VOLUME XII SLICE III Helmont, Jean to Hernösand (continued 10)

Weismann’s Theory of the Germ-plasm.—A living being takes its individual origin only where there is separated from the stock of the parent a little piece of the peculiar reproductive plasm, the so-called germ-plasm. In sexless reproduction one parent is enough; in sexual reproduction equivalent masses of germ-plasm from each parent combine to form the new individual. The germ-plasm resides in the nucleus of cells, and Weismann identifies it with the nuclear material named chromatin. Like ordinary protoplasm, of which the bulk of cell bodies is composed, germ-plasm is a living material, capable of growing in bulk without alteration of structure when it is supplied with appropriate food. But it is a living material much more complex than protoplasm. In the first place, the mass of germ-plasm which is the starting-point of a new individual consists of several, sometimes of many, pieces named “idants,” which are either the chromosomes into a definite number of which the nuclear material of a dividing cell breaks up, or possibly smaller units named chromomeres. These idants are a collection of “ids,” which Weismann tentatively identifies with the microsomata contained in the chromosomes, which are visible after treatment with certain reagents. Each id contains all the possibilities—generic, specific, individual—of a new organism, or rather the directing substance which in appropriate surroundings of food, &c., forms a new organism. Each id is a veritable microcosm, possessed of an historic architecture that has been elaborated slowly through the multitudinous series of generations that stretch backwards in time from every living individual. This microcosm, again, consists of a number of minor vital units called “determinants,” which cohere according to the architecture of the whole id. The determinants are hypothetical units corresponding to the number of parts of the organism independently variable. Lastly, each determinant consists of a number of small hypothetical units, the “biophores.” These are adaptations of a conception of H. de Vries, and are supposed to become active by leaving the nucleus of the cell in which they lie, passing out into the general protoplasm of the cell and ruling its activities. Each new individual begins life as a nucleated cell, the nucleus of which contains germ-plasm of this complex structure derived from the parent. The reproductive cell gives rise to the new individual by continued absorption of food, by growth, cell-divisions and cell-specializations. The theory supposes that the first divisions of the nucleus are “doubling,” or homogeneous divisions. The germ-plasm has grown in bulk without altering its character in any respect, and, when it divides, each resulting mass is precisely alike. From these first divisions a chain of similar doubling divisions stretches along the “germ-tracks,” so marshalling unaltered germ-plasm to the generative organs of the new individual, to be ready to form the germ-cells of the next generation. In this mode the continuity of the germ-plasm from individual to individual is maintained. This also is the immortality of the germ-cells, or rather of the germ-plasm, the part of the theory which has laid so large a hold on the popular imagination, although it is really no more than a reassertion in new terms of biogenesis. With this also is connected the celebrated denial of the inheritance of acquired characters. It seemed a clear inference that, if the hereditary mass for the daughters were separated off from the hereditary mass that was to form the mother, at the very first, before the body of the mother was formed, the daughters were in all essentials the sisters of their mother, and could take from her nothing of any characters that might be impressed on her body in subsequent development. In the later elaboration of his theory Weismann has admitted the possibility of some direct modification of the germ-plasm within the body of the individual acting as its host.

The mass of germ-plasm which is not retained in unaltered form to provide for the generative cells is supposed to be employed for the elaboration of the individual body. It grows, dividing and multiplying, and forms the nuclear matter of the tissues of the individual, but the theory supposes this process to occur in a peculiar fashion. The nuclear divisions are what Weismann calls “differentiating” or heterogeneous divisions. In them the microcosms of the germ-plasm are not doubled, but slowly disintegrated in accordance with the historical architecture of the plasm, each division differentiating among the determinants and marshalling one set into one portion, another into another portion. There are differences in the observed facts of nuclear division which tend to support the theoretical possibility of two sorts of division, but as yet these have not been correlated definitely with the divisions along the germ-tracks and the ordinary divisions of embryological organogeny. The theoretical conception is, that when the whole body is formed, the cells contain only their own kind of determinants, and it would follow from this that the cells of the tissues cannot give rise to structures containing germ-plasm less disintegrated than their own nuclear material, and least of all to reproductive cells which must contain the undisintegrated microcosms of the germ-plasm. Cases of bud-formation and of reconstructions of lost parts (see Regeneration Of Lost Parts) are regarded as special adaptations made possible by the provision of latent groups of accessory determinants, to become active only on emergency.

It is to be noticed that Weismann’s conception of the processes of ontogeny is strictly evolutionary, and in so far is a reversion to the general opinion of biologists of the 17th and 18th centuries. These supposed that the germ-cell contained an image-in-little of the adult, and that the process of development was a mere unfolding or evolution of this, under the influence of favouring and nutrient forces. Hartsoeker, indeed, went so far as to figure the human spermatozoon with a mannikin seated within the “head,” and similar extremes of imagination were indulged in by other writers for the spermatozoon or ovum, according to the view they took of the relative importance of these two bodies. C. F. Wolff, in his Theoria generationis (1759), was the first distinguished anatomist to make assault on these evolutionary views, but his direct observations on the process of development were not sufficient in bulk nor in clarity of interpretation to convince his contemporaries. Naturally the improved methods and vastly greater knowledge of modern days have made evolution in the old sense an impossible conception; we know that the egg is morphologically unlike the adult, that various external conditions are necessary for its subsequent progress through a slow series of stages, each of which is unlike the adult, but gradually approaching it until the final condition is reached. None the less, Weismann’s theory supposes that the important determining factor in these gradual changes lies in the historical architecture of the germ-plasm, and from the theoretical point of view his theory remains strictly an unfolding, a becoming manifest of hidden complexity.

Hertwig’s View.—The chief modern holder of the rival view, and the writer who has put together in most cogent form the objections to Weismann’s theory, is Oscar Hertwig. He points out that there is no direct evidence for the existence of differentiating as opposed to doubling divisions of the nuclear matter, and, moreover, he thinks that there is very generally diffused evidence as to the universality of doubling division. In the first place, there is the fundamental fact that single-celled organisms exhibit only doubling division, as by that the persistence of species which actually occurs alone is possible. In the case of higher plants, the widespread occurrence of tissues with power of reproduction, the occurrence of budding in almost any part of the body in lower animals and in plants, and the widespread powers of regeneration of lost parts, are easily intelligible if every cell like the egg-cell has been formed by doubling division, and so contains the germinal material for every part of the organism, and thus, on the call of special conditions, can become a germ-cell again. He lays special stress on those experiments in which the process of development has been interfered with in various ways at various stages, as showing that the cells which arise from the division of the egg-cell were not predestined unalterably for a particular rôle, according to a predetermined plan. He dismisses Weismann’s suggestion of the presence of accessory determinants which remain latent unless they happen to be required, as being too complicated a supposition to be supported without exact evidence, a view in which he has received strong support from those who have worked most at the experimental side of the question. From consideration of a large number of physiological facts, such as the results of grafting, transplantations of tissues and transfusions of blood, he concludes that the cells of an organism possess, in addition to their patent microscopical characters, latent characters peculiar to the species, and pointing towards a fundamental identity of the germinal substance in every cell.

The Nuclear Matter.—Apart from these two characteristic protagonists of extreme and opposing views, the general consensus of biological opinion does not take us very far beyond the plainest facts of observation. The resemblances of heredity are due to the fact that the new organism takes its origin from a definite piece of the substance of its parent or parents. This piece always contains protoplasm, and as the protoplasm of every animal and plant appears to have its own specific reactions, we cannot exclude this factor; indeed many, following the views of M. Verworn, and seeing in the specific metabolisms of protoplasm a large part of the meaning of life, attach an increasing importance to the protoplasm in the hereditary mass. Next, it always contains nuclear matter, and, in view of the extreme specialization of the nuclear changes in the process of maturation and fertilization of the generative cells, there is more than sufficient reason for believing that the nuclear substance, if not actually the specific germ-plasm, is of vast importance in heredity. The theory of its absolute dominance depends on a number of experiments, the interpretation of which is doubtful. Moritz Nussbaum showed that in Infusoria non-nucleated fragments of a cell always died, while nucleated fragments were able to complete themselves; but it may be said with almost equal confidence that nuclei separated from protoplasm also invariably die—at least, all attempts to preserve them have failed. Hertwig and others, in their brilliant work on the nature of fertilization, showed that the process always involved the entrance into the female cell of the nucleus of the male cell, but we now know that part of the protoplasm of the spermatozoon also enters. T. Boveri made experiments on the cross-fertilization of non-nucleated fragments of the eggs of Sphaerechinus granularis with spermatozoa of Echinus microtuberculatus, and obtained dwarf larvae with only the paternal characters; but the nature of his experiments was not such as absolutely to exclude doubt. Finally, in addition to the nucleus and the protoplasm, another organism of the cell, the centrosome, is part of the hereditary mass. In sum, while most of the evidence points to a preponderating importance of the nuclear matter, it cannot be said to be an established proposition that the nuclear matter is the germ-plasm. Nor are we yet definitely in a position to say that the germinal mass (nuclear matter, protoplasm, &c., of the reproductive cells) differs essentially from the general substance of the organism—whether, in fact, there is continuity of germ-plasm as opposed to continuity of living material from individual to individual. The origin of sexual cells from only definite places, in the vast majority of cases, and such phenomena as the phylo-genetic migration of their place of origin among the Hydro-medusae, tell strongly in favour of Weismann’s conception. Early experiments on dividing eggs, in which, by separation or transposition, cells were made to give rise to tissues and parts of the organism which in the natural order they would not have produced, tell strongly against any profound separation between germ-plasm and body-plasm. It is also to be noticed that the failure of germ-cells to arise except in specific places may be only part of the specialized ordering of the whole body, and does not necessarily involve the interpretation that reproductive material is absolutely different in kind.

