"Refutation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and that all the alleged difficulties arise either from interpretations prematurely adopted, or from theories which, when carefully examined, are found to be defective, but which may nevertheless contain in them a large element of truth. But if scientific discoveries are available for the refutation of erroneous interpretations, the probability is that when rightly understood they will help us to arrive at the true meaning, since the Works of God are, beyond all other things, likely to throw light ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... arrows shot at the heart of power by malice and ambition. Be the charge true or false, these anonymous libels were generally considered as the offspring of this lady: they were industriously scattered by the Duc d'Orleans; and their frequent refutation by the Queen's friends only increased the malignant ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... tells how refutation or further refutation is to be managed, whether in accusation or defence. I ought also to mention the illustrious Parian, Evenus, who first invented insinuations and indirect praises; and also indirect censures, which according to some he put ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... exploded; but attempts to stifle even errors by power and punishment, provoke a stubborn adherence to them, and awake an eager spirit of propagation. If erroneous positions are published, meet them by argument, and refutation must ensue. If falsehood uses the press to promulge her doctrines, let truth oppose her with the same weapon. Let the press answer the press, and what is there to fear? Shall I be told that the propensity of human nature is so base and evil that it will listen ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... In a letter to Kepler, dated in 1597, he distinctly states that he had, many years ago, adopted the opinions of Copernicus; but that he had not yet dared to publish his arguments in favour of them, and his refutation of the opposite opinions. These facts would leave us to place Galileo's conversion somewhere between 1593 and 1597, although many years cannot be said to have elapsed ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... perhaps warrant a suspicion that the man wished to go to Australia, and had been somehow or other fraudulently mixed up with the events of the night. I say nothing in refutation of that conjecture; rather, I suggest it as one that would seem to many persons the most probable solution of improbable occurrences. My belief in my own theory remained unshaken. I returned in the evening to ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... we are making grave charges. Let us say, without fear of refutation, they are too well known in the community that tolerates them. As a mere shadow of what lays beneath the surface, we would refer to the only independent speech we ever listened to in Charleston,—except ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... a sternness in his mild blue eyes as he cast them upon his mother. Those beautiful eyes—the very counterpart of Barbara's, both his and hers the counterpart of Mrs. Hare's. The look had been sufficient refutation without words. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... and plague arising from ever-increasing poverty,... the main cause is the unrighteous and un-British system of Government, which produces an unceasing and ever increasing bleeding of the country," etc. etc.[43] Such language, such ideas, do not call for refutation, here at least; they are symptoms only of a state of mind now prevailing, out of which educated ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... been attempted by some to prove the adaptability of these animals to the present conditions of the northern hemisphere; but so untenable in every phase is this opinion, that it would be sheer waste of time and space to attempt its refutation. That they may have migrated northward and southward with the seasons is more than probable, though it has been stated that the remains diminish in size the farther north they are found; but that numerous herds of such huge animals should have existed in these regions at all, and that for thousands ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... interest connected with it was the refutation Frederick the Great published under the title Examen de l'Essai sur les prjugs, Londres, Nourse, 1770 (16 mo). The King of Prussia writing from the point of view of a practical, enlightened despot, took special exception to Holbach's remarks on government. "Il l'outrage avec ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... missed an opportunity of referring to it. In the great joint debate in 1858 he spoke of Lincoln's having "distinguished himself in Congress by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country." No better refutation of these oft-repeated charges could be made than that given by Lincoln himself on this occasion. "The Judge charges me," he said, "with having, while in Congress, opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. I will tell you what he can prove by referring to the record. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... sacrifice both the law and the public weal to his own prosperity. All unknowingly he began to testify to a growing and a decisive division between the two primary interests of American life,—between the interest of the individual business man and the interest of the body politic; and he became a living refutation of the amiable theories of the Jacksonian Democrat that the two must substantially coincide. The business man had become merely a business man, and the conditions which had made him less of a politician had also had its effect upon the men whose business ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... himself up in prideful refutation, but the effort failed. He was turning away defeated when a knock sounded on the door. Watson entered. Ginger drew herself flatly against the wall. The attorney gave a significant glance in her direction ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... continues Lady Hardwicke, 'he sought an audience of the Prince Consort, and stated his case, placing the refutation of these calumnies in the Prince's hands. Upon reading this generous and truthful statement, Prince Albert expressed his satisfaction at having seen it, and his astonishment at the falsehoods that had been circulated, and requested Lord Hardwicke that he might place it in the hands ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... in the responsible capacity of policeman to watch Mr. Choate. This is an occasion of grave and serious importance, and it seems necessary for me to be present, so that if he tried to work off any statement that required correction, reduction, refutation, or exposure, there would be a tried friend of the public to protect the house. He has not made one statement whose veracity fails to tally exactly with my own standard. I have never seen a person improve so. This makes me thankful and proud of a country that can produce ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... divided on this question. Marsilio Ficino defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house, promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, that he would one day be Pope. Pico della Mirandola, on the other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation. He detects in this belief the root of all impiety and immorality. If the astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship not God, but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... this no very hopeful inquiry. You may not unnaturally suppose that the attempt to solve such problems as these can lead to no result, save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, incapable of refutation and ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... with the argument; show her what it was in desertion that army men despised, make the distinction between deserting and resigning. But the truth was he was more interested in the things Katie had said than in the things which could be called in refutation. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... and in a very crowded court; and in the course of my speech I came to the incident of Sestius, after receiving many wounds in the temple of Castor, having been preserved by the aid of Bestia. Here I took occasion to pave the way beforehand for a refutation of the charges which are being got up against Sestius, and I passed a well-deserved encomium upon him with the cordial approval of everybody. He was himself very much delighted with it. I tell you this because you have often advised ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the Discourse of Vulgar Errors, seeming, as it often does, to be a serious refutation of fairy tales—arguing, for instance, against the literal truth of the poetic statement that "The pigeon hath no gall," and such questions as "Whether men weigh heavier dead than alive?" being characteristic questions—is designed, with much ambition, under its ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... undertaking is in the long array of parallel passages from the prose of Charlotte and of Emily with which he endeavours to support it. For, so far from supporting it, these columns are the most convincing, the most direct and palpable refutation of his theory. If any uncritical reader should desire to see for himself wherein Charlotte and Emily Bronte differed; in what manner, with what incompatible qualities and to what an immeasurable degree the younger sister was pre-eminent, he cannot do better than ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... obliged. Of course, after consenting that you should use your influence in my behalf, I should feel myself bound to accept the reinstatement, if offered. I beg you to believe, also, that I would not allow you to say a word for me, if I did not know that I have within my power a complete refutation of any charges of official misconduct that have been, or ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Old Va. and Her Neighbors, Vol. I, p. 154. The facts here presented form a complete refutation of the assertion, so frequently repeated by Northern historians, that the Virginia aristocracy had its origin in this immigration of dissipated and worthless gentlemen. The settlers of 1607, 1608 and 1609 were almost entirely swept out of existence, ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... intercourse between nations: and, when the feudal chiefs rose to the rank of monarchs, stood as a rampart between them and the people. He thought St. Thomas of Canterbury a much injured character. He often pointed out that rich tract of country, which extends from St. Omer's to Liege, as a standing refutation of those who asserted that convents and monasteries were inimical to the populousness of a country: he observed, that the whole income of the smaller houses, and two-thirds of the revenues of the greater houses, were constantly spent within twenty miles round their ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... the collateral events in England and those of the colony, at the time and after granting the Royal Charter, is requisite to a correct understanding of the question, and for the refutation of those statements by which it ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... and satisfactory refutation of such an opinion," he continues, "cannot be brought forward at present"; so I suppose we must wait a little longer, but in the meantime we may again remark that, if we admit even occasional communication of changes in the somatic cells to the germ-cells, we have let in the thin end of ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... possessed, no one has yet acknowledged himself the writer of Junius. But why do you not produce the Spanish manuscript, and set the question at rest? exclaims with much naivete M. Neufchateau. Does such an argument deserve serious refutation? That is, why do not you Spaniards produce a manuscript given to one Frenchman by another at Paris, in the 18th century, which of course, if our theory be true, he had the strongest temptation to destroy? Rather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Labrador is a land of plenty I would offer the following incident in refutation. At Holton on a certain Sunday morning the leader of the church services came aboard the hospital steamer and asked me for a Bible. Some sacrilegious pigs which had been brought down to fatten on the fish, driven to the verge of starvation by the ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... (whether ethical, pathetical, or argumentative), arrangement, diction, memory, delivery. And the speech itself consists of six parts: introduction, statement of the case, division of the subject, proof, refutation, and conclusion. ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... if I say that the proposition which they have so confidently laid down, however well it may sound in pious ears while it is expressed in general terms, to be too monstrous, too ludicrous, for grave refutation. Is it seriously meant that, if the Captain of an Indiaman is a Socinian, it would be better for himself, his crew, and his passengers, that he should not know how to use his quadrant and his chronometers? ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... successor of Nagarjuna. A life of his was translated into Chinese by Kumarajiva in A.D. 401-409. The following are his important works: Cata-castra, 'Castra by the Bodhisattva Deva on the refutation of four heretical Hinayana schools mentioned in the Lankatvatara-sutra'; 'Castra by the Bodhisattva Deva on the explanation of the Nirvana by twenty Hinayana ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... with greater glare the puppet show of State and aristocracy." Here was obviously the Junius of democracy, for whom the only effective answer was the gag and gyve. Indeed, Burke in his "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs" suggested that the proper refutation was by ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... [Footnote: The chief authority for this accusation against Clarendon is an ill-natured insinuation by Lord Dartmouth, in his notes on Burnet's History of His Own Times,—notes which were in MS. only, and which were not intended for publication. It carries its own refutation, and Dartmouth could not possibly have had any knowledge of the circumstances. Clarendon no doubt received certain complimentary gifts. But we know that many private collections were broken up and sold ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... strictly, partly to quote and partly to paraphrase, a sentence and then refute its argument. In so doing he is following the method of the author of A Letter. Accordingly, to understand and judge the fairness of Dryden's refutation, it is well first to read His Majesties Declaration, then A Letter, and finally Dryden. The first has not been reprinted in full but a substantial extract may be found in Echard's History of England (III, 624-6) and in Arthur ...
— His Majesties Declaration Defended • John Dryden
... rumor." In this she is strangely mistaken. Madame Lenormant does not allude to the report at all. Still she tacitly contradicts it. Her account of Monsieur Recamier's course with regard to the divorce proposed between him and his wife is of itself a sufficient refutation of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... been much too busy with her ladyship's nerves, and too ignorant of French, to gather enough for his refutation, had she wished for it; and, in fact, she had regarded him as the only safeguard of the party, devoutly believing all his reports, and now she was equally willing to magnify her own adventures. What a hero Delaford was all over the terrace and its vicinity! ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of near three-fourths of a century as a free and independent Republic, the problem no longer remains to be solved whether man is capable of self-government. The success of our admirable system is a conclusive refutation of the theories of those in other countries who maintain that a "favored few" are born to rule and that the mass of mankind must be governed by force. Subject to no arbitrary or hereditary authority, the people are the only sovereigns ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... ecclesiastical. He succeeded to the chair of Bossuet at the Academy. But he was not without the vicissitudes of political life. Falling into disgrace at court, he was banished to the abbacy of Bonport. There the scholarly ecclesiastic occupied himself with a refutation of Lucretius, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... abnormal development of the imagination, to the detriment and loss of the practical powers, and that a genius is therefore a kind of incapable, incompetent being, as far as worldly matters are concerned. The most complete refutation of this notion lies in the fact that the greatest genius the world has known was a successful man in common affairs. While his genius grew in strength, fervour, and executive power, his worldly condition ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... summary refutations in their early days; but they outlive them, and the refutations then sound oddly antiquated and scholastic. I cannot help suspecting that the humanistic theory is going through this kind of would-be refutation at present. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Lightfoot has recovered from his recent illness. Of this restoration the vigorous energy of his preface to his republication of the Essays on Supernatural Religion affords decided evidence, and I hope that no refutation of this inference at least may be possible, however little we may ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... Teufelsdroeckh, at the period of our acquaintance with him, seemed to lead a quite still and self-contained life: a man devoted to the higher Philosophies, indeed; yet more likely, if he published at all, to publish a refutation of Hegel and Bardili, both of whom, strangely enough, he included under a common ban; than to descend, as he has here done, into the angry noisy Forum, with an Argument that cannot but exasperate and divide. Not, that we can remember, the Philosophy of Clothes once touched ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... which had prevented the refutation of the calumny from reaching Benjulia were now revealed. Mr. Mool had only to hear, next, how that refutation had been obtained. A polite hint sufficed to remind Baccani of the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... unprofitable servants." Then they add that works are of no profit to God, but are not without profit to us. See how the puerile study of sophistry delights the adversaries, and although these absurdities do not deserve a refutation, nevertheless we will reply to them in a few words. The antistrophe is defective. For, in the first place, the adversaries are deceived in regard to the term faith; because, if it would signify that knowledge ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon
... the branchial cavity must be placed at its lowest part, directed downwards, and concealed between broad surfaces fringed with protective brushes of hair. It is far from the intention of these pages to enter upon a general refutation of this theory of adaptation. Indeed there is scarcely anything essential to be added to the many admirable remarks that have been made upon this subject since the time of Spinoza. But this may be remarked, that I regard it as one of the most important services of the Darwinian ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... Lord Rosebery. "Home Rule is as dead as Queen Anne," declared Mr Chamberlain. These are the kind of declarations usually made in the exuberance of a personal or political triumph, but the passing of the years has a curious knack of giving them emphatic refutation. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... the commentators on Sallust, Kritzius is, I believe, the only one who has concurred in this notion of Ernesti; Langins and Dietsch (with Cortius) adhere to the common opinion that arae are the public altars. Dietsch refers, for a complete refutation of Ernesti, to G. A. B. Hertzberg de Diis Romanorum Penatibus, Halae, 1840, p. 64; a book which I have not seen. Certainly, in the observation of Cicero ad Att., vii. 11, "Non est respublica in parietibus, sed in aris et focis," arae must be considered (as ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... Pitt and by other English statesmen. That Pitt deliberately planned and fostered the rebellion, as Irishmen have actually asserted, in order to carry out a union is a charge so monstrous as scarcely to demand serious refutation. It is enough to say that he would certainly not have chosen to have Ireland in rebellion at a time so critical for England as the spring of 1798. That the policy of the government both in England and Ireland, which certainly conduced to the rebellion, was to some ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Zionism to be a dream, and deny that its practical realization is possible. To objections of this category the Zionists have a hundred times given a sufficient answer. This simple negative criticism can be passed over. Its only real refutation is in deeds, such as the Zionists have already performed and as they intend ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... reflected, and deeply reflected, on character and passion, on the progress of events and human destinies, on the human constitution, on all the things and relations of the world; this is an admission which must be made, for one alone of thousands of his maxims would be a sufficient refutation of whoever should attempt to deny it. So that it was only for the structure of his own pieces that he had no thought to spare? This he left to the dominion of chance, which blew together the atoms of Epicurus. But supposing that, devoid of any higher ambition to approve himself ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... But, apart from the fact that the narratives so carefully compiled have, in many cases, turned out to be perversions of the truth, and granting even that all these allegations are impartial and true, the general tenor and tendency of the history of those times is now admitted to be ample refutation of such accusations, and impartial writers confess that the ecclesiastical influence, during those ages, was clearly set against the oppression of the people, and finally resulted in the formation of those representative ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... made by Cavour in defence of the alliance before the two Houses of Parliament contain the clearest exposition of his political faith that he had yet given. They form a striking refutation of the theory, still held by many, especially in Italy, that he was lifted into the sphere of high political aims by a whirlwind none of his sowing. In these speeches he is less occupied with Piedmont, the kingdom of which he was Prime Minister, ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... cannot tell you; and I believe nobody can, not even those who are to make them: they will, I suppose, be occasional, as people behave themselves. The causes and consequences of Mr. Pitt's quarrel now appear in print, in a pamphlet published by Lord T———; and in a refutation of it, not by Mr. Pitt himself, I believe, but by some friend of his, and under his sanction. The former is very scurrilous and scandalous, and betrays private conversation. My Lord says, that in his last conference, he thought he had as good a right to nominate the new Ministry as ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... present lover is the Cardinal de Polignac; but she has, besides, the first Minister and some young men. The Cardinal is accused of having assisted in the refutation of Fitz-Morris's letters, although he has had this very year (1718) a long interview with my son, and has sworn never to engage in anything against his interests, notwithstanding his attachment to the Duchesse ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... was a pleasing and a facetious man, acceptable unto all the parish of Gandercleugh, excepting only the Laird, the Exciseman, and those for whom he refused to draw liquor upon trust. Their causes of dislike I will touch separately, adding my own refutation thereof. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... doubt that in the course of the forty years that this little Work has been before the Public, some real, valid refutation of the argument would have been adduced, if any ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... that the Swedish government, in making unreasonable conditions, had practically caused the breaking off of the negotiations, and even wished to bring about that result. As regards the former, an impartial examination of the Swedish final proposal is the best refutation. And as regards the latter, it may assuredly be affirmed, that there was no want of good will, on the part of Sweden, to come to a good understanding on the point, the last letter on the question written by Sweden ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... Railway Company," or in a battle of alleged infringement of patent rights. There are engineering experts, just as there are legal experts, who deem it within their code of ethics to address themselves and their energies toward the refutation of such claims, however wrong or right these claims may be. Engineering is an exact science. It is based on principles hardly refutable. Yet there are engineers who will and can confound these principles ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... Russia, by a beggar who knelt in the mud; at Kovno eighteen beggars besieged the coach, and Kovno was hardly worse than scores of other towns; within a day's ride from St. Petersburg a woman begged piteously for means to keep soul and body together, and finished the refutation of that sonorous English theory, for she had been discharged from her master's service in the metropolis as too feeble, and had been sent back to his domain, afar in the country, on foot ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the memory of his early conflict with the Aristotelians at Pisa, of his scornful and successful refutation of their absurdities. All this made him specially obnoxious to the Aristotelian Jesuits in their double capacity both of priests and of philosophers, and they singled him ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... beware of a truce even more than of a peace, and warned them not to swerve by a hair's breadth from the formula in regard to the sovereignty agreed upon at the very beginning of the negotiations. To this document was appended a paper of considerations, drawn up by Maurice and Lewis William, in refutation, point by point, of all the arguments of President Jeannin in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... than mere scientific zeal, therefore, paleontologists turned anew to the records in the rocks, to inquire what evidence in proof or refutation might be found in unread pages of the "great stone book." And, as might have been expected, many minds being thus prepared to receive new evidence, such evidence was not ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... root of Mariolatry. We come to appear to the world what we really are. Mary was tempted to place herself above Christ, and so we are not surprised that those who have turned against Christ should join the tempter in placing Mary above her Son. The refutation is the life of Christ, who died for man, and the life of Mary, who never forgot herself in thinking of others. The triumph of Mary was won by submission. Had she revolted against Christ, she had lost all. In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the apostle speaks of the glory of the ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... integrity of the community hurt Smith. There was evidence of deep sorrow in his heart as he began to argue refutation of the ingenuous charge. It was humiliating, he declared, that a man should come among them and hold them in such ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... of Pope and Bolingbroke, and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's philosophy!'No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its refutation.'" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... this is, I think, obvious. The a priori assumption of the equality of men is, in some sense, easily refuted. But the refutation does not entitle us to assume that arbitrary inequality, inequality for which no adequate ground can be assigned, is therefore justifiable. It merely shows that the problem is more complex than has been assumed at first sight. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... basis of argument—an assumption still more fundamental agreed upon by both sides. It would probably be the case, that the supporters of misery, as an end, would be at some point inconsistent with themselves; which would lay them open to refutation. But to any one consistently maintaining the position, there is no possible reply, because there ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... were almost as old as Christianity itself, Grundtvig still found that a clear refutation of them was practically impossible. He could not disprove them by Scripture, for the Rationalists would claim their interpretation of the Bible to be as trustworthy as his own; nor could he appeal to the confessions, for his opponents openly repudiated these ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... investigation, to the Minister to Genoa, who mentioned its tenor to Nelson. The latter, justly stigmatizing the conduct imputed to him and his officers as "scandalous and infamous," requested a copy of the accusation, in order that by his refutation he might convince the King, that he was "an officer who had ever pursued the road of honour, very different from that to wealth." Having received the copy, he wrote ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... brother's operas; but while the animus of the statement is enough to cause it to be looked upon with suspicion, the fact that none of William Henry Fry's operas was performed at the Astor Place Opera House during the incumbency of Edward Fry is a complete refutation. "Leonora," the only grand opera by a professional critic ever performed in New York, so far as I know, was brought forward at the Academy of Music a good nine years later. Apropos of this admirable and respected predecessor of mine, a good story was disclosed by Charles A. Dana some ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... in consequence of all this, following the Palestinian Exemplar, he had from accurate copies furnished his own work with the Twelve Verses in dispute;—which is a categorical refutation of the statement frequently met with that the work of Victor ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... the negative refutation of the theology and metaphysics of the seventeenth century, a positive, anti-metaphysical system was required. A book was wanted which would systematize the practical activities of that time and provide them with a theoretical foundation. Locke's essay on the "Origin of ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... of Elibank, then Under-Secretary of State, included in his Indian Budget speech on Aug. 5, 1909, a brief but effective refutation ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... civilized world, they still remained subject to reproach, that in the worlds of Art, Science, and Literature, they had no national existence. Admitting, or, at any rate, feeling, the truth of this taunt, they bestirred themselves resolutely to produce a practical refutation of it. Their first and fullest success was, as might be expected from their notoriously utilitarian character, in practical inventions. In oratory, notwithstanding a tendency to more than Milesian floridness and hyperbole, they have taken no mean stand among the free nations of christendom. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... altogether to children appearing on the stage; it is said to be bad for their morals as well as for their health. A letter which Mr. Dodgson once wrote in the St. James's Gazette contains a sufficient refutation of ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... to Hamlet's apology, I will add a remark on it from a different point of view. It forms another refutation of the theory that Hamlet has delayed his vengeance till he could publicly convict the King, and that he has come back to Denmark because now, with the evidence of the commission in his pocket, he can safely accuse him. If that were so, what better opportunity could he possibly find ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... but inarticulate in a large way, incapable of true self expression in his chosen field of political action, so self-centered that he forgot the world's tragedy and merged it into his own, making great things little and little things great, one of "life's ironies," the everlasting refutation of the optimistic notion that when there is a crisis fate produces a man big enough to ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... malheureux, quelquefois meme celle du philosophe; n'enlevons pas a la pauvre espece humaine cette consolation, que la Providence divine lui a menagee."[98] He had a distinct dislike for philosophical arguments in refutation of things spiritual, and one day on being asked as to what he considered the nature of the soul, he replied, "Je sais qu'elle est spirituelle et immortelle, et je n'en sais rien de plus "; and when it was suggested to refer the discussion to Fontenelle, with his characteristic readiness ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... Everywhere the freedmen, on hearing that the lands were to be sold, were eager to buy, and it was found in many cases that they had saved considerable sums of money from their earnings of the previous year. This almost universal desire of the negroes to become landowners, is a complete refutation of the charge that sudden emancipation from forced labor opens the door for the return ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to overrate the importance of Count de Rayneval's report, or the influence which it exercised over the public mind of Europe, when, at length, through the agency of the British and Belgian press, it obtained publicity. A refutation of Cavour's interested calumnies, so able, distinct and straightforward, powerfully impressed the minds of British statesmen, and caused them to see the grievous error into which they had been betrayed at the Congress of Paris, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... evolution can be furnished only by palaeontology. The geological record, so soon as it approaches completeness, must, when properly questioned, yield either an affirmative or a negative answer: if evolution has taken place, there will its mark be left; if it has not taken place, there will lie its refutation. ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... different from the cordiality of the good Father Hemet, gave me such a disgust for their conversation that I have never since been acquainted with, nor seen anyone of them except Father Berthier, whom I saw twice or thrice at M. Dupin's, in conjunction with whom he labored with all his might at the refutation of Montesquieu. ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... definitely on various occasions for Congressional Acts which did so exclude or regulate slavery; and that of the remaining eighteen almost all were known to have held the same opinion. This was a masterly refutation of the claim of Douglas and the Democracy that the fathers of the nation were on their side as to the territorial question. Lincoln then passed to a broader view, and inquired: What can we do that will really satisfy the South? ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... imagined with which Arthur listened to this conversation, as he stood on the spot to which Edward had signed to him to advance, when he presented him to the Princess. He longed ardently to break in with an angry refutation of the slanders cast on his uncle, but he was too well trained in the rules of chivalry, to say nothing of the awful respect with which he regarded the Prince, to attempt to utter a word, and he could only edge himself as far away as was possible from Clarenham, and cast at him ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Socrates dilates on the pleasures of itching and scratching. Nor is there any real discrepancy in the manner in which Gorgias and his art are spoken of in the two dialogues. For Socrates is far from implying that the art of rhetoric has a real sphere of practical usefulness: he only means that the refutation of the claims of Gorgias is not necessary for his present purpose. He is saying in effect: 'Admit, if you please, that rhetoric is the greatest and usefullest of sciences:—this does not prove that dialectic is not the purest and most exact.' From the Sophist and ...
— Philebus • Plato
... nature with which we are acquainted, except the action of fire or heat. It is therefore impossible for a philosopher, reasoning upon actual physical principles, not to acknowledge in this a complete proof of the theory which has been given, and a complete refutation of that aqueous operation which has been so inconsiderately supposed as consolidating the strata of the earth, and forming the various mineral concretions which are found in ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... [I think the handsome and gentlemanlike account of Madame Bertrand is a complete amende honorable for anything said of her in the course of the journal, and forms a complete refutation to the objections made in the sense of delicacy towards that lady for mentioning some part of the conversation when in warmer moments. If you were to mention your having afterwards met her in France, I think ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... have been Milton if he could have forgotten the citizen in the man of letters. Happy, at all events, it is that this and similar problems occupy in Milton's life the space which too frequently has to be spent upon the removal of misconception, or the refutation of calumny. Little of a sordid sort disturbs the sentiment of solemn reverence with which, more even than Shakespeare's, his life is approached by his countrymen; a feeling doubtless mainly due to the sacred nature of his principal theme, but equally merited by the religious consecration of his ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... of alarm this young person took need not be exactly measured; she instantly rose, however, with a blush which was not a refutation. "Oh yes, of course I'm lovely!" she returned with a quick laugh. "How old is ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... conduct will stand the test, upon the nicest scrutiny, and having never experienced any diminution of that esteem, respect and warmth of friendship, which my fellow-citizens have ever shown towards me, a refutation of such ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... attach the most inferior weight to analogy as a method of reasoning. "Analogical evidence is generally more successful in silencing objections than in evincing truth. Though it rarely refutes it frequently repels refutation; like those weapons which though they cannot kill the enemy, will ward his blows.... It must be allowed that analogical evidence is at least but a feeble support, and is hardly ever honored with the name of proof."[8] ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... 'Questions on the Encyclopaedia' was followed by some remarks from the pen of the publisher, which are also, however, attributed by the publishers of Kelh to Voltaire himself. The publisher, who sometimes calls himself the author, puts aside without refutation all the theories advanced, including that of Baron Heiss, and says he has come to the conclusion that the Iron Mask was, without doubt, a brother and an elder brother of Louis XIV, by a lover of the queen. Anne ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his influence is to-day almost as intense as when the sermons were delivered. It is, before all, the wealth and depth of his thought, the reality of the content of the sermons, which commands admiration. They are a classic refutation of the remark that one cannot preach theology. Out of them, even in their fragmentary state, a well-articulated system might be made. He brought to his age the living message of a man upon whom the best light of his ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... Spanish captain said was quite true, for he had seen the grave himself and the little church erected to their memory, a statement that quite delighted our friend Larkyns, as he was able to throw it in the teeth of Mr Stormcock as soon as he heard it, in refutation of the base calumny of the latter in asserting that he had invented the yarn he told us ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... somewhat confused, "you do not understand the motives of our request. The unfortunate affair of this morning is very likely to spread presently all over the town; the only refutation that can be given to it, is by our all appearing in public before any body knows whether ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... eyes, "John," said he, and a gleam of humour passed over his face, "pray don't let the awkward-squad fire over me." It was almost the last act of his life to copy into his Common-place Book, the letters which contained the charge against him of the Commissioners of Excise, and his own eloquent refutation, leaving judgment to be pronounced by ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Germany there are circles in which such derangement is grotesquely reverenced as part of the stigmata of heroic powers. All of which is gross nonsense. Unfortunately, in Shakespear's case, prudery, which cannot prevent the accusation from being whispered, does prevent the refutation from being shouted. Mr Harris, the deep-voiced, refuses to be silenced. He dismisses with proper contempt the stupidity which places an outrageous construction on Shakespear's apologies in the sonnets for neglecting ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... refutation to this experimental evidence is the practical experience of the inhabitants of the Island of Groix, off the Brittany coast, whose annual consumption of coffee is nearly 30 pounds per capita, being ingested both as the roasted bean and as an infusion. It is reported ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers |
