From For the Hearts

Their religion is a vague fetishism. A vague knowledge of the Niger regions was also possessed by the Phoenicians. In return for a vague recognition of the sovereignty of France in Africa, this treaty gave up to the amir the whole of western Algeria. There is a vague idea that the “soul” will go somewhere after death, but there is no heaven nor hell, nor idea of a corporeal resurrection. The result of the discussion was to leave a vague impression that the Scottish ballads were perhaps as old as the time of Dunbar, and were the production of a class of professional minstrels. In fact the term was employed vaguely just as we speak of craft in general. Up to this period all was vague conjecture. It consists of vague and general conceptions of things, got either from the report of others or from an experience which has not received any special direction from intelligence. Anti-Taurus is a term of rather vague and doubtful application. We can do no more than balance vague estimates of probability. The creeds and confessions are usually vague. Naturally there is an increasing vagueness as one recedes farther into the past, and for the earlier history of Chaldaea there is great uncertainty. We must observe further that “capital” is a vague term. All these ideas were floating about, loose and vague, among people who talked much about the Church. And, doubtless on account of its vague character, it finds no place in Stephen’s Digest. The vague and diffusive character of these primitive emotional manifestations is really a point in favor of this position. Consciousness, as the vaguest, most protean and most treacherous of psychological terms, will hardly serve our purpose. These are presented in vague generalities. The rest is vague tradition. Under the vague term “double” many very different morphological changes are included. This act, so vague and general in its terms, had very little effect, though it has been the occasion of considerable litigation to determine its influence upon existing police laws of the states. The phrase of Cicero is neither vague nor exaggerated. Positivism, however, shelters itself behind the vague word “phenomena”. We have only vague knowledge of these early movements, laboriously gleaned from archaeology, anthropology and philology. This somewhat vague definition will became clearer as we proceed. They showed how vague and often unscientific was much of the existing terminology and argued that as the chemical composition of an igneous rock was its most fundamental characteristic it should be elevated to prime position. A spoken language is, therefore, necessarily a vague and floating entity, and English is no exception to the rule. As to north Europe, Ptolemy’s views were vague and imperfect. An abstract of Christian doctrine of a vague and figurative kind. The jurisdiction of the star chamber was as vague as its constitution. Theodoric’s success was, perhaps purposely, left vague. In the exceedingly vague sketches of the guild systems that have been produced by their champions, some attempts have been made to answer these questions. The accomplishment of the second, which was more vague, is difficult to measure, but appears considerable.

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