subtile

Recent scientific discoveries have conferred upon man new powers of investigation, whereby nature has been made to reveal secrets so subtile that they never had been dreamt of before in philosophy.

From Scientific American ● Jan. 13, 2013

At Paris the Universe is seen, compos’d of Vortices of subtile Matter; but nothing like it is seen in London.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Whence comes this man with his new poetry, which confounds the critics? and that man with his subtile wit borrowed from no school?

From A Breeze from the Woods, 2nd Ed. by William Chauncey Bartlett

Any subtile, invisible emanation, effluvium, or exhalation from a substance, as the aroma of flowers, the odor of the blood, a supposed fertilizing emanation from the pollen of flowers, etc.

From Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (2nd 100 Pages) by Noah Webster

Man's daintiest care, & caution cannot spy The subtile point of his coy destiny, Wch way it threats.

From The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I (of 2) by Richard Crashaw

Gradually he wove a drama round it; line by line it took shape for a book that was to be subtiler, finer and more sincere than anything that he had ever written.

From The Education of Eric Lane by Stephen McKenna

What if, through communication with subtiler organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal, which perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never enable me to attain?

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858 by Various

We rather think that far subtiler things than the doctrine of association had from of old been familiar to him.

From Life of Robert Burns by Thomas Carlyle

It is the subtiler nature of doubt to penetrate the heart more profoundly than confidence, and to underlie it.

From Two Days' Solitary Imprisonment 1898 by Edward Bellamy

Something keener than philosophy, subtiler than Epicurus, pricked Fred, as Minnie vanished into the cloud of snowflakes.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 18, April, 1859 by Various

She took yellow honeysuckles from a vase of massed amethyst and began to weave them in her yellow hair,—humming a tune, the while, that was full of the subtilest curves of sound.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 67, May, 1863 by Various

This is a truth that takes all the sting out of Lord Bacon's observation that "against Atheists the very savages take part with the very subtilest philosophers."

From Flowers of Freethought (Second Series) by G. W. (George William) Foote

But if you watch it attentively, you will find it ever changing, though with subtilest refinement, ever human, and true to the great laws of emotion.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 44, June, 1861 Creator by Various

He was the farthest reach of subtlety compatible with an individual self,--the subtilest of authors, and only just within the possibility of authorship.

From Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13 Great Writers; Dr Lord's Uncompleted Plan, Supplemented with Essays by Emerson, Macaulay, Hedge, and Mercer Adam by John Lord

Said to us, during the past season, the subtilest thinker of Great Britain,—"I must send to America whatever I wish to put in print, unless I pay for its publication from my own pocket."

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 12, October, 1858 by Various