COR 
By the law, which protects the aflies of the dead, if any 
one in taking up a dead body (teals the Ibroud, or other 
apparel, it is felony. 3 Injl. no. 1 Hal. P. C. 515. But 
dealing the corpfe only is not felony, but it is a grievous 
offence punifhable by indictment at common law. 2 Comm. 
2 36. 
CORPS, a town of France, in the department of the 
Ifere : twenty miles fouth-eaft of Grenoble. 
CORPS de BATAILLE,/ [Fr.] The main body of 
an army drawn up for battle. 
CORPS de GARDE, f. [Fr.] Soldiersentrufted with 
the guard of a poft, under the command of one or more 
officers. 
CORPS'UND- lf.s-TROIS-MARIES, a town of 
France, in the department of the Ille and Vilaine, and 
chief place of a canton, in the didridt of Bain: three 
leagues fouth of Rennes. 
COR'PULENCE, or Corpulency, f [ corpulentia, 
Lat.] Bulkinefs of body; flefliinefs ; fulnefs of flelh ; 
obofitv.—It is but one fpecies of corpulency ; for there 
may be bulk without fat, from the great quantity of 
mufcular flelh, the cafe of robuff people. Arbuthhot .— 
Spiilitude ; groffnefs of matter.—The mufculous fleffi 
ferves for tire vibration of the tail; the heavinefs and 
corpulency of the water requiring a great force to divide it. 
Ray. 
COR'PULENT, adj. [corpulentus, Lat. ] Flefliy ; bul¬ 
ky; having great bodily bulk.—Excefs of nouriffiment 
is hurtful ; for it maketh corpulent , growing in breadth 
rather than in height. Bacon .—Sennertus mentions a man 
that weighed lix hundred pounds; and a woman, thirty- 
fix years of age, who weighed four hundred and fifty 
pounds. Bright, of Malden, who died at the age of 
twenty-nine years, in 1730, weighed lix hundred and fix- 
teen pounds. Chiapin Vitelli, marquis of Cerona, a 
noted Spaniflr general, from an exceflive corpulency, is 
faid to have reduced himfelf, by drinking vinegar, to 
fuch a degree of leannefs, that he could fold his (kin 
feveral times round him. From one to four drachms of 
Caftiie foap, taken at bed-time, is ftrongly recommended 
with a view of reducing corpulency, by Dr. Flemyng. 
COR'PUS,/ in anatomy, a term applied to feveral 
parts of the animal flrudture ; as, corpus cauofum, corpus 
cavernofum, &c. It is alfo ufed to denote,feveral works 
of the fame nature collected and bound togetlrer. Gra¬ 
ttan made a collection of the canons of the church, called 
corpus canonum. The corpus of the civil law is, compofed 
of the digeff, code, and inftitutes. We have alfo a corpus 
of the Greek poets ; and another of the Latin poets. 
COR'PUS cum CAUSA, /. A writ itfuing out of 
the chancery, to remove both the body and record, 
touching the caufe of any man lying in execution upon 
a judgment for debt, into the king’s-bench, &c. there to 
lie till he have fatisfied the judgment. 
COR'PUS-CRRIS'TI, J. A feftival of the church of 
England, kept on the Thurfday next after Trinity Sun¬ 
day, iriftituted in honour of the eucharift ; to which alfo 
one of the colleges of Oxford is dedicated. 
COR'PUSCLE,/ \corpufctdujn , Lat.] A fmall body; 
a particle of matter; an atom; a little fragment.—Who 
knows what are the figures of the little corpufcles that com- 
pofe and diftinguilh different bodies ? Watts. —It will add 
much to our (atisfaCtion, if thole corpufcles can-be dif- 
covered with microfcopes. Newton. 
CORPUS'CULAR, or Corpusculartan, adj. [from 
corpufculum , Lat.] Relating to bodies; compriling bo¬ 
dies. —As to natural philofophy, I do not expeCt to fee 
any principles propofed, more comprehenfive and intel¬ 
ligible than the corpufcularian 'or mechanical. Boyle .—The 
mechanical or corpujcular philofophy, though peradven- 
ture the elded, as well as the bed in the world, had lain 
dead tor many ages in contempt and oblivion. Bentley. 
CORPUS'CULAR PHILOSOPHY,/. That fcheme 
or lydem of phyfics, in which the phenomena of bodies 
are accounted for, from the motion, red, pofition, &c, of 
C O II 227 
the corpufcles or atoms of which bodies confid. The 
corpufcular philofophy, which now flourifhes under the 
name ot the mechanical philofophy, is very ancient. Leu¬ 
cippus and Democritus taught it in Greece; from them 
Epicurus received it, and improved it; and from him it 
was called the Epicurean philofophy. Leucippus, it is faid, 
received it from one Mochus, a Phenician phifiologid, 
before the time of the Trojan war, and the fir’d who 
philofophized about atoms; which Mochus is, accord¬ 
ing to the opinion of fome, the Mofes of the fcriptures. 
After Epicurus, the corpufcular philofophy gave way to 
the peripatetic, which became the popular lydem. Thus, 
indead of atoms, were introduced fpecific and fubdantial 
forms, qualities, fympathies, &c. which amufed the 
world, till Gallendus, Charleton, Defcartes, Boyle, New¬ 
ton, and others, retrieved tire corpufcularian hypothelis ; 
which is now become the bads of the mechanical and 
experimental philofophy. 
Boyle reduces the principles of the corpufcular philo-- 
fophy to the four following heads : 1. That there is 
but one univerfal kind of matter, which is an extended, 
impenetrable, and divifible, fubdance, common to all 
bodies, and capable of all forms. On this head, Newton 
finely remarks thus : “ All things confidered, it appears 
probable to me, that God in the beginning created mat¬ 
ter in folid, hard, impenetrable, moveable, particles ; of 
fuch lizes and figures, and with fuch other properties, 
as mod conduced to the end for which he formed them : 
and that thefe primitive particles, being folids, are in¬ 
comparably harder than any of the fenlible porous bodies 
compounded of them; even fo hard as never to wear, or 
break in pieces; no other power being able to divide 
what God made one in the fird creation. While thefe 
corpufcles remain entire, they may compofe bodies of 
one and the fame nature and texture in all ages ; but. 
ffiould they wear away, or break in pieces, the nature of 
things depending on them would be changed ; water and 
earth, compofed of old worn particles, of fragments of 
particles, would not be of the fame nature and texture 
now, with water and earth compofed of entire'particles 
at the beginning. And, therefore, that nature may be 
lading, the changes of corporeal things are to be placed 
only in the various leparations, and new affociations, of 
thefe permanent corpufcles.” 2. That this matter, iu 
order to form the vaft variety of natural bodies, mud 
have motion in fome or all its affignable parts; and that 
this motion was given to matter.by God, the creator of 
all things; and has all manner of diredtions and tenden¬ 
cies. “ thefe corpufcles (fays Newton) have not only 
a vis inertia, accompanied with fuch paffive laws of mo¬ 
tion as naturally refult from that force, but alfo are 
moved by certain adtive principles ; fuch as that of gra¬ 
vity, and that which caufes fermentation, and the cohe- 
lion of bodies.” 3. That matter mud alfo be actually 
divided into parts ; and each ol thefe primitive particles, 
fragments, or ato'ms of matter, mud have its proper 
magnitude, figure, and fliape. 4. That thefe differently 
fized and fliaped particles, have different orders, polk 
tions, flotations, and pollutes, from whence all the va¬ 
riety of compound bodies arifes. By thefe laws of matter 
and motion, we can readily account for all the various 
phenomena of nature. 
CORPUSQULA'RIAN,/ A corpufcularian philofo- 
pher.—1 he modern corpife&rians talk-in mod things more 
intelligibly than the peripatetics. Locke . 
CORR,/. [to, Heb.] A Hebrew meafure, containing 
two quarts Engliflt. 
COR'RA, a town of Perfia, in the province of Segef- 
tan, on the lake Zare : fifteen miles feuth-eaft of Kin. 
COR'RA, a river ot Perfia, which runs into the lake 
Zare, near the town of Corra, in the province of Segedan, 
CORRA'AN, a peninfula of Ireland, on the wed coaft 
of the county of Mayo, feparated from Achill ifland by 
a narrow channel. It is about feven miles from eaft to 
welt, and from two to four miles wide. 
COR'RACLE. 
