regarded as the sense by which we received impressions of
beauty. The recognition of the claims of hearing date back
to Plato. (See Bosanquet, Hist. of Aesth. pp. 51-52). For
recent discussions of the claims of sight and hearing see
article by J. Volkelt, ``Der Aesth. Werth der niederen Sinne,''
in Zeitschrift fur Psych. u. Phys. der Sinnesorgane,
vol. xxix. pp. 402 ff.; see also below, Bibliography.
10 Laws, 880 (see Bosanquet, op. cit. p. 54).
11 Plato had a glimpse of the resemblance of art to play
(see Bosanquet, op. cit. p. 54). Among modern writers the
idea is specially connected with the names of Schiller and
Herbert Spencer. In recent works the subject is touched
on by S. Wittasek, Grundzuge der allgem. Asthetik,
pp. 223 fl.; Bray, Du Beau, pp. 62 ff., and by Rutgers
Marshall and others referred to below in Bibliography.
12 Hence to say, as Bosanquet says (op. cit. pp. 3-4),
that art is to nature as the scientific conception of the
world to that of the ordinary observer, seems wide of the mark.
13 K. Lange goes very far in attributing a practical
motive to features of architecture commonly supposed to
have aesthetic value, e.g. a regular series of similar
forms (Das Wesen der Kunst, Bd. i. pp. 277 ff.).
14 K. Lange thinks that even symmetry probably
has a technical origin (op. cit. pp. 283-284).
15 The question of the place of the historical development
of art in aesthetic theory is carefully considered by J.
Volkelt, System der Asthetik, Bd. i. 5es Kap.
16 See, for example, a little work, The
Genesis of Art-From, by G. L. Raymond.
17 Kant, stopping short of an analysis of the beauty of a
concrete object, said there were no aesthetic judgments of this
universal form see below). On the importance of these inductions
see K. H. von Stein, Vorlesungen uber Asthetik (Einleitung).
18 Curiously enough Thomas Reid recognized a germ
of aesthetic taste in animals. Essays, Of Taste, ch.
v. The aesthetic importance of the observations made on
animals is dealt with by L. Bray, Du Beau, pp. 233 ff.
19 See below, and Bosanquet, op. cit. pp. 382 ff.
20 The chief lines of experimental aesthetics are
indicated by W. Wundt in his Physiol. Psychologie
(5e Auflage), Bd. iii. pp. 142 ff. and 147 ff.
21 On the value of the judgments of experts
see K. Groos, Der asth. Genuss, p. 149.
22 Examples of a forcina of the physiological method in
aesthetics may be found in the Physiological Aesthetics of Grant
Allen, and the Aufgabe der Kunstphysialogie, by Georg Hirsch.
23 These aesthetic prerogatives of the sensations
of hearing and sight have been well brought out
in the article by J. Volkelt, already referred to.
24 On the later investigations into musical consonance and
harmony, harmony of colours, rhythmic and pleasing spatial
forms, see Wundt, op..cit. Bd. ii. pp. 419 ff., and iii.
135 g., 140 ff., 147 ff. and 154 ff. Time-form in music is
specially discussed by E. Gurney, The Power of Sound, v.
25 K. Lange, who recognizes the influence of nature
and custom here denies that proportion is an aesthetic
principle (Das Wesen der Kunst, 11es Kap.).
26 Alison and other English Associationists have emphasized
the aesthetic importance of the principle of association.
Among more recent advocates of it is G. T. Fechner. Vorschule
der Asthetik, and O. Kulpe, ``Uber den associativ
Factor des asthet. Eindrucks'', Fierteljahrsschrift
fur wissensch. Philosophie, xxiii. pp. 145 ff.
27 This idea of imitative hand-movement in contemplating
form is supported by K. Groos, Der asth. Genuss, pp. 49 ff.
28 It is commonly spoken of as ``feeling oneself into''
Einfuhlen), or as``sympathetic feeling'' (Mitempfinden.)
29 Lipps theory is developed in a number of works, the
chief of which is Asthetik: Psychologie des Schonen und
der Kunst, see esp. 1er Theil, 1er to 3er Abschnitt;
cf. Paul Stern, Einfuhlung und Association, in which
is to be found an historical sketch of the theory, and A.
Hildebrand, Form in der bildenden Kunst. The play of
imagination in the contemplation of form is discussed also
by P. Souriau, L'Esthetique du mouvement, 3eme part.,
and La Suggestion dans l'art, pp. 300 ff. Cf. works of
Karl Groos and K. Lange named below (Bibliography.) .
30 See P. Souriau, La Suggestion dans l'art (1ere partie).
31 Cf. K. Lange, op. cit. lfh. i. p. 208.
32 See a curious passage in Home's Elements of Criticism, chap
iv., in which the emotions excited by great and elevated objects
are said to express themselves externally by a special inflating
inspiration, and by stretching upward and standing ``a-tiptoe''
respectively; also an article on ``Recent Aesthetics', by
Vernon Lee in the Quarterly Review, 1904, part i. pp. 420-443.
33 See Hume, Essays, ``Essay of Tragedy,'' and the
important discussions on the meaning of Aristotle's
doctrine of the emotions of tragedy and of emotional
purification or ``alleviating discharge', (kathansis)
touched on by Bosanquet, op. cit. pp. 64 ff. and 234 ff.
34 That beauty implies a peculiar blending of formal
and spiritual (geistige) factors is recognized
by H. Riegel, Die bildende Kunste; pp. 16 ff.
35 Human Nature (first part of Tripos), ch. viii.
sec. 5 (Molesworth's edition of Works, vol. iv. p. 38).
36 See among others R. Wallascheck, Primitve Music, pp.
270 ff., and Y. Hirn, The Origin of Art, pp. 9 ff.; cf. W.
Jerusalem, Einleitung in die Philosophie, pp. 116, 117.
37 The idea of this social utility in aesthetic enjoyment
is touched on by Kant, Criticue of Judgment (Bernard's
trans.), p. 174; and is more fully worked out by Guyau,
L'Art au point de vue sociologique, ch. ii. and iii.;
cf. Rutgers Marshall, Aesthetic Principles, pp. 81-82.
38 On the nature of the primitive art-culture, see Rutgers
Marshall, Aesthetic Principles, ch. iii.; M. Baldwin,
Social and Ethical Interpretations, pp. 151 ff: Y.
Hirn, The Origin of Art, ch. ii. On artistic genius
and its creative process, see H. Taine, The Philosophy of
Art, Part ii.; P. Souriau, L'Imagination de l'artiste;
G. Seailles, Essai sur la genie dans l'art; E. Grosse,
Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien iii.; Arreat, Psychologie
du peintre; L. Dauriac, Essai sur l'esprit musical.
39 Only recent works are included. Important points
in each are indicated by abbreviations, namely:--
Einf., Einfuhlung (expressional element in form).
Evol., for bearings of evolution.
Ill., for aesthetic illusion.
Judg., for aesthetic judgment.
Meth., for method of aesthetics.
Norm., for the normative function of aesthetics
Pl., for theory of pleasure
Play, for Play and aesthetic enjoyment
Senses, for aesthetic value of higher senses.
Val., for aesthetic value.
AESTIVATION (from Lat. aestivare, to spend the aestas, or
summer; the word is sometimes spelled ``estivation''), literally
``summer residence,'' a term used in zoology for the condition
of torpor into which certain animals pass during the hottest
season in hot and dry countries, contrasted with the similar
winter condition known as hibernation (q.v..) In botany the
word is used of the praefloration or folded arrangement of the
petals in a flower before expansion in the summer, contrasted
with ``vernation'' of leaves which unfold in the spring.
AETHELBALD, king of Mercia, succeeded Ceolred A.D. 716.
According to Felix, Life of St Guthlac, he visited the saint at
Crowland, when exiled by Ceolred and pursued by his emissaries
before his accession, and was cheered by predictions of his
future greatness. According to Bede, the whole of Britain as
far north as the Humber was included within the sphere of his
authority. His energy in preserving his influence is shown
by several entries in the Chronicle. He made an expedition
against Wessex in 733, in which year he took the royal vill of
Somerton. In 740 he took advantage of the absence of Eadberht
of Northumbria in a campaign against the Picts to invade his
kingdom. In 743 he fought with Cuthred, king of Wessex,
against the Welsh, but the alliance did not last long, as in
752 Cuthred took up arms against him. In 757 AEthelbald was
slain by his guards at Seckington (Warwickshire) and buried at
Repton. He seems to have been the most powerful and energetic
king of Mercia between Penda and Offa. A letter of St Boniface
is preserved, in which he rebukes this king for his immoralities
and encroachments on church property, while recognizing his
merits as a monarch. By a charter of 749 he freed ecclesiastical
lands from all obligations except the trinoda necessitas.
See Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), v. 23 and Continuatio
s.a. 740, 750, 757; Saxon Chronicle (Earle and Plummer),
s.a. 716, 733, 737, 740, 741, 743, 755; Mabillon,
Acta Sanctorum, ii. pp. 264, 273, 276, 4-9, W. de G.
Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 178 (1885-1893). (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELBALD, king of Wessex, was the son of AEthelwulf, with
whom he led the West Saxons to victory against the Danes
at Aclea, 851. According to Asser he rebelled against his
father on the latter's return from Rome in 856, and deprived
him of Wessex, which he ruled until his death in 860. On
his father's death in 818 he married his widow, Judith.
See Asser, Life of Alfred (W. H. Stevenson,
1904), 12; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 851, 855, 860.
AETHELBERHT, king of Kent, son of Eormenric, probably came
to the throne in A.D. 560. The first recorded event of his
reign was a serious reverse at the hands of Ceawlin of Wessex
in the year 568 (Chronicle) at a place called Wibbandune.
AEthelberht married Berhta, daughter of Charihert, king of
Paris, who brought over Bishop Liudhard as her private
confessor. According to Bede, AEthelberht's supremacy in
597 stretched over all the English kingdoms as far as the
Humber. The nature of this supremacy has been much disputed,
but it was at any rate sufficient to guarantee the safety
of Augustine in his conference with the British bishops.
AEthelberht exercised a stricter sway over Essex, where his
nephew Saberht was king. In 597 the mission of Augustine
landed in Thanet and was received at first with some
hesitation by the king. He seems to have acted with prudence
and moderation during the conversion of his kingdom and did
not countenance compulsory proselytism. AEthelberht gave
Augustine a dwelling-place in Canterbury, and Christ Church
was consecrated in 603. He also made grants to found the see
of Rochester, of which Justus became first bishop in 604,
and his influence established Mellitus at London in the same
year. A code of laws issued by him which is still extant
is probably the oldest document in the English language, and
contains a list of money fines for various crimes. Towards
the close of his reign his pre-eminence as Bretwalda was
disturbed by the increasing power of Raedwald of East Anglia.
He died probably in 616, and was succeeded by his son Eadbald.
See Bede, Hist. Ecc. (Plummer) i. 25, 26, ii. 3, 5; Saxon
Chronicle Earle and Plummer), s.a. 568. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELBERHT, king of the West Saxons, succeeded to the sub-kingdom
of Kent during the lifetime of his father AEthelwulf, and
retained it until the death of his elder brother AEthelbald in
860, when he became sole king of Wessex and Kent, the younger
brothers AEthelred and Alfred renouncing their claim. He ruled
these kingdoms for five years and died in 865. His reign was
marked by two serious attacks on the part of the Danes, who
destroyed Winchester in 860, in spite of the resistance of the
ealdormen Osric and AEthelwulf with the levies of Hampshire
and Berkshire, while in 865 they treacherously ravaged Kent.
Alfred's Will; W. de G. Birch, Cartul. Saxon. 553.
AETHELFLAED (ETHELFLEDA), the ``Lady of the Mercians,''
the eldest child of Alfred the Great, was educated with
her brother Edward at her father's court. As soon as she
was of marriageable age (probably about A.D. 886), she
was married to AEthelred, earl of Mercia to whom Alfred
entrusted the control of Mercia. On the accession of her
brother Edward, AEthelflaed and her husband continued to hold
Mercia. In 907 they fortified Chester, and in 909 and 910
either AEthelflaed or her husband must have led the Mercian
host at the battles of Tettenhall and Wednesfield (or
Tettenhall-Wednesfield, if these battles are one and the
same). It was probably about this time that AEthelred fell
ill, and the Norwegians and Danes from Ireland unsuccessfully
besieged Chester. AEthelflaed won the support of the Danes
against the Norwegians, and seems also to have entered into
an alliance with the Scots and the Welsh against the pagans.
