Chapter XIX: Act 1534: , the power to grant such dispensations, which had been (1)

exercised previously by the court of Rome, was transferred to the archbishop of Canterbury, certain ecclesiastical persons having been declared by a previous statute (1529) to be entitled to such dispensations. The system of pluralities carried with it, as a necessary consequence, systematic non-residence on the part of many incumbents, and delegation of their spiritual duties in respect of their cures of souls to assistant curates. The evils attendant on this system were found to be so great that the Pluralities Act 1838 was passed to abridge the holding of benefices in plurality, and it was enacted that no person should hold under any circumstances more than two benefices, and this privilege was made subject to the restriction that his benefices were within ten statute miles of each other. By the Pluralities Act 1850, the restriction was further narrowed, so that no spiritual person could hold two benefices except the churches of such benefices were within three miles of each other by the nearest road, and the annual value of one of such benefices did not exceed L100. By this statute the term benefice is defined to mean benefice with cure of souls and no other, and therein to comprehend all parishes, perpetual curacies, donatives, endowed public chapels, parochial chapelries and chapelries or districts belonging or reputed to belong, or annexed or reputed to be annexed, to any church or chapel. The Pluralities Acts Amendment Act 1885, however, enacted that, by dispensation from the archbishop, two benefices could be held together, the churches of which are within four miles of each other, and the annual value of one of which does not exceed L200.

All benefices except those under the clear annual value of L50 pay their first fruits (one year's profits) and tenths (of yearly profits) to Queen Anne's Bounty for the augmentation of the maintenance of the poorer clergy. Their profits during vacation belong to the next incumbent. Tithe rent charge attached to a benefice is relieved from payment of one-half of the agricultural rates assessed thereon. Benefices may be exchanged by agreement between incumbents with the consent of the ordinary, and they may, with the consent of the patron and ordinary, be united or dissolved after being united. They may also be charged with the repayment of money laid out for their permanent advantage, and be augmented wholly by the medium of Queen Anne's Bounty.

A benefice is avoided or vacated--(1) by death; (2) by resignation, if the bishop is willing to accept the resignation: by the Incumbents' Resignation Act 1871, Amendment Act 1887, any clergyman who has been an incumbent of one benefice continuously for seven years, and is incapacitated by permanent mental or bodily infirmities from fulfilling his duties, may, if the bishop thinks fit, have a commission appointed to consider the fitness of his resigning; and if the commission report in favour of his resigning, he may, with the consent of the patron (or, if that is refused, with the consent of the archbishop) resign the cure of souls into the bishop's hands, and have assigned to him, out of the benefice, a retiring-pension not exceeding one-third of its annual value, which is recoverable as a debt from his successor; (3) by cession, upon the clerk being instituted to another benefice or some other preferment incompatible with it; (4) by deprivation and sentence of an ecclesiastical court; under the Clergy Discipline Act 1892, an incumbent who has been convicted of offences against the law of bastardy, or against whom judgment has been given in a divorce or matrimonial cause, is deprived, and on being found guilty in the consistory court of immorality or ecclesiastical offences (not in respect of doctrine or ritual), he may be deprived or suspended or declared incapable of preferment; (5) by act of law in consequence of simony; (6) by default of the clerk in neglecting to read publicly in the church the Book of Common Prayer, and to declare his assent thereto within two months after his induction, pursuant to an act of 1662.

See also ADVOWSON; GLEBE; INCUMBENT; VICAR; also Phillimore, _Eccles.
Law_; Cripps, _Law of Church and Clergy_.

BENEFICIARY (from Lat. _beneficium_, a benefit), in law, one who holds a benefice; one who is beneficially entitled to, or interested in, property, i.e. entitled to it for his own benefit, and not merely holding it for others, as does an executor or trustee. In this latter sense it is nearly equivalent to _cestui que trust_, a term which it is gradually superseding in modern law.

BENEKE, FRIEDRICH EDUARD (1798-1854), German psychologist, was born at Berlin on the 17th of February 1798, studied at the universities of Halle and Berlin, and served as a volunteer in the war of 1815. After studying theology under Schleiermacher and De Wette, he turned to pure philosophy, studying particularly English writers and the German modifiers of Kantianism, such as Jacobi, Fries and Schopenhauer. In 1820 he published his _Erkenntnisslehre_, his _Erfahrungsseelenlehre als Grundlage alles Wissens_, and his inaugural dissertation _De Veris Philosophiae Initiis_. His marked opposition to the philosophy of Hegel, then dominant in Berlin, was shown more clearly in the short tract, _Neue Grundlegung zur Metaphysik_ (1822), intended to be the programme for his lectures as privat-docent, and in the able treatise, _Grundlegung zur Physlk der Sitten_ (1822), written, in direct antagonism to Kant's _Metaphysic of Ethics_, to deduce ethical principles from a basis of empirical feeling. In 1822 his lectures were prohibited at Berlin, according to his own belief through the influence of Hegel with the Prussian authorities, who also prevented him from obtaining a chair from the Saxon government. He retired to Gottingen, lectured there for some years, and was then allowed to return to Berlin. In 1832 he received an appointment as _professor extraordinarius_ in the university, which he continued to hold till his death. On the 1st of March 1854 he disappeared, and more than two years later his remains were found in the canal near Charlottenburg. There was some suspicion that he had committed suicide in a fit of mental depression.

The distinctive peculiarity of Beneke's system consists, first, in the firmness with which he maintained that in empirical psychology is to be found the basis of all philosophy; and secondly, in his rigid treatment of mental phenomena by the genetic method. According to him, the perfected mind is a development from simple elements, and the first problem of philosophy is the determination of these elements and of the processes by which the development takes place. In his _Neue Psychologie_, (essays iii., viii. and ix.), he defined his position with regard to his predecessors and contemporaries, and both there and in the introduction to his _Lehrbuch_ signalized as the two great stages in the progress of psychology the negation of innate ideas by Locke, and of faculties, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, by Herbart. The next step was his own; he insisted that psychology must be treated as one of the natural sciences. As is the case with them, its content is given by experience alone, and differs from theirs only in being the object of the internal as opposed to the external sense. But by this Beneke in no wise meant a psychology founded on physiology. These two sciences, in his opinion, had quite distinct provinces and gave no mutual assistance. Just as little help is to be expected from the science of the body as from mathematics and metaphysics, both of which had been pressed by Herbart into the service of psychology. The true method of study is that applied with so much success in the physical sciences--critical examination of the given experience, and reference of it to ultimate causes, which may not be themselves perceived, but are nevertheless hypotheses necessary to account for the facts. (See on method, _Neue Psych._, essay i.)

Starting from the two assumptions that there is nothing, or at least
no formed product, innate in the mind, and that definite faculties do
not originally exist, and from the fact that our minds nevertheless
actually have a definite content and definite modes of action, Beneke
proceeds to state somewhat dogmatically his scientifically verifiable
hypotheses as to the primitive condition of the soul and the laws
according to which it develops. Originally the soul is possessed of or
is an immense variety of powers, faculties or forces (conceptions
which Beneke, in opposition to Herbart, holds to be metaphysically
justifiable), differing from one another only in tenacity, vivacity,
receptivity and grouping. These primitive immaterial forces, so
closely united as to form but one being (essence), acquire
definiteness or form through the action upon them of _stimuli_ or
excitants from the outer world. This action of external impressions
which are appropriated by the internal powers is the first fundamental
process in the genesis of the completed mind. If the union of
impression and faculty be sufficiently strong, consciousness (not
_self_-consciousness) arises, and definite sensations and perceptions
begin to be formed. These primitive sensations, however, are not to be
identified with the sensations of the special senses, for each of
these senses is a system of many powers which have grown into a
definite unity, have been educated by experience. From ordinary
experience it must be concluded that a second fundamental process is
incessantly going on, viz. the formation of new powers, which takes
place principally during sleep. The third and most important process
results from the fact that the combination between stimulus and power
may be weak or strong; if weak, then the two elements are said to be
movable, and they may flow over from one to another of the already
formed psychical products. Any formed faculty does not cease to exist
on the removal of its stimulus; in virtue of its fundamental property,
_tenacity_, it sinks back as a trace (_Spur_) into unconsciousness,
whence it may be recalled by the application to it of another
stimulus, or by the attraction towards it of some of the movable
elements or newly-formed original powers. These traces and the flowing
over of the movable elements are the most important conceptions in
Beneke's psychology; by means of them he gives a rationale of
reproduction and association, and strives to show that all the formed
faculties are simply developments from traces of earlier processes.
Lastly, similar forms, according to the degree of their similarity,
attract one another or tend to form closer combinations.

All psychical phenomena are explicable by the relation of impression
and power, and by the flow of movable elements; the whole process of
mental development is nothing but the result of the action and
interaction of the above simple laws. In general this growth may be
said to take the direction of rendering more and more definite by
repetition and attraction of like to like the originally indefinite
activities of the primary faculties. Thus the sensations of the
special senses are gradually formed from the primary sensuous feelings
(_sinnliche Empfindungen_); concepts are formed from intuitions of
individuals by the attraction of the common elements, and the
consequent flow towards them of movable forms. Judgment is the
springing into consciousness of a concept alongside of an intuition,
or of a higher concept alongside of a lower. Reasoning is merely a
more complex judgment. Nor are there special faculties of judging or
reasoning. The understanding is simply the mass of concepts lying in
the background of unconsciousness, ready to be called up and to flow
with force towards anything closely connected with them. Even memory
is not a special faculty; it is simply the fundamental property of
tenacity possessed by the original faculties. The very distinction
between the great classes, Knowledge, Feeling and Will, may be
referred to elementary differences in the original relations of
faculty and impression.

This is the groundwork of Beneke's philosophy. It should be carefully
compared with the association psychology of modern British thinkers,
most of whose results and processes will be found there worked into a
comprehensive system (see ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS). In logic, metaphysics
and ethics Beneke's speculations are naturally dependent on his
psychology.

The special value of Beneke's works, as has been already said,
consists in the many specimens of acute psychological analysis
scattered throughout them. As a complete explanation of psychical
facts, the theory seems defective. The original hypotheses, peculiar
to Beneke, on which the whole depends, are hastily assumed and rest on
a clumsy mechanical metaphor. As is the case with all empirical
theories of mental development, the higher categories or notions,
which are apparently shown to result from the simple elements, are
really presupposed at every step. Particularly unsatisfactory is the
account of consciousness, which is said to arise from the union of
impression and faculty. The necessity of consciousness for any mental
action whatsoever is apparently granted, but the conditions involved
in it are never discussed or mentioned. The same defect appears in the
account of ethical judgment; no amount of empirical fact can ever
yield the notion of absolute duty. His results have found acceptance
mainly with practical teachers. Undoubtedly his minute analysis of
temperament and careful exposition of the means whereby the young,
unformed mind may be trained are of infinite value; but the truth of
many of his doctrines on these points lends no support to the
fundamental hypotheses, from which, indeed, they might be almost
entirely severed.

Beneke was a most prolific writer, and besides the works mentioned
above, published large treatises in the several departments of
philosophy, both pure and as applied to education and ordinary life. A
complete list of his writings will be found in the appendix to
Dressler's edition of the _Lehrbuch der Psychologie als
Naturwissenschaft_ (1861). The chief are:--_Psychologische Skizzen_
(1825, 1827); _Lehrbuch der Psychologie_ (1832); _Metaphysik und
Religionsphilosophie_ (1840); _Die neue Psychologie_ (1845);
_Pragmatische Psychologie oder Seelenlehre in der Anwendung auf das
Leben_ (1832).

Among German writers, who, though not professed followers of Beneke,
have been largely influenced by him, may be mentioned Ueberweg and
Karl Fortlage (1806-1881). In England, perhaps, the only writer who
shows traces of acquaintance with his works is J.D. Morell (_Introd.
to Mental Philosophy_). The most eminent members of the school are
J.G. Dressler (whose _Beneke oder Seelenlehre als Naturwissenschaft_
is an admirable exposition), Fried. Dittes and G. Raue. The compendium
by the last-named author passed through four editions in Germany, and
has been translated into French, Flemish and English. The English
translation, _Elements of Psychology_ (1871), gives a lucid and
succinct view of the whole system.

Among more recent works on Beneke are O.E. Hummel, _Die
Unterrichtslehre Benekes_ (Leipzig, 1885); on his ethical theory,
C.H.Th. Kuhn, _Die Sittenlehre F.E. Benekes_ (1892); Joh. Friedrich,
_F.E. Beneke_ (Wiesbaden, 1898, with biography and list of works);
Otto Gramzow, _F.E. Benekes Leben und Philos._ (Bern, 1899, with full
bibliography); on his theory of knowledge, H. Renner, _Benekes
Erkenninistheorie_ (Halle, 1902); on his metaphysics, _Die Metaphysik
Benekes_, by A. Wandschneider (Berlin, 1903); Brandt, _Beneke, the Man
and His Philosophy_ (New York, 1895); Falckenberg, _Hist. of Phil._
(Eng. trans., 1895); and H. Hoffding, _Hist. of Mod. Phil._ vol. ii.
(Eng. trans., 1900). (R. Ad.)

BENETT, ETHELDRED (1776-1845), one of the earliest of English women geologists, the second daughter of Thomas Benett, of Pyt House near Tisbury, was born in 1776. Later she resided at Norton House, near Warminster, in Wiltshire, and for more than a quarter of a century devoted herself to collecting and studying the fossils of her native county. She contributed "A Catalogue of the Organic Remains of the County of Wilts" to Sir R.C. Hoare's _County History_, and a limited number of copies of this work were printed as a separate volume (1831) and privately distributed. She died on the 11th of January 1845.

BENEVENTO, a town and archiepiscopal see of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 60 m. by rail and 32 m. direct N.E. of Naples, situated on a hill 400 ft. above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore and Sabbato. Pop. (1901) town, 17,227; commune, 24,137. It occupies the site of the ancient Beneventum, originally Maleventum or Maluentum, supposed in the imperial period to have been founded by Diomedes. It was the chief town of the Samnites, who took refuge here after their defeat by the Romans in 314 B.C. It appears not to have fallen into the hands of the latter until Pyrrhus's absence in Sicily, but served them as a base of operations in the last campaign against him in 275 B.C. A Latin colony was planted there in 268 B.C., and it was then that the name was changed for the sake of the omen, and probably then that the Via Appia was extended from Capua to Beneventum. It remained in the hands of the Romans during both the Punic and the Social Wars, and was a fortress of importance to them. The position is strong, being protected by the two rivers mentioned, and the medieval fortifications, which are nearly 2 m. in length, probably follow the ancient line, which was razed to the ground by Totila in A.D. 542. After the Social War it became a _municipium_ and under Augustus a colony. Being a meeting point of six main roads,[1] it was much visited by travellers. Its importance is vouched for by the many remains of antiquity which it possesses, of which the most famous is the triumphal arch erected in honour of Trajan by the senate and people of Rome in A.D. 114, with important reliefs relating to its history (E. Petersen in _Romische Mitteilungen_, 1892, 241; A. von Domaszewzki in _Jahreshefte des Osterreich. archaologischen Instituts_, ii., 1899, 173). There are also considerable remains of the ancient theatre, a large _cryptoporticus_ 197 ft. long known as the ruins of Santi Quaranta, and probably an emporium (according to Meomartini, the portion preserved is only a fraction of the whole, which once measured 1791 ft. in length) and an ancient brick arch (called the Arco del Sacramento), while below the town is the Ponte Lebroso, a bridge of the Via Appia over the Sabbato, and along the road to Avellino are remains of _thermae_. Many inscriptions and ancient fragments may be seen built into the houses; in front of the Madonna delle Grazie is a bull in red Egyptian granite, and in the Piazza Papiniano the fragments of two Egyptian obelisks erected in A.D. 88 in front of the temple of Isis in honour of Domitian. In 1903 the foundations of this temple were discovered close to the Arch of Trajan, and many fragments of fine sculptures in both the Egyptian and the Greco-Roman style belonging to it were found. They had apparently been used as the foundation of a portion of the city wall, reconstructed in A.D. 663 under the fear of an attack by Constans, the Byzantine emperor, the temple having been destroyed under the influence of the bishop, St Barbatus, to provide the necessary material (A. Meomartini, O. Marucchi and L. Savignoni in _Notizie degli Scavi_, 1904, 107 sqq.). Not long after it had been sacked by Totila Benevento became the seat of a powerful Lombard duchy and continued to be independent until 1053, when the emperor Henry III. ceded it to Leo IX. in exchange for the bishopric of Bamberg; and it continued to be a papal possession until 1806, when Napoleon granted it to Talleyrand with the title of prince. In 1815 it returned to the papacy, but was united to Italy in 1860. Manfred lost his life in 1266 in battle with Charles of Anjou not far from the town. Much damage has been done by earthquakes from time to time. The church of S. Sofia, a circular edifice of about 760, now modernized, the roof of which is supported by six ancient columns, is a relic of the Lombard period; it has a fine cloister of the 12th century constructed in part of fragments of earlier buildings; while the cathedral with its fine arcaded facade and incomplete square campanile (begun in 1279) dates from the 9th century and was rebuilt in 1114. The bronze doors, adorned with bas-reliefs, are good; they may belong to the beginning of the 13th century. The interior is in the form of a basilica, the double aisles being borne by ancient columns, and contains _ambones_ and a candelabrum of 1311, the former resting on columns supported by lions, and decorated with reliefs and coloured marble mosaic. The castle at the highest point of the town was erected in the 14th century.

Benevento is a station on the railway from Naples to Foggia, and has branch lines to Campobasso and to Avellino.

See A. Meomartini, _Monumenti e opere d'Arte di Benevento_ (Benevento,
1899); T. Ashby, _Melanges de l'ecole francaise_, 1903, 416.
(T. As.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] These were (1) the prolongation of the Via Appia from Capua, (2)
its continuation to Tarentum and Brundisium, of which there were two
different lines between Beneventum and Aquilonia at different dates
(see APPIA, VIA), (3) the Via Traiana to Brundisium by Herdoniae, (4)
the road to Telesia and Aesernia, (5) the road to Aesernia by
Bovianum, (6) the road to Abellinum and Salernum.

BENEVOLENCE (Lat. _bene_, well, and _volens_, wishing), a term for an act of kindness, or a gift of money, or goods, but used in a special sense to indicate sums of money, disguised as gifts, which were extorted by various English kings from their subjects, without consent of parliament. Among the numerous methods which have been adopted by sovereigns everywhere to obtain support from their people, that of demanding gifts has frequently found a place, and consequently it is the word and not the method which is peculiar to English history. Edward II. and Richard II. had obtained funds by resorting to forced loans, a practice which was probably not unusual in earlier times. Edward IV., however, discarded even the pretence of repayment, and in 1473 the word _benevolence_ was first used with reference to a royal demand for a gift. Edward was very successful in these efforts, and as they only concerned a limited number of persons he did not incur serious unpopularity. But when Richard III. sought to emulate his brother's example, protests were made which led to the passing of an act of parliament in 1484 abolishing benevolences as "new and unlawful inventions." About the same time the Chronicle of Croyland referred to a benevolence as a "nova et inaudita impositio muneris ut per benevolentiam quilibet daret id quod vellet, immo verius quod nollet." In spite of this act Richard demanded a further benevolence; but it was Henry VII. who made the most extensive use of this system. In 1491 he sent out commissioners to obtain gifts of money, and in 1496 an act of parliament enforced payment of the sums promised on this occasion under penalty of imprisonment. Henry's chancellor, Cardinal Morton, archbishop of Canterbury, was the traditional author of a method of raising money by benevolences known as "Morton's Fork." If a man lived economically, it was reasoned he was saving money and could afford a present for the king. If, on the contrary, he lived sumptuously, he was evidently wealthy and could likewise afford a gift. Henry VII. obtained considerable sums of money in this manner; and in 1545 Henry VIII. demanded a "loving contribution" from all who possessed lands worth not less than forty shillings a year, or chattels to the value of L15; and those who refused to make payment were summoned before the privy council and punished. Elizabeth took loans which were often repaid; and in 1614 James I. ordered the sheriffs and magistrates in each county and borough to collect a general benevolence from all persons of ability, and with some difficulty about L40,000 was collected. Four counties had, however, distinguished themselves by protests against this demand, and the act of Richard III. had been cited by various objectors. Representatives from the four counties were accordingly called before the privy council, where Sir Edward Coke defended the action of the king, quoted the Tudor precedents and urged that the act of 1484 was to prevent exactions, not voluntary gifts such as James had requested. Subsequently Oliver St John was fined and imprisoned for making a violent protest against the benevolence, and on the occasion of his trial Sir Francis Bacon defended the request for money as voluntary. In 1615 an attempt to exact a benevolence in Ireland failed, and in 1620 it was decided to demand one for the defence of the Palatinate. Circular letters were sent out, punishments were inflicted, but many excuses were made and only about L34,000 was contributed. In 1621 a further attempt was made, judges of assize and others were ordered to press for contributions, and wealthy men were called before the privy council and asked to name a sum at which to be rated. About L88,000 was thus raised, and in 1622 William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, was imprisoned for six months for protesting. This was the last time benevolences were actually collected, although in 1622 and 1625 it was proposed to raise money in this manner. In 1633 Charles I. consented to collect a benevolence for the recovery of the Palatinate for Charles Louis, the son of his sister Elizabeth, but no further steps were taken to carry out the project.

See W. Stubbs, _Constitutional History of England_, vol. iii. (Oxford,
1895); H. Hallam, _Constitutional History of England_, vol. i.
(London, 1855); T.P. Taswell-Langmead, _English Constitutional
History_ (London, 1896); S.R. Gardiner, _History of England, passim_
(London, 1893).

BENFEY, THEODOR (1809-1881), German philologist, son of a Jewish trader at Norten, near Gottingen, was born on the 28th of January 1809. Although originally designed for the medical profession, his taste for philology was awakened by a careful instruction in Hebrew which he received from his father. After brilliant studies at Gottingen he spent a year at Munich, where he was greatly impressed by the lectures of Schelling and Thiersch, and afterwards settled as a teacher in Frankfort. His pursuits were at first chiefly classical, and his attention was diverted to Sanskrit by an accidental wager that he would learn enough of the language in a few weeks to be able to review a new book upon it. This feat he accomplished, and rivalled in later years when he learned Russian in order to translate V.P. Vasilev's work on Buddhism. For the time, however, his labours were chiefly in classical and Semitic philology. At Gottingen, whither he had returned as privat-docent, he wrote a little work on the names of the Hebrew months, proving that they were derived from the Persian, prepared the great article on India in Ersch and Gruber's _Encyclopaedia_, and published from 1839 to 1842 the _Lexicon of Greek Roots_ which gained him the Volney prize of the Institute of France. From this time his attention was principally given to Sanskrit. He published in 1848 his edition of the _Sama-veda_; in 1852-1854 his _Manual of Sanskrit_, comprising a grammar and chrestomathy; in 1858 his practical Sanskrit grammar, afterwards translated into English; and in 1859 his edition of the _Pantscha Tantra_, with an extensive dissertation on the fables and mythologies of primitive nations. All these works had been produced under the pressure of poverty, the government, whether from parsimony or from prejudice against a Jew, refusing to make any substantial addition to his small salary as extra-professor at the university. At length, in 1862, the growing appreciation of foreign scholars shamed it into making him an ordinary professor, and in 1866 Benfey published the laborious work by which he is on the whole best known, his great _Sanskrit-English Dictionary_. In 1869 he wrote a history of German philological research, especially Oriental, during the 19th century. In 1878 his jubilee as doctor was celebrated by the publication of a volume of philological essays dedicated to him and written by the first scholars in Germany. He had designed to close his literary labours by a grammar of Vedic Sanskrit, and was actively preparing it when he was interrupted by illness, which terminated in his death at Gottingen on the 26th of June 1881.

A collection of his various writings was published in 1890, prefaced
by a memoir by his son.

BENGAL, a province of British India, bounded on the E. by the province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, the boundary line being the Madhumati river and the Ganges; on the S. by the Bay of Bengal and Madras; on the W. by the Central Provinces and United Provinces; and on the N. by Nepal and Sikkim. It has an area of 141,580 sq. m. and a population of 54,096,806. It consists of the provinces of Behar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur, and the western portion of the Ganges valley, but without the provinces of Northern and Eastern Bengal; and is divided into the six British divisions of the presidency, Bhagalpur, Patna, Burdwan, Chota Nagpur and Orissa, and various native states. The province was reconstituted in 1905, when the Chittagong, Dacca and Rajshahi divisions, the district of Malda and the state of Hill Tippera were transferred from Bengal to a new province, Eastern Bengal and Assam; the five Hindi-speaking states of Chota Nagpur, namely Chang Bhakar, Korea, Sirguja, Udaipur and Jashpur, were transferred from Bengal to the Central Provinces; and Sambalpur and the five Oriya states of Bamra, Rairakhol, Sonpur, Patna and Kalahandi were transferred from the Central Provinces to Bengal. The province of Bengal, therefore, now consists of the thirty-three British districts of Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura, Midnapore, Hugli, Howrah, Twenty-four Parganas, Calcutta, Nadia, Murshidabad, Jessore, Khulna, Patna, Gaya, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Monghyr, Bhagalpur, Purnea, Santal Parganas, Cuttack, Balasore, Angul and Khondmals, Puri, Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Palamau, Manbhum, Singhbum and Sambalpur, and the native states of Sikkim and the tributary states of Orissa and Chota Nagpur.

The name Bengal is derived from Sanskrit geography, and applies strictly to the country stretching southwards from Bhagalpur to the sea. The ancient Banga formed one of the five outlying kingdoms of Aryan India, and was practically conterminous with the delta of Bengal. It derived its name, according to the etymology of the Pundits, from a prince of the Mahabharata, to whose portion it fell on the primitive partition of the country among the Lunar race of Delhi. But a city called Bangala, near Chittagong, which, although now washed away, is supposed to have existed in the Mahommedan period, appears to have given the name to the European world. The word Bangala was first used by the Mussulmans; and under their rule, like the Banga of old Sanskrit times, it applied specifically to the Gangetic delta, although the later conquests to the east of the Brahmaputra were eventually included within it. In their distribution of the country for fiscal purposes, it formed the central province of a governorship, with Behar on the north-west, and Orissa on the south-west, jointly ruled by one deputy of the Delhi emperor. Under the English the name has at different periods borne very different significations. Francis Fernandez applies it to the country from the extreme east of Chittagong to Point Palmyras in Orissa, with a coast line which Purchas estimates at 600 m., running inland for the same distance and watered by the Ganges. This territory would include the Mahommedan province of Bengal, with parts of Behar and Orissa. The loose idea thus derived from old voyagers became stereotyped in the archives of the East India Company. All its north-eastern factories, from Balasore, on the Orissa coast, to Patna, in the heart of Behar, belonged to the "Bengal Establishment," and as British conquests crept higher up the rivers, the term came to be applied to the whole of northern India. The presidency of Bengal, in contradistinction to those of Madras and Bombay, eventually included all the British territories north of the Central Provinces, from the mouths of the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the Himalayas and the Punjab. In 1831 the North-Western Provinces were created, which are now included with Oudh in the United Provinces; and the whole of northern India is now divided into the four lieutenant-governorships of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Bengal, and Eastern Bengal and Assam, and the North-West Frontier Province under a commissioner.

_Physical Geography._--Three sub-provinces of the present lieutenant-governorship of Bengal--namely, Bengal proper, Behar and Orissa--consist of great river valleys; the fourth, Chota Nagpur, is a mountainous region which separates them from the central India plateau. Orissa embraces the rich deltas of the Mahanadi and the neighbouring rivers, bounded by the Bay of Bengal on the S.E., and walled in on the N.W. by tributary hill states. Proceeding west, the sub-province of Bengal proper stretches to the banks of the Ganges and inland from the sea-board to the Himalayas. Its southern portion is formed by the delta of the Ganges; its northern consists of the Ganges valley. Behar lies on the north-west of Bengal proper, and comprises, the higher valley of the Ganges from the spot where it issues from the United Provinces. Between Behar and Orissa lies the province of Chota Nagpur, of which a portion was given in 1905 to the Central Provinces. The valley of the Ganges, which is now divided between Bengal and Eastern Bengal and Assam, is one of the most fertile and densely-populated tracts of country in the world. It teems with every product of nature. Tea, indigo, turmeric, lac, waving white fields of the opium-poppy, wheat and innumerable grains and pulses, pepper, ginger, betel-nut, quinine and many costly spices and drugs, oil-seeds of sorts, cotton, the silk mulberry, inexhaustible crops of jute and other fibres; timber, from the feathery bamboo and coroneted palm to the iron-hearted _sal_ tree--in short, every vegetable product which feeds and clothes a people, and enables it to trade with foreign nations, abounds. Nor is the country destitute of mineral wealth. The districts near the sea consist entirely of alluvial formations; and, indeed, it is stated that no substance so coarse as gravel occurs throughout the delta, or in the heart of the provinces within 400 m. of the river mouths.

Climate.

The climate varies from the snowy regions of the Himalayas to the tropical vapour-bath of the delta and the burning winds of Behar. The ordinary range of the thermometer, on the plains is from about 52 deg. F. in the coldest month to 103 deg. in the shade in summer. A temperature below 60 deg. is considered very cold, while with care the temperature of well-built houses rarely exceeds 95 deg. in the hot weather. The rainfall varies from 37 in. in Behar to about 65 in. in the delta.

Rivers.

Lower Bengal exhibits the two typical stages in the life of a great river. In the northern districts the rivers run along the valleys, receive the drainage from the country on either side, absorb broad tributaries and rush forward with an ever-increasing volume. But near the centre of the provinces the rivers enter upon a new stage of their career. Their main channels bifurcate, and each new stream so created throws off its own set of distributaries to right and left. The country which they thus enclose and intersect forms the delta of Bengal. Originally conquered by the fluvial deposits from the sea, it now stretches out as a vast dead level, in which the rivers find their velocity checked, and their current no longer able to carry along the silt which they have brought down from northern India. The streams, accordingly, deposit their alluvial burden in their channels and upon their banks, so that by degrees their beds rise above the level of the surrounding country. In this way the rivers in the delta slowly build themselves up into canals, which every autumn break through or overflow their margins, and leave their silt upon the adjacent flats. Thousands of square miles in Lower Bengal annually receive a top-dressing of virgin soil from the Himalayas,--a system of natural manuring which renders elaborate tillage a waste of labour, and defies the utmost power of over-cropping to exhaust its fertility. As the rivers creep farther down the delta, they become more and more sluggish, and their bifurcations and interfacings more complicated. The last scene of all is a vast amphibious wilderness of swamp and forest, amid whose solitudes their network of channels insensibly merges into the sea. The rivers, finally checked by the sea, deposit their remaining silt, which emerges as banks or blunted promontories, or, after a year's battling with the tide, adds a few feet or it may be a few inches to the foreshore.

The Ganges gives to the country its peculiar character and aspect. About 200 m. from its mouth it spreads out into numerous branches, forming a large delta, composed, where it borders on the sea, of a labyrinth of creeks and rivers, running through the dense forests of the Sundarbans, and exhibiting during the annual inundation the appearance of an immense sea. At this time the rice fields to the extent of many hundreds of square miles are submerged. The scene presents to a European eye a panorama of singular novelty and interest--rice fields covered with water to a great depth; the ears of grain floating on the surface; the stupendous embankments, which restrain without altogether preventing the excesses of the inundations; and peasants going out to their daily work with their cattle in canoes or on rafts. The navigable streams which fall into the Ganges intersect the country in every direction and afford great facilities for internal communication. In many parts boats can approach by means of lakes, rivulets and water-courses to the door of almost every cottage. The lower region of the Ganges is the richest and most productive portion of Bengal, abounding in valuable produce. The other principal rivers in Bengal are the Sone, Gogra, Gandak, Kusi, Tista; the Hugli, formed by the junction of the Bhagirathi and Jalangi, and farther to the west, the Damodar and Rupnarayan; and in the south-west, the Mahanadi or great river of Orissa. In a level country like Bengal, where the soil is composed of yielding and loose materials, the courses of the rivers are continually shifting from the wearing away of their different banks, or from the water being turned off by obstacles in its course into a different channel. As this channel is gradually widened the old bed of the river is left dry. The new channel into which the river flows is of course so much land lost, while the old bed constitutes an accession to the adjacent estates. Thus, one man's property is diminished, while that of another is enlarged or improved; and a distinct branch of jurisprudence has grown up, the particular province of which is the definition and regulation of the alluvial rights alike of private property and of the state.

_Geology._--The greater part of Bengal is occupied by the alluvial deposits of the Ganges, but in the south-west rises the plateau of Chota Nagpur composed chiefly of gneissic rocks. The great thickness of the Gangetic alluvium is shown by a borehole at Calcutta which was carried to a depth of about 460 ft. below the present level of the sea without entering any marine deposit. Over the surface of the gneissic rocks are scattered numerous basins of Gondwana beds. Some of these are undoubtedly faulted into their present positions, and to this they owe their preservation. In the Rajmahal Hills basaltic lava flows are interbedded with the Gondwana deposits, and in the Karharbari coalfield the Gondwana beds are traversed by dikes of mica-peridotite and basalt, which are supposed to be of the same age as the Rajmahal lavas. The Gondwana series is economically of great importance. It includes numerous seams of coal, many of which are worked on an extensive scale (at Giridih, Raniganj, &c.). The quality of the coal is good, but unfortunately it contains a large amount of ash, the average being as high as 17%.

_People._--In the sub-provinces under the lieutenant-governor of Bengal dwell a great congeries of peoples, of widely diverse origin, speaking different languages and representing far separated eras of civilization. The province, in fact, became so unwieldy that this was the chief reason for its partition in 1905. The people exhibit every stage of human progress, and every type of human enlightenment and superstition from the educated classes to primitive hill tribes. On the same bench of a Calcutta college sit youths trained up in the strictest theism, others indoctrinated in the mysteries of the Hindu trinity and pantheon, with representatives of every link in the chain of superstition--from the harmless offering of flowers before the family god to the cruel rites of Kali, whose altars in the most civilized districts of Bengal, as lately as the famine of 1866, were stained with human blood. Indeed, the very word Hindu is one of absolutely indeterminate meaning. The census officers employ it as a convenient generic to include 42 millions of the population of Bengal, comprising elements of transparently distinct ethnical origin, and separated from each other by their language, customs and religious rites. But Hinduism, understood even in this wide sense, represents only one of many creeds and races found within Bengal. The other great historical cultus, which during the last twelve centuries did for the Semitic peoples what Christianity accomplished among the European Aryans, has won to itself one-fifth of the population of Bengal. The Mahommedans number some 9,000,000 in Bengal, but the great bulk of their numbers was transferred to Eastern Bengal and Assam. They consist largely of the original inhabitants of the country, who were proselytized by the successive Pathan and Mogul invasions. In the face of great natural catastrophes, such as river inundations, famines, tidal waves and cyclones of the lower provinces of Bengal, the religious instinct works with a vitality unknown in European countries. Until the British government stepped in with its police and canals and railroads, between the people and what they were accustomed to consider the dealings of Providence, scarcely a year passed without some terrible manifestation of the power and the wrath of God. Mahratta invasions from central India, piratical devastations on the sea-board, banditti who marched about the interior in bodies of 50,000 men, floods which drowned the harvests of whole districts, and droughts in which a third of the population starved to death, kept alive a sense of human powerlessness in the presence of an omnipotent fate. Under the Mahommedans a pestilence turned the capital into a silent wilderness, never again to be re-peopled. Under British rule it is estimated that 10 millions perished within the Lower Provinces alone in the famine of 1769-1770; and the first surveyor-general of Bengal entered on his maps a tract of many hundreds of square miles as bare of villages and "depopulated by the Maghs." But since the advent of British administration the history of Bengal has substantially been a record of prosperity; the teeming population of its river valleys is one of the densest in the world, and the purely agricultural districts of Saran and Muzaffarpur in the Patna division support over 900 persons to the square mile, a number hardly surpassed elsewhere except in urban areas.

_Language._--Excluding immigrants the languages spoken by the people of Bengal belong to one or other of four linguistic families--Aryan, Dravidian, Munda and Tibeto-Burman. Of these the languages of the Aryan family are by far the most important, being spoken by no less than 95% of the population according to the census of 1901. The Aryan languages are spoken in the plains by almost the whole population; the Munda and Dravidian in the Chota Nagpur plateau and adjoining tracts; and the Tibeto-Burman in Darjeeling, Sikkim and Jalpaiguri. The most important Aryan languages are Bengali (q.v.), Bihari, Eastern Hindi and Oriya. On the average in the province, before partition, out of every 1000 persons 528 spoke Bengali, 341 Hindi and Bihari, and 79 Oriya. As a rule Bengali is the language of Bengal proper, Hindi of Behar and Chota Nagpur, and Oriya of Orissa.

_Agriculture._--The staple crop of the province is rice, to which about 66% of the cropped area is devoted. There are three harvests in the year--the _boro_, or spring rice; _aus_, or autumn rice; and _aman_, or winter rice. Of these the last or winter rice is by far the most extensively cultivated, and forms the great harvest of the year. The _aman_ crop is grown on low land. In May, after the first fall of rain, a nursery ground is ploughed three times, and the seed scattered broadcast. When the seedlings make their appearance another field is prepared for transplanting. By this time the rainy season has thoroughly set in, and the field is dammed up so as to retain the water. It is then repeatedly ploughed until the water becomes worked into the soil, and the whole reduced to thick mud. The young rice is then taken from the nursery, and transplanted in rows about 9 in. apart. _Aman_ rice is much more extensively cultivated than _aus_, and in favourable years is the most valuable crop, but being sown in low lands is liable to be destroyed by excessive rainfall. Harvest takes place in December or January. _Aus_ rice is generally sown on high ground. The field is ploughed when the early rains set in, ten or twelve times over, till the soil is reduced nearly to dust, the seed being sown broadcast in April or May. As soon as the young plants reach 6 in. in height, the land is harrowed for the purpose of thinning the crop and to clear it of weeds. The crop is harvested in August or September. _Boro_, or spring rice, is cultivated on low marshy land, being sown in a nursery in October, transplanted a month later, and harvested in March and April. An indigenous description of rice, called _uri_ or _jaradhan_, grows in certain marshy tracts. The grain is very small, and is gathered for consumption only by the poorest. Wheat forms an important food staple in Behar, whence there is a considerable export to Calcutta. Oil-seeds are very largely grown, particularly in Behar. The principal oil-seeds are _sarisha_ (mustard), _til_ (sesamum) and _lisi_ or _masina_ (linseed). Jute (_pat_ or _kosta_) forms a very important commercial staple of Bengal. The cultivation of this crop has rapidly increased of late years. Its principal seat of cultivation, however, is Eastern Bengal, where the superior varieties are grown. The crop grows on either high or low lands, is sown in April and cut in August. Apart from the quantity exported and the quantity made up by hand, it supports a prosperous mill industry, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Calcutta and Howrah. In 1905 there were thirty-six jute mills in the province and 2-1/4 million acres were cropped. The value of jute and of the goods manufactured from it represents more than a third of the aggregate value of the trade of Calcutta. Indigo used to be an important crop carried on with European capital in Behar, but of late years the industry has almost been destroyed by the invention of artificial indigo. Tea cultivation is the other great industry carried on by European capital, but that is chiefly confined to Assam, the industry in Darjeeling and the Dwars being on a small scale. Opium is grown in Behar with its head station at Patna. The cultivation of the cinchona plant in Bengal was introduced as an experiment about 1862, and is grown on government plantations in Darjeeling.

_Mineral Products._--The chief mineral product in Bengal is coal, which disputes with the gold of Mysore for the place of premier importance in the mining industries of India. The most important mine in point of area, accessibility and output is Raniganj, with an area of 500 sq. m. Another of rising importance is that of Jherria, with an area of 200 sq. m., which is situated only 16 m. to the west of Raniganj; while Daltonganj also has an area of 200 sq. m. The small coalfield of Karharbari with an area of only 11 sq. m. yields the best coal in Bengal. Besides these four coalfields there are twenty-five others of various sizes, which are only in the initial stages of development.

_Commerce._--The sea-borne trade of Bengal is almost entirely concentrated at Calcutta (q.v.), which also serves as the chief port for Eastern Bengal and Assam, and for the United Provinces. The principal imports are cotton piece goods, railway materials, metals and machinery, oils, sugar, cotton, twist and salt; and the principal exports are jute, tea, hides, opium, rice, oil-seeds, indigo and lac. The inter-provincial trade is mostly carried on with Eastern Bengal and Assam, the United Provinces and the Central Provinces. From the United Provinces come opium, hides, raw cotton, wheat, shellac and oil-seeds; and from Assam, tea, oil-seeds and jute. The frontier trade of Bengal is registered with Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet and Bhutan, but except with Nepal the amount is insignificant.

_Railways._--Bengal is well supplied with railways, which naturally have the seaport of Calcutta as the centre of the system. South of the Ganges, the East Indian follows the river from the North-Western Provinces, with its terminus at Howrah on the Hugli, opposite Calcutta. A chord line passes by the coalfield of Raniganj, which enables this great railway to be worked more economically than any other in India. The Bengal-Nagpur, from the Central Provinces, also has its terminus at Howrah, and the section of this railway through Midnapore carries the East Coast line from Madras. North of the Ganges the Eastern Bengal runs north to Darjeeling, and maintains a service of river steamers on the Brahmaputra. The Bengal Central serves the lower Gangetic delta. Both of these have their termini at Sealdah, an eastern suburb of Calcutta. Northern Behar is traversed by the Bengal & North-Western, with an extension eastwards through Tirhoot to join the Eastern Bengal. In addition there are a few light lines and steam tramways.

_Canals and Rivers._--Rivers and other waterways still carry a large part of the traffic of Bengal, especially in the delta. The government maintains two channels through the Sundarbans, known as the Calcutta and Eastern canals, and likewise does its best to keep open the Nadiya rivers, which form the communication between the main stream of the Ganges and the Hugli. There is further a route by water between Calcutta and Midnapore. The most important canals, those in Orissa (see MAHANADI) and on the Sone river in southern Behar, have been constructed primarily for irrigation, though they are also used for navigation. Except as a protection against famine, expenditure on irrigation is not remunerative in Bengal, on account of the abundance of rivers, and the general dampness of the climate.

_Administration._--The administration of Bengal is conducted by a lieutenant-governor, with a chief secretary, two secretaries and three under-secretaries. There is no executive council, as in Madras and Bombay; but there is a board of revenue, consisting of two members. For legislative purposes the lieutenant-governor has a council of twenty members, of whom not more than ten may be officials. Of the remaining members seven are nominated on the recommendation of the Calcutta corporation, groups of municipalities, groups of district boards, selected public associations and the senate of Calcutta university. The number of divisions or commissionerships is 6, of which Chota Nagpur ranks as "non-regulation." The number of districts is 33.

_Army._--In Lord Kitchener's reconstitution of the Indian army in 1904 the old Bengal command was abolished and its place taken by the Eastern army corps, which includes all the troops from Meerut to Assam. The boundaries of the 8th division include those of the former Oudh, Allahabad, Assam and Presidency districts; and the troops now quartered in Bengal only consist of the Presidency brigade with its headquarters at Fort William.