| 释义 |
inconceivable, a. (n.)|ɪnkənˈsiːvəb(ə)l|
Also 8 -ceiveable.
[f. in-3 + conceivable. Cf. F. inconcevable (1617 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. That cannot be conceived or realized in the imagination; unthinkable, unimaginable, incredible. Often with exaggerative force for ‘hardly credible’, ‘incalculable’, ‘extraordinary’, of things which transcend common experience.
a1631Donne in Select. (1840) 147 The inexpressible and inconceivable love of Christ. 1646H. Lawrence Comm. Angells 34 With an inconceivable dexterity and quicknes. 1721Bellamy Th. Trinity Introd. 3 There can be but one God, and..his Perfections are both infinite and inconceivable. 1748Anson's Voy. iii. ii. 310 There were inconceivable quantities of coco-nuts. 1822J. Imison Sc. & Art I. 222 Light appears to move with a velocity that is truly inconceivable. 1853J. H. Newman Hist. Sk. (1876) II. i. iv. 229 One thing is inconceivable,—that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept of modern civilization.
2. spec. As a philosophical term.
The following distinctions in meaning, though disputed by some, are generally recognized: (a) Opposed to the fundamental laws of thought, self-contradictory, involving a contradiction in terms. (b) Repugnant to recognized axioms or established laws of nature. (c) Involving the dissolution of ideas which have become inseparably linked in the human mind. (d) Involving a combination of facts, which renders a proposition incredible to the ordinary mind. (e) Incapable of being represented by a mental image.
1655H. More Antid. Ath. i. iii. 10 What is inconceivable or contradictious, is nothing at all to us. 1754Sherlock Disc. (1759) I. iii. 136 The Objection represents a Mystery as a Thing inconceivable..irreconcileable to..Reason. 1785Reid Intell. Powers ii. xiv. (1803) I. 305 Power without substance is inconceiveable. 1829Sir W. Hamilton Discuss., Philos. Unconditioned (1852) 12 The Unconditioned is incognisable and inconceivable. 1865Mill Exam. Hamilton vi. (1872) 86 The first meaning of Inconceivable is, that of which the mind cannot form to itself any representation..the first and most proper meaning. Ibid. 90 This extends the term inconceivable to every combination of facts which..appears incredible. It was in this sense that the Antipodes were inconceivable. Ibid. 93 He [Hamilton] gives to the term a third sense. ‘We conceive a thing only as we think it within or under something else’..The inconceivable in this third sense, is simply the inexplicable. 1872H. Spencer Princ. Psychol. (ed. 2) II. vii. xi. §427 Let me here define what I mean by inconceivable, as distinguished from incredible or unbelievable. An inconceivable proposition is one of which the terms cannot by any effort be brought before consciousness in that relation which the proposition asserts between them. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) IV. 271 Even these inconceivable qualities of space..may be made the subject of reasoning.
B. as n. A thing or quality that cannot be conceived.
1706Watts Horæ Lyr. I. 56 Nothing's found in thee But boundless inconceivables, And vast eternity! 1836–7Sir W. Hamilton Metaph. xxxviii. (1859) II. 373 They confound together these exclusive inconceivables into a single notion. 1865Mill Exam. Hamilton 63 Inconceivables are incessantly becoming Conceivables as our experience becomes enlarged. |