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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich

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​NICOLAI, CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH (1733–1811), German author and bookseller, was born on the 18th of March 1733 at Berlin, where his father, Christoph Gottlieb Nicolai (d. 1752), was the founder of the famous Nicolaische Buchhandlung. He received a good education, and in 1749 went to Frankfort-on-Oder to learn his father’s business, finding time also to become acquainted with English literature. In 1752 he returned to Berlin, and began to take part in literary controversy by defending Milton against the attacks of J. C. Gottsched. His Briefe über den jetzigen Zustand der schönen Wissenschaften in Deutschland, published anonymously in 1755 and reprinted by G. Ellinger in 1894, were directed against both Gottsched and Gottsched’s Swiss opponents, Johann Jakob Bodmer and Johann Jakob Breitinger; his enthusiasm for English literature won for him the friendship of Lessing and Moses Mendelssohn. In association with Mendelssohn he established in 1757 the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, a periodical which he conducted until 1760. With Lessing and Mendelssohn Nicolai founded in 1759 the famous Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend; and from 1765 to 1792 he edited the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek. This latter periodical served as the organ of the so-called “popular philosophers,” who warred against authority in religion and against what they conceived to be extravagance in literature. The new movement of ideas represented by Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Kant and Fichte, Nicolai was incapable of understanding, and he made himself ridiculous by foolish misrepresentation of the aims of these writers. Of Nicolai’s independent works, perhaps the only one which has some historical value is his Anekdoten von Friedrich II. (1788–1792). His romances are forgotten, although Das Leben und die Meinungen des Herrn Magister Sebaldus Nothanker (1773–1776), and his satire on Goethe’s Werther, Freuden des jungen Werthers (1775), had a certain reputation in their day. Between 1788 and 1796 Nicolai published in 12 vols. a Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz, which bears witness to the narrow conservatism of his views in later life. He died in Berlin on the 11th of January 1811.
Nicolai’s Bildniss und Selbstbiographie was published by M. S. Löwe in the Bildnisse jetzt lebender Berliner Gelehrter, in 1806. See also L. F. G. von Göckingk, F. Nicolai’s Leben und literarischer Nachlass (1820); J. Minor, Lessings Jugendfreunde, in J. Kürschner’s Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vol. lxxii. (1883); O. Hoffmann, Herders Briefwechsel mit Nicolai (1887); E. Friedel, Zur Geschichte der Nicolaischen Buchhandlung (1891); and E. Altenkrüger, F. Nicolais Jugendschriften (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicolaus Damascenus

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​NICOLAUS DAMASCENUS, Greek historian and philosopher of Damascus, flourished in the time of Augustus and Herod the Great, with both of whom he was on terms of friendship. He instructed Herod in rhetoric and philosophy, and had attracted the notice of Augustus when he accompanied his patron on a visit to Rome. Later, when Herod’s conduct aroused the suspicions of Augustus, Nicolaus was sent on a mission to bring about a reconciliation. He survived Herod, and it was through his influence that the succession was secured for Archelaus; but the date of his death, like that of his birth, is unknown. Fragments of his universal history (Ἱστορία καθολική), from the time of the Assyrian empire to his own days, his autobiography, and his life of Augustus (Βίος Καίσαρος) have been preserved, chiefly in the extracts of Constantine Porphyrogenitus. Nicolaus also wrote comedies and tragedies, paraphrased and wrote commentaries on parts of Aristotle, and was himself the author of philosophical treatises.
Fragments in C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, iii.; see also F. Navet, Nikolaus von Damascus (1853), containing an account of his life and writings, and translation of the fragments.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicol, William

