"Premise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to try not to. Now, remembering that I don't consider your premise valid, just suppose that when we visit some planet some day, you get your mind burned out and I don't—solely because I had something I could have given ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... diminish repetition, be considered once for all; and in considering them we shall also be able to observe characteristic differences among the four plays. And to this may be added the little that it seems necessary to premise on the position of these ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the manner in which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one company in ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... the time I was triumphant, especially as my leader had declared that our case was impossible. Afterwards, however, my conscience smote me sorely, so much so that arguing from the false premise of this business, I came to the conclusion that the practice of the Law was not suited to an honest man. I did not take the large view that such matters average themselves up and that if I had done harm in this instance, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... are some of the most remarkable questions; but I must premise that K. means my Knave, namely, the rabbi, and C. the Candidates. [Footnote: Lest my reader might think that what follows is a malicious invention of my own to bring the Jews into disrepute, I shall add the precise page of the Talmud from which each question is taken (from Eisenmenger's ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... third proposition, called a conclusion, is derived. If expanded, the three propositions assume this form: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. This is termed a syllogism. A syllogism consists of a major premise, a predication about all the members of a general class of objects; a minor premise, a predication that includes an individual or a group of individuals in the general class named by the major premise; and a conclusion, the proposition which ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... intents and purposes, without giving one single reason for it; all the proof presented here is a night meeting. Please see the quotation from the British Quarterly Review. But let us look at it the way in which we compute time: I think it will be fair to premise, that about midnight was the middle of Paul's meeting; at any rate there is but one midnight to a twenty-four hour day. We say that Sunday, the first day of the week, does not commence until 12 o'clock Saturday night. Then it is very clear, if he is preaching on the first day till midnight, ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates
... usually made to begin with the story of AEneas. In order that the reader may understand in what light that romantic tale is to be regarded, it is necessary to premise some statements in respect to the general condition of society in ancient days, and to the nature of the strange narrations, circulated in those early periods among mankind, out of which in later ages, when the art of writing came to be introduced, learned men compiled and recorded ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the "unintelligible authorised version," I must premise that no version has yet had so large an amount of learning bestowed on it as the English one; indeed it has fairly beaten out of the field all the versions of all other sections of Christians. The difficulty of the English version arises from its close adherence ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... venture to say that I think Mr. Purchas has not had justice done to him in two main points of the late appeal; I mean the use of the vestments complained of and the side of the communion-table which he faced when consecrating the elements for the Holy Communion. Before I state my reasons, let me premise that I am no Ritualist, in the now conventional use of the term. I do not presume to judge of the motives of those to whom that name is applied. From the information of common but undisputed report as ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... We premise that we are about to enter into details, because there is in fact little to question or debate about but details. We have already hinted that there is absolutely no new fact of any consequence, and, we think we can ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... following observations upon singular words, may amuse some of your readers. I should, however, premise that as regards myself, the greater part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various
... suddenly discovering that he is a 'leader of men,' has deserted his tailor: many a gentleman, learning by experience that it takes as long to try on clothes in one place as another, has presently gone back to him. Starting with the democratic premise that all men are born equal, the ready-to-wear clothier proceeds on the further assumption that each man becomes in time either short, stout, or medium; and this amendment to the Declaration of Independence has indeed ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... on the increase in England. We have before us, from the London press of TILT AND BOGUE, 'Sir WHYSTLETON MUGGES, a Metrical Romaunte, in three Fyttes,' with copious notes. A stanza or two will suffice as a specimen. The knightly hero, it needs only to premise, has been jilted by his fair 'ladye-love,' who retires to her boudoir, while the knight walks off ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... girls. That Miss Sidebottom was kind and motherly to the two orphans, there is no question; but it was rumored that in consideration thereof she enjoyed a comfortable legacy. It is only necessary to premise, farther, that Miss Sidebottom had been younger by some two-score years than she was that night; that she was one of Mr. Hardesty's best customers; and that after long worshipping her across the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... resembling what it must have originally been; many of the corrections being obviously required by the prose details which accompany it in the MS. from which Morant gave it. It may not, therefore, be unacceptable to some of your readers, to subjoin this corrected copy. It may be proper to premise, that "The Tale of the Wardstaff" is the tallying or cutting of it, and that it was evidently originally spoken in parts, assigned as under; although it should seem that there is no indication of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various
... have asked Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprise them of their fare? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned, I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... is the following. We may premise that the Norman noble, St. Quintin (so named from a town of France, in the department of Aisne, the Augusta Veromanduorum of the Romans), came over among the followers of William the Conqueror, and his name appears in the famous "Battle Roll" ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... of affairs the author of the present work comes to the rescue. He shall speak in his own words. But we must premise, that although we do not intend to stint him in our quotation—though we wish to give him all the sea-room possible; yet, for a full development of his views, we must refer the reader to his volumes themselves. There are some disquisitions which precede the part we are about to quote ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... To seek the nature of the soul, we must premise that the soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live: for we call living things "animate," [*i.e. having a soul] and those things which have no life, "inanimate." Now life is shown principally ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... were designed to prevent Penny from guessing the real state of affairs it was eminently successful. Even Lord St. John and the Seymours were almost persuaded into the belief that she was happy in her engagement. But as each and all of them were arguing from the false premise that the change in Nan had been entirely due to Rooke's treatment of her, they were inevitably very far ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... risk of appearing inconsequent by mentioning that first which in point of time came last, we must premise that in our investigations with this Medium we early discovered the character of the writing to be twofold, and the difference between the two styles to be striking. In one case the communication written on the slate by the Spirits was general in its tone, legible in its ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission
... smiled at the major premise—and laughed at the ingenuous conclusion. Yet if brass buttons, a cork hat and a "billy" are the emblems of guardianship and probity, the country boy has the right argument on his side, and ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... these points a little, and I will premise by saying that I have spoken to no one on the subject, and have not even seen Mr. Ewing, Mr. Stanbery, or General Grant, since I was ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... assertions and actual conditions. It is necessary to recognize worth as well as to condemn graft. No system of government can stand that lacks public confidence and no progress can be made on the assumption of a false premise. Public administration is honest and sound and public business is transacted on a higher plane than ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... that was done? A moral Inquisition had been established. Arguing from a wrong premise a hideous conclusion had been reached. It was voiced only a few weeks ago by an official of the postoffice in Chicago, when confiscating a publication. He said in substance, if not literally: "Any discussion of sex ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... quest of all intellection has been for something—a fact, a basis, a generalization, law, formula, a major premise that is positive: that the best that has ever been done has been to say that some things are self-evident—whereas, by evidence we mean the support of ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... the objects in which the agents of the United States are expected to take part in the deliberations of that congress, I deem it proper to premise that these objects did not form the only, nor even the principal, motive for my acceptance of the invitation. My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by three ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... ability, Mr. Morton, by drawing a vast conclusion from a small and ill-defined premise. I don't ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... the first, I may premise, that for the first four years the school at the location in Adelaide was conducted entirely in the native tongue. To this ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... town or country, I can saunter about for hours, and feel no other fatigue but what a tumbler of toddy and a pipe can remove. It was this disposition that made me acquainted with the fraternity of the "Puffs." I would premise, gentle reader, that as in my peregrinations I turn down any green lane or dark alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity—hurry through glittering saloons or crowded streets—pause at the cottage ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the Rejang people as an eligible standard of description; and a motive equally strong that induces me to adopt them as such is that my situation and connexions in the island led me to a more intimate and minute acquaintance with their laws and manners than with those of any other class. I must premise however that the Malay customs having made their way in a greater or less degree to every part of Sumatra, it will be totally impossible to discriminate with entire accuracy those which are original from those which are borrowed; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... cult differ with its different priests, its creed retains everywhere and always its narrow identity. But that all men are good, or would be so save for the unequal pressure of social conditions on them, is a conclusion which does not follow from the single premise that human nature, inasmuch as it is a nature and from the hand of God, is essentially good. The world is flooded, just at present, with schemes for insuring the perfection and happiness of men by removing so far as possible all restraints upon their natural freedom; and whether this is to ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Let me premise, before I go on with my own narrative, that Charles Grammont, with whose murder I lie charged, developed a remarkable and unexpected characteristic. A reckless spendthrift whilst penniless, he became a miser when he found himself possessor of five thousand ...
— The Romance Of Giovanni Calvotti - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... he brings suffering upon his innocent wife and children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and ineffective. Surely any one could foresee that such action would make only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the sacrifice. Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious but objectively noble and right. How can we justify ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... may premise, are of a nature to inspire the utmost confidence. His father, Theodore Prawling, was the inventor of the speedle, that remarkable implement, fully described by Punch in the early seventies, which rendered possible the emulsification ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, October 20, 1920 • Various
... We must premise, too, that she must not be petted or pampered with regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs to know; must recognize ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... employ you on it." Fleetwood almost groaned. He could not again venture to interrupt the governor, though he was bursting with impatience to have his fears relieved or confirmed. "Well, I see ye wish to be informed on the subject, which is very natural, Captain Fleetwood; and, therefore, I must premise that I have this day received notice of the arrival of a brig, a merchantman from Smyrna, and that she is now performing quarantine in Port Marsa Musceit. Her master has written a statement which has been forwarded to me; and which, if correct, and I see no reason to doubt ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... of fixed classification—that is to say, his presumptive ability and qualifications to amuse and be amused; to hunt, fish and shoot; to ride, dance, and make himself generally agreeable—are known from the start. And, based on the premise that what is known as society exists simply for the purpose of enabling people to have a good time, there is far more reason to suppose that one who comes of a family which has made a specialty of ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... interesting experiment, which resulted in the establishment of one of the very few instances in which the origination of a distinct variety of a domestic quadruped could be satisfactorily traced, with all the circumstances attending its development well authenticated. We must premise it by stating, that amongst the series of wools shewn in the French department of the Great Exhibition, were specimens characterised by the jury as a wool of singular and peculiar properties; the hair, glossy and silky, similar to mohair, retaining at the same time certain properties of the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... Think of the premise. As God the invisible is the changeless, what is the variable, fleeting, visible unreality? The real is everlasting, the unreal is transitory. The real is called Spirit, the ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in any particular doctrinal system, but would it not, to take the lowest ground, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... of our little readers remember what the major premise of this article was. If so, will they please ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... do in a given case is not easy for a foreigner. It is not easy even for ourselves. We have few abstract principles, and reliable induction from our past is not easy. We are often guided by what Mr. Justice Wendell Holmes has called "the intuition more subtle than any particular major premise." Nor is help to be derived from any study of our general outlook on life, for that outlook is hard to ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... circumference to the diameter is the same in all circles. Now, take a diameter of 1 and draw round it a circumference of 3 1/5. In that circle the ratio is 3 1/5; therefore, by the major premise, that is ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... persuade him to buy something that he knows he does not want. It is all right so long as the salesman is present, but discontent follows in his trail. Sometimes—stocks and bonds salesmen are guilty here—they wheedle the customer into buying more than he can afford, beginning on the premise that since their stocks are good (and the men who sell fraudulent ones use the same methods) a man should if he has a hundred dollars buy a hundred dollars' worth, if he has a million he should buy ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... situation into which Natal has drifted with reference to its native inhabitants, it is necessary to premise that that country has hitherto had practically no control over its own affairs, more especially as ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... my child, not me! Or rather, blame mother Nature herself, for giving us but seventy or eighty years instead of making us as long-lived as Tithonus. For my part, I have but led you from premise to conclusion. ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... intelligent, but how? Man is intelligent when he reasons, but the Supreme Intelligence does not need to reason; there is neither premise nor conclusion for him, there is not even a proposition. The Supreme Intelligence is wholly intuitive, it sees what is and what shall be; all truths are one for it, as all places are but one point and all time ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... be permitted to premise at this division of my work, what most historians [Footnote: Thucydides seems to be specially referred to.] have professed at the beginning of their whole undertaking; that I am about to relate the most memorable of all wars ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... well-defined issue of law, to be determined by the court, whether certain acts set forth upon the record are a ground of liability. It is possible that the judges may have dealt pretty strictly with defendants, and it is quite easy to pass from the premise that defendants have been held trespassers for a variety of acts, without mention of neglect, to the conclusion that any act by which another was damaged will make the actor chargeable. But a more exact ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... are wrong," said Edith, gently but firmly. "Granting the premise you admitted a moment ago, that Christ was one of the purest and noblest of men, you surely, with your chivalric instincts, would say that such a man ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the premise that some process might be discovered whereby the air-supply of the world could be controlled, the Air Trust logically follows. I have endeavored to show how such a Trust would inevitably lead to the utter enslavement of the human race, ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to her—his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded? Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done to her, but it was done ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... rule was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness born of experience, converted the free ends of the lines into hitch straps. That the second premise held true was demonstrated ten seconds later in the unconscious grunt of soliloquy with which he greeted the sight of a wisp of black rag tacked above the knob of the door ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... my father?" is one of my greatest favourites. The evening before last, I wandered out, and began a tender song, in what I think is its native style. I must premise that the old way, and the way to give most effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. Every country girl sings "Saw ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... arguing this thing on its merits," he said, curtly, at last. "You don't know enough about it, and Newbury and I shouldn't have a single premise in common. But I just warn you and him—it's a ticklish game playing with a pair of human lives like these. They are sensitive, excitable people—I ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... world which long experience has enabled me to make, and which I have generally found to hold true. Your youth and talents, armed with my experience, may go a great way; and that armor is very much at your service, if you please to wear it. I premise that it is not my imagination, but my memory, that gives you these rules: I am not writing pretty; but useful reflections. A man of sense soon discovers, because he carefully observes, where, and how long, he is welcome; and takes care to ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... "I've tried to fit it together that way, too, but it just doesn't add up. The basic premise of the Ids is asceticism and there never was any strength in that idea. Marthasa is probably right in his estimate of the Ids. They have achieved an internal serenity but only through compensating ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones
... We must premise that we limit the title of 'sacred poet' by excluding those who only devoted a small portion of their time and talent now and then, to sacred subjects. In all ages of our literary history it seems to have been considered almost as an essential part of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... "Ramos," and sometimes glanced at "Ganot." With all that, he would often shake his head with an air of doubt, as he smiled and murmured: "transeat." In regard to chemistry, no common knowledge was attributed to him after he had taken as a premise the statement of St. Thomas that water is a mixture and proved plainly that the Angelic Doctor had long forestalled Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, Bunsen, and other more or less presumptuous materialists. Moreover, in spite of having been an instructor in geography, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... Mallock, the great man is the man who makes money. This has long been the working theory of bourgeois society, but Mallock is the first of them who has had the cynicism or the stupidity to confess it. But mark you, by this confession he admits the truth of the fundamental premise of modern scientific socialism, our Socialism, viz., that the economic factor is the dominant or determining factor in the life of society. Thus you see the ablest champion of bourgeois capitalism, admits, albeit unconsciously, the truth of the Marxian materialistic ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte
... particular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifications lately discovered by the Author at the Kaim of Kinprunes. I think I have pointed out the infallible touchstone of supposed antiquity. I premise a few general rules on that point, on the nature, namely, of the evidence to be received in such cases. Meanwhile be pleased to observe, for example, that I could press into ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... I must premise that most of our previous definite information regarding the inhabitants of New Guinea applies only to a small portion of the north-west coast of that great island in the neighbourhood of Port Dorey, which is known to be peopled by several distinct varieties of mankind, of which one (with which, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... is advanced on this class of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is no work better than some work?" The trouble with a great deal of this is, that it is incorrect both in its premise and in its reasoning. It is indeed true that there is great competition in the clothing business, but it is not true that the result of this competition leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale of the pants. It is also a remarkable statement to make, ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... venture to promise, provided always the Almighty smiles upon the undertaking, that the entire work of which I have the superintendence will be published within eight months from the present time. Now, therefore, with the premise that I most unwillingly speak of myself and what I have done and suffered for some time past, all of which I wished to keep locked up in my own breast, I will give a regular and circumstantial account of my proceedings from the day when I received your letter, by which I was authorised ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... and, therefore, Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world could go wrong and he would smile as sweetly as ever; but with the ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... of an assurance in the "Federalist" to the contrary, that an individual might sue a State; and though this decision was speedily disallowed by resentful debtor States by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, its underlying premise that, "as to the purposes of the Union, the States are not sovereign" remained untouched; and three years later the Court affirmed the supremacy of national treaties over conflicting state laws and so established ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... obeyed, even when we weep over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is preceded by a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which, the materials thereof ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... zestful animation, embraces all contemporaneous things, should be studiously silent about almost every one of the dozen men of genius who illustrate his era, is a fact so monstrous, that one is driven to monstrous devices to divulge its motive. In such a case it is impossible to premise to what clouds of self-delusion an imaginative ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... for us to forget the theological background of seventeenth-century English thought. Given a personal Devil who is constantly intriguing against the kingdom of God (and who would then have dared to deny such a premise?), grant that the Devil has supernatural powers (and there were Scripture texts to prove it), and it was but a short step to the belief in witches. The truth is that Glanvill's theories were much more firmly grounded ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... history—Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality. Notwithstanding this (or rather for the very purpose of comprehending the general principles which this, its form of concrete reality, embodies) we must premise some abstract characteristics of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... may understand fully the nature of the romantic enterprise in which, as we have already said, Prince Charles embarked when he was a little over twenty years of age, we must premise that Frederic, the German prince who married Charles's sister Elizabeth some years before, was the ruler of a country in Germany called the Palatinate. It was on the banks of the Rhine. Frederic's title, as ruler of this country, was Elector Palatine. There are a great many independent states ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, {120} Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... to the point from which I started,' he cried. 'Are we willing to win this war at the cost of men's immortal souls? Mind you, I don't admit your premise for a moment; to admit it would be to impugn the courage of tens of thousands of the boys who have all along refused to touch it. Do you mean to tell me that the abstainers in the Army are less courageous than those who drink? Does any one dare to state ...
— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking
... must be the greatest fool on earth. As if any real believer ever thought in this preposterous way, or as if any defender of the legitimacy of men's concrete ways of concluding ever used the abstract and general premise, 'All desires must be fulfilled'! Nevertheless, Mr. McTaggart solemnly and laboriously refutes the syllogism in sections 47 to 57 of the above- cited book. He shows that there is no fixed link in the dictionary between the abstract concepts 'desire,' 'goodness' and 'reality'; ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... only as a slave, and gave us the strongest reason why we should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not on ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... premise that I entirely agree with him in his opening paragraph as to selecting, when practicable, a bird as little damaged as possible; but I need not remind professionals, or amateurs of some practice, how seldom these conditions exist, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... religion in which he believed, Moses had from early childhood been nurtured in these Mesopotamian beliefs and traditions, and to them—or, at least, toward them—he always tended to revert in moments of stress. Without bearing this fundamental premise in mind, Moses in active life can hardly be understood, for it was on this foundation that his theories of cause and effect ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... never one at the North where the corn had been blasted, or the fruits of the earth untimely ravaged, or the heart of the husbandman disappointed in his ground. Mamma's conclusions seemed to me without premise. What of my own fortunes? I thought the wind of the desert, had blown upon them and they were dead. I remember, in the trembling of my heart as I sat and listened and mused, and thoughts trooped in and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... he doesn't like Harold or like you or like me?" Edward clearly found himself able to accept only the premise. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... on ship-board, and with a perpetual liability to be pitched to leeward, paper and all,—I shall have said enough to bespeak from every good-natured reader a candid allowance for whatever defects may attach to the composition. It is necessary, however, that I should also premise, that the sketches are drawn entirely from memory, and that the incidents referred to in the earlier chapters, took place some twenty years ago. That my recollection may have proved treacherous on some minor points, is very possible; but, whatever may be the merits or demerits ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... that this memorable day was a Saturday, one on which civic sportsmen exhibit. We may also premise, that the particular hunt we are about to describe, took place when there were very many packs of hounds within reach of the metropolis, all of which boasted their respective admiring subscribers. As our party proceeded they overtook a gentleman ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... may mean something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political or economical relations of the various States at ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the claims of acting as an art that a young person without previous experience or training can make an immediate (and sometimes lasting) effect upon the stage, whereas in the preparation for any other art (even the interpretative arts) years of training are necessary. This premise is full of holes; nevertheless George Moore, and Messrs. Nathan and Sherwin all cling to it. It is true that almost any young girl, moderately gifted with charm or comeliness, may make an instantaneous impression on our stage, especially in ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... self-deception, which is productive of so much mischief in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought to examine ourselves with reference ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... a demonstrable premise, he requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure is demonstration, his ground is faith. And so his ultima ratio is to tell a man that he is a fool by saying "Which is ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... second premise was to assert that the inks employed in the writing of these documents were "straight" or possessed some "added" pigment or color. Again, the vehicles to hold the particles or possibly ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... of the Pagan mind; while among us the subjective has risen into superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable from any one external principle assumed as a premise by the ancient philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation: but to us they all have a value and meaning; being connected by the bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity which is ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... the seldom Practice of them might excuse my omitting them; yet, because I promised to say somewhat of them, I shall be as good as my Word, (the Character of an Honest man) and present you with a couple of Examples, and then proceed to Peals upon Eight: But this I must crave leave to premise, That Variety of Changes may be prick'd upon Seven Bells, as Triples, and Doubles, Triples Doubles, and Single Doubles, &c. and the same Methods may be prick'd upon Seven, as may be upon Five, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... as the above is called a syllogism. It consists of a major premise (A), a minor premise (B), and a ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... premise that I am going, perforce, to rake up the very scandal which my dear Lady Burlesdon wishes forgotten—in the year 1733, George II. sitting then on the throne, peace reigning for the moment, and the ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... any farther,' she said, 'she must premise to his lordship, that she had been originally stinted in room for her improvements, so that she could not follow her genius liberally; she had been reduced to have some things on a confined scale, and occasionally to ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maximis with regard ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... second glance on the man in question. He was wearing evening kit, and at first sight the brown-skinned face above the white of his collar, taken in conjunction with dark hair and very strongly-marked brows, seemed to premise the correctness of Tony's surmise. Suddenly the man lifted his bent head, and over the top of the newspaper Arm found herself looking into a pair of unmistakably grey eyes—grey as steel. They were very direct eyes, with a certain brooding discontent in their depths which looked ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... which a people might {590} arrive at supreme dominion, Machiavelli's great merit is that he looked afresh at the facts and discarded the old, worn formulas of the schoolmen; his great defect is that he set before his mind as a premise an abstract "political man" as far divorced from living, breathing, complex reality as the "economic man" of Ricardo. Men, he thought, are always the same, governed by calculable motives of self-interest. In general, he thought, men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... though one may at first have perceived him to be in the right. Such seemed to many English observers to be the condition of the case in America. They were mistaken, but excusable; but for the error in their premise, their deduction would have been correct, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... Gospels, appears to me to be the most probable, and in the separate details of which I have found myself again and again confirmed by the conclusions of other independent inquirers. And here I will only premise my conviction— ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... afterwards give a definition, and explain the properties of the liquor called ether, I shall only premise here, that it is a very volatile inflammable liquor, having a considerably smaller specific gravity than water, or ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... form, the reasoning process, as already mentioned, is known as a syllogism. The whole syllogism is made up of three parts, major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The three concepts involved in the syllogism are known as the major, the minor, and the middle term. In the above syllogism, heavy, the predicate of the major premise, is the major term; flint, the subject of the minor premise, is the minor term; and ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... with which gifted squaws amuse their children, and which are common throughout this region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, springs, etc., ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... possessed with these notions, I have read over Sylvia's billet; and notwithstanding the reserve I have had upon this matter, am resolved to go a much greater length, than I yet ever did, in making my self known to the world, and, in particular, to my charming correspondent. In order to it I must premise, that the person produced as mine in the play-house last winter, did in nowise appertain to me. It was such a one however as agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the purpose I intended it for; which was to continue the awe and reverence ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... words of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the word being. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the book, and would, perhaps, stand stronger without the other ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... in the story of the MacGregors, is their retaining, with such tenacity, their separate existence and union as a clan under circumstances of the utmost urgency. The history of the tribe is briefly as follows—But we must premise that the tale depends in some degree on tradition; therefore, excepting when written documents are, quoted, it must be considered as in ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... writer may prove that they must and do meet, and still avoid getting tangled amongst his own arguments. I even read a book once in which it was clearly shown that the earth was flat; and, granted a ludicrous premise, one could but admire the irrefragable logic with which the conclusion was reached. With regard to art, be your premises sound or grotesque, the result is the same—muddle. Logic, science, philosophy, applied to art, spell certain disaster. With mingled ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... have to say at present; whatever else is necessary to premise, will be found in the Introduction to the Remarks, ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... lady more on her own resources; and so forth and so on down a list of arguments obvious enough or trivial enough, but all inspired by the soul of fervour, all ennobled by the spirit of truth that lies back of the major premise that a woman should cleave to a man, forsaking all others. Orde sat back in his chair, his eyes vacant, his pen all but falling from his hand. He did not finish the letter to his mother. After a while he went ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the premise that all was right at that end of the line, the splice was made, and we paid out the cable until reaching the buoyed shore end, which in turn was spliced to the deep-sea cable, and the bight dropped ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... I shall only premise, that as you know I never cared one Farthing either for Whig or Tory, So I shall consider our Writers purely as they are such, without any respect to which Party they ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies—to hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the premise that the result of that marriage—my father—was three-fifths Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so I suppose ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... "Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah—and I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them—your battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you personally should sacrifice your ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... reason rather as a weapon of offense than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Flora, we shall find the aboriginal plants of the different islands wonderfully different. I give all the following results on the high authority of my friend Dr. J. Hooker. I may premise that I indiscriminately collected everything in flower on the different islands, and fortunately kept my collections separate. Too much confidence, however, must not be placed in the proportional results, as the small collections brought home by some other naturalists though in some respects ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... in the premise. Has not the demagogue more power than his dupes, or the Member of Parliament more power than the elector? We have hardly yet reached, and are never likely to reach, that ideal of direct government. But what is this price which Mr. Lilly is railing ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that there ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... somewhat choked in the binding, (in blue morocco) as too many of Bozerian's performances usually are.[83] Close to this book is the Giunta reprint of 1515—ALSO UPON VELLUM: but of a foxy and unpleasing tint. Now for a few LARGE PAPER ALDUSES—of a variety of forms and of characters. But I must premise that the ensuing list of those upon vellum, is very far ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not absolutely determine the order of organic creation; as in the case of the syllogism the conclusion or either premise may be the proposition first enunciated, the order of expression being ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter
... premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building an engine of menacing ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... along was the premise that there is a God and the presupposition of that whole element in life which we call the spiritual. As he pushed his studies into the fields of physiology and psychology, this premised realm of the spirit became the express goal of his ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the Country, and yet never to be Clownish? to sing of mean, and trivial matters, {52} yet not trivially, and meanly? to pipe on a slender Reed, and yet keep the sound from being harsh, and squeaking? to make every thing sweet, yet never satiate? And this I thought necessary to premise, in order to the better laying down of such Rules as I design. For the naked simplicity both of the Matter and Expression of a Pastoral, upon bare Contemplation, might seem easily to be hit, but upon trial 'twill be found a very hard task: Nor was ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... 'pinion of anticipation;' as also in the former instance of 'many a dark December' to have written 'many a rainy December.' But in both cases I preferred to lock up by the massy spondaic variety; yet never forgetting to premise a dancing dactyle—'many a'—and 'pinion of.' Not merely for variety, but for a separate effect ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... Notes to this place, that the reader might be left to his genuine feelings, and the natural impression on reading the Epistle, whether adverse or favourable to the idea I ventured to premise, concerning its Subject and Design. In the address to my learned and worthy friends I said little more than was necessary so open my plan, and to offer an excuse for my undertaking. The Notes descend ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... problem in our consideration of the theoretical action of the cylinder escapement, is to arrange the parts we have described so as to have these two movements of the escape wheel of like angular values. To explain what we mean by this, we must premise by saying, that as our escape wheel has fifteen teeth and we make each tooth give two impulses in alternate directions we must arrange to have these half-tooth movements exactly alike, or, as stated ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... to either of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends' attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Mr. Samuel T. Philander grasped Professor Archimedes Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentleman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred miles ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... regarded with surprise and admiration the agile grace of the act, she said, "Mr. Gregory, you need lessons in logic. If the leaf you hold is your theme, as you gave me reason to believe, you don't stick to it, and you draw from it conclusions that don't follow the premise. Another thing, it is not right to develop a subject without regard to its connection. Now from just this place," she continued, pointing with her finger, "the leaf dropped. What do you ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... often happens that the correction of one premise, and the knowledge of chance events which have arisen, are not sufficient to overthrow our plans completely, but only suffice to produce hesitation. Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... to assume in that premise. I don't in mine. It is notorious that women love babies, while you have only the spiteful saying of a very uncertain old prophet ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... I thought proper to premise this Observation to the Readers, as it will shew that the Critic on Shakespeare is of a quite different Kind. His genuine Text is for the most part religiously adhered to, and the numerous Faults and Blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is alter'd, but what ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... professor is correct, but not new. The second conclusion is new, but very doubtful as to its correctness, and certainly does not follow as a sequence from his premise. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to detect in it the slightest vacillation ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to hear that I have talked with the brains and been relieved of my premise to destroy them. They requested something else. Now I have committed myself to attempt their ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore |
