The New Gresham Encyclopedia Part 13

EVIDENCE is that which makes evident, which enables the mind to see truth.

It may be (_a_) _intuitive_, i.e. resting on the direct testimony of consciousness, of perception or memory, or on fundamental principles of the human intellect; or it may be (_b_) _demonstrative_, i.e. in a strict sense, proofs which establish with certainty as in mathematical science certain conclusions; or it may be (_c_) _probable_, under which cla.s.s are ranked _moral evidence_, _legal evidence_, and generally every kind of evidence which, though it may be sufficient to satisfy the mind, is not an absolutely certain and incontrovertible demonstration.

In jurisprudence evidence is cla.s.sified into that which is _direct_ and _positive_ and that which is _presumptive_ and _circ.u.mstantial_. The former is that which is proved by some writing containing a positive statement of the facts and binding the party whom it affects; or that which is proved by some witness, who has, and avers himself to have, positive knowledge thereof by means of his senses. Whenever the fact is not so directly and positively established, but is deduced from other facts in evidence, it is _presumptive_ and _circ.u.mstantial_ only. The following are the leading rules regarding evidence in a court of law:

(1) The point in issue is to be proved by the party who a.s.serts the affirmative. But where one person charges another with a culpable omission this rule will not apply, the person who makes the charge being bound to prove it. (2) The best evidence must be given of which the nature of the thing is capable. (3) Hearsay evidence of a fact is not admissible. The princ.i.p.al exceptions to this rule are--death-bed declarations, evidence in questions of pedigree, public right, custom boundaries, declarations against interest, declarations which accompany the facts or are part of the _res gestae_, &c. (4) Insane persons and idiots are incompetent to be witnesses. But persons temporarily insane are in their lucid intervals received as witnesses. Children are admissible as witnesses as soon as they have a competent share of understanding and know and feel the nature of an oath and of the obligation to speak the truth.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sir J. F.

Stephen, _Digest of the Law of Evidence_; W. M. Best, _Law of Evidence_.

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. These may be divided broadly into two great cla.s.ses, viz. _external evidences_, or the body of historical testimonies to the Christian revelation; and _internal evidences_, or arguments drawn from the nature of Christianity itself as exhibited in its teachings and effects, in favour of its divine origin. The first Christian apologies--those of Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, and Tertullian, written in the second century--were mainly intended as justifications of the Christian religion against the charges of atheism and immorality commonly made at that time. Of a more philosophical kind, and dealing more comprehensively with the principles of religion and belief in general, are the works of Origen, Arn.o.bius, and Augustine in the centuries immediately succeeding. During the Middle Ages, the scientific representation of Christianity is mostly the work of the schoolmen occupied in welding Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy with the fabric of Christian dogmatics, or writing attacks on the Jewish and Mohammedan faiths.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the influences of the Renaissance and the Reformation gave rise to a spirit of inquiry and criticism which developed English deism as represented by Herbert and Hobbes in the seventeenth century, and Collins and Bolingbroke in the eighteenth. The general position of English deism was the acceptance of the belief in the existence of G.o.d, and the profession of natural religion along with opposition to the mysteries and special claims of Christianity.

It was in confutation of this position that the great English works on the evidences of Christianity of Butler, Berkeley, and Cudworth were written.

In France the new spirit of inquiry was represented by Diderot, D'Holbach, and the encyclopedists in general, who a.s.sailed Christianity mainly on the ground that it was founded on imposture and superst.i.tion, and maintained by sacerdotal trickery and hypocrisy. No reply of any great value was produced in the French Church, although in the previous age Pascal in his _Pensees_ had brought together some of the profoundest considerations yet offered in favour of revealed religion. The nineteenth century has been distinguished by the strongly rationalistic spirit of its criticism. The works of such writers as Strauss, Bauer, and Feuerbach, attempting to eliminate the supernatural and the mysterious in the origin of Christianity, have been answered by the works of Neander, Ebrard, and Ullmann on the other side.

The historical method of investigation, represented alike by the Hegelian school and the Positivists and Agnostics in philosophy, and by the Evolutionists in science, is the basis of the chief attacks of the present time against the supernatural character of Christianity. The tendency of all the critics is to hold that while Christianity is the highest and most perfect development to which the religious spirit has yet attained, it differs simply in degree of development from any other religion. Notable amongst later apologists of Christianity have been Paley (_Natural Theology_), Chalmers (_Natural Theology_), Mansel, Liddon, and others.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. R. Illingworth, _Reason and Revelation_; A.

Garvie, _Handbook of Christian Apologetics_.

EVIL, ORIGIN OF. The difficulty of the question lies mainly in this, that the existence of evil in the world seems inconsistent with the view that it was created and is maintained by an omnipotent and beneficent creator. The various theories on the subject have all sought to elude this difficulty either by the supposition of some principle of evil equally eternal with that of good, or by regarding evil as having only a relative existence, being a kind of good in an imperfect and immature stage. Perhaps the oldest theory upon this subject is that of Pa.r.s.eeism, or the religion of Zoroaster, according to which there were two original principles, one good (Ormuzd) and the other evil (Ahriman). This is the doctrine that is now very often spoken of as Manichaeism, from the fact that it was adopted by Manes, who attempted to engraft it on the doctrines of Christianity. In contradistinction to this dualistic theory with reference to the origin of evil stand the Monistic theories of Brahmanism and Platonism. According to the Brahmanic doctrine of the emanation of all things from one original being (Brahma), this original being was regarded as the sole true existence, and the phenomenal world, with all the evils appearing in it, was held to be mere illusion. Similarly, Plato held that the good was the essence of all things, and that the evil and imperfect contained in them had no real existence. The theory enunciated by Leibnitz in his _Theodicee_ resembles that of Plato. In that work he a.s.signs to the evil existing in the world created by G.o.d, which he holds to be the best of all possible worlds, a merely relative existence. According to Plato, all that we call evil is only evil to us because we do not see it in relation to the rest of the universe, for in relation to the universe it is not evil but good, and accordingly cannot be evil in its own nature. Another view on the subject is that which neither a.s.signs to the evil principle (as it does to G.o.d or the good principle) an original existence, nor denies the real existence of evil, but ascribes it to the exercise of man's free-will. Besides the theoretical problem of the origin of evil, there is the practical one of the elimination of evil which forms the subject of _Ethics_.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Rashdall, _The Theory of Good and Evil_; B. Bosanquet, _The Value and Destiny of the Individual_.

EVIL EYE, a power which, according to an old and widespread superst.i.tion, resides in some people of doing injury to others by a mere look, or a look accompanied by certain words or charms. This belief, common amongst the ancients, is still prevalent among the more ignorant cla.s.ses in Italy, Russia, Andalusia, the Highlands of Scotland, and other places. The Finns, Lapps, and Scandinavians, the Arabs and the Turks are all firm believers in the evil eye.

EV'OLUTE. The evolute of a curve is the curve which is the envelope of all its normals or the locus of all its centres of curvature. The first curve is called the involute of the second. These names are given to the curves because the end of a stretched thread unwound from the evolute will describe the involute.

EVOLUTION, a term introduced into biological writings in the early part of the eighteenth century to denote the mode of generation of living things.

At first it was used in the same sense as we now apply the word development, more especially with reference to the process whereby the germ of an animal or plant becomes transformed into the adult organism; but it is now used in biology for the process by which more complex plants or animals have been derived from a series of less specialized ancestors by transformation. In accordance with the teaching of modern biology, all living creatures are the progeny of one original group of microscopic unicellular organisms, different branches of which during many millions of years have become diversely modified in structure and function to form the vast mult.i.tudes of diverse species of plants and animals with which we are acquainted.

The idea of a transformation of one type of being into another is extremely ancient, and its origin was in all probability genetically related to the primitive conceptions which have survived to the present day in totemism (q.v.) and such myths as the story of the were wolf. For once it was believed that a totem-animal, like a cow or a pig, could give birth to human beings, or that the Great Mother could at will a.s.sume a great variety of living forms, ranging from a mollusc or a grain of barley to a higher mammal, it was a comparatively simple step to arrange these potential 'ancestors' in a series, and provide mankind with a mythical genealogy. It is possible that such beliefs may have suggested to the Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle, speculations as to the process by which custom and change of habit might modify the structure of animals. But it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that the trend of philosophical speculation, a.s.sociated with the growing understanding of natural processes, started lines of investigation which, after many failures, eventually brought forth Charles Darwin's _Origin of Species_ in 1859, and established once for all the fact that different species of animals and plants have been produced by the differentiation of the progeny of the same ultimate ancestors. The history of these events was admirably summarized by Huxley in 1878 in an article _Evolution in Biology_, republished in _Darwiniana_ (1893, p. 187); in this account due credit is given to the pioneers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, such as Lamarck, and to Darwin's co-discoverer of the hypothesis of natural selection, Alfred Russell Wallace.

At the present time there is a general concensus of opinion among serious biologists, and, in fact, most educated men, as to the reality of evolution; but there is wide divergence of opinion as to the exact pedigrees of the various groups of plants and animals, and especially as to the mechanisms whereby the processes of transformation have been effected.

The evidence that establishes the proof of evolution is of manifold kinds.

"The gradations of structure, from extreme simplicity to very great complexity, presented by living things, and of the relation of these graduated forms to one another. The existence of an a.n.a.logy between the series of gradations presented by the species which compose any great group of animals or plants, and the species of embryonic conditions of the highest members of that group. Large groups of species of widely different habits present the same fundamental plan of structure; and parts of the same animal or plant, the functions of which are very different, likewise exhibit modifications of a common plan. Structures are found in a rudimentary or apparently useless condition in one species of a group which are fully developed and have definite functions in other species of the same group. These considerations, when studied in conjunction with the facts of the geological succession of the forms of life, of geographical distribution, and the effects of varying conditions upon living organisms, establish the truth of evolution" (Huxley).

The full meaning of these statements will be better understood if a concrete example is studied, and perhaps the case of man and his ancestry is most instructive for this purpose. The fact that man has a vertebral column, a brain and nervous system, a heart and blood-vessels, digestive and other systems of organs, built up in accordance with the arbitrary plan which is shared also by all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes, proclaims that man belongs to the vertebrate group of animals, and that all such vertebrata must originally have sprung from the same common ancestors. The possession of four limbs with five fingers or toes on each, and a host of identical arrangements of bones, muscles, nerves, &c., in these limbs, reveals the fact that all the four-limbed creatures or Tetrapoda represent one group which developed from some fish-like ancestor to become an amphibian. The discovery of fossilized remains of extinct animals reveals that the fishes are much older than the amphibians, and that a number of intermediate stages demonstrate the process of gradual transformation which converted one group of fishes into four-limbed, semi-terrestrial amphibians. Geological evidence also proves that the reptiles came definitely later than the amphibians, and that only one small group of very primitive amphibians shared in the progressive modifications of brain, limbs, and organs of circulation, &c., to become reptiles--creatures able to live wholly on the dry land, and capable of a wider range of activities than the Amphibia. From the primitive reptiles were derived not only the highly specialized forms that have survived to the present day as lizards, tortoises, snakes, &c., creatures that differ profoundly from their earliest reptilian ancestors, but also the ancestors of birds and the ancestors of mammals. One particular group of primitive reptiles is known, from fossilized remains found in South Africa, that reveals many of the distinctive peculiarities of mammals not shared by other reptiles; and it is now certain that these cynodonts--so called from their dog-like teeth--include the parents of the mammals. The fact that all the Mammalia are provided with glands which in the female supply milk for the nutrition of their young, that they have a hairy coat, that they have a highly developed brain more fully adapted for learning by experience than is the case in other vertebrates, that they have limbs capable of a much more varied and active range of skilled movements, and a host of identical transformations of viscera, muscles, nerves, and vessels prove the common ancestry of mammals from some very primitive cynodont reptile. Different mammals have been specialized in structure for amazingly varied modes of life, on land, under the ground, in trees, in the air, or in rivers or the sea. Of the terrestrial animals some have been modified for fleetness, like the horse and the antelope; others for strength, like the elephant; others again, like the lion and the tiger, to prey upon their weaker relatives. At the dawn of the age of mammals one particular group was able to survive without any of the profound alterations of the structure of the limbs which such creatures as the horse and the ox, the elephant and the whale, the tiger and the bat had to adopt to avoid extinction, and retained the primitive type of limbs with their fingers and toes which became the most useful and plastic instruments for performing skilled movements and acquiring experience and knowledge as soon as the brain was sufficiently advanced in structure and capability to put these instruments to their full use. The group of mammals which delayed the time of specialization until it was able to profit by its greater adaptability was the Prosimiae, the ancestors of the apes and man. These small creatures for a long time lived a life of obscurity in trees without submitting to those extreme adaptations of structure which are found in most arboreal and flying mammals. But the cultivation of their powers of vision, and the acquisition of skill in the use of their primitive but plastic hands, guided by vision, eventually conferred upon some of these Prosimiae vastly enhanced powers of skilled action and of learning by experience and of acquiring knowledge, which culminated in the attainment of the supreme power of discrimination distinctive of human intelligence.

The fact that man belongs to the same order (Primates) as the apes is proved not merely by the possession of a body which in most respects is identical in structure with such of them as the gorilla and the chimpanzee, of a similar process of development characterized by identical stages up to a certain stage, but also by the fact that the blood of man and the apes react towards one another as those of relatives, and in a way not shared by the blood-reactions of other mammals. The apes, also, are subject to certain human diseases from which other mammals are immune. Man shares with the anthropoid apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, orangs, and gibbons) so many peculiarities which differentiate all of them from the tailed monkeys that there can be no doubt that the human family was derived from a primitive anthropoid ape, possibly a species that lived in the foothills of the Himalayas in Miocene times, as is suggested by fossils recently discovered by Dr. Pilgrim, director of the Geological Survey of India.

The vestigial remains of the muscles, blood-vessels, &c., of the tail reveal the fact that man's Primate ancestry began with a tailed form. In fact, the human embryo actually possesses a tail for some weeks of its existence. If India reveals the fossilized remains of a variety of Miocene anthropoid apes closely akin to the ancestors of man, the gorilla, the chimpanzee, and the orang, the Egyptian Fayum has provided the evidence of the origin of the anthropoid apes in Oligocene times as very diminutive creatures distantly akin to the gibbons, but bearing very obvious indications in the form of their teeth of an affinity with the Prosimian sub-order Tarsioidea, a very interesting group of Eocene Primates found in a fossilized condition in North America and France, one of the members of which has survived in the peculiar Spectral Tarsier still found living in the forests of Borneo, Java, and the Philippines. The detailed study of the structure and development of Tarsius, and comparisons with other Primates and mammals of other orders, provide the information necessary to fill in the gaps left in the geological record, and enable us to sketch out the general scheme of man's ancestry, and to appreciate the nature of the factors which determined the evolution of such an intelligent mammal as man.

Within recent years the increasing knowledge of embryology and comparative anatomy, and the recovery of fossilized remains of vast numbers of hitherto unknown animals, has established the truth of evolution and the exact line of ancestry of many animals. Professor Osborn's work on the evolution of the horse, and Dr. C. W. Andrews's revelation of the ancestry of the elephant, are striking recent ill.u.s.trations of the exactness of the demonstration palaeontology can give of the past history of mammals. Dr.

Robert Brown and Professor D. M. S. Watson have given conclusive proofs of the origin of mammals and birds from primitive reptiles, and the latter zoologist has pushed back the ancestry of these higher vertebrates still further, and shown how the reptiles were derived from primitive Amphibia, and the changes that occurred in vertebrate anatomy when certain fishes crawled out of the water and developed into four-footed Amphibia. All of these conclusions are matters of fact and not of theory, even if we are still in the dark as to the exact mechanism whereby the variations which the forces of evolution use in effecting transformations were themselves brought about. Within recent years there has been a revival of interest in the problem whether characters acquired by parents as the result of their individual experience can be transmitted to their offspring. For the last thirty years biologists have been influenced by the teaching of Weismann that nothing happening to the parents can affect the morphological capabilities of the germ plasm from which the next generation is derived; but recent research suggests that this negative doctrine is too rigid, and makes it probable that certain influences brought to bear upon the parents may be transmitted also to the offspring. If this is so, it opens one avenue of explanation of how structural modifications are effected and the possibility of evolution is created. But at the present moment the whole question is being actively investigated and discussed.

Just as every complex animal can be shown to be derived during development from a simple microscopic cell or egg, so the study of evolution reveals the fact that all animals were originally derived from microscopic unicellular animals known as protozoa, which are with difficulty distinguishable from unicellular plants, from which all the varied forms of complex vegetable life were derived. It is equally certain that these unicellular plants and animals are themselves only the specialized descendants of common ancestors--unspecialized unicellular organisms which are neither strictly vegetable nor animal. But we are quite in the dark as to the processes whereby these most primitive living organisms were evolved from inorganic matter, and how they acquired these peculiar properties of growth and differentiation and their powers of reproduction, commonly called vital, which are their distinctive characteristics. Bibliographical references to most of the matters mentioned in this article will be found in the Presidential Address to Section H of the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, Dundee meeting (see Report of British a.s.sociation, 1912).

EV'ORA, a town in Portugal, capital of the province of Alemtejo, 75 miles east of Lisbon. It is an ancient place, poorly built, and its walls, citadel, and forts are all in a state of ruin. It has a Roman aqueduct still serviceable, a Gothic cathedral, and an ecclesiastical seminary. Pop.

17,900. The district of Evora has a pop. of 144,300.

EVREMOND, or EVREMONT. See _St. Evremond_.

EVREUX (ev-r_eu_), a town of N.W. France, capital of the department of Eure, in a fertile valley on the Iton. It is an ancient town with narrow streets and has many fine buildings, including an ancient Gothic cathedral.

The town was frequently occupied by the English in the fifteenth century.

Pop. 18,950.

EWALD ([=a]'v[.a]lt), Georg Heinrich August von, a German Orientalist and Biblical critic, born at Gottingen 16th Nov., 1803, died there 5th May, 1875. After studying at the university of his native town, in 1827 he became extraordinary, in 1831 ordinary professor of theology, and in 1835 professor of Oriental languages. In 1837 he lost his chair at Gottingen on account of his protest against the king's abrogation of the liberal const.i.tution, became professor of theology at Tubingen, but in 1848 returned to his old chair at Gottingen. When Hanover was annexed by Prussia in 1866 he became a zealous defender of the rights of the ex-king. Among his chief works are the following: _Complete Course of the Hebrew Language_, _The Poetical Books of the Old Testament_, _History of the People of Israel_, _Antiquities of the People of Israel_. The _History_ is considered his greatest work.

EWALD ([=a]'v[.a]lt), Johannes, Danish poet, born at Copenhagen in 1743, died in 1781. After studying theology at Copenhagen University he ran away and enlisted in the Prussian service, which he soon deserted for the Austrian. On his return to Copenhagen an elegy which he wrote on the death of Frederick V of Denmark was received with general admiration, and awoke in himself the consciousness of poetic talent. His reputation rapidly increased with the publication of his tragedies, _The Death of Balder_ (English translation by George Borrow), _Adam and Eve_, and _Rolf Krage_; and his odes and songs, notable amongst which are: _King Christian_ and _Liden Gunver_. Ewald, who had dissipated habits, died in utter poverty.

His collected works were published in 1914.

EWART, James Cossar, zoologist, was born at Penicuik, Midlothian, in 1851, studied medicine at Edinburgh University, graduated in 1874, and was soon after appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the university. From 1875 to 1878 he was Conservator of the museums of University College, London, in the latter year took his M.D. degree, and from 1878 to 1882 was professor of natural history in Aberdeen University, being then appointed to the natural history chair at Edinburgh. Since then (having been also connected with the Scottish Fishery Board for about ten years) he has devoted much attention to the question of fish-culture and preservation, and has visited North America, Denmark, and Norway for purposes of investigation. He has also carried out experiments in the hybridization of zebras and horses. His publications include: _The Locomotor System of the Echinoderms_ (with G. J.

Romanes, 1881); _The Natural and Artificial Fertilization of Herring Ova_ (1884); _On Whitebait_ (1886); _On the Preservation of Fish_ (1887); _The Electric Organ of the Skate_ (1888-9); _The Cranial Nerves and Lateral Sense-organs of the Elasmobranchs_ (1889-91); _The Development of the Limbs of the Horse_ (1894); _The Penicuik Experiments_ (1899); _Guide to Zebras, Hybrids, &c._ (1900); _Multiple Origin of Horses and Ponies_ (1904).

EXALb.u.mINOUS SEEDS, those which, when ripe, contain no endosperm, this having been entirely absorbed into itself by the developing embryo. Opposed to alb.u.minous seeds. See _Cotyledons_.

EXAMINER OF PLAYS, a British official and censor of plays, who acts for the Lord Chamberlain, under whose jurisdiction the theatres are placed. No play can be produced without the sanction of the examiner, to whom a copy of every new play intended for production must be sent seven clear days before the first performance. The examiner either grants or refuses his licence, and frequently insists upon an alteration of the text. The abolition of this censorship of plays is a subject which in recent years has given rise to much discussion in the theatre-loving world.

EXANTHE'MATA (eruption of the skin), a term applied to infectious diseases with skin eruptions, accompanied by general disturbances. The term includes scarlet fever, measles, German measles, smallpox, chicken-pox, and others.

EXARCHATE (egz-ar'k[=a]t), a name of a province or territory under an _exarch_, or viceroy. In the sixth century after Christ Justinian formed the middle part of Italy into a province of the Eastern Empire, and gave the government of it to an _exarch_. (See _Ravenna_.) Exarch was also the t.i.tle of an ecclesiastical grade in the Greek Church, inferior to the patriarchs but superior to the metropolitans. Among the modern Greeks an _exarch_ is a deputy of the patriarch, who travels about in the provinces and visits the bishops and churches.

EXCAM'BION, in Scots law, the name given to the contract by which one piece of land is exchanged for another.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Excavating the Culebra Cut, Panama Ca.n.a.l]

EXCAVATION, the process of removing soil or rock in engineering or exploration works, such as for docks, retaining-walls, railway cuttings, ca.n.a.ls, foundations, &c. On a small scale, or in situations unsuitable for machinery, it is performed by hand, the soil being first loosened by the pick, and then shovelled into barrows. In rocky soils, drilling and explosives may be employed. In large works power shovels or 'steam-navvies'

are employed, which are essentially cranes carrying a large shovel, or a system of steel buckets of the dredger type. These carry their own means of propulsion, and run on temporary rails laid down as the work proceeds. They work against the face of the excavation, and load directly into bogies or wagons.

EXCAVATIONS. The forgotten history of the remote past has been reconstructed by those scientists who have explored the sites of ancient seats of civilization. Egyptian and Babylonio-a.s.syrian investigations date from the middle of the eighteenth century, but it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century, when modern scholars first penetrated the secrets of the lost languages (see _Cuneiform Writing_ and _Hieroglyphics_) that the ancient civilizations were rendered more or less articulate. As the texts were being deciphered with increasing ease and accuracy, a basis was provided for archaeology, and it became possible to frame chronological systems. During the latter years of the nineteenth and the early years of the present century, excavators, philologists, and ethnologists have provided a fairly continuous and detailed history of man from 3000 B.C.

till cla.s.sical times, thus bridging a gulf which used to be misty with doubtful legends and traditions. The most dramatic excavations were those begun by Heinrich Schliemann in 1871 at Hissarlik, the site of ancient Troy. On the hillock he dug through nine successive settlements. He afterwards excavated at Mycenae and Tiryns in Greece and found evidence of a high pre-h.e.l.lenic culture. Following up the clues thus afforded, Sir Arthur Evans and others, excavating in Crete during the opening years of the present century, discovered abundant relics, including palaces and towns, of the earliest aegean civilization now referred to as Minoan (see _Crete_).

Of late years Central and Western Europe have yielded evidence of the 'drift' of Minoan culture to outlying parts. Excavations in Russian Turkestan and Chinese Turkestan have revealed traces of ancient culture centres dating back beyond 2000 B.C. In the Americas the excavators have thrown considerable light on the pre-Columbian civilizations of Peru, Central America (Maya), and Mexico, but the picture-writings have not been deciphered. See _Babylonia_; _Crete_; _Egypt_; _Troy_.

EX'CELLENCY, a t.i.tle given to amba.s.sadors and plenipotentiaries, governors of colonies, the President of the United States, of France, &c.

EXCESS PROFITS DUTY, devised in 1915 to meet the extraordinary expenditure occasioned by the war, is a tax upon the profits of certain trades and businesses carried on in the United Kingdom, or owned or carried on abroad by persons resident in the United Kingdom, in so far as these profits, after deduction of a specified allowance, exceed a pre-war standard. The main exceptions are agriculture, offices and employments, and professions where personal qualifications predominate and only small capital is necessary. In some cases, e.g. estate agencies, where a portion of the profits arises from professional skill, only the portion otherwise arising falls into charge. The pre-war standard is an alternative one at the option of the taxpayer. Firstly, it may be a profits standard--the average of the profits of any two of the last three pre-war years, or if there have been only two pre-war years, then the average profits of those years, or the actual profits of the last year, or if there has been only one pre-war year, then the actual profits of that year. Where the average profits of the last three pre-war years are 25 per cent less than the average of the three years immediately preceding them, the taxpayer may take the average of any four of those six years. Secondly, it may be, and as a general rule where the business has not had one full pre-war year must be, a percentage standard, calculated at the appropriate rate on the capital in the business at the end of the last pre-war trade year, or where there has not been one pre-war year, then on the average amount of capital employed (_a_) during the year or accounting period in question, or (_b_) in respect of periods ending after 31st Dec., 1919, during the first accounting period. The percentage standard of sole traders, partnerships, and private companies may in respect of accounting periods ending after that date be increased by 500 per annum for each working proprietor, but not so as to exceed 750 per annum each. The general free allowance is 200, increased in 1920 to 500 for new or re-opened businesses of ex-service men. A further abatement is now granted where profits do not exceed 4000, with the result that liability cannot arise unless profits exceed 832.

The rate of duty, at first 50 per cent, was raised to 60 per cent in 1916, and to 80 per cent in 1917. Reduced to 40 per cent in 1919, it was again increased to 60 per cent by the Finance Act, 1920. It was abolished in 1921. Undoubtedly it was injurious to trade and an incentive to wasteful expenditure, but an effective subst.i.tute for supplying the unparalleled financial needs of the State resulting from the war apparently could not be devised.

'Munitions Levy' is the counterpart of Excess Profits Duty in its application to Government-controlled establishments for the production of munitions of war.

In the fiscal year 1919-20 the tax produced 290,045,000, while the estimate for the year 1920-1 was 220,000,000.

EXCHANGE, a place in large commercial towns where merchants, agents, bankers, brokers, and others concerned in commercial affairs meet at certain times for the transaction of business. The inst.i.tution of exchanges dates from the sixteenth century. They originated in the important trading cities of Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, from which last-named country they were introduced into England. The Royal Exchange of London was established by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1556. In some exchanges only a special cla.s.s of business is transacted. Thus there are stock exchanges, corn exchanges, coal exchanges, cotton exchanges.

EXCHANGE, in commerce, that species of transactions by which the debts of individuals residing at a distance are cancelled by order, draft, or bill of exchange, without the transmission of specie. Thus, a merchant in London who owes 100 worth of cotton goods in Glasgow gives a bill or order for that amount which can be negotiated through banking agencies or otherwise against similar debts owing by other parties in Glasgow who have payments to make in London. The creditor in Glasgow is thus paid by the debtor in Glasgow, and this contrivance obviates the expense and risk of transmitting money. The process of liquidating obligations between different nations is carried on in the same way by an exchange of foreign bills. When all the accounts of one country correspond in value with those of another, so that there is an even balance, the exchange between the countries will be _at par_, that is, the sum for which the bill is drawn in the one country will be the exact value of it in the other. Exchange is said to be _at par_ when, for instance, a bill drawn in New York for the payment of 100 sterling in London can be purchased there for 100. If it can be purchased for less, exchange is _under par_ and is against London. If the purchaser is obliged to give more, exchange is _above par_ and in favour of London.

Although the numerous circ.u.mstances which incessantly affect the state of debt and credit prevent the ordinary course of exchange from being almost ever precisely at par, its fluctuations are confined within narrow limits, and if direct exchange is unfavourable between two countries this can often be obviated by the interposition of bills drawn on other countries where an opposite state of matters prevails. See _Bill of Exchange_.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. J. Goschen, _Theory of Foreign Exchange_; H. Withers, _Money Changing_.

EXCHANGE, DEED OF, in English law, an original common law conveyance for the mutual transfer of real estate. It takes place between two contracting parties only, although several individuals may be included in each party; and the parties must take an equal estate, as fee-simple for fee-simple, legal estate for legal estate, copyhold for copyhold of the same manor, and the like.

EXCHEQ'UER (Fr. _echiquier_, chess-board), in Britain, the department which deals with the moneys received and paid on behalf of the public services of the country. The public revenues are paid into the Bank of England (or of Ireland) to account of the Exchequer, and these receipts as well as the necessary payments for the public service are under the supervision of an important official called the Comptroller and Auditor General, the payments being granted by him on receipt of the proper orders proceeding through the Treasury. The public accounts are also audited in his department. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who must be a member of the House of Commons, is the head of the Treasury Department. When the Prime Minister is a member of the House of Commons, he sometimes holds the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

EXCHEQUER, COURT OF, an ancient English court of record, established by William the Conqueror, and intended princ.i.p.ally for the care and collection of the royal revenues. It was one of the supreme courts of common law, and is said to derive its name from the chequered cloth, resembling a chess-board, on which the sums were marked and scored with counters. The judges of this court were the chief baron and five junior or _puisne_ barons. This court was abolished by the Judicature Act of 1873, and its jurisdiction transferred to the High Court of Justice. In Canada there is a Court of Exchequer for the Dominion.