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A graceless, unprincipled person; one who is wild and reckless. Beaconsfield.

Knowledge; lnowledge of principles and causes; ascertained truth of facts. If we conceive God's or science, before the creation, to be extended to all and every part of the world, seeing everything as it is, . . . his science or sight from all eternity lays no necessity on anything to come to pass. Hammond. Shakespeare…

Of or pertaining to science; used in science; as, scientific principles; scientific apparatus; scientific observations.

In a scientific manner; according to the rules or principles of science. It is easier to believe than to be scientifically instructed. Locke.

A bitter principle extracted from the bulbs of the squill (Scilla), and probably consisting of a complex mixture of several substances.

Low; base; mean; unprincipled.

ed with the love of the truth." Fuller. Season their younger years with prudent and pious principles. Jer. Taylor.

o a sect; bigotedly attached to the tenets and interests of a denomination; as, sectarian principles or prejudices.

The tenets or principles of the secularists.

That from which anything springs; first principle; original; source; as, the seeds of virtue or vice.

being so governed; democratic government; democracy. It is to self-government, the great principle of popular representation and administration, -- the system that lets in all to participate in the councels that are to assign the good or evil to all, -- that we may owe what we are and what we hope to be. D. Webster.…

Contained in seed; holding the relation of seed, source, or first principle; holding the first place in a series of developed results or consequents; germinal; radical; primary; original; as, seminal principles of generation; seminal virtue. The idea of God is, beyond all question or comparison, the one great seminal p…

they test the truth of knowledge and the morality of actions." (b) "The faculty of first principles." These two are the philosophical significations.

Rigidly methodical, or adherent to rule or principle; exactly conformed to a standard; not allowing or employing unneccessary ornament, amplification, etc.; strict; -- said of style, argument, etc. "Restrained by reason and severe principles." Jer. Taylor. The Latin, a most severe and compendious language. Dryden.…

t sea, for ascertaining the latitude and longitude. It is constructed on the same optical principle as Hadley's quadrant, but usually of metal, with a nicer graduation, telescopic sight, and its arc the sixth, and sometimes the third, part of a circle. See Quadrant.

sition, or direction; varying; variable; fickle; as, shifting winds; shifting opinions or principles.

ourt. [Scot.] Some, however, have preposterously sisted nature as the first or generative principle. Sir W. Hamilton.

erroneous hypothesis that he was a dogmatist. He was a skeptic; that is, he accepted the principles asserted by the prevailing dogmatism: and only showed that such and such conclusions were, on these principles, inevitable. Sir W. Hamilton.

kepticism; characterized by skepticism; hesitating to admit the certainly of doctrines or principles; doubting of everything.

The doctrine that no fact or principle can be certainly known; the tenet that all knowledge is uncertain; Pyrrohonism; universal doubt; the position that no fact or truth, however worthy of confidence, can be established on philosophical grounds; critical investigation or inquiry, as opposed to the positive assumption…