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 Mr. Swingler In that case, the means of laying that suspicion is for the Government to accept that a prima facie case for an inquiry into these companies has been established and for them to promise to set up such an inquiry. We want to know that that investigation will be begun before the House adjourns. We want to know the powers and the nature of that investigation before the House adjourns, maybe for the purposes of this Parliament for ever.

Therefore, before we are asked to decide upon the Motion, I hope that the Leader of the; House will be able to tell us that before the end of this week the Minister of Housing and Local Government will state exactly the nature and membership of the Milner Holland Committee which is to inquire into the exploitation of tenants; and, further, that an independent investigation will be set up into racketeering companies involved in speculation and over-valuation of land, about whom many of us are very anxious to submit evidence.

3.57 p.m.

Mr. William Warbey (Ashfield) I, too, wish to oppose the Motion, for the reasons given by my hon. Friends the Members for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) and Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) and for an additional reason.

I hope that the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and for the Colonies will be informed by the Leader of the House that there is a good deal of concern at this moment about the date which the Government intend to fix for the inauguration of Malaysia under the Malaysia Bill. So far, we have had the announcement of the intention as being 31st August.

I hope that before the debate is concluded, if the Leader of the House cannot persuade the Secretary of State to come here and make a statement, he will at least use the good offices of his Parliamentary Private Secretary to convey a message to the Secretary of State so that we can have a reply given to us at the end of the debate.

This is a matter which will involve the most profound and serious international repercussions. At this moment there is going on in Manila a summit conference of the heads of Malaya, the Philippines and Indonesia. The question of the Federation and the timing of the inauguration of the Federation has now become a question which may have very serious repercussions indeed, unless Her Majesty's Government are now prepared to act with some wisdom.

Complaints have been made from this side about the forcing of the pace of federation, but die doubts have been set aside because it was said that at a previous conference of the Foreign Ministers of the three countries in South-East Asia an agreement was reached between all three and that Indonesia and the Philippines said that they would welcome the formation of the Federation of Malaysia. The right hon. Gentleman will know—his right hon. Friends certainly know, because they were informed of it during the course of the debate on the Malaysia Bill—that that welcome was conditional.

It was conditional on one very important proviso which was written into the agreement signed by the Foreign Ministers and now forming the substance of the Manila conference. The proviso was that the support of the people of the Borneo territories should be ascertained by an independent and impartial authority, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, or his representative. Moreover, the representative of Malaya at that conference undertook to consult Her Majesty's Government about the steps to be taken to implement this agreement, in consultation with the Secretary-General.

I want to know, and the House is entitled to know, the answer to the question which was not answered during the Second Reading and other stages of the Malaysia Bill—whether those consultations with the Secretary-General have taken place and what action the British Government propose to take following those consultations. My information is that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, has made it clear that he could not ascertain the views of the people of the Borneo territories unless he was given a period of three or four months in which to make the necessary arrangements for finding out their views. If my information is wrong, I hope that it will be put right, but if it


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hughes, Charles Evans

HUGHES, CHARLES EVANS (1862-), American statesman, was born at Glen Falls, N.Y., April 11 1862. He graduated from Brown University in 1881. He then studied law at Columbia (LL.B. 1884). He was admitted to the bar in 1884 and for seven years practised in New York City. From 1891 to 1893 he was professor of law at Cornell and then resumed practice in New York City, serving at the same time for several years as lecturer in the New York Law school. In 1905 he was counsel for a commission appointed by the New York Legislature to investigate the cost of gas, and in the same and the following year was counsel for a legislative committee for investigating life-insurance companies. This investigation revealed many irregularities in the management of the companies and led to the

passage by the Legislature of New York and of other states of remedial legislation. The same year he was nominated by the Republicans for mayor of New York City but declined to run. In 1906 he was elected governor of New York State, defeating William Randolph Hearst, and was reëlected in 1908. He resigned in Oct. 1910 after being appointed associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by President Taft. In 1916 he resigned from the Supreme Court on being nominated for the presidency by the Republicans, but was narrowly defeated by President Woodrow Wilson, who had been renominated by the Democrats. Hughes's election was considered assured when the campaign began; but though he “stumped” the country widely he disappointed the people because he took no definite position on any of the specific questions involving the stand of America in the World War and especially as regards the sinking of the “Lusitania.” The result of the election was doubtful until a full count had been made, and eventually hinged upon Minnesota and California, normally Republican states. Hughes carried Minnesota by a few hundred votes but lost California by a few thousand. The electoral vote was 276 for Wilson against 255 for Hughes. The popular vote was 9,116,000 for Wilson against 8,547,000 for Hughes. The following year he again entered upon the practice of law in New York City. In 1917 he was appointed chairman of the Draft Appeals Board of New York City by Governor Whitman, and the following year was special assistant to the U.S. Attorney-General, in charge of the investigation of alleged waste and delay in the construction of aircraft. He was president of the New York State Bar Association in 1917-8 and of the Legal Aid Society 1917-9. He was opposed to Article X. of the League of Nations Covenant and urged special recognition of the Monroe Doctrine. He was the leader of the New York Bar Assn. in its opposition to the expulsion of the Socialists from the N.Y. State Legislature in 1920. In 1921 he entered the Cabinet of President Harding as Secretary of State. He was one of the four U.S. delegates to the Conference on Limitation of Armament, held in Washington, D.C., Nov. 1921, and was elected permanent chairman (see ).

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 is not corrected, I shall stand by it.

Are Her Majesty's Government now intent on rushing ahead with the in auguration of this Federation against the opposition of Indonesia and possibly of the Philippines and without giving the Secretary-General proper time to conduct the investigations which were promised by the Tunku of Malaya? If Her Majesty's Government are not able to give an assurance that the date for the inauguration will be postponed long enough to enable the United Nations investigation to take place, we shall be forced to conclude that once again Her Majesty's Government are prepared to use the United Nations to cover up—

Mr. Speaker I had some hopes, in the interests of the hon. Member, that at that point he was about to say that in certain circumstances he would oppose the Motion. He will have to bring his observations somewhere in relation to the Motion.

Mr. Warbey I was about to do that, Mr. Speaker. I recognise that in my last sentence I was possibly straying a little outside the terms of the Motion in expressing my own view of what should happen.

I conclude by saying—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I could go on for quite a long time if hon. Members opposite wish. There are a number of other reasons why hon. Members ought to oppose the Motion, but I do not wish to produce them at this moment.

I will conclude by expressing the hope that the Government will show some respect for the authority of the United Nations, will recognise that this is an international question on which United Nations mediation will be required in the future if not now, and will take the necessary steps to delay the implementation of federation so that the Secretary-General can make a proper investigation of what the people of these territories really want.

4.5 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle(Blackburn) I suggest to the Leader of the House that we cannot rise for three months until we have had a satisfactory solution of the problem of Malta. As the House is well aware, very important talks are going on—at least, we hope that they are still going on—to draw up a constitution for an independent Malta. It is a welcome fact that on both sides of the House there is broad agreement that the time has come to give independence to Malta, and thus there is an opportunity for solving on an agreed basis what has been a longstanding subject of controversy between us.

However, there are disturbing Press reports that the talks have been running into difficulties and might be in danger of breaking down. It would be quite undesirable for this country to launch Malta on the seas of independence without having first endowed her with a thoroughly modern and democratic constitution under which fair elections could be held. The House will be aware that the Malta Labour Party has long held that such conditions for fair elections do not exist in Malta and that the last elections were not fairly conducted. Indeed, it supplied documentary evidence to the Special Commission of the United Nations on what it claimed were grave irregularities in the conduct of the elections in February. 1962.

As a result of that evidence, we on this side of the House have frequently pressed the Government for an inquiry into those elections. The Government have not seen, fit to agree, but on 10th May of this year the Special Commission of the United Nations pointed out that the conditions under which the general election of February, 1962, took place—

Mr. Speaker Order. I am anxious to help the hon. Lady, but we cannot discuss the merits or demerits of various aspects of constitution-making upon this Motion. The problem is whether the House, at its rising on Friday, do adjourn until Thursday, 24th October, at eleven o'clock.

Mrs. Castle I am trying to explain the points upon which these talks on Malta are in danger of breaking down. If this


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 breakdown takes place, it will be intolerable for the House to rise until it has had not only a statement from the Government, but an opportunity for discussing the causes of the breakdown. It is because I am hopeful that the Adjournment of the House will not be delayed that I am trying to bring to the attention of the Government the danger points around which the breakdown is likely to take place. I am quoting the Malta Labour Party's case of the conduct of the elections to prove that there is a case to which we must give serious consideration.

There must be a constitution which will ensure that undue influence of any kind is not used during the election and under which the Malta Labour Party will have the right to press its claim that there should be fresh elections in Malta before independence takes place as the United Nations Special Committee drew attention to the controversy which raged about the conduct of the last elections and suggested that the holding of new elections under international observation ought to be considered by the administering Power, which is us.

I am, therefore, asking for some enlightenment on this issue, because my attitude to the Motion would be governed by the reply I got. I would have to oppose the Motion unless I was satisfied that we were to have a statement and that that statement would show that the Government were meeting the legitimate minimum democratic demands of the Malta Labour Party. If they are not, all the statement would tell us would be that there had been a breakdown in the talks and that we were to impose undemocratic solutions on Malta.

I am not prepared to go away for three months and leave the situation like that. That is why my attitude to this Motion will be governed by the sort of answer I get today, and whether we get an assurance that this Government will not say to Malta, "You can have independence, but you cannot have it on the basis of a democratic, modern-type constitution equivalent to that in every other democratic country in the world, and you cannot have fresh elections before independence takes place". If the Government give those answers, the talks will break down, and there will be an imposed solution, a solution which I would not wish the House to accept.

4.10 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson (Penistone) I shall not support the Motion unless the right hon. Gentleman informs the House of the Government's intentions with regard to the publication of the Denning report. This matter has become all the more urgent and important because of the possibility of an autumn General Election. I know that it will not be very easy for the Leader of the House to let us into the Government's secret on this matter.

Mr. Lipton The right hon. Gentleman has already done that.

Mr. Mendelson If my hon. Friend has that information, good luck to him, but I have to confess ignorance in the matter.

But that is not the issue that I am putting to the Leader of the House. The Government have carefully cleared the decks and made it possible for the House to adjourn without having any business to return to in the autumn. They have made it possible for there to be a General Election during the Recess.

The matter of the Denning report is a very serious one indeed. The method of inquiry was decided on by the Government. As the House knows, there was a good deal of disagreement on the precise form of the inquiry. There were demands for a Select Committee, and also for other types of inquiry. The Government's view prevailed in the end, as it must, but it means that this Report will be submitted to the Prime Minister, and it will be for him to decide the way in which Members of the House, and the general public, should learn what is in it.

It is conceivable that some time during the Recess the report will be sent to the Prime Minister, who will then consider it. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will supply my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition with a copy of the report, and there will then be discussions between them to decide which parts of the report should be published, and it is here that the first difficulty arises.


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Warren, Whitney

WARREN, WHITNEY (1864-), American architect, was born in New York City Jan. 29 1864. After studying at the

École des Beaux Arts, Paris, under Daumet and Girault (1885-1894), he began the practice of architecture in New York, later becoming associated with Charles D. Wetmore under the firm-name of Warren & Wetmore. They specialized in railway architecture, hotels, business buildings and residences, and were architects for the New York Central, Michigan Central, Canadian Northern, and Erie railways. Their numerous structures in New York City include the Chelsea docks and the hotels Belmont (1905), Vanderbilt (1910), Biltmore (1912), and Commodore (1916). During and following the World War, Warren supported actively the claims of Italy in the Adriatic. He was an intimate friend of d'Annunzio, and was appointed diplomatic representative in the United States of the “Free State of Fiume.” In 1920 he was chosen by the International Committee to reconstruct the library of the university of Louvain, destroyed by the Germans in 1914. He was a member of the Institut de France, the Académie des Beaux Arts, the Royal Academy of St. Luke (Rome), and other foreign academies. He was the author of Les Justes Revendications de l'Italie: la Question de Trente, de Trieste et de l'Adriatique. Many of his addresses, delivered 1914-9, were published and widely distributed.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, John (1420?-1500)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, John (1671-1726)


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, John (1781-1864)


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Washington, Booker Taliaferro

WASHINGTON, BOOKER TALIAFERRO (c. 1859-1915), American negro teacher and reformer (see ), died at Tuskegee, Ala., Nov. 14 1915, as the result of a breakdown due to overwork. His last public address was delivered on Oct. 25 before the national conference of Congregational churches in New York City. At Tuskegee he was succeeded by Robert R. Moton. He was the author of My Larger Education: Being Chapters From My Experience (1911) and The Man Farthest Down; a Record of Observation and Study in Europe (1912).


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 the articles, and.

See C. A. Bjerknes, Niels Henrik Abel: Tableau de sa vie et son action scientifique (Paris, 1885); Lucas de Peslouan, Niels Henrik Abel (Paris, 1906).

ABEL (better ), THOMAS (d. 1540), an English priest who was martyred during the reign of Henry VIII. The place and date of his birth are unknown. He was educated at Oxford and entered the service of Queen Catherine some time before 1528, when he was sent by her to the emperor Charles V. on a mission relating to the proposed divorce. On his return he was presented by Catherine to the living of Bradwell, in Essex, and remained to the last a staunch supporter of the unfortunate queen. In 1533, he published his Invicta Veritas (with the fictitious pressmark of Luneberge, to avoid suspicion), which contained an answer to the numerous tracts supporting Henry’s ecclesiastical claims. After an imprisonment of more than six years, Abel was sentenced to death for denying the royal supremacy in the church, and was executed at Smithfield on the 30th of July 1540. There is still to be seen on the wall of his prison in the Tower the symbol of a bell with an A upon it and the name Thomas above, which he carved during his confinement. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII.

See J. Gillow’s Bibl. Dictionary of Eng. Catholics, vol. i.; Calendar of State Papers of Henry VIII., vols. iv.-vii. passim.

ABELARD, PETER (1079–1142), scholastic philosopher, was born at Pallet (Palais), not far from Nantes, in 1079. He was the eldest son of a noble Breton house. The name Abaelardus (also written Abailardus, Abaielardus, and in many other ways) is said to be a corruption of Habelardus, substituted by himself for a nickname Bajolardus given to him when a student. As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the knightly career natural to a youth of his birth, early became an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy, meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal study in the episcopal schools. Roscellinus, the famous canon of Compiègne, is mentioned by himself as his teacher; but whether he heard this champion of extreme Nominalism in early youth, when he wandered about from school to school for instruction and exercise, or some years later, after he had already begun to teach for himself, remains uncertain. His wanderings finally brought him to Paris, still under the age of twenty. There, in the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame, he sat for a while under the teaching of William of Champeaux, the disciple of St Anselm and most advanced of Realists, but, presently stepping forward, he overcame the master in discussion, and thus began a long duel that issued in the downfall of the philosophic theory of Realism, till then dominant in the early Middle Age. First, in the teeth of opposition from the metropolitan teacher, while yet only twenty-two, he proceeded to set up a school of his own at Melun, whence, for more direct competition, he removed to Corbeil, nearer Paris. The success of his teaching was signal, though for a time he had to quit the field, the strain proving too great for his physical strength. On his return, after 1108, he found William lecturing no longer at Notre-Dame, but in a monastic retreat outside the city, and there battle was again joined between them. Forcing upon the Realist a material change of doctrine, he was once more victorious, and thenceforth he stood supreme. His discomfited rival still had power to keep him from lecturing in Paris, but soon failed in this last effort also. From Melun, where he had resumed teaching, Abelard passed to the capital, and set up his school on the heights of St Geneviève, looking over Notre-Dame. From his success in dialectic, he next turned to theology and attended the lectures of Anselm at Laon. His triumph over the theologian was complete; the pupil was able to give lectures, without previous training or special study, which were acknowledged superior to those of the master. Abelard was now at the height of his fame. He stepped into the chair at Notre-Dame, being also nominated canon, about the year 1115.

Few teachers ever held such sway as Abelard now did for a time. Distinguished in figure and manners, he was seen surrounded by crowds—it is said thousands—of students, drawn from all countries by the fame of his teaching, in which acuteness of thought was relieved by simplicity and grace of exposition. Enriched by the offerings of his pupils, and feasted with universal admiration, he came, as he says, to think himself the only philosopher standing in the world. But a change in his fortunes was at hand. In his devotion to science, he had hitherto lived a very regular life, varied only by the excitement of conflict: now, at the height of his fame, other passions began to stir within him. There lived at that time, within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, a young girl named Heloise, of noble extraction, and born about 1101. Fair, but still more remarkable for her knowledge, which extended beyond Latin, it is said, to Greek and Hebrew, she awoke a feeling of love in the breast of Abelard; and with intent to win her, he sought and gained a footing in Fulbert’s house as a regular inmate. Becoming also tutor to the maiden, he used the unlimited power which he thus obtained over her for the purpose of seduction, though not without cherishing a real affection which she returned in unparalleled devotion. Their relation interfering with his public work, and being, moreover, ostentatiously sung by himself, soon became known to all the world except the too-confiding Fulbert; and, when at last it could not escape even his vision, they were separated only to meet in secret. Thereupon Heloise found herself pregnant, and was carried off by her lover to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son. To appease her furious uncle, Abelard now proposed a marriage, under the condition that it should be kept secret, in order not to mar his prospects of advancement in the church; but of marriage, whether public or secret, Heloise would hear nothing. She appealed to him not to sacrifice for her the independence of his life, nor did she finally yield to the arrangement without the darkest forebodings, only too soon to be realized. The secret of the marriage was not kept by Fulbert; and when Heloise, true to her singular purpose, boldly denied it, life was made so unsupportable to her that she sought refuge in the convent of Argenteuil. Immediately Fulbert, believing that her husband, who aided in the flight, designed to be rid of her, conceived a dire revenge. He and some others broke into Abelard’s chamber by night, and perpetrated on him the most brutal mutilation. Thus cast down from his pinnacle of greatness into an abyss of shame and misery, there was left to the brilliant master only the life of a monk. The priesthood and ecclesiastical office were canonically closed to him. Heloise, not yet twenty, consummated her work of self-sacrifice at the call of his jealous love, and took the veil.

It was in the abbey of St Denis that Abelard, now aged forty, sought to bury himself with his woes out of sight. Finding, however, in the cloister neither calm nor solitude, and having gradually turned again to study, he yielded after a year to urgent entreaties from without and within, and went forth to reopen his school at the priory of Maisoncelle (1120). His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, were heard again by crowds of students, and all his old influence seemed to have returned; but old enmities were revived also, against which he was no longer able as before to make head. No sooner had he put in writing his theological lectures (apparently the Introductio ad Theologiam that has come down to us), than his adversaries fell foul of his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial synod held at Soissons in 1121, they procured by irregular practices a condemnation of his teaching, whereby he was made to throw his book into the flames and then was shut up in the convent of St Médard at Soissons. After the other, it was the bitterest possible experience that could befall him, nor, in the state of mental desolation into which it plunged him, could he find any comfort from being soon again set free. The life in his own monastery proved no more congenial than formerly. For this Abelard himself was partly responsible. He took a sort of malicious pleasure in irritating the monks. Quasi jocando, he

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text: Hansard of Parliament of the United Kingdom (1963) - Malaysia Bill/BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, Nicholas


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, Richard


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 cited Bede to prove that Dionysius the Areopagite had been bishop of Corinth, while they relied upon the statement of the abbot Hilduin that he had been bishop of Athens. When this historical heresy led to the inevitable persecution, Abelard wrote a letter to the abbot Adam in which he preferred to the authority of Bede that of Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiastica and St Jerome, according to whom Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, was distinct from Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens and founder of the abbey, though, in deference to Bede, he suggested that the Areopagite might also have been bishop of Corinth. Life in the monastery was intolerable for such a troublesome spirit, and Abelard, who had once attempted to escape the persecution he had called forth by flight to a monastery at Provins, was finally allowed to withdraw. In a desert place near Nogent-sur-Seine, he built himself a cabin of stubble and reeds, and turned hermit. But there fortune came back to him with a new surprise. His retreat becoming known, students flocked from Paris, and covered the wilderness around him with their tents and huts. When he began to teach again he found consolation, and in gratitude he consecrated the new oratory they built for him by the name of the Paraclete.

Upon the return of new dangers, or at least of fears, Abelard left the Paraclete to make trial of another refuge, accepting an invitation to preside over the abbey of St Gildas-de-Rhuys, on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. It proved a wretched exchange. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to lawless exaction, the house itself savage and disorderly. Yet for nearly ten years he continued to struggle with fate before he fled from his charge, yielding in the end only under peril of violent death. The misery of those years was not, however, unrelieved; for he had been able, on the breaking up of Heloise’s convent at Argenteuil, to establish her as head of a new religious house at the deserted Paraclete, and in the capacity of spiritual director he often was called to revisit the spot thus made doubly dear to him. All this time Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon her youth; but now, at last, the occasion came for expressing all the pent-up emotions of her soul. Living on for some time apart (we do not know exactly where), after his flight from St Gildas, Abelard wrote, among other things, his famous Historia Calamitatum, and thus moved her to pen her first Letter, which remains an unsurpassed utterance of human passion and womanly devotion; the first being followed by the two other Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to her. He not long after was seen once more upon the field of his early triumphs lecturing on Mount St Geneviève in 1136 (when he was heard by John of Salisbury), but it was only for a brief space: no new triumph, but a last great trial, awaited him in the few years to come of his chequered life. As far back as the Paraclete days, he had counted as chief among his foes Bernard of Clairvaux, in whom was incarnated the principle of fervent and unhesitating faith, from which rational inquiry like his was sheer revolt, and now this uncompromising spirit was moving, at the instance of others, to crush the growing evil in the person of the boldest offender. After preliminary negotiations, in which Bernard was roused by Abelard’s steadfastness to put forth all his strength, a council met at Sens (1141), before which Abelard, formally arraigned upon a number of heretical charges, was prepared to plead his cause. When, however, Bernard, not without foregone terror in the prospect of meeting the redoubtable dialectician, had opened the case, suddenly Abelard appealed to Rome. The stroke availed him nothing; for Bernard, who had power, notwithstanding, to get a condemnation passed at the council, did not rest a moment till a second condemnation was procured at Rome in the following year. Meanwhile, on his way thither to urge his plea in person, Abelard had broken down at the abbey of Cluny, and there, an utterly fallen man, with spirit of the humblest, and only not bereft of his intellectual force, he lingered but a few months before the approach of death. Removed by friendly hands, for the relief of his sufferings, to the priory of St Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Saone, he died on the 21st of April 1142. First buried at St Marcel, his remains soon after were carried off in secrecy to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Heloise, who in time came herself to rest beside them (1164). The bones of the pair were shifted more than once afterwards, but they were marvellously preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now they lie united in the well-known tomb in the cemetery of Père-la-Chaise at Paris.

Great as was the influence exerted by Abelard on the minds of his contemporaries and the course of medieval thought, he has been little known in modern times but for his connexion with Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the 19th century, when Cousin in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard, that his philosophical performance could be judged at first hand; of his strictly philosophical works only one, the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin’s collection, besides giving extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from the Fathers as a basis for discussion, the main interest in which lies in the fact that there is no attempt to reconcile the different opinions), includes the Dialectica, commentaries on logical works of Aristotle, Porphyry and Boëthius, and a fragment, De Generibus et Speciebus. The last-named work, and also the psychological treatise De Intellectibus, published apart by Cousin (in Fragmens Philosophiques, vol. ii.), are now considered upon internal evidence not to be by Abelard himself, but only to have sprung out of his school. A genuine work, the Glossulae super Porphyrium, from which Charles de Rémusat, in his classical monograph Abélard (1845), has given extracts, remains in manuscript.

The general importance of Abelard lies in his having fixed more decisively than any one before him the scholastic manner of philosophizing, with its object of giving a formally rational expression to the received ecclesiastical doctrine. However his own particular interpretations may have been condemned, they were conceived in essentially the same spirit as the general scheme of thought afterwards elaborated in the 13th century with approval from the heads of the church. Through him was prepared in the Middle Age the ascendancy of the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became firmly established in the half-century after his death, when first the completed Organon, and gradually all the other works of the Greek thinker, came to be known in the schools: before his time it was rather upon the authority of Plato that the prevailing Realism sought to lean. As regards his so-called Conceptualism and his attitude to the question of Universals, see. Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. His thought in this direction, wherein he anticipated something of modern speculation, is the more remarkable because his scholastic successors accomplished least in the field of morals, hardly venturing to bring the principles and rules of conduct under pure philosophical discussion, even after the great ethical inquiries of Aristotle became fully known to them.

.—Abelard’s own works remain the best sources for his life, especially his Historia Calamitatum, an autobiography, and the correspondence with Heloise. The literature on Abelard is extensive, but consists principally of monographs on different aspects of his philosophy. Charles de Rémusat’s Abélard (2 vols., 1845) remains an authority; it must be distinguished from his drama Abélard (1877), which is an attempt to give a picture of medieval life. McCabe’s life of Abelard is written closely from the sources. See also the valuable analysis by Nitsch in the article “Abälard” in Hauck’s ''Realencyklopädie f. prot. Theol. u. Kirche'', 3rd ed., 1896. There is a comprehensive bibliography in U. Chevalier, ''Répertoire des sources hist. du moyen âge'', s. “Abailard.”

ABELIN, JOHANN PHILIPP, an early 16th-century German chronicler, was born, probably, at Strasburg, and died there between the years 1634 and 1637. He wrote numerous histories over the pseudonyms of Philipp Arlanibäus, Abeleus and Johann Ludwig Gottfried or Gotofredus, his earliest works of importance

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text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Morton, Thomas (d.1646)


text: Author:Horace Woollaston Monckton

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The New International Encyclopædia/Semites

SEMITES. A name used to designate a certain group of peoples whose close kinship is revealed by many physical and mental characteristics, but especially by language and religion. The term is derived from the table of nations in Genesis x., in which the eponym heroes of some Mediterranean peoples known to the authors are represented as descendants of the three sons of ../Noah/, ../Shem/, ../Ham/, and ../Japhet/ (qq.v.). But, as a matter of fact, all the nations here grouped under Shem are not akin; some of the peoples arranged under Ham are evidently kinsmen of the leading nations reckoned as descendants of Shem, and some peoples are mentioned under both Shem and Ham. Historical and geographical reasons seem to some extent to have prevailed in the arrangement. But in spite of the inexact classification in Genesis x., the term ‘Semites’ has been retained for the sake of convenience in preference to other designations which have been proposed, such as ‘Syro-Arabians’ or simply ‘Arabs.’ As it is now used, it indicates Babylonians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans; Phœnicians, Carthaginians, and other Canaanites; Israelites, Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites; Arameans; Arabians and Ethiopians.

As to the original home of these Semitic peoples there is a preponderance of opinion in favor of Arabia or Africa. On the other hand, recent discoveries have tended to revive the idea of a Babylonian origin. Certain customs, possessions, and achievements of the early Egyptians exhibit a marked similarity to those of their contemporaries in Babylonia. Some scholars find it most natural to explain the introduction of metals, domestic animals, a peculiar mode of burial, and the use of brick in a land where stone is found in plenty, by the immigration into the Nile Valley of a Semitic race that once lived in Babylonia. Closer examination, however, has shown the identity of the Neolithic race in Egypt with the dynastic Egyptians. The

close affinity ethnologically between the Egyptians and the other so-called Hamitic peoples, such as the Libyans, the Berbers, the Cushites, the Gatlas, the Danakils, and the Somali, renders it improbable that the Egyptians were immigrants from Asia. Nevertheless, the kinship of the North African languages with the Semitic speech is unmistakably shown in numerals and prepositions, noun formation and verb inflection, syntax, and morphology. (See .) Some scholars have therefore drawn the conclusion that the Semites are likely to have lived originally in Africa, though not as differentiated Semites, and to have crossed into Arabia by Bab el-Mandeb or Suez, where in new surroundings and seclusion their characteristic peculiarities may have developed. From Arabia succeeding waves of emigration sent Semitic nomads into Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Syria. The invasion of Babylonia must have occurred very early, since already in the fifth millennium B.C. the influence of the Semitic speech is seen in the Sumerian language (q.v.) and the religious conceptions of Babylonia in the fourth millennium reflect conditions of society no longer prevalent in the time of the Minæan Empire. (See .) It is impossible to date with certainty the invasion of Syria, but there is a tradition that brings the foundation of some Phœnician cities back to the first half of the third millennium B.C. (see ), and there is no reason to doubt that Palestine attracted the Semitic nomads even at an earlier time. How soon the tribes subsequently developing into the nations of Israel, Edom, Moab, and Ammon drifted into Syria cannot be determined. Some passages in the Amarna letters written about B.C. 1400 mentioning the Habiri, possibly a cuneiform equivalent of ’Ibiri, Hebrews, seem to refer to them. Arameans had settled in Mesopotamia and Babylonia at least as early as the thirteenth century B.C., and Chaldæans are found in the neighborhood of the Persian Gulf not much later. Semites speaking a decidedly Sabæan dialect seem to have lived in Abyssinia in the seventh century B.C. and probably long before that time. See.

The Semites belong to the white Caucasian race. Physically, the Semitic type has probably maintained itself most pure in Arabia. In Babylonia it is likely to have been modified by the Sumerians, in Assyria by the Gutians, in Mesopotamia by the Mitanians and Hittites, in Syria by the non-Semitic aborigines, in Abyssinia by Hamitic tribes, in Carthage by the Berbers. During the period of the caliphs the Arabs in the conquered lands intermarried with the nations and the mixture of blood was increased by the harem life. Nevertheless, there are certain unmistakable physical characteristics of the Semitic race, such as a tendency to prognathism, fullness of lip, an aquiline nose, and wavy or curly hair.

It is widely held that the Semitic mind is analytical rather than synthetical, practical rather than speculative, inclined to occupy itself with details rather than with generalizations; the race excels in commerce and industry rather than in warfare and statecraft, in morals and religion rather than in science and art. In the main this estimate is probably fair. There are not wanting scholars, however, who look upon it as a one-sided characterization. In order to reach a comprehensive and well-balanced

their arguments must be given due attention. The fact that Semitic speech avoids the formation of compounds is no doubt a most significant indication of an analytical rather than synthetical tendency; and the marked capacity for keen analysis coupled with a striking inability to systematize knowledge, seen in the Arabic philosophers not less than in the Talmud, is in harmony with this. Nevertheless, there is force in the argument that three monotheistic religions created by this race indicate a deep sense of unity and a remarkable power of synthesis. It should be observed, however, that monotheism with the Semites is not so much a result of processes of ratiocination as of the concentration of worship upon one god. The correctness of ascribing to them a certain sober, matter-of-fact way of reasoning may not be seriously questioned on the ground of allegorizing common among Hellenistic Jews, the curious flights of Cabalists from the solid ground of reality, or the speculations of some Arabic and Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages, since in these instances it is necessary to reckon largely with infusions of foreign blood and foreign thought. To what extent the mythical lore of Babylonia was the creation of Semites and not of their predecessors, the Sumerians (see ), is difficult to determine. Our most prolific sources do not reveal the wealth of myths once no doubt flourishing in Syria and Arabia; they are late and are written either from the standpoint of monotheism interested in the suppression or transformation of the myths, or from the standpoint of rationalism interested in translating them into history. Much weight must be attached to the peculiar idealism that so often manifests itself among the Semites in prophetic enthusiasm and devotion to lofty aims promising no immediate returns. It is indeed to be observed that the prophetic outlook is most sober where it is least affected by foreign movements of thought; and it cannot be denied that the cases of love of the ideal for its own sake become more striking by contrast with the prevailing devotion to a certain cause because of the tangible reward it will bring.

To the growth of political life the contributions of the Semite do not appear to have been very great. His attitude is that of the Orient as distinct from the Occident, and there is less difference between him and the Persian than between the Persians and their kinsmen, the Greeks. The superiority of the Semite as a trader is not wholly due either to a survival of nomadic habits or to the social conditions of an exile from home not permitted to engage in agriculture. Cuneiform inscriptions reveal an extraordinary development of commercial relations, including banking, contracts, deeds, bookkeeping and the like, in ancient Babylonia among a settled people, whose land was carefully cultivated. Such peoples as the Arameans settled in Mesopotamia; the Yemenites, the Edomites, and the Phœnicians were great traders. From Carthage, Rome secured her text-books on agriculture; yet Carthage was even more famous for her commerce. No doubt the heaviest debt that science owes to the Semites is for faithful transmission of knowledge originally won by others. Babylonians, Arameans, Arabs, and Jews have done yeoman service as intellectual brokers. It should not be questioned, however,

that they have added not a little to the precious burdens they have carried down the ages, especially in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, anatomy, and philology. At least one Arabic historian, Ibn Khaldun, deserves to lie ranked with the greatest interpreters of history in any age.

To what extent religious protests against images prevented a normal development of native capacities for the plastic arts cannot be known. The statues found at Telloh can probably not be claimed for the Semites. They give the impression of being the ripe fruits of a long growth among the Sumerians. It can scarcely be an accident that such works of art are not found in later periods of undoubted Semitic dominance. The Assyrians certainly excelled in the representation of animals, but do not seem to have developed otherwise a high artistic taste. The representations of the human figure on South Arabian monuments are exceedingly crude. It is chiefly in the arabesque, based upon mathematical motives, that the Semitic art achieved a distinct triumph. There is reason to suppose that music may have reached a comparatively high degree of development among the ancient Semites. Unfortunately, it is not possible to determine its exact character. The Semitic race has never produced a great drama or epic poem. But the Semite excels in lyric poetry. The finest examples are the Book of ../Job/ (q.v.) and the poems of Heine (q.v.), though the Psalms, Canticles, and the Muallakat furnish some passages of genuine inspiration. This tendency also created an elevated prose or semi-poetry found in oracles, as in the prophetic writings and the Koran, often with a definite metre and a simple rhyme. There have been great philosophers among the Semites such as Philo, Ibn Gabirol, Maimonides, Spinoza, Avicenna, and Averroes, but their contributions are indicative of the influence of foreign speculation rather than representative of native tendencies of thought, finding expression through these men of genius.

On the other hand, it may be questioned whether the sense for conduct and the genius for religion accredited to the Semites have not to some extent been exaggerated. It is true that so early a production as the Code of ../Hammurabi/ (q.v.) exhibits surprisingly advanced ethical conceptions. The legislative codes of Israel, especially ../Deuteronomy/ (q.v.), show much concern for the poor, the weak, and the slaves, and seek to safeguard the sanctity of the family, and the commentaries on the Law in the Mishna and the two Talmuds reveal a sturdy moral sense endeavoring to apply the Law to the various conditions of life without making the burdens too heavy. The great prophets put the emphasis very strongly on the moral requirements, equity, justice, and mercy. In their spirit Jesus gave paramount importance to the inner disposition and made love the fulfillment of the law. South Arabian inscriptions show a deeper consciousness of sin as well as a keener religious sense in general than the secular songs of a late syncretistic period had led men to expect. And the moral earnestness of Mohammed himself and many followers of this prophet must be recognized. But no Semitic people ever conceived of such a marvelous adjustment of character and destiny as the Indian doctrine of metempsychosis presents. The emphasis upon truthfulness seems

stronger among the Persians. The uncompromising rectitude of spirit that led the Teuton to involve Odin himself in the twilight of the gods because of his moral delinquencies is only approached in the Book of Job. Yahweh may repent of what he has done, but he is not punished for his errors. Without the impact of ideas essentially foreign to his native modes of thought, and recognized as such by his kindred, no Semite has ever risen to the conception of moral autonomy. The question why one course of action should be preferred to another has been universally answered by the Semite by reference to a law imposed from without. This dependence upon an external authority for a standard of right has no doubt strengthened the religious feeling. Another cause of religious fervor has been sought in the institution of polyandry which apparently prevailed among the early Semites to a greater extent than among any equally gifted race, and continued, long after another type of marriage had taken its place, to exercise its influence in the worship of a mother-goddess who freely gives herself even to human lovers. A religious mysticism ultimately based upon such a conception of sexual relationship poured a wealth of tenderness and devotion into the worship of the supreme tribal god and remained an important factor long after the mother-goddess cult had ceased. That the Semite possesses a capacity for intense religious faith is manifest; the name of Jesus would alone prove this. He was preceded and followed by many prophets in Israel; but Mohammed is the only important witness to the power of the religious feeling in the home of all the Semites. The fact that monotheism was reached by Jews and Arabs, not by reasoning, but by faith in and devotion to the tribal god, is itself a testimony to the hold religion had on these people. Nevertheless, it is impossible to escape the impression that neither the consciousness of the unity of the divine life, nor the sense of mystic union with the divine, nor the devotion to a divinely ordained mode of life, was ever so universal or so intense among the Semites as it has been in India. If the Semites are to us the people of religion par excellence it is because through the prophets of Israel, and preëminently through the founder of Christianity, a form of religion has found its way into the world which, independent of cultic performances and changing intellectual apperceptions, presents high ethical motives and ideals touched with a sense of the infinite mystery and sacredness of life.

Schrader, in Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft, vol. xxvii. (Leipzig, 1873); Chwolson, Die semitischen Völker (Berlin. 1872); Kremer, in Das Ausland, vol. xlviii. (Stuttgart, 1875); Guidi, “Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici,” in Accademia dei Lincei (Milan, 1879); Sprenger, Die alte Geographie Arabiens (Bonn, 1875); Hommel, Die semitischen Völker und Sprachen (Leipzig, 1883); De Goeje, Het vaderland der semietische volken (Leyden, 1882); Brinton, Cradle of the Semites (Philadelphia, 1890); Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites (2d ed., London, 1894); id., Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, (Cambridge, 1885); Barton, A Sketch of Semitic Origins (New York, 1902). Consult also the works mentioned in the article .


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The New International Encyclopædia/Semitic Languages

SEMITIC LANGUAGES. The current designation of a group of languages sharply marked off from other groups by certain characteristic features pertaining both to morphology and to lexicography. The name Semitic is an unfortunate one, derived from the classification of nations in the tenth chapter of Genesis. (See .) In retaining it we must not only bear in mind that it is a purely conventional designation for a certain group of languages, but also distinguish between its ethnic and linguistic applications. It does not follow that nations speaking the same languages belong necessarily to the same stock.

Confining ourselves to the linguistic application, we may distinguish two chief branches of Semitic speech — a northern and a southern. To the northern branch belong (1) the Babylono-Assyrian; (2) the Aramaic, subdivided into a western and an eastern branch (see ); (3) Hebræo-Phœnician. To the southern branch belong (1) the Arabic, which again is divided into north and south Arabic, and (2) Ethiopic.

In comparison with the territory throughout which the Indo-Germanic languages are spoken the area of Semitic speech is exceedingly limited. Excluding the modern Hebrew and modern Arabic, which have been carried by Jews and Arabs to distant parts, the Mediterranean and the Euphrates, the Indian Ocean and the Taurus range represent the western, eastern, southern, and northern boundaries for the groups of Semitic languages. As a direct consequence of these narrow confines, the relationship of the various Semitic languages to one another is much closer than is the case with the various Aryan groups (e.g. Persian and Teutonic); it is almost justifiable to call them dialects rather than separate languages.

The chief traits characterizing the Semitic languages are: (1) Within the historical period of the languages, the triliteral character of most of the stems underlying both nouns and verbs; (2) in the morphology, the constant character of the consonants forming the stems, the vowels being used to indicate the variations on the main theme; (3) substantial agreement in the noun and verb formation; (4) the arrested development in the expression of time relation in the case of the verb, which does not pass beyond the differentiation between a completed and an incompleted act: (5) the use of certain consonants in all the languages (particularly h, n, sh, t) for pronominal prefixes and suffixes and for indication of plural and feminine, as well as variations of the verbal stem corresponding in a measure to modes in Indo-Germanic languages. Other traits might be mentioned, such as the paucity of auxiliary particles, more particularly conjunctions; and it should be noted that while the Semitic languages agree closely in having the same words for common terms (such as father, mother, brother, water, food, deity, heaven, etc.), there are, however, notable exceptions (e.g. man); and in the case of verbs there is considerable individuality manifested in the specific meanings developed by each language from the very general one which is usually attached to a particular stem.

In the form of writing employed there is even more variation, no less than three distinct species being employed in the groups comprising the Semitic languages: (a) the cuneiform

of Babylonia and Assyria, which, originating in a pictorial script, became linear or wedge-shaped (see ); (b) the Phœnician and its derivatives, Hebrew, the various Aramaic alphabets, and further derivatives from the latter; the Syriac and Arabic alphabets; the Phœnician itself may revert to the characters found in the south-Arabic inscriptions; (c) the Ethiopic, which may likewise be a derivative of the ancient south-Arabic (Sabæan and Himyaritic) alphabet, though other factors have entered into the production of some of the peculiarities presented by the Ethiopic alphabet. See ;.

Of the various groups of the Semitic languages, the Babylono-Assyrian merits the first place by virtue of the antiquity of its literature. The excavations in ../Babylonia/ and ../Assyria/ (q.v.) have brought to light inscriptions that date back to about B.C. 4500 and as early as B.C. 2500 there appears to have existed quite an extensive literature, chiefly historical, legal, and religious. Later we find other branches like medicine and astronomy represented. Assyria adopted the script together with the general culture of Babylonia, and while it made few contributions to the literature outside of annals, prayers, and incantations, great care was taken by some of the kings to copy and preserve the literature produced in the south. The cuneiform characters in various modifications continued in use in Mesopotamia until a few decades prior to the present era.

The Aramaic branch is distinguished by the large number of its subdivisions and dialects and by the large territory over which these subdivisions and dialects are spread at a comparatively early period. The extensive sway of Aramaic is almost coequal with the range of Semitic speech, and some of the Aramaic dialects developed sufficiently distinct traits to fall within the category of separate languages. By far the most important representative of the group is the Syriac, or the Aramaic dialect spoken in Edessa, Harran, Nisibis, and other places in Mesopotamia. The Babylonian dialect of the Aramaic was adopted by the Jews of the Exile: its form in the period A.D. 250-450 may be seen in the Babylonian Talmud. A similar dialect, though less exposed to foreign influence, was the Mandaic. The Aramaic dialect spoken in Judea has been preserved in the Bible (portions of Ezra and Daniel) and in the earlier Targums. Another Aramaic offshoot is the Samaritan, being the dialect spoken in the district of Shechem, and of importance as the tongue of the Samaritan community. The Galilean dialect, as it was spoken in the third century A.D. and later, has been preserved in many Targums and in the Babylonian Talmud. For further detail concerning these languages and their literatures, see the articles ; ;

In the Hebræo-Phœnician group, the Hebrew merits the first place by virtue of the fact that the bulk of the Old Testament is written in this language. (See article, sections Hebrew History and Language and Literature; also is also represented by the older division of the Talmud known as the ../Mishna/ (q.v.). containing the codification of the Rabbinical laws. This section of Hebrew literature was edited about
 * .) Hebrew literature

A.D. 200. A number of Midrashim are likewise written in this Neo-Hebraic speech. By this time Hebrew had long ceased to be the current speech of Jews, who in Palestine had adopted Aramaic, and outside of Palestine the language of the countries in which they were settled, but Hebrew still maintained its sway as the tongue of sacred writ and as the official language of the synagogue. In view of this it continued to be cultivated not only by the learned, but by the masses as well, so that from time to time Hebrew witnessed literary revivals. Such a revival took place in Spain in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and again in Russia and Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, so that numerous works in Hebrew continue to be published up to the present time. The Hebrew of the Middle Ages and the Neo-Hebrew are modeled entirely upon the biblical style; and, since it is artificially cultivated and nowhere used as the sole language of interchange, it can hardly be designated as one of the living Semitic languages. Hebrew being merely the Canaanitish speech adopted by the Israelites upon taking possession of Canaan, it follows that it is practically identical in its earliest form with Phœnician, since the Phœnicians are merely Canaanites who settled on the shore instead of in the interior of Palestine. The Phœnicians do not appear to have developed any literature, and the language is known to us only from the vast number of mortuary and votive and commemorative inscriptions found in Phœnicia itself, and in even larger quantities in the colonies of the Phœnicians, notably in Cyprus, Northern Africa, Sardinia, Malta, Southern Spain, and Southern France. These inscriptions cover the long period from about the eighth century B.C. up to the end of the second century of our era. Their interest is chiefly (1) epigraphical in enabling us to trace the development and modifications of the Phœnician script, and (2) linguistic as furnishing the means to the study of a Semitic tongue that was the first to spread outside of Semitic territory. (See .) Presenting only slight variations from the Hebrew and Phœnician is the Moabitic, represented by a single inscription of the Moabitic King Mesha (see ), and which is of special interest as representing the oldest alphabetical inscription in ancient Phœnician or Canaanitish script.

Of the southern branch the chief representative is the Arabic, the Semitic language which has far exceeded all others in the wide character of its influence. It was the rise and spread of Islam that gave to Arabic as the language of the Koran its supreme importance. Previous to that time Arabic was confined to the peninsula of Arabia: several dialects prevailed, and the one that became the classical speech was the form spoken in Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Mohammed. Leaving southern Arabic out of account for the present, Arabic literature previous to Mohammed was confined to poetical compositions which were preserved orally. Islam marks not only a religious innovation, but was also an intellectual movement that gave rise to written literature among the Arabs, and as the Arabs came into contact through the spread of Islam with the existing Oriental and Occidental cultures, the various branches of science, medicine, philosophy, theology, mathematics, geography, history, besides poetry, were cultivated

and an exceedingly extensive and important literature was produced in Arabic during the five centuries following the appearance of Mohammed. After that period a decline set in, though the literary activity of the Arabs never came to a standstill, and within the past fifty years, through contact with modern European culture, a new era of intellectual activity has been inaugurated among the Mohammedans in Turkey, Egypt, and India, which appears to be spreading to other centres of Islam. (See .) The culture of Southern Arabia is far older than that which arose in Central and Northern Arabia. As early at least as B.C. 1500 a powerful kingdom existed in Yemen, and although no literary remains have been preserved, inscriptions in large numbers have been found, revealing a distinctive variety of Semitic script as well as a distinctive species of Arabic which is commonly termed Sabæan or Himyaritic. The relationship of the south-Arabic script to the Phœnician is a problem that has not yet been cleared up. Much speaks in favor of regarding the former as the prototype of the latter, though the links leading from the one to the other are missing. The south-Arabic inscriptions covering a period of about 700 years (so far as they can be dated at all) are chiefly of a votive or commemorative character, and throw light upon the history and religion of the old south-Arabic kingdoms that at one time played no inconsiderable role. See ;

The Ethiopic literature in the proper sense, or the Geez (to use the native name), dates from the introduction of Christianity into Abyssinia. That literature is almost exclusively religious and consists mainly of homilies, religious poetry, and lives of saints, besides some chronicles. The language survives in several dialects (Tigre, Tigriña, Amharic) spoken in Abyssinia. The alphabet, derived from the south-Arabian script, presents the peculiarity that the vowel sounds are indicated by modifications of the consonants which they accompany. See ;

Many attempts have been made, sometimes in a very superficial fashion and sometimes by the use of scientific methods, to establish a relationship between the Semitic languages and the Indo-Germanic. But all these endeavors have failed. On the other hand, the Semitic languages bear so striking a resemblance in some respects to certain languages of Northern Africa, that the existence of some relationship between the two groups may be assumed. These languages belong to the family sometimes called ‘Hamitic,’ and composed of the Egyptian, Berber, Beja (Bishari, etc.), and a number of tongues spoken in Abyssinia and the neighboring countries (Agau, Galla, Dankali, etc.). Some of the indispensable words in the Semitic vocabulary (as, for instance, ‘water,’ ‘mouth,’ and certain numerals) are found in Hamitic also, and these words are such as cannot well be derived from triliteral Semitic roots, and are more or less independent of the ordinary grammatical rules. Important resemblances in grammar are also noted — for example, the formation of the feminine by means of t prefixed or suffixed, that of the causative by means of s, similarity in the suffixes and prefixes of the verbal tenses, and, generally, similarity in the personal pronouns,

etc. There is also much disagreement; for instance, the widest divergence is found in the mass of the vocabulary. The question is involved in great difficulties. Isolated resemblances may have been produced by the borrowing of words. But the great resemblances in grammatical formation are harder to explain as due to borrowing on the part of the Hamites, more especially as these points of agreement are also found in the language of the Berbers, who are scattered over an enormous territory, and whose speech must have acquired its character long before they came into contact with the Semites.

. Zimmern, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Berlin, 1898, with bibliography); Renan, Histoire générale et système comparé des langues sémitiques (5th ed., Paris, 1878); Wright, Lectures on the Comparative Grammar of the Semitic Languages (Cambridge, 1890); Nöldeke, Die semitischen Sprachen (2d ed., Leipzig, 1899); Friedrich Müller, Die semitischen Sprachen, Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft, iii. 2, pp. 315-419 (Vienna, 1887); Reckendorf, “Zur Karakteristik der semitischen Sprachen,” Xème Congrés des Orientalistes, sect, ii., pp. 1-9 (Leyden, 1896); Hommel, Die semitischen Völker und Sprachen (Leipzig, 1883); Lindberg, Vergleichende Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen (Göteborg, 1897).


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text: The Ethics of War

title: The Ethics of War


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HE question whether war is ever justified, and if so under what circumstances, is one which has been forcing itself upon the attention of all thoughtful men. On this question I find myself in the somewhat painful position of holding that no single one of the combatants is justified in the present war, while not taking the extreme Tolstoyan view that war is under all circumstances a crime. Opinions on such a subject as war are the outcome of feeling rather than of thought: given a man's emotional temperament, his convictions, both on war in general, and on any particular war which may occur during his lifetime, can be predicted with tolerable certainty. The arguments used will be mere reinforcements to convictions otherwise reached. The fundamental facts in this as in all ethical questions are feelings; all that thought can do is to clarify and systematize the expression of those feelings, and it is such clarifying and systematizing of my own feelings that I wish to attempt in the present article.

The question of rights and wrongs of a particular war is generally considered from a juridical or quasi-juridical standpoint: so and so broke such and such a treaty, crossed such and such a frontier, committed such and Vol. XXV.—No. 2.

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128 such technically unfriendly acts, and therefore by the rules it is permissible to kill as many of his nation as modern armaments render possible. There is a certain unreality, a certain lack of imaginative grasp about this way of viewing matters. It has the advantage, always dearly prized by lazy men, of substituting a formula, at once ambiguous and easily applied, for the vital realization of the consequences of acts. The juridical point of view is in fact an illegitimate transference, to the relations of States, of principles properly applicable to the relation of individuals within a State. Within a State, private war is forbidden, and the disputes of private citizens are settled, not by their own force, but by the force of the police, which, being overwhelming, very seldom needs to be explicitly displayed. It is necessary that there should be rules according to which the police decide who is to be considered in the right in a private dispute. These rules constitute law. The chief gain derived from the law and the police is the abolition of private wars, and this gain is independent of the question whether the law as it stands is the best possible. It is therefore in the public interest that the man who goes against the law should be considered in the wrong, not because of the excellence of the law, but because of the importance of avoiding the resort to force as between individuals within the State.

In the interrelation of States nothing of the same sort exists. There is, it is true, a body of conventions called "international law," and there are innumerable treaties between High Contracting Powers. But the conventions and the treaties differ from anything that could properly be called law by the absence of sanction: there is no police force able or willing to enforce their observance. It follows from this that every nation concludes multitudes of divergent and incompatible treaties, and that, in spite of the high language one sometimes hears, the main purpose of the treaties is in actual fact to afford the sort of pretext which is considered respectable for engaging in war with another Power. A Power is considered unscrupulous when

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Rh it goes to war without previously providing itself with such a pretext—unless indeed its opponent is a small country, in which case it is only to be blamed if that small country happens to be under the protection of some other Great Power. England and Russia may partition Persia immediately after guaranteeing its integrity anand [sic] independence, because no other Great Power has a recognized interest in Persia, and Persia is one of those small States in regard to which treaty obligations are not considered binding. France and Spain, under a similar guarantee as to Morocco, must not partition it without first compensating Germany, because it is recognized that, until such compensation has been offered and accepted, Germany, though not Morocco, has a legitimate interest in the preservation of that country. All Great Powers having guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, England has a recognized right to resent its violation—a right which is exercised when it is believed to be to England's interest, and waived when England's interest is not thought to be involved. A treaty is therefore not to be regarded as a contract having the same kind of binding force as belongs to private contracts; it is to be regarded merely as a means of giving notice to rival powers that certain acts may, if the national interest so demand, form one of those reasons for war which are recognized as legitimate. If the faithful observance of treaties were a frequent occurrence, like the observance of contracts, the breach of a treaty might be a real and not merely a formal ground for war, since it would tend to weaken the practice of deciding disputes by agreement rather than by armed force. In the absence of such a practice, however, appeal to treaties is only to be regarded as part of the diplomatic machinery. A nation whose diplomacy has been skilfully conducted will always, when it beliesbelieves [sic] that its interests demand war, be able to find some treaty or agreement bringing its intervention within the rules of the diplomatic game. It is obvious, however, that, so long as treaties are only observed when it is convenient to do so, the rules of the diplomatic game have nothing to do with

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130 the question whether embarking or participating in a war will or will not be for the good of mankind, and it is this question which has to be decided in considering whether a war is justified or not.

It is necessary, in regard to any war, to consider, not its paper justification in past agreements, but its real justification in the balance of good which it is to bring to mankind. At the beginning of a war each nation, under the influence of what is called patriotism, believes that its own victory is both certain and of great importance to mankind. The praiseworthiness of this belief has become an accepted maxim of common sense: even when war is actually in progress it is held to be natural and right that a citizen of an enemy country should regard the victory of his side as assured and highly desirable. By concentrating attention upon the supposed advantages of the victory of our own side, we become more or less blind to the evils inseparable from war and equally certain whichever side may ultimately prove victorious. Yet so long as these are not fully realized, it is impossible to judge justly whether a war is or is not likely to be beneficial to the human race. Although the theme is trite, it is necessary therefore briefly to remind ourselves what the evils of war really are.

To begin with the most obvious evil: large numbers of young men, the most courageous and the most physically fit in their respective nations, are killed, bringing great sorrow to their friends, loss to the community, and gain only to themselves. Many others are maimed for life, some go mad, and others become nervous wrecks, mere useless and helpless derelicts. Of those who survive many will be brutalized and morally degraded by the fierce business of killing, which, however much it may be the soldier's duty, must shock and often destroy the more humane instincts. As every truthful record of war shows, fear and hate let loose the wild beast in a not inconsiderable proportion of combatants, leading to strange cruelties, which

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Rh must be faced, but not dwelt upon if sanity is to be preserved.

Of the evils of war to the non-combatant population in the regions where fighting occurs, the recent misfortunes of Belgium have afforded an example upon which it is not necessary to enlarge. It is necessary, however, to point out that the misfortunes of Belgium do not, as is commonly believed in England, afford a reason in favor of war. Hatred, by a tragic delusion, perpetuates the very evils from which it springs. The sufferings of Belgium are attributed to the Germans and not to war; and thus the very horrors of the war are used to stimulate the desire to increase their area and intensity. Even assuming the utmost humanity compatible with the conduct of military operations, it cannot be doubted that, if the troops of the Allies penetrate into the industrial regions of Germany, the German population will have to suffer a great part of the misfortunes which Germany has inflicted upon Belgium. To men under the influence of hate this thought is a cause of rejoicing, but to men in whom humane feeling is not extinct it shows that our sympathy with Belgium should make us hate war rather than Germany.

The evils which war produces outside the area of military operations are perhaps even more serious, for though less intense they are far more widespread. Passing by the anxiety and sorrow of those whose sons or husbands or brothers are at the front, the extent and consequences of the economic injury inflicted by war are much greater than is usually realized. It is common to speak of economic evils as merely material, and of desire for economic progress as grovelling and uninspired. This view is perhaps natural in well-to-do people, to whom economic progress means setting up a motor car or taking holidays in Scotland instead of at the seaside. But with regard to the poorer classes of society, economic progress is the first condition of many spiritual goods and even often of life itself. An overcrowded family, living in a slum in conditions of filth and immorality, where half the children die

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132 from ignorance of hygiene and bad sanitation, and the remainder grow up stunted and ignorant–such a family can hardly make progress mentally or spiritually, except through an improvement in its economic condition. And without going to the very bottom of the social scale, economic progress is essential to the possibility of good education, of a tolerable existence for women, and of that breadth and freedom of outlook upon which any solid and national advance must be based. It is not the most oppressed or the most ill-used who make an effective plea for social justice, for some reorganization of society which shall give less to the idler and more to the common man. Throughout the Napoleonic wars, while the landowners of England continually increased their rent-rolls, the mass of the wage-earning population sank into greater and greater destitution. It was only afterwards, during the long peace, that a less unjust distribution began to be possible. It cannot be doubted that the desire on the part of the rich to distract men's minds from the claims of social justice has been more or less unconsciously one of the motives leading to war in modern Europe. Everywhere the well-to-do and the political parties which represent their interests have been the chief agents in stirring up international hatred and in persuading the working man that his real enemy is the foreigner. Thus war, and the fear of war, has a double effect in retarding social progress: it diminishes the resources available for improving the condition of the wage-earning classes, and it distracts men's minds from the need and possibility of general improvement by persuading them that the way to better themselves is to injure their comrades in some other country. It is as a protest against this delusion that international socialism has arisen, and whatever may be thought of socialism as an economic doctrine, its internationalism makes it the sanest force in modern politics, and the only body which has preserved some degree of judgment and humanity in the present chaos.

Of all the evils of war the greatest, in my opinion, is the

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Rh purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict, where, if once the blindness of atavistic instincts and the sinister influence of anti-social interests, such as those of armaments with their subservient press, could be overcome, it would be seen that there is a real consonance of interest and essential identity of human nature, and every reason to replace hatred by love. Mr. Norman Angell has well shown how unreal, as applied to the conflicts of civilized States, is the whole vocabulary of international conflict, how illusory are the gains supposed to be obtained by victory, and how fallacious are the injuries to which nations, in times of peace, are supposed to inflict upon each other in economic competition. The importance of this thesis lies, not so much in its direct economic application, as in the hope which it affords for the liberation of better spiritual impulses in the relations of different communities. To love our enemies, however desirable, is not easy; and therefore it is well to realize that the enmity springs only from blindness, not from any inexorable physical necessity.

Are there any wars which achieve so much for the good of mankind as to outweigh all the evils we have been considering? I think there have been such wars in the past, but they are not wars of the sort with which our diplomatists are concerned, for which our armies and navies have been prepared, and which are exemplified by the present conflict. For the purposes of classification we may roughly distinguish four kinds of wars, though of course in any given case a war is not likely to be quite clearly of any one of the four kinds. With this proviso we may distinguish: (1) Wars of Colonization; (2) Wars of Principle; (3) Wars of Self-defence; (4) Wars of Prestige. Of these four kinds I should say that the first and second are fairly often justified; the third seldom, except against an adversary of inferior civilization; and the fourth, which is the

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134 sort to which the present war belongs, never. Let us consider these four kinds of war in succession.

By a "war of colonization" I mean a war whose purpose is to drive out the whole population of some territory and replace it by an invading population of a different race. Ancient wars were very largely of this kind, of which we have a good example in the Book of Joshua. In modern times the conflicts of Europeans with American-Indians, Maories, and other aborigines in temperate regions, have been of this kind. Such wars are totally devoid of technical justification, and are apt to be more ruthless than any other war. Nevertheless, if we are to judge by results, we cannot regret that such wars have taken place. They have the merit, often quite fallaciously claimed for all wars, of leading in the main to the survival of the fittest, and it is chiefly through such wars that the civilized portion of the world has been extended from the neighborhood of the Mediterranean to the greater part of the earth's surface. The eighteenth century, which liked to praise the virtues of the savage and contrast them with the gilded corruption of courts, nevertheless had no scruple in thrusting the noble savage out from his North American hunting grounds. And we cannot at this date bring ourselves to condemn the process by which the American continent has been acquired for European civilization. In order that such wars may be justified, it is necessary that there should be a very great and undeniable difference between the civilization of the colonizers and that of the dispossessed natives. It is necessary also that the climate should be one in which the invading race can flourish. When these conditions are satisfied the conquest becomes justified, though actual fighting against the dispossessed inhabitants ought, of course, to be avoided as far as is compatible with colonizing. Many humane people will object in theory to the justification of this form of robbery, but I do not think that any practical or effective objection is likely to be made.

Such wars, however, belong now to the past. The

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Rh where the white men can live are all allotted, either to white races or to yellow races to whom the white man is not clearly superior, and whom, in any case, he is not strong enough to expel. Apart from small punitive expeditions, wars of colonization, in the true sense, are no longer possible. What are nowadays called colonial wars do not aim at the complete occupation of a country by a conquering race; they aim only at securing certain governmental and trading advantages. They belong, in fact, rather with what I call wars of prestige, than with wars of colonization in the old sense. There are, it is true, a few rare exceptions. The Greeks in the second Balkan war conducted a war of colonization against the Bulgarians; throughout a certain territory which they intended to occupy, they killed all the men, and carried off all the women. But in such cases, the only possible justification fails, since there is no evidence of superior civilization on the side of the conquerors.

In spite, however, of the fact that wars of colonization belong to the past, men's feelings and beliefs about war are still those appropriate to the extinct conditions which rendered such wars possible. When the present war began, many people in England imagined that if the Allies were victorious Germany would cease to exist: Germany was to be “destroyed” or “smashed,” and since these phrases sounded vigorous and cheering, people failed to see that they were totally devoid of meaning. There are some seventy million Germans; with great good fortune, we might, in a successful war, succeed in killing two millions of them. There would then still be sixty-eight million Germans, and in a few years the loss of population due to the war would be made good. Germany is not merely a State, but a nation, bound together by a common language, common traditions, and common ideals. Whatever the outcome of the war, this nation will still exist at the end of it, and its strength cannot be permanently impaired. But the imagination in what pertains to war is still dominated by Homer and the Old Testament; men

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136 who cannot see that circumstances have changed since those works were composed are called “practical” men and are said to be free from illusions. Those, on the other hand, who have some understanding of the modern world, and some capacity for freeing their minds from the influence of phrases, are called dreamy idealists, Utopians, traitors, and friends of every country but their own. If the facts were understood, wars amongst civilized nations would cease, owing to their inherent absurdity. Men's passions always lag behind their political organizations, and facts which leave no outlet for passions are not readily admitted. In order that hatred, pride, and violence may find an outlet, men unconsciously blind themselves to the plainest facts of politics and economics, and modern war continues to be waged with the phrases and theories invented by simpler men in a simpler age.

