"Philosophical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theory as this lies in the fact that it is thoroughly materialistic in character. It is currently assumed that the doctrine of a life after death cannot be defended on materialistic grounds, but this is altogether too hasty an assumption. Our authors, indeed, are not philosophical materialists, like Dr. Priestley,—who nevertheless believed in a future life,—but one of the primary doctrines of materialism lies at the bottom of their argument. Materialism holds for one thing that consciousness is a product of a peculiar organization ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... breeds are descended from a single stock, although they do not know much about the art of breeding, cannot show the connecting links, nor say where and when the breeds arose. Yet these same naturalists will declare, with an air of philosophical caution, that they can never admit that one natural species has given birth to another until they behold all the transitional steps. But fanciers have used exactly the same language with respect to domestic ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... maintains that character in these addresses. "We go to Darwin for his incomparable collection of facts. We would fain emulate his scholarship, his width and his power of exposition, but to us he speaks no more with philosophical authority. We read his scheme of evolution as we would those of Lucretius or Lamarck, delighting in their simplicity and their courage" (M., p. 9). "Naturally, we turn aside from generalities. It is no time to discuss the origin of the Mollusca or of Dicotyledons, while we ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... party on the island; and gladdened herself with the beauty and the sweet air of the wood, and the flecks of sunshine and moving shadow on the ground beneath the trees. I am afraid nobody else found the air sweet, unless it were the doctor. He was hardy, and besides had a philosophical way of looking at things. Daisy watched for his coming, afraid that he might wander off beyond luncheon time; but he did not come. The three boys, however, a less welcome sight, had recollected that ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... all, Ea the Wisdom, and Bel the creative Spirit. Of China Williamson remarks: "In ancient China the emperors used to sacrifice every third year to 'Him who is one and three.' There was a Chinese saying, 'Fo is one person but has three forms.' ... In the lofty philosophical system known in China as Taoism, a trinity also figures: 'Eternal Reason produced One, One produced Two, Two produced Three, and Three produced all things,' which, as Le Compte goes on to say, 'seems to show as if they had some knowledge ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant
... social vanity, they convey their feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly, such a language arising out of repeated experience and regular feeling, is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets, who think that they are conferring honor upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression, ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... the book be "cler," or "brun." Nor will such enthusiastic Member allow of the epithets of "hodg-podge, gallimaufry, rhapsody," &c. which are to be found in the "Transdentals General," of Bishop Wilkins's famous "Essay towards a real character and a philosophical language:" edit. 1668, fol. p. 28—as applicable to his beloved reprints! I annex the names of the Members of the Societe des Bibliophiles, as that club ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and he laid on the blows till his own strength failed him. In vain Sandy remonstrated with Richard upon the folly of his course, and begged him to keep cool, as though a severe flogging was one of the light afflictions of this world, that may be endured with patience by a philosophical temperament. ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... and a seditious address was circulated. In the evening of that day a violent riot broke out. The mob, with shouts of "Church and king," wrecked two dissenting chapels and seven houses belonging to prominent democrats, one of them Priestley's house, where they destroyed his library, philosophical apparatus, and papers. The riot lasted for two days and was finally quelled by dragoons. Three of the rioters were hanged, and over L26,000 was paid by the neighbouring hundreds as ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... reigns of trouble, about which history is sadly silent, when Greek learning was sinking, and after the country had been for a year or two in the power of the Syrians, that the worship of Mithra was brought into Alexandria, where superstitious ceremonies and philosophical subtleties were equally welcome. Mithra was the Persian god of the sun; and in the system of two gods, one good and the other wicked, he ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... AUTOMATISM. In philosophical terminology this word is used in two main senses: (1) in ethics, for the view that man is not responsible for his actions, which have, therefore, no moral value; (2) in psychology, for all actions which are not ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... documents of all kinds—the crude materials which it is the province of the historian to digest. The author, notwithstanding, has a clear historical head; his narrative, when he permits it to flow uninterrupted, is animated; his reflections generally philosophical; his summaries of individual character acute and distinct; and so peculiar have been his sources of information, that henceforward no man will sit down to write upon this era of the history of India, or of Central Asia, before carefully consulting ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... like a malicious growth seemed to have gathered to itself all the stubbornness, insensibility, and rude obstinacy of the nation, was counterbalanced by a refined and intellectual nobility, which was inspired by the new artistic and philosophical thought of the Renaissance, and seemed to foresee, if not fully to recognize, what a mine of poetry the English theatre of those times was destined to be. Thanks to men like Sir Francis Walsingham, Lords Leicester, Nottingham, Strange, and Sussex, the drama resisted for a time the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... history—it's not a proper book. Don't read "Tom Jones"—and none of the books on this side, mind!' So I was very obedient and never touched the books on that side, and only read instead Tom Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and Voltaire's 'Philosophical Dictionary,' and Hume's 'Essays,' and Werther, and Rousseau, and Mary Wollstonecraft ... books, which I was never suspected of looking towards, and which were not 'on that side' certainly, but which did ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... London life, which, to a man who can enjoy it with full intellectual relish, is apt to make existence in any narrower sphere seem insipid or irksome. I doubted that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise, and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon minds ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... we had heard of this colossal cataract. Our school readers contained stately poems and philosophical dissertations concerning it. Gough, the great orator, had pointed out the likeness of its resistless torrent to the habit of using spirituous liquors. The newspapers still printed descriptions of its splendor and no foreigner (so we understood) ever came to these shores without ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the bitter disenchantment from which he suffered, had not led him into philosophical deserts of incredulity; this brave statesman was religious, without ostentation; he always attended the earliest mass at Saint-Paul's for pious workmen and servants. Not one of his friends, no one at Court, knew that he so punctually fulfilled the practice of religion. ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... altogether! Nor am I in love with a future state in which there is so much dancing up and down lofty flights of stairs with terpsichorean energy, and manoeuvring in companies and circles with members of the softer sex. As a philosophical conception of disembodied existence, it is undeniably deficient in repose, though perhaps good enough for ordinary ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... presence for the construction of a furnace, and for the great care necessary, far the least mistake will spoil all. The transmutation of Mars is an easy and merely mechanical process, but that of gold is philosophical in the highest degree. The gold produced will be equal to that used in the Venetian sequins. You must reflect, my lord, that I am giving you information which will permit you to dispense with me, and you must also reflect that I am confiding to ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... afraid," he went on. "I wasn't going home with them. I want to stop and watch these ridiculous people a little longer.... What had you got to say, my philosophical, optimistic friend?" ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Author has himself experienced, and of which the reader may find a description in one of the earlier volumes of the Manchester Philosophical Transactions, is applied figuratively to the following passage in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... with these in his mind, and he hoped, by the marriage connection she might form, to increase a family influence in furtherance of his plans. These seemed likely to be defeated by Anne's partiality for Pownal, and the young man felt the disappointment as keenly as his cool philosophical nature would permit. But let it not be thought that William Bernard brought worldly prudence into all his plans. His love of Faith Armstrong had no connection with any such feelings, and she would have ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... the Wood' is a 'comic oration,' with a most comprehensive grasp of subject. As spoken by its witty author, it elicited gusto of laughter and whirlwinds of applause. Mr. Ward is no prosy lyceum lecturer. His style is neither scientific, didactic, or philosophical. It is simply that of a man who is brimful of mirth, wit, and satire, and who is compelled to let it flow forth. Maintaining a very grave countenance himself, he plays upon the muscles of other people's faces as though they were piano- strings, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... derelictions make me very humble; it's only a survival of the primitive in all of us. I shouldn't worry about it. It's terribly easy to become a lost sheep, even a black one. But this is not an hour for philosophical discussion. Let me assure you that the nasty telegram that caused you to leave Bailey Harbor in so bitter a spirit was the work of your father-in-law. Putney had nothing to do ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... was never yet a barrier that could keep out books, and Cantapresto was a skilled purveyor of contraband dainties. Odo had thus acquainted himself with the lighter literature of England and France; and though he had read but few philosophical treatises, was yet dimly aware of the new standpoint from which, north of the Alps, men were beginning to test the accepted forms of thought. The first disturbance of his childish faith, and the coincident reading of the Lettres Philosophiques, had been followed ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... given rise. Of this, also, a lengthened review was given in the ATLAS, which has been included; so that the reader will now have before him a succinct outline of a novel and interesting topic of philosophical investigation. ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... and state, no fissure between political and religious life, between the claims of the secular and the spiritual, to distract the allegiance of the citizens, and to set the authority of conscience against the duties of patriotism. It was no feat of the philosophical imagination, but a quite simple and natural expression of the facts to describe such a community as an association of men for the purpose of living well. Ideals to which we win our way back with difficulty and doubt arose naturally out ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... kind soever, to the virtuous Man. Accordingly [Cato][1] in the Character Tully has left of him, carried Matters so far, that he would not allow any one but a virtuous Man to be handsome. This indeed looks more like a Philosophical Rant than the real Opinion of a Wise Man; yet this was what Cato very seriously maintained. In short, the Stoics thought they could not sufficiently represent the Excellence of Virtue, if they did not comprehend in the Notion of it all possible Perfection[s]; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... subsequent encounters his monologue was interrupted and I took my share. He had exercised me so greatly that I lay awake at nights thinking him over, and discoursed and answered him in my head as I went in the morning to the College. I am by nature a doer and only by the way a critic; his philosophical assertion of the incalculable vagueness of life which fitted his natural indolence roused my more irritable and energetic nature to active protests. "It's all so pointless," I said, "because people are slack and because it's in the ebb of an age. But ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... 1764 he published The Traveller, a moralizing poem upon the condition of the people under the European governments. It was at once and entirely successful; philosophical, elegant, and harmonious, it is pitched in a key suited to the capacity of the world at large; and as, in the general comparison of nations, he found abundant reason for lauding England, it was esteemed patriotic, and ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... a valuable paper on the anatomy of Nautilus umbilicatus, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1855, thus describes the follicular appendages of ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... toyed gracefully with the ivory cimeter which had separated the leaves of her novel. He was reminded of the episode of the ring by observing that she wore no jewelry except the string of gold beads, and wondered whether she had a philosophical contempt for such adornment. If it were a matter of taste, as indeed it must be, her instinct, he felt, was singularly correct, for such adventitious aids could add nothing to her beauty. They were rather the final dependence of wrinkled dowagers. As he ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... complex to task the united powers of the historian, philologist, and anthropologist, merely to trace out the multitudinous lines of its evolution, and to determine the sources of its various elements: primeval polytheisms and fetishisms, traditions of dubious origin, philosophical concepts from China, Korea, and elsewhere—all mingled with Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. The so-called 'Revival of Pure Shinto'—an effort, aided by Government, to restore the cult to its archaic simplicity, by divesting it of foreign characteristics, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... had gleaned her knowledge. As for you, Douglass, I suggest you abandon Oriental studies, forego the dim hope of martyrdom in India, and begin your missionary labours at home. My dear, the Buddhist is at your own door. Now, Peyton, how do you relish the flavour of your philosophical salad?" ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pamphlet, honestly believing that on all questions affecting the happiness of the people, whether they be theological, political, or social, fullest right of free discussion ought to be maintained at all hazards. We do not personally endorse all that Dr. Knowlton says: his 'Philosophical Proem' seems to us full of philosophical mistakes, and—as we are neither of us doctors—we are not prepared to endorse his medical views; but since progress can only be made through discussion, and no discussion is possible where differing opinions are suppressed, we ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... were new noises, but they made up the whole of that peculiar sound which is the sum of human excitement. "We are going down this time," was my thought, and I found myself less philosophical about it than I had imagined. Neither Alister nor I were long in putting on our clothes, and we rushed up on deck without exchanging a word. By the time we got there, where the whole ship's crew had gone before us, we were as wildly ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... He became philosophical, the other day when I complained about the howling of the coyotes, and protested it was these horizon-singers that kept the prairie clean. He even argued that the flies which seem such a pest to the cattle in summer-time ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the staff who does not understand the Caucasian way reproved the colonel for delaying, but he took a very philosophical view, and pointed out that it was extremely doubtful whether he even now had men enough to carry the enormous position, and that he certainly could not do so with exhausted troops. So we had the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... alter the real conditions of things, or represent life as other than it is. The greatness of the poet depends on his being true to nature, without insisting that nature shall theorise with him, without making her more just, more philosophical, more moral than reality; and, in difficult matters, leaving much to reflection which cannot ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... und philosophische Kritik, until 1888 in association with Krohn, and after the latter's death, alone. At present he has in hand a treatise on Lotze for a German series analogous to Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, which is to be issued under his direction. Professor Falckenberg's general philosophical position may be described as that of moderate idealism. His historical method is strictly objective, the aim being a free reproduction of the systems ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... mistress in thus shutting us up, that we had been crammed in in a way to leave it impossible to say which was the cote droit, and which the cote gauche. Thus completely deranged as parties, we took to discussing philosophical matters in general; an occupation well adapted to a situation that required so great an exercise ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... later, all eyes, all hearts, look for comfort to God. The coldest metaphysical analyst could not avoid that, in his sage enumeration of "each particular hair" that is twisted and untwisted by him into a sort of moral tie; and surely the impassioned and philosophical poet will not, dare not, for the spirit that is within him, exclude that from his elegies, his hymns, and his songs, which, whether mournful or exulting, are inspired by the life-long, life-deep conviction, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... many a strange being will have a title to the name. All the lovers of sights have a delight in learning, and must therefore be included. Musical amateurs, too, are a folk strangely out of place among philosophers, for they are the last persons in the world who would come to anything like a philosophical discussion, if they could help, while they run about at the Dionysiac festivals as if they had let out their ears to hear every chorus; whether the performance is in town or country—that makes no difference—they are there. Now are we to maintain that all these and ...
— The Republic • Plato
... partiality;" it is not calculated for this or that nation of people, but the whole race of mankind. Not so the philosophical schemes, which were narrow and confined, adapted to their peculiar towns, governments, or sects; but "in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... used the philosophical psychology of his day as a guiding principle to reduce pedagogic rules to a system. From his individual experience he believed he could deduce a universal method of developing the mind, and be made this the psychological basis of methods of teaching. The German ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... Bede's History,[37] the first great historical work written on English soil; Pope Gregory's Shepherds' Book, intended especially for the clergy; and Boethius's Consolations of Philosophy, the favorite philosophical work of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... from an intellectual standpoint and for the purpose of investigation. I have been a student at six educational institutions since I left the high school, but this was far ahead of the others for the development of the logical and philosophical faculties. Here there was absolutely no restraint to thought; and all kinds of systems and ideas were represented, from philosophical anarchy to socialism and from mysticism to materialism. The moral and spiritual earnestness I expected to find among the Unitarians I did not find, especially ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... of the names imposed by the Norwegians on their new discoveries is admirable. Iceland, Greenland, Helleland, Markland, Winland, and many others; which are perfectly philosophical, excellently systematic, and infinitely preferable to the modern clumsy appellations, New Britain, New France, New England, New Holland, Sandwich Islands, Society islands, and a multitude ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... parties, each of them trying to gain influence and adherents among the young students. It has been usual to look upon the Realists as the Conservative, and upon the Nominalists as the Liberal party of the fifteenth century. But although at times this was the case, philosophical opinions, on which the differences between these two parties were founded, were not of sufficient strength to determine for any length of time the political and religious bias of either school. The Realists were chiefly supported by ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... following one noted. One of the heroes of the Dunciad, Thomas Cooke, the translator of Hesiod, was the editor of a periodical published in monthly numbers, in 8vo., of which nine only appeared, under the title of The Comedian, or Philosophical Inquirer, the first number being for April, and the last for December, 1732. It contains some curious matter, and amongst other papers is, in No. 2., "A Letter in Prose to Mr. Alexander Pope, occasioned by his Epistle in Verse to the Earl of Burlington." It is very abusive, and was most probably ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... who established the greatness of Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The great Theban dynasty is then exhibited in its romantic rise under the Pharaohs. Maspero writes not as a mere chronicler or reciter of events, but as a philosophical historian. He makes the reader understand how fatally the chronic militarism of these competing empires drained each of its manhood and brought Babylon and Assyria simultaneously into a hopeless condition of national anaemia. Equally pathetic is the picture drawn of the gradual but sure ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... The Daws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross; in which the occult secrets of their Philosophical Notions are brought to light: written by Count Mayerus, and ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... always spoke of them in kindly and affectionate terms. They were his poor honest fellows, his pretty dears, his gossips, his good old fathers, as their age or sex might be; and as Trois Eschelles endeavoured to inspire them with a philosophical or religious regard to futurity, Petit Andre seldom failed to refresh them with a jest or two, as if to induce them to pass from life as something that was ludicrous, contemptible, and not ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... going to get as philosophical and as commonplace as that, I'm going to bed. Now that I come to think of it, I've been up about fifteen Earth-hours, so it's about time I went and had a sleep. It's your turn to make the coffee in the morning—our morning, I mean—and you'll wake me in time to see the South Pole of Saturn, won't ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... astonished to find the Female Reformers holding their meeting in this city in Apollo Hall. It is well known that Apollo was a god of the male persuasion; and to have everything "mix up well," these philosophical dames should have a Minerva Hall or a Diana Hall of their own. Besides, was not Apollo the God of Harmony? Precious little of that same was there at this meeting; for there was the Medical Mary Walker ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... the serious tone of this speech with the hard cider and coon-skin buncombe of the Harrison campaign of 1840, and its lofty philosophical thought with the humorous declamation of the Taylor campaign of 1848, the speaker's advance in mental development at once becomes apparent. In this single effort Mr. Lincoln had risen from the class of the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... particular his monograph "On the significance of the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification" in the Memoirs of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1915. ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... to explain the historical and philosophical differences between these two forms of Protestantism. A phrase first used by Julius Stahl aptly describes the difference. The Lutheran Reformation was the "Conservative Reformation." Its general principle was to ...
— The Lutherans of New York - Their Story and Their Problems • George Wenner
... work. A new interest was thus brought into our lives, which, in my case, soon became all-absorbing. I was always begging my brother to bring me home fresh books. The driest volumes of political economy, the most indigestible of philosophical treatises, nothing came amiss. From these I passed on to more modern works. Raymond had made friends with a student who was a professed socialist and through him he came into possession of a number of pamphlets ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... "We have no hesitation in asserting the great superiority of the form in which it is presented by Dr. Buchanan, whether we regard its practical accuracy or its philosophical excellence."—American ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... new cloud on my horizon (I mean this in no menacing sense) is the Prince. I have philosophical and artistic discussions with the Prince. He is capable of talking for two hours upon end, developing his theory of everything under Heaven from his first position, which is that there is no straight line. Doesn't that ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... framers of them hoped that they might effect. We all know what has been the fate of the constitutions which were written throughout the French Revolution for the use of France. We all, here in England, have the same ludicrous conception of Utopian theories of government framed by philosophical individuals who imagine that they have learned from books a perfect system of managing nations. To produce such theories is especially the part of a Frenchman; to disbelieve in them is especially the part of an Englishman. But in the States a system of government has been produced, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... some of the pages of Sextus' works would form a possible introduction to certain lines of modern philosophical thought, we cannot carry the analogy farther, for Pyrrhonism as a whole lacked the essential element of all philosophical progress, which is a belief in the possibility of finding and establishing the truth ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... system is similar to that of the State: the higher the debt of a country, the higher stands her credit; therefore, what is credit?—wealth! This is elementary, not counting that it involves a high question of moral philosophy. But I shall explain my financial and philosophical ideas on a more favorable occasion. Go to Mariette, and report to me later. As for me, I have promised to take my little shop-girl out on a new saddle-horse which, by the way, cost me an outrageous price. Now don't fail to come or write to me; whatever happens, I want ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... was too much awe-struck to venture an undigested reply to this speech; and the surgeon, after pausing a moment in a kind of philosophical disdain, continued,— ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the Philosophical Transactions, when Johnson observed, that they had now a better method of arranging their materials than formerly. 'Aye, (said the King,) they are obliged to Dr. Johnson for that;' for his Majesty had heard and remembered the circumstance, which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... few hours of his dissolution, when nature gave way and he sank into a tranquil unconsciousness in which life gently ebbed away. Whatever may have been the error of his life, he closed the scene with a philosophical dignity not unworthy of a sage, and with a serenity and sweetness of disposition of which Christianity itself could afford no more shining or delightful example. In him I have lost (half lost before) the last and greatest of the friends of my youth, ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... score of volumes, critical, philosophical, scientific, absorbing their contents, eagerly anticipating their conclusions; filled, once he had begun, with a mania to destroy, a savage determination to leave nothing,—to level ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... addresses in Boston and its vicinity. While thus coming before the open public on the lecture platform, he was all the time preparing the treatise which was to embody all the quintessential elements of his philosophical doctrine. This was the essay Nature, which was published in 1836. By its conception of external Nature as an incarnation of the Divine Mind it struck the fundamental principle of Emerson's religious belief. The essay had a very ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... struggle for existence as a factor of evolution, introduced into science by Darwin and Wallace, has permitted us to embrace an immensely wide range of phenomena in one single generalization, which soon became the very basis of our philosophical, biological, and sociological speculations. An immense variety of facts:—adaptations of function and structure of organic beings to their surroundings; physiological and anatomical evolution; intellectual progress, and moral development itself, which we formerly used to explain by so many ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... colonel's confidence. He wasted no time in words, but went at once to Sergeant Whitley, who was ready in five minutes. Warner, who heard of the mission, was disappointed because he was not going too. But he was philosophical. ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... it possible that any man could have deep and close communion with God, except on condition of a pure character. I will not speak of that at present, but point to the picturesque metaphor, which will tell us a great deal more about what faith is than many a philosophical dissertation. Many a man who would be perplexed by a theologian's talk will understand this: 'The righteous runneth into the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... The lectures there were attended by very large audiences, and awakened such an interest in American history that I was invited to return to England in the following year and treat of some of the philosophical aspects of my subject in a course of ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... side, ginerally! There's always one who loves and sacrifices, and all that, and there's always one who rakes in the pot! That's the way o' the world; and that's why," continued Rice, abandoning his slightly philosophical attitude, and laying his hand tenderly, and yet with a singularly significant grip, on Wells's arm, "we say to him, 'Hang on to that will, and uncle Quincy's memory.' And we hev to say it. For he's that tender-hearted and keerless of money—having his own share ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... Ruskin we find great breadth of thought and a wide range of intellectual vision, going hand in hand with a profound philosophical grasp of life's deepest problems; and, what is more, these excellences are rendered luminous by the influence of an enlightened soul. His life has been characterized by nobility of purpose, purity of thought, a passion for nature and art, ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... it anyhow. If it's going to come I can't stop it; but I can enjoy it," Alice remarked in her characteristically philosophical way. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope
... go to prove that a horse cannot fall which has a bearing-rein and a crupper, that is, whose head is tied to his tail. Sir Francis Head's observations on bearing-reins, in the "Bubbles of the Brunnen," are quite philosophical. They should only be used for purposes of parade, or to acquire greater power over a difficult team, or loosely to keep cart-horses "out of mischief." Sir Francis's observations are also true of the harness used ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... horrible realism, emphasized by gloomy poetic feeling, had inspired some passages such as modern poetry is too free with, rather too like the flayed anatomical figures known to artists as ecorches. Then, by a highly philosophical revulsion, after describing the house of ill-fame where the Andalusian ended her days, the writer came back to the ballad ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... let those things take their course," said this philosophical lady to her "help" and confidant, Margaret Ann Peabody. "She'll get over it in time—though she doesn't think so now, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... whatever is gifted in Russia, for a time speaks only through them; lastly comes realism with an intensity unparalleled elsewhere, and everybody writes in prose, and only one kind of prose at that,—fiction. Not a drama, not a history, not an essay, not a philosophical treatise has yet grown on Russian soil; all the energy of Russia has gone into fiction, and Russia is not the country to produce, when it does produce masters, only one at ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... so much at his ease (so he says) that he ventured to ask how it was that the public worship Napoleon had restored in France was not more philosophical and in harmony with the spirit of the times. "My dear Wieland," was the reply, "religion is not meant for philosophers! they have no faith either in me or my priests. As to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or to leave them, too much of the marvellous. If I had ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... and setting. But there is a third species of change in the sun's position, which is not quite so obvious, though it is still capable of being detected by a few careful observations, if combined with a philosophical habit of reflection. The very earliest observers of the stars can hardly have failed to notice that the constellations visible at night varied with the season of the year. For instance, the brilliant figure of Orion, though so well seen on winter nights, is absent from the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... theory supposes that all the myths of the ancients were allegorical and symbolical, and contained some moral, religious, or philosophical truth or historical fact, under the form of an allegory, but came in process of time to be understood literally. Thus Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same power whom the Greeks called Kronos ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... only his ignorance of life that could have led him to think of anything so absurd.... And then, weary of thinking and debating with himself, he took down a book that was lent some months ago, a monograph on a learned woman, a learned philosophical writer and translator of exegetical works from the German. Like Nora, she came from the middle classes, and, like Nora, she transgressed, how often he did not know, but with another woman's husband certainly. A critical writer and exponent ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... to Rome or resident there as a teacher. In this way Pepin would do in fiction what had never been done before: something not at all like 'Rienzi' or 'Notre Dame de Paris,' or any other attempt of that kind; but something at once more penetrating and more magnificent, more passionate and more philosophical, more panoramic yet more select: something that would present a conception of a gigantic period; in short something truly Roman ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... of the Nirgrantha or Digambara in Kiapishi (Beal, Si-yu-ki, Vol. I, p. 55), points apparently to the fact that they had, in the North West at least, spread their missionary activity beyond the borders of India.] As their doctrine, like Buddha's, is originally a philosophical ethical system intended for ascetics, the disciples, like the Buddhists, are, divided into ecclesiastics and laity. At the head stands an order of ascetics, originally Nirgrantha "they, who are freed from all bands," now usually called Yatis—"Ascetics", or Sadhus—"Holy", ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler
... sole proprietor. The original price of a shilling was soon reduced to eight pence. Jerdan set the prototype for later literary weeklies in his plan, which embraced "foreign and domestic correspondence, critical analyses of new publications, varieties connected with polite literature, philosophical researches, scientific inventions, sketches of society, biographical memoirs, essays on fine arts, and miscellaneous articles on drama, music and literary intelligence." Thus Jerdan followed his ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... manifestation of the hither mysteries, a far greater triumph. What freshness, what perpetual rejuvenation they must possess! The more one regards such a thing, the more magnificent and far-reaching it appears. No philosophical bulwark against trouble can compare with it. Such love ceases to be a matter for novels and selected moments and certain lusty ages; ceases to be exceptional. It is the greatest of those very great things, the commonplaces. Tony tells me that when he comes in at night, cold ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... Sammie was always philosophical. He was once ordered to take a new machine on a very long raid. We had all examined this new aeroplane and declared it a "dud"; so we cheered Sammie up as well as we could by drinking his health and inquiring into his ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... natural prudence, or the part operative of natural philosophy, we will divide it into three parts—experimental, philosophical, and magical; which three parts active have a correspondence and analogy with the three parts speculative, natural history, physic, and metaphysic. For many operations have been invented, sometimes by a casual incidence and occurrence, sometimes by a purposed ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... afraid of no one in the world, save one—Mike, old Mike, who can tame him in his fiercest moods by merely holding up his finger. Oh, a truly remarkable man is old Mike! and a pleasure and an advantage it is to any one of a philosophical mind to be acquainted with him, and to listen to him. He is much more than a fashiono-vangust-engro. Amongst other things he is a theologian—Irish theologian—and quite competent to fill the chair of theology at the University of Maynooth. He can tell you a great many things connected with a ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... been informed by Dr. Small and Mr. Bolton of Birmingham, that paper dipped in a solution of copper in spirit of nitre would take fire with a moderate heat (a fact which I afterwards found mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions) it occurred to me that this would be very convenient for experiments relating to ignition in different kinds of air; and indeed I found that it was easily fired, either by a burning lens, or the approach of red-hot iron on the outside of the phial in which it was contained, and that ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley
... delightful, nevertheless. She amused herself with comparing Grant with Transley. They had two points in common: their physical perfection and their fearless, self-confident manner. With these exceptions they seemed to be complete contradictions. The ambitious Transley worshipped success; the philosophical Grant despised it. That difference in attitude toward the world and its affairs was a ridge which separated the whole current of their lives. It even, in a way, shut one from the view of the other; at least it shut Grant from the view of Transley. Transley would never ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... was flowing in and covering the marsh lands. They gained the summit of Winter Hill, gazed upon the beautiful landscape, then turned southward toward Cambridge. Reaching the college, they entered the library and the room containing the philosophical instruments. Robert rubbed his knife on a magnet so he could pick up a needle by touching it with the blade. They had little time to spare, for they were to take supper with Mr. Samuel Adams. Berinthia informed him that Mr. Adams was ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... subject in a new light and showed that a natural history of mind might be written and that this method of study offered a wide and rich field for investigation. Of course those who regarded the study of mind only as a branch of metaphysics smiled at the philosophical ineptitude of the mere man of science. But the investigation, on natural history lines, has been prosecuted with a large measure of success. Much indeed still remains to be done; for special training is required, and the workers are still few. Promise for the future is however afforded ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... Gentlemen, picking up the scent where we left at the conclusion of my first lecture, to hunt the Art of Reading (as I shall call it), a little further on the line of common-sense; then to cast back and chase on a line somewhat more philosophical. If these lines run wide and refuse to unite, we shall have made a false cast: if they converge and meet, we shall have caught our hare and may proceed, in subsequent ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... names mark the physical and intellectual coming of age of Germany. Lessing died misunderstood and feared by the card-board literary leaders of his day, men who still wrote and thought with the geometrical instruments handed them from France; Kant attempted to push philosophical inquiry beyond the bounds of human experience, and Frederick left Prussia at last not ashamed to be Prussia. Napoleon was eighteen years old when Frederick died, and he, next to Bismarck, did more to bring about German unity than any other single force. Unsuccessful Charlemagne ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way, was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical experimentalist could be in awaiting the effect of some rare, though perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my mind detached from fancy, the more the temper ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... were folded now across his broad brown flannel chest, and the pistols gleamed in his belt below like fine ornaments. He wore a philosophical expression, and looked at his companion as if she were a new specimen of the human kind, and he was studying her variety, quite impersonally, it is true, but interestedly. There was something in his ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... their ingenuity over the problem, and inferred that such things must actually be the case. As for the Indian account, it is nonsense fit only to deceive women and children, and I do not think it worthy of reflection. The Chinese theories, on the other hand, are based upon profound philosophical speculations and sound extremely plausible, but what they call the absolute and the finite, the positive and negative essences, the eight diagrams, and the five elements, are not real existences, but are fictitious names invented by the philosophers and freely applied in every direction. ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... sign board "Three Miles to Mason's Corner" was still there, but how changed the other conditions. No consumptive uncle in the Poor House, no philosophical Uncle Ike living in a chicken coop, no inquisitive Mrs. Putnam, no mysterious Lindy, no battle royal with the music teacher, no town meeting to engineer, no grocery store to buy, no Deacon's daughter to go driving with, no singing school, no surprise party, no blind girl to comfort ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... species of birds. Sensible behavior in captivity is the one conspicuous trait of character in which birds mentally and physically are far better balanced than mammals. But few birds are foolishly nervous or hysterical, and when once settled down the great majority of them are sanguine and philosophical. Birds of a great many species can be caught in an adult state and settled down in captivity without difficulty; whereas all save a few species of mammals, when captured as adults, are irreconcilable fighters and many of them die far too quickly. ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... of the facts with a languid composure that contrasted deliciously with Richard's heat in telling the story his way (to be sure, Sir Charles had got Huntercombe and Bassett, and it is easier to be philosophical on the right side of the boundary hedge), and wound up with a sort of corollary: "Dick Bassett suffers by his father's vices, and I profit by mine's ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... of reasoning more common, or more blamable, than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... done required to be gone over again. Sometimes she lost all patience, and resorted to a little "muscular Christianity," which caused huge amusement, but always had the desired effect. But she was very philosophical over it. "It is all part of the heathen character, and, as Mrs. Anderson used to say, 'Well, Daddy, if they were Christians there would have been no need for you and me here.'" Jean often became very wroth, and demanded of the people if "Ma" was not to obtain ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... discouraging. I've always flattered myself that it would grow easier. When one is young, everything is vague and unsettled, and naturally one feels anxious about what is to happen next. It is almost impossible to be philosophical about the unknown, but when your life has shaped itself, it ought to be easy to settle down and make the best of it, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of the philosophical policeman," replied the man in blue, "is at once bolder and more subtle than that of the ordinary detective. The ordinary detective goes to pot-houses to arrest thieves; we go to artistic tea-parties to detect pessimists. ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... and take of our life, impressed March. It gave him a fine sense of the ferocity which he had read of the French troops putting on toward the populace just before the coup d'etat; he began to feel like the populace; but he struggled with himself and regained his character of philosophical observer. In this character he remained in the car and let it carry him by the corner where he ought to have got out and gone home, and let it keep on with him to one of the farthermost tracks westward, where so much of the fighting was reported to have taken place. But everything on the way ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Notions of Happiness, Philosophical and Popular, answered from v.19 to 77. II. It is the End of all Men, and attainable by all, v.30. God intends Happiness to be equal; and to be so, it must be social, since all particular Happiness depends on general, and since He governs by general, not particular Laws, v.37. As it is necessary ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... sight of Vicksburg at four o'clock in the afternoon and was met by the steamer Silverthorn towing a big barge, loaded with excursionists. It appeared as though the entire population of the town and surrounding country had assembled on the river bank. So dense was the crowd, that it caused a philosophical negro to remark: ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... corrupt minds, which were but too much prepared to receive them by the extravagancies of the late times. So this set of men at Cambridge studied to assert, and examine the principles of religion and morality on clear grounds, and in a philosophical method. In this More led the way to many that came after him. Worihington was a man of eminent piety and great humility, and practised a most sublime way of self-denial and devotion. All these, and ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... do, so the thoughts of the best minds always become the last opinion of Society. Truth is ever born in a manger, but is compensated by living till it has all souls for its kingdom. Far, far better seems to me the unpopularity of this Philosophical Poem (shall I call it?) than the adulation that followed your eminent friend Goethe. With him I am becoming better acquainted, but mine must be a qualified admiration. It is a singular piece of good-nature in you to apotheosize him. I cannot but regard it as his misfortune, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his age and enrich the world: He mixes an impossible plot with a little pessimism, adds a dude and a woman whose moral character has seen better days, spills the nauseous compound on the public as a "philosophical novel" and works the press for puffs. Indeed we're progressing; going onward and upward— like the belled buzzard dodging a divorce scandal. Greece had her Pericles, but it was left for us to produce a Parkhurst. ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... scraps—indescribable old women, enveloped in their own petticoats thrown over their heads; girls hooded with sombre black mantles; old men wrinkled beyond recognition by their nearest relatives; jabbering, half-naked boys; slow, slouching fishermen with clay pipes in their mouths and philosophical acceptance on ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... An abstract of this work was thought deserving a place in the philosophical transactions (No 283) for the months of January and ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... that the library of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and the great Americana of Mr. Robert Clarke containing about eight thousand titles, both in Cincinnati, offered peculiar advantages to a student of American history. For two years I spent what time I could spare from professional ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... peculiar satisfaction in possessing it as a gift of the author, a book which I look upon as one of the most remarkable which our age has produced, which would be highly valuable from anyone, and which derives a peculiar interest from its writer. I am charged also to return the thanks of the Philosophical Society here for the copy presented to them. I have not thought it necessary to send the official letter containing the acknowledgment, as Mrs. Somerville will probably have a sufficient collection of specimens ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... of things that my landlady, who at that time kept a boarding-house in Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up town, conceived the bold idea of renting No. — Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she laid her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons—a ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... peasant. There was certainly nothing in his appearance to indicate that he was destined for the cure of souls. The proud father said: 'He is in philosophy.' The young man had a twinkle in his eye that might have been philosophical. Neither of them had a suspicion of the vanity concealed in the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... have to reveal a few more secrets concerning his physical constitution, to say nothing of the remote and mysterious nebulae. Apropos of the sun, Father Secchi, of the observatory at Rome, has been questioning the great luminary with philosophical apparatus, to ascertain whether any difference could be detected in the heat from different parts of its surface, and the proportion lost in its passage through the atmosphere. He finds that the equatorial region is the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... room seemed just the same as usual, and if he had looked out of the window, though this he did not know, he would have seen the old raven on the terrace marching about, and, in his usual philosophical way, failing the sunshine, enjoying the moonlight; while down in the chickens' house, in the corner of the yard, Houpet and his friends were calmly roosting; fat little Nibble soundly sleeping in his cage, cuddled up in the hay; poor, placid Grignan reposing ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... source of greater strength. It affords them the mighty stimulus of fanaticism. The French Communists might plead that they upheld the rights of man. The desert tribes proclaimed that they fought for the glory of God. But although the force of fanatical passion is far greater than that exerted by any philosophical belief, its sanction is just the same. It gives men something which they think is sublime to fight for, and this serves them as an excuse for wars which it is desirable to begin for totally different ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... may be noted in Domesday Book. Its scheme and machinery are promising: a philosophical coroner, holding his inquest over the body of a girl found mysteriously dead, undertakes to trace the mystery not only to its immediate cause but up to its primary source and out to its remotest consequences. At times the tale means to ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... detail to make it of some use as a guide-book to our literature. Though meant to be mainly a history of American belles-lettres, it makes some mention of historical and political writings, but hardly any of philosophical, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the last of the beer from the can. "Those are the characters involved in our play. I have a plan. That's why I told Space Patrol to send me a brand-new second lieutenant—young, strong, fairly handsome—and expendable. I hope you can be philosophical ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... us having washed our hands of the entire affair. She was a prudent person, Miss Gore, and though full of the milk of human kindness, not disposed to waste it where it would do no good. I left with the promise to call upon her another morning and read to her a paper I had written for a philosophical magazine upon the "The Identical Character ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... charter. Immigration, within these restrictions, was not likely to be voluntary and eager, as was the case in New England, and, since the company was under the one compulsion of providing a certain number of colonists and slaves, immigration was forced. Every conceivable sound economic and philosophical principle was violated, and yet investors came from all parts of Europe. "Crowds of crazed speculators jostled and fought each other" before the offices of the company in the Rue Quincampoix [Footnote: A now disreputable street, or so it seemed ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... address delivered extemporaneously on October 9, 1892, at Altenburg, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the "Naturforschende Gesellschaft des Osterlandes." The immediate occasion of it was a previous address delivered by Professor Schlesinger of Vienna on "Scientific Articles of Faith." This philosophical discourse contained, with reference to the weightiest and most important problems of scientific investigation, much that was indisputable; but it also contained some assertions that challenged immediate rejoinder and a ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... a disturbing recognition of his helplessness, perceiving the aimlessness and the unreality of political life, and announcing his contempt for the "crudification" of all issues. What Remington missed was what so many reformers are beginning to miss—an underlying philosophical habit. ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... sir. We have poetical philosophers, and philosophical poets; but, I protest to heaven, the wisdom of Solomon, or of an archangel, could not decide the difference between their folly. There's a man now, with the old stocking in his hand—it is one of his own, for you may observe that he has ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... to be drawn beside him. Fung Tang, the little heathen page, who was permitted, on this rare occasion, to share the Christian revels in the drawing-room, surveyed the group with a smile that was at once sweet and philosophical. The light ticking of a French clock on the mantel, supported by a young shepherdess of bronze complexion and great symmetry of limb, was the only sound that disturbed the Christmas-like peace of the apartment,—a peace which held the ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... register commissaries, judges and assessors of; the presidial, bailiffs and lieutenants of the bailiwick, simple practitioners confined from their youth to the narrow circle of an inferior jurisdiction or to a routine of scribbling, with no escape but philosophical excursions in imaginary space under the guidance of Rousseau and Raynal. There are three hundred and seventy-three of this class, to whom may be added thirty-eight farmers and husbandmen, fifteen physicians, and, among the manufacturers, merchants, and capitalists, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... were in truth no more fruitful to him than the talk of the Reasoner. They stimulated his powers of apprehension and analysis; and the great march of human debate from century to century touched his imagination. But in these summaries of the philosophical field his inmost life appropriated nothing. Once by a sort of reaction he fell upon Hume again, pining for the old intellectual clearness of impression, though it were a clearness of limit and negation. But he had hardly begun the 'Treatise' or the 'Essays' ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... words, on reading the lines of the great poet Schiller upon Columbus, found therein a philosophical thought, as original as profound, calling upon the discoverer to press ever onward, for a new world will surely arise for him, inasmuch as whatever is promised by Genius is always fulfilled by Nature. To cross the seas of Life, naught suffices save the bark of Faith. In that ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... having breakfasted, disentangled themselves from the Bedlam of a troop-deck meal, and gained the upper air, they were in better humour to regard their surroundings from a philosophical, if not an appreciative, standpoint. The depressing drizzle had ceased, the clouds were breaking, and the shore, except for the mist-filled nullahs and the cloud-wrapped Asiatic hills, showed up more ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... time, a learned man who is collating more carefully than has ever yet been done the different early editions of Rabelais—editions, mark you, of which only one copy remains, of which a second is not to be found: from the careful collation of the texts some literary and maybe philosophical result will be derived with regard to the genius of the French Lucian-Aristophanes. I know another scholar whose devotion and worship is given to a very different man—to Bossuet: he is preparing a complete, exact, detailed history of ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... and natural outcome of the conditions of their life. It was not something beyond and above the experience of the class to which it applied, but rather, was the formula of that experience itself: in philosophical phrase, it was immanent not transcendent. Because there really was a class of soldier-citizens free from the necessity of mechanical toil, possessed of competence and leisure, and devoting these advantages willingly to the service of the State, therefore their ideal of ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... greenness; some of it from the very nature of the situation. Those who expect to find us brilliant are, of course, disappointed. Nor are we smart, and the smart set (both American and English) find us uninteresting. But we drive ahead and keep a philosophical temper and simply do the best we can, and, you may be sure, a good deal of it. It is laborious. For instance, I've made two trips lately to speak before important bodies, one at Leeds, the other at Newcastle, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... concluding word by the aid of which D'Artagnan, having become wise, now terminated every thought and every period of his style. Formerly he said, "Mordioux!" which was a prick of the spur, but now he had become older, and he murmured that philosophical "Bah!" which served as a bridle ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to express the life of the nation, which is evident nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other so-called "philosophical" historians believe, then to determine which side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have first of all to know in what the ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... spiritual pride, which Satan sets for the more rigidly righteous, with such looks and demonstrations as did