work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6864,"",Searching at UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-24 20:50:05 UTC,"The end therefore which at present calls forth our efforts, will be found, when it is once gained, to be only one of the means to some remoter end. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
(p. 9)",,18473,"","""The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.""","",2011-05-24 20:50:05 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:14:51 UTC,"But still this faculty is proportioned to our imperfect nature, and therefore weak, slow, and uncertain in its operations. Our simple ideas fade in the mind, or fleet out of it, unless they are frequently renewed: and the most tenacious memory cannot maintain such as are very complex, without the greatest attention, and a constant care, nor always with both. All our ideas in general are recalled slowly by some, and successively by every mind. Themistocles was famous, among other parts wherein he excelled, for his memory, but when he refused the offer Simonides made him, it was, I suppose, because he did not want the poet's skill to improve his memory, and because he knew by experience, that the great defects of this faculty are neither to be cured, nor supplied by art. In what proportion soever it is given, it may be improved to some degree, no doubt, but memory will never present ideas to the human mind, as it does perhaps to superior intelligences, like objects in a mirror, where they may be viewed at every instant, all at once, without effort or toil, in their original freshness, and with their original precision, such as they were when they first came into the mind, or when they were first framed by it. Could memory serve us in this manner, our knowledge would be still very imperfect; but many errors into which we fall, and into which we are seduced, would be avoided, and the endless chicane of learned disputation would be stopped in a great measure. It is for this reason I have said so much of this faculty of the mind, as you will have occasion soon to observe.
(Essay I, §2; vol. iii, pp. 368-9)",,23715,"","""Our simple ideas fade in the mind, or fleet out of it, unless they are frequently renewed: and the most tenacious memory cannot maintain such as are very complex, without the greatest attention, and a constant care, nor always with both.""","",2014-03-14 20:14:51 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:18:44 UTC,"[...] In like manner, an action which we see performed, as in the case of killing mentioned above, gives an idea no doubt; but this idea, in the respect in which it is considered here, is nothing more than a hint to the mind, that passes from a bare perception of the action to contemplate of the circumstances of it, and all the relations both of the action, and of the actors, and so frames by reflection, without the concurrence of sensation, ideas and notions, of another kind, both particular and general. This is the great intellectual province, wherein our minds range with much freedom, and often with exorbitant licence, in the pursuit of real or imaginary science. We add ideas to ideas, and notions to notions of all these; we acquire at length such a multitude as astonishes the mind itself, and is both for number and variety inconceivable.
(Essay I, §4; vol. iii, p. 408)",,23720,"","""This is the great intellectual province, wherein our minds range with much freedom, and often with exorbitant licence, in the pursuit of real or imaginary science.""","",2014-03-14 20:18:44 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:29:14 UTC,"Our complex ideas being assemblages of simple ideas, that have often no other connection except that which the mind gives them, we might be easily led to conceive the difficulty of this task by a base reflection on the weakness of memory, and if I may say so, on the seeming caprice of this faculty, before we were made sensible of it by repeated experiences. The ideas that are lodged there begin to fade almost as soon as they are framed. They are continually slipping from us, or shifting their forms; and if the objects that excited some did not often renew them, and if we had not a power to recall others before they are gone too far out of the mind, we should lose our simple, and much more our complex ideas, and all our notions would become confused and obscure. The mind would be little more than a channel through which ideas and notions glided from entity into nonentity. But our case is not so bad. They are often renewed, and we can recall them as often as we please. There is, however, a difference between the renewing of them, and the recalling of them. When ideas are renewed by the same objects that excited them first in the mind, they are renewed such as they were [...]
(Essay I, §4; vol. iii, p. 418)",,23725,"","""The mind would be little more than a channel through which ideas and notions glided from entity into nonentity.""","",2014-03-14 20:29:14 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:32:33 UTC,"Names indeed are given to signify all our ideas and all our notions to ourselves and to others, and to help the memory in meditation as well as in discourse. When they are assigned to complex ideas, they are meant as knots according to the very proper image Mr. Locke gives of them, to tie each specific bundle of ideas together: and in these respects they are not only useful, but necessary. It happens, however, that names, far from having these effects, have such very often as are quite contrary to these. Whilst we retain the names of complex ideas and notions, we imagine that we retain the ideas and notions; but the ideas and notions shift and vary, whilst the names remain the same. The scene of the mind, like a moving picture, must be governed with attention, that it may bring into our view the images we want, and as we want them. Otherwise ideas that are foreign to our actual train of thinking will frequently rush into our thoughts, and become objects of them whether we will or no. But there is another and a greater mischief which will flow from this constitution of the mind, unless the utmost attention be employed, and often when it is. The former is a sort of violence, which cannot be offered unperceived, and may be therefore resisted. This that I am going to mention steals so silently upon us, that we do not perceive it very often even when it has worked its effect. When we recall our ideas and notions, whether this be done with ease or difficulty, we review them in some sort: and if they are more liable to have been altered, we have a better chance for perceiving any alteration that may have been made in the determination of them. But when the ideas and notions we want present themselves, as it were of themselves, to the mind, under their usual names and appearances, we are apt to employ them without examination, and perhaps we advert very often to nothing more than the word by which we are used to signify them. In this manner our ideas and notions become unsteady imperceptibly, and I would not answer that something may not happen to me of this kind, even in writing this essay, though I am on my guard against it. How much more must it happen to those who are not thus on their guard?
(Essay I, §4; vol. iii, pp. 419-20)",,23728,"","""The scene of the mind, like a moving picture, must be governed with attention, that it may bring into our view the images we want, and as we want them. Otherwise ideas that are foreign to our actual train of thinking will frequently rush into our thoughts, and become objects of them whether we will or no.""","",2014-03-14 20:32:33 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:35:26 UTC,"[...] The adjective white, joined to a substantive, is the sign of a particular idea, and necessary, therefore, as well as proper to be used in speaking of particular substances, by every one of which it is determined. But the substantive whiteness is authorised by custom alone, and is determined by nothing. It is a term invented by the art of the mind. When it is used, I perceive no determinate, specific, general idea, wherein all the various tints of white which I have perceived, and many there may be which no human eye has ever perceived, are comprehended. I have no perception of a general idea of this sort. The idea I have, when this word is used, is always that of some particular white extension, or of several such whose ideas rush confusedly into the mind together.
(Essay I, §5; vol. iii, p. 434)",,23732,"","""The idea I have, when this word is used, is always that of some particular white extension, or of several such whose ideas rush confusedly into the mind together.""","",2014-03-14 20:35:26 UTC,""
8273,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson,2018-04-17 17:24:55 UTC,"The reigning philosophy informs us, that the vast bodies which constitute the universe, are regulated in their progress through the etherial spaces, by the perpetual agency of contrary forces; by one of which they are restrained from deserting their orbits, and losing themselves in the immensity of heaven; and held off by the other from rushing together, and clustering round their centre with everlasting cohesion.
The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests.
Some philosophers have been foolish enough to imagine, that improvements might be made in the system of the universe, by a different arrangement of the orbs of heaven; and politicians, equally ignorant and equally presumptuous, may easily be led to suppose, that the happiness of our world would be promoted by a different tendency of the human mind. It appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity to unanimity; and instead of the present petty competitions of individuals or single families, multitudes would be supplanting multitudes, and thousands plotting against thousands.",,25174,"","""The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally unqualified to live in a close connection with our fellow beings, and in total separation from them: we are attracted towards each other by general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests.""","",2018-04-17 17:24:55 UTC,""
8274,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:17:42 UTC,"If we consider the exercises of the mind, it will be found that in each part of life some particular faculty is more eminently employed. When the treasures of knowledge are first opened before us, while novelty blooms alike on either hand, and every thing equally unknown and unexamined seems of equal value, the power of the soul is principally exerted in a vivacious and desultory curiosity. She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pursuit.",,25182,"","""She applies by turns to every object, enjoys it for a short time, and flies with equal ardour to another. She delights to catch up loose and unconnected ideas, but starts away from systems and complications which would obstruct the rapidity of her transitions, and detain her long in the same pursuit.""","",2018-04-19 20:17:42 UTC,""
8274,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,"Now commences the reign of judgment or reason; we begin to find little pleasure, but in comparing arguments, stating propositions, disentangling perplexities, clearing ambiguities, and deducing consequences. The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration. Whatever may lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously rejected, and every disguise in which error may be concealed, is carefully observed, till by degrees a certain number of incontestable or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated into arguments, or compacted into systems.",,25184,"","""The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration.""","",2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,""
8274,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:33:00 UTC,"At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions. This is the age of recollection and narrative; the opinions are settled, and the avenues of apprehension shut against any new intelligence; the days that are to follow must pass in the inculcation of precepts already collected, and assertion of tenets already received; nothing is henceforward so odious as opposition, so insolent as doubt, or so dangerous as novelty.",,25185,"","""At length weariness succeeds to labour, and the mind lies at ease in the contemplation of her own attainments, without any desire of new conquests or excursions.""","",2018-04-19 20:33:00 UTC,""