MEERSCHAERT
146
MEHRERAU
latod from the Latin of Archdeacon John Lynch"
(181S); "Lives of the most eniinont Painters, Sculp-
tors, and Arcliitects, of the Order of St. Dominic,
translated from the Italian of Vincenzo Marchese"
(IS521, out of print; " Fate and Fortunes of the Earls
of Tyrone and Tyrcomicll " (1868) ; " Kise and Fall of
the Irish Fnmciscan Monasteries and Memoirs of the
Irish Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century" (1870).
These works, all pul)lished in Dublin, have earned
renown, and, except those marked out of print, have
gone through numerous revised editions. Father
Median wrote " Tales for the Yoimg ", and translated
others which he named "Flowers from Foreign
Fields". He edited Davis's "Essays" (1883), Man-
gan's "Essays and Poems" (1884), and Madden's
"Literary Remains of the United Irishmen" (1887).
He also wrote some graceful verse, which is to be
found in various anthologies.
SlLu.^HD in Catholic World (Sept., 1890).
Peter A. Sillabd. Meerschaert, Theophile. See Oklahg.vla..
Megara, a titular see, suffragan to Corinth, in Acliaia. The city, which was built on an arid strip of land between two rocks, had two ports, on the Sa- vonic Gulf and the t!ulf of Corinth respectively. In the eighth and seventh centuries n. c, Megara became the metropolis of flourishing colonies, the chief of which were Megara Hyblsca, and Selinus, in Sicily, Sel.vmbria, Chalcedon, Astakos, Byzantium, and the Pontic Heraclea. The exclusion of Megara from the Attic market by Pericles, in 432, was one cause of the Peloponnesian War. The Megarian territory, already ver}' poor, was then ravaged year after year, and in 427 Nicias even established a permanent post on the island of Minoa over against Nis;va. Shortly before this Megara had become the birthplace of the Sophist, Eucleides, a disciple of Socrates, who. about the year 400 B. c., fountled the philosophic school of Megara, chiefly famoas for the cultivation of dialectic. It subsequently shared the political vicissitudes of the other ( ireck cities. About the end of the fifth century after Christ, under the Emperor Anastasius I, its for- tifications were restored. The names of some early Greek l)ishops of Megara are given in Le Quien, "Oriens Christianus", II, 205. In the "Notitia episcopatuum" of Leo the Wise (c. 900), the earliest authority of the kind for this region, the name of Megara does not appear. Numerous Latin bishops in the Middle Ages are mentioned in Eubel, "Hie- rarchia catholica meflii levi ", I, 348; II, 208. Megara is now a town of 0500 inhabitants, the capital of a deme of the same name. On Easter Sunday the W'Omen there perform an antique dance which people come from Athens to see. Not a vestige remains of the temples which Pausanias described. Efforts are made to locate the acropoles of Minoa and Nisjea on various little eminences along the coast.
^EtSGAjmu.Dasalte Meoaris(3erlin, 1825); Leake, Aor^/iem Greece, II, 388: Smith, Did. Greek and Roman Oeog..ll,3\0-n.
S. Vailhe.
Megaiians. — The Megarian School is one of the imperfectly Socratic Schools, so called because they developed in a one-sided way the doctrines of Socrates. The Megarians, of whom the chief representatives were Euclid, the founder of the school, and Stilpo, flour- ished at Athens, during the first half of the fourth cen- turj' B. c. Borrowing from the Eleatics, especially from Parmenides, the <loetrine that there is no change or multiplicity in the w-orld, they combined this prin- ciple with the Socratic teaching that knowledge liy means of concepts is the only true knowledge. It fol- lows from this that the only realitv is the unchange- able e.s.sential nature, that the world of our sense expe- rience is an illusion, and that there is nothing possible except what actually exists. The affirmation of the existence of "bodiless forms", which seems to have
been the Meg.arian designation for the unchangeable
essential natures of things, is the scIkioI's most imi)or-
tant contribution to speeulalive thought. Its analogy
with the Platonic doctrine of ideas is evident. In the
practical portion of their teaching the Megarians em-
phasized the supremacy of the notion of goodness.
Knowledge. Socrates taught, is the only virtue; it ia
identical with moral exrclleiiee. The highest object
of knowledge is the highest good. But, as the Illeatics
taught, the highest object of knowledge is the highest
reality, being. Therefore, the Megarians conclude, the
highest good and the highest reality are one and the
same. Whatever Parmenides predicated of being,
namely oneness, immutability, etc., may I'e iiredicated
of the good also. The good is insight, reason, (iod; it
alone exists. In order to defend these tenets, which
to the popular mind seemed not only untrue but ab-
surd, the Megarians developed to a high degree the art
of disputation. This art (the eristic method, or
method of strife, as it was called in contradistinction
to the heuristic method, or method of finding, advo-
cated by Socrates), was introduced into philosophy by
the Eleatic, Zeno, surnamed the Dialectican. It was
adopted in the Megarian School, and carried by the
followers of Euclid to a point where it ceased to serve
any useful or even serious purpose. To Euclid himself
we owe the use of the method of argumentation known
as the reductio ad ahsurdum, which consists in attack-
ing, not the premises, but the conclusion, of the oppo-
nent's argument and showing the absurd consequences
which follow if his contention is admitted. This
method, however, was germinally contained in Zeno's
procedure by which, in a series of specious fallacies he
had striven to show that motion, change, and multi-
plicity are illusions.
Plato, Dialogues, especj.allv Sophistes, 242 B; Schleier- MACHEii, Platan's Werke, It "(Berlin. 1804-10), 2; Prantl, Gesch. dt-r Logik im Abevdlande, I (Leipzig. 1855, sqq.), 33; Zeller. Socrates and the Socratic Schools, tr. Reichel (London, 1885), 250.sqq.;TDRNER, Hist. ofPhilos. (Boston, 1903), SSsqq.
William Turner.
Mege, Antoine-Josepii, a Maurist Benedictine, b. in 1025 at Clermont; d. 15 April, 1691, at the monas- tery of St.-Germain-des-Prt'S near Paris. On 17 March, 1643, he became a Benedictine at the monastery of Vendome. In 1059 he taught theology at the Abbey of St. Denis and afterwards devoted himself to preach- ing. In 1681 he was made prior of the monastery at Rethel in Champagne. Towards the end of his life he withdrew to St.-Germain-des-Pres, where he divided his time between prayer and study. His most impor- tant literary production is "Commentaire sur la regie de S. Benoit" and a MS. history of the congregation of St. Maurfrom IfilO till 1653 (Paris, 1687). This commentary is an attack upon the rigoristic interpre- tation of the rule by Abbot Ranc^ of La Trappe, and ' was forbidden in 1689 by a chapter of the Maurist superiors at the instance of Bossuet. His other works are a translation of St. Ambro.se's treatise "On Vir- ginity" (Paris, 1655), "La Morale chr^tienne" (Paris, 1661), a few ascetical writings and tran.slations.
Tassin, Hisioire littiraire de la congregation de St.-Maur (Brussels, 1770), s. v.; Le Cerf, Bibliothkque historique et cri- iique des auteurs de la congregation de St. Maur (La Haye, 1726), 346-355; De Lama, Bibliothvgue des ecrivains de la congrfgation de Saint-Maur (Munich and Paris, 1882), 59-60.
Michael Ott.
Megiddo. See Maoeddo.
Mehrerau, formerly a Benedictine, now a Cister- cian .M)bey, is situated on Lake Constance, west of Bregenz, in the district of Vorarlberg, Austria. The original monastery was founded by St. Columbanus who, driven from Luxeuil, .settled about Oil at this spot and built a monastery after the model of Lnxeuil. A convent for women soon arose near the monastery for men. Little has been preserved of the early his- tory of either foimdation up to 1079. In this year the monastery was reformed by the monk Gottfried,
