"Refutation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... admit that Scripture is perfect because resting on an endless unbroken tradition; but must we then not admit that texts evidently presupposing the view of duality, as e.g. 'Let him who desires the heavenly world offer the Jyotishtoma-sacrifice'—are liable to refutation?—True, we reply. As in the case of the Udgtri and Pratihartri breaking the chain (not at the same time, but) in succession [FOOTNOTE 26:1], so here also the earlier texts (which refer to duality and transitory rewards) are sublated by the later texts which teach final ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... so endowed with moral courage and regard for virtue, should be moved by the fear of man to such a course. He dreaded not the charge of cowardice from the mouths of fools. In his own bosom he had its ample refutation. He was conscious of a fortitude which no dangers could shake. To display it in murdering a fellow-citizen was not his ambition. He had before him the tented field and the enemies of his country, and he was pledged for the hazards of a ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... full in the light. The theory is, that genius is a sort of abnormal development of the imagination, to the detriment and loss of the practical powers, and that a genius is therefore a kind of incapable, incompetent being, as far as worldly matters are concerned. The most complete refutation of this notion lies in the fact that the greatest genius the world has known was a successful man in common affairs. While his genius grew in strength, fervour, and executive power, his worldly condition rose ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... arguments of those who wish to separate secular rights from spiritual rights, placing the former under the control of the sovereign, and the latter under the control of the universal Church; such pretensions are too frivolous to merit refutation. (58) I cannot however, pass over in silence the fact that such persons are woefully deceived when they seek to support their seditious opinions (I ask pardon for the somewhat harsh epithet) by the example of the Jewish high priest, who, in ancient times, had the right ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... who gave it to Paracelsus, by whom it was bequeathed to the eminent Italian physician, Giambattista della Porta, and finally was acquired by Doctor Fludd. In reply to this attack, the latter published a vigorous refutation, under the following caption: "The Squeezing of Parson Foster's Spunge, wherein the Spunge-bearer's immodest carriage and behaviour towards his brethren, is Detected; the Bitter Flames of his slanderous reports are, by the sharp ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... is it that thy mind is not moved at sight of thy brothers and myself (in such distress)? It is said that there is no Kshatriya in the world who is bereft of anger. I now behold in thee, however, a refutation of the proverb! That Kshatriya, O son of Pritha, who discovereth not his energy when the opportunity cometh, is ever disregarded by all creatures! Therefore, O king, thou shouldst not extend thy forgiveness to the foe. Indeed, with thy energy, without doubt, thou, mayst slay them all! So ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is constrained by the first fictitious idea to keep all its other thoughts in harmony therewith. (8) Our opponents are thus driven to admit, in support of their fiction, the absurdities which I have just enumerated; and which are not worthy of rational refutation. ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... was the memory of his early conflict with the Aristotelians at Pisa, of his scornful and successful refutation of their absurdities. All this made him specially obnoxious to the Aristotelian Jesuits in their double capacity both of priests and of philosophers, and they singled him out for ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences. My own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to the house, to bring ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... anti-geologists,—a clergyman of the English Church,—only three years ago, in a publication written, he says, to counteract "the immense mischief occasioned by the infidel works of geologists, especially among the lower classes," and which he has termed "a brief and complete refutation" of their "anti-scriptural theory."[37] "Fossils," says this courageous writer, "were not necessarily animated structures:" some of them were in all probability "formed of stone from the very first;" others, of inanimate flesh and bone. "The mammoth found under the ice in arctic ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... with a surprise of beauty. What if all his happy faith in the purpose of life, and the Divine presence through all its course, were but a reflex from the private and personal love that had once been his and was still above and around him? Such a doubt contained its own refutation: ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... Sovnarkom—that is, the Council of the People's Commissars of the Soviet government. As is well known, the elaborate and intricate governmental system of Soviet Russia centers ultimate authority in this Council of People's Commissars, which consists of seventeen members. A most striking refutation of the statement made by the Dearborn Independent is found in the fact that of the seventeen members of this supreme Bolshevist authority only one, Trotzky, is a Jew. The ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... he cooled down—which he will do by to-morrow morning—to pity her, and that is next to the last thing I want him to do. Thank goodness! the denouement is over, and the topic an interdicted one from this time forth. Now for the verification or refutation of the saying that a heart is most easily caught in the rebound. There was some jargon we learned at school about the angle of incidence being equal to that of reflection. You see, my dearly beloved ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... general mind, there is no such imbecility abroad; no such disposition to traffic or go halves, temporize or capitulate with treason. One only error is prevalent: it has been noticed by Sir R. Peel, who indeed overlooked nothing; but it may be well to put the refutation into another form. The caballing for dissolution of the Union, why should that be treasonable? Is the Act of Union more than an Act of Parliament? Is not every act of Parliament open to objection, petition, annulment? No. It is dismemberment, says Sir Robert Peel, of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... by "Lowell lawyers." This seemed almost too foolish a suggestion to contradict, but the editor of the "Offering" thought it best to give the name and occupation of some of the writers by way of refutation. It was for this reason (much against my own wish) that my real name was first attached to anything I wrote. I was then book-keeper in the cloth-room of the Lawrence Mills. We had all used any fanciful signature we chose, varying it as we pleased. After I began to read and love Wordsworth, ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... he can believe that slaveholding prevailed during the ministry of Jesus Christ among the Jews and in accordance with the authority of Moses, he would do the reading public an important service to record the grounds of his belief—especially in a fair and full refutation of that Argument. Till that is done, we hold ourselves excused from attempting to prove what we now repeat, that if the Jews during our Savior's incarnation held slaves, they must have done so in open and flagrant violation of the letter and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and grant without grudging what a certain professor of science demands. Dr. James Martineau says, "In so far as Church belief is still committed to a given kosmogony and natural history of man, it lies open to scientific refutation"; and again, "The whole history of the Genesis of things Religion must unconditionally surrender to the Sciences." [421] In this we willingly concur, for science ought to be, and will be, supreme in its own domain. Bishop Temple does "not hesitate to ascribe to Science a clearer knowledge of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... himself determined to rule or perish, and the declaration was followed by this demand. It would be said that, at last, when a clash of arms was imminent, Riel objected to forcible measures; but this document was a refutation of that assertion. At Duck Lake the prisoner had taken upon himself the responsibility of ordering his men to fire on the police. At Fish Creek, if Riel was not there, he directed the movement, and was therefore responsible. On the day of ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... statute 771 of the penal code to her case. This is a decided and gross violation of the basic principles of our criminal law. In view of the reasons stated, I have the honour of appealing to you, etc., etc., the refutation, according to 909, 910, and section 2, 912 and 928 statute of the criminal code, etc., etc. . . . to carry this case before another department of the same Court for a further examination. There; all that can be done is done, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... liberation must come from the enlargement of the mind by wider and more accurate views of the natural universe. As this takes place, the mediaeval beliefs must drop away of themselves, and we now see that this process is actually in operation. So far from devoting a life to the refutation of theological error, I would not bestow upon such an unnecessary and thankless toil the labor of a week ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... But the reasons brought to bear against suicide by the priests of monotheistic, that is of Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves to it, are weak sophisms easily contradicted.[20] Hume has furnished the most thorough refutation of them in his Essay on Suicide, which did not appear until after his death, and was immediately suppressed by the shameful bigotry and gross ecclesiastical tyranny existing in England. Hence, only a very few copies of it were sold secretly, and those at ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Augustus Howard blushed indignant refutation of the calumnious charge. Vargrave continued,—"As for me, I shall be delighted to meet any friends of yours, and am greatly obliged for your consideration. We may dismiss the postboys, Howard; and what time shall we summon ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... contribution of the nineteenth century towards the solution of a world-old problem, has not been carried beyond the stage of hypothesis, and must be passed on, with its burden of interesting corollaries, to another generation for the experimental evidence that will lead to its acceptance or its refutation. Our century has given experimental proof of the existence of the atom, but has not been able to fathom in the same way the exact form or nature of this ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... derangement is grotesquely reverenced as part of the stigmata of heroic powers. All of which is gross nonsense. Unfortunately, in Shakespear's case, prudery, which cannot prevent the accusation from being whispered, does prevent the refutation from being shouted. Mr Harris, the deep-voiced, refuses to be silenced. He dismisses with proper contempt the stupidity which places an outrageous construction on Shakespear's apologies in the sonnets for neglecting that ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... if not sole, author. That publication gave me for the first time the means of refuting a vile slander which had been doing its deadly work in secret for nearly seventeen years. The following correspondence with General Grant shows the character of that slander, and its complete refutation: ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... respectable portion of Crockett's constituents were so annoyed that their representative should be thus held up to the contempt of the nation, that Crockett felt constrained to present a reliable refutation of the story. He therefore obtained and published certificates from three gentlemen, testifying to his good behavior at the table. Hon. Mr. Verplanck, of ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... in silence, is a prodigious effort of mental strength; but when he commences to speak, and to manage these, with other equally important operations of his own mind at the same moment, the difficulty of succeeding is greatly increased. When he begins to pour forth his refutation in an uninterrupted flow of luminous eloquence;—meeting, combating, and setting aside his opponent's statements and reasonings;—carefully marking, as he goes along, the effect produced upon his hearers, and adapting his arguments to the varying emotions and circumstances of the audience;—withholding, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... new debt, but the reacknowledgment of liability for an old one, the payment of which had devolved on those members of the system, who, at the time, were alone capable of paying it. And thence was inferred, not only the justice of the measure, but a complete refutation of the arguments drawn from the constitution. If, in point of fact, the debt was in its origin continental, and had been transferred to the states for greater facility of payment, there could be no ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Hamlet's apology, I will add a remark on it from a different point of view. It forms another refutation of the theory that Hamlet has delayed his vengeance till he could publicly convict the King, and that he has come back to Denmark because now, with the evidence of the commission in his pocket, he can safely accuse him. If that were so, what better opportunity could ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... of those who pity and despise the minute analysis of external criticism hardly deserves refutation. There is only one argument for the legitimacy and honourable character of the obscure labours of erudition, but it is a decisive argument: it rests on their indispensability. No erudition, no history. "Non sunt contemnenda ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... 4. "A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States, respecting the institution and existence of slavery among them. To which is added a minute and particular account of the actual state and condition of their Negro Population, together with Historical Notices of all the ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the importance of Count de Rayneval's report, or the influence which it exercised over the public mind of Europe, when, at length, through the agency of the British and Belgian press, it obtained publicity. A refutation of Cavour's interested calumnies, so able, distinct and straightforward, powerfully impressed the minds of British statesmen, and caused them to see the grievous error into which they had been betrayed at the Congress of Paris, by Count Cavour and the Emperor Louis Napoleon, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Thracian tribes—interesting as it is from the juxtaposition of Greek and Thracian manners. It seems to have been composed by Xenophon under feelings of acute personal disappointment, and probably in refutation of calumnies against himself as if he had wronged the army. Hence we may trace in it a tone of exaggerated querulousness, and complaint that the soldiers were ungrateful to him. It is true that a portion of the ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... and mental vigour until his death at 86. His writings, distinguished by logical rigour of method and clearness of style, exercised a profound influence in France as well as at home; but his attempted refutation of Berkeley is now generally ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... a very interesting record is left in the narrative of Mr. Kennedy, occupied the interval between July, 1813, and March, 1814. The period was not productive of literary masterpieces. We only hear of a "Refutation of Deism", a dialogue between Eusebes and Theosophus, which attacked all forms ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... with Webster's contention that Congress may regulate as truly by inaction as by action, since inaction may indicate its wish that the matter go unregulated; but the Chief Justice did not explicitly adopt this idea, and the major part of his opinion was a running refutation of Emmet's argument, which in turn was only an elaboration of Chancellor Kent's opinion upon the same subject in the New York courts. * In other words, this was one of those cases in which Marshall's indebtedness to counsel was far less for ideas than for the stimulation which his ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... of The Khartoum Campaign, 1898, can be read the detailed version of events which happened in the field "before" as well as "after" Omdurman. I venture to think that abundant refutation will be found in the Work of most of Mr Bennett's scandalous assertions. Although it may seem to lend further temporary importance to what that gentleman has written, as his accusations were made public under the cover of a respectable ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the express restitution of St. Germain's, and the possession taken by France in consequence of the treaty of Breda, after a long discussion of the limits and the declaration of France during the negotiation of the treaty of Utrecht, were foreign to the point in question. In refutation of these maxims, the English commissaries proved, from an examination of the maps and historians cited by the French in support of their system, that if this question was to be decided upon the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... special facilities in producing or in disposing of their goods. Even the Standard Oil Company, as we saw, claimed that a policy of consolidation was forced upon it by the conditions of the market. But this claim is not a refutation, but an admission of the statement that the object of a Trust is to obtain monopoly prices; for these ruinously low prices and profits are the result of free competition, and the only alternative to this free competition ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... situated on each branch of the coronal suture, and the male possesses an additional one placed more anteriorly, and occupying the middle of the frontal suture. The anomalous position of this appendage furnishes a complete refutation of the theory of Camper with regard to the unicorn, that such an occurrence was contrary to nature, and proves at least the possibility of the existence of such an animal. Professor Camper is an ass, of course; but when are we to expect any thing better from the illustrissimi of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 387, August 28, 1829 • Various
... uses to represent a priori the connection of objects. And hence, Kant defines psychologically and logically a whole system of similar concepts. His "Critique of Pure Reason'' is intended historically and logically as the refutation of Hume's skepticism. It aims to show that not only metaphysics and natural science have for their basis "synthetic judgments a priori,'' but that mathematics also rests on the ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... some years ago published a very able essay in the "Christian Review," the title of which was, "Sin a Nature, and that Nature Guilt." This title is a sufficient refutation of the essay. A man could not utter a more palpable contradiction, if he said, "The sun solid, and that solid fluid," or, "The earth black, and that ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... Aubrey's friend, the boy of ingenuous face, could under any provocation strike helpless old age, or, having struck, could abscond without calling aid, actuated by terror, not by pity or repentance, was more than Dr. May could believe, and after brief musing, he broke out in indignant refutation. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yellow like Steve, Clint? Mebbe I'm a bad hombre all right. But you've known me twenty years. What license have you ever had to think I'd leave a kid like her for the 'Paches to play with?" The hard eyes of the outlaw challenged a refutation of his claim. ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... the sacrifices is proved by the following scriptural text: 'To whose sacrifice do the gods go, and to whose not? He who first receives the gods, sacrifices to them on the following day' (Taitt. Samh. I, 6, 7, 1). In refutation of this objection the Suutra points out that there is seen, i.e. recorded, the assumption of several bodies at the same time, on the part of beings endowed with special powers, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... the Index. Better pamphlet-fighting has not been seen since Bentley. The hardship of the matter is, that people are commonly more ready to believe slander than to trouble themselves with reading a refutation of it. It gave us particular satisfaction to see that the American Association for the Advancement of Science had shown its sense of the merits of the quarrel by electing Dr. Gould vice-president ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... into those eyes with a sort of scared defiance. The great clawed paws of the beast, the strength and remorseless serenity of that crouching creature with human head, made living by his imagination and the moonlight, seemed to him like a temptation to deny God, like a refutation of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a waste of time to dispute the matter, for he merely listened to what I had to say, and then, without an attempt at refutation, repeated in the same tone as before, and exactly in the same words, his statement that "Adam lost Paradise for the reason that he allowed Eve to ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... often such that if an ill-natured critic were to assert that the compilers had degraded and limited the old music in order to set off their own, it would be difficult to meet him with a logical refutation. ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... France in the northern area, at the present time, would seem to be a refutation of the truth that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. For in order to arrive at one's destination, it is usually necessary to go about sixty miles out of one's way,—hence ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... as to its consequences in the domain of theology has been strangely exaggerated by many, both of its opponents and supporters. This is especially the case with that form of the evolution theory which is associated with the name of Mr. Darwin; and yet neither the refutation nor the demonstration of that doctrine would be necessarily accompanied by the results which are hoped for by one ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... from the fact that while there is a little of the perfervid eloquence of 1840 in it, as well as a good deal of the rather boisterous humor of the time, a part of it is devoted to a careful examination of the statements of his opponents, and a refutation of them ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 5, April, 1896 • Various
... decry the measures of those who were supposed to be friends to America, in order to weaken the effect of their opposition to the acts of rigor then preparing against the colonies. The speech contains a full refutation of the charges against that party with which Mr. Burke has all along acted. In doing this, he has taken a review of the effects of all the schemes which have been successively adopted in the government of the plantations. The subject is interesting; the matters ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... who reported it, but it is worth mentioning, as a proof that no calumny was too senseless to be invented concerning the man whose character was from that hour forth to be the mark of slander, and whose whole life was to be its signal, although often unavailing, refutation. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... work was followed a few years later by his more famous book De Betoverde Weereld, or The Enchanted World, [Footnote: Le Monde enchante, ou Examen des sentimens touchant les esprits, traduit du flamand en francais (Amsterdam, 1694, 4 vols., in-l2). One Benjamin Binet wrote a refutation, entitled Traite historique des Dieux et des Demons du paganisme, avec des remarques sur le systeme de Balthazar Bekker (Delft, 1696, in-l2).] in which he refuted the vulgar notions with regard to demoniacal possession. This work created ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... p. 2. 2 Ana. XVIII. iii 3 Sze-ma Ch'ien makes the first observation to have been addressed directly to Confucius. 4 According to the above account Confucius was only once, and for a portion of two years, in Ch'i. For the refutation of contrary accounts, see Chiang Yung's Life of the Sage. 5 w. 6 . ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... Episcopal chaplain to the House of Assembly, the question, "Is the Church of England an established church in Upper Canada?" was again debated in the House of Assembly and discussed in the newspapers. With a view to a calm, dispassionate, and historical refutation of the claims set up by the Episcopal Church on the subject, Dr. Ryerson reprinted in the Guardian of this day, the sixth of a series of letters which he had addressed from Cobourg to Archdeacon Strachan, in May and June, 1828. It covered the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... he began to testify to a growing and a decisive division between the two primary interests of American life,—between the interest of the individual business man and the interest of the body politic; and he became a living refutation of the amiable theories of the Jacksonian Democrat that the two must substantially coincide. The business man had become merely a business man, and the conditions which had made him less of a politician had also had its effect upon the men whose business was that of politics. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... suggestions that, in the effect wrought, elude all the senses equally. For the sake of this, their prime office, the rest is many times forgotten or scorned, the tune is disordered and havoc played with the lineaments of the picture, because without these the word can still do its business. The refutation of those critics who, in their analysis of the power of literature, make much of music and picture, is contained in the most moving passages that have found utterance from man. Consider the intensity of a saying like that of St. Paul:- "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... had once declared it to be an all-sufficient refutation of the idea of the Fatality, that he had never met with the timber-ship in any of his voyages at sea, so he now seized on the similarly derived conclusion, that the whole claim of the Dream to a supernatural origin stood self-refuted ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... after this first refutation of Bulow's idea, the concentric retreat of Barclay and Bagration saved the Russian army. Although it did not prevent Napoleon's first success, it was, in the end, the ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... vindication, a refutation and an apology. It takes up a goodly list of zealous calumniators and cheerful prevaricators and tacks their pelts on the barn-door ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... 206. The paper is "On the Brain of the Orang Utang," and forms part of the bitter controversy of this period to which reference occurs in letters to Huxley and elsewhere in these volumes. Rolleston's work is quoted by Huxley ("Man's Place in Nature," page 117) as part of the crushing refutation of Owen's position. Mr. Huxley's letter referred to above is no doubt that in the "Athenaeum," April 13th, 1861, page 498; it is certainly severe, but to those who know Mr. Huxley's "Succinct History of the Controversy," etc. ("Man's Place in Nature," page 113), it will not seem too severe.) I ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... by a hoist of the haunches, which invariably compelled Paddy to clasp his mistress round the waist for safety—a situation which, however repugnant to maiden bashfulness, time, and perhaps necessity, had reconciled her to. At all events, poor Paddy's terror would have been the amplest refutation of scandal, while the stern immobility of Miss Betty during the embrace would ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... born in the year 1663, son of Ezekiel King, a gentleman of London. He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford. He early inherited a fair estate, took his Master of Arts degree in 1688, and began his career as writer with a refutation of attacks upon Wiclif in the "History of Heresy," by M. Varillas. He then chose law for a profession, in 1692 graduated as LL.D., and was admitted an Advocate at Doctor's Commons. He kept a light heart and a lighter purse than beseemed ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... disait-il, est la ressource du malheureux, quelquefois meme celle du philosophe; n'enlevons pas a la pauvre espece humaine cette consolation, que la Providence divine lui a menagee."[98] He had a distinct dislike for philosophical arguments in refutation of things spiritual, and one day on being asked as to what he considered the nature of the soul, he replied, "Je sais qu'elle est spirituelle et immortelle, et je n'en sais rien de plus "; and when it was suggested to refer the discussion to Fontenelle, ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... the arguments in favor of our own side, but also those presented by our opponents. That part of our theme which states our own arguments is called direct argument, and that part in which we reply to our opponents is called indirect argument or refutation. It is often very important to show that the opposing argument is false or, if true, has been given an exaggerated importance that it does not really possess. If, however, the argument is true and of weight, the fact ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... There is an excellent refutation of Puseyism in the 'Edinburgh Review'—by whom? and I have been reading besides the admirable paper by Macaulay in the same number. And now I must be done; having resolved to let you hear without a post's delay. Otherwise I might have ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... with it was the refutation Frederick the Great published under the title Examen de l'Essai sur les prjugs, Londres, Nourse, 1770 (16 mo). The King of Prussia writing from the point of view of a practical, enlightened despot, took special exception to Holbach's ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... the collateral events in England and those of the colony, at the time and after granting the Royal Charter, is requisite to a correct understanding of the question, and for the refutation of those statements by which it was ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... world's affairs generally, I may say that here at home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present causes is that "time will show." As to the present causes of past effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for the last year's cattle plague—which is a refutation of philosophy falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. My own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... I take to be a general refutation of materialism. To use but a mild epithet, we must conclude that the theory is unphilosophical, seeing that it assumes one thing to be produced by another thing, in spite of an obvious demonstration that ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... presumed to follow the great Las Casas, who called all the historians of the Conquest of Mexico liars; and though his labored refutation of their fictions has disappeared, yet, fortunately, the natural evidences of their untruth still remain. Having before me the surveys and the levels of our own engineers, I have presumed to doubt that water ever ran ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... having risen into such a Chorus of TE DEUM at sight of it next year. In this year falls, what at any rate was a great event to Friedrich, as literary man: the printing of his first Book,—assiduous writing of it with an eye to print. The Book is that "celebrated ANTI-MACHIAVEL," ever-praiseworthy Refutation of Machiavel's PRINCE; concerning which there are such immensities of Voltaire Correspondence, now become, like the Book itself, inane to all readers. This was the chosen soul's employment of Friedrich, the flower ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... this thought enhanced his irritation than he had its refutation in the discovery of the chauffeur affectionately embracing a lamp-post three or four doors away, toward Sixth Avenue; and so singular seemed this sight that P. Sybarite wondered if, by any chance, the fellow had found time to get drunk ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... Domingo's summary, which was drawn up with perfect impartiality and great clearness, Sepulveda presented twelve objections to the arguments of Las Casas, each of which he argued with great subtlety and erudition. The refutation of these twelve objections by Las Casas, closed this memorable controversy; in none of his writings is the character of the Protector of the Indians more fully revealed than in this final discourse before ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... the Discourse of Vulgar Errors, seeming, as it often does, to be a serious refutation of fairy tales—arguing, for instance, against the literal truth of the poetic statement that "The pigeon hath no gall," and such questions as "Whether men weigh heavier dead than alive?" being characteristic questions—is designed, with much ambition, under its ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... alleged means by which Chief Justice Sir John Popham acquired its possession. It is told by Aubrey, Sir Walter Scott, and many others, and is too notorious to be here repeated. Let me ask you or your learned correspondents whether there exists any refutation of a charge so seriously detrimental to the character of any judge, and so inconsistent with the reputation which Chief Justice Popham enjoyed among his cotemporaries? See Lord Ellesmere's notice of him in the case of the Postnati (State ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... rapidly in France, where Voltaire and many inferior writers were introducing the contagion of English freethinking. A solid Swiss pastor and professor of philosophy, Jean Pierre Crousaz (1663-1750), undertook the task of refutation, and published an examination of Pope's philosophy in 1737 and 1738. A serious examination of this bundle of half-digested opinions was in itself absurd. Some years afterwards (1751) Pope came under a more powerful critic. The Berlin Academy ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... ENGLAND:—Copy of a Letter written by a Spanish Gentleman to his Friend in England in refutation of sundry Calumnies there falsely bruited among the People, 1589—An Advertisement written to a Secretarie of my Lord Treasurer of Ingland by an Inglish Intelligencer as he passed through Germanie towards Italie; also a Letter written by ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... all the summer, and as it is now the first of September, her school has begun again. I do not by any means intend to imply that Brampton is not a pleasant place to spend the summer: the number of its annual visitors is a refutation of that; but to Cynthia the season had been one of great unhappiness. Several times Lem Hallowell had stopped the stage in front of Ephraim's house to beg her to go to Coniston, and Mr. Satterlee had come himself; but she could not have borne to be there without ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... you; and I believe nobody can, not even those who are to make them: they will, I suppose, be occasional, as people behave themselves. The causes and consequences of Mr. Pitt's quarrel now appear in print, in a pamphlet published by Lord T———; and in a refutation of it, not by Mr. Pitt himself, I believe, but by some friend of his, and under his sanction. The former is very scurrilous and scandalous, and betrays private conversation. My Lord says, that in his last conference, he thought he had as good a right to nominate the new Ministry ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... hopelessly unattainable by them. I should not dream of approving the saying of Lord Beaconsfield: "Books are fatal; they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense." Lord Beaconsfield did not believe in the slap-dash words which he put into the mouth of Mr. Phoebus, nor did he believe that the greatness of the English aristocracy arises from the facts that "they don't read books, and they live in the open ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... was grave enough to demand a refutation in Parliament, which Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell were ready to give as soon as ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... River have detected evidences of Judaism amongst the Mpongwe, which deserve notice but which hardly require detailed refutation. 1. Circumcision, even on the eighth day as amongst the Efik of the old Calabar River; but this is a familiar custom borrowed from Egypt by the Semites; it is done in a multitude of ways, which are limited only ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... question itself at the time, and not on the judgment or intentions of legislators of an earlier generation. And advocates weaken instead of strengthening their case when they put forward arguments which, however plausible or acceptable to their own partisans, are, nevertheless, capable of refutation. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... that I was watched, perhaps more closely than I imagined. It may be that spies were close about us, set by the jealous Philip, who desired confirmation or refutation of the things he had been told, the rumours that were gnawing ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... pleasing and a facetious man, acceptable unto all the parish of Gandercleugh, excepting only the Laird, the Exciseman, and those for whom he refused to draw liquor upon trust. Their causes of dislike I will touch separately, adding my own refutation thereof. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to prove that Capdenac was the site of Uxellodunum. The fact, however, that the spring is dry for several months in the year, and could never have been aught else but the drainage of the rock, is in itself a sufficient refutation of the hypothesis; because, according to Caesar, the fountain at Uxellodunum was so perennially abundant that when he drew off the water by tunnelling, the Gauls recognised in this disaster the intervention of ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... and refutation of the prejudice which almost universally exists against the climate and soil of North America generally, but especially of the divisions included in the Hudson's Bay Company's Territories, we cannot do better than quote the following ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... semi-contemptuous sentences, and said no more about them—not, at least, until late in life he wrote his "Erasmus Darwin," and even then his remarks were purely biographical; he did not say one syllable by way of refutation, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... permits me to adduce, it does not appear that any traces of his being instrumental to any persecution are to be found in his own writings, all which are extant, and the object of which is by no means the correction of the Bauddha or any other schism, but the refutation of all other doctrines besides his own, and the reformation or re-establishment of the fourth religious order." Further on he observes that "it is a popular error to ascribe to him the work of persecution; he does not appear at all occupied in that ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... large way, incapable of true self expression in his chosen field of political action, so self-centered that he forgot the world's tragedy and merged it into his own, making great things little and little things great, one of "life's ironies," the everlasting refutation of the optimistic notion that when there is a crisis fate produces a man big ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... legend of the direct creation of man according to a pre-conceived plan and the empty phrases about "design" in the organism are completely shattered by them. It would be difficult to conceive a more thorough refutation of teleology than is furnished by the fact that all the higher animals have ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... a Clytemnestra. It was in vain that Thomas Halliday and those jolly good fellows his friends and companions attested the Arcadian innocence of racecourses, and the perfect purity of that smoky atmosphere peculiar to tavern parlours. Georgy's suspicions were too vague for refutation; but they were nevertheless sufficient ground for all the alternations of temper—from stolid sulkiness to peevish whining, from murmured lamentations to loud hysterics—to which the ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... plague arising from ever-increasing poverty,... the main cause is the unrighteous and un-British system of Government, which produces an unceasing and ever increasing bleeding of the country," etc. etc.[43] Such language, such ideas, do not call for refutation, here at least; they are symptoms only of a state of mind now prevailing, out of which educated India must ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... the Herodotus mentioned by Galen[4] as a prominent physician in Rome, to have been the predecessor and master of Sextus, in whose place Sextus says that he is teaching.[5] Haas also thinks that Sextus' refutation of the identity of Pyrrhonism with Empiricism evidently refers to a paragraph in Galen's Subfiguratio Empirica,[6] which would be natural if the Hypotyposes were written shortly after Galen's Sub. Em., and in the same place. Further, ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... your virtue as well as your common sense. Your unanimity this day and through the course of the war is a decisive refutation of such invidious predictions. Our enemies have already had evidence that our present constitution contains in it the justice and ardor of freedom, and the wisdom and vigor of the most absolute system. When the law is the will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... upon the scene towards the end of the sixteenth century. Dirk Vorlkertsz Coornhert had written a very able refutation of the dogma of predestination. The Town Council of Amsterdam ordered Jacob Arminius to Write a book against Coornhert's work. But behold! when Arminius settled down to the task, and read Coornhert's argument carefully, he came to the conclusion that the other was right, and from an opponent ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... the first it was apparent that Cresson did not mean to encounter the author of the "Thoughts" in public debate. Even a mouse when cornered will show fight, but there was no manly fight in Cresson. Garrison sent him a letter containing seven grave charges against his society, and dared him to a refutation of them in a joint discussion. This challenge was presented four times before the agent of colonization could be persuaded to accept it. Garrison was bent on a joint public discussion between himself and Mr. ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... eloquence for which she is so remarkable, took the poet briskly to task for the depreciating opinion, which, as she understood, he entertained of all female intellect. Being but little inclined, were he even able, to sustain such a heresy, against one who was in her own person such an irresistible refutation of it, Lord Byron had no other refuge from the fair orator's arguments than in assent and silence; and this well-bred deference being, in a sensible woman's eyes, equivalent to concession, they became, from thenceforward, most cordial friends. In recalling ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... before the parents, and besought their consent that he might as soon as possible be able to call Louise his wife. Elise gasped for breath; the Judge made sundry objections, but for every one of these Jacobi had a reasonable and well-devised refutation. ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... illustrates the bitter hatred of the Romans for H. They alleged that H. was personally responsible for the war, and that he undertook it for selfish and party ends. Also that Carthage, unable to prevent the war, withheld supplies and reinforcements. Ihne says 'The whole course of the war is a sufficient refutation ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... then he should be praised. As to the manner, we must consider whether his manner of contending is in keeping with the persons and the matter in dispute, for then it would be praiseworthy, hence Tully says (De Rhet. ad Heren. iii) that "contention is a sharp speech suitable for proof and refutation"—or whether it exceeds the demands of the persons and matter in dispute, in which case ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... propoundings concerning God we would remind him of what he lays down on page 23—'of this Godhead in itself he alone is not imbecile—he alone is not impious who propounds nothing. A man who thus conclusively convicts himself of imbecility and impiety needs no further refutation.' Now the sentence, as I wrote it, and as I find it printed on that very page which the critic refers to and which must have been lying before him while he quoted my words, runs thus:—'Of this Godhead, in itself, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... as a complete refutation of the position taken by Hume, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... of this is, I think, obvious. The a priori assumption of the equality of men is, in some sense, easily refuted. But the refutation does not entitle us to assume that arbitrary inequality, inequality for which no adequate ground can be assigned, is therefore justifiable. It merely shows that the problem is more complex than has been assumed at first sight. "All men ought ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... a refutation of Walpole's assertion, that Bishop Hayter was a natural son of bishop Blackbourn's, see vol. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... readers to a similarly thorough refutation of the charge of anachronism brought against these letters on account of their use of the term 'Christian,' and suggest to them an examination of the interesting proofs of the position next secured,[79] that certain characteristics ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... reproachful, softening to tenderness. A Singularity of Sibyl's demeanour was that she seemed utterly forgetful of the dire position in which her husband stood. One would have thought that she had no concern beyond the refutation of an idle charge, which angered her indeed, but afforded scope for irony, possibly for play of wit. For the moment, Hugh himself had almost forgotten the worst; but he was bidden to proceed, and ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... weighed. If there be aught due the government, we have a right to know and measure it. If the charges are without support—and I have reason to believe that such is the situation—then Northern Consolidated is entitled to the refutation of a calumny that, whispered in some quarters and talked aloud in others, has borne ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... trial. His result was about 3.14. He came to London, and somebody sent him to me. Like many others of his pursuit, he seemed to have turned the whole force of his mind upon one of his points, on which alone he would be open to refutation. He had read some of Kater's experiments, and had got the Act of 1825 on weights and measures. Say what I would, he had for a long time but one answer—"Sir! I go upon Captain Kater and the Act of Parliament." But I fixed him at last. I happened to ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the testimony of all original enquirers who have specially investigated the matter; and that it has neither been, nor can be, supported by a single anatomical preparation. It would, in fact, be unworthy of serious refutation except for the general and natural belief that deliberate and reiterated assertions must have ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... has been alleged to be peculiar to man. In refutation of this assertion Darwin points to the decorative colours of birds, which are used for display. And to the last objection, that man alone has religion, that he alone has a belief in God, it is answered "that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... and go outside to get something to drink.—But the figures of their demands, as these have been summed up by their mess-room calculators, remain implanted in their brains; they have taken root there, and are constantly springing up without any account or refutation being able to extirpate them. No more writings nor speeches—what they want is money: 11,000 livres for the Beaune regiment, 39,500 livres for that of Forez, 44,000 livres for that of Salm, 200,000 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... they must be content to share with contemporary nations, however much it may cost them to abandon we know not what bounding ambitions which they have never succeeded in definitely describing in words. Mr. Lowell was a refutation of the fallacy that an American can never be American enough. He ranked with the students and the critics among all nations, and nothing marks his transatlantic conditions except, perhaps, that his scholarliness ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... most confidently, and without fear of refutation, assert it to be simply impracticable to induce and obtain from Chinese carpenters that accurate, close, substantial, and lasting workmanship which not only can be, but is derived from the convict artificers ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... but an injury to both is done by explaining away the obvious meaning of the letters and the sonnets I have quoted. The supposition that Michelangelo intended the Cavalieri letters to reach Vittoria Colonna through that friend's hands does not, indeed, deserve the complete refutation which I have given it. I am glad, however, to be able to adduce the opinion of a caustic Florentine scholar upon this topic, which agrees with my own, and which was formed without access to the original documents which I have been enabled ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... Willy Gum had fallen into some trouble, and the clerk had had to buy him out of it at the cost of a mint of money. The clerk, however, did not confirm this; and one thing was indisputable: Willy retained his place in the banking-house. Some people looked on this fact as a complete refutation of the rumour. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Grundy's Examination and Refutation of Mr Badeslate's new Cut Canal, &c. J. Roberts, [Transcriber's Note: price missing ...
— The Annual Catalogue (1737) - Or, A New and Compleat List of All The New Books, New - Editions of Books, Pamphlets, &c. • J. Worrall
... something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he loved, and she had been hastily preparing to interest Anne's feelings, as far as the observances due to Mr Elliot's character would allow, when Anne's refutation of the supposed engagement changed the face of everything; and while it took from her the new-formed hope of succeeding in the object of her first anxiety, left her at least the comfort of telling the whole story ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... most inferior weight to analogy as a method of reasoning. "Analogical evidence is generally more successful in silencing objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely refutes it frequently repels refutation; like those weapons which though they cannot kill the enemy, will ward his blows.... It must be allowed that analogical evidence is at least but a feeble support, and is hardly ever honored with the name of proof."[8] Other authorities on the other hand, such as Sir William Hamilton, admit ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... the bare mention of such an interpretation is a sufficient refutation of it: and his critical word will be rather taken in Greek than in English: in the same hands therefore I will venture to leave all our author's knowledge of the Old Comedy, and his etymological learning in ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... The refutation of these sayings has been the history of humanity, and yet no argument on political or social topics fails to contain them in one form or another. Even now, in the tremendous debate maintained by common logic and 'fist ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... alarmed my morality, and I very seriously began a refutation. But in vain. I might say what I would; she could see very plainly I was a prodigious rake, and nothing could convince her to the contrary. Though she had heard that your greatest rakes make the best husbands. Perhaps it might be true, but she did not think she could be persuaded to make the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... operative. It will be American, not because its scene is laid or its characters born in the United States, but because its burden will be reaction against old tyrannies and exposure of new hypocrisies; a refutation of respectable falsehoods, and a proclamation of unsophisticated truths. Indeed, let us take heed and diligently improve our native talent, lest a day come when the Great American Novel make its appearance, but written in a foreign language, and by some author ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... former President Cleveland in the Ladies' Home Journal, which refused to publish anything from anybody on the other side, 2,000 copies of articles by different persons and 1,000 of the excellent refutation by Representative John F. Shafroth of Colorado had been distributed. The report stated that Mrs. Ida Porter Boyer, the efficient chairman of Pennsylvania, had been sent by the National Association to supervise the press work of the Oregon campaign. It urged that grateful ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper |
