Chapter VIII: Act 1851: made parties to legal proceedings admissible witnesses subject (5)

The conception of evolution is being applied more rigidly to the comparative anatomy of organs and systems of organs. When a series of the modifications of an anatomical structure has been sufficiently examined, it is frequently possible to decide that one particular condition is primitive, ancestral or central, and that the other conditions have been derived from it. Such a condition has been termed, with regard to the group of animals or plants the organs of which are being studied, _archecentric_. The possession of the character in the archecentric condition in (say) two of the members of the group does not indicate that these two members are more nearly related to one another than they are to other members of the group; the archecentric condition is part of the common heritage of all the members of the group, and may be retained by any. On the other hand, when the ancestral condition is modified, it may be regarded as having moved outwards along some radius from the archecentric condition. Such modified conditions have been termed _apocentric_. It is obvious that the mere apocentricity of a character can be no guide to the affinities of its possessor. It is necessary to determine if the modification be a simple change that might have occurred in independent cases, in fact if it be a multiradial apocentricity, or if it involved intricate and precisely combined anatomical changes that we could not expect to occur twice independently; that is to say, if it be a uniradial apocentricity. Multiradial apocentricities lie at the root of many of the phenomena that have been grouped under the designation _convergence_. Especially in the case of manifest adaptations, organs possessed by creatures far apart genealogically may be moulded into conditions that are extremely alike. Sir E. Ray Lankester's term, _homoplasy_, has passed into currency as designating such cases where different genetic material has been pressed by similar conditions into similar moulds. These may be called heterogeneous homoplasies, but it is necessary to recognize the existence of homogeneous homoplasies, here called multiradial apocentricities. A complex apocentric modification of a kind which we cannot imagine to have been repeated independently, and which is to be designated as uniradial, frequently forms a new centre around which new diverging modifications are produced. With reference to any particular group of forms such a new centre of modification may be termed a _metacentre_, and it is plain that the archecentre of the whole group is a metacentre of the larger group of which the group under consideration is a branch. Thus, for instance, the archecentric condition of any Avian structure is a metacentre of the Sauropsidan stem. A form of apocentricity extremely common and often perplexing may be termed _pseudocentric_; in such a condition there is an apparent simplicity that reveals its secondary nature by some small and apparently meaningless complexity.

Bionomics.

Another group of investigations that seems to play an important part in the future development of the theory of evolution relates to the study of what is known as organic symmetry. The differentiations of structure that characterize animals and plants are being shown to be orderly and definite in many respects; the relations of the various parts to one another and to the whole, the modes of repetition of parts, and the series of changes that occur in groups of repeated parts appear to be to a certain extent inevitable, to depend on the nature of the living material itself and on the necessary conditions of its growth. Closely allied to the study of symmetry is the study of the direct effect of the circumambient media on embryonic young and adult stages of living beings (see EMBRYOLOGY: _Physiology_; HEREDITY; and VARIATION AND SELECTION), and a still larger number of observers have added to our knowledge of these. It is impossible here to give even a list of the names of the many observers who in recent times have made empirical study of the effects of growth-forces and of the symmetrical limitations and definitions of growth. It is to be noticed, however, that, even after such phenomena have been properly grouped and designated under Greek names as laws of organic growth, they have not become explanations of the series of facts they correlate. Their importance in the theory of evolution is none the less very great. In the first place, they lessen the number of separate facts to be explained; in the second, they limit the field within which explanation must be sought, since, for instance, if a particular mode of repetition of parts occur in mosses, in flowering-plants, in beetles and in elephants, the seeker of ultimate explanations may exclude from the field of his inquiry all the conditions individual to these different organic forms, and confine himself only to what is common to all of them; that is to say, practically only the living material and its environment. The prosecution of such inquiries is beginning to make unnecessary much ingenious speculation of a kind that was prominent from 1880 to 1900; much futile effort has been wasted in the endeavour to find on Darwinian principles special "selection-values" for phenomena the universality of which places them outside the possibility of having relations with the particular conditions of particular organisms. On the other hand, many of those who have been specially successful in grouping diverse phenomena under empirical generalizations have erred logically in posing their generalizations against such a _vera causa_ as the preservation of favoured individuals and races. The thirty years which followed the publication of the _Origin of Species_ were characterized chiefly by anatomical and embryological work; since then there has been no diminution in anatomical and embryological enthusiasm, but many of the continually increasing body of investigators have turned again to bionomical work. Inasmuch as Lamarck attempted to frame a theory of evolution in which the principle of natural selection had no part, the interpretation placed on their work by many bionomical investigators recalls the theories of Lamarck, and the name _Neo-Lamarckism_ has been used of such a school of biologists, particularly active in America. The weakness of the Neo-Lamarckian view lies in its interpretation of heredity; its strength lies in its zealous study of the living world and the detection therein of proximate empirical laws, a strength shared by very many bionomical investigations, the authors of which would prefer to call themselves Darwinians, or to leave themselves without sectarian designation.

Biometrics.

Statistical inquiry into the facts of life has long been employed, and in particular Francis Galton, within the Darwinian period, has advocated its employment and developed its methods. Within quite recent years, however, a special school has arisen with the main object of treating the processes of evolution quantitatively. Here it is right to speak of Karl Pearson as a pioneer of notable importance. It has been the habit of biologists to use the terms variation, selection, elimination, correlation and so forth, vaguely; the new school, which has been strongly reinforced from the side of physical science, insists on quantitative measurements of the terms. When the anatomist says that one race is characterized by long heads, another by round heads, the biometricist demands numbers and percentages. When an organ is stated to be variable, the biometricist demands statistics to show the range of the variations and the mode of their distribution. When a character is said to be favoured by natural selection, the biometricist demands investigation of the death-rate of individuals with or without the character. When a character is said to be transmitted, or to be correlated with another character, the biometricist declares the statement valueless without numerical estimations of the inheritance or correlation. The subject is still so new, and its technical methods (see VARIATION AND SELECTION) have as yet spread so little beyond the group which is formulating and defining them, that it is difficult to do more than guess at the importance of the results likely to be gained. Enough, however, has already been done to show the vast importance of the method in grouping and codifying the empirical facts of life, and in so preparing the way for the investigation of ultimate "causes." The chief pitfall appears to be the tendency to attach more meaning to the results than from their nature they can bear. The ultimate value of numerical inquiries must depend on the equivalence of the units on which they are based. Many of the characters that up to the present have been dealt with by biometrical inquiry are obviously composite. The height or length of the arm of a human being, for instance, is the result of many factors, some inherent, some due to environment, and until these have been sifted out, numerical laws of inheritance or of correlation can have no more than an empirical value. The analysis of composite characters into their indivisible units and statistical inquiry into the behaviour of the units would seem to be a necessary part of biometric investigation, and one to which much further attention will have to be paid.

Segregation.

It is well known that Darwin was deeply impressed by differences in flora and fauna, which seemed to be functions of locality, and not the result of obvious dissimilarities of environment. A.R. Wallace's studies of island life, and the work of many different observers on local races of animals and plants, marine, fluviatile and terrestrial, have brought about a conception of segregation as apart from differences of environment as being one of the factors in the differentiation of living forms. The segregation may be geographical, or may be the result of preferential mating, or of seasonal mating, and its effects plainly can be made no more of than proximate or empirical laws of differentiation, of great importance in codifying and simplifying the facts to be explained. The minute attention paid by modern systematists to the exact localities of subspecies and races is bringing together a vast store of facts which will throw further light on the problem of segregation, but the difficulty of utilizing these facts is increased by an unfortunate tendency to make locality itself one of the diagnostic characters.

Bathmism.

Consideration of phylogenetic series, especially from the palaeontological side, has led many writers to the conception that there is something of the nature of a growth-force inherent in organisms and tending inevitably towards divergent evolution. It is suggested that even in the absence of modification produced by any possible Darwinian or Lamarckian factors, that even in a neutral environment, divergent evolution of some kind would have occurred. The conception is necessarily somewhat hazy, but the words _bathmism_ and _bathmic Evolution_ have been employed by a number of writers for some such conception. Closely connected with it, and probably underlying many of the facts which have led to it, is a more definite group of ideas that may be brought together under the phrase "phylogenetic limitation of variation." In its simplest form, this phrase implies such an obvious fact as that whatever be the future development of, say, existing cockroaches, it will be on lines determined by the present structure of these creatures. In a more general way, the phrase implies that at each successive branching of the tree of life, the branches become more specialized, more defined, and, in a sense, more limited. The full implications of the group of ideas require, and are likely to receive, much attention in the immediate future of biological investigation, but it is enough at present to point out that until the more obvious lines of inquiry have been opened out much more fully, we cannot be in a position to guess at the existence of a residuum, for which such a metaphysical conception as bathmism would serve even as a convenient disguise for ignorance.

Almost every side of zoology has contributed to the theory of evolution, but of special importance are the facts and theories associated with the names of Gregor Mendel, A. Weismann and Hugo de Vries. These are discussed under the headings HEREDITY; MENDELISM; and VARIATION AND SELECTION. It has been a feature of great promise in recent contributions to the theory of evolution, that such contributions have received attention almost directly in proportion to the new methods of observation and the new series of facts with which they have come. Those have found little favour who brought to the debate only formal criticisms or amplifications of the Darwinian arguments, or re-marshallings of the Darwinian facts, however ably conducted. The time has not yet come for the attempt to synthesize the results of the many different and often apparently antagonistic groups of workers. The great work that is going on is the simplification of the facts to be explained by grouping them under empirical laws; and the most general statement relating to these that can yet be made is that no single one of these laws has as yet shown signs of taking rank as a _vera causa_ comparable with the Darwinian principle of natural selection.

For evolution in relation to society see SOCIOLOGY.

REFERENCES.--Practically, every botanical and zoological publication
of recent date has its bearing on evolution. The following are a few
of the more general works: Bateson, _Materials for the Study of
Variation_; Bunge, _Vitalismus und Mechanismus_; Cope, _Origin of the
Fittest_, _Primary Factors of Organic Evolution_, _Darwin's Life and
Letters_; H. de Vries, _Species and Varieties and their Origin by
Mutation_; Eimer, _Organic Evolution_; Gulick, "Divergent Evolution
through Cumulative Segregation," _Jour. Linn. Soc._ xx.; Haacke,
_Schopfung des Menschen_; Mitchell, "Valuation of Zoological
Characters," _Trans. Linn. Soc._ viii. pt. 7; Pearson, _Grammar of
Science_; Romanes, _Darwin and after Darwin_; Sedgwick, Presidential
Address to Section Zoology, _Brit. Ass. Rep. 1899_; Wallace,
_Darwinism_; Weismann, _The Germ-Plasm_. Further references of great
value will be found in the works of Bateson and Pearson referred to
above, and in the annual volumes of the _Zoological Record_,
particularly under the head "General Subject." (P. C. M.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This is brought out by F. Lassalle, _Die Philosophie
Herakleitos_, p. 126.

[2] Zeller says that through this distinction Aristotle first made
possible the idea of development.

[3] See this well brought out in G.H. Lewes's _Aristotle_, p. 187.

[4] Grote calls attention to the contrast between Plato's and
Aristotle's way of conceiving the gradations of mind (_Aristotle_,
ii. 171).

[5] Zeller observes that this scale of decreasing perfection is a
necessary consequence of the idea of a transcendent deity.

[6] Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe, p. 225.

[7] Yet he leaves open the question whether the Deity has annexed
thought to matter as a faculty, or whether it rests on a distinct
spiritual principle.

[8] Locke half playfully touches on certain monsters, with respect to
which it is difficult to determine whether they ought to be called
men. (_Essay_, book iii. ch. vi. sect. 26, 27.)

[9] A similar coincidence between the teleological and the modern
evolutional way of viewing things is to be met with in Locke's
account of the use of pain in relation to the preservation of our
being (bk. ii. ch. vii. sect. 4).

[10] _Philosophy of History_ (1893), p. 103, where an interesting
sketch of the growth of the idea of progress is to be found.

[11] G.H. Lewes points out that Leibnitz is inconsistent in his
account of the intelligence of man in relation to that of lower
animals, since when answering Locke he no longer regards these as
differing in degree only.

[12] Both Lewes and du Bois Reymond have brought out the points of
contact between Leibnitz's theory of monads and modern biological
speculations (_Hist. of Phil._ ii. 287, and _Leibnitzsche Gedanken in
der modernen Naturwissenschaft_, p. 23 seq.).

[13] For Herder's position in relation to the modern doctrine of
evolution see F. von Barenbach's _Herder als Vorganger Darwins_, a
work which tends to exaggerate the proximity of the two writers.

[14] Kant held it probable that other planets besides our earth are
inhabited, and that their inhabitants form a scale of beings, their
perfection increasing with the distance of the planet which they
inhabit from the sun.

[15] Kant calls the doctrine of the transmutation of species "a
hazardous fancy of the reason." Yet, as Strauss and others have
shown, Kant's mind betrayed a decided leaning at times to a more
mechanical conception of organic forms as related by descent.

[16] Hegel somewhere says that the question of the eternal duration
of the world is unanswerable: time as well as space can be predicated
of finitudes only.

[17] _The Exercitationes de generatione animalium_, which Dr George
Ent extracted from him and published in 1651.

[18] _De generatione animalium_, lib. ii. cap. x.

[19] _De generatione animalium_, lib. ii. cap. iv.

[20] "Cependant, pour revenir aux formes ordinaires ou aux ames
materielles, cette duree qu'il leur faut attribuer, a la place de
celle qu'on avoit attribuee aux atomes pourroit faire douter si elles
ne vont pas de corps en corps; ce qui seroit la metempsychose, a peu
pres comme quelques philosophes ont cru la transmission du mouvement
et celle des especes. Mais cette imagination est bien eloignee de la
nature des choses. Il n'y a point de tel passage; et c'est ici ou les
transformations de Messieurs Swammerdam, Malpighi, et Leewenhoek, qui
sont des plus excellens observateurs de notre tems, sont venues a mon
secours et m'ont fait admettre plus aisement, que l'animal, et toute
autre substance organisee ne commence point lorsque nous le croyons,
et que sa generation apparente n'est qu'un developpement et une
espece d'augmentation. Aussi ai-je remarque que l'auteur de la
_Recherche de la verite_, M. Regis, M. Hartsoeker, et d'autres
habiles hommes n'ont pas ete fort eloignes de ce sentiment."
Leibnitz, _Systeme nouveau de la nature_ (1695). The doctrine of
"Emboitement" is contained in the _Considerations sur le principe de
vie_ (1705); the preface to the _Theodicee_ (1710); and the
_Principes de la nature et de la grace_ (S 6) (1718).

[21] "Il est vrai que la pensee la plus raisonnable et la plus
conforme a l'experience sur cette question tres difficile de la
formation du foetus; c'est que les enfans sont deja presque tout
formes avant meme l'action par laquelle ils sont concus; et que leurs
meres ne font que leur donner l'accroissement ordinaire dans le temps
de la grossesse." _De la recherche de la verite_, livre ii. chap.
vii. p. 334 (7th ed., 1721).

[22] _Considerations sur les corps organises_, chap. x.

[23] Bonnet had the courage of his opinions, and in the _Palingenesie
philosophique_, part vi. chap, iv., he develops a hypothesis which he
terms "evolution naturelle"; and which, making allowance for his
peculiar views of the nature of generation, bears no small
resemblance to what is understood by "evolution" at the present
day:--

"Si la volonte divine a cree par un seul Acte l'Universalite des
etres, d'ou venoient ces plantes et ces animaux dont Moyse nous
decrit la Production au troisieme et au cinquieme jour du
renouvellement de notre monde?

"Abuserois-je de la liberte de conjectures si je disois, que les
Plantes et les Animaux qui existent aujourd'hui sont parvenus par une
sorte d'evolution naturelle des Etres organises qui peuplaient ce
premier Monde, sorti immediatement des MAINS du CREATEUR?...

"Ne supposons que trois revolutions. La Terre vient de sortir des
MAINS du CREATEUR. Des causes preparees par sa Sagesse font
developper de toutes parts les Germes. Les Etres organises commencent
a jouir de l'existence. Ils etoient probablement alors bien differens
de ce qu'ils sont aujourd'hui. Ils l'etoient autant que ce premier
Monde differoit de celui que nous habitons. Nous manquons de moyens
pour juger de ces dissemblances, et peut-etre que le plus habile
Naturaliste qui auroit ete place dans ce premier Monde y auroit
entierement meconnu nos Plantes et nos Animaux."

[24] "Ce mot (germe) ne designera pas seulement un corps organise
_reduit en petit_; il designera encore toute espece de _preformation
originelle dont un Tout organique peut resulter comme de son principe
immediat."--Palingenesie philosophique_, part. x. chap. ii.

[25] "M. Cuvier considerant que tous les etres organises sont derives
de parens, et ne voyant dans la nature aucune force capable de
produire l'organisation, croyait a la pre-existence des germes; non
pas a la pre-existence d'un etre tout forme, puisqu'il est bien
evident que ce n'est que par des developpemens successifs que l'etre
acquiert sa forme; mais, si l'on peut s'exprimer ainsi, a la
pre-existence du radical de l'etre, radical qui existe avant que la
serie des evolutions ne commence, et qui remonte certainement,
suivant la belle observation de Bonnet, a plusieurs
generations."--Laurillard, _Eloge de Cuvier_, note 12.

[26] _Histoire naturelle_, tom. ii. ed. ii. (1750), p. 350.

[27] _Ibid._ p. 351.

[28] See particularly Buffon, l.c. p. 41.

[29] As Buffon has well said:--"L'idee de ramener l'explication de
tous les phenomenes a des principes mecaniques est assurement grande
et belle, ce pas est le plus hardi qu'on peut faire en philosophie,
et c'est Descartes qui l'a fait."--l.c. p. 50.

[30] _Principes de la philosophie_, Troisieme partie, S 45.

[31] _Ethices_, Pars tertia, Praefatio.

[32] _Systeme de la Nature. Essai sur la formation des corps
organises_, 1751, xiv.

[33] _Considerations philosophiques sur la gradation naturelle des
formes de l'etre; ou les essais de la nature qui apprend a faire
l'homme_ (1768).

[34] _Recherches sur les causes des principaux faits physiques_, par
J.B. Lamarck. Paris. Seconde annee de la Republique. In the preface,
Lamarck says that the work was written in 1776, and presented to the
Academy in 1780; but it was not published before 1794, and at that
time it presumably expressed Lamarck's mature views. It would be
interesting to know what brought about the change of opinion
manifested in the _Recherches sur l'organisation des corps vivants_,
published only seven years later.

[35] See the "Historical Sketch" prefixed to the last edition of the
_Origin of Species_.

[36] _First Principles and Principles of Biology_ (1860-1864).

[37] _Generelle Morphologie_ (1866).

[38] "Il s'agit donc de prouver que la serie qui constitute l'echelle
animale reside essentiellement dans la distribution des masses
principals qui la composent et non dans celle des especes ni meme
toujours dans celle des genres."--_Phil. zoologique_, chap. v.

[39] _Philosophie zoologique_, premiere partie, chap. iii.

[40] "Entwurf einer Darstellung der zwischen dem Embryozustande der
hoheren Thiere und dem per manenten der niederen stattfindenden
Parallele," _Beytrage zur vergleichenden Anatomie_, Bd. ii. 1811.

EVORA, the capital of an administrative district in the province of Alemtejo, Portugal; 72 m. E. by S. of Lisbon, on the Casa Branca-Evora-Elvas railway. Pop. (1900) 16,020. Evora occupies a fertile valley enclosed by low hills. It is surrounded by ramparts flanked with towers, and is further defended by two forts; but the neglected condition of these, combined with the narrow arcaded streets and crumbling walls of Roman or Moorish masonry, gives the city an appearance corresponding with its real antiquity. Evora is the see of an archbishop, and has several churches, convents and hospitals, barracks, a diocesan school and a museum. A university, founded in 1550, was abolished on the expulsion of the Jesuits in the 18th century. The cathedral, originally a Romanesque building erected 1186-1204, was restored in Gothic style about 1400; its richly decorated chancel was added in 1761. The church of Sao Francisco (1507-1525) is a good example of the blended Moorish and Gothic architecture known as Manoellian. The art gallery, formerly the archbishop's palace, contains a collection of Portuguese and early Flemish paintings. An ancient tower, and the so-called aqueduct of Sertorius, 9 m. long, have been partly demolished to make room for the market-square, in which one of the largest fairs in Portugal is held at midsummer. Both tower and aqueduct were long believed to have been of Roman origin, but are now known to have been constructed about 1540-1555 in the reign of John III., at the instance of an antiquary named Resende. The aqueduct was probably constructed on the site of the old Roman one. A small Roman temple is used as a public library; it is usually known as the temple of Diana, a name for which no valid authority exists. Evora is of little commercial importance, except as an agricultural centre, but its neighbourhood is famous for its mules and abounds in cork-woods; there are also mines of iron, copper, and asbestos and marble quarries.

Under its original name of _Ebora_, the city was from 80 to 72 B.C. the headquarters of Sertorius, and it long remained an important Roman military station. It was called _Liberalitas Juliae_ on account of certain municipal privileges bestowed on it by Julius Caesar (c. 100-44 B.C.). Its bishopric, founded in the 5th century, was raised to an archbishopric in the 16th. In 712 Evora was conquered by the Moors, who named it _Jabura_; and it was only retaken in 1166. From 1663 to 1665 it was held by the Spaniards. In 1832 Dom Miguel, retreating before Dom Pedro, took refuge in Evora; and here was signed the convention of Evora, by which he was banished. (See PORTUGAL.)

The administrative district of Evora coincides with the central part of Alemtejo (q.v.); pop. (1900) 128,062; area, 2856 sq. m.

EVREUX, a town of north-western France, capital of the department of Eure, 67 m. W.N.W. of Paris on the Western railway to Cherbourg. Pop. (1906) town, 13,773; commune, 18,971. Situated in the pleasant valley of the Iton, arms of which traverse it, the town, on the south, slopes up toward the public gardens and the railway station. It is the seat of a bishop, and its cathedral is one of the largest and finest in France. Part of the lower portion of the nave dates from the 11th century; the west facade with its two ungainly towers is, for the most part, the work of the late Renaissance, and various styles of the intervening period are represented in the rest of the church. A thorough restoration was completed in 1896. The elaborate north transept and portal are in the flamboyant Gothic; the choir, the finest part of the interior, is in an earlier Gothic style. Cardinal de la Balue, bishop of Evreux in the latter half of the 15th century, constructed the octagonal central tower, with its elegant spire; to him is also due the Lady chapel, which is remarkable for some finely preserved stained glass. Two rose windows in the transepts and the carved wooden screens of the side chapels are masterpieces of 16th-century workmanship. The episcopal palace, a building of the 15th century, adjoins the south side of the cathedral. An interesting belfry, facing the handsome modern town hall, dates from the 15th century. The church of St Taurin, in part Romanesque, has a choir of the 14th century and other portions of later date; it contains the shrine of St Taurin, a work of the 13th century. At Vieil Evreux, 3-1/2 m. south-east of the town, the remains of a Roman theatre, a palace, baths and an aqueduct have been discovered, as well as various relics which are now deposited in the museum of Evreux. Evreux is the seat of a prefect, a court of assizes, of tribunals of first instance and commerce, a chamber of commerce and a board of trade arbitrators, and has a branch of the Bank of France, a lycee and training colleges for teachers. The making of ticking, boots and shoes, agricultural implements and gas motors, and metal-founding and bleaching are carried on.

Vieil-Evreux (_Mediolanum Aulercorum_) was the capital of the Gallic tribe of the _Aulerci Eburovices_ and a flourishing city during the Gallo-Roman period. Its bishopric dates from the 4th century.

The first family of the counts of Evreux which is known was descended from an illegitimate son of Richard I., duke of Normandy, and became extinct in the male line with the death of Count William in 1118. The countship passed in right of Agnes, William's sister, wife of Simon de Montfort-l'Amaury (d. 1087) to the house of the lords of Montfort-l'Amaury. Amaury III. of Montfort ceded it in 1200 to King Philip Augustus. Philip the Fair presented it (1307) to his brother Louis, for whose benefit Philip the Long raised the countship of Evreux into a peerage of France (1317). Philip of Evreux, son of Louis, became king of Navarre by his marriage with Jeanne, daughter of Louis the Headstrong (Hutin), and their son Charles the Bad and their grandson Charles the Noble were also kings of Navarre. The latter ceded his countships of Evreux, Champagne and Brie to King Charles VI. (1404). In 1427 the countship of Evreux was bestowed by King Charles VII. on Sir John Stuart of Darnley (c. 1365-1429), the commander of his Scottish bodyguard, who in 1423 had received the seigniory of Aubigny and in February 1427/8 was granted the right to quarter the royal arms of France for his victories over the English (see Lady Elizabeth Cust, _Account of the Stuarts of Aubigny in France, 1422-1672_, 1891). On Stuart's death (before Orleans during an attack on an English convoy) the countship reverted to the crown. It was again temporarily alienated (1569-1584) as an appanage for Francis, duke of Anjou, and in 1651 was finally made over to Frederic Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne, duke of Bouillon, in exchange for the principality of Sedan.

EWALD, GEORG HEINRICH AUGUST VON (1803-1875), German Orientalist and theologian, was born on the 16th of November 1803 at Gottingen, where his father was a linen-weaver. In 1815 he was sent to the gymnasium, and in 1820 he entered the university of his native town, where under J.G. Eichhorn and T.C. Tychsen he devoted himself specially to the study of Oriental languages. At the close of his academical career in 1823 he was appointed to a mastership in the gymnasium at Wolfenbuttel, and made a study of the Oriental manuscripts in the Wolfenbuttel library. But in the spring of 1824 he was recalled to Gottingen as _repetent_, or theological tutor, and in 1827 (the year of Eichhorn's death) he became professor _extraordinarius_ in philosophy and lecturer in Old Testament exegesis. In 1831 he was promoted to the position of professor _ordinarius_ in philosophy; in 1833 he became a member of the Royal Scientific Society, and in 1835, after Tychsen's death, he entered the faculty of theology, taking the chair of Oriental languages.

Two years later occurred the first important episode in his studious life. In 1837, on the 18th of November, along with six of his colleagues he signed a formal protest against the action of King Ernst August (duke of Cumberland) in abolishing the liberal constitution of 1833, which had been granted to the Hanoverians by his predecessor William IV. This bold procedure of the seven professors led to their speedy expulsion from the university (14th December). Early in 1838 Ewald received a call to Tubingen, and there for upwards of ten years he held a chair as professor _ordinarius_, first in philosophy and afterwards, from 1841, in theology. To this period belong some of his most important works, and also the commencement of his bitter feud with F.C. Baur and the Tubingen school. In 1847, "the great shipwreck-year in Germany," as he has called it, he was invited back to Gottingen on honourable terms--the liberal constitution having been restored. He gladly accepted the invitation. In 1862-1863 he took an active part in a movement for reform within the Hanoverian Church, and he was a member of the synod which passed the new constitution. He had an important share also in the formation of the Protestantenverein, or Protestant association, in September 1863. But the chief crisis in his life arose out of the political events of 1866. His loyalty to King George (son of Ernst August) would not permit him to take the oath of allegiance to the victorious king of Prussia, and he was therefore placed on the retired list, though with the full amount of his salary as pension. Perhaps even this degree of severity might have been held by the Prussian authorities to be unnecessary, had Ewald been less exasperating in his language. The violent tone of some of his printed manifestoes about this time, especially of his _Lob des Konigs u. des Volkes_, led to his being deprived of the _venia legendi_ (1868) and also to a criminal process, which, however, resulted in his acquittal (May 1869). Then, and on two subsequent occasions, he was returned by the city of Hanover as a member of the North German and German parliaments. In June 1874 he was found guilty of a libel on Prince Bismarck, whom he had compared to Frederick II. in "his unrighteous war with Austria and his ruination of religion and morality," to Napoleon III. in his way of "picking out the best time possible for robbery and plunder." For this offence he was sentenced to undergo three weeks' imprisonment. He died in his 72nd year of heart disease on the 4th of May 1875.

Ewald was no common man. In his public life he displayed many noble characteristics,--perfect simplicity and sincerity, intense moral earnestness, sturdy independence, absolute fearlessness. As a teacher he had a remarkable power of kindling enthusiasm; and he sent out many distinguished pupils, among whom may be mentioned Hitzig, Schrader, Noldeke, Diestel and Dillmann. His disciples were not all of one school, but many eminent scholars who apparently have been untouched by his influence have in fact developed some of the many ideas which he suggested. His numerous writings, from 1823 onwards, were the reservoirs in which the entire energy of a life was stored. His _Hebrew Grammar_ inaugurated a new era in biblical philology. All subsequent works in that department have been avowedly based on his, and to him will always belong the honour of having been, as Hitzig has called him, "the second founder of the science of the Hebrew language." As an exegete and biblical critic no less than as a grammarian he has left his abiding mark. His _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_, the result of thirty years' labour, was epoch-making in that branch of research. While in every line it bears the marks of intense individuality, it is at the same time a product highly characteristic of the age, and even of the decade, in which it appeared. If it is obviously the outcome of immense learning on the part of its author, it is no less manifestly the result of the speculations and researches of many laborious predecessors in all departments of history, theology and philosophy. Taking up the idea of a divine education of the human race, which Lessing and Herder had made so familiar to the modern mind, and firmly believing that to each of the leading nations of antiquity a special task had been providentially assigned, Ewald felt no difficulty about Israel's place in universal history, or about the problem which that race had been called upon to solve. The history of Israel, according to him, is simply the history of the manner in which the one true religion really and truly came into the possession of mankind. Other nations, indeed, had attempted the highest problems in religion; but Israel alone, in the providence of God, had succeeded, for Israel alone had been inspired. Such is the supreme meaning of that national history which began with the exodus and culminated (at the same time virtually terminating) in the appearing of Christ. The historical interval that separated these two events is treated as naturally dividing itself into three great periods,--those of Moses, David and Ezra. The periods are externally indicated by the successive names by which the chosen people were called--Hebrews, Israelites, Jews. The events prior to the exodus are relegated by Ewald to a preliminary chapter of primitive history; and the events of the apostolic and post-apostolic age are treated as a kind of appendix. The entire construction of the history is based, as has already been said, on a critical examination and chronological arrangement of the available documents. So far as the results of criticism are still uncertain with regard to the age and authorship of any of these, Ewald's conclusions must of course be regarded as unsatisfactory. But his work remains a storehouse of learning and is increasingly recognized as a work of rare genius.

Of his works the more important are:--_Die Composition der Genesis
kritisch untersucht_ (1823), an acute and able attempt to account for
the use of the two names of God without recourse to the
document-hypothesis; he was not himself, however, permanently
convinced by it; _De metris carminum Arabicorum_ (1825); _Das Hohelied
Salomo's ubersetzt u. erklart_ (1826; 3rd ed., 1866); _Kritische
Grammatik der hebr. Sprache_ (1827)--this afterwards became the
_Ausfuhrliches Lehrbuch der hebr. Sprache_ (8th ed., 1870); and it was
followed by the _Hebr. Sprachlehre fur Anfanger_ (4th ed., 1874);
_Uber einige altere Sanskritmetra_ (1827); _Liber Vakedii de
Mesopotamiae expugnatae historia_ (1827); _Commentarius in Apocalypsin
Johannis_ (1828); _Abhandlungen zur biblischen u. orientalischen
Literatur_ (1832); _Grammatica critica linguae Arabicae_ (1831-1833);
_Die poetischen Bucher des alten Bundes_ (1835-1837, 3rd ed.,
1866-1867); _Die Propheten des alten Bundes_ (1840-1841, 2nd ed.,
1867-1868); _Geschichte des Volkes Israel_ (1843-1859, 3rd ed.,
1864-1868); _Alterthumer Israels_ (1848); _Die drei ersten Evangelien
ubersetzt u. erklart_ (1850); _Uber das athiopische Buch Henoch_
(1854); _Die Sendschreiben des Apostels Paulus ubersetzt u. erklart_
(1857); _Die Johanneischen Schriften ubersetzt u. erklart_
(1861-1862); _Uber das vierte Esrabuch_ (1863); _Sieben Sendschreiben
des neuen Bundes_ (1870); _Das Sendschreiben an die Hebraer u.
Jakobos' Rundschreiben_ (1870); _Die Lehre der Bibel von Gott, oder
Theologie des alten u. neuen Bundes_ (1871-1875). The _Jahrbucher der
biblischen Wissenschaft_ (1849-1865) were edited, and for the most
part written, by him. He was the chief promoter of the _Zeitschrift
fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes_, begun in 1837; and he frequently
contributed on various subjects to the _Gotting. gelehrte Anzeigen_.
He was also the author of many pamphlets of an occasional character.

The following have been translated into English:--_Hebrew Grammar_, by
John Nicholson (from 2nd German edition) (London 1836); _Introductory
Hebrew Grammar_ (from 3rd German edition) (London, 1870); _History of
Israel_, 5 vols. (corresponding to vols. i.-iv. of the German), by
Russell Martineau and J. Estlin Carpenter (London, 1867-1874);
_Antiquities of Israel_, by H.S. Solly (London, 1876); _Commentary on
the Prophets of the Old Testament_, by J. Frederick Smith (2 vols.,
London, 1876-1877); _Isaiah the Prophet_, chaps. i.-xxxiii., by O.
Glover (London, 1869); _Life of Jesus Christ_, also by O. Glover
(London, 1865).

See the article in Herzog-Hauck; T. Witton Davies, _Heinrich Ewald_
(1903); and cf. T.K. Cheyne, _Founders of Old Testament Criticism_
(1893); F. Lichtenberger, _History of German Theology in the
Nineteenth Century_ (1889).

EWALD, JOHANNES (1743-1781), the greatest lyrical poet of Denmark, was the son of a melancholy and sickly chaplain at Copenhagen, where he was born on the 18th of November 1743. At the age of eleven he was sent to school at Schleswig, his father's birthplace, and returned to the capital only to enter the university in 1758. His father was by that time dead, and in his mother, a frivolous and foolish woman, he found neither sympathy nor moral support. At fifteen he fell passionately in love with Arense Hulegaard, a girl whose father afterwards married the poet's mother; and the romantic boy resolved on various modes of making himself admired by the young lady. He began to learn Abyssinian, for the purpose of going out as a missionary to Africa, but this scheme was soon given up, and he persuaded a brother, four years older than himself, to run away that they might enlist as hussars in the Prussian army. They managed to reach Hamburg just when the Seven Years' War was commencing and were allowed to enter a regiment. But the elder brother soon got tired and ran away, while the poet, after a series of extraordinary adventures, deserted to the Austrian army, where from being drummer he rose to being sergeant, and was only not made an officer because he was a Protestant. In 1760 he was weary of a soldier's life and deserted again, getting safe back to Denmark. For the next two years he worked with great diligence at the university, but the Arense for whom he had gone through so much hardship and taken so much pains married another man almost immediately after Ewald's final and very successful examination. The disappointment was one from which he never recovered, but his own weakness of will was largely to blame for it. He plunged into dissipation of every kind, and gave his serious thoughts only to poetry.

In 1763 his first work, a perfunctory dissertation, _De pyrologia sacra_, first saw the light. In 1764 he made a considerable success with a short prose story in the popular manner of Sneedorf, _Lykkens Tempel_ (The Temple of Fortune), which was translated into German and Icelandic. On the death of Frederick V., however, Ewald first appeared prominently as a poet; he published in 1766 three _Elegies_ over the dead king, which were received with universal acclamation, and of which one, at least, is a veritable masterpiece. But his dramatic poem _Adam og Eva_ (Adam and Eve), by far the finest imaginative work produced in Denmark up to that time, was rejected by the Society of Arts in 1767 and was not published until 1769. At the latter date, however, its merits were perceived. In 1770 Ewald attained success with _Philet_, a narrative and lyrical poem, and still more with his splendid _Rolf Krage_, the first original Danish tragedy. For the next ten years Ewald was occupied in producing one brilliant poetical work after another, in rapid succession. In 1771 he published _De brutale Klappers_ (The Brutal Clappers), a tragi-comedy or parody satirizing the dispute then raging between the critics and the manager of the Royal Theatre; in 1772 he translated from the German the lyrical drama of _Philemon and Baucis_, and brought out his versified comedy of _Harlequin Patriot_, a satire on the passion for political scribbling created by Struensee's introduction of the liberty of the press. In 1773 he published _Pebersvendene_ (Old Bachelors), a prose comedy. In 1771 he had already collected some of his lyrical poems under the title of _Adskilligt af Johannes Ewald_ (Miscellanies). In 1774 appeared the heroic opera of _Balder's Dod_ (Balder's Death), and in 1779 the finest of his works, the lyrical drama _Fiskerne_ (The Fishers), which contains the Danish National Song, "King Christian stood by the high Mast," his most famous lyric. In the two poems last mentioned, however, Ewald passed beyond contemporary taste, and these great works, the pride of Danish literature, were coldly received. But while the new poetry was slowly winning its way into popular esteem, the poet did not lack admirers, and at the head of these he founded in 1775 the Danish Literary Society, a body which became influential, and which made the study of Ewald a cultus. But the poet's health had broken; when he was writing _Rolf Krage_ he was already an inmate of the consumptive hospital, and when he seemed to be recovering, his health was shattered again by a night spent in the frosty streets. He embittered his existence by the recklessness of his private life, and finally, through a fall from a horse, he ended by becoming a complete invalid. His last ten years were full of acute suffering; his mother treated him with cruelty, his family with neglect, and but few even of his friends showed any manliness or generosity towards him. In 1774 he was placed in the house of an inspector of fisheries at Rungsted, where Anna Hedevig Jacobsen, the daughter of the house, tended the wasted poet with infinite tenderness and skill. He stayed in this house for three years, and wrote there some of his finest later lyrics. Meanwhile he had fallen deeply in love with the charming solace of his sufferings and won her consent to a marriage. This step, however, was prevented by his family, who roughly removed him to their own keeping near Kronborg. Here he was treated so infamously that he insisted on being taken back to Copenhagen in 1777, where he found an older, but no less tender nurse, in Ane Kirstine Skou. Here he wrote _Fiskerne_ with his imagination full of the familiar shore at Hornbaek, near Rungsted. In 1780 he was a little better, and managed to be present at the theatre at the first performance of his poem. But this excitement hastened his end, and after months of extreme agony he died on the 17th of March 1781, and was carried to the grave by a large assembly of his admirers, since he was now just recognized by the public for the first time as the greatest national poet. Among his papers were found fragments of three dramas, two on old Scandinavian subjects, entitled _Frode_ and _Helgo_, and the third a tragedy on the story of _Hamlet_, which he meant to treat in a way wholly distinct from Shakespeare's.

Ewald belongs to the race of poetical reformers who appeared in all countries of Europe at the end of the 18th century; but it is interesting to observe that in point of time he preceded all of them. He was born six years earlier than Goethe and Alfieri, sixteen years before Schiller, nine years before Andre Chenier, and twenty-seven years earlier than Wordsworth, but he did for Denmark what each of these poets did for his own country. Ewald found Danish literature given over to tasteless rhetoric, and without art or vigour. He introduced vivacity of style, freshness and brevity of form, and an imaginative study of nature which was then unprecedented. But perhaps his greatest claim to notice is the fact that he was the first person to call the attention of the Scandinavian peoples to the treasuries of their ancient history and mythology, and to suggest the use of these in imaginative writing. With a colouring more distinctly modern than that of Collins and Gray, his lyrics yet resemble the odes of these his English contemporaries more closely than those of any continental poet; from another point of view his ballads remind us of those of Schiller, which they preceded. His dramas, which had an immense influence on the Danish stage, are now chiefly of antiquarian interest, with the exception of "The Fishers," a work that must always live as a great national poem. In personal character and in fate Ewald seems to have been not unlike Heinrich Heine.

The first collected edition of Ewald's works began to appear in his
lifetime. It is in four volumes, 1780-1784. His works have constantly
been reprinted, but the standard edition is that by Liebenberg, in 8
vols., 1850-1855. The best biographies of him are those by C. Molbech
(1831), Hammerich (1860) and Andreas Dolleris (1900). (E. G.)

EWART, WILLIAM (1798-1869), English politician, was born in Liverpool on the 1st of May 1798. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, gaining the Newdigate prize for English verse. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1827, and the next year entered parliament for the borough of Bletchingley in Surrey. He subsequently sat for Liverpool from 1830 to 1837, for Wigan in 1839, and for Dumfries Burghs from 1841 until his retirement from public life in 1868. He died at Broadleas, near Devizes, on the 23rd of January 1869, Ewart, who was an advanced liberal in politics, was responsible during his long political career for many useful measures. In 1834 he carried a bill for the abolition of hanging in chains, and in 1837 he was successful in getting an act passed for abolishing capital punishment for cattle-stealing and other offences. In 1850 he carried a bill for establishing free libraries supported out of the rates, and in 1864 he was instrumental in getting an act passed for legalizing the use of the metric system of weights and measures. He was always a strong advocate for the abolition of capital punishment, and on his motion in 1864 a select committee was appointed to consider the subject. Other reforms which he advocated and which have since been carried out were an annual statement on education, and the examination of candidates for the civil service and army.

EWE, a group of Negro peoples of the Slave Coast, West Africa. By the natives their country is called _Ewe-me_, "Land of the Ewe." The Ewe family forms five linguistic groups: the Anlo or Anglawa on the Gold Coast frontier, the Krepi of Anfueh speech, the Jeji, the Dahomeyans and the Mahi.

See further Dahomey, and A.B. Ellis, _The Ewe-Speaking Peoples of the
Slave Coast_ ... (London, 1890).

EWELL, RICHARD STODDERT (1817-1872), American soldier, lieutenant-general in the Confederate army, was born in Georgetown, now a part of Washington, D.C., on the 2nd of February 1817, and graduated at West Point in 1840. As a cavalry officer he saw much active service in the Mexican War and later in Indian warfare in New Mexico. He resigned his commission at the outbreak of the Civil War, and entered the Confederate service. He commanded a brigade in the first Bull Run campaign, and a division in the famous Valley Campaign of "Stonewall" Jackson, to whom he was next in rank. At Cross Keys he was in command of the forces which defeated General Fremont. Ewell's division served with Jackson in the Seven Days and in the campaign of Second Bull Run. At the action of Groveton Ewell lost a leg, but did not on that account retire from active service, though other generals led his men in the sanguinary battles of Antietam (where they lost 47% of their numbers) and Fredericksburg. After the death of "Stonewall" Jackson, Ewell was promoted lieutenant-general and appointed to command the 2nd Corps, with which he had served from the beginning of the Valley Campaign. His promotion set aside General J.E.B. Stuart, the temporary commander of Jackson's corps; that Ewell, crippled as he was, was preferred to the brilliant cavalry leader was a marked testimony to his sterling qualities as a soldier. The invasion of Pennsylvania soon followed, Ewell's corps leading the advance of Lee's army. A federal force was skilfully cut off and destroyed near Winchester, Va., and Ewell's corps then raided Maryland and southern Pennsylvania unchecked. At the battle of Gettysburg, the 2nd Corps decided the fighting of the first day in favour of the Confederates, driving the enemy before them; on the second day it fought a desperate action on Lee's left wing. Ewell took part in the closing operations of 1863 and in all the battles of the Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns. In the final campaign of 1865 he and the remnant of his corps were cut off and forced to surrender at Sailor's Creek, a few days before his chief capitulated to Grant at Appomattox. After the war General Ewell lived in retirement. He died near Spring Hill, Maury County, Tennessee, on the 25th of January 1872.

EWING, ALEXANDER (1814-1873), Scottish divine, was born of an old Highland family in Aberdeen on the 25th of March 1814. In October 1838 he was admitted to deacon's orders, and after his return from Italy he took charge of the episcopal congregation at Forres, and was ordained a presbyter in the autumn of 1841. In 1846 he was elected first bishop of the newly restored diocese of Argyll and the Isles, the duties of which position he discharged till his death on the 22nd of May 1873. In 1851 he received the degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. Though hampered by a delicate bodily constitution, he worked in a spirit of buoyant cheerfulness. By the charm of his personal manner and his catholic sympathies he gradually attained a prominent position. In theological discussion he contended for the exercise of a wide tolerance, and attached little importance to ecclesiastical authority and organization. His own theological position had close affinity with that of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen and Frederick Denison Maurice; but his opinions were the fruit of his own meditation, and were coloured by his own individuality. The trend of his teaching is only to be gathered from fragmentary publications--letters to the newspapers, pamphlets, special sermons, essays contributed to the series of _Present Day Papers_, of which he was the editor, and a volume of sermons entitled _Revelation considered as Light_.

Besides his strictly theological writings, Ewing was the author of the
_Cathedral or Abbey Church of Iona_ (1865), the first part of which
contains drawings and descriptive letterpress of the ruins, and the
second a history of the early Celtic church and the mission of St
Columba. See _Memoir of Alexander Ewing, D.C.L._, by A.J. Ross (1877).