"Refutation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... referring to these forms of opinion was merely to prepare the way for my subsequent observations; I have no intention of dealing with any of them by way of criticism or refutation. This is not the place nor the audience, nor am I the person, for that task. But I have thought that it might not be inappropriate to this occasion if I were to ask you to consider with me, from these words, the attitude of mind and heart to God's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... not treating things so unequal unequally. This feeling may, in many cases, amuse the impartial observer, or make him indignant; yet it may, in every case, according to Mr. Russell, be absolutely just. The refutation he gives of egoism would not dissuade any fanatic from exterminating all his enemies with a good conscience; it would merely encourage him to assert that what he was ruthlessly establishing was the absolute ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... blushed indignant refutation of the calumnious charge. Vargrave continued,—"As for me, I shall be delighted to meet any friends of yours, and am greatly obliged for your consideration. We may dismiss the postboys, Howard; and what time ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the Discourse of Vulgar Errors, seeming, as it often does, to be a serious refutation of fairy tales—arguing, for instance, against the literal truth of the poetic statement that "The pigeon hath no gall," and such questions as "Whether men weigh heavier dead than alive?" being characteristic questions—is designed, with much ambition, under its pedantic Greek ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... performing his brother's operas; but while the animus of the statement is enough to cause it to be looked upon with suspicion, the fact that none of William Henry Fry's operas was performed at the Astor Place Opera House during the incumbency of Edward Fry is a complete refutation. "Leonora," the only grand opera by a professional critic ever performed in New York, so far as I know, was brought forward at the Academy of Music a good nine years later. Apropos of this admirable and respected predecessor of mine, a good story was disclosed ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... answer, for indeed he had not heard her; but she was coming toward him now, her hands outstretched in a wondering way, wistfully, pleadingly, as though to hold back a refutation that would change the dawning light upon her face ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... Helvetius's paradoxes, the same fire consumed Voltaire's fine poem on Natural Religion. Less prejudiced authorities thought nearly as ill of the book, as the lawyers of the parliament and the doctors of the Sorbonne had thought. Rousseau pronounced it detestable, wrote notes in refutation of its principles, and was inspired by hatred of its doctrine to compose some of the most fervid pages in the Savoyard Vicar's glowing Profession of Faith.[98] Even Diderot, though his friendly feeling ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... think, were of "gentle blood," which is the expression of the poet himself when describing them in verse. His mother was so undoubtedly; and her illustrious son, in speaking of her to Lord Harvey, at a time when any exaggeration was open to an easy refutation, and writing in a spirit most likely to provoke it, does not scruple to say, with a tone of dignified haughtiness not unbecoming the situation of a filial champion on behalf of an insulted mother, that by birth and descent she was not below that young lady, (one ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... is an example of unanswerable refutation. To show why a man has not one rib less than a woman, it is stated that imperfections are not hereditary; as in ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... that the Countess's conduct proved a memorable refutation of cynical philosophy: she rejoiced in the good fortune of him who had offended her! Though he was not crushed and annihilated (as he deserved to be) by the wrong he had done, the great-hearted ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... side of the proposition which it advocates, a good brief almost invariably refutes the main arguments of the opposite side. The way in which this refutation is expressed is very important. A brief on the affirmative side of the proposition, "Resolved, That the Panama canal should be built at sea-level," would be weak and ludicrous, if, when answering the argument for the negative that the cost of a sea-level canal would be enormous, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... Sisson, is commendable for its use of that noble but neglected measure, the heroic couplet. Mr. Daas' concluding editorial, "Literature and Politics," is admirable for its concise exposition of the United's new ideals, and its masterly refutation of the common fallacy that political quarrels are necessary to stimulate activity ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... a perfect refutation of the whole theory of secession; that theory falls back upon the idea that the State government is to be its own judge of what constitutes a violation of the Constitution, and act accordingly; but the Embargo law of 1807, when carried up to the Supreme ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... heated infusions of organic matter were not deprived of living beings; Spallanzani (1777) had replied that more careful heating and other precautions prevent the appearance of organisms in the fluid. Various experiments by Schwann, Helmholtz, Schultz, Schroeder, Dusch and others led to the refutation, step by step, of the belief that the more minute organisms, and particularly bacteria, arose de novo in the special cases quoted. Nevertheless, instances were adduced where the most careful heating of yolk of egg, milk, hay-infusions, &c., had failed,—the boiled infusions, &c., ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... must be regarded as a complete refutation of the position taken by Hume, to wit, that the idea of nature eternally existing in a state of order, without a cause other than the eternally inherent laws of nature, is no more self-contradictory than the idea of an eternally-existing and infinite mind, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... book reveals the popularity of the form of reasoning that digests the refutation first, and the original proposition ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... some peculiar strength of nerve, some rare mechanism of frame, and extraordinary assemblage of mental powers, are absolutely requisite for the execution of any noble design. How greatly does it redound to the true glory of Howard to have given in his successful labours the fullest refutation of a prejudice, so inimical to the interest and the honour of human-nature! a prejudice, by whose influence, to use the words ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's philosophy!'No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its refutation.'" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sobrino mio," the uncle had said. "Else, pass your remaining days in confinement. There can be no refutation of the charges against you. But, if these doors open again to you, think not ever to sever your connection with the Church of Rome. For, if the Rincon honor should prove inadequate to hold you to your oath, be assured that Rincon justice will follow you until ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... account of his experiments on hybrids. It was Herbert who, as early as 1822, in the fourth volume of the "Horticultural Transactions," and in his work on the Amaryllidaceae, 1837, declared that horticultural experiments have established, beyond the possibility of refutation, that botanical species are only "a higher and more permanent class of varieties." He extended the same view to animals, and believed that single species of each genus were originally created in a highly ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... altogether inferior kind; the whole collection being often such that if an ill-natured critic were to assert that the compilers had degraded and limited the old music in order to set off their own, it would be difficult to meet him with a logical refutation. ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... Wiltshire, and the alleged means by which Chief Justice Sir John Popham acquired its possession. It is told by Aubrey, Sir Walter Scott, and many others, and is too notorious to be here repeated. Let me ask you or your learned correspondents whether there exists any refutation of a charge so seriously detrimental to the character of any judge, and so inconsistent with the reputation which Chief Justice Popham enjoyed among his cotemporaries? See Lord Ellesmere's notice of him in the case of the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... opinions were divided on this question. Marsilio Ficino defended astrology, and drew the horoscope of the children of the house, promising the little Giovanni, afterwards Leo X, that he would one day be Pope. Pico della Mirandola, on the other hand, made an epoch in the subject by his famous refutation. He detects in this belief the root of all impiety and immorality. If the astrologer, he maintains, believes in anything at all, he must worship not God, but the planets, from which all good and evil are derived. All other superstitions find a ready instrument in ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... beside the purpose to discuss these ideas to-day or to attempt an elaborate refutation of their claims to acceptance. Time has done its work upon them, and the literary creed of the wits of Queen Anne's day is as antiquated as their periwigs and knee-breeches. Except for purposes of historical investigation ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... the critical moment of 1796, which Jomini singles out for conspicuous eulogium: "It matters not if Moreau gets to Vienna, provided you keep him occupied till I am done with Jourdan." Reasonings like these are strictly general in their bearing, liable to refutation by the special circumstances controlling a particular action; and it may perfectly well be that considerations of urgency, amounting even to impossibility, make them inapplicable to the case before us. Nevertheless, it can scarcely ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... A Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States respecting the institution and existence of Slavery among them. By a South Carolinian (Charleston, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... the German's own country after he had driven out the invader. I tried to see some youth whose hand had been cut off, but could not find a single case, although, everybody had heard of such mutilations. The fact that no doctor whom I questioned knew of any case was sufficient refutation, since a person whose hand had been cut off would need something more than a bandage tied on ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... theological controversialists of later times, Josephus sets special store on the Bible book that is most miraculous, because miracle and exact prognostication of the future are for his audience the clearest testimony of God. Hence the predictions of Daniel are the best refutation of the Epicureans, who cast Providence out of life, and do not believe that God has care of human affairs, but say that things move of their own accord, without a ruler ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his "Lives" is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools but of the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to separate secular rights from spiritual rights, placing the former under the control of the sovereign, and the latter under the control of the universal Church; such pretensions are too frivolous to merit refutation. (58) I cannot however, pass over in silence the fact that such persons are woefully deceived when they seek to support their seditious opinions (I ask pardon for the somewhat harsh epithet) by the example of the Jewish high ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... to the legend. This, the Spanish captain said was quite true, for he had seen the grave himself and the little church erected to their memory, a statement that quite delighted our friend Larkyns, as he was able to throw it in the teeth of Mr Stormcock as soon as he heard it, in refutation of the base calumny of the latter in asserting that he had invented the yarn he told us ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a new debt, but the reacknowledgment of liability for an old one, the payment of which had devolved on those members of the system who, at the time, were alone capable of paying it. And thence was inferred not only the justice of the measure, but a complete refutation of the arguments drawn from the constitution. If, in point of fact, the debt was in its origin continental and had been transferred to the States for greater facility of payment, there could be no constitutional objection to restoring its original ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... eloquence, or discovered and enlarged the sciences." All this we find in the text; but in the clear intellect of this man of genius a vast number of intervening difficulties started up, and in a copious note the numerous exceptions show that the assumed theory requires no other refutation than what the theorist has himself so abundantly and so judiciously supplied. There is something ludicrous in the result of a theory of genius which would place HOBBES and ERASMUS, those timid and learned recluses, to open a campaign with the military invention and ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... Caird, 'I'll quote and then refute, Each modern philosophic doot'— And so he did; but each quotation Seem'd to outweigh the refutation. ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... She tried to satisfy herself by thinking that he had acted in much the same way toward her, but it would not answer. Mrs. Hunter's blood-stained face, rendered tenfold more ghastly by the light of the flames, was too strong refutation, and the fact that Mara had remained with Clancy had its sting. She saw Ella and many others ministering to the injured and feeble, and felt that she must redeem her character. When the unconscious man was ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... that the conduct of the negroes everywhere is an everlasting refutation of much of the bitter stuff which is said by the other side. This war would crumble like that, if, with all the white men gone, there were on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence, outrage—if there were among us, in Virginia alone, half a million ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... stultifies itself and needs no refutation; certainly not here, as P. Langen in his Plautinische Studien (Berliner Studien, 1886; pp. 90-91) has conclusively proved that the inconsistent is a feature absolutely germane to Plautine style, and has collected an overwhelming mass of "Widerspruche, Inkonsequenzen ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... her ear to his enthusiastic prophecies of the future glories of the kingdom. To the court and to the universities and to the great ecclesiastics he was still a visionary and a needy adventurer; and they quoted, in refutation of his theory, those Scripture texts which were hurled in greater wrath against Galileo when he announced his brilliant discoveries. There are, from some unfathomed reason, always texts found in the sacred ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... favor of neutrality which had been howled down by the mobs. It is inconceivable that such a body could have been completely cowed by rioting in the streets. The unanimous vote of the Italian Senators is sufficient refutation of the Bethmann-Hollweg slur. ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... little or nothing to the happiness of men whether they are governed well or ill, whether they live under fixed and known laws, or at the will of an arbitrary tyrant, is a paradox, the fallacy of which is happily too apparent to need any refutation. Nor is his inference warranted by those particular observations which he makes for the purpose of establishing it. When of Italy he tells us, "that sensual bliss is all this nation knows," how is Italy to be compared either ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... a Father of the Church, was born about 185. He carried to extremes the celibate life taught in the Gospel; and his "Treatise against Celsus" contains, according to St. Jerome and Eusebius, the refutation of "all the objections which have been made, and all which ever will be made against ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... from the enlargement of the mind by wider and more accurate views of the natural universe. As this takes place, the mediaeval beliefs must drop away of themselves, and we now see that this process is actually in operation. So far from devoting a life to the refutation of theological error, I would not bestow upon such an unnecessary and thankless toil the labor of a week ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... have been a profound calamity. While living in retirement, Hamilton was assailed by his Southern enemies, who were supported by their Northern allies, their object being to show that he had acted corruptly while at the head of the Treasury. His reply was as complete a refutation as their earlier calumnies had encountered. He wrote the celebrated Farewell Address of President Washington. On all occasions he was ready with pen and tongue to defend and uphold those political principles in the triumph of which he had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... treatises On the Right Faith, against Nestorius. The first is addressed to the Emperor Theodosius. It contains an enumeration of the heresies against the Incarnation, namely, of Cerinthus, Photinus, Apollinaris, and Nestorius, with a refutation of each, especially the last. The second is inscribed to the princesses Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina, the emperor's sisters, all virgins, consecrated to God. This contains the proofs of the Catholic faith against ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... eyes with a sort of scared defiance. The great clawed paws of the beast, the strength and remorseless serenity of that crouching creature with human head, made living by his imagination and the moonlight, seemed to him like a temptation to deny God, like a refutation of human virtue. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... figures of their demands, as these have been summed up by their mess-room calculators, remain implanted in their brains; they have taken root there, and are constantly springing up without any account or refutation being able to extirpate them. No more writings nor speeches—what they want is money: 11,000 livres for the Beaune regiment, 39,500 livres for that of Forez, 44,000 livres for that of Salm, 200,000 livres for that of Chateauvieux, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... up his doctrines, he asserts that "we have some reason to believe that irregular connections between the sexes have, on the whole, exhibited a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization." The refutation of this libel on civilization—which is widely believed—is one of the main objects of the following pages—is, in fact, one of the main objects of this ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... order, and whom he therefore accounted a renegade. He also wrote several vigorous treatises in defence of separatism and congregational independency, the most important being:—A True Description of the Visible Congregation of the Saints, &c. (1589); A Plain Refutation of Mr Gifford's Booke, intituled A Short Treatise Gainst the Donatistes of England (1590-1591), and A Brief Discovery of the False Church (1591). Others were written in conjunction with his fellow-prisoner, Greenwood. These writings were taken charge of by friends and mostly printed in Holland. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... to the first accusation, we cannot do better than quote the words of the antiquary who has first brought both the calumnious charge and its refutation to light. "The general impression (p. 279) (says that writer) which exists respecting the character of Henry V, and especially whilst Prince of Wales, is so opposed to the idea that he could possibly be suspected of a pecuniary fraud, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... excellence of Americans—an excellence they must be content to share with contemporary nations, however much it may cost them to abandon we know not what bounding ambitions which they have never succeeded in definitely describing in words. Mr. Lowell was a refutation of the fallacy that an American can never be American enough. He ranked with the students and the critics among all nations, and nothing marks his transatlantic conditions except, perhaps, that his scholarliness is a little ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... admit that Scripture is perfect because resting on an endless unbroken tradition; but must we then not admit that texts evidently presupposing the view of duality, as e.g. 'Let him who desires the heavenly world offer the Jyotishtoma-sacrifice'—are liable to refutation?—True, we reply. As in the case of the Udgtri and Pratihartri breaking the chain (not at the same time, but) in succession [FOOTNOTE 26:1], so here also the earlier texts (which refer to duality and transitory rewards) are sublated by the later texts which teach final release, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... then Under-Secretary of State, included in his Indian Budget speech on Aug. 5, 1909, a brief but effective refutation of the "drain" theory:— ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... was brought out at Covent Garden in 1823, when she was thirty-six years old; Macready played the principal part. 'If the play do reach the ninth night,' Miss Mitford writes to Macready, 'it will be a very complete refutation of Mr. Kemble's axiom that no single performer can fill the theatre; for except our pretty Alfonso (Miss Foote) there is only Julian, one and only one. Let him imagine how deeply we feel his exertions and ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... rest satisfied with consulting authorities on your own side only. We shall presently see how important it is to be prepared to meet arguments on the other side; and unless you have read something on that side, you will not know what points you ought to deal with in your refutation. In that event you may leave undisturbed in the minds of your readers points which have all the more significance from your having ignored them. One of the first reasons for wide reading in preparation for an argument is to assure yourself that you have a competent knowledge of the other ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... represents Fagin in the cell, he silently studied it for half an hour, and told me he was tempted to change the whole plot of his story. . . . I consented to let him write up to my designs; and that was the way in which Fagin, Sikes, and Nancy were created." Happily I was able to add the complete refutation of this folly by producing a letter of Dickens written at the time, which proved incontestably that the closing illustrations, including the two specially named in support of the preposterous charge, Sikes and his Dog, and Fagin in his Cell, had not even been seen by Dickens until his ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... it violate our general wish to lead and not to follow (a wish which is surely not immoral if we but lead aright), but if it be treated as every ethical principle must be treated,—namely, as a rule good for all men alike,—its general observance would lead to its practical refutation by bringing about a general deadlock. Each good man hanging back and waiting for orders from the rest, absolute stagnation would ensue. Happy, then, if a few unrighteous ones contribute an initiative which ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... avoided, but likewise the danger of floundering helplessly about in the inviting quicksands of inanity, he preserved silence—wise young man that he was, and trusted to his eyes to express an eloquent refutation. At last, however, something seemed to occur to him. A smile broke ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... his adversary, or compel him to change front, greater results will follow than if the conqueror had been weaker in numbers than the vanquished. The battle of Leuthen may certainly be quoted as a practical refutation of this principle, but we beg permission for once to say what we otherwise do not like, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... spiritual being as such, and which, therefore, seemed to impose upon every individual man the right or rather the duty of living by the witness of his own spirit. Comte saw only the former of these aspects of it. Hence he regarded the French Revolution as a practical refutation of the individualism which grew out of the Protestant movement, and not, as it was in truth, a critical event, which should force men to distinguish and separate its true and its false elements. And he drew from it the lesson that the individual has no moral or religious life ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... The refutation of the Manichean hypothesis is extremely easy if we be permitted to assume that both the principles which it supposes are either of infinite power or of equal power. If they are of infinite power, the supposition of their co-existence involves a contradiction in terms; for the ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... this tapestry has been the subject of three interesting papers, read before the Society of Antiquaries. The first and most important, from the pen of the Abbe de la Rue[89], has for its object the refutation of the opinions of Montfaucon and Lancelot, who, following the commonly received tradition, refer the tapestry to the time of the conquest, and represent it as the work of Queen Matilda and her attendant damsels. The Abbe's principal arguments are derived from the silence ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... maintained his bodily and mental vigour until his death at 86. His writings, distinguished by logical rigour of method and clearness of style, exercised a profound influence in France as well as at home; but his attempted refutation of Berkeley is now generally ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... pleasure. The objection is as foolish as your manner of putting it. It is clear that men accept an immediate pain rather than an immediate pleasure, but only because they expect a greater pleasure in the future. Often the pleasure is illusory, but their error in calculation is no refutation of the rule. You are puzzled because you cannot get over the idea that pleasures are only of the senses; but, child, a man who dies for his country dies because he likes it as surely as a man eats pickled cabbage because he likes it. It ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... blessed servitude? Canst thou say with a joyful heart, "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant?" He is no hard taskmaster. Would Satan try to teach thee so? Let this be the refutation, "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." True, the yoke is the appointed discipline he employs in training his children for immortality. But be comforted! "It is His tender hand that puts it on, and keeps it on." He will ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... bringing her hand, with the beetle in it, near her perfect lips, she lent it a full warm breath,—enough to have enlivened an Egyptian scarabaeus,—and behold! the beetle spread its wings and whizzed away. Before Balder could recover from this unexpected refutation, the lovely ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... Lady Mabel, "and provide me with a refutation of Moodie's theology of destiny: not that I hope to silence him, for controversy is to him the ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... repute in the community, of unimpeachable integrity in motives and dealings, influential and respected, men whom it was impossible in New England to treat with neglect or indifference. For this reason it was only the harder to remain silent beneath their published reproach when a refutation was possible. Hating Mr. Adams with an animosity not diminished by the lapse of years since his defection from their party, strong in a consciousness of their own standing before their fellow citizens, the thirteen notables responded with much acrimony to Mr. Adams's unsatisfactory letter. ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... "A complete and satisfactory refutation of such an opinion," he continues, "cannot be brought forward at present"; so I suppose we must wait a little longer, but in the meantime we may again remark that, if we admit even occasional communication of changes in the somatic cells ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... itself as to its consequences in the domain of theology has been strangely exaggerated by many, both of its opponents and supporters. This is especially the case with that form of the evolution theory which is associated with the name of Mr. Darwin; and yet neither the refutation nor the demonstration of that doctrine would be necessarily accompanied by the results which are hoped for by one party and ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... that they could not all go together on their country's errand, and brushing aside the insinuation of his enemies that he was merely seeking political and selfish ends. That is a charge, of course, to which all of our statesmen, from Washington down, have been exposed. Its final refutation comes from examining the entire public career and the character of the person accused. To any one who knew what Roosevelt's life had been, and who knew how poignantly he felt the national dangers and humiliation of the past three years, the idea that he was playing politics, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... probably obtain it;—but he could not recommend such a step at the present moment. As to the accusation which had been made against her character, and which had become public through the malice of the editor of The People's Banner, Mr. Forster thought that the best refutation would be found in her return to England. At any rate he would advise no further step at the present moment. Should any further libel appear in the columns of the newspaper, then the question might be again considered. Mr. Forster had ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the growth of an organic citizenship, through the education of the nations themselves to a sense of common duty and a common life. It looks forward, not to the definite establishment, in our day, of the World-State, but only to the definite refutation of the wicked theory of the mutual incompatibility of nations. It looks forward to the expression in the outward order of the world's government of what we may call "the Principle of the Commonwealth," of Lord Acton's great principle of the State composed of free nations, of the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... thought of Aristotle and his Arab commentators to rational discussion. Thus was introduced the second or palmy period of Christian Scholasticism, whose chief industry, we may fairly say, was directed to the refutation of the two leading doctrines of Averroes. Aiming at this, Thomas Aquinas threw the whole dogmatic system of the Church into the forms of Aristotle, and thus produced that colossal system of theology which still prevails ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... formations. They said that each belonged mainly to the Old Red Sandstone period; that the cavern fronts rose in innumerable and wonderfully regular strata high in the air, each stratum about five frog-spans thick, and that in the present discovery lay an overpowering refutation of all received geology; for between every two layers of Old Red Sandstone reposed a thin layer of decomposed limestone; so instead of there having been but one Old Red Sandstone period there had certainly been not less than a hundred ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... he said, as he laid them in her lap. "Will it surprise you to learn that flowers are a passion with me, and that I am a living refutation of the fallacy that 'there can be nothing very wrong about a man ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the Life induced Captain Medwin to publish his "Conversations with Lord Byron," a work now chiefly remembered as having called forth from Murray, who was attacked in it, a reply which, as a crashing refutation of personal charges, has seldom been surpassed. [Footnote: Mr. Murray's answer to Medwin's fabrications is published in the Appendix to the 8vo edition of "Lord ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... mercantile profession is incapable of developing the element of greatness in the mind of man, find a perfect refutation in the career of the subject of this memoir, who won his immense fortune by the same traits which would have raised him to eminence as a statesman. It may be thought by some that he has no claim to a place in the list of famous Americans, since he was not only German by birth, but German ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... has been alleged to be peculiar to man. In refutation of this assertion Darwin points to the decorative colours of birds, which are used for display. And to the last objection, that man alone has religion, that he alone has a belief in God, it is answered "that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... space of five or six years he is denounced with a unanimity and an incisive vigor that ought to convince him there is something wrong. If he thinks it is his censors, he clings to his opinions with an abiding constancy, while ridicule, obloquy, caricature, burlesque, critical refutation, and personal detraction follow unsparingly upon every expression, for instance, of his belief that romantic fiction is the highest form of fiction, and that the base, sordid, photographic, commonplace school of Tolstoy, Tourgunief, Zola, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... been much too busy with her ladyship's nerves, and too ignorant of French, to gather enough for his refutation, had she wished for it; and, in fact, she had regarded him as the only safeguard of the party, devoutly believing all his reports, and now she was equally willing to magnify her own adventures. What a ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The possession of a moral nature makes me man. Sin is just to act in defiance of and in opposition to that nature. Sin, then, is the only possible case in the universe, falling under our observation, in which a creature can contradict the law of its being. Science has at least given the final refutation of the devil's lie that sin is natural to man. It is the only unnatural thing in the world. It is not non-human, like the actions of animals. The age- long history of the race can never be reversed. I cannot undo the process which has made me man, and act as the ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... prodigious effort of mental strength; but when he commences to speak, and to manage these, with other equally important operations of his own mind at the same moment, the difficulty of succeeding is greatly increased. When he begins to pour forth his refutation in an uninterrupted flow of luminous eloquence;—meeting, combating, and setting aside his opponent's statements and reasonings;—carefully marking, as he goes along, the effect produced upon his hearers, and adapting his arguments to the varying emotions and circumstances of the audience;—withholding, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... affections of the lower bowel, of the bladder, and of the skin, the two last resulting in ischury (Dorsey Gardner's "Quatre Bras, Ligny, and Waterloo," pp. 31-37; O'Connor Morris, pp. 164-166, note). The list is formidable; but it contains its own refutation. A man suffering from these diseases, unless in their earliest and mildest stages, could not have done what Napoleon did. Ischury, if at all pronounced, is a bar to horse exercise. Doubtless his long rides aggravated any trouble that he had in this respect, for Petiet, who was attached ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... covered the entire ground between scepticism and Catholicism. In refutation of Protestantism the principal lectures were: The Church and the Republic; Luther and the Reformation; How and Why I Became a Catholic, or A Search after Rational Christianity; and The State of Religion in the United ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Refutation de la theorie pneumatique et de la nouvelle theorie des chimistes modernes, etc. Paris, 1796. 1 ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... be a general refutation of materialism. To use but a mild epithet, we must conclude that the theory is unphilosophical, seeing that it assumes one thing to be produced by another thing, in spite of an obvious demonstration that the alleged effect is necessarily prior to its ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... for an elaborate refutation of a fallacy respecting which the only wonder is that it should impose on any one. Two answers may be given to it. In the first place, M. Comte might be referred to experience, and to the writings of his countryman M. Cardaillac ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... this infamously false circular roused much indignation among patriotic Americans, and no one believed it a trustworthy statement. The Independent Chronicle, in its issue for August, 1782, had the following refutation: [Footnote: This letter is said to have been written by Captain Manly, five times a prisoner during ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... vast cities and opened for settlement and civilization the boundless prairies of the West. These claims have been persistently repeated by railroad men, though they are so preposterous that they scarcely deserve refutation. The railroad, gradually developed by active minds of the past, and greatly improved by the inventions of hundreds of men in the humbler walks of life, is the common inheritance of all mankind, though no class of people have derived greater ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Rule is as dead as Queen Anne," declared Mr Chamberlain. These are the kind of declarations usually made in the exuberance of a personal or political triumph, but the passing of the years has a curious knack of giving them emphatic refutation. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... on with the argument; show her what it was in desertion that army men despised, make the distinction between deserting and resigning. But the truth was he was more interested in the things Katie had said than in the things which could be called in refutation. ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... years after this first refutation of Bulow's idea, the concentric retreat of Barclay and Bagration saved the Russian army. Although it did not prevent Napoleon's first success, it was, in the end, the cause ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... appears, and furnishes the root of Mariolatry. We come to appear to the world what we really are. Mary was tempted to place herself above Christ, and so we are not surprised that those who have turned against Christ should join the tempter in placing Mary above her Son. The refutation is the life of Christ, who died for man, and the life of Mary, who never forgot herself in thinking of others. The triumph of Mary was won by submission. Had she revolted against Christ, she had lost all. In the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, the apostle speaks ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the reader, therefore, be he Western or Oriental, to follow me in a spirit at once critical and sympathetic, challenging my suggestions as much as he will, but rather as a fellow-seeker than as an opponent bent upon refutation. For I am trying to comprehend rather than to judge, and to comprehend as impartially as is compatible with having an attitude ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis" was published at Frankfort. This masterly treatise begins with a short outline and refutation of the opinions of former anatomists on the movement of the animal fluids and the function of the heart; the author discriminating with care, and anxiously acknowledging the glimpses of the truth to be met with in their writings; as if he had not only ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... grass as a dam against the torrent that sweeps down from the mountains. With your leave, I had rather not argue with you; I should have too many excellent reasons and too few wits to apply them. Besides, you will find your refutation in the Abbe Guenee and twenty other apologists. I will only say that what you quote from Epicurus is foolishness; because God is arraigned in it as if he was a man, with a man's moral code. Well! sir, the sceptics, from Celsus down to Bayle and Voltaire, have ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... other parts of Tragedy having been already discussed. Concerning Thought, we may assume what is said in the Rhetoric, to which inquiry the subject more strictly belongs. Under Thought is included every effect which has to be produced by speech, the subdivisions being,—proof and refutation; the excitation of the feelings, such as pity, fear, anger, and the like; the suggestion of importance or its opposite. Now, it is evident that the dramatic incidents must be treated from the same points of view as the dramatic ...
— Poetics • Aristotle
... This is true; but I give them for what they are. I have declared several times, that I did not vouch for their truth, that I repeated them to show how false and ridiculous they were, and to deprive them of the credit they might have with the people; and if I had gone at length into their refutation, I thought it right to let my reader have the pleasure of refuting them, supposing him to possess enough good sense and self-sufficiency, to form his own judgment upon them, and feel the same contempt for such ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... constitute the bone and sinew of the country. In a word, the requisition is signed by more than 30,000 Catholics of every degree. May it not be considered as a great plebiscite? Is it not a proof that the laity and clergy are all of one mind? Is it not a solid refutation of the foolish assertion of some Presbyterians, that the Catholic laity take no interest in the education question, and that, were it not for the priests, the laity would be perfectly satisfied to accept godless instruction for their children? Those ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... seriously have sent me this and written on it: "Raina, to her chocolate cream soldier—a souvenir"? (He exhibits the photograph triumphantly, as if it settled the matter beyond all possibility of refutation.) ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... chaplain to the House of Assembly, the question, "Is the Church of England an established church in Upper Canada?" was again debated in the House of Assembly and discussed in the newspapers. With a view to a calm, dispassionate, and historical refutation of the claims set up by the Episcopal Church on the subject, Dr. Ryerson reprinted in the Guardian of this day, the sixth of a series of letters which he had addressed from Cobourg to Archdeacon Strachan, in May and June, 1828. It covered ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... cheer; "she never for a moment believed in my guilt; Lilian bore up wonderfully under so terrible a trial; it was an unspeakable comfort to both to receive the visits of a friend so attached to me, and so confident of a triumphant refutation of the hideous calumny under which I now suffered ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... believe that inspectors are necessarily the enemies of the human race. Chesterton's theory that middle-class Socialists are people who want to do things to the poor in the direction of regimenting them finds an easy refutation. When, in 1910, the whole of England fell down before the eloquence of Mr. Lloyd George, and consented to the Insurance Bill, the one body of people who stood out and fought that Bill was that middle-class ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... Salem: may her increasing prosperity more and more evince the blessings of popular institutions, founded on the sacred basis of natural and social rights." And at Portsmouth, he gave that town, and added, "may the blessings of republican institutions furnish a refutation of the mistaken and selfish sophistry ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... anger, else why is it that thy mind is not moved at sight of thy brothers and myself (in such distress)? It is said that there is no Kshatriya in the world who is bereft of anger. I now behold in thee, however, a refutation of the proverb! That Kshatriya, O son of Pritha, who discovereth not his energy when the opportunity cometh, is ever disregarded by all creatures! Therefore, O king, thou shouldst not extend thy forgiveness to the foe. Indeed, with thy energy, without doubt, thou, mayst ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... it. In the great joint debate in 1858 he spoke of Lincoln's having "distinguished himself in Congress by his opposition to the Mexican War, taking the side of the common enemy against his own country." No better refutation of these oft-repeated charges could be made than that given by Lincoln himself on this occasion. "The Judge charges me," he said, "with having, while in Congress, opposed our soldiers who were fighting in the Mexican War. I will tell ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... as to the authorship of the quotations applies chiefly to those which occur in the 'Refutation of the Heresies' by Hippolytus. This writer begins his account of the Basilidian tenets by saying, 'Let us see here how Basilides along with Isidore and his crew belie Matthias,' [Endnote 191:1] &c. He goes on using for the most ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... monarchs, stood as a rampart between them and the people. He thought St. Thomas of Canterbury a much injured character. He often pointed out that rich tract of country, which extends from St. Omer's to Liege, as a standing refutation of those who asserted that convents and monasteries were inimical to the populousness of a country: he observed, that the whole income of the smaller houses, and two-thirds of the revenues of the greater houses, were constantly spent ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... with paper and pencils, a pole, a chain and a semicircle, measure his fields, calculate the value of his mines, and then proceed to his house in order to take an inventory of his plate and furniture. But this pleasantry, excellent as pleasantry, hardly deserves serious refutation. No person who has a right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that the question, whether two of the greatest empires in the world should be virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass, was a question ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... step in the scientific refutation of the theory of abiogenesis was taken by the Italian Redi, who, in 1668, proved that no maggots were "bred'' in meat on which flies were prevented by wire screens from laying their eggs. From the 17th century onwards it was gradually shown that, at least in the case of all ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... regret that our own ungenerous disparagers of native merit, and exclusive eulogisers of the dead or the alien—of those only 'quos Libitina sacravit,' or whom oceans divide from us—are not now and then open to the same palpable refutation, as they are certainly guilty of the same mean error, in prejudging the whole question, and refusing to listen even to the plain evidence of their own feelings, or, in some cases, to the voice of their ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... suddenly to have grown out of boyishness into manly determination, and gradually he extracted the whole story from her. He would not listen to the delusion in which she had worked herself into believing, founded upon the negations for which she had sedulously avoided seeking positive refutation, and which had been bolstered up by her imagination and wishes, working on the unsubstantial precedents of novels. She had brought herself absolutely to believe in the imposture, and at a moment when her uncle's condition seemed absolutely ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... authority or opinion of one savant against another. Already, amid the currents and eddies of modern opinion, the savants may enjoy the same advantage at the expense of the divines— we mean, of course, on the scientific arena; for the mutual refutation of conflicting theologians on their own ground is no novelty. It is not by way of offset, however, that these divergent or contradictory views are here referred to, but only as an illustration of the fact that the divines are by ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... of a Letter written by a Spanish Gentleman to his Friend in England in refutation of sundry Calumnies there falsely bruited among the People, 1589—An Advertisement written to a Secretarie of my Lord Treasurer of Ingland by an Inglish Intelligencer as he passed through Germanie towards Italie; also a Letter written by the Lord ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... ruin. With such advantages in the worthy doctor's favor, he might have kept the field until some newer extravaganza had made his own obsolete, had not one ugly turn in political affairs given so smashing a refutation to his practical conclusions, and called forth so sudden a rebound of public feeling in the very opposite direction, that a bomb- shell descending right through the whole impression of his book could not more summarily have laid a chancery "injunction" upon ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... reader will be reminded of Lucretius, iii. 979-1036. Smith, however, would not have relished this comparison. He devotes part of one sermon to a refutation of the Epicurean poet, in whom he sees a precursor of his ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the Early Italian Painters. A complete refutation of any charge that the character of their school was neccessarily gloomy will be found in the works of Benozzo Gozzoli, as in his 'Vineyard' where there are some grape-gatherers the most elegant and graceful imaginable; ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... Hannibal hauled the ensign down, and then hoisted it reversed, as a signal of distress, and afterwards, when she struck, hauled it down; and that the French hoisted it union down to decoy the Calpe. But, for the refutation of these absurdities, we must refer the reader to the testimony of Colonel Connolly, who was then acting captain of the marines, an officer of the highest character, whose veracity cannot be questioned; and who, moreover, from being the only officer on the poop ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... Protection, which Lord John Russell had stigmatized, in his letter, 'the bane of agriculture.' 'In the history of my noble friend's illustrious family,' he continued, 'I should have thought that he would have found a remarkable refutation of such a notion.' And then he drew a lively sketch of the colossal and patriotic works of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford, 'whereby they had drained and reclaimed three hundred thousand acres of land drowned in water, ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... or traditional argument for Theism; he does not enter into theological controversy. He has not formulated, with any strictness, his conception of God; for he has recognized that an examination of Theism would be of little or no value, which was not prefaced by a refutation of mechanism and materialism, and by the assertion of some spiritual value in the universe. It is to such a labour that Bergson has applied himself; it is only incidentally that we find him making remarks on religious or theological conceptions. His whole philosophy, ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... beautiful it seemed! An air of comfort—American, southern comfort—pervaded the whole. The breakfast was brought in by a middle-aged negress, whose tidy appearance, and honest, happy, smiling face presented the best refutation of the gross slanders of our northern brethren. I would that her daguerreotype, as she stood arranging the dishes, could be contrasted with those of the miserable, half-starved seamstresses of Boston and New York, who toil from dawn ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... he had once declared it to be an all-sufficient refutation of the idea of the Fatality, that he had never met with the timber-ship in any of his voyages at sea, so he now seized on the similarly derived conclusion, that the whole claim of the Dream to a supernatural origin stood self-refuted ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... an absolute fact and certainty, impossible of refutation, that when animation ceases in the body and no effort is made to revive it, life ceases and the processes of decay and decomposition ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis
... of "The People vs. the S. S. Street Railway Company," or in a battle of alleged infringement of patent rights. There are engineering experts, just as there are legal experts, who deem it within their code of ethics to address themselves and their energies toward the refutation of such claims, however wrong or right these claims may be. Engineering is an exact science. It is based on principles hardly refutable. Yet there are engineers who will and can confound these principles before a court of law in such manner ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... lover is the Cardinal de Polignac; but she has, besides, the first Minister and some young men. The Cardinal is accused of having assisted in the refutation of Fitz-Morris's letters, although he has had this very year (1718) a long interview with my son, and has sworn never to engage in anything against his interests, notwithstanding his attachment ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... Index follows the Preface. The appendices of the Small Catechism are omitted, likewise the superscription Appendix of the Catalogus. Our copy of the Heidelberg folio edition of 1582 omits the Catalogus and adds the Apology of the Book of Concord of 1583, as also the Refutation of the Bremen Pastors of the same year. A copy of the Magdeburg quarto edition lying before us has the year 1580 on the title-pages of the Book of Concord, the Epitome, the Declaratio, and the Catalogus. The Preface is followed by three pages, on which Joachim Frederick guarantees ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... Homer shows himself not to be a Demodocus, not to be a ballad-singer, which is an essential point in the Wolfian argument. Homer himself refutes Wolf some 2,500 years beforehand, and his is still the best refutation. A careful study of this Eighth Book settles the relation between balladist and poet by a simple presentation of the facts in their proper co-ordination, and also puts the alert reader on the track of the genesis of the Wolfian ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider |
