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The doctrine that the soul is preexistent to the body, and is infused into it at conception or birth; -- opposed to tradicianism and creationism.

Any mental apprehension of an object. First intention (Logic), a conception of a thing formed by the first or direct application of the mind to the individual object; an idea or image; as, man, stone. -- Second intention (Logic), a conception generalized from first intuition or apprehension already formed by the mind;…

An artist's way of expressing his thought or embodying his conception of nature.

To render turbid; to darken; to confuse. [R.] The confusion of ideas and conceptions under the same term painfully inturbidates his theology. Coleridge.

e of a court. [Obs.] See Wager of law, under Wager. Avogadro's law (Chem.), a fundamental conception, according to which, under similar conditions of temperature and pressure, all gases and vapors contain in the same volume the same number of ultimate molecules; -- so named after Avogadro, an Italian scientist. Sometim…

striction; a qualification; a restraining condition, defining circumstance, or qualifying conception; as, limitations of thought. The cause of error is ignorance what restraints and limitations all principles have in regard of the matter whereunto they are applicable. Hooker.

, if I may so call it, a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice, refined conceptions of philosophy in sensible images. Tatler.

ance; material; the material or substantial part of anything; the constituent elements of conception; that into which a notion may be analyzed; the essence; the pith; the embodiment. He is the matter of virtue. B. Jonson.

ns, as distinguished from the science of determined or concrete being; the science of the conceptions and relations which are necessarily implied as true of every kind of being; phylosophy in general; first principles, or the science of first principles.

A mistaking or mistake; wrong apprehension of one's meaning of a fact; misconception; misunderstanding.

Misconception. [Obs.]

The act of misprising; misapprehension; misconception; mistake. [Archaic] Fuller. The misprision of this passage has aided in fostering the delusive notion. Hare.

An apprehending wrongly; a misconception; a misunderstanding; a fault in opinion or judgment; an unintentional error of conduct. Infallibility is an absolute security of the understanding from all possibility of mistake. Tillotson.

Being in error; judging wrongly; having a wrong opinion or a misconception; as, a mistaken man; he is mistaken.

Mistake of the meaning; error; misconception. Bacon.

A monster; a false conception; a mass of fleshy matter, generated in the uterus.

That which produces conception, invention, or creation in the mind of the artist in undertaking his subject; the guiding or controlling idea manifested in a work of art, or any part of one.

A proposition by which something is denied or forbidden; a conception or term formed by prefixing the negative particle to one which is positive; an opposite or contradictory term or conception. This is a known rule in divinity, that there is no command that runs in negatives but couches under it a positive duty. South…

ect of philosophers in the Middle Ages, who adopted the opinion of Roscelin, that general conceptions, or universals, exist in name only. Reid.

Mental apprehension of whatever may be known or imagined; an idea; a conception; more properly, a general or universal conception, as distinguishable or definable by marks or notæ. What hath been generally agreed on, I content myself to assume under the notion of principles. Sir I. Newton. Few agree in their notions ab…