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The matter of which the philosopher's stone was believed to be composed.

Of or pertaining to the French philosopher René Descartes, or his philosophy. The Cartesion argument for reality of matter. Sir W. Hamilton. Cartesian coördinates (Geom), distance of a point from lines or planes; -- used in a system of representing geometric quantities, invented by Descartes. -- Cartesian devil, a sma…

The philosophy of Descartes.

Sophistical, equivocal, or false reasoning or teaching in regard to duties, obligations, and morals.

Frivolous or sophistical objection. [Obs.] Hooker.

Sophistical.

e or a judge, but esp. that of a professor; hence, the office itself. The chair of a philosophical school. Whewell. A chair of philology. M. Arnold.

aw, or purpose; fortune; fate; -- in this sense often personifed. It is strictly and philosophically true in nature and reason that there is no such thing as chance or accident; it being evident that these words do not signify anything really existing, anything that is truly an agent or the cause of any event; but they…

senses in a high degree; delighting; fascinating; attractive. How charming is divine philosophy. Milton.

or question; -- specifically applied to legal proceedings; trickery; chicanery; caviling; sophistry. Prior. To shuffle from them by chicane. Burke. To cut short this, I propound it fairly to your own canscience. Berkeley.

n or unfair artifice to perplex a cause and obscure the truth; stratagem; sharp practice; sophistry. Irritated by perpetual chicanery. Hallam.

s, with edible acorns. -- Western Chinquapin, an evergreen shrub or tree (Castanopes chrysophylla) of the Pacific coast. In California it is a shrub; in Oregon a tree 30 to 125 feet high.

ds. L'Estrange. To chop logic, to dispute with an affected use of logical terms; to argue sophistically.

To imbue with or adapt to Christian principles. Christianized philosophers. I. Taylor.

itter, yellow substance forming the essential constituent of Goa powder, and yielding chrysophanic acid proper; hence formerly called also chrysphanic acid.

ng becomes of the color of a lemon; esp., in alchemy, the state of perfection in the philosopher's stone indicated by its assuming a deep yellow color. Thynne.

y skin. Ps. cii. 5. The diseases of Egypt . . . shall cleave unto thee. Deut. xxviii. 60. Sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects. Cowper.

Learning; also, a learned profession. [Obs.] Sophictry . . . rhetoric, and other cleargy. Guy of Warwick. Put their second sons to learn some clergy. State Papers (1515).

thing to one principle or purpose, as in the parts of a discourse, or of a system of philosophy; consecutiveness. Coherence of discourse, and a direct tendency of all the parts of it to the argument in hand, are most eminently to be found in him. Locke.

A ringlike part of a mollusk in connection with esophagus.