Part 2

"In Tikomirov's work on Russia seven or eight pages are devoted to the severe condemnation of the use of the expressions 'nihilism' and 'nihilist.' Nevertheless … they are employed universally, and all the world understands what is meant by them in an approximate and relative way. … It was a novelist who first baptized the party who called themselves at that time, 'new men.' It was Ivan Turguenief, who by the mouth of one of the characters in his celebrated novel, 'Fathers and Sons,' gave the young generation the name of nihilists. But it was not of his coinage; Royer-Collard first stamped it; Victor Hugo had already said that the negation of the infinite led directly to nihilism, and Joseph Lemaistre had spoken of the nihilism, more or less sincere, of the contemporary generations; but it was reserved for the author of 'Virgin Soil' to bring to light and make famous this word; which after making a great stir in his own country attracted the attention of the whole world. The reign of Nicholas I. was an epoch of hard oppression. When he ascended the throne, the conspiracy of the Decembrists broke out, and this sudden revelation of the revolutionary spirit steeled the already inflexible soul of the Czar. Nicholas, although fond of letters and an assiduous reader of Homer, was disposed to throttle his enemies, and would not have hesitated to pluck out the brains of Russia; he was very near suppressing all the universities and schools, and inaugurating a voluntary retrocession to Asiatic barbarism. He did mutilate and reduce the instruction, he suppressed the chair of European political laws, and after the events of 1848 in France he seriously considered the idea of closing his frontiers with a cordon of troops to beat back foreign liberalism like the cholera or the plague. … However, it was under his sceptre, under his systematic oppression, that, by confession of the great revolutionary statesman Herzen, Russian thought developed as never before; that the emancipation of the intelligence, which this very statesman calls a tragic event, was accomplished, and a national literature was brought to light and began to flourish. When Alexander II. succeeded to the throne, when the bonds of despotism were loosened and the blockade with which Nicholas vainly tried to isolate his empire was raised, the field was ready for the intellectual and political strife. … Before explaining how nihilism is the outcome of intelligence, we must understand what is meant by intelligence in Russia. It means a class composed of all those, of whatever profession or estate, who have at heart the advancement of intellectual life, and contribute in every way toward it. It may be said, indeed, that such a class is to be found in every country; but there is this difference,—in other countries the class is not a unit; there are factions, or a large number of its members shun political and social discussion in order to enjoy the serene atmosphere of the world of art, while in Russia the intelligence means a common cause, a homogeneous spirit, subversive and revolutionary withal. … Whence came the revolutionary element in Russia? {2362} From the Occident, from France, from the negative, materialist, sensualist philosophy of the Encyclopædia, imported into Russia by Catherine II.; and later from Germany, from Kantism and Hegelianism, imbibed by Russian youth at the German universities, and which they diffused throughout their own country with characteristic Sclav impetuosity. By 'Pure Reason' and transcendental idealism, Herzen and Bakunine, the first apostles of nihilism, were inspired. But the ideas brought from Europe to Russia soon allied themselves with an indigenous or possibly an Oriental element; namely, a sort of quietist fatalism, which leads to the darkest and most despairing pessimism. On the whole, nihilism is rather a philosophical conception of the sum of life than a purely democratic and revolutionary movement. … Nihilism had no political color about it at the beginning. During the decade between 1860 and 1870 the youth of Russia was seized with a sort of fever for negation, a fierce antipathy toward everything that was,—authorities, institutions, customary ideas, and old-fashioned dogmas. In Turguenief's novel, 'Fathers and Sons,' we meet with Bazarof, a froward, ill-mannered, intolerable fellow, who represents this type. After 1871 the echo of the Paris Commune and emissaries of the Internationals crossed the frontier, and the nihilists began to bestir themselves, to meet together clandestinely, and to send out propaganda. Seven years later they organized an era of terror, assassination, and explosions. Thus three phases have followed upon one another,—thought, word, and deed,—along that road which is never so long as it looks, the road that leads from the word to the act, from Utopia to crime. And yet nihilism never became a political party as we understand the term. It has no defined creed or official programme. The fulness of its despair embraces all negatives and all acute revolutionary forms. Anarchists, federalists, cantonalists, covenanters, terrorists, all who are unanimous in a desire to sweep away the present order, are grouped under the ensign of nihil."

_E. P. Bazan, Russia, its People and its Literature, book 2, chapters 1-2._

"Out of Russia, an already extended list of revolutionary spirits in this land has attracted the attention and kept curiosity on the alert. We call them Nihilists,—of which the Russian pronunciation is neegilist, which, however, is now obsolete. Confined to the terrorist group in Europe, the number of these persons is certainly very small. Perhaps, as is thought in Russia, there are 500 in all, who busy themselves, even if reluctantly, with thoughts of resorting to bombs and murderous weapons to inspire terror. But it is not exactly this group that is meant when we speak of that nihilistic force in society which extends everywhere, into all circles, and finds support and strongholds at widely spread points. It is indeed not very different from what elsewhere in Europe is regarded as culture, advanced culture: the profound scepticism in regard to our existing institutions in their present form, what we call royal prerogative, church, marriage, property."

_Georg Brandes, Impressions of Russia, chapter 4._

"The genuine Nihilism was a philosophical and literary movement, which flourished in the first decade after the Emancipation of the Serfs, that is to say, between 1860 and 1870. It is now (1883] absolutely extinct, and only a few traces are left of it, which are rapidly disappearing. … Nihilism was a struggle for the emancipation of intelligence from every kind of dependence, and it advanced side by side with that for the emancipation of the labouring classes from serfdom. The fundamental principle of Nihilism, properly so-called, was absolute individualism. It was the negation, in the name of individual liberty of all the obligations imposed upon the individual by society, by family life, and by religion. Nihilism was a passionate and powerful reaction, not against political despotism, but against the moral despotism that weighs upon the private and inner life of the individual. But it must be confessed that our predecessors, at least in the earlier days, introduced into this highly pacific struggle the same spirit of rebellion and almost the same fanaticism that characterises the present movement."

_Stepniak, Underground Russia, introduction._

ALSO IN: _Stepniak, The Russian Storm-Cloud._

_L. Tikhomirov, Russia, Political and Social, books 6-7 (volume 2)._

_E. Noble, The Russian Revolt._

_A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, part 1, book 3, chapter 4._

See, also, RUSSIA: A. D. 1879-1881; and ANARCHISTS.

NIKA SEDITION, The.

See CIRCUS, FACTIONS OF THE ROMAN.

NIKIAS.

See NICIAS.

NILE, Naval Battle of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (MAY-AUGUST).

NIMEGUEN: Origin.

See BATAVIANS.

NIMEGUEN: A. D. 1591. Siege and capture by Prince Maurice.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1588-1593.

NIMEGUEN, The Peace of (1678-1679).

The war which Louis XIV. began in 1672 by attacking Holland, with the co-operation of his English pensioner, Charles II., and which roused against him a defensive coalition of Spain, Germany and Denmark with the Dutch (see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678), was ended by a series of treaties negotiated at Nimeguen in 1678 and 1679. The first of these treaties, signed August 10, 1678, was between France and Holland. "France and Holland kept what was in their possession, except Maestricht and its dependencies which were restored to Holland. France therefore kept her conquests in Senegal and Guiana. This was all the territory lost by Holland in the terrible war which had almost annihilated her. The United Provinces pledged themselves to neutrality in the war which might continue between France and the other powers, and guaranteed the neutrality of Spain, after the latter should have signed the peace. France included Sweden in the treaty; Holland included in it Spain and the other allies who should make peace within six weeks after the exchange of ratifications. To the treaty of peace was annexed a treaty of commerce, concluded for twenty-five years."

_H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 1, chapter 6._

The peace between France and Spain was signed September 17. France gave back, in the Spanish Netherlands and elsewhere, "Charleroi, Binch, Ath, Oudenarde, and Courtrai, which she had gained by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; the town and duchy of Limburg, all the country beyond the Meuse, Ghent, Rodenhus, and the district of the Waes, Leuze, and St. Ghislain, with Puycerda in Catalonia, these having been taken since that peace. {2363} But she retained Franche Comté, with the towns of Valenciènnes, Bouchain, Condé, Cambrai and the Cambresis, Aire, St. Omer, Ypres, Werwick, Warneton, Poperinge, Bailleul, Cassel, Bavai, and Maubeuge. … On February 2, 1679, peace was declared between Louis, the Emperor, and the Empire. Louis gave back Philippsburg, retaining Freiburg with the desired liberty of passage across the Rhine to Breisach; in all other respects the Treaty of Munster, of October 24, 1648, was reestablished. … The treaty then dealt with the Duke of Lorraine. To his restitution Louis annexed conditions which rendered Lorraine little more than a French province. Not only was Nancy to become French, but, in conformity with the treaty of 1661, Louis was to have possession of four large roads traversing the country, with half a league's breadth of territory throughout their length, and the places contained therein. … To these conditions the Duke refused to subscribe, preferring continual exile until the Peace of Ryswick in 1697, when at length his son regained the ancestral estates." Treaties between the Emperor and Sweden, between Brandenburg and France and Sweden, between Denmark and the same, and between Sweden, Spain and Holland, were successively concluded during the year 1679. "The effect of the Peace of Nimwegen was, … speaking generally, to reaffirm the Peace of Westphalia. But … it did not, like the Peace of Westphalia, close for any length of time the sources of strife."

_O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 22._

ALSO IN: _Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 2 (Works, volume 2)._

NINE WAYS, The.

See AMPHIPOLIS; also, ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.

NINETY-FIVE THESES OF LUTHER, The.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1517.

NINETY-TWO, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.

NINEVEH.

"In or about the year before Christ 606, Nineveh, the great city, was destroyed. For many hundred years had she stood in arrogant splendor, her palaces towering above the Tigris and mirrored in its swift waters; army after army had gone forth from her gates and returned laden with the spoils of conquered countries; her monarchs had ridden to the high place of sacrifice in chariots drawn by captive kings. But her time came at last. The nations assembled and encompassed her around [the Medes and the Babylonians, with their lesser allies]. Popular tradition tells how over two years lasted the siege; how the very river rose and battered her walls; till one day a vast flame rose up to heaven; how the last of a mighty line of kings, too proud to surrender, thus saved himself, his treasures and his, capital from the shame of bondage. Never was city to rise again where Nineveh had been." The very knowledge of the existence of Nineveh was lost so soon that, two centuries later, when Xenophon passed the ruins, with his Ten Thousand retreating Greeks, he reported them to be the ruins of a deserted city of the Medes and called it Larissa. Twenty-four centuries went by, and the winds and the rains, in their slow fashion, covered the bricks and stones of the desolated Assyrian capital with a shapeless mound of earth. Then came the searching modern scholar and explorer, and began to excavate the mound, to see what lay beneath it. First the French Consul, Botta, in 1842; then the Englishman Layard, in 1845; then the later English scholar, George Smith, and others; until buried Nineveh has been in great part brought to light. Not only the imperishable monuments of its splendid art have been exposed, but a veritable library of its literature, written on tablets and cylinders of clay, has been found and read. The discoveries of the past half-century, on the site of Nineveh, under the mound called Koyunjik, and elsewhere in other similarly-buried cities of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, may reasonably be called the most extraordinary additions to human knowledge which our age has acquired.

_Z. A. Ragozin, Story of Chaldea, introduction, chapters 1-4._

ALSO IN: _A. H. Layard, Nineveh and its Remains; and Discoveries among the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon._

_G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries_

See, also, ASSYRIA; and LIBRARIES, ANCIENT.

NINEVEH, Battle of (A.D. 627).

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

NINFEO, Treaty of.

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

NINIQUIQUILAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

NIPAL NEPAUL: English war with the Ghorkas.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

NIPMUCKS, NIPNETS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675, 1675, and 1676-1678 KING PHILIP'S WAR.

NISÆAN PLAINS, The.

The famous horse-pastures of the ancient Medes. "Most probably they are to be identified with the modern plains of Khawah and Alishtar, between Behistun and Khorramabad, which are even now considered to afford the best summer pasturage in Persia. … The proper Nisæa is the district of Nishapur in Khorasan, whence it is probable that the famous breed of horses was originally brought."

_G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Media, chapter 1, with foot-note._

NISCHANDYIS.

See SUBLIME PORTE.

NISHAPOOR: Destruction by the Mongols (1221).

See KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.

NISIB, Battle of (1839).

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

NISIBIS, Sieges of (A. D. 338-350).

See PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

NISIBIS, Theological School of.

See NESTORIANS.

NISMES: Start--------

NISMES: Origin.

See VOLCÆ.

NISMES: A. D. 752-759. Recovery from the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759.

NISMES: End--------

NISSA, Siege and battle (1689-1690).

See HUNGARY; A. D. 1683-1699.

NITIOBRIGES, The.

These were a tribe in ancient Gaul whose capital city was Aginnum, the modern town of Agen on the Garonne.

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 17._

NIVELLE, Battle of the (1813).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812-1814.

NIVÔSE, The month.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.

NIZAM. Nizam's dominions.

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748.

NIZZA.

See NICE.

NO. NO AMON.

See THEBES, EGYPT.

NO MAN'S LAND, Africa.

See GRIQUAS.

{2364}

NO MAN'S LAND, England.

In the open or common field system which prevailed in early England, the fields were divided into long, narrow strips, wherever practicable. In some cases, "little odds and ends of unused land remained, which from time immemorial were called 'no man's land,' or 'anyone's land,' or 'Jack's land,' as the case might be."

_F. Seebohm, English Village Community, chapter 1._

NO POPERY RIOTS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780.

NOBLES, Roman: Origin of the term.

"When Livy in his first six books writes of the disputes between the Patres or Patricians and the Plebs about the Public Land, he sometimes designates the Patricians by the name Nobiles, which we have in the form Nobles. A Nobilis is a man who is known. A man who is not known is Ignobilis, a nobody. In the later Republic a Plebeian who attained to a curule office elevated his family to a rank of honour, to a nobility, not acknowledged by any law, but by usage. … The Patricians were a nobility of ancient date. … The Patrician nobility was therefore independent of all office, but the new Nobility and their Jus Imaginum originated in some Plebeian who first of his family attained a curule office. … The true conclusion is that Livy in his first six books uses the word Nobiles improperly, for there is no evidence that this name was given to the Patres before the consulship of L. Sextius."

_G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 11._

See, also, ROME: B. C. 146.

NOËTIANS AND SABELLIANS.

"At the head of those in this century [the 3d] who explained the scriptural doctrine of the Father, Son, and holy Spirit, by the precepts of reason, stands Noëtus of Smyrna; a man little known, but who is reported by the ancients to have been cast out of the church by presbyters (of whom no account is given), to have opened a school, and to have formed a sect. It is stated that, being wholly unable to comprehend how that God, who is so often in Scripture declared to be one and undivided, can, at the same time, be manifold, Noëtus concluded that the undivided Father of all things united himself, with the man Christ, was born in him, and in him suffered and died. On account of this doctrine his followers were called Patripassians. … After the middle of this century, Sabellius, an African bishop, or presbyter, of Ptolemais, the capital of the Pentapolitan province of Libya Cyrenaica, attempted to reconcile, in a manner somewhat different from that of Noëtus, the scriptural doctrine of Father, Son, and holy Spirit, with the doctrine of the unity of the divine nature." Sabellius assumed "that only an energy or virtue, emitted from the Father of all, or, if you choose, a particle of the person or nature of the Father, became united with the man Christ. And such a virtue or particle of the Father, he also supposed, constituted the holy Spirit."

_J. L. von Mosheim, Historical Commentaries, 3d Century, sections 32-33._

NÖFELS, NAEFELS, Battle of (1388).

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.

Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

NOLA, Battle of (B. C. 88).

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

NOMBRE DE DIOS: Surprised and plundered by Drake (1572).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.

NOMEN, COGNOMEN, PRÆNOMEN.

See GENS.

NOMES.

A name given by the Greeks to the districts into which Egypt was divided from very ancient times.

NOMOPHYLAKES.

In ancient Athens, under the constitution introduced by Pericles, seven magistrates called Nomophylakes, or "Law-Guardians," "sat alongside of the Proedri, or presidents, both in the senate and in the public assembly, and were charged with the duty of interposing whenever any step was taken or any proposition made contrary to the existing laws. They were also empowered to constrain the magistrates to act according to law."

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 46._

NOMOTHETÆ, The.

A legislative commission, elected and deputed by the general assembly of the people, in ancient Athens, to amend existing laws or enact new ones.

_G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3._

NONCONFORMISTS, DISSENTERS, English: First bodies organized. Persecutions under Charles II. and Anne.- Removal of Disabilities.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1559-1566; 1662-1665; 1672-1673; 1711-1714; 1827-1828.

NONES.

See CALENDAR, JULIAN.

NONINTERCOURSE LAW OF 1809, The American.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.

NONJURORS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).

NOOTKAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: WAKASHAN FAMILY.

NOPH.

See MEMPHIS.

NÖRDLINGEN, Siege and Battle (1634).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

Second Battle, or Battle of Allerheim (1645).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

NORE, Mutiny at the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

NOREMBEGA.

See NORUMBEGA.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: Start--------

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776. Bombardment and destruction.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1775-1776.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1779. Pillaged by British marauders.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 WASHINGTON GUARDING THE HUDSON.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1861 (April). Abandoned by the United States commandant. Destruction of ships and property. Possession taken by the Rebels.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1862 (February). Threatened by the Federal capture of Roanoke Island.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-APRIL: NORTH CAROLINA).

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1862 (May). Evacuated by the Confederates.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: VIRGINIA) EVACUATION OF NORFOLK.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA: End--------

NORFOLK ISLAND PENAL COLONY.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1601-1800.

NORICUM.

See PANNONIA; also, RHÆTIANS.

NORMANDY: Start--------

NORMANDY: A. D. 876-911. Rollo's conquest and occupation.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: A. D. 876-911.

{2365}

NORMANDY: A. D. 911-1000. The solidifying of Rollo's duchy. The Normans become French.