STOCKPORT (70), a cotton town of East Cheshire; occupies a site on the slopes of a narrow gorge overlooking the confluence of the Thame and Goyt (forming the Mersey), 37 m.  E. of Liverpool; a handsome viaduct spans the river; has an old grammar-school, free library, technical school, &c.; during the present century has grown to be a busy centre of cotton manufactures, and has besides flourishing iron and brass foundries, machine-shops, breweries, &c.

STOCKTON-ON-TEES (69), a prosperous manufacturing town and port of Durham, on the Tees, 4 m. from its mouth; an iron bridge spanning the river connects it with Thornaby-on-Tees; has the usual public buildings; steel and iron shipbuilding building, potteries, foundries, machine-shops are flourishing industries; iron and earthenware are the chief exports, and with imports of corn and timber give rise to a busy and increasing shipping, facilitated by the excellent river-way.

STOICS, the disciples of Zeno; derived their name from the stoa or portico in Athens where their master taught and founded the school in 340 B.C.  The doctrines of the school were completely antagonistic to those of Epicurus, and among the disciples of it are to be reckoned some of the noblest spirits of the heathen world immediately before and after the advent of Christ.  These appear to have been attracted to it by the character of its moral teachings, which were of a high order indeed.  The principle of morality was defined to be conformity to reason, and the duty of man to lie in the subdual of all passion and a composed submission to the will of the gods.  It came short of Christian morality, as indeed all Greek philosophy did, in not recognising the Divine significance and power of humility, and especially in its failure to see, still more to conform to, the great doctrine of Christ which makes the salvation of a man to depend on the interest he takes in, as well as in the fact of the salvation of, other men.  The Stoic was a proud man, and not a humble, and was content if he could only have his own soul for a prey.  He did not see—­and no heathen ever did—­that the salvation of one man is impossible except in the salvation of other men, and that no man can save another unless he descend into that other’s case and stand, as it were, in that other’s stead.  It is the glory of Christ that He was the first to feel Himself, and to reveal to others, the eternal validity and divinity of this truth.  The Stoic morality is selfish; the morality of Christ is brotherly.

STOKE-UPON-TRENT (24), chief seat of the “Potteries,” in Staffordshire, on the Trent and the Trent and Mersey Canal, 15 m.  SE. of Crewe; is of modern growth, with free library, infirmary, public baths, statue to Wedgwood, &c., and is busily engaged in the manufacture of all sorts of porcelain ware, earthenware, encaustic tiles, &c., besides which there are flourishing iron-works, machine-shops, coal-mines, &c.

STOKES, SIR GEORGE GABRIEL, mathematician and physicist, born in Skreen, co.  Sligo; he is great in the department of mathematical physics, and has been specially devoted to the study of hydro-dynamics and the theory of light; has opened new fields of investigation, and supplied future experimenters with valuable hints; he was one of the foremost physicists of the day; b. 1819.