VOLUME XV SLICE VI Justinian II. to Kells (continued 2)

(W. Y. S.; J. P. P.)

1 This is especially noticeable in the seventh satire, but it applies also to the mention of Crispinus, Latinus, the class of delatores, &c., in the first, to the notice of Veiento in the third, of Rubellius Blandus in the eighth, of Gallicus in the thirteenth, &c.

2 Cf. Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 25.

3 Pliny’s remarks on the vulgarity as well as the ostentation of his host imply that he regarded such behaviour as exceptional, at least in the circle in which he himself lived (Ep. ii. 6).

4 x. 56-107.

5

“Meliusne hic rusticus infans Cum matre et casulis et conlusore catello,” &c.—ix. 60.

6 xi. 152, 153.

JUVENCUS, GAIUS VETTIUS AQUILINUS, Christian poet, flourished during the reign of Constantine the Great. Nothing is known of him except that he was a Spanish presbyter of distinguished family. About 330 he published his Libri evangeliorum IV., each book containing about 800 hexameters. The division into books is possibly a reminiscence of the number of the Gospels. The work itself, written with the idea of ousting the absurdities of Pagan mythology and replacing them by the truths of Christianity, may be called the first Christian epic. In the Praefatio the author expresses the hope that the sacredness of his subject may procure him safety at the final conflagration of the world and admission into heaven. The whole is, in the main, a poetical version of the Gospel of Matthew, the other evangelists only being used for supplementary details. It is founded upon a pre-vulgate Latin translation, although there is evidence that Juvencus also consulted the Greek. In spite of metrical irregularities, the language and style are simple and show good taste, being free from the artificiality of other Christian poets and prose writers, and the author has made excellent use of Virgil (his chief model) and other classical writers. Juvencus set the fashion of verse translations of the Bible, and the large number of MSS. of his poem mentioned in lists and still extant are sufficient evidence of its great popularity. According to Jerome, he was also the author of some poems on the sacraments, but no trace of these has survived. The Latin Heptateuch, a hexameter version of the first seven books of the Old Testament, has been attributed to Juvencus amongst others; but it is now generally supposed to be the work of a certain Cyprianus, a Gaul who lived in the 6th century, possibly a bishop of Toulon, author of the Life of Caesarius, bishop of Arelate (Arles).

See M. Manitius, Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Poesie (1891); A. Ebert, Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters, vol. i. (1889); editions of Juvencus by C. Marold (1886); J. Hümer in Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum, vol. xxiv. (Vienna, 1891); J. T. Hatfield, A Study of Juvencus (1890), dealing with syntax, metre and language; editions of the Heptateuch by J. E. B. Mayor (1889; reviewed by W. Sanday in Classical Review, October 1889, and by J. T. Hatfield in American Journal of Philology, vol. xi., 1890), and R. Peiper, vol. xxiii. of the Vienna series above.

JUVENILE OFFENDERS. In modern social science the question of the proper penal treatment of juvenile (i.e. non-adult) offenders has been increasingly discussed; and the reformatory principle, first applied in the case of children, has even been extended to reclaimable adult offenders (juveniles in crime, if not in age) in a way which brings them sufficiently within the same category to be noticed in this article. In the old days the main idea in England was to use the same penal methods for all criminals, young and old; when the child broke the law he was sent to prison like his elders. It was only in comparatively recent times that it was realized that child criminals were too often the victims to circumstances beyond their own control. They were cursed with inherited taint; they were brought up among evil surroundings; they suffered from the culpable neglect of vicious parents, and still more from bad example and pernicious promptings. They were rather potential than actual criminals, calling for rescue and regeneration rather than vindictive reprisals. Under the old system a painstaking English gaol chaplain calculated that 58% of all criminals had made their first lapse at fifteen. Boys and girls laughed at imprisonment. Striplings of thirteen and fourteen had been committed ten, twelve, sixteen or seventeen times. Religion and moral improvement were little regarded in prisons, industrial and technical training were impossible. The chief lesson learnt was an intimate and contemptuous acquaintance with the demoralizing interior of a gaol. There were at one time in London 200 “flash houses” frequented by 6000 boys trained and proficient in thieving and depredation.

The substantial movement for reform dates from the protests of Charles Dickens, who roused public opinion to such an extent that the first Reformatory School Act was passed in 1854. Sporadic efforts to meet the evil had indeed been made earlier. In 1756 the Marine Society established a school for the reception and reform of younger criminals; in 1788 the City of London formed a similar institution, which grew much later into the farm school at Redhlll. In 1838 an act of parliament created an establishment at Parkhurst for the detention and correction of juvenile offenders, to whom pardon was given conditional on their entrance into some charitable institution. Parkhurst was technically a prison, and the system combined industrial training with religious and educational instruction. These earlier efforts had, however, been quite insufficient to meet the evils, for in the years immediately preceding 1854 crime was being so constantly reinforced in its beginnings, under the existing penal system, that it threatened to swamp the country. Unofficial, but more or less accurate, figures showed that between 11,000 and 12,000 juveniles passed annually through the prisons of England and Wales, a third of the whole number being contributed by London alone. In 1854 the total reached 14,000. The ages of offenders ranged from less than twelve to seventeen; 60% of the whole were between fourteen and seventeen; 46% had been committed more than once; 18% four times and more.

The Reformatory School Act 1854, which was thrashed out at conferences held in Birmingham in 1851 and 1853, substituted the school for the gaol, and all judicial benches were empowered to send delinquents to schools when they had been guilty of acts punishable by short imprisonment, the limit of which was at first fourteen and became afterwards ten days. A serious flaw in this act long survived; this was the provision that a short period of imprisonment in gaol must precede reception into the reformatory; it was upheld by well-meaning but mistaken people as essential for deterrence. But more enlightened opinion condemned the rule as inflicting an indelible prison taint and breeding contamination, even with ample and effective safeguards. Wiser legislation has followed, and an act of 1899 abolished preliminary imprisonment.

Existing reformatories, or “senior home office schools” as they are officially styled, in England numbered 44 in 1907. They receive all juvenile offenders, up to the age of sixteen, who have been convicted of an offence punishable with penal servitude or imprisonment. The number of these during the years between 1894 and 1906 constantly varied, but the figure of the earliest date, 6604, was never exceeded, and in some years it was considerably less, while in 1906 it was no more than 5586, though the general population had increased by several millions in the period. These figures, in comparison with those of 1854, must be deemed highly satisfactory, even when we take into account that the latter went up to the age of seventeen. Older offenders, between sixteen and twenty-one, come within the category of juvenile adults and are dealt with differently (see Borstal Scheme below).

Other schools must be classed with the reformatory, although they have no connexion with prisons and deal with youths who are only potential criminals. The first in importance are the industrial schools. When the newly devised reformatories were doing excellent service it was realized that many of the rising generation might some day lapse into evil ways but were still on the right side and might with proper precautions be kept there. They wanted preventive, not punitive treatment, and for them industrial schools were instituted. The germ of these establishments existed in the Ragged Schools, “intended to educate destitute children and save them from vagrancy and crime.” They had been invented by John Pounds (1766-1839), a Portsmouth shoemaker, who, early in the 19th century, was moved with sympathy for these little outcasts and devoted himself to this good work. The ragged school movement found powerful support in active philanthropists when public attention was aroused to the prevalence of juvenile delinquency. The first Industrial School Act was passed in 1856 and applied only to Scotland. Next year its provisions were extended to England, and their growth was rapid. There were 45 schools in the beginning; in 1878 the number had more than been doubled; in 1907 there were 102 in England and Wales and 31 in Scotland.

The provisions of the Education Acts 1871 and 1876 led to a large increase in the number of children committed for breaches of the law and to the establishment of two kinds of subsidiary industrial schools, short detention of truant schools and day industrial schools in which children do not reside but receive their meals, their elementary education and a certain amount of industrial training. The total admissions to truant schools in 1907 were 1368 boys, and the numbers actually in the schools on the last day of that year were 1125 with 2568 on licence. The average length of detention was fourteen weeks and three days on first admission, seventeen weeks and five days on first re-admission, and twenty-three weeks six days on second re-admission. The total number of admissions into truant schools from 1878 to the end of 1907 was 44,315, of whom just half had been licensed and not returned, 11,239 had been licensed and once re-admitted, 8900 had been re-admitted twice or oftener.

The day industrial schools owed their origin to another reason than the enforcement of the Education Acts. It was found that some special treatment was required for large masses of youths in large cities, who were in such a neglected or degraded condition that there was little hope of their growing into healthy men and women or becoming good citizens. They were left unclean, were ill-fed and insufficiently clothed, and were not usefully taught. The total number who attended these day schools in 1907 was 1951 boys and 1232 girls.

The disciplinary system of the English schools is planned upon the establishment or institution system, as opposed to that of the “family” or “boarding out” systems adopted in some countries, and some controversy has been aroused as to the comparative value of the methods. The British practice has always favoured the well-governed school, with the proviso that it is kept small so that the head may know all of his charges. But a compromise has been effected in large establishments by dividing the boys into “houses,” each containing a small manageable total as a family under an official father or head. Under this system the idea of the home is maintained, while uniformity of treatment and discipline is secured by grouping several houses together under one general authority. The plan of “boarding out” is not generally approved of in England; the value of the domestic training is questionable and of uncertain quality, depending entirely upon the character and fitness of the foster-parents secured. Education must be less systematic in the private home, industrial training is less easily carried out, and there can be none of that esprit de corps that stimulates effort in physical training as applied to athletics and the playing of games. No very definite decision has been arrived at as to the comparative merits of institution life and boarding out. Among the Latin races—France, Italy, Portugal and Spain—the former is as a rule preferred; also in Belgium; in Germany, Holland and the United States placing out in private families is very much the rule; in Austria-Hungary and Russia both methods are in use.

The total admissions to English reformatory schools from their creation to the 31st of December 1907 amounted to 76,455, or 64,031 boys and 12,424 girls. The total discharges for the same period were 70,890, or 59,081 boys and 11,809 girls. The results may be tested by the figures for those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906:—

Boys.—3573 were placed out, of whom 66 had died, leaving 3507; of these it was found that 2735 (or about 78%) were in regular employment; 158 (or about 4%) were in casual employment; 439 (or about 13%) had been convicted; and 175 (or about 5%) were unknown.

Girls.—480, of whom 11 had died, leaving 469; of these it was found that 384 (or about 82%) were in regular employment; 28 (or about 6%) were in casual employment; 17 (or about 4%) had been convicted, and 40 (or about 8%) were unknown.

For industrial schools, including truant and day schools, the total admissions, up to the 31st of December 1907, were 153,893, or 120,955 boys and 32,938 girls. The total discharges to the same date (excluding transfers) were 136,961, or 108,398 boys and 28,563 girls. The results as tested by those discharged in 1904, 1905 and 1906 were as follow:—

Boys.—8909 were placed out, of whom 118 had since died, leaving 8791 to be reported on; of these it was found that 7547 (or about 86%) were in regular employment; 415 (or about 4.7%) were in casual employment; 419 (or about 4.7%) convicted or re-committed; and 410 (or about 4.6%) unknown.

Girls.—2505 placed out, of whom 50 had died, leaving 2455; of these 2180 (or about 89%) were in regular employment; 112 (or about 4%) were in casual employment; 21 (or about 1%) convicted or re-committed; and 142 (or about 6%) unknown.

These results are of course wholly independent of those achieved by the juvenile-adult prison reformatory at Borstal instituted in October 1902. The record of the first year’s work of this excellent system showed that 50% of cases placed out had done well, thanks to the system and philanthropic labours of the Borstal Association.

An interesting point in regard to the reclamation of these criminally inclined juveniles is the nature of the employments to which they have been recommended, and in which, as shown, they have done so well. In 1904, 1905 and 1906, the total number of boys discharged and placed was 12,482. By far the largest number of these, nearly a sixth, joined the army, 679 of them entering the bands; 292 joined the navy; 961 the mercantile marine; 1567 went to farm service; 414 worked in factories or mills as skilled hands; but others joined as labourers, a general class the total of which was 1096. Other jobs found included miners (629), carters (352), iron or steel workers (214), mechanics (301), shoemakers (181), tailors (161), shop assistants (228), carpenters (178), bakers (131), messengers and porters, including 112 errand boys (315). The balance found employment in smaller numbers at other trades. The fate of 585 was unknown, 858 had been re-convicted, and the balance were in unrecorded or casual employment.

The outlets found by the girls from these various schools naturally follow lines appropriate to their sex and the instruction received. Out of a total of 2985 discharged in the three years mentioned, 1235 became general servants, 268 housemaids, 203 laundry-maids, 52 cooks, 98 nursemaids, 65 dressmakers, 221 were engaged in factories and mills, and the balance was made up by marriage, death or casual employment.

In Ireland the reformatory and industrial school system conforms to that of Great Britain. There were in 1905 six reformatory and 70 industrial schools in Ireland, mostly under Roman Catholic management.

A short account of the reformatory methods of dealing with juvenile offenders in certain other countries will fitly find a place here.

Austria-Hungary.—The law leaves children of less than ten years of age to domestic discipline, as also children above that age if not exactly criminal, although the latter may be sent to correctional schools. There they are detained for varying periods, but never after twenty years of age, and they may be sent out on licence to situations or employment found for them. These schools also receive children between ten and fourteen guilty of crimes which are, however, by law deemed “contraventions” only; also the destitute between the same ages and the incorrigible whose parents cannot manage them.

In Hungary the penal code prescribes that children of less than twelve cannot be charged with offences; those between twelve and sixteen may be deemed to have acted without discretion, and thus escape sentence, but are sent to a correctional school where they may be detained till they are twenty years of age. An excellent system prevails in Hungary by which the supervision of those liberated is entrusted to a “protector,” a philanthropic person in the district who visits and reports upon the conduct of the boys, much like the “probation officer” in the United States.

Belgium.—The law of November 1891 places the whole mass of juveniles—those who are likely to give trouble and those who have already done so—at the disposal of the state. The system is very elastic, realizing the infinite variety of childish natures. The purely paternal régime would be wasted upon the really vicious; a severe discipline would press too heavily on the well-disposed. Accordingly, all juveniles, male and female, are divided into six principal classes with a corresponding treatment, it being strictly ruled that there is no intermingling of the classes; the very youngest, rescued early, are never to be associated with the older, who may be already vicious and degraded and who could not fail to exercise a pernicious influence. One of the great merits of the Belgian system is that the regulations may be relaxed, and children of whose amendment good hopes are entertained may be released provisionally, either to the care of parents and guardians or to employers, artisans or agriculturists who will teach them a trade.

Denmark.—There were 61 establishments of all classes for juveniles in Denmark in 1906, holding some 2000 inmates. In 1874, by the will of Countess Danner, a large female refuge was founded at Castle Jagerspris, which holds some 360 girls. Another of the same class is the Royal Vodrofsvei Bonnehjem at Copenhagen, founded in the same year by Mlle Schneider. The régime preferred in Denmark is that of the family or the very small school. The Jagerspris system is to divide the whole number of 360 into small parties of 20 each under a nurse or official mother. Employment in Danish schools is mainly agricultural, field labour and gardening, with a certain amount of industrial training; and on discharge the inmates go to farms or to apprenticeship, while a few emigrate.

France.—There are five methods of disposing of juvenile offenders in France:—

1. The preliminary or preventative prison (maisons d’arrêt and de justice) for those arrested and accused.

2. The ordinary prison for all sentenced to less than six months, whose time of detention is too short to admit of their transfer to a provincial colony. It also receives children whom parents have found unmanageable.

3. The public or private penitentiary colony for the irresponsible children, acquitted as “without discretion,” as well as for the guilty sentenced to more than six months’ and less than two years’ detention.

4. The correctional colony, where the system is more severe, receiving all sentenced for more than two years and all who have misconducted themselves in the milder establishments.

5. Various penitentiary houses for young females, whatever their particular sentence.

Foremost among French penal reformers stands the name of F. A. Demetz (1796-1873), the founder of the famous colony of Mettray. M. Demetz was a judge who, aghast at the evils inflicted upon children whom he was compelled by law to imprison, left the bench and undertook to find some other outlet for them. At that time the French law, while it acquitted minors shown to have acted without discretion, still consigned them for safe keeping and inevitable contamination to the common gaols. M. Demetz conceived the idea of an agricultural colony, and in 1840 organized a small “société paternelle,” as it was called, of which he became vice-president. Another philanthropist, the Vicomte de Bretignières de Courteilles, a landed proprietor in Touraine, associated himself in the enterprise and endowed the institution with land at Mettray near Tours. The earliest labours at Mettray were in the development of the institution, but as this approached completion they were applied to farmwork, agricultural employment being the chief feature of the place. The motto and device of Mettray was “the moralization of youth by the cultivation of the soil”; a healthy life in the open air was to replace the enervating and demoralizing influences of the confined prisons; and this was effected in the usual farming operations, to which were added gardening, vine-dressing, the raising of stock and the breeding of silkworms. The labour was not light; on the contrary, the directors of the colony sought by constant employment to send their charges to bed tired, ready to sleep soundly and not romp and chatter in their dormitories. The excellence of its aims, and the manifestly good results that were growing out of the system, soon made Mettray a model for imitation in France and beyond it. Many establishments were planned upon it, started by the state or private enterprise; penitentiary colonies were created for boys in connexion with some of the great central prisons. The colony of Val de Yèvre has a good record. It was started by a private philanthropist, Charles J. M. Lucas, (1803-1889) but after five-and-twenty years was handed over to the state. Other cognate establishments are those of Petit Quevilly near Rouen, Petit Bourg near Paris, St Hiliar and Eysses. There are several female colonies, especially that of Darnetal at Rouen.

It is for the magistrate or juge d’instruction to select the class of establishment to which the juvenile delinquents brought before him shall be committed. The very young, those of twelve years of age and under, are placed out in the country with families, unless they can be again entrusted to their parents or committed to maisons paternels, containing very limited numbers, twenty or thirty, in charge of a large staff. After twelve, and from that age to fourteen or fifteen, the “ungrateful age” as the French call it, boys are sent to a reformatory or “preservative school,” where they will be under stronger discipline. For the third class, from fifteen to sixteen or eighteen, stricter measures are necessary, so as to dispose of them in specially selected penal colonies, as has already been done at Eysses, where the discipline is severe, while embodying technical and industrial instruction.

Germany.—In most parts of the German Empire juvenile delinquents and neglected youths are treated in the same establishments. No child of less than twelve years of age can be proceeded against in a court of law, although in some German states destitute or abandoned children have been taken at the ages of six, five and even three years. Youths between twelve and eighteen may be convicted, but their offences are passed over if they are proved to have acted without discretion. There are many kinds of correctional institutions and a number of schools not of a correctional character. These last are generally very small, the largest taking barely a hundred, but are very numerous. Many private persons have devoted themselves to the work. Count A. von der Recke-Volmerstein (1791-1878) about 1821 founded a refuge for neglected children in Düsselthal, between Düsseldorf and Elberstadt. Pastor T. F. Fliedner (1800-1864) built up a fine establishment at Kaiserswerth from 1833, in which was an infant school, a penitentiary and an orphan asylum. Another famous name is that of W. von Türk (1774-1846), who studied under Pestalozzi in Switzerland.

A school which has largely influenced public opinion in Great Britain, as in Germany, is the Rauhe Haus, near Hamburg, founded by Dr Wickern in 1833. This began with a single cottage but had grown in twenty years to a hamlet of twenty houses, with from twelve to sixteen inmates in each. The establishment is a Lutheran one; both boys and girls are admitted, in separate houses, and a marked feature of the place is the number of “brothers,” young men of good character qualifying for rescue work as superintendents of homes, prison officers and schoolmasters. They take part in the work and are in constant touch with the boys whom they closely supervise, being bound to “keep them in sight day and night, eat with them, sleep in their dormitories, direct their labour, accompany them to chapel, join in their recreations and sports.” These “brothers” are honourably known throughout the world and have performed a large work in distant lands as missionaries, prison officers and schoolmasters. The Rauhe Haus receives three classes of juveniles: first, the boys, mostly street arabs; second, girls of the same category; third, children taken as boarders from private families, who confess their inability to manage them. The instruction given is in trades, in farming operations, gardening and fruit-raising. The pupils are largely assisted on release, through the good offices of the citizens of Hamburg.

Holland.—In the Low Countries, refuges, called “Godshuis,” were founded as early as the 14th century, intended for the care and shelter of neglected youth and indigent old age. In the 17th century people came from all parts of Europe to learn from the Dutch how orphans and unfortunate children could best be cared for. The Godshuis of Amsterdam was a vast establishment, into which as many as 4000 juveniles were sometimes crowded, with such disastrous effects that its name was changed to that of “pesthuis,” and the government in the beginning of the present century ordered it to be emptied and closed. Other reformatory institutions in Holland are the Netherlands Mettray, the reform school of Zetten, near the Arnheim railway station, for Protestant girls; and that of Alkmaar for boys; the reformatory school of St Vincent de Paul at Amsterdam for both sexes; the Amsterdam reformatory for young vagabonds, male and female; the reform school of Smallepod at Amsterdam. The Netherlands Mettray, which is about five hours’ journey from Amsterdam on a farm called Rissjelt, near Zutphen, is planned on the model of the French Mettray and was founded about 1855 by M. Suringar, a veteran Dutch philanthropist, long vice-president of the directors of prisons in Amsterdam.

Italy.—In Italy there is no distinction between the treatment of the offending and the neglected or deserted in youth. There are seventeen or more correctional establishments, eight of which are state institutions and the rest founded by private benevolence or by charitable associations or local communities. None of these is exclusively agricultural; ten are industrial, seven industrial and agricultural combined. In Italy the age of responsibility is nine, below which no child can be charged with an offence. The Italian schools are mostly planned on a large scale. That of Marchiondi Spagliardi accommodates 550, divided among three houses under one supreme head. The Turazza institution at Treviso holds 380, and there are eight others with from 200 to 300 inmates. The régime is very various; the larger number of schools are on the congregate system, with daily labour in association and isolation by night. The “family” method is also practised with small groups, divisions or companies, into which the children are formed according to age or conduct.

Sweden.—All children below the age of sixteen may be sent to a correctional establishment or boarded out in respectable families:—

1. If they have committed acts punishable by law which indicate moral perversity and it is deemed advisable to correct them.

2. If they are neglected, ill-used, or if their moral deterioration is feared from the vicious life and character of parents or friends.

3. If their conduct at school or at home is such that a more severe correctional treatment is necessary for their rescue.

Under this law the state is also to provide special schools to take all above ten who have shown peculiar depravity; all who have reached eighteen and who are not yet thought fit for freedom; all who have relapsed after provisional release. Sweden is rich in institutions devoted to the care of destitute and deserted children, all due to the efforts of the charitable. The largest correctional establishment is that founded at Hall, near the town of Sodertelge on the shores of the Baltic. This admirable agricultural colony, modelled on that of Mettray, owes its existence to the “Oscar-Josephine society,” founded by Queen Josephine, widow of Oscar I.

United States.—In the words of a report made in 1878 by F. B. Sanborn, secretary of the American Social Science Society, “America can justly plume herself upon the work accomplished by her juvenile reformatories since their inauguration down to the present time.” The first in point of date and still the most considerable of the reformatories in the United States is that founded in 1825, thanks to the unwearied efforts of the great American publicist and philanthropist Edward Livingston, which now has its home on Randall’s Island in New York City. In the following year a reformatory of the same class was founded in Boston, and another in the year after in Philadelphia. All were intended to receive criminal youth. There are state reformatories now in almost all the states of the Union, and those for juvenile adults in New York and Massachusetts have attracted world-wide attention, aiming so high and with such an elaboration of means that they deserve particular description.

The great state reformatory establishment of Elmira, New York, called into existence in 1889 with the avowed aim of compassing the reformation of the criminal by new processes, partakes of the system involved in the treatment of juvenile offenders. It was based upon the principle that crime ought to be attacked in its beginnings by other than ordinary punitive and prison methods. Under this view, the right of society to defend itself by punishment was denied, and it was held that a youthful offender was more sinned against than sinning. It was urged that his crime, due largely to inherited defects, mental or physical and vicious surroundings, was not his own fault, and he had a paramount claim to be treated differently by the state when in custody. The state was not justified in using powers of repression to imprison him in the usual mechanical hard and fast fashion and then return him to society, no better, possibly worse, than before; it was bound to regenerate him, to change his nature, improve his physique, and give him a new mental equipment, so that when again at large he might be fitted to take his place amongst honest citizens, to earn his living by reputable means and escape all temptation to drift back into crime. This is the plausible explanation given for the state reformatory movement, which led to the creation on such costly and extensive lines of Elmira, and of Concord in Massachusetts, a cognate establishment. There is very little penal about the treatment, which is that of a boarding school; the education, thorough and carried far, includes languages, music, science and industrial art; diet is plentiful, even luxurious; amusements and varied recreation are permitted; well stocked libraries are provided with entertaining books; a prison newspaper is issued (edited by an inmate). Physical development is sedulously cultivated both by gymnastics and military exercises, and the whole course is well adapted to change entirely the character of the individual subjected to it. The trouble taken in the hope of transforming erring youth into useful members of society goes still further. The original sentence has been indefinite, and release on parole will be granted to inmates who pass through the various courses with credit and are supposed to have satisfied the authorities of their desire to amend. The limit of detention need not exceed twelve months, after which parole is possible, although the average period passed before it is granted is twenty-two months. The hope of permanent amendment is further sought by the fact that a situation, generally with good wages and congenial work, provided by the authorities, awaits every inmate at the time of his discharge. The inmates, selected from a very large class, are first offenders, but guilty generally of criminal offences, which include manslaughter, burglary, forgery, fraud, robbery and receiving. The exact measure of reformation achieved can never be exactly known, from the absence of authentic statistics and the difficulty of following up the surveillance of individuals when released on parole. Reports issued by the manager of Elmira claim that 81% of those paroled have done well, but these results are not definitely authenticated. They are based upon the ascertained good conduct during the term of surveillance, six or twelve months only, during which time these subjects have not yet spent the gratuities earned and have probably still kept the situations found for them on discharge. No doubt the material treated at Elmira and Concord is of a kind to encourage hope of reformation, as they are first offenders and presumably not of the criminal classes. Although the processes are open to criticism, the discipline enforced in these state reformatories does not err in excessive leniency. They are not “hotels,” as has been sometimes said in ridicule, where prisoners go to enjoy themselves, have a good time, study Plato and conic sections, and pass out to an assured future. There is plenty of hard work, mental and physical, and the “inmates” rather envy their fellows in state prisons. A point to which great attention is paid is that physical degeneracy lies at the bottom of the criminal character, and great attention is paid to the development of nervous energy and strengthening by every means the normal and healthful functions of the body. A leading feature in the treatment is the frequency and perfection with which bathing is carried out. A series of Turkish baths forms a part of the course of instruction; the baths being fitted elaborately with all the adjuncts of shower bath, cold douche, ending with gymnastic exercises.

A remarkable and unique institution is the state reformatory for women at Sherborn, Massachusetts, for women with sentences of more than a year, who in the opinion of the court are fit subjects for reformatory treatment. The majority of the inmates were convicted of drunkenness, an offence which the law of Massachusetts visits with severity—a sentence of two years being very common. This at once differentiates the class of women from that in ordinary penal establishments. At the same time we find that other women guilty of serious crime are sent by the courts to this prison with a view to their reform. Thus of 352 inmates, while no fewer than 200 were convicted of drunkenness, there were also 63 cases of offences against chastity and 30 of larceny. The average age was thirty-one and the average duration of sentence just over a year. In appearance and in character it more resembles a hospital or home for inebriates than a state convict prison. A system of grades or divisions is relied upon as a stimulus to reform. The difference in grades is denoted by small and scarcely perceptible variations of the little details of everyday life, such as are supposed in a peculiar degree to affect the appreciation of women, e.g. in the lowest division the women have their meals off old and chipped china; in the next the china is less chipped; in the highest there is no chipped china; in the next prettily set out with tumblers, cruet-stands and a pepper pot to each prisoner. The superintendent relies greatly also on the moralizing influence of animals and birds. Well-behaved convicts are allowed to tend sheep, calves, pigs, chickens, canaries and parrots. This privilege is highly esteemed and productive, it is said, of the most softening influences.

The “George Junior Republic” (q.v.) is a remarkable institution established in 1895 at Freeville, near the centre of New York State, by Mr. William Reuben George. The original features of the institution are that the motto “Nothing without labour” is rigidly enforced, and that self-government is carried to a point that, with mere children, would appear whimsical were it not a proved success. The place is, as the name implies, a miniature “republic” with laws, legislature, courts and administration of its own, all made and carried on by the “citizens” themselves. The tone and spirit of the place appeared to be excellent and there is much evidence that in many cases strong and independent character is developed in children whose antecedents have been almost hopeless.

Borstal Scheme in England.—The American system of state reformatories as above described has been sharply criticized, but the principle that underlies it is recognized as, in a measure, sound, and it has been adopted by the English authorities. Some time back the experiment of establishing a penal reformatory for offenders above the age hitherto committed to reformatory schools was resolved upon. This led to the foundation of the Borstal scheme, which was first formally started in October 1902. The arguments which had led to it may be briefly stated here. It had been conclusively shown that quite half the whole number of professional criminals had been first convicted when under twenty-one years of age, when still at a malleable period of development, when in short the criminal habit had not yet been definitely formed. Moreover these adolescents escaped special reformatory treatment, for sixteen is in Great Britain the age of criminal majority, after which no youthful offenders can be committed to the state reformatory schools. But there was always a formidable contingent of juvenile adults between sixteen and twenty-one, sent to penal servitude, and their numbers although diminishing rose to an average total of 15,000. It was accordingly decided to create a penal establishment under state control, which should be a half-way house between the prison and the reformatory school. A selection was made of juvenile adults, sentenced to not less than six months and sent to Borstal in 1902 to be treated under rules approved by the home secretary. They were to be divided on arrival into three separate classes, penal, ordinary and special, with promotion by industry and good conduct from the lowest to the highest, in which they enjoyed distinctive privileges. The general system, educational and disciplinary, was intelligent and governed by common sense. Instruction, both manual and educational, was well suited to the recipients; the first embraced field work, market gardening, and a knowledge of useful handicrafts; the second was elementary but sound, aided by well-chosen libraries and brightened by the privilege of evening association to play harmless but interesting games. Physical development was also guaranteed by gymnastics and regular exercises. The results were distinctly encouraging. They arrived at Borstal “rough, untrained cubs,” but rapidly improved in demeanour and inward character, gaining self-reliance and self-respect, and left the prison on the high road to regeneration. It was wisely remembered that to secure lasting amendment it is not enough to chasten the erring subject, to train his hands, to strengthen his moral sense while still in durance; it is essential to assist him on discharge by helping him to find work, and encourage him by timely advice to keep him in the straight path. Too much praise cannot be accorded to the agencies and associations which labour strenuously and unceasingly to this excellent end. Especial good work has been done by the Borstal association, founded under the patronage of the best known and most distinguished persons in English public life—archbishops, judges, cabinet ministers and privy councillors—which receives the juvenile adults on their release and helps them to employment. Their labours, backed by generous voluntary contributions, have produced very gratifying results. Although the offenders originally selected to undergo the Borstal treatment were those committed for a period of six months, it was recognized that this limit was experimental, and that thoroughly satisfactory results could only be obtained with sentences of at least a year’s duration, so as to give the reforming agencies ample time to operate. In the second year’s working of the system it was formally applied to young convicts sentenced to penal servitude between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one. In the next year it was adopted for all offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one committed to prison, as far as the length of sentence would permit. The commissioners of prisons, in their Report for the year 1908 (Cd. 4300) thus expressed themselves on the working of the experiment:—

“Experience soon began to point to the probable success of this general application of the principle, in spite of the fact that the prevailing shortness of sentences operated against full benefit being derived from reformatory effort. The success was most marked in those localities where magistrates, or other benevolent persons, personally co-operated in making the scheme a success. Local Borstal committees were established at all prisons, and it was arranged that those members of the local committees should become ex officio honorary members of the Central Borstal Association, which it was intended should become, what it now is, the parent society directing the general aid on discharge of this category of young prisoners.”

In spite of the general adoption of the Borstal system, there was a large class of young criminals who were outside its effects, those who were sentenced to terms of ten days and under for trifling offences. These juvenile adults, once having had the fear of prison taken away by actual experience, were found to come back again and again. To remedy this state of affairs, a bill was introduced in 1907 to give effect to the principle of a long period of detention for all those showing a tendency to embark on a criminal career. The bill was, however, dropped, but a somewhat similar bill was introduced the next year and became law under the title of The Prevention of Crime Act 1908. This measure introduces a new departure in the treatment of professional crime by initiating a system of detention for habitual criminals (see Recidivism). The act attempts the reformation of young offenders by giving the court power to pass sentence of detention in a Borstal institution for a term of not less than one year nor more than three on those between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one who by reason of criminal habits or tendencies or association with persons of bad character require such instruction and discipline as appear most conducive to their reformation. The power of detention applies also to reformatory school offences, while such persons as are already undergoing penal servitude or imprisonment may be transferred to a Borstal institution if detention would conduce to their advantage. The establishment of other Borstal institutions is authorized by the act, while a very useful provision is the power to release on licence if there is a reasonable probability that the offender will abstain from crime and lead a useful and industrious life. The licence is issued on condition that he is placed under the supervision or authority of some society or person willing to take charge of him. Supervision is introduced after the expiration of the term of sentence, and power is given to transfer to prison incorrigibles or those exercising a bad influence on the other inmates of a Borstal institution. The act marks a noteworthy advance in the endeavour to arrest the growing habit of crime.

(A. G.; T. A. I.)

JUVENTAS (Latin for “youth”: later Juventus), in Roman mythology, the tutelar goddess of young men. She was worshipped at Rome from very early times. In the front court of the temple of Minerva on the Capitol there was a chapel of Juventas, in which a coin had to be deposited by each youth on his assumption of the toga virilis, and sacrifices were offered on behalf of the rising manhood of the state. In connexion with this chapel it is related that, when the temple was in course of erection, Terminus, the god of boundaries, and Juventas refused to quit the sites they had already appropriated as sacred to themselves, which accordingly became part of the new sanctuary. This was interpreted as a sign of the immovable boundaries and eternal youth of the Roman state. It should be observed that in the oldest accounts there is no mention of Juventas, whose name (with that of Mars) was added in support of the augural prediction. After the Second Punic War Greek elements were introduced into her cult. In 218 B.C., by order of the Sibylline books, a lectisternium was prepared for Juventas and a public thanksgiving to Hercules, an association which shows the influence of the Greek Hebe, the wife of Heracles. In 207 Marcus Livius Salinator, after the defeat of Hasdrubal at the battle of Sena, vowed another temple to Juventas in the Circus Maximus, which was dedicated in 191 by C. (or M.) Licinius Lucullus; it was destroyed by fire in 16 B.C. and rebuilt by Augustus. In imperial times, Juventas personified, not the youth of the Roman state, but of the future emperor.

See Dion. Halic., iii. 69, iv. 15; Livy v. 54, xxi. 62, xxxvi. 36.

JUXON, WILLIAM (1582-1663), English prelate, was the son of Robert Juxon and was born probably at Chichester, being educated at Merchant Taylors’ School, London, and at St John’s College, Oxford, where he was elected to a scholarship in 1598. He studied law at Oxford, but afterwards he took holy orders, and in 1609 became vicar of St Giles, Oxford, a living which he retained until he became rector of Somerton, Oxfordshire, in 1615. In December 1621 he succeeded his friend, William Laud, as president of St John’s College, and in 1626 and 1627 he was vice-chancellor of the university. Juxon soon obtained other important positions, including that of chaplain-in-ordinary to Charles I. In 1627 he was made dean of Worcester and in 1632 he was nominated to the bishopric of Hereford, an event which led him to resign the presidency of St John’s in January 1633. However, he never took up his episcopal duties at Hereford, as in October 1633 he was consecrated bishop of London in succession to Laud. He appears to have been an excellent bishop, and in March 1636 Charles I. entrusted him with important secular duties by making him lord high treasurer of England; thus for the next five years he was dealing with the many financial and other difficulties which beset the king and his advisers. He resigned the treasurership in May 1641. During the Civil War the bishop, against whom no charges were brought in parliament, lived undisturbed at Fulham Palace, and his advice was often sought by the king, who had a very high opinion of him, and who at his execution selected him to be with him on the scaffold and to administer to him the last consolations of religion. Juxon was deprived of his bishopric in 1649 and retired to Little Compton in Gloucestershire, where he had bought an estate, and here he became famous as the owner of a pack of hounds. At the restoration of Charles II. he became archbishop of Canterbury and in his official capacity he took part in the coronation of this king, but his health soon began to fail and he died at Lambeth on the 4th of June 1663. By his will the archbishop was a benefactor to St John’s College, where he was buried; he also aided the work of restoring St Paul’s Cathedral and rebuilt the great hall at Lambeth Palace.

See W. H. Marah, Memoirs of Archbishop Juxon and his Times (1869); the best authority for the archbishop’s life is the article by W. H. Hutton in the Dict. Nat. Biog. (1892).

K The eleventh letter in the Phoenician alphabet and in its descendant Greek, the tenth in Latin owing to the omission of Teth (see I), and once more the eleventh in the alphabets of Western Europe owing to the insertion of J. In its long history the shape of K has changed very little. It is on the inscription of the Moabite Stone (early 9th cent. B.C.) in the form (written from right to left) of and . Similar forms are also found in early Aramaic, but another form or , which is found in the Phoenician of Cyprus in the 9th or 10th century B.C. has had more effect upon the later development of the Semitic forms. The length of the two back strokes and the manner in which they join the upright are the only variations in Greek. In various places the back strokes, treated as an angle <, become more rounded (, so that the letter appears as , a form which in Latin probably affected the development of C (q.v.). In Crete it is elaborated into and . In Latin K, which is found in the earliest inscriptions, was soon replaced by C, and survived only in the abbreviations for Kalendae and the proper name Kaeso. The original name Kaph became in Greek Kappa. The sound of K throughout has been that of the unvoiced guttural, varying to some extent in its pronunciation according to the nature of the vowel sound which followed it. In Anglo-Saxon C replaced K through Latin influence, writing being almost entirely in the hands of ecclesiastics. As the sound-changes have been discussed under C it is necessary here only to refer to the palatalization of K followed earlier by a final e as in watch (Middle English wacche, Anglo-Saxon wæcce) by the side of wake (M.E. waken, A.-S. wacan); batch, bake, &c. Sometimes an older form of the substantive survives, as in the Elizabethan and Northern make = mate alongside match.

(P. Gi.)

K2, or Mt Godwin-Austen, the second highest mountain in the world, ranking after Mt Everest. It is a peak of the Karakoram extension of the Muztagh range dividing Kashmir from Chinese Turkestan. The height of K2 as at present determined by triangulation is 28,250 ft., but it is possible that an ultimate revision of the values of refraction at high altitudes may have the effect of lowering the height of K2, while it would elevate those of Everest and Kinchinjunga. The latter mountain would then rank second, and K2 third, in the scale of altitude, Everest always maintaining its ascendancy. K2 was ascended for the first time by the duke of the Abruzzi in June 1909, being the highest elevation on the earth’s surface ever reached by man.

KA‘BA, KAABA, or Kaabeh, the sacred shrine of Mahommedanism, containing the “black stone,” in the middle of the great mosque at Mecca (q.v.).

KABARDIA, a territory of S. Russia, now part of the province of Terek. It is divided into Great and Little Kabardia by the upper river Terek, and covers 3780 sq. m. on the northern slopes of the Caucasus range (from Mount Elbruz to Pasis-mta, or Edena), including the Black Mountains (Kara-dagh) and the high plains on their northern slope. Before the Russian conquest it extended as far as the Sea of Azov. Its population is now about 70,000. One-fourth of the territory is owned by the aristocracy and the remainder is divided among the auls or villages. A great portion is under permanent pasture, part under forests, and some under perpetual snow. Excellent breeds of horses are reared, and the peasants own many cattle. The land is well cultivated in the lower parts, the chief crops being millet, maize, wheat and oats. Bee-keeping is extensively practised, and Kabardian honey is in repute. Wood-cutting and the manufacture of wooden wares, the making of búrkas (felt and fur cloaks), and saddlery are very general. Nalchik is the chief town.

The Kabardians are a branch of the Adyghè (Circassians). The policy of Russia was always to be friendly with the Kabardian aristocracy, who were possessed of feudal rights over the Ossetes, the Ingushes, the Abkhasians and the mountain Tatars, and had command of the roads leading into Transcaucasia. Ivan the Terrible took Kabardia under his protection in the 16th century. Later, Russian influence was counterbalanced by that of the Crimean khans, but the Kabardian nobles nevertheless supported Peter the Great during his Caucasian campaign in 1722-23. In 1739 Kabardia was recognized as being under the double protectorate of Russia and Turkey, but thirty-five years later it was definitively annexed to Russia, and risings of the population in 1804 and 1822 were cruelly suppressed. Kabardia is considered as a school of good manners in Caucasia; the Kabardian dress sets the fashion to all the mountaineers. Kabardians constitute the best detachment of the personal Imperial Guards at St Petersburg.

A short grammar of the Kabardian language and a Russian-Kabardian dictionary, by Lopatinsky, were published in Sbornik Materialov dla Opisaniya Kavkaza (vol. xii., Tiflis, 1891). Fragments of the poem “Sosyruko,” some Persian tales, and the tenets of the Mussulman religion were printed in Kabardian in 1864, by Kazi Atazhukin and Shardanov. The common law of the Kabardians has been studied by Maxim Kovalevsky and Vsevolod Miller.

KABBA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria, situated chiefly on the right bank of the Niger, between 7° 5′ and 8° 45′ N. and 5° 30′ and 7° E. It has an area of 7800 sq. m. and an estimated population of about 70,000. The province consists of relatively healthy uplands interspersed with fertile valleys. It formed part at one time of the Nupe emirate, and under Fula rule the armies of Bida regularly raided for slaves and laid waste the country. Amongst the native inhabitants the Igbira are very industrious, and crops of tobacco, indigo, all the African grains, and a good quantity of cotton are already grown. The sylvan products are valuable and include palm oil, kolas, shea and rubber. Lokoja, a town which up to 1902 was the principal British station in the protectorate, is situated in this province. The site of Lokoja, with a surrounding tract of country at the junction of the Benue and the Niger, was ceded to the British government in 1841 by the attah of Idah, whose dominions at that time extended to the right bank of the river. The first British settlement was a failure. In 1854 MacGregor Laird, who had taken an active part in promoting the exploration of the river, sent thither Dr W. B. Baikie, who was successful in dealing with the natives and in 1857 became the first British consul in the interior. The town of Lokoja was founded by him in 1860. In 1868 the consulate was abolished and the settlement was left wholly to commercial interests. In 1879 Sir George Goldie formed the Royal Niger Company, which bought out its foreign rivals and acquired a charter from the British government. In 1886 the company made Lokoja its military centre, and on the transfer of the company’s territories to the Crown it remained for a time the capital of Northern Nigeria. In 1902 the political capital of the protectorate was shifted to Zungeru in the province of Zaria, but Lokoja remains the commercial centre. The distance of Lokoja from the sea at the Niger mouth is about 250 m.

In the absence of any central native authority the province is entirely dependent for administration upon British initiative. It has been divided into four administrative divisions. British and native courts of justice have been established. A British station has been established at Kabba town, which is an admirable site some 50 m. W. by N. of Lokoja, about 1300 ft. above the sea, and a good road has been made from Kabba to Lokoja. Roads have been opened through the province. (See Nigeria.)

KABBABISH (“goatherds”: James Bruce derives the name from Hebsh, sheep), a tribe of African nomads of Semitic origin. It is perhaps the largest “Arab” tribe in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and its many clans are scattered over the country extending S.W. from the province of Dongola to the confines of Darfur. The Kabbabish speak Arabic, but their pronunciation differs much from that of the true Arabs. The Kabbabish have a tradition that they came from Tunisia and are of Mogrebin or western descent; but while the chiefs look like Arabs, the tribesmen resemble the Beja family. They themselves declare that one of their clans, Kawahla, is not of Kabbabish blood, but was affiliated to them long ago. Kawahla is a name of Arab formation, and J. L. Burckhardt spoke of the clan as a distinct one living about Abu Haraz and on the Atbara. The Kabbabish probably received Arab rulers, as did the Abābda. They are chiefly employed in cattle, camel and sheep breeding, and before the Sudan wars of 1883-99 they had a monopoly of all transport from the Nile, north of Abu Gussi, to Kordofan. They also cultivate the lowlands which border the Nile, where they have permanent villages. They are of fine physique, dark with black wiry hair, carefully arranged in tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, with regular features and rather thick aquiline noses. Some of the tribes wear large hats like those of the Kabyles of Algeria and Tunisia.

See James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790); A. H. Keane, Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan (1884); Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (edited by Count Gleichen, 1905).

KABBALAH (late Hebrew ḳabbālah, qabbālah), the technical name for the system of Jewish theosophy which played an important part in the Christian Church in the middle ages. The term primarily denotes “reception” and then “doctrines received by tradition.” In the older Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately embodied in the Mishnah.1 It is only since the 11th or 12th century that Kabbalah has become the exclusive appellation for the renowned system of theosophy which claims to have been transmitted uninterruptedly by the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets ever since the creation of the first man.

The cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah embrace the nature of the Deity, the Divine emanations or Sĕphīrōth, the cosmogony, the creation of angels and man, their destiny, and the import of the revealed law. According to this Doctrine of the Sephiroth. esoteric doctrine, God, who is boundless, and above everything, even above being and thinking, is called Ēn Sōph (ἄπειρος); He is the space of the universe containing τὸ πᾶν, but the universe is not his space. In this boundlessness He could not be comprehended by the intellect or described in words, and as such the Ēn Sōph was in a certain sense Ăyĭn, non-existent (Zōhar, iii. 283).2 To make his existence known and comprehensible, the Ēn Sōph had to become active and creative. As creation involves intention, desire, thought and work, and as these are properties which imply limit and belong to a finite being, and moreover as the imperfect and circumscribed nature of this creation precludes the idea of its being the direct work of the infinite and perfect, the Ēn Sōph had to become creative, through the medium of ten Sephiroth or intelligences, which emanated from him like rays proceeding from a luminary.

Now the wish to become manifest and known, and hence the idea of creation, is co-eternal with the inscrutable Deity, and the first manifestation of this primordial will is called the first Sephirah or emanation. This first Sephirah, this spiritual substance which existed in the Ēn Sōph from all eternity, contained nine other intelligences or Sephiroth. These again emanated one from the other, the second from the first, the third from the second, and so on up to ten.

The ten Sephiroth, which form among themselves and with the Ēn Sōph a strict unity, and which simply represent different aspects of one and the same being, are respectively denominated (1) the Crown, (2) Wisdom, (3) Intelligence, (4) Love, (5) Justice, (6) Beauty, (7) Firmness, (8) Splendour, (9) Foundation, and (10) Kingdom. Their evolution was as follows: “When the Holy Aged, the concealed of all concealed, assumed a form, he produced everything in the form of male and female, as things could not continue in any other form. Hence Wisdom, the second Sephirah, and the beginning of development, when it proceeded from the Holy Aged (another name of the first Sephirah) emanated in male and female, for Wisdom expanded, and Intelligence, the third Sephirah, proceeded from it, and thus were obtained male and female, viz. Wisdom the father and Intelligence the mother, from whose union the other pairs of Sephiroth successively emanated” (Zohar, iii. 290). These two opposite potencies, viz. the masculine Wisdom or Sephirah No. 2 and the feminine Intelligence or Sephirah No. 3 are joined together by the first potency, the Crown or Sephirah No. 1; they yield the first triad of the Sephiric decade, and constitute the divine head of the archetypal man.

From the junction of Sephiroth Nos. 2 and 3 emanated the masculine potency Love or Mercy (4) and the feminine potency Justice (5), and from the junction of the latter two emanated again the uniting potency Beauty (6). Beauty, the sixth Sephirah, constitutes the chest in the archetypal man, and unites Love (4) and Justice (5), which constitute the divine arms, thus yielding the second triad of the Sephiric decade. From this second conjunction emanated again the masculine potency Firmness (7) and the feminine potency Splendour (8), which constitute the divine legs of the archetypal man; and these sent forth Foundation (9), which is the genital organ and medium of union between them, thus yielding the third triad in the Sephiric decade. Kingdom (10), which emanated from the ninth Sephirah, encircles all the other nine, inasmuch as it is the Shechinah, the divine halo, which encompasses the whole by its all-glorious presence.

In their totality and unity the ten Sephiroth are not only denominated the World of Sephiroth, or the World of Emanations, but, owing to the above representation, are called the primordial or archetypal man (= πρωτόγονος) and the heavenly man. It is this form which, as we are assured, the prophet Ezekiel saw in the mysterious chariot (Ezek. i. 1-28), and of which the earthly man is a faint copy.

As the three triads respectively represent intellectual, moral and physical qualities, the first is called the Intellectual, the second the Moral or Sensuous, and the third the Material World. According to this theory of the archetypal man the three Sephiroth on the right-hand side are masculine and represent the principle of rigour, the three on the left are feminine and represent the principle of mercy, and the four central or uniting Sephiroth represent the principle of mildness. Hence the right is called “the Pillar of Judgment,” the left “the Pillar of Mercy,” and the centre “the Middle Pillar.” The middle Sephiroth are synecdochically used to represent the worlds or triads of which they are the uniting potencies. Hence the Crown, the first Sephirah, which unites Wisdom and Intelligence to constitute the first triad, is by itself denominated the Intellectual World. So Beauty is by itself described as the Sensuous World, and in this capacity is called the Sacred King or simply the King, whilst Kingdom, the tenth Sephirah, which unites all the nine Sephiroth, is used to denote the Material World, and as such is denominated the Queen or the Matron. Thus a trinity of units, viz. the Crown, Beauty and Kingdom, is obtained within the trinity of triads. But further, each Sephirah is as it were a trinity in itself. It (1) has its own absolute character, (2) receives from above, and (3) communicates to what is below. “Just as the Sacred Aged is represented by the number three, so are all the other lights (Sephiroth) of a threefold nature” (Zohar, iii. 288). In this all-important doctrine of the Sephiroth, the Kabbalah insists upon the fact that these potencies are not creations of the Ēn Sōph, which would be a diminution of strength; that they form among themselves and with the Ēn Sōph a strict unity, and simply represent different aspects of the same being, just as the different rays which proceed from the light, and which appear different things to the eye, are only different manifestations of one and the same light; that for this reason they all alike partake of the perfections of the Ēn Sōph; and that as emanations from the Infinite, the Sephiroth are infinite and perfect like the Ēn Sōph, and yet constitute the first finite things. They are infinite and perfect when the Ēn Sōph imparts his fullness to them, and finite and imperfect when that fullness is withdrawn from them.

The conjunction of the Sephiroth, or, according to the language of the Kabbalah, the union of the crowned King and Queen, produced the universe in their own image. Worlds came into existence before the Ēn Sōph manifested The Universe. himself in the human form of emanations, but they could not continue, and necessarily perished because the conditions of development which obtained with the sexual opposites of the Sephiroth did not exist. These worlds which perished are compared to sparks which fly out from a red-hot iron beaten by a hammer, and which are extinguished according to the distance they are removed from the burning mass. Creation is not ex nihilo; it is simply a further expansion or evolution of the Sephiroth.3 The world reveals and makes visible the Boundless and the concealed of the concealed. And, though it exhibits the Deity in less splendour than its Sephiric parents exhibit the Ēn Sōph, because it is farther removed from the primordial source of light than the Sephiroth, still, as it is God manifested, all the multifarious forms in the world point out the unity which they represent. Hence nothing in the whole universe can be annihilated. Everything, spirit as well as body, must return to the source whence it emanated (Zohar, ii. 218). The universe consists of four different worlds, each of which forms a separate Sephiric system of a decade of emanations.

They were evolved in the following order. (1) The World Of Emanations, also called the Image and the Heavenly or Archetypal Man, is, as we have seen, a direct emanation from the Ēn Sōph. Hence it is most intimately allied to the Deity, and is perfect and immutable. From the conjunction of the King and Queen (i.e. these ten Sephiroth) is produced (2) the World of Creation, or the Briatic world, also called “the Throne.” Its ten Sephiroth, being farther removed from the Ēn Sōph, are of a more limited and circumscribed potency, though the substances they comprise are of the purest nature and without any admixture of matter. The angel Metatron inhabits this world. He alone constitutes the world of pure spirit, and is the garment of Shaddai, i.e. the visible manifestation of the Deity. His name is numerically equivalent to that of the Lord (Zohar, iii. 231). He governs the visible world, preserves the harmony and guides the revolutions of all the spheres, and is the captain of all the myriads of angelic beings. This Briatic world again gave rise to (3) the World of Formation, or Yetziratic World. Its ten Sephiroth, being still farther removed from the Primordial Source, are of a less refined substance. Still they are yet without matter. It is the abode of the angels, who are wrapped in luminous garments, and who assume a sensuous form when they appear to men. The myriads of the angelic hosts who people this world are divided into ten ranks, answering to the ten Sephiroth, and each one of these numerous angels is set over a different part of the universe, and derives his name from the heavenly body or element which he guards (Zohar, i. 42). From this world finally emanated (4) the World of Action, also called the World of Matter. Its ten Sephiroth are made up of the grosser elements of the former three worlds; they consist of material substance limited by space and perceptible to the senses in a multiplicity of forms. This world is subject to constant changes and corruption, and is the dwelling of the evil spirits. These, the grossest and most deficient of all forms, are also divided into ten degrees, each lower than the other. The first two are nothing more than the absence of all visible form and organization; the third degree is the abode of darkness; whilst the remaining seven are “the seven infernal halls,” occupied by the demons, who are the incarnation of all human vices. These seven hells are subdivided into innumerable compartments corresponding to every species of sin, where the demons torture the poor deluded human beings who have suffered themselves to be led astray whilst on earth. The prince of this region of darkness is Sāmāel, the evil spirit, the serpent who seduced Eve. His wife is the Harlot or the Woman of Whoredom. The two are treated as one person, and are called “the Beast” (Zohar, ii. 255-259, with i. 35).

The whole universe, however, was incomplete, and did not receive its finishing stroke till man was formed, who is the acme of the creation and the microcosm. “The heavenly Adam (i.e. the ten Sephiroth) who emanated Doctrine of Man. from the highest primordial obscurity (i.e. the Ēn Sōph) created the earthly Adam” (Zohar, ii. 70). “Man is both the import and the highest degree of creation, for which reason he was formed on the sixth day. As soon as man was created everything was complete, including the upper and nether worlds, for everything is comprised in man. He unites in himself all forms” (Zohar, iii. 48). Each member of his body corresponds to a part of the visible universe. “Just as we see in the firmament above, covering all things, different signs which are formed of the stars and the planets, and which contain secret things and profound mysteries studied by those who are wise and expert in these things; so there are in the skin, which is the cover of the body of the son of man, and which is like the sky that covers all things above, signs and features which are the stars and planets of the skin, indicating secret things and profound mysteries whereby the wise are attracted who understand the reading of the mysteries in the human face” (Zohar, ii. 76). The human form is shaped after the four letters which constitute the Jewish Tetragrammaton (q.v.; see also Jehovah). The head is in the shape of י, the arms and the shoulders are like ה, the breast like ו, and the two legs with the back again resemble ה (Zohar, ii. 72). The souls of the whole human race pre-exist in the World of Emanations, and are all destined to inhabit human bodies. Like the Sephiroth from which it emanates, every soul has ten potencies, consisting of a trinity of triads. (1) The Spirit (nĕshāmah), which is the highest degree of being, corresponds to and is operated upon by the Crown, which is the highest triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Intellectual World; (2) the Soul (rūăḥ), which is the seat of the moral qualities, corresponds to and is operated upon by Beauty, which is the second triad in the Sephiroth, and is called the Moral World; and (3) the Cruder Soul (nephesh), which is immediately connected with the body, and is the cause of its lower instincts and the animal life, corresponds to and is operated upon by Foundation, the third triad in the Sephiroth, called the Material World. Each soul prior to its entering into this world consists of male and female united into one being. When it descends on this earth the two parts are separated and animate two different bodies. “At the time of marriage the Holy One, blessed be he, who knows all souls and spirits, unites them again as they were before; and they again constitute one body and one soul, forming as it were the right and the left of the individual.... This union, however, is influenced by the deeds of the man and by the ways in which he walks. If the man is pure and his conduct is pleasing in the sight of God, he is united with that female part of the soul which was his component part prior to his birth” (Zohar, i. 91). The soul’s destiny upon earth is to develop those perfections the germs of which are eternally implanted in it, and it ultimately must return to the infinite source from which it emanated. Hence, if, after assuming a body and sojourning upon earth, it becomes polluted by sin and fails to acquire the experience for which it descends from heaven, it must three times reinhabit a body, till it is able to ascend in a purified state through repeated trials. If, after its third residence in a human body, it is still too weak to withstand the contamination of sin, it is united with another soul, in order that by their combined efforts it may resist the pollution which by itself it was unable to conquer. When the whole pleroma of pre-existent souls in the world of the Sephiroth shall have descended and occupied human bodies and have passed their period of probation and have returned purified to the bosom of the infinite Source, then the soul of Messiah will descend from the region of souls; then the great Jubilee will commence. There shall be no more sin, no more temptation, no more suffering. Universal restoration will take place. Satan himself, “the venomous Beast,” will be restored to his angelic nature. Life will be an everlasting feast, a Sabbath without end. All souls will be united with the Highest Soul, and will supplement each other in the Holy of Holies of the Seven Halls (Zohar, i. 45, 168; ii. 97).

According to the Kabbalah all these esoteric doctrines are contained in the Hebrew Scriptures. The uninitiated cannot perceive them; but they are plainly revealed to the spiritually minded, who discern the profound import Antiquity and Influence of Kabbalah. of this theosophy beneath the surface of the letters and words of Holy Writ. “If the law simply consists of ordinary expressions and narratives, such as the words of Esau, Hagar, Laban, the ass of Balaam or Balaam himself, why should it be called the law of truth, the perfect law, the true witness of God? Each word contains a sublime source, each narrative points not only to the single instance in question, but also to generals” (Zohar, iii. 149, cf. 152).

To obtain these heavenly mysteries, which alone make the Torah superior to profane codes, definite hermeneutical rules are employed, of which the following are the most important. (1) The words of several verses in the Hebrew Scriptures which are regarded as containing a recondite sense are placed over each other, and the letters are formed into new words by reading them vertically. (2) The words of the text are ranged in squares in such a manner as to be read either vertically or boustrophedon. (3) The words are joined together and redivided. (4) The initials and final letters of several words are formed into separate words. (5) Every letter of a word is reduced to its numerical value, and the word is explained by another of the same quantity. (6) Every letter of a word is taken to be the initial or abbreviation of a word. (7) The twenty-two letters of the alphabet are divided into two halves; one half is placed above the other; and the two letters which thus become associated are interchanged. By this permutation, Aleph, the first letter of the alphabet, becomes Lamed, the twelfth letter; Beth becomes Mem, and so on. This cipher alphabet is called Albam, from the first interchangeable pairs. (8) The commutation of the twenty-two letters is effected by the last letter of the alphabet taking the place of the first, the last but one the place of the second, and so forth. This cipher is called Atbash. These hermeneutical canons are much older than the Kabbalah. They obtained in the synagogue from time immemorial, and were used by the Christian fathers in the interpretation of Scripture.4 Thus Canon V., according to which a word is reduced to its numerical value and interpreted by another word of the same value, is recognized in the New Testament (cf. Rev. xiii. 18). Canon VI. is adopted by Irenaeus, who tells us that, according to the learned among the Hebrews, the name Jesus contains two letters and a half, and signifies that Lord who contains heaven and earth [ieshu = יהוה שמים וארץ] (Against Heresies, ii. xxiv., i. 205, ed. Clark). The cipher Atbash (Canon VIII.) is used in Jeremiah xxv. 26, li. 41, where Sheshach is written for Babel. In Jer. li. 1, לב קמי, Leb-Kamai (“the heart of them that rise up against me”), is written for כשדים, Chaldea, by the same rule.

Exegesis of this sort is not the characteristic of any single circle, people or century; unscientific methods of biblical interpretation have prevailed from Philo’s treatment of the Pentateuch to modern apologetic interpretations of Genesis, ch. i.5 The Kabbalah itself is but an extreme and remarkable development of certain forms of thought which had never been absent from Judaism; it is bound up with earlier tendencies to mysticism, with man’s inherent striving to enter into communion with the Deity. To seek its sources would be futile. The Pythagorean theory of numbers, Neoplatonic ideas of emanation, the Logos, the personified Wisdom, Gnosticism—these and many other features combine to show the antiquity of tendencies which, clad in other shapes, are already found in the old pre-Christian Oriental religions.6 In its more mature form the Kabbalah belongs to the period when medieval Christian mysticism was beginning to manifest itself (viz. in Eckhart, towards end of 13th century); it is an age which also produced the rationalism of Maimonides (q.v.). Although some of its foremost exponents were famous Talmudists, it was a protest against excessive intellectualism and Aristotelian scholasticism. It laid stress, not on external authority, as did the Jewish law, but on individual experience and inward meditation. “The mystics accorded the first place to prayer, which was considered as a mystical progress towards God, demanding a state of ecstasy.”7 As a result, some of the finest specimens of Jewish devotional literature and some of the best types of Jewish individual character have been Kabbalist.8 On the other hand, the Kabbalah has been condemned, and nowhere more strongly than among the Jews themselves. Jewish orthodoxy found itself attacked by the more revolutionary aspects of mysticism and its tendencies to alter established customs. While the medieval scholasticism denied the possibility of knowing anything unattainable by reason, the spirit of the Kabbalah held that the Deity could be realized, and it sought to bridge the gulf. Thus it encouraged an unrestrained emotionalism, rank superstition, an unhealthy asceticism, and the employment of artificial means to induce the ecstatic state. That this brought moral laxity was a stronger reason for condemning the Kabbalah, and the evil effects of nervous degeneration find a more recent illustration in the mysticism of the Chasidim (Ḥăsīdīm, “saints”), a Jewish sect in eastern Europe which started from a movement in the 18th century against the exaggerated casuistry of contemporary rabbis, and combined much that was spiritual and beautiful with extreme emotionalism and degradation.9 The appearance of the Kabbalah and of other forms of mysticism in Judaism may seem contrary to ordinary and narrow conceptions of orthodox Jewish legalism. Its interest lies, not in its doctrines, which have often been absurdly over-estimated (particularly among Christians), but in its contribution to the study of human thought. It supplied a want which has always been felt by certain types, and it became a movement which had mischievous effects upon ill-balanced minds. As usual, the excessive self-introspection was not checked by a rational criticism; the individual was guided by his own reason, the limitations of which he did not realize; and in becoming a law unto himself he ignored the accumulated experiences of civilized humanity.10

A feature of greater interest is the extraordinary part which this theosophy played in the Christian Church, especially at the time of the Renaissance. We have already seen that the Sephiric decade or the archetypal man, like Christ, is considered to be of a double nature, both infinite and finite, perfect and imperfect. More distinct, however, is the doctrine of the Trinity. In Deut. vi. 43, where Yahweh occurs first, then Ĕlōhēnū, and then again Yahweh, we are told “The voice though one, consists of three elements, fire (i.e. warmth), air (i.e. breath), and water (i.e. humidity), yet all three are one in the mystery of the voice and can only be one. Thus also Yahweh, Ĕlōhēnū, Yahweh, constitute one—three forms which are one” (Zohar, ii. 43; compare iii. 65). Discussing the thrice holy in Isaiah vi. 3, one codex of the Zohar had the following remark: “The first holy denotes the Holy Father, the second the Holy Son, and the third the Holy Ghost” (cf. Galatinus, De arcanis cathol. lib. ii. c. 3, p. 31; Wolf, Bibliotheca hebraica, i. 1136). Still more distinct is the doctrine of the atonement. “The Messiah invokes all the sufferings, pain, and afflictions of Israel to come upon Him. Now if He did not remove them thus and take them upon Himself, no man could endure the sufferings of Israel, due as their punishment for transgressing the law; as it is written (Isa. liii. 4), Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Zohar, ii. 12). These and similar statements favouring the doctrines of the New Testament made many Kabbalists of the highest position in the synagogue embrace the Christian faith and write elaborate books to win their Jewish brethren over to Christ. As early as 1450 a company of Jewish converts in Spain, at the head of which were Paul de Heredia, Vidal de Saragossa de Aragon, and Davila, published compilations of Kabbalistic treatises to prove from them the doctrines of Christianity. They were followed by Paul Rici, professor at Pavia, and physician to the emperor Maximilian I. Among the best-known non-Jewish exponents of the Kabbalah were the Italian count Pico di Mirandola (1463-1494), the renowned Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1487-1535), Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541), and, later, the Englishman Robert Fludd (1574-1637). Prominent among the “nine hundred theses” which Mirandola had placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their travelling expenses, was the following: “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.” Mirandola so convinced Pope Sixtus of the paramount importance of the Kabbalah as an auxiliary to Christianity that his holiness exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. With equal zeal did Reuchlin act as the apostle of the Kabbalah. His treatises exercised an almost magic influence upon the greatest thinkers of the time. Pope Leo X. and the early Reformers were alike captivated by the charms of the Kabbalah as propounded by Reuchlin, and not only divines, but statesmen and warriors, began to study the Oriental languages in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of Jewish theosophy. The Zohar, that farrago of absurdity and spiritual devotion, was the weapon with which these Christians defended Jewish literature against hostile ecclesiastic bodies (Abrahams, Jew. Lit. p. 106). Thus the Kabbalah linked the old scholasticism with the new and independent inquiries in learning and philosophy after the Renaissance, and although it had evolved a remarkably bizarre conception of the universe, it partly anticipated, in its own way, the scientific study of natural philosophy.11 Jewish theosophy, then, with its good and evil tendencies, and with its varied results, may thus claim to have played no unimportant part in the history of European scholarship and thought.

The main sources to be noticed are:—

1. The Sēpher Yĕsīrah, or “book of creation,” not the old Hilkoth Y. (“rules of creation”), which belongs to the Talmudic period (on which see Kohler, Jew. Ency. xii. 602 seq.), Main Sources. but a later treatise, a combination of medieval natural philosophy and mysticism. It has been variously ascribed to the patriarch Abraham and to the illustrious rabbi ‘Aqiba; its essential elements, however, maybe of the 3rd or 4th century A.D., and it is apparently earlier than the 9th (see L. Ginzberg, op. cit. 603 sqq.). It has “had a greater influence on the development of the Jewish mind than almost any other book after the completion of the Talmud” (ibid.).

2. The Bāhīr (“brilliant,” Job. xxxvii. 21), though ascribed to Neḥunyah b. Haqqanah (1st century A.D.), is first quoted by Naḥmanides, and is now attributed to his teacher Ezra or Azriel (1160-1238). It shows the influence of the Sēpher Yēṣīrah, is marked by the teaching of a celestial Trinity, is a rough outline of what the Zohar was destined to be, and gave the first opening to a thorough study of metaphysics among the Jews. (See further 1. Broydé, Jew. Ency. ii. 442 seq.).

3. The Zohar (“shining,” Dan. xii. 3) is a commentary on the Pentateuch, according to its division into fifty-two hebdomadal lessons. It begins with the exposition of Gen. i. 4 (“let there be light”) and includes eleven dissertations: (1) “Additions and Supplements”; (2) “The Mansions and Abodes,” describing the structure of paradise and hell; (3) “The Mysteries of the Pentateuch,” describing the evolution of the Sephiroth, &c.; (4) “The Hidden Interpretation,” deducing esoteric doctrine from the narratives in the Pentateuch; (5) “The Faithful Shepherd,” recording discussions between Moses the faithful shepherd, the prophet Elijah and R. Simon b. Yoḥai, the reputed compiler of the Zohar; (6) “The Secret of Secrets,” a treatise on physiognomy and psychology; (7) “The Aged,” i.e. the prophet Elijah, discoursing with R. Simon on the doctrine of transmigration as evolved from Exod. xxi. 1-xxiv. 18; (8) “The Book of Secrets,” discourses on cosmogony and demonology; (9) “The Great Assembly,” discourses of R. Simon to his numerous assembly of disciples on the form of the Deity and on pneumatology; (10) “The Young Man,” discourses by young men of superhuman origin on the mysteries of ablutions; and (11) “The Small Assembly,” containing the discourses on the Sephiroth which R. Simon delivered to the small congregation of six surviving disciples. The Zohar pretends to be a compilation made by Simon b. Yoḥai (the second century A.D.) of doctrines which God communicated to Adam in Paradise, and which have been received uninterruptedly from the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets. It was discovered, so the story went, in a cavern in Galilee where it had been hidden for a thousand years. Amongst the many facts, however, established by modern criticism which prove the Zohar to be a compilation of the 13th century, are the following: (1) the Zohar itself praises most fulsomely R. Simon, its reputed author, and exalts him above Moses; (2) it mystically explains the Hebrew vowel points, which did not obtain till 570; (3) the compiler borrows two verses from the celebrated hymn called “The Royal Diadem,” written by Ibn Gabirol, who was born about 1021; (4) it mentions the capture of Jerusalem by the crusaders and the re-taking of the Holy City by the Saracens; (5) it speaks of the comet which appeared at Rome, 15th July 1264, under the pontificate of Urban IV.; (6) by a slip the Zohar assigns a reason why its contents were not revealed before 5060-5066 A.M., i.e. 1300-1306 A.D., (7) the doctrine of the Ēn Sōph and the Sephiroth was not known before the 13th century; and (8) the very existence of the Zohar itself was not known prior to the 13th century. Hence it is now believed that Moses de Leon (d. 1305), who first circulated and sold the Zohar as the production of R. Simon, was himself the author or compiler. That eminent scholars both in the synagogue and in the church should have been induced to believe in its antiquity is owing to the fact that the Zohar embodies many older opinions and doctrines, and the undoubted antiquity of some of them has served as a lever in the minds of these scholars to raise the late speculations about the Ēn Sōph, the Sephiroth, &c., to the same age.

Literature.—The study of the whole subject being wrapped up with Gnosticism and Oriental theosophy, the related literature is immense. Among the more important works may be mentioned, Baron von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (Sulzbach, 1677-1678; Frankfort, 1684); A. Franck, La Kabbale (Paris, 2nd ed., 1889; German by Jellinek, Leipzig, 1844); C. D. Ginsburg, The Kabbalah, its Doctrines, Development and Literature (London, 1865); I. Meyer, Qabbalah (Philadelphia, 1888); Rubin, Kabbala und Agada (Vienna, 1895), Heidentum und Kabbalah (1893); Karppe, Ét. sur les origines du Zohar (Paris, 1891); A. E. Waite, Doctrine and Literature of the Kabbalah (London, 1902); Flügel, Philosophy, Kabbala, &c. (Baltimore, 1902); D. Neumark, Gesch. d. Jüd. Philosophie d. Mittelalters (Berlin, 1907); also S. A. Binion, in C. D. Warner’s World’s Best Literature, 8425 sqq. See further the very full articles in the Jewish Ency. by K. Kohler and L. Ginzberg (“Cabbala”), I. Broydé (“Bahir,” “Zohar”), with the references.

(C. D. G.; S. A. C.)

1 C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (1897), pp. 106 sqq., 175 seq.; W. Bacher, Jew. Quart. Rev. xx. 572 sqq. (1908).

2 On the Zōhar, “the Bible of the Kabbalists,” see below.

3 The view of a mediate creation, in the place of immediate creation out of nothing, and that the mediate beings were emanations, was much influenced by Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1070).

4 See F. Weber, Jüdische Theologie (1897), pp. 118 sqq.

5 See C. A. Briggs, Study of Holy Scripture (1899), pp. 427 sqq., 570.

6 Even the “over-Soul” of the mystic Isaac Luria (1534-1572) is a conception known in the 3rd century A.D. (Rabbi Rēsh Lakīsh). For the early stages of Kabbalistic theories, see K. Kohler, Jew. Ency. iii. 457 seq., and L. Ginzberg, ibid. 459 seq.; and for examples of the relationship between old Oriental (especially Babylonian) and Jewish Kabbalistic teaching (early and late), see especially A. Jeremias, Babylonisches in N. Test. (Leipzig, 1905); E. Bischoff, Bab. Astrales im Weltbilde des Thalmud u. Midrasch (1907).

7 L. Ginzberg, Jew. Ency. iii. 465.

8 See, especially, on the mystics of Safed in Upper Galilee, S. Schechter, Studies (1908), pp. 202-285.

9 See the instructive article by S. Schechter, Studies in Judaism (London, 1896), pp. 1-55.

10 See the discriminating estimates by S. A. Hirsch, Jew. Quart. Rev. xx. 50-73; I. Abrahams, Jew. Lit. (1906), ch. xvii.: Judaism (1907), ch. vi.

11 See, e.g., G. Margoliouth, “The Doctrine of Ether in the Kabbalah,” Jew. Quart. Rev. xx. 828 sqq. On the influence of the Kabbalah on the Reformation, see Stöckl, Gesch. d. Philosophie des Mittelalters, ii. 232-251.

KABINDA, a Portuguese possession on the west coast of Africa north of the mouth of the Congo. Westwards it borders the Atlantic, N. and N.E. French Congo, S. and S.E. Belgian Congo. It has a coast-line of 93 m., extends inland, at its greatest breadth, 70 m., and has an area of about 3000 sq. m. In its physical features, flora, fauna and inhabitants, it resembles the coast region of French Congo (q.v.). The only considerable river is the Chiloango, which in part forms the boundary between Portuguese and Belgian territory, and in its lower course divides Kabinda into two fairly even portions. The mouth of the river is in 5° 12′ S., 12° 5′ E. The chief town, named Kabinda, is a seaport on the right bank of the small river Bele, in 5° 33′ S., 12° 10′ E.; pop. about 10,000. From the beauty of its situation, and the fertility of the adjacent country, it has been called the paradise of the coast. The harbour is sheltered and commodious, with anchorage in four fathoms. Kabinda was formerly a noted slave mart. Farther north are the ports of Landana and Massabi. Between Kabinda and Landana is Molembo at the head of a small bay of the same name. There is a considerable trade in palm oil, ground nuts and other jungle produce, largely in the hands of British and German firms.

The possession of the enclave of Kabinda by Portugal is a result of the efforts made by that nation during the last quarter of the 19th century to obtain sovereignty over both banks of the lower Congo. Whilst Portugal succeeded in obtaining the southern bank of the river to the limit of navigability from the sea, the northern bank became part of the Congo Free State (see Africa, § 5). Portuguese claims to the north of the river were, however, to some extent met by the recognition of her right to Kabinda. The southernmost part of Kabinda is 25 m. (following the coast-line) north of the mouth of the Congo. This district as far north as the Chiloango river (and including the adjacent territory of Belgian Congo) is sometimes spoken of as Kacongo. The name Loango (q.v.) was also applied to this region as well as to the coast-lands immediately to the north. Administratively Kabinda forms a division of the Congo district of the province of Angola (q.v.). The inhabitants are Bantu negroes who are called Kabindas. They are an intelligent, energetic and enterprising people, daring sailors and active traders.

KABĪR, the most notable of the Vaishnava reformers of religion in northern India, who flourished during the first half of the 15th century. He is counted as one of the twelve disciples of Rāmānand, the great preacher in the north (about A.D. 1400) of the doctrine of bhakti addressed to Rāma, which originated with Rāmānuja (12th century) in southern India. He himself also mentions among his spiritual forerunners Jaidēo and Nāmdēo (or Nāmā) the earliest Marāthī poet (both about 1250). Legend relates that Kabīr was the son of a Brāhman widow, by whom he was exposed, and was found on a lotus in Lahar Talāo, a pond near Benares, by a Musalmān weaver named ‘Alī (or Nūrī), who with his wife Nīmā adopted him and brought him up in their craft as a Musalmān. He lived most of his life at Benares, and afterwards removed to Maghar (or Magahar), in the present district of Bastī, where he is said to have died in 1449. There appears to be no reason to doubt that he was originally a Musalmān and a weaver; his own name and that of his son Kamāl are Mahommedan, not Hindu. His adhesion to the doctrine of Rāmānand is not a solitary instance of the religious syncretism which prevailed at this time in northern India. The religion of the earlier Sikh Gurus, which was largely based upon his teaching, also aimed at the fusion of Hinduism and Islam; and the example of Malik Muhammad,1 the author of the Padmāwat, who lived a century later than Kabīr, shows that the relations between the two creeds were in some cases extremely intimate. It is related that at Kabīr’s death the Hindūs and Musalmāns each claimed him as an adherent of their faith, and that when his funeral issued forth from his house at Maghar the contention was only assuaged by the appearance of Kabīr himself, who bade them look under the cloth which covered the corpse, and immediately vanished. On raising the cloth they found nothing but a heap of flowers. This was divided between the rival faiths, half being buried by the Musalmāns and the other half burned by the Hindus.2