1See Victor Mahillon,Catalogue descriptif, vol. ii. (Ghent, 1896), p. 353, No. 1126; and Captain C.R. Day,Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments(London, 1891), p. 62, No. 135.2See N. Quellien,Chansons et danses des Bretons(Paris, 1889), p. 39, and note, where the description of the instrument is not technical.3See Le Gonidec,Dictionnaire breton-français, ed. by T. Hersart de la Villemarque; and N. Quellien,op. cit. p. 37, note.4For examples of these see N. Quellien,op. cit. part ii.
1See Victor Mahillon,Catalogue descriptif, vol. ii. (Ghent, 1896), p. 353, No. 1126; and Captain C.R. Day,Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments(London, 1891), p. 62, No. 135.
2See N. Quellien,Chansons et danses des Bretons(Paris, 1889), p. 39, and note, where the description of the instrument is not technical.
3See Le Gonidec,Dictionnaire breton-français, ed. by T. Hersart de la Villemarque; and N. Quellien,op. cit. p. 37, note.
4For examples of these see N. Quellien,op. cit. part ii.
BINMALEY,a town of the province of Pangasinan, Luzon, Philippine Islands, on the delta of the Agno river, about 5 m. W. of Dagupan, the north terminus of the Manila & Dagupan railway. Pop. (1903) 16,439. It has important fisheries, and manufactures salt, pottery, roofing (made of nipa leaves), and nipa wine. Rice and cocoanuts are the principal agricultural products of the town.
BINNACLE(before 18th centurybittacle, through Span.bitácula, from Lat.habitaculum, a little dwelling), a case on the deck of a ship, generally in front of the steersman, in which is kept a compass, and a light by which the compass is read at night.
BINNEY, EDWARD WILLIAM(1812-1881), English geologist, was born at Morton, in Nottinghamshire, in 1812. He was articled to a solicitor in Chesterfield, and in 1836 settled at Manchester. He retired soon afterwards from legal practice and gave his chief attention to geological pursuits. He assisted in 1838 in founding the Manchester Geological Society, of which he was then chosen one of the honorary secretaries; he was elected president in 1857, and again in 1865. He was also successively secretary and president of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. Working especially at the Carboniferous and Permian rocks of the north of England, he studied also the Drift deposits of Lancashire, and made himself familiar with the geology of the country around Manchester. On the Coal Measures in particular he became an acknowledged authority, and hisObservations on the Structure of Fossil Plants found in the Carboniferous Strata(1868-1875) formed one of the monographs of the Palaeontographical Society. His large collection of fossils was placed in Owens College. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1856. He died at Manchester on the 19th of December 1881.
BINNEY, HORACE(1780-1875), American lawyer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 4th of January 1780. He graduated at Harvard College in 1797, and studied law in the office of Jared Ingersoll (1749-1822), who had been a member of the Constitutional convention of 1787, and who from 1791 to 1800 and again from 1811 to 1816 was the attorney-general of Pennsylvania. Admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1800, Binney practised with great success for half a century, and was recognized as one of the leaders of the bar in the United States. He served in the Pennsylvania legislature in 1806-1807, and was a Whig member of the National House of Representatives from 1833 until 1835, ably defending the United States Bank, and in general opposing the policy of President Andrew Jackson. His most famous case, in which he was unsuccessfully opposed by Daniel Webster, was the case ofBidalv.Girard’s Executors, which involved the disposition of the fortune of Stephen Girard (q.v.). Binney’s argument in this case greatly influenced the interpretation of the law of charities. Binney made many public addresses, the most noteworthy of which, entitledLife and Character of Chief Justice Marshall, was published in 1835. He also publishedLeaders of the Old Bar of Philadelphia(1858), and anInquiry into the Formation of Washington’s Farewell Address(1859); and during the Civil War he issued three pamphlets (1861, 1862 and 1865), discussing the right ofhabeas corpusunder the American Constitution, and justifying President Lincoln in his suspension of the writ.
See theLife of Horace Binney(Philadelphia, 1904), by his grandson, C.C. Binney.
See theLife of Horace Binney(Philadelphia, 1904), by his grandson, C.C. Binney.
BINNEY, THOMAS(1798-1874), English Congregationalist divine, was born of Presbyterian parents at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1798, and educated at an ordinary day school. After spending seven years in the employment of a bookseller he entered the theological school at Wymondley, Herts, now incorporated in New College, Hampstead. In 1829, after short pastorates at Bedford (New Meeting) and Newport, Isle of Wight, he accepted a call to the historic Weigh House chapel, London. Here he became very popular, and it was found necessary to build a much larger chapel on Fish Street Hill, to which the congregation removed in 1834. An address delivered on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone was published, with an appendix containing a strong attack on the influence of the Church of England, which gave rise to a long and bitter controversy. Throughout his whole career Binney was a vigorous opponent of the state church principle, but those who simply classified him as a narrow-minded political dissenter did him injustice. His liberality of view and breadth of ecclesiastical sympathy entitle him to rank on questions of Nonconformity among the most distinguished of the school of Richard Baxter; and he maintained friendly relations with many of the dignitaries of the Established Church. He continued to discharge the duties of the ministry until 1869, when he resigned. In 1845 he paid a visit to Canada and the United States, and in 1857-1859 to the Australian colonies. The university of Aberdeen conferred the LL.D. degree on him in 1852, and he was twice chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales.
Binney was the pioneer in a much-needed improvement of the forms of service in Nonconformist churches, and gave a special impulse to congregational psalmody by the publication of a book entitledThe Service of Song in the House of the Lord. Of numerous other works the best-known is hisIs it Possible to Make the Best of Both Worlds?an expansion of a lecture delivered to young men in Exeter Hall, which attained a circulation of 30,000 copies within a year of its publication. He wrote much devotional verse, including the well-known hymn “Eternal Light! Eternal Light!” His last sermon was preached in November 1873, and after some months of suffering he died on the 24th of February 1874. Dean Stanley assisted at his funeral service in Abney Park cemetery.
BINOCULAR INSTRUMENT,or brieflyBinocular,1an apparatus through which objects are viewed with both eyes. In this article only those instruments will be considered in which solid objects orobjects in spaceare viewed; reference should be made to the articleStereoscopefor the instruments in whichplanerepresentations are offered to both eyes. The natural vision is such that different central projections of the objects are communicated to both eyes; the difference of the two perspective representations arises from the fact that the projection centres are laterally separated by an interval about equal to the distance between the eyes (the inter-pupillary distance). Binocular instruments should aid the natural spatial or stereoscopic vision, or make it possible if the eyes fail. If the objects be so fardistant that the two perspectives formed by the naked eye are no more distinguished from each other, recourse may be had to binocular telescopes and range-finders; and if the objects be so small that, in order to observe details on them, we must bring our eyes so close to the objects that they cannot accommodate the images, recourse may be had to binocular microscopes and magnifying glasses.
The construction of binocular instruments dates back over several centuries, and has now been brought to great perfection. The subject of their theory and history has been exhaustively treated by M. von Rohr,Die binokularen Instrumente(Berlin, 1907), the first publication to present a complete account of these instruments.
Binocular Instruments for Observation only.—The first binocular telescope, consisting of two telescopes placed side by side, was constructed in 1608 by Johann Lipperhey, the inventor of the ordinary or Dutch telescope. The subject wasTelescope.next taken up by the monks. The Capuchin Antonius Maria Schyrläus (Schyrl) de Rheita (1597-1660) described in 1645 the construction of double terrestrial telescopes. Greater success attended the efforts of the Capuchin Chérubin d’Orléans, who flourished at about the same time, and constructed large double telescopes of the Dutch type of high magnification, for use in war, and smaller instruments of lower magnification; these instruments were provided with mechanism for adjusting to the interval between the eyes of the observer (fig. 1). After these discoveries the subject received no more attention until the 19th century; no improvements of these instruments are recorded in the literature of the second half of the 18th century.
The re-invention of the Dutch binocular telescope apparently dates from 1823, and is to be assigned to the Viennese optician, Johann Friedrich Voigtländer (1779-1859); but the credit of having placed these instruments on the market probably belongs to J.P. Lemière in Paris, who, in 1825, took out a French patent for an improvement of the Dutch double telescope. Lemière’s instruments were furnished with a common focusing arrangement, and the adapting to the inter-pupillary distance was effected by turning the two parallel telescopes round their common axis. The development of this instrument was studied by opticians for the remainder of the first half of the 19th century; the last improvement apparently was made by P.G. Bardou in 1854, and by H. Helmholtz in 1857 when he described the telestereoscope (fig. 2) with telescopic magnification. By utilizing the telescope with prism-inversion, devised in 1851 by Ignazio Porro (1795-1875), A.A. Boulanger succeeded in producing a binocular of an entirely new type in 1859 (fig. 3). But he overlooked the possibility of increasing the distance between the objectives; Camille Nachet introduced this improvement in 1875, but his instruments did not meet with much popularity. This was probably due to the fact that, at this time, the manufacture of the glass for the prisms was too difficult; this was overcome by E. Abbe, after the founding of the glass-works at Jena, who effected, independently of his predecessors, the wider separation of the objectives (fig. 4), and increased it in the telestereoscope (fig. 5), or relief telescope, in a manner nearly approaching to Helmholtz’s proposal.
The first binocular microscope was invented by the previously mentioned Father Chérubin, whose instrument consisted of two inverting systems, and consequently gave a totally wrong impression of depth,i.e.depressions appeared as elevations,Microscope.and vice versa, or, as we must say after Charles Wheatstone, it presented a pseudoscopic impression; this quality, however, was not recognized by the microscopists of the time. The instrument subsequently fell into complete neglect for nearly two centuries, to be revived in 1852 by Charles Wheatstone, who has stated that he had previously studied the problem; the publication of his views in his second great paper “On Binocular Vision,”2in thePhil. Trans.for 1852, undoubtedly stimulated the investigation of this instrument, which was carried on with zeal and success more especially in England and the United States. In 1853 the American J.L. Riddell (1807-1867) devised his binocular microscope, which contained the essentials of Wheatstone’s pseudoscope. F.H. Wenham, another constructor, did not at first succeed in avoiding the pseudoscopic effect, but, by the application ofrefractingdividing prisms, he subsequently arrived at orthoscopic representations and continued the development of the different methods for producing micro-photographic stereograms; this was effected in the first case by placing a diaphragm over one half of the objective for each exposure, and in the second case by a suitable direction of the illuminating pencil (fig. 6). Of greater benefit, however, for stimulating interest in binocular microscopes, was his invention ofreflectingdividing prisms (fig. 7). Other experiments, begun by Powell and Lealand, and developed with greater skill by Wenham, were concerned with the binocular vision of identical images. Such an impression could not possibly be stereoscopic, and these experiments led to the construction of a non-stereoscopic binocular microscope. Of the other workers in this field mention may be madeof Alfred Nachet, who in 1853, and subsequently in 1863, brought forward two forms of binocular microscope.
The earliest stages of the development of the binocular microscope had been always confined to those instruments withoneobjective, in the immediate neighbourhood of which the systems for dividing the pencil were placed. At a later date attempts were made to separate the two halves of the objective by modifying the eye-piece; this led to the construction of stereoscopic eye-pieces, initiated by R.B. Tolles, E. Abbe and A. Prazmowski. Of special importance is the work of Abbe; although, as he himself has stated, his methods accidentally led to the Wenham system, he certainly was far above his predecessors in his theoretical treatment of the problem, and in the perspicuity and clearness of his explanation. To him is also due the re-establishment of the instruments, which Wenham had abandoned by reason of too great technical difficulties (fig. 8). The newest form of the binocular microscope is very similar to the oldest form in which two completely separated tubes were employed. The inventor, H.S. Greenough, employs two systems for setting up the image, in order to avoid the pseudoscopic effect. After experiments in the Zeiss works, the erecting of Porro’s prisms simultaneously permitted a convenient adaptation to the eye-distance of the observer.
The first binocular magnifying glass or simple microscope (German,Lupe) was devised by J.L. Riddell in 1853; in this instrument (fig. 9) the pencil of light is transmitted to the eyes by means of two pairs of parallel mirrors.Simple microscope.Of the many different improvements mention may be made of A. Nachet’s. H. Westien made use of two Chevalier-Brücke’s simple microscopes with their long working distances in order to form an instrument in which the curvature of the image was not entirely avoided. Mention may also be made of the binoculars of K. Fritzsch (formerly Prokesch) and E. Berger.
Binocular Instruments for Range-finding.—For measuring purposes binocular telescopes with parallel axes are the only types employed. The measurement is effected by adjoining to the space or interval to be measured some means of measurement defined; for example, by a fixed scale which extends into the space, or by a movable point (Wandermarke). This instrument shows a transition to the stereoscope, inasmuch as the scale or means of measurement is not directly observed, but to each eye a plane representation is offered, just as in the stereoscope; the space to be measured, on the other hand, is portrayed in exactly the same way as in the double telescope. The method for superposing the two spaces on one another was deduced by Sir David Brewster in 1856, but he does not appear to have dealt with the problem of range-finding. The problem was attacked in 1861 by A. Rollet; later, in 1866, E. Mach published a promising idea, and finally—independently of the researches of his predecessors—Hektor de Grousilliers, in partnership with the Zeiss firm (E. Abbe and C. Pulfrich), constructed the first stereoscopic range-finder suitable for practical use.
(O. Hr.)
1The term binocular (from the Lat.bini, two at a time, andoculi, eyes) was originally an adjective used to describe things adapted for the simultaneous use of both eyes, as in “binocular vision,” “a binocular telescope or microscope”; now “a binocular” is used as a noun, meaning a binocular microscope, a field-glass, &c.2The first part appeared in 1838.
1The term binocular (from the Lat.bini, two at a time, andoculi, eyes) was originally an adjective used to describe things adapted for the simultaneous use of both eyes, as in “binocular vision,” “a binocular telescope or microscope”; now “a binocular” is used as a noun, meaning a binocular microscope, a field-glass, &c.
2The first part appeared in 1838.
BINOMIAL(from the Lat.bi-, bis, twice, andnomen, a name or term), in mathematics, a word first introduced by Robert Recorde (1557) to denote a quantity composed of the sum or difference to two terms; as a + b, a − b. The terms trinomial, quadrinomial, multinomial, &c., are applied to expressions composed similarly of three, four or many quantities.
Thebinomial theoremis a celebrated theorem, originally due to Sir Isaac Newton, by which any power of a binomial can be expressed as a series. In its modern form the theorem, which is true for all values of n, is written as
The reader is referred to the articleAlgebrafor the proof and applications of this theorem; here we shall only treat of the history of its discovery.
The original form of the theorem was first given in a letter, dated the 13th of June 1676, from Sir Isaac Newton to Henry Oldenburg for communication to Wilhelm G. Leibnitz, although Newton had discovered it some years previously. Newton there states that
where p + pq is the quantity whose (m/n)thpower or root is required, p the first term of that quantity, and q the quotient of the rest divided by p, m/n the power, which may be a positive or negative integer or a fraction, and a, b, c, &c., the several terms in order,e.g.
In a second letter, dated the 24th of October 1676, to Oldenburg, Newton gave the train of reasoning by which he devised the theorem.
“In the beginning of my mathematical studies, when I was perusing the works of the celebrated Dr Wallis, and considering the series by the interpolation of which he exhibits the area of the circle and hyperbola (for instance, in this series of curves whose common base or axis is x, and the ordinates respectively (1 − xx)0/2, (1 − xx)1/2, (1 − xx)2/2, (1 − xx)3/2, &c), I perceived that if the areas of the alternate curves, which are x, x −1⁄3x3, x −2⁄3x3+1⁄5x5, x −3⁄3x3+3⁄5x5−1⁄7x7, &c., could be interpolated, we should obtain the areas of the intermediate ones, the first of which (1 − xx)1/2is the area of the circle. Now in order to [do] this, it appeared that in all the series the first term was x; that the second terms0⁄3x³,1⁄3x³,2⁄3x³, &c., were in arithmetical progression; and consequently that the first two terms of all the series to be interpolated would be x − ½x³/3, x −3⁄2x³/3, x −5⁄2x³/3, &c.“Now for the interpolation of the rest, I considered that the denominators 1, 3, 5, &c., were in arithmetical progression; and that therefore only the numerical coefficients of the numerators were to be investigated. But these in the alternate areas, which are given, were the same with the figures of which the several powers of 11 consist, viz., of 11º, 11¹, 11², 11³, that is, the first 1; the second, 1, 1; the third, 1, 2, 1,; the fourth 1, 3, 3, 1; and so on. I enquired therefore how, in these series, the rest of the terms may be derived from the first two being given; and I found that by putting m for the second figure or term, the rest should be produced by the continued multiplication of the terms of this series (m − 0)/1 × (m − 1)/2 × (m − 2)/3 ..., &c. ... This rule I therefore applied to the series to be interpolated. And since, in the series for the circle, the second term was (½x³)/3, I put m = ½.... And hence I found the required area of the circular segment to be x − (½x3)/3 − (1⁄8x5)/5 − (1⁄16x7)/7, &c. ... And in the same manner might be produced the interpolated areas of other curves; as also the area of the hyperbola and the other alternates in this series (1 + xx)0/2, (1 + xx)1/2, (1 + xx)2/2, &c. ... Having proceeded so far, I considered that the terms (1 − xx)0/2, (1 − xx)2/2, (1 − xx)4/2, (1 − xx)6/2, &c., that is 1, 1 − x2, 1 − 2x2+ x4, 1 − 3x2+ 3x4− x6, &c., might be interpolated in the same manner as the areas generated by them, and for this, nothing more was required than to omit the denominators 1, 3, 5, 7, &c., in the terms expressing the areas; that is, the coefficients of the terms of the quantity to be interpolated (1 − xx)1/2or (1 − xx)3/2, or generally (1 − xx)mwillbe produced by the continued multiplication of this series m × (m − 1)/2 × (m − 2)/3 × (m − 3)/4 ... &c.”
“In the beginning of my mathematical studies, when I was perusing the works of the celebrated Dr Wallis, and considering the series by the interpolation of which he exhibits the area of the circle and hyperbola (for instance, in this series of curves whose common base or axis is x, and the ordinates respectively (1 − xx)0/2, (1 − xx)1/2, (1 − xx)2/2, (1 − xx)3/2, &c), I perceived that if the areas of the alternate curves, which are x, x −1⁄3x3, x −2⁄3x3+1⁄5x5, x −3⁄3x3+3⁄5x5−1⁄7x7, &c., could be interpolated, we should obtain the areas of the intermediate ones, the first of which (1 − xx)1/2is the area of the circle. Now in order to [do] this, it appeared that in all the series the first term was x; that the second terms0⁄3x³,1⁄3x³,2⁄3x³, &c., were in arithmetical progression; and consequently that the first two terms of all the series to be interpolated would be x − ½x³/3, x −3⁄2x³/3, x −5⁄2x³/3, &c.
“Now for the interpolation of the rest, I considered that the denominators 1, 3, 5, &c., were in arithmetical progression; and that therefore only the numerical coefficients of the numerators were to be investigated. But these in the alternate areas, which are given, were the same with the figures of which the several powers of 11 consist, viz., of 11º, 11¹, 11², 11³, that is, the first 1; the second, 1, 1; the third, 1, 2, 1,; the fourth 1, 3, 3, 1; and so on. I enquired therefore how, in these series, the rest of the terms may be derived from the first two being given; and I found that by putting m for the second figure or term, the rest should be produced by the continued multiplication of the terms of this series (m − 0)/1 × (m − 1)/2 × (m − 2)/3 ..., &c. ... This rule I therefore applied to the series to be interpolated. And since, in the series for the circle, the second term was (½x³)/3, I put m = ½.... And hence I found the required area of the circular segment to be x − (½x3)/3 − (1⁄8x5)/5 − (1⁄16x7)/7, &c. ... And in the same manner might be produced the interpolated areas of other curves; as also the area of the hyperbola and the other alternates in this series (1 + xx)0/2, (1 + xx)1/2, (1 + xx)2/2, &c. ... Having proceeded so far, I considered that the terms (1 − xx)0/2, (1 − xx)2/2, (1 − xx)4/2, (1 − xx)6/2, &c., that is 1, 1 − x2, 1 − 2x2+ x4, 1 − 3x2+ 3x4− x6, &c., might be interpolated in the same manner as the areas generated by them, and for this, nothing more was required than to omit the denominators 1, 3, 5, 7, &c., in the terms expressing the areas; that is, the coefficients of the terms of the quantity to be interpolated (1 − xx)1/2or (1 − xx)3/2, or generally (1 − xx)mwillbe produced by the continued multiplication of this series m × (m − 1)/2 × (m − 2)/3 × (m − 3)/4 ... &c.”
The binomial theorem was thus discovered as a development of John Wallis’s investigations in the method ofinterpolation. Newton gave no proof, and it was in theArs Conjectandi(1713) that James Bernoulli’s proof for positive integral values of the exponent was first published, although Bernoulli must have discovered it many years previously. A rigorous demonstration was wanting for many years, Leonhard Euler’s proof for negative and fractional values being faulty, and was finally given by Niels Heinrik Abel.
Themulti-(orpoly-)nomial theoremhas for its object the expansion of any power of a multinomial and was discussed in 1697 by Abraham Demoivre (seeCombinatorial Analysis).
References.—For the history of the binomial theorem, see John Collins,Commercium Epistolicum(1712); S.P. Rigaud,The Correspondence of Scientific Men of the 17th Century(1841); M. Cantor,Geschichte der Mathematik(1894-1901).
References.—For the history of the binomial theorem, see John Collins,Commercium Epistolicum(1712); S.P. Rigaud,The Correspondence of Scientific Men of the 17th Century(1841); M. Cantor,Geschichte der Mathematik(1894-1901).
BINTURONG(Arctictis binturong), the single species of the viverrine genusArctictis, ranging from Nepal through the Malay Peninsula to Sumatra and Java. This animal, also called the bear-cat, is allied to the palm-civets, or paradoxures, but differs from the rest of the family (Viverridae) by its tufted ears and long, bushy, prehensile tail, which is thick at the root and almost equals in length the head and body together (from 28 to 33 inches). The fur is long and coarse, of a dull black hue with a grey wash on the head and fore-limbs. In habits the binturong is nocturnal and arboreal, inhabiting forests, and living on small vertebrates, worms, insects and fruits. It is said to be naturally fierce, but when taken young is easily tamed and becomes gentle and playful.
BINYON, LAURENCE(1869- ), English poet, born at Lancaster on the 10th of August 1869, was educated at St Paul’s school, London, and Trinity College, Oxford, where he won the Newdigate prize in 1890 for hisPersephone. He entered the department of printed books at the British Museum in 1893, and was transferred to the department of prints and drawings in 1895, theCatalogue of English Drawings in the British Museum(1898, &c.) being by him. As a poet he is represented byLyric Poems(1894),Poems(Oxford, 1895),London Visions(2 vols., 1895-1898),The Praise of Life(1896),Porphyrion and other Poems(1898),Odes(1900),The Death of Adam(1903),Penthesilea(1903),Dream come true(1905),Paris and Oenone(1906), a one-act tragedy, andAttila, a poetical drama (1907); as an art critic by monographs on the 17th-century Dutch etchers, on John Crome and John Sell Cotman, contributed to thePortfolio, &c. In 1906 he published the first volume of a series of reproductions from William Blake, with a critical introduction.
See also R.A. Streatfeild,Two Poets of the New Century(1901), and W. Archer,Poets of the Younger Generation(1902).
See also R.A. Streatfeild,Two Poets of the New Century(1901), and W. Archer,Poets of the Younger Generation(1902).
BIO-BIO,a river of southern Chile, rising in the Pino Hachado pass across the Andes, 38° 45′ S. lat., and flowing in a general north-westerly direction to the Pacific at Concepción, where it is 2 m. wide and forms an excellent harbour. It has a total length of about 225 m., nearly one half of which is navigable.
BIO-BIO,an inland province of southern Chile, bounded N., W. and S. respectively by the provinces of Concepción, Arauco and Malleco, and E. by Argentina. It has an area of 5246 sq. m. of well-wooded and mountainous country, and exports timber to a large extent. The great trunk railway from Santiago S. to Puerto Montt crosses the western part of the province and also connects it with the port of Concepción. The capital, Los Angeles (est. pop. 7777 in 1902) lies 15½ m. E. of this railway and is connected with it by a branch line.
BIOGENESIS(from the Gr.βίος, life, andγένεσις, generation, birth), a biological term for the theory according to which each living organism, however simple, arises by a process of budding, fission, spore-formation of sexual reproduction from a parent organism. Under the heading ofAbiogenesis(q.v.) is discussed the series of steps by which the modern acceptance of biogenesis and rejection of abiogenesis has been brought about. No biological generalization rests on a wider series of observations, or has been subjected to a more critical scrutiny than that every living organism has come into existence from a living portion or portions of a pre-existing organism. In the articlesReproductionandHereditythe details of the relations between parent and offspring are discussed. There remains for treatment here a curious collateral issue of the theory. It is within common observation that parent and offspring are alike: that the new organism resembles that from which it has come into existence: in fine, biogenesis is homogenesis. Every organism takes origin from a parent organism of the same kind. The conception of homogenesis, however, does not imply an absolute similarity between parent and organism. In the first place, the normal life-cycle of plants and animals exhibits what is known as alternation of generations, so that any individual in the chain may resemble its grand-parent and its grand-child, and differ markedly from its parent and child. Next, any organism may pass through a series of free-living larval stages, so that the new organism at first resembles its parent only very remotely, corresponding to an early stage in the life-history of that parent. (SeeEmbryology,Larval FormsandReproduction.) Finally, the conception of homogenesis does not exclude the differences between parent and offspring that continually occur, forming the material for the slow alteration of stocks in the course of evolution (seeVariation and Selection). Homogenesis means simply that such organism comes into existence directly from a parent organism of the same race, and hence of the same species, sub-species, genus and so forth.
From time to time there have been observers who have maintained a belief in the opposite theory, to which the name heterogenesis has been given. According to the latter theory, the offspring of a given organism may be utterly different from itself, so that a known animal may give rise to another known animal of a different race, species, genus, or even family, or to a plant, or vice versa. The most extreme cases of this belief is the well-known fable of the “barnacle-geese,” an illustrated account of which was printed in an early volume of the Royal Society of London. Buds of a particular tree growing near the sea were described as producing barnacles, and these, falling into the water, were supposed to develop into geese. The whole story was an imaginary embroidery of the facts that barnacles attach themselves to submerged timber and that a species of goose is known as the bernicle goose. In modern times the exponents of heterogenesis have limited themselves to cases of microscopic animals and plants, and in most cases, the observations that they have brought forward have been explained by minuter observation as cases of parasitism. No serious observer, acquainted with modern microscopic technical methods, has been able to confirm the explanation of their observations given by the few modern believers in heterogenesis.
(P. C. M.)
BIOGRAPHY(from the Gr.βίος, life, andγράφη, writing), that form of history which is applied, not to races or masses of men, but to an individual. The earliest use of the wordβιογραφίαis attributed to Damascius, a Greek writer of the beginning of the 6th century, and in Latinbiographiawas used, but in English no earlier employment of the word, “biography” has been traced than that of Dryden in 1683, who uses it to describe the literary work of Plutarch, “the history of particular men’s lives.” It is obvious that this definition is necessary, for biography is not the record of “life” in general, but of the life of a single person. The idea of the distinction between this and history is a modern thing; we speak of “antique biography,” but it is doubtful whether any writer of antiquity, even Plutarch, clearly perceived its possible existence as an independent branch of literature. All of them, and Plutarch certainly, considered the writing of a man’s life as an opportunity for celebrating, in his person, certain definite moral qualities. It was in these, and not in the individual characteristics of the man, that his interest as a subject of biography resided.
The true conception of biography, therefore, as the faithful portrait of a soul in its adventures through life, is very modern.We may question whether it existed, save in rare and accidental instances, until the 17th century. The personage described was, in earlier times, treated either from the philosophical or from the historical point of view. In the former case, rhetoric inevitably clouded the definiteness of the picture; the object was to produce a grandiose moral effect, to clothe the subject with all the virtues or with all the vices; to make his career a splendid example or else a solemn warning. The consequence is that we have to piece together unconsidered incidents and the accidental record of features in order to obtain an approximate estimate. We may believe, for instance, that a faithful and unprejudiced study of the emperor Julian, from the life, would be a very different thing from the impression left upon us by the passions of Cyril or of Theodoret. In considering what biography, in its pure sense, ought to be, we must insist on what it is not. It is not a philosophical treatise nor a polemical pamphlet. It is not, even, a portion of the human contemporary chronicle. Broad views are entirely out of place in biography, and there is perhaps no greater literary mistake than to attempt what is called the “Life and Times” of a man. In an adequate record of the “times,” the man is bound to sink into significance; even a “Life and Times” of Napoleon I. would be an impossible task. History deals with fragments of the vast roll of events; it must always begin abruptly and close in the middle of affairs; it must always deal, impartially, with a vast number of persons. Biography is a study sharply defined by two definite events, birth and death. It fills its canvas with one figure, and other personages, however great in themselves, must always be subsidiary to the central hero. The only remnant of the old rhetorical purpose of “lives” which clearer modern purpose can afford to retain is the relative light thrown on military or intellectual or social genius by the achievements of the selected subject. Even this must be watched with great care, lest the desire to illuminate that genius, and make it consistent, should lead the biographer to glose over frailties or obscure irregularities. In the old “lives” of great men, this is precisely what was done. If the facts did not lend themselves to the great initial thesis, so much the worse for them. They must be ignored or falsified, since the whole object of the work was to “teach a lesson,” to magnify a certain tendency of conduct. It was very difficult to persuade the literary world that, whatever biography is, it is not an opportunity for panegyric or invective, and the lack of this perception destroys our faith in most of the records of personal life in ancient and medieval times. It is impossible to avoid suspecting that Suetonius loaded his canvas with black in order to excite hatred against the Roman emperors; it is still more difficult to accept more than one page in three of the stories of the professional hagiographers. As long as it was a pious merit to deform the truth, biography could not hope to flourish. It appears to have originally asserted itself when the primitive instinct of sympathy began to have free play, that is to say, not much or often before the 17th century. Moreover, the peculiar curiosity which legitimate biography satisfies is essentially a modern thing; and presupposes our observation of life not unduly clouded by moral passion or prejudice.
Among the ancients, biography was not specifically cultivated until comparatively later times. The lost “Lives” of Critias were probably political pamphlets. We meet first with deliberate biography in Xenophon’s memoirs of Socrates, a work of epoch-making value. Towards the close of the 1st century, Plutarch wrote one of the most fascinating books in the world’s literature, hisParallel Livesof 46 Greeks and Romans. In later Greek, theLife of Apollonius of Tyanawas written by Philostratus, who also produced aLives of the Sophists. In the 3rd century, Diogenes Laertius compiled aLives of the Philosophers, which is of greater interest than aLives of the Sophistscomposed a hundred years later by Eunapius. Finally in the 10th century, Suidas added a biographical section to his celebratedLexicon. In Latin literature, the earliest biography we meet with is the fragment of theIllustrious Menof Cornelius Nepos. Memoirs began to be largely written at the close of the Augustan age, but these, like theLife of Alexander the Great, by Q. Curtius Rufus, were rather historical than biographical. Tacitus composed a life of his father-in-law, Agricola; this is a work of the most elegant and stately beauty. Suetonius was the author of several biographical compilations, of which theLives of the Twelve Caesarsis the best-known; this was produced in the year 120. Marius Maximus, in the 4th century, continued the series of emperors down to Heliogabalus, but his work has not been preserved. TheAugustan History, finished under Constantine, takes its place, and was concluded and edited by Flavius Vopiscus.
Biography hardly begins to exist in English literature until the close of the reign of Henry VIII. William Roper (1496-1578) wrote a touching life of his father-in-law, Sir Thomas More, and George Cavendish (1500-1561?), a memoir of Cardinal Wolsey which is a masterpiece of liveliness and grace. It is with these two works, both of which remained in manuscript until the 17th century, that biography in England begins. The lives of English writers compiled by John Bale (1495-1563) are much more primitive and slight. John Leland (d. 1552) and John Pits (1560-1616) were antiquaries who affected a species of biography. In the early part of the 17th century, the absence of the habit of memoir writing extremely impoverishes our knowledge of the illustrious authors of the age, of none of whom there are preserved such records as our curiosity would delight in. The absence of any such chronicle was felt, and two writers, Thomas Heywood and Sir Aston Cokayne, proposed to write lives of the poets of their time. Unfortunately they never carried their plans into execution. The pioneer of deliberate English biography was Izaak Walton, who, in 1640, published aLife of Donne, followed in 1651 by that ofSir Henry Wotton, in 1665 by that ofRichard Hooker, in 1670 by that ofGeorge Herbert, and in 1678 by that ofDr Robert Saunderson. These five reprinted, under the title ofWalton’s Lives, were not only charming in themselves, but the forerunners of a whole class of English literature. Meanwhile, Fuller was preparing hisHistory of the Worthies of England, which appeared after his death, in 1662, and John Aubrey (1626-1697) was compiling hisMinutes of Lives, which show such a perfect comprehension of the personal element that should underlie biography; these have only in our own days been completely given to the public. Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648), wrote a brilliant autobiography, first printed in 1764; that of Anne Harrison, Lady Fanshawe (1625-1680), remained unknown until 1829. A very curious essay in biography is the memoir of Colonel John Hutchinson, written by his widow, Lucy, between 1664 and 1671. Margaret Lucas, duchess of Newcastle (1624?-1674), wrote her own life (1656) and that of her duke (1667). TheAthenae Oxoniensesof Anthony à Wood (1632-1695) was a complicated celebration of the wit, wisdom and learning of Oxford notabilities since the Reformation. In 1668 Thomas Sprat (1635-1713) wrote aLife of Cowley, which was very much admired and which exercised for many years a baneful influence on British biography. Sprat considered that all familiar anecdote and picturesque detail should be omitted in the composition of a memoir, and that moral effect and a solemn vagueness should be aimed at. The celebrated funeral orations of Jeremy Taylor were of the same order of eloquence, and the wind of those grandiose compositions destroyed the young shoot of genuine and simple biography which had budded in Walton and Aubrey.
From this time forth, for more than half a century, English biography became a highly artificial and rhetorical thing, lacking all the salient features of honest portraiture. William Oldys (1696-1761) was the first to speak out boldly; in 1747, in the preface to theBiographia Britannica, he pointed out “the cruelty, we might even say the impiety, of sacrificing the glory of great characters to trivial circumstances and mere conveniency,” and attacked the timid and scrupulous superficiality of those who undertook to write lives of eminent men, while omitting everything which gave definition to the portrait. In 1753 theLives of the Poets, which bore the name of Theophilus Cibber (1703-1758), but was mainly written by Robert Shiels(d. 1753), gave a great deal of valuable information with regard to the personal adventures of our writers. Dr Johnson’sLife of Savage(1744), though containing some passages of extreme interest, was a work of imperfect form, but Mason’sLife and Letters of Gray(1774) marks a great advance in the art of biography. This was the earliest memoir in which correspondence of a familiar kind was used to illustrate and to expand the narrative, and Mason’sGrayis really the pioneer of almost all modern English biography. For the first time it was now admitted that letters to intimate friends, not written with a view to publication, might be used with advantage to illustrate the real character of the writer. Boswell, it is certain, availed himself of Mason’s example, while improving upon it, and in 1791 he published hisLife of Dr Samuel Johnson, which is the most interesting example of biography existing in English, or perhaps in any language.
As soon as the model of Boswell became familiar to biographers, it could no longer be said that any secret in the art was left unknown to them, and the biographies of the 19th century are all more or less founded upon the magnificent type of theLife of Johnson. But few have even approached it in courage, picturesqueness or mastery of portraiture. In the next generation Southey’s lives ofNelson(1813) andJohn Wesley(1820) at once became classics; but the pre-eminent specimen of early 19-century biography is Lockhart’s superbLife of Sir Walter Scott(1837-1838). The biographies of the 19th century are far too numerous to be mentioned here in detail; in the various articles dedicated to particular men and women in this Encyclopaedia, the date and authorship of the authoritative life of each person will in most cases be found appended. Towards the close of the century there was unquestionably an excess, and even an abuse, in the habit of biography. It became the custom a few years or even months after the decease of an individual who had occupied a passing place in the eyes of the public, to issue a “Life” of him; in many cases such biography was a labour of utter supererogation. But the custom has become general, and it is very unlikely, notwithstanding the ephemeral interest of readers in the majority of the subjects, that it will ever go out of fashion, for it directly indulges both vanity and sentiment. What is true of Great Britain is true, though in less measure, of all other modern nations, and it is not necessary here to deal with more than the early manifestations of biography in the principal European literatures.
To Switzerland appears due the honour of having given birth to the earliest biographical dictionary ever compiled, theBibliotheca Universalisof Konrad Gesner (1516-1565), published at Zürich in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, from 1545 to 1549. A very rare work, by a writer of the greatest obscurity, theProsopographiaof Verdier de Vauprivas, published at Lyons in 1573, professed to deal with the lives of all illustrious persons who had flourished since the beginning of the world.
In medieval and renaissance France there existed numerous memoirs and histories, such as those of Brantôme, into which the lives of great men were inserted, and in which a biographical character was given to studies of virtue and valour, or of the reverse. But the honour of being the earliest deliberate contribution to biography is generally given to theActa Sanctorum, compiled by the Bollandists, the first volume of which appeared in 1653. This was the first biographical dictionary compiled in Europe, and its publication produced a great sensation. It was confined to the lives of saints and martyrs, but in 1674 Louis Moréri, in hisGrand Dictionnaire, included a biographical section of a general character. But the earliest biographical dictionary which had anything of a modern form was the celebratedDictionnaire historique et critiqueof Pierre Bayle, in 1696; the lives in this great work, however, are too often used as mere excuses for developing the philosophical and controversial views of the author; they are nevertheless the result of genuine research and have a true biographical view. TheDictionnairewas translated into English in 1734, and had a wide influence in creating a legitimate interest in biography in England.
In Italian literature, biography does not take a prominent place until the 15th century.The Lives of Illustrious Florentines, in which a valuable memoir of Dante occurs, was written in Latin by Filippo Villani. Vespasiano da Bistrici (1421-1498) compiled a set of biographies of his contemporaries, which are excellent of their kind. The so-calledLife of Castruccio Castracani, by Machiavelli, is hardly a biography, but a brilliant essay on the ideals of statecraft. Paolo Giovio (1483-1552) wrote the lives of poets and soldiers whom he had known. All these attempts, however, seem insignificant by the side of the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1501-1571), confessedly one of the most entertaining works of the world’s literature. A great deal of biography is scattered throughout the historical compilations of the Italian renaissance, and theLives of the Artists, by Giorgio Vasari (1512-1574), is a storehouse of anecdotes admirably told. We find nothing else that requires special mention till we reach the memoir-writers of the 18th century, with the autobiographies of Count Carlo Gozzi and Alfieri; and on the whole, Italy, although adopting in the 19th century the habit of biography, has rarely excelled in it.
In Spanish literature Fernán Pérez de Guzmán (1378-1460), with great originality, enshrined, in hisGenerations and Likenesses, a series of admirable literary portraits; he has been called the Plutarch of Spain. But, in spite of numerous lives of saints, poets and soldiers, Spanish literature has not excelled in biography, nor has it produced a single work of this class which is universally read. In Germany there is little to record before the close of the 18th century.
In the course of the 19th century a new thing in biography was invented, in the shape of dictionaries of national biography. Of these, the first which was carried to a successful conclusion was the Swedish (1835-1857), which occupied 23 volumes. This dictionary was followed by the Dutch (1852-1878), in 24 volumes; the Austrian (1856-1891), in 35 volumes; the Belgian (which was begun in 1866); the German (1875-1900), in 45 volumes; and others, representing nearly all the countries of Europe. England was behind the competitors named above, but when she joined the ranks a work was produced the value of which can hardly be exaggerated. The project was started in 1882 by the publisher George Smith (1824-1901), who consulted Mr (afterwards Sir) Leslie Stephen. The first volume of the EnglishDictionary of National Biographywas published on the 1st of January 1885, under Stephen’s editorship. A volume was published quarterly, with complete punctuality until Midsummer 1900, when volume 63 closed the work, which was presently extended by the issue of three supplementary volumes. In May 1891 Leslie Stephen resigned the editorship and was succeeded by Mr Sidney Lee, who conducted the work to its prosperous close, bringing it up to the death of Queen Victoria. TheDictionary of National Biographycontains the lives of more than 30,000 persons, and has proved of inestimable service in elucidating the private annals of the British people.