4j DEMESNE. 



inhabitant* require ren down to an egg or a pint of milk. There U 

 hran enough of everything, and rarely too much. 



Whenever there U an excmive production of any commodity, it U 

 an evil almost M great at oarcity. It U true that the consumer 

 derive* benefit from it, but the producing cUatea are m<xrt injuriously 

 aflacted. In order to raiae the value of the produce of their Inbour, 

 they moat eeaae to produce, or inurt produce in less quantities. The 

 workmen are thui either deprived of employment altogether for a 

 time, or are employed for a portion of their time only, at reduced 

 wage*; while their employers are disposing of their goods at low 

 price*, which acaroely repay the outlay of their capital Nor doe* the 

 penalty of over-production fall exclusively upon thoae engaged in the 

 trade in which (upply ha* exceeded the demand. Their distrene* 

 extend to other cU**ea. It ha* been shown already that it is to pro- 

 duction we must look a* the cause of sustained consumption, and thus 

 the pressure upon any considerable branch of productive industry 

 must be sensibly felt by those who have the produce of their own 

 labour to sell. Production hag failed, and consumption must there- 

 fore be diminished. 



The ruinous consequences of gluts, in particular staples of trade and 

 manufacture, are too well known, especially in this country, to require 

 any further illustration ; but their cause!) are not always agreed upon. 

 Such gluts are often attributed to the facility with which manufactures 

 are produced by machinery ; but we have shown that over-production 

 in all branches of industry is impossible, and if that be true, it U evi- 

 dent that when partial gluts are produced by the aid of machinery, 

 that powerful agent must have been misapplied. It is not contended 

 that nothing can be produced in too great abundance. Whether 

 machinery be used or not, production must be governed by the same 

 laws of demand and supply. Those things only must be produced for 

 which there is a demand, and they must not be produced in greater 

 abundance than the demand warrants. But the more generally machi- 

 nery U used, the more abundant will be the products which men will 

 have to exchange with each other, and therefore the better will be the 

 market. It follows that machinery can only cause a glut when applied 

 excessively to particular objects, precisely in the same manner as an 

 excessive quantity of labour would cause one if applied where it was 

 not needed by the demands of commerce. 



The supply of markets is a very speculative business, and is often 

 conducted with more zeal than discretion. When a particular trade 

 is supposed to be more prosperous than others, capitalists rush into it 

 in order to secure high profits ; and in this country the abundance of 

 capital, the perfection of our machinery, and the skill of our workmen, 

 enable them to produce with extraordinary facility. Over-production 

 in that particular trade is the consequence, and all engaged in it suffer 

 from the depreciation in the value of their goods ; but if, instead of 

 rushing into the favourite trade, they had distributed their enterprises 

 more widely, their own interest and that of the community would 

 have been promoted. When a ship is wrecked, if all the crew precipi- 

 tate themselves into one boat, they swamp it'; but if they wait till all 

 the boats are lowered, and apportion their numbers to the size of each, 

 they may all reach the shore in safety. And so it is in trade : one 

 trade may easily be glutted, while there is room in other trades for all 

 the capital and industry that need employment. 



In proportion to the extent of the market and the variety and 

 abundance of commodities to be exchanged, will be the facility of dis- 

 posing of the products of capital and labour ; and this consideration 

 points out as the most probable antidote to gluts a universal freedom 

 of commerce. When the free interchange of commodities is restricted, 

 not only is a glut caused more easily, but its causes are more uncertain, 

 and dependent upon unforeseen events. With the whole world for a 

 market, the operation of the laws of demand and supply would be 

 more equable, and the universality of the objects of exchange would 

 make gluts of rare occurrence. The market would still be liable to 

 disturbance by bad harvests, by errors in the monetary system, by 

 shocks to public credit, and by war ; but apart from these causes of 

 derangement, demand and supply would be adjusted, and the pro- 

 ductive energies of all nations called into full activity. 



(Adam Smith, Wealth if Nation*, book i. ; M'Culloch, Principles of 

 Political Economy, part i. oh. 7, and part ii. ch. 1, 2 ; Malthus, Principle* 

 of Political Economy ; Ricardo, ch. 30 ; Mill, Eitayt on, Unsettled Qe- 

 tnu of Political Economy, Essay ii.) 



DEMESNE. [MASOR.] 



DEMETER (Aiui^np), one of the twelve principal deities of the 

 Olympus of the Oreeks : by the Romans she was called Ceres. Demeter 

 was the great mother-goddess, the giver of the fruits of the earth, the 

 nourishing and fertilising principle of nature. 



In the Greek mythology Demeter wa* the daughter of Kronos and 

 Rhea. By her brother Zeu* she wa* the mother of Persephone (often 

 only called Cora, lUfn, the maiden, the Proserpine of the Romans), 

 and also according to Hetiod (Theog. 452, *c.J, of Dionysus (Bacchus) ; 

 but the more prevalent notion was, that Dionysus was the son of 

 Semele. It i* certain, however, that Demeter is in various ways 

 closely associated with Dionysus, and their rite*, the Dionysian and 

 Eleusinian mysteries particularly, as will be noticed further below, are 

 intimately blended. By later writers, Demeter is sometimes alluded 

 to as the wife of Dionysus. 



The leading feature in the story of Demeter, and that which form 1 * 



DEMETER. 4ao 



the fundamental idea of her worship, i* the loss and recovery of her 

 daughter, Persephone, who was suddenly seized and carried off to the 

 infernal region* by Pluto [PERSEPHONE]. Demeter, who heard her 

 cries, but did not see who had carried her away, nor know whither 

 she had gone, sought in vain for her over the earth, till she applied to 

 Helios. Having learned from him that Zeu* had, without consulting 

 her, given Persephone to Pluto a* hi* wife, and that she had been 

 carried off to Erebus, Demeter in her anger vowed not to return 

 without her to Olympus. Zeus sent first Iris, and then all the gods to 

 invite her to return, but in vain ; when fearing lest the human race 

 should perish, she having afflicted the earth with sterility, he despatched 

 Hermes to Erebus to bring back Persephone. Pluto did not offer to 

 resist the will of Zeus, but he gave Persephone a pomegranate, and she 

 having eaten of the food of Erebus was thenceforth compelled to spend 

 a portion of every year in the infernal regions. Hermes conducted 

 Persephone to her mother at Eleusis, and Zeus sent Rhea to again 

 urge Demeter to revisit Olympus, informing her that he had consented 

 that Persephone should remain with her mother two-thirds of the 

 year, the other third (the season of winter) being spent with Pluto. 

 Demeter now consented to return, and to restore fertility to the earth. 

 But before departing from Eleusis, which she had made her abode, 

 she taught Triptolemus the manner in which her worship was to be 

 conducted, and instructed him in the mysteries of the Eleusinia. 

 [ELEUSIKIA.] 



Demeter was the oldest, and with a view to the formation of a 

 systematic mythology, the most important personage in the Greek 

 polytheism. Her name Demeter (yfj, earth, idrrrip, mother), or Deo, 

 points to her as a representative of the earth and its productions hi 

 the old elementary worship of Greece ; and she is invoked by Orpheus 

 (apud Died. Sic. i 12) as Mother Earth, the giver of all sorts of riches 

 (yrj /ffirnp <">' AWI^TDP itKoinot&rfipo.). The title Father is in the 

 same manner given to the air by Lucretius (i. 25), 



FoBtrcma pcrcunt imbres obi cos pater JtOur 

 In gremium matrit Terrai prtccipiuvit ; 



and the Greeks considered all vegetable productions as the offspring of 

 a union between these two elements. (See the fragment of the Dan- 

 aides of .flJschylus in Hermann's ' Opuscula,' vol. ii., p. 884.) The 

 mystic union of these two principles, from which all the other deities 

 sprung up, is an invention of the later philosophers. A remarkable 

 feature which the worship of this deity presents in Greek mythology 

 is her intimate connection with Dionysus, a connection which seems, 

 to have belonged to all the different modifications of the two worships. 

 At Eleusis these two deities were worshipped with peculiar solemni- 

 ties. [DIONYSIA, ELECSINIA.] It does not seem right to infer from 

 the similar relation subsisting between Osiris and Isis in Egypt, and 

 Dionysus and Demeter in Greece (Macrob., ' SaturnaL,' i. 2, p. 210; 

 Herod, ii. 144 ; Plutarch 'de Iside,' p. 354 F.), that the worship of 

 these deities was derived from Egypt^in particular, though, as will be 

 seen by the engraving below, Demeter was sometimes represented by 

 the ancient sculptors with some of the attributes of Isis. Still less, 

 however, can we adopt Creuzer's theory of the Indian origin of this 

 religion. It seems more reasonable to conclude that the same causes 

 which might contribute to produce such an elementary worship in the 

 East would have the same effect in Greece ; for the constitution of the 

 human mind is much the same in all parts of the world. 



A collection of the names and epithets of Demeter is given by Creuzer 

 (' Symbolik,' voL iv., p. 801, fol.), but his remarks must be read with 

 some caution, as he shows a curious readiness to identify her with 

 other deities. The meaning of her Roman name. Ceres, by which 

 Demeter is generally mentioned in English books on mythology, is not 

 known ; it may be derived from e(e)reare, creare, to produce (Creuzer, 

 'Symbolik/ iv., p. 313); or it is connected with her Cabiric name, 

 Axiokeraa, in which case it also signifies the producer ; for according 

 to Hesych., ictpatu = ya/trjaai, Ktpatis = ydfuis and /u{cu = Ktpacu. 



Demeter is represented in ancient monuments with a basket (xoAaCos), 

 or a crown of ears of corn on her head, with some ears of corn and 

 poppies in her right hand, and a torch, or occasionally a sceptre, in her 

 left hand, and sometimes as seated in a chariot drawn by lions, panthers, 

 elephants, or dragons. (Winckelmann's Works, voL ii. 515, iv. 119.) 

 Her form is that of a beautiful matronly woman, with a mild and 

 benevolent expression of face. She is always enveloped with ample 

 drapery, which is usually close up to the neck ; but sometimes one of 

 her teeming breasts is uncovered. Demeter is frequently seen en- 

 throned, or seated with her daughter Persephone alongside of her ; the 

 figure of Persephone being much slighter and less matronly than that 

 of her mother. Two very beautiful figures on low seats, from the 

 Western pediment of the Parthenon at Athens, and now in the British 

 Museum, are believed to represent Demeter and Persephone, but both 

 the figures have lost their heads, and their distinguishing attributes. 

 A fine statue of the Gneco-Roman period, in the same collection (from 

 the Macaroni Palace at Rome), of which wo give a cut, represents 

 the goddess with some of the attributes of Isis, but the head appears 

 to have belonged to another statue of Ceres. It is in the head that the 

 Egyptian character is discernible. On it is an Egyptian diadem, in 

 front of which is a disc between two serpents, and surmounted with 

 ears of corn. She wears a long tunic and pallium ; and holds in her 

 left hand u situla, or sacred bucket, and wreaths of flowers ; the right 



