light systems, telephone service, etc.; and with a number of substantial commercial buildings, banks, commercial organizations, a court house, and a post office, hospitals, clubs, etc. A railroad extends from the coast to the mining claims at the foot-hills of the mountains. Population, in 1900, 12,488.
NOME, Cape. See Cape Nome.
NOMENCLATURE, Scientific. See Classification of Animals.
NOMINALISM (from nominal, from Lat. nominalis, relating to names, from nomen, name; connected with Gk. ὄνομα, onoma, Skt. nāman, OChurch Slav, ime, OIr. ainm, Goth. namō, OHG. namo, Ger. Name, AS. nama, Eng. name). The philosophical theory that only individual objects have real existence, and that so-called universals (see Judgment) are nothing but names given in common to actually different and incommunicable objects. These names were considered as nothing but so much breath (flatus vocis) , without indicating any real identity in the objects sharing in identical names. This view was an extreme development of the Aristotelian doctrine that all reality is individual, and that universals have existence only in individual objects; and it was called forth by the extreme Neo-Platonism of Erigena, who maintained that universals have an existence prior to particulars and individuals, and that the process of creation is only the progressive, logical differentiation of the universal. This Neo-Platonic view of the relation of the universal and the particular is called realism, and was advocated by Bernard of Chartres, Guillaume de Champeaux (q.v.), and Walter of Mortagne. Nominalism, on the contrary, was maintained by Roscelinus (q.v.). Abélard represented a modified nominalism in maintaining that the universal is not a real objective existence, nor, on the contrary, a mere word (vox), but the meaning of the word. This view, which is called sermonism (from sermo, which in scholastic Latin meant ‘predicate’), is a type of conceptualism (q.v.) peculiar to Abélard, and is to be distinguished from other forms of conceptualistic doctrine in that it did not point expressly to the fact that meanings are mental facts. With Abélard meanings seemed to reside in words, not as words but as predicates of propositions. The Arabian philosophers, and especially Avicenna (q.v.), succeeded in mediating between nominalism and realism by maintaining that universals are before individuals (realism) in the mind of God, in individuals (Aristotelianism) as their developed essence, and after individuals (nominalism) in human minds (conceptualism). This was the view adopted by Thomas Aquinas (q.v.) in his system and so incorporated in the received philosophy of the Roman Church. Nominalism received its last strong support in the teaching of William of Occam (q.v.) in the fourteenth century; but the influence of this revival was transitory, coming as it did upon the eve of the Renaissance and the general decline of interest in scholastic problems. See Löwe, Der Kampf zwischen Nominalismus und Realismus im Mittelalter: sein Ursprung und sein Verlauf (Prague, 1876); also the histories of philosophy by Ueberweg-Heinze, Windelband, Erdmann.
NOMINATION (Lat. nominatio, from nominare, to name, from nomen, name). In politics, the formal selection and presentation of a candidate for an elective office. In the United States, before the development of political parties, candidates for office were frequently nominated at private conferences or caucuses of the leading citizens of the community. Sometimes no formal nominations were made, and candidates were self-announced. By 1800 parties were fairly well organized, and the necessity arose of devising some means of selecting the candidates for offices. In national elections this was supplied by the Congressional caucus, which assumed the right of choosing Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates, and of determining the policy of the party. (See Caucus; Convention.) This method lasted until 1824. With the commencement of the revolt against the Congressional caucus several other temporary methods of nomination sprang into existence. These were nomination by the State legislatures as a whole, nomination by party caucuses of the State legislatures, nomination by State conventions, and nomination by public meetings. All these proved to be ineffectual and were superseded by the method of national convention, which came permanently into existence between 1830 and 1840, the first such convention being that of the Anti-Masonic Party in 1832. This has continued to be the accepted method of nominating candidates for President and Vice-President. Generally the choice of the convention is determined by the votes of a majority of the delegates; but in the case of the Democratic Party a two-thirds vote is necessary for a choice. In the nomination of State and local officers the convention has also come to be the recognized method, although in case of some of the minor offices nominations are frequently made directly by the party voters in the so-called primary elections. The national nominating convention consists of a certain number of delegates from each State, while local conventions are made up of delegates representing the several local units of the electoral district, the principle of representation according to the total population prevailing in both cases. Exceptions to the general rule that candidates for public office are nominated by delegate convention are, first, the old English method of self-announcement, which exists in communities like some of the Southern States, where practically only one political party exists, and where the success of the party is not endangered by a multiplicity of candidates; second, the method of nomination by primary election, where the individual voters directly select the candidate without the intervention of a convention; and, third, the method of nomination by petition, according to which the candidate may be put forward by filing with the proper officer a paper signed by a certain specified number of qualified voters. In those parts of the country where the New England town meeting exists, local candidates are frequently put in nomination by that assembly. In the cities local elective officers are almost invariably nominated by primary caucus or delegate conventions. Consult Dallinger, Nominations for Elective Office in the United States (New York, 1897); Bryce, American Commonwealth, vol. ii.. chap. lxix.
NOMINATIVE CASE. See Declension.
NOMOCANON (Gk. νομοκάνων, nomokanōn, from νόμος, nomos, law + κανών, kanōn, rule,
