and suggested that the canonical gospels were based upon various translations and editions of a primary Aramaic gospel. He did not appreciate as sufficiently as David Strauss and the Tübingen critics the difficulties which a natural theory has to surmount, nor did he support his conclusions by such elaborate discussions as they deemed necessary.
His principal works were—Geschichte des Ostindischen Handels vor Mohammed (Gotha, 1775); Allgemeine Bibliothek der biblischen Literatur (10 vols., Leipzig, 1787–1801); Einleitung in das Alte Testament (3 vols., Leipzig, 1780–1783); Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1804–1812); Einleitung in die apokryphischen Bücher des Alten Testaments (Gött., 1795); Commentarius in apocalypsin Joannis (2 vols., Gött., 1791); Die Hebr. Propheten (3 vols., Gött., 1816–1819); Allgemeine Geschichte der Cultur und Literatur des neuern Europa (2 vols., Gött., 1796–1799); Literärgeschichte (1st vol., Gött., 1799, 2nd ed. 1813, 2nd vol. 1814); Geschichte der Literatur von ihrem Anfange bis auf die neuesten Zeiten (5 vols., Gött., 1805–1812); Übersicht der Französischen Revolution (2 vols., Gött., 1797); Weltgeschichte (3rd ed., 5 vols., Gött., 1819–1820); Geschichte der drei letzten Jahrhunderte (3rd ed., 6 vols., Hanover, 1817–1818); Urgeschichte des erlauchten Hauses der Welfen (Hanover, 1817).
See R. W. Mackay, The Tübingen School and its Antecedents (1863), pp. 103 ff.; Otto Pfleiderer, Development of Theology (1890), p. 209; T. K. Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism (1893), pp. 13 ff.
EICHHORN, KARL FRIEDRICH (1781–1854), German jurist, son of the preceding, was born at Jena on the 20th of November 1781. He entered the university of Göttingen in 1797. In 1805 he obtained the professorship of law at Frankfort-on-Oder, holding it till 1811, when he accepted the same chair at Berlin. On the call to arms in 1813 he became a captain of horse, and received at the end of the war the decoration of the Iron Cross. In 1817 he was offered the chair of law at Göttingen, and, preferring it to the Berlin professorship, taught there with great success till ill-health compelled him to resign in 1828. His successor in the Berlin chair having died in 1832, he again entered on its duties, but resigned two years afterwards. In 1832 he also received an appointment in the ministry of foreign affairs, which, with his labours on many state committees and his legal researches and writings, occupied him till his death at Cologne on the 4th of July 1854. Eichhorn is regarded as one of the principal authorities on German constitutional law. His chief work is Deutsche Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte (Göttingen, 1808–1823, 5th ed. 1843–1844). In company with Savigny and J. F. L. Göschen he founded the Zeitschrift für geschichtliche Rechtswissenschaft. He was the author besides of Einleitung in das deutsche Privatrecht mit Einschluss des Lehnrechts (Gött., 1823) and the Grundsätze des Kirchenrechts der Katholischen und der Evangelischen Religionspartei in Deutschland, 2 Bde. (ib., 1831–1833).
See Schulte, Karl Friedrich Eichhorn, sein Leben und Wirken (1884).
EICHSTÄTT, a town and episcopal see of Germany, in the kingdom of Bavaria, in the deep and romantic valley of the Altmühl, 35 m. S. of Nuremberg, on the railway to Ingolstadt and Munich. Pop. (1905) 7701. The town, with its numerous spires and remains of medieval fortifications, is very picturesque. It has an Evangelical and seven Roman Catholic churches, among the latter the cathedral of St Wilibald (first bishop of Eichstätt),—with the tomb of the saint and numerous pictures and relics,—the church of St Walpurgis, sister of Wilibald, whose remains rest in the choir, and the Capuchin church, a copy of the Holy Sepulchre. Of its secular buildings the most noticeable are the town hall and the Leuchtenberg palace, once the residence of the prince bishops and later of the dukes of Leuchtenberg (now occupied by the court of justice of the district), with beautiful grounds. The Wilibaldsburg, built on a neighbouring hill in the 14th century by Bishop Bertold of Hohenzollern, was long the residence of the prince bishops of Eichstätt, and now contains an historical museum. There are an episcopal lyceum, a clerical seminary, a classical and a modern school, and numerous religious houses. The industries of the town include bootmaking, brewing and the production of lithographic stones.
Eichstätt (Lat. Aureatum or Rubilocus) was originally a Roman station which, after the foundation of the bishopric by Boniface in 745, developed into a considerable town, which was surrounded with walls in 908. The bishops of Eichstätt were princes of the Empire, subject to the spiritual jurisdiction of the archbishops of Mainz, and ruled over considerable territories in the Circle of Franconia. In 1802 the see was secularized and incorporated in Bavaria. In 1817 it was given, with the duchy of Leuchtenberg, as a mediatized domain under the Bavarian crown, by the king of Bavaria to his son-in-law Eugène de Beauharnais, ex-viceroy of Italy, henceforth styled duke of Leuchtenberg. In 1855 it reverted to the Bavarian crown.
EICHWALD, KARL EDUARD VON (1795–1876), Russian geologist and physician, was born at Mitau in Courland on the 4th of July 1795. He became doctor of medicine and professor of zoology in Kazañ in 1823; four years later professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Vilna; in 1838 professor of zoology, mineralogy and medicine at St Petersburg; and finally professor of palaeontology in the institute of mines in that city. He travelled much in the Russian empire, and was a keen observer of its natural history and geology. He died at St Petersburg on the 10th of November 1876. His published works include Reise auf dem Caspischen Meere und in den Caucasus, 2 vols. (Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1834–1838); Die Urwelt Russlands (St Petersburg, 1840–1845); Lethaea Rossica, ou paléontologie de la Russie, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1852–1868), with Atlases.
EIDER, a river of Prussia, in the province of Schleswig-Holstein. It rises to the south of Kiel, in Lake Redder, flows first north, then west (with wide-sweeping curves), and after a course of 117 m. enters the North Sea at Tönning. It is navigable up to Rendsburg, and is embanked through the marshes across which it runs in its lower course. Since the reign of Charlemagne, the Eider (originally Ägyr Dör—Neptune’s gate) was known as Romani terminus imperii and was recognized as the boundary of the Empire in 1027 by the emperor Conrad II., the founder of the Salian dynasty. In the controversy arising out of the Schleswig-Holstein Question, which culminated in the war of Austria and Prussia against Denmark in 1864, the Eider gave its name to the “Eider Danes,” the intransigeant Danish party which maintained that Schleswig (Sønderjylland, South Jutland) was by nature and historical tradition an integral part of Denmark. The Eider Canal (Eider-Kanal), which was constructed between 1777 and 1784, leaves the Eider at the point where the river turns to the west and enters the Bay of Kiel at Holtenau. It was hampered by six sluices, but was used annually by some 4000 vessels, and until its conversion in 1887–1895 into the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal afforded the only direct connexion between the North Sea and the Baltic.
EIDER (Icelandic, Æður), a large marine duck, the Somateria mollissima of ornithologists, famous for its down, which, from its extreme lightness and elasticity, is in great request for filling bed-coverlets. This bird generally frequents low rocky islets near the coast, and in Iceland and Norway has long been afforded every encouragement and protection, a fine being inflicted for killing it during the breeding-season, or even for firing a gun near its haunts, while artificial nesting-places are in many localities contrived for its further accommodation. From the care thus taken of it in those countries it has become exceedingly tame at its chief resorts, which are strictly regarded as property, and the taking of eggs or down from them, except by authorized persons, is severely punished by law. In appearance the eider is somewhat clumsy, though it flies fast and dives admirably. The female is of a dark reddish-brown colour barred with brownish-black. The adult male in spring is conspicuous by his pied plumage of velvet-black beneath, and white above: a patch of shining sea-green on his head is only seen on close inspection. This plumage he is considered not to acquire until his third year, being when young almost exactly like the female, and it is certain that the birds which have not attained their full dress remain in flocks by themselves without going to the breeding-stations. The nest is generally in some convenient corner among large stones, hollowed in the soil, and furnished with a few bits of dry grass, seaweed or heather. By the time that the full number of eggs (which rarely if ever exceeds five) is laid the down is added. Generally the eggs and down are
