166 



M.Ai'hl) NECKER. 



in a new edition of Neal, 17D7 (5 vols. 8vo), by doc- 

 tor Toulmiii. lie ilied at Bath, in April, 174;}, in 

 the sixty-fifth year of his age, leaving a high charac- 

 ter, both as a writer and a divine. 



NEAPED; the situation of a ship which is left 

 aground on the height of a spring tide, so that she 

 ninnot be flooded off till the return of the next 

 spring. 



NEAPOLITAN REVOLUTION. See Naples, 

 Revolution of. 



M AP TIDES are those which happen when the 

 moon is nearly at the second and fourth quarters. 

 The neap tides are low tides, in respect to their oppo- 

 sites, the spring tides. 



NEARCHUS; one of the captains of Alexander 

 the Great, who was employed by that conqueror in 

 conducting his fleet from India by the ocean to the 

 Persian gulf. This expedition proved so tedious and 

 fatiguing, that the leader, on his return, was not 

 recognised by his friends, until he had made himself 

 known. His service was so much esteemed, that he 

 was crowned with a garland by Alexander at Susa. 

 Fragments of his relation are extant, and form a 

 curious and valuable record. It may be found among 

 the Geographi Minores by Hudson. Vincent also 

 published these fragments, with dissertations and a 

 commentary (London, 1797). 



NEBUCHADNEZZAR, or NABUCHODONO- 

 SAR, a king of Babylon, who reigned from 606 to 

 563 B. C., was the son of Nabopolassar, by whom 

 the kingdom of Babylon was restored to its indepen- 

 dency of the Assyrian monarchy. Nebuchadnezzar, 

 by his conquests, extended the Babylonian power to 

 the western limits of Asia. He defeated the Egyptian 

 Pharaoh Necho, at Carchemish, captured and de- 

 stroyed Jerusalem, Tyre, and Sidon. According to 

 the policy of Asiatic conquerors, who transplanted 

 the conquered nations of a turbulent character, he 

 removed to Babylon a great number of the Jews, 

 whose residence there is called the Babylonish capti- 

 vity. Babylon was indebted to him for its magnifi- 

 cence. The Scripture account of his becoming an 

 ox, for seven years, is by some understood to mean 

 that he was afflicted with the disease called lycan- 

 thropy (q. v.) by -others, to be susceptible of an 

 allegorical interpretation. 



NEBULA. The name of nebulae is given to cer- 

 tain little spots, resembling white clouds, which are 

 seen in the starry heavens, and which, as observed 

 through the telescope, present three kinds of appear- 

 ances. These appearances are either that of single 

 stars, enveloped in a nebulous veil, or of groups of 

 little stars, or only of a glittering cloud. The last 

 are the proper nebulae, which astronomers consider 

 as systems of fixed stars, of which there may be 

 innumerable multitudes in infinite space. Herschel, 

 who spent much time in observing them, and has 

 described them in his Catalogue of One Thousand 

 new Nebulae (London, 1786, 4to), does not consider 

 them all as groups of stars. At present, as many as 

 two thousand are known. Bode's Introduction to a 

 Knowledge of the Starry Heavens (in German, Ber- 

 lin, 1823, 9th ed.) treats of them at length. 



NECESSITY ; the quality of that which cannot 

 but be, or cannot be otherwise. It is conceived in 

 three different relations: 1. logical necessity, which 

 consists in the circumstance that something cannot 

 be conceived different from what it is, because the con- 

 trary is contradictory or absurd. 2. Physical neces- 

 sity is that necessity which arises from the laws of 

 the material universe. The necessary, in this re- 

 spect, is opposed to the casual. Every thing in the 

 sensible world has but a conditional necessity : it is 

 necessary from some cause, so that we are led back 

 to the primitive cause, to the Supreme Being, who 



is saiil, therefore, to be the only absolutely necessary, 

 independently existing Being, so that metaphysicians 

 say, with him iibsolute necessity and liberty are one 

 thing. This will be more easily understood, if we 

 consider more closely the meaning of necessity. In 

 its general application, it presupposes a cause, which 

 forces the thing to be such as it is, while, in this case, 

 its meaning lies in the non-existence of a cause, and 

 the Supreme Being who exists and acts without a 

 cause, must be supposed to exist and act from neces- 

 sity. 3. Necessity as to the volition and action of 

 man moral necessity the great question, whether 

 liberty of volition and necessity can exist together, 

 and if so, in what manner, is the most intricate point 

 of ethics and philosophy in general, and has been 

 treated of in all ages and in all modes, in reference to 

 morals and religion. In fact, it involves the whole 

 relation of man to God. The Catholic theologians 

 distinguish several kinds of necessity as to the means 

 of salvation : they say baptism is absolutely neces- 

 sary, because, without it, whether the want of it is 

 owing to the fault of the individual or not, no one 

 can be saved, while a person who cannot possibly 

 receive the eucharist would not be punished, though 

 he would deserve damnation if he should refuse it 

 where he could receive it. 



NECHO ; one of the Pharaohs. He is mentioned 

 in the Scriptures as the conqueror of Josiah, who fell 

 in the battle of Megiddo, in attempting to check the 

 progress of the Egyptian forces against Assyria. A 

 few years later, he is described as making war upon 

 Nebuchadnezzar, and experiencing a complete defeat 

 at Carchemish. The documents of Egyptian ami 

 profane history show him to have been Necho 11., 

 son and successor of Psammeticus. Herodotus de- 

 scribes him under the name of Necho (ii. 158, 159), 

 and relates, though with some inaccuracies, his war 

 in Judea. Champollion has read the name upon 

 many statues. 



NECKAR ; a river of Germany, which rises in 

 the Black Forest in Wurtemberg, near one of the 

 sources of the Danube, and flows into the Rhine at 

 Manheim, after a course of about 150 miles. It is 

 navigable for small boats to the influx of the Enz. 

 The Neckar wines are light, sound, and of an agree- 

 able flavour. 



NECKER, JAMES, minister of finance to Louis 

 XVI., was born in 1734, at Geneva, where his father 

 was professor of German public Jaw, and went to 

 Paris to enter the banking-ho\ise of his uncle M. 

 Vernet. His attention and intelligence gained him 

 the confidence of M. Thelusson, with whom he 

 formed a partnership in the banking business. In 

 the course of twelve or fifteen years, he became one 

 of the richest bankers. Advantageous contracts 

 with the East India company, and speculations in the 

 British funds, in anticipation of the peace of 1763, of 

 which he had received early notice, greatly increased 

 his fortune. The East India company, of which he 

 was a member, having chosen him to manage their 

 cause with the government, he published a work on 

 the subject (1769), in which he enumerated the ser- 

 vices rendered by them to the state in different 

 emergencies. His adversaries were Morellet and. 

 Lacretelle, who, attacking exclusive privileges, and 

 demanding free trade, had the popular side of the 

 question. Necker, however, gained many adherents, 

 and even his errors did not prevent justice being 

 done to his talents. He now retired from business, 

 and received the post of resident of the republic of 

 Geneva at the French court, in which he became 

 favourably known to the duke de Choiseul. Ambi- 

 tious of literary distinction, he produced his Eloge de 

 Colbert, which gained the prize of the French aca- 

 demy. His Essai sur la Legislation et le Commerce 



