An ingenious sophism might be raised upon it, to shew that the race of mankind will ultimately terminate in unity.

The reasons advanced against suicide by the clergy of monotheistic, that is to say, Jewish religions, and by those philosophers who adapt themselves thereto, are weak sophisms which can easily be refuted.

If such miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a good house or a good government in the world.

I hear certain philosophers who answer me that all this discourse on the art that shines in the universe is but a continued sophism.

The Governor even peremptorily refused permission for the wife of the Consul to leave, upon the cruel sophism that, "The Christian religion asserts the husband and wife to be one, consequently," added the Governor, "as it is my duty, which I owe to my Emperor, to prevent the Consul from leaving Mogador, I must also keep his wife.

To gain applause they will misstate facts, to gain victory in argument they will misrepresent the opinions they oppose; and they suppress the rising misgivings by the dangerous sophism that to discredit error is good work, and by the hope that no one will detect the means by which the work is effected.

Indolence, indeed, is never at a loss for a smooth lie or delicious sophism to justify inaction, and, in our day, has rationalized it into a philosophy of the mind, and idealized it into a school of poetry, and organized it into a "hospital of incapables."

The advocates of Slavery have taken refuge in the last covert of desperate sophism, and affirm that their institution is of Divine ordination, that its bases are laid in the nature of man.

Happily they were as yet far, very far from that favourite sophism of the day, which would teach the inexperienced to fancy it an advantage to a legislator to commence his career as low as possible on the scale of ignorance, in order that he might be what it is the fashion, to term "a self-made man.

Altogether, I began to feel that Christian advocates commit the flagrant sophism of treating every objection as an isolated "cavil," and overrule each as obviously insufficient, with the same confidence as if it were the only one.

If so, Baxter's appeal to this usage is a gross sophism, a mere pun. Ib.

Why should I speak of the inhuman sophism that, because it is silly in my neighbour to break his egg at the broad end when the Squire and the Vicar have declared their predilection for the narrow end, therefore it is right for the Squire and the Vicar to hang and quarter him for his silliness:for it comes to that.

logic, needless sophisms?

This is an obvious sophism, which will deceive no one.

Leibnitz is particularly concerned to defend this absurdity; and he seeks to strengthen his position by using a palpable and paltry sophism.

Germans have been more candid and brutal than others in their expression and application of it, but statesmen, politicians, publicists, and historians in every nation accept it, under a thicker or thinner veil of plausible sophisms.

It is the previous deduction formed in the mind, and the splenetic contempt felt for a practical sophism, that beats about the bush for, and at last finds the apt illustration; not the casual, glancing coincidence of two objects, that points out an absurdity to the understanding.

misjudgment &c 481; false teaching &c 538. sophism, solecism, paralogism^; quibble, quirk, elenchus^, elench^, fallacy, quodlibet, subterfuge, subtlety, quillet^; inconsistency, antilogy^; a delusion, a mockery, and a snare

The tone of intellectual disparagement and moral rebuke which certain critics,deceived by the shallowest sophisms with which an unscrupulous writer could work on their prepossessions and insult their understandingshave adopted towards Mr. Newman made exposure necessary.

As a Venetian he was equally opposed to the domination of one, or of the whole; being, as respects the first, a furious republican, and, in reference to the last, leaning to that singular sophism which calls the dominion of the majority the rule of many tyrants!

It is a vile cold-scrag-of-mutton sophism; a lie palmed upon the palate, which knows better things.

In that day, the audacious sophism of calling land a monopoly, in a country that probably possesses more than a hundred acres for every living soul within its limits, was not broached: and, in that day, knots of men did not set themselves up as special representatives of the whole community, and interpret the laws in their own favour, as if they were the first principles of the entire republic.

And whoever pretends to deny, that whatever is done or chosen, whether good or indifferent, is so done or chosen, or, at least, may be so, espouses an absurdity.' I fear, I fear, that this is a sophism not worthy of Archbishop Leighton.

I should call it creating, producing, nourishing, vivifying!" Such bloody sophisms, uttered with conviction and coolness, overwhelmed the youth, weakened as he was by more than three months in prison and blinded by his passion for revenge, so he was not in a mood to analyze the moral basis of the matter.

But poor truth-seeking Lancelot did not see what sex had to do with logic; he flew at her as if she had been a very barrister, and hunted her mercilessly up and down through all sorts of charming sophisms, as she begged the question, and shifted her ground, as thoroughly right in her conclusion as she was wrong in her reasoning, till she grew quite confused and pettish.