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 drama of the Alexandre Dumas type. One of his greatest successes was as Benvenuto Cellini, in which he displayed his ability both as an actor and as a sculptor, really modelling before the eyes of the audience a statue of Hebe. He sent a number of statuettes to the various exhibitions, notably one of Gilbert Louis Duprez as William Tell. Melingue’s wife, Théodorine Thiesset (1813–1886), was the actress selected by Victor Hugo to create the part of Guanhumara in Burgraves at the Comédie Française, where she remained ten years.

MELIORISM (Lat. melior, better), in philosophy, a term given to that view of the world which believes that at present the sum of good exceeds the sum of evil and that, in the future, good will continually gain upon evil. The term is said to have been invented by George Eliot to express a theory mediating between optimism and pessimism. The pragmatic movement in philosophy which puts stress upon the duty and value of effort is naturally favourable to the melioristic view: the best things that have been said recently in favour of it are found in books such as William James’s Pragmatism.

MELISSUS OF SAMOS, Greek philosopher of the (q.v.), was born probably not later than 470  According to Diogenes Laërtius, ix. 24, he was not only a thinker, but also a political leader in his native town, and was in command of the fleet which defeated the Athenians in 442. The same authority says he was a pupil of Parmenides and of Heraclitus, but the statement is improbable, owing to discrepancy in dates. His works, fragments of which are preserved by Simplicius and attested by the evidence of Aristotle, are devoted to the defence of Parmenides’ doctrine. They were written in Ionic and consist of long series of argument. Being, he says, is eternal. It cannot have had a beginning because it cannot have begun from not-being (cf. ex nihilo nihil), nor from being ( ). It cannot suffer destruction; it is impossible for being to become not being, and if it became another being, there would be no destruction. According to Simplicius (Physica, f. 22b), he differed here from Parmenides in distinguishing being and absolute being ( ). He goes on to show that eternal being must also be unlimited in magnitude, and, therefore, one and unchangeable. Any change whether from internal or external source, he says, is unthinkable; the One is unvarying in quantity and in kind. There can be no division inside this unity, for any such division implies space or void; but void is nothing, and, therefore, is not. It follows further that being is incorporeal, inasmuch as all body has size and parts. The fundamental difficulty underlying this logic is the paradox more clearly expressed by Zeno and to a large extent represented in almost all modern discussion, namely that the evidence of the senses contradicts the intellect. Abstract argument has shown that change in the unity is impossible; yet the senses tell us that hot becomes cold, hard becomes soft, the living dies, and so on. From a comparison of Melissus with Zeno of Elea, it appears that the spirit of dialectic was already tentatively at work, though it was not conscious of its own power. Neither Melissus nor Zeno seems to have observed that the application of these destructive methods struck at the root not only of multiplicity but also of the One whose existence they maintained. The weapons which they forged in the interests of Parmenides were to be used with equal effect against themselves.

MELITO, bishop of Sardis, a Christian writer of the 2nd century, mentioned by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. iv. 21) along with Hegesippus, Dionysius of Corinth, Apollinaris of Hierapolis, Irenaeus, and others, his contemporaries, as a champion of orthodoxy and upholder of apostolic tradition. Of his personal history nothing is known, and of his numerous works (which are enumerated—with quotations—by Eusebius) only a few fragments are extant. They included an Apologia addressed to Antoninus some time between 169 and 180, two books relating to the paschal controversy, and a work entitled (selections from the Old Testament), which contained the first Christian list of “the books of the Old Covenant.” It excludes Esther, Nehemiah and the Apocrypha. The fragments have been edited with valuable notes by Routh (Reliquiae sacrae, vol. i., 1814). These are sufficient to show that Melito was an important figure in Asia Minor and took much part in the paschal, Marcionite and Montanist controversies.

It seems more than doubtful whether the Apologia of Melito “the Philosopher,” discovered in a Syriac translation by Henry Tattam (1789–1868), and subsequently edited by W. Cureton and by Pitra-Renan, ought to be attributed to this writer and not to another of the same name. The  (clavis), edited by Pitra-Renan, is a much later Latin collection of mystical explanations of Scripture.

See A. Harnack, Texte und Untersuchungen, i. 240–278 (Leipzig, 1882); Erwin Preuschen, s.v. “Melito” in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, xii., 1903, giving full list of works and bibliography.

 MELKSHAM, a market town in the Westbury parliamentary division of Wiltshire, England, 95 m. W. of London by the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2450. It lies in a valley sheltered by steep chalk hills on the east, its old-fashioned stone houses lining a single broad street, which crosses the Upper Avon by a bridge of four arches. The church preserves some remnants of Norman work and a Perpendicular south chapel of rare beauty. Melksham possesses cloth-mills where coco-nut fibre and hair cloth are woven, flour-mills and dye-works. On the discovery of a saline spring in 1816, baths and a pump-room were opened, but although two other springs were found later, the attempt to create a fashionable health resort failed. The surrounding deer-forest was often visited by Edward I. Lacock Abbey, 3 m. distant, was founded in 1232 for Austin canonesses, and dissolved in 1539. Portions of the monastic buildings remain as picturesque fragments in and near the modern mansion called Lacock Abbey.

 MELLE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Deux-Sèvres, on the left bank of the Béronne, 21 m. E.S.E. of Niort by rail. Pop. (1906), 2231. Melle has two churches in the Romanesque style of Poitou, St Pierre and St Hilaire, the latter ornamented with sculptured arcading. The hospital has a richly carved doorway of the 17th century. The church of St Savinien (11th century) serves as a prison. The town has trade in farm-produce, mules and other live stock; distilling is carried on. Melle (Metallum) derives its name from the lead mine worked here during the Roman occupation and in the early middle ages. At the latter period it had a mint. In later times it was a possession of the counts of Maine.

 MELLITIC ACID (benzene hexacarboxylic acid), C6(COOH)6, was first discovered in 1799 by M. H. Klaproth in the mineral honeystone, which is the aluminium salt of the acid. The acid may be prepared by warming honeystone with ammonium carbonate, boiling off the excess of the ammonium salt and adding ammonia to the solution. The precipitated alumina is filtered off, the filtrate evaporated and the ammonium salt of the acid purified by recrystallization. The ammonium salt is then converted into the lead salt by precipitation with lead acetate and the lead salt decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen.

The acid may also be prepared by the oxidation of pure carbon, or of hexamethyl benzene, in the cold, by alkaline potassium permanganate (F. Schulze, Ber., 1871, 4, p. 802; C. Friedel and J. M. Crafts, Ann. chim. phys., 1884 [6], 1, p. 470). It crystallizes in fine silky needles and is soluble in water and alcohol. It is a very stable compound, chlorine, concentrated nitric acid and hydriodic acid having no action upon it. It is decomposed, on dry distillation, into carbon dioxide and pyromellitic acid, C10H6O8; when distilled with lime it gives carbon dioxide and benzene. Long digestion of the acid with excess of phosphorus pentachloride results in the formation of the acid chloride, C6(COCl)6, which crystallizes in needles, melting at 190° C. By heating the ammonium salt of the acid to 150–160° C. as long as ammonia is evolved, a mixture of paramide (mellimide), C6 NH3, and ammonium euchroate is obtained. The mixture may be separated by dissolving out the ammonium euchroate with water. Paramide is a white amorphous powder, insoluble in water and alcohol.