Of the _consonants_, B, D, F, H, J, K, L, M, N, NG, P, SH, T, V, Z, always
have their common English sounds, when used to transliterate foreign words.
The letter C is not used by itself in re-writing for pronunciation, S or K
being used instead. The only consonantal symbols, therefore, that require
explanation are the following:--
ch is always as in ri_ch_.
_d_, nearly as _th_ in _th_is = Sp. _d_ in Ma_d_ri_d_, &c.
g is always hard, as in _g_o.
_h_ represents the guttural in Scotch lo_ch_, Ger. na_ch_, also other
similar gutturals.
[n.], Fr. nasal _n_ as in bo_n_.
r represents both English _r_, and _r_ in foreign words, which is generally
much more strongly trilled.
s, always as in _s_o.
th, as _th_ in _th_in.
_th_, as _th_ in _th_is.
w always consonantal, as in _w_e.
x = ks, which are used instead.
y always consonantal, as in _y_ea (Fr. _ligne_ would be re-written
l[=e]ny).
zh, as _s_ in plea_s_ure = Fr. _j_.
* * * * *
ESTREMOZ', a town of Portugal, in the province of Alemtejo, 22 miles west
of Elvas. Pop. about 8000.
ESZEK (es-sek'), or ESSEG, a town of Yugo-Slavia, formerly in Hungary, on
the Drave, 13 miles from its confluence with the Danube. It has barracks,
town house, normal school, an important trade, and several fairs. Pop.
31,000.
ETAMPES ([=a]-tae[n.]p), a town of France, department of Seine-et-Oise, 30
miles S. by W. of Paris. Pop. 9450.
ETAPLES, a town of Northern France, department of Pas-de-Calais, on the
right bank of the estuary of the Canche, 17 miles south of Boulogne. During
the European War, Etaples became a place of great importance. It was a huge
British encampment, including many hospitals, and a cemetery with over
11,000 graves. It was also of importance as a training-centre, and the
famous 'Bull-ring' was there. Pop. 6000.
ETAP'PEN (Ger.), a department in Continental armies the business of which
is to relieve the commanders of the field army of all responsibility for
their communications in the rear. The officers of this department supervise
all arrangements for loading and unloading at stations, forwarding,
feeding, and billeting.
ETA'WAH, a town, Hindustan, United Provinces, capital of district of the
same name, on left bank of the Jumna, picturesquely situated among ravines,
and richly planted with trees. It has some good buildings, and a
considerable trade. Pop. 45,350.--The district has an area of 1694 sq.
miles, and a pop. of 760,120.
ETCHING, a method of engraving lines upon a metal plate by means of acid,
whence the term has come to denote an impression taken on paper or similar
material from the etched plate. Sometimes, though incorrectly, applied to a
line-drawing in pen and ink. The usual process is to cover the plate
(generally of copper) with an _etching-ground_ of waxes and resins, on
which the lines are opened up by means of a sharp-pointed _etching-needle_,
either from a design transferred to the ground, or by the artist working
directly. The lines are then _bitten_ by putting the plate into dilute
nitric or hydrochloric acid, the back and edges being protected by
_stopping-out varnish_. The plate is removed when the lightest lines are
sufficiently bitten. If some lines need deeper biting, the rest may be
covered with stopping-out varnish, and the plate replaced in the acid; or
acid may be applied locally. If a plate is removed before biting is
complete, in order to take a trial impression, it is recovered with a
transparent ground, additional lines opened up if necessary, and
_rebitten_. In _soft-ground etching_, the ground is mixed with tallow, thin
paper laid upon it, and the design firmly drawn thereon with a pencil. When
the paper is removed, the ground adheres to it where the lines were drawn.
The plate is bitten in the usual way. This produces the effect of a chalk
or pencil drawing. _Dry-point_ is a method of working direct on to the
copper with a sharp point, which raises a _burr_ on each side of the line,
giving it a characteristic quality. Dry-point, etching proper, and
engraving proper are often combined in one plate; and a mixture of etching
with mezzotint or aquatint is not uncommon. In _printing_, a matter of
first-rate importance, the ink is rubbed into the lines and superfluous ink
_wiped_ from the surface of the plate, ink being left in any place where a
tint is required. Impressions may then be taken by hand; but a press is
generally used, being more expeditious and yielding more even results. The
papers used are various, but those of Japanese make are most popular. The
number of good impressions possible from one plate is limited by the
wearing of the plate; in particular, the burr of dry-point soon disappears.
A _state_ is the name given to each stage in the progress of a print, which
is the result of new work on the plate. Differences due to variations in
the amount of ink used, or to wiping, do not constitute states; but the
addition of a title, artist's signature, &c., will make a state. As
distinct from the engraved line, the etched line has a freedom and
spontaneity resembling that made by pen or pencil.
The process was apparently used as a means of decorating metal some time
before prints were taken. The earliest-known etching is dated 1513. Among
the first to use the process was Albrecht Duerer (1471-1528), who between
1515 and 1518 produced six plates on iron, showing great power and
precision, but hardly realizing all the qualities of the medium. Among his
followers, the German Little Masters, Hans Sebald Beham and Albrecht
Altdorfer were responsible for some interesting plates, as was Lucas van
Leyden (1494-1533), the Dutchman. Among the earliest Italian etchers were
Francesco Mazzuoli (1503-40) and Andrea Schiavone (1522-82), who show more
freedom and delicacy than the Germans. But at this time etching was mainly
the by-product of artists whose chief work was painting or engraving. Its
great period opened in the seventeenth century. Jacques Callot (1592-1635),
born at Nancy, who worked there and at Rome, produced about one thousand
plates of small size, the most important being two series of the _Miseries
of War_. He is remarkable for his fine sense of design, the fantastic,
grotesque quality of his figures, and the delicacy and variety of his line,
obtained by rebiting and by combining engraving with etching. Claude
Lorrain (1600-82), the landscape painter, possibly under the influence of
Callot, produced some fifty plates, very delicately etched, and suggestive
of atmosphere. Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641), beside being court painter
to Charles I of England, was the greatest Flemish etcher of his day. His
eighteen etched portraits of famous contemporaries (fifteen of which were
included in his _Iconography_, published 1645), in their direct handling
and vivid characterization, are among the finest work of the kind ever
done. But the central figure in etching, not only of the seventeenth
century but of all time, is Rembrandt van Ryn (1606-69), whose work is
unrivalled both in quality and influence. His etchings show the same
realism, understanding of humanity, and creative imagination which mark all
his work. Roughly, they fall into three groups, according to the time at
which they were produced. In the first period, the ordinary etched line is
mainly used, and the artist is evidently feeling his way; in the second,
chiaroscuro is more marked, and dry-point used freely; in the third, the
handling is very free and vigorous, chiaroscuro becomes the dominant
feature, and dry-point the usual method. Development on these lines marks
all his plates, which consist of (1) portraits, e.g. _Jan Six_ (_c._ 1646)
and _Clement de Jonghe_ (1651); (2) figure compositions, many of scriptural
subjects, which include the masterpiece _Christ receiving Little Children_
(_c._ 1650), commonly known as 'The Hundred Guilder Print'; (3) landscapes,
e.g. _The Goldweigher's Field_, the least numerous class, but one which has
inspired the greatest mass of work. The Dutch painters contemporary with or
following Rembrandt were in some cases prolific etchers, notably Ferdinand
Bol and Adrian van Ostade, and reproduce in that medium the characteristics
of their painting. In the eighteenth century etching fell somewhat into
disuse, save in Italy, where G. B. Tiepolo (1696-1770), the decorative
painter, produced some fifty plates, and Antonio Canale (Canaletto,
1697-1768) showed in his few etchings the same power to express structure
and aerial perspective as in his painting. More prolific was G. B. Piranesi
(1720-88), who published a series of views of the Classical and Renaissance
architecture of Rome, professedly with an archaeological aim, but of great
artistic interest. His imaginative power, bold design, and vigorous
handling are best seen in the fantastic plates of his _Carceri_. In
England, William Hogarth (1697-1764) produced a few etchings; Thomas
Rowlandson (1756-1827), the caricaturist, used etching as the basis of his
aquatints; and John Crome (1768-1821), the landscape painter, etched some
characteristic plates. But it was Francisco Goya (1746-1828) whose work
ushered in a new era. His bitterly satirical _Caprichos_ (1793-6, 72
plates), _Proverbios_ (1810-5, 18 plates), _Desastres de la Guerra_ (_c._
1810, 82 plates), and the more popular but no less remarkable _Tauromaquia_
(_c._ 1815, 33 plates illustrating bull-fighting), in all of which the
bitten line is allied with aquatint, show a powerful and fantastic
imagination, brilliant design and draughtsmanship, and superb technique.
