Vichy owes its importance to its mineral waters, which were celebrated in the time of the Romans. Within the town or in its immediate vicinity there are 21 springs, 12 of which are state property (4 of these obtained by boring). The waters of those which are outside the town are brought in by means of aqueducts. The most celebrated and frequented are the Grande Grille, L'Hopital, the Célestins, and Lardy. The most copious of all, the Puits Carré, is reserved for the baths. All these, whether cold or hot (maximum temperature, 113° Fahr.), are largely charged with bicarbonate of soda (see Mineral Waters, vol. xvi. p. 435); some also are chalybeate and tonic. The waters, which are limpid, have an alkaline taste and emit a slight odour of sulphuretted hydrogen. They are recommended in cases of stomachic and liver complaint, also for diabetes, gravel, and gout. The thermal establishment, begun in 1787, is capable of supplying 3500 baths a day. The company by which the state baths are farmed also manufactures pastilles, barley-sugar, and digestive chocolate, as well as salts for artificial baths. A considerable trade is carried on in the natural waters. In addition to the principal establishment, Vichy has a hospital bath, the hydropathic establishments of Lardy and Larbaud, and a large military hospital, founded in 1843. Cusset (5356 inhabitants in 1886), chief-lieu of the canton, about 1 mile distant, has similar mineral waters and a bathing establishment. Vichy possesses a casino and two public parks. The promenade commands a splendid view of the mountains of Auvergne. At Vichy, Cusset, and in the neighbourhood there are cotton cloth manufactures (toiles de Vichy).
VICKSBURG, a city of the United States and the county seat of Warren county, Mississippi, the largest and most important city in the State, stands on the bluffs, on the east bank of the Mississippi, nearly midway between Memphis and New Orleans. It is situated in the midst of the most fertile cotton region of the country, and is one of the principal inland shipping ports of that staple. Its means of communication, besides the river, embrace three important railroad systems. The city has some manufacturing industries, particularly of lumber and cotton-seed oil and cake. The population in 1880 was 11,814, showing a slight decrease since 1870; and in 1888 it was estimated at 18,000. Nearly one-half of the population were coloured.
Prior to the Civil War Vicksburg was an important river port, having in 1860 a population of 4591. Its growth had, however, been slow. During the war it became a very strong strategic point, as it controlled the navigation of the Mississippi, and a contest for its possession was waged for several months with heavy loss of life. Finally General Grant captured it in 1863, and with it the Confederate army of General Pemberton, numbering 27,000 men. For a few years after the war the city gained rapidly in population and importance.
VICO, Giovan Battista (1668–1744), Italian jurist and philosopher, was the son of Antonio Vico, a small bookseller, and was born at Naples on 23rd June 1668. At the age of seven he had a serious fall and severely injured his head, which produced in him “the melancholy and sour temper suited to men of talent.” Afterwards he applied himself to the study of scholastic philosophy. At an early age he entered the university, and made such rapid progress, especially in jurisprudence, that he is said to have won a suit for his father at the age of sixteen. Nevertheless he preferred the study of history, literature, juridical science, and philosophy. Being appointed teacher of jurisprudence to the nephews of the bishop of Ischia, G. B. Rocca, he accompanied them to the castle of Vatolla, near Cilento, in the province of Salerno. There he passed nine studious years, chiefly devoted to classical reading, Plato and Tacitus being his favourite authors, because “the former described the ideal man and the latter man as he really is.” On his return to Naples he found Cartesianism in the ascendant, and this he disliked. Belonging to no particular school or literary sect, he languished in neglect and obscurity, until in 1697 he gained the professorship of rhetoric at the university, with a scanty stipend of 100 ducats. On this he supported not only himself but his rapidly increasing family; for he had married a poor and illiterate girl, who was only able to put her mark to the nuptial contract. Meanwhile his own studies were pursued with untiring zeal, and he began to write and publish his works. Two modern authors exercised a weighty influence on his mind—Francis Bacon and Grotius. He was no follower of their ideas, indeed often opposed to them; but he derived from Bacon an increasing stimulus towards the investigation of certain great problems of history and philosophy, while Grotius proved valuable in his study of philosophic jurisprudence. In 1708 he published his De ratione studiorum, in 1710 De antiquissima Italorum sapientia, in 1720 De universi juris uno principio et fine uno, and in 1721 De constantia jurisprudentis. On the strength of these works he offered himself as a candidate for the university chair of jurisprudence then vacant, with a yearly stipend of 600 ducats. But he was rejected by the examiners, although all his competitors have remained unknown to fame. Without any sense of discouragement, he returned to his favourite studies, and in 1725 published the first edition of the work that forms the basis of his renown, Principii d’una Scienza Nuova. In 1730 he produced a second edition of the Scienza Nuova, so much altered in style and with so many substantial additions that it was practically a new work. In 1735 Charles III. of Naples marked his recognition of Vico’s merits by appointing him historiographer-royal, with a yearly stipend of 100 ducats. But the philosopher derived little enjoyment from his new post. Attacked by a cruel malady, mind and memory failed. But during frequent intervals of lucidity he resumed his pen and made new corrections in his great work, of which a third edition appeared in 1744, prefaced by a letter of dedication to Cardinal Trojano Acquaviva. Vico expired on 20th January of the same year. Fate seemed bent on persecuting him to the last. A fierce quarrel arose over his burial between the brotherhood of St Stephen, to which he had belonged, and the university professors, who desired to escort his corpse to the grave. Finally the canons of the cathedral, together with the professors, buried the body in the church of the Gerolimini.
Vico has been generally described as a solitary soul, out of harmony with the spirit of his time and often directly opposed to it. In fact, though living during the later years of the 17th and the early part of the 18th century, when Locke had already given to the world the germs of the ideas afterwards developed in the philosophy of the Encyclopædists, he followed an entirely opposite line of thought. The writer who was the first to declare that great men are the representatives and personifications of their times would thus seem to have been the living contradiction of his own theory. Nevertheless a closer inquiry into the social conditions of Vico’s time, and of the studies then flourishing, shows him to have been thoroughly in touch with them.
Owing to the historical past of Naples, and its social and economic condition at the end of the 17th century, the only study that really flourished there was that of law; and this soon penetrated from the courts to the university, and was raised to the level of a science. A great school of jurisprudence was thus formed, including many men of vast learning and great ability, although little known to fame. This school stood apart, as it were, from the rest of the world; the works of its representatives were inelegant, and often indeed exaggeratedly legal and scholastic in style. Accordingly they attracted little notice in upper Italy and were totally ignored beyond the Alps. But, while outside Naples scarcely anything was known of Marcello Marciano the younger, Domenico Aulisio, Duke Gaetano Argento, Niccolò Capasso, and many others, there were three men who rose to great eminence and attained to an honourable rank in general literature both in Italy and abroad. By an
