1819 as member for Peterborough, representing that constituency
with a short break (1822-1823) till 1830, when he was elected
for the borough of Malton. He became attorney-general, and was
knighted when Canning formed his ministry in 1827; and though
he resigned when the duke of Wellington came into power in
1828, he resumed office in 1829 and went out with the duke of
Wellington in 1830. His opposition to the Reform Bill caused
his severance from the Whig leaders, and having joined the
Tories he was elected, first for Colchester and then in 1832
for Norwich, for which borough he sat until the dissolution of
parliament. He was appointed lord chief baron of the exchequer
in 1834, and presided in that court for more than nine
years. While attending the Norfolk circuit on the 2nd of
April he was suddenly seized with apoplexy, and died in his
lodgings at Bury on the 7th of April 1844. He had been raised
to the peerage as Baron Abinger in 1835, taking his title from
the Surrey estate he had bought in 1813. The qualities which
brought him success at the bar were not equally in place on
the bench; he was partial, dictatorial and vain; and complaint
was made of his domineering attitude towards juries. But his
acuteness of mind and clearness of expression remained to the
end. Lord Abinger was twice married (the second time only
six months before his death), and by his first wife (d. 1829)
had three sons and two daughters, the title passing to his
eldest son Robert (1794-1861). His second son, General Sir
James Yorke Scarlett (1799-1871), leader of the heavy cavalry
charge at Balaclava, is dealt with in a separate article; and
his elder daughter, Mary, married John, Baron Campbell, and
was herself created Baroness Stratheden (Lady Stratheden and
Campbell) (d. 1860). Sir Philip Anglin Scarlett (d. 1831),
Lord Abinger's younger brother, was chief justice of Jamaica.
See P. C. Scarlett, Memoir of Jaimes, 1st Lord Abinger (1877);
Foss's Lives of the Judges; E. Manson, Builders of our Law (1904).
ABINGTON, FRANCES (1737-1815), English actress, was the
daughter of a private soldier named Barton, and was, at
first, a flower girl and a street singer. She then became
servant to a French milliner, obtaining a taste in dress
and a knowledge of French which afterwards stood her in good
stead. Her first appearance on the stage was at the Haymarket
in 1755 as Miranda in Mrs Centlivre's Busybody. In 1756, on
the recommendation of Samuel Foote, she became a member of the
Drury Lane company, where she was overshadowed by Mrs Pritchard
and Kitty Clive. In 1759, after an unhappy marriage with her
music-master, one of the royal trumpeters, she is mentioned in
the bills as Mrs Abington. Her first success was in Ireland
as Lady Townley, and it was only after five years, on the
pressing invitation of Garrick, that she returned to Drury
Lane. There she remained for eighteen years, being the
original of more than thirty important characters, notably
Lady Teazle (1777). Her Beatrice, Portia, Desdemona and
Ophelia were no less liked than her Miss Hoyden, Biddy Tipkin,
Lucy Lockit and Miss Prue. It was in the last character in
Love for Love that Reynolds painted his best portrait of
her. In 1782 she left Drury Lane for Covent Garden. After an
absence from the stage from 1790 until 1797, she reappeared,
quitting it finally in 1799. Her ambition, personal wit
and cleverness won her a distinguished position in society,
in spite of her humble origin. Women of fashion copied her
frocks, and a head-dress she wore was widely adopted and known
as the ``Abington cap.'' She died on the 4th of March 1815.
ABIOGENESIS, in biology, the term, equivalent to the older
terms ``spontaneous generation,'' Generatio acquivoca,
Generatio primaria, and of more recent terms such as
archegenesis and archebiosis, for the theory according to which
fully formed living organisms sometimes arise from not-living
matter. Aristotle explicitly taught abiogenesis, and laid it
down as an observed fact that some animals spring from putrid
matter, that plant lice arise from the dew which falls on
plants, that fleas are developed from putrid matter, and so
forth. T. J. Parker (Elementary Biology) cites a passage from
Alexander Ross, who, commenting on Sir Thomas Browne's doubt
as to ``whether mice may be bred by putrefaction,'' gives a
clear statement of the common opinion on abiogenesis held until
about two centuries ago. Ross wrote: ``So may he (Sir Thomas
Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated;
or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies,
locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like,
be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive
the form of that creature to which it is by formative power
disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and
experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and
there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of
the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.''
The first step in the scientific refutation of the theory
of abiogenesis was taken by the Italian Redi, who, in 1668,
proved that no maggots were ``bred'' in meat on which flies
were prevented by wire screens from laying their eggs.
From the 17th century onwards it was gradually shown that,
at least in the case of all the higher and readily visible
organisms, abiogenesis did not occur, but that omne vivum e
vivo, every living thing came from a pre-existing living thing.
The discovery of the microscope carried the refutation
further. In 1683 A. van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria,
and it was soon found that however carefully organic matter
might be protected by screens, or by being placed in stoppered
receptacles, putrefaction set in, and was invariably accompanied
by the appearance of myriads of bacteria and other low
organisms. As knowledge of microscopic forms of life increased,
so the apparent possibilities of abiogenesis increased, and
it became a tempting hypothesis that whilst the higher forms
of life arose only by generation from their kind, there was
a perpetual abiogenetic fount by which the first steps in the
evolution of living organisms continued to arise, under suitable
conditions, from inorganic matter. It was due chiefly to L.
Pasteur that the occurrence of abiogenesis in the microscopic
world was disproved as much as its occurrence in the macroscopic
world. If organic matter were first sterilized and then
prevented from contamination from without, putrefaction did
not occur, and the matter remained free from microbes. The
nature of sterilization, and the difficulties in securing
it, as well as the extreme delicacy of the manipulations
necessary, made it possible for a very long time to be doubtful
as to the application of the phrase omne vivum e vivo to
the microscopic world, and there still remain a few belated
supporters of abiogenesis. Subjection to the temperature of
boiling water for, say, half an hour seemed an efficient mode
of sterilization, until it was discovered that the spores of
bacteria are so involved in heat-resisting membranes, that only
prolonged exposure to dry, baking heat can be recognized as an
efficient process of sterilization. Moreover, the presence of
bacteria, or their spores, is so universal that only extreme
precautions guard against a re-infection of the sterilized
material. It may now be stated definitely that all known
living organisms arise only from pre-existing living organisms.
So far the theory of abiogenesis may be taken as disproved.
It must be noted, however, that this disproof relates only
to known existing organisms. All these are composed of a
definite substance, known as protoplasm (q.v.), and the
modern refutation of abiogenesis applies only to the organic
forms in which protoplasm now exists. It may be that in the
progress of science it may yet become possible to construct
living protoplasm from non-living material. The refutation
of abiogenesis has no further bearing on this possibility than
to make it probable that if protoplasm ultimately be formed in
the laboratory, it will be by a series of stages, the earlier
steps being the formation of some substance, or substances,
now unknown, which are not protoplasm. Such intermediate
stages may have existed in the past, and the modern refutation
of abiogenesis has no application to the possibility of
these having been formed from inorganic matter at some past
time. Perhaps the words archebiosis, or archegenesis,
should be reserved for the theory that protoplasm in the
remote past has been developed from not-living matter by a
series of steps, and many of those, notably T. H. Huxley, who
took a large share in the process of refuting contemporary
abiogenesis, have stated their belief in a primordial
archebiosis. (See BIOGENESIS and LIFE.) (P. C. M.)
ABIPONES, a tribe of South American Indians of Guaycuran
stock recently inhabiting the territory lying between Santa
Fe and St Iago. They originally occupied the Chaco district
of Paraguay, but were driven thence by the hostility of the
Spaniards. According to Martin Dobrizhoffer, a Jesuit missionary,
who, towards the end of the 18th century, lived among them
for a period of seven years, they then numbered not more than
5000. They were a well-formed, handsome people, with black
eyes and aquiline noses, thick black hair, but no beards.
The hair from the forehead to the crown of the head was pulled
out, this constituting a tribal mark. The faces, breasts and
arms of the women were covered with black figures of various
designs made with thorns, the tattooing paint being a mixture
of ashes and blood. The lips and ears of both sexes were
pierced. The men were brave fighters, their chief weapons
being the bow and spear. No child was without bow and arrows;
the bow-strings were made of foxes' entrails. In battle
the Abipones wore an armour of tapir's hide over which a
jaguar's skin was sewn. They were excellent swimmers and good
horsemen. For five months in the year when the floods were
out they lived on islands or even in shelters built in the
trees. They seldom married before the age of thirty, and were
singularly chaste. ``With the Abipones,'' says Darwin, ``when
a man chooses a wife, he bargains with the parents about the
price. But it frequently happens that the girl rescinds
what has been agreed upon between the parents and bridegroom,
obstinately rejecting the very mention of marriage. She often
runs away and hides herself, and thus eludes the bridegroom.''
Infanticide was systematic, never more than two children being
reared in one family, a custom doubtless originating in the
difficulty of subsistence. The young were suckled for two
years. The Abipones are now believed to be extinct as a tribe.
Martin Dobrizhoffer's Latin Historia de Abiponibus
(Vienna, 1784) was translated into English by Sara
Coleridge, at the suggestion of Southey, in 1822, under
the title of An Account of the Abipones (3 vols.).
ABITIBBI, a lake and river of Ontario, Canada. The lake,
in 49 deg. N., 80 deg. W., is 60 m. long and studded with islands.
It is shallow, and the shores in its vicinity are covered
with small timber. It was formerly employed by the Hudson's
Bay Company as part of a canoe route to the fur lands of the
north. The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific railway
through this district has made it of some importance. Its
outlet is Abitibbi river, a rapid stream, which after a course
of 200 m. joins the Moose river, flowing into James Bay.
ABJURATION (from Lat. abjurare, to forswear), a solemn
