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Militate against   Listen
verb
militate against  v. t.  To argue against; to cast doubt on; used in reference to facts which tend to disprove a hypothesis; as, the absence of a correlation of budget deficits with inflation militates against any causal relation between the two. Opposite of support.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Militate against" Quotes from Famous Books



... lord, are the facts set out as shortly as possible and written on the eve of my departure in circumstances that militate against elegance of expression. I am, to tell the truth, still staggered by this affair, and if I make public my sorrow and my shame I do so in the hope that the Society of which your lordship is President, may see its way to take some kind of action that will make a repetition ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... the same local interests, and other causes, militate against a compliance? Whoever hopes the contrary must for ever be disappointed. The effect, sir, cannot be changed without a removal of the cause. Let each county in this commonwealth be supposed free and independent: let ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various

... ones who pay him his salary, and not your Majesty; consequently I cannot see that there should be any inconvenience in your Majesty giving them the one whom they desire and whom they pay, especially when it does not militate against your Majesty or your royal treasury. The Sangleys are very unprotected since your Majesty ordered that the fiscal should not be their protector. They are much better off, as they have experienced (as we all experience) the Christian ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIV, 1630-34 • Various

... make some statement in all good faith which would do Miss Kathleen irreparable injury. I also believed that your absence would serve to divert suspicion until I had a chance to find the real criminal; I met you before the inquest, and did not realize that your disappearance could be used to militate against Miss Kathleen. As for Mrs. Robinson"—he laughed slightly—"she keeps a private sanitarium, but just now has no patients. You were perfectly safe there, and I had Connor detail an operative to see that Heinrich did ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... abstraction and concreteness, you should develop facility in gliding from literalness to figurativeness and back again. But you are always to remember that your gymnastics are not to militate against verbal concord. You must never set words scowling and growling at each other through injudicious combinations like this: "She was five feet, four and three-quarter inches high, had a small, round scar between her nose and her left cheek-bone, and moved with the lissom and radiant ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... given orders to treat our Wilfred with all possible consideration, and to allow him every indulgence, which did not militate against his safe keeping, for he admired, even while he felt it necessary to slay. So he was not thrust into a dungeon, but confined in an upper chamber, where a grated window, at a great height, afforded him a fair view of that world he was about to leave ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... reasons which militate against the idea of the final success of the Colony. The Syrian climate is not adapted to Europeans, and year by year it must infallibly tell on the Germans, exposed as they are to sun and miasma. It is ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... cooeperating agent in an agreeable enterprise. We suspend the sword of Damocles above his head and demand from him such answers as will fill the measure of our preconceived notions. He may know more of the subject, in reality, than the teacher, but this will not avail. In fact, this may militate against him. She demands to know what the book says, with small concern for his own knowledge of the subject. We proclaim loudly that we must encourage the open mind, and then by our witness-stand ordeal ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... Friars' Holm bearing with her a note from Lady Arabella in which she asked her god-daughter to pay her a visit. In it, however, the wily old lady made no mention of her further idea of going to Harrogate, lest it should militate against an acceptance of the invitation. Magda demurred a little at first, but Gillian, suddenly endowed with diplomacy worthy of a Machiavelli, pointed out that if she really had any intention of ultimately withdrawing into a community the least she could do was to give her godmother ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... a solemn protestation that the crumpet was spiritless and the muffin nothing but a human muffin, to lead him out against the enemies of the state. Your whole argument is wrong: the state has nothing whatever to do with theological errors which do not violate the common rules of morality, and militate against the fair power of the ruler: it leaves all these errors to you, and to such as you. You have every tenth porker in your parish for refuting them; and take care that you are vigilant and logical ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith

... utilised for the purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in—society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes of the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... should reach the zenith of a given place, it is necessary that the place should not exceed in latitude the declination of the luminary; in other words, it must be comprised within the degrees 0@ and 28@ of lat. N. or S. In every other spot the fire must necessarily be oblique, which would seriously militate against the success ...
— Jules Verne's Classic Books • Jules Verne

... understand this expression. Does it militate against the physical laws of time and space, or of matter and motion, that a man so ingenious and so expert as this Armenian must undoubtedly be, assisted by agents whose dexterity and acuteness are probably not inferior to his own; favored by the time of night, and watched by no ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... properties. The extreme weight or specific gravity of the red renders it liable to sink and separate when compounded with other colours; hence the heavier those mixed with it the better. Its almost equal opacity, too, and habit of washing up, militate against its use by young painters. With experience, however, and due care, this is a serviceable colour; yielding with white most delicate flesh tints, and in minute proportion with cobalt or French blue and ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field

... light. (4) His color in a gentle shadow. (5) His color in a deeper shadow. (6) The blackness of black velvet in the light. (7) The blackness of black velvet in a deep shadow. And to use these colors with definite steps from one to the other does not militate against an artistic mystery of edge and softness in the flow of line. There is a list of possible Imagist textures which is only limited by the number of things to be seen in the world. Probably only seven or ten would be used in one scheme and the ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... whole chapter, and a very remarkable one, which appears at first sight to militate against my belief—a chapter "showing that France was the country in which men had ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley

... There was evidently a struggle in his bosom, as if he shrunk from making an acknowledgment that might militate against his interests; but, glancing an eye at the guides, he recovered his proper tone ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper

... attended organic development be other than this? If the thing that has been is the thing that also shall be, must not the thing which is be that which also has been? Was there anything in the phenomena of organic life to militate against such a view of design as this? Not only was there nothing, but this view made things plain, as the connecting of heredity and memory had already done, which till now had been without explanation. Rudimentary organs were no longer a hindrance to our ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... fairly plain language of Philostratus, which is possibly confirmed by a passage in Plutarch[65] in which he discusses certain eclipse phenomena in the light of a recent eclipse. The date of Plutarch's "recent" eclipse is somewhat uncertain, but that fact does not necessarily militate against his testimony respecting the Corona or what is regarded to have been such. The statement of Philostratus, treated as a mention of a total solar eclipse, is accepted as sufficiently conclusive by Sir W. Huggins and the late Professor ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... what brought evil to herself would bring good to her sister; and Elinor, on the other hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward entirely, comforted herself by thinking, that though their longer stay would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better for Marianne than an ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... or superior civilization thus attained by a nation, notwithstanding the principal rivers of their country run from west to east, does not at all militate against the natural superiority which has been conceded to those countries whose rivers run in a contrary direction: it only shews what may be effected by a wise and politic government averse to the miseries of war, and steadily bent on the arts of peace. The very attempts, ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... people. I know you are a Republican. So am I; but I am a Cleveland man. Cleveland is a better Republican than Harrison. In supporting Cleveland against Harrison I am no less a Republican. As your friend I would not advise you to do anything that would militate against your interests. Knowing, as you do, that I am not only your friend but also a good Republican, you can at least afford to follow where I lead. I want you, then, to authorize me to say to the President that you are in sympathy with the main purposes ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch

... Sylvia and Mr. Bell would secure her the complete prestige necessary to her ambition, while rearranged families are so common and often the results of such trivial causes, that the fact of the man's having a lovely wife and two children living abroad does not militate against him in the least. It all seems ghastly, this living life as if it was a race track, where to reach the social goal is the only thought, no matter how, or over or through what wreckage, or in what company the ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... as the assertors of admitted rights. We shall see how far, in such piping times, it may be possible for the Governor-General to enforce on the British local authorities the claims of public economy, without resorting to any interference which can be supposed to militate against the hypothesis that the said authorities understand a great deal better than he does what their wants are, and how they ought to be supplied; or to maintain the peace of India without questioning the ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... reasoning they declared to be honorable and full of generous sound, but difficult of execution. It would be more advisable to increase the power of the king in Europe, where the forces could attend to emergencies without the casualties that militate against them in outside seas and dominions. Each one of these arguments was enforced so minutely by the ministers of the treasury that this proposition merited consideration and examination. Had God permitted the king to exclude the Filipinas from his monarchy, and leave them ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... first possess themselves of that fertile country?—Thus much we have thought necessary to remark, in respect to the general principles laid down in the representation of 1768; and we hope we have shewn, that the arguments therein made use of, do not in any degree militate against the subject in question; but that they were intended, and do solely apply to "new colonies proposed to be established," as the representation says, "at an expence to this kingdom," at the distance of "above ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade

... be they male or female, there is a complacent self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that success may conduce to—nay, however much it may militate against—the objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires. A vain woman may be very anxious to win A———, the magnificent, as a partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her eye has made ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... which divides them has the function both of an evaporating surface for the lachrymal secretion, and of a ramifying surface for a nerve ancillary to that of smell, it does not disappear entirely: the integration remains incomplete. These and other like instances do not however militate against the hypothesis. They merely show that the tendency is sometimes antagonized by other tendencies. Bearing in mind which qualification, we may say, that as differentiation of parts is connected with difference of function, so there appears to ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... this period, we meet at the close of this period with shells such as nowadays are distinctively characteristic of high latitudes. It might be thought that the occurrence of Quadrupeds such as the Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Hippopotamus, would militate against this generalisation, and would rather support the view that the climate of Europe and the United States must have been a hot one during the later portion of the Pliocene period. We have, however, reason to ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... This duty they collect from the example of Jesus Christ, who paid the tribute money himself, and ordered his disciples to do it, and this to a government, not only professedly military, but distinguished for its idolatry and despotism. Personal service, however, they conceive to militate against a positive command by our Saviour, as will be explained in ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... 'Chuzzlewit,' rather carricatured even the worst specimens of western eloquence; but the subjoined passage from the speech of a Mr. MAUPIN in the Indiana legislature, upon the subject of establishing a tobacco warehouse and inspection at Paducah, seems to militate against the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... so-called "stale" cheque, that is, one presented an unreasonable time after its ostensible date; although the fact that some banks treat a cheque as stale after six months, others not till after twelve, might be held to militate against the validity of such custom, and lapse of time is not included by the Bills of Exchange Act among the matters working revocation of the banker's duty, and authority to pay his customer's cheque. Indirectly, this particular custom ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... liberty of representing to you the facts and the reasons, which seem to militate against the separation or removal of these troops. I am sensible, however, that the same subject may appear to different persons in very different lights. What I have urged as reasons, may, to sounder minds, be apparent fallacies. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... been evident, at the very moment when Christ appeared, that the sceptre had not departed from Judah. We must not allow ourselves to be perplexed by any events and arguments adduced to prove that the sceptre has departed from Judah; for the very same events and arguments would militate against the eternal dominion of his house which had been promised to David, and would therefore make us doubtful of that also. All these events and arguments lose their significancy, when we remark, that this departing is only ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg

... in the least, I think, militate against the present application for pension, but it tends to show the ideas that have become quite prevalent concerning the facts necessary to be established in order to procure a pension by special ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland

... impossibility of introducing foreign wines with a view to exporting them again as native produce; for, in the first place, the whole of the inhabitants would be likely to resist such an attempt, from a conviction that the introduction would militate against their own interests, and from the obvious apprehension that the increased quantity as well as the inferior quality of the adulterated wines, would injure the character and reduce the price ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... permitted to exercise the least effect in any question of promotion or detail; and if there is reason to believe that such pressure is exercised at the instigation of the officer concerned, it will be held to militate against him. In our Army we cannot afford to have rewards or duties distributed save on the simple ground that those who by their own merits are entitled to the rewards get them, and that those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties are chosen to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... make use of her own expression. She was one of those women who either fear or despise that which they do not understand. She could scarcely fear Jem, so she persuaded herself that he was stupid and unattractive. At this time there came another influence to militate against any excess of love between Jem and his stepmother. It came to her, for he was ignorant of it. And this was the knowledge that before long the little heir's undisputed reign in the nursery ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... claim that humanity in general has on an individual; but though the claim of society in general is weakened, it must be remembered that the claims of each caste on the members of it are strengthened. And though this fact may militate against an enlarged and Christian philanthropy, the aggregate force of claims will be found to amount to a much larger sum than if one part of a society had no more claim on a man than another. A man of one caste would not, for instance, ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... will endeavour to banish from their minds any early impressions they may have received inimical to the French, and resolve only to judge them as they find them, as reason must suggest that all prepossessions cherished against any people must powerfully militate against the traveller's happiness during his sojourn amongst them. I fear that I may have been considered rather prolix upon the subject, but besides the motive to which I have already alluded, I always have cherished a most anxious desire to soften ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... their Aid;' 1691. 'He founds his arguments on two grand principles—that from their very nature spirits cannot act upon material beings, and that the Scriptures represent the devil and his satellites as shut up in the prison of hell. To explain away the texts which militate against his system, evidently cost him much labour and perplexity. His interpretations, for the most part, are similar to those still relied on by the believers in his doctrine' (Note by Murdock in Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History). The usually candid Mosheim notices, apparently ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer's novel of 'The Caxtons.' Passion, in him, comprehended—many of the worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness, the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere—had ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... are many things about the craters which seem to give some warrant for the hypothesis which has been particularly urged by Mr G. K. Gilbert, that they were formed by the impact of meteors; but there are also many things which militate against that idea, and, upon the whole, the volcanic theory of their origin ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss

... a situation as this might militate against any permanent arrangement with Jennie was obvious even to Lester at this time. He thought out his course of action carefully. Of course he would not give Jennie up, whatever the possible consequences. But he must be cautious; he ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... all lovers; herein one saw her sole concessions to the tie binding her. Marcia didn't see how it was possible that the two should avoid hating each other; the mere fact that they had been arbitrarily forced upon each other by the imperious will of old Chadwick, would inevitably militate against any hope of future affection between them. And now here was Berkeley Hayden, quite as imperious as Chadwick Champneys had ever been, and who was quite as successful in getting ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... may be continually evolved at the present day, the requisite conditions being more or less easily supplied. There is, however, no similar evidence at present as to higher forms; while, as we have seen in Chapter VII., there are a priori considerations which militate against their being ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... its ceaseless vigilance. It takes a hurried mouthful, and then looks round in an agitated manner to see that it is in no danger of attack. Yet it is clear that the terror in which all wild animals seem to live, and without which self-preservation would be impossible, does not in the least militate against their physical welfare. A man who had to live his life under the same sort of risks that a bird in a garden has to endure from cats and other foes, would lose his senses from the awful pressure of terror; he would lie under the constant ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... to people, such as ourselves, who could easily ascertain their falsehood, and they were told after there had been a distinct understanding that anything which showed unreliability on his part would militate against his own strongly avowed desires and interests. After special chances had been given this boy with the understanding that all that was necessary for him to do was to alter his behavior in respect to lying, on more than one occasion new fabrications were evolved in the same ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy

... born, the Doctor and the nurse, who knew his views on the subject, held back from the mother for a little the knowledge of the sex. Dame Norman was so weak that the Doctor feared lest anxiety as to how her husband would bear the disappointment, might militate against her. Therefore the Doctor sought the Squire in his study, and went resolutely at ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... I dined and spent the afternoon with the false Belmont, this subject among others had occurred. Having told him that I had quitted all thoughts of the law, he enquired into my motives; and, being full of the subject and zealous to detail its whole iniquity, I not only urged the reasons that most militate against it both in principle and practice, but, in the warmth of argument, declared that I doubted whether any man could bring an action against another without being guilty of injustice. I considered crime and error ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... It was true that these "flowers" could protrude and retract themselves, but their motions were hardly more extensive, or more varied, than those of the leaves of the sensitive plant; and therefore they could not be held to militate against the conclusion so strongly suggested by their form and their grouping upon the ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... from Dr. Lefevre, a gentleman certainly not among the number of those who stand denounced before the professional world as unworthy of belief. He says:—"As for many reports which have been circulated, and which, prima facie, seem to militate against the statement [communication to attendants, &c.]. I have endeavoured to pay the most impartial attention to them; but I have never found, upon thorough investigation, that their correctness could be relied upon: and in many instances ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest

... the inferences of the geologist militate against those of the theologian. Nay, not those of our higher geologists and higher theologians,—not what our Murchisons and Sedgwicks infer in the one field, with what our Chalmerses and Isaac Taylors infer in the ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... stands related to me in a very tender way (through the tax office), and it does not behoove me to say anything which could by any possibility militate against that condition ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... quitted Cicuye to go to Quivira, we entered the mountains, which it was necessary to cross to reach the plains, and on the fourth day we arrived at a great river, very deep, which passes also near Cicuye,"[58] does not at all militate against it. The easiest passage, and the most accessible one from Pecos eastward, leads directly to the slopes between the Rio Gallinas and the Rio Pecos; and either of these two streams could be, and had to be, met with ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier

... horror of uncertainty, and vested interests, all militate against the acceptance of a new idea. And it is even harder to think of a new idea than to get it accepted; most people might spend a lifetime in reflection without ever making ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... influence militate against war because in the future woman will not be able physically to bear her part in it. The smaller size of her muscle, which would severely have disadvantaged her when war was conducted with a battle-axe or sword and hand to hand, would now little or at all ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... ladies in general. I only abused her because there was an insinuation in what you said, that I was going to amuse myself with Miss Demolines in the absence of Miss Dale. The one thing has nothing to do with the other thing. Nothing that I shall say to Miss Demolines will at all militate against my loyalty ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... advance of its actual numbers—is indicated; since the community has fewer lines of sewers and a smaller area of parks than other cities of the size it claims—two elements which, by the way, would in themselves tend to militate against a low mortality. Perhaps, too, the city has that ingenious way of eliminating one disturbing feature, the deaths under one week or ten days, by regarding them as "still-births." Chicago used to have this habit; also the trick ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various

... that Christ possessed divine attributes, such as omniscience and omnipotence, militate against a perfectly human development. Could He not have possessed them and yet not have used them? Self-emptying is not self-extinction. Is it incredible to think that, although possessing these divine attributes, He ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... gradation and subordination. I do not mean that the enemies of the bank are identically the same individuals who, on other points, attack the Federal Government; but I assert that the attacks directed against the bank of the United States originate in the same propensities which militate against the Federal Government; and that the very numerous opponents of the former afford a deplorable symptom of the decreasing ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... way tolerant posterity can make a shift to defend this "incest," is by supposing that in those times the names of relatives were "arranged differently." However, the mere fact that the funeral ceremonies were carried out with full imperial Chou ritual, and that incest is mentioned at all, seems to militate against the view (noticed in Chapter XIII.) that it was Duke Muh of Ts'in who (400 years later) undertook this journey, for he did not belong to the Ki family at all. Curiously enough, it fell to the lot of the son and successor of the Emperor Muh to have to punish and destroy ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... he quite surely will sooner or later discharge his manager. This may result disastrously for the discharged young man, not merely on account of the loss of employment, but because his failure may militate against his securing satisfactory employment elsewhere. When an employer is seeking a man, he looks for one who has succeeded. There is an old saying, "Nothing succeeds like success," and it is only too true that nothing ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt

... which makes the whole Jewish people the subject; (2), that which refers it to the godly portion of the Jewish people; and (3), that which refers it to the collective body of the Prophets. The following reasons militate against all ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... what he should next do; his orders were to destroy everything—houses, property, and life; to spare neither age, sex, nor imbecility; and Santerre, undertaking the commission, had thought, in his republican zeal, that he would find no weakness in himself to militate against the execution of such orders. He was mistaken in himself, however. He had led the fierce mobs of Paris to acts of bloodshed and violence, but in doing so he had only assisted with an eager hand in the overthrow of those ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... either. My own position, as far as I can recall it, then was that the spiritual agency was "not proven." My wife had great reluctance against admitting the spiritual theory. I was simply passive; but two circumstances seemed to me to militate against the theories I have mentioned: (1.) The table we used for communicating was a little gimcrack French affair, the top of which spun round on the slightest provocation, and no force whatever, not even a philosopher's, applied to the surface would do more than spin the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... have already intimated, we regard this opinion of the learned Spanish divine as erroneous.(204) Three solid reasons militate against it. The first is that, to guard against Baianism, Vasquez is compelled to assume the existence of morally indifferent acts of the will, which is untenable, as "St. Augustine and St. Thomas, and theologians generally teach that there is no ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle

... that the agreement was the ordinary 'rotas' of the Baleares. We know nothing—we can prove nothing. If you claimed the estate I might possibly wrest it from you—not by proof, but merely because the insular prejudice against a foreigner would militate against you in a Majorcan court of law. I cannot legally force you to hold the estate of the Val d'Erraha. I can only ask you as the daughter of one of my best friends to accept the benefit of ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... grounds, but of colonizing grounds; if it should not suit missionary needs, you cannot expect to gather in a missionary crop. And, moreover, all of us who are connected with the agents, who are under public instructions, must be conformed to their laws, whether they militate against missionary operation ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... the gulf, as the easterly winds west of New England do, and as the westerly winds of Sydney during July and August, which are supposed to be equally connected with the table-land of New England and of Bathurst. The westerly winds occurring at the upper Lynd, do not militate against such a supposition, as they might well belong to an upper ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... members of the official bureaucracy. There will doubtless in time be gradual sorting of politicians into definite groups, but there are two unbridgeable gulfs in the Indian social system which must always militate against the building up of a solid political party system: first, the gulf between Hindu and Moslem, which still yawns as wide as ever, and second, the gulf between the Brahman and the "untouchables" who, by the way, have found their fears that they would be downtrodden ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various

... of extraordinary demagogues or newspaper syndicates working the political machine from that direction. So far as the demagogue goes, the increase of population, the multiplication of amusements and interests, the differentiation of social habits, the diffusion of great towns, all militate against that sufficient gathering of masses of voters in meeting-houses which gave him his power in the recent past. It is improbable that ever again will any flushed undignified man with a vast voice, a muscular face in incessant operation, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells

... of the West-Indies, and those of Europe. And how little the Soil or Climate hath influenced or caused their Courage to degenerate towards cowardize or baseness of mind. As if the very same Argument, deduced from the nature of that Climate, did not equally militate against the valour of our famous Bucaniers, and represent this to be of as degenerate Metal ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... verse being in English will militate against its efficiency, but before we had time to turn it into French, we had passed to the right of the quaint old town of Nay, and were entering Coarraze (10 1/2 miles). As we bore off to the right across ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough

... specially directing my attention to this moot point, whilst engaged in investigations of fossil remains, I was led to recognise one cause of extinction as being due to defeat in the contest which the individual of each species had to maintain against the surrounding agencies which might militate against its existence. This principle has received a large and most instructive accession of illustrations from the labours of Charles Darwin; but he aims to apply it not only to the extinction but to the origin ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... those of creature comfort alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits to militate against recovery. ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper

... tends materially to stop any increase of householders, the uncertain tenure of office making the employes prefer clustering in hotels and boarding-houses to entering on a short career of housekeeping, which will, of course, militate against any steady increase of the city, and thus diminish the tax-payers. There are several hotels, but they will not stand the least comparison with those in any of the leading towns of the Union. Like the hotels in ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... criminality, but rather as an example of the rate of natural increase that may be expected of a criminal family, we will examine and compare the conditions of life existing among the "Jukes" and the criminal that we have to deal with and thus discover features among the latter which militate against a large birth-rate; but which are not present among ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll

... little more than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and developments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to a memory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in the parents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful development generally is due ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... "We may quote the famous chapter on 'Snakes in Iceland': 'There are no snakes in Iceland,' and say there are no fish-names in England." This is almost true. The absence of marked traits of character in the, usually invisible, fish would militate against the adoption of such names. We should not expect to find the shark to be represented, for the word is of too late occurrence. But Whale is fairly common. Whale the mariner received two pounds from ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... inasmuch as they militate against the generally-received opinion that the disease is caused by drinking snow-water; an opinion which seems to have originated from bronchocele being ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... some self-abuse of the patient. The population is drawn from such diverse sources, and the intermarriages are crossed upon so many different nationalities that hereditary insanity ought to be almost unknown. The climate and the general pursuits of the people all militate against the prevalence of ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... sense has already but little chance of development, where the child of eight or ten already knows far more than is good for the health of either body or mind, and, though we may succeed in reducing the size of the family, yet the means we employ will militate against the raising of the moral tone of the household, and the children will not be any less precocious ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland

... assimilates. By him scientific conceptions are continually transmuted into the finer forms and warmer hues of an ideal world." And this he does without any distortion of the truth. For natural science, to one who understands its main tendency, does not militate against philosophy, art, and religion; nor threaten to overturn a metaphysic whose principle is truth, or beauty, or goodness. Rather, it is gradually eliminating the discord of fragmentary existence, and making the harmony of the world more and more audible to mankind. It is progressively ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... Bay, amongst whom the practice of this mutilation did not prevail. They were, I think, travelling to the southward, at the time they fell in with us, for they had no females among the party, by whom they are usually at other times accompanied. The circumstance of their being unarmed may seem to militate against the supposition that they were travelling, but it is to be borne in mind that these people universally consider the absence of offensive weapons as the surest test of peaceful intentions, and would therefore, if they desired to maintain a friendly footing with ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... advantage; for he will set a high value upon a thing for which you have none—time; he will acknowledge the force of your arguments merely from a dread of their length; he will yield to you in trifles, particularly in trifles which do not militate against his authority; not out of regard for you, but for his time; for what man can prevail upon himself to debate three hours about what could be as well decided ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... nation when we ignore the very disadvantages that militate against true nationalism. We bluster about national sentiment and spend our money on paying to have ourselves Americanized. When we are tired trying to explain that, we fall back into dithyrambics on the Old Flag ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino

... to the facts that militate against the influence of the Catholic spirit,—facts which have transpired more especially during the last third of a century, and which are still in progress,—facts that are fitted to excite in every mind that sympathises with the Catholic cause, the most lively apprehensions. On comparing the respective ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie

... Argentina as a field for agricultural work is to remember that to be successful one must begin at the bottom, the harder the school the better will be the result: you cannot detect and correct the faults which militate against success unless you have been through the mill. Not long ago I sent a boy out to Argentina and painted the first two years of learning in the new country in rather lurid colours. I explained and dwelt on the hardships—indeed, I described it as "a dog's life." Within a year, the lad wrote home ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... 'that the redness was caused by the blow, since no blow can ever recall any thing like color to the cheeks of a corpse; beside, this blow was given on one cheek, and the other equally reddened.' Singular facts. Do they not militate against certain theories of 'nervous sensation' recently promulgated in our philosophical circles? . . . DOESN'T it sicken you, reader, to hear a young lady use that common but horrid commercial metaphor, 'first-rate?' 'How did you like CASTELLAN, last evening, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... the laws of America as were actually committed were certainly reprobated by none more sincerely than by myself, if only because nothing could be imagined more certain to militate against my policy, as I have here described it, than these outrages and the popular indignation aroused by them. I fully realized that these individual acts, in defiance of the law of the land and the resulting spread of Germanophobia, were bound ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... voluntary opposition &c 708, voluntary resistance &c 719; repression &c (restraint) 751. opposites, action and reaction, yang and yin, yang-yin (contrariety) 14. V. counteract; run counter, clash, cross; interfere with, conflict with; contravene; jostle; go against, run against, beat against, militate against; stultify; antagonize, block, oppose &c 708; traverse; withstand &c (resist) 719; hinder &c 706; repress &c (restrain) 751; react &c (recoil) 277. undo, neutralize; counterpoise &c (compensate) 30; overpoise^. Adj. counteracting &c v.; antagonistic, conflicting, retroactive, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... succeeded better and for longer together. Where Nature has once or twice hit her mark as near as this she will commonly hit it outright eventually; the disruption of the Roman Empire, therefore, does not militate against the supposition that the normal condition of right-minded people is one which tends towards aggregation, or, in other words, towards compromise and the merging of much of one's own individuality for the sake ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked to ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... fault o' mine when your orders are na implicitly obeyed, Miss Wardhill; but circumstances militate against the best intentions, as may be clear to you oftentimes, I doubt not. I was delayed by having to make inquiries respecting a strange ship, which anchored, it appears, a few hours back, in the Sound of Eastling, and which, as I opine, is within your leddyship's jurisdiction, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... In reading this section you must make allowances for my love of this sort of country, with its great forests and rivers and its animistic-minded inhabitants, and for my ability to be more comfortable there than in England. Your superior culture-instincts may militate against your enjoying West Africa, but if you go there you will find things ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... compulsion, did work, and work well; and under their hands vast regions of the western tropics became fertile gardens. The fact that they were carried up into northern regions which from their nature did not require such aid, that slavery prevailed in New York and Massachusetts, does not militate against my argument. The exact limits of any great movement will not be bounded by its purpose. The heated wax which you drop on your letter spreads itself beyond the necessities of your seal. That these negroes would not have come to the Western World ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope

... may obviate the employment of an equal number of stevedores at forty cents an hour; but Mr. Murphy, out of his profound experience, advised against this course, as tending to spread the news of the Retriever's misfortune and militate against securing a crew when the vessel should be loaded and lying in the stream ready for sea. Men employed now, he explained, would only desert. The thing to do was to let a Seattle crimp furnish the crew, sign them on before the shipping commissioner in Seattle, bring them aboard drunk, ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne

... the old laws of England as do not in any way interfere with, or militate against, the views of this honourable assembly, we will loyally adhere to and maintain. The rest we declare null and void as far as relates to ourselves, in all cases wherein a vigour beyond the law may be conducive to our ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock

... has been called, obtains a remarkable support in what would at first seem to militate against it—the existence in our firmament of several thousands of solar systems, in which there are more than one sun. These are called double and triple stars. Some double stars, upon which careful observations have been made, are found to have a regular revolutionary motion round each ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... For, five years before, George III. had consulted the Chief-justice, Lord Kenyon, and the Attorney-general, Sir John Scott (afterward Lord Eldon), on the question whether some proposed concessions to Dissenters, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, did not "militate against the coronation oath and many existing statutes;" and had received their legal opinion that the tests enacted in the reign of Charles II., "though wise laws, and in policy not to be departed from, might be repealed or altered ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... returned he; "it endangers your character and your happiness. Yet again, do not suffer me to interfere, if the breaking with Lord Frederick can militate against your felicity." ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... there never need be a smoky kettle. Your place looks very nice, Mrs. Binks; but from the strong smell of soap, I fancy it must have been cleaned very lately. I hope you have not been neglecting things while I've been away. That sort of thing would militate against your obtaining my prize for domestic ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... the coming age.[30] It is true that watchfulness, patience, and readiness are among the great commands of the New Testament.[31] But admitting the importance of these requirements, they do not militate against the view that Christians were to work for the betterment of the world. Christ did not look upon the world as hopeless and beyond all power of reclaiming; nor did He regard His own or His disciples' ministry within it as without ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... as the first element, and reliability as the next essential. For passenger service there must be an assurance that it will not overturn, or that in landing danger is not ever-present. For the carrying of freight interrupted service will militate against it. ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***

... touch of freshness in the summer, and a look of space in the winter, which no doubt added something to the reputation even of Miss Stanbury. The fact,—for it was a fact,—that there was no gloomier or less attractive spot in the whole city than Miss Stanbury's garden, when seen inside, did not militate against this advantage. There were but half-a-dozen trees, and a few square yards of grass that was never green, and a damp ungravelled path on which no one ever walked. Seen from the inside the garden was not much; but, from the outside, it gave a distinct character to the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... the law would protect the money from being clipped or mutilated or melted down. Once money, always money, and he who alters its money status we lock up as a felon. There is no legal reason and no moral reason and no market reason to militate against what I have outlined as a policy. Finance as a science is simpler than the science of soap-boiling, although the money-changers in the temple for their own selfish advantage prefer you to ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... inquiry" into his character, and as the duty of making this inquiry is entrusted to a competent committee, when that committee has reported that the applicant is unworthy to be made a Mason, it would certainly appear to militate against the spirit, if not the letter, of the regulation, for the lodge, notwithstanding this report, to enter into a ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... raised, compensation has been provided, and precautions against accidents have been multiplied. All these changes, the wisdom of which nobody disputes, may from a purely and crudely economic standpoint be said to militate against production. We have heard many prophecies, but what has been the history of the coal trade? There has been a steady, unbroken expansion of output during the last fifty years. In the period of ten years ending in 1874, 76,000,000 tons were produced; in the next ten years 112,000,000; ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... the Revelation of St. John, too, as having been written at Ephesus, this will accord well with the use made of Theodotion's version of Daniel in that book. Or if Theodotion made use, in whole or in part, of some previous version, as seems certain, this fact would not at all militate against St. John at Ephesus having also made use of the same earlier version. And it is quite possible that this version may have been of Alexandrian origin, although ...
— The Three Additions to Daniel, A Study • William Heaford Daubney

... argument in his favor presented itself to my mind, I rejected it utterly, shrugging my shoulders. As for the facts of which I am speaking, and which gave rise to my doubts—at first I simply tried to prove that those facts were false, taking, from the depositions of the witnesses, only that which would militate against their truth and rejecting all the rest, with a terrible simplicity of bad faith. And in the end, in order to dissipate my last scruples, I told myself, just as you told me, "That is the business of the defence; ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux

... by hading or trolling. I only once visited this water in August, but was entirely prevented from fishing owing to the high wind. The salmon had also entered the lake, and their presence is supposed to militate against good sport. July is the best time, and there is no doubt that very good fishing can be obtained there, while the lake is easily reached from Savona's, though there is no hotel accommodation, and it is necessary to take a tent and ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert

... life-time here, they pass to some further state of existence; that people of similar thoughts, tastes and feelings, gravitate together; that married couples do not necessarily reunite, but that the love of man and woman continues and is freed of elements which with us often militate against its perfect realization; that immediately after death people pass into a semi-conscious rest-state lasting various periods, that they are unable to experience bodily pain, but are susceptible at times to some mental anxiety; that a painful death is 'absolutely unknown,' that ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... round at the sculptured stonework, and turned to my guide-book, and looked at the print of the spot. It was correct to a pillar; but wanted the central ornament of the quadrangle. This, however, was but a slight subsequent erection, which ought not to militate against the general character of my friend ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... politics of Sweden should have undergone a change in consequence of the extraordinary success of Buonaparte, can hardly excite surprise; but another untoward circumstance took place, which seemed to militate against a continuation of an alliance with Great Britain, namely, the untimely death of the Danish prince, who had been unanimously elected to succeed Charles XIII, and who, having acted in Sweden as Crown Prince since the 21st of January 1810, had endeared himself to the nation as well by ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... to harmonize these conflicting elements and dispositions merely on general principles. But when grave questions came then trouble began. What was to the commercial interest of one section seemed to militate against the prosperity of the other, and the glorious ending of the war for independence was soon clouded by the acts of Congress concerning the polity of the ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... of this class; and if, in my exposition of this subject, I announce a single proposition which will not bear the closest scrutiny; if I say aught which conflicts with common sense or reason, nay, if you can find one single natural fact to militate against the principles which I announce as fundamental to this science, I will be obliged to the gentleman or lady who will raise the question with me, and I will either prove my position to the satisfaction of this audience or ...
— How to Become Rich - A Treatise on Phrenology, Choice of Professions and Matrimony • William Windsor

... view. Believe me that I appreciate it and that I am willing, to a certain extent, to acquiesce in it. At the same time, there are considerations in this matter which I cannot ignore. I do not wish to create any disturbance or to make any statements likely to militate against the popularity of your wonderful hotel, Monsieur Picard. Nevertheless, for personal reasons only, notwithstanding the verdict of your doctor, I should like for one moment ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... taxes for a limited time (which has been petitioned for in some instances), or any other adequate immunity or compensation granted to the brave defenders of their country's cause. But neither the adoption or rejection of this proposition will, in any manner, affect, much less militate against, the act of Congress by which they have offered five years' full pay in lieu of the half-pay for life, which had been before promised to the officers ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



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