zur Macht, in which Nietzsche had intended to give a more systematic account of his doctrine (1895–1901). (F. C. S. S.)
An edition of Nietzsche’s complete works began to appear in 1895; there are also two popular editions, 1899 ff. (15 vols. have been published) and 1906 (10 vols.). In 1900 Nietzsche’s Briefe began to be published. An English translation in 18 vols., edited by Oskar Levy, reached the 13th vol. in 1910. His biography, by his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsches, 1895 ff.), reached its third volume in 1907. There are also lives by D. Halévy (1909) and M. A. Mügge (F. Nietzsche: his Life and Work, 1908), the latter of a somewhat popular character. G. Brandes first drew European attention to Nietzsche by his famous essay in 1889; since then an enormous literature has grown up round the subject. See especially L. Andreas Salomé, F. Nietzsche in seinen Werken (1894); A. Riehl, F. Nietzsche (1897; 3rd ed., 1901); F. Tönnies, Nietzsche-Kultus (1897); H. Ellis, F. Nietzsche (in Affirmations, 1898); H. Lichtenberger, La Philosophie de Nietzsche (1895; German trans., 1899); E. Horneffer, Vorträge über F. Nietzsche (1900); T. Ziegler, F. Nietzsche (1900); J. Zeitler, Nietzsches Ästhetik (1900); P. Deussen, Erinnerungen an F. Nietzsche (1901); R. Richter, F. Nietzsche, sein Leben und sein Werk (1903); G. Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (1907). For an estimate of his moral theory see Ethics, ad fin.
NIEUPORT (Flem. Nieuwpoort), a town of Belgium in the province of West Flanders. Pop. (1904) 3780. It was the port of Ypres, and is situated on the Yser about 10 m. S. of Ostend. It was strongly fortified in the middle ages and its siege by the French in 1488–1489 is an episode of its heroic period. Under its walls in 1600 Maurice of Nassau defeated the Archduke Albert and the Spaniards. It contains an ancient cloth market, a fine town-hall and an old church, and outside is a lighthouse dating from 1289. Nieuport Bains, 2 m. from the town, is a fashionable seaside resort dating only from 1869. It has a fine pier extending 1500 yds. out to sea and flanking the entrance to the Yser, which has been canalized. The bathing is excellent, and in the season the place is largely frequented by visitors.
NIÈVRE, a department of central France, formed from the old province of Nivernais with a small portion of the Orléanais. It is bounded N.W. by Loiret, N. by Yonne, E. by Côte d’Or, E. and S.E. by Saône-et-Loire, S. by Allier and W. by Cher. Pop. (1906) 313,972. Area, 2659 sq. m. Nièvre falls into three regions differing in elevation and in geological formation. In the east are the granitic mountains of the Morvan, one of the most picturesque portions of France, containing Mont Prénelay (2789 ft.) and several lesser heights. The north and centre are occupied by plateaus of jurassic limestone with a maximum elevation of 1400 ft. The west and south-western part of the department is a district of plains, composed mainly of tertiary formations with alluvial deposits, and comprising the valleys of the Loire and the Allier. The lowest level of the department is 446 ft., at the exit of the Loire. Nièvre belongs partly to the basin of the Loire, partly to that of the Seine. The watershed dividing these two basins follows the general slope of the department from S.E. to N.W.—from Mont Prénelay to the Puisaye, the district in the extreme north-west. Towards the west the limits of Nièvre are marked by the Allier-Loire valley—the Loire striking across the south-west corner of the department by Decize and Nevers and then continuing the line of its great affluent the Allier northwards by Fourchambault, La Charité, Pouilly and Cosne. Secondary feeders of the Loire are the Nièvre, which gives its name to the department, and the Aron, whose valley is traversed by the Nivernais Canal. The largest tributary of the Seine in Nièvre is the Yonne, which rises in the south-east, passes by Clamecy, and carries along with it the northern part of the Nivernais Canal. The Cure, the principal affluent of the Yonne (with which, however, it does not unite till after it has left the department), is the outlet of a lake, Lac des Settons, which serves as a reservoir for the regulation of the river and the canal. Owing to its greater elevation and the retention of the rain-water on its impermeable surface in the shape of ponds and streams, Morvan shows a mean temperature 6° F. lower than that of the western district, which, in the valley of the Loire, is almost identical with that of Paris (52° F.). At Nevers the annual rainfall amounts to only 21 in., but in Morvan it is nearly three times as great.
The principal cereals are oats and wheat; potatoes are also largely grown. Much land is given over to pasture and the cultivation of various kinds of forage, and the fattening of cattle is a thriving agricultural industry. The Nivernais and Charolais are the chief breeds. The rearing of sheep and draught-horses is also of importance. Vines are grown in the valley of the Loire and in the neighbourhood of Clamecy. The white wines of Pouilly on the Loire are widely known. Nièvre abounds in forests, the chief trees being the oak, beech, hornbeam, elm and chestnut. Coal is mined at Decize, and gypsum, building stone, and kaolin are among the quarry products. The best-known mineral springs are those of Pougues and St Honoré. Of the iron-works for which Nièvre is famous, the most important are those of Fourchambault. At Imphy there are large steelworks. The government works of La Chaussade at Guérigny make chain-cables, anchors, armour-plates, &c. There are also manufactories of agricultural implements and hardware, potteries, manufactories of porcelain, and faïence (at Nevers), tile-works, chemical works, paper-mills and saw-mills, as well as numerous tanneries, boot and shoe factories, cask manufactories and oil works (colza, poppy and hemp). In the Morvan district a large part of the population is engaged in the timber industry; the logs carried down by the streams to Clamecy are then put into boats and conveyed to Paris.
A great deal of the traffic is by water: the canal along the left bank of the Loire runs through the department for 38 m., and the Nivernais canal for 78 m. The chief railway is that of the Paris-Lyons-Méditerranée Company, whose main line to Nîmes follows the valley of the Loire and Allier throughout the department. Nièvre is divided into 4 arrondissements (Nevers, Château-Chinon, Clamecy and Cosne being their capitals), 25 cantons, 313 communes. It forms the diocese of Nevers, and part of the educational district of Dijon and of the region of the VIII. corps d’armée. Its court of appeal is at Bourges. The most noteworthy towns are Nevers, the capital, Clamecy, Fourchambault, Cosne, La Charité and Decize. Varzy and Tannay have fine churches of the 14th, and the 12th, 13th and 16th centuries respectively, and there is an interesting church, chiefly Romanesque in style, at St Pierre-le-Moûtier.
NIFO, AGOSTINO [Augustinus Niphus] (c. 1473–1538 or 1545), Italian philosopher and commentator, was born at Japoli in Calabria. He settled for a time at Sezza and subsequently proceeded to Padua, where he studied philosophy. He lectured at Padua, Naples, Rome and Pisa, and won so high a reputation that he was deputed by Leo X. to defend the Catholic doctrine of Immortality against the attack of Pomponazzi and the Alexandrists. In return for this he was made Count Palatine, with the right to call himself by the name Medici. In his early thought he followed Averroes, but afterwards modified his views so far as to make himself acceptable to the orthodox Catholics. In 1495 he produced an edition of the works of Averroes; with a commentary compatible with his acquired orthodoxy. In the great controversy with the Alexandrists he opposed the theory of Pomponazzi that the rational soul is inseparably bound up with the material part of the individual, and hence that the death of the body carries with it the death of the soul. He insisted that the individual soul, as part of absolute intellect, is indestructible, and on the death of the body is merged in the eternal unity.
His principal philosophical works are De immortalitate animi (1518 and 1524); De intellectu et daemonibus; De infinitate primi motoris quaestio and Opuscula moralia et politica. His numerous commentaries on Aristotle were widely read and frequently reprinted, the best-known edition being one printed at Paris in 1654 in fourteen volumes (including the Opuscula).
NIGDEH (Arab. Nakidah), the chief town of a sanjak of the same name in the Konia vilayet of Asia Minor, situated on the Kaisarieh-Cilician Gates road. It is remarkable for the beauty of its buildings, dating from almost all ages of the Seljuk period. After the fall of the sultanate of Rum (of which it had been one of the principal cities), Nigdeh became independent, and, according to Ibu Batuta, ruinous, and did not pass into Ottoman hands till the time of Mahommed II. It represents no classical town, but, with Bor, has inherited the importance of Tyana,
