text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our passions take possession of our minds with a kind of authority, and will not be kept out or dislodged, but, as if the passion that rules were, for the time, the sheriff of the place, and came with all the posse, the understanding is seized and taken with the object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to be alone considered there. There is scarce any body, I think, of so calm a temper who hath not sometime found this tyranny on his understanding, and suffered under the inconvenience of it. Who is there almost whose mind, at some time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not so fastened to some clog, that it could not turn itself to any other object? I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind so as to hinder its vigour and activity in the pursuit of other contemplations, and advances itself little or not [at] all in the knowledge of the thing which it so closely hugs and constantly pores on. Men thus possessed are sometimes as if they were so in the worst sense, and lay under the power of an enchantment. They see not what passes before their eyes; hear not the audible discourse of the company; and when by any strong application to them they are roused a little, they are like men brought to themselves from some remote region; whereas in truth they come no farther than their secret cabinet within, where they have been wholly taken up with the puppet, which is for that time appointed for their entertainment. The shame that such dumps cause to well-bred people, when it carries them away from the company, where they should bear a part in the conversation, is a sufficient argument that it is a fault in the conduct of our understanding, not to have that power over it as to make use of it to those purposes and on those occasions wherein we have need of its assistance. The mind should be always free and ready to turn itself to the variety of objects that occur, and allow them as much consideration as shall for that time be thought fit. To be engrossed so by one object, as not to be prevailed on to leave it for another that we judge fitter for our contemplation, is to make it of no use to us. Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getting upon a mill-horse whilst he jogs on in his circular track would carry a man a journey.",2011-07-27 03:21:41 UTC,"""Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getting upon a mill-horse whilst he jogs on in his circular track would carry a man a journey.""",2011-07-27 03:21:30 UTC,"Section 45. Transferring of Thoughts
","",,Beasts,"",Searching in Past Masters,18997,4050
"But before I come to speak to these Two particulars, I shall take notice of the description which the Apostle here makes, of the change from a state of Sin and Vice to a state of Holiness and Virtue. But now being made free from sin, and become the servants of God; intimating that the state of Sin is a state of Servitude and Slavery, from which Repentence and the change which is thereby made does set us free; But now being made free from sin. And so our Saviour tells us, that whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin; and this is the vilest and hardest Slavery in the World, because it is the Servitude of the Soul, the best and noblest part of our selves; 'tis the subjection of our Reason, which ought to rule and bear Sway over the inferiour Faculties, to our sensual Appetites and brutish Passions; which is as uncomely a sight, as to see Beggars ride on Horse-back, and Princes walk on foot. And as Inferiour Persons, when they are advanced to Power, are strangely Insolent and Tyrannical towards those that are subject to them; so the Lusts and Passions of men, when they once get the Command of them, are the most domineering Tyrants in the World; and there is no such Slave as a Man that is subject to his Appetite and Lust, that is under the Power of irregular Passions and vicious Inclinations, which transport and hurry him to the vilest and most unreasonable things. For a wicked Man is a Slave to as many Masters as he hath Passions and Vices; and they are very imperious and exacting, and the more he yields to them, the more they grow upon him, and exercise the greater Tyranny over him: and being subject to so many Masters, the poor Slave is continually divided and distracted between their contrary Commands and Impositions; one Passion hurries him one way, and another as violently drives him another; one Lust commands him upon such a Service, and another it may be at the same time calls him to another Work. His Pride and Ambition bids him spend and lay it out, whilst his Covetousness holds his Hand fast closed; so that he knows not many times how to dispose of himself or what to do, he must displease some of his Masters, and what Inclination soever he contradicts, he certainly displeaseth himself.
(II, pp. 52-3; cf. 227-9 in 1700 ed.)",2014-01-22 16:24:04 UTC,"""And so our Saviour tells us, that 'whosoever committeth sin is the Servant of sin'; and this is the vilest and hardest Slavery in the World, because it is the Servitude of the Soul, the best and noblest part of our selves; 'tis the subjection of our Reason, which ought to rule and bear Sway over the inferiour Faculties, to our sensual Appetites and brutish Passions; which is as uncomely a sight, as to see Beggars ride on Horse-back, and Princes walk on foot.""",2011-10-28 19:07:24 UTC,"","",,Fetters,"",Searching in Google Books,19306,7124
"Having lately translated the Fragment of an old Poet which describes Womankind under several Characters, and supposes them to have drawn their different Manners and Dispositions from those Animals and Elements out of which he tells us they were compounded; I had some Thoughts of giving the Sex their Revenge, by laying together in another Paper the many vicious Characters which prevail in the Male World, and shewing the different Ingredients that go to the making up of such different Humours and Constitutions. Horace has a Thought which is something akin to this, when, in order to excuse himself to his Mistress, for an Invective which he had written against her, and to account for that unreasonable Fury with which the Heart of Man is often transported, he tells us that, when Prometheus made his Man of Clay, in the kneading up of his Heart, he season'd it with some furious Particles of the Lion. But upon turning this Plan to and fro in my Thoughts, I observed so many unaccountable Humours in Man, that I did not know out of what Animals to fetch them. Male Souls are diversify'd with so many Characters, that the World has not Variety of Materials sufficient to furnish out their different Tempers and Inclinations. The Creation, with all its Animals and Elements, would not be large enough to supply their several Extravagancies.
(Cf. pp. 324-5 in Bond ed.)",2014-06-05 16:08:24 UTC,"""Horace has a Thought which is something akin to this, when, in order to excuse himself to his Mistress, for an Invective which he had written against her, and to account for that unreasonable Fury with which the Heart of Man is often transported, he tells us that, when Prometheus made his Man of Clay, in the kneading up of his Heart, he season'd it with some furious Particles of the Lion.""",2013-06-17 18:47:16 UTC,"","",,Animals,"","Searching ""mind"" in Project Gutenberg (PGDP) e-text. Confirmed in Bond
",20881,7463