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More "Credibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Savage when he wrote his London. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen; for London was published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second sight [see post, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty. BOSWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state of his own knowledge that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he wrote London. The ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... scope for a desultory and eager ambition; and that something of truth lurks beneath many of the rich embellishments which his wanderings and exploits received from the exuberant poetry and the rude credibility of the age. During his absence, Menestheus, of the royal race of Attica, who, Plutarch simply tells us, was the first of mankind that undertook the profession of a demagogue, ingratiated himself with the people, or rather with the nobles. The absence of a king is always the nurse of seditions, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... submit to you some observations relative to the affairs of the Jews at Damascus, which I was enabled to make in my recent visit to that city, and also to lay before you the general impression on my mind at that time, as to the weight and credibility of the evidence addressed in support of the charges which have been ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... separated from the body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account of it as to give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened by that difficulty.... But you will say, you speak only of the soul; and your words ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... certain account of, who was publicly distinguished as an Orator, and who really appears to have been such, was M. Cornelius Cethegus; whose eloquence is attested by Q. Ennius, a voucher of the highest credibility; since he actually heard him speak, and gave him this character after his death; so that there is no reason to suspect that he was prompted by the warmth of his friendship to exceed the bounds of truth. In his ninth book of ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... restrictions, I think, every writer may be permitted to deal as much in the wonderful as he pleases; nay, if he thus keeps within the rules of credibility, the more he can surprize the reader the more he will engage his attention, and the more he will charm him. As a genius of the highest rank observes in his fifth chapter of the Bathos, "The great art ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... specific experience can generally be, and should be gained. And a slight improvement in the data profits more than the most elaborate application of the calculus of probabilities to the bare original data, e.g. to such data, when we are calculating the credibility of a witness, as the proportion, even if it could be verified, between the number of true and of erroneous statements a man, qua man, may be supposed to make during his life. Before applying the Doctrine of Chance, therefore, we should lay a foundation for an ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing
... works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... too great between the value of the accessory and that of the principal. The price mentioned by the same author {Plin. 1. viii.c.48.}, of some triclinaria, a sort of woollen pillows or cushions made use of to lean upon as they reclined upon their couches at table, passes all credibility; some of them being said to have cost more than 30,000, others more than 300,000. This high price, too, is not said to have arisen from the dye. In the dress of the people of fashion of both sexes, there seems to have been ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... and tear of such an existence has wasted out the giant oaken strength of Mirabeau. A fret and fever that keeps heart and brain on fire: excess of effort, of excitement; excess of all kinds: labour incessant, almost beyond credibility! 'If I had not lived with him,' says Dumont, 'I should never have known what a man can make of one day; what things may be placed within the interval of twelve hours. A day for this man was more than a week or a month is for others: the mass of things he guided on together was prodigious; from ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... buried, before I was born; I never visited Holland nor spoke with a native of that country. So much I believe you already know. I must, then, give you my authority, and state to you frankly the ground upon which rests the credibility of the strange story which I am, about to ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... his learned work on "Egypt and the Books of Moses," conclusively shows, by numerous examples, how direct were the Egyptian references of the Pentateuch; in which fact, indeed, he recognizes "one of the most powerful arguments for its credibility and for its composition by Moses."—HENGSTENBERG, p. 239, ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... ask papa about them, I don't understand business; but I want to tell you about Sir Rupert. The Society for Psychical Research sent down a Committee to inquire into the credibility of the ghost, and recorded four authentic apparitions in the spare bedroom; and on family evidence accepted at least three events in the Long Gallery. It was just after their report was issued that papa was invited to lease the house to ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... seems, Jesus dared not set up to be the victorious prince expected, for victories are not to be counterfeited. I hope it was no crime in him that he did not assume this false character, and try to abuse the credibility of the people; if he had done so, it certainly would have been a crime; and therefore in this point at least he is innocent. I do not suppose the Gentleman imagines the Jews were well founded in their expectation of a temporal prince: and therefore when Christ opposed this conceit at the manifest ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... the study of the race problem. Prof. DuBois has shown commendable zeal in studying the race problem, while so many others are content to discuss it. The data for his study were collected principally by the alumni of Atlanta University and are thus entitled to a high degree of credibility. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... designation by the Indians at the second Stanwix Treaty, there is only one other source which lends any credibility to the Pine Creek view, and that is Smith's Laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. After the last treaty was made acquiring Pennsylvania lands from the Indians, the legislature, in order to quell disputes about ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... chronicles; and that, when we find him mentioned in history, "the information was derived from the ballads, and is not independent of them or correlative with them." While making these admissions, he accords a considerable degree of credibility to the ballads, and particularly to the "Lytell Geste," the last two fits of which he regards as giving a tolerably ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... longer than his father. The other 84 monarchs had filled up the remaining space of 28,980 years—their reigns thus averaging 345 years apiece. It is clear that these numbers are unhistoric; and though it would be easy to reduce them within the limits of credibility by arbitrary suppositions—as for instance, that the years of the narrative represent months or days—yet it may reasonably be doubted whether we should in this way be doing any service to the cause of historic truth. The names Evechous and Chomasbelus seem mythic ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... to look upon—so fair in her statuesque attitudes and her shapely presence, that the infatuation of the man who created her is readily understood. By the classic beauty of her features and the perfect molding of her figure she is enabled to give all possible credibility to the legend of her miraculous birth. Moreover, the refinement of her bearing and manner allows no jarring note to be struck, and although, when Galatea sadly returns to marble not a tear is shed by the spectator, it ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... said I, "will only enhance his credibility. All the facts which you have stated have been admitted by him. They constitute an essential ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... one of our countrymen, acting in the high and solemn capacity to which Mr. King was called, we cannot, however, without doing violence to our own feelings, and criminating numbers of our countrymen, perhaps equally entitled to credibility with Mr. King himself, afford our credence to his singular report; especially when we see it contradicted unconditionally, by the unfortunate witnesses of ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... deep-rooted faiths of maturity, once, the child's readiness to believe its parents infallible, and would not any other indoctrination have held as firmly? Even so the rather childish minds of Dave's guardians made no question of the credibility of the tale, coming as it did from such an informant—one without a shadow of interest in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... with which it was done. There is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration—the form of burlesque which Theodore Hook or Albert Smith might have attempted. It is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. Apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... while their veracity is not impeachd, stand equal in the eye of the judge; unless he happens to be acquainted with their different characters, which is not presumd—The jury who are taken from the vicinity, are supposd to know the credibility of the witnesses: In the late trials the witnesses were most if not all of them either inhabitants of this town or transient persons residing in it, and the jurors were all from the country: Therefore it is not likely that they were acquainted with the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... the utmost verge of probability, the effect had been preserved. . . For instance, we can conceive and allow of the appearance of a ghost; we can even dispense with an enchanted sword and helmet, but then they must keep within certain limits of credibility. A sword so large as to require a hundred men to lift it, a helmet that by its own weight forces a passage through a court-yard into an arched vault . . . when your expectation is wound up to the highest pitch, these circumstances take it down with a witness, destroy ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and plans to develop or acquire WMD. We need to understand and assess the credibility of threat reporting and provide technical assessments ...
— National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - September 2006 • United States
... eaten. His leprous flesh can never come again like the flesh of a little child. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, and reap for ever and ever. It is not eternal punishment which is incredible; nothing else has credibility. Let there be no illusion about this: forgiveness is a violation, a reversal, of law, and no such thing is conceivable in a world in which ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney
... women and distinction in men are alike in this: they seem to be the unthinking a kind of credibility. Women in love are less ashamed than men. They have ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America's credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a stable ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... fancy of the author had arrayed the story, had been made the subject of somewhat stringent criticism; Fray Antonio Agapida had been found to belong to a Spanish branch of the family of Diedrich Knickerbocker; and doubts were thus cast over the credibility of the whole veracious chronicle. Mr. Irving extricates himself from the dilemma with his usual graceful ingenuity. In a characteristic note to this edition, he explains the circumstances in which the history had its origin, and shows conclusively that whatever dimness may be thrown over the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... convinced me that Paley did not believe in his own book. No one could have rested satisfied with it for moment, if he felt that he was on really strong ground. Besides, how insufficient for their purpose are his examples of discrepancies which do not impair the credibility of the ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... into one continuous Narrative. 2. The Acts of the Apostles, and continuous History of St. Paul. 3. An Analysis of the Epistles and Book of Revelation. 4. An Introductory Outline of the Geography, Critical History, Authenticity, Credibility, and Inspiration of the New Testament. The whole illustrated by copious Historical, Geographical, and Antiquarian Notes, ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... that kind of ground, you know, and abandon the aspect of the question from the side of pure reason, you've so many preliminaries to prove; e g, the genuineness and authenticity of the Pentateuch and the Gospels; the credibility of the narrators; the possibility of ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... don't understand him, nor do I conceive what the residue of the personal estate will amount to; but not to much, as the opinion of the family is. The reports, and belief of those who are not in the secret, are out of all credibility. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... does not end here. If you are convinced that the dogma is not true; that a steadily increasing number of persons are becoming aware that it is not true; that its efficacy as a basis of spiritual life is being lowered in the same degree as its credibility; that both dogma and church must be slowly replaced by higher forms of faith, if not also by more effective organisations; then, all who hold such views as these have as distinctly a function in the community as the ministers and upholders of the churches, and the zeal of the latter is simply ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... be confined to the legality of their conduct, and here can be no difficulty. It was certainly illegal, unless many witnesses are directly perjured: witnesses, who have no apparent interest to falsify,—witnesses who have given their testimony with candor and accuracy,—witnesses whose credibility stands untouched,—whose credibility the counsel for the king do not pretend to impeach or hint a suggestion ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... to the former editions of this work, has been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida was found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt over the credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein of irony indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening of some of the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the scenes. A word or two explanatory may therefore ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ringlets down my neck. The mistress and bar-maid kissed me, the men gave me money, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... matter, what had the iniquities and greed of Dockwrath to do with it? Had reason been shown why the statement made by Dockwrath was in itself unworthy of belief,—that that statement was in its own essence weak,—then the character of the man making it might fairly affect its credibility. But presuming that statement to be wrong,—presuming that it was corroborated by other evidence, how could it be affected by any amount of villainy on the part of Dockwrath? All that Chaffanbrass had done or attempted was to prove that Dockwrath had had his own end ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... the Judge Advocate haughtily, 'have you any officers who are prepared to vouch for the character and credibility of this witness, as I see ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... those that are about to follow, gain greater credibility when considered in the light of the newer experimental researches in physics, which demonstrate, apparently, that matter can be made to disintegrate and disappear, and can be again reformed from invisible ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... Well has it been said that the wildest dream of the romancer pales beside the solemn surprise of the Actual. Not one among the thousands there assembled, not the speaker himself, would have considered such a statement within the range of credibility. Alas, that it should have been!—that the monstrous murder of the good Lincoln should have been repeated in these latter days, and the nation have come a second time ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that the size of the lie always involves a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of a people will be more spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather than consciously and deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily captivated by a big lie than by a small one, ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... fastened to the wharf, by an armed force, and the seizure carried by violence to the man-of-war. That this seizure was made with every circumstance of violence and insult which could irritate a mob, is proved by the oaths of thirteen eye-witnesses whose credibility has never been impeached. Unhappily, the irritation succeeded but too well. The collector and comptroller who made the seizure in that manner were treated with great indignity and ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... His credibility was rather strongly put to the test as they turned into the High Street, when his companion directed his attention to an individual on the opposite side of the street, with a voluminous gown, and enormous cocked ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... Butler says, "probability is the guide of life"; and it seems to me that this is just one of the cases in which the canon of credibility and testimony, which I have ventured to lay down, has full force. So that, with the most entire respect for many (by no means for all) of our witnesses for the truth of demonology, ancient and modern, I conceive their evidence ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets the poets, to which I would not have my judicious reader attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to credit an ancient and rather apocryphal historian, who asserts that the ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his windmills, nor a writer of later times, who affirms that he fell a victim to an experiment in natural ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... world. Every birth is just as wonderful as a virgin birth could possibly be, and just as much a direct act of God. A supernatural conception bears no relation whatever to the moral and spiritual worth of the person who is supposed to enter the world in this abnormal way. The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the virgin birth otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race and to make Him something which cannot ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... brings the truth to be believed. The message of the Church is: these are God's words. As for what these words stand for, you are not to trust her, but Him. The foundation of divine belief is one thing; the motives of credibility are another. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... device with their so-called gods. But we must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... direct participation in the murder of Americans by the Indians in the southern portion of the Territory, have ever been substantiated by legal evidence; but no person can become familiar with the relations which they sustain to those tribes, without attaching to them some degree of credibility. The most noted instances were the slaughter of Captain Gunnison and his exploring party, near Lake Sevier, in October, 1853; and the horrible massacre of more than a hundred emigrants on their way to California, at the Mountain Meadows, still farther south, in September, 1857, from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... — N. probability, likelihood; credibleness[obs3]; likeliness &c. adj.; vraisemblance[Fr], verisimilitude, plausibility; color, semblance, show of; presumption; presumptive evidence, circumstantial evidence; credibility. reasonable chance, fair chance, good chance, favorable chance, reasonable prospect, fair prospect, good prospect, favorable prospect; prospect, wellgrounded hope; chance &c. 156. V. be probable &c. adj.; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... credibility of this famous story, the first thought which arises in the mind is, that it is utterly impossible that sane men, acting in so momentous a crisis, and where interests so vast and extended were at stake, could have resorted to a plan so childish and ridiculous as ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... impatient spectators, it appeared a very tame, one-sided, and anomalous trial, where like a slow stream the evidences of guilt oozed, and settled about the prisoner, who challenged the credibility of no witness, and waived all the privileges of cross-examination. Now and then, the audience criticised in whispers the "undue latitude" allowed by the Judge, to the District Solicitor; but their "exceptions" were informal, and the prosecution received ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... from our last night's bivouac a dense cloud and lightning in this direction. It is marvellous how such strong animals as deer could thus have been killed; but I have no doubt, from the evidence I have given, that the story is not in the least exaggerated. I am glad, however, to have its credibility supported by the Jesuit Dobrizhoffen, who, speaking of a country much to the northward, says, hail fell of an enormous size and killed vast numbers of cattle (6/4. "History of the Abipones" volume 2 page 6.): the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... most extensive and authentic historians, inasmuch as they have known the world much longer than any one else, declare that Noah was no other than Fohi; and what gives this assertion some air of credibility is that it is a fact, admitted by the most enlightened literati, that Noah traveled into China, at the time of the building of the Tower of Babel (probably to improve himself in the study of languages), and the learned Dr. Shuckford gives us the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... and awful. For one moment it was an unbelievable thing—a thing beyond all credibility; it must be a delusion, a dream, a nightmare. But no, it was real—pitifully real, shamefully real, hideously real. These sixty policemen had been soldiers, and they went at their work with the cold unsentimentality of their trade. They ascended the steps of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... merely to show my credibility as a witness on this subject. Being a lawyer by profession, I have learned long since that the value of one's opinion, and especially the value of testimony is directly in proportion to one's knowledge of and interest in the subject ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of his fits. The only witness you mention is that worthless boy, Sicinius Pudens, in whose name you accuse me. He says that he was present. His extreme youth is no reason why we should reject his sworn evidence, but the fact that he is one of my accusers does detract from his credibility. It would have been easier for you, Aemilianus, and your evidence would have carried much more weight, had you said that you were present at the rite and had been mad ever since, instead of entrusting the whole business to the ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... to law can be very great, but owing to the necessary conservatism of the courts, it will be a long time before they will make much use of psychological knowledge. Perhaps the greatest service will be in determining the credibility of evidence. Psychology can now give the general principles in this matter. Witnesses go on the stand and swear to all sorts of things as to what they heard and saw and did, often months and even years previously. The ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... uninstructed age believes its own legend; it asks no question upon the point of credibility; with such an age, to hear, is to believe. Originally, indeed, with all of us, to have a conception of any thing is tantamount to believing that it exists, or has existed: belief is no separate act ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... meet me before the throne of the Most High!" According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the King, by whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity, which, if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility, i.e., the precise date of Clement's death. It was not till the year after that Clement and King Philip passed to their account. The fate of these two men during the next year might naturally ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... by her means. The connexion betwixt Henry's supposed death and the descent of Conachar and his followers, though adopted by her in a moment of extreme and engrossing emotion, was sufficiently probable to have been received for truth, even if her understanding had been at leisure to examine its credibility. Without knowing what she sought except the general desire to know the worst of the dreadful report, she hurried forward to the very spot which of all others her feelings of the preceding day would have induced ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... authorities may be found collected in the fourth volume of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History; abstracts of them, with ample references, in Mosheim and Neander's Ecclesiastical Histories, ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... archers who escorted him from the city to his country palace, clad in dresses of Tyrian purple, and their hair powdered with gold dust. But enormous as this wealth appears, the statement of his expenditure on the Temple, and of his annual revenue, so passes all credibility, that any attempt at forming a calculation on the uncertain data we possess may at once be abandoned as a hopeless task. No better proof can be given of the uncertainty of our authorities, of our imperfect knowledge of the Hebrew weights ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... pressed, to have either evaded or answered so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth might, in those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake, although, in ours, his confession would have only gained for him the credit of a liar beyond all rational credibility. He was fortunately relieved by the return of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught, as he entered, the sound of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... give credibility and respectability to this false and libellous publication by invoking the authority, not of reason or truth, but of his mere "professional" position as professor in Harvard University, thereby artfully suggesting and insinuating to ...
— A Public Appeal for Redress to the Corporation and Overseers of Harvard University - Professor Royce's Libel • Francis Ellingwood Abbot
... supreme miracle—the transcendent character of Jesus—is clear, see Part III. chap. iv.; and the miraculous element in the story of his life must be considered in view of this supreme miracle. In association with him his miracles gain in credibility. In estimating the evidence for them their dignity and worthiness is important. What the devout imagination would do in embellishing the story of Jesus is exhibited in the apocryphal gospels; the miracles of the canonical gospels are of an entirely different ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... well state, without further delay, that I am convinced of the truth of the story told by Miss Smithers. It would to my mind be impossible for any man, whose intelligence had been trained by years of experience in this and other courts, and whose daily duty it is to discriminate as to the credibility of testimony, to disbelieve the history so circumstantially detailed in the box by Miss Smithers (Sensation). I watched her demeanour both under examination and cross-examination very closely indeed, and I ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... statement is a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm's length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility. The natives were sitting down when the police arrived. How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when moving; and it certainly is not probable, that the man, in spite of the fright he is admitted ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the eating or even the handling of celery; but such accounts, harrowing as they may appear, are insufficient to warrant a bar sinister. Indeed, not only is the mass of evidence in favor of the defendant, but it casts a reflection upon the credibility of the plaintiff, who may usually be shown to have indulged immoderately, to have been frightened by hallucinations or even to have arraigned the innocent for his own guilt. Certain it is that there is not one of the sweet herbs mentioned in this volumes that has ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... sympathy or prayer, enemies of God, in covenant with the Devil, and firebrands of Hell. All this he believed. Of course, he could not pray with, and could hardly be expected to pray for, them. The language ascribed to him by Calef, expressed his honest convictions; bears the stamp of credibility; was not denied or disavowed, then; and cannot ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... sketch now the main events following this night of May 15th and 16th as the outside world saw them. The frantic reports from Bermuda were forced into credibility by the appearance of apparitions at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the southern States. They were sporadic appearances that night. No attacks were reported. But in all, at least a thousand wraithlike figures of men must have been seen. The visitations began ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... remember I had once occasion to visit one of his dragoons in his last illness at Harborough, and I found the man upon the borders of eternity—a circumstance which, as he apprehended himself, must add some peculiar weight and credibility to his discourse. He then told me, in his colonel's absence, that he questioned not that he should have everlasting reason to bless God on Colonel Gardiner's account, for he had been a father to him in all his interests, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... it was sufficient to show that the hurry of the dispute was such, that it was not easy to discover the truth with relation to particular circumstances, and that, therefore, some deductions were to be made from the credibility of the testimonies. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... story seems now so preposterously out of keeping with all the associations of a modern Court that it startles our sense of historical credibility when we find by the actual dates that men and women are still living who might have been carried by their nurses to see the crowds round Westminster Abbey on the Coronation Day of King George the Fourth. The Coronation took place on July 19, 1821, and the whole ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... alleged result? The answer will be controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,—the sole testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... basis of credibility must be laid in the moral nature, where the thing to be believed is important, i.e., moral. And I therefore open with this remark absolutely zermalmende to the common intellect: That from a holy faith ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... he met his match in a pert, jolly, keen-eyed son of Erin, who was up as a witness in a case of dispute in the matter of a horse deal. Curran was anxious to break down the credibility of this witness, and thought to do it by making the man contradict himself—by tangling him up in a network of adroitly framed questions—but to no avail. The ostler's good common sense, and his equanimity and good nature, were not to be upset. Presently, Curran, in a ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... pronounced tendency toward scarlet. His nails were likewise reddened with henna, reminding Matthews that the hands belonging to the nails were rumored to bear even more sinister stains. And the bottomless black eyes peering out from under the white turban lent surprising credibility to such rumors. But there was no lack of graciousness in the gestures with which those famous hands saluted the visitor and pointed him to a seat of honor on the rug beside the Father of Swords. The Father of Swords furthermore pronounced his heart uplifted to receive a friend ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... A New Story and a New Character John the Immortal Eye Witness The Peculiar Theology of Jesus John agreed as to the Trial and Crucifixion Credibility of the Gospels Fashions of Belief Credibility and Truth Christian Iconolatry and the Peril of the Iconoclast The Alternative to Barabbas The Reduction to Modern Practice of Christianity Modern Communism Redistribution ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... superstructure that shall be self-consistent; every thing shall be internally coherent and reconciled, whatever be its external relations as to our human experience. But this species of assumption, on the largest scale, is more within the limits of credibility and plausible verisimilitude when applied to modes of existence, which, after all, are in such total darkness to us, (the limits of the possible being so undefined and shadowy as to what can or cannot exist,) than the very slightest ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... for the defendant addresses the jury. It is the duty of the advocate, on such an occasion, to put forth all his powers in behalf of his client; to obtain acquittal is his object: he must sift the hostile evidence, he must apply every possible test to the accuracy of the testimony, and to the credibility of the witnesses; he may address himself to the reason, to the prejudices, to the sympathies, nay, even to the worst passions of the twelve men whose opinions he seeks to influence in favour of his client. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... divine, ecclesiastically a Presbyterian but theologically a Unitarian, author of "Credibility of the Gospel History" and "Jewish and Heathen Testimonies" in ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... justice. They were witnessed by none but blacks, whose testimony, by our statutes, is not admissible. We, the people, therefore, are to try him; and, to get at the facts, we shall receive the evidence of negroes. You will judge for yourselves as to its credibility. If any doubt of the prisoner's guilt rests in your minds, you will give him the benefit of it, and acquit him; but if, on the other hand, you are fully persuaded that he committed either or both the crimes of which he is accused, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... grants to his own family. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting things together his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the House of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk, he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and whilst "he lies floating many a rood," he is still a creature. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... press by their gag-law, seem to have attacked in an opposite direction; that is by pushing its licentiousness and its lying to such a degree of prostitution as to deprive it of all credit. * * * This is a dangerous state of things, and the press ought to be restored to its credibility if possible. The restraints provided by the laws of the States are sufficient for this, if applied. And I have, therefore, long thought that a few prosecutions of the most prominent offenders would have ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the evidence of three witnesses, whose opportunity of knowledge and whose credibility, it cannot be denied, are to be accepted against rumors so easily put in circulation by reckless as well as by mistaken men, but which have beyond question been believed by very many good men who had not the opportunity, or perhaps the sense of obligation, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... to combat them was by the general assertion that they were illusory. This was felt to be a very unsatisfactory method of procedure, as far as the public was concerned, because it amounted to no more than attacking the credibility of a witness who pretended to describe only what he himself had seen—and there is nothing so hard as ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... Were you out? Love to Jane." Mrs. Dyson denied that she had known of an accident which Peace had had to his foot at this time. In spite of the ruling of the magistrate that Mr. Clegg had put forward quite enough, if true, to damage Mrs. Dyson's credibility, he continued to press her as to her authorship of these notes and letters, but Mrs. Dyson was firm in her repudiation of them. She was equally firm in denying that anything in the nature of a struggle had taken place ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... current in Germany, of treating history. It is not history itself that is here presented. We might more properly designate it as a History of History—a criticism of historical narratives and an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity, in point of fact as well as intention, consists in the acuteness with which the writer extorts from the records something which was not in the matters recorded. The French have given us much that is profound and judicious in this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... fictitious forehead is now very often artfully joined on to the real brow of the performer, without those distressing discrepancies of hue and texture which at one time were so very apparent, disturbing credibility and destroying illusion. And the decline of hair in colour and quantity has often been imitated in the theatre with very happy ingenuity. Heads in an iron-gray or partially bald state—varying from the first slight thinning of the locks to the time ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... revelation of his earlier self, or what the influence of such an experience as he relates may have done to strengthen the moral fibre, are points on which I can express no opinion, any more than I can pledge myself to the credibility of the supernatural element of ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... lighter matter on the fashions, foibles, and prominent characters of the day. Gibbon owns the authorship of the first article on Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry the Second, and his hand is discernible in the account of the fourth volume of Lardner's work On the Credibility of the Gospel History. The first has no merit beyond a faithful report. The latter is written with much more zest and vigour, and shows the interest that he already took in Christian antiquities. Other articles, evidently from the pen of Deyverdun, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at present ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the school-room. In all honesty, I don't think that, for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose conviction I should feel honoured, that proof will I ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... tests the student should constantly be on the watch to form his opinion of the credibility and reliability of a writer or experimenter whose work he is studying. He {18} may thus guide himself as to the books which he should pursue carefully, remembering the dictum of Bacon that "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested," ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... already all over the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for silence. He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town, and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... answered the captain. "The whole success of the enterprise depends on your keeping away. Mrs. Lecount will try the credibility of everything you say to her by one test—the test of your communicating, or not, with this house. She will watch you night and day! Don't call here, don't send messages, don't write letters; don't even go out by yourself. Let her see you start for ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... romance is collected from seemingly the most authentic sources, and the Author must leave the question of credibility entirely to his readers, not even thinking that he his peculiarly called upon to express his ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... here we are told no less explicitly that the incident happened during the lifetime of Joshua. There is no doubt that the incident happened; it is a simple and natural story, and carries the marks of credibility upon its face; but if it happened after the death of Joshua it did not happen before his death; one of these narrators borrowed the story from the other, or else both borrowed it from a common source; and one of them, certainly, put it in the wrong place,—one of them must have been mistaken as ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... We all revolt at it, and it is natural that we should do so; but we must allow it as one of the requisites of our admission to our original standing in the Union. To-day the negro is as competent a witness in our State as the white man, made so by the action of the convention. The credibility of the witness is to be determined by the jurors and justices. If you refuse his testimony, as is being done, the result will be the military courts and Freedmen's Bureau will take it up, and jurisdiction is lost, and those who best know the negro will be denied the privilege of passing judgment ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... black man in a three-cornered hat, seated in the stern of a jolly boat who used to be seen about Hell Gate in stormy weather; and who went by the name of the Pirate's Spuke, or Pirate's Ghost, because I never could meet with any person of stanch credibility who professed to have seen this spectrum; unless it were the widow of Manus Conklin, the blacksmith of Frog's Neck, but then, poor woman, she was a little purblind, and might have been mistaken; though they said she saw farther than other folks in the dark. All this, however, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... charged the jury briefly. It was unnecessary for him, he said, to recapitulate evidence of so simple a character. The chief question for the jury was as to the credibility of the witnesses. If the witnesses for the prosecution were truthful and were not mistaken, the inference of guilt seemed inevitable; this the defendant's counsel had conceded. The defendant had proved ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... analogy; this has also arisen from the expectation, that the larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must at length yield ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... put mental question-marks after some of the big game stories I heard while I was in Indo-China had I not been convinced of the credibility of those who told them. Only a few days before our arrival at Saigon, for example, an American engaged in business in that city set out one morning before daybreak, in a small car, for the paddy-fields, where there is excellent bird-shooting in the early dawn. The car, ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... of the dogs of sheep-stealers are fairly beyond all credibility. I cannot attach credit to some of them without believing the animals to have been devils incarnate, come to the earth for the destruction both of the souls and bodies of men. I cannot mention names, for the sake ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... request a proof of the frequency of such acts of rapine? for how familiar must such have been to slave-captains, when three of them dared to carry to a British officer of rank such a flagitious proposal! This would stand in the place of a thousand instances. It would give credibility to every other act of violence stated in the evidence, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... been an eye-witness to this disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it." (Gordon's Memoirs, vol. i. p, 210.) The author, also, would not have ventured to adduce it, without first satisfying himself, by inquiry, as to the probable credibility of Mr. Gordon, and likewise testing his narrative. It bears marks of the inaccuracy in details to which memory is subject, but the indications of general correctness ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... have been advanced—economical, climatic, ethnical, political—all of which contain truth, yet no single one of which can wholly explain the fact. Already the white West Indian populations are diminishing at a rate that almost staggers credibility. In the island paradise of Martinique in 1848 there were 12,000 whites; now, against more than 160,000 blacks and half-breeds, there are perhaps 5000 whites left to maintain the ethnic struggle, and the number of these latter is annually growing less. Many of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... evidence. So, here we must pass, in the first place, to the consideration of a matter which may seem foreign to the question under discussion. We must dwell upon the nature of the records, and the credibility of the evidence they contain; we must look to the completeness or incompleteness of those records themselves, before we turn to that which they contain and reveal. The question of the credibility of the history, happily for us, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... sweeping extent, against a kindred nation. The very reverse, however, is the case, and it furnishes a striking instance of human inconsistency. Nothing can surpass the vigilance with which English critics will examine the credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, 'Something of the kind is true;' or, as in the Gorgias, 'This you will think to be an old wife's tale, but you can think of nothing truer;' or, as in the Statesman, he describes ...
— Statesman • Plato
... when we see their application to the general principles which have hitherto occupied our attention. The phenomena of hypnosis are now so fully recognized as established scientific facts that it is quite superfluous to discuss the question of their credibility. Two great medical schools have been founded upon them, and in some countries they have become the subject of special legislation. The question before us at the present day is, not as to the credibility of the facts, but as to the proper inferences to be drawn from them, ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... really departed in quest of adventure from a dominion that afforded no scope for a desultory and eager ambition; and that something of truth lurks beneath many of the rich embellishments which his wanderings and exploits received from the exuberant poetry and the rude credibility of the age. During his absence, Menestheus, of the royal race of Attica, who, Plutarch simply tells us, was the first of mankind that undertook the profession of a demagogue, ingratiated himself with the people, or rather with the nobles. ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as those that are about to follow, gain greater credibility when considered in the light of the newer experimental researches in physics, which demonstrate, apparently, that matter can be made to disintegrate and disappear, and can be again reformed from invisible vortices in the ether into sufficiently solid bodies to be photographed by the sensitive ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... miracle of a Christendom commensurate and almost synonymous with the civilized world. I make this remark for the purpose of warning the divinity student against the disposition to overstrain particular proofs, or rest the credibility of the Gospel too exclusively on some one favourite point. I confess, that I cannot peruse page 179 without fancying that I am reading some Romish Doctor's work, dated from a community where miracles are the ordinary news of ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... very correct principle that the size of the lie always involves a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of a people will be more spoiled in the innermost depths of its heart, rather than consciously and deliberately bad. Consequently, in view of the primitive simplicity of its mind it is more readily ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various
... the main simplicity of his narrative, and the desire of heaping anecdote on anecdote, entitle him in some degree to that appellation, we ought not to forget that the information of every day adds something to the authenticity of the Greek historian, whilst every day furnishes matter to question the credibility of the Tuscan." All this strongly confirms the suspicion that Vasari employed different hands at different times to write out his work. Such mistakes would occur to a new writer, not always conversant with the subject ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in passing, this word possible is synonymous with that which is imaginable or may be known intuitively. Everything which is really, that is to say, coherently, imagined, is possible. But formerly, and especially by the theoreticians, by verisimilar was understood historical credibility, or that historical truth which is not demonstrable, but conjecturable, not true, but verisimilar. It has been sought to impose a like character upon art. Who does not recall the great part played in literary history by the criticism of ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... but pleasing fantasies, the cobweb visions of those dreaming varlets, the poets, to which I would not have my judicious readers attach any credibility. Neither am I disposed to credit an ancient and rather apocryphal historian who asserts that the ingenious Wilhelmus was annihilated by the blowing down of one of his windmills; nor a writer of latter times, who affirms that he fell a victim to an experiment in natural history, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... which I have just spoken, and give the result, simply as my own shrewd lesson learned in reading the female heart. But the truths I unfold will instruct the few who need and can appreciate them, while the whole subject is not of general importance enough to bring down cavilers upon the credibility of their source. I thus get rid of a very detestable though sometimes necessary evil, ("qui nescit dissimulare nescit vivere," says the Latin sage,) that of shining by any light that is not absolutely ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... remember that a strong America—an America whose word is believed and whose strength is respected—is essential to continued peace and understanding in the world. The peace with honor we have achieved in Vietnam has strengthened this basic American credibility. We must act in such a way in coming years that this credibility will remain intact, and with it, the world stability of which it is so indispensable ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... we believe there is a better way forward. All options have not been exhausted. We believe it is still possible to pursue different policies that can give Iraq an opportunity for a better future, combat terrorism, stabilize a critical region of the world, and protect America's credibility, interests, and values. Our report makes it clear that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people also must act to achieve a ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... never mentions the Cornish name, it is not likely that his statement should merely be derived from the supposed meaning of Cara Cowz in Clowze, and it is but fair to admit that he may have drawn from a safer source of information. We must therefore inquire more closely into the credibility of this important witness. He is an important witness, for, if it were not for him, I believe we should never have heard of the insulation of St. Michael's Mount at all. The passage in question occurs in William of Worcester's Itinerary, the original MS. of which ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... now the main events following this night of May 15th and 16th as the outside world saw them. The frantic reports from Bermuda were forced into credibility by the appearance of apparitions at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the southern States. They were sporadic appearances that night. No attacks were reported. But in all, at least a thousand wraithlike figures of men must have been seen. The visitations began at midnight ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... the former editions of this work, has been somewhat of a detriment to it. Fray Antonio Agapida was found to be an imaginary personage, and this threw a doubt over the credibility of his Chronicle, which was increased by a vein of irony indulged here and there, and by the occasional heightening of some of the incidents and the romantic coloring of some of the scenes. A word or two explanatory may ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... that is one reason for believing it. Another land would absorb it, or at least give a background to shadow over its likelihood, the scenery and atmosphere to lend an evanescent credibility, changing it in time to a mere legend, a tale told out of the hazy distance. But in America it obtrudes; it stares eternally on in all its stark unforgetfulness, absorbing its background, constantly rescuing itself ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... even to demonstration, of these circumstances would constitute no step or advance towards the proof of the truth of the Christian religion; while the absence of a sufficient degree of evidence to render even these circumstances unquestionable must, a fortiori, be fatal to the credibility of the less credible circumstances founded upon them" ("Diegesis," ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... example of malformation of the pelvis and of some other affections came under my notice, these things are nevertheless so common, that every physician must regard them as probable consequences of such working-hours, and as vouched for besides by men of the highest medical credibility." ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the author of "Supernatural Religion" urges against the credibility of our Lord's miracles, is that they were not performed before what ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... Church until satisfied by the exercise of his reason that the Church in question possesses 'the notes' of a true Church. This was the aspect of the question which engaged Bradlaugh's attention. He was critical, legal. He took objections, insisted on discrepancies, cross-examined as to credibility, and came to the conclusion that the case for the supernatural was not made out. And this he did not after the first-class fashion in the study or in octavo volumes, but in the street. His audiences were not Mr. Mudie's subscribers, but men and women earning weekly wages. The coarseness of ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... notices how they fall into resigned attitudes. He has a glimmering that the good old legal aphorisms which he has been enunciating with such care about the burden of proof, the weight of evidence, the credibility of witnesses and the caution about sympathy and prejudice, are not very convincing to the jury. But the conventions require that he ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... but no avenue led up to it or even a path nor were there any signs of wheel-marks anywhere. Already lights shone here and there in windows. We were in a park, and a fine park, but unkempt beyond credibility; brambles grew everywhere. It was too dark to see the fox any more but we knew he was dead beat, the hounds were just before us,—and a four-foot railing of oak. I shouldn't have tried it on a fresh horse the beginning of a run, and here was a horse near his last gasp. But ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... upon the conduct of one of our countrymen, acting in the high and solemn capacity to which Mr. King was called, we cannot, however, without doing violence to our own feelings, and criminating numbers of our countrymen, perhaps equally entitled to credibility with Mr. King himself, afford our credence to his singular report; especially when we see it contradicted unconditionally, by the unfortunate witnesses of the unhappy and ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... century, though it does not give its character to the writing of the time. Dr. Johnson was fond of old romances. When he was in Skye he amused himself by thinking of his Scottish tour as the journey of a knight-errant. "These fictions of the Gothic romances," he said, "are not so remote from credibility as is commonly supposed." It is a mistake to suppose that the passion for mediaevalism began with either Coleridge or Scott. Horace Walpole was as enthusiastic as either of them; good eighteenth century prelates like Hurd and Percy, found in what they called the Gothic an inexhaustible ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... thus impressed; I hoped it might soften his enmity. I found, by his manner, that he had never, from the committee box, looked at him. He broke forth again, after a pause of Some length,—"Wonderful indeed! almost past credibility, is such a reverse! He that, so lately, had the Eastern world nearly at his beck; he, under whose tyrant power princes and potentates sunk and trembled; he, whose authority was without ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... reported to have been founded in the seventh century, and (with somewhat less of credibility) in a place where the Trojans, conducted by Antenor, had, after the destruction of Troy, built "un castello, chiamato prima Troja, poscia Olivolo, interpretato, luogo pieno." It seems that St. Peter appeared in person to the Bishop of Heraclea, and commanded him to found in his honor, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... the legend is not, nor should it be, a proof of belief in Christ and Christianity. This view is well voiced by Rev. Dr. Campbell, in his "New Theology," when he says "The credibility and significance of Christianity are in no way affected by the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, otherwise than that the belief tends to put a barrier between Jesus and the race, and to make him something that cannot properly be called human.... Like ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... unjust towards the distinction between Knowledge and Belief, as held by Sir W. Hamilton, he makes ample amends to the injured theory in the next chapter, by enlarging the province of credibility far beyond any extent which Hamilton would have dreamed of claiming for it. Conceivability or inconceivability, he tells us, are usually dependent on association; and it is quite possible that, under other associations, we might be able to conceive, and therefore ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... other tests the student should constantly be on the watch to form his opinion of the credibility and reliability of a writer or experimenter whose work he is studying. He {18} may thus guide himself as to the books which he should pursue carefully, remembering the dictum of Bacon that "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed ...
— How to Study • George Fillmore Swain
... cognizance were assaults, rapes, larceny and murder; all crimes against persons; and if committed against a member of the tribe were severely dealt with. Sometimes it was necessary to prove the crime by competent witnesses, and the court was the judge of the credibility of these who testified, but rarely, however, was it necessary to summon witnesses, for if the accused was really guilty it was a point of honor to admit the offense and take the consequences. Thus the real responsibility resting upon the court in most cases ...
— Sioux Indian Courts • Doane Robinson
... mathematical calculation of the chances for and against a given event, or for experimental proof that such and such a thing can or cannot be done. If a thing seem plausible, an audience will accept it without cavil; if it, seem incredible on the face of it, no evidence of its credibility will be of much avail. This is merely a corollary from the fundamental principle that the stage is the realm of appearances; not of realities, where paste jewels are at least as effective as real ones, and a painted forest is far more sylvan than a few wilted and drooping ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... Indeed, on being further questioned on the subject, he modified his original information to this, that he showed Chopin, unaccompanied by Schumann, the way to the lady's house, and left him at the door. As to the general credibility of the above account, I may say that I have added nothing to my informant's communications, and that in my intercourse with him I found him to be a man of acute observation and tenacious memory. What, however, I do not know, is the extent to ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... is that worthless boy, Sicinius Pudens, in whose name you accuse me. He says that he was present. His extreme youth is no reason why we should reject his sworn evidence, but the fact that he is one of my accusers does detract from his credibility. It would have been easier for you, Aemilianus, and your evidence would have carried much more weight, had you said that you were present at the rite and had been mad ever since, instead of entrusting the whole business ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... the Roman empire: and for stars, or other heavenly lights, which have seemed to herald the births or deaths of illustrious personages. But are these stories to be believed? and, if they are, where is the line of credibility to be drawn? People cannot come together, and talk either on this subject, or on that of ghosts, but every one "hath a revelation, hath an interpretation." The poet, walking on the mountains, looked into ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... think, be denied that it was the practice of the chroniclers of the early ages to note down the greater portion of what they heard, without examining critically as to the credibility of the report; and the mention of a fact once made, was amply sufficient for all succeeding authors to copy the statement, and make such additions thereto as best suited their respective fancies, without ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... his own family. This is "the stuff of which his dreams are made." In that way of putting things together, his Grace is perfectly in the right. The grants to the house of Russell were so enormous as not only to outrage economy, but even to stagger credibility. The Duke of Bedford is the leviathan among all the creatures of the crown. He tumbles about his unwieldy bulk; he plays and frolics in the ocean of the royal bounty. Huge as he is, and while "he lies floating many a rood," ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... CREDIBILITY OF HISTORY.—At the opposite pole from credulity is an unwarrantable historical skepticism. The story is told of Sir Walter Raleigh, that when he was a prisoner in the Tower, and was engaged in writing ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... he may toward placing it in its proper rank, as the head and chief of all the sciences. Even then, he cannot perform his task unless his materials are ample, and derived from sources of unquestioned credibility. But if his facts are sufficiently numerous; if they are very diversified; if they have been collected from such various quarters that they can check and confront each other, so as to do away with all suspicion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... raised above them. It is a strange, weird sight, this forest beneath the river; the waters wash over the broken tree-tops, fish swim among the leafless branches: it is desolate, spectre-like, beyond all words. Scientific men who have examined the field with a view to determining the credibility of the legend about the bridge are convinced that it is essentially true. Believed in by many tribes, attested by the appearance of the locality, and confirmed by geological investigation, it is surely entitled to be received as a ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... betwixt Henry's supposed death and the descent of Conachar and his followers, though adopted by her in a moment of extreme and engrossing emotion, was sufficiently probable to have been received for truth, even if her understanding had been at leisure to examine its credibility. Without knowing what she sought except the general desire to know the worst of the dreadful report, she hurried forward to the very spot which of all others her feelings of the preceding day would ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... which unaided it recoils. The affections and emotions are eminently the court of appeal in matters of real religion, which is an affair of the heart; but they are not, I submit, the court in which to weigh allegations regarding the credibility of physical facts. These must be judged by the dry light of the intellect alone, appeals to the affections being reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not historic conviction, is the aim. It is, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... likely to happen, we are next to inquire how the transaction is represented in the several accounts that have come down to us. And this inquiry is properly preceded by the other, forasmuch as the reception of these accounts may depend in part on the credibility of what they contain. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... for us, in these later days of higher standards of historic credibility, to form anything like an adequate conception, of the entire and unquestioning confidence which was felt for the story of British origin, and the race of ancient British kings. Of this feeling there is a curious proof in a transaction in the reign of Edward I., when ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... be controlled by the Evidence of sworn witnesses, who depose under a special oath to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Their Evidence is the Testimony as to the Fact,—the sole testimony; the jury is the ultimate arbiter to decide on the credibility of the evidence, part by part, and its value as ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... therefore, not the proper prey of a satirist. The soliloquy of Malvolio is truly comick; he is betrayed to ridicule merely by his pride. The marriage of Olivia, and the succeeding perplexity, though well enough contrived to divert on the stage, wants credibility, and fails to produce the proper instruction required in the drama, as it exhibits no just ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... available?" and "If there is any, what is its value?" It is easily seen that not all evidence is equally reliable. Both the man and what he says must be tested: the man for such qualities as truthfulness, intelligence, and experience; the statements for consistency and general credibility. The tests of evidence are given ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... it adds to the credibility of the story in all points that the minutes of M. Mesnager's Negotiations were "translated," and probably composed by Defoe himself. See ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... Story and a New Character John the Immortal Eye Witness The Peculiar Theology of Jesus John agreed as to the Trial and Crucifixion Credibility of the Gospels Fashions of Belief Credibility and Truth Christian Iconolatry and the Peril of the Iconoclast The Alternative to Barabbas The Reduction to Modern Practice of Christianity Modern Communism Redistribution Shall He Who Makes, Own? Labor Time The Dream ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... public. I protest I don't understand him, nor do I conceive what the residue of the personal estate will amount to; but not to much, as the opinion of the family is. The reports, and belief of those who are not in the secret, are out of all credibility. ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... seems now so preposterously out of keeping with all the associations of a modern Court that it startles our sense of historical credibility when we find by the actual dates that men and women are still living who might have been carried by their nurses to see the crowds round Westminster Abbey on the Coronation Day of King George the Fourth. The Coronation took place on July 19, 1821, and the whole ceremony ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Normanby's "unquestionable authority" is so very contradictory in his assertions, that, had he not received the sanction of his lordship's approbation, his own conflicting statements must have effectually destroyed his credibility, but for the encomiums passed on it. In one passage he condemns the landlords for the exorbitance of their rents; while in the next he makes it a matter of pride and gratification that he has himself, during his management, raised the rental of the property under his control at least ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... forbade him to suspect the veracity of his victorious master; but he plainly intimates, that in a fact of such a nature, he should have refused his assent to any meaner authority. This motive of credibility could not survive the power of the Flavian family; and the celestial sign, which the Infidels might afterwards deride, was disregarded by the Christians of the age which immediately followed the conversion of Constantine. But the Catholic church, both of the East and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... probabilities; and even though it proved in addition that of all the so-styled miracles on record, there is not a single one the evidence for which is sufficient, it would still prove nothing to the purpose. For Hume is arguing against the credibility, not of any miracles in particular, but of all miracles in general, those included the witnesses for which are of indisputable intelligence and undisputed veracity. Be the quality of the testimony what it may, no quantity of it, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... the great master of fiction—the man who brings the product of imagination to the real test of credibility—the actual interest of his public. Let him fail in his description, his narrative, the progress of his events, or their probability, and he is ruined at once. He must not alone arrange the circumstances of his story, but he must perform the hero, and that, ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... league seemed a romance. For the honour of poor historians, the assassinations of the Kings of France and Portugal, majesties still living in spite of Damien and the Jesuits, and the dethronement and murder of the Czar, have restored some credibility to the annals of former ages. Tacitus recovers his character by the ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... "The whole success of the enterprise depends on your keeping away. Mrs. Lecount will try the credibility of everything you say to her by one test—the test of your communicating, or not, with this house. She will watch you night and day! Don't call here, don't send messages, don't write letters; don't even go out by yourself. Let her see you start for St. Crux on her suggestion, ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... full view of the case, and will see that no possible censure can attach to Mr. Jefferson; that a diversity of opinion will arise from publication as to your father's credibility or mine, and that both may suffer in the Public estimation. I will conclude that, during my long life, I have scarcely ever known an instance of newspaper publication between A. and B. that some obloquy did not attach ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... "it's pure gospel you're spakin', at any rate. A habitation! Why, upon my credibility, they'd not deserve a habitation that 'ud refuse to open the door for a dog on such a night as this, much less to a human creature with a sowl to be saved. A habitation! Well, I think I can, and one where you'll be well treated. I ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... be more fully manifested by duly attending to the following narration. Setting aside all minor matters, I shall relate only those of the greatest importance, which are well worthy of commemoration, and those which I have personally seen, or heard of from men of credibility. I shall now speak with much care concerning those parts most recently discovered, and without any romantic addition ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... more out of the old conclusion as to the lack of authenticity of the Lucan writings into an opinion ever more and more favorable to Luke. For instance, in a notice of his own book, published in the Theologische Literaturzeitung, "he speaks far more favorably about the trustworthiness and credibility of Luke, as being generally in a position to acquire and transmit reliable information, and as having proved himself able to take advantage of his position. Harnack was gradually working his way to a new plane of thought. His later opinion is ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... in Hebrew; and it has been supposed that the writer gratuitously threw in these references to Jeremy and others, in order to please the Jews, who were extremely fond of prophecy. But this supposition is equally fatal to his credibility as an historian. In any case, the Evangelists differ so widely on matters of such interest and importance that we are constrained to discredit their story. It is evidently, as scholarship reveals, a fairy ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen; for London was published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second sight [see post, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty. BOSWELL. I am not sure that Hawkins is altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state of his own knowledge that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... to the same pattern. We do not find perfect consistency in his philosophy; and still less have we any right to demand this of him in his use of mythology and figures of speech. And we observe that while employing all the resources of a writer of fiction to give credibility to his tales, he is not disposed to insist upon their literal truth. Rather, as in the Phaedo, he says, 'Something of the kind is true;' or, as in the Gorgias, 'This you will think to be an old wife's tale, but you can think of nothing truer;' or, as in the Statesman, he describes his work ...
— Statesman • Plato
... of the credibility of the Libellus Synodicus, a compilation of the ninth century, see Hefele, History of the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... histories written by eye-witnesses of the facts which they describe, we accord but a limited confidence. The highest intellectual competence, the most admitted truthfulness, immunity from prejudice, and the absence of temptation to misstate the truth; these things may secure great credibility, but they are no guarantee for minute and circumstantial exactness. Two historians, though with equal gifts and equal opportunities, never describe events in exactly the same way. Two witnesses in a court of law, while they agree in the main, invariably differ ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... reddened with henna, reminding Matthews that the hands belonging to the nails were rumored to bear even more sinister stains. And the bottomless black eyes peering out from under the white turban lent surprising credibility to such rumors. But there was no lack of graciousness in the gestures with which those famous hands saluted the visitor and pointed him to a seat of honor on the rug beside the Father of Swords. The Father of Swords furthermore pronounced his heart uplifted ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... could not possibly be true because of some marvellous or absurd incident which was supposed to have occurred, his natural and immediate impulse was to look upon that special circumstance as conclusive proof of its credibility and truth. His extraordinarily wide, if inaccurate, recollections of historical facts and fictions would supply him with a hundred illustrations to show that what seemed to you ridiculous, or, at any ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... lord, at page nineteen hundred and seventy-two your lordship will find that when the credibility of ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... the multitudes who allow themselves to reject the doctrines of revealed religion, because, as they assert, they are, on their face so utterly improbable, that they labor under an a priori objection strong enough to be fatal to their credibility. Do not nearly all the steps in the development of a queen from a worker-egg, labor under precisely the same objection? and have they not, for this very reason, always been regarded by great numbers of bee keepers, as unworthy of credence? ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... body, yet it will be always as easy to give an account of it as to give an account what it is that shall keep together a material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an account of that, I hope, does not, with your lordship, weaken the credibility of the inseparable union of soul and body to eternity; and I persuade myself that the men of sense, to whom your lordship appeals in this case, do not find their belief of this fundamental point much weakened by that difficulty.... ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... the Pharisee are still with us. "Establish the credibility of the miracles of Jesus, or, better still, let Him work a miracle to-day, and we will believe," they say. This age is credulous; it hungers to believe the extraordinary. Yet, while it is running after folly, it ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... submitting, from time to time such accepted work to the tests suggested by his own observations. He learns to regard in a different light all knowledge taken on the authority of others; to distrust it a little until he has learned to weigh its general credibility by his own standards, and its particular credibility by subjecting portions of it to his own tests; to distrust it still more when even small portions fail to answer his tests, and to reject it altogether when the percentage of detected error is large. He learns, in fact, what ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... omniscient and benevolent Providence taught them what end to seek. But now that men are critically aware of how their purposes are special to their age, their locality, their interests, and their limited knowledge, it is blazing arrogance to sacrifice hard-won standards of credibility to some special purpose. It is nothing but the doctrine that I want what I want when I want it. Its monuments are the Inquisition and the invasion of Belgium. It is the reason given for every act of unreason, the law invoked whenever lawlessness justifies itself. At bottom it is nothing ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... running, which they did by pulling off their stockings, and either cutting off the sleeves of their jackets, or rolling them up close to their armpits; and though the mosquitoes at that time "were so numerous as to surpass all credibility", yet some of the Indians actually pulled off their jackets and entered the lists nearly or quite naked. Hearne, fearing he might have occasion to run with the rest, thought it also advisable to pull off his stockings and cap, and to tie his hair ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... we were not able at all to discern how or in what way the present life could be our preparation for another, this would be no objection against the credibility of its being so. For we do not discern how food and sleep contribute to the growth of the body; nor could have any thought that they would before we had experience. Nor do children at all think on the one hand that the sports and exercises, to which ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... circumstances. That this would have been the nature of his answer, had any such proposal occurred, the generally high tone of his political conduct forbids us to feel any doubt,—but, with respect to the credibility of the transaction altogether, it is far less easy to believe that the Americans had so much money to give, than that Mr. Sheridan should have been ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... acting when dropped on the discs, or applied to the glands of the exterior tentacles, or when leaves are immersed. The difference in the power of these three salts, as tried in three different ways, supports the results presently to be [page 154] given, which are so surprising that their credibility requires every kind of support. In 1872 I experimented on twelve immersed leaves, giving each only ten minims of a solution; but this was a bad method, for so small a quantity hardly covered them. None of these experiments will, therefore, be given, though they indicate ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... before the court, and they were made without sufficient consideration, and are manifestly inaccurate. They are now overruled. The question of competency is one of law, and therefore for the court; but the question of credibility,—that is, of worthiness of belief,—and therefore the effect of the competent evidence of each witness, is one of fact, and for the jury."] If not, that acquires by ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... Republic, as well as a frequent singer upon the stage to his own harp accompaniments. He occupies a position in musical history of some importance. The following story of his adventures is no more improbable than many a story we read in the daily newspapers—and surely no one could question the credibility of the daily newspapers. But here is the story as Hawkins tells it. As the cook-books say, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... the United States, and he thought it would aid him if I would certify to what I knew of his kindness to Union prisoners. I accordingly drew up a strong detailed statement of his timely and invaluable charities to us in our distress. I accompanied it with vouchers for my credibility signed by Hon. N. D. Sperry, General Wm. H. Russell, and President Theodore D. Woolsey, all of New Haven, and Governor Wm. A. Buckingham of Norwich, Conn. These documents I forwarded to Ficklin. I do not ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... le Juge, but do you not give too much credibility to the porter? For me, his evidence is tainted, and I hardly believe a word of it. Did he not tell me at first he had not seen this maid after Amberieux at 8 P.M.? Now he admits that he was drinking with her at the buffet at Laroche. It is all a tissue of lies, his losing ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... their veracity is not impeachd, stand equal in the eye of the judge; unless he happens to be acquainted with their different characters, which is not presumd—The jury who are taken from the vicinity, are supposd to know the credibility of the witnesses: In the late trials the witnesses were most if not all of them either inhabitants of this town or transient persons residing in it, and the jurors were all from the country: Therefore it is not likely that they were acquainted with the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... been mentioned M. Ducis, M. de La Fayette, and the Marechal de Rochambeau. The truth is, that no such refusals were ever made. The following fact, however, may have contributed to raise these reports and give them credibility. Bonaparte used frequently to say to persons in his salon and in his cabinet; "You should be a Senator—a man like you should be a Senator." But these complimentary words did not amount to a nomination. To enter the Senate certain legal forms were to be observed. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... rational expectation and moral action are alike based upon beliefs; and a belief is void of justification, unless its subject-matter lies within the boundaries of possible knowledge, and unless its evidence satisfies the conditions which experience imposes as the guarantee of credibility. ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... course he is a capital witness. There is no doubt of Chauvenet's entire credibility," ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... declared, most exceeding pains were taken in the palace, that the despatches of Romanus, which contained many most unfavourable statements respecting Firmus, should be received and read by the prince; while many circumstances strengthened their credibility. And, on the other hand, that those documents which Firmus frequently, for the sake of his own safety, endeavoured to lay before the emperor by the agency of his friends, should be kept from his sight as long as possible, Remigius, a friend and relation of Romanus, and who was at that time master ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... is none of the far-fetched, impossible exaggeration—the form of burlesque which Theodore Hook or Albert Smith might have attempted. It is, in fact, a real speech, which might have been delivered to a dull-headed audience without much impairing credibility. Apart from this it is a most effective harangue and most plausible ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... be a waste of time to examine it. This spirit had arisen since the Restoration, although the laws were still in force, and although little or no direct reasoning had been brought to bear upon the subject. In order to combat it, Glanvil proceeded to examine the general question of the credibility of the miraculous. He saw that the reason why witchcraft was ridiculed was, because it was a phase of the miraculous and the work of the devil; that the scepticism was chiefly due to those who disbelieved in miracles and the devil; and ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... reflections, seeming true from their very dulness, he gave to his work a remarkable verisimilitude. He did not even issue the book under his own name, but invented an authorship which would attract attention and credibility. Thus the "History of Charles XII" was announced on the title-page as "written by a Scot's gentleman in the Swedish service"; and the "Life of Count Patkul" was "written by a Lutheran minister who assisted him in his last home, and faithfully translated ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... female warriors was said to have been met with; a report which gave rise to the Portuguese name of the river, Amazonas. It is now pretty well known that this is a mere fable, originating in the love of the marvellous which distinguished the early Spanish adventurers, and impaired the credibility of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... sufficed, and the renowned Bishop Binsfeld, of Treves, in his noted treatise on the credibility of the confessions of witches, gave an entire chapter to the effect of bells in calming atmospheric disturbances. Basing his general doctrine upon the first chapter of Job and the second chapter of Ephesians, he insisted on the reality of diabolic agency in storms; and then, by theological ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... either evaded or answered so puzzling a question. To have avowed the truth might, in those times, have occasioned his being burnt at a stake, although, in ours, his confession would have only gained for him the credit of a liar beyond all rational credibility. He was fortunately relieved by the return of Sir Piercie Shafton himself, whose ear caught, as he entered, the sound of ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... very persons—members of the Muscovy Company and others—who most would have desired to punish him had they believed that punishment was his just desert. That he did not testify against Hudson must count, therefore, as a strong point in Hudson's favor; so strong—his credibility and theirs being considered comparatively—that it goes far toward offsetting the testimony of the haberdasher and the barber-surgeon and the common sailors by whom Hudson ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... dared not set up to be the victorious prince expected, for victories are not to be counterfeited. I hope it was no crime in him that he did not assume this false character, and try to abuse the credibility of the people; if he had done so, it certainly would have been a crime; and therefore in this point at least he is innocent. I do not suppose the Gentleman imagines the Jews were well founded in their expectation of a temporal prince: and therefore when Christ opposed this conceit at the manifest ...
— The Trial of the Witnessses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ • Thomas Sherlock
... the very step qui coute. Nothing but direct evidence that the step has been taken—that a flying machine, on this occasion, actually flew (they appear to be styled volantes, a non volando)—would really help your case, and establish the credibility of this witness." ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... 1. The veracity and credibility of Herodotus have increased and increase with the increase of our discoveries. Several of his relations deemed fabulous, have been authenticated within the last thirty years from ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... few restrictions, I think, every writer may be permitted to deal as much in the wonderful as he pleases; nay, if he thus keeps within the rules of credibility, the more he can surprize the reader the more he will engage his attention, and the more he will charm him. As a genius of the highest rank observes in his fifth chapter of the Bathos, "The great art of all poetry is ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... inspiring a true belief. So in the Lusiads, while the conflict and the crisis, as shown in the national energy of colonization in the East, are clear, the machinery of the heavenly plot frankly reverts to mythologic and pagan forms and loses all credibility. ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... can conceive, and allow of, the appearance of a ghost; we can even dispense with an enchanted sword and helmet; but then they must keep within certain limits of credibility: A sword so large as to require an hundred men to lift it; a helmet that by its own weight forces a passage through a court-yard into an arched vault, big enough for a man to go through; a picture that walks out of its frame; a skeleton ghost in a hermit's cowl:—When your expectation ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... is no reason why it should be any easier for us. It is not easy to maintain the dialogue of life; it is not easy to call forth the being of others; it is not easy to regain the freedom to love even when we respond to the spirit of love. We recognize the credibility and promise of all these principles, but wonder at the ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... we have to hope or to fear from him. Every thing is regulated by what we call natural means. But, in the times I speak of, all was mysterious: the powers of men were subject to no recognised laws: and therefore nothing that imagination could suggest, exceeded the bounds of credibility. Some men were supposed to be so rarely endowed that "a thousand liveried angels" waited on them invisibly, to execute their behests for the benefit of those they favoured; while, much oftener, the perverse and ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... Probability. — N. probability, likelihood; credibleness[obs3]; likeliness &c. adj.; vraisemblance[Fr], verisimilitude, plausibility; color, semblance, show of; presumption; presumptive evidence, circumstantial evidence; credibility. reasonable chance, fair chance, good chance, favorable chance, reasonable prospect, fair prospect, good prospect, favorable prospect; prospect, wellgrounded hope; chance &c. 156. V. be probable &c. adj.; give color to, lend color ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of June 9 Alten summoned several of his scientific friends, and to them he told fully what had happened to him. They listened with a keen understanding and a rational knowledge of the possibility that what he said was true; but credibility they ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... scarcely believe their ears, so much was I, a four-year-old child, their superior in learning. Some of them were not certain that I was not an imp of Satan, so utterly did my performance exceed credibility. My beauty too at this age was uncommon; my limbs were straight and strong, my cheeks of the purest red and white, and my full flaxen hair hung in short ringlets down my neck. The mistress and bar-maid kissed me, the men gave me money, and they all eagerly enquired who I was, where I was going, ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... amiable" in his Contes Moraux (1761), and cure the ravage of passion with a canary's song. His more ambitious Belisaire seems to a modern reader a masterpiece in the genre ennuyeux. His Incas is exotic without colour or credibility. Florian, with little skill, imitated the Incas and Telemaque, or was feebly idyllic and conventionally pastoral as a follower of the Swiss Gessner. Restif de la Bretonne could be gross, corrupt, declamatory, sentimental, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... to town for a week-end broadcast, but I didn't even bother to see her, just phoned her and told her I was sick. I guess my face lent credibility to the story, for she was duly sympathetic, and her face in the phone screen was quite anxious. Even at that, I couldn't keep my eyes away from her lips because, except for a bit too lustrous make-up, they were the lips of the ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... moment when prevenient grace begins its work in the soul, the common opinion is that the very first judgment which a man forms as to the credibility of divine revelation (iudicium credibilitatis) is determined by the immediate grace of the intellect,(330) and that the subsequent affectus credulitatis springs from the strengthening ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... honesty, I don't think that, for a whole half-year, I once escaped my Sunday flogging. It came as regularly as the baked rice-puddings. I began to look upon the thing as a matter of course; and, if any person should doubt the credibility of this, or any other account of these my school-boy days, happily there are several now living who can vouch for its veracity, and if I am dared to the proof by anyone by whose conviction I should feel honoured, that proof will I most ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Brule, either for honor or veracity, is not improved by his subsequent conduct. He appears in 1629 to have turned traitor, to have sold himself to the English, and to have piloted them up the river in their expedition against Quebec. Whether this conduct, base certainly it was, ought to affect the credibility of his story, the reader must judge. Champlain undoubtedly believed it when he first related it to him. He probably had no means then or afterwards of testing its truth. In the edition of 1632, Brule's story is omitted. It does ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... conversant with the usages and customs of the Indian tribes of Pennsylvania and New York. His general knowledge justifies the title of his work, "History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations, who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States," and gives the highest credibility ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... do so; but we must allow it as one of the requisites of our admission to our original standing in the Union. To-day the negro is as competent a witness in our State as the white man, made so by the action of the convention. The credibility of the witness is to be determined by the jurors and justices. If you refuse his testimony, as is being done, the result will be the military courts and Freedmen's Bureau will take it up, and jurisdiction is lost, and those who best know the negro will be ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... contemporary literature, all satiric art, tell the same horrid tale; and the number of bottles which a single toper would consume at a sitting not only, in Burke's phrase, "outraged economy," but "staggered credibility." Even as late as 1831, Samuel Wilberforce, afterwards Bishop, wrote thus in his diary:—"A good Audit Dinner: 23 people drank 11 bottles of wine, 28 quarts of beer, 2-1/2 of spirits, and 12 bowls of punch; and would have drunk twice as much ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... the leper, at Bethany, and the anointing of the feet by 'a woman that was a sinner' in the city, with the anointing of the head by Mary the sister of Martha, adopt principles of criticism so reckless and arbitrary that their general acceptance would rob the Gospels of all credibility, and make them hardly worth study as truthful narratives. As for the names Simon and Judas, which have led to so many identifications of different persons and different incidents, they were at least as common among the Jews of that day ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... source of the suggestion enters here. Even if we admit the taps to spell out a message, we have still to decide from whom the message comes and the messages alleged to be contributed through the voice are so much more full and intelligible as to leave the whole question standing or falling with the credibility of ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... the Sinaitic coast, as far as Ras Mohammed, the apex of the triangle, is fretted with little indentations; hence its name, El-Shurum—"the Creeks." Near one of these baylets, Wellsted chanced upon "volcanic rocks which are not found in any other part of the peninsula:" this sporadic outbreak gives credibility to the little "Harrah" reported to be found upon the bank of the Midianitish "Wady Sukk." A hideous, horrid reef, dirty brown and muddy green, with white horses madly charging the black diabolitos, whose ugly heads ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... bring forward any one," said Charles, addressing Lanyere, "Sir Giles must be set right on one point in which he is in error. Your credibility is not to be disputed, and I ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... expectation, that the larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... of reconciling Miracles with Credibility, is by a happy Invention of the Poet; as in particular, when he introduces Agents of a superior Nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary course of things. Ulysses's Ship being turned into a Rock, and AEneas's Fleet ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... violent threats of the husband; or that Mrs. Appleboy had been observed to mail a suspicious letter shortly before the date of the canine assault. They disregarded her. Yet when Tutt upon cross-examination sought to attack her credibility by asking her various pertinent questions they unhesitatingly accepted his implied accusations as true, though under the rules of evidence he was bound by ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... 1984, and TOPS-20 by early fall. Unfortunately, the hackers running Systems Concepts were much better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling them; the company allowed itself to be sidetracked by a bout of perfectionism into continually improving the design, and lost credibility as delivery dates continued to slip. They also overpriced the product ridiculously; they believed they were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and failed to reckon with the likes of Sun Microsystems and other hungry startups ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... remember it consisted of Old Testament stories, orderly set down, with the objection appended to each story, and the solution of the objection regularly tacked to that. The objection was a summary of whatever difficulties had been opposed to the credibility of the history, by the shrewdness of ancient or modern infidelity, drawn up with an almost complimentary excess of candour. The solution was brief, modest, and satisfactory. The bane and antidote were, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... "this man's father had given him many a dinner in his necessities." And a strange random account is given by Foxe of his having joined a party in an expedition to Rome to obtain a renewal from the pope of certain immunities and indulgences for the town of Boston; a story which derives some kind of credibility from its connexion with Lincolnshire, but is full of incoherence and unlikelihood. Following still the popular legend, we find him in the autumn of 1515 a ragged stripling at the door of Frescobaldi's banking-house in Florence, begging for help. ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... soul for the papacy, and some were ready to swear that they actually saw seven devils in the room when he was dying. The fact that these witnesses were able to count the fiends speaks well for their coolness, and for the credibility of ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... his eunuchs, his women, and his treasures. Athenaeus makes these treasures amount to a thousand myriads of talents of gold,(1010) and ten times as many talents of silver, which, without reckoning any thing else, is a sum that exceeds all credibility. A myriad contains ten thousand; and one single myriad of talents of silver is worth thirty millions of French money, or about one million four hundred thousand pounds sterling. A man is lost, if he attempts to sum up the whole value; which ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... about them, I don't understand business; but I want to tell you about Sir Rupert. The Society for Psychical Research sent down a Committee to inquire into the credibility of the ghost, and recorded four authentic apparitions in the spare bedroom; and on family evidence accepted at least three events in the Long Gallery. It was just after their report was issued that papa was invited to lease the house to some Americans for the summer. He always gets a good ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... to prejudgments of this class must merge in the general argument, which shows that, whether the Catholic religion be true or false, it is beyond the limits of credibility that its ruling principle can be one of intentional deception. I insist, then, that it would not merely be a miracle,—if is an impossibility that such an imposture should remain undetected to this day, and ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... Babylonia the greatest of the three was governed by Nebuchadnezzar, while Lydia was ruled by Croesus, a monarch wise above his peers, whose name has long been a synonym for unbounded wealth, and whose story, though not beyond the bounds of credibility, reads more like a fable of romance than ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... and if possible amend them. Such was Church discipline, even under an extraordinary commission from Rome. But the most incorrigible Anglican will scarcely question the truth of a picture drawn by such a hand; and it must be added that this one unexceptionable indictment lends at once assured credibility to the reports which were presented fifty years later, on the general visitation. There is no longer room for the presumptive objection that charges so revolting could not be true. We see that in their worst form they could be true, and the evidence of Legh and Leghton, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... he is a Russian spy, or the lost heir of the Holy Roman Empire. What we assume in action is not that the natural order is unalterable, but simply that it is much safer to bet on uncommon incidents than on common ones. This does not touch the credibility of any attested tale about a Russian spy or a pumpkin turned into a coach. If I had seen a pumpkin turned into a Panhard motor-car with my own eyes that would not make me any more inclined to assume that the same thing would happen again. ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... succeeding kings of Babylon, as well as of Cyrus and his successors, it is so common in ancient writers, as not to need a more particular notice of it. And very many passages of the Old Testament are mentioned by Celsus, and objections to Christianity formed upon them. Is not all this in favor of the credibility of the Old Testament? And with respect to the New Testament, we have the testimony of Tacitus and Suetonius to the existence of Jesus Christ, the Founder of the Christian religion, and to His crucifixion in the reign of Tiberius, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... "Let us test the credibility of the man who has tried to swear away the life of the prisoner. You saw him in the witness-box, and I have no doubt formed your own conclusions as to the type of man he is. Did he strike you as a man who would stand by the truth above all things, or a man who would lie ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... Astrakhan (Gittarchan). Astrolabe. Astrology, -ers, in Tangut, of Chinghiz; at Kublai's Court; at Cambaluc; of Tibet; at Kinsay; in Maabar; in Coilum. Astronomical instruments, ancient Chinese. Atabegs, of Mosul, of Lur; of Fars; of Yezd; of Kerman. Atjeh, see Achin. Atkinson's Narratives, and their credibility. Atlas, Chinese, in Magliabecchian Library. [Greek: Attagas] (Black Partridge). Attalus, King. At-Thaibi family. Auberoche, Siege of. Audh (Oudh). Aufat, Ifat. Augury, see Omens. Aung Khan (Unc Can), see Prester John. Aurangzib. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... is a very strange one, when it is considered that the native was a very spare and weak man, so that either of the police ought to have been able to keep him at arm's length; but to say that he seized both their guns is beyond all credibility. The natives were sitting down when the police arrived. How they could therefore find a wallet upon the murdered man, I cannot conceive; since the natives never have their wallets slung, except when ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... but with the messenger that brings the truth to be believed. The message of the Church is: these are God's words. As for what these words stand for, you are not to trust her, but Him. The foundation of divine belief is one thing; the motives of credibility are another. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... So great a magnitude was at first a cause of incredulity; but the subsequent discovery of the bones of the Moa or Dinornis of New Zealand, proved that, at a much later time, there had been feathered bipeds of even larger bulk, and the credibility of the Ornithichnites Giganteus has accordingly been established. Sir Charles Lyell, when he visited the scene of the footprints on the Connecticut River, saw a slab marked with a row of the footsteps ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... known, and Michel Ardan's proposition was already all over the States of the Union, so Barbicane had no reason for silence. He therefore called together his colleagues then in Tampa Town, and, without showing what he thought about it or saying a word about the degree of credibility the telegram deserved, he read coldly the ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... but her voice faltered a little, and her glance was not quite so fearless. She, too, saw at last the pit he had dug for her. He leaned forward, smiling quietly, his voice impressively subdued, and launched the bolt that was to annihilate the credibility of the story ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... and disappeared mysteriously for a day or two until a renewed lull enabled them to restart their profitable shop-keeping. Many alleged spies lived here unharassed, especially in the outlying farms; and credibility was lent to the current tales by the number of carrier pigeons seen passing over the lines, or by the incident of the two dogs which suddenly appeared early one dawn from the German lines, leapt our trenches, and were lost in the darkness ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... reflection has given rise to misapplications of the calculus of probabilities which have made it the real opprobrium of mathematics. It is sufficient to refer to the applications made of it to the credibility of witnesses, and to the correctness of the verdicts of juries. In regard to the first, common sense would dictate that it is impossible to strike a general average of the veracity and other qualifications for true ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... them, and hear their voices, and hold them in her arms, to-morrow, seemed to her a thing impossible, beyond credibility or dream. Then she said to herself that it all depended on what happened ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair
... copper money was extremely wanted in Ireland. The first had been out of the kingdom almost twenty years, from the time that he was tried for robbing the treasury, and therefore his knowledge and credibility are equal. The second may be allowed a more knowing witness, because I think it is not above a year since the House of Commons ordered the Attorney-general to prosecute him, for endeavouring "to take away the life of John Bingham Esq; member of parliaments by perjury and subornation." ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... give you what I heard. It's not much, and it may be false; it's for you to judge, in the light of all that you know concerning her, whether or not it affects her credibility. Mrs. Clephane went with a notoriously fast set in Paris, and ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... that such discoveries are either of doubtful credibility or a matter of the past only. They have taken place in all centuries, the present included; ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... cannot be properly understood apart from theirs. Isolated and alone, its history is in large measure unintelligible or open to misconception. The keenest criticism is powerless to discover the principles which underlie it, to detect the motives of the policy it describes, or to estimate the credibility of the narratives in which it is contained, unless it is assisted by testimony from without. It is like a dark jungle where the discovery of a path is impossible until the sun penetrates through the foliage and the daylight streams in through ...
— Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations • Archibald Sayce
... For not only is the circumstantial evidence overwhelming and conclusive, but we have also the testimony of eye-witnesses with which to confirm it, and one of these witnesses, Ben Jonson, is of rare credibility and singularly well equipped. ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... European tenderness of feeling; but in him the Tartar is merely varnished over, and he has frequent relapses into the ungovernable fury and despotic habits of his race. The poet ought at least to have given a credibility to the magnanimity which he ascribes to him, by investing him with a celebrated historical name, such as that of the Saracen monarch Saladin, well known for his nobleness and liberality of sentiment. But all our sympathy ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... of gentle, polite natures, straight back, not into Paradise, were always welcome to men's fancies; and that could only be because they found a psychologic truth in them. With much success, with a credibility insured by his literary tact, Merimee tried his own hand at such stories: unfrocked the [29] bear in the amorous young Lithuanian noble, the wolf in the revolting peasant of the Middle Age. There were survivals surely in himself, in ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... "the history of the science appears so easy and natural according to Dr. Milner's hypothesis, and so many difficulties must be softened down, so many discordances reconciled, according to any other, as to go a very great way towards establishing the credibility of his idea. Here then is a complete history of an invention, for which every quarter of the globe has been ransacked. And, be it remembered, that the pointed arch did not first display itself in those magnificent proportions, which would ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 570, October 13, 1832 • Various
... the third part of the probation, we remit the positive depositions of the confessants, and against whom they do concur, wholly to your own perusal or examination; only you would be pleased to notice, 1st, Something which do very much sustain the credibility of their testimonies, arising from their examination in court. 2dly, We shall explain to you the import of the word Nota, which is added to the interlocutor of the judges admitting these ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... &c., then subsequently applied this appropriate learning to the searching investigation of the several narratives authorised by Herodotus. In the middle of the last century, nothing could rank lower than the historic credibility of this writer. And to parody his title to be regarded as the 'Father of History,' by calling him the 'Father of Lies,' was an unworthy insult offered to his admirable simplicity and candour by more critics than one. But two points startle the honourable reader, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Paul's day, tried to commend themselves. We do not hear of "Evidence Societies" among non-Christian faiths. When the Emperor Julian attempted to restore the ancient paganism, he did not argue for its superior credibility, but contented himself with abusing the creed of Christians and extolling the beauty of the rituals of the religion it had supplanted. But the propaganda of the gospel of Jesus is invariably one of persuasion, convincing and ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... carefully preserved in various libraries all over Europe. Some of these are upon vellum, showing their great age. The closing chapter of the book is devoted to a summing up of the opinions of the great critics on the history and credibility of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
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