incalculability

And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open; “fortunately” by reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range.

The Portrait of a Lady 2003

It is said by those who ought to know - and by others, who also ought to know, it is disputed - that in matters which to all appearances are rational, calculable and achieved by the combined efforts of architects, draughtsmen, engineers, workers - accomplishments such as a bridge - there remain a few millimetres or centimetres of incalculability.

Heinrich Böll - Nobel Lecture 1972

This incalculability (tiny with regard to the masses being treated and shaped) may stem from the difficulty of calculating with the nicest precision a mass of complicated interlocking chemical and technical details and materials in all their possible reactions, including the effects of the four classical elements (air, water, fire and earth).

Heinrich Böll - Nobel Lecture 1972

This remainder of incalculability, be it only fractions of millimetres, which correspond to unforeseen tiny differences in extension - what shall we call them?

Heinrich Böll - Nobel Lecture 1972

If Germany has always been a country with a mentality too intricate, too complex, too unintelligible to be pressed into one spiritual formula this incalculability has grown during the last months to a degree which is almost unbelievable.

The New Germany 1932

Athenian People, their indifference and procrastination, i.; ii. their incalculability, i. their traditions and traditional policy, i.; ii.

The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 384 BC-322 BC Demosthenes 1912

It is more comprehensive and more personal than chance; it has not the immutable, the “lawbound” character of fate; rather it denotes the incalculability, the capriciousness associated, especially in earlier usage, with the word fortune, but without the tendency of this word to be used in a good sense.

Atheism in Pagan Antiquity Ingeborg Andersen 1897

But what Shakespeare perhaps felt even more deeply, when he wrote this play, was the _incalculability_ of evil, -- that in meddling with it human beings do they know not what.

Shakespearean Tragedy Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth 1893

The great fact all the while, however, had been the incalculability; since he _had_ supposed himself, from decade to decade, to be allowing, and in the most liberal and intelligent manner, for brilliancy of change.

The Jolly Corner Henry James 1879

And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may NOT open; "fortunately" by reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range.

The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 Henry James 1879