CIV 



CLA 



the weather, and fed with succulent 

 nourishment. Numbers of them are kept 

 in Holland, for the sake of procuring and 

 selling the perfume which they 3 r ield, 

 called civet, and sometimes erroneously 

 confounded with musk. There is a con- 

 siderable traffic of civet from Bassora, 

 Calicut, and other places, where the ani- 

 mal that produces it is bred ; though 

 great part of the civet among us is fur- 

 nished by the Dutch, who rear a consi- 

 derable number of the animals. That 

 which is obtained from Amsterdam is 

 preferred to that which comes from the 

 Levant, or India, because the latter is ge- 

 nerally less pure. That brought from 

 Guinea would be the best, if the negroes, 

 as well as the Indians and Levanters, did 

 not adulterate it with the juices of plants, 

 or with labdanum, storax, and other bal- 

 samic and odoriferous drugs. The quan- 

 tity supplied depends much on the quali- 

 ty of the nourishment, and the appetite 

 of the animal, which always produces 

 more in proportion to the goodness of its 

 food. See VIVERRA. 



CIVIL death, any thing that retrenches 

 or cuts off a man from civil society, as a 

 condemnation to the hulks, perpetual 

 banishment, condemnation to death, out- 

 lawry, and excommunication. 



CIVIL law, is that law which every par- 

 ticular nation, commonwealth, or city, 

 has established peculiarly for itself. The 

 civil law is either written or unwritten ; 

 and the written law is public or private ; 

 public, which immediately regards the 

 state of the commonwealth, as the enact- 

 ing and execution of laws, consultations 

 about war and peace, establishment of 

 things relating to religion, &c. ; private, 

 that more immediately has respect to the 

 concerns of every particular person. The 

 unwritten law, is custom introduced by 

 the tacit consent of the people only, 

 without any particular establishment. 

 The authority of it is great, and it is 

 equal with a written law, if it be whol- 

 ly uninterrupted, and of a long continu- 

 ance. 



The civil law is allowed in Great Bri- 

 tain in the two universities, for the train- 

 ing up of students, &c. in matters of fo- 

 reign treaties between princes ; marine 

 affairs, civil and criminal ; in the order- 

 ing of martial causes ; the judgment of 

 ensigns and arms, rights of honour, &c. 



CIVIL list, the money allotted for the 

 support of the King's household, and 

 for defraying certain charges of govern- 

 ment. 



CIVIL year, is the legal year, or annual 

 account of time, which every governmQut 



appoints to be used within its own domi- 

 nions, and is so called in contradistinction 

 to the natural year, which is measured 

 exactly by the revolution of the heaven- 

 ly bodies. 



CIVILIAN, in general, denotes some- 

 thing belonging to the civil law ; but 

 more especially the doctors and pro- 

 fessors thereof are called civilians ; of 

 these we have a college or society in 

 London, known by the name of Doctors- 

 commons. 



CLAIM, a challenge of interest in any 

 thing that is in the possession of another, 

 or at least out of a man's own ; as claim 

 by charter, by descent, &c. 



CLAIRAULT (ALEXIS CLAUDE), a ce- 

 lebrated French mathematician and aca- 

 demician, was born at Paris the 13th of 

 May, 1713. His father, a teacher of ma- 

 thematics at Paris, was his sole instructor, 

 teaching him even the letters of the al- 

 phabet on the figures of Euclid's Ele- 

 ments, by which he was able to read and 

 write at four years of age. By a similar 

 stratagem it was that calculations were 

 rendered familiar to him. At nine years 

 of age he put into his hands Guisnee's 

 Application of Algebra to Geometry ; at 

 ten he studied 1'HospitaPs Conic Sec- 

 tions ; and between twelve and thirteen 

 he read a memoir to the Academy of Sci- 

 iences, concerning four new geometrical 

 curves of his own invention. About the 

 same time he laid the first foundation of 

 his work upon curves that have a double 

 curvature, which he finished in 1729, at 

 sixteen years of age. He was named Ad- 

 joint-Mechanician to the Academy in 

 1731, at the age of eighteen, Associate 

 in 1733, and Pensioner in 1738. During 

 his connexion with the Academy, he had 

 a great multitude of learned and ingeni- 

 ous communications inserted in their me- 

 moirs, besides several other works which 

 he published separately. In the year 

 1750, the Academy of Petersburg pro- 

 posed a prize on the subject of the lunar 

 motions, which Clairault obtained : and in 

 a few years he obtained another prize on 

 the same subject. He was during life a 

 most active and indefatigable man. He 

 died in 1765, at the age of 52. His works 

 are numerous, and his papers, inserted 

 in the Memoirs of the Academy, may be 

 found in the year 1727, and also for al- 

 most every year till 1762 ; being upon a 

 variety of subjects, astronomical, mathe- 

 matical, optical, &c. 



CLAMP in a ship, denotes a piece of 

 timber applied to a mast or yard, *o pre- 

 vent the wood from bursting'; and also a 

 thick plank lying fore and aft under the 



