Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/233

 KEOPTOLEMUS his school was called eclectic. He taught that God is primarily essence, and secondarily knowledge and power, and that asceticism is the true way to attain to a knowledge of the infinite. Little however is known of his teachings, as he left no writings, and his dis- ciples bound themselves not to divulge his doctrines. Plotinus was the first to put the new philosophy into writing, and to teach it at Rome, where he went to live in 244. He taught that the One or the Good, which with Plato was the highest of the Ideas, is elevated above the sphere of the Ideas, and above all the objects of rational apprehension, and that the Ideas, to which Plato ascribed independent existence, are emanations from this One, the soul an emanation from the Ideas, and so on. The One, or the Good, is neither reason nor an object of rational cognition. From the excess of its energy it sends forth an image of itself. This image is Nous or mind. The Nous in turn produces as its image the soul which exists in it, as itself exists in the One. The body is in the soul and depends on it ; but the soul is ab- solutely separable from the body, not only in its thinking power, but also in its lower facul- ties. It precedes and survives the body. The business of man is to return to God, whom he as a sensuous being has estranged from himself. The means for this return 'are virtue, philoso- phic thought, and above all the ecstatic intui- tion of God and the becoming one with him. Prominent among the disciples of Plotinus was Porphyry, who died about 304. He appears to have taught more distinctly than his master the doctrine of the emanation of matter from the soul. He also maintained that the world was without beginning in time. He attacked Christianity, and especially the divinity of Je- sus, lamblichus, who died about 830, employ- ed the Neo-Platonic philosophy in support of paganism, and relied more on Pythagorean speculations as to the mystical powers of num- bers than on Platonic ideas. Among his dis- ciples was the emperor Julian the Apostate. The attempt to overthrow Christianity and re- vive paganism failed, and the Neo-Platonists now applied themselves to scientific studies, and especially to commentaries on Plato and Aristotle. Proclus was the most important of these later writers. Some writers give to Neo-Platonism a much wider scope than that of the school of Ammonius and his disciples. They include in it not only Philo-Judseus, but several of the Christian fathers besides Origen, as for instance Clement of Alexandria, Greg- ory Nazianzen, and Cyril of Alexandria. (See ALEXANDBIAN SCHOOL.) NEOPTOLEMIJS. I. The son of Achilles and Deidamia, originally called Pyrrhus from his red hair. When it was prophesied that Troy could not be taken without the aid of the son of Achilles, Ulysses and Diomedes were sent to bring him thither. He was one of the war- riors concealed in the wooden horse. He slew Priam, sacrificed Polyxena on the tomb of NEPAUL 225 Achilles, and married Andromache, who bore him several sons. II. An officer of Alexander the Great, who first distinguished himself at the siege of Gaza in 332 B. C. After the death of the conqueror, Armenia was assigned to Neoptolemus. When the Macedonian gen- erals took up arms to contend for the empire, he refused to support Perdiccas, and he was finally killed in battle by Eumenes. NEOSHO, a S. E. county of Kansas, intersect- ed by the Neosho river; area, 576 sq. m.; pop. in 1870, 10,206. It is traversed by the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, and the Leaven- worth, Lawrence, and Galveston railroads. The surface is undulating or level, and the soil is fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 27,466 bushels of wheat, 199,997 of Indian corn, 48,241 of oats, 27,522 of potatoes, 59,025 Ibs. of butter, and 4,943 tons of hay. There were 1,981 horses, 2,257 milch cows, 5,589 other cattle, 1,712 sheep, and 2,700 swine. Capital, Erie. NEPAUL, an independent kingdom of India, bounded N. by the Himalaya mountains, which separate it from Thibet, E. by the British district of Darjeeling and the protected na- tive state of Sikkim, and S. and W. by Ben- gal, Oude, and the Northwest Provinces. It is included between lat. 26 25' and 30 15' K, and Ion. 79 45' and 88 20' E. ; length W. K W. and E. S. E. about 500 m., greatest breadth 150 m. ; area estimated at 50,000 sq. m. ; pop. estimated at 2,000,000. The largest town is Katmandu, the capital. Nepaul is in- tersected by several large rivers, some of which have their sources on the table land of Thibet, beyond the Himalaya, through which they force their way by narrow chasms of great depth. The three great river systems of Nepaul com- prise the Gogra and its tributaries in the west, the Gunduk and its feeders in the middle re- gion, and in the east the alpine basin of the Coosy or Cosi. There are very few lakes in the country. The greater part of the kingdom belongs to the Himalaya region, which pre- sents a succession of vast ridged mountain slopes with narrow glens between them ; but the Ne- paulese territory also includes a tract about 20 m. in width lying within the plain which stretches southward from the base of the mountains. In respect to elevation the coun- try is naturally divisible into a lower region, extending from the great plain of India to a height of 4,000 ft. above the sea level ; a cen- tral region, comprising all between 4,000 and 10,000 ft. ; and an upper region, reaching thence to the highest peaks. There are sever- al summits of stupendous height, among which is Mt. Everest (29,002 ft.), the highest known mountain in the world. From the N. boundary, which lies within the limit of perpetual snow, the elevations gradually sink into lower and lower hills, among which lies the great valley of Nepaul, in which is situated the capital. It is 4,500 ft. above the sea, measures 16 m. in each diameter, and is watered by the Bagmutty