Part 313 (2/2)
”L'Avare,” ”Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,” ”Les Fourberies de Scapin,” ”Le Malade malgre Lui,” ”Les Femmes Savantes,” and ”Le Malade Imaginaire”; though seriously ill, he took part in the performance of this last, but the effort was too much for him, and he died that night; from the grudge which the priests bore him for his satires on them he was buried without a religious service (1622-1673).
MOLINA, LUIS, a Spanish Jesuit and theologian, author of a theory called Molinism, which resolves the doctrine of predestination into a mere foreknowledge of those who would accept and those who would reject the grace of G.o.d in salvation.
MOLINOS, MIGUEL DE, a Spanish theologian, born at Saragossa; published a book called the ”Spiritual Guide,” which, as containing the germ of Quietism, was condemned by the Inquisition, and its author sentenced to imprisonment for life (1627-1696).
MOLLAH, a judge of the highest rank among the Turks on matters of law, both civil and sacred.
MOLLWITZ, a village in Silesia, 20 m. SE. of Breslau, where Frederick the Great defeated the Austrians 1741.
MOLOCH or MOLECH, the chief G.o.d of the Ammonites, the wors.h.i.+p of whom, which prevailed among all the Canaanites, was accompanied with cruelties, human sacrifices among others, revolting to the humane spirit of the Jewish religion; originally it appears to have been the wors.h.i.+p of fire, through which the innocent as well as the guilty have often to pa.s.s for the achievement of the n.o.blest enterprises, which degenerated at length into selfish sacrifices of others for interests of one's own, into the subst.i.tution of the innocent for the guilty by way of atonement to the Deity!
MOLTKE, COUNT VON, surnamed the Silent, great German field marshal, born in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, of an old family; was pre-eminent as a military strategist, planned and conducted the Prussian campaign against Austria in 1866, and the German campaign against France in 1870-72; was in the service of Denmark before he entered the Prussian (1800-1891).
MOLUCCAS or SPICE ISLANDS (400), an archipelago of mountainous islands, mostly volcanic, between Celebes and New Guinea, is in two main groups; in the N. the largest island is Jilolo, but the most important Tidor and Ternate, which export spices, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, and bees-wax; in the S. Buru and Ceram are largest, most important, Amboyna, from which come cloves; the people are civilised Malays; the islands are equatorial, but tempered by sea-breezes, and healthy; discovered by the Portuguese in 1521, they have been in Dutch possession since 1607, except when held by Britain 1810-1814.
MOMBASA (Africans and Arabs 20), capital of British East Africa, on a rocky islet, close insh.o.r.e, 50 m. N. of Pemba; was ceded with a tract of country six times the size of the British Isles, and rich in gold, copper, plumbago, and india-rubber, to the British East African Company by the Sultan of Zanzibar in 1888, since when it has been rebuilt, and the harbour, one of the best and healthiest on the coast, made a naval coaling-station and head-quarters.
MOMMSEN, THEODOR, historian, born in Schleswig, a man of immense historical knowledge; his greatest work the ”History of Rome”; was professor of Ancient History at Berlin; his _forte_ was his learning more than his critical capacity; _b_. 1817.
MOMUS, the G.o.d of raillery, the son of Night, a kind of ancient MEPHISTOPHELES (q. v.).
MONACHISM, or MONASTICISM, is an inst.i.tution in which individuals devote themselves, apart from others, to the cultivation of spiritual contemplation and religious duties, and which has const.i.tuted a marked feature in Pre-Christian Jewish asceticism, and in Buddhism as well as in Christianity; in the Church it developed from the practice of living in solitude in the 2nd century, and received its distinctive note when the vow of obedience to a superior was added to the hermit's personal vows of poverty and chast.i.ty; the movement of St. Benedict in the 6th century stamped its permanent form on Western Monasticism, and that of St. Francis in the 12th gave it a more comprehensive range, entrusting the care of the poor, the sick, the ignorant, &c., to the hitherto self-centred monks and nuns; during the Middle Ages the monasteries were centres of learning, and their work in copying and preserving both sacred and secular literature has been invaluable; English Monachism was swept away at the Reformation; in France at the Revolution; and later in Spain, Portugal, and Italy it has been suppressed; brotherhoods and sisterhoods have sprung up in the Protestant churches of Germany and England, but in all of them the vows taken are revocable.
MONACO (13), a small princ.i.p.ality 9 m. E. of Nice, on the Mediterranean sh.o.r.e, surrounded by French territory and under French protection; has a mild salubrious climate, and is a favourite winter resort. The capital, MONACO, is built on a picturesque promontory, and 1 m. NE. stands Monte Carlo.
MONAD, the name given by Leibnitz to one of the active simple elementary substances, the plurality of which in their combinations or combined activities const.i.tutes in his regard the universe both spiritual and physical; it denotes in biology an elementary organism.
MONAGHAN (82), an inland Ulster county, Ireland, surrounded by Louth, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Meath; is undulating, with many small lakes and streams; grows flax and manufactures linen, and has limestone and slate quarries. The chief towns are CLONES (2), and the county-town MONAGHAN (3), which has a produce market.
MONBODDO, JAMES BURNETT, LORD, a Scottish judge, born in Kincardines.h.i.+re, an eccentric writer, author of a ”Dissertation on the Origin of Language” and of ”Ancient Metaphysics”; had original fancies on the origin, particularly of the human race from the monkey, conceived not so foolish to-day as they were then (1714-1799).
<script>