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Criterion   Listen
noun
Criterion  n.  (pl. criteria, sometimes criterions)  A standard of judging; any approved or established rule or test, by which facts, principles opinions, and conduct are tried in forming a correct judgment respecting them. "Of the diseases of the mind there is no criterion." "Inferences founded on such enduring criteria."
Synonyms: Standard; measure; rule.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Criterion" Quotes from Famous Books



... the Lord I was!" declared FitzGerald; "standing at the corner of Piccadilly Circus this blessed minute, and making up my mind whether to go to the Criterion grill or ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... Criterion.—The keystone of the Confucian philosophy, that man is born good, will be found in the ...
— Religions of Ancient China • Herbert A. Giles

... I repeat, quite a different thing; and this difference is connected not only with the objects to which we may have to direct our judgment, but to the very criterion of our judgment. The same object can displease us if we appreciate it in a moral point of view, and be very attractive to us in the aesthetical point of view. But even if the moral judgment and the aesthetical judgment were both satisfied, this object would produce this effect on ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... don't! It's lost her more places than my other two, married now, ever lost put together. You work in the Criterion?" ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... in such calamities with the guilty. Moreover, it seems reasonable to believe, that evils inflicted by the omnipotent judge, must be either incurable, or curable by himself alone; that the connection of his power with his equity, may the more brightly shine forth. By such a criterion, are miraculous works distinguished from the operations of nature. For it would be impiety to suppose, that the almighty creator of heaven and earth intended, that his works should be performed in vain. Wherefore ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead

... religious, temperate, generally just and sincere, a stranger to violent transports of passion, and might have passed for one of the best princes of the age in which he lived, had he never ascended the throne of Great Britain. But the distinguishing criterion of his character was ambition. To this he sacrificed the punctilios of honour and decorum, in deposing his own father-in-law and uncle; and this he gratified at the expense of the nation that raised him to sovereign authority. He ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... are ordered to present themselves at the town-hall or seized in their own homes, whether they are taken forthwith or allowed a few hours to prepare themselves, whether they are forced to sign an agreement or not, the same fact is evident: the criterion of employment is never considered as ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts

... the models of these heathenish temples in their eyes) do not exceed its noble grace and simplicity. The mystics make discoveries at home, that the Gothic architecture is Catholicism carved in stone— (in which case, and if architectural beauty is a criterion or expression of religion, what a dismal barbarous creed must that expressed by the Bethesda meeting-house and Independent chapels be?)—if, as they would gravely hint, because Gothic architecture is beautiful, Catholicism is therefore lovely and right,—why, ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hungry; but that was no criterion, for they had eaten no lunch. Time is bound to drag by very slowly when people are thrust into such a position as this; it might not be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... too intangible, the second too narrow. The rude savage does not philosophize on phenomena; the enlightened student sees in them but interacting forces: yet both may be profoundly religious. Nor can morality be accepted as a criterion of religions. The bloody scenes in the Mexican teocalli were merciful compared with those in the torture rooms of the Inquisition. Yet the religion of Jesus was far above ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton

... his work would make "such noble ruins." Cost is his sole criterion, and here he, too, seems to glance ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson

... another so ruthlessly? My deliverance came from a source where you would perhaps least expect it. It was through the study of John Stuart Mill's "System of Logic." In it I learned "that inconceivability is not a criterion of impossibility," as rationalism claims. On the other hand, that we know things to be true that are just as inconceivable as that there can be two ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz

... Naples to begin, and promised that he would support him. At this interview, Mack said he would march in ten days; and, by his conversation and address, seems to have temporarily withdrawn our hero from the contemplation of his actions, that unerring criterion of character. The judgment which Lord Nelson had first formed of General Mack, on this principle, has since appeared to be just. With such a general as Mack, and such a minister as our hero describes the Marquis De Gallo to have been, in a letter to ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison

... far from asserting that they are of Gypsy race. More enterprising individuals than myself may, perhaps, establish the fact. Any particular language or jargon which they speak amongst themselves will be the best criterion. The word which they employ for 'water' would decide the point; for the Dar-bushi-fal are not Gypsies, if, in their peculiar speech, they designate that blessed element and article most necessary to human existence by aught else ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... pleasure one has is the criterion, not the manner of getting it. As for me, what is called a life of ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... magnitude of the unfinished task is still almost staggering. If the proportion for rural America were the same as for the country as a whole, there would be 20,143,292 people not belonging to church. Church membership, of course, is not the only criterion of the influence of the church; nor would all denominations admit that all the people should belong to church, since some would not accept children not yet having reached the age of accountability. But in any ...
— Church Cooperation in Community Life • Paul L. Vogt

