Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/244

Rh 226 A F F A F F Witnesses. Domitms erected a statue in honour of Cali gula, on which there was an inscription to the effect that this prince was a second time consul at the age of 27. This he intended as an encomium; but Caligula regarding it as a sarcasm upon his youth and his infringement of the laws, raised a process against him, and pleaded himself in person. Domitius, instead of making a defence, repeated part of the emperor s speech Avith the highest marks of admiration; after which he fell upon his knees, begged pardon, and declared that he dreaded Caligula s eloquence more than his imperial power. This piece of flattery succeeded so well, that the emperor not only pardoned him, but raised him to the consulship. Afer died in the reign of Nero, A.D. 60. AFFIDAVIT means a solemn assurance of a matter of fact known to the person who states it, and attested as his statement by some person in authority. Evidence is chiefly taken by means of affidavits in the practice of the Court of Chancery in England. By 3 and 4 Will. IV. c. 42, s. 42, provision is made for appointing commissioners in Scotland and Ireland to take affidavits. The term is generally applied to a statement certified by a justice of peace or other magistrate. Affidavits are sometimes neces sary as certificates that certain formalities have been duly and legally performed. They are extensively used in the practice of bankruptcy, and in the administration of the revenue. At one time they were invariably taken on oath, but this practice has been much narrowed. Quakers, Mora vians, and Separatists have long been privileged in all cases to make a solemn declaration or affirmation ; and now, if any persons called as witnesses, or required or desiring to make an affidavit or deposition, shall refuse or be unwilling from alleged conscientious motives to be sworn, the court or justice may, on being satisfied of the sincerity of such objection, allow such person to make a solemn affirmation or declaration by 17 and 18 Viet. c. 125, s. 20, extended to all counties in England, Ireland, and Scotland by sub sequent statutes. An Act of 1835 (5 and 6 Will. IV. c. 62) substituted declarations for oaths in certain cases; and this statute is extensively observed. The same Act prohibited justices of peace from administering oaths in any matter in which they had not jurisdiction as judges, except when an oath was specially authorised by statute, as in the bankrupt law, and excepting criminal inquiries, Parliamen tary proceedings, and instances where oaths are required to give validity to documents abroad. But justices are per mitted to take affidavits in any matter by declaration, and a person making a false affidavit in this way is liable to punishment. Affidavits may be made abroad before any British ambassador, envoy, minister, charge d affaires, secre tary of embassy or legation, consul, or consular agent (18 and 19 Viet. c. 42, s. 1). AFFINITY, in Law, as distinguished from consan guinity, is applied to the relation which each party to a marriage, the husband and the wife, bears to the kindred of the other. The marriage having made them one person, the blood relations of each are held as related by affinity in the same degree to the one spouse as by consanguinity to the other. But the relation is only with the married parties themselves, and does not bring those in affinity with them in affinity with each other; so a wife s sister has no affinity to her husband s brother. The subject is chiefly important from the matrimonial prohibitions by which the canon law has restricted relations by affinity. Taking the table of degrees within which marriage is prohibited on account of consanguinity, the rule has been thus extended to affinity, so that wherever relationship to a man himself would be a bar to marriage, relationship to his deceased wife will be the same bar, and vice versa on the husband s decease. This rule has been founded chiefly on interpretations of the eighteenth chapter of Leviticus. Formerly by law in Eng land, marriages within the degrees of affinity were not absolutely null, but they were liable to be annulled by ecclesiastical process during the lives of both parties; ia other words, the incapacity was only a canonical, not a civil, disability. By an Act passed in 1835 (5 and G Will. IV. c. 54), all marriages of this kind not disputed before the passing of the Act are declared absolutely valid, while all subsequent to it are declared null. This renders null in England, and not merely voidable, a marriage with a deceased wife s sister or niece. The Act does not extend to Scotland; but it was made quite clear by a leading decision in 1861 (Fenton v. Livingston) that, as &quot;the degrees forbidden in consanguinity are also forbidden in affinity,&quot; the marriage of a sister-in-law with a brother-in- law is absolutely null in that country. Nor can a man contract a marriage with his wife s sister so as to be valid in Great Britain, by celebrating his marriage with her in a country where such marriages are lawful (Brook v. Brook, 9 //. L. Cases, 193). AFFINITY, CHEMICAL, the property or relation in virtue of which dissimilar substances are capable of entering into chemical combination with each other. Substances that are so related combine always in fixed and definite propor tions; the resulting compound differs from its components in its physical properties, with the exception that its weight is exactly the sum of their weights; and the combination is always accompanied with the evolution of heat. In these respects it differs from a mere mechanical mixture ; in the latter there is contact without combination, and its pro perties are a mean or average of those of the substances that compose it. That effect may be given to chemical affinity, the substances must be placed in contact; but mere contact is often insufficient, and combination only takes place on the application of heat, light, electric agency, &c., or through the interposition of some foreign substance. Generally speaking, the affinity is less between substances that closely resemble each other than between those whose properties are altogether dissimilar. The term elective affinity, now generally disused, has been employed to indi cate the greater affinity which a substance, when brought into contact with other substances, often has for one in preference to another. Advantage is frequently taken of this greater affinity to decompose compound substances. For a full treatmen-t of chemical affinity and combination, see CHEMISTRY. AFFIRMATION. See AFFIDAVIT. AFFRE, DENIS AUGUSTS, Archbishop of Paris, was born at St Rome, in the department of Tarn, on the 27th Sept. 1793. When fourteen years of age, having ex pressed his desire to enter the church, he became a student at the seminary of St Sulpice, of which his maternal uncle, Denis Boyer, was director. His studies being completed before he had reached the age necessary for ordination, he was occupied for some time as professor of philosophy in the seminary at Nantes. He was ordained a priest in 181 8, and held his first charge in connection with the church of St Sulpice. After filling a number of ecclesiastical offices, he was elevated to the Archbishopric of Paris in 1840. His tenure of this office, though it was marked by great zeal and faithfulness, will be chiefly remembered by its tragic close. During the insurrection of 1848 the arch bishop was led to believe that by his personal interference peace might be restored between the soldiery and the insurgents. He accordingly applied to General Cavaignac, who warned him of the risk he incurred. &quot; My life,&quot; the archbishop answered, &quot;is of little importance.&quot; Soon afterwards, the firing having ceased at his request, ho appeared on the barricade at the entrance to the Faubourg St Antoine, accompanied by M. Albert, of the national guard,