In 911 AEthelred died and Edward took over Middlesex and
Oxfordshire. Except for this AEthelflaed's authority remained
unimpaired. In 912 she fortified ``Scergeat'' and Bridgenorth,
Tamworth and Stafford in 913, Eddisbury and Warwick in 914,
Cherbury, ``Weardbyrig'' and Runcorn in 915. In 916 she sent
an expedition against the Welsh, which advanced as far as
Brecknock. In 917 Derby was captured from the Danes,
and in the next year Leicester and York both submitted to
her. She died in the same year at Tamworth (June 12), and was
buried in St Peter's church at Gloucester. This noble queen,
whose career was as distinguished as that of her father and
brother, left one daughter, AElfwyn. For some eighteen months
AElfwyn seems to have wielded her mother's authority, and
then, just before the Christmas of 919, Edward took Mercia
into his own hands, and AElfwyn was ``led away'' into Wessex.
AEthelflaed and her husband wielded almost kingly authority, and
the royal title is often given them by the chroniclers. See The
Saxon Chronicle, sub ann. (especially the Mercian register in
MSS. B, C and D); Florence of Worcester: Fragments of Irish
Annals (ed. O'Conor), pp. 227-237; D.N.B., s.v. (A. Mw.)
AETHELFRITH, king of Northumbria, is said to have come to
the throne in A.D. 593, being the son of AEthelric (probably
reigned 568-572). He married Acha, daughter of Ella
(AElle), king of Deira, whom he succeeded probably in 605,
expelling his son Edwin. In 603 he repelled the attack of
Aidan, king of the Dalriad Scots, at Daegsastan, defeating
him with great loss. The appearance of Hering, son of
Hussa, AEthelfrith's predecessor, On the side of the invaders
seems to indicate family quarrels in the royal house of
Bernicia. Later in his reign, probably in 614, he defeated the
Welsh in a great battle at Chester and massacred the monks of
Bangor who were assembled to aid them by their prayers. This
war may have been due partly to AEthelfrith's persecution of
Edwin, but it had a strategic importance in the separation
of the North Welsh from the Strathclyde Britons. In 617
AEthelfrith was defeated and slain at the river Idle by Raedwald
of East Anglia, whom Edwin had persuaded to take up his cause.
See Bede, Chronica Mojora, sec. 531; Hist. Ecc. (Plummer) i.
34, ii. 2; Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 593, 603, 605, 616; Hist.
Brittonum, sec. sec. 57, 63 Annales Cambriae, s.a. 613. (F. D. M. B.)
AETHELING, an Anglo-Saxon word compounded of aethele, or
ethel, meaning noble, and ing, belonging to, and akin
to the modern German words Adel, nobility, and adelig,
noble. During the earliest years of the Anglo-Saxon rule in
England the word was probably used to denote any person of noble
birth. Its use was, however, soon restricted to members of
a royal family, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it is used
almost exclusively for members of the royal house of Wessex.
It was occasionally used after the Norman Conquest to designate
members of the royal family. The earlier part of the word
formed part of the name of several Anglo-Saxon kings, e.g.
AEthelbert, AEthelwulf, AEthelred, and was used obviously to
indicate their noble birth. According to a document which probably
dates from the 10th century, the wergild of an aetheling was
fixed at 15,000 thrymsas, or 11,250 shillings. This wergild is
equal to that of an archbishop and one-half of that of a king.
AETHELNOTH (d. 1038), archbishop of Canterbury, known
also as EGELNODUS or EDNODUS, was a son of the ealdorman
AEthelmaer, and a member of the royal family of Wessex. He
became a monk at Glastonbury, then dean of the monastery of
Christ Church, Canterbury, and chaplain to King Canute, and
on the 13th of November 1020 was consecrated archbishop of
Canterbury. In 1022 he went to Rome to obtain the pallium,
and was received with great respect by Pope Benedict VIII.
Returning from Rome he purchased at Pavia a relic said to
be an arm of St Augustine of Hippo, for a hundred talents
of silver and one of gold, and presented it to the abbey of
Coventry. He appears to have exercised considerable influence
over Canute, largely by whose aid he restored his cathedral at
Canterbury. A story of doubtful authenticity tells how he
refused to crown King Harold I., as he had promised Canute
to crown none but a son of the king by his wife, Emma.
AEthelnoth, who was called the ``Good,'' died on the 29th of
October 1038, and his name appears in the lists of saints.
AETHELRED, king of Mercia, succeeded his brother Wulfhere
in A.D. 675. In 676 he ravaged Kent with fire and sword,
destroying the monasteries and churches and taking Rochester.
AEthelred married Osthryth, the sister of Ecgfrith, king of
Northumbria, but in spite of this connexion a quarrel arose
between the two kings, presumably over the possession of the
province of Lindsey, which Ecgfrith had won back at the close of
the reign of Wulfhere. In a battle on the banks of the Trent in
679, the king of Mercia was victorious and regained the province.
AElfwine, the brother of Ecgfrith, was slain on this occasion,
but at the intervention of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury,
AEthelred agreed to pay a wergild for the Northumbrian prince
and so prevented further hostilities. Osthryth was murdered
in 697 and AEthelred abdicated in 704, choosing Coenred as his
successor. He then became abbot of Bardney, and, according
to Eddius, recommended Wilfrid to Coenred on his return from
Rome. AEthelred died at Bardney in 716. (See WILFRID.)
SOURCES.--Eddius, Vita Wilfridi (Raine), 23, 40, 43, 45-48,
57; Bede, Hist. Ecc. (ed. Plummer), iii. 11, iv. 12, 21;
Saxon Chronicle, s.a. 676, 679, 704, 716. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHELRED I., king of Wessex and Kent (866-871), was the
fourth son of AEthelwulf of Wessex, and should, by his father's
will, have succeeded to Wessex on the death of his eldest brother
AEthelbald. He seems, however, to have stood aside in favour of
his brother AEthelberht, king of Kent, to whose joint kingdoms
he succeeded in 866. AEthelred's reign was one long struggle
against the Danes. In the year of his succession a large Danish
force landed in East Anglia, and in the year 868 AEthelred and
his brother Alfred went to help Burgred, or Burhred, of Mercia,
against this host, but the Mercians soon made peace with their
foes. In 871 the Danes encamped at Reading, where they
defeated AEthelred and his brother, but later in the year
the English won a great victory at ``AEscesdun.'' A fortnight
later they were defeated at Basing, but partially retrieved
their fortune by a victory at ``Maeretun'' (perhaps Marden in
Wiltshire), though the Danes held the field. In the Easter
of this year AEthelred died, perhaps of wounds received in
the wars against the Danes, and was buried at Wimborne. He
left a son, AEthelwold, who gave some trouble to his cousin
Edward the Elder, when the latter succeeded to the kingdom.
AEthelweard the historian was also a descendant of this king.
AUTHORITIES.--The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.; Birch,
Cartul. Saxon. vol. ii. Nos. 516-526; D.N.B.,
s.v.; Eng. Hist. Review, i. 218-234. (A. Mw.)
AETHELRED II. (or ETHELRED) (c. 968--1016), king of
the English (surnamed THE UNREADY, i.e. without rede or
counsel), son of King Edgar by his second wife AElfthryth, was
born in 968 or 969 and succeeded to the throne on the murder
of his step-brother Edward (the Martyr) in 979. His reign was
disastrous from the beginning. The year after his accession
the Danish invasions, long unintermitted under Edgar the
Peaceful, recommenced; though as yet their object was plunder
only, not conquest, and the attacks were repeated in 981,
982 and 988. In 991 the Danes burned Ipswich, and defeated
and slew the East Saxon ealdorman Brihtnoth at Maldon. After
this, peace was purchased by a payment of L. 10,000-a disastrous
expedient. The Danes were to desist from their ravages, but
were allowed to stay in England. Next year AEthelred himself
broke the peace by an attack on the Danish ships. Despite
the treachery of AElfric, the English were victorious; and the
Danes sailed off to ravage Lindsey and Northumbria. In 994
Olaf Tryggvason, king of Norway, and Sweyn, king of Denmark,
united in a great invasion and attacked London. Foiled by the
valour of the citizens, they sailed away and harried the coast
from Essex to Hampshire. AEthelred now resorted to the old
experiment and bought them off for L. 16,000 and a promise of
supplies. Olaf also visited AEthelred at the latter's request
and, receiving a most honourable welcome, was induced to promise
that he would never again come to England with hostile intent,
an engagement which he faithfully kept. The Danish attacks
were repeated in 997, 998, 999, and in 1000 AEthelred availed
himself of the temporary absence of the Danes in Normandy to
invade Cumberland, at that time a Viking stronghold. Next
year, however, the Northmen returned and inflicted worse evil
than ever. The national defence seemed to have broken down
altogether. In despair AEthelred again offered them money,
which they again accepted, the sum paid on this occasion
being L. 24,000. But soon afterwards the king, suspecting
treachery, resolved to get rid of his enemies once and for
all. Orders were issued commanding the slaughter on St
Brice's day (December 2) of ``all the Danish men who were
in England.'' Such a decree could obviously not be carried
out literally; but we cannot doubt that the slaughter was
great. This violence, however, only made matters worse. Next
year Sweyn returned, his hostility fanned by the desire for
revenge. For two years he ravaged and slew; in 1003 Exeter
was destroyed; Norwich and Thetford in 1004. No effectual
resistance was offered, despite a gallant effort here and there;
the disorganization of the country was complete. In 1005 the
Danes were absent in Denmark, but came back next year, and
emboldened by the utter lack of resistance, they ranged far
inland. In 1007 AEthelred bought them off for a larger sum
than ever (L. 36,000), and for two years the land enjoyed
peace. In 1009, however, in accordance with a resolution
made by the witan in the preceding year, AEthelred collected
such a fleet ``as never before had been in England in any
king's day''; but owing to a miserable court quarrel the
effort came to nothing. The king then summoned a general
levy of the nation, with no better result. Just as he
was about to attack, the traitor Edric prevented him from
doing so, and the opportunity was lost. In 1010 the Danes
returned, to find the kingdom more utterly disorganized than
ever. ``There was not a chief man in the kingdom who could
gather a force, but each fled as he best might; nor even at
last would any there resist another.'' Incapable of offering
resistance, the king again offered money, this time no less than
L. 48,000. While it was being collected, the Danes sacked
Canterbury and barbarously slew the archbishop Alphege. The
tribute was paid soon afterwards; and about the same time the
Danish leader Thurkill entered the English service. From 1013
an important change is discernible in the character of the
Danish attacks, which now became definitely political in their
aim. In this year Sweyn sailed up the Trent and received the
submission of northern England, and then marching south, he
attacked London. Failing to take it, he hastened west and
at Bath received the submission of Wessex. Then he returned
northwards, and after that ``all the nation considered him as
full king.'' London soon acknowledged him, and AEthelred, after
taking refuge for a while with Thurkill's fleet, escaped to
Normandy. Sweyn died in February 1014, and AEthelred was
recalled by the witan, on giving a promise to reign better in
future. At once he hastened north against Canute, Sweyn's son,
who claimed to succeed his father, but Canute sailed away, only
to return next year, when the traitor Edric joined him and Wessex
submitted. Together Canute and Edric harried Mercia, and
were preparing to reduce London, when AEthelred died there on
the 23rd of April 1016. Weak, self-indulgent, improvident,
he had pursued a policy of opportunism to a fatal conclusion.
AEthelred's wife was Emma, or AElfgifu, daughter of Richard
I. the Fearless, duke of the Nurmans, whom he married in
1002. After the king's death Emma became the wife of Canute
the Great, and after his death in 1035 she struggled hard to
secure England for her son, Hardicanute. In 1037, however,
when Harold Harefoot became sole king, she was banished; she
went to Flanders, returning to England with Hardicanute in
1040. In 1043, after Edward the Confessor had become king
he seized the greater part of Emma's great wealth, and the
queen lived in retirement at Winchester until her death
on the 6th of March 1052. By AEthelred Emma had two sons,
Edward the Confessor and the aetheling AElfred (d. 1036),
and by Canute she was the mother of Hardicanute. Emma's
marriage with AEthelred was an important step in the history
of the relations between England and Normandy, and J. R.
Green says ``it suddenly opened for its rulers a distinct
policy, a distinct course of action, which led to the Norman
conquest of England. From the moment of Emma's marriage
Normandy became a chief factor in English politics.''
AUTHORITIES.---The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (edition by C.
Plummer, 2 vols. Oxford, 1892-1899); Florence of Worcester
(ed. B. Thorpe, London, 1848-1849); Encomium Emmae (ed. by
G. H. Pertz in the Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, Band xix.,
Hanover, 1866) for the latter part of the reign. See also J. M.
Kemble, Codex Diplomaticus acti Saxonici (London, 1839--1848);
and B. Thorpe, Ancient Laws (London, 1840). (C. S. P.*)
AETHELSTAN (c. 894-940), Saxon king, was the son (probably
illegitimate) of Edward the elder. He had been the favourite
of his grandfather Alfred, and was brought up in the household
of his aunt AEthelflaed, the ``Lady of the Mercians.'' On the
death of his father in 924, at some date after the 12th of
November, AEthelstan succeeded him and was crowned at Kingston
shortly after. The succession did not, however, take place
without opposition. One AElfred, probably a descendant of
AEthelred I., formed a plot to seize the king at Winchester;
the plot was discovered and AElfred was sent to Rome to defend
himself, but died shortly after. The king's own legitimate
brother Edwin made no attempt on the throne, but in 933 he
was drowned at sea under somewhat mysterious circumstances;
the later chroniclers ascribe his death to foul play on
the part of the king, but this seems more than doubtful.
One of AEthelstan's first public acts was to hold a conference
at Tamworth with Sihtric, the Scandinavian king of Northumbria,
and as a result Sihtric received AEthelstan's sister in
marriage. In the next year Sihtric died and AEthelstan took
over the Northumbrian kingdom. He now received, at Dacre in
Cumberland, the submission of all the kings of the island,
viz. Howel Dda, king of West Wales, Owen, king of Cumbria,
Constantine, king of the Scots, and Ealdred of Bamburgh, and
henceforth he calls himself ``rex totius Britanniae.'' About
this time (the exact chronology is uncertain) AEthelstan expelled
Sihtric's brother Guthfrith, destroyed the Danish fortress at
York, received the submission of the Welsh at Hereford, fixing
their boundary along the line of the Wye, and drove the Cornishmen
west of the Tamar, fortifying Exeter as an English city.
In 934 he invaded Scotland by land and sea, perhaps owing to
an alliance between Constantine and Anlaf Sihtricsson. The
army advanced as far north as Dunottar, in Kincardineshire,
while the navy sailed to Caithness. Simeon of Durham
speaks of a submission of Scotland as a result; if it
ever took place it was a mere form, for three years later
we find a great confederacy formed in Scotland against
AEthelstan. This confederacy of 937 was joined by Constantine,
king of Scotland, the Welsh of Strathclyde, and the
Norwegian chieftains Anlaf Sihtricsson and Anlaf Godfredsson,
who, though they came from Ireland, had powerful English
connexions. A great battle was fought at Brunanburh (perhaps
Brunswark or Birrenswark hill in S.E. Dumfriesshire), in
which AEthelstan and his brother Edmund were completely
victorious. England had been freed from its greatest danger
since the days of the struggle of Alfred against Cuthrum.
AEthelstan was the first Saxon king who could claim in any
real sense to be lord paramount of Britain. In his charters
he is continually called ``rex totius Britanniae,'' and he
adopts for the first time the Greek title basileus. This
was not merely an idle flourish, for some of his charters
are signed by Welsh and Scottish kings as subreguli.
Further, AEthelstan was the first king to bring England into
close touch with continental Europe. By the marriage of his
half-sisters he was brought into connexion with the chief
royal and princely houses of France and Germany. His sister
Eadgifu married Charles the Simple, Eadhild became the wife
of Hugh the Great, duke of France, Eadgyth was married to
the emperor Otto the Great, and her sister AElfgifu to a
petty German prince. Embassies passed between AEthelstan and
Harold Fairhair, first king of Norway, with the result
that Harold's son Haakon was brought up in England and is
known in Scandinavian history as Haakon Adalsteinsfostri.
AEthelstan died at Gloucester in 940, and was buried at Malmesbury,
an abbey which he had munificently endowed during his lifetime.
Apparently he was never married, and he certainly had no issue.
A considerable body of law has come down to us in
AEthelstan's name. The chief collections are those issued
at Grately in Hampshire, at Exeter, at Thunresfeld, and the
Judicia civitatis Lundonie. In the last-named one personal
touch is found when the king tells the archbishop how grievous
it is to put to death persons of twelve winters for stealing.
The king secured the raising of the age limit to fifteen.
AUTHORITIES.---Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, sub ann.;
William of Malmesbury, Gestal Regum, i. 141-157, Rolls
Series, containing valuable original information (v. Stubbs'
Introduction, II. lxvii.); Birch, Cartul. Saxon. vol.
ii. Nos. 641-747; A.S. Laws. (ed. Liebermann), i. 146-183;
AEthelweard, Florence of Worcester. Secondary: Saxon
Chronicle (ed. Plummer), vol. ii. pp. 132-142 D.N.B., s.v.
AETHELWEARD (ETHELWARD.) Anglo-Saxon historian, was
the great-grandson of AEthelred, the brother of Alfred and
ealdorman or earl of the western provinces (i.e. probably
of the whole of Wessex). He first signs as dux or ealdorman
in 973, and continues to sign until 998, about which time
his death must have taken place. In the year 991 he was
associated with archbishop Sigeric in the conclusion of a
peace with the victorious Danes from Maldon, and in 994 he
was sent with Bishop AElfheah (Alphege) of Winchester to make
peace with Olaf at Andover. AEthelweard was the author of
a Latin Chronicle extending to the year 975. Up to the year
892 he is largely dependent on the Saxon Chronicle, with
a few details of his own; later he is largely independent of
it. AEthelweard gave himself the bombastic title ``Patricius
Consul Quaestor Ethelwerdus,'' and unfortunately this title
is only too characteristic of the man. His narrative is
highly rhetorical, and as he at the same time attempts more
than Tacitean brevity his narrative is often very obscure.
AEthelweard was the friend and patron of AElfric the grammarian.
AUTHORITIES.---Primary: The Saxon Chronicle, 994 E; Birch,
Cartularium Saxonicum; A.S. Laws (ed. Liebermann), pp. 220-224;
Tabii Ethelwerdi Chron., Mon. Hist. Brit. 449-454. Secondary:
Plummer, Saxon Chronicle, vol. ii. p. ci.; Napier and Stevenson,
Crawford Charters, pp. 118-120; D.N.B., s.v. (A. law.)
AETHELWULF, king of the West Saxons, succeeded his father
Ecgberht in A.D. 839. It is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle
for 825 that he was sent with Eahlstan, bishop of Sherborne,
and the ealdorman Wulfheard to drive out Baldred, king of
Kent, which was successfully accomplished. On the accession of
AEthelwulf, AEthelstan, his son or brother, was made sub-king
of Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Essex. AEthelwulf's reign was
chiefly occupied with struggles against the Danes. After the
king's defeat 843-844, the Somerset and Dorset levies won a
victory at the mouth of the Parret, c. 850. In 851 Ceorl,
with the men of Devon, defeated the Danes at Wigganburg, and
AEthelstan of Kent was victorious at Sandwich, in spite of
which they wintered in England that year for the first time.
In 851 also AEthelwulf and AEthelbald won their great victory at
Aclea, probably the modern Ockley. In 853 AEthelwulf subdued
the North Welsh, in answer to the appeal of Burgred of Mercia,
and gave him his daughter AEthelswith in marriage. 855 is the
year of the Donation of AEthelwulf and of his journey to Rome
with Alfred. On his way home he married Judith, daughter
of Charles the Bald. According to Asser he was compelled
to give up Wessex to his son AEthelbald on his return, and
content himself with the eastern sub-kingdom. He died in 858.
Chronicle, s.a. 823, 836, 840, 851, 853, 855. (F. G. M. B.)
AETHER, or ETHER (Gr. aither, probably from aitho,
burn, though Plato in his Cratylus (41O B) derives the
name from its perpetual motion-- oti aei thei peri ton
aera reon, aeitheer dikaios an kaloito), a material
substance of a more subtle kind than visible bodies, supposed
to exist in those parts of space which are apparently empty.
``The hypothesis of an aether has been maintained by different
speculators for very different reasons. To those who maintained
the existence of a plenum as a philosophical principle, nature's
abhorrence of a vacuum was a sufficient reason for imagining
an all-surrounding aether, even though every other argument
should be against it. To Descartes, who made extension the
sole essential property of matter, and matter a necessary
condition of extension, the bare existence of bodies apparently
at a distance was a proof of the existence of a continuous
medium between them. But besides these high metaphysical
necessities for a medium, there were more mundane uses to be
fulfilled by aethers. Aethers were invented for the planets
to swim in, to constitute electric atmospheres and magnetic
effluvia, to convey sensations from one part of our bodies to
another, and so on, till all space had been filled three or
four times over with aethers. It is only when we remember
the extensive and mischievous influence on science which
hypotheses about aethers used formerly to exercise, that
we can appreciate the horror of aethers which sober-minded
men had during the 18th century, and which, probably as a
sort of hereditary prejudice, descended even to John Stuart
Mill. The disciples of Newton maintained that in the fact
of the mutual gravitation of the heavenly bodies, according
to Newton's law, they had a complete quantitative account of
their motions; and they endeavoured to follow out the path
which Newton had opened up by investigating and measuring
the attractions and repulsions of electrified and magnetic
bodies, and the cohesive forces in the interior of bodies,
without attempting tdraccount for these forces. Newton himself,
however, endeavoured to account for gravitation by differences
of pressure in an aether; but he did not publish his theory,
`because he was not able from experiment and observation to
give a satisfactory account of this medium, and the manner of
its operation in producing the chief phenomena of nature.' On
the other hand, those who imagined aethers in order to explain
phenomena could not specify the nature of the motion of these
media, and could not prove that the media, as imagined by
them, would produce the effects they were meant to explain.
The only aether which has survived is that which was invented
by Huygens to explain the propagation of light. The evidence
for the existence of the luminiferous aether has accumulated
as additional phenomena of light and other radiations have
been discovered; and the properties of this medium, as deduced
from the phenomena of light, have been found to be precisely
those required to explain electromagnetic phenomena.''
This description, quoted from James Clerk Maxwell's article in
the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, represents
the historical position of the subject up till about 1860, when
Maxwell began those constructive speculations in electrical
theory, based on the influence of the physical views of Faraday
and Lord Kelvin, which have in their subsequent development largely
transformed theoretical physics into the science of the aether.
In the remainder of the article referred to, Maxwell reviews
the evidence for the necessity of an aether, from the fact
that light takes time to travel, while it cannot travel as a
substance, for if so two interfering lights could not mask
each other in the dark fringes (see INTERFERENCE OF LIGHT.)
Light is therefore an influence propagated as wave-motion, and
moreover by transverse undulations, for the reasons brought
out by Thomas Young and Augustin Fresnel; so that the aether
is a medium which possesses elasticity of a type analogous to
rigidity. It must be very different from ordinary matter as we
know it, for waves travelling in matter constitute sound, which
is propagated hundreds of thousands of times slower than light.
If we suppose that the aether differs from ordinary matter in
degree but not in kind, we can obtain some idea of its quality
from a knowledge of the velocity of radiation and of its
possible intensity near the sun, in a manner applied long ago
by Lord Kelvin (Trans. R. S. Edin. xxi. 1854). According
to modern measurements the solar radiation imparts almost 3
gramme-calories of energy per minute per square centimetre
at the distance of the earth, which is about 1.3X106 ergs
per sec. per cm.2 The energy in sunlight per cubic cm. just
outside the earth's atmosphere is therefore about 4X10-5
ergs; applying the law of inverse squares the value near the
sun's surface would be 1.8 ergs. Let E be the effective
elasticity of the aether; then E=rc2, where r is its
density, and c the velocity of light which is 3X1010
cm./sec. If x=A cosn (t-x/c) is the linear vibration,
the stress is E dx/dx; and the total energy, which is
twice the kinetic energy 1/2r(dx/dt)2dx, is 1/2rn2
A2 per cm., which is thus equal to 1.8 ergs as above. law
l=2pc/n, so that if A/l=k, we have 1/2r(2pck)2=
1.8, giving r=10-22k-2 and E=10-1k-2. Lord Kelvin
assumed as a superior limit of k, the ratio of amplitude
to wave-length, the value 10-2, which is a very safe
limit. It follows that the density of the aether must exceed
10-18, and its elastic modulus must exceed 103, which
is only about 10-8 of the modulus of rigidity of glass.
It thus appears that if the amplitude of vibration could be
as much as 10-2 of the wave-length, the aether would be an
excessively rare medium with very slight elasticity; and yet
it would be capable of transmitting the supply of solar energy
on which all terrestrial activity depends. But on the modern
theory, which includes the play of electrical phenomena as a
function of the aether, there are other considerations which
show that this number 10-2 is really an enormous overestimate;
and it is not impossible that the co-efficient of ultimate
inertia of the aether is greater than the co-efficient of
inertia (of different kind) of any existing material substance.
The question of whether the aether is carried along by the
earth's motion has been considered from the early days of
the undulatory theory of light. In reviving that theory at
the beginning of the 19th century, Thomas Young stated his
conviction that material media offered an open structure
to the substance called aether, which passed through
them without hindrance ``like the wind through a grove of
trees.'' Any convection of that medium could be tested by
the change of effective velocity of light, which would be
revealed by a prism as was suggested by F. J. D. Arago.
Before 1868 Maxwell conducted the experiment by sending light
from the illuminated cross-wires of an observing telescope
forward through the object-glass, and through a train of
prisms, and then reflecting it back along the same path;
any influence of convection would conspire in altering both
refractions, but yet no displacement of the image depending
on the earth's motion was detected. As will be seen later,
modern experiments have confirmed the entire absence of any
effect, such as convection would produce, to very high
precision. It has further been verified by Sir Oliver Lodge
that even in very narrow spaces the aether is not entrained
by its surroundings when they are put into rapid motion.
A train of ideas which strongly impressed itself on Clerk
Maxwell's mind, in the early stages of his theoretical views, was
put forward by Lord Kelvin in 1858; he showed that the special
characteristics of the rotation of the plane of polarization,
discovered by Faraday in light propagated along a magnetic
field, viz. that it is doubled instead of being undone when
the light retraces its path, requires the operation of some
directed agency of a rotational kind, which must be related
to the magnetic field. Lord Kelvin was thereby induced to
identify magnetic force with rotation, involving, therefore,
angular momentum in the aether. Modern theory accepts the
deduction, but ascribes the momentum to the revolving ions
in the molecules of matter traversed by the light; for the
magneto-optic effect is present only in material media.
Long previously Lord Kelvin himself came nearer this view, in
offering the opinion that magnetism consisted, in some way,
in the angular momentum of the material molecules, of which
the energy of irregular translations constitutes heat; but the
essential idea of moving electric ions of both kinds, positive
and negative, in the molecules had still to be introduced.
The question of the transparency of the celestial spaces presents
itself in the presebt connexion. Light from stars at unfathomable
distances reaches us in such quantity as to suggest that space
itself is absolutely transparent, leaving open the question
as to whether there is enough matter scattered through it to
absorb a sensible part of the light in its journey of years
from the luminous body. If the aether were itself constituted
of discrete molecules, on the model of material bodies, such
transparency would not be conceivable. We must be content
to treat the aether as a plenum, which places it in a class
by itself; and we can thus recognize that it may behave very
differently from matter, though in some manner consistent with
itself---a remark which is fundamental in the modern theory.
Action across a Distance contrasted with Transmitted Action.--In
the mechanical processes which we can experimentally modify at
will, and which therefore we learn to apprehend with greatest
fulness, whenever an effect on a body, B, is in causal connexion
with a process instituted in another body, A, it is usually
possible to discover a mechanical connexion between the two
bodies which allows the influence of A to be traced all the
way across the intervening region. The question thus arises
whether, in electric attractions across apparently empty space
and in gravitational attraction across the celestial regions,
we are invited or required to make search for some similar
method of continuous transmission of the physical effect,
or whether we should rest content with an exact knowledge
of the laws according to which one body affects mechanically
another body at a distance. The view that our knowledge in
such cases may be completely represented by means of laws of
action at a distance, expressible in terms of the positions
(and possibly motions) of the interacting bodies without
taking any heed of the intervening space, belongs to modern
times. It could hardly have been thought of before Sir Isaac
Newton's discovery of the actual facts regarding universal
gravitation. Although, however, gravitation has formed the
most perfect instance of an influence completely expressible,
up to the most extreme refinement of accuracy, in terms of
laws of direct action across space, yet, as is well known,
the author of this ideally simple and perfect theory held the
view that it is not possible to conceive of direct mechanical
action independent of means of transmission. In this belief
he differed from his pupil, Roger Cotes, and from most of
the great mathematical astronomers of the 18th century,
who worked out in detail the task sketched by the genius of
Newton. They were content with a knowledge of the truth of
the principle of gravitation; instead of essaying to explain
it further by the properties of a transmitting medium, they
in fact modelled the whole of their natural philosophy on that
principle, and tried to express all kinds of material interaction
in terms of laws of direct mechanical attraction across
space. If material systems are constituted of discrete atoms,
separated from each other by many times the diameter of any of
them, this simple plan of exhibiting their interactions in terms
of direct forces between them would indeed be exact enough to
apply to a wide range of questions, provided we could be certain
that the laws of the forces depended only on the positions
and not also on the motions of the atoms. The most important
example of its successful application has been the theory of
capillary action elaborated by P. S. Laplace; though even here
it appeared, in the hands of Young, and in complete fulness
afterwards in those of C. F. Gauss, that the definite results
attainable by the hypothesis of mutual atomic attractions really
reposed on much wider and less special principles---those,
namely, connected with the modern doctrine of energy.
Idea of an Aether.---The wider view, according to which
the hypothesis of direct transmission of physical influences
expresses only part of the facts, is that all space is
filled with physical activity, and that while an influence
is passing across from a body, A, to another body, B, there
is some dynamical process in action in the intervening
region, though it appears to the senses to be mere empty
space. The problem is whether we can represent the facts more
simply by supposing the intervening space to be occupied by
a medium which transmits physical actions, after the manner
that a continuous material medium, solid or liquid, transmits
mechanical disturbance. Various analogies of this sort are
open to us to follow up: for example, the way in which a
fluid medium transmits pressure from one immersed solid to
another--or from one vortex ring belonging to the fluid to
another, which is a much wider and more suggestive case;
or the way in which an elastic fluid like the atmosphere
transmits sound; or the way in which an elastic solid transmits
waves of transverse as well as longitudinal displacement.
It is on our familiarity with modes of transmission such as
these, and with the exact analyses of them which the science
of mathematical physics has been able to make, that our
predilection for filling space with an aethereal transmitting
medium, constituting a universal connexion between material
bodies, largely depends; perhaps ultimately it depends most
of all, like all our physical conceptions, on the intimate
knowledge that we can ourselves exert mechanical effect on
outside bodies only through the agencies of our limbs and
sinews. The problem thus arises: Can we form a consistent
notion of such a connecting medium? It must be a medium which
can be effective for transmitting all the types of physical
action known to us; it would be worse than no solution to
have one medium to transmit gravitation, another to transmit
electric effects, another to transmit light, and so on. Thus
the attempt to find out a constitution for the aether will
involve a synthesis of intimate correlation of the various
types of physical agencies, which appear so different to us
mainly because we perceive them through different senses.
The evidence for this view, that all these agencies are at
bottom connected together and parts of the same scheme, was
enormously strengthened during the latter half of the 19th
century by the development of a relation of simple quantitative
equivalence between them; it has been found that we can define
quantities relating to them, under the names of mechanical
energy, electric energy, thermal energy, and so on, so that
when one of them disappears, it is replaced by the others to
exactly equal amount. This single principle of energy has
transformed physical science by making possible the construction
of a network of ramifying connexions between its various
departments; it thus stimulates the belief that these constitute
a single whole, and encourages the search for the complete
scheme of interconnexion of which the principle of energy
and the links which it suggests form only a single feature.
In carrying out this scientific procedure false steps will
from time to time be made, which will have to be retraced, or
rather amended; but the combination of experimental science with
theory has elevated our presumption of the rationality of all
natural processes, so far as we can apprehend them at all, into
practical certainty; so that, though the mode of presentation of
the results may vary from age to age, it is hardly conceivable
that the essentials of the method are not of permanent validity.
Atomic Structure of Matter.---The greatest obstacle to such a
search for the fundamental medium is the illimitable complexity
of matter, as contrasted with the theoretical simplicity and
uniformity of the physical agencies which connect together its
different parts. It has been maintained since the times of
the early Greek philosophers, and possibly even more remote
ages, that matter is constituted of independent indestructible
units, which cannot ever become divided by means of any
mutual actions they can exert. Since the period, a century
ago, when Dalton and his contemporaries constructed from this
idea a scientific basis for chemistry, the progress of that
subject has been wonderful beyond any conception that could
previously have been entertained; and the atomic theory in
some form appears to be an indispensable part of the framework
of physical science. Now this doctrine of material atoms is
an almost necessary corollary to the doctrine of a universal
aether. For if we held that matter is continuous, one of two
alternatives would be open. We might consider that matter and
aether can coexist in the same space; this would involve the
co-existence and interaction of a double set of properties,
introducing great complication, which would place any coherent
scheme of physical action probably beyond the powers of human
analysis. Or we might consider that aether exists only
where matter is not, thus making it a very rare and subtle
and elastic kind of matter; then we should have to assign
these very properties to the matter itself where it replaces
aether, in addition to its more familiar properties, and the
complication would remain. The other course is to consider
matter as formed of ultimate atoms, each the nucleus or core
of an intrinsic modification impressed on the siurounding
region of the aether; this might conceivably be of the
nature of vortical motion of a liquid round a ring-core,
thus giving a vortex atom, or of an intrinsic strain of some
sort radiating from a core, which would give an electric
atom. We recognize an atom only through its physical
activities, as manifested in its interactions with other atoms
at a distance from it; this field of physical activity would
be identical with the surrounding field of aethereal motion
or strain that is inseparably associated with the nucleus,
and is carried on along with it as it moves. Here then we
have the basis of a view in which there are not two media
to be considered, but one medium, homogeneous in essence and
differentiated as regards its parts only by the presence of
nuclei of intrinsic strain or motion---in which the physical
activities of matter are identified with those arising from
the atmospheres of modified aether which thus belong to its
atoms. As regards laws of general physical interactions,
the atom is fully represented by the constitution of this
atmosphere, and its nucleus may be left out of our discussions;
but in the problems of biology great tracts of invariable
correlations have to be dealt with, which seem hopelessly
more complex than any known or humanly possible physical
scheme. To make room for these we have to remember that the
atomic nucleus has remained entirely undefined and beyond
our problem; so that what may occur, say when two molecules
come into close relations, is outside physical science---not,
however, altogether outside, for we know that when the vital
nexus in any portion of matter is dissolved, the atoms
will remain, in their number, and their atmospheres, and all
inorganic relations, as they were before vitality supervened.
Nature of Properties of Material Bodies.---It thus appears
that the doctrine of atomic material constitution and the
doctrine of a universal aether stand to each other in a
relation of mutual support; if the scheme of physical laws
is to be as precise as observation and measurement appear to
make it, both doctrines are required in our efforts towards
synthesis. Our direct knowledge of matter can, however,
never be more than a rough knowledge of the general average
behaviour of its molecules; for the smallest material speck
that is sensible to our coarse perceptions contains myriads of
atoms. The properties of the most minute portion of matter
which we can examine are thus of the nature of averages.
We may gradually invent means of tracing more and more
closely the average drifts of translation or orientation,
or of changes of arrangement, of the atoms; but there will
always remain an unaveraged residue devoid of any recognized
regularity, which we can only estimate by its total amount.
Thus, if we are treating of energy, we can separate out
mechanical and electric and other constituents in it; and
there will be a residue of which we know nothing except its
quantity, and which we call thermal. This merely thermal
energy--which is gradually but very slowly being restricted
in amount as new subsidiary organized types become recognized
in it--though transmutable in equivalent quantities with the
other kinds, yet is so only to a limited extent; the tracing
out of the laws of this limitation belongs to the science of
thermodynamics. It is the business of that science to find
out what is the greatest amount of thermal energy that can
possibly be recoverable into organized kinds under given
circumstances. The discovery of definite laws in this
region might at first sight seem hopeless; but the argument
rests on an implied postulate of stability and continuity of
constitution of material substances, so that after a cycle
of transformations we expect to recover them again as they
were originally---on the postulate, in fact, that we do
not expect them to melt out of organized existence in our
hands. The laws of thermodynamics, including the fundamental
principle that a physical property, called temperature, can be
defined, which tends towards uniformity, are thus relations
between the properties of types of material bodies that
can exist permanently in presence of each other; why they
so maintain themselves remains unknown, but the fact gives
the point d'appui. The fundamental character of energy
in material systems here comes into view; if there were any
other independent scalar entity, besides mass and energy,
that pervaded them with relations of equivalence, we should
expect the existence of yet another set of pualities analogous
to those connected with temperature. (See ENERGETICS.)
Returning now to the aether, on our present point of view
no such complications there arise; it must be regarded as a
continuous uniform medium free from any complexities of atomic
aggregation, whose function is confined to the transmission of
the various types of physical effect between the portions of
matter. The problem of its constitution is thus one which
can be attacked and continually approximated to, and which
may possibly be definitely resolved. It has to be competent
to transmit the transverse waves of light and electricity,
and the other known radiant and electric actions; the way
in which this is done is now in the main known, though
there are still questions as to the mode of expression and
formulation of our knowledge, and also as regards points of
detail. This great advance, which is the result of the gradual
focussing of a century's work in the minute exploration of
the exact laws of optical and electric phenomena, clearly
carries with it deeper insight into the physical nature
of matter itself and its modes of inanimate interaction.
If we rest on the synthesis here described, the energy of the
matter, even the thermal part, appears largely as potential
energy of strain in the aether which interacts with the kinetic
energy associated with disturbances involving finite velocity of
matter. It may, however, be maintained that an ultimate
analysis would go deeper, and resolve all phenomena of elastic
resilience into consequences of the kinetic stability of steady
motional states, so that only motions, but not strains, would
remain. On such a view the aether might conceivably be a
perfect fluid, its fundamental property of elastic reaction
arising (as at one time suggested by Kelvin and G. F.
Fitzgerald) from a structure of tangled or interlaced vortex
filaments pervading its substance, which might conceivably
arrange themselves into a stable configuration and so resist
deformation. This raises the further question as to whether
the transmission of gravitation can be definitely recognized
among the properties of an ultimate medium; if so, we know
that it must be associated with some feature, perhaps very
deep-seated, or on the other hand perhaps depending simply on
incompressibility, which is not sensibly implicated in the
electric and optical activities. With reference to all such
further refinements of theory, it is to be borne in mind that
the perfect fluid of hydrodynamic analysis is not a merely
passive inert plenum; it is also a continuum with the
property that no finite internal slip or discontinuity of
motion can ever arise in it through any kind of disturbance;
and this property must be postulated, as it cannot be explained.
Motion of Material Atoms through the Aether.--An important
question arises whether, when a material body is moved through
the aether, the nucleus of each atom carries some of the
surrounding aether along with it; or whether it practically
only carries on its strain-form or physical atmosphere, which
is transferred from one portion of aether to another after
the manner of a shadow, or rather like a loose knot which can
slip along a rope without the rope being required to go with
it. We can obtain a pertinent illustration from the motion
of a vortex ring in a fluid; if the circular core of the ring
is thin compared with its diameter, and the vorticity is not
very great, it is the vortical state of motion that travels
across the fluid without transporting the latter bodily with
it except to a slight extent very close to the core. We might
thus examine a structure formed of an aggregation of very
thin vortex rings, which would move across the fluid without
sensibly disturbing it; on the other hand, if formed of stronger
vortices, it may transport the portion of the fluid that is
within, or adjacent to, its own structure along with it as
if it were a solid mass, and therefore also push aside the
surrounding fluid as it passes. The motion of the well-known
steady spherical vortex is an example of the latter case.
Convection of Optical Waves.--The nature of the motion,
if any, that is produced in the surrounding regions of
the aether by the translation of matter through it can be
investigated by optical experiment. The obvious body to take
in the first instance is the earth itself, which on account
of its annual orbital motion is travelling through space at
the rate of about 18 miles per second. If the surrounding
aether is thereby disturbed, the waves of light arriving
from the stars will partake of its movement; the ascertained
phenomena of the astronomical aberration of light show that
the rays travel to the observer, across this disturbed aether
near the earth, in straight lines. Again, we may split a
narrow beam of light by partial reflexion from a transparent
plate, and recombine the constituent beams after they have
traversed different circuits of nearly equivalent lengths,
so as to obtain interference fringes. The position of these
fringes will depend on the total retardation in time of the
one beam with respect to the other; and thus it might be
expected to vary with the direction of the earth's motion
relative to the apparatus. But it is found not to vary at
all, even up to the second order of the ratio of the earth's
velocity to that of light. It has in fact been found, with
the very great precision of which optical experiment is
capable, that all terrestrial optical phenomena--reflexion,
refraction, polarization linear and circular, diffraction
--are entirely unaffected by the direction of the earth's
motion, while the same result has recently been extended to
electrostatic forces; and this is our main experimental clue.
We pass on now to the theory. We shall make the natural
supposition that motion of the aether, say with velocity
(u,v,w) at the point (x,y,z), is simply superposed on the
velocity V of the optical undulations through that medium,
the latter not being intrinsically altered. Now the direction
and phase of the light are those of the ray which reaches the
eye; and by Fermat's principle, established by Huygens for
undulatory motion, the path of a ray is that track along which
the disturbance travels in least time, in the restricted sense
that any alteration of any short reach of the path will
increase the time. Thus the path of the ray when the aether is
at rest is the curve which makes Integralds/V least; but when it is
in motion it is the curve which makes Integralds/(V+lu+my+nw) least,
where (l,m,n) is the direction vector of ds.
The latter integral becomes, on expanding in a series,
Integralds/V - Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)/V2 + Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)2/V3 + ...,
since lds=dx. If the path is to be unaltered by the motion
of the aether, as the law of astronomical aberration suggests,
this must differ from Integralds/V by terms not depending on the
path--that is, by terms involving only the beginning and end of
it. In the case of the free aether V is constant; thus, if
we neglect squares like (u/V)2, the condition is that udx
+ vdy + wdz be the exact differential of some function f.
If this relation is true along all paths, the velocity of the
aether must be of irrotational type, like that of frictionless
fluid. Moreover, this is precisely the condition for the
absence of interference between the component of a split
beam; because, the time of passage being to the first order
Integralds/V - Integral(udx + vdy + wdz)/V2
the second term will then be independent of the path (f
being a single valued function) and therefore the same for the
paths of both the interfering beams. If therefore the aether
can be pnt into motion, we conclude (with Stokes) that such
motion, in free space, must be of strictly irrotational type.
But our experimental data are not confined to free space. if
c is the velocity of radiation in free space and m the
refractis'e index of a transparent body, V=C/m; thus it
is the expression c-2Integralm2(u'dx + v'dy + w'dz) that
is to be integrable explicitly, where now (u',v',w') is
what is added to V owing to the velocity (u,v,w) of the
medium. As, however, our terrestrial optical apparatus is
now all in motion along with the matter, we must deal with
the rays relative to the moving system, and to these also
Fermat's principle clearly applies; thus V + (lu' + mv' +
nw') is here the velocity of radiation in the direction of
the ray, but relative to the moving material system. Now the
expression above given cannot be integrable exactly, under
all circumstances and whatever be the axes of co-ordinates,
unless (m2u',m2v',m2w') is the gradient of a continuous
function. In the simplest case, that of uniform translation,
these components of the gradient will each be constant
throughout the region; at a distant place in free aether where
there is no motion, they must thus be equal to -u,-v,
-w, as they refer to axes moving with the matter. Hence
the paths and times of passage of all rays relative to the
material system will not be altered by a uniform motion of the
system, provided the velocity of radiation relative to the
system, in material of index m, is diminished by m-2
times the velocity of the system in the direction of the
radiation, that is, provided the absolute velocity of radiation
is increased by 1 - m-2 times the velocity of the material
system; this involves that the free aether for which m is
unity shall remain at rest. This statement constitutes the
famous hypothesis of Fresnel, which thus ensures that all
phenomena of ray-path and refraction, and all those depending
on phase, shall be unaffected by uniform convection of the
material medium, in accordance with the results of experiment.
Is the Aether Stationary or mobile?---This theory secures
that the times of passage of the rays shall be independent of
the motion of the system, only up to the first order of the
ratio of its velocity to that of radiation. But a classical
experiment of A. A. Michelson, in which the ray-path was
wholly in air, showed that the independence extends to higher
orders. This result is inconsistent with the aether remaining at
rest, unless we assume that the dimensions of the moving system
depend, though to an extent so small as to be not otherwise
detectable, on its orientation with regard to the aether that
is streaming through it. It is, however, in complete accordance
with a view that would make the aether near the earth fully
partake in its orbital motion---a view which the null effect of
convection on all terrestrial optical and electrical phenomena
also strongly suggests. But the aether at a great distance
must in any case be at rest; while the facts of astronomical
aberration require that the motion of that medium must be
irrotational. These conditions cannot be consistent with
sensible convection of the aether near the earth without
involving discontinuity in its motion at some intermediate
distance, so that we are thrown back on the previous theory.
Another powerful reason for taking the aether to be
stationary is afforded by the character of the equations of
electrodynamics; they are all of linear type, and superposition
of effects is possible. Now the kinetics of a medium in
which the parts can have finite relative motions will lead
to equations which are not linear---as, for example, those of
hydrodynamics---and the phenomena will be far more complexly
involved. It is true that the theory of vortex rings in
hydrodynamics is of a simpler type; but electric currents
cannot be likened to permanent vortex rings, because their
circuits can be broken and the element of cyclic steadiness
on which the simplicity depends is thereby destroyed.
Dynamical Theories of the Aether.---The analytical equations
which represent the propagation of light in free aether,
and also in aether modified by the presence of matter, were
originally developed on the analogy of the equations of
propagation of elastic effects in solid media. Various types
of elastic solid medium have thus been invented to represent
the aether, without complete success in any case. In T.
Maccullagh's hands the correct equations were derived from a
single energy formula by the principle of least action; and
while the validity of this dynamical method was maintained,
it was frankly admitted that no mechanical analogy was
forthcoming. When Clerk Maxwell pointed out the way to the
common origin of optical and electrical phenomena, these
equations naturally came to repose on an electric basis, the
connexion having been first definitely exhibited by Fitzgerald
in 1878; and according as the independent variable was one or
other of the vectors which represent electric force, magnetic
force or electric polarity, they took the form appropriate
to one or other of the elastic theories above mentioned.
In this place it must suffice to indicate the gist of the
more recent developments of the electro-optical theory, which
involve the dynamical verification of Fresnel's hypothesis
regarding optical convection and the other relations above
described. The aether is taken to be at rest; and the
strain-forms belonging to the atoms are the electric fields
of the intrinsic charges, or electrones, involved in their
constitution. When the atoms are in motion these strain-forms
produce straining and unstraining in the aether as they pass
across it, which in its motional or kinetic aspect constitutes
the resulting magnetic field; as the strains are slight
the coefficient of ultimate inertia here involved must be
great. True electric current arises solely from convection
of the atomic charges or electrons; this current is therefore
not restricted as to form in any way. But when the rate of
change of aethereal strain----that is, of (f,g,h) specified
as Maxwell's electric displacement in free aether---is
added to it, an analytically convenient vector (u,v,w)
is obtained which possesses the characteristic property of
being circuital like the flow of an incompressible fluid,
and has therefore been made fundamental in the theory
by Maxwell under the name of the total electric current.
As already mentioned, all efforts to assimilate optical
propagation to transmission of waves in an ordinary solid
medium have failed; and though the idea of regions of
intrinsic strain, as for example in unannealed glass,
is familiar in physics, yet on account of the absence of
mobility of the strain no attempt had been made to employ
them to illustrate the electric fields of atomic charges.
The idea of Maccullagh's aether, and its property of purely
rotational elasticity which had been expounded objectively
by W. J. M. Rankine, was therefore much vivified by Lord
Kelvin's specification (Comptes Rendus, 1889) of a material
gyrostatically constituted medium which would possess this
character. More recently a way has been pointed out in which
a mobile permanent field of electric force could exist in such
a medium so as to travel freely in company with its nucleus or
intrinsic charge---the nature of the mobility of the latter,
as well as its intimate constitution, remaining unknown.
A dielectric substance is electrically polarized by a field
of electric force, the atomic poles being made up of the
displaced positive and negative intrinsic charges in the
atom: the polarization per unit volume (f',g',h') may be
defined on the analogy of magnetism, and d/dt(f', g', h')
thus constitutes truo electric current of polarization,
i.e. of electric separation in the molecules, specified
per unit volume. The convection of a medium thus polarized
involves electric disturbance, and therefore must contribute
to the true electric current; the determination of this
constituent of the current is the most delicate point in the
investigation. The usual definition of the component current
in any direction, as the net amount of electrons which crosses,
towards the positive side, an element of surface fixed in
space at right angles to that direction, per unit area per
unit time, here gives no definite result. The establishment
and convection of a single polar atom constitutes in fact a
quasi-magnetization, in addition to the polarization current
as above defined, the negative poles completing the current
circuits of the positive ones. But in the transition from
molecular theory to the electrodynamics of extended media,
all magnetism has to be replaced by a distribution of current;
the latter being now specified by volume as well as by flow
so that (u,v,w) dt is the current in the element of volume
dt. In the present case the total dielectric contribution
to this current works out to be the change per unit time in
the electric separation in the molecules of the element of
volume, as it moves uniformly with the matter, all other
effects being compensated molecularly without affecting the
propagation.1 On subtracting from this total the current of
establishment of polarization d/dt/(f,g',h') as formulated
above, there remains vd/dx(f',g',h') as the current of
convection of polarization when the convection is taken
for simplicity to be in the direction of the axis of x
with velocity v. The polarization itself is determined
from the electric force (P,Q,R) by the usual statical
formula of linear type which becomes tor an isotropic medium
(f',g',h') = ((K-1)/4pc2)(P,Q,R),
because any change of the dielectric constant K arising
from the convection of the material through the aether
must be independent of the sign of v and therefore be of
the second order. Now the electric force (P,Q,R) is the
force acting on the electrons of the medium moving with
velocity v; consequently by Faraday's electrodynamic law
(P,Q,R) = (P',Q' - vc, R'- vb)
where (P', Q', R') is the force that would act on electrons
at rest, and (a,b,c) is the magnetic induction. The
latter force is, by Maxwell's hypothesis or by the dynamical
theory of an aether pervaded by electrons, the same as
that which strains the aether, and may be called the
aethereal force; it thereby produces an aethereal electric
displacement, say (y,g,h), according to the relation
(f,g,h) = (4pc2) - (P', Q', R'),
in which c is a constant belonging to the aether, which turns
out to be the velocity of light. The current of aethereal
displacement d/dt(f,g,h) is what adds on to the true electric
current to produce the total circuital current of Maxwell.
We have now to substitute these data in the universally
valid circuital relations---namely, (i) line integral of
magnetic force round a circuit is equal to 4p times the
current through its aperture, which may be regarded as a
definition of the constitution of the aether and its relation
to the electrons involved in it; and (ii) line integral
of the electric force belonging to any material circuit
(i.e. acting on the electrons situated on it which move
with the velocity of the matter) is equal to minus the
time-rate of change of the magnetic induction through that
circuit as it moves with the matter, this being a dynamical
consequence of the aethereal constitution assigned in (i).
We may now, as is somewhat the more natural course in the
terrestrial application, take axes (x,y,z) which move with the
matter; but the current must be invariably defined by the flux
across surfaces fixed in space, so that we may say that relation
(i) refers to a circuit fixed in space, while (ii) refers to
one moving with the matter. These circuital relations, when
expressed analytically, are then for a dielectric medium of types
dg/dy - db/dz = 4pu,...,..., where
(u,v,w) = (d/dt + v(d/dx))(f',g',h') + (d/dt)(f,g,h)
and
dR/dy - dQ/dz = -da/dt',...,...,.
where, when magnetic quality is inoperative, the magnetic
induction (a,b,c) is identical with the magnetic force (a,b,g.)
These equations determine all the phenomena. They take this simple
form, however, only when the movement of the matter is one of
translation. If v varies with respect to locality, or if there
is a velocity of convection (p,q,r) variable with respect to
direction and position, and analytical expression of the relation
(ii) assumes a more complex form; we thus derive the most general
equations of electrodynamic propagation for matter treated
as continuous, anyhow distributed and moving in any manner.
For the simplest case of polarized waves travelling parallel
to the axis of x, with the magnetic oscillation g along z
and the electric oscillation Q along y, all the quantities
are functions of x and t alone; the total current is
along y and given with respect to our moving axes by
v = (d/dt - v(d/dx))(Q+vg)/4pc2 + (d/dt)((K-1)/4pc2)Th;
also the circuital relations here reduce to
-dg/dx = 4pv, dQ/dx = -dg/dt;
thus
d2Q/dx2 = 4pdv/dt
giving, on substitution for v,
(c2-v2)d2Q/dx2 = Kd2Q/dt2 - 2vd2Q/dxdt.
For a simple wave-train, Q varies as sin m(x-Vt), leading
on substitution to the velocity of propagation V relative
to the moving material, by means of the equation KV2 + 2
vV = c2-v2; this gives, to the first order of v/c,
V = c/sqrt. K - v/K, which is in accordance with Fresnel's
law. Trains of waves nearly but not quite homogeneous as
regards wave-length will as usual be propagated as wave-groups
travelling with the slightly different velocity d(Vl-1)/
dl-1, the value of K occurring in V being a function of
l determined by the law of optical dispersion of the medium.
For purposes of theoretical discussions relating to moving radiators
and reflectors, it is important to remember that the dynamics
of all this theory of electrons involves the neglect of terms of
the order (v/c)2, not merely in the value of K but throughout.
Recent Experimental Developments.---The modification of
the spectrum of a radiating gas by a magnetic field, such
as would result from the hypothesis that the radiators are
the system of revolving or oscillating electrons in the
molecule, was detected by P. Zeeman in 1896, and worked
up, in conjunction with H. A. Lorentz, on the general lines
suggested by the electron-theory of molecular constitution.
While it cannot be said that the full significance of this
very definite phenomenon, consisting of the splitting of
the spectral line into a number of polarized components, has
yet been made out, a wide field of correlation with optical
theory, especially in the neighbourhood of absorption bands,
has been developed by Zeeman himself, by A. H. Becquerel,
by D. Macaluso and O. M. Corbino, and by other workers.
The most fundamental experimental confirmation that the theory
of the aether has received on the optical side in recent
years has been the verification of Maxwell's proposition that
radiation exerts mechanical force on a material system, on
which it falls, which may be represented in all cases as the
resultant of pressures operating along the rays, and of intensity
equal at each point of free space to the density of radiant
energy. A high vacuum is needed for the detection of the
minute forces here concerned; but just in that case the indirect
radiometer-effect of the heating of the residual gas masks the
effect. P. N. Lebedew in 1900 succeeded, by operating on
metallic vanes so thin that the exposed and averted faces
were practically at the same temperature, in satisfactorily
verifying the relation for metals; and very soon after, E.
F. Nichols and G. F. Hull published accounts of an exact
and extensive research, in which the principle had been
fully and precisely confirmed as regards both transparent
and opaque bodies. The experiment of J. H. Poynting may
also be mentioned, in which the tangential component of
the thrust of obliquely incident radiation is separately
put in evidence, by the torsion produced in an arrangement
which is not sensitive to the normal component or to the
radiometer-pressure of the residual gas. (See RADIOMETER.)
Next to these researches on the pressure of radiation, which,
by forming the mechanical link between radiation and matter,
are fundamental for the thermodynamics of radiant energy,
the most striking recent result has been the discovery of H.
Rubens and E. Hagen that for dark heat rays of only about ten
times the wave-length of luminous radiation, the properties
of metals are determined by their electric resistance alone,
which then masks all resonance due to periods of free vibration
of the molecules; and, moreover, that the resistance for such
alternations is practically the same as the ohmic resistance
for ordinary steady currents. They found that the absorbing
powers of the metals, and therefore, by the principle of
exchanges, their radiating powers also, are proportional to
the square roots of their electric conductivities. Maxwell had
himself, at an early stage of his theory, tested the absorbing
power of gold-leaf for light, and found that the effective
conductivity for luminous vibrations must be very much greater
than its steady ohmic value; it is, in fact, there a case of
incipient conductivity, which is continually being undone on
account of the rapid alternation of force before it is fully
established. That, however, complete conduction should
arrive with alternations only ten times slower than light
was an unexpected and remarkable fact, which verifies the
presumption that the process of conduction is one in which
the dynamic activities of the molecules do not come into
play. The corollary, that the electric resistance of a
metal can be determined in absolute units by experiments on
the reflexion of heat-rays from its surface, is a striking
illustration of the unification of the various branches
of physical science, which has come in the train of the
development of the theory of the aether. (See RADIATION.)
Finally, reference should be made to the phenomena of
radioactivity, whether excited by the electric discharge
in vacuum tubes, foreshadowed in part by Sir Wm. Crookes
and G. G. Stokes, and later by A. Schuster and others, but
first fully developed with astonishing results including
the experimental discovery of the free electron by J. J.
Thomson, or the correlated phenomena occurring spontaneously
in radio-active bodies as discovered by H. Becquerel and
by M. and Mme Curie, and investigated by them and by E.
Rutherford and others. These results constitute a far-reaching
development of the modern or electrodynamic theory of the
aether, of which the issue can hardly yet be foreseen.
REFERENCES.--Maxwell, Collected Papers H. A. Lorentz,
Archives Neerlandaises, xxi. 1887, and xxv. 1892, and a
tract, Versuch einer Theorie der electrischen und optischen
Erscheinungen in bewegten Korpern (Leyden, 1895); also
recent articles ``Elektrodynamik'' and ``Elektronentheorie''
in the Encyk. der Math. Wissenschaften, Band v. 13, 14;
O. Lodge, ``On Aberration Problems,'' Phil. Trans. 1893
and 1897; J. Larmor, Phil. Trans. 1894--95--97, and a
treatise, Aether and Motter (1900), where full references are
given. Of recent years most treatises on physical optics,
e.g. those of P. K. L. Drude, A. Schuster, R. W. Wood, have
been written largely on the basis of the general physics of
the aether; while the Collected Papers of Lord Rayleigh
should be accessible to all who desire a first-hand knowledge
of the development of the optical side of the subject. See
also MOLECULE, ELECTRICITY, LIGHT and RADIATION. (J. L.*)
1 See H. A. Lorentz, loc. cit. infra.; J.
Larmor, Aether and Matter, p. 262 and passim.
AETHICUS (=ETHICUS) ISTER, ``the philosopher of
Istria,'' the supposed but unknown author of a description
of the world written in Greek. An abridgment, under the
title of Cosmographia Ethici, written in barbarous Latin,
and wrongly described as the work of St Jerome, probably
belongs to the 7th century. After a discussion of the
creation of the world and a description of the earth, an
account of the wonderful journeys of Aethicus is given, with
digressions on various subjects, such as Alexander the Great
and the kings of Rome, full of obscure and fabulous details.
The name Aethicus is also attached to another geographical
treatise probably dating from the 6th century, a reproduction,
with some unimportant additions, of the cosmography--little
else than a dry list of names--of Julius Honorius.
Editions.--D'Avezac (1852); Pertz (1853); Wuttke
(1854); Riese's Lexicographi Latini Minores (1878);
see also Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography.
AETIOLOGY, or ETIOLOGY (from Gr. aitia. cause, and
logia, discourse), strictly, the science or philosophy of
causation, but generally used to denote the part of any special
science (and especially of that of medicine and disease)
which investigates the causes and origin of its phenomena.
An aetiological myth is one which is regarded as having
been invented ex post facto to explain some fact, name or
coincidence, the true account or origin of which has been
forgotten. Such myths were often based on grotesque philological
analogies, according to which an existing connexion between
two personalities (cities, &c.) was traced back to a common
mythical origin. For a good example of the evolution of
such myths, see the argument under AEGINA, History.
AETION, or EETION, a Greek painter, mentioned by Cicero,
Pliny and Lucian. His most noted work, described in detail by
Lucian (Herodotus or Eetion, 5), was a picture representing
the marriage of Alexander and Roxana. He is said to have
exhibited it at the Olympic games, and by it so to have won
the favour of the president that he gave him his daughter in
marriage. Through a misunderstanding of the words of Lucian,
Aetion has been supposed to belong to the age of the Antonines;
but there can be little doubt that he was a contemporary of
Alexander and of Apelles (Brunn, Geschichte der griechischen
Kunstler, ii. p. 243). Pliny gives his date as 350 B.C.
AETIUS (fl. 350), surnamed ``the Atheist,'' founder of an
extreme sect of Arians, was a native of Cocle-Syria. After
working as a vine-dresser and then as a goldsmith he became a
travelling doctor, and displayed great skill in disputations
on medical subjects; but his controversial power soon found
a wider field for its exercise in the great theological
question of the time. He studied successively under the
Arians, Paulinus, bishop of Antioch, Athanasius, bishop of
Anazarbus, and the presbyter Antonius of Tarsus. In 350 he
was ordained a deacon by Leontius of Antioch, but was shortly
afterwards forced by the orthodox party to leave that town.
At the first synod of Sirmium he won a dialectic victory over
the homoiousian bishops, hasilius and Eustathius, who sought
in consequence to stir up against him the enmity of Caesar
Gallus. In 356 he went to Alexandria with Eunomius (q.v.)
in order to advocate Arianism, but he was banished by
Constantius. Julian recalled him from exile, bestowed upon
him an estate in Lesbos, and retained him for a time at his
court in Constantinople. Being consecrated a bishop, he used
his office in the interests of Arianism by creating other
bishops of that party. At the accession of Valens (364)
he retired to his estate at Lesbos, but soon returned to
Constantinople, where he died in 367. The Anomoean sect of
the Arians, of whom he was the leader, are sometimes called
after him Aetians. His work De Fide has been preserved
in connexion with a refutation written by Epiphanius (Haer.
lxxvi. 10). Its main thought is that the Homousia, i.e.
the doctrine that the Son (therefore the Begotten) is
essentially God, is self-contradictory, since the idea of
unbegottenness is just that which constitutes the nature of God.
See A. Harnack, History of Dogma, vol. iv. passim.
AETIUS, a Greek physician, born at Amida in Mesopotamia,
flourished at the beginning of the 6th century A.D. He studied
at Alexandria, and became court physician at Byzantium and
comes obsequii, one of the chief officers of the imperial
household. He wrote a large medical work in sixteen books,
founded on Oribasius and compiled from various sources,
especially Galen [Galenos]. Superstition and mysticism
play a great part in his remedies. Eight books of the
Greek original were printed at Venice, 1534, and a complete
Latin translation by Cornarius appeared at Basel, 1542.
See Weigel, Aetianarum exercitationum specimen (1791);
Danelius, Beitrag zur Augenheilkunde des Aetius (1889); Zernos,
Aetii sermo sextidecimus et ultimus, editio princeps (1901).
AETIUS (d. 454), a Roman general of the closing period of
the Western empire, born at Dorostolus in Moesia, late in
the 4th century. He was the son of Gaudentius, who, although
possibly of barbarian family, rose in the service of the
Western empire to be master of the horse, and later count of
Africa. Aetius passed some years as hostage, first with Alaric
and the Goths, and later in the camp of Rhuas, king of the
Huns, acquiring in this way the knowledge which enabled him
afterwards to defeat them. In 424 he led into Italy an army
of 60,000 barbarians, mostly Huns, which he employed first to
support the primicerius Joannes, who had proclaimed himself
emperor, and, on the defeat of the latter, to enforce his claim
to the supreme command of the army in Gaul upon Placidia, the
empress-mother and regent for Valentinian III. His calumnies
against his rival, Count Boniface, which were at first believed
by the emperor, led Boniface to revolt and call the Vandals to
Africa. Upon the discovery of the truth, Boniface, although
defeated in Africa, was received into favour by Valentinian;
but Aetius came down against Boniface from his Gallic wars,
like another Julius Caesar, and in the battle which followed
wounded Boniface fatally with his own javelin. From 433
to 450 Aetius was the dominating personality in the Western
empire. In Gaul he won his military reputation, upholding
for nearly twenty years, by combined policy and daring, the
falling fortunes of the empire. His greatest victory was that
of Chalons-sur-Marne (September 20, 451), in which he led
the Gallic forces against Attila and the Huns. This was the
last triumph of the empire. Three years later (454) Aetius
presented himself at court to claim the emperor's daughter in
marriage for his son Gaudentius; but Valentinian, suspecting
him of designs upon the crown, slew him with his own hand.
See T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vols. i. and ii. (1880).
AETOLIA, a district of northern Greece, bounded on the S.
by the Corinthian Gulf, on the W. by the river Achelous, on
the N. and E. by the western spurs of Parnassus and Oeta. The
land naturally falls into two divisions. The basins of the
lower Achelous (mod. Aspropotamo) and Euenus (Phidharis)
form a series of alluvial valleys intersected by detached
ridges which mostly run parallel to the coast. This district
of ``Old Aetolia'' lacks a suitable sea-board, but the inland,
and especially the plain of central Aetolia lying to the north
of Lakes Hyria and Trichonis and Mount Aracynthus, forms a
rich agricultural country. The northern and eastern regions
are broken by an extensive complex of chains and peaks, whose
rugged limestone flanks are clad at most with stunted shrubs
and barely leave room for a few precarious mule-tracks. These
heights often rise in the frontierranges of Tymphrestus, Oxia
and Corax to more than 7000 ft.; the snow-capped pinnacle
of Krona attains to 8240 ft. A few defiles pass through
this barrier to the other side of the north Greek watershed.
In early legend Old Aetolia, with its cities of Pleuron and
Calydon, figures prominently. During the great migrations
(see DORIANS) the population was largely displaced, and the
old inhabitants long remainedin a backward condition. In the
5th century some tribes were still living in open villages
under petty kings, addicted to plunder and piracy, and hardly
recogniged as Hellenes at all. Yet their military strength
was not to be despised: in 426 their archers and slingers
easily repelled an Athenian invasion under Demosthenes. In
the 4th century the Aetolians began to take a greater part
in Greek politics, and, in return for helping Epaminondas
(367) and Philip of Macedon (338), recovered control of their
sea-board, to which they annexed the Acarnanian coast and the
Oeniadae. Aetolia's prosperity dates from the period of
Macedonian supremacy. It may be ascribed partly to the wealth
and influence acquired by Aetolian mercenaries in Hellenistic
courts, but chiefly to the formation of a national Aetolian
league, the first effective institution of this kind in
Greece. Created originally to meet the peril of an invasion
by the Macedonian regents Antipater and Craterus, who had
undertaken a punitive expedition against Aetolia after the
Lamian War (322), and by Cassander (314-311), the confederacy
grew rapidly during the subsequent period of Macedonian
weakness. Since 290 it had extended its power over all the
uplands of central Greece, where its command over Heracleia
(280) provided it with an important defensive position against
northern invaders, its control of Delphi and the Amphictyonic
council with a useful political instrument. The valour of the
Aetolians was conspicuously displayed in 279, when they broke the
strength of the Celtic irruption by slaughtering great hordes of
marauders. The commemorative festival of the Soteria, which
the league established at Delphi, obtained recognition from
many leading Greek states. After annexing Boeotia (by 245)
the Aetolians controlled all central Greece. Endeavouring
next to expand into Peloponnesus, they allied themselves with
Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia against the Achaean league
(q.v.), and besides becoming protectors of Elis and Messenia
won several Arcadian cities. Their naval power extended to
Cephalonia, to the Aegaean islands and even to the Hellespont.
The league at its zenith had thus a truly imperial status.
Later in the century its power began to he sapped by Macedonia.
To check King Demetrius (239-229) the Aetolians joined arms
with the Achaeans. In 224 they held Heracleia Trachis against
Antigonus Doson, but lost control of Boeotia and Phocis.
Since 228 their Arcadian possessions had been abandoned to
Sparta. At the same time a new enemy arose in the Illyrian
pirate fleets, which outdid them in unscrupulousness and
violence. The raids of two Aetolian chiefs in Achaean
territory (220) led to a coalition between Achaea and Philip
V. of Macedon, who assailed the invaders with great energy,
driving them out of Peloponnesus and marching into Aetolia
itself, where he surprised and sacked the federal capital
Thermon. After buying peace by the cession of Acarnania
(217) the league concluded a compact with Rome, in which
both states agreed to plunder ruthlessly their common enemies
(211). In the great war of their Roman allies against Philip
the federal troops took a prominent part, their cavalry being
largely responsible for the victory of Cynoscephalae (197). The
Romans in return restored central Greece to the league, but by
withholding its former Thessalian possessions excited its deep
resentment. The Aetolians now invited Antiochus III. of
Syria to European Greece, and so precipitated a conflict with
Rome. But in the war they threw away their chances. In 192
they wasted themselves in an unsuccessful attempt to secure
Sparta. In 191 they supported Antiochus badly, and by their
slackness in the defence of Thermopylae made his position
in Greece untenable. Having thus isolated themselves the
Aetolians stood at bay behind their walls against the Romans,
who refused all compromises, and, after the general surrender
in 189, restricted the league to Aetolia proper and assumed
control over its foreign relations. In 167 the country suffered
severely from the intrigues of a philo-Roman party, which
caused a series of judicial murders and the deportation of
many patriots to Italy. By the time of Sulla, when the league
is mentioned for the last time, its functions were purely
nominal. The federal constitution closely resembled that of
the Achaean league (q.v.), for which it doubtless served as a
model. The general assembly, convoked every autumn at Thermon
to elect officials, and at other places in special emergencies,
shaped the league's general policy; it was nominally open
to all freemen, though no doubt the Aetolian chieftains
really controlled it. The council of deputies from the
confederate cities undertook the routine of administration and
jurisdiction. The strategus (general), aided by 30 apocleti
(ministers), had complete control in the field and presided
over the assembly, though with restricted advisory powers. The
Aetolians also used the Amphictyonic synod for passing solemn
enactments. The league's relation to outlying dependencies
is obscure; many of these were probably mere protectorates or
``allied states'' and secured no representation. The federal
executive was certainly much more efficient than that of the
Achaeans, and its councils suffered less from disunion; but
its generals and admirals, official or otherwise, enjoyed undue
licence; hence the league deservedly gained an evil name for
the numerous acts of lawlessness or violence which its troops
committed. But as a champion of republican Greece against
foreign enemies no other power of the age rendered equal
services. After the first overthrow of the Byzantine
empire Aetolia passed to a branch of the old imperial house
(1205). In the 15th century it was held by Scanderbeg
(q.v.) and by the Venetians, but Mahommed II. brought it
definitely under Turkish rule. In the War of Independence
the Aetolians by their stubborn defence, culminating in the
sieges of Missolonghi (q.v.), formed the backbone of the
rebellion. Northern Aetolia remains a desolate region,
inhabited mainly by Vlach shepherds. The south-western plain,
though rendered unhealthy by lagoons, and central Aetolia
yield good crops of currants, vine, maize and tobacco, which
are conveyed by railway from Agrinion and Anatolikon to the
coast. The country, which forms part of the modern department
of Acarnania and Aetolia, contains numerous fragments of ancient
fortifications. It has contributed a notable Droportion of
distinguished men to modern Greece. Diodorus xviii. 24. 5;
Pausanias x. 20 sq.; Polybius and Livy passim; W. J. Woodhouse,
Aetolia (Oxford, 1897); M. Dubois, Les Lieues acheenne et
etolienne (Paris, 1885); E. A. Freeman, Federal Government
(ed. 1893, London), ch. vi.; B. V. Head, Historia Numorum
(Oxford, 1887), pp. 283-284; M. Holleaux in Bulletin de
Correspondance Hellenique (1905, pp. 362-372l; G. Sotiriades
in `Efemeris `Arxaiologike, (1900) pp. 163-212, (1903)
pp. 73-94, and in Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique
(1907), pp. 139-184: C. Salvetti in Studi di Storia
Antica, vol. ii. (Rome, 1893), pp. 270-320. (M. O. B. C.)
AFARS (DANAHIL), a tribe of African ``Arabs'' of Hamitic
stock. They occupy the arid coast-lands between Abyssinia
and the sea. They claim to be Arabs, but are more akin to
the Galla and Somali. The tribe is roughly divisible into
a pastoral and a coast-dwelling group. Their religion is
chiefly fetish and tree-worship; many, nominally, profess
Mahommedanism. They are distinguished by narrow straight
noses, thin lips and small pointed chins; their cheekbones
are not prominent. They are more scantily clothed than
the Abyssinians or Galla, wearing, generally, nothing but a
waist-cloth. Their women, when quite young, are pretty and
graceful. Their huts are often tastefully decorated, the floors
being spread with yellow mats, embroidered with red and violet
designs. The Afars are divided into many sub-tribes, each
having an hereditary sultan, whose power is, however, limited.
They are desperate fighters and in 1875 successfully resisted
an attempt to bring them under Egyptian rule. In 1883-1888,
however, their most important sultan concluded treaties placing
his country under Italian protection. The Afar region is now
partly under Abyssinian and partly under Italian authority.
The Afars are also found in considerable numbers in French
Somaliland. They have a saying ``Guns are only useful to
frighten cowards.'' They were formerly redoubtable pirates,
but the descendants of these corsairs are now fishermen,
and are the only sailors in the Red Sea who hunt the dugong.
P. Paulitschke, Ethnographic Nordost-Afrikas (2 vols.,
Berlin, 1893-1896); and Die geographische Erforschung der
A dal-Lander und Harars in Ost-Afrika (Leipzig, 1884).
AFER, DOMITIUS, a Roman orator and advocate, born at
Nemausus (Nimes) in Gallia Narbonensis, flourished in
the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. His
pupil Quintilian calls him the greatest orator he had ever
known; but he disgraced his talents by acting as public
informer against some of the most distinguished personages in
Rome. He gained the favour of Tiberius by accusing Claudia
Pulcra, the widow of Germanicus, of adultery and the use of
magic arts against the emperor. Judicious flattery secured
him the consulship under Caligula (39); and under Nero he
was superintendent of the water supply. He died A.D. 60,
according to Jerome, of over-eating. Quintilian quotes some
of his witty sayings (dicta), collections of which were
published, and mentions two books by him On Witnesses.
Quintilian, Instit. vi. 3. 42, viii. 5. 16, x. 1. 118, &c.; Tac.
Ann iv. 52; Dio Cassius lix. 19, lx. 33; Pliny, Epp. viii. 18.
AFFECTION (Lat. ad, and facere, to do something to,
sc. a person), literally, a mental state resulting generally
from an external influence. It is popularly used of a
relation between persons amounting to more than goodwill or
friendship. By ethical writers the word has been used generally
of distinct states of feeling, both lasting and spasmodic;
some contrast it with ``passion'' as being free from the
distinctively sensual element. More specifically the word has
been restricted to emotional states which are in relation to
persons. In the former sense, it is the Gr. pathos, and as
such it appears in Descartes and most of the early British ethical
writers. On various grounds, however---e.g. that it does
not involve anxiety or excitement, that it is comparatively
inert and compatible with the entire absence of the sensuous
element--At is generally and usefully distingmshed from
passion. In this narrower sense the word has played a great part
in ethical systems, which have spoken of the social or parental
``affections'' as in some sense a part of moral obligation.
For a consideration of these and similar problems, which depend
ultimately on the degree in which the affections are regarded as
voluntary, see H. Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, pp. 345-349.
In psychology the terms ``affection'' and ``affective'' are
of great importance. As all intellectual phenomena have by
experimentalists been reduced to sensation, so all emotion
has been and is regarded as reducible to simple mental
affection, the element of which all emotional manifestations
are ultimately composed. The nature of this element is a
problem which has been provisionally, but not conclusively,
solved by many psychologists; the method is necessarily
experimental, and all experiments on feeling are peculiarly
difficult. The solutions proposed are two. In the first,
all affection phenomena are primarily divisible into those
which are pleasurable and those which are the reverse. The
main objections to this are that it does not explain the
infinite variety of phenomena, and that it disregards the
distinction which most philosophers admit between higher
and lower pleasures. The second solution is that every
sensation has its specific affective quality, though by
reason of the poverty of language many of these have no
name. W. Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (trans. C. H.
Judd, Leipzig, 1897), maintains that we may group under three
main affective directions, each with its negative, all the
infinite varieties in question; these are (a) pleasure,
or rather pleasantness, and the reverse, (b) tension and
relaxation, (c) excitement and depression. These two
views are antithetic and no solution has been discovered.
Two obvious methods of experiment have been tried. The first,
introduced by A. Mosso, the Italian psychologist, consists in
recording the physical phenomena which are observed to accompany
modifications of the affective consciousness. Thus it is found
that the action of the heart is accelerated by pleasant, and
retarded by unpleasant, stimuli; again, changes of weight and
volume are found to accompany modifications of affection--and so
on. Apart altogether from the facts that this investigation
is still in its infancy and that the conditions of experiment
are insufficiently understood, its ultimate success is rendered
highly problematical by the essential fact that real scientific
results can be achieved only by data recorded in connexion with
a perfectly normal subject; a conscious or interested subject
introduces variable factors which are probably incalculable.
The second is Fechner's method; it consists of recording the
changes in feeling-tone produced in a subject by bringing him in
contact with a series of conditions, objects or stimuli graduated
according to a scientific plan and presented singly in pairs or in
groups. The result is a comparative table of likes and dislikes.
Mention should also be made of a third method which has
hardly yet been tried, namely, that of endeavouring to
isolate one of the three ``directions'' by the method
of suggestion or even hypnotic trance observations.
For the subject of emotion in general see modern text-books of
psychology, e.g. those of J. Sully, W. James, G. T. Fechner, O.
Kulpe; Angelo Mosso, La Paura (Milan, 1884, 1900; Eng. trans.
E. Lough and F. Kiesow, Lond. 1896); E. B. Titchener, Experimental
Psychology (1905); art. PSYCHOLOGY and works there quoted.
AFFIDAVIT (Med. Lat. for ``he has declared upon oath,''
from affidare, fides, faith), a written statement sworn
or affirmed to before some person who has authority to
administer an oath or affirmation. Evidence is chiefly
taken by means of affidavits in the Chancery Division of the
High Court of Justice in England on a petition, summons or
motion. Interlocutory proceedings before trial are conducted
by affidavits, e.g. for discovery of documents, hence
called affidavit of documents. Affidavits are sometimes
necessary as certificates that certain formalities have been
duly and legally performed (such as service of proceedings,
&c.). They are extensively used in bankruptcy practice, in the
administration of the revenue and in the inferior and county
courts. In testamentary causes, all documents of any kind,
such as wills, codicils, drafts or instructions of same must
be filed in the form of affidavits (termed affidavits of
scripts.) In Scotland the testimony of witnesses by affidavit
is almost unknown, except in a few non-contentious cases as
prima facie evidence. In the rules of the Supreme Court
(R.S.C. Ord. XXXVIII.) certain formal requirements are laid
down for all affidavits and affirmations in causes or matters
depending in the High Court. An affidavit must consist of
title, body or statement and jurat. It must be written or
printed on foolscap, bookwise, in the first person; give
correctly the names of the parties to the action; and the
description and true place of abode of the deponent. An
affidavit is confined, except on interlocutory motions, to
such facts as the witness is able of his own knowledge to
prove. The signature of the deponent must be written opposite
to the jurat, which must contain the place, date and time of
swearing, and this signed by the officer or magistrate before
whom the affidavit is sworn. An affidavit sworn on a Sunday
is not invalid. Quakers, Moravians and Separatists were first
privileged to make a solemn declaration or affirmation, and
by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852 and other statutes all
persons prevented by religious belief from taking an oath
were allowed to affirm; and, finally, by the Oaths Act 1888,
every person who objects to be sworn is allowed to affirm in
all places and for all purposes where an oath is required by
law. By an act of 1835 justices are permitted to take
affidavits in any matter by declaration, and a person making
a false affidavit in this way is liable to punishment. The
same act prohibited justices of peace from administering oaths
in any matter in which they had not jurisdiction as judges,
except when an oath was specially authorized by statute,
as in the bankruptcy law, and excepting criminal inquiries,
parliamentary proceedings and instances where oaths are required
to give validity to documents abroad. Scottish justices can
act in England and vice versa. The Oaths Act 1888 and
the Commissioner of Oaths Act 1889 consolidated all previous
enactments relating to oaths and gave the lord chancellor power
to appoint commissioners for oaths to take affidavits for all
purposes (see OATH.) Under the Debtors Act 1869 a plaintiff
may file an affidavit for the arrest of a debtor (affidavit
to hold to bail) when the debt amounts to L. 50 or upwards,
where it can be shown that the debtor's absence from the kingdom
would materially prejudice the prosecution of the action.
Affidavits may be made abroad before any British
ambassador, envoy, minister, charge d'affaires,
secretary of embassy or legation, consul or consular agent.
In the United States affidavit has the same meaning as in
England and its general uses are the same, but it is not
substituted for oral evidence in court to anything like
the extent to which that is done in the English courts of
chancery. The statutes of each state designate the persons
before whom affidavits may be made outside the state, and
special commissioners are appointed for that purpose by each
state. Affidavits made abroad must be made before such
commissioners or persons so designated, who are usually
diplomatic and consular officials, justices, notaries public
or mayors. ``Affidavit of documents'' is not generally
used in the United States; discovery is procured by motion.
AFFILIATION (from Lat. ad-filiare, to adopt as a son), in
law, the procedure by which the paternity of a bastard child
is determined, and the obligation of contributing to its
support enforced. In England a number of statutes on the
subject hnve been passed, the chief being the Bastardy Act
of 1845, and the Bastardy Laws Amendment Acts of 1872 and
1873. The mother of a bastard may summon the putative father
to petty sessions within twelve months of the birth (or at
any later time if he is proved to have contributed to the
child's support within twelve months after the birth), and
the justices, after hearing evidence on both sides, may,
if the mother's evidence be corroborated in some material
particular, adjudge the man to be the putative father of
the child, and order him to pay a sum not exceeding five
shillings a week for its maintenance, together with a sum for
expenses incidental to the birth, or the funeral expenses,
if it has died before the date of order, and the costs of the
proceedings. An order ceases to be valid after the child
reaches the age of thirteen, but the justices may in the
order direct the payments to be continued until the child
is sixteen years of age. An appeal to quarter sessions is
open to the defendant, and a further appeal on questions
of law to the King's Bench by rule nisi or certiorari.
Should the child afterwards become chargeable to the parish,
the sum due by the father may be received by the parish
officer. When a bastard child, whose mother has not obtained
an order, becomes chargeable to the parish, the guardians
may proceed against the putative father for a contribution.
Any woman who is single, a widow, or a married woman living
apart from her husband, may make an application for a
summons, and it is immaterial where the child is begotten,
provided it is born in England. An application for a summons
may be made before the birth of the child, but in this case
the statement of the mother must be in the form of a sworn
deposition. The defendant must be over fourteen years of
age. No agreement on the part of the woman to take a sum
down in discharge of the liability of the father is a bar to
the making of an affiliation order. In the case of twins it
is usual to make separate applications and obtain separate
summonses. The Summary Jurisdiction Act 1879 makes due
provision for the enforcement of an order of affiliation. In
the case of soldiers an affiliation order cannot be enforced
in the usual way, but by the Army Act 1881, if an order has
been made against a soldier of the regular forces, and a copy
of such order be sent to the secretary of state, he may order a
portion of the soldier's pay to be retained. There is no such
special legislation with regard to sailors in the royal navy.
In the British colonies, and in the states of the United
States (with the exception of California, Idaho, Missouri,
Oregon, Texas and Utah), there is some procedure (usually
termed filiation) akin to that described above, by means
of which a mother can obtain a contribution to the support
of her illegitimate child from the putative father. The
amount ordered to be paid may subsequently be increased or
diminished (1905; 94 N.Y. Supplt. 372). On the continent of
Europe, however, the legislation of the various countries
differs rather widely. France, Belgium, Holland, Italy,
Russia, Servia and the canton of Geneva provide no means
of inquiry into the paternity of an illegitimate child, and
consequently all support of the child falls upon the mother;
on the other hand, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Denmark
and the majority of the Swiss cantons provide for an inquiry
into the paternity of illegitimate children, and the law
casts a certain amount of responsibility upon the father.
Affiliation, in France, is a term applied to a species of
adoption by which the person adopted succeeds equally with
other heirs to the acquired, but not to the inherited, property
of the deceased. (See ADOPTION. Also BASTARD; POOR LAWS.)
AUTHORITIES.---Saunders, Law and Practice of Orders
of Affiliation; Lushington, Law of Affiliation
and Bastardy; Little, Poor Law Statutes. (T. A. I.)
AFFINITY (Lat. affinitas, relationship by marriage, from
affinis, bordering on, related to; finis, border, boundary),
in law, as distinguished from consanguinity (q.v.), the
term applied to the relation which each party to a marriage,
the husband and wife, bears to the kindred of the other.
Affinity is usually described as of three kinds. (1) Direct:
that relationship which subsists between the husband and his
wife's relations by blood or between the wife and the husband's
relations by blood. The marriage having made them one person,
the blood relations of each are held as related by affinity in
the same degree to the one spouse as by consanguinity to the
other. But the relation is only with the married parties
themselves, and does not bring those in affinity with them in
affinity with each other; so a wife's sister has no affinity
to her husband's brother. This is (2) Secondary affinity.
(3) Collateral affinity is the relationship subsisting
between the husband and the relations of his wife's relations.
The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions
by which the canon law has restricted relations by affinity.
Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited
on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to
affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would
be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will
be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband's decease.
Briefly, direct affinity is a bar to marriage. This rule
has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth
chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in England, marriages
within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but
they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during
the lives of both parties; in other words, the incapacity was
only a canonical, not a civil, disability. By the Marriage