VOLUME VII SLICE X David, St to Demidov (continued 7)

See George Sheldon, A History of Deerfield (Deerfield, 1895); the History and Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association (Deerfield, 1890 et seq.); and Pauline C. Bouvé, “The Deerfield Renaissance,” in The New England Magazine for October 1905.

DEER PARK, an enclosure of rough wooded pastureland for the accommodation of red- or fallow-deer. The distinction between a deer “park” and a deer “forest” is that the former is always enclosed either by a wall or fence, and is relatively small, whereas the forest covers a much larger area, and is not only open but sometimes contains practically no trees at all. Originally, the possession of a deer park in England was a royal prerogative, and no subject could enclose one without a direct grant from the crown—a licence to impark, like a licence to embattle a house, was always necessary. When Domesday Book was compiled, there were already thirty-one deer parks in England, some of which may have existed in Saxon times; about one-fourth of them belonged to the king. After the Conquest they increased rapidly in number, but from about the middle of the 11th century this tendency was reversed. In the middle of the 16th century it was conjectured that one-twentieth of England and Wales was given up to deer and rabbits. Upon Saxton’s maps, which were made between 1575 and 1580, over 700 parks are marked, and it is not improbable that the number was understated. Mr Evelyn Philip Shirley enumerated only 334 in his book on English Deer Parks published in 1867. To these Mr Joseph Whitaker, in A Descriptive List of the Deer Parks of England (1892), has added another fifty, and the total is believed to be now about 400. It is a curious circumstance that despite the rather minute detail of Domesday none of the parks there enumerated can now be identified. There is, however, a plausible case for Eridge Park in Sussex as the Reredfelle of Domesday. The state and consequence of the great barons of the middle ages depended in some measure upon the number of deer parks which they possessed. Most bishops and abbots had one or two, and at one time more than twenty were attached to the archbishopric of Canterbury. When the power of the barons was finally broken and a more settled period began with the accession of the house of Tudor, the deer park began to fall into decay. By Queen Elizabeth’s time a considerable proportion of the ancestral acres of the great houses had passed into the possession of rich merchants and wealthy wool-staplers, and it had become more profitable to breed bullocks than to find pasture for deer, and even where the new men retained, and even in some cases created, deer parks, they reduced their area in order that more land might be available for grazing or for corn. Thus began that decadence of the deer park which has continued down to the present time. More than anything, however, the strife between Charles I. and parliament contributed to reduce both the number and size of English parks containing deer. By the Restoration the majority of the parks in England had for the time being been destroyed, the palings pulled down, the trees felled, and the deer stolen. Of the duke of Newcastle’s eight parks seven were ruined, that at Welbeck alone remaining intact. Not a tree was left in Clipston Park, although the timber had been valued at £20,000. One of the results of the Restoration was to empty the parks of the Roundhead squires to replenish those of the Royalists, but this measure helped little, and great numbers of deer had to be brought from Germany to replenish the depleted stocks. A gentleman of the Isle of Ely was indeed given a baronetcy in return for a large present of deer which he made to Charles II. The largest existing deer park in England is that at Savernake (4000 acres), next comes Windsor, which contains about 2600 acres in addition to the 1450 acres of Windsor Forest. Lord Egerton of Tatton’s park at Tatton in Cheshire, and Lord Abergavenny’s at Eridge, each contain about 2500 acres. Other parks which are much about the same size are those of Blenheim, Richmond, Eastwell, Duncombe, Grimsthorpe, Thoresby and Knowsley. All these parks are famous either for their size, their beauty, or the number and long descent of the deer which inhabit them. The size of English parks devoted to deer varies from that of these historic examples down to a very few acres. A small proportion of the older enclosures contains red- as well as fallow-deer. In some of the larger ones many hundreds of head browse, whereas those of the smallest size may have only a dozen or two. Although many enclosures were disparked in very recent times, the 19th century saw the making of a considerable number of new ones, usually of small dimensions. The tendency, however, is still towards diminution both in number and extent, cattle taking the place of deer.

DEFAMATION (from the classical Lat. diffamare, to spread abroad an evil report—the English form in de is taken from the Late Lat. defamare), the saying or writing something of another, calculated to injure his reputation or expose him to public hatred, contempt and ridicule. (See Libel and Slander.)

DEFAULT (Fr. défaut, from défailler, to fail, Lat. fallere), in English law, a failure to do some act required by law either as a regular step in procedure or as being a duty imposed. Parties in an action may be in default as to procedure by failure to appear to the writ, or to take some other step, within the prescribed time. In such cases the opposing party gains some advantage by being allowed to sign judgment or otherwise. But as a rule, unless the party is much in default and is under a peremptory order to proceed, the penalty for default is by order to pay the costs occasioned. When there is default in complying with the terms of a judgment the remedy is by executing it by one of the processes admitted by the law. (See Execution.) In the case of judgments in criminal or quasi-criminal cases, where a fine is imposed, it is in most cases legal and usual to order imprisonment if the fine is not paid or if the property of the defendant is insufficient to realize its amount. Default in compliance with a statute renders the defaulter liable to action by the person aggrieved or to indictment if the matter of command is of public concern, subject in either case to the qualification that the statute may limit the remedy for the default to some particular proceeding specifically indicated; and in some instances, e.g. in the case of local authorities, default in the execution of their public duties is dealt with administratively by a department of the government, and only in the last resort, if at all, by recourse to judicial tribunals.

DEFEASANCE, or Defeazance (Fr. défaire, to undo), in law, an instrument which defeats the force or operation of some other deed or estate; as distinguished from condition, that which in the same deed is called a condition is a defeasance in another deed. A defeasance should recite the deed to be defeated and its date, and it must be made between the same parties as are interested in the deed to which it is collateral. It must be of a thing defeasible, and all the conditions must be strictly carried out before the defeasance can be consummated. Defeasance in a bill of sale is the putting an end to the security by realizing the goods for the benefit of the mortgagee. It is not strictly a defeasance, because the stipulation is in the same deed; it is really a condition in the nature of a defeasance.

DEFENCE (Lat. defendere, to defend), in general, a keeping off or defending, a justification, protection or guard. Physical defence of self is the right of every man, even to the employment of force, in warding off an attack. A person attacked may use such force as he believes to be necessary for the warding off an attack, even to the extent of killing an assailant. The same right of reciprocal defence extends not only to defence of one’s own person, but also to the defence of a husband or wife, parent or child, master or servant. (See Assault; Homicide.) As a legal term in English pleading, “defence” means the denial by the party proceeded against of the validity of a charge, or the steps taken by an accused person or his legal advisers for defending himself. In civil actions, a statement of defence is the second step in proceedings, being the answer of the defendant to the plaintiff’s statement of claim. In the statement of defence must be set out every material fact upon which the defendant intends to rely at the trial. Every fact alleged in the statement of claim must be dealt with, and either admitted or denied; further facts may be pleaded in answer to those admitted; the whole pleading of the plaintiff may be objected to as insufficient in law, or a set-off or counter-claim may be advanced. A statement of defence must be delivered within ten days from the delivery of the statement of claim, or appearance if no statement of claim be delivered.

By the Poor Prisoners’ Defence Act 1903, where it appears, having regard to the nature of the defence set up by any poor prisoner, as disclosed in the evidence given or statement made by him before the committing justices, that it is desirable in the interests of justice that he should have legal aid in the preparation and conduct of his defence, and that his means are insufficient to enable him to obtain such aid, it may be ordered either (1) on committal for trial by the committing justices, or (2) after reading the depositions by the judge or quarter sessions chairman. The defence includes the services of solicitor and counsel and the expenses of witnesses, the cost being payable in the same manner as the expenses of a prosecution for felony. Briefly, the object of the act is, not to give a prisoner legal assistance to find out if he has got a defence, but in order that a prisoner who has a defence may have every inducement to tell the truth about it at the earliest opportunity. Legal assistance under the act is only given where both (1) the nature of the defence as disclosed is such that in the interests of justice the prisoner should have legal aid to make his defence clear, and (2) where also his means are insufficient for that end (Lord Alverstone, C. J., at Warwick Summer Assizes, The Times, July 26, 1904).

DEFENDANT, in law, a person against whom proceedings are instituted or directed; one who is called upon to answer in any suit. At one time the term “defendant” had a narrower meaning, that of a person sued in a personal action only, the corresponding term in a real action being “tenant,” but the distinction is now practically disregarded, except in a few states of the United States.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH (Fidei Defensor), a title belonging to the sovereign of England in the same way as Christianissimus belonged to the king of France, and Catholicus belongs to the ruler of Spain. It seems to have been suggested in 1516, and although certain charters have been appealed to in proof of an earlier use of the title, it was first conferred by Pope Leo X. on Henry VIII. The Bull granting the title is dated the 11th of October 1521, and was a reward for the king’s treatise, Assertio, septem sacramentorum, against Luther. When Henry broke with the papacy, Pope Paul III. deprived him of this designation, but in 1544 the title of “Defender of the Faith” was confirmed to Henry by parliament, and has since been used by all his successors on the English throne.

DEFERENT (Lat. deferens, bearing down), in ancient astronomy, the mean orbit of a planet, which carried the epicycle in which the planet revolved. It is now known to correspond to the actual orbit of the planet round the sun.

DEFFAND, MARIE ANNE DE VICHY-CHAMROND, Marquise du (1697-1780), a celebrated Frenchwoman, was born at the chateau of Chamrond near Charolles (department of Saône-et-Loire) of a noble family in 1697. Educated at a convent in Paris, she showed, along with great intelligence, a sceptical and cynical turn of mind. The abbess, alarmed at the freedom of her views, arranged that Massillon should visit and reason with her, but he accomplished nothing. Her parents married her at twenty-one years of age to her kinsman, Jean Baptiste de la Lande, marquis du Deffand, without consulting her inclination. The union proved an unhappy one, and resulted in a separation as early as 1722. Madame du Deffand, young and beautiful, is said by Horace Walpole to have been for a short time the mistress of the regent, the duke of Orleans (Walpole to Gray, January 25, 1766). She appeared in her earlier days to be incapable of any strong attachment, but her intelligence, her cynicism and her esprit made her the centre of attraction of a brilliant circle. In 1721 began her friendship with Voltaire, but their regular correspondence dates only from 1736. She spent much time at Sceaux, at the court of the duchesse du Maine, where she contracted a close friendship with the president Hénault. In Paris she was in a sense the rival of Madame Geoffrin, but the members of her salon were drawn from aristocratic society more than from literary cliques. There were, however, exceptions. Voltaire, Montesquieu, Fontenelle and Madame de Staal-Delaunay were among the habitués. When Hénault introduced D’Alembert, Madame du Deffand was at once captivated by him. With the encyclopaedists she was never in sympathy, and appears to have tolerated them only for his sake. In 1752 she retired from Paris, intending to spend the rest of her days in the country, but she was persuaded by her friends to return. She had taken up her abode in 1747 in apartments in the convent of St Joseph in the rue St Dominique, which had a separate entrance from the street. When she lost her sight in 1754 she engaged Mademoiselle de Lespinasse to help her in entertaining. This lady’s wit made some of the guests, D’Alembert among others, prefer her society to that of Madame du Deffand, and she arranged to receive her friends for an hour before the appearance of her patron. When this state of things was discovered Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was dismissed (1764), but the salon was broken up, for she took with her D’Alembert, Turgot and the literary clique generally. From this time Madame du Deffand very rarely received any literary men. The principal friendships of her later years were with the duchesse de Choiseul and with Horace Walpole. Her affection for the latter, which dated from 1765, was the strongest and most durable of all her attachments. Under the stress of this tardy passion she developed qualities of style and eloquence of which her earlier writings had given little promise. In the opinion of Sainte-Beuve the prose of her letters ranks with that of Voltaire as the best of that classical epoch without excepting any even of the great writers. Walpole refused at first to acknowledge the closeness of their intimacy from an exaggerated fear of the ridicule attaching to her age, but he paid several visits to Paris expressly for the purpose of enjoying her society, and maintained a close and most interesting correspondence with her for fifteen years. She died on the 23rd of September 1780, leaving her dog Tonton to the care of Walpole, who was also entrusted with her papers. Of her innumerable witty sayings the best known is her remark on the cardinal de Polignac’s account of St Denis’s miraculous walk of two miles with his head in his hands,—Il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte.

The Correspondance inédite of Madame du Deffand with D’Alembert, Hénault, Montesquieu, and others was published in Paris (2 vols.) in 1809. Letters of the marquise du Deffand to the Hon. Horace Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford, from the year 1766 to the year 1780 (4 vols.), edited, with a biographical sketch, by Miss Mary Berry, were published in London from the originals at Strawberry Hill in 1810.

The standard edition of her letters is the Correspondance complète de la marquise du Deffand ... by M. de Lescure (1865); the Correspondance inédite with M. and Mme de Choiseul and others was edited in 1859 and again in 1866 by the marquis de Ste-Aulaire. Other papers of Madame du Deffand obtained at the breaking up of Walpole’s collection are in private hands. Madame du Deffand returned many of Walpole’s letters at his request, and subsequently destroyed those which she received from him. Those in his possession appear to have been destroyed after his death by Miss Berry, who printed fragments from them as footnotes to the edition of 1810. The correspondence between Walpole and Madame du Deffand thus remains one-sided, but seven of Walpole’s letters to her are printed for the first time in the edition (1903) of his correspondence by Mrs Paget Toynbee, who discovered a quantity of her unedited letters. See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vols. i. and xiv.; and the notice by M. de Lescure in his edition of the correspondence.

DEFIANCE, a city and the county seat of Defiance county, Ohio, U.S.A., at the confluence of the Auglaize and Tiffin rivers with the Maumee, about 50 m. S.W. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7694; (1900) 7579 (960 foreign-born); (1910) 7327. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the Wabash railways, and by the Ohio Electric railway to Lima (42 m.). The city commands a fine view of the rivers and the surrounding country, which is well adapted to agriculture; and has large machine shops and several flour mills, besides manufactories of agricultural implements, waggons, sashes and blinds, and wood-working machinery for the manufacture of artillery wheels. Here, too, is Defiance College, an institution of the Christian Denomination, opened in 1885. Defiance was long the site of an Indian village. In 1794 General Anthony Wayne built a fort here and named it Defiance. In 1822 Defiance was laid out as a town; in 1845 it was made the county seat of the newly erected county; and in 1881 it became a city of the second class.

DEFILE, a military expression for a passage, to march through which troops are compelled to “defile,” or narrow their front (from the Fr. défiler, to march in a line, or by “files”). The word is usually applied to a ravine or gorge in a range of hills, but a causeway over a river, a bridge and even a village may equally be called a defile. The term is also used to express, without any special reference to military operations, a gorge in mountains. The verb “to defile” is used of troops marching on a narrow front, or narrowing their front, under all circumstances, and in this sense is the contrary of “deploy.”

“Defile,” in the sense of “pollute,” is another form of “defoul”; though spelt alike, the two words are pronounced differently, the accent being on the first syllable for the former and on the second for the latter.

DEFINITION (Lat. definitio, from de-finire, to set limits to, describe), a logical term used popularly for the process of explaining, or giving the meaning of, a word, and also in the concrete for the proposition or statement in which that explanation is expressed. In logic, definition consists in determining the qualities which belong to given concepts or universals; it is not concerned with individuals, which are marked by an infinity of peculiarities, any one or all of which might be predicated of another individual. Individuals can be defined only in so far as they belong to a single kind. According to Aristotle, definition is the statement of the essence of a concept (ὁρισμὸς μὲν γὰν τοῦ τί ἐστι καὶ οὐσίας, Posterior Analytics, B iii. 90 b 30); that is, it consists of the genus and the differentia. In other words, “man” is defined as “animal plus rationality,” or “rational animal,”1 i.e. the concept is (1) referred to the next higher genus, and (2) distinguished from other modes in which that genus exists, i.e. from other species. It is sometimes argued that, there being no definition of individuals as such, definition is of names (see J. S. Mill, Logic, i. viii. 5), not of things; it is generally, however, maintained that definition is of things, regarded as, or in so far as they are, of a kind. Definition of words can be nothing more than the explanation of terms such as is given in a dictionary.

The following rules are generally given as governing accurate definition. (1) The definition must be equivalent or commensurate with that which is defined; it must be applicable to all the individuals included in the concept and to nothing else. Every man, and nothing else, is a rational animal. “Man is mortal” is not a definition, for mortality is predicable of irrational animals. (2) The definition must state the essential attributes; a concept cannot be defined by its accidental attributes; those attributes must be given which are essential and primary. (3) The definition must be per genus et differentiam (or differentias), as we have already seen. These are the important rules. Three minor rules are: (4) The definition must not contain the name of the concept to be defined; if it does, no information is given. Such a proposition as “an archdeacon is one who performs archidiaconal functions” is not a definition. Concepts cannot be defined by their correlatives. Such a definition is known as a circulus in definiendo. (5) Obscure and figurative language must be avoided, and (6) Definitions must not be in the negative when they can be in the affirmative.

1 “Rational animal” is thus the predicate of the statement constituting the definition. Sometimes the word “definition” is used to signify merely the predicate.

DEFOE, DANIEL (c. 1659-1731), English author, was born in the parish of St Giles, Cripplegate, London, in the latter part of 1659 or early in 1660, of a nonconformist family. His grandfather, Daniel Foe, lived at Etton, Northamptonshire, apparently in comfortable circumstances, for he is said to have kept a pack of hounds. As to the variation of name, Defoe or Foe, its owner signed either indifferently till late in life, and where his initials occur they are sometimes D. F. and sometimes D. D. F. Three autograph letters of his are extant, all addressed in 1705 to the same person, and signed respectively D. Foe, de Foe and Daniel Defoe. His father, James Foe, was a butcher and a citizen of London.

Daniel was well educated at a famous dissenting academy, Mr Charles Morton’s of Stoke Newington, where many of the best-known nonconformists of the time were his schoolfellows. With few exceptions all the known events of Defoe’s life are connected with authorship. In the older catalogues of his works two pamphlets, Speculum Crapegownorum, a satire on the clergy, and A Treatise against the Turks, are attributed to him before the accession of James II., but there seems to be no publication of his which is certainly genuine before The Character of Dr Annesley (1697). He had, however, before this, taken up arms in Monmouth’s expedition, and is supposed to have owed his lucky escape from the clutches of the king’s troops and the law, to his being a Londoner, and therefore a stranger in the west country. On the 26th of January 1688 he was admitted a liveryman of the city of London, having claimed his freedom by birth. Before his western escapade he had taken up the business of hosiery factor. At the entry of William and Mary into London he is said to have served as a volunteer trooper “gallantly mounted and richly accoutred.” In these days he lived at Tooting, and was instrumental in forming a dissenting congregation there. His business operations at this period appear to have been extensive and various. He seems to have been a sort of commission merchant, especially in Spanish and Portuguese goods, and at some time to have visited Spain on business. In 1692 he failed for £17,000. His misfortunes made him write both feelingly and forcibly on the bankruptcy laws; and although his creditors accepted a composition, he afterwards honourably paid them in full, a fact attested by independent and not very friendly witnesses. Subsequently, he undertook first the secretaryship and then the management and chief ownership of some tile-works at Tilbury, but here also he was unfortunate, and his imprisonment in 1703 brought the works to a standstill, and he lost £3000. From this time forward we hear of no settled business in which he engaged.

The course of Defoe’s life was determined about the middle of the reign of William III. by his introduction to that monarch and other influential persons. He frequently boasts of his personal intimacy with the “glorious and immortal” king, and in 1695 he was appointed accountant to the commissioners of the glass duty, an office which he held for four years. During this time he produced his Essay on Projects (1698), containing suggestions on banks, road-management, friendly and insurance societies of various kinds, idiot asylums, bankruptcy, academies, military colleges, high schools for women, &c. It displays Defoe’s lively and lucid style in full vigour, and abounds with ingenious thoughts and apt illustrations, though it illustrates also the unsystematic character of his mind. In the same year Defoe wrote the first of a long series of pamphlets on the then burning question of occasional conformity. In this, for the first time, he showed the unlucky independence which, in so many other instances, united all parties against him. While he pointed out to the dissenters the scandalous inconsistency of their playing fast and loose with sacred things, yet he denounced the impropriety of requiring tests at all. In support of the government he published, in 1698, An Argument for a Standing Army, followed in 1700 by a defence of William’s war policy called The Two Great Questions considered, and a set of pamphlets on the Partition Treaty. Thus in political matters he had the same fate as in ecclesiastical; for the Whigs were no more prepared than the Tories to support William through thick and thin. He also dealt with the questions of stock-jobbing and of electioneering corruption. But his most remarkable publication at this time was The True-Born Englishman (1701), a satire in rough but extremely vigorous verse on the national objection to William as a foreigner, and on the claim of purity of blood for a nation which Defoe chooses to represent as crossed and dashed with all the strains and races in Europe. He also took a prominent part in the proceedings which followed the Kentish petition, and was the author, some say the presenter, of the Legion Memorial, which asserted in the strongest terms the supremacy of the electors over the elected, and of which even an irate House of Commons did not dare to take much notice. The theory of the indefeasible supremacy of the freeholders of England, whose delegates merely, according to this theory, the Commons were, was one of Defoe’s favourite political tenets, and he returned to it in a powerfully written tract entitled The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England examined and asserted (1701).

At the same time he was occupied in a controversy on the conformity question with John How (or Howe) on the practice of “occasional conformity.” Defoe maintained that the dissenters who attended the services of the English Church on particular occasions to qualify themselves for office were guilty of inconsistency. At the same time he did not argue for the complete abolition of the tests, but desired that they should be so framed as to make it possible for most Protestants conscientiously to subscribe to them. Here again his moderation pleased neither party.

The death of William was a great misfortune to Defoe, and he soon felt the power of his adversaries. After publishing The Mock Mourners, intended to satirize and rebuke the outbreak of Jacobite joy at the king’s death, he turned his attention once more to ecclesiastical subjects, and, in an evil hour for himself, wrote the anonymous Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), a statement in the most forcible terms of the extreme “high-flying” position, which some high churchmen were unwary enough to endorse, without any suspicion of the writer’s ironical intention. The author was soon discovered; and, as he absconded, an advertisement was issued offering a reward for his apprehension, and giving the only personal description we possess of him, as “a middle-sized spare man about forty years old, of a brown complexion and dark brown-coloured hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes, and a large mole near his mouth.” In this conjuncture Defoe had really no friends, for the dissenters were as much alarmed at his book as the high-flyers were irritated. He surrendered, and his defence appears to have been injudiciously conducted; at any rate he was fined 200 marks, and condemned to be pilloried three times, to be imprisoned indefinitely, and to find sureties for his good behaviour during seven years. It was in reference to this incident that Pope, whose Catholic rearing made him detest the abettor of the Revolution and the champion of William of Orange, wrote in the Dunciad—

“Earless on high stands unabash’d Defoe”

—though he knew that the sentence to the pillory had long ceased to entail the loss of ears. Defoe’s exposure in the pillory (July 29, 30, 31) was, however, rather a triumph than a punishment, for the populace took his side; and his Hymn to the Pillory, which he soon after published, is one of the best of his poetical works. Unluckily for him his condemnation had the indirect effect of destroying his business at Tilbury.

He remained in prison until August 1704, and then owed his release to the intercession of Robert Harley, who represented his case to the queen, and obtained for him not only liberty but pecuniary relief and employment, which, of one kind or another, lasted until the termination of Anne’s reign. Defoe was uniformly grateful to the minister, and his language respecting him is in curious variance with that generally used. There is no doubt that Harley, who understood the influence wielded by Defoe, made some conditions. Defoe says he received no pension, but his subsequent fidelity was at all events indirectly rewarded; moreover, Harley’s moderation in a time of the extremest party-insanity was no little recommendation to Defoe. During his imprisonment he was by no means idle. A spurious edition of his works having been issued, he himself produced a collection of twenty-two treatises, to which some time afterwards he added a second group of eighteen more. He also wrote in prison many short pamphlets, chiefly controversial, published a curious work on the famous storm of the 26th of November 1703, and started in February 1704 perhaps the most remarkable of all his projects, The Review. This was a paper which was issued during the greater part of its life three times a week. It was entirely written by Defoe, and extends to eight complete volumes and some few score numbers of a second issue. He did not confine himself to news, but wrote something very like finished essays on questions of policy, trade and domestic concerns; he also introduced a “Scandal Club,” in which minor questions of manners and morals were treated in a way which undoubtedly suggested the Tatlers and Spectators which followed. Only one complete copy of the work is known to exist, and that is in the British Museum. It is probable that if bulk, rapidity of production, variety of matter, originality of design, and excellence of style be taken together, hardly any author can show a work of equal magnitude. After his release Defoe went to Bury St Edmunds, though he did not interrupt either his Review or his occasional pamphlets. One of these, Giving Alms no Charity, and Employing the Poor a Grievance to the Nation (1704), is extraordinarily far-sighted. It denounces both indiscriminate alms-giving and the national work-shops proposed by Sir Humphrey Mackworth.

In 1705 appeared The Consolidator, or Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, a political satire which is supposed to have given some hints for Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; and at the end of the year Defoe performed a secret mission, the first of several of the kind, for Harley. In 1706 appeared the True Relation of the Apparition of one Mrs Veal, long supposed to have been written for a bookseller to help off an unsaleable translation of Drelincourt, On Death, but considerable doubt has been cast upon this by William Lee. Defoe’s next work was Jure divino, a long poetical argument in (bad) verse; and soon afterwards (1706) he began to be much employed in promoting the union with Scotland. Not only did he write pamphlets as usual on the project, and vigorously recommend it in The Review, but in October 1706 he was sent on a political mission to Scotland by Sidney Godolphin, to whom Harley had recommended him. He resided in Edinburgh for nearly sixteen months, and his services to the government were repaid by a regular salary. He seems to have devoted himself to commercial and literary as well as to political matters, and prepared at this time his elaborate History of the Union, which appeared in 1709. In this year Henry Sacheverell delivered his famous sermons, and Defoe wrote several tracts about them and attacked the preacher in his Review.

In 1710 Harley returned to power, and Defoe was placed in a somewhat awkward position. To Harley himself he was bound by gratitude and by a substantial agreement in principle, but with the rest of the Tory ministry he had no sympathy. He seems, in fact, to have agreed with the foreign policy of the Tories and with the home policy of the Whigs, and naturally incurred the reproach of time-serving and the hearty abuse of both parties. At the end of 1710 he again visited Scotland. In the negotiations concerning the Peace of Utrecht, Defoe strongly supported the ministerial side, to the intense wrath of the Whigs, displayed in an attempted prosecution against some pamphlets of his on the all-important question of the succession. Again the influence of Harley saved him. He continued, however, to take the side of the dissenters in the questions affecting religious liberty, which played such a prominent part towards the close of Anne’s reign. He naturally shared Harley’s downfall; and, though the loss of his salary might seem a poor reward for his constant support of the Hanoverian claim, it was little more than his ambiguous, not to say trimming, position must have led him to expect.

Defoe declared that Lord Annesley was preparing the army in Ireland to join a Jacobite rebellion, and was indicted for libel; and prior to his trial (1715) he published an apologia entitled An Appeal to Honour and Justice, in which he defended his political conduct. Having been convicted of the libel he was liberated later in the year under circumstances that only became clear in 1864, when six letters were discovered in the Record Office from Defoe to a Government official, Charles Delafaye, which, according to William Lee, established the fact that in 1718 at least Defoe was doing not only political work, but that it was of a somewhat equivocal kind—that he was, in fact, sub-editing the Jacobite Mist’s Journal, under a secret agreement with the government that he should tone down the sentiments and omit objectionable items. He had, in fact, been released on condition of becoming a government agent. He seems to have performed the same not very honourable office in the case of two other journals—Dormer’s Letter and the Mercurius Politicus; and to have written in these and other papers until nearly the end of his life. Before these letters were discovered it was supposed that Defoe’s political work had ended in 1715.

Up to that time Defoe had written nothing but occasional literature, and, except the History of the Union and Jure Divino, nothing of any great length. In 1715 appeared the first volume of The Family Instructor, which was very popular during the 18th century. The first volume of his most famous work, the immortal story—partly adventure, partly moralizing—of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, was published on the 25th of April 1719. It ran through four editions in as many months, and then in August appeared the second volume. Twelve months afterwards the sequel Serious Reflections, now hardly ever reprinted, appeared. Its connexion with the two former parts is little more than nominal, Crusoe being simply made the mouth-piece of Defoe’s sentiments on various points of morals and religion. Meanwhile the first two parts were reprinted as a feuilleton in Heathcote’s Intelligencer, perhaps the earliest instance of the appearance of such a work in such a form. The story was founded on Dempier’s Voyage round the World (1697), and still more on Alexander Selkirk’s adventures, as communicated by Selkirk himself at a meeting with Defoe at the house of Mrs Damaris Daniel at Bristol. Selkirk afterwards told Mrs Daniel that he had handed over his papers to Defoe. Robinson Crusoe was immediately popular, and a wild story was set afloat of its having been written by Lord Oxford in the Tower. A curious idea, at one time revived by Henry Kingsley, is that the adventures of Robinson are allegorical and relate to Defoe’s own life. This idea was certainly entertained to some extent at the time, and derives some colour of justification from words of Defoe’s, but there seems to be no serious foundation for it. Robinson Crusoe (especially the story part, with the philosophical and religious moralizings largely cut out) is one of the world’s classics in fiction. Crusoe’s shipwreck and adventures, his finding the footprint in the sand, his man “Friday,”—the whole atmosphere of romance which surrounds the position of the civilized man fending for himself on a desert island—these have made Defoe’s great work an imperishable part of English literature. Contemporaneously appeared The Dumb Philosopher, or Dickory Cronke, who gains the power of speech at the end of his life and uses it to predict the course of European affairs.

In 1720 came The Life and Adventures of Mr Duncan Campbell. This was not entirely a work of imagination, its hero, the fortune-teller, being a real person. There are amusing passages in the story, but it is too desultory to rank with Defoe’s best. In the same year appeared two wholly or partially fictitious histories, each of which might have made a reputation for any man. The first was the Memoirs of a Cavalier, which Lord Chatham believed to be true history, and which William Lee considers the embodiment at least of authentic private memoirs. The Cavalier was declared at the time to be Andrew Newport, made Lord Newport in 1642. His elder brother was born in 1620 and the Cavalier gives 1608 as the date of his birth, so that the facts do not fit the dates. It is probable that Defoe, with his extensive acquaintance with English history, and his astonishing power of working up details, was fully equal to the task of inventing it. As a model of historical work of a certain kind it is hardly surpassable, and many separate passages—accounts of battles and skirmishes—have never been equalled except by Carlyle. Captain Singleton, the last work of the year, has been unjustly depreciated by most of the commentators. The record of the journey across Africa, with its surprising anticipations of subsequent discoveries, yields in interest to no work of the kind known to us; and the semi-piratical Quaker who accompanies Singleton in his buccaneering expeditions is a most life-like character. There is also a Quaker who plays a very creditable part in Roxana (1724), and Defoe seems to have been well affected to the Friends. In estimating this wonderful productiveness on the part of a man sixty years old, it should be remembered that it was a habit of Defoe’s to keep his work in manuscript sometimes for long periods.

In 1721 nothing of importance was produced, but in the next twelvemonth three capital works appeared. These were The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders, The Journal of the Plague Year, and The History of Colonel Jack. Moll Flanders and The Fortunate Mistress (Roxana), which followed in 1724, have subjects of a rather more than questionable character, but both display the remarkable art with which Defoe handles such subjects. It is not true, as is sometimes said, that the difference between the two is that between gross and polished vice. The real difference is much more one of morals than of manners. Moll is by no means of the lowest class. Notwithstanding the greater degradation into which she falls, and her originally dependent position, she has been well educated, and has consorted with persons of gentle birth. She displays throughout much greater real refinement of feeling than the more high-flying Roxana, and is at any rate flesh and blood, if the flesh be somewhat frail and the blood somewhat hot. Neither of the heroines has any but the rudiments of a moral sense; but Roxana, both in her original transgression and in her subsequent conduct, is actuated merely by avarice and selfishness—vices which are peculiarly offensive in connexion with her other failing, and which make her thoroughly repulsive. The art of both stories is great, and that of the episode of the daughter Susannah in Roxana is consummate; but the transitions of the later plot are less natural than those in Moll Flanders. It is only fair to notice that while the latter, according to Defoe’s more usual practice, is allowed to repent and end happily, Roxana is brought to complete misery; Defoe’s morality, therefore, required more repulsiveness in one case than in the other.

In the Journal of the Plague Year, more usually called, from the title of the second edition, A History of the Plague, the accuracy and apparent veracity of the details is so great that many persons have taken it for an authentic record, while others have contended for the existence of such a record as its basis. But here too the genius of Mrs Veal’s creator must, in the absence of all evidence to the contrary, be allowed sufficient for the task. The History of Colonel Jack is an unequal book. There is hardly in Robinson Crusoe a scene equal, and there is consequently not in English literature a scene superior, to that where the youthful pickpocket first exercises his trade, and then for a time loses his ill-gotten gains. But a great part of the book, especially the latter portion, is dull; and in fact it may be generally remarked of Defoe that the conclusions of his tales are not equal to the beginning, perhaps from the restless indefatigability with which he undertook one work almost before finishing another.

To this period belong his stories of famous criminals, of Jack Sheppard (1724), of Jonathan Wild (1725), of the Highland Rogue i.e. Rob Roy (1723). The pamphlet on the first of these Defoe maintained to be a transcript of a paper which he persuaded Sheppard to give to a friend at his execution.

In 1724 appeared also the first volume of A Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, which was completed in the two following years. Much of the information in this was derived from personal experience, for Defoe claims to have made many more tours and visits about England than those of which we have record; but the major part must necessarily have been dexterous compilation. In 1725 appeared A New Voyage round the World, apparently entirely due to the author’s own fertile imagination and extensive reading. It is full of his peculiar verisimilitude and has all the interest of Anson’s or Dampier’s voyages, with a charm of style superior even to that of the latter.

In 1726 Defoe published a curious and amusing little pamphlet entitled Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business, or Private Abuses Public Grievances, exemplified in the Pride, Insolence, and Exorbitant Wages of our Women-Servants, Footmen, &c. This subject was a favourite one with him, and in the pamphlet he showed the immaturity of his political views by advocating legislative interference in these matters. Towards the end of this same year The Complete English Tradesman, which may be supposed to sum up the experience of his business life, appeared, and its second volume followed two years afterwards. This book has been variously judged. It is generally and traditionally praised, but those who have read it will be more disposed to agree with Charles Lamb, who considers it “of a vile and debasing tendency,” and thinks it “almost impossible to suppose the author in earnest.” The intolerable meanness advocated for the sake of the paltriest gains, the entire ignoring of any pursuit in life except money-getting, and the representation of the whole duty of man as consisting first in the attainment of a competent fortune, and next, when that fortune has been attained, in spending not more than half of it, are certainly repulsive enough. But there are no reasons for thinking the performance ironical or insincere, and it cannot be doubted that Defoe would have been honestly unable even to understand Lamb’s indignation. To 1726 also belongs The Political History of the Devil. This is a curious book, partly explanatory of Defoe’s ideas on morality, and partly belonging to a series of demonological works which he wrote, and of which the chief others are A System of Magic (1726), and An Essay on the History of Apparitions (1728), issued the year before under another title. In all these works his treatment is on the whole rational and sensible; but in The History of the Devil he is somewhat hampered by an insufficiently worked-out theory as to the nature and personal existence of his hero, and the manner in which he handles the subject is an odd and not altogether satisfactory mixture of irony and earnestness. A Plan of English Commerce, containing very enlightened views on export trade, appeared in 1728.

During the years from 1715 to 1728 Defoe had issued pamphlets and minor works too numerous to mention. The only one of them perhaps which requires notice is Religious Courtship (1722), a curious series of dialogues displaying Defoe’s unaffected religiosity, and at the same time the rather meddling intrusiveness with which he applied his religious notions. This was more flagrantly illustrated in one of his latest works, The Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the Marriage Bed (1727), which was originally issued with a much more offensive name, and has been called “an excellent book with an improper title.” The Memoirs of Captain Carleton (1728) were long attributed to Defoe, but the internal evidence is strongly against his authorship. They have been also attributed to Swift, with greater probability as far as style is concerned. The Life of Mother Ross, reprinted in Bohn’s edition, has no claim whatever to be considered Defoe’s.

There is little to be said of Defoe’s private life during this period. He must in some way or other have obtained a considerable income. In 1724 he had built himself a large house at Stoke Newington, which had stables and grounds of considerable size. From the negotiations for the marriage of his daughter Sophia it appears that he had landed property in more than one place, and he had obtained on lease in 1722 a considerable estate from the corporation of Colchester, which was settled on his unmarried daughter at his death. Other property was similarly allotted to his widow and remaining children, though some difficulty seems to have arisen from the misconduct of his son, to whom, for some purpose, the property was assigned during his father’s lifetime, and who refused to pay what was due. There is a good deal of mystery about the end of Defoe’s life; it used to be said that he died insolvent, and that he had been in jail shortly before his death. As a matter of fact, after great suffering from gout and stone, he died in Ropemaker’s Alley, Moorfields, on Monday the 26th of April 1731, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He left no will, all his property having been previously assigned, and letters of administration were taken out by a creditor. How his affairs fell into this condition, why he did not die in his own house, and why in the previous summer he had been in hiding, as we know he was from a letter still extant, are points not clearly explained. He was, however, attacked by Mist, whom he wounded, in prison in 1724. It is most likely that Mist had found out that Defoe was a government agent and quite probable that he communicated his knowledge to other editors, for Defoe’s journalistic employment almost ceased about this time, and he began to write anonymously, or as “Andrew Moreton.” It is possible that he had to go into hiding to avoid the danger of being accused as a real Jacobite, when those with whom he had contracted to assume the character were dead and could no longer justify his attitude.

Defoe married, on New Year’s Day, 1684, Mary Tuffley, who survived until December 1732. They had seven children. His second son, Bernard or Benjamin Norton, has, like his father, a scandalous niche in the Dunciad. In April 1877 public attention was called to the distress of three maiden ladies, directly descended from Defoe, and bearing his name; and a crown pension of £75 a year was bestowed on each of them. His youngest daughter, Sophia, who married Henry Baker, left a considerable correspondence, now in the hands of her descendants. There are several portraits of Defoe, the principal one being engraved by Vandergucht.

