ab extra

American  

[ahb ek-strah, ab ek-struh] / ɑb ˈɛk strɑ, æb ˈɛk strə /

adverb

Latin.

1. from the outside.

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Example Sentences

"It seems to me," he said, "that there is a guiding and directing principle ab extra which interacts with the material of the physical universe but is not of it."

From Time Magazine Archive

For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, ab extra, better than most men.

From Delia Blanchflower by Ward, Humphry, Mrs.

It is this character of life, I say, that so easily leads us to look upon it as something ab extra, or super-added to matter, and not an evolution from it.

From The Breath of Life by Burroughs, John

He created his epic, as metaphysicians have said that God created the world, by drawing it out of himself, not by building it up out of elements supplied ab extra.

From Milton by Pattison, Mark

Discoursing upon the hypothesis of "a fortuitous concourse of atoms" Dr. Priestley asks, "what reason we have to think that small masses of matter can have power without communication ab extra?"

From Answer to Dr. Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever by Turner, Matthew