work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3953,"",Ad Fontes: Digital Library of Classic Protestant Texts,2006-09-11 00:00:00 UTC,"But how then does he Answer the Objection, which he puts against himself, of the many False Religions in the world? It was not the True Light which guided men into them. And if they have no other Light, how came they by them? He says, it was because they did not follow the True Light. But why did they not follow it? How could they help following of it, if they had nothing else to follow? What was it that Resisted It? Or, what could Resist It, if we have no Natural Light or Understanding to Refuse its Dictates? But suppose our No Light or Understanding could shut its eyes, and not follow this light; then it might lose the True Religion: But could no understanding invent another Religion? For that is something Positive; and something must Guide and Direct Men to it. The Absence of Light is Darkness, not a False-light. But an Ignis Fatuus, or Will i'th Wisp, is a Light that leads Men wrong. Men that are in Error follow a Light, but it is Falselight, and they think themselves to be in the Right. Our Understandings have a Natural, which is a Fallible-light; and therefore often leads us wrong. What else is the meaning of Prov. 3. 5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own Understanding. It is true, that Understanding and the Natural light of it, was given us by God: And he made it Right and True; but Fallible, else it could never be mistaken. God has placed a Natural light, as a Candle in our Hearts; and His Supernatural light does Influence and Direct it, [Page 262 (135)] when we seek to Him for it, and serve Him according as He has commanded: Solomon says, Prov. xx. 27. The Spirit of man is the Candle of the Lord, searching all the Inward Parts. You will not call the Spirit of Man the Eternal Light, which is GOD. This was the Mistake which drove George Fox to make our Soul aPart of God. without Beginning, and Infinite in it self, &c. as shewn in The Snake, Sect. ii. and to make us even Equal with God, as shewn, Sect. iii. And Mr. Penn, p. 15. of this Book, ( Primit. Christian. ) allows no Natural light to the Understanding, For (says he) Man can no more be a Light to his Mind than he is to his Body: And thence infers, that as the Eye has no Light in it self, so neither the Understanding: He makes our Nature and Minds wholly Dark of themselves, only succeptible of Super-natural light, when sent into our Understanding: And that all the Light we have is thus Supernatural; and only called Natural, because, as he says, It is natural to Man to have a Supernatural-light. I will not take advantage of the Philosophy of this; for, I suppose his meaning to be, that it is Natural to the Understanding to Receive a Light that is infused into it, as for the Eye to see by an Extraneous light; that is, it is an Organ fitted to Receive Light, tho' it has none in it self; as the Understanding to Apprehend, tho' it has no Reason or Light in it self Thus he expresses it, p. 50. All men have Reason, (says he) but all Men are not Reasonable; which must be taken with the same grains of Allowance. For every Man is a Reasonable Creature, that is, the Definition of a Man. But according to His Hypothesis, tho' all men have Reason, yet not Natural. but supernaturally put into their Understanding: And so, tho they have Reason, yet are they not Reasonable, because that Reason is none of their own, only as Gifted, that is, Accidental, but not Natural to them; and so they can no more be called Rational, than a Bag can be called Rich, that has Money in it. For he says, p. 15. That God, is the Light of our Nature, of our minds, and understandings. If it were meant as an Assistant, Guide or Director, to the Light of our Understanding, there were no differance betwixt us: But quite to put out the Natural light of our understandings, and make it but only Passive, that is, succeptible of another light, that is the point on which I would Reason now with Mr. Penn. It is said 1 Cor. 1. 21. That the world by Wisdom knew not God. What Wisdom was this? it could not be a Divine light; and if Man have no Natural light; it must be the Quaker third sort of light, that is, No light at all. But if by Wisdom here, you mean Mens Natural light or Reason, the Text is Plain and Easy.
It is Written, 1 John. 3. 20. If our Heart Condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Now, by Heart, here must be meant the Natural light; because, if it means the Light which is God, God is not Greater than Himself. And it is supposed here that the Heart does not Know all Things: Therefore this must be meant of our Natural Conscience, and not of God. And now here is a Natural light, which does Reprove of Evil, which Mr. Penn supposes cannot be shewn, p. 30. Our Saviour says, Luk. xii. 57. Yea, and why even of your selves judge not what is Right? But why of your selves, if we have no Light at all of our selves whereby to Judge?
(p.261-4)
",,10336,"•REVISIT. Read the William Penn. Anglican Leslie desires ""to Expostulate a little"" with William Penn ""upon one Part of his Exposition of The Light within, [...] where [...] he will not grant that we have any Natural Light at all, or any other than that Divine Light of the Word, which is God; which he says, some, mistakenly, call Natural Light"" (p. 260)
•I've included twice: Bag and Money","""And so, tho they have Reason, yet are they not Reasonable, because that Reason is none of their own, only as Gifted, that is, Accidental, but not Natural to them; and so they can no more be called Rational, than a Bag can be called Rich, that has Money in it.""","",2009-09-14 19:34:54 UTC,""
4178,"",Past Masters,2004-02-26 00:00:00 UTC,"HYLAS. Explain to me now, O Philonous! how it is possible there should be room for all those trees and houses to exist in your mind. Can extended things be contained in that which is unextended? Or are we to imagine impressions made on a thing void of all solidity? You cannot say objects are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax. In what sense therefore are we to understand those expressions? Explain me this if you can: and I shall then be able to answer all those queries you formerly put to me about my substratum.
PHILONOUS. Look you, Hylas, when I speak of objects as existing in the mind or imprinted on the senses; I would not be understood in the gross literal sense, as when bodies are said to exist in a place, or a seal to make an impression upon wax. My meaning is only that the mind comprehends or perceives them; and that it is affected from without, or by some being distinct from itself. This is my explication of your difficulty; and how it can serve to make your tenet of an unperceiving material substratum intelligible, I would fain know.
HYLAS. Nay, if that be all, I confess I do not see what use can be made of it. But are you not guilty of some abuse of language in this?
PHILONOUS. None at all: it is no more than common custom, which you know is the rule of language, hath authorized: nothing being more usual, than for philosophers to speak of the immediate objects of the understanding as things existing in the mind. Nor is there any thing in this, but what is conformable to the general analogy of language; most part of the mental operations being signified by words borrowed from sensible things; as is plain in the terms comprehend, reflect, discourse, &c. which being applied to the mind, must not be taken in their gross original sense.
(Vol ii, p. 241)
",,10848,"•INTEREST. Metaphors and anti-metaphors, figurative language and ordinary language.
•Both of the metaphors most readily associated with Locke (inscribed surface/container) are here denied.
•I had two entries: they were split into two metaphors room/wax. I deleted the second.
","""You cannot say objects are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax.""",Impressions and Rooms,2013-09-12 04:08:26 UTC,Third Dialogue
4437,"","Reading Wasserman, Earl R. ""The Inherent Values of Eighteenth-Century Personification."" PMLA 65.4 (1950): 435-63. p. 449.",2006-06-01 00:00:00 UTC,"... we have no other Faculties of perceiving or knowing anything divine or human but our Five Senses, and our Reason. ... [it is by the senses that] the Ideas of external sensible Objects are first conveyed into the Imagination; and Reason or the pure Intellect ... operates upon those Ideas, and upon them, Only after they are so lodged in that common Receptacle.
(p. 53)",,11726,"","It is by the senses that ""the Ideas of external sensible Objects are first conveyed into the Imagination; and Reason or the pure Intellect ... operates upon those Ideas, and upon them, Only after they are so lodged in that common Receptacle""","",2013-09-27 21:48:23 UTC,""
4503,"",Reading Alciphron: In Focus,2004-02-17 00:00:00 UTC,"The substance of his first answer is, that whereas the objection supposeth every general term in an intelligible discourse, to stand for a distinct abstract general idea; he proceeds to shew, very justly indeed, how groundless and false that notion is, of men's forming any universal ideas by abstracting intirely from all the particulars of any kind of thing whatsoever. The application he makes of it is this. That men are as little capable of forming abstract ideas or conceptions even of things natural and sensible, as they are of things divine and supernatural; that they can form no such general abstract idea of number and force, any more than they can of grace: and his consequence is, that both being upon the same level with respect to our forming any abstract conception or idea of them; it is unreasonable that men should insist upon having such an idea of grace, when they cannot have a like idea of number or force. But to what purpose is all this? For the objection, as it is stated by infidels supposeth no such thing; nor doth he himself mention any sort of abstract ideas in any part of it, to give even a colour to his being so prolix in discanting upon them in his answer. No, the whole strength of their objection is resolved into this; that they can obtain no ideas, either general or particular, either in the abstract or in the concrete, either clear or obscure, distinct or indeterminate, of things divine and spiritual contained in the gospel mysteries; different from the ideas of common worldly objects: nor of grace in particular, different from that of human grace or favour; and therefore they reject it as an insignificant term, without any real and useful meaning when taken in a divine and religious sence. They do not insist upon ideas of things divine and spiritual, rendred general by abstraction from all the particulars; nor upon such as become general by one of the particulars being made to stand for an indefinite number of things of the same kind, which is the true abstraction: no nor upon an idea of divine grace abstracted from the cause operating, from the subject operated upon, and from the effects produced; as he groundlessly supposes in his answer. But what they demand is, any ideas of them as different from all the ideas and conceptions of things sensible and human, as these are from things imperceptible and divine: and accordingly they tell you that when they look inward for such ideas to annex to the terms, their mind is an empty void; and therefore they look no farther than the strictly proper and formal and literal acceptation of those words.
(pp. 164-5)",,11833,Browne attacks Berkeley's theory of language,"""But what they demand is, any ideas of them as different from all the ideas and conceptions of things sensible and human, as these are from things imperceptible and divine: and accordingly they tell you that when they look inward for such ideas to annex to the terms, their mind is an empty void; and therefore they look no farther than the strictly proper and formal and literal acceptation of those words.""","",2013-09-28 14:17:49 UTC,""
4495,"",Reading,2011-03-31 21:46:51 UTC,"IX. Atheism therefore, that bugbear of women and fools, is the very top and perfection of free-thinking. It is the grand arcanum to which a true genius naturally riseth, by a certain climax or gradation of thought, and without which he can never possess his soul in absolute liberty and repose. For your thorough conviction in this main article, do but examine the notion of a God with the same freedom that you would other prejudices. Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fancies, and prejudices of all kinds; and if you are more attached to this than the rest, it is only because it is the oldest. This is all, take my word for it, and not mine only, but that of many more the most ingenious men of the age, who, I can assure you, think as I do on the subject of a deity. Though some of them hold it proper to proceed with more reserve in declaring to the world their opinion in this particular, than in most others. And it must be owned, there are still too many in England who retain a foolish prejudice against the name of atheist. But it lessens every day among the better sort: and when it is quite worn out, our free-thinkers may then (and not till then) be said to have given the finishing stroke to religion; it being evident that so long as the existence of God is believed, religion must subsist in some shape or other. But the root being once plucked up, the scions which shot from it will of course wither and decay. Such are all those whimsical notions of conscience, duty, principle, and the like, which fill a man's head with scruples, awe him with fears, and make him a more thorough slave than the horse he rides. A man had better a thousand things be hunted by bailiffs or messengers than haunted by these spectres, which embarrass and embitter all his pleasures, creating the most real and sore servitude upon earth. But the free-thinker, with a vigorous flight of thought, breaks through those airy springes, and asserts his original independency. Others indeed may talk, and write, and fight about liberty, and make an outward pretence to it; but the free-thinker alone is truly free.
(pp. 44-5)",,18272,INTEREST. USE: Mention in ROOMS?,"""Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fancies, and prejudices of all kinds; and if you are more attached to this than the rest, it is only because it is the oldest.""",Rooms,2011-03-31 21:46:51 UTC,Dialogue I
6866,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-24 20:58:50 UTC,"It may be laid down as a position which will seldom deceive, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong. He must fly from himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the equipoise of an empty mind, which, having no tendency to one motion more than another, but as it is impelled by some external power, must always have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrusion of some unpleasing ideas, and perhaps is struggling to escape from the remembrance of a loss, the fear of a calamity, or some other thought of greater horrour.
(pp. 29-30)",,18476,"","""He must fly from himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the equipoise of an empty mind, which, having no tendency to one motion more than another, but as it is impelled by some external power, must always have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrusion of some unpleasing ideas, and perhaps is struggling to escape from the remembrance of a loss, the fear of a calamity, or some other thought of greater horrour.""","",2011-05-24 20:58:50 UTC,""
6871,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-24 21:38:31 UTC,"You know, Mr. Rambler, that ambition is natural to youth, and curiosity to understanding, and therefore will hear, without wonder, that I was desirous to extend my victories over those who might give more honour to the conqueror; and that I found in a country life a continual repetition of the same pleasures, which was not sufficient to fill up the mind for the present, or raise any expectations of the future; and I will confess to you, that I was impatient for a sight of the town, and filled my thoughts with the discoveries which I should make, the triumphs that I should obtain, and the praises that I should receive.
(pp. 96-7)",,18492,"","""I found in a country life a continual repetition of the same pleasures, which was not sufficient to fill up the mind for the present, or raise any expectations of the future; and I will confess to you, that I was impatient for a sight of the town, and filled my thoughts with the discoveries which I should make, the triumphs that I should obtain, and the praises that I should receive.""","",2011-05-24 21:38:31 UTC,""
6879,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-25 02:58:54 UTC,"We have no longer any possibility of great vicissitudes in our favour; the changes which are to happen in the world will come too late for our accommodation; and those who have no hope before them, and to whom their present state is painful and irksome, must of necessity turn their thoughts back to try what retrospect will afford. It ought, therefore, to be the care of those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired.
(pp. 269-70)",,18506,"","""It ought, therefore, to be the care of those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired.""",Coinage,2012-04-25 19:45:15 UTC,""
6882,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-25 03:09:07 UTC,"Of the passions with which the mind of man is agitated, it may be observed, that they naturally hasten towards their own extinction, by inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges our flight, and desire animates our progress; and if there are some which perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their satisfaction, as it is frequently observed of avarice and ambition, yet their immediate tendency is to some means of happiness really existing, and generally within the prospect. The miser always imagines that there is a certain sum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquisition in his thoughts that is to terminate his labours, after which he shall pass the rest of his life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.
(p. 302)",,18509,"","""The miser always imagines that there is a certain sum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquisition in his thoughts that is to terminate his labours, after which he shall pass the rest of his life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.""","",2011-05-25 03:09:07 UTC,""
6891,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-25 16:03:35 UTC,"Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the ancients than orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man who has survived all the companions of his youth, all who have participated his pleasures and his cares, have been engaged in the same events, and filled their minds with the same conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude. He stands forlorn and silent, neglected or insulted, in the midst of multitudes, animated with hopes which he cannot share, and employed in business which he is no longer able to forward or retard; nor can he find any to whom his life or his death are of importance, unless he has secured some domestick gratifications, some tender employments, and endeared himself to some whose interest and gratitude may unite them to him.
(p. 87)",,18527,"","""Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the ancients than orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man who has survived all the companions of his youth, all who have participated his pleasures and his cares, have been engaged in the same events, and filled their minds with the same conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.""","",2011-05-25 16:03:35 UTC,""