DISPENSATION. 296 DISPOSITION. fnvor, and (accordiii}; to the public or secret character of the iinpediment to be removed) ;<ro foro cxterno, or iiilcnio. In cum'S of di>pcnsa- tion I'lo foru ixtiiiia the authorization is Ihroiiph the administration bureau known as the Apostolie Datoria : in cases /no foru intcnw, through the Pieuitentiaria. The authorization of the bishops to j;rant dispensations may be normal and renewed every fifth year [fucultalcs qiiinqueniialcs), or given as a mark of personal dislinetion (favullaUs cxIriiordiiiniUr) . Henry 'lll. assumed tile eeelesiastiial rifiht of dispensa- tion within the realm of Enfiland in 1534. and conferred it on the Archbishop of t'anterbury in so far as it was not contrary to the law of God. The granting of special licenses for the performance of the marriage ceremony, without publication of banns (q.v. ), is the only form m which this power is now exercised by the Arch- bishop. The only form of dispciisaliim now exercised by the bishojis of the (.'hurili of Enj;- land are granted to a clergyman to enable him to hold more benefices than one, or to absent himself from his parish. In the Protestant churches on the Continent of Europe the right of dispensation from the operation of ecclesiastical law has in theory devolved u])on the princes, who, however, generally exercise it through the con- sistories. See Discipline, Ecclesiastical; Mauriage. DISPERSAL (from (HsiHise, from Fr. dis- pcrscr, to scatter, from Lat. dispcrgcre, to dis- perse, from dis-, apart + sixiryrrc, to scatter). In plants, the scattering of seeds, spores (includ- ing pollen-grains), and even vegetative members, Hooked apjiendages, etc., are spoken of as dis- persal adaptations. See Seed.s; Polunation ; Spores. DISPERSION (Lat. dixpcrsio, from dis- pcrgere. to disperse). It was .shown by Sir Isaac Newton that if a beam of sunlight entered a ilarkened room thrnugli a small round opening. A, and fell upon a prism of glass. P, the light on leaving the prism consisted of colored beams, each beam having a dilTerent direction, but merging into its neighbors. Instead of the beam of light falling on the screen at MC" and making a bright round white spot, the rays after traversing the i)rism are divergent and jiroduce the prismatic band seen at RV, the violet rays DI8PER8IO.— NEHTOX 8 EXFEBIUEXT. being bent or refracted the most. The colors thus obscned form what is called a spectrum. (A belter arrangement is to have as the source of light a slit parallel to the edge of the prism, a plan also (ried by Newton.) White light is thus dispersed into colors. The angle belw'.n the beams of any two colors is called the 'dis- jicrsion' of those colors for the given conditions of material and shajie of ))risni and of angle of incidence. DisjH-rsion is due to the fact that ether-waves of ditrcrent wave-numbers — and lieni-e characterized by dilVerent colors if they are visible — travel in a material medium, e.g. glass, with dilTerent velocities, and therefore have diirerent dcgrecsjof refraction. The 'dis- pcrsion-eurve" of a given substance is a curve drawn on a diagram having wave-length and index or refraction as abscissie, sh<iwing how these two quantities are connected f(ir the substanir. l)is])crsion nniy also 1k' caused by various interference and dilFraction ]>hcnomena. Further, since disjiersion is a characteristic of wave-motion, the assumption being that some waves travel faster than others in a given medium, it may be observed with all kinds of wave- in -uitalple media. See l.lciIT. DISPLACEMENT (from displace, from dis-, without + pitici, I'r. place, from hat. plaica, i'tk. ■iraT(ta. plaUia, street). The weight of an object determined by the amount of water it dis- places, i.e. the weight of the water displaced. For- merly both menof-war and merchant vessels were classed according to their tonnage nu'asurenient, and the latter still .are; but the former are now classed by disjilaccment as well as design. The dis|dacement selected for a standard for each jiarticular vessel is one in which the vessel is said to be at mean load drauyhl. In theory it means that the average amcmnts of coal and other stores are on board; it is a purely arbitrary con- dition, however. The only condition in which essels are justly comparable is with all coal and stores on board. In the L'nited States and Great Britain the displacement of a sliip is meas- ured in tons of 2240 pounds: in countries using the metric system, it is measured in tons of 1000 kilograms, or 2204.0 pounds. DISPLAYED (from display, from OF. dea- jih iir. di spliiirr. Fr. di'ploi/er, It. dispicgare, .spicyaic, from ML. displicare. to unfold, display, from Lat, dis-, apart + plicarc. to fold). A term in heraldry denoting 'expanded,' applied, for example, to an eagle with wings outspread, DISPOSITION (Lat. disposilio, from dis- poiiirr. ti) di-po-e. from <//.'!-, apart + ponere. to put I. The liy]iothe-is of mental dispositions has been used in psychology to bring mental facta into an interconneeted and coherent system. It is obvious that the conditions of many mental processes are not themselves directly available to introspection. When, e.g. a name is reniem- liered. it is not always possible to jioint to the iTumediate consciovis antecedents of the memory. arious hypotheses have been put forward to supply the missing links in the sequence of con- acinus processes. One hypothesis says that the mind has a "faculty' of remendicring (see Fac- 1 i.TV I : another, that the absent terms are to be ixplained as physiological factors, which are not themselves accompanied by consciousness, bnt which introduce conscious processes; a third hypothesis refers the nmtler to the 'subconscious' ((|.v.), i.e. to a lower stratum of consciousness, which escapes introspection; anil, finally, co- herence is brought into mental facts by an hv- pcithesjs whi'h posits 'mental' or 'psychical dis- positions." Ilain has spoken nf 'the permanent |,ri..ln.t^ -tored up in the mental organizxition'
