"Categorical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the pure reason insists that the mere form of a universal legislation must constitute the ultimate determining principle of the will. Here is the only possible practical principle which is sufficient to furnish categorical imperatives, that is, practical laws which make ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... go on without remarking to you how direct this Empire literature is, going to the point without any details, a characteristic, as it seems to me, of a primitive time. The literature of that period holds a place between the summaries of chapters in Telemaque and the categorical reports of a public office. It had ideas, but refrained from expressing them, it was so scornful! It was observant, but would not communicate its observations to any one, it was so miserly! Nobody but Fouche ever ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... beginning" should be observed. Every question is to be asked and every answer demanded which is necessary to convince the examiner that the party examined is acquainted with what he ought to know, to entitle him to the appellation of a Brother. Nothing is to be taken for granted—categorical answers must be required to all that it is deemed important to be asked. No forgetfulness is to be excused, nor is the want of memory to be accepted as a valid excuse for the want of knowledge. The Mason, who is so unmindful of his duties as to have forgotten ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more taste for what is comfortable than for what is magnanimous and high; and I can imagine some of these casting their lot in the Court of Blois during the last twenty years of the life ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sir, to go again to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and formally to intimate to his Excellency my just expectation that the Council will not delay to cause to be delivered to me through him a categorical answer, and, as I hope, a satisfactory answer to the demand of a Government sincerely friendly to the Porte. You will leave with him a copy of this instruction, and you will concert as to the time of its delivery with the Interpreter of the ...
— Correspondence Relating to Executions in Turkey for Apostacy from Islamism • Various
... calling, he is inevitably led into taking "sides." He is surrounded by circumstances that are to him entirely strange. He is more or less annoyed and flurried by his surroundings, and then comes the necessity of making a categorical answer to questions that are put to him more especially upon the cross-examination, which cannot be correctly answered categorically. Unfortunately in a profession like ours, in a science of art like ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... Theists, is spoken of as the "Voice of God" in the human soul—is identified by these with "conscience," so that to base morality on Intuition is equivalent to basing it on conscience, and making the dictate of conscience the categorical imperative, the inner voice which declares authoritatively "Thou shalt," or "Thou ...
— The Basis of Morality • Annie Besant
... and read the public pulse in matters literary. It is in regard to the second and more important factor that failure waits most insistently on the librarian. What are the public's needs, as distinguished from its desires? What ought it to read? Here steps in the "categorical imperative" with a vengeance. The librarian, when he thinks of his duty along this line, begins to shudder as he realizes his responsibility as an educator, as a mentor, as a trainer of literary taste. Probably in some instances he takes himself too ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... formal, argumentative manner. But Mr. Allgood was getting jaded; the stretch of attention required by the reasoning of Mr. Goose was telling upon his patience; so he slided away to talk with one who spoke in less categorical style: not so ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... challenger, opened the debate, and proposed that the question be met in a categorical form, thus:—Were the laws of the different states which make gambling a Penitentiary offence unjust and impolitic? Were they formed in good ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... and sent a telegraphic dispatch to the viceroy at Milan to inquire what was to be done with Andreas Hofer, inasmuch as the sentence of the court-martial had not been passed unanimously. An answer was returned very soon. It contained the categorical order that Andreas Hofer should be ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... immeasurable crop in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when they were brought forth again and quoted with the authority of the church fathers. The ordeal is a question addressed to the superior powers in order to learn the truth. The question is always categorical: Is this man guilty or not? The irrationality is that there is a third possibility which cannot be tested; the superior powers may not answer at all. In the early Middle Ages the ordeal was in common use in all civil and ecclesiastical ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... escape of Arsene Lupin was not doubted by anyone. He announced it himself, in categorical terms, in a reply to Mon. Bouvier on the day following his attempted escape. The judge having made a jest about the affair, Arsene was annoyed, and, firmly eyeing ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... very amusing. It is astonishing to see how crank-proof sundry minds are. Everything seems to them on a dead level of categorical proposition. They walk up to every statue with their measuring-line of Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferioque Prioris, and measure them off with equal solemnity, telling you severely that this nose is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... if Chinese is, or is not, a difficult language to learn. To this question it is quite impossible to give a categorical answer, for the simple reason that Chinese consists of at least two languages, one colloquial and the other written, which for all practical purposes are about as distinct as they ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... tells us that his grandfather intended his great building to be adorned with mosaic work, and that one of his numerous disappointments was his inability, thanks to the ignorant opposition of the Commission, to carry out this intention. The categorical statement of the grandson is corroborated by (a) the text of various Acts of Parliaments, (b) other Renaissance Churches and notably St. Peter's, (c) the use of material softer than Portland stone for various surfaces.[103] Bishop Newton, who ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... other witnesses. Nothing was written or read. The conversation, although earnest and free, was calm and courteous and kind on both sides. The Richmond party approached the subject rather indirectly, and at no time did they either make categorical demands or tender formal stipulations or absolute refusals. Nevertheless, during the conference, which lasted four hours, the several points at issue between the Government and the insurgents were distinctly ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... unsubstantial rumour, which Paterson had not even taken the trouble to report officially to the Governor when he heard it, was the only incident with which Baudin was connected that gave King any cause to doubt his perfect good faith; and Baudin's categorical denial of the allegation is fully confirmed by his diary and correspondence—now available for study—which contain no particle of evidence to suggest that the planting of a settlement, or the choice of a site for one, was a ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... incoherent republics. They reduce men to loose counters, merely for the sake of simple telling, and not to figures, whose power is to arise from their place in the table. The elements of their own metaphysics might have taught them better lessons. The troll of their categorical table might have informed them that there was something else in the intellectual world besides substance and quantity. They might learn from the catechism of metaphysics that there were eight heads ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... master has managed for years and years to cultivate the farm of La Haye and to bring up my godson in the fear of the Lord and the practice of land surveying is a proof that the late Mr. Matthew Arnold was hopelessly wrong in his categorical declaration ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... then the paper published the famous letter, so precise and categorical in its conclusions, in which Arsene Lupin furnished the solution of the problem. I quote it ...
— The Confessions of Arsene Lupin • Maurice Leblanc
... note lies in the last half dozen words and proceeds. It remains to be seen what answer will be made to this categorical demand. The general opinion in the United States appears to be that it will not be a refusal. Germany, it is thought, will begin by making concessions enough to prevent the abrupt conclusion of conversations, and will finally extend ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... thoughtfully, "you have described the exact sort of intolerant piety, which tempts one to admire brilliant wickedness. You can't accept another's belief unless it's your own. That is one of Life's categorical ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... who were often pagans incompetent to decide in these questions, that it was they who really belonged to the only orthodox Church. Something must be done to end this equivocal position, and to bring about once for all a categorical condemnation of the schism. Augustin, acting in concert with the primate Aurelius, was the ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... office he gave the Entente Powers "most categorical assurances of a steady determination to carry on the policy of neutrality in the form of most sincere benevolence towards them. The new Ministry," he added, "adopts M. Zaimis's repeated declarations of Greece's friendly attitude towards the Allied armies at Salonica, ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... events were occurring, the diplomatic side of the question was also in evidence. Lord Palmerston had written a letter stating in categorical language what he expected at the hands of the Chinese government, and he had directed that it should be delivered into nobody else's hands but the responsible ministers of the Emperor Taoukwang. The ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... will find among five hundred college alumni as they file in procession. His strong, squared features, his formidable scowl, his solid-looking head, his iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... distinct and categorical declaration of the two Governments that the matters of claim in the second article of the convention of 1800 had not been ceded away, relinquished, or set off, but they were still subsisting subjects of demand against France. The same declaration appears ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... contemplated action. Hence there is no obligatory force in this ethic. Prudential motives, suggestions of expediency, abundance of counsel, if you will; but we miss the note of authority, the commanding voice, the categorical imperative, the solemn injunction, "Thou canst, therefore thou must". Indeed, it seems difficult to see how one could convince a man on hedonistic or utilitarian grounds that a course of conduct on which he was bent, and ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... admirer of this young lady, sir, and I am endeavouring to discover whether he ought to hang himself on her father's lawn, this evening, as soon as the moon rises, or live another week. In order to do this, I shall pursue the categorical and inquisitorial method—and so defend yourself Miss Effingham. Do you object to the country ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... first set of names is preferable. 'Categorical' properly means 'predicable' and 'hypothetical' is ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... not ask you for a categorical explanation of your movements, Mr. Lorimer," she says lightly—"I'm sure I hope ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... citation of scripture was unworthy a categorical reply; his doctrine deserved neither logic nor argument; his misapplication of the written word was nullified by scripture that was germane; the lines of the psalmist were met by the binding fiat of the prophet of the exodus, in which he had commanded Israel that they should not provoke nor ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... exception to him personally as a gentleman. I have, therefore, to inquire whether you declined to receive his communication on the ground of any personal exception to him as a gentleman or a man of honor." Mr. Cilley declining to give the categorical answer demanded, was immediately challenged by Graves. The challenge was borne by Mr. Wise, a Representative from Virginia. On the same evening, Mr. Jones—then a delegate and later a Senator from Iowa—as the second of Cilley, handed the note of acceptance ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... that my visual organs had deceived me, but with as little success. On looking to the other side of the road, I observed a mason at work repairing the opposite wall with some very suspicious-looking stones, and I immediately crossed over, and commenced a categorical examination of the supposed delinquent. I inquired whether he could explain to me the cause of the removal of the ancient cross, which used to be in the field exactly opposite to where we were then standing; but he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... everything that belongs to his native soil. The splendid practice afforded by translating from one language into another, which so improves and fertilises one's artistic feeling for one's own tongue, is, in the case of German, never conducted with that fitting categorical strictness and dignity which would be above all necessary in dealing with an undisciplined language. Of late, exercises of this kind have tended to decrease ever more and more: people are satisfied to know the ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Herbert thought to himself, placidly. 'This girl's quite too unreservedly categorical! She eliminates modality with a vengeance!' 'Well, Selah,' he said in his calmest and most deliberate manner, 'we must take a great many points into consideration before deciding on that matter.' And then he went on to tell her what seemed to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... categorical answer," I remarked. "Come, Emily, tell me, is there no one for whom you have more regard than for those unhappy gentlemen whom you refused?" I saw a gentle blush rise to her cheek. "Well," I said, "I shall ask Oliver Farwell ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is very transparent! "cries Bath." From any other man it would be an affront with the strongest emphasis, but from one of the doctor's cloth it demands a categorical answer." ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... been put under such restrictions that the greatest embarrassments are inevitable. Intelligence is already come that the Manchester people have curtailed their orders, and many workmen will be out of work. Yesterday a deputation from Coventry came to Auckland, and desired a categorical answer as to whether Government meant to resume the prohibitory system, because if they would not the glove trade at Coventry ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... law of salutes is very much the law of visits, in this part of the world. The ship arriving sends an officer to know if his salute will be returned gun for gun, and the whole affair, it is true, is conducted in rather a categorical manner, but the governing principles are the same in both cases, though more management may be required between two gentlemen than ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Piktupohnen, join the Russians, and proceed to Prussia. But General York had not yet made up his mind. Toward nightfall another messenger from General Diebitsch arrived at his headquarters. This messenger was Lieutenant-Colonel Clausewitz, whom Diebitsch had sent to insist again on a categorical reply. York received him sullenly, and said to him: 'Keep aloof from me. I do not wish to have any thing to do with you. Your accursed Cossacks have allowed a messenger from Macdonald to pass through your lines, and he has brought me orders to march upon Piktupohnen, and there join ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... living things might co-exist on the point of a needle? That the Earth is to be burned by fire, is, if true, as large a fact as that huge monsters once played amid its depths; that Antichrist is to come, is as categorical a heading to a chapter of history, as that Nero or Julian was Emperor of Rome; that a divine influence moves the will, is a subject of thought not more mysterious than the result of volition on our muscles, which we admit ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... objectively as possible, avoiding metaphysical cobwebs and giving the ego and non-ego a wide berth. I shall content myself in most cases with merely pointing out the doctrine apparently preached by Goethe (reminding you now and then that even his own seemingly categorical dogmas were to him merely temporary forms of thought) and shall prefer to let much justify its existence as an integral part of the living whole rather than to expel the life by dissection and to examine the dead parts through the spectacles ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... the galleons, nor destroyed the Spanish fleet. Nor have they enslaved Portugal, nor you made a triumphant entry into Naples. My dear sir, you see how lucky you were not to go thither; you don't envy Sir James Grey, do you? Pray don't make any categorical demands to Marshal Botta,[1] and be obliged to retire to Leghorn, because they are not answered. We want allies; preserve us our friend the Great Duke of Tuscany. I like your answer to Botta exceedingly, but I fear the Court of Vienna is shame-proof. The Apostolic ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... sense and the more rigid principles enacted into the spoken and printed law, but they have also become closely connected with religion and theological elements. Especially is this true in the ethics of barbarous and savage peoples, who accredit the "categorical imperative" to some supernatural power, as we are to see in a later section. The one point that comes out clearly is that the systems of conduct and duties have evolved so as to be very different among various races, and that in the history ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... 1866 with the fourth edition. This was the most categorical claim to the theory of descent with modification in the "Origin of Species." The "my" here is the only one that was taken out before 1869. I suppose Mr. Darwin thought that with the removal of this "my" he had ceased to claim the theory of descent with modification. ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... 1917, the Neue Freie Presse acknowledged that Austria provoked the war with the intention of crushing Serbia. It is a formal and categorical confession. And it obliges us to consider seriously the thesis put forward by Jules Chopin in Le Complot de Sarajevo (Paris, 1918), according to which the plot was hatched at Konopi[vs]t[ve] between the German Kaiser and the man to whom the plot ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... brave, and I do not care for dogs. Besides, I do not often walk so far as this; but I felt the valley stifling to-day," answered Leam, in her matter-of-fact, categorical way. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... to judge of what weight and quality those dreadful events were which Klingraafe's memorial announced; and to perceive that, in any case, they could not be imputed to her imperial majesty. This answer, though seemingly explicit, was not deemed sufficiently categorical, or, at least, not suitable to the purposes of the king of Prussia, who, by his resident at Vienna, once more declared, that if the empress-queen would sign a positive assurance that she would not attack his Prussian majesty, either ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Stokes for having said, at Barnard College, that the present government would probably be overturned by the ballot. In answer to this, the Federation's organ said, "Mrs. Stokes is a woman of intelligence and doubtless knows that States are not overturned by ballots." Here is a categorical denial on the part of an organ representing the most powerful privileged element in the country, of the possibility of peaceful political revolution, which can only mean that if a majority desires such a peaceful revolutionary change, the minority now in power will use violence to prevent it. An ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... very well from us. Poll is a stupid slut; I had some hopes of her at first; but when I talked to her tightly and closely, I could make nothing of her; she was wiggle waggle, and I could never persuade her to be categorical." ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Russia a separate peace, and three days later the Foreign Minister, Pokrovsky, visited the Duma and announced that Russia would reject the offer. The Duma immediately passed a resolution declaring that "the Duma unanimously favors a categorical refusal by the Allied governments to enter, under present conditions, into any peace negotiations whatever." On the 19th a similar resolution was adopted by the Imperial Council, which continued ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... book is to be sought in the point of view of the writer rather than in a sequence of chapters developing a single theme and arriving at categorical conclusions. Literature in a civilization like ours, which is trying to be both sophisticated and democratic at the same moment of time, has so many sources and so many manifestations, is so much involved with our social background, and is so ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... stands by the historical manifestations of its freely elected representatives, firmly convinced of the ultimate success of its highest ideals of full independence and liberty. Our silenced and oppressed nation has no other answer to all attempts at a change of the constitution than a cool and categorical refusal, because we know that these attempts are nothing except products of an ever-increasing strain, helplessness and ruin. We do not believe to-day in any more promises given and not kept, for experience has taught us to judge them on their merits. The most far-reaching ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... be absolutely impossible to collect upon the inhospitable shores of the Red Sea an army sufficiently large to meet the Negus. In fact, this was almost categorically the collective demand of the three Powers which reached Eden Vale the same day. As categorical, however, was the rejection of the proposal, accompanied by the declaration that the Eden Vale government intended to carry on alone the war with Abyssinia which now seemed inevitable. Moreover, the allies were told that their ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... of all this, following the Palestinian Exemplar, he had from accurate copies furnished his own work with the Twelve Verses in dispute;—which is a categorical refutation of the statement frequently met with that the work of Victor ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... or lost my spectacles. Now, in this twilight, with the very poor eyesight that years of labor have left me, it will be absolutely impossible for me to read this most important letter—and an immediate answer is expected—most simple and categorical—a yes or a no. Times presses; it is really most annoying. If," added Rodin, laying great stress on his words, without looking at Djalma, but so as the prince might remark it; "if only some one would render me the service to read it for me; ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... am the very model of a modern Major-General, I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical; I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical, About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news, With many cheerful facts about the ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... without venturing, however, to make a categorical statement, that the perforated apex is a chimney to admit the air required for breathing. Every pupa breathes in its shell, however compact this may be, even as the unhatched bird breathes inside the egg. The thousands of pores with which the shell is pierced allow the ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... What will you do, if this emergency arises (provoking most likely an European war), and which will arise very probably when we shall be at Balmoral and Lord John in another part of Scotland? The Queen expects from your foresight that you have contemplated this possibility, and requires a categorical answer as to what you would do in the event supposed." Strangely enough, to this pointblank question, the Foreign Secretary appeared to be unable to reply. The whole matter, he said, was extremely complicated, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... demand more than your training gives you a right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question; we must patiently help the child to state the facts and to see the values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the events into the light of larger areas of time and circles ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... insoluble riddle to Leigh's mind. On the contrary, he had met his type before and knew it well; but with Miss Wycliffe the case was different. He recognized now the reason of Cardington's inability to describe her, for a categorical account of her features, or of what is commonly called her "good points," would have left the essential quality untouched. Yet this quality was the woman herself, and had fired Leigh's blood with a fever of longing that made him reckless of his judgment. In ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... which we are engaged, I thank you. I thank you, sir, in the name of the Watertoast Sympathisers; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the Watertoast Gazette; and I thank you, sir, in the name of the star-spangled banner of the Great United States, for your eloquent and categorical exposition. And if, sir,' said the speaker, poking Martin with the handle of his umbrella to bespeak his attention, for he was listening to a whisper from Mark; 'if, sir, in such a place, and at such a time, I might venture to con-clude ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... encouraged by the reflection, that if his opposition should prevail, it would embark in it a very respectable proportion of the legislative body, whose influence would be united with his in supporting the propriety of his conduct in the public opinion. A direct and categorical negative has something in the appearance of it more harsh, and more apt to irritate, than the mere suggestion of argumentative objections to be approved or disapproved by those to whom they are addressed. In proportion as it would be less apt to offend, it would be more apt to be exercised; ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Hitherto it meant little more than the consciousness of the individual moving along the line of least resistance. The effort to move in such a direction is generally pleasurable; and when it tends to become painful the individual gives up the effort. The highest norms were not present with a categorical affirmation of their reality and value. But when they are present, the will is turned from the direction of ordinary life and its ease to the conception of the meaning and value of the highest norms. Something, appearing as of intrinsic value, now makes itself felt, and stirs the whole nature. ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... When the Dollar dictates shall mere patriots kick? Our hills and our forests? If Oil-kings appear, And want them—for cash—as preserves for their deer. Down, down with mere pride—so they're down with the dust! Mammon's word is the great categorical Must! The Dollar's Almighty, the Millionnaire's King! Sell, sell anyone who'll bid high—anything. What offers for—London? Who bids for—the Thames? Cracks go, Cliveden follows. What Briton condemns? Cash rules. For ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 20, 1893 • Various
... my good Brigitte," returned Thuillier. "We mustn't do anything hastily. Certainly, if la Peyrade cannot furnish a justification, clear, categorical, and convincing, I shall decide to break with him, and I'll prove to you that I am no milksop. But Cerizet himself is not certain; these are mere inductions, and I only came to consult you as to whether I ought, or ought not, to demand an ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... life, we see that they occupy a place midway between the artificially exaggerated position they once held and that to which they were degraded by the inevitable reaction of total indifference or actual hostility which followed. Asceticism and chastity are not rigid categorical imperatives; they are useful means to desirable ends; they are wise and beautiful arts. They demand our estimation, but not our over-estimation. For in over-estimating them, it is too often forgotten, we over-estimate the sexual instinct. The instinct of ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the harmony of Shelley's circle; but it is possible that there were deeper reasons for the abrupt departure which he made from York with his wife and her sister in November, 1811. One of his biographers asserts with categorical precision that Shelley had good cause to resent Hogg's undue familiarity with Harriet, and refers to a curious composition, published by Hogg as a continuation of Goethe's "Werther", but believed by Mr. McCarthy to have been a letter from the poet to his friend, in confirmation of his opinion. ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... same house today, and I have pledged myself to give him a categorical reply at that time, and to ensure its publication by some ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... describe correctly the natural course and logical evolution of myth. Even with respect to the special evolution of myth in a separate people, unmixed with others, while it is normal in what may be termed its general form and categorical phases, yet like all natural objects and phenomena, and much more in all which concerns the human mind, there are variations in its forms, and it attains its ends by ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... a large proportion of the Assistant Inquisitors were inclined to jib at the word "responsible"; but the young Captain insisted upon each man giving a categorical reply to the question; and in the end, stimulated further by the stern looks of the Grand Inquisitor, they all ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... is Pure Being under another name; whatever it is, our acquaintance with it is not knowledge of it, since whatever we can find out about it is based on the Criticism exercised by Pure Reason and not on experience; and the information which Pure Reason gives us about the soul is not categorical but antinomial; and by the time medicine gets into these transcendental regions, consciously or unconsciously, it ceases to be of much practical use in curing 'pernicious anaemia' or any ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... found wanting on his own showing: for if that critical portal of pure reason had indeed been sufficient, as it gave itself out to be, for all the purposes of a human philosophy, what need was there of the "practical back-door" which, at the categorical command of conscience, was afterwards laid open to all men in the "Metaphysic of Ethics?" As little will you allow your philosophical need to be satisfied with any thing you can get from SCHELLING; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... score; but joked upon the behaviour of his lordship, who, though jealous of most people, had left him alone with me in my bedchamber, observing, that he must neither have great confidence in his virtue, or a very bad opinion of him otherwise. In short, I found means to defer the categorical answer till next day, and invited the duke and his lordship to dine with me to-morrow. My wise yoke-fellow seemed to doubt the sincerity of this invitation, and was very much disposed to keep possession ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... care he built up the case against the accused man, classifying the points of evidence against him in categorical order for the benefit of the jury. The most important witness for the prosecution was a man known as James Hill, who had been in Sir Horace Fewbanks's employ as a butler. Hill's connection with the prisoner was in some aspects ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... Yes, no.—Although not may be considered to be an adverb, nor a conjunction, and none a noun, these two words, the direct categorical affirmative, and the direct categorical negative, are referable to none of the current parts of speech. Accurate grammar places them ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... this omission, and again demanding from him a distinct and categorical answer, he, after a brief consultation with his people, replied that his talk was made and concluded, and he did not comprehend why it was that I wanted to open the subject anew. But, as I continued to press him for an answer, he at length said, "You come into our country and select a small ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... is not unnatural that some thoughtful intuitionists, dissatisfied with a considerable number of independent moral principles, should aim at a further simplification. Such a simplification Kant finds in the Categorical Imperative, or unconditional command of the Practical Reason: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." [Footnote: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Sec 2.] And Henry Sidgwick, refusing to regard ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... Maury, of the French Academy, proposed to unite himself to Bailly, and that they should reside at Versailles, and have an apartment in common between them. It is difficult to avoid a smile when one compares the conduct of the eloquent and impetuous Abbe with the categorical declarations, so distinct and so ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... prohibit the trade in intoxicating liquors, and to exclude the canteen from the army. But in the latest years, in these last very few years indeed, the forces of this category have devoted a large proportion of their "categorical imperative" to labor conditions and the ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... with a glance the abysses of a thousand existences; for the young it is to desire all, and to possess all; for the old it is to live the life of the youthful, and to share their passions. Now how many answers have not the sauntering artists heard to the categorical question ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... language which has given humanity so many glorious pages, which has but now, thanks to the humanists, added a new page, is it destined in very truth to be born anew, and become once more the language of the national culture of the whole of the Jewish people? It would be rash to reply with a categorical affirmative. ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... grow more and more bewildered. Your observations are wholly incomprehensible to me. Cannot you simplify them in some way? At first I thought perhaps I understood you, but I grope now. Would it not expedite matters if you restricted yourself to categorical statements of fact unencumbered with obstructing accumulations of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Minister at Vienna, as already stated, succeeded in submitting this most reasonable request verbally to the Acting Foreign Minister, who simply said that he would submit it to Count Berchtold, but that he could predict with assurance a categorical refusal. Later on that day (July 25) Russia was definitely advised that no time extension would ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... after this decision, "his lordship said [to the United States Minister] that the policy of the Government was to adhere to a strict neutrality and to leave this struggle to settle itself." When Mr. Adams, not satisfied even with this positive assurance, pressed for a categorical answer: "I asked him if I was to understand that policy as not now to be ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... opportunity to work as a social right. Proudhon carried Etienne Cadet's "Icarian" theories so far that in his famous book, "What is Property?" after describing the conditions under which property is held according to the Napoleonic Code, he delivered the categorical dictum, "If this be property, then property is theft." Other popular books of the day were Eugene Sue's "The Mysteries of Paris," "Le Morne au Diable," and Georges Sand's famous novel "Consuelo." ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the difficulties involved in attempting to state in categorical terms the cost of wool production and the great differences in cost as between different regions and different types of wool. It is found, however, that, taking all varieties in account, the average cost of production for the whole ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... impossibility of arriving there in time, I have telegraphed him our proposal to extend the delay of the ultimatum, and I have repeated it verbally to Baron Macchio. This latter promised me to communicate it in time to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but added that he could predict with assurance a categorical refusal.[18] ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... there is no difficulty; it is admitted to be direct and immediate. The problem, therefore, exclusively regards the intuitive perception of the qualities of matter. Now, says Hamilton, "if we interrogate consciousness concerning the point in question, the response is categorical and clear. In the simplest act of perception I am conscious of myself as a perceiving subject, and of an external reality as the object perceived; and I am conscious of both existences in the same indivisible amount of intuition."[288] Again he says, "I have frequently asserted ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... criterion of the power of a religion is its ability to command this sacrifice; the criterion of the excellence of a religion is the extent to which its commands coincide with the good of the race, with the lofty standard of the "categorical imperative." ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... in single phrases lost in empty gossip. He collected what he wanted grain by grain from bushels of chaff. The whole sum of his new knowledge could have been expressed in a paragraph, took him a week to get, but was just what he wanted. If he had asked categorical questions, he would have received lies. If he had attempted to hurry matters, he would ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... assertion "Either (1) or (3) is true" is equivalent to "Some xy are not-z"; and the assertion "(4) is true" is equivalent to "No xy exist." Hence the Contradictory to "All xy are z" may be expressed as the Alternative Proposition "Either some xy are not-z, or no xy exist," but not as the Categorical Proposition "Some y ...
— Symbolic Logic • Lewis Carroll
... Porphyry, and the whole of Aristotle's Organon. He wrote a double commentary on the [Greek: Eisagogae] and commentaries on the Categories and the De Interpretatione of Aristotle, and on the Topica of Cicero. He also composed original treatises on the categorical and hypothetical syllogism, on Division and on Topical Differences. He adapted the arithmetic of Nicomachus, and his textbook on music, founded on various Greek authorities, was in use at Oxford and Cambridge until modern times. His five theological ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... be displayed on the balcony of the French embassy by a staff-officer, the ambassador consents to remain in Vienna. Let Baron Thugut remember that these are precious moments, and that he owes the ambassador an immediate and categorical reply to his inquiries." [Footnote: "Memoires d'un Homme d'Etat," ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... pedal on the tonic in the choruses, "The Church is built," and "Awake, thou that sleepest." On these considerations it may become intelligible that to some hearers Mr. Paine's cadences have seemed unsatisfactory, their ears having missed the positive categorical assertion of finality which the 6/4 cadence alone can give. To go further into this subject would take us far ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... halted her pony on the crest of a slight rise and swept the desolate and slumberous world with an anxious glance. Quite the most appalling of these thoughts developed from a realization of the fact that she had lost the trail. The whole categorical array of inconveniences incidental to traveling in a new, unsettled country paled into insignificance when she considered this horrifying and entirely unromantic fact. She was lost; she had strayed from the trail, she was alone ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... been great; he could not understand these dilatory measures, these expressions of affection which never led to a categorical approbation. It seemed to him that he had said all that he had to say. For new arguments he had ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... intention, I see." The premier smiled. He picked up a long, thin ivory paper-knife and softly patted the palm of his hand with it. "We have had many discussions, you and I, Westerling," he said. "But to-night I'm going to ask categorical questions. They may take us over old ground, but they are the questions of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... away from my immediate purpose. I did not intend to compare Shakespeare with the ancients, much less to justify his defects by theirs. Shakespeare himself has left us a pregnant satire on dogmatical and categorical aesthetics (which commonly in discussion soon lose their ceremonious tails and are reduced to the internecine dog and cat of their bald first syllables) in the cloud-scene between Hamlet and Polonius, suggesting exquisitely ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Francis was equally adverse to Talleyrand's elaborate scheme of a realm eastern in fact as in name, stretching away down the Danube valley to the Euxine, a buffer against Russian aggression, a menace or a support to Turkey as occasion required. It was therefore a categorical imperative which determined the Emperor of the French to woo the Emperor of all the Russias at this juncture. When a proposition for an armistice was made by Bennigsen on June twenty-first, it was not only courteously but impressively ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Alliance, of Kaunitz Anti-jacobin Despatch, of French Ambassadors cast out, and so forth, were long to note. Dumouriez corresponds with Kaunitz, Metternich, or Cobentzel, in another style that Delessarts did. Strict becomes stricter; categorical answer, as to this Coblentz work and much else, shall be given. Failing which? Failing which, on the 20th day of April 1792, King and Ministers step over to the Salle de Manege; promulgate how ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... appointment of Bellomont, than it addressed itself resolutely to the seemingly hopeless task of forcing Dr. Mather to settle in Cambridge or resign his office. On the 10th of July, 1700, they voted him two hundred and twenty pounds a year, and they appointed a committee to obtain from him a categorical answer. This time he thought it prudent to feign compliance; and after a "suitable place... for the reception and entertainment of the president" had been prepared at the public expense, he moved out of town and stayed till the 17th of ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... the so-called spurious books; had he written them or not? He said that they were all genuine: so I now knew what to think of the critics Zenodotus and Aristarchus and all their lucubrations. Having got a categorical answer on that point, I tried him next on his reason for starting the "Iliad" with the wrath of Achilles. He said he had no exquisite reason; it just came into his ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... and go-between, he declared that the police had allowed him to flee from France, much preferring to spend its time in shadowing Socialist deputies. Then, hammering the tribune with his fist, he summoned Barroux to give a categorical denial to the charges brought against him, and to make it absolutely clear that he had never received a single copper of the two hundred thousand francs specified in Hunter's list. Forthwith certain members shouted to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... nature loves collusiveness: nothing short of the categorical will satisfy us! What I said to Mr. Purdy evidently appeased him, for he seized my hand ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... common in Scripture, 'Thou hast said it.' It is an answer often adopted by our Saviour; and the meaning we hold to be this: Many forms in eastern idioms, as well as in the Greek occasionally, though meant interrogatively, are of a nature to convey a direct categorical affirmation, unless as their meaning is modified by the cadence and intonation. Art thou, detached from this vocal and accentual modification, is equivalent to thou art. Nay, even apart from this accident, the popular ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... and the king, and to noble ladies and inoffensive pilgrims. It is one of a list of many questions which, my vow accomplished, I will not fail to put to him; ay, and expecting an answer, as they say, prompt and categorical." ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... serious, but made no categorical reply. They glanced at the wrecked pantry window, and they looked with more intentness at the long sliding footprints which led away, down the half-bare sand-slope. Then ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... Modern German Emperor, Omniscient and omnipotent, I ne'er give way to temper, or If now and then I run a-muck in a Malay-like fashion, As there's method in my madness, so there's purpose in my passion. 'Tis my aim to manage everything in order categorical— My fame as Cosmos-maker I intend shall be historical. I know they call me Paul Pry, say I'm fussy and pragmatical— But that's because sheer moonshine always hates the mathematical. I'm not content to "play the King" with an imperial pose in it— Whatever is ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, January 30, 1892 • Various
... and assisted her in averting the evils of which he now complained, instead of absenting himself from the Court on the pretext of disapproving the proposed alliance with Spain, to which he had previously affixed his consent and signature. To each of his other objections he received an equally categorical reply; and the document terminated by an expression of her conviction that his offer to effect a reform in the state by pacific means rather than have recourse to force was desirable indeed, but little to be ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... interview, when, so it had seemed to him, Wilhelmine had avoided a categorical denial of his accusation regarding her liaison with Captain Brocq, the frantic lover had flown to Juve and had poured out his ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... had implored Horatio "at vogte paa minutterne inat" (to watch over the minutes this night)? Again, in the King's speech to Hamlet (Act I, Sc. 2) the phrase "bend you to remain" is rendered by the categorical "se til at bli herhjemme," which is at least misleading. Little inaccuracies of this sort ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... base our hope and our certitude with regard to the future of woman. Our conviction as to the plenitude of her powers for the adequate performance of lofty labours in these new fields, springs not at all from a categorical enumeration of the attainments or performances of individual women or bodies of women in the past or ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... intercession would avail aught with the old autocrat. But he had not yet ventured upon this. There was nothing certain about Mrs. Mivane but her uncertainty. She never gave a positive opinion. Her attitude of mind was only to be divined by inference. She never gave a categorical answer. And indeed he would not have been encouraged to learn that Richard Mivane himself had already consulted his daughter-in-law, as in this highhanded evasion of any decision he felt the need of support. For ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... supernatural occurrence, which necessarily implies a supernatural agent to bring it about, is impossible, and the entire controversy as to whether miracles have ever been actually performed is a foregone conclusion. Modern Atheism, while it does not venture in categorical terms to affirm that no God exists, definitely asserts that there is no evidence that there is one. It follows that, if there is no evidence that there is a God, there can be no evidence that a miracle ever has been performed, for the ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... lives. We were, indeed, fully aware, from a very early age, of his feelings, and could not but be continuously conscious that we were under the eye of a father governed by the loftiest and purest motives, and devoting himself without stint to what he regarded as his duty. He was a living 'categorical imperative.' 'Did you ever know your father do a thing because it was pleasant?' was a question put to my brother, when he was a small boy, by his mother. She has apparently recorded it for the ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... is the value of categorical assertions of this kind in presence of the fragments of pottery found at different levels in Kent's Hole? One of these fragments was so rotten that when placed in water it formed a black ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... day the question who is the chief discoverer of the law of the conservation of energy is not susceptible of a categorical answer that would satisfy all philosophers. It is generally held that the first choice lies between Joule and Mayer. Professor Tyndall has expressed the belief that in future each of these men will be equally remembered in connection with this work. But history gives us ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... knowledge of French and Italian literature too; but the philosophy of Kant and the writings of Goethe and Schiller roused him to greater enthusiasm. From Kant he learnt that the guiding principle of conduct was not happiness, but the 'categorical imperative' of duty; from Goethe he drew such hopefulness as gleams occasionally through his despondent utterances on the progress of the human race. He translated Goethe's novel, Wilhelm Meister, in 1823, and followed it up with the Life of Schiller. There was no considerable ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... wanted was to show them the means by which their ends could be reached." ("English literature and society in the eighteenth century", London, 1904, page 187.) And Kant supposed that every man would find the "categorical imperative" in his consciousness, when he came to sober reflexion, and that all would have the same qualifications to follow it. But if continual variations, great or small, are going on in human nature, it is the duty of ethics to make allowance for ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Leibnitz's qualifying praeter ipsum intellectum, and in the same sense, in which the position was understood by Hartley and Condillac: and then what Hume had demonstratively deduced from this concession concerning cause and effect, will apply with equal and crushing force to all the other eleven categorical forms [27], and the logical functions corresponding to them. How can we make bricks without straw;—or build without cement? We learn all things indeed by occasion of experience; but the very facts so learned force us inward on the antecedents, that must ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... had struggled for several days with all the energy of an independent artist, and which for some time systematized his celibacy, again oppressed him. He thought it time to put between "folly" and him the irreparability of his categorical resolution. So he replied to his little friend with his habitual gentleness, but in a tone of firmness, which ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... From this categorical response I ought to have concluded that the misfortune had been consummated, but a certain hesitation in the intonation of his voice warned me that implicit reliance was not to be ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... light Then you proceed to invert the mind, so as to relieve it of all its contents; look steadily into the empty vessel, as if it were a well; and at the bottom you will find Truth in the form of a categorical imperative. Or, if you don't like that, there's the method of Fichte. You take an Ego, by preference yourself; convert it into a proposition; negate it, affirm it, negate it again, and so on ad infinitum, until you get out the whole Universe in the ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... certain conditions, to announce to Mrs. Prettyman her coming ejection from the cottage at Wittisham, was unprofessional enough, as he himself felt; but it was final and categorical. Conveying as it did a sort of tacit remonstrance, this refusal had an unfortunate effect, for it only served to rouse Mrs. de Tracy's formidable obstinacy. She had seized upon one point only in their numberless and wearisome discussions of the matter: Mrs. Prettyman had no legal claim upon Stoke ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... He was giving categorical answers to a few of the multitude of questions to which Mr. Birnes had been seeking answers. The tense expression about Mr. Czenki's eyes was dissipated, and ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... in the public mind as to whether there really are dark cells in the Atlanta Penitentiary, or, if there be, whether their use has not been long discontinued. I never heard any categorical statement in denial of it from any of the officials, though I have read something to that effect in local newspapers. Visitors never see them, and I know of no prison inspectors who have done so; they are shown instead the light cells ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne |
