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256 whose history is obscure, and cannot be read far back toward its beginning—is found to contain a monosyllabic root as its central significant portion, along with certain other accessory portions, syllables or remnants of syllables, whose office it is to define and direct the radical idea. The roots are never found in practical use in their naked form; they are (or, as has been repeatedly explained, have once been) always clothed with suffixes, or with suffixes and prefixes; yet they are no mere abstractions, dissected out by the grammarian's knife from the midst of organisms of which they were ultimate and integral portions; they are rather the nuclei of gradual accretions, parts about which other parts gathered to compose orderly and membered wholes; germs, we may call them, out of which has developed the intricate structure of later speech. And the recognition of them in this character is an acknowledgment that Indo-European language, with all its fulness and inflective suppleness, is descended from an original monosyllabic tongue; that our ancestors talked with one another in single syllables, indicative of the ideas of prime importance, but wanting all designation of their relations; and that out of these, by processes not differing in their nature from those which are still in operation in our own tongue, was elaborated the marvellous and varied structure of all the Indo-European dialects.

Such is, in fact, the belief which the students of language have reached, and now hold with full confidence. New and strange but a few years ago, it commands at present the assent of nearly all comparative philologists, and is fast becoming a matter of universal opinion. Since, however, it is still doubted and opposed by a few even among linguistic scholars, and is doubtless more or less unfamiliar and startling to a considerable part of any educated community, it will be proper that we combine with our examination of it some notice and refutation of the arguments by which it is assailed.

It is surely unnecessary, in the first place, to protest against any one's taking umbrage at this theory of a primitive monosyllabic stage of Indo-European language out of regard


text: Sing a Song for Sixpence (Caldecott)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Sing a Song for Sixpence (Caldecott)


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VII.] for the honour and dignity of our remote ancestors. The linguist is making a historical inquiry into the conditions of that branch of the human family to which we belong, and should no more be shocked at finding them talking in single syllables than dwelling in caves and huts of branches, or clad in leaves and skins. To require, indeed, for man's credit that he should have been sent upon the earth with a fully developed language miraculously placed in his mouth, with lists of nouns, verbs, and adverbs stored away in his memory, to be drawn upon at will, is not more reasonable than to require that the first human beings should have been born in full suits of clothes, and with neat cottages, not destitute of well-stocked larders, ready built over their heads. It surely is most of all to the honour of human nature that man should have been able, on so humble a foundation, to build up this wondrous fabric of speech; and also, as we may already say, that he should have been allowed to do so is more in accordance with the general plan of the Creator, who has endowed him with high capacities, and left him to work them out to their natural and intended results.

Nor, again, will any one venture to object that it would have been impossible to make so imperfect and rudimentary a language answer any tolerable purpose as a means of expression and communication—any one, at least, who knows aught of the present condition of language among the other races of the globe. One tongue, the Chinese—as we shall see more particularly farther on (in the ninth lecture  )—has never advanced out of its primitive monosyllabic stage; its words remain even to the present day simple radical syllables, closely resembling the Indo-European roots, formless, not in themselves parts of speech, but made such only by their combination into sentences, where the connection and the evident requirements of the sense show in what signification and relation each is used. Yet this scanty and crippled language has served all the needs of a highly cultivated and literary people for thousands of years.

After these few words of reply to one or two of the difficulties which sometimes suggest themselves at first blush to


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 "In my view this analysis is to be undertaken, and the purpose of the right or freedom in question is to be sought by reference to the character and larger objects of the Charter itself, to the language chosen to articulate the specific right or freedom, to the historical origins of the concept enshrined, and where applicable, to the meaning and purpose of the other specific rights and freedoms with which it is associated within the text of the Charter. The interpretation should be…a generous rather than legalistic one, aimed at fulfilling the purpose of a guarantee and securing for individuals the full benefit of the Charter's protection."

Without seeking in any way to qualify anything that was said in Zuma's case, I need say no more in this judgment than that section 11(2) of the Constitution must not be construed in isolation, but in its context, which includes the history and background to the adoption of the Constitution, other provisions of the Constitution itself and, in particular, the provisions of Chapter Three of which it is part. It must also be construed in a way which secures for "individuals the full measure" of its protection. Rights with which section 11(2) is associated in Chapter Three of the Constitution, and which are of particular importance to a decision on the constitutionality of the death penalty are included in section 9, "every person shall have the right to life", section 10, "every person shall have the right to respect for and protection of his or her dignity", and section 8, "every person shall have the right to equality before the law and to equal protection of the law." Punishment must meet the requirements of sections 8, 9 and 10; and this is so, whether these sections are treated as giving meaning to Section 11(2) or as prescribing separate and independent standards with which all punishments must comply.

Mr. Bizos, who represented the South African government at the hearing of this matter, informed us that the government accepts that the death penalty is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and that it should be declared unconstitutional. The Attorney General of the Witwatersrand, whose office is independent of the government, took a different view, and contended that the death penalty is a necessary and acceptable form of punishment and that it is not cruel, inhuman or degrading within the meaning of section 11(2). He argued that if the framers of the Constitution had wished to make the death penalty unconstitutional they would have said so, and that their failure to do so indicated an intention to leave the issue open to be dealt with by Parliament in the ordinary way. It was for Parliament, and not the government, to decide whether or not the death penalty should be repealed, and Parliament had not taken such a decision.

title: Page:S v Makwanyane and Another.djvu/4


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258 those before whom is brought the view we are defending, we will next proceed to examine in more detail the original monosyllabism of Indo-European language, and see of what character it was.

The roots of our family of languages are divided into two distinct classes: those ultimately indicative of position merely, and those significant of action or quality. The former class are called demonstrative or pronominal roots; the latter class are styled predicative or verbal roots.

The pronominal roots are subjective in their character; they have nothing to do with the inherent qualities of objects, but mark them simply in their relation to the speaker, and primarily their local relation; they give the distinction between the this and the that, the nearer and the remoter object of attention, myself here, you there, and the third person or thing yonder, present or absent. By their nature, they are not severally and permanently attachable to certain objects or classes of objects, nor are they limited in their application; each of them may designate any and every thing, according to the varying relation sustained by the latter to the person or thing with reference to which it is contemplated. Only one thing can be called the sun; only certain objects are white; but there is nothing which may not be I, and you, and it, alternately, as the point from which it is viewed changes. In this universality of their application, as dependent upon relative situation merely, and in the consequent capacity of each of them to designate any object which has its own specific name besides, and so, in a manner, to stand for and represent that other name, lies the essential character of the pronouns. From the pronominal roots come most directly the demonstrative pronouns, of which the personal are individualized forms, and the interrogatives; from these are developed secondarily the possessives and relatives, and the various other subordinate classes. They also generate adverbs of position and of direction. To examine in detail the forms they take, and the variations of


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/City

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/City


text:
Talk:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/City

Sources:
 * http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tim_Starling/ScanSet_PNG_demo&vol=06&page=EB6A416

title: Talk:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/City


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Borough

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Borough


text:
Talk:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Borough

Sources:
 * http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=User:Tim_Starling/ScanSet_PNG_demo&vol=04&page=EB4A283


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VII.] the fundamental distinction between this and that which they are applied to express, would lead us too far. So much as this may be pointed out: those beginning with m are especially employed to denote the subject, the ego, 'me myself;' those with t and n are used more demonstratively, and those with k interrogatively. They are few in number, hardly counting a dozen all together, including some which are probably variants of the same original. They are of the simplest phonetic structure, consisting either of a pure vowel, like a or i, or of a vowel combined with a single preceding consonant, forming an open syllable, which is the easiest that the organs of articulation can be called upon to utter; instances are ma, na, ta, tu, ka.

The roots of the other class, those of action or quality, are very much more numerous, being reckoned by hundreds; and, they are of more complicated structure, illustrating every variety of the syllable, from the pure single vowel to the vowel preceded or followed, or both, by one consonant, or even by more than one. They are of objective import, designating the properties and activities inherent in natural objects—and prevailingly those that are of a sensible phenomenal character, such as modes of motion and physical exertion, of sound, and so forth. Let us notice a few instances of roots which are shown to have belonged to the original language of our family by being still met with in all or nearly all of its branches. Such are i and ga, denoting simple motion; ak, swift motion; stā, standing; ās and sad, sitting; kī, lying; pad, walking; vas, staying; sak, following; vart, turning; sarp, creeping; pat, flying; plu, flowing; ad, eating; pā, drinking; an, blowing; vid, seeing; klu, hearing; vak, speaking; dhā, putting; dā, giving; labh, taking; garbh, holding; dik, pointing out; bhar, bearing; kar, making; tan, stretching; skid and dal, dividing; bandh, binding; star, strewing; par, filling; mar, rubbing; bhā, shining; bhū, growing, etc., etc.

In endeavouring to apprehend the significance of these roots, we must divest their ideas of the definite forms of conception which we are accustomed to attach to them: each represents its own meaning in nakedness, in an


text:
Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 39.djvu/11

 IN the Preface to the third volume of these 'Sacred Books of the East' (1879), I stated that I proposed giving in due course, in order to exhibit the System of Tâoism, translations of the Tâo Teh King by Lâo-ʓze (sixth century B.C.), the Writings of Kwang-ʓze (between the middle of the fourth and third centuries B.C.), and the Treatise of 'Actions and their Retributions' (of our eleventh century) ; and perhaps also of one or more of the other characteristic Productions of the System.

The two volumes now submitted to the reader are a fulfilment of the promise made so long ago. They contain versions of the Three Works which were specified, and, in addition, as Appendixes, four other shorter Treatises of Tâoism ; Analyses of several of the Books of Kwang-ʓze by Lin Hsî-kung ; a list of the stories which form so important a part of those Books ; two Essays by two of the greatest Scholars of China, written the one in A.D. 586 and illustrating the Tâoistic beliefs of that age, and the other in A.D. 1078 and dealing with the four Books of Kwang-ʓze, whose genuineness is frequently called in question. The concluding Index is confined very much to Proper Names. For Subjects the reader is referred to the Tables of Contents, the Introduction to the Books of Kwang-ʓze (vol. xxxix, pp. 127-163), and the Introductory Notes to the various Appendixes.

The Treatise of Actions and their Retributions exhibits to us the Taoism of the eleventh century in its moral or ethical aspects ; in the two earlier Works we see it rather as a philosophical speculation than as a religion in the ordinary sense of that term. It was not till after the introduction of Buddhism into China in our first century that Taoism began to organise itself as a


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Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 39.djvu/32

 8 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH. II. the text of Lao I have spoken, was an uncle of the emperor Wan. To the emperor K'mg (B.C. 156-143), the son of Wan, there is attributed the designation of Lao's treatise as a A" ing, a work of standard authority. At the beginning of his reign, we are told, some one was com- mending to him four works, among which were those of Lao-jze and .fifwang-jze. Deeming that the work of Hwang-jze and Lao-jze was of a deeper character than the others, he ordered that it should be called a A"ing, estab- lished a board for the study of Taoism, and issued an edict that the book should be learned and recited at court, and throughout the country 1. Thenceforth it was so styled. We find Hwang-fu Mi (A.D. 215-282) referring to it as the Tao Teh .fifing. The second place in the Sui catalogue is given to the text and commentary of Wang Pi or Wang Fu-sze, an The work of extraordinary scholar who died in A. D. 249, Wang Pi. a t the early age of twenty-four. This work has always been much prized. It was its text which Lu Teh-ming used in his ' Explanation of the Terms and Phrases of the Classics,' in the seventh century. Among the editions of it which I possess is that printed in 1794 with the imperial moveable metal types. I need not speak of editions or commentaries subsequent to Wang Pi's. They soon begin to be many, and are only not so numerous as those of the Confucian Classics. . All the editions of the book are divided into two Divisions into parts, the former called Tao, and the latter parts, chapters; Xeh. meaning the Qualities or Characteristics and number of,. , characters in the of the Tao, but this distinction of subjects is by no means uniformly adhered to. I referred already to the division of the whole into eighty- one short chapters (37+44), which is by common tradition attributed to Ho-shang Kung, or 'The old man of the Ho-side.' Another very early commentator, called Yen 3un or Yen ^Tiin-phing, made a division into seventy-two chapters (404-32), under the influence, no doubt, of some See 3&o Hung's Wings or Helps, ch. v, p. ir


text: Category:Christian sociology

title: Category:Christian sociology


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260 condition from which it is equally ready to take on the semblance of verb or of noun. We may rudely illustrate their quality by comparing them with such a word in our own language as love, which, by the wearing off of the formative elements with which it was once clothed, has reverted to the condition of a bare root, and which must therefore now be placed in such connection, or so pregnantly and significantly uttered, as to indicate to the intelligent and sympathizing listener in what sense it is meant and is to be understood—whether as verb, in "I love," or as substantive, in "my love," or as virtual adjective, in "love-letter."

The inquiry, which might naturally enough be raised at this point, how the radical syllables of which we are treating were themselves originated, and whether there be any natural and necessary connection between them, or any of them, and the ideas which they represent, such as either necessitated or at least recommended the allotment of the particular sign to the particular conception, we must pass by for the present, having now to do only with that for which direct evidence is to be found in language itself, with the historically traceable beginnings of Indo-European speech; this question, with its various dependent questions of a more theoretical and recondite nature, is reserved for consideration at a later time (in the eleventh lecture  ).

It deserves to be renewedly urged that, in this account of the primitive stage of Indo-European language, there is nothing which is not the result of strict and careful induction from the facts recorded in the dialects of the different members of the family. No one's theory as to what the beginnings of language must have been, or might naturally have been expected to be, has had anything to do with shaping it. It has been a matter of much controversy among linguistic theorizers what parts of speech language began with; whether nouns or verbs were the first words; but I am not aware that any acute thinker ever devised, upon à priori grounds, a theory at all closely agreeing with the account of the matter of which comparative philology soon arrived through her historical researches. That the first traceable linguistic entities are not names of concrete


text: Index:Examiner, Journal of Political Economy, v2n14.djvu


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 objects, but designate actions, motions, phenomenal conditions, is a truth resting on authority that overrides all preconceived theories and subjective opinions. How far and why it is accordant with what a sound theory, founded on our general knowledge of human nature and human speech, would teach, and is therefore entitled to be accepted as a satisfactory explanation of the way in which men began to talk, we shall inquire in the lecture devoted to such subjects.

Thus is it, also, as regards the division of the roots into two classes, pronominal and verbal: this division is so clearly read in the facts of language that its acceptance cannot be resisted. Some are loth to admit it, and strive to find a higher unity in which it shall disappear, the two classes falling together into one; or to show how the pronominal may be relics of verbal roots, worn down by linguistic usage to such brief form and unsubstantial significance; but their efforts must at least be accounted altogether unsuccessful hitherto, and it is very questionable whether they are called for, or likely ever to meet with success. As regards the purposes of our present inquiry, the double classification is certainly primitive and absolute; back to the very earliest period of which linguistic analysis gives us any knowledge, roots verbal and roots pronominal are to be recognized as of wholly independent substance, character, and office.

But, it may very properly be asked, how do we know that the roots which we have set up, and the others like them, are really ultimate and original? why may they not be the results of yet more ancient processes of linguistic change—like love and lie, and so many others, which have been repeatedly cited, and shown to have taken in our language the place of earlier complicated forms, such as lagamasi and laganti? how should they be proved different from our word count, for example, which we treat like an original root, expanding it by means of suffixes into various forms—as he counts, they counted, counting, counter, countable—while yet it is only a modern derivative from a Latin compound verb containing a preposition, namely computare, 'to think together, combine in thought,' got through the medium of the


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Page:S v Makwanyane and Another.djvu/5

 Legislative History

The written argument of the South African government deals with the debate which took place in regard to the death penalty before the commencement of the constitutional negotiations. The information that it placed before us was not disputed. It was argued that this background information forms part of the context within which the Constitution should be interpreted.

Our Courts have held that it is permissible in interpreting a statute to have regard to the purpose and background of the legislation in question.

"Certainly no less important than the oft repeated statement that the words and expressions used in a statute must be interpreted according to their ordinary meaning is the statement that they must be interpreted in the light of their context. But it may be useful to stress two points in relation to the application of this principle. The first is that "the context", as here used, is not limited to the language of the rest of the statute regarded as throwing light of a dictionary kind on the part to be interpreted. Often of more importance is the matter of the statute, its apparent scope and purpose, and, within limits, its background."

Debates in Parliament, including statements made by Ministers responsible for legislation, and explanatory memoranda providing reasons for new bills have not been admitted as background material. It is, however, permissible to take notice of the report of a judicial commission of enquiry for the limited purpose of ascertaining "the mischief aimed at [by] the statutory enactment in question." These principles were derived in part from English law. In England, the courts have recently relaxed this exclusionary rule and have held, in Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart that, subject to the privileges of the House of Commons:

"...reference to Parliamentary material should be permitted as an aid to the construction of legislation which is ambiguous or obscure or the literal meaning of which leads to an absurdity. Even in such cases references in court to Parliamentary material should only be permitted where such material clearly discloses the mischief aimed at or the legislative intention lying behind the ambiguous or obscure words."

As the judgment in Pepper's case shows, a similar relaxation of the exclusionary

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158 of the Marchioness, whom she accuses of supplanting her in the favour of the Duchess of Orleans. Possibly she opened the Duchess's eyes to the relations between Egalité and his children's governess. The bride was in twelve months a widow, but gave birth to a son, Alfred, who was petted by the Duchess, his godmother. Gouverneur Morris, the American ambassador, was very friendly with Madame de Châtellux, who introduced him to the Duchess, and whom he describes as "an amiable woman, not the less lovely for the tears she sheds to her husband's memory." Morris was so fond of discussing financial and political programmes that Madame de Châtellux used to tell him that her patriotic gift—patriotic gifts were then in vogue—would be to present him to Louis XVI. as one of his ministers. Her English coachman Archley was among the captors of the Bastille, yet she was regarded as one of the instigators of the departure of the King's aunts, who, poor ladies, thus escaped revolutionary horrors. Perhaps on this account she was a prisoner from November 1793 to November 1794 at the Austin nunnery, where she had been at school just twenty years before.

Mirabeau's mother was also at the Austin convent. The Marquis de Mirabeau, the self-styled "friend of man," but not the friend of his own household, describes his life with her as "twenty years of


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Rh nephretic colic," but the fault was certainly not all on her side. On her going to visit her sick mother in 1763, her husband forbade her return home, and procured a lettre de cachet for her detention in a Limoges convent. The Marquis died the day before the capture of the Bastille. The widow lived in poverty in Paris; her son refused to see her, and when he was dying she vainly waited six hours outside for permission to see him, for her daughter, doubtless by Mirabeau's orders, refused her admission. She threatened to dispute his will, which left her nothing, but as he died in debt his legacies were nugatory. The poor woman, poor in two senses, was a captive about a year, and died shortly after her release, 18th November 1794, at the age of sixty-nine.

No prisoner at the convent has left any narrative. The nuns were required to assume secular dress, and were not allowed religious services, but they were permitted to remain in their cells and to walk in the vineyard. The tombs were profaned for the sake of the lead, and church plate and ornaments were plundered. The velvet draperies, bearing the royal arms embroidered in gold, from the royal pew in Whitehall chapel, presented to the convent on James II.'s death, had disappeared. In March 1795 the gaoler and guards were withdrawn, and the school was reopened, but in 1799 the sale of all the British establishments was ordered. The nuns


text: Category:The Dial

title: Category:The Dial


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262 French compter (where the p is still written, though not pronounced)—in fact, the same word as the evidently made-up compute? Of apparent monosyllabic verbal roots like this, which are readily proved by a little historical study to be of polysyllabic origin, or to contain the relics of formative processes, our language contains no small number: other instances are preach from pre-dicare, vend from venum-dare, blame from Greek blas-phēmein; don and doff from do on and do off; learn, of which the n is a passive ending, added to lere, 'teach,' whence comes lore, 'doctrine;' to throng, a denominative from the noun throng, which is derived from thring (Anglo-Saxon thringan), 'press,' lost in our modern use (as if we were to lose sing, and substitute for it to song, from the derived noun song); to blast, a like denominative from blast, a derivative from blæsan, 'to blow, blare;' and so on. Such are to be found also abundantly in other languages, modern and ancient; why not as well among the alleged Indo-European roots? Now there can be no question whatever that such additions to the stock of verbal expression have been produced at every period of the growth of language, not only throughout its recorded career, but also in times beyond the reach of historic analysis. There is not a known dialect of our family which does not exhibit a greater or less number of seeming roots peculiar to itself; and of these the chief part may be proved, or are to be assumed, to be of secondary origin, and not at all entitled to lay claim to the character of relics from the original stock, lost by the sister dialects. Even the Sanskrit, upon which we have mainly to rely for our restoration of Indo-European roots, possesses not a few which are such only in seeming, which are of special Aryan or Indian growth, and valueless for the construction of general Indo-European etymologies. And, yet farther, among those very radical syllables whose presence in the tongues of all the branches proves them a possession of the original community before its dispersion, there are some which show the clearest signs of secondary formation. As a single example, let us take the root man, 'think' (in Latin me-min-i, moneo, mens; Greek men-os, man-tis; Lithuanian men-û;


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160 were on the point of quitting France, and had sent off their luggage to Calais, when Consul Lebrun's sympathy, and his good offices with Bonaparte, enabled them to remain. Removing in 1860 to Neuilly, just outside Paris, they celebrated in 1884 their fifth jubilee. The Benedictine convent was likewise converted into a prison, with a brutal gaoler who delighted to threaten his captives with death—no empty threat, for the Princess of Monaco, Madame Sainte Amaranthe, and others, left the nunnery for the Conciergerie, and the latter for the guillotine. The nuns not only witnessed distressing partings, but anticipated a like fate. Stonyhurst College possesses a manuscript, which, evidently written after their return to England, depicts in an artless way the alarms, insults, and privations undergone by them. After several domiciliary visits they were declared prisoners in October 1793. Their street was called the Rue de Alouette, from the ground having been formerly frequented by larks. They were now themselves caged birds, if indeed they had the heart to sing. Commissaries next came to fit up the convent as a prison, but to tranquillise the nuns promised that the captives should be only Englishwomen, a promise which was not long kept. The prison became so full—Foignet found eighty inmates, two-thirds of them men—that in the


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Page:Poems, Volume 1, Coates, 1916.djvu/48

26 For its own sake?—that he would all endure,

All sacrifice, all suffer, rather than

Forego the daring dreams Olympian

That prophesy to him of victory sure?

Ah, tameless courage!—dominating power

That, all attempting, in a deathless hour

Made earth-born Titans godlike, in revolt!—

Fear is the fire that melts Icarian wings:

Who fears nor Fate, nor Time, nor what Time brings,

May drive Apollo's steeds, or wield the thunder bolt!


text: S v Makwanyane and Another/Chaskalson P

title: S v Makwanyane and Another/Chaskalson P


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/The Unconquered Air


text:
Stack-A-Lee

Hawlin Alley, one dark and drizzly night. Billy Lyons and Stack A Lee had one terrible fight, All about, that John B. Stetson hat.

Stack A Lee walked to the barroom and called a glass of beer. He turned around to Billy Lyons, said "What are you doing here?" "Waiting for a train, please bring my mama home."

"Stack A Lee, O Stack A Lee, please don't take my life. I've got three little children and a weeping, loving wife." You're a bad man, bad man Stack A Lee

"God bless your children, I'll take care of your wife. You stole my John B. now I'm bound to take your life." All about, that John B. Stetson hat

Stack A Lee turned to Billy Lyons and he shot him right through the head. Only taken one shot, to kill Billy Lyons dead. All about, that John B. Stetson hat

Sent for the doctor, well the doctor he did come. Just pointed out to Stack A Lee, said "Now what have you done?" You're a bad man, bad man Stack A Lee

Six big horses and a rubber tired hack, They taken him to the cemetery, they failed to bring him back. All about, that John B. Stetson hat

Hawlin Alley, I thought I heard the bulldogs bark. It musta been old Stack A Lee stumblin' in the dark. He's a bad man, gonna land him right back in jail

High police walked on to Stack A Lee, he was lying fast asleep. High police catched Stack A Lee, and he jumped forty feet. He's a bad man, gonna land him right back in jail

Got old Stack A Lee, laid him right back in jail. Couldn't get a man around to go Stack A Lee's bail. All about, that John B. Stetson hat

Stack A Lee said to the jailer, "Jailer I can't sleep." 'Round my bedside Billy Lyons began to creep." All about, that John B. Stetson hat

title: Stack-A-Lee


text:
User:Ladislav Demeter

clearchus.demetrius@gmail.com

title: User:Ladislav Demeter


text:
Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/15

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME VIII

——

DEMIJOHN, a glass bottle or jar with a large round body and narrow neck, encased in wicker-work and provided with handles. The word is also used of an earthenware jar, similarly covered with wicker. The capacity of a demijohn varies from two to twelve gallons, but the common size contains five gallons. According to the New English Dictionary the word is an adaptation of a French Dame Jeanne, or Dame Jane, an application of a personal name to an object which is not uncommon; cf. the use of “Toby” for a particular form of jug and the many uses of the name “Jack.”

 DEMISE, an Anglo-French legal term (from the Fr. démettre, Lat. dimittere, to send away) for a transfer of an estate, especially by lease. The word has an operative effect in a lease implying a covenant for “quiet enjoyment” (see ). The phrase “demise of the crown” is used in English law to signify the immediate transfer of the sovereignty, with all its attributes and prerogatives, to the successor without any interregnum in accordance with the maxim “the king never dies.” At common law the death of the sovereign eo facto dissolved parliament, but this was abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1867, § 51. Similarly the common law doctrine that all offices held under the crown determined at its demise has been negatived by the Demise of the Crown Act 1901. “Demise” is thus often used loosely for death or decease.

 DEMIURGE (Gr. , from  , of or for the people, and  , work), a handicraftsman or artisan. In Homer the word has a wide application, including not only hand-workers but even heralds and physicians. In Attica the demiurgi formed one of the three classes (with the Eupatridae and the geomori, georgi or agroeci) into which the early population was divided (cf. Arist. Ath. Pol. xiii. 2). They represented either a class of the whole population, or, according to Busolt, a commercial nobility (see ). In the sense of “worker for the people” the word was used throughout the Peloponnese, with the exception of Sparta, and in many parts of Greece, for a higher magistrate. The demiurgi among other officials represent Elis and Mantineia at the treaty of peace between Athens, Argos, Elis and Mantineia in 420 (Thuc. v. 47). In the (q.v.) the name is given to ten elective officers who presided over the assembly, and Corinth sent “Epidemiurgi” every year to Potidaea, officials who apparently answered to the Spartan harmosts. In Plato  is the name given to the “creator of the world” (Timaeus, 40) and the word was so adopted by the Gnostics (see ).

 DEMMIN, a town of Germany, kingdom of Prussia, on the navigable river Peene (which in the immediate neighbourhood receives the Trebel and the Tollense), 72 m. W.N.W. of Stettin, on the Berlin-Stralsund railway. Pop. (1905) 12,541. It has manufactures of textiles, besides breweries, distilleries and tanneries, and an active trade in corn and timber.

The town is of Slavonian origin and of considerable antiquity, and was a place of importance in the time of Charlemagne. It was besieged by a German army in 1148, and captured by Henry the Lion in 1164. In the Thirty Years’ War Demmin was the object of frequent conflicts, and even after the peace of Westphalia was taken and retaken in the contest between the electoral prince and the Swedes. It passed to Prussia in 1720, and its fortifications were dismantled in 1759. In 1807 several engagements took place in the vicinity between the French and Russians.

 DEMOCHARES (c. 355–275 ), nephew of Demosthenes, Athenian orator and statesman, was one of the few distinguished Athenians in the period of decline. He is first heard of in 322, when he spoke in vain against the surrender of Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian orators demanded by Antipater. During the next fifteen years he probably lived in exile. On the restoration of the democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 he occupied a prominent position, but was banished in 303 for having ridiculed the decree of Stratocles, which contained a fulsome eulogy of Demetrius. He was recalled in 298, and during the next four years fortified and equipped the city with provisions and ammunition. In 296 (or 295) he was again banished for having concluded an alliance with the Boeotians, and did not return until 287 (or 286). In 280 he induced the Athenians to erect a public monument in honour of his uncle with a suitable inscription. After his death (some five years later) the son of Demochares proposed and obtained a decree (Plutarch, Vitae decem oratorum, p. 851) that a statue should be erected in his honour, containing a record of his public services, which seem to have consisted in a reduction of public expenses, a more prudent management of the state finances (after his return in 287) and successful begging missions to the rulers of Egypt and Macedonia. Although a friend of the Stoic Zeno, Demochares regarded all other philosophers as the enemies of freedom, and in 306 supported the proposal of one Sophocles, advocating their expulsion from Attica. According to Cicero (Brutus, 83) Demochares was the author of a history of his own times, written in an oratorical rather than a historical style. As a speaker he was noted for his freedom of language (Parrhesiastes, Seneca, De ira, iii. 23). He was violently attacked by Timaeus, but found a strenuous defender in Polybius (xii. 13).

 DEMOCRACY (Gr. , from  , the people, i.e. the commons, and  , rule), in political science, that form of government in which the people rules itself, either directly, as in the small city-states of Greece, or through representatives. According to Aristotle, democracy is the perverted form of the

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text: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/General Rules


text: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/Directions for Celebration


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28 Through what beguilement dost thou friendless roam?

And goest thou—ah, whither?

Day quickly fades, Night may refuse her star,

Clouds may arise, and elemental strife,—

Ah, hapless bird! what Wanderlust of life

Betrayed thy wings so far?

Full as my soul of tremulous desires,

Thy voice I hear in supplication rise.

"Theresa!" dost thou call? Unto the skies

The plaint, adoring, holily aspires:—

"Theresa!" Is it she keeps watch o'er thee?—

Homeless—but free?

Wise minstrel! Thou dost well to call on her;

No saint was ever lovelier.

Her heart had room for such wide tenderness

As his who "Little Sister" called the birds,

And pity, deeper than all words,

Taught her, like him, to bless.

Silent? Where art thou? Lo, the City wakes!

Toil's round begins, and calm the world forsakes.


text: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/Directions for Serving


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Rh Thou, too, art gone!—nor evermore shalt come

Without my window here at dawn to sing.

Adieu, strange guest! Theresa guide thy wing

Safe to the sweet wild woods that are thy home!


text: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/Appendices


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/In the Town a Wild Bird Singing


text: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/Index

title: Low Mass Ceremonial (Burnett)/Index


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Demochares

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Demochares


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Democracy

title: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Democracy


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/"Poor Love !" Said Life


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36 Now by my banks are tender blossoms blowing:

In fragrant loveliness they smile on me,—

But I must hasten to the river, knowing

The river will lead onward to the sea.

High over me the budding branches quiver

With songs that swell in happy harmony;

But sweeter is the murmur of the river,—

The river that leads onward to the sea!


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Brook-Song : To the Spring


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 third form of government, which he called , “polity” or “constitutional government,” the rule of the majority of the free and equal citizens, as opposed to monarchy and aristocracy, the rule respectively of an individual and of a minority consisting of the best citizens (see and ). Aristotle’s restriction of “democracy” to bad popular government, i.e. mob-rule, or, as it has sometimes been called, “ochlocracy” (, mob), was due to the fact that the Athenian democracy had in his day degenerated far below the ideals of the 5th century, when it reached its zenith under Pericles. Since Aristotle’s day the word has resumed its natural meaning, but democracy in modern times is a very different thing from what it was in its best days in Greece and Rome. The Greek states were what are known as “city-states,” the characteristic of which was that all the citizens could assemble together in the city at regular intervals for legislative and other purposes. This sovereign assembly of the people was known at Athens as the (q.v.), at Sparta as the  (q.v.), at Rome variously as the Comitia Centuriata or the Concilium Plebis (see ). Of representative government in the modern sense there is practically no trace in Athenian history, though certain of the magistrates (see ) had a quasi-representative character. Direct democracy is impossible except in small states. In the second place the qualification for citizenship was rigorous; thus Pericles restricted citizenship to those who were the sons of an Athenian father, himself a citizen, and an Athenian mother ( ). This system excluded not only all the slaves, who were more numerous than the free population, but also resident aliens, subject allies, and those Athenians whose descent did not satisfy this criterion ( ). The Athenian democracy, which was typical in ancient Greece, was a highly exclusive form of government.

With the growth of empire and nation states this narrow parochial type of democracy became impossible. The population became too large and the distance too great for regular assemblies of qualified citizens. The rigid distinction of citizens and non-citizens was progressively more difficult to maintain, and new criteria of citizenship came into force. The first difficulty has been met by various forms of representative government. The second problem has been solved in various ways in different countries; moderate democracies have adopted a low property qualification, while extreme democracy is based on the extension of citizenship to all adult persons with or without distinction of sex. The essence of modern representative government is that the people does not govern itself, but periodically elects those who shall govern on its behalf (see ; ).

 DEMOCRATIC PARTY, originally, the oldest of existing political parties in the United States. Its origin lay in the principles of local self-government and repugnance to social and political aristocracy established as cardinal tenets of American colonial democracy, which by the War of Independence, which was essentially a democratic movement, became the basis of the political institutions of the nation. The evils of lax government, both central and state, under the Confederation caused, however, a marked anti-democratic reaction, and this united with the temperamental conservatism of the framers of the constitution of 1787 in the shaping of that conservative instrument. The influences and interests for and against its adoption took form in the groupings of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and these, after the creation of the new government, became respectively, in underlying principles, and, to a large extent, in personnel, the (q.v.) and the Democratic-Republican party. The latter, organized by Thomas Jefferson in opposition to the Federalists dominated by Alexander Hamilton, was a real party by 1792. The great service of attaching to the constitution a democratic bill of rights belongs to the Anti-Federalists or Democratic-Republican party, although this was then amorphous. The Democratic-Republican party gained full control of the government, save the judiciary, in 1801, and controlled it continuously thereafter until 1825. No political “platforms” were then known, but the writings of Jefferson, who dominated his party throughout this period, take the place of such. His inaugural address of 1801 is a famous statement of democratic principles, which to-day are taken for granted only because, through the party organized by him to secure their success, they became universally accepted as the ideal of American institutions. In all the colonies, says John Adams, “a court and a country party had always contended”; Jefferson’s followers believed sincerely that the Federalists were a new court party, and monarchist. Hence they called themselves “Republicans” as against monarchists,—standing also, incidentally, for states’ rights against the centralization that monarchy (or any approach to it) implied; and “Democrats” as against aristocrats,—standing for the “common rights of Englishmen,” the “rights of man,” the levelling of social ranks and the widening of political privileges. In the early years of its history—and during the period of the French Revolution and afterwards—the Republicans sympathized with the French as against the British, the Federalists with the British as against the French.

Devotion to abstract principles of democracy and liberty, and in practical politics a strict construction of the constitution, in order to prevent an aggrandizement of national power at the expense of the states (which were nearer popular control) or the citizens, have been permanent characteristics of the Democratic party as contrasted with its principal opponents; but neither these nor any other distinctions have been continuously or consistently true throughout its long course. After 1801 the commercial and manufacturing nationalistic elements of the Federalist party, being now dependent on Jefferson for protection, gradually went over to the Republicans, especially after the War of 1812; moreover, administration of government naturally developed in Republican ranks a group of broad-constructionists. These groups fused, and became an independent party. They called themselves National Republicans, while the Jacksonian Republicans soon came to be known simply as Democrats. Immediately afterward followed the tremendous victory of the Jacksonians in 1828,—a great advance in radical democracy over the victory of 1800. In the interval the Federalist party had disappeared, and practically the entire country, embracing Jeffersonian democracy, had passed through the school of the Republican party. It had established the power of the “people” in the sense of that word in present-day American politics. Bills of rights in every state constitution protected the citizen; some state judges were already elective; very soon the people came to nominate their presidential candidates in national conventions, and draft their party platforms through their convention representatives. After the National Republican scission the Democratic party, weakened thereby in its nationalistic tendencies, and deprived of the leadership of Jackson, fell quickly under the control of its Southern adherents and became virtually sectional in its objects. Its states’ rights doctrine was turned to the defence of slavery. In thus opposing anti-slavery sentiment—inconsistently, alike as regarded the “rights of man” and constitutional construction, with its original and permanent

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Rh With tears in her sweet eyes

To kiss away—shyly

The Maiden comes, and, as she moves along,

The woods and waking wolds intone her praise.

I, too, where all things tell

Of Autumn chill and blight,—

I, too, will praise her, ay, with transport hymn

The unforgotten sweetness of the spring.

How desolate were Man

If, robbed of dear delight,

He might not with remembrance fond pursue

And find his happiness, and lead it back!

The mournful Stygian shades

Were less forlorn than he;

For they have memory, and cannot lose

Bright visions once in conscious bliss possessed!

Through Hades' wailful halls,

Bereft of Proserpine,

They pensive glide, yet feel the far, sweet spring,

And seem to breathe lost Enna's distant flowers.


