420 
CON 
CON 
CONFESSION of offence, in law, is 
when a prisoner is appealed or indicted of 
treason or felony, and brought to the bar to 
be arraigned, and his indictment being read 
to him, the court demands what he can say 
thereto : then either he confesses the offence, 
and file indictment to be true, or pleads Not 
Guilty. 
Confession is two-fold, either express or 
implied. An express confession is, when a 
person directly confesses the crime with 
which he is charged, which is the highest 
conviction that can be. 2 Haw. 333, But 
it is usual tor the court, especially if it be 
out of clergy, to advise the party to plead, 
and put himself «pon his trial, and not im- 
mediately to record his confession, but to 
admit him, to plead. 2 Li. H. 225. An im- 
plied confession is, where a defendant in a 
case not capital, does not directly own him- 
self guilty, but in a manner admits it, by 
yielding to the king’s mercy, and desiring to 
submit to a small fine.; which submission the 
court may accept if they think lit, without 
putting him to a direct confession. 2 Haw. 
233. _ 
Confession in a civil action. Sometimes 
there is a confession in a civil action, but not 
usually of the whole complaint; for then the 
defendant would probably end the matter 
sooner, or not plead at all, but suffer judg- 
ment to go by default ; but sometimes, after 
tender and refusal of debt, if the creditor 
harass his debtor with an action, it then be- 
comes necessary for the defendant to confess 
the debt and plead the tender ; lor a tender 
by the debtor and refusal by the creditor, will 
in all cases discharge l he costs. 4 Black. 303. 
So in order to strengthen the creditor’s se- 
curity, it is usual for the debtor to execute 
a warrant of attorney to confess judgment in 
an action to be brought by such creditor ; 
which judgment when confessed, is complete 
■and binding. 3 Black. 397. 
Confession, among divines, the verbal 
acknowledgment which a Christian makes oi 
his sins. 
The Romish church requires confession, 
nut only as a duty, but has advanced it to 
the dignity of a sacrament : this confession is 
made to the priest, and is private and auri- 
cular; and the priest is not to reveal it 
under pain of the highest punishment. 
Confession ofjuith, a list of the several 
articles of belief in any church, as the Augs- 
burg confession is that of the Lutheran 
church. 
CONFESSIONAL, or Confessionary, 
a place in churches, under the great altar, 
where the bodies of deceased saints, martyrs, 
and confessors, were deposited. This word 
is also used by the Romanists for a desk in 
the church where the confessor takes the 
confessions of the penitents. 
CONFIRMATION, in law, is a convey- 
ance of an estate or right in esse, whereby a 
voidable estate is made sure and unavoid- 
able, or whereby a particular estate is in- 
creased. Thus a bishop grants his chancel- 
lorship by patent, for the term of the paten- 
tee’s life ; this is no void grant, but voidable 
by the bishop’s death, except it be strength- 
ened bv the confirmation of the dean and 
chapter, i Black. 325. 
CONFISCATE, in law: if a man be in- 
dicted that he feloniously stole the goods of 
another man, when in truth they are the 
e o n 
proper goods of him indicted, and which 
being brought into court against him he dis- 
claims them, by this disclaimer he shall lose 
the goods, although afterwards he be acquit- 
ted of the felony, and the king shall have 
them as confiscated. Staundf. pi. cor. 1. c. 
24. 
CONFORMATION, in medicine, that 
make and construction of the human body, 
which is peculiar to every individual. Hence 
those diseases called morbi malic conforma- 
tionis, or organical diseases, are those which 
depend upon the bad conformation of the 
parts. These, if external, may admit of chi- 
rurgical cure; and proper exercise, regimen, 
and medicine, may sometimes contribute 
much to the relief even of those which are 
internal, or at least may render them sup- 
portable. 
CONGE ' d’elire, in ecclesiastical polity, 
the king’s permission royal to a dean and 
chapter in the time of a vacancy, to choose 
a bishop ; or to an abbey, or priory, of his 
own foundation, to choose their abbot or 
prior. The king of England, as sovereign 
patron of all archbishoprics, bishoprics, and 
other ecclesiastical benefices, had of antient 
time free appointment to all ecclesiastical 
dignities, whenever they chanced to be void; 
investing them first per baculum &z annulum, 
and afterwards by his letters patent ; and in 
course of time he made the election over to 
others, under certain forms and limitations ; 
as that they should, at every vacation, before 
they choose, demand the king’s conge 
d’elire, and after the election, crave his royal 
assent, &c. 
Conge', in architecture, a mould in form 
of a quarter-round, o a cavetto, which serves 
to separate two members from one another ; 
such as that which joins the shaft of the co- 
lumn to the cincture, called also apophyge. 
Conges are also rings or ferrels formerly 
used in the extremities of wooden pillars, to 
keep them from splitting, afterwards imitat- 
ed m stone-work. 
CONGELATION, freezing, or such a 
change produced by cold in a fluid body, 
that it quits its former state and becomes 
congealed. See Cold, and Freezing. 
CONGIARY, Congiarium, in Roman 
antiquity, a kind of donative of wine or oil, 
bestowed on that people by their emperors, 
and so called from the congius, wherewith it 
was measured out to them. Sometimes, in- 
deed, the congiary was made in money or 
corn; and the medals struck on such occa- 
sions, are known by the same name. 
CONGIUS, a liquid measure of the an- 
tient Romans, containing the eighth part of 
the amphora, or the fourth of tiie urna, or 
six sextarii. The congius in English mea- 
sure contains 207,0676 solid inches ; that is, 
seven pints, 4,942 solid inches. 
CONGLOBATE gland, in anatomy, a 
little smooth body, wrapt up in a fine skin, 
by which it is separated from all other parts, 
only admitting an artery and a nerve to pass 
in, and giving way to a vein and excretory 
canal to come out, of which sort are the 
glands of the brain. 
CONGLOMERATE gland, that which 
is composed of several little conglobate 
glands, all tied up together in one common 
tunicle or membrane. Sometimes all their 
excretory ducts unite, and make one com- 
mon pipe, through which the liquor of them 
all runs, as the pancreas and parotides do. 
Sometimes the ducts uniting, form several 
pipes, which only communicate with one 
another by cross canals ; and such are the 
mamma 1 : others again have several pipes 
without any communication with one ano- 
ther, of which sort are the gland ulx lachrv- 
males and prostata : and a fourth sort, is 
when each little gland has its own excretory 
duel, through which it transmits its liquor 
to a common bason ; as the kidneys. 
CONGLUTINATION, the gluing or 
fastening any two bodies together by the in- 
tromission of a third, whose parts are unctu- 
ous and tenacious in the nature of glue. 
CONGREGATION, an assembly of se- 
veral ecclesiastics united, so as to constitute 
one body ; as an assembly of cardinals, in 
the constitution of the pope’s court, met for 
the dispatch of some particular business. 
These assemblies, being sixteen in number, 
are distributed into several chambers, after 
the manner of our offices and courts: the 
first whereof is the pope’s congregation, 
whose business it is to prepare the most dif- 
ficult beneficiary matters to be afterward* 
debated in the consistory : the second is the 
congregation of the holy office, or the inqui- 
sition : the third is the congregation de pro- 
paganda fide : the fourth is the congregation 
for explaining the council of Trent: the 
fifth is the congregation of the index, de- 
puted to examine into pernicious and here- 
tical books: the sixth is the congregation 6f 
immunities, established to obviate the dif- 
ficulties that arise in the judgments of such 
suits as are carried on against churchmen : 
the seventh is the congregation of bishops 
and regulars: the eighth is the congregation 
for the examination of bishops, &c. 
CONGREGATIONALISM'S, in church- 
history, a sect of protestants who reject all 
church-government, except that of a single 
congregation. In other matters, they agree 
with the presbyterians. 
CONGRESS, in political affairs, an as- 
sembly of commissioners, envoys, deputies, 
&c. from several courts, meeting to concert 
matters for their common good. 
CONIC SECTIONS are curve lines form- 
ed by the intersections of a cone and a plane. 
Before we speak of these sections, we shall 
briefly describe the cone itself and some oi its 
properties. 
A cone may be conceived to be generated 
in the following manner : M ake an immove- 
able point A (plate Conic Sections, fig. 1.) 
elevated above the plane of a circle BCDE; 
and suppose a straight line XZ drawn through 
the point and extended both ways from it to 
an indefinite length, to be carried quite round 
the circle, all the while touching its circum- 
ference, and continuing still fixed to the im- 
moveable point; the line by this motion will 
describe two conic surfaces, which are ver- 
tical or opposite, having their common ver- 
tex at the immoveable point. 
The solid contained within this conic sur- 
face, between the immoveable point A and 
the circumference of the circle BCDE, is a 
cone : the immoveable point A is the vertex ; 
the circle BCDE is the base ; and a straight 
line AF drawn from the vertex to the centre 
of the base, is the axis of the cone: all straight 
lines drawn from the vertex to the circum- 
ference of the base, as AB, AC, A D, AE, 
&c. are sides of the cone. If the axis at a 
