A dictionary of science, literature & art ... ed. by W.T. Brande ... assisted by Joseph Cauvin ... The various departments by eminent literary and scientific gentlement ...

CONTINUAL PROPORTIONALS. CONTRACT.
ing powers in pursuance of an agreement. The Germanic law of continuity altogether; but the difficulty is got over by
diet has fix -.I the contingents of the several states forming supposing (which on various grounds is extremely probable)
that confeoe racy to its army by the stipulations of 1814. that there is no real contact, and that bodies begin to act on
CONTI' NUAL PROPO'RTIONALS. Quantities are each other when their surfaces, or what seem to be their
said to be continual proportionals, or in continued proper- surfaces, are yet at a distance.
tion, when the first is to the second as the second to the CONTO'RNIA'TI. In Numismatics, medals supposed
third, as tl.e third to the fourth, and so on. to have been struck about the period of Constantine thi
CONTI NUED BASS. In Music, the same as thorough Great and his immediate successors; they are of bronze.,
bass. It receives the name from its continuation through with a flat impression, and marked with peculiar furrows.
Lhe whole of a composition. (It. contorni, whence their name.) They bear the figures
CONTINUED FRA'CTIONS. In Arithmetic, a spe- of famous emperors or celebrated men. Their object i.
cies of fractions first proposed about the year 1670 by Lord uncertain; but they have been supposed to be tickets of
Brounker, President of the Royal Society, and improved by admission to the public games of the circus in Rome anm;
Dr. Wallis; but which have acquired their greatest value Constantinople.
by their application, in the hands of the Continental mathe- CONTOUR. (It. contorno.) In the Fine Arts, the extermaticians, to the solution of numerical equations, and of nal lines which bound and terminate a figure. The beauty
problems in the indeterminate analysis. Their nature will of contour consists in those lines being flowing, lightly
be most easily understood from a numerical example. drawn, and sinuous. They must be carefully and scienLet it be required to convert the fraction I 0 8 into a con- tificaliy drawn, which cannot be effected without a thorough
14 0 knowledee of anatomy.
tinued fraction. The value will not be altered by dividing CO'NTRABA'ND. (It. contra, against; bando, an edict
both terms by the same number. Assume 27, which is orproclamation.) Ii Commerciallanguage, goods exporte.
contained in the numerator 108, and on dividing the de- om or imported i.to a country against its laws. Contrnominator by it there will result the compound quotient bend of ser, such crticles as a bellierent has, by the law o
5I. The given fraction therefore becomes tJL4 or nations, the right o preventing a neutral from furnishing to
1247 52 his enemy. Articles contraband of warare, in general, arms
21 1.5 ~~~~~~~ 2 7 war are made: all these are liable to be seized: but very
measure of its numerator, namely 7, it will be changed arbitrary interpretations have been affixed to the term by
into or Wherefore te original fraction is powerful states,when able to enforce them by arms. Thus
3nto 3+',or +. provisions are held contraband of war when it is the object
now transformed into -,2 It is, however, more to reduce the enemy to famine. But with respect to these
5 +3++' and other articles not in their nature contraband, it seems0
convenient to divide by such numbers as will render the to be the practice that the belligerent should purchase them
numerators all units. Thus, let the fraction be 2 1- from the neutral for a reasonable equivalent, instead of
~ 9 2 confiscating.
Divide both terms by 287, and there results -1 3 1 Di- CONTRABA'SSO. (It.) The largest of the violin species
3' 7' of string and bowed instruments, whereof it forms the lowviding again the terms of the last fraction by its numerator est bass, usually called the double bass.
131, there arises CO'NTRACT. In Civil Law. the tertm usually applied
-1,_ Dividing again by 25, the fraction to such agreements, whether express or implied, as creale.
~ ~;-. is1converted 1ino1 6 1 i or are intended to create, a legal right, and corresponding
I converted into _ I liability; such right not attaching to the possession of tthv
12j' 23371 subject matter of the contract, except in equity, and thai
ing all the frag-ments, we now get 237-1 indirectly, but subsisting both in equity and law against tih292 4-3+141 contracting party.
4?i -T-l-l —. The conditions essential to the legal validity of a cont,'rs;
It is easy to see how the continued fraction is reconstructed relate eitherto the competency of the parties, the suffi-ienc,
into its equivalent simple fraction, by following the reverse of the consideration or inducement, the nature of tlhe tlinuL
process. contracted for, the fairness of the transaction, or, lasy!!. i4
By decomposing a fraction in this manner a series of the form of the agreement.
derivative fractions is obtained, which constantly approach And, first, as to the competency of the parties. The partn:
to the true expression, and exhibit the successive ap. to be sued must have been at the time of the contractl o
proximate values in the lowest terms. Taking the last sound mind, and, unless it was for the supply of neces
exa2mple,8 if7 we sto wihtefrstter ofthesaries, of full age; and if a woman, she must have be,-n
92example, ~: il we stop with the first term of the unmarried, subject as to the latter condition to some excelp
992 w f r t tions established either by local custom or by the doctrines,
expansion, we find for the approximate value.j, which is of equity.
considerably too small; if we take in two terms, we find Secondly, as to the sufficiency of the consideration on It,
1 2,., 2,., part of the person sning, —it must have been either luture
3J-i-7' whiclh is a little too large. Admitting three marriage since performed, or money, or something capabli
1 i 11 of being estimated in money; or some act, whsether of pr.
terms, we get ^J-_! i~38' which is again too little, but formance or abstinence, whereby some undoubted adva;i
2+ — tage, though not capable of being exactly valued, accrues,ii
nearer the true value than the last. In this manner we the party sued.
approach nearer and nearer at every successive step; Thirdly, the act contracted for must be neithercontraryv i
and it may be remarked, that the errors are alternately in written law, nor to public policy; and it must be beneficial
excess and defect. (See Leslie's Philosophy of Arithmetic; to the party seeking either performance or compensation, o"
Eluclid's Analysis Infinitorumn; and the Additions to the to some one on whose behalf he gave the consideration.
French translation of Euler's Algebra.) Fourthly, there must have been neither fraud (either by
CONTINU'ITY, LAW OF. A principle of considerable concealment or misstatement) nor compulsion on the parn
use in investigating the laws of motion, and of change in of the plaintiff in obtaining the agreement; and frauduilei;
general, and which may be thus enunciated:-~Nothing acts subsequent to the agreement having reference to it are
passesfromn one state to another without passing through all also sufficient to deprive the guilty party of all right under
the intermediate states. Leibnitz claims the merit of having it. Some circumstances are in equity considered ceither as
first made known this law; but in so far as motion at least conclusive evidence of fraud. or as substantive acts of coer
is concerned, it is distinctly laid down by Galileo, and as- cion, which are not strictly of such a nature, and are not so
cribed by him to Plato. But though a perception of its truth deemed at law.
seems to have been felt long before, Leibnitz was certainly Lastly, as to the form of the agreement. Where it relates
the first who applied the principle to test the consistency to an interest in land of three years' duration or more, or to
of theories, or supposed laws of nature. The argument on goods ofthe value oflOl. orupwards, unless there be earnest
which he attempted to establish it i priori is, that if any or delivery, or where it is an agreement as surety, or where
change were to happen without the intervention of time, it is upon marriage as a consideration, it must be in writing:
the thing changed must be in two different conditions at though the want of a written instrument may be supplied
one and the same instant, which is obviously impossible. in equity by partial performance, that is, by acts evidently
A re.narkable application of the law of continuity was made done in pursuance of the alleged contract.
by John Bernoulli in an Essay on the Laws and Communi- Contracts are sometimes implied either in the whole
cation of Motion, which gained the prize of the Academy from the acts of the parties, as from the ordering of goods
of Sciences of Paris in 1724, to prove that perfectly hard a contract to pay for them; or in part, and as incidental to
bodies cannot exist; because, in the collision of such the principal agreement, as, in the case of a lease, a con
bodies a finite change of motion must take place in an in- tract by the tenant to use fairly and take due care of the
stant, an event which, by the law now explained, is impos- thing leased. And at law some obligations not arising in
jible. This conclusion was objected to by D'Alembert and any manner from contract are, as regards the mode of en.
Ilaclaurin, who on account of it were disposed to reject the forcing them, placed on the same footing as those which do
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