To give any account, even in outline, of the subject matter of equity within the necessary limits of this article would be impossible. It will be sufficient to say here that the classification generally adopted by text-writers is based upon the relations of equity to the common law, of which some explanation is given above. Thus equitable jurisdiction is said to be exclusive, concurrent or auxiliary. Equity has exclusive jurisdiction where it recognizes rights which are unknown to the common law. The most important example is trusts. Equity has concurrent jurisdiction in cases where the law recognized the right but did not give adequate relief, or did not give relief without circuity of action or some similar inconvenience. And equity has auxiliary jurisdiction when the machinery of the courts of law was unable to procure the necessary evidence.
“The evils of this double system of judicature,” says the report of the judicature commission (1863-1867), “and the confusion and conflict of jurisdiction to which it has led, have been long known and acknowledged.” A partial attempt to meet the difficulty was made by several acts of parliament (passed after the reports of commissions appointed in 1850 and 1851), which enabled courts of law and equity both to exercise certain powers formerly peculiar to one or other of them. A more complete remedy was introduced by the Judicature Act 1873, which consolidated the courts of law and equity, and ordered that law and equity should be administered concurrently according to the rules contained in the 26th section of the act. At the same time many matters of equitable jurisdiction are still left to the chancery division of the High Court in the first instance. (See [Chancery].)
Authorities.—The principles of equity as set out by the following writers may be consulted: J. Story, J.W. Smith, H.A. Smith and W. Ashburner; and for the history see G. Spence, The Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (2 vols., 1846-1849); D.M. Kerly, Historical Sketch of the Equitable Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (1890).
EQUIVALENT, in chemistry, the proportion of an element which will combine with or replace unit weight of hydrogen. When multiplied by the valency it gives the atomic weight. The determination of equivalent weights is treated in the article [Stoichiometry]. (See also [Chemistry].) In a more general sense the term “equivalent” is used to denote quantities of substances which neutralize one another, as for example NaOH, HCl, ½H2SO4, ½Ba(OH)2.
ÉRARD, SÉBASTIEN (1752-1831), French manufacturer of musical instruments, distinguished especially for the improvements he made upon the harp and the pianoforte, was born at Strassburg on the 5th of April 1752. While a boy he showed great aptitude for practical geometry and architectural drawing, and in the workshop of his father, who was an upholsterer, he found opportunity for the early exercise of his mechanical ingenuity. When he was sixteen his father died, and he removed to Paris where he obtained employment with a harpsichord maker. Here his remarkable constructive skill, though it speedily excited the jealousy of his master and procured his dismissal, almost equally soon attracted the notice of musicians and musical instrument makers of eminence. Before he was twenty-five he set up in business for himself, his first workshop being a room in the hotel of the duchesse de Villeroi, who gave him warm encouragement. Here he constructed in 1780 his first pianoforte, which was also one of the first manufactured in France. It quickly secured for its maker such a reputation that he was soon overwhelmed with commissions, and finding assistance necessary, he sent for his brother, Jean Baptiste, in conjunction with whom he established in the rue de Bourbon, in the Faubourg St Germain, a piano manufactory, which in a few years became one of the most celebrated in Europe. On the outbreak of the Revolution he went to London where he established a factory. Returning to Paris in 1796, he soon afterwards introduced grand pianofortes, made in the English fashion, with improvements of his own. In 1808 he again visited London, where, two years later, he produced his first double-movement harp. He had previously made various improvements in the manufacture of harps, but the new instrument was an immense advance upon anything he had before produced, and obtained such a reputation that for some time he devoted himself exclusively to its manufacture. It has been said that in the year following his invention he made harps to the value of £25,000. In 1812 he returned to Paris, and continued to devote himself to the further perfecting of the two instruments with which his name is associated. In 1823 he crowned his work by producing his model grand pianoforte with the double escapement. Érard died at Passy, on the 5th of August 1831. (See also [Harp] and [Pianoforte].)
ERASMUS, DESIDERIUS (1466-1536), Dutch scholar and theologian, was born on the night of the 27/28th of October, probably in 1466; but his statements about his age are conflicting, and in view of his own uncertainty (Ep. x. 29: 466) and the weakness of his memory for dates, the year of his birth cannot be definitely fixed. His father’s name seems to have been Rogerius Gerardus. He himself was christened Herasmus; but in 1503, when becoming familiar with Greek, he assimilated the name to a fancied Greek original, which he had a few years before Latinized into Desyderius. A contemporary authority states that he was born at Gouda, his father’s native town; but he adopted the style Rotterdammensis or Roterodamus, in accordance with a story to which he himself gave credence. His first schooling was at Gouda under Peter Winckel, who was afterwards vice-pastor of the church. In the dull round of instruction in “grammar” he did not distinguish himself, and was surpassed by his early friend and companion, William Herman, who was Winckel’s favourite pupil. From Gouda the two boys went to the school attached to St Lebuin’s church at Deventer, which was one of the first in northern Europe to feel the influence of the Renaissance. Erasmus was at Deventer from 1475 to 1484, and when he left, had learnt from Johannes Sinthius (Syntheim) and Alexander Hegius, who had come as headmaster in 1483, the love of letters which was the ruling passion of his life. At some period, perhaps in an interval of his time at Deventer, he was a chorister at Utrecht under the famous organist of the cathedral, Jacob Obrecht.
About 1484 Erasmus’ father died, leaving him and an elder brother Peter, both born out of wedlock, to the care of guardians, their mother having died shortly before. Erasmus was eager to go to a university, but the guardians, acting under a perhaps genuine enthusiasm for the religious life, sent the boys to another school at Hertogenbosch; and when they returned after two or three years, prevailed on them to enter monasteries. Peter went to Sion, near Delft; Erasmus after prolonged reluctance became an Augustinian canon in St Gregory’s at Steyn, a house of the same Chapter near Gouda. There he found little religion and less refinement; but no serious difficulty seems to have been made about his reading the classics and the Fathers with his friends to his heart’s content. The monastery once entered, there was no drawing back; and Erasmus passed through the various stages which culminated in his ordination as priest on the 25th of April 1492.