It was doubtless the first method of divination, and probably prepared the mind of man for all the various methods since employed of searching into futurity; a brief view therefore of the rise of this pretended science cannot he improper in this place, especially as the history of these absurdities is the best method of confuting them.

In the way of controversy are carried on all such dialogues, as tend to eradicate false opinions; and that, either indirectly, by involving them in difficulties, and embarrassing the maintainers of them; or directly, by confuting them.

According to this division is framed the following scheme, or table: DIALOGUES Sceptical Disputative Embarrassing Confuting Inquisitive Exciting Assisting Dogmatical Demonstrative Analytical Inductional Authoritative Magisterial Traditional - We have, given us by Diogenes Laertius, another division of the characters, as he calls them, of Plato's writings, different from that exhibited in the scheme above.

Boerhaave sat, and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of the company, willing to distinguish himself by his zeal, instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by argument, began to give a loose to contumelious language, and virulent invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that, at last, he could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author he declaimed against.

I, who claim no other title than that of an old soldier, cannot hope to prevail much by my oratory; it is enough for me that I am confident of confuting those arguments in the field, which I oppose in the senate.

Assertions which I cannot be supposed to favour, since I wish they might be false, and which I only produce in this place to give some, whom their stations make acquainted with publick affairs, an opportunity of confuting them.

Most people probably thought him a nuisance, since he was always about with his questions, puzzling some, confuting others, and reproving all,careless of love or hatred, and contemptuous of all conventionalities.

Adj. confuting, confuted, &c v.; capable of refutation; refutable, confutable^, defeasible. contravene (counter evidence) 468. condemned on one's own showing, condemned out of one's own mouth.

stiffly maintains, confuting Avicenna and the rest, referring it wholly to the quality and disposition of the humour and subject.

But I fall into the same fault I am arraigning, by so often exposing and confuting the same blunder, which has no claim even at its first enunciation to the compliment of a philosophical answer.

From every side they will derive evidence, that a doctrine and society which were meant for mankind cannot depend upon, the partial views and apprehensions of men, must go on justifying, reconciling, confuting, those views and apprehensions by the demonstration of facts"

In all this, to be sure, I am illustrating, not confuting, Mrs. Craigie's maxim.

Confuting her with her own words!

It has no means of testing and confuting even the wildest and maddest assertions.

There is no doubt that the falsehoods and exaggerations with which the Press here teems, in matters referring to England, are sufficiently glaring to be almost self-confuting; but if they can so warp the mind of an enlightened senator, how is it to be wondered at that, among the masses, many suck in all such trash as if it were Gospel truth, and look upon England as little else than a land of despotism; but of that, more anon.

Scholars like Petrarch were eager to confute his sect, and artists used him as a symbol of materialistic disbelief.

But this opinion is not worth confuting; it is so gross and obvious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in every thing but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader, that equality of numbers in every verse which we call Heroic, was either not known, or not always practised in Chaucer's age.

Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.

The Romans moved, as upon a stage, before her, unlit battling faces, clashing voices and armor; and the bearded Jews heavily collecting and confuting.

"[304] ROMANTIC LOVE, GREEK STYLE The Greeks, instead of confuting my theory that romantic love is the last product of civilization, afford the most striking confirmation of it.

Its aim was to "collect all rays of human culture into one focus," and, more particularly, to confute the claim of the party of "enlightenment" that the earlier ages of human development were poor and unworthy of respect on the part of the closing eighteenth century.

If I cannot survive the Milles's, the What-d'ye-call-him's [Masters's], and the compilers of catalogues of Topography, it would comfort me very little to confute them.

But there are scores of arguments that would confute and overwhelm this somewhat gloomy view.

I think it proper to finish this Chapter by confuting an Error as common, and more ridiculous, than the others; which is, of an infallible Thrust, which a great many People think that Masters reserve for dangerous Occasions, or to sell it at a dear Rate.

It need not be wrangling or disputing, or finding fault with other people, or maintaining and confuting.