"Preconception" Quotes from Famous Books
... in the intellect. In the same way natural things are said to be true in so far as they express the likeness of the species that are in the divine mind. For a stone is called true, which possesses the nature proper to a stone, according to the preconception in the divine intellect. Thus, then, truth resides primarily in the intellect, and secondarily in things according as they are related to the intellect as their principle. Consequently there are various definitions of truth. ... — Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... gentleman, who was a strenuous advocate of the system of the latter, enforced one equivocal remembrance by saying, he could, as it were, distinctly see the very spot on the page before his mind's eye. Such tricks will imagination play with the memory, when preconception plays tricks with the imagination! In like manner; it was seen that, while the Calvinist was very distinct in his recollection of the ninth chapter of Romans, his memory was very faint as respects the exact wording of some of the verses in the Epistle of James; and though the Arminian ... — The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... well-devised falsehood might have saved him from any fatal consequences. But to have told that falsehood would have required perfect self-command in the moment of a convulsive shock: he seemed to have spoken without any preconception: the words had leaped forth like a sudden birth that had been begotten and nourished in ... — Romola • George Eliot |