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More "Premise" Quotes from Famous Books



... good, and the Saxon term for God is also good. From this premise comes the logical conclusion that God is naturally and divinely [30] infinite good. How, then, can this conclusion change, or be changed, to mean that good is evil, ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... Madison issued a proclamation authorizing Governor Claiborne to take possession of West Florida and to govern it as part of the Orleans Territory. He justified his action, which had no precedent in American diplomacy, by reasoning which was valid only if his fundamental premise was accepted. West Florida, he repeated, as a part of the Louisiana purchase belonged to the United States; but without abandoning its claim, the United States had hitherto suffered Spain to continue in possession, looking forward to a satisfactory adjustment by friendly negotiation. ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... apprehend in the way of aggression or oppressive measures from the side of their more peaceable neighbours; whereupon their warlike animus will give place to a reasonable and enlightened frame of mind. This argument runs tacitly or explicitly, on the premise that these peoples who have so enthusiastically lent themselves to the current warlike enterprise are fundamentally of the same racial complexion and endowed with the same human nature as their peaceable neighbours, who ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... live in the country, are like heaven— objects of universal desire and very general neglect. Indeed, in a land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult to account for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are civilized and intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior race to devour .with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust to luck for another. People who would turn away from a dish of "Monarch" strawberries, ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... contrary, that the ludicrous is a simple feeling, and therefore indefinable, a statement in which the premise seems more correct than the conclusion. The opinion that it is simple and primary, although not admitting of proof, has some probability in its favour. It arose from a conviction that we had no means of reaching it, of taking it to pieces, and was derived from the unsatisfactory character ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... beginning, and not the culminating state of societies and peoples. All efforts on this line fail, because they are based upon the false and impossible premise of the absolute equality of all men. There never has been, there never can be any such adjustment of the forces of nature on this planet; because no two souls are alike and there can only be equality ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... such facts as they may find, but a well-defined issue of law, to be determined by the court, whether certain acts set forth upon the record are a ground of liability. It is possible that the judges may have dealt pretty strictly with defendants, and it is quite easy to pass from the premise that defendants have been held trespassers for a variety of acts, without mention of neglect, to the conclusion that any act by which another was damaged will make the actor chargeable. But a more exact scrutiny of the early books will show that liability in general, then ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon the data given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; this bird is black; therefore this bird is a crow." The defect of the syllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the major premise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without sufficient examination of the major premise of ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... to premise, for the sake of such as may apprehend Hurt to the Morals of Youth from the more freely-written Letters, That the Gentlemen, tho' professed Libertines as to the Fair Sex, and making it one of their ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... and quarrels in which Theodore Roosevelt was now and again involved were largely temperamental. His mind was of that order which is prone to believe what it wants to believe. He did not take much time to think. He leaped at conclusions, and from his premise his conclusion was usually sound. His tastes were domestic, his pastime, when not at his books, ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... First, let me premise that I entirely agree with him in his opening paragraph as to selecting, when practicable, a bird as little damaged as possible; but I need not remind professionals, or amateurs of some practice, how seldom these conditions exist, especially in ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... in the strictest sense, as not merely distinguished, but as contra-distinguished, from a fanatic. While I in part translate the following observations from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed the substance from memoranda of my own, which were written many years before his pamphlet was given to the world; and that I prefer another's words to my own, partly as a tribute due to priority of publication; but still more from the pleasure of ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... developments of political economy have private property as their major premise. This fundamental assumption is regarded by it as an unassailable fact, which needs no demonstration, and about which it only chances to speak casually, as ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... it moved through the folds of a tiny lace object which might, had it been developed, have proved to be a cap. To call so filmy and nebulous a thing a garment of any kind was perhaps absurd; but if this premise was once granted, it would have been correct to say that Mrs. Maitland clung to caps. Certainly no article could have better suited her, and in her single person she had done almost as much as all the rest of Boston to revivify ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... her course by stating the premise that a blockade was an allowable expedient in war—which the United States did not question—and upon that premise reared a structure of argument which emphasized the wide gap between British and American interpretations of international law. A blockade being allowable, Great Britain held ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... of the firm next door says that the man who lives here is an odd sort of person whom nobody knows; a bookworm, I think they call him. He has occupied the house six months, yet they have never seen any one about the premise but himself and a strange old servant as peculiar and uncommunicative as ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... that definitions, as such, are the premises in any of our reasonings, except such as relate to words only. If this supposition were true, we might argue correctly from true premises, and arrive at a false conclusion. We should only have to assume as a premise the definition of a nonentity; or rather of a name which has no entity corresponding to it. Let this, for ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... retribution might await him in the land of spirits, it is not for mortals to premise; but in this at least did he speak truth that night—conscience and crime may kindle in the human heart a Hell, which nothing can extinguish, so long as the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... more often happens that the correction of one premise, and the knowledge of chance events which have arisen, are not sufficient to overthrow our plans completely, but only suffice to produce hesitation. Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, has only increased. The reason of this is, that ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... statecraft, by which a people might {590} arrive at supreme dominion, Machiavelli's great merit is that he looked afresh at the facts and discarded the old, worn formulas of the schoolmen; his great defect is that he set before his mind as a premise an abstract "political man" as far divorced from living, breathing, complex reality as the "economic man" of Ricardo. Men, he thought, are always the same, governed by calculable motives of self-interest. In general, he thought, men are ungrateful, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... puffery and quackery have reached a height unexampled in the annals of mankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must write on their door-lintels No cheating here,—we thought it good to premise. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... share in the government of the country, that they are still disloyal in sentiment and purpose, and that neither the honor, the credit, nor the interest of the Nation would be safe if they were re-admitted to a share in its counsels." Mr. Raymond maintained, even if the truth of this premise were granted, that it was sufficient to reply that "we have no right, for such reasons, to deny to any portion of the States or people rights expressly conferred upon them by the Constitution of the United States, and we have no right to distrust the purpose ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... rills and springs, oozing from the black turf and streaking its sombre surface with stripes of green, we found ourselves on the table-land of the moor—a broad, bare level, garnished with a few black huts, and patches of scanty oats, won by patient industry from the waste. We should premise, however, that there are some fine glimpses of rude mountain scenery in the course of the ascent. The immediate vicinage of Culloden House is well wooded; the Frith spreads finely in front; the Ross-shire hills assume a ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to her—his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded? Perhaps. Perhaps, if the dishonour had been done ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... in general, as well as the rich of both sexes, have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise, that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by every ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... I base on premise. Ford has been located in Chicago, where, with an ample supply of money, he is repeating his New York operations; but Harold Melville has never been heard of until this day. I think the true explanation is easily ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... the Squire's attention to it. "Look here, Squire, et our dog Letin again; F. perheps Foster alias H, Herding, informer, under my power (that's through some crime entered in this book), premises to show the way to Rawdon's. This premise was made last Tuesday, at Derham, ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, {120} Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... surpassing paint. He was as honest as the day—as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with satirical ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... judgment and discretion. But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we weep over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is preceded by a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which, the materials thereof were collected. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... and Capt. Norton and his Crew demand one half for Salvage according to the Stat. In that Case (as they say) provided, and if they are Entitled to the Same is the Sole Question. In determining of which I shall Premise ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various

... immortal life: the conviction that creation is under divine love and wisdom, administered by Cosmic Law and order, or Justice, and the final "redemption" (i.e., evolution), of all men. In his "Conjugal Love," Swedenborg touches upon the premise which we declare, as the foundation of all cosmic consciousness, namely the attainment of spiritual union with the "mate" which we believe to be inseparable from all creation; the reunited principle which we see expressed in the male and female, whether in ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... were enjoying the comforts of sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... sketch, "The Maker of Lenses," makes this single love-episode in the life of Spinoza the controlling impulse of his life, probably reasoning on the premise that men who mark epochs are ever and always, without exception, those with the love nature strongly implanted in their hearts. So thoroughly does Zangwill believe in the one passion of Spinoza's life, that a score of years after the chief incident ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... necessary to premise this, because many are of opinion that superstition is a corruption of religion; and though they would agree that as such, "corruptio optimi pessima," yet they would look on religion as the state of spiritual health, and superstition as one of ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley

... for the stainless record of the past, there went on in his mind a continual reasoning upon the probable course of the next year's operations. In his forecasts it is singular to notice how, starting from the accurate premise that it is necessary for the French to get into the plains of Italy,—"the gold mine,"—he is continually misled by his old prepossession in favor of landing in rear of the enemy a body of troops, supported neither by sure communication with their main army, nor by a position in ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... institutions, have their birth and growth and inevitable decay. So Catholicism must take its course in the human circuit, and expect sooner or later to pass away. This would be the natural deduction to draw from the premise of evolution. Signor Fogazzaro, however, does not draw it. He conceives that Catholicism contains a final deposit of truth which can neither be ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... contended that certain general ideas are innate, but few would be found nowadays to accept such a contention. At other times mere definitions of terms may serve as premises. One might state as a premise the definition "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points," and the further statement that "AB is a straight line between A and B," and conclude that the line AB represents the shortest distance between two points A and B. In a manner similar to this Euclid ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... producing them for the troops. But when he tried to give this programme the name of Socialism, then the trouble began. Weren't Socialists the lunatics who wanted to have America "lay down" like Russia? The premise from which all discussion started with these men was that America was going to win the war; if you tried to hint that this matter could so much as be hesitated over, you met, first sharp mockery, and then angry looks, and advice to ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... conditions. It is necessary to recognize worth as well as to condemn graft. No system of government can stand that lacks public confidence and no progress can be made on the assumption of a false premise. Public administration is honest and sound and public business is transacted on a higher ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... use of tobacco involves a train of evils, superadded to its influence in perpetuating drunkenness, which cries aloud for immediate and universal reformation. It is my present purpose to consider these evils. And I wish to premise that, in this consideration, I shall urge; that it is the duty of every friend of humanity—of every lover of his country—of every Christian—and of every minister of Christ, to abstain, himself, immediately, ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... to scrutinise more deeply, the doctrine of imported contagions; to point out, if I can, those true contagions which can be warded off by our own exertions, in contradistinction to others which are altogether beyond our controul; and here it may be as well to premise, that when I use the term epidemic, I mean atmospheric influence, endemic-terrestrial influence, or emanation from the soil; and by pestilential, I mean the spread of malignant disease without any reference to its source. The terms contagion and ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... these positions from the premise given? "Communism," says Roscher, [Political Economy, bk. i., ch. v., 78.]—is the logically not inconsistent exaggeration of the principle of equality. Men who hear themselves designated as the sovereign people, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... crime has been committed the magistrate who investigates the case knows [excepting in the case of a released convict who commits murder in jail] that there are not more than five persons to whom he can attribute the act. He starts from this premise a series of conjectures. The husband should reason like the judge; there are only three people in society whom he can suspect when seeking the lover of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... parents, my child, not me! Or rather, blame mother Nature herself, for giving us but seventy or eighty years instead of making us as long-lived as Tithonus. For my part, I have but led you from premise ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... arrived she turned me out of the room, on which I went downstairs. I should premise that at breakfast the news that our brilliant friend was doing well excited universal complacency, and the Princess graciously remarked that he was only to be commiserated for missing the society of Miss Collop. Mrs. Wimbush, whose social ...
— The Death of the Lion • Henry James

... answer to these questions also is easy: I will premise that it is almost certain that there once were more various readings than those now recorded. (119) For instance, one finds many in the Talmud which the Massoretes have neglected, and are so different one from the other ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza

... for your interesting and kind letter in which you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the pedigree of your island goblin, le feu follet Belenger; that opinion I cheerfully give with a premise that it is only an opinion; in hunting for the etymons of these fairy names we can scarcely expect to ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... mode adopted when we wish to take one of the hippopotami from the herd, I should first premise that these beasts have the sense of hearing, acute to the highest degree, and could note even the fall of a pin. As, therefore, it is useless to try to approach them by stealth, ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... the subjective has risen into superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable from any one external principle assumed as a premise by the ancient philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation: but to us they all have a value and meaning; being connected by the bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity which is ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... is to the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in any particular ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... doctrine of complete anarchism has seemed too extreme for practical consideration, but it would seem that Tolstoy arrived at the logical conclusion of a system of non-resistance based on the premise that man should not combat evil, nor have any relationship whatever with human institutions which attempt to restrain men by means other than reliance upon the ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... to tell you all about these eight kingdoms, or at least the greater part of them. But let me premise one marvellous thing, and that is the fact that this Island lies so far to the south that the North Star, little or much, is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... say a few words respecting my nature and my temperament, I premise that the most indulgent of my readers is not likely to be the most dishonest or ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... group could be viewed as a starting point, whose initial operating premise could be helping to move in this direction and defining how LC could do so, for example, in areas of standardization or ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly

... I must premise that most of our previous definite information regarding the inhabitants of New Guinea applies only to a small portion of the north-west coast of that great island in the neighbourhood of Port Dorey, which is known to be peopled by several distinct varieties of mankind, of ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... that all this is contrary to the premises of the economic and social polity that controls modern statecraft. I know that our great nations, notably Germany, are based on exactly the opposite premise—that the strength of a state depends on the economic development of its people, on its wealth-producing power. Germany has been the most convinced, the most conscious, the most relentless exponent of the pernicious belief that the ultimate welfare of the state depends primarily on the wealth-getting ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... genius, a creator of some kind?' The other day under the influence of memory, I read through his one book, a life of Owen Roe O'Neill, and found there no sentence detachable from its context because of wisdom or beauty. Everything was argued from a premise; and wisdom, and style, whether in life or letters come from the presence of what is self-evident, from that which requires but statement, from what Blake called 'naked beauty displayed.' The sense of what was unforeseen and obvious, the rolling backward ...
— Synge And The Ireland Of His Time • William Butler Yeats

... virtues. The code of masters exalts liberty—for the ruling class—and resents any restraint by inferiors or civilians, or by public opinion of any group but its own. It has a justice which takes for its premise a graded social order, and seeks to put and keep every man in his place. But its supreme value is power, likewise for the few, or for the state as consisting of society organized and directed by the ruling class. Such a group, according ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... delighted at obtaining a sort of magic touchstone by which they are saved the labour of investigation. But there is no such thing as a single fact that 'affords evidence requiring no corroboration.' As well might one expect to make a syllogism with a single premise." "I suppose they would hardly go so far ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... not absolutely determine the order of organic creation; as in the case of the syllogism the conclusion or either premise may be the proposition first enunciated, the order of expression ...
— The Philosophy of Evolution - and The Metaphysical Basis of Science • Stephen H. Carpenter

... knows something of the nature of Camber's studies his remarks sufficiently indicate," added Harley. "The whole theory to account for these attacks upon his life rests on the premise that agents of these Obeah people are established in England and America. Then, in spite of my direct questions, he leaves me to find out for myself that Colin Camber's property ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer

... see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, "at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and what is not": the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin, the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together, much as he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called his "dear ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... corroborative evidence from men of all ranks and professions, on the effect of the Improved Land System on the working classes, and I will here faithfully record as briefly as possible the result of my enquiries. I must premise a few words as to the principles of the system which is ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... but, lest this fact should seem too low and common, it is presented to us in the following striking and metaphysical manner: "He marvelled—as a man will think for others in a necessarily separate personality, consequently (though disallowing it) in false mental premise—how differently he should act, how gladly he should prize the rest so lightly held of within." A footman—an ordinary Jeames, with large calves and aspirated vowels—answers the door-bell, and the opportunity is seized to tell you that he was a "type of the large class of pampered menials, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... single reason for it; all the proof presented here is a night meeting. Please see the quotation from the British Quarterly Review. But let us look at it the way in which we compute time: I think it will be fair to premise, that about midnight was the middle of Paul's meeting; at any rate there is but one midnight to a twenty-four hour day. We say that Sunday, the first day of the week, does not commence until 12 o'clock Saturday night. Then it is very clear, if he is preaching on the first day till midnight, ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates

... aside, and, by the twinkle of his eyes, one might premise that the honest little lawyer ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... of mind are worth such trouble. Let us leave it; there it was. It was impossible to say which of us would miss Varvilliers more. He had become necessary to both of us. The conclusion drawn by the way of this world is, of course, at once obvious; it followed pat from the premise. We must both of us be deprived of him as soon as possible. I am not concerned to argue that the world is wrong; and the very best way to advance a paradox is to look as though you were uttering a platitude. In this art the wittiest writer cuts a poor figure beside the laws ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... I only premise that I have left the facts of the history unaltered, even in the names; and that I believe them to be, in every ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... repudiating the use of his name and deprecating the resort to violence. The closing words are a compendium of his life and beliefs: "Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic virtues, without which ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... at that time a sufficient amount of experience from which to generalize with effect. It is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant secure reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without sufficient certainty of the major premise of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... of the circumference to the diameter is the same in all circles. Now, take a diameter of 1 and draw round it a circumference of 3 1/5. In that circle the ratio is 3 1/5; therefore, by the major premise, that is ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... generalities. Any good soil will grow Broccoli, but it is a strong-land plant, and a well-tilled clay should yield first-class crops. But there are so many kinds coming into use at various seasons, that the cultivation may be regarded as a somewhat complex subject. We will therefore premise that the best must be made of the soil at command, whatever it may be. The Cornish growers owe their success in great part to their climate, which carries their crops through the winter unhurt; but they grow Broccoli only on rich soil, and keep it in good heart by means ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... the adventures which he met with, it is necessary to premise that no person can travel among the different states and kingdoms on the continent of Europe without what is called a passport. The idea which prevails among all the governments of the continent is, that the people of each country are the subjects of the sovereign reigning there, and in some sense ...
— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... in which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one company ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... would never be able to see or be seen in the world again as the same creature. Even to Kerr—even to him to whom she would have yielded she would have become a different thing. She realized now she had staked everything on the premise that she wouldn't have to yield; and now it began to appear to her that she would. His weakness was appearing now as a terrible strength, a strength that seemed on the point of crushing her, but it could never convince her. That strength of his had brought her here. Was ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however, premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking at once, and to the manner born. Could ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... is usually made to begin with the story of AEneas. In order that the reader may understand in what light that romantic tale is to be regarded, it is necessary to premise some statements in respect to the general condition of society in ancient days, and to the nature of the strange narrations, circulated in those early periods among mankind, out of which in later ages, when the art of writing came to be introduced, learned men compiled and ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... are some of the most remarkable questions; but I must premise that K. means my Knave, namely, the rabbi, and C. the Candidates. [Footnote: Lest my reader might think that what follows is a malicious invention of my own to bring the Jews into disrepute, I shall add the precise page of the Talmud from which each question is taken (from Eisenmenger's "Judaism ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... curtain that's before us, before your life and mine, why, I can't begin until something else has begun. It's not right, unless that other is right, that I've told you. We belong together in the one big way, first. That's the premise. That's the one great thing. What difference about the rest, ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... ingenious simile," said Anstice slowly. "But it's a false premise all the same. The diamond would naturally have no voice in the matter of its ownership. But the woman in the case might reasonably be expected to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... involved in it. Nine times out of ten there is but one side; yet men have often gone to the gallows because their fellow men failed in this particular—followed the line of least resistance and pursued the obvious and patent conclusions to an end only logical upon a false premise. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... to settle it in any other; similarly, missionaries are more valuable as underminers of old faiths than as propagators of new. Miracles are not impossible; nothing is impossible till we have got an incontrovertible first premise. The question is not "Are the Christian miracles possible?" but "Are they convenient? Do they fit comfortably with ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler

... rejoice in it, are determined to achieve it and control it. Nowhere is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with the burden of that endless ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... occurred on the 19th of February, 1852. It was exceedingly brilliant throughout the northern portion of our continent. I extract the following account of its effects upon the wires from my journal of that date. I should premise, that the system of telegraphing used upon the wires, during the observation of February, 1852, was Bain's chemical. No batteries were kept constantly upon the line, as in the Morse and other magnetic systems. The main wire was connected directly with the chemically prepared paper on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... So working on that premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building an engine of menacing power and outlawry, it is probable ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... granting the premise of the Supreme-Court decision that "the Constitution of the United States does not confer suffrage on any one"; our national life does not date from that instrument. The constitution is not the original ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... I could get it to agree with me if I could so effectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be allowed to convert the turtles—I mean I had no money in my ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... a belief in the ultimate good even to Mrs. Bishop of throwing that lady more on her own resources; and so forth and so on down a list of arguments obvious enough or trivial enough, but all inspired by the soul of fervour, all ennobled by the spirit of truth that lies back of the major premise that a woman should cleave to a man, forsaking all others. Orde sat back in his chair, his eyes vacant, his pen all but falling from his hand. He did not finish the letter to his mother. After a while he went upstairs to ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... facilities for such an attempt arrived. On that day I began my experiment, having previously settled in my own mind that I would not flinch, but would "stand up to the scratch" under any possible "punishment." I must premise that about one hundred and seventy or one hundred and eighty drops had been my ordinary allowance for many months. Occasionally I had run up as high as five hundred, and once nearly to seven hundred. In repeated preludes ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... make way, and otherwise approve yourself what I think you, I promise that you shall not lack advancement. Plainly, I have a little matter of money put by, for sundry uses; and, if the day comes when something of capital would stead you (after due trial, as I premise), it ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... Since we can't produce it, let us deduce it. Major premise: the seats are cheap. Minor premiss: the plays are good. Conclusion: A People's Theatre. How much will you give me for my syllogism? Not a slap ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence

... student—the student of the thirteenth century—struggling painfully against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of half-awakened taste and the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... of a highly interesting experiment, which resulted in the establishment of one of the very few instances in which the origination of a distinct variety of a domestic quadruped could be satisfactorily traced, with all the circumstances attending its development well authenticated. We must premise it by stating, that amongst the series of wools shewn in the French department of the Great Exhibition, were specimens characterised by the jury as a wool of singular and peculiar properties; the hair, glossy and silky, similar to mohair, retaining at the same time certain properties of the merino ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... claims of acting as an art that a young person without previous experience or training can make an immediate (and sometimes lasting) effect upon the stage, whereas in the preparation for any other art (even the interpretative arts) years of training are necessary. This premise is full of holes; nevertheless George Moore, and Messrs. Nathan and Sherwin all cling to it. It is true that almost any young girl, moderately gifted with charm or comeliness, may make an instantaneous impression on our stage, ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... are wrong," said Edith, gently but firmly. "Granting the premise you admitted a moment ago, that Christ was one of the purest and noblest of men, you surely, with your chivalric instincts, would say that such a ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... hear that I have talked with the brains and been relieved of my premise to destroy them. They requested something else. Now I have committed myself to attempt ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... his account exactly tallies with the one Miss Isabel Smith (now Mrs Finch) has kindly written out for me for insertion in this volume, I will quote the latter from her own words. I must premise that Miss Smith turned out to be naturally clairvoyant and clair-audient, rather to the disgust of my brother, who considered himself superior to these "superstitions." Her narrative is interesting not only in itself, but because it is an object ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... in a few insulated spots along the coasts of Ceylon; European explorers have been rare; and the natives, anxious only to secure the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected the less attractive ones of the land and the lakes. Hence Mr. Hanley finds it necessary to premise that the list appended, although the result of infinite labour and research, is less satisfactory than could have been wished. "It is offered," he says, "with diffidence, not pretending to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the island, but rather as a form, which the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... head. "I've tried to fit it together that way, too, but it just doesn't add up. The basic premise of the Ids is asceticism and there never was any strength in that idea. Marthasa is probably right in his estimate of the Ids. They have achieved an internal serenity but only through compensating their basic weakness with the crude strength of the Markovians and ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones

... Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world could go wrong and he would smile as sweetly as ever; but with the slightest trace of weariness in ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... it. The Singfos however say, that it will only thrive in the shade. We halted after gathering a crop of leaves under a fine Dillenia, which was loaded with its fruit. Here the Singfos demonstrated the mode in which the tea is prepared among them. I must premise, however, that they use none but young leaves. They roasted or rather semi-roasted the leaves in a large iron vessel, which must be quite clean, stirring them up and rolling them in the hands during the roasting. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... proceed to make some remarks upon Port Essington, ere the subject becomes a matter of history, as I fervently hope the abandonment of the place will render it ere many years have gone by;* but before doing so I may premise a brief account of the former British settlements on the ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... informed," she said, "is coming to us, with an address in the name of the league, demanding the abolition of the Inquisition and a mitigation of the edicts. The advice of my senate is to guide me in my answer to him; but before you give your opinions on this point permit me to premise a few words. I am told that there are many even amongst yourselves who load the religious edicts of the Emperor, my father, with open reproaches, and describe them to the people as inhuman and barbarous. Now I ask ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... her color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All his conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his entanglement with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise—that she loved him. The mere suspicion ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... step farther; in consequence of which the belief in Moliere's unapproachable excellence has become still more firmly riveted. As we have not space at present to go through all these separate productions, we shall premise a few observations on the general spirit of French Comedy before entering on the consideration of the writers whom we ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... sterility and innate improvidence of this people; and they do this for various reasons, none of them honorable, many of them really disreputable. In dealing with this negro problem they always start off upon a false premise; their conclusions must, necessarily, be false. In the first place, disregarding the fact that the negroes of the South are nothing more nor less than the laboring class of the people, the same in many particulars as the English ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... will be best unravell'd, When I premise that Tim has travell'd. In Lucas's by chance there lay The Fables writ by Mr. Gay. Tim set the volume on a table, Read over here and there a fable: And found, as he the pages twirl'd, The monkey who had seen the world; ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... growth was ended; it hardened into a creed, in which he rested in complete satisfaction. It was not that he did not desire more light; it was simply that he could not conceive that there might be more light. And granting his premise that the Bible was directly inspired by God, he was not illogical in holding with a pathetic and patient faith to the doctrines ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... boys the minister will appeal frankly to manly and heroic qualities. He will advance no dark premise of their natural estrangement from God, but will postulate for all a sonship which is at once a divine challenge to the best that is in them and the guaranty that the best is the normal and the God-intended life. They must qualify ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... speaking again, referred to the "convincing way Miss Travis had cleverly upset the arguments of the negative side, leaving him only one premise to fall back upon"—and Jerry had decided then, with something akin to worship, that he was the very nicest boy ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... The information I have obtained regarding the ceremony, although differing to some extent in detail from that recorded by the late U Jeebon Roy, agrees with the latter's account as regards the main facts. The information may now be set down as follows. By way of premise it may be stated that the bones and ashes of the deceased are kept after cremation in small stone cairns, or mawshieng. From these small cairns the bones and ashes are removed to larger bone repositories called mawphew, ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... premise that I have left the facts of the history unaltered, even in the names; and that I believe them to be, in every ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... Dalglish's merits as our Parliamentary representative it behoves us to say something, and we can safely premise with the affirmation that few men have a greater personal influence in the House of Commons. Those who cannot see a little behind the scenes may wonder at this apparently rash statement, and ask—What has Mr. Dalglish ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... singular words, may amuse some of your readers. I should, however, premise that as regards myself, the greater part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... science of statecraft, by which a people might {590} arrive at supreme dominion, Machiavelli's great merit is that he looked afresh at the facts and discarded the old, worn formulas of the schoolmen; his great defect is that he set before his mind as a premise an abstract "political man" as far divorced from living, breathing, complex reality as the "economic man" of Ricardo. Men, he thought, are always the same, governed by calculable motives of self-interest. In general, he thought, men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly and covetous, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... would gladly publish your observations, and it is a great pity they should be lost. If you like I would send your paper to either quarter with a note. In this case you must give a title, and your name, and perhaps it would be well to premise your remarks with a line of reference to my paper stating that you had ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... as we enter on the second century of this struggle, we begin to fear for the Christian Irish, not from the arms or the valour, but from the contact and example of the unbelievers. This, it is necessary to premise, before presenting to the reader a succession of Bishops who lead armies to battle, of Abbots whose voice is still for war, of treacherous tactics and savage punishments; of the almost total disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which, "though light ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... account of the absorption of the virus of the unsound meat into the systems of those who partake of it. The external indications of good and bad meat will be described under its own particular head, but we may here premise that the layer of all wholesome meat, when freshly killed, adheres ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... work on the well. The ultimate success of the plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... to truth; of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear! Who broke no premise, served no private end, Who gained no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approved, Praised, wept, and honoured ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... interpret, the law. The people could not tolerate such an institution, so laboured to destroy it and to usurp its functions. The crowd reasoned thus. "We can interpret and carry out laws, because we make them." The conclusion was right, but the minor premise was disputable. The retort can be made: "True, you can interpret and carry out laws because you make them, but perhaps you have no business to be making laws." Be that as it may, the Athenian people not only ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... know how these worms came in the jars, when, to all appearance, it was a physical impossibility. I would like to tell positively, but cannot. But I will guess, if you will allow it. I will first premise, that I do not suppose they are generated spontaneously! Their being found there, then, would indicate some agent or means ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... then, I must premise that the name of Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the house and estate which bear that name, are situated on what a visiter would be at first inclined to call a dead level, but ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... genuine politician ever treats his constituents as reasoning animals. This is as true of the high politics of Isaiah as it is of the ward boss. Only the pathetic amateur deludes himself into thinking that, if he presents the major and minor premise, the voter will automatically draw the conclusion on election day. The successful politician—good or bad—deals with the dynamics—with the will, the hopes, the needs and ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... would make use of Christ as the way to the Father in the point of justification, those things are requisite; to which we shall only premise this word of caution, That we judge not the want of these requisites a ground to exempt any, that heareth the gospel, from the obligation to believe and rest upon Christ as he is offered ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... going to tell you all about these eight kingdoms, or at least the greater part of them. But let me premise one marvellous thing, and that is the fact that this Island lies so far to the south that the North Star, little or much, is ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... to achieve it and control it. Nowhere is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with the burden ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... form or odor, any more than I can divorce music from the instrument. These vague and incomplete definitions have had much to do with the unbelief in the world. Tom Paine wrote a book which he called the 'Age of Reason' on the premise that reason does away with God. Isn't ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... come from outer space. These individuals, frightened perhaps by threats of atomic destruction, or lesser fears—who knows what—act as if nothing that men can do can save the earth. Instead, they seek salvation from outer space, on the forlorn premise that flying saucer men, by their very existence, are wiser and more advanced than we. Such people may reason that a race of men capable of interplanetary travel have lived well into, or through, an atomic age. They have survived and they can tell us their secret ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... may mean something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political or economical ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... simple—the logic of egoism. But the argument is simplified by lopping off the greater part of the premise. For these writers seem to hold that the only important question for the white men of South Africa is, how indefinitely to grow fat on ostrich feathers and diamond mines, and dance jazz dances over the misery and degradation of a whole race of fellow-beings ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... a different premise and saw a deeper thing. The world might exist for her enjoyment, but it eluded her understanding. And that was beginning ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... not the faculty of the finite. But here I must premise the following. The faculty of the finite is that which reduces the confused impressions of sense to their essential forms—quantity, quality, relation, and in these action and reaction, cause and effect, and the like; thus raises the materials furnished by the senses and sensations into ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... proceeded to review the contents of the fictitious folio, taking the precaution to premise his remarks and extracts with the statement that "it must not be surmised that all the poems in this Shadwell folio are purely local; quite a number treat of historical subjects." Of the poems in the first half of "The Shadwell Folio" I am able to give one of the most interesting ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... quest of all intellection has been for something—a fact, a basis, a generalization, law, formula, a major premise that is positive: that the best that has ever been done has been to say that some things are self-evident—whereas, by evidence we mean ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... protested; though I could not say it was "no matter," for it was a serious business. "Come with me into the dining-room and you'll see for yourself." There we went round the table, and "The table's full," he repeated from Macbeth. There was something truly original in the implied premise that his friend was entitled of right to have a place at his table, and that the sole dispensing cause to be allowed was absence of space or a physical impossibility. It seems to me that this was a very genuine, if ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... of faith in the old theology and the silent acceptance of new ideas by the church people of America, the rapid spread of infidelity and aggressive agnosticism, and the hold which Modern Spiritualism under various disguises now has upon the people, premise tremendous changes, and indicate a new era of spiritual thought—an era of better and sweeter life ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various

... general, as well as the rich of both sexes, have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise, that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... must premise Our ministers are good and wise: Therefore if tongues malicious fly, Or what care ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... say, That no Opinions whatever can be dangerous to a Man that impartially examines into the Truth of Things."[14] The church leadership saw in this statement and others like it not an epistemological premise but a deliberate subterfuge, an insidious blind to vindicate his attacks upon an organized priesthood. We can recognize now that his opponents oversimplified his intention, that they blackened it to make his villainy at once definitive and vulnerable. ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins

... state of the weather, our fathers, we may premise, carefully observed the winds, the clouds, the sky, and the seasons. If the wind blew from the west on New Year's night, it was considered lucky, and supposed to foretell a ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... however, I must premise that it is the historical method as frequently employed, and not the historical method as it ought to be, to which I offer my objections. My criticism is directed against the historical method, only when it assumes to be the exclusive means of attaining truth, follows the methods of physical science, ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... to the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in any particular doctrinal system, but would it not, to take the lowest ground, be both prudent ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... carefully his "Ramos," and sometimes glanced at "Ganot." With all that, he would often shake his head with an air of doubt, as he smiled and murmured: "transeat." In regard to chemistry, no common knowledge was attributed to him after he had taken as a premise the statement of St. Thomas that water is a mixture and proved plainly that the Angelic Doctor had long forestalled Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, Bunsen, and other more or less presumptuous materialists. Moreover, in spite of having been an instructor in geography, ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... the boat-race, there was to be a bazaar on the beach; and as fine weather was therefore an essential requisite on the occasion, it is scarcely necessary to premise that we had an unusually large quantity of rain. In the forenoon, however, the sun shone with treacherous brilliancy; and all the women in the neighbourhood fluttered out in his beams, gay as butterflies. What dazzling gowns, what flaring parasols, what joyous cavalcades ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... neighboring scenes, as De Quincey has shown in his famous essay. And just as in music the feeling of "rightness" ensues when the awaited note slips into place, so the feeling of "rightness" comes when the inevitable consequences follow the premise ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... the increase in England. We have before us, from the London press of TILT AND BOGUE, 'Sir WHYSTLETON MUGGES, a Metrical Romaunte, in three Fyttes,' with copious notes. A stanza or two will suffice as a specimen. The knightly hero, it needs only to premise, has been jilted by his fair 'ladye-love,' who retires to her boudoir, while the knight walks off ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... what we will do in a given case is not easy for a foreigner. It is not easy even for ourselves. We have few abstract principles, and reliable induction from our past is not easy. We are often guided by what Mr. Justice Wendell Holmes has called "the intuition more subtle than any particular major premise." Nor is help to be derived from any study of our general outlook on life, for that outlook is hard to formulate even ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... determined to try his fortunes in Canada, let him choose either the eastern townships, in Lower Canada, or almost any portions of Canada West. I premise that he must have a little money at command; and, if possible, that either he, or some member of his family, have an annual income of at least fifty pounds, and that the young are healthy, and ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... clause was seen as a direct challenge to colonial legislative rights; and Patrick Henry burst forth as the popular spokesman for Virginia rights, winning a seat in the 1765 election to the House of Burgesses. In 1763 few people were willing to accept his premise that the king had been guilty of "royal misrule". In a ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... distinguished genius capable of advancing the art a step farther; in consequence of which the belief in Moliere's unapproachable excellence has become still more firmly riveted. As we have not space at present to go through all these separate productions, we shall premise a few observations on the general spirit of French Comedy before entering on the consideration of the writers whom we ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... than military and sportsman virtues. The code of masters exalts liberty—for the ruling class—and resents any restraint by inferiors or civilians, or by public opinion of any group but its own. It has a justice which takes for its premise a graded social order, and seeks to put and keep every man in his place. But its supreme value is power, likewise for the few, or for the state as consisting of society organized and directed by the ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... the assembled group could be viewed as a starting point, whose initial operating premise could be helping to move in this direction and defining how LC could do so, for example, in areas of standardization or distribution ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly

... assurance in the "Federalist" to the contrary, that an individual might sue a State; and though this decision was speedily disallowed by resentful debtor States by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, its underlying premise that, "as to the purposes of the Union, the States are not sovereign" remained untouched; and three years later the Court affirmed the supremacy of national treaties over conflicting state laws and so established a precedent which has never been disturbed.** Meantime ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... reason why we should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... issue of law, to be determined by the court, whether certain acts set forth upon the record are a ground of liability. It is possible that the judges may have dealt pretty strictly with defendants, and it is quite easy to pass from the premise that defendants have been held trespassers for a variety of acts, without mention of neglect, to the conclusion that any act by which another was damaged will make the actor chargeable. But a more exact scrutiny of the early books will show that liability in general, then as later, was [103] ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... considerable material upon which to base a pretty fair argument along this line. Admitting that Don Pendleton was what she had been crying about,—a purely hypothetical assumption for the sake of a beginning,—she was able to start with the premise that a woman was a fool for crying about any man. Coming down to concrete facts, she found herself supplied with even less comforting excuses. If she had been living of late in a little fool's paradise, why, she had made it for herself. She could ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the preceding one about the high cost of eggs. The second line awakens interest and prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin. The next line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending "—you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a laugh. Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny," ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... the plea in abatement that the plaintiff (a Negro, Dred Scott) was not a citizen in the sense of the word in Article iii, Sec. 2 of the Constitution, was based upon an erroneous idea respecting the location of the word citizen in the instrument. The premise of the court was wrong, and hence the feebleness of the reasoning and the false conclusions. Article iii, Section 2 of the Constitution, extends judicial power to all cases, in law and equity, "between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State," ...
— 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

... sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, there was no ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... design, so vastly favoured by theologians, amounts to neither more nor less than ignorance of natural causes reduced to system. An argument to be sound must be soundly premised. But here is an argument whose primary premise is a false premise—a mere begging of the very question in dispute. Did Universalists admit the universe was contrived, designed, or adapted, they could not deny there must have been at least one Being to contrive, design, or adapt; but they see no analogy between a watch made with ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell

... this fact should seem too low and common, it is presented to us in the following striking and metaphysical manner: "He marvelled—as a man will think for others in a necessarily separate personality, consequently (though disallowing it) in false mental premise—how differently he should act, how gladly he should prize the rest so lightly held of within." A footman—an ordinary Jeames, with large calves and aspirated vowels—answers the door-bell, and the opportunity is ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... meanings of that phrase, or all the questions it involves. I propose to state briefly what I understand by 'Poetry for poetry's sake,' and then, after guarding against one or two misapprehensions of the formula, to consider more fully a single problem connected with it. And I must premise, without attempting to justify them, certain explanations. We are to consider poetry in its essence, and apart from the flaws which in most poems accompany their poetry. We are to include in the idea of poetry the metrical form, and not to regard this as a mere ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley

... River Mr. Wentzel had made great progress in the erection of our winter-house having nearly roofed it in. But before proceeding to give an account of a ten months' residence at this place, henceforth designated Fort Enterprise, I may premise that I shall omit many of the ordinary occurrences of a North American winter as they have been already detailed in so able and interesting a manner by Ellis* and confine myself principally to the circumstances ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... the thirteenth century—struggling painfully against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of half-awakened taste and the mannerisms ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... think that deep into complication. What I mean is that they cannot even question their own sanity in the first premise of postulated argument. But forget that, what I wanted to know is where you intend ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... a second glance on the man in question. He was wearing evening kit, and at first sight the brown-skinned face above the white of his collar, taken in conjunction with dark hair and very strongly-marked brows, seemed to premise the correctness of Tony's surmise. Suddenly the man lifted his bent head, and over the top of the newspaper Arm found herself looking into a pair of unmistakably grey eyes—grey as steel. They were very direct eyes, with a certain brooding discontent ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... valuable form of reasoning, but a moment's reflection will show that something must precede the syllogism in our reasoning. The major premise must be accounted for. How are we able to say that all men are mortal, and that lightning in the west is a sure sign of rain? How was this general truth arrived at? There is only one way, namely, through the observation of a large number of ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... Mrs. Cochran & Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprize them of their fate? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned; I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be the purport of ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... and best that we have heard of the above-named gentleman. We should premise, that, the details of it are a little altered, with the view of adapting it to "ears polite;" for without some process of this kind, it would not have been presentable. A lady went to the doctor in great ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... than women, and why this is so; the bi-sexual individual the most developed; the counterpartal union and its relation to marriage customs; why "affinities" are so numerous; sexual infidelity an impossible premise; what is to become of present-day ethical standards of sexual morality?; historic ideas of sexual immorality and their influence upon modern civilization; modern effects of ancient Hebraic customs; why suppression of prostitution must fail; why prostitution is moral ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... Michael Joseph Farrel (I am the third of the name) was Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies—to hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the premise that the result of that marriage—my father—was three-fifths Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... his head. "I've tried to fit it together that way, too, but it just doesn't add up. The basic premise of the Ids is asceticism and there never was any strength in that idea. Marthasa is probably right in his estimate of the Ids. They have achieved an internal serenity but only through compensating their basic weakness with the crude strength of the Markovians and other races to which they cling. ...
— Cubs of the Wolf • Raymond F. Jones

... A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was that, according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of Satan is pride. Pride led him to rebel; for pride he was cast down; therefore the first thing to do, in driving him out of a lunatic, was ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... the situation exacts are to be measured, and a forecast ventured. An ambitious programme, I am well enough aware that the not very considerable reputation I have established for myself hardly warrants me in attempting it. This, I premise. ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... be necessary to cite the passage at length, it being one perfectly familiar to every Christian. I will, then, before I consider it, first premise, that since it has been heretofore abundantly made evident, that the Messiah of the Old Testament was not to suffer, and die, but to live and reign, it is according to the rules of sound criticism, and I think sound theology too, to interpret this solitary passage, so that it may not contradict ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... after this long digression, to the courts of the Quakers. And here I shall immediately premise, that I profess to do little more than to give a general outline of these. I do not intend to explain the proceedings, preparatory to the meetings there, or to state all the exceptions from general rules, or to trouble the memory ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... statements is called a syllogism. A syllogism always consists of a major premise (A), a minor premise (B), and a conclusion (C). The major premise always states a general law; the minor premise shows that the general law applies to the particular case under consideration; and the conclusion is, in the light of the two ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... suggestion is right," the Ciriimian croaked. "The Zid does not swim. Four and I are arranging escape on that premise." ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee

... of tobacco involves a train of evils, superadded to its influence in perpetuating drunkenness, which cries aloud for immediate and universal reformation. It is my present purpose to consider these evils. And I wish to premise that, in this consideration, I shall urge; that it is the duty of every friend of humanity—of every lover of his country—of every Christian—and of every minister of Christ, to abstain, himself, immediately, ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler

... his brain cleared now, working with lightning speed, leaping from premise to conclusion. The crush in the theatre lobby—the pushing, the jostling, the close contact—the Wowzer, the slickest, cleverest pickpocket in the United States! For a moment he could have laughed aloud in a sort of ghastly, defiant mockery—he himself had ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... intuition or inspiration or the spur of the moment, though no man excelled him in extempore speech. He made elaborate preparation by the study of all public questions, and spoke from a full mind with complete command of premise and conclusion. In all that pertained to the graces of oratory he was unrivaled. He died at forty-eight. Had he been blessed with length of days, the friends who best knew his ability and his ambition believed that he would have left the most brilliant ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... I may premise that about fourteen years ago, on our return from Egypt, via Constantinople, I and my companion, Mr. Charles Darbishire, were placed in quarantine at a station overlooking the Black Sea. Along with us we had a Russian nobleman[1] and his tutor, who ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood

... discuss these points a little, and I will premise by saying that I have spoken to no one on the subject, and have not even seen Mr. Ewing, Mr. Stanbery, or General Grant, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Hint I give them, and pursue it into Speculations which I never thought of at my first starting it. This has been the Fate of my Paper on the Match of Grinning, which has already produced a second Paper on parallel Subjects, and brought me the following Letter by the last Post. I shall not premise any thing to it further than that it is built on Matter of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... unions. But in this realm nearly all results may be calculated beforehand, on the ground of the principle of probability. Only one more assumption need be discussed. The several pairs of antagonistic characters must be independent from, and uninfluenced by, one another. This premise seems to hold good in the vast majority of cases, though rare exceptions seem to be not entirely wanting. Hence the necessity of taking all predictions from Mendel's law only as probabilities, which will prove true in most, but not necessarily in all cases. [300] But ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... from the poetry of the thing to dry scientific details, I must premise that the two main distinctions of the Cervidae, as separating them from the Bovidae, are horns which are not persistent, but annually shed, and the absence of a gall bladder, which is present in nearly all the Bovidae. The deer also, with one exception ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... to give his answers to your interrogatories, it may be well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... been placed in contact with it, as he was unlikely, in musing upon the possible mixtures of our human ingredients, mentally to have foreshadowed it. Bellegarde did not in the least cause him to modify his needful premise that all Frenchmen are of a frothy and imponderable substance; he simply reminded him that light materials may be beaten up into a most agreeable compound. No two companions could be more different, ...
— The American • Henry James

... people heard Him gladly," cried the Rev. Eliot Wilmot, "because they instinctively felt His superiority of birth, felt the dominance of His lineage. In His veins flowed the blood of the royal house of Israel, the blood of the first anointed kings of Almighty God." And from this interesting premise the Reverend Wilmot deduced the divine intent that the "best blood" should have superior rights—leadership, respect, deference. So dear was he to his flock that they made him rich in this world's goods as well as ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... to people who live in the country, are like heaven— objects of universal desire and very general neglect. Indeed, in a land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult to account for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are civilized and intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior race to devour .with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust to luck for another. People who would ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... nothing to apprehend in the way of aggression or oppressive measures from the side of their more peaceable neighbours; whereupon their warlike animus will give place to a reasonable and enlightened frame of mind. This argument runs tacitly or explicitly, on the premise that these peoples who have so enthusiastically lent themselves to the current warlike enterprise are fundamentally of the same racial complexion and endowed with the same human nature as their peaceable neighbours, who ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... these notions, I have read over Sylvia's billet; and notwithstanding the reserve I have had upon this matter, am resolved to go a much greater length, than I yet ever did, in making my self known to the world, and, in particular, to my charming correspondent. In order to it I must premise, that the person produced as mine in the play-house last winter, did in nowise appertain to me. It was such a one however as agreed well with the impression my writings had made, and served the purpose I intended it for; which was to continue the awe and ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... indeed. But I must decline your premise. You are a new man here and so I will excuse you the impudence of charging me with indifference to the well-being of ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... self-deception, which is productive of so much mischief in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought to examine ourselves ...
— 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

... purpose, it is necessary that we should premise a single observation on the meaning of the word capital. It is usually defined, the food, clothing, and other articles set aside for the consumption of the labourer, together with the materials and instruments of production. This definition appears to us peculiarly liable to misapprehension; ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... Queen therefore decides upon Lord Palmerston's new proposals, she wishes to know whom he could recommend for the post of Frankfort in the event of Lord Cowley leaving it, and thinks it but right to premise that in giving her sanction to the proposals Lord Palmerston may have to submit, she will be guided entirely by ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... my place. You start both North and South from the premise that we are an inferior race and as such you have treated us. Has not the consensus of public opinion said for ages, 'No valor redeems our race, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to us'; that our place is on the lowest round of the social ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... the premise. Has not the demagogue more power than his dupes, or the Member of Parliament more power than the elector? We have hardly yet reached, and are never likely to reach, that ideal of direct government. ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... All men are mortal. Minor premise. Socrates is a man. Conclusion. Therefore, Socrates ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... show that the consequence which I have deduced from the doctrine that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass—that sin is not an evil, but a good, and worthy of being preferred to holiness in every instance in which it occurs— is actually recognized as a truth, and used as a premise in proof of the Calvinistic ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... man with a vividness surpassing paint. He was as honest as the day—as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... well to premise for the sake of any reader who knows nothing about the digestion of albuminous compounds by animals that this is effected by means of a ferment, pepsin, together with weak hydrochloric acid, though almost any acid ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... ever increasing forces of disregarded symbolisms. And this again proves the pantheistic power of doubt, considered for the moment and for the subtle purposes of our argument as faith. For, granting that two and two are six, the corollary reasoning must be that no premise is or may be capable of such conclusion as will render it sublunary ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells

... letter and spirit of the Scriptures forbade lending to the poor, upon interest. They also found it impossible to show from reason the right of money to an increase, but as money can readily be changed into other forms of property, as lands, they reversed the arguments; beginning with the assumed premise that it is right to charge rental for lands, and as money may represent lands, it is therefore right, they say, to charge ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... venture to interrupt the governor, though he was bursting with impatience to have his fears relieved or confirmed. "Well, I see ye wish to be informed on the subject, which is very natural, Captain Fleetwood; and, therefore, I must premise that I have this day received notice of the arrival of a brig, a merchantman from Smyrna, and that she is now performing quarantine in Port Marsa Musceit. Her master has written a statement which has been forwarded to me; and which, if correct, and I see no reason to doubt it, proves that ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... appearing inconsequent by mentioning that first which in point of time came last, we must premise that in our investigations with this Medium we early discovered the character of the writing to be twofold, and the difference between the two styles to be striking. In one case the communication written on the slate by the Spirits was general ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... in my place. You start both North and South from the premise that we are an inferior race and as such you have treated us. Has not the consensus of public opinion said for ages, 'No valor redeems our race, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to us'; that our place is ...
— Trial and Triumph • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

... manly and independent address made to the shah during his European tour was, we think, the speech of welcome delivered by the president of the Swiss Confederation. We may premise that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century. Still, the Swiss people did not show themselves overcome, but received their guest with a sober and dignified ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... Conclusions as to Principles. On the premise that all human activities and their environment are governed by natural laws (page 22), the preceding chapter has been devoted to an analysis of the natural mental processes employed in meeting the problems of human life. This analysis has ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... area of earth observed by a most charming spinster, at a certain period of society now fast fading into a dim past. But the sentence might serve fairly well as a motto for all her work: every plot she conceived is firm-based upon this as a major premise, and the particular feminine deduction from those words may be found in the following taken from another work, "Mansfield Park": "Being now in her twenty-first year, Maria Bertram was beginning to think marriage a duty; and as a marriage with Mr. Rushford would ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... afraid," said he, at last "that something, which really did happen in front of the house I have spoken of, will startle you young folks, and perhaps it is foolish to relate it, as you seem already quite excited enough; but I will premise by saying, that I will only tell you what I saw myself, or heard from those upon whose word I could implicitly rely; and, moreover, that I do not believe in ghosts, however singular the facts in question ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... affairs it was eminently successful. Even Lord St. John and the Seymours were almost persuaded into the belief that she was happy in her engagement. But as each and all of them were arguing from the false premise that the change in Nan had been entirely due to Rooke's treatment of her, they were inevitably very ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of late years here in England. On the other hand, reasonable people will look with distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeper than reason can reach. They rest on faith—for there is no absolutely certain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than there is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs of life which is absolutely unimpeachable. The Funds are not absolutely safe; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railway ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... said Anstice slowly. "But it's a false premise all the same. The diamond would naturally have no voice in the matter of its ownership. But the woman in the case might reasonably be expected to ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... TWENTY-SECOND.—A most annoying incident has marred the day. As I think back upon it, adding deduction to deduction, superimposing surmise upon suspicion and suspicion in turn upon premise and fact, I am forced, against my very will, to conclude that, forgetting the dignity due one in my position, some person or persons to me unknown made a partially successful attempt to enact a practical joke ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... To premise with the daisy historically: Among the Romans it was called Bellis, or "pretty one;" in modern Greece, it is star-flower. In France, Spain, and Italy, it was named "Marguerita," or pearl, a term which, being of Greek origin, doubtless ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... the reason which made her select it, and not Pride and Prejudice, for her debut; and they have, perhaps naturally, found in the fact a fresh confirmation of that traditional blindness of authors to their own best work, which is one of the commonplaces of literary history. But this is to premise that she did regard it as her masterpiece, a fact which, apart from this accident of priority of issue, is, as far as we are aware, nowhere asserted. A simpler solution is probably that, of the three novels she had written or sketched by 1811, Pride and Prejudice was languishing under the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... found to distinguish them, for example, from Greek tragedies, may, to diminish repetition, be considered once for all; and in considering them we shall also be able to observe characteristic differences among the four plays. And to this may be added the little that it seems necessary to premise on the position of these dramas in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... Cochran & Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprize them of their fate? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned; I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... however say, that it will only thrive in the shade. We halted after gathering a crop of leaves under a fine Dillenia, which was loaded with its fruit. Here the Singfos demonstrated the mode in which the tea is prepared among them. I must premise, however, that they use none but young leaves. They roasted or rather semi-roasted the leaves in a large iron vessel, which must be quite clean, stirring them up and rolling them in the hands during the roasting. ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... Let me premise that there are two men above all others for whom our respect is heightened by these letters,—the elder John Winthrop and Roger Williams. Winthrop appears throughout as a truly magnanimous and noble man in an unobtrusive way,—a ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... admit that you are right in your premise, Miss Paget, and your deduction is scarcely worth discussion. I have been losing—confoundedly; and as they don't give credit at the board of green cloth yonder, there was no excuse for my staying. Your father ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... given the fact that a written constitution is inevitable, a bench of judges is the best tribunal to interpret its meaning, since the duty of the judge has ever been and is now to interpret the meaning of written instruments; but it does not follow from this premise that the judges who should exercise this office should be the judges who administer the municipal law. In point of fact experience has proved that, so far as Congress is concerned, the results of judicial interference ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... part in the literature of sensibility; they constituted thirty years ago the title of Mr. Howells's delightful volume of impressions; but in using them to-day one owes some frank amends to one's own lucidity. Let me carefully premise therefore that so often as they shall again drop from my pen, so often shall I beg to be regarded ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James

... you," the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and capital—or, rather, there ought ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... with the premise that somehow Anthony Barraclough had succeeded in making good his escape—that he was even now obtaining the concession—that he would return to London on the night of the 18th instant at eleven o'clock in ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee

... cheating and tricking the public, such as answering the advertisements of tradesmen who are in want of a sum to make good a payment, and offering, in consideration of a small premium, to get them the money required, on their note of hand, which they premise must be first given, and the money will be immediately advanced; the necessitated person agrees to the terms, and unthinkingly gives his note, which one of the Swindlers carries away, with a promise of a speedy return with the money wanted, but neither Swindler ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... route was to be at an additional charge, according to expenses incurred. The money was paid at the outset, and the agreement on both sides fulfilled to the entire satisfaction of all concerned. Thus much it has seemed well to premise for the information of the reader who proposes to follow our course due west, as presented in these pen-and-ink sketches of many lands. It should also be mentioned that the season of the year had been judiciously chosen, so as to bring us into each country at ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... be true. And so that conclusion is not only true, but so evident that even the dialecticians do not think it necessary that any reasons should be given for it—"If that is the case, this is; but this is not; therefore that is not." And so, by denying your consequence, your premise is contradicted. What follows, then?—"All who are not wise are equally miserable; all wise men are perfectly happy: all actions done rightly are equal to one another; all offences are equal." But, though all these propositions at first appear to be admirably laid down, after ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... showed the company any farther,' she said, 'she must premise to his lordship, that she had been originally stinted in room for her improvements, so that she could not follow her genius liberally; she had been reduced to have some things on a confined scale, and occasionally to consult her pocket-compass; but she prided herself ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... That is, as I understand it, either the major or the minor premise, it is true, that "all that is sweet is pleasant," it is true also, that "this is sweet," what is contrary to Right Reason is the bringing in this minor to the major i.e. the universal maxim, forbidding to taste. Thus, a man goes to a convivial meeting with the maxim ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... Nowhere is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... Some philosophers have contended that certain general ideas are innate, but few would be found nowadays to accept such a contention. At other times mere definitions of terms may serve as premises. One might state as a premise the definition "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points," and the further statement that "AB is a straight line between A and B," and conclude that the line AB represents the shortest distance between two points ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... But as to our rights to anything back of the curtain that's before us, before your life and mine, why, I can't begin until something else has begun. It's not right, unless that other is right, that I've told you. We belong together in the one big way, first. That's the premise. That's the one great thing. What difference about ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... defended her course by stating the premise that a blockade was an allowable expedient in war—which the United States did not question—and upon that premise reared a structure of argument which emphasized the wide gap between British and American interpretations of international law. A blockade being allowable, Great Britain held that ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... said Edith, gently but firmly. "Granting the premise you admitted a moment ago, that Christ was one of the purest and noblest of men, you surely, with your chivalric instincts, would say that such a man ought ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... on the increase in England. We have before us, from the London press of TILT AND BOGUE, 'Sir WHYSTLETON MUGGES, a Metrical Romaunte, in three Fyttes,' with copious notes. A stanza or two will suffice as a specimen. The knightly hero, it needs only to premise, has been jilted by his fair 'ladye-love,' who retires to her boudoir, while the knight walks off ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... has one great limitation, it cannot reason inductively. Given a premise, this mind can reason as unerringly as the most skilful logician; that is, it can reason deductively, but it cannot arrive at a general conclusion from a number of particular facts. However, except for inductive reasoning and awareness, the subconscious ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... well-defined issue of law, to be determined by the court, whether certain acts set forth upon the record are a ground of liability. It is possible that the judges may have dealt pretty strictly with defendants, and it is quite easy to pass from the premise that defendants have been held trespassers for a variety of acts, without mention of neglect, to the conclusion that any act by which another was damaged will make the actor chargeable. But a more exact scrutiny of the early books will show that liability in general, then as later, was [103] founded ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... might be, she was firm in her major premise. Miss Emily had been on her hands and knees by the telephone-stand, and had, on seeing Maggie, observed that she had dropped the money for the hackman ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... company any farther, she said, she must premise to his lordship, that she had been originally stinted in room for her improvements, so that she could not follow her genius liberally; she had been reduced to have some things on a confined scale, and occasionally to consult her pocket-compass; but she prided ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... which teaches its adherents to accept as inevitable for themselves and for the mass of a nation the condition of hirelings, and to conduct their lives on that premise, is not only wrong, but an injury to the community. Mr. Mill wisely says on this point, in his chapter on "The Future of the Laboring Classes": "There can be little doubt that the status of hired laborers will gradually tend to confine ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... "Let me premise, Miriam," he began, "by congratulating you on your improved appearance"—another benign bow. "You were so burned and blackened by exposure, and so—in short, so very wild-looking when I last saw you, that I began to fear for the result; but perfect ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... Constitutions. I have translated the Author very faithfully, and if not Word for Word (which our Language would not bear) at least so as to comprehend every one of his Sentiments, without adding any thing of my own. I have already apologized for this Authors Want of Delicacy, and must further premise, That the following Satyr affects only some of the lower part of the Sex, and not those who have been refined by a Polite Education, which was not so common in the Age of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maximis with regard to ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... on that premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building an engine of menacing power and outlawry, it is probable that more than ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... comforts of sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, there was no ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... And, first, I premise that labor is, as I have already intimated, a commodity, and, as such, an article of trade. If I am right in this notion, then labor must be subject to all the laws and principles of trade, and not to regulations ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... laid himself as little open to the charge of credulity as any writer who ever lived, cannot get beyond this. He has no demonstrable first premise. He requires postulates and axioms which transcend demonstration, and without which he can do nothing. His superstructure indeed is demonstration, but his ground is faith. Nor again can he get further than telling a man he is a fool if he persists in differing ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... H. G. Wells. On the other hand he wrote a very jolly article about beer and "tavern hospitality." The argument marked time for two weeks more, when Mr. Belloc once again entered the lists. The essence of his contribution is "I premise that man, in order to be normally happy, tolerably happy, must own." Collectivism will not let him own. The trouble about the present state of society is that people do not own enough. The remedy ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and ineffective. Surely any one could foresee that such action would make only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the sacrifice. Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious but objectively noble and right. How can ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... Greeks premise as the model of their life in Hades? Anaemic, dreamlike, weak . it is the continuous accentuation of old age, when the memory gradually becomes weaker and weaker, and the body still more so. The senility of senility ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... impelled by a sacred sense of duty, by my obligations to my country, by sympathy for the bleeding victims of tyranny and lust, to give my testimony respecting the system of American slavery,—to detail a few facts, most of which came under my personal observation. And here I may premise, that the actors in these tragedies were all men and women of the highest respectability, and of the first families in South Carolina, and, with one exception, citizens of Charleston; and that their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... old Antony certainly was in many ways, her great age occasionally betrayed itself by childish vagaries. Her mind would start off along the lines of a false premise, landing her eventually in a dream-like conclusion. As now, when waking from a moment's nodding in the welcome shade, she wondered why her old back seemed well-nigh broken, and marvelled to find herself holding a big posy of dandelions, groundsel, ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... the beginning, and not the culminating state of societies and peoples. All efforts on this line fail, because they are based upon the false and impossible premise of the absolute equality of all men. There never has been, there never can be any such adjustment of the forces of nature on this planet; because no two souls are alike and there can only be equality in alikeness. Spirits come here in groups. They ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield

... and enlarged to include respect for other than military and sportsman virtues. The code of masters exalts liberty—for the ruling class—and resents any restraint by inferiors or civilians, or by public opinion of any group but its own. It has a justice which takes for its premise a graded social order, and seeks to put and keep every man in his place. But its supreme value is power, likewise for the few, or for the state as consisting of society organized and directed by the ruling class. Such a group, according to Treitschke, will ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... inferiority to man is not due to "any inherent disability of sex." Wherever Mrs. Gilman may be right, here the biologist knows that she is wrong. The argument has been fully stated in earlier pages, and need not here be restated. But we shall not be surprised if a premise which denies any natural economic disadvantage of women leads ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... begin, I must premise Our ministers are good and wise; So, though malicious tongues apply, Pray what care they, or what care I? If I am free with courts; be't known, I ne'er presume to mean our own. If general morals seem to joke On ministers, and such like folk, A captious fool may take offence; ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... nevertheless gives us to understand that he can not find the sufficient cause of the origin of self-consciousness in those other faculties; and, finally, if he closes the last mentioned quotation with a sentence which has for its premise the wholly illogical thought that language might have been able to reach "a high state of development" before the origin of self-consciousness and without its assistance: then, indeed, the result of all this certainly is that he has given no adequate consideration to ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... decides upon Lord Palmerston's new proposals, she wishes to know whom he could recommend for the post of Frankfort in the event of Lord Cowley leaving it, and thinks it but right to premise that in giving her sanction to the proposals Lord Palmerston may have to submit, she will be guided entirely by ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... only despise one another when they see how widely they differ. Tell me, then, whether you agree with and assent to my first principle, that neither injury nor retaliation nor warding off evil by evil is ever right. And shall that be the premise of our argument? Or do you decline and dissent from this? For this has been of old and is still my opinion; but, if you are of another opinion, let me hear what you have to say. If, however, you remain of the same mind, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... doesn't like Harold or like you or like me?" Edward clearly found himself able to accept only the premise. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... two ideas, the mind is very apt to mistake them, and in all its discourses and reasonings to use the one for the other. This phaenomenon occurs on so many occasions, and is of such consequence, that I cannot forbear stopping a moment to examine its causes. I shall only premise, that we must distinguish exactly betwixt the phaenomenon itself, and the causes, which I shall assign for it; and must not imagine from any uncertainty in the latter, that the former is also uncertain. The phaenomenon may be real, though my ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... of our reasonings, except such as relate to words only. If this supposition were true, we might argue correctly from true premises, and arrive at a false conclusion. We should only have to assume as a premise the definition of a nonentity; or rather of a name which has no entity corresponding to it. Let this, for instance, be ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... association seems to explain many of the phenomena of certain lesions in the abdominal cavity. The nociceptors in the abdomen, like nociceptors elsewhere, have been established as a result of some kind of injury to which during vast periods of time this region has been frequently exposed. On this premise, we should at once conclude that there are no nociceptors for heat within the abdomen because, during countless years, the intra-abdominal region never came into contact with heat. That this inference is correct is shown by the fact that the application ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... "Well, granting your premise, granting all your premises, Beulah—and I admit that most of them have sound reasoning behind them—your battle now is all over but the shouting. There's no reason that you personally should sacrifice your last drop of energy to a ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... on it." Fleetwood almost groaned. He could not again venture to interrupt the governor, though he was bursting with impatience to have his fears relieved or confirmed. "Well, I see ye wish to be informed on the subject, which is very natural, Captain Fleetwood; and, therefore, I must premise that I have this day received notice of the arrival of a brig, a merchantman from Smyrna, and that she is now performing quarantine in Port Marsa Musceit. Her master has written a statement which has been forwarded ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... to investigate the customs of Inheritance of the ancient Mexicans, we have to premise here, that the personal effects of a deceased can be but slightly considered. The rule was, in general, that whatever a man held descended to ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... We must premise, too, that she must not be petted or pampered with regimen or diet unsuited to her needs; left to find out as best she can, from surreptitious or worthy sources, what she most of all needs to know; must recognize ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... being proved from other propositions, it followed, that, if they were known to us at all, they must be original data of consciousness. Here was a perfect paradise of question begging. The ultimate major premise in every argument being assumed, it could of course be fashioned according to the particular conclusion it was called in to prove. Thus an 'artificial ignorance,' as Locke calls it, was produced, which had the effect of sanctifying prejudice by recognizing ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other

... mere English reader may have a different idea of romance from the author of these little[A] volumes, and may consequently expect a kind of entertainment not to be found, nor which was even intended, in the following pages, it may not be improper to premise a few words concerning this kind of writing, which I do not remember to have seen hitherto ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... strong that induces me to adopt them as such is that my situation and connexions in the island led me to a more intimate and minute acquaintance with their laws and manners than with those of any other class. I must premise however that the Malay customs having made their way in a greater or less degree to every part of Sumatra, it will be totally impossible to discriminate with entire accuracy those which are original ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... that the correction of one premise, and the knowledge of chance events which have arisen, are not sufficient to overthrow our plans completely, but only suffice to produce hesitation. Our knowledge of circumstances has increased, but our uncertainty, instead of having diminished, ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... youthfulness in vigor and courage. Say something original—something strong, maybe a little startling; but it must be self-evidently true. By all means avoid anything that suggests parrot talk or indefinite thought. Do not expect the other man to listen with interest to a statement proceeding from premise to conclusion. ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins

... I wish therefore to premise, that the future pages of this work will deal with the hypothesis of this aetherial medium, by which will be accounted for, and that on a satisfactory and physical basis, the universal Law ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... best unravell'd, When I premise that Tim has travell'd. In Lucas's by chance there lay The Fables writ by Mr. Gay. Tim set the volume on a table, Read over here and there a fable: And found, as he the pages twirl'd, The monkey who had seen the world; (For Tonson had, to help the sale, Prefix'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... considered to-day by the science of medicine as worthy of its attention. It is hypnotism. As its first origin is connected with the history of mesmerism, and the latter, though itself a phantom, has been used as the chief patron of all other phantoms, I will premise a few words ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... of primitive optimism a misleading limitation is placed on the significance of the word Nature and its inflections. And the misconception of the meaning of an important word is as certain to lead to an inaccurate concept as is the misstatement of a premise to precede a false conclusion. For instance, in the aphorism, variously rendered, 'what is natural is right,' there is an excellent illustration of the misapplication of the word 'natural.' If the saying means that ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... on the "Occultation of Orion." The following lines are those in which he alludes to the mythic story. We must premise that on the celestial globe Orion is represented as robed in a lion's skin and wielding a club. At the moment the stars of the constellation, one by one, were quenched in the light of the moon, the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... that the reader may understand fully the nature of the romantic enterprise in which, as we have already said, Prince Charles embarked when he was a little over twenty years of age, we must premise that Frederic, the German prince who married Charles's sister Elizabeth some years before, was the ruler of a country in Germany called the Palatinate. It was on the banks of the Rhine. Frederic's title, as ruler of this country, was Elector Palatine. There are a great many independent ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... seeing an opportunity to use the military as a vehicle for the extension of social justice, stressed the baneful effects of segregation on the black serviceman's morale. They were inclined to ignore the performance of the large segregated units and took issue with the premise that desegregation of the armed forces in advance of the rest of American society would threaten the efficient execution of the services' military mission. Neither group seemed able to appreciate the other's real concerns, and their ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so effectually buttonhole and fasten on to it as to eat it. Most men have an easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I could bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner. My difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the argument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting to think that I ought to be allowed to convert the turtles—I mean I had no money in my pocket. No missionary ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... listening, shivered with all Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along the backbone. Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. The peculiarity of a wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart's desire, if only you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossible premise defeats the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough, simply because you can't catch him in the first place. Yet the fascinating possibility is like a taste for drink, or the glamour of cards. Does the committee-man drive past to Sudleigh market, suggesting the prospect of a leisurely return ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... each of the following Fifteen Battles has been selected will, I trust, appear when it is described. But it may be well to premise a few remarks on the negative tests which have led me to reject others, which at first sight may appear equal in magnitude and importance to ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... have before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, 'at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and what is not': the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together much as he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as they were to ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... He was as honest as the day—as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, bristled with ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... is necessary that we should premise a single observation on the meaning of the word capital. It is usually defined, the food, clothing, and other articles set aside for the consumption of the labourer, together with the materials and instruments of production. This definition ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... source of self-deception, which is productive of so much mischief in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought to examine ourselves with reference ...
— 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

... reasoning were always true, while the results of human reasoning are often, if not always, false. The source of error in human logic is what the philosophers call the 'personal equation.' My machine eliminated the personal equation; it proceeded from cause to effect, from premise to conclusion, with steady precision. The human intellect is fallible; my machine was, and is, infallible in ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... violence had hurried poor S. T. C. into an early death. The story is told circumstantially by Coleridge himself in one of the letters to Mr. Poole; nor is there any scene more picturesque than this hasty sketch in Brookes's 'Fool of Quality.' We must premise that S. T. C. had asked his mother for a particular indulgence requiring some dexterity to accomplish. The difficulty, however, through her cautious manipulations, had just been surmounted, when Samuel left the room for a single instant, and found upon his return that the beautiful Francis ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... governed on any such principles; still, we seem to exist. It was a favorite saying in those days that 'a man must live,' and one that was used as an argument or excuse for questionable practices. The premise was wrong; it was not necessary to live: death would have been far better for the world and for the individual than a dishonorable life. So with society at large; better a change in the social structure, caused by an awakened conscience, than a state of peace founded on ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... likewise say a few words respecting my nature and my temperament, I premise that the most indulgent of my readers is not likely to be the most dishonest or the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... interest it is to increase and disseminate such novelties." In the above magazine for March, 1827, is another spirited communication by him, on these new pears, introduced from France, in which he says:—"And here I think it necessary to premise, that the following list is the cream skimmed off some thousands of new pears, which I have for many years past been getting together from various parts of the world, about two-thirds of which yet remain for trial, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... today accept Abelard's premise (91 a) as to attaining wisdom? Would his questions (91 b) excite much ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... and desire to do her full justice, and with this purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however, premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian faith, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... gentleman, suddenly discovering that he is a 'leader of men,' has deserted his tailor: many a gentleman, learning by experience that it takes as long to try on clothes in one place as another, has presently gone back to him. Starting with the democratic premise that all men are born equal, the ready-to-wear clothier proceeds on the further assumption that each man becomes in time either short, stout, or medium; and this amendment to the Declaration of Independence ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... perusal a thing so rudely pen'd; if I did not hope, you would consider, that 'twas hastily written onely for my own Remembrance. And that you may not stop at any thing in the immediately annext Note, or the two, that follow, it will be requisite to premise this Account of the seal'd Thermoscope; (which was a good one) wherewith these Observations were made; That the length of the Cylindrical pipe was 16. Inches; the Ball, about the bigness of a somewhat large Walnut, and the Cavity of ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... But the main premise is by no means clear. It may well be doubted if man can commit an infinite sin. First; he is a finite being; and can a finite being do on infinite wrong? Further; he cannot suffer everlasting punishment. For everlasting has no end. He would never have rendered a due equivalent for his ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... it seems as clear as day, that they consider that they themselves, indeed, individually can and do act on reason, and on nothing but reason; that they have the gift of advancing, without bias or unsteadiness, throughout their search, from premise to conclusion, from text to doctrine; that they have sought aright, and no one else, who does not agree with them; that they alone have found out the art of putting the salt upon the bird's tail, and have rescued themselves from being the slaves of circumstance ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... with the taking of the Spanish Vice-Admiral in the harbor of Puerto Bello, and of the rescue therefrom of Le Sieur Simon, his wife and daughter (the adventure of which was successfully achieved by Captain Morgan, the famous buccaneer), we shall, nevertheless, premise something of the earlier history of Master Harry Mostyn, whom you may, if you please, consider as the hero of the several ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle

... had from early childhood been nurtured in these Mesopotamian beliefs and traditions, and to them—or, at least, toward them—he always tended to revert in moments of stress. Without bearing this fundamental premise in mind, Moses in active life can hardly be understood, for it was on this foundation that his theories of ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... I therefore premise that those who may be tempted to take up this publication, merely with a view of seeking aliment for their enmity, will, in more respects than one, probably find themselves disappointed. The two nations were not rivals in arms, but in the arts ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... and discretion. But the will of the dead must be scrupulously obeyed, even when we weep over their pertinacity and self-delusion. So, gentle reader, I bid you farewell, recommending you to such fare as the mountains of your own country produce; and I will only farther premise, that each Tale is preceded by a short introduction, mentioning the persons by whom, and the circumstances under which, the materials thereof were collected. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends' attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Mr. Samuel T. Philander grasped Professor Archimedes Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentleman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... trouble. Let us leave it; there it was. It was impossible to say which of us would miss Varvilliers more. He had become necessary to both of us. The conclusion drawn by the way of this world is, of course, at once obvious; it followed pat from the premise. We must both of us be deprived of him as soon as possible. I am not concerned to argue that the world is wrong; and the very best way to advance a paradox is to look as though you were uttering a platitude. In this art the wittiest writer ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... Moses, Monsignor! I speak with the premise 'if'. IF we follow Christ;—if we do not, the matter is of course different. We can then twist Scripture to suit our own purpose. We can organise systems which are agreeable to our own convenience or profit, but which have nothing whatever ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... state briefly what I understand by 'Poetry for poetry's sake,' and then, after guarding against one or two misapprehensions of the formula, to consider more fully a single problem connected with it. And I must premise, without attempting to justify them, certain explanations. We are to consider poetry in its essence, and apart from the flaws which in most poems accompany their poetry. We are to include in the idea of poetry the metrical form, ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley

... now, I, who am a penitent sinner, know with a certainty of faith that I have done my share; therefore, I know with a certainty of faith that I am justified," may be formally correct, but the minor premise embodies a material error, because no man knows with a certainty of faith that he has done his share, unless it be specially revealed to him by God. No matter how sure I may feel of my own goodness, I have no certainty of faith, such as that which Mary Magdalen had, or that which ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... Spirit. On the stage on which we are observing it—universal history—Spirit displays itself in its most concrete reality. Notwithstanding this (or rather for the very purpose of comprehending the general principles which this, its form of concrete reality, embodies) we must premise some abstract characteristics of the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... life: the conviction that creation is under divine love and wisdom, administered by Cosmic Law and order, or Justice, and the final "redemption" (i.e., evolution), of all men. In his "Conjugal Love," Swedenborg touches upon the premise which we declare, as the foundation of all cosmic consciousness, namely the attainment of spiritual union with the "mate" which we believe to be inseparable from all creation; the reunited principle which we see expressed in the male and female, whether in plant, bird, animal, ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... femme is a fairly sound premise in a case like this, but when we have found the woman we shall have to find the man who is at the bottom of the plot. I mean the man who is not only thwarting the woman, but giving you a pretty severe lesson as to the advisability of minding your ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... compromise devise divertise exercise misprise supervise advise chastise criticise disfranchise emprise exorcise premise surmise affranchise circumcise demise disguise enfranchise franchise reprise surprise apprise comprise despise disenfranchise ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... when I had been in Peoria about a week. I may premise that I am a physician and surgeon—a graduate of Harvard. Peoria was at that time a comparatively new place, but it gave promise of going ahead rapidly; a promise, by the way, which it has since amply redeemed. Messrs. Gowanlock and Van Duzer's foundry was a pretty ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... politician ever treats his constituents as reasoning animals. This is as true of the high politics of Isaiah as it is of the ward boss. Only the pathetic amateur deludes himself into thinking that, if he presents the major and minor premise, the voter will automatically draw the conclusion on election day. The successful politician—good or bad—deals with the dynamics—with the will, the hopes, the needs ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... authenticated to communicate to you. As it is now ascertained, I avail myself of the chance that another post may yet reach Havre before the departure of the packet. This will depend on the wind, which has for some days been unfavorable. I must premise, that this court, about ten days ago, declared, by their Charge des Affaires in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty was determined, in quality of ally, to succor that province. An official ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... to hear that I have talked with the brains and been relieved of my premise to destroy them. They requested something else. Now I have committed myself to attempt their ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... points a little, and I will premise by saying that I have spoken to no one on the subject, and have not even seen Mr. Ewing, Mr. Stanbery, or General Grant, since I ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... only the sufferings, and actual sufferings, of God himself, can touch the sinful heart; and, therefore, the Trinity is true. The conclusion is a long way from the premise, even supposing that to be sound. But as regards the premise, he has read and quoted Mansel. Has he not verged towards the dogmatism which that writer condemns? Would it not be more modest, and better accord with Christian humility, to be satisfied with believing the scriptural ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... that her native-born subjects could never change their allegiance, that she had an inalienable right to their service, and to seize them wherever found, except within foreign territory. From an admitted premise, that the open sea is common to all nations, she deduced a common jurisdiction, in virtue of which she arrested her vagrant seamen. This argument of right was reinforced by a paramount necessity. In a life and death struggle with an implacable enemy, Great Britain with difficulty could ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... dreamer is right in his first premise—great economies in production are the result of specialization and combination. Why not then in agriculture? I'll tell you why. There is a touch of nature in the living thing that calls for a closer interest on the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... even though one may at first have perceived him to be in the right. Such seemed to many English observers to be the condition of the case in America. They were mistaken, but excusable; but for the error in their premise, their deduction would have been correct, or at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... subjects upon which, she was well aware, only her presence prevented his jesting. The most obvious laws of rectitude were but thistle-down before the whirlwind of his subversive theories; and Edith found argument impossible with one who denied her every premise. ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates

... the strongest reason why we should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... Maimonides's four proofs (cf. p. 257 ff.), and selects the third and fourth as really valid and beyond dispute. The first and second are not conclusive; the one because it is based upon the eternity of motion, which no Jew accepts; the other because the major premise is not true. It does not follow if one of the two elements a, b, of a composite a b is found separately, that the other must be found ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik

... so fail at every point that counted, that she would never be able to see or be seen in the world again as the same creature. Even to Kerr—even to him to whom she would have yielded she would have become a different thing. She realized now she had staked everything on the premise that she wouldn't have to yield; and now it began to appear to her that she would. His weakness was appearing now as a terrible strength, a strength that seemed on the point of crushing her, but it could never convince her. That ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... to make no distinction. And his rage was based upon the premise that Lawler was guilty. Warden's thoughts grew abysmal as he stood at the window; and considerations of business became unimportant in his mind as the Satanic impulse seized him. He stood for a long time at the window, and when he finally seized hat ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... argument—imaginary pictures—to the immorality, mental sterility and innate improvidence of this people; and they do this for various reasons, none of them honorable, many of them really disreputable. In dealing with this negro problem they always start off upon a false premise; their conclusions must, necessarily, be false. In the first place, disregarding the fact that the negroes of the South are nothing more nor less than the laboring class of the people, the same in many particulars as the English and Irish peasantry, they proceed to regard them as intruders in the ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... English starling will occasionally impose upon and dispossess the green woodpecker. In the process of nature in such cases the stronger of the two birds would retain the nest, and thus assume the duties of foster-parent. Starting from this reasonable premise concerning the prehistoric cuckoo, it is not difficult to see how natural selection, working through ages of evolution by heredity, might have developed the habitual resignation of the evicted bird, ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... Mr. H. G. Wells. On the other hand he wrote a very jolly article about beer and "tavern hospitality." The argument marked time for two weeks more, when Mr. Belloc once again entered the lists. The essence of his contribution is "I premise that man, in order to be normally happy, tolerably happy, must own." Collectivism will not let him own. The trouble about the present state of society is that people do not own enough. The remedy proposed ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... 225.—In giving a specimen of this mode of illustrating a connected subject, we may only premise, that the method, as a branch of Education, requires that all the general heads should be perceived first, before any of them is sub-divided. For example, Paul's sermon at Antioch, (Acts xiii.) must be perceived by the pupil in its great outline, or general heads, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of Alabama and ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... much mischief in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought to ...
— 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

... that this love is celestial, spiritual, and holy, because it is from a celestial, spiritual, and holy origin. In order to see that the origin of conjugial love is from the marriage of good and truth, it may be expedient in this place briefly to premise somewhat on the subject. It was said just above, that in every created thing there exists a conjunction of good and truth; and there is no conjunction unless it be reciprocal; for conjunction on one part, and not on the other in its turn, is dissolved of itself. Now as there is a conjunction of ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... predominant objectivity of the Pagan mind; while among us the subjective has risen into superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable from any one external principle assumed as a premise by the ancient philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation: but to us they all have a value and meaning; being connected by the bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity which is ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... regardless of space, as the ship's detector and the shore stations become aware of each other through their relation of finer vibrations. A recent experimenter in electric and super-physical force, M. Tessier d'Helbaicy, states this theory: "Taking as his premise the fundamental law of physical science, that all chemical reaction is accompanied by a generation of heat and electricity, he said to himself that the human body, with the innumerable and incessant chemical reactions presented ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... may start afresh and go to Meg's wedding with free minds, it will be well to begin with a little gossip about the Marches. And here let me premise that if any of the elders think there is too much 'lovering' in the story, as I fear they may (I'm not afraid the young folks will make that objection), I can only say with Mrs. March, "What can you expect when I have four ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... We should premise that the Prussians are the least German of all the populations of what constitutes modern Germany. They are more than half Slavs. In the early Middle Ages the Mark of Brandenburg, the centre and chief province of the modern Prussian State, ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... promise, provided always the Almighty smiles upon the undertaking, that the entire work of which I have the superintendence will be published within eight months from the present time. Now, therefore, with the premise that I most unwillingly speak of myself and what I have done and suffered for some time past, all of which I wished to keep locked up in my own breast, I will give a regular and circumstantial account of my proceedings from the day when I received your letter, by which I was ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... it will only thrive in the shade. We halted after gathering a crop of leaves under a fine Dillenia, which was loaded with its fruit. Here the Singfos demonstrated the mode in which the tea is prepared among them. I must premise, however, that they use none but young leaves. They roasted or rather semi-roasted the leaves in a large iron vessel, which must be quite clean, stirring them up and rolling them in the hands during the roasting. When duly roasted, they expose them to the sun for three days; some to the dew alternately ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... and independent address made to the shah during his European tour was, we think, the speech of welcome delivered by the president of the Swiss Confederation. We may premise that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century. Still, the Swiss people did not show themselves overcome, but received ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot, alas that he is no more, into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me, for I am a student of the brain, how you accept hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done today in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very man who discovered ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... 1793, the Court ruled, in the face of an assurance in the "Federalist" to the contrary, that an individual might sue a State; and though this decision was speedily disallowed by resentful debtor States by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, its underlying premise that, "as to the purposes of the Union, the States are not sovereign" remained untouched; and three years later the Court affirmed the supremacy of national treaties over conflicting state laws and so established ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... of the finite. But here I must premise the following. The faculty of the finite is that which reduces the confused impressions of sense to their essential forms,—quantity, quality, relation, and in these action and reaction, cause and effect, and the like; thus raises the materials furnished ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... them, for example, from Greek tragedies, may, to diminish repetition, be considered once for all; and in considering them we shall also be able to observe characteristic differences among the four plays. And to this may be added the little that it seems necessary to premise on the position of these dramas in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... why each of the following Fifteen Battles has been selected will, I trust, appear when it is described. But it may be well to premise a few remarks on the negative tests which have led me to reject others, which at first sight may appear equal in magnitude and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... his cattle. El Paso is (was) the Monte Carlo of America. Therefore—The syllogism may he imperfectly stated, but the conclusion is sound. Perhaps there is a premise suppressed or overlooked somewhere. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... and quackery have reached a height unexampled in the annals of mankind, and even English Editors, like Chinese Shopkeepers, must write on their door-lintels No cheating here,—we thought it good to premise. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... Per'fect perfect' As'pect aspect' | De'crease decrease' | Per'fume perfume' At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| Dis'cord discord' | Pres'ent present' Col'lect collect' | Dis'count discount' | Prod'uce produce' Com'ment comment' | Ef'flux efflux' | Proj'ect project' Com'pact compact' | Es'cort escort' | Prot'est protest' ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... third of the name) was Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies—to hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the premise that the result of that marriage—my father—was three-fifths Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... voyages may be the better understood, I have thought proper to premise a brief description of Africa, on the west coast of which great division of the world, the coast of Guinea begins at Cape Verd in about lat. 12 deg. N. and about two degrees in longitude from the measuring line[189]; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... is not amiss to premise, for the sake of such as may apprehend Hurt to the Morals of Youth from the more freely-written Letters, That the Gentlemen, tho' professed Libertines as to the Fair Sex, and making it one of their wicked Maxims, to keep no Faith with any of the Individuals of it who throw ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... to say at present; whatever else is necessary to premise, will be found in the Introduction to the ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous

... to keep to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... that they consider that they themselves, indeed, individually can and do act on reason, and on nothing but reason; that they have the gift of advancing, without bias or unsteadiness, throughout their search, from premise to conclusion, from text to doctrine; that they have sought aright, and no one else, who does not agree with them; that they alone have found out the art of putting the salt upon the bird's tail, and have rescued themselves ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... be well first to premise that I do not wish to maintain that any strictly social animal, if its intellectual faculties were to become as active and as highly developed as in man, would acquire exactly the same moral sense as ours. In the same manner as various animals have some ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... sin: no one has ever disputed the fact that sin is rampant in this world, and is deserving of punishment. But theologians of the school of Augustine and Calvin, in view of the fact, have assumed the premise—which indeed cannot be disputed—that sin is against an infinite God. Hence, that sin against an infinite God is itself infinite; and hence that, as sin deserves punishment, an infinite sin deserves infinite punishment,—a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... great books is the Infinite, the Absolute. To contain all, by containing the premise, the truth, the idea and feeling of all, to tally the universe by profusion, variety, reality, mystery, enclosure, power, terror, beauty, service; to be great to the utmost conceivability of greatness—what higher level than this can literature spring to? Up on the highest ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler

... determined to achieve it and control it. Nowhere is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... that premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... glance on the man in question. He was wearing evening kit, and at first sight the brown-skinned face above the white of his collar, taken in conjunction with dark hair and very strongly-marked brows, seemed to premise the correctness of Tony's surmise. Suddenly the man lifted his bent head, and over the top of the newspaper Arm found herself looking into a pair of unmistakably grey eyes—grey as steel. They were very direct eyes, with a certain brooding discontent in their depths ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... deemed in other countries impracticable and dangerous. We cannot follow them everywhere, and therefore, more than in any other country must we educate them, so that they will follow and rule themselves. But no platform of premise and conclusion, however logical and exact, is broad enough to place under an uneducated mind. Nothing deserving the name of conviction can have a place in such. Prejudices, notions, prescriptive rules, may exist there, but these are not sufficient ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... The lover becomes the student—the student of the thirteenth century—struggling painfully against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of half-awakened taste and the mannerisms of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... bait simulating the movements of a small fish or with the small fish itself; and on the bottom with worms, paste or one of the many other baits which experience has shown that fish will take. With the premise that it is not intended here to go into the minutiae of instruction which may more profitably be discovered in the many works of reference cited at the end of this article, some account of the subdivisions into ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... When a crime has been committed the magistrate who investigates the case knows [excepting in the case of a released convict who commits murder in jail] that there are not more than five persons to whom he can attribute the act. He starts from this premise a series of conjectures. The husband should reason like the judge; there are only three people in society whom he can suspect when seeking ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... the application of any influence on the feelings of his son calculated to destroy his peace of mind; and denying, until the perusal of the young man's letter, any knowledge of his sentiments towards his daughter, and his entire ignorance of the cause of his disappearance. We may premise, that this explanation brought no further intercourse between the heads of the families, and that Mr. Williamson, though he believed that, if the intimacy between his daughter and young Ferguson had continued, the esteem which she entertained for his young friend ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro

... examine the possible meanings of that phrase, or all the questions it involves. I propose to state briefly what I understand by 'Poetry for poetry's sake,' and then, after guarding against one or two misapprehensions of the formula, to consider more fully a single problem connected with it. And I must premise, without attempting to justify them, certain explanations. We are to consider poetry in its essence, and apart from the flaws which in most poems accompany their poetry. We are to include in the idea of poetry the metrical ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley

... fairly sound premise in a case like this, but when we have found the woman we shall have to find the man who is at the bottom of the plot. I mean the man who is not only thwarting the woman, but giving you a pretty severe lesson as to the advisability of minding your ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... I thought proper to premise. It is impossible to judge correctly of the men of any age, without taking into consideration the circumstances in which they were placed, and the opinions that prevailed in their time. To apply the standard of this ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... began when I had been in Peoria about a week. I may premise that I am a physician and surgeon—a graduate of Harvard. Peoria was at that time a comparatively new place, but it gave promise of going ahead rapidly; a promise, by the way, which it has since amply redeemed. Messrs. Gowanlock and Van Duzer's foundry ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... A native animist tradition of Japan, Shinto practice is based upon the premise that every being and object has its own spirit or kami. Shinto practitioners worship several particular kamis, including the kamis of nature, and families often have shrines to their ancestors' kamis. Shintoism has no fixed tradition of prayers or prescribed dogma, but is characterized by individual ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... is in the premise. Has not the demagogue more power than his dupes, or the Member of Parliament more power than the elector? We have hardly yet reached, and are never likely to reach, that ideal of direct government. ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... and albatrosses, after their fashion, have followed the Elsinore up out of their own latitudes. This means that there are only so many of them and that their numbers are not recruited. Syllogism: major premise, a definite and limited amount of bird-meat; minor premise, the only food the mutineers now have is bird-meat; conclusion, destroy the available food and the mutineers will be compelled to ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... commerce, and verily make way, and otherwise approve yourself what I think you, I promise that you shall not lack advancement. Plainly, I have a little matter of money put by, for sundry uses; and, if the day comes when something of capital would stead you (after due trial, as I premise), it ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... ground for this question, I must also first premise, That the Gentiles, as such, were then without the church of God, and pale thereof; consequently had nothing to do with the essentials or necessary circumstances of that worship which God had set up for himself now among ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... seemed necessary to premise with regard to the great mineral power which we are to employ as an agent in the system of this earth; and it may be now observed, that it is in the proper relation of this power of heat and the fluidity ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, Now sharply, now with sorrow,—told the case,— He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching the flies that ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... be as well to premise, that at the time we are treating of, the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, grown excessively wealthy, had degenerated from its originally devout and warlike character. Instead of being a hardy body of "monk-knights," sworn soldiers ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving

... record is the following. We may premise that the Norman noble, St. Quintin (so named from a town of France, in the department of Aisne, the Augusta Veromanduorum of the Romans), came over among the followers of William the Conqueror, and his name ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter

... He started with the premise that whatever may be the reason it is a fact that all experience starts and moves in an error which identifies the self with the body, the senses, or the objects of the senses. All cognitive acts presuppose this illusory identification, for without ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... missionaries, and thus effectually led to the final frustration of Red Jacket's policy; in and by the defeat of the missionary enterprise. But as this question is discussed in the sequel, I will not anticipate. Thus much it was necessary to premise, in order to explain the nature and ends of my interview with ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... form, the reasoning process, as already mentioned, is known as a syllogism. The whole syllogism is made up of three parts, major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The three concepts involved in the syllogism are known as the major, the minor, and the middle term. In the above syllogism, heavy, the predicate of the major premise, is the major term; ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... the greatest fool on earth. As if any real believer ever thought in this preposterous way, or as if any defender of the legitimacy of men's concrete ways of concluding ever used the abstract and general premise, 'All desires must be fulfilled'! Nevertheless, Mr. McTaggart solemnly and laboriously refutes the syllogism in sections 47 to 57 of the above- cited book. He shows that there is no fixed link in the dictionary between the abstract concepts 'desire,' 'goodness' and 'reality'; and he ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... I will, only I must first premise these two or three things. 1. They have not the advantage of election for their fathers' sakes. 2. They are born as others, the children of wrath, though they come of godly parents. 3. Grace comes not unto them as an inheritance, because they have godly parents. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... before, come first; head, lead, take the lead; lead the way, lead the dance; be in the vanguard; introduce, usher in; have the pas; set the fashion &c. (influence) 175; open the ball; take precedence, have precedence; have the start &c. (get before) 280. place before; prefix; premise, prelude, preface. Adj. preceding &c. v.; precedent, antecedent; anterior; prior &c. 116; before; former; foregoing; beforementioned[obs3], abovementioned[obs3], aforementioned; aforesaid, said; precursory, precursive[obs3]; prevenient[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... like Harold or like you or like me?" Edward clearly found himself able to accept only the premise. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... To one who believes in the divinely intended equality of the sexes it is impossible to consider that any mutual relation is an incident for the one and the total of existence for the other. We may lay it down as a premise upon which to base our whole reasoning that all mutual relations of the sexes are not only divinely intended to, but actually do bring equal joys, pains, pleasures and sacrifices to both. Whatever mistake one has made has acted upon the other, and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... is advanced on this class of pants, they cannot be sold at all; then there would be no sweater, and the woman would get no work. Is no work better than some work?" The trouble with a great deal of this is, that it is incorrect both in its premise and in its reasoning. It is indeed true that there is great competition in the clothing business, but it is not true that the result of this competition leads every employer to pay the highest wages that can be recovered from the sale ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... an explanation tell her? A date, a place, a few details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to her—his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive passions. Should she refuse him because his outer life corresponded? Perhaps. ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... to be a piece of exaggeration and vain boasting. The translation is from the Mongol History, which, not being translated by Klaproth, I have selected as most adapted to the present occasion; I must premise that I translate as I write, and if there be any inaccuracies, as I daresay there will, some allowance must be made for haste, which prevents my devoting the attention necessary to a perfectly correct rendering ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... and I cannot find any belief of' the march of armies towards France. Nay, the Comte d'Artois is said to be gone to PetersbUrgh; and he must bring back forces in a balloon, if he can be time enough to interrupt your passage through Flanders. One thing I must premise, if, which I deprecate, You should set foot in France; I beg you to burn, and not to bring a scrap of paper with you. Mere travelling ladies as young as you, I know have been stopped and rifled, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... cannot dodge the moral law; as Professor Clifford said, "There are no back-stairs to the universe" by which we can elude the consequences of our wrong, whether of thought or action. If you let in one evil premise by the back-door, be sure Sin and Death will come out at ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... Mother Eve's premonitory thrill along the backbone. Wish-bugs, too, were here, skimming and darting. The peculiarity of a wish-bug is that he will bestow upon you your heart's desire, if only you hold him in the hand and wish. But the impossible premise defeats the conclusion. You never do hold him long enough, simply because you can't catch him in the first place. Yet the fascinating possibility is like a taste for drink, or the glamour of cards. Does the committee-man ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... to paint a picture of the future for you, to tell you in detail what that future will be like. I do not know: no man can know. He who pretends to know is either a fool or a knave, my friend. But there are some things which, I believe, we may premise with reasonable certainty These things I want to discuss in my next letter. Meantime, there are lots of things in this letter ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... I have called the preamble of that grant of power, which is made to the Church, to that power itself, Infallibility, I premise two brief remarks:—1. on the one hand, I am not here determining any thing about the essential seat of that power, because that is a question doctrinal, not historical and practical; 2. nor, on the other hand, am I extending the direct subject-matter, over ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... many of the phenomena of certain lesions in the abdominal cavity. The nociceptors in the abdomen, like nociceptors elsewhere, have been established as a result of some kind of injury to which during vast periods of time this region has been frequently exposed. On this premise, we should at once conclude that there are no nociceptors for heat within the abdomen because, during countless years, the intra-abdominal region never came into contact with heat. That this inference is correct is shown by the fact that the ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion—thus: ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... the eye could see the lava flow extended without a break. But she knew the cavern in which she had slept lay at a right angle to the line of her advance. All site had to do was to face forward and keep going till she reached the plain. The reasoning was sound, but it was based on a wrong premise. Lee had clambered out of the fissure on the opposite side from that by which she had entered. Every step she took now carried her ...
— A Man Four-Square • William MacLeod Raine

... X-ray, has come only as the human mind has thrown off a portion of its hampering material beliefs. I am astounded when I think of it, and of its marvelous message to future generations! For, from the premise that the creator of all things is spirit, or mind, as you will, comes the corollary that the creation itself must of necessity be mental. And from this come such deductions as fairly make me tremble. Carmen has told me of the deductions ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... to plead "his clergy" any more, but should be proceeded against by the ordinary law. So far it was possible to go—an enormous step if we think of what the evil had been; and in such matters to make a beginning was the true difficulty—it was the logical premise from which the conclusion could not choose but follow. Yet such was the mystical sacredness which clung about the ordained clergy, that their patent profligacy had not yet destroyed it—a priest ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... his "Ramos," and sometimes glanced at "Ganot." With all that, he would often shake his head with an air of doubt, as he smiled and murmured: "transeat." In regard to chemistry, no common knowledge was attributed to him after he had taken as a premise the statement of St. Thomas that water is a mixture and proved plainly that the Angelic Doctor had long forestalled Berzelius, Gay-Lussac, Bunsen, and other more or less presumptuous materialists. Moreover, in spite of having ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... earnest but ill-used persons who are forced to load their minds with a score of subjects against an examination, who have too much on their hands to indulge themselves in thinking or investigation, who devour premise and conclusion together with indiscriminate greediness, who hold whole sciences on faith, and commit demonstrations to memory, and who too often, as might be expected, when their period of education is passed, throw up all they have ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... ends which have currency in the educational theories of the day, and consider what light they throw upon the immediate concrete and diversified aims which are always the educator's real concern. We premise (as indeed immediately follows from what has been said) that there is no need of making a choice among them or regarding them as competitors. When we come to act in a tangible way we have to select or choose a particular act at a particular time, but any number of comprehensive ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... to set down one, which was carefully made in Vessels conveniently Shap'd; (and that in the presence of a Witness, and an Assistant) the Sum whereof I find among my Adversaria, Registred in the following Words. To which I shall only premise, (to lessen the wonder of so strange a diffusion of the Pigment) That Cochineel will be better Dissolv'd, and have its Colour far more heightn'd by Spirit of Urine, than (I say not by common Water, but) by Rectify'd Spirit ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... of the conclusion are a step beyond the premises, and the main fight of her opponents would no doubt be made on her definition of the word being. The assumption that either sex of a given species is a distinct "being" cannot probably be slid into the minor premise of the argument without some objection from the opposing counsel. However, this brings us at once to the main point, and the chapter called "The Organic Argument," which opens with this syllogism, is really the pith of the book, and would, perhaps, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... absorption of the virus of the unsound meat into the systems of those who partake of it. The external indications of good and bad meat will be described under its own particular head, but we may here premise that the layer of all wholesome meat, when freshly killed, adheres firmly to ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... of immortal life: the conviction that creation is under divine love and wisdom, administered by Cosmic Law and order, or Justice, and the final "redemption" (i.e., evolution), of all men. In his "Conjugal Love," Swedenborg touches upon the premise which we declare, as the foundation of all cosmic consciousness, namely the attainment of spiritual union with the "mate" which we believe to be inseparable from all creation; the reunited principle ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... brings suffering upon his innocent wife and children; and all for no good, since his fight is futile and ineffective. Surely any one could foresee that such action would make only for unhappiness, or for no happiness commensurable with the sacrifice. Yet if we agree with his premise, that the liquor trade is a curse to humanity, we deem his conduct not only conscientious but objectively noble and right. How can we ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... true. At bottom, the human soul loves truth, nor willingly believes or receives a lie. Our intellectual sin is synecdoche, the putting a part truth for a whole truth. Generalization is dangerous intellectual exercise. Our premise is insufficient, and our conclusion is self-sufficient, like some strutting scion of a decayed house. Trace the origin of this idea of a poet's non-sanity. He was not ordinary, as other men, but was extraordinary, and as such belonged to the upper rather than the lower world; for we must ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... the common-school system that the attention should be particularly directed. I may premise that it has one unavoidable defect, namely, the absence of religious instruction. It would be neither possible nor right to educate the children in any denominational creed, or to instruct them in ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... will be, with God's help," rejoined father confidently, his words making me resolve inwardly that I would try so that my life should not disgrace his assuring premise. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... therefore decides upon Lord Palmerston's new proposals, she wishes to know whom he could recommend for the post of Frankfort in the event of Lord Cowley leaving it, and thinks it but right to premise that in giving her sanction to the proposals Lord Palmerston may have to submit, she will be guided entirely by ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... logical enough, if you start with the premise that each individual is free to follow his inclinations and decide ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... seek the nature of the soul, we must premise that the soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live: for we call living things "animate," [*i.e. having a soul] and those things which have no life, "inanimate." Now life is shown principally by two actions, knowledge ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... him to buy something that he knows he does not want. It is all right so long as the salesman is present, but discontent follows in his trail. Sometimes—stocks and bonds salesmen are guilty here—they wheedle the customer into buying more than he can afford, beginning on the premise that since their stocks are good (and the men who sell fraudulent ones use the same methods) a man should if he has a hundred dollars buy a hundred dollars' worth, if he has a million he should buy ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... Theatre. Since we can't produce it, let us deduce it. Major premise: the seats are cheap. Minor premiss: the plays are good. Conclusion: A People's Theatre. How much will you give me for my syllogism? Not a slap in the eye, ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence

... without giving one single reason for it; all the proof presented here is a night meeting. Please see the quotation from the British Quarterly Review. But let us look at it the way in which we compute time: I think it will be fair to premise, that about midnight was the middle of Paul's meeting; at any rate there is but one midnight to a twenty-four hour day. We say that Sunday, the first day of the week, does not commence until 12 o'clock Saturday night. Then it is very clear, if he is preaching ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates

... so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are, and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and, in each case, ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... the author of the present work comes to the rescue. He shall speak in his own words. But we must premise, that although we do not intend to stint him in our quotation—though we wish to give him all the sea-room possible; yet, for a full development of his views, we must refer the reader to his volumes themselves. There are some disquisitions which precede ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... descended through the generations; survived the middle ages, and been transmitted to the modern world. A perusal of the Raggionamente of Pietro Aretino will confirm this statement, in its first premise, and the experiences of Sir Richard Burton in the India of Napier, and Harry Franck's, in Spain, in the present century, and those of any intelligent observer in the Orient, today, will but bear out this hypothesis. The native population of Manila ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... to be apprehended. Mistaking the form for that substance which has been brought to the level of human apprehension by its means, is the error which constitutes the basis of dogmatic theology. Error in a premise compels error in conclusions. It is no wonder that woman's true relation to man and just position in the social fabric has remained unknown. A Moses on Pisgah's height is needed to-day to see and declare this promised land; and he must ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... dictate upon the occasion, rather than to smother a relation, which may, in the judgment of my conscience, be like to conduce so much to the glory of God, the honour of the gospel, and the good of mankind. One thing more I will only premise, that I hope none who have heard the colonel himself speak something of this wonderful scene, will be surprised if they find some new circumstances here; because he assured me, at the time he first gave me the whole narration, ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge

... of letters written, as he says, 'at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and what is not': the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together much as he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as they were to her whom ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson

... so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Rios would reason things out. And, oddly enough, it strikes me that though he began with a false premise he has come pretty close to reaching the right conclusion. You see, he knows that I came down here with Barlow looking for treasure. He knew Captain Escobar was ahead of him on the same trail and when he could get nothing further out ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... judge for himself, how far my three principles throw light on the theory of the subject. It appears to me that so many expressions are thus explained in a fairly satisfactory manner, that probably all will hereafter be found to come under the same or closely analogous heads. I need hardly premise that movements or changes in any part of the body,— as the wagging of a dog's tail, the drawing back of a horse's ears, the shrugging of a man's shoulders, or the dilatation of the capillary vessels of the skin,—may ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... make ourselves worthy of America's ideals, if we do not forget that our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God's making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward the true promise of human ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower

... now proceed to make some remarks upon Port Essington, ere the subject becomes a matter of history, as I fervently hope the abandonment of the place will render it ere many years have gone by;* but before doing so I may premise a brief account of the former British settlements on the north ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... the ambition of proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast, in the strictest sense, as not merely distinguished, but as contra-distinguished, from a fanatic. While I in part translate the following observations from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed the substance from memoranda of my own, which were written many years before his pamphlet was given to the world; and that I prefer another's words to my own, partly as a tribute due to priority of publication; but still more ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Comedies are founded upon chaste manners. Indeed, this Play is justly deemed the most pure and innocent of all the Plays of Plautus; and the Company are quite justified in the commendations which, in their Epilogue, they bestow on it, as the author has carried out the premise which he made in the Prologue (with only four slight exceptions), of presenting ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... Their talk, beginning with a single stem, Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers, Colonies of digression, and, in them, Germs of yet new dispersion; once by the ears, They could convey damnation in a hem, And blow the pinch of premise-priming off Long syllogistic batteries, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... had swept all traces and hopes of good fortunes away; never one at the North where the corn had been blasted, or the fruits of the earth untimely ravaged, or the heart of the husbandman disappointed in his ground. Mamma's conclusions seemed to me without premise. What of my own fortunes? I thought the wind of the desert, had blown upon them and they were dead. I remember, in the trembling of my heart as I sat and listened and mused, and thoughts trooped in and out of my head with little order or volition on my part, one word was a sort ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... righteous words this answer gave: "Dear Queen, all noble virtues grace Thy son, of men the first in place. Why dost thou shed these tears of woe With bitter grief lamenting so? If Rama, leaving royal sway Has hastened to the woods away, 'Tis for his high-souled father's sake That he his premise may not break. He to the path of duty clings Which lordly fruit hereafter brings— The path to which the righteous cleave— For him, dear Queen, thou shouldst not grieve. And Lakshman too, the blameless-souled, The same high course ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... art that a young person without previous experience or training can make an immediate (and sometimes lasting) effect upon the stage, whereas in the preparation for any other art (even the interpretative arts) years of training are necessary. This premise is full of holes; nevertheless George Moore, and Messrs. Nathan and Sherwin all cling to it. It is true that almost any young girl, moderately gifted with charm or comeliness, may make an instantaneous impression on our stage, especially in the namby-pamby roles which our ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... logically have availed him. If, however, he had struck and killed one who he believed was going to shatter his legs it might have been important. The illustration is clear enough, but its application probably involves a mistaken premise. If he thought he had glass legs his mind was undoubtedly deranged—whether enough or not enough to constitute him irresponsible or beyond the effect of penal discipline might be a difficult question. The generally accepted doctrine is, that if a man has a delusion ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... guess that one of your later arguments will be that Judge Carter, having accepted this minor as qualified to deliver sworn testimony, has already granted the first premise of your argument." ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... psychiatrists said with more than a trace of admiration in his voice. "Complete and thoroughly consistent. She's just traded identities—and everything else she does—everything else—stems logically out of her delusional premise. Beautiful." ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett

... religion in which he believed, Moses had from early childhood been nurtured in these Mesopotamian beliefs and traditions, and to them—or, at least, toward them—he always tended to revert in moments of stress. Without bearing this fundamental premise in mind, Moses in active life can hardly be understood, for it was on this foundation that his theories of cause and ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... country, that they are still disloyal in sentiment and purpose, and that neither the honor, the credit, nor the interest of the Nation would be safe if they were re-admitted to a share in its counsels." Mr. Raymond maintained, even if the truth of this premise were granted, that it was sufficient to reply that "we have no right, for such reasons, to deny to any portion of the States or people rights expressly conferred upon them by the Constitution of the United States, and we have no right to distrust the purpose ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... most capital consideration with regard to this, as to every object, is the extent of it. And here it is necessary to premise, this system of penalty and incapacity has for its object no small sect or obscure party, but a very numerous body of men,—a body which comprehends at least two thirds of that whole nation: it amounts to 2,800,000 souls, a number sufficient for the materials ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... With this premise firmly under our feet let us go on to the question of the intelligence of the physical tissues of the human body, and our relation to disease, ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... us it was attached to the old historic Right which had a long political tradition. The new nationalism differed from the old Right in the stress it laid on the idea of "nation"; but it was at one with the Right in regarding the State as the necessary premise to the individual rights and values. It was the special achievement of nationalism to rekindle faith in the nation in Italian hearts, to arouse the country against parliamentary socialism, and to lead an open attack on Freemasonry, before which the Italian bourgeoisie ...
— Readings on Fascism and National Socialism • Various

... quiet, blue-eyed girl, the pride of her aunt, and a pattern of propriety to all little girls. That Miss Sidebottom was kind and motherly to the two orphans, there is no question; but it was rumored that in consideration thereof she enjoyed a comfortable legacy. It is only necessary to premise, farther, that Miss Sidebottom had been younger by some two-score years than she was that night; that she was one of Mr. Hardesty's best customers; and that after long worshipping her across the counter, he had suddenly determined to declare his passion with all the eloquence ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... ship-board, and with a perpetual liability to be pitched to leeward, paper and all,—I shall have said enough to bespeak from every good-natured reader a candid allowance for whatever defects may attach to the composition. It is necessary, however, that I should also premise, that the sketches are drawn entirely from memory, and that the incidents referred to in the earlier chapters, took place some twenty years ago. That my recollection may have proved treacherous on some minor ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... before your life and mine, why, I can't begin until something else has begun. It's not right, unless that other is right, that I've told you. We belong together in the one big way, first. That's the premise. That's the one great thing. What difference about the ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... looked with a different premise and saw a deeper thing. The world might exist for her enjoyment, but it eluded her understanding. And that was beginning to encroach ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... of general opinion and, if necessary, the use of financial pressure and financial inducements, may be enough to prevent a recalcitrant minority from exercising their right of veto. We must trust the new Governments, whose existence I premise in the principal Allied countries, to show a profounder wisdom and a greater magnanimity than ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... clarion call of the North rang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs and bent all his energy to its achievement. He figured briefly and to the point, and the adventure became iridescent-hued, splendid. That eggs would sell at Dawson for five dollars a dozen was a safe working premise. Whence it was incontrovertible that one thousand dozen would bring, in the Golden Metropolis, five ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... different from that which his wife had evolved from the contemplation of California scenery and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to the columns of "The Avalanche." It was at this time that Col. Starbottle discovered a similarity in Mrs. Tretherick's verse to the genius of Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of Fiddletown in a two-columned ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... stormy sea; to-day let me engage the attention of your readers with the Runick inscription to whose fortunate discovery I have heretofore alluded. Well may we say with the poet, Multa renascuntur quae jam cecidere. And I would premise, that, although I can no longer resist the evidence of my own senses from the stone before me to the ante-Columbian discovery of this continent by the Northmen, gens inclytissima, as they are called in Palermitan inscription, written fortunately in a less debatable character than that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... ruffian's character. It was quite clear, from the circumstances we are about to relate, that the red miscreant had intended to rob Folliard's house on the night of his attack upon it, in addition to the violent abduction of his daughter. We must premise here that Reilly and the Rapparee were each strongly guarded in different rooms, and the first thing the latter did was to get some one to inform Mr. Folliard that he had a matter of importance concerning Reilly to mention to him. This was immediately on their return, and before ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... particulars of a highly interesting experiment, which resulted in the establishment of one of the very few instances in which the origination of a distinct variety of a domestic quadruped could be satisfactorily traced, with all the circumstances attending its development well authenticated. We must premise it by stating, that amongst the series of wools shewn in the French department of the Great Exhibition, were specimens characterised by the jury as a wool of singular and peculiar properties; the hair, glossy and silky, similar to mohair, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various

... Second premise: The frogmen considered them harmless tourists, interested only in diving to the wreck, and therefore to be ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... human soul loves truth, nor willingly believes or receives a lie. Our intellectual sin is synecdoche, the putting a part truth for a whole truth. Generalization is dangerous intellectual exercise. Our premise is insufficient, and our conclusion is self-sufficient, like some strutting scion of a decayed house. Trace the origin of this idea of a poet's non-sanity. He was not ordinary, as other men, but was extraordinary, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... cases of slaves, either Africans or descendants of Africans, emancipated in considerable bodies at a time. I have kept them by themselves, became they are of a different complexion from those, which I intend should follow. I shall now reason upon them. Let me premise, however, that I shall consider the three first of the cases as one, so that the same reasoning will do for all. They are alike indeed in their main features; and we must consider this as sufficient; ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson

... qu. Zeller 114). This bears a semblance of inference and is not so utterly tautological as Cic.'s translation, which merges [Greek: phos] and [Greek: hemera] into one word, or that of Zeller (114, note). These arguments are called [Greek: monolemmatoi] (involving only one premise) in Sext. P.H. I. 152, 159, II. 167. Si dicis te mentiri, etc.: it is absurd to assume, as this sophism does, that when a man truly states that he has told a lie, he establishes against himself ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... the 6th instant is before me; and I will premise my reply by saying that the suggestions I shall offer to your inquiries are based upon my knowledge of the condition of the territory in 1849, which circumstances beyond my acquaintance ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... obtaining a sort of magic touchstone by which they are saved the labour of investigation. But there is no such thing as a single fact that 'affords evidence requiring no corroboration.' As well might one expect to make a syllogism with a single premise." "I suppose they would hardly go so far as ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... is, that I have been exceedingly employed, and I believe very profitably. However, before I explain how, I must ease my mind on a subject that much more nearly concerns me than any point of business or profit. I must premise to you that Betsey is now very well, before I tell you abruptly that she has encountered another disappointment, and consequent indisposition.... However, she is now getting entirely over it, and she shall never take any journey of the kind again. I inform you of this now, that you ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... aggression or oppressive measures from the side of their more peaceable neighbours; whereupon their warlike animus will give place to a reasonable and enlightened frame of mind. This argument runs tacitly or explicitly, on the premise that these peoples who have so enthusiastically lent themselves to the current warlike enterprise are fundamentally of the same racial complexion and endowed with the same human nature as their peaceable neighbours, who would be only too glad to ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... carried necessarily involves the right to determine what shall be excluded."[1141] The leading fraud order case, decided in 1904, holds to the same effect.[1142] Pointing out that it is "an indispensable adjunct to a civil government," to supply postal facilities, the Court restated its premise that the "legislative body in thus establishing a postal service, may annex such conditions to it as it chooses."[1143] Later cases appear to have qualified these sweeping declarations. In upholding requirements that publishers ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... communicate to you. As it is now ascertained, I avail myself of the chance that another post may yet reach Havre before the departure of the packet. This will depend on the wind, which has for some days been unfavorable. I must premise, that this court, about ten days ago, declared, by their Charge des Affaires in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty was determined, in quality of ally, to succor that province. An official letter from the Hague, of the 18th ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... To show how the various Engineers differ, as to their estimates of the sizes of the several parts of bridges, I subjoin two Tables—one by Prof. G.L. Vose, a well known Engineer, and one by Jno. C. Trautwine, an Engineer of note also—and I would premise that a bridge built according to either would ...
— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower

... think you, I promise that you shall not lack advancement. Plainly, I have a little matter of money put by, for sundry uses; and, if the day comes when something of capital would stead you (after due trial, as I premise), it ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... my duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however, premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking at ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... will suffice to set down one, which was carefully made in Vessels conveniently Shap'd; (and that in the presence of a Witness, and an Assistant) the Sum whereof I find among my Adversaria, Registred in the following Words. To which I shall only premise, (to lessen the wonder of so strange a diffusion of the Pigment) That Cochineel will be better Dissolv'd, and have its Colour far more heightn'd by Spirit of Urine, than (I say not by common Water, but) by Rectify'd Spirit of Wine ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... other soft, flabby, wrinkled, growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole psychological period apparently lay between that conclusion and—a broom-handle walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as it was bound to come,—thank heaven!—from that premise, and what with stretching one limb to make it longer, and doubling up the other to make it shorter, she invented that form of locomotion which is still carrying her through life, and with no more exaggerated leg-crookedness than many careless negroes born with straight limbs display. This must ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... critical divisions into Fable, Character, Sentiment, and Diction, and took for granted the doctrine of the distinction of genres, he otherwise rejected traditional formulae and critical tenets, and began with the premise that man is most delighted by the imaginative perception of the states of life for which he would willingly exchange his own. These are "the busy, great, or pompous" (depicted in tragedy and the epic) and "the retir'd, soft, or easy" (depicted in ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney

... crystallized into opinion by apt phraseology. To one who believes in the divinely intended equality of the sexes it is impossible to consider that any mutual relation is an incident for the one and the total of existence for the other. We may lay it down as a premise upon which to base our whole reasoning that all mutual relations of the sexes are not only divinely intended to, but actually do bring equal joys, pains, pleasures and sacrifices to both. Whatever mistake one has made has acted upon the other, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... manner in which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one company ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... original Michael Joseph Farrel (I am the third of the name) was Tipperary Irish, and could trace his ancestry back to the fairies—to hear him tell it. But one can never be quite certain how much Spanish there is in an Irishman from the west, so I have always started with the premise that the result of that marriage—my father—was three-fifths Latin. Father married a Galvez, who was half Scotch; so I suppose ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... but she did assert that her native-born subjects could never change their allegiance, that she had an inalienable right to their service, and to seize them wherever found, except within foreign territory. From an admitted premise, that the open sea is common to all nations, she deduced a common jurisdiction, in virtue of which she arrested her vagrant seamen. This argument of right was reinforced by a paramount necessity. In a life and ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... capacity. Of all stories told about him, none are more common or more popular than those which relate to his practical jokes and hoaxes. Thank heaven, the world no longer sees amusement in the misery of others, and the fashion of such clever performance is gone out. It is fair, however, to premise, that while the cleverest of Hook's hoaxes were of a victimizing character, a large number were just the reverse, and his admirers affirm, not without some reason, that when he had got a dinner out of a person whom he did not know, by an ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... subtracted.) If we now turn to the Flora, we shall find the aboriginal plants of the different islands wonderfully different. I give all the following results (Table 17/1) on the high authority of my friend Dr. J. Hooker. I may premise that I indiscriminately collected everything in flower on the different islands, and fortunately kept my collections separate. Too much confidence, however, must not be placed in the proportional results, as the small collections brought home by some other naturalists ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... sensible, manly and independent address made to the shah during his European tour was, we think, the speech of welcome delivered by the president of the Swiss Confederation. We may premise that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century. Still, the Swiss people did not show themselves overcome, but received their guest with a sober and dignified cordiality—a sail, a dinner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... effect. He did not sufficiently verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon the data given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; this bird is black; therefore this bird is a crow." The defect of the syllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the major premise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without sufficient examination of the ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... one to which all mankind is every where subject, and which is in a great measure beyond the reach of effective human interference. Before proceeding to explain the steps taken to remedy the second, viz., our distracted foreign relations, let us premise briefly for the present, that the very earliest acts of Ministers showed how profoundly sensible they were of the necessity of doing something, and that promptly, to relieve the grievous distress under which the lower orders were suffering, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various

... are told that—"The country is prospering as it is. Why change now? The land is tranquil, people are regaining the prosperity which was lost in the war. It is a pity to make a change now; now is not the moment." I admit the premise, but I draw exactly the opposite conclusion. It is just for that reason that we should now step forward and, taking occasion by the hand, make an advance in the system of government. How often in the history of nations has ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... As a premise to an explanation of the principles involved it should be noted that the transmission of telegraph messages by hand at a rate of fifty words per minute is considered a good average speed; hence, the availability of a telegraph line, as thus operated, ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... proceed in the diagonal c b, and describe it in the same time that it would have described the side c a, by the first motion, or the side, c d, by the second. To understand the demonstration of this corollary, we must premise this obvious principle, that when a body is acted upon by a motion of power parallel to a right line given in position, this power, or motion, has no effect to cause the body to approach towards that line, or recede from it, but to move in a line parallel to a right line only; as appears ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... consistent with another hypothesis, you strive to shut your eyes to them, or draw wrong conclusions from them. Your suggestion that Penreath must have hidden the money in the pit because he was arrested near it is a choice example of false deduction based on the wrong premise that Penreath hid the money there on the night of the murder. He could not have done so because he had no rope, and how was he, a stranger to the place, to know that the inside of the pit was covered with creeping plants of sufficient strength to bear a man's weight? The choice of the pit ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes, have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise, that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... office, he had reviewed the situation point by point, and then gone back and reviewed it again; the conclusion was inescapable. The Organization had ordered him to make an accusation which he himself knew to be false; that was the first premise. The conclusion was that he would be killed as soon as he had made it. That was the trouble with being mixed up with that kind of people—you were expendable, and sooner or later, they would decide that they would have to expend you. And ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... Scarcely could two men be more unlike, in mental and moral constitutions, than Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas. Mr. Lincoln was calm and philosophic. He loved the truth for the truth's sake. He would not argue from a false premise, or be deceived himself or deceive others by a false conclusion. He had pondered deeply on the issues which aroused him to action. He had given anxious thought to the problems of free government, and to the destiny of the Republic. He ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... reader may understand fully the nature of the romantic enterprise in which, as we have already said, Prince Charles embarked when he was a little over twenty years of age, we must premise that Frederic, the German prince who married Charles's sister Elizabeth some years before, was the ruler of a country in Germany called the Palatinate. It was on the banks of the Rhine. Frederic's title, as ruler of this country, was Elector Palatine. ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... for her debut; and they have, perhaps naturally, found in the fact a fresh confirmation of that traditional blindness of authors to their own best work, which is one of the commonplaces of literary history. But this is to premise that she did regard it as her masterpiece, a fact which, apart from this accident of priority of issue, is, as far as we are aware, nowhere asserted. A simpler solution is probably that, of the three novels she had written or sketched by ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the most exclusive of all schools, worked out the following syllogism in the ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... years very much on than quite off—have given me a good title—to myself, I ask no one else for leave—to make the following remarks: A conclusion has premises, facts or doctrines from proof or authority, and mode of inference. There may be invention or {34} falsehood of premise, with good logic; and there may be tenable premise, followed by bad logic; and there may be both false premise and bad logic. The Roman system has such a powerful manufactory of premises, that bad logic is little wanted; there is comparatively little ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... country of very great beasts," he remarked, with the air of one announcing a discovery. As A-ya showed no inclination whatever to dissent from this statement, he presently went on to his conclusion, leaving her to infer his minor premise. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... to try not to. Now, remembering that I don't consider your premise valid, just suppose that when we visit some planet some day, you get your mind burned out and I don't—solely because I had something I could have given you ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, And bring it clear and fair, by three days' sleep! Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120 Now sharply, now with sorrow, told the case, He listened not except I spoke to him, But folded his two hands and let them talk, Watching ...
— Men and Women • Robert Browning

... guessing the real state of affairs it was eminently successful. Even Lord St. John and the Seymours were almost persuaded into the belief that she was happy in her engagement. But as each and all of them were arguing from the false premise that the change in Nan had been entirely due to Rooke's treatment of her, they were inevitably very ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... most annoying incident has marred the day. As I think back upon it, adding deduction to deduction, superimposing surmise upon suspicion and suspicion in turn upon premise and fact, I am forced, against my very will, to conclude that, forgetting the dignity due one in my position, some person or persons to me unknown made a partially successful attempt to enact a practical joke ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... suddenly discovering that he is a 'leader of men,' has deserted his tailor: many a gentleman, learning by experience that it takes as long to try on clothes in one place as another, has presently gone back to him. Starting with the democratic premise that all men are born equal, the ready-to-wear clothier proceeds on the further assumption that each man becomes in time either short, stout, or medium; and this amendment to the Declaration of Independence has indeed created ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... no reply, understanding well enough that though the one premise might be true, the conclusion must be as false as it was illogical and spiteful. They did not go to George Macwha's, but set out for Clippenstrae. When they reached the cottage, they found Meg's nose in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... mentioned. It is necessary to differentiate between partisan assertions and actual conditions. It is necessary to recognize worth as well as to condemn graft. No system of government can stand that lacks public confidence and no progress can be made on the assumption of a false premise. Public administration is honest and sound and public business is transacted on a higher ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... high cost of eggs. The second line awakens interest and prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin. The next line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending "—you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a laugh. Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... they are still disloyal in sentiment and purpose, and that neither the honor, the credit, nor the interest of the Nation would be safe if they were re-admitted to a share in its counsels." Mr. Raymond maintained, even if the truth of this premise were granted, that it was sufficient to reply that "we have no right, for such reasons, to deny to any portion of the States or people rights expressly conferred upon them by the Constitution of the United States, and we have no ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... to give you an account of our last cruise in the Phoenix; and must premise, that should any one see it besides yourself, they must put this construction on it—that it was originally intended for the eyes of a mother, and a mother only—as, upon that supposition, my feelings may be tolerated. ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... His superiority of birth, felt the dominance of His lineage. In His veins flowed the blood of the royal house of Israel, the blood of the first anointed kings of Almighty God." And from this interesting premise the Reverend Wilmot deduced the divine intent that the "best blood" should have superior rights—leadership, respect, deference. So dear was he to his flock that they made him rich in this world's goods as well as ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... that time a sufficient amount of experience from which to generalize with effect. It is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant secure reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without sufficient certainty of the major premise of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... productive of so much mischief in life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our ...
— 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

... examine the Mysteries themselves. I prefer for this purpose to give a specimen from the French, which are livelier than our own. It is necessary to premise to the reader, that my versions being in prose will probably lose much of that quaint expression and vulgar naivete which prevail through the originals, written in ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... truth. And we can hence conclude by another process of reasoning—that there is but one such substance. I think that this may profitably be done at once; and, in order to proceed regularly with the demonstration, we must premise:— ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... argue it out on the way up-town, but with only indifferent success. Granted the premise that Richmond had actually stolen the "Red Duchess," what were his motives in multiplying copies of the picture, a proceeding that must infallibly end in the detection of his crime? And the supreme question—what had finally ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of half-awakened taste and the mannerisms ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... before me certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, "at hazard, for one does not know at the time what is important and what is not": the earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin, the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together, much as he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... political economy have private property as their major premise. This fundamental assumption is regarded by it as an unassailable fact, which needs no demonstration, and about which it only chances to speak casually, as M. ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx

... poem on the "Occultation of Orion." The following lines are those in which he alludes to the mythic story. We must premise that on the celestial globe Orion is represented as robed in a lion's skin and wielding a club. At the moment the stars of the constellation one by one were quenched in the light of the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR

... to make some remarks upon Port Essington, ere the subject becomes a matter of history, as I fervently hope the abandonment of the place will render it ere many years have gone by;* but before doing so I may premise a brief account of the former British settlements on the north coast ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... matter," for it was a serious business. "Come with me into the dining-room and you'll see for yourself." There we went round the table, and "The table's full," he repeated from Macbeth. There was something truly original in the implied premise that his friend was entitled of right to have a place at his table, and that the sole dispensing cause to be allowed was absence of space or a physical impossibility. It seems to me that this was a very genuine, if ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... him examine it and understand it; so its drifting mind settles upon it with that intent, but always with one and the same result: there is a change of temperature and the mountain is hid in a fog. Every time it sets up a premise and starts to reason from it, there is a surprise in store for the reader. It is strangely nearsighted, cross-eyed, and purblind. Sometimes when a mastodon walks across the field of its vision it takes it for a rat; at other times it does not see it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... struck and killed another, his "glass leg" delusion could not logically have availed him. If, however, he had struck and killed one who he believed was going to shatter his legs it might have been important. The illustration is clear enough, but its application probably involves a mistaken premise. If he thought he had glass legs his mind was undoubtedly deranged—whether enough or not enough to constitute him irresponsible or beyond the effect of penal discipline might be a difficult question. The generally accepted doctrine is, that if a man has a delusion concerning something, ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... place, then, I must premise that the name of Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the house and estate which bear that name, are situated on what a visiter would be at first inclined to call a dead level, but on what ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... conversation, and little fear of its ever flagging, for the good-humour of the glorious old twins drew everybody out, and Tim Linkinwater's sister went off into a long and circumstantial account of Tim Linkinwater's infancy, immediately after the very first glass of champagne—taking care to premise that she was very much Tim's junior, and had only become acquainted with the facts from their being preserved and handed down in the family. This history concluded, brother Ned related how that, exactly thirty-five years ago, Tim Linkinwater was suspected to have received ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... not be necessary to cite the passage at length, it being one perfectly familiar to every Christian. I will, then, before I consider it, first premise, that since it has been heretofore abundantly made evident, that the Messiah of the Old Testament was not to suffer, and die, but to live and reign, it is according to the rules of sound criticism, and I think sound theology ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... a strong case for the truth of Mr. Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr. Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in various ways, nor are the leading characteristics ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... following observations upon singular words, may amuse some of your readers. I should, however, premise that as regards myself, the greater part ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... do the Greeks premise as the model of their life in Hades? Anaemic, dreamlike, weak . it is the continuous accentuation of old age, when the memory gradually becomes weaker and weaker, and the body still more so. The senility of senility . ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche

... supposition that definitions, as such, are the premises in any of our reasonings, except such as relate to words only. If this supposition were true, we might argue correctly from true premises, and arrive at a false conclusion. We should only have to assume as a premise the definition of a nonentity; or rather of a name which has no entity corresponding to it. Let this, for instance, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... may not be tried by too rigid rules of criticism—and that more may not be expected from the writer than he means to perform, I deem it necessary to premise that the future numbers, like the present, are intended to consist of such anecdotes respecting the drama and dramatic writers, as I have heretofore, or hereafter may meet with in the course of a very desultory ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... the comforts of sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, there was no ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... other hand some letters which were visible in 1694 have now apparently perished. A rubbing sent me by the late Rev. A. Warren of Old Appleby helped further; I now give from the three sources—Gough's copy, the photograph, and the rubbing—what I hope may be a fairly accurate text. I premise that the letters RCO in line 2, LIPPO in 3, PHILIPPO in 8, IMO in 9, and I in 10 seem to be no longer visible ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield

... proselyting. Jacob Behmen was an enthusiast, in the strictest sense, as not merely distinguished, but as contra-distinguished, from a fanatic. While I in part translate the following observations from a contemporary writer of the Continent, let me be permitted to premise, that I might have transcribed the substance from memoranda of my own, which were written many years before his pamphlet was given to the world; and that I prefer another's words to my own, partly as a tribute due to priority of publication; but still more from ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... California scenery and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to the columns of "The Avalanche." It was at this time that Col. Starbottle discovered a similarity in Mrs. Tretherick's verse to the genius of Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of Fiddletown in a two-columned ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... statements such as the above is called a syllogism. It consists of a major premise (A), a minor premise (B), and a ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... diminish repetition, be considered once for all; and in considering them we shall also be able to observe characteristic differences among the four plays. And to this may be added the little that it seems necessary to premise on the position of these dramas in ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... right, however, to premise that, strictly speaking, there are not more, nay, there are positively fewer banks in Scotland at the present moment than there were in 1825, though the amount of paid-up capital in the banks is more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... "I must premise, that from my first intercourse with the Prince during the present distressing emergency, such conversations as he may have honored me with have been communications of resolutions already formed on his part, and not of matter referred to consultation or submitted to ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore

... conclusion of the professor is correct, but not new. The second conclusion is new, but very doubtful as to its correctness, and certainly does not follow as a sequence from his premise. ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... affects those involved in it. Nine times out of ten there is but one side; yet men have often gone to the gallows because their fellow men failed in this particular—followed the line of least resistance and pursued the obvious and patent conclusions to an end only logical upon a false premise. ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... full explication of this point, and to show how far the hypothesis of the mind's judging by the various divergency of rays may be of use in determining the apparent place of an OBJECT, it will be necessary to premise some few things, which are already well known to those who have any skill ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley

... deprecating the resort to violence. The closing words are a compendium of his life and beliefs: "Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... the circumference to the diameter is the same in all circles. Now, take a diameter of 1 and draw round it a circumference of 3 1/5. In that circle the ratio is 3 1/5; therefore, by the major premise, that is the ratio ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... the detail of the following coast-directions, in which it has been attempted, for the sake of a more easy reference, to collect all the nautical information under one general head, it may be proper to premise that Captain Flinders, in the account of his voyage,* has given two very useful chapters upon the winds and weather that may be experienced upon the various coasts of this continent; as well as information respecting its general navigation and particular sailing-directions ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... and the shore stations become aware of each other through their relation of finer vibrations. A recent experimenter in electric and super-physical force, M. Tessier d'Helbaicy, states this theory: "Taking as his premise the fundamental law of physical science, that all chemical reaction is accompanied by a generation of heat and electricity, he said to himself that the human body, with the innumerable and incessant chemical reactions ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... days Goshorn and I prepared to go up Elk River, to renew the leases of oil and coal lands. Now I must premise that at all times the man who was engaged in "ile" bore a charmed life, and was venerated by both Union men and rebels. He could pass the lines and go anywhere. At one time, when not a spy could be got into or out of Richmond to serve ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... all the questions it involves. I propose to state briefly what I understand by 'Poetry for poetry's sake,' and then, after guarding against one or two misapprehensions of the formula, to consider more fully a single problem connected with it. And I must premise, without attempting to justify them, certain explanations. We are to consider poetry in its essence, and apart from the flaws which in most poems accompany their poetry. We are to include in the idea of poetry the metrical form, and not to regard this as a mere accident ...
— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley

... ability of the concrete to grip the steel, or to carry the horizontal shear incident to their stress, to the upper part of the beam. As an illustration of the logic and analysis applied in discussing the subject of reinforced concrete, one well-known authority, on the premise that the unit of adhesion to rod and of shear are equal, derives a rule for the spacing of rods. His reasoning is so false, and his rule is so far from being correct, that two-thirds would have to be added to the width of beam in order to make it correct. An error of ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... they follow cannot be true. And so that conclusion is not only true, but so evident that even the dialecticians do not think it necessary that any reasons should be given for it—"If that is the case, this is; but this is not; therefore that is not." And so, by denying your consequence, your premise is contradicted. What follows, then?—"All who are not wise are equally miserable; all wise men are perfectly happy: all actions done rightly are equal to one another; all offences are equal." But, though all these propositions at first appear to be admirably laid down, after ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... & Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprize them of their fate? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned; I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be the purport ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... the North rang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs and bent all his energy to its achievement. He figured briefly and to the point, and the adventure became iridescent-hued, splendid. That eggs would sell at Dawson for five dollars a dozen was a safe working premise. Whence it was incontrovertible that one thousand dozen would bring, in the Golden Metropolis, ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... have held the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally intended to show the progress of ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... must decline your premise. You are a new man here and so I will excuse you the impudence of charging me with indifference to the ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... of Mr. H. G. Wells. On the other hand he wrote a very jolly article about beer and "tavern hospitality." The argument marked time for two weeks more, when Mr. Belloc once again entered the lists. The essence of his contribution is "I premise that man, in order to be normally happy, tolerably happy, must own." Collectivism will not let him own. The trouble about the present state of society is that people do not own enough. The remedy proposed will be worse than the disease. Then Mr. Bernard ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... to exhibit successfully what I have to offer on this subject, I find it necessary to begin (in the next chapter) at the very beginning. I think it right, however, in this place to premise a few plain considerations which will be of use to us throughout all our subsequent inquiry; and which indeed we shall never be able to afford to lose sight ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon

... studies, an interest which has gone on deepening and widening until in volume and momentum the stream has now probably reached its outer limit. The convincing citation, "There were giants in those days," with which a late bishop of one of the New England dioceses used to enforce his major premise that wisdom died with Cranmer and his colleagues, no longer satisfies. Probably no period of corresponding length in the whole range of English Church history has shown itself so rich in the fruits of liturgical study as ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... addition to the boat-race, there was to be a bazaar on the beach; and as fine weather was therefore an essential requisite on the occasion, it is scarcely necessary to premise that we had an unusually large quantity of rain. In the forenoon, however, the sun shone with treacherous brilliancy; and all the women in the neighbourhood fluttered out in his beams, gay as butterflies. What dazzling gowns, what flaring parasols, what joyous cavalcades ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... hatred and kept back by fear. They knew that they could not carry a resolution directly condemning him. They, therefore, cunningly brought forward a mere speculative proposition which many members might be willing to affirm without scrutinising it severely. But, as soon as the major premise had been admitted, the minor would be without difficulty established; and it would be impossible to avoid coming to the conclusion that Somers had violated his trust. Such tactics, however, have very seldom succeeded in English parliaments; for a little good sense ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... religion, since each one must answer at God's judgment seat for his own choice and his life's acts. Consequently, there is no warrant for the making of religious laws and the laying of ecclesiastical taxes. With this premise, it followed that the Baptist exemption act of 1729 was defective and unjust, in that it demanded certificates; and from this time there began a steadily increasing opposition to the giving of these papers. Backus objected to the certificates upon several ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.

... explain many of the phenomena of certain lesions in the abdominal cavity. The nociceptors in the abdomen, like nociceptors elsewhere, have been established as a result of some kind of injury to which during vast periods of time this region has been frequently exposed. On this premise, we should at once conclude that there are no nociceptors for heat within the abdomen because, during countless years, the intra-abdominal region never came into contact with heat. That this inference is correct is shown by the fact that the application of a thermocautery ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile

... here is in the premise. Has not the demagogue more power than his dupes, or the Member of Parliament more power than the elector? We have hardly yet reached, and are never likely to reach, that ideal of direct government. ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... From this premise it is easy to understand why 'L'Esclarcissement' is such a rare book. Very few copies indeed are known to exist. Yet one cannot help wondering what became of the copies that had not been disposed of at the author's death. Possibly ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... to be controversial, but only to make clear the general sense in which the term Pantheism is here used. Not that it would be possible at the outset to indicate all that is implicit in the definition. I only wish to premise plainly that I am not concerned with any view of the world such as implies or admits that, whether by process of creation, or emanation, or self-division, or evolution, the oneness of the Eternal has ever ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton

... either of these impractical theorists to call aloud on the chance of attracting their friends' attention. Instead, with all the assurance that deductive reasoning from a wrong premise induces in one, Mr. Samuel T. Philander grasped Professor Archimedes Q. Porter firmly by the arm and hurried the weakly protesting old gentleman off in the direction of Cape Town, fifteen hundred miles ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted their pipes and squatted in the ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... if borne in mind, will serve to throw into stronger relief the things that an automobile can do, and to supply a substantial basis for the premise that, at least in some respects, the automobile is the most marvelous machine the world has yet seen. It can go anywhere at any time, floundering through two feet of snow, ford any stream that isn't ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... questions which cannot be determined by a direct appeal to experience. And undeniably Theism is one of those questions, unless we admit with the transcendentalist what is contrary to evident fact, that men have an intuitive perception of God. In the next place, the minor premise of this argument is assumed. There is no general consent of mankind in favor of Theism, but only a very extensive consent. Mr. Gladstone, not long since, in the Nineteenth Century, went so far as to claim the general ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote

... to work in than original barbarism; and, therefore, as we enter on the second century of this struggle, we begin to fear for the Christian Irish, not from the arms or the valour, but from the contact and example of the unbelievers. This, it is necessary to premise, before presenting to the reader a succession of Bishops who lead armies to battle, of Abbots whose voice is still for war, of treacherous tactics and savage punishments; of the almost total disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... granted the premise that a black, dead star is approaching the Solar System, then my theorizing may seem more logical. You agree?" The listeners nodded and Arcot continued. "Well—I had an idea—and when I went downstairs for the handling machine, I called the Lunar Observatory." He couldn't quite keep ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... here premise, that, in dwelling on this topic, I should revolt at the thought of administering to a vain, self-complacent spirit. It is mournful, it is humiliating to know, as we do, that the incense of adulation has been offered up to this ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... abbreviated form, is the case against Patrick. Space forbids any reference to his elaborate and ingenious defense, which was based entirely on an alleged complete failure of corroboration of Jones's testimony. Starting with the premise that the word of a self-confessed murderer and thrice-perjured scoundrel was valueless as proof, he contended that there was no adequate evidence that Rice's death was felonious, and that the congestion of the lungs could have been and was caused by the embalming ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... her. He could reason so far as that he and Mr. Keller must have taken the same poison, because he and Mr. Keller had been cured out of the same bottle. But to premise that he had been made ill by an overdose of medicine, and that Mr. Keller had been made ill in some other way, and then to ask, how two different illnesses could both have been cured by the same remedy—was an effort utterly ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... village, and from house to house, seeking corroborative evidence from men of all ranks and professions, on the effect of the Improved Land System on the working classes, and I will here faithfully record as briefly as possible the result of my enquiries. I must premise a few words as to the principles of the ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... uncertainty that these generalisations possess. Some philosophers have contended that certain general ideas are innate, but few would be found nowadays to accept such a contention. At other times mere definitions of terms may serve as premises. One might state as a premise the definition "A straight line is the shortest distance between two points," and the further statement that "AB is a straight line between A and B," and conclude that the line AB represents the shortest distance between two points A and B. In a manner similar to this Euclid ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... from Tergou a fresh disaster befell. Catherine, I must premise, had secret interviews with the black sheep, the very day after they were expelled; and Cornelis followed her to Tergou, and lived there on secret contributions, but Sybrandt chose to remain in Rotterdam. ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... in a way, the introduction to this story. It is to the drama that follows that the premise is to a syllogism, what the prologue is to ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... had said, she was born differently, bred differently, educated to a life of ease. And he, Harry Randall, had known it from the first, knew it when he married her. Just now, to be sure, he was financially flat, several months ahead of his meagre salary; but that did not alter the original premise, the original obligation. He remembered this now as he looked at her, remembered and decided—the only way it seemed to him possible an honorable ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... of elements which are entitled to a reward. The Fourierists—as far as I have been able to learn from a few of their pamphlets—deny the right of occupancy, and recognize no basis of property save labor. Starting with a like premise, they would have seen—had they reasoned upon the matter—that capital is a source of production to its proprietor only by virtue of the right of occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed, if labor is the sole basis of property, I cease to be ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... interested are the women. The man who makes the highest appeal to a woman is he whose tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth and who does not know what to do with his hands in her presence. She must be a princess, he a slave. Each knows this premise is unsupported by facts, yet it is a joyous fiction while it lasts. James Trottingham Minton was not a whit bashful when with men. No. He called on Mr. Putnam at his office, and with the calmness of an agent collecting rent, asked him for the hand ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... Clownish? to sing of mean, and trivial matters, {52} yet not trivially, and meanly? to pipe on a slender Reed, and yet keep the sound from being harsh, and squeaking? to make every thing sweet, yet never satiate? And this I thought necessary to premise, in order to the better laying down of such Rules as I design. For the naked simplicity both of the Matter and Expression of a Pastoral, upon bare Contemplation, might seem easily to be hit, but upon trial 'twill be found a very hard ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... ambitions. We occupy no countries. We build no walls to lock people in. Americans build the future. And our vision of a better life for farmers, merchants, and working people, from the Americas to Asia, begins with a simple premise: The future is best decided by ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... the Metamorphoses, as far as known, common to all Cirripedia, but more especially in relation to the present family. I may premise, that since Vaughan Thompson's capital discovery of the larvae in the last stage of development in Balanus, much has been done on this subject: this same author subsequently published[4] in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' an account of the larvae of Lepas and Conchoderma (Cineras) ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... the last and best that we have heard of the above-named gentleman. We should premise, that, the details of it are a little altered, with the view of adapting it to "ears polite;" for without some process of this kind, it would not have been presentable. A lady went to the doctor in great distress ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various

... 1. 23. That is, as I understand it, either the major or the minor premise, it is true, that "all that is sweet is pleasant," it is true also, that "this is sweet," what is contrary to Right Reason is the bringing in this minor to the major i.e. the universal maxim, forbidding to taste. Thus, a man goes to a convivial meeting with the maxim in ...
— Ethics • Aristotle

... me and at the time I was triumphant, especially as my leader had declared that our case was impossible. Afterwards, however, my conscience smote me sorely, so much so that arguing from the false premise of this business, I came to the conclusion that the practice of the Law was not suited to an honest man. I did not take the large view that such matters average themselves up and that if I had done harm in this instance, I might live ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... separate the rose from its color or form or odor, any more than I can divorce music from the instrument. These vague and incomplete definitions have had much to do with the unbelief in the world. Tom Paine wrote a book which he called the 'Age of Reason' on the premise that reason does away with God. Isn't ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson









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