"Direct evidence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of their last tree, are still known by their old name of forests. In the times of the Oolite, on the other hand, Britain had from fourteen to twenty different species of conifers; and its great forests, of whose existence we have direct evidence in the very abundant lignites of the system, must have possessed a richness and variety which our ancient fir woods of the historic or human period could not have possessed. With the Conifers and the Cycadeae there were many ferns associated,—so many, that they still composed nearly ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... character of the site and the peculiarities of the ground plan. Most of the rooms in the northwestern cluster and in the eastern part of the village were but one story in height, while the crowding in the interior of the village, direct evidence of which is seen on the ground plan, could take place only after the rooms surrounding that area had been located, and when hostile pressure from outside made it undesirable to extend the bounds of the village; in other words, at the ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... of Orange in 1688. The only known copy of them is in the Sloane MSS. 3650. It is unfortunately not complete, the last few articles with the date and signature being missing, so that there is no direct evidence that it related to this fleet. There can however be no doubt about the matter. For it is followed by the battle order of a fleet in which both ships and captains correspond exactly with that which Dartmouth commanded in 1688. The only other ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... he himself knew not that any man was with Ruthven, he had two companions, one of whom, Andrew Henderson, he now despatched to Gowrie, bidding him prepare dinner for the King. This is not part of James's direct evidence. He was unknowing and unsuspecting that any man living had come ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... investigated, the true takes the place of the unreal representation. But in ignorant times those instances in which any object is misrepresented, whether through the action of the senses, or of the imagination, or the combined influence of both, for however short a space of time, may be admitted as direct evidence of a supernatural apparition; a proof the more difficult to be disputed if the phantom has been personally witnessed by a man of sense and estimation, who, perhaps satisfied in the general as to the actual existence of apparitions, has not taken time or trouble to correct his first impressions. This ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... now those letters, Miriam? What are they like? What is their purport? It seems to me that they would not only give a hint, but afford direct evidence against that demoniac assassin. And it seems strange to me that they were not examined, with a view to ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... be the very essence of cruelty was that of the moral terrorizing of an educated Korean Pastor, whom the police merely suspected of having had something to do with the Independence Movement. They had no direct evidence but submitted him to months of moral terrorizing which was the worst ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... one who confesses the principal fact, but varies as to circumstances. Also on one who is reputed to be a heretic, but against whom there is only one witness of the fact. In this case common rumor is one indication of guilt, and the direct evidence is another, making altogether but semi-plenar proof. The torture may bring out fall proof. Also, when there is no witness, but vehement suspicion. Also when there is no common report of heresy, but only ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... our individual faith, although grounded in the first instance on parental authority, yet rests afterwards on wholly different grounds; namely, on the direct evidence in confirmation of it which is presented to our own minds. But with regard to those who are called the Fathers of the Church, it is contended sometimes that we do receive the Scriptures, in the end, upon their authority: and it is argued, that if their authority is sufficient ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... for what seemed a signal case of this kind, involving the massacre of unresisting women as well as men, five colonists were arrested and brought to trial, and would certainly have "swung for it" had there not been some inadequacy of direct evidence. ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... atoms in two. This was shown by the results with which spectrum analysis had enriched our knowledge. Terrestrial analysis had failed to furnish favorable evidence; and, turning to the chemistry of the stars, the spectra of the white, which were presumably the hottest stars, furnished no direct evidence that a decomposition of any terrestrial atom had taken place; indeed, we learned that the hydrogen atom, as we know it here, can endure unscathed the inconceivably fierce temperature of stars presumably many times more fervent than our sun, as Sirius and Vega. It was therefore no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... scientific authorities in America, Prof. Thomas Hunt Morgan, of Columbia University, has recently said, "The direct evidence furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence that we have in favor of organic evolution."[33] Accordingly we purpose to examine carefully what this by all odds "strongest ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... view that, in the mind of the old Israelite, there was no difference, save one of degree, between one Elohim and another. It is true that there is but little direct evidence to show that the old Israelites shared the widespread belief of their own, and indeed of all times, that the spirits of the dead not only continue to exist, but are capable of a ghostly kind of feeding and are grateful for such aliment as can be assimilated ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... OF LEGENDS OF HEALING.—THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE. Growth of legends of miracles about the lives of great benefactors of humanity Sketch of Xavier's career Absence of miraculous accounts in his writings and those of his contemporaries Direct evidence that Xavier wrought no miracles Growth of legends of miracles as shown in the early biographies of him As shown in the canonization ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... the sacred chants and prayers of the natives. In the Maya tongue of Yucatan a certain number of them have escaped destruction, and although they are open to some suspicion of having been colored for proselytizing purposes, there is direct evidence from natives who were adults at the time of the Conquest that some of their priests had predicted the time should come when the worship of one only God should prevail. This was nothing more than another instance of the monotheistic ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... amulets and charms. Magical texts, the preparation of the body, the construction of the grave—all things were done by regular crafts. The cheapening of the apparatus is most striking. At the same time all but the poorest burials bear direct evidence of their ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... the enthusiastic answer. "Haven't you heard of him before? Well, you wouldn't, unless you followed famous cases professionally. He seldom appears in the courts—generally manages to wriggle out of giving direct evidence. But I've never known him to fail. He either hangs his man or drives him to suicide. If I committed a crime, and was told that Furneaux was after me, I'd own up and save trouble, because I wouldn't have the ghost of a ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... to have been the Herts. County Club, but the County Clubs usually met in the county towns. Mr. Hale Wortham has in his possession some silver labels, bearing the words "County Club," said to have been handed down as part of the Royston Club property; but on the other hand there is the direct evidence of the contemporary account of the Club given in the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1783, describing it as the Royston Club, by which title ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... warn that gay pope, Alexander VI., of the danger of his ways, the Spanish physician even expressing the kind hope (which may not have been fulfilled) that the Holy Father would be preserved "morbo foedo et occulto his temporibus affligente": there is direct evidence of this state of abandonment to vice on the part of consecrated men from Bracciolini, who, during his excursion to the Baths of Baden in 1416, gave an account of that favourite watering place of the fifteenth century, where ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Archibald—that is to say, thus he might have cogitated, for there is no direct evidence of what passed through his mind. And, in the first place, he made an exhaustive examination of the cavity, and convinced himself not only that there was nothing else except dust to be got out of it, but also that it opened into no ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... left in it, had been identified by the chemist, and had been declared to contain grains of arsenic. But where was the proof that Mrs. Eustace Macallan's hand had placed the packet in the cabinet, and had emptied it of its contents? No direct evidence ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... from Arenberg, and sent others to him. The contents of the voluminous inquisitorial dust-heap were perpetually being sorted, and distributed, or, reluctantly, discarded. Any answers reflecting on another, particularly if reflecting on Ralegh, were carefully put aside, to fill gaps in the direct evidence against him. Thus, Brooke, according to Sir William Waad, 'confidently thinketh what his brother knows was known to the other.' On July 17, Brooke said that the conspirators among themselves thought Sir Walter Ralegh a fit ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... enjoyed an abundance far beyond what in general falls to the lot of that order in long-settled countries; incomparably beyond what the same class were enjoying at that very time in Germany or France. The laws secured them; and that the laws were put in force we have the direct evidence of successive acts of the legislature justifying the general policy by its success: and we have also the indirect evidence of the contented loyalty of the great body of the people at a time when, if they had been discontented, they held in their own hands the means ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... Comparative Method. Again, the recorded history of a nation, and of all its institutions, followed backwards, comes at last to an end: then the antecedent history must also be supplied by the Comparative Method; whose special use is to indicate the existence of facts for which there is no direct evidence. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... same principle of inheritance at corresponding ages, and on the principle of variations not generally supervening at a very early period of embryonic growth (and both these principles can be shown to be probable from direct evidence), that most wonderful fact in the whole round of natural history, namely, the similarity of members of the same great class in their embryonic condition,—the embryo, for instance, of a mammal, bird, reptile, and fish being barely ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... appeared to the carefully guarded pupils of the Stuttgart academy. He became acquainted with Ossian, and the shadowy forms of the Celtic bard, big with their indefinable woe, increased the turmoil of his soul. Probably he read Rousseau more or less, though direct evidence of the fact is lacking. At any rate the air was surcharged with Rousseauite feeling. Certainly he read Plutarch and Cervantes, and along with all these came Shakspere,[12] to whom he was introduced—in the Wieland translation—by ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... after laying open to them the circumstances in which I had been placed, we concerted the best means of defence. My laundress could swear that I was in chambers the whole of the evening when the robbery was committed; and though this was the only direct evidence in my favour, yet I assembled at least a dozen persons, men of repute and station, as witnesses to my character. The trial excited prodigious interest, but what was that interest to the agony with which I regarded ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... annoy her in this respect. Articles of daily use were misplaced, and many an accident occurred in the household which could be traced in an indirect way to Ephraim; but the fellow was shrewd as well as mischievous, and took good care that not a scrap of direct evidence could be ...
— Walter Harland - Or, Memories of the Past • Harriet S. Caswell
... would be useless to fit a needle to the projectile unless the latter was made to travel with the point forwards; but there is direct evidence that the barrel was rifled. You notice the little square projection on the back surface of the cylinder. That was evidently made to fit a washer or wad—probably a thin plate of soft metal which would be driven by the pressure from behind into the grooves ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... his council; and he showed it by the vigilance with which he watched over the Prince Maximilian, and the anxiety with which he kept him from approaching your highness, until his pretensions could be established by arms. But, if more direct evidence were wanting, since yesterday we have had it in the dying confession of the very agent employed to strike the fatal blow. That man died last night, penitent and contrite, having fully unburdened his conscience, at Waldenhausen. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of evolution is based on such a mass of evidence that we may justly draw deductions from it, where the direct evidence is incomplete. This is especially necessary in the early part of our ancestral tree, because the fossil record quite fails us. For millions of years the early soft-bodied animals left no trace in the primitive mud, which time has hardened into rocks, and we are restricted ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... must remember that in investigating traditions and traditional observances we are dealing with a phase of civilization of which history only yields rare and indirect glimpses. It is the absence of direct evidence that, not only in the science of Folklore, but also in the physical sciences, causes resort to the evidence afforded by comparison of other structures and processes. On the validity of this evidence, and the reasoning based upon it, nearly all our scientific learning depends. ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... some indirect evidence on behalf of Christianity, which deserves a word of notice since the direct evidence so lamentably breaks down. He urges that: "there is satisfactory evidence that many, professing to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, voluntarily under-gone, in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and solely ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers. The undulatory theory of light, for instance, has thus been arrived at; and the belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was, until lately, supported by scarcely any direct evidence. It is no valid objection to the Darwinian theory of the origin of species that science as yet throws no light on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Neither has any one explained what is the essence of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... been a lonely life that young Joffre led—but we have no direct evidence that he ever felt lonely. His books and his day dreams seem always to have made up for a lack of human companionship. The other fellows contented themselves with saying of him: "He is too slow, and methodical to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... suspected by the French of being favourable to the insurrectionary movement now in progress—as indeed I may admit to you that I am, my brother being in command of the insurgents—and I feel sure that, could a particle of direct evidence be secured against me, my arrest would instantly be attempted. This I should stoutly resist in the present condition of affairs, as my life would not be worth a moment's purchase were I to fall into the hands of the enemy; ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... fleet of Mekin. It seemed that everything was subject to intolerable delay. For long, sweating, unbearable minutes nothing happened except that the fleet of Kandar went hurtling through space with no sensation or direct evidence of motion. The gas-giant planet dwindled, but not very fast. The bright specks on the screens which were enemy ships seemed to separate as they drew nearer. But all happened ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... received," continued the Inspector, "some particulars concerning the circumstances of Roger Coverly's death in Basle. Whilst there was no direct evidence of foul play (and at that time at any rate no reason to suspect it) I am convinced that the local physician who attended him at the hotel and the specialist who was sent for post-haste from Zurich were by no means agreed as ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... persons who swore positively that they were present at the marriage, one of them being the woman who is said to have been married. That is direct evidence. With all our search, we have hitherto found no one to give us any direct evidence to rebut this. Then they brought forward, to corroborate these statements, a certain amount of circumstantial evidence,—and among ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... supposing that a man could make out such a pedigree, supposing that he could prove that he came in the male line of some follower of Hengest or Cerdic, he would be no nearer to proving original community of blood either in the particular Teutonic race or in the general Aryan family. If direct evidence is demanded, we must give up the whole doctrine of families and races, as far as we take language, manners, institutions, any thing but physical conformation, as the distinguishing marks of races and families. That is to say, if we wish never to use any word of whose ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... the direct evidence of consciousness. We are distinctly conscious, not only of doing as we choose, but of exercising our free choice among different objects of desire, between immediate and future enjoyment, between good and ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... of being lightly let off, in Scotland, and, as to Mary, she could easily have been burned for husband-murder, but not so easily convicted thereof with any show of justice. The only direct evidence of her complicity lay in the Casket Letters, and several of her lordly accusers were (if she were guilty) her accomplices. Her prayer to be heard in self-defence at the ensuing Parliament of December was refused, for excellent reasons; and her opponents had the same ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... ice-age by the use of fire, when he outfaced and outlived the mammoth and the cave bear, he was already the rational animal, homo sapiens. In his way he thought, even in those far-off days. And therefore we may assume, until direct evidence is forthcoming to the contrary, that he likewise had language of an articulate kind. He tried to make a speech, we may almost say, as soon as he had learned to stand up on his ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... no direct evidence that the girl went upstairs last night," said Caldew, with a reflective air. "Milly Saker did not see her going upstairs, and apparently nobody saw her ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... that town—and it was the dirtiest, hottest and dustiest town I ever visited—for eighteen months, and none of them had wanted a bath, I believed from that moment all the stories I had heard about their butcheries and atrocities, stories which I had verified later by more direct evidence. ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... cases, under our own eyes, and in animals in our own care, how much more difficult it must be to have at first hand good evidence of the origin of varieties in nature! Indeed, I do not know that it is possible by direct evidence to prove the origin of a variety in nature, or to prove selective breeding; but I will tell you what we can prove—and this comes to the same thing—that varieties exist in nature within the limits of ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley
... statements where he gives no direct evidence, for example, the facts about the population of the colonies (p. 46), statements about the religion ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely
... great glacial period occurred about 240,000 years ago, and endured, with slight alterations of climate, for about 160,000 years. With respect to more ancient glacial periods, several geologists are convinced, from direct evidence, that such occurred during the miocene and eocene formations, not to mention still more ancient formations. But the most important result for us, arrived at by Mr. Croll, is that whenever the northern hemisphere passes through a cold period the temperature of the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... others. Nevertheless, while still quite a young man, he had somehow acquired a reputation for 'wisdom', though he himself disclaimed anything of the sort. He had also, it appears, gathered round him a circle of 'associates' (ἑταιροι {hetairoi}). The only direct evidence we have for these early days is the Clouds of Aristophanes (423 B. C.), which is of course a comedy and must not be taken too literally. On the other hand, a comic poet who knew his business (and surely Aristophanes did) could hardly ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... intention of treating with Parma at all, it was not unnatural that he should imagine a still wider and deeper scheme than really existed, against the best interests of his country. He may have expressed, in private conversation, some suspicions of this nature, but there is direct evidence that he never stated in public anything which was not afterwards proved to be matter of fact, or of legitimate inference from the secret document which had come into his hands. The Queen exhausted herself in opprobious language against ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... long-laid plans? Jemima herself might have been capable of such a ruthless thing, but on consideration she did not believe it of her mother. There was a certain large innocence about Mrs. Kildare, an almost virginal shyness of mind, that made it difficult for her to conceive, even in the face of direct evidence, that a man younger than herself, a man whom she chose to regard as a son, could be regarding her in turn with eyes other than filial. Jemima did her the justice to ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... ditches several feet deep. These deposits become baked by a tropical sun, and resist to a considerable degree denudation by rain. Whether any further rise is caused by elevation from below is doubtful; there is no direct evidence of it, though slight earthquakes annually occur; and even when they have not been felt, the water of tanks has been seen to oscillate for three-quarters of an hour without intermission, from no discernible cause.* [The natives are familiar with this phenomenon, of which Dr. ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... penalties were visited upon the head of any vestal virgin who was guilty of violating her vows. There is no direct evidence what these penalties were at this early period, but in subsequent years, at Rome, where the vestal virgins resided, the man who was guilty of enticing one of them away from her duty was publicly scourged to death in the Roman forum. For the vestal herself, thus led ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... for the sixth time, and Gilbert had framed a second, offering a reward of twenty pounds for any direct evidence of the marriage of Marian Nowell; when a letter was handed to him one evening at the post-office—a letter in a common blue envelope, directed in a curious crabbed hand, and ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... direct evidence in favour of organic evolution which I shall open is that which may be termed ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... Evidence may be of two kinds—direct and indirect. This second, especially in legal matters, is termed circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence consists of facts that apply directly to the proposition under consideration. If a man sees a street car passenger take a wallet from another man's pocket and has him arrested at once and the wallet is found in his pocket, that constitutes ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... attempt a final solution of a problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed to agree, there seems to be sufficient circumstantial as well as direct evidence to warrant the assumption that Lenau's case presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[75] discredits the idea of "erbliche Belastung" and calls heredity "den vielgerittenen Verlegenheitsgaul," ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... tallied with the amount of new purchases and orders. No one had suspected her money matters of being in disorder, and Rachel was very slow to comprehend; her simple, country life had made her utterly unaware of the difficulties and ways and means of a young lady of fashion. Even the direct evidence before her eyes would not at first persuade her that it was not "all those wicked tradesmen;" she had always heard that fashionable shops were not ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a copy of the fifth book before it was properly corrected, the irrepressible Caerellia having copied the whole five books while in that state[153]. A passage in the De Divinatione[154] affords almost direct evidence that the Academica was published before the De Finibus. On all these grounds I hold that these two works cannot be those which Cicero describes as having been ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... whether or not the same pattern, found at Dumbuck, in Central Australia, and in tropical America, arose in the "schematising" of the same object in nature, in all three regions, or not. Without direct evidence, we cannot assign a meaning ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... brief sketch of the characters and distribution of the persistent modifications, or stocks, of mankind at the present day. If we seek for direct evidence of how long this state of things has lasted, we shall find little enough, and that little far from satisfactory. Of the eleven different stocks enumerated, seven have been known to us for less than 400 years; and of these seven not ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... peptone-matter to initiate the process, these substances are promptly acted upon, and dissolved or digested; whence it is inferred that the analogy with the stomach holds good throughout, and that a ferment similar to pepsin is poured out under the stimulus of some soluble animal matter. But the direct evidence of this is furnished only by the related carnivorous plant, Dionaea, from which the secretions, poured out when digestion is about to begin, may be collected in quantity sufficient for chemical examination. In short, the experiments show "that there is a remarkable accordance ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... leak out," said Hardy, "and if it does there is no direct evidence. They will never really know until you die; they can ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... regarding each individual made available by the police and Child Welfare Officers, and, in some cases, by the heads of their respective schools. Similarly, there was much secondary evidence of indecent behaviour and of other facts said to have been derived from reliable sources. The absence of direct evidence on some of these matters, however, did not prevent the Committee from looking at the problem in its broad general aspects, and from reaching conclusions which could not be affected by a closer scrutiny of some of the individual matters narrated to ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
... experience has revealed to us the action of forces before undreamt of working throughout nature with unerring uniformity; and to the mediaeval stories of magic, witchcraft, or the miracles of saints, we are thus placed in a new relation. The direct evidence on which such stories were received may remain unimpaired, but it no longer produces the same conviction. Even in ordinary human things where the evidence is lost—as in some of our own State trials, and where we know ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... fewer things which are beyond the understanding of the human mind. I said to myself, "Every system has its insoluble problems, for the finite mind of man is too small to deal with them; these difficulties are therefore no final arguments, against any system. But what a difference there is between the direct evidence on which these systems are based! Should we not prefer that theory which alone explains all the facts, when it is no more ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... doubt that the earth's crust, so far as yet deciphered by us, presents us with but a very imperfect record of the past. Whether the known and admitted imperfections of the geological and palaeontological records are sufficiently serious to account satisfactorily for the deficiency of direct evidence recognisable in some modern hypotheses, may be a matter of individual opinion. There can, however, be little doubt that they are sufficiently extensive to throw the balance of evidence decisively in favour of some theory of continuity, as opposed to any theory of intermittent ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... abbey, the Norman often seized upon these with the rest, as if all were rightfully confiscated together and all held by an equally clear title, and the Church was not always able, even after long litigation, to establish its rights. We have little direct evidence as to the relationship which such grants created between the recipient and the king, or as to the kind of tenure by which they were held, but the indirect evidence is constantly accumulating, and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... the list of ladies who seem to have kindled flames in that susceptible breast is almost as long and more real than the roll of mistresses immortalized by Horace. How Mrs. Sterne at first bore herself under her husband's ostentatious neglect there is no direct evidence to show. That she ultimately took refuge in indifference we can perceive, but it is to be feared that she was not always able to maintain the attitude of contemptuous composure. So, at least, we may suspect from the evidence of that Frenchman who met "le bon ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... that our returns have shown a decided falling off, while our manager has, so we have lately discovered, within the past year become rich enough to purchase property to a considerable extent in the United States. Unfortunately for us, owing to a lack of direct evidence, we are unable to bring his defalcations home to him, though of course we are as certain of our facts as we can well be ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... sweet, in which I was forth growen; and more kindly love," says he, "have I to that place than to any other in earth; as every kindly creature hath full appetite to that place of his kindly engendrure, and to will rest and peace in that place to abide." This tolerably direct evidence is supported — so far as it can be at such an interval of time — by the learned Camden; in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth, he describes Spencer, who was certainly born in London, as being a fellow-citizen of Chaucer's — "Edmundus Spenserus, patria Londinensis, Musis adeo arridentibus ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... have been shipped, this being customary then as now. It is also probable that some household pets—cats and caged singing-birds, the latter always numerous in both England and Holland—were carried on board by their owners, though no direct evidence of the fact is found. There is ample proof that goats, swine, poultry, and dogs were landed with the colonists at New Plymouth, and it is equally certain that they had at first neither cattle, horses, nor sheep. Of course the she-goats were their sole reliance for milk for some time, whether afloat ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... in that volume, 'practicable' trees certainly not having been introduced on the English stage until after the Restoration." See, too, in the following passage from "The Noble Stranger," by Lewis Sharpe, London, 1640, direct evidence as to the stage customs in London, eight years after the publication of Mr. Collier's folio, in situations like those of Birone ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... great county families than he might be in the case of a mere nobody. If a rich man and a poor one had a dispute, he considered that the presumption was in favour of the former, but he did not allow this prejudice to influence him one iota in the teeth of direct evidence. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... unique that we were certain it could be the work of but a single man—a rascal named Crochard, who calls himself also 'The Invincible'—a rascal who has given us very great trouble, but whom we have never been able to convict. In this case, we had against him no direct evidence; we subjected him to an interrogation and found that he had taken care to provide a perfect alibi; so we were compelled to release him. We knew that it would be quite useless to arrest him unless we should find some of the stolen jewels in his possession. He appeared as usual upon the boulevards, ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... certainly not greater than those of the Atlantic; and if the Phoenicians had sufficient skill in navigation to reach Britain and the Fortunate Islands, they could have found no very serious difficulty in penetrating to the Baltic. On the other hand, there is no direct evidence of their having penetrated so far, and perhaps the Adriatic trade may have supplied them with as much amber as ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... artificial selection, the individuals of which are fertile among themselves and infertile with the parent stock. It may properly be alleged that there has not been time enough for such a slow process, but it yet remains as true as ever that there is no direct evidence in nature of what the Darwinians call favorable variation. It is the unwritten law of nature that one race must die that another may live, this other, in its turn, subserving the same end. Without this law ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various
... "would be very glad to get handsomely clear of me," and that in November of the same year he made the assertion that Decaen "would have gladly suffered me to depart long since" but for the reference of the case to Paris. We have direct evidence to the same effect in a letter from Colonel Monistrol regarding Lord Wellesley's application for Flinders' release.* (* Historical Records 5 651.) The Colonel desired "with all my heart" that the request could be acceded ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... furniture, and his daughter was living in an hotel. I figured that there was nothing to do but keep a close watch on her from that time on, and eventually get in touch with Atwood; then, through him, locate the other members of the gang. While there was no direct evidence that such was the case, we know from experience that in a counterfeiting case there are almost always two or more persons engaged in ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... minstrel's story is reported, not quoted at full length. It has been reduced by the poet of Beowulf, so as not to take up too large a place of its own in the composition. Such as it is, it may very well count as direct evidence of the way in which epic poems were produced and set before an audience; and it may prove that it was possible for an old English epic to deal with almost the whole of a tragic history in one sitting. In this case the tragedy is far less complex than ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... 1552,[3] this argument is not unreasonable; while a comparison between the accounts given by Nuniz and Barros of the siege and battle of Raichur sufficiently proves that one was taken from the other. But we have fortunately more direct evidence, for the discovery of which we have to thank Mr. Ferguson. I have mentioned above that at the end of the MS. volume are copies of two letters concerning China. These were written subsequent to the year 1520 by Vasco Calvo and Christovao Vieyra. Mr. Ferguson ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... the two classes of ideas arise from two separate human moods; moods as different and distinct as lust and love. I am arguing that, as far as our information goes, the nobler set of ideas is as ancient as the lower. Personally (though we cannot have direct evidence) I find it easy to believe that the loftier notions are the earlier. If man began with the conception of a powerful and beneficent Maker or Father, then I can see how the humorous savage fancy ran away with the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... the horse is literally "great mysterious dog," or "ancient sacred dog," and that several terms for harness and other appurtenances correspond with those used for the gear of the dog when used as a draft animal.(45) This terminology corroborates the direct evidence that the dog was domesticated by the Siouan aborigines long before the advent of ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... Meseretoch, Chropin, Leipnik, Kaunic, Trebitzch, Paskau, Ungarisch-Brod, Jungbunzlau, and Prerau, they had free schools supported by Protestant nobles and manned with Brethren's teachers. As there is no direct evidence to the contrary, we may take it for granted that in these schools the syllabus was much the same as in the other schools of the country. In most the Latin language was taught, and in some dialectics, rhetoric, physics, astronomy and geometry. The education ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... Another immediate result was that the few friends whom Liszt had induced to declare themselves in my favour forthwith took refuge in a discreet silence. As it soon seemed advisable, in the interests of their own productions, to give direct evidence of their estrangement from me, most of them passed over to the ranks of my enemies. But Uhlig clung to me all the more closely on this account. He strengthened Brendel's weaker will to endurance, and kept helping him with contributions for his paper, some of them profound and others witty ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... Heaven in pity took before she learned of her son's disgrace. What have these matters of heart, what have the blenched faces of his friends, what have the prisoner's long and honorable career to say before this bar when you are sworn to weigh only the direct evidence before you? The one and only question for you to decide on the evidence is whether this man did with revengeful intent commit the murder that every impartial witness has solemnly laid ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... she had seen before. She remembered little more except the firing of shots, until she found herself alone with her guest, and saw that the ruffians had escaped. Lord Glenvarloch told his story as we have given it to the reader. The direct evidence thus received, Hildebrod examined the premises. He found that the villains had made their entrance by the window out of which the survivor had made his escape; yet it seemed singular that they should have done so, as it was secured with strong iron bars, which old ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... said Mr. Gryce at the conclusion. "Valueless as direct evidence, it might prove of great value as corroborative." Then, in a graver tone, he went on to say: "Mr. Raymond, are you aware that in all this you have been strengthening the case against Eleanore ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... father, and my father's father, A, B, C, and an indefinite number of other persons, were mortal;" which is only an expression in different words of the observed fact that they have died. This is the major premise divested of the petitio principii, and cut down to as much as is really known by direct evidence. ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... which the Prophets were to reestablish their autocracy in worldly affairs in the name of God. I sought to close my mind against such accusations, for I remembered how often my father had been misjudged, and I felt that nothing but the most direct evidence should be permitted to convince me of a recession by the Church authorities from the miraculous opportunity of progress that was now open to their leadership. Such direct evidence came, in part, in the ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... Besides the direct evidence, which is furnished by the poets and mythologists, of the presence of this universal faith in "the heavenly Father," there is also a large amount of collateral testimony that this idea of one Supreme God was generally entertained ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... miles. Our chemical analysis has been thorough, and we find nothing that could be remotely harmful to human life. Atmospheric samples produce the same negative results. On the other hand, we have direct evidence that no animal life has ever evolved on Rythar; the ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... Deronda in another character than that of her own and her brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans's mind with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish. He had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary could have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt; he had pieced together many fragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed by what his sisters had heard from ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Direct evidence has more weight than indirect, but often the latter is nearly equal to the former and is sufficient to convince us. Even the direct testimony of eye-witnesses must be carefully considered. Several persons may see the same thing and yet make very different reports, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... consequently among the first to hear such further details as were allowed to circulate among the now well-nigh frenzied guests. No one knew the perpetrator of the deed nor did there appear to be any direct evidence calculated to fix his identity. Indeed, the sudden death of this beautiful woman in the midst of festivity might have been looked upon as suicide, if the jewel had not been missing from her breast and the instrument of death removed from the wound. So far, the casual search which had ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... direct evidence that the ancient Egyptians affixed the name and trade of the owner of the shop, though the presence of hieroglyphics, denoting this last, together with the emblem which indicated it, may seem to argue in favor ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... he abandoned hope of getting direct evidence against McDougall himself. That astute lawyer had been careful to have nothing whatever to do with actual bribery or corruption, and he was crafty enough to disassociate himself from direct dealing with agents. Indeed, Keith himself was in some slight doubt as to whether McDougall had any actual ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White |
