But if Herr Duehring had spoken thus plainly instead of entertaining us with oracular statements, the ideology of his argument would have been completely exposed.
Strange as it may seem, these words of a withered old creature, whose palm had to be crossed with silver to bring forth her oracular response, have always clung to my memory as if they were destined to fulfilment.
Her prophetic feet rested on a wooden stool; her oracular neck was bound with a bright-colored shawl; her necromantic locomotive apparatus was incased in a great number of predictive petticoats, and her whole aspect was portentous.
From the same eminent authority we also learn that Jack Bunsby was an individual of learning so vast, and experience so varied and comprehensive, that he never opened his oracular mouth but out fell "solid chunks of wisdom.
The character of his surroundings is noted in the following description, and his oracular communication is given, word for word.
When Democritus proclaimed the sovereignty of mechanism, he did so in the oracular fashion proper to an ancient sage.
It will be observed, however, that what is credibly asserted about the past is not a report which the past was itself able to make when it existed nor one it is now able, in some oracular fashion, to formulate and to impose upon us.
An oracular morality or revealed religion can hope to support its singular claims only by showing its general conformity to natural reason and its perfect beneficence in the world.
Its inventions could not be less oracular than the thunder or the flight of birds.
Understanding was a superficial faculty, and we might by other and oracular methods arrive at a reality that was not empirical.
With these he carried on, as it were, an ingenuous dialectic, asking them questions by a blow of the hammer, and gathering their oracularanswers experimentally from the result.
If science deserves respect, it is not for being oracular but for being useful and delightful, as seeing is.
Even his followers, though they might give rein to narrower and more fantastic enthusiasms, often unveiled secrets, hidden in the oracular intent of the heart, which might never have been disclosed but for their lessons.
In like manner the fate of prisoners was determined by the actions of an oracular horse.
Friar Bacon’s brazen head whereby he conjured is a reminiscence of these oracular heads.
He replied to the queries, of the majority of which he can have had no comprehension, in an oracular style, but with great firmness of assurance.
The head of man and beast, when cut off, was thought to be gifted with oracular powers, and the piping of the wind in the skulls over the house gables was interpreted--as he who consulted it desired.
Not that Aeschylus, like Euripides, deals in didactic sentences andoracular aphorisms.
Here also were the sacred oaks of the oracular Dodona.
The Spartan prince, afterward detected in bribing the oracle itself, perhaps forged these oracular predictions.
Onomacritus, an Athenian priest, formerly banished by Hipparchus for forging oracular predictions, was now reconciled to the Pisistratidae, and resident at Susa.
True to her inveterate habit, rationalism reverts to 'principles,' and thinks that when an abstraction once is named, we own an oracular solution.
We must be satisfied with thus much (replies Sokrates): assuming the thing to be done, and leaving the process of implanting it to spontaneous and oracular inspiration.
The rites, worship, and sacrifices, in his city, are assumed to have been determined by local or oracular inspiration (v.
Comparing this demonstration in the Republic with the unsupported inference here noted in the Leges--we perceive the contrast of the oracular and ethical character of the latter, with the intellectual and dialectic character of the former.
The dialectic of Sokrates is indeed more ingenious than conclusive: but still it is dialectic--and thus stands contrasted with the oracular emphasis which is substituted for it in Leges.
There is much obscurity in this oracular response.
The oracular answers were not conveyed by words, but by certain signs, as at the oracle of Ammon in Libya.
Probably the three doves made some peculiar flight, which, observed by the priestesses, suggested the oracular answer.
My own view," he said, beginning as they always began their oracular pronouncements, "my own view is that we make the mistake of thinking in masses instead of in individuals.
Henry looked up, startled by the sudden anger that swept over his father, replacing the oracular banter with which he had begun his discourse on the decadence of manners in England.
And that you may not say that I allege Poetical or philosophic learning:-- Consider the ambiguous responses Of their oracular statues; from two shrines Two armies shall obtain the assurance of 140 One victory.
She had, too, an instinctive sense that the parents of Helen would be displeased with her, were they aware of the influence she had exerted, and deprive her hereafter of the most admiring auditor that ever hung on her oracular lips.
Though called a fool, his words were often weighed and remembered as if there were a sort of oracular meaning in them.
It has been the ruin of the present undertaking--as far as the Sacred Text is concerned--that the majority of the Revisionist body have been misled throughout by the oracular decrees and impetuous advocacy of Drs.
When will men learn unconditionally to put away from themselves the weak superstition which is for investing with oracular authority the foregoing quaternion of demonstrably depraved Codices?
In this department of sacred Science, men have been going on too long inventing their facts, and delivering themselves of oracular decrees, on the sole responsibility of their own inner consciousness.
Tregelles) regard as oracular the solitary unsupported dicta of a Writer,--provided only he can claim to have lived in the IInd or IIIrd century.
Now, we trust we shall be forgiven if, at the close of the preceding enumeration, we confess to something like displeasure at the oracular tone assumed by Drs.
Matthew's Gospel with their oracular sentence, "Western and Syrian.
Now Cicero, full of hope in his course to a political career, had his ardour dulled by an oracular answer.
The most extraordinary of all the honours conferred upon Demetrius was the proposal made by Demokleides of Sphettus to go and ask for an oracular response from him about the consecration of the shields at Delphi.
Be this as it may, the oracular responses which were brought from this shrine bade the Spartans all become equal according as Lykurgus had originally ordained.
An interesting complement to this is furnished by the texts of oracular messages sent by the goddess Ishtar to King Ashurbanapal who seems to have been a fervent disciple of the theological school of Arbela.
No other human name, except Da Vinci's, carries the high associations of oracular and occult wisdom as far as Goethe's does.
But when the gods separate into two bodies, and descend to the contest, he, unmoved by passion, shuns the combat, and speaks of the quick succession of the race of man in a manner which betokens the oracular deity of Pytho.
The colonies of Apollo branched out in various directions from the northern coast of Crete, carrying every where with them the expiatory and oracular ceremonies of his worship.
It was by this feat that Apollo gained possession of the oracular chasm, from which the goddess Earth had once spoken.
In like manner his son Aletes passed through the territory at that time called Ephyra, where he received from scorn a clod of earth;(320) which in the ancient oracular language was a symbol of sovereignty.
Lloyd, this lady had honoured me with her benignest countenance; and nothing could be more adroit than the manner in which, while imposing me on others as an oracular authority, she sought to subject to her will the oracle itself.
Again, we know that the bay-tree, or laurel, was dedicated to the oracular Pythian Apollo.
But this, the oracular sublime, has now gone to the gipsies and the conjurors, and I must write plain English, if I can.
If the behavior of Mrs. Van Horn was really to be explained on the theory of her prophetic cousin, then she made up her mind very soon after the delivery of these oracular sentences.
It was somehow as if an oracle had pronounced something very oracular indeed.
