The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 237

HEBREW, a Semitic language, the ancient language of the Jews, and that in which the Old Testament is written, the words of which, as indeed of others of the same stock, are derived from triliteral roots, and the verb in which has no present tense, only a past and a future, convertible, moreover, into one another.

HEBREW POETRY is of two kinds, either lyric or gnomic, i. e.

subjectively emotional or sententiously didactic, the former belonging to the active or stirring, and the latter to the reflective or quiet, periods of Hebrew history, and whether expressed in lyric or gnome rises in the conscience and terminates in action; for Hebrew thought needs to go no higher, since therein it finds and affirms G.o.d; and it seeks to go no farther, for therein it compa.s.ses all being, and requires no epic and no drama to work out its destiny. However individualistic in feature, as working through the conscience, it yet relates itself to the whole moral world, and however it may express itself, it beats in accord with the pulse of eternity. The lyric expression of the Hebrew temper we find in the Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah, and the gnomic in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, while the book of Job, which is only dramatic in form, is partly lyric and partly dramatic.

HEBREW PROPHECY had throughout regard for the Jews as a nation and to see that it fulfilled its destiny as such in the world. This purpose we see carried out by five steps or stages. It taught, first, by the NEBIIM (q. v.), that the nation must regard itself as one nation; secondly, by Elijah, that it must have Jehovah alone for its G.o.d; thirdly, by Amos, that as a nation it was not necessarily G.o.d's chosen; fourthly, by Isaiah, that it existed for the preservation of a holy seed; and finally, that it ceased to exist when it was felt that religion primarily concerned the individual and was wholly an affair of the conscience. Thus does Hebrew prophecy terminate when it leads up to Christianity, the first requirement of which is a regeneration of the heart (John iii. 3), and the great promise of which is the outpouring of a spirit that "will guide into all truth" (John xvi. 13).

HEBREWS, EPISTLE TO THE, an epistle of the New Testament of uncertain authors.h.i.+p addressed to Christians of Jewish descent, who were strongly tempted, by the persecution they were subjected to at the hands of their Jewish brethren, to renounce the cross of Christ, which it was feared they would too readily do, and so to their own ruin crucify the Son of G.o.d afresh, there being only this alternative for them, either crucifixion _with_ Christ or crucifixion _of_ Christ, and death of all their hopes founded on Him.

HEBRIDES, or WESTERN ISLANDS, a general name for the islands on the west coast of Scotland (save the islands of the Firth of Clyde), about 500 in number, of which 100 are inhabited; they belong to the counties of Ross, Inverness, and Argyll, and are divided by the Little Minch and the Minch into the Outer Hebrides, of which the chief are Lewis, Harris, North and South Uist, Benbecula, &c.; and the Inner Hebrides, including Skye, Rum, Mull, Iona, Staffa, &c.; they have wild and rocky coasts, but are picturesque and verdurous, and are much frequented by tourists; the climate is mild and moist; cattle and sheep rearing and fis.h.i.+ng are the chief industries.

HEBRON, an ancient town and city of refuge, originally called Kirjath-arba, i. e. four cities, only 20 m. S. of Jerusalem; it is a poor place now, but still abounds in orchards and vineyards.

HECATaeUS OF MILETUS, styled the "logographer," who flourished about 500 B.C.; visited many countries, and wrote two books, "The Tour of the World" and "Genealogies or Histories," the former containing descriptions of the places he visited, and the latter an account of the poetical fables and traditions of the Greeks.

HECATE, in the Greek mythology a mysterious divinity of the t.i.tan brood and held in honour by all the G.o.ds, identified with Phoebe in heaven, Artemis on earth, and Persephone in Hades, as being invested with authority in all three regions; came to be regarded exclusively as an infernal deity, having under her command and at her beck all manner of demons and phantom spirits.

HECKER, FRIEDRICH KARL FRANZ, a German revolutionary, born at Eichtersheim, Baden; practised as an advocate in Mannheim, and in 1842 became an active democrat and Socialist; frustrated in an attempt during the '48 Revolution to create a republican a.s.sembly, he headed a revolutionary attack upon Baden, was defeated, and subsequently settled in the United States, where he took to farming; took part in the Civil War at the head of a regiment of Germans, and became a commander of a brigade (1811-1881).

HECKER, JUSTUS FRIEDRICH KARL, author of a great work on the "Epidemics of the Middle Ages"; was a professor of Medicine at Berlin (1795-1850).

HECKMONDWIKE (10), a market-town in Yorks.h.i.+re, 8 m. NE. of Huddersfield; is the princ.i.p.al seat of the carpet and blanket manufactures in the West Riding.

HECLA or HEKLA, the loftiest of 20 active volcanoes in Iceland (5102 ft.); is an isolated peak with five craters, 68 m. E. of Reykjavik; its most violent outbreak in recent times continued from 1845 to 1846; its last eruption was in March 1878.

HECTIC FEVER, a fever connected with consumption, and showing itself by a bright pink flush on the cheeks.

HECTOR, the chief hero of Troy in the war with the Greeks, the son of Priam and Hecuba; fought with the bravest of the enemy and finally slew Patroclus, the friend of ACHILLES (q. v.), which roused the latter from his long lethargy to challenge him to fight; Achilles chased him three times round the city, pierced him with his spear, and dragged his dead body after his chariot round Ilium; his body was at the command of Zeus delivered up to Priam and buried with great pomp within the city walls.

HECUBA, the wife of Priam, king of Troy; distinguished both as a wife and a mother; on the fall of the city she fell into the hands of the Greeks, and, according to one tradition, was made a slave, and, according to another, threw herself in despair into the sea.

HEDONISM, the doctrine of the Cyrenaics that pleasure is the end of life, and the measure of virtue, or the _summum bonum_.

HEEM, JAN DAVIDSZ VAN, a famous Dutch painter, born at Utrecht; had a prosperous and uneventful career in Antwerp, where in 1635 he became a member of the Guild of Painters; he is considered the greatest of the "still life" painters; his pictures, masterpieces of colouring and chiaroscuro, have a great monetary value, and are to be found in the famous galleries of Amsterdam, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, &c.

(1606-1684).

HEEREN, LUDWIG, a German historian; professor of History at Gottingen; wrote on ancient and modern history, specially the ancient and its antiquities; eminent in both (1760-1842).

HEFELE, KARL JOSEPH VON, a Catholic Church historian, born at Unterkochen, in Wurtemberg; in 1840 became professor of Church History and Christian Archaeology in the Catholic Theological Faculty in Tubingen University, and in 1869 Bishop of Rottenburg; was for some time zealously opposed to the doctrine of the Papal infallibility, but subsequently acquiesced, putting, however, his own construction on it; his best-known works are the "History of the Christian Councils" and "Contributions to Church History" (1809-1893).

HEGEL, GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH, German philosopher, the greatest of all, born in Stuttgart; studied first at Tubingen, with a view to theology; as a student attracted no particular attention, was outstript by Sch.e.l.ling; did domestic tutoring for a time; qualified at Jena for an academic career; adhered to and collaborated with Sch.e.l.ling in philosophy; first announced himself in 1807 by his work, "Phenomenology of the Spirit"; became rector of the Academy at Nurnberg, where in 1812-16 he composed his "Logic"; was in 1816 appointed professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg, whence he was removed to Berlin in 1818, where, his philosophy being now matured, he began to apply it with intense earnestness to every subject of human interest; he was the last of a line of thinkers beginning with Kant, with whom, however, he affiliated directly, and in his idealism philosophy first reached the goal which it was till then with hesitating steps only stretching forward to; his works fill 22 goodly sized volumes, and his system may be grouped under three heads, the "Science of Logic," the "Philosophy of Nature," and the "Philosophy of Spirit" (1770-1831).

HEGELIANISM, the philosophy of Hegel, which resolves being into thought, and thought into the unity of the logical moments of simple apprehension, judgment, and reason, all purely spiritual acts, whereby being in itself, or _seyn_, becomes other than itself, or _daseyn_, and returns into itself, or _fur sich seyn_, the universal being first by separating from itself particularised, and then by return into itself individualised, the whole being what Hegel characterises as _Der Process des Geistes_, "The Process of the Spirit." Something like this is what Dr. Stirling calls "The Secret of Hegel," and an open secret it is, for he finds it pervading the whole system; "open where you will in Hegel,"

he says, "you find him always engaged in saying pretty well the same thing"; always ident.i.ty by otherness pa.s.sing into selfness, or making that _for_ itself which is at first _in_ itself;--a philosophy which is antic.i.p.ated by the doctrine of St. Paul, which represents G.o.d as the One _from_ whom are all things as Father, and _through_ whom are all things as Son, and _to_ whom are all things as Spirit, the One who is thus All; it is also involved in the doctrine of Christ when He says G.o.d is Spirit, or the Living One who lives, and manifests Himself in life, for Himself, from Himself, and through Himself, who, so to say, thus concretes Himself throughout the universe.

HEGE'SIAS, a Cyrenaic philosopher, who held that life was full of evils, that it was in vain to seek after pleasure, and that all a wise man could do was to fortify himself as best he could against pain.

HEGESIPPUS, a Church historian of the 2nd century, a convert from Judaism; only fragments of his "Memoirs of Ecclesiastical Affairs"

remain.

HEIDELBERG (35), a celebrated German city, in Baden, situated amid beautiful surroundings, on the Neckar, 13 m. SE. of Mannheim; has many interesting buildings, including ruins of a splendid 13th-century castle, but is chiefly celebrated for its flouris.h.i.+ng university (student roll, 800; professors, 100; library, 500,000), whose professoriate has included many of the most distinguished German scholars; it was long the centre of Calvinism; its chief trade is in books, tobacco, wine, and beer.

HEIJN, or HEYN, PETER PETERSEN, a famous Dutch admiral, born at Delftshaven; from being a cabin-boy rose to be commander of the Dutch fleet; off the east coast of S. America he twice defeated the Spanish fleet, securing an immense booty, and in 1628 captured a flotilla of Spanish galleons with silver and jewels equal to 16,000,000 Dutch guilders; fell in an action off Dunkirk (1577-1629).

HEILBRONN (30), a quaint old town of Wurtemberg, on the Neckar, 23 m. N. of Stuttgart; has a fine 11th-century Gothic church, and the Thief's Tower (Diebsthurm); is a.s.sociated with the captivity of GOETZ VON BERLICHINGEN (q. v.); it is now a busy commercial centre, and manufactures silverware, paper, beet-sugar, chemicals, &c.

HEILSBRONN, a Bavarian market-town, 16 m. SW. of Nuremberg; is celebrated for its Cistercian monastery, now suppressed, but whose church still contains monuments and art relics of great historic interest.

HEINE, HEINRICH, a German lyric poet, born at Dusseldorf, of Jewish parents; was bred to law, but devoted himself to literature, and mingled with literary people, and a.s.sociated in particular with the Varnhagen von Ense circle; first became notable by the publication of his "Reisebilder"

and his "Buch der Lieder," the appearance of which created a wide-spread enthusiasm in Germany in 1825 he abandoned the Jewish faith and professed the Christian, but the creed he adopted was that of a sceptic, and he indulged in a cynicism that outraged all propriety, and even common decency; in 1830 he quitted Germany and settled in Paris, and there a few years afterwards married a rich lady, who alleviated the sufferings of his last years; an attack of paralysis in 1847 left him only one eye, and in the following year he lost the other, but under these privations and much bodily pain he bore up with a singular fort.i.tude, and continued his literary labours to the last; in his songs he was at his best, and by these alone it is believed he will be chiefly remembered (1797-1856).

HEINECCIUS, JOHANN GOTTLIEB, a celebrated German jurist, born at Eisenberg; was successively professor of Philosophy and subsequently of Law at several universities of Germany; he wrote several learned works in law treated from a philosophical standpoint; mention may be made of his "Historia Juris Civilis Romani" and "Elementa Juris Naturae Gentium"

(1681-1741).

HEINSIUS, ANTHONY, a noted Dutch statesman, born at Delft; became Grand Pensionary of Holland; was the intimate friend and correspondent of William III. of England, who left the guidance of Dutch affairs largely in his hands (1641-1720).

HEIR APPARENT, one whose right of succession is sure if he survive the present holder.