as applied to the titles of noblemen, signifies honour and authority. And dignity may be divided into superior and inferior; as the titles of duke, earl, baron, &c. are the highest names of dignity; and those of baronet, knight, serjeant at law, &c. the lowest. Nobility only can give so high a name of dignity as to supply the want of a surname in legal proceedings; and as the omission of a name of dignity may be pleaded in abatement of a writ, &c. so it may be where a peer who has more than one name of dignity, is not named by the most noble. No temporal dignity of any foreign nation can give a man a higher title here than that of esquire.

in the human character, the opposite of Meanness.

Man is endowed with a sense of the worth and excellence of his nature: he deems it more perfect than that of the other beings around him; and he perceives that the perfection of his nature consists in virtue, particularly in virtues of the highest rank. To express that sense, the term dignity is appropriated. Further, to behave with dignity, and to refrain from all mean actions, is felt to be, not a virtue only, but a duty; it is a duty every man owes to himself. By acting in that manner, he attracts love and esteem; by acting meanly, or below himself, he is disapproved and contemned.

This sense of the dignity of human nature reaches even our pleasures and amusements. If they enlarge the mind by raising grand or elevated emotions, or if they humanize the mind by exercising our sympathy, they are approved as suited to the dignity of our nature: if they contract the mind by fixing it on trivial objects, they are contemned as not suited to the dignity of our nature. Hence in general, every occupation, whether of use or amusement, that corresponds to the dignity of man, is termed manly; and every occupation below his nature, is termed childish.

To those who study human nature, there is a point which has always appeared intricate: How comes it that generosity and courage are more esteemed, and bestow more dignity, than good nature, or even justice; though the latter contribute more than the former to private as well as to public happiness? This question, bluntly proposed, might puzzle even a philosopher; but, by means of the foregoing observations, will easily be solved. Human virtues, like other objects, obtain a rank in our estimation, not from their utility, which is a subject of reflection, but from the direct impression they make on us. Justice and good nature are a sort of negative virtues, that scarce make any impression but when they are transgressed; courage and generosity, on the contrary, producing elevated emotions, enliven the great sense of a man's dignity, both in himself and in others; and for that reason, courage and generosity are in higher regard than the other virtues mentioned; we describe them as grand and elevated, as of greater dignity, and more praiseworthy.

This leads us to examine more directly emotions and passions with respect to the present subject; and it will not be difficult to form a scale of them, beginning with the meanest, and ascending gradually to those of the highest rank and dignity. Pleasure felt as at the organ of sense, named corporeal pleasure, is perceived to be low; and when indulged to excess, is perceived also to be mean; for that reason, persons of any delicacy dissemble the pleasure they take in eating and drinking. The pleasures of the eye and ear, having no organic feeling, and being free from any sense of meanness, are indulged without any shame: they even rise to a certain degree of dignity when their objects are grand or elevated. The same is the case of the sympathetic passions: a virtuous person beholding with fortitude and dignity under cruel misfortunes, makes a capital figure; and the sympathizing spectator feels in himself the same dignity. Sympathetic distress at the same time is never mean: on the contrary, it is agreeable to the nature of a social being, and has general approbation. The rank that love possesses in the scale depends in a great measure on its objects: it possesses a low place when founded on external properties merely; and is mean when bestowed on a person of inferior rank without any extraordinary qualification; but when founded on the more elevated internal properties, it assumes a considerable degree of dignity. The same is the case of friendship. When gratitude is warm, it animates the mind; but it scarce rises to dignity, Dignity. Joy bestows dignity when it proceeds from an elevated cause.

If we can depend upon induction, dignity is not a property of any disagreeable passion; one is slight, another severe; one depresses the mind, another animates it; but there is no elevation, far less dignity, in any of them. Revenge, in particular, though it inflame and swell the mind, is not accompanied with dignity, not even with elevation: it is not however felt as mean or grovelling, unless when it takes indirect measures for gratification. Shame and remorse, though they sink the spirits, are not mean. Pride, a disagreeable passion, bestows no dignity in the eye of a spectator. Vanity always appears mean; and extremely so where founded, as commonly happens, on trivial qualifications.

We proceed to the pleasures of the understanding, which possess a high rank in point of dignity. Of this every one will be sensible, when he considers the important truths that have been laid open by science; such as general theorems, and the general laws that govern the material and moral worlds. The pleasures of the understanding are suited to man as a rational and contemplative being, and they tend not a little to ennoble his nature; even to the Deity he stretcheth his contemplations, which, in the discovery of infinite power, wisdom, and benevolence, afford delight of the most exalted kind. Hence it appears, that the fine arts, studied as a rational science, afford entertainment of great dignity; superior far to what they afford as a subject of taste merely.

But contemplation, however in itself valuable, is chiefly respected as subservient to action; for man is intended to be more an active than a contemplative being. He accordingly shows more dignity in action than in contemplation: generosity, magnanimity, heroism, raise his character to the highest pitch: these best express the dignity of his nature, and advance him nearer to divinity than any other of his attributes.

Having endeavoured to assign the efficient cause of dignity and meanness, by unfolding the principle on which they are founded, we proceed to explain the final cause of the dignity or meanness bestowed upon the several particulars above mentioned, beginning with corporeal pleasures. These, as far as useful, are like justice, fenced with sufficient sanctions to prevent their being neglected: hunger and thirst are painful sensations; and we are incited to animal love by a vigorous propensity: were corporeal pleasures dignified over and above with a place in a high class, they would infallibly overturn the balance of the mind, by outweighing the social affections. This is a satisfactory final cause for refusing to these pleasures any degree of dignity: and the final cause is not less evident of their meanness when they are indulged to excess. The more refined pleasures of external sense, conveyed by the eye and the ear from natural objects and from the fine arts, deserve a high place in our esteem, because of their singular and extensive utility: in some cases they rise to a considerable dignity; and the very lowest pleasures of the kind are never esteemed mean or grovelling. The pleasure arising from wit, humour, ridicule, or from what is simply ludicrous, is useful, by relaxing the mind after the fatigue of more manly occupations: but the mind, when it surrenders itself to pleasure of that kind, loses its vigour, and sinks gradually into sloth. The place this pleasure occupies in point of dignity is adjusted to these views: to make it useful as a relaxation, it is not branded with meanness; to prevent its usurpation, it is removed from that place but a single degree: no man values himself for that pleasure even during gratification; and if it have engrossed more of his time than is requisite for relaxation, he looks back with some degree of shame.

In point of dignity, the social emotions rise above the selfish, and much above those of the eye and ear; man is by his nature a social being; and to qualify him for society, it is wisely contrived that he should value himself more for being social than selfish.

The excellency of man is chiefly discernible in the great improvements he is susceptible of in society: these, by perseverance, may be carried on progressively, above any assignable limits; and even abstracting from revelation, there is great probability that the progress begun here will be completed in some future state. Now, as all valuable improvements proceed from the exercise of our rational faculties, the Author of our nature, in order to excite us to a due use of these faculties, hath assigned a high rank to the pleasures of the understanding: their utility, with respect to this life as well as a future, entitles them to that rank.

But as action is the aim of all our improvements, virtuous actions justly possess the highest of all the ranks. These, we find, are by nature distributed into different classes, and the first in point of dignity assigned to actions that appear not the first in point of use: generosity, for example, in the sense of mankind is more respected than justice, though the latter is undoubtedly more essential to society; and magnanimity, heroism, undaunted courage, rise still higher in our esteem; the reason of which is explained above.

Oratory, is one of the three parts of general elocution; and consists in the right use of tropes and figures. See Oratory, No. 48.

Digression, in Oratory, is defined by Quintilian, agreeably to the etymology of the word, to be a going off from the subject we are upon to some different thing, which, however, may be of service to it. See Oratory, No. 37.

Digynia, (from δι, twice, and γυν, a woman), the name of an order or secondary division in each of the first 13 classes, except the 9th, in Linnæus's sexual method; consisting of plants, which to the classic character, whatever it is, add the circumstance of having two styles or female organs.

Dii, the divinities of the ancient inhabitants of the earth, were very numerous. Every object which caused terror, inspired gratitude, or bestowed affluence, received the tribute of veneration. Man saw a superior agent in the stars, the elements, or the trees; and supposed that the waters which communicated fertility to his fields and possessions, were under the influence and direction of some invisible power inclined to favour and to benefit mankind. Thus arose a train of divinities which imagination arrayed in different forms, and armed with different powers. They were endowed with understanding, and were actuated by the same passions. passions which daily afflict the human race; and those children of superstition were appeased or provoked as the imperfect being which gave them birth. Their wrath was mitigated by sacrifices and incense, and sometimes human victims bled to expiate a crime which superstition alone supposed to exist. The sun, from his powerful influence and animating nature, first attracted the notice and claimed the adoration of the uncivilized inhabitants of the earth. The moon also was honoured with sacrifices and addressed in prayers; and after immortality had been liberally bestowed on all the heavenly bodies, mankind clasped among their deities the brute creation, and the cat and the sow shared equally with Jupiter himself, the father of gods and men, the devout veneration of their votaries. This immense number of deities has been divided into different classes according to the will and pleasure of the mythologists. The Romans, generally speaking, reckoned two classes of the gods, the dii majorum gentium, or dii consentes, and the dii minorum gentium. The former were 12 in number, six males and six females. [Fid. Consentes.] In the class of the latter were ranked all the gods which were worshipped in different parts of the earth. Besides these there were some called dii selecti, sometimes classed with the 12 greater gods; these were Janus, Saturn, the Genius, the Moon, Pluto, and Bacchus. There were also some called demigods, that is, who deserved immortality by the greatness of their exploits, and for their uncommon services to mankind. Among these were Priapus, Vertumnus, Hercules, and those whose parents were some of the immortal gods. Besides these, all the passions and the moral virtues were reckoned as powerful deities, and temples were raised to a goddess of concord, peace, &c. According to the authority of Hesiod, there were no less than 30,000 gods that inhabited the earth, and were guardians of men, all subservient to the power of Jupiter. To these, succeeding ages have added an almost equal number: and indeed they were so numerous, and their functions so various, that we find temples erected, and sacrifices offered, to unknown gods. It is observable that all the gods of the ancients have lived upon earth as mere mortals; and even Jupiter, who was the ruler of heaven, is represented by the mythologists as a helpless child; and we are acquainted with all the particulars that attended the birth and education of Juno. In process of time, not only good and virtuous men, who had been the patrons of learning and the supporters of liberty, but also thieves and pirates, were admitted among the gods, and the Roman senate courteously granted immortality to the most cruel and abandoned of their emperors.