130 



CHASIDIM 



CHASSfi 



committed itself to slavery. He was twice elected 

 governor of Ohio by the Republicans (1855-59), 

 and in 1861-64 was secretary of the treasury. His 

 management of the country's finances during these 

 trying years has met with nothing but praise : 

 taking office at a time when public credit was low, 

 and the revenue barely adequate for the needs of 

 the government in time of peace, he secured loans 

 on reasonable terms, issued treasury notes ( ' green - 

 backs') bearing no interest, and obtained the 

 establishment of national banks. In 1864 he was 

 appointed by Lincoln chief -justice of the United 

 States, in which capacity he presided at the trial 

 of President Johnson (1868). Unsuccessful efforts 

 were made to secure for Chase the Republican 

 presidential nomination in 1860 and 1864, and the 

 Democratic nomination in 1868. He died at New 

 York, 7th May 1873. See his Life by J. W. 

 Schuckers (1874). 



Chasi'dim ( Heb. , ' pious ' ), the name by which 

 the Jewish party afterwards known as the 

 Pharisees was first distinguished. The Chasidim 

 first took definite form as a party in the course 

 of the struggle between Judaism and Hellen- 

 ism during and immediately before the Macca- 

 bean period. When in 167 B.C. the great 

 majority of the Jewish people rose against 

 their heathen masters, the Chasidim joined in 

 the conflict, though separated from the other 

 adherents of Judas Maccabeus as a closer com- 

 munity of those who were distinguished by 

 especial ' piety ' i.e. especial strictness in the 

 observance of the law. They took part in the 

 struggle only so long as the freedom of religion was 

 the question really involved ; at a later time, when 

 this was no longer the case, they seem to have 

 withdrawn from it, for under Judas's brothers 

 Jonathan and Simon (160-135 B.C.) they are not 

 mentioned. Under Simon's successor, John Hyr- 

 canus (135-105 B.C.), they appear for the first time 

 in history under the name of Pharisees, and here 

 we already find them in opposition to the family of 

 the Maccabees or Hasmoneans, with whom they 

 had originally pursued a common interest. See 

 PHARISEES. The modern Chasidim are not, like 

 those in the times of the Maccabees, marked by any 

 peculiar spiritualistic tendency in religion, but 

 rather by a strict observance of certain traditional 

 forms and a blind subservience to their teachers. 

 Their doctrine was promulgated in the middle of 

 the 18th century by Israel of Podolia, called Baal- 

 Shem ('Lord of the Name,' so called because he 

 professed to perform miracles by using the great 

 cabalistic name of the Supreme Being). Though 

 condemned by the orthodox rabbis, this new 

 teacher had great success in Galicia, and when 

 he died (1760) left 40,000 converts. They are 

 now broken into several petty sects ; their religion 

 is utterly formal, and its ceremonies are coarse 

 and noisy. 



Chasing. Metal casting and other raised metal- 

 work, whether stamped or repousse i. e. hammered 

 or punched up may be defective in sharpness, or 

 detail, or finish. When such defect is remedied 

 by hand-cutting, as with a chisel or graver, such 

 finishing is called chasing, but this term is not 

 properly applied to the raising of the figures them- 

 selves. The backs of watches are sometimes 

 elaborately chased in floral or other designs. 

 W T hen similar work is applied to flat surfaces, such 

 as salvers for example, it is called either chasing 

 or engraving. It was called ccelatura by the 

 Romans ; in modern Italian, ceselatura ; in French, 

 ciselure ; in German, ciselirung i.e. ' chiselling ' in 

 each case. 



Chasles, MICHEL, was born near Chartres on 

 15th November 1793. He entered the Ecole Poly- 



technique in 1812, and on leaving was classed 

 among the engineers ; but with rare generosity he 

 renounced his place as an officer in order to assure 

 a career to one of his unsuccessful comrades. In 

 December 1829 he addressed to the Brussels 

 Academy a memoir on two general principles of 

 geometry, duality and homography. The intro- 

 duction to this memoir expanded into the well- 

 known Aperg u historique sur I'Origine et le Develop- 

 pement des Methodes en Geometric, the first edition 

 of which was published in 1837. In 1841 he was 

 appointed to the chair of Machines and Geodesy 

 at the Ecole Poly technique, and in 1846 to that of 

 Higher Geometry, which had just been instituted 

 at the Sor bonne. In 1852 appeared his Traite de 

 Geometric superieure ; in 1860, Les Trois Livres de 

 Porismes d'Euclide retablis pour la Premiere Fois ; 

 in 1865, the Traite des Sections Coniques ; in 1870, 

 the Rapport sur les Progres de la Geometrie. 

 These, his principal works, are geometrical and 

 historical. His contributions to the Comptes 

 rendus of the Academy of Sciences and to other 

 scientific publications are extremely numerous, and 

 though in the main geometrical, are not exclusively 

 so. In particular he treated in several memoirs the 

 question of attraction, and gave the first synthetic 

 demonstration of a celebrated theorem of Maclaurin 

 on the attraction of ellipsoids. Two of his memoirs 

 on the properties of cones of the second degree, and 

 on the spherical conies, were translated into English, 

 and published, with additions, by Charles Graves 

 in 1841. The best account of Chasles's writings is 

 that given by himself in the Rapport above men- 

 tioned. During his long life lie was the recipient 

 of many scientific distinctions, and he will always 

 be cited as one of the great geometers of the 19th 

 century. He died at Paris on 18th December 

 1880. An unfortunate episode in his life was that 

 of the autographs. In 1867 he reported to the 

 Academy that he had come into possession of auto- 

 graphs of Pascal's which proved that Pascal had 

 anticipated Newton's greatest discoveries. Ulti- 

 mately, however, he had to admit that these and 

 about 27,000 other autographs (including letters 

 from Julius Csesar, Dante, and Shakespeare) were 

 forgeries. The forger, Irene Lucas, was convicted 

 and punished. 



Chasles, PHILARETE, a voluminous French 

 writer, was born at Mainvilliers, near Chartres, 

 8th October 1798. Early imbued with Rousseau's 

 ideas by his father, an old Jacobin, he was 

 apprenticed at fifteen to an ardent Jacobin book- 

 seller, along with whom he was sent to jail after 

 the Restoration. Released by Chateaubriand's 

 influence, he went to England, where he found 

 employment in a bookseller's shop, and during 

 his seven years' residence laid the foundation of his 

 large knowledge of English literature. After his 

 return to France he contributed reviews of English 

 books to the Revue encyclopediqiie. In 1824 his 

 Discours sur Jacques Auguste de Thou, and in 1828 

 his Tableau de la Langue et Litterature Franqaise, 

 1500-1610, were crowned by the Academy. In 1837 

 Chasles became librarian of the Bibliotheque Maz- 

 arin, and in 1841 professor of Northern Languages 

 at the College de France, which chair he filled 

 until his death, at Venice, July 18, 1873. Besides 

 showing indefatigable activity as a journalist, he 

 published books on Charles I., Cromwell, the middle 

 ages, the 16th century in France, and studies on 

 Spain, on Germany, on the 18th century in Eng- 

 land, 19th-century manners, Shakespeare, Mary 

 Stuart, and Aretino. His Memoires fill two volumes 

 (1876-78). 



Chasse*, DAVID HENDRIK, BARON, a famou? 

 Dutch soldier, was born at Thiel^ in Guelders, March 

 18, 1765, began his military career when but ten 



