and old books. The charm of his conversation is attested by the names of his friends, who were all the wits of the age, and the greater their genius the greater their love of Molière. As an actor, friends and enemies agreed in recognizing him as most successful in comedy. His ideas of tragic declamation were in advance of his time, for he set his face against the prevalent habit of ranting. His private character was remarkable for gentleness, probity, generosity and delicacy, qualities attested not only by anecdotes but by the evidence of documents. He is probably the greatest of all comic writers within the limits of social and refined, as distinguished from romantic, comedy like that of Shakespeare, and political comedy like that of Aristophanes. He has the humour which is but a sense of the true value of life, and now takes the form of the most vivacious wit and the keenest observation, now of melancholy and pity and wonder at the fortunes of mortal men. In the literature of France his is the greatest name, and in the literature of the modern drama the greatest after that of Shakespeare. Besides his contemplative genius he possessed an unerring knowledge of the theatre, the knowledge of a great actor and a great manager, and hence his plays can never cease to hold the stage, and to charm, if possible, even more in the performance than in the reading.
The best biography of Molière on a level with the latest researches into his life is that in vol. x. of his works in Grands écrivains de la France (Eugène Despois and Paul Mesnard). The next best is probably that of M. Taschereau, prefixed to an edition of his works (Œuvres complètes, Paris, 1863). To this may be added Jules Loiseleur’s Les Points obscurs de la vie de Molière (Paris, 1877). We have seen that M. Loiseleur is not always accurate, but he is laborious. For other books it is enough to recommend the excellent Bibliographie moliéresque of M. Paul Lacroix (1875), which is an all but faultless guide. The best edition of Molière’s works for the purposes of the student is that published in Les Grands écrivains de la France (Hachette, Paris, 1874–1882). It contains reprints of many contemporary tracts, and, with the Registre of La Grange, and the Collection moliéresque of M. Lacroix, is the chief source of the facts stated in this notice, in cases where the rarity of documents has prevented the writer from studying them in the original texts. Another valuable authority is the Recherches sur Molière et sur sa famille of Ed. Soulié (1863). Lotheisen’s Molière, sein Leben und seine Werke (Frankfurt, 1880), is a respectable German compilation. Le Moliériste (Tresse, Paris, ed. by M. Georges Monval) was a monthly serial, containing notes on Molière and his plays, by a number of contributors. The essays, biographies, plays and poems on Molière are extremely numerous. The best guide to these is the indispensable Bibliographie of M. Lacroix. (A. L.)
MOLINA, LUIS (1535–1600), Spanish Jesuit, was born at
Cuenca in 1535. Having at the age of eighteen become a member
of the Society of Jesus, he studied theology at Coimbra, and afterwards
became professor in the university of Evora, Portugal.
From this post he was called, at the end of twenty years, to the
chair of moral theology in Madrid, where he died on the 12th
of October 1600. Besides other works he wrote Liberi arbitrii cum
gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione
et reprobatione, concordia (4to, Lisbon, 1588); a commentary
on the first part of the Summa of Thomas Aquinas (2 vols.,
fol., Cuenca, 1593); and a treatise De justitia et jure (6 vols.,
1593–1609). It is to the first of these that his fame is principally
due. It was an attempt to reconcile, in words at least, the
Augustinian doctrines of predestination and grace with the
Semipelagianism which, as shown by the recent condemnation
of Baius (q.v.), had become prevalent in the Roman Catholic
Church. Assuming that man is free to perform or not to perform
any act whatever, Molina maintains that this circumstance
renders the grace of God neither unnecessary nor impossible:
not impossible, for God never fails to bestow grace upon those
who ask it with sincerity; and not unnecessary, for grace,
although not an efficient, is still a sufficient cause of salvation.
Nor, in Molina’s view, does his doctrine of free-will exclude
predestination. The omniscient God, by means of His “scientia
media” (the phrase is Molina’s invention, though the idea is
also to be found in his older contemporary Fonseca), or power
of knowing future contingent events, foresees how we shall
employ our own free-will and treat His proffered grace, and
upon this foreknowledge He can found His predestinating
decrees. These doctrines, although in harmony with the prevailing
feeling of the Roman Catholic Church of the period, and
further recommended by their marked opposition to the teachings
of Luther and Calvin, excited violent controversy in some quarters,
especially on the part of the Dominicans, and at last rendered
it necessary for the pope (Clement VIII.) to interfere. At
first (1594) he simply enjoined silence on both parties so far
as Spain was concerned; but ultimately, in 1598, he appointed
the “Congregatio de auxiliis Gratiae” for the settlement of
the dispute, which became more and more a party one. After
holding very numerous sessions, the “congregation” was able
to decide nothing, and in 1607 its meetings were suspended
by Paul V., who in 1611 prohibited all further discussion of
the question “de auxiliis,” and studious efforts were made to
control the publication even of commentaries on Aquinas. The
Molinist subsequently passed into the Jansenist controversy (see
Jansenism).
A full account of Molina’s theology will be found in Schneeman’s “Entstehung der thomistisch-molinistischen Controverse,” published in the Appendices (Nos. 9, 13, 14) to the jesuit periodical, Stimmen aus Maria-Laach. To the lay reader may be recommended Ernest Renan’s article, “Les congrégations de auxiliis” in his Nouvelles études d’histoire religieuse.
MOLINE, a city of Rock Island county, Illinois, U.S.A.,
in the north-west part of the state, on the Mississippi river,
adjoining the city of Rock Island and opposite the upper end
of Rock Island. Pop. (1900), 17,248, of whom 5699 were foreign-born,
principally Swedes and Belgians; (1910 census), 24,199.
It is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago,
Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific,
and the Davenport, Rock Island & North-Western railways.
A channel in the Mississippi river here, 250 ft. wide and 4 ft.
deep at low water, projected in 1905, was completed in 1908;
and in 1907 a lock was finished which affords a draught of 6 ft.
and is a part of the 6 ft. channel improvement of Rock Island
Rapids. The city has large and varied manufacturing industries;
water-power is derived from a dam maintained by the Moline
Water-Power Company; and there is a large electric-power
plant. The most important industry is the manufacture of
agricultural implements (particularly steel ploughs, which seem
to have been made here first in the United States, and corn-planters).
Among the other manufactures are boilers and
gasolene engines, wagons and carriages, automobiles, and pianos
and organs. The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railway has
a 900-acre yard and machine shop east of the city limits, and
there is a large U.S. arsenal on Rock Island. Moline was settled
in 1832, laid out as a town in 1842, and was chartered as a city
in 1855 and rechartered in 1872.
MOLINET, JEAN (1433–1507), French poet and chronicler, was born at Desvres (Pas de Calais). In 1475 he succeeded
Georges Chastellain as historiographer of the house of Burgundy,
and Margaret of Austria, governor of the Low Countries, made
him her librarian. His continuation of Chastellain’s chronicle,
which covers the years from 1474 to 1504, remained unpublished
until 1828 when it was edited (Paris, 5 vols.) by J. A. Buchon.
It is far from possessing the historical value of his predecessor’s
work. A selection from his voluminous poetical Works was
published at Paris in 1531, Les Faictz et Dictz de feu . . . Jehan
Molinet. . . . He also translated the Roman de la rose into prose
(pr. Lyons, 1503). He became, in 1501, canon of the church
of Notre-Dame at Valenciennes, where he died on the 23rd of
August 1507. He is noteworthy as the head of the vicious
Burgundian school of poetry known as the rhétoriqueurs, characterized
by the excessive use of puns and of puerile metrical
devices. His chief disciple was his nephew, Guillaume Crétin
(d. 1525), ridiculed by Rabelais as Raminagrobis, and Jean
Lemaire des Belges was his friend.
See A. Wauters in the Biographie nationale de Belgique (vol. xv., 1899).
MOLINIER, AUGUSTE (1851–1904), French historian, was born at Toulouse on the 30th of September 1851. He was a pupil at the École des Chartes, which he left in 1873, and also
