The philosophy of Mansel, like that of Sir William Hamilton, was mainly due to Aristotle, Kant and Reid. Like Hamilton, Mansel maintained the purely formal character of logic, the duality of consciousness as testifying to both self and the external world, and the limitation of knowledge to the finite and “conditioned.” His doctrines were developed in his edition of Aldrich’s Artis logicae rudimenta (1849)—his chief contribution to the reviving study of Aristotle—and in his Prolegomena logica: an Inquiry into the Psychological Character of Logical Processes (1851, 2nd ed. enlarged 1862), in which the limits of logic as the “science of formal thinking” are rigorously determined. In his Bampton lectures on The Limits of Religious Thought (1858, 5th ed. 1867; Danish trans. 1888) he applied to Christian theology the metaphysical agnosticism which seemed to result from Kant’s criticism, and which had been developed in Hamilton’s Philosophy of the Unconditioned. While denying all knowledge of the supersensuous, Mansel deviated from Kant in contending that cognition of the ego as it really is is itself a fact of experience. Consciousness, he held—agreeing thus with the doctrine of “natural realism” which Hamilton developed from Reid—implies knowledge both of self and of the external world. The latter Mansel’s psychology reduces to consciousness of our organism as extended; with the former is given consciousness of free will and moral obligation. A summary of his philosophy is contained in his article “Metaphysics” in the 8th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (separately published, 1860). Mansel wrote also The Philosophy of the Conditioned (1866) in reply to Mill’s criticism of Hamilton; Letters, Lectures, and Reviews (ed. Chandler, 1873), and The Gnostic Heresies (ed. J. B. Lightfoot, 1875, with a biographical sketch by Lord Carnarvon). He wrote a commentary on the first two gospels in the Speaker’s Commentary.
See J. W. Burgon, Lives of Twelve Good Men (1888-1889); James Martineau, Essays, Reviews and Addresses (London, 1891), iii. 117 seq.; A. W. Benn, History of Rationalism (1906), ii. 100-112; Masson, Recent British Philosophy (3rd ed., London, 1877), pp. 252 seq.; Sir Leslie Stephen in Dict. Nat. Biog.
MANSFELD, the name of an old and illustrious German family which took its name from Mansfeld in Saxony, where it was seated from the 11th to the 18th century. One of its earliest members was Hoyer von Mansfeld (d. 1115), a partisan of the emperor Henry V. during his struggles with the Saxons; he fought for Henry at Warnstädt and was killed in his service at Welfesholz. Still more famous was Albert, count of Mansfeld (1480-1560), an intimate friend of Luther and one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of the Reformation. He helped to crush the rising of the peasants under Thomas Munzer in Thuringia in 1525; he was a member of the league of Schmalkalden, and took part in all the movements of the Protestants against Charles V. With Albert was associated his brother Gebhard, and another member of the family was Johann Gebhard, elector of Cologne from 1558 to 1562. A scion of another branch of the Mansfelds was Peter Ernst, Fürst von Mansfeld (1517-1604), governor of Luxemburg, who unlike his kinsmen was loyal to Charles V. He went with the emperor to Tunis and fought for him in France. He was equally loyal to his son, Philip II. of Spain, whom he served at St Quentin and in the Netherlands. He distinguished himself in the field and found time to lead a body of troops to aid the king of France against the Huguenots. In this capacity he was present in 1569 at the battle of Moncontour, where another member of his family, Count Wolrad of Mansfeld (d. 1578) was among the Huguenot leaders. The Mansfeld family became extinct in 1780 on the death of Josef Wenzel Nepomuk, prince of Fondi, the lands being divided between Saxony and Prussia.
See L. F. Niemann, Geschichte der Grafen von Mansfeld (Aschersleben, 1834).
MANSFELD, ERNST, Graf von (c. 1580-1626), German soldier, was an illegitimate son of Peter Ernst, Fürst von Mansfeld, and passed his early years in his father’s palace at Luxemburg. He gained his earliest military experiences in Hungary, where his half-brother Charles (1543-1595,) also a soldier of renown, held a high command in the imperial army. Later he served under the Archduke Leopold, until that prince’s ingratitude, real or fancied, drove him into the arms of the enemies of the house of Habsburg. Although remaining a Roman Catholic he allied himself with the Protestant princes, and during the earlier part of the Thirty Years’ War he was one of their foremost champions. He was despatched by Charles Emmanuel, duke of Savoy, at the head of about 2000 men to aid the revolting Bohemians when war broke out in 1618. He took Pilsen, but in the summer of 1619 he was defeated at Zablat; after this he offered his services to the emperor Ferdinand II. and remained inactive while the titular king of Bohemia, Frederick V., elector palatine of the Rhine, was driven in headlong rout from Prague. Mansfeld, however, was soon appointed by Frederick to command his army in Bohemia, and in 1621 he took up his position in the Upper Palatinate, successfully resisting the efforts made by Tilly to dislodge him. From the Upper he passed into the Rhenish Palatinate. Here he relieved Frankenthal and took Hagenau; then, joined by his master, the elector Frederick, he defeated Tilly at Wiesloch in April 1622 and plundered Alsace and Hesse. But Mansfeld’s ravages were not confined to the lands of his enemies; they were ruinous to the districts he was commissioned to defend. At length Frederick was obliged to dismiss Mansfeld’s troops from his service. Then joining Christian of Brunswick the count led his army through Lorraine, devastating the country as he went, and in August 1622 defeating the Spaniards at Fleurus. He next entered the service of the United Provinces and took up his quarters in East Friesland, capturing fortresses and inflicting great hardships upon the inhabitants. A mercenary and a leader of mercenaries, Mansfeld often interrupted his campaigns by journeys made for the purpose of raising money, or in other words of selling his services to the highest bidder, and in these diplomatic matters he showed considerable skill. About 1624 he paid three visits to London, where he was hailed as a hero by the populace, and at least one to Paris. James I. was anxious to furnish him with men and money for the recovery of the palatinate, but it was not until January 1625 that Mansfeld and his army of “raw and poor rascals” sailed from Dover to the Netherlands. Later in the year, the Thirty Years’ War having been renewed under the leadership of Christian IV., king of Denmark, he re-entered Germany to take part therein. But on the 25th of April 1626 Wallenstein inflicted a severe defeat upon him at the bridge of Dessau. Mansfeld, however, quickly raised another army, with which he intended to attack the hereditary lands of the house of Austria, and pursued by Wallenstein he pressed forward towards Hungary, where he hoped to accomplish his purpose by the aid of Bethlem Gabor, prince of Transylvania. But when Gabor changed his policy and made peace with the emperor, Mansfeld was compelled to disband his troops. He set out for Venice, but when he reached Rakowitza he was taken ill, and here he died on the 29th of November 1626. He was buried at Spalato.
See F. Stieve, Ernst von Mansfeld (Munich, 1890); R. Reuss, Graf Ernst von Mansfeld im böhmischen Kriege (Brunswick, 1865); A. C. de Villermont, Ernest de Mansfeldt (Brussels, 1866); L. Graf Uetterodt zu Schaffenberg, Ernst Graf zu Mansfeld (Gotha, 1867); J. Grossmann, Des Grafen Ernst von Mansfeld letzte Pläne und Thaten (Breslau, 1870); E. Fischer, Des Mansfelders Tod (Berlin, 1873); S. R. Gardiner, History of England, vols. iv. and v. (1901); J. L. Motley, Life and Death of John of Barneveld (ed. 1904; vol. ii.).
MANSFIELD, RICHARD (1857-1907), American actor, was born on the 24th of May 1857, in Berlin, his mother being Madame [Erminia] Rudersdorff (1822-1882), the singer, and his father, Maurice Mansfield (d. 1861), a London wine merchant. He first appeared on the stage at St George’s Hall, London, and then drifted into light opera, playing the Major-General in The Pirates of Penzance, and the Lord High Executioner in The Mikado, both in the English provinces and in America. In 1883 he joined A. M. Palmer’s Union Square theatre company in New York, and made a great hit as Baron Chevrial in A Parisian Romance. He appeared successfully in several plays adapted from well-known stories, and his rendering (1887) of the doubled title-parts in R. L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde created a profound impression. It was with this play that he made his London reputation during a season (1888) at the Lyceum theatre, by invitation of Henry Irving. He produced Richard III. the next year at the Globe. Among his other chief successes were Prince Karl, Cyrano de Bergerac and Monsieur Beaucaire. He was one of the earliest to produce G. Bernard Shaw’s plays in America, appearing in 1894 as Bluntschli in Arms and the Man, and as Dick Dudgeon in The Devil’s Disciple in 1897. As a manager and producer of plays Mansfield was remarkable for his lavish staging. He died in New London, Connecticut, on the 30th of August 1907.