MALDON, a market town, municipal borough and port, in Essex, England, on the south side of the Blackwater, 43 m. E.N.E. from London by a branch from Witham of the L.N.E. railway. Pop. (1931) 6,559. At Maldon (Maelduna, Melduna, Mealdon or Meaudon), finds of prehistoric objects indicate early settlement. An earthwork, of which traces exist, may be Saxon or Danish. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates that Edward the Elder estab lished a "burh" there about 921. Maldon was more remarkable for its fortress than for its commercial importance. It remained a royal town up to the reign of Henry I., and thus is entered as being on terra regis in Domesday. Henry II. granted the bur gesses their first charter, giving them the land of the borough and suburb with sac and soc and other judicial rights, also freedom from county and forest jurisdiction, danegeld, scutage, tallage and all tolls, by the service of one ship a year for 4o days. This charter was confirmed in 129o, in 1344 and in 1378. In 1403 the bishop of London granted further judicial and financial rights. Maldon was incorporated by Philip and Mary in 1554, and re ceived confirmatory charters in 1563, 1592, 1631, and under Charles II. and James II. In 1768 the incorporation charter was regranted, with modifications in 181o.
There are east and west railway stations. The church of All Saints, dating from 1056, but, as it stands, Early English and later, consists of chancel, nave and aisles, with a triangular Early English tower at the west end surmounted by a hexagonal spire. The tower of St. Mary's church is Norman with Roman ma terials. The other public buildings are the grammar school, founded in 1547; the town-hall, formerly D'Arcy's tower, built in the reign of Henry VI.; and the public hall. There are foun dries, an oyster fishery and some shipping. On Osea island, in the Blackwater estuary, there is a farm colony for the unemployed. MALEBRANCHE, NICOLAS (1638-1715), French philo sopher of the Cartesian school, the youngest child of Nicolas Malebranche, secretary to Louis XIII., and Catherine de Lauzon, sister of a viceroy of Canada, was born at Paris on Aug. 6, 1638.
Deformed and constitutionally feeble, he studied theology at the Sorbonne, and in 166o he joined the congregation of the Oratory.
In 1664 he read Descartes's Traite de l'homme (de homine). After ten years' study of the works of Descartes he produced the famous De la recherche de la verite ou l'on traite de la nature, de l'esprit de l'homme et de l'usage qu'il doit faire pour eviter l'erreur dans la science followed at intervals by other works, both speculative and controversial. Like most of the great metaphysicians of the 17th century, Malebranche interested him self also in questions of mathematics and natural philosophy, and in 1699 was admitted an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences. During his later years his society was much courted, and he received many visits from foreigners of distinction. He died on Oct. 13, 1715; his end was said to have been hastened by a metaphysical argument into which he had been drawn in the course of an interview with Bishop Berkeley. For a critical account of Malebranche's place in the history of philo sophy, see CARTESIANISM. His other works include Conversations metaphysiques et chritiennes (1677; Eng. trans., 1695) ; Traite de la nature et de la grace (Amsterdam, 168o; Eng. trans., 1695) ; Meditations chretiennes et metaphysiques (1683) ; Traite de morale (Rotterdam, 1684; Eng. trans. by Sir J. Shipton 1699) several polemical works against Arnauld from 1684 to 1688; Entretiens sur la inetaphysique et sur la religion (1688) ; Traite de l'amour de Dieu ( 1697) ; Entretiens d'un philosophe chretien et d'un philosophe chinois sur l'existence et la nature de Dieu (1708) ; Reflexions sur la promotion physique (1715).
A critical edition of his Oeuvres was edited by Jules Simon (4 vols., 1871). This edition omits the Traite de morale (ed. H. Joly, 1882). See also Mrs. Norman Smith in the British Journal of Psychology (Jan. 1905) ; H. Joly, in the series Les Grands philosophes (Igo') ; L. 011e Laprune, La Philosophie de Malebranche (2 vols., 187o) ; M. Novaro, Die Philosiphie des Nicolaus Malebranche (1893) ; F. Pillon, articles on Malebranche's critics, and his correspondence with Mairan, in L'Annee philosophique (1894).