Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 06.djvu/851

* ELECAMPANE. r39 ELECTION. gentle stimulant to the organs of secretion, pro- motes expectoration, and is diuretic and sudor- ilic. It contains a peculiar principle called inn- lin. which is closely related to starch, but is deposited unchanged from its solution iu boiling water on its cooling, and gives a yellowish in- stead 111 a blue color with ioiline. The root also contains a |H'culiar principle called helenin or ele- cani|)ane camphor, which resembles camphor in some of its prii])erties. A number of species are cultivated for their abundant yellow or orange- colored llowers. which appear early in the sum- mer. Kor illustration see Plate of Edelweiss. ELECTION (Lat. elect io, choice, from eligere, to choose, from e, out + legcre, to select). As a legal term, the choice, or the right or duty to choose, between two inconsistent alternative rights or benefits. These rights may be accorded by contract, as when a purchaser of property stipulates for the option of paying in money or in other property; or when an insurance com- pany reserves the option of paying the sum for which a building is insured or of rebuilding it. Still more frequently persons are put to an election by a rule of law or of equity. A person whose property has been wrongfully t-aken may sue the wrongdoer for the value of the property in a contract action, or he may bring an action in tort for the conversion : but he is not entitled to pursue both remedies, and his choice of one cuts him otT. at common law, from thereafter pursuing the other. The doctrine of election in equity is said to have its origin in two inconsistent alternative gifts or benefits, one of which the giver has no power to make without, at least, the assent of the donor of the other gift. For example, A gives to B property belonging to C, and by the same instrument — generally a will — gives to C property belonsing to A. Here C is put to an election between keeping his own property and rejecting A's gift, or accepting A's gift and turn- ing over to B his (C's) property. This doctrine rests upon the intention of A as disclosed by the whole instrument. That intention clearly is that C shall not receive the gift named for him, unless he accedes to the gift named for B. An- other example of election is that to which a widow is frequently put between her right of dower (q.v. ) and an inconsistent benefit be- stowed by her husband's will. Election may be made by an express and for- mal announcement, or it may be. and more fre- quently is. implied from the conduct of the one entitled or bound to elect. In either ease an election is not conclusive, as a rule, unless made with knowledge of all material facts necessary to an intelligent choice. Wien made with such knowledge it is irrevocable. Consult the authori- ties referred to under Will, Dower, etc. ELECTION. In theological language, the divine act by which certain individuals are chosen to salvation in Christ. As expressed in the .rticles of Religion of the Church of England, election is the doctrine of "T!od's everlasting purpose, whereby He hath con^^tantly decreed by His secret coimsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Clirist out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor." Besides this form nf the doctrine, there is a lower and a higher form of it, which, apart from technical and polemical language, may be said to spring, the one from the sui)posed subordina- tion of the divine act or purjjosc to the divine foreknowledge of human conduct : the other from the exaltation of the divine act or ])urpose into an absolute suiircmacy, having no relation what- ever to liuman will or conduct. The former of these extremes corresponds to the Pelagian or Arminian doctrine of election, the latter to the hyper-.Vuguslinian or Calvinistie. The Armin- ian aims to condition or limit the absolute char- acter of the divine act in redemption in some way; the Calvinist aims to give to this act the most sovereign character. The one. while not al- together repudiating a doctrine of election, yet gives such prominence to the human conditions of the elective purpose as (in the view of the Calvinisls) to destroy it altogetlicr ; the other maintains not only a doctrine of election or pre- destination, but also the correlative doctrine of reprobation. In the view of the Arminian, salva- tion is within the choice of the Innnan will; in the view of the Calvinist, the human will is of little or no account — the decree of God is every- "thing — and this decree (which Calvin admitted to be a decrctum horribile) absolutely determines some to everlasting life and some to everlasting death. The separation has its source in the will of God and not in the moral conditions of man- kind. Such extremes aside, the great question in respect to election is whether it depends upon the foreknowledge by God of faith on the part of the elect, or whether faith itself proceeds from grace and is thus conditioned upon election, which is therefore the ground of the foreknowl- edge of faith. This question is evidently the question of "prevenient grace" (see Gkace), for election is only the eternal purpose in respect to grace. Although the expressions election, elect, etc., are frequent in Scripture, it cannot be said that what is known as the theological doctrine of elec- tioi. was acknowledged by the Christian Church till the time of Augustine. The Greek fathers confined their attention almost entirely to ques- tions purely theological — that is to say. relating to the character and constitution of the God- head. Gnosticism and Arianism. the two main forms of heretical opinion before Augustine, in- dicate the channels into which theological dis- cussion had previously run. It was not till the Latin mind had taken up this discussion that the more practical question of the relation of the divine and human will in redemption came to receive special attention. The controversy be- tween Pelagius and Augvistine in the beginning of the fifth century brought out almost all the aspects of the question which have since, at suc- cessive epochs in the history of the Church, risen into renewed prominence. The contests between the Scotists and Thomists in the fourteenth cen- tury, between the Arminians and Calvinists. and, within the Roman Church, between the Jansen- ists and Molinists in the seventeenth century, are recurring expressions of the same radical conflict or divergency of opinion. See FoBE- KNOWI.KDflK AXn I'OUEORDIXATIOX. ELECTION, in jxilitics, is the choice of pub- lic olTicers by the vote of those who are entitled to exercise the elective franchise. This is to be dis- tingui-^bed. on the one hand, from the appointment of ofTicers by a superior, as by a king, a president,