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​NICOL, WILLIAM (? 1768–1851), Scottish physicist, was born about 1768, and died at Edinburgh on the end of September ​1851. Nothing is known of his early history beyond the fact that, after amassing a small competence as a popular lecturer on natural philosophy, he settled in Edinburgh to live a very retired life in the society of his apparatus alone. Besides the invention of the prism known by his name (“A method of increasing the divergence of the two rays in calcareous spar, so as to produce a single image,” New Edin. Journ., 1828), he devoted himself chiefly to the examination of fluid-filled cavities in crystals, and of the microscopic structure of various kinds of fossil wood. His skill as a working lapidary was very great; and he prepared a number of lenses of garnet and other precious stones, which he preferred to the achromatic microscopes of the time.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicolaus of Lyra

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​NICOLAUS OF LYRA (c. 1265–1349), French commentator, was born in Lire, now Vieille-Lyre, in the department of Eure, Normandy. He entered the Franciscan order at Verneuil about 1300, and studied at Paris, where, becoming a doctor some time before 1309, he taught for many years. From 1319 he was provincial of his order in France, and was present in that capacity at the general chapter at Pérouse (1321). In 1325 he was provincial of Burgundy, and as executor of the estate of Jeanne of Burgundy, widow of King Philip VI., he founded the college of Burgundy at Paris, where he died in the autumn of 1349, being buried in the chapter hall of the convent of the Cordeliers. Among the authentic works of Nicolaus of Lyra are: (1) two commentaries on the whole Bible, one (Postilla litteralis, 1322–1331) following the literal sense, the other (Postilla mystica seu moralis, 1339) following the mystic sense. There are numerous editions (Rome, 1471–1472; Douai, 1617; Antwerp, 1634). (2) Tractatus de differentia nostrae translationis (i.e. Vulgate) ab Hebraica veritate, 1333. (3) Two treatises against the Jews. (4) A theological treatise on the Beatific Vision, directed against pope John XXII. (1334), unpublished. (5) ​Contemplatio de vita S. Francisci, a book of devotions. Nicolaus was above all a commentator. His exegesis, which was dominated by his polemics against the Jews, is characterized by a fidelity to the literal sense, the comparison with the Hebrew text, the direct use of Jewish commentators, a very independent attitude towards traditional interpretations, and a remarkable historical and critical sense. In all this he resembled Roger Bacon. His works, especially the Postilla litteralis, were very popular in the 14th and 15th centuries, but produced few imitators.
In addition to the notices in Wadding, du Moustier, Sbaraglia and Fabricius, see C. Siegfried, in Archiv. f. wissenschaftliche Erforschung des A.T., vols. i., ii.; A. Merx, Die Prophetie des Joel und ihre Ausleger (1879, pp. 305-366); M. Fischer in Jahrbücher f. protestantische Theologie, xv.; F. Maschkowski, in Zeitschrift f. alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, xv.; Neumann in Revue des études juives, vols. 26 and 27; H. Labrosse in Positions des thèses de l’École des Charles (1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicolas, Sir Nicholas Harris

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​NICOLAS, SIR NICHOLAS HARRIS (1799–1848), English antiquary, fourth son of John Harris Nicolas (d. 1844), was born at Dartmouth on the 10th of March 1799. Having served in the navy from 1812 to 1816, he studied law and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1825. His work as a barrister, however, was confined principally to peerage cases before the House of Lords, and his time was mainly devoted to genealogical and historical studies. In 1831 he was made a knight of the order of the Guelphs, and in 1832 chancellor and knight-commander of the order of St Michael and St George, being advanced to the grade of the grand cross in 1840. He became a member of the council of the Society of Antiquaries in 1826, but soon began to criticize the management of the society’s affairs, and withdrew in 1828. He then criticized the Record Commission, which he regarded as too expensive. These attacks, which brought him into controversy with Sir Francis Palgrave, led in 1836 to the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the public records. He was also responsible for several reforms at the British Museum. In 1822 Nicolas married Sarah (d. 1867), daughter of John Davison of Loughton, Essex, a reputed descendant of the Tudor statesman William Davison. By her he left two sons and six daughters. Pecuniary difficulties compelled him to leave England, and he died near Boulogne on the 3rd of August 1848. Although a sharp and eager controversialist Nicolas was a genial and generous man, with a great knowledge of genealogical questions.
The most important of the works of Nicolas is his History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire; of the Order of the Guelphs; and of Medals, Clasps, &c., for Naval and Military Services (London, 1841–1842). Among his numerous other writings are, The Chronology of History (London, 1833); Life of William Davison (London, 1823); Synopsis of the Peerage of England (London, 1825); Life and Times of Sir Christopher Hatton (London, 1847); and an uncompleted History of the Royal Navy (London, 1847). He edited Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 1386–1542 (London, 1834–1337), and Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson (London, 1844–1846); wrote lives of Chaucer, Burns, Cowper, Thomson, Collins, Kirke White and others for Pickering’s Aldine edition of the poets; lives of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton for an edition of the Compleat Angler; and several elaborate works on genealogical and kindred subjects printed for private circulation only.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nicolaï, Otto

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​NICOLAÏ, OTTO (1810–1849), German composer, was born on the 9th of June in Königsberg. He studied music in Berlin and in 1833 became organist to the German embassy in Rome. There his operas Enrico II (1839) and Il Templario (1840) were produced, besides some church music, a series of songs, and a number of compositions for the pianoforte. He was subsequently appointed Hof Kapellmeister at the Berlin Opera House; and there, only two days before he died (on the 11th of March 1849), was performed his brilliant opera, The Merry Wives of Windsor, the work by which he is now remembered.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Indole

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​INDOLE, or Benźopyrrol, C$_8$H$_7$N, a substance first prepared by A. Baeyer in 1868. It may be synthetically obtained by distilling oxindole (C$_8$H$_8$NO) with zinc dust; by heating ortho-nitrocinnamic acid with potash and iron filings; by the reduction of indigo blue; by the action of sodium ethylate on ortho-aminochlorstyrene; by boiling aniline with dichloracetaldehyde; by the dry distillation of ortho-tolyloxamic acid; by heating aniline with dichloracetal; by distilling a mixture of calcium formate and calcium anilidoacetate; and by heating pyruvic acid phenyl hydrazone with anhydrous zinc chloride. It is also formed in the pancreatic fermentation of albumen, and, in small quantities, by passing the vapours of mono- and dialkylanilines through a red-hot tube. It crystallizes in shining leaflets, which melt at 52° C. and boil at 245° C. (with decomposition), and is volatile in a current of steam. It is a feeble base, and gives a cherry-red coloration with a pine shaving. Many derivatives of indole are known. B-methylindol or skatole occurs in human faeces.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Indorsement

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​INDORSEMENT, or Endorsement (from Med. Lat. indorsare, to write upon the dorsum, or back), anything written or printed upon the back of a document. In its technical sense, it is the writing upon a bill of exchange, cheque or other negotiable instrument, by one who has a right to the instrument and who thereby transmits the right and incurs certain liabilities. See Bill of Exchange.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Indo-Scythians

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​INDO-SCYTHIANS, a name commonly given to various tribes from central Asia, who invaded northern India and founded kingdoms there. They comprise the Sakas, the Yue-Chi or Kushans and the Ephthalites or Hūnas.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Indra

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​INDRA, in early Hindu mythology, god of the clear sky and greatest of the Vedic deities. The origin of the name is doubtful, but is by some connected with indu, drop. His importance is shown by the fact that about 250 hymns celebrate his greatness, nearly one-fourth of the total number in the Rig Veda. He is represented as specially lord of the elements, the thunder-god. But Indra was more than a great god in the ancient Vedic pantheon. He is the patron-deity of the invading Aryan race in India, the god of battle to whose help they look in their struggles with the dark aborigines. Indra is the child of Dyaus, the Heaven. In Indian art he is represented as a man with four arms and hands; in two he holds a lance and in the third a thunderbolt. He is often painted with eyes all over his body and then he is called Sahasraksha, “the thousand eyed.” He lost much of his supremacy when the triad Brahma, Siva and Vishnu became predominant. He gradually became identified merely with the headship of Swarga, a local vice-regent of the abode of the gods.
See A. A. Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Individualism

