Döllinger’s attitude to the new community was not very clearly defined. It may be difficult to reconcile the two declarations made by him at different times: “I do not wish to join a schismatic society; I am isolated,” and “As for myself, I consider that I belong by conviction to the Old Catholic community.” The latter declaration was made some years after the former, in a letter to Pastor Widmann. The nearest approach to a reconciliation of the two statements would appear to be that while, at his advanced age, he did not wish to assume the responsibility of being head of a new denomination, formed in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, he was unwilling to condemn those who were ready to hazard the new departure. “By conviction” he belonged to the Old Catholics, but he never formally joined them. Yet at least he was ready to meet their leaders, to address them, and to discuss difficult problems with them. His addresses on the reunion of the Churches, delivered at the Bonn Conference of 1872, show that he was by no means hostile to the newly formed communion, in whose interests these conferences were held. In 1874 and again in 1875, he presided over the Reunion Conferences held at Bonn and attended by leading ecclesiastics from the British Isles and from the Oriental Church, among whom were Bishop Christopher Wordsworth of Lincoln; Bishop Harold Browne of Ely; Lord Plunket, archbishop of Dublin; Lycurgus, archbishop of Syros and Tenos; Canon Liddon; and Professor Ossinine of St Petersburg. At the latter of these two conferences, when Döllinger was seventy-six years of age, he delivered a series of marvellous addresses in German and English, in which he discussed the state of theology on the continent, the reunion question, and the religious condition of the various countries of Europe in which the Roman Catholic Church held sway. Not the least of his achievements on this occasion was the successful attempt, made with extraordinary tact, ability, knowledge and perseverance, to induce the Orientals, Anglicans and Old Catholics present to accept a formula of concord, drawn from the writings of the leading theologians of the Greek Church, on the long-vexed question of the Procession of the Holy Spirit. This result having been attained, he passed the rest of his days in retirement, emerging sometimes from his retreat to give addresses on theological questions, and also writing, in conjunction with his friend Reusch, his last book, Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der römisch-katholischen Kirche seit dem sechzehnten Jahrhundert mit Beiträgen zur Geschichte und Charakteristik des Jesuitenordens (Nordlingen, 1889), in which he deals with the moral theology of St Alfonso de’ Liguori. He died in Munich, on the 14th of January 1890, at the age of ninety-one. Even in articulo mortis he refused to receive the sacraments from the parish priest at the cost of submission, but the last offices were performed by his friend Professor Friedrich.
In addition to the works referred to in the foregoing sketch, we may mention The Eucharist in the First Three Centuries (Mainz, 1826); a Church History (1836, Eng. trans. 1840); Hippolytus and Callistus (1854, Eng. trans., 1876); First Age of Christianity (1860); Lectures on the Reunion of the Churches; The Vatican Decrees; Studies in European History (tr. M. Warre, 1890); Miscellaneous Addresses (tr. M. Warre, 1894).
See Life by J. Friedrich (3 vols. 1899-1901); obituary notice in The Times, 11th January 1890; L. von Kobell, Conversations of Dr Döllinger (tr. by K. Gould, 1892).
(J. J. L.*)
DOLLOND, JOHN (1706-1761), English optician, was the son of a Huguenot refugee, a silk-weaver at Spitalfields, London, where he was born on the 10th of June 1706. He followed his father’s trade, but found time to acquire a knowledge of Latin, Greek, mathematics, physics, anatomy and other subjects. In 1752 he abandoned silk-weaving and joined his eldest son, Peter Dollond (1730-1820), who in 1750 had started in business as a maker of optical instruments. His reputation grew rapidly, and in 1761 he was appointed optician to the king. In 1758 he published an “Account of some experiments concerning the different refrangibility of light” (Phil. Trans., 1758), describing the experiments that led him to the achievement with which his name is specially associated, the discovery of a means of constructing achromatic lenses by the combination of crown and flint glasses. Leonhard Euler in 1747 had suggested that achromatism might be obtained by the combination of glass and water lenses. Relying on statements made by Sir Isaac Newton, Dollond disputed this possibility (Phil. Trans., 1753), but subsequently, after the Swedish physicist, Samuel Klingenstjerna (1698-1765), had pointed out that Newton’s law of dispersion did not harmonize with certain observed facts, he began experiments to settle the question. Early in 1757 he succeeded in producing refraction without colour by the aid of glass and water lenses, and a few months later he made a successful attempt to get the same result by a combination of glasses of different qualities (see [Telescope]). For this achievement the Royal Society awarded him the Copley medal in 1758, and three years later elected him one of its fellows. Dollond also published two papers on apparatus for measuring small angles (Phil. Trans., 1753, 1754). He died in London, of apoplexy, on the 30th of November 1761.
An account of his life, privately printed, was written by the Rev. John Kelly (1750-1809), the Manx scholar, who married one of his granddaughters.
DOLMAN (from Turk. dōlāmān), originally a long and loose garment left unfastened in front, and with narrow sleeves. It is worn generally by the Turks, and is not unlike a cassock in shape. The name was given to the uniform jacket, worn by hussars, and slung from the shoulders with the sleeves hanging loose; and it is also used for a similar garment worn by ladies, with wide cape-like arrangements instead of sleeves.