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noun
Premise  n.  (pl. premises)  (Written also, less properly, premiss)  
1.
A proposition antecedently supposed or proved; something previously stated or assumed as the basis of further argument; a condition; a supposition. "The premises observed, Thy will by my performance shall be served."
2.
(Logic) Either of the first two propositions of a syllogism, from which the conclusion is drawn. Note: "All sinners deserve punishment: A B is a sinner." These propositions, which are the premises, being true or admitted, the conclusion follows, that A B deserves punishment. "While the premises stand firm, it is impossible to shake the conclusion."
3.
pl. (Law) Matters previously stated or set forth; esp., that part in the beginning of a deed, the office of which is to express the grantor and grantee, and the land or thing granted or conveyed, and all that precedes the habendum; the thing demised or granted.
4.
pl. A piece of real estate; a building and its adjuncts; as, to lease premises; to trespass on another's premises.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Premise" Quotes from Famous Books



... us premise, is a long Hamlet of the usual littery sort; with two rows, in some parts three, of farm-houses, barns, cattle-stalls; with Church, or even with two Churches, a Protestant and a Catholic; goes from east to west above a mile ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... indictment. Their principle is impregnable. Forgiveness is a divine prerogative, to be shared by none, to be grasped by none, without, in the act, diminishing God's glory. But it is not enough to have one premise of your syllogism right. Only God forgives sins; and if this man says that He does, He, no doubt, claims to be, in some sense, God. But whether He 'blasphemeth' or no depends on what the scribes do not stay to ask; namely, whether He has the right ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... Barnabas's premise was of doubtful validity, as theRev. Mr. Maitland pointed out, in a pamphlet impugning the conclusions of the Tract. 'The simple fact is,' he wrote, 'that when Abraham pursued Chedorlaomer "he armed ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... "We will premise that she is thirty-three," confidently began the musician, "or even thirty-five. When I was a young fool at Warsaw, eighteen years old," he babbled. "I was the local prodigy. My first essays in public were, of course, concerts, and I was soon the vogue. And, later, asked as an artistic ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... or introductory narrative of the youthful adventures which laid the foundation of the writer's habit of opium-eating in after-life, it has been judged proper to premise, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... however say, that it will only thrive in the shade. We halted after gathering a crop of leaves under a fine Dillenia, which was loaded with its fruit. Here the Singfos demonstrated the mode in which the tea is prepared among them. I must premise, however, that they use none but young leaves. They roasted or rather semi-roasted the leaves in a large iron vessel, which must be quite clean, stirring them up and rolling them in the hands during the roasting. When duly roasted, they expose ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... as well premise, however, that it does not seem to me worth while to enter here at any length into Swedenborg's descriptions of the inhabitants of other worlds, because what he has to say on this subject is entirely imaginative. There is a real interest for us in his ideas respecting the condition ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... and independent address made to the shah during his European tour was, we think, the speech of welcome delivered by the president of the Swiss Confederation. We may premise that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century. Still, the Swiss people did not show themselves overcome, but received their guest with a sober and dignified cordiality—a sail, a dinner ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... was quite clear, from the circumstances we are about to relate, that the red miscreant had intended to rob Folliard's house on the night of his attack upon it, in addition to the violent abduction of his daughter. We must premise here that Reilly and the Rapparee were each strongly guarded in different rooms, and the first thing the latter did was to get some one to inform Mr. Folliard that he had a matter of importance concerning Reilly to mention to him. This was immediately ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... points a little, and I will premise by saying that I have spoken to no one on the subject, and have not even seen Mr. Ewing, Mr. Stanbery, or General Grant, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... De'crease decrease' | Per'fume perfume' At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| Dis'cord discord' | Pres'ent present' Col'lect collect' | Dis'count discount' | Prod'uce produce' Com'ment comment' | Ef'flux efflux' | Proj'ect project' Com'pact compact' | Es'cort escort' | Prot'est ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... not amiss to premise, for the sake of such as may apprehend Hurt to the Morals of Youth from the more freely-written Letters, That the Gentlemen, tho' professed Libertines as to the Fair Sex, and making it one of their wicked ...
— Clarissa: Preface, Hints of Prefaces, and Postscript • Samuel Richardson

... black turf and streaking its sombre surface with stripes of green, we found ourselves on the table-land of the moor—a broad, bare level, garnished with a few black huts, and patches of scanty oats, won by patient industry from the waste. We should premise, however, that there are some fine glimpses of rude mountain scenery in the course of the ascent. The immediate vicinage of Culloden House is well wooded; the Frith spreads finely in front; the Ross-shire hills assume ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... student of the thirteenth century—struggling painfully against difficulties, eager and hot after knowledge, wasting eyesight and stinting sleep, subtle, inquisitive, active-minded and sanguine, but omnivorous, overflowing with dialectical forms, loose in premise and ostentatiously rigid in syllogism, fettered by the refinements of half-awakened taste and the mannerisms ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... was customary to let the residences by the year. There was nothing like trying, however, and, ordering dinner to be ready against our return, we took a carriage and drove along the lake-shore as far as Clarens, so renowned in the pages of Rousseau. I ought, however, to premise that I would not budge a foot, until the woman assured me, over and over, that the little antiquated edifice, under the mountain, which had actually been a sort of chateau, was not at all habitable for a genteel family, but had degenerated to a mere coarse farm-house, which, in this country, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper

... its results before our readers, in the hope—founded more upon the nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence in our own descriptive powers—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of interest. We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found at length in numerous reports of numerous committees, and a variety of authorities of equal weight. We took no notes, made no memoranda, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... subject, than to communicate those particular measures, which, according to my own experience, I have found most effectual. I will conclude the paper by the relation of a case, in which a strong predisposition to the disease was successfully counteracted. It will be proper, however, to premise, that the treatment of this case is by no means held out as an example to be generally followed with every infant, which may possibly become the subject of cholera. It is applicable in all its details only to those, in which, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... interested to hear that I have talked with the brains and been relieved of my premise to destroy them. They requested something else. Now I have committed myself to attempt their restoration into ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... all along was the premise that there is a God and the presupposition of that whole element in life which we call the spiritual. As he pushed his studies into the fields of physiology and psychology, this premised realm of the ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg

... more than I can divorce music from the instrument. These vague and incomplete definitions have had much to do with the unbelief in the world. Tom Paine wrote a book which he called the 'Age of Reason' on the premise that reason does away with God. ...
— Dorian • Nephi Anderson

... hand some letters which were visible in 1694 have now apparently perished. A rubbing sent me by the late Rev. A. Warren of Old Appleby helped further; I now give from the three sources—Gough's copy, the photograph, and the rubbing—what I hope may be a fairly accurate text. I premise that the letters RCO in line 2, LIPPO in 3, PHILIPPO in 8, IMO in 9, and I in 10 seem to be no longer visible but depend on ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield

... had sold his cattle. El Paso is (was) the Monte Carlo of America. Therefore—The syllogism may he imperfectly stated, but the conclusion is sound. Perhaps there is a premise suppressed or ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... I must premise Our ministers are good and wise: Therefore if tongues malicious fly, Or what care ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... to. Now, remembering that I don't consider your premise valid, just suppose that when we visit some planet some day, you get your mind burned out and I don't—solely because I had something I could have given you ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... SIR,—Many thanks for your interesting and kind letter in which you do me the honour to ask my opinion respecting the pedigree of your island goblin, le feu follet Belenger; that opinion I cheerfully give with a premise that it is only an opinion; in hunting for the etymons of these fairy names we can scarcely expect to arrive ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary to premise the four following maximis with regard to taxes ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... in armed rebellion, repudiating the use of his name and deprecating the resort to violence. The closing words are a compendium of his life and beliefs: "Countrymen: I have given proofs, as well as the best of you, of desiring liberty for our country, and I continue to desire it. But I place as a premise the education of the people, so that by means of instruction and work they may have a personality of their own and that they may make themselves worthy of that same liberty. In my writings I have recommended the study of the civic ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... crime has been committed the magistrate who investigates the case knows [excepting in the case of a released convict who commits murder in jail] that there are not more than five persons to whom he can attribute the act. He starts from this premise a series of conjectures. The husband should reason like the judge; there are only three people in society whom he can suspect when seeking ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac

... and as his account exactly tallies with the one Miss Isabel Smith (now Mrs Finch) has kindly written out for me for insertion in this volume, I will quote the latter from her own words. I must premise that Miss Smith turned out to be naturally clairvoyant and clair-audient, rather to the disgust of my brother, who considered himself superior to these "superstitions." Her narrative is interesting not only in itself, ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates

... conditions. It is necessary to recognize worth as well as to condemn graft. No system of government can stand that lacks public confidence and no progress can be made on the assumption of a false premise. Public administration is honest and sound and public business is transacted on a higher plane than ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge

... diminish repetition, be considered once for all; and in considering them we shall also be able to observe characteristic differences among the four plays. And to this may be added the little that it seems necessary to premise on the position of these ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... logical basis of organization of thought, according to which some most fundamental idea is taken as the beginning of a system, or the premise, and other ideas are evolved from this first principle. Rousseau attempted to develop his educational doctrine in this way, starting with the assertion that everything was good as it came from the Creator, but that everything degenerated ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry

... The defender must premise, by observing, that the crime of drunkenness consists not in a man's having been in that situation twice or thrice in his life, but in the constant and habitual practice of the vice; the distinction between ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... to review the contents of the fictitious folio, taking the precaution to premise his remarks and extracts with the statement that "it must not be surmised that all the poems in this Shadwell folio are purely local; quite a number treat of historical subjects." Of the poems in the first half of ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... the face of an assurance in the "Federalist" to the contrary, that an individual might sue a State; and though this decision was speedily disallowed by resentful debtor States by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment, its underlying premise that, "as to the purposes of the Union, the States are not sovereign" remained untouched; and three years later the Court affirmed the supremacy of national treaties over conflicting state laws and so established a precedent which has never been disturbed.** Meantime the ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... my duty and desire to do her full justice, and with this purpose in view, I propose to recite briefly the chief heads of her memoir, so far as it has been published up to date. I must, however, premise at the beginning that she does not come before us with one trace of the uncertainty of accent which might have been expected to characterise the newly-acquired language, not merely of Christian faith, but of its Roman dialect. We find her speaking ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... misunderstanding, however, I must premise that it is the historical method as frequently employed, and not the historical method as it ought to be, to which I offer my objections. My criticism is directed against the historical method, only when it assumes to be the exclusive ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... apt phraseology. To one who believes in the divinely intended equality of the sexes it is impossible to consider that any mutual relation is an incident for the one and the total of existence for the other. We may lay it down as a premise upon which to base our whole reasoning that all mutual relations of the sexes are not only divinely intended to, but actually do bring equal joys, pains, pleasures and sacrifices to both. Whatever mistake one has made has acted upon the other, and reacted equally ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... argue, not to reach new conclusions, and use their reason rather as a weapon of offence than as a tool for self-improvement. Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result, because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and traced the doctrine of absorption, it remains to investigate the justice of its grounds. The doctrine starts from a premise partly true and ends in a conclusion partly false. We emanate from the creative power of God, and are sustained by the in flowing presence of his life, but are not discerptions from his own being, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... vividness surpassing paint. He was as honest as the day—as honest as he was fearless and fussy. But he had no patience; he wanted things done and done at once, and his way was THE way to do them. People who did not think as he thought didn't THINK at all. On this drastic premise he went to work. There was of course continuous friction between him and the House of Burgesses. Dinwiddie had all a Scot's native talent for sarcasm. His letters, his addresses, perhaps in particular his addresses to the House, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... considerable material upon which to base a pretty fair argument along this line. Admitting that Don Pendleton was what she had been crying about,—a purely hypothetical assumption for the sake of a beginning,—she was able to start with the premise that a woman was a fool for crying about any man. Coming down to concrete facts, she found herself supplied with even less comforting excuses. If she had been living of late in a little fool's paradise, why, she had ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... now ascertained, I avail myself of the chance that another post may yet reach Havre, before the departure of the packet. This will depend on the wind, which has for some days been unfavorable. I must premise that this court, about ten days ago, declared, by their Charge des Affaires in Holland, that if the Prussian troops continued to menace Holland with an invasion, his Majesty was determined, in quality of ally, to succor ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... color leaped, he knew he had struck fire. All his conjectures as to how Sidney would take the knowledge of his entanglement with Carlotta had been founded on one major premise—that she loved him. The ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of the city which he called his home. For the rest, he was a large, mild, good-humored, pulpy individual, with a fixed delusion that the human organism can absorb a quart of alcoholic miscellany per day and be none the worse for it. The major premise of his proposition was perfectly correct. He proved it daily. The minor premise was an error. Bets were even in the Toledo clubs as to whether delirium tremens or paresis would win the event around young Mr. Hoff's kite-shaped race-track of ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... he doesn't like Harold or like you or like me?" Edward clearly found himself able to accept only the premise. ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... how Rios would reason things out. And, oddly enough, it strikes me that though he began with a false premise he has come pretty close to reaching the right conclusion. You see, he knows that I came down here with Barlow looking for treasure. He knew Captain Escobar was ahead of him on the same trail and when he could get nothing further out of Escobar he killed ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... constitution is inevitable, a bench of judges is the best tribunal to interpret its meaning, since the duty of the judge has ever been and is now to interpret the meaning of written instruments; but it does not follow from this premise that the judges who should exercise this office should be the judges who administer the municipal law. In point of fact experience has proved that, so far as Congress is concerned, the results of judicial interference have been negative. And it would be ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... asked Mrs. Cochran & Mrs. Livingston to dine with me to-morrow; but am I not in honor bound to apprize them of their fate? As I hate deception, even where the imagination only is concerned; I will. It is needless to premise, that my table is large enough to hold the ladies. Of this they had ocular proof yesterday. To say how it is usually covered, is rather more essential; and this shall be ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... is this more evident than in our thought of the meaning of knowledge. In the medieval age knowledge was spun as a spider spins his web. Thinking simply made evident what already was involved in an accepted proposition. A premise was drawn out into its filaments and then woven into a fabric of new form but of the same old material. Knowledge did not start from actual things; it did not intend to change actual things; and the shelves of the libraries groan with the burden of that endless ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... the most remarkable questions; but I must premise that K. means my Knave, namely, the rabbi, and C. the Candidates. [Footnote: Lest my reader might think that what follows is a malicious invention of my own to bring the Jews into disrepute, I shall ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... and secular institutions, have their birth and growth and inevitable decay. So Catholicism must take its course in the human circuit, and expect sooner or later to pass away. This would be the natural deduction to draw from the premise of evolution. Signor Fogazzaro, however, does not draw it. He conceives that Catholicism contains a final deposit of truth which can neither be ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... elements which are entitled to a reward. The Fourierists—as far as I have been able to learn from a few of their pamphlets—deny the right of occupancy, and recognize no basis of property save labor. Starting with a like premise, they would have seen—had they reasoned upon the matter—that capital is a source of production to its proprietor only by virtue of the right of occupancy, and that this production is therefore illegitimate. Indeed, if labor is ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... of acting as an art that a young person without previous experience or training can make an immediate (and sometimes lasting) effect upon the stage, whereas in the preparation for any other art (even the interpretative arts) years of training are necessary. This premise is full of holes; nevertheless George Moore, and Messrs. Nathan and Sherwin all cling to it. It is true that almost any young girl, moderately gifted with charm or comeliness, may make an instantaneous impression on our stage, especially in the namby-pamby roles which our playwrights usually ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... will be, with God's help," rejoined father confidently, his words making me resolve inwardly that I would try so that my life should not disgrace his assuring premise. ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... American seamen; but she did assert that her native-born subjects could never change their allegiance, that she had an inalienable right to their service, and to seize them wherever found, except within foreign territory. From an admitted premise, that the open sea is common to all nations, she deduced a common jurisdiction, in virtue of which she arrested her vagrant seamen. This argument of right was reinforced by a paramount necessity. In a life and death struggle with ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... likewise say a few words respecting my nature and my temperament, I premise that the most indulgent of my readers is not likely to be the most dishonest or the least gifted ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... "I must premise, however, that I have read nothing of Adolph Muellner's (the author of 'Guilt'), and much less of Goethe, and Schiller, and Wieland, than I could wish. I only know them through the medium of English, French, and Italian translations. Of the real language I know absolutely nothing,—except ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... logic of egoism. But the argument is simplified by lopping off the greater part of the premise. For these writers seem to hold that the only important question for the white men of South Africa is, how indefinitely to grow fat on ostrich feathers and diamond mines, and dance jazz dances over the misery and degradation of a whole race of fellow-beings of a different colour from their own. Possibly ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... books what a child is in human nature—"man in a small letter;" and such is Mrs. Watt's "New Year's Gift." To express all the kindly feelings which it must produce in a mind occupied as ours often is with graver matters—would be only to repeat what we said a fortnight since; and so without further premise, we will open this little casket of gems for the reader. We shall not string names together, but take a few of them. First, the "Sisters of Scio," a true story, by the author of "Constantinople in 1828," of two little Greek girls being saved from the Turks, by a good Christian. Next is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various

... to premise that the sewing machine of twenty years ago has almost faded away, save, perhaps, in general exterior appearance; that the bell crank arms, the heart cams, the weaver's shuttles, the spring "take ups," rectangular needle bars, and gear wheels, have developed into very different devices for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various

... premise of injustices to be righted, malcontents from the minorities of both factions were induced with fantastic ceremonials of initiation into the membership of the secret brotherhood. And though they were building an engine of menacing power and outlawry, it is probable that more than half of them ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... should now begin to recognize him as a freeman. Sir, I do not doubt that the negro race is inferior to our own. That is not the question. You do not advance an inch in the argument after you have proved that premise of your case. You must show that they are not only inferior, but that they are so ignorant and degraded that they can not be safely intrusted with the smallest conceivable part of political power and responsibility, and that this is the case not on the plantations of Alabama and Mississippi, but ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... life, that, though it may appear to lead to some degree of repetition, it would be highly improper to omit the mention of it in this place. That we may be the better understood, it may be proper to premise, that certain particular vices, and likewise that certain particular good and amiable qualities, seem naturally to belong to certain particular periods and conditions of life. Now, if we would reason fairly in estimating our moral character, we ought to examine ourselves with reference ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce

... inconsequent by mentioning that first which in point of time came last, we must premise that in our investigations with this Medium we early discovered the character of the writing to be twofold, and the difference between the two styles to be striking. In one case the communication ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... influence upon human conduct which M. Garofalo attributes to the religious sentiment. "Moral instruction has no meaning, or at least no efficacy, without a religious basis" (p. 267). And from this erroneous psychological premise, he draws the conclusion that it is necessary to return to religious instruction in the schools, "selecting the masters from among men of mature age, fathers of families or ministers of ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... his office, he had reviewed the situation point by point, and then gone back and reviewed it again; the conclusion was inescapable. The Organization had ordered him to make an accusation which he himself knew to be false; that was the first premise. The conclusion was that he would be killed as soon as he had made it. That was the trouble with being mixed up with that kind of people—you were expendable, and sooner or later, they would decide that they would have to expend you. And ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper

... 68 : 39* : 29 : 21 : 8. *(or 29, if the probably imported plants be subtracted.) If we now turn to the Flora, we shall find the aboriginal plants of the different islands wonderfully different. I give all the following results (Table 17/1) on the high authority of my friend Dr. J. Hooker. I may premise that I indiscriminately collected everything in flower on the different islands, and fortunately kept my collections separate. Too much confidence, however, must not be placed in the proportional results, as the small collections ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... premise firmly under our feet let us go on to the question of the intelligence of the physical tissues of the human body, and our relation to disease, health, ...
— Freedom Talks No. II • Julia Seton, M.D.

... tell her? A date, a place, a few details, which she could imagine all too clearly. Now that the first shock was over, she saw that there was every reason to premise a Mrs. Bast. Henry's inner life had long laid open to her—his intellectual confusion, his obtuseness to personal influence, his strong but furtive passions. Should she refuse him because his outer ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... the manner in which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one company ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne

... I may premise that about fourteen years ago, on our return from Egypt, via Constantinople, I and my companion, Mr. Charles Darbishire, were placed in quarantine at a station overlooking the Black Sea. Along with us we had a Russian ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood

... of moral philosophy will further suggest that to discuss the ethical merits of the war is to start with a false premise that such a thing as international morality exists, and that when once the conventionalities of civilization are laid aside the leading nations commence and make war in a manner that differs only in degree and not in kind from the methods of Frederick ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck

... premise a brief statement of how and where I get my new light on Shakspere. Speaking of the special English plays, my friend William ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... realm nearly all results may be calculated beforehand, on the ground of the principle of probability. Only one more assumption need be discussed. The several pairs of antagonistic characters must be independent from, and uninfluenced by, one another. This premise seems to hold good in the vast majority of cases, though rare exceptions seem to be not entirely wanting. Hence the necessity of taking all predictions from Mendel's law only as probabilities, which will prove true in most, but not necessarily ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries

... considerations make a strong case for the truth of Mr. Jones' representation of our 'standard English', and his book is the most trustworthy evidence at my disposal: but before exhibiting it I would premise that our present fashionable dialect is not to be considered as the wanton local creator of all the faults that Mr. Jones can parade before the eye. Its qualities have come together in various ways, nor are the leading characteristics of ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... was necessary to premise, in order to acquaint the reader with the situation of our heroine, and that of some other personages in this history. Having discharged this task, we will return to the point from ...
— Damon and Delia - A Tale • William Godwin

... that even the dialecticians do not think it necessary that any reasons should be given for it—"If that is the case, this is; but this is not; therefore that is not." And so, by denying your consequence, your premise is contradicted. What follows, then?—"All who are not wise are equally miserable; all wise men are perfectly happy: all actions done rightly are equal to one another; all offences are equal." But, though all these propositions at first appear ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... must premise that my worthy friend had a perfect horror of literature, even in its simplest stages. He regarded the art of printing as a Satanic invention, filling men's brains with idleness and conceit; and as to writing—in his opinion a man ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur

... permitted him to make no distinction. And his rage was based upon the premise that Lawler was guilty. Warden's thoughts grew abysmal as he stood at the window; and considerations of business became unimportant in his mind as the Satanic impulse seized him. He stood for a long time at the window, and when he finally seized hat and coat and went down ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... answers to your interrogatories, it may be well to premise, that at the time of commencing the experiment, he was forty-five years of age; and being an extensive cotton planter, his business was such as to make it necessary for him to undergo a great deal of exercise, particularly on foot, having, as he himself declares, to walk seldom ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... to argue it out on the way up-town, but with only indifferent success. Granted the premise that Richmond had actually stolen the "Red Duchess," what were his motives in multiplying copies of the picture, a proceeding that must infallibly end in the detection of his crime? And the supreme question—what had finally become of ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... not one full, strong, hard, the other soft, flabby, wrinkled, growing out of a knot at the hip. A whole psychological period apparently lay between that conclusion and—a broom-handle walking-stick; but the broomstick came, as it was bound to come,—thank heaven!—from that premise, and what with stretching one limb to make it longer, and doubling up the other to make it shorter, she invented that form of locomotion which is still carrying her through life, and with no more exaggerated leg-crookedness than many careless negroes born ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King

... to be said before this argument is completed. We started out with an unproven, though self-evident premise. Turn back to the very first paragraph in the book and you will find that the falsity of the pantheistic theory was assumed but not proved. Its falsity was assumed on grounds that have come to light ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant

... otherwise approve yourself what I think you, I promise that you shall not lack advancement. Plainly, I have a little matter of money put by, for sundry uses; and, if the day comes when something of capital would stead you (after due trial, as I premise), it shall be ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... the doctrine of complete anarchism has seemed too extreme for practical consideration, but it would seem that Tolstoy arrived at the logical conclusion of a system of non-resistance based on the premise that man should not combat evil, nor have any relationship whatever with human institutions which attempt to restrain men by means other than reliance upon the force ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin

... everybody has an equal right to happiness. It may be more correctly described as supposing that equal amounts of happiness are equally desirable, whether felt by the same or by different persons. This, however, is not a pre-supposition; not a premise needful to support the principle of utility, but the very principle itself; for what is the principle of utility, if it be not that 'happiness' and 'desirable' are synonymous terms? If there is any anterior principle implied, it can be no other than ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill

... interested are the women. The man who makes the highest appeal to a woman is he whose tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth and who does not know what to do with his hands in her presence. She must be a princess, he a slave. Each knows this premise is unsupported by facts, yet it is a joyous fiction while it lasts. James Trottingham Minton was not a whit bashful when with men. No. He called on Mr. Putnam at his office, and with the calmness of an agent collecting rent, asked him for the hand ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... question; since existence has to be proved identical with thought. Certainly, if Descartes had intended to prove his own existence by reasoning, he would have been guilty of the petitio principii Gassendi attributes to him, viz., that the major premise, "that which thinks exists," is assumed, not proved. But he did not intend this. What was his object? He has told us that it was to find a starting-point from which to reason—to find an irreversible certainty. And where did he find this? In his own consciousness. Doubt as I may, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... he, at last "that something, which really did happen in front of the house I have spoken of, will startle you young folks, and perhaps it is foolish to relate it, as you seem already quite excited enough; but I will premise by saying, that I will only tell you what I saw myself, or heard from those upon whose word I could implicitly rely; and, moreover, that I do not believe in ghosts, however singular the facts in question may appear. Of course, you know, sister," addressing my mother, "my calls at your house ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous

... point with the preceding one about the high cost of eggs. The second line awakens interest and prepares for the next, "Instead of carrying money in your pocket, you'll carry meat around," which is good for a grin. The next line states the premise necessary for the first point-ending "—you'll slip him a sirloin steak," which is always good for a laugh. Then the last line, "If you ask him for change, he'll give you a hunk of bologny," ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... rank, but no distinguished genius capable of advancing the art a step farther; in consequence of which the belief in Moliere's unapproachable excellence has become still more firmly riveted. As we have not space at present to go through all these separate productions, we shall premise a few observations on the general spirit of French Comedy before entering on the consideration of the writers whom ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... years, I thought you might believe my account of my progress to be a piece of exaggeration and vain boasting. The translation is from the Mongol History, which, not being translated by Klaproth, I have selected as most adapted to the present occasion; I must premise that I translate as I write, and if there be any inaccuracies, as I daresay there will, some allowance must be made for haste, which prevents my devoting the attention necessary to a perfectly correct ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... to her own proper sphere," said I, waxing hot. "The fact is that science, armed with miserably imperfect tools, but unbounded assumption, has discovered a jelly-fish in a basin of water, and has deduced from that premise the tremendous conclusion that ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... curtain that's before us, before your life and mine, why, I can't begin until something else has begun. It's not right, unless that other is right, that I've told you. We belong together in the one big way, first. That's the premise. That's the one great thing. What difference about the ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough

... them to show that the consequence which I have deduced from the doctrine that God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass—that sin is not an evil, but a good, and worthy of being preferred to holiness in every instance in which it occurs— is actually recognized as a truth, and used as a premise in proof of the Calvinistic doctrine ...
— The Calvinistic Doctrine of Predestination Examined and Refuted • Francis Hodgson

... determined by the court, whether certain acts set forth upon the record are a ground of liability. It is possible that the judges may have dealt pretty strictly with defendants, and it is quite easy to pass from the premise that defendants have been held trespassers for a variety of acts, without mention of neglect, to the conclusion that any act by which another was damaged will make the actor chargeable. But a more exact scrutiny of the early books will show that liability in general, then as later, was [103] founded ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... lines never meet need not land the writer in self-contradictions; and another writer may prove that they must and do meet, and still avoid getting tangled amongst his own arguments. I even read a book once in which it was clearly shown that the earth was flat; and, granted a ludicrous premise, one could but admire the irrefragable logic with which the conclusion was reached. With regard to art, be your premises sound or grotesque, the result is the same—muddle. Logic, science, philosophy, applied to art, spell certain disaster. With mingled pain and ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... notes many little things that the conscious mind overlooks, and therefore has better data from which to reason. Moreover, as all students of the subconscious know, these wonderful subconscious mental factulties have a very highly developed power of reasoning deductively from a given premise or fact. In fact, the subconscious faculties are almost perfect reasoning machines, providing they are supplied with correct data in the first place. Much of the so-called "intuitive reasoning" of persons arises from the operations of the ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... each of the following Fifteen Battles has been selected will, I trust, appear when it is described. But it may be well to premise a few remarks on the negative tests which have led me to reject others, which at first sight may appear equal in magnitude and ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... not the faculty of the finite. But here I must premise the following. The faculty of the finite is that which reduces the confused impressions of sense to their essential forms—quantity, quality, relation, and in these action and reaction, cause and effect, and the like; thus raises the materials furnished by the senses and sensations ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... is always money when the ghost walks," was the mysterious reply of the American, wasted on the untheatrical Spaniards. "That is the first premise upon which a reliable scientific Ghost Breaker ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard

... well-known one of the predominant objectivity of the Pagan mind; while among us the subjective has risen into superiority, and brought with it in each individual a multitude of peculiar associations and relations. These, as not explicable from any one external principle assumed as a premise by the ancient philosopher, were rejected from the sphere of his aesthetic creation: but to us they all have a value and meaning; being connected by the bond of our own personality and all alike existing in that infinity which ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... aside, and, by the twinkle of his eyes, one might premise that the honest little ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... the corollary, or rather the premise, of that is that God has faith in us and loves and forgives. That is why He can use such an extraordinary way of estimating worth. He believes in us, believes that we are better than we know ourselves to be, for our knowledge seldom goes to the roots ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones

... evolution. Having thus, so to speak, diagnosed the situation, the changes the situation exacts are to be measured, and a forecast ventured. An ambitious programme, I am well enough aware that the not very considerable reputation I have established for myself hardly warrants me in attempting it. This, I premise. ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... I have called the preamble of that grant of power, which is made to the Church, to that power itself, Infallibility, I premise two brief remarks:—1. on the one hand, I am not here determining any thing about the essential seat of that power, because that is a question doctrinal, not historical and practical; 2. nor, on the other hand, am I extending the direct subject-matter, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... messages, he thinks, are not romantic enough for that; fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture. The odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that they and the spiritists are using the same major premise and differing only in the minor. The major premise is: "Any spirit-revelation must be romantic." The minor of the spiritist is: "This is romantic"; that of the Huxley an is: "this is dingy twaddle"—whence their ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... way and finally adopted by the Assembly, was longer and more erudite than Mr. Hutchinson's address. To meet the Governor's major premise and thus undermine his entire argument, legal precedents and the facts of history were freely drawn upon to prove that the colonies were properly "outside of the Realm," and therefore, although parts of the Empire by virtue of being under the special jurisdiction ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker

... versed as they were in the usual mechanics of killing snake-devils. It had been an accepted premise, through the years since the colonists had known of the monsters, that the creatures were relatively brainless, mere machines which fought, ate, and killed, incapable of any intelligent reasoning, and therefore only dangerous when one was surprised by them or when the hunter was ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton

... we find them on the increase in England. We have before us, from the London press of TILT AND BOGUE, 'Sir WHYSTLETON MUGGES, a Metrical Romaunte, in three Fyttes,' with copious notes. A stanza or two will suffice as a specimen. The knightly hero, it needs only to premise, has been jilted by his fair 'ladye-love,' who retires to her boudoir, while the ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... Everybody—the navy as well—believed we had beaten Great Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval or privateers. From that erroneous premise was deduced the conclusion of a navy of cruisers, and small cruisers at that; no battle-ship nor fleets.[15] Then we wanted a navy for coast defence only, no aggressive action in our pious souls; an amusing instance being that our first battle-ships were styled ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... opened up a question that would have to be answered in court. Shoop offered the opinion that possibly Andy Brewster, the youngest of the brothers, was not directly implicated in the murder, only taking sides with his brother Bob when he learned that he was a fugitive. In such a premise it was not unnatural that his bitterness toward Waring should take the angle that it did. And it would be difficult to prove that Andy Brewster was guilty of more than aiding his ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... To premise with the daisy historically: Among the Romans it was called Bellis, or "pretty one;" in modern Greece, it is star-flower. In France, Spain, and Italy, it was named "Marguerita," or pearl, a term which, being of Greek origin, doubtless ...
— The Aldine, Vol. 5, No. 1., January, 1872 - A Typographic Art Journal • Various

... foreigner. It is not easy even for ourselves. We have few abstract principles, and reliable induction from our past is not easy. We are often guided by what Mr. Justice Wendell Holmes has called "the intuition more subtle than any particular major premise." Nor is help to be derived from any study of our general outlook on life, for that outlook is hard to ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... for himself, how far my three principles throw light on the theory of the subject. It appears to me that so many expressions are thus explained in a fairly satisfactory manner, that probably all will hereafter be found to come under the same or closely analogous heads. I need hardly premise that movements or changes in any part of the body,— as the wagging of a dog's tail, the drawing back of a horse's ears, the shrugging of a man's shoulders, or the dilatation of the capillary vessels of the skin,—may all equally well serve for expression. The three ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... disintegration of the State, its curse to the community. You cannot dodge the moral law; as Professor Clifford said, "There are no back-stairs to the universe" by which we can elude the consequences of our wrong, whether of thought or action. If you let in one evil premise by the back-door, be sure Sin and Death will ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... another capacity. Of all stories told about him, none are more common or more popular than those which relate to his practical jokes and hoaxes. Thank heaven, the world no longer sees amusement in the misery of others, and the fashion of such clever performance is gone out. It is fair, however, to premise, that while the cleverest of Hook's hoaxes were of a victimizing character, a large number were just the reverse, and his admirers affirm, not without some reason, that when he had got a dinner out of a person whom he did not ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton

... first mile; but with a free course, either in town or country, I can saunter about for hours, and feel no other fatigue but what a tumbler of toddy and a pipe can remove. It was this disposition that made me acquainted with the fraternity of the "Puffs." I would premise, gentle reader, that as in my peregrinations I turn down any green lane or dark alley that may excite my admiration or my curiosity—hurry through glittering saloons or crowded streets—pause at the cottage door or shop window, as it best suits my humour, so, in my intercourse with you, I shall digress, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... We should premise that the Prussians are the least German of all the populations of what constitutes modern Germany. They are more than half Slavs. In the early Middle Ages the Mark of Brandenburg, the centre and chief province of the modern Prussian State, was an outlying offshoot of the mediaeval Holy ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... absurdity of it upon him, and easily proves that any one who defends him must be the greatest fool on earth. As if any real believer ever thought in this preposterous way, or as if any defender of the legitimacy of men's concrete ways of concluding ever used the abstract and general premise, 'All desires must be fulfilled'! Nevertheless, Mr. McTaggart solemnly and laboriously refutes the syllogism in sections 47 to 57 of the above- cited book. He shows that there is no fixed link in the dictionary between ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... rationalization," one of the psychiatrists said with more than a trace of admiration in his voice. "Complete and thoroughly consistent. She's just traded identities—and everything else she does—everything else—stems logically out of her delusional premise. Beautiful." ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... explorers have been rare; and the natives, anxious only to secure the showy and saleable shells of the sea, have neglected the less attractive ones of the land and the lakes. Hence Mr. Hanley finds it necessary to premise that the list appended, although the result of infinite labour and research, is less satisfactory than could have been wished. "It is offered," he says, "with diffidence, not pretending to the merit of completeness as a shell-fauna of the ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... commit, remit, transmit, mission, missile, missionary, remiss, omission, commission, admission, dismissal, promise, surmise, compromise, mass, message; (2) emit, intermittent, missive, commissary, emissary, manumission, inadmissible, premise, demise. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... violence had hurried poor S. T. C. into an early death. The story is told circumstantially by Coleridge himself in one of the letters to Mr. Poole; nor is there any scene more picturesque than this hasty sketch in Brookes's 'Fool of Quality.' We must premise that S. T. C. had asked his mother for a particular indulgence requiring some dexterity to accomplish. The difficulty, however, through her cautious manipulations, had just been surmounted, when Samuel left the room for a single instant, and found upon his return ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... work on the well. The ultimate success of the plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... Mr. Purchas has not had justice done to him in two main points of the late appeal; I mean the use of the vestments complained of and the side of the communion-table which he faced when consecrating the elements for the Holy Communion. Before I state my reasons, let me premise that I am no Ritualist, in the now conventional use of the term. I do not presume to judge of the motives of those to whom that name is applied. From the information of common but undisputed report as to some of the most conspicuous, I believe ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... it; all the proof presented here is a night meeting. Please see the quotation from the British Quarterly Review. But let us look at it the way in which we compute time: I think it will be fair to premise, that about midnight was the middle of [37]Paul's meeting; at any rate there is but one midnight to a twenty-four hour day. We say that Sunday, the first day of the week, does not commence until 12 o'clock Saturday night. Then ...
— The Seventh Day Sabbath, a Perpetual Sign, from the Beginning to the Entering into the Gates of the Holy City, According to the Commandment • Joseph Bates

... be permitted to premise at this division of my work, what most historians [Footnote: Thucydides seems to be specially referred to.] have professed at the beginning of their whole undertaking; that I am about to relate the most memorable ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius

... the premise that whatever may be the reason it is a fact that all experience starts and moves in an error which identifies the self with the body, the senses, or the objects of the senses. All cognitive acts presuppose this illusory identification, ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... with effect. He did not sufficiently verify his premises. His reasoning was correct upon the data given, as in the famous syllogism, "All black birds are crows; this bird is black; therefore this bird is a crow." The defect of the syllogism is not in the reasoning, but in the truth of the major premise, since all black birds are not crows. It is only a most extensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a proposition which will warrant reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned without sufficient examination of the major premise of ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... of endeavouring to excuse myself for neglecting so long to write, I shall present you with some original conjectures of my own, upon the way and manner in which you have been affected upon this present occasion. And here I must premise, that in so doing I shall not follow the formal and orderly method of Bishop Latimer, in his sermons before King Edward the Sixth; but, on the contrary, shall adopt the easy, desultory style of one whom at present I shall not venture to name, but leave ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... a picture of the future for you, to tell you in detail what that future will be like. I do not know: no man can know. He who pretends to know is either a fool or a knave, my friend. But there are some things which, I believe, we may premise with reasonable certainty These things I want to discuss in my next letter. Meantime, there are lots of things in ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo

... the Bishop interposed, his pale, ascetic face betraying by a faint glow the intensity of his feelings. "Your premise is wrong. There is no such thing as a conflict of interest between labor and capital—or, rather, there ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... question to say that society at the present day is not governed on any such principles; still, we seem to exist. It was a favorite saying in those days that 'a man must live,' and one that was used as an argument or excuse for questionable practices. The premise was wrong; it was not necessary to live: death would have been far better for the world and for the individual than a dishonorable life. So with society at large; better a change in the social structure, caused by an awakened conscience, than a state of peace founded on wrong principles. ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan

... I thought proper to premise this Observation to the Readers, as it will shew that the Critic on Shakespeare is of a quite different Kind. His genuine Text is for the most part religiously adhered to, and the numerous Faults and Blemishes, purely his ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... various criticisms to which he again replied at some length. These two speeches give the fullest statement of his views upon a very important question. They deal in part with some purely legal questions, but I shall only try to give the pith of the views of policy which they embody. I may briefly premise that the ground taken by his opponents was substantially the danger of shocking native prejudices. The possibility that the measure would enable rash young men to marry dancing-girls out of hand was also noticed, but, I fancy, by ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen



Words linked to "Premise" :   exposit, set forth, state, subsumption, say, preface, condition, thesis, presuppose, preamble, minor premiss, suppose, precondition, stipulation, major premiss, scenario, introduce, minor premise, major premise, prologise, prologuize, posit, postulate, tell, precede, premiss, prologize, expound, assumption



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