The second type of war which may sometimes be justified is what may be called “the war of principle.” To this kind belong the wars of Protestant and Catholic, and the English and American civil wars. In such cases, each side, or at least one side, is honestly convinced that the progress of mankind depends upon the adoption of certain beliefs—beliefs which, through blindness or natural depravity, mankind will not regard as reasonable, except when presented at the point of the bayonet. Such wars may be justified: for example, a nation practising religious toleration may be justified in resisting a persecuting nation holding a different creed. On this ground we might justify the resistance of the Dutch to the England and French combined in the time of Charles II. But wars of principle are much less often justified than is believed by those in whose age they occur. It is very rarely that a principle of genuine value to mankind can only be propagated by military force: as a rule, it is the bad part of men's principles, not the good part, which makes it necessary to fight for their defence. And for this reason the bad part

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Rh rather than the good rises to prominence during the progress of a war of principle. A nation undertaking a war in defence of religious toleration would be almost certain to persecute those of its citizens who did not believe in religious toleration. A war on behalf of democracy, if it is long and fierce, is sure to end in the exclusion from all share of power of those who do not support the war. Mr. George Trevelyan in an eloquent passage describes the defeat which, as the ultimate outcome of our civil war, overtook alike the ideals of the Roundheads and the ideals of the Cavaliers. “And this was the curse of the victors, not to die, but to live, and almost to lose their awful faith in God, when they saw the Restoration, not of the old gaiety that was too gay for them and the old loyalty that was too loyal for them, but of corruption and selfishness that had neither country nor king. The sound of the Roundhead cannon has long ago died away, but still the silence of the garden is heavy with unalterable fate, brooding over besiegers and besieged, in such haste to destroy each other and permit only the vile to survive.” This common doom of opposite ideals is the usual, though not the invariable, penalty of supporting ideals by force. While it may therefore be conceded that such wars are not invariably to be condemned, we must nevertheless scrutinize very skeptically the claim of any particular war to be justified on the ground of the victory which it brings to some important principle.

There are some who maintain that the present war is a war in defence of democracy. I do not know whether this view is adopted by the Tsar, and for the sake of the stability of the Alliance I sincerely hope that it is not. I do not, however, desire to dispute the proposition that democracy in the western nations would suffer from the victory of Germany. What I do wish to dispute is the belief not infrequently entertained in England that if the Allies are victorious democracy can be forced upon

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138 a reluctant Germany as part of the conditions of peace. Men who think thus have lost sight of the spirit of democracy in worship of the letter. The Germans have the form of government which they desire, and therefore any other form, imposed by alien victors, would be less in harmony with the spirit of democracy, however much it might conform to the letter. Men do right to desire strongly the victory of ideals which they believe to be important, but it is almost always a sign of yielding to undue impatience when men believe that what is valuable in their ideals can be furthered by the substitution of force for peaceful persuasion. To advocate democracy by war is only to repeat, on a vaster scale and with far more tragic results, the error of those who have sought it hitherto by the assassin's knife and the bomb of the anarchist.

The next kind of war to be considered is the war of self-defence. This kind of war is almost universally admitted to be justifiable, and is condemned only by Christ and Tolstoy. The justification of wars of self-defence is very convenient, since so far as I know there has never yet been a war which was not one of self-defence. Every strategist assures us that the true defence is offence; every great nation believes that its own overwhelming strength is the only possible guarantee of the world's peace and can only be secured by the defeat of other nations. In the present war, Servia is defending itself against the brutal aggression of Austria-Hungary; Austria-Hungary is defending itself against the disruptive revolutionary agitation which Servia is believed to have fomented; Russia is defending Slavdom against the menace of Teutonic aggression; Germany is defending Teutonic civilization against the encroachments of the Slav; France is defending itself against a repetition of 1870; and England, which sought only the preservation of the status quo, is defending itself against a prospective menace to its maritime supremacy. The claim of each side to be fighting in self-defence appears to the other side

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Rh mere wanton hypocrisy, because in each case the other side believes that self-defence is only to be achieved by conquest. So long as the principle of self-defence is recognized as affording always a sufficient justification for war, this tragic conflict of irresistible claims remains unavoidable. In certain cases, where there is a clash of differing civilizations, a war of self-defence may be justified on the same grounds as a war of principle. I think, however, that, even as a matter of practical politics, the principle of non-resistance contains an immense measure of wisdom if only men would have the courage to carry it out. The evils suffered during a hostile invasion are suffered because resistance is offered: the Duchy of Luxemburg, which was not in a position to offer resistance, has escaped the fate of the other regions occupied by hostile troops. What one civilized nation can achieve against another by means of conquest is very much less than is commonly supposed. It is said, both here and in Germany, that each side is fighting for its existence; but when this phrase is scrutinized, it is found to cover a great deal of confusion of thought induced by unreasoning panic. We cannot destroy Germany even by a complete military victory, nor conversely, could Germany destroy England even if our Navy were sunk and London occupied by the Prussians. English civilization, the English language, English manufactures would still exist, and as a matter of practical politics it would be totally impossible for Germany to establish a tyranny in this country. If the Germans, instead of being resisted by force of arms, had been passively permitted to establish themselves wherever they pleased, the halo of glory and courage surrounding the brutality of military success would have been absent, and public opinion in Germany itself would have rendered any oppression impossible. The history of our own dealings with our colonies affords abundant examples to show that under such circumstances the refusal of self-government is not possible. In a word, it is the means of repelling hostile aggression which make hostile aggression disastrous and which generate the

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140 fear by which hostile nations come to think aggression justified. As between civilized nations, therefore, non-resistance would seem not only a distant religious ideal, but the course of practical wisdom. Only pride and fear stand in the way of its adoption. But the pride of military glory might be overcome by a nobler pride, and the fear might be overcome by a clearer realization of the solidity and indestructibility of a modern civilized nation.

The last kind of war we have to consider is what I have called “the war of prestige.” Prestige is seldom more than one element in the causes of a war, but it is often a very important element. In the present war, until the war had actually broken out, it was almost the only thing involved, although as soon as the war began other and much more important matters came to be at stake. The initial question between Austria and Russia was almost wholly one of prestige. The lives of Balkan peasants could not have been much affected for good or evil by the participation or non-participation of Austrian officials in the trial of supposed Servian accomplices in the Sarajevo murders. This important question, which is the one on which the war is being fought, concerns what is called the hegemony of the Balkans, and this is entirely a question of prestige. Men desire the sense of triumph, and fear the sense of humiliation which they would have in yielding to the demands of another nation. Rather than forego the triumph, rather than endure the humiliation, they are willing to inflict upon the world all those disasters which it is now suffering and all that exhaustion and impoverishment which it must long continue to suffer. The willingness to inflict and endure such evils is almost universally praised; it is called high-spirited, worthy of a great nation, showing fidelity to ancestral traditions. The slightest sign of reasonableness is attributed to fear, and received with shame on the one side and with derision on the other. In private life exactly the same state of opinion existed so long as duelling was

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Rh practised, and exists still in those countries in which this custom still survives. It is now recognized, at any rate in the Anglo-Saxon world, that the so called “honor” which made duelling appear inevitable was a folly and a delusion. It is perhaps not too much to hope that the day may come when the honor of nations, like that of individuals, will be no longer measured by their willingness to inflict slaughter. It can hardly be hoped, however, that such a change will be brought about while the affairs of nations are left in the keeping of diplomatists whose status is bound up with the diplomatic or military triumph of the countries from which they come, and whose manner of life renders them unusually ignorant of all the political and economic facts of real importance and of all the changes of opinions and organization which make the present world different from that of the eighteenth century. If any real progress is to be made in introducing sanity into international relations, it is vital that these relations should be in the hands of men less aloof and less aristocratic, more in touch with common life, and more emancipated from the prejudices of a bygone age. It is necessary also that popular education, instead of inflaming the hatred of foreigners and representing even the tiniest triumph as worthy of even the greatest sacrifices, should aim rather at producing some sense of the solidarity of mankind and of the paltriness of those objects to which diplomatists, often secretly, think fit to pledge the manhood and heroism of nations.

The objects for which men have fought in the past, whether just or unjust, are no longer to be achieved by wars amongst civilized nations. A great weight of tradition, of financial interests, of political insincerity, is bound up with the anachronism of international hostility. It is, however, perhaps not chimerical to hope that the present war, which has shocked the conscience of mankind more than any war in previous history, may produce a revulsion against antiquated methods, and may lead the exhausted nations to insist upon the brotherhood and co-operation which their rulers have hitherto denied them. There is no Vol. XXV.—No. 2.

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142 reason whatever against the settlement of all disputes by a Council of Powers deliberating in public. Nothing stands in its way except the pride of rulers who wish to remain uncontrolled by anything higher than their own will. When this great tragedy has worked itself out to its disastrous conclusion, when the passions of hate and self-assertion have given place to compassion with the universal misery, the nations will perhaps realize that they have fought in blindness and delusion, and that the way of mercy is the way of happiness for all.

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