"Elucidate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to confute demonstration by a grin, or to laugh away the deductions of arithmetick, is, surely, such a degree of effrontery, as nothing but a post of profit can produce; nor is it for the sake of these men, that I shall endeavour to elucidate my assertion; for they cannot but be well informed of the state of our taxes, whose chief employment is to receive and to squander the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... of many of the words that left him in the dark as to their meaning. Sandy tried to elucidate, repeating the explanations Barbara Redding had ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... American guard, stationed at this part of the town, for the protection of the boats, and as a check upon the incursions of the Indians. In all this statement, there was every appearance of truth, but in no part of it did Gerald find wherewith to elucidate what he himself had witnessed. He described the costume, and questioned of the mysterious figure, but the only reply he obtained from the independent tanner, when he admitted to him that he had been so near a visitor on that occasion, and had seen what he described, was ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... Venice, which is deposited in the British Museum; the substance of this dissertation we shall here compress. He divides his dissertation into three parts. First, whether this was the map noticed by Ramusio, and by him supposed to be drawn up to elucidate the travels of Marco Polo. On this point he concludes that it was the map referred to by Ramusio, but that his information respecting it is not correct. The second point to be determined is, whether the map procured from Venice was really executed ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... chiefly in detailed accounts of the Feudal system in England, as explained in such works as those of Stubbs, Hallam, and Blackstone. The scattered notes here introduced have only for their purpose to elucidate the most unusual and perplexing expressions. The Charter printed in the Statute Book is that issued in the ninth year of Henry III., which is also the one specially confirmed by the Charter of Edward I. The Charter of Henry III. differs in some (generally) insignificant points ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... characteristics, in one fell swoop, through many stages, only to reappear at last in the upper type, and only between infancy and manhood, and only in one sex. This argument is overwhelming, and the present purpose is to elucidate it by more ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 4, April 23, 1870 • Various
... at Morgan when he delivered this, sweating a great deal, as if the effort to elucidate this scientific man's methods of conspiring against nature to beat it out of a rain were equal to a ten-mile walk in ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... considerable Members of that great Society, to which you so nearly relate, have already, both in Theory and Practise, acquainted the World with very remarkable things of this nature; and whether what is here published, will in the least, either elucidate or add to those already taught, and done by those very knowing persons, I neither dare nor will determine; but if neither one nor the other be here found, yet it is sometimes grateful to us, to see how good and great wits do jump, and in such Circumstances as these no Man can account ...
— The Talking Deaf Man - A Method Proposed, Whereby He Who is Born Deaf, May Learn to Speak, 1692 • John Conrade Amman
... plates are used simply to illustrate and elucidate the text, and the information furnished in the latter is minute and accurate, and stated in well-polished Latin. As the author proceeds, he finds it necessary to disagree with Galen, and the reasons for this disagreement are given. The inevitable result follows that Vesalius is placed at issue ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... seeing and deeper reasoning,—notably Edmund Burke,—came to Pitt's support, and the West India proprietors, largely resident in England, by their knowledge of details contributed much to elucidate the facts; but their efforts were unavailing. Their argument ran thus: "Only the American continent can furnish at reasonable rates the animals required for the agriculture of the islands, the food ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... out of the church they went as they had come, arm-in-arm; the congregation holding back; all watching, but from some mysterious etiquette which must be left to the Kingcombeites to elucidate, no one venturing to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Locke Harper. The Squire's household did not attend this church, nor the Dugdales either; so that the young people walked home without speaking to a soul, and scarcely to each other. They were both very grave. A word, perhaps, from either ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... based on the construction of conceptions, is a mathema. Analytical judgements do not teach us any more about an object than what was contained in the conception we had of it; because they do not extend our cognition beyond our conception of an object, they merely elucidate the conception. They cannot therefore be with propriety termed dogmas. Of the two kinds of a priori synthetical propositions above mentioned, only those which are employed in philosophy can, according ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... a work destined, as we can easily foresee, to produce great good. Its leading design, as its title implies, and as is stated indeed by the author in his preface, is to elucidate the influence of intellect and passion upon the health and endurance of the human organization; an influence which has been but imperfectly understood and appreciated in its character and importance, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... is to apply it. Obviously it can be applied only by him who has achieved, if not the actual aesthetic ideal in life, at least a vision and a sense of it. He alone will know that the principle he has to elucidate and apply is living, organic. It is indeed the very principle of artistic creation itself. Therefore he will approach what claims to be a work of art first as a thing in itself, and seek with it the most intimate ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... and as attorney for rural places filed a demurrer against six of the seven trunks. He endeavored to define, picture, elucidate, set forth and describe a farm. His own words sounded strange in his ears. He had not realized how thoroughly urbsidized he ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... in the mind of a commercial nun through two months of supposed enjoyment and liberty. In the same way incongruous associations of ideas spring into the brain with no apparent reason at all causing fossilized professors to write essays-under-glass that elucidate ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... incidental digressions to more attractive matters. Such are the pages referring to phrenology and to music, which accompany the anatomical description of the skull and of the organs of voice; and the chapter on artistic expression which closes the book. Numerous simple but attractive engravings elucidate ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... increased violence; I entered the room a second time, and a second time saw the bell-rope in rapid motion. I then examined every corner of the room, without discovering the least trace by which I might elucidate this singular appearance. I again grasped the rope, and again it was motionless: I sat two or three minutes in the room, I believe, during which every thing was perfectly quiet. I returned to my room, when scarcely had I seated myself, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... portrait of Gordon, is willing to leave his Baring and Hartington and Wolseley inexact as well as shadowy. The essay on General Gordon, indeed, is the least successful of the four monographs. Dexterous as he is, Mr. Strachey has not had the material to work upon which now exists to elucidate his other and earlier subjects. But it is difficult to account for his apparently not having read Mr. Bernard Holland's life of the Duke of Devonshire, which throws much light, evidently unknown to Mr. Strachey, ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... stories of love and jealousy, merely because they do not understand them. We should rather leave them completely unintelligible, than attempt, like Mr. Riley, in his mythological pocket dictionary for youth, to elucidate the whole at once, by assuring children that Saturn was Adam, that Atlas is Moses, and his brother Hesperus, Aaron; that Vertumnus and Pomona were Boaz and Ruth; that Mars corresponds with Joshua; that Apollo accords with David, since they both played upon the harp; that ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... helpful form of criticism is the interpretative variety, not necessarily the laudatory "appreciation" that is so popular in our day, but an honest effort to understand and elucidate the intention of the writer. The proper exercise of this art occasionally demands rare qualifications on the part of the critic; at the same time it adds dignity to his calling and value to his utterance. It serves to dispel the popular conception of a critic as a disappointed litterateur ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... not what he meant; but what he did mean will become by no means clearer after the wearisome, interminable lengths to which he will go to elucidate. The fact is that he does not know it himself, and no one can give what he does not possess. True philosophy tells us to define terms and never to employ expressions of more than one meaning without saying in what sense we use them. Contempt of this rule is the salvation of Christian Science, and ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... him still with a smile, which he did not understand. And, like many men, he allowed his vanity to explain things which his comprehension failed to elucidate. ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... skill. His mind was fertile in resources. He was master of logic. No man perceived more quickly than he the strength or the weakness of an argument, and no one excelled him in the use of sophistry and fallacy. Where he could not elucidate a point to his own advantage, he would fatally becloud it for his opponent. In that peculiar style of debate, which, in its intensity, resembles a physical contest, he had no equal. He spoke with extraordinary readiness. There was no halting ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to elucidate the embarrassing matter still more fully, we shall take two more examples of a very misleading character, which the superficial observer would probably define as elisions, but which are almost certainly regular cases ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... texts in the order in which they stand, but in the order in which they logically follow one another, and in which they elucidate the subject. ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... I raised the fabric of my own "Dream City," and sought to elucidate some of the meaning of that great text in Ecclesiastes which contains in itself all the philosophy of the ages: "That which Hath Been is Now; and that which is To Be hath already Been; and God requireth that which ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... cruiser, and on that waste of human life, which had been the attendants of the struggle. The former has already been sufficiently described; but a short account of the present state of the actors may serve to elucidate the events that are ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... Schreber's Cerocoma as a parasite of Tachytes tarsina, who buries her hoards of young Locusts in the high sandy banks. In that case, the two Cerocomae would have a similar diet. But I leave it to Dr. Beauregard to elucidate this ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... interpretation of imaginary quantities had a far-reaching influence on the development of symbolic algebras. The attempts to elucidate this question by H. Kuhn (1750-1751) and Jean Robert Argand (1806) were completed by Karl Friedrich Gauss, and the formulation of various systems of vector analysis by Sir William Rowan Hamilton, Hermann Grassmann and others, followed. These algebras were essentially geometrical, and it remained, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... writing anything, or things—good gracious! no, I should think not indeed! It is true, if you allude to the mechanical process of caligraphy, here is close to my elbow a big book, in which I enter all passages I meet with in my various readings tending to elucidate obscure parts of the Bible: I do not mean disputed points of theology, mysteries, or significations more or less mystical, but simply any notices whatever which I meet with relating to the customs of the Jews, their history, their language, the natural features of their country; ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... over the thought; but yet he could make nothing of it. It in no way tended to elucidate anything connected with the affair, and it was much too strange and singular in all its parts to be submitted to any process of thought, with any hope of coming to anything like a conclusion upon the subject—that must remain until some facts were ascertained, and to obtain them Mr. Chillingworth ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... group of scholars an axiom in geometry, he would enunciate such propositions as made the hair of an ordinary person rise on end. And when the auditor had asserted his non-comprehension, he would proceed to elucidate by some new proposition, yet more appalling. To Jurgis the Herr Dr. Schliemann assumed the proportions of a thunderstorm or an earthquake. And yet, strange as it might seem, there was a subtle bond between them, and he could follow the argument nearly all the ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... that every human will is a will which in all its maxims gives universal laws [Footnote: I may be excused from adducing examples to elucidate this principle, as those which have already been used to elucidate the categorical imperative and its formula would all serve for the like purpose here.] provided it be otherwise justified, would be very well adapted to be the categorical imperative, in this ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... observations, and inquiries, which I have been led to pursue, for a great many years: tending to elucidate the history of extraneous fossils, and of the deluge; I have long been convinced, that stones in general, and strata of rocks, of all kinds, have been formed by two very different operations of those elements, which ...
— Remarks Concerning Stones Said to Have Fallen from the Clouds, Both in These Days, and in Antient Times • Edward King
... problem was, despite its difficulties, still possible of solution; and Hooker set himself to work to elucidate it. ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... these matters have been briefly defined, we may postpone to another time those considerations by which we may be able to elucidate the character and the duty and the object of this art; for they would require a very long argument, and they have no very intimate connexion with the definition of the art and the delivery of precepts relating to it. But we consider that the man who writes a treatise on the ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... cheerful little scene for Friedrich; the last he has in these black weeks. A laborious Predecessor, striving to elucidate, leaves me ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... of the following digression are so intimately connected with the first establishment of the Portuguese in India, as to justify its introduction in this place, which will greatly elucidate the narrative of Castaneda; and its length did not admit of being inserted in the form of notes. It is chiefly due to the ingenious and Reverend James Stanier Clarke, in his Origin and Progress of Maritime Discovery, extracted ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... that a much fuller investigation is required before all the far-reaching effects of this momentous measure can be adequately weighed. I trust, however, that, even in the short space I am devoting to the subject, I shall be able sufficiently to elucidate those points which dominate the situation, and a consideration of which will show that if the Government succeeds in forcing up the gold value of the rupee in the manner proposed, the prosperity of the people, the ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... light that might elucidate the problems which bewildered her, Magda clutched at the words as though they were a revelation. They seemed to point to the only way by which she might ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... is needed now to elucidate the scheme by which Vespucci's letters were incorporated in the treatise published by those wise men of Saint-Die, entitled Cosmographie Introductio, or "Rudiments of Geography," and taken from the press on April ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... the above medal is the Lobster, though doubtless it had an allusion to some topic or scandal of the day; whoever can elucidate it will render good service to Medallic History, for hitherto it has baffled all commentators and collectors of medals. The windmill (indicative of the poplar fable that the Prince was the son of a miller), and the Roman Catholic symbols, are ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 4, Saturday, November 24, 1849 • Various
... references which may suffice in other periods. In earlier days, he may draw upon Piers Plowman or Chaucer for evidence and illustrations of the prevalent social conditions; in the century following he may appeal to Milton and Bunyan to elucidate aspects of Puritanism. But the Elizabethan literature is in a degree quite unique, the expression of the whole spirit of the time, its many-sidedness, its vigour, its creative force; helping us ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... it has been derived, as glacial moraines indicate the direction which they have taken, and point to the mountains whence they have fallen. It will not be difficult for us to arrive at the origin of the Northern belief in were-wolves, and the data thus obtained will be useful in assisting us to elucidate much that would otherwise prove obscure in ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... unserviceable. For it is man's nature to change his Dialect from century to century; he cannot help it though he would. The authentic Church-Catechism of our present century has not yet fallen into my hands: meanwhile, for my own private behoof, I attempt to elucidate the matter so. Man's Unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his Greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers and Upholsterers and Confectioners ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... inoffensive public a series of lumps of material. What these lumps were supposed to represent no one has yet discovered; and I am given to understand that unless the proud perpetrator noted it himself on completion, he too was usually unable to elucidate the mystery. It was not of great account, as he ran not the slightest risk of contradiction whatever he said; and as no person ever willingly went twice to his exhibitions, he could vary the title daily without fear of discovery. Another great point about ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... history; but we may appreciate all the meaning of the parable without reference to the circumstances in which it sprung. In some cases the connection with the context is such that light from the history preceding is necessary to elucidate the meaning of the lesson that follows; but it is not so here. Although one thing suggests another in the conversation which the Evangelist records, the lesson ultimately given is independent of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... overlooked Strachey's account of the Virginian god Ahone. He did not overlook Ahone, but mistrusted Strachey. In an excursus on Ahone, in the new edition of 'Myth, Ritual, and Religion,' I have tried my best to elucidate the bibliography and other aspects of Strachey's account, which I cannot regard as baseless. Mr. Tylor's opinion is, doubtless, different, and may prove more persuasive. As to Australia, Mr. Howitt, our best authority, continues to disbelieve ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... against them at every step in life." But he can not teach that of which he himself is ignorant. Every science then may in turn become necessary or desirable to be employed as an instructive agent, every art may be made accessory to illustrate some item of knowledge or to elucidate ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... some attributed to Dr. Simon Robson, Dean of Bristol in 1598; by others, most probably erroneously, to Samuel Rowland." An examination of the biography of Dr. Robson, who died in 1617, might tend to elucidate some particulars concerning his claim to the authorship of this and several other ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 56, November 23, 1850 • Various
... difficulty in determining the British plants of this genus, but much in ascertaining many of the foreign ones: Professor JACQUIN has taken great pains to elucidate them in his Miscel. Austr. where fifteen are specifically described, none of which accord exactly with the plant here figured, which has every appearance of being a distinct species: in the Hortus Kewensis it is described as the glutinosa of the Flora Austriaca, ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis
... principles of good writing so frequently and so shamefully violated. The code of false grammar embraced in the following work, will go far to sustain this opinion. There have been, however, several excellent scholars, who have thought it an object not unworthy of their talents, to prescribe and elucidate the principles of English Grammar. But these, with scarcely any exception, have executed their inadequate designs, not as men engaged in their proper calling, but as mere literary almoners, descending for a day from their loftier purposes, to perform a service, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... he afterwards spoke of them as having been the work of the leisure moments of many years, of their subsequent revision alone, perhaps, could this be altogether true. The Vita Nuova, together with the many among Dante's Lyrics and those of his contemporaries which elucidate their personal intercourse; were translated, as well as a great body of the sonnets of poets later than Dante. {*} This early and indirect apprenticeship to the sonnet, as a form of composition, led to his becoming, in the end, perhaps the most perfect of English ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... influence of nervous and other bodily or mental disorders upon religious experience deserves a fuller discussion than it has yet received. It is a subject which both modern science and modern thought, if guided by Christian wisdom, might help greatly to elucidate. ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... first adventures at Bristol, he finds that there was one which either he had forgotten, or H. had neglected to mention to him. Though it be of no very great moment, yet as it serves to thicken the circumstances which elucidate the boy's character, it is introduced in this place. Since the publication of the last number of The Mirror, the editor received the following letter directed to "the biographer of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... military studies he combined others, working even to elucidate the Surrey remains of the Romans, whose glamour as ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... work is "to exhibit such a number of examples of foliage and other ornamental details of the different styles as clearly to elucidate the characteristic features peculiar to each period; and drawn sufficiently large in scale to be practically useful in facilitating the labours of ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... previous little book of his, "First and Last Things," in which, writing as one without authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision of a man with cataract, a mere ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... liberated by a change in the condition of visible matter. Fourthly, many striking results, both great and small, may be produced by an extension of a principle which may be described as that of sympathetic vibration. Illustrations taken from the physical plane seem generally to misrepresent rather than elucidate astral phenomena, because they can never be more than partially applicable; but the recollection of two simple facts of ordinary life may help to make this important branch of our subject clearer, if we ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... opinion among the Germans as among ourselves) they are all agreed, orthodox and unorthodox, that at least we should endeavour to understand them; and that no efforts can be too great, either of research or criticism, to discover their history, or elucidate their meaning. ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... lesson of one more case. These details may be tedious; but the justification of their presence here are the importance of the subject they illustrate and elucidate, and the necessity of acquiring a belief of the truth of ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... used means "to explain,"—"to elucidate,"—"to make clear the meaning of," and this same definition of the word applies to music as well, the conductor or performer "making clear" to the audience the message given him by the composer. It should be noted at once, however, that interpretation ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... De Animal., lib. ii. ch. i. It is curious that Taylor, in his translation of this passage, was so strongly imbued with the "grey-headed errour," that in order to elucidate the somewhat obscure meaning of Aristotle, he has actually interpolated the text with the exploded fallacy of Ctesias, and after the word reclining to sleep, has inserted the words "leaning against some wall or tree," which are not to be found in ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... covers the actual ground on which the Abbey stood. The workmen frequently turn up broken tiles and human bones, and there is no doubt that by digging deeper much would be discovered that might elucidate the history of the past. At the farther end of the market garden a vault has been discovered which is of considerable length and breadth; but the water rises so high in it (except after a long continuance of dry weather has sealed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... them suddenly a great leap forward. The public favor is unsteady; to-day it strews palm-branches, to-morrow it cries, 'Crucify him!' But I regard that as a moment of development. You will permit me to make use of an image to elucidate my idea. The botanist goes wandering through field and wood, he collects flowers and plants; every one of these had, while he gathered it, his entire interest, his whole thought—but the impression which ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... of your subscribers look anxiously for your answers to numerous questions put for the elucidation of apparent, scientific mysteries, I have thought that perhaps a statement in plain language of experiments made at various times, to elucidate this subject, might, in conjunction with a diagram, serve to explain even to those who have not made a special study of science a few of the interesting ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... Armenio, at anchor close to the shore. What could have brought the frigate here, and kept her here for so long a time since I had last seen her at Sumatra, I was at a loss to understand. The unexpected appearance of this vessel seemed likely to complicate our plans, and I determined to elucidate the mystery before proceeding with ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... was still a youth, full of vitality and enthusiasm. Some student, diffident but worthy, was always encouraged; another was incited by sarcasm; still another was scolded outright. Practical illustration on the piano, showing 'how not to do it,' telling of pertinent stories to elucidate a point, are among the means which he constantly employed to bring out the best that was in his pupils. A good teacher cannot insure success and Leschetizky has naturally had many pupils who will never become great virtuosos. It was never in the pupils and, no matter ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... to elucidate this matter if we regard it from another point of view. According to Hobbes, 'Liberty is the absence of all impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical qualities of the agent.' Now, if we accept this definition, it is easy to show that the theory of Monism is really ...
— Mind and Motion and Monism • George John Romanes
... arising from the nature of his employment. In the present communication, it is proposed to lay before the profession a series of remarks, which I have been enabled to put together, with a view to elucidate the cause and progress of that very peculiar pulmonary disease, incident to coal-miners, which I shall denominate BLACK PHTHISIS, or Ulceration induced by Carbonaceous ...
— An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis • Archibald Makellar
... said the Judge to Sir Charles and Colonel Papillon. "I do not wish to detain you further, although there may be points you might help us to elucidate if I might venture to still ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... servants were having supper in the kitchen. They are innocent. Well, we'll see what the inquest reveals. Something may be found before then likely to elucidate the mystery. But here comes Mallow. He questioned Jennings also, so you can question him if you like. ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... ablest Advocates of the time, I was declared an Aedile, and undertook the patronage of the Sicilians against Hortensius, who was then one of the Consuls elect. But as the subject of our conversation not only requires an historical detail of Orators, but such preceptive remarks as may be necessary to elucidate their characters; it will not be improper to make some observations of this kind upon that of Hortensius. After his appointment to the consulship (very probably, because he saw none of consular dignity who were able to rival him, and despised the competition of others of inferior rank) ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with the account given next day by the sentinels, that a formal examination of the circumstances was made, the deposition of each witness, under oath, duly recorded, and a vast deal of consultation of soothsayers' books and other auguries employed to elucidate the mystery. It was universally considered typical of the anticipated battle between Count Louis and the Spaniards. When, therefore, it was known that the patriots, moving from the south-east, had arrived at Mookerheyde, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... only there had been another witness, someone who actually saw this thing done, or who had heard the pistol-shot—not that I'm doubting your word at all, Doctor—it might help to elucidate matters. There is no one you know of who could have heard—and ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... Suzette; the two last were commonplace personages enough; their look was ordinary, their manner was ordinary, their temper was ordinary, their thoughts, feelings, and views were all ordinary—were I to write a chapter on the subject I could not elucidate it further. Zephyrine was somewhat more distinguished in appearance and deportment than Pelagie and Suzette, but in character genuine Parisian coquette, perfidious, mercenary, and dry-hearted. A fourth maitresse I ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... seemed needful to say about the mechanism of perception, in order to understand the slight disturbances of this mechanism that manifest themselves in sense-illusion. It may be added that our study of these illusions will help still further to elucidate the exact nature of perception. Normal mental life, as a whole, at once illustrates, and is illustrated by, abnormal. And while we need a rough provisional theory of accurate perception in order to explain illusory perception ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... the writer was set upon by an old Radical and his wife; but before he relates the manner in which they set upon him, it will be as well to enter upon a few particulars tending to elucidate ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... entertained of the proper introduction of pictorial arrangements of chiaro-scuro and colour; but the grand style, like all other modes of portraying a work, must be made subservient to affecting the feelings of the spectator. I shall only bring two pictures in contrast to elucidate this principle still further—"The Burning of the Books at Ephesus," by Sebastian Bourdon; and "The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence," by Titian. As Bourdon has been considered the French Raffaelle, it is but fair that he should be taken as a follower of that school, devoted ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... grass-grown courtyard of the castle, when suddenly she exclaimed, "How I wish, Walter, that we might elucidate ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... here epitomised, for the benefit of the public, all that has been hitherto known concerning the Marie Celeste and her crew, for the past ten years have not in any way helped to elucidate the mystery. I have now taken up my pen with the intention of telling all that I know of the ill-fated voyage. I consider that it is a duty which I owe to society, for symptoms which I am familiar with in others lead me to believe that before many months ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was some mystery which he had yet to elucidate, the links in the chain were visible up to a point, but he then became baffled by the incontestable fact that Denzil had seen Amaryllis that evening for ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... the expression of those hopes and sentiments which lovers are wont to intersperse in their discourse, we shall omit such superfluities, and sum up, as briefly as possible, all that is necessary to elucidate our story. ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... beetles hoary with age? Do they die a natural death, and do the survivors then clean out the bodies? Or is the population being reduced at the expense of sound and healthy insects? It is not easy to elucidate the matter, since the atrocities are commonly perpetrated in the night. But, finally, with vigilance, on two occasions, I surprise the beetles at their work ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... invariably without success. It might be a mere pun; Mrs. Poppleton no more understood the nature of a pun than of the binomial theorem. But worse was when the jest involved some allusion. When I heard Poppleton begin to elucidate, to expound, the perspiration already on his forehead, I looked at him with imploring anguish. Why would he attempt the impossible? But the kind fellow couldn't disregard his wife's request. Shall I ever forget her. "Oh—yes—I see"?—when obviously she saw nothing but the ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... a new one. The more outre and grotesque an incident is the more carefully it deserves to be examined, and the very point which appears to complicate a case is, when duly considered and scientifically handled, the one which is most likely to elucidate it. ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... 578 is one of grave importance, the Generals out there should previously fully consider the situation on the Gallipoli Peninsula; hence my No. 7315. It was intended to obviate any possibility of overlooking points and in such cases two or more heads sometimes elucidate matters that might otherwise be missed or not given due weight to. It was in no way intended thereby to detract from the importance of your views on the subject or to minimise your personal ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... dear bibliophile, of never being able to join in the mad scramble for these "uniques;" nor need you feel that they are essential to the formation of a library. They possess no virtues perceptible to the ordinary bibliophile, and it requires all the eloquence of a Cicero to elucidate their charms when displaying them to friends. For after all, the chief point of interest in such books is their cost price, and this you may be obliged to refrain from mentioning for fear you will be accused ...
— Book-Lovers, Bibliomaniacs and Book Clubs • Henry H. Harper
... geological periods are entirely buried beneath the ocean ... beyond our reach. Most of the gaps in the geological series may thus be filled up, and vast numbers of unknown and unimaginable animals which might help to elucidate the affinities of the numerous isolated groups which are a perpetual puzzle to the zoologist may be buried there, till future revolutions may raise them in turn above the water, to afford materials for the study of whatever race of intelligent ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... with no slight uneasiness, the suspicious circumstances in which they were placed; but he was fearful of betraying his mistrust, lest it should accelerate the mischief he anticipated. He looked wistfully at his friend; but there was no outward manifestation that could elucidate the inward bent of his thoughts. The keen expression of his eye was not visible; but his other features wore that imperturbable and stolid aspect which suited the stiff and unyielding substance of his opinions. Seaton was now reminded of his supper ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... occur to him to speculate on the happy circumstance that the mysteriously appearing desk had brought its own scientific explanation with it. The title of the paper told him that its sheets would elucidate the apparently supernatural phenomenon, and all he did was to plunge breathlessly ahead in his eager reading. The article was short, about seven typewritten sheets. He took out his pencil and followed through the mathematical equations readily. Tony's mind was a brilliant, ...
— The Einstein See-Saw • Miles John Breuer
... importance in relation to their position. Then will come as full an account as is possible of the traces of the mother-age to be found in the records of ancient and existing civilised races; while a brief chapter will be added on certain myths and legends which help to elucidate the theory of women's early power. The final chapter will treat of general conclusions, with an attempt to suggest certain facts which seem to bear on present-day problems. Throughout I shall support my investigation (as far as ...
— The Position of Woman in Primitive Society - A Study of the Matriarchy • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... publications, and likely to become the most popular, and the most lasting in its popularity, for it has enduring qualities which belong to all ages and generations. The text is simply and clearly opened—critical explanations are given only when they are required—so as not to encumber, but to elucidate; and the practical applications are such as to suit all classes of persons."—Church ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... hard rind; if we could sound the depths of that badly constructed organism; if it were granted to us to look with a torch behind those non-transparent organs to explore the shadowy interior of that opaque creature, to elucidate his obscure corners, his absurd no-thoroughfares, and suddenly to cast a vivid light upon the soul enchained at the extremity of that cave, we should, no doubt, find the unhappy Psyche in some poor, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... from the bird to the mammal may be made through the medium of the family pets. Fido, puss, the pet rabbits, or squirrels may serve to elucidate the subject. Indeed, at this stage the well-instructed child himself will be ready to give all the essential facts, and will feel free to ask questions concerning the facts he does not understand. If he has traced the continuity of the egg from ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... slight modification of Johnstone's best and simplest plan, with a few sentences of explanation, will sufficiently elucidate Elkington's mystery, and will comprehend the case of all simple superficial springs. Perhaps in Agricultural Britain, no formation is more common than moderate elevations of pervious material, such as chalk, gravel, and imperfect ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... over their negro neighbours; and that this frontier state would thus become the theatre of continual contests, terminating alternately, in the temporary occupation of Timbuctoo by the Arabs, and in their re-expulsion by negroes. In order to elucidate the state of things, which we have here supposed, we need not go further than to the history of Europe in our own days. How often during the successful ravages of Buonaparte, that great Arab chieftain of Christendom, might we not have drawn from the experience of Madrid, or Berlin, or Vienna, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... be described as punning in music. The composer, however, meant it seriously; from the tone of his preface, and the narration, with comments, which he has prefixed to each sonata, in addition to the explanatory words over the music itself, it is clear that his aim was to elucidate and intensify the Bible stories by means of his art. He was a man, apparently, of ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... course," gasped Anne, wondering if she were telling the literal truth. Certainly she did not DISlike Billy. But could the indifferent tolerance with which she regarded him, when he happened to be in her range of vision, be considered positive enough for liking? WHAT was Jane trying to elucidate? ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... protection, but on racial solidarity, and community in social and moral ideals. It was this solidarity, far more than conscious statesmanship, which held Canada and Britain together. These impressions I have tried to analyse and elucidate in ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... descended to a whisper, which, beyond that it seemed to have reference to marriage and kindred matters, was for the most part Greek to Cornelia. A kind of metaphor was used which the country-bred minister's daughter could not elucidate, nor could she comprehend how young ladies, unmarried as she herself was, could know so much about things which marriage alone ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the charming and expressive pictures with which the artist, Mr. L.J. Bridgman, has so sympathetically illustrated the rhymes, mothers and kindergartners have easily understood what motions were intended. To elucidate still farther, however, the playing of "The Merry Little Men" may be ...
— Finger plays for nursery and kindergarten • Emilie Poulsson
... half-learned persons, and are partly—owing to the lack of knowledge of antiquities and of Greek literature—forgotten or mangled or mutilated or at least full of mistakes and monstrosities; not merely to restore them but to elucidate them with commentaries, so that each reader will acknowledge to himself that the great Jerome, considered by the ecclesiastical world as the most perfect in both branches of learning, the sacred and ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the nature of things, until the history of the human race shall be completed. It was held by even the sagacious Socrates, that men cannot arrive at any certainty in questions respecting the form or motion of the earth, or the mechanism of the heavens; and so he set himself to elucidate what he deemed much simpler matters,—to prove, for instance, as we find in the Phedon, that human souls existed ere they came to inhabit their mortal bodies, and retained faint recollections of great misfortunes ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... past and refuse all history. Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier, have wasted their oil. The famed theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont have vainly assisted. Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready dedicate their lives to this genius; him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express. The genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. I remember I went once to see the Hamlet of a famed performer, the pride of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... on a tour of investigation, and returned to say that there was no chance just at present of their getting away. It was a scene of confusion which only patience and time could elucidate. The omniscience of officials had given place to a less satisfactory if more human ignorance; last come was first served, and a seat in a train seemed by no means to insure transportation. It was as well to wait for a while ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... noted that the whole of the above translation is offered tentatively. A verbal rendering has been attempted. The chain of reasoning is not at all clear. The commentator has done much to elucidate the sense, but the original obscurities have scarcely ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... need of no comment from the committee to elucidate it;[11] and being drawn up in terms complimentary to your abilities of serving these United States upon your arrival here, I take pleasure in conveying it, being, sir, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various
... said he, "is by all odds the best thing you've said yet. Elucidate it a bit, won't you? I admit to some curiosity about that little tableau in ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... been his motive for forsaking his sailors and two of his ablest officers? This is a problem which the most attentive perusal of Peron's narrative fails to elucidate. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... useful and ornamental art discovered in the sepulchres of nations long since fallen into oblivion, were of no other value, at the present day, than merely to be applied to the purposes which they were originally intended to subserve; if they did not elucidate the manners, customs, and progressional refinement of men with passions and feelings similar to our own; the labour and expense incurred by their exhumation would be thrown away. It is not, then, for the intrinsic value of the specimens to be produced, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... to elucidate one consideration that might be suggested, viz., how precious a proof it is of Christ's humanity. We find it easier to bring home His true manhood to our thoughts, when we remember that He, like us, knew the pressure of physical fatigue. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... we shall not now determine; but to those who dissent from him, as well as to those who agree with him, his reasonings on these subjects are highly instructive: while the full citations from so many other writers contribute materially not only to elucidate the points directly approached, but also to enlarge our knowledge of philosophy generally. We set particular value upon this preservation of the traditions of philosophy, and upon this maintenance of a known perpetual succession among the speculative minds of ...
— Review of the Work of Mr John Stuart Mill Entitled, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy.' • George Grote
... writer has said, "It is only with the aid of a Bible and a history of theology that it is possible to elucidate the vast iconographic display of the marvellous west front of the cathedral at Amiens." Like Reims, its three portals of great size are peopled with a throng of statues. The central portal, known as the ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... assist us to appreciate the character and consequences of the Peace which we have imposed on our enemies, if I elucidate a little further some of the chief unstable elements already present when war broke out, in the ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... influence and be inspired by it. Stirred by the sight of these sculptures at Les Baux, I resolved to go over all the ground of his campaign, Plutarch in hand, and I venture to think that what I saw and discovered will not only interest the reader, but help to elucidate the history of that ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... understanding of the problems involved in the perfecting of the bath in modern times. So also with regard to the Hammam of the East, an acquaintance with its plan and working is equally instructive. But to fully elucidate the history of thermo-therapeutic architecture would require a volume of itself, since the many questions that present themselves to the student of ancient baths cannot be properly understood without considerable and lengthy description. Those desirous of studying the subject of the design ...
— The Turkish Bath - Its Design and Construction • Robert Owen Allsop
... was needed to destroy the legend of the cuckoo, incessantly repeated down to the days of Xavier Raspail, and to us so familiar; to elucidate its history, and to set it ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... that they read would be unintelligible to them. Whereupon I shook hands with him, and on departing said that there was no part of Scripture so difficult to understand as those very notes which were intended to elucidate it, and that the Almighty would never have inspired His saints with a desire to write what was unintelligible to the great ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... idea which the Captain attached to this concluding piece of praise, he did not further elucidate; neither did Walter seek to draw it forth. For on his beginning to review, with the vivacity natural to himself and to his situation, the leading points in his own affairs, he soon discovered that the Captain had relapsed into his former profound state of mind; and that while he eyed him steadfastly ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... material woes are added mental ones. In the darkness of this world shines at least a distant ray, far off beyond the grave. But, at times, even this light wavers; clouds obscure and apparently extinguish it. Doubts assail the soul of the dreamer; theology ought to elucidate, but, on the contrary, only ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... must be essentially abstract. It would, in fact, be history without the names of men, or even of nations, if it were not necessary to avoid all such puerile affectation as there would be in depriving ourselves of the use of names which may elucidate our exposition or consolidate our thought.... Geological considerations must enter into such concrete inquiry, and we have but little positive knowledge of geology; and the same is true of questions of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... and Zarathustra rejoiced at his words and their refined reverential style. "Who art thou?" asked he, and gave him his hand, "there is much to clear up and elucidate between us, but already methinketh ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... In order to elucidate these antagonisms, let us consider Bauer's construction of the Christian State, a construction which has proceeded from ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... "All right, I'll elucidate. Listen!" and Seaton's voice grew tense with earnestness. "Visitors came down out of space. They were green. They wore zones of force, which they flashed on and off. They stayed inside the zones and projected their images outside, and used rays through the zones. Men who fought ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... elucidate her point about the frog. But she wondered what difference it might not have made had Ann known that, as Worth put it, she used to be a frog. With Ann, fairy stories would have to be about things not real. All Ann's ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... afternoon during the season. One of the members conducts the party through the upper and lower prisons, and explains everything of interest connected with them. Dr. Parker, whose labours have done so much to elucidate this part of ancient Rome, was the guide on the occasion of my visit; and as the party was unusually small, we had a better opportunity of seeing what was to be seen, and ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... reader is led to conclude that the text of the Lettres Provinciales {278} is accompanied in some editions by observations of Wendrock (Nicole), likewise in the French language. Now such an assertion merely proves how carelessly some annotators will study the subjects they attempt to elucidate. Nicole translated into Latin the Provincial Letters; and the masterly disquisitions which he added to the volume were, in their turn, "made French" by Mademoiselle de Joncoux, and annexed to the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 48, Saturday, September 28, 1850 • Various
... Londonderry. He said that after the retreat of our army under Sir J. Moore from Spain (he was not quite certain himself as to the exact period, though a reference to the history of that period will probably elucidate the matter) Lord L. sent for him, and communicated to him that it was the intention of Government to send out an expedition to Portugal, and to confer the command of it upon him. He replied that if called upon he should consider it his duty to serve, but he should never solicit ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... deserve it; and so perhaps we, who are merely 'keepers' may nevertheless make some credit—all the more because we have been able to arrange the wealth we found under hand, to work it profitably, to apply it well, to elucidate it, and to make it available. When anything new is created by one of our circle we always link it on to the old; and in many departments we have indeed even succeeded in soaring above the ancients, particularly in that ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers |
