But a little consideration showed that, though Lamarck had seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of modification, it is a cause the actual effects of which are wholly inadequate to account for any considerable modification in animals, and which can have no influence at all in the vegetable world; and probably nothing contributed so much to discredit evolution, in the early part of the 29th century, as the floods of easy ridicule which were poured upon this part of Lamarck's speculation.
Without positively asserting much more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances which support his case; he glides lightly over those which are unfavourable to it; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged; the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are controverted; the contradictions into which they fall are explained away; a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given.
To his next and last interposition in the matrimonial affairs of the king no discredit attaches itself.
Such an idea is justly stigmatized by Mommsen as ridiculous, and reflecting a discredit as unfounded as it is unjust on the imperial police of the capital.
Clemenceau to discredit the ministry, which gave place to a cabinet under the direction of M.
Paschasius shrank from the logical outcome of his view, namely, that Christ's body or part of it is turned into human excrement, but Ratramnus, another monk of Corbey, in a book afterwards ascribed to Duns Scotus, drew this inference in order to discredit his antagonists, and not because he believed it himself.
The position of the Franks in the Holy Land was not improved by the attack on Damascus; while the ignominious failure of a Crusade led by two kings brought the whole crusading movement into discredit in western Europe, and it was utterly in vain that Suger and St Bernard attempted to gather a fresh Crusade in 1150.
Cleanthes) and his own precepts discredit the story, and he is known to have been much respected by the Athenians.
Their isolation has made them ignorant to some extent of the world's progress, while a supersensitive patriotism blinds them to the discredit and disorganization which political strife and misrule have brought upon them.
Indirectly, too, Hermas tended to keep alive the idea of the Christian prophet, even after Montanism had helped to discredit it.