What the library takes on faith

Every paper announces a few things it is assuming and then gets on with the argument. Each one below is quoted as written, grouped by the phrase that announced it, and filed by what the same sentence offers for it.

“Nothing offered” is a statement about the sentence, not a verdict on the paper. The evidence may well be three paragraphs later. What it means is that the claim was made without anything attached to it at the moment it was made — which is exactly where an assumption becomes easy to forget.