updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-09-14 19:43:09 UTC,15252,"""I conceive that a newly created spiritual substance would be a perfect tabula rasa, without a single idea till it was supplied by its own experience and reflection; nor can I understand how matter, mere matter, unconnected with a really active substance, could begin to perceive or reflect at all. I conceive the highest and most perfect spirits which God first created to have made almost infinite improvements in wisdom and understanding, in the long duration of their existence, and to be still making daily additions. This I take to be the very case with the human mind, when it exerts itself with diligence, and has leisure and means of improvement. the external senses certainly grow more dull and inefficient by time, and we often find the most sublime mental attainments in those who have long lost the organs of both sight and hearing.""
(p. 13n.)",Blank Slate; Materialism,"""I conceive that a newly created spiritual substance would be a perfect tabula rasa, without a single idea till it was supplied by its own experience and reflection; nor can I understand how matter, mere matter, unconnected with a really active substance, could begin to perceive or reflect at all.""",5722,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,•Holmes doesn't say if (or whom) he is quoting. REVISIT.,"",Writing
2009-09-14 19:43:32 UTC,15392,"Let us then suppose the mind to be (as we say) white paper, void of all character; without any ideas; how comes it to be furnished with them?--Now mark how fairly Dr. Beattie has quoted this passage. Locke does not say, previous to education, the soul is like white paper. For, as education does not take place till the work of self-instruction is nearly finished, and the mind is not only well stored with ideas, but has also learned many of the words by which we express them, this would be to make him assert, that before persons began to instruct children, they did not distinguish between pleasure and pain, light and darkness, sweet and bitters; but that their ideas of these things were derived from our instruction. Again, when he uses the metaphor of white paper, &c. he marks very clearly, by the terms (as we [end page 68] say that it is not strict philosophical language, but designed as an elucidation of the subject, addressed through the medium of the senses, to the conceptions of the world in general. Dr. Beattie asserts that it is the most unlucky allusion; I maintain it to be the most happy that could have been selected for expressing a pure capacity of receiving ideas. The admired simile of the ancients, wax, quidquid cerá imitaberis udá, would not express it with half the propriety: for it has naturally a yellow colour; white paper has none; the former retains any impression merely until some other is given to it; the latter preserves the first with the most obstinate perseverance. He says that the soul is not extended; but in all his works Mr. Locke does not give the most remote hint that it is; nay, had he asserted any such thing, he must have contradicted himself, since he offers arguments in favour both of the immateriality and materiality of the soul; the former of which seems to preponderate with him, and of course consistency must prevent him from ascribing to it any property of mat- [end page 69] ter. This quality of extension Dr. Beattie has inferred from the metaphor of white paper, by a most unpardonable perversion of language, concluding that whatever was compared to any thing in one respect, must bear and exact resemblance to it in every other also; but this is doubly absurd in a man who is not a poet, and deeply versed in scripture: for surely Homer compares one of his heroes to an ass cudgelled out of a field by a parcel of boys; when the Indian asserts himself to be a turkey perched on a tree watching the steps of the hunter; or when Solomon, under the figure of two young rose, depicts the resilient breast of his mistress; the intention was to mark inflexibility, apprehension, and elasticity: not to degrade men, endued with reason and speech, to the level of beasts, devoid of each. This imperfect conception of the metaphor introduced by Locke, betrays his Commentator into a variety of most palpable blunders. The soul, says he, is not of a white colour: but can he presume to insinuate that Locke would ascribe any colour [end page 70] to the soul, when he seems inclined to deem it immaterial? But had he metaphorically attributed whiteness to it, it would be more allowable than any other metaphor, since the term expresses not any of the primary or positive colours, but merely an effect produced by the reflection and refraction of them all, and of course might be most aptly used by an immaterialists, to designate the energy of the mind by which it derives, from the source of sensation, certain notions, which it new modifies, in such a manner that they scarcely bear any resemblance to the primary sensations. [...]
(pp. 68-71)",Blank Slate; Lockean Philosophy; Meta-metaphorical,"""Again, when he uses the metaphor of white paper, &c. he marks very clearly, by the terms (as we [end page 68] say that it is not strict philosophical language, but designed as an elucidation of the subject, addressed through the medium of the senses, to the conceptions of the world in general.""",5774,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,•Long and INTERESTing passage. REVISIT. META-METAPHORICAL,"",Writing
2009-09-14 19:44:01 UTC,15579,"Therefore I take the mind or soul of men to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all impressions, as a rasa tabula, or white paper, &c.
(p. 14)",Blank Slate; Lockean Philosophy,"""Therefore I take the mind or soul of men to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all impressions, as a rasa tabula, or white paper, &c.""",5849,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,"•A footnote to this passage cites, Watts Essay, p. 106.",Chap IV. §19,Writing
2013-10-27 02:46:29 UTC,15580,"The mind is not a rasa tabula, though, at the same time, it must be allowed, we gain no actual knowledge of the latent ideas which it possesses, but as they are awakened by reflection and experience. In the human frame, sensibility is first unfolded, next instinct, then memory; after these, the understanding; and last of all, the [illegible: will?]. All the faculties are rendered active, a short time after birth; but a considerable space of time passes, before they are perfectly developed. The infant at first has only particular sensations; objects appear unconnected: when the number of these sensations, however, are multiplied, the child compares them; perceives their identity or difference; begins to range them in certain classes, according to analogy, and to form ideas. From this instant, the innate desire of happiness has its determinate object, and the will pursues some known good. Is not an animal, also, in general brought forth with every one of its external members? And does it not complete its growth, not by the pro- [end page 143] duction of any new member, but by addition of matter to those already formed? The same holds true with respect to internal members: these are coeval with the individual, and are as gradually unfolded.
(III, Letter LV, pp. 143-4)",Blank Slate,"""The mind is not a rasa tabula, though, at the same time, it must be allowed, we gain no actual knowledge of the latent ideas which it possesses, but as they are awakened by reflection and experience.""",5850,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,Negated Metaphor,Letter LV,Writing
2013-10-27 02:47:30 UTC,15581,"[...] And in the same manner, it is to be presumed, they were gifted with the primeval use of language. For id the frame of the human body cannot give the soul the power of moving itself, without the immediate help of God, much less can it endue the soul with the power of reasoning. The artifices of the bee, and the ant, are ascribed to the wisdom of nature; those of the human intellect, to an incomprehensible growth. The rasa tabula will not allow us to have mental ideas. The fashionable modern philosophy will not allow us the faculty of speech. Thus, man, who prides himself in being the lord of the creation, comes into the world in a worse state than the hedge-hog, without either ideas or language. The individual in every age, it is said, has the same race to run from infancy to manhood; and every infant, or every ignorant person, now, is a model of what man was in his original state. He enters on his career with the advantages indeed peculiar to his age; but, his natural talent is precisely the same. This may be admitted: but, hear Buffon. ""The beavers,"" says he, ""afford perhaps the only subsisting monument of the [illegible: ---nt] intelligence of brutes; for as man has [end page 193] risen above a state of nature, so the other animals have sunk below that standard. To break a branch, and to make a staff of it; to build a hut, and to cover it with leaves for shelter; to collect hay or moss, and to make a bed of these materials, are operations common to the animal and the savage. The beavers build huts, the monkies carry staves, and several other animals make commodious and neat houses, which are impenetrable to water. To sharpen a stone by friction to make a hatchet of it, to use this hatchet for cutting or peeling bark off trees, for pointing arrows for hollowing a vessel, or for slaying an animal in order to cloth themselves with its skin, to make bow-strings of its sinews, to fix the sinews to a hard thorn or bone, and to use them for needles and thread,--these are not [in?]comparable to what is observed in the beaver. The operations of these animals are the fruits of wisdom and society. [...]
(III, Letter LVI, pp. 193-4)",Blank Slate,"""The rasa tabula will not allow us to have mental ideas.""",5850,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,"•Goes on to compare beavers with the Hottentots: ""Live the Hottentots, think you, in so comfortable and so snug a manner as this?""",Letter LVI,Writing
2009-09-14 19:44:06 UTC,15607,"You come, the successor of a Viceroy, whose name may serve as a date in the margin of Irish history, but will never once be noticed in its page. Public, without being known; little heard of, though often seen; he sat at the council board a listless automaton, or galloped through the city, the terror of old women, and the envy of school-boys. When made Master of the Horse, he has fulfilled his destiny, and arrived at that point of animal perfection, for which alone nature and education had designed him. Yet, my Lord, you will perhaps experience with one or two of you predecessors, that the best qualifications for a continuance in the Lieutenancy of Ireland are those of a negative kind. A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the official transmission of their address; and then submit to be passed by with a contemptuous neglect, equally degrading to the honour of the man, and the dignity of the station:--such are the qualities best suited to complete the lustrum of an Irish Lord Lieutenancy.
(pp. 2-3)",Blank Slate,"""A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the official transmission of their address; and then submit to be passed by with a contemptuous neglect, equally degrading to the honour of the man, and the dignity of the station:--such are the qualities best suited to complete the lustrum of an Irish Lord Lieutenancy.""",5868,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,"•Drennan was a friend of Francis Hutcheson. Irish radical. First to call Ireland the ""emerald isle.""","",Writing
2009-09-14 19:44:06 UTC,15608,"[...] These just sentiments, it is true, are awakened in us, and strengthened, by early culture and habit, by traditionary notions, by revelation, and by grace: but still the faculty which suggests, or embraces, them is the original gift of the Creator; it is our REASON; and essential part of our Spiritual Being, as vision or taste is of our Animal or Corporeal; which three faculties must be all equally corrupted, or mutilated, before they can cease to distinguish, each in it's receptive office, moral ""good from evil, light from darkness, and sweet from bitter."" The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear: ""upon the tabula or paper you may write what you please; that wormwood is sweet, and sugar is bitter; that gratitude and envy noble; but no art or industry are capable of making those impressions on the mind: she hath predetermined tastes and sentiments, which arise from a source that is beyond experience, custom, or choice."" This [end page 91] can be no other than the Constitution which the Creator hath given her: and these essential tastes and sentiments server her as an immediate rule of action, and as One instrument of discerning their Archetypes in His Allperfect Will. But if you wish to ascend higher, and to ask, what is the rule of action to the Supreme Creator himself; what is the measure of that Sovereign Will which is a Law to the Universe; turn to the beginning of Mr. Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity: which I mention to you, not only for a just and reverent answer to this question, and for the further instruction which those few pages will afford you; but also as an early introduction to that Excellent and Judicious Person: and I hope You will soon be able to apply the saying of Quintilian, ""Ille se profecisse sciat, cui Cicero valde placebit.""
(pp. 91-2)",Blank Slate,"""The infant mind has been compared to a tabula rasa, or sheet of clean paper: but there is this essential difference, as hath been well observed, between the opposite objects of comparison they are not both equally Indifferent to the inscription which they are to bear.""",5869,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,"•I've included twice: Tabula Rasa and Paper
•Cross-reference: All three quotations are cited. The first is Isaiah 5:20, the second is Ussher, Introduction to the Theory of the Human Mind, section 3, the third is Instit. Orator x.1. Napleton takes some light liberties with the quotation from Ussher. ","",Writing
2009-09-14 19:44:17 UTC,15668,"In young persons it is otherwise. Theirs is the tear, in many instances at least, ""forgot as soon as shed."" Their minds are like a sheet of white paper, which takes any impression that it is proposed to make upon it. Their pleasures are, to a degree, pure and unadulterated. This is a circumstance considerably enviable.
(p. 70)",Blank Slate,"""Their [young persons'] minds are like a sheet of white paper, which takes any impression that it is proposed to make upon it.""",5901,2005-10-26,Reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate (11). Full citation found in ECCO.,2005-07-14 00:00:00 UTC,"•Pinker actually quotes ""children are a sort of raw material put into our hands [their minds are] like a sheet of white paper."" Is this actually a differenct use of the same metaphor. REVISIT and follow citation. ",Part I. Of the Happiness of Youth,Writing
2011-03-26 18:23:11 UTC,18258,"From a blind idea of the usefulness of such abstract science, my father had been desirous, and even pressing, that I should devote some time to the mathematics; nor could I refuse to comply with so reasonable a wish. During two winters I attended the private lectures of Monsieur de Traytorrens, who explained the elements of algebra and geometry, as far as the conic sections of the Marquis de l'Hopital, and appeared satisfied with my diligence and improvement. But as my childish propensity for numbers and calculations was totally extinct, I was content to receive the passive impression of my Professor's lectures, without any active exercise of my own powers. As soon as I understood the principles, I relinquished for ever the pursuit of the mathematics; nor can I lament that I desisted, before my mind was hardened by the habit of rigid demonstration, so destructive of the finer feelings of moral evidence, which must, however, determine the actions and opinions of our lives. I listened with more pleasure to the proposal of studying the law of nature and nations, which was taught in the academy of Lausanne by Mr. Vicat, a professor of some learning and reputation. But instead of attending his public or private course, I preferred in my closet the lessons of his masters, and my own reason. Without being disgusted by Grotius or Puffendorf, I studied in their writings the duties of a man, the rights of a citizen, the theory of justice (it is, alas! a theory), and the laws of peace and war, which have had some influence on the practice of modern Europe. My fatigues were alleviated by the good sense of their commentator Barbeyrac. Locke's Treatise of Government instructed me in the knowledge of Whig principles, which are rather founded in reason than experience; but my delight was in the frequent perusal of Montesquieu, whose energy of style, and boldness of hypothesis, were powerful to awaken and stimulate the genius of the age. The logic of De Crousaz had prepared me to engage with his master Locke and his antagonist Bayle; of whom the former may be used as a bridle, and the latter applied as a spur, to the curiosity of a young philosopher. According to the nature of their respective works, the schools of argument and objection, I carefully went through the Essay on Human Understanding, and occasionally consulted the most interesting articles of the Philosophic Dictionary. In the infancy of my reason I turned over, as an idle amusement, the most serious and important treatise: in its maturity, the most trifling performance could exercise my taste or judgment, and more than once I have been led by a novel into a deep and instructive train of thinking. But I cannot forbear to mention three particular books, since they may have remotely contributed to form the historian of the Roman empire. 1. From the Provincial Letters of Pascal, which almost every year I have perused with new pleasure, I learned to manage the weapon of grave and temperate irony, even on subjects of ecclesiastical solemnity. 2. The Life of Julian, by the Abbe de la Bleterie, first introduced me to the man and the times; and I should be glad to recover my first essay on the truth of the miracle which stopped the rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem. 3. In Giannone's Civil History of Naples I observed with a critical eye the progress and abuse of sacerdotal power, and the revolutions of Italy in the darker ages. This various reading, which I now conducted with discretion, was digested, according to the precept and model of Mr. Locke, into a large common-place book; a practice, however, which I do not strenuously recommend. The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, No. 74.) ""that what is twice read, is commonly better remembered, than what is transcribed.""
(pp. 79-81)","","""The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, No. 74.) 'that what is twice read, is commonly better remembered, than what is transcribed.'""",5712,,Reading,2011-03-26 18:23:11 UTC,USE IN Entry,"",Writing
2011-05-19 20:08:06 UTC,18432,"While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost, ""renounced and abdicated for ever,"" by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the living world, and emphatically says: ""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:--For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it."" How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labours! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.
(p. 207)","","""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all.""",6855,,Reading,2011-05-19 20:07:58 UTC,"",Part One,Writing