his own concerns, is a proper measure of that which would uniformly be required in performing every contract, if there were not strong reasons for exacting in some of them a greater and permitting in others a less degree of attention " (Essay on Bailments). The highest degree of diligence would be that which only very prudent persons bestow on their own concerns ; the lowest, that which even careless persons bestow on their own concerns. The want of these various degrees of diligence is negligence in corresponding degrees. These approximations indicate roughly the greater or less severity with which the law will judge the performance of different classes of contracts ; but English judges have been inclined to repudiate the distinction as a useless refinement of the jurists. Thus Baron Rolfe could see no difference between negligence and gross negligence ; it was the same thing with the addition of a vituperative
epithet. See Negligence.Diligence, in Scots law, is a general term for the process by which persons, lands, or effects are attached on execu tion, or in security for debt.
DILKE, Sir Charles Wentworth (1810–1869), Baronet, born in London, February 18, 1810, was the only son of Charles Wentworth Dilke, proprietor and editor of the Athenceum, and was educated at Westminster school and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He studied law, and in 1834 took his degree of LL.B. but he did not enter upon the practice of his profession. He assisted his father in his literary work, and afterwards gave up much of his time to several of the learned societies. He was for some years chairman of the council of the Society of Arts, and took a prominent part in the affairs of the Royal Horticultural Society. He was one of the most zealous promoters of the Great Exhibition (1851), and a member of the executive committee. At the close of the exhibition he was honoured by foreign sovereigns, and the Queen offered him knighthood, which, however, he did not accept; he also declined a large remuneration offered by the royal commission. In 1853 Dilke was one of the English Com missioners at the New York Industrial Exhibition, and prepared a report on it. He again declined to receive any money reward for his services. He was appointed one of the five royal commissioners for the Great Exhibition of 1862; and soon after the death of the Prince Consort he was created baronet by the Queen. In 1865 he entered parliament as member for Wallingford. In 1SG9 he was sent to Russia as representative of England at the Horticultural Exhibition held at St Petersburg. His health, however, had been for some time failing, and he died suddenly in that city, May 10, 1869. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a member of other learned bodies.
DILL (Anethum), a genus of umbelliferous plants having decompound leaves ; umbels without involucre ; yellow flowers, with calices incomplete above ; and lenticular fruit, compressed from back to front, flattened at the margin, and presenting on each side three ridges. The common species, A. yraveolens, is indigenous to the south of Europe, Egypt, and the Cape of Good Hope. It resembles fennel in appearance. Its root is long and fusiform ; the stem is round, jointed, and about a yard high ; the leaves have fragrant folioles ; and the fruits are brown, oval, and concavo-convex. The plant flowers from June till August in England. The seeds are sown, preferably as soon as ripe, either broadcast or in drills between 6 and 12 inches asunder. The young plants should be thinned when three or four weeks old, so as to be at distances of about 10 inches. A sheltered spot and dry soil are needed for the production of the seed in the climate of England. The leaves of the dill are used in soups and sauces, and, as well as the umbels, for flavouring pickles. The seeds are employed for the preparation of dill-water and oil of dill (valued for their carminative properties), are largely consumed in the manufacture of gin, and, when ground, are eaten as a condiment in the East. See Botany, vol. iv. p. 123.
DILLEN [Dillenius], Johann Jakob (1687–1747), a distinguished botanist, was born at Darmstadt. He was educated at the university of Giessen, where he received his doctor s diploma, but he early turned his attention from medicine to the study of plants. Whilst at Giesseu he wrote several botanical papers for the EphemeriJes Naturae Curiosorum, and in 1719 he printed there his Caialogus Plantarum sponte circa Gissam nascentium, a little octavo volume illustrated with figures drawn and engraved by his own hand, and containing descriptions of many new genera. In the preface he discusses the classifications of Ilivinus, Tournefort, Knaut, and Ray, the last of which was that adopted by him. In 1718 Dillen became acquainted in Germany with the botanist William Sherard, who invited him to come to England. Soon after his arrival there, in 1721, he took up his abode at Oxford, where Sherard resided. In 1724 he published an enlarged edition of Ray s Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarum. In accordance with the will of Sherard, who died in 1728, Dillen was appointed professor of botany at Oxford. He published in 1732, in two volumes folio, with 324 plates executed by himself, the IloHus Elthamensis, of which Linnaeus wrote " Est opus botanicum quo absolutius mundus non vidit." That naturalist spent a month with Dillen at Oxford in 1736, and afterwards dedicated to him his Gritica Botanica. In 1 741 appeared the Historia Mus- corum of Dillen, to whom and his contemporary Micheli (1679-1731) cryptogamic botany owes its origin. He died April 2, 1747, in his sixtieth year. A print from his picture at Oxford is to be seen in Sim and Ko nig s Annals of Botany, vol. ii. His books and collection of mosses, with many drawings, were bought by his successor at Oxford, Dr Humphrey Sib thorp, and added to the Sherardian Museum.
DILLINGEN, a town of Bavaria, in the circle of Schwaben-Neuburg, on the left bank of the Danube, 24 miles north-west of Augsburg. Its principal structures are the royal palace, formerly the residence of the bishops of Augsburg, the royal gymnasium and Latin school, with a library of 75,000 volumes, five churches, two episcopal seminaries, a Capuchin monastery, a Franciscan nunnery, and a deaf and dumb asylum. The university, founded in 1549, was abolished in 1804, being converted into a lyceum. The inhabitants, who in 1875 numbered 5029, are engaged in cattle-rearing, the cultivation of corn, hops, and fruit ; ship-building and the shipping trade, and the manufac ture of cloth, paper, and cutlery. Dillingen was taken by the Swedes in 1632 and 1648, by the Austrians in 1702, and on the 18th July 1800 by the French.
DIMENSIONS. In geometry a line is said to be of one dimension, a surface of two, and a solid of three dimensions. The use of the word is extended to algebraical terms, which are said to be of n dimensions with respect to any quantity when that quantity enters to the nth power.
If the term contains several variables, x, y, z, &c., and if the sum of the indices of these variables is n, the term is said to be of n dimensions with respect to the system of variables x, y, z.
If all the terms of an equation are of n dimensions with respect to the system of variables x, y, z, the equation ia said to be homogeneous of n dimensions with respect to that system of variables.
The equation may or may not be homogeneous with respect to another system of variables which occur in it, as p, q, r.
