Quotes About Otiose

In the Second Part of this Dialogue, that which hath already been shewn concerning the passive power of the universe is demonstrated for the active power of the efficient cause, set forth with arguments of which the first deriveth from the fact that divine power should not be otiose; particularly positing the effect thereof outside the substance thereof (if indeed aught can be outside it), and that it is no less otiose and invidious if it produce a finite effect than if it produce none.

The Heaneys were aristocrats, in the sense that they took for granted a code of behavior that was given and unspoken. Argumentation, persuasion, speech itself, for God's sake, just seemed otiose and superfluous to them.