961 



NOMINATIVE. 



NONCONFORMITY. 



862 



and the words by which they are designated. The doctrine of Aristotle 

 was universally received among the schoolmen until after the com- 

 mencement of the llth century. But with the revival of dialectic 

 science, which about this time occurred, it began to be warmly contro- 

 verted. Those who adopted the Stoical doctrine, and affirmed that 

 words or names only were universal, were termed Nominalists ; while 

 those who adopted the Peripatetic opinion, and maintained the proper 

 existence of universals, were termed Realists. The honour of forming 

 the sect of the Nominalists is commonly assigned to Roscelin, canon of 

 Compiegne ; but its real founder appears rather to have been John, 

 called the Sophist, and supposed by Du Boulay, the historian of the 

 Parisian Academy, to have been chief physician to king Henry I. of 

 France. Be this however as it may, to Roscelin unquestionably 

 belongs the credit of having first raised the sect into eminence. The 

 Nominalist doctrine was highly obnoxious to most of the divines as 

 well as the philosophers of the period, chiefly perhaps, as Brueker sup- 

 poses ('Historia Critica Philosophise'), on account of Roscelin having 

 employed it in illustrating the mysterious constitution of the Divine 

 Nature, and thereby laid himself open to the charge of heresy. Not- 

 withstanding the opposition originating in this source which it 

 encountered, many converts were made; and its advancement was 

 greatly promoted by the genius and learning of the celebrated Abelard, 

 who was one of the disciples of Rosceh'n. So successful was he in his 

 disputes with William de Champeaux , styled the ' Venerable Doctor,' 

 who flourished about the beginning of the 12th century, and was then 

 the principal supporter of Realism, that the pupils of the latter in 

 large numbers forsook their master, and became the followers of his 

 more eloquent antagonist. Throughout the whole of the 12th century 

 the contest between the rival sects continued to be waged. Both 

 parties, by various modifications of their leading doctrines, gradually 

 became divided to a considerable extent among themselves, and a third 

 sect arose, professing to steer a middle course between them, the 

 adherents of which were distinguished by the name of Conceptualists, 

 on account of their holding^universality to be the attribute, not of names 

 only, but of conceptions. This sect however obtained but a small 

 share of notice. At this period the Realists, both in number, and 

 respectability, had the advantage of their opponents, and the erudition 

 and subtlety of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and afterwards of 

 Duns Scotus, gave them such a decided predominance, as to throw the 

 Nominalists completely into the shade. In the 14th century William 

 Occam, an English Franciscan friar, and a pupil of Scotus, becoming 

 the advocate of Nominalism when it was seemingly about to expire, 

 effected a revival, and brought it into greater repute than it had ever 

 before enjoyed. The discussion of the question respecting universals 

 was once more renewed, with the utmost virulence and animosity on 

 both sides. Blows were resorted to when argument was exhausted ; 

 and not unfrequently debates were terminated by bloodshed. Through- 

 out Germany the opinion of the Nominalists was soon almost 

 universally received, while Realism, being supposed to be more 

 consistent with the doctrines of the church, and patronised by suc- 

 cessive popes, prevailed in Italy and other countries where the 

 influence of the Roman see was most powerfully felt. Although num- 

 bering among its defenders fewer persons of philosophical eminence 

 than were to be found among the leaders of the opposite cause, it still 

 maintained its wonted predominance. John, the twenty-third pope of 

 that name, having finished his disputes with the Franciscans, who had 

 zealously opposed him on certain matters affecting the privileges of 

 their order, directed severe persecutions against the Nominalists. In 

 the year 1339 the university of Paris published an edict, denouncing 

 the philosophy of Occam, the effect of which however does not seem to 

 have been very hostile to its wider extension. Louis XI., of France, 

 in 1473, likewise issued an edict against the Nominalists, in which it 

 was ordered that their writings should be seized and secured in the 

 libraries by iron chains, to prevent their being perused. The con- 

 sequence was, that the leaders of the sect fled to England and 

 Germany. In the following year Louis mitigated his edict, which he 

 had issued at the suggestion of the bishop of Avranches, and permitted 

 the study of the Nominalist writings. Thereafter this sect obtained 

 the ascendancy in the universities of France, as it had formerly 

 obtained it in those of Germany. The Reformation, to which a long 

 train of causes had been effectually conducting, put an end to the con- 

 troversy so long and so fiercely carried on between the two most 

 memorable parties that have ever arisen among the schoolmen, and the 

 contemporaneous revival of letters eventually gave the death-blow to 

 the scholastic philosophy. Among the most eminent supporters of 

 Nominalism, besides those already referred to, may be mentioned 

 Suisset, Buridan, Marsilius &b Inghen, and Oresrnius, in the 14th 

 century, and Matthew of Cracow, Gabriel Biel, Gerson, &c., in the 

 fifteenth. 



NOMINATIVE. [CASE.] 



NONAGESIMAL. The nonagesimal degree of the ecliptic is that 

 point of the ecliptic which is highest above the horizon. Every point 

 of the ecliptic is therefore the nonagesimal degree in succession. 



N ON AGON. [POLYGONS, REGULAB.] 



NONCONFORMITY is the term employed to designate Protestant 

 dissent from the Church of England. It was in the reign of Edward VI. 

 that the English reformed church first received a definite constitution. 

 During the time of Henry VIII. it remained in a great measure 



ARTS AND SCI. DIV. VOL. V. 



unsettled, and was subject to continual variation, according to the 

 caprice of the king. As organised by Edward, while Calvinistic in its 

 creed, it was Episcopalian in its government, and retained in its worship 

 many of those forms and observances which had been introduced in 

 the days of Roman Catholic ascendancy. In the first of these par- 

 'ticulars it resembled and in the last two it differed from the Genevan 

 church. During the temporary restoration of the Roman Catholic 

 faith under the administration of Philip and Mary, great numbers of 

 the persecuted disciples of the reformed faith sought refuge in France, 

 the Netherlands, Switzerland, and other parts of the Continent. Of 

 those who fled to Germany, some observed the ecclesiastical order 

 ordained by Edward ; others, not without warm disputes with their 

 brethren, which had their commencement at Frankfort, adopted the 

 Swiss mode of worship, preferring it as more simple, and more agreeable 

 to Scripture and primitive usage. Those who composed this latter 

 class were called Nonconformists. The distinction has been permanent, 

 and the name has been perpetuated-. Queen Elizabeth's accession to 

 the throne, in 1558, opened the way for the return of the exiles to the 

 land of their fathers. It was natural for each of the parties of which 

 they consisted, to advocate at home the systems of worship to which 

 they had been respectively attached while abroad ; and the controversy, 

 which had been agitated by them in a foreign country, immediately 

 became a matter of contention with the great body of Protestants in 

 their own. It suited neither the views nor inclinations of the illustrious 

 princess who then held the sceptre to realise the wishes of the Noncon- 

 formists, or Puritans, as they began to be called, by giving her sanction 

 to the opinions which they maintained, and assenting to the demands 

 which they made. The plain and unostentatious method of religious 

 service which they recommended did not accord with that love of show 

 and pomp for which she was remarkable ; and the policy of the early 

 part of her reign, in which she was supported by the high dignitaries 

 both in the church and state, was to conciliate her Roman Catholic 

 subjects, who, in rank, wealth, and numbers, far exceeded the Noncon- 

 formists. The liturgy of Edward VI., having been submitted to a 

 committee of divines, and certain alterations, betraying a leaning to 

 popery rather than to puritanism, having been made, the Act of 

 Uniformity was passed, which, while it empowered the queen and her 

 commissioners to " ordain and publish such further ceremonies and 

 rites " as might be deemed advisable, forbade, under severe penalties, 

 the performance of divine worship except as prescribed in the Book of 

 Common Prayer. This Act was only partially carried into effect from 

 the time of its being passed, in 1558, to 1565. But in 1565 it began 

 to be rigidly enforced, and many of the Nonconformists were deprived 

 of their preferments (for notwithstanding their sentiments, most of 

 them had still remained in connection with the Established Church, 

 being from principle averse to an entire separation) ; many also were 

 committed to prison. The High Commission Court, tyrannical in its 

 very constitution, became still more severe in the exercise of its 

 functions; and at length, in 1593, the parliament declared that all 

 persons above sixteen years of age who should absent themselves for 

 one month from the parish church should be banished the kingdom j 

 and if they returned without licence, should be sentenced to death as 

 felons. These provisions, though directed principally against the 

 Catholics, affected the Protestant Nonconformists with equal severity ; 

 and with reference both to Catholics and Protestants who dissented 

 from the Church of England, were unjust and impolitic. The Non- 

 conformists, during the age of Elizabeth, are not to be regarded as an 

 unimportant faction. Both among the clergy and the laity they were 

 a numerous body ; and they would have been powerful in proportion 

 to their numbers, had they only been more closely united among 

 themselves. A motion, made in 1561, at the first convocation of the 

 clergy which was held in England, to do away with the ceremonies and 

 forms to which the Puritans objected, was lost by a majority of only 

 one, even though the queen and the primate Parker were well known 

 to be opposed to such a change. In the Commons the Puritan influence 

 was strong ; and if that house be supposed, in any adequate degree, to. 

 have represented the people for whom it legislated, their numerical 

 force throughout the country generally must necessarily have been 

 great. Without presumption therefore they might have expected that 

 their remonstrances would be listened to, and their grievances redressed. 

 And certainly it would have been wiser in the government to have 

 endeavoured to secure their support, than to have awakened their dis- 

 content and provoked their opposition ; more especially when the 

 hostile aspect of foreign nations is considered, and when we remember 

 that the English Roman Catholics, whose numbers and power rendered 

 them particularly formidable, were eagerly watching every symptom 

 favourable to the re-establishment of the ancient faith. Nor would it 

 have been a difficult matter to yield to the claims of the Nonconformists. 

 The moderate among them sought not the overthrow of the ecclesi- 

 astical constitution, but contended merely that certain rites and 

 observances, which they regarded as departures from the purity and 

 simplicity of Christian worship , should be dispensed with ; and. generally, 

 that ma.ters commonly recognised as things indifferent should not be 

 insisted on as indispensable. Doubtless many were less reasonable in 

 their demands, and injustice and persecution tended much to increase 

 their number. A party, at the head of which was Professor Cart- 

 wright, of Cambridge, desired a change, not only in the forms of 

 worship, but in church polity also, and would have substituted 



