From the principle ex nihilo nihil fit he concluded that nothing could pass from non-existence to existence.

While Parmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the One, Zeno proved the non-existence of the Many.

Again, you may look upon life as an unprofitable episode, disturbing the blessed calm of non-existence.

Such an existence might perhaps be defined as one which, looked at from a purely objective point of view, or, rather, after cool and mature reflectionfor the question necessarily involves subjective considerations,would be decidedly preferable to non-existence; implying that we should cling to it for its own sake, and not merely from the fear of death; and further, that we should never like it to come to an end.

Cook would have liked to have returned by the Horn and thus settle the existence or non-existence of a large body of land in the South Pacific, but the time of year and the condition of his ship suggested that would be to court disaster.

There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to human Nature in the Prospect of Non-Existence, that I cannot but wonder, with many excellent Writers, how it is possible for a Man to out-live the Expectation of it.

He regarded the non-existence of the cold-storage system as one more proof of European inferiority, and no longer wondered, in the absence of the room-to-room telephone, that foreigners hadn't yet mastered the first principles of time-saving.

Like them, the greater part of mankind is aware that there is peace somewhere beyond these voices, that life with all its unsatisfied longings and its repetition of care is transitory as a summer cloud, and that the only way of escape from the pain and misery, the foulness and corruption, of this material universe is by the destruction of all desires, except the one engrossing desire for non-existence.

The empirical preponderance of pain over pleasure, which can be shown by calculation, proves that the world is evil, that its non-existence were better than its existence; the purposiveness everywhere perceptible in nature and the progress of history toward a final goal (it is true, a negative one) proves, nevertheless, that it is the best world that was possible (reconciliation of eudemonistic pessimism with evolutionistic optimism).

It may serve, in some measure, to confirm M. Dutroehet's recent opinion of the non-existence of miscroscopic animalcula, that the celebrated Spallanzani persuaded himself that he could see Animálcula infusòria which could be seen by nobody else.

I quote these instances as serving to show the impossibility of judging merely from outside appearances in regard to the existence or non-existence of destitution of the most painful character, which it is often to the interest of the local landlords to whitewash and conceal.

Until they were removed, until they passed into non-existence again, nothing had any significance for him.

Thus, he can prove the existence of Teutonism just about as conclusively as Haeckel has proved the more tenable proposition of the non-existence of God.

Thus he can prove the existence of Teutonism just about as conclusively as Haeckel has proved the more tenable proposition of the non-existence of God.

She cannot have gone so far as to assert the non-existence of God, affirming only that she could not conceive of such a being as actually existing.

To admit the possible non-existence of a God when you can so easily leave the subject alone was horrible to Tommy.

The New Zealanders have been long charged with cannibalism; but as no person of importance or celebrity had actually been a witness to the disgusting act, in pity to our nature such relations have been universally rejected, and much has been written to prove the non-existence of so hideous a propensity.

Chastity, modesty, polygamy, murder, religion, and nature have now furnished us an abundance of illustrations showing the changeableness and former non-existence of sentiments which in us are so strong that we are inclined to fancy they must have been the same always and everywhere.

Now the non-existence or extreme rarity of conjugal attachmentnot to speak of affectionis painfully indicated by the circumstance that wives were, among many races, valued (apart from grossly utilitarian and sensual motives) as mothers only, and that the men had a right, of which they commonly availed themselves, of repudiating a wife if she proved barren.

A man to his astonishment all at once becomes conscious of existing after having been in a state of non-existence for many thousands of years, when, presently again, he returns to a state of non-existence for an equally long time.

If it were of any value in itself, something unconditioned, its end would not be non-existence.

But if, at the end of those ten thousand years, some one has quite forgotten to waken you, I imagine that you would have become accustomed to that long state of non-existence, following such a very short existence, and that the misfortune would not be very great.

There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to human Nature in the Prospect of Non-Existence, that I cannot but wonder, with many excellent Writers, how it is possible for a Man to out-live the Expectation of it.

He forgot that his own plan was to have opposed to the enemy a bulwark of steel, and that the non-existence of that bulwark on the 30th of August was owing to his own negligence.

Nothing worthy of particular notice occurred during the run to Santa Cruz in Tenerife, which we made on the 18th of July; having in obedience to our instructions passed over the presumed site of The Eight Stones, thus adding another though almost needless testimony to their non-existence, at least in the place assigned them in the old charts.