414 



STOCKPORT-- STOICS. 



has recently been much improved, and adapted also 

 to the manufacture of ribbed stockings. See I'cck- 

 maim's History of Inventions, iv, article Knittiny 

 Netts and Stockings. 



STOCKPORT; a large market and borough 

 town of England, in Cheshire, situated on the river 

 AK'iM'v, principally on the top and sides of a hill 

 17'' miles N. W. by N. from London. It is a place 

 of great antiquity, the Romans having had a camp 

 lii-re, and the Saxons a fortress. In the civil war 

 it was garrisoned for the parliament and taken by 

 Prince Rupert, but again fell into the hands of tht 

 parliamentarians, who held it until the terminatior 

 of the war. In 1745 it was twice visited by the 

 troops under the Pretender. The trade and manu- 

 factures of Stockport, that of cotton in particular, 

 have greatly increased of late, and been consider- 

 ably facilitated by the canal communication with 

 the rivers Mersey, Dee, Ribble, Trent, Severn, &c. 

 The silk trade, which was once extensively carried 

 on here, has declined. The parish church of St Mary 

 is an ancient structure of the 14th century, but which 

 has been frequently repaired, and portions rebuilt. 

 St Peter's church is a neat brick building, erected 

 about the year 1767, at the expence of William 

 Wright, Esq. St Thomas' is a modern edifice. 

 Here are also chapels belonging to the Independent, 

 Primitive, Wesleyan, and New Connexion Metho- 

 dists; the Society of Friends, Unitarians, and Ro- 

 man Catholics. A free grammar-school, rebuilt by 

 the Goldsmith's Company, was founded and endowed 

 by Sir Edmund Shaw, of London, in 1482. In a 

 school established in 1805, for all denominations, 

 4000 children are instructed, and upwards of 1500 

 are received in branches of the same institution. 

 In 1826, a national school was founded, in which 

 between two and three thousand boys and girls are 

 educated; and the established church and dissent- 

 ing bodies have Sunday schools. The poor have 

 likewise the advantage of six almshouses, a dispen- 

 sary, and other benevolent institutions. Within 

 the last twenty years, the town has been greatly 

 improved; it is now well paved, and lighted with 

 gas, and has a neat theatre, and excellent library 

 and news-room. Population of town in 1831, 

 25,4G9; of town and parish, 66,610.in 1841,84,282. 

 STOCKS; a wooden machine used to put the 

 legs of offenders in, for the restraining of disorderly 

 persons, or as a punishment for certain offences. 

 STOCKS, PUBLIC. See Public Stocks. 

 STODDART, SOLOMON, an American divine, 

 was born at Boston, in 1643, and graduated at Har- 

 vard college in 1662, of which he was subsequently 

 made a fellow. Intense application having im- 

 paired his health, he went to Barbadoes as chaplain 

 to governor Serle, and preached to the dissenters 

 in that island for nearly two years. On his return, 

 he was invited to take charge of the church of Nor- 

 thampton, and was ordained September 11, 1672. 

 In this place he continued until his death, February 

 11, 1729, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. Mr 

 Stoddard is considered one of the greatest divines 

 of New England. He waged a polemical contest 

 with doctor Increase Mather respecting the Lord's 

 supper, maintaining that the sacrament was a con- 

 verting ordinance, and that all baptized persons, not 

 scandalous in life, may lawfully approach the table, 

 though they know themselves to be unconverted, 

 or destitute of true religion; and most of the 

 churches of Connecticut were induced by his argu- 

 ments to coincide in his sentiments. His diligence 

 was so unremitting that he left a considerable num- 



ber of sermons which he had never preached ; and 

 so fine was his hand-writing, that one hundred and 

 fifty of his discourses are contained in a small duo- 

 decimo manuscript volume, which may easily be car- 

 ried in the pocket. He published various sermons 

 and treatises. 



STOICHIOMETRY (from *,:, element, 

 original matter). The article Affinity, Chemical, 

 treats of the general principles of chemical combina- 

 tions and solutions. Neutrality is that state of 

 solution of two substances in which each seems to 

 have lost its peculiar characteristics. That branch 

 of chemical science which treats of the proportions 

 which the substances must have, when they enter 

 the state of neutrality, has been called by mode rn 

 chemists stoichiometry. 



STOICS ; an ancient philosophical sect, founded 

 by Zeno, which received its name from the atoee. 

 {porch ov portico}, called Peecile in Athens, where 

 Zeno taught his doctrines (about B. C. 300). Zeno, 

 a contemporary of Epicurus, after having studied 

 the systems of the Socratic, Cynic and Academic 

 schools, opposed to scepticism views resting on 

 rigorous moral principles. Philosophy is, accord- 

 ing to him, the way to wisdom; wisdom itself is 

 the knowledge of human and divine things; and 

 virtue is the application of wisdom to life. The 

 chief heads of his doctrine logic, physics and mor- 

 als were connected into a systematic whole. In 

 logic, which he defined the science of distinguishing 

 truth and falsehood, he made .experience the basis 

 of all knowledge ; ideas, or conceptions, which, in 

 all respects, resemble their objects, he called true, 

 and the power of judging according to principles, 

 the mark of a sound reason. In his physics, he refers 

 to nature itself for the highest standard of human 

 duties, and derives the moral precepts from the laws 

 of the universe. He assumes two uncreated and 

 eternal, but material principles of all things the 

 passive matter, and the active intelligence, or God, 

 which resides in matter, and animates it. The 

 Deity is the original intelligence, and of an ethereal, 

 fiery nature: he made the world, as an organic 

 whole, out of matter and form, by the separation of 

 the elements; and he also rules the world but is 

 limited in his operations by unchangeable fate or 

 the necessary laws of nature. The universe, ac- 

 cording to Zeno, is penetrated by the divine intel- 

 ligence as by a soul, and is therefore living and ra- 

 tional, but destined to be destroyed by fire. He 

 considers the heavenly bodies, and the powers of 

 nature, of a divine character, and therefore admits 

 the worship of several gods, and teaches that their 

 connexion with men may be beneficial to the latter. 

 The human soul he considers as produced by the 

 union of the creative fire with air, and endowed 

 with eight faculties the five senses, the powers of 

 generation, speech, and reason : the latter, as the 

 active principle, governs the whole soul. The 

 ethics of the stoics treats the will of God (which 

 also animates the soul of man), or nature, as the 

 source of the moral law, which binds man to aim 

 at divine perfection, since this only can lead to a 

 virtuous life, harmonizing with God and nature, 

 which is the only true happiness. Their practical 

 maxim is, Follow nature, live according to nature, 

 or, which amounts to the same thing, Live in ac- 

 cordance with the laws of consistent reason. They 

 considered virtue the highest good, and vice the 

 only evil; every thing else is indifferent, or only 

 relatively agreeable or disagreeable. They call 

 human actions honest, when they have a reasonable 



