text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Most persons who observe their own thoughts must have been conscious of the exactly opposite state. There are cases where our intellect has gone through the arguments, and we give a clear assent to the conclusions. But our minds seem dry and unsatisfied. In that case we have the intellectual part of Belief, but want the emotional part.",2018-01-23 16:14:26 UTC,"""There are cases where our intellect has gone through the arguments, and we give a clear assent to the conclusions. But our minds seem dry and unsatisfied.""",2018-01-23 16:14:26 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25122,8252
"Probably, when the subject is thoroughly examined, ""conviction"" will be proved to be one of the intensest of human emotions, and one most closely connected with the bodily state. In cases like the Caliph Omar's, it governs all other desires, absorbs the whole nature, and rules the whole life. And in such cases it is accompanied or preceded by the sensation that Scott makes his seer describe as the prelude to a prophecy:—
""At length the fatal answer came,
In characters of living flame—
Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll,
But borne and branded on my soul"".
[See Scott's ""Lady of the Lake,"" canto iv.]
A hot flash seems to burn across the brain. Men in these intense states of mind have altered all history, changed for better or worse the creed of myriads, and desolated or redeemed provinces and ages. Nor is this intensity a sign of truth, for it is precisely strongest in these points in which men differ most from each other. John Knox felt it in his anti-Catholicism; Ignatius Loyola in his anti-Protestantism; and both, I suppose, felt it as much as it is possible to feel it.",2018-01-23 16:15:42 UTC,"""In cases like the Caliph Omar's, it governs all other desires, absorbs the whole nature, and rules the whole life.""",2018-01-23 16:15:42 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25123,8252
"Probably, when the subject is thoroughly examined, ""conviction"" will be proved to be one of the intensest of human emotions, and one most closely connected with the bodily state. In cases like the Caliph Omar's, it governs all other desires, absorbs the whole nature, and rules the whole life. And in such cases it is accompanied or preceded by the sensation that Scott makes his seer describe as the prelude to a prophecy:—
""At length the fatal answer came,
In characters of living flame—
Not spoke in word, nor blazed in scroll,
But borne and branded on my soul"".
[See Scott's ""Lady of the Lake,"" canto iv.]
A hot flash seems to burn across the brain. Men in these intense states of mind have altered all history, changed for better or worse the creed of myriads, and desolated or redeemed provinces and ages. Nor is this intensity a sign of truth, for it is precisely strongest in these points in which men differ most from each other. John Knox felt it in his anti-Catholicism; Ignatius Loyola in his anti-Protestantism; and both, I suppose, felt it as much as it is possible to feel it.",2018-01-23 16:18:12 UTC,"""A hot flash seems to burn across the brain.""",2018-01-23 16:17:15 UTC,"","",,"","","Reading David Bromwich, ""Return to Reason,"" Harper's Magazine (February, 2018), 31.",25124,8252
"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo. It has been often said that a man who has once really loved a woman, never can be without feeling towards that woman again. He may go on loving her, or he may change and hate her. In the same way, I think, experience proves that no one who has had real passionate conviction of a creed, the sort of emotion that burns hot upon the brain, can ever be indifferent to that creed again. He may continue to believe it, and to love it; or he may change to the opposite, vehemently argue against it, and persecute it. But he cannot forget it. Years afterwards, perhaps, when life changes, when external interests cease to excite, when the apathy to surroundings which belongs to the old, begins all at once, to the wonder of later friends, who cannot imagine what is come to him, the grey-headed man returns to the creed of his youth.",2018-01-23 16:18:55 UTC,"""Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo.""",2018-01-23 16:18:55 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25125,8252
"Once acutely felt, I believe it is indelible; at least, it does something to the mind which it is hard for anything else to undo. It has been often said that a man who has once really loved a woman, never can be without feeling towards that woman again. He may go on loving her, or he may change and hate her. In the same way, I think, experience proves that no one who has had real passionate conviction of a creed, the sort of emotion that burns hot upon the brain, can ever be indifferent to that creed again. He may continue to believe it, and to love it; or he may change to the opposite, vehemently argue against it, and persecute it. But he cannot forget it. Years afterwards, perhaps, when life changes, when external interests cease to excite, when the apathy to surroundings which belongs to the old, begins all at once, to the wonder of later friends, who cannot imagine what is come to him, the grey-headed man returns to the creed of his youth.",2018-01-23 16:19:35 UTC,"""In the same way, I think, experience proves that no one who has had real passionate conviction of a creed, the sort of emotion that burns hot upon the brain, can ever be indifferent to that creed again.""",2018-01-23 16:19:35 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25126,8252
"The explanation of these facts in metaphysical books is very imperfect. Indeed, I only know one school which professes to explain the emotional, as distinguished from the intellectual element in belief. Mr. Bain (after Mr. Mill) speaks very instructively of the ""animal nature of belief,"" but when he comes to trace its cause, his analysis seems, to me at least, utterly unsatisfactory. He says that, ""the state of belief is identical with the activity or active disposition of the system at the moment with reference to the thing believed"". But in many cases there is firm belief where there is no possibility of action or tendency to it. A girl in a country parsonage will be sure ""that Paris never can be taken,"" or that ""Bismarck is a wretch,"" without being able to act on these ideas or wanting to act on them. Many beliefs, in Coleridge's happy phrase, slumber in the ""dormitory of the soul""; they are present to the consciousness, but they incite to no action. And perhaps Coleridge is an example of misformed mind in which not only may ""Faith"" not produce ""works,"" but in which it had a tendency to prevent works. Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them. And in very many persons much-indulged conviction exhausts the mind with the attached ideas; teases it, and so, when the time of action comes, makes it apt to turn to different, perhaps opposite ideas, and to act on them in preference.",2018-01-23 16:21:11 UTC,"""Many beliefs, in Coleridge's happy phrase, slumber in the 'dormitory of the soul'; they are present to the consciousness, but they incite to no action.""",2018-01-23 16:21:11 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25127,8252
"The explanation of these facts in metaphysical books is very imperfect. Indeed, I only know one school which professes to explain the emotional, as distinguished from the intellectual element in belief. Mr. Bain (after Mr. Mill) speaks very instructively of the ""animal nature of belief,"" but when he comes to trace its cause, his analysis seems, to me at least, utterly unsatisfactory. He says that, ""the state of belief is identical with the activity or active disposition of the system at the moment with reference to the thing believed"". But in many cases there is firm belief where there is no possibility of action or tendency to it. A girl in a country parsonage will be sure ""that Paris never can be taken,"" or that ""Bismarck is a wretch,"" without being able to act on these ideas or wanting to act on them. Many beliefs, in Coleridge's happy phrase, slumber in the ""dormitory of the soul""; they are present to the consciousness, but they incite to no action. And perhaps Coleridge is an example of misformed mind in which not only may ""Faith"" not produce ""works,"" but in which it had a tendency to prevent works. Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them. And in very many persons much-indulged conviction exhausts the mind with the attached ideas; teases it, and so, when the time of action comes, makes it apt to turn to different, perhaps opposite ideas, and to act on them in preference.",2018-01-23 16:23:07 UTC,"""Strong convictions gave him a kind of cramp in the will, and he could not act on them.""",2018-01-23 16:23:07 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25128,8252
"2nd. Intensity. This is the main cause why the ideas that flash on the minds of seers, as in Scott's description, are believed; they come mostly when the nerves are exhausted by fasting, watching and longing; they have a peculiar brilliancy, and therefore they are believed. To this cause I trace too my fixed folly as to Bridgwater. The idea of being member for the town had been so intensely brought home to me by the excitement of a contest, that I could not eradicate it, and that as soon as I recalled any circumstances of the contest it always came back in all its vividness.",2018-01-23 16:24:10 UTC,"""Intensity. This is the main cause why the ideas that flash on the minds of seers, as in Scott's description, are believed; they come mostly when the nerves are exhausted by fasting, watching and longing; they have a peculiar brilliancy, and therefore they are believed.""",2018-01-23 16:24:10 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25129,8252
"3rd. Constancy. As a rule, almost every one does accept the creed of the place in which he lives, and everyone without exception has a tendency to do so. There are, it is true, some minds which a mathematician might describe as minds of ""contrary flexure,"" whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around them say. And the reason is that in their minds the opposite aspect of every subject is always vividly presented. But even such minds usually accept the axioms of their district, the tenets which everybody always believes. They only object to the variable elements; to the inferences and deductions drawn by some, but not by all.",2018-01-23 16:25:22 UTC,"""There are, it is true, some minds which a mathematician might describe as minds of 'contrary flexure,' whose particular bent it is to contradict what those around them say.""",2018-01-23 16:25:22 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25130,8252
"That it is really this contention with the world which destroys conviction and which causes doubt, is shown by examining the cases where the mind is secluded from the world. In ""dreams,"" where we are out of collision with fact, we accept everything as it comes, believe everything and doubt nothing. And in violent cases of mania, where the mind is shut up within itself, and cannot, from impotence, perceive what is without, it is as sure of the most chance fancy, as in health it would be of the best proved truths.",2018-01-23 16:26:21 UTC,"""And in violent cases of mania, where the mind is shut up within itself, and cannot, from impotence, perceive what is without, it is as sure of the most chance fancy, as in health it would be of the best proved truths.""",2018-01-23 16:26:21 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25131,8252