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Philosophical   Listen
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Philosophical, Philosophic  adj.  Of or pertaining to philosophy; versed in, or imbued with, the principles of philosophy; hence, characterizing a philosopher; rational; wise; temperate; calm; cool.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Philosophical" Quotes from Famous Books



... faultiness in our apprehension of it—the doctrine, in short, of what is termed "the subjectivity of knowledge." That is a consideration, indeed, [138] which lies as an element of weakness, like some admitted fault or flaw, at the very foundation of every philosophical account of the universe; which confronts all philosophies at their starting, but with which none have really dealt conclusively, some perhaps not quite sincerely; which those who are not philosophers dissipate ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater

... harmony, and science constitute the work of the first ten years, and philosophical study that of the last five. Fifteen years then are to be given to the service of the State, after which, at fifty, the student may return to the study of philosophy for the remainder ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley

... philosophical in the use of The Song of Songs to typify the communion of the soul with its ideal. The passion which is expressed by the Shulamite for her earthly lover in such glowing phrases becomes the type of the love of the soul ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... learned men were philosophical, even though they were philosophers. Abu Nizar Ibn Safi Malik An-Nuhat assumed the title "Prince of Grammarians," but if any other name was given to him by those addressing him he would ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... college, he retained the sunny outlook, the gladsomeness and the bloom of boyhood. Wherever he went he carried with him an atmosphere of joy. Fresh ingenuousness and glowing enthusiasm were part of his charm. There was a rich vein of the romantic in his character, but the cast of his mind was philosophical. He had no patience with superficiality masquerading as wisdom, and was quick to detect a fallacy in reasoning. A shining trait in him was truthfulness. He would never compromise or palter with the truth, either by way of suppression, or exaggeration, or casuistical refinement. What ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... 22d, but, in fact, written on Sunday the 21st, was received by the mail preceding the last, which brought nothing. This letter is a confirmation of my theory of provocations, which I have lately enlarged and more accurately defined, deducing it from philosophical principles, and adapting it to different climates. When this volume shall be ready for publication, I propose to add, in an appendix, by way of illustration, a series of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... now across his broad brown flannel chest, and the pistols gleamed in his belt below like fine ornaments. He wore a philosophical expression, and looked at his companion as if she were a new specimen of the human kind, and he was studying her variety, quite impersonally, it is true, but interestedly. There was something in his look that angered ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill

... latter with the scientific method of investigation. It had taken the utmost pains to make the contrast broad and deep, and to point out its far-reaching consequences by explicitly opposing (1) scientific realism to philosophical idealism in general, and in particular (2) constructive realism to constructive idealism, (3) critical realism to critical idealism, (4) ethical realism to ethical idealism, and (5) religious realism to religious ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot

... lay where he had fallen, believing himself alone; and time and place would no doubt conduce to philosophical reflection upon his condition. I like to think that he found that when all was considered, he had little with which to reproach himself. If he had done evil he had made ample amends. It can scarcely ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... synonymous, ought to be carefully observed; as in pride, haughtiness, arrogance: and the strict and critical meaning ought to be distinguished from that which is loose and popular; as in the word perfection, which, though in its philosophical and exact sense it can be of little use among human beings, is often so much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians have inserted in their work, the perfection of a language, and, with a little more ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... Cakya-Mouni, the great religious founders have not been metaphysicians. Buddhism itself, whose origin is in pure thought, has conquered one-half of Asia, by motives wholly political and moral. As to the Semitic religions, they are as little philosophical as possible. Moses and Mahomet were not men of speculation; they were men of action. It was in proposing action to their fellow-countrymen, and to their contemporaries, that they governed humanity. Jesus, in like manner, was not a theologian, or a philosopher, having a more or less well-composed ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... has been thrown on the subject by Sir James Hector, of the Philosophical Society of Wellington, New Zealand. At one of the Society's meetings, held in April last, Sir James showed several specimens of hydrida, some from Australasian Seas, others from the Atlantic. The usual habitat of sea snakes, ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... inquire whether any of these theological or philosophical lucubrations are yet extant. Was Sir Philip connected at all with Dr. Smith, or was he descended from Arthur ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various

... melting at times into symbol and figure—but far too living and real, addressed with too intense and natural feeling, to be the mere personification of anything. The lady of the philosophical Canzoni has vanished. The student's dream has been broken, as the boy's had been; and the earnestness of the man, enlightened by sorrow, overleaping the student's formalities and abstractions, reverted in sympathy to the earnestness of the boy, and brooded once more on that saint ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... a poetic nature, with the wealth and the leisure to realize the fancies of his dream. "A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied," says Wirt, "blooms around him. Music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled delights around him. And to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her sex, and graced with every accomplishment ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... that this is much less philosophical than the theory of creation quoted above from the Mundaka Upanishad.[51] If we compare Manu's account with the description of the "Beginning" found in one of the hymns of the Rig Veda,[52] we shall see that there has been ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... L500; three Professors, L400 each; the Professor of Surgery and Anatomy, and the Professor of Civil and Public Law, L200 each; in addition each Professor is to enjoy a moderate fee from the students attending his lectures; for the purchase of books for the Library, L300; for the purchase of Philosophical and Chemical apparatus, L250; for the purchase of Plants for the Botanic Garden, L100; Librarian's salary, L100; Gardener's salary, L100; Servants and Contingencies, L300." It was explained that smaller salaries were given to the Professors of Surgery and Law because ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan

... Letters—or, must I plead more warmly in his behalf? I can only urge on you that he does not present himself as fit for the top seats at the library table,—as aspiring to the company of those above him,—of classical, statistical, political, philosophical, historical, or antiquarian high dignitaries of his class, of whom he is at best but the poor relation. Treat him not, as you treat such illustrious guests as these! Toss him about anywhere, from hand to hand, as good-naturedly as you can; stuff ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His work was purely deductive. His major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. Yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, were among the most important points ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... initiated present; but it seemed as if the fear of losing their teachers quickened the zeal of the Christian converts in bringing their friends to inquire. Shwaygnong had long been unconsciously preparing the way by his philosophical instructions, going so much deeper than the popular Buddhism, and he brought several of his pupils, both male and female, telling them that "he had found the true wisdom;" but he still hung back. {f:137} Mr. Judson suspected him of wanting a companion of his own rank to keep him in countenance, ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... taught by Mr. Rowe, where he had for his companions and fellow-students Mr. Hughes the poet, and Dr. Horte, afterwards archbishop of Tuam. Some Latin essays, supposed to have been written as exercises at this academy, show a degree of knowledge, both philosophical and theological, such as very few attain by a much longer ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... And I'm tired of drifting in here nights at your beck and call, to be sent home like a kid when your mood changes. Mighty amusing for us! If you're not vivisecting our lives and characters for us in that impudent, philosophical way you have, you're preaching a sermon that you couldn't—and wouldn't—follow yourself. And then you end by messing everybody's cards in a heap and sending us home with the last pot in Dick Wherry's pocket whether ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... from a philosophical point of view, you have no more right to live at the expense of someone else than someone else has a right to live at your expense. It all comes out even in the final accounting. And, of course, if every man were granted ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... had time to read anything. There, you can take my cup. You have such pretty things here. Everything is suitable, and it gives me pleasure. I don't feel philosophical; I ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn

... sect, which like a malicious growth seemed to have gathered to itself all the stubbornness, insensibility, and rude obstinacy of the nation, was counterbalanced by a refined and intellectual nobility, which was inspired by the new artistic and philosophical thought of the Renaissance, and seemed to foresee, if not fully to recognize, what a mine of poetry the English theatre of those times was destined to be. Thanks to men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Lords ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... the anarchistic party consisted rigorously of but two members, Adams and Bay Lodge. The conservative Christian anarchist, as a party, drew life from Hegel and Schopenhauer rightly understood. By the necessity of their philosophical descent, each member of the fraternity denounced the other as unequal to his lofty task and inadequate to grasp it. Of course, no third member could be so much as considered, since the great principle ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... Indeed, this internal discord, which is the ordinary characteristic of races so barbarous, and the frequent motive of their migrations, is the cause why in ancient times they were so little formidable to their southern neighbours; and it suggests a remark to the philosophical historian, Thucydides, which, viewed in the light of subsequent history, is almost prophetic. "As to the Scythians," he says, "not only no European nation, but not even any Asiatic, would be able to measure itself with them, nation with nation, were they but of one mind." ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman

... God. This whole doctrine is to be referred to that conflict of the terrified conscience, neither can it be understood apart from that conflict. Therefore inexperienced and profane men judge ill concerning this matter, who dream that Christian righteousness is nothing but civil and philosophical righteousness. ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various

... version of the facts with a languid composure that contrasted deliciously with Richard's heat in telling the story his way (to be sure, Sir Charles had got Huntercombe and Bassett, and it is easier to be philosophical on the right side of the boundary hedge), and wound up with a sort of corollary: "Dick Bassett suffers by his father's vices, and I profit by mine's ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... feeling that scenic reality takes away rather than adds to the effect of these great philosophical fairylands. Malwida von Meysenbug told me that at the Bayreuth festival of 1876, while she was following one of the Ring scenes very attentively with her opera-glasses, two hands were laid over her eyes, and she heard Wagner's voice say impatiently: "Don't look so much at what is going on. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... up the grand philosophical air and demeanour, though with real kindness and desire to show sympathy, "thou art either entangled by worldly scruples, leading thee to disdain the wholesome art of healing, or thou art, like thy brother, the victim of ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... moreover, the best oral commentary upon them, in conversation with the most distinguished citizens. Of these opportunities he made excellent use; nothing important met his eye which did not receive that sort of analytical attention which an experienced and philosophical traveler alone can give. This has made his volumes highly interesting and valuable; but I am deeply persuaded, that were a man of equal penetration to visit the United States with no other means of becoming acquainted with the national character than the ordinary working-day intercourse ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... phraseology of Baron Swedenborg has dulled many minds to a sense of his great acumen and philosophical depth, but it maybe convenient to summarize his scientific doctrine of "Correspondences" in this place as it has an important bearing on the subject in hand. He laid down the principle of the spiritual origin of force and matter. Matter, he argued, ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial

... I had a long discussion with my next neighbor in the dormitory as to the remarkable being who on the morrow was to be one of us. This neighbor, who became an officer, and is now a writer with lofty philosophical views, Barchou de Penhoen, has not been false to his pre-destination, nor to the hazard of fortune by which the only two scholars of Vendome, of whose fame Vendome ever hears, were brought together in the same ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac

... greenness; some of it from the very nature of the situation. Those who expect to find us brilliant are, of course, disappointed. Nor are we smart, and the smart set (both American and English) find us uninteresting. But we drive ahead and keep a philosophical temper and simply do the best we can, and, you may be sure, a good deal of it. It is laborious. For instance, I've made two trips lately to speak before important bodies, one at Leeds, the other at Newcastle, at both of which, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... carried on at a less fiery pressure than the old, but yet pursued with diligence. It lasted six months, and was not likely to be in demand for another half-year. Gertrude was back in Paris, and thither went Paul, prepared to study the platonic theory in a more philosophical spirit than he had hitherto displayed. She was charming. She could not easily cease to be charm ing, but she maddened no longer, and if she had had a heart at all, her lover's extreme placidity might have piqued ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... who flourished about two hundred years before Confucius's time. A philosophical work on law and government, said to have been written by him, is still extant. He was regarded as a sage by the people, but he lacked, in Confucius's eyes, the one ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... be observed that for the purposes of this discussion we are on 'dogmatic' ground,—ground, I mean, which leaves systematic philosophical scepticism altogether out of account. The postulate that there is truth, and that it is the destiny of our minds to attain it, we are deliberately resolving to make, though the sceptic will not make it. We part company ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... peculiarly interesting, with the greatest nonchalance, pass over to the continent, rave on the summit of Mont Blanc, and descant upon the strata which compose the mountains of the Moon in Central Africa. You have been philosophical, now you must be geological. No one can then say that your book ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... little money to spare. With the exception of Sir Walter Scott and Thackeray, none of the books were handsomely bound; that they were well read was obvious, for a volume of Browning's poems happening to fall from her hand, Audrey could see profuse pencil-marks, and one philosophical book had ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... this school, and in most of his utterances is a follower of Pythagoras. And that I too might win from my instructors the right to be called one of his followers, I have learned this double lesson in the course of my philosophical studies—to speak boldly when there is need of speech and gladly to be mute when there is need of silence. As a result of this self-command, I think I may say that I have won from your predecessors no less praise for ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius

... answer to him, a soldier without breeches and with his shirt tied between his legs looked at me and remarked, in a philosophical way, with just a glint ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... this philosophical speech and determination of Mr. Link. Had Mrs. Vrain been an imposter, her house of cards would have been knocked down, as soon as reared, by the searching inquiry instituted by the Sirius Assurance Company. It appeared that the life of the late Mark Vrain ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume

... ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory thought, ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... bayedere, the dramatic plugge, gavotte, and other peasant dances in costume, the fast and furious fandango, weapon and military dances; in place of the pristine power to express love, mourning, justice, penalty, fear, anger, consolation, divine service, symbolic and philosophical conceptions, and every industry or characteristic act of life in pantomime and gesture, we have in the dance of the modern ballroom only a degenerate relict, with at best but a very insignificant culture value, and too often stained with ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... Brothers' seems to us the best yet of the long series of these remarkable Dartmoor tales. If Shakespeare had written novels we can think that some of his pages would have been like some of these. Here certainly is language, turn of humor, philosophical play, vigor of incident, such as might have come straight from Elizabeth's day.... The book is full of a very moving interest and is agreeable and beautiful."—The ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts

... of Dr. Haller," to which the above letter refers, were to the effect that one of Lewes's great advantages in scientific and philosophical research was his familiar acquaintance with the works of German and French writers, which enabled him to follow the contemporaneous movement of science throughout Europe, whereas many writers of learning and ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... rival of the philosophical Syrus; "Nothing—and yet I do feel a little giddy. I could taste a glass of your dame's ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... the writings of this great and good man is an Essay of the most curious character, illustrating his weakness upon the point in question, and entitled, "Siris, a Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Inquiries concerning the Virtues of TAR WATER, and divers other Subjects,"—an essay which begins with a recipe for his favorite fluid, and slides by gentle gradations into an examination of the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Time Jove to Hercules The Antiques of Paris Thekla (A Spirit Voice) The Antique to the Northern Wanderer The Iliad Pompeii and Herculaneum Naenia The Maid of Orleans Archimedes The Dance The Fortune-Favored Bookseller's Announcement Genius Honors The Philosophical Egotist The Best State Constitution The Words of Belief The Words of Error The Power of Woman The Two Paths of Virtue The Proverbs of Confucius Human Knowledge Columbus Light and Warmth Breadth and Depth The Two Guides of Life ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... On this, as well as on most other philosophical subjects, the opinions of the learned vary. Mr. *****, who was a great naturalist, imagines some to be produced by fire, in the manner of volcanoes; others, by the struggles of confined air, expanded by heat, and endeavouring to get free. ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... performance and hardly to the injury of the pieces; but yet he has neither placed his figures wholly on the ground of reality, nor entirely thrown aside the chorus. Throughout and on all sides he is the full exponent of an age in which, on the one hand, the grandest historical and philosophical movement was going forward, but in which, on the other hand, the primitive fountain of all poetry—a pure and homely national life—had become turbid. While the reverential piety of the older tragedians sheds over their pieces as it were a reflected radiance of heaven; while ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... readers and the books that they choose. Reading, like conversation, is the meeting of two minds. If there is no contact, the process fails. If the cogs on the gearwheels do not interact, the machine can not work. If the reader of a book on algebra does not understand arithmetic; if he tackles a philosophical essay on the representative function without knowing what the phrase means; if he tries to read a French book without knowing the language, his mind is not fitted for contact with that of the writer, and the mental machinery ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... in the preceding book, I have spoken of a convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary matter and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always consider a cloistered ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... mind of Franklin did not rest with experiments in the heavens. As a wealthy and independent citizen of Philadelphia he interested himself in all matters of public improvement. He founded a philosophical society to spread useful knowledge of all kinds. He laid the foundation of what is now the University of Pennsylvania, and secured a charter from George II.; but he had little sympathy with the teaching of dead languages, attaching much more importance to the knowledge ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord

... searched through this new question, I found that it was impossible to make out any doctrine of a philosophical eternity in the whole Scriptures. The true Greek word for eternal ([Greek: aidios]) occurs twice only: once in Rom. i. 20, as applied to the divine power, and once in Jude 6, of the fire which has ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... too much awe-struck to venture an undigested reply to this speech; and the surgeon, after pausing a moment in a kind of philosophical ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... most extraordinary incident in the early life of our Saviour, rests on the authority of one evangelist only. It is related by St. Matthew so briefly, as to present many historical and philosophical difficulties. I must give some idea of the manner in which these difficulties were elucidated by the early commentators, and of the notions which prevailed in the middle ages relative to the country of the Three Kings, before it will be ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson

... subject as to conduct it successfully through all the intricacies of a difficult investigation, and such taste and judgement as will enable him to quit, when occasion requires, the dry details of a professional inquiry, and to impart to his work, as he proceeds, the grace and dignity of a philosophical history."—Gent. Mag. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 36. Saturday, July 6, 1850 • Various

... world, and imaginatively and thoughtfully recreates that strange under-sea, whose glooms and gleams and muds are well known to him as a strong and delighted swimmer; or, at the last, drifts through the dream of a South Sea lagoon, still with a philosophical question in his mouth. Yet one can hardly speak of "completion". These are real first flights. What we have in this volume is not so much a work of art as an artist in his birth trying the ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... not surprised to see the Abbe mistaken in matters of history, acted at so great a distance from his sphere of immediate observation, yet I am more than surprised to find him wrong, (or at least what appears so to me) in the well-enlightened field of philosophical reflection. Here the materials are his own; created by himself; and the error, therefore, is an act of the mind. Hitherto my remarks have been confined to circumstances: the order in which they arose, and the events they produced. In these, ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine

... the auld bitch next?' [Tradition ascribes this whimsical style of language to the ingenious and philosophical Lord Kaimes.] said an acute metaphysical judge, though somewhat coarse in his manners, aside to his brethren. 'This is a daft cause, Bladderskate—first, it drives the poor man mad that aught it—then ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... thematic standpoint, they are strictly 19th century. Ives, like American band-composer Sousa, consciously infused patriotic or "blue-blood" themes into his pieces. In the "Concord," he attempted to project, within the music, the 19th century philosophical ideas of the American Transcendentalists, who obviously had a great impact on ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... this shallow sciolism! More philosophical a thousand times than the knowing and facile metaphysic which makes man a thing of springs and pivots and cogs, are the notions of old religionists, which attributed human action in large part to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... discuss the nature of language, but so much of what remains to be said, concerning his philosophical tenets, turns upon the value and the origin of verbal propositions, that this summary sketch of the relations of language to the thinking process will probably ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... ammunition, he could support himself for many years. It has always been a grave error in all these northern land expeditions, that they have been too unwieldy, too much encumbered with the comforts and luxuries of civilization at the outset, and too much loaded with a philosophical paraphernalia, for a pioneering survey,—and cherishing too fondly the idea that the wide shores of the Arctic sea could be explored in a single season. Had the British government established a few posts in ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett

... monument to the sagacity and persistency of Toombs and his associates in 1840. The great possibilities of these iron highways opened the eyes of the statesmen of that day, Mr. Calhoun seemed to drop for a time his philosophical studies of States and slavery and to dream of railroads and commercial greatness. He proposed the connection of the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River and the great West, through Cumberland Gap—a brilliant and feasible scheme. Governor Gilmer of Georgia ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall

... cars. Before getting into his own Tulan said coldly, "Since you're so philosophical about it, you'll be a good one to bear the sight of men saying good-bye to their families. We're to take full crews to Coar and surrender them with the ships. Requisition what help you need and get everybody aboard by ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps

... young man, he was promoted to different posts of distinction. He filled various offices in Philadelphia, and served the State of Pennsylvania in several public ways, in all of which he did himself honour. He devoted a portion of his time to philosophical studies, in which he earned a world-wide fame. His mind was ever busy in projects to benefit society, and no work was too humble for him to do for the good of others. At one time he is found inventing a stove for domestic ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer

... and heard him. Arsenals, ships, manufactures, these you can see anywhere; but it requires ages to produce a Voltaire. By the rumors I hear, it will have been a certain great Lady Theresa, very Orthodox and little Philosophical, who forbade her Son to visit the Apostle ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and Wilkinson still sell, on Saturday next, the very beautiful collection of Oriental Manuscripts of the late Dr. Scott; on Monday and Tuesday, his Medical Library; on Wednesday, his valuable Collection of Music; and on Thursday, his Philosophical and Mathematical Instruments, Fire-arms, and other miscellaneous ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 32, June 8, 1850 • Various

... we have successfully introduced certain ideas belonging to an elementary science by applying them metaphorically to some new class of phenomena. It becomes an important philosophical question to determine in what degree the applicability of the old ideas to the new subject may be taken as evidence that the new phenomena are physically ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell

... been wounded, reproaches Briseida pretty openly. He is not wrong, for Briseida weeps at Diomed's wound, and (to the regret and reproof of her historian, and indeed against her own conscience) gives herself to the Greek, or determines to do so, on the philosophical principle that Troilus is lost to her. Achilles then kills Troilus himself, and we hear no ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... in a want of love and reverence for the human soul; in consequence of which, the investigator pried into its dark depths,—not with a hope or purpose of making it better, but from a cold, philosophical curiosity,—content that it should be wicked in whatever kind and degree, and only desiring to study it out. Would not this, in other words, be the separation of the intellect from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... characteristic of Norway. No hurry, no confusion, no shouting and clamoring for passengers, but all quiet, primitive, and good-humored. How different from a landing at New York or San Francisco! Three or four sturdy hack-drivers stood smoking their pipes, watching the proceedings with an air of philosophical indifference truly refreshing. Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, and cousins of various parties on board, waved their handkerchiefs and nodded affectionately to their friends and relatives, but kept their enthusiasm ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... justice to the imperative of beauty, by virtue of which, when we say "this is beautiful," we have a right to imply that the universe must agree with us. A synthesis of these tendencies in the study of beauty is needed, in which the results of modern psychology shall help to make intelligible a philosophical theory of beauty. The chief purpose of this book is to seek to effect ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... numerous resemblances between the two, and one which, considering their respective positions in the history of the French and English novel, is most interesting, is the strong philosophical and specially Platonic influence which the Renaissance exercised on both.[142] Sidney, however full of it elsewhere, put less of it in his actual novel; while, on the other hand, nothing did so much to create ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... field in which we may look for such cases. He finds pseudologia phantastica a symptom, not only of hysteria, alcoholism, paranoia, but also of sex repression, and neurasthenia. He takes a more philosophical view of the subject than previous authors. He understands by pseudologia phantastica not merely the bare habit of telling fantastic lies, and what they bring forth, but rather the yielding up of consciousness of reality in the presence of the morbidly fantastic wish in its widest consequences. Since ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... ridiculous. My reason told me that I should not care at all whether she liked me or whether she didn't, whether I pleased or displeased her. But I did care, I couldn't help it, I cared altogether too much. A middle-aged quahaug should be phlegmatic and philosophical; I once had a reputation for both qualities, but I seemed to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln

... you may understand the importance of the adventure I am about relating to you, it will be necessary for me to picture the state of mind which I was in at the time it happened; this will be a sort of philosophical and psychological preamble." ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... "The philosophical author of 'The Defence of Learning,' observes, that knowledge has some thing of venom and malignity in it, when taken without its proper corrective; and what that is, the inspired St. Paul teaches us, by placing it ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... physically fitted for its concentration into self-recognizing individuality: it lies hidden in that primordial substance of which the visible form is a grosser manifestation. This primordial substance is a philosophical necessity, and we can only picture it to ourselves as something infinitely finer than the atoms which are themselves a philosophical inference of physical science: still, for want of a better word, we may conveniently speak of this primary intelligence inherent in the very ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... very sorry that Clara opened and read my last letter to you; of course the mistake is to be attributed to my own absence of mind. She has written me a very deep philosophical letter, proving conclusively that Coppelius and Coppola only exist in my own mind and are phantoms of my own self, which will at once be dissipated, as soon as I look upon them in that light. In very truth one can hardly believe ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... "Agathodemon, a philosophical romance translated from the German of Wieland by W.E. Frye, member of the Academy degli Arcadi in Rome, and of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians of Copenhagen, ex-major of infantry in His British ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they are nonsensical. Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein

... an unsafe guide in strictly artificial schemes, it is obvious that its teachings should have great weight in all philosophical systems of classification. ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... overcame obstacles were stronger than I. I felt that I was doomed not to make way in the world, not being one of those who could command, so I resigned myself to obey. I fill a humble position as you know, but one which satisfies my wants. I am without ambition. A little philosophical, I observe all that goes on around me. I live happily ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... composed for the opening of this philosophical tournament still remains; its subject is the dignity of human nature, the greatness of man. In common with nearly all medieval speculation, much of Pico's writing has this for its drift; and in common also with it, Pico's theory of that dignity ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... long be delayed now, and Cuthbert, being built along the lines of a patient and philosophical lad, ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... it improbable that a human soul swinging desperately in mid-air should think about philosophical inconsistencies. But such extreme states are dangerous things to dogmatize about. Frequently they produce a certain useless and joyless activity of the mere intellect, thought not only divorced from hope but even from ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... horrible story told in a note, pp. 233, 234 of Mr. Mivart's "Genesis of Species," will feel no difficulty on that score. I must admit, however, that the telling of that story seems to me to be a mistake in a philosophical work, which should not, I think, unless under compulsion, deal either with the horrors of the French Revolution—or of the ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... on hearing this, stepped forth from his hiding-place. "Honest man, pray understand, in the first place, that I have no desire to become the pupil of this philosophical gentleman, that I most unintentionally entered the house, and shall be extremely obliged to you if you will let me out as soon as possible," he said; and he briefly explained how he had happened to get ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston

... here I was monarch of all I surveyed, and untrammeled by the cramming regulations of the public schools, I pursued the delightful avocation of a true educator. E and duco is the etymology of the word, to lead out, to develop the latent energies of the mind. I had chemical and philosophical apparatus with which to perform experiments in illustrative teaching of the sciences, and all were intent upon acquiring thorough, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... earliest philosophical influences which reached Rome was however that of a pre-Socratic school, the school of Pythagoras. This was natural enough in itself, as the headquarters of the school was in Southern Italy, but it is curious and significant that the first pronounced instance ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter

... Caffe, a purely philosophical and literary periodical, made its appearance in Milan, being founded by Count Pietro Verri (1728-97). Its chief editor was Cesare Beccaria. Its object was to counteract the influence and superficiality of the Arcadians. It acquired its title from ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... loyalty contributed to the President's regard for Seward. In their daily companionship the latter took a genial, philosophical view of the national struggle, not shared by all his Cabinet associates, while Lincoln dissipated the gloom with quaint illustrations of Western life.[931] At one of these familiar fireside talks the President expressed the hope that Seward might be his successor, adding ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... night and morning, for forty years. The more sagacious averred, however, that the secret of her continued youth lay in her kindly, unwithered heart, in her loving thoughtfulness for others' weal, and her avoidance, upon philosophical and religions grounds, of whatever approximated the discontented retrospection winch goes with the multitude by the name ...
— At Last • Marion Harland

... entangled in connections with men who did not mean so well as ourselves, or did not judge so rightly. If we endeavoured to stop them, they thought us false to the cause; if we went on with them, we ran directly upon rocks, which we saw, but could not avoid. Nor could we take shelter in a philosophical retreat from business. Inaction would in us have been cowardice and desertion. To complete the public calamities, a religious fury, on both sides, mingled itself with the rage of our civil dissensions, more frantic than that, more implacable, more averse to all healing measures. ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton

... after, 1712, he published Creation, a philosophical poem, which has been, by my recommendation, inserted in the late collection. Whoever judges of this by any other of Blackmore's performances, will do it injury. The praise given it by Addison, Spectator, 339, is too well known to be transcribed; but some notice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... they fancy to be thoughts and what are really the accustomed artifices of his own trade, or roused by what they take to be principles and are really picturesque effects. In a pleasant book about a school-class club, Colonel Fergusson has recently told a little anecdote. A "Philosophical Society" was formed by some Academy boys—among them, Colonel Fergusson himself, Fleeming Jenkin, and Andrew Wilson, the Christian Buddhist and author of "The Abode of Snow." Before these learned pundits, one member laid the following ingenious problem: "What would be the result of putting ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... at him, and how he wished himself at home, one hundred feet from the ground; what complete happiness was felt and expressed by everybody, but especially by old Van Quintem and Marcus Wilkeson; what improbable stories were told by Mr. Frump; what philosophical sayings uttered on the spur of the moment by Fayette Overtop; what slightly impertinent but always amiable remarks advanced by Wesley Tiffles;—all this might be imagined, with a slight mental effort; but not ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton

... cleanse the polluted soul, still the troubled conscience, or dim the pure surface of unsullied honor. Nor cans't thou purchase me, thou sordid dross. Guns and grappling-irons!" abruptly added the Corporal, abandoning his philosophical strain, and getting into a towering passion,—"would you bribe me to desert my post as a guardian of innocence, and turn traitor to every principle of honor in my heart?—Bah!" and crumpling the bill in his hand, he threw it into the face of ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... much wealth as he felt he needed, so he sold his business, intending to devote the remainder of his life to science, of which he had always been passionately fond. Already he had founded the Philadelphia Library and the American Philosophical Society, had invented the Franklin stove, and served as postmaster of Philadelphia, and a few years later, he established the institution which is now the University of Pennsylvania. It was at about this time that, by experimenting with a kite, he proved lightning ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson

... have dreamed: here they must act. There lie youth and irresolution: here manhood and purpose. They are veritably in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life. Their memories scarce seem their own! The Philosophical Geography (about to be published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a little Rubicon—a clear or a foul water to cross. It is asked him: "Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?" And "I will," firmly ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... so much at his ease (so he says) that he ventured to ask how it was that the public worship Napoleon had restored in France was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of the times. "My dear Wieland," was the reply, "religion is not meant for philosophers! they have no faith either in me or my priests. As to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or to leave them, too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman

... great flights, for she is very high-minded. Her weekly bath gives rise to much lofty philosophical reflection, and she has come to the firm conclusion that it is "mieux que manger." Also she has great taste, of which she occasionally gives us the benefit. She laughs scornfully at certain objets d'art ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various

... the American Philosophical Society that we should set on foot a subscription to engage some competent person to explore that region in the opposite direction; that is, by ascending the Missouri, crossing the Stony mountains, and descending the nearest river to the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... one of the most remarkable which our age has produced, which would be highly valuable from anyone, and which derives a peculiar interest from its writer. I am charged also to return the thanks of the Philosophical Society here for the copy presented to them. I have not thought it necessary to send the official letter containing the acknowledgment, as Mrs. Somerville will probably have a sufficient collection of specimens of such character. I have also to thank her on the part of our College for the copy sent ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville

... 1805, to Messieurs De Bougainville, De la Lande, Chaptal, and Dupuis, and were sent away by two different conveyances. The Society of Emulation, formed in Mauritius the preceding year to promote literary and philosophical pursuits, but especially to advance the agriculture, navigation, and commerce of the two islands, wrote also to the National Institute in my favour; and as its sentiments may be supposed analogous to those of the most enlightened part of the inhabitants, ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders

... it an evidence of your high-minded heartlessness, that in the same letter where you sue for love you also introduce a philosophical discussion and show even more heat in maintaining it than you do in your amorous petition? Why I cannot take warning and fly to the ends of my earth away from you now while there is yet time, is a ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More

... (Beal, Si-yu-ki, Vol. I, p. 55), points apparently to the fact that they had, in the North West at least, spread their missionary activity beyond the borders of India.] As their doctrine, like Buddha's, is originally a philosophical ethical system intended for ascetics, the disciples, like the Buddhists, are, divided into ecclesiastics and laity. At the head stands an order of ascetics, originally Nirgrantha "they, who are freed from all bands," now usually called Yatis—"Ascetics", ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... "It's based upon philosophical trooths. The poorer and meaner a man is, the more anxious he is to hev it understood that there's somebody still poorer and meaner than him. Hence, you notis, that them individooals who see a 5 cent peese so seldom ez to not know its nacher, and who keep the flag uv distress wavin ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby

... any image of her—because she was of incalculable service to me. I languished from lack of life, and her mere presence, so exuberant in its full vivacity, was like mountain air. Furthermore, she was not troubled much with my philosophical difficulties. They had not come in her path. Her world was the world of men and women—more particularly of those she knew—and it was a world in which it did me good to dwell. She was all the more important to me, because outside ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... a standard legitimate and reasonable? We shall gain nothing by unanalysed phrases. But I think surely it is merely the natural standard of any philosophical historian. Suppose it is argued that an average optician at the present day knows more optics than Roger Bacon, the inventor of spectacles; suppose it is argued that therefore he is, as far as optics go, a greater man, and that Roger Bacon has nothing to teach ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various

... not a proper time for Rollo to bring up his philosophical question. His father had a carpet bag and several packages in his hands, and he was also conducting Rollo's mother in, and thinking about the horse and carryall. So he told Rollo that he must not speak to him then, for he ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... Dr. Wycherley had always handled the question of Alfred Hardie's Sanity or Insanity with a philosophical coolness the young man admired, and found it hard to emulate; but this philosophic calmness deserted him the moment Hamlet's insanity was disputed, and the harder he was pressed the angrier, the louder, the more confused the Psychological physician ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... supposed that he could be so common and noisy in his anger. She had expected that he would accept the facts coldly with that slight tinge of philosophical irony usually shown by distinguished men, as the husbands of her friends had done. But the poor engineer who, outside of his work, saw only his wife, loving her as a woman, and adoring her as a dainty and superior being, a model of grace and elegance, could not endure the thought of her ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... morning, accompanied by his large staff. He arrived first at the rendezvous, dismounted and strolled around until he saw the Emperor of Austria arrive. He went over to him and embraced him warmly.... A spectacle which might well inspire some philosophical reflection! A German Emperor coming to humble himself and solicit peace from a little Corsican gentleman, recently a second lieutenant of artillery, whose talents, good fortune and the courage of the French armies had raised to the pinnacle of power and made arbiter ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... Essex. The admiration of Nonconformists did not deter Churchmen and Cavaliers from extolling it. Bishop Hall, in his Consolations, writes of 'an eminent person, to whose imprisonment we are obliged, besides many philosophical experiments, for that noble History of the World. The Tower reformed the courtier in him.' Montrose fed his boyish fancy upon its pictures of great deeds. Unless for a few prejudiced and narrow minds it, 'the most God-fearing and God-seeing history known of among human writings,' as Mr. Kingsley ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... reason, with most sacred fear, they commit the education of the children, who, as it were, are the element of the republic, to the care of magistrates; for the safety of the community is not that of a few. And thus they distribute male and female breeders of the best natures according to philosophical rules. Plato thinks that this distribution ought to be made by lot, lest some men seeing that they are kept away from the beautiful women, should rise up with anger and hatred against the magistrates; and he thinks further that those who do not deserve cohabitation with the more beautiful ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells

... only people's love of mystery that kept them noticed. He permitted himself to help her, with his disengaged hand, to draw her shawl closer about the shoulder that was away from him. He gave the action a philosophical and impersonal character by saying immediately afterwards: "The sea is really the only mystery left us, and that will never be explored. They circumnavigate the whole globe,—" here he put the gathered shawl into the fingers which she stretched through his ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... Gilpin's horse, he wondered more and more— was a philosophical beast and knew his business. Abreast of the boat, beside the angle of the Orphanage wall, he halted for his rider to alight, and began to nose for herbage among the nettles. Nor did he betray surprise when Mr. Mortimer, after a glance down the towpath towards the iron ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Yes, he too had travelled, and not only in thought. He knew how many strange nations and false religions lodged in this round earth, itself but a speck in the universe. There were few ingenious authors that he had not perused, or philosophical instruments that he had not, as far as possible, examined and tested; and no man better than he could understand and prize the recent discoveries of "the incomparable Mr Newton". Nevertheless, a certain uneasiness in that spare frame, a certain knitting of the brows in that ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana

... affectation of importance which sometimes attaches to men of eminence, and which so materially lessens the pleasures and comforts of social life."—Sketch of the Life and Character of the late Doctor Benjamin Rush, in the American Medical and Philosophical ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing



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