"Inconclusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the prisoner, his two brothers, and Madame Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... prisoner, &c. And if conclusive proof be difficult to be obtained, shall we therefore fasten irremovably upon equivocal proof? Can we change the nature of what is contestable, and make it incontestable? Can we make that conclusive which God and nature have made inconclusive? Solon made no law against, parricide, supposing it impossible any one could be guilty of it; and the Persians, from the same opinion, adjudged all who killed their reputed parents to be bastards: and although parental, be yet stronger ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... It is necessary for happiness no less than for honesty that we should realise that poetry, music, and pictures are personal things; that what they are worth to us is their sole measure of value. And here it must be mentioned that Mr. Balfour puts forth two hints which are inconclusive enough, but which do dimly suggest a truer way of escape than that to which his argument leads. He notes, first of all, that art is disinterested; that it is not a means, but an end in itself. And, secondly, we feel ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... not feel quite as free from doubt on the point as Galton did. The judicial mind, if that be the main qualification for a judge, might be inherited, or it might be the result of training. Such a case, standing alone, is inconclusive. ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... is instructed to inform Mr. Fox that if a negotiation be entertained at all upon the inconclusive and unsatisfactory basis afforded by the British counter proposition or substitute, which possesses hardly a feature in common with the American proposition, the President will not venture to invite it unless the authorities ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... strenue pugnavit,' giving not a hint of his having settled in the Highlands, or of his having become the progenitor of any Scottish family whatever while as to the supposed charter of Alexander III., it is equally inconclusive, as it merely grants the lands of Kintail to Colin Hiberno, the word 'Hiberno' having at the time come into general use as denoting the Highlanders, in the same manner as the word 'Erse' is now frequently used to express their ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... formality and regularity observed, and nobody but your Austrian Deputy protesting upon it, when requested to go home. But, the high Maria had a notion that the Reich belonged to her august Family and her; and that all Elections to the contrary were an inconclusive thing, fundamentally void every ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... lesson from the spot, And shrined it in these verses for my heart. Thenceforth those tranquil precincts I have sought Not less, and in all shades of various moods; But always shun to desecrate the spot By vain repinings, sickly sentiments, Or inconclusive sorrows. Nature, though Pure as she was in Eden when her breath Kissed the white brow of Eve, doth not refuse, In her own way and with a just reserve, To sympathize with human suffering; But for the pains, the fever, and the fret Engendered ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... though not as individuals; therefore, to use the word all is evidently a fallacious mode of speech; for this word is sometimes used distributively, and sometimes collectively, on account of its double meaning, and is the cause of inconclusive syllogisms in reasoning. Therefore for all persons to say the same thing was their own, using the word all in its distributive sense, would be well, but is impossible: in its collective sense it would by no means contribute to the concord of the state. Besides, ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... several States was conclusive upon the courts,[21] it had treated these questions as justiciable, although it had uniformly rejected them on the merits. In that year, however, the whole subject was thrown into confusion by the inconclusive decision in Coleman v. Miller.[22] This case came up on a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court of Kansas to review the denial of a writ of mandamus to compel the Secretary of the Kansas Senate to erase an endorsement on a resolution ratifying the proposed child labor amendment ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the amateur performances were from involuntary muscular action—but what then? These are only imitations of actual phenomena. Faraday's letter does not meet the common fact of tables being moved and lifted without the touch of a finger. It is a most arrogant letter and singularly inconclusive. Tell me any facts you may hear. Mr. Kinney, the American Minister at the Court of Turin, had arrived at Florence a few days before we quitted it, and he and his wife helped us to spend our last evening at Casa Guidi. He is cultivated and high-minded. I like ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Casaubon in his treatise "Of Credulity and Incredulity in Things Divine and Spiritual," 1670, 12mo; and if his reply be altogether inconclusive, it cannot be denied to be, as indeed every thing of Meric Casaubon's writing was, learned, discursive and entertaining. He ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... severely and seemed to doubt the integrity of our intentions profoundly. He advised us to attend the next open meeting in Clifford's Inn and gave us the necessary data. We both contrived to get to the affair, and heard a discursive gritty paper on Trusts and one of the most inconclusive discussions you can imagine. Three-quarters of the speakers seemed under some jocular obsession which took the form of pretending to be conceited. It was a sort of family joke, and as strangers to the ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... ashamed, all the more as your letter from Bournemouth of all places - poor old Bournemouth! - is to hand, and contains a statement of pleasure in my letters which I wish I could have rewarded with a long one. What has gone on? A vast of affairs, of a mingled, strenuous, inconclusive, desultory character; much waste of time, much riding to and fro, and little ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the cellar. The young man was called Dredinger, which seemed to Maggie an unnatural kind of name. He had an irritating habit of never finishing his sentences, and the people he knew answered him in the same inconclusive fashion. The pool in the cellar naturally annoyed him, but he did nothing very practical about it, allowed it to remain there, and discussed it with a Professor of Chemistry. Beyond this Maggie could not penetrate. The young man was apparently in love ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... of an admission of our right not to be searched, drawn from a reparation made for ships unduly seized and confiscated, I think that argument is very inconclusive. The right claimed by Spain to search our ships is one thing, and the excesses admitted to have been committed in consequence of this pretended right, is another; but surely, Sir, reasoning from inferences and implication only, is below the dignity of your proceedings, upon ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... the impolicy, iniquity, and disgracefulness of this wicked traffic. He thought the reasons urged by gentlemen in defence of it were inconclusive, and ill founded. It was one cause of the complaints against British tyranny, that this trade was permitted. The Revolution had put a period to it; but now it was to be revived. He thought nothing could justify it. This temporary restriction on Congress militated, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... range, without closing to hand-to-hand distance, and when the sailors and sea-fighters of the seventeenth century adopted line ahead as the normal formation for making the most of broadside fire, battles had a marked tendency to degenerate into inconclusive artillery duels. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... as we have said, that simony probably did take place, we do so, not so much upon the inconclusive evidence of the fact, as upon the circumstance that it had become almost an established custom to purchase the tiara, and that Roderigo Borgia—since his ambition clearly urged him to the Pontificate—would have been an exception ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... proposal. If it is acceded to they will be ready to make immediate arrangements ... to settle all details of the proposed tribunal of arbitration.... If, however, as they most anxiously hope will not be the case, the reply of the South African Republic should be negative or inconclusive, I am to state that Her Majesty's Government must reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... not from any reluctance to admit the existence of evil that the learned author and his able commentator have been led into this inconclusive course of reasoning. We shall nowhere find more striking expositions of the state of things in this respect, nor more gloomy descriptions of our condition, than in their celebrated work. "Whence so many, inaccuracies," says the Archbishop, ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... of the Committee of the Dialectical Society, or rather the documents which accompany it, supplies some good evidence. Home had four sittings with one of the Sub-Committees, but the phenomena were of a trifling and inconclusive character. This was attributed to the state of Home's bodily health. He was on the eve of a severe illness. Several persons subsequently sent to the Committee statements of what they had seen and heard in Home's presence. The only one of these which can be said to possess scientific ...
— Psychic Phenomena - A Brief Account of the Physical Manifestations Observed - in Psychical Research • Edward T. Bennett
... greater number of whom were Protestants. Emmet, MacNevin, Jackson, and Sweetman, were seized the same day. Arthur O'Connor had already been arrested on his way to France, with Father Coigley. The latter was convicted on May 22, at Maidstone, and hanged on evidence so inconclusive, that Lord Chancellor Thurlow said: "If ever a poor man was murdered, it was Coigley!" The arrest of Lord Edward FitzGerald occurred soon after. The room in which he was arrested and the bed on which he lay is still shown, for the brave young noble had won for himself the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... nowhere!" growled Leary at the end of a third inconclusive hand-to-hand struggle with only a few battered ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... picturesque, but the most helpless and inconclusive cicerone I ever knew; and while his long, hooked Hebrew nose caught my idle fancy, and his soft blue eyes excused a great deal of inefficiency, the aimless fashion in which he mounted dirty staircases for the keys of the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of "The Antiquary." But you need not tell me—that is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express the meaning of that inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many of these romances have we not seen determined at their birth; how many people have met us with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... excited, storming for the production of Soosie, and being met with inconclusive statements and evasions. Being one who knew no fear, who deemed his questions justifiable, who felt himself more than a match for the whole camp, and was convinced that the blacks were in possession of essential information, he urged the policy of chastising ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... crisis was passed when, earlier in the day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one lives ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... the miraculous, nor do we run from a dilemma to the refuges of religion. Apart from our theological belief in the potency of the Creator and Controller of all worlds, we simply regard it as illogical and inconclusive to argue that because organization, life, and intelligence obtain within one sphere under one order of circumstances, therefore the same order obtains in every other sphere throughout the system to ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... significant cessation of robbery on their trap line after the inconclusive visit to the enemy's camp. But a new and extreme exasperation arose in the month of March, when the alternation of thaw and frost had covered the snow with a hard crust that rendered snowshoes unnecessary and made it easy to run ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the internal core from the outside shell so that it would have been nearly as accurate to base the strength upon the material within the bands, that is, upon a section of 38 sq. in., instead of upon the total area of 81 sq. in. This set of tests, A, B and C, is therefore inconclusive except as showing the practical difficulty in the use of bands in small columns, and the necessity for disregarding all concrete outside of the bands ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... JOHNSON. 'Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your thinking, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the Judge to whom you urge it: and if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... "non-liquet,"—i.e., with denying the sufficiency of the evidence. It answers every appeal to that evidence by saying that, however satisfactory it may be to the minds of some, it does not carry conviction to the minds of all, and that for this reason it may be justly regarded as doubtful or inconclusive. These two forms of Atheism—the Dogmatic and the Skeptical—are widely different from each other; they rest on distinct grounds, and they require, therefore, to be discussed separately, each on its own peculiar and independent ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... had then had it: But better late than never." Such is the excuse of Purchas for misplacement, and we have therefore here placed the two relations in their proper order, in separate subdivisions of the section. The first indeed is a very bald and inconclusive article, and gives hardly any information respecting the object and success of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... three times, cannonading furiously at close range. This meant that the force was distributed evenly along the enemy's line and as against an evenly matched force these tactics could result, as a rule, only in mere inconclusive artillery duels which each side would claim as victories. In the battle of Lowestoft, however, several of the captains in the Dutch center flinched at the third passing and bore up to leeward, leaving a wide gap in de Ruyter's line. The English broke through at this point and hammered the weakened ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... perilous game he has engaged in?" And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of the subject, I began only to think whether the search or the society of Isora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a fruitless and inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took a less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of Aubrey. What, for one already ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of a State court, Chief Justice Gibson of Pennsylvania, as late as 1825, in a dissenting opinion, combated at length the reasoning of Marshall as weak and inconclusive. If, he said, the judiciary had the power claimed, it would be a political power. Our judicial system was patterned after that of England. Our judges had, as such, no power not given by the common law. It was conceded ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... judge than Mr. W. J. Linton; and he says that nothing, either by knife or by graver, is of higher quality than these woodcuts. Yet the woodcutter's very name was for a long time doubtful, and even now the particulars which we possess with regard to him are scanty and inconclusive. That he was dead when the Trechsels published the book in 1538, must be inferred from the "Epistre" of Jean de Vauzelles, since that "Epistre" expressly refers to "la mort de celluy, qui nous en a icy imagine si elegantes figures"; ...
— The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein
... again in the play, "A Glove," the author recurs to the woman question; in the one case, his theme is the attitude of society toward the woman of blemished reputation; in the other, its attitude toward the man who in his relation with women has violated the moral law. "Leonarda" is a somewhat inconclusive work, because the issue is not clearly defined, but in "A Glove" (at least in the acting version of the play, which differs from the book in its ending) there is no lack of definiteness. This play ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... have raised doubts, so honest and reluctant as to deserve our consideration. Duhm starts his usual objection that the passage is in prose and a style characteristic of the late expanders of the Book. We may let that go, as we have done before, as by itself inconclusive;(815) the prophecy may not have come directly from Jeremiah's mouth but through the memory of a reporter of the Prophet, Baruch or another. More deserving of consideration is the criticism which Duhm, with great unwillingness, makes of the terms and substance of the ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... public liberty, invest parish and petty officers of the peace with exorbitant powers, and cost the nation about fifty thousand pounds a-year to carry the scheme into execution. These arguments, which, we apprehend, are extremely frivolous and inconclusive, had great weight with a considerable number who joined in the opposition, while the ministry stood neutral. Nevertheless, after having undergone some amendments, it was conveyed to the lords, by whom it was, at the second reading, thrown out ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... perilous than a perpetual defensive, as it allowed the enemy quietly to perfect his plans for attack at any point over the whole field.[686] Pitt was well aware of this danger. In fact, his policy of military pinpricks, while apparently wasteful and inconclusive, had prevented that concentration of the enemy's force which alone could ensure the capture of London. Once more, then, he aimed at strengthening the regular army, reducing the Militia to its usual quota, and raising a large force of Volunteers. On 5th June 1804 he brought ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... priori, and can never convince the reluctant. The path of wisdom is not to weigh the merits of various inconclusive arguments, but to distinguish ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... support those very doctrines and practices. And particularly they endeavour to prove thus the doctrine of transubstantiation, from the numerous miracles affirmed to have been wrought in its behalf, which reasoning Protestant Christians assert to be an argument absurd and inconclusive, therefore, they ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... There she might come eventually to a better knowledge of his personal worth:—'the gold mine we carry in our bosoms till it is threshed out of us in sweat,' that fellow Gower Woodseex says; adding, that we are the richer for not exploring it. Philosophical cynicism is inconclusive. Fleetwood knew his large capacities; he had proved them and could again. In case a certain half foreseen calamity should happen:—imagine it a fact, imagine him seized, besides admiring her character, with a taste for her person! Why, then, he would have to impress ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... apprehended, and brought to trial on the accusation of criminal intercourse with the queen. They were all convicted; but from the few particulars which have come down to us, it seems to be justly inferred, that the evidence produced against some at least of these unhappy gentlemen, was slight and inconclusive. Lord Rochford is universally believed to have fallen a victim to the atrocious perjuries of his wife, who was very improperly admitted as a witness against him, and whose infamous conduct was afterwards fully brought to light. No absolute criminality appears to have been proved against Weston ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the trumpets which rang on July 6th, 1495, for the onset, sounded the reveille of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of the struggle of that day the Italians were already judged and sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented Italy and France—Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl of Revolution. At the fall of evening ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... son of a butcher. He is said to have tried various trades, among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business, and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his educational schemes; in the course of which it is at least probable that he applied ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... ludicrous, ridiculous, chimerical, ill-judged, mistaken, senseless, erroneous, inconclusive, monstrous, stupid, false, incorrect, nonsensical, unreasonable, foolish, infatuated, paradoxical, wild. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... example, that if either of your fathers were living now, and had any mistrust on that subject, his mind would not be changed by the change of circumstances involved in the change of your years? Untenable, unreasonable, inconclusive, and preposterous!' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... strong, motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through the outward ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... contains a good notice of the Tasso controversy. As to the Pisan edition of the works, it is the completest, I believe, in point of contents ever published, comprises all the controversial criticism, and is, of course, very useful; but it contains no life except Manso's (now known to be very inconclusive), has got a heap of feeble variorum comments on the Jerusalem, no notes worth speaking of to the rest of the works, and, notwithstanding the claim in the title-page to the merit of a "better order," has left the correspondence in a deplorable state ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... Calvinism, his younger Brother's creed; [Pauli, iii. 546.]—which continues ever since the Brandenburg Court-creed, that of the People being mostly Lutheran. Men said, it was to please the Dutch, to please the Julichers, most of whom are Calvinist. Apologetic Pauli is elaborate, but inconclusive. It was very ill taken at Berlin, where even popular riot arose on the matter. In Prussia too it had its drawbacks. [Ib. iii. 544; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... He had come into the school at an age later than usual, and could hardly read. There was a book used by the learners in reading, called "Dialogues between a Missionary and an Indian." It was a poor performance, full of inconclusive arguments and other commonplaces. The boy in question used to appear with this book in his hand in the middle of the school, the master standing behind him. The lesson was to begin. Poor ——, whose ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... Convention. And they added that if the reply of the Republic was negative or inconclusive, "they would reserve to themselves the right to reconsider the situation de novo, and to formulate their own proposals for ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... possible that the war may end in what is called an inconclusive peace; and as it is certain that of all her unrighteous gains that to which Germany will most desperately cling will be her domination over the Austrian and Turkish Empires, with the prospect which it affords ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... cunning coil of trade appear a baser thing Than battles are, O trace through time the orbit of this troubled star! ... See, from afar off, how the valiant few Of old, each with a helmet on his head, Practiced their inconclusive feud Upon no battlefield of unfeeling dew— But on the prostrate stillness of the multitude! Even their knightliest prowess they must rear, Tamerlane, Alexander, Arthur, every king, Upon the common clay from which they spring. ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner
... her tribute to the latter, and invaded the territory of Kudara, which had always maintained most friendly relations with Yamato. The Emperor Yuryaku sent two expeditions to punish this contumacy, but the result being inconclusive, he resolved to take the exceptional step of personally leading an ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... cruising warfare, not based upon powerful squadrons, only upon that particular part of the enemy's strength against which it is theoretically directed,—upon his commerce and general wealth; upon the sinews of war. The evidence seems to show that even for its own special ends such a mode of war is inconclusive, worrying but not deadly; it might almost be said that it causes needless suffering. What, however, is the effect of this policy upon the general ends of the war, to which it is one of the means, and ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... adduced, though not very numerous, are sufficiently conclusive to prove that the old belief, of the universal sterility of hybrids and fertility of mongrels, is incorrect. The doctrine that such a universal law existed was never more than a plausible generalisation, founded on a few inconclusive facts derived from domesticated animals and cultivated plants. The facts were, and still are, inconclusive for several reasons. They are founded, primarily, on what occurs among animals in domestication; and it has been shown that domestication both tends to increase ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... conversation he had dreamt of; it was halting, it was inconclusive, it was full of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... I or anybody else did in the spring and summer of 1919 was of the slightest importance. It ought to have been a time for great enterprises and beginnings; but it emphatically wasn't. It was a queer, inconclusive, lazy, muddled, reckless, unsatisfactory, rather ludicrous time. It seemed as if the world was suffering from vertigo. I have seen men who have been badly hit spinning round and round madly, like dancing dervishes. That was, I think, what we were all doing for some time after the war—spinning ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... of the old Welsh bards, until (which is just the question at issue) the pieces containing these allusions are proved themselves to possess a very high antiquity. In the present state of the question as to the early Welsh literature, this sort of reasoning is inconclusive and bewildering, and merely carries us round in a circle. Again, it is worse than inconclusive reasoning, it shows so uncritical a spirit that it begets grave mistrust, when Mr. Williams ab Ithel, employed by the Master of ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... already told of the swift rush upon New York of the first German air-fleet and of the wild, inevitable orgy of inconclusive destruction that ensued. Behind it a second air-fleet was already swelling at its gasometers when England and France and Spain and Italy showed their hands. None of these countries had prepared for aeronautic warfare ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... all competent evidence shows, a foolish, inconclusive, and I fear it must be said emphatically snobbish story of Walpole's notwithstanding. In particular, he broke up a gang of cut-throat thieves, which had been the terror of London. But his tenure of the ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... death and destruction, and in the inevitability of engulfing all Nations, in inverse ratio to the shrinking size of the world as a result of the conquest of the air. I shudder to think of what will happen to humanity, including ourselves, if this war ends in an inconclusive peace, and another war breaks out when the babies of today have grown to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... the inconclusive character of the philosophical arguments in favor of eternity and the positive arguments for creation (all or most of which we have already met in our previous studies, and need not therefore reproduce Aaron ben Elijah's version of them), ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... there is a great deal to be said in favor of Bergson's general point of view, but to me his reasoning is inconclusive. Don't you feel ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... We have omitted a long, inconclusive, and uninteresting discussion about the climate and productions of the proposed discovery, the Terra Australis, which still remains incognito, or rather has been clearly ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... with all possible deference and humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme authority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament, and not mine; and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not mine; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the words of an act of Parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... considerations and discussions tending to show and set forth the moral turpitude of the Negro, leave out, if they do not ignore wholly, a most vital element. Any conclusion, therefore, reached, must eliminate the same, and in the degree that this element is important, the conclusion will be inconclusive and defective. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... The end is inconclusive, being a happy recollection that he had omitted any reference to stoofjes, the footstools filled with burning peat which are used to keep the feet warm in church. Such a custom was of course not less reprehensible than the building of dykes to keep out the ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... changes, and the place of the newspaper and the power of the journalist is increasing rapidly, but the stale atmosphere of censordom hangs about the press even to-day. Freedom is too new to have bred many powerful pens or personalities, and the inconclusive results of political arguments, written for a people who are comparatively apathetic, lessen the enthusiasm of the political journalist. There are not three editors in Germany who receive as much as six thousand dollars a year, and the majority ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... interrupted his father, "I will not listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough—too often—and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... drawn herself up in Junoesque majesty and blighted him with a glance. She had done with men and their compliments forever. In that she prided herself on her Amazonianism. But she could not be angry with the inconclusive being to whom she was talking. As well resent the ingenuous remarks of ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... and during the meal, when the servants happened to be out of the room, we continued, snippet-wise, the inconclusive conversation. Like a good sister Agatha had come to cheer a lonely and much abused man; like a daughter of Eve she had also come to find out as much ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... be heard by the House in his own defence; and addressed them in that tone of theatrical vanity and rhodomontade in which he was apt to indulge. The whole transaction is a little obscure, and its objects seem inconclusive. The world was already accustomed to these ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... The inconclusive result of the Christian teaching up to the middle of the fourth century is well summarised by Dr. Cleary: 'Hitherto we have encountered mere prohibitions of usury with little or no attempt to assign a reason for them other than ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... Galvano gives of this voyage is very vague and inconclusive. We shall find afterwards that the Spaniards found out the means of counteracting the perpetual eastern trade winds of the Pacific within the tropics, by shaping a more northerly course from the Philippine islands, where ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... preceding chapter were regarded by Foreign Secretaries and Ministers as important in themselves and as indicative of national policy and purpose. Upon all parties concerned they left a feeling of irritation and suspicion. But the public knew nothing of the details of the inconclusive negotiation and the Press merely gave a hint now and then of its reported progress and ultimate failure. Newspapers continued to report the news from America in unaccustomed detail, but that news, after the attack ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... to find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I tried in vain to recover the enthusiasm of my first inquiries, ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference to elucidating the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to General Assembly in Big Hall. But that is like trying to draw the obverse and reverse of a sixpence worn to complete illegibility. His tall fine figure stood high on the days, his thoughtful tenor filled the air as he steered his hazardous way through sentences that dragged inconclusive tails and dropped redundant prepositions. And he pleaded ever so urgently, ever so finely, that what we all knew for Sin was sinful, and on the whole best avoided altogether, and so went on with deepening notes and even ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... of the South, its inconvertible wealth—cotton chiefly—was practically useless to sustain the financial system and credit of the people. So, in 1812 and the two years following, the United States flooded the seas with privateers, producing an effect upon British commerce which, though inconclusive singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other motives to dispose the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It was the reply, and the only possible reply, to the commercial blockade, the grinding efficacy of which it will be a principal object of these pages to depict. The issue to us has been ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... its picturesque lines, is weak and inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee" is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We suppose it tells ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... arguments completely against himself. Coleman soon afterwards published a pamphlet entitled, "A Brotherly Examination Re-examined." To this Gillespie replied in another bearing the title, "Nihil Respondes," in which he somewhat sharply exposed the weak and inconclusive character of his opponent's argument. Irritated by the castigation he had received, Coleman published a bitter reply, to which he gave the somewhat unintelligible title of "Male Dicis Maledicis,"—intending, probably, to insinuate that Gillespie's answer was of a railing character. ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... in the morning, anyhow," he said, firmly. But even as he spoke he was conscious of an infinality in his determination, while he refused to acknowledge to himself a secret purpose to leave the question open till the morning. But this determination, inconclusive though it was, brought him a certain calm of mind, so that when his mother came into his room she ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... the examination is negative or inconclusive, kill a second guinea-pig at the end of the third ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... gratuitous, hazarded; unconnected. unreasonable, illogical, false, unsound, invalid; unwarranted, not following; inconsequent, inconsequential; inconsistent; absonous^, absonant^; unscientific; untenable, inconclusive, incorrect; fallacious, fallible; groundless, unproved; non sequitur [Lat.], it does not follow. deceptive, sophistical, jesuitical; illusive, illusory; specious, hollow, plausible, ad captandum [Lat.], evasive; irrelevant &c 10. weak, feeble, poor, flimsy, loose, vague. irrational; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof, inadmissible or inconclusive. The conclusion will contain ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... the Staten) elections: the queen is a constitutional monarch; governor general appointed for a six-year term by the queen; prime minister and deputy prime minister elected by the Staten for a four-year term; election last held 12 July 1997 (next to be held by December 2001) election results: inconclusive; no party won majority in December 1997 parliamentary elections; no new government formed ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of her health, I was told. It must have been a hasty flitting or an inconclusive one. The odd, attractive rooms were full of their belongings still. We two casual bachelors with our circumspect habits could make no impression on the all but speaking silence of those empty rooms. They filled me at times with a curious ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... I received intimations that designs were in agitation in the Western country unlawful and unfriendly to the peace of the Union, and that the prime mover in these was Aaron Burr, heretofore distinguished by the favor of his country. The grounds of these intimations being inconclusive, the objects uncertain, and the fidelity of that country known to be firm, the only measure taken was to urge the informants to use their best endeavors to get further insight into the designs and proceedings of the suspected persons and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... colorific sound had no existence, was impossible; but at least he would be very justifiable in saying, they appeared contradictions, because he had some ideas of sound which did not at all aid him in forming those of colour; he would not, perhaps, be very inconclusive if he suspected the competency of his informer to the definition attempted, from his inability to convey to him in any distinct, understood terms, his own ideas of colours. The theologian is a blind man, who would explain to others who are also blind, the shades and ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... puft and reckless libertine] [W: Whilest he] The emendation is not amiss, but the reason for it is very inconclusive; we use the same mode of speaking on many occasions. When I say of one, he squanders like a spendthrift, of another, he robbed me like a thief, the phrase produces no ambiguity; it is understood that the one is a spendthrift, and the other ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... through the still air with a deep, reverberating note. It was a reassuring and yet solemn sound, as if it alone were responsible for humanity, for all the souls crowded together in the tiny valley, striving for their separate, shaken, inconclusive lives. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... did answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been together at "Old Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning my weak embers ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... as I rose from this long and inconclusive interview, "you are taking a very great responsibility and putting yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of the police you will find how seriously you are compromised. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... will be the poorer. But fear not, for our sword will not be broken, nor shall it ever drop from our hands until this matter is forever set in order. If every ally we have upon earth were to go down in blood and ruin, still would we fight through to the appointed end. Defeat shall not daunt us. Inconclusive victory shall not turn us from our purpose. The grind of poverty and the weariness of hopes deferred shall not blunt the edge of our resolve. With God's help we shall go to the end, and when that goal is reached it is our prayer that a new era shall come as our reward, an era in which, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... State had gained all it expected to; it had proved that a confession was made, which was about as bad as the confession itself. Under this cloud, Wilder called his other evidence, which of itself, was very inconclusive, and which, with the added weight that a confession had been made, left much uncertainty as to the result, and Bissell was girding himself for the final struggle. Wilder then called the name of John T. Greer—when the ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... pertains to God and religion, he has little peace left for prayers. Wherefore, there are of us who think it would be loyalty to help secure a bride for His Majesty at home, and thus make an end to the wasteful and inconclusive ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... To show how very weak and inconclusive the arguments of Chatterton's new Editor are on this head, Ishall cite but one passage, from which the reader may form a judgment of all the other illustrations with which he has decorated the ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... letter from the Prince of Orange upon the subject, in which a moderate and plain statement of the actual facts was laid down, which was now reiterated by the same personage by word of mouth. An agitated and inconclusive debate followed, in which, however, it sufficiently appeared, as the Duchess informed her brother, that one of two things must be done without further delay. The time had arrived for the government to take up arms, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... began, a committee from the union met with a committee of townsmen and representatives of the smelter interests. The argument was long and inconclusive. Aside from this, a special committee of townsmen, headed by the mayor, ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... life of France than her incessant and inconclusive squabbling with Spain was the transformation passing over her spirit. It is sometimes said that if the French kings brought nothing else back from their campaigns in Italy they brought back the Renaissance. [Sidenote: Reformation] There is a modicum of truth in this, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... and studied peasant property in many stages. I would again remark that any comparison between the condition of the English agricultural labourer and the French peasant proprietor is irrelevant and inconclusive. In the cottage of a small owner at Osse, for instance, we may discover features to shock us, often a total absence of the neatness and veneer of the Sussex ploughman's home. Our disgust is trifling compared with that ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... fury. He could not fight Gouache for the present and Corona was so ill that he could not see her. Had he wished to visit her, the old-fashioned physician would probably have forbidden him to do so, but in reality he was glad to be spared the emotions of a meeting which must necessarily be inconclusive. His first impulse had been to take her away from Rome and force her to live alone with him in the mountains. He felt that no other course was open to him, for he knew that in spite of all that had happened he could not bear to live without her, ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... give me leave to tell thee, while I can, The type of all ingratitude is man.' By such a lecture somewhat foil'd, The other back a step recoil'd, And finally replied,— 'Thy reasons are abusive, And wholly inconclusive. I might the case decide Because to me such right belongs; But let's refer the case of wrongs.' The snake agreed; they to a cow referr'd it. Who, being called, came graciously and heard it. Then, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy—operations which served to keep the enemy constantly on guard, like a blind swordsman, and would, it was hoped, eventually wear down his patience and endurance. In her turn, Norine related ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... Americans, and was able to drag along only a mile a day; Burgoyne and his men were disheartened and apprehensive of the future, while the Americans were exultant and confident of victory. In such circumstances, on September 19, 1777, was fought the first battle of Bemis Heights, a bloody and inconclusive struggle, supported wholly by the division of Benedict Arnold, who behaved so gallantly that Gates, who had not even ridden on the field of battle, was consumed with jealousy, took Arnold's division away from him, and did not mention him in the ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... literally all; and, I ask, can any "conclusion" be much more inconclusive? Yet Mr. Collier has been so far misled by the deference paid to him on the strength of his unquestionably great services, and appears to have been so fully persuaded of the correctness of his deduction, that he has since referred ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... Britannica, Grellmann's Theory is thought slightly of, the similarity of language being deemed but inconclusive evidence; yet in this instance, and even in opposition to such authority, I will venture to consider it, as forming a basis of the most substantial kind. It is not the accidental coincidence of a ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... longer had any doubt as to the identity of the person who had looked in upon him through the window yesterday. The marvellous resemblance to the face he remembered so well, the dropped lilac spray were in themselves inconclusive, but the evidence of her name made the case clear and left but one verdict possible. Chance, Fate, Providence, what you will, had ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Lord Clarendon's letter referring to the new Draft of a Treaty with Austria proposed by the French Government, and has since attentively perused the Treaty itself.[57] Vague and inconclusive as it is as to co-operation (which is the main object of our desire), it is a step in advance, and has the advantage of assuring Austria of our alliance should the war between her and Russia ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... was heavily laden and to it was attached a carriage reserved for the military, who were accompanying the departing Britishers to the frontier. Curiously enough, not one of us knew definitely what had happened. Rumour was busy, but it was inconclusive. The general feeling was that Britain had taken some drastic action which must have serious results, otherwise we should not have been bundled home ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... IS WORTH—neither for less, nor more. In the first place, I have learned nothing decisive from him. This, as you will at once see, is, as far as it goes, good. I am either to hear from him, or see him again in a day or two; but I thought you would like to know what passed inconclusive as it was—so I write without delay, and in great haste to save a post. I found him frank, and even friendly in his manner to me, and in his views respecting you. I think that he is sincerely sorry for your situation; and he feels that the ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... wealth in so summary a fashion, but the fact that I did resent it, and regretted what I supposed to be my 'chance', shows how far apart we had already swung. My Father, I am convinced, thought that he gave words to my inward instincts when he repudiated the very mild and inconclusive benevolence of his brother-in-law. But he certainly did not do so. I was conscious of a sharp and instinctive disappointment at having had, as I fancied, wealth so near my grasp, and at seeing it all cast violently into the sea ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... then, that we are not here entitled to suppose Shakspere a reader of the Senecan tragedies; and even were it otherwise, the passage in question is a figure of speech rather than a reflection on life or a stimulus to such reflection. And the same holds good of the other interesting but inconclusive parallels drawn by Dr. ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... all the time? He scarcely knew. One by one, like little clouds in the summer sky, fancies arose in his mind to sail slowly across its depth and vanish upon an inconclusive and shadowy horizon. Of course, he thought about his instruments; these were never absent from his heart. His instinct flew back to them as an oasis, as an island of rest in the wilderness of this father's thorny and depressing conversation. ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... Mr. Macdonnell in King Leopold II. (London, 1905) to refute Mr. Casement also seem to me weak and inconclusive. The reply of the Congo Free State is printed by Mr. H.W. Wack in the Appendix of his Story of the Congo Free State (New York, 1905). It convicts Mr. Casement of inaccuracy on a few details. Despite all that has been written by various apologists, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Now this is no more true of matter, than of spirit; of an extended compounded substance, than of a simple and unextended. In both cases the metaphysical arguments for the immortality of the soul are equally inconclusive: and in both cases the moral arguments and those derived from the analogy of nature are equally strong and convincing. If my philosophy, therefore, makes no addition to the arguments for religion, I have at least the satisfaction to think it takes nothing from ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... the herring or the sea-ways of the salmon. And zoologists are altogether at a loss to account for its sudden appearance on our coast. Possibly it was the stress of a hunger migration that drove it hither out of the deep. But it will be, perhaps, better to avoid necessarily inconclusive discussion, and to proceed at ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... not been damaged by any insect, disease or mineral deficiency of the soil that I know of. A very limited and inconclusive experience with Clark, Thomas, Myers, Mintle, Sifford, Snyder and Sparrow varieties led to the suggestion that the Thomas might be a ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... not be so inconclusive. I certainly do dislike to see any character, whether of a living or a dead person, disposed of in a ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... the hero of his "Republic of Letters." Enmity succeeded to friendship; Jurieu is then continually quoted in his "Critical Dictionary," whenever an occasion offers to give instances of gross blunders, palpable contradictions, and inconclusive arguments. These inconsistent opinions may be sanctioned by the similar conduct of a Saint! St. Jerome praised Rufinus as the most learned man of his age, while his friend; but when the same Rufinus joined his adversary Origen, he called him ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... encounter made by Stavrogin were accepted on the spot, without the faintest objection. Only one addition was made, and that a ferocious one. If the first shots had no decisive effect, they were to fire again, and if the second encounter were inconclusive, it was to be followed by a third. Kirillov frowned, objected to the third encounter, but gaining nothing by his efforts agreed on the condition, however, that three should be the limit, and that "a fourth encounter was out of the question." This was conceded. Accordingly at two o'clock ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... nobody cared by so much as a hempen rope for the life or death of Little Tobrah. The assessors in the red court-house sat upon him all through the long hot afternoon, and whenever they asked him a question he salaamed and whined. Their verdict was that the evidence was inconclusive, and the Judge concurred. It was true that the dead body of Little Tobrah's sister had been found at the bottom of the well, and Little Tobrah was the only human being within a half mile radius at the time; but the child might ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... condition, and such slight alterations as could be seen in others would not account for death. It was concluded that death had been occasioned by poison. The autopsy on the exhumed body of Perrotte Mace was inconclusive, owing ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... society. It seems to come of a condition of things, rather than from an individual faculty. Still, it is remarkable, and even admirable, though in Mr. Purnell's case it is not inconsistent with dealing somewhat prolixly with rather dry subjects, and being immensely inconclusive upon all important matters, and very painfully conclusive on trivial ones. Our essayist says little that is new of Montaigne, and does not add to our knowledge of Steele, Swift, and Sterne, though he speaks freshly and interestingly of Roger Williams as the first promoter of religious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... conclusive evidence of this is at hand, and it is the major premise underlying all current proposals and projects of peace, as well as the refusal of the nations now on the defensive to enter into negotiations looking to an "inconclusive peace." This state of the case is not commonly recognised in so many words, but it is well enough understood. So that all peace projects that shall hope to find a hearing must make up their account with it, and must ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... jury acted on inconclusive evidence," said Miller thoughtfully. "Before rendering any verdict they should have waited to ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... of such a rare combination of conditions that there is no reason to suppose that it prevailed anywhere except on our earth. It is quite impossible in the present discussion to follow his reasoning in detail; but it seems to me altogether inconclusive. Not only does life, but intelligence, flourish on this globe under a great variety of conditions as regards temperature and surroundings, and no sound reason can be shown why under certain conditions, which are frequent in the universe, intelligent beings ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... inconclusive. But," he persisted, "you must not hold back material evidence. You haven't told us yet what you ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... upon this subject recently by the dissertation of Weissman, De servi currentis persona apud comicos Romanes (Giessen, 1911), though his explanation of the modus operandi is inconclusive. Langen has commented on it at some length,[125] but offers no solution. Weise frankly admits:[126] "Wie sie gelaufen sind, ist ein Raetsel fur uns." LeGrand[127] follows Weise's conclusion that it is an imitation from the Greek and in support ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... Marshall, like most Army staff officers, always emphasized efficiency and performance to the exclusion of social concerns. While he believed that the limited scope of the experiment with integrated platoons toward the end of the war in Europe made the results inconclusive, Marshall still wanted the platoons' performance considered ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... those who praise his work in this or in that field are almost always men who have themselves worked in some other field and have an imperfect acquaintance with the particular field that they happen to be praising. The metaphysician finds the reasonings of the "First Principles" rather loose and inconclusive; the biologist pays little heed to the "Principles of Biology"; the sociologist finds Spencer not particularly accurate or careful in the field of his predilection. He has tried to be a professor of all the sciences, and it is too late ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... other, of the types of structure which appear in subjective rhythmization and the apprehension of objective rhythms the forms of which are antecedently unknown to the hearer. The evidence from subjective rhythms is inconclusive. The prevailing types are of two and three beats. Higher forms appear which are introspectively simple, but introspection is absolutely unable to solve the problem as to the possible composite nature of these extended series. The fact that they ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... old—they've grown. I don't think I could bear to see Kitty Ellison again. I'm glad she did n't come to visit us in Boston, though, after what happened, she could n't, poor thing! I wonder if she 's ever regretted her breaking with him in the way she did. It's a very painful thing to think of,—such an inconclusive conclusion; it always seemed as if they ought to meet ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... debates and bitter personalities, the situation remained unchanged, in spite of the growing sense of disaster abroad and incapacity at home. The Duke of Newcastle in the Lords made a lame defence, and his monotonous and inconclusive speech lasted for the space of three hours. 'The House went to sleep after the first half hour,' was the cynical comment of an Opposition peer. As the year ended the indignation in the country against the Duke of Newcastle grew more ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... with the evidence for the marriage. Mr. Leslie Stephen is of opinion that it is inconclusive, and Forster could find no evidence that is at all reasonably sufficient; while Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, Mr. Churton Collins, and others are strongly of opinion that no such marriage ever took place. A full discussion of the evidence would involve the consideration of the reliability ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... exceptional and precarious infiltrations which belong not merely to the present that is still unknown, veiled or disguised, but really to the future, apart from the two which we have just examined, which are inconclusive, I for my part know of but four or five that appear to be rigorously verified; and these I have discussed in the essay already mentioned. For that matter, they have no bearing upon the present war. They are, when all is said, so exceptional that they do not prove much; at the most, they ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... of both, I think, lies in not keeping clearly in view—what both certainly perfectly understand—the difference between the guerre-de-course, which is inconclusive, and commerce-destroying (or commerce prevention) through strategic control of the sea by powerful navies. Some nations more than others, but all maritime nations more or less, depend for their prosperity upon ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... now finished these poor lectures, and as you look back on them, they doubtless seem rambling and inconclusive enough. My only hope is that they may possibly have proved suggestive; and if indeed they have been suggestive of one point of method, I am almost willing to let all other suggestions go. That point ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... Randall fortifies his position is inconclusive. It consists of the opinions of leading Republicans, and extracts from the letters of leading Federalists. The former are liable to the objection of having been prompted by political prejudices; the latter will not bear the construction which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... committing the crime, or, if that is going too far, the person whom the police have good reason to regard as the last who saw the poor victim alive and in ordinary conditions. But my testimony, such as it is, is so slight and inconclusive that, of itself, no one could ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... cogency of arguments in many ways, whether we use popular or scientific language. If the definitions of our terms are vague, or are badly abstracted from the facts denoted, all arguments involving these terms are inconclusive. There can be no confidence in reasoning with such terms; since, if vague, there is nothing to protect us from ambiguity; or, if their meaning has been badly abstracted, we may be led into absurdity—as if 'impudence' should be defined in such a way as ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read |
