FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • More 'Premise' Quotes from Famous Books

... already been considered, and if the premise in regard to the isolation of the household employee is well taken, and if the position can be sustained that this isolation proves the determining factor in the situation, then certainly an effort should ...

— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... only unwholesome, but absolutely poisonous, on 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 firmly to ...

— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... 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 ...

— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... his mother like the same things. That is the first premise. The second is, his mother has excellent taste; conclusion—Robert Vail has excellent taste. I have not studied ...

— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird

... argument I must premise that I put out of the question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions, the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he ...

— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... 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 ...

— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... 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 a new republic of shorts, stouts, and mediums, in ...

— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... 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 Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... heart; but first I must premise, that He of whom we are now about to speak is one that has not His fellow. He has two natures in one Person, plain to be distinguished, impossible to be divided. Unto each of these natures a righteousness belongeth, and each righteousness is essential to that nature; so that one may as easily ...

— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 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 ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... 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 not merely that he has told a lie, but also that he ...

— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... 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 ...

— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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

... in this conception, I propose to denominate Trance. But let me premise that all do not belong to every instance of trance. If I undertook to specify the external appearances of the human species, I must enunciate among other things, as colours of the skin, white, yellow, brown, black; as qualities of the hair, that it is flowing, soft, lanky, harsh, frizzled, woolly; ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... excuse my omitting them; yet, because I promised to say somewhat of them, I shall be as good as my Word, (the Character of an Honest man) and present you with a couple of Examples, and then proceed to Peals upon Eight: But this I must crave leave to premise, That Variety of Changes may be prick'd upon Seven Bells, as Triples, and Doubles, Triples Doubles, and Single Doubles, &c. and the same Methods may be prick'd upon Seven, as may be upon Five, the true difference of Proportion being ...

— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... 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 which had an influence on our progress in the ensuing summer. The observations ...

— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... 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 accident or a mere vehicle. And, finally, ...

— Poetry for Poetry's Sake - An Inaugural Lecture Delivered on June 5, 1901 • A. C. Bradley

... 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

... to 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, since I was ...

— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... 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, ...

— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... 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 ...

— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... different. The doctrine of Transformation was another of our premises: that is to say, the belief held by savages in the possibility of a change of form while preserving the same identity. A third premise was the belief in Witchcraft, or the power of certain persons to cause the transformations just mentioned, and to perform by means of spells, or symbolic actions and mystical words, various other feats beyond ordinary human power. And there were others to ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... 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 ...

— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... journals, it may be acceptable to say a few words respecting the individual himself, and his extraordinary career. I am indebted to a mutual friend, acquainted with him from early years, for the following brief but interesting outline of his life; and have only to premise, that Mr. Brooke is the lineal representative of Sir Robert Vyner, baronet, and lord mayor of London in the reign of Charles II.; Sir Robert had but one child, a son, Sir George Vyner, who died childless, ...

— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... spiritual interests. With people whom we distrust, it is as difficult to do business as to search for scientific truth, arrive at religious harmony, or attain to justice. When one must first question words and intentions, and start from the premise that everything said and written is meant to offer us illusion in place of truth, life becomes strangely complicated. This is the case to-day. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle legerdemain, that we all have no end of trouble to inform ...

— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... knowledge, my Lord, attaches any force to the observations I now submit to your Lordship, I have to premise, that they are the result of recent personal investigation, and are a summary of remarks detailed in journals of a very excursive observation on the Windward Coast of Africa, and a peculiar facility of intercourse with the chiefs ...

— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry

... and rejects the other, which follows with logical necessity. It is Augustinian, yea, hyper-Augustinian and hyper-Calvinistic in the doctrine of human depravity, and anti-Augustinian in the doctrine of divine predestination. It endorses the anthropological premise, and denies the theological conclusion. If man is by nature like a stone and block, and unable even to accept the grace of God, as Article II teaches, he can only be converted by an act of almighty ...

— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... 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 ...

— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... he 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

... 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, ...

— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... and traced the doctrine of absorption, it remains to investigate the justice of its grounds. The doctrine starts from a premise partly true and ends in a conclusion partly false. We emanate from the creative power of God, and are sustained by the in flowing presence of his life, but are not discerptions from his own being, any more ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... Now, I must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness and conceit; and as ...

— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... were a group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of each in turn. It may be well to premise a brief indication of the method which I have adopted. I have devoted a much greater proportion of my work to biography and to consideration of political and social conditions than would be appropriate to the history of a philosophy. The reasons for such a course are very obvious ...

— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... 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 zeal of other collectors ...

— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... away; elsewhere they stand up on end, zigzag in lacets each more hair-raising than the last, or fill to demoralization with loose boulders and shale. A fall on the part of your horse would mean a more than serious accident; but Western horses do not fall. The major premise stands: even the casual tourist has no real reason for fear, however ...

— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... 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

... that they will repress all vice and crime, reclaim all criminals, and give to the race generally a keen devotion to duty. A belief in a State where even this will be realized is deeply implanted in human nature, and Socialism itself might easily get a major premise from it. The syllogism would run thus: (1) A better State is bound to come. (2) It cannot come under the system of private capital. (3) Therefore that system must be abolished. So would we all say if the minor premise were true—"The good State is impossible under private capital." ...

— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark

... 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 that ...

— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... his 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 what could ...

— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... 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 of the most unpardonable character, having for a ...

— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... discovery by the king and the opportunity for him to become an artist. The joy of this climax is twofold: August may stay with his beloved Hirschvogel, and he may learn to make beautiful things like it. To arrive at the twofold conclusion we must start from a double premise,—the love of the stove and the yearning to be an artist. It will, then, be necessary to include in the beginning of the story enough details of the family life to show plainly how precious and necessary Hirschvogel was to the children; and to state definitely how August ...

— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... give a definition, and explain the properties of the liquor called ether, I shall only premise here, that it is a very volatile inflammable liquor, having a considerably smaller specific gravity than water, ...

— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... 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

... comic side. Perhaps I ought to begin by begging pardon of the ladies for treating so sacred a thing as love in a comic way, or for turning the ludicrous side of so charming a thing as they find love to be, to the gaze of men—but I wish to premise that I shall not so treat sensible or rational love. Of that beautiful feeling, less warm than passion, yet more tender than friendship, I shall not for a moment speak irreverently; of that pure disinterested ...

— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham

... 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

... necessary to premise, that, however whimsical and absurd this delineation may appear to my reader, something analogous to the thought may be found in the works of many eminent philosophers, particularly in those of Bacon[A] and of Locke:[B] ...

— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... the purpose of comedy is a combination of Aristotelian and mid-Victorian ideals: "die Sitten der Zuschauer zu bilden und zu bessern, ... wenn sie nAmlich das Laster allezeit unglA1/4cklich und die Tugend am Ende glA1/4cklich sein lAsst."[22] It is on the basis of this premise that he awards the comic crown to the Cap.[23] His extravagant encomium called forth from a contemporary a long controversial letter which Lessing published in the second edition with a reply so feeble that he distinctly leaves ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... the landscape, but thinks it must help 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 ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... accept Abelard's premise (91 a) as to attaining wisdom? Would his questions (91 b) excite much ...

— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... 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 and the creatures of impulse. ...

— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... 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 ...

— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... 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 deep enough to drown out the magneto, triumph over mud axle ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... possessed with 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 ...

— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... the Bernhardi school of moral philosophy will further suggest that to discuss the ethical merits of the war is to start with a false premise that such a thing as international morality exists, and that when once the conventionalities of civilization are laid aside the leading nations commence and make war in a manner that differs only in degree and not in kind from the methods of Frederick the Great and Napoleon, ...

— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... an instant, 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 ...

— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... 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 ...

— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... 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 ...

— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... 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; ...

— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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 doctrine ...

— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... refined and softened 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 ...

— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... "We will premise that she is thirty-three," confidently began the musician, "or even thirty-five. When I was a young fool at Warsaw, eighteen years old," he babbled. "I was the local prodigy. My first essays in public were, of course, concerts, and I was soon the vogue. And, later, asked as an artistic guest ...

— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... 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

... 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

... The more helpless these objects, the more 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 ...

— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... of a generator which follow, as well as any references in other chapters to the same matter, have been made without regard to particular apparatus of which a description may (or may not) appear in the Appendix. With this premise, it may be stated that the intending purchaser should regard the mechanism of a generator as shown in a sectional view or on inspection of the apparatus itself. If the generator is simple in construction, he should be able to understand ...

— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... 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 of it. The doctrine-forge of the Roman Church ...

— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... 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 ...

— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... mid-water, i.e. with a 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 which these three styles of fishing ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various

... village to 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 system which is ...

— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... prepared to resume the thread of his narrative without explanation, if indeed these unconnected selections deserve the appellation. But as this work may fall into the hands of many people who never saw its predecessor, it may be necessary to premise that our old friend Sam, having received a commission from the President of the United States, to visit the coast of Nova Scotia, and report to him fully on the state of the fisheries, their extent and value, the manner in which they were prosecuted, and ...

— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... well-taken argument, Paul offers another based on the similarity between a man's testament and God's testament. A man's testament seems too weak a premise for the Apostle to argue from in confirmation of so important a matter as justification. We ought to prove earthly things by heavenly things, and not heavenly things by earthly things. But where the earthly thing ...

— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... but on the other hand much thinking may take place and yet the result be an incorrect conclusion, or perhaps no solution at all be reached. Think of the years of work men have devoted to a single problem, and yet perhaps at the end of that time, because of a wrong premise or some incorrect data, have arrived at a result that later years have proved to have been utterly false. Think of the investigations being carried on now in medicine, in science, in invention, which because of the lack of knowledge are still ...

— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... 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, ...

— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... 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 ...

— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... Castrametation, with some particular Remarks upon the Vestiges of Ancient Fortifications lately discovered by the Author at the Kaim of Kinprunes. I think I have pointed out the infallible touchstone of supposed antiquity. I premise a few general rules on that point, on the nature, namely, of the evidence to be received in such cases. Meanwhile be pleased to observe, for example, that I could press into my service ...

— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... 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 ...

— 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

... measures, which, according to my own experience, I have found most effectual. I will conclude the paper by the relation of a case, in which a strong predisposition to the disease was successfully counteracted. It will be proper, however, to premise, that the treatment of this case is by no means held out as an example to be generally followed with every infant, which may possibly become the subject of cholera. It is applicable in all its details only to those, in which, as in the ...

— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... 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 a cut to every tale.) The ...

— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... "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 ...

— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... for us to forget the theological background of seventeenth-century English thought. Given a personal Devil who is constantly intriguing against the kingdom of God (and who would then have dared to deny such a premise?), grant that the Devil has supernatural powers (and there were Scripture texts to prove it), and it was but a short step to the belief in witches. The truth is that Glanvill's theories were much more firmly grounded on the bedrock of seventeenth-century theology than those ...

— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein

... 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 and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations ...

— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise." ...

— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... do it? No living man, woman, or child. It is worth noticing, by the way, that the Republican party is not committed to the doctrine of carrying out the principle of the Wilmot Proviso. But supposing it were, Mr. Fisher's argument has no force or direction, unless he can establish his suppressed premise,—that the exclusion of slavery from the Territories is the exclusion of "the people of the Slave States" from the Territories. And to make that good, all Mr. Fisher's skill and ingenuity will be required. ...

— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... come back 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 (the reindeer, Rangifer tarandus) ...

— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... 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 the instance of ...

— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... 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 ...

— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood

... 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 ...

— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... "I think, therefore I am," is not to be considered a deduction from the major premise, "Whatever thinks exists." It is rather true that this general proposition is derived from the particular and earlier one. I must first realize in my own experience that, as thinking, I exist, before I can reach the general conclusion that thought and existence are inseparable. This fundamental ...

— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... father" is one of my greatest favourites. The evening before last I wandered out, and began a tender song, in what I think its native style. I must premise that the old way, and the way to give most effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. Every country girl sings-"Saw ...

— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... 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 kind of greatness that makes less noise in the world, but is ...

— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... 2. Let me premise this also, that there have been ways of trying Witches long used in many Nations, especially in the dark times of Paganism and Popery, which the righteous God never approved of. But which (as judicious Mr. Perkins expresseth it in plain English) ...

— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather

... I must premise that I am not an expert in tobacco, nor familiar with the methods pursued in the East. I have seen a tobacco-field and the inside of a Connecticut curing-house, and that is about all. I give, therefore, not ...

— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff

... Swedenborg's thought all along was the premise that there is a God and the presupposition of that whole element in life which we call the spiritual. As he pushed his studies into the fields of physiology and psychology, this premised realm of the spirit became the express goal of his researches. Some of his most valuable ...

— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg

... 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 ...

— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... 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 ...

— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... 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 ...

— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan

... declare himself a Democrat or a Republican and the claim should be contested he would find it a difficult one to prove. The missing link in his chain of evidence would be the major premise in the syllogism necessary to the establishment of his political status—a definition of "Democrat" or "Republican." Most of the statesmen in public and private life who are poll-parroting these words, do so with entire unconsciousness of their ...

— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... first 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 is in truth a small ...

— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, ...

— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... than those 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.)

... 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 rest, future ...

— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... 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 ...

— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... Darkness, we do at all times wage internecine war. This assurance, at an epoch when 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

... first meeting, let me premise that Edith Darrell's mother had been born a Miss Eleanor Stuart, the daughter of a rich New York merchant, who had fallen in love at an early period of her career with her father's handsome book-keeper, Frederic Darrell, had eloped with ...

— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... but the Syrians and Sudanese cannot be Aryans," the inference being, of course, that the European dolmens were built by a different race from that which built those of Syria and the Sudan. Unfortunately, however, the major premise is not completely true, for though it is true that Aryans did live in Europe at this time, there were also people in Europe who were not Aryans, and it is precisely among them that megalithic ...

— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet

... Even 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 declaration of rights. ...

— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... 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

... 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

... higher criticism; he knows that religions, like states and secular 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 superseded, ...

— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... going 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. You ...

— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... of correct observation and healthful thought which recognizes both cause and effect, and leads from premise to conclusion. INTELLIGENCE is created by the possession of knowledge either inherited or acquired. It may be either latent or active; and it is the ...

— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... of improvement under the law of natural selection includes not only changes in the organic structure of animals, but also in their instincts and intelligence. On entering on this part of his subject, Mr. Darwin says, "I would premise that I have nothing to do with the origin of the primary mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself. We are concerned only with the diversities of instinct and of other mental qualities within the same class." (p. 255) He shows that even in a state of nature the instincts of ...

— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... which I wish to employ here to demonstrate the value of the study of archaeology and history to the layman is based upon the assumption that patriotism is a desirable ingredient in a man's character. This is a premise which assuredly will be admitted. True patriotism is essential to the maintenance of a nation. It has taken the place, among certain people, of loyalty to the sovereign; for the armies which used to go to war out ...

— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... 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 ...

— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... 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 ...

— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... 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

... 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 of ...

— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... up Correy with an act which to accept as true would oblige us to deny every premise we have been at ...

— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... they mixed. The 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

... {Usenet} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some years later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-longer complete rewrite called "Unix WARS"; the two ...

— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... rank, but no 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 ...

— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... 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, was an outlying offshoot of the mediaeval Holy Roman ...

— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... 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 a precedent which has never been disturbed.** ...

— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... the law of 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 ...

— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... and in the interview which ensued, as shown by the minutes endorsed on his own letter, his misconception as to the quarter in which Howe was to act afforded standing ground for a compromise. Hawke having committed himself officially, and upon a mistaken premise, the Admiralty had him technically at their mercy; but such a triumph as they could win by disciplining him would be more disastrous than a defeat. He disclaimed resentment towards any person, and reiterated that his action was intended merely to defend his character and honor, ...

— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... the rose itself. I cannot 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. ...

— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... 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 ...

— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... 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 ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... of War was more detailed and more explicit. "It cannot," he said, "be necessary for me to premise to you or to others who know my sentiments; that to quit the tranquility of retirement, and enter the boundless field of responsibility, would be productive of sensations which a better pen than I possess would find it difficult to describe. Nevertheless, ...

— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... 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 ...

— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... 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

... overlooks, and therefore has better data from which to reason. Moreover, as all students of the subconscious know, these wonderful subconscious mental factulties have a very highly developed power of reasoning deductively from a given premise or fact. In fact, the subconscious faculties are almost perfect reasoning machines, providing they are supplied with correct data in the first place. Much of the so-called "intuitive reasoning" of persons arises from the operations ...

— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... object of all my journeys was to obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs, I will give a general statement of the number of specimens I collected, and which reached home in good condition. I must premise that I generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants to assist me; and for nearly half the time had the services of an English lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from ...

— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... also been made in St Mark's Gospel, and I will venture to 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 ...

— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... Talmage was prompted by an article in which Talmage had assumed the premise that if workingmen attended the churches it would drive the better class of worshipers away. Among other things ...

— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... naked absurdity of it upon him, and easily proves that any one who defends him must be 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 ...

— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... to the objects in which the agents of the United States are expected to take part in the deliberations of that congress, I deem it proper to premise that these objects did not form the only, nor even the principal, motive for my acceptance of the invitation. My first and greatest inducement was to meet in the spirit of kindness and friendship an overture made in that spirit by ...

— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... 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 himself declares, to ...

— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... 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 ...

— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... 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 too, to interpret ...

— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness and conceit; and as to writing—in his opinion a man was never thoroughly committed ...

— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... 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

... affirmative, and almost by myself, too," Dolly answered. I oughtn't to say that either; it sounds like bragging, for there were two men on my side, but I saw at the start that I couldn't depend on them. They were weak-kneed—afraid of our premise. They didn't believe Jesus meant it, anyway. I did the best I could. I not only think He meant it, but I am sure the day will come when the whole world will live up to the rule. Christ wouldn't be for all time, as He is, if His best ideas were ...

— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... 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 ...

— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... who has 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 from him. ...

— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... likely to have more thought, more mind, more philosophy, more true enlargement, than those 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 ...

— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... a 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 moon, ...

— TITLE • AUTHOR

... 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 arrived at. Goaded by cupidity—and perhaps envy of ...

— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne

... and Sudanese cannot be Aryans," the inference being, of course, that the European dolmens were built by a different race from that which built those of Syria and the Sudan. Unfortunately, however, the major premise is not completely true, for though it is true that Aryans did live in Europe at this time, there were also people in Europe who were not Aryans, and it is precisely among them that ...

— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet

... of 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 ...

— Rollo in Switzerland • Jacob Abbott

... has introduced, merely to make the sense clear, are retained whenever they are really necessary for this purpose, and without the inverted commas by which they are properly distinguished in the text. We will premise, that the protestations which Cromwell here makes, that he did not seek the government, but was earnestly petitioned to undertake it, may well, in part, be true. When he had once dissolved the Long ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... 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 the visions ...

— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... 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 ...

— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... I only premise that I have left the facts of the history unaltered, even in the names; and that I believe them to be, ...

— Stories of Childhood • Various

... Your note of 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 may have ...

— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... first line blends this point with 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," tops ...

— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... "I must premise, however, that I have read nothing of Adolph Muellner's (the author of 'Guilt'), and much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations. Of the real language I know absolutely ...

— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... "Young man, you have pronounced the one final word of wisdom on the whole situation. With that for a premise we can start safely towards a conclusion. Clark's Field doesn't belong to you or to your cousin or to any of the Clarks living or dead. It belongs to itself—to the people who live upon it, who use it, who need it to get from it their daily bread ...

— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... 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. But what is this price which Mr. Lilly is railing at? ...

— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... seamen; 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 death struggle with an implacable enemy, Great Britain with difficulty ...

— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... 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 soul ...

— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... 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 ...

— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... 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 to me; and which, if correct, and I see no reason to doubt it, proves that further ...

— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... armed rebellion, 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 there can be no ...

— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... Lessing's idea of the purpose of comedy is a combination of Aristotelian and mid-Victorian ideals: "die Sitten der Zuschauer zu bilden und zu bessern, ... wenn sie nAmlich das Laster allezeit unglA1/4cklich und die Tugend am Ende glA1/4cklich sein lAsst."[22] It is on the basis of this premise that he awards the comic crown to the Cap.[23] His extravagant encomium called forth from a contemporary a long controversial letter which Lessing published in the second edition with a reply so feeble that he distinctly leaves his adversary the honors of the ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... 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 ...

— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... 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

... its curse to the community. You 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

... its results before our readers, in the hope—founded more upon the nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence in our own descriptive powers—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of interest. We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found at length in numerous reports of numerous committees, and a variety of authorities of equal weight. We took no notes, made no memoranda, measured none of the yards, ...

— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... which follows with logical necessity. It is Augustinian, yea, hyper-Augustinian and hyper-Calvinistic in the doctrine of human depravity, and anti-Augustinian in the doctrine of divine predestination. It endorses the anthropological premise, and denies the theological conclusion. If man is by nature like a stone and block, and unable even to accept the grace of God, as Article II teaches, he can only be converted by an act of almighty ...

— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente

... recognised by Mill and Bain as immediate inferences under the principle of Identity. But some Logicians might treat them as imperfect syllogisms, requiring another premise to legitimate the ...

— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... against which it lies, about 3/4 of an inch. 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 ...

— Instructions on Modern American Bridge Building • G. B. N. Tower

... does not depend on any other piece of knowledge; in other words, is not adopted as the result of a process of reasoning. What I believe with reference to my past history, so far as I can myself recall it, I believe instantaneously and immediately, without the intervention of any premise or reason. Similarly, our notions of ourselves are, for the most part, obtained apart from any process of inference. The view which a man takes of his own character or claims on society he is popularly supposed to receive intuitively by a mere ...

— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... can 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 to ...

— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... 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 ...

— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... of other faculties, he 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 specific ...

— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... 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

... 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 ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... 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 objects ...

— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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 arrive at anything ...

— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... traced the doctrine of absorption, it remains to investigate the justice of its grounds. The doctrine starts from a premise partly true and ends in a conclusion partly false. We emanate from the creative power of God, and are sustained by the in flowing presence of his life, but are not discerptions from his own being, any more than beams of light are distinct substances shot out and shorn off ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... 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

... 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 Ramayana • VALMIKI

... 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 ...

— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... close of the Revolutionary War, the leaders of public opinion universally recognized that their new experiment in government would succeed only if the voters were intelligent. This statement of belief became the major premise on which all arguments for free and compulsory education were based; and while we have practically accepted a much wider justification for education, in connection with the care of defectives, industrial training, and other recent movements, we have not yet changed our formulated ...

— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes

... lustre of the princeliness of Mr. Rock's liberality. Mr. Rock had set no limitations to his munificence; far be it from us to do that which might be construed wrongfully as inappreciation of that munificence. It was the part of friendship to premise that Mr. Rock's intentions were large, and then it behooved us to see that those intentions were carried out upon a scale of equal scope. We decided, therefore, that the paint should be white, and that it ...

— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... 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 to conclusion. ...

— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... God as 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

... 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 ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 declaration of ...

— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... to 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

... endorses the observation of "ditto." The young chemist gives a "prescription" for the way you should go to town. The student of logic "syllogizes" his statement, and before he draws a conclusion he always lays down his "premise." The architect gives you a "plan" of his meaning, and "builds" you an ...

— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... prepared in this way and finally adopted by the Assembly, was longer and more erudite than Mr. Hutchinson's address. To meet the Governor's major premise and thus undermine his entire argument, legal precedents and the facts of history were freely drawn upon to prove that the colonies were properly "outside of the Realm," and therefore, although parts ...

— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... void sound, nor call up either a vague or false notion of what he meant by it. If he says, 'I am the truth,' it must, to say the least, be well to know what he means by the word with whose idea he identifies himself. And at once we may premise that he can mean nothing merely intellectual, such as may be set forth and left there; he means something vital, so vital that the whole of its necessary relations are subject to it, so vital that it includes everything else which, in any lower plane, may go or have gone by the same name. ...

— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... must 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 least gifted ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... 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 children ...

— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... advancing the art a step farther; in consequence of which the belief in Molire'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 trans John Black

... 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 ...

— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various

... slave, and gave us 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 and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of Alabama and Mississippi, ...

— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... 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 that more than half of ...

— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... interested 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 restoration into ...

— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... propositions, called premises, from which a third proposition, called a conclusion, is derived. If expanded, the three propositions assume this form: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore Socrates is mortal. This is termed a syllogism. A syllogism consists of a major premise, a predication about all the members of a general class of objects; a minor premise, a predication that includes an individual or a group of individuals in the general class named by the major premise; and a conclusion, the proposition ...

— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... 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 ...

— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates

... overtaxed—and to ascertain how much our habits, our modes of work, and, haply, climatic peculiarities, may have to do with this state of things. But before venturing anew upon a subject which may possibly excite controversy and indignant comment, let me premise that I am talking chiefly of the crowded portions of our country, of our great towns, and especially of their upper classes, and am dealing with those higher questions of mental hygiene of which in general we hear but too little. If the strictures I have to make applied as fully throughout ...

— Wear and Tear - or, Hints for the Overworked • Silas Weir Mitchell

... was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness born of experience, converted the free ends of the lines into hitch straps. That the second premise held true was demonstrated ten seconds later in the unconscious grunt of soliloquy with which he greeted the sight of a wisp of black rag tacked above the knob of the door ...

— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... 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? ...

— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... begin I must premise Our ministers are good and wise: Therefore if tongues malicious fly, Or what care they, or ...

— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... pecuniary profit is only a secondary design of this work. But supposing for a moment that the primary design was as philanthropic and unselfish as Mr. Andreas would have us think, let us consider its worth; for, if we grant this premise, we must admit the truth of the conclusion reached, and then must give unstinted praise to the fruits of such a conclusion, a volume like the one before us. But the premise is specious and false. The deficiency that exists through the absence of personal and detailed records of pioneer ...

— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... to declare the minor premise [that we obtain forgiveness of sin by faith, not by love] if we know how the remission of sins occurs. The adversaries with great indifference dispute whether the remission of sins and the infusion of grace are the same change [whether they are one change or two]. Being idle men, they ...

— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... 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

... 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

... about, which I did not think well enough 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 ...

— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson

... 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 ...

— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... 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, but their differences made a capital basis for a friendship ...

— The American • Henry James

... 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 ...

— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... I shall premise only one postulatum, which is, that Poets of the same age and country use the same language, allowances being made for certain varieties, which may arise from the local situation, the rank in life, the learning, the affectation of the writers, and from the different subjects ...

— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... shares every novelty he receives with those whose 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, not ...

— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... 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 ...

— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... upon one of y^e sadest things that befell them since they came; but before I begine, it will be needfull to premise such parte of their patente as gives them right and ...

— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... 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, health, poverty ...

— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... 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

... 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

... 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 ...

— 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

... like Harold or like you or like me?" Edward clearly found himself able to accept only the premise. ...

— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... gifted squaws amuse their children, and which are common throughout this region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, springs, etc., each ...

— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... 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

... to him light 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

... into a regular system; for they were by him left in writing as they were accidentally scattered in their delivery, and as he upon inquiry had learned them of God. On which account I have thought it necessary to premise this observation beforehand, lest any of my own countrymen should blame me, as having been guilty of an offense herein. Now part of our constitution will include the laws that belong to our political state. As for those laws which ...

— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... than in any other way, in the hope that the force 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 ...

— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... 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

... 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 beyond him. He hung his ...

— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... 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 and coat ...

— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... it was necessary to premise, in order to acquaint the reader with the situation of our heroine, and that of some other personages in this history. Having discharged this task, we will return to the point ...

— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... 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 cruelties did not in the slightest degree affect their ...

— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... dignity of Christ, as the natural Son of God, the image of the invisible God, Col. i. 15, and, p. 43, of the dominion of Christ, as he is the eternal Son of God. This being premised," &c. Mr Coleman, without taking the least notice of that which I did purposely and plainly premise, begins to speak of God essentially; and that if something may be given to Christ as God, then something may be given to God, and then God is not absolutely perfect, &c., Male Dicis, p. 13, 14. Thus he turneth over to the essence and nature of God what I spake of the Second ...

— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... introduced to you at Kew. I want to beg a great favour of you, for which I well know I can offer no apology. But the favour will not, I think, cause you much trouble, and will greatly oblige me. As I am no botanist, it will seem so absurd to you my asking botanical questions; that I may premise that I have for several years been collecting facts on "variation," and when I find that any general remark seems to hold good amongst animals, I try to test it in Plants. [Here follows a request for information on American Alpine plants, and a suggestion as to ...

— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... uncommon shrewd though 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 ...

— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... 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 ...

— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... prevent Penny from 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 ...

— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... beautiful rationalization," one of the 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

... Let me 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 sex, from ...

— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... 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

... thinks, are not romantic enough for that; fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture. The odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that they and the spiritists are using the same major premise and differing only in the minor. The major premise is: "Any spirit-revelation must be romantic." The minor of the spiritist is: "This is romantic"; that of the Huxley an is: "this is ...

— Memories and Studies • William James

... 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

... be served by taxing matches, seeing that only a madman would give himself the guilty pleasure of either drinking or smoking them. In short, these English reason after the fashion of paranoiacs—logically, but from a wrong premise. Not that I dislike their ...

— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... preserve the regular dactylic close by writing 'pinion of anticipation;' as also in the former instance of 'many a dark December' to have written 'many a rainy December.' But in both cases I preferred to lock up by the massy spondaic variety; yet never forgetting to premise a dancing dactyle—'many a'—and 'pinion of.' Not merely for variety, but for a separate effect ...

— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... 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 ...

— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... omitted to mention that this memorable day was a Saturday, one on which civic sportsmen exhibit. We may also premise, that the particular hunt we are about to describe, took place when there were very many packs of hounds within reach of the metropolis, all of which boasted their respective admiring subscribers. ...

— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... 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

... The fear of most of its opponents is, therefore, not nearly so much that the human race will become extinct as that its best elements will gradually be replaced by the worst. At first this may seem plausible. Granting our opponents' premise temporarily, the conclusion is logically unavoidable that in order to restore a normal relation between the so-called more and less intelligent or desirable classes of society, we must put into the hands of all the ...

— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto

... 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 not accuse him of having any other ...

— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... mission, missile, missionary, remiss, omission, commission, admission, dismissal, promise, surmise, compromise, mass, message; (2) emit, intermittent, missive, commissary, emissary, manumission, inadmissible, premise, demise. ...

— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... 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 ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 ...

— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... around a central bony structure. The use of clothing is primarily to protect this organism from rain and cold, and it may not be regarded as the banner of morality without danger to this fundamental premise. If a person does not desire to be so protected who will quarrel with an honourable liberty? Decency is not clothing but Mind. Morality is behaviour. Virtue is thought; I have often fancied," he continued to Pan, whom he was now confronting, "that the effect of clothing on mind must ...

— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... depicts the 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 with satirical thrusts ...

— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... 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 them with ...

— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus

... 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

... 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 it the ...

— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... sacred, were to him light 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

... was 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 ...

— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... character to which Newman was as capable of doing justice when he had once 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, but their differences made a capital basis ...

— The American • Henry James

... 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 ...

— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... becomes not only unwholesome, but absolutely poisonous, on 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

... 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. ...

— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... 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. ...

— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... the selection of a generator which follow, as well as any references in other chapters to the same matter, have been made without regard to particular apparatus of which a description may (or may not) appear in the Appendix. With this premise, it may be stated that the intending purchaser should regard the mechanism of a generator as shown in a sectional view or on inspection of the apparatus itself. If the generator is simple in construction, he should be able to understand its method of working at a glance, and by referring it to ...

— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... containing the Covenant would jeopardize the plan for a League and would greatly encourage his opponents in the United States. His line of reasoning was logical, but in my judgment was based on the false premise that the Japanese would carry out their threat to refuse to accept the Treaty and enter the League of Nations unless they obtained a cession of the German rights. I did not believe at the time, and I do not believe now, that Japan would have made good her ...

— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... Sydney as well as Melbourne, I feel bound to give my impressions of both, which will, I think, be best and most briefly done in the form of a comparative sketch. I must premise with the remark that the great extent of both cities, the great and solid basis of trade on which they appear to rest, and above all the quick and ready step with which they apply to practical purposes the progress, mechanical or scientific, of our age, are beyond anything I had expected to meet ...

— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth

... sentiments which resemble ... the subject of his Poem" (lii). Here again Ogilvie has not so much a unity of structure in view as a unity of the passions, and it is this particular theme which generally guides his discourse; it is the general premise upon which his inquiry depends and on which his major justification of lyric poetry is based. In more modern terms we might here speak of the principle of the correlative, which Ogilvie rehearses in his treatment of the correspondence of subject and metaphor, and even indeed ...

— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie

... which, never retreating, always advancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a shadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens the fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that conceded premise that does not agitate? Liberty, Human Rights, Universal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought—was it not these ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our institutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men give palpable sign and representation, ...

— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... chapter on hog-wallows, the unpoetical things! but as utilitarians maintain nothing is made but what subserves some purpose, we premise these humpy roads were made for the benefit of gouty men, dyspeptic women, and love-sick lads and lasses. Thus disposed of, "we resume the thread of our narrative," as novel-writers say. Our pen waxes wild and intractable, whenever we get ...

— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... next, we must premise that a horse with his first teeth was called by the Greeks "a ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various

... perfect globe is the concept held in the mind; the marble, ball, or sphere of material is only an imperfect representation of the same. The horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His work was purely deductive. His major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. Yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, were among the most ...

— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... that, To 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, ...

— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... proselytes, or by 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 from ...

— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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

... 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 ...

— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... 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 ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... on 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 ...

— 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

... you did!" I exclaimed bitterly, "and let me start from that as a premise. Listen! If you were a man, and loved a woman, and she chucked you when you lost your money, do you think you'd break your neck to make any more success in the world after that? Why should you? Why does a man work? It's for a home, for the sake of power, and mostly ...

— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... combination of Aristotelian and mid-Victorian ideals: "die Sitten der Zuschauer zu bilden und zu bessern, ... wenn sie nAmlich das Laster allezeit unglA1/4cklich und die Tugend am Ende glA1/4cklich sein lAsst."[22] It is on the basis of this premise that he awards the comic crown to the Cap.[23] His extravagant encomium called forth from a contemporary a long controversial letter which Lessing published in the second edition with a reply so feeble that he distinctly leaves his adversary the honors ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... Kew. I want to beg a great favour of you, for which I well know I can offer no apology. But the favour will not, I think, cause you much trouble, and will greatly oblige me. As I am no botanist, it will seem so absurd to you my asking botanical questions; that I may premise that I have for several years been collecting facts on "variation," and when I find that any general remark seems to hold good amongst animals, I try to test it in Plants. [Here follows a request for information on American ...

— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... 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 to me; and which, if correct, and I see no reason to doubt it, proves ...

— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... 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 ...

— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... however, to premise, that I am exceedingly pleased with the method laid down by this excellent writer, rather to shame the child out of his fault, than beat him; which latter serves generally for nothing ...

— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... shall give the following Particulars: In respect to Uneasinesses in the State, it may not be amiss to premise, that it is esteem'd by Men of Penetration, no small Wisdom in the present Administration, to bestow Preferments on the brightest and most enterprising Authors of the Age; but whether it be so much out of a Regard to the ...

— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe

... the 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

... 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 ...

— Love's Final Victory • Horatio

... 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 ...

— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... 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

... land the writer in self-contradictions; and another writer may prove that they must and do meet, and still avoid getting tangled amongst his own arguments. I even read a book once in which it was clearly shown that the earth was flat; and, granted a ludicrous premise, one could but admire the irrefragable logic with which the conclusion was reached. With regard to art, be your premises sound or grotesque, the result is the same—muddle. Logic, science, philosophy, applied to art, spell certain disaster. ...

— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... 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 ...

— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... devise divertise exercise misprise supervise advise chastise criticise disfranchise emprise exorcise premise surmise affranchise circumcise demise disguise enfranchise franchise reprise surprise apprise comprise despise ...

— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... angry with the big one for "pegging away," 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 least ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... sub pot. prom, monst. via R., and drew 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 ...

— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... 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 ...

— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... and men. The more helpless these objects, the more 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

... 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 ...

— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... 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

... 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, ...

— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... 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 upon having ...

— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth

... 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

... war to extend freedom in Cuba or elsewhere is right, and therefore a duty; but the war in the Philippines now is purely selfish, and therefore a crime. The premise is inaccurate; it is a war we are in duty bound to wage at any rate till order is restored—but let that pass. Suppose it to be merely a war in defense of our own just rights and interests. Since when did such a war become wrong? Is our national motto to be, "Quixotic on the one hand, ...

— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid

... As she 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 man ...

— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge

... 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. You will also meet with a number of sea-terms, which, if you don't understand, ...

— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous

... 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 attempted ...

— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... natural and spiritual interests. With people whom we distrust, it is as difficult to do business as to search for scientific truth, arrive at religious harmony, or attain to justice. When one must first question words and intentions, and start from the premise that everything said and written is meant to offer us illusion in place of truth, life becomes strangely complicated. This is the case to-day. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle legerdemain, that we all have no end of trouble to inform ...

— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner

... "pilot" sent over by Cushman to Leyden, in May, 1620, and we have found both views to be untenable. It was doubtless because of this mistaken view that Dr. Dexter believed that Coppin was "hired to go in the SPEEDWELL," and, the premise being wrong, the conclusion is sequentially incorrect. But there are abundant reasons for thinking that Dexter's "impression" is wholly mistaken. It would be unreasonable to suppose (as both vessels were expected to cross the ocean), that each had not—certainly ...

— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... 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, ...

— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill

... features, as reducing his Macbeth, Pierre, &c. to poor lukewarm efforts, how can it be expected that a boy, just started from childhood, should present a true picture of a warrior or a philosopher? We premise this for the purpose of having it understood that what we are to say of Master Payne is to be subject to these deductions, and that in the praise which it is but just to bestow upon him, we exclude all idea of external resemblance ...

— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... 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 what could ...

— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... today accept Abelard's premise (91 a) as to attaining wisdom? Would his questions (91 b) ...

— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... or verification, we start with the major premise, M is P, and explore our memories for an S which, being M, should therefore be P according to our hypothesis. If we find an S which is not P, then our final conclusion is that ...

— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... various criticisms to which he again replied at some length. These two speeches give the fullest statement of his views upon a very important question. They deal in part with some purely legal questions, but I shall only try to give the pith of the views of policy which they embody. I may briefly premise that the ground taken by his opponents was substantially the danger of shocking native prejudices. The possibility that the measure would enable rash young men to marry dancing-girls out of hand was also noticed, but, I fancy, by way of logical makeweight. It was admitted that the Brahmos ...

— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... existence has to be proved identical with thought. Certainly, if Descartes had intended to prove his own existence by reasoning, he would have been guilty of the petitio principii Gassendi attributes to him, viz., that the major premise, "that which thinks exists," is assumed, not proved. But he did not intend this. What was his object? He has told us that it was to find a starting-point from which to reason—to find an irreversible ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... likenesses, even when minute, with examples properly selected, and gradations duly marked, would make an impartial accession to the store of human literature, and furnish rational curiosity with a high regale." Let me premise that these notices (the wrecks of a large collection of passages I had once formed merely as exercises to form my taste) are not given with the petty malignant delight of detecting the unacknowledged imitations of ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... whom I am about to give some account were a group of men who for three generations had a conspicuous influence upon English thought and political action. Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, and John Stuart Mill were successively their leaders; and I shall speak of each in turn. It may be well to premise a brief indication of the method which I have adopted. I have devoted a much greater proportion of my work to biography and to consideration of political and social conditions than would be appropriate to the history of a philosophy. The reasons for such a course ...

— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... 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 ...

— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... bologny. The first line blends this point with 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," tops ...

— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... the seldom Practice of them might excuse my omitting them; yet, because I promised to say somewhat of them, I shall be as good as my Word, (the Character of an Honest man) and present you with a couple of Examples, and then proceed to Peals upon Eight: But this I must crave leave to premise, That Variety of Changes may be prick'd upon Seven Bells, as Triples, and Doubles, Triples Doubles, and Single Doubles, &c. and the same Methods may be prick'd upon Seven, as may be upon Five, the ...

— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... to enter upon one of y^e sadest things that befell them since they came; but before I begine, it will be needfull to premise such parte of their patente as gives them right and priviledge at ...

— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford

... this epistle Gregory attacks Apollinaris, basing his argument on the notion of salvation by incarnation, which formed the foundation of the most characteristic piety of the East, had been used as a major premise by Athanasius in opposition to Arianism, and runs back to Irenaeus and the Asia Minor school; see above, ...

— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... 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 may appear. Of course, you know, sister," addressing my mother, "my calls at your house were ...

— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... he has introduced, merely to make the sense clear, are retained whenever they are really necessary for this purpose, and without the inverted commas by which they are properly distinguished in the text. We will premise, that the protestations which Cromwell here makes, that he did not seek the government, but was earnestly petitioned to undertake it, may well, in part, be true. When he had once dissolved the Long Parliament, it was no longer a matter of choice for himself or ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various

... 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 ...

— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... its relation to the rest of the landscape, but thinks it must help 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 ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 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

... 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, ...

— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... after middle life touching the theory of the 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 effect ...

— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... anger 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

... 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 ...

— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... 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 ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... unconsciously, they want UFO's to be real and to 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 ...

— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... 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 plane ...

— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... to all intents and purposes, 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 on the first day till ...

— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign - 1847 edition • Joseph Bates

... Did Beatrice know of Dante's love and did she reciprocate his passion? Many critics answer in the negative, believing that an affirmative view must premise a guilty love since Beatrice was married to Simone de Bardi and Dante to Gemma Donati. But an opposite view holds that such a deduction overlooks the unique fact that the love of Dante and Beatrice was purely spiritual and mystical. Doctor Zahm says ...

— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery

... doctrine of absorption, it remains to investigate the justice of its grounds. The doctrine starts from a premise partly true and ends in a conclusion partly false. We emanate from the creative power of God, and are sustained by the in flowing presence of his life, but are not discerptions from his own being, any more than beams of light are distinct ...

— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... shall afterwards give a definition, and explain the properties of the liquor called ether, I shall only premise here, that it is a very volatile inflammable liquor, having a considerably smaller specific gravity than water, ...

— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier

... their reason rather as a weapon of offence than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 his syllogisms. ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... more clearly how each part is subservient to these ends, I shall give a short account of the structure of the human body, but I must premise, that the nature of this course will prevent my entering minutely into anatomical detail. All that can be done is, to give such a general outline of anatomy and physiology, as will furnish individuals with so much knowledge of themselves, ...

— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... sweater's charge. If the cost of making 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 of the pants. It is also a remarkable statement to make, ...

— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... not of necessity imply that population will be increased or that overpopulation will occur. Again, if the birth-rate fell as the population increased, the danger of overpopulation would be avoided without the aid of a high death-rate. For a moment, however, let us assume that the Malthusian premise is correct, that a high birth-rate has led to overpopulation, and that the struggle for existence has therefore increased. Then obviously the death-rate would rise; the effect of the high birth-rate would be neutralised; and beyond a certain point ...

— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... Jethou, I must premise, is about half a mile long by a quarter wide. It rises steeply from the sea all round, except at the North end, where the slope is somewhat gentle. It is a dome-shaped mass, rising at the summit to a height of nearly three hundred feet. It may serve ...

— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling

... 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 ...

— 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

... 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

... you hold on at 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 shall be ...

— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... 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 ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... thus become easy to declare the minor premise [that we obtain forgiveness of sin by faith, not by love] if we know how the remission of sins occurs. The adversaries with great indifference dispute whether the remission of sins and the infusion of grace are the same change [whether they are one change or ...

— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... 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 ...

— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... 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 ...

— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... I would premise, that, like many others, I formerly supposed the Colonization Society was a praiseworthy association, although I always doubted its efficiency. This opinion was formed for me by others, upon whom I placed implicit confidence: it certainly was not based upon ...

— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... more philosophy, more true enlargement, than those 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 learned in disgust, having gained nothing really ...

— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... work. He replied he did not need help. I asked the price of wages. Ten dollars a day. I said you would much oblige me by giving me, if only a few days' work, as I have just arrived. After a few moments thought, during which mayhap charity and gain held conference, which succumbed, it is needless to premise, for we sometimes ascribe selfish motives to kindly acts, he said that if I choose to come for nine dollars a day I might. It is unnecessary for me to add that ...

— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... the lustre of the princeliness of Mr. Rock's liberality. Mr. Rock had set no limitations to his munificence; far be it from us to do that which might be construed wrongfully as inappreciation of that munificence. It was the part of friendship to premise that Mr. Rock's intentions were large, and then it behooved us to see that those intentions were carried out upon a scale of equal scope. We decided, therefore, that the paint should be white, and that it ...

— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field

... believed, be made a means to the highest degree of improvement attainable, and especially in the breeding of horses. The word "breed" is often used with varying signification. In order to be understood, let me premise that I use it here simply to designate a class of animals possessing a good degree of uniformity growing out of the fact of a common origin and of their having been reared under similar conditions. The method proposed is to unite animals ...

— The Principles of Breeding • S. L. Goodale

... back 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 ...

— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... banker answered the formal bow with a kind of nervous hurry; and then Sir Herbert, with a loud premise of his right as the oldest friend of our family, tried to obtain silence for the customary speech, prefatory to the customary toast of "Health and prosperity ...

— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... singular words, may amuse some of your readers. I should, however, premise that as regards myself, the greater part are ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... We must premise that Mr Bland takes three but little-known Oriental manuscripts as the groundwork of his observations; one of them, in the Persian character, is said to be 'probably unique,' though, unfortunately, very ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various

... which Red Jacket was the leader, to oppose the 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 ...

— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... 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 would be only too glad to keep the peace ...

— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... history 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

... 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 ...

— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... 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 ...

— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... never claimed to impress American seamen; 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 death struggle with an implacable ...

— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... tribe. His judges told the father that nothing had gone right since he appeared among them. To this Brebeuf replied by "drawing the attention of the savages to the absurdity of their principles". He admitted(3) the premise that nothing had turned out well in the tribe since his arrival. "But the reason," said he, "plainly is that God is angry with your hardness of heart." No sooner had the good father thus demonstrated the ...

— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... SIR,—Many thanks 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

... which was decided in 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 a precedent ...

— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... lose all the quaint semiconscious touches of character which make the original so fascinating; and Boswell's absurdities become less amusing when we are able to forget for an instant that the perpetrator is also the narrator. The effort, however, must be made; and it will be best to premise a brief statement of the external conditions ...

— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... 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 in love and honor. The Wilmots of Saint X had had lively expectations ...

— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... it; though I should be asham'd to expose to your 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 the Pipe by guess ...

— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... knowledge; in other words, is not adopted as the result of a process of reasoning. What I believe with reference to my past history, so far as I can myself recall it, I believe instantaneously and immediately, without the intervention of any premise or reason. Similarly, our notions of ourselves are, for the most part, obtained apart from any process of inference. The view which a man takes of his own character or claims on society he is popularly supposed to receive intuitively by a mere act of internal observation. Such beliefs may not, indeed, ...

— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... 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

... I premise a few words of a general nature. An enemy to entails, principally though not exclusively on social and domestic grounds, I nevertheless regard it as a very high duty to labour for the conservation of estates, and the permanence of the families in possession of ...

— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... first time my heart utterly misgave me, and I felt that my courage was inadequate to the task before me. I must premise that this was not a State hospital, but under the direction of the Confederate Government, which, at that time, was full of perplexity and trouble, yet, like all new governments, exceedingly tenacious of forms. Dr. Minor told me ...

— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... 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 ratio for ...

— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... his vivid 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 of it had transpired, he pictures ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... being now perfectly sober, plied their paddles with the utmost good-will, singing and whooping, apparently delighted with their situation. Ignorance here was bliss; they little dreamed of the life that awaited them. I may here premise, that as I have already narrated the particulars of a similar voyage, I shall pass on to the different stages of our route without noticing the uninteresting incidents of ...

— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... 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; for to attend minutely to every shade of difference[5], which ...

— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson

... be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as ...

— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... our little readers remember what the major premise of this article was. If so, will they ...

— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... classification—that is to say, his presumptive ability and qualifications to amuse and be amused; to hunt, fish and shoot; to ride, dance, and make himself generally agreeable—are known from the start. And, based on the premise that what is known as society exists simply for the purpose of enabling people to have a good time, there is far more reason to suppose that one who comes of a family which has made a specialty of this pursuit for several hundred years is better endowed by Nature for that purpose than one who ...

— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... Amboyne got Raby alone, and begged leave, in the first place, to premise that his (Raby's) nephew was a remarkable man. To prove it, he related Little's whole battle with the Hillsborough Trades; and then produced a report the young man had handed him that very day. It was actually in his ...

— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... 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 ...

— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... have 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 plane ...

— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... constitute its meaning. The formless must be put into form 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 be revelator, ...

— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... 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 ...

— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... selection of a generator which follow, as well as any references in other chapters to the same matter, have been made without regard to particular apparatus of which a description may (or may not) appear in the Appendix. With this premise, it may be stated that the intending purchaser should regard the mechanism of a generator as shown in a sectional view or on inspection of the apparatus itself. If the generator is simple in construction, he ...

— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... 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 ...

— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... 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; for to attend minutely to every shade of difference[5], which may occur in every case, ...

— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson

... Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise." ...

— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... we today accept Abelard's premise (91 a) as to attaining wisdom? Would his questions (91 b) excite ...

— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... 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 from those which are borrowed; and of course what I shall say of the ...

— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... 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 turn away from a dish of "Monarch" strawberries, with ...

— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... me, I could give no answer. Furthermore both Wells and I kept reasoning under the assumption that this was really the "Terror" commanded by the "Master of the World" who had dated from it his letter of defiance to the government. Yet this premise was still unproven, no matter how confident ...

— The Master of the World • Jules Verne

... at an epoch when 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

... hard at 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 beyond him. ...

— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... third rank, but no 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 have ...

— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... 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

... DEAR SIR,—Many thanks 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 arrive ...

— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... required by the prose details which accompany it in the MS. from which Morant gave it. It may not, therefore, be unacceptable to some of your readers, to subjoin this corrected copy. It may be proper to premise, that "The Tale of the Wardstaff" is the tallying or cutting of it, and that it was evidently originally spoken in parts, assigned as under; although it should seem that there is no indication of this arrangement in ...

— Notes and Queries, Number 65, January 25, 1851 • Various

... essence is an eternal 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:—— ...

— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza

... 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 specific nature ...

— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... the United States declares that no State shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts. This proposition being the major premise, Chief Justice Marshall added the minor premise that every charter of a private corporation is a contract, and completed the syllogism by the conclusion that no State can pass any law impairing the obligation of such charters. The counsel who opposed ...

— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... 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.

... 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

... and almost by myself, too," Dolly answered. I oughtn't to say that either; it sounds like bragging, for there were two men on my side, but I saw at the start that I couldn't depend on them. They were weak-kneed—afraid of our premise. They didn't believe Jesus meant it, anyway. I did the best I could. I not only think He meant it, but I am sure the day will come when the whole world will live up to the rule. Christ wouldn't be for all time, ...

— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben

... 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 ...

— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... one of the 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 ...

— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... use their reason rather as a weapon of offense than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath ...

— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... amuse their children, and which are common throughout this region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, ...

— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... better data from which to reason. Moreover, as all students of the subconscious know, these wonderful subconscious mental factulties have a very highly developed power of reasoning deductively from a given premise or fact. In fact, the subconscious faculties are almost perfect reasoning machines, providing they are supplied with correct data in the first place. Much of the so-called "intuitive reasoning" of persons arises from the operations ...

— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... of such reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and ...

— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... 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

... 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 ...

— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... this way and finally adopted by the Assembly, was longer and more erudite than Mr. Hutchinson's address. To meet the Governor's major premise and thus undermine his entire argument, legal precedents and the facts of history were freely drawn upon to prove that the colonies were properly "outside of the Realm," and therefore, although parts of the ...

— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... be necessary to premise, that, however whimsical and absurd this delineation may appear to my reader, something analogous to the thought may be found in the works of many eminent philosophers, particularly in those of Bacon[A] ...

— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds

... the first, I may premise, that for the first four years the school at the location in Adelaide was conducted entirely in the native tongue. To this ...

— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... 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 from the pleasure of ...

— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... of 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 ...

— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... succinct detail of the descents made by the northern nations upon the British isles, but an increase of materials induced him to reserve that subject for a future work. At present, therefore, he thinks it sufficient to premise that the AEbudae were, long, the cause of much dispute between various kingdoms. They seemed naturally connected with Scotland; but the superior navies of Lochlin rendered them liable ...

— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson

... 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 ...

— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... 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 to ...

— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... on the 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, ...

— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... 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 ...

— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... 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 ...

— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... 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 ...

— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... I may as well premise, however, that it does not seem to me worth while to enter here at any length into Swedenborg's descriptions of the inhabitants of other worlds, because what he has to say on this subject is entirely imaginative. There is a real interest for us in his ideas respecting the condition of ...

— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... to be brought either to prove that 'tis the four Peripatetick Elements, or that 'tis the three Chymical Principles that all compounded bodies consist of. These things (adds Carneades) I thought my self obliged to premise, partly lest you should do these Gentlemen (pointing at Themistius and Philoponus, and smiling on them) the injury of measuring their parts by the arguments they are ready to propose, the lawes of our Conference confining them to make use of those that ...

— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle

... pleases me by far the best, though I do not reject the others, particularly the first. For Paul's very first premise is impossible—"if I speak with the tongues of angels." To speak with an angelic tongue is impossible for a human being, and he clearly emphasizes this impossibility by making a distinction between the tongues of men and those of angels. There is no angelic ...

— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... I thought proper to premise this Observation to the Readers, as it will shew that the Critic on Shakespeare is of a quite different Kind. His genuine Text is religiously adher'd to, and the numerous Faults and Blemishes, purely his own, are left as they were found. Nothing is alter'd, but what by the clearest Reasoning ...

— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... 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

... (to inform) arise chastise circumcise comprise compromise demise devise disfranchise disguise emprise enfranchise enterprise exercise exorcise franchise improvise incise merchandise premise reprise revise ...

— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton

... 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 ...

— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... mis'sion (-ary); admis'sible; admis'sion; com'missary, an officer who furnishes provisions for an army; commissa'riat; commis'sion (-er); com'promise; demise', death; em'issary; intermis'sion; omis'sion; permis'sion; premise'; prem'ises; prom'ise (-ory); remiss' (-ion); ...

— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... 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 not merely that he has told ...

— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... 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 King's Mirror • Anthony Hope

... is mentioned here only with a view of shewing 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 ...

— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... flames and unbearable thirst of it. To be sure Miss Quiney had never hinted this punishment for her employer, or even a remote chance of it, and Dicky's good breeding had kept him from confronting her major premise with the particular instance of his father, although the conclusion of that syllogism meant everything to him. Or it may be that he was afraid. . . . Once, indeed, like Sindbad in the cave, he had seen a glimmering chance of escape. It came when, reading ...

— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... the subject, than to communicate those particular measures, which, according to my own experience, I have found most effectual. I will conclude the paper by the relation of a case, in which a strong predisposition to the disease was successfully counteracted. It will be proper, however, to premise, that the treatment of this case is by no means held out as an example to be generally followed with every infant, which may possibly become the subject of cholera. It is applicable in all its details only to those, in which, as in the present ...

— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... clear and easily intelligible. Granted the premise, the logic is admirable. It is not so easy, however, to see why, even granting the soundness of their opposition to co-operation with bourgeois parties and groups in the Duma, there should be no political competition with them—which would seem to be logically implied ...

— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... read the "Wise Saws" of Mr Slick, will be prepared to resume the thread of his narrative without explanation, if indeed these unconnected selections deserve the appellation. But as this work may fall into the hands of many people who never saw its predecessor, it may be necessary to premise that our old friend Sam, having received a commission from the President of the United States, to visit the coast of Nova Scotia, and report to him fully on the state of the fisheries, their extent and value, the manner in which they were prosecuted, ...

— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... was printed, I thoughtlessly concluded there must be a preface; but, on consideration, see no particular purpose it would answer, and gladly decline a task I should have undertaken with much timidity and reluctance. All I feel necessary to premise, is, that the tale in the Old Shepherd's Recollections is founded on an event which happened in Ireland; and that last spring I suppressed the song ending in page 65 [The Old Man's Farewell], some time after it had been in the hands ...

— Poems • Matilda Betham

... ravages of war 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 of rallying point ...

— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... 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 ...

— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... before, but one quite different. The doctrine of Transformation was another of our premises: that is to say, the belief held by savages in the possibility of a change of form while preserving the same identity. A third premise was the belief in Witchcraft, or the power of certain persons to cause the transformations just mentioned, and to perform by means of spells, or symbolic actions and mystical words, various other feats beyond ordinary human power. And there were others ...

— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... 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 of the reader ...

— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... 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

... 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 of survival. Maybe the threat ...

— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt

... To us 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, ...

— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... 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 to conclusion. ...

— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... 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 had for himself marked out a path of duty, and he ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... degrees, as to induce intoxication, is principally to be depended upon in this deplorable malady. To which should be added, that if venesection can be previously performed, even to but few ounces, the effect of the opium is much more certain; and still more so, if there be time to premise a brisk cathartic, or even an emetic. The effect of increased stimulus is so much greater after previous defect of stimulus; and this is still of greater advantage where the cause of the disease happens to consist in a material, which ...

— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... Christ, as the natural Son of God, the image of the invisible God, Col. i. 15, and, p. 43, of the dominion of Christ, as he is the eternal Son of God. This being premised," &c. Mr Coleman, without taking the least notice of that which I did purposely and plainly premise, begins to speak of God essentially; and that if something may be given to Christ as God, then something may be given to God, and then God is not absolutely perfect, &c., Male Dicis, p. 13, 14. Thus he turneth over to the essence and nature of God what I spake of ...

— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... 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 ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... be crossed off the list 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 proprietor of my field ...

— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... very few of the Greek 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

... 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 ...

— 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

... our past history does not depend on any other piece of knowledge; in other words, is not adopted as the result of a process of reasoning. What I believe with reference to my past history, so far as I can myself recall it, I believe instantaneously and immediately, without the intervention of any premise or reason. Similarly, our notions of ourselves are, for the most part, obtained apart from any process of inference. The view which a man takes of his own character or claims on society he is popularly supposed to receive intuitively by a ...

— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... Syrians and Sudanese cannot be Aryans," the inference being, of course, that the European dolmens were built by a different race from that which built those of Syria and the Sudan. Unfortunately, however, the major premise is not completely true, for though it is true that Aryans did live in Europe at this time, there were also people in Europe who were not Aryans, and it is precisely among them that megalithic ...

— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet

... obtain specimens of natural history, both for my private collection and to supply duplicates to museums and amateurs, I will give a general statement of the number of specimens I collected, and which reached home in good condition. I must premise that I generally employed one or two, and sometimes three Malay servants to assist me; and for nearly half the time had the services of an English lad, Charles Allen. I was just eight years away from England, but as I travelled about fourteen thousand miles within the Archipelago, and made sixty ...

— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... 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.

... 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 ...

— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... made and put aside 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, 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: ...

— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... moorland 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 more varied and commanding ...

— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... material is only an imperfect representation of the same. The horse is a type to which all individual horses tend to conform; they pass away, but the type remains. His work was purely deductive. His major premise was accepted on faith rather than determined by his reason. Yet in philosophical speculations the immortality of the soul, future rewards and punishments, the unity of the creation and the unity of the creator, and an all-wise ruler of the universe, ...

— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... 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

... did not shrink from such extravagant utterances was because he denied the resurrection of the dead. He judged of the prosperity of the wicked and the woes of the pious only by their earthly fortunes. Proceeding from this false premise, he held it to be possible that the punishment falling to his share was not at all intended for him. God had slipped into an error, He imposed the suffering upon him that had been appointed unto a sinner. But God spake to him, saying: "Many hairs ...

— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... or that overpopulation will occur. Again, if the birth-rate fell as the population increased, the danger of overpopulation would be avoided without the aid of a high death-rate. For a moment, however, let us assume that the Malthusian premise is correct, that a high birth-rate has led to overpopulation, and that the struggle for existence has therefore increased. Then obviously the death-rate would rise; the effect of the high birth-rate would be neutralised; and beyond ...

— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... 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]; ...

— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... allowing the sweater's charge. If the cost of making 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 of the pants. It is also a remarkable ...

— White Slaves • Louis A Banks

... 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 ...

— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... to 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 to ...

— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 ...

— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent

... 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 ...

— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird

... 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 ...

— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green

... a visit to my aunt Wenbourne, at her summer villa of Richmond. But I ought to premise, that I am sorry to see Clifton again looking on Frank Henley with uneasiness, and a kind of suspicion that ...

— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... 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 ...

— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... From that premise the school of tulip-fanciers, the most exclusive of all schools, worked out the following ...

— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... her return 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. Ere Catherine left, she asked Margaret to lend her two gold angels. "For," said she, "all ...

— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... posture of affairs 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 ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... 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 ...

— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... apprentice "takes stock" of a dinner party, and endorses the observation of "ditto." The young chemist gives a "prescription" for the way you should go to town. The student of logic "syllogizes" his statement, and before he draws a conclusion he always lays down his "premise." The architect gives you a "plan" of his meaning, and "builds" you an argument ...

— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate

... postulate—this other Fact which, never retreating, always advancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a shadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens the fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that conceded premise that does not agitate? Liberty, Human Rights, Universal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought—was it not these ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our institutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men give palpable sign and representation, ...

— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... 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 ...

— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... the 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 force of example ...

— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... forewarn &c. 668. presage, augur, bode; abode, forebode; foretoken, betoken; prefigure, preshow[obs3]; portend; foreshow[obs3], foreshadow; shadow forth, typify, pretypify[obs3], ominate[obs3], signify, point to. usher in, herald, premise, announce; lower. hold out expectation, raise expectation, excite expectation, excite hope; bid fair, promise, lead one to expect; be the precursor &c 64. [predict by mathematical or statistical means from past experience] extrapolate, ...

— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... porter's scene in "Macbeth" is related to the 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

... 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 ...

— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... 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 ...

— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... 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

... moral justification. "To what purpose is it to ring everlasting changes ... on the cases of Manchester and ... Sheffield," cried James Otis. "If these places are not represented, they ought to be." This ought is the fundamental premise of the entire colonial argument. "Shall we Proteus-like perpetually change our ground, assume every moment some new strange shape, to defend, to evade?" asks a Virginian in 1774. This was precisely what could not be avoided. For the end determined the means. If, therefore, the distinction ...

— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker

... writer may prove that they must and do meet, and still avoid getting tangled amongst his own arguments. I even read a book once in which it was clearly shown that the earth was flat; and, granted a ludicrous premise, one could but admire the irrefragable logic with which the conclusion was reached. With regard to art, be your premises sound or grotesque, the result is the same—muddle. Logic, science, philosophy, applied to art, spell certain disaster. With mingled pain and amusement I have noted how ...

— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... 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 or the ability of the people ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... the body naught but an adjunct or appendage, he will show that the former can live and thrive without any approval of the latter. He will give the intellect all costly stimulus, and send the body supperless to bed. Thomas Carlyle taken as a premise, this shabby room is the ...

— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage

... forward, which 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 ...

— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... 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 far ...

— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... 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 has not been holding his own within the last hour ...

— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... illogical in 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, and their welfare as the supreme law of the state, ...

— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... 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 momentary gust of feeling. They ...

— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... comedy is a combination of Aristotelian and mid-Victorian ideals: "die Sitten der Zuschauer zu bilden und zu bessern, ... wenn sie nAmlich das Laster allezeit unglA1/4cklich und die Tugend am Ende glA1/4cklich sein lAsst."[22] It is on the basis of this premise that he awards the comic crown to the Cap.[23] His extravagant encomium called forth from a contemporary a long controversial letter which Lessing published in the second edition with a reply so feeble that he distinctly leaves his adversary the honors of the field. ...

— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke

... landscape, but thinks it must help 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 ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 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 is in truth a small secondary undulation, or hollow, ...

— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... 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 ...

— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... Landor was no exception to the first rule was proven by the wheezing effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness born of experience, converted the free ends of the lines into hitch straps. That the second premise held true was demonstrated ten seconds later in the unconscious grunt of soliloquy with which he greeted the sight of a wisp of black rag tacked above the knob of the ...

— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... mortal, which is the more inclusive, is known as the major term, and Socrates, the less inclusive, as the minor term. The first two propositions are the premises, that which contains the major term being known as the major premise, and the other as ...

— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... "This premise was valid in the days when disobedience to the Head Man meant getting lost in a bog or eaten by a saber-toothed tiger. Today it is more than obsolete. It is among the most vicious sicknesses that have ever infected ...

— The Great Gray Plague • Raymond F. Jones

... considerations make 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 ...

— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... 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; What ...

— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... 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 ...

— Italian Hours • Henry James

... 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 ...

— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... 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

... putrefaction, it becomes not only unwholesome, but absolutely poisonous, on 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

... 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 ...

— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... who inhabit the earth have a direct and immediate interest in organizing economic life in such a way that the supply of economic goods is made regular and certain. This is the premise on which all constructive thinking ...

— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing

... said, "But you are getting away from your main premise—the Will of the Majority. If it should be the will of the Majority of the United Kingdom not to recognise the existence of the two Irelands, you are bound, according to your theory, to submit to that view." I admit that ...

— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... 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

... 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 ...

— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... course, either in town or country, I can saunter about for hours, and feel no other fatigue but what a tumbler of toddy and a pipe can remove. It was this disposition that made me acquainted with the fraternity of the "Puffs." I would premise, gentle reader, that as in my peregrinations I turn down any green lane or dark alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity—hurry through glittering saloons or crowded streets—pause at the cottage door or shop window, as it best suits my humour, so, in my intercourse ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... 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 turn away from a dish of "Monarch" strawberries, ...

— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... 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 ...

— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English

... 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 of it. The doctrine-forge of the Roman ...

— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... 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 ...

— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... conclusions, and use their reason rather as a weapon of offence than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to 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

... their 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 Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... brings me back to the point from which I started,' he cried. 'Are we willing to win this war at the cost of men's immortal souls? Mind you, I don't admit your premise for a moment; to admit it would be to impugn the courage of tens of thousands of the boys who have all along refused to touch it. Do you mean to tell me that the abstainers in the Army are less courageous than those who drink? Does any one dare to state ...

— "The Pomp of Yesterday" • Joseph Hocking

... Second premise: The frogmen considered them harmless tourists, interested only in diving to the wreck, and therefore to be watched but ...

— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin

... 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 ...

— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... confidential assurance 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 which we see expressed in the ...

— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad

... needless to premise any more, only to assure the Publick that what is contained in the following short Tract is authentick, and gives an account of the Vicissitudes of Fortune, which attended Captain CRANSTOUN, from the Time of his absconding for Prevention of his being ...

— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead

... compromise devise divertise exercise misprise supervise advise chastise criticise disfranchise emprise exorcise premise surmise affranchise circumcise demise disguise enfranchise franchise reprise surprise apprise comprise ...

— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... occurred to 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 ...

— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... 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 ...

— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... 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 she had ever, ...

— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... series of 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 premises, ...

— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... states and secular 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

... 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 a million dollars' worth, if he has a ...

— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney

... 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 a precedent which has never been disturbed.** ...

— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... 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

... 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 itself to the description of work-people whose low moral ...

— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... 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 his mind "All excess ...

— Ethics • Aristotle

... of malice that was completely in keeping with the 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 the informations ...

— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... described so graphically By LAYARD, in his recent book On Nineveh! With tongue as sharp As aspic's tooth of NILUS, Or sugary Upon the occasion As is the date Of TAFILAT. DIZZY, the bounding Arab Of the political arena— As swift to whirl Right about face— As strong to leap From premise to conclusion— As great in balancing A budget— Or flinging headlong His somersets Over sharp swords of adverse facts, As were his brethren of EL-ARISH, Who Some years ago exhibited— With rapturous ...

— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton

... 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, ...

— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... or by 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 ...

— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... 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 ...

— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor

... must help 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 ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... 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

... result of other faculties, he 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 ...

— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... enough for that; fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture. The odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that they and the spiritists are using the same major premise and differing only in the minor. The major premise is: "Any spirit-revelation must be romantic." The minor of the spiritist is: "This is romantic"; that of the Huxley an is: "this is dingy ...

— Memories and Studies • William James

... 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 ...

— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... upon the argument I must premise that I put out of the question, at present, all mere conjectures, that is, all suppositions, the probable realization of which cannot be inferred upon any just philosophical grounds. A writer may tell me that he ...

— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... Great Britain never claimed to impress American seamen; 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 death struggle with an implacable enemy, ...

— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... one of the 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." ...

— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... 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 strength of his had brought her here. Was it to happen here, ...

— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... repress all vice and crime, reclaim all criminals, and give to the race generally a keen devotion to duty. A belief in a State where even this will be realized is deeply implanted in human nature, and Socialism itself might easily get a major premise from it. The syllogism would run thus: (1) A better State is bound to come. (2) It cannot come under the system of private capital. (3) Therefore that system must be abolished. So would we all say if the minor premise were true—"The good State is impossible ...

— Social Justice Without Socialism • John Bates Clark

... always advancing, follows the steps of Freedom over the continent like a shadow, looms up like a phantom against the Rocky Mountains, and darkens the fairest waters? On the contrary, is not Freedom that old truth, that conceded premise that does not agitate? Liberty, Human Rights, Universal Brotherhood, was it not for these ideas ye fought—was it not these ye planted in the soil, and laid with the corner-stone of our institutions? My friends, I know, and you know, could those men ...

— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin

... asked 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

... be 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 task: Nor was the difficulty ...

— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin

... examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maximis with regard to taxes ...

— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... 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 ...

— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... 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

... 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 ...

— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... all this, I read scientists' comments on Einstein's new unified-field theory, which had been printed about the time True appeared on the stands. A discussion by Lincoln Barnett, author of The Universe and Dr. Einstein, explained the basic premise—that gravitation and electromagnetic force are inseparable. As I read it, I thought of what Redell had said. If gravitation were a manifestation of electromagnetic force, was it possible that an advanced race had found a way—as unique ...

— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... epistle Gregory attacks Apollinaris, basing his argument on the notion of salvation by incarnation, which formed the foundation of the most characteristic piety of the East, had been used as a major premise by Athanasius in opposition to Arianism, and runs back to Irenaeus and the Asia Minor ...

— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... You 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 ...

— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... 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 would be only ...

— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... 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

... and which are common throughout this region, there prevails among the Mattoal a custom which might almost be dignified with the name of geographical study. In the first place, it is necessary to premise that the boundaries of all the tribes on Humboldt Bay, Eel River, Van Dusen's Fork, and in fact everywhere, are marked with the greatest precision, being defined by certain creeks, canons, bowlders, conspicuous trees, springs, etc., ...

— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... probably imported plants be 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 ...

— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... faith that the penitent sinner who does his share, is justified through the grace of Christ; 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 ...

— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... on hog-wallows, the unpoetical things! but as utilitarians maintain nothing is made but what subserves some purpose, we premise these humpy roads were made for the benefit of gouty men, dyspeptic women, and love-sick lads and lasses. Thus disposed of, "we resume the thread of our narrative," as novel-writers say. Our pen waxes wild and intractable, whenever we get safely over the stormy gulf, and ...

— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... 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

... a brief epitome of it will not be out of place here. It not only throws light upon the historical events of the period, but also gives us a glimpse of the proceedings connected with the schism in the Catholic Church. It is only necessary to premise that in the separation between the Roman and Greek Catholics which took place in the latter half of the ninth century, the Danubian provinces followed the eastern section, that the union was complete under Basilius, ...

— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson

... 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 was ...

— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman

... words, is not adopted as the result of a process of reasoning. What I believe with reference to my past history, so far as I can myself recall it, I believe instantaneously and immediately, without the intervention of any premise or reason. Similarly, our notions of ourselves are, for the most part, obtained apart from any process of inference. The view which a man takes of his own character or claims on society he is popularly supposed ...

— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... 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 half of them ...

— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... original discovery, in which conjecture bears so large a share, we come to such as are supported by undeniable documents. Before entering upon these, it is proper to premise, that, instead of following precisely the order of time, these discoveries will be classed under the heads of the different coasts upon which they were made: an arrangement which will obviate the confusion that would arise from being carried back from one coast to another, ...

— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders

... 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 upon ...

— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... 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 ...

— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne

... 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 ...

— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... woman had entered the taxicab alone, that the man had come in later, and that the murder had been committed by the woman in the cab before reaching the railroad crossing, the thing must undoubtedly have been prearranged to the smallest fractional detail. That being the premise, it was only a logical conclusion that persons other than the woman and the ...

— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... 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 to do ...

— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... with him 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

... 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 ...

— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... from what 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 ...

— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... smiled at the major premise—and laughed at the ingenuous conclusion. Yet if brass buttons, a cork hat and a "billy" are the emblems of guardianship and probity, the country boy has the right argument on his side, and ...

— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... legal codes, have 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 contains more than ...

— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... 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

... into which Natal has drifted with reference to its native inhabitants, it is necessary to premise that that country has hitherto had practically no control over its own affairs, more especially ...

— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... is one of my greatest favourites. The evening before last, I wandered out, and began a tender song, in what I think is its native style. I must premise that the old way, and the way to give most effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. Every country girl sings "Saw ye my ...

— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... 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 shall ...

— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... 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 gay girls in the house, and a ...

— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... we proceed to the trials of these offenders, we shall, after our usual manner, premise some things which it may be necessary for ...

— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... 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 ...

— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... 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 ...

— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... expedition to the Copper-Mine 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 ...

— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin

... particular measures, which, according to my own experience, I have found most effectual. I will conclude the paper by the relation of a case, in which a strong predisposition to the disease was successfully counteracted. It will be proper, however, to premise, that the treatment of this case is by no means held out as an example to be generally followed with every infant, which may possibly become the subject of cholera. It is applicable in all its details only to those, in which, ...

— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... We will premise that we think worse of King Charles the First than even Mr. Hallam appears to do. The fixed hatred of liberty which was the principle of the King's public conduct the unscrupulousness with which he adopted any means which might enable him to attain his ends, the readiness with which he gave ...

— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... 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

... 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 by all its cells, ...

— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... 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 ...

— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... 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 least gifted ...

— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... quote them to 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 doctrine of ...

— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... Tables 2/14 to 2/18 the number of capsules and of seeds produced, by crossing both forms of the oxlip in a legitimate and illegitimate manner with one another, and with the two forms of the primrose and cowslip. I may premise that the pollen of two of the short-styled oxlips consisted of nothing but minute aborted whitish cells; but in the third short-styled plant about one- fifth of the grains appeared in a sound condition. Hence ...

— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin

... 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 for a great campaign under the ...

— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... "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 with ...

— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... 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 cruelties did not in the slightest degree affect their ...

— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... 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 ...

— 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 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 a ...

— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... 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, to be ruled ...

— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... 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 ...

— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... following observations upon singular words, may amuse some of your readers. I should, however, premise that as regards myself, the ...

— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 401, November 28, 1829 • Various

... 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 plane ...

— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... different rocks had been formed in the beginning, great layers of these different rocks having originally been spread completely around the globe one outside another like the coats of an onion. With this as a major premise, it is not surprising that he and his enthusiastic disciples "were as certain of the origin and sequence of the rocks as if they had been present at the formation of the ...

— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... 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 ...

— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... fate has proved too strong for a soul so high in its capacity for unselfish and noble love,—is based upon Hardy's assumption that she could not help it. Here, as elsewhere in his philosophy, you must accept his premise, or call Tess (whom you may still love) morally weak. It is this reservation which will lead many to place the book, as a work of art, and notwithstanding its noble proportions and compelling power, below such ...

— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... then took their places on chairs placed in front; and the ceremony having begun, in case you should wish to have some idea of it, I shall endeavour to give it you, for I was so situated, that although the cathedral was crowded to excess, I could see and hear all that passed. Let me premise, however, that there was not one lepero, as they are always ...

— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... effort with which he made his descent from the two-seated canvas-covered surrey in front of Bob Manning's store, and, with a deftness born of experience, converted the free ends of the lines into hitch straps. That the second premise held true was demonstrated ten seconds later in the unconscious grunt of soliloquy with which he greeted the sight of a wisp of black rag tacked above the knob of the ...

— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... give a friendly hearing. As congenital amateurs our quest for truth consists in stirring up the experts, and forcing them to answer any heresy that has the accent of conviction. In such a debate we can often judge who has won the dialectical victory, but we are virtually defenseless against a false premise that none of the debaters has challenged, or a neglected aspect that none of them has brought into the argument. We shall see later how the democratic theory proceeds on the opposite assumption and assumes for the purposes of government an unlimited ...

— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... being a man. Of the other terms, mortal, which is the more inclusive, is known as the major term, and Socrates, the less inclusive, as the minor term. The first two propositions are the premises, that which contains the major term being known as the major premise, and the ...

— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner

... 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 on the plantations of Alabama and Mississippi, ...

— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... 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 Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... absurdity of it upon him, and easily proves that any one who defends him must be 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 Meaning of Truth • William James

... 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 of a different ...

— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... first with conditions as they are. As a matter of fact the allied governments have jointly taken these countries, while their common possession and common administration, although constituting an established premise, may be modified in future by our own necessities and the needs of the people of Alsace and Lorraine. As regards the definite form which the proposition may take some day, I sincerely urge you to follow the lead of the governments and to defer your ...

— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... 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 interpreted ...

— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... 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

... A 1983 {Usenet} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms. Some years later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-longer complete rewrite called "Unix WARS"; ...

— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... instant, 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 predicted ...

— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... Satan's Interest in the several Governments and Nations, by vertue of his Invisibility, and which he carries on by Possession; 'tis by this Invisibility that he presides in all the Councils of foreign Powers, (for we never mean our own, that we always premise;) and what tho' it is alledged by the Criticks, that he does not preside, because there is always a President; I say, if he is not in the President's Chair, yet if he be in the President himself, the Difference is not much; and if he does ...

— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... he had once 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, but their differences made a capital basis for a friendship of which the ...

— The American • Henry James

... 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 to conclusion. ...

— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater

... the 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 ...

— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... 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

... 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 relations of ...

— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... I shall bring forward, which 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 may ...

— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... as the above is called a syllogism. It consists of a major premise (A), a minor premise (B), ...

— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... him 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 ...

— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... 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 to her, but it ...

— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... 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 may appear. Of course, you know, sister," addressing my mother, ...

— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... writings of prophets? And since there are, so far as I know, no prophets now alive, we have no alternative but to read the books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves distinctly state. I must further premise that the Jews never make any mention or account of secondary, or particular causes, but in a spirit of religion, piety, and what is commonly called godliness, refer all things directly to the Deity. For instance, if they ...

— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza

... 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 but depend ...

— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield

... 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 points, is very possible; but, whatever may be the merits or demerits of the work in other ...

— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson

... 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 ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard