spring-tides is three days after the full or change, so the lowest of the neap is four days before the full or change. On which occasion the seamen say that it is deep neap.

NEAPOLIS, a city of Campania, anciently called Parthenope, and now known by the name of Naples. Augustus called it Neapolis. This name was common also to eleven other towns in Asia and Europe.

NEAR. prep. (neɲ, Saxon.) At no great distance from; close to; nigh (Dryden).

NEAR. ad. 1. Almost (Drayton). 2. At hand; not far off (Dryden). 3. Within a litle (Bacon).

NEAR. G. 1. Not distant (Genesis). 2. Advanced toward the end of an enterprise or disquisition (Hooker). 3. Direct; straight (Milton). 4. Close; not rambling (Dryden). 5. Closely related (Leviticus). 6. Intimate; familiar; admitted to confidence (Shakspeare). 7. Touching; pressing; affecting; dear (Shakspeare). 8. Parsimonious; inclining to

covetousness.

NEAR-HAND. Closely (Bacon). NEAR-SIDE of a horse: his left side, or that on which the rider mounts. The horse's right is in like manner called his off-side.

NEARCHUS, an officer of Alexander, who was ordered to sail upon the Indian ocean with Onesicritus, and to examine it. He wrote an account of this voyage, and of the king's life; but his veracity has been called in question by Arrian. After the king's death he was appointed over Lycia and Pamphylia.

NEARLY. ad. (from near.) 1. At no great distance (Atterbury). 2. Closely; pressingly (Swift). 3. In a niggardly manner.

NE'ARNESS. s. (from near.) 1. Closeness; not remoteness (Duppa). 2. Alliance of blood or affection (Bacon). 3. Tendency to avarice (Bacon).

NEAT. s. (neat, nýten, Saxon.) 1. Blackeattle; oxen (May). 2. A cow or ox (Tusser). NEAT. a. (net, French.) 1. Elegant, but without dignity (Pope). 2. Cleanly (Milton). 3. Pure; unadulterated; unmingled (Chap

Fran).

NEATH, a corporate town of Wales, in Glamorganshire, with a market on Saturday; situate on the river Neath, near the Bristol channel. In the neighbourhood are iron forges, smelting works for copper, and coal mines; and on the other side of the river are the extensive remains of an abbey. A great quantity of coal is exported hence in small vessels. It is 27 miles S.W. of Brecknock, and 198 W. of London.

NEATH, a river of Wales, which rises in Brecknockshire, and runs through Glamorganshire, by the town of Neath, in the Bristol

channel.

NEATHERD. s. (neaðÿ, Saxon.) A cow-keeper; one who has the care of blackcattle (Dryden).

NEATLY. ad. (from neat). 1. Elegantly, but without dignity; sprucely (Shakspeare). 2. Cleanlily. VOL, VIII.

NEATNESS. s. (from neat.) 1. Spruce ness; elegance without dignity. 2. Cleanli

ness.

NEB. s. (nebbe, Saxon.) 1. Nose; beak; mouth (Shakspeare). 2. (In Scotland.) The bill of a bird.

NEBEL, or NEBEL NASSOR. (Hebrew.) The name given by the ancient Jews to their ten-stringed harp, as that of which David speaks in the Psalms.

NEBO (anc. geog.), a very high mountaiu, a part of the mountains Abarim, and their highest top, whither Moses was ordered to ascend to take a view of the land of Canaan, and there die. Situated in the land of Moab, overagainst Jericho: with a cognominal town at its foot (Isaiah) belonging to the Rubenites, which afterwards returned to the Moabites; in Jerom's time desolate: eight miles to the south of Heshbon.

'NEBULAE, in astronomy. There are spots in the heavens called nebule, some of which consist of clusters of telescopic stars, others appear as luminous spots of different forms. The most considerable is one in the midway between the two stars on the blade of Orion's sword, marked by Bayer, discovered in the year 1656 by Huygen's; it contains only seven stars, and the other part is a bright spot upon a dark ground, and appears like an opening into brighter regions beyond.

The

Dr. Halley and others have discovered nebulæ in different parts of the heavens. In the Connoissance des Temps, for 1783 and 1784, there is a catalogue of 103 nebula, observed by Messier and Mechain. But to Dr. Herschel we are indebted for catalogues of 2000 nebulæ, and clusters of stars, which he himself has discovered. Some of them form a round compact system, others are more irregular, of various forms, and some are long and narrow. globular systems of stars appear thicker in the middle than they would do if the stars were all at equal distances from each other; they are, therefore, condensed toward the centre. That stars should be thus accidentally disposed is too improbable a supposition to be admitted; he supposes, therefore, that they are brought together by their mutual attractions, and that the gradual condensation towards the centre is a proof of a central power of such a kind. He observes, also, that there are some additional circumstances in the appearance of extended clusters and nebulæ, that very much favour the idea of a power lodged in the brightest part. For although the form of them be not globular, it is plain that there is a tendency to sphericity. As the stars in the same nebulæ must be very nearly all at the same relative distances from us, and they appear nearly of the same size, their real magnitudes must be nearly equal. Granting, therefore, that these nebula and clusters of stars are formed by mutual attraction, Dr. Herschel concludes, that we may judge of their relative age by the disposition of their component parts, those being the oldest which are most compressed. He

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Supposes, and indeed offers powerful arguments to prove, that the milky way is the nebule of which our sun is one of its component parts.

Dr. Herschel has also discovered other phenomena in the heavens, which he calls nebulous stars; that is, stars surrounded with a faint luminous atmosphere of large extent. Those which have been thus styled by other astronomers, he says, ought not to have been so called, for on examination they have proved to be either mere clusters of stars plainly to be distinguished by his large telescopes, or such nebulous appearances as might be occasioned by a multitude of stars at a vast distance. The milky way consists entirely of stars; and he says, "I have been led on by degrees from the most evident congeries of stars to other groups in which the lucid points were smaller, but still very plainly to he seen; and from them to such wherein they could but barely be suspected, until I arrived at last to spots in which no trace of a star was to be discerned. But then the gradation to these latter were by such connected steps as left no room for doubt, but that all these phenomena were equally occasioned by stars variously dispersed in the immense expanse of the universe."

In the same paper is given an account of some nebulous stars, one of which is thus described: Nov. 13, 1790. A most singular phenomenon! A star of the eighth magnitude, with a faint luminous atmosphere of a circular form, and of about three in diameter. The star is perfectly in the centre, and the atmosphere is so diluted, faint, and equal throughout, that there can be no surmise of its consisting of stars, nor can there be a doubt of the evident connection between the atmosphere and the star. Another star, not much less in brightness, and in the same field of view with the above, was perfectly free from any such appearance." Hence, Dr. Herschel draws the following consequences: granting the connection between the star and the surrounding nebulosity, if it consist of stars very remote, which gives the nebulous appearance, the central star, which is visible, must be immensely greater than the rest; or if the central star be no bigger than common, how extremely small and compressed must be those other luminous points which occasion the nebulosity. As, by the former supposition, the luminous central point must far exceed the standard of what we call a star; so in the latter, the shining matter about the centre will be too small to come under the same denomination; we, therefore, either have a central body which is not a star, or a star which is involved in a shining fluid, of a nature totally unknown to us. This last opinion Dr. Herschel adopts.

Light reflected from the star could not be seen at this distance. Besides, the outward parts are nearly as bright as those near the star. Moreover, a cluster of stars will not so completely account for the mildness or soft tint of the light of these nebula, as a self luminous fluid. What a field of novelty," says Dr. Hers

chel," is here opened to our conceptions! A shining fluid, of a brightness sufficient to reach us from the regions of a star of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, magnitude; and of an extent so considerable as to take up 3, 4, 5, or 6 minutes in diameter." He conjectures that this shining fluid may be composed of the light perpetually emitted from millions of stars. See Philos. Trans. vol. lxxxi. p. 1. on nebu. lous stars, properly so called.

NEBULY, or NEBULEE, in heraldry, is when a coat is charged with several little figures, in form of words running with one another, or when the outline of a bordure, ordinary, &c. is indented or waved.

NEBULOUS. a. (nebulosus, Latin.) Misty; cloudy.)

NECESSARIES. s. (from necessary.) Things not only convenient but needful (Ham mond)

NECESSARILY. ad. (from necessary.) 1. Indispensably (Hooker). 2. By inevitable consequence (Hooker). 3. By fate; not freely (Southey).

NECESSARINESS. s. (from necessary.) The state of being necessary.

NECESSARY. a. (necessarius, Latin.) 1. Needful; indispensably requisite (Tillot.). 2. Not free; fatal; impelled by fate (Shaks peare). 3. Conclusive; decisive by inevitable consequence (Tillotson).

NECESSARY POLYGAMY. In botany, polygamia necessaria. The name of the fourth order in the class syngenesia; wherein the hermaphrodite florets of the disk, for want of a stigma, are barren; but the female florets of the ray, being impregnated by the pollen from the others, bear perfect seed.

To NECESSITATE. v. a. (from necessitas, Lat.) To make necessary; not to leave free; to exempt from choice (Duppa).

NECESSITA'TION. s. (from necessitate.) The act of making necessary; fatal conipul sion (Bramhall).

NECESSITED. a. (from necessity). In a state of want: not used (Shakspeare).

NECESSITOUS. a. (from necessity.) Pressed with poverty (Clarendon). NECESSITOUSNESS. s. (from neces sitous.) Poverty; want; need (Burnet). NECESSITUDE. s. (necessitudo, Latin, 1. Want; need (Hale). 2. Friendship.

NECESSITY. s. (necessitas, Latin.) 1. Cogency; compulsion; fatality (Milton). 2. State of being necessary; indispensableness (Shakspeare). 3. Want; need; poverty (Clarendon). 4. Things necessary for human life (Shakspeare). 5. Cogency of argument; inevitable consequence (Raleigh). 6. Vio lence; compulsion (Chapman).

NECESSITY, in mythology, a power supe rior to all other powers, and equally irresistible by gods and by men. Herodotus, as he is quoted by Cudworth, mentions an oracle which declared that God himself could not shun his destined fate. And among the fragments of Philemon collected by Le Clerc is the following sentence:

Δουλος βασιλεων εσμεν, οι βασιλεις θεων, ὁ θεος

απαγχης.

We are subject to kings, kings to the gods, and God to necessity." Hence it is, that, in the Iliad, we find Jove himself, the sire of gods and men, regretting that he was restrained by Necessity from rescuing his favourite son from the sword of Patroclus. Nay, to such a height was this impiety carried in the earliest ages of Greece, that we find Hesiod and Homer teaching that the gods themselves were generated by Necessity, of Night and Chaos.

This power, though always represented as blind and unintelligent, was however worshipped as a goddess, bearing in her hand large iron-nails, wedges, anchors, and melted lead, as emblems of the inflexible severity of her nature. In the city of Corinth she had a temple, in which the goddess Violence likewise resided, and into which no person was ever permitted to enter but the priest who officiated in sacris.

NECESSITY (Metaphysical or philosophical,) is a term that has been much used by modern writers; and which some have defined to be, that by which a thing cannot but be, or whereby it cannot be otherwise. But a much approved author on this subject objects against this definition, and observes, that philosophical necessity is really nothing else than the full and fixed connection between the things signified by the subject and predicate of a proposition, which affirms something to be true; so that it is in no respect different from their certainty. When there is such a connection, then the thing affirmed in the proposition is necessary in a philosophical sense; whether any opposition or contrary effort be supposed or supposable in the case or no. When the subject and predicate of the proposition, which affirms the existence of any thing, either substance, quality, act, or circumstance, have a full and certain connection, then the existence of that thing is said to be necessary in a metaphysical sense.

Those that are commonly called Necessarians allow no other liberty to man that is not restrained by this kind of necessity: and when they consider intelligent beings as the subjects of it, some of them distinguish it into moral and natural necessity. Moral necessity is used in a variety of senses: sometimes for a necessity of moral obligation; and often for great obligation in point of interest: sometimes by moral necessity is meant that apparent connection of things, which is the ground of moral evidence; and so it is distinguished from absolute necessity, or that sure connection of things that is a foundation for infallible certainty: and sometimes by moral necessity is meant that necessity of connection and consequence which arises from such moral causes, as the strength of inclination or motives, and the connection, subsisting in many cases, between these and certain volitions and actions. By natural necessity, as applied to men, they understand such necessity as men are under, through the force of natural causes; in contradistinction to those that are called moral causes,

such as habits and dispositions of the heart, and moral inducements and motives.

Mr. Hobbes, who is said to have been the first who understood and maintained the proper doctrine of philosophical necessity, gives the following account of it in his Leviathan, p. 108. Liberty and necessity are consistent: as in the water, that hath not the liberty, but a necessity of descending in the channel; so likewise in the actions which men voluntarily do, which, because they proceed from their will, proceed from liberty; and yet, because every act of man's will, and every desire and inclination, proceedeth from some cause, and that from another cause, in a continual chain (whose first link is in the hand of God, the first of all causes), proceed from necessity: so that to him who could see the connection of those causes, the necessity of all men's voluntary actions would appear manifest: and, therefore, God, that seeth and disposeth all things, seeth also that the liberty of man, in doing what he will, is accompanied with the necessity of doing that which God will, and no more or less for though men may do many things which God does not command, nor is, therefore, the author of them, yet they can have no passion, will, or appetite to any thing, of which appetite God's will is not the cause: and did not his will assume the necessity of man's will, and consequently of all that on man's will dependeth, the liberty of men would be a contradiction and impediment to the omnipotence and liberty of God.

Mr. Collins, one of the most admired writers on the subject of necessity, has stated the question concerning human liberty in the following manner: Man, he says, is a necessary agent, if all his actions are so determined by the causes preceding each action, that not one past action could possibly not have come to pass, or have been otherwise than it hath been ; nor one future action can possibly not come to pass, or be otherwise than it shall be. But he is a free agent, if he is able, at any time, under the circumstances and causes he then is, to do different things; or, in other words, if he is not unavoidably determined, in every point of time, by the circumstances he is in, and causes he is under, to do that one thing he does, and not possibly to do any other. According to this state of the question, he undertakes to prove that man is a necessary agent; and that there neither is nor can be such thing as liberty. 1. He appeals to experience; alleging, that, though the vulgar urge this in proof of liberty, it is not a proof of it: that many celebrated philosophers and theologers, both ancient and modern, have given definitions of liberty that are consistent with fate or necessity: that some great patrons of liberty do, by their concessions in this matter, destroy all arguments from experience: that all the actions of men may be ranked under the four heads of perception, judging, willing, and doing as we will; and that experience does no prove any of these to be free; and that experience not only does not prove liberty, but, on the contrary, men may see by experience, that

hey are necessary agents. It is, says he, matter of experience, that man is ever determined in his willing; we experience perfect necessity; and they, who think liberty a matter of experience, yet allow that the will follows the judgment of the understanding, and that, when two objects are presented to a man's choice, one whereof appears better than the other, he cannot choose the worst. 2. Man is a necessary agent, because all his actions have a beginning; for whatever has a beginning must have a cause, and every cause is a necessary cause and if any action whatsoever can be done without a cause, then effects and causes have no necessary relation; and, consequently, we should not be necessarily determined in any case at all. 3. Liberty would not be a perfection, but an imperfection; whereas, on the contrary, necessity is an advantage and a perfection. 4. Liberty is inconsistent with the divine prescience; for if God foreknows the existence of any thing, as it depends on its own causes, that existence is no less necessary than if it were the effect of his decree: for it no less implies a contradiction, that causes should not produce their effects, than that an event should not come to pass which is decreed by God.

This argument for necessity has been urged by a variety of writers; and the advocates for liberty have felt its force, and endeavoured to obviate it. Some have actually given up the divine prescience: some have allowed the seeming contradiction implied in the foreknowledge of a contingent event, and have acknowledged themselves incapable of removing it others have endeavoured to reconcile the foreknowledge of God and the liberty of man, by alleging, that there is a great difference between God's foreknowledge and his decrees, with regard to the necessity of future events; for God's prescience has no influence at all on our actions: his infallible judgment, concerning contingent truths, does no more alter the nature of the things, and cause them to be necessary, than our judging right, at any time, concerning a contingent truth, makes it cease to be contingent; or, than our sense of a present truth is any cause of its being true or present.

In the argument, says Dr. Clarke, drawn against liberty from the divine prescience, it must not first be supposed that things are in their own nature necessary; but from the divine prescience or power of judging infallibly (which power is as much more extensive and infallible than in man, as the divine nature and understanding are superior to ours) concerning free events, it must be proved, that things otherwise supposed free, will, therefore, unavoidably become necessary; which can no more be proved, than it can be proved that an action, supposed at this present time to be free, is yet (contrary to the supposition) at the same time necessary; because, in all past time, whether foreknown or not foreknown, it could not, upon that very supposition of its being ⚫ now freely done, but be future.

In another place he acknowledges, that though it is impossible for us to explain distinctly the manner how God can foresee future events without a chain of necessary causes, yet we may form some general notion of it. For as a man who has no influence over another person's actions, and yet often perceives beforehand what that other will do'; and a wiser and more experienced man will still, with greater probability, foresee what another, whose disposition he is perfectly acquainted with, will in certain circumstances do; and an angel, with still much less degree of error, may have a farther prospect into men's future actions: so it is very reasonable to apprehend that God, without influencing men's wills by his power, yet by his foresight cannot but have as much more certain a knowledge of future free events than either men or angels can possibly have, as the perfection of his nature is greater than that of theirs. The certainty of foreknowledge, says this excellent writer, does not cause the certainty of things, but is itself founded on the reality of their existence; nor does it imply any other certainty than such as would be equally in things, though there was no foreknowledge; nor again does this certainty of event, in any sort, imply necessity. To the same purpose Origen has long ago observed, that prescience is not the cause of things future, but their being future is the cause of God's prescience that they will be.

It cannot reasonably be disputed that there is an essential difference between the foreknowledge and permission of events, and the preordination and production of them; and the scheme of necessity seems directly to charge God with being the efficient cause or author of those vices and evils, which arise from circumstances and connexions of his previous and absolute appointment. Indeed, many of the advocates of this scheme will not admit the consequence that seems to be fairly deducible from their opinion: however, Dr. Priestley very candidly allows it.

Another argument in favour of necessity has been deduced from the nature of morality: for if a man was not a necessary agent, determined by pleasure and pain, he would have no notion of morality, or motive to practise it; and if he were indifferent to pleasure and pain, he would have no rule to go by, and might never judge, will, and practise right. Every act of the will, it is said, is excited by some motive, which motive is the cause of that act: and if volitions are properly the effects of motives, then they are necessarily connected with their motives: whence it is inferred, that volition is necessary, and doth not proceed from any self-determining power in the will. This argument has been illustrated and urged in all its force by many modern writers, from M. Leibnitz to Dr. Priestley, the last and most zealous advo cate for necessity: and it has often been answered by Dr. Clarke and others, who have strenuously maintained that liberty is perfectly consistent with men's acting from a regard to motives.

Supposing, says Dr. Price, a power of selfdetermination to exist, it is by no means necessary that it should be exerted without a regard to any end or rule; on the contrary, it can never be exerted without some view or design. Whoever acts means to do somewhat. The power of determining ourselves, by the very nature of it, wants an end or rule to guide it; and no probability or certainty of its being exerted agreeably to a rule can have the least tendency to infringe or diminish it. All that should be avoided here is the intolerable absurdity of making our reasons and ends in acting the physical causes or efficients of action. This is the same with ascribing the action of walking not to the feet, or the power which moves the feet, but to the eye, which only sees the way. The perception of a reason for acting, or the judgment of the understanding, is no more than seeing the way; it is the eye of the mind which informs and directs; and whatever certainty there may be that a particular determination will follow, such determination will be the self-determination of the mind; and not any change of its state stamped upon it, over which it has no power, and in receiving which, instead of being an agent, it is merely a passive subject of agency. Although the views and ideas of beings may be the occasions of their acting; yet it is a contradiction to make them the mechanical efficients of their actions so necessary and important is the distinction insisted upon by Dr. Clarke, between the operation of physical causes and the influence of moral reasons.

The celebrated Mr. Dawson of Sedbergh published, in the year 1781, a pamphlet en titled "The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity briefly invalidated :" the mode of argument adopted in this publication may be understood from the following concise view of it.

Mr. Dawson, observing that in all sciences some principles must be taken for granted, else nothing can be proved, premises these three axioms.

1st. If we make a false supposition, and reason justly from it, a contradiction or absurdity will be contained in the conclusion.

2d. It must likewise be taken for granted (as it does not admit of proof), that every action, or exertion, voluntarily made, is with a design, or in hopes of obtaining some end. For it is evident, that where there is a full conviction of the impossibility of this, no rational being will make any attempt or exertion at all.

3d. All practical principles must either be founded in truth, or believed to be so for the moment that they operate.

These axioms being admitted, this author first supposes the doctrine of necessity to be true, and that its truth is discovered to us in such a manner, and is so strongly impressed upon our minds, as to become a practical principle; then upon this supposition he concludes, by the second axiom, that motives of all kinds must cease to operate.

To illustrate this, he takes an event in which we are all equally concerned, viz. the time and eircumstances of our death. Supposing, there

fore, that at or before our entrance into this world the time of our leaving it was fixed, and that we actually believed it to be so, no circumstance throughout life, no possible situation in which we could be placed, would operate as a motive, so as to make us use even the slightest endeavour either to lengthen out or shorten the period of our existence. This must be allowed, upon the supposition under consideration; and if this be the case, with regard to so momentous an event, it will certainly hold true of any other. Hence, he observes, this conclusion may be fairly drawn,—that where the doctrine of necessity is firmly believed, and made use of as a practical principle, motives cease to operate. But upon the certain and infallible operation of motives the whole scheme of necessity is founded: this doctrine, therefore, taken in this light, is destructive of itself.

In the next place he supposes the doctrine of necessity to be true, but that it does not (as we find is really the case) operate as a practical principle, and then proceeds to examine the consequence.

A practical principle, he observes, for the instant that it operates, must be seen or felt to be speculatively true, else it could not answer the end intended. For, a full conviction of its being false, at the very time it ought to influence our conduct, would certainly destroy its effect. This cannot be denied. Examples in real life might be found in abundance to illustrate this supposition. We daily see errors in opinion (or of prejudice) made the foundation of our practice, which, when our minds are better informed, cease to operate, and give place to the opposite truths; or, in other words, the moment that the error of any practical principle is discovered, and in such a manner as to present itself to us upon every occasion, it will cease to operate, and the opposite truth will instantly take possession, as it were, and influence our conduct accordingly. He supposes, likewise, that in a future state our faculties will be enlarged, our understandings enlightened, and our apprehensions quickened in such a degree, that the truths which we now attain to with difficulty and much study will then appear as axioms, or be classed among the first principles of our knowledge, and hence serve as a basis for making farther discoveries by reason. If therefore, as was before supposed, philosophical necessity be a truth, and likewise discoverable by human reason; in some future period of our existence, liberty, as opposed to this truth, must cease to operate as a practical principle, and give place to ideas of necessity, which, like all intuitive truths, will ever be present to the mind, and consequently, as has been proved before, reduce us to a state entirely torpid.

Here then is discovered a barrier or limit, to which human nature in its progress in knowledge can never arrive; and which the subtile metaphysician, by standing on tiptoe, has already got a sight of. Must we then, as Mr. D. observes, in a future state be under the disagreeable necessity of petitioning the Deity to darken our understandings, and blunt our pe