"Predisposition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... insanity was not certainly known. Some suspicion of the worthlessness of her lover, some enlightenment as to his perfidy, or his unaccountable disappearance alone, may have occasioned its manifestation. But there is great reason to believe that she had a natural predisposition to it. And having never been taught to provide for her own mental sustenance, and so nourish a necessary independence, she had been too ready to squander the wealth of a rich and lovely nature upon an unworthy person, and the reaction had been madness and death. But anything ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... revealed to set his feet therein. But with this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the sacrifice ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... they also expected great pecuniary assistance from those resident near the establishment, and more directly interested in its prosperity. They would as soon as possible establish a system of collegiate education, and there was a predisposition to engraft upon the College the well-known and respectable Medical Institution now in existence in the city. The door of the building was at length open, and it was the duty of all to proceed with vigour. They might at first complain ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... artist class is not, therefore, socially unmanageable because of its instinctive interest, though perhaps we may say that some of its members are saved from social vagabondage only because their emotional predisposition has found an expression in emotional activities to which some social ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... wound in his own psychic body; and, when he comes to be born again, that body will become his outermost vesture, upon which, with its wound still there, bodily tissue will be built up. So the man will be born maimed, or with the predisposition to some mortal injury; he is unguarded at that point, and any trifling accidental blow will pierce the broken Joints of his psychic armour. Thus do the dynamic mind-images manifest themselves, coming to the surface, so that works done ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... himself frequently reverted to the fact, that his father died of scirrhus of the pylorus. "We have high authority" (says this writer) "that this affection of the stomach cannot be produced without a considerable predisposition of the parts to disease. If, then, it should be admitted that a previous disposition of the parts to this disease did exist, might not the depressing passions of the mind act as an exciting cause? ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... chooses by preference to reverse the relation. The former (in his remarkable novel Flags are Flying in City and Harbor) selects a hero with vicious inherited tendencies, redeemed by wise education and favorable environment; the latter portrays in Elsie a heroine with no corrupt predisposition, destroyed by the corrupting environment which society forces upon those who are born in her circumstances. Elsie could not be good, because the world is so constituted that girls of her kind are not expected to be good. Temptations, perpetually ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... fact, of the simpler and lower forms of life, and disappears gradually as evolution progresses to higher orders. In all military performance, it is not the faculty for segregation that chiefly tells. It is the predisposition to united action, the habit of mutual concert and reliance. By this, concentration of purpose, subordination to a common impulse, ceases to be an effort, becoming the second nature of the man; and concentration ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... the present volume. In this place I will barely remark, that I have sometimes noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our Anglo-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I would not be understood as questioning in these remarks that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would naturally discourse in Hebrew. For this ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... note that the mistake can only arise in the first category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, 'destroyers,' and to push themselves into the ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... love, after the consultation was over, not one of the doctors gave me the least hope; they all believe that Louise will die with the fall of the leaves. The dear child's constitution has wonderfully helped the success of her plan. It seems she has a predisposition to this complaint; and though, in the ordinary course, she might have lived a long time, a few days' folly ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... had been met there. The same rule applies to the history of the past, and it is complicated by the great difference in different ages of the measure of probability, or, in other words, by the strong predisposition in certain stages of knowledge to accept statements or explanations of facts which in later stages we know to be incredible or in a high degree improbable. Few subjects in history are more difficult than the laws of evidence in dealing with the supernatural and the extent to which the ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... possible. The messenger of the kingdom is not to be mixed up with disreputable people, lest the message should suffer. The principle of his choice of a home is to be, not position, comfort, or the like, but 'worthiness'; that is, predisposition to receive the message. However poor the chamber in the house of such, there is the apostle to settle himself. 'If ye have judged me to be faithful, come into my house,' said Lydia. The less Christ's messengers are at home with Christ's neglecters, the calmer their own hearts, and the more potent ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... when Isaac Hecker first called upon him. He was still a young man, less than ten years separating him from the youthful catechumen. In temperament they were very different. The bishop, a man of routine in method and of no original views of principles, was so, nevertheless, by mental predisposition rather than by positive choice. He was a man of finished education; a dignified speaker, whose words read as impressively as they sounded. Although the two men were so unlike, the bishop could, at least after brief hesitation, fully appreciate Isaac Hecker; nay, could love him, could ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... hereditary disease and doubt this. The ancients were strongly of this opinion, or, as Ranchin expresses it, Omnes Graeci, Arabes, et Latini in eo consentiunt. A long catalogue could be given of all sorts of inherited malformations and of predisposition to various diseases. With gout, fifty per cent of the cases observed in hospital practice are, according to Dr. Garrod, inherited, and a greater percentage in private practice. Every one knows how often insanity ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... suffered from the same affection: the father from the strain of his unnatural sorrows—the son, perhaps in the excitation of the fever; each had ruptured a vessel in the brain, and there was probably (my doctor added) some predisposition in the family to accidents of that description. The father sank, the son recovered all the externals of a healthy man; but it is like there was some destruction in those delicate tissues where the soul resides and does her earthly business; her heavenly, I would fain hope, cannot ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... philosophy reconstructs, it does nothing but project its own idea; when it throws off tradition, it cannot work without a theory, and what is a theory but an imperfect generalization caught up by a predisposition? what is Comte's great division of the eras, but a theory, and facts but as day in his hands which he can mould to illustrate it, as every clever man will find facts to be, let his theory be what it will. Intellect can destroy ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... had always belonged. Since his severance from Mr Newman, no one had had so strong an influence over him as the head of his college. During the time of his expected apostasy, Dr Gwynne had not felt much predisposition in favour of the young fellow. Though a High Churchman himself within moderate limits, Dr Gwynne felt no sympathy with men who could not satisfy their faiths with the Thirty-nine Articles. He regarded the enthusiasm ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... the birth of Christianity was one of fermenting opinion and decaying faith. Then, as now, men's minds were seething and unsettled, and that unrest which is the precursor of great changes in intellectual and spiritual habitudes affected the civilised world. Such a period is ever one of predisposition to superstition. The one true bond which unites God and man being obscured, and to the consciousness of many snapped, men's minds become the prey of visionary terrors. Demand creates supply, and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... simplicity. Apparently his passions were not violent; perhaps they were restrained by his profound piety. Next to his devotion, Glastonbury was remarkable for his taste. The magnificent temples in which the mysteries of the Deity and saints he worshipped were celebrated developed the latent predisposition for the beautiful which became almost the master sentiment of his life. In the inspired and inspiring paintings that crowned the altars of the churches and the cathedrals in which he ministered, Glastonbury first studied art; and it was as he glided along the solemn shade of those Gothic aisles, ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... N. tendency; aptness, aptitude; proneness, proclivity, bent, turn, tone, bias, set, leaning to, predisposition, inclination, propensity, susceptibility; conatus[Lat], nisus[Lat]; liability &c. 177; quality, nature, temperament; idiocrasy[obs3], idiosyncrasy; cast, vein, grain; humor, mood; drift &c. (direction) 278; conduciveness, conducement[obs3]; applicability &c. (utility) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... be abnormal from hereditary predisposition, as e.g. the impulse to drink, but only through strengthening inhibition can these impulses be ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... causes of ossification of these cartilages are several. No doubt there exists a predisposition to this condition for it is of such frequent occurrence in heavy draft types of horses. Concussion plays an important role and, according to Moeller's[28] theory, which is sound, high heel calks prevent the frog from contacting ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... blessing! How strange that they will wear clothing that they know tends to break down their health; tight corsets that compress the lungs and spoil the natural shape of the body; tight shoes that interfere with the circulation of blood, and make their noses and hands red, and give them predisposition to colds and coughs and nervous headaches, all of which put to severe tests the patience and affection of those around them. Good health is always attractive; ill-health, invalidism, nervousness, are very apt to ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... great object of my work is to render it as serviceable as possible to my readers, I must not omit some cautionary remarks upon the tradespeople of Paris; an opinion has generally existed of their predisposition to overcharge the English, and in a great many instances it has been the case, when they first came over to France; an idea existed that they were extremely rich, and a bad feeling prevailed of making the wealthy pay: even amongst their own country people, ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... amount, yet it was highly probable that a certain quantity of contagion, much beyond the proportion of other popular assemblages less uniformly wretched in their composition, was here to be found all day long; and doubtless my excited state, and irritable habit of body, had offered a peculiar predisposition that favored the rapid development of this contagion. However this might be, the result was, that on the evening of the second day which I spent in haunting the purlieus of the prison, (consequently the night preceding the second public examination of Agnes,) ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... more exactly presented to him by instinct, and that end had been much more certainly attained than it ever can be by reason; and should the latter also be bestowed on the favored creature, it must be of use only in contemplating the happy predisposition lodged in instinct, to admire this, to rejoice in it, and be grateful for it to the beneficent Cause; in short, Nature would have prevented reason from any practical use in subduing appetite, etc., and from excogitating for itself a project ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... one of the regular monthly affairs, and because Helen was a member of the committee she felt it her duty to attend. One of the young men, accompanied by his mother and sister, drove out for her, but she left the house with reluctance and a marked predisposition not to enjoy herself. But she forgot this when she presently beheld the young man from the East whom she had encountered on the mesa. He was standing close beside a rather frail little woman, undoubtedly his mother, who with the matrons of the town was ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... English country girl, strictly tailor-made in her appearance, with a predisposition towards stiff linen collars and neat ties. In figure she was slight almost to boyishness and she had no pretensions whatever to good looks, but there was nevertheless something frank and wholesome and sweet about her—something ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... very conversant with the school-boy maxim, "Two can play at that fun". They know that the next time they are in office the same sort of sharp practice may be used against them, and therefore they will not use it. So strong is this predisposition, that not long since a subordinate member of the Opposition declared that the "front benches" of the two sides of the House—that is, the leaders of the Government and the leaders of the Opposition—were in constant tacit league to suppress the objections of independent members. ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... actually more affecting, at least haunts my mind more obstinately and besiegingly in that season. Perhaps this cause, and a slight incident which I omit, might have been the immediate occasions of the following dream, to which, however, a predisposition must always have existed in my mind; but, having been once roused, it never left me, and split into a thousand fantastic variations, which often suddenly recombined, locked back into a startling unity, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... "perception of the relation in which we stand to the principle of the universe"—a perception which, in his case, was accompanied by intense emotion. Having thus grasped the notion that the whole universe is one spirit, he absorbed from Plato a theory which accorded perfectly with his predisposition—the theory that all the good and beautiful things that we love on earth are partial manifestations of an absolute beauty or goodness, which exists eternal and unchanging, and from which everything that becomes and ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... moving spirit, at all events in the refreshment-room, was Mr. Clement Blaine. Here I met a variety of queer fish who called themselves Socialists. They were of both sexes, and upon the whole they were a silly, inconsequent set. Their views rather wearied me, despite my predisposition to ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... Causes.—A predisposition: A peculiar sensitive area in the mucous membrane of the nose. An exciting cause circulating in the air, the dust or pollen of certain plants, such as rag-weed, hay and barley; the odor of certain flowers, such as roses and golden rod; dust of some drugs ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Berthollet, it was easy to perceive that he preferred Monge, and that he was led to that preference because Monge, endowed with an ardent imagination, without exactly possessing religious principles, had a kind of predisposition for religious ideas which harmonised with the notions of Bonaparte. On this subject Berthollet sometimes rallied his inseparable friend Monge. Besides, Berthollet was, with his cold imagination, constantly devoted to analysis and abstractions, inclined towards materialism, an opinion with which ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... genius often is itself the creature of its own age: it is but that reaction of public opinion, which is generally the forerunner of some critical change, or which calls forth some want which sooner or later will be supplied. The predisposition for the various but neglected literature, and the curious but the scattered knowledge of the moderns, which had long been increasing, with the speculative turn of inquiry, prevailed in Europe when Bayle took his pen to give the thing itself a name and an existence. But the great authors of ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... prisons were found too small to contain them. A girl named Goodwin, the daughter of a mason, who was hypochondriac and subject to fits, imagined that an old Irish woman, named Glover, had bewitched her. Her two brothers, in whose constitutions there was apparently a predisposition to similar fits, went off in the same way, crying out that the devil and Dame Glover were tormenting them. At times their joints were so stiff that they could not be moved; while at others, said the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... favouring external circumstance that arises, shall have in the international circle raised moral considerations to an ever higher and higher pre-eminence, and in internal conditions shall have left in the chances and training of the individual, ever less and less excuse or grounds for a predisposition to anti-social and barbaric moods. This hopefulness, in some shape or other, is an indispensable mark of the most valuable thought. To stop at the soldier and the gibbet, and such order as they can furnish, is to close the eyes to the entire problem of the future, and we may be sure ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... piers—might be extended indefinitely into the interior of the hills, and its outer facade continued almost without term along their flanks—the solid mass of cliff above forming one gigantic entablature, poised upon props instead of columns. Hence the predisposition to attempt in the built temple the expression of infinite extent, and to heap the ponderous architrave above ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... In spite of her predisposition to be pleased, the prospect was depressing. The season was late and patches of discolored snow lay here and there, and were piled up along the fences. The garden and trees had a neglected look. The vines that clambered up the porch had been untrimmed of the last year's ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... smile means. I know what you wish to say to me.... I can see myself; you believe without doubt that such has been my former life. No,... no! You are mistaken. I have not been that. There has to be a special predisposition, a certain talent for feigning what I do not feel.... I have tried to sell myself, and I cannot, I cannot avail myself of that. I embitter the life of men when they do not interest me; I am their adversary. I hate them ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... generally is, the present volume graphically describes. Few will deny that such influences must have gravely affected the range and the association of individuals and species on the earth's surface. Mr. Darwin thinks that, acting upon an inherent predisposition to vary, they have sufficed even to modify the species themselves and produce the present diversity. Mr. Agassiz believes that they have not even affected the geographical range and the actual association of species, still less their forms; ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... believe that no one ever so effectually controlled the predisposition to slumber ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... their beast ancestry, and it may be true, although it has never been proved. If there were such inheritances, they controlled and aided the first efforts to satisfy needs. Analogy makes it easy to assume that the ways of beasts had produced channels of habit and predisposition along which dexterities and other psycho-physical activities would run easily. Experiments with new born animals show that in the absence of any experience of the relation of means to ends, efforts to satisfy needs are clumsy and blundering. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... the victualling is completed; she ceases to accumulate when that impulse is satisfied, irrespective of the result, which in this case happens to be worthless. No mental faculty, assisted by sight, informs her when she has enough, or when she has too little. An instinctive predisposition is her only guide, an infallible guide under normal conditions, but hopelessly lost when subjected to the wiles of the experimenter. Had the Bee the least glimmer of reason would she lay her egg on the ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... intercourse may be far more congenial and profitable than where the teacher receives for hire all sorts of pupils as they are sent him by their guardians. Here be need only choose those who have a predisposition for what he is best able to teach; and, as I would have the so-called higher instruction as much diffused in this way as the lower, there would be a chance of awakening all the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli |
