Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/585

 S T S T 561 1880. Stockton was laid out in 1849, and was incor- porated as a city in 1850. STOCKTON-ON-TEES, a market-town and municipal and parliamentary borough and seaport of Durham, on the borders of the North Riding of Yorkshire, into which the parliamentary borough extends, is situated on the Tees, which is crossed by an iron bridge (completed in 1887 at a cost over 80,000, to supersede the stone bridge of 1769) leading to South Stockton, and on the Stockton and Dar- lington and the Sunderland and West Hartlepool branches of the North-Eastern Railway, 20 miles south-south-east of Durham, and 4 miles west-south-west of Middlesborough. The principal street is about a mile in length. Of the ancient castle commanding the Tees, which was destroyed in 1652, the last remains were removed in 1865. Among the principal public buildings are the town-hall, with a clock-tower and spire, the borough hall (erected in 1852 at a cost of .32,000), the freemasons' hall, the temperance hall, the theatre, the exchange hall, the literary institute, the hospital, the dispensary, the free library, and the blue-coat school. Stockton is a seaport of considerable importance. The management of the Tees, vested in 1808 in the Tees Navigation Company, was in 1852 vested in the Tees Conservancy Commissioners, incorporated by Act of Parlia- ment, under whose auspices the river has been greatly improved. The trade of the port is chiefly with Holland and the ports of the Baltic, and there is a considerable coasting trade with the Tyne ports and with Hull and London. Its chief exports are iron manufactures, coal, coke, and agricultural produce, the average annual value for the five years 1880-84 being about ".72,000. The principal imports are timber, iron, grain, and provisions, the average annual value for the five years 1880-84 being about .240,000. In 1885 the number of vessels that entered the port was 649, of 149,628 tons, the number that cleared 700, of 175,647 tons. The rapid increase of the town within the last quarter of a century is largely owing to the development of the iron and steel trade in the district. There are extensive steel works, blast- furnaces, iron and brass foundries, and rolling-mills, and iron-shipbuilding is also an important industry. There are also sailcloth works, potteries, breweries, and brick and tile works. The population of the municipal borough (area 1189 acres) in 1871 was 27,738, and in 1881 it was 41,015. The population of the parliamentary borough (area 7157 acres) in the same years was 37,612 and 55,457. The parliamentary borough includes the suburb of South Stockton on the opposite side of the river, forming a separate urban sanitary district (area 1052 acres), with a population in 1871 of 6794 and in 1881 of 10,665. It has a temperance hall, a mechanics' institute, and a national school, and its manufactures are similar to those of Stockton. The place is of great antiquity, and is supposed to have been occupied by the Romans. Before the Conquest the manor belonged to the see of Durham. It was probably first incorporated by Bishop Hugh de Pudsey, who in the reign of Richard I. occupied the castle. The castle, which was for a long time the residence of the bishops, stood on the north bank of the Tees. The town was destroyed by the Scots in 1322, but the castle seems to have escaped. During the Civil War it was garrisoned for the king, but was afterwards delivered up to the Parliamentary party, and in 1645 was held by the Scots. The town suffered severely from inundations of the Tees in 1771, 1783, and 1822. Though Stockton was placed under the Municipal Act of 1835 it remained divided into two parts, the one called the "borough," where the land was freehold, governed by the corporation, and the other called the " town," where the land was copyhold or leasehold, held under the vicar and vestry- men, and outside the corporate jurisdiction. To remedy this state of matters an "Extension and Improvement Act" was passed in 1852. The town was enfranchised in 1867, and returns one member. STOICS, a school of philosophers founded at the close of the 4th century B.C. by Zeno of Citium, and so called from the Stoa or painted corridor (o-roa TTOIKI'A.?;) on the north side of the market-place at Athens, which, after its restoration by Cimon, the celebrated painter Polygnotus had adorned with frescos representing scenes from the Trojan War. But, though it arose on Hellenic soil, from lectures delivered in a public place at Athens, the school is scarcely to be considered a product of purely Greek intellect, but rather as the firstfruits of that interaction between West and East which followed the conquests of Alexander. Hardly a single Stoic of eminence was a citizen of any city in the heart of Greece, unless we make Aristo of Chios, Cleanthes of Assus, and Panastius of Rhodes exceptions. Such lands as Cyprus, Cilicia, and Syria, such cities as Citium, Soli, Heraclea in Pontus, Sidon, Carthage, Seleucia on the Tigris, Apamea by the Orontes, furnished the school with its scholars and presi- dents ; Tarsus, Rhodes, and Alexandria became famous as its university towns. As the first founder was of Phoe- nician descent, so he drew most of his adherents from the countries which were the seat of Hellenistic (as distinct from Hellenic) civilization ; nor did Stoicism achieve its crowning triumph until it was brought to Rome, where the grave earnestness of the national character could appreciate its doctrine, and where for two centuries or more it was the creed, if not the philosophy, of all the best of the Romans. Properly therefore it stands in marked antithesis to that fairest growth of old Hellas, the Academy, which saw the Stoa rise and fall, the one the typical school of Greece and Greek intellect, the other of the Hellenized East, and, under the early Roman empire, of the whole civilized world. The transcendent genius of its author, the vitality and romantic fortunes of his doctrine, claim our warmest sympathies for Platonism. But it should not be forgotten that for more than four centuries the tide ran all the other way. It was Stoicism, not Platonism, that filled men's imaginations, and exerted the wider and more active influence upon the ancient world at some of the busiest and most important times in all history. And this was chiefly because before all things it was a practical philosophy, a rallying point for strong and noble spirits contending against odds. Nevertheless, in some departments of theory, too, and notably in ethics and jurisprudence, Stoicism has dominated the thought of after ages to a degree not easy to exaggerate. The history of the Stoic school may conveniently^ be divided in the usual threefold manner : the old Stoa, the middle or transition period (Diogenes of Seleucia, Boethus of Sidon, Pansetius, Posidonius), and the later Stoicism of Roman times. By the old Stoa is meant the period (c. 304-205 B.C.) down to the death of Chrysippus, the second founder ; then was laid the foundation of theory, to which hardly anything of importance was afterwards added. Confined almost to Athens, the school made its way slowly among many rivals. Aristo of Chios and Herillus of Carthage, Zeno's heterodox pupils, Persaeus, his favourite disciple and housemate, the poet Aratus, and Sphaerus, the adviser of the Spartan king Cleomenes, are noteworthy minor names ; but the chief interest centres about Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, who in succession built up the wondrous system. What originality it had at first sight it would seem not much belongs to these thinkers ; but the loss of all their works except the hymn of Cleanthes, and the inconsistencies in such scraps of information as can be gleaned from unintelligent witnesses, for the most part of many centuries later, have rendered it a peculiarly difficult task to distinguish with certainty the work of each of the three. The common standpoint, the relation to contemporary or earlier systems, with all that goes to make up the character and spirit of Stoicism, can, fortunately, be more certainly established, and may with reason be attributed to the founder. Zeno's residence at Athens XXII. 71