HELMONT, Jean Baptiste van (1577–1644), was born at Brussels in 1577. He was educated at Louvain, and began the study of natural science under the Jesuits in that city. Their hard and dry philosophy, however, had few attractions for a nature so ardent and imaginative as his. Turning for relief to other systems, he found no rest except in the mysticism of A Kempis and Tauler. From them he learned that wisdom is the gift of the Supreme Being, that it must be obtained by prayer, .and that we must renounce our own will if we wish to participate in the influence of the divine grace. From this time he began a life of exem plary meekness and humility, made over his property to his sister, and retired from the high society in which he had hitherto walked. He davoted himself to the study of medicine, read carefully all that had been written on the science, and felt dissatisfied with its method and results. He then turned to Paracelsus and the alchemists, and con ferred a real boon on humanity by rescuing chemical science from the erratic absurdities of the post-Paracelsian alche mists, and applying to it more philosophical principles. He graduated as M.D. in 1599, and, after travelling through France and Italy, Switzerland and England, married a rich lady of Brabant, by whom he had several children. He died in Holland in 1644, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. Science is under real obligations to Van Helmont, though the greater part of his speculations present a curious mixture of mystical philosophy and acute chemical research. To him is due the invention, or at least the first application, of the term "gas" in the sense in which it is now used. He also discovered that gas was disengaged in abundance by the application of heat to various bodies, and during the solution of various carbonates and metals in acids.
Van Helinont s works were published at Amsterdam in 1648 by his son Mercurius ; a more accurate and complete edition is that of Elzevir, 1652. The fullest account of his speculations is given in Rixncr and Sicber, Beitrdgc zur Geschichte der Physiologic (1819-26), Hft. vii. See also Spiess, Helmont s System der Afedicin, 1840; llommelaere, Etudes sur J. B. v. Helmont, 1868. Van Helmont s mystical theosophy and alchemy appeared in even greater confusion in the works of his youngest son, Franz Mercurius, who was born in 1618 and died, after a somewhat adventurous and troubled life, at Berlin in 1699. His chief works are Cabbalah Denudata, 1677 ; Faradoxal Discourses, 1685; and Opuscula Philosophica, 1690.
HELMSTÄDT, or Helmstedt, a town of Germany in the duchy of Brunswick, is situated on the railway from Magdeburg to Brunswick, 23 miles E. of Brunswick. It is the seat of a circle directorate, and of a circle and a dis trict court. The principal buildings are the Juleum in the Byzantine style, founded by Duke Julius of Brunswick in 1575 for the university which was abolished in 1809, and now containing an old library of 40,000 volumes ; the church of St Stephen s, dating from the 12th century; the Lutheran female institution, with a beautiful church in the Roman style ; and the Catholic church and ruined monas tery of St Ludger. The educational institutions include a gymnasium, two city schools, an agricultural school, and two female schools of the higher grade. The principal manufactures are yarn, soap, tobacco, sugar, vitriol, earthen ware, and tobacco pipes. Not far from the town there is an iron mineral spring especially efficacious in gouty affec tions. Near it a monument has been erected to those who fell in the Franco-German war of 1870-71; and in the town there is also a monument to those who fell at Waterloo. The population in 1875 was 7783.
Helmstiidt originated in connexion with the Ludger monastery, founded by Ludger, the first bishop of Miinster, about the end of the 8th century. It obtained town rights in 1099, and although destroyed by the archbishop of Magdeburg in 1199 it was soon rebuilt. In 1457 it joined the Hansa, and in 1490 it came into the possession of Brunswick. See Kunhard, Bcitriige zur Geschichte der Umvcrsitdt Helmstddts, 1797; Ludewig, Geschichte und Bc- schreibung der Stadt Hclmstddt, 1821 ; Geschichte der chcmaligcn Hochschule Julia Carolina zu Hclmstudt, 1876.
HELOISE. See Abelard.
HELOTS, in Grecian antiquity, were the serfs or bonds men of the Spartans. The most probable of the various explanations of their origin seems to be that they were the early aborigines of Laconia, who at the time of the Dorian invasion were reduced to slavery by the conquerors. The name is perhaps best derived from the root eA, found in eXeiv, rjXuv, and other words. The Helots were the lowest class of the inhabitants of Sparta ; but those of them who were emancipated formed the class of Neodamodes, next in political rights to the Spartan citizens themselves. The Mothones or Mothakes were domestic slaves who had been brought up along with the young Spartans, and afterwards liberated. The Helots were the property of the state, which alone had the right of emancipating them, although it made over their services to individuals. They were attached to the soil adscripti glebce and could not be sold away from it. They tilled the land which was allocated to them in the proportion of one lot to several families ; and for each lot they paid to their masters an annual rent of 82 medimni of barley, and a quantity of wine and oil. They were also employed on public works, and performed all domestic service. In time of war the Helots generally served as light-armed troops; but when on special emergencies they fought as hoplites, they were usually rewarded with theit freedom. The first occurrence of this kind was under Brasidas in 424 b.c.. In the fleet the great bulk of the sailors were Helots. Although every care was taken to distinguish the serf from his lord, even in the matter of dress, the accounts of the cruel treatment of the Helots by the Spartans only hold true of the later history of Lace- daemon. The condition of the Helot was better than that of a slave in other Greek states, for, being a serf of the soil, he was not wholly at the mercy of his master, and there was a legal way whereby, after many stages, he could eventually attain freedom and citizenship. After the Messenian war, however, when the multitude of the Helots made them formidable to the diminished numbers of the full citizens, there is no doubt that very cruel measures were adopted against them. The evidence is strong that the Crypteia, instituted ostensibly to inure the Spartan youth to hardship, was really intended to reduce the number of the Helots by assassination; and we know from Thucydides (iv. 80) that on one occasion 2000 Helots were treacherously massacred by the Spartan citizens. At the close of the second Messenian war (668 b.c.), the conquered Messenians were classed with and treated as the Helots, till Epaminondas restored them to their native country after the battle of Leuctra (371 b.c.).
For further details see Plutarch s Life of Lycurgus, Thirlwall s History of Greece, Crete s History of Greece, Miiller s History of thf Dorians, and Hermann s Political Antiquities of Greece.
