work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7711,"",Searching in Google Books,2013-10-13 17:26:52 UTC,"[...] For I am in doubt, whether it be fit for me to trouble the Press with any new Matter; or if I did, I look on my Life as so near worn out, that it would be Folly to hope to finish any thing of Moment in the small Remainder of it. I hop'd therefore, as I said, to have seen you, and unravel'd to you that which lying in the Lump unexplicated in my Mind, I scarce yet know what it is my self; for I have often had Experience that a Man cannot well judge of his own Notions, till either by setting them down in Paper, or in discoursing them to a Friend, he has drawn them out, and as it were spread them fairly before, himself. As for Writing, my ill Health gives me little Heart or Opportunity for it; and of seeing you, I begin now to despair: And that which very much adds to my Affliction in the Case, is, that you neglect your own Health on Considerations, I am sure, that are not worth your Health; for nothing, if Expectations were Certainties, can be worth it. I see no likelihood of the Parliament's rising yet this good while; and when they are up, who knows whether the Man you expect to relieve you, will come to you presently, or at all? [...]
(pp. 209-210)",,22966,"","""I hop'd therefore, as I said, to have seen you, and unravel'd to you that which lying in the Lump unexplicated in my Mind, I scarce yet know what it is my self; for I have often had Experience that a Man cannot well judge of his own Notions, till either by setting them down in Paper, or in discoursing them to a Friend, he has drawn them out, and as it were spread them fairly before, himself.""","",2013-10-13 17:26:52 UTC,""
7714,"",Searching in Google Books,2013-10-13 18:37:40 UTC,"The Doctor, concerning whom you enquire of me, had, I remember, when I liv'd in Town, and convers'd among the Physicians there, a good Reputation amongst those of his own Faculty. I can say nothing of his late Book of Fevers, having not read it my self, nor heard it spoke of by others: But I perfectly agree with you concerning general Theories, that they are for the most part but a sort of waking Dreams, with which, when Men have warm'd their own Heads, they pass into unquestionable Truths, and then the ignorant World must be set right by them: Though this be, as you rightly observe, beginning at the wrong End, when Men lay the Foundation their own Fancies, and then endeavour to suit the Phœnomena of Diseases, and the Cure of them, to those Fancies. I wonder, that after the Pattern Dr. Sydenham has set them of a better Way, Men mould return again to that Romance Way of Physick. But I see it is easier and more natural for Men to build Castles in the Air of their own, than to survey well those that are to be found standing. Nicely to observe the History of Diseases, in all their Changes and Circumstances, is a Work of Time, Accurateness, Attention and Judgment; and wherein if Men, through Prepossession or Oscitancy, mistake, they may be convinced of their Error by unerring Nature and Matter of Fact, which leaves less room for the Subtlety and Dispute of Words, which serves very much instead of Knowledge in the learned World, where methinks Wit and Invention has much the Preference to Truth. [...]
(pp. 223-4)",,22969,"","""But I perfectly agree with you concerning general Theories, that they are for the most part but a sort of waking Dreams, with which, when Men have warm'd their own Heads, they pass into unquestionable Truths, and then the ignorant World must be set right by them.""","",2013-10-13 18:37:40 UTC,""