Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/199

COMPTON COMTE 195 are compressed sensible heat is always manifest- ed, the force being converted to this condition. Gases and vapors are the most compressible of all bodies, and within certain limits their com- pressibility is uniform and in proportion to the compressing force, as enunciated in Mariotte's law. The forcing of water through the sides of a heavy hollow ball of gold in which the liquid was confined, in the attempt of the Flor- entine academicians to compress it, led to the long continued belief in the total incompressi- bility of liquids ; but this property has been proved by Canton, Oersted, and others to ex- ist in them as well as in gases and solids. La- ter experiments by Colladon and Sturm show that an additional pressure equal to that of the atmosphere caused mercury to diminish yonrtannr of its original volume, water ^^m and ether T(1J ^Ar 7nr . COMPTON, a 8. W. county of the province of Quebec, Canada, bordering on Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and intersected by the Grand Trunk and St. Lawrence and Atlan- tic railroads ; area, 1,380 sq. m. ; pop. in 1871, 13,665, of whom 4,257 were of English origin or descent, 3,785 French, 8,282 Scottish, and 1,885 Irish. Its surface is diversified by sev- eral lakes, and a mountain range extends along its S. and S. E. border. The soil, drained by the head waters of St. Francis and Chaudiere rivers, is moderately fertile. Capital, Compton. COMPTON, Henry, an English prelate, born at Compton in 1632, died July 7, 1713. He was the youngest son of Spencer, second earl of Northampton, studied at Oxford, and after the restoration became a cornet in a regiment of horse. Afterward he left the army for the church, was ordained at the age of 30, and be- came bishop of Oxford in 1674, and bishop of London in 1675. Charles II. made him a mem- ber of his privy council, and intrusted to him the education of his nieces Mary and Anne. He was distinguished for his hostility to the church of Rome. After the accession of James II., Dr. Sharp, rector of St.-GilesVin-the- Fields, having preached several sermons vindi- cating the church of England against the papacy, became highly obnoxious to the court, and Compton was required by a royal order to sus- pend him. His refusal to obey was made the ground of his own suspension. He was re- stored to his see at the time of the revolution, and, together with the bishop of Bristol, made up the majority of two in the house of lords for filling the vacant throne. He performed the ceremony of the coronation of William and Mary, and was afterward appointed one of the commissioners for revising the liturgy. Du- ring the reign of Anne he was put on the com- mission for the union of England and Scotland. The reconciliation of dissenters with the church of England was one of his favorite projects. COMPURGATORS, in Saxon law, persons who appeared to join to the oath of an accused party their own oaths to their belief in his innocence. Compurgators were to be twelve in number, from the neighborhood of the ac- cused ; and to this practice of purgation has been referred the origin of jury trial. The process was also admitted in case of simple contract debts. The like practice of purga- tion in the case of clerks-convict continued in England until abolished by statute 18 Eliza- beth, c. 7. COMSTOCR, John Lee, M. D., an American au- thor, born at Lyme, Conn., in 1789, died in Hartford, Conn., Nov. 21, 1858. He studied medicine, and served as an assistant surgeon in the war of 1812. At the close of the war he left the army and settled at Hartford in the practice of medicine. Soon after, his attention was turned toward the compilation of school books. He wrote elementary treatises on nat- ural philosophy, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, geology, physiology, natural history, and physi- cal geography, and an essay on gold and silver. Some of his works were only compilations; but he made considerable attainments in natu- ral science, constructed most of the apparatus he used, and prepared nearly all the drawings for the illustrations of his works. COMTAT-VENAISSIN, an ancient territory of S. France, surrounded, with the Comtat d' Avi- gnon, by Dauphiny, Provence, and Languedoc, from which it was separated by the Rhone. It passed from the Romans to the Burgun- dians and the Franks, in the llth century to the counts of Aries, and in the 12th to the counts of Toulouse. The latter were dispos- sessed for a short time by the crusaders in the following century, but were reinstated under Count Raymond VII., whose daughter Jeanne married Prince Alphonse, a brother of Louis IX. After his death Philip III. of France gave it to Pope Gregory X. (1273). Its name was derived from Venasque, the ancient capital, which was supplanted by Carpentras. It re- mained in the hands of the popes almost un- interruptedly till 1791, when it was annexed to France, together with Avignon, as part of the department of Vaucluse. COMTE, Angnste, a French philosopher, found- er of the system of positivism, born in Mont- pellier, Jan. 12, 1798, died in Paris, Sept. 5, 1857. He received his education at the poly- technic school of Paris, where he became a teacher in 1832. He gave his principal atten- tion to mathematics and the physical sciences, but was not indifferent to moral inquiries, and was attracted by the socialism of Saint-Simon. This was in 1815, and Comte, though the youngest, soon became one of the most promi- nent of his disciples. In 1820 he was called upon to prepare an exposition of the doctrines and objects of the school, which he did in a little work called the "System of Positive Pol- itics;" but Saint-Simon saw at once that his pupil had adopted another idea than his, and that positive politics was not socialism as he understood it. His principal objection was that Comte overlooked entirely the religious or sentimental side of human nature. In 1825