Balkan Peninsula. It is known in France as écrevisse à pattes blanches and in Germany as Steinkrebs, and is little used as food. The larger Astacus fluviatilis (écrevisse à pattes rouges, Edelkrebs) is not found in Britain, but occurs in France and Germany, southern Sweden, Russia, &c. It is distinguished, among other characters, by the red colour of the under side of the large claws. It is the species most highly esteemed for the table. Other species of the genus are found in central and eastern Europe and as far east as Turkestan. Farther east a gap occurs in the distribution and no crayfishes are met with till the basin of the Amur is reached, where a group of species occurs, extending into northern Japan. In North America, west of the Rocky Mountains, the genus Astacus again appears, but east of the watershed it is replaced by the genus Cambarus, which is represented by very numerous species, ranging from the Great Lakes to Mexico. Several blind species inhabit the subterranean waters of caves. The best known is Cambarus pellucidus, found in the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.
The area of distribution occupied by the southern crayfishes or Parastacidae is separated by a broad equatorial zone from that of the northern group, unless, as has been asserted, the two come into contact or overlap in Central America. None is found in any part of Africa, though a species occurs in Madagascar. They are absent also from the oriental region of zoologists, but reappear in Australia and New Zealand. Some of the Australian species, such as the “Murray River lobster” (Astacopsis spinifer), are of large size and are used for food. In South America crayfishes are found in southern Brazil, Argentina and Chile. (W. T. Ca.)
CRAYON (Fr. craie, chalk, from Lat. creta), a coloured material
for drawing, employed generally in the form of pencils, but
sometimes also as a powder, and consisting of native earthy and
stony friable substances, or of artificially prepared mixtures of a
base of pipe or china clay with Prussian blue, orpiment, vermilion,
umber and other pigments. Calcined gypsum, talc and compounds
of magnesium, bismuth and lead are occasionally used as
bases. The required shades of tints are obtained by adding
varying amounts of colouring matter to equal quantities of the
base. Crayons are used by the artist to make groupings of
colours and to secure landscape and other effects with ease and
rapidity. The outline as well as the rest of the picture is drawn in
crayon. The colours are softened off and blended by the finger,
with the assistance of a stump of leather or paper; and shading is
produced by cross-hatching and stippling. The art of painting in
crayon or pastel is supposed to have originated in Germany in the
17th century. By Johann Alexander Thiele (1685–1752) it was
carried to great perfection, and in France it was early practised
with much success. Amongst the earlier pastellists may be
mentioned Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), W. Hoare (1707–1792),
F. Cotes (1726–1770), and J. Russell (1744–1806); and in recent
years the art has been successfully revived. (See Pastel.)
CREASY, SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD (1812–1878), English historian, was born at Bexley in Kent, and educated at Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. He became a fellow of King’s
College in 1834, and having been called to the bar at Lincoln’s
Inn three years later, was made assistant judge at the Westminster
sessions court. In 1840 he was appointed professor of
modern and ancient history in the university of London, and in
1860 became chief justice of Ceylon and a knight. Broken down
in health he returned to England in 1870, and after a further but
short stay in Ceylon died in London on the 27th of January 1878.
Creasy’s most popular work is his Fifteen decisive Battles of the
World, which, first published in 1851, has passed through many
editions. He also wrote The History of the Ottoman Turks
(London, 1854–1856); History of England (London, 1869–1870);
Rise and Progress of the English Constitution (London, 1853, and
other editions); Historical and Critical Account of the several
Invasions of England (London, 1852); a novel entitled Old Love
and the New (London, 1870); and various other works.
CREATIANISM AND TRADUCIANISM. Traducianism is the doctrine about the origin of the soul which was taught by Tertullian in his De anima—that souls are generated from souls in the same way and at the same time as bodies from bodies: creatianism is the doctrine that God creates a soul for each body that is generated. The Pelagians taunted the upholders of original sin with holding Tertullian’s opinion, and called them Traduciani (from tradux: vid. Du Cange s. vv.), a name which was perhaps suggested by a metaphor in De an. 19, where the soul is described “velut surculus quidam ex matrice Adam in propaginem deducta.” Hence we have formed “traducianist,” “traducianism,” and by analogy “creatianist,” “creatianism.” Augustine denied that traducianism was necessarily connected with the doctrine of original sin, and to the end of his life was unable to decide for or against it. His letter to Jerome (Epist. Clas. iii. 166) is a most valuable statement of his difficulties. Jerome condemned it, and said that creatianism was the opinion of the Church, though he admitted that most of the Western Christians held traducianism. The question has never been authoritatively determined, but creatianism, which had always prevailed in the East, became the general opinion of the medieval theologians, and Peter Lombard’s creando infundit animas Deus et infundendo creat was an accepted formula. Luther, like Augustine, was undecided, but Lutherans have as a rule been traducianists. Calvin favoured creatianism.
Peter Lombard’s phrase perhaps shows that even in his time it was felt that some union of the two opinions was needed, and Augustine’s toleration pointed in the same direction, for the traducianism he thought possible was one in which God operatur institutas administrando non novas instituendo naturas (Ep. 166. 5. 11). Modern psychologists teach that while “personality” can be discerned in its “becoming,” nothing is known of its origin. Lotze, however, who may be taken as representing the believers in the immanence of the divine Being, puts forth—but as a “dim conjecture”—something very like creatianism (Microcosmus, bk. iii. chap. v. ad fin.). It is still, as in the days of Augustine, a question whether a more exact division of man into body, soul and spirit may help to throw light on this subject.
See indices to Augustine, vol. xi., and Jerome, vol. xi. in Migne’s Patrologia, s.v. “Anima”; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, ii. § 7; G. P. Fisher, History of Chr. Doct. pp. 187 ff.; A. Harnack, History of Dogma (passim; see Index); Liddon, Elements of Religion, Lect. iii.; Mason, Faith of the Gospel, iv. §§ 3, 4, 9, 10. (A. N.*)
CRÉBILLON, PROSPER JOLYOT DE (1674–1762), French tragic poet, was born on the 13th of January 1674 at Dijon, where his father, Melchior Jolyot, was notary-royal. Having been educated at the Jesuits’ school of the town, and at the Collège Mazarin, he became an advocate, and was placed in the office of a lawyer named Prieur at Paris. With the encouragement of his master, son of an old friend of Scarron’s, he produced
a Mort des enfants de Brutus, which, however, he failed to bring upon the stage. But in 1705 he succeeded with Idoménée; in 1707 his Atrée et Thyeste was repeatedly acted at court; Électre appeared in 1709; and in 1711 he produced his finest play, the Rhadamiste et Zénobie, which is his masterpiece and held the stage for a long period, although the plot is so complicated as to be almost incomprehensible. But his Xerxes (1714) was only once played, and his Sémiramis (1717) was an absolute failure. In 1707 Crébillon had married a girl without fortune, who had since died, leaving him two young children. His father also had died, insolvent. His three years’ attendance at court had been fruitless. Envy had circulated innumerable slanders against him. Oppressed with melancholy, he removed to a garret, where he surrounded himself with a number of dogs, cats and ravens, which he had befriended; he became utterly careless of cleanliness or food, and solaced himself with constant smoking. But in 1731, in spite of his long seclusion, he was elected member of the French Academy; in 1735 he was appointed royal censor; and in 1745 Mme de Pompadour presented him with a pension of 1000 francs and a post in the royal library. He returned to the stage in 1726 with a successful play, Pyrrhus; in 1748 his Catilina was played with great success before the court; and in 1754, when he was eighty years old, appeared his last tragedy, Le Triumvirat. Crébillon died on the 17th of June 1754. The enemies of Voltaire maintained that Crébillon was his superior as a tragic poet. The spirit of rivalry thus provoked induced Voltaire to take the subjects of no less than five of Crébillon’s tragedies—Sémiramis, Électre, Catilina, Le Triumvirat, Atrée—as subjects for tragedies
