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Fallacious   /fəlˈeɪʃəs/   Listen
Fallacious

adjective
1.
Containing or based on a fallacy.  Synonym: unsound.  "An unsound argument"
2.
Intended to deceive.  Synonyms: deceitful, fraudulent.  "Fallacious testimony" , "Smooth, shining, and deceitful as thin ice" , "A fraudulent scheme to escape paying taxes"
3.
Based on an incorrect or misleading notion or information.



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"Fallacious" Quotes from Famous Books



... for the same library, and containing observations which started from a similarly fallacious theory, was one in seventy-two books on the pseudo-science of astrology, which was called "The Illumination of Bel." But in this case the observations were not wholly useless. The study of astrology ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce

... the scribe and the painter. A superficial notion may arise that Plato probably wrote shorter dialogues, such as the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Statesman, as studies or preparations for longer ones. This view may be natural; but on further reflection is seen to be fallacious, because these three dialogues are found to make an advance upon the metaphysical conceptions of the Republic. And we can more easily suppose that Plato composed shorter writings after longer ones, than suppose that he lost hold of further ...
— Philebus • Plato

... with the reception accorded him and the missionaries, and hoped the time was coming for again using the lots in Savannah, but the hope again proved to be fallacious. The missionaries all suffered greatly from fever, always prevalent on the rice plantations in the summer, and on Oct. 11th, 1775, Mueller died. The outbreak of the Revolutionary War made Wagner's and Broesing's position precarious, for the English Act exempting the ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries

... a misinterpretation. The wrong kind of interpretative mental image gets combined with the impression, or, if with Helmholtz we regard perception as a process of "unconscious inference," we may say that these illusions involve an unconscious fallacious conclusion. Or, looking at the physical side of the operation, it may be said that the central course taken by the nervous process does not correspond to the external relations of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... when they first came to the meadow were a different sort of creature, and they themselves, too (and the ox looked complacently at himself), had improved since that time. Judging by appearances, though they might be fallacious, he himself was quite as good a beast as the lion. If the lions would lead lives more noble than oxen could live, once more he would not complain. As it was, he submitted that ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... from them, adding to them, melting out all the liquid letters, torturing mutes to make them speak, and making vowels dumb,—to bring it to a fallacious homonomy at the last, that their names may be the same with those noble houses they ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... composition, should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious hints, it should seem that the principal ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, or liquid bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, which springs from the earth, and catches fire as soon as it comes in contact with the air. ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss

... blindly, and he makes his teeth meet if he can. We hear, of course, much more of the poor man in the police courts, and we imagine (spite of Herbert Spencer's warning) that education is to diminish his crimes. How very simple and fallacious! In the first place, the poor, the uneducated or but slightly educated, greatly out-number the educated. Suppose by means of complete and trustworthy criminal statistics, we could work out the percentage criminality of the different classes. I fancy that the poor man would not then show—even ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... usual also, he could give a plausible reason for his own mistakes by means of that most fallacious of all fallacies which is true so far as it goes. In his Prologue to ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... or avocation more than necessity compels him, or who accumulates more than he can enjoy, is not a hero but a fool from the Socialists' standpoint."[341] A leading French Socialist informs us: "Through listening to the fallacious utterances of the middle-class economists, the workers have delivered themselves body and soul to the vice of work."[342] When Mr. Victor Grayson, M.P., a Socialist, in a speech ventured to refer to work as "one of the greatest blessings ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... causation cannot be derived from experience, because experience only proves that many things have causes, whereas the axiom declares that all things have causes. The syllogism, "many things which come into existence have causes, A has come into existence: therefore A had a cause," is obviously fallacious, if A is not previously shown to be one of the "many things." And this objection is perfectly sound so far as it goes. The axiom of causation cannot possibly be deduced from any general proposition which simply embodies experience. But it does not follow that the belief, or ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... pay 3d. for matches which they formerly bought for 21/2d., will diminish their expenditure upon other commodities, and the result will be to diminish employment in those industries engaged in supplying these commodities. Here is another "unseen" result of fallacious philanthropy. ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson

... to a young man who is scarcely able to provide for himself, much less to support a wife and a family. The theory advocated by some that two can live almost as cheaply as one, so that a saving will be made by a union of two in marriage, is a most fallacious one. There may be occasional exceptions, but in general, young people who marry with this idea in their heads find that they have reasoned not wisely. It will not be disputed that a married couple may live upon what is often ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... Were they the prisoners of the flower, converted into a trap which allowed them to enter but prevented their escape by means of a palisade of converging hairs? No, they were not prisoners; they had full liberty to escape, as is proved by the final exodus, which is in no way impeded. Deceived by a fallacious odour, were they endeavouring to lay and establish their eggs as they would have done under the shelter of a corpse? No; there is no trace of eggs in the purse of the Arum. They came convoked by the odour of a decaying body, their supreme delight; an intoxication ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... parliament,) as it can (p. 095) be inferred, from the same words used in the parliament of 1415, that the Commons of England were not forward to promote the expedition to France. In that parallel case, however, we are quite sure the argument would be fallacious; because in the very same session they voted that the King's own allowance should take precedence of all other payments of annuities and other demands, to ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... not quit this subject without attempting to adduce a specific instance wherein consciousness proves fallacious. Success, however, could hardly be worse; he fails to establish his point, but succeeds in discrediting either his candor or his discrimination. "Are we not," he says, "in certain circumstances, conscious of the existence of spectres and phantoms; and yet is it not generally ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... lamented; and then, looking about him with rueful admiration, "This goodee ship—no, sir!—goodee ship!" he would exclaim; the "no, sir," thrown out sharply through the nose upon a rising inflection, an echo from New Bedford and the fallacious whaler. From these expressions of grief and praise, he would return continually to the case of the rejected pig. "I like give plesent all 'e same you," he complained; "only got pig: you no take him!" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... opinion seems to prevail quite extensively that the army surgeon is generally a young graduate, vain of his official position, who cares little for the health of the soldier, and glories in the opportunities afforded by a battle for reckless operations. Such an opinion is altogether fallacious. In the regiments there are undoubtedly many physicians who have adopted the service as a resource for a living which they were unable to find at home, but the majority are exactly the same class of professional men as those who pursue useful ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... for the semen to be ejected at certain times from the body; that its retention is incompatible with sound health and vigor of body and mind. This is a very fallacious idea. The seminal fluid is too precious—nature bestows too much care in its elaboration for it to be wasted in this unproductive manner. It is intended, when not used for the purpose of procreation, to ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous

... he achieved, but that he achieved it must be attributed in part to accident. That accident was his association with Hideyoshi.* It has been sometimes said that circumstances beget the men to deal with them. Fallacious as such a doctrine is, it almost compels belief when we observe that the second half of the sixteenth century in Japan produced three of the greatest men the world has ever seen, and that they joined hands to accomplish the stupendous task of restoring ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... "Our business is with ourselves,—to make ourselves more holy, more self-denying, more primitive, more worthy of our high calling. To be anxious for a composition of differences is to begin at the end. Political reconciliations are but outward and hollow, and fallacious. And till Roman Catholics renounce political efforts, and manifest in their public measures the light of holiness and truth, perpetual war is our ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... argument is from a small and partial effect, to a great and general effect, which will in numberless instances be found to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning. The busy and active man may in some degree counteract, or what is perhaps nearer the truth, may disregard those slight disorders of frame which fix the attention of a man who has nothing else to think of; but this does not tend to prove that ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... speak, aghast at this catastrophe. Like a fool, indeed, I had tumbled into the pit that had been dug for me by Chatellerault for I never doubted that it was of his contriving. At last, "My masters," said I, "these conclusions may appear to you most plausible, but, believe me, they are fallacious. I am perfectly acquainted with Monsieur de Chatellerault, and he with me, and if he were to speak the truth and play the man and the gentleman for once, he would tell you that I am, indeed, Bardelys. But Monsieur le Comte has ends of his own to serve ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini

... that Matter, believe me, he is deceived, who thinks that none but the Farmer and Mariner are obliged to regard the Season: for as it is not proper at all times to commit the Corn to the fallacious Fields, nor to trust your Vessel at all times to the green Ocean; so neither is it always safe to attack a tender Girl, for she will be taken at one time who will resist at another. If it be for instance her Birth-day[42], perhaps, her Grandmother hath instructed ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding

... off securely a certain field of investment, thus narrowing the scope of use for any outside capital. This employment of brute force is sometimes spoken of as "unfair" competition, and treated as something distinct from ordinary trade competition. But the difference drawn is a purely fallacious one. In thus breaking down a competitor the Trust simply makes use of those economies which we have found to attach to large-scale businesses as compared with small. Its action, however oppressive it may seem from the point of view of a weaker rival, is merely an application ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... which had failed in Europe; so he was not denied the expectation of some private assistance, though the hope that the United States should openly declare Hungary a belligerent, and thus give its moral weight to Kossuth, the recognized governor, was soon seen to be an idle and fallacious one. "Something might be done," said the ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... earlier visitors to the East seems to me to be equally fallacious; PYRARD, BERNIER, PHILLIPE, THEVENOT, and other travellers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, proclaimed the superiority of the elephant of Ceylon, in size, strength, and sagacity, above those of all other parts of India[1]; and TAVERNIER in particular is supposed to have ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... section of the capitalistic world, which will therefore favour it, but it is true to that extent only. The old notion that war and the acquisition of territories encouraged trade by opening up new markets has proved fallacious. The extension of trade is a matter of tariffs rather than of war, and in any case the trade of a country with its own acquisitions by conquest is a comparatively insignificant portion of its total trade. But ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... his system, is obliged to have recourse to some very intricate and refined reflections, and to suppose them essential to the production of any passion or emotion, we have reason to be extremely on our guard against so fallacious an hypothesis. The affections are not susceptible of any impression from the refinements of reason or imagination; and it is always found that a vigorous exertion of the latter faculties, necessarily, from the narrow capacity of the human mind, destroys all ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... them. I do not vilify theory and speculation—no, because that would be to vilify reason itself. "Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam." No; whenever I speak against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded, or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a false theory is by comparing it with practice. This is the true touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of men: Does it suit his nature in general?—does ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke

... contradict either the laws of number and extension, or the universal law of causality, all inferences from the fact that we have never known of a particular effect to its impossibility. 2. Those generalisations also are fallacious which resolve, either, as in early Greece, all things into one element, or, as often in modern times, impressions on the senses, differing in quality, and not merely in degree, into the same; e.g. heat, light, and (through vibrations) sensation, ...
— Analysis of Mr. Mill's System of Logic • William Stebbing

... in vain for the motive of this wretch's animosity, and he reflected with dismay, that his cause, however just, would depend on the good or bad humor of a judge dragged from his slumbers and who might be ready to condemn upon fallacious appearances. ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... They claim a much larger proportion of the original bulk of our population than the seven per cent included under the heading Scotch. Henry Jones Ford considers the conclusions as far as they pertain to the Scotch-Irish as "fallacious and untrustworthy." "Many Ulster names," he says,[5] "are also common English names.... Names classed as Scotch or Irish were probably mostly those of Scotch-Irish families.... The probability is that the English proportion should be much smaller and that the Scotch-Irish, ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... convenient medium for the expression of certain ideas rather than a representation of life. The first strove to popularize a knowledge of Greek antiquity, the second to combat doctrines that he deemed fallacious, the third to reform society. However, Rousseau brought nature into his Nouvelle Heloise, and, by his accessories of pathos and philosophy, prepared the way for a bolder and completer treatment of life in fiction. Different from these ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton

... Lawrence and Annie fancied that they could see some little signs of a return to her usual humor, which was pleasant enough when nothing happened to make it otherwise. But expectations of an early return to her ordinary manner of life were fallacious; she did not appear at supper; and she spent the evening in her own room. Lawrence and Annie had thus ample opportunity to discuss this novel and most unexpected state of affairs. They did not understand it, but it could not fail to cheer and encourage ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half-bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin

... of military heroism was wanting. He had written to General Sherman on the subject, and of course the General thought he could not consent to be President—for that was what it amounted to—but his reasoning was fallacious. If General Sherman had the question put to him—whether to be President himself or turn the office over to the Democratic party, with the Solid South dominant—he would see his duty and do it, though his ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various

... were fallacious—well, were they fallacious? Does this spectacle of a nation drowned look 'fallacious' to you? Why didn't you study the matter until you understood it? Why did you issue officially, and with my ignorant sanction—may God forgive me for my blindness!—statement after statement, assuring ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... for us to suppose, that if they were now alive, they would advise us to travel over the hills on their old roads, or make our cloth in the old way, as to think they would be gratified by our continuing to use exercises in education, which sound philosophy and experience have shewn to be fallacious and hurtful, or that they would be displeased by the use of those which extensive experiment has now proved to ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... instead of expressing contrition for their offences, their only consideration was, how to proceed with more safety, but increased vigour, in their future depredations. And here I was struck with the fallacious notions entertained by the projectors of this prison, which was reputed to be upon the plan of the benevolent and immortal Howard, who had recommended the confinement of offenders in separate cells, in order to prevent the effects of evil ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various

... left Paris before my return thither, but I had frequent occasion to speak of that famous personage to Savary, whom, for the reason above assigned, I do not always term Duc de Rovigo. Savary knew better than any one the fallacious measures of Fouche's administration, since he was his successor. Fouche, under pretence of encouraging men of letters, though well aware that the Emperor was hostile to them, intended only to bring them into contempt by ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... recognition in a first-class magazine has achieved a double success, first, with the editor, and then with the best reading public. Many factitious and fallacious literary reputations have been made through books, but very few have been made through the magazines, which are not only the best means of living, but of outliving, with the author; they are both bread and fame to him. If I insist ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... on whom life has hitherto smiled, and who conceal their alarms. Also Lisbeth had immediately guessed that her mother had given her no money. Adeline's delicacy had brought her so low as to use the fallacious excuses that necessity suggests ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... can be done. Some persons who probably have themselves a keen perception of such traits have put forward systems, based upon the shape of the face, etc. They probably think they perceive human traits according to their systems, but the systems fail in other hands, and are undoubtedly {446} fallacious. No good judge of character really goes by the shape of the face; he goes by little behavior signs which he has not analyzed out, and therefore ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... plausible reasoning, but very fallacious notwithstanding; indeed, it is this description of logic which conceals the full extent of a man's errors from, himself, and which has sent thousands forward on their career to ruin. Had Art, for instance, been ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... that in the Antediluvian period mankind only lived in caves with the hairy mammoth, the cave bear, the rhinoceros, and the hyaena, in a state of barbarous savagery; and that only since the Deluge have the Arts been known and cities built on this terrestrial sphere of ours. Could anything be more fallacious? ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent

... triumphant, entitled, "Le Passage du Rhin." But the French never crossed the Rhine, and the drawing was given to this friend with the words: "My sketch has no longer any raison d'tre. Keep it in memory of our fallacious hopes." ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... what is advantageous for certain states in the Union would therefore be beneficial for the United States as a whole, to reason from the existence of a few millionaires that the English nation is wealthy, would be to fall into this fallacy. Furthermore, it is fallacious to think that because something is true of each member of a class taken distributively, the same thing holds true of the class taken collectively. It is not logical to argue that because each member of a jury is very likely to judge erroneously, the jury ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... from which radiated all the impulsions given to this great body, and this primary motive power was sought for successively in all the capitals of the North, in Paris and even in Rome. This error gave birth to another opinion no less fallacious: it was supposed that there existed in the principal towns lodges where initiations were made and which received directly the instructions emanating from the headquarters of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... means an easy task to adjust the chronology of Fra Angelico's works; he has affixed no dates to them, and consequently, when external evidence is wanting, we are thrown upon internal, which in his case is unusually fallacious. It is satisfactory therefore to possess a fixed date in 1433, the year in which he painted the great tabernacle for the Company of Flax-merchants, now removed to the gallery of the Uffizii. It represents the Virgin and child, with attendant Saints, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... it not the exercise of our reason? 'Reason!' cried the Zealot, 'pernicious and hateful instrument, it is fraught with peril to yourself and to others: do not think for a moment of employing an engine so fallacious and so dangerous.' But I listened not to the Zealot: could the steady and bright torch which, even where the Star of Bethlehem had withheld its diviner light, had guided some patient and unwearied steps to the very throne of Virtue, become but a deceitful meteor to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... turnips and mangel wurzel—plants which contain the least amount of the phosphates, and therefore require the smallest quantity for their development. These roots contain 80 to 92 per cent. of water. Their great bulk makes the amount of produce fallacious, as respects their adaptation to the food of animals, inasmuch as their contents of the ingredients of the blood, i.e. of substances which can be transformed into flesh, stands in a direct ratio to their amount ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... Safe," or "Mr. Jones, of Worthing, Not Dead Yet." They cannot announce the happiness of mankind at all. They cannot describe all the forks that are not stolen, or all the marriages that are not judiciously dissolved. Hence the complete picture they give of life is of necessity fallacious; they can only represent what is unusual. However democratic they may be, they are only ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... heart of his error He must sweep through the silences dire, Like one in the dark of a desert Allured by fallacious fire." ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... which it did without hesitation. If the action of Parliament was any sort of index to popular sentiment, the idea that there was any widespread or deep- rooted feeling in the country against a war of religion is certainly fallacious; while there can be no question that the entire sea-going population—which had attracted into its ranks all that was most adventurous, most daring, most energetic, and most capable in the country—was heart and soul hostile to Spain. How much of that feeling was due to enthusiastic ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... protocol whereby this nation was allowed, in lieu of granting appeals from its prize courts to the International Court, to be mulcted in damages in the latter for erroneous decisions in the former. It is submitted that President Taft's position was fallacious, for the simple reason that not even the whole American nation is entitled to judge finally of its rights or of those of its citizens under the law which binds all nations and determines their rights; and that, therefore, the whole ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... criticise the pseudo-scientific notions from which our modern intellectuals deduce justifications for war. Above all he disposes of fallacious Darwinism and of the misuse of the idea of the struggle for existence. These notions, imperfectly understood and speciously interpreted, are by many regarded as furnishing a sanction for war. Or, it is held, ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... shattered this fallacious web of thought in an instant. In the deep shadow of a thick clump of brush upon the other side of the fire, the youth observed a movement—rather, a flash or glint of light. The fire, increasing unexpectedly by the falling ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster

... were more or less hot, unpleasant to the taste, of foetid odour and therefore unfit for culinary or other common uses. "But let it not be supposed," he hastens to add, "that they were worthless, inasmuch as there is no such thing as a worthless gift of Providence. Whoever argues on such fallacious lines," he says, "will stand convicted both of folly and of irreverence, seeing that it is the business of mankind, when confronted by a phenomenon which seems to mock their intelligence, humbly to ponder the evidence—to investigate causes and ascertain ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... continues under conditions of progress similar to those to which we have before alluded in speaking of other like affections. The argument advanced by some that because these bony deposits are frequently found on both hocks they are not spavins is fallacious. If they are discovered on both hocks, it proves merely that they are not confined to a ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... I, when fallacious hopes were rais'd Of his dear safety—whom, howe'er belov'd— However strong in health, and firmly built Like a fine statue of the antique world, As if he might have reach'd a century Without decrepitude, we ne'er again— Nor we alone, no other human eye— Can e'er behold! Then had I painted ...
— Vignettes in Verse • Matilda Betham

... syllogism with four terms?" Male Dicis, p. 15. See now if he be a fit man to call others to school, who puts an if in this business—if one. Who did ever doubt of it? And if it be an error in divinity to be fallacious, and to deceive, then it is an error in divinity to make a syllogism with four terms, yea, as foul an error as ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... attaining. After much time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour after the mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery. ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... opponent would express all the emotions that crossed his mind; with what eagerness he would follow every sentence, sometimes contradicting half aloud, sometimes turning to his next neighbor to express his displeasure at the groundless allegations or fallacious arguments he was listening to, till at last he would spring to his feet and deliver a passionate reply. His warmth would often be in excess of what the occasion required, and quite disproportioned to the importance of his antagonist. It was in fact the unimportance of ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce

... of returning peace and happiness which gave Prince Charles's mother so much animation and hope after the return of her husband from Scotland were all very superficial and fallacious. The real grounds of the quarrel between the king and his Parliament, and of the feelings of alienation and ill will cherished toward the queen, were all, unfortunately, as deep and extensive as ever; and the storm, which lulled treacherously ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... unpopular minister. The public fermentation subsided; the patriot lords reappeared at court; and the Prince of Orange acquired an increasing influence in the council and over the stadtholderess, who by his advice adopted a conciliatory line of conduct—a fallacious but still a temporary hope for the nation. But the calm was of short duration. Scarcely was this moderation evinced by the government, when Philip, obstinate in his designs, and outrageous in his resentment, sent an order to have the edicts against heresy put into most rigorous execution, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... bottom, as Concord. They did not realize that a slave insurrection meant a universal social conflagration. Indeed, Brown's original scheme of a general flight of slaves to a mountain stronghold had a fallacious appearance of avoiding a violent insurrection, and it was with the background of this plan that Brown, a wounded prisoner with death impending, appealed to the Northern imagination as a ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam

... wounded, and those who, by the misfortune of their fall, are less fit and less able to take stronger counsels; and having left off prayers and supplications, whereby with long and continued satisfaction the Lord is to be appeased, they invite them by the deceit of a fallacious ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... Montenegro and the old frontiers of Serbia, have all of them certain characteristics—a talent for foreign languages, a subtlety of reasoning, originality but insufficient observation, and clever but fallacious minds. Similarly in the Bulgar there are qualities which even now can be ascribed to the Mongol blood. The Bulgar is more stolid than the Serb; he is less given to sympathy and on that account can be cruel. The Bulgar is benevolent because he is urged by kindliness, whereas ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... not conceive that he had any intention of deserting the Colonies, or of inviting them to separate from England; but that he had in the sentence in question given utterance to a purely speculative, and in my judgment most fallacious, opinion, which, was shared, I feared, by very many persons both in England and the Colonies: that I held it to be a perfectly unsound and most dangerous theory, that British Colonies could not attain maturity without separation, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... enacted, that whoever offends, &c., shall be fined five hundred pounds, imprisoned for a year and a day, and rendered incapable of all public trust for ever. Otherwise, I do insist that those pious, indulgent, external professors of our national religion, shall either give up that fallacious hypocritical reason for taking off the Test; or freely confess, that they desire to have a gate wide open for every sect, without any test at all, except that of swearing loyalty to the King: Which, however, considering their principles, with regard to monarchy yet unrenounced, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... the admiration of the eye of taste by the architectural and horticultural beauties of mansions which have sprung out of the profits or artifices of trade. The multiplication of these dormitories of avarice is considered by too many as the sign of public prosperity. Fallacious, delusive, and mischievous notion! Was the world made for the many, or the few? Can any one become rich from domestic trade without making others poor; or can another bring wealth from foreign countries ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... declaration of Mohamed, called upon him instantly to restore Major Laing's papers. He answered haughtily, that this declaration was only a tissue of calumnies; and Mohamed, on his side, trusting, doubtless, in a pretended inviolability, yielding, perhaps, to fallacious promises, retracted his declaration, completely disowned it, and even went so far as to deny his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 392, Saturday, October 3, 1829. • Various

... pretences, which tells us truth will always bear investigation, and that if we cannot explain by our small faculties experiences in which the highest mysteries are involved, the experiences must have been fallacious! How different is this sort of voluntary and almost presumptuous self-investigation from submitting all to the unerring touchstone! It is, indeed, very instructive to observe that our Saviour's rejoicing in spirit was not over the subjects of some ...
— A Brief Memoir with Portions of the Diary, Letters, and Other Remains, - of Eliza Southall, Late of Birmingham, England • Eliza Southall

... from which it is concluded that similar organic forms were once more widely spread than now, is doubly fallacious; and, consequently, the classifications of foreign strata based on the conclusion are untrustworthy. Judging from the present distribution of life, we cannot expect to find similar remains in geographically remote strata of the same age; and where, between the fossils of geographically ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... dead," the other truthfully opposed to this fallacious supposition, and turned again to ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... lawyer, and it is but justice to his reputation to presume that he spoke as a partisan, knowing his argument to be fallacious. As a legal proposition he must have been aware ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams

... the last sixty-five years fled from the country, and though the figures, as they are published, seem to show a slight decrease each year, the apparent diminution is to a large extent fallacious, since the residue of population from which emigrants are drawn becomes each year less, and an apparent decrease may in truth ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... phrase-books bore witness to the existence of the custom. The discovery of the Code of Hammurabi has shown that the practice not only existed, but was regulated by statute in his time. Hence the argument from silence is once more shown to be fallacious. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns

... we gave laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes or wolves on the head as they can be found, because they are beasts of prey. In a word, the law and humanity were alike: the one being more fallacious, and the other more barbarous, than in any age had been vented in such an authority' (Clarendon's History of ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... bailiff, who, curiously enough, was the highest bidder for the land. He of all men should have known that if the farm would not pay expenses when there was no rent, it would not reward the man who had rent to pay. This reasoning proved fallacious. The farm which without rent proved a loss, in the same hands turned out when rent was charged a perfect gold-mine. In another case, a bailiff on leaving his employ expended on land the accumulated savings of his thrifty years, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... Intimations Men gather from our Aspect. A Man, they say, wears the Picture of his Mind in his Countenance; and one Man's Eyes are Spectacles to his who looks at him to read his Heart. But tho that Way of raising an Opinion of those we behold in Publick is very fallacious, certain it is, that those, who by their Words and Actions take as much upon themselves, as they can but barely demand in the strict Scrutiny of their Deserts, will find their Account lessen every Day. A ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... account of the right honorable gentleman, was so eminent for his sagacity in evading the subject altogether. Now, let me ask the house to consider the position of Lord Derby when he was called to power, a position which you cannot rightly understand if you accept as correct the fallacious statements of the right honorable gentleman. I will give the house an account of this subject, the accuracy of which I believe neither side will impugn. It may not possibly be without interest, and will not, I am sure, be without significance. Lord Derby ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... Very fallacious reasoning! If he with his eyes open loved and suffered, how could he tell but that Mildred might do the same? and this quiet intimation of certain barriers and impediments to his passion was likely to prove—as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... associations between body and mind; psychologists see in many of these games of physical activity the evolution of the race: drill pure and simple has its place partly in the same sense as "practice" in number or handwork, and partly as a corrective to our fallacious system of education by listening, instead of by activity: and we cannot in a lifetime acquire the powers of the race except by concentrated practice. But no amount of drill can give the all-round experience necessary for physical readiness for an emergency, physical and mental power to endure, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith

... doctrine of the inherently limited duration of species. This comes, it will be noticed, as a deduction from the modern physical doctrine of the equivalence of force. The reasoning is ingenious, but, if we mistake not, fallacious. ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... heart which, as we are told, seizes first upon him whom God seeks to destroy, determined him, against the judgment of others, and in part against his own, to remain where he was; probably in the fallacious hope that the storm would pass over, as on so many previous occasions it had already done, and leave him again free to his old practices in the same region. A feeling of pride, which made him unwilling to take a suggestion of fear and flight from the course of others, had some ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... scatter delight through every corner of the universe, without intending that they should be enjoyed. Enjoyment, indulgence, and felicity are not crimes. Abstinence, self-denial and mortification have only a specious mien and a fictitious merit. Did all mankind obey their fallacious dictates, the unlimited bounties of nature would become a burden to the earth, and fill it with pestilence and contagion. The soil would be oppressed with her own fertility; the herds would overmultitude their lords; and the crouded air would be darkened with the plumes of its numerous ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... in the usual manner the answer proper to be made to each of them; but, gathering together from all quarters worthless and false testimony, they deceived Justinian, who was naturally a fit subject for deception, by fallacious reports and misleading statements. Then, immediately going out to the contending parties, without acquainting them with the conversation that had taken place, they extorted from them as much money as they required, without anyone ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... day. And with all these protestations of hurry, they proved irresponsible like children. Kelmar himself, shrewd old Russian Jew, with a smirk that seemed just to have concluded a bargain to its satisfaction, intrusted himself and us devoutly to that boy. Yet the boy was patently fallacious; and for that matter a most unsympathetic urchin, raised apparently on gingerbread. He was bent on his own pleasure, nothing else; and Kelmar followed him to his ruin, with the same shrewd smirk. If the boy said there was "a hole there in the hill"—a hole, pure and simple, neither more nor less—Kelmar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... could not pray, and one way of testing her guilty connection with the evil one was to ascertain whether she could repeat the Lord's Prayer correctly. If she failed to do so, she was pronounced to be a witch. This test, as everyone knows, must have been a fallacious one, for there are good living illiterate people who are incapable of saying their Pader; but such was the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... have been examined, the syllogism is needless; and if some of them have not been examined, it is a petitio principii. But either all have been examined, or some have not. Therefore; the syllogism is either useless or fallacious. ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... No expectation is more fallacious than that which authors form of the reception which their labours will find among mankind. Scarcely any man publishes a book, whatever it be, without believing that he has caught the moment when the publick attention is vacant ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... before; having this order of thoughts, The Crime, the Officer, the Prison, the Judge, and the Gallowes. Which kind of thoughts, is called Foresight, and Prudence, or Providence; and sometimes Wisdome; though such conjecture, through the difficulty of observing all circumstances, be very fallacious. But this is certain; by how much one man has more experience of things past, than another; by so much also he is more Prudent, and his expectations the seldomer faile him. The Present onely has a being ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... said: "We cannot stop it; capital must be employed; our population must be kept at work; if we hesitate a moment, other nations now hard pressing us will get ahead, and national ruin will follow." Some of this is true, some fallacious. It is undoubtedly a difficult problem which we have to solve; and I am inclined to think it is this difficulty that makes men conclude that what seems a necessary and unalterable state of things must be good-that its benefits must be ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... of the North was fallacious. The Danes had reintroduced into Britain a fresh mass of incoherent barbarism, which could not thus readily coalesce. The Scandinavian leaven in the population had put back the shadow on the dial of England some three centuries. ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen

... can become a doddering, senile thing, and finally die and be buried with all the honors due its long, useful life. It was Henrik Ibsen who said that the value of a truth lasted about fifteen years; then it rotted into error. Now, isn't all this talk of artistic improvement as fallacious as the vicious reasoning of the Norwegian dramatist? Otherwise Bach would be dead; Beethoven, middle-aged; Mozart, senile. What, instead, is the health of these three composers? Have you a gayer, blither, ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... world, when I am out of spirits. I am very unhappy about poor Mr. Mann, who I fear is in a deep consumption: the doctors do not give him over, and the symptoms are certainly a little mended this week; but you know how fallacious that distemper is, and how unwise it would be to trust to it! As he is at Richmond, I pass a great deal of my time out of town to be near him, and so may have missed some news; but I will tell ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... inflame lust; what shall we say of books that inflame the viler passions of avarice and pride? A hundred years ago we had the ideal of the Industrious Apprentice; boys were told that by thrift and work they would all become Lord Mayors. This was fallacious, but it was manly, and had a minimum of moral truth. In our society, temperance will not help a poor man to enrich himself, but it may help him to respect himself. Good work will not make him a rich man, but good work may make him a good workman. ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton

... Constitution can be respected and the Union maintained, these sacrifices, great as they are, may well be regarded as light in comparison with the objects attained. But should this expectation prove fallacious, and the slavery agitation be renewed, it will furnish, the Governor says, "proof, convincing and conclusive, of that fixed and settled hostility to slavery on the part of the North which should and will satisfy every reasonable ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... in Hamburg can not be counted. At every third step you behold a bare-chested negro cultivating the precious leaf or a Grand Seigneur, attired like the theatrical Turk, smoking a colossal pipe. Boxes of cigars, with their more or less fallacious vignettes and labels, figure, symmetrically disposed, in the ornamentation of the shop-fronts. There must be very little tobacco left at Havana, if we can have faith in these displays, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... and the stimulus given to the production of it by the cotton-gin, made the prospect of emancipation by legislative action less probable as time advanced. The American Colonization Society was formed in 1811; and the fallacious hope was entertained by many, that the negroes might be carried back to the Liberian settlement on the African coast. The extension of slavery in the territory north-west of the Ohio had been prevented by the Congressional ordinance of 1787. When the question of the admission ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... you reflect but one moment on another bar before which you will be summoned, you would see there can be no excuse for violating the laws by which you are there to be tried. If you could justify yourself to the world, or to the women of whose folly you take advantage, by the fallacious arguments which you have so ready for that purpose, such cobweb sophistry cannot weaken the force of an ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott

... commonwealth, reached in safety the quarters of his Scottish friends. The number of the royalists amounted to some thousands: the nature of the country and the affections of the natives were in their favour; and their spirits were supported by the repeated, but fallacious, intelligence of the speedy arrival of Charles himself at the head of a considerable force. A petty, but most destructive, warfare ensued. Robert Lilburne, the English commander, ravaged the lands of all who favoured the royalists; ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... many reasons given, first and last, why women should not vote, but I desire to say, in the full light of a ripe experience, that some of them are fallacious. I refer more particularly to the argument that it will degrade women to go to the polls and vote like a little man. While I am not and have never been a howler for female suffrage, I must admit that it is much more of a success ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... insists that the rescue was the most unique episode she ever witnessed, and says that she never understood America until she made our acquaintance. I persuaded her that this was fallacious reasoning; that while she might understand us by knowing America, she could not possibly reverse this mental operation and be sure of the result. The ladies of Pettybaw House said that the occurrence was ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... down to perform my promise of giving you an account of a visit made many years since to Abbotsford. I hope, however, that you do not expect much from me, for the travelling notes taken at the time are so scanty and vague, and my memory so extremely fallacious, that I fear I shall disappoint you with the meagreness ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving

... or by some finer instinct of reserve and reverence in the poet, we never find ourselves in Dante as we do in Milton exercising our critical faculties, whether we will or no, on the very words of God Himself. If we reject an argument as unconvincing or fallacious, it is on Virgil or Statius, Beatrice or Thomas Aquinas, that we sit in judgment. The Divine Mind, intensely and constantly felt as its presence is from the first canto of the poem to the last, is yet felt always as from behind a {158} curtain which can never be raised for ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... amicable. An issue which is essentially general and impersonal is lost in the accidental conflicts of personalities, because the quality which plays the most important part is presence of mind, not correct reasoning. A conversationalist whose argument is wholly fallacious will often, by exercise of verbal adroitness, dispose of an objection which is really fatal. The full swing of the personalities of the speakers in a conversation is what makes the flint strike fire. It is only ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... customs-duty on ivory (20s. per cwt.—since reduced to 1s.) amounted to L.3257. The average weight of the elephant's tusk is 60 lbs.; and therefore 3040 elephants have been killed to supply this quantity of ivory.' But these calculations are in many respects quite fallacious. In the first place, the average weight of our imported tusks is not 60 lbs.: we have the authority of one of the first ivory-merchants in London for stating that 20 lbs. will be a much closer approximation. ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... performers of the day, carried through a representation of nine nights. Johnson's profits, after the deduction of expenses, and together with the hundred pounds, which he received from Robert Dodsley, for the copy, were nearly three hundred pounds. So fallacious were the hopes cherished by Walmsley, that Johnson would "turn out a fine ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... of slaves; and no law enacted by the will of Northern doughfaces could repeal this statute of nature. These Northern friends of the aristocracy supposed themselves to be helping their ambitious allies by their political support. But the slaveholders knew how fallacious was this aid. They saw that the North was gaining a huge superiority to the South; that the people were slowly consolidating; that when the free-labour interest did finally concentrate, it would carry every Northern interest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... as I do that the Cabala has not merely nothing to do with mathematics, but is in conflict with the very essence of mathematics. The Cabala bears to mathematics the same sort of relationship that the confused or fallacious chatter of the Sophists bore to the serene, lofty doctrines ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler

... infer that opposers of the theatre changed their views in consequence of Nat's argument. For no argument can be framed that will defend the stage from the charge of being a great public evil. In another place we have said enough to show that the ground of his defence was fallacious, though he uttered sentiments which he then sincerely believed. It is certainly no strong defence of the drama that it has risen from the cart to the marble palace, for sin, in some of its grossest forms, thus ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... as he denied the existence of an objective natural beauty not produced by the spirit of man. This theory of the beautiful in nature, when taken in a metaphysical sense, does not constitute an error peculiar to aesthetic science. It forms part of a fallacious general theory, which can be criticized together ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce

... tendency. Also, since my basic assumption can't be justified, the whole thing may be fallacious. So I'm not going to publish it." He glanced at the ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... line is the "raw material of consciousness," and the Unknowable in the second is something not in consciousness at all. The two senses of the word "light" are not more different from one another. Such apparent arguments abound, and it often requires much acuteness to be able to detect their fallacious character. ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... Armand-Louis de Gontaut, Duc do Biron, better known in England by the title of Duc de Lauzan. By a letter from Madame Necker to Gibbon, the Duchesse appears to have been at Lausanne in October; but in the following September , tempted," says Gibbon, " by some faint, and I fear, fallacious hope Of clemency to the women", she was induced to revisit France, and perished by the guillotine, in one of Robespierre's bloody proscriptions. See vol. v. pp. 133, 400. The Duc was entrusted with the command of the army of the republic in La Vend'ee; but, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... plants.[64] I have met with corresponding instances in Antirrhinum majus and in Crataegus oxyacantha, in the latter case complicated with the partial atrophy of one of the four cotyledons. It is necessary to distinguish between such cases and the fallacious appearances arising from a division of the cotyledons. M. Morren has figured and described the union of two roots of carrot (Daucus), which were also spirally twisted. He attributes this union to the blending of two radicles, and applies the term "rhizocollesy" to this union of the roots.[65] ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters

... that if our regulars were, for only a season, to follow the example of the provincial militia at that battle, it would be better for the country, the people, science, and last, but not the least, for the profession. The theory that we should not counsel with quacks is altogether mischievous and fallacious, although right and rigidly orthodox in its intent; were we to counsel and meet these gentry, we should expose their ignorance and assumption, and we should not be exposed to the charge of jealousy and of fear to ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... after the appropriate circumstances had passed away. Yet, in spite of the cynical lucidity of her judgment, the romantic in her heart longed to have Stephen, by one generous act of devotion, prove her theory fallacious. Her strongest impulse, the impulse to create happiness, to repair, as her father had once described it, crippled destinies; this impulse urged her now to help Patty's pathetic romance in every way in her power. It would be very fine if Stephen cared enough to forget what he was losing. It would ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... f. structure. fcil adj. easy, easily persuaded. fada f. fairy, sprite. faena f. task, work, labor, toil. falaz adj. deceitful, deceptive, fallacious. falda f. skirt, lap. falso, -a false, treacherous, feigned, simulated, mock. faltar fail, be missing, be lacking, give way. fallido, -a frustrated, amiss. fama f. reputation, report, rumor; es —— it is said. famoso, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup

... truth. It is to be regretted, therefore, that the proposition contained in the annexed letter (Appendix) was not accepted, and that we are forced to place Miss Fancher's case among the others which have proved to be fallacious, till such time as it may suit her and her friends to allow of such ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond

... he, 'there's everything there—I see "free trade" and "protection" both, and let me see—I—there's the "Board of Works," too; and round on the other side I see "Municipal Corporations."' I will endeavour before I sit down to prove that the arguments of my honourable friend Mr. Hazen are fallacious. He has been developing at a great rate yesterday; he was not asked to develop the money, but to bring down such measures as would develop the provincial resources; this is the meaning of the resolution, and, had not my honourable friend become alarmed for the safety of the government, ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... and elsewhere, besides many items of local interest. Five columns are made up of editorials and editorial briefs, the latter an interesting feature of modern journalism. The 'leader' is a column in length, and is a sarcastic commentary on the 'fallacious hopes' of the Opposition; the next article is an answer to one in the London Economist, devoted to the vexed question of protective duties in the Colonies; another refers to modern 'literary criticism,' ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot

... his promotion, who wanted a person that would be subservient to all their designs; wherein they were not disappointed. As to his other accomplishments, he was what we usually call a piece of a scholar, and a good logical reasoner; if this were not too often allayed, by a fallacious way of managing an argument, which made him apt to deceive the unwary, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift

... up eagerly; "thank God! Perhaps the mist is going to clear away." But the hope was fallacious, for in the direction where their path lay all was still dark, and the chilly mist soon closed again, though not so densely, over the wound which the breeze from the chasm below them ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... with the company. Many of these now gave more free loose to their tongues, and discussed with unrestrained earnestness the amount of the succession, and the probability of its destination. The principal expectants, however, kept a prudent silence, indeed ashamed to express hopes which might prove fallacious; and the agent or man of business, who alone knew exactly how matters stood, maintained a countenance of mysterious importance, as if determined to preserve the full interest of ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... based, however, upon one supposition which proved to be fallacious. It was that after having prepared so elaborate a position the enemy would stop at least a little time to defend it. Nothing of the sort occurred, however, and on the instant that they realised that the cavalry ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... towns, and thrown throngs upon the 'pave' for want of employment, yet M. de Calonne either did not see, or pretended not to see, the errors he had committed. Being informed that the Comte de Vergennes had attributed the public disorders to his fallacious policy, M. de Calonne sent a friend to the Count demanding satisfaction for the charge of having caused the riots. The Count calmly replied that he was too much of a man of honour to take so great an advantage, as to avail himself of the opportunity offered, by killing a man who had ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... block of stone in which the teacher, like the famous sculptor of old, sees, in his poetic vision, an angel, and then chips and hacks until that angel stands revealed. The theory is absurdly and dangerously fallacious. Paper and clay are not living organisms; the orator is not the statue chiselled from the rough stone of human nature, or, if the teacher succeeds in so far perverting nature as to hack and trim a human organism ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson

... so fallacious as prophecies against second marriages, but I don't believe they will. She is too quietly dignified for the full brunt of reports to reach her, and too much concentrated on her children to care ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... did not question the statement in the least. He had made them believe, and they in turn had made many others believe, that Pompier de Nanterre would certainly win such and such a race; and, trusting in this fallacious promise, they risked their money on the ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... and fallacious method of dealing with Japan is that of regarding it as an Oriental nation, essentially Oriental with a thin veneer of Occidentalism. People who so reason, or occasionally do not reason at all but confine themselves to mere assertions, suggest that the difference between the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... his supposed son to the farm. It is more easy to imagine than describe Mrs Broderick's state of anxiety. Was her long-lost boy to be restored to her? or were the anticipations she had formed to be fallacious? Her daughters shared her feelings, but they were so much occupied from morning till night in their various duties, that their minds consequently dwelt less on the subject than did hers. Rupert had ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston

... himself were no necessary and irremediable evil? What if the permanence of marriage once contracted between two persons utterly unsuitable for each other were no decree of God, no real requirement of religion or of social well-being, but a mere superstitious and fallacious tradition, a stupid and pernicious convention among men? Once on this track, there was light for Milton. Out of his own private mishap there came the suggestion of a great enterprise. He would thunder, if not the mishap itself, at least its public ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... When a stone has advanced into the ureter from the pelvis of the kidney, it is sometimes liable to be returned by the retrograde motion of that canal, and the patient obtains fallacious ease, till the stone is ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... denied that a hard fight and lower prices often preceded the formation of the trusts. But as this excessive competition usually is begun for the very purpose of forcing others into a combination, this explanation is a begging of the question. It is fallacious also in that it ignores the marginal principle in the problem of profits. Profits are never the same in all factories, and to those manufacturers that are on the margin competition may appear excessive. It generally ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... on cushions in a punt is equally fallacious, and, while promising much, ends in a headache. Besides, the river does not always smell very nicely now that it has so long been unrelieved by rain. All through the hot day, in fact, civilized northern man finds loafing very difficult, especially ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang

... spake the Son of God; and Satan stood A while as mute, confounded what to say, What to reply, confuted and convinced Of his weak arguing and fallacious drift; At length, collecting all his serpent wiles, With soothing words renewed, him thus accosts:— "I see thou know'st what is of use to know, What best to say canst say, to do canst do; Thy actions to thy words accord; thy words To thy large heart give utterance due; thy heart 10 Contains ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton



Words linked to "Fallacious" :   incorrect, fallacy, invalid, dishonorable, deceitful, dishonest, unsound, wrong, fraudulent



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