"Negative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soil samples to be taken from an area covering ten thousand square miles. Our chemical analysis has been thorough, and we find nothing that could be remotely harmful to human life. Atmospheric samples produce the same negative results. On the other hand, we have direct evidence that no animal life has ever evolved on Rythar; the ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... disagreement, the second may be stated thus: "Every possible object of thought is to a certain extent diverse from every other." The first gives the positive (subjective) condition of the proposition, the second the negative (objective) condition: both together constitute the conditions of thinking. The proposition is thus the assertion of the same in the different. The proposition also asserts, implicitly, the tertium quid, or ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... been brought up. She certainly adapted herself well to whatever society she happened to be with; neither patricians nor plebeians found any thing to criticise; but, whether this were the result of tact, or owing merely to the adoption of a negative standard, no one could say. In language she was uniformly correct, without seeming at all scholastic; she occasionally used the idioms and dialectic peculiarities of those around her, though never with the air of ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... mother before her! Like a small elephant, she would put out her little foot, and tap, and sound, to see if the surface would bear her—if the questionable spot was what it looked to her mistress, or what she herself doubted it. When she had once made up her mind in the negative, no foolish attempt of mine could overpersuade her—could make her trust our weight on it a hair's-breadth. In a bog the greenest spots are the most dangerous, and Zoe knew it: the matted roots might ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... another question, to which, judging by her manner, she attached a certain importance. She wished to know if the oyster-omelet (accompanying the cheese) had been received as a welcome dish, and treated with a just recognition of its merits. The answer to this was decidedly in the negative. Mr. Romayne and Miss Eyrecourt had declined to taste it. My lord had tried it, and had left it on his plate. My lady alone had really eaten her share of the misplaced dish. Having stated this apparently trivial ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... have even Huns without horses; or horses without horsemanship. You could not have even Danish pirates without ships, or ships without seamanship. This person, whom I may call the Positive Barbarian, must be rather more superficially up-to-date than what I may call the Negative Barbarian. Alaric was an officer in the Roman legions: but for all that he destroyed Rome. Nobody supposes that Eskimos could have done it at all neatly. But (in our meaning) barbarism is not a matter of methods but of aims. We say that these veneered ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... gifts are greater than mine, a man destined for a brilliant future—David Sechard, my brother, my friend. I shall find an answer waiting when I go home. All the aristocrats may have been asked to hear me read my verses this evening, but I shall not go if the answer is negative, and I will never set foot in Mme. de Bargeton's ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... in the eastern empire, was preached in the Balkan peninsula by one Jeremiah Bogomil, for the rest a man of uncertain identity, who made Philippopolis the centre of his activity. Its principal features were of a negative character, and consequently it was very difficult successfully to apply force against them. The Bogomils recognized the authority neither of Church nor of State; the validity neither of oaths nor of human laws. They refused to pay taxes, to fight, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... simpler nor more beautiful contrivance. The opposite principle, the capacity of expansion possessed by water, has brought the steam-engine into being. But water will only expand up to a certain point, while its incompressibility, being a force in a manner negative, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... this development is generally ascribed to the protection afforded by such segregated districts. But protection alone is only a negative force in the life of a people; it leaves them free to develop in their own way, but does not say what that way shall be. On the other hand, the fact that such a district embraces a certain number of geographic features, and encompasses them by obstructive boundaries, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... foolish was it in Pope to give all his friendship to Lords, who thought they honoured him by being with him; and to choose such Lords as Burlington, and Cobham, and Bolingbroke! Bathurst was negative, a pleasing man; and I have heard no ill of Marchmont; and then always saying, "I do not value you for being a Lord;" which was a sure proof that he did. I never say, I do not value Boswell more for being born to an estate, because I do not care.' BOSWELL. 'Nor for ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... is rarely visited. I asked several of my acquaintance here, whether this spectacle were worth seeing?—and they as frequently replied in the negative as in the affirmative. But the PICTURE GALLERY I have seen, and seen with attention;—although I am not likely to pay it a second visit. I noted down what I saw: and paid particular attention to the progress of art in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "have you seen Him yet?" It embarrassed me to be forced to answer in the negative; it gave me a strange feeling, as if I had been a convict in the country, and denied the passport of honourable men. I therefore waived her question as well as I might, and proceeded to make known to her the thought which had been ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... worth while to put the negative. The accused have heard the verdict, which is that Mr. Bidwell shall not drink a drop of anything except water or coffee for a period of four days, dating from this moment, while Mr. Ruggles is to undergo the same penalty for a period ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... organizations are so numerous and so serious, that, for the greater part, individuals abandoned to themselves not only would fail to attain happiness, but would also contribute to the perpetuation of their condition of misery and dejection. The state therefore cannot limit itself to the merely negative function of the defense of liberty. It must become active, in behalf of everybody, for the welfare of the people. It must intervene, when necessary, in order to improve the material, intellectual, ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... hand, if Crimmins had lied—Garrison's jaw came out and his eyes snapped. Then he would scrape himself morally clean, and fight and fight for honorable recognition from the world. He would prove that a "has-been" can come back. He would brand the negative as ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... to the spectre whatever question thou wouldst ask him, in a low-whispered voice, three times. If thy question is answered in the affirmative, thou wilt hear the water ferment and bubble before the demon breathes upon it; if in the negative, the water ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... even say sincerity, by reason of one fact and perhaps the most important one: they were not dramatizing the idea in hand. They were not creating a furor with pink and lavender haystacks. They were satisfied that there was still something to be found in the old arrangement of negative and positive tones as they were understood before the application of the spectrum turned the brains and sensibilities of men. In other words Courbet survived while the Barbizonians perished. There was an undeniable ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... exceed $500 and imprisonment for not more than five years. Another amendment limited the amount of real estate which a church corporation could hold in the territories to $50,000. The bill passed the Senate with the negative votes of only the two California senators, and the House accepted the amendments. Lincoln ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... are so good, when you do not see me or hear of me, to be desirous of having some information of my state of health and existence. Now I must let you know that I have at this moment every distress, negative and positive, that I can have, et les voici. My negative one is, being for the moment in an impossibility of going to town to see you, Caroline, and the bambino, and that is enough, for it would be a great pleasure to me, as you must imagine. Then, I am, in a manner, here with one single servant. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... The strong cockney negative was also an exclamation. It came from Mrs. Courage, the cook-housekeeper, who stood near the kitchen range making the coffee for breakfast. She was a woman who looked her name, born not merely to do battle, but to enjoy being ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... business is not like to come on to-day; which I am heartily glad of. This law against Conventicles is very severe; but Creed, whom I meet here, do tell me that it being moved that Papists' meetings might be included, the House was divided upon it, and it was carried in the negative; which will give great disgust to the people, I doubt. To the King's house, and there did see "Love in a Maze;" wherein very good mirth of Lacy the clown, and Wintershell ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... something, when there's nothing to be said." Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed "To the most impudent Man alive[981]." He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... familiar with the catalytic effects of light. Hydrogen and chlorine will stand very peacefully in the same jar for a long time, but let a strong light fall on them, and they combine with terrific violence. This is the catalytic effect of a vibration, a wave motion. Then there is such a thing as negative catalysis. In a certain reaction, if a third element or compound is introduced, all reaction is stopped. I believe that's the principle of the Nigran death ray; it's a catalyst that simply stops the chemical reactions of a living body, and these are so delicately balanced that the least ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... message from me. Yes, your errand is to bring the least known and most talked of woman in Washington, alone, unattended save by yourself, to a gentleman's apartments, to his house, at a time past the hour of midnight! That gentleman is myself! You must not take any answer in the negative." ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... evidently desiring to give a precise answer. "She? You see, notwithstanding her past, she is naturally of a most moral character. And her feelings are so refined. She loves you—very much so—and is happy to be able to do you the negative good of not binding you to herself. Marriage with you would be a dreadful fall to her, worse than all her past. For this reason she would never consent to it. At the same time, your presence ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... dying counsel, welcome and unexpected as light of the moon to a lost traveller on a cloud-clothed night. What had she told him to do? To resist Madame Riennes. He had tried that with lamentable results. To invoke the help of religion. He had tried that with strictly negative results; the Powers above did not seem inclined to intervene in this private affair. To appeal to the Pasteur. That he had not tried but, unpromising as the venture seemed to be, by Jove! he would. In his imminent peril there was nothing to which ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard
... handsome house, without and pretension, overlooking his tanyard. He has a joke upon prospects, calling you to look from the drawing-room window at his tanpits, asking you if you ever saw any thing like that at the west end of the town; replying in the negative, Joe, chuckling, observes that it is the finest prospect he ever saw in his life, and although he has been admiring it for half a century, he has not done admiring it yet. Joe's capacity for the humorous may be judged ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... absence of restraint is, however, a merely negative thing; it is a "being let alone." Some great writers, John Stuart Mill for example, treat it as though it had only this negative character, and as though to be let alone were necessarily and in itself a good thing. But others have truly and forcefully shown, first, that to be ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... existence, on earth? Or is that combination to be viewed as a Christian church which has no regular ministry, but expressly rejects the "pastors and teachers" of Christ's appointment and the morality of the sabbath? These, and many other questions of similar or analogous import, will suggest negative answers to all who fear God, respect his authority, and are free from the bewildering effects of ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... could be answered only in the negative; but he had no intention of disputing his comrade's point of view. In the first place, this would probably make Vane only more determined or would ruffle his temper; and, in the second place, Carroll was neither a covetous man nor an ambitious one, which, perhaps, was fortunate ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... us now cheer the reader who is impatient of much praise, and at the same time perform the negative part of ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... say no? She found it difficult, against that something in his tone. He was more intent upon the affirmative than she upon the negative. And after all, why should she say no? She had fought her fight and conquered; Mr. Dillwyn was nothing to her, more than another man; unless, indeed, he were to be Madge's husband, and then she ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... embryologists of different persuasions. It is perhaps easy to underestimate the impact and general importance of Harvey's work in view of these qualifications, and so it should be remarked that both positive and negative features of De Generatione influenced ...
— Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England - Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 • Charles W. Bodemer
... the Egyptian was to secure the favour of the god. There is but little trace of negative prayer to avert evils or deprecate evil influences, but rather of positive prayer for concrete favours. On the part of kings this is usually of the Jacob type, offering to provide temples and services to the god in return for material prosperity. The Egyptian was essentially self-satisfied, ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... her mother she made many a weary expedition through the hot streets, and was laughed at in some instances for even imagining that employment could be obtained at the dullest season of the year. As soon as their errand was made known they were met by a brief and often a curt negative. Mrs. Jocelyn would soon have been discouraged, but Belle's black eyes only snapped with irritation at their poor success. "Give up?" she cried. "No, not if I have to work for nothing to get a chance. Giving up isn't ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... accordingly no PROOF that Chaucer was a married man before 1374, when he is known to have received a pension for his own and his wife's services. But with this negative result we are asked not to be poor-spirited enough to rest content. At the opening of his "Book of the Duchess," a poem certainly written towards the end of the year 1369, Chaucer makes use of certain expressions, both very pathetic and very ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... well-drawn brows, but not altogether out of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline and delicate; beneath it his moustache languished much rather than bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or at the most provisional; not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. A cold fatal gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of shifting his weight from foot to foot, the ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James
... with some little discrepancy of circumstances, in Gomara (Hist. de las Indias, cap. 185) and Zarate (Conq. del Peru, lib. 7, cap. 6); and their positive testimony maybe thought by most readers to outweigh the negative afforded by the silence ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... it in the thing that is most definite, not in the thing that is most indefinite. Isn't it so, doctor? Happiness lies in the positive, not in the negative." ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... The negative of the verb is formed by the particle me or mi preceding. In the imperative it also precedes, but when emphasis is laid upon the negation mi follows. The difference between me and mi is not clear, but me appears to be used only before verbs beginning with a consonant, ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... the Life Insurance Underwriters met and "resoluted" that I had applied for insurance in the New York Life Insurance Company in 1892, and being asked if I had ever been refused insurance, had replied in the negative. Investigation showed that I had been refused four years before by two other companies, whereupon my application was rejected and I was practically black-listed, and so could not secure life insurance in any American company. By way of ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... only represented by circles with a hard firm outline, whereas they have no such definite limits, but also there is a constant disposition to think of negative terms as if they represented positive classes. With words just as with numbers and abstract forms there are definite phases of human development. There is, you know, with regard to number, the phase when man can barely count at all, or counts in perfect good ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... and a grafter by choice. He became grand sachem of Tammany and chairman of the general committee. This committee he ruled with blunt directness. When he wanted a question carried, he failed to ask for the negative votes; and soon he was called "the Boss," a title he never resented, and which usage has since fixed in our politics. So he ruled Tammany with a high hand; made nominations arbitrarily; bullied, ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... extends for many miles beyond the limits of the formation. There is a fine central mountain, on which M. Gaudibert discovered a crater, the existence of which has been subsequently verified by Professor Weinek on a Lick observatory negative. ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... Plato's categories or elements is the infinite. This is the negative of measure or limit; the unthinkable, the unknowable; of which nothing can be affirmed; the mixture or chaos which preceded distinct kinds in the creation of the world; the first vague impression of sense; the more or less which refuses to be reduced ...
— Philebus • Plato
... writing their letters a little before luncheon time, Walter opened the door and looked in with a comical expression on his face. "Are you all very busy?" he asked. Having received a reply in the negative, he advanced to the fire, crouched down by his aunt, hid his face in her lap, and then, looking up at her with a smile, said, "I've come to make an announcement and a confession. First and foremost, the raffle has come to grief, partly, I suppose, because Walter Huntingdon, junior, Esquire ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... of the district itself he knew next to nothing, save that up to the war it had been the favorite roosting-place of short-haired women and long-haired men. He wondered whether Maisie's hair was short. He decided in the negative. To have attracted three husbands in four and a half years she must be outwardly conventional. An unconventional woman might persuade one man to marry her, but not three in such rapid succession. She probably belonged to the apparently harmless, sympathetic, sisterly, domestic ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... people who merely carried out in, practice the early Christian ideals of which their persecutors prated. They have been reckoned an extreme left wing of the Reformation, because for a time they followed Luther and Zwingli. Yet their Christology and negative attitude towards the state rather indicate, as in the case of Wicklif, Hus and the Fraticelli, an affinity to the Cathari and other medieval sects. But this affiliation is hard to establish. The earliest Anabaptists of Zurich allowed that the Picardi or Waldensians had, in contrast ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... strong spiritual assertion of Emerson with the purely negative attitude of the French satirist was a common mistake in those days, and the Lowell of 1838 needs small excuse for it. He must have been in a biting humor at this time, for there is a cut all round in his class poem, although it ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the shallow and threadbare nonsense about "virtual," or as it would be called nowadays constructive, representation of the colonies, likening them to Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns which sent no members to Parliament—as if problems in politics followed the rule of algebra, that negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive quantity. But Franklin concerned himself little about this unreasonable reasoning, which indeed soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the class of men who stupidly uttered it. For it was promptly replied that if there ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... apostle? "NOT now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord." Who authorized the professor to bereave the word 'not' of its negative influence? According to Paul, Philemon was to receive Onesimus 'not as a servant;'—according to Stuart, he was to receive him "as a servant!" If the professor will apply the same rules of exposition to the writings of the abolitionists, all difference ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... George, and myself," observed Mr. Dodge, glancing obliquely and pointedly at the rest of the party, as if he thought they were in a decided minority; "but in this instance, I feel constrained to record my vote in the negative. I believe America has as good a climate, and as good general digestion as commonly falls to the lot of mortals: more than this I do not claim for the country, and less than this I should be reluctant to maintain. I have travelled a little, gentlemen, not as much, perhaps, as the Messrs. Effinghams; ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... another way revolted against paint, false hair, and preposterous costume as of savages grown opulent. Such music seems without passion or subtlety or depth or magnificence. Thus it had hardly any higher than a negative merit, but it was the necessary preparation for the acceptance of a more positive style, that should replace both the elaborate false art of the older French composers and the too colourless realism of the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... is self-evident, for the definition of anything affirms the essence of that thing, but does not negative it; in other words, it postulates the essence of the thing, but does not take it away. So long therefore as we regard only the thing itself, without taking into account external causes, we shall not be able to find in it anything ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... profitable?(263) That whatsoever either would scandalise our brother,(264) or not be profitable to him for his edification, Christians for no respect must dare to meddle with it? Do they not stand so much upon expediency, that this tenet is received with them: That the negative precepts of the law, do bind, not only at all times, but likewise to all times (whereupon it followeth, that we may never do that which is inconvenient or scandalous), and that the affirmative precepts though they bind at all times, yet not to all times, ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... casually admitted that a few UFO sightings couldn't be explained, but the reader didn't have much chance to think about this fact because 99 per cent of the story was devoted to the anti-saucer side of the problem. It was the typical negative approach. I know that the negative approach is typical of the way that material is handed out by the Air Force because I was continually being told to "tell them about the sighting reports we've solved—don't mention the unknowns." I was never ordered to tell this, but it was a strong suggestion ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... proportions of the standard colours which are equivalent to 100 of the given colour; and the sum of V, U, E gives a coefficient, which gives a general idea of the brightness. It will be seen that the first admixture of yellow diminishes the brightness of the blue. The negative values of U indicate that a mixture of V, U, and E cannot be made equivalent to the given colour. The experiments from which these results were taken had the negative values transferred to the other side of the equation. They were all made by means of the colour-top, and were ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... a reason, the same sight slighter, the sight of a simpler negative answer, the same sore sounder, the intention to wishing, the same ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... one film to another, just as you printed from a negative to a piece of paper. The negative is taken on one film, then this is printed on another film. The second film is ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... prominent than the most dramatic events, when the period is past and can be viewed in retrospect. Sub-consciousness, wiser than the surface brain, penetrates to the inner sanctuary of true values, photographs something typical of war's many aspects, places the negative in the dark room of memory, and fades into inertia until again called upon to act as arbiter of significance for everyday instinct. Not till long later, when released from the tension of danger and abnormal ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... myself," said John, "the answer is in the affirmative—or negative, just as you prefer. Any way, I'm not coming. Your worthy brother ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... was as a trumpet note—a defiant negative hurled at the Force of the Universe. And Charles-Norton began to race around the fountain, striking with his right fist his left hand, muttering unintelligible and tremendous protests. You see, his wings had grown altogether too long. He could ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... little beyond Clay Lane, but not so far off as the gamekeeper's. On the morning when the bells had rung out—to the surprise and vexation of Lionel—Roy happened to be at home. Roy never grudged himself holiday when it could be devoted to the benefit of his wife. A negative benefit she may have thought it, since it invariably consisted in what Roy called a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... brought a number of young cocoa-plants. On my inquiring for what purpose he intended them, he answered, that he wished me to plant them in Russia, in remembrance of him. I then recollected his having once asked me if cocoa-trees grew in Russia, and that I had of course replied in the negative. He had then turned the conversation on some other subject, and I thought no more of it. He had however resolved on enriching my country with this fine fruit, and had reserved for the day of our parting this ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... say of him,—"Yes, a good fellow, steady, intelligent, but lacks push,—he'll never get there." Such are the trite summaries of man among men. Of all the inner territory of the man's soul, which had resolved him in its history to what he was, had left him this negative unit of life, his fellows were ignorant, as man must be of man. They saw the Result, and in the rough arithmetic of life results are all that count ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... follow, each contributing his mite toward the task of defining the new continent. Perhaps you have seen a photographic negative slowly take shape in the acid bath—the sharp out-lines first, then, bit by bit, the detail. Just so did America grow beneath the gaze of Europe, though two centuries and more were to elapse before it stood out upon the map clean-cut and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... offspring, may be fairly inferred to be such as we have already stated;—that the evidence for the truths we are to believe shall be, first, such as our faculties are competent to appreciate, and against which, therefore, the mere negative argument arising from our ignorance of the true solution of such difficulties, as are, perhaps, insoluble because we are finite, can be no reply; and, secondly, such an amount of this evidence as shall fairly overbalance all the objections which we can appreciate. ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... disappointing. But when another person having one's trust, says: "Your natural line is to do thus-and-so," it is time to ask him why, and check his reasoning with one's own. Worth just as much earnest consideration is his negative opinion, his strong feeling that what one is about to undertake ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... repeated Brigitte. I quietly closed the window and sat down as if I had not heard her; but I was so furious with rage that I could hardly restrain myself. That cold silence, that negative force, exasperated me to the last point. Had I been really deceived and convinced of the guilt of a woman I loved I could not have suffered more. As I had condemned myself to remain in Paris, I reflected that I must compel Brigitte to speak at any price. In vain I ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the enamored state, do men as a rule seek the society of women and prefer it to that of men? The thriving clubs, the billiard- and drinking-saloons, and the other resorts of men common all over the civilized world, seem very like a negative answer to the question. In savage life we know that the sexes do not hunt or fish or do any work together. In our modern drawing-rooms most men confess themselves "bored." They long to get away to their clubs or some other resort of their fellows. When ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... gave her evidence, Reuben saw that Mr. Ellison looked greatly vexed and annoyed. As before, at the conclusion of the evidence of each witness, Reuben was asked if he had any question to put. He hesitated for a moment and then, as before, replied in the negative. ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty
... makes me tremble for fear, and my very heart freezes into ice with astonishment. And yet, who dare oppose St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Anselm, St. Gregory the Great? Is there any hope of carrying the negative assertion against such a stream of Doctors, who all maintain the affirmative, and bring ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... law bearing date June 18th, 1859, and provision was made for promoting the restoration of private woods by a statute adopted on the 28th of July, 1860. The former of these laws passed the legislative body by a vote of 246 against 4, the latter with but a single negative voice. The influence of the Government, in a country where the throne is as potent as in France, would account for a large majority, but when it is considered that both laws, the former especially, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... of these terms, in and by itself, involves an affirmation; it is by the combination of such terms that positive or negative statements arise. For every assertion must, as is admitted, be either true or false, whereas expressions which are not in any way composite such as 'man', 'white', 'runs', 'wins', cannot be either true ...
— The Categories • Aristotle
... seems to me to show that the negative particle is here wanting, which I have supplied in brackets, and I wonder none have hitherto suspected that it ought to ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... and warm; But only to dream of a dreadful storm From Autumn's sulphurous locker; But the only electrical body that falls Wears a negative coat, and positive smalls, And draws the peal that so appals From the Kilmanseggs' ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... entirely discountenanced by public opinion, then passing through the monarchical and constitutional stage, who boldly gave up the idea of a monarchy and proclaimed the idea of a republic. In July (1791) he published a piece strongly arguing for a negative answer to the question whether a king is necessary for the preservation of liberty.[28] In one sense, this composition is favourable to Condorcet's foresight; it was not every one who saw with him that the destruction ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley
... of the Congressional District wished to send him to the House of Representatives, but to the gentleman who waited upon him with this proposal he returned a decided negative. Other considerations apart, he would not interfere with the reelection of ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... rich, study not to increase your goods, but to diminish your desires—is to a certain extent wise and even indispensable; yet not adapted to all temperaments. To those that enjoy pleasure very highly, and are not sensitive in an equal degree to pain, such a negative conception of happiness would be imperfect.] Epicurus did not, however, deprecate positive pleasure. If it could be reached without pain, and did not result in pain, it was a pure good; and, even if it could not be had without pain, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... presently; "in these lines Virgil, or rather the poet of the Alexandrine age who was his model, has anticipated Laplace's great hypothesis and Charles Lyell's theories. He shows cosmic matter, that negative something from which everything must come, condensing to make worlds, the plastic rind of the globe consolidating; then the formation of islands and continents; then the rains ceasing and first appearance of the sun, heretofore ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France
... positive electrodes. 200 square dec. Efficient surface of the 3 negative electrodes. 15 square dec. Weight of the positive electrodes. 8.2 kilogrammes. Weight of the negative electrodes. 1.4 kilogrammes. Weight of the trough. 2.7 kilogrammes. Weight of the liquid. 4.4 kilogrammes. Weight of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various
... exhausted by the day's efforts, my mother's positiveness dissipated and she allowed her mind to drift into negative thoughts, complaining endlessly about my irresponsible father and about how much she disliked him for treating her so badly. These emotions and their irresponsible expression were very difficult for me to deal with as a child, but it taught me to work ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... munificent generosity of your own merchants of Manchester, of all sects and kinds, when this establishment was first proposed. But are the advantages derivable by the people from institutions such as this, only of a negative character? If a little learning be an innocent thing, has it no distinct, wholesome, and immediate influence upon the mind? The old doggerel rhyme, so often written in the beginning ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... deliver the goods, they're bound to put the thing through! It's said that someone asked a Member of the Government point-blank whether there was any truth in the rumour, and was told, "The answer is in the negative-affirmative, Sir!" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various
... paper which contained a Tact Problem every week, and she asked my sister and me to write down solutions and see if they were right; mine were wrong five times consecutively, so I gave up that competition, though in a negative sort of way I should have been of assistance to any competitor. I remember one of these wonderful problems was, 'At an evening party A tells B that C looks like a criminal. Shortly afterwards A finds out that C ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... was time for Matilda to go downstairs to perform her share of the preparation of the communal dinner. Left alone, her fury now sunk to sober ashes, Mrs. De Peyster continued the exploration of possibilities, with the same negative result. ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... of the insect is confirmed by the negative testimony of the ancient classics; the haricot never appears on the table of the Greek or Roman peasant. In the second Eclogue of Virgil Thestylis prepares the repast of ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... of the Gleaner. Doubtless he had some reason for his reticence. Even during our walk to the police office, he debated several times with Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to give up himself, as well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in the negative, arguing that "it would probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink, he had plenty good friends in San Francisco." And to nothing it came; though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr. Nares disappeared ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... pass a negative opinion in the face of the expert testimony to which I provisionally appeal as a subsidiary recourse;[55] to that your competence does not extend, for the nicer question, whether in a given case the most profound researches of science may not, with a view ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... of power. Controlled by 143:21 this belief, you continue in the old routine. You lean on the inert and unintelligent, never discerning how this de- prives you of the available superiority of divine Mind. 143:24 The body is not controlled scientifically by a negative mind. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... give the helm to somebody else, saying, 'Damn me if there are not a thousand places in the Thames fifty times more hazardous than this; I am ashamed that Englishmen should make such a rout about it.' The Frenchman asked me if the captain had not been there before. I assured him in the negative; upon which he viewed him with great attention, lifting at the same time his hands and eyes to heaven with astonishment ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... She made a slight negative sign. He must have been observing her, putting two and two together. After a pause he said simply: "When I first came here I thought you were governess to these girls. My sister didn't say a word about you ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... of body, had been seriously ill; and Cook attributed the excellent health of his crew, partly to the frequent airing and sweetening of the ship by fires, etcetera, and partly to the portable broth, sweet-wort, pickled cabbage, and sour-krout. Although no discovery, except of a negative character, was made during this part of the voyage, we cannot but admire the hardihood and perseverance, the skill and courage, exhibited by the great navigator during the whole ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... the evening these were more frequent—"short messages of a word or two" was the interpretation that the experts in the signal cabins put upon the unintelligible flickerings of the indicator, and they suggested that they were mere negative code-signals from the Japanese scouts to their main fleet, repeating an indication that they were on the alert, and had seen nothing. This was mere guesswork, however, and Politovsky's diary of the voyage[28] shows that near the Cape, at Madagascar, and out in ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... impulse, good or bad, nothing even superficially human. His spotless linen, his neat sack-coat and trousers of gray seemed part of him—like a loose outer skin. There was in his ensemble nothing to disturb the negative harmony, save perhaps an abnormal flatness of the instep ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear eyes but he was more afraid of something else—his own soul which somehow Tony had created by loving and ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... wounded, and Lts. F. Bevan and H. C. Hall and four men wounded. To the westward of the railway line a detachment of thirty of Rimington's Guides successfully reconnoitred as far as Prieska. Though the information brought back by these reconnaissances was mainly negative, on the 18th November Major R. N. R. Reade, Lord Methuen's Intelligence officer, was able from various sources of information to report that a force, estimated at from 700 to 1,200 men, with four guns, was at or near Belmont; and that a small commando under Jourdaan ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Bulgaria and ask them whether the "young" Bulgarian officers could really command brigades and regiments, and organise the artillery; also whether that army could alone meet the army of "a neighbouring State." The replies of the officers being decidedly in the negative, they were ordered to leave Bulgaria[199]. Nelidoff, the Russian ambassador at Constantinople, also worked furiously to spur on the Sultan to revenge the insult inflicted on him ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... war without the intervention of Parliament. It thus authorized both the past acts of the Salandra Ministry and its future course. The measure, undebated, was voted on secretly. And it is significant that of more than five hundred Deputies present only seventy-two voted in the negative. Of these seventy-two who voted against the Government, some were out-and-out neutralistas, and some few were Socialists who had the courage of their convictions. The great majority of the Giolittians must have voted for war. Had they seen a great light since the piazza raised its voice, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... all Goethe's enthusiasm for Shakespeare. Though his own original productions were of mediocre quality, he had an insight into the character and genius of others which Goethe fully recognised and to which he acknowledges his special obligation. His general attitude in criticism was "negative and destructive," but this attitude was entirely wholesome for Goethe at a period when instinct and passion tended to overbear his judgment. With admirable penetration he saw how Goethe during these Frankfort years occasionally wasted his powers in attempts ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... not know just when this myth originated, we might guess from this teaching that the myth was a late one, for the earliest Greeks and Romans did not believe in a real happiness after death. They believed in existence after death, but it was a very shadowy existence, with the most negative sort of pleasures. Later, the Romans, even before they accepted Christianity, had their beliefs more or less modified ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Douglas plot) and to seize James was discovered; Randolph, who now represented Elizabeth, was fired at, and fled to Berwick; James Stewart was created Earl of Arran. In March 1581 the king and Lennox tried to propitiate the preachers by signing a negative Covenant against Rome, later made into a precedent for the famous Covenant of 1638. On June 1 Morton was tried for guilty foreknowledge of Darnley's death. He was executed deservedly, and his head was stuck on a spike of the Tolbooth. The death of ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... neither of two; it is nîl with the negative, and is sometimes written noniel. Boson uses it in ...
— A Handbook of the Cornish Language - chiefly in its latest stages with some account of its history and literature • Henry Jenner
... to answer in the negative, and the other seemed a little doubtful. "Look," said Constans, and, drawing rein, he took aim at a beech-tree a few yards distant. The bullet ploughed into the wood, leaving a small, round hole in the smooth bark. "See how deeply it has penetrated," he ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... insensible to all the virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried about ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... This negative aspect of modern tendencies needs, however, a positive supplement. The mediaeval mode of thought is discarded and the new one is not yet found. What can more fittingly furnish a support, a preliminary substitute, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... are two kinds of electricity, positive and negative; and these have a pugnacious tendency. A, a student, goes up to the College positive he shall pass; B, an examiner, thinks his abilities negative, and flummuxes him accordingly. A afterwards meets B alone, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... campaign so vitally important to the people of the Philippines be effectively continued if American authority were withdrawn at this time? With regret I must answer this question emphatically in the negative. We have succeeded in training a few good physicians and surgeons. We have thus far failed to train really efficient sanitary officers. What is lacking is not so much knowledge as to what should be done as initiative ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... seen what the playlet is not. We have considered the various dramatic and near-dramatic forms from which it differs. And now, having studied its negative qualities, I may assemble its positive characteristics before we embark once more upon the troubled seas of definition. The true playlet is marked by ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... The taboo—the merely negative law—is the emptiest of all the impositions from on top. In its long record of failure, in the comparative success of Tammany, those who are aiming at social changes can see a profound lesson; the impulses, cravings and wants of men must be employed. You can employ them well or ill, but you ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... common consent, from the general reprobation is which all its compeers are involved, must deserve some notice from its negative, if not from its positive merits; and the particulars which have been preserved of its literary history are also somewhat curious. Even in these days, when almost every other individual is a novelist, either in esse or in embryo, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... Orders of friars (the Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, and Carmelites) issued a protest. Fortunately in their spirited reply they give the reasons on account of which they are supposed to have shared in the rising. These were principally negative. Thus it was stated that their influence with the people was so great that had they ventured to oppose the spirit of revolt their words would have been listened to (Fasciculi Zizaniorum, p. 293). The chronicler of St. ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... between the statures of soldiers and sailors at the ages of seventeen and eighteen years." Mr. B.A. Gould endeavoured to ascertain the nature of the influences which thus act on stature; but he arrived only at negative results, namely that they did not relate to climate, the elevation of the land, soil, nor even "in any controlling degree" to the abundance or the need of the comforts of life. This latter conclusion is directly opposed to that arrived at by Villerme, from the statistics of ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... occasion, the Son of Man was asked what was thought a hard question by those who, in His day, professed "the negative Theology[590]." There was a moral and there was physical marvel to be solved. Both difficulties were met by a single sentence. The Sadducean judgment had gone astray from the Truth, (planasthe our SAVIOUR said,) from a twofold cause: (1) ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... proper names. Do they apply to these as strictly as to ordinary words? 'This is a question that has often been asked . . . but it has never been boldly answered' (i. 297). Mr. Max Muller cannot have forgotten that Curtius answered boldly—in the negative. 'Without such rigour all attempts at etymology are impossible. For this very reason ethnologists and mythologists should make themselves acquainted with the simple principles of ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... Lord V——, as your husband, becomes a negative quantity as to your happiness, yet he will acquire another species of value as the master of your family and the father of your children; as a person who supports your public consequence, and your private self-complacency. Yes, dear Lady ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... "silence implying sound," but the discord breaking the harmony. Evil is as real as the fire that burns you, as the flood that drowns you. Evil is as real as the typhoid germ that you can put under a microscope and see it squirm and grow. Evil is negative,—yes, but it is a real negative,—as real as darkness, as real ...
— Joy & Power • Henry van Dyke
... irresistibly prone to action. Goodness is usually negative and inert. Dr. Primrose is a type of goodness. In order to invest him with piquancy and dramatic vigour Henry Irving gave him passion, and therewithal various attributes of charming eccentricity. The ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... A peculiar use of the preposition de, allied to, and possibly derived from, the partitive after a negative: Il n'y a pas de mariage. It would be more natural today to say un mariage ... une union. The use of the form de mariage is easily explained by the ellipsis of ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... unobtrusively, to remind old acquaintances of his own or of his dead uncle's (the last viscount's) existence. Nobody could answer that question; but "What was she?" seemed simpler of solution as a puzzle, at least in a negative way; for certainly she was not a lady. And one or two Americans who had lived in the South of their own country insisted that she had a "touch of the tar brush." She confessed to having passed some years in South Africa, "in the country a good deal of the time." And something was said by gossips ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... so, that at root the Eugenist is the Employer, there are multitudinous proofs on every side, but they are of necessity miscellaneous, and in many cases negative. The most enormous is in a sense the most negative: that no one seems able to imagine capitalist industrialism being sacrificed to any other object. By a curious recurrent slip in the mind, as irritating as a catch in a clock, people miss the main thing and concentrate on the mean thing. ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... most convincing reasons," says Theobald, "I shall with great cheerfulness banish it as a bad and unsupported conjecture" (id. ii., p. 477); and this remark is typical of the whole correspondence. A considerable share of the merit of Theobald's edition—though the share is mostly negative—belongs to Warburton, for Theobald had not taste enough to keep him right when he stepped beyond collation of the older editions or explanation by parallel passages. Indeed, the letters to Warburton, besides helping ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... heretofore to be the "prettiest village in England," a claim as impossible of acceptance as some other of the challenges made by seaside towns. But it is unfair to class Studland with the usual run of such resorts; perhaps its best claims upon us are negative ones. It has no railway station, no pier, no bandstand, no parade, in fact the old village turns its back upon the sea in an ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes
... this kind of negative praise, that needs more wary caution, by purposely giving strange advice and suggestions, and by adopting absurd corrections. For if he raises no objection but nods assent to everything, and approves of everything, and is always crying out, "Good! ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... several volumes of "The Spectator" and "Roderick Random." Of the former I read a good deal. The latter was a story which a boy who had scarcely read any other would naturally follow with interest. Two circumstances connected with the reading, one negative and the other positive, I recall. Looking into the book after attaining years of maturity, I found it to contain many incidents of a character that would not be admitted into a modern work. Yet I read it through without ever noticing or retaining any impression ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... superficies of 15x20 centimeters, and is cut out of the ordinary commercial sheet metal. It may be turned upside down when one end has become worn away, thus permitting of its being entirely utilized. The negative electrode is formed of four carbons, which have, each of them, a superficies of 8x21 centimeters. These four carbons are less fragile and are more easily handled than two having the same surface. Their ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... surface?" Murell continued. "It's a thousand to one against us, but if we stay here our chances are precisely one hundred per cent negative." ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... to their essences and causes. These Newton calls the phenomena of things; but the pride of philosophy is unwilling to admit its ignorance of their causes. From the phenomena, which are the objects of our senses, we attempt to infer a cause, which we call God, and gratuitously endow it with all negative and contradictory qualities. From this hypothesis we invent this general name, to conceal our ignorance of causes and essences. The being called God by no means answers with the conditions prescribed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... said, refilling his glass. "Their value, as you say, is purely negative. Yet, believe me, it does not impair them. You have only to place them before you and do exactly opposite. It is the best way I can think of for you to become a decent and self-respecting man. And now you have the only reason why I permit you in my society. The lesson has already ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... Royall power assurance be had from his Majesty by his solemn Oath under his hand and Seal for settling Religion according to the Covenant, That their Lordships should keep themselves from owning any quarrel concerning his Majesties Negative voice, That the managing of the publike affairs, might be intrusted onely to such persons as have given constant proof of their integrity, and against whom there is no just cause of exception or jealousie, and that there might be no Engagement without a solemn ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... Dayton (one of my aides) were sent to meet him, and to keep him in conversation as long as possible. They soon returned, saying it was the adjutant of the rebel general Chalmers, who demanded the surrender of the place. I instructed them to return and give a negative answer, but to delay him as much as possible, so as to give us time for preparation. I saw Anthony, Dayton, and the rebel bearer of the flag, in conversation, and the latter turn his horse to ride back, when ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... serious—that he was not simply desirous of a little amusing talk, but starving, starving for a little human sympathy, a little brotherly love and comradeship?—that he was in an abnormally sensitive condition of mind, where mere negative unresponsiveness could hurt him like a slight or ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... these, that "it is indestructible by any operation to which it can be subjected in the ordinary course of circumstances observed at the surface of the globe."[1] The very utmost which any man can assert in this matter is a negative, a want of knowledge, or a want of power. He can say, "Human power can not destroy matter;" and, if he pleases, he may reason thence that human power did not create it. But to assert that matter is eternal because ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... kill 'em all, according to this experiment,—said the Master.—-Good as far as it goes. One more negative result. Do you know what would have happened if that liquid had been clouded, and we had found life in the sealed flask? Sir, if that liquid had held life in it the Vatican would have trembled to hear it, and there would have been anxious questionings and ominous whisperings in the halls of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... returned a most decided negative, adding that among his people no soldier relinquished his weapons except with his life, which chivalrous boast Squanto ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... Academy thought that they were following the example of Socrates, (and Cicero appears to have thought so too,) when they reasoned against everything, and laid it down as a system, that against every affirmative position an equal force of negative argument could be brought as a counterpoise: now this view of Socrates is, in my judgment, not only partial, but incorrect. He entertained no such doubts of the powers of the mind to attain certainty. About physics he thought man could know nothing; but respecting the topics which concern man and ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the judge with respect, although he could not see me, and asked the clerk if I had anything to pay. He replied in the negative, and a dispute ensued between him and the attorney of my fair enemy, who was disgusted on hearing that she could not leave the court without paying the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... correct." Now I propose to disprove his general law by simply giving one instance of its failing. One instance is quite enough. In logical language, in order to disprove a "universal affirmative," it is enough to prove its contradictory, which is a "particular negative." (I must pause for a digression on Logic, and especially on Ladies' Logic. The universal affirmative "everybody says he's a duck" is crushed instantly by proving the particular negative "Peter says he's a goose," which is equivalent to "Peter does not say he's a duck." And the universal negative ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... don't Rob God of his evening, you'll never subsist in the world. All the denials of God, in the world, use to be from this Fallacy impos'd upon us. It never can be necessary for us to violate any Negative Commandment in the Law of our God; where God says, thou shalt not, we cannot upon any pretence reply, I must. But the Devil will put a most formidable and astonishing face of necessity upon many of those Abominable ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... all who knew her, would clear her of censoriousness: that it gave her some opinion, she must needs say, of the people, that he had continued there so long with me; that I had rather negative than positive reasons of dislike to them; and that so shrewd a man as she heard Captain Tomlinson was had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson |
