"Theory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did not turn upside down, and who was destined to prove there was no great open ocean on the north, and still the world did not turn upside down. He was a man whose whole life had been based and built upon Fact, not Theory. He was a man who accepted Truth as God gave it to him, not as he had theorized it ought to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world—had climbed on top ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... dolls, or skating, or Henry the Eighth? There are millions of these electric buttons for galvanising dumb clay into mental and spiritual life, and no one of them is likely to act upon more than a very few in a given company—the theory of chances is against it. That is why no possible programme could be made that would fit more than a very small portion of a given club. We have seen that many club-programmes are made with an irreducible minimum ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... technical qualification and a certain precocious corpulence that handicapped his aviation indicated the infantry of the line as his sphere of training. That was the most generalised form of soldiering. The development of the theory of war had been for some decades but little assisted by any practical experience. What fighting had occurred in recent years, had been fighting in minor or uncivilised states, with peasant or barbaric soldiers and with but ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... of the ancient and modern classics. This course of study was fortunately interrupted for a few months to take charge of an academy, where he improved the opportunity to acquire some knowledge of the theory and practice of teaching. This experience had considerable influence in determining some of the most important subsequent events ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... false scents as I had done— he would clap his hands over new lights and see them blown out by the wind of the turned page. He was like nothing, I told him, but the maniacs who embrace some bedlamitical theory of the cryptic character of Shakespeare. To this he replied that if we had had Shakespeare's own word for his being cryptic he would at once have accepted it. The case there was altogether different—we had nothing but the word of Mr. Snooks. ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... France what Pericles felt of Athens—unique value in her, nothing else mattering; but his theory of politics was Bismarck's. He had one illusion—France; and one disillusion—mankind, including Frenchmen, and his colleagues not least. His principles for the peace can be expressed simply. In ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... Grahame, "you're talking Greek to Dillon. Arthur, m'lud has a theory that the English-speaking peoples should do something together, doncheknow, and the devil of it is to get 'em ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... her advice, but avoid all talk with others. Such resolutions are all very well, but rather impracticable in view of the indomitable energy with which the sex will pursue a train of inquiry. It was delightfully romantic, said the ladies, delightfully sensational some of them thought, and their theory was that some one must be paying his devotions in this way to Miss Sanford, which would account for his total obliviousness to the charms of others—married and single. Mr. Gleason, when first questioned, had assumed that air of ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... affluence and distinction, became a landed proprietor in the county of Cardigan, and inspector of the royal domains and mines in Wales. Perhaps a man more generally accomplished never existed; he was a first-rate mechanic, an expert navigator, a great musician, both in theory and practice, and a poet of singular excellence. Of him it was said, and with truth, that he could build a ship and sail it, frame a harp and make it speak, write an ode and set it to music. Yet that saying, eulogistic as it is, is far from expressing all the vast powers and ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... civil law system with Japanese influences and Communist legal theory; no judicial review of legislative acts; has not accepted compulsory ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... at the explanation, but I have a theory," answered Old Beard. "You are much younger than I am. I would estimate that you're twenty-five years younger than I am. My memories are consecutive and complete: I remember not only the earlier things you say you remember, but the events of these past twenty-five years, without a break. ...
— Rebels of the Red Planet • Charles Louis Fontenay
... experiments Mr. Eddy evolved an important theory which has since been abundantly verified. Seeing the frequent variations in the thermometric readings from what the law had led him to expect, he concluded that these were due to meteorological variations overhead; and that changes in the ...
— McClure's Magazine, March, 1896, Vol. VI., No. 4. • Various
... the invalid's second attack were known than those furnished by Don Caesar's brief statement, that he had found him lying insensible on the boulder. This seemed perfectly consistent with the theory of Dr. Duchesne; and as the young Spaniard left Los Gatos the next day, he escaped not only the active reporter of the "Record," but the perusal of a grateful paragraph in the next day's paper recording his ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... and had, as directed, given Barton's opinion. Judge Markham, who was giving some last directions joined these men, and listened while Uncle Jonah, in a few words, explained Bart's theory—that the girl would turn back from the chopping to the old road, and if there confused, would be likely to go into the woods, and directly away from ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... sovereignty, composed of her best blood. The Captain listened to his unsolicited and uninteresting exposition of South Carolina's prowess in silence, now and then looking up at the pilot and nodding assent. He saw that the pilot was intent upon astonishing him with his wonderful advancement in the theory of government, and the important position of South Carolina. Again he looked dumbfounded, as much as to acknowledge the pilot's profundity, and exclaimed, "Well! South Carolina must be a devil of a State: every thing seems captivated with its greatness: I'd like to live in Carolina ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... our garden." Hale had got a theory from a garden-book that the humble burdock, pig-weed and other lowly plants were good for ornamental effect, and he wanted to experiment, but June gave a shrill whoop and fell to scornful laughter. Then she snatched the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... supposed that these extensive conflagrations were partly accidental and partly attributable to the wide-spread lawlessness that marked the closing hours of the greatest drama in all history. But later researches have evolved a new theory, and it now seems probable that the torch was employed by the authorities themselves as a final and truly a desperate measure. An heroic cautery, but, alas, a ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... The latter theory was the correct one. Montagu Webster was a man who, at many a subscription ball, had shaken a gifted dancing-pump, and nothing in the proper circumstances pleased him better than to exercise the skill which had become his as the result of twelve private lessons ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... theory, he is said on one occasion to have declared to the critic that every word uttered by his characters was distinctly heard by him before it was written down. Such an averment, not credible for a moment as thus made, indeed simply untrue to the extent described, may yet ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... murmured he; "he runs to his ruin, and the voice of warning is unheeded. But how, if he should happen to be right? How, if he with his worldly wisdom and his theory of earthly happiness, should be more conformable to the will of God than we with our virtue and our doctrine of renunciation? Ah, yes, the world is so beautiful, it seems made entirely for pleasure and enjoyment, and yet men wander through it with tearful eyes, disregarding its beauty, and refusing ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... away its natural habits and rhythms, and imposing on it the laws of the classical metres. In this he was not singular. The professed treatises of this time on poetry, of which there were several, assume the same theory, as the mode of "reforming" and duly elevating English verse. It was eagerly accepted by Philip Sidney and his Areopagus of wits at court, who busied themselves in devising rules of their own—improvements as they thought ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... What more obvious therefore than that the removal of the paragraph from its proper place in S. Luke's Gospel is to be attributed to nothing else but the Lectionary practice of the primitive Church? Quite unreasonable is it to impute heretical motives, or to invent any other unsupported theory, while this plain solution of ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional brethren, who, indeed, considered him not entirely sane. I have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it, but I am told that it expounded a rather startling theory. He held that it was possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his death with precision, several months in advance of the event. The limit, I think, was eighteen months. There were local tales of his having exerted his powers ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... peculiarities of individual members of the order whom I have known, and whose forms I now miss from their accustomed haunts. In so doing, I confess to feeling a certain regret at this decay of Professional Begging, for I hold the theory that mankind are bettered by the occasional spectacle of misery, whether simulated or not, on the same principle that our sympathies are enlarged by the fictitious woes of the Drama, though we know that the actors are insincere. Perhaps I am indiscreet in saying that ...
— Urban Sketches • Bret Harte
... into dream analysis may object that the obvious evidence is against this theory. For the majority of dreams picture quite inoffensive processes that have nothing to do with impulses and passions which are worthy of rejection on either moral or other grounds. The objection appears at first sight to be well founded, but collapses as soon as we learn ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... of the appetite. The appetite was regarded as a holy vestal flame, soaring upwards towards dinner throughout the day: if undebauched, it tended to its natural consummation in coena: expired like a phoenix, to rise again out of its own ashes. On this theory, to which language had accommodated itself, the two prelusive meals of nine o'clock, A.M., and of one, P.M., so far from being ratified by the public sense, and adopted into the economy of the day, were regarded gloomily as gross irregularities, enormities, debauchers ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... accurate, an interest, the Colonel stood. Not infrequently now did the old gentleman come up to watch this railroad grow upon paper, and talk as the other worked. They had been speculating on the whereabouts of Tusk, and Brent was supporting Jess' theory that he had fled into Virginia; but it was a most unpleasant subject to them both and the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the visitor had to confess herself nonplussed; for, though capable of growing hysterical, she was incapable of propounding any rational theory. Consequently she felt the more that she ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a man on the ungrateful creature's irresponsive crest. "Your horse does not care anything at all about you; don't you think he does!" pursued he, ungallantly. "You may coax me as much as you like," said a Yankee teacher to a young woman who was trying the "treat him kindly" theory, and was calling her horse a "dear old ducky darling;" "and," he continued, "I'm rather fond of candy myself, but it isn't coaxing or lump sugar that will make that horse go. It's brains and reins and ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... the absence of the prisoner had been discovered, and the rebels were in a state of high excitement on account of it; but Somers was pleased to find they had not rightly conjectured the theory of his escape. He could hear them swear, and hear them considering the direction in which he had gone. Two of them stood under the window, to which Somers had restored the board he had removed; and he could distinctly hear all that ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... societies covered northern and central Italy. The clubs in Turin corresponded with those in Genoa, Alessandria, and all the principal towns of Piedmont; and these again with similar clubs in central Italy; and any new theory or doctrine introduced into one soon made the round of all. The plan adopted was to send evangelical workmen into these clubs, who were listened to as they propounded the new plan of justification by faith. The clubs in Turin were first leavened with the gospel; ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of incest between couples brought up in the same household is, of course, difficult to reconcile with Prof. Westermarck's well-known theory of the ground of the almost universal feeling against incest, namely that it depends upon sexual aversion or indifference engendered by close proximity during childhood. But medical men who have experience of slum practice in European towns can supply similar evidence in large quantity. And ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... thousand gallons every ten days—One hundred gallons a day? Frankly he thought it impossible. In fact, in the face of the Customs officers' activities, he doubted if such a thing could be done by any kind of machinery that could be devised. Indeed, the more Willis pondered the smuggling theory, the less likely it seemed to him, and he turned to consider the possibilities of Miss Coburn's SUGGESTION of ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... The Romanist theory of man's condition in the future life is this, in brief. By the sin of Adam, heaven was closed against him and all his posterity, and the devil acquired a right to shut up their disembodied souls in the under world. In consequence of the "original ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... States. Colossal engines force these great masses of steel through sea and fog. Each captain is eager to break a record; each one knows that a reputation for fast trips will make his ship popular and increase his usefulness to the company. In theory he is supposed to slow down in crossing the Banks; in fact his great 12,000-ton ship rushes through at eighteen miles an hour. If she hits a dory and sends two men to their long rest, no one aboard the ocean leviathan will ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... talk like that, boy, I could almost go back to that first night, and adopt McCutcheon's theory. You might feasibly be a revolutionary with those ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... true of man collectively, of parties, of peoples. It is a strikingly accurate description of the relation of the two American nations that now found themselves opposed within the Republic. Neither fully understood the other. Each had a social ideal that was deeper laid than any theory of government or than any commercial or humanitarian interest. Both knew vaguely but with sure instinct that their interests and ideals were irreconcilable. Each felt in its heart the deadly passion of self-preservation. It was because, in both North and South, ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... which we can more effectually imperil our health than in partaking freely of diseased animal food. This is no new theory. The Jews have for ages recognized this danger, and their laws require the most careful examination of all animals to be used as food, both before and after slaughtering. Their sanitary regulations demand that beast or ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... letter. Give Amy my love and thank her for her letter I received a little time ago. Also, if you could let Auntie Effie see this bit, or tell her I will try and write, I should be very pleased. I am very happy, as you may gather, and it is the first real holiday I have had for 14 months. We have a theory out here similar to Miss ——to wit, that there is no war. We have come to the conclusion that the whole thing is engineered by Heath Robinson, Horatio Bottomley and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Heath Robinson because he thinks humour is decadent, Horatio Bottomley to advertise "John ...
— Letters from France • Isaac Alexander Mack
... in the evening, in a state of utter wretchedness. "We's bery grieved dis evening, Cunnel; 'pears like we couldn't bear it, to lose de Cap'n and de Lieutenant, all two togeder." Argument was useless; and I could only fall back on the general theory, that I knew what was best for them, which had much more effect; and I also could cite the instance of another company, which had been much improved by a new captain, as they readily admitted. So with the promise that the new officers should not be "savage to we," which was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... does not appear at all. There are English names among us, of course, such as Gurd, which is Gurth as pronounced by a Norman; but it is understood that we are neolithic chiefly on the distaff side. The theory that each successive wave of invasion demolished the existing inhabitants is absurd. Not even the Germans do that; nor have the Turks succeeded in obliterating the Armenian nation. No—in turn our oncoming hordes, Celts, Romans, English, Danes, enslaved ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... "That murder theory is a new one to me," he said; "but I see now why it originated. The employment of a strolling physician would give color to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... again and could resume her musical studies. Janetta tried to express her natural reluctance at the thought of giving lessons to her old school-companion, but Margaret laughed her to scorn. "As if you could not teach me?" she said. "Why, I know nothing about the theory of music—nothing at all. And you were far ahead of anybody at Miss Polehampton's! You will soon have dozens of pupils, Janetta. I expect all Beaminster to be flocking ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... standing up for her own rights, or having her own way when it crossed the will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something to love and serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to reconcile such facts with the theory of total depravity; but it is a fact that there are a considerable number of women of this class. Their life would flow on very naturally if it might consist only in giving, never in withholding—only in ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that with certain diseases the period of inheritance occasionally or even frequently advances, are important with respect to the general descent-theory, for they render it in some degree probable that the same thing would occur with ordinary modifications of structure. The final result of a long series of such advances would be the gradual obliteration of characters proper to the embryo and larva, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Macfarlane, "I can give ye a direct contradeection to your theory. Scotland lies to the north, and ye'll not find a grander harvest o' sinfu' souls anywhere between this an' the day o' judgment. I'm a Scotchman, an' I'm just proud o' my country—I'd back its men against ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... says I needn't ever go back," he went on, reasoning and confiding to her. "Lin don't like mother any more, I guess." His pondering grew still deeper, and he looked at Jessamine for some while. Then his face wakened with a new theory. "Don't Lin like you any ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... does not spring, as the old denial did, from a partisan hatred, which would seek to discredit Washington by an accusation of undue partiality for England, and thus to break his hold upon the love of the people. It arises, rather, like a creeping exhalation, from a modern theory of what true Americanism really is: a theory which goes back, indeed, for its inspiration to Dr. Johnson's somewhat crudely expressed opinion that "the Americans were a race whom no other mortals could wish to resemble"; but which, in its later ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... brother collegians. On the contrary, Thomson was one of the best oarsmen of his day, and an immense favourite with his brother under-graduates. This taste for the water has always accompanied him. He had made many valuable excursions in his beautiful yacht Lalla Rookh; and his knowledge of the theory and practice of sailing is said to be extraordinary. The occasion of his taking his degree proved an ovation still recollected, and recorded in the annals of Cambridge. There was not the least doubt in the University but that the youthful Peterhouse ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... particular place. The United States succeeded to all the claims of Great Britain, both territorial and political, but no attempt, so far as is known, has been made to enlarge them. So far as they existed merely in theory, or were in their nature only exclusive of the claims of other European nations, they still retain their original character, and remain dormant. So far as they have been practically exerted, they exist in fact, are understood by both ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... to her by that good-natured sailor was quite evident, and was exactly what the widow had anticipated and desired. She played both lovers off, one against the other, and the result proved that her theory and practice were correct; for Sir Lexicon took advantage of an opportunity that was afforded him one afternoon while playing chess with Mrs. Grenville in the after cabin. They were quite alone, and during a pause in the game, he formally made her an offer of marriage, ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... walking he must have done to get through the lines is a mystery to us all. What he must have endured! The wounds must have been dressed to begin with in a German field-hospital. Then on his way to Germany, before the wounds had properly healed—that at least is our theory—somewhere near the Belgian frontier he must have made his escape. What happened then, of course, during the winter and spring nobody knows; but when he reached our lines, the wounds were both in a septic state. There have been two operations for gangrene ...
— Missing • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... denied the sphericity of the earth, and since the earth was not round they declared that a voyage of circumnavigation was absolutely contrary to the Bible, and could not therefore, on any logical theory, be undertaken. "Besides," said these theologians, "if any one should ever succeed in descending into the other hemisphere, how could he ever mount up again into this one?" This manner of arguing was a very formidable ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... cheroots were lit, Mellish spoke like a man; beginning with his cholera-theory, reviewing his fifteen years' 'scientific labours,' the machinations of the 'Simla Ring,' and the excellence of his Fumigatory, while the Viceroy watched him between half-shut eyes and thought—'Evidently this is the wrong tiger; but it is an ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... in Abyssinia, Lugd. Bat. 1790. [6] The affinity between the Somal and the Berbers of Northern Africa, and their descent from Canaan, son of Ham, has been learnedly advanced and refuted by several Moslem authors. The theory appears to have arisen from a mistake; Berberah, the great emporium of the Somali country, being confounded with the Berbers ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... of military discipline are very strict and imperious, and in theory they are never to be disobeyed. Officers and soldiers, of all ranks and gradations, must obey the orders which they receive from the authority above them, without looking at the consequences, or deviating ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... opposing views as to going to art exhibitions. And much with a good deal of reason may be said on both sides. There is one very vigorous attitude which holds that the pictures are the thing. This, indeed, is a perfectly ponderable theory. But it may be questioned whether in its ardour it does not go a little far. For it affirms that people are a confounded nuisance at art exhibitions, and should not be permitted to be there, to distract one's attention from the peaceful contemplation ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... things must come right sooner or later. Maggie fought for her lover, and emphatically asserted her engagement. She yielded on one point only—not to visit the studio; but she maintained her right in theory and in practice to go where she liked with him in train or in cart, to walk with him on the cliff, to lunch with him at Mutton's. They found pleasure in thus affirming their love, and it pleased ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... hatreds. They were two men of the same mind. The revolution, which had been the ideal of their youth, had called them on the scene on the same day, but to play very different parts. Brissot, the scribe, political adventurer, journalist, was the man of theory; Petion, the practical man. He had in his countenance, in his character, and his talents, that solemn mediocrity which is of the multitude, and charms it; at least he was a sincere man, a virtue which the people appreciate beyond all others in those ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... life is its utter simplicity. How complicated we have made it! Great volumes are written, all sorts of technical phrases are used, we are told the secret lies in this, or that and so on. But to most of us, it is all so complicated that, although we know it in theory, we are unable to relate what we know to our practical daily living. In order to make the simple truths we have been considering even clearer, we want in this chapter to cast them all ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... these are supplied by a battery as we shall presently explain. It has always been customary for us to think of a current of electricity as flowing from the positive pole of a battery to the negative pole of it and hence we have called this the direction of the current. Since the electronic theory has been evolved it has been shown that the electrons, or negative charges of electricity, flow from the negative to the positive pole and that the ionized atoms, which are more positive than negative, flow in the opposite direction as shown ...
— The Radio Amateur's Hand Book • A. Frederick Collins
... exercise for repetition. It was not till about thirteen or fourteen years after the newspaper publications that the "Notes on Virginia" were published in America. Combating in these the contumelious theory of certain European writers, whose celebrity have currency and weight to their opinions, that our country, from the combined effects of soil and climate, degenerated animal nature, in the general, and particularly ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... onnacheral I never does quit wonderin' about it; but now this old science sharp expounds his theory of 'moral epidemics,' it gets cl'ared up in my mind, an' I reckons, as he says, it's ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... tone as low as that which a sensible woman who was plotting treason and murder would be apt to use. Why "Lady Macbeth" should proclaim her deadly purpose at the top of her lungs is quite incomprehensible, except upon the theory that stage traditions have confounded the Scotch with the Irish, and that the "Macbeths" husband and wife—being the typical Fenians of the period, were accustomed to roar their secrets to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 33, November 12, 1870 • Various
... Anthony lectured in Omaha and sowed seed which bore fruit in the large number of petitions sent later from that city. In December 1870, Mrs. Tracy Cutler gave several addresses in Lincoln. Miss Anthony lectured January 28, 1871, on "The False Theory," and before leaving the city looked in on the legislature, which promptly extended to her the privilege of the floor. A number of ladies met Miss Anthony for consultation, and took the initiatory steps for forming a State association. A meeting was appointed for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... examination I arrived earlier than usual at the hall. I knew the syllabus well, yet there were two questions in the algebra which my tutor had managed to pass over, and which were therefore quite unknown to me. If I remember rightly, they were the Theory of Combinations and Newton's Binomial. I seated myself on one of the back benches and pored over the two questions, but, inasmuch as I was not accustomed to working in a noisy room, and had even less time for preparation than ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... with, he nowhere loses sight of the primary distinction between fact and theory; so that, thus far, he loyally follows the spirit of revolt against subjective methods. But, while always holding this distinction clearly in view, his idea of the scientific use of facts is plainly that of furnishing legitimate material for the construction of theories. ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... of delicate negotiations on defense measures. But most of all the role of crusader did not fit him. "I have gone somewhat slowly," Forrestal had written in late October 1947, "because I believe in the theory of having things to talk about as having been done rather than having to predict them, and ... morale and confidence are easy to destroy but not easy to rebuild. In other words, I want to be sure that any changes we ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Hilda listened attentively, understanding fully his theory, and fully appreciating the examples which he cited in order to illustrate that theory, whether the examples were those well-known ones which belong to general history, or special instances which had come under his own personal observation. Yet all ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... he would be endowed with the power from on high, and no intervention of the schools was necessary. Abram Dixon himself had at first rather leaned to this side of the case. He had expressed his firm belief in the theory that if you opened your mouth, the Lord would fill it. As for him, he had no thought of what he should say to his people when he rose to speak. He trusted to the inspiration of the moment, and dashed blindly into speech, coherent ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... his native land to seek his fortune in the kingdom of Wild Oats. He was too able a man not to find it. In the five years that he had spent in the celebrated University of Lugenmaulberg, the medical theory had changed twenty-five times, and, thanks to this solid education, the doctor had a firmness of principle which nothing could shake. He had the frankness and bluntness of a soldier, it was said; he swore at times, ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... and those unskilled in the noble art, expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, having completed a quarter of a circle, should come in contact with the side of that young man's head. Unfortunately for this theory, it happens that a blow struck out straight is as much shorter, and therefore as much quicker than the rustic's swinging blow, as the radius is shorter than the quarter of a circle. The mathematical and mechanical corollary was, that the Koh-i-noor felt something ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... disturbance, transfer to laboratory, is likely to be quite pronounced. Giant spores are often seen, doubtless due to arrested cleavage in the procedure described by Dr. Harper: a giant spore is penultimate or antepenultimate in series; should, on this theory, occasionally, at least, show more than ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... directive; and, if it is directive, in what possible way does it differ, save in name, from the old entelechy or vital principle, or whatever else one may choose to call it? On the other hand, if there is no such a thing as direction, if everything happens by chance, if the mechanistic theory is right, how does energy save us from complete surrender ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... according as it does or does not satisfy the conditions of some higher criterion, to be supplied by human consciousness." Rationalism proceeds "by paring down supposed excrescences. Commencing with a preconceived theory of the purpose of a revelation, and of the form which it ought to assume, it proceeds to remove or reduce all that will not harmonize with this leading idea." "Rationalism tends to destroy revealed religion altogether, by obliterating the whole distinction between the human and the ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... affected by it. In the mean time the ears of their congregations would be gradually habituated to it, as if it were a first principle admitted without dispute. For the present it would only operate as a theory, pickled in the preserving juices of pulpit eloquence, and laid by for future use. Condo et compono quae mox depromere passim. By this policy, whilst our government is soothed with a reservation in its favor, to which it ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... head. "I know. And it's vegetable diet that cures scurvy. No drugs will do it. Vegetables, especially potatoes, are the only dope. But don't forget one thing, Shorty: we are not up against a theory but a condition. The fact is these ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... think proper, however, to declare that in our opinion, as those objections were not founded in speculative theory, but deduced from principles which have been established by the melancholy example of other nations, in different ages, so they will never be removed until the cause itself shall cease to exist. The sooner, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... importance is the price of men. Your common school (a thing unknown, and held extremely dangerous in Carolina!) may be your much talked of guiding star to virtue; your early education is your bulwark against which the wave of vice is powerless; but unless you make it something more than a magnificent theory-unless you seek practical means, and go down into the haunts of vice, there to drag up the neglected child, to whom the word early education is a mystery, you leave untouched the festering volcano that vomits its deadly ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... work by their aid. For instance, a singer will know from trials and experience just the proper position of the tongue and larynx to produce most effectively a certain note on the scale, yet he will have come by this knowledge not by theory and reasoning, but simply oft repeated attempts, and the knowledge he has come by will be valuable to him only, for somebody else would produce the same note equally well, but in quite a ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 1—124) has given the original history of the ancient Hiong-nou, or Huns. The Chinese geography of their country (tom. i. part. p. lv.—lxiii.) seems to comprise a part of their conquests. * Note: The theory of De Guignes on the early history of the Huns is, in general, rejected by modern writers. De Guignes advanced no valid proof of the identity of the Hioung-nou of the Chinese writers with the Huns, except the similarity of name. Schlozer, (Allgemeine Nordische Geschichte, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and measure the Magnitudes, and Distances of those Orbs, which to us seem disposed without any regular Design, and set all in the same Circle; observe the Dependance of the Parts of each System, and (if our Minds are big enough to grasp the Theory) of the several Systems upon one another, from whence results the Harmony of the Universe. In Eternity a great deal may be done of this kind. I find it of use to cherish this generous Ambition: for besides the secret Refreshment it diffuses ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... is to go ahead with the plan on the theory that all the belligerents are in accord with the idea, so that in answering our note they will not have accepted anything but our proposals to discuss, first, the suggestion of peace, and, secondly, the idea of ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... political connection, and withal affecting to be very religious, presented singular points of character for observation. He was a great disciplinarian in theory, and rendered it imperative on his poor overworn curate to be so in practice; but being always engaged in the pursuit of some ecclesiastical windfall, he consequently spent most of his time, and of his money, either in our own metropolis or London—but principally in the latter. He did not, however, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... luncheon at the Bath Club to this very afternoon I had had no further inkling of my brother's whereabouts or fate. The authorities at home professed ignorance, as I knew, in duty bound, they would, and I had nothing to hang any theory on to until Dicky Allerton's letter came. Ashcroft at the F.O. fixed up my passports for me and I lost no time in exchanging the white gulls and red cliffs of Cornwall for the windmills and trim canals ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... involved stages of reduction and eventual loss of webbing, followed by the development of grasping toes. Such an evolutionary history is highly unlikely. The Agalychnis phyletic line has one kind of specialization for an arboreal existence. It is contrary to evolutionary theory that a specialized group would evolve into a generalized form and then evolve new kinds of specializations to meet the needs imposed by the same environmental conditions affecting the earlier specialized group. ...
— The Genera of Phyllomedusine Frogs (Anura Hylidae) • William E. Duellman
... possibly be accorded to any man as a dramatic poet. But, true as it is generally, there is nevertheless enough of exception to build a strong argument upon as to his moral principles, or as to his theory of what is morally good and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... we cannot do it with the new doctrine of human perfectibility; we can do it with the old doctrine of Original Sin. If we want to uproot inherent cruelties or lift up lost populations we cannot do it with the scientific theory that matter precedes mind; we can do it with the supernatural theory that mind precedes matter. If we wish specially to awaken people to social vigilance and tireless pursuit of practise, we cannot help ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... a nearby restaurant, guarded by six bailiffs, who warned them not to discuss the case while outside the jury room. The second ballot, by the way, was eight for conviction, four for acquittal. Juror No. 5 had come over to the minority. He said there was something in the theory of Juror No. 9. ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... this perverse and overstrained suggestion of pleasure reached through torture, this exaggeration of the man resolved not to shrink at anything; it was an examination of the present range and use of fear that led gradually to something like a theory of control and discipline. The second of his two dominating ideas was that fear is an instinct arising only in isolation, that in a crowd there may be a collective panic, but that there is no real individual fear. Fear, Benham held, drives the man back to the ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... "Ah, theory. It would, indeed, seem to be true that folded away in some convolution of our brain are the faculties of the fish and the bird. Those latent powers are expanding daily. The submarine has already gone far beyond the practical achievement of aerial ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... any one has paid attention to Zola at this aut aut! It is sure that he never thought of it himself. Probably it would not have had any influence, as the criticisms had no influence on his theory of heredity. Critics and physiologists attacked him ofttimes with an arsenal of irrefutable arguments. It did not do any good. They affirmed in vain that the theory of heredity is not proved by any science, and above all it is difficult ...
— So Runs the World • Henryk Sienkiewicz,
... an "Oriental Romance." A much worse mistake (because wilful, and with no very charitable design) was that of certain persons, who would have it that the poem was meant to be epic!—Even Mr. D'Israeli has, for the sake of a theory, given in to this very gratuitous assumption:—"The Anacreontic poet," he says, "remains only Anacreontic in ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Europe of one dominant Asiatic race of civilized conquerors, to whose blood and influence all modern culture was due. To this "white" race Semitic Asia, a large part of black Africa, and all Europe was supposed to belong. This "Aryan" theory has been practically abandoned in the light of recent research, and it seems probable now that from the primitive Negroid stock evolved in Asia the Semites either by local variation or intermingling with other stocks; later there developed the ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... their native Venice, we must first deal with that excellence of colouring for which the Venetian painters were signally noted, while they comparatively neglected and underrated drawing. A somewhat fanciful theory has been started, that as Venice, Holland, and England have been distinguished for colour in art, and as all those States are by the sea, so a sea atmosphere has something to do with a passion for colour. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... these believes that the opening sonnets were addressed to Lord William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the other that they were addressed to Shakespeare's patron, the Earl of Southampton. The first theory dates back as far as 1832 when it was started by James Boaden, a journalist and the biographer of Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This theory has had many supporters and is associated to-day with the name of Thomas Tyler, ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... guided to my next example, viz. the text of St. Matt. xv. 8, by the choice deliberately made of that place by Dr. Tregelles in order to establish the peculiar theory of Textual Revision which he advocates so strenuously; and which, ever since the days of Griesbach, has it must be confessed enjoyed the absolute confidence of most of the illustrious editors of the New Testament. This is, in fact, the second example on ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... explaining the absence of any monuments to mark their occupation. This hypothesis, however, is unsupported by any direct proof: even the dearth of monuments which has been cited as an argument in favour of the theory, is no longer a fact. The sequence of reigns and details of the revolutions are wanting; but many of the kings and certain facts in their history are known, and we are able to catch a glimpse of the general course of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... earn without giving them either satisfaction or comfort. His salary would not permit him to rent the sort of thing in the sort of neighbourhood which Judith longed for. And if it should, he did not believe his wife would find such environments any more congenial than the present one. Carey had a theory that a woman, like a man, must be busy to be contented. He meant to try it with ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... smiled, and said: "One of the leading theories of the day is the survival of the fittest. I am content to limit my theory to a survival. If I am alive and well when your great Southern empire takes the lead among nations there will be a chance for the fulfilment of your dream. If I have disappeared beneath Southern mud there won't be any chance. In my opinion, however, I should have tenfold greater ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... this despised and rejected poem that a great, original genius in English poetry was first revealed. It is impossible to understand Browning or even to read him intelligently without firmly fixing in the mind his theory of poetry, and comprehending fully his ideal and his aim. All this he set forth clearly in Pauline, and though he was only twenty years old when he wrote it, he never wavered from his primary purpose as expressed ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... seems very strange that, if they were the possessors of such extraordinary powers as the theory of Apostolic Succession implies, we should hear so little of these in the narratives. The silence of Scripture about them goes a long way to discredit such ideas, while it is entirely accordant with a more modest view ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... couldn't agree—subjects upon which they argued long and loud and often in the old days; and it sometimes happens that Bill across an article or a paragraph which agrees with and, so to speak, barracks for a pet theory of his as against one held by Jim; and Bill marks it with a chuckle and four crosses at the corners—and an extra one at each side perhaps—and sends it on to Jim; he reckons it'll rather corner old Jim. The crosses are not over ornamental nor artistic, ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... Thou art superior to Time. Thou art superior to Sacrifice. Thou art higher than the highest. Thyself without origin, thou art the origin of the universe. Salutations to thee in thy form as Universe! Men of the world, according to the attributes ascribed to thee by the Vaiseshika theory, regard thee as the Protector of the world. Salutations to thee in thy form of Protector! Assuming the forms of food, drink, and fuel, thou increasest the humours and the life-breaths of creatures and upholdest their existence. Salutations ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... theory as to what was best for her, in some ways Ludlow rather expected that Cornelia would apply to him for advice as to how and where she should begin work. He forgot how fully he had already given it; but she had not. She remembered what she had overheard ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... tridentibus" of Virgil, as may be seen in many of Hadrian's large brass medals. The form of the gondola in the water is traced back till its origin is lost in antiquity, yet (like that of the Turkish caiques) embodies the principles of the wave-line theory, the latest effort of modern ship-building science. Also, a passage-boat of six or eight oars, used on other parts of ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... influence the bones gradually disappeared, and, according to Flora's theory, became leaner and smaller. Jack declared that the way that dog was a picking up, beat all nature! Flora never admitted Towzer at the big gate, and he very soon learned to go round. It was the big gate that opened the way to Flora's troubles, ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... even the Pacific Ocean. But the immense areas of these pelagic fields of enterprise, and the rapid intrusion into them of other colonial powers soon rendered obsolete in practice the principle of the mare clausum, and introduced that of the mare liberum. The political theory of the freedom of the seas seems to have needed vigorous support even toward the end of the seventeenth century. At this time we find writers like Salmasius and Hugo Grotius invoking it to combat Portuguese monopoly of the Indian Ocean as a mare clausum. Grotius in a lengthy dissertation ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... forget Aristotle's saying that "life is practice and not theory;" that men are born to do and suffer, and not to dream and weave systems; that conduct and not culture is the basis of character and the source of strength; that a knowledge of Nature is of vastly more importance to our ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... chapter i., that there was an old tradition in Armorica that St. Patrick was a native of that province; and the same author adds that several Irish writers adhered to that opinion. This book, therefore, does not seek to formulate a new theory; its only object is to gather together many of the records which tend to prove that St. Patrick was ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... to the Oriental; he was little inclined to believe that the nature of his errand to India had been guessed, or that any native intelligence in India knew or suspected the secret of Sophia Farrell's parentage—Rutton's solicitude to the contrary notwithstanding. The theory that he most favoured in explanation of the interest in him was that it had somehow become known that he bore with him the emerald. It was quite conceivable that that jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... is here represented, yet it would hardly be in accordance with conservative methods to differentiate bison from domestic cattle solely by characters obtained from a study of the first ribs of a small number of individuals." Although staunchly supporting his theory of the age of the vertebrate remains, Dr. Bowman in his report on their geological relations admitted that the weakness of his case lay in the fact that the bovine remains were not sharply differentiated from ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... whenever it gave one of its voracious bites. This was owing to the greater length of its upper than of its lower jaw, and Mulford had heard it was a physical necessity of its formation. Right or wrong, he determined to act on this theory, and began at once to wade along the part of the reef that his enemies ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... the method of Socrates to challenge the current modes of speaking and to ask his fellow-men what they meant when they used such words as 'goodness,' 'virtue,' 'justice.' Every time you employ any of these terms, he said, you virtually imply a whole theory of life. If you would have an intelligent understanding of yourself and the world of which you form a part, you must cease to live by custom and speak by rote. You must seek to bring the manifold phenomena of the universe and the various experiences of life into some kind of unity ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... said that he states (with a touch of irony, no doubt) that his heart was 'handsomely pieced'; and it is not against the theory hinted in the foregoing paragraph, but, on the contrary, in favour of it, that the piecing did not take long. In exactly a year Scott became engaged to Miss Charlotte Margaret Carpenter or Charpentier,[4] and they were married on Christmas Eve, 1797, at St. Mary's, Carlisle. They had met at ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... theory was, it had many admirers, particularly among men of letters. It was now to be reduced to practice; and the result was, as any man of sagacity must have foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... nor Western, Yankee nor Southern—nor yet quite British. It was rather cosmopolitan—he had dimly placed her as a Californienne. Perhaps this fragment explained it. She must be a daughter of the English official class, reared in America. The theory would explain her complexion and her simple, natural balance between frankness and reserve. He formed that conclusion, but, "How do you like America after India?" was ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... finger-nail. And look at the faces of us—what atrocious mockeries most of them are of any kind of image! But we know our bodies change—age, sickness, thought, passion, fatality. It proves they are amazingly plastic. And merely even as a theory it is not in the least untenable that by force of some violent convulsive effort from outside one's body might change. It answers with odd voluntariness to friend or foe, smile or snarl. As for what we call the laws of Nature, they are pure assumptions ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... ram down their throats a preconceived theory that the only road to self-government was for an alien people to step in and make the ignorant masses the ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... theory, for your matron's likeness was a very handsome Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the mutiny, and then ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... overshadowing veil of his one sole personal defect. This laurel diadem at once proclaimed his civic grandeur, and concealed his baldness, a defect which was more mortifying to a Roman than it would be to ourselves, from the peculiar theory which then prevailed as to its probable origin. A gratitude of the same mixed quality must naturally have been felt by the Second Caesar for his title of Augustus, which, whilst it illustrated his public character by the highest expression of majesty, set apart and sequestrated to public ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... Broughton proposes, with proper assistance, to open an academy at his house in the Haymarket, for the instruction of those who are willing to be initiated in the mystery of boxing: where the whole theory and practice of that truly British art, with all the various stops, blows, cross-buttocks, &c., incident to combatants, will be fully taught and explained; and that persons of quality and distinction may not be deterred from entering into A course of those lectures, they will be given with ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... to represent him as the tool of more designing men—as one whose simplicity had been imposed upon, and who had been thrust forward against his better judgment to do work in which he had no heart. This theory is not only entirely groundless, but entirely unnecessary; because the action which he took on this question can readily be explained by a reference to convictions he had held all his life, and to circumstances which seemed to him ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... to within sight of the cape, and then bearing up and running off to leeward for a distance of one hundred miles again, keeping a hand aloft on the main-royal yard as look-out from dawn to dark. It was weary, anxious work; for of course our movements were being regulated by a theory that, for aught we knew to the contrary, might be all wrong; and as day succeeded day without bringing the expected sail within our ken there were not wanting among us those who denounced the skipper's plan as foolish, and argued ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... He learned to play the lute, the flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his intention if he did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned to compose songs, and burned to give forth "a scheme and theory of music not yet ever made in the world." When he heard "a fellow whistle like a bird exceeding well," he promised to return another day and give an angel for a lesson in the art. Once, he writes, "I took the Bezan back ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Plutarch admits that this theory of two Principles was the basis of all the Mysteries, and consecrated in the religious ceremonies and Mysteries of Greece. Osiris and Typhon, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Bacchus and the Titans and Giants, all represented these principles. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... I know what to think of this Brighton theory. We are only just down from Oxford, and perhaps things strike us a little more ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... In theory, the Moros accept the Koran and the teachings of Mahomet: in practice, they omit the virtues of their religious system and follow those precepts which can be construed into favouring vice; hence they interpret guidance of the people by oppression, polygamy by licentiousness, and maintenance ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... innumerable fallen leaves, the flowers of language grow spontaneously." Finally, to the hard study of technique, to vast but judicious reading, he added a long, creative brooding time. To a Japanese friend, Nobushige Amenomori, he wrote in a passage which contains by implication a deep theory not only of literary composition, but of ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... his own death, which, indeed, we all apprehended". Mr. Wesley only smiled when he was informed; but, by taking care to see all the girls safe in bed, sufficiently showed his opinion that the young ladies and their lovers were the ghost. Mrs. Wesley then fell back on the theory of rats, and employed a man to blow a horn as a remedy against these vermin. But this measure only aroused the emulation of the sprite, whom Emily ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... were to be preached. Christ, appearing as the substance of the truth announced under both, was given a sign of that everlasting Covenant whence they took their origin. Had that covenant been but in theory, Christ had not appeared. His appearance declared it fact. As the Father's Servant, and consequently as in covenant with him, he was promised. His mission, to fulfil his Father's will, declared his obligations. The oath sworn to him, ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... greater general desire to know the future. This ignorance and this curiosity had led to the utmost confusion in human knowledge; all things were still mere personal experience; the nomenclatures of theory did not exist; printing was done at enormous cost; scientific communication had little or no facility; the Church persecuted science and all research which was based on the analysis of natural phenomena. Persecution begat mystery. So, to the people as well as to the nobles, physician ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... plumed himself on good blood more than Dr Thorne; no man had greater pride in his genealogical tree, and his hundred and thirty clearly proved descents from MacAdam; no man had a stronger theory as to the advantage held by men who have grandfathers over those who have none, or have none worth talking about. Let it not be thought that our doctor was a perfect character. No, indeed; most far from perfect. He had within ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... of little consequence who is on the throne, if there be behind it a power mightier than the throne. It matters not what is the theory of the government, if the practice of the government be unjust and tyrannical. We rise in rebellion against a despotism incomparably more dreadful than that which induced the colonists to take up arms against the mother country; not on account of a three-penny tax ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... have mentioned, that Torone was a temple of the Sun, and also [Greek: phlegraia], by which was meant a place of fire, and a light-house. This is not merely theory: for the very tower may be seen upon coins, where it is represented as a Pharos with a blaze of fire at the top. See vol. 2. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... of a dwelling was a most difficult matter. As it must be quite a small house, the remoter suburbs could alone supply what was wanted; Morphew spent every Saturday and Sunday in wearisome exploration. Mrs. Winter, though in theory she accepted the necessity of cheapness, shrank from every practical suggestion declaring it impossible to live in such places as Cecil requested her to look at. She had an ideal of the 'nice thinks nothing of. And herself the cause of ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... incorporate them into the being to whose nourishment they are applied, just as the tree or plant assimilates to its growth and subsistence the materials which it draws from the air and the soil; and his theory of teaching is based on ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... declared, laughing. "I suppose that is a subject upon which I have some glimmerings of knowledge. Really not very much, though, but then I have a theory about that. I think sometimes that the clearest judgments are formed by some one who comes a little fresh to a subject, some one who hasn't been dabbling in it half their lifetime and acquired prejudices. Do you always provide strawberries for your ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... health one can more readily resist the infection of disease. Similarly if Scottish skies were not ready and longing to pour out rain, were not ignobly weak in holding it back, they would not be so susceptible to the depressing influences of visiting ministers. This is Francesca's theory as stated to the Reverend Ronald, who was holding an umbrella over her ungrateful head at the time; and she went on to boast of a convention she once attended in San Francisco, where twenty-six thousand Christian ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... the oft-repeated words: "Yes, this is so in theory, but how is it in practice?" Just as though theory were fine words, requisite for conversation, but not for the purpose of having all practice, that is, all activity, indispensably founded on them. There must be a fearful number of stupid theories current in the world, that such an extraordinary ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... existence of severe storms and those of a rotatory character in the great basin of the Northern Atlantic, especially between the 40th and 50th parallels. A remarkable instance has come under the author's attention of the wind hauling apparently contrary to the usual theory: it may be that the storm route was in a direction not generally observed. We are at the present moment destitute of any information that at all indicates a reversion of the rotation in either hemisphere. The following tables constructed ...
— The Hurricane Guide - Being An Attempt To Connect The Rotary Gale Or Revolving - Storm With Atmospheric Waves. • William Radcliff Birt
... invasion, and that all their expeditions were benefactions to the colonies. The colonists felt that they were co-operating with England in breaking down a national enemy, and that all their grants were bounties. The natural corollary of the first theory was that the colonies ought at least to support the troops thus generously sent them; and various suggestions looking to this end were made by royal governors. Thus Shirley in 1756 devised a general system of taxation, including import duties, an excise, ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart |
