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In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people. Preface to 1828 Dictionary
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CARTESIAN, a. Pertaining to the philosopher Des Cartes, or to his philosophy, which taught the doctrine of vortexes round the sun and planets.
CARTESIAN, n. One who adopts the philosophy of Des Cartes.
Of or pertaining to the
French philosopher René Descartes, or his
philosophy.
The Cartesion argument for reality of
matter. Cartesian coördinates (Geom), distance of a point from lines or planes; -- used in a system of representing geometric quantities, invented by Descartes. -- Cartesian devil, a small hollow glass figure, used in connection with a jar of water having an elastic top, to illustrate the effect of the compression or expansion of air in changing the specific gravity of bodies. -- Cartesion oval (Geom.), a curve such that, for any point of the curve mr + m***prime]r***prime] = c, where r and r***prime] are the distances of the point from the two foci and m, m***prime] and c are constant; -- used by Descartes. An adherent of
Descartes.
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