... great number of galley-slaves at Girgenti; and they must be a happy race, if laughing and merriment be any criterion to judge by. ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo

... affirmed that by the criterion of sematologic content Indian languages are of a very low grade. Therefore the frequently-expressed opinion that the languages of barbaric peoples have a more highly organized grammatic structure than the languages of civilized peoples has ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... Celibacy no Remedy After the Crucifixion The Vindictive Miracles and the Stoning of Stephen Confusion of Christendom Secret of Paul's Success Paul's Qualities Acts of the Apostles The Controversies on Baptism and Transubstantiation The Alternative Christs Credulity no Criterion Belief in Personal Immortality no Criterion The Secular View Natural, not Rational, therefore Inevitable "The Higher Criticism" The Perils of Salvationism The Importance of Hell in the Salvation Scheme The Right to refuse Atonement The Teaching ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... revelation are made liable to misrepresentation; that its essential principles are arrayed against the pride of human wisdom; and that its blessed institutions are so obnoxious to abuse and opposition. Such a constitution of things is evidently intended to furnish a decisive criterion of human character—to exhibit, in striking contrast, the humble votaries of faith, who reverently bow to the authority of Scripture; and the adherents of a haughty, self-confident rationality, who will receive the testimony of God himself, no farther than it accords with their opinions ...
— The National Preacher, Vol. 2 No. 7 Dec. 1827 • Aaron W. Leland and Elihu W. Baldwin

... ignored matters so much that other things matter only in so far as they affect it. As I have elsewhere maintained, the eugenic criterion is the first and last of every measure of reform or reaction that can be proposed or imagined. Will it make a better race? Will the consequence be that more of the better stocks, of both sexes, contribute to the composition of future generations? In other words, the very first thing ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby

... the case is finally decided in their favour; and there is the same exultation over the defeated party, as if their being in the minority were a clear proof that they were also in the wrong. But this is no criterion, and time may sternly reverse the victory of the moment. Even in the Church the side of the false prophets may be the growing and the winning side, while Jeremiah is left ...
— The Preacher and His Models - The Yale Lectures on Preaching 1891 • James Stalker

... A criterion of the extent and success of our participation and of the thoroughness with which our exhibits were organized is seen in the awards granted to American exhibitors by the international jury, namely, grand prizes, 240; gold ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... a transcendant linguist in the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and modern European languages;—and with or without the Sanscrit, I look up to him, and rely on his erudition in all cases, in which I am concerned. And it is this perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed criterion of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with each and all particulars of his superiority." Thus without Christ, or in any other power but that of Christ, and (subjectively) of faith in Christ, no man can be saved; but does it follow, that no man can have Christian faith ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... one of these, I got a downward shot between the shoulders at the tusker, and dropped him immediately as the herd passed beneath. The jungle was so thick that I could not see his head, or, of course, I should have chosen the usual shot. This shot was not a fair criterion for the shoulder, as I happened to be in a position that enabled me to fire down upon him, and the ball most ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... deprived of the earning power of her husband should not claim. In fact the case for including Pensions and Separation Allowances largely depends on exploiting the rather arbitrary character of the criterion laid down in the pre-Armistice conditions. Of all the losses caused by war some bear more heavily on individuals and some are more evenly distributed over the community as a whole; but by means of ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... Frenchmen. This is conspicuously so at New York. Delmonico's has a worldwide reputation, and is undoubtedly a good restaurant; but it may well be questioned whether the New York estimate of its merits is not somewhat excessive. If price be the criterion, it has certainly few superiors. The a la carte restaurants are, indeed, all apt to be expensive for the single traveller, who will find that he can easily spend eight to twelve shillings on a by no means sumptuous meal. ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... capable of great expansion, if good habits of tone-production are followed. But again it is well to be on the safe side; and choir-boys, who are selected because they have good vocal organs, and who are drilled far more than school children, are hardly a criterion to ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... the Confucian dogma, and in conformity with Christian doctrine, that the nature of man at his birth is evil, and that this condition can only be changed by efficient moral training. Then came Yang Hsiung, 53-18 B.C., who propounded an ethical criterion midway between the rival positions insisted on by Mencius and Hsuen Tz[)u], teaching that the nature of man at birth is neither good nor evil, but a mixture of both, and that development in either direction depends ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... thus engaged, the council was sitting in the poop cabin, drafting the laws by which the community was to be governed—and making a mighty poor business of it, if the frequent outburst of voices raised in angry altercation might be taken as a criterion. As for me, half a dozen seamen were placed at my disposal thoroughly to overhaul the hull, spars, rigging, and sails of the ship; and I began my task by unbending all the sails that needed any repair, sending them down on deck, and storing them away in the sail-room prior to starting ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... more, the younger they are" (paragraph 320). "Consequently the high importance of developmental history is indubitable. For, if the formation of the organs takes place in the order corresponding to their importance, this sequence must of itself be a criterion of their comparative value in classification. The peculiarities which appear earlier should be considered of higher value than those which appear subsequently" (paragraph 321). "A system, in order to be true and natural, must agree with the sequence of the organs ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... &c.) and Varro insist that there were only two academies, the Old and the New. Those who maintain that there is no justification for the five-fold division hold that the agnosticism of Carneades was really latent in Plato, and became prominent owing to the necessity of refuting the Stoic criterion. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... rather have people say bad things of us to our face than run the risk of the ridicule and the foolish feeling that comes with insincerity. There are some who are always suspicions that people are insincere in praise or friendly words; they hate being fooled, they know of no criterion of sincerity and such people are in an adynamic state most of the time. The difference between the trusting and the suspicious is that one responds with energy and belief to the manifestations of friendliness in everybody, and the other has no such inner response to guide his energy and his ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... answer. He was a jezailchi of the Khyber Rifles— hook-nosed as an osprey—black-bearded—with white teeth glistening out of a gap in the darkness of his lower face. And he was armed with a British government rifle, although that is no criterion in that borderland of professional thieves where many a man has offered himself for enlistment with a stolen ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... match means that one is to have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a big expensive house, which nobody can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di! that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his day's ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... aimed to ascertain which was the best, the hardest, and the most durable color for a mule. I did this because great importance has been attached by many to the color of these animals. Indeed, some of our officers have made it a distinguishing feature. But color, I am satisfied, is no criterion to judge by. There is an exception to this, perhaps, in the cream-colored mule. In most cases, these cream-colored mules are apt to be soft, and they also lack strength. This is particularly so with those that take after the mare, and have manes and tails ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley

... difficult to imagine why Peckham should not have thoroughly liked Hillerton; difficult, that is, to any one not aware of the unusual criterion by which he measured his fellow men. He was himself conscious that he had ceased to "take any stock" in his employer, since the day on which he had discovered that that excellent man of business did not know the ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller

... Constantius Chlorus, and was with him at Eboracum at the time of his death, and there assumed the purple. His son, Constantius II., or Junior, was named Caesar by his father in 317, and died in 340. There is no proper criterion by which to distinguish the coins of these two emperors. Of the 208 coins of Constantine in my collection there are ...
— The Coinages of the Channel Islands • B. Lowsley

... judged by the final criterion of the effect produced by anaesthetics and poisons, the plant response fulfils the test of vital phenomenon. In previous chapters we have found that in the matter of response by negative variation, of the presence or absence of fatigue, of the ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose

... like Criterion's paces?" he said, after they had entered the park and were slacking from a canter to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... agreed the other. "So let us determine upon a criterion of respectability. Shall we say the first man, provided he be agreeable, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer

... century ago by Herschel that the variations in the number of sun-spots had a direct effect upon terrestrial weather, and he attempted to demonstrate it by using the price of wheat as a criterion of climatic conditions, meantime making careful observation of the sun-spots. Nothing very definite came of his efforts in this direction, the subject being far too complex to be determined without long periods of observation. Latterly, however, meteorologists, particularly in the tropics, are ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... are well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being thrown, let the horse do what it likes; never enters their head. Their criterion of a good rider is, a man who can manage an untamed colt, or who, if his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform other such exploits. I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse down twenty times, and that nineteen ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... the sincere Christian feels for the full enjoyment of God. In regard to the former part of his doctrine, again, it appears that Paley meant to propose the will of God as the rule or obligation of morals, and utility only as a criterion or guide; though it must be confessed that his language is liable to much misconstruction, and is somewhat at variance with itself. The real objection to the doctrine of Paley, I apprehend, lies in his unqualified rejection of the ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie

... show that the class is not possessed with that total spirit of abnegation requisite in the guardians of public funds. The requirement might be extended to bank-presidents with benefit, if some Cincinnati episodes are any criterion. It is safe to assume that the bank that could advertise, in connection with its attractive quarterly or semi-annual statement, that the president and cashier were properly attested and vouched-for eunuchs ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... He not only accentuated the disagreement of philosophers more strongly than Justin, but insisted more energetically than that Apologist on the necessity of viewing the practical fruits of philosophy in life as a criterion; see Orat. 2, 3, 19, 25. Nevertheless Socrates still found grace in his eyes (c. 3). With regard to other philosophers he listened to ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack

... minister did not consider as a proof of his having ascertained an undoubted majority in the house of commons. There was a great number of disputed elections; and the discussion of these was the point on which the people had turned their eyes, as the criterion of the minister's power and credit. In the first which was heard at the bar of the house, he cai-ried his point by a majority of six only; and this he looked upon as a defeat rather than a victory. His ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... surprising, as they show us that "the sexual forms of a species manifest in their respective powers for conjunction with those of another species, physiological peculiarities which might well entitle them, by the criterion of ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin

... of his hair or the wrinkles on his cheek would not have anything to do with his age, for time was powerless against the richness of his blood. He would still be a boy when he was dying of old age; but if protestations, kisses and homage were any criterion then the fact that he loved his wife was fixed beyond ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... originally sold that have been operated from thirty to thirty-five years. It is interesting to note in considering the life of a boiler that the length of life of a Babcock & Wilcox boiler must be taken as the criterion of what length of life is possible. This is due to the fact that there are Babcock & Wilcox boilers in operation to-day that have been in service from a time that antedates by a considerable margin that at which the manufacturer of any other water-tube boiler ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... that the maker of literature shall be both man and artist: as a result, Dickens gains in proportion. This explanation makes it likely that, looking to the future, while Thackeray may not lose, Dickens is sure to be more and more appreciated. A return to a saner and truer criterion will be general and the confines of a too narrow estheticism be understood: or, better yet, the esthetic will be so defined as to admit of wider application. The Gissings and Chestertons of the time to come will insist even more strenuously ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... doubt whether an opinion which has been entertained by several eminent authors, 'that vision will grow indistinct when the optic pencils are less than the fiftieth part of an inch,' would hold good in all cases. I perceived that according to this criterion I was not entitled to see distinctly with a power of much more than about 320 in a seven-foot telescope of an aperture of six and four-tenths inches, whereas in many experiments I found myself very well pleased with magnifiers which far exceeded such narrow ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden

... of suffrage in new States is not a criterion of its effect elsewhere. And whether the effect could be shown to be good or bad, the main argument would not be touched. The interesting thing to trace is the ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... progress retarded; but, notwithstanding every impediment, we were enabled to travel faster than the caravan, and we knew that we were rapidly gaining upon it. We could tell this by the constantly freshening trail; but we had a more accurate criterion in the count of the camps. By the number of these, we knew to a certainty that we were approaching the caravan. We were in high hopes of being able to come up with it, before it should enter the mountain-passes—more dangerous to the traveller than even the plains themselves: ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... splendors of an old Southern home to one who, she believed, had never seen such magnificence before; for the belief that poverty and poor fare are the common lot of the country folks at the North is one of the fallacies commonly held by all classes at the South. As slavery, which was the universal criterion of wealth and culture at the South, did not prevail at all at the North, they unconsciously and naturally came to associate self-help with degradation, and likened the Northern farmer to the poor white "cropper." ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... frequently partake of arbitrary sway, (and who is the human being exempted from human frailty) yet he certainly created and sustained, in her most elevated zenith, the splendour of France, till crushed by the union of nations in arms; and if power is the criterion of greatness, who was, is, or ever can be greater than the man, who, emerging from obscurity, raised himself solely by his mental energies to the highest elevation of human glory; and who, this Island excepted, commanded the destinies of all Europe! The most determined of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... density. Occasionally this mist would go on forming in higher and higher layers by condensation; mostly however, it seemed rather to come from below. But always, when it was really dense, there was a definite plane of demarcation. In fact, that was the criterion by which I recognised this peculiar mist. Mostly there is, even in the north, a layer of lesser density over the pools, gradually shading off into the clear air above. Nothing of what I am going to describe can be observed in ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... replied. 'My soul constantly says "Yes" to it. Its beauty is the reminder of our immortal essence. The town is dangerous in that it has little beauty. It causes us to forget. It is exploring the illusion of trade, and its whole song is of trade. If you understand this, you have a criterion ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... the trees and the cackling of hens to me," declared Doria. "I have not thought about it and I do not want to think about it. The criterion of love, such as I feel to Jenny, is that nothing else weighs a mustard seed in the balance against it. If she were a pauper, or if she owned millions, my attitude of heart is not changed. I worship ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... majority in which Locke also put his trust. Rousseau's general will, indeed, is at bottom no more than an assertion that right and truth should prevail; and for this also Locke was anxious. But he did not think an infallible criterion existed for its detection; and he was satisfied with the convenience of a simple numerical test. Nor would it be difficult to show that Locke's state has more real room for individuality than Rousseau's. The latter made much show ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski

... manners and modes of life and thought some evidences of modern enterprise and enlightenment. It has existed since the early part of the eighteenth century, and is old enough to have acquired some civilisation of its own; but age in a Siberian settlement is no criterion of development, and Petropavlovsk either has not attained the enlightenment of maturity, or has passed into its second childhood, for it is still in a benighted condition. Why it was and is called Petropavlovsk—the village of St. Peter and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... its claim before UNCLOS arbitration that the northern limit of Trinidad and Tobago's maritime boundary with Venezuela extends into its waters; joins other Caribbean states to counter Venezuela's claim that Aves Island sustains human habitation, a criterion under UNCLOS, which permits Venezuela to extend its EEZ/continental shelf over a large ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... and that the contrary view comes from the study of the impure and crossed stocks resulting from crosses between the true Pear tomato and garden sorts which are frequently sold by seedsmen as pear-shaped. Many garden sorts—like the Plum (Fig. 8), the Egg, the Golden Nugget, Vick's Criterion, etc.—are known to have originated from crosses of the Pear and I think that most, if not all, the garden sorts in which the longitudinal diameter of the fruit is greater than its transverse diameter owe this form ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy

... Europe. But for William of Orange, Marlborough, and Eugene, he would have succeeded. Politically he did not achieve his aim; but under him France became the unchallenged leader of literary and artistic culture and taste, the universal criterion. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... The latitude will, after all, determine finally the scale of paces; and you can, at leisure, adjust each day's journey by its general bearing between different latitudes; and, subsequently, introduce the details. You will soon find the results sufficiently accurate to afford some criterion of even the variation of the needle, when the course happens to be nearly east or west, and when, of course, it behoves you to be very well acquainted with the rate of your horse's paces, as determined by differences of latitude. ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... itself, and overstating its idea, might really be regulated. But they are few who consider so closely, fewer perhaps they who have the heart to cut out their own fine or refined things. Again, our author suggests another criterion. We are, as in Lamb's phrase, "to write for antiquity," with the souls of poets dead and gone for our judges. But we are also to write for the future, asking with what feelings posterity will read us—if it ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus

... The term "bituminous," as generally understood, is applied to a group of coals having a maximum fuel ratio of about 3, and hence it is a kind of coal in which the volatile matter and the fixed carbon are nearly equal; but this criterion cannot be used without qualification, for the same statement might be made of subbituminous coal and lignite. As noted before, the distinguishing feature which serves to separate bituminous coal from coals of lower rank is the manner in which it ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... audience, but is much less crouded.—By the way, I believe many who formerly did not much disturb themselves about religious tenets, have become rigid Papists since an adherence to the holy see has become a criterion of political opinion. But if these separatists are bigoted and obstinate, the conventionalists on their side are ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... on the sole authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, as the representative of God on earth, to whose keeping was confided the interpretation of God's word, and in whose bosom is found that other criterion of truth, called tradition. Tradition it is that justifies the change she made. Deny this, and there is no justification possible, and you must go back to the Mosaic Sabbath. Admit it, and if you are a Protestant you will find yourself in somewhat ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... letter attentively will see in it that infallible criterion of hypocrisy and pretense in professions of regard, viz., extravagant ideas feebly and incoherently expressed. When the heart dictates what is said, the thoughts are natural, and the language plain; but ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott

... retaliation against the aggressor: unless indeed, they intend to argue that, so long as Philip keeps away from Attica and the Peiraeus, he does the city no wrong and is not committing acts of war. {8} But if this is their criterion of right and wrong, if this is their definition of peace, then, although what they say is iniquitous, intolerable, and inconsistent with your security, as all must see, at the same time these very statements are actually contradictory of the charges which they are making against ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes

... through its courses; and the heart that I had of old stirs feebly and heavily within me." The prisoner paused a moment, and resumed in an altered tone: "Leaving, then, my own character to the ordeal of report, I cannot perhaps do better than leave to the same criterion that of the witness against me. I will candidly own that under other circumstances it might have been otherwise. I will candidly avow that I might have then used such means as your law awards me to procure an acquittal and to prolong my existence,—though ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... dinner. The dinner itself was of a simplicity which Peter thought admirable, and which, of course, he attributed to his Duchessa's own good taste. He was not yet familiar enough with the Black aristocracy of Italy, to be aware that in the matter of food and drink simplicity is as much the criterion of good form amongst them, as lavish complexity is the criterion of good form amongst ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... Does any one really mean to say that there is any internal or external criterion by which the reader of a biblical statement, in which scientific matter is contained, is enabled to judge whether it is to be taken au serieux or not? Is the account of the Deluge, accepted as true in the New Testament, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... producing the Magdeburg Centuries, a vast history of the church to the year 1300, which aimed at making Protestant polemic independent of Catholic sources. Save for the accumulation of much material it deserves no praise. Its critical principles are worse than none, for its only criterion of {585} sources is as they are pro- or anti-papal. The latter are taken and the former left. Miracles are not doubted as such, but are divided into two classes, those tending to prove an accepted doctrine which are true, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... judging the art of poetry on the hard American "cash basis" ought to be prepared, for the sake of consistency, to apply the same criterion as well to colleges, public schools, symphony orchestras, institutions for scientific research, missions, settlements, libraries, and all other unlucrative educational enterprises. With inexorable logic they should be prepared to insist that ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... she gloated over the prospect of cruelties shortly to be inflicted, put her at once on a par with the noble savage running wild in woods. Civilisation could bring no charge against this young woman; it and she had no common criterion. Who knows but this lust of hers for sanguinary domination was the natural enough issue of the brutalising serfdom of her predecessors in the family line of the Peckovers? A thrall suddenly endowed with authority will assuredly make bitter work for the luckless creature ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... choosing any wall paper it is imperative that you try a large sample of it in the room for which it is intended, as the reflection from a nearby building or brick wall can entirely change a beautiful yellow into a thick mustard colour. How a wall paper looks in the shop is no criterion. As stated sometimes the wrong side of wall paper gives you ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... in the tone of his answer that led me to the thought that he was without fortune—even without a home. Perhaps a clerk out of place, thought I; or a poor artist. His dress was rich enough—but dress is no criterion on a Mississippi steamboat. ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... the men of to-day. The believer in a divine Revelation does not now, if he is wise, rest his case at all on the miracles connected with its original promulgation, as was the fashion not very long since. This for two reasons; chiefly this: that the decisive criterion of any truth, ethical or physical, must be truth of the same kind. Ethical truth must be ethically attested. The moral and religious character of the Revelation presents its credentials of worth in its history of the moral ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton

... half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did, that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... applause which he received flowed from an age ignorant of art. It should be recollected, however, that it is much easier to copy or follow, when the path has been marked out, than to invent or discover; and hence that the glorious productions of the "Prince of modern Painters," form no criterion by which to judge of the merits of those of the "Father of modern Painters." The former had "the accumulated wisdom of ages" before him, of which he availed himself freely; the latter had nothing worthy ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner

... a good one. Then my powers of speech returning, I asked where I was. I found I had not wandered nearly so far as I expected. I was barely six miles from my home—at King's Langley; but this fact was no criterion of the distance I must have traversed in my mad frenzy, for I saw by the clock that the hour was ten. It was about five when I left Colonel Maitland's house, so that I had been pressing onward for five hours in as wild a night as any on which I have ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster

... phases; the moral, which involves the RIGHT, and the prudential, which is the expedient. But strictly, the moral is the principal and controlling view of the subject, and that which has made and will continually constitute the criterion of action from which the expediency is deduced, and the anomaly of slavery in our Republic understood, the paradox of a slaveholding democracy explained, and the institution of slavery justified with human equality, by justly discriminating between barbarism and humanity, ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit

... Applying this criterion to the mele above given, it may be judged to be by no means a product wholly of the archaic period. While certain parts, say from the first to the tenth verses, inclusive, bear the mark of antiquity, the other parts do not ring clear. It seems as if some poet of comparatively modern ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... enough, by one who had formerly been in the employ of Stephen Langdon, and who, as a servant, had fallen under the spell of the daughter of the house to such an extent that he had never ceased to quote her as the criterion of all things in the way of excellence to be attained by an employer. And toward this quarry Duncan was now hastening at the full speed of his big Packard-sixty, with the trusted Thompson at the wheel; and toward it, as the chief actor, Richard Morton had started away from Cedarcrest ...
— The Last Woman • Ross Beeckman

... in the same way as hybrids between species of different genera. This result is important, "for we thus learn that the difficulty in sexually uniting two organic forms and the sterility of their offspring, afford no sure criterion of so-called specific distinctness" ("Forms of Flowers", page 242): the relative or absolute sterility of the illegitimate unions and that of their illegitimate descendants depend exclusively on the nature of the sexual elements and on their inability to combine in a particular ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... it is obvious that we cannot speak of dominance. And with the disappearance of this phenomenon we lose one criterion for determining which of the two parent forms possesses the additional factor. Are we, for example, to regard the black Andalusian as a splashed white to which has been added a double dose of a colour-intensifying factor, or are we to consider the white ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... for, no more than logic, has it ever been discovered 'parceled and labeled.' But how do I know that all truth is not merely subjective? Ages ago, skepticism intrenched itself in an impregnable fortress: 'There is no criterion of truth.' How do I know that my 'true,' 'good,' and 'beautiful' are absolutely so? My reason is no infallible plummet to sound the sea of phenomena and touch noumena. I tell you, Beulah, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... common with many theologians before him, that human personality cannot be assumed as an exact copy of the Divine, but only as that which is most nearly analogous to it among finite things. But these two positions, if admitted, involve a corresponding practical conclusion as regards the criterion of religious truth or falsehood. Were we capable, either, on the one hand, of a clear conception of the Unconditioned, or, on the other, of a direct intuition of the Divine Attributes as objects of consciousness, we might be able to ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel

... form of government will best promote that end—this is the only question. I believe it is ours—but only with slavery extinguished, and universal education—schools—schools—SCHOOLS—common schools—high schools for all. Education the criterion of the right of suffrage, not property. I do not believe in a government of ignorance, whether by the many or the few. With the constant and terrible opposing element of slavery, we have certainly achieved stupendous results in three fourths ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... monarch, blemish, distich, princess, gas, bias, stigma, wo, grotto, folio, punctilio, ally, duty, toy, money, entry, valley, volley, half, dwarf, strife, knife, roof, muff, staff, chief, sheaf, mouse, penny, ox, foot, erratum, axis, thesis, criterion, bolus, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... or not our Downs are to us delectable mountains, and let the reader who scoffs at the noun remember that size is no criterion of either beauty or sublimity. That Sussex lover and greatest of literary naturalists, Gilbert White, in perhaps his most frequently quoted passage so characterizes the "majestic chain"; to his contemporaries such a description was not out of place; our great grandfathers were ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... between ancient and modern philosophy. The modern thinker often repeats the parallel axiom, 'All knowledge is experience.' He means to say that the outward and not the inward is both the original source and the final criterion of truth, because the outward can be observed and analyzed; the inward is only known by external results, and is dimly perceived by each man for himself. In what does this differ from the saying of Theaetetus? ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... of the female sex are liable to a disease very much resembling a true consumption, and from which it is difficult to distinguish it; but this disease is curable by steel and bitters. A criterion of true phthisis has been sought for in the state of the teeth; but the exceptions to that rule are numerous. An unusual dilatation of the pupil of the eye, is ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering

... necessarily false because it clashes with our present ideas of the possible, when we have to acknowledge that the very same evidence may safely convey to us facts which clashed with our fathers' notions of what is possible, but which are now accepted. Our notions of the possible cease to be a criterion of truth or falsehood, and our contempt for the Gospels as myths must slowly die, as 'miracle' after 'miracle' is brought within the realm of acknowledged law. With each such admission the hypothesis that the Gospel evidence is mythical must grow weaker, and weaker ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... them. As a statesman, he never was the master of the situation. He followed rather than led public opinion, and subordinated everything to the dread of displeasing any section of a population, which, to be ruled—even in quiet times—must be ruled with a rod of iron. Success is the criterion of ability in this country, and poor Trochu is as politically dead as though he never had lived. His enemies call him a traitor; his friends defend him from the charge by saying that he is only a ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... Nathannael, quietly, as he drew the reins tighter, and set himself to do that which it takes a very firm man to do to conquer an obstinate and unruly horse. Agatha remembered what she had heard or read somewhere about such a case being no bad criterion of a man's character, "lose your temper, and you'll lose your beast," ay, and perhaps your own life into the bargain. She was considerably frightened, but she sat quite still, looking from the struggling animal to her husband, ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... be paid to the state of the bed for the first fortnight after the plants are turned out; the heat-stick (a stick stuck into the bed) should be examined, being, as it is, a much better criterion to judge by than a thermometer, which is generally used to indicate the heat of the atmosphere in the frame; cover up according to the heat of the bed. If it will allow it, a small portion of air should be left on every night, which may be given in the evening after ...
— In-Door Gardening for Every Week in the Year • William Keane

... the doctrines of the Gospel to people of meaner understandings; it is a sort of derogation, in their opinion, to comply with the rules of Christianity, and reckon that man possessed of a narrow genius who studies to be good. What a pity that the Holy Writings are not made the criterion of true judgment! or that any one should pass for a fine gentleman in this world, but he that seems solicitous about his happiness in the next. My dear doctor, I am forsaken by all my acquaintance, utterly neglected by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 286, December 8, 1827 • Various

... thus added greatly to the power of the reigning duke. He inspired the men with a spirit of loyalty and good faith, and taught the women to be chaste and docile. On the report of the tranquillity prevailing in Loo, strangers flocked into the state, and thus was fulfilled the old criterion of good government which was afterward repeated by Confucius, "the people were happy, and strangers ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... Pogson, with some dignity, "merit, and not birth, is the criterion of a man: I despise an hereditary aristocracy, and admire only Nature's gentlemen. For my part, I ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... faint gleam of similarity, then, attaching to the instruments of the second epoch, be it understood, is in no way sufficient to demonstrate that Guarneri was a pupil of Stradivari. Upon turning to other makers, what will be the result if we judge them by the criterion above mentioned? Bergonzi, Guadagnini, Gagliano, and others, whose names it is unnecessary to mention, leave upon their earliest efforts the indelible stamp of the master who first instructed them. To suppose that Guarneri del Gesu formed the single exception to the likeness between the work of ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... final criterion for the appreciation of art is one that perpetually recurs to those interested in any sort of aesthetic endeavor. Mr. John Addington Symonds, in a chapter of 'The Renaissance in Italy' treating of the Bolognese school of painting, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... contempt, European intellectual culture is still greatly indebted to Alexandria, and especially for the patronage she accorded to the works of Aristotle. Whilst the speculative mind was in later centuries allured by the supernatural, and the discussion of the criterion of truth and the principles of morality ended in the mystic doctrines of Neo-Platonism, the practical tendencies of the great Alexandrine scholars were instrumental in laying the foundations of science. To the Museion were attached the libraries: one in the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... rights. I confess that men so eaten up with bigotry, as the bulk of them appear to be, will not consider themselves as bound by this oath; particularly as it is in some measure forced, they will argue that it is by no means obligatory; but if I mistake not, it will be a sort of criterion by which you will be able to distinguish the desperate fanatics from those who are reclaimable. The former must of course be secured and carried to some interior parts of the continent where they can not be dangerous. This mode of proceeding I conceive (if any can) will be effectual—but ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall

... feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate .. the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... degree, for a course of general reading. Goethe and Schiller, you know. Yes, how fine that all is, though I sometimes feel it is a little Teutonic? One needs to correct the Teutonic bias, and it is just there that the gymnastic of the classics comes in; it gives one a standard—a criterion in fact. One must have a criterion, mustn't one, or it is all loose, and indeed, so to speak, illusive? I am all for formative education; and it is there that women—I speak frankly in the presence of three intelligent women—it is there that they suffer. Their education is not formative ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson

... "The criterion of social justice in every civilized community," he writes, "is, and always has been, not how large or how intense is the misery of the social debtor class, but what is done with the social surplus of industry? It was formerly used to build pyramids, to create a landed or ecclesiastical or literary ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished. The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer. Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers is known by its antipathy to decency and religion; another, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... the heart would break, or cease to care. Best cease to care. Whatever the mystery which has brought forth man and the universe, it is a non-human mystery, it has its own great ends, man is not the criterion. Best leave it all to the vast, creative, non-human mystery. Best strive with oneself only, not ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... on the human mind who have adhered to the doctrine of Ideas, and have been the advocates for the Spirituality of Thought, have insufficiently considered, or held in subordinate regard, Language; the prominent criterion, by which a human being is proudly elevated above the rest of the animated creation. Speech, and its representation by characters, are exclusively comprehensible by man; and these have been the sources of his vast attainments and rapid progression. ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam

... misinterpreted the lack of enthusiasm. "When I was a medical student," he said, "I failed dozens of times in my final examination—dozens. It's no criterion of knowledge, you know: it is just luck. Never let examination failure dishearten you. Go along happily, George, and take your chance when ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... That's no criterion. Things are very different now. This is a modern city we're talking about—half the buildings down town are fireproof or nearly so. Modern cities don't burn the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... snatched off his hat, stared, seemed on the point of whistling, then, recovering himself, said courteously: "I'm George Merrill, advertising manager for the Criterion Clothing Company." ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me to shine in any one. The worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye, that one loses, in a good measure, the powers of critical discrimination. Here the best criterion I know is a friend—not only of abilities to judge, but with good-nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... youth. Show me such a man as that, and I shall be content to bow to his decision whether a thing be Veal or not. But as such men are not found very frequently, I should suggest it as an approximation to a safe criterion, that a thing may be regarded as mature when it is deliberately and dispassionately approved by an educated man of good ability and above thirty years of age. No doubt a man of fifty may hold that fifty is the age of sound taste and sense; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various



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