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A dame should drown with all her feathered train. ld. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable diviner of thoughts, that can assure him that he was thinking.

Locke.

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I reduced the study of divinity into as narrow a compass as I could; for I determined to study nothing but my Bible, being much unconcerned about the opinions of councils, fathers, churches, bishops, and other men, as little inspired as myself. This mode of proceeding being opposite to the general one, and especially to that of the Master of Peterhouse, who was a great reader, he used to call me aurosidaxтo;, the self-taught divine. Bp. Watson. Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love, Their full divinity inadequate

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That feeling to express, or to improve,
The gods become as mortals, and man's fate
Has moments like their brightest.

Byron.

DIVINATION, in antiquity, was divided by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Cicero, and others, into two species, viz. artificial and natural. Artificial divination was so called, because it was not obtained, or pretended to be obtained, by immediate inspiration, but proceeded upon certain superstitious experiments and observations arbitrarily instituted. Of this sort there were various kinds, as by sacrifices, entrails, flame, cakes, flour, wine, water, birds, lots, verses, omens, &c. In the sacred writings nine different sorts of divination are mentioned. The first performed by the inspection of planets, stars, and clouds. The practisers of this are supposed to

אנן inconen, of מעונן be those whom Moses calls

anan, a cloud, Deut. xviii. 10. 2. Those whom the prophet calls in the same place menachesch, which the vulgate and generality of interpreters render augur. 3. Those who in the same place are called mecascheph, which

the septuagint and vulgate translate 'a man given to ill practices.' 4. Such augurs whom Moses in the same chapter, ver. 11, calls hhober. 5. Those who consult the spirits called Python; or, as Moses expresses it in the same book, those who ask questions of Python.'

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Faith, as we use the word, called commonly divine faith, has to do with no propositions but those which 6. Witches or magicians, whom Moses called are supposed to be divinely inspired.

Id.

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judeoni. 7. Those who consult the dead, necromancers. 8. The prophet Hosea, chap. iv. 12, mentions such as consult staves, p; which kind of divination is called rhabdomancy. 9. The last kind is hepatoscopy, or the consideration of the liver. Divination of all kinds

being the offspring of credulity, nursed by imposture, and strengthened by superstition, was necessarily an occult science, retained in the hands of the priests and priestesses, the magi, the soothsayers, the augurs, and other like professors, till the time of the coming of Jesus Christ. Since then the pure doctrines of Christianity, and the spirit of philosophy, becoming every day more widely diffused have equally concurred in banishing these visionary opinions.

The following are the principal kinds of divination practised among the ancients. For a more minute description of which see their separate articles. 1. Aeromancy, the art of divining by the air. 2 Astrology; divided into

natural astrology and judicial. 3. Augury consisted in observing the flight, singing, &c., of birds. 4. Chiromancy, the art which pretends to discover, by inspecting the hand, not only the inclinations of a man, but his future destiny also. 5. Geomancy was a divination made by observing of cracks or clefts in the earth. 6. Haruspicy consisted in the inspection of the bowels of animals, but principally of victims; and from thence predicting incidents relative to the republic, and the good or bad events of its enterprises. 7. Horoscopy is a branch of ASTROLOGY, which see. 8. Hydromancy is the art of divining by water. The Persians, according to Varro, invented it; and Pythagoras and Numa Pompilius made great use of it. 9. Physiognomy, or physiognomancy, is a science that pretends to teach the nature, the temperament, the understanding, and the inclinations of men, by the inspection of their countenances, and is therefore thought by many, to be little less frivolous than chiromancy; though Aristotle, and the celebrated Lavater, have written express treatises concerning it. But as it is an undeniable fact, that our passions, especially when frequently and violently agitated, make indelible impressions on our features, by their repeated action on particular muscles, insomuch that the tempers of many people may be known at first view from their looks; and as it is not improbable, that certain habits of vice may make impressions equally uniform and perhaps equally legible, if we were accustomed to study them, physignomy appears to be worthy of rather more attention. 10. Pyromancy is a divination made by the inspection of a flame, either by observing to which side it turns, or by throwing into it some combustible matter, or a bladder filled with wine, or any thing else from which they imagined they were able to predict. Natural divination was so called, because it was supposed to be not attainable by any rules or precepts of art, but infused or inspired into the diviner, without his taking any further care about it, than to purify and prepare himself for the reception of the di

vine afflatus.

DIVINING ROD. We have anticipated, in the article BAGUETTE DEVINATOIRE, which see, all that we feel disposed to give credence to on this subject: but an ingenious gentleman has lately advocated the pretensions of the hazel or willow rod to be naturally, under proper management, a discoverer of metals and springs of water, at great depths; and we insert, just as they are supplied to us, his directions for choosing the rods, and observations on their properties.

I. Directions for choosing the Rods.-The hazel and willow rods he has, by experience, found, will actually answer with all persons in a good state of health, if they are used with moderation, and at some distance of time, and after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. The hazel, willow, and elm, are all attracted by springs of water. Some persons have the virtue intermittently; the rod in their hands will attract one half-hour, and repel the next. The rod is attracted by all metals, coals, amber, and lime-stone, but with different degrees of strength. The best rods are those from the hazel or nuttree, as they are pliant and tough, and cut in the

winter months; a shoot that terminates, equally forked, is to be preferred, about two feet and a half long; but as such a forked rod is rarely to be met with, two single ones of similar length and size may be tied together with thread, and they will answer as well as the other.

The most convenient and handy method of holding the rod, is with the palms of the hands turned upwards, and the two ends of the rod coming outwards: the palms should be held horizontally, as nearly as possible; the part of the rod in the hand ought to be straight, and not bent backward or forward. The upper part of the arm should be kept pretty close to the sides, and the elbows resting on them; the lower part of the arm making nearly a right angle with the upper, though rather a little more acute. The rod ought to be so held, that in its working the sides may move clear of the little fingers.

The best manner of carrying the rod is with the end extended in an angle of about eighty degrees from the horizon, as by this method of carrying it, the repulsion is more plainly perceived than if it was held perpendicularly. But after all the directions that can be given, the adroit use of it can only be attained by practice and attention.

It is necessary that the grasp should be steady, for if, when the rod is going, there be the least succussion or counteraction in the hands, though ever so small, it will greatly impair, and, generally, totally prevent its activity, which is not to be done by the mere strength of the grasp; for provided this be steady, no strength can stop it.

II. Properties observed in the Rod, and Directions for using it.-As soon as the person's foremost foot comes near the attracting body (as far as I can observe its semi-diameter), the end of the rod is repelled towards the face; then open the hands a little, replace the rod, and approach nearer, and the repulsion will be continued until the foot is on or over the attracting body. When this is the case, the rod will first be repelled a little, viz. two or three inches, and then be attracted towards the metallic body, viz. its end will be drawn down towards it.

When it has been drawn down, it must not be thrown back without opening the hands, a fresh grasp being necessary to every attraction, but then the least opening of the hand is sufficient. As long as the person stands over the attracting body, the rod continues to be attracted; but as soon as the forefoot is beyond it, then the rod is drawn backward to the face.

Metals have different degrees of attraction; gold is strongest, next copper, then iron, silver, tin, lead, bones, coals, springs of water, and limestone.

In using the rod to discover springs and metals, let the person hold the rod as already d1rected, and then advancing north or south with a slow pace, just one foot before the other, at first the rod may be repelled; but as the person advances slowly, and comes over the spring or vein of ore, the rod will be strongly attracted.

A person who, by frequent practice and experience, can use the rod tolerably, may soon give the greatest sceptics sufficient satisfaction, except they are determined not to be convinced.

Some have supposed that the science called Rhabdomancy (divination by a rod), is alluded to in the following verse of Hosea:- My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them.' ch. iv. As Europe received in very early times many superstitious customs from the east, together with many useful inventions, the conjecture is not improbable. Divination by arrows, a method of a similar kind mentioned in Ezekiel, chap. xxi., continued among the Arabs till the days of Mahomet, who, in the Koran, forbade his tempt at prescience. DIVISION, n. s. Span. and Fr. division, DIVISIBLE, adj. from Lat. divisio, à diDIVISIBLENESS, n. s. videre, divisus. See DIDIVISIBILITY, n. s. VIDE. The act of diDIVI'SOR. viding; state of being divided; the separated part, and that which separates hence disunion, discord, dispute; a rule of arithmetic: divisible is capable of division; divisibility, quality of admitting it. Divisor, an arithmetical term for a given number by which another is divided.

I will put a division between my people and thy people.

Thy tongue

Exodus.

Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
With ravishing division, to her lute.

Henry IV.

Shakspeare.
Naturalists disagree about the origin of motion, and
Boyle.

the indefinite divisibleness of matter.

This will easily appear to any one, who will let his thoughts loose in the vast expansion of space, or divisibility of matter.

divisible, since it will consist of parts which wil be really distinct. To illustrate this by a fami liar instance.-Let the least imaginable piece of matter be conceived lying on a smooth plain surface, it is evident the surface will not touch it every where: those parts, therefore, which it does not touch may be supposed separable from the others, and so on as far as we please; and this is all that is meant when we say that matter is infinitely divisible. The infinite divisibility of mathematical quantity is demonstrated geomefollowers this idle at-trically. All that is supposed, however, in strict geometry, says Mr. Maclaurin, concerning the divisibility of magnitude, amounts to no more than that a given magnitude may be conceived to be divided into a number of parts equal to any given or proposed number. The number of parts, into which a given magnitude may be conceived to be divided, is not to be fixed or limited, because no given number is so great but a greater may be conceived and assigned: but there is not, therefore, any necessity of supposing the number of parts actually infinite; and if some have drawn very absurd consequences from such a supposition, yet geometry ought not to be loaded with them. How far matter may be divided, may, in some measure, be conceived from this fact, that a piece of wire gilt with so small a quantity as eight grains of gold, may be drawn out to a length of 13,000 feet, the whole surface of it still remaining covered with gold. We have also a surprising instance of the minuteness of some parts of matter from the nature of light and vision. Let a candle be lighted, and placed in an open plain, it will then be visible two miles round, and consequently were it placed two miles above the surface of the earth, it would fill with luminous particles a sphere whose diameter was four miles, and that before it had lost any sensible part of its weight. A quantity of vitriol being dissolved, and mixed with 9000 times as much be divided into as many parts as there are visible water, will tinge the whole; consequently will portions of matter in that quantity of water. With respect also to coloring substances, particularly carmine, which is a kind of powder obtained from the insect commonly called cochineal dilute a small quantity of this powder, to the weight of about three quarters of a grain, by putting it at the bottom of a vessel, in which is afterwards poured nearly thirty pounds of water; the color will be so diffused as to be perceptible throughout the whole volume of the water. The weight of this water being 300,000 times greater than that of five centigrammes of carmine, if it be supposed that each centigramme of the fluid mixture contains only two molecule of the coloring principle, there will be 3,000,000 of vitriol parts in five centigrammes of carmine. Many perfumes also, without a sensible diminution of their quantity, fill a very large space with their odoriferous particles; which must therefore be of an inconceivable smallness, since there will be a sufficient number in every part of that space sensibly to affect the organ of smelling. Dr. Keill demonstrates, that any particle of matter, how small soever, and any finite space, how large soever, being given, it is possible for that small particle of matter to be diffused, through

Locke.

Express the heads of your divisions in as few and clear words as you can, otherwise I never can be able to retain them.

Swift.

If we look into communities and divisions of men,

we observe that the discreet man, not the witty,

guides the conversation.

Addison's Spectator.

The effects of human industry and skill are easily subjected to calculation: whatever can be completed in a year, is divisible into parts, of which each may be performed in the compass of a day. Adventurer. When we frame in our minds any notion of matter, we conceive nothing else but extension and bulk, which is impenetrable, or divisible and passive. Bentley's Sermons. In dread divisions marched the marshalled bands, And swarming armies blackened all the lands.

Darwin.

DIVISIBILITY, in physics, is that property by which the particles of matter in all bodies are capable of a separation or disunion from each other. The Peripatetics and Cartesians hold divisibility to be an affection of all matter. The Epicureans, again, allow it to agree to every physical continuum; but they deny that this affection agrees to all bodies, for the primary corpuscles or atoms they maintain to be perfectly insecable and indivisible.

DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. As it is evident that body is extended, so it is no less evident that it is divisible; for since no two particles of matter can exist in the same place, it follows, that they are really distinct from each other; which is all that is meant by being divisible. In this sense the least conceivable particle must still be

all that space, and to fill it in such a manner, as that there shall be no pore in it whose diameter shall exceed any given line. The chief objections against the divisibility of matter in infinitum are, That an infinite cannot be contained by a finite and that it follows from a divisibility in infinitum, either that all bodies are equal, or that one infinite is greater than another. But the answer to these is easy; for the properties of a determined quantity are not to be attributed to an infinite considered in a general sense; and who has ever proved, that there could not be an infinite number of infinitely small parts in a finite quantity, or that all infinites are equal? The contrary is demonstrated by mathematicians in innumerable instances. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have derived from the system of Epicurus, the following opinion relative to the limits prescribed to the divisions of body in the actual state of things. We confess it seems to us nothing but a bold conjecture. This great philosopher conceives that the Supreme Being, in creating matter, formed it of various species of elementary molecules, solid, hard, unchangeable, the figures and the different qualities of which were appropriated to the respective ends they were proposed to answer. But such is the fixity of these molecules that no process of art, nor even any force existing in nature, can either divide or alter them, unless the essence of the body should be changed with time. Thus all the modifications experienced by bodies depend solely upon this, that these durable molecules separate the one from the other, and then become reunited in various ways forming new combinations. These different molecules are, hence, the simple substances of chemistry; and the results of the operations which they would present singly, should be the design of the efforts of this science; in the mean time we may consider as simple the substances which we have not yet been able to decompose, and wisely imagine simplicity to reside at the place where observation stops. See the article INFINITE.

DIVISION, in sea affairs, a select number of ships in a fleet or squadron of men of war, distinguished by a particular flag or pendant, and usually commanded by a general officer. A squadron is commonly ranged into three divisions, the commanding officer of which is always stationed in the centre. When a fleet consists of sixty sail of the line, that is, of ships having at least sixty cannon each, the admiral divides it into three squadrons, each of which has its divisions and commanding officers. Each squadron has its proper colors, according to the rank of the admiral, and every division its proper mast. Thus in Britain, the first admiral, or the admiral of the fleet, displays the union flag at the main top-mast head; next follows the white flag with St. George's cross; and afterwards the blue. The private ships carry pendants of the same color with their respective squadrons at the mast of their particular divisions; so that the last ship in the division of the blue squadron carries a blue pendant at her mizen-top-mast head.

DIVISIONS OF AN ARMY, in the military art, the several brigades and squadrons into which it is cantoned.

DIVISIONS OF A BATTALION are the several platoons into which it is divided in marching or firing, each of which is commanded by an officer.

DIUM, in ancient geography, the name of a town of Macedonia, in Pieria, on the west side of the Sinus Thermaicus. Strabo and Livy place it on the borders of Pieria to the south, at the foot of mount Olympus towards Thessaly. That it was a splendid city, appears from Polybius; who relates, that its gymnasium and walls were overthrown by the Etolians. From which overthrow, however, it again recovered, Alexander adding new splendor to it, by the brass statues cast by Lysippus and erected there in memory of those slain at the Granicus: an ornament which was continued down to the time of the Romans; who made it a colony, called Diensis.

DIVODORUM, in ancient geography, a town of the Mediomatrici in Gallia Belgica; situated on the Moselle, in the spot where Metz now stands. See METZ.

DIVORCE', v. a. & n. s.
DIVORCEMENT, n. s.
DIVOR'CER.

Fr. divorcer; It. divorzare; from Barb. Lat, divortere; dis and vertere, à marito, to turn, from her husband. The legal separation of a husband and wife, the verb being derived from the noun: hence disunion, or separation generaily; and separation by authority or force. Divorcement seems synonymous with the substantive; and a divorcer is, he who causes or procures a divorce.

Write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. Deut. xxiv. 1.

If so be it were possible, that all other ornaments of mind might be had in their full perfection, nevertheless the mind that should possess them, divorced from piety, could be but a spectacle of commiseration.

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The continent and the island were continued togebut are now divorced by the downfallen cliffs. ther within men's remembrance by a drawbridge;

Carew's Survey of Cornwall.
Such motions may occasion a farther alienation of
mind, and divorce of affections, in her, from my reli-
gion.
King Charles.

So seemed her youthful soul not easily forced,
Or from so fair, so sweet a seat divorced. Waller.

Divorce is a lawful separation of husband and wife, made before a competent judge, on due cognizance had of the cause, and sufficient proof made thereof. Ayliffe's Parergon.

Death is the violent estranger of acquaintance, the eternal divorcer of marriage.

Drummond's Cyprian Grove. Aerial pasture the lungs with gentle force Constant embrace by turns, by turns divorce. Blackmore.

DIVORCE. This is a topic connected with many moral and legal considerations; and those of sufficient importance, we apprehend, to justify

our entering upon it at some length. Scarcely has the country survived the moral effects of a recent discussion of it in the highest quarters, and in the inner sanctuary of British justice. It will be sufficient to remark, with regard to that unhappy circumstance, that both the learned professions appeared in a state of even unusual obscurity and doubt upon the subject. Lawyers, unquestionably well versed in the institutions of their country, were as singularly divided with regard to the fair effect of some of our statutes and usages respecting divorce, as the learned prelates were disagreed among themselves respecting what was really the law of God.

The writer of this paper has had occasion to pay considerable attention to this subject, both in a moral and legal point of view. He has seen the laws of his country to be in a remarkable state of confusion respecting it; he is convinced that their ordinary course, with regard to divorces, is opposed to the simple provisions of the law of Jesus Christ. He would therefore offer to the reader a brief statement of the actual laws and practices of this country on the subject, with a view to the examination of their moral effect and propriety; then compare them with the provisions and usages of antiquity generally: and finally, with the express injunctions of Holy Writ.

1. There are many kinds of divorce, say the law authorities mentioned in our books; as causâ pracontractus; causâ frigiditatis; causâ consanguinitatis; causâ affinitatis; causâ professionis, &c. But the usual divorces are of two kinds, i. e. à mensa et thoro, from bed and board; and à vinculo matrimonii, from the very bond of marriage. A divorce à mensa et thoro does not dissolve the marriage; for the cause of it is subsequent to the marriage, and supposes the marriage to be lawful: this divorce may be by reason of adultery in either of the parties, for cruelty of the husband, &c. And as it does not dissolve the marriage, so it does not debar the woman of her dower, or bastardise the issue, or make void any estate for the life of husband and wife, &c. Co. Lit. 235; 3 Inst. 89; 7 Rep. 43. The woman under separation by this divorce must sue by her next friend; and in her own name she may sue her husband for alimony. A divorce à vinculo matrimonii, absolutely dissolves the marriage, and makes it void from the beginning, the causes of it being precedent to the marriage; as præcontract with some other person, consanguinity or affinity, within the Levitical degrees, impotency, impuberty, &c. On this divorce dower is gone; and if, by reason of præcontract, consanguinity, or affinity, the children of the marriage are bastards. But in these divorces, the wife, it is said, shall receive all again that she brought with her, because the nullity of the marriage arises through some impediment; and the goods of the wife were given for her advancement in marriage, which now ceases: but this is where the goods are not spent; and if the husband give them away during the coverture, without any collusion, it shall bind her: if she knows her goods unspent, she may bring action of detinue for them; and as for money, &c., which cannot be known, she must sue in the

spiritual court. This divorce enables the parties to marry again.

In regard to the former case, it is the practice in the higher walks of life to apply to parliament to complete the divorce by an ex post facto law, when, if the divorce is grounded, as it almost invariably is, on adultery, it is necessary that a clause be inserted in the proposed bill, interdicting the offending parties from intermarrying. Evidence must be given, on the bill, that an action for damages has been brought against the seducer, and judgment for the plaintiff had thereon, or a sufficient reason given why such action was not brought, or judgment obtained. Upon the second reading of the bill in the house of lords (where, indeed, it usually originates), it is necessary that an official copy of the proceedings, and definitive sentence of divorce à mensa et thoro, in the ecclesiastical court, at the suit of the petitioner, be delivered at the bar on oath; and that the petitioner attend the house to be examined, if the house think fit, whether there be any collusion respecting the act of adultery, or the divorce, or any action for criminal conversation; and whether the wife was living apart from her husband under articles of separation.

If after a divorce à mensa et thoro, either of the parties marry again, the other being living, such marriage is a mere nullity; and by sentence to confirm the first contract, she and her first husband become husband and wife to all intents, without any formal divorce from the second. Also on this divorce, as the marriage continues, marrying again while either party is living, hath been held to be bigamy within the stat. 1 Jac. c. 11.

A divorce for adultery was anciently à vinculo matrimonii; and therefore in the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth the opinion of the church of England was, that after a divorce for adultery, the parties might marry again; but in Foliambe's case, H. 44 El. in the star-chamber, that opinion was changed; and archbishop Bancroft, by the advice of divines, held, that adultery was only a cause of divorce à mensa et thoro. Sentence of divorce must be given in the life of the parties, and not afterwards: but it may be repealed in the spiritual court, after the death of the parties.

It should be added that divorce is, according to our law, a judgment spiritual; hence it must be sued for and pronounced in the spiritual court, where also, 'says Coke upon Littleton,' if there be occasion, it ought to be reversed: and that the canon law, by which these courts are regulated, is followed by the common law, in considering the nuptial tie strong as not to be capable of being unloosed for any cause whatever. Our law, in fact, refers throughout to the Romish notion of the sacrament of marriage, and its utter indissolubility. Such, without entering into minute provisions, is the law and practice of our enlightened country on this important subject.

2. Divorce was allowed in much greater freedom in all the celebrated nations of antiquity. At Rome, barrenness, age, disease, madness, and banishment, were the ordinary causes of divorce. Spurius Carvilius, between 500 and 600 years

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