The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 314

MONCREIFF, SIR HENRY WELLWOOD, Scottish clergyman, born at Blackford; from 1775 to 1827 minister of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, and leader of the evangelical party of the Scottish Church.

MONCREIFF, JAMES W., LORD, second son of preceding, eminent Scottish judge; was the author of the Veto Act which led to the Disruption of 1843 (1776-1851).

MONCREIFF, SIR HENRY W., son of preceding, became a Free Church minister, and was Princ.i.p.al Clerk of the General a.s.sembly of the Free Church; an authority on Church law (1809-1885).

MONCREIFF, JAMES, brother of preceding, bred for the Scottish bar; was Lord Advocate of Scotland under four administrations; was appointed Lord Justice-Clerk in 1860; was raised to the peerage in 1874 (1811-1895).

MOND, LUDWIG, distinguished technical chemist and inventor, born at Ca.s.sel, in Germany; was a pupil of Kolbe and Bunsen, and has made important additions to chemical-industrial processes and products; _b_.

1839.

MONEY, defined by Ruskin to be "a doc.u.mentary claim to wealth, and correspondent in its nature to the t.i.tle-deed of an estate."

MONGE, GASPARD, celebrated French mathematician, born at Beaune; one of the founders of the Polytechnic School in Paris (1746-1818).

MONGOLS, a great Asiatic people having their original home on the plains E. of Lake Baikal, Siberia, who first rose into prominence under their ruler Genghis Khan in the 12th century; he, uniting the three branches of Mongols, commenced a career of conquest which made him master of all Central Asia; his sons divided his empire, and pursued his conquests; a Mongol emperor seized the throne of China in 1234, and from this branch sprang the great Kublai Khan, whose house ruled an immense territory 1294-1368. Another section pushed westwards as far as Moravia and Hungary, taking Pesth in 1241, and founded the immense empire over which Tamerlane held sway. A third but later movement, springing from the ruins of these earlier empires, was that of Baber, who conquered India, and founded the Great Mogul line, 1519. Now Mongols are const.i.tuent elements in the populations of China, Russian, and Turkish Asia.

MONICA, ST., the mother of St. Augustine, who became to him the symbol of "the highest he knew on earth, bowing before a Higher in heaven."

MONISM, the name given to the principle of any system of philosophy which resolves the manifold of the universe into the evolution of some unity in opposition to DUALISM (q. v.).

MONK, GEORGE, DUKE OF ALBEMARLE, general and admiral, was a Devons.h.i.+re man, who spent his youth in the Dutch wars, and returned to England just in time to side with Charles I. against the Parliament; after leading a regiment in Ireland, he was captured at Nantwich in 1644, and spent two years in the Tower; obtaining his release by changing sides, he won commendation from Cromwell at Dunbar in 1650, and was entrusted with the command of operations in Scotland afterwards; in 1653 he beat Van Tromp at sea, twice; from 1654 till 1660 he was Governor of Scotland; on the death of Cromwell he saw the confusion, marched with 6000 troops to London, and after cautious negotiations, brought Charles II. to England and set him on the throne, receiving a peerage and many honours for reward; he behaved well as Governor of London in the plague year, and was again admiral in the Dutch wars of 1666 (1608-1670).

MONMOUTH, GEOFFREY, a Welsh priest of the 12th century, compiler of what he called a "History of the Early Kings of Britain," from that of Brut, through the story of King Arthur and others, such as King Lear, down to that of Cadwallo, a Welsh king, who died in 689.

MONMOUTH, JAMES, DUKE OF, illegitimate son of Charles II., born at Rotterdam; was admitted to Court after the Restoration, and received his t.i.tle in 1663; his manners and his Protestantism brought him popular favour in spite of his morals, and by-and-by plots were formed to secure the succession for him; forced to fly to Holland in 1683, he waited till his father's death, then planned a rebellion with Argyll; Argyll failed in Scotland; Monmouth, landing in Dorsets.h.i.+re 1685, was soon overthrown at Sedgemoor, taken prisoner, and executed (1649-1685).

MONMOUTHs.h.i.+RE (252), a west of England county lying N. of the Severn estuary, between Glamorgan and Gloucesters.h.i.+re; is low and flat in the S., but otherwise hilly, and is traversed by the Usk River; more than half the surface is under permanent pasture; the wealth of Monmouths.h.i.+re consists of coal and iron-stone; Monmouth (5), the county town, is the centre of beautiful scenery, and has some fine buildings.

MONOPHYSITES, a body of heretics who arose in the 5th century and maintained that the divine and human natures in Christ were united in one divine-human nature, so that He was neither wholly divine nor wholly human, but in part both.

MONOTHEISM, belief in the existence of one G.o.d, or the divine unity, or that the Divine Being, whether twofold, as in dualism, threefold, as in Trinitarianism, is in essence and in manifestation one.

MONOTHELISM, a heresy which arose in the 7th century, in which it was maintained that, though in Christ there were two natures, there was but One Will, viz., the Divine.

MONRO, ALEXANDER, founder of Edinburgh Medical School, born of Scotch parentage in London; studied there, and at Paris and Leyden, and was appointed lecturer on Anatomy by the Surgeons' Company at Edinburgh in 1719; two years later he became professor, and in 1725 was admitted to the University; he was a princ.i.p.al promoter and early clinical lecturer in the Royal Infirmary, and continued his clinical work after resigning his chair to his son Alexander; he wrote several medical works, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society; he was called _primus_, to distinguish him from his son and grandson, who were called respectively _secundus_ and _tertius_, and were professors of Anatomy in Edinburgh like himself (1697-1767).

MONROE, JAMES, American President, born in Virginia, of Scottish descent; left college to join Was.h.i.+ngton's army; was wounded in the war, and studying law, entered Congress in 1783; he a.s.sisted in framing the Const.i.tution, and sat in the Senate 1790-1794; his diplomatic career in France was marked by the purchase of Louisiana from that country in 1803; he was governor of Virginia thrice over, and Secretary of State till 1817; then followed two terms of the Presidency, during which Florida was acquired from Spain 1819, the delimitation of the slave limit by the Missouri compromise, the recognition of the South American Republics, and the statement of the "MONROE DOCTRINE" (q. v.); in his later years his generosity led him into debt, and he spent his closing days with relations in New York (1758-1831).

MONROE DOCTRINE, the doctrine of James Monroe, twice over President of the United States, that the United States should hold aloof from all interference with the affairs of the Old World, and should not suffer the Powers of the Old World to interfere with theirs.

MONSON, SIR EDWARD, English diplomatist; entered the diplomatic service in 1856, and after service at various courts, became amba.s.sador at Paris in 1896; _b_. 1834.

MONSOON originally denoted a periodical wind in the Indian Ocean, which blows from SW. from April to October, and from NE. from October to April; now denotes any wind connected with a continent regularly recurring with the seasons.

MONSTRANCE, a transparent pyx on which the Host is exhibited on the altar to the people, or conveyed in public procession.

MONT BLANC, in the Graian Alps, on the French-Italian frontier, the highest mountain in Europe, 15,782 ft., the upper half under perpetual snow; has 56 magnificent glaciers, including the Mer-de-Glace; it was first climbed by Balmat and Paccard in 1786, and since then has been many times ascended, now by 50 parties every year.

MONT CENIS, an Alpine peak (12,000 ft.) on the Savoy-Piedmont frontier and the adjacent pa.s.s, over which a road was constructed 1802-1810, and near which a railway tunnel was pierced (1857-70) at a cost of 3,000,000.

MONT DE PIeTe, an inst.i.tution to lend money to the poor at little or no interest, first established in the 15th century, a time when lending to the poor was as much a work of mercy as giving to them; a public p.a.w.nbroking establishment, so called in France.

MONTAGNARDS. See MOUNTAIN, THE.

MONTAGU, LADY MARY WORTLEY, an English lady, born in Nottinghams.h.i.+re, celebrated for her wit and beauty, and for her "Letters on the Manners of the East" (1690-1762).

MONTAIGNE, MICHEL DE, a sceptico-speculative thinker and moralist, born in the Chateau of Montaigne, Perigord; an easy-going mortal, but a keen observer of the ways and manners of other people, which some experience in travel gave him opportunities to do, as well as the study of the old cla.s.sic Latin authors; his fame rests on his "Essays," in which he records his observations of mankind, but in which, from a decided descendental twist he had, he betrays a rather low idea of the morale of the race; the book, however, is a favourite with all observant people of education, and a translation of it by Florio is the one book we know for certain to have been in the library of Shakespeare; bred as he was by his father's arrangement among the common people, he always retained a friendly feeling towards his neighbours, and they cherished towards him feelings of very high regard; he was a quiet, tolerant man, and his writings reveal a character which commands the respect of men who affect a much higher level of thinking than that occupied by himself (1533-1592).

MONTALEMBERT, COMTE DE, a French politician, born in London, son of a French emigrant; was a.s.sociated with Lamennais and Lacordaire in the conduct of the _Avenir_, an Ultramontane Liberal organ, and spent his life in advocating the cause of a free unfettered system of national education; wrote the "Monks of the West," his chief work (1810-1870).

MONTANA (132), a State of the American Union, in the NW., lies along the Canadian border between Idaho and the Dakotas, with Wyoming on the S.; has a mild climate, and a soil which, with irrigation, produces fine crops of grain and vegetables. Cattle-raising is profitable, but the chief industry is mining, in the Rocky Mountains, which occupy a fifth of the State. There gold, silver, copper, and lead abound. The Missouri and the Columbia Rivers rise in Montana, and the Yellowstone traverses the whole State. The State was admitted to the Union in 1889, with Helena (9) as capital.

MONTANISM, a heresy which arose in the 2nd century; derived its name from an enthusiast in Phrygia named Monta.n.u.s, who insisted on the permanency of the spiritual gifts vouchsafed to the primitive Church, and a return to the severe discipline of life and character prevailing in it.

MONTCALM DE SAINT VeRAN, LOUIS JOSEPH, MARQUIS DE, born near Nimes; entered the army early, and at forty-four was field-marshal and commander of the forces in Quebec against the English; the capture of Forts Oswego and William Henry and the defence of Ticonderoga were followed by the loss of Louisburg and Fort Duquesne and the retreat on Quebec, where, surprised by Wolfe in 1759, he was totally defeated, and Canada lost to France; both generals fell (1712-1759).