ECCLESIOLOGY, the name given in England to the study of church architecture and all that concerns the ground-plan and the internal arrangements of the parts of the edifice.

ECGBERHT, archbishop of York; was a pupil of Bede, and the heir to his learning; founded a far-famed school at York, which developed into a university; flourished in 766.

ECHIDNA, a fabulous monster that figures in the Greek mythology, half-woman, half-serpent, the mother of Cerberus, the Lernean Hydra, the Chimaera, the Sphinx, the Gorgons, the Nemean Lion, the vulture that gnawed the liver of Prometheus, &c.

ECHO, a wood-nymph in love with Narcissus, who did not return her love, in consequence of which she pined away till all that remained of her was only her voice.

ECK, JOHN, properly MAIER, a German theologian, of Swabian birth, professor at Ingolstadt; a violent, blustering antagonist of Luther and Luther’s doctrines; in his zeal went to Rome, and procured a papal bull against both; undertook at the Augsburg Diet to controvert Luther’s doctrine from the Fathers, but not from the Scriptures; was present at the conferences of Worms and Regensburg (1486-1543).

ECKERMANN, JOHANN PETER, a German writer, born at Winsen, in Hanover; friend of Goethe, and editor of his works; the author of “Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life, 1823-32,” a record of wise reflections and of Goethe’s opinions on all subjects, of the utmost interest to all students of the German sage (1792-1854).

ECKHART, MEISTER, a German philosopher and divine, profoundly speculative and mystical; entered the Dominican Order, and rapidly attained to a high position in the Church; arraigned for heresy in 1325, and was acquitted, but two years after his death his writings were condemned as heretical by a papal bull; died in 1327.

ECKMUeHL, a village in Bavaria where Napoleon defeated the Austrians in 1809, and which gave the title of Duke to DAVOUT (q. v.), one of Napoleon’s generals.

ECLECTICS, so-called philosophers who attach themselves to no system, but select what, in their judgment, is true out of others.  In antiquity the Eclectic philosophy is that which sought to unite into a coherent whole the doctrines of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, such as that of Plotinus and Proclus was.  There is an eclecticism in art as well as philosophy, and the term is applied to an Italian school which aimed at uniting the excellencies of individual great masters.

ECLIPTIC, the name given to the circular path in the heavens round which the sun appears to move in the course of the year, an illusion caused by the earth’s annual circuit round the sun, with its axis inclined at an angle to the equator of 231/2 degrees; is the central line of the ZODIAC (q. v.), so called because it was observed that eclipses occurred only when the earth was on or close upon this path.

ECONOMY, “the right arrangement of things,” and distinct from Frugality, which is “the careful and fitting use of things.”