In his lifetime, Defoe, as not belonging to either of the great parties at a time of the bitterest party strife, was subjected to obloquy on both sides. The great Whig writers leave him unnoticed. Swift and Gay speak slightingly of him,—the former, it is true, at a time when he was only known as a party pamphleteer. Pope, with less excuse, put him in the Dunciad towards the end of his life, but he confessed to Spence in private that Defoe had written many things and none bad. At a later period he was unjustly described as “a scurrilous party writer,” which he certainly was not; but, on the other hand, Johnson spoke of his writing “so variously and so well,” and put Robinson Crusoe among the only three books that readers wish longer. From Sir Walter Scott downwards the tendency to judge literary work on its own merits to a great extent restored Defoe to his proper place, or, to speak more correctly, set him there for the first time. Lord Macaulay’s description of Roxana, Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack as “utterly nauseous and wretched” must be set aside as a freak of criticism.

Scott justly observed that Defoe’s style “is the last which should be attempted by a writer of inferior genius; for though it be possible to disguise mediocrity by fine writing, it appears in all its naked inanity when it assumes the garb of simplicity.” The methods by which Defoe attains his result are not difficult to disengage. They are the presentment of all his ideas and scenes in the plainest and most direct language, the frequent employment of colloquial forms of speech, the constant insertion of little material details and illustrations, often of a more or less digressive form, and, in his historico-fictitious works, as well as in his novels, the most rigid attention to vivacity and consistency of character. Plot he disregards, and he is fond of throwing his dialogues into regular dramatic form, with by-play prescribed and stage directions interspersed. A particular trick of his is also to divide his arguments after the manner of the preachers of his day into heads and subheads, with actual numerical signs affixed to them. These mannerisms undoubtedly help and emphasize the extraordinary faithfulness to nature of his fictions, but it would be a great mistake to suppose that they fully explain their charm. Defoe possessed genius, and his secret is at the last as impalpable as the secret of genius always is.

The character of Defoe, both mental and moral, is very clearly indicated in his works. He, the satirist of the true-born Englishman, was himself a model, with some notable variations and improvements, of the Englishman of his period. He saw a great many things, and what he did see he saw clearly. But there were also a great many things which he did not see, and there was often no logical connexion whatever between his vision and his blindness. The most curious example of this inconsistency, or rather of this indifference to general principle, occurs in his Essay on Projects. He there speaks very briefly and slightingly of life insurance, probably because it was then regarded as impious by religionists of his complexion. But on either side of this refusal are to be found elaborate projects of friendly societies and widows’ funds, which practically cover, in a clumsy and roundabout manner, the whole ground of life insurance. In morals it is evident that he was, according to his lights, a strictly honest and honourable man. But sentiment of any “high-flying” description—to use the cant word of his time—was quite incomprehensible to him, or rather never presented itself as a thing to be comprehended. He tells us with honest and simple pride that when his patron Harley fell out, and Godolphin came in, he for three years held no communication with the former, and seems quite incapable of comprehending the delicacy which would have obliged him to follow Harley’s fallen fortunes. His very anomalous position in regard to Mist is also indicative of a rather blunt moral perception. One of the most affecting things in his novels is the heroic constancy and fidelity of the maid Amy to her exemplary mistress Roxana. But Amy, scarcely by her own fault, is drawn into certain breaches of definite moral laws which Defoe did understand, and she is therefore condemned, with hardly a word of pity, to a miserable end. Nothing heroic or romantic was within Defoe’s view; he could not understand passionate love, ideal loyalty, aesthetic admiration or anything of the kind; and it is probable that many of the little sordid touches which delight us by their apparent satire were, as designed, not satire at all, but merely a faithful representation of the feelings and ideas of the classes of which he himself was a unit.

His political and economical pamphlets are almost unmatched as clear presentations of the views of their writer. For driving the nail home no one but Swift excels him, and Swift perhaps only in The Drapier’s Letters. There is often a great deal to be said against the view presented in those pamphlets, but Defoe sees nothing of it. He was perfectly fair but perfectly one-sided, being generally happily ignorant of everything which told against his own view.

The same characteristics are curiously illustrated in his moral works. The morality of these is almost amusing in its downright positive character. With all the Puritan eagerness to push a clear, uncompromising, Scripture-based distinction of right and wrong into the affairs of every-day life, he has a thoroughly English horror of casuistry, and his clumsy canons consequently make wild work with the infinite intricacies of human nature. He is, in fact, an instance of the tendency, which has so often been remarked by other nations in the English, to drag in moral distinctions at every turn, and to confound everything which is novel to the experience, unpleasant to the taste, and incomprehensible to the understanding, under the general epithets of wrong, wicked and shocking. His works of this class therefore are now the least valuable, though not the least curious, of his books.

The earliest regular life and estimate of Defoe is that of Dr Towers in the Biographia Britannica. George Chalmers’s Life, however (1786), added very considerable information. In 1830 Walter Wilson wrote the standard Life (3 vols.); it is coloured by political prejudice, but is a model of painstaking care, and by its abundant citations from works both of Defoe and of others, which are practically inaccessible to the general reader, is invaluable. In 1859 appeared a life of Defoe by William Chadwick, an extraordinary rhapsody in a style which is half Cobbett and half Carlyle, but amusing, and by no means devoid of acuteness. In 1864 the discovery of the six letters stirred up William Lee to a new investigation, and the results of this were published (London, 1869) in three large volumes. The first of these (well illustrated) contains a new life and particulars of the author’s discoveries. The second and third contain fugitive writings assigned by Lee to Defoe for the first time. For most of these, however, we have no authority but Lee’s own impressions of style, &c.; and consequently, though the best qualified judges will in most cases agree that Defoe may very likely have written them, it cannot positively be stated that he did. There is also a Life by Thomas Wright (1894). The Earlier Life and Chief Earlier Works of Defoe (1890) was included by Henry Morley in the “Carisbrooke Library.” Charles Lamb’s criticisms were made in three short pieces, two of which were written for Wilson’s book, and the third for The Reflector. The volume on Defoe (1879) in the “English Men of Letters” series is by W. Minto.

There is considerable uncertainty about many of Defoe’s writings; and even if all contested works be excluded, the number is still enormous. Besides the list in Bohn’s Lowndes, which is somewhat of an omnium gatherum, three lists drawn with more or less care were compiled in the 19th century. Wilson’s contains 210 distinct works, three or four only of which are marked as doubtful; Hazlitt’s enumerates 183 “genuine” and 52 “attributed” pieces, with notes on most of them; Lee’s extends to 254, of which 64 claim to be new additions. The reprint (3 vols.) edited for the “Pulteney Library” by Hazlitt in 1840-1843 contains a good and full life mainly derived from Wilson, the whole of the novels (including the Serious Reflections now hardly ever published with Robinson Crusoe), Jure Divino, The Use and Abuse of Marriage, and many of the more important tracts and smaller works. There is also an edition, often called Scott’s, but really edited by Sir G. C. Lewis, in twenty volumes (London, 1840-1841). This contains the Complete Tradesman, Religious Courtship, The Consolidator and other works not comprised in Hazlitt’s. Scott had previously in 1809 edited for Ballantyne some of the novels, in twelve volumes. Bohn’s “British Classics” includes the novels (except the third part of Robinson Crusoe), The History of the Devil, The Storm, and a few political pamphlets, also the undoubtedly spurious Mother Ross. In 1870 Nimmo of Edinburgh published in one volume an admirable selection from Defoe. It contains Chalmers’s Life, annotated and completed from Wilson and Lee, Robinson Crusoe, pts. i. and ii., Colonel Jack, The Cavalier, Duncan Campbell, The Plague, Everybody’s Business, Mrs Veal, The Shortest Way with Dissenters, Giving Alms no Charity, The True-Born Englishman, Hymn to the Pillory, and very copious extracts from The Complete English Tradesman. An edition of Defoe’s Romances and Narratives in sixteen volumes by G. A. Aitken came out in 1895.

If we turn to separate works, the bibliography of Defoe is practically confined (except as far as original editions are concerned) to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Veal has been to some extent popularized by the work which it helped to sell; Religious Courtship and The Family Instructor had a vogue among the middle class until well into the 19th century, and The History of the Union was republished in 1786. But the reprints and editions of Crusoe have been innumerable; it has been often translated; and the eulogy pronounced on it by Rousseau gave it special currency in France, where imitations (or rather adaptations) have also been common.

In addition to the principal authorities already mentioned see John Forster, Historical and Biographical Essays (1858); G. Saintsbury, “Introduction” to Defoe’s Minor Novels; and valuable notes by G. A. Aitken in The Contemporary Review (February 1890), and The Athenaeum (April 30, 1889; August 31, 1890). A facsimile reprint (1883) of Robinson Crusoe has an introduction by Mr Austin Dobson. Dr Karl T. Bülbring edited two unpublished works of Defoe, The Compleat English Gentleman (London, 1890) and Of Royall Educacion (London, 1905), from British Museum Add. MS. 32,555. Further light was thrown on Defoe’s work as a political agent by the discovery (1906) of an unpublished paper of his in the British Museum by G. F. Warner. This was printed in the English Historical Review, and afterwards separately.

DEGAS, HILAIRE GERMAIN EDGARD (1834- ), French painter, was born in Paris on the 19th of July 1834. Entering in 1855 the École des Beaux Arts, he early developed independence of artistic outlook, studying under Lamothe. He first exhibited in the Salon of 1865, contributing a “War in the middle ages,” a work executed in pastel. To this medium he was ever faithful, using it for some of his best work. In 1866 his “Steeplechase” revealed him as a painter of the racecourse and of all the most modern aspects of life and of Parisian society, treated in an extremely original manner. He subsequently exhibited in 1867 “Family Portraits,” and in 1868 a portrait of a dancer in the “Ballet of La Source.” In 1869 and 1870 he restricted himself to portraits; but thenceforward he abandoned the Salons and attached himself to the Impressionists. With Manet and Monet he took the lead of the new school at its first exhibition in 1874, and repeatedly contributed to these exhibitions (in 1876, 1878, 1879 and 1880). In 1868 he had shown his first study of a dancer, and in numerous pastels he proclaimed himself the painter of the ballet, representing its figurantes in every attitude with more constant aim at truth than grace. Several of his works may be seen at the Luxembourg Gallery, to which they were bequeathed, among a collection of impressionist pictures, by M. Caillebotte. In 1880 Degas showed his powers of observation in a set of “Portraits of Criminals,” and he attempted modelling in a “Dancer,” in wax. He afterwards returned to his studies of the sporting world, exhibiting in December 1884 at the Petit Gallery two views of “Races” which had a great success, proving the increasing vogue of the artist among collectors. He is ranked with Manet as the leader of the “impressionist school.” At the eighth Impressionist Exhibition, in 1886, Degas continued his realistic studies of modern life, showing drawings of the nude, of workwomen, and of jockeys. Besides his pastels and his paintings of genre and portraits—among these, several likenesses of Manet—Degas also handled his favourite subjects in etching and in aquatint; and executed several lithographs of “Singers at Cafés-concert,” of “Ballet-girls,” and indeed of every possible subject of night-life and incidents behind the scenes. His work is to be seen not only at the Luxembourg but in many of the great private collections in Paris, in England and America. In the Centenary Exhibition of 1900 he exhibited “The Interior of a Cotton-Broker’s Office at New Orleans” (belonging to the Museum at Pau) and “The Rehearsal.”

See also G. Moore, “Degas, the Painter of Modern Life,” Magazine of Art (1890); J. K. Huysmans, Certains (Paris, 1889); G. Geffroy, La Vie Artistique (3e Série, Paris, 1894).

DE GEER, LOUIS GERHARD, Baron (1818-1896), Swedish statesman and writer, was born on the 18th of July 1818 at Finspång castle. He adopted the legal profession, and in 1855 became president of the Göta Hofret, or lord justice of one of the Swedish supreme courts. From the 7th of April 1858 to the 3rd of June 1870 he was minister of justice. As a member of the Upper House he took part in all the Swedish Riksdags from 1851 onwards, though he seldom spoke. From 1867 to 1878 he was the member for Stockholm in the first chamber, and introduced and passed many useful reformatory statutes; but his greatest achievement, as a statesman, was the reform of the Swedish representative system, whereby he substituted a bi-cameral elective parliament, on modern lines, for the existing cumbersome representation by estates, a survival from the later middle ages. This great measure was accepted by the Riksdag in December 1865, and received the royal sanction on the 22nd of June 1866. For some time after this De Geer was the most popular man in Sweden. He retired from the ministry in 1870, but took office again, as minister of justice, in 1875. In 1876 he became minister of state, which position he retained till April 1880, when the failure of his repeated efforts to settle the armaments’ question again induced him to resign. From 1881 to 1888 he was chancellor of the universities of Upsala and Lund. Besides several novels and aesthetic essays, De Geer has written a few political memoirs of supreme merit both as to style and matter, the most notable of which are: Minnesteckning öfver A. J. v. Höpken (Stockholm, 1881); Minnesteckning öfver Hans Järta (Stockholm, 1874); Minnesteckning öfver B. B. von Platen (Stockholm, 1886); and his own Minnen (Stockholm, 1892), an autobiography, invaluable as a historical document, in which the political experience and the matured judgments of a lifetime are recorded with singular clearness, sobriety and charm.

See Sveriges historia (Stockholm, 1881, &c.), vi,; Carl Gustaf Malmström, Historiska Studier (Stockholm, 1897).

(R. N. B.)

DEGGENDORF, or Deckendorf, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, 25 m. N.W. of Passau, on the left bank of the Danube, which is there crossed by two iron bridges. Pop. (1905) 7154. It is situated at the lower end of the beautiful valley of the Perlbach, and in itself it is a well-built and attractive town. It possesses an old town hall dating from 1566, a hospital, a lunatic asylum, an orphanage, and a large parish church rebuilt in 1756; but the chief interest centres in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, built in 1337, which attracts thousands of pilgrims to its Porta Caeli or Gnadenpforte (Gate of Mercy) opened annually on Michaelmas eve and closed again on the 4th of October. In 1837, on the celebration of the 500th anniversary of this solemnity, the number of pilgrims was reckoned at nearly 100,000. Such importance as the town possesses is now rather commercial than religious,—it being a depôt for the timber trade of the Bavarian forest, a station for the Danube steamboat company, and the seat of several mills, breweries, potteries and other industrial establishments. On the bank of the Danube outside the town are the remains of the castle of Findelstein; and on the Geiersberg (1243 ft.), in the immediate vicinity, stands another old pilgrimage church. About 6 m. to the north is the village of Metten, with a Benedictine monastery founded by Charlemagne in 801, restored as an abbey in 1840 by Louis I. of Bavaria, and well known as an educational institution. The first mention of Deggendorf occurs in 868, and it appears as a town in 1212. Henry (d. 1290) of the Landshut branch of the ruling family of Bavaria made it the seat of a custom-house; and in 1331 it became the residence of Henry III. of Natternberg (d. 1333), so called from a castle in the neighbourhood. In 1337 a wholesale massacre of the Jews, who were accused of having thrown the sacred host of the church of the Holy Sepulchre into a well, took place in the town; and it is probably from about this date that the pilgrimage above mentioned came into vogue. The town was captured by the Swedish forces in 1633, and in the war of the Austrian Succession it was more than once laid in ashes.

See Grüber and Müller, Der bayerische Wald (Regensburg, 1851); Mittermüller, Die heil. Hostien und die Jüden in Deggendorf (Landshut, 1866); and Das Kloster Metten (Straubing, 1857).

DE HAAS, MAURITZ FREDERICK HENDRICK (1832-1895), American marine painter, was born on the 12th of December 1832 in Rotterdam, Holland. He studied art in the Rotterdam Academy and at The Hague, under Bosboom and Louis Meyer, and in 1851-1852 in London, following the English water-colourists of the day. In 1857 he received an artist’s commission in the Dutch navy, but in 1859, under the patronage of August Belmont, who had recently been minister of the United States at The Hague, he resigned and removed to New York city. He became an associate of the National Academy in 1863 and an academician in 1867, and exhibited annually in the academy, and in 1866 he was one of the founders of the American Society of Painters in Water Colors. He died on the 23rd of November 1895. His “Farragut Passing the Forts at the Battle of New Orleans” and “The Rapids above Niagara,” which were exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1878, were his best known but not his most typical works, for his favourite subjects were storm and wreck, wind and heavy surf, and less often moonlight on the coasts of Holland, of Jersey, of New England, and of Long Island, and on the English Channel.

His brother, William Frederick de Haas (1830-1880), who emigrated to New York in 1854, was also a marine painter.

DEHRA, a town of British India, headquarters of the Dehra Dun district in the United Provinces. Pop. (1901) 28,095. It lies at an elevation of 2300 ft. Here the Hardwar-Dehra railway terminates. Dehra is the headquarters of the Trigonometrical Survey and of the Forest Department, besides being a cantonment for a Gurkha force. The Forest School, which trains subordinate forest officials for all parts of India, is a fine building. Attached to it is an institution for the scientific study of sylvi-culture and the exploitation and administration of forests. The town of Dehra grew up round the temple built in 1699 by the heretical Sikh Guru, Ram Rai, the founder of the Udasi sect of Ascetics. This temple is a remarkable building in Mahommedan style. The central block, in imitation of the emperor Jahangir’s tomb, contains the bed on which the Guru, after dying at will and coming back to life several times, ultimately died outright; it is an object of great veneration. At the corners of the central block are smaller monuments commemorating the Guru’s wives.

DEHRA DUN, a district of British India, in the Meerut division of the United Provinces. Its area is 1209 sq. m. The district is bounded on the N. by the native state of Tehri or Garhwal, on the E. by British Garhwal, on the S. by the Siwálik hills, which separate it from Saharanpur district, and on the W. by the hill states of Sirmur, Jubbal and Taroch. The valley (the Dun) has an area of about 673 sq. m., and forms a parallelogram 45 m. from N.W. to S.E. and 15 m. broad. It is well wooded, undulating and intersected by streams. On the N.E. the horizon is bounded by the Mussoorie or lower range of the Himalayas, and on the S. by the Siwálik hills. The Himalayas in the north of the district attain a height between 7000 and 8000 ft., one peak reaching an elevation of 8565 ft.; the highest point of the Siwálik range is 3041 ft. above sea-level. The principal passes through the Siwálik hills are the Timli pass, leading to the military station of Chakráta, and the Mohand pass leading to the sanatoriums of Mussoorie and Landaur. The Ganges bounds the Dehra valley on the E.; the Jumna bounds it on the W. From a point about midway between the two rivers, and near the town of Dehra, runs a ridge which forms the watershed of the valley. To the west of this ridge the water collects to form the Asan, a tributary of the Jumna; whilst to the east the Suswa receives the drainage and flows into the Ganges. To the east the valley is characterized by swamps and forests, but to the west the natural depressions freely carry off the surface drainage. Along the central ridge, the water-level lies at a great depth from the surface (228 ft.), but it rises gradually as the country declines towards the great rivers. In 1901 the population was 178,195, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. A railway to Dehra from Hardwar, on the Oudh and Rohilkhand line (32 m.), was completed in 1900. The district is served by the Dun canals. Tea gardens cover a considerable area, and the valley contains a colony of European tea planters.

History.—Dehra Dun only emerges from the mists of legend into authentic history in the 17th century A.D., when it formed part of the Garhwal kingdom. Towards the end of the century the heretical Sikh Guru, Ram Rai, expelled from the Punjab, sought refuge in the Dun and gathered round him a crowd of devotees. Fateh Sah, raja of Garhwal, endowed the temple which he built, round which grew up the town of Gurudwara or Dehra (q.v.). In the 18th century the fertility of the valley attracted the attention of Najib-ud-daula, governor of Saharanpur, who invaded it with an army of Rohillas in 1757 and annexed it to his dominion. His rule, which lasted till 1770, brought great prosperity to the Dun; but on his death it became a prey to the surrounding tribes, its desolation being completed after its conquest by the Gurkhas in 1803. In 1814 it was taken possession of by the British, and in the following year was annexed to Saharanpur. Under British administration the Dun rapidly recovered its prosperity.

DEIOCES (Δηιόκης), according to Herodotus (i. 96 ff.) the first king of the Medes. He narrates that, when the Medes had rebelled against the Assyrians and gained their independence about 710 B.C., according to his chronology (cf. Diodor. ii. 32), they lived in villages without any political organization, and therefore the whole country was in a state of anarchy. Then Deioces, son of Phraortes, an illustrious man of upright character, was chosen judge in his village, and the justness of his decisions induced the inhabitants of the other villages to throng to him. At last the Medes resolved to make an end of the intolerable state of their country by erecting a kingdom, and chose Deioces king. He now caused them to build a great capital, Ecbatana, with a royal palace, and introduced the ceremonial of oriental courts; he surrounded himself with a guard and no longer showed himself to the people, but gave his judgments in writing and controlled the people by officials and spies. He united all the Median tribes, and ruled fifty-three years (c. 699-647 B.C.), though perhaps, as G. Rawlinson supposed, the fifty-three years of his reign are exchanged by mistake with the twenty-two years of his son Phraortes, under whom the Median conquests began.

The narration of Herodotus is only a popular tradition which derives the origin of kingship from its judicial functions, considered as its principal and most beneficent aspect. We know from the Assyrian inscriptions that just at the time which Herodotus assigns to Deioces the Medes were divided into numerous small principalities and subjected to the great Assyrian conquerors. Among these petty chieftains, Sargon in 715 mentions Dāyukku, “lieutenant of Man” (he probably was, therefore, a vassal of the neighbouring king of Man in the mountains of south-eastern Armenia), who joined the Urartians and other enemies of Assyria, but was by Sargon transported to Hamath in Syria “with his clan.” His district is called “bit-Dāyaukki,” “house of Deioces,” also in 713, when Sargon invaded these regions again. So it seems that the dynasty, which more than half a century later succeeded in throwing off the Assyrian yoke and founded the Median empire, was derived from this Dāyukku, and that his name was thus introduced into the Median traditions, which contrary to history considered him as founder of the kingdom.

(Ed. M.)

DEÏOTARUS, a tetrarch of Galatia (Gallo-Graecia) in Asia Minor, and a faithful ally of the Romans. He is first heard of at the beginning of the third Mithradatic war, when he drove out the troops of Mithradates under Eumachus from Phrygia. His most influential friend was Pompey, who, when settling the affairs of Asia (63 or 62 B.C.), rewarded him with the title of king and an increase of territory (Lesser Armenia). On the outbreak of the civil war, Deïotarus naturally sided with his old patron Pompey, and after the battle of Pharsalus escaped with him to Asia. In the meantime Pharnaces, the son of Mithradates, had seized Lesser Armenia, and defeated Deïotarus near Nicopolis. Fortunately for Deïotarus, Caesar at that time (47) arrived in Asia from Egypt, and was met by the tetrarch in the dress of a suppliant. Caesar pardoned him for having sided with Pompey, ordered him to resume his royal attire, and hastened against Pharnaces, whom he defeated at Zela. In consequence of the complaints of certain Galatian princes, Deïotarus was deprived of part of his dominions, but allowed to retain the title of king. On the death of Mithradates of Pergamum, tetrarch of the Trocmi, Deïotarus was a candidate for the vacancy. Other tetrarchs also pressed their claims; and, further, Deïotarus was accused by his grandson Castor of having attempted to assassinate Caesar when the latter was his guest in Galatia. Cicero, who entertained a high opinion of Deïotarus, whose acquaintance he had made when governor of Cilicia, undertook his defence, the case being heard in Caesar’s own house at Rome. The matter was allowed to drop for a time, and the assassination of Caesar prevented any final decision being pronounced. In his speech Cicero briefly dismisses the charge of assassination, the main question being the distribution of the provinces, which was the real cause of the quarrels between Deïotarus and his relatives. After Caesar’s death, Mark Antony, for a large monetary consideration, publicly announced that, in accordance with instructions left by Caesar, Deïotarus was to resume possession of all the territory of which he had been deprived. When civil war again broke out, Deïotarus was persuaded to support Brutus and Cassius, but after the battle of Philippi went over to the triumvirs. He remained in possession of his kingdom till his death at a very advanced age.

See Cicero, Philippica, ii. 37; Ad fam. viii. 10, ix. 12, xv. 1, 2, 4; Ad Att. xiv. 1; De divin. i. 15, ii. 36, 37; De harusp. resp. 13, and above all Pro rege Deiotaro; Appian, Bell. Mithrid. 75, 114; Bellum Alexandrinum, 34-41, 65-77; Dio Cassius xli. 63, xlii. 45, xlvii. 24, 48, xlviii. 33.

DEIR, or Deir Ez-Zor, a town of Asiatic Turkey, on the right bank of the Euphrates, 27½ m. above its junction with the Khabor, lat. 35° 20′ N., long. 40° 12′ E. Pop. 8000 and upward, about one-tenth Christians; except in the official classes, there are no Turks. It is the capital and the only considerable town of the Zor sanjak, formed in 1857, which includes Ras el-’Ain on the north and Palmyra on the south, with a total area of 32,820 sq. m., chiefly desert, and an estimated population of 100,000, mostly Arab nomads. Deir itself is a thrifty and rising town, having considerable traffic; it is singularly European in appearance, with macadamized streets and a public garden. The name Deir means monastery, but there is no other trace or tradition of the occupation of the site before the 14th century, and until it became the capital of the sanjak it was an insignificant village. It is an important centre for the control of the Bedouin Arabs, and has a garrison of about 1000 troops, including a special corps of mule-riders. It is also a road centre, the roads from the Mediterranean to Bagdad by way of Aleppo and Damascus respectively meeting here. A road also leads northward, by Sinjar, to Mosul, crossing the river on a stone bridge, built in 1897, the only permanent bridge over the Euphrates south of Asia Minor.

(J. P. Pe.)

DEIRA, the southern of the two English kingdoms afterwards united as Northumbria. According to Simeon of Durham it extended from the Humber to the Tyne, but the land was waste north of the Tees. York was the capital of its kings. The date of its first settlement is quite unknown, but the first king of whom we have any record is Ella or Ælle, the father of Edwin, who is said to have been reigning about 585. After his death Deira was subject to Æthelfrith, king of Northumbria, until the accession of Edwin, in 616 or 617, who ruled both kingdoms (see Edwin) till 633. Osric the nephew of Edwin ruled Deira (633-634), but his son Oswine was put to death by Oswio in 651. For a few years subsequently Deira was governed by Æthelwald son of Oswald.

See Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, ii. 14, iii. 1, 6, 14 (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896); Nennius, Historia Brittonum, § 64 (ed. Th. Mommsen, Berlin, 1898); Simeon of Durham, Opera, i. 339 (ed. T. Arnold, London, 1882-1885).

(F. G. M. B.)

DEISM (Lat. deus, god), strictly the belief in one supreme God. It is however the received name for a current of rationalistic theological thought which, though not confined to one country, or to any well-defined period, was most conspicuous in England in the last years of the 17th and the first half of the 18th century. The deists, differing widely in important matters of belief, were yet agreed in seeking above all to establish the certainty and sufficiency of natural religion in opposition to the positive religions, and in tacitly or expressly denying the unique significance of the supernatural revelation in the Old and New Testaments. They either ignored the Scriptures, endeavoured to prove them in the main by a helpful republication of the Evangelium aeternum, or directly impugned their divine character, their infallibility, and the validity of their evidences as a complete manifestation of the will of God. The term “deism” not only is used to signify the main body of the deists’ teaching, or the tendency they represent, but has come into use as a technical term for one specific metaphysical doctrine as to the relation of God to the universe, assumed to have been characteristic of the deists, and to have distinguished them from atheists, pantheists and theists,—the belief, namely, that the first cause of the universe is a personal God, who is, however, not only distinct from the world but apart from it and its concerns.

The words “deism” and “deist” appear first about the middle of the 16th century in France (cf. Bayle’s Dictionnaire, s.v. “Viret,” note D), though the deistic standpoint had already been foreshadowed to some extent by Averroists, by Italian authors like Boccaccio and Petrarch, in More’s Utopia (1515), and by French writers like Montaigne, Charron and Bodin. The first specific attack on deism in English was Bishop Stillingfleet’s Letter to a Deist (1677). By the majority of those historically known as the English deists, from Blount onwards, the name was owned and honoured. They were also occasionally called “rationalists.” “Free-thinker” (in Germany, Freidenker) was generally taken to be synonymous with “deist,” though obviously capable of a wider signification, and as coincident with esprit fort and with libertin in the original and theological sense of the word.1 “Naturalists” was a name frequently used of such as recognized no god but nature, of so-called Spinozists, atheists; but both in England and Germany, in the 18th century, this word was more commonly and aptly in use for those who founded their religion on the lumen naturae alone. It was evidently in common use in the latter half of the 16th century as it is used by De Mornay in De la vérité de la religion chrétienne (1581) and by Montaigne. The same men were not seldom assaulted under the name of “theists”; the later distinction between “theist” and “deist,” which stamped the latter word as excluding the belief in providence or in the immanence of God, was apparently formulated in the end of the 18th century by those rationalists who were aggrieved at being identified with the naturalists. (See also Theism.)

The chief names amongst the deists are those of Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648), Charles Blount (1654-1693), Matthew Tindal (1657-1733), William Wollaston (1659-1724), Thomas Woolston (1669-1733), Junius Janus (commonly known as John) Toland (1670-1722), the 3rd earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751), Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Thomas Morgan (?-1743), and Thomas Chubb (1679-1747).2 Peter Annet (1693-1769), and Henry Dodwell (the younger; d. 1784), who made his contribution to the controversy in 1742, are of less importance. Of the eleven first named, ten appear to have been born within twenty-five years of one another; and it is noteworthy that by far the greater part of the literary activity of the deists, as well as of their voluminous opponents, falls within the same half century.

The impulses that promoted a vein of thought cognate to deism were active both before and after the time of its greatest notoriety. But there are many reasons to show why, in the 17th century, men should have set themselves with a new zeal, in politics, law and theology, to follow the light of nature alone, and to cast aside the fetters of tradition and prescriptive right, of positive codes, and scholastic systems, and why in England especially there should, amongst numerous free-thinkers, have been not a few free writers. The significance of the Copernican system, as the total overthrow of the traditional conception of the universe, dawned on all educated men. In physics, Descartes had prepared the way for the final triumph of the mechanical explanation of the world in Newton’s system. In England the new philosophy had broken with time-honoured beliefs more completely than it had done even in France; Hobbes was more startling than Bacon. Locke’s philosophy, as well as his theology, served as a school for the deists. Men had become weary of Protestant scholasticism; religious wars had made peaceful thinkers seek to take the edge off dogmatical rancour; and the multiplicity of religious sects, coupled with the complete failure of various attempts at any substantial reconciliation, provoked distrust of the common basis on which all were founded. There was a school of distinctively latitudinarian thought in the Church of England; others not unnaturally thought it better to extend the realm of the adiaphora beyond the sphere of Protestant ritual or the details of systematic divinity. Arminianism had revived the rational side of theological method. Semi-Arians and Unitarians, though sufficiently distinguished from the free-thinkers by reverence for the letter of Scripture, might be held to encourage departure from the ancient landmarks. The scholarly labours of P. D. Huet, R. Simon, L. E. Dupin, and Jean Le Clerc (Clericus), of the orientalists John Lightfoot, John Spencer and Humphrey Prideaux, of John Mill, the collator of New Testament readings, and John Fell, furnished new materials for controversy; and the scope of Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus had naturally been much more fully apprehended than ever his Ethica could be. The success of the English revolution permitted men to turn from the active side of political and theological controversy to speculation and theory; and curiosity was more powerful than faith. Much new ferment was working. The toleration and the free press of England gave it scope. Deism was one of the results, and is an important link in the chain of thought from the Reformation to our own day.

Long before England was ripe to welcome deistic thought Lord Herbert of Cherbury earned the name “Father of Deism” by laying down the main line of that religious philosophy which in various forms continued ever after to be the backbone of deistic systems. He based his theology on a comprehensive, if insufficient, survey of the nature, foundation, limits and tests of human knowledge. And amongst the divinely implanted, original, indefeasible notitiae communes of the human mind, he found as foremost his five articles:—that there is one supreme God, that he is to be worshipped, that worship consists chiefly of virtue and piety, that we must repent of our sins and cease from them, and that there are rewards and punishments here and hereafter. Thus Herbert sought to do for the religion of nature what his friend Grotius was doing for natural law,—making a new application of the standard of Vincent of Lerins, Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus. It is important to notice that Herbert, as English ambassador at Paris, united in himself the currents of French and English thought, and also that his De Veritate, published in Latin and translated into French, did not appear in an English version.

Herbert had hardly attempted a systematic criticism of the Christian revelation either as a whole or in its details. Blount, a man of a very different spirit, did both, and in so doing may be regarded as having inaugurated the second main line of deistic procedure, that of historico-critical examination of the Old and New Testaments. Blount adopted and expanded Hobbes’s arguments against the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch; and, mainly in the words of Burnet’s Archeologiae philosophicae, he asserts the total inconsistency of the Mosaic Hexaemeron with the Copernican theory of the heavens, dwelling with emphasis on the impossibility of admitting the view developed in Genesis, that the earth is the most important part of the universe. He assumes that the narrative was meant ethically, not physically, in order to eliminate false and polytheistic notions; and he draws attention to that double narrative in Genesis which was elsewhere to be so fruitfully handled. The examination of the miracles of Apollonius of Tyana, professedly founded on papers of Lord Herbert’s, is meant to suggest similar considerations with regard to the miracles of Christ. Naturalistic explanations of some of these are proposed, and a mythical theory is distinctly foreshadowed when Blount dwells on the inevitable tendency of men, especially long after the event, to discover miracles attendant on the birth and death of their heroes. Blount assaults the doctrine of a mediator as irreligious. He dwells much more pronouncedly than Herbert on the view, afterwards regarded as a special characteristic of all deists, that much or most error in religion has been invented or knowingly maintained by sagacious men for the easier maintenance of good government, or in the interests of themselves and their class. And when he heaps suspicion, not on Christian dogmas, but on beliefs of which the resemblance to Christian tenets is sufficiently patent, the real aim is so transparent that his method seems to partake rather of the nature of literary eccentricity than of polemical artifice; yet by this disingenuous indirectness he gave his argument that savour of duplicity which ever after clung to the popular conception of deism.

Shaftesbury, dealing with matters for the most part different from those usually handled by the deists, stands almost wholly out of their ranks. But he showed how loosely he held the views he did not go out of his way to attack, and made it plain how little weight the letter of Scripture had for himself; and, writing with much greater power than any of the deists, he was held to have done more than any one of them to forward the cause for which they wrought. Founding ethics on the native and cultivable capacity in men to appreciate worth in men and actions, and, like the ancient Greek thinkers whom he followed, associating the apprehension of morality with the apprehension of beauty, he makes morality wholly independent of scriptural enactment, and still more, of theological forecasting of future bliss or agony. He yet insisted on religion as the crown of virtue; and, arguing that religion is inseparable from a high and holy enthusiasm for the divine plan of the universe, he sought the root of religion in feeling, not in accurate beliefs or meritorious good works. He set little store on the theology of those who in a system of dry and barren notions “pay handsome compliments to the Deity,” “remove providence,” “explode devotion,” and leave but “little of zeal, affection, or warmth in what they call rational religion.” In the protest against the scheme of “judging truth by counting noses,” Shaftesbury recognized the danger of the standard which seemed to satisfy many deists; and in almost every respect he has more in common with those who afterwards, in Germany, annihilated the pretensions of complacent rationalism than with the rationalists themselves.

Toland, writing at first professedly without hostility to any of the received elements of the Christian faith, insisted that Christianity was not mysterious, and that the value of religion could not lie in any unintelligible or self-contradictory elements; though we cannot know the real essence of God or of any of his creatures, yet our beliefs about God must be thoroughly consistent with reason. Afterwards, Toland discussed, with considerable real learning and much show of candour, the comparative evidence for the canonical and apocryphal Scriptures, and demanded a careful and complete historical examination of the grounds on which our acceptance of the New Testament canon rests. He contributed little to the solution of the problem, but forced the investigation of the canon alike on theologians and the reading public. Again, he sketched a view of early church history, further worked out by Johann Salomo Semler (1725-1791), and surprisingly like that which was later elaborated by the Tübingen school. He tried to show, both from Scripture and extra-canonical literature, that the primitive church, so far from being an incorporate body of believers with the same creed and customs, really consisted of two schools, each possessing its “own gospel”—a school of Ebionites or Judaizing Christians, and the more liberal school of Paul. These parties, consciously but amicably differing in their whole relation to the Jewish law and the outside world, were subsequently forced into a non-natural uniformity. The cogency of Toland’s arguments was weakened by his manifest love of paradox. Wollaston upheld the “intellectual” theory of morality, and all his reasoning is independent of any authority or evidence derived from revelation. His system was simplicity itself, all sin being reduced to the one form of lying. He favoured the idea of a future life as being necessary to set right the mistakes and inequalities of the present.

Collins, who had created much excitement by his Discourse of Free-thinking, insisting on the value and necessity of unprejudiced inquiry, published at a later stage of the deistic controversy the famous argument on the evidences of Christianity. Christianity is founded on Judaism; its main prop is the argument from the fulfilment of prophecy. Yet no interpretation or rearrangement of the text of Old Testament prophecies will secure a fair and non-allegorical correspondence between these and their alleged fulfilment in the New Testament. The inference is not expressly drawn, though it becomes perfectly clear from his refutation of William Whiston’s curious counter theory that there were in the original Hebrew scriptures prophecies which were literally fulfilled in the New Testament, but had been expunged at an early date by Jewish scribes. Collins indicates the possible extent to which the Jews may have been indebted to Chaldeans and Egyptians for their theological views, especially as great part of the Old Testament would appear to have been remodelled by Ezra; and, after dwelling on the points in which the prophecies attributed to Daniel differ from all other Old Testament predictions, he states the greater number of the arguments still used to show that the book of Daniel deals with events past and contemporaneous, and is from the pen of a writer of the Maccabean period, a view now generally accepted. Collins resembles Blount in “attacking specific Christian positions rather than seeking for a foundation on which to build the edifice of Natural Religion.” Amongst those who replied to him were Richard Bentley, Edward Chandler, bishop of Lichfield, and Thomas Sherlock, afterwards bishop of London, who also attacked Woolston. They refuted him easily on many specific points, but carefully abstained from discussing the real question at issue, namely the propriety of free inquiry.