work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3635,"","Reading. Found again in Marshall Brown's ""Romanticism and Enlightenment"" in The Cambridge Companion to British Romanticism, ed. Stuart Curran (Cambridge UP, 1993), 32.
",2004-01-26 00:00:00 UTC,"This I foretell from your auspicious care,
Who great in search of God and nature grow;
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,
Since best to praise His works is best to know.
O truly royal! who behold the law,
And rule of beings in your Maker's mind;
And thence, like limbecs , rich ideas draw,
To fit the levelled use of humankind.
(p. 53, ll. 657-664)
",2011-04-19,9434,"Wikipedia: ""Technically, the alembic is the lid with a tube attachment (the capital or still-head), which is placed on top of a flask, the cucurbit, containing the material to be distilled, but the word is often used to refer to the entire distillation apparatus."" ","""O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind.""","",2011-12-17 19:49:06 UTC,Apostrophe to the Royal Society
3829,"","Searching ""rule"" and ""reason"" in HDIS",2004-06-10 00:00:00 UTC,"One portion of informing fire was given
To brutes, the inferior family of heaven.
The smith divine, as with a careless beat,
Struck out the mute creation at a heat;
But, when arrived at last to human race,
The Godhead took a deep considering space;
And, to distinguish man from all the rest,
Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast;
And mercy mixt with reason did impart,
One to his head, the other to his heart;
Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive;
The first is law, the last prerogative.
And like his mind his outward form appeared,
When, issuing naked to the wondering herd,
He charmed their eyes; and, for they loved, they feared.
Not armed with horns of arbitrary might,
Or claws to seize their furry spoils in fight,
Or with increase of feet to o'ertake them in their flight;
Of easy shape, and pliant every way,
Confessing still the softness of his clay,
And kind as kings upon their coronation day;
With open hands, and with extended space
Of arms, to satisfy a large embrace.
Thus kneaded up with milk, the new-made man
His kingdom o'er his kindred world began;
Till knowledge misapplied, misunderstood,
And pride of empire, soured his balmy blood.
Then, first rebelling, his own stamp he coins;
The murderer Cain was latent in his loins;
And blood began its first and loudest cry,
For differing worship of the Deity.
Thus persecution rose, and farther space
Produced the mighty hunter of his race.
Not so the blessed Pan his flock increased,
Content to fold them from the famished beast:
Mild were his laws; the sheep and harmless hind
Were never of the persecuting kind.
Such pity now the pious pastor shows,
Such mercy from the British Lion flows,
That both provide protection from their foes.
",2011-04-26,9861,"•AMBIGUOUS. What rules what here? (Does reason rule the self or does it rule others?)
• On a second reading I'm not sure this is ambiguous.","""But, when arrived at last to human race, / The Godhead took a deep considering space; / And, to distinguish man from all the rest, / Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast; / And mercy mixt with reason did impart, / One to his head, the other to his heart; / Reason to rule, but mercy to forgive; / The first is law, the last prerogative.""","",2011-04-26 17:04:29 UTC,""
7132,"",Reading,2011-12-17 20:24:12 UTC,"Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is reason to the soul; and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky
Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere
So pale grows reason at religion's sight:
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led
From cause to cause, to Nature's secret head;
And found that one first principle must be:
But what, or who, that Universal He;
Whether some soul incompassing this ball
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms' interfering dance
Leapt into form (the noble work of chance;)
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not even the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he:
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rashly judg'd of Providence and Fate:
But least of all could their endeavours find
What most concern'd the good of human kind.
For happiness was never to be found;
But vanish'd from 'em, like enchanted ground.
One thought content the good to be enjoy'd:
This, every little accident destroy'd:
The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
A thorny, or at best a barren soil:
In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than He.
(ll. 1-41)",,19352,"","""In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.","",2011-12-17 20:25:03 UTC,""
7476,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-19 01:29:45 UTC,"Instead of those sage and grave Notions that used to fill my Head, 'twas cramm'd top full of Whimseys and Whirligigs, by the vehement agitation of my distemper'd Fancy, as ever a Carkase-shell with Instruments of Death and Murder. I was nothing but all Flame and Fire, and the red-hot Thoughts glared about my Brains at such a rate, and if visible, wou'd, I fancy, have made just such a dreadful Appearance as the Window of a Glass-house discovers in a dark Night--viz. a parcel of stragling fiery Globes marching about and hizzing, appearing and vanishing high and low, transverse, and every where--which at length in a few days blew up my Head like a Bottle, and I had a Fire as uninterrupted, and I think as hot as that we talk of, rolling all over me, boiling my very Bowels into Tripes, and frying my poor Heart in its own Water, till I fancy it looked like the broyl'd Soul of a Goose, or a piece of Cheese tosted over the Candle. When poor Evander drunk, as my Nurse knows that was not often, 'twas like the slaking of Iron in Water, or rather the Taylor's spitting upon his Goose, where the little drops of moisture only stink and sputter, and fly off agen; and I can hardly perswade my self but if any Virtuoso had out of curiosity listen'd at my Back-Door, they might have easily heard the small Beer and Posset-drink hizz within me, as it came down into my Bowels.
(II, pp. 42-3)",,20983,"Carcass-Shell in OED. Also Chambers: ""Carcass, or Carcuss, in War, a kind of Bomb, usually oblong, or oval, rarely circular; consisting of a Shell, or Case, sometimes of Iron, with Holes; more commonly of a coarse strong Stuff, pitch'd over, and girt with Iron Hoops; fill'd with combustible Matters.""","""Instead of those sage and grave Notions that used to fill my Head, 'twas cramm'd top full of Whimseys and Whirligigs, by the vehement agitation of my distemper'd Fancy, as ever a Carkase-shell with Instruments of Death and Murder.""","",2013-06-19 01:30:34 UTC,""
3866,"","Searching ""stock"" in EEBO-TCP",2014-07-28 15:14:13 UTC,"§. 5. The Understanding seems to me, not to have the least glimmering of any Ideas, which it doth not receive from one of these two: Eternal Objects furnish the Mind with the Ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produced in us: And the Mind furnishes the Understanding with Ideas of its own Operations. These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, and the Compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas; and that we have nothing in our Minds, which did not come in, one of these two ways. Let any one examine his own Thoughts, and throughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, Whether all the original Ideas he has there, are any other than of the Objects of his Senses, or of the Operations of his Mind, considered as Objects of his Reflection: and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see that he has not any Idea in his Mind, but what one of those two have imprinted; though, perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged, by the Understanding, as we shall see hereafter.
(II.i.5, p. 38)",,24313,"","""These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, and the Compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas; and that we have nothing in our Minds, which did not come in, one of these two ways.""","",2014-07-28 15:14:13 UTC,""
3866,"",Searching in EEBO-TCP,2014-07-28 15:15:41 UTC,"§. 5. The Understanding seems to me, not to have the least glimmering of any Ideas, which it doth not receive from one of these two: Eternal Objects furnish the Mind with the Ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they produced in us: And the Mind furnishes the Vnderstanding with Ideas of its own Operations. These, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, and the Compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of Ideas; and that we have nothing in our Minds, which did not come in, one of these two ways. Let any one examine his own Thoughts, and throughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, Whether all the original Ideas he has there, are any other than of the Objects of his Senses, or of the Operations of his Mind, considered as Objects of his Reflection: and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see that he has not any Idea in his Mind, but what one of those two have imprinted; though, perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged, by the Understanding, as we shall see hereafter.
(II.i.5, p. 38)",,24314,"","""Let any one examine his own Thoughts, and throughly search into his Understanding, and then let him tell me, Whether all the original Ideas he has there, are any other than of the Objects of his Senses, or of the Operations of his Mind, considered as Objects of his Reflection: and how great a mass of Knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see that he has not any Idea in his Mind, but what one of those two have imprinted; though, perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged, by the Understanding, as we shall see hereafter.""",Impressions,2014-07-28 15:15:54 UTC,""
3866,"",Searching in EEBO-TCP,2014-07-28 15:16:42 UTC,"§. 20. I see no Reason therefore to believe, that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on; and as those are increased, and retained; so it comes, by Exercise, to improve its Faculty of thinking in the several parts of it, as well as afterwards, by compounding those Ideas, and reflecting on its own Operations, it increases its Stock as well as Facility, in remembring, imagining, reasoning, and other modes of thinking.
(II.i.20, pp. 44)",,24315,"","""I see no Reason therefore to believe, that the Soul thinks before the Senses have furnished it with Ideas to think on; and as those are increased, and retained; so it comes, by Exercise, to improve its Faculty of thinking in the several parts of it, as well as afterwards, by compounding those Ideas, and reflecting on its own Operations, it increases its Stock as well as Facility, in remembring, imagining, reasoning, and other modes of thinking.""","",2014-07-28 15:16:57 UTC,""
3866,"","Searching ""stock"" in EEBO-TCP",2014-07-28 15:27:06 UTC,"§. 30. Thirdly, Where we have adequate Ideas, and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them, yet we are often ignorant, for want of tracing those Ideas we have, or may have, and finding out those intermediate Ideas, which may shew us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And thus many are ignorant of mathematical Truths, not out of any imperfection of their Faculties, or uncertainty in the Things themselves; but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those Ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our Ideas, and finding out their Relations, and Agreements or Disagreements one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of Words. It is impossible that Men should ever truly seek, or certainly discover the Agreement or Disagreement of Ideas themselves, whilst their Thoughts flutter about, or stick only in Sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations Mathematicians abstracting their Thoughts from Names, and accustoming themselves to set before their Minds the Ideas themselves, that they would consider, and not Sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion, which has so much hindred Mens progress in other parts of Knowledge; who sticking in Words of undetermined and uncertain signification, were unable to distinguish True from False, Certain from Probable, Consistent from Inconsistent, in their own Opinions: Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the Schools, Disputes, and Writings, the World has been fill'd with; whilst Men, being lost in the great Wood of Words, knew not whereabout they were, how far their Discoveries were advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general Stock of Knowledge. Had Men, in their discoveries of the material, done, as they have in those of the intellectual World, involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful terms and ways of talking, Volumes writ of Navigation and Voyages, Theories and Stories of Zones and Tydes multiplied and disputed; nay, Ships built, and Fleets set out, would never have taught us the way beyond the Line; and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown, as when it was declared Heresie to hold there were any. But having spoken sufficiently of Words, and the ill or careless use, that is commonly made of them, I shall not say any thing more of it here.
(IV.iii.30, pp. 280-281)",,24320,"","""Whereby the increase brought into the Stock of real Knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the Schools, Disputes, and Writings, the World has been fill'd with; whilst Men, being lost in the great Wood of Words, knew not whereabout they were, how far their Discoveries were advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general Stock of Knowledge.""","",2014-07-28 15:27:06 UTC,""
8131,"","Reading Sean Silver's The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 275n.",2016-03-11 16:37:40 UTC,"The Jesuits certainly are well worthy our imitation in this particular: Nor is there any Art by which they create themselves a greater interest in the Countries where the live, than that by which they undertake the Education of Youth. They who are deputed for this Employment, are not of the meanest quality; they are usually Gentlemen, Men of mature years, and such who have been well vers'd, not only in Ancient Authors, but in the Practice and Conversation of men, and in the methods of business: Their way is, by familiarity and softness to insinuate into the Affections of the Scholar, and to draw him on to diligence rather by hopes, then to whip him forwards by Punishments and Fear: And yet where Negligence makes Correction a duty, they do it rather by inflicting some light disgrace, than by Corporal chastisement, a thing opprobrious to Nature, and which rather dulls than quickens the capacities of Youth. One thing they practice frequently which is really of wonderful use, and that is, their accustoming their Schollars to Act their Parts in Plays. This inures them to a Manlike speech, and to a steedy Spirit and Address. I like Tragedy better than Comedy, where the Argument commonly is light, and is such as requires much of the Buffoon, whereas the former being great and Masculine, will be sure to leave a Tincture of something Noble upon the Mind of him who personates the Hero. Learning ought to be infus'd into the Scholar like spirits into a Bottle, by little and little, for whosoever attempts to pour in all at once, may in all likelihood spill a great part, and in a great measure fill the Vessel with Wind and Air. The Vessels 'tis true which have the streightest Necks will not so readily receive the Liquour, but then they will preserve what they once receive with much more certainty and lastingness of spirit. 'Tis so many times in the capacities of Youth: they who can receive any impression like the Virgin-wax, will as easily suffer a defacement unless it be hardned and matur'd by Time: whereas others who are hard to be wrought upon like Steel, retain the Images which are Engraven on them with much more beauty and perpetuity.
(pp. 23-5)",,24864,"","""Learning ought to be infus'd into the Scholar like spirits into a Bottle, by little and little, for whosoever attempts to pour in all at once, may in all likelihood spill a great part, and in a great measure fill the Vessel with Wind and Air.""","",2016-03-11 16:38:14 UTC,Of Erudition. CHAP. III.
8134,"",Reading,2016-04-06 19:07:28 UTC,"In both these the middle wayes are to be taken, nothing is to be omitted, and yet every thing to pass a mature deliberation: No Intelligence from Men of all Professions, and quarters of the World, to be slighted, and yet all to be so severely examin'd, that there remain no room for doubt or instability; much rigour in admitting, much strictness in comparing and above all, much slowness in debating, and shyness in determining, is to be practised. The Understanding is to order all the inferiour services of the lower Faculties; but yet it is to do this only as a lawful Master, and not as a Tyrant. It must not incroach upon their Offices, nor take upon it self the employments which belong to either of them. It must watch the irregularities of the Senses, but it must not go before them, or prevent their information. It must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which is laid up in the Memory; but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Idea's, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon. So many are the links, upon which the true Philosophy depends, of which, if anyone be loose, or weak, the whole chain is in danger of being dissolv'd; it is to begin with the Hands and Eyes, and to proceed on through the Memory, to be continued by the Reason; nor is it to stop there, but to come about to the Hands and Eyes again, and so, by a continual passage round from one Faculty to another, it is to be maintained in life and strength, as much as the body of man is by the circulation of the blood through the several parts of the body, the Arms, the Fat, the Lungs, the Heart, and the Head.",,24888,"","The understanding ""must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which is laid up in the Memory; but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Idea's, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon.""","",2016-04-06 19:07:35 UTC,The Preface