DIALECT. 



DIAPER. 



604 



wtMO the moon. mooa-diaL The Utter kind, a* well u UK>M in 

 which the light u reflected, are man object* of scientific curiosity , u>d 

 no further notice will be (iron of them in thi. work ; but the history 

 ui t tnicture of the mm di.il will be found under Srx-DiAU. 



I ilAI.KiT (SMtVurrat, 8i-Arv*'. '" fnrrr*}. an appellation given 

 to a language when spoken of in contradistinction to tome other lan- 

 guage which it retcmblM in iU genend features, though differing from 

 It more or leas in the detail*. Almost all the language* which we are 

 acquainted with may be arranged in -lUtim t r\tmt* or familiei, and 

 the relationship subsisting between the member* U, generally speaking, 

 pretty obvious. Sometime* the parent language from which they are 

 11 depended U still extant, and in that cam it it frequently easy to 

 trace the million* in orthi>gra|>hy, inflexion, and conjugation from 

 the parent itock, and to determine the principle* which governed these 

 change*. Theae inquiries, whenever they can be successfully prose- 

 cuted, are of the greatest importance, u well to the critical historian 

 a* to the philologer ; for the language of a people points at once to 

 their mental characteristic* and the external changes to which they 

 hare from time to time been exposed. Thus the Dorian dialect of the 

 Greek language, in the broadness and harshness of its vowel sounds, 

 correspond* to the grave and austere character of the Dorian people ; 

 and whenever a warlike race has taken up its abode among a peaceful 

 agricultural population, traces of this mixture of population are always 

 found in the language, in which the military and |>olitical terms are 

 mostly peculiar to the language of the conquerors, while for the words 

 referring to farming and domestic economy, the aboriginal language is 

 retained. This is strikingly the case in the Latin and English lan- 

 guages. The two most widely diffused families of languages known to 

 us are the Indian-Gothic and the Semitic ; the former includes the 

 Sanscrit, Zend, Armenian, Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Sclavonian, Teu- 

 tonic, and Celtic dialects, in which the resemblances, though some- 

 times rather distant, are still more or less perceptible. The Semitic 

 family contains the Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic tongues, with others 

 less known to modern Orientalists. Many of these primary dialects 

 are divided into several sub-dialects : for instance, the ancient Greek 

 had at least three distinct dialects, the ^EolUn, Dorian, and Ionian. 



The differences in the modes of speaking in England can hardly be 

 called dialectical, in the sense in which the word dialect has been 

 explained : such differences, generally speaking, are nothing more than 

 peculiar words or phrases which the written language has not adopted, 

 but which ore not the leas on that account genuine members of that 

 Teutonic family of which the written language itself is only a part. 



Hut so far as any of these varieties have been committed to writing, 

 and are admitted by a large portion of the population to be a faithful 

 representation of the language in daily use among them, so for such 

 varieties may not inaptly be called dialects. Such are many of the 

 poems of Burns, and parts of the novels of Scott. In ordinary con- 

 versation in England, the words " provincialism " and " dialect " are 

 often used as synonymous, and as expressing some usage of language 

 which U at variance with the established language of the educated and 

 that of the best writers. It is, however, only a vulgar mistake to con- 

 sider such words as " corruptions " of language, which they very rarely 

 are. As a general nde, such words and phrases, and such peculiar pro- 

 nunciations as characterise nearly every county of England, are of 

 the genuine Teutonic stock ; and that language which is now the 

 established language of literature, and which has rejected some of 

 the so-called provincialisms and adopted others, might, under different 

 political circumstances, have contained these elements in a different 

 proportion. If the metropolis of England had been on the Severn, the 

 Huiiilx-r, or the Tyne, who can say now much the written language 

 might have been affected by this circumstance ? 



DIALECTICS (iioAorriiri; T'x>T(), the old name for the practical 

 part of logic. The word properly signifies " the art of conversation," 

 and its use as a name for the art of reasoning seems to have arisen 

 from the fact, that Zcno the Eleatic, who was the first compiler of a 

 system of logic, was also the first writer of dialogues. It is also to be 

 remembered, that formal argumentation among the Greeks was gene- 

 rally carried on by means of question and answer, and Aristophanes 

 uses the more common word dioltjcit (5ioA(is), to signify the logic of 

 the Sophists. There were several systems of logic between Zeno and 

 Plato, as, for instance, those of Protagoras, Polus, Gorgiaa, Euclid, and 

 Eubulides. Socrates never committed any thing to writing; but if we 

 take the representations given of his mode of reasoning by Plato and 

 Xenophon, so far as they agree, we must look upon him as in some 

 measure the originator of Plato's scientific method of arguing 

 Schleiermacher on the Worth of Socrates as a Philosopher, in tlic 

 Transact, of the Berlin Acad. for 1815, transL in the Philolog. Mus. 

 vol. ii ) Plato considered dialectics as the science of definitions (' So- 

 phist.' 253), and as every definition must include both genus and 

 difference, he found it necessary to invent a theory of abstract ideas 

 as the basis of his dialectics ; for the ideas (tttoi) and the genera (<ftr)) 

 wen, he considered, related merely as subject and object; and he 

 thought that, without assuming the objective existence of the genera, 

 he could have no real general ideas, and so his definition, and con- 

 sequent! v his whole dialectical system, which he believed to be the 

 only available mean* of finding out the truth, would fall to the ground. 

 (Van Heusde, ' Initia Philosoph. Platon. ;' Cousin, 'Fragmcns.') Aii-- 

 totle's dialectics were based upon a scale of categories or predications, 



Dl.U.I.YI.rUKA. 

 DIAI.rilAMlDE. 



DIALUMC ACID. 

 DIAM.\<:NKTINM. 



much the same with those of ArchyUs ; he did not think it necessary 

 to assume any A priori abstract notion*, but conceived it was sufficient 

 for all logical purposes to generalise after experience. (Faociolati's 

 ' Logica Peripatetic*. 1 ) The dialectics of the Stoics appear to have 

 been little more than a system of grammatical rules. For the appli- 

 cation of dialectics the reader is referred to the article LOGIC ; and to 

 the works on the subject by Sir W. Hamilton, A. Da Morgan, W. 

 8i>alding, and others. 



[UREA.] 

 [UBIC AGIO.] 

 'UBic Aciu.j 



There are certain bodies which are attracted 

 indifferently by either magnetic pole, and are termed magnetic ; but 

 there are others which, when brought near to the magnetic ixile, are 

 repelled instead of being attracted; such bodies are called ilia- 

 magnetic*, and the branch of science which treats of them is termed 

 | IKamnynrt'um. [MAGNETISM.] 



DIAMETER, a word most commonly applied to the line drawn 

 through tii 1 1 1,1 LI of a circle, and bounded on both sides by the cir- 

 cumference. But the most general meaning is as follows : Whenever 

 any point U called a centre, any line drawn through the centre is called 

 a diameter. And any point which bisects all lines drawn through it 

 from opposite boundaries is called a centre. Thus the circle, tli 

 sections, the parallelogram, the sphere, cube, and parallelepiped, all 

 have realm, and by analogy, diamtteri. 



D1AMIDES. [AiiiDEsTj 



DIAMIDO-BENZOIC ACID (C..H (H,N),0,,HO). A derivative 

 by reduction from liinitrulicmoic acid. [BKNZOIC ACID.] 



DIAMINES. [ORGANIC BASES.] 



DIAMOND. The pencil diamond used by glaziers in cutting glass 

 is a small fractured piece of the gem. The part of the diamond used for 

 cutting is of a trapezoidal shape, weighing about the 60th part of a 

 carat, and is set in a wooden handle, which consists of 

 a rounded piece of rose-wood flattened at the two sides 

 to fit between the sides of the fore and middle fingers. 



Two kinds of pencil diamonds are in use. The old 

 diamond is merely set fast in a conical shoulder. A dif- 

 ficulty in always experienced in cutting glass with this 

 sort of pencil, owing to the uncertainty of placing the 

 gem at once at the proper angle with the glass, so as to 

 make it cut and not scratch ; this difference depends 

 upon the axis and edges of the crystal The p Lt.-nt 

 diamond, of later invention, overcomes this difficulty. 

 The form is represented in the annexed figure. The 

 peculiarity consists in the diamond being set in a parallcl- 

 opiped shoulder, 6, 6, the right angle of the lower t-nd 

 of which is cut off and forms the correct angle at which 

 the diamond when set will cut the glass. The upper 

 end of the shoulder swivels at It, but is stopped from 

 going too far by the screw a. The object of this is to 

 prevent the necessity of shifting the handle in the 

 hud when placed against the ruler laid on the glass. 

 The lower end of the shoulder, showing the diamond, 

 is represented at r. A large diamond is not so fit for 

 the purpose of cutting gloss as a small one. The dia- 

 mond is usually about the size of an ordinary pin's head, 

 and is set in a nipple of brass or copper. It is an < i L < <i 

 to suppose that diamonds will not wear out. In the 

 shops of wholesale glaziers, where the diamond U in 

 constant requisition, one of these instruments is worn 

 down in a month or six weeks, so as to require reset- 

 ting, after which, with the same wear, it usually lasts F 

 another month, and then becomes useless. It may 

 be presumed (hat they travel over some miles of gloss 

 before they ore woni out. In cutting the gloss, core is token not to 

 press too heavily on the diamond, which is apt to scratch instead of 

 cutting the glass ; such heavy pressure also spoils the ili.iiii.nnl. 



The cutting of gloss may also be effected by unusually hard speci- 

 men* of certain other minerals ; but the diamond is the only means 

 regularly employed. 



DIAMOND. [C.viinos.] 



DIAMYLAMINE. [AiiYL.] 



DIAMYLANILINE 



/ f H, \ 



(is) 



An organic base derived from 



aniline by the substitution of two equivalents of amyl (C 10 H n ) for two 

 of hydrogen. 



DIAMYL-OXAMIDE. [OXAMIDK.] 



DIANA, [AHTKMIS.] 



DIANILIDES. [AMUDBS.] 



DIAPA'SON, in Music (8iA, thnnyh, and raaSf, nf all), the interval 

 of the octave, so called because it includes all admitted musical sounds. 

 It likwise signifies the compass of any voice or instrument ; and the 

 French employ it to express what in England is meant by the term 

 concert-pitch. [CONCERT-PITCH: ; TUNING.] 



DIAPASON STOP, in an organ. [OR.;A.]' 



DIAPENTE. in Greek music ; the interval of tho fifth. 



DIAPER, a kind of textile fabric, formed either of linen or cotton, 



