NEMATODES 



NEOPLATONISM 



435 



Gordiidse or hair-eels, and to the more remotely 

 allied Acanthocephala or Echinorhynchus (q.v.). 



Xematodes. See THREADWORMS, PARASITIC 

 ANIMALS. 



Nemea, anciently the name of a deep and well- 

 watered valley of Argolis, in the Peloponnesus, 

 between Cleonze and Phlius. It lies north and 

 south, and is from two to three miles long and 

 more than half a mile broad. It possessed a sacred 

 grove, with a magnificent temple of Zeus, and was 

 celebrated for the games called the Nemean Games, 

 one of the great national festivals of the Greeks. 

 See ATHLETIC SPOUTS. 



Nemertea, an important class of 'worms,' the 

 members of which are mostly marine. They are 

 uii^egmented, covered with cilia, and often brightly 

 coloured. Their habitat is usually in sand or mud, 

 but many are able to swim, while a few are 

 parasitic. In diet they seem to be mainly, if not 

 wholly, carnivorous. The body is very extensile, 

 and in Lineus maximus may measure 15 feet in 

 length. Most of them break readily and even 

 spontaneously, the fragments being in some cases 

 able to form a fresh head and body. Among their 

 remarkable characters may be noted the presence 

 of a long protrusible offensive proboscis which lies 

 quite apart from the gnt in a special sheath along 

 the back, and the occurrence of two curious ciliated 

 pits, perhaps respiratory in function, opening on 

 the sides of the head, and sometimes reaching as 

 far inwards as the brain. Two nerve cords extend 

 from the brain along the sides of the liody, occasion- 

 ally approaching one another ventrallv or even 

 dorsally. The sexes are separate, and there is 

 frequently a remarkable metamorphosis in develop- 

 ment. According to Professor Hubrecht, the 

 nemerteans exhibit in the prolxiscis, its sheath, and 

 the two head-slits distinct affinities with verte- 

 brates. 



Nemesis, according to Hesiod, the daughter 

 of Night, was originally the personification of the 

 moral feeling of nght and a just horror of criminal 

 actions in other words, of trie conscience. After- 

 wards, when an enlarged experience convinced men 

 that a divine will found room for its activity amiil 

 the little occurrences of human life, Nfim-sis came 

 to be regarded as the power who constantly pre- 

 serves or restores the moral equilibrium of earthly 

 attain* preventing mortals from reaching that 

 excessive prosperity which would lead them to 

 forget the reverence due to the immortal gods, or 

 visiting them with wholesome calamities in the 

 midst of their happiness. Hence originated the 

 latest and loftiest conception of Nemesis, as the 

 being to whom was entrusted the execution of the 

 decrees of & strict retributive providence the 

 awful and mysterious avenger of wrong, who 

 punishes and humbles haughty evil-doers in par- 

 ticular. Nemesis was thus regarded as allied to 

 Ate (q.v.) and the Eumenides (q.v.). She was 

 represented in the older times as a young virgin, 

 resembling Venus ; in later times, as clothed with 

 the tunic and peplus, sometimes with swords in her 

 hands and a wheel at her foot, a griffin also having 

 his right paw upon the wheel ; sometimes in a 

 chariot drawn by griffins. There was a famous 

 temple of Nemesis at Khamnus in Africa, where 

 important fragments of the statue of Nemesis by 

 Pliiilias were discovered in 1890. 



\erni. LAKE OF, an extinct crater, 20 miles 

 8. of Home, accounted for its l>eauty the gem of 

 the A I ban Mountains. There was here a famous 

 temple of Diana, portions of which have been 

 recently excavated. Kenan's Prttre de Nemv 

 (1885) gives the place additional interest. 



\cinoplltla. a genus of herbaceous annual* 

 belonging to the Hydrophyllacete, with pinnatifid 



eaves and conspicuous flowers. Natives of North 

 America, they are cultivated in European gardens, 

 ;he A", insignia being prized as a border plant on 

 account of its showy flowers, blue with a white 

 centre. Other species are N. otomaria and N. 

 maculata. 



Nemours, an ancient town of 4268 inhabitants 

 in the French department of Seine-et-Marne, 40 

 iiik-s SE. of Paris by rail, gave a ducal title to 

 the second son of Louis-Philippe (1814-96). 



Nenagh, a market-town of County Tipperary, 

 28 miles NE. of Limerick by rail. The ancient 

 Norman keep, called Nenagh Round, is a striking 

 object. Pop. 4722. 



Nennins, the reputed author of a Historia Brit- 

 otium, evidently of Cymric origin. It gives the 

 mythical account of the origin of the Britons, the 

 Roman occupation, the settlement of the Saxons, 

 and closes with the twelve victorious battles of 

 King Arthur. The writer is extremely credulous 

 and feeble in judgment, but he has preserved valu- 

 able fragments of earlier treatises. The name of 

 Nennins occurs in two prologues extant, but these 

 are suspiciously superior in style to the poor Latinity 

 of the history itself. The text was edited by 

 Stevenson for the English Historical Society in 

 1838. See De la Borderie's Hi-storut Britonum 

 [Paris, 1883), works by Skene and Rhys, and Zim- 

 mer's Nenniiw Vindicatm (Berlin, 1893). 



Neocomian. See CRETACEOUS SYSTEM. 



Neolithic. See STONE A:K. 



Neophyte (Gr. neophutos, from neo,_ 'new,' 

 and phud, 'I grow'), the name given in early 

 ecclesiastical language to persons recently con- 

 verted to Christianity. The word is used in this 

 sense by St Paul (1 Tim. iii. 6). The name neo- 

 phyte is also applied in Ronmn usage to newly- 

 ordained priests, and sometimes, though more 

 rarely, to the novices of a religious order. 



Neoplatonism, the last form of Hellenic 

 philosophy, the system of an illustrious succession 

 of ancient philosophers who claimed to found their 

 doctrines and speculations on those of Plato. 

 Strictly speaking, however, the Platonic philosophy 

 expired with Plato's immediate disciples, Speusippus 

 and Xenocrates. Neoplatonism is an attempt to 

 combine Plato's doctrine of the Ideas, developed by 

 Aristotle, and supplemented with an ethical system 

 akin to that of the Stoics, with the oriental doctrine 

 of Emanation ; it does for Hellenism KHMtUag like 

 what Philo did for Judaism. Such amalgamation 

 came about most naturally in Alexandria. Placed 

 at the junction of two continents, Asia and Africa, 

 and close to the most cultivated and intellectual 

 regions of Europe, that celebrated city naturally 

 became a focus for the chief religions and philo- 

 sophies of the ancient world. Here the East and 

 the West, Greek culture and oriental enthusiasm, 

 met and mingled ; and here Christianity sought a 

 home, and by the liberality of its sympathies 

 strove to quell the myriad discords of Paganism. 



Authorities have differed as to how much 

 should be included under the term Neoplatonism. 

 By some it is used to designate the whole new 

 intellectual movement proceeding from Alexandria, 

 comprising, in this broad view, the philosophy of 

 Philo-Juda-ns and of Numenius the Syrian ; of 

 Christian Fathers like Clemens Alexandrinus and 

 Origen ; of the Gnostics ; and of Ammonius Saccas 

 and his successors. But the best authorities 

 restrict the application of the term to the fourth of 

 these series. Plotinus, its real founder, resuscitated 

 Plato ; Proclus gave the world another Aristotle ; 

 in the person of Julian the Apostate Neoplatonism 

 became master of the world, and for three centuries 

 it was a formidable rival to Christianity. The 



