"Inconclusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... events of the last few months had choked that belief. If there was a God who guarded us, why should He have allowed the existence of my wife to be sacrificed to the carelessness, and all my hopes to the villainy, of Sir John Bell? The reasoning was inconclusive, perhaps—for who can know the ends of the Divinity?—but it satisfied my mind at the time, and for the rest I have never really troubled to reopen ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... Tom's turn to start now, for his uncle had immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was his doing, and his words in answer sounded lame and inconclusive. ...
— The Vast Abyss - The Story of Tom Blount, his Uncles and his Cousin Sam • George Manville Fenn
... The end is inconclusive, being a happy recollection that he had omitted any reference to stoofjes, the footstools filled with burning peat which are used to keep the feet warm in church. Such a custom was of course not less reprehensible ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... tamely, nor to compromise. He had made his farm with his own hands, and he did not propose to see it destroyed. Much money he expended through the courts; indeed the profits of his business were eaten by a never-ending, inconclusive suit. The Hydraulic Company, securely entrenched behind the barriers of especial privilege, could laugh at his frontal attacks. It was useless to think of force. The feud degenerated into a bitter legal battle and much petty ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... maintain, on what appears to be very inconclusive grounds, that the fountain was at Palazzo, six miles from Venusia. But the poem is obviously inspired by a fountain whose babble had often soothed the ear of Horace, long after he had ceased to visit Venusia. On his farm, therefore, let us believe ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... longer had any doubt as to the identity of the person who had looked in upon him through the window yesterday. The marvellous resemblance to the face he remembered so well, the dropped lilac spray were in themselves inconclusive, but the evidence of her name made the case clear and left but one verdict possible. Chance, Fate, Providence, what you will, ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... WORTH—neither for less, nor more. In the first place, I have learned nothing decisive from him. This, as you will at once see, is, as far as it goes, good. I am either to hear from him, or see him again in a day or two; but I thought you would like to know what passed inconclusive as it was—so I write without delay, and in great haste to save a post. I found him frank, and even friendly in his manner to me, and in his views respecting you. I think that he is sincerely sorry ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... colorific sound had no existence, was impossible; but at least he would be very justifiable in saying, they appeared contradictions, because he had some ideas of sound which did not at all aid him in forming those of colour; he would not, perhaps, be very inconclusive if he suspected the competency of his informer to the definition attempted, from his inability to convey to him in any distinct, understood terms, his own ideas of colours. The theologian is a blind man, who would explain to others who are also blind, the shades and colours ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... and regularity observed, and nobody but your Austrian Deputy protesting upon it, when requested to go home. But, the high Maria had a notion that the Reich belonged to her august Family and her; and that all Elections to the contrary were an inconclusive thing, fundamentally ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... north of the tropics, and that the same tradition shall, for a future yet indeterminate, decisively shape the course of India and the Philippines? The preceding war, 1739-1748, had been substantially inconclusive on the chief points at issue, because European questions intervening had diverted the attention of both France and Great Britain from America and from India; and the exhaustion of both had led to a perfunctory compact, ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... necessary for happiness no less than for honesty that we should realise that poetry, music, and pictures are personal things; that what they are worth to us is their sole measure of value. And here it must be mentioned that Mr. Balfour puts forth two hints which are inconclusive enough, but which do dimly suggest a truer way of escape than that to which his argument leads. He notes, first of all, that art is disinterested; that it is not a means, but an end in itself. And, secondly, we feel towards beautiful ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... "There is some deep intrigue going on round that little woman, and it is our duty to see that no one molests her upon that last journey. I think, Watson, that we must spare time to run down together on Saturday morning, and make sure that this curious and inconclusive investigation ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... sighed as he turned away, but his own evidence on that point would be inconclusive, since the first object his wondering eyes dwelt on was the graceful figure of Cynthia Vanrenen. There was no possibility of error. An arc lamp blazed overhead, and, to make assurance doubly sure, his recognition of Cynthia ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... contending parties supported their claims by mutual reproaches of perfidy and ambition; and it should seem, that the original treaty was expressed in very obscure terms, since they were reduced to the necessity of making their inconclusive appeal to the partial testimony of the generals of the two nations, who had assisted at the negotiations. The invasion of the Goths and Huns which soon afterwards shook the foundations of the Roman empire, exposed the provinces of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... guiding kind, because by that study we must be led if we are to form any intelligent conception of divine action. True, it might be feasible to admit divine agency and yet to deny the possibility of any human power of the same kind,—though that would be a nebulous and at least inconclusive procedure; but if once we are constrained to admit the existence and reality of human guidance and control, superposed upon the physical scheme, we cannot deny the possibility of such power and action to any higher being, nor ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... we hold, as we have said, that simony probably did take place, we do so, not so much upon the inconclusive evidence of the fact, as upon the circumstance that it had become almost an established custom to purchase the tiara, and that Roderigo Borgia—since his ambition clearly urged him to the Pontificate—would have been an exception ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... fame or death in the perilous game he has engaged in?" And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of the subject, I began only to think whether the search or the society of Isora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a fruitless and inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took a less selfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the anxiety of love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of Aubrey. What, for one already so abstracted from the enjoyments ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Babel, Javan was the first settler in Attica, nor is it reserved for my labours to decide the solemn controversy whether Ogyges was the contemporary of Jacob or of Moses. Neither shall I suffer myself to be seduced into any lengthened consideration of those disputes, so curious and so inconclusive, relative to the origin of the Pelasgi (according to Herodotus the earliest inhabitants of Attica), which have vainly agitated the learned. It may amuse the antiquary to weigh gravely the several doubts as to the derivation of their name from Pelasgus or from Peleg—to connect the scattered fragments ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Panthea and Abradates, to which Professor Ebers refers so triumphantly, is equally inconclusive as to the existence of altruistic affection. Abradates, having been urged by his wife Panthea to show himself worthy of the friendship of Cyrus by doing valorous deeds, falls in a battle, whereat Panthea is so grieved at the result of her advice that she ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... think, lies in not keeping clearly in view—what both certainly perfectly understand—the difference between the guerre-de-course, which is inconclusive, and commerce-destroying (or commerce prevention) through strategic control of the sea by powerful navies. Some nations more than others, but all maritime nations more or less, depend for their prosperity upon maritime ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... beneficial in another. Every apparent consent to marry, if irregularly declared out of the presence of the church, is at present liable to inquiry and explanation. The most formal written engagement or verbal declaration is of itself inconclusive; it being always competent to inquire, whether it was not interchanged in jest or in error, or for some other purpose than that of constituting marriage; and several cases have occurred where, upon evidence ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... excited, storming for the production of Soosie, and being met with inconclusive statements and evasions. Being one who knew no fear, who deemed his questions justifiable, who felt himself more than a match for the whole camp, and was convinced that the blacks were in possession ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... and without pursuit the conflict could not be brought to a close. The unkindness of the conditions almost exonerates the generals who blundered during the struggle, and to an unprejudiced observer the record of incompetence is slight. The fact that the inconclusive proceedings of Metellus and Marius were deemed successes, almost justifies the exploits of a Bestia, and even the crowning disaster of the war—the surprise of the army of Aulus Albinus—might have been the lot of a better commander ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... preoccupation regarding some matter, which he was alike unable to forget or to define. Formless images perplexed his vision. Formless thoughts pursued one another, as with the hurry of rumoured calamity, through his mind. A desolating apprehension of things insufficiently developed, of the inconclusive, the immature, the unattained, of things mutilated, things unfinished, born out of due time and incomplete, oppressed his fancy. Even the events of the last few hours, in which he had played so considerable a part, took on a shadowy semblance, ceased ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... counted upon the moral, if not the actual, support of the German-born in America to the extent, at least, of preventing our joining the war, and now, when we have joined, they count upon that support to agitate for an inconclusive and unrighteous peace. ...
— Right Above Race • Otto Hermann Kahn
... were once more opened, and the ministers were present. The discussion was as inconclusive as before, and, on June 4, Necker produced a plan of his own. He proposed, in substance, separate verification, the crown to decide in last instance. It was a solution favourable to the privileged orders, one of which had appealed to him. ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... make each other happy. Is it to be supposed, for example, that if either of your fathers were living now, and had any mistrust on that subject, his mind would not be changed by the change of circumstances involved in the change of your years? Untenable, unreasonable, inconclusive, and preposterous!' ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... Lord Clarendon's letter referring to the new Draft of a Treaty with Austria proposed by the French Government, and has since attentively perused the Treaty itself.[57] Vague and inconclusive as it is as to co-operation (which is the main object of our desire), it is a step in advance, and has the advantage of assuring Austria of our alliance should the war between her and Russia break out. The Queen regrets ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... reversible if it later prove unwise. Such trivial options abound in the scientific life. A chemist finds an hypothesis live enough to spend a year in its verification: he believes in it to that extent. But if his experiments prove inconclusive either way, he is quit for his loss of time, no vital ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... when the bard, or hoary sage, Charm or instruct the future age, They bind the wild poetric rage In energy, Or point the inconclusive page Full on ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... company, if we had then had it: But better late than never." Such is the excuse of Purchas for misplacement, and we have therefore here placed the two relations in their proper order, in separate subdivisions of the section. The first indeed is a very bald and inconclusive article, and gives hardly any information respecting the object and success of the voyage to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... stared; whether it was the paper, or the strong, motionless hand, or the introspective face, he was afterwards unaware. But he heard all the quiet roar of the London evening, and was able to distinguish even the note of each instrument that helped to make up that untiring, inconclusive orchestra. Far away to the northwards sounded a great thoroughfare, the rolling of wheels, a myriad hoofs, the pulse of motor vehicles, and the cries of street boys; upon all these his attention dwelt as they came up through the outward windows ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... the financial system and credit of the people. So, in 1812 and the two years following, the United States flooded the seas with privateers, producing an effect upon British commerce which, though inconclusive singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other motives to dispose the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It was the reply, and the only possible reply, to the commercial blockade, the grinding efficacy of which it will be a principal object of these pages to depict. The issue to us ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... performed it properly all competent evidence shows, a foolish, inconclusive, and I fear it must be said emphatically snobbish story of Walpole's notwithstanding. In particular, he broke up a gang of cut-throat thieves, which had been the terror of London. But his tenure of the post was short enough, and scarcely extended to five years. ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... smaller rhythmical series, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the types of structure which appear in subjective rhythmization and the apprehension of objective rhythms the forms of which are antecedently unknown to the hearer. The evidence from subjective rhythms is inconclusive. The prevailing types are of two and three beats. Higher forms appear which are introspectively simple, but introspection is absolutely unable to solve the problem as to the possible composite nature of these extended ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... again. I'm glad she did n't come to visit us in Boston, though, after what happened, she could n't, poor thing! I wonder if she 's ever regretted her breaking with him in the way she did. It's a very painful thing to think of,—such an inconclusive conclusion; it always seemed as if they ought ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... But you need not tell me—that is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express the meaning of that inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many of these romances have we not seen determine at their birth; how many people have met us with ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... than his books,—the latter were too weird, uncanny, and inconclusive. In 1838 he noted in his journal, "Elizabeth Peabody brought me yesterday Hawthorne's 'Footprints on the Seashore' to read. I complained there was no inside to it. Alcott and he ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... and was able to drag along only a mile a day; Burgoyne and his men were disheartened and apprehensive of the future, while the Americans were exultant and confident of victory. In such circumstances, on September 19, 1777, was fought the first battle of Bemis Heights, a bloody and inconclusive struggle, supported wholly by the division of Benedict Arnold, who behaved so gallantly that Gates, who had not even ridden on the field of battle, was consumed with jealousy, took Arnold's division away from him, and did not mention him ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the novels of Marivaux and Crebillon le fils, Rogers asked his guests, three in number, whether they were familiar with Marivaux's Vie de Marianne, a book which he himself confesses to have read through six times, and which French critics still hold, on inconclusive evidence, to have been the "only begetter" of Richardson's Pamela and the sentimental novel. None of the trio knew anything about it. "Then I will lend you each a copy," rejoined Rogers; and the volumes were immediately produced, doubtless by ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... present and Corona was so ill that he could not see her. Had he wished to visit her, the old-fashioned physician would probably have forbidden him to do so, but in reality he was glad to be spared the emotions of a meeting which must necessarily be inconclusive. His first impulse had been to take her away from Rome and force her to live alone with him in the mountains. He felt that no other course was open to him, for he knew that in spite of all that had happened he could not bear to live without ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... perceptions by a course of personal depravity. This is a consideration of the utmost practical importance; and it will probably appear that many well-intended arguments, respecting the first principles of moral truth, have been inconclusive, in the same manner as were attempts to establish first truths by processes of reasoning,—because the line of argument adopted in regard to them was one of which they are not susceptible. The force of this analogy is in no ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... instance, pragmatists might protest against the accusation that "they never think about the facts upon which scientific theories are based," for they lay a great emphasis on facts. Facts are the cash which the credit of theories hangs upon. Yet this protest, though sincere, would be inconclusive, and in the end it would illustrate Mr. Russell's observation, rather than refute it. For we should presently learn that these facts can be made by thinking, that our faith in them may contribute to their reality, and may modify their nature; in other words, these facts are ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... chondroma and sarcoma, and cysts which are probably of the same nature as those met with in osteomyelitis fibrosa, are liable to occur in callus, or at the seat of old fractures, but the evidence so far is inconclusive as to the causative relationship of the injury to the new-growth. They are treated on the same lines as tumours occurring ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... task is done. Again he takes it up in the Manuscrit ecrit a Marseille. But here also, as soon as he arrives at the point of annihilating the socialists, his task is discontinued. In truth, he himself seems to have realized the inconclusive character of his writings, as he refused in some cases to complete them and in other cases to publish them. Nevertheless, we find in various places of his fragmentary writings not only a statement of his own views, but his ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... who have themselves worked in some other field and have an imperfect acquaintance with the particular field that they happen to be praising. The metaphysician finds the reasonings of the "First Principles" rather loose and inconclusive; the biologist pays little heed to the "Principles of Biology"; the sociologist finds Spencer not particularly accurate or careful in the field of his predilection. He has tried to be a professor of all the sciences, and it is too late in the world's history for him or for any man ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... salmon. And zoologists are altogether at a loss to account for its sudden appearance on our coast. Possibly it was the stress of a hunger migration that drove it hither out of the deep. But it will be, perhaps, better to avoid necessarily inconclusive discussion, and to proceed at once with ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... with all possible deference and humility, and wishing as little as any man living to impair the smallest particle of our supreme authority, I answer, that the words are the words of Parliament, and not mine; and that all false and inconclusive inferences drawn from them are not mine; for I heartily disclaim any such inference. I have chosen the words of an act of Parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a tolerably zealous and very judicious advocate for the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved to have read at ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Jelfs, "entirely inconclusive. But," he persisted, "you must not hold back material evidence. You haven't told us yet what you had ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... before weary listeners, to whom the great bulk of what they heard was unintelligible and profitless. Very often in the hands of well-intentioned, but uninstructed and narrow-minded men, fallacious or thoroughly inconclusive arguments had been confidently used, to the detriment rather than to the advantage of the cause they had at heart. But at the very least, a certain acquiescence in the 'reasonableness of Christianity,' and a respect ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... that if Her Majesty's government did not, the German government would extend to Luderitz's factory "the same measure of protection which they give to their subjects in remote parts of the world, but without having the least design to establish any footing in South Africa.'' An inconclusive reply was sent, and on the 9th of April Luderitz's agent landed at Angra Pequena, and after a short delay concluded a treaty with the local chief, by which some 215 square miles around Angra Pequena were ceded to Luderitz. In England ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... assured that the scales of its under face are reducible to the same type. In a matter of such interest and importance as this, many will, and with reason, dislike so important an assumption on such inconclusive evidence. But with our present means, it appears to me probable that no evidence to demonstration can be looked for, and for this reason, that the contents of these peculiar cells are so subtile as to escape definition even while in their cells, (or under the most favourable circumstance ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... come eventually to a better knowledge of his personal worth:—'the gold mine we carry in our bosoms till it is threshed out of us in sweat,' that fellow Gower Woodseex says; adding, that we are the richer for not exploring it. Philosophical cynicism is inconclusive. Fleetwood knew his large capacities; he had proved them and could again. In case a certain half foreseen calamity should happen:—imagine it a fact, imagine him seized, besides admiring her character, with a taste for her person! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... prime requisite in scientific text-books. A false statement is not less false because it is plausible, nor an inconclusive experiment more satisfactory because it is diverting. In books of entertainment, such things may be permissible; but in a text-book, the first essentials are correctness and accuracy. It is believed that the Introduction ...
— Elements of Structural and Systematic Botany - For High Schools and Elementary College Courses • Douglas Houghton Campbell
... administration. In stages over the next dozen years, Iraq attained its independence as a kingdom in 1932. A "republic" was proclaimed in 1958, but in actuality a series of military strongmen have ruled the country since then, the latest being SADDAM Husayn. Territorial disputes with Iran led to an inconclusive and costly eight-year war (1980-88). In August 1990, Iraq seized Kuwait, but was expelled by US-led, UN coalition forces during the Gulf War of January-February 1991. Following Kuwait's liberation, the UN Security Council ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... The inconclusive nature of this interview, exciting as it was, did not leave any doubt in either Lester Kane's or Jennie's mind; certainly this was not the end of the affair. Kane knew that he was deeply fascinated. This girl was lovely. She ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... of the utmost importance that these reinforcements should reach him before he should be forced into a decisive battle. Instead of resisting General Shafter's advance, however, with obstinate pertinacity on the Siboney road, he abandoned his strong position at Guasimas, after a single sharp but inconclusive engagement, and retreated almost to Santiago without striking another blow. As I have already said with regard to the unopposed landing at Daiquiri and Siboney, it was great luck for General Shafter, but it ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... and none of them had at all answered. I expressed my humble belief that that boy never did answer. I represented that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I recounted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion on every possible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been together at "Old Doylance's," he had asked himself to breakfast with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude); how, fanning ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... accounted for without that assumption. I myself think the assumption highly improbable. So much I may say, but I cannot say more. Possibly some day we may be able to check conjecture by facts. Until then, argument must be inconclusive. ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... revenge a duel may be effective if the wrong man does (p. 184) not happen to get shot; but as evidence for intelligent men a bloodier ending than this would have been inconclusive. It so happened, however, that Jackson, altogether contrary to his own purpose, brought conclusive aid to President Adams and Secretary Clay. Whether the General ever had any real faith in the charge can only be surmised. Not improbably ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... able to demonstrate this teaching from Sacred Scripture. The texts John VI, 44 and Phil. II, 13, which are usually adduced in this connection, are inconclusive. ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... has now served its Apprenticeship; and this was its proof-stroke, and no inconclusive one? Its next will be a master-stroke; announcing indisputable Mastership to a whole astonished world. Let that rock-fortress, Tyranny's stronghold, which they name Bastille, or Building, as if there were no ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... latter, and invaded the territory of Kudara, which had always maintained most friendly relations with Yamato. The Emperor Yuryaku sent two expeditions to punish this contumacy, but the result being inconclusive, he resolved to take the exceptional step of personally leading an army to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... definition, or of conception even, except as it stands related to such moving body. All the marvellous "correlates of motion," therefore, producing such wonderful effects upon matter, in both its molar and molecular states or conditions, are nothing more nor less than vague and inconclusive inductions, derived from premises having, at best, nothing but a relative existence in a universe of moving matter. It would be decidedly better to agree with Haeckel, that matter is the only actual existence, than to predicate of matter a co-existent and wholly inexplicable "somewhat," whereon ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... I, as I rose from this long and inconclusive interview, "you are taking a very great responsibility and putting yourself in a very false position by not making an absolutely clean breast of all that you know. If I have to call in the aid of the police ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... from our hands until this matter is forever set in order. If every ally we have upon earth were to go down in blood and ruin, still would we fight through to the appointed end. Defeat shall not daunt us. Inconclusive victory shall not turn us from our purpose. The grind of poverty and the weariness of hopes deferred shall not blunt the edge of our resolve. With God's help we shall go to the end, and when that goal is reached ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... it was the most serious, salutary, and impressive I ever received; for though, while reading, I affirmed to myself that every thing urged against me was weak, or ill founded, inconclusive, or absolutely false, yet the arguments returned with increasing and reiterated force, haunting and oppressing me like a painful dream from which I could ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... ludicrous, ridiculous, chimerical, ill-judged, mistaken, senseless, erroneous, inconclusive, monstrous, stupid, false, incorrect, nonsensical, unreasonable, foolish, infatuated, paradoxical, wild. ill-advised, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... passed when, earlier in the day, he had pawned the last of his keepsakes for the money to buy the revolver. But he had yet to learn that there is no supreme crisis in the human span, save that which ends it; that all the wayfaring duels with fate are inconclusive; conflicts critical enough at the moment, but lacking finality, and likely to be renewed indefinitely if one lives ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... which the Reporter infers, that the aneurism consisted of a protrusion of the internal and middle coats of the artery. The reasoning, founded on them, appears to us inconclusive; but we have not space to insert it, and must refer to the March No. of Le Propagateur ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... kept up forever, he knew. Some time or other he'd have to cross the next bridge; come to some more definite understanding with Rose than that inconclusive ridiculous scene there in Dubuque had left him with. (What a fool he had been that day!) There were the twins coming along. For the present, their nurse (It wasn't Mrs. Ruston. He'd taken the first reasonable excuse for supplanting ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... through. Others write, that a Roman soldier, running upon him with a drawn sword, offered to kill him; and that Archimedes, looking back, earnestly besought him to hold his hand a little while, that he might not leave what he was then at work upon inconclusive and imperfect; but the soldier, nothing moved by his entreaty, instantly killed him. Others again relate, that as Archimedes was carrying to Marcellus mathematical instruments, dials, spheres, and angles, by which the magnitude of the sun might be measured to the sight, some soldiers seeing him, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... comparisons will no doubt be found between our respective labours. Now, in the department of geography, or rather hydrography, the only one where the execution rests with me, they seem to have been very vague and inconclusive, even by their own testimony. By comparison, therefore, my charts will rise in value. It is upon these that I wish to rest my credit. You must, however, make the requisite allowance for the circumstances under ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the peculiar, aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy—operations which served to keep the enemy constantly on guard, like a blind swordsman, and would, it was hoped, eventually wear down his patience and endurance. In her turn, Norine ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... have been levelled against our sceptical historian, we can discover but slender traces of profound and exquisite erudition, of solid criticism and accurate investigation; but we are too frequently disgusted by vague and inconclusive reasoning; by unseasonable banter and senseless witticisms; by imbittered bigotry and enthusiastic jargon; by futile cavils and illiberal invectives. Proud and elated by the weakness of his antagonists, he condescends not to handle the sword of controversy."—Monthly Review, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... limping, halt, deformed, game, maimed, disabled; inconclusive, unconvincing, inefficient, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Secretaries and Ministers as important in themselves and as indicative of national policy and purpose. Upon all parties concerned they left a feeling of irritation and suspicion. But the public knew nothing of the details of the inconclusive negotiation and the Press merely gave a hint now and then of its reported progress and ultimate failure. Newspapers continued to report the news from America in unaccustomed detail, but that news, after the attack on Fort Sumter, was for some time lacking in striking incident, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... conclusions it remains to make sure whether the different observations of the same fact are entirely independent; for it is possible that one may have influenced another to such a degree that their agreement is inconclusive. We have to guard ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... Havelock Ellis says, fundamental, make their appearance definitely at puberty—a fact which supports the view that fundamental differences of practical importance between the two sexes before that age are not to be found. Careful comparative study of the pulse of children is hitherto somewhat inconclusive, though it is well known that the pulse is more rapid in women than ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... sound mind in a sound body? As a fact, my experience in those things concerning which you allege its insufficiency has never been presented to you for judgment, and its discussion is therefore entirely irrelevant. If my statements are false, they are false; if my arguments are inconclusive, they are inconclusive: disprove the one and refute the other. But whether this state of things be owing to a want of experience, or inability to use experience aright, or any personal circumstance whatever, is a matter in regard to which all the laws of literary ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... the prisoner, &c. And if conclusive proof be difficult to be obtained, shall we therefore fasten irremovably upon equivocal proof? Can we change the nature of what is contestable, and make it incontestable? Can we make that conclusive which God and nature have made inconclusive? Solon made no law against, parricide, supposing it impossible any one could be guilty of it; and the Persians, from the same opinion, adjudged all who killed their reputed parents to be bastards: and although parental, be yet stronger ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... The conclusive evidence of this is at hand, and it is the major premise underlying all current proposals and projects of peace, as well as the refusal of the nations now on the defensive to enter into negotiations looking to an "inconclusive peace." This state of the case is not commonly recognised in so many words, but it is well enough understood. So that all peace projects that shall hope to find a hearing must make up their account with it, and must show cause why they should be judged competent to balk ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... told of the swift rush upon New York of the first German air-fleet and of the wild, inevitable orgy of inconclusive destruction that ensued. Behind it a second air-fleet was already swelling at its gasometers when England and France and Spain and Italy showed their hands. None of these countries had prepared for aeronautic warfare on the magnificent scale of the Germans, but each guarded secrets, each in ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Galvano gives of this voyage is very vague and inconclusive. We shall find afterwards that the Spaniards found out the means of counteracting the perpetual eastern trade winds of the Pacific within the tropics, by shaping a more northerly course from the Philippine islands, where they established the staple of their Indian ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... nobody cared by so much as a hempen rope for the life or death of Little Tobrah. The assessors in the red court-house sat upon him all through the long hot afternoon, and whenever they asked him a question he salaamed and whined. Their verdict was that the evidence was inconclusive, and the Judge concurred. It was true that the dead body of Little Tobrah's sister had been found at the bottom of the well, and Little Tobrah was the only human being within a half mile radius at the time; but the child might have fallen in by accident. Therefore ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... of his discourses to General Assembly in Big Hall. But that is like trying to draw the obverse and reverse of a sixpence worn to complete illegibility. His tall fine figure stood high on the days, his thoughtful tenor filled the air as he steered his hazardous way through sentences that dragged inconclusive tails and dropped redundant prepositions. And he pleaded ever so urgently, ever so finely, that what we all knew for Sin was sinful, and on the whole best avoided altogether, and so went on with deepening notes and even with short arresting gestures of the right arm and hand, to stir ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, and Plato, in the Phaedo[457] endeavor to develop and establish it. Surely we cannot but feel, that the argumentation with which the Hebrew apostle goes about to expound this great idea is, after all, confused and inconclusive; and that the reasoning, drawn from analogies of likeness and equality, which is employed upon it by the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle and sterile. Above and beyond the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and Hellenism ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... suspect Sir JAMES BARRIE of plagiarising (save from himself), yet it will explain something of the atmosphere of Mary Rose if I say that it is a story with such a theme as that admirable ghostmonger, the Provost of Eton, would whole-heartedly approve—thrilling, sinister, inconclusive—with (shall I say?) just a dash of Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE in his other-worldly mood to bring it well into the movement. Naturally the variations are sheer BARRIE ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 28, 1920 • Various
... An inconclusive peace!— A peace that would be no peace— Naught but a treacherous truce for breeding Of a later, greater, baser-still betrayal!— "No!" ... The spirits of our myriad valiant dead, Who died to make peace sure and life secure, Thunder one mighty ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... charming as either, and as amiable; his second was her maid. Of Mrs. Smollett, who was a Miss Lascelles and a West Indian heiress in a small way, we know very little—the habit of identifying her with the "Narcissa" of Roderick Random is natural, inconclusive, but not ridiculous. Sterne's matrimonial relations are the most famous of all: and though posterity has, with its usual charity, constructed a legend for the pair which is probably much worse than the reality, that reality is more than a little awkward. Mrs. Sterne ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... not follow that Inspiration, because it guided a sacred writer so long as he wrote of Christian Doctrine, so as to make what he wrote unerringly true, should have protected him against slips of memory; preserved him from inaccuracies of statement; from inconclusive reasonings; from incorrect quotations; from mistaken inferences; from scientific errors.—This is what is said: and because this is a view of the question which is observed to recommend itself occasionally ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... not proved by allusions of the old Welsh bards, until (which is just the question at issue) the pieces containing these allusions are proved themselves to possess a very high antiquity. In the present state of the question as to the early Welsh literature, this sort of reasoning is inconclusive and bewildering, and merely carries us round in a circle. Again, it is worse than inconclusive reasoning, it shows so uncritical a spirit that it begets grave mistrust, when Mr. Williams ab Ithel, employed by the Master of the Rolls to ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... hoped to be able to put a stop to the futile blockades and inconclusive reprisals which had been carried on for nearly thirty years with such unsatisfactory results, and I looked forward to turning the wild tribesmen from enemies into friends, a strength instead of a weakness, to our Government, and to bringing them by degrees ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... vigorous and profound of human intellects have directed their energies, it would be vain to expect any novelty of argument. On either side, it may be presumed, the question has been exhausted, or, that the human mind has done all that its powers can accomplish, however unsatisfactory or inconclusive, in some respects, ...
— On Calvinism • William Hull
... the meal, when the servants happened to be out of the room, we continued, snippet-wise, the inconclusive conversation. Like a good sister Agatha had come to cheer a lonely and much abused man; like a daughter of Eve she had also come to find out as much as she ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... Svyetlov. But there are others who accuse him: there are vague rumors of a question, of a suspicion, an obscure report, a feeling of expectation. Finally, we have the evidence of a combination of facts very suggestive, though, I admit, inconclusive. In the first place we have precisely on the day of the catastrophe that fit, for the genuineness of which the prosecutor, for some reason, has felt obliged to make a careful defense. Then Smerdyakov's sudden suicide on the eve of the trial. Then ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... similar devices, but at the third time scatter peas, which the birds eat up. Perrault has the same beginning in his "Petit Poucet," which has been Englished as "Hop o' my Thumb," who shares some of the adventures of Tom Thumb, as well as of the valiant Tailor. Lang has an interesting but, as usual, inconclusive discussion of the incidents of our tale in his Perrault civ.-cxi., and finds many of the incidents among the Kaffirs, Zulus, and other savage tribes, but scarcely the whole set of incidents from A to F, and that is what we want to find in studying the story. Dr. Bolte finds several instances where ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... show how very weak and inconclusive the arguments of Chatterton's new Editor are on this head, Ishall cite but one passage, from which the reader may form a judgment of all the other illustrations with which he has decorated ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... racked by that inconclusive and maddening thought. It was in her veins, in her bones, in the roots of her hair. Mentally she assumed the biblical attitude of mourning—the covered face, the rent garments; the sound of wailing and lamentation filled her head. But ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... therefore, to use the word all is evidently a fallacious mode of speech; for this word is sometimes used distributively, and sometimes collectively, on account of its double meaning, and is the cause of inconclusive syllogisms in reasoning. Therefore for all persons to say the same thing was their own, using the word all in its distributive sense, would be well, but is impossible: in its collective sense it would by no means contribute to the concord ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... an immediate and categorical answer, not delivered in an oracular style, ambiguous and inconclusive, respecting the armaments in Bohemia, and I demand a positive assurance that the queen will not attack me either during this or the ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... constitutional way what they wanted, and that, in the first flush of a victorious democracy, when counting heads irrespective of contents was the popular method of arriving at political truth, was assumed to be precisely what they ought to have. A long but inconclusive contest ensued. At times it looked as if the Liberal-Irish alliance might snatch a victory for their policy. But when Gladstone was forced to break with the Irish Leader, and Parnellism without Parnell became obviously impossible, the English realised that the working ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... ridicule with considerable show of success. Testimony in relation to the canoe of the Elwoods, recently found washed up among the rapids, which was next introduced, was found, when tested in the same way, in despite of the opinions of the practical boatmen who were the witnesses, to be almost equally inconclusive of the prisoner's guilt; so much so, indeed, that his counsel seemed greatly inclined to appropriate it, as showing the probable manner in which the Elwoods, if they were not still both alive, had come ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... dynamitrine bombs in that first passage over the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson radiance. I peered. We had not hit the ship. Or if we had, the damage was inconclusive. But on the rocks I could see a pile of ore carts scattered—broken wreckage, in which the litter of two or three projectors seemed strewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several helmeted figures. Others seemed to be running, scattering—hiding in the ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... less the real wealth of the society. In order, therefore, to make out something like an argument, it was necessary that they should express themselves as they have done; and this argument, even supposing things actually were as it seems to presume them to be, turns out to be a very inconclusive one. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... to mould and fashion her as she pleased; and now at the end of those five centuries, a British statesman does not blush to urge, as an argument in favour of the Government of which he is a member, that the normal state of Ireland was—to be on the brink of starvation. This defence, weak and inconclusive from every point of view, served his colleagues and himself, of course, but little, while it was calculated to cover his nation with shame and confusion. He goes on to prove the fact, alas! too easily proved; he goes to Lord Devon's Commission, and tells us from it, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Bissell's brow did not clear. He knew that the State had gained all it expected to; it had proved that a confession was made, which was about as bad as the confession itself. Under this cloud, Wilder called his other evidence, which of itself, was very inconclusive, and which, with the added weight that a confession had been made, left much uncertainty as to the result, and Bissell was girding himself for the final struggle. Wilder then called the name of John T. Greer—when ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... anthropomorphism in v. 54, where 'sitting' is implied in Θ, expressed in Ο´, is more conformable to Babylonian than Alexandrian ideas; but this may be a mere reminiscence of Psalms lxxx. 1, xcix. 1. The mention of pitch or bitumen is inconclusive, inasmuch as it is found in both Babylonia and Egypt; but the mention of "heavens" and "stars of heaven" (vv. 59, 63), agrees very well with Chaldean origin. So far, therefore, as these considerations go, they turn the scale, to a small extent, ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney
... governor to abrogate the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and manifold decisions of the Supreme Court? In embittered fury Henry Miller resigned from the Investigating Committee, now defunct anyway, its voluminous and inconclusive report buried in the state archives. Injunctions issued from local courts like ashes from a stirring volcano, but the militia were impervious and hustled the freeholders from their homes with callous disregard for the sacred dues ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Dundee, the home of Scottish Radicalism—an inconclusive, or, still more, a disastrous verdict—would carry a message of despair to every one in all parts of our island and in our sister island who is working for the essential influences and truths of Liberalism and progress. Down, down, down would fall the high hopes of the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... interrupted his father, "I will not listen to your reasons. I have heard them often enough—too often—and they are foolish, false, utterly inconclusive. You may go to Jericho as far as I am concerned; but if you do go, you shall never darken my ...
— Sunk at Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... explained, with studied laboriousness,—"my friends and I acted, that is to say—upon inconclusive information. America at that time, you see, was a neutral Power, and the facilities granted us by the New York police were limited in their character. My department was thoroughly convinced that ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... out through the still air with a deep, reverberating note. It was a reassuring and yet solemn sound, as if it alone were responsible for humanity, for all the souls crowded together in the tiny valley, striving for their separate, shaken, inconclusive lives. ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... always evidential, but are sometimes to be regarded as delusive and for the trial of faith. As the doctrines supposed to be revealed are beyond Reason, and cannot in any sense be intelligently approved by the human intellect, no evidence which is of so doubtful and inconclusive a nature could sufficiently attest them. This alone would disqualify the Christian miracles for the duty which miracles alone are ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... in illustration; and all that I could urge against the probability or possibility of such Visitation appeared to them very inconclusive and unsatisfactory. They mentioned the case of the family of village proprietors in the Sagar district, who had for several generations, at every new settlement, insisted upon having the name of the spirit of the old ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of the inconclusive character of the philosophical arguments in favor of eternity and the positive arguments for creation (all or most of which we have already met in our previous studies, and need not therefore reproduce Aaron ben Elijah's version of them), the philosophers themselves without ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... most city houses is not calculated to arouse enthusiasm at the best of times, and the day was singularly dispiriting: a sky of lead and a drizzling rain, which emphasized the squalor of the back yards in view. It was all very depressing. Jeffrey's talk, though inconclusive, had stirred in John's mind an uneasiness which was near to apprehension. He turned and walked about the familiar room, recognizing the well-known furniture, his mother's picture over the mantel, the bookshelves filled with his boyhood's accumulations, the well-remembered pattern ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... skirmishes the Earl Meldritch was very nearly cut off, although he made "his valour shine more bright than his armour, which seemed then painted with Turkish blood." Smith himself was sore wounded and had his horse slain under him. The campaign, at first favorable to the Turks, was inconclusive, and towards winter the Bashaw retired to Buda. The Duc de Mercoeur then divided his army. The Earl of Rosworme was sent to assist the Archduke Ferdinand, who was besieging Caniza; the Earl of Meldritch, with six thousand men, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... (e.g. p. 185, middle). The chapters on the Anatomy and Physiology, on the Source, on the Order and Dates of Appearance and Disappearance, and on the Value and Use of Original Tendencies seem to the reviewer inconclusive and uninspired. There are shrewd and interesting remarks here and there, particularly those of a destructive intent, which the older reader will appreciate; while on the whole he will wonder whether the author has, in these last four chapters, any other than the whimsical ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... understanding of the world. Stated thus baldly, this may seem no more than a trite truism. But to remember it consistently in matters arousing our passionate partisanship is by no means easy, especially where the available evidence is uncertain and inconclusive. A few illustrations will ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... inconclusive," she rejoined, moving onward, the two young men following in the penumbra of her ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... favour, they had doubtless some advantage in character. As we have seen, the greatest minds among American statesmen of that day, Webster and Clay, were Whigs. Lincoln's simple and quite reasonable, if inconclusive, argument for Protection, can be found among his speeches of some years later. And schemes of internal development certainly fired ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... bonds, made by Mr. Fulford himself, was rejected by the Department because he was unable to describe the bonds in such a way as to permit their identification and because the evidence of their destruction by fire was inconclusive. ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... acknowledge, either that our supposed essential "intuitions" of moral rectitude are not to be trusted, as applicable to the Supreme Being, and that therefore the argument from them against the Bible is inconclusive; or, that no such being exists; or, lastly, that he has conferred upon man an intuitive conception of moral equity and rectitude,—of the just and the unjust,—in most edifying contradiction to ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... But it is not this Court's concern now. This is not an appeal. Parties to hearings by Commissions of Inquiry have no rights of appeal against the reports. The reason is partly that the reports are, in a sense, inevitably inconclusive. Findings made by Commissioners are in the end only expressions of opinion. They would not even be admissible in evidence in legal proceedings as to the cause of a disaster. In themselves they do not alter the legal rights of the persons to whom they refer. Nevertheless they may ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... On evidence so inconclusive no certainty can be attained. All we can say is that Gorges's Appendix points to a possibility that Ralegh's remarkable twenty-ninth article may have been as old as the middle of Elizabeth's reign, and that the reason why it has not survived in ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... read, a letter from the Prince of Orange upon the subject, in which a moderate and plain statement of the actual facts was laid down, which was now reiterated by the same personage by word of mouth. An agitated and inconclusive debate followed, in which, however, it sufficiently appeared, as the Duchess informed her brother, that one of two things must be done without further delay. The time had arrived for the government to take up arms, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... observe the result of our experiments. But first we must fix the exact position of our theodolite, for unless it occupies to a hair's-breadth to-morrow the same position which it occupies to-day, the result will be quite inconclusive." ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... challenge. All the conditions of the encounter made by Stavrogin were accepted on the spot, without the faintest objection. Only one addition was made, and that a ferocious one. If the first shots had no decisive effect, they were to fire again, and if the second encounter were inconclusive, it was to be followed by a third. Kirillov frowned, objected to the third encounter, but gaining nothing by his efforts agreed on the condition, however, that three should be the limit, and that "a fourth encounter was out of the question." This was conceded. Accordingly ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Staten) elections: the queen is a constitutional monarch; governor general appointed for a six-year term by the queen; prime minister and deputy prime minister elected by the Staten for a four-year term; election last held 12 July 1997 (next to be held by December 2001) election results: inconclusive; no party won majority in December 1997 parliamentary elections; no new government ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... and discussions tending to show and set forth the moral turpitude of the Negro, leave out, if they do not ignore wholly, a most vital element. Any conclusion, therefore, reached, must eliminate the same, and in the degree that this element is important, the conclusion will be inconclusive ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... obviate doubts and to allow his argument every force, it may be fairer perhaps to recite at full length what in this answer is allowed to be true, what is denied as false, what meant to be exposed as absurd, and what rejected as assertions without proof, inadmissible or inconclusive. The conclusion will contain some observations upon ...
— Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever • Matthew Turner
... husband. If there was any confirmatory testimony, if any one chose to say that he saw her at the 'sabbath,' that was 'spectral evidence'. This kind of testimony made it vain for a witch to take Mr. Weller's advice, and plead 'a halibi,' but even Cotton Mather admits that 'spectral evidence' is inconclusive. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... find, now that my prize was within my grasp, how inconclusive its attainment seemed. As a matter of fact I was worked out; the intense stress of nearly four years' continuous work left me incapable of any strength of feeling. I was apathetic, and I tried in vain to recover the ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the summit with one of the men and the native. I arrived there and, just before the sun went down, obtained an uninterrupted view of the western horizon; but the scene was inconclusive as to the existence of such a dividing range as I hoped to see. Ridges and summits appeared abundantly enough, but they were not of a bold or connected character, and I did not obtain upon the whole a better idea than I previously had respecting the extension ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... be seen and studied peasant property in many stages. I would again remark that any comparison between the condition of the English agricultural labourer and the French peasant proprietor is irrelevant and inconclusive. In the cottage of a small owner at Osse, for instance, we may discover features to shock us, often a total absence of the neatness and veneer of the Sussex ploughman's home. Our disgust is trifling compared ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... inconclusive. Precisely what happened there is now no one left alive to tell. As in a moment the part of the house in which the experimenters sat was wrecked, and as I next day noted, some neighbouring houses were sorely damaged. The general was blown almost ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... The ground was too soft and marshy to retain any traces of footsteps, and the mare and saddle furnished the only evidence that the object of their quest had been in the neighborhood of the swamp—and of course this evidence was of the most vague and inconclusive character. ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... began, a committee from the union met with a committee of townsmen and representatives of the smelter interests. The argument was long and inconclusive. Aside from this, a special committee of townsmen, headed by the mayor, interviewed ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... at least, the delicate and often-times suggestible nature of the trance; and how inconclusive, to say the least, are such experiments as those of Drs. Tanner ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... opening of a boy's essay. And from first to last this remarkable composition is at or below that level. It is an entirely inconclusive paper, it is impossible to understand why it was written; it quotes nothing it says nothing about and was probably written in ignorance of "Kappa" or any other modern contributor to English ideas, and it occupied about six and a quarter of the large-type ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... at all the conversation he had dreamt of; it was halting, it was inconclusive, it was full of ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... were writing a story, I should stop at this point; but I am dealing in life. And life does not always respond to our impatience with satisfactory moral conclusions. Life is inconclusive: quite open at the end. I had a vision of a new life for my neighbour, the bee-man—and have it yet, for I ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... but one possible mode of escape from such testimony. This whole train of argument is inconclusive, it may be asserted, because what is maintained is not that intellectual culture is unhealthful, where it is woven into the web of active life, but only where the pursuit of knowledge is one's business. It may be readily allowed, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... conditions that there is no reason to suppose that it prevailed anywhere except on our earth. It is quite impossible in the present discussion to follow his reasoning in detail; but it seems to me altogether inconclusive. Not only does life, but intelligence, flourish on this globe under a great variety of conditions as regards temperature and surroundings, and no sound reason can be shown why under certain conditions, which are frequent ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business, and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his educational schemes; in the course of which it is at ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... teaching of the age that its abandonment meant little less than a complete revolution in the world of learning. As yet the vast body of those who were specially versed in the subject treated the new theory with derision, while the arguments put forward by Galileo in its defence were so weak and inconclusive that most of them have been long since abandoned. The hostile attitude, too, of the Lutheran divines could hardly fail to exercise some influence on the Roman consultors. In 1615 Galileo appeared before the Inquisition to ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... one territory of the three great Allies not invaded [he says] any insanity of fear be permitted, or any still baser motive of saving private fortune by an inconclusive peace, then the political effect at which the enemy is aiming will indeed have been achieved. These things are contagious. We must root out and destroy the seed of that before it grows more formidable. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... nor to practical applications. He thought it impossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature of the soul, or the origin of the world. And he thus was led to look upon the sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusive inductions, or deductions from a truth not ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... picturesque lines, is weak and inconclusive. Its moral is conventional, while the incident is too far-fetched for sympathy. The series of little poems called "James Lee" is full of beauties, but it is too vague to make a firm impression. We suppose it tells the story of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... theory of the lever was as well understood in his own time as it is now. In making an experiment {84} of his own to ascertain the cause of the motion of a windmill, he overlooks an obvious circumstance which makes the experiment inconclusive, and an equally obvious variation of the same experiment which would have shown him that his theory was false. He speaks of the poles of the earth as fixed, in a manner which seems to imply that he was not acquainted with the precession of the equinoxes; and in another place, of the north pole ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... there is a great deal to be said in favor of Bergson's general point of view, but to me his reasoning is inconclusive. Don't ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... has ample precedent. If you are convinced by the word of our Lord d'Hymbercourt and myself that he is of birth and station worthy to engage with you in knightly and mortal combat, you can ask no more. Few courts of chivalry, I take it, would hold the evidence inconclusive. Take up or leave the gage, Sir Count, and do one or ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... unite, whether at the bottom or top of the great slope of the Montanvert and La Cote, in giving an angle of from 60 deg. to 80 deg. with the horizon; the consistent angle being about 75 deg.. I cannot be mistaken in the measurements themselves, however inconclusive observations on minor portions of rock may be; for I never mark an angle unless enough of the upper or lower surface of the beds be smoothly exposed to admit of my pole being adjusted to it by the spirit-level. The pole then indicates the strike ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... is, that the King had a quiet night; but that, on awaking, His Majesty was more unquiet than yesterday. Unless something very particular is noted in these official returns of the King's health, shall not in future transmit accounts so inconclusive to such a distance. The disorder in its nature is subject to intervals, and to variations which even a medical inquirer could not build upon, without being a witness to such vicissitudes of malady or having a recital of each minute symptom, and that with comments. Each authentic account, more ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... him, what punishment do you think will God the Father inflict on those who refuse His Son Jesus the titles due to Him?" The persons I just now mentioned declare that the holy bishop took a very wrong step, that his argument was inconclusive, and that the emperor should have answered him thus: "Know that there are two ways by which men may be wanting in respect to me—first, in not doing honour sufficient to my son; and, secondly, in paying him the ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... men in their instant perception and recognition of moral values, which gives them a chart and compass in life. Possibly, too, the women are stiffened in will by a natural reaction in finding their husbands and brothers so stuffed with inconclusive theories. One is appalled at the prodigious amount of nonsense that Russian wives and daughters are forced to hear from their talkative and ineffective heads of houses. It must be worse than the metaphysical discussion between Adam and the angel, while Eve waited on table, and supplied ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... that the interests of the miners be safeguarded. The amendment was barely relevant to the issue, and notwithstanding influential support it was defeated by 58 to 27. Thereupon the "previous question" was moved and carried by 59 to 50. This inconclusive result revealed a great diversity of opinion in the Society, and the Executive Committee, for the first and, so far, the only time, availed itself of the rule which authorised it to submit any question to a postal referendum ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... explanations I have hazarded be accepted, must remain that monstrous suicide. Enigma, save for inconclusive theories, must remain the question of the ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... verdict, too, is that: 'The peace that Germany craves still is a peace that will enable her to begin the next war in five or ten years, with a certainty of immediate victory and complete conquest of the overlordship of Europe, if not America.' The Brooklyn Daily Eagle writes: 'If an inconclusive peace, a peace based upon the theory that the war is a draw, a peace fertile in the liabilities to future trouble, is not in the mind of the German Chancellor, what is in his mind? He should speak out. He will never have a better opportunity ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... This is a most inconclusive mode of expression, perhaps meaning Dutch florins, and if so, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... possible that the war may end in what is called an inconclusive peace; and as it is certain that of all her unrighteous gains that to which Germany will most desperately cling will be her domination over the Austrian and Turkish Empires, with the prospect which it affords of a later ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... that are not susceptible to a naturalistic explanation. Why, then, has not supernaturalism died out? Even the religious idea cannot persist without evidence of some kind being offered in its behalf. This evidence may be to a better instructed mind inconclusive or irrelevant, but evidence of some sort there must have been all along, and must still be. Granted that the religious idea began with primitive mankind, granted also that it was based on a mistaken interpretation of natural phenomena, these reasons ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... would exist until 1175. That this is in fact true is rendered more probable because their union is not mentioned in the Flatey Book until after the death of Sweyn in 1171. But the passage is of doubtful authenticity, (see Rolls Edition p. 224), and inconclusive even if genuine. From the various allusions to Harold's union with Gormflaith, it would seem that Harold lived with her before he married her for many years, but married her legally after his first wife Afreka's death after 1198 when William the Lion stipulated that he should take ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... very clear, then, that we are not here entitled to suppose Shakspere a reader of the Senecan tragedies; and even were it otherwise, the passage in question is a figure of speech rather than a reflection on life or a stimulus to such reflection. And the same holds good of the other interesting but inconclusive parallels drawn by ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... not be so inconclusive. I certainly do dislike to see any character, whether of a living or a dead person, disposed of in a ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps |
