"Reasoning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a fool he must have guessed at once how it came so, and having guessed it, he must have thought twice ere he ventured within reach of a man who could so handle iron. But he was a slow-reasoning clod, and so far, thought had not yet taken the place of surprise. He stepped into, the chamber and across to the window, that he might more closely view that ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... not very good talking, but it was not bad reasoning for a boy; and, moreover, it seemed to go home. The old Aleut sat and thought for a while. Evidently he either was willing to exchange his son for so good a rifle, or else he felt sure that no harm would come to the boy. Turning to the latter, ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... controversial acumen and logical practice than Faith knew. He did not press his point, not even for victory; he gave the objection to her and left it there; but while to her it was mere rottenness of reasoning, she knew that for him it stood. It grieved her deeply; and Mrs. Derrick saw her worn and feverish all the day, without knowing what special reason there had been. She tried to stop Faith's working; but though not fit ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... it would be like to be a thinking, reasoning being with no powers of movement whatsoever. With bodily energy provided automatically by environment, say, and all the days of life with nothing to do but think. What a chance for a philosopher! What depths of thought he might explore. What heights of intellectual perception he ...
— The Unthinking Destroyer • Roger Phillips
... serene critic may take exception to this form of reasoning and produce examples of genius, such as Wordsworth, who lived a strictly pious life, never offending any moral law by a hairbreadth; but Wordsworth was not made like Byron; he had not the personality of the poor wayward cripple who at one time had brought the world to his feet, neither ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... she was somnambulistic, and once fell down a stairhead during sleep. In spite of her bodily sufferings with indigestion, eye-strain, and depression she retains her youthfulness. She has slight powers of reasoning. She has had times of unconsciousness and rigidity, I have never heard any mention of epilepsy. She has a horror of showing prudishness in regard to the healthful manifestations of sex life, and is always praising examples of what she terms ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... many wise, learned and interesting things, but there was no answer to his principal question: By what right do some people punish others? Not only was there no answer, but all reasoning tended to explain and justify punishment, the necessity of which was considered an axiom. Nekhludoff read much, but only by fits and starts, and the want of an answer he ascribed to such superficial reading. He, therefore, ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... no danger of the mind's being over-burdened with knowledge, or the genius extinguished by any addition of images; on the contrary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps better, be compared, if comparisons signified anything in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will contribute to strengthen the spark that without the association of more would have ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... This reasoning, drawn from the experience of nature, neither encumbered by the subtleties of policy nor the sophistry of the schools, was evident to every honest understanding, and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... replied Aramis, "and again you have interrupted me. And then, too, allow me to observe that you pay no attention to logical reasoning, and seem to forget what you ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... the utmost reservation, as most readers will see for themselves after meeting his allusion to the massacre at Perugia in 1859 as in some sort a defensive action on the part of the papal troops. Mr. Hare's reasoning on all that relates to this subject is weak and illogical, sometimes puerile. Any one who loves what is venerable and picturesque must share the impatience and regret with which he sees so much beauty and antiquity disappearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... happily dulled by nature's merciful provision. With a little child tugging at the breast, care and fret vanish, not because of the happiness so much as because of a certain mammal complacency, which is not at all intellectual, but serves its purpose better than the profoundest method of reasoning. ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... lot of man; subjection and pangs that of woman.15 The serpent too (whose unique form preoccupied the early men) shall be humiliated, as a perpetual warning to man—who is henceforth his enemy—-of the danger of reasoning on and disobeying the will ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... this intelligence, as well as with the reasoning, and after a moment's pause, he answered in a way that showed a ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... defends their measures is so much alarmed at. To their conduct I refer him for a conclusive answer to his objection. I carry my proof irresistibly into the very body of both Ministry and Parliament: not on any general reasoning growing out of collateral matter, but on the conduct of the honorable gentleman's ministerial friends on the new ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... considering the conditions of political reasoning, that many of the logical difficulties arising from our tendency to divide the infinite stream of our thoughts and sensations into homogeneous classes and species are now unnecessary and have been avoided in our time by the students of the natural sciences. ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... with the prospect of good results. Before finally deciding, he called upon most of his corps and division commanders for their opinions on certain propositions which he presented, and most of them still opposed the projected movement, I among the number, reasoning that while General Grant was operating against Vicksburg, it was better to hold Bragg in Middle Tennessee than to push him so far back into Georgia that interior means of communication would give the Confederate Government the opportunity ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... too pugnacious, too controversial. I was too much in the habit of looking for defects in what I heard and read; defects in style; errors in thought; mistakes in reasoning; faults in arrangement; and improprieties in manner ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... Mimosa's shade. Hope! hope! few ever cherisht thee so little; Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised; But thou didst promise this, and all was well. For we are fond of thinking where to lie When every pulse hath ceast, when the lone heart Can lift no aspiration, ... reasoning As if the sight were unimpaired by death, Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid, And the sun cheered corruption! Over all The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm, And light us to our chamber at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... only the one reason that may be trusted not to change." And that was, of course, precisely why he had loved her, and why the love died harder than the reasoned loves of older years which respond to reasoning. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... by the truth of Isaura's accusation, Gustave exclaimed with vehemence: "All that thou sayest is false, and thou knowest it. The influence of woman on man for good or for evil defies reasoning. It does mould his deeds on earth; it does either make or mar all that future which lies between his life and his gravestone, and of whatsoever may lie beyond the grave. Give me up now, and thou art responsible for me, for all I do, it may be against all that thou deemest holy. Keep ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hand, whether the animals inferior to man ever exercise any conscious process of reasoning is a question which has often been discussed, and upon which there is no general agreement. Instances of the remarkable sagacity of some domesticated animals are often adduced as proofs of reasoning on their part. Some of these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... and said no more. A terrible fear clamoured at his heart. Did Geoffry Leverson know or did he not? and if he knew, would he even understand? He tried to tell himself that if he could manage her, then another, and that her acknowledged lover, could do so too, but he knew this was false reasoning. Such power as he had over her lay in his recognition that the irresistible inheritance was not an integral part of Patricia, but was an exotic growth, foisted upon her by the ill-understood laws of paternity, and finding no natural soil in her pure self—something indeed, of a lower nature, ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... will have to leave school sooner or later," argued Mrs. Baines, with an air of quiet reasoning, of putting herself on a level with Sophia. "You can't stay at school for ever, my pet, can you? Out of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... nothing. His line of reasoning seemed to be lifted quietly away from him. Mr. Conne was turning the kaleidoscope and showing him new designs. "He took L. home for the holidays," he quietly observed. "Old Piff and ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... reasoning upon his death, which is the very reasoning we should ourselves employ finally to dispose of this chatter of poisoning, did we not find it awaiting quotation, more authoritative therefore than it could be from us, and utterly ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... calculation he had been making, in which the captain agreed with him, and declared that he had been over the same course of reasoning. Both of them thought the Ionian would not wait till daylight to change her course, as it would be more perilous to do so then ...
— Fighting for the Right • Oliver Optic
... it," proceeds Cadamosto, "that these people want to use so much salt?" and after some fanciful astrological reasoning he gives us his practical answer, "to cool their blood in the extreme heat of the sun": and so much is it needed that when they unload their camels at the entrance of the kingdom of Melli, they pack the salt in blocks on men's heads and these last carry it, like a great army of footmen, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... and wickedness of such reasoning may appear to us, it seemed very tempting and sensible to the miserable men to whom it was addressed. The carpenter only, and another man, refused to drink, or to participate in any way in the project. They could not, however, turn the rest from their intentions. The treacherous mode ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... would surely take some interest in the matter, and have men posted along the route to see that the bet was fairly won. The fact that no bet had been made never seemed to dawn upon them; but, like too many, they sympathized without reasoning. ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... distinguished by these rhetorical qualities, he would listen with no complacency to those who would urge in private that the present period of parliamentary life was different from the days of Mr. Canning, and that accumulated facts and well-digested reasoning on their bearing, a command of all the materials of commercial controversy, and a mastery of the laws that regulate the production and distribution of public wealth, combined with habits of great diligence and application, would ensure the attention ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... of determining that moment. Then, still following the train of thought connected with the earth's diurnal revolution upon its axis whereby the sun was brought to the meridian every day at noon, he had not much difficulty in reasoning out the fact that it cannot possibly be noon at any two or more places at the same moment unless they happen to be situated on the same meridian, or, in other words, are of the same longitude. From this ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... idiosyncrasy from temperament, whereas, according to what would appear to be sound reasoning, based upon an enlarged idea of the physiology of the subject, a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... be able to generalize his experience for all time and all space. It says in effect that there is never anything essentially new under the sun, that any moment of experience sufficiently understood would be seen to contain all history and all destiny—that the intellect reasoning on one piece of experience could know what all the rest of experience was like. Looked at more closely this philosophy means that novelty is an illusion of ignorance, that life is an endless repetition, that when you ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... we read of a block of limestone, said to have fallen near Middleburg, Florida. It was exhibited at the Sub-tropical Exposition, at Jacksonville. The writer, in Science, denies that it fell from the sky. His reasoning is: ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Bocchesi or Dalmatian volunteers who were at that time in Montenegro will quite believe that they applauded the result, but to pretend that they drove the Skup[vs]tina with bayonets to do what every reasoning creature would have done is so farcical that one might have thought it would not even form (as it did form) the subject for questions in the British House of Commons.... The only part played by bayonets ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... the rattlesnake—when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe. Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish it to be inferred that that nose, humped like a dromedary—prominent as Cape Wrath—nobler than Caesar's, or the great captain's—had precisely the same influence on me as the envenomed Python of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... effort contrived not to appear as surprised as she was by this too discerning remark. She was so young that she did not before know that children and child-like folk sometimes divine by instinct the same conclusions that very clever people arrive at by much reasoning and observation. She felt decidedly uncomfortable at this explanation of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... curiosities of human reasoning is this: one forms a judgment on certain statements; they turn out incorrect, yet ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... figures, and produced results in figures. Now, the relations of cause and effect are as fixed and unalterable as the laws of arithmetic. Logic is, or should be, as exact a science as mathematics. My new machine was fed with facts, and produced conclusions. In short, it reasoned; and the results of its reasoning were always true, while the results of human reasoning are often, if not always, false. The source of error in human logic is what the philosophers call the 'personal equation.' My machine eliminated the personal equation; it proceeded from cause to effect, from ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... of Probability exist, and the clear exhibition of that which is positive and demonstrable knowledge, in the strict sense of the term, as distinguished from that which is liable to be more or less fallible. Although the precise point at which, in some cases, the proofs of Probable Reasoning cease to be as convincing as those of Demonstration cannot be readily apprehended, yet the essential nature of the two methods of proof is radically and inherently different, and is marked by the most ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... and fasting in her behalf, that she might find favor in the eyes of the king. At first Mordecai was opposed to the proclamation of a fast, because it was Passover time, and the law prohibits fasting on the holidays. But he finally assented to Esther's reasoning: "Of what avail are the holidays, if there is no Israel to celebrate them, and without Israel, there would not be even a Torah. Therefore it is advisable to transgress on law, that God may have mercy upon ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... not, is a question I would be content to rest, alone, on the number of cases of revengeful murder in which this is well known, without dispute, to have been the prevailing demeanour of the criminal: and in which such speeches and such absurd reasoning have been constantly uppermost with him. "Blood for blood", and "life for life", and such like balanced jingles, have passed current in people's mouths, from legislators downwards, until they have been corrupted into "tit for tat", and ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... man I love, nothing of the sort could surprise me. It was what occurred to myself, that thought was, and what occasioned a long struggle and months of agitation, and which nothing could have overcome but the very uncommon affection of a very uncommon person, reasoning out to me the great fact of love making its own level. As to vanity and selfishness blinding me, certainly I may have made a mistake, and the future may prove it, but still more certainly I was not blinded so. On the contrary, never have I been more ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... of Milton and of Jeremy Taylor, the full stop does not come to release the thought till all the circumstances have been grouped around it, and the necessary qualifications made. In Macaulay the circumstances and the qualifications are set out sentence by sentence. So the steps of reasoning in the example which we have given are stated with that distinct pause between each of them which the reader would make if he thought them out for himself. They might be welded ...
— "Stops" - Or How to Punctuate. A Practical Handbook for Writers and Students • Paul Allardyce
... the early Christians, because they might prove too formidable weapons in the hands of unbelievers. Cotta professes throughout only to raise his objections in the hope that they may be refuted; but his whole reasoning is destructive of any belief in an overruling Providence. He confesses himself puzzled by that insoluble mystery—the existence of Evil in a world created and ruled by a beneficent Power. The gods have given man reason, it is said; but man abuses the gift to evil ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins
... could hardly be one of the archives. Besides, a note, if paid, would be returned to the maker, canceled; if unpaid, it would be kept among the bills receivable, in the inner safe; in neither case could it have been stowed away among the old checks and drafts. This reasoning passed through my mind quickly, and I realized that that little piece of paper might play an important part in the tragedy after all. I did not form any definite theory on the instant, but still I had a sort of presentiment that I had touched a spring ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... gaze with perfect equanimity. He looked at Van Emmon and Billie; they, too, seemed to think that the engineer had found a real flaw in Kinney's reasoning. The doctor dropped his eyes, and searched his mind thoroughly for the best words. He removed his bracelets while he was thinking; the others did the same. All four got to their feet and stretched, ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... that righteousness is made stable by truth; some, by reasoning; some, by good behaviour; and some, by the application of means and contrivances.[294] I shall presently tell thee what the means and contrivances, productive of immediate fruit, are. Robbers, transgressing all wholesome bounds, very ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... friend may safely be discarded, for they are mere guesswork; even though it might have been natural enough for a man like Goldsmith, conscious of his singular and original genius, to measure himself against Johnson, who was merely a man of keen perception and shrewd reasoning, and to compare the deference paid to Johnson with the scant ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... put it that way. In his way he probably loved the girl. But never once did he think of her as an intelligent and reasoning creature. He took her salary, gave her a small allowance for car-fare, and banked the rest of it in his own name. It would all be hers some day, so ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... By some odd reasoning or other, she had cajoled herself into the notion, that whoever steered the brigantine, for that period was captain. Wherefore, she gave herself mighty airs at the tiller; with extravagant gestures ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... true. Nevertheless, Philosophy and Science have surely concepts in common. They both refer to the same thing when they speak of Space; we presume also when they speak of Matter. Indeed, Philosophy analyses the conceptions involved not only in scientific reasoning, but in the most common and ordinary mental processes. It analyses them with special reference to the relations between the Phenomenal and the Real—a question which, though it always lies latent, does not in ordinary circumstances arise ...
— Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge • Alexander Philip
... maternal grandfather at Penrith. His first teacher appears to have been Mrs. Anne Birkett, a kind of Shenstone's Schoolmistress, who practised the memory of her pupils, teaching them chiefly by rote, and not endeavoring to cultivate their reasoning faculties, a process by which children are apt to be converted from natural logicians into impertinent sophists. Among his schoolmates here was Mary Hutchinson, who afterwards became ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... after that into a hurry of movement that left us no time for reasoning or argument. Semyonov appeared and in Molozov's absence took the lead. He was, of course, entirely unmoved, and as I now remember, combed his fair beard with a little tortoiseshell pocket comb as he talked to us. "Yes, we must ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... mass and recite the same prayers in all their congregations, and let them refrain from discussing scriptural texts, and all give one and the same answer to each and every question, and there will soon be an end of sectarianism. The best reasoning has always provoked more doubt than it has established faith, and in consequence, ever been more fruitful of contention than of peace. So long as a people are one-minded they will be peaceful and contended even if they are bound in wretched slavery, but the tide of ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But the doctor won—as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate—because, when reason had been exhausted, he just ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... satisfied with her aunt's reasoning; and Bellarmine supping with her that evening, it was agreed he should the next morning go to her father and propose the match, which she consented should be consummated ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... those faculties of the mind which work independently of the will,—poets and artists, for instance, who follow their imagination in their creative moments, instead of keeping it in hand as your logicians and practical men do with their reasoning faculty,—such men are too apt to call in the mechanical appliances to help them govern ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Therefore by reason in Luther, or rather in his translator, you must understand the reasoning faculty:—that is, the logical intellect, or the intellectual understanding. For the understanding is in all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and has therefore two extremities or poles, the sensual, in which form it is St. Paul's [Greek: ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... impassioned manner, to put themselves in Tammany's place, and to say whether, under like circumstances, they would not adopt the same course. He did it very adroitly. His eyes blazed, his choice words blended entreaty with reasoning, and his manner indicated an earnestness that captivated if it did not convert. His declaration, however, that Tammany would bolt Robinson's renomination withered the effect of his rhetoric. Kelly had insinuated as much, and Tammany ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... than myself—or who had led a more honest early life—might have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. I didn't. The ship on the ways still resembled a warship to six places. And knowing human nature the way I do, that was too much of a coincidence to expect. Occam's razor always points the way. If there are two choices to take, take the simpler. In this ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... no mistake, yet always alive to the possibility of one, I dropped the isolated scrap I was working upon and took up the longer and fuller ones, and with them a fresh line of reasoning. If my argument so far had been trustworthy, I should find, in these other specimens, a double [-][-] standing for the double e so frequently found in English. Did I find such? No. Another shock to ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... has a multiplicity of tasks. She is the amateur, and as such she is free. If she is put into politics or industry she becomes a specialist, and as such becomes a slave. This is a pretty piece of reasoning, but it is absolutely hollow. There are few women who do not gladly resign part at least of their sovereignty, if they have the chance, to a maid-servant (who may be, and, in fact, usually is an amateur, but is not free to try daring experiments) or to such blatant ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... passed a sleepless night reasoning about the reason, a palpitating never-ending night, without a doze or a dream in it or so much as the winking of an eyelid. She reasoned about it for a week between the classes, and in her spare time (when she had any) in the evening (thus running ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... away before Westcott did. And that everything depended on which should get a land-warrant first. What more natural than that Charlton should seize upon Smith Westcott's land-warrant, and thus help himself and retard his rival? This sort of reasoning staggered those who would have defended him on the ground of previous ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... about Sully's Memoirs, and if I have finished them. I have not finished them, but am reading them with great interest, and find there is a great deal in them which applies to the present times, and a great deal of good advice and reasoning in them. As you say, very truly, it is extremely necessary for me to follow the "events of the day," and to do so impartially. I am always both grateful and happy when you give me any advice, and hope you will continue to do so as ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... to have thee banish'd Spain. I've left the Queen in angry Contradiction, But yet I fear the Cardinal's Reasoning. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... him, though it would surely try your patience, as it has done mine, to hear the stamping and screaming that is going on just outside the parlour-door; and yet, for all this, Freddy receives no punishment. Oh no! 'It would break his spirit.' What absurd reasoning! ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... what reasoning can justification be found for the help which one celibate never asks in vain, but always receives from another celibate in deceiving a husband, and how shall we qualify the rendering of such help? A man who is incapable of assisting a gendarme in discovering an assassin, has no scruple in taking ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... other animals in the scope of their rational faculty." It is scarcely necessary here to give extended examples of ape intelligence. Hundreds of instances are on record, many of them showing remarkable powers of reasoning for one of the lower animals. The ape, it is true, is not alone in its teachableness. Nearly all the domestic animals can be taught, the dog and the elephant to a considerable degree. And evidences of reasoning out some subject for themselves now and then appear in the domesticated ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... membrane with certain persons, and requires only at a certain time and under certain conditions physiological stimulation to manifest periodical pathological changes, which give rise to the train of symptoms called hay fever? Dropping all hypothetical reasoning, I think some outside vegetable germ is causing the disease in those predisposed, and peroxide of hydrogen acts on them as it does on the pus corpuscles, i.e., drives them out when and wherever it finds them. I hope the profession will give this new measure a thorough trial ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... bury in my garden the ten thousand crowns which were paid to me yesterday. Ten thousand crowns in gold is a sum sufficiently ... (Aside, on perceiving ELISE and CLEANTE whispering together) Good heavens! I have betrayed myself; my warmth has carried me away. I believe I spoke aloud while reasoning with myself. (To CLEANTE and ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... his guard and cut him half in two. But in one respect Curboil was mistaken. Gilbert, though young, was one of those naturally gifted fencers in whom the movements of wrist and arm are absolutely simultaneous with the perception of the eye, and not divided by any act of reasoning or thought. In less than half a minute Sir Arnold knew that he was fighting for his life; the full minute had not passed before he felt Gilbert's jagged blade deep in the big muscles of his sword arm, and his ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... astounded. In all his intercourse with Gregg he had never seen him moved like this. He knew what had caused it. Gregg's sedentary life, his being so much away from the business side of things had warped his judgment and upset his reasoning powers. Not to make commissions on a loan that the first mining expert in the country had declared good, and which the biggest trust company in the Street and two outside banks were willing to underwrite! Gregg ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... affairs, and enabled him to decide what should be done or avoided; and where the interference of any other moral advocate would have been dangerous, he often rendered good service, and, which was more extraordinary, never did harm. So his unrivalled aptitude for legal reasoning, enabled him to deal with authorities as he dealt with facts; if unprepared for an argument, he could find its links in the chaos of an index, and make an imposing show of learning out of a page of Harrison; and with the aid of the interruptions of the bench, which he could as dexterously ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... help acknowledging that Bessy was as perfect as I could expect any one to be, where none are perfect. I admitted the truth and good sense of my sister's reasoning, and the death of Janet contributed not a little to assist her arguments; but she was not the only one who appeared to take an interest in this point: my father would hint at it jocosely, and Mrs. St. Felix did once compliment me on my good fortune in having the chance of success ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... felt as if sitting in parliament, and every retainer and dependent looked up to the assemblage with awe, as to the House of Lords. There was a vast deal of solemn deliberation, and hard Scottish reasoning, with an occasional ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... his service to Pete would amount to little. But if he rode in at daybreak, ahead of the posse, ate and departed, leaving a hint as to his assumed identity, he could mislead them a day longer at least. He built all his reasoning on the hope that the posse would ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... severely reproached them for their imprudence, used all her influence and, if needs be, her authority, to stop the whole thing; advising David not to bind himself to any girl till he was much older, and his prospects secured; and reasoning with Janetta on the extreme folly of a long engagement, and how very much better it would be for her to pause, and make some "good" marriage with a man of wealth and position, who ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... barbarian asserts that the lash is the only means of forcing the slave to labor, the civilized is not far behind him in his reasoning, for he will assert with equal confidence that necessity and want are necessary stimulants to industry. The barbarian is as ignorant of the levers which civilization puts in play as is the civilized of the powerful incentives to action which the groups ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... mountains and valleys. You ask me what I think of his book? I find in it many interesting facts brought together, and many ingenious commentaries on them. But there are great chasms in his facts, and consequently in his reasoning. These he fills up by suppositions, which may be as reasonably denied as granted. A sceptical reader therefore, like myself, is left in the lurch. I acknowledge, however, he makes more use of fact, than any other writer on a theory of the earth. But I give one ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... It is an axiom of the law that the defendant should be given the benefit of the doubt. A very reasonable doubt exists. Therefore, in the case of the People Versus Carter Watson the benefit of the doubt is given to said Carter Watson and he is herewith ordered discharged from custody. The same reasoning applies to the case of the People Versus Patrick Horan. He is given the benefit of the doubt and discharged from custody. My recommendation is that both defendants shake hands and ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... river, in the swiftest part of the current, which was rapidly carrying me down to the rapids. For a few moments I was dreadfully alarmed. My heart stood still, and the surprise of it almost paralysed me. I remember distinctly my thoughts and reasoning. They were somewhat as follows: "The current on the south side is far less strong than on this side. Therefore it will be much easier to go back than to try to reach the north shore, which seems to be and is so much the nearer. If, however, you can't make it, what then? You'll ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... of the first importance," he said, "not to allow your judgment to be biased by personal qualities. A client is to me a mere unit,—a factor in a problem. The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning. I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellant man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... learned by careful observation, that the intellectual power of the Hindus had been so warped by false reasoning, that "they could scarcely understand how, when two principles are contradictory, one must be given up as false. They are prepared to receive both sides of a contradiction as true, and they feel at liberty to adopt ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... the point of overcoming Mrs. Almayer's exalted sense of social proprieties. Hard breathing was distinctly audible, and the curtain shook during the contest, which was mainly physical, although Mrs. Almayer's voice was heard in angry remonstrance with its usual want of strictly logical reasoning, but with the ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... the universal instrument employed in Paris for diving into secrets; and this is what determines the actions of persons in power more willingly than any thing that could be imagined in reasoning or politics. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... terribly attractive in the sight of this young sorrow, sincere without reasoning or afterthought. It was a virgin grief which the simple hearts of Eugenie and her mother were fitted to comprehend, and they obeyed the sign Charles made them to leave him to himself. They went downstairs in silence and took their ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... year, and there is still nothing being done that M. Ader did not see, and which we, if we had had the wisdom to attend to him, might not have been prepared for. There is much that he foretells which is still awaiting its inevitable fulfilment. So clearly can men of adequate knowledge and sound reasoning power see into the years ahead in all such matters ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... lead my readers to suppose, that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality and inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my opinion. In the government of the physical world, it is observable that the female, in general, is inferior to the male. The male pursues, the female yields—this ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... pardon it with a smile; if it is excessive we condemn it as a weakness. The life of one man is but an atom, but if it is connected with great events it shares in their dignity and importance. Influenced by this reasoning I concluded to postpone the publication of my speeches except so far as they are quoted ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... your reasoning, Mrs. Conway, and agree with you. Doubtless, the place is so situated as to be what I may call handy to the owners of the Hall, but I still do not see how you are going to set about ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... attitude of mind the Prussian will never emerge. We shall, please God, see that mood in all its beauty in later stages of the war, when the coercion of the Prussian upon his own soil leads to acts indefensible by Prussian logic. We have already had a taste of this sort of reasoning when the royalties fled from Karlsruhe and when the murderers upon the sinking Zeppelin received the reward due to men who boast that they will ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... come, recollect that your reasoning powers are almost as worthy of employment as your rhetorical abilities! We are not quite so bad as that, you know. We may be a little behind the times in Lichfield; we certainly let well enough alone, and we take things pretty much as they come; but we meddle with nobody, ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... be readily conceived that this vast area was not devoted exclusively to physical exercises. Logic, rhetoric, and metaphysics claimed their place in this common focus of the city's life, and were the delight of the subtile Greeks. The Socratic reasoning and the syllogisms of Aristotle met here on common ground. The Stoics, with their stern fatalism, derived their name from the stoae, or porticos; the Peripatetics imparted their ambulatory instructions ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... Catherine,"—he said—"And no logical reasoning will ever argue you out of them. Santoris is all right. For one thing, he gave me great relief ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... a certain class of people who always shake their heads, and purse up their lips, at the mere suggestion of "chance," or "accident," having a fortunate or happy application. They do not apply the same train of reasoning to the reverse side of the picture; the bias of their nature is evidently suspicious. These are the minds that refuse to credit those little misfortunes of picnic and pleasure parties, by which young people ...
— The Mystery of a Turkish Bath • E.M. Gollan (AKA Rita)
... little fact is not difficult. I will not attempt any geometrical reasoning, but will give only a practical illustration. In doing this, I shall first have to allude to a point which was almost passed over when treating of Twining-plants. If we hold in our left hand a bundle of parallel strings, we can with our right hand turn these round and round, thus imitating ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... however, offer the suggestions here put forward in any other light than that of purely speculative reasoning; nevertheless, no advance in any direction can be made except by speculative reasoning going back to the first principles of things which we do know and thence deducing the conditions under which the same ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... discussion of the essentially magical character of inductive reasoning, see my The Magic ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... was one of your reasoning villains. His conscience was not a better nature rising up in the man, and saying "this is wrong." It was not conscience at all; it was only a fear. Far down as Suzette might be, she never could have been ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Ainslie was not speculative. She could not solve this problem of strength and weakness. In power of thought, breadth of reasoning, and keenness of analysis she felt that he was her master; in knowledge—the power of acquiring and using scientific facts—she could but laugh at his weakness. It puzzled her. She wondered at it; but she had never sought to assign a reason for it. It remained ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... listlessly in their chairs, glad that their work in the matter at issue was nearly done, yet regretful that a case had not been made out which might have called for the exercise of that large intelligence, that critical acumen, that capacity for close reasoning, of which the members of the average jury feel themselves to be severally and collectively possessed. As it was, there would be little for them to do. The case was extremely one-sided, "like the handle on a jug," as one of them sententiously and ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... a good hay crop for a cereal that brings small net income is an item of value, adding to the proportion of feeding-stuff produced in the rotation and to the resulting supply of manure. The practice of making seedings to grass and clover alone is growing, and it is based on sound reasoning. ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... affected, declaring that Taipo had entered into her. Reasoning was wholly useless. She declared that Taipo was in the smoke of the wood, which smoke she had inhaled; soon she became prostrated by illness and was expected ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... should be unable to perceive the logical necessity of these simple arguments, which lie at the foundation of all Mr. Darwin's reasoning; that he should confound an irrefragable deduction from the observed relations of organisms to the conditions which lie around them, with a metaphysical "forme substantielle," or a chimerical personification of the ...
— Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" - From 'The Natural History Review', 1864 • Thomas H. Huxley
... father, who had a great respect for religion, and who had impressed upon him from his infancy the maxim, “that whatever is the object of faith cannot be the object of reason, and still less the subject of it.” He had seen, in his father, the combination of scientific attainment with a strong reasoning power, and the maxim therefore fell with weight from his lips. And so, when he listened to the discourses of free-thinkers, young ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... opposite condition of starvation. The effect of supplying a plant (or an animal) with an excessive supply of food, which it cannot assimilate, is in many respects similar to that which results from partially cutting off the supplies. And the same reasoning applies to sterility. If by high culture, or the supply of an undue quantity of nourishment, the constitution of the plant be impaired, or if the plant be pampered, it is no wonderful thing that sterility should ensue. Hence, then, may ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... which was actually observed. His commentators, however, think the observers must have been in some measure mistaken, and I agree with them.—Translator. In Fable I., Book X., La Fontaine also argues that brutes have reasoning faculties. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... terrible pomp, lend to the Finite now, Mighty Nature! Oh, of Infinity, thou Giant daughter! Mirror God, as in water! Tempest, oh, let thine organ-peal God to the reasoning worm reveal! ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the lieutenant's reasoning was very satisfactory to himself, it was not entirely so to his friend. Jones therefore, having revolved this matter much in his thoughts, at last came to a resolution, which the reader will ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... it, though I think, that if I have spent so many laborious days and sleepless nights in writing it, this man ought likewise to find time enough not only to read it, but to examine all the grounds of my reasoning, and point out to me any errors, if he can find any. Notwithstanding, the Spirit gave me no repose, but urged me ever mightily on to the perfection of ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... as she would have something, it's well enough that she should have a provider." Mrs. Gaylord felt that this was reasoning, and she smoothed out so much of the bib as she had crocheted across her knees with an air of self-content. "You can't have everything in a husband," she added, "and Marcia ought to know that, by ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... string * And Unintelligence makes understand. And teaches she that Love's a murtherer, * Who oft the reasoning Moslem hath unmann'd. A maid, by Allah, in whose palm a thing * Of painted wood like mouth can speech command. With lute she stauncheth flow of Love; and so * Stops flow of blood the cunning ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... greater part of Swift's work is supported in part by variety of satiric method. Sometimes he pours out a savage direct attack. Sometimes, in a long ironical statement, he says exactly the opposite of what he really means to suggest. Sometimes he uses apparently logical reasoning where either, as in 'A Modest Proposal,' the proposition, or, as in the 'Argument Against Abolishing Christianity,' the arguments are absurd. He often shoots out incidental humorous or satirical shafts. ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher |