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​INDIVIDUALISM (from Lat. individualis, that which is not divided, an individual), in political philosophy, the theory of government according to which the good of the state consists in the well-being and free initiative of the component members. From this standpoint, as contrasted with that of the various forms of socialism (q.v.) which subordinate the individual to the community, the community as such is an artificial unity. Individualism is, however, by no means identical with egoism, though egoism is always individualistic. An individualist may also be a conscientious altruist: he is by no means hostile to or aloof from society (any more than the socialist is necessarily hostile to the individual), but he is opposed to state interference with individual freedom wherever, in his opinion, it can be avoided. The practical distinction in modern society is necessarily one of degree, and both “individualism” and “socialism” are very vaguely used, and generally as terms of reproach by opponents. Every practical politician of whatever party must necessarily combine in his programme individualistic and socialist principles. Extreme individualism is pure anarchy: on the other hand Thomas Hobbes, a characteristic individualist, vigorously supported absolute government as necessary to the ​well-being of individuals. Moreover it is conceivable under given circumstances that an individualist might logically advocate measures (e.g. compulsory military service) which conflict with individual freedom. In practice individualism is chiefly concerned to oppose the concentration of commercial and industrial enterprise in the hands of the state and the municipality. The principles on which this opposition is based are mainly two: that popularly elected representatives are not likely to have the qualifications or the sense of responsibility required for dealing with the multitudinous enterprises and the large sums of public money involved, and that the health of the state depends on the exertions of individuals for their personal benefit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Indonesian

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​INDONESIAN, a term invented by James Richardson Logan to describe the light-coloured non-Malay inhabitants of the Eastern Archipelago. It now denotes all those peoples of Malaysia and Polynesia who are not to be classified as Malays or Papuans, but are of Caucasic type. Among these are the Battaks of north Sumatra; many of the Bornean Dyaks and Philippine Islanders, and the large brown race of east Polynesia which includes Samoans, Maoris, Tongans, Tahitians, Marquesas Islanders and the Hawaiians.
See J. Richardson Logan, The Languages and Ethnology of the Indian Archipelago (1857).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nisus

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​NISUS, in Greek mythology, king of Megara, brother of Aegeus, king of Athens. When Minos, king of Crete, was on his way to ​attack Athens to avenge the murder of his son Androgeus, for which Aegeus was directly or indirectly responsible, he laid siege to Megara. He finally gained possession of the city through the treachery of the king’s daughter Scylla, who, enamoured of Minos, pulled out the golden (or purple) lock from her father’s head, on which his life and the safety of the city depended (for similar stories, see Frazer, Golden Bough, iii. 1900, p. 358). Megara was captured, and Nisus, who died fighting (or slew himself), was changed into a sea-eagle. Minos, disgusted at Scylla’s treachery, tied her to the rudder of his ship, and afterwards cast her body ashore on the promontory called after her Scyllaeum; or she threw herself into the sea and swam after Minos, constantly pursued by her father, until at last she was changed into a ciris (a bird or a fish). In Virgil, Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, is confused with the sea-monster, the daughter of Phorcys. Nisus was the eponymous hero of the harbour of Nisaea, and local tradition makes no mention of his betrayal by his daughter. According to Roscher (in his Lexikon der Mythologie), who identifies the ciris with the heron, the story of Nisus and Scylla (like these of Aëdon, Procne, Philomela and Tereus) was invented to give an aetiological explanation of the characteristics of certain birds. The birds were regarded as originally human beings, whose acts and characters were supposed to account for certain habits of the birds into which they had been changed. E. Siecke, De Niso et Scylla in aves mutatis (progr. Berlin, 1884), holds that the purple or golden hair of Nisus is the sun, and Scylla the moon, and that the origin of the legend is to be looked for in a very ancient myth of the relations between the two, which he endeavours to explain with the aid of Indian and German parallels.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nithard

