"Criterion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the commoner elements may be dismissed. The halo shows that the mica of the rocks is radioactively sensitive. The fundamental criterion of radioactive change is the expulsion of the alpha ray. The molecular system of the mica and of many other minerals is unstable in presence of these rays, just as a photographic plate is unstable in presence of light. Moreover, the mineral integrates the ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... there is one thing that a herring cannot stand it is to be separated from his roe. Walter's roe was ruthlessly torn from him and served up separate on toast, with nothing to show that it was the glorious roe of Walter. It was eaten at the Criterion by a stockbroker, and it might have been anybody's roe. Meanwhile the mutilated frame, the empty shell of Walter, was squashed flat in a wooden box with a mass of others and sold at an auction by the pound. It ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... among all the martyrologies that ever were penned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets. In the comparative view of wretches, the criterion is not what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination, and a more delicate sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... only one criterion for membership in the Brotherhood—membership in the human race. No matter how decadent or primitive a population might be, if it was human it was automatically eligible for Brotherhood—a free and equal partner in the society of ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... especially the head, are the most dangerous. This is due to the fact of the closeness of the brain and the large amount of infection in such a wound, and for this reason treatment should be immediately given. But smaller wounds should also be treated for the smallness of the wound furnishes no sure criterion as to the future outcome of the disease. All possible infections should be regarded as dangerous when considering the advisability of taking the Pasteur Treatment. The small wound has usually a longer period of incubation, because of the small amount of infection, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... deduction of rent, and enjoyed some honourable distinctions, and, when the heir was in any manner incapacitated, a relation was appointed to act for him. The representations of the other Zemindars or farmers in the same gram, were usually considered as the most just criterion of this incapacity. Besides the judicial powers and the magistracy of his territory, the Pradhan kept an account of the other tenants, and of their payments and debts to government, and, receiving what was due, transmitted it to the collector. He was also an agent for the ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... is after all based upon appearance, and appearance is not a certainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish between appearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to build upon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself." Then they proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But Zeno, taking a stand on common-sense, fought for morality, as did Buddha before him, and long after him Reid and Beattie, when ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... know them," said the Saviour, a direction sufficiently plain, one would think, and pointing to a test, sufficiently easy to be applied. But it is slow and tedious work to wait for fruits; and we accordingly seek a criterion, which will help us quicker to a result. You see your pupil serious and thoughtful. It is well: but it is not proof of piety. You see him deeply interested when you speak of his obligations to his Maker, and the duties he owes to him. This is well; ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... while in the case of the monoplanes in the same exhibition the lowest was 5 1/2 lbs., and the highest over 8 1/2 lbs. per square foot of area. It may here be mentioned that it was not until the War period that the importance of loading per horse-power was recognised as the true criterion of aeroplane efficiency, far greater interest being displayed in the amount of weight borne per unit ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... over to the pavement in front of the Criterion as she said this. It was on the tip of Maxwell's tongue to ask her to come in and have another drink. He certainly felt a greater craving for alcohol than he had ever done in his life before, and if he had been alone he might ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... like," continued Lord Bearwarden, still with the weekly paper in his hand. "I maintain the criterion of merit is success. I maintain that the Rhymer and the Fairy Queen is an extraordinary picture, and the general public the best judge. Why there was no getting near it at the Academy. The people crowded round as they do about a Cheap Jack at a fair. I'm not a little ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... years convincingly shows that England in defending her own interests has always been fighting the battles of European liberty. And to-day more than ever, when Europe is transformed into an armed camp, when might has become the criterion of right, when all nations are living in perpetual dread of a European conflagration, the strict adherence of England to her old principle of the balance of power remains the best sanction of international law and the surest guarantee of the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... started on Copley—made a good start, too, if the boy's manner is any criterion. Possibly I may be doing him an injustice. It might have been consideration for his mother rather than fear of you that has restrained him until now. Anyway, I'm glad he has summoned the courage to defy you ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... with any of this caste, though they are tolerably numerous in Barbary, I am far from asserting that they are of Gypsy race. More enterprising individuals than myself may, perhaps, establish the fact. Any particular language or jargon which they speak amongst themselves will be the best criterion. The word which they employ for 'water' would decide the point; for the Dar-bushi-fal are not Gypsies, if, in their peculiar speech, they designate that blessed element and article most necessary to human existence by aught else than the Sanscrit term 'Pani,' a ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... but, however skilfully executed, however perfected in finish, the impression produced was but transitory, and failed to satisfy the craving of the soul Beauty was found to be the only abiding source of satisfaction. As the conceptions of the past no longer satisfied the criterion which their own minds had embraced, the Greek artists sought in nature herself for models of that beauty, which, when placed in art forms, should be a joy forever. The monsters of antiquity disappeared, ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... upholding our opinions of four years ago in reference to it. We do well to remember that consistency is not obstinacy. It is not an absolute, but a relative thing, and takes note of all the new elements which are ever entering into public affairs. The criterion of one's political consistency in our country is unfaltering devotion to the Union. If the measures he advocates look always to its paramount authority, his record is truly and honorably inconsistent. On the other hand, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the criterion of merit, in the opinion of an army, is success; and, of course, the discontent and disaffection which prevailed in the camp of Perdiccas broke out anew in consequence of these misfortunes. There was a general mutiny. The officers themselves took the lead in it, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Morphology and the value of development as the criterion of morphological views—first, from the study of the Hydrozoa during a long voyage, and secondly, from the writings of Von Baer. I have done my best, both by precept and practice, to inaugurate better methods and a better spirit than had long ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... are carelessly employed as if interchangeable. Scientific writers long since recognized a general difference between savagery and barbarism, but Mr. Morgan was the first to suggest a really useful criterion for distinguishing between them. His criterion is the making of pottery; and his reason for selecting it is that the making of pottery is something that presupposes village life and more or less progress in the simpler arts. The earlier methods of boiling food ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... formed immediately after important events, success or failure is the only criterion of wisdom; but the historian must go deeper, and consider the merits of a general plan in view of the greater or less probability of failure of any one of its parts. What would have been the just ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... what is desired, he can readily isolate the words as such, repeating them as units. He regularly refuses, on the other hand, to isolate the radical or grammatical element, on the ground that it "makes no sense."[6] What, then, is the objective criterion of the word? The speaker and hearer feel the word, let us grant, but how shall we justify their feeling? If function is not the ultimate criterion of the ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... the steam arising from boiling water; the sieve so placed in the saucepan as to be two or three inches above the fluid. In stirring the rice a light hand should be used, or you are apt to amalgamate the grains; the criterion of well-dressed rice being to have the ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... as the bulk of them appear to be, will not consider themselves as bound by this oath; particularly as it is in some measure forced, they will argue that it is by no means obligatory; but if I mistake not, it will be a sort of criterion by which you will be able to distinguish the desperate fanatics from those who are reclaimable. The former must of course be secured and carried to some interior parts of the continent where they can not be dangerous. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... they drew up outside the Criterion Grill, she kept her spirits high, and gave herself to ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... bridle that hinder its fiery course toward God. The same thought, less vividly put, is found in a modern theologian—Dr. Moberly. "The real consummation of either moral or immoral character," he writes, "would exclude the ambiguity which was offered as the criterion of free will.... Full power to sin is not the key to freedom. On the contrary, all inherent power to do wrong is a direct infringement of the reality of free-will.... Free- will is not the independence of the creature, but rather his self- ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... generally believed, that the natives are not courageous. There could not be a greater mistake, at least as far as they are themselves concerned, nor do I hold it to be any proof that they are cowards, because they dread or give way before Europeans and their fire-arms. So unequal a match is no criterion of bravery, and yet even thus, among natives, who were labouring under the feelings, naturally produced by seeing a race they were unacquainted with, and weapons that dealt death as if by magic, I have seen many instances of an open manly ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... very first to obey the call of "King and Country," tarrying only, I believe, to finish his afterwards popular poster of "A Pair of Silk Stockings" for the Criterion production. To join the Colours as a private soldier, he left his colours as an artist, throwing up an established and hardly-won position in the world of his profession, into which—sent home shot and poisoned—he must now fight his way back. His ante-war ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... would show that the class is not possessed with that total spirit of abnegation requisite in the guardians of public funds. The requirement might be extended to bank-presidents with benefit, if some Cincinnati episodes are any criterion. It is safe to assume that the bank that could advertise, in connection with its attractive quarterly or semi-annual statement, that the president and cashier were properly attested and vouched-for eunuchs would find in the public such a recognition of the fitness of things that ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... of this circumstance is shown to have been accurately exemplified in the history of Ignatius Loyola, founder of the order of Jesuits. (Douglas's Criterion of Miracles, p. 74.) His life, written by a companion of his, and by one of the order, was published about fifteen years after his death. In which life, the author, so far from ascribing any miracles to Ignatius, industriously states the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... pleasure one has is the criterion, not the manner of getting it. As for me, what is called a life of pleasure ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... now accepted by most anthropologists as a useful criterion of race, though, of course, there are other characteristics which must often be taken into account, such as the height and breadth of the face, the cubic capacity of the skull and its general contour. At any rate, if we can show that the skulls of the megalithic tombs conform ...
— Rough Stone Monuments and Their Builders • T. Eric Peet
... be found down in the depths of my own soul; for, no more than logic, has it ever been discovered 'parceled and labeled.' But how do I know that all truth is not merely subjective? Ages ago, skepticism intrenched itself in an impregnable fortress: 'There is no criterion of truth.' How do I know that my 'true,' 'good,' and 'beautiful' are absolutely so? My reason is no infallible plummet to sound the sea of phenomena and touch noumena. I tell you, Beulah, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of Perusalem was performed for the first time in England by the Pioneer Players at the Criterion Theatre, London, on 16th December, 1917, with Gertrude Kingston as Ermyntrude, Helen Morris as the Princess, Nigel Playfair as the waiter, Alfred Drayton as the hotel manager, C. Wordley Hulse as the Archdeacon, and Randle Ayrton as ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... design. They had no architectural message except that of a background for ornamentation by the genius of the soil's productivity. They waited on vines to cover their sides and trees to cast shade across their doorways. One need not remain long to know the old families in this community, where the criterion of local aristocracy was the size of your plums or the number of crops of alfalfa you could grow in ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... the other. "So let us determine upon a criterion of respectability. Shall we say the first man, provided he be ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... "the hair rises up from his forehead like the mane of a Shetland pony." He has sent me photographs of two women, taken in the intervals between their paroxysms, and he adds with respect to one of these women, "that the state of her hair is a sure and convenient criterion of her mental condition." I have had one of these photographs copied, and the engraving gives, if viewed from a little distance, a faithful representation of the original, with the exception that the hair appears rather too coarse and too much curled. ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... link, took their place in the drama, and became well-ordered episodes in a plot that only a criminal genius could have devised. As I studied the keen, bronzed face, I realized to the full the stupendous mental power of Dr. Fu-Manchu, measuring it by the criterion of Nayland Smith's. For the cunning Chinaman, in a sense, had foiled this brilliant man before me, whereby if by naught else I might know him a master ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... of friends through his earlier volumes, but we think he will do still better work in his new field if the present volume is a criterion."—N. ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... his walk to the schoolhouse, unmindful of the caution. For the momentary glimpse he had caught of this woman's face, she appeared to be about thirty. Her dress, though tasteful and elegant, in the present condition of California society afforded no criterion of her social status. But the figure of Dr. Duchesne waiting for him at the schoolhouse door just then usurped the place of all others, and she dropped ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... nothing is needed but an analytic spirit and a judicious love of man, a love quick to distinguish success from failure in his great and confused experiment of living. The historian of reason should not be a romantic poet, vibrating impotently to every impulse he finds afoot, without a criterion of excellence or a vision of perfection. Ideals are free, but they are neither more numerous nor more variable than the living natures that generate them. Ideals are legitimate, and each initially envisages a genuine and innocent good; but they are not realisable ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... sometimes marry for Wealth. They have been educated to regard this as the criterion of excellence. A man's "worth" is reckoned, not in moral attainments, but in dollars and cents. He, therefore, who is poor, is set down as beneath much consideration. From her earliest days, the girl has, perhaps, heard her parents talk of "being well-settled," of "a good establishment," ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... a sufficient criterion of material identity. It is true that in many cases, such as rocks, mountains, tables, chairs, etc., where the appearances change slowly, continuity is sufficient, but in other cases, such as the parts ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... conceive," says Mr. Mill, very properly, "is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth." What modern in his senses would ever think of disputing this truism? The only wonder with us must be, how it happened that Mr. Mill conceived it necessary even to hint at any thing so obvious. So far good—but let us turn over another paper. What have we here?—"Contradictories ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... and he kept muttering scraps of information in my ear, so that it quite buzzed. Yes, I know you are shocked, dear madam, but it really could not be helped; and you said once to Jack—poor old Jack!—that his uncle was a criterion of gentle breeding and manners! So now, ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... Testaments at San Lucar, which I could only make available by exportation. The success which it has pleased the Lord to yield me in my humble efforts at distribution in Barbary will, I believe, prove the best criterion as to the fitness of ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... Jhering, one of the most distinguished theoreticians of jurisprudence in Europe, wrote, many years ago, "The way in which one utilizes his wealth is the best criterion of his character and degree of culture. The purpose that prompts the investment of his money is the safest characterization of him. The accounts of expenditures speak louder of a man's true nature than his diary." How well these words apply to the richest of the rich and to their methods ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... realisation of the interdependence of all life is giving a new standard of action and attainment, and a new standard of estimate. Jesus' criterion is coming into more universal appreciation: He that is greatest among you shall be as he who serves. Through this fundamental law of life there are responsibilities that cannot be evaded or shirked—and of him to whom much is ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... of the Gayal and Gyall, let it be remarked that, when we hear one animal called Gayal and another Gyall, we are not, on that account merely, to set them down as of the same species. It is hardly necessary to say, that similarity or even identity of name, is not the slightest criterion of identity of species. The name Elephant is popularly applied to that animal, whether brought from Africa or Asia; they are, nevertheless, anatomically distinct. The same observation may be made respecting the Lions of those countries, and ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... that there is no truer criterion of the vitality of any given art-period than the power of the master-spirits of that time in grotesque; and certainly in the instance of Gothic art there is no disputing the proposition. Weatherbury tower was a somewhat early instance of the use of an ornamental parapet ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... times, since Christianity came into the world, an open contest has been going on between religion and irreligion; and the true Church, of course, has ever been on the religious side. This, then, is a sure test in every age where the Christian should stand.... Now, applying this simple criterion to the public Parties of this DAY, it is very plain that the English Church is at present on God's side, and therefore, so far, God's Church; we are sorry to be obliged to add that there is as little doubt on ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... student will find himself at sea without a rudder; and the mere reader will be in danger of exaggerating very greatly, because he does not in the least understand, the faults just referred to, and of failing altogether to appreciate the real success and merit of the work as judged on that only criterion, "Has the author done what he meant to do, and done it well, on the lines he chose?" Of course, if our reader says, "I don't care about all this, I merely want to be amused and interested," one cannot prevent him. He had, in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... The true criterion of perfection to civilization is in proportion to the kind feeling entertained, and the humanity practised, towards those animals (in particular) which are subject to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... Forty-five were still either failures or defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the Bruce combine with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a moral than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether small, the mere taproot of her extended empire: Scotland, again, which alone the Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of that, and avowedly cold, sterile and unpopulous. It is not so for nothing. I once seemed to have ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... itself, and overstating its idea, might really be regulated. But they are few who consider so closely, fewer perhaps they who have the heart to cut out their own fine or refined things. Again, our author suggests another criterion. We are, as in Lamb's phrase, "to write for antiquity," with the souls of poets dead and gone for our judges. But we are also to write for the future, asking with what feelings posterity will read us—if it reads us at all. This is a good discipline. We know by practice what will hit some contemporary ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... rapidly on a piece of paper. "This is a certain and objective criterion," he continued as he figured, "between truth and falsehood. Even when a clever liar endeavors to escape detection by breathing irregularly, it is likely to fail, for Benussi has investigated and found that voluntary changes ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... service. But what then? other people may be as good as he, though they have not had such opportunities; if he speaks five or six languages, he does not pretend to any taste in the liberal arts, which are the criterion of an ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... described the water as of salt-bitter taste, like that of Epsom (iii. 203). Sir William Muir (in his excellent life of Mahomet, I. cclviii.) remarks that "the flavour of stale water bottled up for months would not be a criterion of the same water freshly drawn;" but soldered tins-full of water drawn a fortnight before are to be had in Calcutta and elsewhere after Pilgrimage time; and analysis would at once ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... causes; we invert the order of nature, and interpret God's action through our own; we speak of his intentions, as if he were a man; we assume that we are capable of measuring them, and finally erect ourselves, and our own interests, into the centre and criterion of all things. Hence arises our notion of evil. If the universe be what this philosophy has described it, the perfection which it assigns to God is extended to everything, and evil is of course impossible; there is no shortcoming either in nature or in ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... readiest, if not the most just, criterion of a man's services, is the wage that mankind pays him or, briefly, what he earns. There at least there can be no ambiguity. St. Paul is fully and freely entitled to his earnings as a tentmaker, and Socrates fully and freely entitled to his earnings as a sculptor, although the true business ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... far-fetched metaphors, strange phrases, metrical scraps, in every thing, in short, but genuine prose. Style is, of course, nothing else but the art of conveying the meaning appropriately and with perspicuity, whatever that meaning may be, and one criterion of style is that it shall not be translateable without injury to the meaning. Johnson's style has pleased many from the very fault of being perpetually translateable; he creates an impression of cleverness by never saying any thing in a common way. The ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... educated man forced to live among the lower classes arrives at many interesting conclusions with regard to them; one conclusion long since fixed in Mr. Tymperley's mind was that the 'suffering' of those classes is very much exaggerated by outsiders using a criterion quite inapplicable. He saw around him a world of coarse jollity, of contented labour, and of brutal apathy. It seemed to him more than probable that the only person in this street conscious of poverty, and suffering ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... "The criterion of social justice in every civilized community," he writes, "is, and always has been, not how large or how intense is the misery of the social debtor class, but what is done with the social surplus of industry? ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... anomalies and absurdities of the then Etonian system." The student was now safe from the ordeal of examinations, and that the higher classes, including ten senior collegers and ten senior oppidans, contained some of the very worst scholars. "A boy's place on the general roll was no more a criterion of his acquirements and his industry than would be the 'year' of a young man at Oxford or Cambridge." The collegers, however, were required to pass some kind of examination, in accordance with which their place on the list ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... that human personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as that which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things. But these two positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding practical conclusion as regards the criterion of religious truth or falsehood. Were we capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear conception of the Unconditioned, or, on the other, of a direct intuition of the Divine Attributes as objects of consciousness, we might be able to construct, deductively or inductively, an exact science ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... more pressing, the musicians were ready to do what they could. "Time and time again," continued the Colonel, "I asked its members to serve as stretcher bearers and every time they went right out where the fighting was the hottest and brought the wounded in." After all the true criterion of service is to do what ever seems necessary and right to do, at the moment, not counting self. It is not so much great occasions that prove men but faithfulness ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... Etonian, a recent popular work: we have with some difficulty filled up the blanks with real names; and, at the suggestion of several old Etonians, incorporated it with the present work, as a fair criterion of the promising character of the school at this ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... criterion, the true test of the absence or presence of insanity, I take to be the absence or presence of what, used in a certain sense of it, is comprisable in a single term, namely, delusion.... In short, I look on delusion .... and insanity to be almost, if ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... time, doubly normal; that is, normal to the highest degree. Since each state can take the form of the two others, the result is nine distinct gestures, which form that marvelous accord of nine, which we call the universal criterion. ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... madness are often momentary and transient: the determinations of a lunatic, though generally rash and instantaneous, are sometimes the result of artful contrivance; but there is always an absurdity which is the criterion of the disease, either in the premises or conclusion. The earl, it is true, had formed a deliberate plan for the perpetration of the murder; but he had taken no precautions for his own safety or escape; and this neglect will the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... down the laws of nature even for an instant in his behalf. The conclusion is, that there is no inspired Bible. Nor indeed an absolute religion. All religious truths are considered relative, with no such distinction as true religion and false religion, since there is no criterion revealed (according to the theory) by which we can test a religion whether it be true or false. Finally, there is no absolute standard of morals. Moral truths, like the religious, are relative only. In other words, the teaching that "Christ has atoned for sin," is as little to be accepted ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... that evils inflicted by the omnipotent judge, must be either incurable, or curable by himself alone; that the connection of his power with his equity, may the more brightly shine forth. By such a criterion, are miraculous works distinguished from the operations of nature. For it would be impiety to suppose, that the almighty creator of heaven and earth intended, that his works should be performed in vain. Wherefore it is worthy of our observation, that great care is always taken in ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... constantly says "Yes" to it. Its beauty is the reminder of our immortal essence. The town is dangerous in that it has little beauty. It causes us to forget. It is exploring the illusion of trade, and its whole song is of trade. If you understand this, you have a criterion for Life— ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... it was the result rather of her love of independence than a passion for accumulation. She never amassed any treasures. Her friendships were uniform and steady, yet she was never governed by her favorites—a criterion of a strong mind. Her choice in her ministers gave proof of her sagacity, as her constancy in supporting them did of her firmness. If a conduct less rigorous, less imperious, and more indulgent would have thrown greater lustre over her character, let it be remembered that some good ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... see. Sweating is the great criterion of usefulness to-day. If you cannot show that you have sweated in the past, you must at least show that you are sweating now, or have every intention of sweating in a moment or two. Personally, as a private secretary, I find it very difficult, though I do my best. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... allegiance is no criterion of characters, nor the want of a certificate thereof an evidence of a person's being disaffected. Uniform character is the best rule to judge. Send up under guard all women who stroll to New-York without leave. But cause them to be well searched by ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... our young companions. It was taken for granted that the children of good, honorable, Christian people, who strove to train their children to obedience and a conscientious life, would be suitable companions for us; and this criterion in nearly every instance proved to be a true one. In only one instance, indeed, did it fail; and I well remember the shock it gave a whole circle of young people, when a young companion, the son of an eminent clergyman, was ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... jug or a table depends, we are often told, on its perfect adaptation to its use. There is here some confusion of thought and some obvious, but possibly unconscious, special pleading. Much of art, specially decorative art, arises out of utilities, but its aim and its criterion is not utility. Art may be structural, commemorative, magical, what-not, may grow up out of all manner of practical needs, but it is not till it is cut loose from these practical needs that Art is herself and comes to her own. This does not mean that the jugs or tables are ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... a man of real artistic culture, seemed somehow to understand that keeping decorations in their correct order is not the only criterion of the beauty of a portrait. The grateful Beltara proposed to make a sketch of him, and during the sitting was pleased to find himself in agreement with the doctor ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... Schiller, you know. Yes, how fine that all is, though I sometimes feel it is a little Teutonic? One needs to correct the Teutonic bias, and it is just there that the gymnastic of the classics comes in; it gives one a standard—a criterion in fact. One must have a criterion, mustn't one, or it is all loose, and indeed, so to speak, illusive? I am all for formative education; and it is there that women—I speak frankly in the presence of three intelligent ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... somewhere in her late twenties, he estimated. And if her clothes, voice and appearance were any criterion he'd put her in the middle-middle class with a bachelor's degree in something or other, unmarried and with the aggressiveness he didn't like in American girls after living the better part of eight years in ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... mechanical assumptions; a thing of ivory, quartz, nickel and brass that quite illogically carries its rider into an existing past or future. We accept the machine as a literary device to give an air of probability to the essential thing, the experience; and forget the means in the effect. The criterion of the prophecy in this case is influenced by the theory of "natural selection." Mr Wells' vision of the "Sunset of Mankind" was of men so nearly adapted to their environment that the need for struggle, with its ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... an accomplice in the measures in which you silently acquiesce. If you resist, you are accused of provoking irritable power to new excesses. The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least, it never can possess the only infallible criterion ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and I therefore feel myself compelled to infer, that by the Gospel Paul intended the eternal truths known ideally from the beginning, and historically realized in the manifestation of the Word in Christ Jesus; and that he used the ideal immutable truth as the canon and criterion of the oral traditions. For example, a Greek mathematician, standing in the same relation of time and country to Euclid as that in which St. Paul stood to Jesus Christ, might have exclaimed in the same spirit: "What do you talk to me of this, that, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... prowess; when cunning took the place of force, and he ruled by laws and religions and moral codes, and handed down his power through long lines of descendants. Then ostentation became a highly specialized and conventionalized thing—its criterion changing gradually to "conspicuous waste of time". Those characteristics were cultivated which served to advertise to the world that their possessor had never had to earn wealth, nor to do anything for ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... moreover, that you will find but few (14) private persons paupers by comparison with the large number of tyrants who deserve the title; (15) since the criterion of enough, or too much, is not fixed by mere arithmetic, but relatively to the needs of the individual. (16) In other words, whatever exceeds sufficiency is much, and what falls short of that ...
— Hiero • Xenophon
... will be inclined, perhaps, to smile at this deliverance and to see in it a fatuous misjudgment of the relative importance of things. The French Revolution versus a spray of aesthetic rose-water! But we must not be too hasty. Posterity has no better criterion for judging great men than the criterion of service. And service is a question of vocation. As the matter is put by Goethe, who himself a little later took refuge from the misere of the Napoleonic epoch in the contemplative poetry of the Orient: ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... sea-battles have the French ever won! But more: how few ships have they ever carried by the board—that true criterion of naval courage! But not a word against French bravery—there is plenty of it; but not of the right sort. A Yankee's, or an Englishman's, is the downright Waterloo "game." The French fight better on land; and not being essentially a ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... excitement and alarm. All men felt the full audacity of the enterprise, but hesitated what epithet to apply to it. It was evident that Nero's conduct would be judged of by the event, that most unfair criterion, as the Roman historian truly terms it. People reasoned on the perilous state in which Nero had left the rest of his army, without a general, and deprived of the core of its strength, in the vicinity of the terrible Hannibal. They speculated on how long it would take ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... he is worthy of the attention," he said; "and if you will lend me the money to buy the tickets, I'll take you around to the Criterion to-night, where he is playing. I don't know whether he plays Hamlet or A Hole in the Roof; but, at any rate, we can have a good time ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... on dimorphic and trimorphic plants are important, because they show us, firstly, that the physiological {184} test of lessened fertility, both in first crosses and in hybrids, is no safe criterion of specific distinction; secondly, because we may conclude that there must be some unknown law or bond connecting the infertility of illegitimate unions with that of their illegitimate offspring, and we are thus led to extend this ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Theist, his writings leave no doubt of that, but he most probably discarded the Christian miracles; and if Douglas's book is addressed to his particular position, discarded them on the ground that there is no possible criterion for distinguishing true miracles from false, and enabling you to accept those of Christianity if you reject those of profane history. The Earl of Buchan, apostrophising Smith, asks, "Oh, venerable and worthy man, why was you not a Christian?" and tries to let his old professor ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... eggs, and the world is none the wiser all the while. But the tradesman, the doctor, the attorney, and the trader, cannot make the change so quietly, and unseen. The accursed wine, which is a sort of criterion of the style of living, a sort of scale to the plan, a sort of key to the tune; this is the thing to banish first of all; because all the rest follow, and come down to their proper level in a short time. The ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... elopements are not a fair criterion for judging of the morality of a country; for that she who sins and flies is less hardened in guilt than she who remains and deceives: and the example is also less pernicious, as the one who has forfeited her place in society ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... no search an inventor would "run every risk of being beaten in the courts should any one essay to contest his claims." The fact is that in spite of the Office examination for novelty this risk always has to be encountered, and forms a criterion by which to judge of the exact value of that examination. Furthermore, we take decided issue with our correspondent when he says that the present is the only feasible way of executing these searches thoroughly. They are not so executed as a matter of fact, and could be done better and cheaper ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... ideas as to the patriotic associations of American citizens considerably modified. "They seem to enjoy themselves, if the noise they're making affords any criterion of that!" ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... while ago, sir, since I made the inquiries. As far as I remember, he did not lunch regularly anywhere. But he went to the American Bar of the Criterion restaurant most days for a morning drink ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... sold for the high price of half-a-crown a copy; and, what is hardly credible, the gownsmen received it as a genuine production. "It was indeed a kind of fashion to be seen reading it in public, as a mark of nice discernment, of a delicate and fastidious taste in poetry, and the best criterion of a choice spirit." Such was the genesis of "Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson", edited by John Fitz Victor. The name of the supposititious nephew reminds us of "Original Poems" by Victor and ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse. Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a case being no bad criterion of a man's character, "lose your temper, and you'll lose your beast," ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain. She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from the struggling animal to her husband, in whose fair face the colour had risen, while the boyish ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... was attained, the opinions of certain Judges of the Supreme Court scattered doubts over the law of Slavery in the Territories; the South, while repudiating other decisions, instantly made these opinions the criterion of faithfulness to the Constitution; while the North was agitated by this new sanction of the extremest ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... we hear revived the standing controversy respecting the comparative merits of classics and mathematics. This controversy, however, is carried on in an empirical manner, with no reference to an ascertained criterion; and the question at issue is insignificant when compared with the general question of which it is part. To suppose that deciding whether a mathematical or a classical education is the best is deciding what is ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... primal story Of Eden's happy pair, A woman's greatest glory Is her glossy flowing hair; It is a safe criterion By which to judge her life, To ascertain, if duly won, She'd ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... however, does not arise over derivative knowledge, but over intuitive knowledge. So long as we are dealing with derivative knowledge, we have the test of intuitive knowledge to fall back upon. But in regard to intuitive beliefs, it is by no means easy to discover any criterion by which to distinguish some as true and others as erroneous. In this question it is scarcely possible to reach any very precise result: all our knowledge of truths is infected with some degree of doubt, ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... spiritual significance of the natural objects dealt with. I trust that those artists (no doubt many) who disagree with me will forgive me—a man of science—for having ventured to express any opinion whatever on the subject. But, at any rate, if the suggestions in question are accepted, then a criterion for distinguishing between art and craft is at once available; for we may say that, whilst craft aims at producing works which are physically useful, art aims at producing works which are spiritually useful. Architecture, from this point of ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... the relationship of objective and further objective is the criterion for distinguishing between strategical and tactical considerations, from the viewpoint of the commander ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... of the characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished. The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer. Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers is known by its antipathy to decency ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of suffrage in new States is not a criterion of its effect elsewhere. And whether the effect could be shown to be good or bad, the main argument would not be touched. The interesting thing to trace is the affiliations ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... criterion of voluntary and involuntary, poverty and riches, law and the absence of law, which men now-a-days apply to them; the two first they subdivide accordingly, and ascribe to monarchy two forms and two ...
— Statesman • Plato
... intelligent citizenship, the test of educating all of its people to their political and social responsibilities. Whether these tests will be met successfully is for the future to decide, but if the past is any criterion, the American republic will not fail. National structures have risen to a certain height and then fallen, because they were not built on the solid foundations of mutual confidence, co-operation, and ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... after all, determine finally the scale of paces; and you can, at leisure, adjust each day's journey by its general bearing between different latitudes; and, subsequently, introduce the details. You will soon find the results sufficiently accurate to afford some criterion of even the variation of the needle, when the course happens to be nearly east or west, and when, of course, it behoves you to be very well acquainted with the rate of your horse's paces, as determined by differences of latitude. You will be careful to intersect the prominent ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... any play at the St. James's that has been less in keeping with the local climate than this comedy, so described, of Mr. VACHELL'S. On the score of impropriety and improbability it might in the old days have appealed to the Criterion management; but its lack of broad humour must have negatived these advantages. In any case Sir GEORGE ALEXANDER'S house was no place for a farce so out of harmony with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 10, 1916 • Various
... European intellectual culture is still greatly indebted to Alexandria, and especially for the patronage she accorded to the works of Aristotle. Whilst the speculative mind was in later centuries allured by the supernatural, and the discussion of the criterion of truth and the principles of morality ended in the mystic doctrines of Neo-Platonism, the practical tendencies of the great Alexandrine scholars were instrumental in laying the foundations of science. To the Museion were attached the libraries: one in the Museion ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... hungry; but that was no criterion, for they had eaten no lunch. Time is bound to drag by very slowly when people are thrust into such a position as this; it might not be near supper ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... these lines is to what was known as the appeal to the judgment of God. On this subject, Scott at the close of the second head in his 'Essay on Chivalry,' says, 'In the appeal to this awful criterion, the combatants, whether personally concerned, or appearing as champions, were understood, in martial law, to take on themselves the full risk of all consequences. And, as the defendant, or his champion, in case of being overcome, was subjected ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... point out as briefly as possible some marks that will enable you to distinguish them. In the spots we find a tolerably good criterion of the species. Those upon the body of the jaguar are not spots, but rather what may be termed rosettes. So, too, the black markings of the leopard and panther are rosettes; that is, irregular black rings enclosing ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... sociology and law. Raffaele Garofalo published in the Neapolitan Journal of Philosophy and Literature an essay on criminality, in which he declared that the dangerousness of the criminal was the criterion by which society should measure the function of its defense against the disease of crime. And in the same year, 1878, I took occasion to publish a monograph on the denial of free will and personal responsibility, in which I declared frankly that ...
— The Positive School of Criminology - Three Lectures Given at the University of Naples, Italy on April 22, 23 and 24, 1901 • Enrico Ferri
... the only criterion of the correct vocal action. By listening to himself the singer may know whether his tone-production is correct. If the tones are beautiful the tone-production cannot be wrong. The ear must always decide. A normally constituted ear instinctively delights in hearing beautiful sounds. While ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... possible to apply a test whereby a true species may be known from a mere variety? Is there no criterion of species? Great authorities affirm that there is—that the unions of members of the same species are always fertile, while those of distinct species are either sterile, or their offspring, called hybrids, are so. It is affirmed not only that this is an experimental ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... station upon one of these, I got a downward shot between the shoulders at the tusker, and dropped him immediately as the herd passed beneath. The jungle was so thick that I could not see his head, or, of course, I should have chosen the usual shot. This shot was not a fair criterion for the shoulder, as I happened to be in a position that enabled me to fire down upon him, and the ball most likely ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... square, a larger triangle, etc. Then let him observe how many positions these triangles may assume by moving one round the other. He will find them acting according to the law of opposites already familiar to him, and if not comprehended,[64] yet furnishing him with an infallible criterion for ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... cling to them, and make them a part of himself, and by daily meditation upon them to bring himself into such a state of mind, that these wholesome maxims occur to him of their own accord, that wherever he may be, they may straightway be ready for use when required, and that the criterion of right and wrong may present itself to him without delay. Let him know that nothing is evil except what is base, and nothing good except what is honourable: let him guide his life by this rule: let him both act and expect others to act in accordance with this law, and let him regard those whose ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... whether one is looking at total area (land and water) when making the comparison (which is the criterion used by the Factbook) or just land area (which excludes inland water features such as rivers ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the image of a Cyclops; or by diminution, as in that of a pigmy. Judgment is employed either in determining, concerning particular things, or concerning general propositions. In judging of things we make use of some one of our senses, as a common criterion or measure of apprehension, by which we judge whether a thing is, or is not; or whether or not it exists with certain properties; or we apply to the thing, concerning which a judgment is to be formed, some artificial measure, as a balance, a rule, etc., or we call in other peculiar measures ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... "swarm of parsons," as Sir Wilfrid remembered her. The oddity, which had been violent or brutal in earlier generations, showed itself in him, one might have said, in a radical transposition of values, a singularity of criterion, which the ordinary robust Englishman might very well dismiss with impatience as folly ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that an individual, which begins with a divided primary leaf, will have a greater tendency to produce a large number of supernumerary leaflets than a plant which commences in the ordinary way. Or in other words, the primary leaves afford a sure criterion for the selection, and this selection may be made in the seed-pans. In consequence, no young individual with an undivided primary leaf was planted out. Choosing the 20 or 30 best specimens in the seed-pan, no further selection was required, and the whole lot could be ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... while some enter it in a boiling bath, which is then allowed to cool down and the cotton is lifted out. The last is perhaps the quickest method, and experiments have shown that it is as good as any other method, if the quantity of tannic acid taken up be regarded as the criterion ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech
... of men of the Highland Brigade, and pitched yesterday on a high plateau about one and a half miles from town—is, I believe, in answer to prayer, on the spot where God would have it be, especially if the numbers attending the first Gospel meeting may be any criterion. ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... poetry, or rather a poem, is a species of composition, opposed to science, as having intellectual pleasure for its object, and as attaining its end by the use of language natural to us in a state of excitement,—but distinguished from other species of composition, not excluded by the former criterion, by permitting a pleasure from the whole consistent with a consciousness of pleasure from the component parts;—and the perfection of which is, to communicate from each part the greatest immediate pleasure ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... I suppose?' observed Sponge, thinking to try Jawleyford on that infallible criterion ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... evident that the criterion of the perfectness of any language is not to be found in a comparison of its forms or methods with those of any other, but in its fitness as a vehicle for the expression of deeper life, of the best and the greatest that is ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... I have a few other Cambridge friends here, and I showed some of these the photograph. One, I am now aware, is under the impression that I am to be married soon, but the others were rational. Grierson, of the War Office, recognized the portrait at once. 'She is playing small parts at the Criterion,' he said. Finchley, who is a promising man at the bar, also recognized her. 'Her portraits were in all the illustrated papers five years ago,' he told me, 'at the time when she got twelve months.' They contradicted each other about her, however, ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... headed by a British detective; the arrest of half the party (including the aunt, arrived in perfect health and ignorance en route for England) on a nameless charge in connection with Emily's suspected abduction—all this is in the best Criterion manner. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 150, February 2, 1916 • Various |