Widely different in character are the 71 plates of the _Liber Studiorum_,
one of the most remarkable works of J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). In these
etching merely provides the ground plan for the use of mezzotint, or, more
rarely, aquatint. In the nineteenth century the revival inaugurated by Goya
was carried on in France by several of the Barbizon group of landscape
painters, notably by J. F. Millet (1814-75), responsible for some simple
but impressive plates. A more important figure as an etcher is Alphonse
Legros (1837-1911), whose admirable portraits recall those of Van Dyck,
though elsewhere he shows something of Goya's taste for the grotesque. This
last also appears in the work of Charles Meryon (1821-68), one of the
greatest of French etchers, whose feeling for decorative design and
decisive handling are best seen in his views of Paris. Apart from other
etchers of the period are Jules Jacquemart and Felix Braquemond, remarkable
for their exquisite delicacy in the reproduction of surface texture. Of the
Impressionist painters, Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) produced some very
individual plates, marked by the use of broken lines and much rebiting, in
the effort to secure atmospheric effect. Similarly, by means of open
shading and absence of outline, Anders Zorn (1860-1918), the Swede, has
aimed at reproducing the play of light round objects; but his portraits are
his best work. The chief figure in nineteenth-century etching, however, is
J. A. McN. Whistler (1834-1903), whose _French Set_ (1858), _Thames Set_
(1871), _Venice Set_ (1880), and _Twenty-six Etchings_ (1886) show his
delicate yet decisive handling, his economy of means, his feeling for
design, and his power of securing luminosity and atmosphere. Part of his
success was due to insistence upon printing his own plates. His
brother-in-law, Sir Francis Seymour Haden (1818-1910), the distinguished
doctor, also took a prominent part in the revival of etching, and in his
plates showed remarkable skill. The same accomplishment marks the work of
William Strang, A.R.A. (died 1921), who has produced many notable portraits
of contemporary celebrities, including R. L. Stevenson and Thomas Hardy.
Another artist of great technical skill, excelling in the use of dry-point,
is Felicien Rops (1833-98), a Belgian, whose work is remarkable for its
union of satire and licentiousness. The most notable living etchers are
chiefly found in England, and include Sir Frank Short, famous also for his
mezzotints; D. Y. Cameron, a disciple of Whistler, though of marked
individuality in his treatment of architecture; Muirhead Bone, whose
architectural work is unrivalled and has inspired many followers; James
McBey; and Augustus John, who stands apart from his contemporaries in his
preference for figure subjects. In France, Jean-Louis Forain has produced
some remarkable work, notably series dealing with the life of Christ, and
with Lourdes, which show his satiric power and a very distinctive
technique. See _Engraving_.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. M. Hind, _A Short History of
Engraving and Etching_ (very complete and authoritative). For technical
details, M. Lalanne, _Etching_; Paton, _Etching and Mezzotint Engraving_.
ETE'OCLES and POLYNI'CES, two heroes of ancient Greek legend, sons of
Oedipus, King of Thebes. After their father's banishment from Thebes,
Eteocles usurped the throne to the exclusion of his brother, an act which
led to an expedition of Polynices and six others against Thebes. This war
is known as the Seven against Thebes, and forms the basis of Aeschylus's
_The Seven against Thebes_. The two brothers fell by each other's hand. See
_Antigone_.
ETE'SIAN WINDS (Gr. _etos_, year), winds which, blowing over the
Mediterranean regions from a general northerly direction during some weeks
of the summer, replace the heated air that rises from the Sahara and other
parts of Africa. By carrying with them moisture from the sea, they add
greatly to the fertility of Egypt.
ETHANE, (C_2H_6), a hydrocarbon belonging to the paraffin series. It is a
colourless inflammable gas, and is found amongst the gaseous constituents
of the Pennsylvanian oil-wells.
ETH'ELBERT, King of Kent, born about A.D. 560, died 616. He succeeded his
father, Hermenric, and reduced all the English states, except
Northumberland, to the condition of his dependents. Ethelbert married
Bertha, the daughter of Caribert, King of Paris, and a Christian princess,
an event which led indirectly to the introduction of Christianity into
England by St. Augustine. Ethelbert was the first English king to draw up a
code of laws.
ETHELBERT, King of England, son of Ethelwulf, succeeded to the government
of the eastern side of the kingdom in A.D. 857, and in 860, on the death of
his brother Ethelbald, became sole king. His reign was much disturbed by
the inroads of the Danes. He died in 866.
ETH'ELRED I, King of England, son of Ethelwulf, succeeded his brother
Ethelbert in A.D. 866. The Danes became so formidable in his reign as to
threaten the conquest of the whole kingdom. Ethelred died in consequence of
a wound received in an action with the Danes in 871, and was succeeded by
his brother Alfred.
ETHELRED II, King of England, son of Edgar, born A.D. 968, succeeded his
brother, Edward the Martyr, in 978, and, for his want of vigour and
capacity, was surnamed _the Unready_. In his reign began the practice of
buying off the Danes by presents of money. After repeated payments of
tribute, he effected, in 1002, a massacre of the Danes; but this led to
Sweyn gathering a large force together and carrying fire and sword through
the country. They were again bribed to depart; but, upon a new invasion,
Sweyn obliged the nobles to swear allegiance to him as King of England;
while Ethelred, in 1013, fled to Normandy. On the death of Sweyn he was
invited to resume the government, and died at London in the midst of his
struggle with Canute (1016).
ETH'ELWULF, King of England, succeeded his father, Egbert, about A.D. 837,
died 857. His reign was in great measure occupied in repelling Danish
incursions; but he is best remembered for his donation to the clergy, which
is often quoted as the origin of the system of tithes. Alfred the Great was
the youngest of his five children.
ETH'ENDUN, BATTLE OF, the victory which Alfred the Great gained over the
Danes (878), and which led to the treaty with Guthrum, the Danish king of
East England. The locality is doubtful.
ETHER, or AETHER, sometimes called _luminiferous ether_ to prevent
confusion with the well-known volatile liquid of the same name, a
hypothetical medium filling the whole of what seems to be empty space, and
even the interstices between the atoms of material bodies. Most thinkers
believe that such a medium must be postulated if we are to explain the
transmission of physical actions between bodies at a distance from one
another. With the exception of ordinary mechanical pressures and tensions,
the simplest examples of influences that can pass across space are sound
and light. Sound, we know, is carried by the air, a medium more subtle than
solid or liquid bodies, but still easily recognizable by its effects on our
senses, and by its mechanical, physical, and chemical properties. We know a
good deal about air, and about the process that goes on when sound is
passing through it. But the ether is incomparably more elusive than air. It
affects the sense of sight, indeed, as the air affects the sense of
hearing; but, so far as we know, it has no weight, no specific heat, no
chemical affinity. Except that it is the medium which conveys light,
electric and magnetic actions, and possibly gravitation, we know extremely
little about it. An extreme school of modern physicists is even inclined to
deny, or at least to ignore, its existence altogether.
Early speculators regarded the ether as a species of fluid, which could be
displaced by ordinary matter, so that upholders of the wave theory of light
necessarily thought of waves like those of sound, in which the direction of
vibration is in the line of transmission, for no other kind of wave can
occur in a fluid. Young and Fresnel, however, insisted on the view that the
movements of the medium are at right angles to the direction of
propagation, and pointed out that this might be explained by supposing the
medium to possess elasticity of shape. The obvious objection to the
conception of a solid which permits the planets to move through it with
apparently perfect freedom was met long afterwards by Stokes and Kelvin,
who instanced such substances as shoemaker's wax and jelly, which are rigid
enough to be capable of elastic vibration, and yet permit bodies to pass
through them with more or less ease. Fresnel's work called attention to the
subject of the elasticity of bodies, and led to the discovery of the
general equations of vibration of an elastic solid by Navier in 1821.
Navier's equations, slightly generalized, were used by Cauchy with a
certain amount of success to explain reflection, refraction, and the
phenomena of crystal-optics. In 1837 George Green published a variety of
elastic solid theory which was a decided improvement on Cauchy's, but many
difficulties remained, and it is now almost universally agreed that the
vibrations of an ordinary elastic solid do not furnish an exact parallel to
the vibrations which constitute light. One of the chief difficulties is
that in an ordinary elastic solid two types of waves can occur, one
distortional, with the displacement of a particle perpendicular to the
direction of transmission, and the other dilatational, with the
displacement along the line of transmission, as in sound. Waves of light
must be of the distortional kind, and the velocity of the other kind of
wave may be quite different from the velocity of light. A kind of ether in
which this difficulty of the longitudinal wave does not occur was imagined
by Cauchy and afterwards discussed by Lord Kelvin, who called it the
contractile, or labile, ether. This is an elastic body with negative
compressibility, like homogeneous foam which is prevented from collapsing
by attachment to the sides of a containing vessel. Another type of
quasi-elastic solid was brought forward by James MacCullagh in 1839.
MacCullagh's solid possesses what may be called elasticity of rotation, but
offers no resistance to deformations in which elementary parts of the solid
preserve their orientation. The equations of motion of this ether devised
by MacCullagh are very similar to those obtained much later from a very
different physical point of view by Clerk Maxwell. Elastic solid theories,
however, have fallen into the background before the advancing popularity of
the electromagnetic theory of James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell's equations of
the electromagnetic field are deduced from easily demonstrable experimental
facts, supplemented by the characteristic hypothesis that the electric
current always travels in a closed circuit, even in cases where, as in the
discharge of a condenser, the material circuit is open, so that the path of
the current has to be completed through the ether. Other essential features
of Maxwell's view are that electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic action
is transmitted by means of stresses in a medium which possesses some sort
of elasticity and inertia not exactly of an ordinary mechanical kind, and
that the energy of all such action resides in the medium. 'Maxwell's
equations', especially as modified by H. A. Lorentz so as to take account
of the atomic structure of electricity, are fundamental in modern
electrodynamics and the electron theory of matter. The form of Maxwell's
equations shows that electromagnetic action can be propagated in waves with
a definite velocity, which depends on the specific inductive capacity and
the magnetic permeability of the medium. Maxwell had no difficulty in
showing from experimental data that the velocity given by his theory, which
turns out to depend on the ratio of the electrostatic and electromagnetic
units of charge, is identical with the known velocity of light. He
concludes that waves of light are electric waves. The actual production of
waves by electrical means was experimentally demonstrated by Sir Oliver
Lodge, and more completely by Heinrich Hertz, and is now a commonplace of
wireless telegraphy and telephony. The question of the nature of the
mechanical process by which physical actions are carried on in the ether
weighed heavily on Maxwell, as on other nineteenth-century physicists.
Mechanical models of many kinds have been devised to represent ethereal
action. Were it sufficient for the purpose, certainly nothing could be
simpler than the elastic solid model. Other models of much interest are the
gyrostatic ether and the vortex sponge ether of Lord Kelvin, and the
molecular vortex ether of Maxwell. It is recorded that the celebrated
mathematician Gauss had made out a theory of electrodynamics, but always
declined to publish it because he was unable to devise a mental picture of
the physical action represented by his mathematics; and it was probably a
similar reason that led Lord Kelvin to declare, so late as 1904, that "the
electromagnetic theory has not helped us hitherto". Sir J. J. Thomson has
developed a theory of moving tubes of electric force, which produce
magnetic fields by their motion. Possibly light may consist of tremors in
these tubes, and if the tubes are discrete, it may become practicable to
reconcile the modern quantum theory (q.v.) with the phenomena of
interference of light, with which at present it seems to be utterly
inconsistent.
The extraordinary developments in both theoretical and experimental physics
during recent years have diverted attention to some extent from the
question of the constitution of the ether, and the problem of its mode of
working is more frequently considered from a mathematical and
pseudo-metaphysical point of view than from the old standpoint of Newtonian
dynamics. It was from a question about the ether, however, that the theory
of relativity, the most important of recent speculations, took its origin.
Is the ether fixed, or does it move? Is it carried along with the earth in
its motion round the sun, or does the ether pass through the atoms of
material bodies as the sea passes through the meshes of a net? The elastic
solid analogy, and the simplicity of the classical explanation of the
aberration of light, are evidence in favour of a fixed ether. But the
celebrated interference experiment of Michelson and Morley, which was
capable of detecting a comparatively small relative velocity of earth and
ether, gave a null result. Various electrical experiments also point to the
conclusion that the medium in which optical and electrical effects take
place is carried along with the earth in its motion. We are thus placed in
a dilemma. We must either reconcile the idea of a fixed ether with the
Michelson-Morley and kindred experiments, or we must explain aberration on
the supposition that earth and ether move together. Both alternatives have
had their supporters. Those who, like Sir Joseph Larmor and Sir Oliver
Lodge, believe in a fixed ether rely on the hypothesis of the 'Fitzgerald
contraction', according to which bodies moving through the ether with
velocity v are contracted in the direction of their motion by the fraction
[sqrt](1 - v^2/c^2) of their length, c being the velocity of light. This
contraction is in ordinary cases very small, amounting only to a few inches
for the diameter of the earth when moving round the sun. The hypothesis
follows naturally enough from the accepted theory of the motion of
electrons, and leads to a perfectly simple explanation of the
Michelson-Morley result. The most prominent champion of a moving ether was
Sir George Stokes. He assumed that, so far as the earth's motion through it
is concerned, the ether behaves as a perfect liquid, so that it moves along
with the earth, and he proved that aberration would be unaffected by this
motion, provided it is everywhere irrotational, or free from spin. Stokes's
theory has been extended by Larmor so as to cover a very important set of
phenomena found by Arago and Airy, and explained in a general way by
Fresnel. These phenomena relate to the velocity of light in material media
which are in motion relative to the earth, running water for example.
Fresnel proved that all the experimental results are explained if the
velocity of light in the water, with respect to the earth, is given by the
formula c' + v(1 - 1/m^2), where c' is the velocity of light in still
water, v is the velocity of the water relative to the earth, and m is the
index of refraction of water. At present the fashionable view of all the
phenomena is that taken in Einstein's theory of relativity (q.v.), which
makes revolutionary suppositions with respect to the measurement of space
and time, and assumes that the velocity of light is a universal constant,
independent of the motion either of the source of light or of the observer.
Once its initial assumptions are granted, the theory undoubtedly gives
simple and natural explanations of the chief optical and electrical
phenomena, and in particular leads at once to Fresnel's formula given
above. Most English writers on the subject, among whom A. S. Eddington, E.
Cunningham, and A. N. Whitehead are prominent, continue to believe that an
ether exists, in spite of the fact that as relativists they hold that no
experiment can ever enable us to determine our motion through
it.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: E. T. Whittaker, _History of the Theories of Aether and
Electricity_; Sir Joseph Larmor, _Aether and Matter_; A. S. Eddington,
_Space, Time, and Gravitation_; O. W. Richardson, _Electron Theory of
Matter_; R. W. Wood, _Physical Optics_.
ETHER, or ETHYL ETHER, (C_2H_5)_2O, a colourless, inflammable liquid
produced by distillation of alcohol with concentrated sulphuric acid. It is
almost immiscible with water, lighter than alcohol, has a sweet taste, and
evaporates rapidly in air, producing extreme cold. The vapour of ether
mixed with air forms an explosive mixture. Ether is a valuable solvent for
many organic substances, fats, oils, &c., and is also used in surgery as an
anaesthetic.
ETHEREGE (eth'[.e]-rej), Sir George, English writer of comedy, born about
1635, died about 1691. He studied at Cambridge, travelled afterwards on the
Continent, and then returned to enter himself at one of the Inns of Court.
Devoting himself less to legal studies than to literature and society, he
wrote several plays. In 1664 he had his first comedy represented, _The
Comical Revenge, or, Love in a Tub_, which was well received. Four years
later his _She Would if She Could_ appeared, a brilliant play, though
frivolous and immoral. Eight years afterwards (1676) he produced his best
comedy, _The Man of Mode, or Sir Fopling Flutter_. Etherege's plays are
witty and sparkling, and the characters, genuine portraits of the men and
women he saw, are vividly if lightly drawn.
ETHICAL CULTURE. It has been said by a prominent leader of the movement for
ethical culture that the one dogma admitted is the doctrine of personality.
The movement eliminates from its teaching all hitherto received religions,
admits no Christian symbolism, and acknowledges neither a personal Creator
nor a personal Saviour. Christ is, however, highly reverenced as a man. The
world as it _should be_ is regarded not as an unattainable though beautiful
ideal to be admired and longed for, but as a possible reality to be
achieved by strenuous concerted action. The means by which it is hoped to
bring about this much-to-be-desired result is the reaction on each other of
carefully selected and highly cultivated personalities. Such virtues,
therefore, as kindness, pity, justice, charity, temperance, and chastity
are deemed less necessary as a personal moral duty in each human being than
as a means by which a perfect world may be attained. Man's duty is towards
no divine being, but to his fellow-man. In place of that help from above
which theologians deem needful to attain even a short step in the direction
of perfection, the power of conscience is considered as sufficient for all
needs, and disciples are counselled that they should
More strictly, then, the inward judge obey,
since they no longer believe in divine anger or approval.
Germs of the movement may be found in many writers, and Emerson seems to
have foreseen it when he said: "The mind of this age has fallen away from
theology to morals. I conceive it to be an advance." But the obvious
founder of ethical societies was Felix Adler (born 1851), who, in 1876,
established in New York a Society of Ethical Culture. He also set in motion
such useful work as training-schools, kindergartens, and nursing. In 1885
his associate, W. Salter, established the Chicago Ethical Society. Both
have written extensively on the subject; while English supporters of the
movement include Sir Leslie Stephen, Sir J. Seeley, Professor Sidgwick, and
others. Several ethical societies exist in Britain, carrying out much
educational and philanthropic work. There are both Sunday services and
Sunday schools, and in many cases the branches are more or less closely
affiliated with labour and its associations. With regard to this community
of work and aim, it may be noted that while ethical culturists look forward
to a time when no man shall exploit his fellow human beings for personal
ends, absolute equality for all is not promised, being recognized as
impossible.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Felix Adler, _Creed and Deed_; W. M. Salter,
_Ethical Religion_.
ETH'ICS, otherwise called _Moral Philosophy_ or _Morals_, is the science
which treats of the nature and laws of the actions of intelligent beings,
considered as to whether they are _right_ or _wrong_, _good_ or _bad_. Its
subject-matter is human conduct and character in view of a standard or
ideal. It refers to constant elements in human nature, and, like aesthetics
and logic, is of universal application. The science is more or less closely
connected with theology, psychology, politics, political economy, and
jurisprudence, but what most strictly belongs to it is the investigation of
the principles and basis of duty or the moral law, and an inquiry into the
nature and origin of the faculty by which duty is recognized. Various
answers have been given to the question why we call an action good or bad,
such as that it is consistent or not with the will of God, or with the
nature of things, or with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or
that an inward faculty decides it to be such or such; and a great variety
of _ethical_ systems has been proposed. The foundations of the leading
systems were laid in antiquity, the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle,
Epicurus, the Cynics, and the Stoics being especially prominent. All the
Greek philosophers, however, considered ethics from an individualistic
standpoint, and paid little attention either to politics or to sociology.
The introduction of Christianity brought a new element into ethical
speculation, and among Christians ethics were intimately associated with
theology, and morality was regarded as based on and regulated by a definite
code contained in the sacred writings. The speculations of the Greeks were
not, however, disregarded, and some of the ablest Christian moralists (as
Augustine, Peter Lombard, Erigena, Anselm, and Aquinas) endeavoured to
harmonize the Greek theories with the Christian dogmatics. Most modern
ethical systems consider the subject as apart from theology and as based on
independent philosophical principles, and they fall into one of two great
classes--the utilitarian systems, which recognize as the chief good,
happiness, or the greatest possible satisfaction of the tendencies of our
nature; and the rationalistic systems, which recognize that ideas of law
and obligation can have their source only in reason. _Utilitarianism_ has
been rightly called universal hedonism, as distinguished from the hedonism
of Epicurus, which was egoistic. The first of the modern Utilitarian school
in England was Hobbes (1588-1679). Among subsequent names are those of
Cudworth, Locke, Clarke, Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutcheson, Hume, Adam Smith,
Reid, Paley, Whewell, Bentham, J. S. Mill, &c. Paley held that men ought to
act so as to further the greatest possible happiness of the race, because
God wills the happiness of men, and rewards and punishes them according to
their actions, the divine commands being ascertained from Scripture and the
light of nature. Bentham's utilitarianism is considerably different from
Paley's. It was entirely dissociated from theology or Scripture, and
maintained that increase of happiness ought to be the sole object of the
moralist and legislator, pleasure and pain being the sole test of actions.
To utilitarianism as a special development belong the later 'evolution
ethics' represented by Herbert Spencer, in which biological conceptions,
such as 'the preservation of the human race', take the place of the
Benthamite criterion for determining what is good and bad in actions.
Another theory of ethics places the moral principle in the sentimental part
of our nature, that is, in the direct sympathetic pleasure or sympathetic
indignation we have with the impulses which prompt to action or expression.
By means of this theory, which he treats as an original and inexplicable
fact in human nature, Adam Smith explains all the phenomena of the moral
consciousness. In considering the ethical systems of the Rationalistic
school, systems which recognize that the ideas of law and obligation can
have their source only in reason, the question, what is the source of the
laws by which reason governs, gives rise to a number of psychological
theories, amongst which we may notice Clarke's view of the moral principles
as rational intuitions or axioms analogous to those of mathematics;
Butler's theory of the natural authority of conscience; the position of
Reid, Stewart, and other members of the later Intuitional school, who
conceive a moral faculty implanted in man which not only perceives the
'rightness' or 'moral obligation' of actions, but also impels the will to
perform what is seen to be right. Very similar, as far as classification
goes, is the position of Kant, who holds that reason recognizes the
immediate obligation of certain kinds of conduct, and that an action is
only good when done from a good motive, and that this motive must be
essentially different from a natural inclination of any
kind.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Sidgwick, _The Method of Ethics_; A. C. Bradley,
_Ethical Studies_; H. Spencer, _Principles of Ethics_; L. Stephen, _The
Science of Ethics_; _The English Utilitarians_; W. Wundt, _Ethics_; J.
Martineau, _Types of Ethical Theory_; A. Sutherland, _The Origin and Growth
of the Moral Instinct_; E. Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of
Moral Ideas_; W. R. Sorley, _The Moral Life_; C. Read, _Natural and Social
Morality_.
ETHIOPIA, or AETHIOPIA (Heb. _Cush_), in ancient geography, the country
lying to the south of Egypt, and comprehending the modern Nubia, Kordofan,
Abyssinia, and other adjacent districts; but its limits were not clearly
defined. It was vaguely spoken of in Greek and Roman accounts as the land
of the _Ichthyophagi_ or fish-eaters, the _Macrobii_ or long-livers, the
_Troglodytes_ or dwellers in caves, and of the _Pygmies_ or dwarf races. In
ancient times its history was closely connected with that of Egypt, and
about the eighth century B.C. it imposed a dynasty on Lower Egypt, and
acquired a predominant influence in the valley of the Nile. In sacred
history Ethiopia is repeatedly mentioned as a powerful military kingdom
(see particularly _Is._ xx, 5). In the sixth century B.C. the Persian
Cambyses invaded Ethiopia; but the country maintained its independence till
it became tributary to the Romans in the reign of Augustus. Subsequently
Ethiopia came to be the designation of the country now known as Abyssinia
(q.v.), and the Abyssinian monarchs still call themselves rulers of
Ethiopia.
ETHIOPIAN LANGUAGE, THE, or more accurately the _Geez_ language, is the old
official and ecclesiastical language of Abyssinia, introduced into that
kingdom by settlers from South Arabia. In the fourteenth century it was
supplanted as the language of the Christian Church of Abyssinia by the
Amharic. It is a Semitic language resembling Aramaic and Hebrew as well as
Arabic. It has a Christian literature of some importance. The principal
work is a translation of the Bible, including the Old and New Testaments
and _Apocrypha_, to which are appended some non-canonical writings, such as
the _Shepherd of Hermas_ and the _Book of Enoch_. The language is to some
extent represented by the modern dialects of Tigre, and by that spoken by
some nomadic tribes of the Sudan. For the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church,
see _Abyssinia_ and _Copt_.
ETH'MOID BONE (Gr. _[=e]thmoeides_, like a sieve), a light spongy bone
situated in the upper part of the cavity of the nose. The olfactory nerves
pass upward through its numerous perforations to reach the brain.
ETHNOL'OGY AND ETHNOG'RAPHY, sciences dealing with man, the aim of the
former being to analyse and interpret the meaning of the social phenomena
of mankind, as shown in their customs, languages, institutions, &c., the
latter being more concerned with descriptive details and the orderly
collection of facts relating to particular tribes and localities. Both
terms, however, are used very loosely and in a variety of ways, often being
confused with _anthropology_, the general science or natural history of
mankind, of which the other two are parts. Anthropology, again, is
sometimes used in the narrower sense implied in the word _somatology_, the
study of the physical structure and distinctive characteristics of the
various races of mankind. When the term ethnology is used by the politician
or journalist, in most cases it is intended to refer to the racial
components in a given territory; in other words, it is used in the sense in
which the scientific writer would employ the word anthropology. For
instance, when the endeavour was made in the earlier part of the nineteenth
century to liberate the Greeks from Turkish dominion, the plea was put
forward that they differed in race; and the delimitation of the territory
of the Greek state was claimed on what was called 'the ethnological basis',
the geographical distribution of people of Greek nationality. Even since
then, and especially during the European War and the subsequent attempt at
a settlement, claims have been put forward to fix the boundaries of Italy,
Yugo-Slavia, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, &c., on the basis of race and
nationality. But further confusion arises from the attempt to apply this
anthropological or ethnological test in deciding whether physical type,
language, religion, or social traditions and usages are to be the test of
nationality. In this article it will be convenient to give the term
ethnology its widest meaning, and to consider not merely the customs,
beliefs, and institutions of various peoples, but also the early history of
the human family, its differentiation into races and the significance of
their geographical distribution, and the different phases of culture which
are found in the various communities even of the same race.
[Illustration: The Piltdown Skull.
As restored by Dr. Smith Woodward and Mr. Frank O'Barlow. The dark portions
are those actually recovered.]
During the last eighty years the discovery of a series of fossilized
remains of extinct genera and species of the human family and of apes has
given us a glimpse of the origin and early history of mankind. Man's
ancestors probably parted company with those of the anthropoid apes
somewhere in the neighbourhood of Northern India early in the Miocene
period; and before the close of the Pliocene period their descendants had
gradually acquired the highly developed brain and the intelligence which
imply the emergence of the distinctively human characteristics. The most
significant token of the attainment of the status of men was the
acquisition of the power of speech, which enabled its possessors to hand on
the accumulated knowledge and the fruits of experience, and so enormously
to increase their powers. The earliest-known representative of the human
family was the Ape-man, _Pithecanthropus_, who at the end of the Pliocene
period wandered east as far as Java, where the fossilized remains of a
skull were found thirty years ago by Professor Eugen Dubois. At a later
date a much more highly developed type, one, moreover, that was much closer
to the ancestry of modern men than the aberrant Ape-man of Java, wandered
as far west as England, where a representative of this extinct genus was
discovered by the late Mr. Charles Dawson in 1912 at Piltdown, in Sussex.
This very primitive member of the human family has been called the
'Dawn-man' or _Eoanthropus_ by Dr. Smith Woodward. He has a brain which,
though poorly developed, is definitely human, but his face (and especially
the jaws) retains considerable resemblance to that of an ape. Of the other
fossilized remains of extinct varieties of the human family, the most
important are those known respectively as Heidelberg man and Neanderthal
man. The former is almost as old as the Piltdown man, and its former
existence was revealed by the discovery in the Mauer Sands, near
Heidelberg, in 1908, of a very massive and chinless jaw. At a much later
date Europe was inhabited by a brutal species of mankind, Neanderthal man,
which became extinct when in the Neoanthropic Age men of our own species
made their way into Europe and completely superseded the less efficient
Neanderthal species. The latter were men of vast strength, with short,
clumsy, thick-set limbs, a stooping gait, thick neck, and a great flattened
head with a coarse face. These people inhabited Europe in the days when the
elephant and the woolly rhinoceros lived there; they made the rough stone
implements known as Mousterian. But, in spite of their enormous strength,
these people were not able to hold their own in competition with the
nimbler wits and the more skilled hands of _Homo sapiens_, who introduced
into Europe a more finished technique in making implements, and revealed
his genius and manual dexterity in the remarkable pictures which he painted
on the walls of caves, especially in Southern France and Northern Spain. We
have no information concerning the place of origin or the course of the
wanderings of these earliest members of our own species.
But an extremely primitive race has survived until the present time to
demonstrate the original type of _Homo sapiens_. The aboriginal Australian,
like all existing races of men, belongs to the same species as ourselves,
but it represents with singularly little modification the original type and
colouring of _Homo sapiens_. Fossilized remains of the proto-Australian
race have been found in Queensland (at Talgai) and in Java (at Wadjak); but
the wandering of the race from its original Asiatic centre of
characterization is indicated by the survival of remnants of this people in
the pre-Dravidian jungle tribes of India (mainly in the Deccan), the Vedda
of Ceylon, the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula, the Toala of Celebes, and
other peoples of the Malay Archipelago, whose existence blazes the track
from India to Australia.
The Australian race is on the average about 5 feet 2 inches in height;
their skin is dark-brown or black; hair black and wavy or curly; skull
typically long (dolichocephalic), with a relatively small brain-case; the
nose is flat and broad, and the jaws large and prominent. What lowly
culture these people now possess has been mainly acquired within relatively
recent times by contact with more civilized peoples.
[Illustration: Australian Aborigine, from east side of Lake Eyre.]
Long after the proto-Australians separated from the rest of mankind and
wandered east, another group wandered west, and, probably in tropical
Africa, became specialized in structure to become the Negro race. The
negro, like the Australian, retains many primitive characters, such as the
black skin, and the small brain, but in other respects, such, for example,
as the extremely flattened and curved hair ('pepper-corns'), he has become
highly specialized and sharply differentiated from all other varieties of
mankind. At an early period in the history of the race the negro divided
into two groups--a pygmy variety or Negrillo, and the ordinary tall negro.
One of the branches of the pygmy stock became further specialized in
structure (in the course of which the black colour of the skin was lost),
and became the Bushman race which has gradually been pushed into the
deserts of South Africa (see _Hottentot_).
After the differentiation of the Negro race into pygmy and tall varieties,
representatives of both divisions spread along the southern coast of Asia,
the former, known in the East as Negritos, reaching the Andaman Islands,
the Malay Peninsula (Semangs), the Philippines (Aetas), and New Guinea
(Pygmies), and the taller Negroids to Melanesia, New Guinea, and the
neighbouring islands of the Malay Archipelago. Many authorities regard the
extinct Tasmanian people as a branch of this race.
But the vast majority of the Negro race is found in Africa south of the
Sahara Desert and the populations sprung from them in the American
continent and the West Indies.
The African negro is subdivided into two main groups known respectively as
Nilotic and Bantu; but in addition there are the pygmies of the equatorial
and Congo regions, and the Bushmen and Hottentots of the Kalahari Desert,
Namaqualand, Lake Ngami, and the Orange River. The Nilotic negro ranges
across the continent from Somaliland to Nigeria, and is differentiated from
the Bantu chiefly from the fact that along this belt there has been a
constant passing to and fro of Hamitic and Semitic peoples for many
centuries, leading not only to very considerable recent racial admixture,
but also to cultural and especially linguistic influences, which have
brought about the breaking up of the population into a series of nations of
varied speech and customs. Among the Bantus, on the other hand, although
their culture is lower than that of the Nilotic negroes, there is more
uniformity both of race and customs. In race they are negro mixed in early
times with the proto-Hamitic peoples of East Africa, whence the mongrel
population moved south, driving the Bushmen and Hottentots before them.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
After the ancestors of the Australian and Negro races had separated from
the rest of mankind, which had spread throughout a great part of Asia,
North-Eastern Africa, and Europe, the coming of the Glacial epoch created
barriers of ice which shut up the various groups each within its own
domain. Somewhere in Eastern Asia, possibly in the basin of the Yellow
River, the proto-Mongolian race gradually assumed its characteristic
traits. In East Africa and the neighbouring tract of Asia the ancestors of
the Brown or so-called Mediterranean race were free to roam east and west
from India to the African and European coasts of the Atlantic. Farther
north, probably in Europe, the Nordic or Blond race (in the map labelled
Northern or Teutonic race) assumed its distinctive features; and somewhere
in the region between its area of characterization and that of the Yellow
race--probably in the region to the north-east of the Caspian--the
so-called Alpine (Armenoid) or proto-Slav race developed. It is
distinguished from the Brown and Blond races by the broad skull and heavy
jaw, no less than by the robustness of build and the great tendency to
hairiness; from the Mongolian people the Armenoids are distinguished by the
prominence of the nose, the character of the hair, and the colour of the
skin. The term Alpine, which is usually applied to this race, is singularly
inappropriate; for, although in Europe and Asia Minor the members of this
race show a partiality for high mountains, the vast majority of the members
of the race dwell in the plains of Russia, which also may have been the
original home of the race. In view of the topographical relationship of the
area of characterization of this race to the homes of the other races,
Nordic, Brown, Negro, Australian, and Mongol, arranged in a great arc
around it, it might not be inappropriate to call the so-called Alpine
(Armenoid or proto-Slav) race by the non-committal title 'Central'. At the
close of the Glacial epoch, when the melting of the ice unlocked the
domains of these races, members of the Central race poured into Asia Minor
and Syria, and down to the head of the Persian Gulf; they also made their
way north of the Caspian and Black Sea into Europe, mingling there with the
Nordic people. But they also moved east in Siberia and mingled with the
proto-Mongolian race. It was soon after this event that members of the
proto-Mongolian stock, possibly with some admixture of people of the
Central race, wandered to North-Eastern Asia and crossed the Behring Strait
to colonize America for the first time. From the north-west coast of
America these immigrants in course of time made their way south and east,
until eventually the whole of the New World from Hudson Bay to Cape Horn
was inhabited. Many centuries afterward (especially between 300 B.C. and
A.D. 1000) there was a great influx of a variety of other peoples from
Polynesia and the Old World on to the Pacific coast of the Americas, which
profoundly altered the physical type of the population of Central America
and the Andean coast.
The members of the proto-Mongolian race who remained in Asia spread over a
large area from the Arctic Ocean south to Tibet, China, Indo-China and the
Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, Formosa, Nicobar Islands, and
Madagascar. Their domain became divided geographically into three minor
areas of characterization, of the Northern, Southern, and Oceanic Mongols
respectively. In the Northern Mongols are included the Koreans, the
Japanese and the people of Liu-Kiu, the Tungus (including the Manchu, Gold,
&c.), the Kalmuks, Buriats, Koryaks, Chuckchis, Kamchadales, Gilyaks.
The Central race became differentiated into a considerable number of
varieties. Apart from the Slavs, there were several groups which became
isolated the one from the other in Asia Minor and Syria. One of these
developed in an extreme degree the characteristic features of the race--the
brachycephaly, the prominence of the nose and the high-ramus of the jaw.
These are the Armenian and kindred people. Another branch gave origin to
the Northern Semites, who made their way into Palestine and Mesopotamia.
(The Southern Semites belong to another race--the Brown.) Another branch of
the Central race preceded these two in making their way to the sea-coasts
of the Levant and the Persian Gulf--this may be called the Maritime branch
of the Central race.
The Slav branch of the Central race was making its way into Europe long
before the Neolithic phase of culture there. It passed north of the Black
Sea via Poland. But at the end of the Neolithic phase there were two
streams of other branches of the race--the true Alpine subdivision passing
from Anatolia into the Carpathians and the Alps, to Switzerland, Bavaria,
Savoy, and Brittany, and the Maritime division passing round the coasts to
the Iberian Peninsula, the British Isles, and Western Europe.
The Brown race spread in East Africa from Somaliland to the Mediterranean
and all its coasts, to Western Europe, and the British Isles; in the other
direction to Arabia, the shores of the Persian Gulf, and eastward along the
coast to India, where it mingled with the pre-Dravidian (proto-Australian)
population to give rise to the mongrel Dravidian people. The spread of
these Brown people farther east into the Malay Archipelago explains the
origin of the Indonesians, who occupied the islands before the coming south
of the Mongols, but after the proto-Australians and the proto-Negroes had
passed through towards Australia and Melanesia respectively.
From very early times there has been an intermingling of the different
races. In East Africa every degree of intermingling of the Hamitic branch
of the Brown race has been taking place for more than sixty centuries with
negroes, both of the Sudanese and the Bantu stocks. At a later time Arabs
poured into Africa and added their quota to the mixture. In India the
original pre-Dravidian (proto-Australian) aborigines became diluted with a
large influx of the Brown race to form the Dravidian people, who acquired a
high civilization from the west. At a later date people of the Central race
speaking an Aryan language swarmed through the north-western frontier and
introduced their language and culture into India.
Before this happened the Brown race had extended farther east and provided
the basis for the population of Indonesia, supplanting to a great extent
the earlier proto-Australian and Negroid peoples there. Then the Malays
came down from the north and added to the Indonesian mixture a strong
Mongolian element. Colonists from the Malay Archipelago settled in
Madagascar and added to its mixture of Brown (Semites and Hamites) and
Black (Bantu) elements representatives of the Mongolian (Malay) race. In
the course of their maritime expeditions the Malay Archipelago gave to
Japan a not inconsiderable contribution both of people and culture.
But the area of the most complex admixture of races in ancient times was
Siberia. With the melting of the ice barriers at the close of the Glacial
epoch the proto-Mongolian and proto-Central peoples came into intimate
contact; and to this mixture was added a proto-Nordic element, as well as a
not inconsiderable influx of members of the Brown race, who came from the
south through Turkestan to exploit the gold and copper of the Yenesei
region. The presence of their dolichocephalic skulls in a region where
brachycephaly is the rule has been a perpetual puzzle to anthropologists,
who at the present time attempt to solve the problem by assuming the
presence of an aboriginal race of long-headed people, who were exterminated
by the Mongols and the Turks. The greed for the riches of the head-waters
of the Yenesei has made Siberia the home of strife for fifty centuries.
This has led not only to a puzzling admixture of races in the affected
area, but has started raids of Mongols and Turks, which at various times
extended as far as Europe (Huns and Avars), India, and China. So mixed are
the races in Siberia that it is not easy to determine whether some of them
should be classed as mainly Turki or mainly Mongol; and this applies also
to the colonies (Bulgars, Magyars, Finns, Lapps, &c.) which at various
times the Asiatic invaders left behind them in Europe, each of which has
been profoundly altered by admixture since then.
In the great Mongolian domain that occupies so great a part of Northern and
Eastern Asia there are certain definitely alien elements. The Yakuts (of
the region near the Lena River) are definitely Turki in race, and the
curious hairy Ainus (of Yezo, Sakhalin, and some of the Kurile Islands) are
certainly members of the Central race.
A peculiar branch of the northern Mongols is clearly differentiated from
the rest to form the Eskimo people who occupy Greenland and Arctic America.
They present a marked contrast to the American Indians. The American Indian
may be regarded essentially as a branch of the proto-Mongolian race mixed
to some extent with a proto-Central element. But on the Pacific littoral
there has been considerable admixture with a variety of peoples from
Eastern Asia and Oceania for several centuries (_c._ 300 B.C. to A.D.
1000). Although the peoples conform on the whole to a definite type as
regards the characters of their hair and features, there is a considerable
range of variation as regards height, skull-form, and other racial
features. The people of the states where a high civilization prevailed ten
centuries ago--Mexico, Central America, Peru, and Chile--are clearly
differentiated from the rest of the American population by the more
obtrusive evidence of admixture with Polynesian and Asiatic peoples. In
addition to the peoples of the north-west coast (Haidas and Salish) and of
the ancient civilizations (Mayas and Aztecs) of Central America and Mexico,
the population of North America can be divided (see map) into the following
tribes: (1) Athabascan, (2) Algonquin, (3) Iroquoian, (4) Siouan, (5)
Shoshonean (in the map called 'Kiowan'), (6) Muskhogean, and (7) Pueblo
(not indicated in the map, but in Arizona, north of Mexico).
In South America the centre of the ancient civilization was in the region
of the Quichua (Inca) and Aymara peoples. The semi-civilized Chibcha people
occupied the table-land of Bogota. To the south of Peru the coastal people
(Araucanians) were to some extent influenced by the more highly civilized
Incas to their north. The presence of gold in the Matto Grosso region of
Brazil attracted men from Peru, and set in motion migrations of people
towards the Rio de la Plata in the south and towards Venezuela in the
north. Among the linguistically distinct peoples found in the latter area
are the Tupi, Arawaks, and Caribs. A very primitive people, the Botocudo,
occupy the eastern coast of Brazil south of the River San Francisco.
From the beginning man was a maker of implements of stone and bone: but for
a vast number of centuries he was merely a hunter who did not attempt
anything more in the way of industry. Civilization probably originated in
the Nile Valley when men found barley growing there naturally, and
discovered that it provided them with a supply of food which could maintain
them throughout the year. When the population in the valley increased, so
that the natural supply of barley became inadequate, men learned to imitate
the inundation, and by scraping channels in the sand to render the desert
fertile. Thus was agriculture and irrigation invented, and thus were men
led to organize the labour of the community under the direction of a leader
who was primarily an irrigation engineer, but eventually became a king and
the god Osiris, the dead king, whose reputation as the bestower of
life-giving water became apotheosized as the giver of life and immortality.
Pottery was probably invented as an outcome of the mode of life and the
needs of these early agriculturists, and the domestication of cattle and
the use of their milk for food helped to neutralize the ill-effects of a
too exclusively cereal diet. Other events followed in the train of this
first adoption of a settled mode of life. The disposal of the dead in the
sands that fringed the area of cultivation, and the natural preservation of
the corpse that often resulted, shaped the beliefs of the people with
reference to the fate of the dead. Incidentally it led to the invention of
the arts of the carpenter, the stone-mason, and the embalmer; and as an
outcome of these practices architecture, as well as the ritual of the
temple, had its origin.
Long before these events primitive man had begun to ponder over the meaning
of death. At first he associated it with such injuries as he had learned by
experience killed animals that he hunted; and as the escape of blood caused
unconsciousness and death, he framed the belief that blood was the
substance of consciousness and of life. To exchange blood was to share
knowledge; to give blood was to confer fresh vital substance, i.e. to
minimize the risk of extinction or prolong the existence of living or dead.
This is the fundamental idea underlying all religious belief and
ritual--the giving of life and immortality.
But the act of birth is also a process of life-giving. The cowrie-shell
(and subsequently other shells and the pearls contained in them) came to be
regarded as a symbol of this life-giving power, and an amulet which could
protect both the living and the dead from the risk of extinction. The
demand for these precious elixirs of life became so intense that they
acquired a fictitious value as currency, and models of them were made to
serve as amulets in their stead. The beauty and the lightness of the models
of such shells made of the soft useless plastic metal found in the Egyptian
and Nubian deserts was probably the means by which gold first acquired any
value, and afterwards by confusion came to be credited with the same
life-giving attributes as were at first bestowed merely upon the form of
the amulets made from it. Thus gold came to be regarded as an elixir of
life, and men began to search for the precious substance far and wide,
incidentally spreading abroad the germs of the arts and crafts, the beliefs
and practices of our common civilization. The use of malachite as a
cosmetic provided the circumstances that eventually led men to discover how
a gold-like substance, copper, could be obtained from the green ore; and in
course of time it came to be realized that the metal was useful for other
purposes than the mere making of amulets and jewellery. When the full value
of copper as a material for making tools and weapons was fully appreciated,
the ore became of tremendous economic importance, and men sought for it far
and wide, as they had previously prospected for flint and gold.
The people who introduced the Neolithic culture into Europe brought with
them from Egypt a knowledge of agriculture, of pottery-making, of
domestication of animals, of linen, and of the characteristic burial
customs and religious beliefs. But these rudiments of civilization were
also diffused to Crete and Cyprus, to Syria and Asia Minor, to Elam and
Sumer by prospectors searching for the things which the growth of
civilization was making valuable, the incense and the timber, the gold and
precious stones, the copper and other metals. It is probable that the germs
of Egyptian civilization were first planted in Elam by men prospecting for
copper, and that Sumerian and Babylonian civilization received their
initial inspiration in this way. Crete was inoculated with the germs of
civilization by Egypt directly, as well as indirectly, from Asia Minor,
which was subjected to the double influence of Egyptian and Sumerian
culture. In the Age of Copper, Elamite culture was diffused abroad by
miners to Turkestan and Baluchistan, thence respectively to Siberia and
China (Shensi province), and to India. In the neighbourhood of the
south-eastern corner of the Caspian the alloy bronze was probably invented
soon after 3000 B.C. by mixing tin and copper; and the influence of this
epoch-making event rapidly spread to Babylonia, to Crete, and to Europe,
where it inaugurated the Age of Bronze. It also spread to China, to India,
and many centuries later across the Pacific to Central America.
The needs of the early Egyptians compelled them to devise sea-going ships,
which in turn became the models of the Cretans, the people of East Africa,
the Babylonians, the Phoenicians, and the Greeks. These ships trafficked in
the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, then farther west and east, to
the Atlantic seaboard of Western Europe and the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The search for gold and pearls led early mariners to Southern India and
Ceylon, to Burmah and Indonesia, to the whole coast-line of Eastern Asia,
New Guinea, and Melanesia, and in course of time to Polynesia and the
coasts of Central America and Peru. Wherever these adventurers found gold
or copper, pearls or precious stones, they settled to exploit these sources
of wealth, and incidentally planted the germs of their methods of
cultivation, their stonework, their burial customs and beliefs. Such
expeditions were probably responsible for introducing into Polynesia its
first colonists, a mixture of people of Brown and Maritime Central races,
mingled with other elements in the course of their easterly wanderings. The
earliest movement into Polynesia apparently took with it a considerable
element of Melanesian blood, which eventually was carried to New Zealand
and the Moriori Islands in the south, and to Easter Island and the American
coast in the east. The germs of the ancient civilizations of Central
America and Peru were carried across the Pacific from Cambodia and
Indonesia between the years 300 B.C. and A.D. 1000, the periods of greatest
activity being probably the third and fourth centuries A.D.
The elements of this imported culture were planted in Honduras and
Guatemala and the Isthmus region (Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia), and
from there spread in the fifth century A.D. to Yucatan and then to Mexico.
It also spread from the isthmus down the Pacific littoral of South America,
the earliest centre of civilization being the region around Lake Titicaca.
From Mexico the culture spread in a degraded form up the Mississippi to the
Great Lakes, as well as north-west into Arizona.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. H.
Keane, _Man, Past and Present_, revised edition by A. Hingston Quiggin and
A. C. Haddon, is a useful guide to the literature of anthropology and
ethnology; see also Robert Munro, _Prehistoric Britain_; W. J. Sollas,
_Ancient Hunters and their Modern Representatives_; M. Boule, _Les Hommes
fossiles_; G. Elliot Smith, _The Migrations of Early Culture_; such
periodicals as the _Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute_, _Man_,
and especially _L'Anthropologie_, give the current literature.
ETH'YL, the name given to the radicle C_2H_5, contained in ether,
(C_2H_5)_2O, alcohol, C_2H_5OH, &c. _Ethyl_ has not been isolated, as it
immediately combines with another _ethyl_ group forming diethyl or butane,
C_2H_5--C_2H_5. _Ethyl chloride_, C_2H_5Cl, formed by the action of
hydrochloric acid on alcohol, is much used for the production of low
temperature--as a local anaesthetic. _Ethyl nitrite_, C_2H_5NO_2,
constitutes _sweet spirits of nitre_ when dissolved in alcohol.
ETH'YLAMINE, C_2H_5NH_2, an organic base formed by the substitution of 1
atom of hydrogen in ammonia by ethyl group. Thus
H C_2H_5
/ /
N--H ammonia --> N--H ethylamine.
\ \
H H
It has the odour and many of the characteristic reactions of ammonia, but
unlike ammonia it is inflammable and liquid at ordinary temperature.
ETH'YLENE, or OLEFIANT GAS, C_2H_4, an unsaturated hydrocarbon, the first
member of the olefine series. It is a colourless gas with a faint odour,
and burns with a bright luminous flame. It is a constituent of ordinary
coal-gas, and may be obtained from alcohol by heating it with twice its
volume of concentrated sulphuric acid.
ETIENNE ([=a]-ti-[=a]n), ST., a town of Southern France, department of
Loire, on the Furens, 32 miles S.W. of Lyons. It has spacious streets with
substantial houses, but, owing to the number of public works, presents a
dingy appearance. The principal buildings and institutions are the
cathedral, an ancient Romanesque structure; the town house, court-house,
exchange, communal college, mining school, gallery of arts, library, and
museum. The town stands in the centre of one of the most valuable mineral
fields of France; and in addition to the extensive collieries,
blast-furnaces, and other ironworks in the vicinity, has manufactures of
ribbons, silks, cutlery, and fire-arms. Pop. 148,656.
[Illustration: Two Seedlings of _Sinapis alba_ of Equal Age
A, Grown in the dark, etiolated.