"Disproof" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to point out certain correspondences, not yet, perhaps, sufficiently observed and attended to, which seem to lead towards certain conclusions. The following up the inquiry till full proof is reached,—or perhaps, full disproof,— is what I want to suggest to more competent persons. Premising this, I now go on to a second matter, somewhat more delicate and inward than that with which I began. Every one knows how well the Greek and Latin races, with their direct sense ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... Judge Edmunds, Admiral Usborne Moore, the late Archdeacon Wilberforce, and such a cloud of other witnesses, can be dismissed with the empty "All rot" or "Nauseating drivel" formulae. As Mr. Arthur Hill has well said, we have reached a point where further proof is superfluous, and where the weight of disproof lies upon those who deny. The very people who clamour for proofs have as a rule never taken the trouble to examine the copious proofs which already exist. Each seems to think that the whole subject should begin de novo because he has asked for information. ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... means that reciprocity might lead to annexation, Canada's repudiation of reciprocity is sufficient disproof of the imputation. If it means increased and increasing trade weaving a warp and woof of international commerce—then—yes—there is an "Americanizing of Canada" as there is a Canadianizing of the United States through international ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... large scale otherwise than by insects, prevents trials in more than one direction at the same time and in the same garden. For this reason I have chosen another species of clover to be able to give proof or disproof of ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... hesitate to identify himself with agnosticism, but he can scarcely avoid discussing it, either in itself or in its effects. He must entertain its problems; and the personages of his story, if they do not directly advocate or oppose agnostic views, must show in their lives either confirmation or disproof of agnostic principles. It is impossible, save at the cost of affectation or of ignorance, to escape from the spirit of the age. It is in the air we breathe, and, whether we are fully conscious thereof or not, our lives and thoughts ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... sub-kingdoms of Invertebrate animals were all represented in Cambrian times—and it might therefore be inferred that these had all come simultaneously into existence; but it is clear that this inference, though incapable of actual disproof, is in the last degree improbable. Anterior to the Cambrian is the great series of the Laurentian, which, owing to the metamorphism to which it has been subjected, has so far yielded but the singular Eozooen. We may be certain, ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... Every proof or disproof of statements continually made with regard to the extravagant titles assumed, or complacently received, by the bishops of Rome being both interesting and important, the inquiry of J.B. (Vol. ii., p. 167.) is well ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... Troilus cannot, on any showing, be assigned to the period of the war between Jonson and Dekker, in 1601-2), and it seems confuted by the facts and arguments already adduced in the discussion of the theatrical conflict (see pp. 213-219). If more direct disproof be needed, it may be found in Shakespeare's prologue to Troilus, where there is a good-humoured and expressly pacific allusion to the polemical aims of Jonson's Poetaster. Jonson had introduced into his play 'an armed prologue' on account, he asserted, of his enemies' menaces. Shakespeare, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the theory of abiogenesis may be taken as disproved. It must be noted, however, that this disproof relates only to known existing organisms. All these are composed of a definite substance, known as protoplasm (q.v.), and the modern refutation of abiogenesis applies only to the organic forms in which protoplasm now exists. It may be that in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... biblical whipping boy. Whatsoever scientific investigation, historical or physical, proves to be erroneous, the "human element" bears the blame; while the divine inspiration of such statements, as by their nature are out of reach of proof or disproof, is still asserted with all the vigour inspired by conscious safety from attack. Though the proposal to treat the Bible "like any other book" which caused so much scandal, forty years ago, may not yet be ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... fortune, to the knight Was welcome to have found the gentle maid, Who the whole story of Geneura bright, And her unblemished innocence displayed; And, if he hoped, although accused with right, To furnish the afflicted damsel aid, Persuaded of the calumny's disproof, He with more courage warred ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... stand before us to be explained either by natural selection or by supernatural intention, we may first consider a statement which is frequently met with—namely, that even if all such cases of adaptation were proved to be fully explicable by the theory of descent, this would constitute no disproof of the theory of design: all the cases of adaptation, it is argued, might still be due to design, even though they admit of being hypothetically accounted for by the theory of descent. I have heard ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... fewer inhabitants.' Many nations, as he points out in general terms, have been most prosperous when most populous.[226] They could export food when crowded, and have ceased to import it when thinned. This, indeed, expresses his permanent views, though the facts were often alleged by his critics as a disproof of them. Was not the disproof real? Does not a real evasion lurk under the phrase 'tendency'? You may say that the earth has a tendency to fall into the sun, and another 'tendency' to move away from the sun. But it would be absurd to argue that we were therefore in danger of being ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... innate ideas, that is to say, ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it "a black eye." Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance of one's personal affairs ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... are not home-keeping soldiers. Every one of them has served over-seas, and it was a pity that their names and the record of their services were not printed in the programme, for it is a fine and inspiriting list, and a striking disproof of the old tradition that musicians must needs be long-haired, sallow and unathletic. Alert and young and vigorous they appealed to the eye as well as to the ear, and they played, as they fought, gloriously, these minstrel boys who had all gone to the War. Strings and woodwind, brass and percussion, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... what then? Those who deny it must furnish the disproof. The argument is founded on a principle which is now acknowledged to be universal; and the onus of disproof must lie with those who may be bold enough to take up the position that a region exists where at last the Principle of Continuity fails. To do this one would first ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... all. Now he was in the intermediate state of trying to ascertain which. From that state there are two and two only final ones to emerge: "I shall among them believe this one only;" or, "I shall among them believe—none." The constant discussion of some dogma and disproof of some dogma inevitably begets in a certain order of mind the temper to discuss and ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... that, in Jamie Telfer, Scott transferred the glory from the Elliots to the Scotts, and the shame from Buccleuch to Elliot of Stobs. The discussion leads us into very curious matter. But here, with our present materials, neither absolute proof nor disproof is possible. ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang
... The hymn called 'breath,' or haha, a hymn to the mystic wind, is pronounced by Maori priests at the moment of the initiation of young men in the tribal mysteries. It is a mere conjecture, and possibly enough capable of disproof, but we have a suspicion that the use of the mystica vannus Iacchi was a mode of raising a sacred wind analogous to that employed by whirlers ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... absolutely and necessarily wanting in support of the creation doctrine, and the only argument its advocates can advance is one that deals in negatives, and demands its acceptance on the ground that the opposite doctrine has not been proved. Such an argument is valueless. Disproof of one statement is never proof of another. Its effect is simply to leave both unproved, and neither, therefore, in condition for acceptance. In the present case the weight of disproof is small. The facts in support of the evolution hypothesis are ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris |
