a serious and exact examination into the circumstances of any affair, in order to discourse clearly about it.

**Dissection**, in anatomy, the cutting up a body, with a view of examining the structure and use of the parts. See Anatomy.

Le Gendre observes, that the dissection of a human body, even dead, was held a sacrifice till the time of Francis I. And the same author affirms us, he has seen a consultation held by the divines of Salamanca, at the request of Charles V., to settle the question whether or no it were lawful in point of conscience to dissect a human body in order to learn the structure thereof.