Chapter 12

Authorities.—Martin Martin’sDescription of the Western Islands of Scotland(1703); T. Pennant’sTour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides(1774); James Boswell’sTour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.(1898); John Macculloch’sGeological Account of the Hebrides(1819); Hugh Miller’sCruise of the “Betsy”(1858); W. A. Smith’sLewisiana, or Life in the Outer Hebrides(1874); Alexander Smith,A Summer in Skye(1865); Robert Buchanan,The Hebrid Isles(1883); C. F. Gordon-Cumming,In the Hebrides(1883);Report of the Crofters’ Commission(1884); A. Goodrich-Freer,Outer Isles(1902); and W. C. Mackenzie,History of the Outer Hebrides(1903). Their history under Norwegian rule is given in theChronica regum Manniae et insularum, edited, with learned notes, from the MS. in the British Museum by Professor P. A. Münch of Christiania (1860).

HEBRON(mod.Khulīl er-Rahmān,i.e.“the friend of the Merciful One”—an allusion to Abraham), a city of Palestine some 20 m. S. by S.W. of Jerusalem. The city, which lies 3040 ft. above the sea, is of extreme antiquity (see Num. xiii. 22, and Josephus,War, iv. 9, 7) and until taken by the Calebites (Josh. xv. 13) bore the name Kirjath-Arba. Biblical traditions connect it closely with the patriarch Abraham and make it a “city of refuge.” The town figures prominently under David as the headquarters of his early rule, the scene of Abner’s murderand the centre of Absalom’s rebellion. In later days the Edomites held it for a time, but Judas Maccabaeus recovered it. It was destroyed in the great war under Vespasian. InA.D.1167 Hebron became the see of a Latin bishop, and it was taken in 1187 by Saladin. In 1834 it joined the rebellion against Ibrahim Pasha, who took the town and pillaged it. Modern Hebron rises on the east slope of a shallow valley—a long narrow town of stone houses, the flat roofs having small stone domes. The main quarter is about 700 yds. long, and two smaller groups of houses exist north and south of this. The hill behind is terraced, and luxuriant vineyards and fruit plantations surround the place, which is well watered on the north by three principal springs, including the Well Sirah, now ‘Ain Sāra (2 Sam. iii. 26). Three conspicuous minarets rise, two from theHaram, the other in the north quarter. The population (10,000) includes Moslems and about 500 Jews. The Bedouins bring wool and camel’s hair to the market; and glass bracelets, lamps and leather water-skins are manufactured in the town. The most conspicuous building is theHarambuilt over the supposed site of the cave of Machpelah. It is an enclosure measuring 112 ft. east and west by 198 north and south, surrounded with high rampart walls of masonrysimilarin size and dressing to that of the Jerusalem Haram walls. These ramparts are ascribed by architectural authorities to the Herodian period. The interior area is partly occupied by a 12th-century Gothic church, and contains six modern cenotaphs of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. The cave beneath the platform has probably not been entered for at least 600 years. The numerous traditional sites now shown round Hebron are traceable generally to medieval legendary topography; they include the Oak of Mamre (Gen. xiii. 18 R.V.) which has at various times been shown in different positions from ¾ to 2 m. from the town.

There are a British medical mission, a German Protestant mission with church and schools, and, near Abraham’s Oak, a Russian mission. Since 1880 several notices of the Haram, within which are the tombs of the Patriarchs, have appeared.

See C. R. Conder, Pal. Exp. Fund,Memoirs, iii. 333, &c.; Riant,Archives de l’orient latin, ii. 411, &c.; Dalton and Chaplin,P.E.F. Quarterly Statement(1897); Goldziher, “Das Patriarchengrab in Hebron,” inZeitschrift d. Dn. Pal. Vereins, xvii.

(R. A. S. M.)

HECATAEUS OF ABDERA(or of Teos), Greek historian and Sceptic philosopher, flourished in the 4th centuryB.C.He accompanied Ptolemy I. Soter in an expedition to Syria, and sailed up the Nile with him as far as Thebes (Diogenes Laërtius ix. 61). The result of his travels was set down by him in two works—ΑἰγυπτιακάandΠερὶ Ὑπερβορέων, which were used by Diodorus Siculus. According to Suidas, he also wrote a treatise on the poetry of Hesiod and Homer. Regarding his authorship of a work on the Jews (utilized by Josephus inContra Apionem), it is conjectured that portions of theΑἰγυπτιακάwere revised by a Hellenistic Jew from his point of view and published as a special work.

Fragments in C. W. Müller’sFragmenta historicorum Graecorum.

HECATAEUS OF MILETUS(6th-5th centuryB.C.), Greek historian, son of Hegesander, flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. After having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city, where he occupied a high position, and devoted his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. When Aristagoras held a council of the leading Ionians at Miletus, to organize a revolt against the Persian rule, Hecataeus in vain tried to dissuade his countrymen from the undertaking (Herodotus v. 36, 125). In 494, when the defeated Ionians were obliged to sue for terms, he was one of the ambassadors to the Persian satrap Artaphernes, whom he persuaded to restore the constitution of the Ionic cities (Diod. Sic. x. 25). He is by some credited with a work entitledΓῆς περίοδος(“Travels round the Earth”), in two books, one on Europe, the other on Asia, in which were described the countries and inhabitants of the known world, the account of Egypt being especially comprehensive; the descriptive matter was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The authenticity of the work is, however, strongly attacked by J. Wells in theJournal of Hellenic Studies, xxix. pt. i. 1909. The only certainly genuine work of Hecataeus was theΓενεηλογίαιorἹστορίαι, a systematic account of the traditions and mythology of the Greeks. He was probably the first to attempt a serious prose history and to employ critical method to distinguish myth from historical fact, though he accepts Homer and the other poets as trustworthy authority. Herodotus, though he once at least controverts his statements, is indebted to Hecataeus not only for facts, but also in regard of method and general scheme, but the extent of the debt depends on the genuineness of theΓῆς περίοδος.

See fragments in C. W. Müller,Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, i.; H. Berger,Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen(1903); E. H. Bunbury,History of Ancient Geography, i.; W. Mure,History of Greek Literature, iv.; especially J. V. Prašek,Hekataios als Herodots Quelle zur Geschichte Vorderasiens. Beiträge zur alten Geschichte(Klio), iv. 193 seq. (1904), and J. Wells inJourn. Hell. Stud., as above.

HECATE(Gr.Ἑκατή, “she who works from afar”1), a goddess in Greek mythology. According to the generally accepted view, she is of Hellenic origin, but Farnell regards her as a foreign importation from Thrace, the home of Bendis, with whom Hecate has many points in common. She is not mentioned in theIliador theOdyssey, but in Hesiod (Theogony, 409) she is the daughter of the Titan Perses and Asterie, in a passage which may be a later interpolation by the Orphists (for other genealogies see Steuding in Roscher’sLexikon). She is there represented as a mighty goddess, having power over heaven, earth and sea; hence she is the bestower of wealth and all the blessings of daily life. The range of her influence is most varied, extending to war, athletic games, the tending of cattle, hunting, the assembly of the people and the law-courts. Hecate is frequently identified with Artemis, an identification usually justified by the assumption that both were moon-goddesses. Farnell, who regards Artemis as originally an earth-goddess, while recognizing a “genuine lunar element” in Hecate from the 5th century, considers her a chthonian rather than a lunar divinity (see also Warr inClassical Review, ix. 390). He is of opinion that neither borrowed much from, nor exercised much influence on, the cult and character of the other.

Hecate is the chief goddess who presides over magic arts and spells, and in this connexion she is the mother of the sorceresses Circe and Medea. She is constantly invoked, in the well-known idyll (ii.) of Theocritus, in the incantation to bring back a woman’s faithless lover. As a chthonian power, she is worshipped at the Samothracian mysteries, and is closely connected with Demeter. Alone of the gods besides Helios, she witnessed the abduction of Persephone, and, torch in hand (a natural symbol for the moon’s light, but see Farnell), assisted Demeter in her search for her daughter. On moonlight nights she is seen at the cross-roads (hence her nameτριοδῖτις, Lat.Trivia) accompanied by the dogs of the Styx and crowds of the dead. Here, on the last day of the month, eggs and fish were offered to her. Black puppies and she-lambs (black victims being offered to chthonian deities) were also sacrificed (Schol. on Theocritus ii. 12). Pillars like the Hermae, called Hecataea, stood, especially in Athens, at cross-roads and doorways, perhaps to keep away the spirits of evil. Like Artemis, Hecate is also a goddess of fertility, presiding especially over the birth and the youth of wild animals, and over human birth and marriage. She also attends when the soul leaves the body at death, and is found near graves, and on the hearth, where the master of the house was formerly buried. It is to be noted that Hecate plays little or no part in mythological legend. Her worship seems to have flourished especially in the wilder parts of Greece, such as Samothrace and Thessaly, in Caria and on the coasts of Asia Minor. In Greece proper it prevailed on the east coast and especially in Aegina, where her aid was invoked against madness.

In older times Hecate is represented as single-formed, clad ina long robe, holding burning torches; later she becomestriformis, “triple-formed,” with three bodies standing back to back—corresponding, according to those who regard her as a moon-goddess, to the new, the full and the waning moon. In her six hands are torches, sometimes a snake, a key (as wardress of the lower world), a whip or a dagger; her favourite animal was the dog, which was sacrificed to her—an indication of her non-Hellenic origin, since this animal very rarely fills this part in genuine Greek ritual.

See H. Steuding in Roscher’sLexikon, where the functions of Hecate are systematically derived from the conception of her as a moon-goddess; L. R. Farnell,Cults of the Greek States, ii., where this view is examined; P. Paris in Daremberg and Saglio’sDictionnaire des antiquités; O. Gruppe,Griechische Mythologie, ii. (1906) p. 1288.

1J. B. Bury, inClassical Review, iii. p. 416, suggests that the name means “dog,” against which see J. H. Vince, ib. iv. p. 47. G. C. Warr, ib. ix. 390, takes the Hesiodic Hecate to be a moon-goddess, daughter of the sun-god Perseus.

HECATOMB(Gr.ἑκατόμβηfromἑκατόν, a hundred, andβοῦς, an ox), originally the sacrifice of a hundred oxen in the religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans; later a large number of any kind of animals devoted for sacrifice. Figuratively, “hecatomb” is used to describe the sacrifice or destruction by fire, tempest, disease or the sword of any large number of persons or animals; and also of the wholesale destruction of inanimate objects, and even of mental and moral attributes.

HECATO OF RHODES,Greek Stoic philosopher and disciple of Panaetius (Cicero,De officiis, iii. 15). Nothing else is known of his life, but it is clear that he was eminent amongst the Stoics of the period. He was a voluminous writer, but nothing remains. A list is preserved by Diogenes, who mentions works onDuty,Good,Virtues,Ends. The first, dedicated to Tubero, is eulogized by Cicero in theDe officiis, and Seneca refers to him frequently in theDe beneficiis. According to Diogenes Laërtius, he divided the virtues into two kinds, those founded on scientific intellectual principles (i.e.wisdom and justice), and those which have no such basis (e.g.temperance and the resultant health and vigour). Cicero shows that he was much interested in casuistical questions, as, for example, whether a good man who had received a coin which he knew to be bad was justified in passing it on to another. On the whole, his moral attitude is cynical, and he is inclined to regard self-interest as the best criterion. This he modifies by explaining that self-interest is based on the relationships of life; a man needs money for the sake of his children, his friends and the state whose general prosperity depends on the wealth of its citizens. Like the earlier Stoics, Cleanthes and Chrysippus, he held that virtue may be taught. (SeeStoicsandPanaetius.)

HECKER, FRIEDRICH FRANZ KARL(1811-1881), German revolutionist, was born at Eichtersheim in the Palatinate on the 28th of September 1811, his father being a revenue official. He studied law with the intention of becoming an advocate, but soon became absorbed in politics. On entering the Second Chamber of Baden in 1842, he at once began to take part in the opposition against the government, which assumed a more and more openly Radical character, and in the course of which his talents as an agitator and his personal charm won him wide popularity and influence. A speech, denouncing the projected incorporation of Schleswig and Holstein with Denmark, delivered in the Chamber of Baden on the 6th of February 1845, spread his fame beyond the limits of his own state, and his popularity was increased by his expulsion from Prussia on the occasion of a journey to Stettin. After the death of his more moderate-minded friend Adolf Sander (March 9th, 1845), Hecker’s tone towards the government became more and more bitter. In spite of the shallowness and his culture and his extremely weak character, he enjoyed an ever-increasing popularity. Even before the outbreak of the revolution he included Socialistic claims in his programme. In 1847 he was temporarily occupied with ideas of emigration, and with this object made a journey to Algiers, but returned to Baden and resumed his former position as the Radical champion of popular rights, later becoming president of theVolksverein, where he was destined to fall still further under the influence of the agitator Gustav von Struve. In conjunction with Struve he drew up the Radical programme carried at the great Liberal meeting held at Offenburg on the 12th of September 1847 (entitled “Thirteen Claims put forward by the People of Baden”). In addition to the Offenburg programme, theSturmpetitionof the 1st of March 1848 attempted to extort from the government the most far-reaching concessions. But it was in vain that on becoming a deputy Hecker endeavoured to carry out its impracticable provisions. He had to yield to the more moderate majority, but on this account was driven still further towards the Left. The proof lies in the new Offenburg demands of the 19th of March, and in the resolution moved by Hecker in the preliminary parliament of Frankfort that Germany should be declared a republic. But neither in Baden nor Frankfort did he at any time gain his point.

This double failure, combined with various energetic measures of the government, which were indirectly aimed at him (e.g.the arrest of the editor of theConstanzer Seeblatt, a friend of Hecker’s, in Karlsruhe station on the 8th of April), inspired Hecker with the idea of an armed rising under pretext of the foundation of the German republic. The 9th to the 11th of April was secretly spent in preliminaries. On the 12th of April Hecker and Struve sent a proclamation to the inhabitants of theSeekreisand of the Black Forest “to summon the people who can bear arms to Donaueschingen at mid-day on the 14th, with arms, ammunition and provisions for six days.” They expected 70,000 men, but only a few thousand appeared. The grand-ducal government of theSeekreiswas dissolved, and Hecker gradually gained reinforcements. But friendly advisers also joined him, pointing out the risks of his undertaking. Hecker, however, was not at all ready to listen to them; on the contrary, he added to violence an absurd defiance, and offered an amnesty to the German princes on condition of their retiring within fourteen days into private life. The troops of Baden and Hesse marched against him, under the command of General Friedrich von Gagern, and on the 20th of April they met near Kandern, where Gagern was killed, it is true, but Hecker was completely defeated.

Like many of the revolutionaries of that period, Hecker retired to Switzerland. He was, it is true, again elected to the Chamber of Baden by the circle of Thiengen, but the government, no longer willing to respect his immunity as a deputy, refused its ratification. On this account Hecker resolved in September 1848 to emigrate to North America, and obtained possession of a farm near Belleville in the state of Illinois.

During the second rising in Baden in the spring of 1849 he again made efforts to obtain a footing in his own state, but without success. He only came as far as Strassburg, but had to retreat before the victories of the Prussian troops over the Baden insurgents.

On his return to America he won some distinction during the Civil War as colonel of a regiment which he had himself got together on the Federal side in 1861 and 1864. It was with great joy that he heard of the union of Germany brought about by the victory over France in 1870-71. It was then that he made his famous festival speech at St Louis, in which he gave an animated expression to the enthusiasm of the German Americans for their newly-united fatherland. He received a less favourable impression during a journey he made in Germany in 1873. He died at St Louis on the 24th of March 1881.

Hecker was always very much beloved of all the German democrats. The song and the hat named after him (the latter a broad slouch hat with a feather) became famous as the symbols of the middle-classes in revolt. In America, too, he had won great esteem, not only on political grounds but also for his personal qualities.

See F. Hecker,Die Erhebung des Volkes in Baden für die deutsche Republik(Baden, 1848); F. Hecker,Reden und Vorlesungen(Neerstadt a. d. H., 1872); F. v. Weech,Badische Biographien, iv. (1891); L. Mathy,Aus dem Nachlasse von K. Matty, Briefe aus den Jahren 1846-1848(Leipzig, 1898).

(J. Hn.)

HECKER, ISAAC THOMAS(1819-1888), American Roman Catholic priest, the founder of the “Paulist Fathers,” was born in New York City, of German immigrant parents, on the 18th of December 1819. When barely twelve years of age, he had to go to work, and pushed a baker’s cart for his elder brothers, who had a bakery in Rutgers Street. But he studiedat every possible opportunity, becoming immersed in Kant’sCritique of Pure Reason, and while still a lad took part in certain politico-social movements which aimed at the elevation of the working man. It was at this juncture that he met Orestes Brownson, who exercised a marked influence over him. Isaac was deeply religious, a characteristic for which he gave much credit to his prayerful mother, and remained so amid all the reading and agitating in which he engaged. Having grown into young manhood, he joined the Brook Farm movement, and in that colony he tarried some six months. Shortly after leaving it (in 1844) he was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop McCloskey of New York. One year later he was entered in the novitiate of the Redemptorists in Belgium, and there he cultivated to a high degree the spirit of lofty mystical piety which marked him through life.

Ordained a priest in London by Wiseman in 1849, he returned to America, and worked until 1857 as a Redemptorist missionary. With all his mysticism, Isaac Hecker had the wide-awake mind of the typical American, and he perceived that the missionary activity of the Catholic Church in the United States must remain to a large extent ineffective unless it adopted methods suited to the country and the age. In this he had the sympathy of four fellow Redemptorists, who like himself were of American birth and converts from Protestantism. Acting as their agent, and with the consent of his local superiors, Hecker went to Rome to beg of the Rector Major of his Order that a Redemptorist novitiate might be opened in the United States, in order thus to attract American youths to the missionary life. In furtherance of this request, he took with him the strong approval of some members of the American hierarchy. The Rector Major, instead of listening to Father Hecker, expelled him from the Order for having made the journey to Rome without sufficient authorization. The outcome of the trouble was that Hecker and the other four American Redemptorists were permitted by Pius IX. in 1858 to form the separate religious community of the Paulists. Hecker trained and governed this community in spiritual exercises and mission-preaching until his death in New York City, after seventeen years of suffering, on the 22nd of December 1888. He founded and was the director of the Catholic Publication Society, was the founder, and from 1865 until his death the editor, of theCatholic World, and wroteQuestions of the Soul(1855),Aspirations of Nature(1857),Catholicity in the United States(1879) andThe Church and the Age(1888).

The name of Hecker is closely associated with that of “Americanism.” To understand this movement it is necessary to comprehend the tendency of events in Catholic Europe rather than in America itself. The steady decline in the power and influence of French Catholicism since shortly after 1870 is the most remarkable feature of the history of the Third Republic. Not only did the French State pass laws bearing more and more stringently on the Church, under each succeeding ministry, but the bulk of the people acquiesced in the policy of its legislators. The clergy, if not Catholicism, was rapidly losing its hold over the once Catholic nation. Observing this fact, and encouraged by the action of Leo XIII., who, in 1892 called on French Catholics loyally to accept the Republic, a body of vigorous young French priests set themselves to check the disaster. They studied the causes which produced it. These causes, they considered to be, first, the clergy’s predominant sympathy with the monarchists, and in its undisguised hostility to the Republic; secondly, the Church’s aloofness from modern men, methods and thought. The progressive party believed that there was too little cultivation of individual, independent character, while too much stress was laid upon what might be called the mechanical or routine side of religion. The party perceived, too, that Catholicism was making scarcely any use of modern aggressive modes of propaganda; that, for example, the Church took but an insignificant part in social movements, in the organization of clubs for social study, in the establishing of settlements and similar philanthropic endeavour. Lack of adaptability to modern needs expresses in short the deficiencies in Catholicism which these men endeavoured to correct. They began a domestic apostolate which had for one of its rallying cries, “Allons au peuple,”—“Let us go to the people.” They agitated for the inauguration of social works, for a more intimate mingling of priests with the people, and for general cultivation of personal initiative, both in clergy and in laity.Not unnaturally, they looked for inspiration to America. There they saw a vigorous Church among a free people, with priests publicly respected, and with a note of aggressive zeal in every project of Catholic enterprise. From the American priesthood, Father Hecker stood out conspicuous for sturdy courage, deep interior piety, an assertive self-initiative and immense love of modern times and modern liberty. So they took Father Hecker for a kind of patron saint. His biography (New York, 1891), written in English by the Paulist Father Elliott, was translated into French (1897), and speedily became the book of the hour. Under the inspiration of Father Hecker’s life and character, the more spirited section of the French clergy undertook the task of persuading their fellow-priests loyally to accept the actual political establishment, and then, breaking out of their isolation, to put themselves in touch with the intellectual life of the country, and take an active part in the work of social amelioration.In 1897 the movement received an impetus—and a warning—when Mgr O’Connell, former Rector of the American College in Rome, spoke on behalf of Father Hecker’s ideas at the Catholic Congress in Friburg. The conservatives took alarm at what they considered to be symptoms of pernicious modernism or “Liberalism.” Did not the watchword “Allons au peuple” savour of heresy? Did it not tend toward breaking down the divinely established distinction between the priest and the layman, and conceding something to the laity in the management of the Church? The insistence upon individual initiative was judged to be incompatible with the fundamental principle of Catholicism, obedience to authority. Moreover, the conservatives were, almost to a man, anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic abbés. Complaints were sent to Rome. A violent polemic against the new movement was launched in Abbé Maignan’sLe père Hecker, est-il un saint?(1898). Repugnance to American tendencies and influences had a strong representation in the Curia and in powerful circles in Rome. Leo XIII. was extremely reluctant to pronounce any strictures upon American Catholics, of whose loyalty to the Roman See, and to their faith, he had often spoken in terms of high approbation. But he yielded, in a measure, to the pressure brought to bear upon him, and, early in February 1899, addressed to Cardinal Gibbons the BriefTestem Benevolentiae. This document contained a condemnation of the following doctrines or tendencies: (a) undue insistence on interior initiative in the spiritual life, as leading to disobedience; (b) attacks on religious vows, and disparagement of the value in the present age, of religious orders; (c) minimizing Catholic doctrine; (d) minimizing the importance of spiritual direction. The brief did not assert that any unsound doctrine on the above points had been held by Hecker or existed among Americans. Its tenour was, that if such opinions did exist, the Pope called upon the hierarchy to eradicate the evil. Cardinal Gibbons and many other prelates replied to Rome. With all but unanimity, they declared that the incriminated opinions had no existence among American Catholics. It was well known that Hecker never had countenanced the slightest departure from Catholic principles in their fullest and most strict application. The disturbance caused by the condemnation was slight; almost the entire laity, and a considerable part of the clergy, never understood what the noise was about. The affair was soon forgotten, but the result was to strengthen the hands of the conservatives in France.

Not unnaturally, they looked for inspiration to America. There they saw a vigorous Church among a free people, with priests publicly respected, and with a note of aggressive zeal in every project of Catholic enterprise. From the American priesthood, Father Hecker stood out conspicuous for sturdy courage, deep interior piety, an assertive self-initiative and immense love of modern times and modern liberty. So they took Father Hecker for a kind of patron saint. His biography (New York, 1891), written in English by the Paulist Father Elliott, was translated into French (1897), and speedily became the book of the hour. Under the inspiration of Father Hecker’s life and character, the more spirited section of the French clergy undertook the task of persuading their fellow-priests loyally to accept the actual political establishment, and then, breaking out of their isolation, to put themselves in touch with the intellectual life of the country, and take an active part in the work of social amelioration.

In 1897 the movement received an impetus—and a warning—when Mgr O’Connell, former Rector of the American College in Rome, spoke on behalf of Father Hecker’s ideas at the Catholic Congress in Friburg. The conservatives took alarm at what they considered to be symptoms of pernicious modernism or “Liberalism.” Did not the watchword “Allons au peuple” savour of heresy? Did it not tend toward breaking down the divinely established distinction between the priest and the layman, and conceding something to the laity in the management of the Church? The insistence upon individual initiative was judged to be incompatible with the fundamental principle of Catholicism, obedience to authority. Moreover, the conservatives were, almost to a man, anti-republicans who distrusted and disliked the democratic abbés. Complaints were sent to Rome. A violent polemic against the new movement was launched in Abbé Maignan’sLe père Hecker, est-il un saint?(1898). Repugnance to American tendencies and influences had a strong representation in the Curia and in powerful circles in Rome. Leo XIII. was extremely reluctant to pronounce any strictures upon American Catholics, of whose loyalty to the Roman See, and to their faith, he had often spoken in terms of high approbation. But he yielded, in a measure, to the pressure brought to bear upon him, and, early in February 1899, addressed to Cardinal Gibbons the BriefTestem Benevolentiae. This document contained a condemnation of the following doctrines or tendencies: (a) undue insistence on interior initiative in the spiritual life, as leading to disobedience; (b) attacks on religious vows, and disparagement of the value in the present age, of religious orders; (c) minimizing Catholic doctrine; (d) minimizing the importance of spiritual direction. The brief did not assert that any unsound doctrine on the above points had been held by Hecker or existed among Americans. Its tenour was, that if such opinions did exist, the Pope called upon the hierarchy to eradicate the evil. Cardinal Gibbons and many other prelates replied to Rome. With all but unanimity, they declared that the incriminated opinions had no existence among American Catholics. It was well known that Hecker never had countenanced the slightest departure from Catholic principles in their fullest and most strict application. The disturbance caused by the condemnation was slight; almost the entire laity, and a considerable part of the clergy, never understood what the noise was about. The affair was soon forgotten, but the result was to strengthen the hands of the conservatives in France.

(J. J. F.)

HECKMONDWIKE,an urban district in the Spen Valley parliamentary division of the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 8 m. S.S.E. of Bradford, on the Lancashire & Yorkshire, Great Northern, and London & North-Western railways. Pop. (1901), 9459. Like the town of Dewsbury, on the south-east, it is an important centre of the blanket and carpet manufactures, and there are also machine works, dye works and iron foundries. Coal is extensively wrought in the vicinity.

HECTOR,in Greek mythology, son of Priam and Hecuba, the husband of Andromache. Like Paris and other Trojans, he had an Oriental name, Darius. In Homer he is represented as an ideal warrior, the champion of the Trojans and the mainstay of the city. His character, is drawn in most favourable colours as a good son, a loving husband and father, and a trusty friend. His leave-taking of Andromache in the sixth book of theIliad, and his departure to meet Achilles for the last time, are most touchingly described. He is an especial favourite of Apollo; and later poets even describe him as son of that god. His chief exploits during the war were his defence of the wounded Sarpedon, his fight with Ajax, son of Telamon (his particular enemy), and the storming of the Greek ramparts. When Achilles, enraged with Agamemnon, deserted the Greeks, Hector drove them back to their ships, which he almost succeeded in burning. Patroclus, the friend of Achilles, who came to the help of the Greeks, was slain by Hector with the help of Apollo. Then Achilles, to revenge his friend’s death, returned to the war, slew Hector, dragged his body behind his chariot to the camp, and afterwards round the tomb of Patroclus. Aphrodite and Apollo preservedit from corruption and mutilation. Priam, guarded by Hermes, went to Achilles and prevailed on him to give back the body, which was buried with great honour. Hector was afterwards worshipped in the Troad by the Boeotian tribe Gephyraei, who offered sacrifices at his grave.

HECUBA(Gr.Ἑκάβη), wife of Priam, daughter of the Phrygian king Dymas (or of Cisseus, or of the river-god Sangarius). According to Homer she was the mother of nineteen of Priam’s fifty sons. When Troy was captured and Priam slain, she was made prisoner by the Greeks. Her fate is told in various ways, most of which connect her with the promontory Cynossema, on the Thracian shore of the Hellespont. According to Euripides (in theHecuba), her youngest son Polydorus had been placed during the siege of Troy under the care of Polymestor, king of Thrace. When the Greeks reached the Thracian Chersonese on their way home Hecuba discovered that her son had been murdered, and in revenge put out the eyes of Polymestor and murdered his two sons. She was acquitted by Agamemnon; but, as Polymestor foretold, she was turned into a dog, and her grave became a mark for ships (Ovid,Metam.xiii. 399-575; Juvenal x. 271 and Mayor’s note). According to another story, she fell to the lot of Odysseus, as a slave, and in despair threw herself into the Hellespont; or, she used such insulting language towards her captors that they put her to death (Dictys Cretensis v. 13. 16). It is obvious from the tales of Hecuba’s transformation and death that she is a form of some goddess to whom dogs were sacred; and the analogy with Scylla is striking.

HEDA, WILLEM CLAASZ(c.1504-c.1670), Dutch painter, born at Haarlem, was one of the earliest Dutchmen who devoted himself exclusively to the painting of still life. He was the contemporary and comrade of Dirk Hals, with whom he had in common pictorial touch and technical execution. But Heda was more careful and finished than Hals, and showed considerable skill and not a little taste in arranging and colouring chased cups and beakers and tankards of precious and inferior metals. Nothing is so appetizing as his “luncheon,” with rare comestibles set out upon rich plate, oysters—seldom without the cut lemon—bread, champagne, olives and pastry. Even the commoner “refection” is also not without charm, as it comprises a cut ham, bread, walnuts and beer. One of Heda’s early masterpieces, dated 1623, in the Munich Pinakothek is as homely as a later one of 1651 in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna. A more luxurious repast is a “Luncheon in the Augsburg Gallery,” dated 1644. Most of Heda’s pictures are on the European continent, notably in the galleries of Paris, Parma, Ghent, Darmstadt, Gotha, Munich and Vienna. He was a man of repute in his native city, and filled all the offices of dignity and trust in the gild of Haarlem. He seems to have had considerable influence in forming the younger Frans Hals.

HEDDLE, MATTHEW FORSTER(1828-1897), Scottish mineralogist, was born at Hoy in Orkney on the 28th of April 1828. After receiving his early education at the Edinburgh academy, he entered as a medical student at the university in that city, and subsequently studied chemistry and mineralogy at Klausthal and Freiburg. In 1851 he took his degree of M.D. at Edinburgh, and for about five years practised there. Medical work, however, possessed for him little attraction; he became assistant to Prof. Connell, who held the chair of chemistry at St Andrews, and in 1862 succeeded him as professor. This post he held until in 1880 he was invited to report on some gold mines in South Africa. On his return he devoted himself with great assiduity to mineralogy, and formed one of the finest collections by means of personal exploration in almost every part of Scotland. His specimens are now in the Royal Scottish Museum at Edinburgh. It had been his intention to publish a comprehensive work on the mineralogy of Scotland. This he did not live to complete, but the MSS. fell into able hands, andThe Mineralogy of Scotland, in 2 vols., edited by J. G. Goodchild, was issued in 1901. Heddle was one of the founders of the Mineralogical Society, and he contributed many articles on Scottish minerals, and on the geology of the northern parts of Scotland, to theMineralogical Magazine, as well as to theTransactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He died on the 19th of November 1897.

SeeDr Heddle and his Geological Work(with portrait), by J. G. Goodchild,Trans. Edin. Geol. Soc.(1898) vii. 317.

HEDGEHOG,orUrchin, a member of the mammalian order Insectivora, remarkable for its dentition, its armature of spines and its short tail. The upper jaw is longer than the lower, the snout is long and flexible, with the nostrils narrow, and the claws are long but weak. The animal is about 10 in. long, its eyes are small, and the lower surface covered with hairs of the ordinary character. The brain is remarkable for its low development, the cerebral hemispheres being small, and marked with but one groove, and that a shallow one, on each side. The hedgehog has the power of rolling itself up into a ball, from which the spines stand out in every direction. The spines are sharp, hard and elastic, and form so efficient a defence that there are few animals able to effect a successful attack on this creature. The moment it is touched, or even hears the report of a gun, it rolls itself up by the action of the muscles beneath the skin, while this contraction effects the erection of the spines. The most important muscle is theorbicularis panniculi, which extends over the anterior region of the skull, as far down the body as the ventral hairy region, and on to the tail, but three other muscles aid in the contraction.

Though insectivorous, the hedgehog is reported to have a liking for mice, while frogs and toads, as well as plants and fruits, all seem to be acceptable. It will also eat snakes, and its fondness for eggs has caused it to meet with the enmity of game-preservers; and there is no doubt it occasionally attacks leverets and game-chicks. In a state of nature it does not emerge from its retreat during daylight, unless urged by hunger or by the necessities of its young. During winter it passes into a state of hibernation, when its temperature falls considerably; having provided itself with a nest of dry leaves, it is well protected from the influences of the rain, and rolling itself up, remains undisturbed till warmer weather returns. In July or August the female brings forth four to eight young, or, according to others, two to four at a somewhat earlier period; at birth the spines, which in the adult are black in the middle, are white and soft, but soon harden, though they do not attain their full size until the succeeding spring.

The hedgehog, which is known scientifically asErinaceus europaeus, and is the type of the familyErinaceidae, is found in woods and gardens, and extends over nearly the whole of Europe; and has been found at 6000 to 8000 ft. above the level of the sea. The adult is provided with thirty-six teeth; in the upper jaw are 6 incisors, 2 canines and 12 cheek-teeth, and in the lower jaw 4 incisors, 2 canines and 10 cheek-teeth. The genus is represented by about a score of species, ranging over Europe, Asia, except the Malay countries, and Africa.

(R. L.*)

HEDGES AND FENCES.The object of the hedge1or fence (abbreviation of “defence”) is to mark a boundary or to enclosean area of land on which stock is kept. The hedge,i.e.a row of bushes or small trees, forms a characteristic feature of the scenery of England, especially in the midlands and south; it is more rarely found in other countries. Its disadvantages as a fence are that it is not portable, that it requires cutting and training while young, that it harbours weeds and vermin and that it occupies together with the ditch which usually borders it a considerable space of ground, the margins of which cannot be cultivated. For these reasons it is to some extent superseded by the fence proper, especially where shelter for cattle is not required. In Great Britain the hawthorn (q.v.) is by far the most important of hedge plants. Holly resembles the hawthorn in its amenability to pruning and in its prickly nature and closeness of growth, which make it an effective barrier to, and shelter for, stock, but it is less hardy and more slow-growing than the hawthorn. Hornbeam, beech, myrobalan or cherry plum and blackthorn also have their advantages, hornbeam being proof against great exposure, blackthorn thriving on poor land and possessing great impenetrability and so on. Box, yew, privet and many other plants are used for ornamental hedging; in the United States the osage orange and honey locust are favourite hedge plants. As fences, wooden posts and rails and stone walls may be conveniently used in districts where the requisite materials are plentiful. But the most modern form of fence is formed of wire strands either smooth or barbed (seeBarbed Wire), strained between iron standards or wooden or concrete posts. The wire may be interwoven with vertical strands or, if necessary, may be kept apart by iron droppers between the standards. Fences of a lighter description are machine-made with pickets of split chestnut or other wood closely set, woven with a few strands of wire; they are braced by posts at intervals.

From the fact that tramps and vagabonds frequently sleep under hedges the word has come to be used as a term of contempt, as in “hedge-priest,” an inferior and illiterate kind of parson at one time existing in England and Ireland, and in “hedge-school,” a low class school held in the open air, formerly very common in Ireland. From the sense of “hedge” as an enclosure or barrier the verb “to hedge” means to enclose, to form a barrier or defence, to bound or limit. As a sporting term the word is used in betting to mean protection from loss, by betting on both sides, by “laying off” on one side, after laying odds on another or vice versa. The word was early used figuratively in the sense of to avoid committing oneself.

See articles in theCyclopaedia of American Agriculture, vol. i., ed. by L. H. Bailey (New York, 1907); in theStandard Cyclopaedia of Modern Agriculture, ed. by R. P. Wright (London, 1908-1909); and in theEncyclopaedia of Agriculture, vol. ii., ed. by C. E. Green and D. Young (Edinburgh, 1908).

1Hedge is a Teutonic word, cf. Dutchheg, Ger.Hecke; the root appears in other English words,e.g.“haw,” as in “hawthorn.”

HEDON,a municipal borough in the Holderness parliamentary division of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, 8 m. E. of Hull by a branch of the North-Eastern railway. Pop. (1901), 1010. It stands in a low-lying, flat district bordering the Humber. It is 2 m. from the river, but was formerly reached by a navigable inlet, now dry, and was a considerable port. There is a small harbour, but the prosperity of the port has passed to Hull. The church of St Augustine is a splendid cruciform building with central tower. It is Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular, the tower being of the last period. The west front is particularly fine, and the church, with its noble proportions and lofty clerestories, resembles a cathedral in miniature. There are a manufacture of bricks and an agricultural trade. The corporation consists of a mayor, 3 aldermen and 9 councillors; and possesses a remarkable ancient mace, of 15th-century workmanship. Area, 321 acres.

According to tradition the men of Hedon received a charter of liberties from King Æthelstan, but there is no evidence to prove this or indeed to prove any settlement in the town until after the Conquest. The manor is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey, but formed part of the lordship of Holderness which William the Conqueror granted to Odo, count of Albemarle. A charter of Henry II., which is undated, contains the first certain evidence of settlement. By it the king granted to William, count of Albemarle, free borough rights in Hedon so that his burgesses there might hold of him as freely and quietly as the burgesses of York or Lincoln held of the king. An earlier charter granted to the inhabitants of York shows that these rights included a trade gild and freedom from many dues not only in England but also in France. King John in 1200 granted a confirmation of these liberties to Baldwin, count of Albemarle, and Hawisia his wife and for this second charter the burgesses themselves paid 70 marks. In 1272 Henry III. granted to Edmund, earl of Lancaster, and Avelina his wife, then lord and lady of the manor, the right of holding a fair at Hedon on the eve, day, and morrow of the feast of St Augustine and for five following days. After the countess’s death the manor came to the hands of Edward I. In 1280 it was found by an inquisition that the men of Hedon “were few and poor” and that if the town were demised at a fee-farm rent the town might improve. The grant, however, does not appear to have been made until 1346. Besides this charter Edward III. also granted the burgesses the privilege of electing a mayor and bailiffs every year. At that time Hedon was one of the chief ports in the Humber, but its place was gradually taken by Hull after that town came into the hands of the king. Hedon was incorporated by Charles II. in 1661, and James II. in 1680 gave the burgesses another charter granting among other privileges that of holding two extra fairs, but of this they never appear to have taken advantage. The burgesses returned two members to parliament in 1295, and from 1547 to 1832 when the borough was disfranchised.

SeeVictoria County History, Yorkshire; J. R. Boyle,The Early History of the Town and Port of Hedon(Hull and York, 1895); G. H. Park,History of the Ancient Borough of Hedon(Hull, 1895).

HEDONISM(Gr.ἡδονή, pleasure, fromἡδύς, sweet, pleasant), in ethics, a general term for all theories of conduct in which the criterion is pleasure of one kind or another. Hedonistic theories of conduct have been held from the earliest times, though they have been by no means of the same character. Moreover, hedonism has, especially by its critics, been very much misrepresented owing mainly to two simple misconceptions. In the first place hedonism may confine itself to the view that, as a matter of observed fact, all men do in practice make pleasure the criterion of action, or it may go further and assert that men ought to seek pleasure as the sole human good. The former statement takes no view as to whether or not there is any absolute good: if merely denies that men aim at anything more than pleasure. The latter statement admits an ideal,summum bonum—namely, pleasure. The second confusion is the tacit assumption that the pleasure of the hedonist is necessarily or characteristically of a purely physical kind; this assumption is in the case of some hedonistic theories a pure perversion of the facts. Practically all hedonists have argued that what are known as the “lower” pleasures are not only ephemeral in themselves but also productive of so great an amount of consequent pain that the wise man cannot regard them as truly pleasurable; the sane hedonist will, therefore, seek those so-called “higher” pleasures which are at once more lasting and less likely to be discounted by consequent pain. It should be observed, however, that this choice of pleasures by a hedonist is conditioned not by “moral” (absolute) but by prudential (relative) considerations.

The earliest and the most extreme type of hedonism is that of the Cyrenaic School as stated by Aristippus, who argued that the only good for man is the sentient pleasure of the moment. Since (following Protagoras) knowledge is solely of momentary sensations, it is useless to try, as Socrates recommended, to make calculations as to future pleasures, and to balance present enjoyment with disagreeable consequences. The true art of life is to crowd as much enjoyment as possible into every moment. This extreme or “pure” hedonism regarded as a definite philosophic theory practically died with the Cyrenaics, though the same spirit has frequently found expression in ancient and modern, especially poetical, literature.

The confusion already alluded to between “pure” and “rational” hedonism is nowhere more clearly exemplified than in the misconceptions which have arisen as to the doctrine ofthe Epicureans. To identify Epicureanism with Cyrenaicism is a complete misunderstanding. It is true that pleasure is thesummum bonumof Epicurus, but his conception of that pleasure is profoundly modified by the Socratic doctrine of prudence and the eudaemonism of Aristotle. The true hedonist will aim at a life of enduring rational happiness; pleasure is the end of life, but true pleasure can be obtained only under the guidance of reason. Self-control in the choice of pleasures with a view to reducing pain to a minimum is indispensable. “Of all this, the beginning, and the greatest good, is prudence.” The negative side of Epicurean hedonism was developed to such an extent by some members of the school (seeHegesias) that the ideal life is held to be rather indifference to pain than positive enjoyment. This pessimistic attitude is far removed from the positive hedonism of Aristippus.

Between the hedonism of the ancients and that of modern philosophers there lies a great gulf. Practically speaking ancient hedonism advocated the happiness of the individual: the modern hedonism of Hume, Bentham and Mill is based on a wider conception of life. The only real happiness is the happiness of the community, or at least of the majority: the criterion is society, not the individual. Thus we pass from Egoistic to Universalistic hedonism, Utilitarianism, Social Ethics, more especially in relation to the still broader theories of evolution. These theories are confronted by the problem of reconciling and adjusting the claims of the individual with those of society. One of the most important contributions to the discussion is that of Sir Leslie Stephen (Science of Ethics), who elaborated a theory of the “social organism” in relation to the individual. The end of the evolution process is the production of a “social tissue” which will be “vitally efficient.” Instead, therefore, of the criterion of “the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” Stephen has that of the “health of the organism.” Life is not “a series of detached acts, in each of which a man can calculate the sum of happiness or misery attainable by different courses.” Each action must be regarded as directly bearing upon the structure of society.

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