Chapter 17

See J. Chotzner,Hebrew Humour(Lond., 1905), pp. 82-102.

(I. A.)

IMMERMANN, KARL LEBERECHT(1796-1840), German dramatist and novelist, was born on the 24th of April 1796 at Magdeburg, the son of a government official. In 1813 he went to study law at Halle, where he remained, after the suppression of the university by Napoleon in the same year, until King Frederick William’s “Summons to my people” on March 17th. He responded with alacrity, but was prevented by illness from taking part in the earlier campaign; he fought, however, in 1815 at Ligny and Waterloo, and marched into Paris with Blücher. At the conclusion of the war he resumed his studies at Halle, and after beingReferendarin Magdeburg, was appointed in 1819Assessorat Münster in Westphalia. Here he made the acquaintance of Elise von Lützow, Countess von Ahlefeldt, wife of the leader of the famous “free corps” (see Lützow). This lady first inspired his pen, and their relationship is reflected in several dramas written about this time. In 1823 Immermann was appointed judge at Magdeburg, and in 1827 was transferred to Düsseldorf asLandgerichtsrator district judge. Thither the countess, whose marriage had in the meantime been dissolved, followed him, and, though refusing his hand, shared his home until his marriage in 1839 with a grand-daughter of August Hermann Niemeyer (1754-1828), chancellor andrector perpetuusof Halle university. In 1834 Immermann undertook the management of the Düsseldorf theatre, and, although his resources were small, succeeded for two years in raising it to a high level of excellence. The theatre, however, was insufficiently endowed to allow of him carrying on the work, andin 1836 he returned to his official duties and literary pursuits. He died at Düsseldorf on the 25th of August 1840.

Immermann had considerable aptitude for the drama, but it was long before he found a congenial field for his talents. His early plays are imitations, partly of Kotzebue’s, partly of the Romantic dramas of Tieck and Müllner, and are now forgotten. In 1826, however, appearedCardenio und Celinde, a love tragedy of more promise; this, as well as the earlier productions, awakened the ill-will of Platen, who made Immermann the subject of his wittiest satire,Der romantische Oedipus. Between 1827 and 1832 Immermann redeemed his good name by a series of historical tragedies,Das Trauerspiel in Tirol(1827),Kaiser Friedrich II.(1828) and a trilogy from Russian history, Alexis (1832). His masterpiece is the poetic mystery,Merlin(1831), a noble poem, which, like its model,Faust, deals with the deeper problems of modern spiritual life. Immermann’s important dramaturgic experiments in Düsseldorf are described in detail inDüsseldörfer Anfänge(1840). More significant is his position as a novelist. Here he clearly stands on the boundary line between Romanticism and modern literature; hisEpigonen(1836) might be described as one of the last Romantic imitations of Goethe’sWilhelm Meister, while the satire and realism of his second novel,Münchhausen(1838), form a complete break with the older literature. As a prose-writer Immermann is perhaps best remembered to-day by the admirable story of village life,Der Oberhof, which is embedded in the formless mass ofMünchhausen. His last work was an unfinished epic,Tristan und Isolde(1840).

Immermann’sGesammelte Schriftenwere published in 14 vols. in 1835-1843; a new edition, with biography and introduction by R. Boxberger, in 20 vols. (Berlin, 1883); selected works, edited by M. Koch (4 vols., 1887-1888) and F. Muncker (6 vols., 1897). See G. zu Putlitz,Karl Immermann, sein Leben und seine Werke(2 vols., 1870); F. Freiligrath,Karl Immermann, Blätter der Erinnerung an ihn(1842); W. Müller,K. Immermann und sein Kreis(1860); R. Fellner,Geschichte einer deutschen Musterbühne(1888);K. Immermann: eine Gedächtnisschrift(1896).

IMMERSION(Lat.immersio, dipping), the act of being plunged into a fluid, or being overwhelmed by anything; in astronomy, the disappearance of a heavenly body in the shadow of another, especially of a satellite in the shadow of its primary.

IMMIGRATION(from Lat.in, into, andmigrare, to depart), the movement of population, other than that of casual visitors or travellers,intoone countryfromanother (seeMigration).

IMMORTALITY(Lat.in-, not,mortalis, mortal, frommors, death), the condition or quality of being exempt from death or annihilation. This condition has been predicated of man, both body and soul, in many senses; and the term is used by analogy of those whose deeds or writings have made a lasting impression on the memory of man. The belief in human immortality in some form is almost universal; even in early animistic cults the germ of the idea is present, and in all the higher religions it is an important feature. This article is confined to summarizing the philosophical or scientific arguments for, and objections to, the doctrine of the persistence of the human soul after death. For the Christian doctrine, seeEschatology; and for other religions see the separate articles.

In the Orphic mysteries “the soul was regarded as a part of the divine, aparticula aurae divinae, for which the body in its limited and perishable condition was no fit organ, but a grave or prison (τὸ σῶμα σῆμα). The existence of the soul in the body was its punishment for sins in a previous condition; and the doom of its sins in the body was its descent into other bodies, and the postponement of its deliverance” (Salmond’sChristian Doctrine of Immortality, p. 109). This deliverance was what the mysteries promised. A remarkable passage in Pindar (Thren.2) is thus rendered by J. W. Donaldson (Pindar’s Epinician or Triumphal Odes, p. 372). “By a happy lot, all persons travel to an end free of toil. And the body, indeed, is subject to the powerful influence of death; but a shadow of vitality is still left alive, and this alone is of divine origin; while our limbs are in activity it sleeps; but, when we sleep, it discloses to the mind in many dreams the future judgment with regard to happiness and misery.”

The belief of Socrates is uncertain. In theApologyhe is represented as sure that “no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death,” but as not knowing whether “death be a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or a change or migration of the soul from this world to the next” (i. 40, 41). In thePhaedoa confident expectation is ascribed to him. He is not the body to be buried; he will not remain with his friends after he has drunk the poison, but he will go away to the happiness of the blessed. The silence of theMemorabiliaof Xenophon must be admitted as an argument to the contrary; but the probability seems to be that Plato did not in thePhaedoaltogether misrepresent the Master. In Plato’s thought the belief held a prominent position. “It is noteworthy,” says Professor D. G. Ritchie, “that, in the various dialogues in which Plato speaks of immortality, the arguments seem to be of different kinds, and most of them quite unconnected with one another.” In thePhaedrus(245C) the argument is, that the soul is self-moving, and, therefore, immortal; and this argument is repeated in theLaws(x. 894, 895). It is an argument that Plato probably inherited from Alcmaeon, the physician of Croton (Arist.De An.i. 2, § 17 405A29), whose views were closely connected with those of the Pythagoreans. In thePhaedothe main argument up to which all the others lead is that the soul participates in the idea of life. Recollection (anamnesis) alone would prove pre-existence, but not existence after death. In the tenth book of theRepublicwe find the curious argument that the soul does not perish like the body, because its characteristic evil, sin or wickedness does not kill it as the diseases of the body wear out the bodily life. In theTimaeus(41A) the immortality even of the gods is made dependent on the will of the Supreme Creator; souls are not in their own nature indestructible, but persist because of His goodness. In theLaws(xii. 959A) the notion of a future life seems to be treated as a salutary doctrine which is to be believed because the legislator enacts it (Plato, p. 146). The estimate to be formed of this reasoning has been well stated by Dr A. M. Fairbairn, “Plato’s arguments for immortality, isolated, modernized, may be feeble, even valueless, but allowed to stand where and as he himself puts them, they have an altogether different worth. The ratiocinative parts of thePhaedothrown into syllogisms may be easily demolished by a hostile logician; but in the dialogue as a whole there is a subtle spirit and cumulative force which logic can neither seize nor answer” (Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, p. 226, 1876).

Aristotle held that theνοῦςor active intelligence alone is immortal. The Stoics were not agreed upon the question. Cleanthes is said to have held that all survive to the great conflagration which closes the cycle, Chrysippus that only the wise will. Marcus Aurelius teaches that even if the spirit survive for a time it is at last “absorbed in the generative principle of the universe.” Epicureanism thought that “the wise man fears not death, before which most men tremble; for, if we are, it is not; if it is, we are not.” Death is extinction. Augustine adopts a Platonic thought when he teaches that the immortality of the soul follows from its participation in the eternal truths. The Apologists themselves welcomed, and commended to others, the Christian revelation as affording a certainty of immortality such as reason could not give. The Aristotelian school in Islam did not speak with one voice upon the question; Avicenna declared the soul immortal, but Averroes assumes only the eternity of the universal intellect. Albertus Magnus argued that the soul is immortal, asex se ipsa causa, and as independent of the body; Pietro Pomponazzi maintained that the soul’s immortality could be neither proved nor disproved by any natural reasons. Spinoza, while consistently with his pantheism denying personal immortality, affirms that “the human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body, but there remains of it something which is eternal” (Eth.v. prop, xxiii.). The reason he gives is that, as this something “appertains to theessence of the mind,” it is “conceived by a certain eternal necessity through the very essence of God.”

Leibnitz, in accord with the distinctive principle of his philosophy, affirmed the absolute independence of mind and body as distinct monads, the parallelism of their functions in life being due to the pre-established harmony. For the soul, by its nature as a single monad indestructible and, therefore, immortal, death meant only the loss of the monads constituting the body and its return to the pre-existent state. The argument of Ernst Platner (Philos. Aphor.i. 1174, 1178) is similar. “If the human soul is a force in the narrower sense, a substance, and not a combination of substances, then, as in the nature of things there is no transition from existence to non-existence, we cannot naturally conceive the end of its existence, any more than we can anticipate a gradual annihilation of its existence.” He adds a reason that recalls one of Plato’s, “As manifestly as the human soul is by means of the senses linked to the present life, so manifestly it attaches itself by reason, and the conceptions, conclusions, anticipations and efforts to which reason leads it, to God and eternity.”

Against the first kind of argument, as formulated by Moses Mendelssohn, Kant advances the objection that, although we may deny the soul extensive quantity, division into parts, yet we cannot refuse to it intensive quantity, degrees of reality; and consequently its existence may be terminated not by decomposition, but by gradual diminution of its powers (or to use the term he coined for the purpose, byelanguescence). This denial of any reasonable ground for belief in immortality in theCritique of Pure Reason(Transcendental Dialectic, bk. ii. ch. i.) is, however, not his last word on the subject. In theCritique of the Practical Reason(Dialectic, ch. i. sec. iv) the immortality of the soul is shown to be a postulate.Holiness, “the perfect accordance of the will with the moral law,” demands anendless progress; and “this endless progress is only possible on the supposition of anendlessduration of theexistenceandpersonalityof the same rational being (which is called the immortality of the soul).” Not demonstrable as a theoretical proposition, the immortality of the soul “is an inseparable result of an unconditional a priori practical law.” The moral interest, which is so decisive on this question in the case of Kant, dominates Bishop Butler also. A future life for him is important, because our happiness in it may depend on our present conduct; and therefore our action here should take into account the reward or punishment that it may bring on us hereafter. As he maintains that probability may and ought to be our guide in life, he is content with proving in the first chapter of theAnalogythat “a future life is probable from similar changes (as death) already undergone in ourselves and in others, and from our present powers, which are likely tocontinueunless death destroy them.” While we may fear this, “there is no proof that it will, either from the nature of death,” of the effect of which on our powers we are altogether ignorant, “or from the analogy of nature, which shows only that thesensible proofof our powers (not the powers themselves) may be destroyed.” The imagination that death will destroy these powers is unfounded, because (1) “this supposes we are compounded, and so discerptible, but the contrary is probable” onmetaphysicalgrounds (the indivisibility of the subject in which consciousness as indivisible inheres, and its distinction from the body) and alsoexperimental(the persistence of the living being in spite of changes in the body or even losses of parts of the body); (2) this also assumes that “our present living powers of reflection” must be affected in the same way by death “as those of sensation,” but this is disproved by their relative independence even in this life; (3) “even the suspension of our present powers of reflection” is not involved in “the idea of death, which is simply dissolution of the body,” and which may even “be like birth, a continuation and perfecting of our powers.” “Even if suspension were involved, we cannot infer destruction from it” (analysis of chapter i. in Angus’s edition). He recognizes that “reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should finally, and upon the whole, be well with the righteous and ill with the wicked,” but only “revelation teaches us that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice” (ch. ii. note 10). He does not use this general anticipation of future judgment, as he might have done, as a positive argument for immortality.

Adam Ferguson (Institutes of Moral Philosophy, p. 119, new ed., 1800) argues that “the desire for immortality is an instinct, and can reasonably be regarded as an indication of that which the author of this desire wills to do.” From the standpoint of modern science John Fiske confirms the validity of such an argument; for what he affirms in regard to belief in the divine is equally applicable to this belief in a future life. “If the relation thus established in the morning twilight of man’s existence between the human soul and a world invisible and immaterial is a relation of which only the subjective term is real and the objective term is non-existent; then I say it is something utterly without precedent in the whole history of creation” (Through Nature to God, 1899, p. 188, 189). Whatever may have been Hegel’s own belief in regard to personal immortality, the logical issue of his absolute idealism has been well stated by W. Windelband (History of Philosophy, p. 633). “It became clear that in the system of perpetual Becoming and of the dialectical passing over of all forms into one another, the finite personality could scarcely raise a plausible claim to the character of a substance and to immortality in the religious sense.” F. D. Schleiermacher applies the phrase “the immortality of religion” to the religious emotion of oneness, amid finitude, with the infinite and, amid time, with the eternal; denies any necessary connexion between the belief in the continuance of personal existence and the consciousness of God; and rests his faith on immortality altogether on Christ’s promise of living fellowship with His followers, as presupposing their as well as His personal immortality. A. Schopenhauer assigns immortality to the universal will to live; and Feuerbach declares spirit, consciousness eternal, but not any individual subject. R. H. Lotze for the decision of the question lays down the broad principle, “All that has once come to be will eternally continue so soon as for the organic unity of the world it has an unchangeable value, but it will obviously again cease to be, when that is not the case” (Gr. der Psy.p. 74).

Objections to the belief in immortality have been advanced from the standpoints of materialism, naturalism, pessimism and pantheism.Materialismargues that, as life depends on a material organism, thought is a function of the brain, and the soul is but the sum of mental states, to which, according to the theory of psychophysical parallelism, physical changes always correspond; therefore, the dissolution of the body carries with it necessarily the cessation of consciousness. That, as now constituted, mind does depend on brain, life on body, must be conceded, but that this dependence is so absolute that the function must cease with the organ has not been scientifically demonstrated; the connexion of the soul with the body is as yet too obscure to justify any such dogmatism. But against this inference the following considerations may be advanced: (1) Man does distinguish himself from his body; (2) he is conscious of his personal identity, through all the changes of his body; (3) in the exercise of his will he knows himself not controlled by but controlling his body; (4) his consciousness warrants his denying the absolute identification of himself and his body. It may further be added that materialism can be shown to be an inadequate philosophy in its attempts to account even for the physical universe, for this is inexplicable without the assumption of mind distinct from, and directive of, matter. The theory of psychophysical parallelism has been subjected to a rigorous examination in James Ward’sNaturalism and Agnosticism, part iii., in which the argument that mind cannot be derived from matter is convincingly presented. Sir Oliver Lodge in his reply to E. Haeckel’sRiddle of the Universemaintains that “life may be something not only ultra-terrestrial, but even immaterial, something outside our present categories of matter and energy; as real as they are, but different, and utilizing them for its own purpose” (Life and Matter, 1906, p. 198). He rejects the attempt to explain human personality as “generated bythe material molecular aggregate of its own unaided latent power,” and affirms that the “universe where the human spirit is more at home than it is among these temporary collocations of matter” is “a universe capable of infinite development, of noble contemplation, and of lofty joy, long after this planet—nay the whole solar system—shall have fulfilled its present spire of destiny, and retired cold and lifeless upon its endless way” (pp. 199-200).

In his lecture onHuman Immortality(3rd ed., 1906), Professor William James deals with “two supposed objections to the doctrine.” The first is “the law that thought is a function of the brain.” Accepting the law he distinguishesproductivefrompermissiveortransmissivefunction (p. 32), and, rejecting the view that brain produces thought, he recognizes that in our present condition brain transmits thought, thought needs brain for its organ of expression; but this does not exclude the possibility of a condition in which thought will be no longer so dependent on brain. He quotes (p. 57) with approval Kant’s words, “The death of the body may indeed be the end of the sensational use of our mind, but only the beginning of the intellectual use. The body would thus be not the cause of our thinking, but merely a condition restrictive thereof, and, although essential to our sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life” (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 2nd ed., p. 809).

Further arguments in the same direction are derived from the modern school of psychical research (see especially F. W. H. Myers’Human Personality, 1903).

Another objection is advanced from the standpoint ofnaturalism, which, whether it issues in materialism or not, seeks to explain man as but a product of the process of nature. The universe is so immeasurably vast in extension and duration, and man is so small, his home but a speck in space, and his history a span in time that it seems an arrogant assumption for him to claim exemption from the universal law of evolution and dissolution. This view ignores that man has ideals of absolute value, truth, beauty, goodness, that he consciously communes with the God who is in all, and through all, and over all, that it is his mind which recognizes the vastness of the universe and thinks its universal law, and that the mind which perceives and conceives cannot be less, but must be greater than the object of its knowledge and thought.

Pessimismsuggests a third objection. The present life is so little worth living that its continuance is not to be desired. James Thomson (“B.V.”) speaks “of the restful rapture of the inviolate grave,” and sings the praises ofdeathand ofoblivion. We cannot admit that the history of mankind justifies his conclusion; for the great majority of men life is a good, and its continuance an object of hope.

For pantheism personal immortality appears a lesser good than reabsorption in the universal life; but against this objection we may confidently maintain that worthier of God and more blessed for man is the hope of a conscious communion in an eternal life of the Father of all with His whole family.

Lastly positivism teaches a corporate instead of an individual immortality; man should desire to live on as a beneficent influence in the race. This conception is expressed in George Eliot’s lines:

“O, may I join the choir invisibleOf those immortal dead who live againIn minds made better by their presence: liveIn pulses stirred to generosity,In deeds of daring rectitude, in scornFor miserable aims that end with self,In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,And with their mild persistence urge man’s searchTo vaster issues.”

“O, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge man’s search

To vaster issues.”

But these possibilities are not mutually exclusive alternatives. A man may live on in the world by his teaching and example as a power for good, a factor of human progress, and he may also be continuing and completing his course under conditions still more favourable to all most worthy in him. Consciously to participate as a person in the progress of the race is surely a worthier hope than unconsciously to contribute to it as an influence; ultimately to share the triumph as well as the struggle is a more inspiring anticipation.

In stating constructively the doctrine of immortality we must assign altogether secondary importance to the metaphysical arguments from the nature of the soul. It is sufficient to show, as has already been done, that the soul is not so absolutely dependent on the body, that the dissolution of the one must necessarily involve the cessation of the other. Such arguments as the indivisibility of the soul and its persistence can at most indicate thepossibilityof immortality.

Thejuridical argumenthas some force; the present life does not show that harmony of condition and character which our sense of justice leads us to expect; the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer; there is ground for the expectation that in the future life the anomalies of this life will be corrected. Although this argument has the support of such great names as Butler and Kant, yet it will repel many minds as an appeal to the motive of self-interest.

Theethical argumenthas greater value. Man’s life here is incomplete, and the more lofty his aims, the more worthy his labours, the more incomplete will it appear to be. The man who lives for fame, wealth, power, may be satisfied in this life; but he who lives for the ideals of truth, beauty, goodness, lives not for time but for eternity, for his ideals cannot be realized, and so his life fulfilled on this side of the grave. Unless these ideals are mocking visions, man has a right to expect the continuance of his life for its completion. This is the line of argument developed by Professor Hugo Münsterberg in his lecture onThe Eternal Life(1905), although he states it in the terms peculiar to his psychology, in which personality is conceived as primarily will. “No endless duration is our goal, but complete repose in the perfect satisfaction which the will finds when it has reached the significance, the influence, and the value at which it is aiming” (p. 83).

More general in its appeal still is the argument from theaffections, which has been beautifully developed in Tennyson’sIn Memoriam. The heart protests against the severance of death, and claims the continuance of love’s communion after death; and as man feels that love is what is most godlike in his nature, love’s claim has supreme authority.

There is areligious argumentfor immortality. The saints of the Hebrew nation were sure that as God had entered into fellowship with them, death could not sever them from his presence. This is the argument in Psalms xvi. and xvii., if, as is probable, the closing verses do express the hope of a glorious and blessed immortality. This too is the proof Jesus himself offers when he declares God to be the God of the living and not of the dead (Matt. xxii. 32). God’s companions cannot become death’s victims.

Josiah Royce in his lecture onThe Conception of Immortality(1900) combines this argument of the soul’s union with God with the argument of the incompleteness of man’s life here:—

“Just because God is One, all our lives have various and unique places in the harmony of the divine life. And just because God attains and wins and finds this uniqueness, all our lives win in our union with Him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning. And just because individuals whose lives have uniqueness of meaning are here only objects of pursuit, the attainment of this very individuality, since it is indeed real, occurs not in our present form of consciousness, but in a life that now we see not, yet in a life whose genuine meaning is continuous with our own human life, however far from our present flickering form of disappointed human consciousness that life of the final individuality may be. Of this our true individual life, our present life is a glimpse, a fragment, a hint, and in its best moments a visible beginning. That this individual life of all of us is not something limited in its temporal expression to the life that now we experience, follows from the very fact that here nothing final or individual is found expressed” (pp. 144-146).

R. W. Emerson declares that “the impulse to seek proof of immortality is itself the strongest proof of all.” We expect immortality not merely because we desire it; but because the desire itself arises from all that is best and truest and worthiest in ourselves. The desire is reasonable, moral, social, religious; it has the same worth as the loftiest ideals, and worthiest aspirationsof the soul of man. The loss of the belief casts a dark shadow over the present life. “No sooner do we try to get rid of the idea of Immortality—than Pessimism raises its head.... Human griefs seem little worth assuaging; human happiness too paltry (at the best) to be worth increasing. The whole moral world is reduced to a point. Good and evil, right and wrong, become infinitesimal, ephemeral matters. The affections die away—die of their own conscious feebleness and uselessness. A moral paralysis creeps over us” (Natural Religion, Postscript). The belief exercises a potent moral influence. “The day,” says Ernest Renan, “in which the belief in an after-life shall vanish from the earth will witness a terrific moral and spiritual decadence. Some of us perhaps might do without it, provided only that others held it fast. But there is no lever capable of raising an entire people if once they have lost their faith in the immortality of the soul” (quoted by A. W. Momerie,Immortality, p. 9). To this belief, many and good as are the arguments which can be advanced for it, a confident certainty is given by Christian faith in the Risen Lord, and the life and immortality which he has brought to light in his Gospel.

In addition to the works referred to above, see R. K. Gaye,The Platonic Conception of Immortality and its Connexion with the Theory of Ideas(1904); R. H. Charles,A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in Judaism and in Christianity(1899); E. Pétavel,The Problem of Immortality(Eng. trans. by F. A. Freer, 1892); J. Fiske,The Destiny of Man, viewed in the Light of his Origin(1884); G. A. Gordon,Immortality and the New Theodicy(1897); Henry Buckle,The After Life(1907).

(A. E. G.*)

IMMUNITY(from Lat.immunis, not subject to amunusor public service), a general term for exemption from liability, principally used in the legal sense discussed below, but also in recent times in pathology (for which seeBacteriology). In international law the term (“not serving,” “not subject”) implies exemption from the jurisdiction of the state which otherwise exercises jurisdiction where the immunity arises. It is thus applied to the exceptional position granted to sovereigns and chiefs of states generally, and their direct representatives in the states to which they are accredited.

UnderExterritorialityis treated the inviolability of embassies and legations and the application of the material side of the doctrine of immunity. As a right appertaining to the persons of those who enjoy it, the doctrine has grown out of the necessity for sovereigns of respecting each other’s persons in their common interest. To be able to negotiate without danger of arrest or interference of any kind with their persons was the only condition upon which sovereigns would have been able to meet and discuss their joint interests. With the development of states as independent entities and of intercourse between them and their “nationals,” the work of diplomatic missions increased to such an extent that instead of having merely occasional ambassadors as at the beginning, states found it expedient to have resident representatives with a permanent residence. Hence the sovereign’s inviolability becomes vested in the person of the sovereign’s delegate, and with it as a necessary corollary the exterritoriality of his residence. Out of the further expansion of the work of diplomatic missions came duplication of thepersonneland classes of diplomatic secretaries, who as forming part of the embassy or legation also had to be covered by the diplomatic immunity.

In no branch of international intercourse have states shown so laudable a respect for tradition as in the case of this immunity, and this in spite of the hardship which frequently arises for private citizens through unavoidable dealings with members of embassies and legations. The Institute of International Law (seePeace) at their Cambridge session in 1895 drew up the following rules,1which may be taken to be the only precise statement of theory on the subject, for the guidance of foreign offices in dealing with it:—

Art. 1.—Public ministers are inviolable. They also enjoy “exterritoriality,” in the sense and to the extent hereinafter mentioned and a certain number of immunities.Art. 2.—The privilege of inviolability extends: (1) To all classes of public ministers who regularly represent their sovereign or their country; (2) To all persons forming part of the official staff of a diplomatic mission; (3) To all persons forming part of its non-official staff, under reserve, that if they belong to the country where the mission resides they only enjoy it within the official residence.Art. 3.—The government to which the minister is accredited must abstain from all offence, insult or violence against the persons entitled to the privilege, must set an example in the respect which is due to them and protect them by specially rigorous penalties from all offence, insult or violence on the part of the inhabitants of the country, so that they may devote themselves to their duties in perfect freedom.Art. 4.—Immunity applies to everything necessary for the fulfilment by ministers of their duties, especially to personal effects, papers, archives and correspondence.Art. 5.—It lasts during the whole time which the minister or diplomatic official spends, in his official capacity, in the country to which he has been sent.It continues even in time of war between the two powers during the period necessary to enable the minister to leave the country with his staff and effects.Art. 6.—Inviolability cannot be claimed: (1) In case of legitimate defence on the part of private persons against acts committed by the persons who enjoy the privilege; (2) In case of risks incurred by any of the persons in question voluntarily or needlessly; (3) In case of improper acts committed by them, provoking on the part of the state to which the minister is accredited measures of defence or precaution; but, except in a case of extreme urgency, this state should confine itself to reporting the facts to the minister’s government, requesting the punishment or the recall of the guilty agent and, if necessary, to surrounding the official residence to prevent unlawful communications or manifestations.Immunity with Respect to Taxes.Art. 11.—A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries officially attached to his mission and the members of their families residing with them, are exempt from paying: (1) Personal direct taxes and sumptuary taxes; (2) General taxes on property, whether on capital or income; (3) War contributions; (4) Customs duties in respect of articles for their personal use.Each government shall indicate the grounds (justifications) to which these exemptions from taxation shall be subordinated.Immunity from Jurisdiction.Art. 12.—A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries officially attached to his mission and the members of their families residing with them, are exempt from all jurisdiction, civil or criminal, of the state to which they are accredited; in principle, they are only subject to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of their own country. A claimant may apply to the courts of the capital of the country of the minister, subject to the right of the minister to prove that he has a different domicile in his country.Art. 13.—With respect to crimes, persons indicated in the preceding article remain subject to the penal laws of their own country, as if they had committed the acts in their own country.Art. 14.—The immunity attaches to the function in respect of acts connected with the function. As regards acts done not in connexion with the function, immunity can only be claimed so long as the function lasts.Art. 15.—Persons of the nationality of the country to the government of which they are accredited cannot claim the privilege of immunity.Art. 16.—Immunity from jurisdiction cannot be invoked: (1) In case of proceedings taken by reason of engagements entered into by the exempt person, not in his official or private capacity, but in the exercise of a profession carried on by him in the country concurrently with his diplomatic functions; (2) In respect of real actions, including possessory actions, relating to anything movable or immovable in the country.It exists even in case of a breach of the law which may endanger public order or safety, or of crime against the safety of the state, without prejudice to such steps as the territorial government may take for its own protection.Art. 17.—Persons entitled to immunity from jurisdiction may refuse to appear as witnesses before a territorial court on condition that, if required by diplomatic intervention, they shall give their testimony in the official residence to a magistrate of the country appointed for the purpose.

Art. 1.—Public ministers are inviolable. They also enjoy “exterritoriality,” in the sense and to the extent hereinafter mentioned and a certain number of immunities.

Art. 2.—The privilege of inviolability extends: (1) To all classes of public ministers who regularly represent their sovereign or their country; (2) To all persons forming part of the official staff of a diplomatic mission; (3) To all persons forming part of its non-official staff, under reserve, that if they belong to the country where the mission resides they only enjoy it within the official residence.

Art. 3.—The government to which the minister is accredited must abstain from all offence, insult or violence against the persons entitled to the privilege, must set an example in the respect which is due to them and protect them by specially rigorous penalties from all offence, insult or violence on the part of the inhabitants of the country, so that they may devote themselves to their duties in perfect freedom.

Art. 4.—Immunity applies to everything necessary for the fulfilment by ministers of their duties, especially to personal effects, papers, archives and correspondence.

Art. 5.—It lasts during the whole time which the minister or diplomatic official spends, in his official capacity, in the country to which he has been sent.

It continues even in time of war between the two powers during the period necessary to enable the minister to leave the country with his staff and effects.

Art. 6.—Inviolability cannot be claimed: (1) In case of legitimate defence on the part of private persons against acts committed by the persons who enjoy the privilege; (2) In case of risks incurred by any of the persons in question voluntarily or needlessly; (3) In case of improper acts committed by them, provoking on the part of the state to which the minister is accredited measures of defence or precaution; but, except in a case of extreme urgency, this state should confine itself to reporting the facts to the minister’s government, requesting the punishment or the recall of the guilty agent and, if necessary, to surrounding the official residence to prevent unlawful communications or manifestations.

Immunity with Respect to Taxes.

Art. 11.—A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries officially attached to his mission and the members of their families residing with them, are exempt from paying: (1) Personal direct taxes and sumptuary taxes; (2) General taxes on property, whether on capital or income; (3) War contributions; (4) Customs duties in respect of articles for their personal use.

Each government shall indicate the grounds (justifications) to which these exemptions from taxation shall be subordinated.

Immunity from Jurisdiction.

Art. 12.—A public minister in a foreign country, functionaries officially attached to his mission and the members of their families residing with them, are exempt from all jurisdiction, civil or criminal, of the state to which they are accredited; in principle, they are only subject to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of their own country. A claimant may apply to the courts of the capital of the country of the minister, subject to the right of the minister to prove that he has a different domicile in his country.

Art. 13.—With respect to crimes, persons indicated in the preceding article remain subject to the penal laws of their own country, as if they had committed the acts in their own country.

Art. 14.—The immunity attaches to the function in respect of acts connected with the function. As regards acts done not in connexion with the function, immunity can only be claimed so long as the function lasts.

Art. 15.—Persons of the nationality of the country to the government of which they are accredited cannot claim the privilege of immunity.

Art. 16.—Immunity from jurisdiction cannot be invoked: (1) In case of proceedings taken by reason of engagements entered into by the exempt person, not in his official or private capacity, but in the exercise of a profession carried on by him in the country concurrently with his diplomatic functions; (2) In respect of real actions, including possessory actions, relating to anything movable or immovable in the country.

It exists even in case of a breach of the law which may endanger public order or safety, or of crime against the safety of the state, without prejudice to such steps as the territorial government may take for its own protection.

Art. 17.—Persons entitled to immunity from jurisdiction may refuse to appear as witnesses before a territorial court on condition that, if required by diplomatic intervention, they shall give their testimony in the official residence to a magistrate of the country appointed for the purpose.

Further questions connected with Immunity and Exterritoriality (q.v.) arise out of the different industrial enterprises undertaken by states, such as posts, telegraphs, telephones, railways, steamships, &c., which require regulation to prevent conflicts of interest between the state owners and the private interests involved in these enterprises.

(T. Ba.)

1The rules were drawn up in French. The author of this article is responsible for the translation of them.

IMOLA(anc.Forum Cornelii), a town and episcopal see of Emilia, Italy, in the province of Bologna, from which it is 21 m. S.E. by rail, 140 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 12,058 (town); 33,144 (commune). The cathedral of S. Cassiano has beenmodernized; it possesses interesting reliquaries, and contains the tomb of Petrus Chrysologus, archbishop of Ravenna (d. 451), a native of Imola. S. Domenico has a fine Gothic portal and S. Maria in Regola an old campanile. The town also contains some fine palaces. The communal library has some MSS., including a psalter with miniatures, that once belonged to Sir Thomas More. The citadel is square with round towers at the angles; it dates from 1304, and is now used as a prison. Imola has a large lunatic asylum with over 1200 inmates. Innocenzo Francucci (Innocenzo da Imola), a painter of the Bolognese school (1494-1549), was a native of Imola, and two of his works are preserved in the Palazzo del Comune. The Madonna del Piratello, 2 m. outside the town to the N.W., is in the early Renaissance style (1488); the campanile was probably built from Bramante’s plans in 1506.

The ancient Forum Cornelii, a station on the Via Aemilia, is said by Prudentius, writing in the 5th centuryA.D., to have been founded by Sulla; but the fact that it belonged to theTribus Polliashows that it already possessed Roman citizenship before the Social war. In later times we hear little of it; Martial published his third book of epigrams while he was there. In the Lombard period the name Imolas begins to appear. In 1480, after a chequered history, the town came into the possession of Girolamo Riario, lord of Forli, as the dowry of his wife Caterina Sforza, and was incorporated with the States of the Church by Caesar Borgia in 1500.

IMP(O. Eng.impa, a graft, shoot; the verbimpianis cognate with Ger.impfen, to graft, inoculate, and the Fr.enter; the ultimate origin is probably the Gr.ἐμφύειν, to implant, cf.ἔμφυτος, engrafted), originally a slip or shoot of a plant or tree used for grafting. This use is seen in Chaucer (Prologue to the Monk’s Tale, 68) “Of fieble trees ther comen wrecched ympes.” The verb “to imp” in the sense of “to graft” was especially used of the grafting of feathers on to the wing of a falcon or hawk to replace broken or damaged plumage, and is frequently used metaphorically. Like “scion,” “imp” was till the 17th century used of a member of a family, especially of high rank, hence often used as equivalent to “child.” TheNew English Dictionaryquotes an epitaph (1584) in the Beauchamp chapel at Warwick, “Heere resteth the body of the noble Impe Robert of Dudley ... sonne of Robert Erle of Leycester.” The current use of the word for a small devil or mischievous sprite is due to the expressions “imp of Satan, or of the devil or of hell,” in the sense of “child of evil.” It was thus particularly applied to the demons supposed to be the “familiar” spirits of witches.

IMPATIENS,in botany, a genus of annual or biennial herbs, sometimes becoming shrubby, chiefly natives of the mountains of tropical Asia and Africa, but also found widely distributed in the north temperate zone and in South Africa. The flowers, which are purple, yellow, pink or white and often showy, are spurred and irregular in form and borne in the leaf-axils. The name is derived from the fact that the seed-pod when ripe discharges the seeds by the elastic separation and coiling of the valves.Impatiens Noli-me-tangere,touch-me-not, an annual succulent herb with yellow flowers, is probably wild in moist mountainous districts in north Wales, Lancashire and Westmorland.I. Roylei,a tall hardy succulent annual with rose-purple flowers, a Himalayan species, is common in England as a self-sown garden plant or garden escape.I. Balsamina,the common balsam of gardens, a well-known annual, is a native of India; it is one of the showiest of summer and autumn flowers and of comparatively easy cultivation.I. Sultani,a handsome plant, with scarlet flowers, a native of Zanzibar, is easily grown in a greenhouse throughout the summer, but requires warmth in winter.

IMPEACHMENT(O. Fr.empechement, empeschement,fromempecherorempescher,to hinder, Late Lat.impedicare,to entangle,pedica,fetter,pes, foot), the English form of judicial parliamentary procedure against criminals, in which the House of Commons are the prosecutors and the House of Lords the judges. It differs from bills of attainder (q.v.) in being strictly judicial. When the House of Commons has accepted a motion for impeachment, the mover is ordered to proceed to the bar of the House of Lords, and there impeach the accused “in the name of the House of Commons, and of all the Commons of the United Kingdom.” The charges are formulated in articles, to each of which the accused may deliver a written answer. The prosecution must confine itself to the charges contained in the articles, though further articles may be adhibited from time to time. The Commons appoint managers to conduct the prosecution, but the whole House in committee attends the trial. The defendant may appear by counsel. The president of the House of Lords is the lord high steward, in the case of peers impeached for high treason; in other cases the lord chancellor. The hearing takes place as in an ordinary trial, the defence being allowed to call witnesses if necessary, and the prosecution having a right of reply. At the end of the case the president “puts to each peer, beginning with the junior baron, the questions upon the first article, whether the accused be guilty of the crimes charged therein. Each peer in succession rises in his place when the question is put, and standing uncovered, and laying his right hand upon his breast, answers, ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not guilty,’ as the case may be, ‘upon my honour.’ Each article is proceeded with separately in the same manner, the lord high steward giving his own opinion the last” (May’sParliamentary Practice,c. xxiii.). Should the accused be found guilty, judgment follows if the Commons move for it, but not otherwise. The Commons thus retain the power of pardon in their own hands, and this right they have in several cases expressly claimed by resolution, declaring that it is not parliamentary for their lordships to give judgment “until the same be first demanded by this House.” Spiritual peers occupy an anomalous position in the trial of peers, as not being themselves ennobled in blood; on the impeachment of Danby it was declared by the Lords that Spiritual peers have the right to stay and sit during proceedings for impeachment, but it is customary for them to withdraw before judgment is given, entering a protest “saving to themselves and their successors all such rights in judicature as they have by law, and by right ought to have.” An impeachment, unlike other parliamentary proceedings, is not interrupted by prorogation, nor even by dissolution. Proceedings in the House of Commons preliminary to an impeachment are subject to the ordinary rules, and in the Warren Hastings case an act was passed to prevent the preliminary proceedings from discontinuance by prorogation and dissolution. A royal pardon cannot be pleaded in bar of an impeachment, though it is within the royal prerogative to pardon after the lords have pronounced judgment. The point was raised in the case of the earl of Danby in 1679, and the rule was finally settled by the Act of Settlement. Persons found guilty on impeachment may be reprieved or pardoned like other convicts. Impeachment will lie against all kinds of crimes and misdemeanours, and against offenders of all ranks. In the case of Simon de Beresford, tried before the House of Lords in 1330, the House declared “that the judgment be not drawn into example or consequence in time to come, whereby the said peers may be charged hereafter to judge others than their peers,” from which Blackstone and others have inferred that “a commoner cannot be impeached before the Lords for any capital offence, but only for high misdemeanours.” In the case of Edward Fitzharris in 1681, the House of Commons in answer to a resolution of the Lords suspending the impeachment, declared it to be their undoubted right “to impeach any peer or commoner for treason or any other crime or misdemeanour.” And the House of Lords has in practice recognized the right of the Commons to impeach whomsoever they will. The procedure has, however, been reserved for great political offenders whom the ordinary powers of the law might fail to reach. It has now fallen into desuetude. The last impeachments were those of Warren Hastings (1788-1795) and Lord Melville (1806), but an unsuccessful attempt was made by Thomas C. Anstey to impeach Lord Palmerston in 1848. The earliest recorded instances of impeachment are those of Lord Latimer in 1376 and of Pole, earl of Suffolk, in 1386. From the time of Edward IV. to Elizabeth it fell into disuse, “partly,” says Hallam, “from the lossof that control which the Commons had obtained under Richard II. and the Lancastrian kings, and partly from the preference the Tudor princes had given to bills of attainder or pains and penalties when they wished to turn the arm of parliament against an obnoxious subject.” Revived in the reign of James I., it became an instrument of parliamentary resistance to the crown, and it was not unfrequently resorted to in the first three reigns after the Revolution.

In the United States the procedure of impeachment both in the national and in almost all of the state governments is very similar to that described above. The national constitution prescribes that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole power of impeachment” and that “the Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments.” The House appoints managers to conduct the prosecution at the bar of the Senate, and the vote of the Senate is taken by putting the question separately to each member, who, during the trial, must be on oath or affirmation. In ordinary cases the president or presidentpro temporeof the Senate presides, but when the president of the United States is on trial the presiding officer must be the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. A two-thirds vote is necessary for conviction. The president, vice-president or any civil officer of the United States may be impeached for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanours,” and if convicted, is removed from office and may be disqualified for holding any office under the government in future. The officer after removal is also “liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.” The term “civil officers of the United States” has been construed as being inapplicable to members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The president’s pardoning power does not extend to officers convicted, on impeachment, of offences against the United States. Since the organization of the Federal government there have been only eight impeachment trials before the United States Senate, and of these only two—the trials of Judge John Pickering, a Federal District judge for the District of New Hampshire, in 1803, on a charge of making decisions contrary to law and of drunkenness and profanity on the bench, and of Judge W. H. Humphreys, Judge of the Federal District Court of Tennessee, in 1863, on a charge of making a secession speech and of accepting a judicial position under the Confederate Government—resulted in convictions. The two most famous cases are those of Justice Samuel Chase of the United States Supreme Court in 1805, and of President Andrew Johnson, the only chief of the executive who has been impeached, in 1868. There is a conflict of opinion with regard to the power of the House to impeach a Federal officer who has resigned his office, and also with regard to the kind of offences for which an officer can be impeached, some authorities maintaining that only indictable offences warrant impeachment, and others that impeachment is warranted by any act highly prejudicial to the public welfare or subversive of any essential principle of government. The latter view was adopted by the House of Representatives when it impeached President Johnson.

IMPERIAL CHAMBER(Reichskammergericht), the supreme judicial court of the Holy Roman Empire, during the period between 1495 and the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. From the early middle ages there had been a supreme court of justice for the Empire—theHofgericht(orcuria imperatoris, as it were), in which the emperor himself presided. By his side sat a body of assessors (Urtheilsfinder), who must be at least seven in number, and who might, in solemn cases, be far more numerous,1the assessors who acted varying from time to time and from case to case. The Hofgericht was connected with the person of the emperor; it ceased to act when he was abroad; it died with his death. Upon him it depended for its efficiency; and when, in the 15th century, the emperor ceased to command respect, his court lost the confidence of his subjects. The dreary reign of Frederick III. administered its deathblow and after 1450 it ceased to sit. Its place was taken by theKammergericht, which appeared side by side with the Hofgericht from 1415, and after 1450 replaced it altogether. The king (or his deputy) still presided in the Kammergericht and it was still his personal court; but the members of the court were now officials—theconsiliariiof the imperialaula(orKammer, whence the name of the court). It was generally the legal members of the council who sat in the Kammergericht (see underAulic Council); and as they were generally doctors of civil law, the court which they composed tended to act according to that law, and thus contributed to the “Reception” of Roman law into Germany towards the end of the 15th century. The old Hofgericht had been filled, as it were, by amateurs (provided they knew some law, and were peers of the person under trial), and it had acted by old customary law; the Kammergericht, on the contrary, was composed of lawyers, and it acted by the written law of Rome. Even the Kammergericht, however, fell into disuse in the later years of the reign of Frederick III.; and the creation of a new and efficient court became a matter of pressing necessity, and was one of the most urgent of the reforms which were mooted in the reign of Maximilian I.

This new court was eventually created in 1495; and it bore the name ofReichskammergericht, or Imperial Chamber. It was distinguished from the old Kammergericht by the essential fact that it was not the personal court of the emperor, but the official court of the Empire (orReich—whence its name). This change was a natural result of the peculiar character of the movement of reform which was at this time attempted by the electors, under the guidance of Bertold, elector of Mainz. Their aim was to substitute for the old and personal council and court appointed and controlled by the emperor a new and official council, and a new and official court, appointed and controlled by the diet (or rather, in the ultimate resort, by the electors). The members of the Imperial Chamber, which was created by the diet in 1495 in order to serve as such a court,2were therefore the agents of the Empire, and not of the emperor. The emperor appointed the president; the Empire nominated the assessors, or judges.3There were originally sixteen assessors (afterwards, as a rule, eighteen): half of these were to be doctors of Roman law, while half were to be knights; but after 1555 it became necessary that the latter should be learned in Roman law, even if they had not actually taken their doctorate.

Thus the Empire at last was possessed of a court, a court resting on the enactment of the diet, and not on the emperor’s will; a court paid by the Empire, and not by the emperor; a court resident in a fixed place (until 1693, Spires, and afterwards, from 1693 to 1806, Wetzlar), and not attached to the emperor’s person. The original intention of the court was that it should repress private war (Fehde), and maintain the public peace (Landfriede). The great result which in the issue it served to achieve was the final “Reception” of Roman law as the common law of Germany. That the Imperial Chamber should itself administer Roman law was an inevitable result of its composition; and it was equally inevitable that the composition and procedure of the supreme imperial court should be imitated in the various states which composed the Empire, and that Roman law should thus become the local, as it was already the central, law of the land.

The province of the Imperial Chamber, as it came to be gradually defined by statute and use, extended to breaches of the public peace, cases of arbitrary distraint or imprisonment, pleas which concerned the treasury, violations of the emperor’s decrees or the laws passed by the diet, disputes about property between immediate tenants of the Empire or the subjects of different rulers, and finally suits against immediate tenants of the Empire (with the exception of criminal charges and matters relating to imperial fiefs, which went to the Aulic Council). Ithad also cognizance in cases of refusal to do justice; and it acted as a court of appeal from territorial courts in civil and, to a small extent, in criminal cases, though it lost its competence as a court of appeal in all territories which enjoyed aprivilegium de non appellando(such as,e.g.the territories of the electors). The business of the court was, however, badly done; the delay was interminable, thanks, in large measure, to the want of funds, which prevented the maintenance of the proper number of judges. In all its business it suffered from the competition of the Aulic Council (q.v.); for that body, having lost all executive competence after the 16th century, had also devoted itself exclusively to judicial work. Composed of the personal advisers of the emperor, the Aulic Council did justice on his behalf (the erection of a court to do justice for the Empire having left the emperor still possessed of the right to do justice for himself through hisconsiliarii); and it may thus be said to be the descendant of the old Kammergericht. The competition between the Aulic Council and the Imperial Chamber was finally regulated by the treaty of Westphalia, which laid it down that the court which first dealt with a case should alone have competence to pursue it.

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