Impossible Sentence Examples

It was impossible to keep Helen quiet.

It was impossible to make out what he wanted.

She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider in how far she was to blame for what had happened.

It was impossible to know what was going on in Señor Medena's mind by observing his expression.

That was impossible to fake.

It was impossible to doubt it now.

Often in a snow-storm, even by day, one will come out upon a well-known road and yet find it impossible to tell which way leads to the village.

No, it's impossible, she thought.

But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or move to another place, because of the crowd.

Without this, it is impossible to farm at scale.

Sofia's words freed them from deep within his mind, and Dusty's hammering at the facts made it impossible for him to silence them as he wanted to.

It was quite impossible to understand these sounds.

All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of events remain unexecuted.

It was now, however, impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran with her through the garden seeking another way out.

His heart began to slow its impossible race.

On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was impossible to pass any judgment.

Like Alex, it was impossible to guess what was going on in his mind by the expression on his face.

It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do to let him die on the road.

It would not ache--it would be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to get rid of them.

He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting, but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the time he joined the army.

No, it's impossible! thought Nicholas, still shouting with a hoarse voice.

To the left from that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye.

It was impossible to talk.

In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for him.

Get on! when it was impossible to go any faster.

It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle.

It was impossible to empathize with her.

Their relationship was growing, but finding a place to cuddle was nearly impossible.

It was impossible for Dean to get close enough to Billy to question him.

It was impossible not to respond.

Add to this the light rainfall on the plateau and a lack of forests, and we have conditions which make large rivers impossible.

A silk mill was erected here in 1770, and there was also an attempt to foster the cotton trade, but the lack of means of communication made the undertaking impossible.

Beck maintains that the real meaning of Kant's theory is idealism; that of objects outside the domain of consciousness, knowledge is impossible, and hence that nothing positive remains when we have removed the subjective element.

But just because it is an old dream, doesn't mean it is an impossible one.

It was at first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.

But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened-- even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was taking place.

It would not take place because the commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its inevitable abandonment.

So it is impossible to understand by what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver was a profound one.

It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible to block its path.

It would have been impossible not to.

It was impossible to hear what he was saying with so many people speaking.

Spencer's " instability of the homogeneous " is perhaps an attempt to perform the impossible (First Principles, chap. xix.).

John Locke, the real father of English philosophy, took the field against what he regarded as Descartes's impossible programme of " Innate Ideas."

At the present moment it is impossible to draw up any definition, based on broad anatomical or developmental characters, by which any one of Cuvier's great groups shall be separated from all the rest.

It is customary to speak of the disastrous effect, of cold winds, snow, hail and frost, lightning, &c., under the heading of atmospheric influences, which only shows once more how impossible it is to separate causes individually.

The former prohibition made it impossible far the unfortunate people to sell their goods which hence fell to the Inquisition.

All of them lie in a state of ruin, and, from the disposition of the drums of the columns, it is impossible to suppose that their fall was due to any other cause than an earthquake.

This is in line with the provisions in the Constitution of the United States regarding the protection of property, but the difficulty in applying the principle to the railway situation lies in the fact that costs have to be met by averaging the returns on the total amount cf business done, and it is often impossible, in specific instances, to secure a rate which can be considered to yield a fair return on the specific service rendered.

In the midst of all this civil strife the Pharisees and all who were preoccupied with religion found it almost impossible to discern what they should do to please God.

But economic laws are often too strong for civil vagaries or sectarian fanaticism, and as the commerce of Austria suffered by the absence of the Jews, it was impossible to exclude the latter from the fairs in the provinces of from the markets of the capital.

It is, however, not impossible that the metamorphic series includes also some of the Lias.

It is probably impossible to recover the whole truth either as to Crichton's death or as to the extent of his attainments, which were so quickly elevated into legendary magnitude.

In their impoverished condition it was impossible for the people to bear the burden, so an act was passed in 1879 scaling part of the debt 60%, part of it 75% and part of it 85%.

But it seems impossible to doubt that in many cases ants behave in a manner that must be considered intelligent, that they can learn by experience and that they possess memory.

Miles made his adventurous journey through Oman, while Theodore Bent threw searchlights backwards into ancient Semitic history by his investigations in the Bahrein Islands in 1888 and in Hadramut in 1894 - 181n northern Asia it is impossible to follow in detail the results of the organized Russian surveys.

A large part of the Temple records from that time onwards were destroyed under the Restoration, so that exact knowledge of the facts is practically impossible.

These excerpts, however, have been so pieced together, that it is often impossible to separate them with precision, and to distinguish accurately between earlier and later elements.

That the revolt of Sheba is in an impossible position is obvious.

As it was impossible to establish a military cordon along the borders of Canaan, it was necessary absolutely to cripple the adjoining tribes.

The annuli into which segments are externally divided are so deeply incised as to render it impossible to distinguish, as can be readily done in the Oligochaeta as a rule, the limits of an annulus from that of a true segment.

It is a matter of history that both mother and daughter were active agents in fostering that view of the social relations of the sexes which found its most famous expression in the "Courts of Love," and which was responsible for the dictum that love between husband and wife was impossible.

It was a difficult operation, for the French and Spaniards had in all 46 line-of-battle ships to his 33, and in the exhausted state of the country it was impossible to fit his ships properly or to supply them with good crews.

We must include the pioneers of the historical school, the economic historians, the socialists, the statisticians, and others whose contributions to economics are now appreciated, and without whose labours the science as we know it now would have been impossible.

This assumption, however, has been made quite impossible, not by the historical school, but by the criticism and analysis of economists in the direct line of the Ricardian succession.

But the character of much of their work makes this assumption impossible.

Whatever the cause, the complete restatement of economic theory, which some heroic persons demand, is clearly impossible, except on conditions not likely to be realized in the immediate future.

To deal adequately with the numerous extensions or qualifications of these and other doctrines in the hands of modern economists would involve us in an attempt to do what we have already said is impossible except on conditions not at present realized.

No real attempt has ever been made to observe the decree, and indeed observance has been impossible seeing the dangers which never cease to menace the empire.

As the Jesuit obedience is based law of God, it is clearly impossible that he should be bound to obey in what is directly opposed to the divine service.

The Japanese mission had vanished in blood in 1651; and though many Jesuits died with their converts bravely as martyrs for the faith, yet it is impossible to acquit them of a large share in the causes of that overthrow.

It is therefore at present impossible to say what part of the Early Version of the New Testament was translated by Wycliffe.'

Farms in the more sterile parts of New Hampshire were abandoned when the depleted soil and the old methods of agriculture made it impossible for owners or tenants to compete with western farmers.

With the knowledge at our disposal, it is impossible to reach an assured conclusion between these two views.

He concluded that there could be no refraction without dispersion, and hence that achromatism was impossible of attainment.

The defeat was decisive; it made impossible the great eastern principality which Bohemund had contemplated.

It is impossible to consider without surprise the colossal amount of work accomplished by Kepler under numerous disadvantages.

As, in consequence of this, it was impossible for him to return to his own diocese, he obtained the bishopric of Lisieux in 1432 by favour of the king of England.

Why did this thought never occur to me before? and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this marriage.

As twenty years before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this letter, he now was.

But feeling this to be senseless and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her.

It was evident that the thought could never occur to him which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the doubt, "Is not all I think and believe nonsense?"

The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was impossible to wait for her recovery.

She only felt herself again completely borne away into this strange senseless world--so remote from her old world--a world in which it was impossible to know what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless.

Is it really impossible to claim for man something between omniscience and universal nescience?

As medusae are known to bud medusae from the radial canals there is nothing impossible in Aliman's theory, but it cannot be said to have; received satisfactory proof.

For it is almost impossible to prove that any structure, however rudimentary, is useless - that is to say, that it plays no part whatever in the economy; and, if it is in the slightest degree useful, there is no reason why, on the hypothesis of direct creation, it should not have been created.

Moreover, the stationary habit of plants, and the almost total absence of locomotion, makes it impossible for them to seek their food.

It is, of course, impossible to do this here, but I will briefly discuss one or two groups of cases.

While the republics of Italy, and above all the state of Venice, were engaged in distributing the rich products of India and the Far East over the Western world, it was impossible that motives of curiosity, as well as a desire of commercial advantage, should not be awakened to such a degree as to impel some of the merchants to visit those remote lands.

It is, of course, quite impossible, in a survey of extinct birds, to divide them into those which are bona fide fossil, sub-fossil, recently extirpated and partially exterminated.

But the growth of a united Sicilian nation was impossible; the usual style to express the inhabitants of the island is "omnes" or "u n iversi Siciliae populi."

The agricultural plebeian of old Rome and the feudal noble of contemporary Europe were both of them at Venice impossible characters.

Where they did not exist, as in America, everything has made it more and more impossible that they should arise.

Under the fully-developed despotisms of the East a real nobility is impossible; the prince raises and thrusts down as he pleases.

Which, if any, of these identifications is correct, it is impossible to say.

It is not impossible, however, that Boetius may have been brought up a Christian, and that in his early years he may have written some Christian books.

Hence it is impossible to form a satisfactory linear series.

To enter here into an exhaustive account of the various theories which even before, though especially after, the appearance of the Constitution of Athens have been propounded as to the chronology of the Peisistratean tyranny, is impossible.

How far the recommendation was due to personal feeling, as opposed to political considerations, it is impossible to say.

How far this movement will extend it is impossible to say; it is certain, however, that it will be enormously important in re-aligning trade conditions in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

It would be practically impossible for a line thus used by different carriers to be operated either with safety, or with economy, or with the advantage to the public which a centralized management affords.

It is equally impossible for the majority of shippers to enjoy the competition of parallel lines.

The American railways do not have to face this situation; but, after a long term of years, when they were allowed to do much as they pleased, they have now been brought sharply to book by almost every form of constituted authority to be found in the states, and they are suffering from increased taxation, from direct service requirements, and from a general tendency on the part of regulating authorities to reduce rates and to make it impossible to increase them.

In cases where the route of a line runs across a river or other piece of water so wide that the construction of a bridge is either impossible or would be more costly than is warranted by the volume of traffic, the expedient is sometimes adopted of carrying the wagons and carriages across bodily with their loads on train ferries, so as to avoid the inconvenience and delay of transshipment.

A station of moderate size may collect goods destined for a great variety of places but not in sufficient quantities to compose a full train-load for any of them, and then it becomes impossible to avoid despatching trains which contain wagons intended for many diverse destinations.

In the present article it is impossible to give an exhaustive catalogue of the phenomena and modes of communication of modern spiritualism.'

Probably it would be impossible to unite spiritualists in any creed, which,, besides the generally accepted belief in God and immortality, should postulate more than the progress of the spirit after death, and the power of some of the dead to communicate with the living by means of mediums.

It is impossible to discuss the other theories of the origin of this name.

It is impossible to enter here into the numerous details of that impressive ceremonial.

It is impossible to deny Persian influence in the development of this conception, and that the Persian Ahriman (Angromainyu), the evil personality opposed to the good, Ahura Mazda, moulded the Jewish counterpart, Satan.

This name is twice translated "adder," but as nothing is told of it beyond its poisonous character and the intractability of its disposition, it is impossible accurately to determine the species.

Urged by such considerations, he once more turned his eyes to the scene of his early exile, where he might live on his decent patrimony in a style which was impossible in England, and pursue unembarrassed his literary studies.

Although he was anxious to marry this lady, the match was rendered impossible by the dislike of George II.

In 1883 he resigned his seat in parliament owing to the reactionary measures of the government, which made it impossible for him to continue his former co-operation with Bismarck, but returned in 1887 to support the coalition of national parties.

To combine the heterogeneous narratives and isolated statements into a consecutive account is impossible; to ignore those which conflict with the now predominating views would be unmethodical.

It is naturally impossible to treat them from any modern standpoint as fiction; they are honest even where they are most untrustworthy.

The scantiness of historical tradition makes a final solution impossible, but the study of these years has an important bearing on the history of the later Judaean state, which has been characteristically treated from the standpoint of exiles who returned from Babylonia and regard them selves as the kernel of " Israel."

The agriculturists and herdsmen who had been left in Palestine formed, as always, the staple population, and it is impossible to imagine either Judah or Israel as denuded of its inhabitants.

Yet it is impossible to recover with confidence or completeness the development of Hebrew history from the pages of the Old Testament alone.

The control of the papacy by Charles V., moreover, made it impossible for Wolsey to succeed in his efforts to obtain from Clement VII.

To call it "pessimism" is merely to apply to it a characteristically Western principle according to which happiness is impossible without personality.

His colonizing system was exposed to very severe criticism, yet it is impossible not to admire the results of his stupendous activity.

Leases for a term of years, however, were not uncommon; but the want of capital rendered it impossible for the tenantry to attempt any spirited improvements.

Some people are of opinion that the factors to be taken account of in economic investigation are so numerous that progress on these lines is impossible.

It would certainly be impossible if we had to begin de novo to construct the whole fabric of economic science.

It is impossible to carry the process of isolation very far.

Under an apparently uniform and stable system of social regulation there was much variation and movement, the significance of which it is impossible to estimate.

So, again, it is impossible to make a useful comparative estimate of the advantages and disadvantages of the transport systems of England, the United States and Germany, unless we keep constantly in view the very different geographical, military and political conditions which these systems have to satisfy.

While it is impossible to give a strictly economic interpretation of the earlier history of nations, economic interests so govern the life and determine the policy of modern states that other forces, like those of religion and politics, seem to play only a subsidiary part, modifying here and there the view which is taken of particular questions, but not changing in any important degree the general course of their development.

Moreover, all these subjects hang together, so that it seems impossible to come to a decision about one of them without knowing all about the others.

It is, for instance, practically impossible to obtain reliable evidence as to the regularity of employment in any industry in the 17th century, and the best approximations and devices we can invent are very poor substitutes for what we really want.

Nelson's crowning triumph rendered impossible for the present all other means of attack on those elusive foes; and Napoleon's sense of the importance of that battle may be gauged, not by his public utterances on the subject, but by his persistence in forcing Prussia to close Hanover and the whole coastline of north-west Germany against British goods.

The Bonapartes had intrigued for it with their usual persistence, and Napoleon was careful never to make it impossible.

To date the beginning of this earliest record of human production is impossible at present.

It is not impossible to combine these views, and place the seat of power still in Crete, but ascribe the Renascence there to an influx of new blood from the north, large enough to instil fresh vigour, but too small to change the civilization in its essential character.

It is almost impossible to believe that any species of insect that has for a long period developed the wings outside the body could change this mode of growth suddenly for an internal mode of development of the organs in question, for, as we have already explained, the two modes of growth are directly opposed.

This foundation was laid by the joint labours of Francis Willughby (1635-1672) and John Ray (1628-1705), for it is impossible to separate their share of work in natural history more than to say that, while the former more especially devoted himself to zoology, botany was the favourite pursuit of the latter.

The latter's name seems not to be even mentioned by him, but Nitzsch was in Paris in the summer of 1827, and it is almost impossible that he should not have heard of L'Herminier's labours, unless the relations between the followers of Cuvier to whom Nitzsch attached himself, and those of De Blainville, whose pupil L'Herminier was, were such as to forbid anv communication between the rival schools.

These different memoirs, being technically monographs, have strictly no right to be mentioned in this place; but there is scarcely one of them, if one indeed there be, that does not deal with the generalities of the study; and the influence they have had upon contemporary investigation is so strong that it is impossible to refrain from noticing them here, though want of space forbids us from enlarging on their contents.

But it was impossible that the rival Venetian and Genoese merchants, dwelling at close quarters in the Levant cities, should not come to blows.

Contemporaneously other events were menacing the ascendancy and exhausting the treasury of the republic. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, and although Venice entered at once into treaty with the new power and desired to trade with it, not to fight with it, yet it was impossible that her possessions in the Levant and the archipelago should not eventually bring her into collision with the expanding energy of the Mussulman.

It has been found impossible to afforest them on account of the roughness of the sea-air, and the wash from their bluffs into the harbour has involved large expense in the erection of sea-walls.

We must provisionally affirm life and devote ourselves to social evolution, instead of striving after a happiness which is impossible; in so doing we shall find that morality renders life less unhappy than it would otherwise be.

As a commercial product spider-silk has been found to be equal, if not superior, to the best silk spun by lepidopterous larvae; but the cannibalistic propensities of spiders, making it impossible to keep more than one in a single receptacle, coupled with the difficulty of getting them to spin freely in a confined space, have hitherto prevented the silk being used on any extensive scale for textile fabrics.

The exact extent, however, to which each particular class of enemy has affected the protective habits and attributes of spiders is by no means always evident; and it is impossible to discuss the question in detail within the limits of a short article.

It is impossible here to deal with the systems of land tenure in force in other countries.

The World's Commercial Cotton Crop. It is impossible to give an exact return of the total amount of cotton produced in the world, owing to the fact that in China, India and other eastern countries, in Mexico, Brazil, parts of the Russian empire, tropical Africa, &c., considerable - in some cases very large - quantities of cotton are made up locally into wearing apparel, &c., and escape all statistical record.

As men of substance increased among the ranks of the spinners, the Manchester cotton dealers found it impossible to retard a movement set on foot by the prospects of such appreciable advantages.

If a spinner is pressed by a shipper to make quotations with refusal for two or three days to give time for business to be settled by cable, it is evidently not impossible for the spinner to shift the risk involved by getting in turn from his broker refusal quotations for cotton.

Now frequency of movement, average daily price variation, and range of price movements are matters of fundamental importance to the public. Hence for practical purposes we require several kinds of measurement of price movements, and it is impossible to weigh exactly the one against the other in respect of importance.

On the problem of evil and sin it is impossible here to enter; but this must be insisted on, that the miracles of Jesus at least express divine benevolence just under those conditions in which the course of nature obscures it, and are therefore, proper elements in a revelation of grace, of which nature cannot give any evidence.

The critical method which has since become almost a formal system, aiming at scientific certainty, was with him an unexampled power, based on the insight acquired from wide knowledge, which enabled him to judge the credibility of an author or the genuineness of an authority; but he has made it impossible for any one to attempt to write modern history except on the "narratives of eye-witnesses and the most genuine immediate documents" preserved in the archives.

These are so numerous and varied in form that a description would be impossible within the scope of this article.

When the crusaders gathered at Venice in the autumn of 1202, it was found impossible to get together the 85,000 marks promised to Venice.

The basis of this growth is partly the story-telling instinct innate in all men, which loves to heighten an effect, sharpen a point or increase a contrast - the instinct which breathes in Icelandic sagas like that of Burnt Njal; partly the instinct of idolization, if it may be so called, which leads to the perversion into impossible greatness of an approved character, and has created, in this instance, the legendary figures of Peter the Hermit and Godfrey of Bouillon (qq.v.); partly the religious impulse, which counted nothing wonderful in a holy war, and imported miraculous elements even into the sober pages of the Gesta.

But how far these, or the indigenous " Jews " are of Hebrew rather than of Aramaean origin is impossible to say.

It is impossible here to follow in detail the numerous changes in the distribution of the territory and the gradual disappearance of particular dynasties which maintained a footing for some time longer in Chalcis, Abila, Emesa and Palestine; but it is of special interest to note that the kingdom of the Arab Nabataeans was able to keep its hold for a considerable period on the north as far as Damascus.

It is impossible here to describe in detail his relations to Napoleon, and the part which he played in the drawing up of the Civil Code, later on called the Code Napoleon.

As he could only support himself at Paris with difficulty, it was impossible to send for his companions in Salamanca.

Finding it impossible to keep this part of their vow, the fathers met at Vicenza, where Ignatius was staying in a ruined monastery; and here after deliberation it was determined that he, Laynez and Faber should go to Rome to place the little band at the disposal of the pope.

It would be impossible to give a list even of the other lives, most of which are without value as histories, being written mainly for edification.

It is impossible to believe with Hunter that he lived so late as Edward II.'s reign.

It is impossible to give a satisfactory diagnosis of such intermediate forms.

Although loss of flight (correlated with more or less reduction of the wings and the sternal keel, and often compensated by stronger hind limbs) has occurred, and is still taking place in various groups of birds, it is quite impossible that a new Ratite can still come into existence, because the necessary primitive substratum, whence arose the true Ratitae, is no longer available.

But the difference between these two classes of elements is one of degree only, and they gradually merge into each other; moreover the electric relations of elements are not absolute, but vary according to the state of combination in which they exist, so that it is just as impossible to divide the elements into two classes according to this property as it is to separate them into two distinct classes of metals and non-metals.

This implied that in the benzene complex there was at least one carbon atom linked to three others, thus rendering Kekule's formula impossible and Ladenburg's and Claus' possible.

Therefore formula (2), being unsymmetrical, is impossible.

While polysymmetry is solely conditioned by the manner in which the mimetic twin is built up from the single crystals, there being no change in the scalar properties, and the vector properties being calculable from the nature of the twinning, in the case of polymorphism entirely different structures present themselves, both scalar and vector properties being altered; and, in the present state of our knowledge, it is impossible to foretell the characters of a polymorphous modification.

More than a modicum of rusticity is needed as a protection to a man who attempts such colossal reforms. This necessity had its consequences in the disquieting inequalities of Wagner's early work, and the undeniable egotism that embittered his fiery nature throughout his life; while the cut-and-dried system of culture of later Wagnerian discipleship has revenged him in a specially sacerdotal type of tradition, which makes progress even in the study of his works impossible except through revolt.

But equally it is now impossible to cast any doubt upon them.

It is not impossible that the question may yet be raised again whether the Eurasian after all is the heir of the ages.

It is impossible to represent on a plane the whole of the earth's surface, or even a large extent of it, without a considerable amount of distortion.

Their services to their owners and to Arctic explorers are well known, but Eskimo dogs are so rapacious that it is impossible to train them to refrain from attacking sheep, goats or any small domesticated animals.

Their insistence on the personal aspect of religious experience made it impossible for Friends to countenance the setting apart of any man or building for the purpose of divine worship to the exclusion of all others.

In reality, the struggle which they had carried on in defence of this principle for seventeen years, with a good faith which it is impossible to ignore, ended in a defeat.

In support of this decision it was urged that it was no good pursuing people whom it was impossible to catch, that the isolated posts in the interior had not been able to protect the friendly tribes; and that the semi-desert nature of the country did not justify any attempt at economic development.

Education is given by a public-school system, which, while nominally providing for separate schools for Catholics and Protestants, makes it practically impossible at most points to carry on such schools.

The immense extension of the rural estates (latifundia) made it impossible for masters to know their slaves, even if they were disposed to take trouble for the purpose.

Such extension of his field would have been impossible had not Wesley been helped by a heroic band of preachers.

First, since the great and growing modern city stands right over the ancient one, it is almost impossible to find any considerable space in which to dig, except at enormous cost.

It is impossible to enumerate here all the works attributed to Joachim.

So soon as the point of view is clear - that in the Gathas we have firm historical ground on which Zoroaster and his surroundings may rest, that here we have the beginnings of the Zoroastrian religion - then it becomes impossible to answer otherwise than affirmatively every general question as to the historical character of Zoroaster.

Even in the best equipped botanical garden it is impossible to have, at one and the same time, more than a very small percentage of the representatives of the flora of any given region or of any large group of plants.

It is convenient to place in a small envelope gummed to an upper corner of the sheet any flowers, seeds or leaves needed for dissection or microscopical examination, especially where from the fixation of the specimen it is impossible to examine the leaves for oilreceptacles and where seed is apt to escape from ripe capsules and be lost.

A flower dissected and gummed on the sheets will often retain the colour which it is impossible to preserve in a crowded inflorescence.

As it is impossible to preserve the natural colours of fungi, the specimens should, whenever possible, be accompanied by a coloured drawing of the plant.

But that they can have been so used to any large extent is rendered impossible by their limited dimensions, as none of them could hold more than fifty or sixty persons.

It is impossible not to be struck with the remarkable analogy between these rock-hewn chairs and those discovered in the Etruscan tombs, of the purpose of which no satisfactory explanation has been given.

According to modern physicians it is impossible to live many days in the caves of pozzolana in which many of the catacombs are excavated."

It is true that a catacomb is often connected with the earlier sand-quarry, and starts from it as a commencement, but the two are excavated in different strata, suitable to their respective purposes, and their plan and construction are so completely unlike as to render any confusion between them impossible.

That such vast excavations should have been made without attracting attention, and that such an immense number of corpses could have been carried to burial in perfect secrecy is utterly impossible.

The existence of sulphuretted hydrogen in great quantities below loo fathoms, the extensive chemical precipitation of calcium carbonate, the stagnant nature of its deep waters, and the absence of deep-sea life are conditions which make it impossible to discuss it along with the physical and biological conditions of the Mediterranean proper.

Though this was recognized by the more far-seeing of the Bond leaders, they were ready to support Kruger, whether or not he granted reforms, and they sought to make Milner's position impossible.

Nevertheless, the radicals, because it was impossible to call a convention through the medium of the state government, took advantage of this clause to reconvoke the old convention at New Orleans.

Under the conditions of free labour, the development of railways abroad, the improvement of machinery both in cane and beet producing countries, the general competition of the beet, and the fall of prices, it was impossible for the Cuban industry to survive without radical betterment of methods.

After the Ten Year's War seed of Mexican and United States tobaccos was in great demand to re-seed the ruined vegas, and was introduced in great quantities; and although by a later law the destruction of these exotic species was ordered, that destruction was in fact quite impossible.

It is sometimes said that since then there has been a countertendency, but it is impossible to prove such a statement conclusively except with the aid of future censuses.

Despite superficial decentralization after 1878 any real growth of local self-government was rendered impossible.

Congress neglected to pass certain laws which were required by the constitution, and which, as regards municipal autonomy, independence of the judiciary, and congressional representation of minority parties, were intended to make impossible the abuses of centralized government that had characterized Spanish administration.

He continued to play a prominent part in International Socialist politics, striving to arrange concerted action of the working classes to make wars impossible by means of general strikes.

Now, owing to the necessary inexactness of measurement, it is impossible to discriminate directly whether any kind of continuous physical quantity possesses the compactness of the series of rationals or the continuity of the series of real numbers.

For example, if it should turn out that the mass of a body is to be estimated by counting the number of corpuscles (whatever they may be) which go to form it, then a body with an irrational measure of mass is intrinsically impossible.

The later middle ages are represented by several monasteries, and many castles, such as those of Dervent, Doboj, Maglaj, Zepee and Vranduk, on the Bosna; Bihac, on Owing to the scarcity of authoritative documents, it is impossible to describe in detail the events of the next three centuries.

It is impossible to verify this charge, but during the troubled years that ensued, Ali pursued an elaborate policy of intrigue.

After pointing out the immense difficulties which he had had to encounter owing to the absence of any regular accounts, and above all of any of " those statistics which constitute the soul, indeed the very life of a public administration," and that it was therefore impossible for him to pretend that he had been able to free himself altogether from the effects of the past, the minister continues, " every time we have endeavoured to have recourse to the previous elements of appreciation, we found ourselves faced by the chaos which characterized former years.

After the disaster of Angora, from which it seemed impossible that the Ottoman fortunes could ever recover, the princes fled each with as many troops as he could induce to Inter- follow him, being hotly pursued by Timur's armies.

But nothing could be done until the Porte should have come to terms with Russia as to the Treaty of Bucharest; for, as the British ambassador, Sir Robert Liston, was instructed to point out to the Ottoman government, " it is impossible to guarantee the possession of a territory of which the limits are not determined."

Even so it proved impossible to fulfil the Miirzsteg programme, though the attempt was prolonged until 1908.

There was, indeed, a danger lest the rivalries in the assembly might render it exceedingly difficult, not to say impossible, to obtain such unanimity.

On the south bank, owing to better natural drainage and a drier subsoil, movement was fairly easy, but the Austrians found it almost impossible.

In view of these troops the Prussian line, which had advanced faultlessly as if on parade, halted to prepare its bayonet attack by fire, and, once halted, it was found impossible to get them to go on again.

Even then the day might have been saved had Blucher been able to find even twenty squadrons accustomed to gallop together, but the Prussian cavalry had been dispersed amongst the infantry commands, and at the critical moment it proved impossible for them to deliver a united and decisive attack.

But in this new and difficult country the emperor found it impossible to time his marches.

The decisive movement was a passage in strength near Fuenterrabia, to the astonishment of Passage of the the enemy, who in view of the width of the river Bidassoa, and the shifting sands, had thought the crossing October 7, impossible at that point.

It is impossible to ascertain who these detractors were - possibly British fellow-workers in Ireland.

According to Gregory of Tours Chlodio dwelt at a place called Dispargum, which it is impossible to identify.

During a two years' visit to England he sought earnestly to gain friends to his colony's cause, but returned to Boston in April 1776 convinced that a friendly settlement of the dispute was impossible.

King Stanislaus was at first inclined to mediate between the confederates and Russia; but finding this impossible, sent a force against them under the grand hetmen Ksawery Branicki and two generals, who captured Bar.

Spring sets in with remarkable rapidity and charm at the end of April; but in the second half of May come the " icy saints' days," so blighting that it is impossible to cultivate the apple or pear.

There is no linear covariant, since it is impossible to form a symbolic product which will contain x once and at the same time appertain to a quadratic. (v.) is the Jacobian; geometrically it denotes the bisectors of the angles between the lines ax, or, as we may say, the common harmonic conjugates of the lines and the lines x x .

The abbe again declared "it is impossible for me honestly and sincerely to make the act of absolute retractation and submission exacted by the sovereign pontiff."

The right of the public to take fish has been frequently in dispute, but a committee of the House of Commons, which took much evidence on the question in the year 1884, came to the conclusion that "it is impossible to recognize anything like a general public right to take fish as now existing."

It would be impossible to enumerate here all the monographs describing, for example, the ruins of Carthage, those of the temple of the waters at Mount Zaghuan, the amphitheatre of El Jem (Thysdrus), the temple of Saturn, the royal tomb and the theatre of Dugga (Thugga), the bridge of Chemtu (Simitthu), the ruins and cemeteries of Tebursuk and Medeina (Althiburus), the rich villa of the Laberii at Wadna (Uthina), the sanctuary of Saturn Balcaranensis on the hill called Bu-KornaIn, the ruins of the district of Enfida (Aphrodisium, Uppenna, Segermes), those of Leptis minor (Lemta), of Thenae (near Sfax), those of the island of Meninx (Jerba), of the peninsula of Zarzis, of Mactar, Sbeitla (Sufetula), Gigthis (Bu-Grara), Gafsa (Capsa), Kef (Sicca Veneria), Bulla Regia, &c.

This office he held till the 12th of September 1863, when finding it impossible to resist the rising current of radicalism and revolution he resigned all his offices, and obtained at his own request unlimited leave of absence.

Except in the few special cases when a uniform external field produces uniform magnetization, the value of the demagnetizing force cannot be calculated, and an exact determination of the actual magnetic force within the body is therefore impossible.

In any case Frederick William, uneasy enough as a constitutional king, would have been impossible as a constitutional emperor.

This fact renders their association with the Crustacea impossible, if classification is to be the expression of genetic affinity inferred from structural coincidence.

As regards the martyrdom, owing to the confusion introduced by the multitudinous Catholic revisions of this section of the Acts, it is practically impossible to restore its original.

When suddenly confronted in a situation where immediate escape is impossible, the fox, like the wolf, will not hesitate to resort to the death-feigning instinct.

As regards the Philistines, it is impossible to lay much weight on the statement of Chronicles, unsupported as it is by the older history, and in Joel the Philistines plainly stand in one category with the Phoenicians, as slave dealers, not as armed foes.

In the nature of the case satisfactory conclusions as to the rationality which may be predicated of animals are impossible.

Owing to the almost absolute disappearance of documentary evidence, it is impossible to know otherwise than very imperfectly the inner life of Mithraism.

In the domain of history we have first the old Sienese chronicles, which down to the 14th century are so confused that it is almost impossible to disentangle truth from fiction or even to decide the personality of the various authors.

He at once became very popular with the students, but his political opinions made it impossible for the Saxon government to appoint him to a professorship. He was at that time a strong Liberal; he hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and that all the smaller states would be swept away.

Hungary was now a free and independent modern state; but the very completeness and suddenness of her constitutional victory made it impossible for the strongly flowing current of political life to keep within due bounds.

Every one now looked to the crown to extract the nation from an ex-lex, or extra-constitutional situation, but when the king, passing over the ordinary party-leaders, appointed as premier Count Karoly Khuen-Hedervary, who had made himself impossible as ban of Croatia, there was general amazement and indignation.

These tactics soon rendered legislation impossible, and a modification of the rule of procedure became absolutely necessary if any business at all was to be done.

Had this attitude represented the temper of the whole Hungarian people, it would have been impossible for the crown to have coped with it.

It is impossible to enumerate or to give due consideration to all the names in the army of anatomical and embryological students of the middle third of the 19th century whose labours bore fruit in the modification of zoological theories and in the building up of a true classification of animals.

Weismann has also ingeniously argued from the structure of the egg-cell and sperm-cell, and from the way in which, and the period at which, they are derived in the course of the growth of the embryo from the egg - from the fertilized egg-cell - that it is impossible (it would be better to say highly improbable) that an alteration in parental structure could produce any exactly representative change in the substance of the germ or sperm-cells.

The first efforts of the new monarch were directed against the Wendish pirates who infested the Baltic and made not merely the political but even the commercial development of the Danish state impossible.

His recent discovery of the " fixed lines " allowed a precision of observation previously impossible.

Soon after 1 The names are read in various ways; it is impossible to establish the correct forms.

But even here it seems impossible to deny some influence coming from the Aegean area, and Scythic beasts are very like certain products of Mycenaean and early Ionic art.

How far Nansen was content with the result of the Revolution - absolute monarchy - it is impossible to say.

Unfortunately however it is impossible to date the book of Chronicles with certainty.

How late the Chronicler wrote cannot perhaps be determined; but it is, at all events, impossible to prove that the author of Ecclesiasticus was acquainted with his work.

But against this explanation of the heading ry;p' 2 there is an almost insuperable objection; for, since both the first and second books contain psalms with this heading, it is clear that the " Chief Musician's - or Director's - Psalter " must have been in existence before either of these books; in which case, apart from the difficulty of the antiquity which we should be compelled to assign to this earliest Psalter, it is impossible to understand on what principle the first book of Psalms was formed.

It is certainly not impossible that the two groups of " Davidic " psalms once formed separate collections independently compiled, and that the subscription to Ps.

But, as we have seen, it is impossible to separate the contents of the Elohistic books from those of the last collection.

Although there is no psalm which can be shown with any probability to be pre-exilic, it is not impossible that there are some which date from as early a time as the age of Zerubbabel, by whose appointment national hopes were raised to so high a pitch.

He has left us two detailed accounts of the proceedings of the council of St Basle; and, despite his reticence, it is impossible to doubt that he was the moving spirit in Arnulf's deposition.

Moreover while large areas on the high veld are suitable for the raising of crops of a very varied character, in other districts, including a great part of the low veld, arable farming is impossible or unprofitable.

The public funds were exhausted; taxes were impossible to collect; and the natives on the borders of the country and in the mountains of the north had thrown off all allegiance to the state.

To civil war she was consistently opposed, and never ceased to dissociate herself from the plans of the emigres, but here again her very position made her an enemy of the republic. In any case, all her actions had as their aim - firstly, the safeguarding of the monarchy and the king's position, and later, when she saw this to be impossible, that of securing the safety of her husband and her son.

But in spite of the constant renewal of negotiations for a compromise it was impossible to arrive at any agreement, until the outbreak of war left all the projects for a Ruthenian university at Lemberg, a Slovene one in Laibach, and a second Czech one in Moravia, unrealized.

It was over these demands in connexion with the waterways, which the Minister of Finance declared to be impossible of fulfilment to the extent required by the Poles, that Bienerth's mainstay failed to support him; and on Dec. 12 he sent in his resignation, which was, however, followed by a renewed Bienerth Ministry, composed of Germans, Poles and officials.

This factor was the rupture of communications with foreign countries, due in the earlier stages of the war to the limitation, and at one time the prohibition, of exports by neutral countries, the passing over of some of these countries to the enemy, and lastly the blockade by the enemy Powers, which increased in efficiency and made it more and more difficult to import the most essential commodities, until in the end it was almost impossible to obtain from abroad anything, needed either for the soldiers or the civilians.

So soon as State control was applied to any article it could be taken as a sign that the supplies would soon come to an end, or at any rate were very restricted; and thus it was impossible to prevent the equipment of the army from becoming gradually more inadequate, and the provision both of the army and of the population behind the lines with all kinds of necessaries from being altogether insufficient; only wholly unsatisfactory substitutes could be provided, and the available provisions could hardly be made to go round.

It was at first extended provisionally, as it was impossible to reach a settlement between Austria and Hungary regarding the continuance of common currency and banking arrangements.

On the outbreak of the war it was at first impossible to contemplate meeting the cost of the war by raising existing taxes or by imposing fresh taxation.

It is impossible not to be struck with the growing development of the Israelite tribes after the invasion of Palestine, their strong position under David, the sudden expansion of the Hebrew monarchy under Solomon, and the subsequent slow decay, and this, indeed, is the picture as it presented itself 'to the last writers who found in the glories of the past both consolation for the present and grounds for future hopes.

But the development of modern culture has rendered these exploits of an unbridled fanaticism impossible, and no government would consent to enforce the once obligatory sentences of ecclesiastical courts.

It may be admitted that, in many cases, the distinction between Ultramontanism and Catholicism cannot be clearly traced; and it is impossible to draw a sharp line of severance between the two, which could be absolutely valid under all circumstances and in relation to all questions.

On the 10th of May she wrote curtly that the course proposed by Sir Robert Peel was contrary to usage and repugnant to her feelings; the Tory leader then had to inform the House of Commons that, having failed to obtain the proof which he desired of her majesty's confidence, it was impossible for him to accept office.

After 1851 it was impossible for him to remain at Kiel, and he was appointed to a professorship at Jena; in 1859 he was called to Berlin, where he remained till his death.

Cod-liver oil is used externally in medicine when its internal administration is rendered impossible by idiosyncrasy or the state of the patient's digestion.

It is impossible, therefore, for nurses to be over-educated in the fullest sense of the word; but it is possible for them to be inappropriately educated, and perhaps that is sometimes the case now.

It is impossible to separate this fusion of law and equity, this union of all the higher courts into one supreme tribunal, from the construction of a single home for this great institution; and the opening of the Royal Courts in the Strand in the year 1882, when Queen Victoria personally presided in her one supreme court, and handed over the care of the building to Lord Selborne, as her chancellor and as the head of this great body, was impressive as an outward and visible sign of the silent revolution, which owed more to Lord Selborne than to any other individual.

This Anastasius, in a pulpit oration which the patriarch himself is said to have prepared for him, caused great scandal to the partisans of the Marian cultus then beginning by saying, "Let no one call Mary the mother of God, for Mary was a human being; and that God should be born of a human being is impossible."

In these editions, partly texts, partly translations, it is impossible to determine the respective shares of Erasmus and his many helpers.

It is impossible in reading Erasmus not to be reminded of the rationalist of the 18th century.

But on the modern theory, which includes the play of electrical phenomena as a function of the aether, there are other considerations which show that this number io 2 is really an enormous overestimate; and it is not impossible that the co-efficient of ultimate inertia of the aether is greater than the co-efficient of inertia (of different kind) of any existing material substance.

The Orlovs had even stronger motives than Catherine for suppressing the ex-emperor, for Gregory Orlov aspired to win the hand as well as the heart of his imperial mistress, and so long as Catherine's lawful husband lived, even in a prison, such a union would be impossible.

From both points of view Christianity is a supernatural system without which salvation is impossible, and in the Christian Church it is preserved and mediated to the world.

Whether in the earliest days there was a single officer at the head of a congregation, or a plurality of officers of equal authority, it is impossible to say with assurance.

However, a solution that was right in principle proved impossible in practice, and the long struggle ended in a compromise by the Concordat of Worms (1122).

The rule of the Church by the Roman bishop had thus become a reality; but the papal claim to supreme temporal authority proved impossible to maintain, although Innocent III.

After Boniface VIII., however, no pope seriously attempted to realize them; to do so had in fact become impossible, for from the time of their residence at Avignon (1305-1377) the popes were in a state of complete dependence upon the French crown.

But nominalism was powerless to inspire theology with new life; on the contrary, its intervention only increased the inextricable tangle of the hairsplitting questions with which theology busied itself, and made their solution more and more impossible.

It is impossible to enter into the manifold details of the fire cultus which forms the main part of the worship in the Avesta.

It is impossible to get behind the Christian uses, in which from the earliest times it was employed as the equivalent of the Latin sacer and sanctus.

Open protest or organized revolt, however, was impossible owing to the proximity and indeed the presence in overwhelming numbers of German and Hungarian troops, who were expressly garrisoned among the Czech population in order to stifle any possible outburst of national and pro-Ally sentiment.

Direct political action was equally impossible, as the Austrian Parliament was suspended.

That any writings of Sanchuniathon ever existed it is impossible to say.

Scepticism, as a distinct school, begins with Pyrrho of Elis, who maintained that knowledge of things is impossible and that we must assume an attitude of reserve (iroXii).

But this doctrine of relativity really involves a condemnation of our knowledge (and of all knowledge), because it fails to realize an impossible and self-contradictory ideal.

Of a scepticism which professes to doubt the validity of every reasoning process and every operation of all our faculties it is, of course, as impossible as it would be absurd to offer any refutation.

The paucity and taciturnity of our sources make it impossible to give anything like an adequate picture of Old Poland during the first four centuries of its existence.

Finally he was bent upon reforming the Polish constitution by substituting the decision of all matters by a plurality of votes for a unanimity impossible to count upon.

Every attempt to improve matters, by reforming the impossible constitution, stranded on the opposition of the gentry.

Disappointed in his hope of obtaining the great seal on the death of Zamoyski, he at once conceived that the whole of the nobility had been insulted in his person, and proceeded to make all government impossible for the next three years.

We have already seen how the ambition of the oligarchs and the lawlessness of the szlachta had reduced the executive to impotence, and rendered anything like rational government impossible.

At least 40,000 men were necessary for the purpose, and these could have been obtained for 200,000 ducats; but a congress of magnates, whose collective fortunes amounted to hundreds of millions, having decided that it was impossible to raise this sum, there was nothing for it but to fight a few skirmishes and then take refuge abroad.

It would be impossible to recapitulate here the great quantity of material in the shape of memoirs which has come down, but mention must be made of those of John Chrysostom Pasek, a nobleman of Masovia, who has left us very graphic accounts of life and society in Poland; after a variety of adventures and many a well-fought battle, he returned to the neighbourhood of Cracow, where he died between 1699 and 1701.

It would be impossible to analyse here his extraordinary poem Nieboska komedja (" The Undivine Comedy"), Irydion, and others.

Owing to the great beauty of the flowers they have been favourites in European gardens for two or three centuries, and have been crossed and recrossed till it has become almost impossible to refer the plants to their original types.

His enemies, however, succeeded in ousting him from this post, and caused him to be entrusted with the apparently impossible task of settling the revolt and brigandage rampant in Rumelia.

Probably the story was first told in the form of short lais, each recounting some special episode, such as the lai known as the chevrefeuille; how old these may be it is impossible to say.

Heavy fines made it impossible for preachers in poor circumstances to continue without claiming the protection of the Toleration Act, and the meeting-houses had to be registered as dissenting chapels.

Had Dollinger, with his immense reputation as a scholar, as a divine and as a man, allowed himself to be consecrated bishop of the Old Catholic Church, it is impossible to say how wide the schism would have been.

Spontaneous self-pollination is rendered impossible in some homogamous flowers in consequence of the relative position of the anthers and stigma - this condition has been termed herkogamy.

It is impossible to decide how far this legend is due to Plato's invention, and how far it is based on facts of which no record remains.

The Union leader was now ordered once more to east Tennessee, but he protested that want of supplies made such a move impossible.

Here Halleek's orders bade him cover both Washington and Aquia Creek (whence the Army of the Potomac was to join him), orders almost impossible of execution, as any serious change of position necessarily uncovered one of these lines.

Still, Lee was losing men, few it is true, but most precious, since it was impossible to replace them, while the North poured unlimited numbers into the Federal camps.

This system made it impossible for French immigrants to obtain land by lawful transfer.

It would be impossible to refer here even briefly to all these, and it may be more useful to select for somewhat full description,.

From these names alone it is impossible to determine whether the places derived their names from individuals or tribes.

From the facts" that have been here briefly noted it must be evident how precarious and, in parts, how impossible the Biblical chronology of this period is.

It seems to have had many points of agreement with the Old Syriac, but it is impossible to identify the locality to which it belonged.

It is, of course, impossible here to give an account of all these, but the following may fairly be regarded as the epoch-making books from the beginning to the present time.

It is impossible, in face of the fact that the evidence of the oldest witnesses of all sorts is constantly opposed to the longer readings, to doubt that WH were right in arguing that these phenomena prove that the later text was made up by a process of revision and conflation of the earlier forms. Influenced by the use of the later text by Chrysostom, WH called it the Syrian or Antiochene text, and refer to the revision which produced it as the Syrian revision.

On the evidence which they had WH were undoubtedly justified, but discoveries and investigation have gone far to make it impossible to hold this view any longer.

It may be that this suggestion will solve the difficulty, but at present it is impossible to say.

It is impossible to estimate the total number of the islands; an atoll, for instance, which may slate in the Marquesas, which afford a type of the extinct volcanic islands, as does Tahiti.

How they came to occupy the region it is impossible to say.

An immediate continuance of hostilities between the two Houses was impossible.

But he found it difficult to avoid taking a side; he was importuned to sign the Covenant, and "finding it impossible to evade doing very unhandsome things," he obtained leave in October 1643 from the king to travel abroad.