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Modification   Listen
noun
Modification  n.  
1.
The act of modifying, or the state of being modified; a change; as, the modification of an opinion, or of a machine.
Synonyms: change, alteration, adjustment.
2.
Something which has been modified; a modified form or condition; state as modified; as, the various modifications of light; the latest modification of the operating system crashes less frequently.
Synonyms: model (8).
3.
(Gram.) The alteration of the meaning of a word or phrase by another word or phrase; usually a restriction of the scope of the word modified; as, in the phrase "a billion dollars is a relatively small sum to spend on cancer research" the modification of small by relatively is needed to make the sentence accurate, rather than ludicrous.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Modification" Quotes from Famous Books



... occasionally, though meant interrogatively, are of a nature to convey a direct categorical affirmation, unless as their meaning is modified by the cadence and intonation. Art thou, detached from this vocal and accentual modification, is equivalent to thou art. Nay, even apart from this accident, the popular belief authorized the notion, that simply to have uttered any great thesis, though unconsciously—simply to have united verbally any two great ideas, though ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... had a slow advance for some fifteen years, but from 1880 spread rapidly, until the manufacture of cheese in factories became one of the leading provincial industries. The system followed is a slight modification of the Cheddar system, which takes its name from one of the most beautiful vales in the west of England. Its rapid progress has been due to the following circumstances: Ontario, with her rich grasses, clear skies, and clean springs and streams, is well adapted ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James

... tales might arouse in the child a desire to originate a game, especially if he were accustomed to originate games in the regular game work. A modification of the game of tag might grow from Red Riding Hood and a pleasant ring game easily might develop from Sleeping Beauty. In fact there is a traditional English game called "Sleeping Beauty." An informal ring game which would be somewhat of a joke, and would have the virtue of developing ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... water, and also have a primitive or elementary "lung" in the shape of an air-bladder, or "sound," which they use for breathing on land. The Mud-fish of South America, and also other forms in Australia and other places, have a modification of fins which are practically "limbs," which they actually use for traveling on land from pond to pond. Some of these fish have been known to travel enormous distances in search of new pools of water, or new streams, having been driven from their ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... probably the god of the Shannon river: and the name of the saint is clearly reminiscent of the name of the river. In their present form the two names are not philologically compatible: the name of the saint may be explained as an arbitrary modification, designed to differentiate the Christian saint from the pagan river-god. That pagan names should survive (modified or otherwise) in ancient holy places re-consecrated ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... personally attend the levee. The condition of things has so much changed since those times and the European population so greatly increased with advancing years that it was considered advisable to make some modification in the then existing rules so as to meet the altered requirements of the present time. I think the real meaning of the change is to be found in the belief that formerly existed in the minds of officials ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey

... depend simply upon the musical tone, but rather upon the modification it produced in the utterances that were strained through it. It would certainly require a quick ear, much practice, and a thorough acquaintance with the peculiarities of Hawaiian mele to enable one to distinguish the words of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson

... imposition of a new tax or the modification of the rates (of an existing one) shall be ...
— The Constitution of the Empire of Japan, 1889 • Japan

... public declaration as to the intended destiny of my next dramatic work would, owing to my latest resolution, require an essential modification if it were to be quite in accordance with actual circumstances. But, although the preface, written at the beginning of last August, appears in the present circumstances too late, the aforesaid declaration will be given to the public without any change; and if I cannot ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)

... least equal force to any of the other terms which we have passed in review. And, if it be said that our conceptions of well-being and welfare are not fixed, but that our ideas of the nature and proper proportions of their constituents are undergoing constant modification and growth, I may ask if this is less the case with regard to happiness, or the sum of pleasures, or the balance of pleasures over pains, or the perfection or due development of human character, all of which expressions, indeed, when ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler

... the son of a Boulogne pilot marries the daughter of the King of Naz—wherever that may be. In Naz a man is never allowed to see the face of his wife till she has borne him a child—a modification of the Futa rule. The inquisitive French husband unveils his wife, and, like Psyche in Apuleius, drops wax from a candle on her cheek. When the pair return to Naz, the king of that country discovers the offence of the husband, and, by the aid of ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... but such as, by their originality of style and modification of detail, are entitled to ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... agglutination, in which case one or more of the elements entering into combination to form the new word is somewhat changed—the elements are fused together. Yet this modification is not so great as to essentially obscure the primitive words, as in truthful, where we easily recognize the original words truth and full; and holiday, in which holy and ...
— On the Evolution of Language • John Wesley Powell

... "In short, man is an animal equally selfish and vain. Vanity, indeed, is but a modification of selfishness. From the latter, there are some who pretend to be free: they are generally such as declaim against the lust of wealth and power, because they have never been able to attain any high degree in either: they boast of generosity and ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie

... are thus registered react in turn upon mental attitudes. Fatigue produces mental depression. An accumulation of uneliminated waste darkens all our horizons; irritability of mind and soul attend physical irritability; any unhappy modification in the balance of the physical registers automatically an equally unhappy modification in the balance of the psychic. Most of us, as we come to know ourselves better, recognize marked alterations even in spiritual states which we are taught to refer to physical ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... moreover, variable according to the will or feeling of the individual. This susceptibility to change constitutes a modifying power which gives a variety in tone quality possible to no other instrument and makes it our wonder and admiration. The modification and interaction of these various parts produced by the emotions of the singer or speaker give qualities of tone expressive of the feelings, as of pain or pleasure, grief or joy, courage ...
— Resonance in Singing and Speaking • Thomas Fillebrown

... divines advanced a modification of this ancient theory, naming it the Kenotic or Self-emptying Theory, from the Greek word used by St. Paul in the phrase, "He emptied Himself." The eternal Son of God is represented as laying aside ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... produced by Wordsworth's reperusal of Virgil in 1814-16 was a deep and lasting one. In 1829-30 he devoted much time and labour to a translation of the first three books of the AEneid, and it is interesting to note the gradual modification of his views as to the true ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... to pass either over the surface of the land in its natural condition in such a way that the sewage may sink into the soil and be absorbed and at the same time give up its manurial elements to whatever vegetation the soil produces; or, as a modification of this principle, the sewage may be required to pass through an artificial bed of coarse material by which the rate of treatment may be considerably increased. In the latter case, although probably the greater part of the action of the bacteria takes place ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden

... like the suggestion, and smiled, but only for a moment. She had little colour this morning, and looked cold, as she drew up to the fire, holding a white woollen wrap about her shoulders. A slow and subtle modification of her features was tending to a mature beauty which would make bolder claim than the charm that had characterised her in maidenhood. It was still remote from beauty of a sensual type, but the outlines, in becoming a little more rounded, more regular, gained in common estimate ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... where motion occurs, except in the case of the creeping phagocytes, and the ciliary waving of ciliated epithelium. This agent is muscle. We have, in muscular tissue, a very wide departure from the structure of the primordial cell; to use a common biological expression, a very great amount of modification ( differentiation). Sheet 7 represents the simpler kind of muscular tissue, unstriated muscle, in which the cell character is still fairly obvious. The cells are fusiform (spindle-shaped), have a distinct nucleus and faint ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... these articles may probably not impress the reader with any lofty notions of the superiority of the black letter; but this symptom of the Bibliomania is, nevertheless, not to be considered as incurable, or wholly unproductive of good. Under a proper spirit of modification it has done, and will continue to do, essential service to the cause of English literature. It guided the taste, and strengthened the judgment, of Tyrwhitt in his researches after Chaucerian lore. ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... prosperity, and adversity. The history of morals, of industry, of intellect, and of art; the changes that take place in manners or beliefs; the dominant ideas that prevailed in successive periods; the rise, fall, and modification of political constitutions; in a word, all the conditions of national well-being became the subjects of their works. They sought rather to write a history of peoples than a history of kings. They looked specially in history for the chain of causes and effects. They undertook to ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... to think, first, of that most striking, most significant and profound modification of the Old Testament words, which presents the Lamb as 'the Shepherd.' All Christ's shepherding on earth and in heaven depends, as do all our hopes for heaven and earth, upon the fact of His sacrificial death. It is only because He ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... evenings spent in the saloon at Barnriff were not gatherings one would readily describe as being "gay." At least it would require a strong imagination to do so. A slight modification would be best. The Barnriff men were rarely lightsome, and when they disported themselves it was generally with a sombre sort of joy. That was their attitude just now. There was a peculiar earnestness about them, even ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum

... population becoming more numerous, necessitates certain changes—from hunting to pasturage, for example, from pastoral life to agricultural and fixed habitation—and these would affect the habits, modes of thought, and, to some extent, personal appearance. The modification of climate by clearing, draining, and cultivation, and the removal of a people from one climate to another, would effect still other changes. But the intermixture of races by war and immigration has, perhaps, done more than any other cause to produce the great physical diversities ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... that the ordinance did not go into operation by virtue of the authority of the Confederation, but by reason of its modification and adoption by Congress under the Constitution. It seems to be supposed, in the opinion of the court, that the articles of cession placed it on a different footing from territories subsequently acquired. I am unable to perceive the force of this distinction. That the ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... considered as a separate part of speech, is a single indeclinable word, significant of time, place, or any other circumstance or modification of an action or attribute. The number of simple Adverbs in Gaelic is but small. Adverbial phrases, made up of two or more words, are sufficiently numerous. Any adjective may be converted into an adverbial expression, ...
— Elements of Gaelic Grammar • Alexander Stewart

... already consented to wear them, for my sake. You shall accept the little toy which I now hold in my hand, and which, though admirable as an aid to vision, is really of no very immense value as a gem. You perceive that, by a trifling modification thus—or thus—it can be adapted to the eyes in the form of spectacles, or worn in the waistcoat pocket as an eye-glass. It is in the former mode, however, and habitually, that you have already consented to wear ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the foliage, and the mountain peaks look like mammoth bouquets; green, red, yellow, and every modification of these colors appear mingled in every possible ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... mariners, while in the crowded captains', underwriters', and committee rooms at Lloyd's discussion buzzed and speechified in every tone of gravity. Suddenly in the F. G. and S. clause marine insurance underwent a profound modification; and it was then that the millionaire, Schroeder, at that time a German clerk in the City, managed to borrow five thousand pounds, and quickly cleared his pile by underwriting on larger F. C. and S. terms. And again raged the sale of the islands as penny salt- cellars, finger-basins, ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel

... discarded clothes and devoted himself to the deepest meditation. In the thirteenth year of this wandering life he believed he had attained to the highest knowledge and to the dignity of a holy one. He then appeared as a prophet, taught the Nirgrantha doctrine, a modification of the religion of Par['s]va, and organised the order of the Nirgrantha ascetics. From that time he bore the name of the venerable ascetic Mahavira. His career as a teacher lasted not quite thirty years, during which he travelled about, as formerly, all over the country, ...
— On the Indian Sect of the Jainas • Johann George Buehler

... jealousy. It was strange that, although she almost hated him, she watched him with feline sharpness and patience, and would even have killed any woman whom she knew had won his affection. He, on the other hand, openly avowed that marriage without love was nothing, and flaunted without the least modification the most ideal theories as to the relation between man and woman. Not that he ever went actually wrong. His boyish education, his natural purity, and a fear never wholly suppressed, restrained him. He exasperated people by his impracticability, and it must be acknowledged that ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford

... natural condition to his own advantage; in other words, he finds SOCIABLE animals, and renders them DOMESTIC by becoming their associate and chief. Thus, the DOMESTICITY of animals is only a special condition, a simple modification, a definitive consequence of their SOCIABILITY. All domestic animals are by nature sociable animals."...—Flourens: Summary of the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... infamous pusillanimity." Later in the same day Sir John Barnard moved an Address to the Crown, asking for papers to be laid before the House. Walpole did not actually oppose {155} the motion, and only suggested a modification of it, but he earnestly entreated the House not, at that moment, to press the Sovereign for a publication of the latest despatches. He went so far as to let the House understand that the latest reply from Spain was not satisfactory, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... The third modification is a combination of the two others, namely, the asexual special cell does not directly reproduce its parent form, but gives rise to a structure in which sexual special cells are developed, from whose coalescence ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various

... maintained by England throughout the whole of the proceedings was not sufficiently high and commanding. There is also throughout the whole of the negotiations, a continued exertion on the part of England to induce the Spaniards to give way by some modification of their constitution, without a corresponding attempt to induce France to remove her army. The Opposition think that the papers altogether afford them a very good case; no notice is yet given in the House of Commons ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... limitation of his authority, which could not fail to trammel him in the execution of every enterprise requiring promptitude or secrecy, and at last succeeded, with difficulty, in obtaining so far a modification of it, that his management in affairs of war was to be uncontrolled. The chancellor finally approached the delicate point of the indemnification which Sweden was to expect at the conclusion of the war, from the gratitude of the allies, and flattered himself with the hope that Pomerania, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... the other parts of Europe. The accounts do not all make mention of the spitting of blood, the diagnostic symptom of this fatal pestilence; we are not, however, thence to conclude that there was any considerable mitigation or modification of the disease, for we must not only take into account the defectiveness of the chronicles, but that isolated testimonies are often contradicted by many others. Thus the chronicles of Strasburg, which only take notice of boils ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... certain that the alluvium of the Mesopotamian plain has been brought down by the Tigris and the Euphrates, then it is no less certain that the physical structure of the whole valley has persisted, without material modification, for many thousand years before the date assigned to the flood. If the summits, even of the moderately elevated ridges which immediately bound the valley, still more those of the Kurdish and Armenian mountains, were ever covered by water, for even forty days, that water ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... body moving through our atmosphere with the velocity of one mile in a second, would extricate heat equal to 30,000 deg. of Fahrenheit—a heat more intense than that of the fiercest artificial furnace that ever glowed. The chief modification given to the Chladnian theory has arisen from the observed periodical occurrence of meteoric showers—a brilliant and astonishing exhibition—to some notices ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... the increased brilliancy afforded by this modification were strikingly illustrated by the discovery, August 28 and September 17, 1789, of the two Saturnian satellites nearest the ring. Nevertheless, the monster telescope of Slough cannot be said to have realised the sanguine expectations of its constructor. The ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... modification of the Siemens' electro-dynamometer. (See Electro-dynamometer, Siemens'.) An electro-magnet with very massive core is excited by the current. As the core is of small reluctance the strength of the magnet is nearly proportional to the current ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... represented by sculptured forms. A symbolism alone was permitted, which none could mistake for a real attempt to portray these august beings. But by the date of the Sassanian revival, the original spirit of the religion had suffered considerable modification; and it was no longer thought impious, or perilous, to exhibit the heads of the Pantheon, in the forms regarded as appropriate to them, upon public monuments. The great Artaxerxes, probably soon after his accession, set up a memorial of his exploits, in which he represented ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson

... waste paper. Repayment of the loan of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a month's time. There was his commercial position! Was it possible that money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter of his daughter's dowry? The bare dread that it might be so struck him cold. He quitted the house—and forgot to wish ...
— Miss or Mrs.? • Wilkie Collins

... the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques note - abbreviated as ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... built the cathedrals and castles. Down to the eleventh century, the Romanesque, or "round-arched" architecture, derived from Italy, had been the one prevalent style in Western Europe. In the modification of it, called the Norman style, we find the round arch associated with massive piers and narrow windows. Durham cathedral is an example of the Norman Romanesque type of building. The Norman conquerors covered England with castles, of which the White Tower of London, built by William, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... Of the development, modification and decay of languages we have ample material in our own times for study, the periods over which the modifying forces operate being an equal measure of the periods of national activity and change. And, what is perhaps not always sufficiently ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... AEschylus by means of the speech of Chikno and Petulengro, and even in my Biblical researches I have derived no slight assistance from it. It appears to be a kind of picklock, an open sesame, Tanner—Tawno! the one is but a modification of the other; they were originally identical, and have still much the same signification. Tanner, in the language of the apple-woman, meaneth the smallest of English silver coins; and Tawno, in the language ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... five days. Some of the ceremonies observed at Christmas were interesting, inasmuch as they were the same, with little modification, as those taught by the Jesuit missionaries more than a century ago to the aboriginal tribes whom they had induced to settle on this spot. In the morning, all the women and girls, dressed in white gauze chemises and showy calico print petticoats, went in ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... under his Ministry that the military and slightly chauvinistic instincts of the French people have awakened. His hand can be seen in this modification; it is to be hoped that his political intelligence, practical and cool, will save him from all exaggeration in this course. The notable increase of German armaments which supervenes at the moment of M. Poincare's entrance at the ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson

... friend understands him. Every word so employed with a new meaning is henceforth, in its new character, born of the spirit and not of the flesh, born of the imagination and not of the understanding, and is henceforth submitted to new laws of growth and modification. ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... lost, but she shall be educated"— these words dropped from her lips quite often. On one occasion they came from her with a modification that lent them unusual meaning. It was on a Friday evening. Max was out, as usual, and the children were asleep. "My own life is lost, but Lucy shall ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan

... of the Churches whose messengers and agents they are. In these Churches a sifting process has been going on for a considerable time, which has led in some cases to a reversal of belief in matters of great moment, and in a greater number to the modification and softening of views hitherto entertained. Every one must decide for himself how far the sifting has been wisely done, how far chaff and only chaff has been given to the wind, and precious grain gathered into the garner. Missionaries have unquestionably been affected by doctrinal discussion, ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... over the dead, and the tenacity of conventional methods is apparent in the modern custom, even among Western nations, of raising a mound over the grave, even though the body is placed at a depth of six feet and more below the surface. A modification of the form of coffin was the jar into which the body was forced. To do this, still greater violence had to be employed. Instead of one jar, two were also used, the body placed partly in one, partly in the other, and the two were then joined with bitumen. ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... laid it before them; pointing out the unlimited and extensive nature of the tender of our services, and expressing a doubt whether he should be justified in accepting it under the provision of the Defence Bill, without some reduction in the numbers, and modification as to the extension of the service tendered. This, I understood, caused a very long discussion; all of them disapproving of the example set by offering such extensive service; none of the other corps having volunteered to go farther than their military district, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... direction. Modern physicians admit, that, at times, during somnambulism, complete insensibility, resembling hysteric coma, prevails.[60] But if, as is commonly believed, this insensibility is caused by some modification or abnormal condition of the nervous fluid, then to some other modification or changed condition of the same fluid comparative invulnerability may be due. For there is connection, to a certain extent, between ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... flowers done in gems is very brilliant (followed by a most important modification which the reader is sure to read ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... drawbacks, it became necessary to seek a means of rendering the production of the gas continuous, and of regulating it automatically without the aid of the operator. Mr. Mondollot has obtained such a result through a happy modification of the primitive system of the English engineer Bramah. He preserves the suction and force pump but, while applying it to the same uses, he likewise employs it, by the aid of a special arrangement, so as to distribute the sulphuric ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various

... I send the first seven herewith, seems to me the best to begin with. If it should be made a part of the "Major Course in English" (where it seems properly to belong), I could easily arrange a simpler and less arduous modification of it for the ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... obey their masters, and to bear with their condition patiently. This estimate of slavery continued to prevail until it became fixed in the systematised ethical teaching of the schools; and so it remained without any conspicuous modification until the end of the eighteenth century.' The same interpretation of early Christian teaching is accepted by the Protestant scholar, Dr. Bartlett: 'The practical attitude of Seneca and the early Christians ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... see in this fact proof of an instinct capable of modification, either making for decadence and gradually neglecting what was the ancestors' safeguard, or making for progress and advancing, hesitatingly, towards perfection in the mason's art? No inference is permissible in either ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... German infantry weapon, the long-familiar Gewehr '98 in its most recent modification, was a Nazi product, bearing the eagle and encircled swastika of the Third Reich and the code-letters lza—the symbol of the Mauserwerke A.G. plant at Karlsruhe. It had doubtless been sold to Rivers by some returned soldier. In a rack beside ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... Abraham—of the patriarchs: it is still that of the Arab tribes which perpetuate their manners. The clan, of which remains still exist in the mountains of Scotland, and the sept of Ireland, is a modification of the patriarchal society: it is the family of the chief, expanded during a succession of generations, and forming a little aggregation of dependents, still influenced by the same attachments, and subjected to the same authority. But the feudal community was very different. Allied at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... lies in a picturesque and charming little valley, filled with ruins, principally of round towers, which are said to be the remains of the Roman town of Sixtum; the name being retained by the new town with a slight modification. ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer

... glass behind. The latter, as well as the balcony, are comparatively modern; but there is no doubt that if glass were used in the old window, it was set behind the shafts, at the same depth. The entire modification of the interiors of all the Venetian houses by recent work has however prevented me from entering into any inquiry as to the manner in which the ancient glazing was attached to the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin

... features of the face are modifiable, and if one habitually assumes a peevish expression, it becomes, after a time, permanently fixed. The nervous system, however, possesses the power of modifiability to a marked degree, even a single impression sufficing to make striking modification. This is very important in study, being the basis for the retentive powers ...
— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... necessary to observe that though it be true that some men are naturally slaves, yet in practice, under conditions which give the victory to force, it may happen that the "natural" slave becomes the master, and the "natural" master is degraded to a slave. This is already a serious modification of his doctrine. And other writers, pushing the contention further, deny altogether the theory of natural slavery. "No man," says the poet Philemon, "was ever born a slave by nature. Fortune only has put men in that position." ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... western side, whilst in the north are two other fumerolles, thirty or forty feet along the water. There are none on the eastern or northern side, or at the top, which is smooth and round. The bulk appears recently to have undergone some considerable modification, as indeed it must have done, or it could not now resemble so little the description given by Powell ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... he to the Greek traveller, "my duties and my devotion make it easy for me to approach the King of France's person very closely. In four or five days he will be leaving Fontainebleau for his palace at Saint Germain. I will tell him without modification all that I have just heard from you. Without being either prophet or seer, I can guarantee that you will be well received and cordially welcomed, receiving such benefits as kings are bound to ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... motives, when the working out of these needs is approaching completeness; and when also, by consequence, the scope for satisfying ambition is diminishing. Those who draw the obvious corollaries from the doctrine of Evolution—those who believe that the process of modification upon modification which has brought life to its present height must raise it still higher, will anticipate that "the last infirmity of noble minds" will in the distant future slowly decrease. As the sphere for achievement becomes smaller, the desire ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... layer, which will just yield to a steel point, whilst the freshly fractured, translucent surface will not thus yield. The removal by atmospheric agencies of the outer modified surfaces of freely exposed flints, though no doubt excessively slow, together with the modification travelling inwards, will, as may be suspected, ultimately lead to their complete disintegration, notwithstanding that they appear to be ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin

... over-population was set free, the rate of wages forced down, and the poor-rate enormously increased. From this time the agricultural districts became the headquarters of permanent, as the manufacturing districts had long been of periodic, pauperism; and the modification of the Poor Law was the first measure which the State was obliged to apply to the daily increasing impoverishment of the country parishes. Moreover, the constant extension of farming on a large scale, the introduction of threshing and other machines, and ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... thirty years immediately preceding the Civil War it is necessary to recall the characteristics of a somewhat isolated and peculiar people. The mental and moral traits of the New England colonists, already glanced at in an earlier chapter, had suffered little essential modification in two hundred years. The original racial stock was still dominant. As compared with the middle and southern colonies, there was relatively little immigration, and this was easily assimilated. The physical remoteness of New England from other sections of the ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... regulated in Oklahoma and the England of 1495. Beer (see Sumptuary Legislation, Assize of Beer). Beggars (see Vagabonds). Benefit funds, legislation against. Benefit of clergy, origin of; in modern trials; reason of; modification of in murder, etc.; extended to women; withheld from all women earlier. Betterment taxes (see Eminent Domain), limitation of; reason for. Bigamy, a sin, not a crime in the earlier view; statute of; ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

... is their legitimate import? Why, Newton's argument receives new force from them. From a blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and always the same, said this great man, no variation could spring. The more it is demonstrated that the universe is in course of development and modification, the more clearly comes into view the necessity of the supreme Power which is the cause of its modifications, and of the Infinite intelligence which is directing them to their end. This appears to be solid reasoning, and nevertheless atheism has ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville

... Milverton, about the philosophy of making light of many things, and the way of looking at life that may thus be given to those we educate. I rather doubted at first, though, whether you were not going to assign too much power to education in the modification of temper. But, certainly, the mode of looking at the daily events of life, little or great, and the consequent habits of captiousness or magnanimity, are just the matters which the young especially imitate their ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... internal organs, must be classed as part of man's native equipment. They differ from those reactions commonly classed as instincts in that they are simpler and stabler, that in their normal functioning they never rise to consciousness, and that they are almost completely beyond the individual's modification ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... pounds a year by talking sense than five thousand pounds a year by hearing other men talk nonsense." Anecdotes are frequent in illustration of his supercilious treatment of attorneys and clients while he was a barrister. And since his elevation to the wool-sack there has been no abatement or modification of his offensive manner. His demeanor toward counsel appearing before him has been the subject of constant and indignant complaint. It will be remembered by some of my readers, that, not long since, during a session of the House of Lords, he gave the lie direct to one of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... an argument, which proves at once, that the foregoing proposition is neither intuitively nor demonstrably certain. We can never demonstrate the necessity of a cause to every new existence, or new modification of existence, without shewing at the same time the impossibility there is, that any thing can ever begin to exist without some productive principle; and where the latter proposition cannot be proved, we must despair of ever being able to prove the former. Now that the latter proposition is utterly ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... confined to the under surface perhaps can, it being a law that in all cases it is the under surface of the leaf, or its modification, from which new growths originate, and as nature has closed indusia, how could the under surface be interior if this rule ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... from New York—Mr. Davis and Mr. Ward—expressed opinions favorable to a modification of the basis of representation, and yet were opposed to the details of the ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... isn't so much a new disease as a modification of a very old one. The very ancient Hate Disease—for the most important symptom of this particular malady is the hate it's stirred up. I've seen a number of sick planets—but the hate index on this one earns it a record score." He paused for a moment as the computer ...
— The Hate Disease • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... spiritual flock did as they did, and the Theobalds went for nothing; step by step, day by day, year by year, parish by parish, diocese by diocese this was how it was done. And yet the Church of England looks with no friendly eyes upon the theory of Evolution or Descent with Modification. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... not extensively damaged the foot and the lateral cartilage is not partly ossified as it is in some old chronic cases, the complete removal of the lateral cartilage by means of the Bayer operation or a modification thereof is indicated. A complete description of the Bayer operation as well as Merillat's operation for this disease (the latter consisting in part, in the removal of diseased cartilage with the curette) are given in Volume three of Merillat's ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... founded in 1861, and is now known as the London Diocesan Deaconess Institution. At that time Kaiserswerth was accepted as its model; deaconesses were sent there to be trained; Kaiserswerth rules were adopted as far as possible, and a modification of the Kaiserswerth dress for the sisters. The house was then represented at the triennial Conferences in Germany, and in the list of mother houses published at Kaiserswerth[60] the name still appears. It would seem, however, that now the Kaiserswerth connection ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... foot of a convenient short cut to Roquebrune, and Angelo and Vanno would go on with Marie to Monte Carlo. Having left her at the Winters' door, Angelo meant to walk with Vanno to his hotel, expecting later to pick up his wife again. When the cure had bidden them goodbye, however, Marie proposed a modification of the plan. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... instance is: "Curious if true." But he records without modification the fall of a meteorite at Gotha, Germany, Sept. 6, 1835, "leaving a jelly-like mass on the ground." We are told that this substance fell only three feet away from an observer. In the Report of the British Association, 1855-94, according to a letter from Greg to Prof. ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... individuals wore a red label he had, with patience and difficulty, removed from one of our trunks. He had pasted it on his forehead; and it read "Baggage Room. Not Wanted." These people are, after all, but modified shenzis. The modification is nearly always in ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... the importance of considering carefully the natural laws of increase and their modification by existing causes before deciding ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz

... manifests all the elements of his being, he is not 'exhausted in the act.' Now, granting, for the sake of argument, that God is not entirely absorbed in the universe, Cousin's pet doctrine of the 'Spontaneous Apperception of Absolute Truths' clearly renders man a modification of God. Difference in degree, you know, implies sameness of kind; from this there is no escape. He says, 'The God of consciousness is not a solitary sovereign, banished beyond creation, upon the throne of a silent eternity, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... Inflammation is limited to certain parts, while fever influences the system generally. Inflammation gives rise to new formations, morbid products, and lesions, or alterations of structure. The morbid products of fever, and its modification of fluids are carried away by ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... This modification by the Medium of his original statement was regarded as intended to cover instances in which the circle had been surreptitiously broken by members of the Committee without any of the results which, had been predicted. Several such breaks had been ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... society and its customs proper we may distinguish by comparing the former to structure and the latter to function in the case of any organism. But we must bear in mind that, here, structure has been built up by, and is in process of modification by, the same forces that exhibit themselves in function. It would not be wholly out of place to describe a people as having the custom of being ruled by hereditary chiefs, of choosing their monarchs, or of governing ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... percentage of its cost, and one was submitted, on a similar basis, covering the use of the freezing method. The firm of S. Pearson and Son, Limited, of London, England, submitted a proposal for building the tunnels by the shield method, on a modification of the percentage basis, and as this firm had built the Blackwall tunnel within the estimates of cost and was the only bidder having such an experience and record in work in any way similar to the East River tunnels, negotiations ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Alfred Noble

... (History of the Roman Breviary, English edition, p. 158) maintains that Gregory made no reform, and that "the Roman office such as we have seen it to be in the times of Charlemagne held its ground at Rome itself, in the customs of the basilicas, without any sensible modification, throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries and even down to the close of the twelfth." Dom Gueranger holds that Gregory abridged the order of prayers and simplified the liturgy for the use of the Roman curia. It would be difficult at the ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley

... dispositions, and the relative power of the several works, if determined by men of competent military knowledge, will remain practically constant during long periods. It is true, doubtless, that purely military conclusions must submit to some modification, in deference to the liability of a population to panics. The fact illustrates again the urgent necessity for the spread of sound elementary ideas on military subjects among the people at large; but, if the great coast ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... and said woman suffrage was the only means of rectifying the injustice of the laws. His attention was first called to the value of suffrage when he endeavored to get a modification of the property laws for married women in 1836. As a member of the Indiana Legislature, he tried three successive years in vain to obtain for wives a right to their own earnings. He was fifteen years in effecting ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... continued, under every improvement and modification that was devised, to embarrass the government; and it was at last resolved to remove from Paris great numbers of the workmen to distant parts of the country, to be engaged there on various public works. This the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... punishment has, I think, been imported from China, for I have also seen it frequently in the Empire of Heaven. The other, which I first described, may also be a modification of this one, but I do not remember having seen it, as I have described it, anywhere except in Corea, at Seoul. There is also in Corea another machine of torture, in which the head and feet are tied between heavy ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor

... necessary in this direction. That the English thoroughbred, for instance, develops better under work in its early years, admits of no doubt whatever; but there is room to question whether this experience can be transferred without modification to our present Remounts, although many of them have a strong strain of English blood. Our Prussian horses, for instance, only reach their full development between the seventh and eighth years; it would, therefore, be a mistake to attempt ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi

... by the development of species, he has an inkling of what radio-activity means, and so forth; but this is because science is making discoveries, while theological discoveries are mainly of a liberal and negative kind, a modification of old axioms, a loosening of old definitions. Theology has made no discoveries about the nature of God, or the nature of the soul; the problem of free will and necessity is as dark as ever, except ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson

... simple government we have a fair sample, in substance and in spirit, of the ancient government of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Some modification of the old system may be detected in the limitation of officers below the grade of cacique to one year. From what is known of the other pueblos in New Mexico, that of Taos is a fair example of all of them in governmental organization at the ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... illustrations of each genus. I was sure, however, that you would soon find this unsatisfactory. Nature must be studied in detail, and it is the wonderful variety of the species of a group, their complicated relations and their endless modification of form, size and colours, which constitute the pre-eminent charm of the entomologist's study. It is with the greatest satisfaction, too, I hail your accession to the very limited number of collectors and students of exotic insects, ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant

... is inharmonious in its sound, and mean in its conception; the opposition is obvious, and the word lash used absolutely, and without any modification, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... kingdom, I regard the "nervous fluid" or "nervous influence," popularly so called, as being the very principle of animal vitalization—the life force; and that, a modification of the electric force. It is, I think, pretty generally conceded at this day that the "nervous influence" is probably electric. There are some alleged facts, and other certain facts, which go far to ...
— A Newly Discovered System of Electrical Medication • Daniel Clark

... was the cause of the early modification of her voice. She wanted to sing everything she liked and she sang Valentine in Les Huguenots, Donna Anna in Don Juan, besides other roles she should never have undertaken if she wanted to preserve ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... volumes containing about 300 treatises. Between thirty and forty are prima facie identical with treatises comprised in the Chinese Tripitaka and perhaps further examination might greatly increase the number, for the titles of these books are often long and capable of modification. Still it is probable that the major part of this literature was either deliberately rejected by the Chinese or was composed at a period when religious intercourse had become languid between India and China but was still active between India and Tibet. From the titles it appears that many ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot

... will illustrate the moral habit by the art, or the art by the moral habit. Affection and discord, fretfulness, and quietness, feebleness and firmness, luxury and purity, pride and modesty, and all other such habits, and every conceivable modification and mingling of them, may be illustrated, with mathematical exactness, by conditions of line and color; and not merely these definable vices and virtues, but also every conceivable shade of human character and passion, from the righteous ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... friendship" between Byron and Lady Hester Stanhope requires modification. Lady Hester (see page 302, note I) thus referred in after-life to her meeting with Byron, if her physician's recollection is to be trusted ('Memoirs', by Dr. Meryon, ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... things they liked and disliked, and could be trusted to reveal admiration, or lack of it, without absolute intention or actual statement. Being elemental and undismayed, they saw things cleared of the mists of social prejudice and modification. Yes, he felt he should be glad to hear of Lord Mount Dunstan and the Mount Dunstan estate from G. Selden in a happy moment ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... wretches act. Is it, then, not conceived possible that a poor clown can be unwilling, after paying three pounds rent to a gentleman in a brown coat, to pay fourteen shillings to one in a black coat, for his acre of potatoes, and tumultuously to desire some modification of the charge, without being supposed to have no other motive than a frantic zeal for being thus double-taxed to another set of landholders and another set of priests? Have men no self-interest, no avarice, no repugnance to public imposts? Have they no sturdy and restive minds, no undisciplined ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... song that caught the popular ear; and the rush was on. Most great movements are done to song, generally commonplace. It was so in this instance. Oh, Susannah! or rather a modification of the original made to fit the occasion, first sung in some minstrel show, ran like fire in the tinder of men's excited hopes. From every stage, on every street corner, in every restaurant and hotel it ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... occurred which aided materially in bringing about this same result, and which also led to a modification of opinion in the battalion in regard ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor

... exclaimed, as I passed the gate—what are its claims? Does it arise from fine clothing?—let it be remembered that every part has been stolen from the lowest of Nature's works—that the finest glitter is but a modification of the very surface—and that the garments which this year deck beauty and rank, will in the next be rotting on the dunghill! Does Pride feed on the records of ancestry?—let it visit the family tomb, and examine ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse-elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of this idea. The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard against ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the effusion is only a modification of inflammation, our author thinks may be further shown by the fact that it obeys the same laws—being translated occasionally, like it, from one part of the body to another. On this subject, Dr. AYRE makes the very pertinent remark, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... 5 October 1978 objective - to prohibit the military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques in order to further world peace ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... were begotten and nurtured and educated under us, dare you once to say you are not our offspring and servant, you and your fathers before you!" These are words which do not impress us as any thing extraordinary; for the same thing has long been on the lips of Bushido, with this modification, that the laws and the state were represented with us by a personal being. Loyalty is an ethical ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe

... may be made to travel; and the ways and means for their general introduction. This arrangement of the subject is exceedingly well executed by Mr. Gordon, who has added a series of efficient illustrations—from a diagram simplifying the high-pressure modification of the steam-engine as applied to steam-carriages, to the last completed Steam Drag and Carriage attached; while the most material points of Mr. Gordon's views are fortified by a condensation of the evidence before the select committee ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various

... it has no use for the modern Judaism. It is, however, clear that modern Judaism now realises the mistake made by the Reformers of the mid-nineteenth century. Hence we are hearing, and shall no doubt hear more and more, of the modification of observances in Judaism ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams

... Imperial Parliament itself, when transformed into a Federal Assembly, would be almost beyond the reach of change, reform, or abolition. Nor is it the Legislature of Great Britain alone which would suffer a fundamental change. The relations between the Executive and the country would undergo immense modification. The authority of the Crown might be enhanced by the establishment of a Federal Union. The King would become, in a very special sense, the representative of national or Imperial unity, and the weakening of Parliament might lead to ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... party to: Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Marine ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... more preparation and modification, Mrs. Day took her seat at the head of the table, and during the latter or tea division of the meal, presided with much composure. It may cause some surprise to learn that, now her vagary was over, she showed herself to be an excellent person with much common sense, and even a religious ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... repeal or the modification of this law found many advocates. Naturally, the change was urged most strongly by all those whose sons and daughters were sickly or malformed, and so were doomed to die in the very blossom of their years. It was urged by the nobles because ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier

... some kind of liberty, they will in the end, as you say they will, content themselves with what the other cities, which have returned to obedience, have obtained. This must be done in all cases without flinching, and without permitting any modification." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the authority of the laws, punished corruption and misgovernment, made their country the mother as well as the mistress of the world; and the Republic, modified to suit the change of times, might have survived for many generations. But under such a modification, Cicero would have no longer been the first person in the Commonwealth. The talkers would have ceased to rule, and Cicero was a talker only. He could not bear to be subordinate. He was persuaded that he, and not Caesar, was the world's real great man; and so he ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... were abolished. Since the last crisis on the civil marriage bill, which wrecked D'Azeglio's ministry, Cavour, who all his life was not theoretically opposed to coming to an understanding with Rome, had made several advances to the Vatican, but with no effect: Rome refused any modification of the Concordat or any reduction of the privileges possessed by the clergy in the kingdom of Sardinia. On the failure of these negotiations, Victor Emmanuel despatched three high ecclesiastics on a ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... rights of our State, and secondly, to secure unanimity of action by its delegation. The objections which were urged, referred, as my memory serves me, entirely to the features which I had reason to hope would be stricken out. One of the delegation announced an unwillingness to support the proposed modification of the Senate proposition, lest it should be considered as yielding the point on which we had insisted that Congress could not require the Constitution to be submitted to a popular vote. I refer to the lamented Quitman, whose sincere devotion to Southern interests, no one, who knew ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis

... eminent persons discover an apprehension that the monarchy, if restored in France, may be restored in too great strength for the liberty and happiness of the natives, and for the tranquillity of other states. They are therefore of opinion that terms ought to be made for the modification of that monarchy. They are persons too considerable, from the powers of their mind, and from their situation, as well as from the real respect I have for them, who seem to entertain these apprehensions, to let ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... not careful to criticise the details of this plan, nor are we anxious to secure any particular modification of them. The cardinal fact is that the plan itself keeps the two bodies in Georgia apart for no other assigned or assignable reason than race prejudice; for who supposes for a moment that if these ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 10, October, 1889 • Various

... apparent design. As a rule if he has a design it is too obvious: he exaggerates, uses the old-fashioned trick of re-appearance and recognition, or breaks out into heavy eloquence of description or meditation. These things show up because he is the most "natural" of writers. His style is a modification of the style of his age, and is without the consistent personal quality of other vigorous men's, like Hazlitt or Cobbett. Perhaps English became a foreign language like his other thirty. Thus his books have no ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... and his followers the system in all its minute subdivisions, and slavery, both domestic and praedial, prevailed throughout the island. The Buddhists, as dissenters, who revolted against the arrogant pretensions of the Brahmans, embodied in their doctrines a protest against caste under any modification. But even after the conversion of the Singhalese to Buddhism, and their acceptance of the faith at the hands of Mahindo, caste as a national institution was found too obstinately established to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... expression not only of human energy but of the creativeness of the human spirit. By their works men have not only built homes for themselves in this vast universe, but they have co-operated with the divine creativeness in the control of force, the modification of conditions, the fertilisation of the earth, the fashioning of ...
— Essays On Work And Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... I maintain that it is not possible for business affairs at Athens to stand on any very different footing from the present, except to some slight extent, by adding here and deducting there. Any large modification is out of the question, short of damaging the democracy itself. No doubt many expedients might be discovered for improving the constitution, but if the problem be to discover some adequate means of improving ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon

... reform had begun in the Middle West about 1902, and had spread with the feeling against the trusts. Roosevelt had indicated a sympathy with it in 1902 and 1903, and had fought Congress for tariff modification in the interest of Cuban reciprocity. But most of the party leaders had opposed tampering with the protective system. Speaker Cannon was an avowed protectionist and defended the attitude of the stand-pat tariff advocates. After 1904 the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... or four. Generally there is only one base to run to, and besides the batter, pitcher, and catcher the rest of the players are fielders. Any one catching a fly ball puts the batter out and takes his turn at bat, or in another modification of the game, when one is put out each player advances a step nearer to batsman's position, the pitcher going in to bat, the catcher becoming pitcher, first fielder becoming catcher, and so on, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... modification, as M. Dunoyer brought clearly to his notice, but it still permitted M. Reybaud to write at ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... modifications accounted for in their historical "descent" with modification from a common ancestor. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... admission of,' I distinctly deny. The affirmation of [216] universal evolution is in itself the negation of an absolute commencement of anything. Construed in terms of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modification wrought by insensible gradations upon a preexisting kind of being; and this holds as fully of the supposed 'commencement of organic life' as of all subsequent developments of organic life.... That organic matter was not produced all at once, but was reached through steps, we are well ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... determinism; he maintained that the final seat of authority was the Scripture; he showed that such fundamental dogmas as the existence of God, the Trinity, and the Incarnation, cannot be deduced by logic from the given premises; he {36} proposed a modification of the doctrine of transubstantiation in the interests of reason, approaching closely in his ideas to the "consubstantiation" of Luther. Defining the church as the congregation of the faithful, he undermined her governmental powers. This, in fact, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... produce timber which is a public necessity, the use of which is only less universal than food crops, at a financial sacrifice. Increasing prices and better forest management are relieving the situation to some extent, but the most effective, as well as the most equitable way, is through a change or modification ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... sex of the egg is optional. The choice rests with the mother, who is guided by considerations of space and, according to the accommodation at her disposal, which is frequently fortuitous and incapable of modification, places a female in this cell and a male in that, so that both may have a dwelling of a size suited to their unequal development. This is the unimpeachable evidence of the numerous and varied facts which I have set forth. People unfamiliar with insect anatomy—the public ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this in one instance may be the instrument of ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... this stronghold, by proving that tobacco impaired the saccharifying power of this organ also, we should still find the mixed fluids supplied by the smaller, but very numerous glands of the intestines, sufficient to accomplish the requisite modification of starch, though more slowly ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... etc., etc., which is objectionable, comes under the head of jobbery. Jobbery is any scheme which aims to gain, not by the legitimate fruits of industry and enterprise, but by extorting from somebody a part of his product under guise of some pretended industrial undertaking. Of course it is only a modification when the undertaking in question has some legitimate character, but the occasion is used to graft upon it devices for obtaining what has not been earned. Jobbery is the vice of plutocracy, and it is the especial form under which ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner

... by examining Brahmanic ideas as to meditation. Many of them are connected with the word Yoga, which has become familiar to Europe. It has two meanings. It is applied first to a definite form of Indian philosophy which is a theistic modification of the Sankhya and secondly to much older practices sanctioned by that philosophy but ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot

... the whole western world, and was then meditating a movement on the Red River of Arkansas, and eventually Texas. He foresaw the extension in the Mississippi Valley of the American system of civilization, to the modification and exclusion of the old Spanish and ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... gave him an idea, through the application of measurement to the earth's surface, of that order and beauty of those mathematical principles after which the Creator built the universe. It opened his eyes to the vast modification of the landscape, and the earth itself, by man's work upon its crust. It gave him the engineer's eye. Henceforth he became interested in the capacity of every portion of the country, which came under his notice, for the roads, ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... again from its original plane; beginning afresh its Sisyphus labour, and facing the next effort with the same grace and agility. Undying force, and eternal flowing unrest—these are the evident intention and symbol of the wave pattern. Though I believe the key pattern to be a modification of the wave form, yet the locking and unlocking movement suggests a repetition of the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford



Words linked to "Modification" :   accommodation, grammatical relation, occurrence, harm, nativity, tightening, decrease, breakup, mutation, transformation, alteration, damage, change, retardation, copy, qualifying, adaptation, detachment, deceleration, drop-off, decease, increase, adjustment, variation, expiry, sparkling, nascency, development, play, loss of consciousness, deformation, easing, revolution, slowing, laxation, limiting, birth, sex change, transition, nascence, vagary, shift, twinkle, fluctuation, moderation, death, conversion, modify, destabilization, shimmer, lessening, behavior modification, transmutation, surprise



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