But the sadness which creeps over us in view of human imperfection is nothing to that darkness which enters the soul when the peculiar philosophical or theological opinions of this gifted woman are insidiously but powerfully introduced.

Fourthly, But, though definitions will serve to explain the names of substances as they stand for our ideas, yet they leave them not without great imperfection as they stand for things.

And thus many are ignorant of mathematical truths, not out of any imperfection of their faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those ideas.

Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty of our ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of, serve for a mark to show us what are those things we have clear and perfect established ideas of, and what not.

But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are marks of our imperfection; at least, this is enough to show that the most abstract and general ideas are not those that the mind is first and most easily acquainted with, nor such as its earliest knowledge is conversant about.

Inferiority N. inferiority, minority, subordinacy; shortcoming, deficiency; minimum; smallness &c 32; imperfection; lower quality, lower worth.

Incompleteness N. incompleteness &c adj.; deficiency, short measure; shortcoming &c 304; insufficiency &c 640; imperfection &c 651; immaturity &c (nonpreparation) 674; half measures.

They are both imperfections, it is true; but to be imperfect being their essence, the very greatness of their imperfection becomes their perfection.

And thus not only the ideal of an inkstand may be imagined, (as Mr. Coleridge demonstrated in his celebrated correspondence with Mr. Blackwood,) in which, by the way, there is not so much, because an inkstand is a laudable sort of thing, and a valuable member of society; but even imperfection itself may have its ideal or perfect state.

If it be a natural impediment, as a red nose, squint eyes, crooked legs, or any such imperfection, infirmity, disgrace, reproach, the best way is to speak of it first thyself, [4034]and so thou shalt surely take away all occasions from others to jest at, or contemn, that they may perceive thee to be careless of it.

or is it a natural imperfection, an hereditary passion?

That relatively to the command 'Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect', and before the eye of his own pure reason, the best of men may deem himself mere folly and imperfection, I can easily conceive; but this is not the case in question.

And when I have studied hard to understand some abstruse admired book, as 'de Scientia Dei, de Providentia circa malum, de Decretis, de Prædeterminatione, de Libertate creaturæ', &c. I have but attained the knowledge of human imperfection, and to see that the author is but a man as well as I.

The imperfection of thought much more of language, so singly successive, allows no better representation of the close neighbourhood, nay the co-inherence of duty in duty, desire in desire.

Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons?

Distinction may be joined with imperfection, as ignorance, or forgetfulness; and so it is in men:and if this be called separation by a metaphor from bodies, then the conclusion would be that in the Supreme Mind there is distinction without imperfection; and then the question is, whence comes plurality of Persons?

Can it be conceived other than as the result of imperfection, that is, finiteness? Ib.

We often have to regret the imperfection of the records of That best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.

Now, who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of perfection, in a subject so stinted and so full of imperfection? Did it give itself so sublime, and so pure an idea, which is itself a kind of infinite in imagery?

This consideration brings me to acknowledge the imperfection of what I call my soul.

But these directions are no sooner applied to use, than their scantiness and imperfection become evident.

6. HALF, signifying one of two equal parts, is much used in composition; and, often, merely to denote imperfection: as, half-sighted, seeing imperfectly.

But when expressions that import anger or grief are used, even concerning God Himself, we must sever in our conception everything of imperfection, and ascribe everything of real perfection.

In the divine nature there may be real, and yet most serene, complacency and displacencyviz., that, unaccompanied by the least commotion, that impart nothing of imperfection, but perfection rather, as it is a perfection to apprehend things suitably to what in themselves they are.

What is popularly called sin these philosophers call error, accident, inexperience, indecision, misdirection, imperfection, disharmony; but they will not allow the presence in the human heart of a malign force which asserts itself against God, and against the order of His universe.