"Direct evidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... by the vigilance with which he watched over the Prince Maximilian, and the anxiety with which he kept him from approaching your highness, until his pretensions could be established by arms. But, if more direct evidence were wanting, since yesterday we have had it in the dying confession of the very agent employed to strike the fatal blow. That man died last night, penitent and contrite, having fully unburdened his conscience, at Waldenhausen. With evidence so overwhelming, ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... plans? Jemima herself might have been capable of such a ruthless thing, but on consideration she did not believe it of her mother. There was a certain large innocence about Mrs. Kildare, an almost virginal shyness of mind, that made it difficult for her to conceive, even in the face of direct evidence, that a man younger than herself, a man whom she chose to regard as a son, could be regarding her in turn with eyes other than filial. Jemima did her ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... Constitutions and Declarations, the Jesuits were provided with an esoteric code of rules known as Monita Secreta.[169] The existence of such a manual, which was supposed to contain the very pith of Jesuitical policy, has been confidently asserted and no less confidently denied. In the absence of direct evidence, it may be worth quoting two passages from Sarpi's Letters, which prove that this keen-sighted observer believed the Society to be governed in its practice by statutes inaccessible to all but its most trusted members. 'I ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... affording a remarkable confirmation of what had been stated concerning this river by Herodotus and the ancient writers; but which was afterwards controverted by the geographers of the middle ages, who asserted (what, independently of direct evidence, seemed more probable) that the course of the river was from East to West. This latter opinion had accordingly been followed by the greater part of the moderns; with the exception indeed of some of the most ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... now those letters, Miriam? What are they like? What is their purport? It seems to me that they would not only give a hint, but afford direct evidence against that demoniac assassin. And it seems strange to me that they were not examined, with a view to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... of a middle passage in those days of small vessels and tedious voyages would have been great, if the number of slaves to be transported had not been limited by law. There is no direct evidence, however, that Las Casas made his proposition out of any regard for the negro. Charles V. resolved to allow a thousand negroes to each of the four islands, Hayti, Ferdinanda, Cuba, and Jamaica. The privilege of importing them was bestowed upon one of his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... taken Miss Vaughan with undue seriousness. Her account of Thomas Vaughan is not only unsupported by direct evidence,[34] but much of it is of a character which we should not be justified in accepting, even were direct evidence forthcoming. And it is all discordant with the little that we do happen to know of Thomas Vaughan from other sources. ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... recognize Mind? Can infinite Mind recognize matter? Can the infinite dwell in the finite or know aught un- 284:15 like the infinite? Can Deity be known through the material senses? Can the material senses, which re- ceive no direct evidence of Spirit, give correct testimony 284:18 as to ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... extensive, centres of population grew up in Anglo-Saxon Britain, upon sites chosen by the barbarians. The Romans had colonised and densely populated every suitable spot. The ships' crews of open pirate vessels had no qualities suitable to the founding of a town; and when there is no direct evidence it is always safer of the two conjectures in English topography to believe that any spot which we find inhabited and flourishing in the Anglo-Saxon period, even at its close, was not a town developed during the Dark Ages but one which the pirates, ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... originally from the twentieth novel of Bandello, but there is no direct evidence that Shakespeare used either this or its French translation in Belleforest. In this story Benedick and Beatrice do not appear; there is no public rejection of Hero; there is no discovery of the plot by Dogberry and his fellows; and the deception of Claudio is differently managed. Shakespeare's ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... one who confesses the principal fact, but varies as to circumstances. Also on one who is reputed to be a heretic, but against whom there is only one witness of the fact. In this case common rumor is one indication of guilt, and the direct evidence is another, making altogether but semi-plenar proof. The torture may bring out fall proof. Also, when there is no witness, but vehement suspicion. Also when there is no common report of heresy, but only one witness who has ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... "There's no direct evidence to show, but I've my suspicions," Kermode said. "It's dangerous to interfere with people's business, particularly when it isn't quite legitimate. You must have known you ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... who took part in the massacre or in the battles following, and he was taught in prison and converted by the pioneer missionaries, Drs. Williamson and Riggs. He was under sentence of death, but was among the number against whom no direct evidence was found, and who were ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... said to restrain such trade, and it refused to grant the request of the government. Unhappily the prosecuting officers of the Attorney-General's office had drawn up their case badly, making their complaint the purchase, not the resulting restraint. No direct evidence was presented to show that interstate commerce in sugar and the control of the sugar business and of prices were the chief objects of the combination. To the public it seemed that the corporations were impregnable, for even the United States ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... were heard on board of a ship that lay at anchor a little way off shore, and when the watch put off, to see what might be amiss, the captain, named Nix, was found murdered in his bed. There was no direct evidence in the case, and no motive could be assigned for the deed, unless it was the expectancy of promotion on the part of the mate, in case of his ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... whether or not the same pattern, found at Dumbuck, in Central Australia, and in tropical America, arose in the "schematising" of the same object in nature, in all three regions, or not. Without direct evidence, we cannot assign a meaning ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... written a passage which is not perfect, and who, consequently, will not be satisfied with any note, emendation, or restoration which does not make the passage into which it is introduced "one entire and perfect chrysolite." But this is unreasonable. We have direct evidence of the imperfect character of much that Shakspeare wrote. When told that Shakspeare had never blotted a line, Ben Jonson—no mean critic, and no unfriendly one—wished he had "blotted a thousand." Would rare Ben have uttered such a wish ignorantly and without cause? We ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... remembering," said Mr. Gryce at the conclusion. "Valueless as direct evidence, it might prove of great value as corroborative." Then, in a graver tone, he went on to say: "Mr. Raymond, are you aware that in all this you have been strengthening the case against Eleanore Leavenworth instead ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... purchases and orders. No one had suspected her money matters of being in disorder, and Rachel was very slow to comprehend; her simple, country life had made her utterly unaware of the difficulties and ways and means of a young lady of fashion. Even the direct evidence before her eyes would not at first persuade her that it was not "all those wicked tradesmen;" she had always heard that fashionable shops were not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Convent, and was absent for an hour, or several hours, at a time, but we never knew of it until she had returned, and were not informed where she had been. I one day had reason to presume that she had recently paid a visit to the priests' farm, though I had no direct evidence that such was the fact. The priests' farm is a fine tract of land belonging to the Seminary, a little distance from the city, near the Lachine road, with a large old- fashioned edifice upon it. I happened to be in the Superior's room on the day alluded to, when she ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... open to them the circumstances in which I had been placed, we concerted the best means of defence. My laundress could swear that I was in chambers the whole of the evening when the robbery was committed; and though this was the only direct evidence in my favour, yet I assembled at least a dozen persons, men of repute and station, as witnesses to my character. The trial excited prodigious interest, but what was that interest to the agony with which I regarded ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... to the carefully guarded pupils of the Stuttgart academy. He became acquainted with Ossian, and the shadowy forms of the Celtic bard, big with their indefinable woe, increased the turmoil of his soul. Probably he read Rousseau more or less, though direct evidence of the fact is lacking. At any rate the air was surcharged with Rousseauite feeling. Certainly he read Plutarch and Cervantes, and along with all these came Shakspere,[12] to whom he was introduced—in the Wieland translation—by his favorite ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... matter of the other, it follows that we are reasonably sure of the origin of such Folk Rhymes because of the "counterpart" data presented by Mr. Harris. But I have been fortunate enough recently to secure direct evidence that one of the American Negro stories recorded by Mr. ...
— Negro Folk Rhymes - Wise and Otherwise: With a Study • Thomas W. Talley
... proceedings; for, as Cavendish whispered to Humfrey, there had been high words between them and my Lord Treasurer and Mr. Secretary; and they had declared themselves incapable of conducting a prosecution so inconsistent with the forms of law to which they were accustomed. The pedantic fellows wanted more direct evidence, he said, and Humfrey ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... young Nero, who had early betrayed a taste for the stage. This view has nothing to support it save the accusation mentioned by Tacitus,[173] to the effect that the patronage and approval of Nero led Seneca to write verse more frequently than his wont. Direct evidence there is none, but the general crudity of the work, coupled with the pedantic hardness and rigidity of the Stoicism which pervades the plays, points strongly to an early date, considerably earlier than the exile in Corsica. There is no trace of the mature experience and ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... evidence cannot, of course, be overlooked; but we must remember that in investigating traditions and traditional observances we are dealing with a phase of civilization of which history only yields rare and indirect glimpses. It is the absence of direct evidence that, not only in the science of Folklore, but also in the physical sciences, causes resort to the evidence afforded by comparison of other structures and processes. On the validity of this evidence, and the reasoning based upon it, nearly all our scientific learning depends. In ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... occasion; their close and reserved silence, at the time when they must have had this confession of Paris in their pocket; and their publishing every other circumstance that could tend to blacken the queen, and yet omitting this confession, the only direct evidence of her supposed guilt; all this duly and dispassionately considered, I think, one may safely conclude, that it was judged not fit to expose, so soon, to light this piece of evidence against the queen; which a cloud of witnesses, living, and present at Paris's execution, would, surely, have ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... ignorant times those instances in which any object is misrepresented, whether through the action of the senses, or of the imagination, or the combined influence of both, for however short a space of time, may be admitted as direct evidence of a supernatural apparition; a proof the more difficult to be disputed if the phantom has been personally witnessed by a man of sense and estimation, who, perhaps satisfied in the general as to the actual existence of apparitions, has not taken time or trouble to correct his first impressions. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... hero's music or the hero's poetry, but we must believe that it is very fine, even though the hero loves Pietro Mascagni and worships Martin Tupper. Similarly Mr Kipling, presenting us with Mrs Hawksbee, nowhere affords us direct evidence that she is a charming woman. He assumes it, gets everyone else in the story to assume it, and expects his readers to assume it—his cunning as a writer being of so remarkable a quality that there are very few of the Simla tales in which the reader is not prepared ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... evidence on behalf of Christianity, which deserves a word of notice since the direct evidence so lamentably breaks down. He urges that: "there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily under-gone, in attestation of the accounts ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... someone else than Ishtar. The slayer may have been a Set-like demon—perhaps Nin-shach, who appears to have symbolized the destroying influence of the sun. He was a war deity, and his name, Professor Pinches says, "is conjectured to mean 'lord of the wild boar'". There is no direct evidence, however, to connect Tammuz's slayer with the boar which killed Adonis. Ishtar's innocence is emphasized by the fact that she mourned ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... to be the very essence of cruelty was that of the moral terrorizing of an educated Korean Pastor, whom the police merely suspected of having had something to do with the Independence Movement. They had no direct evidence but submitted him to months of moral terrorizing which was the worst I ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... since he had attained the rank of superintendent, Foyle himself had gone into the witness-box. That was unavoidable, as he was the only man who could give direct evidence of the character of the house. Hitherto he had arranged so that the court work fell on his subordinates while he gave his attention to organisation and administrative detail; for the giving of evidence is only ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... been stirred by one or two pertinacious critics nearer our own time, and none of the biographers have dealt with the perplexities of the matter as they ought to have done. Nobody, indeed, has ever pretended to find one jot or tittle of direct evidence that Burke himself took a part in the gambling in India or other stocks. There is evidence that he was a holder of the stock, and no more. But what is undeniable is that Richard Burke, his brother, William Burke, his intimate if not his kinsman, and Lord Verney, his political patron, were ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Peebles; this was about the time gold was discovered in the States. That the present Sir William Beauvoir did about this time actually arrive on the Pacific Coast in company with the distinguished scientific man above mentioned, we have every reason to believe: we have even direct evidence on the subject. A former junior clerk who had left us at about the same period as the disappearance of the elder son of our late client, accosted our Mr. Dick when the latter was in Paris last summer, and informed ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... that under certain conditions, heated matter sends forth entities known as Rontgen rays, Becquerel corpuscles and electrons. I cannot speak authoritatively on this subject, but, so far as I am aware, no direct evidence has yet been gathered showing that any of these entities reach us from the sun. We must regard the search for the unknown agency so fully proved as among the most important tasks of the astronomical physicist of the present time. From what we know of the history of scientific discovery, ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... been a lonely life that young Joffre led—but we have no direct evidence that he ever felt lonely. His books and his day dreams seem always to have made up for a lack of human companionship. The other fellows contented themselves with saying of him: "He is too slow, and methodical to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... of direct evidence to the contrary, we may presume that Shakespeare retired from the actor's profession in 1611, on or before the completion of "The Tempest," into the closing act of which he would seem to have put a reflection ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... direct evidence of her own senses rather than believe such diabolical wickedness of her idol! But now the evidence of her own eyes and ears was corroborated by the most complete and convincing testimony—the conversation under the balcony, as reported by Rose Cameron's messenger, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... a pedigree, supposing that he could prove that he came in the male line of some follower of Hengest or Cerdic, he would be no nearer to proving original community of blood either in the particular Teutonic race or in the general Aryan family. If direct evidence is demanded, we must give up the whole doctrine of families and races, as far as we take language, manners, institutions, any thing but physical conformation, as the distinguishing marks of races ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... directions as incontestable evidences of the late period of the writing in that volume, 'practicable' trees certainly not having been introduced on the English stage until after the Restoration." See, too, in the following passage from "The Noble Stranger," by Lewis Sharpe, London, 1640, direct evidence as to the stage customs in London, eight years after the publication of Mr. Collier's folio, in situations like those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... with sufficient closeness to ascertain, whether [Note 98: Vide Note 78.] any other ceremony was conjoined with that of circumcision. How far these ceremonies extend along the north-western or western coasts we have no direct evidence, but at Swan River, King George's Sound, and Cape Arid, both customs are completely lost, and for the whole of the distance intervening between these places, and extending fully six hundred miles in straight line along the coast, the same language is ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... eighteenth-century philosophers as well, was to imagine that mankind began its life in the shape of small straggling families, something like the "limited and temporary" families of the bigger carnivores, while in reality it is now positively known that such was not the case. Of course, we have no direct evidence as to the modes of life of the first man-like beings. We are not yet settled even as to the time of their first appearance, geologists being inclined at present to see their traces in the pliocene, or even ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... cases, under our own eyes, and in animals in our own care, how much more difficult it must be to have at first hand good evidence of the origin of varieties in nature! Indeed, I do not know that it is possible by direct evidence to prove the origin of a variety in nature, or to prove selective breeding; but I will tell you what we can prove—and this comes to the same thing—that varieties exist in nature within the limits of species, and, what is more, that ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... relevant and material. Whatever we intend to bring out shall be relevant and material. Mr. Bishop is our star witness, and his testimony is to the point. It must be taken into consideration that we nave no direct evidence as to the murder of John Borg. We can bring no eye-witnesses into court. Whatever we have is circumstantial. It is incumbent upon us to show cause. To show cause it is necessary to go into the character of the accused. This we intend to do. We intend to show his adulterous and lustful nature, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... that the Italian had begun an unprovoked attack on the smaller kafila. His only messengers were bullets, and the orders he issued to the Hadendowas were definite. The whole party was to be exterminated, with the exception of Mrs. Haxton, who was to be taken alive if possible. Again, there was direct evidence of his duplicity with regard to the meeting arranged for that morning. Fenshawe's friendly letter was found among his papers, so he had hurried from his camp on the Suleiman's Well route with the deliberate intention of wiping out of existence the man who was ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... archaeological bearings; but no doubt also many antiquarian relics, both large and small, have been provokingly called Druidical, merely because their origin and object were unknown. We have not, for instance, a particle of direct evidence for the too common belief that our stone circles were temples which the Druids used for worship; or that our cromlechs were their sacrificial altars. In fact, formerly the equanimity of the old theoretical class of archaeologists ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... that town—and it was the dirtiest, hottest and dustiest town I ever visited—for eighteen months, and none of them had wanted a bath, I believed from that moment all the stories I had heard about their butcheries and atrocities, stories which I had verified later by more direct evidence. ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... with this result is the very strange fact that no one has ever been able to find any direct evidence of the existence of the ether, which is postulated in order to carry light-waves. It has been pictured as a medium through which the heavenly bodies move, and to which their motions may be referred. But when light is launched into the ether, its apparent velocity must depend on whether ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... government had lavishly distributed signs of authority. During the first two years of his term of service, Taliaferro collected no less than thirty-six medals of George the Third, twenty-eight British flags, and eighteen gorgets.[299] Some of these were presented to the agent as direct evidence of submission to American authority. In 1820 two employees of the Missouri Fur Company were murdered on the Missouri River. The surrender of the murderers was demanded by Taliaferro, and while he ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... of all its institutions, followed backwards, comes at last to an end: then the antecedent history must also be supplied by the Comparative Method; whose special use is to indicate the existence of facts for which there is no direct evidence. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... antipathies of the case; and on one occasion, for what seemed a signal case of this kind, involving the massacre of unresisting women as well as men, five colonists were arrested and brought to trial, and would certainly have "swung for it" had there not been some inadequacy of direct evidence. ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... opportunely for his purposes. Each of these charges will be particularly examined in its proper place; but it ought here to be observed, that not one of them appears to be supported by so many circumstances of probability as the first; and even in support of this, no direct evidence has ever been adduced. ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... his own death and that of Robespierre and others by the guillotine, is on record. The illumination of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Poughkeepsie seer, and that of Thomas Lake Harris of Fountain Grove, are modern examples of abnormal faculty of a nature which places them outside the field of direct evidence. A prophecy made from the use of the super-sense which is followed by exact fulfilment appears to be the best criterion, though it is a very imperfect illustration of ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... to obtain surreptitiously a copy of the fifth book before it was properly corrected, the irrepressible Caerellia having copied the whole five books while in that state[153]. A passage in the De Divinatione[154] affords almost direct evidence that the Academica was published before the De Finibus. On all these grounds I hold that these two works cannot be those which Cicero describes as having been finished simultaneously ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... We have direct evidence thus far back as to the existence of the constellations. But they are older than this, so much older that tradition as well as direct historical evidence fails us. The only earlier evidence open to us is that of the ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... blocks. The frescoes themselves, if indeed Titian carried them out on the walls of his house at Padua, as has been suggested, have perished; but that they ever came into existence there would not appear to be any direct evidence. The types, though broadened and coarsened in the process of translation into wood-engraving, are not materially at variance with those in the frescoes of the Scuola del Santo. But the movement, the spirit of the whole is essentially different. This mighty, onward-sweeping procession, with ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... The crumpled paper, with the grains of powder left in it, had been identified by the chemist, and had been declared to contain grains of arsenic. But where was the proof that Mrs. Eustace Macallan's hand had placed the packet in the cabinet, and had emptied it of its contents? No direct evidence anywhere! Nothing but conjecture! ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... it was not unnatural that he should imagine a still wider and deeper scheme than really existed, against the best interests of his country. He may have expressed, in private conversation, some suspicions of this nature, but there is direct evidence that he never stated in public anything which was not afterwards proved to be matter of fact, or of legitimate inference from the secret document which had come into his hands. The Queen exhausted herself in opprobious language against ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... brought about the death or similar illness of the other. One would at least say that neither could die without knowledge of the other; might even infer that either would go on thinking the other living, without some direct evidence of death, some seeming communication from the departed. But the separation of Phoebe from Maisie did not come under these conditions; each was the victim of a wicked fraud, carried out with a subtlety that ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... swore positively that they were present at the marriage, one of them being the woman who is said to have been married. That is direct evidence. With all our search, we have hitherto found no one to give us any direct evidence to rebut this. Then they brought forward, to corroborate these statements, a certain amount of circumstantial evidence,—and ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... nymph, and Ircano leaves Silvano in order to follow her with prayers and supplications. Silvano endeavours to dissuade him from his love, but meets with the usual want of success. In the case of this piece, as also of the two preceding ones, we have no direct evidence of any representation, but all three, and especially the last, have the appearance of being composed for recitation. Another piece, exhibiting an advance in complexity of dramatic structure, is an 'ecloga overo pasturale,' a disputation ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... organs are generally well developed in the individual at a very early age. On the same principle of inheritance at corresponding ages, and on the principle of variations not generally supervening at a very early period of embryonic growth (and both these principles can be shown to be probable from direct evidence), that most wonderful fact in the whole round of natural history, namely, the similarity of members of the same great class in their embryonic condition,—the embryo, for instance, of a mammal, bird, reptile, and fish being ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... is based on such a mass of evidence that we may justly draw deductions from it, where the direct evidence is incomplete. This is especially necessary in the early part of our ancestral tree, because the fossil record quite fails us. For millions of years the early soft-bodied animals left no trace in the primitive mud, which ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... no direct evidence that the ancient Egyptians affixed the name and trade of the owner of the shop, though the presence of hieroglyphics, denoting this last, together with the emblem which indicated it, may seem to ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... attitude towards spiritualism]: "He doesn't believe in it, yet lends it the cover of his name. He is one of the people who talk of the 'possibility' of the thing, who think the difficulties of disproving a thing as good as direct evidence in its favour." ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... writer on a kindred theme, who thought that "Apologists had paid too little attention to the prejudices of their opponents, and had been too confident of accomplishing their object at once, by an overpowering statement of the direct evidence, forgetting that the influence of prejudice renders the human mind very nearly inaccessible to both ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... proceed which shall either strengthen our opinion on this point, or show it to be unsound. We are going to make this astronomical purpose the starting-point for a series of a priori considerations, each to be tested by whatever direct evidence may be available; and it is practically certain that if we have thus started in an entirely wrong direction, we shall before long find out our mistake. At least we shall do so, if we start with the desire to find out as much of the truth as ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... before framing his new system rendered it necessary that the latter should remain in Spain. In the following year, 1542, the Nuevas Leyes, or New Laws, as they were termed, were drawn up, and although there is no direct evidence to prove that they were drafted by Las Casas, there is little doubt that many of their most salutary articles were due to his influence and suggestions. The usual method of assembling councils composed of theologians, canonists, lawyers, and men who ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... being instinctive, for any instinct may occasionally fail or become vitiated, as sometimes occurs with parental love and the social sympathies. In the case of man, the question whether evil follows from close interbreeding will probably never be answered by direct evidence, as he propagates his kind so slowly and cannot be subjected to experiment; but the almost universal practice of all races at all times of avoiding closely-related marriages is an argument of considerable ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... to illustrate both these tendencies. His earlier researches brought to light new facts in animal life, and new ideas as to the affinities of the creatures he studied; his later investigations were coloured by Darwin's views, and in return contributed no little direct evidence in favour of evolution. But while the progress of the evolution theory in England owed more to his clear and unwearied exposition than to any other cause, while from the first he had indicated the points, such ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... of being lightly let off, in Scotland, and, as to Mary, she could easily have been burned for husband-murder, but not so easily convicted thereof with any show of justice. The only direct evidence of her complicity lay in the Casket Letters, and several of her lordly accusers were (if she were guilty) her accomplices. Her prayer to be heard in self-defence at the ensuing Parliament of December was refused, for excellent reasons; and her ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... love," says he, "have I to that place than to any other in earth; as every kindly creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendrure, and to will rest and peace in that place to abide." This tolerably direct evidence is supported — so far as it can be at such an interval of time — by the learned Camden; in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth, he describes Spencer, who was certainly born in London, as being a fellow-citizen of Chaucer's — ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... "did more than sympathize, he felt"—and it has been well put—with Pons in the bric-a-brac matter; and would appear that he did so likewise in that of music, though we have rather less direct evidence. This other sympathy has resulted in the addition to Pons himself of the figure of Schmucke, a minor and more parochial figure, but good in itself, and very much appreciated, I believe, by ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... the County Clubs usually met in the county towns. Mr. Hale Wortham has in his possession some silver labels, bearing the words "County Club," said to have been handed down as part of the Royston Club property; but on the other hand there is the direct evidence of the contemporary account of the Club given in the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1783, describing it as the Royston Club, by which title it has always ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... have been a view to stand trial, [that] he is an emissary from France or the disaffected in Ireland."[294] The Scot who first advocated common action with the Irish malcontents should have paid good heed to his steps. Muir did not do so. Accordingly, though the direct evidence at the trial told in his favour, the circumstantial evidence weighed heavily against him.[295] At such a time men's actions count for more than their words. It was the visit to Paris and the dealings with the United Irishmen, far more ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... understanding of the human mind. I said to myself, "Every system has its insoluble problems, for the finite mind of man is too small to deal with them; these difficulties are therefore no final arguments, against any system. But what a difference there is between the direct evidence on which these systems are based! Should we not prefer that theory which alone explains all the facts, when it is no more ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... corrupted by the society of Aretine, there is direct evidence in one of the poet's letters to him that he was not. "You must come to our feast to-night," he writes, "but I may as well warn you that you had better leave early, as I know how particular you are about certain things." Nor is there anything ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... could do something to those fellows!" exclaimed Tom energetically. "If we only had some direct evidence against them!" ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... some of which appeared to be the remains of very considerable wounds, made with stones, bludgeons, or some other obtuse weapon: By these scars also they appear to be no inconsiderable proficients in surgery, of which indeed we happened to have more direct evidence. One of our seamen, when he was on shore, run a large splinter into his foot, and the surgeon being on board, one of his comrades endeavoured to take it out with a penknife; but after putting the poor fellow to a good deal of pain, was obliged to give it over. Our good old ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... as was evidenced by his position in the School of Mines and his wonderful collections, but was a scout of long standing, a physician of merit, and an Indian authority of acknowledged weight. Withal he was so modest that these things became known only by implication or hearsay, never by direct evidence. Mrs. McPherson was not Scotch at all, but plain comfortable American, redolent of wholesome cleanliness and good temper, and beaming with kindliness and round spectacles. Never was such a doctor; never was such a Mrs. McPherson; never was such a dinner! And they brought ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... "You mean the direct evidence afforded by the unfastened window, position of the body, table said to have been overturned, and ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... But there was no direct evidence that Cain did understand, and Parrish dared not warn him in "Drilgo," for fear one of the Atlanteans might understand the language. Cain was standing close beside the boat. But he was not in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... respectable clothes, and that he suddenly became possessed of some; that he deserted from the army immediately after getting his bounty-money, and so on, there can be little doubt that his credit with the jury would be much impaired, and justly so, although no direct evidence of his being a perjurer had been introduced, and not a particle of his testimony had been strictly controverted. Everyone who has followed with any care the evidence taken in celebrated murder trials or divorce cases knows how frequently a rigid cross-examination lays bare motives and ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... species by artificial selection, the individuals of which are fertile among themselves and infertile with the parent stock. It may properly be alleged that there has not been time enough for such a slow process, but it yet remains as true as ever that there is no direct evidence in nature of what the Darwinians call favorable variation. It is the unwritten law of nature that one race must die that another may live, this other, in its turn, subserving the same end. Without this law nature would be a chaotic impossibility. If natural selection were ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various |
