DIS 



DIS 



DISH, among miners, denotes a wood- 

 en measure, wherein they are obliged to 

 measure their ore : it is kept by the bar- 

 master, and contains about 672 solid 

 inches. 



DisjuNCTivE/>ropowft'on, in logic, is that 

 where, of several predicates, we affirm 

 one necessarily to belong to the subject, 

 to the exclusion of all the rest, but leave 

 that particular one undetermined. Such 

 is the major of the following disjunctive 

 syllogism. 



The world is either self-existent, or the 

 work of some finite, or of some in- 

 finite being. 



But it is not self- existent, nor the work 

 of a finite being. 



Therefore it is the work of an infinite 

 being. 



DISPATCH, a letter sent abroad by a 

 courier on some affair of state, or other 

 matter of importance. The business of 

 dispatches lies upon the ministers of state 

 and their clerks. 



DISPENSARY, a charitable institution, 

 very common in London and some other 

 large towns of Britain. They are sup- 

 ported by voluntary subscriptions, and 

 each has one or more physicians, sur- 

 geons, and apothecaries, who attend, or 

 ought to attend, at stated times, in order 

 to prescribe for the poor, and if necessary 

 to visit them at their own habitations. 

 The poor are supplied with medicines 

 gratis. Where these institutions are ma- 

 naged with care, they are of the utmost 

 importance to society, it being unques- 

 tionably more for the comfort of the sick 

 to be attended at their own houses, than 

 to be dragged from their families to an 

 hospital. 



DISPENSATORY, denotes a book con- 

 taining the method of preparing the vari- 

 ous kinds of medicines used in pharmacy. 

 Such are the London, Edinburgh, and 

 Dublin pharmacopeias. 



DISPLAYED, in heraldry, is under- 

 stood of the position of an eagle, or any 

 other bird, when it is erect, with its wings 

 expanded or spread forth. 



DISPOSITION, in rhetoric, the placing 

 words in such an order as contributes 

 most to the beauty, and sometimes even 

 to the strength, of a discourse. See 

 RHETORIC. 



DISSECTION, in anatomy, the cutting 

 up a body with a view of examining the 

 structure and use of the parts. See ANA- 

 TOMY. 



DISSEISIN, is a wrongful putting out 

 of him that is seized of the freehold, 

 which may be effected either in corporeal 



inheritances, or incorporeal. Disseisin of 

 things corporeal, as of houses and lands, 

 must be by entry and actual disposses- 

 sion of the freehold. Disseisin of incor- 

 poreal hereditaments cannot be an actual 

 dispossession, for the subject itself is nei- 

 ther capable of actual bodily possession, 

 or dispossession, but is only at the elec- 

 tion and choice of the party injured, if, 

 for the sake of more easily trying the 

 right, he is pleased to suppose himself 

 disseised. And so also even in corporeal 

 hereditaments, a man may frequently 

 suppose himself to be disseised, when 

 he is not so in fact, for the sake of 

 entitling himself to the more easy and 

 commodious remedy of an assize of novel 

 disseisin, instead of being driven to the 

 more tedious process of a writ of entry. 



DISSENTERS, in church history, are 

 a numerous body of people in this coun- 

 try, who made their first appearance in 

 Queen Elizabeth's time, when, on ac- 

 count of the extraordinary purity which 

 they proposed in religious worship and 

 conduct, they were reproached with the 

 name of Puritans. They increased in 

 numbers by the act of uniformity, which 

 took place on Bartholomew's day 1682, 

 in the reign of Charles II. By this act 

 2000 ministers of the establishment, re- 

 fusing to conform to certain conditions, 

 were obliged to quit their livings, and 

 hence arose the name of Non-conformists. 

 The descendants of these are known 

 by the name of Protestant Dissenters : 

 they may be considered in general a 

 divided into the denominations of Pres- 

 byterians, Independents, and Baptists, 

 which see. 



The principles, on which Dissenters 

 separate from the Church of England, 

 are the same with those on which she 

 separates herself from the Church of 

 Rome ; these are, the right of private 

 judgment ; liberty of conscience ; and the 

 perfection of scripture as a Christian's 

 only rule of faith and practice. Dr. Tay- 

 lor, speaking of the Dissenters who were 

 ejected in 1662, says, " They were men 

 prepared to lose all, and to suffer mar- 

 tyrdom itself, and who actually resigned 

 their livings, rather than desert the cause 

 of civil and religious liberty, which, toge- 

 ther with serious religion, would, I am 

 persuaded, have sunk to a very low ebb, 

 had it not been for the noble stand which 

 these worthies made against, imposition 

 upon conscience, profaneness, and ar- 

 bitrary power. They had the best educa- 

 tion England could afford, most of them 

 were excellent scholars, judicious divines, 



