work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3396,Ruling Passion,Reading,2011-06-24 18:43:58 UTC,"[...] So, in This particular, Men themselves, even Wise men and Learned, the Rich and the Potent, the cunning and the most sensible in other Affairs, are very frequently imposed upon, (I would say, impose upon themselves,) and love to be deceived, and take pains to abuse their own Understandings; and, while they love Liberty above all things, embrace Slavery in the stead thereof; shutting their Eyes, and calling things by false Names, and stiling Bondage Liberty, and Liberty Bondage. For while All men contend for Liberty, wherein does the greater part of the World imagine true Liberty to consist? Most men seem to place it in being allowed to let loose the Reins to all their Appetites and Passions without controul; to be under no restraint either from the Laws of Men, or from the Fear of God. Princes generally think it to consist in having the Power of tyrannizing over the multitude of their Subjects, and sacrificing the common Rights and Properties of Mankind to their own single and unreasonable Ambition. The common People, are apt to place it in unbounded Licentiousness, and having no superiour but the Humour of the Multitude. The Covetous person would gladly be allowed to increase his Treasure by some shorter steps than those of honest Industry and patient Labour. The Debauchee thinks no Chains more troublesom, than those which would confine his Pleasures from irregularity and excess. And oh! how happy would the revengeful spirit be, might he but have Liberty to satisfy his Malice, without present Shame or future Danger! This, 'tis to be feared, is the Notion too great a part of Mankind have of Liberty. And what a Liberty is This? Is it not like the Liberty a Madman desires, of being permitted to destroy himself? Is it any thing more, than a Liberty to chuse the worst of Slaveries, and to exchange the Government of a most reasonable Master, for that of the worst and cruellest Tyrant? For, what does the Ambitious Prince or the Licentious Multitude; what does the Covetous, and Revengeful, or the Debauched Sinner; but only chuse to be a Servant to Passion, instead of a Follower of Right Reason? What is it that makes a Beast be a Creature of less Liberty than Man, but only that its natural Appetites more necessarily govern all its Actions, and that it is not indued with a Faculty of Reason, whereby to exert itself, and gain a Power or Liberty of over-ruling those Appetites? For if the true Liberty of a Moral Agent does not principally consist in the Power of over-ruling such Appetites; wherein lies the Excellency of humane Nature at all, above the inferiour Creation ? Or what superiority has Man above the Beasts that perish, in any Moral regard; if his greater Knowledge and Understanding serves only to make him feel and be sensible of his Subjection to those lower Appetites, which the other Creatures are naturally subject to, without being sensible or having any uneasy Reflections that they are so? Is not the Difference, in such a Case, This only, that the Man is really the greater Slave, or has the less Liberty of the Two, because He only is by his Reason capable of understanding that he wants it? If a man's Body be under confinement, or he be impotent in his Limbs, he is then deprived of his bodily Liberty: And for the same Reason, if his Mind be blinded by sottish Errors, and his Reason overruled by violent Passions; is not This likewise plainly as great a Slavery and as true a Confinement? For, to whomsoever men yield themselves servants to obey, (as the Apostle excellently expresses it,) are they not his servants to whom they obey, Rom. vi. 16. and of whomsoever a man is overcome, of the same also is he not brought in bondage, 2 Pet. ii. 19?
(pp. 8-11)",,18810,"","""Most men seem to place it in being allowed to let loose the Reins to all their Appetites and Passions without controul; to be under no restraint either from the Laws of Men, or from the Fear of God.""",Beasts,2011-06-24 18:54:53 UTC,""
4050,"",Searching in Past Masters,2011-07-27 03:21:30 UTC,"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.",,18997,"","""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.""",Beasts,2011-07-27 03:21:41 UTC,"Section 45. Transferring of Thoughts
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