"Theoretical" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Still the steam escaped, even after a thorough overhauling. The second experiment also failed. So great is the gap between the small toy model and the practical work-performing giant, a rock upon which many sanguine theoretical inventors have been wrecked! Had Watt been one of that class, he could never have succeeded. Here we have another proof of the soundness of the contention that Watt, the mechanic, was almost as important as Watt ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... common brown Trout and its ova also, for the reason previously given in this letter; and although I am by no means sanguine of success, on account of the temperature, the experiment is too important to be abandoned for a mere theoretical objection which may ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... little knew that this rough sailor was creeping into her heart and storing there pent forces that would some day burst forth and surge through her in waves of fire. She did not know the actual fire of love. Her knowledge of love was purely theoretical, and she conceived of it as lambent flame, gentle as the fall of dew or the ripple of quiet water, and cool as the velvet-dark of summer nights. Her idea of love was more that of placid affection, serving the loved one softly in an atmosphere, flower-scented ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... the same that would flow through the metallic circuit) is projected into space in an absolutely straight line from the katultron plate, and received from space by the metultron plate on the same line. This line is the theoretical straight line passing through the mass-center of each plate. The shapes and angles of the plates have nothing to do with it, except that the perpendicular distance of the plate edges from the mass-center line determines thickness of the ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... *53. Powers, Theoretical and Actual.*—It is not, however, the origin of the royal power, but rather the manner of its exercise, that fixes the essential character of monarchy in Great Britain to-day. The student of this phase of the subject is confronted at the outset with a paradox which has ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... reason is one which has not been much urged. As a theoretical writer I can venture to say, what no elected member of Parliament, Conservative or Liberal, can venture to say, that I am exceedingly afraid of the ignorant multitude of the new constituencies. I wish to have as great and as compact a power as possible to resist it. But a dissension between ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... times, although there was no prosy system in Japan, there, were no popular disturbances, and the empire was peacefully ruled. It is because the Japanese were truly moral in their practice that they required no theory of morals, and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is owing to their laxity in practice. It is not wonderful that students of Chinese literature should despise their own country for being without a system of morals, but that the Japanese, who were acquainted with their own ancient ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... take part in the active leadership of politics, unless they have other qualifications not necessarily springing from their pursuits in learning; they are naturally more engaged with ideas in a free state, theoretical ideas, than with ideas which are in reality as much a part of life as of thought; and the method of dealing with these vitalized and, as it were, adulterated ideas has a specialty ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... this auspicious moment, her dominant mood. The grave calm of her face masked as usual a certain degree of grave perturbation. A succession of well-meaning governesses and a plentiful supply of moralising aunts on both sides of her family, had impressed on her young mind the theoretical fact that wealth is a great responsibility. The consciousness of her responsibility set her continually wondering, not as to her own fitness to discharge her "stewardship," but as to the motives and merits of people with ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... unanimous consent of all the States? Can any thing in theory be more perniciously improvident and injudicious than this submission of the will of the majority to the most trifling minority? Have not experience and practice actually manifested this theoretical inconvenience to be extremely impolitic? Let me mention one fact, which I conceive must carry conviction to the mind of any one,—the smallest State in the Union has obstructed every attempt to reform the government; that little member has repeatedly disobeyed and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... should be left to complete the perfection of a process which, both from its theoretical and its practical sides, is of such importance, a machine for predicting tides has been designed, constructed, and is now in ordinary use. When by the aid of the harmonic analysis the effectiveness of the ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... of this book both the fundamental objects to be aimed at, namely, high wages with low labor cost, and the means advocated by the writer for attaining this end; namely, accurate time study, will appear so theoretical and so far outside of the range of their personal observation and experience that it would seem desirable, before proceeding farther, to give a brief illustration of what has been accomplished ...
— Shop Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... strange imputed quality laid on a man like a cloak to cover his real condition or a bill of health given to a sick man. But men who live next to real things care nothing one way or the other for theoretical rightness; they want the real article. And a right man will not be satisfied to have even the Most High think of him as being perfectly right when he knows he falls far short of it. He would rather be the faltering pursuer of actual ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... now about to admit to a share of political power entertain any such absurd expectation. They expect relief, I doubt not; and I doubt not that they will find it: but sudden relief they are far too wise to expect. The bill, says the honourable and learned gentleman, is good for nothing: it is merely theoretical: it removes no real and sensible evil: it will not give the people more work, or higher wages, or cheaper bread. Undoubtedly, Sir, the bill will not immediately give all those things to the people. But will ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ideas. Morrison was a sculptor, and almost an ancient Greek in his feelings for the beauty of lines. The tall, lean man, on the other hand, was a strange mixture of a visionary and brutal realist. They both were cynics, however, that found life rather futile. With the literary man this was merely a theoretical view point, while Morrison was really embittered with life. The incidents of this afternoon had surprised him. He was deeply moved and felt as if he should give utterance to his emotions. He remembered that his attitude towards ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... theoretical republican deputy; "I have no preconceived hatred to the reigning dynasty. I even think that in its past, striped, if I may say so, with royal affinities and revolutionary memories, it has all that ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... the fast fellows and the pretenders to fashion. They are afraid of the former, who are always ridiculing them and their pursuits, by jokes theoretical and practical. If the fast fellows ascertain that a slow fellow affects sketching, they club together to annoy him, talking of the "autumnal tints," and "the gilding of the western hemisphere;" if a botanist, they send ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... the authority of that august and venerable body, so necessary in many respects to the union of the whole, should be rather limited by its own equity and discretion, than by any bounds described by positive laws and public compacts,—and though we felt the extreme difficulty, by any theoretical limitations, of qualifying that authority, so as to preserve one part and deny another,—and though you (as we gratefully acknowledge) had acquiesced most cheerfully under that prudent reserve of the Constitution, at that happy moment when neither you nor we apprehended ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the forms of government and administrative provisions which they are authorized to prescribe the Commission should bear in mind that the government which they are establishing is designed not for our satisfaction, or for the expression of our theoretical views, but for the happiness, peace, and prosperity of the people of the Philippine Islands, and the measures adopted should be made to conform to their customs, their habits, and even their prejudices, to the fullest extent consistent with the accomplishment of the indispensable requisites of just ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... of Jesus did for the apostles. It changed doubt and despair into faith and hope; changed theoretical belief into practical assurance; imparted that commanding energy of conviction and utterance which only comes from life. Animated thus themselves, they were enabled to animate others. And so the resurrection of Christ was the resurrection of ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... down to political levity; they were due rather to quickness of political intuition. It was the King's attempt at flight in the summer of 1791 that first created a republican party. It was that unhappy exploit, and no theoretical preferences, that awoke France to the necessity of choosing between the sacrifice of monarchy and the restoration ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... in school upon this particular tool has, however, its dangers—dangers which are not theoretical but exhibited in practice. Why is it, in spite of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by a passive absorption, are universally condemned, that they are still so entrenched in practice? That education is ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... will not be surprised if, for various reasons, we do not here treat in a thorough manner, from the theoretical point of view, the questions raised by socialism. We confine ourselves to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... generally act, think, and speak as best pleases myself. I slept two glorious nights on the bare turf, with my saddle for a pillow and God's kindly sky for a quilt. I had heard of a bed of thorns, of the soft side of a plank, and of the bed-rock. But all my bodily experience, theoretical or practical, sinks into insignificance before a bed of cobblestones. Nothing in ancient or modern history can compare with it, unless it be the Irishman's famous down couch, which consisted of a single feather laid upon a rock, and, like him, if it had not been for the name of it, I should ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... second-hand shops. With regard to the fourth edition, I do not know whether it would be well to procure any review or notice of it, and I am not a fair judge of its merits, even in comparison with the original form of the work; but my idea is that it is less defective, both in the theoretical and in the historical development, and ought to be worth the notice of those who deemed the earlier editions worth their notice and purchase; that it would really put a reader in possession of the view it was intended ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... Madv. Em. 204 for MSS. comprobans. Dav. conj. improbans and is followed by Bait. I am not sure that the MSS. reading is wrong. The difficulty is essentially the same as that involved in 104, which should be closely compared. A contrast is drawn between a theoretical dogma and a practical belief. The dogma is that assent (meaning absolute assent) is not to be given to phenomena. This dogma Catulus might well describe himself as formally approving (comprobans). The practice is to give assent (meaning modified ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... long discussion over a point of seamanship, the handling of a bark in a gale. It developed that the young author's knowledge of saltwater strategy was extensive and correct in the main, though somewhat theoretical. That of his critic was based upon practice and hard experience. He cited this skipper and that as examples, and carried them through no'theasters off Hatteras and typhoons in the Indian Ocean. The room, in spite ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln
... you betray an amazing intimacy with the pestiferousness of woman," Dick commented. "Or is it all purely theoretical?" Terrence began to laugh. ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... democratic or aristocratic mode of government for these dependencies, or if they are in a dispute only about patronage, the dispute is with me of so little concern that I should not take the pains to utter an affirmative or negative to any proposition in it. If it be only for a theoretical amusement that they are to propose a bill, the thing is at best frivolous and unnecessary. But if the Company's government is not only full of abuse, but is one of the most corrupt and destructive tyrannies ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... together constitute the aggregate resistance which makes it necessary that the power for increasing a vessel's speed shall increase as the cube of the velocity. But whatever the rationale, the law itself is an admitted fact by all theoretical engineers, and is proven in practice by all steamships. In evidence of this, I will give ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... added her up; he pronounced, with a touch of conventional male patronage (caught possibly from the Liberal Club), that Janet was indubitably a nice girl and a fine girl. He would not admit that he was afraid of her, and that despite all theoretical argufying, he deemed ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... And Population On Rents, Profits, And Wages. 1. Characteristic features of industrial Progress. 2. First two cases, Population and Capital increasing, the arts of production stationary. 3. The arts of production advancing, capital and population stationary. 4. Theoretical results, if all three Elements progressive. 5. Practical Results. Chapter III. Of The Tendency Of Profits To A Minimum. 1. Different Theories as to the fall of Profits. 2. What determines the minimum rate of Profit? 3. In old and opulent countries, profits habitually near ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... conventionality, than is to be found in most manifestations of sentiment that take place in polite society. A perfectly plain and unattractive female may, of course, be sincerely attached to her beautiful friend, but her partisanship must be somewhat theoretical; it has not the esprit de corps which characterizes the other class. These last can count victories enough of their own to be able to sympathize heartily with the triumphs of their fellows without envying or grudging them one. What does it matter if Rose has slain her thousands ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... nonsense and knew it. Time and dimensional travel were still purely theoretical. Louie ignored the ribbing ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... dramas, but the difference between opera of the ordinary type and "Tristan und Isolde" is not so great as between "Tristan und Isolde" and "Siegfried," notwithstanding that in the love tragedy Wagner took as uncompromising a stand as ever did a Greek poet, and hewed to the lines of his theoretical scheme with unswerving fidelity. In the subject-matter of the drama lies the distinction. Despite the absence of the ethical element which places "Tannhuser" immeasurably higher than "Tristan" as a dramatic poem, the latter drama contains an expression of ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... Theoretical philosophy, "the science which has truth for its end," is divided by Aristotle into Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, or the First Philosophy, now commonly known as "Metaphysics," because it is beyond ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... expectations, to jar upon his prejudices, and to convict him of error; if he never held converse with anyone who took a different view and controverted him, his dogmatism would be lifelong and incurable. But as he lives socially, he has in practice to outgrow it, and this lands him in a serious theoretical dilemma. He has to learn to live with others who differ from him in their dogmatizing. Social life plainly would become impossible if all rigidly insisted on the absolute rightness of their own beliefs and the absolute wrongness of ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray
... and from whom it was learnt that the garrison contained only six thousand, men. This personal temerity, and the applause of Field-marshal Laudon, procured him then a kind of reputation, which he has not since been able to support. Some theoretical knowledge of the art of war, and a great facility of conversing on military topics, made even the Emperor Joseph conceive a high opinion of this officer; but it has long been proved, and experience confirms it every day, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Sir H., his theoretical researches in geology. —on the action of salt on calcareous ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... not a legislative assembly, in the strict sense of the term, for the whole Anglo-Saxon empire. Promulgating his edicts amidst his peers and prelates, the king uses the language of command; but the theoretical prerogative was modified by usage, and the practice of the constitution required that the law should be accepted by the legislatures (courts) of the several kingdoms. * * The 'Basileus' speaks in ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... discover that this is the real purpose of school work, and that there are abundant means not yet used of realizing it. Having once firmly grasped this idea, they will find that there is no other having half its potency. It will put a substantial foundation under educational labors, both theoretical and practical, which will make them the noblest of enterprises. Can we expect the public school to drop into such a purely subordinate function as that of intellectual training; to limit its influence to an almost mechanical action, the sharpening ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... Church in This Country" he said: "Their Lutheranism did not differ from the Lutheran orthodoxy of the preceding period, in the matter of doctrine, but to an extent in the manner of applying it. It was orthodoxy practically vitalized. They were less polemical and theoretical. Whilst tolerant toward those of other convictions, they were, however, neither indifferent nor unionistically inclined, and never conformed Lutheranism to any other form of Christianity, though in their days the ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... late edition according to some internal relations, may be presented by you in chronological order, and that the states of life and feeling which afforded the examples that influenced you, and the theoretical principles by which you were governed, may be imparted in some kind of connection. Bestow this labor for the gratification of a limited circle, and perhaps it may give rise to something that will be entertaining ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... for three centuries prior to the Christian era, produced men of eminence whose discoveries and investigations, when arranged and classified, enabled astronomy to be regarded as a true theoretical science. The positions of the fixed stars and the paths of the planets were determined with greater accuracy, and irregularities of the motions of the Sun and Moon were investigated with greater precision. Attempts were made to ascertain the distance of the Sun from the Earth, and also the dimensions ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... excellent air. Did you see a report of Mr. Lashmar's speech? Rather good, I thought. Perhaps just a little too vague: the fault I hoped he would avoid. But of course it's very difficult to adapt oneself all at once to electioneering necessities. Mr. Lashmar is theoretical; of course that ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... above the horizon was diminishing, and, soon after the equator was reached, that star had ceased to be visible. Meantime other stars, some of them forming magnificent constellations, had come into view—the stars of the Southern Hemisphere. All this was in conformity to theoretical expectations founded on the admission of the ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... literature is in a great measure confined to the English and Germans, among whom also the study of the Grecian language is the most zealously prosecuted. It is singular that the French critics of all others, they who so zealously acknowledge the remains of the theoretical writings of the ancients on literature, Aristotle, Horace, Quinctilian, &c., as infallible standards of taste, should yet distinguish themselves by the contemptuous and irreverent manner in which they ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... as the only alternative to its own satisfaction. He contemplated this conclusion, not with the personal interest of a man who thought he might be called to act upon it,—Claudia would rescue him from that,—but with a theoretical certainty that if by any chance the staff on which he leant should break, he would be in no other mind than that from which he had rescued his miserable shop-boy. Death for love's sake was held up in poetry and romance as a thing in some sort noble and honorable; ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... justice does not rest upon carefully defined rules or standards that must always be applied in the same fixed way. Nor is it possible to find answers to issues which really depend on fairness and commonsense by legalistic or theoretical approaches. What is needed is a broad and balanced assessment of what has happened and been done in the general environment ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... the law are not limited by local conditions, and so habitual meditation on them sets our intuition free to range in an infinitude where the conception of antecedent conditions does not limit it. Anyway, whatever may be the theoretical explanation, you will find that the clear grasp of abstract principles in any direction has a wonderfully quickening effect upon the intuition in that ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... economy in matters of assessment, which is to work upon familiar lines; and they especially who, like Mr. Wilson "mad as a hatter," hold and hold forth that "what is good for England is good for the world." These myopics decide on theoretical and sentimental grounds that a poll-tax is bad in principle, which it may be, still public opinion sanctions it and it can be increased without exciting discontent. The same with the "Nazaranah;" it has been the custom of ages immemorial, and a little more or a little ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... contemporaries Miss Susan Blow of St. Louis, Dr. Hailman of LaPorte, Mrs. Putnam of Chicago and Miss Elizabeth Peabody and Miss Garland of Boston. Returning I opened my own Kindergarten Training School and my sister Miss Nora Archibald Smith joined me both in the theoretical and practical spreading ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... certain that I might not have taken him by the collar and shaken him. And had I found him standing on a chair in the green behind the church, and indoctrinating my simple parishioners with his peculiar notions, I have an entire conviction that I should have forgotten my theoretical assent to the doctrine of religious toleration, and by a gentle hint to my sturdy friends, procured him an invigorating bath in that gleaming river. I have got rid of that feeling now. And although Mr. Buckle is the last man who would find fault with any honest ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... intimated his great ambition, the union of our world with others by magnetic waves, but as it slowly assumed a theoretical certainty he talked more and more boldly of ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... and theoretical interest in the produce of the Valtelline to stimulate my curiosity, I determined to visit the district at the season when the wine was leaving it. It was the winter of 1881-82, a winter of unparalleled ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... indiscriminate flagellations. Order must be kept in other ways. The worst boys were publicly expelled; many were silently removed; and, when Dr. Arnold considered that a flogging was necessary, he administered it with gravity. For he had no theoretical objection to corporal punishment. On the contrary, he supported it, as was his wont, by an appeal to general principles. 'There is,' he said, 'an essential inferiority in a boy as compared with a man'; and hence 'where there ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... considering his daughter's youth, required that the marriage should be delayed at least two years, and, in his theoretical way, he soon built up a scheme, which was not quite so successful as he could have wished. Marlow's character was, in most respects, one after his own heart; but as I have shown, he had thought from the first, that there were ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... appearances, is equally diffused through all creation, like the universal ether of science; and such a conception of the Eternal, whatever else it may be, ceases ipso facto to be religiously helpful. The counterpart of the theoretical allness would be the practical nothingness of God.[2] But having quite definitely declined to place such a construction upon immanence, we are preserved from the absurdities which flow from it. We may and do hold that all the works ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... account he had received as to the state of things in Prague, where all he found ready for him was a mere handful of childish students. These admissions made him the butt of Rockel's good-humoured chaff, and after this he won the reputation among us of being a mere revolutionary, who was content with theoretical conspiracy. Very similar to his expectations from the Prague students were his presumptions with regard to the Russian people. These also afterwards proved to be entirely groundless, and based merely on gratuitous assumptions drawn from the supposed nature of things. I consequently ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the more specific topics of his religious teaching, freedom, immortality, God, Kant is prompt to assert that these cannot be objects of theoretical knowledge. Insoluble contradictions arise whenever a proof of them is attempted. If an object of faith could be demonstrated it would cease to be an object of faith. It would have been brought down out of the transcendental ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... ye Woman's-Righters, if on this occasion she was weak and obedient! You would have gone, no doubt,—those of you who have not husbands; but such as have must know how much easier it is to deal with the article man in his theoretical than in his real presence. You may succeed in showing by every convincement, that you are his natural master and superior, and that there is every reason on earth why you should command and direct him. "No! —— ," says the wretch, shaking his fist, or shrugging ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... as two peas; and each pair of you has a family. Which of the two batches of children will tend on the whole to have the stronger legs? Your legs are strong by use; your brother's are weak by disuse. But do use and disuse make any difference to the race? That is the theoretical question which, above all others, complicates and hampers our present-day attempts to ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... is now to be found in the theoretical province; Practical principles hold, such as: ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... of my knowledge there is no book extant which treats solely of the technique of the short story. The nearest approach to it is "How to Write Fiction," an anonymous work published by Bellaires & Co., London; but to my mind that is too slight, too theoretical, and too enamored of the artificial French school to be of practical value to the amateur. Far better, as working guides, are the frequent fragmentary articles on the short story, many of them by successful short story writers, published in current periodicals, to which I am considerably ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... great man. I don't think he has any theoretical knowledge, and I believe that anyone could trip him up over Freud or Jung, Montessori or Froebel, Dewey or Homer Lane; but the man seems to know it all by instinct or intuition. To him creation is everything. I was half afraid that he might have the typical crank's belief in imposing his taste ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... of living organisms; it is an eternal and immutable entity; it is a mere abstraction of the human intellect having no existence in nature. Such are a few of the significations attached to this simple word which may be culled from authoritative sources; and if, leaving terms and theoretical subtleties aside, we turn to facts and endeavour to gather a meaning for ourselves, by studying the things to which, in practice, the name of species is applied, it profits us little. For practice varies as much as theory. Let the botanist or the zoologist examine ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... is either sad, amusing, or exasperating, according to the mood of the hearer; but, whatever be his mood, he yet knows in his heart that it is a transitory phase, and an almost inevitable result of theoretical knowledge. A few years of personal grip with life and its problems will make short work of that over-confidence, and replace it with ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... prerogative. Then the governor is no longer responsible to the imperial authority, and Canada is an independent country. Mr. Baldwin's proceeding, therefore, not only leads to independence but involves (unconsciously, I admit, from extreme and theoretical views), a practical declaration of independence before the arrival of the 4th ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... the slain; but even at the earliest period of Rome which we can conceive this stage had long been transcended. The clan and the family doubtless were not annihilated in the Roman community; but the theoretical as well as the practical omnipotence of the state in its own sphere was no more limited by them than by the freedom which the state granted and guaranteed to the burgess. The ultimate foundation of law was in ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... cover the same ground. Lamarck attempted also to use the faculties of animals as a groundwork for division among them. But our knowledge of the psychology of animals is still too imperfect to justify any such use of it. His divisions into Apathetic, Sensitive, and Intelligent animals are entirely theoretical. He places, for instance, Fishes and Reptiles among the Intelligent animals, as distinguished from Crustacea and Insects, which he refers to the second division. But one would be puzzled to say how the former manifest more intelligence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... by a list of