"Disprove" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... occupies. By ingenious improvements in mounting and fitting, it was adapted to the finest micrometrical work, and thus offered unprecedented facilities both for the examination of double stars (in which Struve chiefly employed it), and for such subtle measurements as might serve to reveal or disprove the existence of a sensible stellar parallax. Fraunhofer, moreover, constructed for the observatory at Koenigsberg the first really available heliometer. The principle of this instrument (termed with more propriety a "divided object-glass micrometer") ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... out of all patience with the fellow. "First he can't marry Rosalie because her uncle's a murderer. Now he can't marry her because her uncle's a liar. Disprove that, and he'd dig up some ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Baron did not believe in the charge, but, nevertheless, he was obliged to send her away. He had his own reputation in the country to think of, and the charge of witchcraft was no light one in those days, and not so easy to disprove. He gave her a handsome pension, and a comfortable house and troubled himself ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... standing out, the debtors shall receive summonses from the commissioners, to pay by a certain time limited; and in the meantime the secretary is to transmit accounts to the persons owing it, appointing them a reasonable time to consent or disprove the account. ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... long as the evidence against him was vague and intangible, it was very hard to disprove. But, in his anxiety, the criminal has drawn the net so closely that one cut ...
— The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Agatha Christie
... he had learned from the sheriff. He knew the official had been right when he said that it would react in Rathburn's favor if he gave himself up. Some of the counts on which he would be indicted undoubtedly would be quashed; others he might disprove. There was a chance that he might get off lightly; in any event he would have to spend a number of ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... that Professor Lowell still maintains the accuracy of the discovery made at Flagstaff that the existence of water vapour on Mars is demonstrated by the photographic spectrum of the Martian atmosphere; and he asserts that the attempt to disprove it has failed. A further discovery has since been made at the same observatory, viz. that oxygen also is present in the ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... system, we find that it is impossible to disprove this theory of dreams. If we demonstrate that a dream has no sexual connection whatever, they have only to say that it is the censor that blinds, and, by resorting to symbolism and other such very present helps in time ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... that perception. That at the same time when the previously non-perceived svastika-ornament is perceived the gold also is recognised, is due to the fact of the gold persisting as the substrate of the ornament, and hence such recognition of the causal substance does not disprove the reality of the effect.—And the attempts to prove the unreality of the world by means of scriptural texts we have already disposed of in a ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... be recalled? An obvious untruth. Or that it was believed to contain important manuscript notes? Eldred would of course show him the book, from which the leaf would already have been removed. He might, perhaps, find traces of the removal—a torn edge of a fly-leaf probably—and who could disprove, what Eldred was certain to say, that he too had noticed and regretted the mutilation? Altogether the chase seemed very hopeless. The one chance was this. The book had left the library at 10.30: it might not have been put into the first possible train, at 11.20. Granted that, then ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - Part 2: More Ghost Stories • Montague Rhodes James
... every previous discussion of the intermarriage of kindred, has been either to prove or to disprove some alleged injurious effect upon the offspring. The writers who have treated the subject may be divided into three groups. First, those who have maintained in accordance with popular opinion that consanguinity per se is a cause of degeneracy ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... a syllogism are correct it has absolute convincing power. Most attempts to disprove its statement attack the first two statements. Although it carries such an air of certainty it is likely to many errors in use. An error like this ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... yourself,' cried Sandie testily. 'I've had enough of it.' Calling our other two companions I told them of Sandie's discovery, and we came to the conclusion that it was our duty to try to verify or disprove Sandie's assertion. ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... fully depicted, esteem and praise should have equal prominence; and surely every one will read with pleasure the proof that the world's scorn and repudiation have been changed to respect and approval. Many letters of women have been used to disprove the assertion so often made, that women themselves do not properly estimate the labors of Miss Anthony in their behalf. It can not be expected that the masses should understand or appreciate her work, but the written evidence herein ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... King was also told that she was quite unskilled in languages or music, and held, with her mother, that it was "for a rebuke and an occasion of lightenesse that great Ladyes shuld be lernyd or have enye knowledge of musike." And in the next place even a superficial knowledge of Holbein would disprove any tradition of "flattery" from his unflinching, almost brutally truthful brush. It was hardly likely that the painter who would not stoop to flatter Bishop Stokesley, or Henry VIII. himself, would be swerved from his good faith by ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... course, goes to disprove that the Bishop of Limerick was a Sinn Feiner, but it also goes to prove that one cannot shake the foundations of international relations without stirring internal conditions to ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... Indian, though very humiliating, is, as far as I can judge, much more correct than the flattering representations which Mr. Jefferson has given us. See the Notes on Virginia, where this gentleman endeavors to disprove in general the opinion maintained so strongly by some philosophers that nature (as Mr. Jefferson expresses it) belittles her productions in the ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... according to him, the nucleus of the legend is an old story of the murder of relatives. This became grafted on the Siegfried legend according to some authorities, but Boer will not admit this, and presents a number of arguments to disprove the mythical character of the Siegfried story. The reasoning is ingenious, but by no means valuable. We know that the mythologies of the ancient Germans and the Scandinavians were in many respects, though not in all, one and the same system, ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... being the recognized head of one of them. His political enemies suspected and some of them accused him of being partial to Mr. Blaine. To save himself and his friends from humiliation and defeat in his own party it was necessary for him to dispel that suspicion, and disprove those accusations. With that end in view he made a thorough canvass of the State in the interest of Mr. Cleveland and the Democratic party. The State was returned for Mr. Cleveland by a large majority, for which Mr. Lamar was in a great measure credited. Mr. Blaine ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... answered Adrien with a sigh. "I gave my word to keep secret certain events that happened on that day. They took place far away from the City, but I cannot reveal where. Those who say they saw me in London are lying, and I could easily disprove their statements; but you would not ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... thought it best not to set down the names of this family, especially because of their difficult pronunciation [by the Greeks]; but, upon the whole, I think it necessary to mention those names, that I may disprove such as believe that we came not originally from Mesopotamia, but are Egyptians. Now Jacob had twelve sons; of these Joseph was come thither before. We will therefore set down the names of Jacob's children and grandchildren. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... coat-of-arms of fifteen gold coins upon a sable ground, as well as their proud motto "One and All." It had been said (I forget if in my hearing), that the days of chivalry were past. Here was an opportunity to disprove it and declare that the spirit of their ancestors survived and animated the Cornishmen of to-day. (A Voice—"How about the Millennium?") He would pass over that interruption with the contempt it deserved. They were not met to bandy personalities, but as citizens ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has been last said leads to a further remark. I observe, then, that if two or three men in the fourth century are sufficient, against the general voice of the Church, to disprove one doctrine, then still more are two or three of an earlier century able to disprove another. Why should protesters in century four be more entitled to a hearing than protesters in century three? Now it so happens, that as Aerius, Jovinian, and Vigilantius in the fourth protested ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... out and trying a tussle. Nelson said he was a miscreant, a poltroon, and a liar. The Frenchman had boasted in a publication that he had put the British fleet to flight. The British Admiral took the charge so seriously to heart that he sent a copy of the Victory's log to the Admiralty to disprove the statement of the lying Admiral la Touche, and in a letter to his brother Nelson says, "You will have seen La Touche's letter of how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and by God if I take him, he shall eat it." La Touche cheated ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of such a one has become so real to men that they do not stop to argue about His existence, as once they did. If it was possible indisputably to disprove the historic Christ men still would cherish, as highly as ever, the ideal, the vision of such a life, and in their hearts would know that such a picture could only have been born of such ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... then die, but this does not disprove the truth they expressed, but failed, possibly, to fully live. The great man always thinks further than he can travel—even the rest of us can do that. We can think "Chicago" in a second, but to go there takes time, strength ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... of these principles were the four elements—earth, water, fire, and air. These four elements were accountable for every substance in nature. Some of the experiments to prove this were so illusive, and yet apparently so simple, that one is not surprised that it took centuries to disprove them. That water was composed of earth and air seemed easily proven by the simple process of boiling it in a tea-kettle, for the residue left was obviously an earthy substance, whereas the steam driven off was supposed to be air. The fact that pure water leaves ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... his way to the houseboat Tom Curtis lay awake on his camp cot thinking of Madge and of what he could do to disprove the cruel story that Flora Harris had told. Of course, it must be false. Yet the girl would hardly have dared to tell such a tale unless a grain of truth had been hidden in it somewhere. Poor Madge! Tom wondered how her proud, passionate spirit would bear up under the ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... Louis, "I hope you will be able to disprove this dreadful charge, and convince her royal highness that she has ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... to make, would prefer to accuse another? {214} And consider also this further point, gentlemen of the jury. If I were on my trial, with the defendant Aeschines for accuser and Philip for judge; and if, being unable to disprove my guilt, I abused Aeschines and tried to sully his character, do you not think that Philip would be indignant at the very fact of a man abusing his benefactors in his own presence? Do not you then prove worse than Philip; but force Aeschines to ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... to learn that Owen had any hand in taking those spoons. The sooner we find out the truth, the better for all concerned. It'll not only relieve our minds, as well as that of the old lady; but either prove or disprove the suspicions we're right now entertaining toward that ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... themselves made vehicles, and knowledge is felt to terminate in an independent existence on a higher or deeper level than any immediate fact; and this circumstance is what makes myth impossible to verify and, except by laughter, to disprove. If I attributed the stars' shining to the diligence of angels who lighted their lamps at sunset, lest the upper reaches of the world should grow dangerous for travellers, and if I made my romance elaborate and ingenious enough, I might ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... his statement that Verrazzano had been three times on the coast of America, which, if true, would disprove the discovery set up in the letter. That document alleges that the coast explored by him was entirely unknown and HAD NEVER BEFORE BEEN SEEN BY ANY ONE before that voyage, and consequently not by him; and that, as regards the residue of the coast north ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... phenomena of the heavens by the most trivial analogies of earth. The experiments which nature worked for him he sometimes accepted, but he never tried experiments for himself which would either prove or disprove his theories. His knowledge was unequal; while in some branches, such as medicine and astronomy, he had made considerable proficiency, there were others, such as chemistry, electricity, mechanics, of which the very names were unknown to him. He was the natural enemy of mythology, and yet ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... for settling the accounts and entering into his rights, Baron de Saurac was arrested as a conspirator and imprisoned in the Temple. He had been denounced as having served in the army of Conde, and as being a secret agent of Louis XVIII. To disprove the first part of the charge, he produced certificates from America, where he had passed the time of his emigration, and even upon the rack he denied the latter. During his arrest, the eldest son discovered that Louis had become ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... manifest disparity in convenience of proof and opportunity for knowledge, * * *" Whereas, accordingly, under the terms of the section previously upheld, the defendant could prove his citizenship without trouble, and the State, if forced to disprove his claim, could be relatively helpless, the background of the accused party being known probably only to himself and close relatives, the alleged Japanese defendant, in the last mentioned case, would have suffered hardship and injustice if compelled to prove non-Japanese origin, especially ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... the principia from which deductions are made, and which we call theology; and, on the other hand, the rejection of indefensible statements which are at war with both science and consciousness, except in those matters which claim special supernatural agency, which we can neither prove nor disprove by reason; for supernaturalism claims to transcend the realm of reason altogether in what relates to the government of God,—ways that no searching will ever enable us to find out with our limited faculties and obscured understanding. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... open to challenge; that there might exist among the inferior classes causes peculiar to these classes which militate against their increasing naturally, he has failed to notice. There do exist such, and so potent as to disprove entirely his statement that the problem is one for the solution of which we must search deep down in biological truth. The true solution will not be found in biological truth but in sociological truth, and there ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... the first fermentation produced by the lime) though not always swallowed by the chewers of betel. We might reasonably suppose that its active qualities would injure the coats of the stomach, but experience seems to disprove such a consequence. It is common to see the teeth of elderly persons stand loose in the gums, which is probably the effect of this custom, but I do not think that it affects the soundness of the teeth themselves. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... teachers are showing the same incapacity to distinguish between their friends and their foes, which they previously manifested in their acceptance of the Kantian doctrine of "things in themselves,"—a doctrine which placed God and the soul beyond the power of speculative reason either to prove or disprove. It is, however, already recognized that the attempt of Mansel and Hamilton to degrade human reason for the behoof of faith was really a veiled agnosticism; and a little reflection must show that the idea of evolution, truly interpreted, in no wise threatens the degradation ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... own but of other peoples. About Dr. Weizmann and the true Zionists this is self-evidently unjust; but about Jewish influence of the more visible and vulgar kind it has to be proved to be unjust. Feeling as I do the force of the real case for Zionism, I venture most earnestly to implore the Jews to disprove it, and not to dismiss it. But above all I implore them not to be content with assuring us again and again of their knowledge and their experience and their money. That is what people dread like a pestilence or an earthquake; their knowledge ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... said: "Fortunately, after the first two or three months, most children will thrive equally well when artificially fed, so long as the milk is good and reliable, and is properly prepared." All of our facts go to disprove this statement. ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... noticed in passing that Dame Nelly's ordinary mode of consolation was to disprove the existence of any cause for distress; and she is said to have carried this so far as to comfort a neighbour, who had lost her husband, with the assurance that the dear defunct would be better to-morrow, which perhaps might ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... are less frequent. With this general explanation we shall close. If what we have advanced be an approximation to the truth, the theory itself affords ample indications of what observations are requisite to prove or disprove it; and, on this account, a theory is of great benefit, as suggestive of many questions and combinations of facts which otherwise ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... and Hereford; and that the customary tenants of the manor of Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, had been reputed capable of voting, and even voted at elections for that county. In a word, they continued to examine evidences, argue and refute, prove and disprove, until the twenty-third day of April, when, after some warm debates and divisions in the house, lord Parker and sir Edward Turner were declared duly elected; and the clerk of the crown was ordered to amend the return, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... thing he did after the sun appeared was to examine minutely the arrow prepared by Choflo. Certain words whispered into his ear by old Yaro had had the effect of making him cautious. Besides, there were his own suspicions to verify or to disprove. ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... lost his head and called on Billings as a man of honor to confute the charge. However Ledyard might lose his head, Billings was not willing to lose his. He advised Ledyard not to provoke conflict with the Russian authorities, but to go back to St. Petersburg and disprove the charge. Was it a case of one explorer being jealous of another, or had Billings played Ledyard into the fur traders' trap? That will never be known. Certain it is, Billings made mess enough of his own ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... to disprove this position, and they might have a good case if they would only leave it as it stands. But this they will not do; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written word of the child itself as soon as it is born, ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... the test of other minds, and to be made aware of all the facts supposed to be inconsistent with them. As his hypothesis is one which claims acceptance solely as explaining and connecting facts which exist in nature, he expects facts alone to be brought to disprove it, not a priori arguments ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... suppose a great number of circumstances under which these slaves of Houver left their master's service and came on board the Pearl, without any agency on the part of this prisoner? Now, the government might positively disprove and exclude forty such suppositions; but, so long as one remained which was not excluded, you cannot find a verdict of conviction. The government is to prove that the prisoner enticed and seduced these negroes, and you have no right to presume he did so unless every other ...
— Personal Memoir Of Daniel Drayton - For Four Years And Four Months A Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) In Washington Jail • Daniel Drayton
... be practically admitted that no philosophy allows of strict demonstration, since, being a conception of the totality of things, it modifies our understanding of every principle by which one might attempt to prove or disprove it. Eventually it is its harmony with the totality of things as we perceive them that determines us to accept it, and no two of us perceive just the same totality, however substantial an agreement there may be in our experience; ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... continually over the problem of the ideal mate, only of all these dreams and broodings there is not one atom of evidence—not one. Not a hint, not a trace, either in her character as we know it, or in her very voluminous private correspondence. The facts of her life disprove it. Her letters to Ellen Nussey (never meant for publication) reveal the workings of Charlotte's feminine mind when applied to "the sex problem"; a mind singularly wholesome and impersonal, and singularly detached. Charlotte is full of lights ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... that he can continue it with growing strength ad infinitum, and that this power will unquestionably at some future time be employed with marvellous results in Education. For, beyond all question—since any human being can easily prove or disprove it by a few experiments— there is no method known by which inattention, heedlessness, or negligence in the young can be so promptly and thoroughly cured as by this; while on the other hand, Attention and Interest by assiduity, are even ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... was not without good reason that the editor was solicitous to disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same title, and that every reader of any discernment must see at the first glance, that he who wrote the first ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... a unique opportunity and obligation—to prove the success of our system; to disprove those cynics and critics at home and abroad who question our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to suffer from the untrue tales that were told about him, still he never troubled to disprove them. Some were circulated by a fellow officer of his—an unmitigated scoundrel whose life had been sullied by every species of vice; who not only invented calumniating stories but inserted particulars that gave them a verisimilitude. Two of this man's ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... an' you hain't, Mr. Westerfelt. He'd grab at a chance like this an' you'd never be able to disprove anything. Toot's got some unprincipled friends that 'ud go any length ...
— Westerfelt • Will N. Harben
... a moment, will you, Arthur?' said I, 'and listen to me—and don't think I'm in a jealous fury: I am perfectly calm. Feel my hand.' And I gravely extended it towards him—but closed it upon his with an energy that seemed to disprove the assertion, and made him smile. 'You needn't smile, sir,' said I, still tightening my grasp, and looking steadfastly on him till he almost quailed before me. 'You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... Wesleyan missionary, and ourselves. All advocated the doctrine of total abstinence. The first speaker, a planter, concluded by saying, that it was commonly believed that wine and malt were rendered absolutely indispensable in the West Indies, by the exhausting nature of the climate. But facts disprove the truth of this notion. "I am happy to say that I can now present this large assembly with ocular demonstration of the fallacy of the popular opinion. I need only point you to the worthy occupants of this platform. Who are the healthiest among them? The cold water drinkers—the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... difficult, and usually impossible, logically or unequivocally to prove a negative. If my adversary chose to imagine that nature is presided over by a demon with horns and hoofs, or by a dragon with claws and tail, I should be as unable to disprove this his supposed theory as I am now unable to disprove his actual theory. But in all cases reasonable men ought to be guided in their beliefs by such positive evidence as is available; and if, as in the present case, ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... not how you can disprove my argument on the immortality of the soul, which, being contained in the best of my dialogues, and being often asked for among my friends, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... that morning was clear enough, and there was a pleasant autumnal breeze. But the Florentines just then thought very little about the land breezes: they were thinking of the gales at sea, which seemed to be uniting with all other powers to disprove the Frate's declaration that Heaven took ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... he saw that, all along, he had thought she would be able to disprove it! A smothering blackness closed in on him, and he had a physical struggle for breath. Then he forced himself to his feet and ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... of the Creator,—The Testimony of the Rocks. Regarding geological facts as evidence for or against certain religious conclusions, it was scarcely possible for him to deal with geological facts impartially. His ruling aim was to disprove the Development Hypothesis, the assumed implications of which were repugnant to him; and in proportion to the strength of his feeling, was the one-sidedness of his reasoning. He admitted that "God might as certainly have originated the ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... mortified to find me a coward upon the water. I assured him he should cure me if he could convince me there was no reason for fear. He would not allow of any, but could not disprove it. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... that of double-edged instruments. If the Juggler were told that by flinging himself under the wheels of the Juggernaut, when the idol issues forth on a gaudy day, he would immediately be transported into Paradise, he might believe it, and nobody could disprove it. So the Brahmins may say what they please on that subject, may build up dogmas and mysteries without end, and not be detected; but their ingenious countryman cannot persuade the frequenters of the Olympic Theatre that he performs ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... lying rumors that do go against my honor and my fealty. God knoweth they be shameful slanders, sir; for the which, besides the desire I have to see the King's Majesty, I pray you let me also be brought straight before the court that I may disprove ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... the anomalies above mentioned are so great as to disprove the existence of any scale which should indicate descent; but the nearer we approach species, the smaller we see differences become, till with species itself we find them ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... at least to some of us, is a sufficient demonstration. I believe that inability to imagine a thing is not a reason for its non-existence. If the infinite is a conclusion which is forced upon me, the fact that I cannot picture it does not disprove it. I believe, also, in thought and the soul, and it is nothing to me that I cannot explain them by attributes belonging to body. That being so, the difficulties which arise from the perpetual and unconscious confusion ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... own being. I repeat, poet as your WERE, and poet as you will be again when the clouds on your mind are cleared,— you present the strange, but not uncommon spectacle of an Immortal Spirit fighting to disprove its own Immortality. In a word, you will ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... day-room, as Stanning had expected. He knew his men. He was perfectly aware that any story which centred round Sheen's cowardice would be believed by them, so he had not troubled to invent a lie which it would be difficult to disprove. He knew that in the present state of feeling in the house Sheen would not be given ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... know what her conception of 'niceness' may be; it didn't fit mine. She had got it into her head that I 'pitied' her, which seemed to be a crime. I didn't see how to disprove it, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... prove what you and I and many thousands of others have considered sufficiently proved from ancient prophesy with which our heavenly Father has favoured so many ages and nations and languages. And furthermore, permit me to tell you, that if you are disposed to doubt and to disprove what you acknowledge to be of such vast importance, it is your province to bring forward your strong reasoning, if such you have, by which the prophesies of the old testament, those delivered by Christ and his apostles shall be made to appear either to have no just analogy ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... "Wall them out first, and disprove them afterward; I shall be better able to believe they don't exist when ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... all who saw them will remember the extremely clever and effective pictures in crewels by an accomplished American lady, Mrs. Oliver Wendell Holmes, exhibited in London a few years ago. These exceptional cases do not, however, disprove the objections against employing the most unfit and unmanageable materials for producing subjects alien to ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... new departure began: a Committee was appointed to collect "facts concerning the working of the Poor Law," with special reference to alleged official attempts to disprove "great distress amongst the workers." It does not appear that the Report was ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... have thus clearly established the proof of the intimate association of Aphrodite with certain cephalopods, they are wholly unjustified in the assumption that their quotations from relatively modern authors disprove the reality of the equally close (though more ancient) relationship of the goddess to the cowry, the pearl-shell, the trumpet-shell, and ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... I made a statement to M. Hamard of the Surete in Paris, and they have already made a discovery which you will find of interest and somewhat difficult to disprove." ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... whose fame is supposed to have spread far and wide, and whose fame most certainly must so have spread had he really performed all the wonderful works attributed to him. But no necessity lies upon the Freethinker, when he rejects Christianity, to disprove the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, although we point to the inadequacy of the evidence even of his existence. The strength of the Freethought position is in no-wise injured by the admission that a young Jew named Joshua (i.e. Jesus) may have wandered up and down Galilee and ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the extent I indicate." You furnish a statement of a certain Captain Young, who was captured at Fort Pillow, and is now a prisoner in your hands. How far the statement of a prisoner under duress and in the position of Captain Young should go to disprove the sworn testimony of the hundred eye-witnesses who had ample opportunity of seeing and knowing, I am willing that others ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... dogmatic—that exponents of materialism hold to be logically unassailable. To disprove it may not be an easy task at present; but I am, nevertheless, convinced there is a world apart from matter—a superphysical plane with which part of us, at least, is in some way connected, and I discredit the materialist's dogma, partly because ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... by floods. I am picking up the fragments and trying to rebuild it. For a long time my life has been nothing but a series of emotions. What Honest Abe may be able to prove I know not, but I am sure that he can not disprove the fact that Mr. Davis has been kind and generous to me. For that I can not ever cease to be grateful. I should have married him before now but for one singular circumstance. My little boy can not be made to like him. He will ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... We need say nothing of those, I think. If a man disprove his godship out of his own mouth, we shall not be convinced by a coin in a fish's mouth or by his raising Lazarus, four days dead. So long as he says, "I will confess him that confesseth me and deny him that denieth me," we should know him for one of us, though ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... prove or disprove your words, Sir Count," said the duke, removing his mail shirt and throwing it to the floor. Then he turned to Max and offered him the hilt of his dagger: "If you would purchase my death at the cost of your life, here is my ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... leave this out of sight for an instant—namely, that no amount of resemblance between words in different languages is of itself sufficient to prove that they are akin, even as no amount of apparent unlikeness in sound or present form is sufficient to disprove consanguinity. 'Judge not according to appearances,' must everywhere here be the rule. One who in many regions of human knowledge anticipated the discoveries of later times, said well a century and a half ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... disprove it by direct evidence. You may show it to be unlikely, but you cannot prove it impossible. Indirectly we can go a little further. There were several features about these burglaries to make them remarkable. The right house was chosen, the thieves were ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... Omega of style. He who has nothing to assert has no style and can have none: he who has something to assert will go as far in power of style as its momentousness and his conviction will carry him. Disprove his assertion after it is made, yet its style remains. Darwin has no more destroyed the style of Job nor of Handel than Martin Luther destroyed the style of Giotto. All the assertions get disproved sooner or later; and so we find the world ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... have been ridiculed, because experience has proved that families seldom reside comfortably in crowded quarters. The tribes of which we are writing, while they destroy the originality of the communistic ideas of the Nineteenth Century, also disprove the arguments which are principally brought against them. In these singular houses or colonies, several families live together in perfect harmony. There are no instances on record of disputes such as are met with in boarding-houses patronized by white people, and in this one ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... the sauce to send for me and to describe me as a ringleader in all your abominations. I represented to him that he was a liar, and had been known to be from his birth, and that he probably cheated at Bridge; and he told me to jolly well disprove his accusation by fetching you along. I explained they were making beasts of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... compromise. He had put his hand to the plow and would not look back. He had appealed to the law—"the Bureau" and only "the Bureau" should decide it. So Colonel Desmit and his lawyer asked a few hours' delay and prepared themselves to resist and disprove the charge of assault upon Nimbus. The lawyer once proposed to examine the papers in the case, but Desmit said that was useless—the boy was no liar, though they must make him out one if they could. So, at the time appointed, with his lawyer and train of witnesses, he went before ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... Croza politely, "was Mr. Beechtree's suggestion—only, of course, a suggestion, based on various facts which had come to his knowledge. You can, doubtless, disprove these facts, sir, or account for them in some other way. No one will be more delighted than the ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... evidence, or bad character of witnesses, without meeting the case. Do they mean to deny the conspiracy? Do they mean to deny that the two Crowninshields and the two Knapps were conspirators? Why do they rail against Palmer, while they do not disprove, and hardly dispute, the truth of any one fact sworn to by him? Instead of this, it is made matter of sentimentality that Palmer has been prevailed upon to betray his bosom companions and to violate the sanctity of friendship. Again I ask, Why do they not meet the case? ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... the council table of the renowned conqueror, Matthias Corvinus of Hungary—nay, in the cabinet of the Emperor himself—to reiterate assurances of that which I have advanced as true. If you will not believe me, I can but refer to the course of events. A day or two days' patience will prove or disprove what I have averred concerning the young Scot, and I will be contented to die on the wheel, and have my limbs broken joint by joint, if your Majesty have not advantage, and that in a most important degree, from the dauntless ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... down an empty glass," but all this in twilight moods when a dimness as of dying rests upon the soul. There are a few with whom it is always morning, and others who remember something of the radiance of the young day even in the heart of midnight. These disprove the postulates of sameness and satiety, these are not smitten by the seen fact as are you of the microscopic retina, these "see life steadily ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... development. He exhibited that supreme disregard for dress and the various social amenities which not infrequently betray the superior mind. Never were his clothes known to fit, being invariably too large or too small, too short or too long. As to his hair, the external evidences were of a character to disprove the rumor that he had a brush and comb, while the stubby beard frequently remained undisturbed upon the judicial chin for several weeks at a time. The atrocious story is even told that once upon a time, when half shaven, he chanced to pick ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... reading some miserable cant about Southern humanity, for there are people everywhere who take the wrong side of every subject, from sheer obstinacy. What can disprove the laws of human nature? They require that things should be at the South as ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... his legislative record without stain, who, posing as the champion of our canals, nevertheless lends himself, through connivance at fraudulent contracts and the appointment of needless officials, to the squandering of the moneys set apart for their use. We invite you to disprove your complicity in the wasting of ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... Cheap Postage—the Postage Bill now before Congress—the Moral and Social Benefits of Cheap Postage. This pamphlet has been wholly written since the vote of the Publishing Committee, which must be my apology for some repetitions. The main arguments cannot be overthrown, until men disprove arithmetic. ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... in the impeachment of Laud. There is nothing, we believe, but the general statement of Clarendon that his friend regarded with horror the storm gathering against the archbishop, which the words of Falkland himself, just quoted, seem sufficient to disprove. Mr. Arnold tells us that "Falkland disliked Laud; he had a natural antipathy to his heat, fussiness, and arbitrary temper." He had an antipathy to a good deal more in Laud than this, and expressed his dislike in language which showed that he was himself not deficient in heat when his ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... in Darwin, Spencer or Haeckel. She quoted Moses, Jesus and Paul to disprove the evolutionists, sat back and smiled content, innocently unaware that citations from Scriptures are in no sense proof to free minds. All of the Bible she wished to waive, she did. The cruelty and bestiality of Jehovah were nothing to her. Her "Key" ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... half serious and his changed manner hushed the laughter of the others. "I have always ridiculed the idea of hypnotism and in every experiment where I have been present I have set myself to disprove its effects. But candidly, folks, I was hypnotized. Unconsciously I followed that parade a whole dozen blocks myself, and when I finally came out of the trance, or whatever it was, and started back to the hotel, the entire atmosphere seemed filled with some kind of ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his sword into a ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr. Cobden and the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence they chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without being embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... cannot take any man's word for such a statement," answered the Captain. "If it were known, I should have all the pressed men coming to me with long yarns, which it might be difficult to disprove." ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... exception of Weyer, appear to have had little or no first-hand evidence; their only weapon was an appeal to common sense and sentiment combined; their only method was a flat denial of every statement which appeared to point to supernatural powers. They could not disprove the statements; they could not explain them without opposing the accepted religious beliefs of their time, and so weakening their cause by exposing themselves to the serious charge of atheism; therefore they denied evidence ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... you a translation of a paper which is said to have been found in the shaft above, where the bandits have made their rendezvous. How it came into my possession, matters not. I believe there are now enough of us here to prove or disprove its truthfulness, unless some one has been ...
— The Broncho Rider Boys with Funston at Vera Cruz - Or, Upholding the Honor of the Stars and Stripes • Frank Fowler
... commended to the whole of a Christian church[68]; or wherein the want of it[69], or wherein its not being the chief and ruling affection, is charged on persons professing themselves Christians, as being sufficient to disprove their claim to that appellation, or as being equivalent to denying it[70]. Let not therefore any deceive themselves by imagining, that only an absolute unqualified renunciation of the desire of the favour of God is here condemned. God will not accept of a divided affection; a single ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... out of their own bounds, and do not put the question to the people of the United States, whose peace, welfare and happiness are all at stake, so long I will agree to leave them to themselves. But when a member from a free State brings forward certain resolutions, for which, instead of reasoning to disprove his positions, you vote a censure upon him, and that without hearing, it is quite another affair. At the time this was done, I said that, as far as I could understand the resolutions proposed by the gentleman from ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... certain noted institution at South Boston, ventured to express the sentiment, that man is a rational being. An old woman who was an attendant in the Idiot School contradicted the statement, and appealed to the facts before the speaker to disprove it. The rash man stuck to ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... antislavery leader of Maryland, believed also that Negroes are no worse than white people under similar conditions, and that all the colored people needed to disprove their so-called inferiority was an equal chance with the more favored race.[1] Others like George Buchanan referred to the Negroes' talent for the fine arts and to their achievements in literature, mathematics, ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... paper of reasons, framed against y^t clause in y^e conditions, which as y^ey were delivered me open, so my answer is open to you all. And first, as they are no other but inconveniences, such as a man might frame 20. as great on y^e other side, and yet prove nor disprove nothing by them, so they misse & mistake both y^e very ground of y^e article and nature of y^e project. For, first, it is said, that if ther had been no divission of houses & lands, it had been better ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... 1898. It may be added that, probably, both the extent and the significance of the feminine traits in Whitman have been overestimated by some writers. Most artists and men of genius have some feminine traits; they do not prove the existence of inversion, nor does their absence disprove it. Dr. Clark Bell writes to me in reference to the little book by Dr. Rivers: "I knew Walt Whitman personally. To me Mr. Whitman was one of the most robust and virile of men, extraordinarily so. He was from my standpoint not feminine at ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... could be seen from the Kyak coal-fields, and on still days their cannonading could be heard far out at sea, there were few who had ventured to cross the forty-mile morass which lay below them and thus attempt to verify or to disprove the rumors, ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach |
