work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4155,Animal Spirits,"Reading John Yolton's Thinking Matter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 168.",2005-05-25 00:00:00 UTC,"Phil.
[...] From this we may further conclude, that as the Soul acts not immediately upon Bone, Flesh, Blood &c. nor they upon that, so there must be some exquisitely small Particles, that are the Internuncii between them, by the help of which they manifest themselves to each other.
Misom.
All these latter Conclusions I grant: The Internuncii you speak of, are the Animal Spirits, and that they are the intermediate Officers between the Soul and the grosser parts of the Body no Man denies; but that the Spirits, which compose the Stomachick Ferment, should be of a finer sort than those by whose Musculary Motions and other actions of force are perform'd, is not only a supposition, but in my Opinion a strangely odd one, that has not a shadow of Reason or probability in it.
Phil.
Do you think it a natural consequence from what we know of all manner of flitring, or straining, that some of the Animal Spirits must infinitely differ from others in fineness and subtilty?
(pp. 125-6)",2012-04-10,10699,•At issue in dialogue is whether spirits think or are employed in thinking.,"""From this we may further conclude, that as the Soul acts not immediately upon Bone, Flesh, Blood &c. nor they upon that, so there must be some exquisitely small Particles, that are the Internuncii between them, by the help of which they manifest themselves to each other.""",Inhabitants,2012-04-10 21:10:58 UTC,""
4155,"","Reading John Yolton's Thinking Matter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 169.
",2005-05-25 00:00:00 UTC,"Misom
Then you would have this variously disposing of the Images to be the work of the Spirits, that act under the Soul, as so many Labourers under some great Architect.
Phil.
I would so: And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking, in quest of the Images we want, and when we have forgot a Word or Sentence, which yet we are sure the great Treasury of Images received our Memory has once been charged with, we may almost feel how some of the Spirits flying through all the Mazes and Meanders rommage the whole substance of the Brain; whilst others ferret themselves into the inmost recesses of it with so much eagerness and labour, that the difficulty they meet with some times makes us uneasie, and they often bewilder themselves in their search, till at last they light by chance on the Image that contains what they look'd for, or else dragging it, as it were, by piece-meals from the dark Caverns of oblivion, represent what they can find of it to our Imagination.
(pp. 130-1)",2012-04-10,10700,•At issue in dialogue is whether spirits think or are employed in thinking.,"""Then you would have this variously disposing of the Images to be the work of the Spirits, that act under the Soul, as so many Labourers under some great Architect.""",Inhabitants,2012-04-10 20:56:04 UTC,""
4155,Animal Spirits,"Reading. Encountered again in Jayne Lewis's ""Dialectic of Bewilderment,"" Eighteenth-Century Fiction 31, no. 3 (Spring 2019): 575–595, 575.",2012-04-10 20:59:47 UTC,"Misom
Then you would have this variously disposing of the Images to be the work of the Spirits, that act under the Soul, as so many Labourers under some great Architect.
Phil.
I would so: And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking, in quest of the Images we want, and when we have forgot a Word or Sentence, which yet we are sure the great Treasury of Images received our Memory has once been charged with, we may almost feel how some of the Spirits flying through all the Mazes and Meanders rommage the whole substance of the Brain; whilst others ferret themselves into the inmost recesses of it with so much eagerness and labour, that the difficulty they meet with some times makes us uneasie, and they often bewilder themselves in their search, till at last they light by chance on the Image that contains what they look'd for, or else dragging it, as it were, by piece-meals from the dark Caverns of oblivion, represent what they can find of it to our Imagination.
(pp. 130-1)",,19677,RICH PASSAGE. INTEREST. REVISIT.,"""And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking, in quest of the Images we want, and when we have forgot a Word or Sentence, which yet we are sure the great Treasury of Images received our Memory has once been charged with, we may almost feel how some of the Spirits flying through all the Mazes and Meanders rommage the whole substance of the Brain; whilst others ferret themselves into the inmost recesses of it with so much eagerness and labour, that the difficulty they meet with some times makes us uneasie, and they often bewilder themselves in their search, till at last they light by chance on the Image that contains what they look'd for, or else dragging it, as it were, by piece-meals from the dark Caverns of oblivion, represent what they can find of it to our Imagination.""",Inhabitants,2020-07-14 18:00:25 UTC,""
4155,"",Reading,2012-04-10 21:00:41 UTC,"Phil.
I have asserted already, that the Soul consists in thinking, of which matter is incapable, and do not say the Spirits that think, but the Spirits, that are employ'd in the act of thinking: We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools.
(pp. 128-9)",,19678,"","""We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools.""","",2012-04-10 21:00:41 UTC,""
4155,"",Reading,2012-04-10 21:11:49 UTC,"Phil.
[...] From this we may further conclude, that as the Soul acts not immediately upon Bone, Flesh, Blood &c. nor they upon that, so there must be some exquisitely small Particles, that are the Internuncii between them, by the help of which they manifest themselves to each other.
Misom.
All these latter Conclusions I grant: The Internuncii you speak of, are the Animal Spirits, and that they are the intermediate Officers between the Soul and the grosser parts of the Body no Man denies; but that the Spirits, which compose the Stomachick Ferment, should be of a finer sort than those by whose Musculary Motions and other actions of force are perform'd, is not only a supposition, but in my Opinion a strangely odd one, that has not a shadow of Reason or probability in it.
Phil.
Do you think it a natural consequence from what we know of all manner of flitring, or straining, that some of the Animal Spirits must infinitely differ from others in fineness and subtilty?
(pp. 125-6)",,19679,"","""The Internuncii you speak of, are the Animal Spirits, and that they are the intermediate Officers between the Soul and the grosser parts of the Body no Man denies.""",Inhabitants,2012-04-10 21:11:49 UTC,""