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NITHARD (d. 844), Frankish historian, was the illegitimate son of Angilbert, the friend of Charlemagne, by Bertha, а daughter of the great emperor. He was educated at the imperial court and became abbot of St Riquier in commendam, never taking the vows. Little else is known about his life, but he appears to have served his cousin, Charles the Bald, on peaceful errands and also on the field of battle. He fought for Charles at Fontenoy in June 841, and died as the result of wounds received whilst fighting for him against the Northmen near Angoulême. The date of his death was probably the 14th of June 844. In the 11th century his body, with the fatal wound still visible, was found in the grave of his father, Angilbert. Nithard's historical work consists of four books on the history of the Carolingian empire under the turbulent sons of the emperor Louis I., especially during the troubled period between 840 and 843. This Historiae or De dissensionibus filiorum Ludovici pii is valuable for the light which it throws upon the causes which led to the disintegration of the Carolingian empire. Although rough in style, partisan in character and sometimes incorrect in detail, the books are the work of a man who had an intimate knowledge of the events which he relates, who possessed a clear and virile mind, and who above all was not a recluse but a man of action. They are dedicated to Charles the Bald, at whose request they were written.
The Historiae has been printed several times. Perhaps the best edition is in Band ii. of the Monumenta Germaniae historica, Scriptores; it has also been edited by A. Holder (Freiburg, 1882). It has been translated into German by J. von Jasmund (Berlin, 1851; new edition by W. Wattenbach, Leipzig, 1889); and into French in tome iii. of Guizot's Collection des mémoires (Paris, 1824).
See O. Kuntzemüller, Nithard und sein Geschichtswerk (Jena, 1873); G. Meyer von Knonau, Über Nithards vier Bücher Geschichten (Leipzig, 1866); and W. Wattenbach, Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band i. (Berlin, 1904).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nithsdale, William Maxwell, 5th Earl of

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​NITHSDALE, WILLIAM MAXWELL, 5th Earl of (1676–1744), Jacobite leader, was a member of the family of Maxwell (q.v.), being a son of Robert the 4th earl (d. 1696) and a collateral relation of Robert Maxwell (d. 1646) who was created earl of Nithsdale in 1620. He became famous by his loyalty to the royalist tradition of his family, and by the heroism of his wife Winifred, daughter of William Herbert, 1st marquess of Powis. After becoming earl in 1698 he served the exiled house of Stuart in secret, was suspected as a Jacobite conspirator, and was much molested on that account. In 1712 he resigned his estate to his son William (d. 1776), reserving a life rent to himself. When the Jacobite rising took place in 1715 he joined his friends in the north of England and was taken prisoner at Preston, being sent to London for trial. The countess of Nithsdale, who was at Terregles when she heard of the capture of her husband, followed him to London, making part of the journey on horseback in bitter winter weather. The earl and the other Jacobites were brought to trial in Westminster Hall on the 19th of January 1716, and condemned to death on the 9th of February. The execution was fixed for the 24th. The countess presented a petition to George I. which he refused to receive, and when she knelt before him and took hold of the skirts of his coat he dragged her half across the room before he could break away. Finding that no pardon could be obtained the countess laid a plan to rescue her husband from the Tower of London. With the help of two Jacobite ladies, Mrs Morgan and Mrs Mills, she very cleverly extricated her husband from his cell on the night before the day fixed for the execution by disguising him as a woman. The earl escaped from England and was followed by the countess, but not till she had gone back to Scotland to rescue important legal papers which proved the transfer of the estate to their son. The earl and countess went to Rome after a short stay in France. In Rome they were attached to the court of the Pretender and lived in poverty and obscurity. The earl died on the 20th of March 1744, and the countess in 1749. Their son, William Maxwell, regained the possession of the family property after his father’s death in 1744, since the government could only confiscate his father’s life-interest; but the title was forfeited, and he died childless.
See Sir A. Fraser, The Book of Carlaverock (Edinburgh, 1873).