"Cogency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... speculations where there can be no reference to the vulgar needs of life; studies, the superiority of which to all others is unquestioned, and in which the only doubt can be, whether the beauty and grandeur of the subjects examined, or the precision and cogency of the methods and means of proof, most deserve our admiration. It is not possible to find in all geometry more difficult and intricate questions, or more simple and lucid explanations. Some ascribe this to his natural genius; while others think that incredible effort and toil produced ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... argument against evolution; while, on the other hand, if such intermediate forms are to be found, that is so much to the good of evolution; although, for reasons which I will lay before you by and by, we must be cautious in our estimate of the evidential cogency ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... here is awful, grubbin' up old stones and stumps; 'tain't fit for women." (William much impressed with the cogency of ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... can ever effectively help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of your presence here." There was cogency in ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... wonderful works of Thomas Aquinas, we see that the scholastic philosopher might be a person of extraordinary insight and erudition, ready to recognize all the objections to his position, and able to express himself with great clearness and cogency.[175] The training in logic, if it did not increase the sum of human knowledge, accustomed the student to make careful distinctions and present his material ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... to his mysterious studies, beyond the assurance that his scheme "would revolutionise the whole face of the material world and of society." In 1820 Mr. Gray published the result of his studies in his 'Observations on a General Iron Railway,' in which, with great cogency, he urged the superiority of a locomotive railway over common roads and canals, pointing out, at the same time, the advantages to all classes of the community of this mode of conveyance for merchandise and persons. In this book Mr. Gray suggested a railway ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... Hitherto the transmission of many acquired characteristics had seemed to most naturalists so obvious as not to call for demonstration.[65] Weismann's demand for facts in support of the main proposition revealed at once that none having real cogency could be produced. The time-honoured examples were easily shown to be capable of different explanations. A few certainly remain which cannot be so summarily dismissed, but—though it is manifestly impossible here to do justice to such a subject—I ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... Against the cogency of these maxims various objections have been urged from time to time. We have been told, that the exercise of private judgment in matters of religion, tends to foster errors of every diversity of character, ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... considered equal to one statesman. The result justified the selections of the committee, and although the Senator was not present, the seven Commoners of Science made the occasion a most notable one by the flow of wit, elegance of phrase, solidity and cogency of argument, and rare discernment of natural truths, with which ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... inward and the outward, between modest stillness and heroic energy—nay, between the tenderest conservatism and the boldest plans of world-wide reformation. The witness of history to Christ is a witness which has been given with irresistible cogency; and it has been so given ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... to combat sech profound bluffs as this, an' I'm free to confess if it ain't for Colonel Sterett buttin' in with more Latin, the same bein' of equal cogency with that of Peet's, the footure would have turned plenty dark an' doobious for Bowlaigs. As Dan sinks back speechless an' played from Peet's shot, the Colonel, who bein' eddicated like Peets to a feather aige is ondismayed an' cool, ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... the thraldom under narrow-minded and interested counsellors to which he had been subject all his life long. Even before Genlis's defeat (in June, 1572), the admiral had presented an extended paper, wherein the justice and the fair prospects of the war had been set forth with rare force and cogency.[911] It may be that now, under the influence of a sincere and unselfish devotion that took no account of personal risks, the admiral distinctly told his young master that he could never be a king in the true sense until he should emancipate himself from his mother's control, and ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... government are points left to a great extent undefined in the Scriptures, had gone on for years before Martin appeared. Cartwright and Whitgift had fought, with a certain advantage of warmth and eloquence on Cartwright's side, and with an immense preponderance of logical cogency on Whitgift's. Many minor persons had joined in the struggle, and at last a divine, more worthy than wise, John Bridges, Dean of Salisbury, had produced on the orthodox side one of those enormous treatises (it had some fifteen hundred quarto pages) which are usually left unread by the side ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... scientific evidence may be adduced for different beliefs with varying degrees of cogency. Hegel tries to distinguish between the authority of the state and that of the church by attributing to the former something like infallibility. He maintains that religion "believes," but that the state "knows." [Footnote: The ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... control; prepotency, prepollence|; almightiness, omnipotence; authority &c. 737; strength &c. 159. ability; ableness &c. adj[obs3].; competency; efficacy; efficiency, productivity, expertise (skill) 698 ; validity, cogency; enablement[obs3]; vantage ground; influence &c. 175. pressure; conductivity; elasticity; gravity, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, voltaic electricity, voltaism, electromagnetism; atomic power, nuclear power, thermonuclear power; fuel cell; hydraulic power, water power, hydroelectric ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the King of Prussia, 's'entendent comme larrons en foire', though the former must not appear in it upon account of the stupidity, ignorance, and bigotry of his Poles. I have a great opinion of the cogency of the controversial arguments of the Russian troops, in favor of the Dissidents: I am sure I wish them success; for I would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn. We shall soon see more clearly into this matter; for I do not think ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... her remark further, that should her people set their hearts pretty strongly on those national seminaries, which in many parts of the country would become, if opened up, wholly their own de facto, and which are already their own de jure, they might not be quite able to feel the cogency of the argument that, while it left Socinians and Papists in the enjoyment of at once very liberal and very flexible Government grants, challenged their right to choose, on their own responsibility, ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... than the attempt to demonstrate anything from historical evidence, or to frame from it an argument whose cogency shall even approach to a demonstration. Granting the hypothesis that like causes will always produce like effects, we find ourselves unable to show that the cases are exactly, or even proximately, the same. History is not a ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... is not to be found in his manner of composition. That derives its immense power from other sources; from passion, intensity, imagination, size, truth, cogency of logical reason. Those who insist on charm, on winningness in style, on subtle harmonies and fine exquisiteness of suggestion, are disappointed in Burke: they even find him stiff and over-coloured. And there are blemishes of this kind. His ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... then what are we? Granted the basal axiom of this type of immanentism, it follows with irresistible cogency that our separate existence, consciousness, volitions and so forth are merely illusions. We can be "ourselves God" only in the sense that we are individually nothing; the contrary impression is simply an error, which we shall have to recognise ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... purpose with which so ungrateful a line of analysis and exposition has been entered upon. It is to be regretted if facts that may flutter the emotions of one and another among the sensitive and unreflecting can not be drawn into such an inquiry without having their cogency discounted beforehand on account of the sentimental value imputed to them. Of course no offense is intended and no invidious comparison is ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... remonstrances, obstacles, and interposing difficulties not infrequently render sensual passion more rabid; while temptation, by the acts of resistance which it elicits, nourishes the virtue it assails. 3. An exterior motive may have a sufficient stress and cogency to call forth into energetic action some appetite, desire, or affection previously dormant or feeble, thus to repress the activity of those which before held sway, and so to produce a fundamental change in the character. In this way the sudden presentation of vice, in attractive ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... public affection is to be attributed to a great extent to his extraordinary eloquence. Cicero regards him as the first example of an almost perfect orator, at once delighting the Athenians with his copiousness and grace, and overawing them by the force and cogency of his diction and arguments. He seems, indeed, to have singularly combined the power of persuasion with that more rapid and abrupt style of oratory which takes an audience by storm and defies all resistance. As the accomplished man of genius and the liberal patron of literature and art, ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... "vain, impracticable, and resting on grounds too weak to merit the support of the government." Many in the council, however, were too enlightened to acquiesce in this sentence of the majority. Some of the most considerable persons of the court, indeed, moved by the cogency of Columbus's arguments, and affected by the elevation and grandeur of his views, not only cordially embraced his scheme, but extended their personal intimacy and friendship to him. Such, among others, were the grand cardinal Mendoza, a man whose ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... from early childhood I had been carefully instructed by her in the principles of honest government and the necessity of suppressing factional opposition.) The Judge, elected by a Republican ballot-box with a sliding bottom, was visibly impressed by the cogency of my plea ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... those who say love dethrones reason, but observe with what admirable logic, what cogency of deduction Stephen La Mothe could argue upon Commines' incapacity for judgment—thus. He had misjudged Ursula de Vesc, why not also Villon? If there had been this undeserved prejudice against an innocent and helpless girl, was not his contempt for Villon equally unjustified? How, in fact, ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... inn-parlour. I repeat, this is a case for beer. We must have the whole of this matter out thoroughly before we go a step farther. Do you know that an idea has just struck me of great simplicity and of some cogency. Do not by any means let us drop our intentions of settling our differences with two steel swords. But do you not think that with two pewter pots we might do what we really have never thought of doing yet—discover what our ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... sustained industry of the laborious student. But it was so; there was no department of our national records that he had not studied, and, I think I may say, mastered. Hence, I think, the unity of his dramatic scenes and the cogency of ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... persons in France, and the effect which this had upon the Revolution (Bk. III. ch. i.), is only a little too cold to be able to pass for Burke's own. Quinet's work on the Revolution is one long sermon, full of eloquence and cogency, upon the incapacity and blindness of the men who undertook the conduct of a tremendous crisis upon mere literary methods, without the moral courage to obey the logic of their beliefs, with the student's ignorance of the eager passion and rapid imagination of multitudes ...
— Burke • John Morley
... that you will the readier come into this proposal, as you seem to have a high opinion of your talents for argumentation; and not a low one of the cogency of the arguments contained in your last letter. And if I can possibly have no advantage in a contention with you, if the justice of my cause affords me not any (as you have no opinion it will,) it behoves you, methinks, to shew ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... deuteroproto—apo melissiou keriou—haras ton stauron—kai anephereto eis ton ouranon—hotan eklipete]—the 14th verse of St. Matthew's xxiiird chapter—and the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel. For my own part, I entirely deny the cogency of the proposed proof, and I have clearly already established the grounds of my refusal. Who then is to be the daysman between us? We are driven back on first principles, in order to ascertain if it may not be possible to meet ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... Clytemnestra betrays its symbolical import, as much as the attributes of the Furies, the serpents, and their sucking of blood. The same may be said of Apollo's aversion for them; in fact, this symbolical character runs through the whole. The equal cogency of the motives for and against the deed is denoted by the equally divided votes of the judges. And if at last a sanctuary within the Athenian territory is offered to the softened Furies, this is as much as to say that reason is not everywhere to enforce ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... strip of territory on one of the banks of the Belgian river Scheldt cannot be deemed authorized to sign away vast provinces that belonged to Russia. Here the plea of the self-determination of peoples possesses just as much or as little cogency as in the case of Ireland ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... competency, expertness, readiness, aptitude, dexterity, faculty, skill, capability, efficacy, force, strength, capacity, efficiency, might, susceptibility, cleverness, energy, qualification, talent. cogency, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... hurry to refute this proposition; they will, I hope, have no mind to do so, if they pay close attention to the examples given and to what follows. [61a] (1) Though I seem to deduce this from experience, some may deny its cogency because I have given no formal proof. (2) I therefore append the following for those who may desire it. (3) As there can be nothing in nature contrary to nature's laws, since all things come to pass by fixed laws, so that each thing must ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... be good is much below being righteous, and though there is a difference between the two, yet not, it is to be hoped, so incompatible as that a righteous man can not be a good man; though, conversely, in the pulpit it has been with much cogency urged, that a merely good man, that is, one good merely by his nature, is so far from there by being righteous, that nothing short of a total change and conversion can make him so; which is something which no honest mind, well read in the history of righteousness, will care to deny; nevertheless, ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... an historical basis to rest on. If a man ever had this it was Wasson. He went back to the Vedas in his study of religion; to the German forests and the pyramids in his investigation of politics and history. It was this which gave his arguments such cogency and made his discourse so fresh, vigorous and original. Arguments, however, will only serve for reasonable people. The ram that butted the locomotive had to learn ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... He treats the inner life in what Locke called "the plain historical method," that is to say, instead of interpreting and defining its ideas, he analyzes and reports upon its content. He would not seek to justify a moral judgment, as would ethics, or to criticise the cogency of thought, as would logic; but only to describe the actual state as he found it. In order to make his data commensurable with the phenomena of nature, he discovers or defines bodily conditions for the subjective content which he analyzes. His fundamental principle of method is the postulate ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... we may think of the abstract and objective value of the treatise De vera religione, which forms the usual introduction to those cursus theologici whose multiplication of late has been so remarkable, it can hardly be denied that its cogency is much diminished for the large number of those thinkers who repudiate the philosophical presuppositions upon which that treatise rests. As long as negation halted before that minimum of religious truth which ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... tastes were hers, his ideas had been largely derived from her, she could track them at any time and make or demolish him. He would go to a dance or a picnic and be as exhilarated as she was, and would discuss the matter afterwards. He could speak with some cogency on the shape of this and that female person, the hat of such an one, the disagreeableness of tea at this house and the goodness of it at the other. He could even listen to one speaking without going to sleep at the fourth word. In all he ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... the cogency of the objection, and they agreed to be off. Mike started for the window. "I'll just pick up the Sergeant," he said, "and signal you 'All clear.' ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... example of every possible past or present art, exhausting itself in attempts to invent, to express, to be something, anything, so long as it is new. Hence forms gratuitous, without organic quality or logical cogency, pulled about, altered and re-altered, carried to senseless finish and then wilfully blurred. Hence that sickly imitation, in a brand-new piece of work, of the effects of time, weather, and of every manner of accident or deterioration: the pottery and enamels reproducing ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... is apparently in these metaphors little that affords an argument against slander; the motive which they suggest would appear to many far-fetched and of small cogency; but to one who looks on this world as a vast whole, and who has recognised the moral law as only a part of the great law of the universe, harmoniously blending with the whole, illustrations such as these are the most powerful of all arguments. The truest definition of evil ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... liveliest things of any among them." This, however, is said in his account of the year seventy-five, when Waller was only seventy. His name, as a speaker, occurs often in Grey's Collections; but I have found no extracts that can be more quoted, as exhibiting sallies of gaiety than cogency ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... amount of repetition, he not only displayed an extraordinary grasp of complicated financial problems and a wide knowledge of their scientific meaning and history, but he showed an astonishing fertility in argument, coupled with great variety and clearness of statement and cogency of reasoning. With the exception of Hamilton, Mr. Webster is the only statesman in our history who was capable of such a performance on such a subject, when a thorough knowledge had to be united with all the resources of ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... best in theory, but in practice the Archbishop of Canterbury would do sufficiently well. If he could only manage to sprinkle a pinch of salt, as it were, on the Archbishop's tail, he might convert the whole Church of England to free thought by a coup de main. There must be an amount of cogency which even an Archbishop—an Archbishop whose perceptions had never been quickened by imprisonment for assault—would not be able to withstand. When brought face to face with the facts, as he, Ernest, could arrange them; his Grace would ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... unassailable fortress—faith in God.'"[54] Butler's method, then, is allowed to be potent enough to crush all such half-believers as still clung to the idea of a Personal God and Intelligent Ruler; but it had no force or cogency against such as, following Arnold, attenuated the idea of God into a Stream of Tendency. This theme he elaborated with great ingenuity and characteristic dogmatism in his Bishop Butler and the Zeitgeist; and, inasmuch as no task ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... justly regarded as the corner-stone of American public credit, excites the admiration of the reader by the clearness of its analysis, the cogency of its argument, and the broad range of its vision. The principles of action that it embodied, however, were few and simple, chief among them being exact and punctual fulfillment of contract. "States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... daily occasion to remark what vexations and inconveniences arise from this privilege of deceiving one another. The active and vivacious have so long disdained the restraints of truth, that promises and appointments have lost their cogency, and both parties neglect their stipulations, because each concludes that they will be broken by ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... recognized as law not contained in an express legislative enactment. In that sense a modern lawyer will agree that he was right. Practically all the English colonies had slavery thoroughly recognized and often without or before legislation; and all the well known legal maxims asserted the cogency of such custom.[20] Mr. Justice Allen considered that no human power could justify slavery—and his brother Saunders agreed with him. It would seem that these judges were concerned with what the law should be, the others ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... that those of British origin in the Transvaal who, with honest conviction, have advocated the immediate concession of full responsible government, will recognize the soundness and cogency of the reasons, both in their own interests and in those of the Empire, for proceeding more cautiously and slowly, and that under a political system which admittedly has its difficulties they will, notwithstanding a temporary disappointment, do their best to promote the welfare of the country ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... the teaching force of the chief Negro industrial schools, nearly every one of them would have to close its doors. These facts are forgotten by such advocates of industrial training as oppose the higher schools. Strong as the argument for industrial schools is—and its strength is undeniable—its cogency simply increases the urgency of the plea for higher training-schools and colleges to furnish broadly ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... spirit of endurance and joy which speaks alone in Ulysses. The man who is unhappy, but does not want to put an end to himself, has certainly the better of the argument with the despairing Voice. The arguments of "that barren Voice" are, indeed, remarkably deficient in cogency and logic, if we can bring ourselves to strip the discussion of its poetry. The original title, Thoughts of a Suicide, was inappropriate. The suicidal suggestions are promptly faced and confuted, and the mood of the author is throughout that of one ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... Whatever cogency these "considerations" may have had on Mr. Stanton, whatever right he may have had to entertain such considerations, whatever propriety there might be in the expression of them to others, one thing is certain, it was official misconduct, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... to-morrow in a world containing nothing but music, geometry would indeed lose its relevance to our future experience; but it would keep its ideal cogency, and become again a living language if any spatial objects should ever ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... heard the speeches on this case, and said that every one of the lawyers, if in England, would have been given a peerage. Patrick Henry broke his voice down in this case, and never again could speak with his old force. Marshall surpassed them all in the cogency of his reasoning. At that time he was thought to be rather lazy. He went into the State Legislature in 1782, just before he married. His personal influence was such in Richmond that, although he was constantly in the minority, he was always elected. His principal ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... struck by the cogency of Frank's reasoning. Signing to him to fall back, he whispered to Lieutenant Summers. The latter listened, then nodded. He stood silent ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... historical and the mythical. He threatened to dissolve the whole history into myth. He had no sense for the ethical element in the personality and teaching of Jesus nor of the creative force which this must have exerted. Ullmann says with cogency that, according to Strauss, the Church created its Christ virtually out of pure imagination. But we are then left with the query: What created the Church? To this query Strauss has absolutely no answer to give. The answer is, says Ullmann, that the ethical ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... not forget, however, that, even in the mathematical sciences, before a beaten path was attained, disputes as to the significance of numbers and the cogency of proofs were sufficiently common. And we must bear in mind that even to-day, where the beaten path does not seem wholly satisfactory, men seem to be driven to reflect upon the significance of their assumptions and the nature ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... should find indications of progression, the earlier forms being, on the whole, lower in organisation, and less specialised in structure than the later. Now evidence of evolution of these varied kinds is what we do find, and almost every fresh discovery adds to their number and cogency. In order, therefore, to show that the testimony given by geology is entirely in favour of the theory of descent with modification, some of the more striking of the facts ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... condemn, before trial, the sincere, painstaking, and careful scholars and reverent disciples of Christ, who are so earnestly seeking after truth, because the results of their learned researches do not agree with the prejudices of their anathematizers. It is with no less cogency of argument than nobility of feeling that Dr. Briggs replied to his assailants: "If it be heresy to say that rationalists, like Martineau, have found God in the reason, and Roman Catholics, like Newman, have found God in the Church, I rejoice ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... presence called forth. His clothes were very ill-fitting, and his long arms and hands protruded far through his coat sleeves, giving him a peculiarly uncouth appearance. Though I had often seen him before, and had heard him in court—always with delight in his clearness and cogency of statement, his illuminating humor, and his conspicuous fairness and candor—yet I had never before seen him when he appeared so homely; and I thought him about the ugliest man I had ever seen. There was nothing in his looks or manner that was prepossessing. ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... disadvantage. Questions of fact cannot be disproved by analogies or presumptions; the inquiry must be made into the particular case in all its parts, as it comes before us. Meanwhile, I fully allow that the points of evidence brought in disparagement of the miracle are prima facie of such cogency, that, till they are proved to be irrelevant, Catholics are prevented from appealing to ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... this opportune help enabled Austria to make the surprising efforts which flung back the French to the Rhine, and checked the triumphal progress of Bonaparte. Nevertheless, Fox threatened his rival with impeachment for this unconstitutional action. Pitt replied with irresistible cogency that the crisis called for bold handling, and that England helped her ally to save the Empire and to maintain the contest in Italy. The House condoned his action by 285 votes to 81, a proof that he ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... attack is concealed from the public gaze; his decision bears upon the interest of an individual, and if the law is slighted, it is only collaterally. Moreover, although it be censured, it is not abolished; its moral force may be diminished, but its cogency is by no means suspended; and its final destruction can only be accomplished by the reiterated attacks of judicial functionaries. It will readily be understood that by connecting the censorship of the laws ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... the contrary which intrude their advice into all his decisions. In matters of thought and belief also cases are common of stubborn opposition to evidence, and persistence in opinion, which are in no way due to the cogency of the contrary arguments or to ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... whisper—a line or two—would suffice to suggest to him a truly admirable and conclusive argument, which he instantly elaborated as if he had prepared it deliberately beforehand in his chamber; and he would put the point with infinitely greater cogency than could have been exhibited by him who suggested it, and defend it from the assaults of his opponents and the bench with truly admirable readiness and ingenuity. He exhibited great judgment and discrimination, however, on these occasions. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... or, that if A hold himself out as B's partner, he will be liable as such, because he might else enable B to defraud persons who had trusted him upon the faith of the apparent partnership and joint responsibility: when these reasons, and such as these, are given, every man at once perceives their cogency, and needs not to be told how, that he may know why, the law was settled on its present footing. The fitness of this subject for compression is, therefore, hardly questionable. The difficulty of compressing it is, however, extreme. The author who attempts to do so, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... Godwin was in profound sympathy. Had he intended "Caleb Williams," however, from its first inception, to be an imaginative version of the "Political Justice," he would have had to invent a different plan and different characters. The arguments of a sociological novel lack cogency unless the characters are fairly representative of average mankind. Godwin's principal actors are both, to say the least, exceptional. They are lofty idealizations of certain virtues and powers of mind. Falkland is like ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... regarding mankind as of one species, but a fortnight's steam will land us in a country where divines and savants, for once in agreement, vie with one another in loudness of assertion, if not in cogency of proof, that men are of different species; and, more particularly, that the species negro is so distinct from our own that the Ten Commandments have actually no reference to him. Even in the calm region of entomology, where, if anywhere in ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... When, however, the persuasion forces him to take a six-mile walk and swallow the revolting draught, then, and only then, is triumph secured. So a preacher may convince the habitual sinner of the heinousness of sin; he may win his applause by the cogency of his reasoning and the brilliancy of his style; but not till he has moved his will to fling the old fetters to the winds, not till he brings him a tearful penitent to the confessional, is his ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... spectators; whether we camped with the Indians, marched with De Soto or La Salle and felled the forests of early St. Louis with Laclede and Chouteau, or whether we were part of that great host on the hillside, we can say no longer that we do not understand the importance of the idea, or the value and cogency of the visible symbols that fix it in the memory and grip it ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... in her interpretations from it. But under fire, she stuck to her guns. Her husband, who delighted in her public attitude, was amazed when she rounded upon him in their domestic sanctuary, and emphatically took the other side. In his disgust, he made a very penetrating observation, whose cogency Violet realized, though she loftily ignored it at the time it was uttered. But three or four nights later, at an opera dinner at the Heaton-Duncans, she fired it off shamelessly, as a shot ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... web-footed theologian who expects to go to heaven by diving is not worth answering. Nothing can be more idiotic than to answer an argument by saying he who makes it does not believe it. Belief has nothing to do with the cogency or worth of an argument. There is another thing. This man, or rather this minister, says that I attacked Christianity simply to make money. Is it possible that, after preachers have had the field for eighteen ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... slaves—his newly acquired habit of strolling into the room and throwing himself down where he could lazily watch her—all these, and other circumstances, though individually trivial, could not fail, when united, to give cogency to the one terrible conviction of secret wrong. Whether Leta herself had any perception of all this, who could yet tell? It might be that she was clothed in innocent unconsciousness of her master's admiration, or that, by the force of native ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... unlikely as that a King of Prussia should propose that all Germany should be known as Austria. Of course, if the evidence in favour of the word Saxon being native was of a certain degree of cogency, we must take the preceding improbability as we find it; but no such cogent evidence can be found. Saxon is always a name that some one may give to some one else, never one that ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... empty honor. It only salved the pride of the Praenestines, for it gave them a name which showed a former sovereign federated state, and not the name of a colony planted by the Romans.[228] The cogency of this fourth reason will bear elaboration. Praeneste would never have asked for a return to the name municipium if it had not meant something. At the very best she could not have been a real municipium with Roman citizenship longer than seven ...
— A Study Of The Topography And Municipal History Of Praeneste • Ralph Van Deman Magoffin
... hypothesis that the spots are caused by the precipitation of vapour in the interiors of cyclones. But though, as above shown, he refers to the objection made in the foregoing essay to his original hypothesis, and recognizes its cogency, he does not say that the hypothesis which he thereupon substitutes is also to be found in the foregoing essay. Nor does he intimate this in the elaborate paper on the subject read before the French Association for the Advancement of Science, and published ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... therefore apparent that the reasons given in 1885 for a change in the manner of enforcing the Federal criminal law have gained cogency and ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... been long ago," he replied, without the shadow of a ray of hope. He got up, and turning his face away from Eleanore, said in a half-audible voice: "Let's have no argument, no cogency, no urgency. Not now! Not now when I am creeping along on the earth with such light as is left me, trying to grope my way out of the hole. A man doesn't give up the ghost so quickly as all that, Eleanore. The stomach is a ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the refined criticism of "Robert Elsmere," published in 1888. Almost the last thing he wrote, a pamphlet on the Greek and Cretan question, published in the spring of 1897, has all the force and cogency of his best days. Two things were never wanting to him: vigor of expression and an ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... for ages past; and ever since the microscope has revealed so many unsuspected wonders, the argument from contrivance and design, Creative Power and infinite Wisdom, has been pressed with increasing cogency. The Heavens, from the beginning, have been felt to "declare the glory of GOD." One department only of Nature, alone, has all along remained unexplored. Singular to relate, the Records of Creation, (as the phenomena of Geology may I suppose be properly called,)—though the most obvious phenomena ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... he admits their practical cogency, an attentive reader will not fail to be interested in the attempt Mr. Saintsbury has made to give technical rules of metre for the production of the true prose rhythm. Any one who cares to do so might test the validity of those rules in the nearest possible way, by applying them to the varied ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... to and kept in memory, before we were able to scan a Latin or Greek verse without breaking its neck by tripping over false quantities. In Arabic, on the other hand, the answer to the question, what is metrically long or short, is exceedingly simple, and flows with stringent cogency from the nature of the Arabic Alphabet. This, strictly speaking, knows only consonants (Harf, pl. Huruf). The vowels which are required, in order to articulate the consonants, were at first not represented in writing at all. They had to be supplied by the reader, and are not improperly ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... a man than a sheep," was his text, from which with great ingenuity and eloquence he proceeded to develop the theme of the supreme value of the human factor in modern life, social and industrial. With great cogency he pressed the argument against the inhuman and degrading view that would make man a mere factor in the complex problem of Industrial Finance, a mere inanimate cog ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... solely by private charity. Others urge that such an institution to be successful should be free from city control and entirely the result of private munificence. The latter gentlemen have added to the cogency of their arguments by a practical demonstration. Early in 1880 they organized on a small scale a free circulating library which should exist solely by the benefactions of the public, with the object of furnishing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... eliminate the Subject. In the case, for example, upon which you dwelt, of the impressions of external sense, the certainty of the impressions is your and my certainty that we have them; and so in the case of a cogent argument; for any given person the test of the cogency is his perception that the cogency is there. And it is the same with the Beautiful and the Good; there is no conceivable test except perception. Our difficulty here is simply that perceptions conflict; not that we have no independent test. But if, as in the case I imagined, the perception of ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... physical accident, after all, of his bodily constitution, such as might have taken a different turn, had another accident fixed his home among the hills instead of on the shore. Is it only the result of disease? he would ask himself sometimes with a sudden suspicion of his intellectual cogency—this persuasion that myself, and all that surrounds me, are but a diminution of that ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... marriage; yet without that sequel the story could have no point. He did not wish to speak of his marriage, if for no other reason than that it was much too late to speak of it. The other reasons remained as valid as ever; but he was bound to confess the superior cogency of this present one. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... Deny, therefore, the inspiration of this profound writer, of which there is no proof, and we have his own authority against the conclusiveness of his own arguments; since he confesses that by their cogency alone they are insufficient to produce conviction in opposition to our just and natural conceptions of ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... March, a minority report was submitted, making the point of which the cogency was obvious, that inasmuch as the term of the official concerning whose suspension the Senate undertook to inquire had already expired by legal limitation, the only object in pressing for the papers in his case ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... call enlarging the mind," said Phoebe with a smile; which was, to tell the truth, a very pretty smile, and filled with a soft lustre the blue eyes with which she looked at him. Whether it was this, or the cogency of her argument, that moved the young Anglican, it would ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... learning. With the restored knowledge of the language of Greece there arose a desire to investigate the storehouses of science, as well as those of literature, and the extravagant assumption of the dogmatists, and the eccentricities of the Arabic school gave additional cogency to the cry for more light. The sects which Galen had endeavoured to unite sprang into new activity within a century after his death. The Arabian physicians, acute and curious as they were, had exercised but a very transient influence upon ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... upon which Nyall had ordered the changes made. The tabulated figures proved that his reasoning had been correct. He was positive, forceful, and insistent in driving home his argument and in compelling his superior to admit their force and cogency. When it was all admitted and Burton, fighting to the last ditch, had been over-whelmed, Nyall's unconcealed air of triumph was keenly and painfully exasperating ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... to energy as a combination of different figures, when two or three uniting their resources mutually contribute to the vigour, the cogency, and the beauty of a speech. So Demosthenes in his speech against Meidias repeats the same words and breaks up his sentences in one lively descriptive passage: "He who receives a blow is hurt in many ways which he could not even ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... uselessness of any words, knowing that in this monstrous Ragnarok of all humanity no ordinary relations of life could bear either cogency or meaning, he took her in ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... that there is no case made out for the defendant to answer." He then entered into a rigorous analysis of the plaintiff's evidence, contrasting each conflicting portion with the other, with singular cogency; and commenting with powerful severity upon the demeanor and character of many of the witnesses. On proceeding, at length, to open the case of the defendant—"And here, gentlemen," said he, "I am reminded of the observation with which my learned friend ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... because rocks of cretaceous, or still later, date have shared in the elevatory movements which gave rise to these mountain chains; and may be found perched up, in some cases, many thousand feet high upon their flanks. And evidence of equal cogency demonstrates that, though, in Norfolk, the forest-bed rests directly upon the chalk, yet it does so, not because the period at which the forest grew immediately followed that at which the chalk was formed, but because an immense lapse of time, represented elsewhere ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... and ingratitude? which would not appear an insult to those whom they loved? Federal principles, popular discontent, were considerations, whose weight was known and felt by themselves. But would foreigners know and feel them equally? Would they so far acknowledge their cogency, as to permit, without any indignation, the eagle and ribbon to be torn from their breasts, by the very hands which had placed them there? The idea revolted the whole society. They found it necessary, then, to preserve so much of their institution as might continue to support this foreign ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... cold air never gave any one a cold; that respiration destroyed a gallon of air a minute and that all the air in the room would be consumed in an hour. He went on and on and long before he had finished his argument, Mr. Adams was snoring, convinced rather by the length than the cogency of the reasoning. Soon the two great men, whose fame may be said to fill the earth, were asleep in the same bed in that little box of a room and snoring in a way that suggested loud contention. I had to laugh as ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... and strength, that it seemed capable of anything and everything that he pleased. It was astonishing with what rapidity and effect he would shift the color, shape, and attitude of the same object as the emergencies of his argument required. With what closeness and unanswerable cogency he would maintain truth! and with what illusion and almost irrefutable sophistry he would disguise and metamorphose error! At the first sound of the trumpet he could draw a larger body of forces into the field in favor ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... which groups of these products are contained. The classification is natural, and in that sense inevitable; and it not only groups the physiological and chemical facts, but the industrial also. We do not propose to argue the question whether the latter adds any cogency to a scientific scheme. We are satisfied that it does, and we do not find any necessity to exclude a particular set of phenomena from consideration, because they involve 'commercial' factors. We have dealt with this classification in the original ...
— Researches on Cellulose - 1895-1900 • C. F. Cross
... had a sort of distinctness which is sometimes produced by sharp, bodily pain. To Mrs. Seal's secret jubilation the rule which forbade discussion of shop at tea-time was overlooked. Mary and Mr. Clacton argued with a cogency and a ferocity which made the little woman feel that something very important—she hardly knew what—was taking place. She became much excited; one crucifix became entangled with another, and she dug a considerable hole in the table ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... opium. Whether afterwards, having been thus initiated by the demon of pain, the opium confessor did not apply powers thus discovered to purposes of mere pleasure, is a question for himself; and the same question applies with the same cogency to Coleridge. Coleridge began in rheumatic pains. What then? This is no proof that he did not end in voluptuousness. For our parts, we are slow to believe that ever any man did, or could, learn the somewhat awful truth, that in a certain ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... given His Worship to understand that he had done enough bribing for one season and that, unless Krasnojabkin were promptly released, there would be no bribing whatever next year. The judge, with his usual legal acumen, perceived the cogency of his friend's argument. He met Mr. Keith's wishes more than half-way. On an impulse of downright good-nature—there was no other interpretation to be put on it—he released all the Russians, including the Messiah. They were excarcerated then and there on a decree ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... total of all adaptations in the universe must be held to be incomparably more so. I shall not, however, dwell upon this theme since it has been well treated by several modern writers, and with special cogency by the Rev. Baden Powell. I will merely observe that I do not consider it necessary to the display of this argument in favour of Theism that we should speak of 'natural laws.' It is enough to take our stand upon the [broadest] general fact that Nature is a system, and that the order observable ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... value of the contentions of these two opposed schools must be judged by the cogency of the evidence put forth by each. The appearance of a degenerate form of a noble idea may closely resemble that of a refined product of a coarse idea, and the only method of deciding between degeneration and evolution would ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... search. Abraham Ibn Daud, the author of the philosophical treatise "Emunah Ramah" (The Exalted Faith), and the predecessor of Maimonides, criticises Gabirol very severely, and that not merely because he disagrees with him in the conception of matter and finds Gabirol's reasoning devoid of cogency and logical force—many bad arguments, he says, seem in the mind of Gabirol to be equivalent to one good one—but principally because Gabirol failed to take a Jewish attitude in his philosophizing, and actually, as Ibn Daud tells us, maintains views dangerous to Judaism ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... actions are distinguished by coolness, intrepidity, and good sense. He does not pretend to second sight, or a knowledge of futurity; but on the present and the past there are few who can reason with more cogency of remark, or with more classic elegance of diction: with such a concentration of qualities, it is not wonderful that his influence extends through every gradation of the juvenile band. His particular attachments are not numerous; but those who have experienced ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... argument seems to draw whatever cogency it has from the simplicity and naturalness of the notion of representation. The nature of idea, it is assumed, is to represent plurality in a unified view. If idea did not represent, it would not be ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... more success with juries than the subject of this sketch. The secret of this success has been, not more the admirable lucidity and cogency of his addresses, than the confidence and trust with which his reputation for fairness and truthfulness, and his evident abhorrence of exaggeration, have inspired his hearers. Another explanation is, that he has avoided that rock on which so many advocates wreck their cases,—prolixity. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... The reason or cogency of the system of debate followed in the Indian Council has not seemed to me clearly demonstrable; nor is the cause for the honour attaching to the Chiefs of the Mohawks and Senecas, and of the Onondagas, respectively, of commencing and closing discussion, very explicable. I believe, however, that ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... filled the minds of Paula and Charlotte De Stancy, the thought that the photograph might have been a fabrication was probably the last. To them that picture of Somerset had all the cogency of direct vision. Paula's experience, much less Charlotte's, had never lain in the fields of heliographic science, and they would as soon have thought that the sun could again stand still upon Gibeon, as that it could be made to falsify men's characters in delineating ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... deliberate decision of the nation, is that to which it will come whenever again appealed to; and is supported by reasons of cogency. The nation is thoroughly aware of the immense importance of upholding and protecting the agriculture of the country, and that to secure this grand object, it is necessary to admit foreign corn into the country, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... letter of Dec. 12, 1781, to Dalberg, he admits the cogency of the objection to his horde of robbers 'in our enlightened century' and virtually expresses regret that he had not himself, from the beginning, imagined an earlier date for the action. But he fears that to change the time, now that the piece is finished, ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... clues, if no more? At any rate I have written enough to weary myself—and I will dispatch it to the printers, and cease. But how much—how many topics, of the greatest pointand cogency, I am leaving untouch'd! ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... less—more dubious than I did then. In this Preface the doctrine of "art for art's sake" and of its consequent independence of any licet or non-licet from morality is put with great ability and no little cogency, but in a fashion essentially juvenile, from its want of measure and its evident wish to provoke as much as to prove.[216] Without it the book would probably have excited far less odium and opprobrium than it has actually done; it would, if separate, be an excellent ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... thank you for the note of the 6th. Your pamphlet I have read with satisfaction, as I had your former publication. I have no desire to appear complimentary, but cannot forbear the expression of my admiration of your writings. There is a cogency in your argument that I have seldom met with. Such maturity of judicial learning with so comprehensive and concise a style of communication surprises me. Ladies have certainly seldom evinced ability as jurists—it may be because ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... neither, therefore, in condition for acceptance. In the present case the weight of disproof is small. The facts in support of the evolution hypothesis are multitudinous, and many of them of great cogency; the facts against it are few, and none of them absolute. It is simply argued that some questions remain unsolved, and that there are facts which seem inconsistent with the Darwinian theory of development, and which no supplementary ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... sir, well; there is cogency in a good supper; a good supper in these degenerate days bespeaks a good man; but much more is wanted to make up an Athenian. Athenians, indeed! where is your theatre? who among you has written a comedy? where is your Attic salt? which of you can tell who was Jupiter's great- ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... would "wait a while." Said the architect, "Better make up your mind before June, or you may have the Irish Legislature to deal with." This argument acted like magic. The good Father instantly saw its cogency, and, like every other patriotic Nationalist whose personal interest is involved, preferred to place himself in English hands rather than in those of his own countrymen, and incontinently accepted the contract, begging the architect ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... plants, denies that it ever has operated or can operate in the case of man, still less that it has any bearing whatever on the vast social and political questions which have been supported by a reference to it. He illustrates and supports his views with a wealth of illustrative facts and a cogency of argument which I have rarely seen equalled, while his style is equal to that of Buckle, and thus his book is delightful reading. The title of the book is "Progress and Poverty." It has gone through six editions in America, and is now published in England ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... crown in 871. It is asserted by Sismondi, in his history of the fall of the Roman Empire, that when the above named prince caused a republication of the Saxon laws he inserted several laws taken from the Judaical ritual into his statutes to give new strength and cogency to the principles of morality. So it is a common thing in the early English reports to find frequent references to the Mosaic law. Sismondi also states that one of the first acts of the clergy under Pepin and Charlemagne, of France, was to introduce ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... a 'different character.' Now, you must know, Sir, that 'we learned men' do this to point out to the readers, who are not 'so learned,' where the 'jet of our arguments lieth,' and the 'emphasis' they are to lay upon 'those words'; whereby they will take in readily our 'sense' and 'cogency.' Some 'pragmatical' people have said, that an author who doth a 'great deal of this,' either calleth his readers 'fools,' or tacitly condemneth 'his own style,' as supposing his meaning would be 'dark' without it, or that all of his 'force' lay in 'words.' ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... leave, not a little discomfited and amazed at the pertinacious obstinacy of the women, Laura repeated her embraces and arguments with tenfold fervour to Helen, who felt that there was a great deal of cogency in most of the latter. There must be some jealousy against Pen. She felt quite sure that he had offended some of the examiners, who had taken a mean revenge of him—nothing more likely. Altogether, the announcement of the misfortune vexed these two ladies very little ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... world of the unreal. But too often in his works does the unreal fail to satisfy the reader. There is an effort felt, an effect sought for, and, while the amalgamation of the two worlds is perfect, the world to which Hoffmann is able to take us proves to be without the cogency which our imaginations expect. Here Hoffmann fails. His world of the imagination cannot ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Zionism with arguments that are incontrovertible, but totally irrelevant; it busies itself with destroying claims which the Zionists have never made. A trio may be taken as representative. It is pointed out with cogency that Palestine is not capable of supporting the twelve million of Jews who inhabit our world; and more conclusively, the twelve million of Jews do not wish to go to Palestine. Briefly, the Zionists in seeking a home for the Jew in ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... not conceive, how any man could reason so forcibly, without feeling the cogency of his own arguments, paid his visit in a few days, and was denied admission. He had now learned the power of money, and made his way, by a piece of gold, to the inner apartment, where he found the philosopher, in a room half-darkened, with his eyes misty, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... forward the true idea of the Church and showed that the minister of a sacrament does not communicate to the recipient his own character of holiness or of guilt, that it is Christ Himself who baptizes and absolves and gives efficacy to sacramental signs. The cogency of his words, the clearness of his explanations, and his grace of manner led many of the Donatists to desire union with the Church, which he showed them, as Christ's Body, is one and indivisible. His chief works in this controversy are a letter to Maximinus, a Donatist bishop whom ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... fashion—ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and his opinions were those of his class and neighbourhood, put for him day by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter Susy. The night before she had told her mother ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fixed, and the anxiety suspended. For though, of two persons opposing each other with equal abilities and equal virtue, the auditor will inevitably, in time, choose his favourite, yet as that choice must be without any cogency of conviction, the hopes or fears which it raises will be faint and languid. Of two heroes acting in confederacy against a common enemy, the virtues or dangers will give little emotion, because each claims our concern with the same right, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... picturesque personal traits, landscape, small details of life and temperament, that lodge themselves firmly in my mind; but when I am dealing with historical facts and erudite matters, though I can get up my case and present it for the time being with a certain cogency, the knowledge all melts in my mind; and no one ought to think of attempting historical work unless his mind is of the kind that can hold an immense amount of knowledge in solution. I have a friend, for instance, who can put all kinds of details into his mind—he ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Jackson answered, "Calhoun is right; the Union must go, and the sovereign State remain." At Bull Run, Calhoun's doctrine seemed to be in the ascendancy; at Gettysburg, Webster's argument seemed to have the more cogency; at Appomattox Lee withdrew his support from Calhoun, and allowed Daniel Webster's plea that the Union must abide and be now and forever, one ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... made," seems to be advancing rapidly to a position which makes him a kind of joint Aristides, Solon, and Themistocles of the American metropolis—an Aristides for justness and boldness as well as incessancy of opinion, a Solon for wisdom and cogency, and a Themistocles for the democracy of his views and the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... such Criticism as has been brought to bear against the genuineness of S. Mark xvi. 9-20 excessive, but the supposed facts adduced in evidence have been found out to be every one of them mistakes;—being either, (1) demonstrably without argumentative cogency of any kind;—or else, (2) distinctly corroborative and confirmatory circumstances: indications that this part of the Gospel is indeed by S. Mark,—not that it is probably the work of ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... a whisper to his colleagues whenever Lord John made a good hit, which argued a consciousness of error, and a bad spirit with it. But Mr. Layard utterly demolished the case of Mr. Herbert, and with a gravity of purpose, fulness of information, discreet distribution of subject, and logical cogency, which mark that gentleman as one of the most rising men in the commons, and in the country. The government were literally overwhelmed with his speech. The impressions of the oldest observers of parliamentary proceedings ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... another place (p.284) M. Renan is told that his objection to the doctrine of a primitive Indo-European monosyllabism is noticed, not for any cogency which it possesses, but only on account of the respectability ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... "Protestant" in my question, and see if the argument is a bit the worse for it—thus: "How can you prove that Father Newman informs us a certain thing about the Roman Clergy, by referring to an Anglican or Anglo-catholic Sermon of the Vicar of St. Mary's?" The cogency of the argument remains just where it was. What have I gained in the argument, what has he lost, by my having said, not "an Anglican Sermon," but "a Protestant Sermon?" What dust then is he throwing ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... have written recently in favour of the scheme of a municipal theatre many speak with the authority of exceptional experience. The actor Mr John Coleman, one of the last survivors of Phelps's company at Sadler's Wells Theatre, argued with cogency, shortly before his death in 1903, that the national credit owed it to itself to renew Phelps's experiment of the middle of last century; public intervention was imperative, seeing that no other means were forthcoming. The late Sir Henry Irving in his closing ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... of Augustine, and the cogency of his scriptural argument, held the Church firmly against the doctrine of the antipodes; all schools of interpretation were now agreed—the followers of the allegorical tendencies of Alexandria, the strictly literal exegetes of Syria, the more eclectic theologians of the West. For over ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White |