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Cora

title: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Cora


text:
Charles Sumner

 * "Charles Sumner", (1874) a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 * ", another poem by Sumner's friend Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

Author

 * Charles Sumner, (1811–1874) an American politician, statesman, lawyer and orator

title: Charles Sumner


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46 To crystallize dewdrop and balsam

And dryad-lisped words

And starbeam and moonrise and rapture

And song of wild birds?


text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume I/Indian-Pipe


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 principles—it lost morale and power. As a result of the contest over Kansas it became fatally divided, and in 1860 put forward two presidential tickets: one representing the doctrine of Jefferson Davis that the constitution recognized slave-property, and therefore the national government must protect slavery in the territories; the other representing Douglas’s doctrine that the inhabitants of a territory might virtually exclude slavery by “unfriendly legislation.” The combined popular votes for the two tickets exceeded that cast by the new, anti-slavery Republican party (the second of the name) for Lincoln; but the election was lost. During the ensuing Civil War such members of the party as did not become War Democrats antagonized the Lincoln administration, and in 1864 made the great blunder of pronouncing the war “a failure.” Owing to Republican errors in reconstruction and the scandals of President Grant’s administration, the party gradually regained its strength and morale, until, having largely subordinated Southern questions to economic issues, it cast for Tilden for president in 1876 a popular vote greater than that obtained by the Republican candidate, Hayes, and gained control of the House of Representatives. The Electoral Commission, however, made Hayes president, and the quiet acceptance of this decision by the Democratic party did it considerable credit.

Since 1877 the Southern states have been almost solidly Democratic; but, except on the negro question, such unanimity among Southern whites has been, naturally, factitious; and by no means an unmixed good for the party. Apart from the “Solid South,” the period after 1875 is characterized by two other party difficulties. The first was the attempt from 1878 to 1896 to “straddle” the silver issue; the second, an attempt after 1896 to harmonize general elements of conservatism and radicalism within the party. In 1896 the South and West gained control of the organization, and the national campaigns of 1896 and 1900 were fought and lost mainly on the issue of “free silver,” which, however, was abandoned before 1904. After 1898 “imperialism,” to which the Democrats were hostile, became another issue. Finally, after 1896, there became very apparent in the party a tendency to attract the radical elements of society in the general re-alignment of parties taking place on industrial-social issues; the Democratic party apparently attracting, in this readjustment, the “radicals” and the “masses” as in the time of Jefferson and Jackson. In this process, in the years 1896–1900, it took over many of the principles and absorbed, in large part, the members of the radical third-party of the “Populists,” only to be confronted thereupon by the growing strength of Socialism, challenging it to a farther radical widening of its programme. From 1860 to 1908 it elected but a single president (Grover Cleveland, 1885–1889 and 1893–1897). All American parties accepted long ago in theory “Jeffersonian democracy”; but the Democratic party has been “the political champion of those elements of the [American] democracy which are most democratic. It stands nearest the people.” It may be noted that the Jeffersonian Republicans did not attempt to democratize the constitution itself. The choice of a president was soon popularized, however, in effect; and the popular election of United States senators is to-day a definite Democratic tenet.

 DEMOCRITUS, probably the greatest of the Greek physical philosophers, was a native of Abdera in Thrace, or as some say—probably wrongly—of Miletus (Diog. Laërt. ix. 34). Our knowledge of his life is based almost entirely on tradition of an untrustworthy kind. He seems to have been born about 470 or 460, and was, therefore, an older contemporary of Socrates. He inherited a considerable property, which enabled him to travel widely in the East in search of information. In Egypt he settled for seven years, during which he studied the mathematical and physical systems of the ancient schools. The extent to which he was influenced by the Magi and the Eastern astrologists is a matter of pure conjecture. He returned from his travels impoverished; one tradition says that he received 500 talents from his fellow-citizens, and that a public funeral was decreed him. Another tradition states that he was regarded as insane by the Abderitans, and that Hippocrates was summoned to cure him. Diodorus Siculus tells us that he died at the age of ninety; others make him as much as twenty years older. His works, according to Diogenes Laërtius, numbered seventy-two, and were characterized by a purity of style which compares favourably with that of Plato. The absurd epithet, the “laughing philosopher,” applied to him by some unknown and very superficial thinker, may possibly have contributed in some measure to the fact that his importance was for centuries overlooked. It is interesting, however, to notice that Bacon (De Principiis) assigns to him his true place in the history of thought, and points out that both in his own day and later “in the times of Roman learning” he was spoken of in terms of the highest praise. In the variety of his knowledge, and in the importance of his influence on both Greek and modern speculation he was the Aristotle of the 5th century, while the sanity of his metaphysical theory has led many to regard him as the equal, if not the superior, of Plato.

His views may be treated under the following heads:—

1. The Atoms and Cosmology (adopted in part at least from the doctrines of Leucippus, though the relations between the two are hopelessly obscure). While agreeing with the Eleatics as to the eternal sameness of Being (nothing can arise out of nothing; nothing can be reduced to nothing), Democritus followed the physicists in denying its oneness and immobility. Movement and plurality being necessary to explain the phenomena of the universe and impossible without space (not-Being), he asserted that the latter had an equal right with Being to be considered existent. Being is the Full (, plenum); not-Being is the Void ( , vacuum), the infinite space in which moved the infinite number of atoms into which the single Being of the Eleatics was broken up. These atoms are eternal and invisible; absolutely small, so small that their size cannot be

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 diminished (hence the name , “indivisible”); absolutely full and incompressible, they are without pores and entirely fill the space they occupy; homogeneous, differing only in figure (as A from N), arrangement (as AN from NA), position (as N is Z on its side), magnitude (and consequently in weight, although some authorities dispute this). But while the atoms thus differ in quantity, their differences of quality are only apparent, due to the impressions caused on our senses by different configurations and combinations of atoms. A thing is only hot or cold, sweet or bitter, hard or soft by convention ( ); the only things that exist in reality ( ) are the atoms and the void. Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is here anticipated. Thus, the atoms of water and iron are the same, but those of the former, being smooth and round, and therefore unable to hook on to one another, roll over and over like small globes, whereas the atoms of iron, being rough, jagged and uneven, cling together and form a solid body. Since all phenomena are composed of the same eternal atoms (just as a tragedy and a comedy contain the same letters) it may be said that nothing comes into being or perishes in the absolute sense of the words (cf. the modern “indestructibility of matter” and “conservation of energy”), although the compounds of the atoms are liable to increase and decrease, appearance and disappearance—in other words, to birth and death. As the atoms are eternal and uncaused, so is motion; it has its origin in a preceding motion, and so on ad infinitum. For the Love and Hate of Empedocles and the Nous (Intelligence) of Anaxagoras, Democritus substituted fixed and necessary laws (not chance; that is a misrepresentation due chiefly to Cicero). Everything can be explained by a purely mechanical (but not fortuitous) system, in which there is no room for the idea of a providence or an intelligent cause working with a view to an end. The origin of the universe was explained as follows. An infinite number of atoms was carried downwards through infinite space. The larger (and heavier), falling with greater velocity, overtook and collided with the smaller (and lighter), which were thereby forced upwards. This caused various lateral and contrary movements, resulting in a whirling movement ( ) resembling the rotation of Anaxagoras, whereby similar atoms were brought together (as in the winnowing of grain) and united to form larger bodies and worlds. Atoms and void being infinite in number and extent, and motion having always existed, there must always have been an infinite number of worlds, all consisting of similar atoms, in various stages of growth and decay.

2. The Soul.—Democritus devoted considerable attention to the structure of the human body, the noblest portion of which he considered to be the soul, which everywhere pervades it, a psychic atom being intercalated between two corporeal atoms. Although, in accordance with his principles, Democritus was bound to regard the soul as material (composed of round, smooth, specially mobile atoms, identified with the fire-atoms floating in the air), he admitted a distinction between it and the body, and is even said to have looked upon it as something divine. These all-pervading soul atoms exercise different functions in different organs; the head is the seat of reason, the heart of anger, the liver of desire. Life is maintained by the inhalation of fresh atoms to replace those lost by exhalation, and when respiration, and consequently the supply of atoms, ceases, the result is death. It follows that the soul perishes with, and in the same sense as, the body.

3. Perception.—Sensations are the changes produced in the soul by external impressions, and are the result of contact, since every action of one body (and all representations are corporeal phenomena) upon another is of the nature of a shock. Certain emanations ( ) or images ( ), consisting of subtle atoms, thrown off from the surface of an object, penetrate the body through the pores. On the principle that like acts upon like, the particular senses are only affected by that which resembles them. We see by means of the eye alone, and hear by means of the ear alone, these organs being best adapted to receive the images or sound currents. The organs are thus merely conduits or passages through which the atoms pour into the soul. The eye, for example, is damp and porous, and the act of seeing consists in the reflection of the image ( ) mirrored on the smooth moist surface of the pupil. To the interposition of air is due the fact that all visual images are to some extent blurred. At the same time Democritus distinguished between obscure ( ) cognition, resting on sensation alone, and genuine ( ), which is the result of inquiry by reason, and is concerned with atoms and void, the only real existences. This knowledge, however, he confessed was exceedingly difficult to attain.

It is in Democritus first that we find a real attempt to explain colour. He regards black, red, white and green as primary. White is characteristically smooth, i.e. casting no shadow, even, flat; black is uneven, rough, shadowy and so on. The other colours result from various mixtures of these four, and are infinite in number. Colour itself is not objective; it is found not in the ultimate plenum and vacuum, but only in derived objects according to their physical qualities and relations.

4. Theology.—The system of Democritus was altogether anti-theistic. But, although he rejected the notion of a deity taking part in the creation or government of the universe, he yielded to popular prejudice so far as to admit the existence of a class of beings, of the same form as men, grander, composed of very subtle atoms, less liable to dissolution, but still mortal, dwelling in the upper regions of air. These beings also manifested themselves to man by means of images in dreams, communicated with him, and sometimes gave him an insight into the future. Some of them were benevolent, others malignant. According to Plutarch, Democritus recognized one god under the form of a fiery sphere, the soul of the world, but this idea is probably of later origin. The popular belief in gods was attributed by Democritus to the desire to explain extraordinary phenomena (thunder, lightning, earthquakes) by reference to superhuman agency.

5. Ethics.—Democritus’s moral system—the first collection of ethical precepts which deserves the name—strongly resembles the negative side of the system of Epicurus. The summum bonum is the maximum of pleasure with the minimum of pain. But true pleasure is not sensual enjoyment; it has its principle in the soul. It consists not in the possession of wealth or flocks and herds, but in good humour, in the just disposition and constant tranquillity of the soul. Hence the necessity of avoiding extremes; too much and too little are alike evils. True happiness consists in taking advantage of what one has and being content with it (see ).

 DEMOGEOT, JACQUES CLAUDE (1808–1894), French man of letters, was born in Paris on the 5th of July 1808. He was professor of rhetoric at the lycée Saint Louis, and subsequently assistant professor at the Sorbonne. He wrote many detached papers on various literary subjects, and two reports on secondary education in England and Scotland in collaboration with H. Montucci. His reputation rests on his excellent Histoire de la littérature française depuis ses origines jusqu’à nos jours (1851), which has passed through many subsequent editions. He was also the author of a Tableau de la littérature française au XVIIᵉ siècle (1859), and of a work (3 vols., 1880–1883) on the influence of foreign literatures on the development of French literature. He died in Paris in 1894.

 DEMOGRAPHY (from Gr. , people, and  , to write), the science which deals with the statistics of health and

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text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Demogeot, Jacques Claude


text: Category:Journalism

title: Category:Journalism


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Rh except in domesticated herds and those wild creatures to which Man's domesticated productions have communicated them. The trypanosome lives in the blood of wild game and of rats without producing mischief. The hosts have become tolerant of the parasite. It is only when man brings his unselected, humanly-nurtured races of cattle and horses into contact with the parasite, that it is found to have deadly properties7. The various cattle-diseases which in Africa have done so much harm to native cattle, and have in some regions exterminated big game, have per contra been introduced by man through his importation of diseased animals of his own breeding from Europe. Most, if not all, animals in extra-human conditions, including the minuter things such as insects, shell-fish, and invisible aquatic organisms, have been brought into a condition of 'adjustment' to their parasites as well as to the other conditions in which they live: it is this most delicate and efficient balance of Nature which Man everywhere upsets. A solitary case of a ravaging epidemic constantly recurring amongst animals living in extra-human conditions, one of a strangely interesting character, is the phosphorescent disease of the sand-shrimps or sand-hoppers. This is due to a microscopic parasite, a bacterium, which infests the blood and is phosphorescent, so that the infected sand-hopper has at night the brilliancy of a glow-worm. The disease is deadly, and is common among the sand-hoppers dwelling in the sandy flats of the north coast of France, where it may readily be studied8 It has not been recorded as occurring in this country. It is not at all improbable that this disease is also in truth one which only

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 disease, of the physical, intellectual, physiological and economical aspects of births, marriages and mortality. The first to employ the word was Achille Guillard in his Éléments de statistique humaine ou démographie comparée (1855), but the meaning which he attached to it was merely that of the science which treats of the condition, general movement and progress of population in civilized countries, i.e. little more than what is comprised in the ordinary vital statistics, gleaned from census and registration reports. The word has come to have a much wider meaning and may now be defined as that branch of statistics which deals with the life-conditions of peoples.

 DEMOIVRE, ABRAHAM (1667–1754), English mathematician of French extraction, was born at Vitry, in Champagne, on the 26th of May 1667. He belonged to a French Protestant family, and was compelled to take refuge in England at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, in 1685. Having laid the foundation of his mathematical studies in France, he prosecuted them further in London, where he read public lectures on natural philosophy for his support. The Principia mathematica of Sir Isaac Newton, which chance threw in his way, caused him to prosecute his studies with vigour, and he soon became distinguished among first-rate mathematicians. He was among the intimate personal friends of Newton, and his eminence and abilities secured his admission into the Royal Society of London in 1697, and afterwards into the Academies of Berlin and Paris. His merit was so well known and acknowledged by the Royal Society that they judged him a fit person to decide the famous contest between Newton and G. W. Leibnitz (see ). The life of Demoivre was quiet and uneventful. His old age was spent in obscure poverty, his friends and associates having nearly all passed away before him. He died at London, on the 27th of November 1754.

 DEMONETIZATION, a term employed in monetary science in two different senses. (a) The depriving or divesting of a metal of its standard monetary value. From 1663 to 1717 silver was the standard of value in England and gold coins passed at their market value. The debasement and underrating of the silver coinage insensibly brought about the demonetization of silver in England as a standard of value and the substitution of gold. During the latter half of the 19th century, the tremendous depreciation of silver, owing to its continually increasing production, and consequently the impossibility of preserving any ratio of stability between it and gold, led to the abandonment or demonetization of the metal as a standard and to its use merely as token money. (b) The withdrawal of coin from circulation, as, for example, in England that of all pre-Victorian gold coins under the provisions of the Coinage Act 1889, and the royal proclamation of the 22nd of November 1890.

 DEMONOLOGY (, demon, genius, spirit), the branch of the science of religions which relates to superhuman beings which are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings which have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent beings of all kinds. It may be noted that the original sense of “demon” was a benevolent being; but in English the name now connotes malevolence; in German it has a neutral sense, e.g. Korndämonen. Demons, when they are regarded as spirits, may belong to either of the classes of spirits recognized by primitive (q.v.); that is to say, they may be human, or non-human, separable souls, or discarnate spirits which have never inhabited a body; a sharp distinction is often drawn between these two classes, notably by the Melanesians, the West Africans and others; the Arab jinn, for example, are not reducible to modified human souls; at the same time these classes are frequently conceived as producing identical results, e.g. diseases.

Under the head of demons are classified only such spirits as are believed to enter into relations with the human race; the term therefore includes (1) human souls regarded as genii or familiars, (2) such as receive a cult (for which see ), and (3) ghosts or other malevolent revenants; excluded are souls conceived as inhabiting another world. But just as gods are not necessarily spiritual, demons may also be regarded as corporeal; vampires for example are sometimes described as human heads with appended entrails, which issue from the tomb to attack the living during the night watches. The so-called Spectre Huntsman of the Malay Peninsula is said to be a man who scours the firmament with his dogs, vainly seeking for what he could not find on earth—a buck mouse-deer pregnant with male offspring; but he seems to be a living man; there is no statement that he ever died, nor yet that he is a spirit. The incubus and succubus of the middle ages are sometimes regarded as spiritual beings; but they were held to give very real proof of their bodily existence. It should, however, be remembered that primitive peoples do not distinguish clearly between material and immaterial beings.

Prevalence of Demons.—According to a conception of the world frequently found among peoples of the lower cultures, all the affairs of life are supposed to be under the control of spirits, each ruling a certain element or even object, and themselves in subjection to a greater spirit. Thus, the Eskimo are said to believe in spirits of the sea, earth and sky, the winds, the clouds and everything in nature. Every cove of the seashore, every point, every island and prominent rock has its guardian spirit. All are of the malignant type, to be propitiated only by acceptable offerings from persons who desire to visit the locality where it is supposed to reside. A rise in culture often results in an increase in the number of spiritual beings with whom man surrounds himself. Thus, the Koreans go far beyond the Eskimo and number their demons by thousands of billions; they fill the chimney, the shed, the living-room, the kitchen, they are on every shelf and jar; in thousands they waylay the traveller as he leaves his home, beside him, behind him, dancing in front of him, whirring over his head, crying out upon him from air, earth and water.

Especially complicated was the ancient Babylonian demonology; all the petty annoyances of life—a sudden fall, a headache, a quarrel—were set down to the agency of fiends; all the stronger emotions—love, hate, jealousy and so on—were regarded as the work of demons; in fact so numerous were they, that there were special fiends for various parts of the human body—one for the head, another for the neck, and so on. Similarly in Egypt at the present day the jinn are believed to swarm so thickly that it is necessary to ask their permission before pouring water on the ground, lest one should accidentally be soused and vent his anger on the offending human being. But these beliefs are far from being confined to the uncivilized; Greek philosophers like Porphyry, no less than the fathers of the Church, held that the world was pervaded with spirits; side by side with the belief in witchcraft, we can trace through the middle ages the survival of primitive animistic views; and in our own day even these beliefs subsist in unsuspected vigour among the peasantry of the more uneducated European countries. In fact the ready acceptance of spiritualism testifies to the force with which the primitive animistic way of looking at things appealed to the white races in the middle of the last century.

Character of Spiritual World.—The ascription of malevolence to the world of spirits is by no means universal. In West Africa the Mpongwe believe in local spirits, just as do the Eskimo; but they are regarded as inoffensive in the main; true, the passer-by must make some trifling offering as he nears their place of abode; but it is only occasionally that mischievous acts, such as the throwing down of a tree on a passer-by, are, in the view of the

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Rh The parasite appears to do little or no harm to the native big game, but causes a deadly disease both in the horses and cattle introduced by Europeans and in the more anciently introduced native cattle (of Indian origin). Similar cases are found where a disease germ (such as that of measles) produces but a small degree of sickness and mortality in a population long associated with it, but is deadly to a human community to which it is a new-comer. Thus Europeans have introduced measles with deadly results into the South Sea Islands. A similar kind of difficulty, of which many might be cited, is brought about by man's importations and exportations of useful plants. He thus brought the Phylloxera to Europe, not realizing beforehand that this little parasitic bug, though harmless to the American vine which puts out new shoots on its roots when the insect injures the old ones, is absolutely deadly to the European vine, which has not acquired the simple but all-important mode of growth by which the American vine is rendered safe. Thus too he took the coffee-plant to Ceylon, and found his plantations suddenly devastated by a minute mould, the Hemileia vastatrix, which had lived very innocently before that in the Cingalese forests, but was ready to burst into rapacious and destructive activity when the new unadjusted coffee-trees were imported by man and presented in carefully crowded plantations to its unrestrained infection.

NOTE 8 (p. 29).

The phosphorescent disease of the sand-hopper (Talitrus) is described by Giard and Billet in a paper entitled 'Observations sur la maladie phosphorescente des Talitres et autres Crustacés,' in the memoirs of the Société de Biologie, Oct. 19, 1889.

Billet subsequently gave a further account of this organism, and named it Bacillus Giardi—after Professor Giard of Paris. (Bulletins scientifiques de la France et de la Belgique, xxi, 1898, p. 144.)

It appears that the parasite is transmitted from one individual to another in coition. The specimens studied by

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MONTESSORI, MARIA, an Italian doctor and educator; born in 1870, she received the degree of doctor of medicine when she was twenty-four years old, being the first woman in Italy to secure that degree. By her work as a doctor among feeble-minded children she became interested in the subject of their education. Her success in this field turned her attention to the education of normal children. In 1907 the House of Childhood was founded under her direction, and since that time others have followed.


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 rule has apparently taken place in Australia and New Zealand. Whether our Courts should follow these examples and extend the scope of what is admissible as background material for the purpose of interpreting statutes does not arise in the present case. We are concerned with the interpretation of the Constitution, and not the interpretation of ordinary legislation. A constitution is no ordinary statute. It is the source of legislative and executive authority. It determines how the country is to be governed and how legislation is to be enacted. It defines the powers of the different organs of State, including Parliament, the executive, and the courts as well as the fundamental rights of every person which must be respected in exercising such powers.

In countries in which the constitution is similarly the supreme law, it is not unusual for the courts to have regard to the circumstances existing at the time the constitution was adopted, including the debates and writings which formed part of the process. The United States Supreme Court pays attention to such matters, and its judgments frequently contain reviews of the legislative history of the provision in question, including references to debates, and statements made, at the time the provision was adopted. The German Constitutional Court also has regard to such evidence. The Canadian Supreme Court has held such evidence to be admissible, and has referred to the historical background including the pre-confederation debates for the purpose of interpreting provisions of the Canadian Constitution, although it attaches less weight to such information than the United States Supreme Court does. It also has regard to ministerial statements in Parliament in regard to the purpose of particular legislation. In India, whilst speeches of individual members of Parliament or the Convention are apparently not ordinarily admissible, the reports of drafting committees can, according to Seervai, "be a helpful extrinsic aid to construction." Seervai cites Kania CJ in A. K. Gopalan v The State for the proposition that whilst not taking "…into consideration the individual opinions of Members of Parliament or Convention to construe the meaning of a particular

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Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)/Montessori System

MONTESSORI SYSTEM, a method of instruction used by Dr. Maria Montessori and, as yet, used only in the branches of elementary education and with children between the ages of 3 and 10 years. It is largely the development of the ideas of Froebel, and more especially of Séguin and Itard. The chief principle is that of “self-education” — allowing the child to learn ideas by its own activity and by following its own inclinations and not by being dictated to or disciplined by the teacher. In the Montessori system there are no classes, no lessons. There are no rewards or punishment, the only incentive used is the desire on the child's part to do things well in which he or she is interested. When the child enters the school he sees groups of children playing games and joins the group which is doing the things he likes best. The games are ones involving the senses of touch, sight, and hearing, and are so arranged and conducted that these senses are soon developed without the child being conscious of learning a task. “Touch,” for example, is practiced by playing games blindfolded, hearing by playing games in the dark. The interest and attention of the child never wavers as in the conventional school system, since he is always doing what he likes. Writing comes before reading in the Montessori system and is learned by means of playing with letters, and imitating their shape. It usually takes a child of four years about two months to learn to write. “Reading” is learned by the application of similar methods. The role of the teacher in all this work is radically different from that under the old system. The material itself does the teaching, for it contains the control of errors. The teacher does not impart information; she is a “passive force, a silent presence.”


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 natives, perpetuated by the Ombuiri. So too, many of the spirits especially concerned with the operations of nature are conceived as neutral or even benevolent; the European peasant fears the corn-spirit only when he irritates him by trenching on his domain and taking his property by cutting the corn; similarly, there is no reason why the more insignificant personages of the pantheon should be conceived as malevolent, and we find that the Petara of the Dyaks are far from indiscriminating and malignant, though disease and death are laid at their door.

Classification.—Besides the distinctions of human and non-human, hostile and friendly, the demons in which the lower races believe are classified by them according to function, each class with a distinctive name, with extraordinary minuteness, the list in the case of the Malays running to several score. They have, for example, a demon of the waterfall, a demon of wild-beast tracks, a demon which interferes with snares for wild-fowl, a baboon demon, which takes possession of dancers and causes them to perform wonderful feats of climbing, &c. But it is impossible to do more than deal with a few types, which will illustrate the main features of the demonology of savage, barbarous and semi-civilized peoples.

(a) Natural causes, either of death or of disease, are hardly, if at all, recognized by the uncivilized; everything is attributed to spirits or magical influence of some sort. The spirits which cause disease may be human or non-human and their influence is shown in more than one way; they may enter the body of the victim (see ), and either dominate his mind as well as his body, inflict specific diseases, or cause pains of various sorts. Thus the Mintra of the Malay Peninsula have a demon corresponding to every kind of disease known to them; the Tasmanian ascribed a gnawing pain to the presence within him of the soul of a dead man, whom he had unwittingly summoned by mentioning his name and who was devouring his liver; the Samoan held that the violation of a food tabu would result in the animal being formed within the body of the offender and cause his death. The demon theory of disease is still attested by some of our medical terms; epilepsy (Gr., seizure) points to the belief that the patient is possessed. As a logical consequence of this view of disease the mode of treatment among peoples in the lower stages of culture is mainly magical; they endeavour to propitiate the evil spirits by sacrifice, to expel them by spells, &c. (see ), to drive them away by blowing, &c.; conversely we find the Khonds attempt to keep away smallpox by placing thorns and brushwood in the paths leading to places decimated by that disease, in the hope of making the disease demon retrace his steps. This theory of disease disappeared sooner than did the belief in possession; the energumens of the early Christian church, who were under the care of a special clerical order of exorcists, testify to a belief in possession; but the demon theory of disease receives no recognition; the energumens find their analogues in the converts of missionaries in China, Africa and elsewhere. Another way in which a demon is held to cause disease is by introducing itself into the patient’s body and sucking his blood; the Malays believe that a woman who dies in childbirth becomes a langsuir and sucks the blood of children; victims of the lycanthrope are sometimes said to be done to death in the same way; and it is commonly believed in Africa that the wizard has the power of killing people in this way, probably with the aid of a familiar.

(b) One of the primary meanings of is that of genius or familiar, tutelary spirit; according to Hesiod the men of the golden race became after death guardians or watchers over mortals. The idea is found among the Romans also; they attributed to every man a genius who accompanied him through life. A Norse belief found in Iceland is that the fylgia, a genius in animal form, attends human beings; and these animal guardians may sometimes be seen fighting; in the same way the Siberian shamans send their animal familiars to do battle instead of deciding their quarrels in person. The animal guardian reappears in the nagual of Central America (see article ), the yunbeai of some Australian tribes, the manitou of the Red Indian and the bush soul of some West African tribes; among the latter the link between animal and human being is said to be established by the ceremony of the blood bond. Corresponding to the animal guardian of the ordinary man, we have the familiar of the witch or wizard. All the world over it is held that such people can assume the form of animals; sometimes the power of the shaman is held to depend on his being able to summon his familiar; among the Ostiaks the shaman’s coat was covered with representations of birds and beasts; two bear’s claws were on his hands; his wand was covered with mouse-skin; when he wished to divine he beat his drum till a black bird appeared and perched on his hut; then the shaman swooned, the bird vanished, and the divination could begin. Similarly the Greenland angekok is said to summon his torngak (which may be an ancestral ghost or an animal) by drumming; he is heard by the bystanders to carry on a conversation and obtain advice as to how to treat diseases, the prospects of good weather and other matters of importance. The familiar, who is sometimes replaced by the devil, commonly figured in witchcraft trials; and a statute of James I. enacted that all persons invoking an evil spirit or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding or rewarding any evil spirit should be guilty of felony and suffer death. In modern spiritualism the familiar is represented by the “guide,” corresponding to which we have the theosophical “guru.”

(c) The familiar is sometimes an ancestral spirit, and here we touch the fringe of the cult of the dead (see also ). Especially among the lower races the dead are regarded as hostile; the Australian avoids the grave even of a kinsman and elaborate ceremonies of mourning are found amongst most primitive peoples, whose object seems to be to rid the living of the danger they run by association with the ghost of the dead. Among the Zulu the spirits of the dead are held to be friendly or hostile, just as they were in life; on the Congo a man after death joins the good or bad spirits according as his life has been good or bad. Especially feared among many peoples are the souls of those who have committed suicide or died a violent death; the woman who dies in childbed is held to become a demon of the most dangerous kind; even the unburied, as restless, dissatisfied spirits, are more feared than ordinary ghosts. Naturally spirits of these latter kinds are more valuable as familiars than ordinary dead men’s souls. We find many recipes for securing their aid. In the Malay Peninsula the blood of a murdered man must be put in a bottle and prayers said over; after seven days of this worship a sound is heard and the operator puts his finger into the bottle for the polong, as the demon is called, to suck; it will fly through the air in the shape of an exceedingly diminutive female figure, and is always preceded by its pet, the pelesit, in the shape of a grasshopper. In Europe a similar demon is said to be obtainable from a cock’s egg. In South Africa and India, on the other hand, the magician digs up a dead body, especially of a child, to secure a familiar. The evocation of spirits, especially in the form of necromancy, is an important branch of the demonology of many peoples; and the peculiarities of trance mediumship, which seem sufficiently established by modern research, go far to explain the vogue of this art. It seems to have been common among the Jews, and the case of the witch of Endor is narrated in a way to suggest something beyond fraud; in the book of magic which bears the name of Dr Faustus may be found many of the formulae for raising demons; in England may be mentioned especially Dr Dee as one of the most famous of those who claimed before the days of modern (q.v.) to have intercourse with the unseen world and to summon demons at his will. Sometimes the spirits were summoned to appear as did the phantoms of the Greek heroes to Odysseus; sometimes they were called to enter a crystal (see ); sometimes they are merely asked to declare the future or communicate by moving external objects without taking a visible form; thus among the Karens at the close of the burial ceremonies the ghost of the dead man, which is said to hover round till the rites are completed, is believed to make a ring swing round and snap the string from which it hangs.

(d) The vampire is a particular form of demon which calls for

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See RichardF @ Wikipedia.

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 some notice. In the Malay Peninsula, parts of Polynesia, &c., it is conceived as a head with attached entrails, which issues, it may be from the grave, to suck the blood of living human beings. According to the Malays a penanggalan (vampire) is a living witch, and can be killed if she can be caught; she is especially feared in houses where a birth has taken place and it is the custom to hang up a bunch of thistle in order to catch her; she is said to keep vinegar at home to aid her in re-entering her own body. In Europe the Slavonic area is the principal seat of vampire beliefs, and here too we find, as a natural development, that means of preventing the dead from injuring the living have been evolved by the popular mind. The corpse of the vampire, which may often be recognized by its unnaturally ruddy and fresh appearance, should be staked down in the grave or its head should be cut off; it is interesting to note that the cutting off of heads of the dead was a neolithic burial rite.

(e) The vampire is frequently blended in popular idea with the  (q.v.) or knocking spirit, and also with the werwolf (see ).

(f) As might be expected, dream demons are very common; in fact the word “nightmare” (A.S. mær, spirit, elf) preserves for us a record of this form of belief, which is found right down to the lowest planes of culture. The Australian, when he suffers from an oppression in his sleep, says that Koin is trying to throttle him; the Caribs say that Maboya beats them in their sleep; and the belief persists to this day in some parts of Europe; horses too are said to be subject to the persecutions of demons, which ride them at night. Another class of nocturnal demons are the incubi and succubi, who are said to consort with human beings in their sleep; in the Antilles these were the ghosts of the dead; in New Zealand likewise ancestral deities formed liaisons with females; in the Samoan Islands the inferior gods were regarded as the fathers of children otherwise unaccounted for; the Hindus have rites prescribed by which a companion nymph may be secured. The question of the real existence of incubi and succubi, whom the Romans identified with the fauns, was gravely discussed by the fathers of the church; and in 1418 Innocent VIII. set forth the doctrine of lecherous demons as an indisputable fact; and in the history of the Inquisition and of trials for witchcraft may be found the confessions of many who bore witness to their reality. In the Anatomy of Melancholy Burton assures us that they were never more numerous than in 1600.

(g) Corresponding to the personal tutelary spirit (supra, b) we have the genii of buildings and places. The Romans celebrated the birthday of a town and of its genius, just as they celebrated that of a man; and a snake was a frequent form for this kind of demon; when we compare with this the South African belief that the snakes which are in the neighbourhood of the kraal are the incarnations of the ancestors of the residents, it seems probable that some similar idea lay at the bottom of the Roman belief; to this day in European folklore the house snake or toad, which lives in the cellar, is regarded as the “life index” or other self of the father of the house; the death of one involves the death of the other, according to popular belief. The assignment of genii to buildings and gates is connected with an important class of sacrifices; in order to provide a tutelary spirit, or to appease chthonic deities, it was often the custom to sacrifice a human being or an animal at the foundation of a building; sometimes we find a similar guardian provided for the frontier of a country or of a tribe. The house spirit is, however, not necessarily connected with this idea. In Russia the domovoi (house spirit) is an important personage in folk-belief; he may object to certain kinds of animals, or to certain colours in cattle; and must, generally speaking, be propitiated and cared for. Corresponding to him we have the drudging goblin of English folklore.

(h) It has been shown above how the animistic creed postulates the existence of all kinds of local spirits, which are sometimes tied to their habitats, sometimes free to wander. Especially prominent in Europe, classical, medieval and modern, and in East Asia, is the spirit of the lake, river, spring, or well, often conceived as human, but also in the form of a bull or horse; the term Old Nick may refer to the water-horse Nök. Less specialized in their functions are many of the figures of modern folklore, some of whom have perhaps replaced some ancient goddess, e.g. Frau Holda; others, like the Welsh Pwck, the Lancashire boggarts or the more widely found Jack-o’-Lantern (Will o’ the Wisp), are sprites who do no more harm than leading the wanderer astray. The banshee is perhaps connected with ancestral or house spirits; the Wild Huntsman, the Gabriel hounds, the Seven Whistlers, &c., are traceable to some actual phenomenon; but the great mass of British goblindom cannot now be traced back to savage or barbarous analogues. Among other local sprites may be mentioned the kobolds or spirits of the mines. The fairies (see ), located in the fairy knolls by the inhabitants of the Shetlands, may also be put under this head.

(i) The subject of plant souls is referred to in connexion with (q.v.); but certain aspects of this phase of belief demand more detailed treatment. Outside the European area vegetation spirits of all kinds seem to be conceived, as a rule, as anthropomorphic; in classical Europe, and parts of the Slavonic area at the present day, the tree spirit was believed to have the form of a goat, or to have goats’ feet.

Of special importance in Europe is the conception of the so-called “corn spirit”; W. Mannhardt collected a mass of information proving that the life of the corn is supposed to exist apart from the corn itself and to take the form, sometimes of an animal, sometimes of a man or woman, sometimes of a child. There is, however, no proof that the belief is animistic in the proper sense. The animal which popular belief identified with the corn demon is sometimes killed in the spring in order to mingle its blood or bones with the seed; at harvest-time it is supposed to sit in the last corn and the animals driven out from it are sometimes killed; at others the reaper who cuts the last ear is said to have killed the “wolf” or the “dog,” and sometimes receives the name of “wolf” or “dog” and retains it till the next harvest. The corn spirit is also said to be hiding in the barn till the corn is threshed, or it may be said to reappear at midwinter, when the farmer begins to think of his new year of labour and harvest. Side by side with the conception of the corn spirit as an animal is the anthropomorphic view of it; and this element must have predominated in the evolution of the cereal deities like Demeter; at the same time traces of the association of gods and goddesses of corn with animal embodiments of the corn spirit are found.

(j) In many parts of the world, and especially in Africa, is found the conception termed the “otiose creator”; that is to say, the belief in a great deity, who is the author of all that exists but is too remote from the world and too high above terrestrial things to concern himself with the details of the universe. As a natural result of this belief we find the view that the operations of nature are conducted by a multitude of more or less obedient subordinate deities; thus, in Portuguese West Africa the Kimbunda believe in Suku-Vakange, but hold that he has committed the government of the universe to innumerable kilulu good and bad; the latter kind are held to be far more numerous, but Suku-Vakange is said to keep them in order by occasionally smiting them with his thunderbolts; were it not for this, man’s lot would be insupportable.

Sometimes the gods of an older religion degenerate into the demons of the belief which supersedes it. A conspicuous example of this is found in the attitude of the Hebrew prophets to the gods of the nations, whose power they recognize without admitting their claim to reverence and sacrifice. The same tendency is seen in many early missionary works and is far from being without influence even at the present day. In the folklore of European countries goblindom is peopled by gods and nature-spirits of an earlier heathendom. We may also compare the Persian devs with the Indian devas.

Expulsion of Demons.—In connexion with demonology mention must be made of the custom of expelling ghosts, spirits or evils generally. Primitive peoples from the Australians upwards celebrate, usually at fixed intervals, a driving out of hurtful influences. Sometimes, as among the Australians, it is merely the ghosts of those who have died in the year which are thus

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 * }

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Author:William Henry Smith (1833-1896)

Works

 * A Political History of Slavery (1903)

Works about Smith
"Review of A Political History of Slavery", by James A. Woodburn, in The American Historical Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Jan., 1904)

title: Author:William Henry Smith (1833-1896)