HEREROLAND, a region of s.w. Africa stretching n. from the Kuisip to the Cunene ; 100,000 sq.m.: pop. 184,000, of whom but 300 are whites. Hereroland has a coast of 460 m., but the only point where it offers shelter and access to ships is Walfish bay, a safe but comparatively shallow harbor formed by Pelican point immediately to the s. of the mouth of the Kuisip. The country consists of three distinct physical regions: first, a long and narrow coast district backed by a very regular line of hills, of which the highest point appears to be Mt. Messum or Dourissa; secondly, a broad mountainous tract; and thirdly, a steppe region which stretches away into the Kalahari desert. The rivers are mere wadies which only at intervals succeed in bringing water as frx as the sea. Except in the half-dry river-beds, the coast district is almost destitute of vegeta tion, the only edible fruit being the nara, which grows on the sand-downs, and is, according to Anderson, eaten by oxen, mice, men, ostriches, and lions. In the moun tainous tract there are places of considerable fertility; large trees, as sycamores, etc., grow along the river-beds, and euphorbins, tamarisks, and a variety of strong-spined bushes prevail. In a few favored spots wheat can be cultivated, and from a single grain as many as 150 stalks may be produced. The coast range and mammy of the mountains arc composed of granite and gneiss, broken by intrusive quartz and porphyry; further e. limestone formations, both carboniferous and oolitic, are predominant; and these again give place to sandstone strata, worn by the weather into table-shaped eminences. The granite and gneiss arc being disintegrated with great rapidity. Both iron and copper are said to occur in considerable abundance, though the mineral exploitation of the country has had no satisfactory result. About 23 mineral springs, both hot and cold, are known to exist among the Mountains.
HERESY rraire.,is) primitively means a choice or election, and in its application to religious belief is used to designate as well the act of choosing for one's self, and maintaining opinions contrary to the authorized teaching of the religious community to which one's obedience is due, as the heterodox opinions thus adopted and the party which may have adopted them. In the Acts of the Apostles (see Acts v. 17; xv. 5; xxit;.
5; xxviii. i 22), the word seems to be used of a sect or party, abstracting from the consideration of its character, whether good or bad; but iu the epistles and m the early Christian writers it is almost invariably used in a bad sense, which is the sense uniformly i accepted in all subsequent theological literature. The notion of heresy, as understooil by theological writers, involves two ideas: first, the deliberate and voluntary rejection of some doctrine proposed by the supreme authority established in any church as necessary to be believed; and secondly, a contumacious persistence iu such rejection, with the knowledge that the belief of the doctrine is required of all the members of that particular religious community. Roman Catholic writers, regarding the authority of their own church as supreme and final, apply the name of heresy to any formal denial of a doctrine proposed by the Roman Catholic church as necessary to be bclieveo. Protestant writers seldom use the word, except in relation to what each sect regards as the essentials of Christian faith. Beyond this point, indeed, the idea of heresy has no proper place in the dogmatical system of the Protestant sects, especially in reference to other communions than their own. In the Roman Catholic church, the supreme authority may be either the decree of a general council approved by the pope, or a dogmatical decree of the pope himself, expressly or tacitly received by the bishops of the various churches; and in general the crime of heresy is incurred in any church by the rejection of a doctrine which in that church is held to constitute an essential and integral portion of the Christian faith. Apostasy is the complete abandonment of the whole Christian doctrine, and the renunciation of the Christian profession. If the intellectual error be accompanied by full deliberation, and by full knowledge of the motives of belief, the heresy is called formal; should it arise from ignorance or imper fect knowledge, it is styled material; and the heresy is held to be imputable, or the contrary, according as this ignorance is vincible or invincible.