Amphimixis.—Hitherto we have considered the material bearer of heredity apart from the question of sexual union, and we find that the new organism takes origin from a portion of living matter, forming a material which may be called germ-plasm, in which resides the capacity to correspond to the same kind of surrounding forces as stimulated the parent germ-plasm by growth of the same fashion. In many cases (e.g. asexual spores) the piece of germ-plasm comes from one parent, and from an organ or tissue not associated with sexual reproduction; in other cases (parthenogenetic eggs) it comes from the ovary of a female, and may have the apparent characters of a sexual egg, except that it develops without fertilization; here also are to be included the cases where normal female ova have been induced to develop, not by the entrance of a spermatozoon, but by artificial chemical stimulation. In such cases the problem of heredity does not differ fundamentally from the symmetrical repetition of parts. In most of the higher plants and animals, however, sexual reproduction is the normal process, and from our present point of view the essential feature of this is that the germ-plasm which starts the new individual (the fertilized egg) is derived from the male (the spermatozoon) and from the female parent (the ovum). Although it cannot yet be set down sharply as a general proposition, there is considerable evidence to show that in the preparation of the ovum and spermatozoon for fertilization the nuclear matter of each is reduced by half (reducing division of the chromosomes), and that fertilization means the restoration of the normal bulk in the fertilized cell by equal contributions from male and female. So far as the known facts of this process of union of germ-plasms go, they take us no farther than to establish such a relation between the offspring and two parents as exists between the offspring and one parent in the other cases. Amphimixis has a vast importance in the theory of evolution (Weismann, for instance, regards it as the chief factor in the production of variations); for its relation to heredity we are as yet dependent on empirical observations.

Heredity and Development.—The actual process by which the germinal mass slowly assumes the characters of the adult—that is, becomes like the parent—depends on the interaction of two sets of factors: the properties of the germinal material itself, and the influences of substances and conditions external to the germinal material. Naturally, as K. W. von Nägeli and Hertwig in particular have pointed out, there is no perpetual sharp contrast between the two sets of factors, for, as growth proceeds, the external is constantly becoming the internal; the results of influences, which were in one stage part of the environment, are in the next and subsequent stages part of the embryo. The differences between the exponents of evolution and epigenesis offer practical problems to be decided by experiment. Every phenomenon in development that is proved the direct result of epigenetic factors can be discounted from the complexity of the germinal mass. If, for instance, as H. Driesch and Hertwig have argued, much of the differentiation of cells and tissues is a function of locality and is due to the action of different external forces on similar material, then just so much burden is removed from what evolutionists have to explain. That much remains cannot be doubted. Two eggs similar in appearance develop side by side in the same sea-water, one becoming a mollusc, the other an Amphioxus. Hertwig would say that the slight differences in the original eggs would determine slight differences in metabolism and so forth, with the result that the segmentation of the two is slightly different; in the next stage the differences in metabolisms and other relations will be increased, and so on indefinitely. But in such cases c’est le premier pas qui coûte, and the absolute cost in theoretical complexity of the germinal material can be estimated only after a prolonged course of experimental work in a field which is as yet hardly touched.

Empirical Study of Heredity.—The fundamental basis of heredity is the separation of a mass from the parent (germ-plasm) which under certain conditions grows into an individual resembling the parent. The goal of the study of heredity will be reached only when all the phenomena can be referred to the nature of the germ-plasm and of its relations to the conditions under which it grows, but we have seen how far our knowledge is from any attempt at such references. In the meantime, the empirical facts, the actual relations of the characters in the offspring to the characters of the parents and ancestors, are being collected and grouped. In this inquiry it at once becomes obvious that every character found in a parent may or may not be present in the offspring. When any character occurs in both, it is generally spoken of as transmissible and of having been transmitted. In this broad sense there is no character that is not transmissible. In all kinds of reproduction, the characters of the class, family, genus, species, variety or race, and of the actual individual, are transmissible, the certainty with which any character appears being almost in direct proportion to its rank in the descending scale from order to individual. The transmitted characters are anatomical, down to the most minute detail; physiological, including such phenomena as diatheses, timbre of voice and even compound phenomena, such as gaucherie and peculiarity of handwriting; psychological; pathological; teratological, such as syndactylism and all kinds of individual variations. Either sex may transmit characters which in themselves are necessarily latent, as, for instance, a bull may transmit a good milking strain. In forms of asexual reproduction, such as division, budding, propagation by slips and so forth, every character of the parent may appear in the descendant, and apparently even in the descendants produced from that descendant by the ordinary sexual processes. In reproduction by spore formation, in parthenogenesis and in ordinary sexual modes, where there is an embryological history between the separated mass and the new adult, it is necessary to attempt a difficult discrimination between acquired and innate characters.

Acquired Characters.—Every character is the result of two sets of factors, those resident in the germinal material and those imposed from without. Our knowledge has taken us far beyond any such idea as the formation of a germinal material by the collection of particles from the adult organs and tissues (gemmules of C. Darwin). The inheritance of any character means the transmission in the germinal material of matter which, brought under the necessary external conditions, develops into the character of the parent. There is necessarily an acquired or epigenetic side to every character; but there is nothing in our knowledge of the actual processes to make necessary or even probable the supposition that the result of that factor in one generation appears in the germ-plasm of the subsequent generations, in those cases where an embryological development separates parent and offspring. The development of any normal, so-called “innate,” character, such as, say, the assumption of the normal human shape and relations of the frontal bone, requires the co-operation of many factors external to the developing embryo, and the absence of abnormal distorting factors. When we say that such an innate character is transmitted, we mean only that the germ-plasm has such a constitution that, in the presence of the epigenetic factors and the absence of abnormal epigenetic factors, the bone will appear in due course and in due form. If an abnormal epigenetic factor be applied during development, whether to the embryo in utero, to the developing child, or in after life, abnormality of some kind will appear in the bone, and such an abnormality is a good type of what is spoken of as an “acquired” character. Naturally such a character varies with the external stimulus and the nature of the material to which the stimulus is applied, and probability and observation lead us to suppose that as the germ-plasm of the offspring is similar to that of the parent, being a mass separated from the parent, abnormal epigenetic influences would produce results on the offspring similar to those which they produced on the parent. Scrutiny of very many cases of the supposed inheritance of acquired characters shows that they may be explained in this fashion—that is to say, that they do not necessarily involve any feature different in kind from what we understand to occur in normal development. The effects of increased use or of disuse on organs or tissues, the reactions of living tissues to various external influences, to bacteria, to bacterial or other toxins, or to different conditions of respiration, nutrition and so forth, we know empirically to be different in the case of different individuals, and we may expect that when the living matter of a parent responds in a certain way to a certain external stimulus, the living matter of the descendant will respond to similar circumstances in a similar fashion. The operation of similar influences on similar material accounts for a large proportion of the facts. In the important case of the transmission of disease from parent to offspring it is plain that three sets of normal factors may operate, and other cases of transmission must be subjected to similar scrutiny: (1) a child may inherit the anatomical and physiological constitution of either parent, and with that a special liability of failure to resist the attacks of a widespread disease; (2) the actual bacteria may be contained in the ovum or possibly in the spermatozoon; (3) the toxins of the disease may have affected the ovum, or the spermatozoon, or through the placenta the growing embryo. Obviously in the first two cases the offspring cannot be said in any strict sense to have inherited the disease; in the last case, the theoretical nomenclature is more doubtful, but it is at least plain that no inexplicable factor is involved.

It is to be noticed, however, that “Lamarckians” and “Neo-Lamarckians” in their advocacy of an inheritance of “acquired characters” make a theoretical assumption of a different kind, which applies equally to “acquired” and to “innate” characters. They suppose that the result of the epigenetic factors is reflected on the germ-plasm in such a mode that in development the products would display the same or a similar character without the co-operation of the epigenetic factors on the new individual, or would display the result in an accentuated form if with the renewed co-operation of the external factors. Such an assumption presents its greatest theoretical difficulty if, with Weismann, we suppose the germ-plasm to be different in kind from the general soma-plasm, and its least theoretical difficulty if, with Hertwig, we suppose the essential matter of the reproductive cells to be similar in kind to the essential substance of the general body cells. But, apart from the differences between such theories, it supposes, in all cases where an embryological development lies between parent and descendant, the existence of a factor towards which our present knowledge of the actual processes gives us no assistance. The separated hereditary mass does not contain the organs of the adult; the Lamarckian factor would involve the translation of the characters of the adult back into the characters of the germ-cell in such a fashion that when the germ-cell developed these characters would be re-translated again into those which originally had been produced by co-operation between germ-plasm characters and epigenetic factors. In the present state of our knowledge the theoretical difficulty is not fatal to the Lamarckian supposition; it does no more than demand a much more careful scrutiny of the supposed cases. Such a scrutiny has been going on since Weismann first raised the difficulty, and the present result is that no known case has appeared which cannot be explained without the Lamarckian factor, and the vast majority of cases have been resolved without any difficulty into the ordinary events of which we have full experience. Taking the empirical data in detail, it would appear first that the effects of single mutilations are not inherited. The effects of long-continued mutilations are not inherited, but Darwin cites as a possible case the Mahommedans of Celebes, in whom the prepuce is very small. C. E. Brown-Séquard thought that he had shown in the case of guinea-pigs the inheritance of the results of nervous lesions, but analyses of his results leave the question extremely doubtful. The inheritance of the effects of use and disuse is not proved. The inheritance of the effects of changed conditions of life is quite uncertain. Nägeli grew Alpine plants at Munich, but found that the change was produced at once and was not increased in a period of thirteen years. Alphonse de Candolle starved plants, with the result of producing better blooms, and found that seedlings from these were also above the average in luxuriance of blossom, but in these experiments the effects of selection during the starvation, and of direct effect on the nutrition of the seeds, were not eliminated. Such results are typical of the vast number of experiments and observations recorded. The empirical issue is doubtful, with a considerable balance against the supposed inheritance of acquired characters.

Empirical Study of Effects of Amphimixis.—Inheritance is theoretically possible from each parent and from the ancestry of each. In considering the total effect it is becoming customary to distinguish between “blended” inheritance, where the offspring appears in respect of any character to be intermediate between the conditions in the parents; “prepotent” inheritance, where one parent is supposed to be more effective than the other in stamping the offspring (thus, for instance, Negroes, Jews and Chinese are stated to be prepotent in crosses); “exclusive” inheritance, where the character of the offspring is definitely that of one of the parents. Such a classification depends on the interpretation of the word character, and rests on no certain grounds. An apparently blended character or a prepotent character may on analysis turn out to be due to the inheritance of a certain proportion of minuter characters derived exclusively from either parent. H. de Vries and later on a number of other biologists have advanced the knowledge of heredity in crosses by carrying out further the experimental and theoretical work of Gregor Mendel (see Mendelism and Hybridism), and results of great practical importance to breeders have already been obtained. These experiments and results, however, appear to relate exclusively to sexual reproduction and almost entirely to the crossing of artificial varieties of animals and plants. So far as they go, they point strongly to the occurrence of alternate inheritance instead of blended inheritance in the case of artificial varieties. On the other hand, in the case of natural varieties it appears that blended inheritance predominates. The difficulty of the interpretation of the word “character” still remains and the Mendelian interpretation cannot be dismissed with regard to the behaviour of any “character” in inheritance until it is certain that it is a unit and not a composite. There is another fundamental difficulty in making empirical comparisons between the characters of parents and offspring. At first sight it seems as if this mode of work were sufficiently direct and simple, and involved no more than a mere collection of sufficient data. The cranial index, or the height of a human being and of so many of his ancestors being given, it would seem easy to draw an inference as to whether or no in these cases brachycephaly or stature were inherited. But our modern conceptions of the individual and the race make it plain that the problems are not so simple. With regard to any character, the race type is not a particular measurement, but a curve of variations derived from statistics, and any individual with regard to the particular character may be referable to any point of the curve. A tall race like the modern Scots may contain individuals of any height within the human limits; a dolichocephalic race like the modern Spaniards may contain extremely round-headed individuals. What is meant by saying that one race is tall or the other dolichocephalic, is merely that if a sufficiently large number be chosen at random, the average height of the one race will be great, the cranial index of the other low. It follows that the study of variation must be associated with, or rather must precede, the empirical study of heredity, and we are beginning to know enough now to be certain that in both cases the results to be obtained are practically useless for the individual case, and of value only when large masses of statistics are collected. No doubt, when general conclusions have been established, they must be acted on for individual cases, but the results can be predicted not for the individual case, but only for the average of a mass of individual cases. It is impossible within the limits of this article to discuss the mathematical conceptions involved in the formation and applications of the method, but it is necessary to insist on the fact that these form an indispensable part of any valuable study of empirical data. One interesting conclusion, which may be called the “ancestral law” of heredity, with regard to any character, such as height, which appears to be a blend of the male and female characters, whether or no the apparent blend is really due to an exclusive inheritance of separate components, may be given from the work of F. Galton and K. Pearson. Each parent, on the average, contributes ¼ or (0.5)², each grandparent 1⁄16 or (0.5)4, and each ancestor of nth place (0.5)2n. But this, like all other deductions, is applicable only to the mass of cases and not to any individual case.

Regression.—An important result of quantitative work brings into prominence the steady tendency to maintain the type which appears to be one of the most important results of amphimixis. In the tenth generation a man has 1024 tenth grandparents, and is thus the product of an enormous population, the mean of which can hardly differ from that of the general population. Hence this heavy weight of mediocrity produces regression or progression to type. Thus in the case of height, a large number of cases being examined, it was found that fathers of a stature of 72 in. had sons with a mean stature of 70.8 in., a regression towards the normal stature of the race. Fathers with a stature of 66 in. had sons with a mean of 68.3 in., a progression towards the normal. It follows from this that where there is much in-and-in breeding the weight of mediocrity will be less, and the peculiarities of the breed will be accentuated.

Atavism.—Under this name a large number of ordinary cases of variation are included. A tall man with very short parents would probably be set down as a case of atavism if the existence of a very tall ancestor were known. He would, however, simply be a case of normal variation, the probability of which may be calculated from a table of stature variations in his race. Less marked cases set down to atavism may be instances merely of normal regression. Many cases of more abnormal structure, which are really due to abnormal embryonic or post-embryonic development, are set down to atavism, as, for instance, the cervical fistulae, which have been regarded as atavistic persistences of the gill clefts. It is also used to imply the reversion that takes place when domestic varieties are set free and when species or varieties are crossed (see Hybridism). Atavism is, in fact, a misleading name covering a number of very different phenomena.

Telegony is the name given to the supposed fact that offspring of a mother to one sire may inherit characters from a sire with which the mother had previously bred. Although breeders of stock have a strong belief in the existence of this, there are no certain facts to support it, the supposed cases being more readily explained as individual variations of the kind generally referred to as “atavism.” None the less, two theoretical explanations have been suggested: (1) that spermatozoa, or portions of spermatozoa, from the first sire may occasionally survive within the mother for an abnormally long period; (2) that the body, or the reproductive cells of the mother, may be influenced by the growth of the embryo within her, so that she acquires something of the character of the sire. The first supposition has no direct evidence to support it, and is made highly improbable from the fact that a second impregnation is always necessary. Against the second supposition Pearson brings the cogent empirical evidence that the younger children of the same sire show no increased tendency to resemble him. (See Telegony.)

Authorities.—The following books contain a fair proportion of the new and old knowledge on this subject:—W. Bateson, Materials for the Study of Variation (1894); Y. Delage, La Structure du protoplasma et les théories sur l’hérédité (a very full discussion and list of literature); G. H. T. Eimer, Organic Evolution, Eng. trans. by Cunningham (1890); J. C. Ewart, The Penycuik Experiments (1899); F. Galton, Natural Inheritance (1887); O. Hertwig, Evolution or Epigenesis? Eng. trans. by P. C. Mitchell (1896); K. Pearson, The Grammar of Science (1900); Verworn, General Physiology, Eng. trans. (1899); A. Weismann, The Germ Plasm, Eng. trans. by Parker (1893). Lists of separate papers are given in the annual volumes of the Zoological Record under heading “General Subject.”

(P. C. M.)

HEREFORD, a city and municipal and parliamentary borough, and the county town of Herefordshire, England, on the river Wye, 144 m. W.N.W. of London, on the Worcester-Cardiff line of the Great Western railway and on the west-and-north joint line of that company and the North-Western. It is connected with Ross and Gloucester by a branch of the Great Western, and is the terminus of a line from the west worked by the Midland and Neath & Brecon companies. Pop. (1901) 21,382. It is mainly on the left bank of the river, which here traverses a broad valley, well wooded and pleasant. The cathedral of St Ethelbert exemplifies all styles from Norman to Perpendicular. The see was detached from Lichfield in 676, Putta being its first bishop; and the modern diocese covers most of Herefordshire, a considerable part of Shropshire, and small portions of Worcestershire, Staffordshire and Monmouthshire; extending also a short distance across the Welsh border. The removal of murdered Aethelbert’s body from Marden to Hereford led to the foundation of a superior church, reconstructed by Bishop Athelstane, and burnt by the Welsh in 1055. Begun again in 1079 by Bishop Robert Losinga, it was carried on by Bishop Reynelm and completed in 1148 by Bishop R. de Betun. In 1786 the great western tower fell and carried with it the west front and the first bay of the nave, when the church suffered much from unhappy restoration by James Wyatt, but his errors were partly corrected by the further work of Lewis Cottingham and Sir Gilbert Scott in 1841 and 1863 respectively, while the present west front is a reconstruction completed in 1905. The total length of the cathedral outside is 342 ft., inside 327 ft. 5 in., the nave being 158 ft. 6 in., the choir from screen to reredos 75 ft. 6 in. and the lady chapel 93 ft. 5 in. Without, the principal features are the central tower, of Decorated work with ball-flower ornament, formerly surmounted by a timber spire; and the north porch, rich Perpendicular with parvise. The lady chapel has a bold east end with five narrow lancet windows. The bishop’s cloisters, of which only two walks remain, are Perpendicular of curious design, with heavy tracery in the bays. A picturesque tower at the south-east corner, in the same style, is called the “Lady Arbour,” but the origin of the name is unknown. Of the former fine decagonal Decorated chapter-house, only the doorway and slight traces remain. Within, the nave has Norman arcades, showing the wealth of ornament common to the work of this period in the church. Wyatt shortened it by one bay, and the clerestory is his work. There is a fine late Norman font, springing from a base with the rare design of four lions at the corners. The south transept is also Norman, but largely altered by the introduction of Perpendicular work. The north transept was wholly rebuilt in 1287 to contain the shrine of St Thomas de Cantilupe, bishop of Hereford, of which there remains the magnificent marble pedestal surmounted by an ornate arcade. The fine lantern, with its many shafts and vaulting, was thrown open to the floor of the bell-chamber by Cottingham. The choir screen is a florid design by Sir Gilbert Scott, in light wrought iron, with a wealth of ornament in copper, brass, mosaic and polished stones. The dark choir is Norman in the arcades and the stage above, with Early English clerestory and vaulting. At the east end is a fine Norman arch, blocked until 1841 by a Grecian screen erected in 1717. The choir stalls are largely Decorated. The organ contains original work by the famous builder Renatus Harris, and was the gift of Charles II. to the cathedral. The small north-east and south-east transepts are Decorated but retain traces of the Norman apsidal terminations eastward. The eastern lady chapel, dated about 1220, shows elaborate Early English work. On the south side opens the little Perpendicular chantry of Bishop Audley (1492-1502). In the north choir aisle is the beautiful fan-vaulted chantry of Bishop Stanbury (1470). The crypt is remarkable as being, like the lady chapel, Early English, and is thus the only cathedral crypt in England of a later date than the 11th century. The ancient monastic library remains in the archive room, with its heavy oak cupboards. Deeds, documents and several rare manuscripts and relics are preserved, and several of the precious books are still secured by chains. But the most celebrated relic is in the south choir aisle. This is the Map of the World, dating from about 1314, the work of a Lincolnshire monk, Richard of Haldingham. It represents the world as surrounded by ocean, and embodies many ideas taken from Herodotus, Pliny and other writers, being filled with grotesque figures of men, beasts, birds and fishes, together with representations of famous cities and scenes of scriptural classical story, such as the Labyrinth of Crete, the Egyptian pyramids, Mount Sinai and the journeyings of the Israelites. The map is surmounted by representations of Paradise and the Day of Judgment.

From the south-east transept of the cathedral a cloister leads to the quadrangular college of the Vicars-Choral, a beautiful Perpendicular building. On this side of the cathedral, too, the bishop’s palace, originally a Norman hall, overlooks the Wye, and near it lies the castle green, the site of the historic castle, which is utterly effaced. There is here a column (1809) commemorating the victories of Nelson. The church of All Saints is Early English and Decorated, and has a lofty spire. Both this and St Peter’s (originally Norman) have good carved stalls, but the fabric of both churches is greatly restored. One only of the six gates and a few fragments of the old walls are still to be seen, but there are ruins of the Black Friars’ Monastery in Widemarsh, and a mile out of Hereford on the Brecon Road, the White Cross, erected in 1347 by Bishop Louis Charlton, and restored by Archdeacon Lord Saye and Sele, commemorates the departure of the Black Plague. Of domestic buildings the “Old House” is a good example of the picturesque half-timbered style, dating from 1621, and the Coningsby Hospital (almshouses) date from 1614. The inmates wear a remarkable uniform of red, designed by the founder, Sir T. Coningsby. St Ethelbert’s hospital is an Early English foundation. Old-established schools are the Cathedral school (1384) and the Blue Coat school (1710); there is also the County College (1880). The public buildings are the shire hall in St Peter’s Street, in the Grecian Doric style, with a statue in front of it of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who represented the county in parliament from 1847 to 1852, the town hall (1904), the corn-exchange (1858), the free library and museum in Broad Street; the guildhall and mansion house. A musical festival of the choirs of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester cathedrals is held annually in rotation at these cities.

The government is in the hands of a municipal council consisting of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 5031 acres.

Hereford (Herefortuna), founded after the crossing of the Severn by the West Saxons early in the 7th century, had a strategic importance due to its proximity to the Welsh March. The foundation of the castle is ascribed to Earl Harold, afterwards Harold II. The castle was successfully besieged by Stephen, and was the prison of Prince Edward during the Barons’ Wars. The pacification of Wales deprived Hereford of military significance until it became a Royalist stronghold during the Civil Wars. It surrendered easily to Waller in 1643; but was reoccupied by the king’s troops and received Rupert on his march to Wales after Naseby. It was besieged by the Scots during August 1645 and relieved by the king. It fell to the Parliamentarians in this year. In 1086 the town included fees of the bishop, the dean and chapter, and the Knights Hospitallers, but was otherwise royal demesne. Richard I. in 1189 sold their town to the citizens at a fee farm rent, which grant was confirmed by John, Henry III., Edward II., Edward III., Richard II., Henry IV. and Edward IV. Incorporation was granted to the mayor, aldermen and citizens in 1597, and confirmed in 1620 and 1697-1698. Hereford returned two members to parliament from 1295 until 1885, when the Redistribution Act deprived it of one representative. In 1116-1117 a fair beginning on St Ethelberta’s day was conferred on the bishop, the antecedent of the modern fair in the beginning of May. A fair beginning on St Denis’ day, granted to the citizens in 1226-1227, is represented by that held in October. The fair of Easter Wednesday was granted in 1682. In 1792 the existing fairs of Candlemas week and the beginning of July were held. Market days were, under Henry VIII. and in 1792, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; the Friday market was discontinued before 1835. Hereford was the site of a provincial mint in 1086 and later. A grant of an exclusive merchant gild, in 1215-1216, was several times confirmed. The trade in wool was important in 1202, and eventually responsible for gilds of tailors, drapers, mercers, dyers, fullers, cloth workers, weavers and haberdashers; it brought into the market Welsh friezes and white cloth; but declined in the 16th century, although it existed in 1835. The leather trade was considerable in the 13th century. In 1835 the glove trade had declined. The city anciently had an extensive trade in bread with Wales. It was the birthplace of David Garrick, the actor, in 1716, and probably of Nell Gwyn, mistress of Charles II., to whose memory a tablet was erected in 1883, marking the supposed site of her house.

See R. Johnson, Ancient Customs of Hereford (London, 1882); J. Duncumbe, History of Hereford (Hereford, 1882); Journal of Brit. Arch. Assoc. xxvi.

HEREFORDSHIRE, an inland county of England on the south Welsh border, bounded N. by Shropshire, E. by Worcestershire, S. by Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire, and W. by Radnorshire and Brecknockshire. The area is 839.6 sq. m. The county is almost wholly drained by the Wye and its tributaries, but on the north and east includes a small portion of the Severn basin. The Wye enters Herefordshire from Wales at Hay, and with a sinuous and very beautiful course crosses the south-western part of the county, leaving it close above the town of Monmouth. Of its tributaries, the Lugg enters in the north-west near Presteign, and has a course generally easterly to Leominster, where it turns south, receives the Arrow from the west, and joins the Wye 6 m. below Hereford, the Frome flowing in from the east immediately above the junction. The Monnow rising in the mountains of Brecknockshire forms the boundary between Herefordshire and Monmouthshire over one-half of its course (about 20 m.), but it joins the main river at Monmouth. Its principal tributary in Herefordshire is the Dore, which traverses the picturesque Golden Valley. The Wye is celebrated for its salmon fishing, which is carefully preserved, while the Lugg, Arrow and Frome abound in trout and grayling, as does the Teme. This last is a tributary of the Severn, and only two short reaches lie within this county in the north, while it also forms parts of the northern and eastern boundary. The Leddon, also flowing to the Severn, rises in the east of the county and leaves it in the south-east, passing the town of Ledbury. High ground, of an elevation from 500 to 800 ft., separates the various valleys, while on the eastern boundary rise the Malvern Hills, reaching 1194 ft. in the Herefordshire Beacon, and 1395 ft. in the Worcestershire Beacon, and on the boundary with Brecknockshire the Black Mountains exceed 2000 ft. The scenery of the Wye, with its wooded and often precipitous banks, is famous, the most noteworthy point in this county being about Symond’s Yat, on the Gloucestershire border below Ross.

Geology.—The Archean or Pre-Cambrian rocks, the most ancient in the county, emerge from beneath the newer deposits in three small isolated areas. On the western border, Stanner Rock, a picturesque craggy hill near Kington, consists of igneous materials (granitoid rock, felstone, dolerite and gabbro), apparently of intrusive origin and possibly of Uriconian age. In Brampton Bryan Park, a few miles to the north-east, some ancient conglomerates emerge and may be of Longmyndian age. On the east of the county the Herefordshire Beacon in the Malvern chain consists of gneisses and schists and Uriconian volcanic rocks; these have been thrust over various members of the Cambrian and Silurian systems, and owing to their hard and durable nature they form the highest ground in the county. The Cambrian rocks (Tremadoc Beds) come next in order of age and consist of quartzites, sandstones and shales, well exposed at the southern end of the Malvern chain and also at Pedwardine near Brampton Bryan. The Silurian rocks are well developed in the north-west part of the county, between Presteign and Ludlow; also along the western flanks of the Malvern Hills and in the eroded dome of Woolhope. Smaller patches come to light at Westhide east of Hereford and at May Hill near Newent. They consist of highly fossiliferous sandstones, mudstones, shales and limestones, known as the Llandovery, Wenlock and Ludlow Series; the Woolhope, Wenlock and Aymestry Limestones are famed for their rich fossil contents. The remainder and by far the greater part of the county is occupied by the Old Red Sandstone, through which the rocks above described project in detached areas. The Old Red Sandstone consists of a great thickness of red sandstones and marls, with impersistent bands of impure concretionary limestone known as cornstones, which by their superior hardness give rise to scarps and rounded ridges; they have yielded remains of fishes and crustaceans. Some of the upper beds are conglomeratic. On its south-eastern margin the county just reaches the Carboniferous Limestone cliffs of the Wye Valley near Ross. Glacial deposits, chiefly sand and gravel, are found in the lower ground along the river-courses, while caves in the Carboniferous Limestone have yielded remains of the hyena, cave-lion, rhinoceros, mammoth and reindeer.

Agriculture and Industries.—The soil is generally marl and clay, but in various parts contains calcareous earth in mixed proportions. Westward the soil is tenacious and retentive of water; on the east it is a stiff and often reddish clay. In the south is found a light sandy loam. More than four-fifths of the total area of the county is under cultivation and about two-thirds of this is in permanent pasture. Ash and oak coppices and larch plantations clothe its hillsides and crests. The rich red soil of the Old Red Sandstone formation is famous for its pear and apple orchards, the county, notwithstanding its much smaller area, ranking in this respect next to Devonshire. The apple crop, generally large, is enormous one year out of four. Twenty hogsheads of cider have been made from an acre of orchard, twelve being the ordinary yield. Cider is the staple beverage of the county, and the trade in cider and perry is large. Hops are another staple of the county, the vines of which are planted in rows on ploughed land. As early as Camden’s day a Herefordshire adage coupled Weobley ale with Leominster bread, indicating the county’s capacity to produce fine wheat and barley, as well as hops.

Herefordshire is also famous as a breeding county for its cattle of bright red hue, with mottled or white faces and sleek silky coats. The Herefords are stalwart and healthy, and, though not good milkers, put on more meat and fat at an early age, in proportion to food consumed, than almost any other variety. They produce the finest beef, and are more cheaply fed than Devons or Durhams, with which they are advantageously crossed. As a dairy county Herefordshire does not rank high. Its small, white-faced, hornless, symmetrical breed of sheep known as “the Ryelands,” from the district near Ross, where it was bred in most perfection, made the county long famous both for the flavour of its meat and the merino-like texture of its wool. Fuller says of this that it was best known as “Lempster ore,” and the finest in all England. In its original form the breed is extinct, crossing with the Leicester having improved size and stamina at the cost of the fleece, and the chief breeds of sheep on Herefordshire farms at present are Shropshire Downs, Cotswolds and Radnors, with their crosses. Agricultural horses of good quality are bred in the north, and saddle and coach horses may be met with at the fairs. Breeders’ names from the county are famous at the national cattle shows, and the number, size and quality of the stock are seen in their supply of the metropolitan and other markets. Prize Herefords are constantly exported to the colonies.

Manufacturing enterprise is small. There are some iron foundries and factories for agricultural implements, and some paper is made. There are considerable limestone quarries, as near Ledbury.

Communications.—Hereford is an important railway centre. The Worcester and Cardiff line of the Great Western railway, entering on the east, runs to Hereford by Ledbury and then southward. The joint line of the Great Western and North-Western companies runs north from Hereford by Leominster, proceeding to Shrewsbury and Crewe. At Leominster a Great Western branch crosses, connecting Worcester, Bromyard and New Radnor. From Hereford a Great Western branch follows the Wye south to Ross, and thence to the Forest of Dean and to Gloucester; a branch connects Ledbury with Gloucester, and the Golden Valley is traversed by a branch from Pontrilas on the Worcester-Cardiff line. From Hereford the Midland and Neath and Brecon line follows the Wye valley westward. None of the rivers is commercially navigable and the canals are out of use.

Population and Administration.—The area of the ancient county is 537,363 acres, with a population in 1891 of 115,949 and in 1901 of 114,380. The area of the administrative county is 538,921 acres. The county contains 12 hundreds. It is divided into two parliamentary divisions, Leominster (N.) and Ross (S.), and it also includes the parliamentary borough of Hereford, each returning one member. There are two municipal boroughs—Hereford (pop. 21,382) and Leominster (5826). The other urban districts are Bromyard (1663), Kington (1944), Ledbury (3259) and Ross (3303). The county is in the Oxford circuit, and assizes are held at Hereford. It has one court of quarter sessions and is divided into 11 petty sessional divisions. The boroughs of Hereford and Leominster have separate commissions of the peace, and the borough of Hereford has in addition a separate court of quarter sessions. There are 260 civil parishes. The ancient county, which is almost entirely in the diocese of Hereford, with small parts in those of Gloucester, Worcester and Llandaff, contains 222 ecclesiastical parishes or districts, wholly or in part.

History.—At some time in the 7th century the West Saxons pushed their way across the Severn and established themselves in the territory between Wales and Mercia, with which kingdom they soon became incorporated. The district which is now Herefordshire was occupied by a tribe the Hecanas, who congregated chiefly in the fertile area about Hereford and in the mining districts round Ross. In the 8th century Offa extended the Mercian frontier to the Wye, securing it by the earthwork known as Offa’s dike, portions of which are visible at Knighton and Moorhampton in this county. In 915 the Danes made their way up the Severn to the district of Archenfield, where they took prisoner Cyfeiliawg bishop of Llandaff, and in 921 they besieged Wigmore, which had been rebuilt in that year by Edward. From the time of its first settlement the district was the scene of constant border warfare with the Welsh, and Harold, whose earldom included this county, ordered that any Welshman caught trespassing over the border should lose his right hand. In the period preceding the Conquest much disturbance was caused by the outrages of the Norman colony planted in this county by Edward the Confessor. Richard’s castle in the north of the county was the first Norman fortress erected on English soil, and Wigmore, Ewyas Harold, Clifford, Weobley, Hereford, Donnington and Caldecot were all the sites of Norman strongholds. The conqueror entrusted the subjugation of Herefordshire to William FitzOsbern, but Edric the Wild in conjunction with the Welsh prolonged resistance against him for two years.

In the wars of Stephen’s reign Hereford and Weobley castles were held against the king, but were captured in 1138. Edward, afterwards Edward I., was imprisoned in Hereford Castle, and made his famous escape thence in 1265. In 1326 the parliament assembled at Hereford which deposed Edward II. In the 14th and 15th centuries the forest of Deerfold gave refuge to some of the most noted followers of Wycliffe. During the Wars of the Roses the influence of the Mortimers led the county to support the Yorkist cause, and Edward, afterwards Edward IV., raised 23,000 men in this neighbourhood. The battle of Mortimer’s Cross was fought in 1461 near Wigmore. Before the outbreak of the civil war of the 17th century, complaints of illegal taxation were rife in Herefordshire, but a strong anti-puritan feeling induced the county to favour the royalist cause. Hereford, Goodrich and Ledbury all endured sieges.

The earldom of Hereford was granted by William I. to William FitzOsbern, about 1067, but on the outlawry of his son Roger in 1074 the title lapsed until conferred on Henry de Bohun about 1199. It remained in the possession of the Bohuns until the death of Humphrey de Bohun in 1373; in 1397 Henry, earl of Derby, afterwards King Henry IV., who had married Mary Bohun, was created duke of Hereford. Edward VI. created Walter Devereux, a descendant of the Bohun family, Viscount Hereford, in 1550, and his grandson, the famous earl of Essex, was born in this county. Since this date the viscounty has been held by the Devereux family, and the holder ranks as the premier viscount of England. The families of Clifford, Giffard and Mortimer figured prominently in the warfare on the Welsh border, and the Talbots, Lacys, Crofts and Scudamores also had important seats in the county, Sir James Scudamore of Holme Lacy being the original of the Sir Scudamore of Spenser’s Faery Queen. Sir John Oldcastle, the leader of the Lollards, was sheriff of Herefordshire in 1406.

Herefordshire probably originated as a shire in the time of Æthelstan, and is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle in 1051. In the Domesday Survey parts of Monmouthshire and Radnorshire are assessed under Herefordshire, and the western and southern borders remained debatable ground until with the incorporation of the Welsh marches in 1535 considerable territory was restored to Herefordshire and formed into the hundreds of Wigmore, Ewyas Lacy and Huntingdon, while Ewyas Harold was united to Webtree. At the time of the Domesday Survey the divisions of the county were very unsettled. As many as nineteen hundreds are mentioned, but these were of varying extent, some containing only one manor, some from twenty to thirty. Of the twelve modern hundreds, only Greytree, Radlow, Stretford, Wolphy and Wormelow retain Domesday names. Herefordshire has been included in the diocese of Hereford since its foundation in 676. In 1291 it comprised the deaneries of Hereford, Weston, Leominster, Weobley, Frome, Archenfield and Ross in the archdeaconry of Hereford, and the deaneries of Burford, Stottesdon, Ludlow, Pontesbury, Clun and Wenlock, in the archdeaconry of Shropshire. In 1877 the name of the archdeaconry of Shropshire was changed to Ludlow, and in 1899 the deaneries of Abbey Dore, Bromyard, Kingsland, Kington and Ledbury were created in the archdeaconry of Hereford.

Herefordshire was governed by a sheriff as early as the reign of Edward the Confessor, the shire-court meeting at Hereford where later the assizes and quarter sessions were also held. In 1606 an act was passed declaring Hereford free from the jurisdiction of the council of Wales, but the county was not finally relieved from the interference of the Lords Marchers until the reign of William and Mary.

Herefordshire has always been esteemed an exceptionally rich agricultural area, the manufactures being unimportant, with the sole exception of the woollen and the cloth trade which flourished soon after the Conquest. Iron was worked in Wormelow hundred in Roman times, and the Domesday Survey mentions iron workers in Marcle. At the time of Henry VIII. the towns had become much impoverished, and Elizabeth in order to encourage local industries, insisted on her subjects wearing English-made caps from the factory of Hereford. Hops were grown in the county soon after their introduction into England in 1524. In 1580 and again in 1637 the county was severely visited by the plague, but in the 17th century it had a flourishing timber trade and was noted for its orchards and cider.

Herefordshire was first represented in parliament in 1295, when it returned two members, the boroughs of Ledbury, Hereford, Leominster and Weobley being also represented. Hereford was again represented in 1299, and Bromyard and Ross in 1304, but the boroughs made very irregular returns, and from 1306 until Weobley regained representation in 1627, only Hereford and Leominster were represented. Under the act of 1832 the county returned three members and Weobley was disfranchised. The act of 1868 deprived Leominster of one member, and under the act of 1885 Leominster was disfranchised, and Hereford lost one member.

Antiquities.—There are remains of several of the strongholds which Herefordshire possessed as a march county, some of which were maintained and enlarged, after the settlement of the border, to serve in later wars. To the south of Ross are those of Wilton and Goodrich, commanding the Wye on the right bank, the latter a ruin of peculiar magnificence, and both gaining picturesqueness from their beautiful situations. Of the several castles in the valleys of the boundary-river Monnow and its tributaries, those in this county include Pembridge, Kilpeck and Longtown; of which the last shows extensive remains of the strong keep and thick walls. In the north the finest example is Wigmore, consisting of a keep on an artificial mound within outer walls, the seat of the powerful family of Mortimer.

Beside the cathedral of Hereford, and the fine churches of Ledbury, Leominster and Ross, described under separate headings, the county contains some churches of almost unique interest. In that of Kilpeck remarkable and unusual Norman work is seen. It consists of the three divisions of nave, choir and chancel, divided by ornate arches, the chancel ending in an apse, with a beautiful and elaborate west end and south doorway. The columns of the choir arch are composed of figures. A similar plan is seen in Peterchurch in the Golden Valley, and in Moccas church, on the Wye above Hereford. Among the large number of churches exhibiting Norman details that at Bromyard is noteworthy. At Abbey Dore, the Cistercian abbey church, still in use, is a large and beautiful specimen of Early English work, and there are slight remains of the monastic buildings. At Madley, south of the Wye 5 m. W. of Hereford, is a fine Decorated church (with earlier portions), with the rare feature of a Decorated apsidal chancel over an octagonal crypt. Of the churches in mixed styles those in the larger towns are the most noteworthy, together with that of Weobley.

The half-timbered style of domestic architecture, common in the west and midlands of England in the 16th and 17th centuries, beautifies many of the towns and villages. Among country houses, that of Treago, 9 m. W. of Ross, is a remarkable example of a fortified mansion of the 13th century, in a condition little altered. Rudhall and Sufton Court, between Ross and Hereford, are good specimens of 15th-century work, and portions of Hampton Court, 8 m. N. of Hereford, are of the same period, built by Sir Rowland Lenthall, a favourite of Henry IV. Holme Lacy, 5 m. S.E. of Hereford, is a fine mansion of the latter part of the 17th century, with picturesque Dutch gardens, and much wood-carving by Grinling Gibbons within. This was formerly the seat of the Scudamores, from whom it was inherited by the Stanhopes, earls of Chesterfield, the 9th earl of Chesterfield taking the name of Scudamore-Stanhope. His son, the 10th earl, has recently (1909) sold Holme Lacy to Sir Robert Lucas-Tooth, Bart. Downton Castle possesses historical interest in having been designed in 1774, in a strange mixture of Gothic and Greek styles, by Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824), a famous scholar, numismatist and member of parliament for Leominster and Ludlow; while Eaton Hall, now a farm, was the seat of the family of the famous geographer Richard Hakluyt.

See Victoria County History, Herefordshire; J. Duncomb, Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford (Hereford, 1804-1812); John Allen, Bibliotheca Herefordiensis (Hereford, 1821); John Webb, Memorials of the Civil War between Charles I. and the Parliament of England as it affected Herefordshire and the adjacent Counties (London, 1879); R. Cooke, Visitation of Herefordshire, 1569 (Exeter, 1886); F. T. Havergal, Herefordshire Words and Phrases (Walsall, 1887); J. Hutchinson, Herefordshire Biographies (Hereford, 1890).

HERERO, or Ovaherero (“merry people”), a Bantu people of German South-West Africa, living in the region known as Damaraland or Hereroland. They call themselves Ovaherero and their language Otshi-herero. Sometimes they are described as Cattle Damara or “Damara of the Plains” in distinction from the Hill Damara who are of mixed blood and Hottentots in language. The Herero, whose main occupation is that of cattle-rearing, are a warlike race, possessed of considerable military skill, as was shown in their campaigns of 1904-5 against the Germans. (See further German South-West Africa.)

HERESY, the English equivalent of the Greek word αἵρεσις which is used in the Septuagint for “free choice,” in later classical literature for a philosophical school or sect as “chosen” by those who belong to it, in Philo for religion, in Josephus for a religious party (the Sadducees, the Pharisees and the Essenes).

It is in this last sense that the term is used in the New Testament, usually with an implicit censure of the factious spirit to which such divisions are due. The term is applied to the Sadducees (Acts v. 17) and Pharisees (Acts xv. New Testament. 5, xxvi. 5). From the standpoint of opponents, Christianity is itself so described (Acts xxiv. 14, xxviii. 22). In the Pauline Epistles it is used with severe condemnation of the divisions within the Christian Church itself. Heresies with “enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, envyings” are reckoned among “the works of the flesh” (Gal. v. 20). Such divisions, proofs of a carnal mind, are censured in the church of Corinth (1 Cor. iii. 3, 4); and the church of Rome is warned against those who cause them (Rom. xvi. 17). The term “schism,” afterwards distinguished from “heresy,” is also used of these divisions (1 Cor. i. 10). The estrangements of the rich and the poor in the church at Corinth, leading to a lack of Christian fellowship even at the Lord’s Supper, is described as “heresy” (1 Cor. xi. 19). Breaches of the law of love, not errors about the truth of the Gospel, are referred to in these passages. But the first step towards the ecclesiastical use of the term is found already in 2 Peter ii. 1, “Among you also there shall be false teachers who shall privily bring in destructive heresies (R.V. margin “sects of perdition”), denying even the Master that bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” The meaning here suggested is “falsely chosen or erroneous tenets. Already the emphasis is moving from persons and their temper to mental products—from the sphere of sympathetic love to that of objective truth” (Bartlet, art. “Heresy,” Hastings’s Bible Dictionary). As the parallel passage in Jude, verse 4, shows, however, that these errors had immoral consequences, the moral reference is not absent even from this passage. The first employment of the term outside the New Testament is also its first use for theological error. Ignatius applies it to Docetism (Ad Trall. 6). As doctrine came to be made more important, heresy was restricted to any departure from the recognized creed. Even Constantine the Great describes the Christian Church as “the Catholic heresy,” “the most sacred heresy” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, x. c. 5, the letter to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse); but this use was very soon abandoned, and the Catholic Church distinguished itself from the dissenting minorities, which it condemned as “heresies.” The use of the term heresy in the New Testament cannot be regarded as defining the attitude of the Christian Church, even in the Apostolic age, towards errors in belief. The Apostolic writings show a vehement antagonism towards all teaching opposed to the Gospel. Paul declares anathema the Judaizer, who required the circumcision of the Gentiles (Gal. i. 8), and even calls them the “dogs of the concision” and “evil workers” (Phil. iii. 2). The elders of Ephesus are warned against the false teachers who would appear in the church after the apostle’s death as “grievous wolves not sparing the flock” (Acts xx. 29); and the speculations of the Gnostics are denounced as “seducing spirits and doctrines of devils” (1 Tim. iv. 1), as “profane babblings and oppositions of the knowledge which is falsely so called” (vi. 20). John’s warnings are as earnest and severe. Those who deny the fact of the Incarnation are described as “antichrist,” and as “deceivers” (1 John iv. 3; 2 John 7). The references to heretics in 2 Peter and Jude have already been dealt with. This antagonism is explicable by the character of the heresies that threatened the Christian Church in the Apostolic age. Each of these heresies involved such a blending of the Gospel with either Jewish or pagan elements, as would not only pollute its purity, but destroy its power. In each of these the Gospel was in danger of being made of none effect by the environment, which it must resist in order that it might transform (see Burton’s Bampton Lectures on The Heresies of the Apostolic Age).

These Gnostic heresies, which threatened to paganize the Christian Church, were condemned in no measured terms by the fathers. These false teachers are denounced as “servants of Satan, beasts in human shape, dealers Gnosticism. in deadly poison, robbers and pirates.” Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian and even Clement of Alexandria and Origen are as severe in condemnation as the later fathers (cf. Matt. xiii. 35-43; Tertullian, Praescr. 31). While the necessity of the heresies is admitted in accordance with 1 Cor. xi. 19, yet woe is pronounced on those who have introduced them, according to Matt. xviii. 7. (This application of these passages, however, is of altogether doubtful validity.) “It was necessary,” says Tertullian (ibid. 30), “that the Lord should be betrayed; but woe to the traitor.” The very worst motives, “pride, disappointed ambition, sensual lust, and avarice,” are recklessly imputed to the heretics; and no possibility of morally innocent doubt, difficulty or difference in thought is admitted. Origen and Augustine do, however, recognize that even false teachers may have good motives. While we must admit that there was a very serious peril to the thought and life of the Christian Church in the teaching thus denounced, yet we must not forget that for the most part these teachers are known to us only in the ex parte representation that their opponents have given of them; and we must not assume that even their doctrines, still less their characters, were so bad as they are described.

The attitude of the church in the post-Nicene period differs from that in the ante-Nicene in two important respects. (1) As has already been indicated, the earlier heresies threatened to introduce Jewish or pagan elements into the faith of the church, and it was necessary that they should be vigorously resisted if the church was to retain its distinctive character. Many of the later heresies were differences in the interpretation of Christian truth, which did not in the same way threaten the very life of the church. No vital interest of Christian faith justified the extravagant denunciations in which theological partisanship so recklessly and ruthlessly indulged. (2) In the ante-Nicene period only ecclesiastical penalties, such as reproof, deposition or excommunication, could be imposed. In the post-Nicene the union of church and state transformed theological error into legal offence (see below).

We must now consider the definition of heresy which was gradually reached in the Christian Church. It is “a religious error held in wilful and persistent opposition to the truth after it has been defined and declared by the Christian definition. church in an authoritative manner,” or “pertinax defensio dogmatis ecclesiae universalis judicio condemnati” (Schaff’s Ante-Nicene Christianity, ii. 512-516). (i.) It “denotes an opinion antagonistic to a fundamental article of the Christian faith,” due to the introduction of “foreign elements” and resulting in a perversion of Christianity, and an amalgamation with it of ideas discordant with its nature (Fisher’s History of Christian Doctrine, p. 9). It has been generally assumed that the ecclesiastical authority was always competent to determine what are the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, and to detect any departures from them; but it is necessary to admit the possibility that the error was in the church, and the truth was with the heresy. (ii.) There cannot be any heresy where there is no orthodoxy, and, therefore, in the definition it is assumed that the church has declared what is the truth or the error in any matter. Accordingly “heresy is to be distinguished from defective stages of Christian knowledge. For example, the Jewish believers, including the Apostles themselves, at the outset required the Gentile believers to be circumcised. They were not on this account chargeable with heresy. Additional light must first come in, and be rejected, before that earlier opinion could be thus stigmatized. Moreover, heresies are not to be confounded with tentative and faulty hypotheses broached in a period prior to the scrutiny of a topic of Christian doctrine, and before that scrutiny has led the general mind to an assured conclusion. Such hypotheses—for example, the idea that in the person of Christ the Logos is substituted for a rational human spirit—are to be met with in certain early fathers” (ibid. p. 10). Origen indulged in many speculations which were afterwards condemned, but, as these matters were still open questions in his day, he was not reckoned a heretic. (iii.) In accordance with the New Testament use of the term heresy, it is assumed that moral defect accompanies the intellectual error, that the false view is held pertinaciously, in spite of warning, remonstrance and rebuke; aggressively to win over others, and so factiously, to cause division in the church, a breach in its unity.

A distinction is made between “heresy” and “schism” (from Gr. σχίζειν, rend asunder, divide). “The fathers commonly use ‘heresy’ of false teaching in opposition to Catholic doctrine, and ‘schism’ of a breach of Schism. discipline, in opposition to Catholic government” (Schaff). But as the claims of the church to be the guardian through its episcopate of the apostolic tradition, of the Christian faith itself, were magnified, and unity in practice as well as in doctrine came to be regarded as essential, this distinction became a theoretical rather than a practical one. While severely condemning, both Irenaeus and Tertullian distinguished schismatics from heretics. “Though we are by no means entitled to say that they acknowledged orthodox schismatics they did not yet venture to reckon them simply as heretics. If it was desired to get rid of these, an effort was made to impute to them some deviation from the rule of faith; and under this pretext the church freed herself from the Montanists and the Monarchians. Cyprian was the first to proclaim the identity of heretics and schismatics by making a man’s Christianity depend on his belonging to the great episcopal church confederation. But in both East and West, this theory of his became established only by very imperceptible degrees, and indeed, strictly speaking, the process was never completed. The distinction between heretics and schismatics was preserved because it prevented a public denial of the old principles, because it was advisable on political grounds to treat certain schismatic communities with indulgence, and because it was always possible in case of need to prove heresy against the schismatics.” (Harnack’s History of Dogma, ii. 92-93).

There was considerable controversy in the early church as to the validity of heretical baptism. As even “the Christian virtues of the heretics were described as hypocrisy and love of ostentation,” so no value whatever was Heretical baptism. attached by the orthodox party to the sacraments performed by heretics. Tertullian declares that the church can have no communion with the heretics, for there is nothing common; as they have not the same God, and the same Christ, so they have not the same baptism (De bapt. 15). Cyprian agreed with him. The validity of heretical baptism was denied by the church of Asia Minor as well as of Africa; but the practice of the Roman Church was to admit without second baptism heretics who had been baptized with the name of Christ, or of the Holy Trinity. Stephen of Rome attempted to force the Roman practice on the whole church in 253. The controversy his intolerance provoked was closed by Augustine’s controversial treatise De Baptismo, in which the validity of baptism administered by heretics is based on the objectivity of the sacrament. Whenever the name of the three-one God is used, the sacrament is declared valid by whomsoever it may be performed. This was a triumph of sacramentarianism, not of charity.

Three types of heresy have appeared in the history of the Christian Church.1 The earliest may be called the syncretic; it is the fusion of Jewish or pagan with Christian elements. Ebionitism asserted “the continual obligation Types of heresy. to observe the whole of the Mosaic law,” and “outran the Old Testament monotheism by a barren monarchianism that denied the divinity of Christ” (Kurtz, Church History, i. 120). “Gnosticism was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysterology, theosophy and philosophy” (p. 98). The Judaizing and the paganizing tendency were combined in Gnostic Ebionitism which was prepared for in Jewish Essenism. In the later heresy of Manichaeism there were affinities to Gnosticism, but it was a mixture of many elements, Babylonian-Chaldaic theosophy, Persian dualism and even Buddhist ethics (p. 126).

The next type of heresy may be called evolutionary or formatory. When the Christian faith is being formulated, undue emphasis may be put on one aspect, and thus so partial a statement of truth may result in error. Thus when in the ante-Nicene age the doctrine of the Trinity was under discussion, dynamic Monarchianism “regarded Christ as a mere man, who, like the prophets, though in a much higher measure, had been endued with divine wisdom and power”; modal Monarchianism saw in the Logos dwelling in Christ “only a mode of the activity of the Father”; Patripassianism identified the Logos with the Father; and Sabellianism regarded Father, Son and Spirit as “the rôles which the God who manifests Himself in the world assumes in succession” (Kurtz, Church History, i. 175-181). When Arius asserted the subordination of the Son to the Father, and denied the eternal generation, Athanasius and his party asserted the Homoousia, the cosubstantiality of the Father and the Son. This assertion of the divinity of Christ triumphed, but other problems at once emerged. How was the relation of the humanity to the divinity in Christ to be conceived? Apollinaris denied the completeness of the human nature, and substituted the divine Logos for the reasonable soul of man. Nestorius held the two natures so far apart as to appear to sacrifice the unity of the person of Christ. Eutyches on the contrary “taught not only that after His incarnation Christ had only one nature, but also that the body of Christ as the body of God is not of like substance with our own” (Kurtz, Church History, i, 330-334). The Church in the Creed of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 affirmed “that Christ is true God and true man, according to His Godhead begotten from eternity and like the Father in everything, only without sin; and that after His incarnation the unity of the person consists in two natures which are conjoined without confusion, and without change, but also without rending and without separation.” The problem was not solved, but the inadequate solutions were excluded, and the data to be considered in any adequate solution were affirmed. After this decision the controversies about the Person of Christ degenerated into mere hair-splitting; and the interference of the imperial authority from time to time in the dispute was not conducive to the settlement of the questions in the interests of truth alone. This problem interested the East for the most part; in the West there was waged a theological warfare around the nature of man and the work of Christ. To Augustine’s doctrine of man’s total depravity, his incapacity for any good, and the absolute sovereignty of the divine grace in salvation according to the divine election, Pelagius opposed the view that “God’s grace is destined for all men, but man must make himself worthy of it by honest striving after virtue” (Kurtz, Church History, i. 348). While Pelagius was condemned, it was only a modified Augustinianism which became the doctrine of the church. It is not necessary in illustration of the second type of heresy—that which arises when the contents of the Christian faith are being defined—to refer to the doctrinal controversies of the middle ages. It may be added that after the Reformation Arianism was revived in Socinianism, and Pelagianism in Arminianism; but the conception of heresy in Protestantism demands subsequent notice.

The third type of heresy is the revolutionary or reformatory. This is not directed against doctrine as such, but against the church, its theory and its practice. Such movements of antagonism to the errors or abuses of ecclesiastical authority may be so permeated by defective conceptions and injurious influences as by their own character to deserve condemnation. But on the other hand the church in maintaining its place and power may condemn as heretical genuine efforts at reform by a return, though partial, to the standard set by the Holy Scriptures or the Apostolic Church. On the one hand there were during the middle ages sects, like the Catharists and Albigenses, whose “opposition as a rule developed itself from dualistic or pantheistic premises (surviving effects of old Gnostic or Manichaean views)” and who “stood outside of ordinary Christendom, and while no doubt affecting many individual members within it, had no influence on church doctrine.” On the other hand there were movements, such as the Waldensian, the Wycliffite and Hussite, which are often described as “reformations anticipating the Reformation” which “set out from the Augustinian conception of the Church, but took exception to the development of the conception,” and were pronounced by the medieval church as heretical for (1) “contesting the hierarchical gradation of the priestly order; or (2) giving to the religious idea of the Church implied in the thought of predestination a place superior to the conception of the empirical Church; or (3) applying to the priests, and thereby to the authorities of the Church, the test of the law of God, before admitting their right to exercise, as holding the keys, the power of binding and loosing” (Harnack’s History of Dogma, vi. 136-137). The Reformation itself was from the standpoint of the Roman Catholic Church heresy and schism.

“In the present divided state of Christendom,” says Schaff (Ante-Nicene Christianity, ii. 513-514), “there are different kinds of orthodoxy and heresy. Orthodoxy is conformity to the recognized creed or standard of public Modern use of the term. doctrine; heresy is a wilful departure from it. The Greek Church rejects as heretical, because contrary to the teaching of the first seven ecumenical councils, the Roman dogmas of the papacy, of the double procession of the Holy Ghost, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, and the infallibility of the Pope. The Roman Church anathematized, in the council of Trent, all the distinctive doctrines of the Protestant Reformation. Among Protestant churches again there are minor doctrinal differences, which are held with various degrees of exclusiveness or liberality according to the degree of departure from the Roman Catholic Church. Luther, for instance, would not tolerate Zwingli’s view on the Lord’s Supper, while Zwingli was willing to fraternize with him notwithstanding this difference.” At the colloquy of Marburg “Zwingli offered his hand to Luther with the entreaty that they be at least Christian brethren, but Luther refused it and declared that the Swiss were of another spirit. He expressed surprise that a man of such views as Zwingli should wish brotherly relations with the Wittenberg reformers” (Walker, The Reformation, p. 174). A difference of opinion on the question of the presence of Christ in the elements at the Lord’s Supper was thus allowed to divide and to weaken the forces of the Reformation. On the problem of divine election Lutheranism and Calvinism remained divided. The Formula of Concord (1577), which gave to the whole Lutheran Church of Germany a common doctrinal system, declined to accept the Calvinistic position that man’s condemnation as well as his salvation is an object of divine predestination. Within Calvinism itself Pelagianism was revived in Arminianism, which denied the irresistibility, and affirmed the universality of grace. This heresy was condemned by the synod of Dort (1619). The standpoint of the Reformed churches was the substitution of the authority of the Scriptures for the authority of the church. Whatever was conceived as contrary to the teaching of the Bible was regarded as heresy. The position is well expressed in the Scotch Confession (1559). “Protesting, that if any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning to God’s Holy Word, that it would please him, of his gentleness, and for Christian charity’s sake, to admonish us of the same in writ, and we of our honour and fidelity do promise unto him satisfaction from the mouth of God; that is, from His Holy Scripture, or else reformation of that which he shall prove to be amiss. In God we take to record in our consciences that from our hearts we abhor all sects of heresy, and all teachers of erroneous doctrines; and that with all humility we embrace purity of Christ’s evangel, which is the only food of our souls” (Preface).

Although subsequently to the Reformation period the Protestant churches for the most part relapsed into the dogmatism of the Roman Catholic Church, and were ever ready with censure for every departure from orthodoxy—yet to-day a spirit of diffidence in regard to one’s own beliefs, and of tolerance towards the beliefs of others, is abroad. The enlargement of the horizon of knowledge by the advance of science, the recognition of the only relative validity of human opinions and beliefs as determined by and adapted to each stage of human development, which is due to the growing historical sense, the alteration of view regarding the nature of inspiration, and the purpose of the Holy Scriptures, the revolt against all ecclesiastical authority, and the acceptance of reason and conscience as alone authoritative, the growth of the spirit of Christian charity, the clamorous demand of the social problem for immediate attention, all combine in making the Christian churches less anxious about the danger, and less zealous in the discovery and condemnation of heresy.

Having traced the history of opinion in the Christian churches on the subject of heresy, we must now return to resume a subject already mentioned, the persecution of heretics. According to the Canon Law, which “was the ecclesiastical Persecution of heretics. law of medieval Europe, and is still the law of the Roman Catholic Church,” heresy was defined as “error which is voluntarily held in contradiction to a doctrine which has been clearly stated in the creed, and has become part of the defined faith of the church,” and which is “persisted in by a member of the church.” It was regarded not only as an error, but also as a crime to be detected and punished. As it belongs, however, to a man’s thoughts and not his deeds, it often can be proved only from suspicions. The canonists define the degrees of suspicion as “light” calling for vigilance, “vehement” demanding denunciation, and “violent” requiring punishment. The grounds of suspicion have been formulated “Pope Innocent III. declared that to lead a solitary life, to refuse to accommodate oneself to the prevailing manners of society and to frequent unauthorized religious meetings were abundant grounds of suspicion; while later canonists were accustomed to give lists of deeds which made the doers suspect: a priest who did not celebrate mass, a layman who was seen in clerical robes, those who favoured heretics, received them as guests, gave them safe conduct, tolerated them, trusted them, defended them, fought under them or read their books were all to be suspect” (T. M. Lindsay in article “Heresy,” Ency. Brit. 9th edition). That the dangers of heresy might be avoided, laymen were forbidden to argue about matters of faith by Pope Alexander IV., an oath “to abjure every heresy and to maintain in its completeness the Catholic faith” was required by the council of Toledo (1129), the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue was not allowed to the laity by Pope Pius IV. The reading of books was restricted and certain books were prohibited. Regarding heresy as a crime, the church was not content with inflicting its spiritual penalties, such as excommunication and such civil disabilities as its own organization allowed it to impose (e.g. the heretics were forbidden to give evidence in ecclesiastical courts, fathers were forbidden to allow a son or a daughter to marry a heretic, and to hold social intercourse with a heretic was an offence). It regarded itself as justified in invoking the power of the state to suppress heresy by civil pains and penalties, including even torture and death.

The story of the persecution of heretics by the state must be briefly sketched.

As long as the Christian Church was itself persecuted by the pagan empire, it advocated freedom of conscience, and insisted that religion could be promoted only by instruction and persuasion (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Lactantius); but almost immediately after Christianity was adopted as the religion of the Roman empire the persecution of men for religious opinions began. While Constantine at the beginning of his reign (313) declared complete religious liberty, and kept on the whole to this declaration, yet he confined his favours to the orthodox hierarchical church, and even by an edict of the year 326 formally asserted the exclusion from these of heretics and schismatics. Arianism, when favoured by the reigning emperor, showed itself even more intolerant than Catholic Orthodoxy. Theodosius the Great, in 380, soon after his baptism, issued, with his co-emperors, the following edict: “We, the three emperors, will that all our subjects steadfastly adhere to the religion which was taught by St Peter to the Romans, which has been faithfully preserved by tradition, and which is now professed by the pontiff Damasus of Rome, and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the institution of the Apostles, and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one Godhead of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, of equal majesty in the Holy Trinity. We order that the adherents of this faith be called Catholic Christians; we brand all the senseless followers of the other religions with the infamous name of heretics, and forbid their conventicles assuming the name of churches. Besides the condemnation of divine justice, they must expect the heavy penalties which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, shall think proper to inflict” (Schaff’s Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, i. 142). The fifteen penal laws which this emperor issued in as many years deprived them of all right to the exercise of their religion, “excluded them from all civil offices, and threatened them with fines, confiscation, banishment and even in some cases with death.” In 385 Maximus, his rival and colleague, caused seven heretics to be put to death at Treves (Trier). Many bishops approved the act, but Ambrose of Milan and Martin of Tours condemned it. While Chrysostom disapproved of the execution of heretics, he approved “the prohibition of their assemblies and the confiscation of their churches.” Jerome by an appeal to Deut. xiii. 6-10 appears to defend even the execution of heretics. Augustine found a justification for these penal measures in the “compel them to come in” of Luke xiv. 23, although his personal leanings were towards clemency. Only the persecuted themselves insisted on toleration as a Christian duty. In the middle ages the church showed no hesitation about persecuting unto death all who dared to contradict her doctrine, or challenge her practice, or question her authority. The instruction and persuasion which St Bernard favoured found little imitation. Even the Dominicans, who began as a preaching order to convert heretics, soon became persecutors. In the Albigensian Crusade (A.D. 1209-1229) thousands were slaughtered. As the bishops were not zealous enough in enforcing penal laws against heretics, the Tribunal of the Inquisition was founded in 1232 by Gregory IX., and was entrusted to the Dominicans who “as Domini canes subjected to the most cruel tortures all on whom the suspicion of heresy fell, and all the resolute were handed over to the civil authorities, who readily undertook their execution” (Kurtz, Church History, ii. 137-138).

At the Reformation Luther laid down the principle that the civil government is concerned with the province of the external and temporal life, and has nothing to do with faith and conscience. “How could the emperor gain the right,” he asks, “to rule my faith?” With that only the Word of God is concerned. “Heresy is a spiritual thing,” he says, “which one cannot hew with any iron, burn with any fire, drown with any water. The Word of God alone is there to do it.” Nevertheless Luther assigned to the state, which he assumes to be Christian, the function of maintaining the Gospel and the Word of God in public life. He was not quite consistent in carrying out his principle (see Luthard’s Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, ii. 33). In the Religious Peace of Augsburg the principle “cujus regio ejus religio” was accepted; by it a ruler’s choice between Catholicism and Lutheranism bound his subjects, but any subject unwilling to accept the decision might emigrate without hindrance.

In Geneva under Calvin, while the Consistoire, or ecclesiastical court, could inflict only spiritual penalties, yet the medieval idea of the duty of the state to co-operate with the church to maintain the religious purity of the community in matters of belief as well as of conduct so far survived that the civil authority was sure to punish those whom the ecclesiastical had censured. Calvin consented to the death of Servetus, whose views on the Trinity he regarded as most dangerous heresy, and whose denial of the full authority of the Scriptures he dreaded as overthrowing the foundations of all religious authority. Protestantism generally, it is to be observed, quite approved the execution of the heretic. The Synod of Dort (1619) not only condemned Arminianism, but its defenders were expelled from the Netherlands; only in 1625 did they venture to return, and not till 1630 were they allowed to erect schools and churches. In modern Protestantism there is a growing disinclination to deal even with errors of belief by ecclesiastical censure; the appeal to the civil authority to inflict any penalty is abandoned. During the course of the 19th century in Scottish Presbyterianism the affirmation of Christ’s atoning death for all men, the denial of eternal punishment, the modification of the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures by acceptance of the results of the Higher Criticism, were all censured as perilous errors.

The subject cannot be left without a brief reference to the persecution of witches. To the beginning of the 13th century the popular superstitions regarding sorcery, witchcraft and compacts with the devil were condemned by the ecclesiastical authorities as heathenish, sinful and heretical. But after the establishment of the Inquisition “heresy and sorcery were regarded as correlates, like two agencies resting on and serviceable to the demoniacal powers, and were therefore treated in the same way as offences to be punished with torture and the stake” (Kurtz, Church History, ii. 195). While the Franciscans rejected the belief in witchcraft, the Dominicans were most zealous in persecuting witches. In the 15th century this delusion, fostered by the ecclesiastical authorities, took possession of the mind of the people, and thousands, mostly old women, but also a number of girls, were tortured and burned as witches. Protestantism took over the superstition from Catholicism. It was defended by James I. of England. As late as the 18th century death was inflicted in Germany and Switzerland on men, women and even children accused of this crime. This superstition dominated Scotland. Not till 1736 were the statutes against witchcraft repealed; an act which the Associate Presbytery at Edinburgh in 1743 declared to be “contrary to the express law of God, for which a holy God may be provoked in a way of righteous judgment.”

The recognition and condemnation of errors in religious belief is by no means confined to the Christian Church. Only a few instances of heresy in other religions can be given. In regard to the fetishism of the Gold Coast Non-Christian religions. of Africa, Jevons (Introduction to the History of Religion, pp. 165-166) maintains that “public opinion does not approve of the worship by an individual of a suhman, or private tutelary deity, and that his dealings with it are regarded in the nature of ‘black art’ as it is not a god of the community.” In China there is a “classical or canonical, primitive and therefore alone orthodox (tsching) and true religion,” Confucianism and Taoism, while the “heterodox (sic),” Buddhism especially, is “partly tolerated, but generally forbidden, and even cruelly persecuted” (Chantepie de la Saussaye, Religionsgeschichte, i. 57). In Islam “according to an unconfirmed tradition Mahomet is said to have foretold that his community would split into seventy-three sects (see Mahommedan Religion, § Sects), of which only one would escape the flames of hell.” The first split was due to uncertainty regarding the principle which should rule the succession to the Caliphate. The Arabic and orthodox party (i.e. the Sunnites, who held by the Koran and tradition) maintained that this should be determined by the choice of the community. The Persian and heterodox party (the Shiites) insisted on heredity. But this political difference was connected with theological differences. The sect of the Mu’tazilites which affirmed that the Koran had been created, and denied predestination, began to be persecuted by the government in the 9th century, and discussion of religious questions was forbidden (see Caliphate, sections B and C). The mystical tendency in Islam, Sufism, is also regarded as heretical (see Kuenen’s Hibbert Lecture, pp. 45-50). Buddhism is a wide departure in doctrine and practice from Brahmanism, and hence after a swift unfolding and quick spread it was driven out of India and had to find a home in other lands. Essenism from the standpoint of Judaism was heterodox in two respects, the abandonment of animal sacrifices and the adoration of the sun.