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Elective   /ɪlˈɛktɪv/   Listen
Elective

noun
1.
A course that the student can select from among alternatives.  Synonym: elective course.



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"Elective" Quotes from Famous Books



... possible now, or at any time henceforward, whence came the dross? If nature be bullion that can be melted and thus purified by the conjoint action of heat and elective attraction, I pray Mr. Noble to tell me to what name or 'genus' he refers the dross? Will he tell me, to the Devil? Whence came the Devil? And how was the pure bullion so thoughtlessly made as to have an ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... mean called nemesis, because "they both proceed from the same character" (Rhet. ii, 9). Now the Philosopher proposes these means not as virtues, but as passions, because, even as passions, they are praiseworthy. Yet nothing prevents them from proceeding from some elective habit, in which case they assume the character ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... vote in town meeting, can strike out any names inserted by the authorities, and insert others; thus making jurors elective by the people, and, of course, representatives only of a majority ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... Further, love is a kind of movement. But every movement tends towards something else. Therefore it seems that an angel cannot love himself with either natural or elective love. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas

... a question of stopping a money Bill or of knocking out a few taxes obnoxious to particular classes; the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords would mean the claim of the House of Lords—that is, the claim of a non-elective and unrepresentative Chamber—to make and to unmake Governments; and a recognition of that claim by the country would unquestionably mean that the House of Lords would become the main source and origin of all political ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... the same service for the nerves of the brain considered as solid fibres, as the animal spirits perform for them under the notion of hollow tubes, as Hartley teaches—nor finally, (with yet more recent dreamers) of chemical compositions by elective affinity, or of an electric light at once the immediate object and the ultimate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in various shapes,—as the balance of plus and minus, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... number of provinces, each with the usual corps of elective officers. A governor-general appointed by the Crown of Great Britain ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... take a king of the family of the Gungings, Agilmund, son of Ayo, like the rest of the nations, says Jornandes; for they will be no more under duces, elective war-kings. And then follows a fresh saga (which repeats itself in the myths of several nations), how a woman has seven children at a birth, and throws them for shame into a pond; and Agilmund the king, riding by, stops to see, and turns them over with his lance; and one of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley

... himself "not in favor of" what he improperly called "negro citizenship," for the Constitution discriminates between citizens and electors. Three days before his death he declared his preference that "the elective franchise were now conferred on the very intelligent of the colored men, and on those of them who served our cause as soldiers"; but he wished it done by the States themselves, and he never harbored the thought of exacting ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various

... invested him with a mantle of State, placed the sceptre in his hand, and girt the sword of justice by his side. By the new Act of Government Cromwell was allowed to name his own successor, but in all after cases the office was to be an elective one. In every other respect the forms of the older Constitution were carefully restored. Parliament was again to consist of two Houses, the seventy members of "the other House" being named by the Protector. The Commons ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green

... plainly declared and firmly fixed by the Constitution. No such person is called upon to present reasons why he should possess this right: that question is foreclosed by the Constitution. The object of the elective franchise is to give representation. So long as the Constitution retains its present form, any State Constitution, or statute, which seeks, by juggling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair representation, is a clear violation of the fundamental ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... to be gone through in choosing an emperor, and named the seven "electors" who were to vote. This simplified matters so far as the repeatedly contested elections went; but it failed to strike to the real difficulty. The Emperor remained elective ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... king and country, drive them into exile, and make them despised by those who formerly feared and respected them. But these warnings remained unheeded, and the prophecies were fulfilled to the letter. Elective kingship, pacta conventa, [Footnote: Terms which a candidate for the throne had to subscribe on his election. They were of course dictated by the electors—i.e., by the selfish interest of one class, the szlachta (nobility), or rather the most powerful of them.] liberum ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... thought the trouble might be in what they called the elective system, where you were to choose what study you might take. This had always bewildered Agamemnon a ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale

... understood, by our fellow citizens generally, that this District is the property of the nation—that the laws for the government thereof emanate from the representatives of the people, in Congress assembled, and that all who are entitled to the elective franchise in every State of the Union, have an equal right to express their sentiments, and urge the adoption of measures, relative to the abolition of the system of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various

... Protestant party, who read eagerly the various books and pamphlets declaring that a monarchy should not continue if it {109} proved incapable of maintaining order even by despotic powers. More and more a new idea gained ground that the sovereignty of France was not hereditary but elective. ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead

... natural deaths. Some fell in battle, others were assassinated; but the most common fate for a monarch was to be "slain by his successor." If this was true of the most powerful men in the country, to speak of the office of chief as elective is really absurd. But more than this: there is no evidence that the "tribal system," in the sense of all the tribe being related by blood and all owning their lands in common, ever existed in Ireland even in theory. At the earliest date of which we possess any distinct information on the subject, ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous

... (in Petitot'e Collection, Paris, 1828), ii. 303.] Sardinia, Spain, declare alliance with Fleury; and not Lorraine only, and the Swabian Provinces, but Italy itself lies at his discretion,—owing to your treatment of the Grandfather of France, and these Polish Elective methods. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... is the case of Corsica, the sister island! In reviewing her industrial position we quoted rather largely from a Procès-Verbal of the deliberations of the Council-General, also an elective body, which canvasses, but not regulates, the internal administration of the island. It arrives at certain conclusions, but without any power to give them effect. “Le Conseil-Général émet le vœu,” “appelle l'attention,” are the phrases wherewith, with bated ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester

... advances of the human intellect, supported by the means of publicity, may temper the exercise of a similar irresponsible power, in our own age; but in no country has this substitution of a soulless corporation for an elective representation, been made, in which a system of rule has not been established, that sets at naught the laws of natural justice and the rights of the citizen. Any pretension to the contrary, by placing profession in opposition to practice, is only adding hypocrisy ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... all responsibility to the people. That Mueller should consider this an admirable institution, "a splendid monument of early Grecian customs," seems to me not a little extraordinary. I can conceive no elective council less practically good than one to which election is for life, and in which power is irresponsible. That the institution was felt to be faulty is apparent, not because it was abolished, but because ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... was published in 1621; but amongst the ideas on religion, carefully elaborated or obscurely suggested, which throng its pages, we find curious anticipations of the position of Locke and even of Hume, just as in politics, in the remarks on elective monarchy put in the lips of the Cardinal Ubaldini, or in the conceptions of justice and law, Barclay reveals a sympathy with principles which appealed to Algernon Sidney or were long afterwards developed ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb

... feature of to-night's ceremony was to be the elevation of Esther Clark to the rank of Fire-Maker. For three months had she been working to gain the fourteen necessary requirements and the twenty elective honors, yet now as the moment for receiving her reward drew near she felt a strong disposition to run away. Betty must have guessed her feeling, for at the critical moment she slipped her arm through the older girl's, smiling at her and pressing her ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook

... the right to hold legislative or administrative office, either elective or appointive, to all Jews other than those whose parents and grandparents were all born ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo

... liberty. This, within certain limits, is probably true; and, in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion, or for felony at common law; and when such constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of delegates; and when such constitution shall be ratified by a majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification who are qualified as electors for delegates, and ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 5 • P. H. Sheridan

... first elective, because—at a time when man produced but little and possessed nothing—property was too weak to establish the principle of heredity, and secure to the son the throne of his father; but as soon as fields were cleared, and cities built, each function was, like every thing else, appropriated, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... and his manners were stiff; his morals were irreproachable, his disposition was exacting, but his ability was great. He was capable of instructing even her on many subjects, and they became well acquainted by the elective sympathy of scholarship. She became the critic and depositary of his manuscripts. Finally, one day, after asking leave, in her father's presence the worthy man actually kissed her, on his departure for Italy. Her father, sinking lower ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... evils which inevitably flow from universal suffrage, from aristocratic privilege, and from elective monarchy, by historical examples, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... to the Observatory is going to bring us all, or most of us, together in a new way, and it wouldn't be very odd if some of us should become better acquainted than we ever have been. There is a chance for the elective affinities. What tremendous forces they are, if two subjects of them come within range! There lies a bit of iron. All the dynamic agencies of the universe are pledged to hold it just in that position, and there it will lie until it ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... in the west, Lithuanians in the east, Ruthenians in the south and many Germans in the cities. The union of the Polish and Lithuanian states was as yet a merely personal one in the monarch. Since the fourteenth century the crown of Poland had been elective, but the grand-ducal crown of Lithuania was {139} hereditary in the famous house of Jagiello, and the advantages of union induced the Polish nobility regularly to elect the heir to the eastern domain their king. Though theoretically absolute, in practice the king had been limited by the power of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... confided the care of electing 5000 as a national list, alone capable of becoming the agents of executive power in the whole of France. The municipal and departmental administrations were to be chosen by authority from their respective lists. The Conservative Senate, composed of eighty members, self-elective, had the right of appointing the members of the Corps Legislatif, the Tribuneship, and the Court of Cassation. It was besides destined to the honor of choosing the Great Elector. The senators, richly endowed, might exercise no other ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... the son of Samuel Pearce to Serampore as Mr. Ward's assistant. On both sides of their independence, as trustees of the property which they had created and gifted to the Society on this condition, and as a self-supporting, self-elective brotherhood, it became necessary, for the unbroken peace of the mission and the success of their work, that they should vindicate their moral and legal position. The correspondence fell chiefly to Dr. Marshman. Ward and he ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... larger court, possibly attached to the police presidency of a large city; he may then become a minor judge, etc., until finally he becomes a judge of one of the higher courts or an over-president of a province. Practically the only elective officers who have any power are members of the Reichstag and the Prussian Legislature, and there, as I have shown, the power is very small. Mayors and City Councillors are elected in Prussia, but have little power; and are elected by the vicious ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... we may weigh the following phaenomena, which are pretty curious in their kind. In elective monarchies the right of succession has no place by the laws and settled custom; and yet its influence is so natural, that it is impossible entirely to exclude it from the imagination, and render the subjects ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... changed not as any colonial House of Assembly may wish, but in accordance with the will of the British Commons. Both the houses in Canada—that, namely, of the Representatives, or Lower Houses and of the Legislative Council, or Upper House—are now elective, and are filled without direct influence from the Crown. The power of self-government is as thoroughly developed as perhaps may be possible in a colony. But, after all, it is a dependent form of government, and as such may perhaps not conduce to ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... the first to feel this, coming under the gentleman's governorship immediately on being the second time surrendered to England. Such had been the political disorder in the province, that Andros's headship, stern as it was, proved beneficial. He even, for a time, 1683-86, reluctantly permitted an elective legislature, though discontinuing it when the legislatures of New England were suppressed. This taste of freedom ...
— History of the United States, Vol. I (of VI) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... condition to one's being led into temptation. Sympathy, example, and social influences are second in their power, whether for good or for evil, to no other class of exterior motives; and there are few who cannot choose their own society, and who do not choose it in accordance with their elective affinities. It is true, indeed, that the choice of companions of doubtful virtue is often the first outward sign of vicious proclivities; while a tenacious adherence to the society of the most worthy not infrequently ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody

... characters of the book, Werther, Lotte, and Albert show traits which were at once recognized as belonging to Goethe, Charlotte Buff, and Kestner. But it must not be understood that the intricate "elective affinities" of the novel really describe the personal relations of the three. To young readers it may be said that the transfer of the scientific term "elective affinity," from the new chemistry of that time, to the language of the affections, was first made in this book. It was afterward ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne

... object lesson to all who assert that women will lose the respect of men when they enter politics. Not a newspaper in the country had a slur to cast on these women delegates. The Boston Globe made this pertinent comment: "An elective queen in this country is no more out of place than one seated by hereditary consent abroad. It is no rash prediction to assert that the child is now born who will see a woman in the presidential chair. Thomas Jefferson will not be fully vindicated until this government rests upon the consent of all ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... delegate to represent Cecil county in the Constitutional Convention, his colleagues being Thomas P. Jones, George Earle and the late Joseph B. Pugh. He was assigned to a place upon the Committee on the Elective Franchise and had more to do with originating that section of the Constitution which provided for the passage of a registration law than any other person on the committee—probably more than any other member of the Convention. He was an intimate friend of Henry H. Goldsborough, whom he had ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... for the Presidency in 1908. Elihu Root had been the legal mainstay of three administrations, and had received the public commendation of Roosevelt often and without restraint. His availability for the elective office was, however, weakened by his prominence as a corporation lawyer, which would be urged against him in a campaign. William H. Taft, Secretary of War, had a wider popularity than Root; had, as federal judge, long been identified with the enforcement ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... who had subsequently proved ungrateful. Wyatt had been re-elected member of the legislature, however, in spite of Hardin's opposition, and now wished to revenge himself, by ousting Hardin from his office. With this end in view, Wyatt had Douglass draft a bill making the State's attorneys elective by the legislature, instead of subject to the governor's appointment. Since the new governor was a Whig, he could not be used by the Democrats. The bill met with bitter opposition, for it was alleged that it had no other purpose than to vacate Hardin's office for the benefit of Douglass. This ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... The rhythm of style Rhetoric of the minor key The value of my ideas Genius and admiration My literary and artistic inclinations My library On being a gentleman Giving offence Thirst for glory Elective antipathies To a member of ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... admission to the bar or to expel and disqualify persons of unsuitable character from it; each Inn possesses considerable property, a dining hall, library, and chapel, and is subject to the jurisdiction of an irresponsible, self-elective body of Benchers, who are usually judges or senior counsel; these societies originated in the 13th century, when the practice of law passed out of the hands of ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... who form the majority, however much we may try to protect the rights and interests of the Mahomedan minority. This is what the Mahomedans know and fear. This is what explains their insistence upon separate electorates wherever the elective principle comes into play in the composition of representative bodies. It is not merely that they have yet to learn the elementary business of electoral organization, in which the Hindus, on the contrary, ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... such beginnings of confederacies have vanished. During the Spanish regime attempts were made to organize the pagan communities and to give titles to their officers, but these efforts met with little success. Under American rule local self government, accompanied by several elective offices, has been established in many towns. The contest for office and government recognition of the officials is tending to break down the old system and to concentrate the power in the ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole

... are generally Patriarchial, the Kings being elective from ancient Royal families by the Council of Elders, which consists of men chosen for life by the people, for their age, wisdom, experience, and service among them. They are a deliberative body, and all cases of great importance; of state, life and death, must be brought before them. The King ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... world around him, the conception of love greatly affected him. One of the first distinctions of language and of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period the ancient physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought that he saw, a sex in plants; there were elective affinities among the elements, marriages of earth and heaven. (Aesch. Frag. Dan.) Love became a mythic personage whom philosophy, borrowing from poetry, converted into an efficient cause of creation. The traces of the existence ...
— Symposium • Plato

... but he was the Bastard from the beginning. There was then no generally received doctrine as to the succession to kingdoms and duchies. Everywhere a single kingly or princely house supplied, as a rule, candidates for the succession. Everywhere, even where the elective doctrine was strong, a full-grown son was always likely to succeed his father. The growth of feudal notions too had greatly strengthened the hereditary principle. Still no rule had anywhere been laid down for cases where the late prince had not left a full-grown son. The question as to legitimate ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... experience pleasure or revulsion at contact with them, and execute their respective movements on this ground." He also says: "We may ascribe the feeling of pleasure or pain (satisfaction or dissatisfaction) to all atoms, and thereby ascribe the elective affinities of chemistry to the attraction between living atoms and repulsion between hating atoms." He also says that "the sensations in animal and plant life are connected by a long series of evolutionary stages with the ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... desire toward his own wife, and perhaps increase hers also. In this way, a flame which threatened to destroy conjugal happiness may sometimes serve to strengthen it, by reviving afresh the mutual feelings of love and desire. In the first part of his "Wahlverwandtschaften" (elective affinities), Goethe designates this phenomenon by the term mental adultery; but I am of the opinion that it is rather the expression of a mental conjugal fidelity which ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... David and Jonathan represents the typical friendship. They met, and at the meeting knew each other to be nearer than kindred. By subtle elective affinity they felt that they belonged to each other. Out of all the chaos of the time and the disorder of their lives, there arose for these two souls a new and beautiful world, where there reigned peace, and love, and ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black

... of democracy of which the executive appears to have been entrusted to tribunes, chosen one by the inhabitants of each of the principal islands. For six hundred years, during which the power of Venice was continually on the increase, her government was an elective monarchy, her king or doge possessing, in early times at least, as much independent authority as any other European sovereign, but an authority gradually subjected to limitation, and shortened almost daily of its prerogatives, while it increased in a spectral and incapable magnificence. The final ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... the Caliphate under the early Ommiades is noticed in vols. iv. 3, vii. 97. The succession to the Prophet began—as mostly happens in the proceedings of elective governments, republics, and so forth—with the choice of a nobody, "Abubakr the Veridical," a Meccan merchant, whose chief claim was the glamour of the Apostolate. A more notable personage, and seen ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... that (and this only in appearance) to the arbitrament of the people, has fully satisfied all the demands of the principle of Popular Sovereignty! Their other questions are all "political"; the questions as to the organization of their executive, legislative, and judicial departments, as to their elective franchise, their distribution of districts, their banks, their rates and modes of taxation, etc., etc., are not domestic questions, but political; and provided the people are suffered to vote on the future (not the existing) condition of slaves, faith has been sufficiently kept. Popular ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... of crime was latent; they wanted only favourable circumstances to convert them into one of those criminal couples who are the more dangerous for the fact that the temptation to crime has come to each spontaneously and grown and been fostered by mutual understanding, an elective affinity for evil. Such couples are frequent in the history of crime. Eyraud and Bompard, Mr. and Mrs. Manning, Burke and Hare, the Peltzer brothers, Barre and Lebiez, are instances of those collaborations in crime which find their counterpart in history, literature, ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... disclosed, thinly draped with rhetorical flowers, the dark outlines of a scheme to thwart political aspiration in the Antilles. That project is sought to be realized by deterring the home authorities from granting an elective local legislature, however restricted in character, to any of the Colonies not yet enjoying such an advantage. An argument based on the composition of the inhabitants of those Colonies is confidently relied upon to confirm the inexorable ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... controlled by a small electoral body constituted of the heads (lyngdohs), of certain priestly clans, who, it is presumed, exercised their authority to reject candidates, when necessary, mainly on religious grounds. There has, however, been a distinct tendency towards the broadening of the elective basic. In the large State of Khyrim the number of the electoral body has been greatly increased by the inclusion of the representative headmen of certain dominant but non-priestly clans (mantris). In other States the Council has been widened by the addition ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... body is moved and governed by two principles; one of them corresponds to the vie animale of BICHAT, and the other to the vie organique. Since the power of sensation and of voluntary or elective motion, says he, is a property of animals, and since that of growth and nutrition is common both to animals and plants; the former may be called attributes of the soul, and the latter attributes of nature. Whence we say, that animals are governed by the soul and by nature, while plants ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... successive shocks of discernment. She knew the to have some of the vices, many follies, all the intemperateness of men who carve a way for themselves in the common roads, if barely they do that. And resembling common men (men, in a judgement elective as hers, common, however able), I was not assuredly to be separated by her from my associations; from the thought of my father, for example. Her look at him in the lake-palace library, and her manner in unfolding and folding his recent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... development, the various stages of which consequently are not easily traced. Before the year 1060, Sweden is an Old Teutonic state, certainly of later form and larger compass than the earliest of such, but with its democracy and its elective kingdom preserved. The older Sweden was, in regard to its constitution, a rudimentary union of states. The realm had come into existence through the cunning and violence of the king of the Sviar, who made way with the kings of ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough

... way that Aristotle assigns the reason for their connection (Ethic. vi, 13). Because, as stated above (Q. 58, A. 4), no moral virtue can be without prudence; since it is proper to moral virtue to make a right choice, for it is an elective habit. Now right choice requires not only the inclination to a due end, which inclination is the direct outcome of moral virtue, but also correct choice of things conducive to the end, which choice is made by prudence, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... fem. form of abbas, abbot), the female superior of an abbey or convent of nuns. The mode of election, position, rights and authority of an abbess correspond generally with those of an abbot (q.v.). The office is elective, the choice being by the secret votes of the sisters from their own body. The abbess is solemnly admitted to her office by episcopal benediction, together with the conferring of a staff and pectoral cross, and holds for life, though liable to be deprived for misconduct. The council of Trent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... consideration. [Footnote: The division into "quarters" is everywhere represented as resulting from common consent. But nowhere is it stated that the tribal government or authority assigned locations to any of its fractions. This is only attributed to the chiefs, on the supposition that they, although elective, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... circumstances he was lifted, at one bound, to the highest and widest sphere of influence, upon the opinion of the country, which our political establishment presents—I mean the Senate of the United States. The elective body, the Legislature of Ohio, was filled in almost equal numbers with Whigs and Democrats, but a handful of Liberty party men held the control to prevent or determine a majority. They elected Mr. Chase. The concurrence is similar, in its main features, to the election of Mr. Sumner to the Senate, ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts

... under the shelter of masculine morality, and beggary and crime could not thrive in the midst of severest manners. From the first, the minds of the yeomanry were kept active by the constant exercise of the elective franchise, and, except under James II., there was no such thing in the land as a home officer appointed by the English king. Under the happy conditions of affairs, education was cherished, religious ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... absolutely for a child save in his earliest years, but would rather surround him with the best and worthiest books, and let him choose for himself; for there are elective affinities and antipathies here that need not be disregarded,—that are, indeed, certain indications of latent powers, and trustworthy guides to the child's ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... attributed to him by more than one calumniator; and that, had the time been ripe, had there been aught to gain by it, instead of all to lose, he would have been the first to assert that Scotland was elective instead of hereditary - "elective as in the days of paganism," as one Thevet says in holy horror. (1) And yet, because the time was not ripe, I find no hint of such an idea in his collected works. Now, the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson

... V. (of Austria and Spain) was crowned Emperor at Bologna, this national independence had been irretrievably lost by the Italians. This confederation of evenly-balanced Powers was now exchanged for servitude beneath a foreign monarchy, and for subjection to a cosmopolitan elective priesthood. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... multiplied.... From all points of view the experience of State railways in France is unfavorable as was foreseen by all those who had reflected upon the bad results given by the other industrial undertakings of the State.... The State, above all, under an elective government, cannot be a good commercial manager.... The experience which we have recently gained has provoked a very lively movement, not only against acquisition of the railways by the State, but against all extension of State industry. I hope ... that not only we, but our ...
— Government Ownership of Railroads, and War Taxation • Otto H. Kahn

... from the State Paper Office I met George Dawson, and we had a long conversation about Irish affairs, from which I gathered what is to be done. The Catholic question is to be conceded, the elective franchise altered, and the Association suppressed. This latter is, I take it, to be a preliminary measure, and I suspect the Duke went to the King on Monday with the resolution of the Cabinet on the subject, and I think so the more because the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... times, the communicants were thus freely entrusted with the elective franchise, the constitution of the primitive Church was not purely democratic; for while its office-bearers were elected for life, and whilst its elders or bishops formed a species of spiritual aristocracy, the powers ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... a change. They lost faith in the republican form of government, as they saw it in its practical workings under the Articles of Confederation, and they earnestly desired something stronger—perhaps an elective or ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... country, and that, on its determination, its ultimate fate is entirely dependant. So great is the number of the working-classes in every old and opulent community, compared to those who possess the advantages of property and superior education, that nothing is more certain than that, if the elective franchise be widely diffused, and no mode of classifying the votes, as at Rome, has been discovered, the sway of a numerical majority of incompetent electors will, erelong, become irresistible. Certain ruin then awaits the state. It was that which ruined Athens in ancient, which has destroyed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various

... to speak of what I must consider the most perfect method on which a friendship can be formed. I mean the elective friendship which depends on no accident of association or neighbourhood, and is, to my mind, ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII. No. 358, November 6, 1886. • Various

... A reform of this system of local government was promised by the Liberals in the Queen's Speech of 1881, but so far was the powerful Government at that time in office from fulfilling its pledges that not only was no Bill to that effect introduced, but, further, in April, 1883, a Bill to establish elective County Councils, which was introduced by the Irish Party, was thrown out in the House of Commons by 231 votes to 58. In his famous speech at Newport in 1885, when the Tories were, as all the world thought, coquetting with Home Rule, Lord Salisbury declared that of the two, popular local government ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell

... Prime Minister, not from the College of the ecclesiastical aristocracy, but from the family of the reigning sovereign, the tonsured statesmen introduced a dynastic infusion into the fluctuations of elective monarchy. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton

... Queen Elizabeth the power to name a successor who was not of the Protestant faith: she wrote to her that the supreme power was of divine right, and raised high above all these considerations, and warned her against opinions of that kind which were avowed by some near her, and which might lead to the elective principle and become dangerous to herself. This could not fail to have an exactly opposite effect on Elizabeth. She was again threatened through the strict dynastic right that she also enjoyed: she needed some other additional support. Despite all inclination ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... District No. 1," governed by a Federal general, who appointed the local officers in the several counties. The affairs of the State were managed by carpetbaggers in close agreement with despicable scalawags and ignorant negroes. The elective franchise was granted to the emancipated slaves regardless of character or intelligence, while it was denied to many white men. In Lancaster county the negroes had a registered majority of a hundred ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway

... patronage. In the case of the larger towns free municipal institutions had already existed for some sixty years. In these the franchise was now reduced, and is wide enough both in town and country to admit every class of the population. Since 1899 the new elective bodies have had important duties to fulfil in regard to the development of agriculture and ...
— Ireland and Poland - A Comparison • Thomas William Rolleston

... funds. The Representative Assembly declined to furnish the supplies, complained of arbitrary infringement of the Constitution, and demanded that the Legislative Council, instead of being nominees of the Crown, should be made elective. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... conveyance within miles, and time was precious. Salemina wrapped herself in Francesca's long black cloak, and climbed into the cart. Dinnis hauls turf in it, takes a sack of potatoes or a pig to market in it, and the stubborn little ass, blind of one eye, has never in his wholly elective course of existence taken ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... ordered the chancellor to inform the house that the parliament should proceed upon overtures for liberty at their next sitting. This promise allayed the ferment which had begun to rise. Next day the members prepared an overture, implying, that the elective members should be chosen for every seat at the Michaelmas head courts; that a parliament should be held once in two years at least; that the short adjournments de die in diem should be made by the parliaments themselves as in England; and that no officer in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... of Tipperary men on the question of religious toleration is practically unanimous. Pass Home Rule and the Protestants must perforce clear out. As it is, they are entirely excluded from any elective position, their dead are hooted in the streets, their funeral services are mocked and derided by a jeering crowd. The other day a man was fined for insulting the venerable Protestant pastor of Cappawhite, near Tipperary, while the old man was peacefully conducting ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... midst of a grove where spacious grounds could be obtained. The school was usually under charge of a gentleman teacher—some college graduate—and a lady assistant. The course of study, aside from a course designed to fit young men for college, was largely elective. These schools were as perfect educational republics as can be imagined. The young men and the young women met in their classes, on terms of entire equality and respect for each other. There were few rules in the school, and ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... politicians and caucuses and all the paraphernalia of elective and debating bodies? Well, not quite; still very much curtailing the functions of these bodies and making laws by the direct action of the people themselves and curtailing the interference of professed legislators ... The little volume is worthy of study, if only to know how some communities ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... divisible, or dividable. These, according to their analogy, have usually a passive import, and denote susceptibility of receiving action. 2. By the adding of ive or ory: (sometimes with a change of some of the final letters:) as, elect, elective; interrogate, interrogative, interrogatory; defend, defensive; defame, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... in the free-will, and hence virtue is called an elective or voluntary habit. But latria belongs to religion, and latria implies a certain servitude. Hence religion ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... world for excessive attachment to gold, by degradation to the office of its guardian; and from this office the tortured spirit can release itself only by revealing the treasure and transferring the custody. It is a penal martyrdom, not an elective passion for gold, which is thus exemplified in the wanderings ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... owner of real estate, (property in lands,) which he holds in his own right, and may transmit to his heirs. In the constitutions of the newer states, property has not been made a qualification of an elector; and in the amended constitutions of the old states this restriction upon the elective franchise has been removed, until it has nearly ceased to exist in the United States. It is now enjoyed by all white male freemen, with few exceptions, in almost ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... it is evident, that though preference was naturally and properly given to hereditary claims, the monarchy of Scotland, as well as of England, was in principle "elective". The doctrine of hereditary, of divine, of indefeasible ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... of the Fittest. The term "natural selection" is in some respects a bad one, as it seems to imply conscious choice; but this will be disregarded after a little familiarity. No one objects to chemists speaking of "elective affinity;" and certainly an acid has no more choice in combining with a base, than the conditions of life have in determining whether or not a new form be selected or preserved. The term is so far a good one as it brings into connection the production of domestic races by man's power of ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... this is the actual and voluntary condition of the great majority of the population of Christendom at the present hour. There has been, indeed, within the current century, an effort by the masses of the people to assert their natural and civil rights, to regain the exercise of the elective franchise; but in selecting candidates to bear rule over them, they generally prefer such as are, like the majority of themselves,—"aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... Kansas Legislature meeting a Cake of Soap was passing it by without recognition, but the Cake of Soap insisted on stopping and shaking hands. Thinking it might possibly be in the enjoyment of the elective franchise, he gave it a cordial and earnest grasp. On letting it go he observed that a portion of it adhered to his fingers, and running to a brook in great alarm he proceeded to wash it off. In doing so he necessarily got some on the ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce

... initiation of their members. The distinction most sought for by ambitious students, the marshalship of the "commencement" ceremonies,—i.e. the conferring of degrees, speech-making, etc., of the graduating class,—was an elective office and voted for by all the members of the class, so that, for this position of a day, scholarship was only of secondary importance, the personal popularity of the candidates determining the election. The societies grouped themselves in two parties, the most popular man in each ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... demoralizing to both students and teachers. I refer to the inevitable outcome of such a system; some students (sometimes few and sometimes many) develop considerable skill in "working the Prof." Teachers offering elective courses are constantly under great temptation and students are shrewd enough to know it. And again, under the same count: it is freely claimed by both teachers and students that the cheating in examinations, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... their own King. They intended to choose a Protestant, and now they were commanded to choose this Ferdinand, the most zealous Catholic in Europe. And yet, for some mysterious reason, the Diet actually yielded. They surrendered their elective rights; they accepted Ferdinand as King, and thus, at the most critical and dangerous point in the whole history of the country, they allowed a Catholic devotee to become the ruler of a Protestant people. For that fatal mistake they had soon to pay in full. ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... praises the Poles for their elective monarchy, but blames them for choosing the scions of royal houses, instead of seeking out the real kings of men, such as he ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella

... early date—it is said A.D. 940—was ruled by elective Bans. Stefan Nemanja the First Crowned of Serbia, called himself King of Serbia, Dalmatia and Bosnia, but the title seems to have been but nominal. The Bans did as they pleased and intrigued constantly with the Hungarians ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... that certain cells and parts of cells have for basic, acid and neutral stains, was simply a foreshadowing of his work on the affinity that certain cells and tissues have for specific drugs and toxins; the study of these special elective affinities now forms a very wide field of investigation in which numerous workers are already engaged in determining the position and nature of these seats of election for special ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich

... Miller, writing about his adored minister, Alexander Stewart of Cromarty, 'Mr. Stewart stood alone. Pope refers in his satires to a strange power of creating love and admiration by just "touching the brink of all we hate." Now, into this perilous, but singularly elective department, Mr. Stewart could enter with safety and at will. We heard him, scarce a twelvemonth since, deliver a discourse of singular power on the sin-offering as minutely described by the divine ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... lowest of his tribe is not great, and rather a difference of riches than of power. A few ornamented spears, presented by the Malays, seem his only insignia of office; and these were never displayed in our presence, save in the dance. The chiefship would appear to be elective, and not hereditary; but I could not distinctly understand whether the appointment rested with the rajah or the tribe. The former claims it; but the latter did not speak as though his right were a matter of necessity or certainty. On asking ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... by writers on the theory of civil government that the principle of hereditary sovereignty in the government of a nation has a decided advantage over any elective mode of designating the chief magistrate, on account of its certainty. If the system is such that, on the death of a monarch, the supreme power descends to his eldest son, the succession is determined at once, without debate or delay. If, on the other hand, an election is to take place, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Greville, and also—if our memory is correct—Sir Thomas Browne. He thought, very sensibly, that any reasonable human being, if permitted to summon spirits from the vasty deep, would base his choice upon personal qualities, and not on mere general reputation. There would be an elective affinity, a principle of natural selection, (not Darwinian,) by which each would aim to draw forth a spirit to his liking. One would not summon the author of such and such a book, but this or that man. Milton wrote an admirable epic, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... England, all were or are eager for intelligent youth. In France the young are condemned by the new legislation, by the blundering principles of elective rights, by the unsoundness of the ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... programme of studies is somewhat general, comprising the German language, arithmetic, mensuration, nature study; and in some instances may be added to these, geography, German history, drawing, gymnastics and music. This programme is elective to the extent that the capacity and previous education of the pupil are considered, and too, the ability of the teacher, local conditions and the time spent by the individual student. Such schools are admonished not to take on the character ...
— The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany • Arthur Henry Chamberlain

... really occurs in the annelid; its intelligence goes no farther, probably, than conscious determination. In the beetle, however, conscious determination is merged into intelligent ideation, for its actions in the premises are self-elective and selective. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... of an emergency, some of them would try to act in concert; and, except in New England, the results had been most discouraging. Nor was it this segregation only that unfitted them for war. They were all subject to popular legislatures, through whom alone money and men could be raised; and these elective bodies were sometimes factious and selfish, and not always either far-sighted or reasonable. Moreover, they were in a state of ceaseless friction with their governors, who represented the king, or, what was worse, the feudal proprietary. These disputes, though varying in intensity, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... equally militant. The legislators, therefore, had to consider such questions as extradition and immigration, State aid and colonization, the employment of colored men in the militia service, the extension of the elective franchise, and the admission of colored children to the public schools.[44] Most of these "Black Laws" remained until after the war, but in 1848 they were so modified as to give the Negroes legal standing in courts and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... was elected by an assembly consisting of the tribal council, the "elder brothers" of the several clans, and certain leading priests. Though the office was thus elective, the choice seems to have been practically limited to a particular clan, and in the eleven chiefs who were chosen from 1375 to 1520 a certain principle or custom of succession seems to be plainly indicated.[124] There ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... not by a single one. One hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the republic of Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy as that no one could ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... the British Constitution, quoting Monsieur Necker as saying that "it was the only government in the world which unites government strength with individual security." He analysed and explained your Constitution as it then was and advocated an elective monarchy in form though not in name. It is true that he called the executive a "governor" and not a king, but the governor, so-called, was to serve for life and was given not only "a negative on all laws about to be ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... of the town's utter abandonment to the powers of evil seemed to fall and fade. But the judge, in reality, was only a pillar set up for dignity and show. They elected him mayor, and went on running the town to suit themselves, for the city marshal was also an elective officer, and in his hands the ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden

... animals, which seem to stand there for their own sake, are means and methods only, are words of God, and as fugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need not be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... practicing gymnastic exercises over the fence of the sty, and marauding in the garden. I wonder that Fourier never conceived the idea of having his garden land ploughed by pigs; for certainly they manifest quite a decided elective attraction ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... his son Cacama, the present king, a young prince who was two-and-twenty years old when he ascended the throne, after a sanguinary war with an ambitious younger brother. In Tezcuco, as in Mexico, the office of king was elective and not hereditary. It was, indeed, confined to the royal family; but the elective council, composed of the nobles and of the kings of the other two great confederate monarchies, selected the member of that family whom they ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty

... The elective franchise is confined entirely to men. A married woman can not sue for her services, as all she earns legally belongs to the husband, whereas his earnings belong to himself, and the wife legally has no interest in them. Where children have property and both parents are living, the father ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... force seems to have been thought necessary. Two authorities, both years later and both untrustworthy, refer to a speech delivered during the ceremony by the archbishop, in which he emphasized the fact that the English crown was elective and not hereditary. Did not these authorities seem to be clearly independent of one another we should forthwith reject their testimony, but as it is we must admit some slight chance that such a speech ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams

... who has written incomparably the best work that has ever appeared on the United States, makes the following judicious remarks on this subject: "Where a nation modifies the elective qualification, it may easily be foreseen, that sooner or later that qualification will be abolished. There is no more invariable rule in the history of society. The further electoral rights are extended, the more is felt the need of extending them; for after each concession, the strength ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... the results embodied in the constitutions themselves tell the story of their political ideals. Of course, they based the franchise on the principle of manhood suffrage. But they also provided for an elective judiciary, for restrictions on the borrowing power of the State, lest it fall under the control of what they feared as the money power, and several of them either provided for the extinguishment of banks of issue, or rigidly restrained them. Some of ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... kings and ministers, and who would have the right if, by impossibility, such audacity should seize upon his mind, of depositing a black ball against the budget. Well, this privileged being does not like that I, and others like me, should assume the importance and authority of that insolent elective Chamber. ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... claim a right to personal freedom, to the ties of kindred, to the means of improvement, to constant development, to labour when and for whom you choose, to make your own contracts, to read and speak and print as you please, to remain at home or travel abroad, to exercise the elective franchise, to make your own rulers? What you demand for yourselves, in virtue of your manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground. How is it that I am a madman, and you are perfectly rational? Wherein ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison

... vote placed the President was peculiarly delicate. In an elective government, the difficulty of resisting the popular branch of the Legislature is at all times great, but is particularly so when the passions of the public have been strongly and generally excited. The popularity of a demand for information, the large majority by which that demand was supported, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing



Words linked to "Elective" :   course, non-elective, appointive, electoral, class, elective course, elect, optional, course of study, elected, nonappointive, course of instruction



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