The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 313

MODRED, SIR, a treacherous knight, the rebellious nephew of King Arthur, whose wife he seduced; was slain in battle, and buried in Avalon.

MOFFAT, ROBERT, African missionary, born at Ormiston, Haddingtons.h.i.+re; the scene of his nearly lifelong labours was among the Bechuanas in South Africa, whom he raised from a savage to a civilised state; he was sent out in 1816 by the London Missionary Society. He married (1819) Mary Smith, a daughter of his former employer at Dunkinfield.

MOHAMMED, great prophet of the Arabs, and founder of Islamism, born at Mecca, the son of Abdallah, of the tribe of the Koreish; left an orphan, brought up by his uncle Abu Taleb; became steward to a rich WIDOW KADIJAH (q. v.) whom he married; was given to serious meditation, would retire into solitude and pray, and one day, by the favour of Heaven, got answer which left him "in doubt and darkness no longer, but saw it all," saw into the vanity of all that was not G.o.d, that He alone was great, inconceivably great; that it was with Him alone we had to do, we must all submit to Him; this revelation made to him he imparted to Kadijah, and after a time she a.s.sented, and his heart leaped for joy; he spoke or his doctrine to this man and that, but made slow progress in persuading others to believe it; made only 13 converts in 3 years; his preaching gave offence to the chief people, and his relatives tried hard to persuade him to hold his peace, but he would not; after 13 years a conspiracy was formed to take his life, and he fled, through peril after peril, to Medina, in his fifty-third year, and in 622 of our era; his enemies had taken up the sword against him, and he now replied with the same weapon, and in 10 years he prevailed; it was a war against idolatry in all its forms, and idolatry was driven to the wall, the motto on his banner "G.o.d is Great," a motto with a depth of meaning greater than the Mohammedan world, and perhaps the Christian, has yet realised; it is for one thing a protest on the part of Mohammed, in which the Hebrew prophets forestalled him, against all attempts to understand the Deity and fathom "His ways, which are ever in the deep, and whose footsteps are not known" (571-631).

MOHAMMEDANISM, the religion of MOHAMMED, or ISLAM, (q. v.), is essentially much the same as the religion of the Jews with some elements borrowed from the Christian religion, and is defined by Carlyle as a b.a.s.t.a.r.d Christianity; originating in Arabia it spread rapidly over the W. of Asia, the N. of Africa, and threatened at one time to overrun Europe itself; it is the religion to-day of two hundred millions of the human race, and the profession of it extends over a wide area in western and southern Asia as also in northern Africa, though its limits in Europe do not extend beyond the bounds of Turkey.

MOHAWK, a tribe of American Indians, gave name to a band or club of ruffians who infested the streets of London in 1711-12.

MOHIC'ANS, an American Indian tribe, took sides with the English settlers against the French and with the former against England.

MOHL, JULIUS, Orientalist, born in Stuttgart; edited the "Shah Nameh" of Firdus.h.i.+, a monumental work (1800-1876).

MoHLER, JOHANN ADAM, a Roman Catholic theologian, born at Wurtemberg, author of "Symbolik," a work which discusses the differences between the doctrines of Catholics and Protestants, as evidenced in their respective symbolical books, a work which created no small stir in the theological world (1796-1838).

MOIR, DAVID MACBETH, the "Delta" of _Blackwood_, born in Musselburgh, where he practised as a physician; was author of "Mansie Waugh" (1798-1851).

MOIRA, FRANCIS RAWDON-HASTINGS, EARL OF, son of the Earl of Moira; entered the army 1771, and served against the Americans in the War of Independence; created Baron Rawdon in 1783; succeeded to his father's t.i.tle 1793; entered political life under Fox, and was Governor-General of India 1813-23, in which period fell the Goorkha War, for the successful negotiations subsequent on which he was created Marquis of Hastings; his administration encouraged native education and freedom of the press; from 1824 he was Governor of Malta till his death at Naples (1754-1826).

MOKANNA, AL, "the veiled one," a name given to Hakim ben Allah, who wore a veil to hide the loss of an eye; he professed to be an incarnation of the Deity and to work miracles; found followers; founded a sect at Khora.s.san; seized some fortresses, but was overthrown at Kash A.D. 780, whereupon he took poison.

MOLDAU, largest river in Bohemia, rises on the N. of the Bohmerwald Mountains, flows SE. along their base, then turns northward through Bohemia, pa.s.ses Budweis, becomes navigable, is 100 yards broad at Prague, and joins the Elbe at Melnik after flowing 278 m.

MOLDAVIA, once independent, now the northern division of Roumania, lies between the Carpathians and the Pruth River, and is well watered by the Sereth; its chief town is Ja.s.sy, in the NE.

MOLe, LOUIS MATTHIEU, COMTE, French statesman, born in Paris; published in 1805 an essay on politics which, defending Napoleon, won for its author a series of minor offices, and in 1813 a peerage and a seat in the Cabinet; retaining power under Louis XVIII. and Louis Philippe, he was Minister of Marine 1817, Foreign Minister 1830, and Premier 1837, but retired from politics two years later (1781-1855).

MOLECULE, the smallest particle of which an element or a compound body is composed, and that retains all the properties in a free state.

MOLESWORTH, SIR WILLIAM, British statesman, born in London; was an advanced Liberal; editor and proprietor of the _Westminster Review_; edited the works of Hobbes (1810-1855).

MOLIeRE, JEAN BAPTISTE POQUELIN, great French comic dramatist, born in Paris; studied law and pa.s.sed for the bar, but evinced from the first a proclivity for the theatre, and soon a.s.sociated with actors, and found his vocation as a writer of plays, which procured him the friends.h.i.+p of Lafontaine, Boileau, and other distinguished men, though he incurred the animosity of many cla.s.ses of society by the ridicule which he heaped on their weaknesses and their pretensions, the more that in his satires his characters are rather abstract types of men than concrete individualities; his princ.i.p.al pieces are, "Les Precieuses Ridicules,"

"L'ecole des Femmes," "Le Tartuffe," "Le Misanthrope," "George Dandin,"

"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).