all but expressly designate the Sub-Prior as one who had fallen at one time under such delusions. Upon these occasions, it required all the votive obedience of a monk, all the philosophical discipline of the schools, and all the patience of a Christian, to enable Father Eustace to endure the pompous and patronizing parade of his honest, but somewhat thick-headed Superior. He began himself to be desirous of leaving the Monastery, or at least he manifestly ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... names of Pragmatism, Pluralism, etc., have endeavoured to elude the pressure of the dilemma and to solace mankind for the failure of Kantianism by advising them to accept Experience as it is. But though such a counsel of resignation may in a popular sense of the term be regarded as philosophical it can hardly be accepted as ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... the condition of France was bad it contained the germs of improvement. A greater freedom of thought, a greater freedom of speech were beginning, very gradually, to assert themselves and to make their influence felt. Philosophical speculation on sorrow and suffering turned the minds of men to thoughts of how that sorrow might be stanched and that suffering abated. The slowly rising tide of thought was blown into an angry sea by a wind from the west, and in a little while a scarcely suspected ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... found in the language, and its careful study is indispensable to every one who would obtain true and definite notions in regard to the principles of public and private morals. It is profoundly learned and philosophical, but the writer thinks logically and clearly, and is therefore at all times lucid and comprehensible.—Buffalo ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... of criticism is preceded by an Introduction, which gives a philosophical discussion of critical terms under three heads: (1) What is a Critical term? (2) General Historical Movements and Tendencies in Critical Terms. (3) Method of Dealing with ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith
... by Frederic III, who had been rightly named the Peaceful, not for the reason that he had always maintained peace, but because, having constantly been beaten, he had always been forced to make it. The first proof he had given of this very philosophical forbearance was during his journey to Rome, whither he betook himself to be consecrated. In crossing the Apennines he was attacked by brigands. They robbed him, but he made no pursuit. And so, encouraged by example and by the impunity of lesser thieves, the greater ones soon took ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... absurdity and wit, and must, moreover, have a satisfactory reason for whatever is said or done, is a philosophical blockhead. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... in methods of education. Until recently teaching was almost an unknown art; and we are at present struggling against ignorance without any well-defined plan, and attempting to develop and build up the immortal character of children, without a philosophical and generally accepted theory of the nature of the human mind. There are complaints that the duties and exactions of the schools injure the health and impair the constitutions of pupils; that the progress in ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... into symbol and figure—but far too living and real, addressed with too intense and natural feeling, to be the mere personification of anything. The lady of the philosophical Canzoni has vanished. The student's dream has been broken, as the boy's had been; and the earnestness of the man, enlightened by sorrow, overleaping the student's formalities and abstractions, reverted in sympathy to the earnestness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the modes of thought and feeling peculiar to the Athenians; the more perfectly we can comprehend the spirit and tendency of the age; the more immediate our acquaintance with the religious opinions and philosophical ideas then prevalent in Athens, the more perfect will be our comprehension of the apostle's argument, the deeper our interest in his theme. Some preliminary notices of Athens and "the Men of Athens" will therefore be appropriate ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... it is a wise and philosophical observation, that one misfortune never comes alone, the count had hardly passed the examination of Mr. Bagshot when he fell into the hands of Mr. Snap, who, in company with Mr. Wild the elder and one or two more gentlemen, being, ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... did not think the art of witchcraft was carried on by or through intercourse with the devil or spirits (though he did not dispute there were such beings), but by or through philosophical means, altogether different from the operations supposed necessary to enable witches and wizards to perform actions not easily comprehended ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... close, sultry afternoon; the flies and mosquitos were out in myriads, and Umquenawis had taken a philosophical way of getting rid of them. He was lying in the water, over a bed of mud, his body completely submerged. As the swarm of flies that pestered him rose to his head he would sink it slowly, drowning them off. Through my glass, as I drew near, I could see a ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... passed away from him, and his whole being became absorbed in a luxury of recollection. He thought of the change which his love had wrought in him. What had life been before? A long series of artistic and philosophical abstractions, bringing their own peculiar content, but a content never free from disquieting thought and restless doubts. How could it be otherwise? Was he not human like other men? Asceticism and intellect, and a certain purity of life which an almost epicurean refinement ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Saxon mining administration. One of its most spacious buildings is the Mining Academy, which dates from 1767. Here are rich collections of the wonderful produce of these mountains; models of mining machines, of philosophical and chemical apparatus; class and lecture rooms, and books out of number. Here Werner, the father of geology, and Humboldt, the systematiser of physical geography, were pupils. The former has bequeathed an extensive museum of mineralogy to ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... terms are borrowed from the Seventh Book and are here used in their strict philosophical meaning. The [Greek: enkrates] is he who has bad or unruly appetites, but whose reason is strong enough to keep them under. The [Greek: akrates] is he whose appetites constantly prevail over his reason and ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany,' which, two years later, was transformed into 'Annals of Natural History,' but remained under his direction. For Bohn's Standard Library he edited White's 'Natural History of Selborne.' Sir W. Jardine was also joint editor of the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal,' and was author of 'British Salmonidae,' 'Ichthyology of Annandale,' 'Memoirs of the late Hugh Strickland,' 'Contributions to Ornithology,' 'Ornithological Synonyms,' etc.—(Taken from Ward, 'Men of the Reign,' and Cates, 'Dictionary of General Biography.'): his criticisms ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... book of nature), "Chu-King" (the book of history), "Chi-King" (the book of songs). The contents of the "King" became later with the Chinese sages Meng-tse (360 B.C.) and Tschu-tsche (1200 A.D.) an object of philosophical speculation. The doctrine of Lao-tse, the younger contemporary of Kong-tse, which lays down as the basis of the world, that is of the unreal or non-existent, a supreme principle, Tao, or Being, corresponds with the Brahma doctrine of the Indians, among whom ...
— A Comparative View of Religions • Johannes Henricus Scholten
... article on circumcision in his "Philosophical Dictionary," seems more intent on breaking down any testimony that might favor belief in any religion than to impart any useful light or information. He bases all his arguments on the book "Euterpe," of Herodotus, wherein he relates that the Colchis appear to come from Egypt, as they remembered ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... Doctor can be conferred,—not a severe one by any means, confined as it is to the special branch to which the candidate wishes to devote himself. In the Medical and Law Departments it is more serious than in the Philosophical. This examination is followed by a public discussion in presence of the dean and professors of the faculty, held in Latin, on some thesis that has been treated and printed in the same language by the candidate. His former fellow-students, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... popular philosophical joke intended to typify the endless and useless arguments of philosophers; I mean the joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg? I am not sure that properly understood, it is so futile an inquiry ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton |
