When the aim of the man of affairs and the hypothesis of the economist was unrestricted competition, and measures were being adopted to realize it, general theory such as the classical economists provided was perhaps a sufficiently trustworthy guide for practical statesmen and men of business.
The understanding, however, between the two contracting parties was very far from being clear and complete, as each party still sought to attain its own aim by spreading in the Christian world divergent interpretations of the concordat and widely-differing plans for reducing it to its final form.
Their constant aim was to shake off Polish suzerainty, and in 1520-21 their menacing attitude compelled Sigismund to take up arms against them.
Broussais's chief aim was to find an anatomical basis for all diseases, but he is especially known for his attempt to explain all fevers as a consequence of irritation or inflammation of the intestinal canal (gastroenterite).
To some extent, the individual came in for his share in the incantations and in the purification ritual through which one might hope to rid oneself of the power of the demons and of other evil spirits, but outside of this the important aim of the priests was to secure for the general benefit the favour of the gods, or, as a means of preparing oneself for what the future had in store, to ascertain in time whether that favour would be granted in any particular instance or would be continued in the future.
This was notably the case as regards his dealings with the old enemy of his race, the Teutonic Order, whose destruction was the chief aim of his ambition.
This simplicity of aim is combined with a catholicity of constitution which admits the co-operation of all persons interested in the society's object.
Jeremiah was keenly conscious of his people's sin; and the aim of most of his earlier prophecies is to bring his countrymen, if possible, to a better mind, in the hope that thereby the doom which he sees impending may be averted - an end which eventually he saw clearly to be unattainable.
The aim of this treatise was to refute the doctrine of free-will, since he considered it the logical, as distinguished from the sentimental, ground of most of the Arminian objections to Calvinism.
The aim of his logic is represented as having been the devising of rules for the discovery of syllogistic middle terms; this system for aiding slow-witted persons became known as the pons asinorum.