Page:EB1911 - Volume 19.djvu/751

 The first three of these prizes are for eminence in physical science, in chemistry and in medical science or physiology; the fourth is for the most remarkable literary work dans le sens d’idéalisme; and the fifth is to be given to the person or society that renders the greatest service to the cause of international brotherhood, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, or in the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.

NOBILI, LEOPOLDO (1784–1835), Italian physicist, born at Reggio nell’ Emilia in 1784, was in youth an officer of artillery, but afterwards became professor of physics in the archducal museum at Florence, the old habitat of the Accademia del Cimento. His most valuable contributions to science consist in the suggestion of the astatic combination of two needles for galvanometers, and in the invention of the so-called thermomultiplier used by him and M. Melloni. In 1826 he described the prismatically-coloured films of metal, known as Nobili’s rings, deposited electrolytically from solutions of lead and other salts when the anode is a polished iron plate and the cathode is a fine wire placed vertically above it. His papers were mostly published in the Bibliothèque universelle of Geneva. He died at Florence in August 1835.

NOBILIOR, MARCUS FULVIUS, Roman general, a member of one of the most important families of the plebeian Fulvian gens. When praetor (193 ) he served with distinction in Spain, and as consul in 189 he completely broke the power of the Aetolian league. On his return to Rome, Nobilior celebrated a triumph (of which full details are given by Livy) remarkable for the magnificence of the spoils exhibited. On his Aetolian campaign he was accompanied by the poet Ennius, who made the capture of Ambracia, at which he was present, the subject of one of his plays. For this Nobilior was bitterly attacked by Cato the Censor, on the ground that he had compromised his dignity as a Roman general. He restored the temple of Hercules and the Muses in the Circus Flaminius, placed in it a list of Fasti drawn up by himself, and endeavoured to make the Roman calendar more generally known. He was a great enthusiast for Greek art and culture, and introduced many of its masterpieces into Rome, amongst them the picture of the Muses by Zeuxis from Ambracia.

NOBILITY. To form a true understanding of what is strictly implied in the word “nobility,” in its social as opposed to a purely moral sense, it is needful to distinguish its meaning from that of several words with which it is likely to be confounded. In England nobility is apt to be confounded with the peculiar institution of the British peerage. Yet nobility, in some shape or another, has existed in most places and times of the world’s history, while the British peerage is an institution purely local, and one which has actually hindered the existence of a nobility in the sense which the word bears in most other countries. Nor is nobility the same thing as aristocracy. This last is a word which is often greatly abused; but, whenever it is used with any regard to its true meaning, it is a word strictly political, implying a. particular form of government. But nobility is not necessarily a political term; the distinction which it implies may be accompanied by political privileges or it may not. Again, it is sometimes thought that both nobility and aristocracy are in some special way connected with kingly government. To not a few it would seem a contradiction to speak of nobility or aristocracy in a republic. Yet, though many republics have eschewed nobility, there is nothing in a republican, or even in a democratic, form of government inconsistent with the existence of nobility; and it is only in a republic that aristocracy, in the strict sense of the word, can exist. Aristocracy implies the existence of nobility; but nobility does not imply aristocracy; it may exist under any form of government. The peerage, as it exists in the three British kingdoms, is something which is altogether peculiar to the three British kingdoms, and which has nothing in the least degree like it elsewhere.

Nobility, then, in the strict sense of the word, is the hereditary handing on from generation to generation of some acknowledged pre-eminence, a pre-eminence founded on hereditary succession, and on nothing else. Such nobility may be immemorial or it may not. There may or there may not be a power vested somewhere of conferring nobility; but it is essential to the true idea of nobility that, when once acquired, it shall go on for ever to all the descendants—or, more commonly, only to all the descendants in the male line—of the person first ennobled or first recorded as noble. The pre-eminence so handed on may be of any kind, from substantial political power to mere social respect and precedence. It does not seem necessary that it should be formally enacted by law if it is universally acknowledged by usage. It may be marked by titles or it may not. It is hardly needful to prove that nobility does not imply wealth, though nobility without wealth runs some risk of being forgotten. This definition seems to take in all the kinds of nobility which have existed in different times and places. They have differed widely in the origin of the noble class and in the amount of privilege implied in membership of it; but they all agree in the transmission of some privilege or other to all the descendants, or to all the male descendants, of the first noble.

In strictness nobility and gentry are the same thing. This fact is overshadowed in England, partly by the habitual use of the word “” (q.v.) in various secondary uses, partly by the prevalent confusion between nobility and peerage. But that they are the same is proved by the use of the French word gentilhomme, a word

which has pretty well passed out of modern use, but which, as long as it remained in use, never lost its true meaning. There were very wide distinctions within the French noblesse, but they all formed one privileged class as distinguished from the roturier. Here, then, is a nobility in the strictest sense. If there is no such class in England, it is simply because the class which answers to it has never been able to keep any universally acknowledged privileges. The word “gentleman” has lost its original meaning in a variety of other uses, while the word “nobleman” has come to be confined to members of the peerage and a few of their immediate descendants.

That the English peerage does not answer to the true idea of a nobility will be seen with a very little thought. There is no handing on of privilege or pre-eminence to perpetual generations. The peer holds a great position, endowed with substantial powers and privileges, and those powers and privileges are handed on by hereditary succession. But they are handed on only to one member of the family at a time. The peer’s children, in some cases his grandchildren, have titles and precedence, but they have no substantial privileges. His remoter descendants have no advantage of any kind over other people, except their chance of succeeding to the peerage. The remote descendant of a duke, even though he may chance to be heir presumptive to the dukedom, is in no way distinguished from any other gentleman; it is even possible that he may not hold the social rank of gentleman. This is not nobility in the true sense; it is not nobility as nobility was understood either in the French kingdom or in the Venetian commonwealth.

Nobility thus implies the vesting of some hereditary privilege or advantage in certain families, without deciding in what such privilege or advantage consists. Its nature may differ widely according to the causes which have led to the establishment of the distinction between family and family in each particular case.

The way in which nobility has arisen in different times and places is very various, and there are several nations whose history will supply us with examples of a nobility of one kind giving way to a nobility of another kind. The history of the Roman commonwealth illustrates this perhaps better than any other. What we may call the nobility of earlier occupation makes way for the nobility of office. Our first glimpses of authentic Roman history set before us two orders in the same state, one of which is distinguished from the other by many exclusive privileges. The privileged