SECOND-SIGHT, name given to the power of seeing things future or distant; a power superstitiously ascribed to certain people in the Highlands of Scotland.

SECULARIST, name given to one who, discarding as irrelevant all theories and observances bearing upon the other world and its interests, holds that we ought to confine our attention solely to the immediate problems and duties of this, independently of all presumed dependence on revelation and communications from a higher sphere.

SEDAN (20), a town of France, in department of Ardennes, on the Maas, 164 m.  NE. of Paris; once a strong fortress, but dismantled in 1875, where in 1870 Napoleon III. and 86,000 men under Marshal Macmahon surrendered to the Germans; noted for its cloth manufactories.  Previous to the Edict of Nantes was a celebrated centre of Huguenot industry and theological learning.

SEDGEMOOR, district in central Somersetshire, 5 m.  SE. of Bridgwater, scene of a famous battle between the troops of James II. and those of the Duke of Monmouth on July 6, 1685, in which the latter were completely routed.

SEDGWICK, ADAM, geologist, born at Dent, Yorkshire; graduated at Cambridge in 1808, became a Fellow in the same year, and in 1818 was elected to the Woodward chair of Geology; co-operated with Murchison in the study of the geological formation of the Alps and the Devonian system of England; strongly conservative in his scientific theories, he stoutly opposed the Darwinian theory of the origin of species; his best work was contributed in papers to the Geological Society of London, of which he was President 1829-1831; published “British Palaeozoic Rocks and Fossils” (1785-1873).

SEELEY, SIR JOHN ROBERT, author of “Ecce Homo,” born in London; studied at Cambridge, became professor of History there in 1869 on Kingsley’s retirement; his “Ecce Homo” was published in 1865, a piece of perfect literary workmanship, but which in its denial of the self-originated spirit of Christ offended orthodox belief and excited much adverse criticism; wrote in 1882 a work entitled “Natural Religion,” in which he showed the same want of sympathy with supernatural ideas, as also several historical works (1834-1895).

SEGOVIA (14), a quaint old Spanish city, capital of a province (154) of the same name; crowns a rocky height looking down on the river Eresma, 32 m.  NW. of Madrid; its importance dates from Roman times; has a great aqueduct, built in Trajan’s reign, and a fine Moorish castle and Gothic cathedral; cloth-weaving the only important industry.

SEGU (36), a town of West Africa, on the Joliba, 400 m.  SW. of Timbuctoo; chiefly occupied by trading Arabs; once the capital of a now decayed native State.

SEINE, an important river of France, rises in the tableland of Langres, takes a winding course to the NW., passing many important towns, Troyes, Fontainebleau, Paris, St. Denis, Rouen, &c., and discharges into the English Channel by a broad estuary after a course of 482 m., of which 350 are navigable.