence Amendment Act 1853
made the husbands and wives of parties admissible witnesses, except that
husbands and wives could not give evidence for or against each other in
criminal proceedings or in proceedings for adultery, and could not be
compelled to disclose communications made to each other during marriage.
Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857 the petitioner can be examined and
cross-examined on oath at the hearing, but is not bound to answer any
question tending to show that he or she has been guilty of adultery.
Under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1859, on a wife's petition for
dissolution of marriage on the ground of adultery coupled with cruelty
or desertion, husband and wife are competent and compellable to give
evidence as to the cruelty or desertion. The Crown Suits &c. Act 1865
declared that revenue proceedings were not to be treated as criminal
proceedings for the purposes of the acts of 1851 and 1853. The Evidence
Further Amendment Act 1869 declared that parties to actions for breach
of promise of marriage were competent to give evidence in the action,
subject to a proviso that the plaintiff should not recover unless his or
her testimony was corroborated by some other material evidence. It also
made the parties to proceedings instituted in consequence of adultery,
and their husbands and wives, competent to give evidence, but a witness
in any such proceeding, whether a party or not, is not to be liable to
be asked or bound to answer any question tending to show that he or she
has been guilty of adultery, unless the witness has already given
evidence in the same proceeding in disproof of the alleged adultery.
There are similar provisions applying to Scotland in the Conjugal Rights
(Scotland) Amendment Act 1861, and the Evidence Further Amendment
(Scotland) Act 1874. The Evidence Act 1877 enacts that "on the trial of
any indictment or other proceeding for the non-repair of any public
highway or bridge, or for a nuisance to any public highway, river, or
bridge, and of any other indictment or proceeding instituted for the
purpose of trying or enforcing a civil right only, every defendant to
such indictment or proceeding, and the wife or husband of any such
defendant shall be admissible witnesses and compellable to give
evidence." From 1872 onwards numerous enactments were passed making
persons charged with particular offences, and their husbands and wives,
competent witnesses. The language and effect of these enactments were
not always the same, but the insertion of some provision to this effect
in an act creating a new offence, especially if it was punishable by
summary proceedings, gradually became almost a common form in
legislation. In the year 1874 a bill to generalize these particular
provisions, and to make the evidence of persons charged with criminal
offences admissible in all cases was introduced by Mr Gladstone's
government, and was passed by the standing committee of the House of
Commons. During the next fourteen years bills for the same purpose were
repeatedly introduced, either by the government of the day, or by Lord
Bramwell as an independent member of the House of Lords. Finally the
Criminal Evidence Act 1898, introduced by Lord Halsbury, has enacted in
general terms that "every person charged with an offence, and the wife
or husband, as the case may be, of the person so charged, shall be a
competent witness for the defence at every stage of the proceedings,
whether the person so charged is charged solely or jointly with any
other person." But this general enactment is qualified by some special
restrictions, the nature of which will be noticed below. The act applies
to Scotland but not to Ireland. It was not to apply to proceedings in
courts-martial unless so applied by general orders or rules made under
statutory authority. The provisions of the act have been applied by
rules to military courts-martial, but have not yet been applied to naval
courts-martial. The removal of disqualifications for want of religious
belief is referred to below under the head of "Witnesses."
Literature.
The act of 1898 finishes for the present the history of English
legislation on evidence. For a view of the legal literature on the
subject it is necessary to take a step backwards. Early in the 19th
century Chief Baron Gilbert was superseded as an authority on the
English law of evidence by the books of Phillips (1814) and Starkie
(1824), who were followed by Roscoe (_Nisi Prius_, 1827; Criminal
Cases, 1835), Greenleaf (American, 1842), Taylor (based on Greenleaf,
1848), and Best (1849). In 1876 Sir James FitzJames Stephen brought
out his _Digest of the Law of Evidence_, based upon the Indian
Evidence Act 1872, which he had prepared and passed as law member of
the council of the governor-general of India. This Digest obtained a
rapid and well-deserved success, and has materially influenced the
form of subsequent writings on the English law of evidence. It sifted
out what Stephen conceived to be the main rules of evidence from the
mass of extraneous matter in which they had been embedded. Roscoe's
Digests told the lawyer what things must be proved in order to sustain
particular actions or criminal charges, and related as much to
pleadings and to substantive law as to evidence proper. Taylor's two
large volumes were a vast storehouse of useful information, but his
book was one to consult, not to master. Stephen eliminated much of
this extraneous matter, and summed up his rules in a series of
succinct propositions, supplemented by apt illustrations, and couched
in such a form that they could be easily read and remembered. Hence
the English Digest, like the Indian Act, has been of much educational
value. Its most original feature, but unfortunately also its weakest
point, is its theory of relevancy. Pondering the multitude of
"exclusionary" rules which had been laid down by the English courts,
Stephen thought that he had discovered the general principle on which
those rules reposed, and could devise a formula by which the principle
could be expressed. "My study of the subject," he says, "both
practically and in books has convinced me that the doctrine that all
facts in issue and relevant to the issue, and no others, may be
proved, is the unexpressed principle which forms the centre of and
gives unity to all the express negative rules which form the great
mass of the law." The result was the chapter on the relevancy of facts
in the Indian Evidence Act, and the definition of relevancy in s. 7 of
that act. This definition was based on the view that a distinction
could be drawn between things which were and things which were not
causally connected with each other, and that relevancy depended on
causal connexion. Subsequent criticism convinced Stephen that his
definition was in some respects too narrow and in others too wide, and
eventually he adopted a definition out of which all reference to
causality was dropped. But even in their amended form the provisions
about relevancy are open to serious criticism. The doctrine of
relevancy, i.e. of the probative effect of facts, is a branch of
logic, not of law, and is out of place both in an enactment of the
legislature and in a compendium of legal rules. The necessity under
which Stephen found himself of extending the range of relevant facts
by making it include facts "deemed to be relevant," and then narrowing
it by enabling the judge to exclude evidence of facts which are
relevant, illustrates the difference between the rules of logic and
the rules of law. Relevancy is one thing; admissibility is another;
and the confusion between them, which is much older than Stephen, is
to be regretted. Rightly or wrongly English judges have, on practical
grounds, declared inadmissible evidence of facts, which are relevant
in the ordinary sense of the term, and which are so treated in
non-judicial inquiries. Under these circumstances the attempt so to
define relevancy as to make it conterminous with admissibility is
misleading, and most readers of Stephen's Act and Digest would find
them more intelligible and more useful if "admissible" were
substituted for "relevant" throughout. Indeed it is hardly too much to
say that Stephen's doctrine of relevancy is theoretically unsound and
practically useless. The other parts of the work contain terse and
vigorous statements of the law, but a Procrustean attempt to make
legal rules square with a preconceived theory has often made the
language and arrangement artificial, and the work, in spite of its
compression, still contains rules which, under a more scientific
treatment, would find their appropriate place in other branches of the
law. These defects are characteristic of a strong and able man, who
saw clearly, and expressed forcibly what he did see, but was apt to
ignore or to deny the existence of what he did not see, whose mind was
vigorous rather than subtle or accurate, and who, in spite of his
learning, was somewhat deficient in the historical sense. But
notwithstanding these defects, the conspicuous ability of the author,
his learning, and his practical experience, especially in criminal
cases, attach greater weight to FitzJames Stephen's statements than to
those of any other English writer on the law of evidence.
Rules.
The object of every trial is, or may be, to determine two classes of
questions or issues, which are usually distinguished as questions of
law, and questions of fact, although the distinction between them is not
so clear as might appear on a superficial view. In a trial by jury these
two classes of questions are answered by different persons. The judge
lays down the law. The jury, under the guidance of the judge, find the
facts. It was with reference to trial by jury that the English rules of
evidence were originally framed; it is by the peculiarities of this form
of trial that many of them are to be explained; it is to this form of
trial alone that some of the most important of them are exclusively
applicable. The negative, exclusive, or exclusionary rules which form
the characteristic features of the English law of evidence, are the
rules in accordance with which the judge guides the jury. There is no
difference of principle between the method of inquiry in judicial and in
non-judicial proceedings. In either case a person who wishes to find out
whether a particular event did or did not happen, tries, in the first
place, to obtain information from persons who were present and saw what
happened (direct evidence), and, failing this, to obtain information
from persons who can tell him about facts from which he can draw an
inference as to whether the event did or did not happen (indirect
evidence). But in judicial inquiries the information given must be given
on oath, and be liable to be tested by cross-examination. And there are
rules of law which exclude from the consideration of the jury certain
classes of facts which, in an ordinary inquiry, would, or might, be
taken into consideration. Facts so excluded are said to be "not
admissible as evidence," or "not evidence," according as the word is
used in the wider or in the narrower sense. And the easiest way of
determining whether a fact is or is not evidence in the narrower sense,
is first to consider whether it has any bearing on the question to be
tried, and, if it has, to consider whether it falls within any one or
more of the rules of exclusion laid down by English law. These rules of
exclusion are peculiar to English law and to systems derived from
English law. They have been much criticized, and some of them have been
repealed or materially modified by legislation. Most of them may be
traced to directions given by a judge in the course of trying a
particular case, given with special reference to the circumstances of
that case, but expressed in general language, and, partly through the
influence of text-writers, eventually hardened into general rules. In
some cases their origin is only intelligible by reference to obsolete
forms of pleading or practice. But in most cases they were originally
rules of convenience laid down by the judge for the assistance of the
jury. The judge is a man of trained experience, who has to arrive at a
conclusion with the help of twelve untrained men, and who is naturally
anxious to keep them straight, and give them every assistance in his
power. The exclusion of certain forms of evidence assists the jury by
concentrating their attention on the questions immediately before them,
and by preventing them from being distracted or bewildered by facts
which either have no bearing on the question before them, or have so
remote a bearing on those questions as to be practically useless as
guides to the truth. It also prevents a jury from being misled by
statements the effect of which, through the prejudice they excite, is
out of all proportion to their true weight. In this respect the rules of
exclusion may be compared to blinkers, which keep a horse's eyes on the
road before him. In criminal cases the rules of exclusion secure fair
play to the accused, because he comes to the trial prepared to meet a
specific charge, and ought not to be suddenly confronted by statements
which he had no reason to expect would be made against him. They protect
absent persons against statements affecting their character. And lastly
they prevent the infinite waste of time which would ensue in the
discussion of a question of fact if an inquiry were allowed to branch
out into all the subjects with which that fact is more or less
connected. The purely practical grounds on which the rules are based,
according to the view of a great judge, may be illustrated by some
remarks of Mr Justice Willes (1814-1872). In discussing the question
whether evidence of the plaintiff's conduct on other occasions ought to
be admitted, he said:--
"It is not easy in all cases to draw the line and to define with
accuracy where probability ceases and speculation begins; but we are
bound to lay down the rule to the best of our ability. No doubt the
rule as to confining the evidence to that which is relevant and
pertinent to the issue is one of great importance, not only as regards
the particular case, but also with reference to saving the time of the
court, and preventing the minds of the jury from being drawn away from
the real point they have to decide.... Now it appears to me that the
evidence proposed to be given in this case, if admitted, would not
have shown that it was more probable that the contract was subject to
the condition insisted upon by the defendant. The question may be put
thus, Does the fact of a person having once or many times in his life
done a particular act in a particular way make it more probable that
he has done the same thing in the same way upon another and different
occasion? To admit such speculative evidence would, I think, be
fraught with great danger.... If such evidence were held admissible it
would be difficult to say that the defendant might not in any case,
where the question was whether or not there had been a sale of goods
on credit, call witnesses to prove that the plaintiff had dealt with
other persons upon a certain credit; or, in an action for an assault,
that the plaintiff might not give evidence of former assaults
committed by the defendant upon other persons, or upon other persons
of a particular class, for the purpose of showing that he was a
quarrelsome individual, and therefore that it was highly probable that
the particular charge of assault was well founded. The extent to which
this sort of thing might be carried is inconceivable.... To obviate
the prejudices, the injustice, and the waste of time to which the
admission of such evidence would lead, and bearing in mind the extent
to which it might be carried, and that litigants are mortal, it is
necessary not only to adhere to the rule, but to lay it down strictly.
I think, therefore, the fact that the plaintiff had entered into
contracts of a particular kind with other persons on other occasions
could not be properly admitted in evidence where no custom of trade
to make such contracts, and no connexion between such and the one in
question, was shown to exist" (_Hollingham v. Head_, 1858, 4 C.B. N.S.
388).
There is no difference between the principles of evidence in civil and
in criminal cases, although there are a few special rules, such as those
relating to confessions and to dying declarations, which are only
applicable to criminal proceedings. But in civil proceedings the issues
are narrowed by mutual admissions of the parties, more use is made of
evidence taken out of court, such as affidavits, and, generally, the
rules of evidence are less strictly applied. It is often impolitic to
object to the admission of evidence, even when the objection may be
sustained by previous rulings. The general tendency of modern procedure
is to place a more liberal and less technical construction on rules of
evidence, especially in civil cases. In recent volumes of law reports
cases turning on the admissibility of evidence are conspicuous by their
rarity. Various causes have operated in this direction. One of them has
been the change in the system of pleading, under which each party now
knows before the actual trial the main facts on which his opponent
relies. Another is the interaction of chancery and common-law practice
and traditions since the Judicature Acts. In the chancery courts the
rules of evidence were always less carefully observed, or, as
Westminster would have said, less understood, than in the courts of
common law. A judge trying questions of fact alone might naturally think
that blinkers, though useful for a jury, are unnecessary for a judge.
And the chancery judge was apt to read his affidavits first, and to
determine their admissibility afterwards. In the meantime they had
affected his mind.
The tendency of modern text-writers, among whom Professor J.B. Thayer
(1831-1902), of Harvard, was perhaps the most independent, instructive
and suggestive, is to restrict materially the field occupied by the law
of evidence, and to relegate to other branches of the law topics
traditionally treated under the head of evidence. Thus in every way the
law of evidence, though still embodying some principles of great
importance, is of less comparative importance as a branch of English law
than it was half a century ago. Legal rules, like dogmas, have their
growth and decay. First comes the judge who gives a ruling in a
particular case. Then comes the text-writer who collects the scattered
rulings, throws them into the form of general propositions, connects
them together by some theory, sound or unsound, and often ignores or
obscures their historical origin. After him comes the legislator who
crystallizes the propositions into enactments, not always to the
advantage of mankind. So also with decay. Legal rules fall into the
background, are explained away, are ignored, are denied, are overruled.
Much of the English law of evidence is in a stage of decay.
The subject-matter of the law of evidence may be arranged differently
according to the taste or point of view of the writer. It will be
arranged here under the following heads:--I. Preliminary Matter; II.
Classes of Evidence; III. Rules of Exclusion; IV. Documentary Evidence;
V. Witnesses.
I. PRELIMINARY MATTER
Under this head may be grouped certain principles and considerations
which limit the range of matters to which evidence relates.
1. _Law and Fact._--Evidence relates only to facts. It is therefore
necessary to touch on the distinction between law and facts. _Ad
quaestionem facti non respondent judices; ad quaestionem juris non
respondent juratores._ Thus Coke, attributing, after his wont, to
Bracton a maxim which may have been invented by himself. The maxim
became the subject of political controversy, and the two rival views are
represented by Pulteney's lines--
"For twelve honest men have decided the cause
Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws,"
and by Lord Mansfield's variant--
"Who are judges of facts, but not judges of laws."
The particular question raised with respect to the law of libel was
settled by Fox's Libel Act 1792. Coke's maxim describes in a broad
general way the distinction between the functions of the judge and of
the jury, but is only true subject to important qualifications. Judges
in jury cases constantly decide what may be properly called questions of
fact, though their action is often disguised by the language applied or
the procedure employed. Juries, in giving a general verdict, often
practically take the law into their own hands. The border-line between
the two classes of questions is indicated by the "mixed questions of law
and fact," to use a common phrase, which arise in such cases as those
relating to "necessaries," "due diligence," "negligence,"
"reasonableness," "reasonable and probable cause." In the treatment of
these cases the line has been drawn differently at different times, and
two conflicting tendencies are discernible. On the one hand, there is
the natural tendency to generalize common inferences into legal rules,
and to fix legal standards of duty. On the other hand, there is the
sound instinct that it is a mistake to define and refine too much in
these cases, and that the better course is to leave broadly to the jury,
under the general guidance of the judge, the question what would be done
by the "reasonable" or "prudent" man in particular cases. The latter
tendency predominates in modern English law, and is reflected by the
enactments in the recent acts codifying the law on bills of exchange and
sale of goods, that certain questions of reasonableness are to be
treated as questions of fact. On the same ground rests the dislike to
limit the right of a jury to give a general verdict in criminal cases.
Questions of custom begin by being questions of fact, but as the custom
obtains general recognition it becomes law. Many of the rules of the
English mercantile law were "found" as customs by Lord Mansfield's
special juries. Generally, it must be remembered that the jury act in
subordinate co-operation with the judge, and that the extent to which
the judge limits or encroaches on the province of the jury is apt to
depend on the personal idiosyncrasy of the judge.
2. _Judicial Notice._--It may be doubted whether the subject of judicial
notice belongs properly to the law of evidence, and whether it does not
belong rather to the general topic of legal or judicial reasoning.
Matters which are the subject of judicial notice are part of the
equipment of the judicial mind. It would be absurd to require evidence
of every fact; many facts must be assumed to be known. The judge, like
the juryman, is supposed to bring with him to the consideration of the
question which he has to try common sense, a general knowledge of human
nature and the ways of the world, and also knowledge of things that
"everybody is supposed to know." Of such matters judicial notice is said
to be taken. But the range of general knowledge is indefinite, and the
range of judicial notice has, for reasons of convenience, been fixed or
extended, both by rulings of the judges and by numerous enactments of
the legislature. It would be impossible to enumerate here the matters of
which judicial notice must or may be taken. These are to be found in the
text-books. For present purposes it must suffice to say that they
include not only matters of fact of common and certain knowledge, but
the law and practice of the courts, and many matters connected with the
government of the country.
3. _Presumptions._--A presumption in the ordinary sense is an inference.
It is an argument, based on observation, that what has happened in some
cases will probably happen in others of the like nature. The subject of
presumptions, so far as they are mere inferences or arguments, belongs,
not to the law of evidence, or to law at all, but to rules of reasoning.
But a legal presumption, or, as it is sometimes called, a presumption of
law, as distinguished from a presumption of fact, is something more. It
may be described, in Stephen's language, as "a rule of law that courts
and judges shall draw a particular inference from a particular fact, or
from particular evidence, unless and until the truth" (perhaps it would
be better to say 'soundness') "of the inference is disproved." Courts
and legislatures have laid down such rules on grounds of public policy
or general convenience, and the rules have then to be observed as rules
of positive law, not merely used as part of the ordinary process of
reasoning or argument. Some so-called presumptions are rules of
substantive law under a disguise. To this class appear to belong
"conclusive presumptions of law," such as the common-law presumption
that a child under seven years of age cannot commit a felony. So again
the presumption that every one knows the law is merely an awkward way of
saying that ignorance of the law is not a legal excuse for breaking it.
Of true legal presumptions, the majority may be dealt with most
appropriately under different branches of the substantive law, such as
the law of crime, of property, or of contract, and accordingly Stephen
has included in his _Digest of the Law of Evidence_ only some which are
common to more than one branch of the law. The effect of a presumption
is to impute to certain facts or groups of facts a prima facie
significance or operation, and thus, in legal proceedings, to throw upon
the party against whom it works the duty of bringing forward evidence to
meet it. Accordingly the subject of presumptions is intimately connected
with the subject of the burden of proof, and the same legal rule may be
expressed in different forms, either as throwing the advantage of a
presumption on one side, or as throwing the burden of proof on the
other. Thus the rule in Stephen's Digest, which says that the burden of
proving that any person has been guilty of a crime or wrongful act is on
the person who asserts it, appears in the article entitled "Presumption
of Innocence." Among the more ordinary and more important legal
presumptions are the presumption of regularity in proceedings, described
generally as a presumption _omnia esse rite acta_, and including the
presumption that the holder of a public office has been duly appointed,
and has duly performed his official duties, the presumption of the
legitimacy of a child born during the mother's marriage, or within the
period of gestation after her husband's death, and the presumptions as
to life and death. "A person shown not to have been heard of for seven
years by those (if any) who, if he had been alive, would naturally have
heard of him, is presumed to be dead unless the circumstances of the
case are such as to account for his not being heard of without assuming
his death; but there is no presumption as to the time when he died, and
the burden of proving his death at any particular time is upon the
person who asserts it. There is no presumption" (i.e. legal presumption)
"as to the age at which a person died who is shown to have been alive at
a given time, or as to the order in which two or more persons died who
are shown to have died in the same accident, shipwreck or battle"
(Stephen, _Dig._, art. 99). A document proved or purporting to be thirty
years old is presumed to be genuine, and to have been properly executed
and (if necessary) attested if produced from the proper custody. And the
legal presumption of a "lost grant," i.e. the presumption that a right
or alleged right which has been long enjoyed without interruption had a
legal origin, still survives in addition to the common law and statutory
rules of prescription.
4. _Burden of Proof._--The expression _onus probandi_ has come down from
the classical Roman law, and both it and the Roman maxims, _Agenti
incumbit probatio_, _Necessitas probandi incumbit ei qui dicit non ei
qui negat_, and _Reus excipiendo fit actor_, must be read with reference
to the Roman system of actions, under which nothing was admitted, but
the plaintiff's case was tried first; then, unless that failed, the
defendant's on his _exceptio_; then, unless that failed, the plaintiff's
on his _replicatio_, and so on. Under such a system the burden was
always on the "actor." In modern law the phrase "burden of proof" may
mean one of two things, which are often confused--the burden of
establishing the proposition or issue on which the case depends, and the
burden of producing evidence on any particular point either at the
beginning or at a later stage of the case. The burden in the former
sense ordinarily rests on the plaintiff or prosecutor. The burden in the
latter sense, that of going forward with evidence on a particular point,
may shift from side to side as the case proceeds. The general rule is
that he who alleges a fact must prove it, whether the allegation is
couched in affirmative or negative terms. But this rule is subject to
the effect of presumptions in particular cases, to the principle that in
considering the amount of evidence necessary to shift the burden of
proof regard must be had to the opportunities of knowledge possessed by
the parties respectively, and to the express provisions of statutes
directing where the burden of proof is to lie in particular cases. Thus
many statutes expressly direct that the proof of lawful excuse or
authority, or the absence of fraudulent intent, is to lie on the person
charged with an offence. And the Summary Jurisdiction Act 1848 provides
that if the information or complaint in summary proceedings negatives
any exemption, exception, proviso, or condition in the statute on which
it is founded, the prosecutor or complainant need not prove the
negative, but the defendant may prove the affirmative in his defence.
II. CLASSES OF EVIDENCE
Evidence is often described as being either oral or documentary. To
these two classes should be added a third, called by Bentham real
evidence, and consisting of things presented immediately to the senses
of the judge or the jury. Thus the judge or jury may go to view any
place the sight of which may help to an understanding of the evidence,
and may inspect anything sufficiently identified and produced in court
as material to the decision. Weapons, clothes and things alleged to have
been stolen or damaged are often brought into court for this purpose.
Oral evidence consists of the statements of witnesses. Documentary
evidence consists of documents submitted to the judge or jury by way of
proof. The distinction between primary and secondary evidence relates
only to documentary evidence, and will be noticed in the section under
that head. A division of evidence from another point of view is that
into direct and indirect, or, as it is sometimes called, circumstantial
evidence. By direct evidence is meant the statement of a person who saw,
or otherwise observed with his senses, the fact in question. By indirect
or circumstantial evidence is meant evidence of facts from which the
fact in question may be inferred. The difference between direct and
indirect evidence is a difference of kind, not of degree, and therefore
the rule or maxim as to "best evidence" has no application to it. Juries
naturally attach more weight to direct evidence, and in some legal
systems it is only this class of evidence which is allowed to have full
probative force. In some respects indirect evidence is superior to
direct evidence, because, as Paley puts it, "facts cannot lie," whilst
witnesses can and do. On the other hand facts often deceive; that is to
say, the inferences drawn from them are often erroneous. The
circumstances in which crimes are ordinarily committed are such that
direct evidence of their commission is usually not obtainable, and when
criminality depends on a state of mind, such as intention, that state
must necessarily be inferred by means of indirect evidence.
III. RULES OF EXCLUSION
It seems desirable to state the leading rules of exclusion in their
crude form instead of obscuring their historical origin by attempting to
force them into the shape of precise technical propositions forming
parts of a logically connected system. The judges who laid the
foundations of our modern law of evidence, like those who first
discoursed on the duties of trustees, little dreamt of the elaborate and
artificial system which was to be based upon their remarks. The rules
will be found, as might be expected, to be vague, to overlap each other,
to require much explanation, and to be subject to many exceptions. They
may be stated as follows:--(1) Facts not relevant to the issue cannot be
admitted as evidence. (2) The evidence produced must be the best
obtainable under the circumstances. (3) Hearsay is not evidence. (4)
Opinion is not evidence.
1. _Rule of Relevancy._--The so-called rule of relevancy is sometimes
stated by text-writers in the form in which it was laid down by Baron
Parke in 1837 (_Wright_ v. _Doe and Tatham_, 7 A. and E. 384), when he
described "one great principle" in the law of evidence as being that
"all facts which are relevant to the issue may be proved." Stated in
different forms, the rule has been made by FitzJames Stephen the central
point of his theory of evidence. But relevancy, in the proper and
natural sense, as we have said, is a matter not of law, but of logic. If
Baron Parke's dictum relates to relevancy in its natural sense it is
not true; if it relates to relevancy in a narrow and artificial sense,
as equivalent to admissible, it is tautological. Such practical
importance as the rule of relevancy possesses consists, not in what it
includes, but in what it excludes, and for that reason it seems better
to state the rule in a negative or exclusive form. But whether the rule
is stated in a positive or in a negative form its vagueness is apparent.
No precise line can be drawn between "relevant" and "irrelevant" facts.
The two classes shade into each other by imperceptible degrees. The
broad truth is that the courts have excluded from consideration certain
matters which have some bearing on the question to be decided, and
which, in that sense, are relevant, and that they have done so on
grounds of policy and convenience. Among the matters so excluded are
matters which are likely to mislead the jury, or to complicate the case
unnecessarily, or which are of slight, remote, or merely conjectural
importance. Instances of the classes of matters so excluded can be
given, but it seems difficult to refer their exclusion to any more
general principle than this. Rules as to evidence of character and
conduct appear to fall under this principle. Evidence is not admissible
to show that the person who is alleged to have done a thing was of a
disposition or character which makes it probable that he would or would
not have done it. This rule excludes the biographical accounts of the
prisoner which are so familiar in French trials, and is an important
principle in English trials. It is subject to three exceptions: first,
that evidence of good character is admissible in favour of the prisoner
in all criminal cases; secondly, that a prisoner indicted for rape is
entitled to call evidence as to the immoral character of the
prosecutrix; and thirdly, that a witness may be called to say that he
would not believe a previous witness on his oath. The exception allowing
the good character of a prisoner to influence the verdict, as
distinguished from the sentence, is more humane than logical, and seems
to have been at first admitted in capital cases only. The exception in
rape cases does not allow evidence to be given of specific acts of
immorality with persons other than the prisoner, doubtless on the ground
that such evidence would affect the reputations of third parties. Where
the character of a person is expressly in issue, as in actions of libel
and slander, the rule of exclusion, as stated above, does not apply. Nor
does it prevent evidence of bad character from being given in mitigation
of damages, where the amount of damages virtually depends on character,
as in cases of defamation and seduction. As to conduct there is a
similar general rule, that evidence of the conduct of a person on other
occasions is not to be used merely for the purpose of showing the
likelihood of his having acted in a similar way on a particular
occasion. Thus, on a charge of murder, the prosecutor cannot give
evidence of the prisoner's conduct to other persons for the purpose of
proving a bloodthirsty and murderous disposition. And in a civil case a
defendant was not allowed to show that the plaintiff had sold goods on
particular terms to other persons for the purpose of proving that he had
sold similar goods on the same terms to the defendant. But this general
rule must be carefully construed. Where several offences are so
connected with each other as to form parts of an entire transaction,
evidence of one is admissible as proof of another. Thus, where a
prisoner is charged with stealing particular goods from a particular
place, evidence may be given that other goods, taken from the same place
at the same time, were found in his possession. And where it is proved
or admitted that a person did a particular act, and the question is as
to his state of mind, that is to say, whether he did the act knowingly,
intentionally, fraudulently, or the like, evidence may be given of the
commission by him of similar acts on other occasions for the purpose of
proving his state of mind on the occasion. This principle is most
commonly applied in charges for uttering false documents or base coin,
and not uncommonly in charges for false pretences, embezzlement or
murder. In proceedings for the receipt or possession of stolen property,
the legislature has expressly authorized evidence to be given of the
possession by the prisoner of other stolen property, or of his previous
conviction of an offence involving fraud or dishonesty (Prevention of
Crimes Act 1871). Again, where there is a question whether a person
committed an offence, evidence may be given of any fact supplying a
motive or constituting preparation for the offence, of any subsequent
conduct of the person accused, which is apparently influenced by the
commission of the offence, and of any act done by him, or by his
authority, in consequence of the offence. Thus, evidence may be given
that, after the commission of the alleged offence, the prisoner
absconded, or was in possession of the property, or the proceeds of the
property, acquired by the offence, or that he attempted to conceal
things which were or might have been used in committing the offence, or
as to the manner in which he conducted himself when statements were made
in his presence and hearing. Statements made to or in the presence of a
person charged with an offence are admitted as evidence, not of the
facts stated, but of the conduct or demeanour of the person to whom or
in whose presence they are made, or of the general character of the
transaction of which they form part (under the _res gestae_ rule
mentioned below).
2. _Best Evidence Rule._--Statements to the effect of the best evidence
rule were often made by Chief Justice Holt about the beginning of the
18th century, and became familiar in the courts. Chief Baron Gilbert, in
his book on evidence, which must have been written before 1726, says
that "the first and most signal rule in relation to evidence is this,
that a man must have the utmost evidence the nature of the fact is
capable of." And in the great case of _Omichund_ v. _Barker_ (1744),
Lord Hardwicke went so far as to say, "The judges and sages of the law
have laid down that there is but one general rule of evidence, the best
that the nature of the case will admit" (1 Atkyns 49). It is no wonder
that a rule thus solemnly stated should have found a prominent place in
text-books on the law of evidence. But, apart from its application to
documentary evidence, it does not seem to be more than a useful guiding
principle which underlies, or may be used in support of, several rules.
It is to documentary evidence that the principle is usually applied, in
the form of the narrower rule excluding, subject to exceptions,
secondary evidence of the contents of a document where primary evidence
is obtainable. In this form the rule is a rule of exclusion, but may be
most conveniently dealt with in connexion with the special subject of
documentary evidence. As noticed above, the general rule does not apply
to the difference between direct and indirect evidence. And, doubtless
on account of its vague character, it finds no place in Stephen's
Digest.
3. _Hearsay._--The term "hearsay" primarily applies to what a witness
has heard another person say in respect to a fact in dispute. But it is
extended to any statement, whether reduced to writing or not, which is
brought before the court, not by the author of the statement, but by a
person to whose knowledge the statement has been brought. Thus the
hearsay rule excludes statements, oral or written, made in the first
instance by a person who is not called as a witness in the case.
Historically this rule may be traced to the time when the functions of
the witnesses were first distinguished from the functions of the jury,
and when the witnesses were required by their formula to testify _de
visu suo et auditu_, to state what they knew about facts from the direct
evidence of their senses, not from the information of others. The rule
excludes statements the effect of which is liable to be altered by the
narrator, and which purport to have been made by persons who did not
necessarily speak under the sanction of an oath, and whose accuracy or
veracity is not tested by cross-examination. It is therefore of
practical utility in shutting out many loose statements and much
irresponsible gossip. On the other hand, it excludes statements which
are of some value as evidence, and may indeed be the only available
evidence. Thus, a statement has been excluded as hearsay, even though it
can be proved that the author of the statement made it on oath, or that
it was against his interest when he made it, or that he is prevented by
insanity or other illness from giving evidence himself, or that he has
left the country and disappeared, or that he is dead.
Owing to the inconveniences which would be caused by a strict
application of the rule, it has been so much eaten into by exceptions
that some persons doubt whether the rule and the exceptions ought not
to change places. Among the exceptions the following may be noticed:
(a) _Certain sworn statements_.--In many cases statements made by a
person whose evidence is material, but who cannot come before the
court, or could not come before it without serious difficulty, delay
or expense, may be admitted as evidence under proper safeguards. Under
the Indictable Offences Act 1848, where a person has made a deposition
before a justice at a preliminary inquiry into an offence, his
deposition may be read in evidence on proof that the deponent is dead,
or too ill to travel, that the deposition was taken in the presence of
the accused person, and that the accused then had a full opportunity
of cross-examining the deponent. The deposition must appear to be
signed by the justice before whom it purports to have been taken.
Depositions taken before a coroner are admissible under the same
principle. And the principle probably extends to cases where the
deponent is insane, or kept away by the person accused. There are
other statutory provisions for the admission of depositions, as in the
Criminal Law Amendment Act 1867; the Foreign Jurisdiction Act 1890;
and the Children Act 1908, incorporating an act of 1894. In civil
cases the rule excluding statements not made in court at the trial is
much less strictly applied. Frequent use is made of evidence taken
before an examiner, or under a commission. Affidavits are freely used
for subordinate issues or under an arrangement between the parties,
and leave may be given to use evidence taken in other proceedings. The
old chancery practice, under which evidence, both at the trial and at
other stages of a proceeding, was normally taken by affidavit,
irrespectively of consent, was altered by the Judicature Acts. Under
the existing rules of the supreme court evidence may be given by
affidavit upon any motion, petition or summons, but the court or a
judge may, on the application of either party, order the attendance
for cross-examination of the person making the affidavit. (b) _Dying
declarations._--In a trial for murder or manslaughter a declaration by
the person killed as to the cause of his death, or as to any of the
circumstances of the transaction which resulted in his death, is
admissible as evidence. But this exception is very strictly construed.
It must be proved that the declarant, at the time of making the
declaration, was in actual danger of death, and had given up all hope
of recovery. (c) _Statements in pedigree cases._--On a question of
pedigree the statement of a deceased person, whether based on his own
personal knowledge or on family tradition, is admissible as evidence,
if it is proved that the person who made the statement was related to
the person about whose family relations the statement was made, and
that the statement was made before the question with respect to which
the evidence is required had arisen. (d) _Statements as to matters of
public or general interest._--Statements by deceased persons are
admissible as evidence of reputation or general belief in questions
relating to the existence of any public or general right or custom, or
matter of public and general interest. Statements of this kind are
constantly admitted in questions relating to right of way, or rights
of common, or manorial or other local customs. Maps, copies of court
rolls, leases and other deeds, and verdicts, judgments, and orders of
court fall within the exception in cases of this kind. (e) _Statements
in course of duty or business._--A statement with respect to a
particular fact made by a deceased person in pursuance of his duty in
connexion with any office, employment or business, whether public or
private, is admissible as evidence of that fact, if the statement
appears to have been made from personal knowledge, and at or about the
time when the fact occurred. This exception covers entries by clerks
and other employees. (f) _Statements against interest._--A statement
made by a deceased person against his pecuniary or proprietary
interest is admissible as evidence, without reference to the time at
which it was made. Where such a statement is admissible the whole of
it becomes admissible, though it may contain matters not against the
interest of the person who made it, and though the total effect may be
in his favour. Thus, where there was a question whether a particular
sum was a gift or a loan, entries in an account book of receipt of
interest on the sum were admitted, and a statement in the book that
the alleged debtor had on a particular date acknowledged the loan was
also admitted. (g) _Public documents._--Under this head may be placed
recitals in public acts of parliament, notices in the _London_,
_Edinburgh_, or _Dublin Gazette_ (which are made evidence by statute
in a large number of cases), and entries made in the performance of
duty in official registers or records, such as registers of births,
deaths or marriages, registers of companies, records in judicial
proceedings, and the like. An entry in a public document may be
treated as a statement made in the course of duty, but it is
admissible whether the person who made the statement is alive or dead,
and without any evidence as to personal knowledge, or the time at
which the statement is made. (h) _Admissions._--By the term
"admission," as here used, is meant a statement made out of the
witness-box by a party to the proceedings, whether civil or criminal,
or by some person whose statements are binding on that party, against
the interest of that party. The term includes admissions made in
answer to interrogatories, or to a notice to admit facts, but not
admissions made on the pleadings. Admissions, in this sense of the
term, are admissible as evidence against the person by whom they are
made, or on whom they are binding, without reference to the life or
death of the person who made them. A person is bound by the statements
of his agent, acting within the scope of his authority, and barristers
and solicitors are agents for their clients in the conduct of legal
proceedings. Conversely, a person suing or defending on behalf of
another, e.g. as agent or trustee, is bound by the statements of the
person whom he represents. Statements respecting property made by a
predecessor in title bind the successor. Where a statement is put in
evidence as an admission by, or binding on, any person, that person is
entitled to have the whole statement given in evidence. The principle
of this rule is obviously sound, because it would be unfair to pick
out from a man's statement what tells against him, and to suppress
what is in his favour. But the application of the rule is sometimes
attended with difficulty. An admission will not be allowed to be used
as evidence if it was made under a stipulation, express or implied,
that it should not be so used. Such admissions are said to be made
"without prejudice." (i) _Confessions._--A confession is an admission
by a person accused of an offence that he has committed the offence of
which he is accused. But the rules about admitting as evidence
confessions in criminal proceedings are much more strict than the
rules about admissions in civil proceedings. The general rule is, that
a confession is not admissible as evidence against any person except
the person who makes it. But a confession made by one accomplice in
the presence of another is admissible against the latter to this
extent, that, if it implicates him, his silence under the charge may
be used against him, whilst on the other hand his prompt repudiation
of the charge might tell in his favour. In other words, the confession
may be used as evidence of the conduct of the person in whose presence
it was made. A confession cannot be admitted as evidence unless proved
to be voluntary. A confession is not treated as being voluntary if it
appears to the court to have been caused by any inducement, threat or
promise which proceeded from a magistrate or other person in authority
concerned in the charge, and which, in the opinion of the court, gave
the accused person reasonable ground for supposing that by making a
confession he would gain some advantage or avoid some evil in
reference to the proceedings against him. This applies to any
inducement, threat or promise having reference to the charge, whether
it is addressed directly to the accused person or is brought to his
knowledge indirectly. But a confession is not involuntary merely
because it appears to have been caused by the exhortations of a person
in authority to make it as a matter of religious duty, or by an
inducement collateral to the proceedings, or by an inducement held out
by a person having nothing to do with the apprehension, prosecution or
examination of the prisoner. Thus, a confession made to a gaol
chaplain in consequence of religious exhortation has been admitted as
evidence. So also has a confession made by a prisoner to a gaoler in
consequence of a promise by the gaoler, that if the prisoner confessed
he should be allowed to see his wife. To make a confession
involuntary, the inducement must have reference to the prisoner's
escape from the charge against him, and must be made by some person
having power to relieve him, wholly or partially, from the
consequences of the charge. A confession is treated as voluntary if,
in the opinion of the court, it was made after the complete removal of
the impression produced by any inducement, threat or promise which
would have made it involuntary. Where a confession was made under an
inducement which makes the confession involuntary, evidence may be
given of facts discovered in consequence of the confession, and of so
much of the confession as distinctly relates to those facts. Thus, A.
under circumstances which make the confession involuntary, tells a
policeman that he, A., had thrown a lantern into the pond. Evidence
may be given that the lantern was found in the pond, and that A. said
he had thrown it there. It is of course improper to try to extort a
confession by fraud or under the promise of secrecy. But if a
confession is otherwise admissible as evidence, it does not become
inadmissible _merely_ because it was made under a promise of secrecy,
or in consequence of a deception practised on the accused person for
the purpose of obtaining it, or when he was drunk, or because it was
made in answer to questions, whether put by a magistrate or by a
private person, or because he was not warned that he was not bound to
make the confession, and that it might be used against him. If a
confession is given in evidence, the whole of it must be given, and
not merely the parts disadvantageous to the accused person. Evidence
amounting to a confession may be used as such against the person who
gave it, though it was given on oath, and though the proceeding in
which it was given had reference to the same subject-matter as the
proceeding in which it is to be used, and though the witness might
have refused to answer the questions put to him. But if, after
refusing to answer such questions, the witness is improperly compelled
to answer, his answers are not a voluntary confession. The grave
jealousy and suspicion with which the English law regards confessions
offer a marked contrast to the importance attached to this form of
evidence in other systems of procedure, such as the inquisitorial
system which long prevailed, and still to some extent prevails, on the
continent. (j) _Res gestae._--Statements are often admitted as
evidence on the ground that they form part of what is called the
"transaction," or _res gestae_, the occurrence or nature of which is
in question. For instance, where an act may be proved, statements
accompanying and explaining the act made by or to the person doing it,
may be given in evidence. There is no difficulty in understanding the
principle on which this exception from the hearsay rule rests, but
there is often practical difficulty in applying it, and the practice
has varied. How long is the "transaction" to be treated as lasting?
What ought to be treated as "the immediate and natural effect of
continuing action," and, for that reason, as part of the _res gestae_?
When an act of violence is committed, to what extent are the terms of
the complaint made by the sufferer, as distinguished from the fact of
a complaint having been made, admissible as evidence? These are some
of the questions raised. The cases in which statements by a person as
to his bodily or mental condition may be put in evidence may perhaps
be treated as falling under the same principle. In the Rugeley
poisoning case, statements by the deceased person before his illness
as to his state of health, and as to his symptoms during illness, were
admitted as evidence for the prosecution. Under the same principle may
also be brought the rule as to statements in conspiracy cases. In
charges of conspiracy, after evidence has been given of the existence
of the plot, and of the connexion of the accused with it, the charge
against one conspirator may be supported by evidence of anything done,
written, or said, not only by him, but by any other of the
conspirators, in furtherance of the common purpose. On the other hand,
a statement made by one conspirator, not in execution of the common
purpose, but in narration of some event forming part of the
conspiracy, would be treated, not as part of the "transaction," but as
a statement excluded by the hearsay rule. Thus the admissibility of
writings in conspiracy cases may depend on the time when they can be
shown to have been in the possession of a fellow-conspirator, whether
before or after the prisoner's apprehension. (k) _Complaints in rape
cases, &c._--In trials for rape and similar offences, the fact that
shortly after the commission of the alleged offence a complaint was
made by the person against whom the offence was committed, and also
the terms of the complaint, have been admitted as evidence, not of the
facts complained of, but of the consistency of the complainant's
conduct with the story told by her in the witness-box, and as
negativing consent on her part.
4. _Opinion._--The rule excluding expressions of opinion also dates from
the first distinction between the functions of witnesses and jury. It
was for the witnesses to state facts, for the jury to form conclusions.
Of course every statement of fact involves inference, and implies a
judgment on phenomena observed by the senses. And the inference is often
erroneous, as in the answer to the question, "Was he drunk?" A prudent
witness will often guard himself, and is allowed to guard himself, by
answering to the best of his belief. But, for practical purposes, it is
possible to draw a distinction between a statement of facts observed and
an expression of opinion as to the inference to be drawn from these
facts, and the rule telling witnesses to state facts and not express
opinions is of great value in keeping their statements out of the region
of argument and conjecture. The evidence of "experts," that is to say,
of persons having a special knowledge of some particular subject, is
generally described as constituting the chief exception to the rule. But
perhaps it would be more accurate to say that experts are allowed a much
wider range than ordinary witnesses in the expression of their opinions,
and in the statement of facts on which their opinions are based. Thus,
in a poisoning case, a doctor may be asked as an expert whether, in his
opinion, a particular poison produces particular symptoms. And, where
lunacy is set up as a defence, an expert may be asked whether, in his
opinion, the symptoms exhibited by the alleged lunatic commonly show
unsoundness of mind, and whether such unsoundness of mind usually
renders persons incapable of knowing the nature of their acts, or of
knowing that what they do is either wrong or contrary to the law.
Similar principles are applied to the evidence of engineers, and in
numerous other cases. In cases of disputed handwriting the evidence of
experts in handwriting is expressly recognized by statute (Evidence and
Practice on Criminal Trials 1865).
IV. DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
Charters and other writings were exhibited to the jury at a very early
date, and it is to writings so exhibited that the term "evidence" or
"evidences" seems to have been originally applied _par excellence_. The
oral evidence of witnesses came later. Where a document is to be used as
evidence the first question is how its contents are to be proved. To
this question the principle of "best evidence" applies, in the form of
the rule that primary evidence must be given except in the cases where
secondary evidence is allowed. By primary evidence is meant the document
itself produced for inspection. By secondary evidence is meant a copy
of the document, or verbal accounts of its contents.
The rule as to the inadmissibility of a copy of a document is applied
much more strictly to private than to public or official documents.
Secondary evidence may be given of the contents of a private document
in the following cases:
(a) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession of
the adverse party, and he, after having been served with reasonable
notice to produce it, does not do so.
(b) Where the original is shown or appears to be in the possession or
power of a stranger not legally bound to produce it, and he, after
having been served with a writ of _subpoena duces tecum_, or after
having been sworn as a witness and asked for the document, and having
admitted that it is in court, refuses to produce it.
(c) Where it is shown that proper search has been made for the
original, and there is reason for believing that it is destroyed or
lost.
(d) Where the original is of such a nature as not to be easily
movable, as in the case of a placard posted on a wall, or of a
tombstone, or is in a country from which it is not permitted to be
removed.
(e) Where the original is a document for the proof of which special
provision is made by any act of parliament, or any law in force for
the time being. Documents of that kind are practically treated on the
same footing as private documents.
(f) Where the document is an entry in a banker's book, provable
according to the special provisions of the Bankers' Books Evidence Act
1879.
Secondary evidence of a private document is usually given either by
producing a copy and calling a witness who can prove the copy to be
correct, or, when there is no copy obtainable, by calling a witness
who has seen the document, and can give an account of its contents. No
general definition of public document is possible, but the rules of
evidence applicable to public documents are expressly applied by
statute to many classes of documents. Primary evidence of any public
document may be given by producing the document from proper custody,
and by a witness identifying it as being what it professes to be.
Public documents may always be proved by secondary evidence, but the
particular kind of secondary evidence required is in many cases
defined by statute. Where a document is of such a public nature as to
be admissible in evidence on its mere production from the proper
custody, and no statute exists which renders its contents provable by
means of a copy, any copy thereof or extract therefrom is admissible
as proof of its contents, if it is proved to be an examined copy or
extract, or purports to be signed or certified as a true copy or
extract by the officer to whose custody the original is entrusted.
Many statutes provide that various certificates, official and public
documents, documents and proceedings of corporations and of joint
stock and other companies, and certified copies of documents, by-laws,
entries in registers and other books, shall be receivable as evidence
of certain particulars in courts of justice, if they are authenticated
in the manner prescribed by the statutes. Whenever, by virtue of any
such provision, any such certificate or certified copy is receivable
as proof of any particular in any court of justice, it is admissible
as evidence, if it purports to be authenticated in the manner
prescribed by law, without calling any witness to prove any stamp,
seal, or signature required for its authentication, or the official
character of the person who appears to have signed it. The Documentary
Evidence Acts 1868, 1882 and 1895, provide modes of proving the
contents of several classes of proclamations, orders and regulations.
If a document is of a kind which is required by law to be attested,
but not otherwise, an attesting witness must be called to prove its
due execution. But this rule is subject to the following exceptions:
(a) If it is proved that there is no attesting witness alive, and
capable of giving evidence, then it is sufficient to prove that the
attestation of at least one attesting witness is in his handwriting,
and that the signature of the person executing the document is in the
handwriting of that person.
(b) If the document is proved, or purports to be, more than thirty
years old, and is produced from what the court considers to be its
proper custody, an attesting witness need not be called, and it will
be presumed without evidence that the instrument was duly executed and
attested.
Where a document embodies a judgment, a contract, a grant, or
disposition of property, or any other legal transaction or "act in the
law," on which rights depend, the validity of the transaction may be
impugned on the ground of fraud, incapacity, want of consideration, or
other legal ground. But this seems outside the law of evidence. In this
class of cases a question often arises whether extrinsic evidence can be
produced to vary the nature of the transaction embodied in the document.
The answer to this question seems to depend on whether the document was
or was not intended to be a complete and final statement of the
transaction which it embodies. If it was, you cannot go outside the
document for the purpose of ascertaining the nature of the transaction.
If it was not, you may. But the mere statement of this test shows the
difficulty of formulating precise rules, and of applying them when
formulated. FitzJames Stephen mentions, among the facts which may be
proved in these cases, the existence of separate and consistent oral
agreements as to matters on which the document is silent, if there is
reason to believe that the document is not a complete and final
statement of the transaction, and the existence of any usage or custom
with reference to which a contract may be presumed to have been made.
But he admits that the rules on the subject are "by no means easy to
apply, inasmuch as from the nature of the case an enormous number of
transactions fall close on one side or the other of most of them." The
underlying principle appears to be a rule of substantive law rather than
of evidence. When parties to an arrangement have reduced the terms of
the arrangement to a definite, complete, and final written form, they
should be bound exclusively by the terms embodied in that form. The
question in each case is under what circumstances they ought to be
treated as having done so.
The expression "parol evidence," which includes written as well as
verbal evidence, has often been applied to the extrinsic evidence
produced for the purpose of varying the nature of the transaction
embodied in a document. It is also applied to extrinsic evidence used
for another purpose, namely, that of explaining the meaning of the terms
used in a document. The two questions, What is the real nature of the
transaction referred to in a document? and, What is the meaning of a
document? are often confused, but are really distinct from each other.
The rules bearing on the latter question are rules of construction or
interpretation rather than of evidence, but are ordinarily treated as
part of the law of evidence, and are for that reason included by
FitzJames Stephen in his Digest. In stating these rules he adopts, with
verbal modifications, the six propositions laid down by Vice-Chancellor
Wigram in his _Examinations of the Rules of Law respecting the admission
of Extrinsic Evidence in Aid of the Interpretation of Wills_. The
substance of these propositions appears to be this, that wherever the
meaning of a document cannot be satisfactorily ascertained from the
document itself, use may be made of any other evidence for the purpose
of elucidating the meaning, subject to one restriction, that, except in
cases of equivocation, i.e. where a person or thing is described in
terms applicable equally to more than one, resort cannot be had to
extrinsic expressions of the author's intention.
V. WITNESSES
1. _Attendance._--If a witness does not attend voluntarily he can be
required to attend by a writ of _subpoena_.
2. _Competency._--As a general rule every person is a competent witness.
Formerly persons were disqualified by crime or interest, or by being
parties to the proceedings, but these disqualifications have now been
removed by statute, and the circumstances which formerly created them do
not affect the competency, though they may often affect the credibility,
of a witness.
Under the general law as it stood before the Criminal Evidence Act 1898
came into force, a person charged with an offence was not competent to
give evidence on his own behalf. But many exceptions had been made to
this rule by legislation, and the rule itself was finally abolished by
the act of 1898. Under that law a person charged is a competent witness,
but he can only give evidence for the defence, and can only give
evidence if he himself applies to do so. Under the law as it stood
before 1898, persons jointly charged and being tried together were not
competent to give evidence either for or against each other. Under the
act of 1898 a person charged jointly with another is a competent
witness, but only for the defence, and not for the prosecution. If,
therefore, one of the persons charged applies to give evidence his
cross-examination must not be conducted with a view to establish the
guilt of the other. Consequently, if it is thought desirable to use
against one prisoner the evidence of another who is being tried with
him, the latter should be released, or a separate verdict of not guilty
taken against him. A prisoner so giving evidence is popularly said to
turn king's evidence. It follows that, subject to what has been said
above as to persons tried together, the evidence of an accomplice is
admissible against his principal, and _vice versa_. The evidence of an
accomplice is, however, always received with great jealousy and caution.
A conviction on the unsupported testimony of an accomplice may, in some
cases, be strictly legal, but the practice is to require it to be
confirmed by unimpeachable testimony in some material part, and more
especially as to his identification of the person or persons against
whom his evidence may be received. The wife of a person charged is now a
competent witness, but, except in certain special cases, she can only
give evidence for the defence, and can only give evidence if her husband
applies that she should do so. The special cases in which a wife can be
called as a witness either for the prosecution or for the defence, and
without the consent of the person charged, are cases arising under
particular enactments scheduled to the act of 1898, and relating mainly
to offences against wives and children, and cases in which the wife is
by common law a competent witness against her husband, i.e. where the
proceeding is against the husband for bodily injury or violence
inflicted on his wife. The rule of exclusion extends only to a lawful
wife. There is no ground for supposing that the wife of a prosecutor is
an incompetent witness. A witness is incompetent if, in the opinion of
the court, he is prevented by extreme youth, disease affecting his mind,
or any other cause of the same kind, from recollecting the matter on
which he is to testify, from understanding the questions put to him,
from giving rational answers to those questions, or from knowing that he
ought to speak the truth. A witness unable to speak or hear is not
incompetent, but may give his evidence by writing or by signs, or in any
other manner in which he can make it intelligible. The particular form
of the religious belief of a witness, or his want of religious belief,
does not affect his competency. This ground of incompetency has now been
finally removed by the Oaths Act 1888. It will be seen that the effect
of the successive enactments which have gradually removed the
disqualifications attaching to various classes of witnesses has been to
draw a distinction between the _competency_ of a witness and his
_credibility_. No person is disqualified on moral or religious grounds,
but his character may be such as to throw grave doubts on the value of
his evidence. No relationship, except to a limited extent that of
husband and wife, excludes from giving evidence. The parent may be
examined on the trial of the child, the child on that of the parent,
master for or against servant, and servant for or against master. The
relationship of the witness to the prosecutor or the prisoner in such
cases may affect the credibility of the witness, but does not exclude
his evidence.
3. _Privilege._--It does not follow that, because a person is
_competent_ to give evidence, he can therefore be compelled to do so.
No one, except a person charged with an offence when giving evidence on
his own application, and as to the offence wherewith he is charged, is
bound to answer a question if the answer would, in the opinion of the
court, have a tendency to expose the witness, or the wife or husband of
the witness, to any criminal charge, penalty, or forfeiture, which the
court regards as reasonably likely to be preferred or sued for.
Accordingly, an accomplice cannot be examined without his consent, but
if an accomplice who has come forward to give evidence on a promise of
pardon, or favourable consideration, refuses to give full and fair
information, he renders himself liable to be convicted on his own
confession. However, even accomplices in such circumstances are not
required to answer on their cross-examination as to other offences.
Where, under the new law, a person charged with an offence offers
himself as a witness, he may be asked any question in cross-examination,
notwithstanding that it would tend to criminate him as to the offence
charged. But he may not be asked, and if he is asked must not be
required to answer, any question tending to show that he has committed,
or been convicted of, or been charged with, any other offence, or is of
bad character, unless:--
(i.) The proof that he has committed, or been convicted of, the other
offence is admissible evidence to show that he is guilty of the
offence with which he is then charged; or,
(ii.) He has personally, or by his advocate, asked questions of the
witnesses for the prosecution, with a view to establish his own good
character, or has given evidence of his good character, or the nature
or conduct of the defence is such as to involve imputations on the
character of the prosecutor or the witnesses for the prosecution; or,
(iii.) He has given evidence against any other person charged with the
same offence.
He may not be asked questions tending to criminate his wife.
The privilege as to criminating answers does not cover answers merely
tending to establish a civil liability. No one is excused from answering
a question or producing a document only because the answer or document
may establish or tend to establish that he owes a debt, or is otherwise
liable to any civil proceeding. It is a privilege for the protection of
the witness, and therefore may be waived by him. But there are other
privileges which cannot be so waived. Thus, on grounds of public policy,
no one can be compelled, or is allowed, to give evidence relating to any
affairs of state, or as to official communications between public
officers upon public affairs, except with the consent of the head of the
department concerned, and this consent is refused if the production of
the information asked for is considered detrimental to the public
service.
Again, in cases in which the government is immediately concerned, no
witness can be compelled to answer any question the answer to which
would tend to discover the names of persons by or to whom information
was given as to the commission of offences. It is, as a rule, for the
court to decide whether the permission of any such question would or
would not, under the circumstances of the particular case, be injurious
to the administration of justice.
A husband is not compellable to disclose any communication made to him
by his wife during the marriage; and a wife is not compellable to
disclose any communication made to her by her husband during the
marriage.
A legal adviser is not permitted, whether during or after the
termination of his employment as such, unless with his client's express
consent, to disclose any communication, oral or documentary, made to him
_as such legal adviser_, by or on behalf of his client, during, in the
course of, and for the purpose of his employment, or to disclose any
advice given by him to his client during, in the course of, and for the
purpose of such employment. But this protection does not extend to--
(a) Any such communication if made in furtherance of any criminal
purpose; nor
(b) Any fact observed by a legal adviser in the course of his employment
as such, showing that any crime or fraud has been committed since the
commencement of his employment, whether his attention was directed to
such fact by or on behalf of his client or not; nor
(c) Any fact with which the legal adviser became acquainted otherwise
than in his character as such.
Medical men and clergymen are not privileged from the disclosure of
communications made to them in professional confidence, but it is not
usual to press for the disclosures of communications made to clergymen.
4. _Oaths._--A witness must give his evidence under the sanction of an
oath, or of what is equivalent to an oath, that is to say, of a solemn
promise to speak the truth. The ordinary form of oath is adapted to
Christians, but a person belonging to a non-Christian religion may be
sworn in any form prescribed or recognized by the custom of his
religion. (See the article OATH.)
5. _Publicity._--The evidence of a witness at a trial must, as a general
rule, be given in open court in the course of the trial. The secrecy
which was such a characteristic feature of the "inquisition" procedure
is abhorrent to English law, and, even where publicity conflicts with
decency, English courts are very reluctant to dispense with or relax the
safeguards for justice which publicity involves.
6. _Examination._--The normal course of procedure is this. The party who
begins, i.e. ordinarily the plaintiff or prosecutor, calls his witnesses
in order. Each witness is first examined on behalf of the party for whom
he is called. This is called the examination in chief. Then he is liable
to be cross-examined on behalf of the other side. And, finally, he may
be re-examined on behalf of his own side. After the case for the other
side has been opened, the same procedure is adopted with the witnesses
for that side. In some cases the party who began is allowed to adduce
further evidence in reply to his opponent's evidence. The examination is
conducted, not by the court, but by or on behalf of the contending
parties. It will be seen that the principle underlying this procedure is
that of the duel, or conflict between two contending parties, each
relying on and using his own evidence, and trying to break down the
evidence of his opponent. It differs from the principle of the
"inquisition" procedure, in which the court takes a more active part,
and in which the cases for the two sides are not so sharply
distinguished. In a continental trial it is often difficult to determine
whether the case for the prosecution or the case for the defence is
proceeding. Conflicting witnesses stand up together and are "confronted"
with each other. In the examination in chief questions must be confined
to matters bearing on the main question at issue, and a witness must not
be asked leading questions, i.e. questions suggesting the answer which
the person putting the question wishes or expects to receive, or
suggesting disputed facts about which the witness is to testify. But the
rule about leading questions is not applied where the questions asked
are simply introductory, and form no part of the real substance of the
inquiry, or where they relate to matters which, though material, are not
disputed. And if the witness called by a person appears to be directly
hostile to him, or interested on the other side, or unwilling to reply,
the reason for the rules applying to examination in chief breaks down,
and the witness may be asked leading questions and cross-examined, and
treated in every respect as though he was a witness called on the other
side, except that a party producing a witness must not impeach his
credit by general evidence of bad character (Evidence and Practice on
Criminal Trials Act 1865). In cross-examination questions not bearing on
the main issue and leading questions may be put and (subject to the
rules as to privilege) must be answered, as the cross-examiner is
entitled to test the examination in chief by every means in his power.
Questions not bearing on the main issue are often asked in
cross-examination merely for the purpose of putting off his guard a
witness who is supposed to have learnt up his story. In
cross-examination questions may also be asked which tend either to test
the accuracy or credibility of the witness, or to shake his credit by
impeaching his motives or injuring his character. The licence allowed in
cross-examination has often been seriously abused, and the power of the
court to check it is recognized by one of the rules of the supreme court
(R.S.C. xxxvi. 39, added in 1883). It is considered wrong to put
questions which assume that facts have been proved which have not been
proved, or that answers have been given contrary to the fact. A witness
ought not to be pressed in cross-examination as to any facts which, if
admitted, would not affect the question at issue or the credibility of
the witness. If the cross-examiner intends to adduce evidence contrary
to the evidence given by the witness, he ought to put to the witness in
cross-examination the substance of the evidence which he proposes to
adduce, in order to give the witness an opportunity of retracting or
explaining. Where a witness has answered a question which only tends to
affect his credibility by injuring his character, it is only in a
limited number of cases that evidence can be given to contradict his
answer. Where he is asked whether he has ever been convicted of any
felony or misdemeanour, and denies or refuses to answer, proof may be
given of the truth of the facts suggested (28 & 29 Vict. c. 15, s. 6).
The same rule is observed where he is asked a question tending to show
that he is not impartial. Where a witness has previously made a
statement inconsistent with his evidence, proof may be given that he did
in fact make it. But before such proof is given the circumstances of the
alleged statement, sufficient to designate the particular occasion,
must be mentioned to the witness, and he must be asked whether he did or
did not make the statement. And if the statement was made in, or has
been reduced to, writing, the attention of the witness must, before the
writing is used against him, be called to those parts of the writing
which are to be used for the purpose of contradicting him (Evidence and
Practice on Criminal Trials Act 1865, ss. 4, 5). The credibility of a
witness may be impeached by the evidence of persons who swear that they,
from their knowledge of the witness, believe him to be unworthy of
credit on his oath. These persons may not on their examination in chief
give reasons for their belief, but they may be asked their reasons in
cross-examination, and their answers cannot be contradicted. When the
credit of a witness is so impeached, the party who called the witness
may give evidence in reply to show that the witness is worthy of credit.
Re-examination must be directed exclusively to the explanation of
matters referred to in cross-examination, and if new matter is, by the
permission of the court, introduced in re-examination, the other side
may further cross-examine upon it. A witness under examination may
refresh his memory by referring to any writing made by himself at or
about the time of the occurrence to which the writing relates, or made
by any other person, and read and found accurate by the witness at or
about the time. An expert may refresh his memory by reference to
professional treatises.
For the history of the English law of evidence, see Brunner,
_Entstehung der Schwurgerichte_; Bigelow, _History of Procedure in
England_; Stephen (Sir J.F.), _History of the Criminal Law of
England_; Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, bk. ii. ch.
ix.; Thayer, Preliminary Treatise on Evidence at the Common Law. The
principal text-books now in use are--Roscoe, _Digest of the Law of
Evidence on the Trial of Actions at Nisi Prius_ (18th ed., 1907);
Roscoe, _Digest of the Law of Evidence in Criminal Cases_ (13th ed.,
1908); Taylor, _Treatise on the Law of Evidence_ (10th ed., 1906);
Best, _Principles of the Law of Evidence_ (10th ed., 1906); Powell,
_Principles and Practice of the Law of Evidence_ (8th ed., 1904);
Stephen, _Digest of the Law of Evidence_ (8th ed., 1907); Wills,
_Theory and Practice of the Law of Evidence_ (1907). For the history
of the law of criminal evidence in France, see Esmein, _Hist. de la
procédure criminelle en France_. For Germany, see Holtzendorff,
_Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft_ (passages indexed under head
"Beweis"); Holtzendorff, _Rechtslexikon_ ("Beweis"). (C. P. I.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Reference may be made to a well-known passage in the _Essay
concerning Human Understanding_ (Book iv. ch. xv.): "The grounds of
probability are--First, the conformity of anything with our own
knowledge, observation and experience. Second, the testimony of
others touching their observation and experience. In the testimony of
others is to be considered (1) the number, (2) the integrity, (3) the
skill of the witnesses. (4) The design of the author, where it is a
testimony out of a book cited. (5) The consistency of the parts and
circumstances of the relation. (6) Contrary testimonies."
EVIL EYE. The terror of the arts of "fascination," i.e. that certain
persons can bewitch, injure and even kill with a glance, has been and is
still very widely spread. The power was not thought to be always
maliciously cultivated. It was as often supposed to be involuntary (cf.
Deuteronomy xxviii. 54); and a story is told of a Slav who, afflicted
with the evil eye, at last blinded himself in order that he might not be
the means of injuring his children (Woyciki, _Polish Folklore_, trans.
by Lewenstein, p. 25). Few of the old classic writers fail to refer to
the dread power. In Rome the "evil eye" was so well recognized that
Pliny states that special laws were enacted against injury to crops by
incantation, excantation or fascination. The power was styled [Greek:
baskania] by the Greeks and _fascinatio_ by the Latins. Children and
young animals of all kinds were thought to be specially susceptible.
Charms were worn against the evil eye both by man and beast, and in
Judges viii. 21 it is thought there is a reference to this custom in the
allusion to the "ornaments" on the necks of camels. In classic times the
wearing of amulets was universal. They were of three classes: (1) those
the intention of which was to attract on to themselves, as the
lightning-rod the lightning, the malignant glance; (2) charms hidden in
the bosom of the dress; (3) written words from sacred writings. Of these
three types the first was most numerous. They were oftenest of a
grotesque and generally grossly obscene nature. They were also made in
the form of frogs, beetles and so on. But the ancients did not wholly
rely on amulets. Spitting was among the Greeks and Romans a most common
antidote to the poison of the evil eye. According to Theocritus it is
necessary to spit three times into the breast of the person who fears
fascination. Gestures, too, often intentionally obscene, were regarded
as prophylactics on meeting the dreaded individual. The evil eye was
believed to have its impulse in envy, and thus it came to be regarded
as unlucky to have any of your possessions praised. Among the Romans,
therefore, it was customary when praising anything to add _Praefiscini
dixerim_ (Fain Evil! I should say). This custom survives in modern
Italy, where in like circumstances is said _Si mal occhio non ci fosse_
(May the evil eye not strike it). The object of these conventional
phrases was to prove that the speaker was sincere and had no evil
designs in his praise. Though there is no set formula, traces of the
custom are found in English rural sayings, e.g. the Somersetshire "I
don't wish ee no harm, so I on't zay no more." This is what the Scots
call "fore-speaking," when praise beyond measure is likely to be
followed by disease or accident. A Manxman will never say he is very
well: he usually admits that he is "middling," or qualifies his
admission of good health by adding "now" or "just now." The belief led
in many countries to the saying, when one heard anybody or anything
praised superabundantly, "God preserve him or it." So in Ireland, to
avoid being suspected of having the evil eye, it is advisable when
looking at a child to say "God bless it"; and when passing a farm-yard
where cows are collected at milking time it is usual for the peasant to
say, "The blessing of God be on you and all your labour." Bacon writes:
"It seems some have been so curious as to note that the times when the
stroke ... of an envious eye does most hurt are particularly when the
party envied is beheld in glory and triumph."
The powers of the evil eye seem indeed to have been most feared by the
prosperous. Its powers are often quoted as almost limitless. Thus one
record solemnly declares that in a town of Africa a fascinator called
Elzanar killed by his evil art no less than 80 people in two years (W.W.
Story, _Castle St Angelo_, 1877, p. 149). The belief as affecting cattle
was universal in the Scottish Highlands as late as the 18th century and
still lingers. Thus if a stranger looks admiringly on a cow the peasants
still think she will waste away, and they offer the visitor some of her
milk to drink in the belief that in this manner the spell is broken. The
modern Turks and Arabs also think that their horses and camels are
subject to the evil eye. But the people of Italy, especially the
Neapolitans, are the best modern instances of implicit believers. The
_jettatore_, as the owner of the evil eye is called, is so feared that
at his approach it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that a street will
clear: everybody will rush into doorways or up alleys to avoid the
dreaded glance. The _jettatore di bambini_ (fascinator of children) is
the most dreaded of all. The evil eye is still much feared for horses in
India, China, Turkey, Greece and almost everywhere where horses are
found. In rural England the pig is of all animals oftenest "overlooked."
While the Italians are perhaps the greatest believers in the evil eye as
affecting persons, the superstition is rife in the East. In India the
belief is universal. In Bombay the blast of the evil eye is supposed to
be a form of spirit-possession. In western India all witches and wizards
are said to be evil-eyed. Modern Egyptian mothers thus account for the
sickly appearance of their babies. In Turkey passages from the Koran are
painted on the outside of houses to save the inmates, and texts as
amulets are worn upon the person, or hung upon camels and horses by
Arabs, Abyssinians and other peoples. The superstition is universal
among savage races.
For a full discussion see _Evil Eye_ by F.T. Elworthy (London, 1895);
also W.W. Story, _Castle St Angelo and the Evil Eye_ (1877); E.N.
Rolfe and H. Ingleby, _Naples in 1888_ (1888); Johannes Christian
Frommann, _Tractatus de fascinatione novus et singularis_, &c., &c.
(Nuremburg, 1675); R.C. Maclagan, _Evil Eye in the Western Highlands_
(1902).
EVOLUTION. The modern doctrine of evolution or "evolving," as opposed to
that of simple creation, has been defined by Prof. James Sully in the
9th edition of this encyclopaedia as a "natural history of the cosmos
including organic beings, expressed in physical terms as a mechanical
process." The following exposition of the historical development of the
doctrine is taken from Sully's article, and for the most part is in his
own words.
In the modern doctrine of evolution the cosmic system appears as a
natural product of elementary matter and its laws. The various grades of
life on our planet are the natural consequences of certain physical
processes involved in the gradual transformations of the earth.
Conscious life is viewed as conditioned by physical (organic and more
especially nervous) processes, and as evolving itself in close
correlation with organic evolution. Finally, human development, as
exhibited in historical and prehistorical records, is regarded as the
highest and most complex result of organic and physical evolution. This
modern doctrine of evolution is but an expansion and completion of those
physical theories (see below) which opened the history of speculation.
It differs from them in being grounded on exact and verified research.
As such, moreover, it is a much more limited theory of evolution than
the ancient. It does not necessarily concern itself about the question
of the infinitude of worlds in space and in time. It is content to
explain the origin and course of development of the world, the solar or,
at most, the sidereal system which falls under our own observation. It
would be difficult to say what branches of science had done most towards
the establishment of this doctrine. We must content ourselves by
referring to the progress of physical (including chemical) theory, which
has led to the great generalization of the conservation of energy; to
the discovery of the fundamental chemical identity of the matter of our
planet and of other celestial bodies, and of the chemical relations of
organic and inorganic bodies; to the advance of astronomical speculation
respecting the origin of the solar system, &c.; to the growth of the
science of geology which has necessitated the conception of vast and
unimaginable periods of time in the past history of our globe, and to
the rapid march of the biological sciences which has made us familiar
with the simplest types and elements of organism; finally, to the
development of the science of anthropology (including comparative
psychology, philology, &c.), and to the vast extension and improvement
of all branches of historical study.
_History of the Idea of Evolution._--The doctrine of evolution in its
finished and definite form is a modern product. It required for its
formation an amount of scientific knowledge which could only be very
gradually acquired. It is vain, therefore, to look for clearly defined
and systematic presentations of the idea among ancient writers. On the
other hand, nearly all systems of philosophy have discussed the
underlying problems. Such questions as the origin of the cosmos as a
whole, the production of organic beings and of conscious minds, and the
meaning of the observable grades of creation, have from the dawn of
speculation occupied men's minds; and the answers to these questions
often imply a vague recognition of the idea of a gradual evolution of
things. Accordingly, in tracing the antecedents of the modern
philosophic doctrine we shall have to glance at most of the principal
systems of cosmology, ancient and modern. Yet since in these systems
inquiries into the _esse_ and _fieri_ of the world are rarely
distinguished with any precision, it will be necessary to indicate very
briefly the general outlines of the system so far as they are necessary
for understanding their bearing on the problems of evolution.
_Mythological Interpretation._--The problem of the origin of the world
was the first to engage man's speculative activity. Nor was this line of
inquiry pursued simply as a step in the more practical problem of man's
final destiny. The order of ideas observable in children suggests the
reflection that man began to discuss the "whence" of existence before
the "whither." At first, as in the case of the child, the problem of the
genesis of things was conceived anthropomorphically: the question "How
did the world arise?" first shaped itself to the human mind under the
form "Who made the world?" As long as the problem was conceived in this
simple manner there was, of course, no room for the idea of a necessary
self-conditioned evolution. Yet the first indistinct germ of such an
idea appears to emerge in combination with that of creation in some of
the ancient systems of theogony. Thus, for example, in the myth of the
ancient Parsees, the gods Ormuzd and Ahriman are said to evolve
themselves out of a primordial matter. It may be supposed that these
crude fancies embody a dim recognition of the physical forces and
objects personified under the forms of deities, and a rude attempt to
account for their genesis as a natural process. These first
unscientific ideas of a genesis of the permanent objects of nature took
as their pattern the process of organic reproduction and development,
and this, not only because these objects were regarded as personalities,
but also because this particular mode of becoming would most impress
these early observers. This same way of looking at the origin of the
material world is illustrated in the Egyptian notion of a cosmic egg out
of which issues the god (Phta) who creates the world.
_Indian Philosophy._--Passing from mythology to speculation properly so
called, we find in the early systems of philosophy of India theories of
emanation which approach in some respects the idea of evolution. Brahma
is conceived as the eternal self-existent being, which on its material
side unfolds itself to the world by gradually condensing itself to
material objects through the gradations of ether, fire, water, earth and
the elements. At the same time this eternal being is conceived as the
all-embracing world-soul from which emanates the hierarchy of individual
souls. In the later system of emanation of Sankhya there is a more
marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution. If, we are
told, we follow the chain of causes far enough back we reach unlimited
eternal creative nature or matter. Out of this "principal thing" or
"original nature" all material and spiritual existence issues, and into
it will return. Yet this primordial creative nature is endowed with
volition with regard to its own development. Its first emanation as
plastic nature contains the original soul or deity out of which all
individual souls issue.
_Early Greek Physicists._--Passing by Buddhism, which, though teaching
the periodic destruction of our world by fire, &c., does not seek to
determine the ultimate origin of the cosmos, we come to those early
Greek physical philosophers who distinctly set themselves to eliminate
the idea of divine interference with the world by representing its
origin and changes as a natural process. The early Ionian physicists,
including Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes, seek to explain the world
as generated out of a primordial matter (Gr. [Greek: hylê]; hence the
name "Hylozoists"), which is at the same time the universal support of
things. This substance is endowed with a generative or transmutative
force by virtue of which it passes into a succession of forms. They thus
resemble modern evolutionists, since they regard the world with its
infinite variety of forms as issuing from a simple mode of matter. More
especially the cosmology of Anaximander resembles the modern doctrine of
evolution in its conception of the indeterminate ([Greek: to apeiron])
out of which the particular forms of the cosmos are differentiated.
Again, Anaximander may be said to prepare the way for more modern
conceptions of material evolution by regarding his primordial substance
as eternal, and by looking on all generation as alternating with
destruction, each step of the process being of course simply a
transformation of the indestructible substance. Once more, the notion
that this indeterminate body contains potentially in itself the
fundamental contraries--hot, cold, &c.--by the excretion or evolution of
which definite substances were generated, is clearly a forecasting of
that antithesis of potentiality and actuality which from Aristotle
downwards has been made the basis of so many theories of development. In
conclusion, it is noteworthy that though resorting to utterly fanciful
hypotheses respecting the order of the development of the world,
Anaximander agrees with modern evolutionists in conceiving the heavenly
bodies as arising out of an aggregation of diffused matter, and in
assigning to organic life an origin in the inorganic materials of the
primitive earth (pristine mud). The doctrine of Anaximenes, who unites
the conceptions of a determinate and indeterminate original substance
adopted by Thales and Anaximander in the hypothesis of a primordial and
all-generating air, is a clear advance on these theories, inasmuch as it
introduces the scientific idea of condensation and rarefaction as the
great generating or transforming agencies. For the rest, his theory is
chiefly important as emphasizing the vital character of the original
substance. The primordial air is conceived as animated. Anaximenes seems
to have inclined to a view of cosmic evolution as throughout involving
a quasi-spiritual factor. This idea of the air as the original principle
and source of life and intelligence is much more clearly expressed by a
later writer, Diogenes of Apollonia. Diogenes made this conception of a
vital and intelligent air the ground of a teleological view of climatic
and atmospheric phenomena. It is noteworthy that he sought to establish
the identity of organic and inorganic matter by help of the facts of
vegetal and animal nutrition. Diogenes distinctly taught that the world
is of finite duration, and will be renewed out of the primitive
substance.
Heraclitus again deserves a prominent place in a history of the idea of
evolution. Heraclitus conceives of the incessant process of flux in
which all things are involved as consisting of two sides or
moments--generation and decay--which are regarded as a confluence of
opposite streams. In thus making transition or change, viewed as the
identity of existence and non-existence, the leading idea of his system,
Heraclitus anticipated in some measure Hegel's peculiar doctrine of
evolution as a dialectic process.[1] At the same time we may find
expressed in figurative language the germs of thoughts which enter into
still newer doctrines of evolution. For example, the notion of conflict
([Greek: polemos]) as the father of all things and of harmony as arising
out of a union of discords, and again of an endeavour by individual
things to maintain themselves in permanence against the universal
process of destruction and renovation, cannot but remind one of certain
fundamental ideas in Darwin's theory of evolution.
_Empedocles._--Empedocles took an important step in the direction of
modern conceptions of physical evolution by teaching that all things
arise, not by transformations of some primitive form of matter, but by
various combinations of a number of permanent elements. Further, by
maintaining that the elements are continually being combined and
separated by the two forces love and hatred, which appear to represent
in a figurative way the physical forces of attraction and repulsion,
Empedocles may be said to have made a considerable advance in the
construction of the idea of evolution as a strictly mechanical process.
It may be observed, too, that the hypothesis of a primitive compact mass
(_sphaerus_), in which love (attraction) is supreme, has some curious
points of similarity to, and contrast with, that notion of a primitive
nebulous matter with which the modern doctrine of cosmic evolution
usually sets out. Empedocles tries to explain the genesis of organic
beings, and, according to Lange, anticipates the idea of Darwin that
adaptations abound, because it is their nature to perpetuate themselves.
He further recognizes a progress in the production of vegetable and
animal forms, though this part of his theory is essentially crude and
unscientific. More important in relation to the modern problems of
evolution is his thoroughly materialistic way of explaining the origin
of sensation and knowledge by help of his peculiar hypothesis of
effluvia and pores. The supposition that sensation thus rests on a
material process of absorption from external bodies naturally led up to
the idea that plants and even inorganic substances are precipient, and
so to an indistinct recognition of organic life as a scale of
intelligence.
_Atomists._--In the theory of Atomism taught by Leucippus and Democritus
we have the basis of the modern mechanical conceptions of cosmic
evolution. Here the endless harmonious diversity of our cosmos, as well
as of other worlds supposed to coexist with our own, is said to arise
through the various combination of indivisible material elements
differing in figure and magnitude only. The force which brings the atoms
together in the forms of objects is inherent in the elements, and all
their motions are necessary. The origin of things, which is also their
substance, is thus laid in the simplest and most homogeneous elements or
principles. The real world thus arising consists only of diverse
combinations of atoms, having the properties of magnitude, figure,
weight and hardness, all other qualities being relative only to the
sentient organism. The problem of the genesis of mind is practically
solved by identifying the soul, or vital principle, with heat or fire
which pervades in unequal proportions, not only man and animals, but
plants and nature as a whole, and through the agitation of which by
incoming effluvia all sensation arises.
_Aristotle._--Aristotle is much nearer a conception of evolution than
his master Plato. It is true he sets out with a transcendent Deity, and
follows Plato in viewing the creation of the cosmos as a process of
descent from the more to the less perfect according to the distance from
the original self-moving agency. Yet on the whole Aristotle leans to a
teleological theory of evolution, which he interprets dualistually by
means of certain metaphysical distinctions. Thus even his idea of the
relation of the divine activity to the world shows a tendency to a
pantheistic notion of a divine thought which gradually realizes itself
in the process of becoming. Aristotle's distinction of form and matter,
and his conception of becoming as a transition from actuality to
potentiality, provides a new ontological way of conceiving the process
of material and organic evolution.[2] To Aristotle the whole of nature
is instinct with a vital impulse towards some higher manifestation.
Organic life presents itself to him as a progressive scale of complexity
determined by its final end, namely, man.[3] In some respects Aristotle
approaches the modern view of evolution. Thus, though he looked on
species as fixed, being the realization of an unchanging formative
principle ([Greek: physis]), he seems, as Ueberweg observes, to have
inclined to entertain the possibility of a spontaneous generation in the
case of the lowest organisms. Aristotle's teleological conception of
organic evolution often approaches modern mechanical conceptions. Thus
he says that nature fashions organs in the order of their necessity, the
first being those essential to life. So, too, in his psychology he
speaks of the several degrees of mind as arising according to a
progressive necessity.[4] In his view of touch and taste, as the two
fundamental and essential senses, he may remind one of Herbert Spencer's
doctrine. At the same time Aristotle precludes the idea of a natural
development of the mental series by the supposition that man contains,
over and above a natural finite soul inseparable from the body, a
substantial and eternal principle ([Greek: nous]) which enters into the
individual from without. Aristotle's brief suggestions respecting the
origin of society and governments in the _Politics_ show a leaning to a
naturalistic interpretation of human history as a development
conditioned by growing necessities.
_Strato._--Of Aristotle's immediate successors one deserves to be
noticed here, namely, Strato of Lampsacus, who developed his master's
cosmology into a system of naturalism. Strato appears to reject
Aristotle's idea of an original source of movement and life extraneous
to the world in favour of an immanent principle. All parts of matter
have an inward plastic life whereby they can fashion themselves to the
best advantage, according to their capability, though not with
consciousness.
_The Stoics._--In the cosmology of the Stoics we have the germ of a
monistic and pantheistic conception of evolution. All things are said to
be developed out of an original being, which is at once material (fire)
and spiritual (the Deity), and in turn they will dissolve back into this
primordial source. At the same time the world as a developed whole is
regarded as an organism which is permeated with the divine Spirit, and
so we may say that the world-process is a self-realization of the divine
Being. The formative principle or force of the world is said to contain
the several rational germinal forms of things. Individual things are
supposed to arise out of the original being, as animals and plants out
of seeds. Individual souls are an efflux from the all-compassing
world-soul. The necessity in the world's order is regarded by the Stoics
as identical with the divine reason, and this idea is used as the basis
of a teleological and optimistic view of nature. Very curious, in
relation to modern evolutional ideas, is the Stoical doctrine that our
world is but one of a series of exactly identical ones, all of which
are destined to be burnt up and destroyed.
_The Epicureans--Lucretius._--The Epicureans differed from the Stoics by
adopting a purely mechanical view of the world-process. Their
fundamental conception is that of Democritus; they seek to account for
the formation of the cosmos, with its order and regularity, by setting
out with the idea of an original (vertical) motion of the atoms, which
somehow or other results in movements towards and from one another. Our
world is but one of an infinite number of others, and all the harmonies
and adaptations of the universe are regarded as a special case of the
infinite possibilities of mechanical events. Lucretius regards the
primitive atoms (first beginnings or first bodies) as seeds out of which
individual things are developed. All living and sentient things are
formed out of insentient atoms (e.g. worms spring out of dung). The
peculiarity of organic and sentient bodies is due to the minuteness and
shape of their particles, and to their special motions and combinations.
So, too, mind consists but of extremely fine particles of matter, and
dissolves into air when the body dies. Lucretius traces, in the fifth
book of his poem, the progressive genesis of vegetal and animal forms
out of the mother-earth. He vaguely anticipates the modern idea of the
world as a survival of the fittest when he says that many races may have
lived and died out, and that those which still exist have been protected
either by craft, courage or speed. Lucretius touches on the development
of man out of a primitive, hardy, beast-like condition. Pregnant hints
are given respecting a natural development of language which has its
germs in sounds of quadrupeds and birds, of religious ideas out of
dreams and waking hallucinations, and of the art of music by help of the
suggestion of natural sounds. Lucretius thus recognizes the whole range
of existence to which the doctrine of evolution may be applied.
_Neoplatonists._--In the doctrines of the Neoplatonists, of whom
Plotinus is the most important, we have the world-process represented
after the example of Plato as a series of descending steps, each being
less perfect than its predecessors, since it is further removed from the
first cause.[5] The system of Plotinus, Zellar remarks, is not strictly
speaking one of emanation, since there is no communication of the divine
essence to the created world; yet it resembles emanation inasmuch as the
genesis of the world is conceived as a necessary physical effect, and
not as the result of volition. In Proclus we find this conception of an
emanation of the world out of the Deity, or the absolute, made more
exact, the process being regarded as threefold--(1) persistence of cause
in effect, (2) the departure of effect from cause, and (3) the tendency
of effect to revert to its cause.
_The Fathers._--The speculations of the fathers respecting the origin
and course of the world seek to combine Christian ideas of the Deity
with doctrines of Greek philosophy. The common idea of the origin of
things is that of an absolute creation of matter and mind alike. The
course of human history is regarded by those writers who are most
concerned to refute Judaism as a progressive divine education. Among the
Gnostics we meet with the hypothesis of emanation, as, for example, in
the curious cosmic theory of Valentinus.
_Middle Ages--Early Schoolmen._--In the speculative writings of the
middle ages, including those of the schoolmen, we find no progress
towards a more accurate and scientific view of nature. The cosmology of
this period consists for the most part of the Aristotelian teleological
view of nature combined with the Christian idea of the Deity and His
relation to the world. In certain writers, however, there appears a more
elaborate transformation of the doctrine of creation into a system of
emanation. According to John Scotus Erigena, the nothing out of which
the world is created is the divine essence. Creation is the act by which
God passes through the primordial causes, or universal ideas, into the
region of particular things (_processio_), in order finally to return to
himself (_reversio_). The transition from the universal to the
particular is of course conceived as a descent or degradation. A similar
doctrine of emanation is to be found in the writings of Bernhard of
Chartres, who conceives the process of the unfolding of the world as a
movement in a circle from the most general to the individual, and from
this back to the most general. This movement is said to go forth from
God to the animated heaven, stars, visible world and man, which
represent decreasing degrees of cognition.
_Arab Philosophers._--Elaborate doctrines of emanation, largely based on
Neoplatonic ideas, are also propounded by some of the Arabic
philosophers, as by Farabi and Avicenna. The leading thought is that of
a descending series of intelligences, each emanating from its
predecessor, and having its appropriate region in the universe.
_Jewish Philosophy._--In the Jewish speculations of the middle ages may
be found curious forms of the doctrine of emanations uniting the
Biblical idea of creation with elements drawn from the Persians and the
Greeks. In the later and developed form of the Kabbala, the origin of
the world is represented as a gradually descending emanation of the
lower out of the higher. Among the philosophic Jews, the Spanish
Avicebron, in his _Fons Vitae_, expounds a curious doctrine of
emanation. Here the divine will is viewed as an efflux from the divine
wisdom, as the intermediate link between God, the first substance, and
all things, and as the fountain out of which all forms emanate. At the
same time all forms, including the higher intelligible ones, are said to
have their existence only in matter. Matter is the one universal
substance, body and mind being merely specifications of this. Thus
Avicebron approaches, as Salomon Munk observes,[6] a pantheistic
conception of the world, though he distinctly denies both matter and
form to God.
_Later Scholastics._--Passing now to the later schoolmen, a bare mention
must be made of Thomas Aquinas, who elaborately argues for the absolute
creation of the world out of nothing, and of Albertus Magnus, who
reasons against the Aristotelian idea of the past eternity of the world.
More importance attaches to Duns Scotus, who brings prominently forward
the idea of a progressive development in nature by means of a process of
determination. The original substance of the world is the _materia
primo-prima_, which is the immediate creation of the Deity. This serves
Duns Scotus as the most universal basis of existence, all angels having
material bodies. This matter is differentiated into particular things
(which are not privations but perfections) through the addition of an
individualizing principle (_haecceitas_) to the universal (_quidditas_).
The whole world is represented by the figure of a tree, of which the
seeds and roots are the first indeterminate matter, the leaves the
accidents, the twigs and branches corruptible creatures, the blossoms
the rational soul, and the fruit pure spirits or angels. It is also
described as a bifurcation of two twigs, mental and bodily creation out
of a common root. One might almost say that Duns Scotus recognizes the
principle of a gradual physical evolution, only that he chooses to
represent the mechanism by which the process is brought about by means
of quaint scholastic fictions.
_Revival of Learning._--The period of the revival of learning, which was
also that of a renewed study of nature, is marked by a considerable
amount of speculation respecting the origin of the universe. In some of
these we see a return to Greek theories, though the influence of
physical discoveries, more especially those of Copernicus, Kepler and
Galileo, is distinctly traceable.
_Telesio._--An example of a return to early Greek speculation is to be
met with in Bernardino Telesio. By this writer the world is explained as
a product of three principles--dead matter, and two active forces, heat
and cold. Terrestrial things arise through a confluence of heat, which
issues from the heavens, and cold, which comes from the earth. Both
principles have sensibility, and thus all products of their collision
are sentient, that is, feel pleasure and pain. The superiority of
animals to plants and metals in the possession of special organs of
sense is connected with the greater complexity and heterogeneity of
their structure.
_Giordano Bruno._--In the system of Giordano Bruno, who sought to
construct a philosophy of nature on the basis of new scientific ideas,
more particularly the doctrine of Copernicus, we find the outlines of a
theory of cosmic evolution conceived as an essentially vital process.
Matter and form are here identified, and the evolution of the world is
presented as the unfolding of the world-spirit to its perfect forms
according to the plastic substratum (matter) which is but one of its
sides. This process of change is conceived as a transformation, in
appearance only, of the real unchanging substance (matter and form). All
parts of matter are capable of developing into all forms; thus the
materials of the table and chair may under proper circumstances be
developed to the life of the plant or of the animal. The elementary
parts of existence are the _minima_, or monads, which are at once
material and mental. On their material side they are not absolutely
unextended, but spherical. Bruno looked on our solar system as but one
out of an infinite number of worlds. His theory of evolution is
essentially pantheistic, and he does not employ his hypothesis of monads
in order to work out a more mechanical conception.
_Campanella._--A word must be given to one of Bruno's contemporary
compatriots, namely Campanella, who gave poetic expression to that
system of universal vitalism which Bruno developed. He argues, from the
principle _quicquid est in effectibus esse et in causis_, that the
elements and the whole world have sensation, and thus he appears to
derive the organic part of nature out of the so-called "inorganic."
_Boehme._--Another writer of this transition period deserves a passing
reference here, namely, Jacob Boehme the mystic, who by his conception
of a process of inner diremption as the essential character of all mind,
and so of God, prepared the way for later German theories of the origin
of the world as the self-differentiation and self-externalization of the
absolute spirit.
_Hobbes and Gassendi._--The influence of an advancing study of nature,
which was stimulated if not guided by Bacon's writings, is seen in the
more careful doctrines of materialism worked out almost simultaneously
by Hobbes and Gassendi. These theories, however, contain little that
bears directly on the hypothesis of a natural evolution of things. In
the view of Hobbes, the difficulty of the genesis of conscious minds is
solved by saying that sensation and thought are part of the reaction of
the organism on external movement. Yet Hobbes appears (as Clarke points
out) to have vaguely felt the difficulty; and in a passage of his
_Physics_ (chap. 25, sect. 5) he says that the universal existence of
sensation in matter cannot be disproved, though he shows that when there
are no organic arrangements the mental side of the movement
(_phantasma_) is evanescent. The theory of the origin of society put
forth by Hobbes, though directly opposed in most respects to modern
ideas of social evolution, deserves mention here by reason of its
enforcing that principle of struggle (_bellum omnium contra omnes_)
which has played so conspicuous a part in the modern doctrine of
evolution. Gassendi, with some deviations, follows Epicurus in his
theory of the formation of the world. The world consists of a finite
number of atoms, which have in their own nature a self-moving force or
principle. These atoms, which are the seeds of all things, are, however,
not eternal but created by God. Gassendi distinctly argues against the
existence of a world-soul or a principle of life in nature.
_Descartes._--In the philosophy of Descartes we meet with a dualism of
mind and matter which does not easily lend itself to the conception of
evolution. His doctrine that consciousness is confined to man, the lower
animals being unconscious machines (_automata_), excludes all idea of a
progressive development of mind. Yet Descartes, in his _Principia
Philosophiae_, laid the foundation of the modern mechanical conception
of nature and of physical evolution. In the third part of this work he
inclines to a thoroughly natural hypothesis respecting the genesis of
the physical world, and adds in the fourth part that the same kind of
explanation might be applied to the nature and formation of plants and
animals. He is indeed careful to keep right with the orthodox doctrine
of creation by saying that he does not believe the world actually arose
in this mechanical way out of the three kinds of elements which he here
supposes, but that he simply puts out his hypothesis as a mode of
conceiving how it might have arisen. Descartes's account of the mind and
its passions is thoroughly materialistic, and to this extent he works in
the direction of a materialistic explanation of the origin of mental
life.
_Spinoza._--In Spinoza's pantheistic theory of the world, which regards
thought and extension as but two sides of one substance, the problem of
becoming is submerged in that of being. Although Spinoza's theory
attributes a mental side to all physical events, he rejects all
teleological conceptions and explains the order of things as the result
of an inherent necessity. He recognizes gradations of things according
to the degree of complexity of their movements and that of their
conceptions. To Spinoza (as Kuno Fischer observes) man differs from the
rest of nature in the degree only and not in the kind of his powers. So
far Spinoza approaches the conception of evolution. He may be said to
furnish a further contribution to a metaphysical conception of evolution
in his view of all finite individual things as the infinite variety to
which the unlimited productive power of the universal substance gives
birth. Sir F. Pollock has taken pains to show how nearly Spinoza
approaches certain ideas contained in the modern doctrine of evolution,
as for example that of self-preservation as the determining force in
things.
_Locke._--In Locke we find, with a retention of certain
anti-evolutionist ideas, a marked tendency to this mode of viewing the
world. To Locke the universe is the result of a direct act of creation,
even matter being limited in duration and created. Even if matter were
eternal it would, he thinks, be incapable of producing motion; and if
motion is itself conceived as eternal, thought can never begin to be.
The first eternal being is thus spiritual or "cogitative," and contains
in itself all the perfections that can ever after exist. He repeatedly
insists on the impossibility of senseless matter putting on sense.[7]
Yet while thus placing himself at a point of view opposed to that of a
gradual evolution of the organic world, Locke prepared the way for this
doctrine in more ways than one. First of all, his genetic method as
applied to the mind's ideas--which laid the foundations of English
analytical psychology--was a step in the direction of a conception of
mental life as a gradual evolution. Again he works towards the same end
in his celebrated refutation of the scholastic theory of real specific
essences. In this argument he emphasizes the vagueness of the boundaries
which mark off organic species with a view to show that these do not
correspond to absolutely fixed divisions in the objective world, that
they are made by the mind, not by nature.[8] This idea of the continuity
of species is developed more fully in a remarkable passage (_Essay_, bk.
iii. ch. vi. § 12), where he is arguing in favour of the hypothesis,
afterwards elaborated by Leibnitz, of a graduated series of minds
(species of spirits) from the Deity down to the lowest animal
intelligence. He here observes that "all quite down from us the descent
is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove
differ very little from one another." Thus man approaches the beasts,
and the animal kingdom is nearly joined with the vegetable, and so on
down to the lowest and "most inorganical parts of matter." Finally, it
is to be observed that Locke had a singularly clear view of organic
arrangements (which of course he explained according to a theistic
teleology) as an adaptation to the circumstances of the environment or
to "the neighbourhood of the bodies that surround us." Thus he suggests
that man has not eyes of a microscopic delicacy, because he would
receive no great advantage from such acute organs, since though adding
indefinitely to his speculative knowledge of the physical world they
would not practically benefit their possessor (e.g. by enabling him to
avoid things at a convenient distance).[9]
_Idea of Progress in History._--Before leaving the 17th century we must
just refer to the writers who laid the foundations of the essentially
modern conception of human history as a gradual upward progress.
According to Flint,[10] there were four men who in this and the
preceding century seized and made prominent this idea, namely, Bodin,
Bacon, Descartes and Pascal. The former distinctly argues against the
idea of a deterioration of man in the past. In this way we see that just
as advancing natural science was preparing the way for a doctrine of
physical evolution, so advancing historical research was leading to the
application of a similar idea to the collective human life.
_English Writers of the 18th Century--Hume._--The theological
discussions which make up so large a part of the English speculation of
the 18th century cannot detain us here. There is, however, one writer
who sets forth so clearly the alternative suppositions respecting the
origin of the world that he claims a brief notice. We refer to David
Hume. In his _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_ he puts forward
tentatively, in the person of one of his interlocutors, the ancient
hypothesis that since the world resembles an animal or vegetal organism
rather than a machine, it might more easily be accounted for by a
process of generation than by an act of creation. Later on he develops
the materialistic view of Epicurus, only modifying it so far as to
conceive of matter as finite. Since a finite number of particles is only
susceptible of finite transpositions, it must happen (he says), in an
eternal duration that every possible order or position will be tried an
infinite number of times, and hence this world is to be regarded (as the
Stoics maintained) as an exact reproduction of previous worlds. The
speaker seeks to make intelligible the appearance of art and contrivance
in the world as a result of a natural settlement of the universe (which
passes through a succession of chaotic conditions) into a stable
condition, having a constancy in its forms, yet without its several
parts losing their motion and fluctuation.
_French Writers of the 18th Century._--Let us now pass to the French
writers of the 18th century. Here we are first struck by the results of
advancing physical speculation in their bearing on the conception of the
world. Careful attempts, based on new scientific truths, are made to
explain the genesis of the world as a natural process. Maupertuis, who,
together with Voltaire, introduced the new idea of the universe as based
on Newton's discoveries, sought to account for the origin of organic
things by the hypothesis of sentient atoms. Buffon the naturalist
speculated, not only on the structure and genesis of organic beings, but
also on the course of formation of the earth and solar system, which he
conceived after the analogy of the development of organic beings out of
seed. Diderot, too, in his varied intellectual activity, found time to
speculate on the genesis of sensation and thought out of a combination
of matter endowed with an elementary kind of sentience. De la Mettrie
worked out a materialistic doctrine of the origin of things, according
to which sensation and consciousness are nothing but a development out
of matter. He sought (_L'Homme-machine_) to connect man in his original
condition with the lower animals, and emphasized (_L'Homme-plante_) the
essential unity of plan of all living things. Helvétius, in his work on
man, referred all differences between our species and the lower animals
to certain peculiarities of organization, and so prepared the way for a
conception of human development out of lower forms as a process of
physical evolution. Charles Bonnet met the difficulty of the origin of
conscious beings much in the same way as Leibnitz, by the supposition of
eternal minute organic bodies to which are attached immortal souls. Yet
though in this way opposing himself to the method of the modern doctrine
of evolution, he aided the development of this doctrine by his view of
the organic world as an ascending scale from the simple to the complex.
Robinet, in his treatise _De la nature_, worked out the same conception
of a gradation in organic existence, connecting this with a general view
of nature as a progress from the lowest inorganic forms of matter up to
man. The process is conceived as an infinite series of variations or
specifications of one primitive and common type. Man is the
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of nature, which the gradual progression of beings was
to have as its last term, and all lower creations are regarded as
pre-conditions of man's existence, since nature "could only realize the
human form by combining in all imaginable ways each of the traits which
was to enter into it." The formative force in this process of evolution
(or "metamorphosis") is conceived as an intellectual principle (_idée
génératrice_). Robinet thus laid the foundation of that view of the
world as wholly vital, and as a progressive unfolding of a spiritual
formative principle, which was afterwards worked out by Schelling. It is
to be added that Robinet adopted a thorough-going materialistic view of
the dependence of mind on body, going even to the length of assigning
special nerve-fibres to the moral sense. The system of Holbach seeks to
provide a consistent materialistic view of the world and its processes.
Mental operations are identified with physical movements, the three
conditions of physical movement, inertia, attraction and repulsion,
being in the moral world self-love, love and hate. He left open the
question whether the capability of sensation belongs to all matter, or
is confined to the combinations of certain materials. He looked on the
actions of the individual organism and of society as determined by the
needs of self-preservation. He conceived of man as a product of nature
that had gradually developed itself from a low condition, though he
relinquished the problem of the exact mode of his first genesis and
advance as not soluble by data of experience. Holbach thus worked out
the basis of a rigorously materialistic conception of evolution.
The question of human development which Holbach touched on was one which
occupied many minds both in and out of France during the 18th century,
and more especially towards its close. The foundations of this theory of
history as an upward progress of man out of a barbaric and animal
condition were laid by Vico in his celebrated work _Principii di scienza
nuova_. In France the doctrine was represented by Turgot and Condorcet.
_German Writers of the 18th Century--Leibnitz._--In Leibnitz we find, if
not a doctrine of evolution in the strict sense, a theory of the world
which is curiously related to the modern doctrine. The chief aim of
Leibnitz is no doubt to account for the world in its static aspect as a
co-existent whole, to conceive the ultimate reality of things in such a
way as to solve the mystery of mind and matter. Yet by his very mode of
solving the problem he is led on to consider the nature of the
world-process. By placing substantial reality in an infinite number of
monads whose essential nature is force or activity, which is conceived
as mental (representation), Leibnitz was carried on to the explanation
of the successive order of the world. He prepares the way, too, for a
doctrine of evolution by his monistic idea of the substantial similarity
of all things, inorganic and organic, bodily and spiritual, and still
more by his conception of a perfect gradation of existence from the
lowest "inanimate" objects, whose essential activity is confused
representation, up to the highest organized being--man--with his clear
intelligence.[11] Turning now to Leibnitz's conception of the world as a
process, we see first that he supplies, in his notion of the underlying
reality as force which is represented as spiritual (_quelque chose
d'analogique au sentiment et à l'appétit_), both a mechanical and a
teleological explanation of its order. More than this, Leibnitz supposes
that the activity of the monads takes the form of a self-evolution. It
is the following out of an inherent tendency or impulse to a series of
changes, all of which were virtually pre-existent, and this process
cannot be interfered with from without. As the individual monad, so the
whole system which makes up the world is a gradual development. In this
case, however, we cannot say that each step goes out of the other as in
that of individual development. Each monad is an original independent
being, and is determined to take this particular point in the universe,
this place in the scale of beings. We see how different this
metaphysical conception is from that scientific notion of cosmic
evolution in which the lower stages are the antecedents and conditions
of the higher. It is probable that Leibnitz's notion of time and space,
which approaches Kant's theory, led him to attach but little importance
to the successive order of the world. Leibnitz, in fact, presents to us
an infinite system of perfectly distinct though parallel developments,
which on their mental side assume the aspect of a scale, not through any
mutual action, but solely through the determination of the Deity. Even
this idea, however, is incomplete, for Leibnitz fails to explain the
physical aspect of development. Thus he does not account for the fact
that organic beings--which have always existed as preformations (in the
case of animals as _animaux spermatiques_)--come to be developed under
given conditions. Yet Leibnitz prepared the way for a new conception of
organic evolution. The modern monistic doctrine, that all material
things consist of sentient elements, and that consciousness arises
through a combination of these, was a natural transformation of
Leibnitz's theory.[12]
_Lessing._--Of Leibnitz's immediate followers we may mention Lessing,
who in his _Education of the Human Race_ brought out the truth of the
process of gradual development underlying human history, even though he
expressed this in a form inconsistent with the idea of a spontaneous
evolution.
_Herder._--Herder, on the other hand, Lessing's contemporary, treated
the subject of man's development in a thoroughly naturalistic spirit. In
his I_deen zur Philosophie der Geschichte_, Herder adopts Leibnitz's
idea of a graduated scale of beings, at the same time conceiving of the
lower stages as the conditions of the higher. Thus man is said to be the
highest product of nature, and as such to be dependent on all lower
products. All material things are assimilated to one another as organic,
the vitalizing principle being inherent in all matter. The development
of man is explained in connexion with that of the earth, and in relation
to climatic variations, &c. Man's mental faculties are viewed as related
to his organization, and as developed under the pressure of the
necessities of life.[13]
_Kant._--Kant's relation to the doctrine of evolution is a many-sided
one. In the first place, his peculiar system of subjective idealism,
involving the idea that time is but a mental form to which there
corresponds nothing in the sphere of noümenal reality, serves to give a
peculiar philosophical interpretation to every doctrine of cosmic
evolution. Kant, like Leibnitz, seeks to reconcile the mechanical and
teleological views of nature, only he assigns to these different
spheres. The order of the inorganic world is explained by properly
physical causes. In his _Naturgeschichte des Himmels_, in which he
anticipated the nebular theory afterwards more fully developed by
Laplace, Kant sought to explain the genesis of the cosmos as a product
of physical forces and laws. The worlds, or systems of worlds, which
fill infinite space are continually being formed and destroyed. Chaos
passes by a process of evolution into a cosmos, and this again into
chaos. So far as the evolution of the solar system is concerned, Kant
held these mechanical causes as adequate. For the world as a whole,
however, he postulated a beginning in time (whence his use of the word
creation), and further supposed that the impulse of organization which
was conveyed to chaotic matter by the Creator issued from a central
point in the infinite space spreading gradually outwards.[14] While in
his cosmology Kant thus relies on mechanical conceptions, in his
treatment of organic life his mind is, on the contrary, dominated by
teleological ideas. An organism was to him something controlled by a
formative organizing principle. It was natural, therefore, that he
rejected the idea of a spontaneous generation of organisms (which was
just then being advocated by his friend Forster), not only as
unsupported by experience but as an inadequate hypothesis. Experience
forbids our excluding organic activity from natural causes, also our
excluding intelligence from purposeful (_zwecktätigen_) causes; hence
experience forbids our defining the fundamental force or first cause out
of which living creatures arose.[15] Just as Kant thus sharply marks off
the regions of the inorganic and the organic, so he sets man in strong
opposition to the lower animals. His ascription to man of a unique
faculty, free-will, forbade his conceiving our species as a link in a
graduated series of organic developments. In his doctrine of human
development he does indeed recognize an early stage of existence in
which our species was dominated by sensuous enjoyment and instinct. He
further conceives of this stage as itself a process of (natural)
development, namely, of the natural disposition of the species to vary
in the greatest possible manner so as to preserve its unity through a
process of self-adaptation (_Anarten_) to climate. This, he says, must
not be conceived as resulting from the action of external causes, but is
due to a natural disposition (_Anlage_). From this capability of natural
development (which already involves a teleological idea) Kant
distinguishes the power of moral self-development or self-liberation
from the dominion of nature, the gradual realization of which
constitutes human history or progress. This moral development is
regarded as a gradual approach to that rational, social and political
state in which will be realized the greatest possible quantity of
liberty. Thus Kant, though he appropriated and gave new form to the idea
of human progress, conceived of this as wholly distinct from a natural
(mechanical) process. In this particular, as in his view of organic
actions, Kant distinctly opposed the idea of evolution as one universal
process swaying alike the physical and the moral world.
_Schelling._--In the earlier writings of Schelling, containing the
philosophy of identity, existence is represented as a becoming, or
process of evolution. Nature and mind (which are the two sides, or polar
directions, of the one absolute) are each viewed as an activity
advancing by an uninterrupted succession of stages. The side of this
process which Schelling worked out most completely is the negative side,
that is, nature. Nature is essentially a process of organic
self-evolution. It can only be understood by subordinating the
mechanical conception to the vital, by conceiving the world as one
organism animated by a spiritual principle or intelligence
(_Weltseele_). From this point of view the processes of nature from the
inorganic up to the most complex of the organic become stages in the
self-realization of nature. All organic forms are at bottom but one
organization, and the inorganic world shows the same formative activity
in various degrees or potences. Schelling conceives of the gradual
self-evolution of nature in a succession of higher and higher forms as
brought about by a limitation of her infinite productivity, showing
itself in a series of points of arrest. The detailed exhibition of the
organizing activity of nature in the several processes of the organic
and inorganic world rests on a number of fanciful and unscientific
ideas. Schelling's theory is a bold attempt to revitalize nature in the
light of growing physical and physiological science, and by so doing to
comprehend the unity of the world under the idea of one principle of
organic development. His highly figurative language might leave us in
doubt how far he conceived the higher stages of this evolution of nature
as following the lower in time. In the introduction to his work _Von der
Weltseele_, however, he argues in favour of the possibility of a
transmutation of species in periods incommensurable with ours. The
evolution of mind (the positive pole) proceeds by way of three
stages--theoretic, practical and aesthetical activity. Schelling's later
theosophic speculations do not specially concern us here.
_Followers of Schelling._--Of the followers of Schelling a word or two
must be said. Heinrich Steffens, in his _Anthropologie_, seeks to trace
out the origin and history of man in connexion with a general theory of
the development of the earth, and this again as related to the formation
of the solar system. All these processes are regarded as a series of
manifestations of a vital principle in higher and higher forms. Oken,
again, who carries Schelling's ideas into the region of biological
science, seeks to reconstruct the gradual evolution of the material
world out of original matter, which is the first immediate appearance of
God, or the absolute. This process is an upward one, through the
formation of the solar system and of our earth with its inorganic
bodies, up to the production of man. The process is essentially a polar
linear action, or differentiation from a common centre. By means of this
process the bodies of the solar system separate themselves, and the
order of cosmic evolution is repeated in that of terrestrial evolution.
The organic world (like the world as a whole) arises out of a primitive
chaos, namely, the infusorial slime. A somewhat similar working out of
Schelling's idea is to be found in H.C. Oersted's work entitled _The
Soul in Nature_ (Eng. trans.). Of later works based on Schelling's
doctrine of evolution mention may be made of the volume entitled _Natur
und Idee_, by G.F. Carus. According to this writer, existence is nothing
but a becoming, and matter is simply the momentary product of the
process of becoming, while force is this process constantly revealing
itself in these products.
_Hegel._--Like Schelling, Hegel conceives the problem of existence as
one of becoming. He differs from him with respect to the ultimate motive
of that process of gradual evolution which reveals itself alike in
nature and in mind. With Hegel the absolute is itself a dialectic
process which contains within itself a principle of progress from
difference to difference and from unity to unity. "This process (W.
Wallace remarks) knows nothing of the distinctions between past and
future, because it implies an eternal present." This conception of an
immanent spontaneous evolution is applied alike both to nature and to
mind and history. Nature to Hegel is the idea in the form of hetereity;
and finding itself here it has to remove this exteriority in a
progressive evolution towards an existence for itself in life and mind.
Nature (says Zeller) is to Hegel a system of gradations, of which one
arises necessarily out of the other, and is the proximate truth of that
out of which it results. There are three stadia, or moments, in this
process of nature--(1) the mechanical moment, or matter devoid of
individuality; (2) the physical moment, or matter which has
particularized itself in bodies--the solar system; and (3) the organic
moment, or organic beings, beginning with the geological organism--or
the mineral kingdom, plants and animals. Yet this process of development
is not to be conceived as if one stage is naturally produced out of the
other, and not even as if the one followed the other in time. Only
spirit has a history; in nature all forms are contemporaneous.[16]
Hegel's interpretation of mind and history as a process of evolution has
more scientific interest than his conception of nature. His theory of
the development of free-will (the objective spirit), which takes its
start from Kant's conception of history, with its three stages of legal
right, morality as determined by motive and instinctive goodness
(_Sittlichkeit_), might almost as well be expressed in terms of a
thoroughly naturalistic doctrine of human development. So, too, some of
his conceptions respecting the development of art and religion (the
absolute spirit) lend themselves to a similar interpretation. Yet while,
in its application to history, Hegel's theory of evolution has points of
resemblance with those doctrines which seek to explain the world-process
as one unbroken progress occurring in time, it constitutes on the whole
a theory apart and _sui generis_. It does not conceive of the organic as
succeeding on the inorganic, or of conscious life as conditioned in
time by lower forms. In this respect it resembles Leibnitz's idea of the
world as a development; the idea of evolution is in each case a
metaphysical as distinguished from a scientific one. Hegel gives a place
in his metaphysical system to the mechanical and the teleological views;
yet in his treatment of the world as an evolution the idea of end or
purpose is the predominant one.
Of the followers of Hegel who have worked out his peculiar idea of
evolution it is hardly necessary to speak. A bare reference may be made
to J.K. F. Rosenkranz, who in his work _Hegel's Naturphilosophie_ seeks
to develop Hegel's idea of an earth-organism in the light of modern
science, recognizing in crystallization the morphological element.
_Schopenhauer._--Of the other German philosophers immediately following
Kant, there is only one who calls for notice here, namely, Arthur
Schopenhauer. This writer, by his conception of the world as will which
objectifies itself in a series of gradations from the lowest
manifestations of matter up to conscious man, gives a slightly new shape
to the evolutional view of Schelling, though he deprives this view of
its optimistic character by denying any co-operation of intelligence in
the world-process. In truth, Schopenhauer's conception of the world as
the activity of a blind force is at bottom a materialistic and
mechanical rather than a spiritualistic and teleological theory.
Moreover, Schopenhauer's subjective idealism, and his view of time as
something illusory, hindered him from viewing this process as a sequence
of events in time. Thus he ascribes eternity of existence to species
under the form of the "Platonic ideas." As Ludwig Noiré observes,
Schopenhauer has no feeling for the problem of the origin of organic
beings. He says Lamarck's original animal is something metaphysical, not
physical, namely, the will to live. "Every species (according to
Schopenhauer) has of its own will, and according to the circumstances
under which it would live, determined its form and organization,--yet
not as something physical in time, but as something metaphysical out of
time."
_Von Baer._--Before leaving the German speculation of the first half of
the century, a word must be said of von Baer, to whose biological
contributions we shall refer later in this article, who recognized in
the law of development the law of the universe as a whole. In his
_Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere_ (p. 264) he distinctly tells us
that the law of growing individuality is "the fundamental thought which
goes through all forms and degrees of animal development and all single
relations. It is the same thought which collected in the cosmic space
the divided masses into spheres, and combined these to solar systems;
the same which caused the weather-beaten dust on the surface of our
metallic planet to spring forth into living forms." Von Baer thus
prepared the way for Herbert Spencer's generalization of the law of
organic evolution as the law of all evolution.
_Comte._--As we arrive at the 19th century, though yet before the days
of Darwin, biology is already beginning to affect the general aspect of
thought. It might suffice to single out the influence of Auguste Comte,
as the last great thinker who wrote before Darwinism began to permeate
philosophic speculation. Though Comte did not actually contribute to a
theory of cosmic organic evolution, he helped to lay the foundations of
a scientific conception of human history as a natural process of
development determined by general laws of human nature together with the
accumulating influences of the past. Comte does not recognize that this
process is aided by any increase of innate capacity; on the contrary,
progress is to him the unfolding of fundamental faculties of human
nature which always pre-existed in a latent condition; yet he may
perhaps be said to have prepared the way for the new conception of human
progress by his inclusion of mental laws under biology.
_Development of the Biological Doctrine._--In the 19th century the
doctrine of evolution received new biological contents and became
transformed from a vague, partly metaphysical theory to the dominant
modern conception. At this point it is convenient to leave the guidance
of Professor J. Sully and to follow closely T.H. Huxley, who in the 9th
edition of this encyclopaedia traced the history of the growth of the
biological idea of evolution from its philosophical beginnings to its
efflorescence in Charles Darwin.
In the earlier half of the 18th century the term "evolution" was
introduced into biological writings in order to denote the mode in which
some of the most eminent physiologists of that time conceived that the
generation of living things took place; in opposition to the hypothesis
advocated, in the preceding century, by W. Harvey in that remarkable
work[17] which would give him a claim to rank among the founders of
biological science, even had he not been the discoverer of the
circulation of the blood.
One of Harvey's prime objects is to defend and establish, on the basis
of direct observation, the opinion already held by Aristotle, that, in
the higher animals at any rate, the formation of the new organism by the
process of generation takes place, not suddenly, by simultaneous
accretion of rudiments of all or the most important of the organs of the
adult, nor by sudden metamorphosis of a formative substance into a
miniature of the whole, which subsequently grows, but by _epigenesis_,
or successive differentiation of a relatively homogeneous rudiment into
the parts and structures which are characteristic of the adult.
"Et primo, quidem, quoniam per _epigenesin_ sive partium
superexorientium additamentum pullum fabricari certum est: quaenam
pars ante alias omnes exstruatur, et quid de illa ejusque generandi
modo observandum veniat, dispiciemus. Ratum sane est et in ovo
manifeste apparet quod _Aristoteles_ de perfectorum animalium
generatione enuntiat: nimirum, non omnes partes simul fieri, sed
ordine aliam post aliam; primumque existere particulam genitalem,
cujus virtute postea (tanquam ex principio quodam) reliquae omnes
partes prosiliant. Qualem in plantarum seminibus (fabis, puta, aut
glandibus) gemmam sive apicem protuberantem cernimus, totius futurae
arboris principium. _Estque haec particula velut filius emancipatus
seorsumque collocatus, et principium per se vivens; unde postea
membrorum ordo describitur; et quaecunque ad absolvendum animal
pertinent, disponuntur._[18] Quoniam enim _nulla pars se ipsam
generat; sed postquam generata est, se ipsam jam auget; ideo eam
primum oriri necesse est, quae principium augendi contineat_ (_sive
enim planta, sive animal est, aeque omnibus inest quod vim habeat
vegetandi, sive nutriendi_),[19] simulque reliquas omnes partes suo
quamque ordine distinguat et formet; proindeque in eadem primogenita
particula anima primario inest, sensus, motusque, et totius vitae
auctor et principium." (_Exercitatio_ 51.)
Harvey proceeds to contrast this view with that of the "Medici," or
followers of Hippocrates and Galen, who, "badly philosophizing,"
imagined that the brain, the heart, and the liver were simultaneously
first generated in the form of vesicles; and, at the same time, while
expressing his agreement with Aristotle in the principle of epigenesis,
he maintains that it is the blood which is the primal generative part,
and not, as Aristotle thought, the heart.
In the latter part of the 17th century the doctrine of epigenesis thus
advocated by Harvey was controverted on the ground of direct observation
by M. Malpighi, who affirmed that the body of the chick is to be seen in
the egg before the _punctum sanguineum_ makes it appearance. But from
this perfectly correct observation a conclusion which is by no means
warranted was drawn, namely, that the chick as a whole really exists in
the egg antecedently to incubation; and that what happens in the course
of the latter process is no addition of new parts, "alias post alias
natas," as Harvey puts it, but a simple expansion or unfolding of the
organs which already exist, though they are too small and inconspicuous
to be discovered. The weight of Malpighi's observations therefore fell
into the scale of that doctrine which Harvey terms metamorphosis, in
contradistinction to epigenesis.
The views of Malpighi were warmly welcomed on philosophical grounds by
Leibnitz,[20] who found in them a support to his hypothesis of monads,
and by Nicholas Malebranche;[21] while, in the middle of the 18th
century, not only speculative considerations, but a great number of new
and interesting observations on the phenomena of generation, led the
ingenious Charles Bonnet and A. von Haller, the first physiologist of
the age, to adopt, advocate and extend them.
Bonnet affirms that, before fecundation, the hen's egg contains an
excessively minute but complete chick; and that fecundation and
incubation simply cause this germ to absorb nutritious matters, which
are deposited in the interstices of the elementary structures of which
the miniature chick, or germ, is made up. The consequence of this
intussusceptive growth is the "development" or "evolution" of the germ
into the visible bird. Thus an organized individual (_tout organisé_)
"is a composite body consisting of the original, or _elementary_, parts
and of the matters which have been associated with them by the aid of
nutrition"; so that, if these matters could be extracted from the
individual (_tout_), it would, so to speak, become concentrated in a
point, and would thus be restored to its primitive condition of a
_germ_; "just as, by extracting from a bone the calcareous substance
which is the source of its hardness, it is reduced to its primitive
state of gristle or membrane."[22]
"Evolution" and "development" are, for Bonnet, synonymous terms; and
since by "evolution" he means simply the expansion of that which was
invisible into visibility, he was naturally led to the conclusion, at
which Leibnitz had arrived by a different line of reasoning, that no
such thing as generation, in the proper sense of the word exists in
nature. The growth of an organic being is simply a process of
enlargement, as a particle of dry gelatine may be swelled up by the
intussusception of water; its death is a shrinkage, such as the swelled
jelly might undergo on desiccation. Nothing really new is produced in
the living world, but the germs which develop have existed since the
beginning of things; and nothing really dies, but, when what we call
death takes place, the living thing shrinks back into its germ
state.[23]
The two parts of Bonnet's hypothesis, namely, the doctrine that all
living things proceed from pre-existing germs, and that these contain,
one enclosed within the other, the germs of all future living things,
which is the hypothesis of "emboîtement," and the doctrine that every
germ contains in miniature all the organs of the adult, which is the
hypothesis of evolution or development, in the primary senses of these
words, must be carefully distinguished. In fact, while holding firmly by
the former, Bonnet more or less modified the latter in his later
writings, and, at length, he admits that a "germ" need not be an actual
miniature of the organism, but that it may be merely an "original
preformation" capable of producing the latter.[24]
But, thus defined, the germ is neither more nor less than the "particula
genitalis" of Aristotle, or the "primordium vegetale" or "ovum" of
Harvey; and the "evolution" of such a germ would not be distinguishable
from "epigenesis."
Supported by the great authority of Haller, the doctrine of evolution,
or development, prevailed throughout the whole of the 18th century, and
Cuvier appears to have substantially adopted Bonnet's later views,
though probably he would not have gone all lengths in the direction of
"emboîtement." In a well-known note to Charles Leopold Laurillard's
_Éloge_, prefixed to the last edition of the _Ossemens fossiles_, the
"radical de l'être" is much the same thing as Aristotle's "particula
genitalis" and Harvey's "ovum."[25]
Bonnet's eminent contemporary, Buffon, held nearly the same views with
respect to the nature of the germ, and expresses them even more
confidently.
"Ceux qui ont cru que le coeur étoit le premier formé, se sont
trompés; ceux qui disent que c'est le sang se trompent aussi: tout est
formé en même temps. Si l'on ne consulte que l'observation, le poulet
se voit dans l'oeuf avant qu'il ait été couvé."[26]
"J'ai ouvert une grande quantité d'oeufs à differens temps avant et
après l'incubation, et je me suis convaincu par mes yeux que le poulet
existe en entier dans le milieu de la cicatrule au moment qu'il sort
du corps de la poule."[27]
The "moule intérieur" of Buffon is the aggregate of elementary parts
which constitute the individual, and is thus the equivalent of Bonnet's
germ,[28] as defined in the passage cited above. But Buffon further
imagined that innumerable "molécules organiques" are dispersed
throughout the world, and that alimentation consists in the
appropriation by the parts of an organism of those molecules which are
analogous to them. Growth, therefore, was, on this hypothesis, partly a
process of simple evolution, and partly of what has been termed
syngenesis. Buffon's opinion is, in fact, a sort of combination of
views, essentially similar to those of Bonnet, with others, somewhat
similar to those of the "Medici" whom Harvey condemns. The "molécules
organiques" are physical equivalents of Leibnitz's "monads."
It is a striking example of the difficulty of getting people to use
their own powers of investigation accurately, that this form of the
doctrine of evolution should have held its ground so long; for it was
thoroughly and completely exploded, not long after its enunciation, by
Caspar Frederick Wolff, who in his _Theoria generatìonis_, published in
1759, placed the opposite theory of epigenesis upon the secure
foundation of fact, from which it has never been displaced. But Wolff
had no immediate successors. The school of Cuvier was lamentably
deficient in embryologists; and it was only in the course of the first
thirty years of the 19th century that Prévost and Dumas in France, and,
later on, Döllinger, Pander, von Bär, Rathke, and Remak in Germany,
founded modern embryology; and, at the same time, proved the utter
incompatibility of the hypothesis of evolution as formulated by Bonnet
and Haller with easily demonstrable facts.
Nevertheless, though the conceptions originally denoted by "evolution"
and "development" were shown to be untenable, the words retained their
application to the process by which the embryos of living beings
gradually make their appearance; and the terms "development,"
"Entwickelung," and "evolutio" are now indiscriminately used for the
series of genetic changes exhibited by living beings, by writers who
would emphatically deny that "development" or "Entwickelung" or
"evolutio," in the sense in which these words were usually employed by
Bonnet or Haller, ever occurs.
Evolution, or development, is, in fact, at present employed in biology
as a general name for the history of the steps by which any living being
has acquired the morphological and the physiological characters which
distinguish it. As civil history may be divided into biography, which is
the history of individuals, and universal history, which is the history
of the human race, so evolution falls naturally into two categories--the
evolution of the individual (see EMBRYOLOGY) and the evolution of the
sum of living beings.
_The Evolution of the Sum of Living Beings._--The notion that all the
kinds of animals and plants may have come into existence by the growth
and modification of primordial germs is as old as speculative thought;
but the modern scientific form of the doctrine can be traced
historically to the influence of several converging lines of
philosophical speculation and of physical observation, none of which go
further back than the 17th century. These are:--
1. The enunciation by Descartes of the conception that the physical
universe, whether living or not living, is a mechanism, and that, as
such, it is explicable on physical principles.
2. The observation of the gradations of structure, from extreme
simplicity to very great complexity, presented by living things, and of
the relation of these graduated forms to one another.
3. The observation of the existence of an analogy between the series of
gradations presented by the species which compose any great group of
animals or plants, and the series of embryonic conditions of the highest
members of that group.
4. The observation that large groups of species of widely different
habits present the same fundamental plan of structure; and that parts of
the same animal or plant, the functions of which are very different,
likewise exhibit modifications of a common plan.
5. The observation of the existence of structures, in a rudimentary and
apparently useless condition, in one species of a group, which are fully
developed and have definite functions in other species of the same
group.
6. The observation of the effects of varying conditions in modifying
living organisms.
7. The observation of the facts of geographical distribution.
8. The observation of the facts of the geological succession of the
forms of life.
1. Notwithstanding the elaborate disguise which fear of the powers that
were led Descartes to throw over his real opinions, it is impossible to
read the _Principes de la philosophie_ without acquiring the conviction
that this great philosopher held that the physical world and all things
in it, whether living or not living, have originated by a process of
evolution, due to the continuous operation of purely physical causes,
out of a primitive relatively formless matter.[29]
The following passage is especially instructive:--
"Et tant s'en faut que je veuille que l'on croie toutes les choses que
j'écrirai, que même je prétends en proposer ici quelques-unes que je
crois absolument être fausses; à savoir, je ne doute point que le
monde n'ait été créé au commencement avec autant de perfection qu'il
en a; en sorte que le soleil, la terre, la lune, et les étoiles ont
été dès lors; et que la terre n'a pas eu seulement en soi les semences
des plantes, mais que les plantes même en ont couvert une partie; et
qu'Adam et Ève n'ont pas été créés enfans mais en âge d'hommes
parfaits. La religion chrétienne veut que nous le croyons ainsi, et la
raison naturelle nous persuade entièrement cette vérité; car si nous
considérons la toute puissance de Dieu, nous devons juger que tout ce
qu'il a fait a eu dès le commencement toute la perfection qu'il devoit
avoir. Mais néanmoins, comme on connoîtroit beaucoup mieux quelle a
été la nature d'Adam et celle des arbres de Paradis si on avoit
examiné comment les enfants se forment peu à peu dans le ventre de
leurs mères et comment les plantes sortent de leurs semences, que si
on avoit seulement considéré quels ils ont été quand Dieu les a créés:
tout de même, nous ferons mieux entendre quelle est généralement la
nature de toutes les choses qui sont au monde si nous pouvons imaginer
quelques principes qui soient fort intelligibles et fort simples,
desquels nous puissions voir clairement que les astres et la terre et
enfin tout ce monde visible auroit pu être produit ainsi que de
quelques semences (bien que nous sachions qu'il n'a pas été produit en
cette façon) que si nous la décrivions seulement comme il est, ou bien
comme nous croyons qu'il a été créé. Et parceque je pense avoir trouvé
des principes qui sont tels, je tâcherai ici de les expliquer."[30]
If we read between the lines of this singular exhibition of force of one
kind and weakness of another, it is clear that Descartes believed that
he had divined the mode in which the physical universe had been evolved;
and the _Traité de l'homme_ and the essay _Sur les passions_ afford
abundant additional evidence that he sought for, and thought he had
found, an explanation of the phenomena of physical life by deduction
from purely physical laws.
Spinoza abounds in the same sense, and is as usual perfectly candid--
"Naturae leges et regulae, secundum quas omnia fiunt et ex unis formis
in alias mutantur, sunt ubique et semper eadem."[31]
Leibnitz's doctrine of continuity necessarily led him in the same
direction; and, of the infinite multitude of monads with which he
peopled the world, each is supposed to be the focus of an endless
process of evolution and involution. In the _Protogaea_, xxvi., Leibnitz
distinctly suggests the mutability of species--
"Alii mirantur in saxis passim species videri quas vel in orbe
cognito, vel saltem in vicinis locis frustra quaeras. Ita _Cornua
Ammonis_, quae ex nautilorum numero habeantur, passim et forma et
magnitudine (nam et pedali diametro aliquando reperiuntur) ab omnibus
illis naturis discrepare dicunt, quas praebet mare. Sed quis
absconditos ejus recessus aut subterraneas abyssos pervestigavit? quam
multa nobis animalia antea ignota offert novus orbis? Et credibile est
per magnas illas conversiones etiam animalium species plurimum
immutatas."
Thus in the end of the 17th century the seed was sown which has at
intervals brought forth recurrent crops of evolutional hypotheses,
based, more or less completely, on general reasonings.
Among the earliest of these speculations is that put forward by Benoît
de Maillet in his _Telliamed_, which, though printed in 1735, was not
published until twenty-three years later. Considering that this book was
written before the time of Haller, or Bonnet, or Linnaeus, or Hutton, it
surely deserves more respectful consideration than it usually receives.
For De Maillet not only has a definite conception of the plasticity of
living things, and of the production of existing species by the
modification of their predecessors, but he clearly apprehends the
cardinal maxim of modern geological science, that the explanation of the
structure of the globe is to be sought in the deductive application to
geological phenomena of the principles established inductively by the
study of the present course of nature. Somewhat later, P.L.M. de
Maupertuis[32] suggested a curious hypothesis as to the causes of
variation, which he thinks may be sufficient to account for the origin
of all animals from a single pair. Jean Baptiste René Robinet[33]
followed out much the same line of thought as De Maillet, but less
soberly; and Bonnet's speculations in the _Palingénésie_, which appeared
in 1769, have already been mentioned. Buffon (1753-1778), at first a
partisan of the absolute immutability of species, subsequently appears
to have believed that larger or smaller groups of species have been
produced by the modification of a primitive stock; but he contributed
nothing to the general doctrine of evolution.
Erasmus Darwin (_Zoonomia_, 1794), though a zealous evolutionist, can
hardly be said to have made any real advance on his predecessors; and,
notwithstanding the fact that Goethe had the advantage of a wide
knowledge of morphological facts, and a true insight into their
signification, while he threw all the power of a great poet into the
expression of his conceptions, it may be questioned whether he supplied
the doctrine of evolution with a firmer scientific basis than it already
possessed. Moreover, whatever the value of Goethe's labours in that
field, they were not published before 1820, long after evolutionism had
taken a new departure from the works of Treviranus and Lamarck--the
first of its advocates who were equipped for their task with the needful
large and accurate knowledge of the phenomena of life as a whole. It is
remarkable that each of these writers seems to have been led,
independently and contemporaneously, to invent the same name of
"biology" for the science of the phenomena of life; and thus, following
Buffon, to have recognized the essential unity of these phenomena, and
their contradistinction from those of inanimate nature. And it is hard
to say whether Lamarck or Treviranus has the priority in propounding the
main thesis of the doctrine of evolution; for though the first volume of
Treviranus's _Biologie_ appeared only in 1802, he says, in the preface
to his later work, the _Erscheinungen und Gesetze des organischen
Lebens_, dated 1831, that he wrote the first volume of the _Biologie_
"nearly five-and-thirty years ago," or about 1796.
Now, in 1794, there is evidence that Lamarck held doctrines which
present a striking contrast to those which are to be found in the
_Philosophie zoologique_, as the following passages show:--
"685. Quoique mon unique objet dans cet article n'ait été que de
traiter de la cause physique de l'entretien de la vie des êtres
organiques, malgré cela j'ai osé avancer en débutant, que l'existence
de ces êtres étonnants n'appartiennent nullement à la nature; que tout
ce qu'on peut entendre par le mot _nature_, ne pouvoit donner la vie,
c'est-à-dire, que toutes les qualités de la matière, jointes à toutes
les circonstances possibles, et même à l'activité répandue dans
l'univers, ne pouvaient point produire un être muni du mouvement
organique, capable de reproduire son semblable, et sujet à la mort.
"686. Tous les individus de cette nature, qui existent, proviennent
d'individus semblables qui tous ensemble constituent l'espèce entière.
Or, je crois qu'il est aussi impossible à l'homme de connoître la
cause physique du premier individu de chaque espèce, que d'assigner
aussi physiquement la cause de l'existence de la matière ou de
l'univers entier. C'est au moins ce que le résultat de mes
connaissances et de mes réflexions me portent à penser. S'il existe
beaucoup de variétés produites par l'effet des circonstances, ces
variétés ne dénaturent point les espèces; mais on se trompe, sans
doute souvent, en indiquant comme espèce, ce qui n'est que variété; et
alors je sens que cette erreur peut tirer à conséquence dans les
raisonnements que l'on fait sur cette matière."[34]
The first three volumes of Treviranus's Biologie, which contains his
general views of evolution, appeared between 1802 and 1805. The
_Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants_, which sketches out
Lamarck's doctrines, was published in 1802; but the full development of
his views in the _Philosophie zoologique_ did not take place until
1809.
The _Biologie_ and the _Philosophie zoologique_ are both very remarkable
productions, and are still worthy of attentive study, but they fell upon
evil times. The vast authority of Cuvier was employed in support of the
traditionally respectable hypotheses of special creation and of
catastrophism; and the wild speculations of the _Discours sur les
révolutions de la surface du globe_ were held to be models of sound
scientific thinking, while the really much more sober and philosophical
hypotheses of the _Hydrogéologie_ were scouted. For many years it was
the fashion to speak of Lamarck with ridicule, while Treviranus was
altogether ignored.
Nevertheless, the work had been done. The conception of evolution was
henceforward irrepressible, and it incessantly reappears, in one shape
or another,[35] up to the year 1858, when Charles Darwin and A.R.
Wallace published their _Theory of Natural Selection_. The _Origin of
Species_ appeared in 1859; and thenceforward the doctrine of evolution
assumed a position and acquired an importance which it never before
possessed. In the _Origin of Species_, and in his other numerous and
important contributions to the solution of the problem of biological
evolution, Darwin confined himself to the discussion of the causes which
have brought about the present condition of living matter, assuming such
matter to have once come into existence. On the other hand, Spencer[36]
and E. Haeckel[37] dealt with the whole problem of evolution. The
profound and vigorous writings of Spencer embody the spirit of Descartes
in the knowledge of our own day, and may be regarded as the _Principes
de la philosophie_ of the 19th century; while, whatever hesitation may
not unfrequently be felt by less daring minds in following Haeckel in
many of his speculations, his attempt to systematize the doctrine of
evolution and to exhibit its influence as the central thought of modern
biology, cannot fail to have a far-reaching influence on the progress of
science.
If we seek for the reason of the difference between the scientific
position of the doctrine of evolution in the days of Lamarck and that
which it occupies now, we shall find it in the great accumulation of
facts, the several classes of which have been enumerated above, under
the second to the eighth heads. For those which are grouped under the
second to the seventh of these classes, respectively, have a clear
significance on the hypothesis of evolution, while they are
unintelligible if that hypothesis be denied. And those of the eighth
group are not only unintelligible without the assumption of evolution,
but can be proved never to be discordant with that hypothesis, while, in
some cases, they are exactly such as the hypothesis requires. The
demonstration of these assertions would require a volume, but the
general nature of the evidence on which they rest may be briefly
indicated.
2. The accurate investigation of the lowest forms of animal life,
commenced by Leeuwenhoek and Swammerdam, and continued by the remarkable
labours of Réaumur, Abraham Trembley, Bonnet, and a host of other
observers in the latter part of the 17th and the first half of the 18th
centuries, drew the attention of biologists to the gradation in the
complexity of organization which is presented by living beings, and
culminated in the doctrine of the _échelle des êtres_, so powerfully and
clearly stated by Bonnet, and, before him, adumbrated by Locke and by
Leibnitz. In the then state of knowledge, it appeared that all the
species of animals and plants could be arranged in one series, in such a
manner that, by insensible gradations, the mineral passed into the
plant, the plant into the polype, the polype into the worm, and so,
through gradually higher forms of life, to man, at the summit of the
animated world.
But, as knowledge advanced, this conception ceased to be tenable in the
crude form in which it was first put forward. Taking into account
existing animals and plants alone, it became obvious that they fell into
groups which were more or less sharply separated from one another; and,
moreover, that even the species of a genus can hardly ever be arranged
in linear series. Their natural resemblances and differences are only to
be expressed by disposing them as if they were branches springing from a
common hypothetical centre.
Lamarck, while affirming the verbal proposition that animals form a
single series, was forced by his vast acquaintance with the details of
zoology to limit the assertion to such a series as may be formed out of
the abstractions constituted by the common characters of each group.[38]
Cuvier on anatomical, and Von Baer on embryological grounds, made the
further step of proving that, even in this limited sense, animals cannot
be arranged in a single series, but that there are several distinct
plans of organization to be observed among them, no one of which, in its
highest and most complicated modification, leads to any of the others.
The conclusions enunciated by Cuvier and Von Baer have been confirmed in
principle by all subsequent research into the structure of animals and
plants. But the effect of the adoption of these conclusions has been
rather to substitute a new metaphor for that of Bonnet than to abolish
the conception expressed by it. Instead of regarding living things as
capable of arrangement in one series like the steps of a ladder, the
results of modern investigation compel us to dispose them as if they
were the twigs and branches of a tree. The ends of the twigs represent
individuals, the smallest groups of twigs species, larger groups genera,
and so on, until we arrive at the source of all these ramifications of
the main branch, which is represented by a common plan of structure. At
the present moment it is impossible to draw up any definition, based on
broad anatomical or developmental characters, by which any one of
Cuvier's great groups shall be separated from all the rest. On the
contrary, the lower members of each tend to converge towards the lower
members of all the others. The same may be said of the vegetable world.
The apparently clear distinction between flowering and flowerless plants
has been broken down by the series of gradations between the two
exhibited by the _Lycopodiaceae_, _Rhizocarpeae_, and _Gymnospermeae_.
The groups of _Fungi_, _Licheneae_ and _Algae_ have completely run into
one another, and, when the lowest forms of each are alone considered,
even the animal and vegetable kingdoms cease to have a definite
frontier.
If it is permissible to speak of the relations of living forms to one
another metaphorically, the similitude chosen must undoubtedly be that
of a common root, whence two main trunks, one representing the vegetable
and one the animal world, spring; and, each dividing into a few main
branches, these subdivide into multitudes of branchlets and these into
smaller groups of twigs.
As Lamarck has well said:--[39]
"Il n'y a que ceux qui se sont longtemps et fortement occupés de la
détermination des espèces, et qui ont consulté de riches collections,
qui peuvent savoir jusqu'à quel point les _espèces_, parmi les corps
vivants, se fondent les unes dans les autres, et qui ont pu se
convaincre que, dans les parties où nous voyons des _espèces_ isolées,
cela n'est ainsi que parcequ'il nous en manque d'autres qui en sont
plus voisines et que nous n'avons pas encore recueillies.
"Je ne veux pas dire pour cela que les animaux qui existent forment
une série très-simple et partout également nuancée; mais je dis qu'ils
forment une série rameuse, irrégulièrement graduée et qui n'a point de
discontinuité dans ses parties, ou qui, du moins, n'en a toujours pas
eu, s'il est vrai que, par suite de quelques espèces perdues, il s'en
trouve quelque part. Il en résulte que les _espèces_ qui terminent
chaque rameau de la série générale tiennent, au moins d'un côté, à
d'autres espèces voisines qui se nuancent avec elles. Voilà ce que
l'état bien connu des choses me met maintenant à portée de démontrer.
Je n'ai besoin d'aucune hypothèse ni d'aucune supposition pour cela:
j'en atteste tous les naturalistes observateurs."
3. In a remarkable essay[40] Meckel remarks:--
"There is no good physiologist who has not been struck by the
observation that the original form of all organisms is one and the
same, and that out of this one form, all, the lowest as well as the
highest, are developed in such a manner that the latter pass through the
permanent forms of the former as transitory stages. Aristotle, Haller,
Harvey, Kielmeyer, Autenrieth, and many others have either made this
observation incidentally, or, especially the latter, have drawn
particular attention to it, and drawn therefrom results of permanent
importance for physiology."
Meckel proceeds to exemplify the thesis, that the lower forms of animals
represent stages in the course of the development of the higher, with a
large series of illustrations.
After comparing the salamanders and the perenni-branchiate _Urodela_
with the tadpoles and the frogs, and enunciating the law that the more
highly any animal is organized the more quickly does it pass through the
lower stages, Meckel goes on to say:--
"From these lowest Vertebrata to the highest, and to the highest forms
among these, the comparison between the embryonic conditions of the
higher animals and the adult states of the lower can be more
completely and thoroughly instituted than if the survey is extended to
the Invertebrata, inasmuch as the latter are in many respects
constructed upon an altogether too dissimilar type; indeed they often
differ from one another far more than the lowest vertebrate does from
the highest mammal; yet the following pages will show that the
comparison may be also extended to them with interest. In fact, there
is a period when, as Aristotle long ago said, the embryo of the
highest animal has the form of a mere worm, and, devoid of internal
and external organization, is merely an almost structureless lump of
polype-substance. Notwithstanding the origin of organs, it still for a
certain time, by reason of its want of an internal bony skeleton,
remains worm and mollusk, and only later enters into the series of the
Vertebrata, although traces of the vertebral column even in the
earliest periods testify its claim to a place in that series."--Op.
cit. pp. 4, 5.
If Meckel's proposition is so far qualified, that the comparison of
adult with embryonic forms is restricted within the limits of one type
of organization; and if it is further recollected, that the resemblance
between the permanent lower form and the embryonic stage of a higher
form is not special but general, it is in entire accordance with modern
embryology; although there is no branch of biology which has grown so
largely, and improved its methods so much since Meckel's time, as this.
In its original form, the doctrine of "arrest of development," as
advocated by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Serres, was no doubt an
over-statement of the case. It is not true, for example, that a fish is
a reptile arrested in its development, or that a reptile was ever a
fish; but it is true that the reptile embryo, at one stage of its
development, is an organism which, if it had an independent existence,
must be classified among fishes; and all the organs of the reptile pass,
in the course of their development, through conditions which are closely
analogous to those which are permanent in some fishes.
4. That branch of biology which is termed morphology is a commentary
upon, and expansion of, the proposition that widely different animals or
plants, and widely different parts of animals or plants, are constructed
upon the same plan. From the rough comparison of the skeleton of a bird
with that of a man by Pierre Delon, in the 16th century (to go no
further back), down to the theory of the limbs and the theory of the
skull at the present day; or, from the first demonstration of the
homologies of the parts of a flower by C.F. Wolff, to the present
elaborate analysis of the floral organs, morphology exhibits a continual
advance towards the demonstration of a fundamental unity among the
seeming diversities of living structures. And this demonstration has
been completed by the final establishment of the cell theory (see
CYTOLOGY), which involves the admission of a primitive conformity, not
only of all the elementary structures in animals and plants
respectively, but of those in the one of these great divisions of living
things with those in the other. No _a priori_ difficulty can be said to
stand in the way of evolution, when it can be shown that all animals and
all plants proceed by modes of development, which are similar in
principle, from a fundamental protoplasmic material.
5. The innumerable cases of structures, which are rudimentary and
apparently useless, in species, the close allies of which possess
well-developed and functionally important homologous structures, are
readily intelligible on the theory of evolution, while it is hard to
conceive their _raison d'être_ on any other hypothesis. However, a
cautious reasoner will probably rather explain such cases deductively
from the doctrine of evolution than endeavour to support the doctrine of
evolution by them. For it is almost impossible to prove that any
structure, however rudimentary, is useless--that is to say, that it
plays no part whatever in the economy; and, if it is in the slightest
degree useful, there is no reason why, on the hypothesis of direct
creation, it should not have been created. Nevertheless; double-edged as
is the argument from rudimentary organs, there is probably none which
has produced a greater effect in promoting the general acceptance of the
theory of evolution.
6. The older advocates of evolution sought for the causes of the process
exclusively in the influence of varying conditions, such as climate and
station, or hybridization, upon living forms. Even Treviranus has got no
further than this point. Lamarck introduced the conception of the action
of an animal on itself as a factor in producing modification. Starting
from the well-known fact that the habitual use of a limb tends to
develop the muscles of the limb, and to produce a greater and greater
facility in using it, he made the general assumption that the effort of
an animal to exert an organ in a given direction tends to develop the
organ in that direction. But a little consideration showed that, though
Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of
modification, it is a cause the actual effects of which are wholly
inadequate to account for any considerable modification in animals, and
which can have no influence at all in the vegetable world; and probably
nothing contributed so much to discredit evolution, in the early part of
the 19th century, as the floods of easy ridicule which were poured upon
this part of Lamarck's speculation. The theory of natural selection, or
survival of the fittest, was suggested by William Charles Wells in 1813,
and further elaborated by Patrick Matthew in 1831. But the pregnant
suggestions of these writers remained practically unnoticed and
forgotten, until the theory was independently devised and promulgated by
Charles Robert Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace in 1858, and the effect
of its publication was immediate and profound.
Those who were unwilling to accept evolution, without better grounds
than such as are offered by Lamarck, and who therefore preferred to
suspend their judgment on the question, found in the principle of
selective breeding, pursued in all its applications with marvellous
knowledge and skill by Darwin, a valid explanation of the occurrence of
varieties and races; and they saw clearly that, if the explanation would
apply to species, it would not only solve the problem of their
evolution, but that it would account for the facts of teleology, as well
as for those of morphology; and for the persistence of some forms of
life unchanged through long epochs of time, while others undergo
comparatively rapid metamorphosis.
How far "natural selection" suffices for the production of species
remains to be seen. Few can doubt that, if not the whole cause, it is a
very important factor in that operation; and that it must play a great
part in the sorting out of varieties into those which are transitory and
those which are permanent.
But the causes and conditions of variation have yet to be thoroughly
explored; and the importance of natural selection will not be impaired,
even if further inquiries should prove that variability is definite, and
is determined in certain directions rather than in others, by conditions
inherent in that which varies. It is quite conceivable that every
species tends to produce varieties of a limited number and kind, and
that the effect of natural selection is to favour the development of
some of these, while it opposes the development of others along their
predetermined lines of modification.
7. No truths brought to light by biological investigation were better
calculated to inspire distrust of the dogmas intruded upon science in
the name of theology than those which relate to the distribution of
animals and plants on the surface of the earth. Very skilful
accommodation was needful, if the limitation of sloths to South America,
and of the _Ornithorhynchus_ to Australia, was to be reconciled with
the literal interpretation of the history of the Deluge; and, with the
establishment of the existence of distinct provinces of distribution,
any serious belief in the peopling of the world by migration from Mount
Ararat came to an end.
Under these circumstances, only one alternative was left for those who
denied the occurrence of evolution; namely, the supposition that the
characteristic animals and plants of each great province were created,
as such, within the limits in which, we find them. And as the hypothesis
of "specific centres," thus formulated, was heterodox from the
theological point of view, and unintelligible under its scientific
aspect, it may be passed over without further notice, as a phase of
transition from the creational to the evolutional hypothesis.
8. In fact, the strongest and most conclusive arguments in favour of
evolution are those which are based upon the facts of geographical,
taken in conjunction with those of geological, distribution.
Both Darwin and Wallace lay great stress on the close relation which
obtains between the existing fauna of any region and that of the
immediately antecedent geological epoch in the same region; and rightly,
for it is in truth inconceivable that there should be no genetic
connexion between the two. It is possible to put into words the
proposition, that all the animals and plants of each geological epoch
were annihilated, and that a new set of very similar forms was created
for the next epoch, but it may be doubted if any one who ever tried to
form a distinct mental image of this process of spontaneous generation
on the grandest scale ever really succeeded in realizing it.
In later years the attention of the best palaeontologists has been
withdrawn from the hodman's work of making "new species" of fossils, to
the scientific task of completing our knowledge of individual species,
and tracing out the succession of the forms presented by any given type
in time.
_Evolution at the Beginning of the 20th century._--Since Huxley and
Sully wrote their masterly essays in the 9th edition of this
encyclopaedia, the doctrine of evolution has outgrown the trammels of
controversy and has been accepted as a fundamental principle. Writers on
biological subjects no longer have to waste space in weighing evolution
against this or that philosophical theory or religious tradition;
philosophical writers have frankly accepted it, and the supporters of
religious tradition have made broad their phylacteries to write on them
the new words. A closer scrutiny of the writers of all ages who preceded
Charles Darwin, and, in particular, the light thrown back from Darwin on
the earlier writings of Herbert Spencer, have made plain that without
Darwin the world by this time might have come to a general acceptance of
evolution; but it seems established as a historical fact that the world
has come to accept evolution, first, because of Darwin's theory of
natural selection, and second, because of Darwin's exposition of the
evidence for the actual occurrence of organic evolution. The evidence as
set out by Darwin has been added to enormously; new knowledge has in
many cases altered our conceptions of the mode of the actual process of
evolution, and from time to time a varying stress has been laid on what
are known as the purely Darwinian factors in the theory. The balance of
these tendencies has been against the attachment of great importance to
sexual selection, and in favour of attaching a great importance to
natural selection; but the dominant feature in the recent history of the
theory has been its universal acceptance and the recognition that this
general acceptance has come from the stimulus given by Darwin.
Ontogeny.
A change has taken place in the use of the word evolution. Huxley,
following historical custom, devoted one section of his article to the
"Evolution of the Individual." The facts and theories respecting this
are now discussed under such headings as EMBRYOLOGY; HEREDITY; VARIATION
AND SELECTION; under these headings must be sought information on the
important recent modifications with regard to the theory of the relation
between the development of the individual and the development of the
race, the part played by the environment on the individual, and the
modern developments of the old quarrel between evolution and
epigenesis. The most striking general change has been against seeing in
the facts of ontogeny any direct evidence as to phylogeny. The general
proposition as to a parallelism between individual and ancestral
development is no doubt indisputable, but extended knowledge of the very
different ontogenetic histories of closely allied forms has led us to a
much fuller conception of the mode in which stages in embryonic and
larval history have been modified in relation to their surroundings, and
to a consequent reluctance to attach detailed importance to the
embryological argument for evolution.
Phylogeny.
The vast bulk of botanical and zoological work on living and extinct
forms published during the last quarter of the 19th century increased
almost beyond all expectation the evidence for the fact of evolution.
The discovery of a single fossil creature in a geological stratum of a
wrong period, the detection of a single anatomical or physiological fact
irreconcilable with origin by descent with modification, would have been
destructive of the theory and would have made the reputation of the
observer. But in the prodigious number of supporting discoveries that
have been made no single negative factor has appeared, and the evolution
from their predecessors of the forms of life existing now or at any
other period must be taken as proved. It is necessary to notice,
however, that although the general course of the stream of life is
certain, there is not the same certainty as to the actual individual
pedigrees of the existing forms. In the attempts to place existing
creatures in approximately phylogenetic order, a striking change, due to
a more logical consideration of the process of evolution, has become
established and is already resolving many of the earlier difficulties
and banishing from the more recent tables the numerous hypothetical
intermediate forms so familiar in the older phylogenetic trees. The
older method was to attempt the comparison between the highest member of
a lower group and the lowest member of a higher group--to suppose, for
example, that the gorilla and the chimpanzee, the highest members of the
apes, were the existing representatives of the ancestors of man and to
compare these forms with the lowest members of the human race. Such a
comparison is necessarily illogical, as the existing apes are separated
from the common ancestor by at least as large a number of generations as
separate it from any of the forms of existing man. In the natural
process of growth, the gap must necessarily be wider between the summits
of the twigs than lower down, and, instead of imagining "missing links,"
it is necessary to trace each separate branch as low down as possible,
and to institute the comparisons between the lowest points that can be
reached. The method is simply the logical result of the fact that every
existing form of life stands at the summit of a long branch of the whole
tree of life. A due consideration of it leads to the curious paradox
that if any two animals be compared, the zoologically lower will be
separated from the common ancestor by a larger number of generations,
since, on the average, sexual maturity is reached more quickly by the
lower form. Naturally very many other factors have to be considered, but
this alone is a sufficient reason to restrain attempts to place existing
forms in linear phylogenetic series. In embryology the method finds its
expression in the limitation of comparisons to the corresponding stages
of low and high forms and the exclusion of the comparisons between the
adult stages of low forms and the embryonic stages of higher forms.
Another expression of the same method, due to Cope, and specially
valuable to the taxonomist, is that when the relationship between orders
is being considered, characters of subordinal rank must be neglected. It
must not be supposed that earlier writers all neglected this method, or
still less that all writers now employ it, but merely that formerly it
was frequently overlooked by the best writers, and now is neglected only
by the worst. The result is, on the one hand, a clearing away of much
fantastic phylogeny, on the other, an enormous reduction of the supposed
gaps between groups.
Comparative anatomy.
There has been a renewed activity in the study of existing forms from
the point of view of obtaining evidence as to the nature and origin of
species. Comparative anatomists have been learning to refrain from
basing the diagnosis of a species, or the description of the condition
of an organ, on the evidence of a single specimen. Naturalists who deal
specially with museum collections have been compelled, it is true, for
other reasons to attach an increasing importance to what is called the
type specimen, but they find that this insistence on the individual,
although invaluable from the point of view of recording species, is
unsatisfactory from the point of view of scientific zoology; and
propositions for the amelioration of this condition of affairs range
from a refusal of Linnaean nomenclature in such cases, to the
institution of a division between _master species_ for such species as
have been properly revised by the comparative morphologist, and
_provisional species_ for such species as have been provisionally
registered by those working at collections. Those who work with living
forms of which it is possible to obtain a large number of specimens, and
those who make revisions of the provisional species of palaeontologists,
are slowly coming to some such conception as that a species is the
abstract central point around which a group of variations oscillate, and
that the peripheral oscillations of one species may even overlap those
of an allied species. It is plain that we have moved far from the
connotation and denotation of the word _species_ at the time when Darwin
began to discuss the origin of species, and that the movement, on the
one hand, tends to simplify the problem philosophically, and, on the
other, to make it difficult for the amateur theorist.
The conception of evolution is being applied more rigidly to the
comparative anatomy of organs and systems of organs. When a series of
the modifications of an anatomical structure has been sufficiently
examined, it is frequently possible to decide that one particular
condition is primitive, ancestral or central, and that the other
conditions have been derived from it. Such a condition has been termed,
with regard to the group of animals or plants the organs of which are
being studied, _archecentric_. The possession of the character in the
archecentric condition in (say) two of the members of the group does not
indicate that these two members are more nearly related to one another
than they are to other members of the group; the archecentric condition
is part of the common heritage of all the members of the group, and may
be retained by any. On the other hand, when the ancestral condition is
modified, it may be regarded as having moved outwards along some radius
from the archecentric condition. Such modified conditions have been
termed _apocentric_. It is obvious that the mere apocentricity of a
character can be no guide to the affinities of its possessor. It is
necessary to determine if the modification be a simple change that might
have occurred in independent cases, in fact if it be a multiradial
apocentricity, or if it involved intricate and precisely combined
anatomical changes that we could not expect to occur twice
independently; that is to say, if it be a uniradial apocentricity.
Multiradial apocentricities lie at the root of many of the phenomena
that have been grouped under the designation _convergence_. Especially
in the case of manifest adaptations, organs possessed by creatures far
apart genealogically may be moulded into conditions that are extremely
alike. Sir E. Ray Lankester's term, _homoplasy_, has passed into
currency as designating such cases where different genetic material has
been pressed by similar conditions into similar moulds. These may be
called heterogeneous homoplasies, but it is necessary to recognize the
existence of homogeneous homoplasies, here called multiradial
apocentricities. A complex apocentric modification of a kind which we
cannot imagine to have been repeated independently, and which is to be
designated as uniradial, frequently forms a new centre around which new
diverging modifications are produced. With reference to any particular
group of forms such a new centre of modification may be termed a
_metacentre_, and it is plain that the archecentre of the whole group is
a metacentre of the larger group of which the group under consideration
is a branch. Thus, for instance, the archecentric condition of any Avian
structure is a metacentre of the Sauropsidan stem. A form of
apocentricity extremely common and often perplexing may be termed
_pseudocentric_; in such a condition there is an apparent simplicity
that reveals its secondary nature by some small and apparently
meaningless complexity.
Bionomics.
Another group of investigations that seems to play an important part in
the future development of the theory of evolution relates to the study
of what is known as organic symmetry. The differentiations of structure
that characterize animals and plants are being shown to be orderly and
definite in many respects; the relations of the various parts to one
another and to the whole, the modes of repetition of parts, and the
series of changes that occur in groups of repeated parts appear to be to
a certain extent inevitable, to depend on the nature of the living
material itself and on the necessary conditions of its growth. Closely
allied to the study of symmetry is the study of the direct effect of the
circumambient media on embryonic young and adult stages of living beings
(see EMBRYOLOGY: _Physiology_; HEREDITY; and VARIATION AND SELECTION),
and a still larger number of observers have added to our knowledge of
these. It is impossible here to give even a list of the names of the
many observers who in recent times have made empirical study of the
effects of growth-forces and of the symmetrical limitations and
definitions of growth. It is to be noticed, however, that, even after
such phenomena have been properly grouped and designated under Greek
names as laws of organic growth, they have not become explanations of
the series of facts they correlate. Their importance in the theory of
evolution is none the less very great. In the first place, they lessen
the number of separate facts to be explained; in the second, they limit
the field within which explanation must be sought, since, for instance,
if a particular mode of repetition of parts occur in mosses, in
flowering-plants, in beetles and in elephants, the seeker of ultimate
explanations may exclude from the field of his inquiry all the
conditions individual to these different organic forms, and confine
himself only to what is common to all of them; that is to say,
practically only the living material and its environment. The
prosecution of such inquiries is beginning to make unnecessary much
ingenious speculation of a kind that was prominent from 1880 to 1900;
much futile effort has been wasted in the endeavour to find on Darwinian
principles special "selection-values" for phenomena the universality of
which places them outside the possibility of having relations with the
particular conditions of particular organisms. On the other hand, many
of those who have been specially successful in grouping diverse
phenomena under empirical generalizations have erred logically in posing
their generalizations against such a _vera causa_ as the preservation of
favoured individuals and races. The thirty years which followed the
publication of the _Origin of Species_ were characterized chiefly by
anatomical and embryological work; since then there has been no
diminution in anatomical and embryological enthusiasm, but many of the
continually increasing body of investigators have turned again to
bionomical work. Inasmuch as Lamarck attempted to frame a theory of
evolution in which the principle of natural selection had no part, the
interpretation placed on their work by many bionomical investigators
recalls the theories of Lamarck, and the name _Neo-Lamarckism_ has been
used of such a school of biologists, particularly active in America. The
weakness of the Neo-Lamarckian view lies in its interpretation of
heredity; its strength lies in its zealous study of the living world and
the detection therein of proximate empirical laws, a strength shared by
very many bionomical investigations, the authors of which would prefer
to call themselves Darwinians, or to leave themselves without sectarian
designation.
Biometrics.
Statistical inquiry into the facts of life has long been employed, and
in particular Francis Galton, within the Darwinian period, has advocated
its employment and developed its methods. Within quite recent years,
however, a special school has arisen with the main object of treating
the processes of evolution quantitatively. Here it is right to speak of
Karl Pearson as a pioneer of notable importance. It has been the habit
of biologists to use the terms variation, selection, elimination,
correlation and so forth, vaguely; the new school, which has been
strongly reinforced from the side of physical science, insists on
quantitative measurements of the terms. When the anatomist says that one
race is characterized by long heads, another by round heads, the
biometricist demands numbers and percentages. When an organ is stated to
be variable, the biometricist demands statistics to show the range of
the variations and the mode of their distribution. When a character is
said to be favoured by natural selection, the biometricist demands
investigation of the death-rate of individuals with or without the
character. When a character is said to be transmitted, or to be
correlated with another character, the biometricist declares the
statement valueless without numerical estimations of the inheritance or
correlation. The subject is still so new, and its technical methods (see
VARIATION AND SELECTION) have as yet spread so little beyond the group
which is formulating and defining them, that it is difficult to do more
than guess at the importance of the results likely to be gained. Enough,
however, has already been done to show the vast importance of the method
in grouping and codifying the empirical facts of life, and in so
preparing the way for the investigation of ultimate "causes." The chief
pitfall appears to be the tendency to attach more meaning to the results
than from their nature they can bear. The ultimate value of numerical
inquiries must depend on the equivalence of the units on which they are
based. Many of the characters that up to the present have been dealt
with by biometrical inquiry are obviously composite. The height or
length of the arm of a human being, for instance, is the result of many
factors, some inherent, some due to environment, and until these have
been sifted out, numerical laws of inheritance or of correlation can
have no more than an empirical value. The analysis of composite
characters into their indivisible units and statistical inquiry into the
behaviour of the units would seem to be a necessary part of biometric
investigation, and one to which much further attention will have to be
paid.
Segregation.
It is well known that Darwin was deeply impressed by differences in
flora and fauna, which seemed to be functions of locality, and not the
result of obvious dissimilarities of environment. A.R. Wallace's studies
of island life, and the work of many different observers on local races
of animals and plants, marine, fluviatile and terrestrial, have brought
about a conception of segregation as apart from differences of
environment as being one of the factors in the differentiation of living
forms. The segregation may be geographical, or may be the result of
preferential mating, or of seasonal mating, and its effects plainly can
be made no more of than proximate or empirical laws of differentiation,
of great importance in codifying and simplifying the facts to be
explained. The minute attention paid by modern systematists to the exact
localities of subspecies and races is bringing together a vast store of
facts which will throw further light on the problem of segregation, but
the difficulty of utilizing these facts is increased by an unfortunate
tendency to make locality itself one of the diagnostic characters.
Bathmism.
Consideration of phylogenetic series, especially from the
palaeontological side, has led many writers to the conception that there
is something of the nature of a growth-force inherent in organisms and
tending inevitably towards divergent evolution. It is suggested that
even in the absence of modification produced by any possible Darwinian
or Lamarckian factors, that even in a neutral environment, divergent
evolution of some kind would have occurred. The conception is
necessarily somewhat hazy, but the words _bathmism_ and _bathmic
Evolution_ have been employed by a number of writers for some such
conception. Closely connected with it, and probably underlying many of
the facts which have led to it, is a more definite group of ideas that
may be brought together under the phrase "phylogenetic limitation of
variation." In its simplest form, this phrase implies such an obvious
fact as that whatever be the future development of, say, existing
cockroaches, it will be on lines determined by the present structure of
these creatures. In a more general way, the phrase implies that at each
successive branching of the tree of life, the branches become more
specialized, more defined, and, in a sense, more limited. The full
implications of the group of ideas require, and are likely to receive,
much attention in the immediate future of biological investigation, but
it is enough at present to point out that until the more obvious lines
of inquiry have been opened out much more fully, we cannot be in a
position to guess at the existence of a residuum, for which such a
metaphysical conception as bathmism would serve even as a convenient
disguise for ignorance.
Almost every side of zoology has contributed to the theory of evolution,
but of special importance are the facts and theories associated with the
names of Gregor Mendel, A. Weismann and Hugo de Vries. These are
discussed under the headings HEREDITY; MENDELISM; and VARIATION AND
SELECTION. It has been a feature of great promise in recent
contributions to the theory of evolution, that such contributions have
received attention almost directly in proportion to the new methods of
observation and the new series of facts with which they have come. Those
have found little favour who brought to the debate only formal
criticisms or amplifications of the Darwinian arguments, or
re-marshallings of the Darwinian facts, however ably conducted. The time
has not yet come for the attempt to synthesize the results of the many
different and often apparently antagonistic groups of workers. The great
work that is going on is the simplification of the facts to be explained
by grouping them under empirical laws; and the most general statement
relating to these that can yet be made is that no single one of these
laws has as yet shown signs of taking rank as a _vera causa_ comparable
with the Darwinian principle of natural selection.
For evolution in relation to society see SOCIOLOGY.
REFERENCES.--Practically, every botanical and zoological publication
of recent date has its bearing on evolution. The following are a few
of the more general works: Bateson, _Materials for the Study of
Variation_; Bunge, _Vitalismus und Mechanismus_; Cope, _Origin of the
Fittest_, _Primary Factors of Organic Evolution_, _Darwin's Life and
Letters_; H. de Vries, _Species and Varieties and their Origin by
Mutation_; Eimer, _Organic Evolution_; Gulick, "Divergent Evolution
through Cumulative Segregation," _Jour. Linn. Soc._ xx.; Haacke,
_Schöpfung des Menschen_; Mitchell, "Valuation of Zoological
Characters," _Trans. Linn. Soc._ viii. pt. 7; Pearson, _Grammar of
Science_; Romanes, _Darwin and after Darwin_; Sedgwick, Presidential
Address to Section Zoology, _Brit. Ass. Rep. 1899_; Wallace,
_Darwinism_; Weismann, _The Germ-Plasm_. Further references of great
value will be found in the works of Bateson and Pearson referred to
above, and in the annual volumes of the _Zoological Record_,
particularly under the head "General Subject." (P. C. M.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is brought out by F. Lassalle, _Die Philosophie
Herakleitos_, p. 126.
[2] Zeller says that through this distinction Aristotle first made
possible the idea of development.
[3] See this well brought out in G.H. Lewes's _Aristotle_, p. 187.
[4] Grote calls attention to the contrast between Plato's and
Aristotle's way of conceiving the gradations of mind (_Aristotle_,
ii. 171).
[5] Zeller observes that this scale of decreasing perfection is a
necessary consequence of the idea of a transcendent deity.
[6] Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, p. 225.
[7] Yet he leaves open the question whether the Deity has annexed
thought to matter as a faculty, or whether it rests on a distinct
spiritual principle.
[8] Locke half playfully touches on certain monsters, with respect to
which it is difficult to determine whether they ought to be called
men. (_Essay_, book iii. ch. vi. sect. 26, 27.)
[9] A similar coincidence between the teleological and the modern
evolutional way of viewing things is to be met with in Locke's
account of the use of pain in relation to the preservation of our
being (bk. ii. ch. vii. sect. 4).
[10] _Philosophy of History_ (1893), p. 103, where an interesting
sketch of the growth of the idea of progress is to be found.
[11] G.H. Lewes points out that Leibnitz is inconsistent in his
account of the intelligence of man in relation to that of lower
animals, since when answering Locke he no longer regards these as
differing in degree only.
[12] Both Lewes and du Bois Reymond have brought out the points of
contact between Leibnitz's theory of monads and modern biological
speculations (_Hist. of Phil._ ii. 287, and _Leibnitzsche Gedanken in
der modernen Naturwissenschaft_, p. 23 seq.).
[13] For Herder's position in relation to the modern doctrine of
evolution see F. von Bärenbach's _Herder als Vorgänger Darwins_, a
work which tends to exaggerate the proximity of the two writers.
[14] Kant held it probable that other planets besides our earth are
inhabited, and that their inhabitants form a scale of beings, their
perfection increasing with the distance of the planet which they
inhabit from the sun.
[15] Kant calls the doctrine of the transmutation of species "a
hazardous fancy of the reason." Yet, as Strauss and others have
shown, Kant's mind betrayed a decided leaning at times to a more
mechanical conception of organic forms as related by descent.
[16] Hegel somewhere says that the question of the eternal duration
of the world is unanswerable: time as well as space can be predicated
of finitudes only.
[17] _The Exercitationes de generatione animalium_, which Dr George
Ent extracted from him and published in 1651.
[18] _De generatione animalium_, lib. ii. cap. x.
[19] _De generatione animalium_, lib. ii. cap. iv.
[20] "Cependant, pour revenir aux formes ordinaires ou aux âmes
matérielles, cette durée qu'il leur faut attribuer, à la place de
celle qu'on avoit attribuée aux atomes pourroit faire douter si elles
ne vont pas de corps en corps; ce qui seroit la métempsychose, à peu
près comme quelques philosophes ont cru la transmission du mouvement
et celle des espèces. Mais cette imagination est bien éloignée de la
nature des choses. Il n'y a point de tel passage; et c'est ici où les
transformations de Messieurs Swammerdam, Malpighi, et Leewenhoek, qui
sont des plus excellens observateurs de notre tems, sont venues à mon
secours et m'ont fait admettre plus aisément, que l'animal, et toute
autre substance organisée ne commence point lorsque nous le croyons,
et que sa génération apparente n'est qu'un développement et une
espèce d'augmentation. Aussi ai-je remarqué que l'auteur de la
_Recherche de la vérité_, M. Regis, M. Hartsoeker, et d'autres
habiles hommes n'ont pas été fort éloignés de ce sentiment."
Leibnitz, _Système nouveau de la nature_ (1695). The doctrine of
"Emboîtement" is contained in the _Considérations sur le principe de
vie_ (1705); the preface to the _Théodicée_ (1710); and the
_Principes de la nature et de la grâce_ (§ 6) (1718).
[21] "Il est vrai que la pensée la plus raisonnable et la plus
conforme à l'expérience sur cette question très difficile de la
formation du foetus; c'est que les enfans sont déjà presque tout
formés avant même l'action par laquelle ils sont conçus; et que leurs
mères ne font que leur donner l'accroissement ordinaire dans le temps
de la grossesse." _De la recherche de la vérité_, livre ii. chap.
vii. p. 334 (7th ed., 1721).
[22] _Considérations sur les corps organisés_, chap. x.
[23] Bonnet had the courage of his opinions, and in the _Palingénésie
philosophique_, part vi. chap, iv., he develops a hypothesis which he
terms "évolution naturelle"; and which, making allowance for his
peculiar views of the nature of generation, bears no small
resemblance to what is understood by "evolution" at the present
day:--
"Si la volonté divine a créé par un seul Acte l'Universalité des
êtres, d'où venoient ces plantes et ces animaux dont Moyse nous
décrit la Production au troisième et au cinquième jour du
renouvellement de notre monde?
"Abuserois-je de la liberté de conjectures si je disois, que les
Plantes et les Animaux qui existent aujourd'hui sont parvenus par une
sorte d'évolution naturelle des Êtres organisés qui peuplaient ce
premier Monde, sorti immédiatement des MAINS du CRÉATEUR?...
"Ne supposons que trois révolutions. La Terre vient de sortir des
MAINS du CRÉATEUR. Des causes préparées par sa Sagesse font
développer de toutes parts les Germes. Les Êtres organisés commencent
à jouir de l'existence. Ils étoient probablement alors bien différens
de ce qu'ils sont aujourd'hui. Ils l'étoient autant que ce premier
Monde différoit de celui que nous habitons. Nous manquons de moyens
pour juger de ces dissemblances, et peut-être que le plus habile
Naturaliste qui auroit été placé dans ce premier Monde y auroit
entièrement méconnu nos Plantes et nos Animaux."
[24] "Ce mot (germe) ne désignera pas seulement un corps organisé
_réduit en petit_; il désignera encore toute espèce de _préformation
originelle dont un Tout organique peut résulter comme de son principe
immédiat."--Palingénésie philosophique_, part. x. chap. ii.
[25] "M. Cuvier considérant que tous les êtres organisés sont dérivés
de parens, et ne voyant dans la nature aucune force capable de
produire l'organisation, croyait à la pré-existence des germes; non
pas à la pré-existence d'un être tout formé, puisqu'il est bien
évident que ce n'est que par des développemens successifs que l'être
acquiert sa forme; mais, si l'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, à la
pré-existence du radical de l'être, radical qui existe avant que la
série des évolutions ne commence, et qui remonte certainement,
suivant la belle observation de Bonnet, à plusieurs
générations."--Laurillard, _Éloge de Cuvier_, note 12.
[26] _Histoire naturelle_, tom. ii. ed. ii. (1750), p. 350.
[27] _Ibid._ p. 351.
[28] See particularly Buffon, l.c. p. 41.
[29] As Buffon has well said:--"L'idée de ramener l'explication de
tous les phénomènes à des principes mécaniques est assurément grande
et belle, ce pas est le plus hardi qu'on peut faire en philosophie,
et c'est Descartes qui l'a fait."--l.c. p. 50.
[30] _Principes de la philosophie_, Troisième partie, § 45.
[31] _Ethices_, Pars tertia, Praefatio.
[32] _Système de la Nature. Essai sur la formation des corps
organisés_, 1751, xiv.
[33] _Considérations philosophiques sur la gradation naturelle des
formes de l'être; ou les essais de la nature qui apprend à faire
l'homme_ (1768).
[34] _Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques_, par
J.B. Lamarck. Paris. Seconde année de la République. In the preface,
Lamarck says that the work was written in 1776, and presented to the
Academy in 1780; but it was not published before 1794, and at that
time it presumably expressed Lamarck's mature views. It would be
interesting to know what brought about the change of opinion
manifested in the _Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants_,
published only seven years later.
[35] See the "Historical Sketch" prefixed to the last edition of the
_Origin of Species_.
[36] _First Principles and Principles of Biology_ (1860-1864).
[37] _Generelle Morphologie_ (1866).
[38] "Il s'agit donc de prouver que la série qui constitute l'échelle
animale réside essentiellement dans la distribution des masses
principals qui la composent et non dans celle des espèces ni même
toujours dans celle des genres."--_Phil. zoologique_, chap. v.
[39] _Philosophie zoologique_, première partie, chap. iii.
[40] "Entwurf einer Darstellung der zwischen dem Embryozustände der
höheren Thiere und dem per manenten der niederen stattfindenden
Parallele," _Beyträge zur vergleichenden Anatomie_, Bd. ii. 1811.
EVORA, the capital of an administrative district in the province of
Alemtejo, Portugal; 72 m. E. by S. of Lisbon, on the Casa
Branca-Evora-Elvas railway. Pop. (1900) 16,020. Evora occupies a fertile
valley enclosed by low hills. It is surrounded by ramparts flanked with
towers, and is further defended by two forts; but the neglected
condition of these, combined with the narrow arcaded streets and
crumbling walls of Roman or Moorish masonry, gives the city an
appearance corresponding with its real antiquity. Evora is the see of an
archbishop, and has several churches, convents and hospitals, barracks,
a diocesan school and a museum. A university, founded in 1550, was
abolished on the expulsion of the Jesuits in the 18th century. The
cathedral, originally a Romanesque building erected 1186-1204, was
restored in Gothic style about 1400; its richly decorated chancel was
added in 1761. The church of São Francisco (1507-1525) is a good example
of the blended Moorish and Gothic architecture known as Manoellian. The
art gallery, formerly the archbishop's palace, contains a collection of
Portuguese and early Flemish paintings. An ancient tower, and the
so-called aqueduct of Sertorius, 9 m. long, have been partly demolished
to make room for the market-square, in which one of the largest fairs in
Portugal is held at midsummer. Both tower and aqueduct were long
believed to have been of Roman origin, but are now known to have been
constructed about 1540-1555 in the reign of John III., at the instance
of an antiquary named Resende. The aqueduct was probably constructed on
the site of the old Roman one. A small Roman temple is used as a public
library; it is usually known as the temple of Diana, a name for which no
valid authority exists. Evora is of little commercial importance,
except as an agricultural centre, but its neighbourhood is famous for
its mules and abounds in cork-woods; there are also mines of iron,
copper, and asbestos and marble quarries.
Under its original name of _Ebora_, the city was from 80 to 72 B.C. the
headquarters of Sertorius, and it long remained an important Roman
military station. It was called _Liberalitas Juliae_ on account of
certain municipal privileges bestowed on it by Julius Caesar (c. 100-44
B.C.). Its bishopric, founded in the 5th century, was raised to an
archbishopric in the 16th. In 712 Evora was conquered by the Moors, who
named it _Jabura_; and it was only retaken in 1166. From 1663 to 1665 it
was held by the Spaniards. In 1832 Dom Miguel, retreating before Dom
Pedro, took refuge in Evora; and here was signed the convention of
Evora, by which he was banished. (See PORTUGAL.)
The administrative district of Evora coincides with the central part of
Alemtejo (q.v.); pop. (1900) 128,062; area, 2856 sq. m.
ÉVREUX, a town of north-western France, capital of the department of
Eure, 67 m. W.N.W. of Paris on the Western railway to Cherbourg. Pop.
(1906) town, 13,773; commune, 18,971. Situated in the pleasant valley of
the Iton, arms of which traverse it, the town, on the south, slopes up
toward the public gardens and the railway station. It is the seat of a
bishop, and its cathedral is one of the largest and finest in France.
Part of the lower portion of the nave dates from the 11th century; the
west façade with its two ungainly towers is, for the most part, the work
of the late Renaissance, and various styles of the intervening period
are represented in the rest of the church. A thorough restoration was
completed in 1896. The elaborate north transept and portal are in the
flamboyant Gothic; the choir, the finest part of the interior, is in an
earlier Gothic style. Cardinal de la Balue, bishop of Évreux in the
latter half of the 15th century, constructed the octagonal central
tower, with its elegant spire; to him is also due the Lady chapel, which
is remarkable for some finely preserved stained glass. Two rose windows
in the transepts and the carved wooden screens of the side chapels are
masterpieces of 16th-century workmanship. The episcopal palace, a
building of the 15th century, adjoins the south side of the cathedral.
An interesting belfry, facing the handsome modern town hall, dates from
the 15th century. The church of St Taurin, in part Romanesque, has a
choir of the 14th century and other portions of later date; it contains
the shrine of St Taurin, a work of the 13th century. At Vieil Évreux, 3½
m. south-east of the town, the remains of a Roman theatre, a palace,
baths and an aqueduct have been discovered, as well as various relics
which are now deposited in the museum of Évreux. Évreux is the seat of a
prefect, a court of assizes, of tribunals of first instance and
commerce, a chamber of commerce and a board of trade arbitrators, and
has a branch of the Bank of France, a lycée and training colleges for
teachers. The making of ticking, boots and shoes, agricultural
implements and gas motors, and metal-founding and bleaching are carried
on.
Vieil-Évreux (_Mediolanum Aulercorum_) was the capital of the Gallic
tribe of the _Aulerci Eburovices_ and a flourishing city during the
Gallo-Roman period. Its bishopric dates from the 4th century.
The first family of the counts of Évreux which is known was descended
from an illegitimate son of Richard I., duke of Normandy, and became
extinct in the male line with the death of Count William in 1118. The
countship passed in right of Agnes, William's sister, wife of Simon de
Montfort-l'Amaury (d. 1087) to the house of the lords of
Montfort-l'Amaury. Amaury III. of Montfort ceded it in 1200 to King
Philip Augustus. Philip the Fair presented it (1307) to his brother
Louis, for whose benefit Philip the Long raised the countship of Évreux
into a peerage of France (1317). Philip of Évreux, son of Louis, became
king of Navarre by his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of Louis the
Headstrong (Hutin), and their son Charles the Bad and their grandson
Charles the Noble were also kings of Navarre. The latter ceded his
countships of Évreux, Champagne and Brie to King Charles VI. (1404). In
1427 the countship of Évreux was bestowed by King Charles VII. on Sir
John Stuart of Darnley (c. 1365-1429), the commander of his Scottish
bodyguard, who in 1423 had received the seigniory of Aubigny and in
February 1427/8 was granted the right to quarter the royal arms of
France for his victories over the English (see Lady Elizabeth Cust,
_Account of the Stuarts of Aubigny in France, 1422-1672_, 1891). On
Stuart's death (before Orleans during an attack on an English convoy)
the countship reverted to the crown. It was again temporarily alienated
(1569-1584) as an appanage for Francis, duke of Anjou, and in 1651 was
finally made over to Frédéric Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne, duke of
Bouillon, in exchange for the principality of Sedan.
EWALD, GEORG HEINRICH AUGUST VON (1803-1875), German Orientalist and
theologian, was born on the 16th of November 1803 at Göttingen, where
his father was a linen-weaver. In 1815 he was sent to the gymnasium, and
in 1820 he entered the university of his native town, where under J.G.
Eichhorn and T.C. Tychsen he devoted himself specially to the study of
Oriental languages. At the close of his academical career in 1823 he was
appointed to a mastership in the gymnasium at Wolfenbüttel, and made a
study of the Oriental manuscripts in the Wolfenbüttel library. But in
the spring of 1824 he was recalled to Göttingen as _repetent_, or
theological tutor, and in 1827 (the year of Eichhorn's death) he became
professor _extraordinarius_ in philosophy and lecturer in Old Testament
exegesis. In 1831 he was promoted to the position of professor
_ordinarius_ in philosophy; in 1833 he became a member of the Royal
Scientific Society, and in 1835, after Tychsen's death, he entered the
faculty of theology, taking the chair of Oriental languages.
Two years later occurred the first important episode in his studious
life. In 1837, on the 18th of November, along with six of his colleagues
he signed a formal protest against the action of King Ernst August (duke
of Cumberland) in abolishing the liberal constitution of 1833, which had
been granted to the Hanoverians by his predecessor William IV. This bold
procedure of the seven professors led to their speedy expulsion from the
university (14th December). Early in 1838 Ewald received a call to
Tübingen, and there for upwards of ten years he held a chair as
professor _ordinarius_, first in philosophy and afterwards, from 1841,
in theology. To this period belong some of his most important works, and
also the commencement of his bitter feud with F.C. Baur and the Tübingen
school. In 1847, "the great shipwreck-year in Germany," as he has called
it, he was invited back to Göttingen on honourable terms--the liberal
constitution having been restored. He gladly accepted the invitation. In
1862-1863 he took an active part in a movement for reform within the
Hanoverian Church, and he was a member of the synod which passed the new
constitution. He had an important share also in the formation of the
Protestantenverein, or Protestant association, in September 1863. But
the chief crisis in his life arose out of the political events of 1866.
His loyalty to King George (son of Ernst August) would not permit him to
take the oath of allegiance to the victorious king of Prussia, and he
was therefore placed on the retired list, though with the full amount of
his salary as pension. Perhaps even this degree of severity might have
been held by the Prussian authorities to be unnecessary, had Ewald been
less exasperating in his language. The violent tone of some of his
printed manifestoes about this time, especially of his _Lob des Königs
u. des Volkes_, led to his being deprived of the _venia legendi_ (1868)
and also to a criminal process, which, however, resulted in his
acquittal (May 1869). Then, and on two subsequent occasions, he was
returned by the city of Hanover as a member of the North German and
German parliaments. In June 1874 he was found guilty of a libel on
Prince Bismarck, whom he had compared to Frederick II. in "his
unrighteous war with Austria and his ruination of religion and
morality," to Napoleon III. in his way of "picking out the best time
possible for robbery and plunder." For this offence he was sentenced to
undergo three weeks' imprisonment. He died in his 72nd year of heart
disease on the 4th of May 1875.
Ewald was no common man. In his public life he displayed many noble
characteristics,--perfect simplicity and sincerity, intense moral
earnestness, sturdy independence, absolute fearlessness. As a teacher
he had a remarkable power of kindling enthusiasm; and he sent out many
distinguished pupils, among whom may be mentioned Hitzig, Schrader,
Nöldeke, Diestel and Dillmann. His disciples were not all of one school,
but many eminent scholars who apparently have been untouched by his
influence have in fact developed some of the many ideas which he
suggested. His numerous writings, from 1823 onwards, were the reservoirs
in which the entire energy of a life was stored. His _Hebrew Grammar_
inaugurated a new era in biblical philology. All subsequent works in
that department have been avowedly based on his, and to him will always
belong the honour of having been, as Hitzig has called him, "the second
founder of the science of the Hebrew language." As an exegete and
biblical critic no less than as a grammarian he has left his abiding
mark. His _Geschichte des Volkes Israël_, the result of thirty years'
labour, was epoch-making in that branch of research. While in every line
it bears the marks of intense individuality, it is at the same time a
product highly characteristic of the age, and even of the decade, in
which it appeared. If it is obviously the outcome of immense learning on
the part of its author, it is no less manifestly the result of the
speculations and researches of many laborious predecessors in all
departments of history, theology and philosophy. Taking up the idea of a
divine education of the human race, which Lessing and Herder had made so
familiar to the modern mind, and firmly believing that to each of the
leading nations of antiquity a special task had been providentially
assigned, Ewald felt no difficulty about Israel's place in universal
history, or about the problem which that race had been called upon to
solve. The history of Israel, according to him, is simply the history of
the manner in which the one true religion really and truly came into the
possession of mankind. Other nations, indeed, had attempted the highest
problems in religion; but Israel alone, in the providence of God, had
succeeded, for Israel alone had been inspired. Such is the supreme
meaning of that national history which began with the exodus and
culminated (at the same time virtually terminating) in the appearing of
Christ. The historical interval that separated these two events is
treated as naturally dividing itself into three great periods,--those of
Moses, David and Ezra. The periods are externally indicated by the
successive names by which the chosen people were called--Hebrews,
Israelites, Jews. The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald
to a preliminary chapter of primitive history; and the events of the
apostolic and post-apostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix. The
entire construction of the history is based, as has already been said,
on a critical examination and chronological arrangement of the available
documents. So far as the results of criticism are still uncertain with
regard to the age and authorship of any of these, Ewald's conclusions
must of course be regarded as unsatisfactory. But his work remains a
storehouse of learning and is increasingly recognized as a work of rare
genius.
Of his works the more important are:--_Die Composition der Genesis
kritisch untersucht_ (1823), an acute and able attempt to account for
the use of the two names of God without recourse to the
document-hypothesis; he was not himself, however, permanently
convinced by it; _De metris carminum Arabicorum_ (1825); _Das Hohelied
Salomo's übersetzt u. erklärt_ (1826; 3rd ed., 1866); _Kritische
Grammatik der hebr. Sprache_ (1827)--this afterwards became the
_Ausführliches Lehrbuch der hebr. Sprache_ (8th ed., 1870); and it was
followed by the _Hebr. Sprachlehre für Anfänger_ (4th ed., 1874);
_Über einige ältere Sanskritmetra_ (1827); _Liber Vakedii de
Mesopotamiae expugnatae historia_ (1827); _Commentarius in Apocalypsin
Johannis_ (1828); _Abhandlungen zur biblischen u. orientalischen
Literatur_ (1832); _Grammatica critica linguae Arabicae_ (1831-1833);
_Die poetischen Bücher des alten Bundes_ (1835-1837, 3rd ed.,
1866-1867); _Die Propheten des alten Bundes_ (1840-1841, 2nd ed.,
1867-1868); _Geschichte des Volkes Israël_ (1843-1859, 3rd ed.,
1864-1868); _Alterthümer Israels_ (1848); _Die drei ersten Evangelien
übersetzt u. erklärt_ (1850); _Über das äthiopische Buch Henoch_
(1854); _Die Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus übersetzt u. erklärt_
(1857); _Die Johanneischen Schriften übersetzt u. erklärt_
(1861-1862); _Über das vierte Esrabuch_ (1863); _Sieben Sendschreiben
des neuen Bundes_ (1870); _Das Sendschreiben an die Hebräer u.
Jakobos' Rundschreiben_ (1870); _Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, oder
Theologie des alten u. neuen Bundes_ (1871-1875). The _Jahrbücher der
biblischen Wissenschaft_ (1849-1865) were edited, and for the most
part written, by him. He was the chief promoter of the _Zeitschrift
für die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, begun in 1837; and he frequently
contributed on various subjects to the _Götting. gelehrte Anzeigen_.
He was also the author of many pamphlets of an occasional character.
The following have been translated into English:--_Hebrew Grammar_, by
John Nicholson (from 2nd German edition) (London 1836); _Introductory
Hebrew Grammar_ (from 3rd German edition) (London, 1870); _History of
Israel_, 5 vols. (corresponding to vols. i.-iv. of the German), by
Russell Martineau and J. Estlin Carpenter (London, 1867-1874);
_Antiquities of Israel_, by H.S. Solly (London, 1876); _Commentary on
the Prophets of the Old Testament_, by J. Frederick Smith (2 vols.,
London, 1876-1877); _Isaiah the Prophet_, chaps. i.-xxxiii., by O.
Glover (London, 1869); _Life of Jesus Christ_, also by O. Glover
(London, 1865).
See the article in Herzog-Hauck; T. Witton Davies, _Heinrich Ewald_
(1903); and cf. T.K. Cheyne, _Founders of Old Testament Criticism_
(1893); F. Lichtenberger, _History of German Theology in the
Nineteenth Century_ (1889).
EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781), the greatest lyrical poet of Denmark, was
the son of a melancholy and sickly chaplain at Copenhagen, where he was
born on the 18th of November 1743. At the age of eleven he was sent to
school at Schleswig, his father's birthplace, and returned to the
capital only to enter the university in 1758. His father was by that
time dead, and in his mother, a frivolous and foolish woman, he found
neither sympathy nor moral support. At fifteen he fell passionately in
love with Arense Hulegaard, a girl whose father afterwards married the
poet's mother; and the romantic boy resolved on various modes of making
himself admired by the young lady. He began to learn Abyssinian, for the
purpose of going out as a missionary to Africa, but this scheme was soon
given up, and he persuaded a brother, four years older than himself, to
run away that they might enlist as hussars in the Prussian army. They
managed to reach Hamburg just when the Seven Years' War was commencing
and were allowed to enter a regiment. But the elder brother soon got
tired and ran away, while the poet, after a series of extraordinary
adventures, deserted to the Austrian army, where from being drummer he
rose to being sergeant, and was only not made an officer because he was
a Protestant. In 1760 he was weary of a soldier's life and deserted
again, getting safe back to Denmark. For the next two years he worked
with great diligence at the university, but the Arense for whom he had
gone through so much hardship and taken so much pains married another
man almost immediately after Ewald's final and very successful
examination. The disappointment was one from which he never recovered,
but his own weakness of will was largely to blame for it. He plunged
into dissipation of every kind, and gave his serious thoughts only to
poetry.
In 1763 his first work, a perfunctory dissertation, _De pyrologia
sacra_, first saw the light. In 1764 he made a considerable success with
a short prose story in the popular manner of Sneedorf, _Lykkens Tempel_
(The Temple of Fortune), which was translated into German and Icelandic.
On the death of Frederick V., however, Ewald first appeared prominently
as a poet; he published in 1766 three _Elegies_ over the dead king,
which were received with universal acclamation, and of which one, at
least, is a veritable masterpiece. But his dramatic poem _Adam og Eva_
(Adam and Eve), by far the finest imaginative work produced in Denmark
up to that time, was rejected by the Society of Arts in 1767 and was not
published until 1769. At the latter date, however, its merits were
perceived. In 1770 Ewald attained success with _Philet_, a narrative and
lyrical poem, and still more with his splendid _Rolf Krage_, the first
original Danish tragedy. For the next ten years Ewald was occupied in
producing one brilliant poetical work after another, in rapid
succession. In 1771 he published _De brutale Klappers_ (The Brutal
Clappers), a tragi-comedy or parody satirizing the dispute then raging
between the critics and the manager of the Royal Theatre; in 1772 he
translated from the German the lyrical drama of _Philemon and Baucis_,
and brought out his versified comedy of _Harlequin Patriot_, a satire on
the passion for political scribbling created by Struensee's introduction
of the liberty of the press. In 1773 he published _Pebersvendene_ (Old
Bachelors), a prose comedy. In 1771 he had already collected some of his
lyrical poems under the title of _Adskilligt af Johannes Ewald_
(Miscellanies). In 1774 appeared the heroic opera of _Balder's Död_
(Balder's Death), and in 1779 the finest of his works, the lyrical drama
_Fiskerne_ (The Fishers), which contains the Danish National Song, "King
Christian stood by the high Mast," his most famous lyric. In the two
poems last mentioned, however, Ewald passed beyond contemporary taste,
and these great works, the pride of Danish literature, were coldly
received. But while the new poetry was slowly winning its way into
popular esteem, the poet did not lack admirers, and at the head of these
he founded in 1775 the Danish Literary Society, a body which became
influential, and which made the study of Ewald a cultus. But the poet's
health had broken; when he was writing _Rolf Krage_ he was already an
inmate of the consumptive hospital, and when he seemed to be recovering,
his health was shattered again by a night spent in the frosty streets.
He embittered his existence by the recklessness of his private life, and
finally, through a fall from a horse, he ended by becoming a complete
invalid. His last ten years were full of acute suffering; his mother
treated him with cruelty, his family with neglect, and but few even of
his friends showed any manliness or generosity towards him. In 1774 he
was placed in the house of an inspector of fisheries at Rungsted, where
Anna Hedevig Jacobsen, the daughter of the house, tended the wasted poet
with infinite tenderness and skill. He stayed in this house for three
years, and wrote there some of his finest later lyrics. Meanwhile he had
fallen deeply in love with the charming solace of his sufferings and won
her consent to a marriage. This step, however, was prevented by his
family, who roughly removed him to their own keeping near Kronborg. Here
he was treated so infamously that he insisted on being taken back to
Copenhagen in 1777, where he found an older, but no less tender nurse,
in Ane Kirstine Skou. Here he wrote _Fiskerne_ with his imagination full
of the familiar shore at Hornbaek, near Rungsted. In 1780 he was a
little better, and managed to be present at the theatre at the first
performance of his poem. But this excitement hastened his end, and after
months of extreme agony he died on the 17th of March 1781, and was
carried to the grave by a large assembly of his admirers, since he was
now just recognized by the public for the first time as the greatest
national poet. Among his papers were found fragments of three dramas,
two on old Scandinavian subjects, entitled _Frode_ and _Helgo_, and the
third a tragedy on the story of _Hamlet_, which he meant to treat in a
way wholly distinct from Shakespeare's.
Ewald belongs to the race of poetical reformers who appeared in all
countries of Europe at the end of the 18th century; but it is
interesting to observe that in point of time he preceded all of them. He
was born six years earlier than Goethe and Alfieri, sixteen years before
Schiller, nine years before André Chénier, and twenty-seven years
earlier than Wordsworth, but he did for Denmark what each of these poets
did for his own country. Ewald found Danish literature given over to
tasteless rhetoric, and without art or vigour. He introduced vivacity of
style, freshness and brevity of form, and an imaginative study of nature
which was then unprecedented. But perhaps his greatest claim to notice
is the fact that he was the first person to call the attention of the
Scandinavian peoples to the treasuries of their ancient history and
mythology, and to suggest the use of these in imaginative writing. With
a colouring more distinctly modern than that of Collins and Gray, his
lyrics yet resemble the odes of these his English contemporaries more
closely than those of any continental poet; from another point of view
his ballads remind us of those of Schiller, which they preceded. His
dramas, which had an immense influence on the Danish stage, are now
chiefly of antiquarian interest, with the exception of "The Fishers," a
work that must always live as a great national poem. In personal
character and in fate Ewald seems to have been not unlike Heinrich
Heine.
The first collected edition of Ewald's works began to appear in his
lifetime. It is in four volumes, 1780-1784. His works have constantly
been reprinted, but the standard edition is that by Liebenberg, in 8
vols., 1850-1855. The best biographies of him are those by C. Molbech
(1831), Hammerich (1860) and Andreas Dolleris (1900). (E. G.)
EWART, WILLIAM (1798-1869), English politician, was born in Liverpool on
the 1st of May 1798. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford,
gaining the Newdigate prize for English verse. He was called to the bar
at the Middle Temple in 1827, and the next year entered parliament for
the borough of Bletchingley in Surrey. He subsequently sat for Liverpool
from 1830 to 1837, for Wigan in 1839, and for Dumfries Burghs from 1841
until his retirement from public life in 1868. He died at Broadleas,
near Devizes, on the 23rd of January 1869, Ewart, who was an advanced
liberal in politics, was responsible during his long political career
for many useful measures. In 1834 he carried a bill for the abolition of
hanging in chains, and in 1837 he was successful in getting an act
passed for abolishing capital punishment for cattle-stealing and other
offences. In 1850 he carried a bill for establishing free libraries
supported out of the rates, and in 1864 he was instrumental in getting
an act passed for legalizing the use of the metric system of weights and
measures. He was always a strong advocate for the abolition of capital
punishment, and on his motion in 1864 a select committee was appointed
to consider the subject. Other reforms which he advocated and which have
since been carried out were an annual statement on education, and the
examination of candidates for the civil service and army.
EWE, a group of Negro peoples of the Slave Coast, West Africa. By the
natives their country is called _Ewe-me_, "Land of the Ewe." The Ewe
family forms five linguistic groups: the Anlo or Anglawa on the Gold
Coast frontier, the Krepi of Anfueh speech, the Jeji, the Dahomeyans and
the Mahi.
See further Dahomey, and A.B. Ellis, _The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the
Slave Coast_ ... (London, 1890).
EWELL, RICHARD STODDERT (1817-1872), American soldier,
lieutenant-general in the Confederate army, was born in Georgetown, now
a part of Washington, D.C., on the 2nd of February 1817, and graduated
at West Point in 1840. As a cavalry officer he saw much active service
in the Mexican War and later in Indian warfare in New Mexico. He
resigned his commission at the outbreak of the Civil War, and entered
the Confederate service. He commanded a brigade in the first Bull Run
campaign, and a division in the famous Valley Campaign of "Stonewall"
Jackson, to whom he was next in rank. At Cross Keys he was in command of
the forces which defeated General Frémont. Ewell's division served with
Jackson in the Seven Days and in the campaign of Second Bull Run. At the
action of Groveton Ewell lost a leg, but did not on that account retire
from active service, though other generals led his men in the sanguinary
battles of Antietam (where they lost 47% of their numbers) and
Fredericksburg. After the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, Ewell was
promoted lieutenant-general and appointed to command the 2nd Corps, with
which he had served from the beginning of the Valley Campaign. His
promotion set aside General J.E.B. Stuart, the temporary commander of
Jackson's corps; that Ewell, crippled as he was, was preferred to the
brilliant cavalry leader was a marked testimony to his sterling
qualities as a soldier. The invasion of Pennsylvania soon followed,
Ewell's corps leading the advance of Lee's army. A federal force was
skilfully cut off and destroyed near Winchester, Va., and Ewell's corps
then raided Maryland and southern Pennsylvania unchecked. At the battle
of Gettysburg, the 2nd Corps decided the fighting of the first day in
favour of the Confederates, driving the enemy before them; on the second
day it fought a desperate action on Lee's left wing. Ewell took part in
the closing operations of 1863 and in all the battles of the Wilderness
and Petersburg campaigns. In the final campaign of 1865 he and the
remnant of his corps were cut off and forced to surrender at Sailor's
Creek, a few days before his chief capitulated to Grant at Appomattox.
After the war General Ewell lived in retirement. He died near Spring
Hill, Maury County, Tennessee, on the 25th of January 1872.
EWING, ALEXANDER (1814-1873), Scottish divine, was born of an old
Highland family in Aberdeen on the 25th of March 1814. In October 1838
he was admitted to deacon's orders, and after his return from Italy he
took charge of the episcopal congregation at Forres, and was ordained a
presbyter in the autumn of 1841. In 1846 he was elected first bishop of
the newly restored diocese of Argyll and the Isles, the duties of which
position he discharged till his death on the 22nd of May 1873. In 1851
he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. Though
hampered by a delicate bodily constitution, he worked in a spirit of
buoyant cheerfulness. By the charm of his personal manner and his
catholic sympathies he gradually attained a prominent position. In
theological discussion he contended for the exercise of a wide
tolerance, and attached little importance to ecclesiastical authority
and organization. His own theological position had close affinity with
that of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen and Frederick Denison Maurice; but
his opinions were the fruit of his own meditation, and were coloured by
his own individuality. The trend of his teaching is only to be gathered
from fragmentary publications--letters to the newspapers, pamphlets,
special sermons, essays contributed to the series of _Present Day
Papers_, of which he was the editor, and a volume of sermons entitled
_Revelation considered as Light_.
Besides his strictly theological writings, Ewing was the author of the
_Cathedral or Abbey Church of Iona_ (1865), the first part of which
contains drawings and descriptive letterpress of the ruins, and the
second a history of the early Celtic church and the mission of St
Columba. See _Memoir of Alexander Ewing, D.C.L._, by A.J. Ross (1877).
EWING, JULIANA HORATIA ORR (1841-1885), English writer of books for
children, daughter of the Rev. Alfred Gatty and of Margaret Gatty
(q.v.), was born at Ecclesfield, Yorkshire, in 1841. One of a large
family, she was accustomed to act as nursery story-teller to her
brothers and sisters, and her brother Alfred Scott Gatty provided music
to accompany her plays. She was well educated in classics and modern
languages, and at an early age began to publish verses, being a
contributor to _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, which her mother started in 1866.
_The Land of Lost Toys_ and many other of Juliana's stories appeared in
this magazine. In 1867 she married Major Alexander Ewing, himself an
author, and the composer of the well-known hymn "Jerusalem the Golden."
From this time until her death (13th May 1885), previously to which she
had been a constant invalid, Mrs Ewing produced a number of charming
children's stories. The best of these are: _The Brownies_ (1870), _A
Flat-Iron for a Farthing_ (1873), _Lob-lie-by the Fire_ (1874), _The
Story of a Short Life_ (1885) and _Jackanapes_ (1884), the two
last-named, in particular, obtaining great success; among others may be
mentioned _Mrs Over-the-Way's Remembrances_ (1869), _Six to Sixteen, Jan
of the Windmill_ (1876), _A Great Emergency_ (1877), _We and the World_
(1881), _Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales, Brothers of Pity_ (1882), _The
Doll's Wash_, _Master Fritz_, _Our Garden_, _A Soldier's Children_,
_Three Little Nest-Birds_, _A Week Spent in a Glass-House_, _A Sweet
Little Dear_, and _Blue-Red_ (1883). Many of these were published by the
S.P.C.K. Simple and unaffected in style, and sound and wholesome in
matter, with quiet touches of humour and bright sketches of scenery and
character, Mrs Ewing's best stories have never been surpassed in the
style of literature to which they belong.
EWING, THOMAS (1789-1871), American lawyer and statesman, was born near
the present West Liberty, West Virginia, on the 28th of December 1789.
His father, George Ewing, settled at Lancaster, Fairfield county, Ohio,
in 1792. Thomas graduated at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, in 1815, and
in August 1816 was admitted to the bar at Lancaster, where he won high
rank as an advocate. He was a Whig member of the United States senate in
1831-1837, and as such took a prominent part in the legislative struggle
over the United States Bank, whose rechartering he favoured and which he
resolutely defended against President Jackson's attack, opposing in able
speeches the withdrawal of deposits and Secretary Woodbury's "Specie
Circular" of 1836. In March 1841 he became secretary of the treasury in
President W.H. Harrison's cabinet. When, however, after President
Tyler's accession, the relations between the President and the Whig
Party became strained, he retired (September 1841) and was succeeded by
Walter Forward (1786-1852). Subsequently from March 1849 to July 1850
he was a member of President Taylor's cabinet as the first secretary of
the newly established department of the interior. He thoroughly
organized the department, and in his able annual report advocated the
construction by government aid of a railroad to the Pacific Coast. In
1850-1851 he filled the unexpired term of Thomas Corwin in the U.S.
Senate, strenuously opposing Clay's compromise measures and advocating
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. He was
subsequently a delegate to the Peace Congress in 1861, and was a loyal
supporter of President Lincoln's war policy. He died at Lancaster, Ohio,
on the 26th of October 1871.
His daughter was the wife of General William T. Sherman. His son, Hugh
Boyle Ewing (1826-1905), served throughout the Civil War in the Federal
armies, rising from the rank of colonel (1861) to that of
brigadier-general (1862) and brevet major-general (1865), and commanding
brigades at Antietam and Vicksburg and a division at Chickamauga; and
was minister of the United States to the Netherlands in 1866-1870.
Another son, Thomas Ewing (1829-1896), studied at Brown University in
1852-1854 (in 1894, by a special vote, he was placed on the list of
graduates in the class of 1856); he was a lawyer and a free-state
politician in Kansas in 1857-1861, and was the first chief-justice of
the Kansas supreme court (1861-1862). In the Civil War he attained the
rank of brigadier-general (March 1863) and received the brevet of
major-general (1865). He was subsequently a representative in Congress
from Ohio in 1877-1881; and from 1882 to 1896 practised law in New York
City, where he was long one of the recognized leaders of the bar.
EXAMINATIONS. The term "examination" (i.e. inspecting, weighing and
testing; from Lat. _examen_, the tongue of a balance) is used in the
following article to denote a systematic test of knowledge, and of
either special or general capacity or fitness, carried out under the
authority of some public body.
1. _History._--The oldest known system of examinations in history is
that used in China for the selection of officers for the public service
(c. 1115 B.C.), and the periodic tests which they undergo after entry
(c. 2200 B.C.). See CHINA; also W.A.P. Martin, _The Lore of Cathay_
(1901), p. 311 et seq.; T.L. Bullock, "Competitive Examinations in
China" (_Nineteenth Century_, July 1894); and Étienne Zi, _Pratique des
examens littéraires en Chine_ (Shanghai, 1894). The abolition of this
system was announced in 1906, and, as a partial substitute, it was
decided to hold an annual examination in Peking of Chinese graduates
educated abroad (_Times_, 22nd of October 1906).
The majority of examinations in western countries are derived from the
university examinations of the middle ages. The first universities of
Europe consisted of corporations of teachers and of students analogous
to the trade gilds and merchant gilds of the time. In the trade gilds
there were apprentices, companions, and masters. No one was admitted to
mastership until he had served his apprenticeship (q.v.), nor, as a
rule, until he had shown that he could accomplish a piece of work to the
satisfaction of the gild.
The object of the universities was to teach; and to the three classes
established by the gild correspond roughly the _scholar_, the _bachelor_
or pupil-teacher (see Rashdall i. 209, note 2, and 221, note 5), and the
_master_ or _doctor_ (two terms at first equivalent) who, having served
his apprenticeship and passed a definite technical test, had received
permission to teach. The early universities of Europe, being under the
same religious authority and animated by the same philosophy, resembled
each other very closely in curriculum and general organization and
examinations, and by the authority of the emperor, or of the pope in
most cases, the permission to teach granted by one university was valid
in all (_jus ubicunque docendi_).
The earliest university examinations of which a description is available
are those in civil and in canon law held at Bologna at a period
subsequent to 1219. The student was admitted without examination as
bachelor after from four to six years' study, and after from six to
eight years' study became qualified as a candidate for the doctorate. He
might obtain the doctorate in both branches of law in ten years
(Rashdall i. 221-222).
The doctoral examination at Bologna in the 13th-14th centuries consisted
of two parts--a private examination which was the real test, and a
public one of a ceremonial character (_conventus_). The candidate first
took an "oath that he had complied with all the statutable conditions,
that he would give no more than the statutable fees or entertainments to
the rector himself, the doctor or his fellow-students, and that he would
obey the rector." He was then presented to the archdeacon of Bologna by
one or more doctors, who were required to have satisfied themselves of
his fitness by private examination. On the morning of the examination,
after attending mass, he was assigned by one of the doctors of the
assembled college two passages (_puncta_) in the civil or canon law,
which he retired to his house to study, possibly with the assistance of
the presenting doctor. Later in the day he gave a lecture on, or
exposition of, the prepared passages, and was examined on them by two of
the doctors appointed by the college. Other doctors might then put
supplementary questions on law arising out of the passages, or might
suggest objections to his answers. The vote of the doctors present was
taken by ballot, and the fate of the candidate was determined by the
majority. The successful candidate, who received the title of
licentiate, was, on payment of a heavy fee and other expenses, permitted
to proceed to the _conventus_ or final public examination. This
consisted in the delivery of a speech and the defence of a thesis on
some point of law, selected by the candidate, against opponents selected
from among the students. The successful candidate received from the
archdeacon the formal "licence to teach" by the authority of the pope in
the name of the Trinity, and was invested with the insignia of office.
At Bologna, though not at Paris, the "permission to teach" soon became
fictitious, only a small number of doctors being allowed to exercise the
right of teaching in that university (Rashdall).
In the faculty of arts of Paris, towards the end of the 13th century,
the system was already more complicated than at Bologna. The
baccalaureate, licentiateship, and mastership formed three distinct
degrees. For admission to the baccalaureate a preliminary test or
"Responsions" was first required, at which the candidate had to dispute
in grammar or logic with a master. The examiners then inspected the
certificates (_schedulae_) of residence and of having attended lectures
in the prescribed subjects, and examined him in the contents of his
books. The successful candidate was admitted to maintain a thesis
against an opponent, a process called "determination" (see Rashdall i.
443 et seq.), and as bachelor was then permitted to give "cursory"
lectures. After five or six years from the date of beginning his studies
(matriculation) and being twenty years of age (these conditions varied
at different periods), a bachelor was permitted to present himself for
the examination for the licentiateship, which was divided into two
parts. The first part was conducted in private by the chancellor and
four examiners (_temptatores in cameris_), and included an inquiry into
the candidate's residence, attendance at lectures, and performance of
exercises, as well as examination in prescribed books; those candidates
adjudged worthy were admitted to the more important examination before
the faculty, and the names of successful candidates were sent to the
chancellor in batches of eight or more at a time, arranged in order of
merit. (The order of merit at the examination for the licentiateship
existed in Paris till quite recently.) Each successful candidate was
then required to maintain a thesis chosen by himself (_quodlibetica_) in
St Julian's church, and was finally submitted to a purely formal public
examination (_collatio_) at either the episcopal palace or the abbey of
Ste Geneviève, before receiving from the chancellor, in the name of the
Trinity, the licence to incept or begin to teach in the faculty of arts.
After some six months more the licentiate took part "in a peculiarly
solemn disputation known as his 'Vespers,'" then gave his formal
inaugural lecture or disputation before the faculty, and was received
into the faculty as master. This last process was called "inception."
In discussing the value of medieval examinations of the kind described,
Paulsen (_The German Universities_ (1906), p. 25) asserts that they were
well adapted to increase a student's alertness, his power of
comprehending new ideas, and his ability quickly and surely to
assimilate them to his own, and that "they did more to enable [students]
to grasp a subject than the mute and solitary reviewing and cramming of
our modern examinations can possibly do." At their best they fulfilled
precisely the technical purpose for which they were intended; they fully
tested the capacity of the candidate to teach the subjects which he was
required to teach in accordance with the methods which he was required
to use. The limitations of the test were the limitations of the
educational and philosophic ideals of the time, in which a dogmatic
basis was presupposed to all knowledge and criticism was limited to the
superstructure. At their worst, even with venal examiners (and
additional fees were often offered as a bribe), Rashdall regards these
examinations (at the end of the 13th century) as probably "less of a
farce than the pass examinations of Oxford and Cambridge almost within
the memory of persons now living." It is, however, to be pointed out
that the standard in Paris and elsewhere at a later date became
scandalously low in some cases. In some universities the sons of nobles
were regularly excused certain examinations. At Cambridge in 1774 Fellow
Commoners were examined with such precipitation to fulfil the formal
requirements of the statutes that the ceremony was termed "huddling for
a degree" (Jebb, _Remarks upon the Present Mode of Education in the
University of Cambridge_, 4th ed., 1774, p. 32). The last privileges of
this kind were abolished at Cambridge by a grace passed on the 20th of
March 1884.
In the medieval examinations described above we find most of the
elements of our present examinations: certificates of previous study and
good conduct, preparation of set-books, questioning on subjects not
specially prepared, division of examinations into various parts,
classification in order of merit, payment of fees, the presentation of a
dissertation, and the defence and publication of a thesis (a term of
which the meaning has now become extended).
The requirement to write answers to questions written or dictated, to
satisfy a practical test (other than in teaching), and a clinical test
in medicine, appear to be of later date.[1] The medieval candidate for
the doctorate in medicine, although required to have attended practice
before presenting himself, discussed as his thesis a purely theoretical
question, often semi-theological in character, of which as an extreme
example may be quoted "whether Adam had a navel."
The competitive system was developed considerably at Louvain, and in the
15th century the candidates for the mastership of arts were divided into
three classes (_rigorosi_, honour-men; _transibiles_, pass-men;
_gratiosi_, charity-passes), while a fourth, which was not published,
contained the names of those who failed. In the 17th century the first
class comprised the names of twelve, and the second, of twenty-four,
candidates, who were divided on the report of their teachers into
classes before the examination, and finally arranged in order of merit
by the examiners (Vernulaeus, quoted by Sir W. Hamilton, _Discussions_,
1852; p. 647; Rashdall, loc. cit. ii. 262). At the Cambridge tripos (as
described by Jebb in 1774, _Remarks_, &c., pp. 20-31) the first
twenty-four candidates were also selected by a preliminary test; they
were then divided further into "wranglers" (the disputants, _par
excellence_) and _Senior Optimes_, the next twelve on the list being
called the _Junior Optimes_. These names have in the mathematics tripos
survived the procedure. (The name _Tripos_ is derived from the
three-legged stool on which "an old bachilour," selected for the
purpose, sat during his disputation with the senior bachelor of the
year, who was required to propound two questions to him.)
The subjects in which the medieval universities examined were (i.) those
of the trivium and quadrivium in the faculty of arts; (ii.) theology;
(iii.) medicine; and (iv.) civil and canon law. The number of subjects
in which examinations are held has since grown immensely. We can only
sketch in outline the transformations of certain typical university
systems of examinations.
At Oxford there is no record of a process of formal examination on books
similar to that of Paris (Rashdall, ii. 442 et seq.), disputations being
apparently the only test applied in its early history. Examinations were
definitely introduced for the B.A. and M.A. degrees by Laud in 1636-1638
(Brodrick, _History of Oxford_, p. 114), but the standard prescribed was
so much beyond the actual requirements of later times that it may be
doubted if it was enforced. The studies fell in the 18th century into an
"abject state," from which they were first raised by a statute passed in
1800 (_Report of Oxford University Commission of 1850-1852_, p. 60 et
seq.), under which distinctions were first allotted to the ablest
candidates for the bachelor's degree. Further changes were made in 1807
and 1825; and in 1830 a distinction was made between honours
examinations of a more difficult character, at which successful
candidates were divided into four classes, and pass examinations of an
easier character. By the statutes of 1849 and 1858 an intermediate
"Moderations" examination was instituted between the preliminary
examination called "Responsions" and the final examination. Since 1850,
although fresh subjects of examination have been introduced, no
considerable change of system has been made.
The bachelor's degree at Oxford tended from an early period to be
postponed to an advanced stage of studies, while the requirements for
the master's degree diminished until, in 1807, the examination for the
M.A. was abolished. It is now awarded to bachelors of three years'
standing on payment of a fee.
Cambridge in early times followed the example of Oxford, and here also
the bachelor's degree became more and more important (Bass Mullinger,
_History of the University of Cambridge from 1535_..., p. 414), and the
M.A. has been finally reduced to a mere formality, awarded on terms
similar to those of the sister university. The standard of examinations
was raised in Cambridge at an earlier date than at Oxford, and in the
18th century the tripos "established the reputation of Cambridge as a
School of Mathematical Science." The school, however, produced few, if
any, great mathematicians between Newton and George Green. It was only
between 1830 and 1840 that the standard of the tripos became a high one.
At Cambridge there is no intermediate examination between the "Previous
Examination" (commonly called "Little-go"), which corresponds to Oxford
"Responsions" or "Smalls" and the triposes and examinations for the
"Poll" degree, which correspond to the Oxford final honours and pass
examinations respectively. But most of the triposes have been divided
into two parts, of which the second is not obligatory in order to obtain
a degree. The "senior wrangler" was the first candidate in order of
merit in the first part of the mathematical tripos. The abolition of
order of merit at this examination was decided on in 1906, and names of
candidates appeared in this order for the last time in 1909.
At the Scottish universities the B.A. degree has become extinct, and the
M.A., awarded on the results of examination, is the first degree in the
faculty of arts.
The incorporation of the university of London in 1836 marks an era in
the history of examinations; the teaching and examining functions of a
university were dissociated for the first time. Until 1858 the London
examinations were open only to students in affiliated colleges, and the
teachers had no share in the appointment of the examiners or in
determining the curricula for examinations; in 1858 the examinations
were thrown open to all comers, and no requirements were insisted on
with regard to courses of study except for degrees in the faculty of
medicine. The sole function of the university was to examine, and its
examinations for matriculation and for degrees in arts and science were
carried on by means of written papers not only in London but in many
centres in the United Kingdom and the colonies. From the first the
degrees were (unlike those of Oxford and Cambridge until 1871) open to
all male persons without religious distinctions; and in 1878 they were
opened to women. (Tripos examinations were thrown open to women at
Cambridge by the grace of 24th Feb. 1881, and at Oxford women were
admitted to examinations for honours by statute of 29th April 1884.
Proposals to admit women to university degrees were rejected by Oxford
and Cambridge in 1896 and 1897 respectively.)
The standard of difficulty set by the university of London was a high
one, very much higher for its pass degrees than the corresponding
standards at Oxford and Cambridge, while the standard for honours was
equally high. In medicine the examinations were made both wider in range
and more searching than those of any other examining body. But, for
reasons dealt with below, great discontent was roused by the new system.
In 1880 the Victoria University, Manchester, was established, in which
teaching and examining were again united; and in the universities since
established, with the exception of the Royal University of Ireland
(which was created in 1880 as an examining body on the model of London,
but which was dissolved under the Irish Universities Act 1908, and
replaced by the National University of Ireland and the Queen's
University of Belfast), the precedent of Victoria has been followed. By
an act passed in 1898, of which the provisions came into force in 1900,
the university of London was reconstituted as a teaching university,
although provision was made for the continuance of the system of
examinations by "external examiners" for "external students," together
with "internal examinations" for "internal students," in which the
teachers and the external examiners of the university are associated.
The examinations in music and the final examinations in law and medicine
are carried on [1910] both for "internal" and "external" students by
"external" examiners only, who are, however, appointed on the
recommendation of boards of studies consisting mainly of London
teachers.
At the university of Dublin, examinations have been maintained both for
the B.A. and M.A. degrees, and students may be admitted to the
examinations in subjects other than divinity, law, medicine, and
engineering without attendance at university courses.
The examinations of the newer universities, the Victoria University of
Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Wales, are open
only to students at these universities, and are conducted by the
teachers in association with one or more external examiners for each
subject. In some universities, e.g. Manchester, the M.A. degree is given
after examination to students who have taken a pass, and without
examination to those who have taken an honours degree.
The universities which have departed furthest from the medieval system
of examinations, at any rate in appearance, are those of Germany. The
baccalaureate has disappeared, but students cannot be matriculated
without having passed the _Abiturienten-examen_ (see below), probably
the most severe of all entrance examinations (foreign students may be
exempted under certain conditions). The student desiring to proceed to
the doctorate is free from examinations thereafter until he presents his
thesis for the doctor's degree,[2] when, if it is accepted, he is
submitted to a public oral examination not only in his principal subject
(_Hauptfach_), but also as a rule in two or more collateral subjects
(_Nebenfächer_). The doctor's degree does not give the right to teach in
a faculty (_venia legendi_). To acquire this a doctor must present a
further thesis (_Habilitationsschrift_), and must deliver two lectures,
one before the faculty, followed by a discussion (_colloquium_), the
other in public; but these lectures "seem to be merely secondary and are
tending to become so more and more"; "scientific productiveness is so
sharply emphasized among the conditions for admission that it
overshadows all the rest" (Paulsen, loc. cit. p. 165).
In France the examination for the baccalaureate, though conducted in
part by university examiners, has become a school-leaving examination
(see below). The licentiateship has been preserved in the faculties of
arts, science and laws, and is in point of difficulty about equal to the
pass degree examinations of the university of London, though differing
in the nature of the tests. In the faculty of sciences, the three
subjects of examination selected may, under a recent regulation, be
taken separately. Until a few years ago the successful candidates at the
licentiateship were arranged in order of merit. For the doctorate in the
faculty of letters two theses must be submitted, of which the subject
and plan must be approved by the faculty (until recently one of them was
required to be written in Latin). Permission to print the theses is
given by the rector or vice-rector after report from one or more
professors, and they are then discussed publicly by the faculty and the
candidate (_soutenance de thèse_). In this public discussion the
"disputation" of the middle ages survives in its least changed form. The
literary theses required by French universities are, as a rule, volumes
of several hundred pages, and more important in character even than the
German _Habilitationsschrift_. The possession of the doctorate is a
_sine qua non_ for eligibility to a university chair, and to a
lectureship in the university of Paris.
In the faculty of sciences a candidate for the doctorate may submit two
theses, or else submit one thesis and undergo an oral examination.
For the doctorate in law, a thesis and two oral examinations are
required.
In the faculty of medicine there is no licentiateship, but for the
doctorate six examinations must be passed and a thesis submitted.
There is also a special doctorate, the "_doctorat d'Université_,"
awarded on a thesis and an oral examination; and there are diplomas
(_Diplômes d'Études supérieures_) awarded on dissertations and
examinations on subjects in philosophy, history and geography, classics
or modern languages, selected mainly by the candidate and approved by
the faculty.
2. _Professional Examinations._ (a) _Teaching._--University examinations
for degrees having ceased to be used as technical tests of teaching
capacity, new examinations have been devised for this purpose. The test
for German university teachers has been described above. For secondary
teachers, W. von Humboldt instituted a special examination in 1810
(Paulsen, _Gesch. des gelehrten Unterrichts_, ii. pp. 283 and 393), and
an examination for primary teachers was instituted in Prussia in 1794.
In France there is a competitive examination for secondary teachers, the
_agrégation_, originally established in 1766. _Agrégés_ have a right to
state employment and they alone can occupy the highest teaching post
(_chaire de professeur_) in a state secondary school, other posts being
open to licentiates. There are also examinations for primary teachers.
The tests for teachers are different for the two sexes.
In England there is no obligatory test for secondary teachers. The
universities and the College of Preceptors conduct examinations for
teaching diplomas. The Board of Education holds special examinations
(Preliminary Certificate examination and Certificate examination, &c.)
for primary teachers.
(b) _Medicine._--See MEDICAL EDUCATION.
(c) _Other Professions._--A system of professional examinations carried
on by professional bodies, in some cases with legal sanction, was
developed in England during the 19th century. Those in the following
subjects are the most important: Accountancy (Institute of Chartered
Accountants and Society of Accountants and Auditors), actuarial work
(Institute of Actuaries), music (Royal Academy of Music, Royal College
of Music, Trinity College of Music, Royal College of Organists, and the
Incorporated Society of Musicians), pharmacy (Pharmaceutical Society),
plumbing (the Plumbers' Company), surveying (Surveyors' Institution),
veterinary medicine (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons), technical
subjects, e.g. cotton-spinning, dyeing, motor-manufacture (City & Guilds
of London Institute), architecture (Royal Institute of British
Architects), commercial subjects, shorthand (the Society of Arts and
London Chamber of Commerce), engineering (Institutions of Civil
Engineers, of Mechanical Engineers, and of Electrical Engineers).
3. _School-leaving Examinations._--The faculty of arts in medieval
universities covered secondary as well as higher education in the
subjects concerned. The division in arts subjects between secondary and
university education has been drawn at different levels in different
countries. Thus the first two years of the arts curriculum in English
and American universities correspond, roughly speaking, to the last two
years spent in a secondary school of Germany or France, and the
continental "school-leaving examinations" correspond to the intermediate
examinations of the newer English universities and to the pass
examinations for the degree at Oxford and Cambridge (Mark Pattison,
_Suggestions on Academical Organization_, 1868, p. 238, and Matthew
Arnold, _Higher Schools and Universities in Germany_, 1892, p. 209).
A tabular summary is given (see Tables I., II., III., IV.) of the
requirements of the secondary school-leaving examinations of France,
Prussia (for the nine-year secondary schools) and Scotland, and of the
university of London.
There are in England a number of school examinations which, under
prescribed conditions, also serve as school-leaving examinations, and
give entrance to certain universities, especially the Oxford and
Cambridge local examinations (both established in 1858), and the
examinations of the Oxford and Cambridge "Joint Board." A movement to
reduce the number of entrance examinations and to secure uniformity in
their standard was set on foot in 1901. In that year the General Medical
Council communicated to the Board of Education a memorial on the subject
from the Headmasters' Conference. The memorial was further communicated
to various professional bodies concerned. Conferences were held by the
consultative committee of the Board of Education in 1903, with
representatives of the universities, the Headmasters' Conference, the
Association of Head-Masters, the Association of Head-Mistresses, the
College of Preceptors, the Private Schools' Association, and with
representatives of professional bodies. The committee were of opinion
that a central board, consisting of representatives of the Board of
Education and the different examining bodies, should be established, to
co-ordinate and control the standards of the examinations, and to secure
interchangeability of certificates, &c., as soon as a sufficient number
of such bodies signified their willingness to be represented on the
board. They recommended that the examination should be conducted by
external and internal examiners, representing in each case the examining
body and the school staff respectively, and that reports on the school
work of candidates should be available for reference by the examiners
(circular of the Board of Education of 12th of July 1904).
The "accrediting" system in the United States was started by the
university of Michigan in 1871. A school desiring to be accredited is
submitted to inspection without previous notice. If the inspection is
satisfactory, the school is accredited by a university for from one to
three years, and upon the favourable report of its principal any of its
students are admitted to the university by which it has been accredited
without any entrance examination. In practice it is found that many
students whom their teachers refuse to certify are able to pass the
university entrance examination. The statistics of nine years show that
the standard of the certified students is higher than that of
non-certified students. Two hundred and fifty schools are accredited by
the university of Michigan. In 1904 it was stated that the system was
gaining favour in the east,[3] and that it had been adopted more or less
by all the eastern colleges and universities with the exception of
Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia.
4. _Methods of Examination._--Examinations may test (i.) knowledge, or,
more exactly, the power of restating facts and arguments of a kind that
may be learnt by rote; (ii.) the power of doing something, e.g. of
making a _précis_ of a written document, of writing a letter or a report
on a particular subject with a particular object in view, of translating
from or into a foreign language, of solving a mathematical problem, of
criticizing a passage from a literary work, of writing an essay on an
historical or literary subject with the aid of books in a library, of
diagnosing the malady of a patient, of analysing a chemical mixture or
compound; and (the highest form under the rubric) of making an original
contribution to learning or science as the result of personal
investigation or experiment. Examinations are carried out at present by
means of (1) written papers; (2) oral examinations; (3) practical,
including in medicine clinical, tests; (4) theses; or a combination of
these.
Written.
In written examinations the candidates are, as a rule, supplied with a
number of printed questions, of which they must answer all, or a certain
proportion, within a given time, varying, as a rule, from 1½ to 3 hours,
the latter being the duration most generally adopted for higher
examinations in England. Whereas in France and Germany the questions are
generally few in number and require long answers, showing constructive
skill and mastery of the mother-tongue on the part of the candidates,
such "essay-papers" are comparatively rare in England. In many subjects,
the written examinations test memory rather than capacity. It has been
suggested that sets of questions to be answered in writing should as a
rule be divided into two parts: (i.) a number of questions requiring
short answers and intended to test the range of the candidate's
knowledge; (ii.) questions requiring long answers, intended to test its
depth, and the candidate's powers of co-ordination and reflection. A
necessary condition for the application of the second kind of test is
that time should be given for reflection and for rewriting, say
one-third or one-quarter of the whole time allowed. A further
distinction is important, especially in such subjects as mathematics or
foreign languages, in which it is legitimate to ask what precise power
on the part of a candidate the passing of an examination shall signify.
Owing to a prevailing confusion between tests of memory and tests of
capacity, the allowance for chance fairly applied to the former is apt
to be unduly extended to the latter. In applying tests of memory, it may
be legitimate to allow a candidate to pass who answers correctly from 30
to 50% of the questions; such an allowance if applied to a test of
capacity, such as the performance of a sum in addition, the solution of
triangles by means of trigonometrical tables, or the translation of an
easy passage from a foreign language, appears to be irrational. A
candidate who obtains only 50% of the marks in performing such
operations cannot be regarded as being able to perform them; and, if the
examination is to be treated as a test of his capacity to perform them,
he should be rejected unless he obtains full marks, less a certain
allowance (say 10, or at most 20%) in view of the more or less
artificial conditions inherent in all examinations.
Oral.
The oral examination is better suited than the written to discover the
range of a candidate's knowledge; it also serves as a test of his powers
of expression in his mother-tongue, or in a foreign language, and may be
used (as in the examination for entrance to the Osborne Naval College)
to test the important qualities (hardly tested in any other examinations
at present), readiness of wit, common-sense and nerve. It may be
objected that candidates are heavily handicapped by nervousness in oral
examinations, but this objection does not afford sufficient ground for
rejecting the test, provided that it is supplemented by others. Oral
tests are used almost invariably in medical examinations; and there is a
growing tendency to make them compulsory in dealing with modern
languages. Oral examinations are much more used abroad than in England,
where the pupils during their school years receive but little exercise
in the art of consecutive speaking.
TABLE I.--PRUSSIA: ABITURIENTEN EXAMEN
I. Name of Examination.
_Abiturienten Examen_ (established in 1788).
II. Minimum Age for Entry.
Age only limited by condition of length of school course. The usual
age is 17-18.
III. Length of Course of Study.
9 years.
Candidates who have not attended the 9 years' school course may be
admitted to the examination on special application.
IV. Subjects.
In _Gymnasium_.
Written. Oral.
German essay. Latin.
Mathematics. Greek.
Translation into Latin. English or French.
Translation from Greek into Religion.
German. History.
Mathematics.
In _Real-Gymnasium_.
Written. Oral.
German essay. Latin.
Mathematics. English.
Translation from Latin. French.
Translation from German into Physics or Chemistry.
or essay in English or Religion.
French. History.
Physics. Mathematics.
In _Ober-Realschule_.
Written. Oral.
German essay. English.
Mathematics. French.
An exercise in French and in Physics.
English (an essay in one Chemistry.
language and a translation Religion.
from the other into German). History.
Physics or Chemistry. Mathematics.
V. Co-ordination with Teaching.
The object of the examination is defined as being a test of whether
the candidate has fulfilled the aims laid down in the curricula,
&c., prescribed for a _Gymnasium_, _Real-gymnasium_, or
_Ober-realschule_, as the case may be, and the subjects of
examination are those prescribed in the curricula for the kind of
school concerned.
The report on the school work of each candidate in his various
subjects is laid before the Examining Board before the beginning of
the examination.
VI. Examiners.
The Examining Board consists of a government inspector (_der
Königliche Kommissar_) acting as chairman, the headmaster of the
school, and the teachers of the highest classes in the school. The
inspector may nominate a deputy, who is as a rule, the headmaster of
the school.
Each teacher concerned selects for the written examination three
alternative subjects in his branch, from which, after receiving a
report thereon from the headmaster, the inspector makes a final
choice.
The papers are marked by the teachers concerned and circulated the
the whole Board of Examiners, who then decide whether individual
candidates shall be (i.) rejected, (ii.) admitted with (ii.)
admitted with oral examination, or (iii.) submitted to the oral
examination.
VII. Nature of Examination and General Remarks.
The written examination extends over four or five days. Only one
paper is given each day, for which 3 to 5½ hours are allowed (5½
hours for the German essay). For essays in foreign languages
dictionaries may be used.
TABLE II.--FRANCE: BACCALAURÉAT
I. Name of Examination.
_Baccalauréat de l'enseignement secondaire._
This examination has been carried on under different forms since
1808. The regulations summarized here date from 1902, when the
_baccalauréat_ described replaced the _baccalauréat-ès-lettres,
baccalauréat-ès-sciences_, and _baccalauréat de l'enseignement
moderne._
II. Minimum Age for Entry.
Part I., 16, or, with special permission, 15.
Part II. may not be taken within an academic year after passing Part
I.
III. Length of Course of Study.
There is no requirement of attendance. Part I. of the examination
corresponds exactly to the subjects taken in the "second cycle" of
secondary education, and Part II. to the _classe de philosophie_ and
_classe de mathématiques._
See also under V.
IV. Subjects.
Part I. is divided into four Branches, viz.:--
(1) Latin-Greek.
(2) Latin-modern languages.
(3) Latin-science.
(4) Science-modern languages.
In each Branch the examination is divided into two parts, viz.,
written and oral. The nature of the examination may be indicated by
the following requirements in Branch (1):--
Written
(i.) French composition.
(ii.) Translation from Latin.
(iii.) Translation from Greek.
Oral
(i.) Explanation of a Greek text.
(ii.) Explanation of a Latin text.
(iii.) Explanation of a French text.
(iv.) Text in a modern foreign language.
(v.) Interrogation on ancient history.
(vi.) Interrogation on modern history.
(vii.) Interrogation on geography.
(viii.) Interrogation on mathematics.
(ix.) Interrogation on physics.
Part II. is divided into two Branches, viz.:--
(1) Philosophy.
(2) Mathematics.
The nature of the examination may be indicated by the following
requirements in Branch (I):--
Written
(i.) An essay in French on a philosophical subject.
(ii.) An examination in physical and natural science.
Oral
(i.) Interrogation on philosophy and philosophical writers.
(ii.) Interrogation on contemporary history.
(iii.) Interrogation on physical science.
(iv.) Interrogation on natural science.
V. Co-ordination with Teaching.
The syllabus of the examination is that prescribed for the higher
classes in the Government secondary schools.
The candidate may submit his _livret scolaire_, or school record,
which will be taken into account.
VI. Examiners.
The Board of Examiners (or "jury") consists of (i.) University
examiners being members of a faculty of letters or faculty of
sciences; (ii.) secondary teachers, active or retired, selected by
the minister of public instruction. The Board consists of from four
to six examiners, of whom, when the number is even, half are chosen
from either category.
VII. Nature of Examination and General Remarks.
The written portion of Part I. extends over from 9 to 10 hours in
all (not on a single day), in periods of 3 or 4 hours each; the
written portion of Part II. extends over from 6 to 9 hours. The oral
examination for each part lasts ¾ hour on the average, and is
public.
TABLE III.--SCOTLAND: SCHOOL-LEAVING EXAMINATION
I. Name of Examination.
Scottish school-leaving examination (established 1888). (See
pamphlet on the "Leaving Certificate Examination" issued by the
Scottish Education Department, 1908.)
II. Minimum Age for Entry.
17 on 1st of January following the year in which the candidate
passes the last of the written examinations.
III. Length of Course of Study.
4 years.
IV. Subjects.
Candidates must pass in four subjects on the higher grade standard,
or in three subjects on the higher grade standard and two on the
lower. A pass in drawing is accepted in lieu of one of the two lower
grade passes. A pass in Gaelic is reckoned as a pass on lower grade.
All candidates must have passed in higher English and in either
higher or lower grade mathematics. The remaining subjects may be
either science with one or more languages (Latin Greek, French,
German, Spanish, or Italian), or languages only. But where two or
more languages other than English are taken, the candidate's group
must include either higher or lower grade Latin. A pass in Spanish,
Italian, or science (in which subjects there is only one
examination) is reckoned as a pass on the higher grade standard.
V. Co-ordination with Teaching.
Schools are inspected, and the course of instruction must be
approved by the Scottish Education Department, but the examinations
are conducted by external examiners with whom teachers are not
associated.
VI. Examiners.
The examiners are appointed by the Scottish Education Department.
VII. Nature of Examination and General Remarks.
The examination consists of a written examination and an oral
examination, on which stress is laid. The length of the examination
varies with the subjects selected. The periods of examination vary
from 1 to 2½ hours. If the candidate selects on the higher grade,
English, Latin, mathematics, and French, the examination extends
over 19½ hours.
TABLE IV.--UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL EXAMINATION, MATRICULATION STANDARD
I. Name of Examination.
School examination, matriculation standard (established in 1902).
_Note_--A higher school-leaving certificate is awarded to pupils who
(i.) have pursued an approved course of study for a period of years
at a school or schools under inspection approved by the University;
and (ii.) being matriculated students, have passed the "higher
school examination" in at least three subjects at one and the same
examination.
II. Minimum Age For Entry.
The minimum age of entry is 15, but if the candidate is under 16 he
must remain at school until he is 16 years of age in order to be
qualified for the school-leaving certificate, and cannot be
registered as a student of the University until he has reached that
age.
III. Length of Course of Study.
The curriculum of each school is considered on its own merits.
IV. Subjects.
Pupils must satisfy the examiners in not less than five subjects, as
follows:--
(1) English.
(2) Elementary mathematics.
(3) Latin, or elementary mechanics, or elementary physics--heat,
light and sound, or elementary chemistry, or elementary botany, or
general elementary science.
(4) and (5) Two of the following subjects, neither of which has
already been taken under section (3). If Latin be not taken, one of
the other subjects selected must be another language, either ancient
or modern, from the list, and languages other than those included in
the list may be taken if approved by the University, provided that
the language is included in the regular curriculum:--Latin, Greek,
French, German, ancient history, modern history, history and
geography, physical and general geography, logic, geometrical and
mechanical drawing, mathematics (more advanced), elementary
mechanics, elementary chemistry, elementary physics--heat, light and
sound, elementary physics--electricity and magnetism, elementary
biology--botany, elementary biology--zoology, general elementary
science (chemistry and physics).
V. Co-ordination with Teaching.
Schools under approved inspection, and course of instruction
approved by the University.
The papers are ordinarily set on the matriculation syllabus, but
papers may be specially set more closely in accordance with the
school curriculum provided that the syllabus proposed is approved by
the University as at least equivalent to that for which it is
substituted.
VI. Examiners.
The examiners are ordinarily those appointed by the University for
the ordinary matriculation examination.
VII. Nature of Examination and General Remarks.
The examination extends over at least 18 hours, and includes an oral
examination in modern languages.
Practical.
The laboratory examination may be used in subjects like physics,
chemistry, geology, zoology, botany, anatomy, physiology, to test powers
of manipulation and knowledge of experimental methods. In some cases
(e.g. in certain honours examinations) the examination may be prolonged
over one or more days, and may test higher powers of investigation. But
such powers can only be fully tested by the performance of original
work, under conditions difficult to fulfil in the examination room or
laboratory. At the French examinations for the _prix de Rome_ the
candidates are required to execute a painting in a given number of days,
under strict supervision (_en loge_).
In medicine the clinical examination of a patient is a test carried out
under conditions more nearly approaching those of actual work than any
other; and distinction in medical examinations is probably more often
followed by distinction in after life than is the case in other
examinations.
Thesis.
For the doctor's degree (where this is not an honorary distinction) a
thesis or dissertation is generally, though not invariably, required in
England. Of recent years the thesis has been introduced into lower
examinations; it is required for the master's degree at London in the
case of internal students, in subjects other than mathematics (1910);
both at Oxford and London, the B.Sc. degree, and at Cambridge the B.A.
degree, may be given for research, although the number of students
proceeding to a degree in this way is at present relatively small. In
certain of the honours B.A. and B.Sc. examinations at Manchester and
Liverpool, candidates may take the written portion of the examination at
the end of the second year's course of study and submit a dissertation
at the end of the third year. Theses are generally examined by two or
more specialists.
5. _Competitive Examinations._--The arrangement of students in order of
merit led naturally to the use of examinations not only as a qualifying
but also as a selective test, and to the offering of money prizes
(including exhibitions, scholarships and fellowships) on the results. In
1854 selection by examination as a method of appointment to posts in the
English public service was first substituted for the patronage system,
which had caused grave dissatisfaction (see Macaulay's speech on the
subject, _The Times_ of the 25th of June 1853). The first public
competitive examination for the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, took
place in 1855, and in 1870 the principle of open competition for the
civil service was adopted as a general rule. (For further details see
CIVIL SERVICE.)
In the Württemberg civil service candidates are admitted to a year's
probation after passing a theoretical examination, at the conclusion of
which they must pass an examination of a more practical character (A.
Herbert, _Sacrifice of Education_ ..., 1889, p. 111).
In the award of scholarships, &c., it should be definitely decided
whether the scholarship is to be awarded (1) for attainment, in which
case the examination-test pure and simple may suffice, or (2) for
promise, in which case personal information and a _curriculum vitae_ are
necessary. To take a simple instance: a candidate partly educated in
Germany may obtain more marks in German at a scholarship examination
than another who is more gifted, but whose opportunities have been less;
the question at once arises, are the examiners to take the circumstances
of the candidate into account or not? It is understood that at the
colleges of the older universities such circumstances are considered. It
must again be decided whether the financial circumstances of candidates
are to be taken into account; are scholarships intended as prizes, or as
a means of enabling poor students to obtain a university education? In
some cases wealthy students have been known to return the emoluments of
scholarships. In many universities of the United States there is a
definite understanding that emoluments shall only be accepted by those
needing them. It would not be difficult to ask candidates to make a
confidential declaration on this subject on entrance and to establish in
Great Britain a tradition similar to that of the United States, and
steps in this direction have been taken both at Oxford and Cambridge
(Lord Curzon of Kedleston, _University Reform_, p. 86).
A special allowance may be made for age. In certain scholarship
examinations held formerly by the London County Council a percentage was
added to the marks of each candidate proportionate to the number of
months by which his age fell short of the maximum age for entry. The
whole subject of entrance scholarships at English schools and
universities, and especially their tendency to produce premature
specialization, has recently been much discussed.
6. _The Organization and Conduct of Examinations._--The organization and
conduct of examinations, in such a way that each candidate shall be
treated in precisely the same way as every other candidate, is a complex
matter, especially where several thousand candidates are concerned. The
greatest precautions must be taken to ensure the secrecy of the
examination papers before the examination, and the effective isolation
of individual candidates during the examination. The supervision should
be adequate to remove all temptation to copying. The hygienic conditions
should be such as to reduce the strain to a minimum. The question of the
mental fatigue produced by examinations has been studied by certain
German observers, but has not yet been fully investigated.
7. _Marking, Classification and Errors of Detail._--In applying a single
test in a qualifying examination it would be sufficient to mark
candidates as passing or failing. But examinations consist as a rule of
a number of tests, each one of which is complex; and a mark is recorded
in respect of each test or portion of a test in order to enable the
examining body to estimate the performance, considered as a whole, of
the candidate. At Oxford the marks are not numerical, but the papers are
judged as of this or that supposed "class," and various degrees of merit
are indicated by the symbols [alpha], [beta], [gamma], [delta], to which
the signs + or -may be prefixed, according as they are above or below a
certain standard within each class. At Cambridge, numerical marks are
used. The advantage of numerical marks is that they are more easily
manipulated than symbols; the disadvantage, that they produce the false
impression that merit can be estimated with mathematical accuracy.
Professor F.Y. Edgeworth, in two papers on "The Statistics of
Examinations" and the "Element of Chance in Competitive Examinations"
(_Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, 1888 and 1890), has dealt
with the subject, although on somewhat limited lines. His
investigations show clearly that with candidates near the border-line of
failure, which must necessarily be fixed at a given point (subject to
certain allowances, where more than one subject is considered), the
element of chance necessarily enters largely into the question of pass
and failure. The fact may be stated in this way:--the general efficiency
of the test being granted, it is true to say that the large majority of
those who pass an examination will be superior in efficiency to those
who fail; but a few of those who fail may be superior to a few of those
who pass. These errors are not peculiar to the examination system, they
are inherent in all human judgments. It is necessary to allow for them
in considering the failure of an individual candidate as an index of
inefficiency.
The element of chance, which prevails in the region on either side of
the border between pass and failure, obviously prevails equally on
either side of the border between "classes," where candidates are
classified; it has been suggested by Dr Schuster that numerical order
should accompany classification so as to avoid the creation of an
artificial gap between the last candidate in one class and the highest
in the next. Edgeworth's objection to such an argument is that the
number of uncertainties is far less when candidates are classed than
when they are placed in ostensible order of merit.
The difficulties of comparison of marks are further complicated when
students take different subjects and it is necessary to compare their
merit by means of marks allotted by different examiners and added
together. In a pass examination the question has to be considered how
far, if at all, excellence in one subject shall compensate for
deficiency in another, a question which is indeterminate until the
precise object of the whole examination is formulated. In the
competitive examination for the Indian civil service, places are
allotted on the aggregate of marks obtained in a number of subjects
selected by the candidate from a list of thirty-two. The successful
candidates are compared a year later on the results of another
examination in which there is again a choice, though a much more limited
one. The order of merit in the two examinations is, as a rule, very
different.
Two further points may be noted. An examiner may have underestimated the
time required to answer the questions which he has set; this will be
obvious if with a large number of candidates (say 300 or 400) none
approaches the maximum mark. In this case the maximum should be reduced.
Again, it is generally recognized to be undesirable to give marks for a
smattering. In order to avoid this various devices are adopted. The
simplest is to award a proportion of marks (say 10 to 15, or even 20%)
for "general impression." In some examinations, unless say 20% or more
marks are obtained for a particular subject, no credit is given for the
paper in that subject. Latham (_The Action of Examinations_, 1877, p.
490) describes other numerical adjustments used to meet this difficulty,
especially that used in English civil service examinations. The
numerical results of the civil service examinations are reduced so as to
conform to a certain symmetrical "frequency-curve," of which the
abscissae represent percentages of marks between definite limits and the
ordinates the number of candidates obtaining marks between those limits.
C.E. Fawsitt (_The Education of the Examiner_, Royal Philosophical
Society of Glasgow, 1905) shows that frequency-curves deduced from
actual investigation of class-marks are not symmetrical, but have two
maxima corresponding to the performance of "non-workers" and of
"workers." In pass examinations of a well-known character there is a
maximum just beyond the pass mark, this being the point of efficiency at
which many students aim.
8. _The Object and Efficiency of Examinations, and their Indirect
Effects._--In order to estimate the efficiency of an examination as a
test, the precise question should be asked in each case--what is it
intended to test? Much of the evil attributed to, and resulting from,
examinations is due to the fact that this question has not been
definitely put, and that a test legitimate for certain purposes has been
used for others to which it is unsuited. Examinations are suited in the
first instance for the purpose for which they were originally designed
in medieval universities--the test of technical and professional
capacity; it has never been proposed to abolish qualifying examinations
for doctors, pharmaceutical chemists, &c.; the tests applied are (or
should be) direct tests of capacity carried out under conditions as
nearly as possible like those of actual practice. If a student can
auscultate correctly, or make up a prescription, at an examination, he
will in all probability be able to do so in other circumstances.
Examinations as tests of the knowledge of isolated facts are necessarily
of relatively small value, because the memory of such facts is
transient; and memorization of a large number of facts for examination
purposes is generally admitted to be specially transient; the
"knowledge-test," considered apart from a test of capacity, is in fact
not a test of permanent knowledge, but of the power of retaining facts
for a length of time which it is impossible to estimate and which with
some candidates extends over a few weeks only. When used as tests of
"general culture," examinations, in the view of Paulsen, based on a
study of German education, not only fail in their purpose, but tend to
destroy the faculties which it is desired to develop (_Geschichte des
gelehrten Unterrichts_, ii. 684 et seq.); to prepare ready answers to
the numberless questions which an examiner may ask on a large variety of
subjects is to paralyse the natural and free activity of the mind (cf.
A.C. Benson on the results of English secondary classical education,
_From a College Window_, 3rd ed., 1906, pp. 154-177). If pushed to its
logical conclusion the view of Paulsen must, it is submitted, lead to
the complete abandonment at examinations of tests of "knowledge" as
distinguished from direct tests of capacity. Thus isolated questions on
details of grammar would disappear from papers on the mother-tongue and
on foreign languages, in which the test would consist mainly or entirely
of composition and translation. Erudition would be tested by the power
of writing, at leisure, a dissertation on some subject selected by the
examiners or the candidate or, in the case of a teacher, by the delivery
of a lecture on the subject. At the French _agrégation_ candidates are
given twenty-four hours for the preparation of a lecture of this kind.
Such examinations would test the "skill in the manipulation of facts
which is the true sign of a trained intelligence" (cf. K. Pearson, "The
Function of Science in the Modern State," _Ency. Brit._ 10th ed. xxxii.
Prefatory essay). They might possibly be supplemented by easy oral
examinations to test both range of knowledge and readiness of mind. But
in the case of a pupil who had passed through a good secondary school it
would be as safe to rely for supplementary information under this head
on the testimony of his teachers, as it is to rely on their evidence
with regard to the fundamental and all-important element on which no
examination supplies direct information--personal character.
The main arguments of those opposed to the examination system may be
summarized as follows: (i.) Examinations tend to destroy natural
interests and exclude from the attention of the pupil all matters
outside the purview of the examination (they would not do so if
examinations were so limited in character that preparation therefor
could absorb only a fraction of the pupil's time); (ii.) they tend to
cultivate a personal judgment where no personal basis of judgment is
possible (this argument, directed mainly against the Oxford essay
system, applies not to examinations in general, but to the character of
the subjects set for essays); (iii.) competitive examinations on the
home and Indian civil services scheme tend to diffuse mental energy over
too many subjects (but see (xviii.) below); (iv.) examinations,
especially competitive examinations, tend to become more and more
difficult, difficulty being confused with efficiency--this has shown
itself with the Cambridge mathematical tripos, in which for years
questions of increasing difficulty were set on relatively unimportant
subjects, until the examination was reformed (reply: all examinations
should be overhauled periodically); (v.) they tend to paralyse the
powers of exposition, all statements of knowledge being thrown into a
form suitable, not for an uninstructed person, but for one who already
possesses it, the examiner (this tendency should be counteracted by
definite training in composition); (vi.) the sample of knowledge and
capacity yielded at an examination is frequently not a fair sample; it
is liable to extreme variations in a favourable sense, if the candidate
happens to have prepared the precise questions asked; in an unfavourable
sense, if the candidate is suffering from misfortune or from accidental
ill-health, the latter, owing to the periodic function, occurring much
more frequently in the case of women than of men--[the reform of
examination methods may remove to a great extent the element of chance
in questions set; in a competitive examination it is impossible to allow
for ill-health; in a qualifying examination it is difficult to make any
allowance unless the examination is definitely conducted in whole or in
part by the teachers, and the past record of the candidate is taken into
account (cf. Paulsen, _The German Universities_, pp. 344-345)]; (vii.)
examinations of several hundred candidates at a time cannot be
rationally conducted so as to be equally fair to the individuality of
all candidates; the individual test is the only complete one (it is
admitted that examinations on a large scale necessarily involve a margin
of error; but this error may be reduced to a minimum, especially by a
combination of oral and practical with written work); (viii.) the
multiplicity of school examinations required for different reasons
produces confusion in our secondary education (there is a growing
tendency to admit equivalence of "school-leaving" and entrance
examinations; thus entrance examinations of Oxford, Cambridge and
London, and the Northern Universities Joint Board are interchangeable
under certain conditions); (ix.) the multiplicity of examinations tends
to "underselling" (the success of the London examinations in medicine
proves that a high standard attracts candidates as well as a low one;
possibly intermediate standards may be killed in the competition; it is
by no means obvious that a uniform system of examinations would conduce
to efficiency); (x.) examinations produce physical damage to health,
especially in the case of women-students (on this point more statistical
evidence is needed; see, however, Engelmann quoted by G. Stanley Hall,
_Adolescence_, 1905, ii. 588 et seq.); (xi.) examinations have in
England mechanically cast the education of women into the same mould as
that of men, without reference to the different social functions of the
two sexes (the remedy is obvious); (xii.) it is unjustifiable to give a
man a university position on the results of his performance in the
examination room, a practice common in England though almost unknown on
the continent; a just estimate of a man's powers in research or for
teaching can only be properly based on his performance. The present
system merely leads to the transmission of the sterile art of passing
examinations. (At Oxford and Cambridge many fellowships are now awarded
on the results of examination; it is sometimes stated, in defence of
this system, that young men cannot be expected to carry out research in
classics or philosophy.)
On the other hand, the defenders of examinations reply that (xiii.)
examinations are necessary in order to test the efficiency of schools to
which grants of public money are given (this argument has become
somewhat out of date owing to the recent substitution of "inspection"
for examination as a test of the efficiency of schools; a combination of
inspection and examination is also sometimes used); (xiv.) they serve as
a necessary incentive to steady and concentrated work[4] (the reply made
to this is that the incentive is a bad one, and that with efficient
teachers it is unnecessary); (xv.) they show both student and teacher
where they have failed (unnecessary for efficient teachers); (xvi.)
though possibly harmful to the highest class of men, they are good for
the mass (reply: no system which damages the highest class of men is
tolerable); (xvii.) they are indispensable as an impartial means of
selecting men for the civil service; (xviii.) in a difficult examination
like the first class civil service examination the qualities of
quickness of comprehension, industry, concentration, power of rapidly
passing from one subject to another, good health, are necessary for
success, though not tested directly, and these qualities are valuable in
any kind of work (this appears to be incontrovertible); (xix.)
examination records show that success in examinations is generally
followed by success in after-life, and the test is therefore efficient
(it does not follow that certain rejected candidates may not be
extremely efficient); (xx.) as a plea for purely "external
examinations," teachers cannot be trusted to be impartial and it is
better for a boy to "cram" than to curry favour with his teacher
(Latham).
The brief comments in brackets, appended above to the arguments, merely
indicate what has been said or can be said on the other side. It can
scarcely be doubted that in spite of the powerful objections that have
been advanced against examinations, they are, in the view of the
majority of English people, an indispensable element in the social
organization of a highly specialized democratic state, which prefers to
trust nearly all decisions to committees rather than to individuals. But
in view of the extreme importance of the matter, and especially of the
evidence that, for some cause or other (which may or may not be the
examination system), intellectual interest and initiative seem to
diminish in many cases very markedly during school and college life in
England, the whole subject seems to call for a searching and impartial
inquiry.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION.--The works mentioned above, and T.D. Acland,
_Some Account of the Origin and Objects of the New Oxford Examinations
for the Title of Associate in Arts_ (London, 1858); Matthew Arnold,
_Higher Schools and Universities in Germany_ (1874); Graham Balfour,
_The Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland_ (2nd ed.,
Oxford, 1903); W.W. Rouse Ball, _Origin and History of the
Mathematical Tripos_ (Cambridge, 1880); Adolf Beier, _Die höheren
Schulen in Preussen und ihre Lehrer_ (1902-1906) (in progress);
Cloudesley Brereton, "A New Method of awarding Scholarships," _School
World_, 1907, p. 409; G.C. Brodrick, _A History of the University of
Oxford_ (London, 1886); F. Buisson, _Dictionnaire de pédagogie_
(1880-1887); Lord Curzon of Kedleston, _Principles and Methods of
University Reform_ (1909); J. Demogeot and H. Montucci, _De
l'enseignement supérieur en Angleterre et en Écosse_ (1870); H.
Denifle, _Die Universitäten des Mittelalters bis 1400_ (Berlin, 1885);
F.Y. Edgeworth, "The Statistics of Examinations," and "The Element of
Chance in Competitive Examinations," _Journal of the Statistical
Society_, 1888 and 1890 respectively; H.W. Eve, Lecture "On Marking,"
in _The Practice of Education_ (Cambridge, 1883); Charles E. Fawsitt,
_The Education of the Examiner_ (Royal Philosophical Society of
Glasgow) (Glasgow, 1905); J.G. Fitch, "The Proposed Admission of Girls
to the University Local Examination," _Education Miscellanies_ (1865),
vol. x.; W. Garnett, "The Representation of certain Examination
Results," _Journ. Statist. Soc._ (Jan. 1910); G. Stanley Hall,
_Adolescence_ (London, 1905); Sir W. Hamilton, _Discussions on
Philosophy_ (London, 1853); P.J. Hartog, "Universities, Schools and
Examinations" in the _University Review_ (July 1905); P.J. Hartog and
Mrs A.H. Langdon, _The Writing of English_ (1907); Auberon Herbert
(edited by), _The Sacrifice of Education to Examination_, Letters from
"All Sorts and Conditions of Men" (1889); _Influence of Examinations_,
Report by a Committee, British Association Reports for 1903, p. 434.
and for 1904, p. 360; John Jebb, _Remarks upon the Present Mode of
Education in the University of Cambridge_ (4th ed., 1774); Henry
Latham, _On the Action of Examinations_ (Cambridge, 1877); H.C.
Maxwell Lyte, _A History of the University of Oxford to the Year 1530_
(London, 1886); W.A.P. Martin, _The Lore of Cathay_ (Edinburgh and
London, 1901); J.B. Mullinger, _The University of Cambridge_
(Cambridge, 1873); _How to pass Examinations successfully_, by an
Oxford Coach; Mark Pattison, _Suggestions on Academical Organization_
(Edinburgh, 1868); Friedrich Paulsen, _The German Universities and
University Study_ (London, 1906) and _Geschichte des gelehrten
Unterrichts_ (Leipzig, 1896); George Peacock, _Observations on the
Statutes of the University of Cambridge_ (1841); _Programme des
examens du nouveau baccalauréat de l'enseignement secondaire_,
Delalain frères, Paris; Hastings Rashdall, _The Universities of Europe
in the Middle Ages_ (Oxford, 1895); Rein's _Encyklopädisches Handbuch
der Pädagogik_ (2nd ed., 1902, &c.), articles "Prüfungen" (by F.
Paulsen), &c.; Third Report of the Royal Commissioners on Scientific
Instructions, 1873; J.E. Thorold Rogers, _Education in Oxford_ (1861);
M.E. Sadler, "Memorandum on the Leaving Examinations ... in the
Secondary Schools of Prussia," in Report of Royal Commission on
Secondary Education, vol. v. p. 27 (1895); C.A. Schmid, _Geschichte
der Erziehung_ (Stuttgart, 1884, &c.), and _Encyklopädie des gesammten
Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesens_ (2nd ed., 1876-87), articles
"Prüfung," "Schulprüfungen," "Versetzungsprüfungen," &c.;
Scholarships, various papers on, by H.B. Baker, A.A. David, H.A.
Miers, M.E. Sadler and H. Bompas Smith, and others, British
Association Report, 1907, pp. 707-718; Arthur Schuster, article on
"Universities and Examinations" in the University Review (May 1905);
W.H. Sharp, _The Educational System of Japan_ (Office of the
Director-General of Education in India) (Bombay, 1906); Special
Educational Reports, issued by the Board of Education, _passim_;
A.M.M. Stedman, _Oxford: its Life and Schools_ (London, 1887); I.
Todhunter, _Conflict of Studies_ (1873); William Whewell, _Of a
Liberal Education_ (London, 1845); Christopher Wordsworth, _Scholae
academicae_ (Cambridge, 1877); Étienne Zi (or Siu or Seu), _Pratique
des examens littéraires en Chine_ (Shanghai, 1894). Private
information from Professor M.E. Sadler and Mr A.E. Twentyman.
(P. J. H.; A. Wn.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] W.W. Rouse Ball in his _History of the Study of Mathematics at
Cambridge_ (1889), p. 193, states that he can find no record of any
European examinations by means of written papers earlier than those
introduced by R. Bentley at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1702.
[2] It should be mentioned that the professors of chemistry of a
number of German, Austrian and Swiss universities, have, by
agreement, instituted an intermediate examination in that subject
which students are required to pass before beginning work on the
doctoral thesis. The examination of the students is conducted by the
teachers concerned.
[3] See E.E. Brown in _Monographs on Education in the United States_
(ed. by N.M. Butler, 1900, i. 164), and T. Gregory Foster and H.R.
Reichel, _Report of Mosely Educational Commission_ (1904), pp.
117-119 and 288-289.
[4] The Oxford commissioners of 1852 reported that "the examinations
have become the chief instruments not only for testing the
proficiency of the students but also for stimulating and directing
the studies of the place" (_Report_, p. 61).
EXARCH ([Greek: exarchos], a chief person or leader), a title that has
been conferred at different periods on certain chief officers or
governors, both in secular and ecclesiastical matters. Of these, the
most important were the exarchs of Ravenna (q.v.). In the ecclesiastical
organization the exarch of a _diocese_ (the word being here used of the
political division) was in the 4th and 5th centuries the same as
primate. This dignity was intermediate between the patriarchal and the
metropolitan, the name patriarch being restricted after A.D. 451 to the
chief bishops of the most important cities (see PATRIARCH). The title of
Exarch was also formerly given in the Eastern Church to a general or
superior over several monasteries, and to certain ecclesiastics deputed
by the patriarch of Constantinople to collect the tribute payable by the
Church to the Turkish government. In the modern Greek Church an exarch
is a deputy, or legate _a latere_, of the patriarch, whose office it is
to visit the clergy and churches in the provinces allotted to him. The
title of exarch has been borne by the head of the Bulgarian Church (see
BULGARIA), since in 1872 it repudiated the jurisdiction of the Greek
patriarch of Constantinople. Hence the names of the politico-religious
parties in the recent history of the Near East: "Exarchists" and
"Patriarchists."
EXCAMBION (a word connected with a large class of Low Latin and Romance
forms, such as _cambium_, _concambium_, _scambium_, from Lat. _cambire_,
Gr. [Greek: kambein] or [Greek: kamptein], to bend, turn or fold), in
Scots law, the exchange (q.v.) of one heritable subject for another. The
modern Scottish excambion may consist in the exchange of any heritable
subjects whatever, e.g. a patronage or, what often occurs, a portion of
a glebe for servitude. Writing is not, by the law of Scotland, essential
to an excambion. Chiefly in favour of the class of cottars and small
feuars, and for convenience in straightening marches, the law will
consider the most informal memoranda, and even a verbal agreement, if
supported by the subsequent possession. The power to excamb was
gradually conferred on entailed proprietors. The Montgomery Act, which
was passed in 1770, to facilitate agricultural improvements, permitted
50 acres arable and 100 acres not fit for the plough to be excambed.
This was enlarged by the Rosebery Act in 1836, under which one-fourth of
an entailed estate, not including the mansion-house, home farm and
policies, might be excambed, provided the heirs took no higher grassum
(O.E. _gersum_, fine) than £200. The power was applied to the whole
estate by the Rutherford Act of 1848, and the necessary consents of
substitute heirs are now regulated by the Entail (Scotland) Act 1882.
EXCELLENCY (Lat. _excellentia_, excellence), a title or predicate of
honour. The earliest records of its use are associated with the Frank
and Lombard kings; e.g. Anastasius Bibliothecarius (d. c. 886) in his
life of Pope Honorius refers to Charlemagne as "his excellency" (_ejus
excellentia_); and during the middle ages it was freely applied to or
assumed by emperors, kings and sovereign princes generally, though
rather as a rhetorical flourish than as a part of their formal style.
Its use is well illustrated in the various charters in the Red Book of
the exchequer, where the addresses to the king vary between "your
excellency," "your dignity" (_vestra dignitas_), "your sublimity"
(_vestra sublimitas_) and the like, according to the taste and
inventiveness of the writers. Du Cange also gives examples of the style
_excellentia_ being applied to the pope and even to a bishop (in a
charter of 1182). With the gradual stereotyping of titles of honour that
of "excellency" was definitively superseded in the case of sovereigns of
the highest rank, about the beginning of the 15th century, by those of
"highness" and "grace," and later by "majesty," first assumed in England
by King Henry VIII. Dukes and counts of the Empire and the Italian
reigning princes continued, however, to be "excellencies" for a while
longer. In 1593 the bestowal of the title of _excellence_ by Henry IV.
of France on the duc de Nevers, his ambassador at Rome, set a precedent
that was universally followed from the time of the treaty of Westphalia
(1648). This, together with the reservation in 1640 of the title
"eminence" (q.v.) to the cardinals, led the Italian princes to adopt the
style of "highness" (_altezza_) instead of "excellency." In France, from
1654 onwards, the title of _excellence_ was given to all high civil and
military officials, and this example was followed in Germany in the 18th
century.
The subsequent fate of the title varies very greatly in different
countries. In Great Britain it is borne by the viceroy of India, the
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, all governors of colonies and ambassadors. In
the United States it is part of the official style of the governors of
states, but not of that of the president; though diplomatic usage varies
in this respect, some states (e.g. France) conceding to him the style of
"excellency," others (e.g. Belgium) refusing it. The custom of other
republics differs: in France the president is addressed as _excellence_
by courtesy; in Switzerland the title is omitted; in the South American
republics it is part of the official style (Pradier-Fodéré, _Cours de
droit diplom._ i. 89). In Spain the title of _excelencia_ properly
belonged to the grandees and to those who had the right to be covered in
the royal presence, but it was extended also to high officials, viceroys,
ministers, captains-general, lieutenants-general, ambassadors and knights
of the Golden Fleece. In Austria the title _Exzellenz_ belongs properly
to privy councillors. It has, however, gradually been extended by custom
to all the higher military commands from lieutenant-field-marshal
upwards. Ministers, even when not privy councillors, are styled
_Exzellenz_. In Germany the title is borne by the imperial chancellor,
the principal secretaries of state, ministers and _Oberpräsidenten_ in
Prussia, by generals from the rank of lieutenant-general upwards, by the
chief court officials, and it is also sometimes bestowed as a title of
honour in cases where it is not attached to the office held by its
recipient. In Russia the title is very common, being borne by all
officers from major-general upwards and by all officials above the rank
of acting privy councillor. Officers and officials of the highest rank
have the title of "high excellency." Finally, in Italy, the title
_eccelenza_, which had come to be used in the republics of Venice and
Genoa as the usual form of address to nobles, has become as meaningless
as the English title of "esquire" or the address of "sir," being,
especially in the south, the usual form of address to any stranger.
In the diplomatic service the title of excellency is technically
reserved to ambassadors, but in addressing envoys also this form is
commonly used by courtesy. (W. A. P.)
EXCHANGE, in general, the action of mutual giving and receiving objects,
interests, benefits, rights, &c. The word comes through the French from
the Late Lat. _excambium_ (see EXCAMBION). The present article deals
with the theory and practice of exchange in monetary transactions, but
this may conveniently be prefaced by a brief statement as to the law
relating to the exchange of property and other matters. In English law
exchange is defined as the mutual grant of equal interests, the one in
consideration of the other. The ancient common law conveyance had
certain restrictions, e.g. identity in quantity of interest, fee-simple
for fee-simple, &c., entry to perfect the conveyance, and an implied
warranty of title and right of entry by either party in case of
eviction. Such exchanges are now effected by mutual conveyances with the
usual covenants for title. Exchanges are also frequently made by order
of the Board of Agriculture under the Inclosure Acts, and there are also
statutes enabling ecclesiastical corporations to exchange benefices with
the approval of the ecclesiastical commissioners. The international
exchange of territories is effected by treaties. The exchange of
prisoners of war is regulated by documents called "cartels" (Med. Lat.
_cartellus_, diminutive of _carta_, paper, bill), which specify a
certain agreed-on value for each rank of prisoners. The practice
superseded the older one of ransom at the end of a war. By the
Regimental Exchanges Act 1875 the sovereign may by regulation authorize
exchanges by officers from one regiment to another. (For "labour
exchanges" see UNEMPLOYMENT.)
Exchange in relation to money affairs denotes a species of barter not of
goods but of the value of goods, a payment in one place being exchanged
for a payment in another place. The popular statement of the theory of
exchange represents four principals involved in two transactions. A and
B are two persons residing in one place different from the domicile of C
and D; A sells goods to C; B buys goods from D; A sells his claim on C
to B, who remits it to D in satisfaction of his debt, and D receives the
cash from C, so that, assuming the two transactions to be of equal
value, one piece of paper satisfies the four parties to these two
transactions, and the trouble, expense and risk of sending money from
both places are avoided. The piece of paper which performs the service
may be a telegraphic order, cheque or bill of exchange. In this
elementary proposition there would be no difficulty of exchange, as the
full value of A's claim on C would be paid for by B, who is under the
necessity of sending in exactly similar amount of money to D; but it can
be seen that in actual practice the claims of one place on another place
would not be exactly balanced by the necessities of the one place to
meet obligations in the other place; thus arises the complication of
exchange, which may best be described as the price of monetary claims on
distant debtors.
Supposing, for example, that A in London had a claim on C in Edinburgh
amounting to £100, and that B in London did not require to remit more
than £90 to D in Edinburgh, it is evident that B in London must be
offered some inducement to take over the whole of A's claim. B might
give A £99:19:0, and could then, after satisfying his debt to D, have
£10 to his credit in Edinburgh, which he could retain there at interest
until he had incurred further liability to D, or he could have the
balance of £10 returned him in coin at an expense, say, of sixpence;
this would leave B with a profit of sixpence on the transaction, and,
assuming that these figures are reasonable, exchange on Edinburgh in
London would be one shilling discount per £100. Supposing the
necessities of B induced him to offer A only £99:14:0 for his £100
claim, A would then prefer that C remitted him £100 in coin, which, on
the above scale of expenses would cost 5s. and A would receive £99:15:0
net. On these premises, exchange on Edinburgh in London cannot fall
below ¼% discount, and the same circumstances prevent it from rising
above ¼% premium, for B, in no case, would pay more for A's claim than
£100 plus the cost of sending coin to Scotland. If this basis is
appreciated, all exchange problems between different countries can be
mastered, and the quotations in the daily papers of cable payments,
sight drafts (cheques) and long bills are then understood and supply an
interesting indication of the state of international financial
relations. As shown above, the balance of indebtedness must eventually
be remitted by coin, and consequently when exchange in any city is
quoted at one or other of the limit points given in our example as ¼%
discount or ¼% premium, this exchange immediately acquires a very
serious importance, because with the development of modern monetary
systems under which enormous trade is carried on with a most moderate
foundation of actual coin the weakening or strengthening of that
foundation is a very vital matter.
While the understanding of the theory is essential for any facile
interpretation of an exchange, there are of course innumerable details
of practice which require to be known to identify the limit points of
exchange in any particular city. The limit points can only be taken
advantage of by banking experts, and, although we assume a trader
remitting his indebtedness in coin when he is asked to pay too high a
price for his bill of exchange, in actual affairs the banker will supply
the cheque or bill and himself will do the professional business of
sending away bullion. Similarly, we have represented one trader drawing
on another trader and selling his draft to a third trader who remits the
draft to a fourth. In actual practice, however, No. 1 draws on No. 2 and
disposes of his draft to a banker; No. 4 draws on No. 3 and sells his
draft to a banker; because, speaking generally, whenever goods are
shipped, the shipper immediately requires his money; he draws a bill
against the goods, and it is the function of a banker to help, as a sort
of debt-collecting agency, by buying these drafts; and the bank, being a
mart for all forms of remittance, gets an immense variety of demand for
cable payments, cheques and bills on all centres. This does not affect
the theory, for it must be remembered that the banker is a necessary
link between the buyer and seller of exchange, because the seller can
only sell what he has and the buyer must have exactly what he wants.
To return to the question of limit points: if a universal currency
system existed, with the same monetary standard that is used in England,
and the coinage kept in a proper condition of weight and fineness, and
the coin readily supplied to meet every reasonable claim--if, in fact,
the pound sterling were the prevalent coin and the English banking
system obtained everywhere, then we should find all exchange quotations
as simple as our case of London and Edinburgh, that is to say, all
exchanges would be quoted at par or a premium or a discount. The limit
points in any place of the exchange on London would represent simply and
obviously the cost of the transmission of the coin. These limit points
would vary at each place according to the distance from London, the cost
of freight, the risk involved in the transmission and the local rate of
interest. On the continent of Europe some advance has been made in the
direction of a universal coinage. Countries subscribing to the Latin
Union have agreed on the franc as a common unit, and Belgium,
Switzerland, France and Italy quote exchange between themselves at a
premium or discount. Greece, Spain and other countries are also parties
to the arrangement, but their currencies are in a bad state, and the
exchange quotations involve a considerable element of speculation. We
have, however, to deal with another factor in international finance,
namely, the enormous variety of currency systems; and we have then to
discover, in each case, the exchange which represents par and
corresponds to our £100 for £100 in the London-Edinburgh example. The
United States furnishes perhaps the easiest problem, and we must find
out how many dollars in gold contain exactly the same amount of the
precious metal as is contained in one hundred sovereigns. The answer is
486-5/8, and the arithmetic is a question of the mint laws of the two
countries. Gold coin in the United States contains one-tenth alloy and
in England one-twelfth alloy. Ten dollars contain 258 grains of gold,
nine-tenths fine. One pound contains 123.274 grains of gold,
eleven-twelfths fine, consequently £100 is worth $486-5/8, or, to be
exact, $486-2/3, and when cable payments between London and New York are
quoted at 4.86-5/8 for the £1 sterling, exchange is about par. As a
cable payment is an immediate transfer from one city to another, no
question of interest or other charge is involved. Owing to the cost of
sending gold as detailed above, the New York cable exchange varies from
about 4.84 to 4.89½; at the former point gold leaves London for New
York, and at the latter point gold comes to England. Besides insurance,
freight, packing, commission and interest, there must also be considered
the circumstance that coin taken in bulk is always a little worn and
under full weight, and in the process of turning sovereigns into
dollars, the result would not bear out the calculation based on the mint
regulations: consequently, when taking gold from London, the demand
would first fall on the raw metal as received from South Africa or
Australia to be minted in the United States, then on any stock of
American coin the Bank of England might have and be willing to sell by
weight (which would be accounted by tale in New York), and lastly the
demand would be satisfied by sovereigns taken by tale from the Bank of
England and converted by weight in America.
The instance of the American quotation may be further taken to explain
some of the numerous points which the study of the exchange involves. In
the first place, it will be noted that we have quoted the price in
dollars. In London, business in bills, &c., on New York is quoted either
in pence or in dollars, that is to say, payments are negotiated for so
many dollars either at 49-3/16 pence per dollar, or at the equivalent
rate $4.88 for the pound. In practice it is much more convenient to
quote in London in the money of the foreign country, as it makes
comparison with the foreign rate on London very simple. Some foreign
countries quote exchange on London in pence, and then, of course, in
relation to those countries the same practice will obtain in England,
but the majority of the exchange quotations on London are in francs,
marks, gulden, lire, kronen or other foreign money. Another point which
must be explained is the reason why exchange varies between what we have
called the limit points; why there is sometimes so much demand for bills
on London and why at other times so many bills are being offered.
Similar causes operate on other exchanges, and if we develop the New
York case we shall provide explanations for exchange movements in other
countries.
At one time the financial relations between England and America were as
follows. England was the principal creditor of the United States, and
the latter country had to remit continually very large amounts in
payment of interest on English money and profits on English investments,
in payment for shipping freights, for banking commissions, insurance
premiums and an immense variety of services, besides paying for the
large imports which crossed the Atlantic from English ports. In the fall
of the year these payments would be more than offset by the enormous
exports of food-stuffs, cotton, tobacco, &c., so that during the first
half of the year exchange would be at or about the limit of 4.89½ and
gold would have to be sent from New York to supplement the deficient
quantity of bills. In the autumn the produce bills would flood the
exchange market and gold would be sent from London as exchange got to
the other limit point of 4.84. These conditions are still very potent,
but latterly another element has entered into the position, and the new
development is so powerful as to reverse sometimes what we may call the
natural and legitimate movement in the exchange. This new element is the
more intimate banking and financial relationship which has been
established between the two countries. As American conditions have
become more stable, with better security for capital and an assured
feeling about the currency of the United States, bankers in London have
gladly allowed their banking friends in New York and other large cities
to draw bills on London whenever there was a good demand for sterling
remittances. We have, therefore, to consider a fresh type of bill of
which the drawer has no claim on the drawee, but, on the other hand,
incurs a debt to the drawee. To take a very usual method, a banker in
Wall Street, New York, will advance money to stockbrokers, investors and
speculators against bonds and shares with a 20% margin. He deposits this
security with a trust company in New York which acts both for the
American and English banker. The Wall Street banker then draws a bill at
60 days' sight or 90 days' sight on the banker in Lombard Street and
sells this draft to supply the money he lends the stockbroker. Two or
three months hence the New York banker must send money to London with
which to meet the bill, so that, whereas, in the case of a commercial
bill, the produce is despatched and in due course the consignee must
find the money for the bill, in the case of a finance bill, as it is
called, the bill is drawn and in due course the drawer must send the
value with which it is to be honoured. In any event the acceptor, the
London banker, has to pay the bill, so that it will be easily understood
that relations of the greatest confidence are necessary between the
drawer and drawee before finance bills of this class can be created.
The profit arising from the transaction we have sketched is realized by
the separate parties in this way. The New York banker lends money for
three months, say, at 5% per annum, he pays a commission of 1/32% to the
trust company which has custody of the security, a charge equivalent to
1/8% interest per annum. He draws on London at 90 days' sight and sells
the bill at 4.83-5/8, the cable rate being 4.87¾, the buyer of a three
months' bill making the allowance for the English bill stamp of ½ per
mille and the London discount rate of 3%. The drawer of the bill must
also pay a commission of 3/16% to the London banker who accepts the
draft; this is equivalent to another ¾% per annum in the rate of
discount, so that money raised in this way costs 1/8% for the trust
company, 3% the London discount rate, about ¼% for bill stamps, and ¾%
for London commission--altogether, 4-1/8%; and, as the money is loaned
at 5%, there appears to be 7/8% profit to the drawer of the bill. This,
however, is on the assumption that the cable rate is still 4.87¾ when
the bill falls due for payment and that the drawer would have to pay
that price to telegraph the money to meet the draft. But exchange on
London can go up or down between 4.84 and 4.89½, and if at the end of
the three months the cable rate is 4.84 the New York banker will be able
to cover his bill at almost the same rate at which he sold it and will
only be out of pocket to the extent of the commissions and stamps, so
that the accommodation will only cost him 1½% and his profit will be
3½%. If he has to pay more than 4.87¾ for his cable at the maturity of
the bill his profit will be less than 7/8%, and he may even be a loser
on the transaction.
It is obvious, then, that a high rate of interest in New York, with a
high rate of exchange on London and a low rate of discount in England,
would induce the creation of these finance bills. The supply of these
bills would prevent New York exchange reaching the limit point at which
gold leaves the United States, and the maturity of these bills in the
autumn would ensure a demand for the produce bills and possibly prevent
exchange from falling to the other limit point at which London has to
send gold to New York.
We have pointed out the essential difference between these finance bills
and what we have called produce bills, but there is another very
striking difference, that of the question of supply. These finance bills
are obviously very difficult to limit in their amounts; produce bills
are, of course, limited by the extent of the surplus crops of the United
States and by the demand for the produce in Europe, but so long as it is
mutually satisfactory to the big finance houses in both countries to
draw on credit granted in London, so long may these accommodation bills
be created, and the pressure of the bills in New York may depress
exchange so much that gold leaves London at a time when it is required
in other directions. In such a case the embarrassment caused by this
artificial drain of the gold reserve would much more than offset the
amount of the commission earned by the accepting houses. The Bank of
England may have to raise its rate of discount at the expense of the
entire home trade; probably, also, with the rise in the value of money,
consequent on the diminished resources, all investment securities fall
in value and more onerous terms must be submitted to by the government,
corporations and colonies, in the issue of any loans they may require.
It will, therefore, be appreciated that, although these finance bills
may be perfectly safe, their excessive creation is viewed with great
disfavour, and considerable apprehension is felt when the adventures of
speculators in New York make great demands for loans against stocks and
shares, and, through the instrumentality of these finance bills, shift
the burden on to the shoulders of the London discount market. The effect
of this is to level money rates as between New York and London, and in
the process the pressure falls on London and the relief goes to America.
Eventually, of course, the bills must be met and funds sent for that
purpose from across the Atlantic, but in the meanwhile the disturbance
of the gold supply is an inconvenience.
We have explained the process of employing credits granted in London to
finance Wall Street; there are, also, many other types of bill to which
the acceptor lends his name on the assurance that he will in due course
be supplied with the funds required to meet the acceptance. In the case
of the produce bills, a London banker will accept the bills in order
that they may be more easily marketable than if they were drawn direct
on the actual consignee of the cotton, tobacco or wheat. The consignees
in Liverpool, &c., pay a commission for this assistance and reimburse
the London bank as the produce is gradually disposed of. The transaction
appears slightly more complicated when English bankers accept bills for
produce shipped from the United States to merchants living in Hamburg,
Genoa, Singapore and all other great ports, but the principle is the
same, and the influence of such business on the exchange affects, in the
first instance, the quotation between America and London, but
afterwards, when money must be sent to London with which to honour the
bills, the exchanges with Germany, Italy or the Straits Settlements bear
their share in the eventual adjustment, the spinners, tobacco
manufacturers and corn factors requiring drafts on London where so much
of the trade of the world is financed.
We shall have to consider later the reasons which ensure to London this
peculiar and predominant position. We have so far used the American
exchange as an example to explain causes which produce fluctuations in
all the principal exchanges on London and to show the points between
which fluctuations are limited. The fact that America is still
developing at a much greater rate than the Old World makes an important
distinction between the financial position in New York and the financial
position of the big capitals in Europe. There is not in America the huge
accumulation of savings and investment money which the Old World has
collected, so that whereas Europe helps to finance the United States,
the latter country has so many home enterprises that she can spare none
of her funds to assist Europe. It would not be possible for London to
draw on New York such bills as we have described as finance bills, for
they could never be discounted there except on the most onerous terms,
and there is nothing in America which corresponds to the London money
market.
We have to deal with dollars and cents in America, with francs in
France, with marks in Germany, and different money units in nearly every
country; but, given the mint regulations, the theoretical par of
exchange and the theoretical limit points are arrived at by simple
arithmetic. An exhaustive statement with reference to every country
would involve an amount of tedious repetition, so that for the purposes
of this article it is more instructive to consider the essential
differences between the important exchanges than to go into the details
of coinage, which would appeal rather to the numismatist than to the
exchange expert.
The United States, offering as it does a vast field for profitable
investment, must annually remit huge amounts for interest on bonds and
shares held by Europeans; coupons and dividend warrants payable in
America are offered for sale daily in London, and at the end of the
quarters the amount of these claims, coupons and drawn bonds is very
large, and a considerable set off to the indebtedness of Europe for
American produce. It is often asserted that the United States is rapidly
getting sufficiently wealthy to repurchase all these bonds and shares;
but whenever trade conditions are exceptionally good in the States,
fresh evidence is forthcoming that assistance from London and Europe is
essential to finance the commercial development of the United States.
This illustrates a feature common to all new countries, and the effect
is that they make annual payments to the older countries and especially
to England.
A government loan or other large borrowing arranged abroad will
immediately move the exchange in favour of the borrowing country. A
tendency adverse to the United States results from the drafts and
letters of credit of the large number of holiday makers who cross the
Atlantic and spend so much money in Europe. When remittance is made of
the incomes of Americans who have taken up their residence in the Old
World the exchange is affected in a similar manner.
In one respect the United States stands far superior to most of the
older countries. There are no restrictions on the free export of gold
when exchange reaches the limit point showing that the demand for bills
on London exceeds the supply. New York (with London and India) is a free
gold market, and this is undoubtedly one of the reasons why money is so
readily advanced to the United States, and the finance bills, to which
we referred above, would not be allowed to the same extent were it not
for the fact that New York will remit gold when other forms of
remittance are insufficient to satisfy foreign creditors. When exchange
between Paris and London reaches the theoretical limit point of 25.32
(25 francs 32 centimes for the £1 sterling), gold does not leave Paris
for London unless the Bank of France is willing to allow it. By law,
silver is also legal tender in France, and if the State Bank is pressed
for gold a premium will be charged for it if it is supplied. Gold may be
collected on cheaper terms in small amounts from the great trading
corporations or from the offices of the railways, but a large shipment
can only be made by special arrangement with the Bank of France.
Similarly, in Germany, where a gold standard is supposed to obtain, if a
banker requires a large amount of gold from the Reichsbank he is warned
that he had better not take it, and if he persists he incurs the
displeasure of the government institution to the prejudice of his
business, so that the theoretical limit point of 20 marks 52 pf. to the
pound sterling has no practical significance, and gold cannot be secured
from Berlin when exchange is against that city, and Germany has, when
put to the test, an inconvertible and sometimes a debased currency.
There is no state bank in the United States, and no government
interference with the natural course of paying debts. On the other hand,
when monetary conditions in New York indicate a great shortage of funds,
and rates of interest are uncomfortably high, the United States treasury
has sometimes parted with some of its revenue accumulations to the
principal New York bankers on condition that they at once engage a
similar amount of gold for import from abroad, which shall be turned
over to the treasury on arrival. As these advances are made free of
interest the effect is to adjust the limit point of 484 to about 485,
and the United States treasury seems to have taken a leaf out of the
book of the German Reichsbank, which frequently offers similar
facilities to gold importers and creates an artificial limit point in
the Berlin Exchange. The Reichsbank gives credit in Berlin for gold that
has only got as far as Hamburg, and sometimes gives so many days' credit
that the agent in London of German banking houses can afford an
extravagant price for bar gold and even risk the loss in weight on a
withdrawal of sovereigns, although the exchange may not have fallen to
the other limit point of 20.32. In England the only effort that is made
to attract gold is some action by the Bank of England in the direction
of raising discount rates; occasionally, also, the bank outbids other
purchasers for the arrivals of raw gold from South Africa, Australia and
other mining countries. Quite exceptionally, for instance during the
Boer War, the Bank of England allowed advances free of interest against
gold shipped to London.
Many of the principal banking houses in all the important capitals
receive continually throughout the day telegraphic information of the
tendency and movement of all the exchanges, and on the smallest margin
of profit a large business is done in what is called arbitrage (q.v.).
For instance, cheques or bills on London will be bought by X in Paris
and remitted to Y in London. X will recoup himself by selling a cable
payment on Z in New York. Z will put himself in funds to meet the cable
payment by selling 60 days' sight drafts on Y, who pays the 60 days'
drafts at maturity out of the proceeds of the cheques or bills received
from Paris, and this complicated transaction, involving no outlay of
capital, must show some minute profit after all expense of bill stamps,
discount, cables and commissions has been allowed for. Such business is
very difficult and very technical. The arbitrageur must be in
first-class credit, must make the most exact calculation, and be prompt
to take advantage of the small differences in exchange, differences
which can be only temporary, as these operations soon bring about an
adjustment.
The European exchanges with which London is chiefly concerned are Paris
and Berlin, through which centres most of the financial business of the
rest of Europe is conducted; for example, Scandinavia, Russia and
Austria bank more largely with Berlin than elsewhere. Italy,
Switzerland, Belgium and Spain bank chiefly in Paris. European claims on
London or debts to London are settled mostly through Germany or France,
and consequently the German and French rates of exchange are affected by
the relation of England with the rest of the Continent. The exchanges on
Paris and Berlin are therefore most carefully watched by all those big
interests which are concerned with the rate of discount and the value of
money in London.
If the Paris cheque falls to 25.12, gold arrivals in the London bullion
market will be taken by French bankers unless the profit shown by the
exchange on some other country enables other buyers to pay more for the
gold than Paris can afford. If the Paris cheque falls still further, it
would pay to take sovereigns from the Bank of England for export, and so
much would be taken as would satisfy the demand to send money to France,
or until the consequent scarcity of money in London made rates of
interest so high in England that French bankers would prefer to leave
money and perhaps increase their balances. As between London and Paris
and Berlin the greatest factor operating the exchanges is the relative
value of money in the three centres. There is no great excess of trade
balance at any season in favour of Germany or France and against
England. On the other hand the banking relations between those countries
are very intimate, and if funds can be very profitably employed in one
of these places, there will be a good demand for remittance, and
exchange will move in favour of that place, that is to say, exchange
will go towards that limit point at which gold will be sent. The great
pastoral and agricultural countries like South America, Egypt and India
are in a position to draw very largely on London when their crops or
other products are ready for shipment. In the early months of the year
gold goes freely to South America to pay for the cereals, hides and
meat, and in the autumn Egypt and India send such quantities of cotton
and wheat that exchange moves heavily in favour of those countries, and
gold must go to adjust the trade balance. During the rest of the year
the gold tends to return as these countries always require bills on
London or some form of payment to meet interest and dividends on
European money invested in their government debts, railways and trading
enterprises, and to pay for the European manufactures which they import.
Exchange then moves in favour of England, and the Bank of England can
replenish its reserve. Over the greater part of the world the rate of
exchange on London is an indication simply of the trade balance. The
greater part of the world receives payment for food stuffs, and has to
pay for European manufactures, shipping freights, banking services and
professional commissions.
The greatest complication in exchange questions arises when we have to
deal with a country employing a silver standard, and, fortunately for
the development of trade, this problem has disappeared of late years in
the case of India, Ceylon, Japan, Mexico and the Straits Settlements,
and now the only important country using silver as a standard is China.
When the monetary standard in one country is only a commodity in another
country we are as far removed from the ideal of an international
currency as can be imagined. We can fix no limit points to the exchange
and we cannot settle any theoretical par of exchange. The price of
silver in the gold-using country may vary as much as the price of copper
or tin, and in the silver-using country gold is dealt in just as any
other metal. In both cases the only metal of constant price is the metal
which is used as the money standard. The easiest method of explaining
the position is to consider that any one in a gold-using country having
a claim in currency on a silver-using country has to offer for sale so
many ounces of silver, and vice versa the exporter in a silver-using
country sending produce to London has to offer a draft representing so
many ounces of gold. This introduces a very unsatisfactory element. To
take a practical example:--a tea-grower in China has raised his crop in
spite of the usual experience of weather and labour difficulties and the
endless risks that a planter must face; the tea is then sent to London
to take its chance of good or bad prices, and at the same time the
planter has a draft to sell representing locally a certain weight of
gold; now, in addition to all the risks of weather and trading
conditions, and the chances of the fluctuations in the tea market, he is
compelled to gamble in the metal market on the price of gold. Some years
ago when a large number of important countries employed a silver
standard it was seriously suggested that a fixed ratio should be agreed
internationally at which gold and silver should be exchanged. This
advocacy of bimetallism (q.v.) was especially persistent at a time when
silver had suffered a very great fall in price and the prominent
exponents could generally be identified either as extremely practical
men who were interested in the price of silver, or as very inexperienced
theorists. The difficulty of the two standards was successfully solved
by discarding the use of silver, and the chief silver-using countries
adopted a gold standard which has given greater security for the
investment of foreign capital, has simplified business and brought about
a large increase of trade.
In the case of a country of which the government has been subject to
great financial difficulties, gold has been shipped to satisfy foreign
creditors so long as the supply held out, and the exchange with such a
country will continue to move adversely with every fresh political
embarrassment and any other economic cause reflecting on the national
credit. With the collapse of the monarchy in Brazil the value of the
milreis fell from 27d. to 5d., and all the Spanish-American countries
have from time to time afforded most distressing examples of the
demoralizing effects on the currency of unstable and reckless
administration. In Europe similar results have been shown by the
mistrust inspired by the governments of Spain, Greece, Italy and some
other states. The raising of revenue by the use of the printing press
creates an inconvertible and depreciating paper currency which frightens
foreign capital and severely taxes the unfortunate country which must
make payment abroad for the service of debt and other obligations. With
the tardy appreciation of the old proverb that "honesty is the best
policy" nearly every country of importance has made strenuous efforts to
improve the integrity of its money.
Exchange quotations are not published from many of the British colonies,
as their financial business is in the hands of a comparatively few
excellently managed banks, which establish, by agreement, conventional
exchanges fixed for a considerable period, notably in the case of
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Scottish and Irish banks
supply similar examples of a monopoly in exchange.
The following table taken from the money article of a London daily paper
indicates the exchanges which are of most interest to England:--
_Foreign Exchanges._
+-----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------------+
| | June 14. | June 15. | June 16. |
+-----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------------+
| Paris, cheques | 25 f. 18 c. | 25 f. 18 c. | 25 f. 18 c. |
| " Mkt. discount | 2½-5/8 p.c. | 2½-5/8 p.c. | 2½-5/8 p.c. |
| Brussels, cheques | 25 f. 23 c. | 25 f. 23½ c. | .. |
| Berlin, sight | 20 m. 48¾ pf. | 20 m. 48¾ pf. | 20 m. 48 pf. |
| " 8 days | 20 m. 46½ pf. | 20 m. 46¼ pf. | 20 m. 45½ pf. |
| " Mkt. discount | 3-7/8 p.c. | 3-7/8 p.c. | 3-7/8 p.c. |
| Vienna, sight | Holiday | 24 kr. 02¼ h. | 24 kr. 02¾ h. |
| Amsterdam, sight | 12 fl. 13-1/8 c.| 12 fl. 13¼ c. | .. |
| Italy, sight | Holiday | 25 lire 15 c. | .. |
| Madrid, sight | " | 27 ps. 68 | .. |
| Lisbon, sight | " | .. | .. |
| St Petersburg, 3 ms. | 94 r. 10 | 94 r. 10 | .. |
| Bombay, T.T. | 1s. 4d. | 1s. 4d. | 1s. 4d. |
| Calcutta, T.T. | 1s. 4d. | 1s. 4d. | 1s. 4d. |
| Hong-Kong, T.T. | 2s. 1-1/16d. | 2s. 1-1/16d. | 2s. 1-1/16d. |
| Shanghai, T.T. | 2s. 10¾d. | 2s. 10-5/8d. | 2s. 10-5/8d. |
| Singapore, T.T. | 2s. 4-1/16d. | 2s. 4-1/16d. | 2s. 4-1/16d. |
| Yokohama, T.T. | 2s. 0-3/8d. | 2s. 0-3/8d. | 2s. 0-3/8d. |
|*Rio de Jan'ro, 90 days| 16-9/16d. | 16-9/16d. | 16-17/32d. |
|*Valparaiso, 90 days | | | |
| Coml. | 14-3/8d. | 14-3/8d. | 14¼d. |
|*B. Ayres, 90 days | 48-1/8d. | 48d. | 48d. |
+-----------------------+-----------------+---------------+---------------+
* These rates are telegraphed on the day preceding their receipt.
In the case of Paris and Berlin it will be noticed that the local rate
of discount is also given, as the value of money in these centres, in
relation to the value of money in London, is the most important factor
in a movement of the exchange. Vienna has become important owing to the
improvement in the financial position of Austria, and still greater
improvement is shown in the case of Italy, whose currency stands in the
above list better even than that of France. Spain, which should stand at
about the same rate, still has a depreciated paper currency. Lisbon
stands also at a discount, as the milreis should be worth 53¼ pence.
In Russia the exchange showing 94.10 roubles to £10 is carefully and
cleverly controlled in spite of the bad internal position. The India
exchanges move slightly, as the currency is firmly established at the
rate of 15 rupees to the £1. Hong-Kong quotes for the old Mexican dollar
and a British trade dollar; Shanghai for the tael containing on an
average 517½ grains of fine silver. The Straits Settlements have fixed
their money on a gold basis at 2s. 4d. per dollar, on the lines of the
arrangement made in India. In Japan there is a gold standard, and par of
exchange is 2s. 0½d. for the yen. Brazil, Chile and Argentina have a
depreciated paper currency, and the last quotation of 48d. is for the
gold dollar equal to five francs, but there is a premium on gold in the
River Plate of 127.27½% and for the present a gold standard is
re-established on this basis. The letters T.T. with the eastern
exchanges signify telegraphic transfer or the rate for payments made by
cable. The very important New York rates are always given in another
part of the daily paper with other details of American commercial
interest.
These rates are all quotations for payments in England, and all over the
world the exchange on London is the exchange of the greatest importance.
This unique position was gained originally, probably, through the
geographical position of the United Kingdom, and has been maintained
owing to several reasons which secure to London a peculiar position by
comparison with any other capital. Britain's colossal trade ensures a
supply of and a demand for English remittances. Even when goods or
produce are dealt in between foreign countries a credit is opened in
London, so that the shipper of the produce can offer in the local market
a bill of exchange which is readily saleable. With the highly developed
banking system a large amount of deposits is collected in London, and
the result is that bills of any usance up to six months can be
immediately discounted, and the proceeds, if required, can be handed
over in gold. There are in London a great number of wealthy banks and
banking houses whose reputation and solidity allow any one of them to
accept bills for amounts varying from one to ten millions sterling,
whereby large commissions are earned.
These four advantages, namely, a free gold market, a huge trade, an
enormous accumulation of wealth, and a discount market such as exists
nowhere else, have made London an unrivalled financial centre, and
consequently bills on London are an international money and the best
medium of exchange.
AUTHORITIES.--_A B C of the Foreign Exchanges_, by George Clare;
_Foreign Exchanges_, by Goschen; _Arbitrage_, by Deutsch; _Arbitrages
et Parités_, by Ottomar Haupt; Swoboda, _Arbitrage_ (12th edition), by
Max Fuerst. (E. M. Ha.)
EXCHEQUER. The word "exchequer" is the English form of the Fr.
_échiquier_, low Lat. _scaccarium_, and its primary meaning is a
chess-board (see CHESS). As the name of a government department dealing
with accounts it is derived from the exchequer or the "abacus" by means
of which such accounts were kept, such a contrivance being almost
universally in use before the introduction of the Arabic notation. In
England the department or court of accounts was named originally "the
tallies" from the notched sticks or tallies which constituted the
primitive means of account-keeping (which were only abolished in 1826),
and was only subsequently, probably in the reign of Henry I., named the
exchequer from the use of the abacus. Both the name and the general
features of the institution may reasonably be attributed to Norman
influence, since we find both in Normandy and in the Norman kingdom of
Sicily, as well as in Scotland and Ireland; the two latter cases being
directly due to English example. As a court of law the exchequer owed
its existence in England, as elsewhere, to the necessity of deciding
legal questions arising from matters of account, and its secondary
activities soon overshadowed its original functions.
We cannot say whether the exchequer, as known in England, is older than
the beginning of the 12th century. The treasury, which may be regarded
as one of its constituents, dates from before the conquest, and the
officers of the exchequer who were drawn from the treasury staff can be
traced back to Domesday. But our earliest information about the
exchequer itself, apart from that afforded by the pipe rolls (see
RECORD), rests on a treatise (_Dialogus de Scaccario_) written about
A.D. 1179 by Richard, bishop of London and treasurer of England. His
father, Nigel, bishop of Ely, had been treasurer of Henry I., and nephew
to that king's great financial minister Roger, bishop of Salisbury.
Nigel is said to have reconstituted the exchequer after the troubles of
Stephen's reign upon the model which he inherited from his uncle. The
Angevin, or rather the Norman, exchequer cannot be regarded in
strictness as a permanent department. It consisted of two parts: the
lower exchequer, which was closely connected with the permanent treasury
and was an office for the receipt and payment of money; and the upper
exchequer, which was a court sitting twice a year to settle accounts and
thus nearly related to the Curia Regis (q.v.). We dare hardly say that
either exchequer existed in vacation; indeed the word (like the word
"diet") seems to have been limited at first to the actual sitting of the
king's court for financial purposes. The Michaelmas and Easter
exchequers were the sessions of this court "at the exchequer" or
chess-board as it had previously sat "at the tallies." The constitution
of the court was that of the normal Frankish curia. The king was the
nominal president, and the court consisted of his great officers of
state and his barons, or tenants-in-chief, and it is doubtless due to
the fact that the exchequer was originally the curia itself sitting for
a special purpose that its unofficial judges retained the name of
"barons" until recent times. Of the great officers we may probably find
the steward in the person of the justiciar, the normal president of the
court. He sat at the head of the exchequer table. The butler was not
represented. The chancellor sat on the justiciar's left; he was
custodian _ex officio_ of the seal of the court, and thus responsible
for the issue of all writs and summonses, and moreover for the keeping
of a duplicate roll of accounts embodying the judgments of the court. On
the left of the chancellor, and thus clear of the table, since their
services might be required elsewhere at any moment, sat the constable,
the two chamberlains and the marshal. The constable was the chief of the
outdoor service of the court, and was responsible for everything
connected with the army, or with hunting and hawking. The two
chamberlains were the lay colleagues of the treasurer, and shared with
him the duty of receiving and paying money, and keeping safe the seal of
the court, and all the records and other contents of the treasury. The
marshal, who was subordinate to the constable, shared his duties, and
was specially responsible for the custody of prisoners and of the
vouchers produced by accountants. At the head of the table on the
justiciar's right sat, in Henry II.'s time, an extraordinary member of
the court, the bishop of Winchester. The treasurer, like the chancellor
a clerk, sat at the head of the right-hand side of the table. He charged
the accountants with their fixed debts, and dictated the contents of the
great roll of accounts (or pipe roll) which embodied the decisions of
the court as to the indebtedness of the sheriffs and other accountants.
These persons with certain subordinates constituted the court of
accounts, or upper exchequer, whereas the lower exchequer, or exchequer
of receipt, consisted almost exclusively of the subordinates of the
treasurer and chamberlains. In the upper exchequer the justiciar
appointed the calculator, who exhibited the state of each account by
means of counters on the exchequer table, so that the proceedings of the
court might be clear to the presumably illiterate sheriff. The
calculator sat in the centre of the side of the table on the president's
left. The chancellor's staff consisted of the _Magister Scriptorii_
(probably the ancestor of the modern master of the rolls), whose duties
are not stated; a clerk (the modern chancellor of the exchequer) who
settled the form of all writs and summonses, charged the sheriff with
all fines and amercements, and acted as a check on the treasurer in the
composition of the great roll; and a scribe (afterwards the comptroller
of the pipe), who wrote out the writs and summonses and kept a duplicate
of the great roll, known as the chancellor's roll. The constable's
subordinates were the marshal and a clerk, who, besides the duty of
paying outdoor servants of the crown, had the special task of producing
duplicates of all writs issued by the Curia Regis. The treasurer and
chamberlains, being colleagues, had a joint staff, the clerical or
literate members of which were servants of the treasurer, while the lay
or illiterate members depended on the chamberlains. Hence while the
treasurer and his clerks kept their accounts by means of rolls, the
chamberlains and their serjeants duplicated them so far as possible by
means of tallies. Thus the great roll was written by the treasurer's
scribe (the engrosser, afterwards the clerk of the pipe), while the
payments on account and other allowances to be credited to the sheriff
were registered by the tally cutter of the chamberlains.
In the exchequer of receipt the staff was similarly divided between the
treasurer and chamberlains; the treasurer having a clerk who kept the
issue and receipt rolls (the later clerk of the pells) and four tellers,
while each of the chamberlains was represented by a knight (afterwards
the deputy chamberlains), who controlled the clerk's account by means of
tallies, and held their lands by this serjeanty; these three had joint
control of the treasury, and could not act independently. The other
serjeants were the knight or "pesour" who weighed the money, the melter
who assayed it, and the ushers of the two exchequers. It should be noted
that all the lay offices of the treasury in both exchequers were
hereditary. Henry II. had also a personal clerk who supervised the
proceedings personally in the upper, and by deputy in the lower,
exchequer.
The business of the ancient exchequer was primarily financial, although
we know that some judicial business was done there and that the court of
common pleas was derived from it rather than from the curia proper. The
principal accountants were the sheriffs, who were bound, as the king's
principal financial agents in each county, to give an account of their
stewardship twice a year, at the exchequers of Easter and Michaelmas.
Half the annual revenue was payable at Easter, and at Michaelmas the
balance was exacted, and the accounts made up for the year, and formally
enrolled on the pipe roll. The fixed revenue consisted of the farms of
the king's demesne lands within the counties, of the county mints, and
of certain boroughs (see BOROUGH) which paid annual sums as the price of
their liberties. Danegeld was also regarded as fixed revenue, though
after the accession of Henry II. it was not frequently levied. There
were also rents of assarts and purprestures and mining and other
royalties. The casual revenue consisted of the profits of the feudal
incidents (escheat, wardship and marriage), of the profits of justice
(amercements, and goods of felons and outlaws), and of fines, or
payments made by the king's subjects to secure grants of land, wardships
or marriages, and of immunities, as well as for the hastening and
sometimes the delaying of justice. Besides this, there were the revenues
arising from aids and scutages of the king's military tenants, tallages
of the crown lands, customs of ports, and special "gifts," or general
assessments made on particular occasions. For the collection of all
these the sheriff was primarily responsible, though in some cases the
accountants dealt directly with the exchequer, and were bound to make
their appearance in person on the day when the sheriff accounted.
We gather both from tradition and from the example of the Scottish
exchequer that the farms of demesne lands were originally paid in kind,
by way of purveyance for the royal household, and although such farms
are expressed even in Domesday Book in terms of money, the tradition
that there was a system of customary valuation is a sufficient
explanation, and not of itself incredible. At some date, possibly under
the administration of Roger of Salisbury, the inconvenience of this
arrangement led to the substitution of money payments at the exchequer.
The rapid deterioration of a small silver coinage led to successive
efforts to maintain the value of these payments, first by a "scale"
deduction of 6d. in the £ for wear, then by the substitution of payment
by weight for payment by tale, and finally by the reduction of most of
such payments to their pure silver value by means of an assay, a process
originally confined to payments from particular manors. Only the farms
of counties, however, were so treated, and not all of those. The amount
to be deducted in these cases was settled by the weighing and assaying
of a specimen pound of silver in the presence of the sheriff by the
pesour and the melter in the lower exchequer. The casual revenue was
paid by tale, and for the determination of its amount it was necessary
to have copies of all grants made in the chancery on which rents were
reserved, or fines payable. These were known first as _contrabrevia_ and
later as _originalia_; the profits of justice were settled by the
delivery of "estreats" from the justices, while for certain minor
casualties the oath of the sheriff was at first the only security. At a
later date many of them were determined by copies of inquisitions sent
in from the chancery. All this business might be transacted anywhere in
England, and though convenience placed the exchequer first at Winchester
(where the treasury was), and afterwards usually at Westminster, it held
occasional sessions at other towns even in the 14th century.
The Angevin exchequer, described by Richard the Treasurer, remained the
ideal of the institution throughout its history, and the lineaments of
the original exemplar were never completely effaced; but the rapid
increase both of financial and judicial business led to a multiplication
of machinery and a growing complexity of constitution. Even in the time
of Henry II. we gather that the great officers of state, except the
treasurer and chancellor, commonly attended by deputy. In the reign of
Henry III. the chancellor had also ceased to attend, and his clerk
acquired the title of chancellor of the exchequer. To the same period
belongs the institution of the king's and lord treasurer's
remembrancers. These at first had common duties and kept duplicate
rolls, but by the ordinance of 1323 their functions were differentiated.
Henceforward the king's remembrancer was more particularly concerned
with the casual, and the lord treasurer's remembrancer with the fixed
revenue. The former put all debts in charge, while the latter saw to
their recovery when they had found their way on to the great roll. Hence
the preliminary stages of each account, the receiving and registering of
the king's writs to the treasurer and barons, and the drawing up of all
particulars of account, lay with the king's remembrancer, and he
retained the corresponding vouchers. The lord treasurer's remembrancer
exacted the "remanets" of such accounts as had been enrolled, as well as
reserved rents and fixed revenue, and so became closely connected with
the clerk of the pipe. Before the end of the 14th century these three
offices had already crystallized into separate departments.
In the meantime the increasing length and variety of accounts, as well
as the growth of judicial business, had led to various efforts at
reform. As early as 22 Henry II. it became necessary to remove from the
great roll the debts which it seemed hopeless to levy, and further
ordinances to the same end were made by statute in 54 Henry III. and in
12 Edward I. By this last a special "exannual roll" was established in
which the "desperate debts" were recorded, in order that the sheriff
might be reminded of them yearly without their overloading the great
roll. But the largest accession of financial business arose from the
"foreign accounts," that is to say, the accounts of national services,
which did not naturally form part of the account of any county. These
did not in the reign of Henry II. form a part of the exchequer business.
Such expenses as appear on the pipe roll were paid by the sheriffs, or
by the bailiffs of "honours"; payments out of the treasury itself would
only appear on the receipt and issue rolls, and the "spending
departments" probably drew their supplies from the camera curie, and not
directly from the exchequer. In the course of the 13th century the
exchequer gradually acquired partial control of these national accounts.
Even in 18 Henry II. there is an account for the forests of England, and
soon the mint, the wardrobe and the escheators followed. The undated
statute of the exchequer (probably about 1276) provides for escheators,
the earldom of Chester, the Channel Islands, the customs and the
wardrobe. During the reign of Edward I., the wardrobe account became
unmanageable, since it not only financed the household, army, navy and
diplomatic service, but raised money on the customs independently of the
exchequer. The reform of 1323-1326, due to Walter de Stapledon, in
remedying this state of things, greatly increased the number of "foreign
accounts" by making the great wardrobe (the storekeeping department),
the butler, purveyors, keepers of horses or of the stud, the clerk of
the "hamper" of the chancery (who took the fees for the great seal), and
the various ambassadors, directly accountable to the exchequer. At the
same time the sheriffs' accounts were expedited by the further
simplification of the great roll, and by appointing a special officer,
the "foreign apposer," to take the account of the "green wax," or
estreats, so that two accounts could go on at once. Another baron (the
5th or cursitor baron) was appointed, and the whole business of foreign
accounts was transferred to a separate building where one baron and
certain auditors spent their whole time in settling the balances due on
the accounts already mentioned, as well as those of castles, &c., not
let to farm, Wales, Gascony, Ireland, aids (clerical and lay),
temporalities of vacant bishoprics, abbeys, priories and dignities,
mines of silver and tin, ulnage and so forth. These balances were
accounted for in the exchequer itself, and entered on the pipe roll, but
the preliminary accounts were filed by the king's remembrancer, and
enrolled separately by the treasurer's remembrancer as a supplement to
the pipe roll.
The next important change, about the end of the 15th century, was the
gradual substitution of special auditors appointed by the crown, known
as the auditors of the prests (the predecessors of the commissioners for
auditing public accounts), for the auditors of the exchequer. Accounts
when passed by them were presented in duplicate and "declared" before
the treasurer, under-treasurer and chancellor. Of the two copies, one,
on paper, was retained by the auditors, the other, on parchment, was
successively enrolled by the king's and lord treasurer's remembrancers,
and finally by the clerk of the pipe, to secure the levying of any
"remanets" or "supers" by process of the exchequer.
Besides the two great difficulties of the postponement of financial to
legal business, and of preventing the sheriffs from exacting the same
debt twice, the exchequer was, as has been seen, hampered in its
functions by the interference of other departments in financial matters.
Its own branches even acquired a certain independence. The exchequer of
the Jews, which came to an end in 18 Edward I., was such a branch. In 27
Henry VIII. the court of augmentations was established to deal with
forfeited lands of monasteries. This was followed in 32 & 33 Henry VIII.
by the courts of first-fruits and tenths and of general surveyors. These
were reabsorbed by the exchequer in 1 Mary, but remained as separate
departments within it. But the development of the treasury, which
succeeded to the functions of the camera curie or the king's chamber,
ultimately reduced the administrative functions of the exchequer to
unimportance, and the audit office took over its duties with regard to
public accounts. So that when the statute of 3 & 4 William IV. cap. 99,
removed the sheriff's accounts also from its competence, and brought to
an end the series of pipe rolls which begins in 1130, the ancient
exchequer may be said to have come to an end. (C. J.)
In 1834 an act was passed abolishing the old offices of the exchequer,
and creating a new exchequer under a comptroller-general, the detailed
business of payments formerly made at the exchequer being transferred to
the paymaster-general, whose office was further enlarged in 1836 and
1848. And in 1866, as the result of a select committee reporting
unfavourably on the system of exchequer control as established in 1834,
the exchequer was abolished altogether as a distinct department of
state, and a new exchequer and audit department established.
The ancient term exchequer now survives mainly as the official title of
the national banking account of the United Kingdom. This central account
is commonly called the exchequer, and its statutory title is "His
Majesty's Exchequer." It may also be described with statutory authority
as "The Account of the Consolidated Fund of Great Britain and Ireland."
This account is, in fact, divided between the Banks of England and
Ireland. At the head office of each of these institutions receipts are
accepted and payments made on account of the exchequer; but in published
documents the two accounts are consolidated into one, the balances only
at the two banks being shown separately.
Operations affecting the exchequer are regulated by the Exchequer and
Audit Departments Act 1866. Section 10 prescribes that the gross revenue
of the United Kingdom (less drawbacks and repayments, which are not
really revenue) is payable, and must sooner or later be paid into the
exchequer. Section 11 directs that payments should be made from the fund
so formed to meet the current requirements of spending departments.
Sections 13, 14, 15 lay down the conditions under which money can be
drawn from the exchequer. Drafts on the exchequer require the approval
of an officer independent of the executive government, the comptroller
and auditor-general. But the description of the formal procedure
required by statute cannot adequately express the actual working of the
system, or the part it plays in the national finance. The simplicity of
the system laid down by the act of 1866 has been disturbed by the
diversion of certain branches or portions of revenue from the exchequer
to "Local Taxation Accounts," under a system initiated by the Local
Government Act 1888, and much extended since.
While the exchequer is, as already stated, the central account, it is
not directly in contact with the details of either revenue or
expenditure. As regards revenue, the produce of taxes and other sources
of income passes, in the first instance, into the separate accounts of
the respective receiving departments--mainly, of course, those of the
customs, inland revenue and post office. A not inconsiderable portion is
received in the provinces, and remitted to London or Dublin by bills or
otherwise, and the ultimate transfers to the exchequer are made (in
round sums) from the accounts of the receiving departments in London or
in Dublin. Thus, there are always considerable sums due to the exchequer
by the revenue departments; on the other hand, as floating balances are
(for the sake of economy) used temporarily for current expenses, there
are generally amounts due by the exchequer to the receiving departments;
such cross claims are adjusted periodically, generally once a month. The
finance accounts of the United Kingdom show the gross amounts due to the
exchequer from the departments, and likewise the amounts payable out of
the gross revenue in priority to the claim of the exchequer. On the
expenditure side a similar system prevails. No detailed payments are
made direct from the exchequer, but round sums are issued from it to
subsidiary accounts, from which the actual drafts for the public
services are met. For instance, the interest on the national debt is
paid by the Bank of England from a separate account fed by transfers of
round sums from the exchequer as required. Similarly, payments for army,
navy and most civil services are met by the paymaster-general out of an
account of his own, fed by daily transfers from the exchequer.
This system has two noticeable effects. Firstly, it secures the
simplicity and finality of the exchequer accounts, and therefore of all
ordinary statements of national finance. Every evening the chancellor of
the exchequer can tell his position so far as the exchequer is
concerned; on the first day of every quarter the press is able to
comment on the national income and expenditure up to the evening before.
The annual account is closed on the evening of the 31st of March, and
there can be no reopening of the budget of a past year such as may occur
under other financial systems. The second effect of the system is to
introduce a certain artificiality into the financial statements. Actual
facts cannot be reduced to the simplicity of exchequer figures; there is
always (as already explained) revenue received by government which has
not yet reached the exchequer; and there must always be a considerable
outstanding liability in the form of cheques issued but not yet cashed.
The suggested criticism is, however, met if it can be shown that, on the
whole, the differences between the true revenue and the exchequer
receipts, or between the true (or audited) expenditure and the exchequer
issues, are not, taking one year with another, relatively considerable.
The following figures (000's omitted) illustrate this point:--
_Expenditure._
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------
| Year. |Exchequer | Audited | Difference.|
| | Issues. | Expenditure. | |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| 1888-1889 | £85,674 | £86,070 | £+396 |
| 1889-1890 | 86,083 | 86,033 | - 50 |
| 1890-1891 | 87,732 | 87,638 | - 94 |
| 1891-1892 | 89,928 | 90,125 | +197 |
| 1892-1893 | 90,375 | 90,164 | -211 |
| 1893-1894 | 91,303 | 91,530 | +227 |
| 1894-1895 | 93,919 | 93,818 | -101 |
| 1895-1896 | 97,764 | 97,667 | - 97 |
| 1896-1897 | 101,477 | 101,543 | + 66 |
| 1897-1898 | 102,936 | 103,010 | + 74 |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| Total for |£927,191 | £927,598 | £+407 |
| 10 years | | | |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
_Revenue._
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| Year. |Exchequer | Actual | Difference.|
| |Receipts. | Revenue. | |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| 1888-1889 | £88,473 | £88,038 | £-435 |
| 1889-1890 | 89,304 | 89,416 | +112 |
| 1890-1891 | 89,489 | 89,282 | -207 |
| 1891-1892 | 90,995 | 91,428 | +433 |
| 1892-1893 | 90,395 | 90,181 | -214 |
| 1893-1894 | 91,133 | 91,265 | +132 |
| 1894-1895 | 94,684 | 94,873 | +189 |
| 1895-1896 | 101,974 | 102,031 | + 57 |
| 1896-1897 | 103,960 | 104,089 | +129 |
| 1897-1898 | 106,614 | 106,691 | + 77 |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| Total for | £947,011 | £947,294 | £+273 |
| 10 years | | | |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
_Surplus._
+-----------+----------=--------------+------------+
| |Exchequer |Diff. between | |
| Year. | Accounts.| Actual Rev. | Difference.|
| | | and Aud. Exp.| |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| 1888-1889 | £2,799 | £1,968 | £-831 |
| 1889-1890 | 3,221 | 3,383 | +162 |
| 1890-1891 | 1,757 | 1,644 | -113 |
| 1891-1892 | 1,067 | 1,303 | +236 |
| 1892-1893 | 20 | 17 | - 3 |
| 1893-1894 | -_170_ | -_265_ | - 95 |
| 1894-1895 | 765 | 1,055 | +290 |
| 1895-1896 | 4,210 | 4,364 | +154 |
| 1896-1897 | 2,473 | 2,546 | + 73 |
| 1897-1898 | 3,678 | 3,681 | + 3 |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
| Total for | £19,820 | £19,696 | £-124 |
| 10 years | | | |
+-----------+----------+--------------+------------+
The third column in the above shows the price which has to be paid (in
the form of discrepancies between facts and figures) for the simplicity
secured to statements and records of the national finance by the present
system embodied in the term exchequer. Probably few will think the price
too high in consideration of the advantages secured.
The principal official who derives a title from the exchequer in its
living sense is, of course, the chancellor of the exchequer. He is the
person named second in the patent appointing commissions for executing
the office of lord high treasurer of Great Britain and Ireland; but he
is appointed chancellor of the exchequer for Great Britain and
chancellor of the exchequer for Ireland by two additional patents.
Although, in fact, the finance minister of the United Kingdom, he has no
_statutory_ power over the exchequer apart from his position as second
commissioner of the treasury; but in virtue of his office he is by
statute master of the mint, senior commissioner for the reduction of the
national debt, a trustee of the British Museum, an ecclesiastical
commissioner, a member of the board of agriculture, a commissioner of
public works and buildings, local government, and education, a
commissioner for regulating the offices of the House of Commons, and has
certain functions connected with the office of the secretary of state
for India. The only other exchequer officer requiring mention is the
comptroller and auditor-general, whose functions as comptroller-general
of the exchequer have been already described.
The ancient name of the national banking account has been attached to
two of the forms of unfunded national debt. Exchequer bills, which date
from the reign of William and Mary (they took the place of the tallies,
previously used for the same purpose), became extinct in 1897, but
exchequer bonds (first issued by Mr Gladstone in 1853) still possess a
practical importance. An exchequer bond is a promise by government to
pay a specified sum after a specified period, generally three or five
years, and meanwhile to pay interest half-yearly at a specified rate on
that sum. Government possesses no general power to issue exchequer
bonds; such power is only conferred by a special act, and for specified
purposes; but when the power has been created, exchequer bonds issued in
pursuance of it are governed by general statutory provisions contained
in the Exchequer Bills and Bonds Act 1866, and amending acts. These acts
create machinery for the issue of exchequer bonds and for the payment of
interest thereon, and protect them against forgery.
Some traces may be mentioned of the ancient uses of the name exchequer
which still remain. The chancellor of the exchequer still presides at
the ceremony of "pricking the list of sheriffs," which is a
quasi-judicial function; and on that occasion he wears a robe of black
silk with gold embroidery, which suggests a judicial costume. In England
the last judge who was styled baron of the exchequer (Baron Pollock)
died in 1897. In Scotland the jurisdiction of the barons of the
exchequer was transferred to the court of session in 1856, but the same
act requires the appointment of one of the judges as "lord ordinary in
exchequer causes," which office still exists. In Ireland Lord Chief
Baron Palles was the last to retain the old title. A street near Dublin
Castle is called Exchequer Street, recalling the separate Irish
exchequer, which ceased in 1817. The old term also survives in the full
title of the treasury representative in Scotland, which is "The King's
and the Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Exchequer," while his office in
the historic Parliament Square is styled "Exchequer Chambers."
(S. E. S.-R.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For the early exchequer Thomas Madox's _History and
Antiquities of the Exchequer_ (London, 1711) remains the standard
authority, and in it the _Dialogus de Scaccario_ of Richard the
Treasurer (1179) was first printed (edited since by A. Hughes, C.G.
Crump and C. Johnson, Oxford, 1902). The publications of the Pipe Roll
Society (London, 1884 et seq.), the Pipe Rolls and Chancellor's Roll,
printed by the Record Commission (London, 1833 and 1844), and H.
Hall's edition of the _Receipt Roll of the Exchequer 31 Henry II._
(London, 1899) should also be consulted. A popular account is in H.
Hall's _Court Life under the Plantagenets_ (London, 1901), and a
careful study in Dr Parow's thesis, _Compotus Vicecomitis_ (Berlin,
1906). For the 13th and 14th centuries H. Hall's edition of the _Red
Book of the Exchequer_ (London, Rolls Series, 1896) is essential, as
also the Public Record Office _List of Foreign Accounts_ (London,
1900). Later practice may be gathered from the similar _List and Index
of Declared Accounts_ (London, 1893), and from such books as Sir T.
Fanshawe's _Practice of the Exchequer Court_, written about A.D. 1600
(London, 1658); Christopher Vernon's _The Exchequer Opened_ (London,
1661), or Sir Geoffrey Gilbert's _Treatise on the Court of Exchequer_
(London, 1758), as well as from the statutes abolishing various
offices in the exchequer. H. Hall's _Antiquities of the Exchequer_
(London, 1891) gives many interesting details of various dates. For
the Scottish exchequer _The Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_ (Edinburgh,
1878 et seq.) should be consulted, while Gilbert's book noted above
gives some details on that of Ireland. See also Appendix 13 to the
great account of _Public Income and Expenditure from 1688 to 1869_, in
three volumes, prepared for parliament by H.W. Chisholm (1869); and
for sidelights on the working of the office from 1825 to 1866 the
reminiscences of the same author (the last chief clerk of the
exchequer) in _Temple Bar_ (January to April 1891).
EXCISE (derived through the Dutch, _excijs_ or _accijs_, possibly from
Late Lat. _accensare_,--ad, to, and census, tax; the word owes something
to a confusion with _excisum_, cut out), a term now well known in public
finance, signifying a duty charged on home goods, either in the process
of their manufacture, or before their sale to the home consumers. This
form of taxation implies a commonwealth somewhat advanced in
manufactures, markets and general riches; and it interferes so directly
with the industry and liberty of the subject that it has seldom been
introduced save in some supreme financial exigency, and has as seldom
been borne, even after long usage, with less than the ordinary
impatience of taxation. Yet excise duties can boast a respectable
antiquity, having a distinct parallel in the _vectigal rerum venalium_
(or toll levied on all commodities sold by auction, or in public market)
of the Romans. But the Roman excise was mild compared with that of
modern nations, having never been more than _centesima_, or 1%, of the
value; and it was much shorter lived than the modern examples, having
been first imposed by Augustus, reduced for a time one-half by Tiberius,
and finally abolished by Caligula, A.D. 38, so that the Roman excise
cannot have had a duration of much more than half a century. Its
remission must have been deemed a great boon in the marts of Rome, since
it was commemorated by the issue of small brass coins with the legend
_Remissis Centesimis_, specimens of which are still to be found in
collections.
The history of this branch of revenue in the United Kingdom dates from
the period of the civil wars, when the republican government, following
the example of Holland, established, as a means of defraying the heavy
expenditure of the time, various duties of excise, which the royalists
when restored to power found too convenient or too necessary to be
abandoned, notwithstanding their origin and their general unpopularity.
On the contrary, they were destined to be steadily increased both in
number and in amount. It is curious that the first commodities selected
for excise were those on which this branch of taxation, after great
extension, had again in the period of reform and free trade been in a
manner permanently reduced, viz. malt liquors, and such kindred
beverages as cider perry and spruce beer. The other excise duties
remaining are chiefly in the form of licences, such as to kill game and
to use and carry guns, to sell gold and silver plate, to pursue the
business of appraisers or auctioneers, hawkers or pedlars, pawnbrokers
or patent-medicine vendors, to manufacture tobacco or snuff, to deal in
sweets or in foreign wines, to make vinegar, to roast malt, or to use a
still in chemistry or otherwise. It may be presumed that the policy of
the licence duties was at first not so much to collect revenue, though
in the aggregate they yielded a large sum, as to guard the main sources
of excise, and to place certain classes of dealers, by registration and
an annual payment to the exchequer, under a direct legal responsibility.
The excise system of the United Kingdom as now pruned and reformed,
however, while still the most prolific of all the sources of revenue, is
simple in process, and is contentedly borne as compared with what was
the case in the 18th, and the beginning of the 19th century. The wars
with Bonaparte strained the government resources to the uttermost, and
excise duties were multiplied and increased in every practicable form.
Bricks, candles, calico prints, glass, hides and skins, leather, paper,
salt, soap, and other commodities of home manufacture and consumption
were placed, with their respective industries, under excise surveillance
and fine. When the duties could no longer be increased in number, they
were raised in rate. The duty on British spirits, which had begun at a
few pence per gallon in 1660, rose step by step to 11s. 8¼d. per gallon
in 1820; and the duty on salt was augmented to three or fourfold its
value.
The old unpopularity of excise, though now somewhat out of date, must
have had real enough grounds. It breaks out in English literature, from
songs and pasquinades to grave political essays and legal commentaries.
Blackstone, in quoting the declaration of parliament in 1649 that
"excise is the most easy and indifferent levy that can be laid upon the
people," adds on his own authority that "from its first original to the
present time its very name has been odious to the people of England"
(book i. cap. 8, tenth edition, 1786); while the definition of "excise"
gravely inserted by Dr Johnson in the _Dictionary_, at the imminent risk
of subjecting the eminent author to a prosecution for libel--viz. "a
hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common
judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is
paid"--can hardly be ever forgotten.
The duties of excise in the United Kingdom were, until the passing of
the Finance Act 1908, under the control of the commissioners of inland
revenue; they are now under the control of the commissioners of customs;
the amount raised, apart from changes in the rate, shows a fairly
constant tendency to increase, and is usually regarded as one of the
best tests of the prosperity of the working classes.
The _spirit duty_ is levied according to the quantity of "proof spirit"
contained in the product of distillation, and the charge is taken at
three different points in the process of manufacture, the trader being
liable for the result of the highest of the three calculations. What is
known as "proof spirit" is obtained by mixing nearly equal weights of
pure alcohol and water, the quantity of pure alcohol being in bulk about
57% of the whole. Owing to the high rate of duty as compared with the
volume and intrinsic value of the spirits, the whole process of
manufacture is carried on under the close supervision of revenue
officials. All the vessels used are measured by them and are secured
with revenue locks; the premises are under constant survey; and notice
has to be given by the distiller of the materials used and of the
several stages of his operations. Though the charge for duty is raised
at the time when the process of distillation is completed, the duty is
not actually paid until the spirits are required for consumption. In the
meanwhile they may be retained in an approved "warehouse," which is also
subject to close supervision.
The _beer duty_ dates from 1880, in which year it was substituted for
the duty on malt. The specific gravity of the worts depends chiefly on
the amount of sugar which they contain, and is ascertained by the
saccharometer.
Excise _licences_ may be divided into--(a) licences for the sale or
manufacture of excisable liquors, (b) licences for other trades, such as
tobacco dealers or manufacturers, auctioneers, pawnbrokers, &c., (c)
licences for male servants, carriages, motors and armorial bearings, and
(d) gun, game and dog licences. Nearly the whole of the licence duties
is paid over to the local taxation account.
The _railway passenger duty_, which was made an excise duty by the
Railway Passenger Duty Act 1847, applies only to Great Britain. It is
levied on all passenger fares exceeding 1d. per mile, the rate being 2%
on urban and 5% on other traffic.
The other items which go to make up the excise revenue are the charges
on deliveries from bonded warehouses, and the duties on coffee mixture
labels and on chicory.
For more detailed information reference should be made to Highmore's
_Excise Laws_, and the annual reports of the commissioners of inland
revenue, especially those issued in 1870 and 1885. See also TAXATION;
ENGLISH FINANCE.
EXCOMMUNICATION (Lat. _ex_, out of, away from; _communis_, common), the
judicial exclusion of offenders from the rights and privileges of the
religious community to which they belong. The history of the practice of
excommunication may be traced through (1) pagan analogues, (2) Hebrew
custom, (3) primitive Christian practice, (4) medieval and monastic
usage, (5) modern survivals in existing Christian churches.
1. Among pagan analogues are the Gr. [Greek: chernibôn eirgesthai]
(Demosth. 505, 14), the exclusion of an offender from purification with
holy water. This exclusion was enforced in the case of persons whose
hands were defiled with bloodshed. Its consequences are described Aesch.
_Choëph._ 283, _Eum._ 625 f., Soph. _Oed. Tyr._ 236 ff. The Roman
_exsecratio_ and diris _devotio_ was a solemn pronouncement of a
religious curse by priests, intended to call down the divine wrath upon
enemies, and to devote them to destruction by powers human and divine.
The Druids claimed the dread power of excluding offenders from sacrifice
(Caes. _B.G._ vi. 13). Primitive Semitic customs recognize that when
persons are laid under a ban or taboo (_herem_) restrictions are imposed
on contact with them, and that the breach of these involves supernatural
dangers. Impious sinners, or enemies of the community and its god, might
be devoted to utter destruction.
2. _Hebrew Custom._--In a theocracy excommunication is necessarily both
a civil and a religious penalty. The word used in the New Testament to
describe an excommunicated person, [Greek: anathema](1 Cor. xvi. 22,
Gal. i. 8-9, Rom. ix. 3), is the Septuagint rendering of the Hebrew
_herem_. The word means "set apart" (cf. HAREM), and does not
distinguish originally between things set apart because devoted to God
and things devoted to destruction. Lev. xxvii. 16-34 defines the law for
dealing with "devoted" things; according to v. 28 "No devoted thing that
a man shall devote unto the Lord, of all that he hath, whether of man or
beast, or of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed.
None devoted shall be ransomed, he shall surely be put to death." As in
Greece and Rome whole cities or nations might be devoted to destruction
by pronouncement of a ban (Numbers xxi. 2, 3, Deut. ii. 34, iii. 6, vii.
2). Occasionally Israelites as well as aliens fall under the curse
(Judg. xxi. 5, 11). A milder form of penalty was the temporary
separation or seclusion (_niddah_) prescribed for ceremonial
uncleanness. This was the ordinary form of religious discipline. In the
time of Ezra the Jewish "magistrates and judges" among their
ecclesiastico-civil functions have the right of pronouncing sentence
whether it be unto death, or to "rooting out," or to confiscation of
goods, or to imprisonment (Ezra vii. 26). There is also a lighter form
of excommunication which "devotes" the goods of an offender, but only
separates him from the congregation. Both major and minor kinds of
excommunication are recognized by the Talmud. The lesser (_niddah_)
involved exclusion from the synagogue for thirty days, and other
penalties, and might be renewed if the offender remained impenitent. The
major excommunication (_herem_) excluded from the Temple as well as the
synagogue and from all association with the faithful. Spinoza was
excommunicated (July 16, 1656) for contempt of the law. Seldon (_De jure
nat. et gen._, iv. 7) gives the text of the curse pronounced on the
culprit. The _Exemplar Humanae Vitae_ of Uriel d'Acosta also deserves
reference. The practice of the Jewish courts in New Testament times may
be inferred from certain passages in the Gospels. Luke vi. 22, John ix.
22, xii. 42 indicate that exclusion from the synagogue was a recognized
penalty, and that it was probably inflicted on those who confessed Jesus
as the Christ. John xvi. 2 ("Whosoever killeth you," &c.) may point to
the power of inflicting the major penalty. The Talmud itself says that
the judgment of capital cases was taken away from Israel forty years
before the destruction of the Temple. "Forty" is probably a round number
without historical value, but the circumstance recorded by this
tradition and confirmed by the evangelist's account of the trial of
Jesus is historical, and is to be regarded as one of several
restrictions imposed on the Jewish courts in the time of the Roman
procurators.
3. _Primitive Christian Practice._--The use of excommunication as a form
of Christian discipline is based on the precept of Christ and on
apostolic practice. The general principles which govern the exclusion of
members from a religious community may be gathered from the New
Testament writings. Matt. xviii. 15-17 prescribes a threefold
admonition, first privately, then in the presence of witnesses (cf.
Titus iii. 10), then before the church. This is a graded procedure as in
the Jewish synagogue and makes exclusion a last resort. Nothing is said
as to the nature and effects of excommunication. The tone of the passage
when compared with the disciplinary methods of the synagogue indicates
that its purpose was to introduce elements of reason and moral suasion
in place of sterner methods. Its object is rather the protection of the
church than the punishment of the sinner. The offender is only treated
as a heathen and publican when the purity and safety of the church
demand it. In the _locus classicus_ on this subject (1 Cor. v. 5) Paul
refers to a formal meeting of the Corinthian church at which the
incestuous person is "delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the
flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." These
are mysterious words implying (1) a formal ecclesiastical censure, (2) a
physical penalty, (3) the hope of a spiritual result. The form of
penalty which would meet these conditions is not explained. There is a
reference in 2 Cor. ii. 6-11 to a case of discipline which may or may
not be the same. If it be the same it indicates that the excommunication
had not been final; the offender had been received back. If it be not
the same it shows the Corinthian church exercising discipline
independently of apostolic advice. Up to this point there is no
established formal practice. 1 Tim. i. 20 ("Hymenaeus and Alexander whom
I delivered unto Satan that they might be taught not to blaspheme")
seems to refer to an excommunication, but it does not appear whether the
apostle had acted as representing a church, nor is there anything to
explain the exact consequences or limits of the deliverance to Satan. 1
Cor. xvi. 22, Gal. i. 8, 9, Rom. ix. 3 refer to the practice of
regarding a person as anathema. Taking these passages as a whole they
seem to point to an exclusion from church fellowship rather than to a
final cutting off from the hope of salvation. In the pastoral letters
there is already a formal and recognized method of procedure in cases of
church discipline. 1 Tim. v. 19, 20 requires two or three witnesses in
the case of an accusation against an elder, and a public reproof. Tit.
iii. 20 recognizes a factious spirit as a reason for excommunication
after two admonitions (cf. Tim. vi. and 2 John v. 10). In 3 John v. 9-10
Diotrephes appears to have secured an excommunication by the action of a
party in the church. It is clear from these illustrations that within
the New Testament there is development from spontaneous towards strictly
regulated methods; also that the use of excommunication is chiefly for
disciplinary and protective rather than punitive purposes. A process
which is intended to produce penitence and ultimate restoration cannot
at the same time contemplate handing the offender over to eternal
punishment.
4. _Medieval and Monastic Usage._--The writings of the church Fathers
give sufficient evidence that two degrees of excommunication, the
[Greek: aphorismos] and the [Greek: aphorismos pantelês], as they were
generally called, were in use during, or at least soon after, the
apostolic age. The former, which involved exclusion from participation
in the eucharistic service and from the eucharist itself, though not
from the so-called "service of the catechumens," was the usual
punishment of comparatively light offences; the latter, which was the
penalty for graver scandals, involved "exclusion from all church
privileges,"--a vague expression which has sometimes been interpreted as
meaning total exclusion from the very precincts of the church building
(_inter hiemantes orare_) and from the favour of God (Bingham,
_Antiquities of Christian Church_, xvi. 2. 16). For some sins, such as
adultery, the sentence of excommunication was in the 2nd century
regarded as [Greek: pantelês] in the sense of being irrevocable.
Difference of opinion as to the absolutely "irremissible" character of
mortal sins led to the important controversy associated with the names
of Zephyrinus, Tertullian, Calistus, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Novatian,
in which the stricter and more montanistic party held that for those who
had been guilty of such sins as theft, fraud, denial of the faith, there
should be no restoration to church fellowship even in the hour of death.
On this point the provincial synods of Illiberis (Elvira) in 305 and of
Ancyra in 315 subsequently came to conflicting decisions, the council of
Elvira forbidding the reception of offenders into communion during life,
and the council of Ancyra fixing a limit to the penalty in the same
cases. But the excommunication was on all hands regarded as being
"medicinal" in its character. It is noteworthy that the word [Greek:
anathema] had fallen into disuse about the beginning of the 4th century,
and that, throughout the same period, no instance of the judicial use of
the phrase [Greek: paradounai tô Satana] can be found.
A new chapter in the history of the church censure may be said to have
begun with the publication of those imperial edicts against heresy, the
first of which, _De summa trinitate et fide catholica_, dates from 380.
Till then exclusion from church privileges had been a spiritual
discipline merely; thenceforward it was to expose a man to serious
temporal risks. Excommunication still continued to be occasionally used
in the spirit of genuine Christian fidelity, as by Ambrose in the case
of Theodosius himself (390); but the temptation to wield it as an
instrument of secular tyranny too often proved to be irresistible. The
church fell back on carnal weapons in her warfare and invoked the
secular powers to uphold the ecclesiastical. In the formula used by
Synesius (410) which is to be found in Bingham's _Antiquities_, we
already find the attention of magistrates specially called to the
censured person. The history of the next thousand years shows that the
magistrates were seldom slow to respond to the appeal. Even the hastiest
survey of that long and interesting period enables the student to notice
a marked development in the theory and practice of excommunication. One
or two points may be specially noted. (1) When the Empire became
nominally Christian and the quality of the church life was sacrificed to
the quantity of its adherents, the original character of excommunication
was lost. The power of excommunication was transferred from the
community to the bishop, and was liable to abuse from personal motives:
Gregory the Great rebukes a bishop for using for private ends power
conferred for the public good (_Epist._ ii. 34). Excommunication became
a common penalty applied in numberless cases (see the _Penitential_ of
Archbishop Theodosius: Haddan and Stubbs, _Councils and Documents_, iii.
1737), and was invested with superstitious terrors. (2) While it had
been held as an undoubted principle by the ancient church that this
sentence could only be passed on living individuals whose fault had been
distinctly stated and fully proved, we find the medieval church on the
one hand sanctioning the practice of excommunication of the dead
(Morinus, _De poenit._ x. c. 9), and, on the other hand, by means of the
papal interdict, excluding whole countries and kingdoms at once from the
means of grace. The earliest well-authenticated instance of such an
interdict is that which was passed (998) by Pope Gregory V. on France,
in consequence of the contumacy of King Robert the Wise. Other instances
are those laid respectively on Germany in 1102 by Gregory VII.
(Hildebrand), on England in 1208 by Innocent III., on Rome itself in
1155 by Adrian IV. (3) While in the ancient church the language used in
excommunicating had been carefully measured, we find an amazing
recklessness in the phraseology employed by the medieval clergy. The
curse of Ernulphus or Arnulphus of Rochester (c. 1100), often quoted by
students of English literature, is a very fair specimen of that class of
composition. With it may be compared the formula transcribed by Dr
Burton in his _History of Scotland_ (iii. 317 ff.). To the spoken word
was added the language of symbol. By means of lighted candles violently
dashed to the ground and extinguished the faithful were graphically
taught the meaning of the greater excommunication--though in a somewhat
misleading way, for it is a fundamental principle of the canon law that
_disciplina est excommunicatio, non eradicatio_. The first instance,
however, of excommunication by "bell, book and candle" is comparatively
late (c. 1190).
5. _Modem Survivals in Existing Christian Churches._--At the Reformation
the necessity for church discipline did not cease to be recognized; but
the administration of it in many Reformed churches has passed through a
period of some confusion. In some instances the old episcopal power
passed more or less into the hands of the civil magistrate (a state of
matters which was highly approved by Erastus and his followers), in
other cases it was conceded to the presbyterial courts. In the Anglican
Church the bishops (subject to appeal to the sovereign) have the right
of excommunicating, and their sentence, if sustained, may in certain
cases carry with it civil consequences. But this right is in practice
never exercised. In the law of England sentence of excommunication, upon
being properly certified by the bishop, was followed by the writ _de
excommunicato capiendo_ for the arrest of the offender. The statute 5
Eliz. c. 23 provided for the better execution of this writ. By the 53
Geo. III. c. 127 (which does not, however, extend to Ireland) it was
enacted that "excommunication, together with all proceedings following
thereupon, shall in all cases, save those hereafter to be specified, be
discontinued." Disobedience to or contempt of the ecclesiastical courts
is to be punished by a new writ, _de contumace capiendo_, to follow on
the certificate of the judge that the defender is contumacious and in
contempt. Sect. 2 provides that nothing shall prevent "any
ecclesiastical court from pronouncing or declaring persons to be
excommunicate on definite sentences pronounced as spiritual censures for
offences of ecclesiastical cognizance." No persons so excommunicated
shall incur any civil penalty or incapacity whatever, save such
sentence of imprisonment, not exceeding six months, as the court shall
direct and certify to the king in chancery.
In the churches which consciously shaped their polity at or after the
Reformation the principle of excommunication is preserved in the
practice of church discipline. Calvin devotes a chapter in the
_Institutes_ (bk. iv. chap. xii.) to the "Discipline of the Church; its
Principal Use in Censure and Excommunication." The three ends proposed
by the church in such discipline are there stated to be, (1) that those
who lead scandalous lives may not to the dishonour of God be numbered
among Christians, seeing that the church is the body of Christ; (2) that
the good may not be corrupted by constant association with the wicked;
(3) that those who are censured or excommunicated, confounded with
shame, may be led to repentance. He differentiates decisively between
excommunication and anathema. "When Christ promises that what his
ministers bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, he limits the power of
binding to the censure of the church; by which those who are
excommunicated are not cast into eternal ruin and condemnation, but by
having their life and conduct condemned are also certified of their
final condemnation unless they repent. For excommunication differs from
anathema: anathema which ought to be very rarely, or never, resorted to,
in precluding all pardon, execrates a person, and devotes him to eternal
perdition: whereas excommunication rather censures and punishes his
conduct. Yet in such a manner by warning him of his future condemnation
it recalls him to salvation" (_Inst._ bk. iv. chap. xii. 10). The
Reformed churches in England and America accepted the distinction
between public and private offences. The usual provision is that private
offences are to be dealt with according to the rule in Matt. v. 23-24,
xviii. 15-17; public offences are to be dealt with according to the rule
in 1 Cor. v. 3-5, 13. The public expulsion or suspension of the offender
is necessary for the good repute of the church, and its influence over
the faithful members. The expelled member may be readmitted on showing
the fruits of repentance.
In Scotland three degrees of church censure are recognized--admonition,
suspension from sealing ordinances (which may be called temporary
excommunication), and excommunication properly so-called. Intimation of
the last-named censure may occasionally (but very rarely) be given by
authority of a presbytery in a public and solemn manner, according to
the following formula:--"Whereas thou N. hast been by sufficient proof
convicted (here mention the sin) and after due admonition and prayer
remainest obstinate without any evidence or sign of true repentance:
Therefore in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and before this
congregation, I pronounce and declare thee N. excommunicated, shut out
from the communion of the faithful, debar thee from privileges, and
deliver thee unto Satan for the destruction of thy flesh, that thy
spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." This is called the
greater excommunication. The congregation are thereafter warned to shun
all unnecessary converse with the excommunicate (see _Form of Process_,
c. 8). Formerly excommunicated persons were deprived of feudal rights in
Scotland; but in 1690 all acts enjoining civil pains upon sentences of
excommunication were finally repealed (Burton's _History_, vii. 435).
The question whether the power of excommunication rests in the church or
in the clergy has been an important one in the history of English and
American churches. Hooker lays down (_Survey_, pt. 3, pp. 33-46) four
necessary conditions for the execution of a sentence involving church
discipline. "(1) The cause exactly recorded is fully and nakedly to be
presented to the consideration of the congregation. (2) The elders are
to go before the congregation in laying open the rule so far as reacheth
any particular now to be considered, and to express their judgment and
determination thereof, so far as appertains to themselves. (3) Unless
the people be able to convince them of errors and mistakes in their
sentence, they are bound to joyn their judgment with theirs to the
compleating of the sentence. (4) The sentence thus compleatly issued is
to be solemnly passed and pronounced upon the delinquent by the ruling
Elder whether it be of censure or excommunication." In this passage it
is clear that the effective power of discipline is regarded as being
wholly in the power of the individual church or congregation. Hooker
expressly denies the power of synods to excommunicate: "that there
should be Synods, which have _potestatem juridicam_ is nowhere proved in
Scripture because it is not a truth" (_Survey_, pt. 4, pp. 48, 49).
The confession of faith issued by the London-Amsterdam church (the
original of the Pilgrim Fathers' churches) in 1596 declares that the
Christian congregation having power to elect its minister has also power
to excommunicate him if the case so require (Walker, _Creeds and
Platforms of Congregationalism_, p. 66). In 1603 the document known as
"Points of Difference" (i.e. from the established Anglicanism) submitted
to James I. sets forth: "That all particular Churches ought to be so
constituted as, having their owne peculiar Officers, the whole body of
every Church may meet together in one place, and jointly performe their
duties to God and one towards another. And that the censures of
admonition and excommunication be in due manner executed, for sinne,
convicted, and obstinately stood in. This power also to be in the body
of the Church whereof the partyes so offending and persisting are
members." The _Cambridge Platform_ of 1648 by which the New England
churches defined their practice, devotes ch. xiv. to "excommunication
and other censures." It follows in the main the line of Hooker and
Calvin, but adds (§ 6) an important definition: "Excommunication being a
spirituall punishment it doth not prejudice the excommunicate in, nor
deprive him of his _civil_ rights, therfore toucheth not princes, or
other magistrates, in point of their civil dignity or authority. And,
the excommunicate being but as a publican and a heathen, heathen being
lawfully permitted to come to hear the word in church assemblyes; wee
acknowledg therfore the like liberty of hearing the word, may be
permitted to persons excommunicate, that is permitted unto heathen. And
because wee are not without hope of his recovery, wee are not to account
him as an enemy but to admonish him as a brother." The Savoy Declaration
of 1658 defines the theory and practice of the older English
Nonconformist churches in the section on the "Institution of Churches
and the Order appointed in them by Jesus Christ" (xix.). The important
article is as follows:--"The Censures so appointed by Christ, are
Admonition and Excommunication; and whereas some offences are or may be
known onely to some, it is appointed by Christ, that those to whom they
are so known, do first admonish the offender in private: in publique
offences where any sin, before all; or in case of non-amendment upon
private admonition, the offence being related to the Church, and the
offender not manifesting his repentance, he is to be duely admonished in
the Name of Christ by the whole Church, by the Ministery of the Elders
of the Church, and if this Censure prevail not for his repentance, then
he is to be cast out by Excommunication with the consent of the Church."
In contemporary English Free Churches the purity of the church is
commonly secured by the removal of persons unsuitable for membership
from the church books by a vote of the responsible authority.
(D. Mn.)
EXCRETION (Lat. _ex_, out of, _cernere_, _cretum_, to separate), in
plant and animal physiology, the separation from an organ of some
substance, also the substance separated. The term usually refers to the
separation of waste or harmful products, as distinguished from
"secretion," which refers to products that play a useful or necessary
part in the functions of the organism.
EXECUTION (from Lat. _ex-sequor_, _exsecutus_, follow or carry out), the
carrying into effect of anything, whether a rite, a piece of music, an
office, &c.; and so sometimes involving a notion of skill in the
performance. Technically, the word is used in law in the _execution_ of
a deed (its formal signing and sealing), an _execution_ (see below) by
the sheriff's officers under a "writ of execution" (the enforcement of a
judgment on a debtor's goods); and _execution of death_ has been
shortened to the one word to denote CAPITAL PUNISHMENT (q.v.).
_Civil Execution_ may be defined as the process by which the judgments
or orders of courts of law are made effectual. In Roman law the earliest
mode of execution was the seizure, legalized by the _actio per manus
injectionem_, of the debtor as a slave of the creditor. During the later
Republic, imprisonment took the place of slavery. Under the régime of
the _actio per manus injectionem_, the debtor might dispute the
debt--the issue being raised by his finding a substitute (_vindex_) to
conduct the case for him. By the time of Gaius (iv. 25) the _actio per
manus injectionem_ had been superseded by the _actio judicati_, the
object of which was to enable the creditor to take payment of the debt
or compel the debtor to find security (_pignus in causa judicati captum:
Cautio judicatum solvi_), and in A.D. 320 Constantine abolished
imprisonment for debt, unless the debtor were contumacious. The time
allowed for payment of a judgment debt was by the XII. Tables 30 days;
it was afterwards extended to two months, and ultimately, by Justinian,
to four months. The next stage in the Roman law of execution was the
recognition of bankruptcy either against the will of the bankrupt
(_missio in bona_) or on the application of the bankrupt (_cessio
bonorum_; and see BANKRUPTCY). Lastly, in the time of Antoninus Pius,
judgment debts were directly enforced by the seizure and sale of the
debtor's property. Slaves, oxen and implements of husbandry were
privileged; and movable property was to be exhausted before recourse was
had to land (see Hunter, _Roman Law_, 4th ed. pp. 1029 et seq., Sohm,
_Inst. Rom. Law_, 2nd ed. pp. 302-305).
GREAT BRITAIN.--The English law of execution is very complicated, and
only a statement of the principal processes can here be attempted.
_High Court.--Fieri Facias._ A judgment for the recovery of money or
costs is enforced, as a rule, by writ of _fieri facias_ addressed to
the sheriff, and directing him to cause to be made (_fieri facias_) of
the goods and chattels of the debtor a levy of a sum sufficient to
satisfy the judgment and costs, which carry interest at 4% per annum.
The seizure effected by the sheriff or his officer, under this writ,
of the property of the debtor, is what is popularly known as "the
putting-in" of an execution. The seizure should be carried out with
all possible despatch. The sheriff or his officer must not break open
the debtor's house in effecting a seizure, for "a man's house is his
castle" (_Semayne's Case_ [1604], 5 Coke Rep. 91); but this principle
applies only to a dwelling-house, and a barn or outhouse unconnected
with the dwelling-house may be broken into. The sheriff on receipt of
the writ endorses on it the day, hour, month and year when he received
it; and the writ binds the debtor's goods as at the date of its
delivery, except as regards goods sold before seizure in market overt,
or purchased for value, without notice before actual seizure (Sale of
Goods Act 1893, s. 26, which supersedes s. 16 of the Statute of Frauds
and s. 1 of the Mercantile Law Amendment Act 1856). This rule is
limited to goods, and does not apply to the money or bank notes of the
debtor which are not bound by the writ till seized under it (_Johnson_
v. _Pickering_, Oct. 14, 1907, C.A.). The mere seizure of the goods,
however, although, subject to such exceptions as those just stated, it
binds the interest of the debtor, and gives the sheriff such an
interest in the goods as will enable him to sue for the recovery of
their possession, does not pass the property in the goods to the
sheriff. The goods are in the custody of the law. But the property
remains in the debtor who may get rid of the execution on payment of
the claim and fees of the sheriff [as to which see Sheriffs Act 1887,
s. 20, and order of 21st of August 1888, _Annual Practice_ (1908),
vol. ii. p. 278]. The wearing apparel, bedding, tools, &c., of the
debtor to the value of £5 are protected. Competing claims as to the
ownership of the goods seized are brought before the courts by the
procedure of "interpleader." After seizure, the sheriff must retain
possession, and, in default of payment by the execution debtor,
proceed to sell. Where the judgment debt, including legal expenses,
exceeds £20, the sale must be by public auction, unless the Court
otherwise orders, and must be publicly advertised. The proceeds of
sale, after deduction of the sheriff's fees and expenses, become the
property of the execution creditor to the extent of his claim. The
Bankruptcy Act 1890 (53 & 54 Vict. c. 71, s. 11 [2]) requires the
sheriff in case of sale under a judgment for a sum exceeding £20 to
hold the proceeds for 14 days in case notice of bankruptcy proceedings
should be served upon him (see BANKRUPTCY). The form of the writ of
_fieri facias_ requires the sheriff to make a return to the writ. In
practice this is seldom done unless the execution has been ineffective
or there has been delay in the execution of the writ; but the judgment
creditor may obtain an order calling on the sheriff to make a return.
A sheriff or his officer, who is guilty of extortion in the execution
of the writ, is liable to committal for contempt, and to forfeit £200
and pay all damages suffered by the person aggrieved (Sheriffs Act
1887 [50 & 51 Vict. c. 55], s. 29 [2]), besides being civilly liable
to such person. Imprisonment for debt in execution of civil judgments
is now abolished except in cases of default in the nature of
contempt, unsatisfied judgments for penalties, defaults by persons in
a fiduciary character, and defaults by judgment debtors (Debtors Act
1869 [32 & 33 Vict. c. 62]; Bankruptcy Act 1883 [46 & 47 Vict. c. 52],
ss. 53, 103). Imprisonment for debt has been abolished within similar
limits in Scotland (Debtors [Scotland] Act 1880 [43 & 44 Vict. c. 34]
and Ireland, Debtors [Ireland] Act 1872, 35 & 36 Vict. c. 57). There
may still be imprisonment in England, under the writ--rarely used in
practice--_ne exeat regno_, which issues to prevent a debtor from
leaving the kingdom.
_Writ of Elegit._--The writ of _elegit_ is a process enabling the
creditor to satisfy his judgment debt out of the lands of the debtor.
It derives its name from the election of the creditor in favour of
this mode of recovery. It is founded on the Statute of Westminster
(1285, 13 Ed. I. c. 18), under which the sheriff was required to
deliver to the creditor all the chattels (except oxen and beasts of
the plough) and _half_ the lands of the debtor until the debt was
satisfied. By the Judgments Act 1838 the remedy was extended to _all_
the debtor's lands, and by the Bankruptcy Act 1883 the writ no longer
extends to the debtor's goods. The writ is enforceable against legal
interests whether in possession or remainder (_Hood-Barrs_ v.
_Cathcart_, 1895, 2 Ch. 411), but not against equitable interests in
land (_Earl of Jersey_ v. _Uxbridge Rural Sanitary Authority_, 1891, 3
Ch. 183). When the debtor's interest is equitable, recourse is had to
equitable execution by the appointment of a receiver or to bankruptcy
proceedings.
The writ is directed to the sheriff, who, after marking on it the date
of its receipt, at once in pursuance of its directions holds an
inquiry with a jury as to the nature and value of the interest of the
debtor in the lands extended under the writ, and delivers to the
creditor at a reasonable price and extent in accordance with the writ,
the lands of which the debtor was possessed in the bailiwick. When the
sheriff has returned and filed a record (in the central office of the
High Court) of the writ and the execution thereof, the execution
creditor becomes "tenant to the elegit." Where the land is freehold
the creditor acquires only a chattel interest in it; where the land is
leasehold he acquires the whole of the debtor's interest (_Johns_ v.
_Pink_, 1900, 1 Ch. 296). The creditor is entitled to hold the land
till his debt is satisfied, or enough to satisfy it is tendered to
him, and under the Judgments Act 1864 the creditor may obtain an order
for sale. Until the land is delivered on execution and the writs which
have effected the delivery are registered in the Land Registry, the
judgment does not create any charge on the land so as to fetter the
debtor's power of dealing with it. Land Charges Registration Acts 1888
and 1900. (See R.S.C., O. xliii.)
_Writs of Possession and Delivery._--Judgments for the recovery or for
the delivery of the possession of land are enforceable by writ of
possession. The recovery of specific chattels is obtained by writ of
delivery (R.S.C., O. xlvii., xlviii.).
_Writ of Sequestration._--Where a judgment directing the payment of
money into court, or the performance by the defendant of any act
within a limited time, has not been complied with, or where a
corporation has wilfully disobeyed a judgment, a writ of sequestration
is issued, to not less than four sequestrators, ordering them to enter
upon the real estate of the party in default, and "sequester" the
rents and profits until the judgment has been obeyed (R.S.C., O.
xliii. r. 6).
_Equitable Execution._--Where a judgment creditor is otherwise unable
to reach the property of his debtor he may obtain equitable execution,
usually by the appointment of a receiver, who collects the rents and
profits of the debtor's land for the benefit of the creditor (R.S.C.,
O. l. rr. 15A-22). But receivers may be appointed of interests in
personal property belonging to the debtor by virtue of the Judicature
Act 1873, s. 25 (8).
_Attachment._--A judgment creditor may "attach" debts due by third
parties to his debtor by what are known as garnishee proceedings.
Stock and shares belonging to a judgment debtor may be charged by a
charging order, so as, in the first instance, to prevent transfer of
the stock or payment of the dividends, and ultimately to enable the
judgment creditor to realise his charge. A writ of attachment of the
person of a defaulting debtor or party may be obtained in a variety of
cases akin to contempt (e.g. against a person failing to comply with
an order to answer interrogatories, or against a solicitor not
entering an appearance in an action, in breach of his written
undertaking to do so), and in the cases where imprisonment for debt is
still preserved by the Debtors Act 1869 (R.S.C., O. xliv.). CONTEMPT
OF COURT (q.v.) in its ordinary forms is also punishable by summary
committal.
_County Courts._--In the county courts the chief modes of execution
are "warrant of execution in the nature of a writ of _fieri facias_";
garnishee proceedings; equitable execution; warrants of possession and
delivery, corresponding to the writs of possession and delivery above
mentioned; committal, where a judgment debtor has, or, since the date
of the judgment has had, means to pay his debt; and attachment of the
person for contempt of court. If the judgment debtor assaults the
bailiff or his officer or rescues the goods, he is liable to a fine
not exceeding £5.
SCOTLAND.--The principal modes of execution or "diligence" in Scots
law are (i.) Arrestment and furthcoming, which corresponds to the
English garnishee proceedings; (ii.) arrestment _jurisdictionis
fundandae causa_, i.e. the seizure of movables within the jurisdiction
to found jurisdiction against their owner, being a foreigner; this
precedure, which is not, however, strictly a "diligence," as it does
not bind the goods, is analogous to the French _saisie-arrêt_, and to
the obsolete practice in the mayor's court of London known as "foreign
attachment" (see Glyn and Jackson, _Mayor's Court Practice_, 2nd ed.,
vii. 260); (iii.) arrestment under _meditatione fugae_ warrant,
corresponding to the old English writ of _ne exeat regno_, and
applicable in the case of a debtor who intends to leave Scotland to
evade an action; (iv.) arrestment on dependence, i.e. of funds in
security; (v.) poinding, i.e. valuation and sale of the debtor's
goods; (vi.) sequestration, e.g. of tenant's effects under a
landlord's hypothec for rent; (vii.) action of adjudication, by which
a debtor's "heritable" (i.e. real) estate is transferred to his
judgment creditor in satisfaction of his debt or security therefor. In
Scots law "multiplepoinding" is the equivalent of "interpleader."
IRELAND.--The law of execution in Ireland (see R.S.C., 1905, Orders
xli.-xlviii.) is practically the same as in England.
BRITISH POSSESSIONS.--The Judicature Acts of most of the Colonies
have also adopted English Law. Parts of the French _Code de procédure
civile_ are still in force in Mauritius. But its provisions have been
modified by local enactment (No. 19 of 1868) as regards realty, and
the rules of the Supreme Court 1903 have introduced the English forms
of writs. Quebec and St Lucia, where French law formerly prevailed,
have now their own codes of Civil Procedure. The law of execution
under the Quebec Code resembles the French, that under the St Lucia
Code the English system. In British Guiana and Ceylon, in which Roman
Dutch law in one form or another prevailed, the English law of
execution has now in substance been adopted (British Guiana Rules of
Court, 1900, Order xxxvi.)., Ceylon (Code of Civil Procedure, No. 2 of
1889); the modes of execution in the South African Colonies are also
the subject of local enactment, largely influenced by English law (cf.
the Sheriffs' Ordinance, 1902, No. 9 of 1902), (Orange River Colony)
and (Proclamation 17 of 1902), Transvaal (Nathan, _Common Law of South
Africa_, vol. iv. p. 2206); and generally, Van Zyl, _Judicial Practice
of South Africa_, pp. 198 et seq.
UNITED STATES.--Execution in the United States is founded upon English
law, which it closely resembles. Substantially the same forms of
execution are in force. The provisions of the Statute of Frauds making
the lien of execution attach only on delivery to the sheriff were
generally adopted in America, and are still law in many of the states.
The law as to the rights and duties of sheriffs is substantially the
same as in England. The "homestead laws" (q.v.) which are in force in
nearly all the American States exempt a certain amount or value of
real estate occupied by a debtor as his homestead from a forced sale
for the payment of his debts. This homestead legislation has been
copied in some British colonies, e.g. Western Australia (No. 37 of
1898, Pt. viii.), Quebec (Rev. Stats., ss. 1743-1748), Manitoba (Rev.
Stats., 1902, c. 58, s. 29, c. 21, s. 9), Ontario (Rev. Stats., 1897,
c. 29), British Columbia (Rev. Stats., 1897, c. 93), New South Wales
(Crown Lands Act 1895, Pt. iii.), New Zealand (Family Homes Protection
Act 1895, No. 20 of 1895).
FRANCE.--Provisional execution (_saisie-arrêt_) with a view to obtain
security has been already mentioned. Execution against personalty
(_saisie-exécution_) is preceded by a _commandement_ or summons,
personally served upon, or left at the domicile of the debtor calling
on him to pay. The necessary bedding of debtors and of their children
residing with them, and the clothes worn by them, cannot be seized in
execution under any circumstances. Objects declared by law to be
immovable by destination (_immeubles par destination_), such as beasts
of burden and agricultural implements, books relating to the debtor's
profession, to the value of 300 francs, workmen's tools, military
equipments, provisions and certain cattle cannot be seized, even for a
debt due to Government, unless in respect of provisions furnished to
the debtor, or amounts due to the manufacturers or vendors of
protected articles or to parties who advanced moneys to purchase,
manufacture or repair them. Growing fruits cannot be seized except
during the six weeks preceding the ordinary period when they become
ripe. Execution against immovable property (_la saisie immobilière_)
is preceded also by a summons to pay, and execution cannot issue until
the expiry of 30 days after service of such summons (see further Code
Proc. Civ., Arts. 673-689). Imprisonment for debt was abolished in all
civil and commercial matters by the law of 22nd of July 1867, which
extends to foreigners. It still subsists in favour of the State for
non-payment of fines, &c. The French system is in substance in force
in Belgium (Code Civ. Proc., Arts. 51 et seq.), the Netherlands (Code
Civ. Proc., Arts. 430 et seq.), Italy (Code Civ. Proc., Arts. 553 et
seq., 659 et seq.), and Spain.
GERMANY.--Under the German Code of Civil Procedure (Arts. 796 et
seq.), both the goods and (if the goods do not offer adequate
security) the person of the debtor may be seized (the process is
called _arrest_) as a guarantee of payment. The debtor's goods cannot
be sold except in pursuance of a judgment notified to the debtor
either before or within a prescribed period after the execution (Art.
809 [3], and law of 30th of April 1886). Imprisonment for debt in
civil and commercial matters has been abolished or limited on the
lines of the French law of 1867 in many countries (e.g. Italy, law of
the 6th of December 1877; Belgium, law of the 27th of July 1871;
Greece, law of the 9th of March 1900; Russia, decree of the 7th of
March 1879).
AUTHORITIES.--Anderson, _Execution_ (London, 1889); _Annual Practice_
(London, 1908); Johnston Edwards, _Execution_ (London, 1888); Mather,
_Sheriff Law_ (London, 1903). As to Scots law, Mackay, _Manual of
Practice_ (Edinburgh, 1893). As to American law, Bingham, _Judgments
and Executions_ (Philadelphia, 1836); A.C. Freeman, _Law of
Execution_, Civil Cases (3rd ed., San Francisco, 1900); H.M. Herman,
_Law of Executions_ (New York, 1875); American Notes to _tit._
"Execution," in _Ruling Cases_ (London and Boston, 1897); Bouvier,
_Law Dict._, ed. Rawle (1897), s.v. "Execution."
EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS, in English law, those persons upon whom
the property of a deceased person both real and personal devolves
according as he has or has not left a will. Executors differ from
administrators both in the mode of their creation and in the date at
which their estate vests. An executor can only be appointed by the will
of his testator; such appointment may be express or implied, and in the
latter case he is said to be an executor "according to the tenor." The
estate of an executor vests in him from the date of the testator's
death. An administrator on the other hand is appointed by the probate
division of the High Court, and his estate does not vest till such
appointment, the title to the property being vested till then in the
judge of the probate division. As to whom the court will appoint
administrators and the various kinds of administrators see under
ADMINISTRATION. Apart from these two points the rights and liabilities
of executors and administrators are the same, and they may be
indifferently referred to as the representative of the deceased. As to
their appointment before the establishment of the court of probate see
articles WILL and INTESTACY. Before the Land Transfer Act 1897, the real
estate of the deceased did not devolve upon the representative but
vested directly in the devisee or heir-at-law, but by that act it was
provided that the personal representative should be also the real
representative, and therefore it may now be said broadly that the
representative takes the whole estate of the deceased. There are,
however, a few minor exceptions to this rule, of which the most
important are lands held in joint tenancy and copyhold lands. As the
representative stands in the shoes of the deceased he is entitled to sue
upon any contract or for any debt which the deceased might have sued in
his lifetime.
The duties of a representative are as follows: 1. To bury the deceased
in a manner suitable to the estate he leaves behind him; and the
expenses of such funeral take precedence of any duty or debt whatever;
but extravagant expenses will not be allowed. No rule can be laid down
as to what is a reasonable allowance for this purpose, as it is
impossible to know at the time of the funeral what the estate of the
deceased may amount to. The broad rule is that the representative must
allow such sum as seems reasonable, having regard to all the
circumstances of the case and the conditions in life of the deceased,
remembering that if he should exceed this he will be personally liable
for such excess in the event of the estate proving insolvent.
2. He must obtain probate or letters of administration to the deceased
within six months of the death, or, if such grant be disputed, within
two months of the determination of such suit. The penalty for not
doing so is fixed by the Stamp Act 1815, § 37, at £100, and an
additional stamp duty at the rate of 10%. As to the formalities of
PROBATE see that article.
3. Strictly speaking, he must compile an inventory of all the estate
of the deceased, whether in possession or outstanding, and he is to
deliver it to the court on oath. He is to collect all the goods so
inventoried and to commence actions to get in all those outstanding,
and he is responsible to creditors for the whole of such estate,
whether in possession or in action. This duty is thrown upon the
representative by an act of 1529, but it is not the modern practice to
exhibit such inventory unless he be cited for it in the spiritual
court at the instance of a party interested. It is, however, necessary
to file an affidavit setting out the value of the estate of the
deceased upon applying for a grant of probate or letters of
administration.
4. The representative must pay the debts of the deceased according to
their priority. Next to the legitimate funeral expenses come the costs
of proving and administering the estate; in the event, however, of the
funeral and testamentary expenses being charged by the will upon any
particular fund, they will be primarily payable out of that fund. The
representative must be careful to pay the debts according to the rules
of priority, otherwise he will become personally liable to the
creditors of one degree if he has exhausted the estate in paying
creditors of a lesser degree. First of all, a solicitor has a lien for
his costs upon any fund or duty which he has recovered for the
deceased; next in order come debts due to the crown by record or
speciality; then debts given a priority by statute, as, for example,
by the Poor Relief Act 1743, money due by an overseer of the poor to
his parish. Next, debts of record, i.e. judgment recovered against
the deceased in any court of record; all such debts are equal among
themselves, but a judgment creditor who has sued out execution is
preferred to one who has not; another class of debts of record are
statutes merchant and staple, or recognizances in the nature of
statute staple, i.e. bonds of record acknowledged before the lord
mayor of London or the mayor of the staple. Last in the order of debts
come specialty and simple contract debts, which by Hinde Palmer's Act
(the Executors Act 1869) are of equal degree, though as between
specialty debts bonds given for value rank before voluntary bonds
unless assigned for value, and as between simple contract debts those
due to the crown have priority. Though the creditors can if necessary
take all the estate of the deceased to satisfy their claims, yet as
between the various classes of assets the representative must pay the
debts out of assets in the following order: (i.) General personal
estate not specifically bequeathed nor exempted from payment of debts;
(ii.) real estate appropriated to debts; (iii.) real estate descended;
(iv.) real estate devised charged with payment of debts; (v.) general
pecuniary legacies _pro rata_; (vi.) specific legacies and devises;
(vii.) real estate over which a general power of appointment has been
exercised by will; (viii.) the widow's paraphernalia.
5. The debts of the deceased being satisfied, the representative must
next proceed to satisfy the legacies and devises left by the testator.
In order to enable him to do this with safety to himself, it is
provided that he cannot be compelled to divide the estate among the
legatees or next of kin until twelve months from the death of the
deceased (this is commonly known as "the executor's year"), though if
there is no doubt as to the solvency of the estate he may do so at
once. As a further protection the representative may give notice by
advertisement for creditors to send in their claims against the
estate, and on expiration of the notices he may proceed to divide the
estate, though even then the creditor may follow the assets to the
person who has received them and recover for his debt. As between
legatees the following priorities must be observed: (1) Specific
legatees and devisees, (2) demonstrative legatees, and (3) general
legatees; and as to this last class the testator can give priority to
one over another. If there are not sufficient assets to pay the
general legatees they must abate rateably. Legacies were not payable
out of the real estate prior to the Land Transfer Act 1897, unless the
testator charged the realty with them. Even then unless the testator
exonerates his personalty from payment of the legacies the personalty
will be the first fund chargeable. It has been suggested that the
effect of the act is to make the realty chargeable _pro rata_ with the
personalty, but this is doubtful.
6. The residue, after all legacies and devises are satisfied, must, if
there be a will, be paid to the residuary legatee therein named, and
if there be no will the real estate will go to the heir (see
INHERITANCE) and the personalty to the next of kin (see INTESTACY). It
was held at one time that in default of a residuary legatee the
residue fell to the executor himself, but now nothing less than the
expressed intention of the testator can give it to him.
The liabilities of the representative may be shortly stated. He is
liable in his representative capacity in all cases where the deceased
would be liable were he alive. To this general rule there are some
exceptions. The representative cannot be sued for breach of a contract
for personal services which can be performed only in the lifetime of
the person contracting, nor again can he be sued in a case where
unliquidated damages only could have been recovered against the
deceased. He is liable in his personal capacity in the following
cases: if he contracts to pay a debt due by the deceased, or if having
admitted that he had assets in his hands sufficient to pay a debt or
legacy he has misapplied such assets so that he cannot satisfy them;
or lastly, if by mismanaging the estate and effects of the deceased he
has made himself liable for a _devastavit_. Shortly stated, a
representative is bound to exercise the ordinary care of a business
man in administering the estate of the deceased, and he will be liable
for the loss to the estate caused by his own negligence, or by the
negligence of a co-representative which his act or neglect has
rendered possible. Though the general rule of _delegatus non potest
delegari_ holds good of a representative, yet in certain cases he may
"rely upon skilled persons in matters in which he cannot be expected
to be experienced," e.g. he must employ solicitors to conduct a
lawsuit.
The privileges of the representative are these: he may prefer one
creditor to another of equal degree; he may retain a debt owing to him
from the deceased as against other creditors of equal degree (see
RETAINER); he may reimburse himself out of the estate all expenses
incurred in the execution of his trust.
An executor _de son tort_ is one who, without any title to do so,
wrongfully intermeddles with the assets of the deceased, dealing with
them in such a way as to hold himself out as executor. In such a case
he is subject to all the liabilities of an executor, and can claim
none of the privileges. He may be treated by the creditor as the
executor, and, if he is really assuming to act as executor, creditors
and legatees will get a good title from him, but he is liable to be
sued by the rightful representative for damages for interfering with
the property of the deceased.
_Scotland._--Executor in Scots law is a more extensive term than in
English. He is either nominative or dative, the latter appointed by
the court and corresponding in most respects to the English
administrator. Caution is required from the latter, not from the
former. By the common law doctrine of passive representation the heir
or executor was liable to be sued for implement of the deceased's
obligations. The Roman principle of _beneficium inventarii_ was first
introduced by an act of 1695. As the law at present stands, the heir
or executor is liable only to the value of the succession, except
where there has been vitious intromission in movables, and in _gestio
pro haerede_ (behaviour as heir) and other cases in heritables. The
present inventory duty on succession to movables and heritables
depends on the Finance Acts 1894-1909 (see ESTATE DUTY). In England
the executor is bound to pay the debts of the deceased in a certain
order, but in Scotland they all rank _pari passu_ except privileged
debts (see PRIVILEGE).
AUTHORITIES.--R.L. Vaughan Williams, _The Law of Executors and
Administrators_; W.G. Walker, _Compendium on the Law of Executors and
Administrators_; James Schouler, _Law of Executors and Administrators_
(3rd ed., Boston, 1901).
EXEDRA, or EXHEDRA (from Gr. [Greek: ex], out, and [Greek: hedra], a
seat), an architectural term originally applied to a seat or recess out
of doors, intended for conversation. Such recesses were generally
semicircular, as in the important example built by Herodes Atticus at
Olympia. In the great Roman thermae (baths) they were of large size, and
like apses were covered with a hemispherical vault. An example of these
exists at Pompeii in the Street of the Tombs. From Vitruvius we learn
that they were often covered over, and they are described by him (v. 11)
as places leading out of porticoes, where philosophers and rhetoricians
could debate or harangue.
EXELMANS, RENÉ JOSEPH ISIDORE, COUNT (1775-1852), marshal of France, was
born at Bar-le-Duc on the 13th of November 1775. He volunteered into the
3rd battalion of the Meuse in 1791, became a lieutenant in 1797, and in
1798 was aide-de-camp to General Éblé, and in the following year to
General Broussier. In his first campaign in Italy he greatly
distinguished himself; and in April 1799 he was rewarded for his
services by the grade of captain of dragoons. In the same year he took
part with honour in the conquest of Naples and was again promoted, and
in 1801 he became aide-de-camp to General Murat. He accompanied Murat in
the Austrian, Prussian and Polish campaigns of 1805, 1806 and 1807. At
the passage of the Danube, and in the action of Wertingen, he specially
distinguished himself; he was made colonel for the valour which he
displayed at Austerlitz, and general of brigade for his conduct at Eylau
in 1807. In 1808 he accompanied Murat to Spain, but was there made
prisoner and conveyed to England. On regaining his liberty in 1811 he
went to Naples, where King Joachim Murat appointed him grand-master of
horse. Exelmans, however, rejoined the French army on the eve of the
Russian campaign, and on the field of Borodino won the rank of general
of division. In the retreat from Moscow his steadfast courage was
conspicuously manifested on several occasions. In 1813 he was made, for
services in the campaign of Saxony and Silesia, grand-officer of the
Legion of Honour, and in 1814 he reaped additional glory by his
intrepidity and skill in the campaign of France. When the Bourbons were
restored, Exelmans retained his position in the army. In January 1815 he
was tried on an accusation of having treasonable relations with Murat,
but was acquitted. Napoleon on his return from Elba made Exelmans a peer
of France and placed him in command of the II. cavalry corps, which he
commanded in the Waterloo campaign, the battle of Ligny and Grouchy's
march on Wavre. In the closing operations round Paris Exelmans won great
distinction. After the second Restoration he denounced, in the House of
Peers, the execution of Marshal Ney as an "abominable assassination";
thereafter he lived in exile in Belgium and Nassau for some years, till
1819, when he was recalled to France. In 1828 he was appointed
inspector-general of cavalry; and after the July revolution of 1830 he
received from Louis Philippe the grand cross of the Legion of Honour,
and was reinstated as a peer of France. At the revolution of 1848
Exelmans was one of the adherents of Louis Napoleon; and in 1851 he was,
in recognition of his long and brilliant military career, raised to the
dignity of a marshal of France. His death, which took place on the 10th
of July 1852, was the result of a fall from his horse.
EXEQUATUR, the letter patent, issued by a foreign office and signed by a
sovereign, which guarantees to a foreign consul the rights and
privileges of his office, and ensures his recognition in the state in
which he is appointed to exercise them. If a consul is not appointed by
commission he receives no exequatur; and a notice in the _Gazette_ in
this case has to suffice. The exequatur may be withdrawn, but in
practice, where a consul is obnoxious, an opportunity is afforded to his
government to recall him.
EXETER, EARL, MARQUESS AND DUKE OF. These English titles have been borne
at different times by members of the families of Holand or Holland,
Beaufort, Courtenay and Cecil. The earls of Devon of the family of de
Redvers were sometimes called earls of Exeter; but the 1st duke of
Exeter was John (c. 1355-1400), a younger son of Thomas Holand, earl of
Kent (d. 1360). John's mother, Joan (d. 1385), a descendant of Edward
I., married for her third husband Edward the Black Prince, by whom she
was the mother of Richard II., and her son John was thus the king's
half-brother, a relationship to which he owed his high station at the
English court. He married Elizabeth (d. 1426), a daughter of John of
Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and was constantly in Richard's train until
1385, when his murder of Ralph Stafford disturbed these friendly
relations. John then went to Spain as constable of the English army
under John of Gaunt; but after his return to England in 1387 he was
created earl of Huntingdon, was made admiral of the fleet and
chamberlain of England, and was again high in the king's favour. He was
Richard's chief helper in the proceedings against the lords appellant in
1397, was created duke of Exeter in September of this year, and went
with the king to Ireland in 1399. After the accession of his
brother-in-law, Henry IV., Holand was tried for his share in the events
of 1397, and was reduced to his earlier rank of earl of Huntingdon. He
was soon plotting against Henry's life, and after the projected rising
in 1400 had failed he was captured and was probably beheaded at Pleshey
in Essex on the 16th of January 1400.[1] He was afterwards attainted and
his titles and lands were forfeited.
In 1416 THOMAS BEAUFORT, earl of Dorset, was created duke of Exeter; but
this dignity was only granted for his life, and consequently it expired
on his death in 1426.
In 1416 JOHN (1395-1447), son of John Holand, the former duke of Exeter,
was allowed to take his father's earldom of Huntingdon. This nobleman
rendered great assistance to Henry V. in his conquest of France,
fighting both on sea and on land. He was marshal of England, admiral of
England and governor of Aquitaine under Henry VI.; was one of the king's
representatives at the conference of Arras in 1435; and in 1443 was
created duke of Exeter. When he died on the 5th of August 1447 his
titles passed to his son HENRY (1430-1473), who, although married to
Anne (d. 1476), daughter of Richard, duke of York, fought for Henry VI.
during the Wars of the Roses. After having been imprisoned by York at
Pontefract, he was present at the battle of Towton, sailed with Henry's
queen, Margaret of Anjou, to Flanders in 1463, and was wounded at Barnet
in 1471. In 1461 he had been attainted and his dukedom declared
forfeited, and he died without sons, probably in 1473.
Coming to the family of Courtenay the title of marquess of Exeter was
borne by HENRY COURTENAY (c. 1496-1538), earl of Devon, who was made a
marquess in 1525. A grandson of Edward IV., Courtenay was a prominent
figure at the court of Henry VIII. until Thomas Cromwell rose to power,
when his high birth, his great wealth and his independent position made
him an object of suspicion. Some slight discontent in the west of
England gave the occasion for his arrest, and he was tried and beheaded
on the 9th of December 1538. A few days later he was declared a traitor
and his titles were forfeited; although his only son, EDWARD (c.
1526-1556), who was restored to the earldom of Devon in 1553 and was a
suitor for the hand of Queen Mary, is sometimes called marquess of
Exeter.
The title of earl of Exeter was first bestowed upon the Cecils (see
CECIL: _Family_) in 1605 when THOMAS, 2nd Lord Burghley (1542-1623), the
eldest son of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, was made earl of Exeter by
James I. Thomas had been a member of parliament during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, who knighted him in 1575, and had fought under the earl
of Leicester in the Netherlands. After his father's death in 1598 he
became president of the Council of the North and was made a knight of
the Garter. He died on the 7th or 8th of February 1623. His direct
descendants continued to bear the title of earl of Exeter, and in 1801
HENRY (1754-1804), the 10th earl, was advanced to the dignity of
marquess of Exeter, the present marquess being his lineal descendant. It
may be noted that the 1st marquess is Tennyson's "lord of Burghley."
See G.E. C(okayne), _Complete Peerage_ (1887-1898).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] There is some difference of opinion about the place and manner of
the earl's death, and this question has an important bearing upon the
privilege of trial by peers of the realm. See L.W. Vernon-Harcourt,
_His Grace the Steward and Trial of Peers_ (1907).
EXETER, a city and county of a city, municipal, county and parliamentary
borough, and the county town of Devonshire, England, 172 m. W.S.W. of
London, on the London & South Western and the Great Western railways.
Pop. (1901) 47,185. The ancient city occupies a broad ridge of land,
which rises steeply from the left bank of the Exe. At the head of the
ridge is the castle, on the site of a great British earthwork. The High
Street and its continuation, called Fore Street, are narrow, but very
picturesque, with many houses of the 16th and 17th centuries. There is a
maze of lesser streets within the ancient walls, the line of which may
be traced. All the gates have disappeared. The suburbs, which have
greatly extended since the beginning of the 19th century, contain many
good streets, terraces and detached villas. The surrounding country is
rich, fertile and of great beauty. Extensive views are commanded in the
direction of Haldon, a stretch of high moorland which may be regarded as
an outlier of Dartmoor. The lofty mound of the castle is laid out as a
promenade, with fine trees and broad walks.
The cathedral, although not one of the largest in England, is
unsurpassed in the beauty of its architecture and the richness of its
details. With the exception of the Norman transeptal towers, the general
character is Decorated, ranging from about 1280 to 1369. Transeptal
towers occur elsewhere in England only in the collegiate church of
Ottery St Mary, in Devonshire, for which Exeter cathedral served as a
model. The west front is of later date than the rest (probably
1369-1394), and the porch is wholly covered with statues. Within, the
most noteworthy features are the long unbroken roof, extending
throughout nave and choir, with no central tower or lantern; the
beautiful sculpture of bosses and corbels; the minstrel's gallery,
projecting from the north triforium of the nave; and the remarkable
manner in which the several parts of the church are made to correspond.
The window tracery is much varied; but each window answers to that on
the opposite side of nave or choir; pier answers to pier, aisle to
aisle, and chapel to chapel, while the transeptal towers complete the
balance of parts. A complete restoration under Sir G.G. Scott was
carried out between 1870 and 1877. The modern stall work, the reredos,
the choir pavement of tiles, rich marbles and porphyries, the stained
glass and the sculptured pulpits in choir and nave are meritorious. The
episcopal throne, a sheaf of tabernacle work in wood, was erected by
Bishop Stapeldon about 1320, and in the north transept is an ancient
clock. The most interesting monuments are those of bishops of the 12th
and 13th centuries, in the choir and lady chapel. Some important MSS.,
including the famous book of Saxon poetry given by Leofric to his
cathedral, are preserved in the chapter-house. The united sees of
Devonshire and Cornwall were fixed at Exeter from the installation there
of Leofric (1050) by the Confessor, until the re-erection of the Cornish
see in 1876. The bishop's palace embodies Early English portions. The
diocese covers the greater part of Devonshire, with a very small part of
Dorsetshire.
The guildhall in the High Street is a picturesque Elizabethan building,
which contains some interesting portraits; among them being one of
General Monk, who was a native of Devon, and another of Henrietta,
duchess of Orleans, given by her brother Charles II. Both are by Sir
Peter Lely. The assize hall and sessions house dates from 1774. The
Albert Memorial Museum contains a school of art, an excellent free
library, a reading-room, and a museum of natural history and
antiquities. There is a good collection of local birds, and some
remarkable pottery and bronze relics extracted from barrows near Honiton
or found in various parts of Devonshire. Of the castle, called
Rougemont, the chief architectural remnant is a portion of a gateway
tower which may be late Norman. Traces are also seen of the surrounding
earthworks, which may have belonged to the original British stronghold.
Beneath the castle wall is the pleasant promenade of Northernhay. The
churches of Exeter are of little importance, being mostly small, and
closely beset with buildings, but the modern church of St Michael (1860)
deserves notice. The Devon and Exeter Institution, founded in 1813,
contains a large and valuable library, and among educational
establishments may be noticed the technical and university extension
college, the diocesan training college and school; and the grammar
school, which was founded under a scheme of Walter de Stapeldon, bishop
of Exeter and founder of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1332, and refounded
in 1629, but occupies modern buildings (1886) outside the city. It is
endowed with a large number of leaving exhibitions, and about 150 boys
are educated. There are two market-houses in the city, many hospitals
and many charitable institutions, including the picturesque hospital or
almshouse of William Wynard, recorder of Exeter (1439).
Exeter is one of the principal railway centres in the south-west, and it
also has some shipping trade, communicating with the sea by way of the
Exeter ship-canal, originally cut in the reign of Elizabeth (1564), and
enlarged in 1675 and 1827. This canal is an interesting work, being the
first canal carried out in the United Kingdom for the purpose of
enabling sea-going vessels to pass to an inland port. The river Exe was
very early utilized by small craft trading to Exeter, parliament having
granted powers for the improvement of the navigation by the construction
of a canal 3 m. long from Exeter to the river; at a later date this
canal was extended lower down to the tidal estuary of the Exe. Previous
to the year 1820 it was only available for vessels of a draft not
exceeding 9 ft., but by deepening it, raising the banks, and
constructing new locks, vessels drawing 14 ft. of water were enabled to
pass up to a basin and wharves at Exeter. These works were carried out
under the advice of Thomas Telford. A floating basin is accessible to
vessels of 350 tons. Larger vessels lie at Topsham, at the junction of
the canal with the estuary of the Exe; while at the mouth of the estuary
is the port of Exmouth. Imports are miscellaneous, while paper, grain,
cider and other goods are exported. Brewing, paper-making and
iron-founding are carried on, and the city is an important centre of
agricultural trade. The parliamentary borough returns one member. The
city is governed by a mayor, 14 aldermen and 42 councillors. Area, 3158
acres. The eastern suburb of Heavitree, where is the Exeter city asylum,
is an urban district with a population (1901) of 7529.
Exeter was the Romano-British country town of _Isca Damnoniorum_--the
most westerly town in the south-west of Roman Britain. Mosaic pavements,
potsherds, coins and other relics have been found, and probably traces
of the Roman walls survive here and there in the medieval walls. It is
said to be the _Caer Isce_ of the Britons, and its importance as a
British stronghold is shown by the great earthwork which the Britons
threw up to defend it, on the site of which the castle was afterwards
built, and by the number of roads which branch from it. Exeter is famous
for the number of sieges which it sustained as the chief town in the
south-west of England. In 1001 it was unsuccessfully besieged by the
Danes, but in the following year was given by King Æthelred to Queen
Emma, who appointed as reeve, Hugh, a Frenchman, owing to whose
treachery it was taken and destroyed by Sweyn in 1003. By 1050, however,
it had recovered, and was chosen by Leofric as the new seat of the
bishops of Devon. In 1068, after a siege of eighteen days, Exeter
surrendered to the Conqueror, who threw up a castle which was called
Rougemont, from the colour of the rock on which it stood. Again in 1137
the town was held for Matilda by Baldwin de Redvers for three months and
surrendered, at last, owing to lack of water. Three times subsequently
Exeter held out successfully for the king--in 1467 against the Yorkists,
in 1497 against Perkin Warbeck, and in 1549 against the men of Cornwall
and Devon, who rose in defence of the old religion. During the civil
wars the city declared for parliament, but was in 1643 taken by the
royalists, who held it until 1646. The only other historical event of
importance is the entry of William, prince of Orange, in 1688, shortly
after his arrival in England. Exeter was evidently a borough by
prescription some time before the Conquest, since the burgesses are
mentioned in the Domesday Survey. Its first charter granted by Henry I.
gave the burgesses all the free customs which the citizens of London
enjoyed, and was confirmed and enlarged by most of the succeeding kings.
By 1227 government by a reeve had given place to that by a mayor and
four bailiffs, which continued until the Municipal Reform Act of 1835.
Numerous trade gilds were incorporated in Exeter, one of the first being
the tailors' gild, incorporated in 1466. This by 1482 had become so
powerful that it interfered with the government of the town, and was
dissolved on the petition of the burgesses. Another powerful gild was
that of the merchant adventurers, incorporated in 1559, which is said to
have dictated laws to which the mayor and bailiffs submitted. From 1295
to 1885 Exeter was represented in parliament by two members, but in the
latter year the number of representatives was reduced to one. Exeter was
formerly noted for the manufacture of woollen goods, introduced in
Elizabeth's reign, and the value of its exports at one time exceeded
half a million sterling yearly. The trade declined partly owing to the
stringent laws of the trade gilds, and by the beginning of the 19th
century had entirely disappeared, although at the time of its greatest
prosperity it had been surpassed in value and importance only by that of
Leeds.
See _Victoria County History_, _Devon_; Richard Izacke, _Antiquities
of the City of Exeter_ (1677); George Oliver, _The History of the City
of Exeter_ (1861); and E.A. Freeman, _Exeter_ ("Historic Towns"
series) (London, 1887), in the preface to which the names of earlier
historians of the city are given.
EXETER, a town and one of the county-seats of Rockingham county, New
Hampshire, U.S.A., on the Squamscott river, about 12 m. S.W. of
Portsmouth and about 51 m. N. by E. of Boston, Mass. Pop. (1890) 4284;
(1900) 4922 (1066 foreign-born); (1910) 4897; area, about 17 sq. m. It
is served by the Western Division of the Boston & Maine railway. The
town has a public library and some old houses built in the colonial
period, and is the seat of Phillips Exeter Academy (incorporated in 1781
and opened in 1783). In its charter this institution is described as "an
academy for the purpose of promoting piety and virtue, and for the
education of youth in the English, Latin and Greek languages, in
writing, arithmetic, music and the art of speaking, practical geometry,
logic and geography, and such other of the liberal arts and sciences or
languages, as opportunity may hereafter permit." It was founded by Dr
John Phillips (1719-1795), a graduate of Harvard College, who acquired
considerable wealth as a merchant at Exeter and gave nearly all of it to
the cause of education. The academy is one of the foremost secondary
schools in the country, and among its _alumni_ have been Daniel Webster,
Edward Everett, Lewis Cass (born in Exeter in a house still standing),
John Parker Hale, George Bancroft, Jared Sparks, John Gorham Palfrey,
Richard Hildreth and Francis Bowen. The government of the academy is
vested in a board of six trustees, regarding whom the founder provided
that a majority should be laymen and not inhabitants of Exeter. In
1909-1910 the institution had 20 buildings, 32 acres of recreation
grounds, 16 instructors and 488 students, representing 38 states and
territories of the United States and 4 foreign countries. At Exeter also
is the Robinson female seminary (1867), with 14 instructors and 272
students in 1906-1907. The river furnishes water-power, and among the
manufactures of the town are shoes, machinery, cottons, brass, &c. The
town is one of the oldest in the state; it was founded in 1638 by Rev.
John Wheelwright, an Antinomian leader who with a number of followers
settled here after his banishment from Massachusetts. For their
government the settlers adopted (1639) a plantation covenant. There was
disagreement from the first, however, with regard to the measure of
loyalty to the king, and in 1643, when Massachusetts had asserted her
claim to this region and the other three New Hampshire towns had
submitted to her jurisdiction, the majority of the inhabitants of Exeter
also yielded, while the minority, including the founder, removed from
the town. In 1680 the town became a part of the newly created province
of New Hampshire. During the French and Indian wars it was usually
protected by a garrison, and some of the garrison houses are still
standing. From 1776 to 1784 the state legislature usually met at Exeter.
See C.H. Bell, _History of the Town of Exeter_ (Exeter, 1888).
EXETER BOOK [_Codex Exoniensis_], an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry
presented to Exeter cathedral by Leofric,[1] bishop of Exeter, England,
from 1050 to 1071, and still in the possession of the dean and chapter.
It contains some legal documents, the poems entitled _Crist_, _Guthlac_,
_Phoenix_, _Juliana_, _The Wanderer_ and others, and concludes with
between eighty and ninety riddles. It was first described in Humphrey
Wanley's _Catalogus_ ... (1705) in detail but with many inaccuracies;
subsequently by J.J. Conybeare, _Account of a Saxon Manuscript_ (a paper
read in 1812; printed with some extracts from the MS. in _Archaeologia_,
vol. xvii. pp. 180-197, 1814). A complete transcript made (1831) by
Robert Chambers is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 9067). It was first
printed in 1842 by Benjamin Thorpe for the Soc. of Antiq., London, as
_Codex Exoniensis ... with an English Translation, Notes and Indexes_.
More recent editions, chiefly based on Thorpe's text, are:--in Chr.
Grein's _Bibliothek der A.S. Poesie_ (vol. iii. part 1, ed. R. Wülker,
Leipzig, 1897, with a bibliography), J. Schipper in Pfeiffer's
_Germania_, vol. xix. pp. 327-339, and Israel Gollancz, _The Exeter
Book_, pt. i. (1895), with English translation, for the Early English
Text Society.
A detailed account, with bibliographies of the separate poems, is
given by R. Wülker, in _Grundriss ... der A.S. Literatur_, pp. 218-236
(Leipzig, 1885); see also the introduction to _The Crist of Cynewulf_
..., edited by Prof. A.S. Cook, with introduction, notes and a
glossary (Boston, U.S.A., 1900). For the poems contained in the MS.
see also CYNEWULF and RIDDLES.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] For Leofric, see F.E. Warren, _The Leofric Missal_ (1883).
EXHIBITION, a term, meaning in general a public display,[1] which has a
special modern sense as applied to public shows of goods for the
promotion of trade (Fr. _exposition_). The first exhibition in this
sense of which there is any account, in either sacred or profane
history, was that held by King Ahasuerus, who, according to the Book of
Esther, showed in the third year of his reign "the riches of his
glorious kingdom, and the honour of his excellent majesty, many days,
even a hundred and fourscore days." The locale of this function was
Shushan, the palace and the exhibits consisted of "white, green and blue
hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings
and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement
of red, and blue, and white and black marble. And they gave them drink
in vessels of gold, the vessels being diverse one from another." The
first exhibition since the Christian era was at Venice during the
dogeship of Lorenzo Tiepolo, in 1268. On that occasion there was a grand
display, consisting of a water fête, a procession of the trades and an
industrial exhibition. The various gilds of the Queen City of the Seas
marched through the narrow streets to the great square of St Mark, and
their leaders asked the dogaressa to inspect the products of their
industry. Other medieval exhibitions were the fairs held at Leipzig and
Nizhni Novgorod in Europe, at Tanta in Egypt, and in 1689 that by the
Dutch at Leiden.
The first modern exhibition was held at London in 1756 by the Society of
Arts, which offered prizes for improvements in the manufacture of
tapestry, carpets and porcelain, the exhibits being placed side by side.
Five years afterwards, in 1761, the same society gave an exhibition of
agricultural machinery. In 1797 a collective display of the art
factories of France, including those of Sèvres, the Gobelins and the
Savonnerie, was made in the palace of St Cloud, and the exhibition was
repeated during the following year in the rue de Varennes, Paris. This
experiment was so successful that in the last three days of the same
year an exhibition under official auspices, at which private exhibitors
were allowed to compete, was held in the Champ de Mars. Four years
later, in 1801, there was a second official exhibition in the grand
court of the Louvre. Upon that occasion juries of practical men examined
the objects shown, and the winners of a gold medal were invited to dine
with Napoleon, who was at that time First Consul. In the report of the
jury the following remarkable sentence appeared:--"There is not an
artist or inventor who, once obtaining thus a public recognition of his
ability, has not found his reputation and his business largely
increased." The third Paris Exhibition, held in 1802, was the first to
publish an official catalogue. There were 540 exhibitors, including J.E.
Montgolfier, the first aëronaut, and J.M. Jacquard, the inventor of the
loom which bears his name. The fourth exhibition was held in 1806 in the
esplanade in front of the Hôtel des Invalides, and attracted 1422
exhibitors. There were no more exhibitions till after the fall of the
empire, but in 1819 the fifth was held during the reign of Louis XVIII.,
with 1622 exhibitors. Others were held at Paris at various intervals,
that in 1849 having 4500 exhibitors.
Other exhibitions, though on a smaller scale, were held in Dublin,
London, and in various parts of Germany and Austria during the first
half of the 19th century--that in 1844, held at Berlin, having 3040
exhibitors. Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Poland,
Italy, Spain and Portugal all held exhibitions, and there was a Free
Trade Bazaar of British Manufactures at Covent Garden theatre in 1845,
which at the time created a great deal of interest. But all these
exhibitions were confined to the products of the country in which they
took place, and the first great International Exhibition was held in
London in 1851 by the Society of Arts, under the presidency of the
prince consort. All nations were invited to compete; a site was obtained
in Hyde Park, and a building 20 acres in extent was erected, after the
design of Sir Joseph Paxton, at a cost of £193,168. The exhibition was
open for five months and fifteen days. The receipts amounted to
£506,100, and the surplus was £186,000. The number of visitors was
6,039,195, and the money taken at the doors was £423,792. The total,
number of exhibitors was 13,937, of which Great Britain contributed
6861, the British colonies 520 and foreign countries 6556. The
International Exhibition of 1851 was followed by those of New York and
Dublin in 1853, Melbourne and Munich in 1854, and Paris in 1855--this
latter was held in the Palais d'Industrie, which remained in existence
until pulled down to make room for the two Palais des Beaux Arts, which
formed one of the attractions of the 1900 exhibition. The exhibitors
numbered 20,839 and the visitors 5,162,330. There were national
exhibitions during the following years in several European countries,
but the next great world's fair was held at London in 1862. The total
space roofed in amounted to 988,000 sq. ft., 22.65 acres, the number of
visitors was 6,211,103, and the amount received at the doors £408,530.
The death of the prince consort had a depressing effect upon the
enterprise. In 1865 an exhibition was held at Dublin, the greater
proportion of the funds being supplied by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness. The
number of attendances during six months was 900,000, and the exhibition
was opened at night. An Italian exhibition was held at Rome in 1862.
The Paris Exhibition of 1867 was upon a far larger scale than that of
1855. It was held, like those that preceded and succeeded it, at the
Champ de Mars, and covered 41 acres. The building resembled an
exaggerated gasometer. The external ring was devoted to machinery, the
internal to the gradual development of civilization, commencing with the
stone age and continuing to the present era. A great feature of the
exhibition was the park, which was studded with specimens of every style
of modern architecture--Turkish mosques, Swedish cottages, English
lighthouses, Egyptian palaces and Swiss châlets. The number of
attendances was 6,805,969. The exhibitors numbered 43,217, and the total
amount received for entrances, concessions, &c., was £420,735. This was
the first exhibition at which there were international restaurants. The
cost of the exhibition was defrayed partly by the state and partly by
private subscriptions.
Small exhibitions were held in various parts of Europe between 1867 and
1870, and in the latter year a series of international exhibitions,
confined to one or two special descriptions of produce or manufactures,
was inaugurated in London at South Kensington. These continued till
1874, but they failed to attract any very large attendance of the public
and were abandoned. A medal was given to each exhibitor, and reports on
the various exhibits were published, but there was no examination of the
exhibits by jurors. In 1873 there was an International Exhibition at
Vienna. The main building, a rotunda, was erected in the beautiful park
of the Austrian capital. There were halls for machinery and agricultural
products, and hundreds of buildings, erected by different nations, were
scattered amongst the woodlands of the Prater. Unfortunately, an
outbreak of cholera diminished the attendance of visitors, and the
receipts were only £206,477, although the visitors were said to have
reached 6,740,500, and the number of exhibitors was 25,760.
None of the International Exhibitions held between 1857 and 1873 had
attracted as many as 7,000,000 visitors, but the gradual extension of
education amongst the masses, and the greater facilities for locomotion,
brought about by the growth of the railway system in all portions of the
civilized world, largely increased the attendances at subsequent World's
Fairs. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876, to celebrate the one-hundredth
anniversary of American Independence, was held at Fairmount Park,
Philadelphia. The funds were raised partly by private subscriptions, and
partly by donations from the city of Philadelphia, from Pennsylvania and
some of the neighbouring states. The central government at Washington
made a large loan, which was subsequently repaid. The principal
buildings, five in number, occupied an area of 48½ acres, and there were
several smaller structures, which in the aggregate must have filled half
as much space more, the largest being that devoted to the exhibits of
the various departments of the United States government, which covered 7
acres. Several novelties in exhibition management were introduced at
Philadelphia. Instead of gold, silver and bronze medals, only one
description, bronze, was issued, the difference between the merits of
the different exhibits being shown by the reports. Season tickets were
not issued, and the price of admission, the same on all occasions, was
half a dollar, or about 2s. 1d. The exhibition was not open at night or
on Sundays, thus following the British, and not the continental,
precedent. The number of visitors was 9,892,625, of whom 8,004,214 paid
for admission, the balance being exhibitors, officials and attendants.
The total receipts amounted to £763,899. Upon one occasion, the
Pennsylvania day, 274,919 persons--the largest number that had visited
any exhibition up to that date--passed through the turnstiles. The
display of machinery was the finest ever made, that of the United States
occupying 480,000 sq. ft. The motive-power was obtained from a Corliss
engine of 1600 horse-power. At this exhibition the United Kingdom and
the British Colonies of Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, New Zealand,
Cape Colony and Tasmania made a very fine display, which was only
excelled by that of the United States.
The Paris Exhibition of 1878 was upon a far larger scale in every
respect than any which had been previously held in any part of the
world. The total area covered not less than 66 acres, the main building
in the Champ de Mars occupying 54 acres. The French exhibits filled
one-half the entire space, the remaining moiety being occupied by the
other nations of the world. The United Kingdom, British India, Canada,
Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Cape Colony and
some of the British crown colonies occupied nearly one-third of the
space set aside for nations outside France. Germany was the only great
country which was not represented, but there were a few German
paintings. The display of fine arts and machinery was upon a very large
and comprehensive scale, and the Avenue des Nations, a street 2400 ft.
in length, was devoted to specimens of the domestic architecture of
nearly every country in Europe, and of several in Asia, Africa and
America. The palace of the Trocadero, on the northern bank of the Seine,
was erected for the exhibition. It was a handsome structure, with towers
250 ft. in height and flanked by two galleries. The rules for admission
were the same as those at Philadelphia, and every person--exhibitor,
journalist or official--who had the right of entrance was compelled to
forward two copies of his or her photograph, one of which was attached
to the card of entry. The ordinary tickets were not sold at the doors,
but were obtainable at various government offices and shops, and from
numerous pedlars in all parts of the city and suburbs. The buildings
were somewhat unfinished upon the opening day, political complications
having prevented the French government and the French people from paying
much attention to the exhibition till about six months before it was
opened; but the efforts made in April were prodigious, and by June 1st,
a month after the opening, the exhibition was complete, and afforded an
object-lesson of the recovery of France from the calamities of
1870-1871. The decisions arrived at by the international juries were
accompanied by medals of gold, silver and bronze. The expenditure by the
United Kingdom was defrayed out of the consolidated revenue, each
British colony defraying its own expenses. The display of the United
Kingdom was under the control of a royal commission, of which the prince
of Wales was president. The number of paying visitors to the exhibition
was 13,000,000, and the cost of the enterprise to the French government,
which supplied all the funds, was a little less than a million sterling,
after allowing for the value of the permanent buildings and the
Trocadero Palace, which were sold to the city of Paris. The total number
of persons who visited Paris during the time the exhibition was open was
571,702, or 308,974 more than came to the French metropolis during the
year 1877, and 46,021 in excess of the visitors during the previous
exhibition of 1867. It was stated at the time that, in addition to the
impetus given to the trade of France, the revenue of the Republic and of
the city of Paris from customs and octroi duties was increased by nearly
three millions sterling as compared with the previous year.
Exhibitions on a scale of considerable magnitude were held at Sydney and
Melbourne in 1879 and 1880, and many continental and American
manufacturers took advantage of them in order to bring the products of
their industry directly under the notice of Australian consumers, who
had previously purchased their supplies through the instrumentality of
British merchants. The United Kingdom and India made an excellent
display at both cities, but the effect of the two great Australian
exhibitions was to give a decided impetus to German, American, French
and Belgian trade. One of the immediate results was that lines of
steamers to Melbourne and Sydney commenced to run from Marseilles and
Bremen; another, that for the first time in the history of the
Australian colonies, branches of French banks were opened in the two
principal cities. The whole cost of these exhibitions was defrayed by
the local governments.
Exhibitions were held at Turin and Brussels during 1880, and smaller
ones at Newcastle, Milan, Lahore, Adelaide, Perth, Moscow, Ghent and
Lille during 1881 and 1882, and at Zürich, Bordeaux and Caraccas in
Venezuela during 1883. The next of any importance was held at Amsterdam
in the latter year. On that occasion a new departure in exhibition
management was made. The government of the Netherlands was to a certain
extent responsible for the administration of the exhibition, but the
funds were obtained from private sources, and a charge was made to each
nation represented for the space it occupied. The United Kingdom, India,
Victoria and New South Wales took part in the exhibition, but there was
no official representation of the mother country. Exhibitions on
somewhat similar lines were held at Nice and Calcutta in the winter of
1883 and 1884, and at Antwerp in 1895.
A series of exhibitions, under the presidency of the then prince of
Wales, and managed by Sir Cunliffe Owen, was commenced at South
Kensington in 1883. The first was devoted to a display of the various
industries connected with fishing; the second, in 1884, to objects
connected with hygiene; the third, in 1885, to inventions; and the
fourth, in 1886, to the British Colonies and India. These exhibitions
attracted a large number of visitors and realized a substantial profit.
They might have been continued indefinitely if it had not been that the
buildings in which they were held had become very dilapidated, and that
the ground covered by them was required for other purposes. There was no
examination of the exhibits by juries, but a tolerably liberal supply of
instrumental music was supplied by military and civil bands. The Crystal
Palace held a successful International Exhibition in 1884, and there was
an Italian Exhibition at Turin, and a Forestry Exhibition at Edinburgh,
during the same year. A World's Industrial Fair was held at New Orleans
in 1884-1885, and there were universal Exhibitions at Montenegro and
Antwerp in 1885, at Edinburgh in 1886, Liverpool, Adelaide, Newcastle
and Manchester in 1887, and at Glasgow, Barcelona and Brussels in 1888.
Melbourne held an International Exhibition in 1888-1889 to celebrate the
Centenary of Australia. Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria and the
United States were officially represented, and an expenditure of
£237,784 was incurred by the local government.
The Paris Exhibition of 1889 marked an important change in the policy
which had previously characterized the management of these gatherings.
The funds were contributed partly by the state, which voted 17,000,000
francs, and by the municipality of Paris, which gave 8,000,000. A
guarantee fund amounting to 23,124,000 francs was raised, and on this
security a sum of 18,000,000 francs was obtained and paid into the
coffers of the administration. The bankers who advanced this sum
recouped themselves by the issue of 1,200,000 "bons," each of 25 francs,
Every bon contained 25 admissions, valued at 1 franc, and certain
privileges in the shape of participation in a lottery, the grand prix
being £20,000. The calculations of the promoters were tolerably
accurate. The attendances reached the then unprecedented number of
32,350,297, of whom 25,398,609 paid in entrance tickets and 2,723,366
entered by season tickets. A sum of 2,307,999 francs was obtained by
concessions for restaurants and "side-shows," upon which the
administration relied for much of the attractiveness of the exhibition.
The total expenditure was 44,000,000 francs, and there was a small
surplus. The space covered in the Champ de Mars, the Trocadero, the
Palais d'Industrie, the Invalides and the Quai d'Orsay was 72 acres, as
compared with 66 acres in 1878 and 41 acres in 1867. Amongst the
novelties was the Eiffel Tower, 1000 ft. in height, and a faithful
reproduction of a street in Cairo. The system of international juries
was continued, but instead of gold, silver and copper medals, diplomas
of various merits were granted, each entitling the holder to a uniform
medal of bronze. Some of the "side-shows," although perhaps pecuniary
successes, did not add to the dignity of the exhibition. The date at
which it was held, the Centenary of the French Revolution, did not
commend it to several European governments. Austria, Hungary, Belgium,
China, Egypt, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, Luxemburg, Holland, Peru,
Portugal, Rumania and Russia took part, but not officially, while
Germany, Sweden, Turkey and Montenegro were conspicuous by their
absence. On the other hand, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the United
States, Greece, Guatemala, Morocco, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay,
Salvador, the South African Republic, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela
sent commissioners, who were accredited to the government of the French
Republic. The total number of exhibitors was 61,722, of which France
contributed 33,937, and the rest of the world 27,785. The British and
colonial section was under the management of the Society of Arts, which
obtained a guarantee fund of £16,800, and, in order to recoup itself
for its expenditure, made a charge to exhibitors of 5s. per sq. ft. for
the space occupied. There were altogether 1149 British exhibitors, of
whom 429 were in the Fine Arts section. One of the features of the
exhibition was the number of congresses and conferences held in
connexion with it.
During the year 1890 there was a Mining Exhibition at the Crystal
Palace, and a Military Exhibition in the grounds of Chelsea Hospital; in
1891 a Naval Exhibition at Chelsea and an International at Jamaica. In
1891-1892 there were exhibitions at Palermo and at Launceston in
Tasmania; in 1892, a Naval Exhibition at Liverpool, and one of
Electrical Appliances at the Crystal Palace. A series of small national
exhibitions under private management was held at Earl's Court between
1887 and 1891. The first of the series was that of the United
States--Italy followed in 1888, Spain in 1889, France in 1890 and
Germany in 1891.
The next exhibition of the first order of magnitude was at Chicago in
1893, and was held in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the
discovery of America by Columbus. The financial arrangements were
undertaken by a company, with a capital of £2,000,000. The central
government at Washington allotted £20,000 for the purposes of foreign
exhibits, and £300,000 for the erection and administration of a building
for exhibits from the various government departments. The exhibition was
held at Jackson Park, a place for public recreation, 580 acres in
extent, situated on the shore of Lake Michigan, on the southern side of
the city, with which it was connected by railways and tramways. Special
provision was made for locomotion in the grounds themselves by a
continuous travelling platform and an elevated electric railway. The
proximity of the lake, and of some artificial canals which had been
constructed, rendered possible the service of electric and steam
launches; The exhibition remained open from the 1st of May to the 30th
of October, and was visited by 21,477,212 persons, each of whom paid
half a dollar (about 2s. 1d.) for admission. The largest number of
visitors on any one day was 716,881. In addition to its direct vote of
£320,000, Congress granted £500,000 to the exhibition in a special
coinage, which sold at an enhanced price. The receipts from admissions
were £2,120,000; from concessions, £750,000; and the miscellaneous
receipts, £159,000: total, £3,029,000. The total expenses were
£5,222,000. Of the sums raised by the Company, £400,000 was returned to
the subscribers. Speaking roughly, it may be said that the total outlay
on the Chicago Exhibition was six millions sterling, of which three
millions were earned by the Fair, two millions subscribed by Chicago and
a million provided by the United States government. The sums expended by
the participating foreign governments were estimated at £1,440,000. The
total area occupied by buildings at Chicago was as nearly as possible
200 acres, the largest building, that devoted to manufactures, being
1687 ft. by 787, and 30.5 acres. The funds for the British commission,
which was under the control of the Society of Arts, were provided by the
imperial government, which granted £60,000. The number of British
exhibitors was 2236, of whom 597 were Industrial, 501 Fine Arts and 1138
Women's work. In this total were included 18 Indian exhibitors. The
space occupied by Great Britain was 306,285 sq. ft.; and, in addition,
separate buildings were erected in the grounds. These were Victoria
House, the headquarters of the British commission; the Indian Pavilion,
erected by the Indian Tea Association; the Kiosk of the White Star
Steamship Company; and the structure set up by the Maxim-Nordenfelt
Company. Canada and New South Wales had separate buildings, which
covered 100,140 and 50,951 sq. ft. respectively; and Cape Colony
occupied 5250, Ceylon 27,574, British Guiana 3367, Jamaica 4250,
Trinidad 3400 and India 3584, sq. ft. in the several buildings. The
total space occupied by the British Colonies was therefore 193,660 sq.
ft. The system of awards was considered extremely unsatisfactory.
Instead of international juries, a single judge was appointed for each
class, and the recompenses were all of one grade, a bronze medal and a
diploma, on which was stated the reasons which induced the judge to
make his decision. Some judges took a high standard, and refused to make
awards except to a small proportion of selected exhibits; others took a
low one, and gave awards indiscriminately. About 1183 awards were made
to British exhibitors. The French refused to accept any awards. The
value of the British goods exhibited was estimated, exclusive of Fine
Arts, at £430,000, and the expenses of showing them at £200,000. A large
expenditure was incurred in the erection of buildings, which were more
remarkable for their beauty and grandeur than for their suitableness to
the purposes for which they were intended. Considerable areas were
devoted to "side-shows," and the Midway Plaisance, as it was termed,
resembled a gigantic fair. Every country in the world contributed
something. There were sights and shows of every sort from everywhere.
The foreign countries represented were Argentina, Austria, Belgium,
Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curaçoa,
Denmark, Danish West Indies, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece,
Guatemala, Honduras, Hayti, Japan, Johore, Korea, Liberia, Mexico,
Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Orange Free State, Paraguay, Persia,
Portugal, Russia, Siam, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom and
Colonies, Uruguay and Venezuela.
Exhibitions were held at Antwerp, Madrid and Bucharest in 1894; Hobart
in 1894-1895; Bordeaux, 1895; Nizhni Novgorod, Berlin and Buda-Pest in
1896; Brussels and Brisbane in 1897. A series of exhibitions, under the
management of the London Exhibitions Company, commenced at Earl's Court
in 1895 and continued in successive years.
The Paris Exhibition of 1900 was larger than any which had been
previously held in Europe. The buildings did not cover so much ground as
those at Chicago, but many of those at Paris had two or more floors. In
addition to the localities occupied in 1889, additional space was
obtained at the Champs Elysées, the park of Vincennes, on the north bank
of the Seine between the Place de la Concorde, and at the Trocadero. The
total superficial area occupied was as follows: Champ de Mars, 124
acres; Esplanade des Invalides, 30 acres; Trocadero Gardens, 40 acres;
Champs Elysées, 37 acres; quays on left bank of Seine, 23 acres; quays
on right bank of Seine, 23 acres; park at Vincennes, 270 acres: total,
549 acres. The space occupied by buildings and covered in amounted to
4,865,328 sq. ft., 111½ acres. The French section covered 2,691,000 sq.
ft., the foreign 1,829,880, and those at the park of Vincennes 344,448
sq. ft. About one hundred French and seventy-five foreign pavilions and
detached buildings were erected in the grounds in addition to the
thirty-six official pavilions, which were for the most part along the
Quai d'Orsay. Funds were raised upon the same system as that adopted in
1889. The French government granted £800,000, and a similar sum was
contributed by the municipality of Paris. £2,400,000 was raised by the
issue of 3,250,000 "bons," each of the value of 20 francs, and
containing 20 tickets of admission to the exhibition of the face value
of one franc each, and a document which gave its holder a right either
to a reduced rate for admission to the different "side-shows" or else to
a diminution in the railway fare to and from Paris, together with a
participation in the prizes, amounting to six million francs, drawn at a
series of lotteries. Permission to erect restaurants, and to open places
of amusement in buildings erected for that purpose, were sold at high
prices, and for these privileges, which only realised 2,307,999 francs
in 1889, the concessionaires agreed to pay 8,864,442 francs in 1900. The
results did not justify the expectations which had been formed, and the
administration finally consented to receive a much smaller sum. The
administration calculated that they would have 65,000,000 paying
visitors, though there were only 13,000,000 in 1878 and 25,398,609 in
1889. A very few weeks after the opening day, April 15th, it became
evident that the estimated figures would not be reached, since a large
number of holders of "bons" threw them on the market, and the selling
price of an admission ticket declined from the par value of one franc to
less than half that amount, or from 30 to 50 centimes. The proprietors
of the restaurants and "side-shows" discovered that they had paid too
much for their concessions, that the buildings they had erected were far
too handsome and costly to be profitable, and that the public preferred
the exhibition itself to the so-called attractions. The exhibition was
largely visited by foreigners, but various causes kept away many persons
of wealth and position. Although many speculators were ruined, the
exhibition itself was successful. The attendance was unprecedentedly
large, and during the seven months the exhibition was open, 39,000,000
persons paid for admission with 47,000,000 tickets, since from two to
five tickets were demanded at certain times of the day and on certain
occasions. The entries of exhibitors, attendants and officials totalled
9,000,000. The receipts were 114,456,213 francs (£4,578,249), and the
expenditure 116,500,000 (£4,660,000), leaving a deficiency of rather
more than two millions of francs (£80,000). It was calculated that the
expenditure of the foreign nations which took part in the exhibition was
six millions sterling, and of the French exhibitors and concessionaires
three millions sterling.
A new plan of classifying exhibits was adopted at Paris, all being
displayed according to their nature, and not according to their country
of origin, as had been the system at previous exhibitions. One-half the
space in each group was allotted to France, so that the exhibitors of
that nation were enabled to overwhelm their rivals by the number and
magnitude of the objects displayed by them. All the agricultural
implements, whatever their nationality, were in one place, all the
ceramics in another, so that there was no exclusively British and no
exclusively German court. The only exception to this rule was in the
Trocadero, where the French, British, Dutch, and Portuguese Colonies,
Algeria, Tunis, Siberia, the South African Republic, China and Japan
were allowed to erect at their own cost separate pavilions. The greater
number of the nationalities represented had palaces of their own in the
rue des Nations along the Quai d'Orsay, in which thoroughfare were to be
seen the buildings erected by Italy, Turkey, the United States, Denmark,
Portugal, Austria, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Peru, Hungary, the United
Kingdom, Persia, Belgium, Norway, Luxemburg, Finland, Germany, Spain,
Bulgaria, Monaco, Sweden, Rumania, Greece, Servia and Mexico. Scattered
about the grounds, in addition to those in the Trocadero, were the
buildings of San Marino, Morocco, Ecuador and Korea. Nearly every
civilized country in the world was represented at the exhibition, the
most conspicuous absentees being Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and some
other South and Central American Republics, and a number of the British
colonies. The most noteworthy attractions of the exhibition were the
magnificent effects produced by electricity in the palace devoted to it
in the Chateau d'Eau and in the Hall of Illusions, the two palaces of
the Fine Arts in the Champs Elysées, and the Bridge over the Seine
dedicated to the memory of Alexander II. These permanent Fine Art
palaces were devoted, the one to modern painting and sculpture, the
other to the works of French artists and art workmen who flourished from
the dawn of French art up to the end of the 18th century.
The United Kingdom was well but not largely represented both in Fine
Arts and Manufactures, the administration of the section being in the
hands of a royal commission, presided over by the prince of Wales. The
British pavilion contained an important collection of paintings of the
British school, chiefly by Reynolds, Gainsborough and their
contemporaries, and by Turner and Burne-Jones. Special buildings had
been erected by the British colonies and by British India. Canada, West
Australia and Mauritius occupied the former, India and Ceylon the
latter. For the first time since the war of 1870 Germany took part in a
French International Exhibition, and the exhibits showed the great
industrial progress which had been made since the foundation of the
empire in 1870. The United States made a fine display, and fairly
divided the honours with Germany. Remarkable progress was manifested in
the exhibits of Canada and Hungary. France maintained her superiority in
all the objects in which good taste was the first consideration, but the
more utilitarian exhibits were more remarkable for their number than
their quality, except those connected with electrical work and display,
automobiles and iron-work. The number of exhibitors in the industrial
section from the British empire, including India and the colonies, was
1250, who obtained 1647 awards, as many persons exhibited in several
classes. There were, in addition, 465 awards for "collaborateurs," that
is, assistants, engineers, foremen, craftsmen and workmen who had
co-operated in the production of the exhibits. In the British Fine Arts
section there were 429 exhibits by 282 exhibitors and 175 awards.
In later years, important international exhibitions have been held at
Glasgow, and at Buffalo, New York, in 1901, at St Louis (commemorating
the Louisiana purchase) in 1904, at Liége in 1905, at Milan in 1906, at
Dublin in 1907, and in London (Franco-British), 1908. In the artistic
taste and magnificence of their buildings and the interest of their
exhibits these took their cue from the great Paris Exhibition, and even
in some cases went beyond it, notably at Buffalo (q.v.), St Louis (q.v.)
and London. And it might well be thought that the evolution of this type
of public show had reached its limits. (G. C. L.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] An "exhibition," in the sense of a minor scholarship, or annual
payment to a student from the funds of a school or college, is a
modern survival from the obsolete meaning of "maintenance" or
"endowment" (cf. Late Lat. _exhibitio et tegumentum_, i.e. food and
raiment).
EXHUMATION (from Med. Lat. _exhumare_; _ex_, out of, and _humus_,
ground), the act of digging up and removing an object from the ground.
The word is particularly applied to the removal of a dead body from its
place of burial. For the offence of exhuming a body without legal
authority, and the process of obtaining such authority, see BURIAL AND
BURIAL ACTS.
EXILARCH, in Jewish history, "Chief or Prince of the Captivity." The
Jews of Babylonia, after the fall of the first temple, were termed by
Jeremiah and Ezekiel the people of the "Exile." Hence the head of the
Babylonian Jews was the exilarch (in Aramaic _Resh Galutha_). The office
was hereditary and carried with it considerable power. Some traditions
regarded the last king of Davidic descent (Jehoiachin) as the first
exilarch, and all the later holders of the dignity claimed to be scions
of the royal house of Judah. Under the Arsacids and Sassanids the office
continued. In the 6th century an attempt was made to secure by force
political autonomy for the Jews, but the exilarch who led the movement
(Mar Zutra) was executed. For some time thereafter the office was in
abeyance, but under Arabic rule there was a considerable revival of its
dignity. From the middle of the 7th till the 11th centuries the
exilarchs were all descendants of Bostanai, through whom "the splendour
of the office was renewed and its political position made secure"
(Bacher). The last exilarch of importance was David, son of Zakkai,
whose contest with Seadiah (q.v.) had momentous consequences. Hezekiah
(c. 1040) was the last Babylonian exilarch, though the title left its
traces in later ages. Benjamin of Tudela (_Itinerary_, p. 61) names an
exilarch Daniel b. Hisdai in the 12th century. Petahiah (_Travels_, p.
17) records that this Daniel's nephew succeeded to the office jointly
with a R. Samuel. The latter, according to Petahiah, had a learned
daughter who "gave instruction, through a window, remaining in the house
while the disciples were below, unable to see her."
Our chief knowledge of the position and function of the exilarch
concerns the period beginning with the Arabic rule in Persia. In the age
succeeding the Mahommedan conquest the exilarch was noted for the
stately retinue that accompanied him, the luxurious banquets given at
his abode, and the courtly etiquette that prevailed there. A brilliant
account has come down of the ceremonies at the installation of a new
exilarch. Homage was paid to him by the rabbinical heads of the colleges
(each of whom was called Gaon, q.v.); rich gifts were presented; he
visited the synagogue in state, where a costly canopy had been erected
over his seat. The exilarch then delivered a discourse, and in the
benediction or doxology (_Qaddish_) his name was inserted. Thereafter he
never left his house except in a carriage of state and in the company of
a large retinue. He would frequently have audiences of the king, by whom
he was graciously received. He derived a revenue from taxes which he was
empowered to exact. The exilarch could excommunicate, and no doubt had
considerable jurisdiction over the Jews. A spirited description of the
glories of the exilarch is given in D'Israeli's novel _Alroy_.
See Neubauer, _Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles_, ii. 68 seq.; Zacuto,
_Yuhasin_; Graetz, _Geschichte_, vols. iv.-vi.; Benjamin of Tudela,
_Itinerary_, ed. Adler, pp. 39 seq.; Bacher, _Jewish Encyclopaedia_,
vol. v. 288. (I. A.)
EXILE (Lat. _exsilium_ or _exilium_, from _exsul_ or exul, which is
derived from _ex_, out of, and the root _sal_, to go, seen in _salire_,
to leap, _consul_, &c.; the connexion with _solum_, soil, country is now
generally considered wrong), banishment from one's native country by the
compulsion of authority. In a general sense exile is applied to
prolonged absence from one's country either through force of
circumstances or when undergone voluntarily. Among the Greeks, in the
Homeric age, banishment ([Greek: phugê]) was sometimes inflicted as a
punishment by the authorities for crimes affecting the general
interests, but is chiefly known in connexion with cases of homicide.
With these the state had nothing to do; the punishment of the murderer
was the duty and privilege of the relatives of the murdered man. Unless
the relatives could be induced to accept a money payment by way of
compensation ([Greek: poinê], weregeld; see especially Homer, _Iliad_,
xviii. 497), in which case the murderer was allowed to remain in the
country, his only means of escaping punishment was flight to a foreign
land. If, during his self-imposed exile, the relatives expressed their
willingness to accept the indemnity, he was at liberty to return and
resume his position in society.
In later times banishment is (1) a legal punishment for particular
offences; (2) voluntary.
1. Banishment for life with confiscation of property was inflicted upon
those who destroyed or uprooted the sacred olives at Athens; upon those
who remained neutral during a sedition (by a law of Solon, which
subsequently fell into abeyance); upon those who gave refuge to or
received on board ship a man who had fled to avoid punishment; upon
those who wounded with intent to kill and those who prompted them to
such an act (it is uncertain whether in this case exile was for life or
temporary); upon any one who wilfully murdered an alien; for impiety.
Certain political crimes were also similarly punished--treason,
laconism, sycophancy (see SYCOPHANT), attempts to subvert existing
decrees. For the peculiar form of banishment called OSTRACISM, see
separate article.
In cases of voluntary homicide the punishment was death; but (except in
cases of parricide) the murderer could leave the country unmolested
after the first day of the trial. He was bound to remain outside Attica,
and when on foreign soil was not allowed to appear at the public games,
to enter the temples or take part in sacrifices; but provided that he
adhered to the prescribed regulations, he was accorded a certain amount
of protection. Even when a general amnesty was proclaimed, he was not
allowed to return; if he did so, he might at once be put to death.
Temporary exile (the period of which is uncertain) without confiscation,
was the punishment for involuntary homicide. As soon as the relatives of
the deceased became reconciled to the man who had slain him, the latter
was permitted to return; further, since banishment was only temporary,
it is reasonable to suppose that the law insisted upon such
reconciliation.
2. Citizens sometimes voluntarily left the country for other reasons
(debt, inability to pay a fine). Since extradition was only demanded in
cases of high treason or other serious offences against the state, the
fugitive was not interfered with. He was at liberty to return after a
certain time had elapsed.
Little is known about exile as it affected Sparta and other Greek towns,
but it is probable that the same conditions prevailed as at Athens.
At Rome, in early times, exile was not a punishment, but rather a means
of escaping punishment. Before judgment had been finally pronounced it
was open to any Roman citizen condemned to death to escape the penalty
by voluntary exile (_solum vertere exsilii causa_). To prevent his
return, he was interdicted from the use of fire and water; if he broke
the interdict and returned, any one had the right to put him to death.
The _aquae et ignis_ (to which _et tecti_ "shelter" is sometimes added)
_interdictio_ is variously explained as exclusion from the necessaries
of life, from the symbols of civic communion, or from "the marks of a
pure society, which the criminal would defile by his further use of
them." Subsequently (probably at the time of the Gracchi) it became a
recognized legal penalty, practically equivalent to "exile," taking the
place of capital punishment. The criminal was permitted to withdraw from
the city _after_ sentence was pronounced; but in order that this
withdrawal might as far as possible bear the character of a punishment,
his departure was sanctioned by a decree of the people which declared
his exile permanent. Authorities are not agreed whether this exile by
interdiction entailed loss of _civitas_; according to some this did not
ensue until (as in earlier times) the criminal had assumed the
citizenship of the state in which he had taken refuge and thereby lost
his rights as a citizen of Rome, while others hold that it was not until
the time of Tiberius (A.D. 23) that _capitis deminutio media_ became the
direct consequence of trial and conviction. _Interdictio_ was the
punishment for treason, murder, arson and other serious offences which
came under the cognizance of the _quaestiones perpetuae_ (permanent
judicial commissions for certain offences); confiscation of property was
only inflicted in extreme cases.
Under the Empire _interdictio_ gradually fell into disuse and a new form
of banishment, introduced by Augustus, called _deportatio_, generally
_in insulam_, took its place. For some time the two probably existed
side by side. _Deportatio_ consisted in transportation for life to an
island (or some place prescribed on the mainland, not of Italy),
accompanied by loss of _civitas_ and all civil rights, and confiscation
of property. The most dreaded places of exile were the islands of
Gyarus, Sardinia, an oasis in the desert (_quasi in insulam_) of Libya;
Crete, Cyprus and Rhodes were considered more tolerable. Large bodies of
persons were also transported in this manner; thus Tiberius sent 4000
freedmen to Sardinia for Jewish or Egyptian superstitious practices.
_Deportatio_ was originally inflicted upon political criminals, but in
course of time became more particularly a means of removing those whose
wealth and popularity rendered them objects of suspicion. It was also a
punishment for the following offences: adultery, murder, poisoning,
forgery, embezzlement, sacrilege and certain cases of immorality.
_Relegatio_ was a milder form of _deportatio_. It either excluded the
person banished from one specified district only, with permission to
choose a residence elsewhere, or the place of exile was fixed.
_Relegatio_ could be either temporary or for life, but it did not in
either case carry with it loss of _civitas_ or property, nor was the
exile under military surveillance, as in the case of _deportatio_. Thus,
Ovid, when in exile at Tomi, says (_Tristia_, v. ii): "he (i.e. the
emperor) has not deprived me of life, nor of wealth, nor of the rights
of a citizen ... he has simply ordered me to leave my home." He calls
himself _relegatus_, not _exsul_.
In later writers the word _exsilium_ is used in the sense of all its
three forms--_aquae et ignis interdictio_, _deportatio_ and _relegatio_.
In England the first enactment legalizing banishment dates from the
reign of Elizabeth (39 Eliz. c. 4), which gave power to banish from the
realm "such rogues as are dangerous to the inferior people." A statute
of Charles II. (18 Car. II. c. 3) gave power to execute or to transport
to America for life the mosstroopers of Cumberland and Northumberland.
Banishment or transportation for criminal offences was regulated by an
act of 1824 (5 Geo. IV. s. 84) and finally abolished by the Penal
Servitude Acts 1853 and 1857 (see further DEPORTATION). The word exile
has sometimes, though wrongly, been applied to the sending away from a
country of those who are not natives of it, but who may be temporary or
even permanent residents in it (see ALIEN; EXPATRIATION; EXPULSION).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--J.J. Thonissen, _Le Droit pénal de la république
athénienne_ (Brussels, 1875); G.F. Schömann, _Griechische Altertümer_
(4th ed., 1897), p. 46; T. Mommsen, _Rönmisches Strafrecht_ (1899),
pp. 68, 964, and _Römisches Staatsrecht_ (1887), iii. p. 48; L.M.
Hartmann, _De exilio apud Rumanos_ (Berlin, 1887); F. von
Holtzendorff-Vietmansdorf, _Die Deportationsstrafe im römischen
Alterthum_ (Leipzig, 1859); articles in Smith's _Dict. of Greek and
Roman Antiquities_ (3rd ed., 1890) and Daremberg and Saglio's _Dict.
des antiquités_ (C. Lécrivain and G. Humbert).
EXILI, an Italian chemist and poisoner in the 17th century. His real
name was probably Nicolo Egidi or Eggidio. Few authentic details of his
life exist. Tradition, however, credits him with having been originally
the salaried poisoner at Rome of Olympia Maidalchina, the mistress of
Pope Innocent X. Subsequently he became a gentleman in waiting to Queen
Christina of Sweden, whose taste for chemistry may have influenced this
appointment. In 1663 his presence in France aroused the suspicions of
the French government, and he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Here he is
said to have made the acquaintance of Godin de Sainte-Croix, the lover
of the marquise de Brin-villiers (q.v.). After three months'
imprisonment, powerful influences secured Exili's release, and he left
France for England. In 1681 he was again in Italy, where he married the
countess Fantaguzzi, second cousin of Duke Francis of Modena.
EXMOOR FOREST, a high moorland in Somersetshire and Devonshire, England.
The uplands of this district are bounded by the low alluvial plain of
Sedgemoor on the east, by the lower basin of the Exe on the south, by
the basin of the Taw (in part) on the west, and by the Bristol Channel
on the north. The area thus defined, however, includes not only Exmoor
but the Brendon and Quantock Hills east of it. Excluding these, the
total area in the district lying at an elevation exceeding 1000 ft. is
about 120 sq. m. The geological formation is Devonian. The ancient
forest had an area of about 20,000 acres, and was enclosed in 1815.
Large tracts are still uncultivated; and the wild red deer and native
Exmoor pony are characteristic of the district. The highest point is
Dunkery Beacon in the east (1707 ft.), but Span Head in the south-west
is 1618 ft., and a height of 1500 ft. is exceeded at several points. The
Exe, Barle, Lyn and other streams, traversing deep picturesque valleys
except in their uppermost courses, are in favour with trout fishermen.
The few villages, such as Exford, Withypool and Simonsbath, with Lynton
and Lynmouth on the coast, afford centres for tourists and sportsmen.
Exmoor is noted for its stag hunting. The district has a further fame
through Richard Blackmore's novel, _Lorna Doone_.
EXMOUTH, EDWARD PELLEW, 1ST VISCOUNT (1757-1833), English admiral, was
descended from a family which came originally from Normandy, but had for
many centuries been settled in the west of Cornwall. He was born at
Dover, on the 19th of April 1757. At the age of thirteen he entered the
navy, and even then his smartness and activity, his feats of daring, and
his spirit of resolute independence awakened remark, and pointed him out
as one specially fitted to distinguish himself in his profession. He had,
however, no opportunity of active service till 1776, when, at the battle
of Lake Champlain, his gallantry, promptitude and skill, not only saved
the "Carleton"--whose command had devolved upon him during the progress
of the battle--from imminent danger, but enabled her to take a prominent
part in sinking two of the enemy's ships. For his services on this
occasion he obtained a lieutenant's commission, and the command of the
schooner in which he had so bravely done his duty. The following year, in
command of a brigade of seamen, he shared in the hardships and perils of
the American campaign of General Burgoyne. In 1782, in command of the
"Pelican," he attacked three French privateers inside the Île de Batz,
and compelled them to run themselves on shore--a feat for which he was
rewarded by the rank of post-captain. On the outbreak of the French War
in 1793, he was appointed to the "Nymphe," a frigate of 36 guns; and,
notwithstanding that for the sake of expedition she was manned chiefly by
Cornish miners, he captured, after a desperate conflict, the French
frigate "La Cléopâtre," a vessel of equal strength. For this act he
obtained the honour of knighthood. In 1794 he received the command of the
"Arethusa" (38), and in a fight with the French frigate squadron off the
Île de Batz he compelled the "Pomona" (44) to surrender. The same year
the western squadron was increased and its command divided, the second
squadron being given to Sir Edward Pellew in the "Indefatigable" (44).
While in command of this squadron he, on several occasions, performed
acts of great personal daring; and for his bravery in boarding the
wrecked transport "Dutton," and his promptitude and resolution in
adopting measures so as to save the lives of all on board, he was in 1796
created a baronet. In 1798 he joined the channel fleet, and in command of
the "Impétueux" (74) took part in several actions with great distinction.
In 1802 Sir Edward Pellew was elected member of parliament for Dunstable,
and during the time that he sat in the Commons he was a strenuous
supporter of Pitt. In 1804 he was made rear-admiral of the blue, and
appointed commander-in-chief in India, where, by his vigilance and
rapidity of movement, he entirely cleared the seas of French cruisers,
and secured complete protection to English commerce. He returned to
England in 1809, and in 1810 was appointed commander-in-chief in the
North Sea, and in 1811 commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. In 1814
he was created Baron Exmouth of Canonteign, and in the following year was
made K.C.B., and a little later G.C.B. When the dey of Algiers, in 1816,
violated the treaty for the abolition of slavery, Exmouth was directed to
attack the town. Accordingly, on the 26th of August, he engaged the
Algerine battery and fleet, and after a severe action of nine hours'
duration, he set on fire the arsenal and every vessel of the enemy's
fleet, and shattered the sea defences into ruins. At the close of the
action the dey apologized for his conduct, and agreed to a renewal of the
treaty, at the same time delivering up over three thousand persons of
various nationalities who had been Algerine slaves. For this splendid
victory Exmouth was advanced to the dignity of viscount. Shortly before
his death, which took place on the 23rd of January 1833, he was made
vice-admiral.
He had married Susan (d. 1837), daughter of James Frowde of Knoyle,
Wiltshire, who bore him four sons and two daughters. His eldest son,
Pownoll Bastard Pellew (1786-1833), became 2nd Viscount Exmouth, and his
descendant, Edward Addington Hargreaves Pellew (b. 1890), became the 5th
viscount in 1899.
Exmouth's second son, Sir Fleetwood Broughton Reynolds Pellew
(1789-1861), was like his father an admiral. The third son was George
Pellew (1793-1866), author and divine, who married Frances (d. 1870),
daughter of the prime minister, Lord Sidmouth, and wrote his
father-in-law's life (_The Life and Correspondence of Henry Addington,
1st Viscount Sidmouth_, 1847).
Exmouth had a brother, Sir Israel Pellew (1758-1832), also an admiral,
who was present at the battle of Trafalgar.
A _Life_ of the 1st viscount, by Edward Osler, was published in 1835.
EXMOUTH, a market-town, seaport and watering-place in the Honiton
parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, at the mouth of the river
Exe, 10½ m. S.E. by S. of Exeter by the London & South-Western railway.
Pop. of urban district (1901) 10,485. In the 18th century it consisted
of a primitive fishing village at the base of Beacon Hill, a height
commanding fine views over the estuary and the English Channel. After
its more modern terraces were built up the hillside, Exmouth became the
first seaside resort in Devon. Its excellent bathing and the beauty of
its coast and moorland scenery attract many visitors in summer, while it
is frequented in winter by sufferers from pulmonary disease. The climate
is unusually mild, as a range of hills shelters the town on the east. A
promenade runs along the sea wall; there are golf links and public
gardens, and the port is a favourite yachting centre, a regatta being
held annually. Near the town is a natural harbour called the Bight. The
local industries include fishing, brick-making and the manufacture of
Honiton lace. Exmouth was early a place of importance, and in 1347
contributed 10 vessels to the fleet sent to attack Calais. It once
possessed a fort or "castelet," designed to command the estuary of the
Exe. This fort, which was garrisoned for the king during the Civil War,
was blockaded and captured by Colonel Shapcoate in 1646.
EXODUS, BOOK OF, in the Bible, a book of the Old Testament which derives
its name, through the Greek, from the event which forms the most
prominent feature of the history it narrates, viz. the deliverance of
Israel from Egypt. Strictly speaking, however, this title is applicable
to the first half only, the historical portion of the book, and takes no
account of those chapters which describe the giving of the Law on Mt.
Sinai, nor of those which deal with the Tabernacle and its furniture. By
the Jews it is usually styled after its opening words [Hebrew: We'eleh
Shemoth] (_We'eleh Shemoth_) or, more briefly, [Hebrew: Shemoth]
(_Shemoth_).
In its present form the book sets forth (a) the oppression of the
Israelites in Egypt (ch. i.), (b) the birth and education of Moses, and
his flight to the land of Midian (ch. ii.), (c) the theophany at Mt.
Horeb (the Burning Bush), and the subsequent commission of Moses and
Aaron (iii. 1-iv. 17), (d) the return of Moses to Egypt, and his appeal
to Pharaoh which results in the further oppression of Israel (iv.
18-vii. 7), (e) the plagues of Egypt (vii. 8-xi. 10), (f) the
institution of the Passover and of the Feast of Unleavened Cakes, the
last plague, and Israel's departure from Egypt (xii. 1-xiii. 16), (g)
the crossing of the Red Sea and the discomfiture of the Egyptians, the
Song of Triumph, the sending of the manna and other incidents of the
journeying through the wilderness (xiii. 17-xviii. 27), (h) the giving
of the Law, including the Decalogue and the so-called Book of the
Covenant, on Sinai-Horeb (xix.-xxiv.), (i) directions for the building
of the Tabernacle and for the consecration of the priests (xxv.-xxxi.),
(j) the sin of the Golden Calf, and another earlier version of the first
legislation (xxxii.-xxxiv.), (k) the construction of the Tabernacle and
its erection (xxxv.-xl.). The book of Exodus, however, like the other
books of the Hexateuch, is a composite work which has passed, so to
speak, through many editions; hence the order of events given above
cannot lay claim to any higher authority than that of the latest editor.
Moreover, the documents from which the book has been compiled belong to
different periods in the history of Israel, and each of them,
admittedly, reflects the standpoint of the age in which it was written.
Hence it follows that the contents of the book are not of equal
historical value; and though the claim of a passage to be considered
historical is not necessarily determined by the age of the source from
which it is derived, yet, in view of the known practice of Hebrew
writers, greater weight naturally attaches to the earlier documents in
those cases in which the sources are at variance with one another. Any
attempt, therefore, at restoring the actual course of history must be
preceded by an inquiry into the source of the various contents of the
book.
The sources from which the book of Exodus has been compiled are the same
as those which form the basis of the book of Genesis, while the method
of composition is very similar. Here, too, the strongly marked
characteristics of P, or the Priestly Document, as opposed to JE, enable
us to determine the extent of that document with comparative ease; but
the absence, in some cases, of conclusive criteria prevents any final
judgment as to the exact limits of the two strands which have been
united in the composite JE. The latter statement applies especially to
the legislative portions of the book: in the historical sections the
separation of the two sources gives rise to fewer difficulties. It does
not, however, lie within the scope of the present article to examine the
various sources underlying the narrative with any minuteness, but rather
to sum up those results of modern criticism which have been generally
accepted by Old Testament scholars. To this end it will be convenient to
treat the subject-matter of the book under three main heads: (a) the
historical portion (ch. i.-xviii.), (b) the sections dealing with the
giving of the Law (xix.-xxiv., xxxii.-xxxiv.), and (c) the construction
of the Tabernacle and its furniture (xxv.-xxxi., xxxv.-xl.).
(a) _Israel in Egypt and the Exodus_ (ch. i.-xviii.). (1) i. 1-vii.
13.--The analysis of these chapters shows that the history, in the
main, has been derived from the two sources J and E, chiefly the
former, and that a later editor has included certain passages from P,
besides introducing a slight alteration of the original order and
other redactional changes. The combined narrative of JE sets forth the
rise of a new king in Egypt, who endeavoured to check the growing
strength of the children of Israel; it thus prepares the way for the
birth of Moses, his early life in Egypt, his flight to Midian and
marriage with Zipporah, the theophany at Mt. Horeb, and his divine
commission to deliver Israel from Egypt.
At the very outset the two sources betray their divergent origin and
point of view. According to J (i. 6, 8-12, 20b) the Israelites dwell
apart in the province of Goshen, and their numbers become so great as
to call for severe measures of repression, the method employed being
that of forced labour. E, on the other hand (i. 15-20a, 21, 22),
represents them as living among the Egyptians, and so few in number
that two midwives satisfy their requirements. It is to this latter
source that we owe the account of the birth of Moses and of his
education at the court of Pharaoh (ii. 1-10). On reaching manhood
Moses openly displays his sympathy with his brethren by slaying an
Egyptian, and has, in consequence, to flee to Midian, where he marries
Zipporah, the daughter of the priest of Midian (ii. 11-22). In this
section the editor has undoubtedly made use of the parallel narrative
of J, though it is impossible to determine the exact point at which
J's account is introduced: certainly ii. 15b-22 belong to that
source.[1] The narrative of the call of Moses is by no means uniform,
and shows obvious traces of twofold origin (J iii. 2-4a, 5, 7, 8,
16-18; iv. 1-12 (13-16), 29-31; E iii. 1, 4b, 6, 9-14, 21, 22; iv. 17,
18, 20b, 27, 28). These two sources present striking points of
difference, which reappear in the subsequent narrative. According to
E, Moses with Aaron is to demand from Pharaoh the release of Israel,
which will be effected in spite of his opposition; in assurance
thereof the promise is given that they shall serve God upon this
mountain; moreover, the people on their departure are to borrow
raiment and jewels from their Egyptian neighbours. According to J, on
the other hand, the spokesmen are to be Moses and the elders; and
their request is for a temporary departure only, viz. "three days'
journey into the wilderness"; their departure from Egypt is a hurried
one. Yet another difficulty, which disappears as soon as the composite
character of the narrative is recognized, is that of the signs. In J
three signs are given for the purpose of reassuring Moses, only one of
which is wrought with the rod (iv. 1-9), but in iv. 17 (E) the
reference is clearly to entirely different signs, probably the plagues
of Egypt, which according to E were invariably wrought by "the rod of
God." Further, it is questionable if the passage iv. 13-16 really
forms part of the original narrative of J, and is not rather to be
ascribed to the redactor of JE. The name of Aaron has certainly been
introduced by a later hand in J's account of the plague of frogs
(viii. 12), and the only passage in J in which Aaron is represented as
taking an active part is iv. 29-31, where the mention of his name
causes no little difficulty.[2] In E, on the other hand, Aaron is sent
by God to meet Moses at Mt. Horeb, after the latter had taken leave of
Jethro, and, later on, accompanies him into the presence of Pharaoh.
The succeeding narrative (v. 1-vi. 1) is mainly taken from J, though
E's account of the first interview with Pharaoh has been partially
retained in v. 1, 2, 4. Moses and the elders ask leave to go three
days' journey into the wilderness to sacrifice to Yahweh, a request
which is met by an increase of the burdensome work of brick-making:
henceforward the Israelites have to provide their own straw. The
people complain bitterly to Moses, who appeals to Yahweh and is
assured by him of the future deliverance of Israel "by a strong hand."
With the exception of the genealogical list (i. 1-5) and the brief
notices of the increase of Israel (i. 7) and of its oppression at the
hands of the Egyptians (i. 13, 14; ii. 23b-25), the narrative so far
exhibits no traces of P[3]. But in vi. 2-vii. 13 we are confronted
with a narrative which carries us back to ii. 23b-25 and gives
practically a parallel account to that of JE in ch. iii.-v. Thus the
revelation of the divine name, vi. 2f., finds its counterpart in iii.
10f., the message to be delivered to Israel (vi. 6f.) is very similar
to that of ch. iii. 16f., while the demand which is to be addressed to
Pharaoh is identical with that which had been already refused in ch.
v. No allusion, however, is made by Moses to this previous demand; he
merely urges the same objection as that put forward in iv. 10f. With
the resumption[4] of the story in vi. 28f. Moses reiterates his
objection, and is told that Aaron shall be his "prophet" and speak for
him, and shall also perform the sign of the rod (cf. iv. 2-4). The
sign, however, has no effect on Pharaoh (vii. 13), and we thus reach
the same point in the narrative as at vi. 1. Apart from the literary
characteristics which clearly differentiate this narrative from the
preceding accounts of J and E, the following points of variation are
worthy of consideration: (1) The people refuse to listen to Moses; (2)
Aaron is appointed to be Moses' spokesman, not with the _people_, but
with Pharaoh; (3) _one_ sign is given (not _three_) and performed
before Pharaoh; (4) the rod is turned into a reptile (_tannin_), not a
serpent (_nahash_).
(2) vii. 14-xi. 10. _The First Plagues of Egypt._--In this section the
analysis again reveals three main sources, which are clearly marked
off from one another both by their linguistic features and by their
difference of representation. The principal source is J, from which
are derived six plagues, viz. killing of the fish in the river (vii.
14, 16, 17a, 18, 21a, 24, 25), frogs (viii. 1-4, 8-150), insects
(viii. 20-32), murrain (ix. 1-7), hail (ix. 13-18, 23b, 24b, 25b-34),
locusts (x. 1a, 3-11, 13b, 14b, 15a, c-19, 24-26, 28, 29), the threat
to slay all the first-born (xi. 4-8). The most striking characteristic
of this narrative is that the plagues are represented as mainly due to
natural causes and follow a natural sequence. Thus Yahweh smites the
river so that the fish die and render the water undrinkable. This is
succeeded by a plague of frogs. The swarms of flies and insects, which
next appear, are the natural outcome of the decaying masses of frogs,
and these, in turn, would form a natural medium for the spread of
cattle disease. Destructive hailstorms, again, though rare, are not
unknown in Egypt, while the locusts are definitely stated to have been
brought by a strong east wind. Other distinctive features of J's
narrative are: (1) Moses alone is bidden to interview Pharaoh (vii. 14
f.; viii. 1 f., 20 f.; ix. 1 f., 13 f.; x. 1 f.); (2) on each occasion
he makes a formal demand; (3) on Pharaoh's refusal the plague is
announced, and takes place at a fixed time without any human
intervention; (4) when the plague is sent, Pharaoh sends for Moses and
entreats his intercession, promising in most cases to accede in part
to his request; when the plague is removed, however, the promise is
left unfulfilled, the standing phrase being "and Pharaoh's heart was
heavy ([Hebrew: kaved])," or "and Pharaoh made heavy ([Hebrew:
hihbid]) his heart"; (5) the plagues do not affect the children of
Israel in Goshen. E's account (water turned into blood, vii. 15, 17b,
20b, 23; hail, ix. 22, 23a, 24a, 25a, 35; locusts, x. 12, 13a, 14a,
15b) is more fragmentary, having been doubtless superseded in most
cases by the fuller and more graphic narrative of J, but the plague of
darkness (x. 20-23, 27) is found only in this source. As contrasted
with J the narrative emphasizes the miraculous character of the
plagues. They are brought about by "the rod of God," which Moses
wields, the effect being instantaneous and all-embracing. The
Israelites are represented as living among the Egyptians, and enjoy no
immunity from the plagues, except that of darkness. Their departure
from Egypt is deliberate; the people have time to borrow raiment and
jewels from their neighbours. E regularly uses the phrase "and
Pharaoh's heart was strong ([Hebrew: hazak])," or "and Yahweh made
strong ([Hebrew: hizek]) Pharaoh's heart" and "he would not let the
children of Israel (or, them) go." In the priestly narrative (P) the
plagues assume the form of a trial of skill between Aaron, who acts at
Moses' command, and the Egyptian magicians, and thus connect with vii.
8-13. The magicians succeed in turning the Nile water into blood (vii.
19, 20a, 21b, 22), and in bringing up frogs (viii. 5-7), but they fail
to bring forth lice (viii. 15b-19), and are themselves smitten with
boils (ix. 8-12): the two last-named plagues have no parallel either
in J or E. Throughout the P sections Aaron is associated with Moses,
and the regular command given to the latter is "Say unto Aaron": no
demand is ever made to Pharaoh, and the description of the plague is
quite short. The formula employed by P is "and Pharaoh's heart was
strong ([Hebrew: hazak])," or, "and Pharaoh made strong ([Hebrew:
hizek]) his heart," as in E, but it is distinguished from E's phrase
by the addition of "and he hearkened not unto them as Yahweh had
spoken."
(3) xii. i-xiii. 16. _The Last Plague, the Deliverance from Egypt, the
Institution of the Passover and of the Feast of Unleavened Cakes, the
Consecration of the First-born._--This section presents the usual
phenomena of a composite narrative, viz. repetitions and
inconsistencies. Thus J's regulations for the Passover (xii. 21-23,
27b) seem at first sight simply to repeat the commands given to Moses
and Aaron in xii. 1-13 (P), but in reality they are a parallel and
divergent account. In vv. 1-13 the choice of the lamb and the manner
in which it is to be eaten constitute the essential feature, the
smearing with the blood being quite secondary; in vv. 21 f. the latter
point is all-important, and no regulations are given for the paschal
meal (which, possibly, formed no part of J's original account).
Similarly the institution of the Feast of _Mazzoth_, or Unleavened
Cakes (xiii. 3-10J), does not form the sequel to the regulations laid
down in xii. 14-20 (P), but is independent of them: it omits all
reference to the "holy convocations" and to the abstinence from
labour, and is obviously simpler and more primitive. J's account,
again, makes important exceptions (xiii. 11-13) to the severe
enactment of P with reference to the first-born (xiii. 1). The
description of the smiting of the first-born of Egypt is derived from
J (xii. 29-34, 37-39), who clearly sees in the Feast of _Mazzoth_ a
perpetual reminder of the haste with which the Israelites fled from
Egypt; the editor of JE, however, has included some extracts from E
(xii. 31, 35, 36), which point to a more deliberate departure. The
section has been worked over by a Deuteronomistic editor, whose hand
can be clearly traced in the additions xii. 24-27a; xiii. 3b, 5, 8, 9,
14-16.
(4) xiii. 17-xv. 21. _The Crossing of the Red Sea._--According to J
the children of Israel departed from Egypt under the guidance of
Yahweh, who leads them by day in a pillar of cloud and by night in a
pillar of fire (xiii. 21, 22). On hearing of their flight Pharaoh at
once starts in pursuit. The Israelites, terrified by the approach of
the Egyptians, upbraid Moses, who promises them deliverance by the
hand of Yahweh (xiv. 5, 6,-7b, 10a, 11-14, 19b). Yahweh then causes a
strong east wind to blow all that night, which drives back the waters
from the shallows, and so renders it possible for the host of Israel
to cross over. The Egyptians follow, but the progress of their
chariots is hindered by the soft sand, and in the morning they are
caught by the returning waters (xiv. 21b, 24, 25, 27b, 28b, 30). The
story, however, has been combined with the somewhat different account
of E, which doubtless covered the same ground, and also with that of
P. According to the former, Elohim did not permit the Israelites to
take the shorter route to Canaan by the Mediterranean coast, for fear
of the Philistines, but led them southwards to the Red Sea, whither
they were pursued by the Egyptians (xiii. 17-19). The remainder of E's
account has only been preserved in a fragmentary form (xiv. 7aa, 10b,
15a, 19a, 20a), from which it may be gathered that Moses divided the
waters by stretching out his rod, thus presupposing that the crossing
took place by day, and that the dark cloud which divided the two hosts
was miraculously caused by the angel of God. P also represents the sea
as divided by means of Moses' rod, but heightens the effect by
describing the crossing as taking place between walls of water (xiii.
20; xiv. 1-4, 8, 9, 15b, 16b-18, 21a, c, 22, 23, 26, 27a, 28a, 29).
J's version of the Song of Moses probably does not extend beyond xv.
1, and has its counterpart in the very similar song of Miriam (E), in
vv. 20, 21. The rest of the song (vv. 2-18) is probably the work of a
later writer; for these verses set forth not only the deliverance from
Egypt, but also the entrance of Israel into Canaan (vv. 13-17), and
further presuppose the existence of the temple (vv. 13b, 17b). These
phenomena have been explained as due to later expansion, but the poem
has all the appearance of being a unity, and the language, style and
rhythm all point to a later age. Verse 19 is probably the work of the
redactor (R^P) who inserted the song.
(5) xv. 22-xviii. 27. _Incidents in the Wilderness._--The narrative of
the first journeying in the wilderness (xv. 22-xvii. 7) presents a
series of difficulties which probably owe their origin to the
editorial activity of R^P, who appears to have transferred to the
beginning of the wanderings a number of incidents which rightly belong
to the end. The concluding verses of ch. xv. contain J's account of
the sweetening of the waters of Marah, with which has been
incorporated a fragment of E's story of Massah (xv. 25b) and a
Deuteronomic expansion in v. 26. Then follows (ch. xvi.) P's version
of the sending of the manna and quails. In its present form, this
narrative contains a number of conflicting elements, which can only be
the result of editorial activity. Thus vv. 6, 7 must originally have
preceded vv. 11, 12, though the redactor has attempted to evade the
difficulty by inserting v. 8. Again, the account of the quails, which
is obviously incomplete, is undoubtedly derived from Num. xi.; but the
latter account, which admittedly belongs to JE, places the incident at
the end of the wanderings. Closer examination also of P's narrative of
the manna shows that its true-position is _after_ the departure from
Mt. Sinai; cf. the expressions used in vv. 9, 10, 33, 34, implying the
existence of the ark and the tabernacle. P's account of the manna,
however, can hardly have stood originally in close juxtaposition with
his account of the quails (cf. Num. xi. 6), but the two narratives
were probably combined by R^P before they were transferred to their
present position. The same redactor doubtless added v. 8 (and possibly
vv. 17, 18) by way of explanation, and vv. 5 and 22-30, which imply
that the law of the Sabbath was already known, and introduce a fresh
element into the story. A plausible explanation of R^P's action is
supplied by the theory that an earlier account of the giving of the
manna already existed at this point of the narrative. We know from
Deuteronomy viii. 2 f., 16 that JE contained an account of the manna,
which included the explanation of Ex. xvi. 15, and also emphasized, as
the motive for the gift, Yahweh's desire "to prove thee (i.e. test thy
disposition) ... whether thou wouldst keep his commandments, or no."
Fragments of this early story of Massah (testing) were incorporated by
R^P in his story of the manna and the quails, viz. xv. 25b; xvi. 4,
15, 16a, 19b-21. These verses must be assigned to E, for in xvii. 3,
2c (wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?), 7a (to _Massah_), c (because
they tempted ..., &c.), we find yet another version (J) of the same
incident, according to which the people tempted (tested) Yahweh. It
was owing to the combination of this latter account with E's further
description of the striving of the people for water at Meribah that
the double name Massah-Meribah arose, xvii. 1b-7 (1a belongs to P),
though Deut. xxxiii. 8 makes it clear that Massah and Meribah were
separate localities (cf. Deut. ix. 22, 2 f., 16, where Massah occurs
alone): P's version of striving at Meribah, in which traces of J's
account have been preserved, is given at Num. xx. 1-13.
xvii. 8-16. _The Battle with Amalek at Rephidim._--This incident is
derived from E, but is clearly out of place in its present context.
Its close connexion with the end of the wanderings is shown by (a) the
description of Moses as an infirm old man; (b) the rôle played by
Joshua in contrast with xxiv. 13, xxxiii. 11, where he is introduced
as a young man and Moses' minister; and (c) the references elsewhere
to the home of the Amalekites: according to Num. xiii. 29, xiv. 25,
xliii. 45, they dwelt in the S. or S.W. of Judah near Kadesh (cf. 1
Sam. xv. 6 f., 30; Gen. xiv. 7; xxxvi. 12).
Ch. xviii. _The visit of Jethro to Moses and the appointment of
judges._--This story, like the preceding one, is mainly derived from E
and is also out of place. Allusions in the chapter itself point
unmistakably to a time just before the departure from Sinai-Horeb, and
this date is confirmed both by Deut. i. 9-16 and by the parallel
account of J in Num. x. 29-32. The narrative, however, displays signs
of compilation, and it is not improbable that R^JE has incorporated in
vv. 7-11 part of J's account of the visit of Moses' father-in-law (cf.
the use of Yahweh).
(b) Ch. xix.-xxiv., xxxii., xxxiv.--The contents of these chapters,
which, owing to their contents, form the most important section in the
book of Exodus, may be briefly analysed as follows. In ch. xix. we
have a twofold description of the theophany on Mt. Sinai (or Horeb),
followed by the Decalogue in xx. 1-17. Alongside of this code we find
another, dealing in part with the civil and social (xxi. 2-xxii. 17),
in part with the religious life of Israel, the so-called Book of the
Covenant, xx. 22-xxiii. 19. Ch. xxiv. contains a composite narrative
of the ratification of the covenant. In chs. xxxii. and xxxiii. we
have again two narratives of the sin of the people and of Moses'
intercession, while in ch. xxxiv. we are confronted with yet another
early code, which is practically identical with the religious
enactments of xx. 22-26; xxii. 29, 30; xxiii. 10-19.
With but few exceptions the _provenance_ of the individual sections
may be said to have been finally determined by the labours of the
critics, but even a cursory examination of their contents makes it
evident that the sequence of events, which they now present, cannot be
original, but is rather the outcome of a long process of revision,
during which the text has suffered considerably from alterations,
omissions, dislocations and additions. Yet owing to the method of
composition employed by Hebrew editors, or revisers, it is possible in
this case, as in others, not only to determine the source of each
individual passage, but also to trace with considerable confidence the
various stages in the process by which it reached its final form and
position. It must, however, be admitted that the evidence at our
disposal is, in some cases, capable of more than one interpretation.
Hence a final conclusion can hardly be expected, but with certain
modifications in detail the following solution of the problem may be
accepted as representing the point of view of recent criticism.
Ch. xix. contains two parallel accounts of the theophany on
Horeb-Sinai, from E and J respectively, which differ materially from
one another. According to the former, Moses is instructed by God
(Elohim) to sanctify the _people_ against the third day (vv. 9a, 10,
11a). This is done and the people are brought by Moses to the foot of
the mountain (Horeb), where they hear the divine voice (14-17, 19). A
noticeable feature of this narrative, of which xx. 18-21 forms a
natural continuation, is the fact that the theophany is addressed to
the _people_, who are too frightened to remain near the mountain
itself. In J, on the other hand, it is the _priests_ who are
sanctified, and great care must be taken to prevent the people from
"breaking through to gaze" (20-22). In this account the mountain is
called "Sinai" throughout, and "Yahweh" appears instead of "Elohim"
(11b, 18, 20 f.). Moreover, Moses and Aaron and the priests are
summoned to the top of the mount (in v. 24b render "thou and Aaron
with thee, and the priests: but let not the people," &c.). Vv. 3b-8,
which have been expanded by a Deuteronomic editor, have been
transferred from their original context after xx. 21; the introductory
verses 1, 2a form part of P's itinerary.
Of the succeeding legislation in xx.-xxiii., xxxii.-xxxiv.,
undoubtedly the earlier sections are xx. 22-26; xxii. 29, 30; xxiii.
10-19, and xxxiv. 10-26, which contain regulations with regard to
worship and religious festivals, and form the basis of the covenant
made by Yahweh with Israel on Sinai-Horeb, as recorded by E and J
respectively. The narrative which introduces the covenant laws of J
has been preserved partly in its present context, ch. xxxiv., partly
in xxiv. 1, 2, 9-11; the narrative of E, on the other hand, has in
part disappeared owing to the interpolation of later material, in part
has been retained in xxiv. 3-8. J's narrative xxiv. 1 f., 9-11 clearly
forms the continuation of xix. 20 f., 11b, 13, 25, but the
introductory words of v. 1, "and unto Moses he said," point to some
omission. Originally, no doubt, it included the recital of the divine
instructions to the people in accordance with xix. 21 f., 11b-13, the
statement that Yahweh came down on the third day, and that a long
blast was blown on the trumpet (or ram's horn [[Hebrew: yovel], as
opposed to [Hebrew: shofar] E]). From xxiv. 1 f. we learn that Moses
and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders were summoned to
the top of the mountain, but that Moses alone was permitted to
approach Yahweh. Then followed the theophany, and, as the text stands,
the sacrificial meal (9-11).[5] The conclusion of J's narrative is
given in ch. xxxiv.,[6] which describes how Moses hewed two tables of
stone at Yahweh's command, and went up to the top of the mountain,
where he received the words of the covenant and wrote them on the
tables. As it stands, however, this chapter represents the legislation
which it contains as a renewal of a former covenant, also written on
tables of stone, which had been broken (1b, 4a). But the document from
which the chapter, as a whole, is derived, is certainly J, while the
previous references to tables of stone and to Moses' breaking them
belong to the parallel narrative of E. Moreover, the covenant here set
forth (v. 10 f.) is clearly a new one, and contains no hint of any
previous legislation, nor of any breach of it by the people. In view
of these facts we are forced to conclude that 1b ("like unto the first
... brakest"), 4a ("and he hewed ... the first") and v. 28 ("the ten
words") formed no part of the original narrative,[7] but were inserted
by a later Deuteronomic redactor. In the view of this editor the
Decalogue alone formed the basis of the covenant at Sinai-Horeb, and
in order to retain J's version, he represented it as a renewal of the
tables of stone which Moses had broken.[8]
The legislation contained in xxxiv. 10-26, which may be described as
the oldest legal code of the Hexateuch, is almost entirely religious.
It prohibits the making of molten images (v. 17), the use of leaven in
sacrifices (25a), the retention of the sacrifice until the morning
(25b),[9] and the seething of a kid in its mother's milk (26b); and
enjoins the observance of the three annual feasts and the Sabbath
(18a, 21-23), and the dedication of the first-born (19, 20, derived
from xiii. 11-13) and of the first-fruits (26a).
The parallel collection of E is preserved in xx. 24-26, xxiii. 10-19,
to which we should probably add xxii. 29-31 (for which xxiii. 19a was
afterwards substituted). The two collections resemble one another so
closely, both in form and extent, that they can only be regarded as
two versions of the same code. E has, however, preserved certain
additional regulations with regard to the building of altars (xx.
24-26) and the observance of the seventh year (xxiii. 10, 11), and
omits the prohibition of molten images (xx. 22, 23, appear to be the
work of a redactor); xxiii. 20-33, the promises attached to the
observance of the covenant, probably formed no part of the original
code, but were added by the Deuteronomic redactor; cf. especially vv.
23-25a, 27, 28, 31b-33. The narrative of E relative to the delivery of
these laws has disappeared,[10] but xxiv. 3-8 (which manifestly have
no connexion with their immediate context) clearly point back to some
such narrative. These verses describe how Moses wrote all the words of
the Lord in a book and recited them to the _people_ (v. 7) as the
basis of a covenant, which was solemnly ratified by the sprinkling of
the blood of the accompanying sacrifices.
In the existing text the covenant laws of E (xx. 24-26, xxii. 29-31,
xxiii. 10-19) are combined with a mass of civil and other legislation;
hence the title "Book of the Covenant" (referred to above, xxiv. 7)
has usually been applied to the whole section, xx. 22-xxiii. 33. But
this section includes three distinct elements: (a) the "words"
([Hebrew: hadvarim]) found in xx. 24-26, xxii. 29-31, xxiii. 1-10; (b)
the "judgments" ([Hebrew: hamishpatim]), xxi. 2-xxii. 17; and (c) a
group of moral and ethical enactments, xxii. 18-28, xxiii. 1-9; and an
examination of their contents makes it evident that, though the last
two groups are unmistakably derived from E, they cannot have formed
part of the original "Book of the Covenant"; for the "judgments,"
which are expressed in a hypothetical form, consist of a number of
legal decisions on points of civil law. The cases dealt with fall into
five divisions: (1) The rights of slaves, xxi. 2-11; (2) capital
offences, xxi. 12-16 (v. 17 has probably been added later); (3)
injuries inflicted by man or beast, xxi. 18-32; (4) losses incurred by
culpable negligence or theft, xxi. 33-xxii. 6; (5) cases arising out
of deposits, loans, seduction, xxii. 7-17. It is obvious, from their
very nature, that these legal precedents could not have been included
in the covenant which the _people_ (xxiv. 3) promised to observe, and
it is now generally admitted that the words "and the judgments"
(which are missing in c. 1 b) have been inserted in xxiv. 3a by the
redactor to whom the present position of the "judgments" is due.[11]
The majority of critics, therefore, adopt Kuenen's conjecture that the
"judgments" were originally delivered by Moses on the borders of Moab,
and that when D's revised version of Ex. xxi.-xxiii. was combined with
JE, the older code was placed alongside of E's other legislation at
Horeb. The third group of laws (xxii. 18-28, xxiii. 1-9) appears to
have been added somewhat later than the bulk of xxi.-xxiii. Some of
the regulations are couched in hypothetical form, but their contents
are of a different character to the "judgments," e.g. xxii. 25 f.,
xxiii. 4 f.; others, again, are of a similar nature, but differ in
form, e.g. xxii. 18 f. Lastly, xxii. 20-24, xxiii. 1-3 set forth a
number of moral injunctions affecting the individual, which cannot
have found place in a civil code. At the same time, these additions
must for the most part be prior to D, since many of them are included
in Deut. xii.-xxvi., though there are traces of Deuteronomic revision.
Now it is obvious that the results obtained by the foregoing analysis
of J and E have an important bearing on the history of the remaining
section of E's legislation, viz. the Decalogue (q.v.), Ex. xx. 1-17 (=
Deut. v. 6-21). At present the "Ten Words" stand in the forefront of
E's collection of laws, and it is evident that they were already found
in that position by the author of Deuteronomy, who treated them as the
sole basis of the covenant at Horeb. The evidence, however, afforded
(a) by the parallel version of Deuteronomy and (b) by the literary
analysis of J and E not only fails to support this tradition, but
excites the gravest suspicions as to the originality both of the
_form_ and of the _position_ in which the Decalogue now appears. For
when compared with Ex. xx. 1-17 the parallel version of Deut. v. 6 ff.
is found to exhibit a number of variations, and, in particular,
assigns an entirely different reason for the observance of the
Sabbath. But these variations are practically limited to the
explanatory comments attached to the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 10th
commandments; and the majority of critics are now agreed that these
comments were added at a later date, and that all the commandments,
like the 1st and the 6th to the 9th, were originally expressed in the
form of a single short sentence. This view is confirmed by the fact
that the additions, or comments, bear, for the most part, a close
resemblance to the style of D. They can scarcely, however, have been
transferred from Deuteronomy to Exodus (or vice versa), owing to the
variations between the two versions: we must rather regard them as the
work of a Deuteronomic redactor. But the expansion and revision of the
Decalogue were not limited to the Deuteronomic school. Literary traces
of J and E in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 10th commandments point to earlier
activity on the part of R^JE, while the addition of v. 11, which bases
the observance of the Sabbath on P 's narrative of the Creation (Gen.
ii. 1-3), can only be ascribed to a priestly writer: its absence from
Deut. v. 6 ff. is otherwise inexplicable. Thus the Decalogue, as given
in Exodus, would seem to have passed through at least three stages
before it assumed its present form. But even in its original form it
could hardly have formed part of E's Horeb legislation; for (a) both J
and E have preserved a different collection of laws (or "words")
inscribed by Moses, which are definitely set forth as the basis of the
covenant at Sinai-Horeb (Ex. xxxiv. 10, xxiv. 3 f.), and (b) the
further legislation of E in ch. xx.-xxiii. affords close parallels to
all the commandments (except the 7th and the 10th), and a comparison
of the two leaves no doubt as to which is the more primitive. Hence we
can only conclude that the Decalogue, in its original short form, came
into existence during the period after the completion of E, but before
the promulgation of Deuteronomy. Its present position is, doubtless,
to be ascribed to a redactor who was influenced by the same conception
as the author of Deuteronomy. This redactor, however, did not limit
the Horeb covenant to the Decalogue, but retained E's legislation
alongside of it. The insertion of the Decalogue, or rather the point
of view which prompted its insertion, naturally involved certain
consequential changes of the existing text. The most important of
these, viz. the harmonistic additions to ch. xxxiv., by means of which
J's version of the covenant was represented as a renewal of the
Decalogue, has already been discussed; other passages which show
traces of similar revision are xxiv. 12-15a, 18b, and xxxiv. 1-6.
The confusion introduced into the legislation by later additions, with
the consequent displacement of earlier material, has not been without
effect on the narratives belonging to the different sources. Hence the
sequence of events after the completion of the covenant on Sinai-Horeb
is not always easy to trace, though indications are not wanting in
both J and E of the probable course of the history. The two main
incidents that precede the departure of the children of Israel from
the mountain (Num. x. 29 ff.) are (1) the sin of the people, and (2)
the intercession of Moses, of both of which a double account has been
preserved.
(1) _The Sin of the People._--According to J (xxxii. 25-29) the
people, during the absence of Moses, "break loose," i.e. mutiny. Their
behaviour excites the anger of Moses on his return, and in response to
his appeal the sons of Levi arm themselves and slay a large number of
the people: as a reward for their services they are bidden to
consecrate themselves to Yahweh. The fragmentary form of the
narrative--we miss especially a fuller account of the "breaking
loose"--is doubtless due to the latter editor, who substituted the
story of the golden calf (xxxii. 1-6, 15-24, 35), according to which
the sin of the people consisted in direct violation of the 2nd
commandment. At the instigation of the people Aaron makes a molten
calf out of the golden ornaments brought from Egypt; Moses and Joshua,
on their return to the camp, find the people holding festival in
honour of the occasion; Moses in his anger breaks the tables of the
covenant which he is carrying: he then demolishes the golden calf, and
administers a severe rebuke to Aaron. The punishment of the people is
briefly recorded in v. 35. This latter narrative, which is obviously
inconsistent with the story of J, shows unmistakable traces of E. In
its present form, however, it can hardly be original, but must have
been revised in accordance with the later Deuteronomic conception
which represented the sin committed by the people as a breach of the
2nd commandment. Possibly vv. 7-14 are also to be treated as a
Deuteronomic expansion (cf. Deut. ix. 12-14). Though they show clear
traces of J, it is extremely difficult to fit them into that narrative
in view of Moses' action in vv. 25-29 and of his intercession in ch.
xxxiii.; in any case, vv. 8 and 13 must be regarded as redactional.
(2) _Moses' Intercession._--The time for departure from the Sacred
Mount had now arrived, and Moses is accordingly bidden to lead the
people to the promised land. Yahweh himself refuses to accompany
Israel owing to their disobedience, but in response to Moses'
passionate appeal finally consents to let his presence go with them.
The account of Moses' intercession has been preserved in J, though the
narrative has undergone considerable dislocation. The true sequence of
the narrative appears to be as follows: Moses is commanded to lead the
people to Canaan (xxxiii. 1-3); he pleads that he is unequal to the
task (Num. xi. 10c, 11, 12, 14, 15), and, presumably, asks for
assistance, which is promised (omitted). Moses then asks for a fuller
knowledge of Yahweh and his ways (xxxiii. 12, 13): this request also
is granted (v. 17), and he is emboldened to pray that he may see the
glory of Yahweh; Yahweh replies that his prayer can only be granted in
part, for "man shall not see me and live"; a partial revelation is
then vouchsafed to Moses (xxxiii. 18-23, xxxiv. 6-8): finally, Moses
beseeches Yahweh to go in the midst of his people, and is assured that
Yahweh's presence shall accompany them (xxxiv. 9, xxxiii. 14-16). The
passage from Numbers xi., which is here included, is obviously out of
place in its present context (the story of the quails), and supplies
in part the necessary antecedent to Ex. xxxiii. 12, 13; the passage is
now separated from Ex. xxxiii. by Ex. xxxiv. (J), which has been
wrongly transferred to the close of the Horeb-Sinai incidents (see
above), and by the priestly legislation of Ex. xxxv.-xl., Leviticus
and Num. i.-x.; but originally it must have stood in close connexion
with that chapter. A similar displacement has taken place with regard
to Ex. xxxiv. 6-9, which clearly forms the sequel to xxxiii. 17-23.
The latter passage, however, can hardly represent the conclusion of
the interview, which is found more naturally in xxxiii. 14-16. E's
account of Moses' intercession seems to have been retained, in part,
in xxxii. 30-34, but the passage has probably been revised by a later
hand; in any case its position _before_ instead of _after_ the
dismissal would seem to be redactional.
It is a plausible conjecture that the original narratives of J and E
also contained directions for the construction of an ark,[12] as a
substitute for the personal presence of Yahweh, and also for the
erection of a "tent of meeting" outside the camp, and that these
commands were omitted by R^P in favour of the more elaborate
instructions given in ch. xxv.-xxix. (P). The subsequent narrative of
J (Num. x. 33-36, xiv. 44) implies an account of the making of the
ark, while the remarkable description in Ex. xxxiii. 7-11 (E) of
Moses' practice in regard to the "tent of meeting" points no less
clearly to some earlier statement as to the making of this tent.
The history of Exodus in its original form doubtless concluded with
the visit of Moses' father-in-law and the appointment of judges (ch.
xviii.), the departure from the mountain and the battle with Amalek
(xvii. 8-16).
(c) _The Construction of the Tabernacle and its Furniture_ (ch.
xxv.-xxxi., xxxv.-xl.).--It has long been recognized that the
elaborate description of the Tabernacle and its furniture, and the
accompanying directions for the dress and consecration of the priests,
contained in ch. xxv.-xxxi., have no claim to be regarded as an
historical presentment of the Mosaic Tabernacle and its service. The
language, style and contents of this section point unmistakably to the
hand of P; and it is now generally admitted that these chapters form
part of an ideal representation of the post-exilic ritual system,
which has been transferred to the Mosaic age. According to this
representation, Moses, on the seventh day after the conclusion of the
covenant, was summoned to the top of the mountain, and there received
instructions with regard to (a) the furniture of the sanctuary, viz.
the ark, the table and the lamp-stand (ch. xxv.); (b) the Tabernacle
(ch. xxvi.); (c) the court of the Tabernacle and the altar of
burnt-offering (ch. xxvii.); (d) the dress of the priests (ch.
xxviii.); (e) the consecration of Aaron and his sons (xxix. 1-37); and
(f) the daily burnt-offering (xxix. 38-42): the section ends with a
formal conclusion (xxix. 43-46). The two following chapters contain
further instructions relative to the altar of incense (xxx. 1-10), the
payment of the half-shekel (11-16), the brazen laver (17-21), the
anointing oil (22-33), the incense (34-38), the appointment of
Bezaleel and Oholiab (xxxi. 1-11) and the observance of the Sabbath
(12-17). It is hardly doubtful, however, that these two chapters
formed no part of P's original legislation, but were added by a later
hand.[13] For (1) the altar of incense is here mentioned for the first
time, and was apparently unknown to the author of ch. xxv.-xxix. Had
he known of its existence, he could hardly have failed to include it
with the rest of the Tabernacle furniture in ch. xxvi., and must have
mentioned it at xxvi. 34 f., where the relative positions of the
contents of the Tabernacle are defined: further, the ritual of the Day
of Atonement (Lev. xvi. referred to in xxx. 10) ignores this altar,
and mentions only _one_ altar (cf. "_the_ altar," xxvii. 1), viz. that
of burnt-offering; (2) the command as to the half-shekel presupposes
the census of Num. i., and appears to have been unknown in the time of
Nehemiah (Neh. x. 32) (Heb. 33); (3) the instructions as to the brazen
laver would naturally be expected alongside of those for the altar of
burnt-offering in ch. xxvii.; (4) the following section relating to
the anointing oil presupposes the altar of incense (v. 28), and
further extends the ceremony of anointing to Aaron's sons, though,
elsewhere, the ceremony is confined to Aaron (xxix. 7, Lev. viii. 12),
cf. the title "anointed priest" applied to the high priest (Lev. iv.
3, &c.); (5) the directions for compounding the incense connect
naturally with xxx. 1-10, while (6) the appointment of Bezaleel and
Oholiah cannot be separated from the rest of ch. xxx.-xxxi. The
concluding section on the Sabbath (xxxi. 12-17) shows marks of
resemblance to H (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.), especially in vv. 12-14a, which
appear to have been expanded, very possibly by the editor who inserted
the passage. The continuation of P's narrative is given in xxxiv.
29-35, which describe Moses' return from the mount. The subsequent
chapters (xxxv.-xl.), however, can hardly belong to the original
stratum of P, if only because they presuppose ch. xxx., xxxi., and
were probably added at a later stage than the latter chapters. They
narrate how the commands of ch. xxv.-xxxi. were carried out, and
practically repeat the earlier chapters _verbatim_, merely the tenses
being changed, the most noticeable omissions being xxvii. 20 f. (oil
for the lamps), xxviii. 30 (Urim and Thummim), xxix. 1-37 (the
consecration of the priests, which recurs in Lev. viii.) and xxix.
38-42 (the daily burnt-offering). Apart from the omissions the most
striking difference between the two sections is the variation in
order, the different sections of ch. xxv.-xxxi. being here set forth
in their natural sequence. The secondary character of these concluding
chapters receives considerable confirmation from a comparison of the
Septuagint text. For this version exhibits numerous cases of
variation, both as regards _order_ and _contents_, from the Hebrew
text; moreover the translation, more particularly of many technical
terms, differs from that of ch. xxv.-xxxi., and seems to be the work
of different translators. Hence it is by no means improbable that the
final recension of these chapters had not been completed when the
Alexandrine version was made.
AUTHORITIES.--In addition to the various English and German
commentaries on Exodus included under the head of the Pentateuch, the
following English works are especially worthy of mention: S.R. Driver,
_Introd. to the Literature of the O.T._, and "Exodus" in the _Camb.
Bible_; B.W. Bacon, _The Triple Tradition of the Exodus_ (Hartford,
U.S.A., 1894), and A.H. McNeile, _The Book of Exodus_ (Westminster
Commentaries) (1908); also the articles on "Exodus" by G.
Harford-Battersby (Hastings, _Dict. Bib._ vol. i.) and by G.F. Moore,
_Ency. Biblica_, vol. ii. (J. F. St.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The fact that the father-in-law of Moses is called Reuel in v.
18, as contrasted with the name Jethro, which occurs in iii. 1 f. and
in all subsequent passages from E, cannot be taken as conclusive on
this point, since critics are agreed that "Reuel" in this verse is a
later addition: had it been original we should have expected the name
to be given at v. 16 rather than at v. 18. But, if no argument can be
based on the discrepancy between the two names, we may at least
assume that the namelessness of the priest in v. 16 f. points to a
different source for those verses from that of iii. 1 f. Elsewhere J
speaks of "Hobab, the son of Reuel the Midianite, Moses'
father-in-law" (Num. x. 29); the addition, "the priest of Midian,"
only occurs in the (secondary) passages iii. 1, xviii. 1 (E).
Probably RJE omitted the name in ii. 16 and added "the priest of
Midian" in iii. 1, xviii 1, from harmonizing motives. Further, vv.
15^B-22 speak of _one_ son being born to Moses at this period, a
statement which is borne out by iv. 20, 25 ("sons" in iv. 20 is
obviously a correction), whereas ch. xviii. (E) mentions _two_ sons.
The original order of events in J seems to have been as follows:
after the death of Pharaoh (ii. 23a; the Septuagint repeats this
notice before iv. 19) Moses returns to Egypt with his wife and son
(iv. 19, 20) in obedience to Yahweh's command. On the way he is
seized with a sudden illness, which Zipporah attributes to the fact
that he has not been circumcised and seeks to avert by circumcising
her son (iv. 24-26). The scene of the theophany, therefore, according
to J, is to be placed on the way from Midian to Goshen. Probably the
displacement of iv. 19, 20, 24-26 is due to the editor of JE, who was
thus enabled to combine the two narratives of the theophany.
[2] Cf. iv. 30; Aaron had received no command to do the signs, and
the words "and he did the signs" are most naturally referred to
Moses.
[3] The expansion in iii. 8c, 15, 17b; iv. 22, 23, are probably the
work of a Deuteronomistic redactor.
[4] The genealogy of Moses and Aaron (vv. 14-27) appears to be a
later addition.
[5] Unless we follow Riedel and read simply "and worshipped"
([Hebrew: vaishtahavu]) instead of "and drank" ([Hebrew: vaishtu]),
treating "and ate" ([Hebrew: vaiohlu]) as a later addition; cf. HDB,
extra vol. p. 631 note.
[6] Vv. 6-9 are out of place here: they belong to the story of Moses'
intercession in ch. xxxiii.
[7] This view is confirmed by (a) a comparison of v. lb ("and I will
write") with vv. 27, 28; according to the latter, _Moses_ wrote the
words of the covenant; and (b) the tardy mention of Moses in 4b; the
name would naturally be given at the beginning of the verse.
[8] Others suppose that the present position of ch. xxxiv. is due, in
the first instance, to RJE, but in view of the other Deuteronomic
expansions in vv. 10b-16, 23, 24, it is more probable that J's
version was discarded by RJE in favour of E's, and was afterwards
restored by RD.
[9] Reading "the sacrifice of my feasts" for "the sacrifice of the
feast of the Passover."
[10] Unless, with Bacon, we are to regard xxiv. 12-14, 18b as
original. More probably a later editor has worked up old material of
E (of which there are unmistakable traces) in order to include the
whole of xx.-xxiii. in the covenant: xxiv. 15-18a are an addition
from P.
[11] The present text of xxiv. 12 also has probably been transposed
in accordance with the view that the "judgment" formed part of the
covenant, cf. Deut. v. 31. Originally the latter part of the verse
must have run, "That I may give thee the tables of stone which I have
written, and may teach thee the law and the commandment." For further
details see Bacon, _Triple Tradition of Exodus_, pp. 111 f., 132 f.
[12] According to Deut. x. 1 f., which is in the main a _verbal_
excerpt from Ex. xxxiv. 1 f., Yahweh ordered Moses to make an ark of
acacia wood _before_ he ascended the mountain.
[13] To the same hand are to be ascribed also xxvii. 6, 20, 21;
xxviii. 41; xxix. 21, 38-41.
EXODUS, THE, the name given to the journey (Gr. [Greek: exodos]) of the
Israelites from Egypt into Palestine, under the leadership of Moses and
Aaron, as described in the books of the Bible from Exodus to Joshua.
These books contain the great national epic of Judaism relating the
deliverance of the people from bondage in Egypt, the overthrow of the
pursuing Pharaoh and his army, the divinely guided wanderings through
the wilderness and the final entry into the promised land. Careful
criticism of the narratives[3] has resulted in the separation of later
accretions from the earliest records, and the tracing of the elaboration
of older traditions under the influence of developing religious and
social institutions. In the story of the Exodus there have been
incorporated codes of laws and institutions which were to be observed by
the descendants of the Israelites in their future home, and these,
really of later origin, have thus been thrown back to the earlier period
in order to give them the stamp of authority. So, although a certain
amount of the narrative _could_ date from the days of Moses, the Exodus
story has been made the vehicle for the aims and ideals of subsequent
ages, and has been adapted from time to time to the requirements of
later stages of thought. The work of criticism has brought to light
important examples of fluctuating tradition, singular lacunae in some
places and unusual wealth of tradition in others, and has demonstrated
that much of that which had long been felt to be impossible and
incredible was due to writers of the post-exilic age many centuries
after the presumed date of the events.
The book of Genesis closes with the migration of Jacob's family into
Egypt to escape the famine in Canaan. Jacob died and was buried in
Canaan by his sons, who, however, returned again to the pastures which
the Egyptian king had granted them in Goshen. Their brother Joseph on
his death-bed promised that God would bring them to the land promised to
their forefathers and solemnly adjured them to carry up his bones (Gen.
1.). In the book of Exodus the family has become a people.[2] The
Pharaoh is hostile, and Yahweh, the Israelite deity, is moved to send a
deliverer; on the events that followed see EXODUS, BOOK OF; MOSES. It
has been thought that dynastic changes occasioned the change in Egyptian
policy (e.g. the expulsion of the Hyksos), but if the Israelites built
Rameses and Pithom (Ex. i. 11), cities which, as excavation has shown,
belong to the time of Rameses II. (13th century B.C.), earlier dates are
inadmissible. On these grounds the Exodus may have taken place under one
of his successors, and since Mineptah or Merneptah (son of Rameses), in
relating his successes in Palestine, boasts that _Ysiraal_ is desolated,
it would seem that the Israelites had already returned. On the other
hand, it has been suggested that when Jacob and his family entered
Egypt, some Israelite tribes had remained behind and that it is to these
that Mineptah's inscription refers. The problem is complicated by the
fact that, from the Egyptian evidence, not only was there at this time
no remarkable emigration of oppressed Hebrews, but Bedouin tribes were
then receiving permission to enter Egypt and to feed their flocks upon
Egyptian soil. It might be assumed that the Israelites (or at least
those who had not remained behind in Palestine) effected their departure
at a somewhat later date, and in the time of Mineptah's successor, Seti
II., there is an Egyptian report of the pursuit of some fugitive slaves
over the eastern frontier. The value of all such evidence will naturally
depend largely upon the estimate formed of the biblical narratives, but
it is necessary to observe that these have not yet found Egyptian
testimony to support them. Although the information which has been
brought to bear upon Egyptian life and customs substantiates the general
accuracy of the local colouring in some of the biblical narratives, the
latter contain several inherent improbabilities, and whatever future
research may yield, no definite trace of Egyptian influence has so far
been found in Israelite institutions.
No allusions to Israelites in Egypt have yet been found on the
monuments; against the view that the Aperiu (or Apury) of the
inscriptions were Hebrews, see S.R. Driver in D.G. Hogarth, _Authority
and Archaeology_, pp. 56 sqq.; H.W. Hogg, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1310. The
plagues of Egypt have been shown to be those to which the land is
naturally subject (R. Thomson, _Plagues of Egypt_), but the
description of the relations of Moses and Aaron to the court raises
many difficult questions (H.P. Smith, _O.T. Hist._ pp. 57-60). Those
who reject Ex. i. 11 and hold that 480 years elapsed between the
Exodus and the foundation of the temple (I Kings vi. 1, see BIBLE:
Chronology) place the former about the time of Tethmosis (Thothmes)
III., and suppose that the hostile Habiri (Khabiri) who troubled
Palestine in the 15th century are no other than Hebrews (the equation
is philologically sound), i.e. the invading Israelites.[3] But
although the evidence of the Amarna tablets might thus support the
biblical tradition in its barest outlines, the view in question, if
correct, would necessitate the rejection of a great mass of the
biblical narratives as a whole.
In the absence of external evidence the study of the Exodus of the
Israelites must be based upon the Israelite records, and divergent or
contradictory views must be carefully noticed. Regarded simply as a
journey from Egypt into Palestine it is the most probable of
occurrences: the difficulty arises from the actual narratives. The first
stage is the escape from the land of Goshen (q.v.), the district
allotted to the family of Jacob (Gen. xlvi. 28-34, xlvii. 1, 4, 6).[4]
As to the route taken across the Red Sea (_Yam Suph_) scholars are not
agreed (see W.M. Müller, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1436 sqq.); it depends upon
the view held regarding the second stage of the journey, the road to the
mountain of Sinai or Horeb and thence to Kadesh. The last-mentioned
place is identified with Ain Kadis, about 50 m. south of Beersheba; but
the identification of the mountain is uncertain, and it is possible that
tradition confused two distinct places. According to one favourite view,
the journey was taken across the Sinaitic peninsula to Midian, the home
of Jethro. Others plead strongly for the traditional site Jebel Musa or
Serbal in the south of the peninsula (see J.R. Harris, _Dict. Bible_,
iv. pp. 536 sqq.; H. Winckler, _Ency. Bib._ col. 4641). The latter view
implies that the oppressed Israelites left Egypt for one of its
dependencies, and both theories find only conjectural identifications in
the various stations recorded in Num. xxxiii. But this list of forty
names, corresponding to the years of wandering, is from a post-exilic
source, and may be based merely upon a knowledge of caravan-routes; even
if it be of older origin, it is of secondary value since it represents a
tradition differing notably from that in the earlier narratives
themselves, and these on inspection confirm Judg. xi. 16 seq., where the
Israelites proceed immediately to Kadesh.
Ex. xvi.-xviii. presuppose a settled encampment and a law-giving, and
thus belong to a stage _after_ Sinai had been reached (Ex. xix. sqq.).
They are closely related, as regards subject matter, &c., to the
narratives in Num. x. 29-xi., xx. 1-13 (Sinai to Kadesh), and the
initial step is the recognition that the latter is their original
context (see G.F. Moore, _Ency. Bib._ col. 1443 v). Further, internal
peculiarities associating events now at Sinai-Horeb with those at
Kadesh support the view that Kadesh was their true scene, and it is to
be noticed that in Ex. xv. 22 seq. the Israelites already reach the
wilderness of Shur and accomplish the three days' journey which had
been their original aim (cf. Ex. iii. 18, v. 3, viii. 27). The
wilderness of Shur (Gen. xvi. 7, xx. 1; 1 Sam. xv. 7, xxvii. 8) is the
natural scene of conflicts with Amalekites (Ex. xvii. 8 sqq.), and its
sanctuary of Kadesh or En Mishpat ("well of judgment," Gen. xiv. 7)
was doubtless associated with traditions of the giving of statutes and
ordinances. The détour to Sinai-Horeb appears to belong to a later
stage of the tradition, and is connected with the introduction of laws
and institutions of relatively later form. It is foreshadowed by the
injunction to avoid the direct way into Palestine (see Ex. xiii.
17-19), since on reaching Kadesh the Israelites would be within reach
of hostile tribes, and the conflicts which it was proposed to avoid
actually ensued.[5] The forty years of wandering in the wilderness is
characteristic of the Deuteronomic and post-exilic narratives; in the
earlier sources the fruitful oasis of Kadesh is the centre, and even
after the tradition of a détour to Sinai-Horeb was developed, only a
brief period is spent at the holy mountain.
From Kadesh spies were sent into Palestine, and when the people were
dismayed at their tidings and incurred the wrath of Yahweh, the penalty
of the forty years' delay was pronounced (Num. xiii. seq.). Originally
Caleb alone was exempt and for his faith received a blessing; later
tradition adds Joshua and in Deut. i. 37 seq. alludes to some unknown
offence of Moses. According to Num. xxi. 1-3 the Israelites (a
generalizing amplification) captured Hormah, on the way to Beersheba,
and subsequently the clan Caleb and the Kenites (the clan of Moses'
father-in-law) are found in Judah (Judg. i. 16). Although the traditions
regard their efforts as part of a common movement (from Gilgal, see
below), it is more probable that these (notably Caleb) escaped the
punishment which befell the rest of the Israelites, and made their way
direct from Kadesh into the south of Palestine.[6] On the other hand,
according to the prevailing tradition, the attempt to break northwards
was frustrated by a defeat at Hormah (Num. xiv. 40-45), an endeavour to
pass Edom failed, and the people turned back to the _Yam Suph_ (here at
the head of the Gulf of Akabah) and proceeded up to the east of Edom and
Moab. Conflicting views are represented (on which see MOAB), but at
length Shittim was reached and preparations were made to cross the
Jordan into the promised land. This having been effected, Gilgal became
the base for a series of operations in which the united tribes took
part. But again the representations disagree, and to the overwhelming
campaigns depicted in the book of Joshua most critics prefer the account
of the more gradual process as related in the opening chapter of the
book of Judges (see JEWS: _History_, § 8).
Thus, whatever evidence may be supplied by archaeological research, the
problem of the Exodus must always be studied in the light of the
biblical narratives. That the religious life of Israel as portrayed
therein dates from this remote period cannot be maintained against the
results of excavation or against the later history, nor can we picture a
united people in the desert when subsequent vicissitudes represent the
union as the work of many years, and show that it lasted for a short
time only under David and Solomon. During the centuries in which the
narratives were taking shape many profound changes occurred to affect
the traditions. Developments associated with the Deuteronomic reform and
the reorganization of Judaism in post-exilic days can be unmistakably
recognized, and it would be unsafe to assume that other vicissitudes
have not also left their mark. Allowance must be made for the shifting
of boundaries or of spheres of influence (Egypt, Edom, Moab), for the
incorporation of tribes and of their own tribal traditions, and in
particular for other movements (e.g. from Arabia).[7] If certain clans
moved direct from Kadesh into Judah, it is improbable that others made
the lengthy détour from Kadesh by the Gulf of Akabah, but this may well
be an attempt to fuse the traditions of two distinct migrations. Among
the Joseph-tribes (Ephraim and Manasseh), the most important of
Israelite divisions, the traditions of an ancestor who had lived and
died in Egypt would be a cherished possession, but although most writers
agree that not all the tribes were in Egypt, it is impossible to
determine their number with any certainty. At certain periods,
intercourse with Egypt was especially intimate, and there is much in
favour of the view that the name Mizraim (Egypt) extended beyond the
borders of Egypt proper. Reference has already been made to other cases
of geographical vagueness, and one must recognize that in a body of
traditions such as this there was room for the inclusion of the most
diverse elements which it is almost hopeless to separate, in view of the
scantiness of relevant evidence from other sources, and the literary
intricacy of the extant narratives. That many different beliefs have
influenced the tradition is apparent from what has been said above, and
is especially noticeable from a study of the general features. Thus,
although the Israelites possessed cattle (Ex. xvii. 3, xix. 13, xxiv. 5,
xxxii. 6, xxxiv. 3; Num. xx. 19), allusion is made to their lack of meat
in order to magnify the wonders of the journey, and among divinely sent
aids to guide and direct the people upon the march not only does Moses
require the assistance of a _human_ helper (Jethro or Hobab), but the
angel, the ark, the pillar of cloud and of fire and the mysterious
hornet are also provided.
In addition to the references already given, see J.W. Colenso,
_Pentateuch and Book of Joshua_ (on internal difficulties); A.
Jeremias, _Alte Test. im Lichte d. alt. Orients_[2] (pp. 402 sqq., on
later references in Manetho, &c., with which cf. also R.H. Charles,
_Jubilees_, p. 245 seq.); art. "Exodus" in _Ency. Bib._; Ed. Meyer,
_Israëliten_ (_passim_); Bönhoff, _Theolog. Stud. u. Krit._ (1907),
pp. 159-217; the histories of Israel and commentaries on the book of
Exodus. Among the numerous special works, mention may be made of G.
Ebers, _Durch Gosen zum Sinai_; E.H. Palmer, _Desert of the Exodus_;
O.A. Toffteen, _The Historic Exodus_; fuller information is given in
L.B. Paton, _Hist. of Syria and Palestine_, p. 34 (also ch. viii.);
and C.F. Kent, _Beginnings of Heb. Hist._ p. 355 seq. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See the articles on the books in question.
[2] There is a lacuna between the oldest traditions in Genesis and
those in Exodus: the latter beginning simply "and there arose a new
king over Egypt which knew not Joseph." The interval between Jacob's
arrival in Egypt and the Exodus is given varyingly as 400 or 430
years (Gen. xv. 13, Ex. xii. 40 seq., Acts vii. 6); but the Samaritan
and Septuagint versions allow only 215 years (Ex. loc. cit.), and a
period of only four generations is presupposed in Gen. xv. 16 (cf.
the length of the genealogies between the contemporaries of Joseph
and those of Moses in Ex. vi. 16-20).
[3] Sec, e.g., J. Orr, _Problem of the O.T._ pp. 422 sqq.; Ed. Meyer,
_Die Israëliten_, pp. 222 sqq. Some, too, find in the Amarna tablets
the historical background for Joseph's high position at the Egyptian
court (see Cheyne, _Ency. Bib._ art. "Joseph").
[4] For the varying traditions regarding the number of the people and
their residence (whether settled apart, cf., e.g., Gen. xlvi. 34, Ex.
viii. 22, ix. 26, x. 23, or in the midst of the Egyptians) see the
recent commentaries.
[5] See further J. Wellhausen, _Prolegomena_, pp. 342 sqq.; G.F.
Moore, Ency. Bib. col. 1443; S.A. Cook, _Jew. Quart. Rev._ (1906),
pp. 741 sqq. (1907), p. 122, and art. MOSES. Ex. xiii. 17-19 forbids
the compromise which would place Sinai-Horeb in the neighbourhood of
Kadesh (A.E. Haynes, _Pal. Explor. Fund, Quart. Statem._ (1896), pp.
175 sqq.; C.F. Kent [see _Lit._ below], p. 381).
[6] So B. Stade, Steuernagel, Guthe, G.F. Moore, H.P. Smith, C.F.
Kent, &c. See CALEB; JERAHMEEL; JUDAH; KENITES; LEVITES; and JEWS:
_History_, §§ 5, 20 (end).
[7] An instructive parallel to the last-mentioned is afforded by
Dissard's account of the migration of Arab tribes into Palestine in
the 18th century A.D. (_Revue biblique_, July 1905).
EXOGAMY (Gr. [Greek: exô], outside; and [Greek: gamos], marriage), the
term proposed by J.F. McLennan for the custom compelling marriage "out
of the tribe" (or rather "out of the totem"); its converse is endogamy
(q.v.). McLennan would find an explanation of exogamy in the prevalence
of female infanticide, which, "rendering women scarce, led at once to
polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without."
Infanticide of girls is, and no doubt ever has been, a very common
practice among savages, and for obvious reasons. Among tribes in a
primitive stage of social organization girl-children must always have
been a hindrance and a source of weakness. They had to be fed and yet
they could not take part in the hunt for food, and they offered a
temptation to neighbouring tribes. Infanticide, however, is not proved
to have been so universal as McLennan suggests, and it is more probable
that the reason of exogamy is really to be found in that primitive
social system which made the "captured" woman the only wife in the
modern sense of the term. In the beginnings of human society children
were related only to their mother; and the women of a tribe were common
property. Thus no man might appropriate any female or attempt to
maintain proprietary rights over her. With women of other tribes it
would be different, and a warrior who captured a woman would doubtless
pass unchallenged in his claim to possess her absolutely. Infanticide,
the evil physical effects of "in-and-in" breeding, the natural strength
of the impulse to possess on the man's part, and the greater feeling of
security and a tendency to family life and affections on the woman's,
would combine to make exogamy increase and marriages within the tribe
decrease. A natural impulse would in a few generations tend to become a
law or a custom, the violation of which would be looked on with horror.
Physical capture, too, as soon as increasing civilization and tribal
intercommunication removed the necessity for violence, became symbolic
of the more permanent and individual relations of the sexes. An
additional explanation of the prevalence of exogamy may be found in the
natural tendency of exogamous tribes to increase in numbers and strength
at the expense of those communities which moved towards decadence by
in-breeding. Thus tradition would harden into a prejudice, strong as a
principle of religion, and exogamy would become the inviolable custom it
is found to be among many races. In Australia, Sir G. Grey writes: "One
of the most remarkable facts connected with the natives is that they are
divided into certain great families, all the members of which bear the
same name ... these family names are common over a great portion of the
continent and a man cannot marry a woman of his own family name." In
eastern Africa, Sir R. Burton says: "The Somal will not marry one of the
same, or even of a consanguineous family," and the Bakalahari have the
same rule. Paul B. du Chaillu found exogamy the rule and blood marriages
regarded as an abomination throughout western Equatorial Africa. In
India the Khasias, Juangs, Waralis, Otaons, Hos and other tribes are
strictly exogamous. The Kalmucks are divided into hordes, and no man may
marry a woman of the same horde. Circassians and Samoyedes have similar
rules. The Ostiaks regard endogamy (marriage within the clan) as a
crime, as do the Yakuts of Siberia. Among the Indians of America severe
rules prescribing exogamy prevail. The Tsimsheean Indians of British
Columbia are divided into tribes and totems, or "crests which are
common to all the tribes," says one writer. "The crests are the whale,
the porpoise, the eagle, the coon, the wolf and the frog.... The
relationship existing between persons of the same crest is nearer than
that between members of the same tribe.... Members of the same tribe may
marry, but those of the same crest are not allowed to under any
circumstances; that is, a whale may not marry a whale, but a whale may
marry a frog, &c." The Thlinkeets, the Mayas of Yucatan and the Indians
of Guiana are exogamous, observing a custom which is thus seen to exist
throughout Africa, in Siberia, China, India, Polynesia and the Americas.
AUTHORITIES.--J.F. McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_ (1865), and _Studies
in Anc. Hist._ (1896); Lord Avebury, _Origin of Civilization_ (1902);
Westermarck, _History of Human Marriage_ (1894); A. Lang, _Social
Origins_ (1903); L.H. Morgan, _Ancient Society_ (1877); J.G. Frazer,
_Totemism and Exogamy_ (1910); see also TOTEM.
EXORCISM (Gr. [Greek: exorkizein], to conjure out), the expulsion of
evil spirits from persons or places by incantations, magical rites or
other means. As a corollary of the animistic theory of diseases and of
belief in Possession (q.v.), we find widely spread customs whose object
is to get rid of the evil influences. These customs may take the form of
a general expulsion of evils, either once a year or at irregular
intervals; the evils, which are often regarded as spirits, sometimes as
the souls of the dead, may be expelled, according to primitive
philosophy, either immediately by spells, purifications or some form of
coercion; or they may be put on the back of a scapegoat or other
material vehicle. Among the means of compelling the evil spirits are
assaults with warlike weapons or sticks, the noise of musical
instruments or of the human voice, the use of masks, the invocation of
more powerful good spirits, &c.; both fire and water are used to drive
them out, and the use of iron is a common means of holding them at bay.
The term exorcism is applied more especially to the freeing of an
individual from a possessing or disease-causing spirit; the means
adopted are frequently the same as those mentioned above; in the East
Indies the sufferer sometimes dances round a small ship, into which the
spirit passes and is then set adrift. The patient may be beaten or means
may be employed whose efficiency depends largely on their suggestive
nature. Among the Dakota Indians the medicine-man chants _hi-le-li-lah!_
at the bed of the sick man and accompanies his chant with the rattle; he
then sucks at the affected part till the possessing spirit is supposed
to come out and take its flight, when men fire guns at it from the door
of the tent. The Zulus believe that they can get rid of the souls of the
dead, which cause diseases, by sacrifices of cattle, or by expostulating
with the spirits; so too the _shaman_ or magician in other parts of the
world offers the possessing spirit objects or animals.
The professional exorcist was known among the Jews; in Greece the art
was practised by women, and it is recorded that the mothers of Epicurus
and Aeschines belonged to this class; both were bitterly reproached, the
one by the Stoics, the other by Demosthenes, with having taken part in
the practices in question. The prominence of exorcism in the early ages
of the Christian church appears from its frequent mention in the
writings of the fathers, and by the 3rd century there was an order of
exorcists (see EXORCIST). The ancient rite of exorcism in connexion with
baptism is still retained in the Roman ritual, as is also a form of
service for the exorcising of possessed persons. The exorcist signs the
possessed person with the figure of the cross, desires him to kneel, and
sprinkles him with holy water; after which the exorcist asks the devil
his name, and abjures him by the holy mysteries of the Christian
religion not to afflict the person possessed any more. Then, laying his
right hand on the demoniac's head, he repeats the form of exorcism as
follows: "I exorcise thee, unclean spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ;
tremble, O Satan, thou enemy of the faith, thou foe of mankind, who hast
brought death into the world, who hast deprived men of life, and hast
rebelled against justice, thou seducer of mankind, thou root of evil,
thou source of avarice, discord and envy." Houses and other places
supposed to be haunted by unclean spirits are likewise to be exorcised
with similar rites, and in general exorcism has a place in all the
ceremonies for consecrating and blessing persons or things (see
BENEDICTION).
See Tylor, _Primitive Culture_; Skeat, _Malay Magic_, p. 427 seq.;
Frazer, _Golden Bough_, vol. iii. 189; Krafft, _Ausführliche Historie
von Exorcismus_; Koldeweg, _Der Exorcismus im Herzogthum
Braunschweig_; Brecher, _Das Transcendentale, Magie, etc. im Talmud_,
pp. 195-203: _Zeitschr. für Assyriologie_ (Dec. 1893, April 1894);
Herzog, _Realencykl., s.v._ "Exorcismus"; Waldmeier, _Autobiography_,
p. 64; L.W. King, _Babylonian Magic_; Maury, _La Magie_; R.C.
Thompson, _Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia_.
EXORCIST (Lat. _exorcista_, Gr. [Greek: exorkistês]), in the Roman
Catholic church, the third grade in the minor orders of the clergy,
between those of acolyte and reader. The office, which involves the
right of ceremonially exorcising devils (see Exorcism), is actually no
more than a preliminary stage of the priesthood. The earliest record of
the special ordination of exorcists is the 7th canon of the council of
Carthage (A.D. 256). "When they are ordained," it runs, "they receive
from the hand of the bishop a little book in which the exorcisms are
written, receiving power to lay hands on the _energumeni_, whether
baptized or catechumens." Whatever its present position, the office of
exorcist was, until comparatively recent times, by no means considered a
sinecure. "The exorcist a terror to demons" (Paulinus, _Epist._ 24)
survived the Reformation among Protestants, with the belief, expressed
by Firmilianus in his epistle to St Cyprian, that "through the
exorcists, by the voice of man and the power of God, the devil may be
whipped, and burnt and tortured."
EXOTIC (Gr. [Greek: exôtikos], foreign, from [Greek: exô], outside), of
foreign origin, or belonging to another country. The term is now used in
the restricted sense of something not indigenous or native, and is
mostly applied to plants introduced from foreign countries, which have
not become acclimatized. Figuratively, "exotic" is used to convey the
sense of something rare, delicate or extravagant.
EXPATRIATION (from Late Lat. _expatriare_, to exile, and _patria_,
native land), a term used in a general sense for the banishment of a
person from his own country. In international law expatriation is the
renunciation or change of allegiance to one's native or adopted country.
It may take place either by a voluntary act or by operation of law. Some
countries, as France and England, disclaim their subjects if they become
naturalized in another country, others, again, passively permit
expatriation whether a new nationality has been acquired or not; others,
as Germany, make expatriation the consequence of continued absence from
their territory. (See ALIEN; ALLEGIANCE; NATURALIZATION.)
EXPERT (Lat. _expertus_, from _experiri_, to try), strictly, skilled, or
one who has special knowledge; as used in law, an expert is a person,
selected by a court, or adduced by a party to a cause, to give his
opinion on some point in issue with which he is peculiarly conversant.
In Roman law questions of disputed handwriting were referred to experts;
and in France, whenever the court considers that a report by experts is
necessary, it is ordered by a judgment clearly setting forth the objects
of the _expertise_ (Code Proc. Civ. art. 302). Three experts are then to
be appointed, unless the parties agree upon one only (art. 303). The
experts are required to take an oath (art. 305), but in practice this
requirement is frequently dispensed with. They may be challenged on the
same grounds as witnesses (art. 310). The necessary documentary and
other evidence is laid before them (art. 317), and they make a single
report to the court, even if they express different opinions: in that
case the grounds only of the different opinions are to be stated, and
not the personal opinion of each of the experts (art. 318). If the court
is not satisfied with the report, new experts may be appointed (art.
322); the judges are not bound to adopt the opinion of the experts (art.
323). "This procedure in regard to experts is common to both the civil
and commercial courts, but it is much more frequently resorted to in the
commercial court than in the civil court, and the investigation is
usually conducted by special experts officially attached to each of
these courts" (Bodington, _French Law of Evidence_, London, 1904, p.
102). A similar system is to be found in force in many other European
countries; see e.g. Codes of Civil Procedure of Holland, arts. 222 et
seq.; Belgium, arts. 302 et seq.; Italy, arts. 252 et seq.; as well as
in those colonies where French law has been followed (Codes of Civil
Procedure of Quebec, arts. 392 et seq.; St Lucia, arts. 286 et seq.). In
Mauritius the articles of the French law, summarized above, are still
nominally in force; but in practice each side calls its own expert
evidence, as in England.
There is some evidence that in England the courts were in early times in
the habit of summoning to their assistance, apparently as assessors,
persons specially qualified to advise upon any scientific or technical
question that required to be determined. Thus "in an appeal of maihem
(i.e. wounding) ... the court did not know how to adjudge because the
wound was new, and then the defendant took issue and prayed the court
that the maihem might be examined, on which a writ was sent to the
sheriff to cause to come _medicos chirurgieos de melioribus London, ad
informandum dominum regem el curiam de his quae eis ex parte domini
regis injungerentur_" (Year Book, 21 Hen. VII. pl. 30, p. 33). The
practice of calling in expert assistance in judicial inquiries was not
confined to medico-legal cases. "If matters arise," said Justice
Saunders in _Buckley_ v. _Rice Thomas_ (1554, Plowden, 124 a), "which
concern other faculties, we commonly apply for the aid of that science
or faculty which it concerns." English procedure, however, being
_litigious_, and not, like continental European procedure,
_inquisitorial_, in its character, the expert soon became, and still is,
simply a witness to speak to matters of opinion.
There is a considerable body of law in England as to expert evidence.
Only a few points can be touched upon here. (1) An expert is permitted
to refresh his memory in regard to any fact by referring to anything
written by himself or under his direction at the time when the fact
occurred or at a time when it was fresh in his memory. This is also law
generally in the United States (see e.g. New York Civil Code, s. 1843).
In Scotland, medical and other scientific reports are lodged in process
before the trial, and the witness reads them as part of his evidence and
is liable to be examined or cross-examined on their contents. (2) In
strictness, an expert will not be allowed, in cases of alleged insanity,
to say that a litigating or incriminated party is insane or the reverse,
and so to usurp the prerogative of the court or jury. But he may be
asked whether certain facts or symptoms, _assuming them to be proved_,
are or are not indicative of insanity. But in practice this rule is
relaxed both in England and in Scotland, and (where it exists) to a
still greater extent in America. (3) Foreign law can only be proved in
English courts--and the same rule applies in Scotland--(a) by obtaining
an opinion on the subject from a superior court of the country whose
laws are in dispute under the Foreign Law Ascertainment Act 1861 or the
British Law Ascertainment Act 1859, or (b) by the evidence of a lawyer
of the country whose law is in question, or who has studied it _in that
country_, or of an official whose position requires, and therefore
presumes, a sufficient knowledge of that law. (4) The weight of
authority both in England and in America supports the view that an
expert is not bound to give evidence as to matters of opinion unless
upon an undertaking by the party calling him to pay a reasonable
remuneration for his evidence.
Statutory provision has been made in England for the summoning of expert
assistance by the legal tribunals in various cases. In the county courts
the judge may, if he thinks fit, on the application of either party,
call in as assessor one or more persons of skill and experience as to
the matters in dispute (County Courts Act 1888, s. 103), and special
provision is made for calling in an assessor in employers' liability
cases (act of 1880, s. 6) and admiralty matters (see County Courts
Admiralty Jurisdiction Acts of 1868 and 1869). In the High Court and
court of appeal one or more specially qualified assessors may be called
in to assist in the hearing of any cause or matter except a criminal
proceeding by the crown (Judicature Acts 1873, s. 56), and a like power
is given to both these courts and the judicial committee of the privy
council in patent cases (Patents, &c., Act 1883., s. 28). Maritime
causes, whether original or on appeal from county courts, are usually
taken in the presence of Elder Brethren of the Trinity House, who advise
the judge without having any right to control or any responsibility for
his decision (see the "Beryl," 1884, 9 P.D. 1), and on appeal in
maritime causes nautical assessories are usually called in by the court
of appeal, and may be called in by the House of Lords (Judicature Act
1891, s. 3); a like provision is made as to maritime causes in Scottish
courts (Nautical Assessors [Scotland] Act 1894). The judicial committee
of the privy council, besides its power to call in assessors in patent
cases, is authorized to call them in in ecclesiastical causes (Appellate
Jurisdiction Act 1876, s. 14).
In addition to the authorities cited in the text, see Taylor, _Law of
Evidence_ (9th ed., London, 1895); J.D. Lawson, _Law of Expert and
Opinion Evidence_ (1900).
EXPLOSIVES, a general term for substances which by certain treatment
"explode," i.e. decompose or change in a violent manner so as to
generate force. From the manner and degree of violence of the
decomposition they are classified into "propellants" and "detonators,"
but this classification is not capable of sharp delimitation. In some
cases the same substance may be employed for either purpose under
altered external conditions; but there are some substances which could
not possibly be employed as propellants, and others which can scarcely
be induced to explode in the manner known as "detonation." A propellant
may be considered as a substance that on explosion produces such a
disturbance that neighbouring substances are thrown to some distance; a
detonator or disruptor may produce an extremely violent disturbance
within a limited area without projecting substances to any great
distance. Time is an important, perhaps the most important, factor in
this action. A propellant generally acts by _burning_ in a more or less
rapid and regular manner, producing from a comparatively small volume a
large volume of gases; during this action heat is also developed, which,
being expended mostly on the gaseous products, causes a further
expansion. The noise accompanying an explosion is due to an air wave,
and is markedly different in the case of a detonator from a real
propellant. Some cases of ordinary combustion can be accelerated into
explosions by increasing the area of contact between the combustible and
the oxygen supplier, for instance, ordinary gas or dust explosions.
Neither temperature nor quantity of heat energy necessarily gives an
explosive action. Some metals, e.g. aluminium and magnesium, will, in
oxidizing, produce a great thermal effect, but unless there be some
gaseous products no real explosive action.
Explosives may be mechanical mixtures of substances capable of chemical
interaction with the production of large volumes of gases, or definite
chemical compounds of a peculiar class known as "endothermic," the
decomposition of which is also attended with the evolution of gases in
large quantity.
All chemical compounds are either "endothermic" or "exothermic." In
endothermic compounds energy, in some form, has been taken up in the
act of formation of the compound. Some of this energy has become
potential, or rather the compound formed has been raised to a higher
potential. This case occurs when two elements can be united only under
some compulsion such as a very high temperature, by the aid of an
electric current, or spark, or as a secondary product whilst some
other reactions are proceeding. For example, oxygen and nitrogen
combine only under the influence of an electric spark, and carbon and
calcium in the electric furnace. The formation of chlorates by the
action of chlorine on boiling potash is a good instance of a complex
compound (potassium chlorate), being formed in small quantity as a
secondary product whilst a large quantity of primary and simpler
products (potassium chloride and water) is forming. In chlorate
formation the greater part of the reaction represents a running down
of energy and formation of exothermic compounds, with only a small
yield of an endothermic substance. Another idea of the meaning of
endothermic is obtained from acetylene. When 26 parts by weight of
this substance are burnt, the heat produced will warm up 310,450 parts
of water 1° C. Acetylene consists of 24 parts of carbon and 2 of
hydrogen by weight. The 24 parts of carbon will, if in the form of
pure charcoal, heat 192,000 parts of water 1°, and the 2 parts of
hydrogen will heat 68,000 parts of water 1°, the total heat production
being 260,000 heat units. Thus 26 grams of acetylene give an excess of
50,450 units over the amount given by the constituents. This excess of
heat energy[1] is due to some form of potential energy in the
compound which becomes actual heat energy at the moment of dissolution
of the chemical union. The manner in which a substance is endothermic
is of importance as regards the practical employment of explosives.
Some particular endothermic state or form results from the mode of
formation and the consequent internal structure of the molecule.
Physical structure alone can be the cause of a relative endothermic
state, as in the glass bulbs known as Rupert's drops, &c., or even in
chilled steel. Rupert's drops fly in pieces on being scratched or cut
to a certain depth. The cause is undoubtedly to be ascribed to the
molecular state of the glass brought about by chilling from the melted
state. The molecules have not had time to separate or arrange
themselves in easy positions. In steel when melted the carbide of iron
is no doubt diffused equally throughout the liquid. When cooled slowly
some carbide separates out more or less, and the steel is soft or
annealed. When chilled the carbides are retained in solid solution.
The volume of chilled glass or steel differs slightly from that in the
annealed state.
Superfused substances are probably in a similar state of physical
potential or strain. Many metallic salts, and organic compounds
especially, will exhibit this state when completely melted and then
allowed to cool in a clean atmosphere. On touching with a little of
the same substance in a solid state the liquids will begin to
crystallize, at the same time becoming heated almost up to their
melting-points. The metal gallium shows this excellently well, keeping
liquid for years until touched with the solid metal, when there is a
considerable rise of temperature as solidification takes place.
All carbon compounds, excepting carbon dioxide, and many if not all
compounds of nitrogen, are endothermic. Most of the explosives in
common use contain nitrogen in some form.
Exothermic compounds are in a certain sense the reverse of
endothermic; they are relatively inert and react but slowly or not at
all, unless energy be expended upon them from outside. Water, carbon
dioxide and most of the common minerals belong to this class.
The explosives actually employed at the present time include mixtures,
such as gunpowders and some chlorate compositions, the ingredients of
which separately may be non-explosive; compounds used singly, as
guncotton, nitroglycerin (in the form of dynamite), picric acid (as
lyddite or melinite), trinitrotoluene, nitrocresols, mercury fulminate,
&c.; combinations of some explosive compounds, such as cordite and the
smokeless propellants in general use for military purposes; and,
finally, blasting and detonating or igniting compositions, some of which
contain inert diluting materials as well as one or more high explosives.
Many igniting compositions are examples of the last type, consisting of
a high explosive diluted with a neutral substance, and frequently
containing in addition a composition which is inflamed by the explosion
of the diluted high explosive, the flame in turn igniting the actual
propellant.
_Explosive Mixtures._--The explosive mixture longest known is
undoubtedly gunpowder (q.v.) in some form--that is, a mixture of
charcoal with sulphur and nitre, the last being the oxygen provider.
Besides the nitrates of metals and ammonium nitrate, there is a limited
number of other substances capable of serving in a sufficiently
energetic manner as oxygen providers. A few chlorates, perchlorates,
permanganates and chromates almost complete the list. Of these the
sodium, potassium and barium chlorates are best known and have been
actually tried, in admixture with some combustible substances, as
practical explosives. Most other metallic chlorates are barred from
practical employment owing to instability, deliquescence or other
property.
Of the chlorates those of potassium and sodium are the most stable, and
mixtures of either of these salts with sulphur or sulphides, phosphorus,
charcoal, sugar, starch, finely-ground cellulose, coal or almost any
kind of organic, i.e. carbon, compound, in certain proportions, yield an
explosive mixture. In many cases these mixtures are not only fired or
exploded by heating to a certain temperature, but also by quite moderate
friction or percussion. Consequently there is much danger in manufacture
and storage, and however these mixtures have been made up, they are
quite out of the question as propellants on account of their great
tendency to explode in the manner of a detonator. In addition they are
not smokeless, and leave a considerable residue which in a gun would
produce serious fouling.
Mixtures of chlorates with aromatic compounds such as the nitro- or
dinitro-benzenes or even naphthalene make very powerful blasting agents.
The violent action of a chlorate mixture is due first to the rapid
evolution of oxygen, and also to the fact that a chlorate can be
detonated when alone. A drop of sulphuric acid will start the combustion
of a chlorate mixture. In admixture with sulphur, sulphides and
especially phosphorus, chlorates give extremely sensitive compositions,
some of which form the basis of friction tube and firing mixtures.
Potassium and sodium perchlorates and permanganates make similar but
slightly less sensitive explosive mixtures with the above-mentioned
substances. Finely divided metals such as aluminium or magnesium give
also with permanganates, chlorates or perchlorates sensitive and
powerful explosives. Bichromates, although containing much available
oxygen, form but feeble explosive mixtures, but some compounds of
chromic acid with diazo compounds and some acetylides are extremely
powerful as well as sensitive. Ammonium bichromate is a self-combustible
after the type of ammonium nitrate, but scarcely an explosive.
_Explosive Compounds._--Nearly all the explosive compounds in actual use
either for blasting purposes or as propellants are nitrogen compounds,
and are obtained more or less directly from nitric acid. Most of the
propellants at present employed consist essentially of nitrates of some
organic compound, and may be viewed theoretically as nitric acid, the
hydrogen of which has been replaced by a carbon complex; such compounds
are expressed by M·O·NO2, which indicates that the carbon group is in
some manner united by means of oxygen to the nitrogen group. Guncotton
and nitroglycerin are of this class. Another large class of explosives
is formed by a more direct attachment of nitrogen to the carbon complex,
as represented by M·NO2. A number of explosives of the detonating type
are of this class. They contain the same proportions of oxygen and
nitrogen as nitrites, but are not nitrites. They have been termed
nitro-derivatives for distinction. One of the simplest and longest-known
members of this group is nitrobenzene, C6H5NO2, which is employed to
some extent as an explosive, being one ingredient in rack-a-rock and
other blasting compositions. The dinitro-benzenes, C6H4(NO2)2, made from
it are solids which are somewhat extensively employed as constituents of
some sporting powders, and in admixture with ammonium nitrate form a
blasting powder of a "flameless" variety which is comparatively safe in
dusty or "gassy" coal seams.
Picric acid or trinitrophenol, C6H2·OH·(NO2)3 is employed as a high
explosive for shell, &c. It requires, however, either to be enclosed and
heated, or to be started by a powerful detonator to develop its full
effect. Its compounds with metals, such as the potassium salt,
C6H2·OK·(NO2)3, are when dry very easily detonated by friction or
percussion and _always_ on heating, whereas picric acid itself will burn
very quietly when set fire to under ordinary conditions.
Trinitrotoluene, C6H2·CH3·(NO2)3, is a high explosive resembling picric
acid in the manner of its explosion (to which in fact it is a rival),
but differs therefrom in not forming salts with metals. The
nitronaphthols, C10H6·OH·NO2, and higher nitration products may be
counted in the list. Their salts with metals behave much like the
picrates.
All these nitro compounds can be reduced by the action of nascent
hydrogen to substances called amines (q.v.), which are not always
explosive in themselves, but in some cases can form nitrates of a
self-combustible nature. Aminoacetic acid, for instance, will form a
nitrate which burns rapidly but quietly, and might be employed as an
explosive. By the action of nitrous acid at low temperatures on aromatic
amines, e.g. aniline, C6H5NH2, diazo compounds are produced. These are
all highly explosive, and when in a dry state are for the most part also
extremely sensitive to friction, percussion or heat. As many of these
diazo compounds contain no oxygen their explosive nature must be
ascribed to the peculiar state of union of the nitrogen. This state is
attempted to be shown by the formulae such as, for instance, C6H5·N :
N·X, which maybe some compound of diazobenzene. Probably the most
vigorous high explosive at present known is the substance called
hydrazoic acid or azoimide (q.v.). It forms salts with metals such as
AgN3, which explode in a peculiar manner. The ammonium compound, NH4N3,
may become a practical explosive of great value.
Mercuric fulminate, HgC2N2O2, is one of the most useful high explosives
known. It is formed by the action of a solution of mercurous nitrate,
containing some nitrous acid, on alcohol. It is a white crystalline
substance almost insoluble in cold water and requiring 130 times its
weight of boiling water for solution. It may be heated to 180° C. before
exploding, and the explosion so brought about is much milder than that
produced by percussion. It forms the principal ingredient in cap
compositions, in many fuses and in detonators. In many of these
compositions the fulminate is diluted by mixture with certain quantities
of inert powders so that its sensitiveness to friction or percussion is
just so much lowered, or slowed down, that it will fire another mixture
capable of burning with a hot flame. For detonating dynamite, guncotton,
&c., it is generally employed without admixture of a diluent.
_Smokeless Propellants._--Gunpowders and all other explosive mixtures or
compounds containing metallic salts must form smoke on combustion. The
solids produced by the resolution of the compounds are in an extremely
finely-divided state, and on being ejected into the atmosphere become
more or less attached to water vapour, which is so precipitated, and
consequently adds to the smoke. The simplest examples of propellants of
the smokeless class are compressed gases. Compressed air was the
propellant for the Zalinski dynamite gun. Liquefied carbon dioxide has
also been proposed and used to a slight extent with the same idea. It is
scarcely practical, however, because when a quantity of a gas liquefied
by pressure passes back again into the gaseous state, there is a great
absorption of heat, and any remaining liquid, and the containing vessel,
are considerably cooled. Steam guns were tried in the American Civil War
in 1864; but a steam gun is not smokeless, for the steam escaping from
the long tube or gun immediately condenses on expansion, forming white
mist or smoke.
At the earliest stage of the development of guncotton the advantage of
its smokeless combustion was fully appreciated (see GUNCOTTON). That it
did not at once take its position as _the_ smokeless propellant, was
simply due to its physical state--a fibrous porous mass--which burnt too
quickly or even detonated under the pressure required in fire-arms of
any kind. In the early eighties of the 19th century it was found that
several substances would partly dissolve or at least gelatinize
guncotton, and the moment when guncotton proper was obtained as a
colloid or jelly was the real start in the matter of smokeless
propellants.
Guncotton is converted into a gelatinous form by several substances,
such as esters, e.g. ethyl acetate or benzoate, acetone and other
ketones, and many benzene compounds, most of which are volatile liquids.
On contact with the guncotton a jelly is formed which stiffens as the
evaporation of the gelatinizing agent proceeds, and finally hardens when
the evaporation is complete. Whilst in a stiff pasty state it may be
cut, moulded or pressed into any desired shape without any danger of
ignition. In fact guncotton in the colloid state may be hammered on an
anvil, and, as a rule, only the portion struck will detonate or fire.
Guncotton alone makes a very hard and somewhat brittle mass after
treatment with the gelatinizing agent and complete drying, and small
quantities of camphor, vaseline, castor oil and other substances are
incorporated with the gelatinous guncotton to moderate this hard and
brittle state.
All the smokeless powders, of which gelatinized guncottons or nitrated
celluloses are the base, are moulded into some conveniently shaped
grain, e.g. tubes, cords, rods, disks or tablets, so that the rate of
burning may be controlled as desired. The Vieille powder, invented in
1887 and adopted in France for a magazine rifle, consisted of
gelatinized guncotton with a little picric acid. Later a mixture of two
varieties of guncotton gelatinized together was used. In addition to
guncottons other explosive or non-explosive substances are contained in
some of these powders. Guncotton alone in the colloid state burns very
slowly if in moderate-sized pieces, and when subdivided or made into
thin rods or strips it is still very mild as an explosive, partly from a
chemical reason, viz. there is not sufficient oxygen in it to burn the
carbon to dioxide. Many mixtures are consequently in use, and many more
have been proposed, which contain some metallic salt capable of
supplying oxygen, such as barium or ammonium nitrate, &c., the idea
being to accelerate the rate of burning of the guncotton and if possible
avoid the production of smoke.
The discovery by A. Nobel that nitroglycerin could be incorporated with
collodion cotton to form blasting gelatin (see DYNAMITE) led more or
less directly to the invention of ballistite, which differs from
blasting gelatin only in the relative amounts of collodion, or soluble
nitrated cotton, and nitroglycerin. Ballistite was adopted by the
Italian government in 1890 as a military powder. Very many substances
and mixtures have been proposed for smokeless powder, but the two
substances, guncotton and nitroglycerin, have for the most part kept the
field against all other combinations, and for several reasons.
Nitroglycerin contains a slight excess of oxygen over that necessary to
convert the whole of the carbon into carbon dioxide; it burns in a more
energetic manner than guncotton; the two can be incorporated together in
any proportion whilst the guncotton is in the gelatinous state; also all
the liquids which gelatinize guncotton dissolve nitroglycerin, and, as
these gelatinizing liquids evaporate, the nitroglycerin is left
entangled in the guncotton jelly, and then shares more or less its
colloidal character. In burning the nitroglycerin is protected from
detonation by the gelatinous state of the guncotton, but still adds to
the rate of burning and produces a higher temperature.
_Desirable Qualities._--Smokelessness is one only of the desirable
properties of a propellant. All the present so-called smokeless
powders produce a little fume or haze, mainly due to the condensation
of the steam which forms one of the combustion products. There is
often also a little vapour from the substances, such as oils, mineral
jelly, vaseline or other hydrocarbon added for lubrication or to
render the finished material pliable, &c. The gases produced should
neither be very poisonous nor exert a corrosive action on metals, &c.
The powder itself should have good keeping qualities, that is, not be
liable to chemical changes within ordinary ranges of temperature or in
different climates when stored for a few years. In these powders
slight chemical changes are generally followed by noticeable ballistic
changes. All the smokeless powders of the present day produce some
oxide of nitrogen, traces of which hang about the gun after firing and
change rapidly into nitrous and nitric acids. Nitrous acid is
particularly objectionable in connexion with metals, as it acts as a
carrier of oxygen. The fouling from modern smokeless powders is a
slight deposit of acid grease, and the remedy consists in washing out
the bore of the piece with an alkaline liquid. The castor oil, mineral
jelly or camphor, and similar substances added to smokeless powders
are supposed to act as lubricants to some extent. They are not as
effective in this respect as mineral salts, and the rifling of both
small-arms and ordnance using smokeless powders is severely gripped by
the metal of the projectile. The alkaline fouling produced by the
black and brown powders acted as a preventive of rusting to some
extent, as well as a lubricant in the bore.
_Danger in Manufacture._--In the case of the old gunpowders, the most
dangerous manufacturing operation was incorporation. With the modern
colloid propellants the most dangerous operations are the chemical
processes in the preparation of nitroglycerin, the drying of
guncotton, &c. After once the gelatinizing solvent has been added, all
the mechanical operations can be conducted, practically, with perfect
safety. This statement appears to be correct for all kinds of nitrated
cellulose powders, whether mixed with nitroglycerin or other
substances. Should they become ignited, which is possible by a rise of
temperature (to say 180°) or contact with a flame, the mixture burns
quickly, but does not detonate.
As a rule naval and military smokeless powders are shaped into flakes,
cubes, cords or cylinders, with or without longitudinal perforations.
All the modifications in shape and size are intended to regulate the
rate of burning. Sporting powders are often coloured for trade
distinction. Some powders are blackleaded by glazing with pure
graphite, as is done with black powders. One object of this glazing is
to prevent the grains or pieces becoming joined by pressure; for rods
or pieces of some smokeless powders might possibly unite under
considerable pressure, producing larger pieces and thus altering the
rate of burning. Most smokeless powders are fairly insensitive to
shock. All these gelatinized powders are a little less easily ignited
than black powders. A slightly different cap composition is required
for small-arm cartridges, and cannon cartridges generally require a
small primer or starter of powdered black gunpowder.
It is desired that a propellant shall produce the maximum velocity
with the minimum pressure. The pressure should start gently so that
the inertia of the projectile is overcome without any undue local
strain on the breech near the powder chamber, and more especially that
as more and more space is given to the gases by the movement of the
projectile up the gun to the muzzle, gas should be produced with
sufficient rapidity to keep the pressure nearly uniform or slightly
increasing along the bore. The leading idea for improvements in
relation to propellants is to obtain the greatest possible pressure
regularly developed, and at the same time the lowest temperatures.
(W. R. E. H.)
_Law._--In 1860 an act was passed in England "to amend the law
concerning the making, keeping and carriage of gunpowder and
compositions of an explosive nature, and concerning the manufacture and
use of fireworks" (23 & 24 Vict. c. 139), whereby previous acts on the
same subject were repealed, and minute and stringent regulations
introduced. Amending acts were passed in 1861 and 1862. In 1875 was
passed the Explosives Act (38 & 39 Vict. c. 17), which repealed the
former acts, and dealt with the whole subject in a more comprehensive
manner. This act, containing 122 sections, and applying to Scotland and
Ireland, as well as to England, constitutes, with various orders in
council and home office orders, a complete code. The act of 1875 was
based on the report of a committee of the House of Commons, public
opinion having been greatly excited on the subject by a terrible
explosion on the Regent's Canal in 1874. Explosives are thus defined:
(1) Gunpowder, nitroglycerin, dynamite, guncotton, blasting powders,
fulminate of mercury or of other metals, coloured fires, and every other
substance, whether similar to those above-mentioned or not, used or
manufactured with a view to produce a practical effect by explosion or a
pyrotechnic effect, and including (2) fog-signals, fireworks, fuses,
rockets, percussion caps, detonators, cartridges, ammunition of all
descriptions, and every adaptation or preparation of an explosive as
above defined. Part i. deals with gunpowder, providing that it shall be
manufactured only at factories lawfully existing or licensed under the
act; that it shall be kept (except for private use) only in existing or
new magazines or stores, or in registered premises, licensed under the
act. Private persons may keep gunpowder for their own use to the amount
of thirty pounds. The act also prescribes rules for the proper keeping
of gunpowder on registered premises. Part ii. deals with nitroglycerin
and other explosives; part iii. with inspection, accidents, search, &c.;
part iv. contains various supplementary provisions. By order in council
the term "explosive" may be extended to any substance which appears to
be specially dangerous to life or property by reason of its explosive
properties, or to any process liable to explosion in the manufacture
thereof, and the provisions of the act then extend to such substance
just as if it were included in the term "explosive" in the act. The act
lays down minute and stringent regulations for the sale of gunpowder,
restricting the sale thereof in public thoroughfares or places, or to
any child apparently under the age of thirteen; requiring the sale of
gunpowder to be in closed packages labelled; it also lays down general
rules for conveyance, &c. The act also gives power by order in council
to define, from time to time, the composition, quality and character of
any explosive, and to classify explosives, and such orders in council
are frequently made including new substances; those in force will be
found in the _Statutory Rules and Orders_, tit. "explosive substance."
The Merchant Shipping Act 1894 imposes restrictions on the carriage of
dangerous goods in a British or foreign vessel, "dangerous goods"
meaning aquafortis, vitriol, naphtha, benzine, gunpowder, lucifer
matches, nitroglycerin, petroleum and any explosive within the meaning
of the Explosives Act 1875. The act is administered by the home office,
and an annual report is published containing the proceedings of the
inspectors of explosives and an account of the working of the act. Each
annual report gives a list of explosives at the time authorized for
manufacture or importation, and appendices containing information as to
accidents, experiments, &c.
Practically every European country has legislated on the lines of the
English act of 1875, Austria taking the lead, in 1877, with an
explosives ordinance almost identical with the English act. The United
States and the various English colonies also have explosives acts
regulating the manufacture, storage and importation of explosives. (See
also PETROLEUM.) (T. A. I.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--M. Berthelot, _Sur la force des matières explosives_
(Paris, 1883); P.F. Chalon, _Les Explosifs modernes_ (Paris, 1886);
W.H. Wardell, _Handbook of Gunpowder and Guncotton_ (London, 1888);
J.P. Cundill, _A Dictionary of Explosives_ (London, 1889 and 1897); M.
Eissler, _A Handbook of Modern Explosives_ (London, 1896, new ed.
1903); J.A. Longridge, _Smokeless Powder and its Influence on Gun
Construction_ (London, 1890); C. Napier Hake and W. Macnab,
_Explosives and their Power_ (London, 1892); G. Coralys, _Les
Explosifs_ (Paris, 1893); A. Ponteaux, _La Poudre sans fumée et les
poudres anciennes_ (Paris, 1893); F. Salvati, _Vocabolario di polveri
ed explosivi_ (Rome, 1893); C. Guttmann, _The Manufacture of
Explosives_ (London, 1895 and later); S.J. von Romocki, _Geschichte
der Sprengstoffchemie, der Sprengtechnik und des Torpedowesens bis zum
Beginn der neusten Zeit_ (Berlin, 1895); _Geschichte der
Explosivstoffe, die rauchschwachen Pulver_ (Berlin, 1896); P.G.
Sanford, _Nitro-explosives_ (London, 1896); L. Gody, _Traité théorique
et pratique des matières explosives_ (Namur, 1896); R. Wille, _Der
Plastomerite_ (Berlin, 1898); E. Sarrau, _Introduction à la théorie
des explosifs_ (1893); _Théorie des explosifs_ (1896); O. Guttmann,
_Manufacture of Explosives_ (London, 1895); E.M. Weaver, _Notes on
Military Explosives_ (New York, 1906); M. Eissler, _The Modern High
Explosives_ (New York, 1906); _Treatise on Service Explosives_,
published by order of the secretary of state for war (London, 1907).
Most of the literature on modern explosives, e.g. dynamite, &c., is to
be found in papers contributed to scientific journals and societies.
An index to those which have appeared in the _Journal of the Society
of Chemical Industry_ is to be found in the decennial index (1908)
compiled by F.W. Renant.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Not necessarily heat energy entirely. A number of
substances--acetylides and some nitrogen compounds, such as nitrogen
chloride--decompose with extreme violence, but _little heat_ is
produced.
EXPRESS (through the French from the past participle of the Lat.
_exprimere_, to press out, by transference used of representing objects
in painting or sculpture, or of thoughts, &c. in words), a word
signifying that which is clearly and definitely set forth or
represented, explicit, and thus used of a meaning, a law, a contract and
the like, being specially contrasted with "implied." Thus in law,
malice, for which there is actual evidence, as apart from that which may
be inferred from the acts of the person charged, is known as "express."
The word is most frequently used with the idea of something done with a
definite purpose; the term "express train," now meaning one that travels
at a high speed over long distances with few intermediate stoppages,
was, in the early days of railways, applied to what is now usually
called a "special," i.e. a train not running according to the ordinary
time-tables of the railway company, but for some specific purpose, or
engaged by a private person. About 1845 this term became used for a
train running to a particular place without stopping. Similarly in the
British postal service, express delivery is a special and immediate
delivery of a letter, parcel, &c., by an express messenger at a
particular increased rate. The system was adopted in 1891.
In the United States of America, express companies for the rapid
transmission of parcels and luggage and light goods generally perform
the function of the post office or the railways in the United Kingdom
and the continent of Europe. Not only do they deliver goods, but by the
cash on delivery system (see CASH) the express companies act as agents
both for the purchaser and seller of goods. They also serve as a most
efficient agency for the transmission of money, the express money order
being much more easily convertible than the postal money orders, as the
latter can only be redeemed at offices in large and important towns. The
system dates back to 1839, when one William Frederick Harnden
(1813-1845), a conductor on the Boston and Worcester railway, undertook
on his own account the carrying of small parcels and the performance of
small commissions. Obliged to leave the company's service or abandon his
enterprise, he started an "express" service between Boston and New York,
carrying parcels, executing commissions and collecting drafts and bills.
Alvin Adams followed in 1840, also between Boston and New York. From
1840 to 1845 the system was adopted by many others between the more
important towns throughout the States. The attempt to carry letters
also was stopped by the government as interfering with the post office.
In 1854 began the amalgamation of many of the companies. Thus under the
name of the Adams Express Company the services started by Harnden and
Adams were consolidated. The lines connecting the west and east by
Albany, Buffalo and the lakes were consolidated in the American Express
Company, under the direction of William G. Fargo (q.v.), Henry Wells and
Johnston Livingston, while another company, Wells, Fargo & Co., operated
on the Pacific coast. The celebrated "Pony Express" was started in 1860
between San Francisco and St Joseph, Missouri, the time scheduled being
eight days. The service was carried on by relays of horses, with
stations 25 m. apart. The charge made for the service was $2.50 per ½
oz. The completion of the Pacific Telegraph Company line in 1861 was
followed by the discontinuance of the regular service.
The name "express" is applied to a rifle having high velocity, flat
trajectory and long fixed-sight ranges; and an "express-bullet" is a
light bullet with a heavy charge of powder used in such a rifle (see
RIFLE).
EXPROPRIATION, the taking away or depriving of property (Late Lat.
_expropriare_, to take away, _proprium_, i.e. that which is one's own).
The term is particularly applied to the compulsory acquisition of
private property by the state or other public authority.
EXPULSION (Lat. _expulsio_, from _expellere_), the act of driving out,
or of removing a person from the membership of a body or the holding of
an office, or of depriving him of the right of attending a meeting, &c.
In the United Kingdom the House of Commons can by resolution expel a
member. Such resolution cannot be questioned by any court of law. But
expulsion is only resorted to in cases where members are guilty of
offences rendering them unfit for a seat in the House, such as being in
open rebellion, being guilty of forgery, perjury, fraud or breach of
trust, misappropriation of public money, corruption, conduct unbecoming
the character of an officer and a gentleman, &c. It is customary to
order the member, if absent, to attend in his place, before an order is
made for his expulsion (see May, _Parliamentary Practice_, 1906, p. 56
seq.). Municipal corporations or other local government bodies have no
express power to expel a member, except in such cases where the law
declares the member to have vacated his seat, or where power is given by
statute to declare the member's seat vacant. In the cases of officers
and servants of the crown, tenure varies with the nature of the office.
Some officials hold their offices _ad vitam aut culpam or dum bene se
gesserunt_, others can be dismissed at any time and without reason
assigned and without compensation. In the case of membership of a
voluntary association (club, &c.) the right of expulsion depends upon
the rules, and must be exercised in good faith. Courts of justice have
jurisdiction to prevent the improper expulsion of the member of a
voluntary association where that member has a right of property in the
association. In the case of meetings, where the meeting is one of a
public body, any person not a member of the body is entitled to be
present only on sufferance, and may be expelled on a resolution of the
body. In the case of ordinary public meetings those who convene the
meeting stand in the position of licensors to those attending and may
revoke the licence and expel any person who creates disorder or makes
himself otherwise objectionable.
_Expulsion of Aliens._--Under the Naturalization Act of 1870, the last
of the civil disqualifications affecting aliens in England was removed.
The political disqualifications which remained only applied to electoral
rights. In the very exceptional cases in which it was retained in the
statute book, expulsion was considered to have fallen into desuetude,
but it has been revived by the Aliens Act of 1905 (5 Edw. VII. c. 13).
Under this act powers are given to the secretary of state to make an
order requiring an alien to leave the United Kingdom within a time fixed
by the order and thereafter to remain outside the United Kingdom,
subject to certain conditions, provided it is certified to him that the
alien has been convicted of any felony or misdemeanour or other offence
for which the court has power to impose imprisonment without the option
of a fine, &c., or that he has been sentenced in a foreign country with
which there is an extradition treaty, for a crime not being an offence
of a political character. There are also provisions applicable within
one year, after the alien has entered the United Kingdom in the case of
pauper aliens. Precautions are taken to prevent, as far as possible, any
abuse of the power of expulsion. Under the French law of expulsion
(December 3, 1849) there are no such precautions, the minister of the
interior having an absolute discretion to order any foreigner as a
measure of public policy to leave French territory and in fact to have
him taken immediately to the frontier.
EXTENSION (Lat. _ex_, out; _tendere_, to stretch), in general, the
action of straining or stretching out. It is usually employed
metaphorically (cf. the phrase an "extension of time," a period allowed
in excess of what has been agreed upon). It is used as a technical term
in logic to describe the total number of objects to which a given term
may be applied; thus the meaning of the term "King" in "extension" means
the kings of England, Italy, Spain, &c. (cf. DENOTATION), while in
"intension" it means the attributes which taken together make up the
idea of kinghood (see CONNOTATION). In psychology the literal sense of
extension is retained, i.e. "spread-outness." The perception of space by
the senses of sight and touch, as opposed to semi-spatial perceptions by
smell and hearing, is that of "continuous expanse composed of positions
separated and connected by distances" (Stout); to this the term
"extension" is applied. The perception of separate objects involves
position and distance, but these taken together are not extension, which
necessarily implies continuity. To move one's finger along the keys of a
piano gives both the position and the distance of the keys; to move it
along the frame gives the idea of extension. By expanding this idea we
obtain the conception of all space as an extended whole. To this
perception are necessary both form and material. It should be observed
the actual quality of a stimulus (rough, smooth, dry, &c.) has nothing
to do with the spatial perception as such, which is concerned purely
with what is known as "local signature." The elementary undifferentiated
sensation excited by the stimuli exerted by a continuous whole is known
as its "extensive quantity" or "extensity." The term has to do not with
the kind of object which excites the sensation, but simply with the
vague massiveness of the latter. As such it is distinguishable in
thought from extension, though it is not easy to say whether and if so
how far the quantitative aspect of space can exist apart from spatial
order. Extensity as an element in the complex of extension must be
carefully distinguished from intensity. Mere increase of pressure
implies increase of intensity of sensation; to increase the extensity
the _area_, so to speak, of the exciting stimulus must be increased.
Thus the extensity (also called "voluminousness," or "massiveness") of
the sensation produced by a roll of thunder is greater than that
produced by a whistle or the bark of a dog. It should be observed that
this application of the idea of extensity to sensation in general,
rather than to the matter which is the exciting stimulus, is only an
analogy, an attempt to explain a common psychic phenomenon by
terminology which is intrinsically suitable to the physical. As a
natural consequence the term represents different shades of meaning in
different treatises, verging sometimes towards the physical, sometimes
towards the psychic, meaning.
In connexion with extension elaborate psycho-physical experiments have
been devised,.e.g. with the object of comparing the accuracy of tactual
and visual perception and discovering what are the least differences
which each can observe. At a distance two lights appear as one, just as
two stars distinguishable through a telescope are one to the naked eye
(see VISION): again if the points of a compass are brought close
together and pressed lightly on the skin the sensation, though vague and
diffused, is a single one.
See PSYCHOLOGY and works there quoted; also SPACE AND TIME.
EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES. This expression is used in law with reference
to crimes, to describe cases in which, though an offence has been
committed without legal justification or excuse, its gravity, from the
point of view of punishment or moral opprobrium, is mitigated or reduced
by reason of the facts leading up to or attending the commission of the
offence. According to English procedure, the jury has no power to
determine the punishment to be awarded for an offence. The sentence,
with certain exceptions in capital cases, is within the sole discretion
of the judge, subject to the statutory prescriptions as to the kind and
maximum of punishment. It is common practice for juries to add to their
verdict, guilty or not guilty, a rider recommending the accused to mercy
on the ground of grave provocation received, or other circumstances
which in their view should mitigate the penalty. This form of rider is
often added on a verdict of guilty of wilful murder, a crime as to which
the judge has no discretion as to punishment, but the recommendation is
sent to the Home Office for consideration in advising as to exercise of
the prerogative of mercy. Quite independently of any recommendation by
the jury, the judge is entitled to take into account matters proved
during the trial, or laid before him after verdict, as a guide to him in
determining the quantum of punishment.
Under the French law (_Code d'instruction criminelle_, art. 345), it is
the sole right and the duty of a jury in a criminal case to pronounce
whether or not the commission of the offence was attended by extenuating
circumstances (_circonstances atténuantes_). They are not bound to say
anything about the matter, but the whole or the majority may qualify the
verdict by finding extenuation, and if they do, the powers of the court
to impose the maximum punishment are taken away and the sentence to be
pronounced is reduced in accordance with the scale laid down in art. 463
of the _Code pénal_. The most important result of this rule is to enable
a jury to prevent the infliction of capital punishment for murder. In
cases of what is termed "crime passionel," French juries, when they do
not acquit, almost invariably find extenuation; and a like verdict has
become common even in the case of cold-blooded and sordid murders, owing
to objections to capital punishment.
EXTERRITORIALITY, a term of international law, used to denominate
certain immunities from the application of the rule that every person is
subject for all acts done within the boundaries of a state to its local
laws. It is also employed to describe the quasi-extraterritorial
position, to borrow the phrase of Grotius, of the dwelling-place of an
accredited diplomatic agent, and of the public ships of one state while
in the waters of another. Latterly its sense has been extended to all
cases in which states refrain from enforcing their laws within their
territorial jurisdiction. The cases recognized by the law of nations
relate to: (1) the persons and belongings of foreign sovereigns, whether
incognito or not; (2) the persons and belongings of ambassadors,
ministers plenipotentiary, and other accredited diplomatic agents and
their suites (but not consuls, except in some non-Christian countries,
in which they sometimes have a diplomatic character); (3) public ships
in foreign waters. Exterritoriality has also been granted by treaty to
the subjects and citizens of contracting Christian states resident
within the territory of certain non-Christian states. Lastly, it is held
that when armies or regiments are allowed by a foreign state to cross
its territory, they necessarily have exterritorial rights. "The ground
upon which the immunity of sovereign rulers from process in our courts,"
said Mr Justice Wills in the case of _Mighell_ v. _Sultan of Johore_,
1804, "is recognized by our law, is that it would be absolutely
inconsistent with the status of an independent sovereign that he should
be subject to the process of a foreign tribunal," unless he deliberately
submits to its jurisdiction. It has, however, been held where the
foreign sovereign was also a British subject (_Duke of Brunswick_ v.
_King of Hanover_, 1844), that he is amenable to the jurisdiction of the
English Courts in respect of transactions done by him in his capacity as
a subject. A "foreign sovereign" may be taken to include the president
of a republic, and even a potentate whose independence is not complete.
Thus in the case, cited above, of _Mighell_ v. _Sultan of Johore_, the
sultan was ascertained to have abandoned all right to contract with
foreign states, and to have placed his territory under British
protection. The court held that he was, nevertheless, a foreign
sovereign in so far as immunity from British jurisdiction was concerned.
The immunity of a foreign diplomatic agent, as the direct representative
of a foreign sovereign (or state), is based on the same grounds as that
of the sovereign authority itself. The international practice in the
case of Great Britain was confirmed by an act of parliament of the reign
of Queen Anne, which is still in force. The preamble to this act states
that "turbulent and disorderly persons in a most outrageous manner had
insulted the person of the then ambassador of his Czarish Majesty,
emperor of Great Russia," by arresting and detaining him in custody for
several hours, "in contempt to the protection granted by Her Majesty,
contrary to the law of nations, and in prejudice of the rights and
privileges which ambassadors and other public ministers, authorized and
received as such, have at all times been thereby possessed of, and ought
to be kept sacred and inviolable." This preamble has been repeatedly
held by our courts to be declaratory of the English common law. The act
provides that all suits, writs, processes, against any accredited
ambassador or public minister or his domestic servant, and all
proceedings and judgments had thereupon, are "utterly null and void,"
and that any person violating these provisions shall be punished for a
breach of the public peace. Thus a foreign diplomatic agent cannot, like
the sovereign he represents, waive his immunity by submitting to the
British jurisdiction. The diplomatic immunity necessarily covers the
residence of the diplomatic agent, which some writers describe as
assimilated to territory of the state represented by the agent; but
there is no consideration which can justify any extension of the
immunity beyond the needs of the diplomatic mission resident within it.
It is different with public ships in foreign waters. In their case the
exterritoriality attaches to the vessel. Beyond its bulwarks captain and
crew are subject to the ordinary jurisdiction of the state upon whose
territory they happen to be. By a foreign public ship is now understood
any ship in the service of a foreign state. It was even held in the case
of the "Parlement Belge" (1880), a packet belonging to the Belgian
government, that the character of the vessel as a public ship was not
affected by its carrying passengers and merchandise for hire. In a more
recent case an action brought by the owners of a Greek vessel against a
vessel belonging to the state of Rumania was dismissed, though the
agents of the Rumanian government had entered an appearance
unconditionally and had obtained the release of the vessel on bail, on
the ground that the Rumanian government had not authorized acceptance of
the British jurisdiction (The "Jassy," 1906, 75 L.J.P. 93).
Writers frequently describe the exterritoriality of both embassies and
ships as absolute. There is, however, this difference, that the
exterritoriality of the latter not being, like that of embassies, a
derived one, there seems to be no ground for limitation of it. It was,
nevertheless, laid down by the arbitrators in the "Alabama" case
(Cockburn dissenting), that the privilege of exterritoriality accorded
to vessels had not been admitted into the law of nations as an absolute
right, but solely as a proceeding founded on the principle of courtesy
and mutual deference between different nations, and that it could
therefore "never be appealed to for the protection of acts done in
violation of neutrality."
The exterritorial settlements in the Far East, the privileges of
Christians under the arrangements made with the Ottoman Porte, and other
exceptions from local jurisdictions, are subject to the conditions laid
down in the treaties by which they have been created. There are also
cases in which British communities have grown up in barbarous countries
without the consent of any local authority. All these are regulated by
orders in council, issued now in virtue of the Foreign Jurisdiction Act
1890, an act enabling the crown to exercise any jurisdiction it may have
"within a foreign country" in as ample a manner as if it had been
acquired "by cession or conquest of territory." A very exceptional case
of exterritoriality is that granted to the pope under a special Italian
enactment. (T. Ba.)
EXTORTION (Lat. _extorsio_, from _extorquere_, to twist out, to take
away by force), in English law the term applied to the exaction by
public officers of money or money's worth not due at all, or in excess
of what is due, or before it is due. Such exaction, unless made in good
faith (i.e. in honest mistake as to the sum properly payable), is a
misdemeanour by the common law and is punishable by fine and (or)
imprisonment. Besides the punishment above stated, an action for twice
the value of the thing extorted lies against officers of the king (1275,
3 Edw. I. c. 26). There are numerous provisions for the punishment of
particular officers who make illegal exactions or take illegal fees:
e.g. sheriffs and their officers (Sheriffs Act 1887), county court
bailiffs (County Courts Act 1888), clerks of courts of justice, and
gaolers who exact fees from prisoners. A gaoler is also punishable for
detaining the corpse of a prisoner as security for debt. The term
"public officer" is not limited to offices under the crown; and there
are old precedents of criminal proceedings for extortion against
churchwardens, and against millers and ferrymen who demand tolls in
excess of what is customary under their franchise.
The term extortion is also applied to the exaction of money or money's
worth by menaces of personal violence or by threats to accuse of crime
or to publish defamatory matter about another person. These offences
fall partly under the head of robbery and partly under blackmail, or
what in French is termed _chantage_.
See _Russell on Crimes_ (6th ed., vol. i. p. 423; vol. iii. p. 348).
EXTRACT (from Lat. _extrahere_, to draw out), in pharmacy, the name
given to preparations formed by evaporating or concentrating solutions
of active principles; _tinctures_ are solutions which have not been
subjected to any evaporation. "Liquid extracts" are those of a syrupy
consistency, and are generally prepared by treating the drug with the
solvent (water, alcohol, &c.) and concentrating the solution until it
attains the desired consistency. "Ordinary extracts" are thick,
tenacious and sometimes even dry preparations; they are obtained by
evaporating solutions as obtained above, or the juices expressed from
the plants.
Extraction, in chemical technology, is a process for separating one
substance from another by taking advantage of the varying solubility of
the components in some chosen solvent. The term "lixiviation" is used
when water is the solvent. In laboratory practice all the common
solvents are employed. With small quantities it may suffice to shake the
substance with the solvent, the mixture being heated if necessary,
filter and distil or otherwise remove the solvent from the distillate.
For larger quantities continuous extraction is advisable. This may be
carried out in many forms of apparatus; one of the most convenient is
the Soxhlet extractor, in which the extract siphons into the flask
containing the solvent, and so maintains the quantity of available
solvent practically constant. Continuous extraction is generally the
practice in technology. One of the most important applications is in the
fat and gelatine industries.
EXTRADITION (Lat. _ex_, out, and _traditio_, handing over), the
surrender of an alleged criminal for trial by a foreign state where he
has taken refuge, to the state against which the alleged offence has
been committed. When a person who has committed an offence in one
country escapes to another, what is the duty of the latter with regard
to him? Should the country of refuge try him in its own courts according
to its own laws, or deliver him up to the country whose laws he has
broken? To the general question international law gives no certain
answer. Some jurists, Grotius among them, incline to hold that a state
is bound to give up fugitive criminals, but the majority appear to deny
the obligation as a matter of right, and prefer to put it on the ground
of comity. And the universal practice of nations is to surrender
criminals only in consequence of some special treaty with the country
which demands them.
There are two practical difficulties about extradition which have
probably prevented the growth of any uniform rule on the subject. One is
the variation in the definitions of crime adopted by different
countries. The second is the possibility of the process of extradition
being employed to get hold of a person who is wanted by his country, not
really for a criminal, but for a political offence. In modern states,
and more particularly in England, offences of a political character have
always been carefully excluded from the operation of the law of
extradition.
1. UNITED KINGDOM.--The Extradition Acts 1870-1873 (33 & 34 Vict. cc.
62, and 36 & 37 Vict. c. 60) and the Fugitive Offenders Act 1881 (44 &
45 Vict. c. 69) deal with different branches of the same subject, the
recovery and surrender of fugitive criminals. The Extradition Acts apply
in the case of countries with which Great Britain has extradition
treaties. The Fugitive Offenders Act applies--(1) as between the United
Kingdom and any British possession, (2) as between any two British
possessions, and (3) as between the United Kingdom or a British
possession and certain foreign countries, such as Turkey and China, in
which the crown exercises foreign jurisdiction.
_Conditions of Surrender._--In spite of some earlier authorities it has
long been settled that in English law there is no power to surrender
fugitive criminals to a foreign country without express statutory
authority. Such authority is now given by the Extradition Acts
1870-1873, but only in the case of the offences therein specified, and
with regard to countries with which an arrangement has been entered
into, and to which the acts have been applied by order in council. The
acts are further to be applied, subject to such "conditions, exceptions
and qualifications as may be deemed expedient" (s. 2); and these
conditions, &c., are invariably to be found in the extradition treaty
which is set out in the order in council applying the Extradition Acts
to a particular country. To support a demand for extradition from Great
Britain it is therefore necessary to show that the offence is one of
those enumerated in the Extradition Acts, and also in the particular
treaty, and that the acts charged amount to the offence according to the
laws both of Great Britain and of the state demanding the surrender.
_Surrender of Subjects._--A further question arises where a state is
called on to surrender one of its own subjects. Some of the treaties,
such as those with France and Germany, stipulate that neither
contracting party shall surrender its own subjects, and in such cases a
British subject cannot be surrendered by his own country. The treaties
with Spain, Switzerland and Luxemburg provide for the surrender by Great
Britain of her own subjects, but there is no reciprocity. Other
treaties, such as those with Austria, Belgium, Russia and the
Netherlands, give each party the option of surrendering or refusing to
surrender its own subjects in each particular case. Under such treaties
British subjects are surrendered unless the secretary of state
intervenes to forbid it. Lastly, some treaties, such as that with the
United States, contain no restriction of this kind, and the subjects of
each power are freely surrendered to the other. Surrender by Great
Britain is also subject to the following restrictions contained in s. 3
of the Extradition Act 1870:--(1) that the offence is not of a political
character, and the requisition has not been made with a view to try and
punish for an offence of a political character; (2) that the prisoner
shall not be liable to be tried for any but the specified extradition
offences; (3) that he shall not be surrendered until he has been tried
and served his sentence for offences committed in Great Britain; and (4)
that he shall not be actually given up until fifteen days after his
committal for extradition, so as to allow of an application to the
courts.
_Political Offences._--The question as to what constitutes a political
offence is one of some nicety. It was discussed in _In re Castioni_
(1890, 1 Q.B. 149), where it was held, following the opinion of Mr
Justice Stephen in his _History of the Criminal Law_, that to give an
offence a political character it must be "incidental to and form part of
political disturbances." Extradition was accordingly refused for
homicide committed in the course of an armed rising against the
constituted authorities. In the more recent case of _In re Meunier_
(1894, 2 Q.B. 415), an Anarchist was charged with causing two explosions
in Paris--one at the Café Véry resulting in the death of two persons,
and the other at certain barracks. It was not contended that the outrage
at the cafe was a political crime, but it was argued that the explosion
at the barracks came within the description. The court, however, held
that to constitute a political offence there must be two or more parties
in the state, each seeking to impose a government of its own choice on
the other, which was not the case with regard to Anarchist crimes. The
party of anarchy was the enemy of all governments, and its effects were
directed primarily against the general body of citizens. The test
applied in the earlier case is perhaps the more satisfactory of the two.
With regard to the provision that surrender shall not be granted if the
requisition has in fact been made with a view to try and punish for an
offence of a political character, it, was decided in the case of _Arton_
(1896, 1 Q.B. 108) that a mere suggestion, that after his surrender for
a non-political crime, the prisoner would be interrogated on political
matters (his alleged complicity in the Panama scandal), and punished for
his refusal to answer, was not enough to bring him within the provision.
The court also held that it had no jurisdiction to entertain a
suggestion that the request of the French government for his extradition
was not made in good faith and in the interests of justice.
_Extradition Offences._--The following is a list of crimes in respect of
which extradition may be provided for under the Extradition Acts
1870-1873, and the Slave Trade Act 1873. _Extradition Act_ 1870:--(1)
Murder; (2) Attempt to murder; (3) Conspiracy to murder; (4)
Manslaughter; (5) Counterfeiting and altering money, uttering
counterfeit or altered money; (6) Forgery, counterfeiting, and altering
and uttering what is forged or counterfeited or altered; (7)
Embezzlement and larceny; (8) Obtaining money or goods by false
pretences; (9) Crimes by bankrupts against bankruptcy law; (10) Fraud by
a bailee, banker, agent, factor, trustee or director, or member or
public officer of any company made criminal by any law for the time
being in force; (11) Rape; (12) Abduction; (13) Child-stealing; (14)
Burglary and housebreaking; (15) Arson; (16) Robbery with violence; (17)
Threats by letter or otherwise with intent to extort; (18) Crimes
committed at sea: (a) Piracy by the law of nations; (b) Sinking or
destroying a vessel at sea, or attempting or conspiring to do so; (c)
Assault on a ship on the high seas, with intent to destroy life or to do
grievous bodily harm; (d) Revolt, or conspiring to revolt, by two or
more persons on board a ship on the high seas against the authority of
the master; (19) Bribery. _Extradition Act_ 1873:-(20) Kidnapping and
false imprisonment; (21) Perjury and subornation of perjury. This act
also extends to indictable offences under 24 & 25 Vict. cc. 96, 97, 98,
99, 100, and amending and substituted acts. Among such offences included
in various extradition treaties are the following:--(22) Obtaining
valuable securities by false pretences; (23) Receiving any money,
valuable security or other property, knowing the same to have been
stolen or unlawfully obtained; (24) Falsification of accounts (see _In
re Arton_, 1896, 1 Q.B. 509); (25) Malicious injury to property, if such
offence be indictable;. (26) Knowingly making, without lawful authority,
any instrument, tool or engine adapted and intended for the
counterfeiting of coin of the realm; (27) Abandoning children; exposing
or unlawfully detaining them; (28) Any malicious act done with intent to
endanger the safety of any person in a railway train; (29) Wounding or
inflicting grievous bodily harm; (30) Assault occasioning actual bodily
harm; (31) Assaulting a magistrate or peace or public officer; (32)
Indecent assault; (33) Unlawful carnal knowledge, or any attempt to have
unlawful carnal knowledge, of a girl under age; (34) Bigamy; (35)
Administering drugs or using instruments with intent to procure the
miscarriage of women; (36) Any indictable offence under the laws for the
time being in force in relation to bankruptcy. _Slave Trade Act_ 1873
(36 & 37 Vict. c. 88, s. 27):--(37) Dealing in slaves in such manner as
to constitute a criminal offence against the laws of both states.
The United Kingdom has extradition treaties with practically all
civilized foreign countries; and though it is not practicable to state
which of the statutory extradition offences are included in each, it may
be said generally that crimes 1 to 17 inclusive are covered in all,
though Rumania has reserved the right to refuse, and Portugal does
refuse, to surrender for a crime punishable with death.
The act of 1873 provides for the surrender of accessories before and
after the fact to extradition crimes, and most of the treaties contain a
clause by which extradition is to be granted for participation in any of
the crimes specified in the treaty, provided that such participation is
punishable by the laws of both countries. Several of the treaties also
contain clauses, providing for optional surrender in respect of any
crime not expressly mentioned for which extradition can be granted by
the laws of both countries.
It is further to be noted that the restrictions on surrender in the
Extradition Acts apply only to surrenders by Great Britain. Foreign
countries may surrender fugitives to Great Britain without any treaty,
if they are willing to do so and their law allows of it, and such
surrenders have not infrequently been made. But when surrendered for an
extradition crime, the prisoner cannot be tried in England for any other
crime committed before such surrender, until he has been restored, or
has had an opportunity of returning, to the foreign state from which he
was extradited.
_Procedure._--To obtain from a foreign country the extradition of a
fugitive from the United Kingdom, it is necessary to procure a warrant
for his arrest, and to send it, or a certified copy, to the home
secretary together with such further evidence as is required by the
treaty with the country in question. In most, cases an information or
deposition containing evidence which would justify a committal for trial
in Great Britain will be required. The home secretary will then
communicate through the foreign secretary and the proper diplomatic
channels with the foreign authorities, and in case of urgency will ask
them by telegraph for a provisional arrest. For the arrest in the United
Kingdom of fugitive criminals whose extradition is requested by a
foreign state, two procedures are provided in ss. 7 and 8 of the act of
1870:--(1) On a diplomatic requisition supported by the warrant of
arrest and documentary evidence, the home secretary, if he thinks the
crime is not of a political character, will order the chief magistrate
at Bow Street to proceed; and such magistrate will then issue a warrant
of arrest on such evidence as would be required if the offence had been
committed in the United Kingdom. (2) More summarily, any magistrate or
justice of the peace may issue a provisional warrant of arrest on
evidence which would support such a warrant if the crime had been
committed within his jurisdiction. In practice a sworn information is
required, but this may be based on a telegram from the foreign
authorities. The magistrate or justice must then report the issue of the
warrant to the home secretary, who may cancel it and discharge the
prisoner. When arrested on the provisional warrant, the prisoner will be
brought up before a magistrate and remanded to Bow Street, and will then
be further remanded until the magistrate at Bow Street is notified that
a formal requisition for surrender has been made; and unless such
requisition is made in reasonable time the prisoner is entitled to be
discharged. The examination of the prisoner prior to his committal for
extradition ordinarily takes place at Bow Street. The magistrate is
required to hear evidence that the alleged offence is of a political
character or is not an extradition crime. If satisfied in these
respects, and if the foreign warrant of arrest is duly authenticated,
and evidence is given which according to English law would justify a
committal for trial, if the prisoner has not yet been tried, or would
prove a conviction if he has already been convicted, the magistrate will
commit him for extradition. Under the Extradition Act, 1895 the home
secretary, if of opinion that removal to Bow Street would be dangerous
to the prisoner's life, or prejudicial to his health, may order the case
to be taken by a magistrate at the place where the prisoner was
apprehended, or then is, and the magistrate may order the prisoner to
be detained in such place. After committal for extradition, every
prisoner has fifteen days in which to apply for _habeas corpus_, and
after such period, or at the close of the _habeas corpus_ proceedings if
they are unsuccessful, the home secretary issues his warrant for
surrender, and the prisoner is handed over to the officers of the
foreign government.
The Extradition Acts apply to the British colonies, the governor being
substituted for the secretary of state. Their operation may, however, be
suspended by order in council, as in the case of Canada, where the
colony has passed an Extradition Act of its own (see Statutory Rules and
Orders).
_Fugitive Offenders Act._--There are no extradition treaties with
certain countries in which the crown exercises foreign jurisdiction,
such as Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, China, Japan, Corea, Zanzibar, Morocco,
Siam, Persia, Somali, &c. In these countries the Fugitive Offenders Act
1881 (44 & 45 Vict. c. 69) has been applied, pursuant to s. 36 of that
statute, and the measures for obtaining surrender of a fugitive criminal
are the same as in a British colony. The act, however, only applies to
persons over whom the crown has jurisdiction in these territories, and
generally is expressly restricted to British subjects.
Under this act a fugitive from one part of the king's dominions to
another, or to a country where the crown exercises foreign jurisdiction,
may be brought back by a procedure analogous to extradition, but
applicable only to treason, piracy and offences punishable with twelve
months' imprisonment with hard labour or more. The original warrant of
arrest must be endorsed by one of several authorities where the
offenders happen to be,--in practice by the home secretary in the United
Kingdom and by the governor in a colony. Pending the arrival of the
original warrant a provisional arrest may be made, as under the
Extradition Acts. The fugitive must then be brought up for examination
before a local magistrate, who, if the endorsed warrant is duly
authenticated, and evidence is produced "which, according to the law
administered by the magistrate, raises a strong or probable presumption
that the offender committed the offence, and that the act applies to
it," may commit him for return. An interval of fifteen days is allowed
for _habeas corpus_ proceedings, and (s. 10) the court has a large
discretion to discharge the prisoner, or impose terms, if it thinks the
case frivolous, or that the return would be unjust or oppressive, or too
severe a punishment. The next step is for the home secretary in the
United Kingdom, and the governor in a colony, to issue a warrant for the
return of the prisoner. He must be removed within a month, in the
absence of reasonable cause to the contrary. If not prosecuted within
six months after arrival, or if acquitted, he is entitled to be sent
back free of cost.
In the case of fugitive offenders from one part of the United Kingdom to
another, it is enough to get the warrant of arrest backed by a
magistrate having jurisdiction in that part of the United Kingdom where
the offender happens to be. A warrant issued by a metropolitan police
magistrate may be executed, without backing, by a metropolitan police
officer anywhere, and there are certain other exceptions, but as a rule
a warrant cannot be executed without being backed by a local magistrate.
(J. E. P. W.)
2. UNITED STATES.--Foreign extradition is purely an affair of the United
States, and not for the individual states themselves. Upon a demand upon
the United States for extradition, there is a preliminary examination
before a commissioner or judge before there can be a surrender to the
foreign government (Revised Statutes, Title LXVI.; 22 Statutes at Large,
215). It is enough to show probable guilt (_Ornelas_ v. _Ruiz_, 161
United States Reports, 502). An extradition treaty covers crimes
previously committed. If a Power, with which the United States have such
a treaty, surrenders a fugitive charged with a crime not included in the
treaty, he may be tried in the United States for such crime. Inter-state
extradition is regulated by act of Congress under the Constitution of
the United States (Article IV. s. 2; United States Revised Statutes, s.
5278). A surrender may be demanded of one properly charged with an act
which constitutes a crime under the laws of the demanding state,
although it be no crime in the other state. A party improperly
surrendered may be released by writ of _habeas corpus_, either from a
state or United States court (_Robb_ v. _Conolly_, 111 U.S. Reports,
624). On his return to the state from which he fled, he is subject to
prosecution for any crime, though on a foreign extradition the law is
otherwise (_Lascelles_ v. _Georgia_, 148 U.S. Reports, 537).
(S. E. B.).
See Sir E. Clarke, _Treatise upon the Law of Extradition_ (4th ed.,
1904); Biron and Chalmers, _Law and Practice of Extradition_ (1903).
EXTRADOS (_extra_, outside, Fr. _dos_, back), the architectural term for
the outer boundary of the voussoirs of an arch (q.v.).
EXTREME UNCTION, a sacrament of the Roman Catholic Church. In James v.
14 it is ordained that, if any believer is sick, he shall call for the
elders of the church; and they shall pray over him, anointing him with
oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith shall save him that
is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins,
it shall be forgiven him.
Origen reprobated medical art on the ground that the prescription here
cited is enough; modern faith-healers and Peculiar People have followed
in his wake. The Catholic Church has more wisely left physicians in
possession, and elevated the anointing of the sick into a sacrament to
be used only in cases of mortal sickness, and even then not to the
exclusion of the healing art.
It has been general since the 9th century. The council of Florence A.D.
1439 thus defined it:--
"The fifth sacrament is extreme unction. Its matter is olive oil,
blessed by a bishop. It shall not be given except to a sick person
whose death is apprehended. He shall be anointed in the following
places: the eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, hands, feet, reins. The form
of the sacrament, is this: Through this anointing of thee and through
its most pious mercy, be forgiven all thy sins of sight, &c. ... and
so in respect of the other organs. A priest can administer this
sacrament. But its effect is to make whole the mind, and, so far as it
is expedient, the body as well."
This sacrament supplements that of penance (viz. remission of
post-baptismal sin) in the sense that any guilt unconfessed or left over
after normal penances imposed by confessors is purged thereby. It was
discussed in the 12th century whether this sacrament is indelible like
baptism, or whether it can be repeated; and the latter view, that of
Peter Lombard, prevailed.
It was a popular opinion in the middle ages that extreme unction
extinguishes all ties and links with this world, so that he who has
received it must, if he recovers, renounce the eating of flesh and
matrimonial relations. A few peasants of Lombardy still believe that one
who has received extreme unction ought to be left to die, and that sick
people may be starved to death through the withholding of food on
superstitious grounds. Such opinions, combated by bishops and councils,
were due to the influence of the _consolamentum_ of the Cathars (q.v.).
In both sacraments the death-bed baptism of an earlier age seems to
survive, and they both fulfil a deep-seated need of the human spirit.
Some Gnostics sprinkled the heads of the dying with oil and water to
render them invisible to the powers of darkness; but in the East
generally, where the need to compete with the Cathar sacrament of
_Consolatio_ was less acutely felt, extreme unction is unknown. The
Latinizing Armenians adopted it from Rome in the crusading epoch. At an
earlier date, however, it was usual to anoint the dead.
In the Roman Church the bishop blesses the oil of the sick used in
extreme unctions on Holy Thursday at the Chrismal Mass,[1] using the
following prayer of the sacramentaries of Gelasius and Hadrian:--
"Send forth, we pray Thee, O Lord, Thy holy spirit, the Paraclete from
Heaven, into this fatness of oil, which Thou hast deigned to produce
from the green wood for refreshment of mind and body; and through Thy
holy benediction may it be for all that anoint, taste, touch, a
protection of mind and body, of soul and spirit, unto the easing away
of all pain, all weakness, all sickness of mind and body; wherefore
Thou hast anointed priest, kings and prophets and martyrs with thy
chrism, perfected by Thee, O Lord, blessed and abiding in our bowels
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
See L. Duchesne, _Origines du Culte Chrétien_ (Paris, 1898).
(F. C. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The oil left over from the year before is burnt.
EYBESCHÜTZ, JONATHAN (1690-1764), German rabbi, was from 1750 rabbi in
Altona. He was a man of erudition, but he owed his fame chiefly to his
personality. Few men of the period so profoundly impressed their mark on
Jewish life. He became specially notorious because of a curious
controversy that arose concerning the amulets which Eybeschütz was
suspected of issuing. These amulets recognized the Messianic claims of
Sabbatai Sebi (q.v.), and a famous rabbinic contemporary of Eybeschütz,
Jacob Emden, boldly accused him of heresy. The controversy was a
momentous incident in the Jewish life of the period, and though there is
insufficient evidence against Eybeschütz, Emden may be credited with
having crushed the lingering belief in Sabbatai current even in some
orthodox circles. (I. A.)
EYCK, VAN, the name of a family of Flemish painters in whose works the
rise and mature development of art in western Flanders are represented.
Though bred in the valley of the Meuse, they finally established their
professional domicile in Ghent and in Bruges; and there, by skill and
inventive genius, they changed the traditional habits of the earlier
schools, remodelled the primitive forms of Flemish design, and
introduced a complete revolution into the technical methods of execution
familiar to their countrymen.
1. HUBERT (Huybrecht) VAN EYCK (? 1366-1426) was the oldest and most
remarkable of this race of artists. The date of his birth and the
records of his progress are lost amidst the ruins of the earlier
civilization of the valley of the Meuse. He was born about 1366, at
Maeseyck, under the shelter or protection of a Benedictine convent, in
which art and letters had been cultivated from the beginning of the 8th
century. But after a long series of wars--when the country became
insecure, and the schools which had flourished in the towns decayed--he
wandered to Flanders, and there for the first time gained a name. As
court painter to the hereditary prince of Burgundy, and as client to one
of the richest of the Ghent patricians, Hubert is celebrated. Here, in
middle age, between 1410 and 1420, he signalized himself as the inventor
of a new method of painting. Here he lived in the pay of Philip of
Charolais till 1421. Here he painted pictures for the corporation, whose
chief magistrates honoured him with a state visit in 1424. His principal
masterpiece, the "Worship of the Lamb," commissioned by Jodocus Vijdts,
lord of Pamele, is the noblest creation of the Flemish school, a piece
of which we possess all the parts dispersed from St Bavon in Ghent to
the galleries of Brussels and Berlin,--one upon which Hubert laboured
till he died, leaving it to be completed by his brother. Almost unique
as an illustration of contemporary feeling for Christian art, this great
composition can only be matched by the "Fount of Salvation," in the
museum of Madrid. It represents, on numerous panels, Christ on the
judgment seat, with the Virgin and St John the Baptist at His sides,
hearing the songs of the angels, and contemplated by Adam and Eve, and,
beneath him, the Lamb shedding His blood in the presence of angels,
apostles, prophets, martyrs, knights and hermits. On the outer sides of
the panels are the Virgin and the angel annunciate, the sibyls and
prophets who foretold the coming of the Lord, and the donors in prayer
at the feet of the Baptist and Evangelist. After this great work was
finished it was placed, in 1432, on an altar in St Bavon of Ghent, with
an inscription on the framework describing Hubert as "maior quo nemo
repertus," and setting forth, in colours as imperishable as the picture
itself, that Hubert began and John afterwards brought it to perfection.
John van Eyck certainly wished to guard against an error which
ill-informed posterity showed itself but too prone to foster, the error
that he alone had composed and carried out an altarpiece executed
jointly by Hubert and himself. His contemporaries may be credited with
full knowledge of the truth in this respect, and the facts were equally
well known to the duke of Burgundy or the chiefs of the corporation of
Bruges, who visited the painter's house in state in 1432, and the
members of the chamber of rhetoric at Ghent, who reproduced the Agnus
Dei as a _tableau vivant_ in 1456. Yet a later generation of Flemings
forgot the claims of Hubert, and gave the honours that were his due to
his brother John exclusively.
The solemn grandeur of church art in the 15th century never found, out
of Italy, a nobler exponent than Hubert van Eyck. His representation of
Christ as the judge, between the Virgin and St John, affords a fine
display of realistic truth, combined with pure drawing and gorgeous
colour, and a happy union of earnestness and simplicity with the deepest
religious feeling. In contrast with earlier productions of the Flemish
school, it shows a singular depth of tone and great richness of detail.
Finished with surprising skill, it is executed with the new oil medium,
of which Hubert shared the invention with his brother, but of which no
rival artists at the time possessed the secret,--a medium which consists
of subtle mixtures of oil and varnish applied to the moistening of
pigments after a fashion, only kept secret for a time from gildsmen of
neighbouring cities, but unrevealed to the Italians till near the close
of the 15th century. When Hubert died on the 18th of September 1426 he
was buried in the chapel on the altar of which his masterpiece was
placed. According to a tradition as old as the 16th century, his arm was
preserved as a relic in a casket above the portal of St Bavon of Ghent.
During a life of much apparent activity and surprising successes he
taught the elements of his art to his brother John, who survived him.
2. JOHN (Jan) VAN EYCK (? 1385-1440). The date of his birth is not more
accurately known than that of his elder brother, but he was born much
later than Hubert, who took charge of him and made him his "disciple."
Under this tuition John learnt to draw and paint, and mastered the
properties of colours from Pliny. Later on, Hubert admitted him into
partnership, and both were made court painters to Philip of Charolais.
After the breaking up of the prince's household in 1421, John became his
own master, left the workshop of Hubert, and took an engagement as
painter to John of Bavaria, at that time resident at the Hague as count
of Holland. From the Hague he returned in 1424 to take service with
Philip, now duke of Burgundy, at a salary of 100 livres per annum, and
from that time till his death John van Eyck remained the faithful
servant of his prince, who never treated him otherwise than graciously.
He was frequently employed in missions of trust; and following the
fortunes of a chief who was always in the saddle, he appears for a time
to have been in ceaseless motion, receiving extra pay for secret
services at Leiden, drawing his salary at Bruges, yet settled in a fixed
abode at Lille. In 1428 he joined the embassy sent by Philip the Good to
Lisbon to beg the hand of Isabella of Portugal. His portrait of the
bride fixed the duke's choice. After his return he settled finally at
Bruges, where he married, and his wife bore him a daughter, known in
after years as a nun in the convent of Maeseyck. At the christening of
this child the duke was sponsor, and this was but one, of many
distinctions by which Philip the Good rewarded his painter's merits.
Numerous altarpieces and portraits now give proof of van Eyck's
extensive practice. As finished works of art and models of conscientious
labour they are all worthy of the name they bear, though not of equal
excellence, none being better than those which were completed about
1432. Of an earlier period, a "Consecration of Thomas à Becket" has been
preserved, and may now be seen at Chatsworth, bearing the date of 1421;
no doubt this picture would give a fair representation of van Eyck's
talents at the moment when he started as an independent master, but that
time and accidents of omission and commission have altered its state to
such an extent that no conclusive opinion can be formed respecting it.
The panels of the "Worship of the Lamb" were completed nine years later.
They show that John van Eyck was quite able to work in the spirit of his
brother. He had not only the lines of Hubert's compositions to guide
him, he had also those parts to look at and to study which Hubert had
finished. He continued the work with almost as much vigour as his
master. His own experience had been increased by travel, and he had seen
the finest varieties of landscape in Portugal and the Spanish provinces.
This enabled him to transfer to his pictures the charming scenery of
lands more sunny than those of Flanders, and this he did with accuracy
and not without poetic feeling. We may ascribe much of the success which
attended his efforts to complete the altarpiece of Ghent to the
cleverness with which he [reproduced the varied aspect of changing
scenery, reminiscent here of the orange groves of Cintra, there of the
bluffs and crags of his native valley. In all these backgrounds, though
we miss the scientific rules of perspective with which the van Eycks
were not familiar, we find such delicate perceptions of gradations in
tone, such atmosphere, yet such minuteness and perfection of finish,
that our admiration never flags. Nor is the colour less brilliant or the
touch less firm than in Hubert's panels. John only differs from his
brother in being less masculine and less sternly religious. He excels in
two splendid likenesses of Jodocus Vijdts and his wife Catherine
Burluuts. The same vigorous style and coloured key of harmony
characterizes the small "Virgin and Child" of 1432 at Ince, and the
"Madonna," probably of the same date, at the Louvre, executed for
Rollin, chancellor of Burgundy. Contemporary with these, the male
portraits in the National Gallery, and the "Man with the Pinks," in the
Berlin Museum (1432-1434), show no relaxation of power; but later
creations display no further progress, unless we accept as progress a
more searching delicacy of finish, counterbalanced by an excessive
softness of rounding in flesh contours. An unfaltering minuteness of
hand and great tenderness of treatment may be found, combined with
angularity of drapery and some awkwardness of attitude in the full
length portrait couple (John Arnolfini and his wife) at the National
Gallery (1434), in which a rare insight into the detail of animal nature
is revealed in a study of a terrier dog. A "Madonna with Saints," at
Dresden, equally soft and minute, charms us by the mastery with which an
architectural background is put in. The bold and energetic striving of
earlier days, the strong bright tone, are not equalled by the soft
blending and tender tints of the later ones. Sometimes a crude ruddiness
in flesh strikes us as a growing defect, an instance of which is the
picture in the museum of Bruges, in which Canon van der Paelen is
represented kneeling before the Virgin under the protection of St George
(1434). From first to last van Eyck retains his ability in portraiture.
Fine specimens are the two male likenesses in the gallery of Vienna
(1436), and a female, the master's wife, in the gallery of Bruges
(1439). His death in 1440/41 at Bruges is authentically recorded. He was
buried in St Donat. Like many great artists he formed but few pupils.
Hubert's disciple, Jodocus of Ghent, hardly does honour to his master's
teaching, and only acquires importance after he has thrown off some of
the peculiarities of Flemish teaching. Petrus Cristus, who was taught by
John, remains immeasurably behind him in everything that relates to art.
But if the personal influence of the van Eycks was small, that of their
works was immense, and it is not too much to say that their example,
taken in conjunction with that of van der Weyden, determined the current
and practice of painting throughout the whole of Europe north of the
Alps for nearly a century.
See also Waagen, _Hubert and Johann van Eyck_ (1822); Voll, _Werke des
Jan van Eyck_ (1900); L. Kämmerer on the two families in Knackfuss's
_Künstler-Monographien_ (1898). (J. A. C.)
EYE, a market-town and municipal borough in the Eye parliamentary
division of Suffolk; England; 94½ m. N.E. from London by the Great
Eastern railway, the terminus of a branch from the Ipswich-Norwich line.
Pop. (1901) 2004. The church of St Peter and St Paul is mainly of
Perpendicular flint work, with Early English portions and a fine
Perpendicular rood screen. It was formerly attached to a Benedictine
priory. Slight fragments of a Norman castle crown a mound of probably
earlier construction. There are a town hall, corn exchange, and grammar
school founded in 1566. Brewing is the chief industry. The town is
governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 4410 acres.
Eye (_Heya_, _Aye_) was once surrounded by a stream, from which it is
said to have derived its name. Leland says it was situated in a marsh
and had formerly been accessible by river vessels from Cromer, though
the river was then only navigable to Burston, 12 m. from Eye. From the
discovery of numerous bones and Roman urns and coins it has been thought
that the place was once the cemetery of a Roman camp. William I. gave
the lordship of Eye to Robert Malet, a Norman, who built a castle and a
Benedictine monastery which was at first subordinate to the abbey of
Bernay in Normandy. Eye is a borough by prescription. In 1205 King John
granted to the townsmen a charter freeing them from various tolls and
customs and from the jurisdiction of the shire and hundred courts. Later
charters were granted by Elizabeth in 1558 and 1574, by James I. in
1604, and by William III. in 1697. In 1574 the borough was newly
incorporated under two bailiffs, ten chief and twenty-four inferior
burgesses, and an annual fair on Whit-Monday and a market on Saturday
were granted. Two members were returned to each parliament from 1571
till 1832, when the Reform Act reduced the membership to one. By the
Redistribution Act of 1885 the representation was merged in the Eye
division of the county. The making of pillow-lace was formerly carried
on extensively, but practically ceased with the introduction of
machinery.
EYE (O. Eng. _eáge_, Ger. _Auge_); derived from an Indo-European root
also seen in Lat. _oc-ulus_, the organ of vision (q.v.).
ANATOMY.--The eye consists of the eyeball, which is the true organ of
sight, as well as of certain muscles which move it, and of the lachrymal
apparatus which keeps the front of it in a moist condition. The
_eyeball_ is contained in the front of the orbit and is a sphere of
about an inch (24 mm.) in diameter. From the front of this a segment of
a lesser sphere projects slightly and forms the _cornea_ (fig. 1, co).
There are three coats to the eyeball, an external (protective), a middle
(vascular), and an internal (sensory). There are also three refracting
media, the aqueous humour, the lens and the vitreous humour or body.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Diagrammatic Section through the Eyeball.
cj, Conjunctiva. L, Lens.
co, Cornea. V, Vitreous body.
Sc, Sclerotic. Z, Zonule of Zinn, the ciliary
ch, Choroid. process being removed to
pc, Ciliary processes. show it.
mc, Ciliary muscle. p, Canal of Petit.
O, Optic nerve. m, Yellow spot.
R, Retina The dotted line behind the
I, Iris. cornea represents its posterior
aq, Anterior chamber of epithelium.]
aqueous humour.
The protective coat consists of the _sclerotic_ in the posterior
five-sixths and the cornea in the anterior sixth. The sclerotic (fig. 1,
Sc) is a firm fibrous coat, forming the "white of the eye," which
posteriorly is pierced by the optic nerve and blends with the sheath of
that nerve, while anteriorly it is continued into the cornea at the
_corneo-scleral junction_. At this point a small canal, known as the
_canal of Schlemm_, runs round the margin of the cornea in the substance
of the sclerotic (see fig. 1). Between the sclerotic and the subjacent
choroid coat is a lymph space traversed by some loose pigmented
connective tissue,--the _lamina fusca_. The cornea is quite continuous
with the sclerotic but has a greater convexity. Under the microscope it
is seen to consist of five layers. Most anteriorly there is a layer of
stratified epithelium, then an anterior elastic layer, then the
_substantia propria_ of the cornea which is fibrous with spaces in which
the stellate _corneal corpuscles_ lie, while behind this is the
posterior elastic layer and then a delicate layer of endothelium. The
transparency of the cornea is due to the fact that all these structures
have the same refractive index.
The middle or vascular coat of the eye consists of the _choroid_, the
_ciliary processes_ and the _iris_. The choroid (fig. 1, ch) does not
come quite as far forward as the corneo-scleral junction: it is composed
of numerous blood-vessels and pigment cells bound together by connective
tissue and, superficially, is lined by a delicate layer of pigmented
connective tissue called the _lamina suprachoroidea_ in contact with the
already-mentioned perichoroidal lymph space. On the deep surface of the
choroid is a structureless basal lamina.
The _ciliary processes_ are some seventy triangular ridges, radially
arranged, with their apices pointing backward (fig. 1, pc), while their
bases are level with the corneo-scleral junction. They are as vascular
as the rest of the choroid, and contain in their interior the _ciliary
muscle_, which consists of radiating and circular fibres. The radiating
fibres (fig. 1, mc) rise, close to the canal of Schlemm, from the margin
of the posterior elastic lamina of the cornea, and pass backward and
outward into the ciliary processes and anterior part of the choroid,
which they pull forward when they contract. The circular fibres lie just
internal to these and are few or wanting in short-sighted people.
The _iris_ (fig. 1, I) is the coloured diaphragm of the eye, the centre
of which is pierced to form the pupil; it is composed of a connective
tissue stroma containing blood-vessels, pigment cells and muscle fibres.
In front of it is a reflection of the same layer of endothelium which
lines the back of the cornea, while behind both it and the ciliary
processes is a double layer of epithelium, deeply pigmented, which
really belongs to the retina. The pigment in the substance of the iris
is variously coloured in different individuals, and is often deposited
after birth, so that, in newly-born European children, the colour of the
eyes is often slate-blue owing to the black pigment at the back of the
iris showing through. White, yellow or reddish-brown pigment is
deposited later in the substance of the iris, causing the appearance,
with the black pigment behind, of grey, hazel or brown eyes. In
blue-eyed people very little interstitial pigment is formed, while in
Albinos the posterior pigment is also absent and the blood vessels give
the pink coloration. The muscle fibres of the iris are described as
circular and radiating, though it is still uncertain whether the latter
are really muscular rather than elastic. On to the front of the iris, at
its margin, the posterior layer of the posterior elastic lamina is
continued as a series of ridges called the _ligamentum pectinatum
iridis_, while between these ridges are depressions known as the _spaces
of Fontana_.
The inner or sensory layer of the wall of the eyeball is the _retina_;
it is a delicate transparent membrane which becomes thinner as the front
of the eye is approached. A short distance behind the ciliary processes
the nervous part of it stops and forms a scalloped border called the
_ora serrata_, but the pigmented layer is continued on behind the
ciliary processes and iris, as has been mentioned, and is known as the
_pars ciliaris retinae_ and _pars iridica retinae_. Under the microscope
the posterior part of the retina is seen to consist of eight layers. In
its passage from the lens and vitreous the light reaches these layers in
the following order:--(1) Layer of nerve fibres; (2) Layer of ganglion
cells; (3) Inner molecular layer; (4) Inner nuclear layer; (5) Outer
molecular layer; (6) Outer nuclear layer; (7) Layer of rods and cones;
(8) Pigmented layer.
The layer of nerve fibres (fig. 2, 2) is composed of the
axis-cylinders only of the fibres of the optic nerve which pierce the
sclerotic, choroid and all the succeeding layers of the retina to
radiate over its surface.
The ganglionic layer (fig. 2, 3) consists of a single stratum of large
ganglion cells, each of which is continuous with a fibre of the
preceding layer which forms its axon. Each also gives off a number of
finer processes (dendrites) which arborize in the next layer.
The inner molecular layer (fig. 2, 4) is formed by the interlacement
of the dendrites of the last layer with those of the cells of the
inner nuclear layer which comes next.
The inner nuclear layer (fig. 2, 5) contains three different kinds of
cells, but the most important and numerous are large bipolar cells,
which send one process into the inner molecular layer, as has just
been mentioned, and the other into the outer molecular layer, where
they arborize with the ends of the rod and cone fibres.
The outer molecular layer (fig. 2, 6) is very narrow and is formed by
the arborizations just described. The outer nuclear layer (fig. 2, 7),
like the inner, consists of oval cells, which are of two kinds. The
rod granules are transversely striped, and are connected externally
with the rods, while internally processes pass into the outer
molecular layer to end in a knob around which the arborizations of the
inner nuclear cells lie. The cone granules are situated more
externally, and are in close contact with the cones; internally their
processes form a foot-plate in the outer molecular layer from which
arborizations extend.
The layer of rods and cones (fig. 2, 9) contains these structures, the
rods being more numerous than the cones. The rods are spindle-shaped
bodies, of which the inner segment is thicker than the outer. The
cones are thicker and shorter than the rods, and resemble Indian
clubs, the handles of which are directed outward and are transversely
striped. In the outer part of the rods the visual purple or rhodopsin
is found.
The pigmented layer consists of a single layer of hexagonal cells
containing pigment, which is capable of moving towards the rods and
cones when the eye is exposed to light and away from them in the dark.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Diagrammatic section through the retina to show
the several layers, which are numbered as in the text. Ct, The radial
fibres of the supporting connective tissue.]
Supporting the delicate nervous structures of the retina are a series of
connective tissue rods known as the _fibres of Müller_ (fig. 2, Ct);
these run through the thickness of the retina at right angles to its
surface, and are joined together on the inner side of the layer of nerve
fibres to form the _inner limiting membrane_. More externally, at the
bases of the rods and cones, they unite again to form the outer limiting
membrane.
When the retina is looked at with the naked eye from in front two small
marks are seen on it. One of these is an oval depression about 3 mm.
across, which, owing to the presence of pigment, is of a yellow colour
and is known as the yellow spot (_macula lutea_); it is situated
directly in the antero-posterior axis of the eyeball, and at its margin
the nerve fibre layer is thinned and the ganglionic layer thickened. At
its centre, however, both these layers are wanting, and in the layer of
rods and cones only the cones are present. This central part is called
the _fovea centralis_ and is the point of acutest vision. The second
mark is situated a little below and to the inner side of the yellow
spot; it is a circular disk with raised margins and a depressed centre
and is called the _optic disk_; in structure it is a complete contrast
to the yellow spot, for all the layers except that of the nerve fibres
are wanting, and consequently, as light cannot be appreciated here, it
is known as the "blind spot." It marks the point of entry of the optic
nerve, and at its centre the retinal artery appears and divides into
branches. An appreciation of the condition of the optic disk is one of
the chief objects of the ophthalmoscope.
The _crystalline lens_ (fig. 1, L) with its ligament separates the
aqueous from the vitreous chamber of the eye; it is a biconvex lens the
posterior surface of which is more curved than the anterior. Radiating
from the anterior and posterior poles are three faint lines forming a Y,
the posterior Y being erect and the anterior inverted. Running from
these figures are a series of lamellae, like the layers of an onion,
each of which is made up of a number of fibrils called the lens fibres.
On the anterior surface of the lens is a layer of epithelial cells,
which, towards the margin or equator, gradually elongate into lens
fibres. The whole lens is enclosed in an elastic structureless membrane,
and, like the cornea, its transparency is due to the fact that all its
constituents have the same refractive index.
The ligament of the lens is the thickened anterior part of the hyaloid
membrane which surrounds the vitreous body; it is closely connected to
the iris at the ora serrata, and then splits into two layers, of which
the anterior is the thicker and blends with the anterior part of the
elastic capsule of the lens, so that, when its attachment to the ora
serrata is drawn forward by the ciliary muscle, the lens, by its own
elasticity, increases its convexity. Between the anterior and posterior
splitting of the hyaloid membrane is a circular lymph space surrounding
the margin of the lens known as the _canal of Petit_ (fig. 1, p).
The _aqueous humour_ (fig. 1, aq) is contained between the lens and its
ligament posteriorly and the cornea anteriorly. It is practically a very
weak solution of common salt (chloride of sodium 1.4%). The space
containing it is imperfectly divided into a large anterior and a small
posterior chamber by a perforated diaphragm--the iris.
The _vitreous body_ or _humour_ is a jelly which fills all the contents
of the eyeball behind the lens. It is surrounded by the hyaloid
membrane, already noticed, and anteriorly is concave for the reception
of the lens.
From the centre of the optic disk to the posterior pole of the lens a
lymph canal formed by a tube of the hyaloid membrane stretches through
the centre of the vitreous body; this is the _canal of Stilling_, which
in the embryo transmitted the hyaloid artery to the lens. The
composition of the vitreous is practically the same as that of the
aqueous humour.
The _arteries of the eyeball_ are all derived from the ophthalmic branch
of the internal carotid, and consist of the retinal which enters the
optic nerve far back in the orbit, the two long ciliaries, which run
forward in the choroid and join the anterior ciliaries, from muscular
branches of the ophthalmic, in the circulus iridis major round the
margin of the iris, and the six to twelve short ciliaries which pierce
the sclerotic round the optic nerve and supply the choroid and ciliary
processes.
The _veins of the eyeball_ emerge as four or five trunks rather behind
the equator; these are called from their appearance _venae vorticosae_,
and open into the superior ophthalmic vein. In addition to these there
is a retinal vein which accompanies its artery.
_Accessory Structures of the Eye._--The _eyelids_ are composed of the
following structures from in front backward: (1) Skin; (2) Superficial
fascia; (3) Orbicularis palpebrarum muscle; (4) _Tarsal plates_ of
fibrous tissue attached to the orbital margin by the superior and
inferior _palpebral ligaments_, and, at the junction of the eyelids, by
the external and internal _tarsal ligaments_ of which the latter is also
known as the _tendo oculi_; (5) _Meibomian glands_, which are large
modified sebaceous glands lubricating the edges of the lids and
preventing them adhering, and _Glands of Moll_, large sweat glands
which, when inflamed, cause a "sty"; (6) the _conjunctiva_, a layer of
mucous membrane which lines the back of the eyelids and is reflected on
to the front of the globe, the reflection forming the fornix: on the
front of the cornea the conjunctiva is continuous with the layer of
epithelial cells already mentioned.
The _lachrymal_ gland is found in the upper and outer part of the front
of the orbit. It is about the size of an almond and has an upper
(orbital) and a lower (palpebral) part. Its six to twelve ducts open on
to the superior fornix of the conjunctiva.
The _lachrymal canals_ (canaliculi) (see fig. 3, 2 and 3) are superior
and inferior, and open by minute orifices (puncta) on to the free
margins of the two eyelids near their inner point of junction. They
collect the tears, secreted by the lachrymal gland, which thus pass
right across the front of the eyeball, continually moistening the
conjunctiva. The two ducts are bent round a small pink tubercle called
the _caruncula lachrymalis_ (fig. 3, 4) at the inner angle of the
eyelids, and open into the _lachrymal sac_ (fig. 3, 5), which lies in a
groove in the lachrymal bone. The sac is continued down into the _nasal
duct_ (fig. 3, 6), which is about ¾ inch long and opens into the
inferior meatus of the nose, its opening being guarded by a valve.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Lachrymal Canals and Duct.
1, Orbicular muscle. 5, Lachrymal sac.
2, Lachrymal canal. 6, Lachrymal duct.
3, Punctum. 7, Angular artery.
4, Caruncula.]
The orbit contains seven muscles, six of which rise close to the optic
foramen. The _levator palpebrae superioris_ is the highest, and passes
forward to the superior tarsal plate and fornix of the conjunctiva. The
_superior_ and _inferior recti_ are inserted into the upper and lower
surfaces of the eyeball respectively; they make the eye look inward as
well as up or down. The external and internal recti are inserted into
the sides of the eyeball and make it look outward or inward. The
superior oblique runs forward to a pulley in the inner and front part of
the roof of the orbit, round which it turns to be inserted into the
outer and back part of the eyeball. It turns the glance downward and
outward. The inferior oblique rises from the inner and front part of the
floor of the orbit, and is also inserted into the outer and back part of
the eyeball. It directs the glance upward and outward. Of all these
muscles the superior oblique is supplied by the fourth cranial nerve,
the external rectus by the sixth and the rest by the third.
The posterior part of the eyeball and the anterior parts of the muscles
are enveloped in a lymph space, known as the _capsule of Tenon_, which
assists their movements.
[Illustration:
FIG. 4. FIG. 5.
Diagram of Developing Diagram of Developing
Eye (1st stage). Eye (2nd stage).
[alpha], Forebrain. [beta], Optic cup.
[beta], Optic vesicle. [delta], Invagination of lens.
[gamma], Superficial ectoderm. Other letters as in fig. 4.]
[delta], Thickening for lens.
EMBRYOLOGY.--As is pointed out in the article BRAIN, the _optic
vesicles_ grow out from the fore-brain, and the part nearest the brain
becomes constricted and elongated to form the optic stalk (see figs. 4
and 5, [beta]). At the same time the ectoderm covering the side of the
head thickens and becomes invaginated to form the lens vesicle (see
figs. 4 and 5, [delta]), which later loses its connexion with the
surface and approaches the optic vesicle, causing that structure to
become cupped for its reception, so that what was the optic vesicle
becomes the optic cup and consists of an external and an internal layer
of cells (fig. 6 [beta] and [delta]). Of these the outer cells become
the retinal pigment, while the inner form the other layers of the
retina. The invagination of the optic cup extends, as the _choroidal
fissure_ (not shown in the diagrams), along the lower and back part of
the optic stalk, and into this slit sinks some of the surrounding
mesoderm to form the vitreous body and the hyaloid arteries, one of
which persists.[1] When this has happened the fissure closes up. The
anterior epithelium of the lens vesicle remains, but from the posterior
the lens fibres are developed and these gradually fill up the cavity.
The superficial layer of head ectoderm, from which the lens has been
invaginated and separated, becomes the anterior epithelium of the
cornea (fig. 6, [epsilon]), and between it and the lens the mesoderm
sinks in to form the cornea, iris and anterior chamber of the eye, while
surrounding the optic cup the mesoderm forms the sclerotic and choroid
coats (fig. 7, [eta] and [zeta]). Up to the seventh month the pupil is
closed by the _membrana pupillaris_, derived from the capsule of the
lens which is part of the mesodermal ingrowth through the choroidal
fissure already mentioned. The hyaloid artery remains, as a prolongation
of the retinal artery to the lens, until just before birth, but after
that its sheath forms the canal of Stilling. Most of the fibres of the
optic nerve are centripetal and begin as the axons of the ganglionic
cells of the retina; a few, however, are centrifugal and come from the
nerve cells in the brain.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.
Diagram of Developing Eye (3rd stage).
[delta], Solid lens.
[epsilon], Corneal epithelium.
Other letters as in figs. 4 and 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.
Diagram of Developing Eye (4th stage). The mesodermal tissues are
dotted.
[zeta], Choroid and Iris.
[eta], Sclerotic and Cornea.
[theta], Vitreous.
[epsilon], Aqueous.
[kappa], Eyelids.]
The eyelids are developed as ectodermal folds, which blend with one
another about the third month and separate again before birth in Man
(fig. 7, [Greek: kappa]). The lachrymal sac and duct are formed from
solid ectodermal thickenings which later become canalized.
It will thus be seen that the optic nerve and retina are formed from the
brain ectoderm; the lens, anterior epithelium of the cornea, skin of the
eyelids, conjunctiva and lachrymal apparatus from the superficial
ectoderm; while the sclerotic, choroid, vitreous and aqueous humours as
well as the iris and cornea are derived from the mesoderm.
See _Human Embryology_, by C.S. Minot (New York); Quain's _Anatomy_,
vol. i. (1908); "Entwickelung des Auges der Wirbeltiere," by A.
Froriep, in _Handbuch der vergleichenden und experimentellen
Entwickelungslehre der Wirbeltiere_ (O. Hertwig, Jena, 1905).
COMPARATIVE ANATOMY.--The Acrania, as represented by Amphioxus (the
lancelet), have a patch of pigment in the fore part of the brain which
is regarded as the remains of a degenerated eye. In the Cyclostomata the
hag (Myxine) and larval lamprey (Ammocoetes) have ill-developed eyes
lying beneath the skin and devoid of lens, iris, cornea and sclerotic as
well as eye muscles. In the adult lamprey (Petromyzon) these structures
are developed at the metamorphosis, and the skin becomes transparent,
rendering sight possible. Ocular muscles are developed, but, unlike most
vertebrates, the inferior rectus is supplied by the sixth nerve while
all the others are supplied by the third. In all vertebrates the retina
consists of a layer of senso-neural cells, the rods and cones, separated
from the light by the other layers which together represent the optic
ganglia of the invertebrates; in the latter animals, however, the
senso-neural cells are nearer the light than the ganglia.
In fishes the eyeball is flattened in front, but the flat cornea is
compensated by a spherical lens, which, unlike that of other
vertebrates, is adapted for near vision when at rest. The iris in some
bony fishes (Teleostei) is not contractile. In the Teleostei, too, there
is a process of the choroid which projects into the vitreous chamber and
runs forward to the lens; it is known as the _processus falciformis_,
and, besides nourishing the lens, is concerned in accommodation. This
specialized group of fishes is also remarkable for the possession of a
so-called _choroid gland_, which is really a _rete mirabile_ (see
ARTERIES) between the choroid and sclerotic. The sclerotic in fishes is
usually chondrified and sometimes calcified or ossified. In the retina
the rods and cones are about equal in number, and the cones are very
large. In the cartilaginous fishes (Elasmobranchs) there is a silvery
layer, called the _tapetum lucidum_, on the retinal surface of the
choroid.
In the Amphibia the cornea is more convex than in the fish, but the lens
is circular and the sclerotic often chondrified. There is no processus
falciformis or tapetum lucidum, but the class is interesting in that it
shows the first rudiments of the ciliary muscle, although accommodation
is brought about by shifting the lens. In the retina the rods outnumber
the cones and these latter are smaller than in any other animals. In
some Amphibians coloured oil globules are found in connexion with the
cones, and sometimes two cones are joined, forming double or twin cones.
In Reptilia the eye is spherical and its anterior part is often
protected by bony plates in the sclerotic (Lacertilia and Chelonia). The
ciliary muscle is striated, and in most reptiles accommodation is
effected by relaxing the ciliary ligament as in higher vertebrates,
though in the snakes (Ophidia) the lens is shifted as it is in the lower
forms. Many lizards have a vascular projection of the choroid into the
vitreous, foreshadowing the pecten of birds and homologous with the
processus falciformis of fishes. In the retina the rods are scarce or
absent.
In birds the eye is tubular, especially in nocturnal and raptorial
forms: this is due to a lengthening of the ciliary region, which is
always protected by bony plates in the sclerotic. The pecten, already
mentioned in lizards, is a pleated vascular projection from the optic
disk towards the lens which in some cases it reaches. In Apteryx this
structure disappears. In the retina the cones outnumber the rods, but
are not as numerous as in the reptiles. The ciliary muscle is of the
striped variety.
In the Mammalia the eye is largely enclosed in the orbit, and bony
plates in the sclerotic are only found in the monotremes. The cornea is
convex except in aquatic mammals, in which it is flattened. The lens is
biconvex in diurnal mammals, but in nocturnal and aquatic it is
spherical. There is no pecten, but the numerous hyaloid arteries which
are found in the embryo represent it. The iris usually has a circular
pupil, but in some ungulates and kangaroos it is a transverse slit. In
the Cetacea this transverse opening is kidney-shaped, the hilum of the
kidney being above. In many carnivores, especially nocturnal ones, the
slit is vertical, and this form of opening seems adapted to a feeble
light, for it is found in the owl, among birds. The tapetum lucidum is
found in Ungulata, Cetacea and Carnivora. The ciliary muscle is
unstriped. In the retina the rods are more numerous than the cones,
while the macula lutea only appears in the Primates in connexion with
binocular vision.
Among the accessory structures of the eye the retractor bulbi muscle is
found in amphibians, reptiles, birds and many mammals; its nerve supply
shows that it is probably a derivative of the external or posterior
rectus. The nictitating membrane or third eyelid is well-developed in
amphibians, reptiles, birds and some few sharks; it is less marked in
mammals, and in Man is only represented by the little _plica
semilunaris_. When functional it is drawn across the eye by special
muscles derived from the retractor bulbi, called the _bursalis_ and
_pyramidalis_. In connexion with the nictitating membrane the Harderian
gland is developed, while the lachrymal gland secretes fluid for the
other eyelids to spread over the conjunctiva. These two glands are
specialized parts of a row of glands which in the Urodela (tailed
amphibians) are situated along the lower eyelid; the outer or posterior
part of this row becomes the lachrymal gland, which in higher
vertebrates shifts from the lower to the upper eyelid, while the inner
or anterior part becomes the Harderian gland. Below the amphibians
glands are not necessary, as the water keeps the eye moist.
The lachrymal duct first appears in the tailed amphibians; in snakes and
gecko lizards, however, it opens into the mouth.
For literature up to 1900 see R. Wiedersheim's _Vergleichende Anatomie
der Wirbeltiere_ (Jena, 1902). Later literature is noticed in the
catalogue of the Physiological Series of the R. College of Surgeons of
England Museum, vol. iii. (London, 1906). (F. G. P.)
EYE DISEASES.--The specially important diseases of the eye are those
which temporarily or permanently interfere with sight. In considering
the pathology of the eye it may be remembered that (1) it is a double
organ, while (2) either eye may have its own trouble.
1. The two eyes act together, under normal conditions, for all practical
purposes exactly as if there were but one eye placed in the middle of
the face. All impressions made upon either retina, to the one side of a
vertical line through the centre, the _fovea centralis_, before giving
rise to conscious perception cause a stimulation of the same area in the
brain. Impressions formed simultaneously, for instance, on the right
side of the right retina and on corresponding areas of the right side of
the left retina, are conveyed to the same spots in the right occipital
lobe of the brain. Pathological processes, therefore, which are
localized in the right or left occipital lobes, or along any part of the
course of the fibres which pass from the right or left optic tracts to
these "visual centres," cause defects in function of the right or left
halves of the two retinae. _Hemianopia_, or half-blindness, arising from
these pathological changes, is of very varying degrees of severity,
according to the nature and extent of the particular lesion. The blind
areas in the two fields of vision, corresponding to the outward
projection of the paralysed retinal areas, are always symmetrical both
in shape and degree. The central lesion may for instance be very small,
but at the same time destructive to the nerve tissue. This will be
revealed as a sector-shaped or insular symmetrical complete blindness in
the fields of vision to the opposite side. Or a large central area, or
an area comprising many or all of the nerve fibres which pass to the
visual centre on one side, may be involved in a lesion which causes
impairment of function, but no actual destruction of the nerve tissue.
There is thus caused a symmetrical weakening of vision (_amblyopia_) in
the opposite fields. In such cases the colour vision is so much more
evidently affected than the sense of form that the condition has been
called _hemiachromatopsia_ or half-colour blindness. Hemianopia may be
caused by haemorrhage, by embolism, by tumour growth which either
directly involves the visual nerve elements or affects them by
compression and by inflammation. Transitory hemianopia is rare and is no
doubt most frequently of toxic origin.
The two eyes also act as if they were one in accommodating. It is
impossible for the two eyes to accommodate simultaneously to different
extents, so that where there is, as occasionally happens, a difference
in focus between them, this difference remains the same for all
distances for which they are adapted. In such cases, therefore, both
eyes cannot ever be accurately adapted at the same time, though either
may be alone. It often happens as a consequence that the one eye is used
to receive the sharpest images of distant, and the other of near
objects. Any pathological change which leads to an interference in the
accommodating power of one eye alone must have its origin in a lesion
which lies peripherally to the nucleus of the third cranial nerve. Such
a lesion is usually one of the third nerve itself. Consequently, a
unilateral accommodation paresis is almost invariably associated with
pareses of some of the oculo-motor muscles. A bilateral accommodation
paresis is not uncommon. It is due to a nuclear or more central cerebral
disturbance. Unlike a hemianopia, which is mostly permanent, a double
accommodation paresis is frequently transitory. It is often a
post-diphtheritic condition, appearing alone or associated with other
paresis.
Both eyes are also normally intimately associated in their movements.
They move in response to a stimulus or a combination of stimuli,
emanating from different centres of the brain, but one which is always
equally distributed to the corresponding muscles in both eyes, so that
the two lines of fixation meet at the succession of points on which
attention is directed. The movements are thus associated in the same
direction, to the right or left, upwards or downwards, &c. In addition,
owing to the space which separates the two eyes, convergent movements,
caused by stimuli equally distributed between the two internal recti,
are required for the fixation of nearer and nearer-lying objects. These
movements would not be necessary in the case of a single eye. It would
merely have to accommodate. The converging movements of the double eye
occur in association with accommodation, and thus a close connexion
becomes established between the stimuli to accommodation and
convergence. All combinations of convergent and associated movements are
constantly taking place normally, just as if a single centrally-placed
eye were moved in all directions and altered its accommodation according
to the distance, in any direction, of the object which is fixed.
Associated and convergent movements may be interfered with
pathologically in different ways. Cerebral lesions may lead to their
impairment or complete abolition, or they may give rise to involuntary
spasmodic action, as the result of paralysing or irritating the centres
from which the various co-ordinated impulses are controlled or emanate.
Lesions which do not involve the centres may prevent the response to
associated impulses in one eye alone by interfering with the functional
activity of one or more of the nerves along which the stimuli are
conveyed. Paralysis of oculo-motor nerves is thus a common cause of
defects of association in the movements of the double eye. The great
advantage of simultaneous binocular vision--viz. the appreciation of
depth, or stereoscopic vision--is thus lost for some, or it may be all
directions of fixation. Instead of seeing singly with two eyes, there is
then double-vision (_diplopia_). This persists so long as the defect of
association continues, or so long as the habit of mentally suppressing
the image of the faultily-directed eye is not acquired.
In the absence of any nerve lesions, central or other, interfering with
their associated movements, the eyes continue throughout life to respond
equally to the stimuli which cause these movements, even when, owing to
a visual defect of the one eye, binocular vision has become impossible.
It is otherwise, however, with the proper co-ordination of convergent
movements. These are primarily regulated by the unconscious desire for
binocular vision, and more or less firmly associated with accommodation.
When one eye becomes blind, or when binocular vision for other reasons
is lost, the impulse is gradually, as it were, unlearnt. This is the
cause of _divergent concomitant squint_. Under somewhat similar
conditions a degree of convergence, which is in excess of the
requirements of fixation, may be acquired from different causes. This
gives rise to _convergent concomitant squint_.
For _Astigmatism_, &c., see the article VISION.
2. Taking each eye as a single organ, we find it to be subject to many
diseases. In some cases both eyes may be affected in the same way, e.g.
where the local disease is a manifestation of some general disturbance.
Apart from the fibrous coat of the eye, the sclera, which is little
prone to disease, and the external muscles and other adnexa, the eye may
be looked upon as composed of two elements, (a) the dioptric media, and
(b) the parts more or less directly connected with perception.
Pathological conditions affecting either of these elements may interfere
with sight.
The dioptric media, or the transparent portions which are concerned in
the transmission of light to, and the formation of images upon, the
retina, are the following: the _cornea_, the _aqueous humour_, the
_crystalline lens_ and the _vitreous humour_. Loss of transparency in
any of these media leads to blurring of the retinal images of external
objects. In addition to loss of transparency the cornea may have its
curvature altered by pathological processes. This necessarily causes
imperfection of sight. The crystalline lens, on the other hand, may be
dislocated, and thus cause image distortion.
_The Cornea._--The transparency of the cornea is mainly lost by
imflammation (_keratitis_), which causes either an infiltration of its
tissues with leucocytes, or a more focal, more destructive ulcerative
process.
Inflammation of the cornea may be primary or secondary, i.e. the
inflammatory changes met with in the corneal tissue may be directly
connected with one or more foci of inflammation in the cornea itself or
the focus or foci may be in some other part of the eye. Only the very
superficial forms of primary keratitis, those confined to the epithelial
layer, leave no permanent change; there is otherwise always a loss of
tissue resulting from the inflammation and this loss is made up for by
more or less densely intransparent connective tissue (_nebula_,
_leucoma_). These according to their site and extent cause greater or
less visual disturbance. Primary keratitis may be ulcerative or
non-ulcerative, superficial or deep, diffuse or circumscribed,
vascularized or non-vascularized. It may be complicated by deeper
inflammations of the eye such as iritis and cyclitis. In some cases the
anterior chamber is invaded by pus (_hypopyon_). The healing of a
corneal ulcer is characterized by the disappearance of pain where this
has been a symptom and by the rounding off of its sharp margins as
epithelium spreads over them from the surrounding healthy parts. Ulcers
tend to extend either in depth or superficially, rarely in both manners
at the same time. A deep ulcer leads to perforation with more or less
serious consequences according to the extent of the perforation. Often
an eye bears permanent traces of a perforation in adhesion of the iris
to the back of a corneal scar or in changes in the lens capsule
(capsular cataract). In other cases the ulcerated cornea may yield to
pressure from within, which causes it to bulge forwards (_staphyloma_).
The principal causes of primary keratitis are traumata and infection
from the conjunctiva. Traumata are most serious when the body causing
the wound is not aseptic or when micro-organisms from some other source,
often the conjunctiva and tear-sac, effect a lodgment before healing of
the wound has sufficiently advanced. In infected cases a complication
with iritis is not uncommon owing to the penetration of toxines into the
anterior chamber.
Inflammations of the cornea are the most important diseases of the eye,
because they are among the most frequent, because of the value of the
cornea to vision and because much good can often be done by judicious
treatment and much harm result from wrong interference and neglect. The
treatment of primary keratitis must vary according to the cause.
Generally speaking the aim should be to render the ulcerated portions as
aseptic as possible without using applications which are apt to cause a
great deal of irritation and thus interfere with healing. On this
account it is important to be able to recognize when healing is taking
place, for as soon as this is the case, rest, along with frequent
irrigation of the conjunctiva with sterilized water at the body
temperature, and occasionally mild antiseptic irrigation of the nasal
mucous membrane is all that is required. It is a common and dangerous
mistake to over treat.
Of local antiseptics which are of use may be mentioned the actual
cautery, chlorine water, freshly prepared silver nitrate or protargol,
and the yellow oxide of mercury. These different agents are of course
not all equally applicable in any given case; it depends upon the
severity as well as upon the nature of the inflammation which is the
most suitable. For instance, the actual cautery is employed only in the
case of the deeper septic or malignant ulcers, in which the destruction
of tissue is already considerable and tending to spread further. Again
the yellow oxide of mercury should only be used in the more superficial,
strumous forms of inflammation. Many other substances are also in use,
but need not here be referred to.
_Secondary keratitis_ takes the form of an interstitial deposit of
leucocytes between the layers of the cornea as well as often of
vascularization, sometimes intense, from the deeper network of vessels
(anterior ciliary) surrounding the cornea. The duration of a secondary
keratitis is usually prolonged, often lasting many months. More or less
complete restoration of transparency is the rule, however, eventually.
No local treatment is called for except the shading of the eyes and in
most cases the use of a mydriatic to prevent synechiae when the iris is
involved. Often it is advisable to do something for the general health.
In young people there is probably nothing better than cod-liver oil and
syrup of the iodide of iron. Inherited syphilis, tuberculous and other
inflammations are the causes of secondary keratitis.
_Neuro-paralytic Keratitis._--When the fifth nerve is paralysed there is
a tendency for the cornea to become inflamed. Different forms of
inflammation may then occur which all, besides anaesthesia, show a
marked slowness in healing. The main cause of neuro-paralytic keratitis
lies in the greater vulnerability of the cornea. The prognosis is
necessarily bad. The treatment consists in as far as possible protecting
the eye from external influences, by keeping it tied up, and by
frequently irrigating with antiseptic lotions.
Certain non-inflammatory and degenerative changes are met with in the
cornea. Of these may be mentioned _keratoconus_ or conical cornea, in
which, owing to some disturbance of vitality, the nature of which has
not been discovered, the normal curvature of the cornea becomes altered
to something more of a hyberboloid of revolution, with consequent
impairment of vision: _arcus senilis_, a whitish opacity due to fatty
degeneration, extending round the corneal margin, varying in thickness
in different subjects and usually only met with in old people:
_transverse calcareous film_, consisting of a finely punctiform opacity
extending, in a tolerably uniformly wide band, occupying the zone of the
cornea which is left uncovered when the lids are half closed.
Tumours of the cornea are not common. Those chiefly met with are
dermoids, fibromata, sarcomata and epitheliomata.
_Scleritis._--Inflammation of the sclera is confined to its anterior
part which is covered by conjunctiva. Scleritis may occur in
circumscribed patches or may be diffused in the shape of a belt round
the cornea. The former is usually more superficial and uncomplicated,
the latter deeper and complicated with corneal infiltration,
irido-cyclitis and anterior choroiditis. Superficial scleritis or, as it
is often called, _episcleritis_, is a long-continued disease which is
associated with very varying degrees of discomfort. The chronic nature
of the affection depends mainly upon the tendency that the inflammation
has to recur in successive patches at different parts of the sclera.
Often only one eye at a time is affected. Each patch lasts for a month
or two and is succeeded by another after an interval of varying
duration. Months or years may elapse between the attacks. The
cicatricial site of a previous patch is rarely again attacked. The
scleral infiltration causes a firm swelling, often sensitive to touch,
over which the conjunctiva is freely movable. The overlying conjunctiva
is always injected. The infiltration itself at the height of the process
is densely vascularized. Seen through the conjunctiva its vessels have a
darker, more purplish hue than the superficial ones. The swelling caused
by the infiltration gradually subsides, leaving a cicatrix to which the
overlying conjunctiva becomes adherent. The cicatrix has a slaty
porcellanous-looking colour. Superficial scleritis occurs in both sexes
with about equal frequency. No definite cause for the inflammation is
known. The treatment on the whole is unsatisfactory. Burning down the
nodules with the actual cautery, and subsequently a visit to such baths
as Harrogate, Buxton, Homburg and Wiesbaden, may be recommended.
Deep scleritis with its attendant complications is altogether a more
serious disease. Etiologically it is equally obscure. Both eyes are
almost always attacked. It more generally occurs in young people, mostly
in young women. Deep scleritis is more persistent and less subject to
periods of intermission than episcleritis. The deeper and more
wide-spread inflammatory infiltrations of the sclera lead eventually to
weakening of that coat, and cause it to yield to the intra-ocular
pressure. Vision suffers from extension of the infiltration to the
cornea, or from iritis with its attendant synechiae, or from anterior
choroiditis, and sometimes also from secondary glaucoma. The treatment
is on the whole unsatisfactory. Iridectomy, especially if done early in
the process, may be of use.
_The Aqueous Humour._--Intransparency of the aqueous humour is always
due to some exudation. This comes either from the iris or the ciliary
processes, and may be blood, pus or fibrin. An exudation in this
situation tends naturally to gravitate to the most dependent part, and,
in the case of blood or pus, is known as _kyphaema_ or _hypopyon_.
_The Crystalline Lens Cataract._--Intransparency of the crystalline lens
is technically known as _cataract_. Cataract may be idiopathic and
uncomplicated, or traumatic, or secondary to disease in the deeper
parts of the eye. The modified epithelial structure of which the lens is
composed is always being added to throughout life. The older portions of
the lens are consequently the more central. They are harder and less
elastic. This arrangement seems to predispose to difficulties of
nutrition. In many people, in the absence altogether of general or local
disease, the transparency of the lens is lost owing to degeneration of
the incompletely-nourished fibres. This idiopathic cataract mostly
occurs in old people; hence the term _senile cataract_. So-called
_senile_ cataract is not, however, necessarily associated with any
general senile changes. An idiopathic uncomplicated cataract is also met
with as a congenital defect due to faulty development of the crystalline
lens. A particular and not uncommon form of this kind of cataract, which
may also develop during infancy, is _lamellar_ or _zonular cataract_.
This is a partial and stationary form of cataract in which, while the
greater part of the lens retains its transparency, some of the lamellae
are intransparent. Traumatic cataract occurs in two ways: by laceration
or rupture of the lens capsule, or by nutritional changes consequent
upon injuries to the deeper structures of the eye. The transparency of
the lens is dependent upon the integrity of its capsule. Penetrating
wounds of the eye involving the capsule, or rupture of the capsule from
severe blows on the eye without perforation of its coats, are followed
by rapidly developing cataract. Severe non-penetrating injuries, which
do not cause rupture of the capsule, are sometimes followed, after a
time, by slowly-progressing cataract. Secondary cataract is due to
abnormalities in the nutrient matter supplied to the lens owing to
disease of the ciliary body, choroid or retina. In some diseases, as
diabetes, the altered general nutrition tells in the same way on the
crystalline lens. Cataract is then rapidly formed. All cases of cataract
in diabetes are not, however, necessarily true diabetic cataracts in the
above sense. _Dislocations of the lens_ are traumatic or congenital. In
old-standing disease of the eye the suspensory ligament may yield in
part, and thus lead to lens dislocation. The lens is practically always
cataractous before this takes place.
_The Vitreous Humour._--The vitreous humour loses its transparency owing
to exudation from the inflamed ciliary body or choroid. The exudation
may be fibrinous or purulent; the latter only as a result of injuries by
which foreign bodies or septic matter are introduced into the eye or in
metastatic choroiditis. Blood may also be effused into the vitreous from
rupture of retinal, ciliary or choroidal vessels. The pathological
significance of the various effusions into the vitreous depends greatly
upon the cause. In many cases effusion and absorption are constantly
taking place simultaneously. The extent of possible clearing depends
greatly upon the preponderance of the latter process.
_Diseases of the Iris and Ciliary Body._--Inflammation of the iris,
iritis, arises from different causes. The various idiopathic forms have
relations to constitutional disturbances such as rheumatism, gout,
albuminuria, tuberculosis, fevers, syphilis, gonorrhoea and others, or
they may come from cold alone. Traumatic and infected cases are
attributable to accidents, the presence of foreign bodies, operations,
&c. In addition, iritis may be secondary to keratitis, scleritis or
choroiditis. The beginning of an attack of inflammation of the iris is
characterized by alterations in its colour due to hyperaemia and by
circumcorneal injection. Later on, exudation takes place into the
substance of the iris, causing thickening and also a loss of gloss of
its surface. According to the nature and severity of the exudation there
may be deposits formed on the back of the cornea, attachments between
the iris and lens capsule (synechiae), or even gelatinous-looking
coagulations or pus in the anterior chamber.
The subjective symptoms to which the inflammation may give rise are
dread of light (_photophobia_), pain, generally most severe at night and
often very great, also more or less impairment of sight. Along with the
pain and photophobia there is lacrymation. An acute attack of iritis
usually lasts about six weeks. Some cases become chronic and last much
longer. Others are chronic from the first, and in one clinical type of
iritis, in which the ciliary body is also at the same time affected,
viz. _iritis serosa_, there is usually comparatively little injection of
the eye or pain, so that the patient's attention may only be directed to
the eye owing to the gradual impairment of sight which results. In some
cases, and more particularly in men, there is a tendency to the
recurrence at longer or shorter intervals of attacks of iritis
(_recurrent iritis_). In these cases, as well as in all cases of plastic
iritis which have not been properly treated, serious consequences to
sight are apt to follow from the binding down of the iris to the lens
capsule and the occlusion of the pupil by exudation.
Inflammation of the ciliary body, _cyclitis_, is frequently associated
with iritis. This association is probable in all cases where there are
deposits on the posterior surface of the cornea. It is certain where
there are changes in the intra-ocular tension. Often in cyclitis there
is a very marked diminution in tension. Cyclitis is also present when
the degree of visual disturbance is greater than can be accounted for by
the visible changes in the pupil and anterior chamber. The exudation
may, as in iritis, be serous, plastic or purulent. It passes from the
two free surfaces of the ciliary body into the posterior aqueous, and
into the vitreous, chambers. This produces, what is a constant sign of
cyclitis, more or less intransparency of the vitreous humour. Where
there has been excessive exudation into the vitreous, subsequent
shrinking and liquefaction take place, leading to detachment of the
retina and consequent blindness.
The treatment of iritis necessarily differs to some extent according to
the cause. The general treatment applicable to all cases need only be
here considered. What should be aimed at, at the time of the
inflammation, is to put the eye as far as possible at rest, to prevent
the formation of synechiae and alleviate the pain. An attempt should be
made to get the pupil thoroughly dilated with atropine. The dilatation
should be kept up as long as any circumcorneal injection lasts. If a
case of iritis be left to itself or treated without the use of a
mydriatic, posterior synechiae almost invariably form. Some fibrinous
exudation may even organize into a membrane stretching across, and more
or less completely occluding, the pupil. Synechiae, though not of
themselves causing impairment of vision, increase the risk that the eye
runs from subsequent attacks of iritis. It should however be remembered
that as the main call for a mydriatic is to prevent synechiae, the
_raison d'être_ for its use no longer exists when, having been begun too
late, the pupil cannot properly be dilated by it. Under these conditions
it may even do harm. The eyes should also be kept shaded from the light
by the use of a shade or neutral-tinted glasses. During an attack any
use of the eyes for reading or sewing or work of any kind calling for
accommodation must be prohibited. This applies equally to the case of
inflammation in one eye alone and in both.
Pain is best relieved by hot fomentations, cocain, and in many cases the
internal use of salicin or phenacetin. The treatment sometimes required
for cases of old iritis is iridectomy. The operation is called for in
two different classes of cases. In the first place, to improve vision
where the pupil is small, and to a great extent occluded, though the
condition has not so far led to serious nutritive changes; and in the
second place, with the object as well of preventing the complete
destruction of vision which either the existing condition or the danger
of recurrence of the inflammation has threatened. Iridectomy for iritis
should be performed when the inflammation has entirely subsided. The
portion of iris excised should be large. The operation is urgently
called for where the condition of _iris bombans_ exists.
Iris tumours, either simple or malignant, are of rare occurrence.
A frequent result of a severe blow on the eye is a separation of a
portion of the iris from its peripheral attachment (_iridodialysis_). Of
congenital anomalies the most commonly met with are coloboma and more or
less persistence of the foetal pupillary membrane. The most serious form
of irido-cyclitis is that which may follow penetrating wounds of the
eye. Under certain conditions this leads to a similar inflammation in
the other eye. This so-called _sympathetic ophthalmitis_ is of a
malignant type, causing destruction of the sympathizing eye.
_The Retina._--Choroidal inflammations are generally patchy, various
foci of inflammation being scattered over the choroid. These patches may
in course of time become more or less confluent. The effect upon vision
depends upon the extent to which the external or percipient elements of
the retina become involved. It is especially serious when the more
central portions of the retina, are thus affected (_choroido-retinitis
centralis_).
A peculiar and grave pathological condition of the eye is what is known
as _glaucoma_. A characteristic of this condition is increase of the
intra-ocular tension, which has a deleterious effect on the optic nerve
end and its ramifications in the retina. The cause of the rise of
tension is partly congestive, partly mechanical. The effect of glaucoma,
when untreated, is to cause ever-increasing loss of sight, although the
time occupied by the process before it leads to complete blindness
varies within such extraordinary wide limits as from a few hours to many
years. The uveal tract may be the site of _sarcoma_.
The retina is subject to inflammation, to detachment from the choroid,
to haemorrhages from the blood-vessels and to tumour. Retinal
inflammation may primarily affect either the nerve elements or the
connective tissue framework. The former is usually associated with some
general disease such as albuminuria or diabetes and is bilateral. The
tissue changes are oedema, the formation of exudative patches, and
haemorrhage. Where the connective tissue elements are primarily
affected, the condition is a slow one, similar to _sclerosis_ of the
central nervous system. The gradual blindness which this causes is due
to compression of the retinal nerve elements by the connective tissue
hyperplasia, which is always associated with characteristic changes in
the disposition of the retinal pigment. This retinal sclerosis is
consequently generally known as _retinitis pigmentosa_, a disease to
which there is a hereditary predisposition. Besides occurring during
inflammation, haemorrhages into the retina are met with in phlebitis of
the central retinal vein, which is almost invariably unilateral, and in
certain conditions of the blood, as pernicious anaemia, when they are
always bilateral.
The optic nerve is subject to inflammation (optic neuritis) and atrophy.
Double optic neuritis, affecting, however, only the intra-ocular ends of
the nerves, is an almost constant accompaniment of brain tumour.
Unilateral neuritis has a different causation, depending upon an
inflammation, mainly perineuritic, of the nerve in the orbit. It is
analogous to peripheral inflammation of other nerves, such as the third,
fourth, sixth and seventh cranial nerves.
_Diseases of the Conjunctiva._--These are the most frequent diseases of
the eye with which the surgeon has to deal. They generally lead to more
or less interference with the functional activity of the eye and often
indeed to great impairment of vision owing to the tendency which there
is for the cornea to become implicated.
Many different micro-organisms are of pathogenetic importance in
connexion with the conjunctiva. Microbes exist in the normal
conjunctival sac. These are mostly harmless, though it is usual to find
at any rate a small proportion of others which are known to be
pyogenetic. This fact is of great importance in connexion both with
problems of etiology and the practical question of operations on the
eye.
_Hyperaemia._--When the conjunctiva becomes hyperaemic its colour is
heightened and its transparency lessened. Sometimes too it becomes
thickened and its surface altered in appearance. The often marked
heightening of colour is due to the very superficial position of the
dilated vessels. This is specially the case with that part of the
membrane which forms the transition fold between the palpebral and the
ocular conjunctiva. Consequently it is there that the redness is most
marked, while it is seen to diminish towards the cornea. An important
diagnostic mark is thus furnished between purely conjunctival hyperaemia
and what is called circumcorneal congestion, which is always an
indication of more deep-seated vascular dilatation. It also differs
materially from a scleral injection, in which there is a visible
dilatation of the superficial scleral vessels.
When a conjunctival hyperaemia has existed for some time the papillae
become swollen, and small blebs form on the surface of the membrane:
sometimes too, lymph follicles begin to show. The enlargement and
compression of adjacent papillae give rise to a velvety appearance of
the surface.
Hyperaemia of the conjunctiva where not followed by inflammation causes
more or less lacrymation but no alteration in the character of its
secretion. The hyperaemia may be acute and transitory or chronic. Much
depends upon the cause as well as upon the persistence of the irritation
which sets it up.
Traumata, the presence of foreign bodies in the conjunctival sac, or the
irritations of superficial chalky infarcts in the Meibomian ducts, cause
more or less severe transitory congestion. Continued subjection to
irritating particles such as flour, stones, dust, &c., causes a more
continued hyperaemia which is often circumscribed and less pronounced.
Bad air in schools, barracks, workhouses, &c., also causes a chronic
hyperaemia in which it is common to find a follicular hyperplasia. Long
exposure to too intense light, astigmatism and other ocular defects
which cause asthenopia lead also to chronic hyperaemia. Anaemic
individuals are often subject to discomfort from hyperaemia of this
nature.
The treatment of conjunctival hyperaemia consists first in the removal
of the cause when it can be discovered. Often this is difficult. In
addition the application of hot sterilized water is useful and soothing.
_Conjunctivitis._--When the conjunctiva is actually inflamed the
congested membrane is brought into a condition of heightened secreting
action. The secretions become more copious and more or less altered in
character. A sufficiently practical though by no means sharply defined
clinical division of cases of conjunctivitis is arrived at by taking
into consideration the character of the secretion from the inflamed
membrane and the visible tissue alterations which the membrane
undergoes. The common varieties of conjunctivitis which may thus be
distinguished are the following: ([alpha]) Catarrhal conjunctivitis,
([beta]) Purulent conjunctivitis, ([gamma]) Phlyctenular conjunctivitis,
([delta]) Granular conjunctivitis and ([epsilon]) Diphtheritic
conjunctivitis.
However desirable a truly etiological classification might appear to be,
it is doubtful whether such could satisfactorily be made. So much is
certain at all events, that not only can identically the same clinical
appearance result from the actions of quite different pathogenetic
organisms, but that various concomitant circumstances may lead to very
different clinical signs being set up by one and the same microbe. As
regards _contagion_ there is no doubt that the secretion in the case of
a true conjunctivitis (i.e. not merely a hyperaemia) is always more or
less contagious. The degree of virulence varies not only in different
cases, but the effect of contagion from the same source may be different
in different individuals. Healthy conjunctivae may thus react
differently, not only as regards the degree of severity, but even
according to different clinical types, when infected by secretion from
the same source. There are no doubt different reasons for this, such as
the stage at which the inflammation has arrived in the eye from which
the secretion is derived, differences in the surroundings and in the
susceptibility of the infected individuals, the presence of dormant
microbes of a virulent type in the healthy conjunctiva which has been
infected, &c. Many points in this connexion are very difficult to
investigate and much remains to be elucidated. Contagion usually takes
place directly and not through the air. Often in this way one eye is
first affected and may in some cases, when sufficient care is afterwards
taken, be the only one to suffer.
The treatment in all severer forms of conjunctivitis should be
undertaken with the primary object in view of preventing any implication
of the cornea.
_Catarrhal conjunctivitis_, which is characterized by an increased
mucoid secretion accompanying the hyperaemia, is usually bilateral and
may be either acute or chronic. Acute conjunctivitis lasts as a rule
only for a week or two: the chronic type may persist, with or without
occasional exacerbations, for years. The subjective symptoms vary in
intensity with the severity of the inflammation. There is always more or
less troublesome "burning" in the eyes with a tired heavy feeling in the
lids. This is aggravated by reading, which is most distressing in a
close or smoky atmosphere and by artificial light. In acute cases,
indeed, reading is altogether impossible. In all cases of catarrhal
conjunctivitis the symptoms are also more marked if the eyes have been
tied up, even though this may produce a temporary relief.
A curious variety of acute catarrhal conjunctivitis, in which the
hyperaemia and lacrymation are the predominant features, is the
so-called _hay-fever_. In this condition the mucous membrane of the nose
and throat are similarly affected, and there is at the same time more or
less constitutional disturbance. Hay-fever is due to irritation from the
pollen of many plants, but principally from that of the different
grasses. Some people are so susceptible to it that they invariably
suffer every year during the early summer months. Here it is difficult
to remove the cause, but many cases can be cured and almost all are
alleviated be means of a special antitoxin applied locally.
Other ectogenetic causes of catarrhal conjunctivitis which have been
studied are mostly microbic. Of these the most common are the
Morax-Axenfeld and the Koch-Weeks conjunctivitis.
The Morax-Axenfeld bacillus sets up a conjunctivitis which affects
individuals of all ages and conditions and which is contagious. The
inflammation is usually chronic, at most subacute. It is often
sufficiently characteristic to be recognized without a microscopical
examination of the secretions. In typical cases the lid margin,
palpebral conjunctiva, and it may be a patch of ocular conjunctiva at
the outer or inner angle are alone hyperaemic: the secretion is not
copious and is mostly found as a greyish coagulum lying at the inner
lid-margin. The subjective symptoms are usually slight. Complications
with other varieties of catarrhal conjunctivitis are not uncommon. This
mild form of conjunctivitis generally lasts for many months, subject to
more or less complete disappearance followed by recurrences. It can be
rapidly cured by the use of an oxide of zinc ointment, which should be
continued for some time after the appearances have altogether passed
off.
The conjunctivitis caused by the Koch-Weeks microbe is still more
common. It is a more acute type, affects mostly children, and is very
contagious and often epidemic. Here the hyperaemia involves both the
ocular and the palpebral conjunctiva, and usually there is considerable
swelling of the lids and a copious secretion. Both eyes are always
affected. Occasionally the engorged conjunctival vessels give way,
causing numerous small extravasations (ecchymoses). Complications with
phlyctenulae (_vide infra_) are common in children. The acute symptoms
last for a week or ten days, after which the course is more chronic.
Treatment with nitrate of silver in solution is generally satisfactory.
Other less frequent microbic causes of catarrhal conjunctivitis yield to
the same treatment.
A form of _epidemic muco-purulent conjunctivitis_ is not uncommon, in
which the swelling of the conjunctival folds and lids is much more
marked and the secretions copious. It is less amenable to treatment and
also apt to be complicated by corneal ulceration. The microbe which
gives rise to this condition has not been definitely established. This
inflammation is also known as _school ophthalmia_. This is extremely
contagious, so that isolation of cases becomes necessary. The treatment
with weak solutions of sub-acetate of lead during the acute stage,
provided there be no corneal complication, and subsequently with a weak
solution of tannic acid, may be recommended.
_Purulent Conjunctivitis._--Some of the severer forms of catarrhal
conjunctivitis are accompanied not only by a good deal of swelling of
both conjunctiva and lids but also by a decidedly muco-purulent
secretion. Nevertheless there is a sufficiently sharply-defined clinical
difference between the catarrhal and purulent types of inflammation. In
purulent conjunctivitis the oedema of the lids is always marked, often
excessive, the hyperaemia of the whole conjunctiva is intense: the
membrane is also infiltrated and swollen (chemosis), the papillae
enlarged and the secretion almost wholly purulent. Although this variety
of conjunctivitis is principally due to infection by gonococci, other
microbes, which more frequently set up a catarrhal type, may lead to the
purulent form.
All forms are contagious, and transference of the secretion to other
eyes usually sets up the same type of severe inflammation. The way in
which infection mostly takes place is by direct transference by means of
the hands, towels, &c., of secretions containing gonococci either from
the eye or from some other mucous membrane. The poison may also
sometimes be carried by flies. The dried secretion loses its virulence.
In new-born children (_ophthalmia neonatorum_) infection takes place
from the maternal passages during birth. Notwithstanding the great
changes which occur during the progress of a purulent conjunctivitis,
there is on recovery a complete _restitutio ad integrum_ so far as the
conjunctiva is concerned. Owing to the tendency to severe ulceration of
the cornea, more or less serious destructions of that membrane, and
consequently more or less interference with sight, may result before the
inflammation has passed off. This is a special danger in the case of
adults. For this reason when only one eye is affected the first point to
be attended to in the treatment is to secure the second eye from
contagion by efficient occlusion. The appliance known as Buller's
shield, a watch-glass strapped down by plaster, is the best for this
purpose. It not only admits of the patient seeing with the sound eye,
but allows the other to remain under direct observation. The treatment
otherwise consists in frequent removal of the secretions from the
affected eye, and the use of nitrate of silver solution as a bactericide
applied directly to the conjunctival surface; sometimes it is necessary
to cut away the chemotic conjunctiva immediately surrounding the cornea.
When the cornea has become affected efforts may be made with the
thermo-cautery or otherwise to limit the area of destruction and thus
admit of something being done to improve the vision after all
inflammation has subsided. The greatest cleanliness as well as proper
antiseptic precautions should of course be observed by every one in any
way connected with the treatment of such cases.
_Phlyctenular conjunctivitis_ is an acute inflammation of the ocular
conjunctiva, in which little blebs or phlyctenules form, more
particularly in the vicinity of the corneal margin, as well as on the
epithelial continuation of the conjunctiva which covers the cornea. The
inflammation is characterized by being distributed in little
circumscribed foci and not diffused as in all other forms of
conjunctivitis. In it the conjunctival secretion is not altered, unless
there should exist at the same time a complication with some other form
of conjunctivitis. This condition is most frequent in children,
particularly such as are ill-nourished or are recovering from some
illness, e.g. measles. The susceptibility occurs in fact mainly where
there exists what used to be called a "strumous" diathesis. In many
cases, therefore, there is some kind of tubercular basis for the
manifestations. This basis has to do with the susceptibility only, at
all events to begin with. The local changes are not tuberculous; their
exact origin has not been clearly established. They are in all
probability produced by staphylococci.
Many children suffering from phlyctenular conjunctivitis get after a
short time an eczematous excoriation of the skin of the nostrils. This
excoriated, scabby area contains crowds of staphylococci which find a
nidus here, where the copious tear-flow down the nostrils has excoriated
and irritated the skin. Lacrymation is indeed a very common concomitant
of phlyctenular conjunctivitis. Another frequently distressing symptom
is a pronounced dread of light (_photophobia_), which often leads to
convulsive and very persistent closing of the lids (_blepharospasm_).
Indeed the relief of the photophobia is often the most important point
to be considered in the treatment of phlyctenular conjunctivitis. The
photophobia may be very severe when the local changes are slight. The
eyes should be shaded but not bandaged. Cocain may be freely used. The
best local application is the yellow oxide of mercury used as an
ointment.
Phlyctenular conjunctivitis, and the corneal complications with which it
is so often associated, constitute a large proportion (from ¼ to 1/3) of
all eye affections with which the surgeon has to deal.
_Granular Conjunctivitis._--This disease, which also goes by the name of
_trachoma_, is characterized by an inflammatory infiltration of the
adenoid tissue of the conjunctiva. The inflammation is accompanied by
the formation of so-called _granules_, and at the same time by a
hyperplasia of the papillae. The changes further lead in the course of
time to cicatricial transformations, so that a gradual and progressive
atrophy of the conjunctiva results. The disease takes its origin most
frequently in the conjunctival fold of the upper lid, but eventually as
a rule involves the corna and the deeper tissues of the lid,
particularly the tarsus.
The etiology of trachoma is unknown. Though a perfectly distinctive
affection when fully established, the differential diagnosis from other
forms of conjunctivitis, particularly those associated with much
follicular enlargement or which have begun as purulent inflammation, may
be difficult. Trachoma is mostly chronic. When occurring in an acute
form it is more amenable to treatment and less likely to end in
cicatricial changes. Fully half the cases of trachoma which occur are
complicated by _pannus_, which is the name given to the affection when
it has spread to the cornea. Pannus is a superficial vascularized
infiltration of the cornea. The veiling which it produces causes more or
less defect of sight.
Various methods of treatment are in use for trachoma. Expression by
means of roller-forceps or repeated grattage are amongst the more
effective means of surgical treatment, while local applications of
copper sulphate or of alum are certainly useful in suitable cases.
_Diphtheritic conjunctivitis_ is characterized by an infiltration into
the conjunctival tissues which, owing to great coagulability, rapidly
interferes with the nutrition of the invaded area and thus leads to
necrosis of the diphtheritic membrane. Conjunctival diphtheria may or
may not be associated with diphtheria of the throat. It is essentially a
disease of early childhood, not more than 10% of all cases occurring
after the age of four. The cornea is exposed to great risk, more
particularly during the first few days, and may be lost by necrosis.
Subsequent ulceration is not uncommon, but may often be arrested before
complete destruction has taken place. The disease is generally confined
to one eye, and complicated by swelling of the preauricular glands of
that side. It may prove fatal. In true conjunctival diphtheria the
exciting cause is the Klebs-Löffler bacillus. The inflammation occurs in
very varying degrees of severity. The secretion is at first thin and
scant, afterwards purulent and more copious. In severe cases there is
great chemosis with much tense swelling of the lids, which are often of
an ashy-grey colour. A streptococcus infection produces somewhat similar
and often quite as disastrous results.
The treatment must be both general with antitoxin and local with
antiseptics. Of rarer forms of conjunctivitis may be mentioned
Parinaud's conjunctivitis and the so-called spring catarrh.
_Non-inflammatory Conjunctival Affections._--These are of less
importance than conjunctivitis, either on account of their comparative
infrequency or because of their harmlessness. The following conditions
may be shortly referred to.
_Amyloid degeneration_, in which waxy-looking masses grow from the
palpebral conjunctiva of both lids, often attaining very considerable
dimensions. The condition is not uncommon in China and elsewhere in the
East.
_Essential Shrinking of the Conjunctiva._--This is the result of
pemphigus, in which the disease has attacked the conjunctiva and led to
its atrophy.
_Pterygium_ is a hypertrophic thickening of the conjunctiva of
triangular shape firmly attached by its apex to the superficial layers
of the cornea. It is a common condition in warm climates owing to
exposure to sun and dust, and often calls for operative interference.
_Tumours of the Conjunctiva._--These may be malignant or benign, also
syphilitic and tubercular. (G. A. Be.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Some embryologists regard the vitreous body as formed from the
ectoderm (see Quain's _Anatomy_, vol. i., 1908).
EYEMOUTH, a police burgh of Berwickshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 2436. It
is situated at the mouth of the Eye, 7½ m. N.N.W. of Berwick-on-Tweed by
the North British railway via Burnmouth. Its public buildings are the
town hall, library and masonic hall. The main industry is the fishing
and allied trades. The harbour was enlarged in 1887, and the bay is
easily accessible and affords good anchorage. Owing to the rugged
character of the coast and its numerous ravines and caves the whole
district was once infested with smugglers. The promontory of St Abb's
Head is 3 m. to the N.W.
EYLAU (_Preussisch-Eylau_), a town of Germany, in east Prussia, on the
Pasmar, 23 m. S. by E. Of Königsberg by rail on the line
Pillau-Prostken. It has an Evangelical church, a teachers' seminary, a
hospital, foundries and saw mills. Pop. 3200. Eylau was founded in 1336
by Arnolf von Eilenstein, a knight of the Teutonic Order. It is famous
as the scene of a battle between the army of Napoleon and the Russians
and Prussians commanded by General Bennigsen, fought on the 8th of
February 1807.
The battle was preceded by a severe general engagement on the 7th. The
head of Napoleon's column (cavalry and infantry), advancing from the
south-west, found itself opposed at the outlet of the Grünhöfchen defile
by a strong Russian rearguard which held the (frozen) lakes on either
side of the Eylau road, and attacked at once, dislodging the enemy after
a sharp conflict. The French turned both wings of the enemy, and
Bagration, who commanded the Russian rearguard, retired through Eylau to
the main army, which was now arrayed for battle east of Eylau. Barclay
de Tolly made a strenuous resistance in Eylau itself, and in the
churchyard, and these localities changed hands several times before
remaining finally in possession of the French. It is very doubtful
whether Napoleon actually ordered this attack upon Eylau, and it is
suggested that the French soldiers were encouraged to a premature
assault by the hope of obtaining quarters in the village. There is,
however, no reason to suppose that this attack was prejudicial to
Napoleon's chance of success, for his own army was intended to pin the
enemy in front, while the outlying "masses of manoeuvre" closed upon his
flanks and rear (see NAPOLEONIC CAMPAIGNS). In this case the vigour of
the "general advanced guard" was superfluous, for Bennigsen stood to
fight of his own free will.
The foremost line of the French bivouacs extended, from Rothenen to
Freiheit, but a large proportion of the army spent the night in quarters
farther back. The Russian army on the other hand spent the night
bivouacked in order of battle, the right at Schloditten and the left at
Serpallen. The cold was extreme, 2° F. being registered in the early
morning, and food was scarce in both armies. The ground was covered at
the time of battle with deep snow, and all the lakes and marshes were
frozen, so that troops of all arms could pass everywhere, so far as the
snow permitted. Two of Napoleon's corps (Davout and Ney) were still
absent, and Ney did not receive his orders until the morning of the 8th.
His task was to descend upon the Russian right, and also to prevent a
Prussian corps under Lestocq from coming on to the battlefield. Davout's
corps advancing from the south-east on Mollwitten was destined for the
attack of Bennigsen's left wing about Serpallen and Klein Sausgarten. In
the meantime Napoleon with his forces at and about Eylau made the
preparations for the frontal attack. His infantry extended from the
windmill, through Eylau, to Rothenen, and the artillery was deployed
along the whole front; behind each infantry corps and on the wings stood
the cavalry. The Guard was in second line south of Eylau, and an army
reserve stood near the Waschkeiten lake. Bennigsen's army was drawn up
in line from Schloditten to Klein Sausgarten, the front likewise covered
by guns, in which arm he was numerically much superior. A detachment
occupied Serpallen.
The battle opened in a dense snowstorm. About 8 A.M. Bennigsen's guns
opened fire on Eylau, and after a fierce but undecided artillery fight
the French delivered an infantry attack from Eylau. This was repulsed
with heavy losses, and the Russians advanced towards the windmill in
force. Thereupon Napoleon ordered his centre, the VII. corps of Augéreau
to move forward from the church against the Russian front, the division
of St Hilaire on Augéreau's right participating in the attack. If we
conceive of this first stage of the battle as the action of the "general
advanced guard," Augéreau must be held to have overdone his part. The
VII. corps advanced in dense masses, but in the fierce snowstorm lost
its direction. St Hilaire attacked directly and unsupported; Augéreau's
corps was still less fortunate. Crossing obliquely the front of the
Russian line, as if making for Schloditten, it came under a _feu
d'enfer_ and was practically annihilated. In the confusion the Russian
cavalry charged with the utmost fury downhill and with the wind behind
them. Three thousand men only out of about fourteen thousand appeared at
the evening parade of the corps. The rest were killed, wounded,
prisoners or dispersed. The marshal and every senior officer was amongst
the killed and wounded, and one regiment, the 14th of the Line, cut off
in the midst of the Russians and refusing to surrender, fell almost to a
man. The Russian counterstroke penetrated into Eylau itself and Napoleon
himself was in serious danger. With the utmost coolness, however, he
judged the pace of the Russian advance and ordered up a battalion of the
Guard at the exact moment required. In the streets of Eylau the Guard
had the Russians at their mercy, and few escaped. Still the situation
for the French was desperate and the battle had to be maintained at all
costs. Napoleon now sent forward the cavalry along the whole line. In
the centre the charge was led by Murat and Bessières, and the Russian
horsemen were swept off the field. The Cuirassiers under D'Hautpoult
charged through the Russian guns, broke through the first line of
infantry and then through the second, penetrating to the woods of
Anklappen.
[Illustration: Map of Eylau.]
The shock of a second wave of cavalry broke the lines again, and though
in the final retirement the exhausted troopers lost terribly, they had
achieved their object. The wreck of Augéreau's and other divisions had
been reformed, the Guard brought up into first line, and, above all,
Davout's leading troops had occupied Serpallen. Thence, with his left in
touch with Napoleon's right (St Hilaire), and his right extending
gradually towards Klein Sausgarten, the marshal pressed steadily upon
the Russian left, rolling it up before him, until his right had reached
Kutschitten and his centre Anklappen. By that time the troops under
Napoleon's immediate command, pivoting their left on Eylau church, had
wheeled gradually inward until the general line extended from the
church to Kutschitten. The Russian army was being driven westward, when
the advance of Lestocq gave them fresh steadiness. The Prussian corps
had been fighting a continuous flank-guard action against Marshal Ney to
the north-west of Althof, and Lestocq had finally succeeded in
disengaging his main body, Ney being held up at Althof by a small
rearguard, while the Prussians, gathering as they went the fugitives of
the Russian army, hastened to oppose Davout. The impetus of these fresh
troops led by Lestocq and his staff-officer Scharnhorst was such as to
check even the famous divisions of Davout's corps which had won the
battle of Auerstädt single-handed. The French were now gradually forced
back until their right was again at Sausgarten and their centre on the
Kreege Berg.
Both sides were now utterly exhausted, for the Prussians also had been
marching and fighting all day against Ney. The battle died away at
nightfall, Ney's corps being unable effectively to intervene owing to
the steadiness of the Prussian detachment left to oppose him, and the
extreme difficulty of the roads. A severe conflict between the Russian
extreme right and Ney's corps which at last appeared on the field at
Schloditten ended the battle. Bennigsen retreated during the night
through Schmoditten, Lestocq through Kutschitten. The numbers engaged in
the first stage of the battle may be taken as--Napoleon, 50,000,
Bennigsen, 67,000, to which later were added on the one side Ney and
Davout, 29,000, on the other Lestocq, 7000. The losses were roughly,
15,000 men to the French, 18,000 to the Allies, or 21 and 27%
respectively of the troops actually engaged. The French lost 5 eagles
and 7 other colours, the Russians 16 colours and 24 guns.
EYRA (_Felis eyra_), a South American wild cat, of weasel-like build,
and uniform coloration, varying in different individuals from
reddish-yellow to chestnut. It is found in Brazil, Guiana and Paraguay,
and extends its range to the Rio del Norte, but is rare north of the
isthmus of Panama. Little is known of its habits in a wild state, beyond
the fact that it is a forest-dweller, active in movement and fierce in
disposition. Several have been exhibited in the London Zoological
Gardens, and some have grown gentle in captivity. Don Felix de Azara
wrote of one which he kept on a chain that it was "as gentle and playful
as any kitten could be." The name is sometimes applied to the
jaguarondi.
EYRE, EDWARD JOHN (1815-1901), British colonial governor, the son of a
Yorkshire clergyman, was born on the 5th of August 1815. He was intended
for the army, but delays having arisen in producing a commission, he
went out to New South Wales, where he engaged in the difficult but very
necessary undertaking of transporting stock westward to the new colony
of South Australia, then in great distress, and where he became
magistrate and protector of the aborigines, whose interests he warmly
advocated. Already experienced as an Australian traveller, he undertook
the most extensive and difficult journeys in the desert country north
and west of Adelaide, and after encountering the greatest hardships,
proved the possibility of land communication between South and West
Australia. In 1845 he returned to England and published the narrative of
his travels. In 1846 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of New
Zealand, where he served under Sir George Grey. After successively
governing St Vincent and Antigua, he was in 1862 appointed
acting-governor of Jamaica and in 1864 governor. In October 1865 a negro
insurrection broke out and was repressed with laudable vigour, but the
unquestionable severity and alleged illegality of Eyre's subsequent
proceedings raised a storm at home which induced the government to
suspend him and to despatch a special commission of investigation, the
effect of whose inquiries, declared by his successor, Sir John Peter
Grant, to have been "admirably conducted," was that he should not be
reinstated in his office. The government, nevertheless, saw nothing in
Eyre's conduct to justify legal proceedings; indictments preferred by
amateur prosecutors at home against him and military officers who had
acted under his direction, resulted in failure, and he retired upon the
pension of a colonial governor. As an explorer Eyre must be classed in
the highest rank, but opinions are always likely to differ as to his
action in the Jamaica rebellion. He died on the 30th of November 1901.
EYRE, SIR JAMES (1734-1799), English judge, was the son of the Rev.
Thomas Eyre, of Wells, Somerset. He was educated at Winchester College
and at St John's College, Oxford, which, however, he left without taking
a degree. He was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1755, and commenced
practice in the lord mayor's and sheriffs' courts, having become by
purchase one of the four counsel to the corporation of London. He was
appointed recorder of London in 1763. He was counsel for the plaintiff
in the case of _Wilkes_ v. _Wood_, and made a brilliant speech in
condemnation of the execution of general search warrants. His refusal to
voice the remonstrances of the corporation against the exclusion of
Wilkes from parliament earned him the recognition of the ministry, and
he was appointed a judge of the exchequer in 1772. From June 1792 to
January 1793 he was chief commissioner of the great seal. In 1793 he was
made chief justice of the common pleas, and presided over the trials of
Horne Tooke, Thomas Crosfield and others, with great ability and
impartiality. He died on the 1st of July 1799 and was buried at
Ruscombe, Berkshire.
See Howell, _State Trials_, xix. (1154--1155); Foss, _Lives of the
Judges_.
EYRIE, the alternative English form of the words Aerie or Aery, the
lofty nest of a bird of prey, especially of an eagle, hence any lofty
place of abode; the term is also used of the brood of the bird. The word
derives from the Fr. _aire_, of the same meaning, which comes from the
Lat. _area_, an open space, but was early connected with _aërius_, high
in the air, airy, a confusion that has affected the spelling of the
word. The forms "eyrie" or "eyry" date from a 17th century attempt to
derive the word from the Teutonic _ey_, an egg.
EZEKIEL ([Hebrew: Ihezkel], "God strengthens" or "God is strong"; Sept.
[Greek: Iezekiel]; Vulg. Ezechiel), son of Buzi, one of the most
vigorous and impressive of the older Israelite thinkers. He was a priest
of the Jerusalem temple, probably a member of the dominant house of
Zadok, and doubtless had the literary training of the cultivated
priesthood of the time, including acquaintance with the national
historical, legal and ritual traditions and with the contemporary
history and customs of neighbouring peoples. In the year 597 (being
then, probably, not far from thirty years of age) he was carried off to
Babylonia by Nebuchadrezzar with King Jehoiachin and a large body of
nobles, military men and artisans, and there, it would seem, he spent
the rest of his life. His prophecies are dated from this year ("our
captivity," xl. 1), except in i. 1, where the meaning of the date
"thirtieth year" is obscure; it cannot refer to his age (which would be
otherwise expressed in Hebrew), or to the reform of Josiah, 621 (which
is not elsewhere employed as an epoch); possibly the reference is to the
era of Nabopolassar (626 according to the Canon of Ptolemy), if
chronological inexactness be supposed (34 or 33 years instead of 30), a
supposition not at all improbable. That the word "thirtieth" is old,
appears from the fact that a scribe has added a gloss (vv. 2, 3) to
bring this statement into accord with the usual way of reckoning in the
book: the "thirtieth" year, he explains, is the fifth year of the
captivity of Jehoiachin. The exiles dwelt at Tell-abib ("Hill of the
flood"), one of the mounds or ruins made by the great floods that
devastated the country,[1] near the "river" Chebar (Kebar), probably a
large canal not far south of the city of Babylon. Here they had their
own lands, and some form of local government by elders, and appear to
have been prosperous and contented; probably the only demand made on
them by the Babylonian government was the payment of taxes.
Ezekiel was married (xxiv. 18), had his own house, and comported himself
quietly as a Babylonian subject. But he was a profoundly interested
observer of affairs at home and among the exiles: as patriot and
ethical teacher he deplored alike the political blindness of the
Jerusalem government (King Zedekiah revolted in 588) and the immorality
and religious superficiality and apostasy of the people. He, like
Jeremiah, was friendly to Nebuchadrezzar, regarding him as Yahweh's
instrument for the chastisement of the nation. Convinced that opposition
to Babylonian rule was suicidal, and interpreting historical events, in
the manner of the times, as indications of the temper of the deity, he
held that the imminent political destruction of the nation was proof of
Yahweh's anger with the people on account of their moral and religious
depravity; Jerusalem was hopelessly corrupt and must be destroyed
(xxiv.). On the other hand, he was equally convinced that, as his
predecessors had taught (Hos. xi. 8, 9; Isa. vii. 3 al.), Yahweh's love
for his people would not suffer them to perish utterly--a remnant would
be saved, and this remnant he naturally found in the exiles in
Babylonia, a little band plucked from the burning and kept safe in a
foreign land till the wrath should have passed (xi. 14 ff.). This
conception of the exiles as the kernel of the restored nation he further
set forth in the great vision of ch. i., in which Yahweh is represented
as leaving Jerusalem and coming to take up his abode among them in
Babylonia for a time, intending, however, to return to his own city
(xliii. 7).
This, then, was Ezekiel's political creed--destruction of Jerusalem and
its inhabitants, restoration of the exiles, and meantime submission to
Babylon. His arraignment of the Judeans is violent, almost malignant
(vi. xvi. al.). The well-meaning but weak king Zedekiah he denounces
with bitter scorn as a perjured traitor (xvii). He does not discuss the
possibility of successful resistance to the Chaldeans; he simply assumes
that the attempt is foolish and wicked, and, like other prophets, he
identifies his political programme with the will of God. Probably his
judgment of the situation was correct; yet, in view of Sennacherib's
failure at Jerusalem in 701 and of the admitted strength of the city,
the hope of the Jewish nobles could not be considered wholly unfounded,
and in any case their patriotism (like that of the national party in the
Roman siege) was not unworthy of admiration. The prophet's predictions
of disaster continued, according to the record, up to the investment of
the city by the Chaldean army in 588 (i.-xxiv.); after the fall of the
city (586) his tone changed to one of consolation (xxxiii.-xxxix.)--the
destruction of the wicked mass accomplished, he turned to the task of
reconstruction. He describes the safe and happy establishment of the
people in their own land, and gives a sketch of a new constitution, of
which the main point is the absolute control of public religion by the
priesthood (xl.-xlviii.).
The discourses of the first period (i.-xxiv.) do not confine themselves
to political affairs, but contain much interesting ethical and religious
material. The picture given of Jerusalemite morals is an appalling one.
Society is described as honeycombed with crimes and vices; prophets,
priests, princes and the people generally are said to practise
unblushingly extortion, oppression, murder, falsehood, adultery (xxii.).
This description is doubtless exaggerated. It may be assumed that the
social corruption in Jerusalem was such as is usually found in wealthy
communities, made bolder in this case, perhaps, by the political unrest
and the weakness of the royal government under Zedekiah. No such charges
are brought by the prophet against the exiles, in whose simple life,
indeed, there was little or no opportunity for flagrant violation of
law. Ezekiel's own moral code is that of the prophets, which insists on
the practice of the fundamental civic virtues. He puts ritual offences,
however, in the same category with offences against the moral law, and
he does not distinguish between immorality and practices that are
survivals of old recognized customs: in ch. xxii. he mentions "eating
with the blood"[2] along with murder, and failure to observe ritual
regulations along with oppression of the fatherless and the widow; the
old customary law permitted marriage with a half-sister (father's
daughter), with a daughter-in-law, and with a father's wife (Gen. xx.
12, xxxviii. 26; 2 Sam. xvi. 21, 22), but the more refined feeling of
the later time frowned on the custom, and Ezekiel treats it as
adultery.[3] However, notwithstanding the insistence on ritual, natural
in a priest, his moral standard is high; following the prescription of
Ex. xxii. 21 [20] he regards oppression of resident aliens (a class that
had not then received full civil rights) as a crime (xxii. 7), and in
his new constitution (xlvii. 22, 23) gives them equal rights with the
homeborn. His strongest denunciation is directed against the religious
practices of the time in Judea--the worship of the Canaanite local
deities (the Baals), the Phoenician Tammuz, and the sun and other
Babylonian and Assyrian gods (vi., viii., xvi., xxiii.); he maintained
vigorously the prophetic struggle for the sole worship of Yahweh.
Probably he believed in the existence of other gods, though he does not
express himself clearly on this point; in any case he held that the
worship of other deities was destructive to Israel. His conception of
Yahweh shows a mingling of the high and the low. On the one hand, he
regards him as supreme in power, controlling the destinies of Babylonia
and Egypt as well as those of Israel, and as inflexibly just in dealing
with ordinary offences against morality. But he conceives of him, on the
other hand, as limited locally and morally--as having his special abode
in. the Jerusalem temple, or elsewhere in the midst of the Israelite
people, and as dealing with other nations solely in the interests of
Israel. The bitter invectives against Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia,
Tyre, Sidon and Egypt, put into Yahweh's mouth, are based wholly on the
fact that these peoples are regarded as hostile and hurtful to Israel;
Babylonia, though nowise superior to Egypt morally, is favoured and
applauded because it is believed to be the instrument for securing
ultimately the prosperity of Yahweh's people. The administration of the
affairs of the world by the God of Israel is represented, in a word, as
determined not by ethical considerations but by personal preferences.
There is no hint in Ezekiel's writings of the grandiose conception of
Isa. xl.-lv., that Israel's mission is to give the knowledge of
religious truth to the other nations of the world; he goes so far as to
say that Yahweh's object in restoring the fortunes of Israel is to
establish his reputation among the nations as a powerful deity (xxxvi.
20-23, xxxvii. 28, xxxix. 23). The prophet regards Yahweh's
administrative control as immediate: he introduces no angels or other
subordinate supernatural agents--the cherubs and the "men" of ix. 2 and
xl. 3 are merely imaginative symbols or representations of divine
activity. His high conception of God's transcendence, it may be
supposed, led him to ignore intermediary agencies, which are common in
the popular literature, and later, under the influence of this same
conception of transcendence, are freely employed.
The relations between the writings of Ezekiel and those of Jeremiah is
not clear. They have so much in common that they must have drawn from
the same current bodies of thought, or there must have been borrowing in
one direction or the other. In one point, however,--the attitude toward
the ritual--the two men differ radically. The finer mind of the nation,
represented mainly by the prophets from Amos onward, had denounced
unsparingly the superficial non-moral popular cult. The struggle between
ethical religion and the current worship became acute toward the end of
the 7th century. There were two possible solutions of the difficulty.
The ritual books of our Pentateuch were not then in existence, and the
sacrificial cult might be treated with contempt as not authoritative.
This is the course taken by Jeremiah, who says boldly that God requires
only obedience (Jer. vii. 21 ff.). On the other hand the better party
among the priests, believing the ritual to be necessary, might undertake
to moralize it; of such a movement, begun by Deuteronomy, Ezekiel is the
most eminent representative. Priest and prophet, he sought to unify the
national religious consciousness by preserving the sacrificial cult,
discarding its abuses and vitalizing it ethically. The event showed that
he judged the situation rightly--the religious scheme announced by him,
though not accepted in all its details, became the dominant policy of
the later time, and he has been justly called "the father of Judaism."
He speaks as a legislator, citing no authority; but he formulates,
doubtless, the ideas and perhaps the practices of the Jerusalem
priesthood. His ritual code (xliii.-xlvi.), which in elaborateness
stands midway between that of Deuteronomy and that of the middle books
of the Pentateuch (resembling most nearly the code of Lev. xvii.-xxvi.)
shows good judgment. Its most noteworthy features are two. Certain
priests of idolatrous Judean shrines (distinguished by him as "Levites")
he deprives of priestly functions, degrading them to the rank of temple
menials; and he takes from the civil ruler all authority over public
religion, permitting him merely to furnish material for sacrifices. He
is, however, much more than a ritual reformer. He is the first to
express clearly the conception of a sacred nation, isolated by its
religion from all others, the guardian of divine law and the abode of
divine majesty. This kingdom of God he conceives of as moral: Yahweh is
to put his own spirit into the people,[4] creating in them a disposition
to obey his commandments, which are moral as well as ritual (xxxvi. 26,
27). The conception of a sacred nation controlled the whole succeeding
Jewish development; if it was narrow in its exclusive regard for Israel,
its intensity saved the Jewish religion to the world.
_Text and Authorship._--The Hebrew text of the book of Ezekiel is not in
good condition--it is full of scribal inaccuracies and additions. Many
of the errors may be corrected with the aid of the Septuagint (e.g. the
430--390 + 40--of iv. 5, 6 is to be changed to 190), and none of them
affect the general thought. The substantial genuineness of the
discourses is now accepted by the great body of critics. The Talmudic
tradition (_Baba Bathra_ 14b) that the men of the Great Synagogue
"wrote" Ezekiel, may refer to editorial work by later scholars.[5] There
is no validity in the objections of Zunz (_Gottesdienstl. Vortr._) that
the specific prediction concerning Zedekiah (xii. 12 f.) is
non-Prophetic, and that the drawing-up of a new constitution soon after
the destruction of the city and the mention of Noah, Daniel, Job and
Persia are improbable. The prediction in question was doubtless added by
Ezekiel after the event; the code belongs precisely in his time, and the
constitution was natural for a priest; Noah, Daniel and Job are old
legendary Hebrew figures; and it is not probable that the prophet's
"Paras" is our "Persia." Havet's contention (in _La Modernité des
prophètes_) that Gog represents the Parthians (40 B.C.) has little or
nothing in its support. There are additions made _post eventum_, as in
the case mentioned above and in xxix. 17-20, and the description of the
commerce of Tyre (xxvii. 9b-25a), which interrupts the comparison of the
city to a ship, looks like an insertion whether by the prophet or by
some other; but there is no good reason to doubt that the book is
substantially the work of Ezekiel. Ezekiel's style is generally
impetuous and vigorous, somewhat smoother in the consolatory discourses
(xxxiv., xxxvi., xxxvii.); he produces a great effect by the cumulation
of details, and is a master of invective; he is fond of symbolic
pictures, proverbs and allegories; his "visions" are elaborate literary
productions, his prophecies show less spontaneity than those of any
preceding prophet (he receives his revelations in the form of a book,
ii. 9), and in their present shape were hardly pronounced in public--a
fact that seems to be hinted at in the statement that he was "dumb" till
the fall of Jerusalem (iii. 26, xxxiii. 22); in private interviews the
people did not take him seriously (xxxiii. 30-33). His book was accepted
early as part of the sacred literature: Ben-Sira (c. 180 B.C.) mentions
him along with Isaiah and Jeremiah (Ecclus. xlix. 8); he is not quoted
directly in the New Testament, but his imagery is employed largely in
the Apocalypse and elsewhere. His divergencies from the Pentateuchal
code gave rise to serious doubts, but, after prolonged study, the
discrepancies were explained, and the book was finally canonized (Shab.
13b). According to Jerome (Preface to _Comm. on Ezek._) the Jewish
youth were forbidden to read the mysterious first chapter (called the
_markaba_, the "chariot") and the concluding section (xl.-xlviii.) till
they reached the age of thirty years.
The book divides itself naturally into three parts: the arraignment of
Jerusalem (i.-xxiv.); denunciation of foreign enemies (xxv.-xxxii.);
consolatory construction of the future (xxxiii.-xlviii.). The opening
"vision" (i.), an elaborate symbolic picture, is of the nature of a
general preface, and was composed probably late in the prophet's life.
Out of the north (the Babylonian sacred mountain) comes a bright
cloud, wherein appear four Creatures (formed on the model of
Babylonian composite figures), each with four faces (man, lion, bull,
eagle) and attended by a wheel; the wheels are full of eyes, and move
straight forward, impelled by the spirit dwelling in the Creatures
(the spirit of Yahweh). Supported on their heads is something like a
crystalline firmament, above which is a form like a sapphire throne
(cf. Ex. xxiv. 10), and on the throne a man-like form (Yahweh)
surrounded by a rainbow brightness. The wheels symbolize divine
omniscience and control, and the whole vision represents the coming of
Yahweh to take up his abode among the exiles. The prophet then
receives his call (ii., iii.) in the shape of a roll of a book, which
he is required to eat (an indication of the literary form now taken by
prophecy). He is informed that the people to whom he is sent are
rebellious and stiff-necked (this indicates his opinion of the people,
and gives the keynote of the following discourses); he is appointed
watchman to warn men when they sin, and is to be held responsible for
the consequences if he fail in this duty. To this high conception of a
preacher's function the prophet was faithful throughout his career.
Next follow minatory discourses (iv.-vii.) predicting the siege and
capture of Jerusalem-perhaps revised after the event. There are
several symbolic acts descriptive of the siege. One of these (iv. 4
ff.) gives the duration of the national punishment in loose
chronological reckoning: 40 years (a round number) for Judah, and 150
more (according to the corrected text) for Israel, the starting-point,
probably, being the year 722, the date of the capture of Samaria; the
procedure described in v. 8 is not to be understood literally. In vi.
the idolatry of the nation is pictured in darkest colours. Next
follows (viii.-xi.) a detailed description, in the form of a vision,
of the sin of Jerusalem: within the temple-area elders and others are
worshipping beast-forms, Tammuz and the sun (probably actual cults of
the time); [6] men approach to defile the temple and slay the
inhabitants of the city (ix.). In ch. x. the imagery of ch. i.
reappears, and the Creatures are identified with the cherubs of
Solomon's temple. This appears to be an independent form of the
vision, which has been brought into connexion with that of i. by a
harmonizing editor. There follow a symbolic prediction of the exile
(xii.) and a denunciation of non-moral prophets and prophetesses
(xiii.)--though Yahweh deceive a prophet, yet he and those who consult
him will be punished; and so corrupt is the nation that the presence
of a few eminently good men will not save it (xiv.).[7] After a
comparison of Israel to a worthless wild vine (xv.) come two
allegories, one portraying idolatrous Jerusalem as the unfaithful
spouse of Yahweh (xvi.), the other describing the fate of Zedekiah
(xvii.). The fine insistence on individual moral responsibility in
xviii. (cf. Deut. xxiv. 16, Jer. xxxi. 29 f.), while it is a protest
against a superficial current view, is not to be understood as a
denial of all moral relations between successive generations. This
latter question had not presented itself to the prophet's mind; his
object was simply to correct the opinion of the people that their
present misfortunes were due not to their own faults but to those of
their predecessors. A more sympathetic attitude appears in two elegies
(xix.), one on the kings Jehoahaz and Jehoiachin, the other on the
nation. These are followed by a scathing sketch of Israel's religious
career (xx. 1-26), in which, contrary to the view of earlier prophets,
it is declared that the nation had always been disobedient. From this
point to the end of xxiv. there is a mingling of threat and
promise.[8] The allegory of xxiii. is similar to that of xvi., except
that in the latter Samaria is relatively treated with favour, while in
the former it (Aholah) is involved in the same condemnation as that of
Jerusalem. At this point is introduced (xxv.-xxxii.) the series of
discourses directed against foreign nations. The description of the
king of Tyre (xxviii. 11-19) as dwelling in Eden, the garden of God,
the sacred mountain, under the protection of the cherub, bears a
curious resemblance to the narrative in Gen. ii., iii., of which,
however, it seems to be independent, using different Babylonian
material; the text is corrupt. The section dealing with Egypt is one
of remarkable imaginative power and rhetorical vigour: the king of
Egypt is compared to a magnificent cedar of Lebanon (in xxxi. 3 read:
"there was a cedar in Lebanon") and to the dragon of the Nile, and the
picture of his descent into Sheol is intensely tragic. Whether these
discourses were all uttered between the investment of Jerusalem and
its fall, or were here inserted by Ezekiel or by a scribe, it is not
possible to say. In xxxiii. the function of the prophet as watchman is
described at length (expansion of the description in iii.) and the
news of the capture of the city is received. The following chapters
(xxxiv.-xxxix.) are devoted to reconstruction: Edom, the detested
enemy of Israel, is to be crushed; the nation, politically raised from
the dead, with North and South united (xxxvii.), is to be established
under a Davidide king; a final assault, made by Gog, is to be
successfully met,[9] and then the people are to dwell in their own
land in peace for ever; this Gog section is regarded by some as the
beginning of Jewish apocalyptic writing. In the last section
(xl.-xlviii.), put as a vision, the temple is to be rebuilt, in
dimensions and arrangements a reproduction of the temple of Solomon
(cf. I Kings vi., vii.), the sacrifices and festivals and the
functions of priests and prince are prescribed, a stream issuing from
under the temple is to vivify the Dead Sea and fertilize the land
(this is meant literally), the land is divided into parallel strips
and assigned to the tribes. The prophet's thought is summed up in the
name of the city: _Yahweh Shammah_, "Yahweh is there," God dwelling
for ever in the midst of his people.
LITERATURE.--For the older works see the _Introductions_ of J.G.
Carpzov (1757) and C.H.H. Wright (1890). For _legends_:
Pseud.-Epiphan., _De vit. prophet._; Benjamin of Tudela, Itin.;
Hamburger, _Realencycl._; _Jew. Encycl._ On the Hebrew text; C.H.
Cornill, _Ezechiel_ (1886) (very valuable for text and ancient
versions); H. Graetz, _Emendationes_ (1893).; C.H. Toy, "Text of
Ezek." (1899) in Haupt's _Sacred Books of the Old Test._ Commentaries:
F. Hitzig (1847); H. Ewald (1868); E. Reuss (French ed., 1876; Germ,
ed., 1892); Currey (1876) in _Speaker's Comm._; R. Smend (revision of
Hitzig) (1880) in _Kurzgefasst. exeget. Handbuch_; A.B. Davidson
(1882) in Cambr. _Bible for Schools_; J. Skinner (1895) in _Expos.
Bible_; A. Bertholet (1897) in Marti's _Kurz. Hand-Comm._; C.H. Toy
(1899) in Haupt's _Sacr. Bks._ (Eng. ed.); R. Kraetzschmar (1900) in
W. Nowack's _Handkommentar_. See also Duhm, _Theol. d. Propheten_
(1875); A. Kuenen, _Prophets and Prophecy_ (1877); Gautier, _La
Mission du prophète Ezéchiel_ (1891); Montefiore, _Hibbert Lectures_
(1892); A. Bertholet, _Der Verfassungsentwurf des Hesekiel_ (1896);
articles in Herzog-Hauck, _Realencykl._; Hastings, _Bibl. Dict._;
Cheyne, _Encycl. Bibl., Jew. Encycl._; F. Bleek, _Introd._ (Eng. tr.,
1875), and Bleek-Wellhausen (Germ.) (1878); Wildeboer, _Letterkunde d.
Oud. Verbonds_ (1893), and Germ, transl., _Litt. d. Alt. Test._;
Perrot and Chipiez, _Hist. de l'art_, &c., in which, however, the
restoration of Ezekiel's temple (by Chipiez) is probably
untrustworthy. (C. H. T.*)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Assyrian term _abubu_ is used of the great primeval deluge
(in the Gilgamesh epic), and also of the local floods common in the
country.
[2] So we must read (as Robertson Smith has pointed out) in xxii. 9
and xviii. 6, instead of "eating on the mountains."
[3] The stricter marriage law is formulated in Lev. xviii. 8-15, xx.
11 ff.
[4] Yahweh's spirit, thought of as Yahweh's vital principle, as man's
spirit is man's vital principle, is to be breathed into them, as, in
Gen. ii. 7, Yahweh breathes his own breath into the lifeless body.
The spirit in the Old Testament is a refined material thing that may
come or be poured out on men.
[5] The "Great Synagogue" is semi-mythical.
[6] In viii. 17 the unintelligible expression "they put the branch to
their nose" is the rendering of a corrupt Hebrew text; a probable
emendation is: "they are sending a stench to my nostrils."
[7] The legendary figure of Daniel (xiv. 14) is later taken by the
author of the book of Daniel as his hero.
[8] For a reconstruction of the poem in xxi. 10, 11, see the English
Ezekiel in Haupt's _Sacred Books_.
[9] Gog probably represents a Scythian horde (though such an invasion
never took place)--certainly not Alexander the Great, who would have
been called "king of Greece," and would have been regarded not as an
enemy but as a friend.
EZRA (from a Hebrew word meaning "help"), in the Bible, the famous
scribe and priest at the time of the return of the Jews in the reign of
the Persian king Artaxerxes I. (458 B.C.). His book and that of Nehemiah
form one work (see EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF), apart from which we
have little trustworthy evidence as to his life. Even in the beginning
of the 2nd century B.C., when Ben Sira praises notable figures of the
exilic and post-exilic age (Zerubbabel, Jeshua and Nehemiah), Ezra is
passed over (Ecclesiasticus xlix. 11-13), and he is not mentioned in a
still later and somewhat fanciful description of Nehemiah's work (2
Macc. i. 18-36). Already well known as a scribe, Ezra's labours were
magnified by subsequent tradition. He was regarded as the father of the
scribes and the founder of the Great Synagogue. According to the
apocryphal fourth book of Ezra (or 2 Esdras xiv.) he restored the law
which had been lost, and rewrote all the sacred records (which had been
destroyed) in addition to no fewer than seventy apocryphal works. The
former theory recurs elsewhere in Jewish tradition, and may be
associated with the representation in Ezra-Nehemiah which connects him
with the law. But the story of his many literary efforts, like the more
modern conjecture that he closed the canon of the Old Testament, rests
upon no ancient basis.
See BIBLE, sect. Old Testament (Canon and Criticism); JEWS (history,
§21 seq.). The apocryphal books, called 1 and 2 Esdras (the Greek form
of the name) in the English Bible, are dealt with below as EZRA, THIRD
BOOK OF, and EZRA, FOURTH BOOK OF, while the canonical book of Ezra is
dealt with under EZRA AND NEHEMIAH.
EZRA, THIRD BOOK OF [1 _Esdras_]. The titles of the various books of the
Ezra literature are very confusing. The Greek, the Old Latin, the
Syriac, and the English Bible from 1560 onwards designate this book as
1 Esdras, the canonical books Ezra and Nehemiah being 2 Esdras in the
Greek. In the Vulgate, however, our author was, through the action of
Jerome, degraded into the third place and called 3 Esdras, whereas the
canonical books _Ezra_ and _Nehemiah_ (see EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF,
below) were called 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Apocalypse of Ezra 4 Esdras.
Thus the nomenclature of our book follows, and possibly wrongly, the
usage of the Vulgate.[1] In the Ethiopic version a different usage
prevails. The Apocalypse is called 1 Esdras, our author 2 Esdras, and
Ezra and Nehemiah 3 Esdras, or 3 and 4 Esdras. Throughout this article
we shall use the best attested designation of this book, i.e. 1 Esdras.
_Contents._--With the exception of one original section, namely, that of
Darius and the three young men, our author contains essentially the same
materials as the canonical Ezra and some sections of 2 Chronicles and
Nehemiah. To the various explanations of this phenomenon we shall recur
later. The book may be divided as follows (the verse division is that of
the Cambridge LXX):--
Chap. i. = 2 Chron. xxxv. 1-xxxvi. 21.--Great passover of Josiah; his
death at Megiddo. His successors down to the destruction of Jerusalem
and the Captivity. (Verses i. 21-22 are not found elsewhere, though
the LXX of 2 Chron. xxxv. 20 exhibits a very distant parallel.)
Chap. ii. 1-14 = Ezra i.--The edict of Cyrus. Restoration of the
sacred vessels through Sanabassar to Jerusalem.
Chap. ii. 15-25 = Ezra iv. 6-24.--First attempt to rebuild the Temple:
opposition of the Samaritans. Decree of Artaxerxes: work abandoned
till the second year of Darius.
Chap. iii. 1-v. 6.--This section is peculiar to our author. The
contest between the three pages waiting at the court of Darius and the
victory of the Jewish youth "Zerubbabel," to whom as a reward Darius
decrees the return of the Jews and the restoration of the Temple and
worship. Partial list of those who returned with "Joachim, son of
Zerubbabel."
Chap. v. 7-70 = Ezra ii.-iv. 5.--List of exiles who returned with
Zerubbabel. Work on the Temple begun. Offer of the Samaritans'
co-operation rejected. Suspension of the work through their
intervention till the reign of Darius.
Chap. vi. 1-vii. 9 = Ezra v. 1-vi. 18.--Work resumed in the second
year of Darius. Correspondence between Sisinnes and Darius with
reference to the building of the Temple. Darius' favourable decree.
Completion of the work by Zerubbabel.
Chap. vii. 10-15 =Ezra vi. 19-22.--Celebration of the completion of
the Temple.
Chap. viii. 1-ix. 36 = Ezra vii.-x.--Return of the exiles under Ezra.
Mixed marriages forbidden.
Chap. ix. 37-55 = Nehemiah vii. 73-viii. 12.--The reading of the Law.
Thus, apart from iii. 1-v. 3, which gives an account of the pages'
contest, the contents of the book are doublets of the canonical Ezra and
portions of 2 Chronicles and Nehemiah. The beginning of the book seems
imperfect, with its abrupt opening "And Josiah held the passover": its
conclusion is mutilated, as it breaks off in the middle of a sentence.
As Thackeray suggests, it probably continued the history of the feast of
Tabernacles described in Neh. viii.--a view that is supported by Joseph.
_Ant_. xi. 5. 5, "who describes that feast using an Esdras word [Greek:
epanorthôsis] and ... having hitherto followed Esdras as his authority
passes on to the Book of Nehemiah."
_Claims to Canonicity._--It would seem that even greater value was
attached to 1 Esdras than to the Hebrew Ezra. (1) For in the best MSS.
(BA) it stands before 2 Esdras--the verbal translation of the Hebrew
Ezra and Nehemiah. (2) It is used by Josephus, who in fact does not seem
aware of the existence of 2 Esdras. (3) 1 Esdras is frequently quoted by
the Greek fathers--Clem. Alex., Origen, Eusebius, and by the
Latin--Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine. The adverse judgment of the
church is due to Jerome, who, from his firm attachment to the Hebrew Old
Testament, declined to translate the "dreams" of 3 and 4 Esdras. This
judgment influenced alike the Council of Trent and the Lutheran church
in Germany; for Luther also refused to translate Esdras and the
Apocalypse of Ezra.
_Origin and Relation to the Canonical Ezra._--Various theories have been
given as to the relation of the book and the canonical Ezra.
1. Some scholars, as Keil, Bissell and formerly Schürer, regarded 1
Esdras as a free compilation from the Greek of 2 Esdras (2 Chron. and
Ezra-Nehemiah). This theory has now given place to others more accordant
with the facts of the case.
2. Others, as Ewald, _Hist. of Isr._ v. 126-128, and Thackeray in
Hastings' _Bible Dictionary_, assume a lost Greek version of Chronicles,
Ezra and Nehemiah, from which were derived 1 Esdras--a free redaction of
the former and 2 Esdras. Thackeray claims that we have "a satisfactory
explanation of the coincidences in translation and deviation from the
Hebrew in 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras, if we suppose both are to some extent
dependent on a lost Greek original." But later in the same article
Thackeray is compelled to modify this view and admit that 1 Esdras is
not a mere redaction of a no longer extant version of the canonical
books, but shows not only an independent knowledge of the Hebrew text
but also of a Hebrew text superior in not a few passages to the
Massoretic text, where 2 Esdras gives either an inaccurate version or a
version reproducing the secondary Massoretic text.
3. Others like Michaelis, Trendelenburg, Pohlmann, Herzfeld, Fritzsche
hold it to be a direct and independent translation of the Hebrew. There
is much to be said in favour of this view. It presupposes in reality two
independent recensions of the Hebrew text, such as we cannot reasonably
doubt existed at one time of the Book of Daniel. Against this it has
been urged that the story of the three pages was written originally in
Greek (Ewald, Schürer, Thackeray). The only grounds for this theory are
the easiness of the Greek style and the paronomasia in iv. 62 [Greek:
hanesin kai haphesin]. But the former is no real objection, and the
latter may be purely accidental. On the other hand there are several
undoubted Semiticisms. Thus we have two instances Of the split relative
[Greek: ou] ... [Greek: autou] iii. 5; [Greek: ou] ... [Greek: ep' autô]
iv. 63 and the phrase pointed out by Fritzsche [Greek: ta dikaia poiei
apo pantôn] = [Hebrew: asa mishpat min]. It must, however, be admitted
that there are fewer Hebraisms in this section of the book than in the
rest.
4. Sir H.H. Howorth in the treatises referred to at the close of this
article has shown cogent grounds for regarding 1 Esdras as the original
and genuine Septuagint translation, and 2 Esdras as probably that of
Theodotion. For this view he adduces among others the following grounds:
(i.) Its use by Josephus, who apparently was not acquainted with 2
Esdras. (ii.) Its precedence of 2 Esdras in the great uncials. (iii.)
Its origin at a time when Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah formed a single
work. (iv.) Its preservation of a better Hebrew text in many instances
than 2 Esdras. (v.) The fact that 1 Esdras and the Septuagint of Daniel
go back to one and the same translator, as Dr Gwynn (_Dict. Christ.
Biog._ iv. 977) has pointed out (cf. 1 Esdr. vi. 31, and Dan. ii. 5).
This contention of Howorth has been accepted by Nestle, Cheyne,
Bertholet, Ginsburg and other scholars, though they regard the question
of an Aramaic original of chapters iii. 1-v. 6 as doubtful. Howorth's
further claim that he has established the historical credibility of the
book as a whole and its chronological accuracy as against the canonical
Ezra has not as yet met with acceptance; but his arguments have not been
fairly met and answered.
5. Volz (_Encyc. Bibl._ ii. 1490) thinks that the solution of the
problem is to be found in a different direction. The text is of unequal
value, and the inequalities are so great as to exclude the supposition
that the Greek version was produced _aus einem Guss._ iii. 1-v. 3 is an
independent narrative written originally in Greek and itself a composite
production, the praise of truth being an addition, vi. 1-vii. 15, ii.
15-25a is a fragment of an Aramaic narrative. Some in Josephus (_Ant._
xi. 4. 9) an account of Samaritan intrigues is introduced immediately
after 1 Esdras vii. 15, it is natural to infer that something of the
same kind has fallen out between vi. and ii. 15-25. The Aramaic text
behind 1 Esdras here is better than that behind the canonical Ezra.
Next, viii.-ix. is from the Ezra document (= Ezra vii.-x.; Neh. vii. 73,
viii. 1 sqq.), though implying a different Hebrew text. ii. 1-15; v.
7-73; vii. 2-4, 6-15 are from the Chronicles: likewise i. is from 2
Chron. xxxv.-vi., 2 Esdras being at the same time before the translator.
_Date._--The book must be placed between 300 B.C. and A.D. 100, when
it was used by Josephus. It is idle to attempt any nearer limits until
definite conclusions have been reached on the chief problems of the
book.
_MSS. and Versions._--The book is found in B and A. The latter seems to
have preserved the more ancient form of the text, as it is generally
that followed by Josephus. The Old Latin in two recensions is published
by Sabatier, _Bibliorum sacrorum Latinae versiones antiquae_, iii.
Another Latin translation is given in Lagarde (_Septuag. Studien_, ii.,
1892). In Syriac the text is found only in the Syro-Hexaplar of Paul of
Tella (A.D. 616). See Walton's Polyglott. There is also an Ethiopic
version edited by Dillmann (_Bibl. Vet. Test. Aeth_. v., 1894) and an
Armenian.
LITERATURE.--Exegesis: Fritzsche, _Exeget. Handb. zu den Apokr._
(1851); Zöckler, _Die Apokryphen_, 155-161 (1891); Bissell in
Lange-Schaff's _Comm_. (1880); Lupton in _Speaker's Comm_. (1888);
Ball, notes to 1 Esdr. in the _Variorum Apocrypha_. Introduction and
critical Inquiries: Trendelenburg, "Apocr. Esra," in Eichhorn's
_Allgem. Bibl. der bibl. Litt._ i. 178-232 (1787); Pohlmann, "Über das
Ansehen der apokr. dritten Buchs Esras," in _Tübingen Theol.
Quartalschrift_, 257-275 (1859); Sir H. Howorth, "Character and
Importance of 1 Esdras," in the _Academy_ (1893), pp. 13, 60, 106,
174, 326, 524; and further studies entitled "Some Unconventional Views
on the Text of the Bible," in the _Proceedings of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology_, 1901, pp. 147-159; 306-330, 1902, June and
November. (R. H. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] "At the Council of Trent (when the Septuagint Canon was virtually
accepted as authoritative), by a most curious aberration, Esdras iii.
and iv. and the Epistle of Manasseh were alone excluded from the
canon and remitted to our appendix."--Howorth, "Unconventional Views
on the Text of the Bible," in the _P.S.B.A._, 1901, p. 149.
EZRA, FOURTH BOOK (or APOCALYPSE) OF. This is the most profound and
touching of the Jewish Apocalypses. It stands in the relation of a
sister work to the Apocalypse of Baruch, but though the relation is so
close, they have many points of divergence. Thus, whereas the former
represents the ordinary Judaism of the 1st century of the Christian era,
the teaching of 4 Ezra on the Law, Works, Justification, Original Sin
and Free Will approximates to the school of Shammai and serves to
explain the Pauline doctrines on those subjects; but to this subject we
shall return.
_Original Language and Versions._--In the Latin version our book
consists of sixteen chapters, of which, however, only iii.-xiv. are
found in the other versions. To iii.-xiv., accordingly, the present
notice is confined. After the example of most of the Latin MSS. we
designate the book 4 Ezra (see Bensly-James, _Fourth Book of Ezra_, pp.
xxiv-xxvii). In the First Arabic and Ethiopic versions it is called 1
Ezra; in some Latin MSS. and in the English Authorized Version it is 2
Ezra, and in the Armenian 3 Ezra. Chapters i.-ii. are sometimes called 3
Ezra, and xv.-xvi. 5 Ezra. All the versions go back to a Greek text.
This is shown by the late Greek apocalypse of Ezra (Tischendorf,
_Apocalypses Apocryphae_, 1866, pp. 24-33), the author of which was
acquainted with the Greek of 4 Ezra; also by quotations from it in Barn,
iv. 4; xii. 1 = 4 Ezra xii. 10 sqq., v. 5; Clem. Alex. _Strom_. iii. 16
(here first expressly cited) = 4 Ezra v. 35, &c. (see Bensly-James, _op.
cit._ pp. xxvii-xxxviii). The derivation of the Latin version from the
Greek is obvious when we consider its very numerous Graecisms. Thus the
genitive is found after the comparative (v. 13) _horum majora_; xi. 29
_duorum capitum majus_, even the genitive absolute as in x. 9, the
double negative, _de_ and _ex_ with the genitive. Peculiar genders can
only be accounted for by the influence of the original forms in Greek,
as x. 23 _signaculum_ ([Greek: sphragis]) ... _tradita est_; xi. 4
_caput_ ([Greek: kephalê]) ... _sed et ipsa_. In vi. 25 we have the
Greek attraction of the relative--_omnibus istis quibus praedixi tibi_.
In his _Messias Judaeorum_ (1869), pp. 36-110, Hilgenfeld has given a
reconstruction of the Greek text. Till 1896 only Ewald believed that 4
Ezra was written originally in Hebrew. In that year Wellhausen (_Gött.
Gel. Anz._ pp. 12-13) and Charles (_Apoc. Bar._ p. lxxii) pointed out
that a Hebrew original must be assumed on various grounds; and this
view the former established in his _Skizzen u. Vorarbeiten_, vi. 234-240
(1899). Of the numerous grounds for this assumption it will be necessary
only to adduce such constructions as "de quo me interrogas de eo," iv.
28, and xiii. 26, "qui per semet ipsum liberabit" (= [Hebrew: asher bo])
= "through whom he will deliver," or to point to such a mistranslation
as vii. 33, "longanimitas congregabitur," where for "congregabitur" (=
[Hebrew: yeasef]) we require "evanescet," which is another and the
actual meaning of the Hebrew verb in this passage. The same
mistranslation is found in the Vulgate in Hosea iv. 3. Gunkel has
adopted this view in his German translation of the book in Kautzsch's
_Apok. und Pseud, des A. Testaments_, ii. 332-333, and brought forward
in confirmation the following remarkable instance in viii. 23, where
though the Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic and Armenian Versions read
_testificatur_, the Second Arabic version and the Apostolic
Constitutions have [Greek: menei eis ton aiôna], which are to be
explained as translations of [Hebrew: (lieh) emdat la'ad]. Another
interesting case is found in xiv. 3, where the Latin and all other
versions but Arabic[2] read _super rubum_ and the Arabic[2] _in monte
Sinai_. Here there is a corruption of [Hebrew: sneh] "bush" into
[Hebrew: sinai] "Sinai."
_Latin Version._--All the older editions of this version, as those of
Fabricius, Sabatier, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Fritzsche, as well as in the
older editions of the Bible, are based ultimately on only one MS., the
Codex Sangermanensis (written A.D. 822), as Gildemeister proved in
1865 from the fact that the large fragment between verses 36 and 37 in
chapter vii., which is omitted in all the above editions, originated
through the excision of a leaf in this MS. A splendid edition of this
version based on MSS. containing the missing fragment, which have been
subsequently discovered, has been published by Bensly-James, op. cit.
This edition has taken account of all the important MSS. known, save
one at Leon in Spain.
_Syriac Version._--This version, found in the Ambrosian Library in
Milan, was translated into Latin by Ceriani, _Monumenta sacra et
profana_, II. ii. pp. 99-124 (1866). Two years later this scholar
edited the Syriac text, op. cit. V. i. pp. 4-111, and in 1883
reproduced the MS. by photo-lithography (_Translatio Syra Peshitto
V.T._ II. iv. pp. 553-572). Hilgenfeld incorporated Ceriani's Latin
translation in his _Messias Judaeorum_. This translation needs
revision and correction.
_Ethiopic Version._--First edited and translated by Laurence, _Primi
Ezrae libri versio Aethiopica_ (1820). Laurence's Latin translation
was corrected by Praetorius and reprinted in Hilgenfeld's _Messias
Judaeorum_. In 1894 Dillmann's text based on ten MSS. was
published--_V.T. Aeth. libri apocryphi_, v. 153-193.
_Arabic Versions._--The First Arabic version was translated from a MS.
in the Bodleian Library into English by Ockley (in Whiston's Primitive
Christianity, vol. iv. 1711). This was done into Latin and corrected
by Steiner for Hilgenfeld's _Mess. Jud._ The Second Arabic version,
which is independent of the first, has been edited from a Vatican MS.
and translated into Latin by Gildemeister, 1877.
_Armenian Version._--First printed in the Armenian Bible (1805).
Translated into Latin by Petermann for Hilgenfeld's Mess. Jud.; next
with Armenian text and English translation by Issaverdens in the
_Uncanonical Writings of the Old Testament_, pp. 488 sqq. (Venice,
1901).
_Georgian Version._--According to F.C. Conybeare an accurate Georgian
version made from the Greek exists in an 11th-century MS. at
Jerusalem.
_Relation of the above Versions._--These versions stand in the order
of worth as follows: Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic. The remaining versions
are paraphrastic and less accurate, and are guilty of additions and
omissions. All the versions, save the Second Arabic one, go back to
the same Greek version. The Second Arabic version presupposes a second
Greek version.
_Modern Versions._--All the English versions are now antiquated,
except those in the Variorum Apocrypha and the Revised Version of the
Apocrypha, and even these are far from satisfactory. Similarly, all
the German versions are behindhand, except the excellent version of
Gunkel in _Apok. u. Pseud._ ii. 252-401, which, however, needs
occasional correction.
_Contents._--The book (iii.-xiv.) consists of seven visions or parts,
like the apocalypse of Baruch. They are: (1) iii. 1-v. 19; (2) v. 20-vi.
34; (3) vi. 35-ix. 25; (4) ix. 26-x. 60; (5) xi. 1-xii. 51; (6) xiii.;
(7) xiv. These deal with (1) religious problems and speculations and (2)
eschatological questions. The first three are devoted to the discussion
of religious problems affecting in the main the individual. The
presuppositions underlying these are in many cases the same as those in
the Pauline Epistles. The next three visions are principally concerned
with eschatological problems which relate to the nation. The seventh
vision is a fragment of the Ezra Saga recounting the rewriting of the
Scriptures, which had been destroyed. This has no organic connexion with
what precedes.
_First Vision._ iii.-v. 19.--"In the thirtieth year after the ruin of
the city I Salathiel (the same is Ezra) was in Babylon and lay
troubled upon my bed." In a long prayer Ezra asks how the desolation
of Sion and the prosperity of Babylon can be in keeping with the
justice of God. The angel Uriel answers that God's ways are
unsearchable and past man's understanding. When Ezra asks when the end
will be and what are the signs of it, the angel answers that the end
is at hand and enumerates the signs of it.
_Second Vision._ v. 14-vi. 34.--Phaltiel, chief of the people,
reproaches Ezra for forsaking his flock. Ezra fasts, and in his prayer
asks why God had given up his people into the hands of the heathen.
Uriel replies: "Lovest thou that people better than He that made
them?" Man cannot find out God's judgment. The end is at hand; its
signs are recounted.
_Third Vision._ vi. 35-ix. 25.--Ezra recounts the works of creation,
and asks why Israel does not possess the world since the world was
made for Israel. The answer is that the present state is a necessary
stage to the coming one. Then follows an account of the Messianic age
and the resurrection: the punishment of the wicked and the blessings
of the righteous. There can be no intercession for the departed. Few
will be saved--only as it were a grape out of a cluster or a plant out
of a forest.
_Fourth Vision._ ix. 26-x. 60.--Ezra eats of herbs in the field of
Ardat, and sees in a vision a woman mourning for her only son. Ezra
reminds her of the greater desolation of Sion. Suddenly she is
transfigured and vanishes, and in her place appears a city. The woman,
Uriel explains, represents Sion.
_Fifth Vision._ xi. i-xii. 39.--Vision of an eagle with three heads,
twelve wings and eight winglets, which is rebuked by a lion and
destroyed. The eagle is the fourth kingdom seen by Daniel, and the
lion is the Messiah.
_Sixth Vision._ xiii.--Vision of a man (i.e. the Messiah) arising from
the sea, who destroys his enemies who assemble against him, and
gathers to him another multitude, i.e. the lost Ten Tribes.
_Seventh Vision._ xiv.--Ezra is told of his approaching translation.
He asks for the restoration of the Law, and is enabled by God to
dictate in forty days ninety-four books (the twenty-four canonical
books of the Old Testament that were lost, and seventy secret books
for the wise among the people).
Ezra's translation is found in the Canon only in the Oriental
Versions. In the Latin it was omitted when xv.-xvi. were added.
_Integrity._--According to Gunkel (_Apok. u. Pseud._ ii. 335-352) the
whole book is the work of one writer. Thus down to vii. 16 he deals with
the problem of the origin of suffering in the world, and from vii. 17 to
ix. 25 with the question who is worthy to share in the blessedness of
the next world. As regards the first problem the writer shows, in the
first vision, that suffering and death come from sin--no less truly on
the part of Israel than of all men, for God created man to be immortal;
that the end is nigh, when wrongs will be righted; God's rule will then
be recognized. In the second he emphasizes the consolation to be found
in the coming time, and in the third he speaks solely of the next world,
and then addresses himself to the second problem. The fourth, fifth and
sixth visions are eschatological. In these the writer turns aside from
the religious problems of the first three visions and concerns himself
only with the future national supremacy of Israel. Zion's glory will
certainly be revealed (vision four), Israel will destroy Rome (five) and
the hostile Gentiles (six). Then the book is brought to a close with the
legend of Ezra's restoration of the lost Old Testament Scriptures.
In the course of the above work there are many inconsistencies and
contradictions. These Gunkel explains by admitting that the writer has
drawn largely on tradition, both oral and written, for his materials.
Thus he concedes that eschatological materials in v. 1-13, vi; 18-28,
vii. 26 sqq., also ix. 1 sqq., are from this source, and apparently from
an originally independent work, as Kabisch urges, but that it is no
longer possible to separate the borrowed elements from the text. Again,
in the four last visions he is obliged to make the same concession on a
very large scale. Vision four is based on a current novel, which the
author has taken up and put into an allegorical form. Visions five and
six are drawn from oral or written tradition, and relate only to the
political expectations of Israel, and seven is a reproduction of a
legend, for the independent existence of which evidence is furnished by
the quotations in Bensly-James pp. xxxvii-xxxviii. Thus the chief
champion of the unity of the book makes so many concessions as to its
dependence on previously existing sources that, to the student of
eschatology, there is little to choose between his view and that of
Kabisch. In fact, if the true meaning of the borrowed materials is to be
discovered, the sources must be disentangled. Hence the need of some
such analysis as that of Kabisch (_Das vierte Buck Ezra_, 1889): S = an
Apocalypse of Salathiel, c. A.D. 100, preserved in a fragmentary
condition, iii. 1-31, iv. 1-51, v. 13b-vi. 10, 30-vii. 25, vii. 45-viii.
62, ix. 13-x. 57, xii. 40-48, xiv. 28-35. E = an Ezra Apocalypse, c. 31
B.C., iv. 52-v. 13a, vi. 13-28, vii. 26-44, viii. 63-ix. 12. A = an
Eagle Vision, c. A.D. 90, x. 60-xii. 35. M = a Son-of-Man Vision, xiii.
E^2 = an Ezra fragment, c. A.D. 100, xiv. 1-17a, 18-27, 36-47. All
these, according to Kabisch, were edited by a Zealot, c. 120, who
supplied the connecting links and made many small additions. In the main
this analysis is excellent. If we assume that the editor was also the
author of S, and that such a vigorous stylist, as he shows himself to
be, recast to some extent the materials he borrowed, there remains but
slight difference between the views of Kabisch and Gunkel. Neither view,
however, is quite satisfactory, and the problem still awaits solution.
Other attempts, such as Ewald's (_Gesch. d. Volkes Israel_[3], vii.
69-83) and De Faye's (_Apocalypses juives_, 155-165), make no
contribution.
_School of the Author._--The author or final redactor of the book was a
pessimist, and herein his book stands in strong contrast with the
Apocalypse of Baruch. Thus to the question propounded in the New
Testament--"Are there few that be saved?" he has no hesitation in
answering, "There be many created, but few that be saved" (viii. 3): "An
evil heart hath grown up in us which hath led us astray ... and that not
a few only but wellnigh all that have been created" (vii. 48). In the
Apocalypse of Baruch on the other hand it is definitely maintained that
not a few shall be saved (xxi. 11). Moreover, the sufferings of the
wicked are so great in the next world it were better, according to 4
Ezra (as also to the school of Shammai), that man had not been born. "It
is much better (for the beasts of the field) than for us; for they
expect not a judgment and know not of torments" (vii. 66): yet "it would
have been best not to have given a body to Adam, or that being done, to
have restrained him from sin; for what profit is there that man should
in the present life live in heaviness and after death look for
punishment" (vii. 116, 117). In iv. 12 the nexus of life, sin and
suffering just referred to, is put still more strongly: "It were better
we had not been at all than that we should be born and sin and
suffer."[1] The different attitude of these two writers towards this
question springs from their respective views on the question of free
will. The author of Baruch declares (iv. 15, 19): "For though Adam
sinned and brought untimely death upon all, yet of those who were born
from him each one of them prepared for his own soul torment to come, and
again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come ... each
one of us has been the Adam of his own soul," Though the writer of Ezra
would admit the possibility of a few Israelites attaining to salvation
through the most strenuous endeavour, yet he holds that man is all but
predoomed through his original evil disposition or through the fall of
Adam (vii. 118). "O Adam, what hast thou done: for though it was thou
that sinned, the evil is not fallen on thee alone, but upon all of us
that come of thee."
Another contrast between the two books is that while Baruch shows some
mercy to the Gentiles (lxxii. 4-6) in the Messianic period, none
according to 4 Ezra and the Shammaites (Toseph. _Sanh._ xiii. 2) will be
extended to them, (iii. 30, ix. 22 sq., xii. 34, xiii. 37 sq.).
On the above grounds it is not unreasonable to conclude that whereas the
Apocalypse of Baruch owes its leading characteristics to a pupil of
Hillel's school, 4 Ezra shows just as clearly its derivation from that
of Shammai. Kohler (_Jewish Encyc._ v. 221) points out that the view of
4 Ezra that the Ten Tribes will return was held by the Shammaites,
whereas it was denied by Aqiba. The Apocalypse of Baruch is silent on
this point.
_Time and Place._--The work was written towards the close of the 1st
century (iii. 1, 29), and somewhere in the east.
LITERATURE.--In addition to the authorities mentioned above, see
Dillmann, Herzog's _Real-Encyk._[2] xii. 353 sqq.; Schürer, _Gesch.
des jüd. Volkes_[3], iii. 246 sqq.; and the articles on 4 Esdras in
Hastings' _Bible Dictionary_ and the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_ by
Thackeray and James respectively. (R. H. C.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In the Apocalypse of Baruch, x. 6, we find a similar expression:
"Blessed is he who was not born, or being born has died." But here
death is said to be preferable to witnessing the present woes of
Jerusalem.
EZRA AND NEHEMIAH, BOOKS OF, in the Old Testament. The two canonical
books entitled Ezra and Nehemiah in the English Bibie[1] correspond to
the 1 and 2 Esdras of the Vulgate, to the 2 Esdras of the Septuagint,
and to the Ezra and Nehemiah of the Massoretic (Hebrew) text. Though for
many centuries they have thus been treated as separate compositions, we
have abundant evidence that they were anciently regarded as forming but
one book, and a careful examination proves that together with the book
of Chronicles they constitute one single work. The two books may
therefore be conveniently treated together.
1. _Position and Date._--Origen (Euseb, _H.E._ vi. 25), expressly
enumerating the twenty-two books of the old covenant as acknowledged by
the Jews and accepted by the Christian church, names "the First and
Second Ezra in one book"; Melito of Sardis (Euseb. _H.E._ iv. 26) in
like manner mentions the book of Ezra only. So also the Talmud (in _Baba
bathra_, 14. 2), nor can it be supposed that Josephus in his enumeration
(c. _Ap._ i. 8) reckoned Nehemiah as apart from Ezra. That the Jews
themselves recognized no real separation is shown by the fact that no
Massoretic notes are found after Ezra x., but at the end of Nehemiah the
contents of both are reckoned together, and it is stated that Neh. iii.
22 is the middle verse of the book. Their position in the Hebrew Bible
_before_ the book of Chronicles is, however, illogical. The introductory
verses of Ezra i. are identical with the conclusion of 2 Chron. xxxvi.,
whilst in the version of 1 Esdras no less than two chapters (2 Chron.
xxxv. sq.) overlap. The cause of the separation is probably to be found
in the late reception of Chronicles into the Jewish canon. Further proof
of the unity of the three is to be found in the general similarity of
style and treatment. The same linguistic criteria recur, and the
interest in lists and genealogies, in priests and Levites, and in the
temple service point unmistakably to the presence of the same hand (the
so-called "chronicler") in Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah. See BIBLE (sect.
Canon); CHRONICLES.
The period of history covered by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah extends
from the return of the exiles under Zerubbabel in 537-536 B.C. to
Nehemiah's second visit to Jerusalem in 432 B.C. In their present form,
however, the books are considerably later, and allusions to Nehemiah in
the past (Neh. xii. 26, 47), to the days of Jaddua (the grandson of
Nehemiah's contemporary Joiada; ib. xii. 11), to Darius (Nothus 423 B.C.
or rather Codomannus 336 B.C., ib. v. 22), and the use of the term "king
of Persia," as a distinctive title after the fall of that empire (332
B.C.), are enough to show that, as a whole, they belong to the same age
as the book of Chronicles.
2. _Contents._--Their contents may be divided into four parts:--
(a) The events preceding the mission of Ezra (i.-vi.).--In the first
year of his reign Cyrus was inspired to grant a decree permitting the
Jews to return to build the temple in Jerusalem (i.); a list of families
is given (ii.). The altar of burnt-offering was set up, and in the
second year of the return the foundations of the new temple were laid
with great solemnity (iii.). The "adversaries of Judah and Benjamin"
offered to assist but were repulsed, and they raised such opposition to
the progress of the work that it ceased until the second year of Darius
(521-520 B.C.). Aroused by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah the
building was then resumed, and despite fresh attempts to hinder the work
it was completed, consecrated and dedicated in the sixth year of that
king (vi.). The event was solemnized by the celebration of the Passover
(cf. 2 Chron. xxx., Hezekiah; xxxv. Josiah).
(b) An interval of fifty-eight years is passed over in silence, and the
rest of the book of Ezra comprises his account of his mission to
Jerusalem (vii.-x.). Ezra, a scribe of repute, well versed in the laws
of Moses, returns with a band of exiles in order to reorganize the
religious community. A few months after his arrival (seventh year of
Artaxerxes, 458 B.C.) he instituted a great religious reform, viz. the
prohibition of intermarriage with the heathen of the land (cf. already
vi. 21). In spite of some opposition (x. 15 obscurely worded) the reform
was accepted, and the foundations of a new community were laid.
(c) Twelve years elapse before the return of Nehemiah, whose description
of his work is one of the most interesting pieces of Old Testament
narrative (Neh. i.-vi.). In the twentieth year of Artaxerxes (445 B.C.),
Nehemiah the royal cup-bearer at Shushan (Susa, the royal winter palace)
was visited by friends from Judah and was overcome with grief at the
tidings of the miserable condition of Jerusalem and the pitiful state of
the Judaean remnant which had escaped the captivity. He obtained
permission to return, and on reaching the city made a secret survey of
the ruins and called upon the nobles and rulers to assist in repairing
them. Much opposition was caused by Sanballat the Horonite (i.e. of the
Moabite Horonaim or Beth-horon, about 15 m. N.W. of Jerusalem), Tobiah
the Ammonite, Geshem (or Gashmu) the Arabian, and the Ashdodites, whose
virulence increased as the rebuilding of the walls continued. But
notwithstanding attempts upon the city and upon the life of Nehemiah,
and in spite of intrigues among certain members of the Judaean section,
in fifty-two days the city walls were complete (Neh. vi. 15). The
hostility, however, did not cease, and measures were taken to ensure the
safety of the city (vi. 16-vii. 4). A valuable account is given of
Nehemiah's economical reforms, illustrating the internal social
conditions of the period and the general character of the former
governors who had been placed in charge (v., cf. the laws codified in
Lev. xxv. 35 sqq.).
(d) The remaining chapters carry on the story of the labours of _both_
Ezra, and Nehemiah. The list of those who returned under the decree of
Cyrus is repeated (Neh. vii.), and leads up to the reading of the Law by
Ezra, a great national confession of guilt, and a solemn undertaking to
observe the new covenant, the provisions of which are detailed (x.
28-39). After sundry lists of the families dwelling in Jerusalem and its
neighbourhood (xi. 1 sqq., apparently a sequel to vii. 1-4),[2] and of
various priests and Levites, an account is given of the dedication of
the walls (xii. 27-43), the arrangements for the Levitical organization
(vv. 44-47), and a fresh separation from the heathen (Moabites and
Ammonites, xiii. 1-3; cf. Deut. xxiii. 3 seq.). The book concludes with
another extract from Nehemiah's memoirs dealing with the events of a
second visit, twelve years later (xiii. 4-31). On this occasion he
vindicated the sanctity of the temple by expelling Tobiah, reorganized
the supplies for the Levites, took measures to uphold the observance of
the Sabbath, and protested energetically against the foreign marriages.
In the course of his reforms he thrust out a son of Joiada (son of
Eliashib, the high-priest), who had married the daughter of Sanballat,
an incident which had an important result (see SAMARITANS).
That these books are the result of compilation (like the book of
Chronicles itself) is evident from the many abrupt changes; the
inclusion of certain documents written in an Aramaic dialect (Ezr. iv.
8-vi. 18, vii. 12-26)[3]; the character of the name-lists; the lengthy
gaps in the history; the use made of two distinct sources, attributed to
Ezra and Nehemiah respectively, and from the varying form in which the
narratives are cast. The chronicler's hand can usually be readily
recognized. There are relatively few traces of it in Nehemiah's memoirs
and in the Aramaic documents, but elsewhere the sources are largely
coloured, if not written from the standpoint of his age. Examples of
artificial arrangement appear notably in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 compared with
Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 (first clause); in the present position of Ezr. iv.
6-23; and in the dislocation of certain portions of the two memoirs in
Neh. viii.-xiii. (see below). It should be noticed that the present
order of the narratives involves the theory that some catastrophe ensued
after Ezr. x. and before Neh. i.; that the walls had been destroyed and
the gates burnt down; that some external opposition (with which,
however, Ezra did not have to contend) had been successful; that the
main object of Ezra's mission was delayed for twelve years, and,
finally, that only through Nehemiah's energy was the work of social and
religious reorganization successful. These topics raise serious
historical problems (see JEWS: _History_, § 21).
3. _Criticism of Ezra i.-vi._--The chronicler's account of the
destruction of Jerusalem, the seventy years' interval (2 Chron. xxxvi.
20 sq.; cf. Jer. xxv. 11, xxix. 10, also Is. xxiii. 17), and the return
of 42,360 of the exiles (Ezr. ii. 64 sqq.) represent a special view of
the history of the period. The totals, as also the detailed figures, in
Ezr., Neh. and 1 Esdr. v. vary considerably; the number is extremely
large (contrast Jer. lii. 30); it includes the common people (contrast 2
Kings xxiv. 14, xxv. 12), and ignores the fact that Judah was not
depopulated, that the Jews were carried off to other places besides
Babylon and that many remained behind in Babylon. According to this
view, Judah and Jerusalem were practically deserted until the return.
The list in Ezr. ii. is that of families which returned "every man unto
his city" under twelve leaders (including Nehemiah, Azariah [cf. Ezra],
Zcrubbabel and Jeshua); it recurs with many variations in a different
and apparently more original context in Neh. vii., and in 1 Esdr. v. is
ascribed to the time of Darius. The families (to judge from the
northwards extension of Judaean territory) are probably those of the
population in the later Persian period, hardly those who returned to the
precise homes of their ancestors (see C.F. Kent, Israel's _Hist. and
Biogr. Narratives_, p. 379). The offerings which are for the
temple-service in Neh. vii. 70-72 (cf. 1 Chron. xxix. 6-8) are for the
building of the temple in Ezr. ii. 68-70; and since the walls are not
yet built, the topographical details in Neh. viii. 1 (see 1 Esdr. v. 47)
are adjusted, and the event of the seventh month is not the reading of
the Law amid the laments of the people (Neh. viii.; see _vv._ 9-11) but
the erection of the altar by Jeshua and Zerubbabel under inauspicious
circumstances (cf. Ezr. iii. 3 with 1 Esdr. v. 50).
The chronologically misplaced account of the successful opposition in
the time of Ahasuerus (i.e. Xerxes) and Artaxerxes (the son and grandson
of Darius respectively) breaks the account of the _temple_ under Cyrus
and Darius, and is concerned with the city walls (iv. 6-23)[4]; there is
some obscurity in _vv._ 7-9: Rehum and Shimshai evidently take the lead,
Tabeel may be an Aramaized equivalent of Tobiah. A recent return is
implied (iv. 12) and the record hints that a new decree may be made (v.
21). The account of the unsuccessful opposition to the _temple_ in the
time of Darius (v. sq.; for another account see Jos. _Ant._ xi. 4, 9) is
independent of iv. 7-23, and throws another light upon the decree of
Cyrus (vi. 3-5, contrast i. 2-4). It implies that Sheshbazzar, who had
been sent with the temple vessels in the time of Cyrus, had laid the
foundations and that the work had continued without cessation (v. 16,
contrast iv. 5, 24). The beginning of the reply of Darius is wanting
(vi. 6 sqq.), and the decree which had been sought in Babylon is found
at Ecbatana. Chap. vi. 15 sqq. follow more naturally upon v. 1-2, but
v. 14 with its difficult reference to Artaxerxes now seems to presuppose
the decree in iv. 21 and looks forward to the time of Ezra or Nehemiah.
As regards this section (Ezr. i.-vi.) as a whole, there is little doubt
that i. iii. 1-iv. 5, vi. 15-22 are from the chronicler, whose free
treatment of his material is seen in the use he has made of ch. ii.
Notwithstanding the unimpeachable evidence for the tolerant attitude of
Persian kings and governors towards the religion of subject races, it is
probable that the various decrees incorporated in the book (cf. also 1
Esdr. iv. 42 sqq.) have been reshaped from a Jewish standpoint. A
noteworthy example appears in the account of the unique powers entrusted
to Ezra (vii. 11-26), the introduction to whose memoirs, at all events,
is quite in the style of the chronicler.
4. _Memoirs of Nehemiah and Ezra._--The memoirs of Ezra and Nehemiah do
not appear to have been incorporated without some adjustment. The lapse
of time between Neh. i. 1 and ii. 1 is noteworthy, and with the prayer
in i. 5-11 cf. Ezr. ix. 6-15, Dan. ix. 4 sqq. (also parallels in
Deuteronomy); chap. i. in its present form may be a compiler's
introduction. The important topographical list in ch. iii. is probably
from another source; the styie is different, Nehemiah is absent, and the
high-priest is unusually prominent.[5] Chap, v., where Nehemiah reviews
his _past_ conduct as governor, turns aside to economic reforms and
scarcely falls within the fifty-two days of the building of the walls.
The chapter is closely associated with the contents of xiii. and breaks
the account of the opposition. Anticipated already in ii. 10, the
hostility partly arises from the repudiation of Samaritan religious
claims (ii. 20; cf. Ezr. iv. 3) and is partly political. It is difficult
to follow its progress clearly, and the account ceases abruptly in. vi.
17-19 with the notice of the conspiracy of Tobiah and the nobles of
Judah. The chronicler's style can be recognized in vii. 1-5 (in its
present form), where steps are taken to protect and to people Jerusalem;
the older sequel is now found in ch. xi. Whilst the account of the
dedication of the walls is marked by the use of the pronoun "I" (xii.
31, 38, 40), it is probably now due as a whole to the chronicler, and
when the more trustworthy memoirs of Nehemiah are resumed (xiii. 4 sqq.)
the episodes, although placed twelve years later (ver. 6), are
intimately connected with the preceding reforms (cf. xii. 44-xiii. 3
with xiii. 10 sqq., 23 sqq.).[6] Nehemiah's attitude towards
intermarriage is markedly moderate in contrast to the drastic measures
of Ezra, whose mission and work the simpler and perhaps earlier
narratives of Nehemiah originally ignored, and the relation between the
two is complicated further by the literary character of the memoir of
Ezra.
To the last mentioned are prefixed (a) the scribe's genealogy, which
traces him back to Aaron and names as his immediate ancestor, Seraiah,
who had been slain 130 years previously (Ezr. vii. 1-5), and (b) an
independent account of the return (_vv._ 6-10) with a reference to
Ezra's renown, obviously not from the hand of Ezra himself. Whatever the
original prelude to Ezra's thanksgiving may have been (vii. 27 seq.), we
now have the essentially Jewish account of the letter of Artaxerxes with
its unusual concessions.[7] The list of those who returned amounts to
the moderate total of 1496 males (viii., but 1690 in 1 Esdr. viii. 30
sqq.). Ezra's mission was obviously concerned with the Law and Temple
service (vii. 6, 10, 14 sqq., 25; viii. 17, 24-30, 33 sq.), but four
months elapse between his return in the fifth month (vii. 9) and the
preparations for the marriage reforms in the ninth (x. 9), and there is
a delay of twelve years before the Law is read (Neh. viii.). The
Septuagint version (1 Esdr. ix.; cf. Josephus, _Antiq._ xi. 5. 5 and
some modern scholars) would place the latter after Ezr. x., but more
probably this event (dated in the seventh month) should precede the
great undertaking in Ezr. ix.[8] That the adjustment was attended with
considerable revision of the passages appears from a careful comparison
of Neh. viii. sq. with Ezr. ix. sq. With Ezra's confession (ix. 6 sqq.)
compare the prayer in Neh. ix. 5 sqq., which the Septuagint ascribes to
him. In Ezr. x. (written in the third person) the number of those that
had intermarried with the heathen is relatively small considering the
general trend of the preliminaries, and the list bears a marked
resemblance to that in ch. ii. It ends abruptly and obscurely (x. 44;
cf. 1 Esdr. ix. 36), and whilst as a whole the memoirs of Ezra point to
ideas later than those of Nehemiah, the present close literary connexion
between them is seen in the isolated reference to Johanan the son of
Eliashib in Ezra x. 6, which seems to be connected with Neh. xiii. 7,
and (after W.R. Smith) in the suitability of _ib._ xiii. 1, 2 between
Ezr. x. 9 and 10. The list of signatories in Neh. x. 1-27 should be
compared with the names in xii. and 1 Chron. xxiv.; the true connexion
of ix. 38 is very obscure, and the relation to Ezr. ix. seq. is
complicated by the reference to the separation from the heathen in Neh.
ix. 2. The description of the covenant (Neh. x. 28 sqq., marked by the
use of "we") is closely connected with xii. 43-xiii. 3 (from the same or
an allied source), and anticipates the parallel though somewhat
preliminary measures detailed in the more genuine memoirs (Neh. xiii. 4
sqq.). Finally, the specific allusion in xiii. 1-3 to Ammon and Moab is
possibly intended as an introduction to the references to Tobiah and
Sanballat respectively (_vv._ 4 seq., 28).
5. _Summary._--The literary and historical criticism of Ezra-Nehemiah is
closely bound up with that of Chronicles, whose characteristic features
it shares. Although the three formed a unit at one stage it may seem
doubtful whether two so closely related chapters as 1 Chron. ix. and
Neh. xi. would have appeared in one single work, while the repetition of
Neh. vii. 6-viii. 1 in Ezr. ii.-iii. 1 is less unnatural if they had
originally appeared in distinct sources. Thus other hands apart from the
compiler of Chronicles may have helped to shape the narratives, either
before their union with that book or after their separation.[9] The
present intricacy is also due partly to specific historical theories
regarding the post-exilic period. Here the recension in 1 Esdras
especially merits attention for its text, literary structure and for its
variant traditions.[10] Its account of a return in the time of Darius
scarcely arose _after_ Ezr. i.-iii. (Cyrus); the reverse seems more
probable, and the possibility of some confusion or of an intentional
adjustment to the earlier date is emphasized by the relation between the
popular feeling in Ezr. iii. 12 (Cyrus) and Hag. ii. 3 (Darius), and
between the grant by Cyrus in iii. 7 (it is not certain that he held
Phoenicia) and the permit of Darius in 1 Esdr. iv. 47-57 (see v. 48). To
the latter context belongs the list of names which reappears in Ezr. ii.
(Cyrus). But from the independent testimony of Haggai and Zechariah it
is doubtful whether the chronicler's account of the return under Cyrus
is at all trustworthy. The list in 1 Esdr. v., Ezr. ii., as already
observed, appears to be in its more original context in Neh. vii., i.e.
in the time of Artaxerxes, and it is questionable whether the earliest
of the surviving detailed traditions in Ezra-Nehemiah went back before
this reign. It is precisely at this age that there is evidence for a
return, apparently other than that of Ezra or Nehemiah (see Ezr. iv.
12), yet no account seems to be preserved unless the records were used
for the history of earlier periods (cf. generally Ezr. iii. 12 sq. with
Neh. viii. 9-11; Ezr. iii. 7 with the special favour enlisted on behalf
of the Jews in vi. 7 sq., 13, vii. 21; Neh. ii. 7 sq.). But the account
of the events in the reign of Artaxerxes is extremely perplexing. Since
the building of the walls of Jerusalem must have begun early in the
fifth month (Neh. vi. 15), an allowance of three days (ii. 11) makes the
date of Nehemiah's arrival practically the anniversary of Ezra's return
(Ezr. vii. 9, viii. 32). Considering the close connexion between the
work of the two men this can hardly be accidental. The compiler,
however, clearly intends Neh. vi. 15 (25th of sixth month) to be the
prelude to the events in Neh. vii. 73, viii. (seventh month), but the
true sequence of Neh. vi. sqq. is uncertain, and the possibility of
artificiality is suggested by the unembellished statement of Josephus
that the building of the walls occupied, not fifty-two days, but two
years four months (_Ant_. xi. 5. 8). The present chronological order of
Nehemiah's work is confused (cf. §4, n. 3), and the obscure interval of
twelve years in his work corresponds very closely to that which now
separates the records of Ezra's labours. However, both the recovery of
the compilers' aims and attempted reconstructions are precluded from
finality by the scantiness of independent historical evidence. (See
further JEWS: _History_, §21 seq.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--S.R. Driver, _Lit. of the O.T._ (1909), pp. 540 sqq.
and the commentaries of H.E. Ryle (_Camb. Bible_, 1893), C. Siegfried
(1901), A. Bertholet (1902), and T.W. Davies (_Cent. Bible_, 1909).
Impetus to recent criticism of these books starts with Van Hoonacker
(_Neh. et Esd_. [1890]; see also _Expos. Times_ [1897], pp. 351-354,
and M.-J. Lagrange, _Rev. biblique_, iii. 561-585 [1894], iv. 186-202
[1895]) and W.H. Kosters (Germ. ed., _Wiederherstellung Israëls_,
1895). The latter's important conclusions (for which see his article
with Cheyne's additions in _Ency. Bib_. col. 1473 sqq., 3380 sqq.)
have been adversely criticized, especially by J. Wellhausen
(_Nachrichten_ of the Univ. of Göttingen, 1895, pp. 166-186), E. Meyer
(_Entstehung d. Judentums_, 1896), J. Nikel (_Wiederherstellung d.
jüd. Gemein._, 1900), and S. Jampel in _Monatsschrift f. Gesch. u.
Wissens. d. Judentums_, vols. xlvi.-xlvii. (1902-1903). The negative
criticisms of Kosters have, however, been strengthened by his replies
(in the Dutch _Theolog. Tijdschrift_), and by the discussions of C.C.
Torrey and C.F. Kent (op. cit) and of G. Jahn (_Esra u. Neh._ pp.
i-lxxviii; 1909), and his general position appears to do more justice
to the biblical evidence as a whole. (S. A. C.)
FOOTNOTES:
[1] References to 1 Esdras in this article are to the book discussed
above as EZRA, THIRD BOOK OF.
[2] With Neh. xi. 4-19 cf. 1 Chron. ix. 3-17; with the list xii. 1-7
cf. _vv._ 12-21 and x. 3-9; and with xii. 10 sq. cf. 1 Chron. vi.
3-13 (to which it forms the sequel). See further Smend, _Listen d.
Esra u. Neh._ (1881).
[3] Sometimes wrongly styled Chaldee (q.v.); see SEMITIC LANGUAGES.
[4] Its real position in the history of this period is not certain.
Against the supposition that the names refer to Cambyses and
Pseudo-Smerdis who reigned after Cyrus and before Darius, see H.E.
Ryle, _Camb. Bible_, "Ezra and Neh.," p. 65 sq. Against the view that
Darius is D. ii. Nothus of 423-404 B.C., see G.A. Smith, _Minor
Prophets_, ii. 191 sqq. The ignorance of the compiler regarding the
sequence of the kings finds a parallel in that of the author of the
book of Daniel (q.v.); see C.C. Torrey, _Amer. Journ. of Sem. Lang._
(1907), p. 178, n. 1.
[5] See further H.G. Mitchell, _Journ. of Bibl. Lit._ (1903), pp. 88
sqq.
[6] The chronological difficulties will be seen from xiii. 6 ("before
this"), which would imply that the dedication of the walls was on the
occasion of Nehemiah's later visit (see G.A. Smith, _Expositor_, July
1906, p. 12). His previous departure is perhaps foreshadowed in vii.
2.
[7] See _Ency. Bib._ col. 1480. Papyri from a Jewish colony in
Elephantine (407 B.C.) clearly show the form which royal permits
could take, and what the Jews were prepared to give in return; the
points of resemblance are extremely interesting, but compared with
the biblical documents the papyri reveal some striking differences.
[8] C.C. Torrey, _Comp. and Hist. Value of Ezra-Neh._ (Beihefte of
_Zeit. f. alttest. Wissens._, 1896), pp. 30-34; C.F. Kent, _Israel's
Hist. and Biog. Narratives_, pp. 32, 369. Since Neh. vii. 70-73 is
closely joined to viii., the suggested transposition would place its
account of the contributions to the temple in a more appropriate
context (cf. Ezr. viii. 24-30, 33 sq.).
[9] For linguistic evidence reference should be made to J. Geissler,
_Die litterarischen Beziehungen d. Esramemoiren_ (Chemnitz, 1899).
[10] See especially Sir Henry Howorth, _Proc. of Society of Bibl.
Arch._ (1901-1904), _passim_; C.C. Torrey, _Ezra Studies_ (Chicago,
1910). For the text, see A. Klostermann, _Real-Ency. f. prot. Theol._
v. 501 sqq.; H. Guthe in Haupt's _Sacred Books of Old Testament_
(1899); and S.A. Cook in R.H. Charles, _Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha_.
EZZO, or EHRENFRIED (c. 954-1024), count palatine in Lorraine, was the
son of a certain Hermann (d. c. 1000), also a count palatine in Lorraine
who had possessions in the neighbourhood of Bonn. Having married Matilda
(d. 1025), a daughter of the emperor Otto II., Ezzo came to the front
during the reign of his brother-in-law, the emperor Otto III.
(983-1002); his power was increased owing to the liberal grant of lands
in Thuringia and Franconia which he received with his wife, and some
time later his position as count palatine was recognized as an
hereditary dignity. Otto's successor, the emperor Henry II., was less
friendly towards the powerful count palatine, though there was no
serious trouble between them until 1011; but some disturbances in
Lorraine quickly compelled the emperor to come to terms, and the
assistance of Ezzo was purchased by a gift of lands. Henceforward the
relations between Henry and his vassal appear to have been satisfactory.
Very little is known about Ezzo's later life, but we are told that he
died at a great age at Saalfeld on the 21st of March 1024. He left three
sons, among them being Hermann, who was archbishop of Cologne from 1036
to 1056, and Otto, who was for a short time duke of Swabia; and seven
daughters, six of whom became abbesses. Ezzo founded a monastery at
Brauweiler near Cologne, the place where his marriage had been
celebrated. This was dedicated in 1028 by Piligrim, archbishop of
Cologne, and here both Ezzo and his wife were buried.
EZZOLIED, or ANEGENGE, an old German poem, written by Ezzo, a scholar of
Bamberg. It was written about 1060, but not, as one authority asserts,
composed while the author was making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The
subject of the poem is the life of Christ. Very popular during the later
middle ages, the _Ezzolied_ had a great influence on the poetry of south
Germany, and is valuable as a monument of the poetical literature of the
time.
The text is printed in the _Denkmäler deutscher Poesie und Prosa aus
dem 8-12. Jahrhundert_ (Berlin, 1892) of C.V. Müllenhoff and W.
Scherer.
F This is the sixth letter of the English alphabet as it was of the
Latin. In the ordinary Greek alphabet the symbol has disappeared,
although it survived far into historical times in many Greek dialects as
F, the digamma, the use of which in early times was inductively proved
by Bentley, when comparatively little was known of the local alphabets
and dialects of Greece. The so-called _stigma_ [symbol], which serves
for the numeral 6, is all that remains to represent it. This symbol
derives its name from its resemblance in medieval MSS. to the
abbreviation for [Greek: st]. The symbol occupying the same position in
the Phoenician alphabet was Vau ([symbol] [symbol]), which seems to be
represented by the Greek [Upsilon], the Latin V, at the end of the early
alphabet. Many authorities therefore contend that F is only a
modification of the preceding symbol E and has nothing to do with the
symbol Vau. In some early Latin inscriptions F is represented by
[symbol], as E is by [symbol]. It must be admitted that the resemblance
between the sixth symbol of the Phoenician alphabet and the
corresponding symbol of the European alphabet is not striking. But the
position of the limbs of symbols in early alphabets often varies
surprisingly. In Greek, besides F we find for _f_ in Pamphylia (the only
Greek district in Asia which possesses the symbol) [symbol], and in
Boeotia, Thessaly, Tarentum, Cumae and on Chalcidian vases of Italy the
form [symbol], though except at Cumae and on the vases the form F exists
contemporaneously with [symbol] or even earlier. At the little town of
Falerii (Civita Castellana), whose alphabet is undoubtedly of the same
origin as the Latin, F takes the form [symbol]. Though uncertain,
therefore, it seems not impossible that the original symbol of the
Phoenician alphabet, which was a consonant like the English _w_, may
have been differentiated in Greek into two symbols, one indicating the
consonant value _w_ and retaining the position of the Phoenician
consonant Vau, the other having the vowel value _u_, which ultimately
most dialects changed to a modified sound like French _u_ or German _ü_.
Be this as it may, the value of the symbol F in Greek was _w_, a
bilabial voiced sound, not the labio-dental unvoiced sound which we call
_f_. When the Romans adopted the Greek alphabet they took over the
symbols with their Greek values. But Greek had no sound corresponding to
the Latin _f_, for [phi] was pronounced _p-h_, like the final sound of
_lip_ in ordinary English or the initial sound of _pig_ in Irish
English. Consequently in the very old inscription on a gold fibula found
at Praeneste and published in 1887 (see ALPHABET) the Latin _f_ is
represented by FB. Later, as Latin did not use F for the consonant
written as _v_ in _vis_, &c., H was dropped and F received a new special
value in Latin as representative of the unvoiced labio-dental spirant.
In the Oscan and Umbrian dialects, whose alphabet was borrowed from
Etruscan, a special form appears for _f_, viz. 8, the old form [symbol]
being kept for the other consonant _v_ (i.e. English _w_). The 8 has
generally been asserted to be developed out of the second element in the
combination FB, its upper and lower halves being first converted into
lozenges, [symbol], which naturally changed to 8 when inscribed without
lifting the writing or incising implement. Recent discoveries, however,
make this doubtful (see ALPHABET). (P. Gi.)
FABBRONI, ANGELO (1732-1803), Italian biographer, was born at Marradi in
Tuscany on the 25th of September 1732. After studying at Faenza he
entered the Roman college founded for the education of young Tuscans. On
the conclusion of his studies he continued his stay in Rome, and having
been introduced to the celebrated Jansenist Bottari, received from him
the canonry of Santa Teresa in Trastevere. Some time after this he was
chosen to preach a discourse in the pontifical chapel before Benedict
XIV. and made such a favourable impression that the pontiff settled on
him an annuity, with the possession of which Fabbroni was able to devote
his whole time to study. He was intimate with Leopold I., grand-duke of
Tuscany, but the Jesuits disliked him on account of his Jansenist views.
Besides his other literary labours he began at Pisa in 1771 a literary
journal, which he continued till 1796. About 1772 he made a journey to
Paris, where he formed the acquaintance of Condorcet, Diderot,
d'Alembert, Rousseau and most of the other eminent Frenchmen of the day.
He also spent four months in London. He died at Pisa on the 22nd of
September 1803.
The following are his principal works:--_Vitae Italorum doctrina
excellentium qui saeculis XVII. et XVIII. floruerunt_ (20 vols., Pisa,
1778-1799, 1804-1805), the last two vols., published posthumously,
contain a life of the author; _Laurentii Medicei Magnifici Vita_ (2
vols., Pisa, 1784), a work which served as a basis for H. Roscoe's
_Life of Lorenzo dei Medici_; _Leonis X. pontificis maximi Vita_
(Pisa, 1797); and _Elogi di Dante Alighieri, di Angelo Poliziano, di
Lodovico Ariosto, e di Torq. Tasso_ (Parma, 1800).
FABER, the name of a family of German lead-pencil manufacturers. Their
business was founded in 1760 at Stein, near Nuremberg, by Kaspar Faber
(d. 1784). It was then inherited by his son Anton Wilhelm (d. 1819).
Georg Leonhard Faber succeeded in 1810 (d. 1839), and the business
passed to Johann Lothar von Faber (1817-1896), the great-grandson of the
founder. At the time of his assuming control about twenty hands were
employed, under old-fashioned conditions, and owing to the invention of
the French _crayons Contés_ of Nicolas Jacques Conté (q.v.) competition
had reduced the entire Nuremberg industry to a low ebb (see PENCIL).
Johann introduced improvements in machinery and methods, brought his
factory to the highest state of efficiency, and it became a model for
all the other German and Austrian manufacturers. He established branches
in New York, Paris, London and Berlin, and agencies in Vienna, St
Petersburg and Hamburg, and made his greatest _coup_ in 1856, when he
contracted for the exclusive control of the graphite obtained from the
East Siberian mines. Faber had also branched out into the manufacture of
water-colour and oil paints, inks, slates and slate-pencils, and
engineers' and architects' drawing instruments, and built additional
factories to house his various industries at New York and at
Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris, and had his own cedar mills in Florida. For
his services to German industry he received a patent of nobility and an
appointment as councillor of state. After the death of his widow (1903)
the business was inherited by his grand-daughter Countess Otilie von
Faber-Castell and her husband, Count Alexander.
FABER, BASIL (1520--c. 1576), Lutheran schoolmaster and theologian, was
born at Sorau, in lower Lusatia, in 1520. In 1538 he entered the
university of Wittenberg, studying as _pauper gratis_ under Melanchthon.
Choosing the schoolmaster's profession, he became successively rector of
the schools at Nordhausen, Tennstadt (1555), Magdeburg (1557) and
Quedlinburg (1560). From this last post he was removed in December 1570
as a Crypto-Calvinist. In 1571 he was appointed to the Raths-gymnasium
at Erfurt, not as rector, but as director (_Vorsteher_). In this
situation he remained till his death in 1575 or 1576. His translation of
the first twenty-five chapters of Luther's commentary on Genesis was
published in 1557; in other ways he promoted the spread of Lutheran
views. He was a contributor to the first four of the _Magdeburg
Centuries_. He is best known by his _Thesaurus eruditionis scholasticae_
(1571; last edition, improved by J.H. Leich, 1749, folio, 2 vols.); this
was followed by his _Libellus de disciplina scholastica_ (1572).
See Wagenmann and G. Müller in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_
(1898). (A. Go.*)
FABER, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1814-1863), British hymn writer and
theologian, was born on the 28th of June 1814 at Calverley, Yorkshire,
of which place his grandfather, Thomas Faber, was vicar. He attended the
grammar school of Bishop Auckland for a short time, but a large portion
of his boyhood was spent in Westmorland. He afterwards went to Harrow
and to Balliol College, Oxford. In 1835 he obtained a scholarship at
University College; and in 1836 he gained the Newdigate prize for a poem
on "The Knights of St John," which elicited special praise from Keble.
Among his college friends were Dean Stanley and Roundell Palmer, 1st
earl of Selborne. In January 1837 he was elected fellow of University
College. Meanwhile he had given up the Calvinistic views of his youth,
and had become an enthusiastic follower of John Henry Newman. In 1841 a
travelling tutorship took him to the continent; and on his return a book
appeared called _Sights and Thoughts in Foreign Churches and among
Foreign Peoples_ (London, 1842), with a dedication to his friend the
poet Wordsworth. He accepted the rectory of Elton in Huntingdonshire,
but soon after went again to the continent, in order to study the
methods of the Roman Catholic Church; and after a prolonged mental
struggle he joined the Roman Catholic communion in November 1845. He
founded a religious community at Birmingham, called Wilfridians, which
was ultimately merged in the oratory of St Philip Neri, with John Henry
Newman as Superior. In 1849 a branch of the oratory--subsequently
independent--was established in London, first in King William Street,
and afterwards at Brompton, over which Faber presided till his death on
the 26th of September 1863. In spite of his weak health, an almost
incredible amount of work was crowded into those years. He published a
number of theological works, and edited the _Oratorian Lives of the
Saints_. He was an eloquent preacher, and a man of great charm of
character. It is mainly as a hymn-writer, however, that Faber is
remembered. Among his best-known hymns are:--"The Greatness of God,"
"The Will of God," "The Eternal Father," "The God of my Childhood,"
"Jesus is God," "The Pilgrims of the Night," "The Land beyond the Sea,"
"Sweet Saviour, bless us ere we go," "I was wandering and weary," and
"The Shadow of the Rock." The hymns are largely used in Protestant
collections. In addition to many pamphlets and translations, Faber
published the following works: _All for Jesus_; _The Precious Blood_;
_Bethlehem_; _The Blessed Sacrament_; _The Creator and the Creature_;
_Growth of Holiness; Spiritual Conferences_; _The Foot of the Cross_ (8
vols., London, 1853-1860).
See his _Life and Letters_, by Father J.E. Bowden (London, 1869), and
_A Brief Sketch of the Early Life of the late F.W. Faber_, D.D., by
his brother the Rev. F.A. Faber (London, 1869).
FABER, Fabri or Fabry (surnamed STAPULENSIS), JACOBUS [Jacques Lefèvre
d'Étaples] (c. 1455--c. 1536), a pioneer of the Protestant movement in
France, was born of humble parents at Étaples, in Pas de Calais,
Picardy, about 1455. He appears to have been possessed of considerable
means. He had already been ordained priest when he entered the
university of Paris for higher education. Hermonymus of Sparta was his
master in Greek. He visited Italy before 1486, for he heard the lectures
of Argyropulus, who died in that year; he formed a friendship with
Paulus Aemilius of Verona. In 1492 he again travelled in Italy, studying
in Florence, Rome and Venice, making himself familiar with the writings
of Aristotle, though greatly influenced by the Platonic philosophy.
Returning to Paris, he became professor in the college of Cardinal
Lemoine. Among his famous pupils were F.W. Vatable and Farel; his
connexion with the latter drew him to the Calvinistic side of the
movement of reform. At this time he began the publication, with critical
apparatus, of Boëtius (_De Arithmetica_), and Aristotle's _Physics_
(1492), _Ethics_ (1497), _Metaphysics_ (1501) and _Politics_ (1506). In
1507 he took up his residence in the Benedictine Abbey of St Germain des
Prés, near Paris; this was due to his connexion with the family of
Briçonnet (one of whom was the superior), especially with William
Briçonnet, cardinal bishop of St Malo (Meaux). He now began to give
himself to Biblical studies, the first-fruit of which was his
_Quintuplex Psalterium: Gallicum, Romanum, Hebraicum, Vetus,
Conciliatum_ (1509); the _Conciliatum_ was his own version. This was
followed by _S. Pauli Epistolae xiv. ex vulgata editione, adjecta
intelligentia ex Graeco cum commentariis_ (1512), a work of great
independence and judgment. His _De Maria Magdalena et triduo Christi
disceptatio_ (1517) provoked violent controversy and was condemned by
the Sorbonne (1521). He had left Paris during the whole of 1520, and,
removing to Meaux, was appointed (May 1, 1523) vicar-general to Bishop
Briçonnet, and published his French version of the New Testament (1523).
This (contemporary with Luther's German version) has been the basis of
all subsequent translations into French. From this, in the same year, he
extracted the versions of the Gospels and Epistles "à l'usage du diocèse
de Meaux." The prefaces and notes to both these expressed the view that
Holy Scripture is the only rule of doctrine, and that justification is
by faith alone. He incurred much hostility, but was protected by Francis
I. and the princess Margaret. Francis being in captivity after the
battle of Pavia (February 25, 1525), Faber was condemned and his works
suppressed by commission of the parlement; these measures were quashed
on the return of Francis some months later. He issued _Le Psautier de
David_ (1525), and was appointed royal librarian at Blois (1526); his
version of the Pentateuch appeared two years later. His complete version
of the Bible (1530), on the basis of Jerome, took the same place as his
version of the New Testament. Margaret (now queen of Navarre) led him to
take refuge (1531) at Nérac from persecution. He is said to have been
visited (1533) by Calvin on his flight from France. He died in 1536 or
1537.
See C.H. Graf, _Essai sur la vie et les écrits_ (1842); G.
Bonet-Maury, in A. Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_ (1898).
(A. Go.*)
FABER (or LEFÈVRE), JOHANN (1478-1541), German theologian, styled from
the title of one of his works "Malleus Haereticorum," son of one
Heigerlin, a smith (_faber_), was born at Leutkirch, in Swabia, in 1478.
His early life is obscure; the tradition that he joined the Dominicans
is untenable. He studied theology and canon law at Tübingen and at
Freiburg im Breisgau, where he matriculated on the 26th of July 1509,
and graduated M.A. and doctor of canon law. He was soon appointed vicar
of Lindau and Leutkirch, and shortly afterwards canon of Basel. In 1518
Hugo von Landenberg, bishop of Constance, made him one of his
vicars-general, and Pope Leo X. appointed him papal protonotary. He was
an advocate of reforms, in sympathy with Erasmus, and corresponded
(1519-1520) with Zwingli. While he defended Luther against Eck, he was
as little inclined to adopt the position of Luther as of Carlstadt. His
journey to Rome in the autumn of 1521 had the result of estranging him
from the views of the Protestant leaders. He published _Opus adversus
nova quaedam dogmata Lutheri_ (1522), and appeared as a disputant
against Zwingli at Zürich (1523). Then followed his _Malleus in haeresin
Lutheranam_ (1524). Among his efforts to stem the tide of Protestant
innovation was the establishment of a training-house for the maintenance
and instruction of popular preachers, drawn from the lower ranks, to
compete with the orators of reform. In 1526 he became court preacher to
the emperor Ferdinand, and in 1527 and 1528 was sent by him as envoy to
Spain and England. He approved the death by burning of Balthasar
Hubmeier, the Baptist, at Vienna on the 10th of March 1528. In 1531 he
was consecrated bishop of Vienna, and combined with this (till 1538) the
administration of the diocese of Neustadt. He died at Vienna on the 21st
of May 1541. His works were collected in three volumes, 1537, 1539 and
1541.
See C.E. Kettner, _Diss. de J. Fabri Vita Scriptisque_ (1737);
Wagenmann and Egli in Herzog-Hauck's _Realencyklopädie_ (1898).
(A. Go.*)
FABERT, ABRAHAM DE (1599-1660), marshal of France, was the son of Abraham
Fabert, seigneur de Moulins (d. 1638), a famous printer who rendered
great services, civil and military, to Henry IV. At the age of fourteen
he entered the _Gardes françaises_, and in 1618 received a commission in
the Piedmont regiment, becoming major in 1627. He distinguished himself
repeatedly in the constant wars of the period, notably in La Rochelle and
at the siege of Exilles in 1630. His bravery and engineering skill were
again displayed in the sieges of Avesnes and Maubeuge in 1637, and in
1642 Louis XIII. made him governor of the recently-acquired fortress of
Sedan. In 1651 he became lieutenant-general, and in 1654 at the siege of
Stenay he introduced new methods of siegecraft which anticipated in a
measure the great improvements of Vauban. In 1658 Fabert was made a
marshal of France, being the first commoner to attain that rank. He died
at Sedan on the 17th of May 1660.
See _Histoire du maréchal de Fabert_ (Amsterdam, 1697); P. Barre, _Vie
de Fabert_ (Paris, 1752); A. Feillet, _Le Premier Maréchal de France
plébéien_ (Paris, 1869); Bourelly, _Le Maréchal Fabert_ (Paris, 1880).
FABIAN [FABIANUS], SAINT (d. 250), pope and martyr, was chosen pope, or
bishop of Rome, in January 236 in succession to Anteros. Eusebius
(_Hist. Eccl._ vi. 29) relates how the Christians, having assembled in
Rome to elect a new bishop, saw a dove alight upon the head of Fabian, a
stranger to the city, who was thus marked out for this dignity, and was
at once proclaimed bishop, although there were several famous men among
the candidates for the vacant position. Fabian was martyred during the
persecution under the emperor Decius, his death taking place on the 20th
of January 250, and was buried in the catacomb of Calixtus, where a
memorial has been found. He is said to have baptized the emperor Philip
and his son, to have done some building in the catacombs, to have
improved the organization of the church in Rome, to have appointed
officials to register the deeds of the martyrs, and to have founded
several churches in France. His deeds are thus described in the _Liber
Pontificalis_: "Hic regiones dividit diaconibus et fecit vii
subdiacones, qui vii notariis imminerent, ut gestas martyrum integro
fideliter colligerent, et multas fabricas per cymiteria fieri
praecepit." Although there is very little authentic information about
Fabian, there is evidence that his episcopate was one of great
importance in the history of the early church. He was highly esteemed by
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage; Novatian refers to his _nobilissimae
memoriae_, and he corresponded with Origen. One authority refers to him
as Flavian.
See the article on "Fabian" by A. Harnack in Herzog-Hauck's
_Realencyklopädie_, Band v. (Leipzig, 1898).
FABIUS, the name of a number of Roman soldiers and statesmen. The Fabian
gens was one of the oldest and most distinguished patrician families of
Rome. Its members claimed descent from Hercules and a daughter of the
Arcadian Evander. From the earliest times it played a prominent part in
Roman history, and was one of the two gentes exclusively charged with
the management of the most ancient festival in Rome--the Lupercalia
(Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 375). The chief family names of the Fabian gens or
clan, in republican times, were Vibulanus, Ambustus, Maximus, Buteo,
Pictor, Dorso, Labeo; with surnames Verrucosus, Rullianus, Gurges,
Aemilianus, Allobrogicus (all of the Maximus branch). The most important
members of the family are the following:--
1. MARCUS FABIUS AMBUSTUS, pontifex maximus in the year of the capture
of Rome by the Gauls (390). His three sons, Quintus, Numerius and Caeso,
although they had been sent as ambassadors to the Gauls when they were
besieging Clusium, subsequently took part in hostilities (Livy v. 35).
The Gauls thereupon demanded their surrender, on the ground that they
had violated the law of nations; the Romans, by way of reply, elected
them consular tribunes in the following year. The result was the march
of the Gauls upon Rome, the battle of the Allia, and the capture of the
city (Livy vi. 1).
2. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed _Rullianus_ or _Rullus_, master of the
horse in the second Samnite War to L. Papirius Cursor, by whom he was
degraded for having fought the Samnites contrary to orders (Livy viii.
30), in spite of the fact that he gained a victory. In 315, when
dictator, he was defeated by the Samnites at Lautulae (Livy ix. 23). In
310 he defeated the Etruscans at the Vadimonian Lake. In 295, consul for
the fifth time, he defeated, at the great battle of Sentinum, the
combined forces of the Etrurians, Umbrians, Samnites and Gauls (see
ROME: _History_, II. "The Republic"). As censor (304) he altered the
arrangement of Appius Claudius Caecus, whereby the freedmen were taken
into all the tribes, and limited them to the four city tribes. For this
he is said to have received the title of _Maximus_, as the deliverer of
the comitia from the rule of the mob (Livy ix. 46), but there is reason
to think that this title was first conferred on his grandson. It is
probable that his achievements are greatly exaggerated by historians
favourable to the Fabian house.
3. QUINTUS FABIUS MAXIMUS, surnamed _Verrucosus_ (from a wart on his
lip), _Ovicula_ ("the lamb," from his mild disposition), and _Cunctator_
("the delayer," from his cautious tactics in the war against Hannibal),
grandson of the preceding. He served his first consulship in Liguria
(233 B.C.), was censor (230) and consul for the second time (228). In
218 he was sent to Carthage to demand satisfaction for the attack on
Saguntum (Livy xxi. 18). According to the well-known story, he held up a
fold of his toga and offered the Carthaginians the choice between peace
and war. When they declared themselves indifferent, he let fall his toga
with the words, "Then take war." After the disastrous campaign on the
Trebia, and the defeat on the banks of the Trasimene Lake, Fabius was
named dictator (Livy calls him pro-dictator, since he was nominated, not
by the consul, but by the people) in 217, and began his tactics of
"masterly inactivity." Manoeuvring among the hills, where Hannibal's
cavalry were useless, he cut off his supplies, harassed him incessantly,
and did everything except fight. His steady adherence to his plan caused
dissatisfaction at Rome and in his own camp, and aroused the suspicion
that he was merely endeavouring to prolong his command. Minucius Rufus,
his master of the horse, seized the opportunity, during the absence of
Fabius at Rome, to make an attack upon the enemy which proved
successful. The people, more than ever convinced that a forward movement
was necessary, divided the command between Minucius and Fabius (Livy
xxii. 15. 24; Polybius iii. 88). Minucius was led into an ambuscade by
Hannibal, and his army was only saved by the opportune arrival of
Fabius. Minucius confessed his mistake and henceforth submitted to the
orders of Fabius (Livy xxiii. 32). At the end of the legal time of six
months Fabius resigned the dictatorship and the war was carried on by
the consuls. The result of the abandonment of Fabian tactics was the
disaster of Cannae (216). In 215 and 214 (as consul for the third and
fourth times) he was in charge of the operations against Hannibal
together with Claudius Marcellus (Livy xxiii. 39). He laid siege to
Capua, which had gone over to Hannibal after Cannae, and captured the
important position of Casilinum; in his fifth consulship (209) he retook
Tarentum, which had been occupied by Hannibal for three years (Livy
xxvii. 15; Polybius xiii. 4; Plutarch, _Fabius_). He died in 203. Fabius
was a strenuous opponent of the new aggressive policy, and did all he
could to prevent the invasion of Africa by Scipio. He was distinguished
for calmness and prudence, while by no means lacking in courage when it
was required. In his later years, however, he became morose, and showed
jealousy of rising young men, especially Scipio (_Life_ by Plutarch;
Livy xx.-xxx.; Polybius iii. 87-106).
4. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS AEMILIANUS, eldest son of L. Aemilius Paullus,
adopted by Fabius Cunctator. He served in the last Macedonian War (168),
and, as consul, defeated Viriathus in Spain (Livy, _Epit_. 52). He was
the pupil and patron of Polybius (Polybius xviii., xxix. 6, xxxii. 8-10;
Livy xliv. 35).
5. Q. FABIUS MAXIMUS ALLOBROGICUS, son of the above, consul 121 in Gaul.
He obtained his surname from his victory over the Allobroges and Arverni
in that year (Vell. Pat. ii. 10; Eutropius iv. 22). As censor (108) he
erected the first triumphal arch.
6. Q. FABIUS VIBULANUS, with his brothers Caeso and Marcus, filled the
consulship for seven years in succession (485-479 B.C.). In the last year
there was a reaction against the family, in consequence of Caeso
espousing the cause of the plebeians. Thereupon the Fabii--to the number,
it is said, of 306 patricians, with some 5000 dependents--emigrated from
Rome under the leadership of Caeso, and settled on the banks of the
Cremera, a few miles above Rome. For two years the exiles continued to be
the city's chief defence against the Veientes, until at last they were
surprised and cut off. The only survivor of the gens was Quintus, the sen
of Marcus, who apparently took no part in the battle. The story that he
had been left behind at Rome on account of his youth cannot be true, as
he was consul ten years afterwards. This Quintus was consul in 467, 465
and 459, and a member of the second decemvirate in 450, on the fall of
which he went into voluntary exile (Livy ii. 42, 48-50, iii. 1, 9, 41,
58, vi. 1; Dion. Halic. viii. 82-86, ix. 14-22: Ovid, _Fasti_, ii. 195).
The Fabian name is met with as late as the 2nd century A.D. A complete
list of the Fabii will be found in de Vit's _Onomasticon_; see also
W.N. du Rieu, _Disputatio de Gente Fabia_ (1856), containing an
account of 57 members of the family.
FABIUS PICTOR, QUINTUS, the father of Roman history, was born about 254
B.C. He was the grandson of Gaius Fabius, who received the surname
_Pictor_ for his painting of the temple of Salus (302). He took an
active part in the subjugation of the Gauls in the north of Italy (225),
and after the battle of Cannae (216) was employed by the Romans to
proceed to Delphi in order to consult the oracle of Apollo. He was the
earliest prose writer of Roman history. His materials consisted of the
_Annales Maximi_, _Commentarii Consulares_, and similar records; the
chronicles of the great Roman families; and his own experiences in the
Second Punic War. He is also said to have made much use of the Greek
historian Diodes of Peparethus. His work, which was written in Greek,
began with the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, and ended with the Hannibalic
war. Although Polybius and Dionysius of Halicarnassus frequently find
fault with him, the first uses him as his chief authority for the Second
Punic War. A Latin version of the work was in existence in the time of
Cicero, but it is doubtful whether it was by Fabius Pictor or by a later
writer with whom he was confused--Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul
142); or there may have been two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor.
Fragments in H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum Fragmenta_ (1883); see
also ANNALISTS and LIVY, and Teuffel-Schwabe, _History of Roman
Literature_, § 116.
FABLE (Fr. _fable_, Lat. _fabula_). With certain restrictions, the
necessity of which will be shown in the course of the article, we may
accept the definition of "fable" which Dr Johnson proposes in his _Life
of Gay_: "A _fable_ or _apologue_ seems to be, in its genuine state, a
narrative in which beings irrational, and sometimes inanimate (_arbores
loquuntur, non tantum ferae_), are, for the purpose of moral
instruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and
passions." The description of La Fontaine, the greatest of fabulists, is
a poetic rendering of Johnson's definition:
"Fables in sooth are not what they appear;
Our moralists are mice, and such small deer.
We yawn at sermons, but we gladly turn
To moral tales, and so amused we learn."
The fable is distinguished from the myth, which grows and is not made,
the spontaneous and unconscious product of primitive fancy as it plays
round some phenomenon of natural or historical fact. The literary myth,
such as, for instance, the legend of Pandora in Hesiod or the tale of Er
in the _Republic_ of Plato, is really an allegory, and differs from the
fable in so far as it is self-interpreting; the story and the moral are
intermingled throughout. Between the parable and the fable there is no
clear line of demarcation, and theologians like Trench have
unwarrantably narrowed their definition of a parable to fit those of the
New Testament. The soundest distinction is drawn by Neander. In the
fable human passions and actions are attributed to beasts; in the
parable the lower creation is employed only to illustrate the higher
life and never transgresses the laws of its kind. But whether Jotham's
apologue of the trees choosing a king, perhaps the first recorded in
literature, should be classed as a fable or a parable is hardly worth
disputing. Lastly, we may point out the close affinity between the fable
and the proverb. A proverb is often a condensed or fossilized fable, and
not a few fables are amplified or elaborated proverbs.
The history of the fable goes back to the remotest antiquity, and Aesop
has even less claim to be reckoned the father of the fable than has
Homer to be entitled the father of poetry. The fable has its origin in
the universal impulse of men to express their thoughts in concrete
images, and is strictly parallel to the use of metaphor in language. It
is the most widely diffused if not the most primitive form of
literature. Though it has fallen from its high place it still survives,
as in J. Chandler Harris's _Uncle Remus_ and Rudyard Kipling's _Jungle
Book_. The Arab of to-day will invent a fable at every turn of the
conversation as the readiest form of argument, and in the _Life_ of
Coventry Patmore it is told how an impromptu fable of his about the
pious dormouse found its way into Catholic books of devotion.
With the fable, as we know it, the moral is indispensable. As La
Fontaine puts it, an apologue is composed of two parts, body and soul.
The body is the story, the soul the morality. But if we revert to the
earliest type we shall find that this is no longer the case. In the
primitive beast-fable, which is the direct progenitor of the Aesopian
fable, the story is told simply for its own sake, and is as innocent of
any moral as the fairy tales of Little Red Riding-Hood and Jack and the
Beanstalk. Thus, in a legend of the Flathead Indians, the Little Wolf
found in cloud-land his grandsires the Spiders with their grizzled hair
and long crooked nails, and they spun balls of thread to let him down to
earth; when he came down and found his wife the Speckled Duck, whom the
Old Wolf had taken from him, she fled in confusion, and this is why she
lives and dives alone to this very day. Such animal myths are as common
in the New World as in the Old, and abound from Finland and Kamtchatka
to the Hottentots and Australasians. From the story invented, as the one
above quoted, to account for some peculiarity of the animal world, or
told as a pure exercise of the imagination, just as a sailor spins a
yarn about the sea-serpent, to the moral apologue the transition is
easy; and that it has been effected by savages unaided by the example of
higher races seems sufficiently proved by the tales quoted by E.B. Tylor
(_Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 411). From the beast-fables of savages
we come next to the Oriental apologues, which we still possess in their
original form. The East, the land of myth and legend, is the natural
home of the fable, and Hindustan was the birthplace, if not of the
original of these tales, at least of the oldest shape in which they
still exist. The _Pancha Tantra_ (2nd century B.C.), or fables of the
Brahma Vishnu Sarman, have been translated from Sanskrit into almost
every language and adapted by most modern fabulists. The _Kalilah_ and
_Dimna_ (names of two jackals), or fables of Bidpai (or Pilpai), passed
from India to western Europe through the successive stages of Pahlavi
(ancient Persian), Arabic, Greek, Latin. By the end of the 16th century
there were Italian, French and English versions. There is an excellent
Arabic edition (Paris, 1816) with an introduction by Sylvestre de Sacy.
The _Hitopadesa_, or "friendly instruction," is a modernized form of the
same work, and of it there are three translations into English by Dr
Charles Wilkins, Sir William Jones and Professor F. Johnson. The
_Hitopadesa_ is a complete chaplet of fables loosely strung together,
but connected so as to form something of a continuous story, with moral
reflections freely interspersed, purporting to be written for the
instruction of some dissolute young princes. Thus, in the first fable a
flock of pigeons see the grains of rice which a fowler has scattered,
and are about to descend on them, when the king of the pigeons warns
them by telling the fable of a traveller who being greedy of a bracelet
was devoured by a tiger. They neglect his warning and are caught in the
net, but are afterwards delivered by the king of the mice, who tells the
story of the Deer, the Jackal and the Crow, to show that no real
friendship can exist between the strong and the weak, the beast of prey
and his quarry, and so on to the end of the volume. Another book of
Eastern fables is well worthy of notice, _Buddhaghosha's Parables_, a
commentary on the _Dhammapada_ or _Buddha's Paths of Virtue_. The
original is in Pali, but an English translation of the Burmese version
was made by Captain T. Rogers, R.E.
From Hindustan the Sanskrit fables passed to China, Tibet and Persia;
and they must have reached Greece at an early age, for many of the
fables which passed under the name of Aesop are identical with those of
the East. Aesop to us is little more than a name, though, if we may
trust a passing notice in Herodotus (ii. 134), he must have lived in the
6th century B.C. Probably his fables were never written down, though
several are ascribed to him by Xenophon, Aristotle, Plutarch and other
Greek writers, and Plato represents Socrates as beguiling his last days
by versifying such as he remembered. Aristophanes alludes to them as
merry tales, and Plato, while excluding the poets from his ideal
republic, admits Aesop as a moral teacher. Of the various versions of
_Aesop's Fables_, by far the most trustworthy is that of Babrius or
Babrias, a Greek probably of the 3rd century A.D., who rendered them in
choliambic verse. These, which were long known in fragments only, were
recovered in a MS. found by M. Minas in a monastery on Mount Athos in
1842, now in the British Museum.[1] An inferior version of the same in
Latin iambics was made by Phaedrus, a slave of Thracian origin, brought
to Rome in the time of Augustus and manumitted by him. Phaedrus
professes to polish in senarian verse the rough-hewn blocks from Aesop's
quarry; but the numerous allusions to contemporary events, as, for
example, his hit at Sejanus in the Frogs and the Sun, which brought upon
the author disgrace and imprisonment, show that many of them are
original or free adaptations. For some time scholars doubted as to the
genuineness of Phaedrus's fables, but their doubts have been lately
dispelled by a closer examination of the MSS. and by the discovery of
two verses of a fable on a tomb at Apulum in Dacia. Phaedrus's style is
simple, clear and brief, but dry and unpoetical; and, as Lessing has
pointed out, he often falls into absurdities when he deserts his
original. For instance, in Aesop the dog with the meat in his mouth sees
his reflection in the water as he passes over a bridge; Phaedrus makes
him see it as he swims across the river.
To sum up the characteristics of the Aesopian fable, it is artless,
simple and transparent. It affects no graces of style, and we hardly
need the text with which each concludes, [Greek: ho mythos dêloi hoti,
k.t.l.] The moral inculcated is that of _Proverbial Philosophy_ and
_Poor Richard's Almanacks_. Aesop is no maker of phrases, but an orator
who wishes to gain some point or induce some course of action. It is the
Aesopian type that Aristotle has in view when he treats of the fable as
a branch of rhetoric, not of poetry.
The Latin race was given to moralizing, and the language lent itself to
crisp and pointed narrative, but they lacked the free play of fancy, the
childlike "make-believe," to produce a national body of fables. With the
doubtful exception of Phaedrus, we possess nothing but solitary
examples, such as the famous apologue of Menenius Agrippa to the Plebs
and the exquisite Town Mouse and Country Mouse of Horace's _Satires_.
The fables of the rhetorician Aphthonius about A.D. 400 in Greek prose,
and those in Latin elegiac verse by Avianus, used for centuries as a
text-book in schools, form in the history of the apologue a link between
classical and medieval times. In a Latin dress, sometimes in prose,
sometimes in regular verse, and sometimes in rhymed stanzas, the fable
contributed, with other kinds of narratives, to make up the huge mass of
stories which has been bequeathed to us by the monastic libraries. These
served more uses than one. They were at once easier and safer reading
than the classics. To the lazy monk they stood in place of novels; to
the more industrious and gifted they furnished an exercise on a par with
Latin verse composition in our public schools; the more original
transformed them into _fabliaux_, or embodied them in edifying stories,
as in the _Gesta Romanorum_. It is not in the _Speculum Doctrinale_ of
Vincent de Beauvais, a Dominican of the 12th century, nor in the
collection of his contemporary Odo de Cerinton, an English Cistercian,
nor in Planudes of the 14th century, whose one distinction is to have
added to the fables a life of Aesop, that the direct lineage of La
Fontaine must be traced. It is the _fabliaux_ that inspired some of his
best fables--the Lion's Court, the Young Widow, the Coach and the Fly.
As the supremacy of Latin declined and modern languages began to be
turned to literary uses, the fable took a new life. Not only were there
numerous adaptations of Aesop, known as Ysopets, but Marie de France in
the 13th century composed many original fables, some rivalling La
Fontaine's in simplicity and gracefulness. Later, also, fables were not
wanting, though not numerous, in the English tongue. Chaucer has given
us one, in his Nonne Preste's Tale, which is an expansion of the fable
_Don Coc et don Werpil_ of Marie de France; another is Lydgate's tale of
The Churl and the Bird.
Several of Odo's tales, like Chaucer's story, can be ultimately traced
to the History of Reynard the Fox. This great beast-epic has been
referred by Grimm as far back as the 10th century, and is known to us in
three forms, each with independent episodes, but all woven upon a common
basis. The Latin form is probably the earliest, and the poems
_Reinardus_ and _Ysengrinus_ date from the 10th or 11th century. Next
come the German versions. The most ancient, that of a minnesinger
Heinrich der Glichesaere (probably a Swabian), was analysed and edited
by Grimm in 1840. The French poem of more than 30,000 lines, the _Roman
du Rénard_, belongs probably to the 13th century. In 1498 appeared
_Reynke de Voss_, almost a literal version in Low Saxon of the Flemish
poem of the 12th century, _Reinaert de Vos_. Hence the well-known
version of Goethe into modern German hexameters was taken. The poem has
been well named "an unholy world Bible." In it the Aesopian fable
received a development which was in several respects quite original. We
have here no short and unconnected stories. Materials, partly borrowed
from older apologues, but in a much greater proportion new, are worked
up into one long and systematic tale. The moral, so prominent in the
fable proper, shrinks so far into the background, that the epic might be
considered a work of pure fiction, an animal romance. The attempts to
discover in it personal satire have signally failed; some critics deny
even the design to represent human conduct at all; and we can scarcely
get nearer to its signification than by regarding it as being, in a
general way, what Carlyle has called "a parody of human life." It
represents a contest maintained successfully, by selfish craft and
audacity, against enemies of all sorts, in a half-barbarous and
ill-organized society. With his weakest foes, like Chaunteclere the
Cock, Reynard uses brute-force; over the weak who are protected, like
Kiward the Hare and Belin the Ram, he is victorious by uniting violence
with cunning; Bruin, the dull, strong, formidable Bear, is humbled by
having greater power than his own enlisted against him; and the most
dangerous of all the fox's enemies, Isengrim, the obstinate, greedy and
implacable Wolf, after being baffled by repeated strokes of malicious
ingenuity, forces Reynard to a single combat, but even thus is not a
match for his dexterous adversary. The knavish fox has allies worthy of
him in Grimbart the watchful badger, and in his own aunt Dame Rukenawe,
the learned She-ape; and he plays at his pleasure on the simple
credulity of the Lion-King, the image of an impotent feudal sovereign.
The characters of these and other brutes are kept up with a rude kind of
consistency, which gives them great liveliness; many of the incidents
are devised with much force of humour; and the sly hits at the weak
points of medieval polity and manners and religion are incessant and
palpable.
It is needless to trace the fable, or illustrations borrowed from
fables, that so frequently occur as incidental ornaments in the older
literature of England and other countries. It has appeared in every
modern nation of Europe, but has nowhere become very important, and has
hardly ever exhibited much originality either of spirit or of manner. In
English, Prior transplanted from France some of La Fontaine's ease of
narration and artful artlessness, while Gay took as his model the
_Contes_ rather than the _Fables_. Gay's fables are often political
satires, but some, like the Fox on his Deathbed, have the true ring, and
in the Hare with many Friends there is genuine pathos. To Dryden's
spirited remodellings of old poems, romances and _fabliaux_, the name of
fables, which he was pleased to give them, is quite inapplicable. In
German, Hagedorn and Gellert, both famous in their day and the latter
extolled by Goethe, are quite forgotten; and even Lessing's fables are
read by few but schoolboys. In Spanish, Yriarte's fables on literary
subjects are sprightly and graceful, but the critic is more than the
fabulist. A spirited version of the best appeared in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, 1839. Among Italians Pignotti is famous for versatility and
command of rhythm, as amongst Russians is Kriloff for his keen satire on
Russian society. He has been translated into English by Ralston.
France alone in modern times has attained any pre-eminence in the fable,
and this distinction is almost entirely owing to one author. Marie de
France in the 13th century, Gilles Corrozet, Guillaume Haudent and
Guillaume Gueroult in the 16th, are now studied mainly as the
precursors of La Fontaine, from whom he may have borrowed a stray hint
or the outline of a story. The unique character of his work has given a
new word to the French language: other writers of fables are called
_fabulistes_, La Fontaine is named _le fablier_. He is a true poet; his
verse is exquisitely modulated; his love of nature often reminds us of
Virgil, as do his tenderness and pathos (see, for instance, The Two
Pigeons and Death and the Woodcutter). He is full of sly fun and
delicate humour; like Horace he satirizes without wounding, and "plays
around the heart." Lastly, he is a keen observer of men. The whole
society of the 17th century, its greatness and its foibles, its luxury
and its squalor, from _Le grand monarque_ to the poor _manant_, from his
majesty the lion to the courtier of an ape, is painted to the life. To
borrow his own phrase, La Fontaine's fables are "une ample comédie à
cent actes divers." Rousseau did his best to discredit the _Fables_ as
immoral and corruptors of youth, but in spite of _Émile_ they are
studied in every French school and are more familiar to most Frenchmen
than their breviary. Among the successors of La Fontaine the most
distinguished is Florian. He justly estimates his own merits in the
pretty apologue that he prefixed to his _Fables_. He asks a sage whether
a fabulist writing after La Fontaine would not be wise to consign his
work to the flames. The sage replies by a question: "What would you say
did some sweet, ingenuous Maid of Athens refuse to let herself be seen
because there was once a Helen of Troy?"
The fables of Lessing represent the reaction against the French school
of fabulists. "With La Fontaine himself," says Lessing, "I have no
quarrel, but against the imitators of La Fontaine I enter my protest."
His attention was first called to the fable by Gellert's popular work
published in 1746. Gellert's fables were closely modelled after La
Fontaine's, and were a vehicle for lively railings against the fair sex,
and hits at contemporary follies. Lessing's early essays were in the
same style, but his subsequent study of the history and theory of the
fable led him to discard his former model as a perversion of later
times, and the "Fabeln," published in 1759, are the outcome of his riper
views. Lessing's fables, like all that he wrote, display his vigorous
common sense. He has, it is true, little of La Fontaine's _curiosa
felicitas_, his sly humour and lightness of touch; and Frenchmen would
say that his criticism of La Fontaine is an illustration of the fable of
the sour grapes. On the other hand, he has the rare power of looking at
both sides of a moral problem; he holds a brief for the stupid and the
feeble, the ass and the lamb; and in spite of his formal protest against
poetical ornament, there is in not a few of his fables a vein of true
poetry, as in the Sheep (ii. 13) and Jupiter and the Sheep (ii. 18). But
the monograph which introduced the _Fabeln_ is of more inportance than
the fables themselves. According to Lessing the ideal fable is that of
Aesop. All the elaborations and refinements of later authors, from
Phaedrus to La Fontaine, are perversions of this original. The fable is
essentially a moral precept illustrated by a single example, and it is
the lesson thus enforced which gives to the fable its unity and makes it
a work of art. The illustration must be either an actual occurrence or
represented as such, because a fictitious case invented _ad hoc_ can
appeal but feebly to the reader's judgment. Lastly, the fable requires a
story or connected chain of events. A single fact will not make a fable,
but is only an emblem. We thus arrive at the following definition:--"A
fable is a relation of a series of changes which together form a whole.
The unity of the fable consists herein, that all the parts lead up to an
end, the end for which the fable was invented being the moral precept."
We may notice in passing a problem in connexion with the fable which had
long been debated, but never satisfactorily resolved till Lessing took
it in hand--Why should animals have been almost universally chosen as
the chief _dramatis personae_? The reason, according to Lessing, is that
animals have distinct characters which are known and recognized by all.
The fabulist who writes of Britannicus and Nero appeals to the few who
know Roman history. The Wolf and the Lamb comes home to every one
whether learned or simple. But, besides this, human sympathies obscure
the moral judgment; hence it follows that the fable, unlike the drama
and the epos, should abstain from all that is likely to arouse our
prejudices or our passions. In this respect the Wolf and the Lamb of
Aesop is a more perfect fable than the Rich Man and the Poor Man's Ewe
Lamb of Nathan.
Lessing's analysis and definition of the fable, though he seems himself
unconscious of the scope of his argument, is in truth its death-warrant.
The beast-fable arose in a primitive age when men firmly believed that
beasts could talk and reason, that any wolf they met might be a
were-wolf, that a peacock might be a Pythagoras in disguise, and an ox
or even a cat a being worthy of their worship. To this succeeded the
second age of the fable, which belongs to the same stage of culture as
the Hebrew proverbs and the gnomic poets of Greece. That honesty is the
best policy, that death is common to all, seemed to the men of that day
profound truths worthy to be embalmed in verse or set off by the aid of
story or anecdote. Last comes an age of high literary culture which
tolerates the trite morals and hackneyed tales for the sake of the
exquisite setting, and is amused at the wit which introduces topics and
characters of the day under the transparent veil of animal life. Such an
artificial product can be nothing more than the fashion of a day, and
must, like pastoral poetry, die a natural death. A serious moralist
would hardly choose that form to inculcate, like Mandeville in his
_Fable of the Bees_, a new doctrine in morals, for the moral of the
fable must be such that he who runs may read. A true poet will not care
to masquerade as a moral teacher, or show his wit by refurbishing some
old-world maxim. Yet Taine in France, Lowell in America, and J.A. Froude
in England have proved that the fable as one form of literature is not
yet extinct, and is capable of new and unexpected developments.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Pantschatantrum_, ed. Kosegarten (Bonn, 1848);
_Hitopadesa_, ed. Max Müller (1864); Silvestre de Sacy, _Calilah et
Dimna, ou Fables de Bidpai, en Arabe, précédées d'un mémoire sur
l'origine de ce livre_ (Paris, 1816), translated by the Rev. Wyndham
Knatchbull (Oxford, 1819); Comparetti, _Ricerche intorno al Libro di
Sindebad_ (Milan, 1869); Max Müller, "Migration of Fables," _Chips
from a German Workshop_, vol. iv. (1875); Keller, _Untersuchungen über
die Geschichte der griechischen Fabel_ (Leipzig, 1862); _Babrius_, ed.
W.G. Rutherford, with excursus on Greek fables (1883); L. Hervieux,
_Les Fabuiistes latins_ (1884); Jakob Grimm, _Reinhart Fuchs_ (Berlin,
1834); A.C.M. Robert, _Fables inédites des XII^e, XIII^e, et XIV^e
siècles_, &c. (Paris, 1825); Taine, _Essai sur les fables de La
Fontaine_ (1853); Saint-Marc Girardin, _La Fontaine et les fabulistes_
(Paris, 1867). (F. S.)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] M. Minas professed to have discovered under the same
circumstances another collection of ninety-four fables by Babrius.
This second part was accepted by Sir G.C. Lewis, but J. Conington
conclusively proved it spurious, and probably a forgery. See BABRIUS.
FABLIAU. The entertaining tales in eight-syllable rhymed verse which
form a marked section of French medieval literature are called
_fabliaux_, the word being derived by Littré from _fablel_, a diminutive
of _fable_. It is a mistake to suppose, as is frequently done, that
every legend of the middle ages is a fabliau. In a poem of the 12th
century a clear distinction is drawn between songs of chivalry, war or
love, and _fabliaux_, which are recitals of laughter. A fabliau always
related an event; it was usually brief, containing not more than 400
lines; it was neither sentimental, religious nor supernatural, but comic
and gay. MM. de Montaiglon and Raynaud, who have closely investigated
this class of literature, consider that about 150 fabliaux have come
down to us more or less intact; a vast number have doubtless
disappeared. It appears from a phrase in the writings of the trouvère,
Henri d'Andeli, that the fabliau was not thought worthy of being copied
out on parchment. The wonder, then, is that so many of these ephemeral
compositions have been preserved. Arguments brought forward by M. Joseph
Bédier, however, tend to show that we need not regret the disappearance
of the majority of the fabliaux, as those which were copied into MSS.
were those which were felt to be of the greatest intrinsic value. As
early as the 8th century fabliaux must have existed, since the faithful
are forbidden to take pleasure in these _fabulas inanes_ by the
_Paenitentiale_ of Egbert. But it appears that all the early examples
are lost.
In the opinion of the best scholars, the earliest surviving fabliau is
that of _Richeut_, which dates from 1159. This is a rough and powerful
study of the coarse life of the day, with little plot, but engaged with
a realistic picture of manners. Such poems, but of a more strictly
narrative nature, continued to be produced, mainly in the north and
north-east of France, until the middle of the 14th century. Much
speculation has been expended on the probable sources of the tales which
the trouvères told. The Aryan theory, which saw in them the direct
influence of India upon Europe, has now been generally abandoned. It
does not seem probable that any ancient or exotic influences were
brought to bear upon the French jongleurs, who simply invented or
adapted stories of that universal kind which springs unsown from every
untilled field of human society. More remarkable than the narratives
themselves is the spirit in which they are told. This is full of the
national humour and the national irony, the true _esprit gaulois_. A
very large section of these popular poems deals satirically with the
pretensions of the clergy. Such are the famous _Prêtre aux mûres_, the
_Prêtre qui dit la Passion_ and _Les Perdrix_. Some of these are
innocently merry; others are singularly depraved and obscene. Another
class of fabliaux is that which comprises jests against the professions;
in this, the most prominent example is _Le Vilain Mire_, a satire on
doctors, which curiously predicts the _Médecin malgré lui_ of Molière.
There are also tales whose purpose is rather voluptuous than witty, and
whose aim is to excuse libertinage and render marriage ridiculous. Among
these are prominent _Court Mantel_ and _Le Dit de Berenger_. Yet another
class repeated, with a strain of irony or oddity, such familiar
classical stories as those of Narcissus, and Pyramus and Thisbe. It is
rarely that any elevation of tone raises these poems above a familiar
and even playful level, but there are some that are almost idealistic.
Among these the story of a sort of Sisyphus errant, _Le Chevalier de
Barizel_, offers an ethical interest which lifts it in certain respects
above all other surviving fabliaux. An instance of the pathetic fabliau
is _Housse Partie_, a kind of primitive version of the story of King
Lear.
In composing these pieces, of very varied character, the jongleurs have
practised an art which was in many respects rudimentary, but sincere and
simple. The student of language finds the rich vocabulary of the
fabliaux much more attractive to him than the conventionality of the
serious religious and amatory poems of the same age. The object of the
writers was the immediate amusement of their audience; by reference to
familiar things, they hoped to arouse a quick and genuine merriment.
Hence their incorrectness and their negligence are balanced by a
delightful ease and absence of pedantry, and in the fabliaux we get
closer than elsewhere to the living diction of medieval France. It is
true that if we extend too severe a judgment to these pieces, we may
find ourselves obliged to condemn them altogether. An instructed French
critic, vexed with their faults, has gone so far as to say that "the
subjects of these tales are degrading, their inspiration nothing better
than flat and cruel derision, their distinguishing features rascality,
vulgarity and platitude of style." From one point of view, this
condemnation of the fabliau is hardly too severe. But such scholars as
Gaston Paris and Paul Meyer have not failed to emphasize other sides to
the question. They have praised, in the general laxity of style and
garrulity of the middle ages, the terseness of the jongleurs; in the
period of false ornament, their fidelity to nature; in a time of general
vagueness, the sharp and picturesque outlines of their art. One feature
of the fabliaux, however, cannot be praised and yet must not be
overlooked. In no other section of the world's literature is the scorn
and hatred of women so prominent. It is difficult to account for the
anti-feminine rage which pervades the fabliaux, and takes hideous shapes
in such examples as _Le Valet aux deux femmes_, _Le Pêcheur de
Pont-sur-Seine_ and _Chicheface et Bigorne_. Probably this was a violent
reaction against the extravagant cult of woman as expressed in the
contemporary _lais_ as well as in the legends of saints. The
exaggeration was not greater in the one case than in the other, and it
is probable that the exaltation was made endurable to those who listened
to the trouvères by the corresponding degradation. We must remember,
too, that those who listened were not nobles or clerks, they were the
common people. The fabliaux were _fabellae ignobilium_, little stories
told to amuse persons of low degree, who were irritated by the moral
pretensions of their superiors.
The names of about twenty of the authors of fabliaux have been
preserved, although in most cases nothing is known of their personal
history. The most famous poet of this class of writing is the man whose
name, or more probably pseudonym, was Rutebeuf. He wrote _Frère Denyse_
and _Le Sacristain_, while to him is attributed the _Dit d'Aristote_, in
the course of which Aristotle gives good advice to Alexander. Fabliaux,
however, form but a small part of the work of Rutebeuf, who was a
satirical poet of wide accomplishment and varied energy. Most of the
jongleurs who wrote these merry and indecent tales in octosyllabic verse
were persons of less distinction. Henri d'Andeli was an ecclesiastic,
attached, it is supposed, to the cathedral of Rouen. Jean de Condé, who
flourished in the court of Hainaut from 1310 to 1340, and who is the
latest of the genuine writers of fabliaux, lived in comfort and
security, but most of the professional jongleurs seem to have spent
their years in a Bohemian existence, wandering among the clergy and the
merchant class, alternately begging for money and food and reciting
their mocking verses.
The principal authorities for the fabliaux are MM. Anatole de
Montaiglon and Gaston Raynaud, who published the text, in 6 vols.,
between 1872 and 1890. This edition corrected and supplemented the
very valuable labours of Méon (1808-1823) and Jubinal (1839-1842). The
works of Henri d'Andeli were edited by M.A. Héron in 1880, and those
of Rutebeuf were made the subject of an exhaustive monograph by M.
Léon Clédat in 1891. See also the editions of separate fabliaux by
Gaston Paris, Paul Meyer, Ebeling, August Schéler and other modern
scholars. M. Joseph Bedier's _Les Fabliaux_ (1895) is a useful summary
of critical opinion on the entire subject. (E. G.)
FABRE, FERDINAND (1830-1898), French novelist, was born at Bédarieux, in
Hérault, a very picturesque district of the south of France, which he
made completely his own in literature. He was the son of a local
architect, who failed in business, and Ferdinand was brought up by his
uncle, the Abbé Fulcran Fabre, at Camplong among the mulberry woods. Of
his childhood and early youth he has given a charming account in _Ma
Vocation_ (1889). He was destined to the priesthood, and was sent for
that purpose to the seminary of St Pons de Thomières, where, in 1848, he
had, as he believed, an ecstatic vision of Christ, who warned him "It is
not the will of God that thou shouldst be a priest." He had now to look
about for a profession, and, after attempting medicine at Montpellier,
was articled as a lawyer's clerk in Paris. In 1853 he published a volume
of verses, _Feuilles de lierre_, broke down in health, and crept back,
humble and apparently without ambition, to his old home at Bédarieux.
After some eight or nine years of country life he reappeared in Paris,
with the MS. of his earliest novel, _Les Courbezon_ (1862), in which he
treated the subject which was to recur in almost all his books, the
daily business of country priests in the Cevennes. This story enjoyed an
immediate success with the literary class of readers; George Sand
praised it, Sainte-Beuve hailed in its author "the strongest of the
disciples of Balzac," and it was crowned by the French Academy. From
this time forth Fabre settled down to the production of novels, of which
at the time of his death he had published about twenty. Among these the
most important were _Le Chevrier_ (1868), unique among his works as
written in an experimental mixture of Cevenol patois and French of the
16th century; _L'Abbé Tigrane, candidat à la papauté_ (1873), by common
consent the best of all Fabre's novels, a very powerful picture of
unscrupulous priestly ambition; _Mon Oncle Célestin_ (1881), a study of
the entirely single and tender-hearted country abbé; and _Lucifer_
(1884), a marvellous gallery of serious clerical portraits. In 1883
Fabre was appointed curator of the Mazarin Library, with rooms in the
Institute, where, on 11th February 1898, he died after a brief attack of
pneumonia. Ferdinand Fabre occupies in French literature a position
somewhat analogous to that of Mr Thomas Hardy amongst English writers of
fiction. He deals almost exclusively with the population of the mountain
villages of Hérault, and particularly with its priests. He loved most of
all to treat of the celibate virtues, the strictly ecclesiastical
passions, the enduring tension of the young soul drawn between the
spiritual vocation and the physical demands of nature. Although never a
priest, he preserved a comprehension of and a sympathy with the clerical
character, and he always indignantly denied that he was hostile to the
Church, although he stood just outside her borders. Fabre possessed a
limited and a monotonous talent, but within his own field he was as
original as he was wholesome and charming.
See also J. Lemaître, _Les Contemporains_, vol. ii.; G. Pellissier,
_Études de littérature contemporaine_ (1898); E.W. Gosse, _French
Profiles_ (1905). (E. G.)
FABRE D'ÉGLANTINE, PHILIPPE FRANÇOIS NAZAIRE (1750-1794), French
dramatist and revolutionist, was born at Carcassonne on the 28th of July
1750. His real name was simple Fabre, the "d'Églantine" being added in
commemoration of his receiving the golden eglantine of Clémence Isaure
from the academy of the floral games at Toulouse. After travelling
through the provinces as an actor, he came to Paris, and produced an
unsuccessful comedy entitled _Les Gens de lettres, ou le provincial à
Paris_ (1787). A tragedy, _Augusta_, produced at the _Théâtre Français_,
was also a failure. One only of his plays, _Philinte, ou la suite du
Misanthrope_ (1790), still preserves its reputation. It professes to be
a continuation of Molière's _Misanthrope_, but the hero of the piece is
of a different character from the nominal prototype--an impersonation,
indeed, of pure and simple egotism. On its publication the play was
introduced by a preface, in which the author mercilessly satirizes the
_Optimiste_ of his rival J.F. Collin d'Harleville, whose _Châteaux en
Espagne_ had gained the applause which Fabre's _Présomptueux_ (1789) had
failed to win. The character of Philinte had much political
significance. Alceste received the highest praise, and evidently
represents the citizen patriot, while Philinte is a dangerous aristocrat
in disguise. Fabre was president and secretary of the club of the
Cordeliers, and belonged also to the Jacobin club. He was chosen by
Danton as his private secretary, and sat in the National Convention. He
voted for the king's death, supporting the _maximum_ and the law of the
suspected, and he was a bitter enemy of the Girondins. After the death
of Marat he published a _Portrait de l'Ami du Peuple_. On the abolition
of the Gregorian calendar he sat on the committee entrusted with the
formation of the republican substitute, and to him was due a large part
of the new nomenclature, with its poetic _Prairial and Floréal_, its
prosaic _Primidi_ and _Duodi_. The report which he made on the subject,
on the 24th of October, has some scientific value. On the 12th of
January 1794 he was arrested by order of the committee of public safety
on a charge of malversation and forgery in connexion with the affairs of
the Compagnie des Indes. Documents still existing prove that the charge
was altogether groundless. During his trial Fabre showed the greatest
calmness and sang his own well-known song of _Il pleut, il pleut,
bergère, rentre tes blancs moutons_. He was guillotined on the 5th of
April 1794. On his way to the scaffold he distributed his manuscript
poems to the people.
A posthumous play, _Les Précepteurs_, steeped with the doctrines of
Rousseau's _Émile_, was performed on the 17th of September 1794, and met
with an enthusiastic reception. Among Fabre's other plays are the gay
and successful _Convalescent de qualité_ (1791), and _L'Intrigue
épistolaire_ (1791). In the latter play Fabre is supposed to have drawn
a portrait of the painter Jean Baptiste Greuze.
The author's _Oeuvres mêlées et posthumes_ were published at Paris
1802, 2 vols. See Albert Maurin, _Galerie hist. de la Révolution
française_, tome 11; Jules Janin, _Hist. de la litt. dram._; Chénier,
_Tableau de la litt. française_; F.A. Aulard in the _Nouvelle Revue_
(July 1885).
FABRETTI, RAPHAEL (1618-1700), Italian antiquary, was born in 1618 at
Urbino in Umbria. He studied law at Cagli and Urbino, where he took the
degree of doctor at the age of eighteen. While in Rome he attracted the
notice of Cardinal Lorenzo Imperiali, who employed him successively as
treasurer and auditor of the papal legation in Spain, where he remained
thirteen years. Meanwhile, his favourite classical and antiquarian
studies were not neglected; and on his return journey he made important
observations of the relics and monuments of Spain, France and Italy. At
Rome he was appointed judge of appellation of the Capitol, which post he
left to be auditor of the legation at Urbino. After three years he
returned to Rome, on the invitation of Cardinal Carpegna, vicar of
Innocent XI., and devoted himself to antiquarian research, examining
with minute care the monuments and inscriptions of the Campagna. He
always rode a horse which his friends nicknamed "Marco Polo," after the
Venetian traveller. By Innocent XII. he was made keeper of the archives
of the castle St Angelo, a charge which he retained till his death. He
died at Rome on the 7th of January 1700. His collection of inscriptions
and monuments was purchased by Cardinal Stoppani, and placed in the
ducal palace at Urbino, where they may still be seen.
His work _De Aquis et Aquae-ductibus veteris Romae_ (1680), three
dissertations on the topography of ancient Latium, is inserted in
Graevius's _Thesaurus_, iv. (1677). His interpretation of certain
passages in Livy and other classical authors involved him in a dispute
with Gronovius, which bore a strong resemblance to that between Milton
and Salmasius, Gronovius addressing Fabretti as _Faber Rusticus_, and
the latter, in reply, speaking of _Grunnovius_ and his _titivilitia_. In
this controversy Fabretti used the pseudonym Iasitheus, which he
afterwards took as his pastoral name in the Academy of the Arcadians.
His other works, _De Columna Trajani Syntagma_ (Rome, 1683), and
_Inscriptionum Antiquarum Explicatio_ (Rome, 1699), throw much light on
Roman antiquity. In the former is to be found his explication of a
bas-relief, with inscriptions, now in the Capitol at Rome, representing
the war and taking of Troy, known as the Iliac table. Letters and other
shorter works of Fabretti are to be found in publications of the time,
as the _Journal des Savants_.
See Crescimbeni, _Le Vite degli Arcadi illustri_; Fabroni, _Vitae
Italorum_, vi. 174; Niceron, iv. 372; J. Lamius, _Memorabilia Italorum
eruditione praestantium_ (Florence, 1742-1748).
FABRIANI, SEVERINO (1792-1849), Italian author and teacher, was born at
Spilamberto, Italy, on the 7th of January 1792. Entering the Church, he
took up educational work, but in consequence of complete loss of voice
he resolved to devote himself to teaching deaf mutes, and founded a
small school specially for them. This school the duke of Modena made
into an institute, and by a special authority from the pope a teaching
staff of nuns was appointed. Fabriani's method of instruction is summed
up in his _Logical Letters on Italian Grammar_ (1847). He died on the
27th of April 1849.
FABRIANO, a town of the Marches, Italy, in the province of Ancona, from
which it is 44 m. S.W. by rail, 1066 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901)
town 9586, commune 22,996. It has been noted since the 13th century for
its paper mills, which still produce the best paper in Italy. A school
of painting arose here, one of the early masters of which is Allegretto
Nuzi (1308-1385); and several of the churches contain works by him and
other local masters. His pupil, Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1428), was a
painter of considerably greater skill and wider knowledge; but there are
no important works of his at Fabriano. The sacristy of S. Agostino also
contains some good frescoes by Ottaviano Nelli of Gubbio. The municipal
picture gallery contains a collection of pictures, and among them are
some primitive frescoes, attributable to the 12th century, which still
retain traces of Byzantine influence. The Archivio Comunale contains
documents on watermarked paper of local manufacture going back to the
13th century. The Ponte dell' Acra, a bridge of the 15th century, is
noticeable for the ingenuity and strength of its construction. The
hospital of S. Maria Buon Gesu is a fine work of 1456, attributed to
Rossellino.
See A. Zonghi, _Antiche Carte Fabrianesi_. (T. As.)
FABRICIUS, GAIUS LUSCINUS (i.e. "the one-eyed"), Roman general, was the
first member of the Fabrician gens who settled in Rome. He migrated to
Rome from Aletrium (Livy ix. 43), one of the Hernican towns which was
allowed to retain its independence as a reward for not having revolted.
In 285 he was one of the ambassadors sent to the Tarentines to dissuade
them from making war on the Romans. In 282 (when consul) he defeated the
Bruttians and Lucanians, who had besieged Thurii (Livy, _Epit._ 12).
After the defeat of the Romans by Pyrrhus at Heraclea (280), Fabricius
was sent to treat for the ransom and exchange of the prisoners. All
attempts to bribe him were unsuccessful, and Pyrrhus is said to have
been so impressed that he released the prisoners without ransom
(Plutarch, _Pyrrhus_, 18). The story that Pyrrhus attempted to frighten
Fabricius by the sight of an elephant is probably a fiction. In 278
Fabricius was elected consul for the second time, and was successful in
negotiating terms of peace with Pyrrhus, who sailed away to Sicily.
Fabricius afterwards gained a series of victories over the Samnites, the
Lucanians and the Bruttians, and on his return to Rome received the
honour of a triumph. Notwithstanding the offices he had filled he died
poor, and provision had to be made for his daughter out of the funds of
the state (Val. Max. iv. 4, 10). Fabricius was regarded by the Romans of
later times as a model of ancient simplicity and incorruptible
integrity.
FABRICIUS, GEORG (1516-1571), German poet, historian and archaeologist,
was born at Chemnitz in upper Saxony on the 23rd of April 1516, and
educated at Leipzig. Travelling in Italy with one of his pupils, he made
an exhaustive study of the antiquities of Rome. He published the results
in his _Roma_ (1550), in which the correspondence between every
discoverable relic of the old city and the references to them in ancient
literature was traced in detail. In 1546 he was appointed rector of the
college of Meissen, where he died on the 17th of July 1571. In his
sacred poems he affected to avoid every word with the slightest savour
of paganism; and he blamed the poets for their allusions to pagan
divinities.
Principal works: editions of Terence (1548) and Virgil (1551);
_Poëmatum sacrorum libri xxv._ (1560); _Poëtarum veterum
ecclesiasticorum opera Christiana_ (1562); _De Re Poëtica libri
septem_ (1565); _Rerum Misnicarum libri septem_ (1569); (posthumous)
_Originum illustrissimae stirpis Saxonicae libri septem_ (1597);
_Rerum Germaniae magnae et Saxoniae universae memorabilium
mirabiliumque volumina duo_ (1609). A life of Georg Fabricius was
published in 1839 by D.C.W. Baumgarten-Crusius, who in 1845 also
issued an edition of Fabricius's _Epistolae ad W. Meurerum et alios
aequales_, with a short sketch _De Vita Ge. Fabricii et de gente
Fabriciorum_; see also F. Wachter in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine
Encyclopädie_.
FABRICIUS, HIERONYMUS [FABRIZIO, GERONIMO] (1537-1619), Italian
anatomist and embryologist, was surnamed Acquapendente from the
episcopal city of that name, where he was born in 1537. At Padua, after
a course of philosophy, he studied medicine under G. Fallopius, whose
successor as teacher of anatomy and surgery he became in 1562. From the
senators of Venice he received numerous honours, and an anatomical
theatre was built by them for his accommodation. He died at Venice on
the 21st of May 1619. His works include _De visione, voce et auditu_
(1600), _De formato foetu_ (1600), _De venarum ostiolis_ (1603), _De
formatione ovi et pulli_ (1621). His collected works were published at
Leipzig in 1687 as _Opera omnia Anatomica et Physiologica_, but the
Leiden edition, published by Albinus in 1738, is preferred as containing
a life of the author and the prefaces of his treatises. (See ANATOMY;
EMBRYOLOGY.)
FABRICIUS, JOHANN ALBERT (1668-1736), German classical scholar and
bibliographer, was born at Leipzig on the 11th of November 1668. His
father, Werner Fabricius, director of music in the church of St Paul at
Leipzig, was the author of several works, the most important being
_Deliciae Harmonicae_ (1656). The son received his early education from
his father, who on his death-bed recommended him to the care of the
theologian Valentin Alberti. He studied under J.G. Herrichen, and
afterwards at Quedlinburg under Samuel Schmid. It was in Schmid's
library, as he afterwards said, that he found the two books, F. Barth's
_Adversaria_ and D.G. Morhof's _Polyhistor Literarius_, which suggested
to him the idea of his _Bibliothecae_, the works on which his great
reputation was founded. Having returned to Leipzig in 1686, he published
anonymously (two years later) his first work, _Scriptorum recentiorum
decas_, an attack on ten writers of the day. His _Decas Decadum, sive
plagiariorum et pseudonymorum centuria_ (1689) is the only one ot his
works to which be signs the name Faber. He then applied himself to the
study of medicine, which, however, he relinquished for that of
theology; and having gone to Hamburg in 1693, he proposed to travel
abroad, when the unexpected tidings that the expense of his education
had absorbed his whole patrimony, and even left him in debt to his
trustee, forced him to abandon his project. He therefore remained at
Hamburg in the capacity of librarian to J.F. Mayer. In 1696 he
accompanied his patron to Sweden; and on his return to Hamburg, not long
afterwards, he became a candidate for the chair of logic and philosophy.
The suffrages being equally divided between Fabricius and Sebastian
Edzardus, one of his opponents, the appointment was decided by lot in
favour of Edzardus; but in 1699 Fabricius succeeded Vincent Placcius in
the chair of rhetoric and ethics, a post which he held till his death,
refusing invitations to Greifswald, Kiel, Giessen and Wittenberg. He
died at Hamburg on the 30th of April 1736.
Fabricius is credited with 128 books, but very many of them were only
books which he had edited. One of the most famed and laborious of
these is the _Bibliotheca Latina_ (1697, republished in an improved
and amended form by J.A. Ernesti, 1773). The divisions of the
compilation are--the writers to the age of Tiberius; thence to that of
the Antonines; and thirdly, to the decay of the language; a fourth
gives fragments from old authors, and chapters on early Christian
literature. A supplementary work was _Bibliotheca Latina mediae et
infimae Aetatis_ (1734-1736; supplementary volume by C. Schöttgen,
1746; ed. Mansi, 1754). His _chef-d'oeuvre_, however, is the
_Bibliotheca Graeca_ (1705-1728, revised and continued by G.C. Harles,
1790-1812), a work which has justly been denominated _maximus antiquae
eruditionis thesaurus_. Its divisions are marked off by Homer, Plato,
Christ, Constantine, and the capture of Constantinople in 1453, while
a sixth section is devoted to canon law, jurisprudence and medicine.
Of his remaining works we may mention:--_Bibliotheca Antiquaria_, an
account of the writers whose works illustrated Hebrew, Greek, Roman
and Christian antiquities (1713); _Centifolium Lutheranum_, a Lutheran
bibliography (1728); _Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica_ (1718). His _Codex
Apocryphus_ (1703) is still considered indispensable as an authority
on apocryphal Christian literature.
The details of the life of Fabricius are to be found in _De Vita et
Scriptis J.A. Fabricii Commentarius_, by his son-in-law, H.S.
Reimarus, the well-known editor of Dio Cassius, published at Hamburg,
1737; see also C.F. Bähr in Ersch and Gruber's _Allgemeine
Encyclopädie_, and J.E. Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ iii. (1908).
FABRICIUS, JOHANN CHRISTIAN (1745-1808), Danish entomologist and
economist, was born at Tondern in Schleswig on the 7th of January 1745.
After studying at Altona and Copenhagen, he was sent to Upsala, where he
attended the lectures of Linnaeus. He devoted his attention
professionally to political economy, and, after lecturing on that
subject in 1769, was appointed in 1775 professor of natural history,
economy and finance at Kiel, in which capacity he wrote various works,
chiefly referring to Denmark, and of no special interest. He also
published a few other works on general and natural history, botany and
travel (including _Reise nach Norwegen_, 1779), and, although his
professional stipend was small, he extended his personal researches into
every town in northern and central Europe where a natural history museum
was to be found. It is as an entomologist that his memory survives, and
for many years his great scientific reputation rested upon the system of
classification which he founded upon the structure of the mouth-organs
instead of the wings. He had a keen eye for specific differences, and
possessed the art of terse and accurate description. He died on the 3rd
of March 1808.
A complete list of his entomological publications (31) will be found
in Hagen's _Bibliotheca Entomologiae_; the following are the
chief:--_Systema Entomologiae_ (1775); _Genera Insectorum_ (1776);
_Philosophia Entomologica_ (1778); _Species insectorum_ (1781);
_Mantissa Insectorum_ (1787); _Entomologia Systematica_ (1792-1794),
with a supplement (1798); _Systema Eleutheratorum_ (1801),
_Rhyngotorum_ (1803), _Piezatorum_ (1804), and _Antliatorum_ (1805).
Full particulars of his life will be found, with a portrait, in the
_Transactions of the Entomological Society of London_ (1845), 4, pp.
i-xvi, where his autobiography is translated from the Danish.
FABRIZI, NICOLA (1804-1885), Italian patriot, was born at Modena on the
4th of April 1804. He took part in the Modena insurrection of 1831, and
attempted to succour Ancona, but was arrested at sea and taken to
Toulon, whence he proceeded to Marseilles. Afterwards he organized with
Mazzini the ill-fated Savoy expedition. Taking refuge in Spain, he
fought against the Carlists, and was decorated for valour on the
battlefield (18th July 1837). At the end of the Carlist War he
established a centre of conspiracy at Malta, endeavoured to dissuade
Mazzini from the Bandiera enterprise, but aided Crispi in organizing the
Sicilian revolution of 1848. With a company of volunteers he
distinguished himself in the defence of Venice, afterwards proceeding to
Rome, where he took part in the defence of San Pancrazio. Upon the fall
of Rome he returned to Malta, accumulating arms and stores; which he
conveyed to Sicily; after having, in 1859, worked with Crispi to prepare
the Sicilian revolution of 1860. While Garibaldi was sailing from Genoa
towards Marsala Fabrizi landed at Pizzolo, and, after severe fighting,
joined Garibaldi at Palermo. Under the Garibaldian Dictatorship he was
appointed governor of Messina and minister of war. Returning to Malta
after the Neapolitan plebiscite, which he had vainly endeavoured to
postpone, he was recalled to aid Cialdini in suppressing brigandage.
While on his way to Sicily in 1862, to induce Garibaldi to give up the
Aspromonte enterprise, he was arrested at Naples by Lamarmora. During
the war of 1866 he became Garibaldi's chief of staff, and in 1867 fought
at Mentana. In parliament he endeavoured to promote agreement between
the chiefs of the Left, and from 1878 onwards worked to secure the
return of Crispi to power, but died on the 31st of March 1885, two years
before the realization of his object. His whole life was characterized
by ardent patriotism and unimpeachable integrity. (H. W. S.)
FABROT, CHARLES ANNIBAL (1580-1659), French jurisconsult, was born at
Aix in Provence on the 15th of September 1580. At an early age he made
great progress in the ancient languages and in the civil and the canon
law; and in 1602 he received the degree of doctor of law, and was made
avocat to the parlement of Aix. In 1609 he obtained a professorship in
the university of his native town. He is best known by his translation
of the _Basilica_, which may be said to have formed the code of the
Eastern empire till its destruction. This work was published at Paris in
1647 in 7 vols. fol., and obtained for its author a considerable pension
from the chancellor, Pierre Seguier, to whom it was dedicated. Fabrot
likewise rendered great service to the science of jurisprudence by his
edition of Cujas, which comprised several treatises of that great jurist
previously unpublished. He also edited the works of several Byzantine
historians, and was besides the author of various antiquarian and legal
treatises. He died at Paris on the 16th of January 1659.
FABYAN, ROBERT (d. 1513), English chronicler, belonged to an Essex
family, members of which had been connected with trade in London. He was
a member of the Drapers company, alderman of Farringdon Without, and
served as sheriff in 1493-1494. In 1496 he was one of those appointed to
make representations to the king on the new impositions on English cloth
in Flanders. Next year he was one of the aldermen employed in keeping
watch at the time of the Cornish rebellion. He resigned his aldermanry
in 1502, on the pretext of poverty, apparently in order to avoid the
expense of mayoralty. He had, however, acquired considerable wealth with
his wife Elizabeth Pake, by whom he had a numerous family. He spent his
latter years on his estate of Halstedys at Theydon Garnon in Essex. He
died on the 28th of February 1513 (_Inquisitiones post mortem for
London_, p. 29, edited by G.S. Fry, 1896); his will, dated the 11th of
July 1511, was proved on the 12th of July 1513. Fabyan's Chronicle was
first published by Richard Pynson in 1516 as _The new chronicles of
England and of France_. In this edition it ends with the reign of
Richard III., and this probably represents the work as Fabyan left it,
though with the omission of an autobiographical note and some religious
verses, which form the _Envoi_ of his history. The note and verses are
first found in the second edition, printed by John Rastell in 1533 with
continuations down to 1509. A third edition appeared in 1542, and a
fourth in 1559 with additions to that year. The only modern edition is
that of Sir Henry Ellis, 1811.
In the note above mentioned Fabyan himself says: "and here I make an
ende of the vii. parte and hole werke, the vii. day of November in the
yere of our Lord Jesu Christes Incarnacion M. vc. and iiij." This seems
conclusive that in 1504 he did not contemplate any extension of his
chronicles beyond 1485. The continuations printed by Rastell are
certainly not Fabyan's work. But Stow in his _Collections_ (ap. _Survey
of London_, ii. 305-306, ed. C.L. Kingsford) states that Fabyan wrote "a
Chronicle of London, England and of France, beginning at the creation
and endynge in the third year of Henry VIII., which both I have in
written hand." In his _Survey of London_ (i. 191, 209, ii. 55, 116) Stow
several times quotes Fabyan as his authority for statements which are
not to be found in the printed continuations of Rastell. Some further
evidence may be found in other notes of Stow's (ap. _Survey of London_,
ii. 280, 283, 365-366), and in the citation by Hakluyt of an unprinted
work of Fabyan as the authority for his note of Cabot's voyages. That
Fabyan had continued his Chronicle to 1511 may be accepted as certain,
but no trace of the manuscript can now be found.
It is only the seventh part of Fabyan's Chronicle, from the Norman
Conquest onwards, that possesses any historical value. For his French
history he followed chiefly the _Compendium super Francorum gestis_ of
Robert Gaguin, printed at Paris in 1497. For English history his best
source was the old _Chronicles of London_, from which he borrowed also
the arrangement of his work in civic form. From 1440 to 1485 he follows,
as a rule with great fidelity, the original of the London Chronicle in
Cotton MS. Vitellius A. XVI. (printed in _Chronicles of London_, 1905,
pp. 153-264).
Fabyan's own merits are little more than those of an industrious
compiler, who strung together the accounts of his different authorities
without any critical capacity. He says expressly that his work was
"gaderyd without understandynge," and speaks of himself as "of cunnynge
full destitute." Nevertheless he deserves the praise which he has
received as an early worker, and for having made public information
which through Hall and Holinshed has become the common property of later
historians, and has only recently been otherwise accessible. Bale
alleges that the first edition was burnt by order of Cardinal Wolsey
because it reflected on the wealth of the clergy; this probably refers
to his version of the Lollards Bill of 1410, which Fabyan extracted from
one of the London Chronicles.
See further Ellis' _Introduction_; W. Busch, _England under the
Tudors_ (trans. A.M. Todd, 1895), i. 405-410; and C.L. Kingsford,
_Chronicles of London_, pp. xxvi-xxxii (1905). (C. L. K.)
FAÇADE, a French architectural term signifying the external face of a
building, but more generally applied to the principal front.
FACCIOLATI, JACOPO (1682-1769), Italian philologist, was born at
Torriglia, in the province of Padua, in 1682. He owed his admission to
the seminary of Padua to Cardinal Barberigo, who had formed a high
opinion of the boy's talents. As professor of logic, and regent of the
schools, Facciolati was the ornament of the Paduan university during a
period of forty-five years. He published improved editions of several
philological works, such as the _Thesaurus Ciceronianus_ of Nizolius,
and the polyglot vocabulary known under the name of Calepino. The latter
work, in which he was assisted by his pupil Egidio Forcellini, he
completed in four years--1715 to 1719. It was written in seven
languages, and suggested to the editor the idea of his _opus magnum_,
the _Tolius Latinitatis Lexicon_, which was ultimately published at
Cardinal Priole's expense, 4 vols. fol., Padua, 1771 (revised ed. by de
Vit, 1858-1887). In the compilation of this work the chief burden seems
to have been borne by Facciolati's pupil Forcellini, to whom, however,
the lexicographer allows a very scanty measure of justice. Perhaps the
best testimony to the learning and industry of the compiler is the
well-known observation that the whole body of Latinity, if it were to
perish, might be restored from this lexicon. Facciolati's mastery of
Latin style, as displayed in his epistles, has been very much admired
for its purity and grace. In or about 1739 Facciolati undertook the
continuation of Papadopoli's history of the university of Padua,
carrying it on to his own day. Facciolati was known over all Europe as
one of the most enlightened and zealous teachers of the time; and among
the many flattering invitations which he received, but always declined,
was one from the king of Portugal, to accept the directorship of a
college at Lisbon for the young nobility. He died in 1769. His history
of the university was published in 1757, under the name _Fasti Gymnasii
Patavini_. In 1808 a volume containing nine of his Epistles, never
before published, was issued at Padua.
See J.E. Sandys, _Hist. Class. Schol._ ii. (1908).
FACE (from Lat. _facies_, derived either from _facere_, to make, or from
a root _fa-_, meaning "appear"; cf. Gr. [Greek: phainein]), a word whose
various meanings of surface, front, expression of countenance, look or
appearance, are adaptations of the application of the word to the
external part of the front portion of the head, usually taken to extend
from the top of the forehead to the point of the chin, and from ear to
ear (see ANATOMY: _Superficial and Artistic_; and PHYSIOGNOMY).
FACTION (through the French, from Lat. factio, a company of persons
combined for action, _facere_, to do; from the other French derivative
_façon_ comes "fashion"), a term, used especially with an opprobrious
meaning, for a body of partisans who put their party aims and interests
above those of the state or public, and employ unscrupulous or
questionable means; it is thus a common term of reciprocal abuse between
parties. In the history of the Roman and Later Roman empires the
factions (_factiones_) of the circus and hippodrome, at Rome and
Constantinople, played a prominent part in politics. The _factiones_
were properly the four companies into which the charioteers were
divided, and distinguished by the colours they wore. Originally at Rome
there were only two, white (_albata_) and red (_russata_), when each
race was open to two chariots only; on the increase to four, the green
(_prasina_) and blue (_veneta_) were added. At Constantinople the last
two absorbed the red and white factions.
For a brilliant description of the factions at Constantinople under
Justinian, and the part they played in the celebrated Nika riot in
January 532, see Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, ch. xl.; and J.B. Bury's
_Appendix_ 10 in vol. iv. of his edition (1898), for a discussion of
the relationship between the _factiones_ and the demes of
Constantinople.
FACTOR (from Lat. _facere_, to make or do), strictly "one who makes";
thus in ordinary parlance, anything which goes to the composition of
anything else is termed one of its "factors," and in mathematics the
term is used of those quantities which, when multiplied together,
produce a given product. In a special sense, however--and that to which
this article is devoted--"factor" is the name given to a mercantile
agent (of the class known as "general agents") employed to buy or sell
goods for a commission. When employed to sell, the possession of the
goods is entrusted to him by his principal, and when employed to buy it
is his duty to obtain possession of the goods and to consign them to his
principal. In this he differs from a broker (q.v.), who has not such
possession, and it is this distinguishing characteristic which gave rise
in England to the series of statutes known as the Factors Acts. By these
acts, consolidated and extended by the act of 1889, third parties buying
or taking pledges from factors are protected as if the factor were in
reality owner; but these enactments have in no way affected the
contractual relations between the factor and his employer, and it will
be convenient to define them before discussing the position of third
parties as affected by the act.
I. FACTOR AND PRINCIPAL
A factor is appointed or dismissed in the same way as any other agent.
He may be employed for a single transaction or to transact all his
principal's business of a certain class during a limited period or till
such time as his authority may be determined. A factor's duty is to sell
or buy as directed; to carry out with care, skill and good faith any
instructions he may receive; to receive or make payment; to keep
accounts, and to hand over to his principal the balance standing to his
principal's credit, without any deduction save for commission and
expenses. All express instructions he must carry out to the full,
provided they do not involve fraud or illegality. On any point not
covered by his express instructions he must follow the usual practice of
his particular business, if not inconsistent with his instructions or
his position as factor. Many usages of businesses in which factors are
employed have been proved in court, and may now be regarded as legally
established. For instance, he may, unless otherwise directed, sell in
his own name, give warranties as to goods sold by him, sell by sample
(in most businesses), give such credit as is usual in his business,
receive payment in cash or as customary; and give receipts in full
discharge, sell by indorsement of bills of lading; and insure the goods.
It is his duty to clear the goods at the customs, take charge of them
and keep them safely, give such notices to his principal and others as
may be required, and if necessary take legal proceedings for the
protection of the goods. On the other hand, he has not authority to
delegate his employment, or to barter; and as between himself and his
principal he has no right to pledge the goods, although as between the
principal and the pledgee, an unauthorized pledge made by the factor may
by virtue of the Factors Act 1889 be binding upon the principal. It is,
moreover, inconsistent with his employment as agent that he should buy
or sell on his own account from or to his principal. A factor has no
right to follow any usage which is inconsistent with the ordinary duties
and authority of a factor unless his principal has expressly or
impliedly given his consent.
On the due performance of his duties the factor is entitled to his
commission, which is usually a percentage on the value of the goods sold
or bought by him on account of his principal, regulated in amount by,
the usages of each business. Sometimes the factor makes himself
personally responsible for the solvency of the persons with whom he
deals, in order that his principal may avoid the risk entailed by the
usual trade credit. In such a case the factor is said to be employed on
_del credere_ terms, and is entitled to a higher rate of commission,
usually 2½% extra. Such an arrangement is not a contract of guarantee
within the Statute of Frauds, and therefore need not be in writing.
Besides his remuneration, the factor is entitled to be reimbursed by his
principal for any expenses, and to be indemnified against any
liabilities which he may have properly incurred in the execution of his
principal's instructions. For the purpose of enforcing his rights a
factor has, without legal proceedings, two remedies. Firstly, by virtue
of his general _lien_ (q.v.) he may hold any of his principal's goods
which come to his hands as security for the payment to him of any
commission, out-of-pocket expenses, or even general balance of account
in his favour. Although he cannot sell the goods, he may refuse to give
them up until he is paid. Secondly, where he has consigned goods to his
principal but not been paid, he may "_stop in transit_" subject to the
same rules of law as an ordinary vendor; that is to say, he must
exercise his right before the transit ends; and his right may be
defeated by his principal transferring the document of title to the
goods to some third person, who takes it in good faith and for valuable
consideration (Factors Act 1889, section 10). If the factor does not
carry out his principal's instructions, or carries them out so
negligently or unskilfully that his principal gets no benefit thereby,
the factor loses his commission and his right to reimbursement and
indemnity. If by such failure or negligence the principal suffers any
loss, the latter may recover it as damages. So too if the factor fails
to render proper accounts his principal may by proper legal proceedings
obtain an account and payment of what is found due; and threatened
breaches of duty may be summarily stopped by an injunction. Criminal
acts by the factor in relation to his principal's goods are dealt with
by section 78 of the Larceny Act 1860.
II. PRINCIPAL AND THIRD PARTY
(a) _At Common Law._--The actual authority of a factor is defined by the
same limits as his duty, the nature of which has been just described;
i.e. firstly, by his principal's express instructions; secondly, by the
rules of law and usages of trade, in view of which those instructions
were expressed. But his power to bind his principal as regards third
parties is often wider than his actual authority; for it would not be
reasonable that third parties should be prejudiced by secret
instructions, given in derogation of the authority ordinarily conferred
by the custom of trade; and, as regards them, the factor is said to have
"_apparent_" or "_ostensible_" authority, or to be _held out_ as having
authority to do what is customary, even though he may in fact have been
expressly forbidden so to do by his principal. But this rule is subject
to the proviso that if the third party have notice of the factor's
actual instructions, the "apparent" authority will not be greater than
the actual. "The general principle of law," said Lord Blackburn in the
case of _Cole_ v. _North-Western Bank_, 1875, L.R. 10, C.P. 363, "is
that when the true owner has clothed any one with apparent authority to
act as his agent, he is bound to those who deal with the agent on the
assumption that he really is an agent with that authority, to the same
extent as if the apparent authority were real." Under such circumstances
the principal is for reasons of common fairness precluded, or, in legal
phraseology, _estopped_, from denying his agent's authority. On the same
principle of estoppel, but not by reason of any trade usages, a course
of dealing which has been followed between a factor and a third party
with the assent of the principal will give the factor apparent authority
to continue dealing on the same terms even after the principal's assent
has been withdrawn; provided that the third party has no notice of the
withdrawal.
Such apparent authority binds the principal both as to acts done in
excess of the actual authority and also when the actual authority has
entirely ceased. For instance, A. B. receives goods from C.D. with
instructions not to sell below 1s. per lb.; A. B. sells at 10½d., the
market price; the buyer is entitled to the goods at 10½d., because A. B.
had apparent authority, although he exceeded his actual authority. On
the same principle the buyer would get a good title by buying from A. B.
goods entrusted to him by C. D., even though at the time of the sale C.
D. had revoked A. B.'s authority and instructed him not to sell at all.
In either case the factor is held out as having authority to sell, and
the principal cannot afterwards turn round and say that his factor had
no such authority. As in the course of his business the factor must
necessarily make representations preliminary to the contracts into which
he enters, so the principal will be bound by any such representations as
may be within the factor's actual or apparent authority to the same
degree as by the factor's contracts.
(b) _Under the Factors Act 1889._--The main object of the Factors Acts,
in so far as they relate to transactions carried out by factors, has
been to add to the number of cases in which third parties honestly
buying or lending money on the security of goods may get a good title
from persons in whose possession the goods are with the consent, actual
or apparent, of the real owners, thus calling in aid the principle of
French law that "_possession vaut titre_" as against the doctrine of the
English common law that "_nemo dat quod non habet_." The chief change in
the law relating specially to factors has been to put pledges by factors
on the same footing as sales, so as to bind a principal to third parties
by his factor's pledge as by his factor's sale. The Factors Act 1889 in
part re-enacts and in part extends the provisions of the earlier acts of
1823, 1825, 1842 and 1877; and is, so far as it relates to sales by
factors, in large measure merely declaratory of the law as it previously
existed. Its most important provisions concerning factors are as
follows:--
Section I., s.s. 1. The expression mercantile agent shall mean a
mercantile agent having in the customary course of his business as
such agent authority either to sell goods, or to consign goods for the
purpose of sale, or to buy goods, or to raise money on the security of
goods;
2. A person shall be deemed to be in possession of goods or of the
documents or title to goods when the goods or documents are in his
actual custody or are held by any other person subject to his control
or for him on his behalf.
4. The expression "document of title" shall include any bill of
lading, dock warrant, warehouse keeper's certificate, and warrant or
order for the delivery of goods, and any other document used in the
ordinary course of business as proof of the possession or control of
goods, or authorizing or purporting to authorize, either by
indorsement or by delivery, the possessor of the document to transfer
or receive goods thereby represented.
Section II., s.s. 1. Where a mercantile agent is, with the consent of
the owner, in possession of goods or of the documents or title to
goods, any sale, pledge or other disposition of the goods made by him
when acting in the ordinary course of business of a mercantile agent
shall, subject to the provisions of this act, be as valid as if he
were expressly authorized by the owner of the goods to make the same;
provided that the person taking under the disposition acts in good
faith, and has not at the time of the disposition notice that the
person making the disposition has not authority to make the same.
2. Where a mercantile agent has, with the consent of the owner, been
in possession of goods or of the documents of title to goods, any
sale, pledge or other disposition which would have been valid if the
consent had continued shall be valid notwithstanding the determination
of the consent; provided that the person taking under the disposition
has not at the time thereof notice that the consent has been
determined.
3. Where a mercantile agent has obtained possession of any documents
of title to goods by reason of his being or having been, with the
consent of the owner, in possession of the goods represented thereby,
or of any other documents of title to the goods, his possession of the
first-mentioned documents shall, for the purposes of the act, be
deemed to be with the consent of the owner.
III. ENFORCEMENT OF CONTRACTS
1. Where a factor makes a contract in the name of his principal and
himself signs as agent only, he drops out as soon as the contract is
made, and the principal and third party alone can sue or be sued upon
it. As factors usually contract in their own name this is not a common
case. It is characteristic of brokers rather than of factors.
2. Where a factor makes a contract for the principal without disclosing
his principal's name, the third party may, on discovering the principal,
elect whether he will treat the factor or his principal as the party to
the contract; provided that if the factor contract expressly as factor,
so as to exclude the idea that he is personally responsible, he will not
be liable. The principal may sue upon the contract, so also may the
factor, unless the principal first intervene.
3. Where a factor makes a contract in his own name without disclosing
the existence of his principal, the third party may, on discovering the
existence of the principal, elect whether he will sue the factor or the
principal. Either principal or factor may sue the third party upon the
contract. But if the factor has been permitted by the principal to hold
himself out as the principal, and the person dealing with the factor has
believed that the factor was the principal and has acted on that belief
before ascertaining his mistake, then in an action by the principal the
third party may set up any defences he would have had against the factor
if the factor had brought the action on his own account as principal.
4. Where a factor has a lien upon the goods and their proceeds for
advances made to the principal it will be no defence to an action by him
for the third party to plead that he has paid the principal, unless the
factor by his conduct led the third party to believe that he agreed to a
settlement being made with his principal.
5. The factor who acts for a foreign principal will always be personally
liable unless it is clear that the third party has agreed to look only
to the principal.
6. If a factor contract by deed under seal he alone can sue or be sued
upon the contract; but mercantile practice makes contracts by deed
uncommon.
AUTHORITIES.--Story, _Commentaries on the Law of Agency_ (Boston,
1882); Boyd and Pearson, _The Factors Acts 1823 to 1877_ (London,
1884); Blackwell, _The Law relating to Factors_ (London, 1897).
(L. F. S.)
FACTORY ACTS, the name given generally to a long series of acts
constituting one of the most important chapters in the history of
English labour legislation (see LABOUR LEGISLATION); the term "factory"
itself being short for manufactory, a building or collection of
buildings in which men or women are employed in industry.
FACULA (diminutive of _fax_, Lat. for "torch"), in astronomy, a minute
shining spot on the sun's disk, markedly brighter than the photosphere
in general, usually appearing in groups. Faculae are most frequent in
the neighbourhood of spots. (See SUN.)
FACULTY (through the French, from the Lat. _facultas_, ability to do
anything, from _facilis_, easy, _facere_, to do; another form of the
word in Lat. _facilitas_, facility, ease, keeps the original meaning),
power or capacity of mind or body for particular kinds of activity,
feeling, &c. In the early history of psychology the term was applied to
various mental processes considered as causes or conditions of the
mind--a treatment of "class concepts of mental phenomena as if they were
real forces producing these phenomena" (G.F. Stout, _Analytic
Psychology_, vol. i. p. 17). In medieval Latin _facultas_ was used to
translate [Greek: dunamis] in the Aristotelian application of the word
to a branch of learning or knowledge, and thus it is particularly
applied to the various departments of knowledge as taught in a
university and to the body of teachers of the particular art or science
taught. The principal "faculties" in the medieval universities were
theology, canon and civil law, medicine and arts (see UNIVERSITIES). A
further extension of this use is to the body of members of any
particular profession.
In law, "faculty" is a dispensation or licence to do that which is not
permitted by the common law. The word in this sense is used only in
ecclesiastical law. A faculty may be granted to be ordained deacon under
twenty-three years of age; to hold two livings at once (usually called a
licence or dispensation, but granted under the seal of the office of
faculties; see BENEFICE); to be married at any place or time (usually
called a special licence; see MARRIAGE; LICENCE); to act as a notary
public (q.v.). Any alteration in a church, such as an addition or
diminution in the fabric or the utensils or ornaments of the church,
cannot strictly be made without the legal sanction of the ordinary,
which can only be expressed by the issue of a faculty. So a faculty
would be required for a vault, for the removal of a body, for the
purpose of erecting monuments, for alterations in a parsonage house, for
brick graves, for the apportionment of a seat, &c. Cathedrals, however,
are exempt from the necessity for a faculty before making alterations in
the fabric, utensils or ornaments.
The court of faculties is the court of the archbishop for granting
faculties. It is a court in which there is no litigation or holding of
pleas. Its chief officer is called the master of faculties, and he is
one and the same with the judge of the court of arches. Attached to the
court of faculties are a registrar and deputy registrars, a chief clerk
and record-keeper, and a seal keeper. In Scotland the society of
advocates of the court of session, and local bodies of legal
practitioners, are described as faculties.
FAED, THOMAS (1826-1900), British painter, born in Kirkcudbrightshire,
was the brother of John Faed, R.S.A., and received his art education in
the school of design, Edinburgh. He was elected an associate of the
Royal Scottish Academy in 1849, came to London three years later, was
elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1861, and academician in
1864, and retired in 1893. He had much success as a painter of domestic
genre, and had considerable executive capacity. Three of his pictures,
"The Silken Gown," "Faults on Both Sides," and "The Highland Mother,"
are in the National Gallery of British Art.
See William D. McKay, _The Scottish School of Painting_ (1906).
FAENZA (anc. _Faventia_), a city and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, in
the province of Ravenna, from which it is 31 m. S.W. by rail, 110 ft.
above sea-level. It is 31 m. S.E. of Bologna by rail, on the line from
Bologna to Rimini, and it is the junction of a line to Florence through
the Apennines. Pop. (1901) 21,809 (town), 39,757 (commune). The town is
surrounded by walls which date from 1456. The cathedral of S. Costanzo
stands in the spacious Piazza Vittorio Emanuele in the centre of the
town. It was begun in 1474 by Giuliano da Maiano; the façade is,
however, incomplete. In the interior is the beautiful early Renaissance
tomb of S. Savinus with reliefs showing scenes from his life, of fine
and fresh execution, by Benedetto da Maiano; and later tombs by P.
Bariloto, a local sculptor. Opposite the cathedral is a fountain with
bronze ornamentation of 1583-1621. The clock tower alongside the
cathedral belongs to the 17th century. Beyond it is the Palazzo
Comunale, formerly the residence of the Manfredi, but entirely
reconstructed. The other churches of the town have been mostly restored,
but S. Michele (and the Palazzo Manfredi opposite it) are fine early
Renaissance buildings in brickwork. The municipal art gallery contains
an altar-piece by Girolamo da Treviso (who also painted a fresco in the
Chiesa della Commenda), a wooden St Jerome by Donatello, and a bust of
the young St John by Antonio Rossellino (?), and some fine specimens of
majolica, a variety of which, faience, takes its name from the town. It
was largely manufactured in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the
industry has been revived in modern times with success.
The ancient Faventia, on the Via Aemilia, was obviously from its name
founded by the Romans and had the citizenship before the Social War. It
was the scene of the defeat of C. Papirius Carbo and C. Norbanus by Q.
Caecilius Metellus Pius in 82 B.C. In the census of Vespasian a woman of
Faventia is said to have given her age as 135. Pliny speaks of the
whiteness of its linen, and the productiveness of its vines is
mentioned. It is noticeable that some of the fields in the territory of
the ancient Faventia still preserve the exact size of the ancient Roman
_centuria_ of 200 _iugeri_ (E. Bormann in _Corp. Inscr. Lat._ xi.,
Berlin, 1888, p. 121). When the exarchate was established, the town
became part of it, and in 748 it was taken by Liutprand. Desiderius gave
it to the church with the duchy of Ferrara. In the 11th century it began
to increase in importance. In the wars of the 12th and 13th centuries it
at first took the imperial side, but in 1240 it stood a long siege from
Frederick II. and was only taken after eight months. After further
struggles between Guelphs and Ghibellines, the Manfredi made themselves
masters of the place early in the 14th century, and remained in power
until 1501, when the town was taken by Caesar Borgia and the last
legitimate members of the house of the Manfredi were drowned in the
Tiber; and, after falling for a few years into the hands of the
Venetians, it became a part of the states of the church in 1509.
(T. As.)
FAEROE (also written FAROE or THE FAEROES, Danish _Faeröerne_ or
_Färöerne_, "the sheep islands"), a group of islands in the North Sea
belonging to Denmark. They are situated between Iceland and the Shetland
Islands, about 200 m. N.W. of the latter, about the intersection of 7°
E. with 62° N. The total land area of the group is 511 sq. m., and there
are twenty-one islands (excluding small rocks and reefs), of which
seventeen are inhabited. The population in 1880 amounted to 11,220, and
in 1900 to 15,230. The principal islands are Strömö, on which is the
chief town, Thorshavn, with a population of 1656; Osterö, Süderö, Vaagö,
Sandö and Bordö. They consist throughout of rocks and hills, separated
from each other by narrow valleys or ravines; but, though the hills rise
abruptly, there are often on their summits, or at different stages of
their ascent, plains of considerable magnitude. Almost everywhere they
present to the sea perpendicular cliffs, broken into fantastic forms,
affording at every turn, to those who sail along the coast, the most
picturesque and varied scenery. The highest hills are Slättaretindur in
Osterö, and Kopende and Skellingfjeld in Strömö, which rise respectively
to 2894, 2592 and 2520 ft. The sea pierces the islands in deep fjords,
or separates them by narrow inlets through which tidal currents set with
great violence, at speeds up to seven or eight knots an hour; and, as
communications are maintained almost wholly by boat, the natives have
need of expert watermanship. There are several lakes in which trout are
abundant, and char also occur; the largest is Sörvaag Lake in Vaagö,
which is close to the sea, and discharges into it by a sheer fall of
about 160 ft. Trees are scarce, and there is evidence that they formerly
flourished where they cannot do so now.
The fundamental formation is a series of great sheets of columnar
basalt, 70 to 100 ft. thick, in which are intercalated thin beds of
tuff. Upon the basalt rests the so-called Coal formation, 35 to 50 ft.
thick; the lower part of this is mainly fireclay and sandstone, the
upper part is weathered clay with thin layers of brown coal and shale.
The coal is found in Süderö and in some of the other islands in
sufficient quantity to make it a matter of exploitation. Above these
beds there are layers of dolerite, 15 to 20 ft. thick, with nodular
segregations and abundant cavities which are often lined with
zeolites. As the rocks lie in a horizontal position, on most of the
islands of the group only the basalts or dolerite are visible. The
crater from which the volcanic rocks were outpoured probably lies off
the Faeroe Bank some distance to the south-west of Süderö. The basalts
are submarine flows which formed the basis of the land upon which
grew the vegetation which gave rise to the coals; the effusion of
dolerite which covered up the Coal formation was subaerial. The
existing land features, with the fjords, are due to ice erosion in the
glacial period.[1]
The climate is oceanic; fogs are common, violent storms are frequent at
all seasons. July and August are the only true summer months, but the
winters are not very severe. It seldom freezes for more than one month,
and the harbours are rarely ice-bound. The methods of agriculture are
extremely primitive and less than 3% of the total area is under
cultivation. As the plough is ill-suited to the rugged surface of the
land, the ground is usually turned up with the spade, care being taken
not to destroy the roots of the grass, as hay is the principal crop.
Horses and cows are few, and the cows give little milk, in consequence
of the coarse hay upon which they are fed. The number of sheep, however,
justifies the name of the islands, some individuals having flocks of
from three to five hundred, and the total number in the islands
considerably exceeds ten thousand. The northern hare (_Lepus alpinus_)
is pretty abundant in Strömö and Osterö, having been introduced into the
islands about 1840-1850. The catching of the numerous sea-birds which
build their nests upon the face of the cliffs forms an important source
of subsistence to the inhabitants. Sometimes the fowler is let down from
the top of the cliff; at other times he climbs the rocks, or, where
possible, is pushed upwards by poles made for the purpose. The birds and
the contents of the nests are taken in nets mounted on poles; shooting
is not practised, lest it should permanently scare the birds away.
Fowling has somewhat decreased in modern times, as the fisheries have
risen in importance. The puffin is most commonly taken for its feathers.
The cod fishery is especially important, dried fish being exported in
large quantity, and the swim-bladders made into gelatine, and also used
and exported for food. The whaling industry came into importance towards
the close of the 19th century, and stations for the extraction of the
oil and whalebone have been established at several points, under careful
regulations designed to mitigate the pollution of water, the danger to
live-stock from eating the blubber, &c. The finner whale is the species
most commonly taken.
The trade of the Faeroe Islands was for some time a monopoly in the
hands of a mercantile house at Copenhagen, and this monopoly was
afterwards assumed by the Danish government, but by the law of the 21st
of March 1855 all restrictions were removed. The produce of the whaling
and fishing industries, woollen goods, lamb skins and feathers, are the
chief exports, while in Thorshavn the preserving of fish and the
manufacture of carpets are carried on to some extent. Thorshavn is
situated on the S.E. side of Strömö, upon a narrow tongue of land,
having creeks on each side, where ships may be safely moored. It is the
seat of the chief government and ecclesiastical officials, and has a
government house and a hospital. The houses are generally built of wood
and roofed with birch bark covered with turf. The character of the
people is marked by simplicity of manners, kindness and hospitality.
They are healthy, and the population increases steadily. The Faeroes
form an _amt_ (county) of Denmark. They have also a local parliament
(_lagthing_), consisting of the _amtmann_ and nineteen other members.
Among other duties, this body elects a representative to the upper house
of parliament (_landsthing_) in Denmark; the people choose by vote a
representative in the lower house (_folkething_). The islands are
included in the Danish bishopric of Zealand.
_History._--The early history of the Faeroes is not clear. It appears
that about the beginning of the 9th century Grim Kamban, a Norwegian
emigrant who had left his country to escape the tyranny of Harold
Haarfager, settled in the islands. It is said that a small colony of
Irish and Scottish monks were found in Süderö and dispersed by him. The
Faeroes then already bore their name of Sheep Islands, as these animals
had been found to flourish here exceedingly. Early in the 11th century
Sigmund or Sigismund Bresterson, whose family had flourished in the
southern islands but had been almost exterminated by invaders from the
northern, was sent from Norway, whither he had escaped, to take
possession of the islands for Olaf Trygvason, king of Norway. He
introduced Christianity, and, though he was subsequently murdered,
Norwegian supremacy was upheld, and continued till 1386, when the
islands were transferred to Denmark. English adventurers gave great
trouble to the inhabitants in the 16th century, and the name of Magnus
Heineson, a native of Strömö, who was sent by Frederick II. to clear the
seas, is still celebrated in many songs and stories. There was formerly
a bishopric at Kirkebö, S. of Thorshavn, where remains of the cathedral
may be seen; but it was abolished at the introduction of Protestantism
by Christian III. Denmark retained possession of the Faeroes at the
peace of Kiel in 1815. The native literature of the islands consists of
the _Faereyinga Saga_, dealing with the period of Sigmund Bresterson,
and a number of popular songs and legends of early origin.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Lucas Jacobson Debes, _Feroa Reserata_ (Copenhagen,
1673; Eng. transl. London, 1675); Torfaeus, _De rebus gestis
Faereyensium_ (Copenhagen, 1695); I. Landt, _Beskrivelse over
Färöerne_ (1800), and _Descriptions of the Feroe Islands_ (London,
1810); A.J. Symington, _Pen and Pencil Sketches of Faroe and Iceland_
(1862); J. Russel-Jeaffreson, _The Faröe Islands_ (1901); J. Falk
Rönne, _Beskrivelse over Färöerne_ (Copenhagen, 1902); C.H. Ostenfeld,
E. Warming and others, _Botany of the Faeroes_ (Copenhagen,
1901-1903); Annandale, _The Faroes and Iceland_ (Oxford, 1905). The
_Faereyinga Saga_ was translated by F. York Powell (London, 1896); for
folk-songs and legends see S. Kraeth, _Die färöischen Lieder von
Sigurd_ (Paderborn, 1877); V.U. Hammershaimb, _Faeröisk Anthologi_
(Copenhagen, 1886-1891).
FOOTNOTE:
[1] See Hans von Post, "Om Färöarnes uppkomst," _Geologiska
Föreningens i Stockholm Förhandlingar_, vol. xxiv. (1902).
FAESULAE (mod. _Fiesole_, q.v.), an ancient city of Etruria, on the
height 3 m. to the N.E. of Florentia, 970 ft. above sea-level. Remains
of its walls are preserved on all sides, especially on the N.E., in one
place to a height of 12 to 14 courses. The blocks are often not quite
rectangular, and the courses sometimes change; but the general tendency
is horizontal and the walls are not of remote antiquity, the
irregularities in them being rather due to the hardness of the material
employed, the rock of the hill itself. The courses vary in height from 1
to 3 ft., and some blocks are as long as 12½ ft. In this portion of the
wall are two drains, below one of which is a _phallus_. The site of an
ancient gate, and the road below it, can be traced; a little farther E.
was an archway, conjectured by Dennis to be a gate of the Roman period,
destroyed in 1848. The whole circuit of the walls extended for about
1-2/3 m. The Franciscan monastery (1130 ft.) occupies the site of the
acropolis, once encircled by a triple wall, of which no traces are now
visible. Here was also the _Capitolium_ of Roman times, as an
inscription found here in 1879 records (_Corpus Inscr. Lat._ xi.,
Berlin, 1888, No. 1545). The Roman theatre, below the cathedral to the
N.E., has 19 tiers of stone seats and is 37 yds. in diameter. Above it
is an embanking wall of irregular masonry, and below it some remains of
Roman baths, including five parallel vaults of concrete. Just outside
the town on the E. a reservoir, roofed by the convergence of its sides,
which were of large regular blocks, was discovered in 1832, but filled
in again. Over 1000 silver denarii, all coined before 63 B.C., were
found at Faesulae in 1829. A small museum contains the objects found in
the excavations of the theatre.
Though Faesulae was an Etruscan city, we have no record of it in history
until 215 B.C., when the Gauls passed near it in their march on Rome.
Twelve years later Hannibal seems to have taken this route in his march
south after the victory of the Trebia. It appears to have suffered at
the hands of Rome in the Social War, and Sulla expelled some of the
inhabitants from their lands to make room for his veterans, but some of
the latter were soon driven out in their turn by the former occupiers.
Both the veterans, who soon wasted what they had acquired, and the
dispossessed cultivators joined the partisans of Catiline, and Manlius,
one of his supporters, made his headquarters at Faesulae. Under the
empire we hear practically nothing of it; in A.D. 405 Radagaisus was
crushed in the neighbouring hills, and Belisarius besieged and took it
in A.D. 539.
See L.A. Milani, _Rendiconti dei Lincei_, ser. vi. vol. ix. (1900),
289 seq., on the discovery of an archaic altar of the _Locus sacer_ of
Florence, belonging to Ancharia (Angerona), the goddess of Fiesole.
(T. As.)
FAFNIR, in Scandinavian mythology, the son of the giant Hreidmar. He was
the guardian of the hoard of the Nibelungs and was killed by Sigurd.
FAGGING (from "fag," meaning "weary"; of uncertain etymology), in
English public schools, a system under which, generally with the full
approval of the authorities, a junior boy performs certain duties for a
senior. In detail this custom varies slightly in the different schools,
but its purpose--the maintenance of discipline among the boys
themselves--is the same. Dr Arnold of Rugby defined fagging as "the
power given by the supreme authorities of the school to the Sixth Form,
to be exercised by them over the lower boys, for the sake of securing a
regular government among the boys themselves, and avoiding the evils of
anarchy; in other words, of the lawless tyranny of brute force." Fagging
was a fully established system at Eton and Winchester in the 16th
century, and is probably a good deal older. That the advantages of thus
granting the boys a kind of autonomy have stood the test of time is
obvious from the fact that in almost all the great public schools
founded during the 19th century, fagging has been deliberately adopted
by the authorities. The right to fag carries with it certain
well-defined duties. The fag-master is the protector of his fags, and
responsible for their happiness and good conduct. In cases of bullying
or injustice their appeal is to him, not to the form or house master,
and, except in the gravest cases, all such cases are dealt with by the
fag-master on his own responsibility and without report to the master.
Until recent years a fag's duties included such humble tasks as blacking
boots, brushing clothes, and cooking breakfasts, and there was no limit
as to hours; almost all the fag's spare time being so monopolized. This
is now changed. Fagging is now restricted to such light tasks as running
errands, bringing tea to the "master's" study, and fagging at cricket or
football. At Eton there is no cricket fagging, and at most schools it is
made lighter by all the fags taking their turn in regular order for one
hour, so that each boy has to "fag" but once in so many weeks. At Rugby
there is "study-fagging"--two fags being assigned to each Sixth Form boy
and made responsible for the sweeping out and tidying up of his study
alternately each week,--and "night-fagging"--running errands for the
Sixth between 8.30 and 9.30 every evening,--and each boy can choose
whether he will be a study-fag or night-fag. The right to fag is usually
restricted to the Sixth Form, but at Eton the privilege is also granted
the Fifth, and at Marlborough and elsewhere the Eleven have a right to
fag at cricket, whether in the Sixth or not.
FAGGOT, a bundle of sticks used for firewood. The word is adapted from
the Fr. _fagot_, and appears in Italian as _fagotto_, the name given to
the bassoon (q.v.). "Faggot" is frequently used with reference to the
burning of heretics, and recanted heretics wore an embroidered faggot on
the arm as a symbol of the punishment they had escaped. In the 18th
century the word is used of a "dummy" soldier, appearing on the rolls of
a regiment. It is this use, coupled with the idea of a bundle of sticks
as being capable of subdivision, that appears in the expression
"faggot-vote," a vote artificially created by the minute splitting up of
property so as to give a bare qualification for the franchise.
FAGNIEZ, GUSTAVE CHARLES (1842- ), French historian and economist, was
born in Paris on the 6th of October 1842. Trained at the École des
Chartes and the École des Hautes Études, he made his first appearance in
the world of scholarship as the author of an excellent book called
_Études sur l'industrie et la classe industrielle à Paris au XIII^e et au
XIV^e siècle_ (1877). This work, composed almost entirely from documents,
many unpublished, opened a new field for historical study. Twenty years
later he supplemented this book by an interesting collection of
_Documents relatifs à l'histoire de l'industrie et du commerce en France_
(2 vols., 1898-1900), and in 1897 he published _L'Économie sociale de la
France sous Henri IV_, a volume containing the results of very minute
research. He did not, however, confine himself to economic history. His
_Le Père Joseph et Richelieu_ (1894), though somewhat frigid and severe,
is based on a mass of unpublished information, and shows remarkable
psychologic grasp. In 1878 his _Journal parisien de Jean de Maupoint,
prieur de Ste Catherine-de-la-Couture_ was published in vol. iv. of the
_Mémoires de la sociêtê de l'histoire de Paris et de l'Île de France_. He
wrote numerous articles in the _Revue historique_ (of which he was
co-director with Gabriel Monod for some years) and in other learned
reviews, such as the _Revue des questions historiques_ and the _Journal
des savants_. In 1901 he was elected member of the Académie des Sciences
Morales et Politiques.
FAGUET, ÉMILE (1847- ), French critic and man of letters, was born at
La Roche sur Yon on the 17th of December 1847. He was educated at the
normal school in Paris, and after teaching for some time in La Rochelle
and Bordeaux he came to Paris. After acting as assistant professor of
poetry in the university he became professor in 1897. He was elected to
the academy in 1900, and received the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in
the next year. He acted as dramatic critic to the _Soleil_; from 1892 he
was literary critic to the _Revue bleue_; and in 1896 took the place of
M. Jules Lemaître on the _Journal des débats_. Among his works are
monographs on _Flaubert_ (1899), _André Chénier_ (1902), _Zola_ (1903);
an admirably concise _Histoire de la littérature française depuis le
XVII^e siècle jusqu'à nos jours_; series of literary studies on the
17th, 18th and 19th centuries; _Questions politiques_ (1899); _Propos
littéraires_ (3 series, 1902-1905); _Le Libéralisme_ (1902); and
_L'Anticléricalisme_ (1906).
See A. Séché, _Émile Faguet_ (1904).
FA-HIEN (fl. A.D. 399-414), Chinese Buddhist monk, pilgrim-traveller,
and writer, author of one of the earliest and most valuable Chinese
accounts of India. He started from Changgan or Si-gan-fu, then the
capital of the Tsin empire, and passing the Great Wall, crossed the
"River of Sand" or Gobi Desert beyond, that home of "evil demons and hot
winds," which he vividly describes,--where the only way-marks were the
bones of the dead, where no bird appeared in the air above, no animal on
the ground below. Arriving at Khotan, the traveller witnessed a great
Buddhist festival; here, as in Yarkand, Afghanistan and other parts
thoroughly Islamized before the close of the middle ages, Fa-Hien shows
us Buddhism still prevailing. India was reached by a perilous descent of
"ten thousand cubits" from the "wall-like hills" of the Hindu Kush into
the Indus valley (about A.D. 402); and the pilgrim passed the next ten
years in the "central" Buddhist realm,--making journeys to Peshawur and
Afghanistan (especially the Kabul region) on one side, and to the Ganges
valley on another. His especial concern was the exploration of the
scenes of Buddha's life, the copying of Buddhist texts, and converse
with the Buddhist monks and sages whom the Brahmin reaction had not yet
driven out. Thus we find him at Buddha's birthplace on the Kohana,
north-west of Benares; in Patna and on the Vulture Peak near Patna; at
the Jetvana monastery in Oudh; as well as at Muttra on the Jumna, at
Kanauj, and at Tamluk near the mouth of the Hugli. But now the
narrative, which in its earlier portions was primarily historical and
geographical, becomes mystical and theological; miracle-stories and
meditations upon Buddhist moralities and sacred memories almost entirely
replace matters of fact. From the Ganges delta Fa-Hien sailed with a
merchant ship, in fourteen days, to Ceylon, where he transcribed all the
sacred books, as yet unknown in China, which he could find; witnessed
the festival of the exhibition of Buddha's tooth; and remarked the trade
of Arab merchants to the island, two centuries before Mahomet. He
returned by sea to the mouth of the Yangtse-Kiang, changing vessels at
Java, and narrowly escaping shipwreck or the fate of Jonah.
Fa-Hien's work is valuable evidence to the strength, and in many places
to the dominance, of Buddhism in central Asia and in India at the time
of the collapse of the Roman empire in western Europe. His tone
throughout is that of the devout, learned, sensible, rarely hysterical
pilgrim-traveller. His record is careful and accurate, and most of his
positions can be identified; his devotion is so strong that it leads him
to depreciate China as a "border-land," India the home of Buddha being
the true "middle kingdom" of his creed.
See James Legge, _Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, being an account by
the Chinese Monk Fâ-hien of his travels in India and Ceylon_;
translated and edited, with map, &c. (Oxford, 1886); S. Beal, _Travels
of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist pilgrims from China to India, 400
and 518 A.D._, translated, with map, &c. (1869); C.R. Beazley, _Dawn
of Modern Geography_, vol. i. (1897), pp. 478-485.
FAHLCRANTZ, CHRISTIAN ERIK (1790-1866), Swedish author, was born at
Stora Tuna in Sweden on the 30th of August 1790. His brothers, Carl
Johan (1774-1861), the landscape-painter, and Axel Magnus (1780-1854),
the sculptor, became hardly less distinguished than himself. In 1804 he
entered the university of Upsala; in 1821 he became tutor in Arabic, and
in 1825 professor of Oriental languages. In 1828 he entered the church,
but earlier than this, in 1825, he published his _Noachs Ark_, a
successful satire on the literary and social life of his time, followed
in 1826 by a second part. In 1835 Fahlcrantz brought out the first part
of his epic of _Ansgarius_, which was completed in 1846, in 14 cantos.
In 1842 he was made a member of the Swedish Academy, and in 1849 he was
made bishop of Vesterås, his next literary work being an archaeological
study on the beautiful ancient cathedral of his diocese. In the course
of the years 1858-1861 appeared the five volumes of his _Rom förr och
nu_ (_Rome as it was and is_), a theological polemic, mainly directed
against the Jesuits. He died on the 6th of August 1866. His complete
works (7 vols., Örebro, 1863-1866) were issued mainly under his own
superintendence.
FAHRENHEIT, GABRIEL DANIEL (1686-1736), German physicist, was born at
Danzig on the 14th of May 1686. For the most part he lived in England
and Holland, devoting himself to the study of physics and making a
living, apparently, by the manufacture of meteorological instruments. He
was the author of important improvements in the construction of
thermometers, and he introduced the thermometric scale known by his name
and still extensively used in Great Britain and the United States (see
THERMOMETRY). He also invented an improved form of hygrometer, a
description of which, together with accounts of various observations and
experiments made by him, was published in the _Phil. Trans._ for 1724.
He died in Holland on the 16th of September 1736.
FAIDHERBE, LOUIS LÉON CÉSAR (1818-1889), French general and colonial
administrator, was born on the 3rd of June 1818, at Lille, received his
military education at the École Polytechnique and at Metz, and entered
the engineers in 1840. From 1844 to 1847 he served in Algeria, then two
years in the West Indies, and again in Algeria, taking part in many
expeditions against the Arabs. In 1852 he was transferred to Senegal as
sub-director of engineers, and in 1854 was promoted _chef de bataillon_
and appointed governor of the colony. He held this post with one brief
interval until July 1865. The work he accomplished in West Africa
constitutes his most enduring monument. At that time France possessed in
Senegal little else than the town of St Louis and a strip of coast.
Explorers had, however, made known the riches and possibilities of the
Niger regions, and Faidherbe formed the design of adding those countries
to the French dominions. He even dreamed of creating a French African
empire stretching from Senegal to the Red Sea. To accomplish even the
first part of his design he had very inadequate resources, especially in
view of the aggressive action of Omar Al-Hadji, the Moslem ruler of the
countries of the middle Niger. By boldly advancing the French outposts
on the upper Senegal Faidherbe stemmed the Moslem advance, and by an
advantageous treaty with Omar in 1860 brought the French possessions
into touch with the Niger. He also brought into subjection the country
lying between the Senegal and Gambia. When he resigned his post French
rule had been firmly established over a very considerable and fertile
area and the foundation laid upon which his successors built up the
predominant position occupied now by France in West Africa. In 1863 he
became general of brigade. From 1867 to the early part of 1870 he
commanded the subdivision of Bona in Algeria, and was commanding the
Constantine division at the commencement of the Franco-German War.
Promoted general of division in November 1870, he was on the 3rd of
December appointed by the Government of National Defence to be
commander-in-chief of the army of the North. In this post he showed
himself to be possessed of the highest military talents, and the
struggle between the I. German army and that commanded by Faidherbe, in
which were included the hard-fought battles of Pont Noyelles, Bapaume
and St Quentin, was perhaps the most honourable to the French army in
the whole of the People's War. Even with the inadequate force of which
he disposed he was able to maintain a steady resistance up to the end of
the war. Elected to the National Assembly for the department of the
Nord, he resigned his seat in consequence of its reactionary
proceedings. For his services he was decorated with the grand cross, and
made chancellor of the order of the Legion of Honour. In 1872 he went on
a scientific mission to Upper Egypt, where he studied the monuments and
inscriptions. An enthusiastic geographer, philologist and archaeologist,
he wrote numerous works, among which may be mentioned _Collection des
inscriptions numidiques_ (1870), _Épigraphie phénicienne_ (1873), _Essai
sur la langue poul_ (1875), and _Le Zénaga des tribes sénégalaises_
(1877), the last a study of the Berber language. He also wrote on the
geography and history of Senegal and the Sahara, and _La Campagne de
l'armée du Nord_ (1872). He was elected a senator in 1879, and, in spite
of failing health, continued to the last a close student of his
favourite subjects. He died on the 29th of September 1889, and received
a public funeral. Statues and monuments to his memory were erected at
Lille, Bapaume, St Quentin and St Louis, Senegal.
FAIENCE, properly the French term for the _porzellana di Faenza_, a fine
kind of glazed and painted earthenware made at Faenza in Italy, hence a
term applied generally to all kinds of pottery other than unglazed
pottery or porcelain. It is often particularly applied to the
translucent earthenware made in Persia (see CERAMICS).
FAILLY, PIERRE LOUIS CHARLES DE (1810-1892), French general, was born at
Rozoy-sur-Serre (Aisne) on the 21st of January 1810, and entered the
army from St Cyr in 1828. In 1851 he had risen to the rank of colonel,
and Napoleon III., with whom he was a favourite, made him general of
brigade in 1854 and general of division in 1855, after which for a time
De Failly was his aide-de-camp. In the war of 1859 De Failly commanded a
division, and in 1867 he defeated Garibaldi at Mentana, this action
being the first in which the chassepot was used. In 1870 De Failly
commanded the V. corps. His inactivity at Bitsch on the 6th of August
while the I. corps on his right and the II. corps on his left were
crushed at Wörth and Spicheren respectively, gave rise to the greatest
indignation in France, and his military career ended, after the V. corps
had been severely handled at Beaumont on the 30th of August, with the
catastrophe of Sedan. The rest of his life was spent in retirement. De
Failly wrote _Campaigne de 1870, Opérations et marche du 5^me corps
jusqu'au 30 août_ (Brussels, 1871).
FAIN, AGATHON JEAN FRANÇOIS (1778-1837), French historian, was born in
Paris on the 11th of January 1778. Having gained admittance to the
offices of the Directory, he became head of a department. Under the
Consulate he entered the office of the secretary of state, in the
department of the archives. In 1806 he was appointed secretary and
archivist to the _cabinet particulier_ of the emperor, whom he attended
on his campaigns and journeys. He was created a baron of the empire in
1809, and, on the fall of Napoleon, was first secretary of the cabinet
and confidential secretary. Compelled by the second Restoration to
retire into private life, he devoted his leisure to writing the history
of his times, an occupation for which his previous employments well
fitted him. He published successively _Manuscrit de 1814, contenant
l'histoire des six derniers mois du règne de Napoléon_ (1823; new
edition with illustrations, 1906); _Manuscrit de 1813, contenant le
précis des événements de cette année pour servir à l'histoire de
l'empereur Napoléon_ (1824); _Manuscrit de 1812_ (1827); and _Manuscrit
de l'an iii. (1794-1795), contenant les premières transactions de
l'Europe avec la république française et le tableau des derniers
événements du régime conventionnel_ (1828), all of which are remarkable
for accuracy and wide range of knowledge, and are a very valuable source
for the history of Napoleon I. Of still greater importance for the
history of Napoleon are Fain's _Mémoires_, which were published
posthumously in 1908; they relate more particularly to the last five
years of the empire, and give a detailed picture of the emperor at work
on his correspondence among his confidential secretaries. Immediately
after the overthrow of Charles X., King Louis Philippe appointed Fain
first secretary of his cabinet (August 1830). Fain was a member of the
council of state and deputy from Montargis from 1834 until his death,
which occurred in Paris on the 16th of September 1837.
FAIR, a commercial institution, defined as a "greater species of market
recurring at more distant intervals": both "fair" and "market" (q.v.)
have been distinguished by Lord Coke from "mart," which he considers as
a greater species of fair; and all three may be defined as periodic
gatherings of buyers and sellers in an appointed place, subject to
special regulation by law or custom. Thus in England from a strictly
legal point of view there can be no fair or market without a franchise;
and a franchise of fair or market can only be exercised by right of a
grant from the crown, or by the authority of parliament or by
prescription presupposing a grant. In the earliest times periodical
trading in special localities was necessitated by the difficulties of
communication and the dangers of travel. Public gatherings, whether
religious, military or judicial, which brought together widely scattered
populations, were utilized as opportunities for commerce. At the
festivals of Delos and at the Olympic games trade, it is said, found
important outlets, while in Etruria the annual general assembly at the
temple of Voltumna served at the same time as a fair and was regularly
attended by Roman traders. Instances of a similar nature might be
multiplied; but it was above all with religious festivals which recurred
with regularity and convoked large numbers of persons that fairs, as
distinguished from markets, are most intimately associated.
The most commonly accepted derivation of the word "fair" is from the
Latin _feria_, a name which the church borrowed from Roman custom and
applied to her own festivals. A fair was generally held during the
period of a saint's feast and in the precincts of his church or abbey,
but in England this desecration of church or churchyard was first
forbidden by the Statute of Winton (c. Edward I.). Most of the famous
fairs of medieval England and Europe, with their tolls or other
revenues, and, within certain limits of time and place, their monopoly
of trade, were grants from the sovereign to abbots, bishops and other
ecclesiastical dignitaries. Their "holy day" associations are preserved
in the German word for fairs, _Messen_; as also in the _kirmiss_,
"church mass," of the people of Brittany. So very intimate was the
connexion between the fair and the feast of the saint that the former
has very commonly been regarded as an off-shoot or development of the
latter. But there is every reason to suppose that fairs were already
existing national institutions, long before the church turned or was
privileged to turn them to her own profit.
The first charter of the great fair of Stourbridge, near Cambridge, was
granted by King John for the maintenance of a leper hospital; but the
origin of the fair itself is ascribed to Carausius, the rebel emperor of
Britain, A.D. 207. At all events, it may be seen from the _data_ given
in Herbert Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_ that the country had then
arrived at the stage of development where fairs might have been
recognized as a necessity. The Romans also appear to have elaborated a
market-law similar to that in force throughout medieval Europe--though
it must be observed that the Roman _nundinae_, which some have regarded
as fairs, were weekly markets. It has also been supposed that the
ancient fairs of Lyons were a special privilege granted by the Roman
conquerors; and Sidonius Apollinaris, A.D. 427, alludes to the fairs of
the district afterwards known as the county of Champagne, as if they
were then familiarly known institutions. Fairs, in a word, would not
only have arisen naturally, wherever the means of communication between
individual centres of production and consumption were felt to be
inadequate to the demand for an interchange of commodities; but, from
their very nature, they might be expected to show some essential
resemblances, even in points of legislation, and where no international
transmission of custom could have been possible. Thus, the fair courts
of pre-Spanish Mexico corresponded very closely to those of the
Beaucaire fair. They resembled the English courts of piepowder. The
Spaniards, when first they saw the Mexican fairs, were reminded of the
like institutions in Salamanca and Granada. The great fair or market at
the city of Mexico is said to have been attended by about 40,000 or
50,000 persons, and is thus described by Prescott:--
"Officers patrolled the square, whose business it was to keep the
peace, to collect the dues imposed on the various kinds of
merchandise, to see that no false measures or fraud of any kind were
used, and to bring offenders at once to justice. A court of twelve
judges sat in one part of the _tianguez_ clothed with those ample and
summary powers which, in despotic countries, are often delegated even
to petty tribunals. The extreme severity with which they exercised
those powers, in more than one instance, proves that they were not a
dead letter."
But notwithstanding the great antiquity of fairs, their charters are
comparatively modern--the oldest known being that of St Denys, Paris,
which Dagobert, king of the Franks, granted (A.D. 642) to the monks of
the place "for the glory of God, and the honour of St Denys at his
festival."
In England it was only after the Norman conquest that fairs became of
capital importance. Records exist of 2800 grants of franchise markets
and fairs between the years 1199 and 1483. More than half of these were
made during the reigns of John and Henry III., when the power of the
church was in ascendancy. The first recorded grant, however, appears to
be that of William the Conqueror to the bishop of Winchester, for leave
to hold an annual "free fair" at St Giles's hill. The monk who had been
the king's jester received his charter of Bartholomew fair, Smithfield,
in the year 1133. And in 1248 Henry III. granted a like privilege to the
abbot of Westminster, in honour of the "translation" of Edward the
Confessor. Sometimes fairs were granted to towns as a means for enabling
them to recover from the effects of war and other disasters. Thus,
Edward III. granted a "free fair" to the town of Burnley in Rutland,
just as, in subsequent times, Charles VII. favoured Bordeaux after the
English wars, and Louis XIV. gave fair charters to the towns of Dieppe
and Toulon. The importance attached to these old fairs may be understood
from the inducements which, in the 14th century, Charles IV. held out to
traders visiting the great fair of Frankfort-on-Main. The charter
declared that both during the continuance of the fair, and for eighteen
days before and after it, merchants would be exempt from imperial
taxation, from arrest for debt, or civil process of any sort, except
such as might arise from the transactions of the market itself and
within its precincts. Philip of Valois's regulations for the fairs of
Troyes in Champagne might not only be accepted as typical of all
subsequent fair-legislation of the kingdom, but even of the English and
German laws on the subject. The fair had its staff of notaries for the
attestation of bargains, its court of justice, its police officers, its
sergeants for the execution of the market judges' decrees, and its
visitors--of whom we may mention the _prud'hommes_,--whose duty it was
to examine the quality of goods exposed for sale, and to confiscate
those found unfit for consumption. The confiscation required the consent
of five or six representatives of the merchant community at the fair.
The effect of these great "free fairs" of England and the continent on
the development of society was indeed great. They helped to familiarize
the western and northern countries with the banking and financial
systems of the Lombards and Florentines, who resorted to them under the
protection of the sovereign's "firm peace," and the ghostly terrors of
the pope. They usually became the seat of foreign agencies. In the names
of her streets Provins preserved the memory of her 12th-century
intercourse with the agents and merchants of Germany and the Low
Countries, and long before that time the Syrian traders at St Denys had
established their powerful association in Paris. Like the church on the
religious side, the free fairs on the commercial side evoked and
cherished the international spirit. And during long ages, when
commercial "protection" was regarded as indispensable to a nation's
wealth, and the merchant was compelled to "fight his way through a
wilderness of taxes," they were the sole and, so far as they went, the
complete substitute for the free trade of later days.
Their privileges, however, were, from their very nature, destined to
grow more oppressive and intolerable the more the towns were multiplied
and the means of communication increased. The people of London were
compelled to close their shops during the days when the abbot of
Westminster's fair was open. But a more curious and complete instance of
such an ecclesiastical monopoly was that of the St Giles's fair, at
first granted for the customary three days, which were increased by
Henry III. to sixteen. The bishop of Winchester was, as we have seen,
the lord of this fair. On the eve of St Giles's feast the magistrates of
Winchester surrendered the keys of the city gates to the bishop, who
then appointed his own mayor, bailiff and coroner, to hold office until
the close of the fair. During the same period, Winchester and
Southampton also--though it was then a thriving trading town--were
forbidden to transact their ordinary commercial business, except within
the bishop's fair, or with his special permission. The bishop's officers
were posted along the highways, with power to forfeit to his lordship
all goods bought and sold within 7 m. of the fair--in whose centre stood
"the pavilion," or bishop's court. It is clear, from the curious record
of the _Establishment and Expenses of the Household_ of Percy, 5th earl
of Northumberland, that fairs were the chief centres of country traffic
even as late as the 16th century. They began to decline rapidly after
1759, when good roads had been constructed and canal communication
established between Liverpool and the towns of Yorkshire, Cheshire and
Lancashire. In the great towns their extinction was hastened in
consequence of their evil effects on public morals. All the London fairs
were abolished as public nuisances before 1855--the last year of the
ever famous fair of St Bartholomew; and the fairs of Paris were swept
away in the storm of the Revolution.
_English Fairs and Markets._--For the general reasons apparent from the
preceding sketch, fairs in England, as in France and Germany, have very
largely given way to markets for specialities. Even the live-stock
market of the metropolis is being superseded by the dead-meat market, a
change which has been encouraged by modern legislation on cattle
disease, the movements of home stock and the importation of foreign
animals. Agricultural markets are also disappearing before the
"agencies" and the corn exchanges in the principal towns. Still there
are some considerable fairs yet remaining. Of the English fairs for live
stock, those of Weyhill in Hampshire (October 10), St Faith's, near
Norwich (October 17), as also several held at Devizes, Wiltshire, are
among the largest in the kingdom. The first named stands next to none
for its display of sheep. Horncastle, Lincolnshire, is the largest horse
fair in the kingdom, and is regularly visited by American and
continental dealers. The other leading horse fairs in England are Howden
in Yorkshire (well known for its hunters), Woodbridge (on Lady Day) for
Suffolk horses, Barnet in Hertfordshire, and Lincoln. Exeter December
fair has a large display of cattle, horses and most kinds of
commodities. Large numbers of Scotch cattle are also brought to the
fairs of Carlisle and Ormskirk. Nottingham has a fair for geese. Ipswich
has a fair for lambs on the 1st of August, and for butter and cheese on
the 1st of September. Gloucester fair is also famous for the last-named
commodity. Falkirk fair, or tryst, for cattle and sheep, is one of the
largest in Scotland; and Ballinasloe, Galway, holds a like position
among Irish fairs. The Ballinasloe cattle are usually fed for a year in
Leinster before they are considered fit for the Dublin or Liverpool
markets.
_French Fairs._--In France fairs and markets are held under the
authority of the prefects, new fairs and markets being established by
order of the prefects at the instance of the commune interested. Before
the Revolution fairs and markets could only be established by _seigneurs
justiciers_, but only two small markets have survived the law of 1790
abolishing private ownership of market rights, namely, the _Marché Ste
Catherine_ and the _Marché des enfants rouges_, both in Paris. Under the
present system markets and fairs are held in most of the towns and
villages in France; and at all such gatherings entertainments form an
important feature. The great fair of Beaucaire instituted in 1168 has
steadily declined since the opening of railway communication, and now
ranks with the fairs of ordinary provincial towns. Situated at the
junction of the Rhone and the Canal du Midi, and less than 40 m. from
the sea, it at one time attracted merchants from Spain, from Switzerland
and Germany, and from the Levant and Mediterranean ports, and formed one
of the greatest temporary centres of commerce on the continent. One
trade firm alone, it is said, rarely did less than 1,000,000 francs
worth of business during the fortnight that the fair lasted.
_German Fairs._--In Germany the police authorities are considered the
market authorities, and to them in most cases is assigned the duty of
establishing new fairs and markets, subject to magisterial decision. The
three great fairs of Germany are those of Frankfort-on-Main,
Frankfort-on-Oder and Leipzig, but, like all the large fairs of Europe,
they have declined rapidly in importance. Those of Frankfort-on-Main
begin on Easter Tuesday and on the nearest Monday to September 8
respectively, and their legal duration is three weeks, though the limit
is regularly extended. The fairs of the second-named city are
_Reminiscere_, February or March; _St Margaret_, July; _St Martin_,
November. Ordinarily they last fifteen days, which is double the legal
term. The greatest of the German fairs are those of Leipzig, whose
display of books is famous all over the world. Its three fairs are dated
January 1, Easter, Michaelmas. The Easter one is the book fair, which is
attended by all the principal booksellers of Germany, and by many more
from the adjoining countries. Most German publishers have agents at
Leipzig. As many as 5000 new publications have been entered in a single
Leipzig catalogue. As in the other instances given, the Leipzig fairs
last for three weeks, or nearly thrice their allotted duration. Here no
days of grace are allowed, and the holder of a bill must demand payment
when due, and protest, if necessary, on the same day, otherwise he
cannot proceed against either drawer or endorser.
_Russian Fairs._--In Russia fairs are held by local authorities. Landed
proprietors may also hold fairs on their estates subject to the sanction
of the local authorities; but no private tolls may be levied on
commodities brought to such fairs. In Siberia and the east of Russia,
where more primitive conditions foster such centres of trade, fairs are
still of considerable importance. Throughout Russia generally they are
very numerous. The most important, that of Nijni Novgorod, held annually
in July and August at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kama, was
instituted in the 17th century by the tsar Michael Fedorovitch. In 1881
it was calculated that trade to the value of 246,000,000 roubles was
carried on within the limits of the fair. It still continues to be of
great commercial importance, and is usually attended by upwards of
100,000 persons from all parts of Asia and eastern Europe. Other fairs
of consequence are those of Irbit in Perm, Kharkoff (January and
August), Poltava (August and February), Koreunais in Koursk,
Ourloupinsknia in the Don Cossack country, Krolevetz in Tchernigoff, and
a third fair held at Poltava on the feast of the Ascension.
_Indian Fairs._--The largest of these, and perhaps the largest in Asia,
is that of Hurdwar, on the upper course of the Ganges. The visitors to
this holy fair number from 200,000 to 300,000; but every twelfth year
there occurs a special pilgrimage to the sacred river, when the numbers
may amount to a million or upwards. Those who go solely for the purposes
of trade are Nepalese, Mongolians, Tibetans, central Asiatics and
Mahommedan pedlars from the Punjab, Sind and the border states. Persian
shawls and carpets, Indian silks, Kashmir shawls, cottons (Indian and
English), preserved fruits, spices, drugs, &c., together with immense
numbers of cattle, horses, sheep and camels, are brought to this famous
fair.
_American Fairs._--The word "fair," as now used in the United States,
appears to have completely lost its Old World meaning. It seems to be
exclusively applied to industrial exhibitions and to what in England are
called fancy bazaars. Thus, during the Civil War, large sums were
collected at the "sanitary fairs," for the benefit of the sick and
wounded. To the first-named class belong the state and county fairs, as
they are called. Among the first and best-known of these was the "New
York World's Fair," opened in 1853 by a company formed in 1851. (See
EXHIBITION.)
_Law of Fairs._--As no market or fair can be held in England without a
royal charter, or right of prescription, so any person establishing a
fair without such sanction is liable to be sued under a writ of _Quo
warranto_, by any one to whose property the said market may be
injurious. Nor can a fair or market be legally held beyond the time
specified in the grant; and by 5 Edward III. c. 5 (1331) a merchant
selling goods after the legal expiry of the fair forfeited double
their value. To be valid, a sale must take place in "market-overt"
(open market); "it will not be binding if it carries with it a
presumption of fraudulence." These regulations satisfied, the sale
"transfers a complete property in the thing sold to the vendee; so
that however injurious or illegal the title of the vendor may be, yet
the vendee's is good against all men except the king." (In Scottish
law, the claims of the real owner would still remain valid.) However,
by 21 Henry VIII. c. 2 (1529) it was enacted that, "if any felon rob
or take away money, goods, or chattels, and be indicted and found
guilty, or otherwise attainted upon evidence given by the owner or
party robbed, or by any other by their procurement, the owner or party
robbed shall be restored to his money, goods or chattels," but only
those goods were restored which were specified in the indictment, now
could the owner recover from a _bona fide_ purchaser in market-overt
who had sold the goods before conviction. For obvious reasons the
rules of market-overt were made particularly stringent in the case of
horses. Thus, by 2 Philip & Mary c. 7 (1555) and 31 Eliz. c. 12 (1589)
no sale of a horse was legal which had not satisfied the following
conditions;--Public exposure of the animal for at least an hour
between sunrise and sunset; identification of the vendor by the market
officer, or guarantee for his honesty by "one sufficient and credible
person"; entry of these particulars, together with a description of
the animal, and a statement of the price paid for it, in the market
officer's book. Even if his rights should have been violated in spite
of all these precautions, the lawful owner could recover, if he
claimed within six months, produced witnesses, and tendered the price
paid to the vendor. Tolls were not a "necessary incident" of a
fair--i.e. they were illegal unless specially granted in the patent,
or recognized by custom. As a rule, they were paid only by the vendee,
and to the market clerk, whose record of the payment was an
attestation to the genuineness of the purchase. By 2 & 3 Philip & Mary
c. 7 every lord of a fair entitled to exact tolls was bound to appoint
a clerk to collect and enter them. It was also this functionary's
business to test measures and weights. Tolls, again, are sometimes
held to include "stallage" and "picage," which mean respectively the
price for permission to erect stalls and to dig holes for posts in the
market grounds. But toll proper belongs to the lord of the market,
whereas the other two are usually regarded as the property of the lord
of the soil. The law also provided that stallage might be levied on
any house situated in the vicinity of a market, and kept open for
business during the legal term of the said market. Among modern
statutes, one of the chief is the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act 1847,
the chief purpose of which was to consolidate previous measures. By
the act no proprietors of a new market were permitted to let
stallages, take tolls, or in any way open their ground for business,
until two justices of the peace certified to the completion of the
fair or market. After the opening of the place for public use, no
person other than a licensed hawker may sell anywhere within the
borough, his own house or shop excepted, any articles in respect of
which tolls are legally exigible in the market. A breach of this
provision entails a penalty of forty shillings. Vendors of unwholesome
meat are liable to a penalty of £5 for each offence; and the
"inspectors of provisions" have full liberty to seize the goods and
institute proceedings against the owners. They may also enter "at all
times of the day, with or without assistance," the slaughter-house
which the undertaker of the market may, by the special act, have been
empowered to construct. For general sanitary reasons, persons are
prohibited from killing animals anywhere except in these
slaughter-houses. Again, by the Fairs Act 1873, times of holding fairs
are determined by the secretary of state; while the Fairs Act 1871
empowers him to abolish any fair on the representation of the
magistrate and with the consent of the owner. The preamble of the act
states that many fairs held in England and Wales are both unnecessary
and productive of "grievous immorality."
_The Fair Courts._--The piepowder courts, the lowest but most
expeditious courts of justice in the kingdom, as Chitty calls them,
were very ancient. The Conqueror's law _De Emporiis_ shows their
pre-existence in Normandy. Their name was derived from _pied
poudreux_, i.e. "dusty-foot."[1] The lord of the fair or his
representative was the presiding judge, and usually he was assisted by
a jury of traders chosen on the spot. Their jurisdiction was limited
by the legal time and precincts of the fair, and to disputes about
contracts, "slander of wares," attestations, the preservation of
order, &c.
_Authorities._--See Herbert Spencer's _Descriptive Sociology_ (1873),
especially the columns and paragraphs on "Distribution"; Prescott's
_History of Mexico_, for descriptions of fairs under the Aztecs; Giles
Jacob's _Law Dictionary_ (London, 1809); Joseph Chitty's _Treatise on
the Law of Commerce and Manufactures_, vol. ii. chap. 9 (London,
1824); Holinshed's and Grafton's _Chronicles_, for lists, &c., of
English fairs; Meyer's _Das grosse Conversations-Lexicon_ (1852),
under "Messen"; article "Foire" in Larousse's _Dictionnaire
universelle du XIX^e siècle_ (Paris, 1866-1874), and its references to
past authorities; and especially, the second volume, commercial
series, of the _Encyclopédie méthodique_ (Paris, 1783); M'Culloch's
_Dictionary of Commerce_ (1869-1871); Wharton's _History of English
Poetry_, pp. 185, 186 of edition of 1870 (London, Murray & Son), for a
description of the Winchester Fair, &c.; a note by Professor Henry
Morley in p. 498, vol. vii. _Notes and Queries_, second series; the
same author's unique _History of the Fair of St Bartholomew_ (London,
1859); Wharton's _Law Lexicon_ (Will's edition, London, 1876); P.
Huvelin's _Essai historique sur le droit des marchés et des foires_
(Paris, 1897); _Report of the Royal Commission on Market Rights and
Tolls_, vols. i. (1889), xiv. (1891); _Final Report_ (1891); Walford's
_Fairs, Past and Present_ (1883); _The Law relating to Markets and
Fairs_, by Pease and Chitty (London, 1899). (J. Ma.; Ev. C.*)
FOOTNOTE:
[1] In Med. Lat. _pede-pulverosus_ meant an itinerant merchant or
pedlar. In Scots borough law "marchand travelland" and "dusty fute"
are identical.
FAIRBAIRN, ANDREW MARTIN (1838- ), British Nonconformist divine, was
born near Edinburgh on the 4th of November 1838. He was educated at the
universities of Edinburgh and Berlin, and at the Evangelical Union
Theological Academy in Glasgow. He entered the Congregational ministry
and held pastorates at Bathgate, West Lothian and at Aberdeen. From 1877
to 1886 he was principal of Airedale College, Bradford, a post which he
gave up to become the first principal of Mansfield College, Oxford. In
the transference to Oxford under that name of Spring Hill College,
Birmingham, he took a considerable part, and he has exercised influence
not only over generations of his own students, but also over a large
number of undergraduates in the university generally. He was granted the
degree of M.A. by a decree of Convocation, and in 1903 received the
honorary degree of doctor of literature. He was also given the degrees
of doctor of divinity of Edinburgh and Yale, and doctor of laws of
Aberdeen. His activities were not limited to his college work. He
delivered the Muir lectures at Edinburgh University (1878-1882), the
Gifford lectures at Aberdeen (1892-1894), the Lyman Beecher lectures at
Yale (1891-1892), and the Haskell lectures in India (1898-1899). He was
a member of the Royal Commission of Secondary Education in 1894-1895,
and of the Royal Commission on the Endowments of the Welsh Church in
1906. In 1883 he was chairman of the Congregational Union of England and
Wales. He is a prolific writer on theological subjects. He resigned his
position at Mansfield College in the spring of 1909.
Among his works are:--_Studies in the Philosophy of Religion and
History_ (1876); _Studies in the Life of Christ_ (1881); _Religion in
History and in Modern Life_ (1884; rev. 1893); _Christ in Modern
Theology_ (1893); _Christ in the Centuries_ (1893); _Catholicism Roman
and Anglican_ (1899); _Philosophy of the Christian Religion_ (1902);
_Studies in Religion and Theology_ (1909).
FAIRBAIRN, SIR WILLIAM, Bart. (1789-1874), Scottish engineer, was born
on the 19th of February 1789 at Kelso, Roxburghshire, where his father
was a farm-bailiff. In 1803 he obtained work at three shillings a week
as a mason's labourer on the bridge then being built by John Rennie at
Kelso; but within a few days he was incapacitated by an accident. Later
in the same year, his father having been appointed steward on a farm
connected with Percy Main Colliery near North Shields, he obtained
employment as a carter in connexion with the colliery. In March 1804 he
was bound an apprentice to a millwright at Percy Main, and then found
time to supplement the deficiencies of his early education by systematic
private study. It was at Percy Main that he made the acquaintance of
George Stephenson, who then had charge of an engine at a neighbouring
colliery. For some years subsequent to the expiry of his apprenticeship
in 1811, he lived a somewhat roving life, seldom remaining long in one
place and often reduced to very hard straits before he got employment.
But in 1817 he entered into partnership with a shopmate, James Lillie,
with whose aid he hired an old shed in High Street, Manchester, where he
set up a lathe and began business. The firm quickly secured a good
reputation, and the improvements in mill-work and water-wheels
introduced by Fairbairn caused its fame to extend beyond Manchester to
Scotland and even the continent of Europe. The partnership was dissolved
in 1832.
In 1830 Fairbairn had been employed by the Forth and Clyde Canal Company
to make experiments with the view of determining whether it were
possible to construct steamers capable of traversing the canal at a
speed which would compete successfully with that of the railway; and the
results of his investigation were published by him in 1831, under the
title _Remarks on Canal Navigation_. His plan of using iron boats proved
inadequate to overcome the difficulties of this problem, but in the
development of the use of this material both in the case of merchant
vessels and men-of-war he took a leading part. In this way also he was
led to pursue extensive experiments in regard to the strength of iron.
In 1835 he established, in connexion with his Manchester business, a
shipbuilding yard at Millwall, London, where he constructed several
hundred vessels, including many for the royal navy; but he ultimately
found that other engagements prevented him from paying adequate
attention to the management, and at the end of fourteen years he
disposed of the concern at a great loss. In 1837 he was consulted by the
sultan of Turkey in regard to machinery for the government workshops at
Constantinople. In 1845 he was employed, in conjunction with Robert
Stephenson, in constructing the tubular railway bridges across the
Conway and Menai Straits. The share he had in the undertaking has been
the subject of some dispute; his own version is contained in a volume he
published in 1849, _An Account of the Construction of the Britannia and
Conway Tubular Bridges_. In 1849 he was invited by the king of Prussia
to submit designs for the construction of a bridge across the Rhine, but
after various negotiations, another design, by a Prussian engineer,
which was a modification of Fairbairn's, was adopted. Another matter
which engaged much of Fairbairn's attention was steam boilers, in the
construction of which he effected many improvements. Amid all the cares
of business he found time for varied scientific investigation. In 1851
his fertility and readiness of invention greatly aided an inquiry
carried out at his Manchester works by Sir William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)
and J.P. Joule, at the instigation of William Hopkins, to determine the
melting points of substances under great pressure; and from 1861 to 1865
he was employed to guide the experiments of the government committee
appointed to inquire into the "application of iron to defensive
purposes." He died at Moor Park, Surrey, on the 18th of August 1874.
Fairbairn was a member of many learned societies, both British and
foreign, and in 1861 served as president of the British Association. He
declined a knighthood, in 1861, but accepted a baronetcy in 1869.
His youngest brother, SIR PETER FAIRBAIRN (1799-1861), founded a large
machine manufacturing business in Leeds. Starting on a small scale with
flax-spinning machinery, he subsequently extended his operations to the
manufacture of textile machinery in general, and finally to that of
engineering tools. He was knighted in 1858.
See _The Life of Sir William Fairbairn_, partly written by himself and
edited and completed by Dr William Pole (1877).
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 10, Slice 1 - "Evangelical Church Conference" to "Fairbairn, Sir William"" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.