Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

Transcriber's notes:
(1) A few typographical errors have been corrected: they are
underlined in the HTML version.

(2) Chapter headings were originally constructed as side-notes. They
were placed here at the head of their respective paragraphs, and moved
to paragraph's start where given at paragraph's middle. See HTML
version for the original headers placement.

ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME VIII slice II

Demijohn to Destructor

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

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

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

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

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

DEMOCHARES (c. 355-275 B.C.), nephew of Demosthenes, Athenian orator and statesman, was one of the few distinguished Athenians in the period of decline. He is first heard of in 322, when he spoke in vain against the surrender of Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian orators demanded by Antipater. During the next fifteen years he probably lived in exile. On the restoration of the democracy by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 307 he occupied a prominent position, but was banished in 303 for having ridiculed the decree of Stratocles, which contained a fulsome eulogy of Demetrius. He was recalled in 298, and during the next four years[1] fortified and equipped the city with provisions and ammunition. In 296 (or 295) he was again banished for having concluded an alliance with the Boeotians, and did not return until 287 (or 286). In 280 he induced the Athenians to erect a public monument in honour of his uncle with a suitable inscription. After his death (some five years later) the son of Demochares proposed and obtained a decree (Plutarch, _Vitae decem oratorum_, p. 851) that a statue should be erected in his honour, containing a record of his public services, which seem to have consisted in a reduction of public expenses, a more prudent management of the state finances (after his return in 287) and successful begging missions to the rulers of Egypt and Macedonia. Although a friend of the Stoic Zeno, Demochares regarded all other philosophers as the enemies of freedom, and in 306 supported the proposal of one Sophocles, advocating their expulsion from Attica. According to Cicero (_Brutus_, 83) Demochares was the author of a history of his own times, written in an oratorical rather than a historical style. As a speaker he was noted for his freedom of language (_Parrhesiastes_, Seneca, _De ira_, iii. 23). He was violently attacked by Timaeus, but found a strenuous defender in Polybius (xii. 13).

See also Plutarch, _Demosthenes_, 30, _Demetrius_, 24, _Vitae decem
oratorum_, p. 847; J. G. Droysen's essay on Demochares in
_Zeitschrift für die Altertumswissenschaft_ (1836), Nos. 20, 21.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] For the "four years' war" and the chronological questions involved,
see C. W. Müller, _Frag. Hist. Graec._ ii. 445.

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

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

DEMOCRATIC PARTY, originally DEMOCRATIC-REPUBLICAN PARTY, the oldest of existing political parties in the United States. Its origin lay in the principles of local self-government and repugnance to social and political aristocracy established as cardinal tenets of American colonial democracy, which by the War of Independence, which was essentially a democratic movement, became the basis of the political institutions of the nation. The evils of lax government, both central and state, under the Confederation caused, however, a marked anti-democratic reaction, and this united with the temperamental conservatism of the framers of the constitution of 1787 in the shaping of that conservative instrument. The influences and interests for and against its adoption took form in the groupings of Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and these, after the creation of the new government, became respectively, in underlying principles, and, to a large extent, in personnel, the Federalist party (q.v.) and the Democratic-Republican party.[1] The latter, organized by Thomas Jefferson in opposition to the Federalists dominated by Alexander Hamilton, was a real party by 1792. The great service of attaching to the constitution a democratic bill of rights belongs to the Anti-Federalists or Democratic-Republican party, although this was then amorphous. The Democratic-Republican party gained full control of the government, save the judiciary, in 1801, and controlled it continuously thereafter until 1825. No political "platforms" were then known, but the writings of Jefferson, who dominated his party throughout this period, take the place of such. His inaugural address of 1801 is a famous statement of democratic principles, which to-day are taken for granted only because, through the party organized by him to secure their success, they became universally accepted as the ideal of American institutions. In all the colonies, says John Adams, "a court and a country party had always contended"; Jefferson's followers believed sincerely that the Federalists were a new court party, and monarchist. Hence they called themselves "Republicans" as against monarchists,--standing also, incidentally, for states' rights against the centralization that monarchy (or any approach to it) implied; and "Democrats" as against aristocrats,--standing for the "common rights of Englishmen," the "rights of man," the levelling of social ranks and the widening of political privileges. In the early years of its history--and during the period of the French Revolution and afterwards--the Republicans sympathized with the French as against the British, the Federalists with the British as against the French.

Devotion to abstract principles of democracy and liberty, and in practical politics a strict construction of the constitution, in order to prevent an aggrandizement of national power at the expense of the states (which were nearer popular control) or the citizens, have been permanent characteristics of the Democratic party as contrasted with its principal opponents; but neither these nor any other distinctions have been continuously or consistently true throughout its long course.[2] After 1801 the commercial and manufacturing nationalistic[3] elements of the Federalist party, being now dependent on Jefferson for protection, gradually went over to the Republicans, especially after the War of 1812; moreover, administration of government naturally developed in Republican ranks a group of broad-constructionists. These groups fused, and became an independent party.[4] They called themselves _National_ Republicans, while the Jacksonian Republicans soon came to be known simply as Democrats.[5] Immediately afterward followed the tremendous victory of the Jacksonians in 1828,--a great advance in radical democracy over the victory of 1800. In the interval the Federalist party had disappeared, and practically the entire country, embracing Jeffersonian democracy, had passed through the school of the Republican party. It had established the power of the "people" in the sense of that word in present-day American politics. Bills of rights in every state constitution protected the citizen; some state judges were already elective; very soon the people came to nominate their presidential candidates in national conventions, and draft their party platforms through their convention representatives.[6] After the National Republican scission the Democratic party, weakened thereby in its nationalistic tendencies, and deprived of the leadership of Jackson, fell quickly under the control of its Southern adherents and became virtually sectional in its objects. Its states' rights doctrine was turned to the defence of slavery. In thus opposing anti-slavery sentiment--inconsistently, alike as regarded the "rights of man" and constitutional construction, with its original and permanent principles--it lost morale and power. As a result of the contest over Kansas it became fatally divided, and in 1860 put forward two presidential tickets: one representing the doctrine of Jefferson Davis that the constitution recognized slave-property, and therefore the national government must protect slavery in the territories; the other representing Douglas's doctrine that the inhabitants of a territory might virtually exclude slavery by "unfriendly legislation." The combined popular votes for the two tickets exceeded that cast by the new, anti-slavery Republican party (the second of the name) for Lincoln; but the election was lost. During the ensuing Civil War such members of the party as did not become War Democrats antagonized the Lincoln administration, and in 1864 made the great blunder of pronouncing the war "a failure." Owing to Republican errors in reconstruction and the scandals of President Grant's administration, the party gradually regained its strength and morale, until, having largely subordinated Southern questions to economic issues, it cast for Tilden for president in 1876 a popular vote greater than that obtained by the Republican candidate, Hayes, and gained control of the House of Representatives. The Electoral Commission, however, made Hayes president, and the quiet acceptance of this decision by the Democratic party did it considerable credit.

Since 1877 the Southern states have been almost solidly Democratic; but, except on the negro question, such unanimity among Southern whites has been, naturally, factitious; and by no means an unmixed good for the party. Apart from the "Solid South," the period after 1875 is characterized by two other party difficulties. The first was the attempt from 1878 to 1896 to "straddle" the silver issue;[7] the second, an attempt after 1896 to harmonize general elements of conservatism and radicalism within the party. In 1896 the South and West gained control of the organization, and the national campaigns of 1896 and 1900 were fought and lost mainly on the issue of "free silver," which, however, was abandoned before 1904. After 1898 "imperialism," to which the Democrats were hostile, became another issue. Finally, after 1896, there became very apparent in the party a tendency to attract the radical elements of society in the general re-alignment of parties taking place on industrial-social issues; the Democratic party apparently attracting, in this readjustment, the "radicals" and the "masses" as in the time of Jefferson and Jackson. In this process, in the years 1896-1900, it took over many of the principles and absorbed, in large part, the members of the radical third-party of the "Populists," only to be confronted thereupon by the growing strength of Socialism, challenging it to a farther radical widening of its programme. From 1860 to 1908 it elected but a single president (Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897).[8] All American parties accepted long ago in theory "Jeffersonian democracy"; but the Democratic party has been "the political champion of those elements of the [American] democracy which are most democratic. It stands nearest the people."[9] It may be noted that the Jeffersonian Republicans did not attempt to democratize the constitution itself. The choice of a president was soon popularized, however, in effect; and the popular election of United States senators is to-day a definite Democratic tenet.[10]

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--For an exposition of the party's principles see Thomas
Jefferson, _Writings_, ed. by P. L. Ford (10 vols., New York,
1892-1899); J. P. Foley (ed.), _The Jeffersonian Cyclopaedia_ (New
York, 1900); and especially the _Campaign Text-Books_ of more recent
times, usually issued by the national Democratic committee in
alternate years, and M. Carey, _The Democratic Speaker's Handbook_
(Cincinnati, 1868). For a hostile criticism of the party, see W. D.
Jones, _Mirror of Modern Democracy_; _History of the Democratic Party
from 1825 to 1861_ (New York, 1864); Jonathan Norcross, _History of
Democracy Considered as a Party-Name and a Political Organization_
(New York, 1883); J. H. Patton, _The Democratic Party: Its Political
History and Influence_ (New York, 1884). Favourable treatises are R.
H. Gillet, _Democracy in the United States_ (New York, 1868); and
George Fitch, _Political Facts: an Historical Text-Book of the
Democratic and Other Parties_ (Baltimore, 1884). See also, for
general political history, Thomas H. Benton, _Thirty Years' View_ (2
vols., New York, 1854-1856, and later editions); James G. Blaine,
_Twenty Years of Congress_ (2 vols., Norwich, Conn., 1884-1893); S.
S. Cox, _Three Decades of Federal Legislation_ (Providence, 1885); S.
P. Orth, _Five American Politicians: a Study in the Evolution of
American Politics_ (Cleveland, 1906), containing sketches of four
Democratic leaders--Burr, De Witt Clinton, Van Buren and Douglas; J.
Macy, _Party Organization and Machinery_ (New York, 1904); J. H.
Hopkins, _History of Political Parties in the United States_ (New
York, 1900); E. S. Stanwood, _History of the Presidency_ (last ed.,
Boston, 1904); J. P. Gordy, _History of Political Parties_, i. (New
York, 1900); H. J. Ford, _Rise and Growth of American Politics_ (New
York, 1898); Alexander Johnston, _History of American Politics_ (New
York, 1900, and later editions); C. E. Merriam, _A History of
American Political Theories_ (New York, 1903), containing chapters on
the Jeffersonian and the Jacksonian Democracy; and James A. Woodburn,
_Political Parties and Party Problems in the United States_ (New
York, 1903).

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The prefix "Democratic" was not used by Jefferson; it became
established, however, and official.

[2] Under the rubric of "strict construction" fall the greatest
struggles in the party's history: those over the United States Bank,
over tariffs--for protection or for "revenue" only--over "internal
improvements," over issues of administrative economy in providing for
the "general welfare," &c. The course of the party has frequently
been inconsistent, and its doctrines have shown, absolutely
considered, progressive latitudinarianism.

[3] "Nationalistic" is used here and below, not in the sense of a
general nationalistic spirit, such as that of Jackson, but to
indicate the centralizing tendency of a broad construction of
constitutional powers in behalf of commerce and manufactures.

[4] Standing for protective tariffs, internal improvements, &c.

[5] It should be borne in mind, however, that the Democratic party of
Jackson was not strictly _identical_ with the Democratic-Republican
party of Jefferson,--and some writers date back the origin of the
present Democratic party only to 1828-1829.

[6] The Democratic national convention of 1832 was preceded by an
Anti-Masonic convention of 1830 and by the National-Republican
convention of 1831; but the Democratic platform of 1840 was the first
of its kind.

[7] The attitude of the Republican party was no less inconsistent and
evasive.

[8] It controlled the House of Representatives from 1874 to 1894
except in 1880-1882 and 1888-1890; but except for a time in
Cleveland's second term, there were never simultaneously a Democratic
president and a Democratic majority in Congress.

[9] Professor A. D. Morse in _International Monthly_, October 1900.
He adds, "It has done more to Americanize the foreigner than all
other parties." (It is predominant in the great cities of the
country.)

[10] In connexion with the prevalent popular tendency to regard the
president as a people's tribune, it may be noted that a strong
presidential veto is, historically, peculiarly a Democratic
contribution, owing to the history of Jackson's (compare Cleveland's)
administration.

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

His views may be treated under the following heads:--

1. _The Atoms and Cosmology_ (adopted in part at least from the doctrines of Leucippus, though the relations between the two are hopelessly obscure). While agreeing with the Eleatics as to the eternal sameness of Being (nothing can arise out of nothing; nothing can be reduced to nothing), Democritus followed the physicists in denying its oneness and immobility. Movement and plurality being necessary to explain the phenomena of the universe and impossible without space (not-Being), he asserted that the latter had an equal right with Being to be considered existent. Being is the Full ([Greek: plêres], plenum); not-Being is the Void ([Greek: kenon], _vacuum_), the infinite space in which moved the infinite number of atoms into which the single Being of the Eleatics was broken up. These atoms are eternal and invisible; absolutely small, so small that their size cannot be diminished (hence the name [Greek: atomos], "indivisible"); absolutely full and incompressible, they are without pores and entirely fill the space they occupy; homogeneous, differing only in figure (as A from N), arrangement (as AN from NA), position (as N is Z on its side), magnitude (and consequently in weight, although some authorities dispute this). But while the atoms thus differ in quantity, their differences of quality are only apparent, due to the impressions caused on our senses by different configurations and combinations of atoms. A thing is only hot or cold, sweet or bitter, hard or soft by convention ([Greek: nomô]); the only things that exist in reality ([Greek: eteê]) are the atoms and the void. Locke's distinction between primary and secondary qualities is here anticipated. Thus, the atoms of water and iron are the same, but those of the former, being smooth and round, and therefore unable to hook on to one another, roll over and over like small globes, whereas the atoms of iron, being rough, jagged and uneven, cling together and form a solid body. Since all phenomena are composed of the same eternal atoms (just as a tragedy and a comedy contain the same letters) it may be said that nothing comes into being or perishes in the absolute sense of the words (cf. the modern "indestructibility of matter" and "conservation of energy"), although the compounds of the atoms are liable to increase and decrease, appearance and disappearance--in other words, to birth and death. As the atoms are eternal and uncaused, so is motion; it has its origin in a preceding motion, and so on _ad infinitum_. For the Love and Hate of Empedocles and the _Nous_ (Intelligence) of Anaxagoras, Democritus substituted fixed and necessary laws (not chance; that is a misrepresentation due chiefly to Cicero). Everything can be explained by a purely mechanical (but not fortuitous) system, in which there is no room for the idea of a providence or an intelligent cause working with a view to an end. The origin of the universe was explained as follows. An infinite number of atoms was carried downwards through infinite space. The larger (and heavier), falling with greater velocity, overtook and collided with the smaller (and lighter), which were thereby forced upwards. This caused various lateral and contrary movements, resulting in a whirling movement ([Greek: dinê]) resembling the rotation of Anaxagoras, whereby similar atoms were brought together (as in the winnowing of grain) and united to form larger bodies and worlds. Atoms and void being infinite in number and extent, and motion having always existed, there must always have been an infinite number of worlds, all consisting of similar atoms, in various stages of growth and decay.

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

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

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

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

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

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Fragments edited by F. Mullach (1843) with commentary
and in his _Fragmenta philosophorum Graecorum_, i. (1860). See also
H. Ritter and L. Preller, _Historia philosophiae_ (chap. i. ad fin.);
P. Lafaist (Lafaye), _Dissertation sur la philosophie atomistique_
(1833); L. Liard, _De Democrito philosopho_ (Paris, 1873); H. C.
Liepmann, _Die Leucipp-Democritischen Atome_ (Leipzig, 1886); F. A.
Lange, _Geschichte des Materialismus_ (Eng. trans. by E. C. Thomas,
1877); G. Hart, _Zur Seelen- und Erkenntnislehre des Democritus_
(Leipzig, 1886); P. Natorp, _Die Ethika des Demokritos_ (Marburg,
1893); A. Dyroff, _Demokritstudien_ (Leipzig, 1899); among general
works C. A. Brandis, _Gesch. d. Entwickelungen d. griech.
Philosophie_ (Bonn, 1862-1864); Ed. Zeller, _Pre-Socratic Philosophy_
(Eng. trans., London, 1881); for his theory of sense-perception see
especially J. I. Beare, _Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition_
(Oxford, 1906).

DEMOGEOT, JACQUES CLAUDE (1808-1804), French man of letters, was born in Paris on the 5th of July 1808. He was professor of rhetoric at the lycée Saint Louis, and subsequently assistant professor at the Sorbonne. He wrote many detached papers on various literary subjects, and two reports on secondary education in England and Scotland in collaboration with H. Montucci. His reputation rests on his excellent _Histoire de la littérature française depuis ses origines jusqu'à nos jours_ (1851), which has passed through many subsequent editions. He was also the author of a _Tableau de la littérature française au XVII^e siècle_ (1859), and of a work (3 vols., 1880-1883) on the influence of foreign literatures on the development of French literature. He died in Paris in 1894.

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

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

The _Philosophical Transactions_ contain several of his papers. He
also published some excellent works, such as _Miscellanea analytica
de seriebus et quadraturis_ (1730), in 4to. This contained some
elegant and valuable improvements on then existing methods, which
have themselves, however, long been superseded. But he has been more
generally known by his _Doctrine of Chances, or Method of Calculating
the Probabilities of Events at Play_. This work was first printed in
1618, in 4to, and dedicated to Sir Isaac Newton. It was reprinted in
1738, with great alterations and improvements; and a third edition
was afterwards published with additions in 1756. He also published a
_Treatise on Annuities_ (1725), which has passed through several
revised and corrected editions.

See C. Hutton, _Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary_ (1815).
For _Demoivre's Theorem_ see TRIGONOMETRY: Analytical.

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

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

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

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

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

_Character of Spiritual World._--The ascription of malevolence to the world of spirits is by no means universal. In West Africa the Mpongwe believe in local spirits, just as do the Eskimo; but they are regarded as inoffensive in the main; true, the passer-by must make some trifling offering as he nears their place of abode; but it is only occasionally that mischievous acts, such as the throwing down of a tree on a passer-by, are, in the view of the natives, perpetuated by the Ombuiri. So too, many of the spirits especially concerned with the operations of nature are conceived as neutral or even benevolent; the European peasant fears the corn-spirit only when he irritates him by trenching on his domain and taking his property by cutting the corn; similarly, there is no reason why the more insignificant personages of the pantheon should be conceived as malevolent, and we find that the _Petara_ of the Dyaks are far from indiscriminating and malignant, though disease and death are laid at their door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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