MANDEVILLE, BERNARD DE, a cynical writer, born at Dordrecht, Holland; bred to medicine; came to London to practise; wrote in racy English the “Fable of the Bees,” intended to show, as Stopford Brooke says, how the “vices of society are the foundation of civilisation,” or as Professor Saintsbury says, how “vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable”; the latter calls him “The Diogenes of English Philosophy”; he affirmed that “private vices are public benefits,” and reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against the ethics of SHAFTESBURY (q. v.) (1670-1733).
MANDEVILLE, SIR JOHN, English adventurer, named of St. Albans, who from his own account travelled over thirty years in the East, and wrote a narrative of the marvels he experienced in a book of voyages and travels published in 1356; the authorship of this book has been questioned, but on this point there is no doubt that, as Professor Saintsbury says, “it is the first book of belles-lottres in English prose.”
MANDINGOES, a negro race in Senegambia, and farther inland around the Quorra; are numerous and powerful, and arranged in separate nationalities so to speak.
MANES, the general name given by the Romans to the departed spirits of good men, who are conceived of as dwelling in the nether world, and as now and again ascending to the upper.
MANES, MANI, or MANICHAEANS, the founder of the
MANICHAEANS (q. v.), a native of Persia, and who died
A.D. 274.
MANETHO, an Egyptian priest and historian, of the 3rd century B.C.; wrote a history of Egypt in Greek, derived from study of sacred monumental inscriptions, which is extant only in fragments.
MANFRED, king of the Two Sicilies, son of the Emperor Frederick II., who had to struggle for his birthright with three Popes, Innocent IV., Alexander IV., and Urban IV., the last of whom having excommunicated him, as his predecessors had done, and bestowed his dominions on Charles of Anjou, in conflict with whom at Benevento he fell, and who denied him Christian burial, though his nobles pled with him to grant it (1231-1266).
MANFRED, COUNT, hero of a poem of Byron’s; sold himself to the Prince of Darkness; lived in solitude on the Alps, estranged from all sympathy with others, and was carried off in the end by the master whom he had served.
MANHATTAN, a long island at the mouth of the Hudson, on which a great part of New York stands.
MANICHAEISM, the creed which ascribes the created universe to two antagonistic principles, the one essentially good—God, spirit, light; the other essentially evil—the devil, matter, darkness; and this name is applied to every system founded on the like dualism. Mani, the founder of it, appears to have borrowed his system in great part from Zoroaster.
MANILA (270), capital of the Philippine Islands; at the head of a great bay on the W. coast of Luzon; is hot, but not unhealthy; suffers severely from storms and earthquakes, and is largely built of wood. It has a cathedral, university, and observatory. Its only industry is cigar-making, but the exports include also manila hemp, sugar, and coffee. The population, chiefly Tagals, includes 25,000 Chinese, many Spaniards and Europeans. In the Spanish-American War of 1898 Admiral Dewey captured the city.