review questions and by illustrative and practical exercises. The aim has been to prepare not merely a theoretical but especially a practical text-book, for which, it is believed, there exists a felt and acknowledged need. It is hoped that this little work will contribute in some measure to make literature one of the most delightful, as it ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... all round that he became pre-eminent in nothing. A classic of the first water, a very respectable mathematician, an expert in theology, a student of sundry foreign languages and literature in his lighter moments, an inquirer into sociology, a theoretical musician though his playing of the organ excruciated most people because it was too correct, a really first-class authority upon flint instruments and the best grower of garden vegetables in the county, ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... Kremsier, was discussing "fundamental rights" and the difficult question of how to reconcile the theoretical unity with the actual dualism of the empire, the knot was being cut by the sword on the plains of Hungary. The Hungarian retreat after the bloody battle of Kapolna (February 26-27, 1849) was followed by the dissolution of the Kremsier assembly, and a proclamation in which the emperor announced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... the study of the composition of straw regarded from an economic point of view, we shall find that the theoretical deductions therefrom harmonise with the results of actual feeding experiments. Let us assume that 100 parts of oat-straw contain ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... drives over the country behind the fast horses, but the pottering round the flower-garden with Mrs. Costell. He had been reading up a little on flowers and gardening, and he was glad to swap his theoretical for her practical knowledge. Candor compels the statement that he enjoyed the long hours stretched on the turf, or sitting idly on the veranda, puffing Mr. Costell's ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious guide of conduct; it is a false science as well as an abortive art. Regarded as a system of natural law, that is, as a statement of the rules which determine the sequence of events throughout the world, it may be called Theoretical Magic: regarded as a set of precepts which human beings observe in order to compass their ends, it may be called Practical Magic. At the same time it is to be borne in mind that the primitive magician knows magic only on its practical side; he never analyses the mental ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the part of the intending players would be necessary. Would this little group of players be, as he hoped, forthcoming? I still regarded the project as something of the wildcat kind; but I was struck by the undoubted success of Beckett's own experiments, actual and theoretical, so far; and, as the four players would at all events lose nothing, even if they gained nothing, by renewing them, I and the three others at last consented to take part ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... satisfactory understanding of the position of the defenders of the superstition. Glanvill insisted upon what he believed were well authenticated facts of experience. James grounded his belief upon a course of theoretical reasoning. ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... supremacies are of widely different kinds. Supremacy consists of two ingredients—authority to enact and power to enforce; and without the latter the former is little more than a legal figment, which may have no more practical importance than the theoretical right of veto which is retained by the Crown. Mr. Balfour, speaking on the second reading debate of the 1893 Bill, referred to ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... another, but as a pilgrim of a distant altar-picture." He asks her if she has composed much, adding, "In my dreams I sometimes hear music—so you must be composing." He confides in her about his own work, tells her that his theoretical studies (with Heinrich Dorn) have progressed as far as the three-part fugue; and that he has a sonata in B minor and a set of "Papillons" ready; then jokingly asks her how the Frankfort apples taste and inquires after the health of the F above the staff in the "jumpy Chopin variation," ...
— The Loves of Great Composers • Gustav Kobb
... as if to show that his temperance was not entirely theoretical, proposed a visit to Rose's apartment, or, as he termed it, her TROISIEME ETAGE. Waverley was accordingly conducted through one or two of those long awkward passages with which ancient architects studied ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of causes are necessarily based, implicitly, if not explicitly, upon the assumption "other things being equal." This method of reasoning, which some people appear to find so irritating in the economic sphere, and as they say so "theoretical" and "unreal," is one which they adopt readily enough in every other department of life. No one, for instance, objects to the statement that the sun, when it comes out, makes a room warmer, although ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... the outline of this famous tribute by an unbelieving philosopher to the merits of Christianity as a scheme of moral discipline. Now, it must be remembered that Marcus Aurelius was by profession a Stoic; and that generally, as a theoretical philosopher, but still more as a Stoic philosopher, he might be supposed incapable of descending from these airy altitudes of speculation to the true needs, infirmities, and capacities of human nature. Yet strange ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... majority. The negroes were taught that this is a white man's country, and that the sooner they made up their minds to this fact, the better for all concerned. The white people would be good to them so long as they behaved themselves and kept their place. As theoretical equals,—practical equality being forever out of the question, either by nature or by law,—there could have been nothing but strife between them, in which the weaker party would invariably ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... may be summed up as follows: compared with other systems it is less expensive; more easily understood, remembered, and used; practical rather than theoretical; brief and familiar in its nomenclature; best for arranging pamphlets, sale duplicates, and notes, and for indexing; susceptible of partial and gradual adoption without confusion; more convenient in keeping statistics and checks for ...
— A Library Primer • John Cotton Dana
... great a number of translations into other languages and with the discussion centering around these translations, it is impossible that the English translator should have failed to obtain suggestions, both practical and theoretical, which applied to translation rather than to interpretation. Comments on the general aims and methods of translation, happy turns of expression in French or German which had their equivalents in English idiom, ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... to the combination of morbid tendencies in the parents.—Nature of the conditions to which plants are subjected when growing near together in a state of nature or under culture, and the effects of such conditions.—Theoretical considerations with respect to the interaction of differentiated sexual elements.—Practical lessons.—Genesis of the two sexes.—Close correspondence between the effects of cross-fertilisation and self-fertilisation, and of the legitimate and illegitimate ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... that useful animal, that eats the grass of the field, and supplies us with that which made the greatest part of the food of mankind in the age which the poets have agreed to call golden. It is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical Burnet has compared to creation. An egg contains water within its beautiful smooth surface; and an unformed mass, by the incubation of the parent, becomes a regular animal, furnished with bones and sinews, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... There was theoretical writing about freedom. Heine mocked at his countrymen and at the world in general, and deified Napoleon, from his French mattress, on which he died, in 1856, only fifty-seven years old. Fichte ended a course of lectures on Duty, with the words: "This course of lectures is suspended till the ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... Encyclopaedia of Architecture, historical, theoretical, and practical. By Joseph Gwilt, revised by Wyatt Papworth. ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... military system, or determine an important operation, suggested the idea of assembling it under a form and classification more methodical. Greater attention and exactness were exerted in enriching the Depot with every thing that might complete the theoretical works and practical elucidations of all the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... hundred feet. Even where the gravel merged to whitish gold quartz, the most expert engineer in the camp could not tell when the vein would fault and cease as entirely as if cut off. And the explanation of this is entirely theoretical. The theory is that the place of the gold was the gravel bed of an old stream, an old stream antedating the petrified forests of the South-west, and that, when vast alluvial deposits were carried over a great part of the ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... verse the wrongs and the revenge of the great thief of Scotland, Rob Roy. If, by the music of their sweet rhymes, they can convince the world that such heroes are but mistaken philosophers, born a few ages too late, and having both a theoretical and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... neighbouring workshops, everything is taught that is requisite for conducting the mechanical part of farm labour. Implements, wine and cheese presses, maize-separating machines, carts, and even tables and chairs for the homestead are made by the students with the aid of excellent machinery. Nor is theoretical training neglected. Besides being instructed in chemistry, plans and elevations of stables, granaries, cottages, &c., have to be drawn by the students, and their work is very ably executed. In fact the parent ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... important matter," observed John, "as the members of the council are divided in opinion. Although the opinion expressed by Ellen and Domingos has probability on its side, yet it must be considered theoretical; while that given by Arthur and Harry is undoubtedly of a more practical character. Should we on exploring the shores higher up find no traces of our relatives, we shall then proceed with more confidence on our voyage, buoyed up with the hope of ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... friends also; Mackintosh talked of going to India as a lecturer; Smith recommended Jeffrey to do the same. Happily, both had the courage and the sense to await for better times at home; yet Smith's opinion of Mackintosh was, that 'he never saw so theoretical a head which contained so much practical understanding;' and to Jeffrey ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... struggle to the extermination of English civilization or of Prussian military autocracy. Precedents have gone to the scrap heap. We have a new measure for military and diplomatic action. Let us suppose that we press for a few rights to which the shippers have a theoretical claim. The American people gain nothing and the result is friction with this country; and that is what a very small minority of the agitators in the United States would like. Great Britain can any day close the Channel to all shipping or can drive Holland to the enemy and blockade ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... Congress to interfere with slavery in the Southern States. Now Lincoln himself—whether for good reasons or bad must be considered later—thoroughly disapproved of the actual agitation of the Abolitionists; and the resolutions in question, but for one merely theoretical point of law and for an unctuous misuse of the adjective "sacred," contained nothing which he could not literally have accepted. The objection to them lay in the motive which made it worth while to pass them. Lincoln drew up and ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... my publications, where the matter would admit, I have been an advocate for commerce, because I am a friend to its effects. It is a pacific system, operating to cordialise mankind, by rendering nations, as well as individuals, useful to each other. As to the mere theoretical reformation, I have never preached it up. The most effectual process is that of improving the condition of man by means of his interest; and it is on this ground that I take my stand. If commerce were permitted to act to the universal extent it is capable, it would extirpate the system ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... Barbara's first recollection had been, "I must be a sport." With theoretical sporting instincts she knew herself the kind of sport who doesn't always run true to form. Hating meanness she could lapse into the mean, and toward Letty herself had so lapsed. That accident she must ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the throne against the claims of his elder brother Robert, and Henry I followed his example for similar reasons. Each had to make election promises in the form of a charter; and election promises, although they were seldom kept, had some value as reminders to kings of their duties and theoretical dependence upon the electors. Gradually, too, the kings began to look for support outside their Norman baronage, and to realize that even the submerged English might serve as a makeweight in a ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... game, and neither seemed to tire of the amusement. Montoya frequently unloaded his own gun and making sure that Pete had done likewise, the old herder would stand opposite him and count—"Una, duo, tres," and the twain would "go for their guns" to see who would get in the first theoretical shot. At first Pete was slow. His gun was too heavy for him and his wrist was not quick. But he stuck to it until finally he could draw and shoot almost as fast as his teacher. Later they practiced while sitting down, while reclining propped on one elbow, and finally ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... to attempt an explanation through mere words. If, after all, she was capable of misconceiving the entire set of his motives during the past two years, expostulation would be futile. In his thoughts of her he fell into a great spiritual dumbness. Never, even in his moments of most theoretical imaginings, did he see himself setting before her fully and calmly the hopes and ambitions of which she had been the mainspring. And before a reconciliation, many such rehearsals must take place in the secret recesses of ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... more extended, the tyranny of the great was reduced, and servitude decreased. During the following centuries, the establishment of civic bodies and the springing up of the middle classes (Fig. 20) made the acquisition of liberty more easy and more general. Nevertheless, this liberty was rather theoretical than practical; for if the nobles granted it nominally, they gave it at the cost of excessive fines, and the community, which purchased at a high price the right of self-administration, did not get rid of any of the feudal charges ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... have indicated the tendency of engineer service to unfit men for command. It was once said of a certain colonel that he was an admirable officer when absent from soldiers. No amount of theoretical training can supply the knowledge gained by direct and immediate association with troops. The ablest and most promising graduates from West Point are annually assigned to the engineer and ordnance ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... in "The Night of Hate" is admittedly a purely theoretical account of the crime. But it is closely based upon all the known facts of incidence and of character; and if there is nothing in the surviving records that will absolutely support it, neither is there anything ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... Theoretical Value of the R. Astr. Soc. Acceleration of the Moon's Mean (Month. Not.) Motion in Longitude produced by the Change of Eccentricity ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... which would reproduce them after they had been transmitted along the wire. At last the experimenter was on the right track, with a conception of a practicable method of transmitting sound. He now possessed a theoretical knowledge of what the telephone he sought should be, but there yet remained before him the enormous task of devising and constructing the apparatus which would carry out the idea, and find the best way of utilizing the electrical current ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... his seclusion. It cannot be denied that the various expenses of his reign,—no longer consecrated by the youthful graces of the prince, no longer disguised beneath the military triumphs of the people,—had contributed far more than theoretical speculations to the desire of political change. The shortest road to liberty lies ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... like to have a picture of one of our ancestors painted in such a garment. It would not look well. It is better to have some theoretical uniform, the uniform that our fathers would have had if they had had the money and time to get one, painted on top of a picture ...
— The American Revolution and the Boer War, An Open Letter to Mr. Charles Francis Adams on His Pamphlet "The Confederacy and the Transvaal" • Sydney G. Fisher
... a papalist as the young King, however, would hardly allow theoretical doubts of the general powers of the Pope to outweigh the practical advantages of a marriage in his own particular case; and it is safe to assume that his confidence in its validity would have remained unshaken, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... demonstration of the impossibility of re-establishing monarchy in England six months before the restoration of Charles the Second! But the author of the Oceana was a political fanatic, who ventured to predict an event, not by other similar events, but by a theoretical principle which he had formed, that "the balance of power depends on that of property." Harrington, in his contracted view of human nature, had dropped out of his calculation all the stirring passions of ambition and party, and the vacillations of the multitude. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Greek thinkers was constructed by reasoning on natural phenomena. Lucretius constantly appeals to observed facts for confirmation of his theoretical teachings, or refutation of opinions he thought erroneous. Besides giving a general mental presentation of the material universe, the theory was applied to many specific transmutations; but minute descriptions of what are now called chemical changes could not be ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... private room. He there found an atmosphere of heated excitement in which his political feverishness could pulsate freely. At times, now, when he shut himself up in his garret to work, the quiet simplicity of the little room irritated him, his theoretical search for liberty proved quite insufficient, and it became necessary that he should go downstairs, sally out, and seek satisfaction in the trenchant axioms of Charvet and the wild outbursts of Logre. During ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola |
