work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4610,"",Searching in Past Masters,2003-09-18 00:00:00 UTC,"I answer, that after the first and second decision, as the action of the mind becomes forced and unnatural, and the ideas faint and obscure, though the principles of judgment, and the balancing of opposite causes be the same as at the very beginning, yet their influence on the imagination, and the vigour they add to, or diminish from, the thought, is by no means equal. Where the mind reaches not its objects with easiness and facility, the same principles have not the same effect as in a more natural conception of the ideas; nor does the imagination feel a sensation, which holds any proportion with that which arises from its common judgments and opinions. The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel.
(I.iv.1, p. 124 in Oxford ed.) ",2010-09-26,12134,•spirits--as in previous Hume citation,"""The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel.""","",2017-04-04 15:28:58 UTC,I.iv.1
4610,"",Past Masters,2003-09-18 00:00:00 UTC,"If we desire similar instances, it will not be very difficult to find them. The present subject of metaphysics will supply us abundantly. The same argument, which would have been esteemed convincing in a reasoning concerning history or politics, has little or no influence in these abstruser subjects, even though it be perfectly comprehended; and that because there is required a study and an effort of thought, in order to its being comprehended: and this effort of thought disturbs the operation of our sentiments, on which the belief depends. The case is the same in other subjects. The straining of the imagination always hinders the regular flowing of the passions and sentiments. A tragic poet, that would represent his heroes as very ingenious and witty in their misfortunes, would never touch the passions. As the emotions of the soul prevent any subtile reasoning and reflection, so these latter actions of the mind are equally prejudicial to the former. The mind, as well as the body, seems to be endowed with a certain precise degree of force and activity, which it never employs in one action, but at the expence of all the rest. This is more evidently true, where the actions are of quite different natures; since in that case the force of the mind is not only diverted, but even the disposition changed, so as to render us incapable of a sudden transition from one action to the other, and still more of performing both at once. No wonder, then, the conviction, which arises from a subtile reasoning, diminishes in proportion to the efforts which the imagination makes to enter into the reasoning, and to conceive it in all its parts. Belief, being a lively conception, can never be entire, where it is not founded on something natural and easy.
(I.iv.1) ",2010-09-26,12135,"•Mind and body. Hume's favorite analogies border on materialism, no?","""The mind, as well as the body, seems to be endowed with a certain precise degree of force and activity, which it never employs in one action, but at the expence of all the rest.""","",2010-09-27 01:38:17 UTC,I.iv.1
4610,"","Searching in Past Masters; found again searching ""mind"" and ""theatre""",2003-09-18 00:00:00 UTC,"But setting aside some metaphysicians of this kind, I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight; and all our other senses and faculties contribute to this change: nor is there any single power of the soul, which remains unalterably the same, perhaps for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity in different, whatever natural propension we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity. The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind ; nor have we the most distant notion of the place where these scenes are represented, or of the materials of which it is composed.
(I.iv.6) ",2010-09-26,12137,"•Hume's first real, robust metaphor in the Treatise?
•Note the qualification, ""is a kind of""
•This is also a kind of Population metaphor. REVISIT for conversation essay.
•This is the second time Hume has talked about postures... INTEREST?","""The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.""",Theater,2010-09-27 01:49:03 UTC,""
4610,"",Searching in Past Masters,2003-09-29 00:00:00 UTC,"It is usual with anatomists to join their observations and experiments on human bodies to those on beasts; and, from the agreement of these experiments, to derive an additional argument for any particular hypothesis. It is indeed certain, that where the structure of parts in brutes is the same as in men, and the operation of these parts also the same, the causes of that operation cannot be different; and that whatever we discover to be true of the one species, may be concluded, without hesitation, to be certain of the other. Thus, though the mixture of humours, and the composition of minute parts, may justly be presumed to be somewhat different in men from what it is in mere animals, and therefore any experiment we make upon the one concerning the effects of medicines, will not always apply to the other, yet, as the structure of the veins and muscles, the fabric and situation of the heart, of the lungs, the stomach, the liver, and other parts, are the same or nearly the same in all animals, the very same hypothesis, which in one species explains muscular motion, the progress of the chyle, the circulation of the blood, must be applicable to every one; and, according as it agrees or disagrees with the experiments we may make in any species of creatures, we may draw a proof of its truth or falsehood on the whole. Let us therefore apply this method of enquiry, which is found so just and useful in reasonings concerning the body, to our present anatomy of the mind, and see what discoveries we can make by it.
(II.i.12) ",2010-09-26,12139,"","""Let us therefore apply this method of enquiry, which is found so just and useful in reasonings concerning the body, to our present anatomy of the mind, and see what discoveries we can make by it.""","",2010-09-27 01:54:17 UTC,II.i.12
4610,Mind and Body,Past Masters,2003-09-29 00:00:00 UTC,"We may therefore infer, that benevolence and anger are passions different from love and hatred, and only conjoined with them by the original constitution of the mind. As nature has given to the body certain appetites and inclinations, which she encreases, diminishes, or changes according to the situation of the fluids or solids, she has proceeded in the same manner with the mind. According as we are possessed with love or hatred, the correspondent desire of the happiness or misery of the person who is the object of these passions, arises in the mind , and varies with each variation of these opposite passions. This order of things, abstractedly considered, is not necessary. Love and hatred might have been unattended with any such desires, or their particular connexion might have been entirely reversed. If nature had so pleased, love might have had the same effect as hatred, and hatred as love. I see no contradiction in supposing a desire of producing misery annexed to love, and of happiness to hatred. If the sensation of the passion and desire be opposite, nature could have altered the sensation without altering the tendency of the desire, and by that means made them compatible with each other.
(II.ii.6)",2010-09-26,12143,"","""As nature has given to the body certain appetites and inclinations, which she encreases, diminishes, or changes according to the situation of the fluids or solids, she has proceeded in the same manner with the mind.""","",2010-09-27 02:00:44 UTC,II.ii.6
4610,Mind and Body,Past Masters,2003-09-29 00:00:00 UTC,"Are the changes of our body from infancy to old age more regular and certain than those of our mind and conduct? And would a man be more ridiculous, who would expect that an infant of four years old will raise a weight of three hundred pounds, than one who, from a person of the same age, would look for a philosophical reasoning, or a prudent and well concerted action?
(II.iii.1)",2010-09-26,12144,"","""Are the changes of our body from infancy to old age more regular and certain than those of our mind and conduct.""","",2010-09-27 02:01:41 UTC,""
4610,Personal Identity,Reading,2003-10-29 00:00:00 UTC,"We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England, where all the abstruser sciences are study'd with a peculiar ardour and application. And here 'tis evident, the same method of reasoning must be continu'd, which has so successfuly explain'd the identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies. It cannot, therefore, have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects.
(I.iv.6) ",,12153,"•Note that this figure and the previous entries in do not explicitly refer to the mind or the soul. The passage does appear in the section titled ""Of personal identity.""
•Two entries: 'Garden' and 'Body'
","""The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies.""","",2009-09-14 19:36:39 UTC,""
6797,"",Reading,2011-02-20 21:55:01 UTC,"And can vigorous industry give pleasure to the pursuit even of the most worthless prey, which frequently escapes our toils? And cannot the same industry render the cultivating of our mind, the moderating of our passions, the enlightening of our reason, an agreeable occupation; while we are every day sensible of our progress, and behold our inward features and countenance brightening incessantly with new charms? Begin by curing yourself of this lethargic indolence; the task is not difficult: You need but taste the sweets of honest labour. Proceed to learn the just value of every pursuit; long study is not requisite: Compare, though but for once, the mind to the body, virtue to fortune, and glory to pleasure. You will then perceive the advantages of industry: You will then be sensible what are the proper objects of your industry.
(pp. 149-50)",,18147,"","""Proceed to learn the just value of every pursuit; long study is not requisite: Compare, though but for once, the mind to the body, virtue to fortune, and glory to pleasure.""","",2011-02-20 21:55:01 UTC,""
4610,"",Reading,2011-03-07 17:58:35 UTC,"Since the imagination, therefore, in running from low to high, finds an opposition in its internal qualities and principles, and since the soul, when elevated with joy and courage, in a manner seeks opposition, and throws itself with alacrity into any scene of thought or action where its courage meets with matter to nourish and employ it, it follows that every thing which invigorates and enlivens the soul, whether by touching the passions or imagination, naturally conveys to the fancy this inclination for ascent, and determines it to run against the natural stream of its thoughts and conceptions. This aspiring progress of the imagination suits the present disposition of the mind; and the difficulty, instead of extinguishing its vigour and alacrity, has the contrary effect of sustaining and increasing it. Virtue, genius, power, and riches, are for this reason associated with height and sublimity, as poverty, slavery, and folly are conjoined with descent and lowness. Were the case the same with us as Milton represents it to be with the angels, to whom descent is adverse and who cannot sink without labour and compulsion, this order of things would be entirely inverted; as appears hence, that the very nature of ascent and descent is derived from the difficulty and propensity, and consequently every one of their effects proceeds from that origin.
(II.iii.8.9, p. 278-9)",,18223,"","""Since the imagination, therefore, in running from low to high, finds an opposition in its internal qualities and principles, and since the soul, when elevated with joy and courage, in a manner seeks opposition, and throws itself with alacrity into any scene of thought or action where its courage meets with matter to nourish and employ it, it follows that every thing which invigorates and enlivens the soul, whether by touching the passions or imagination, naturally conveys to the fancy this inclination for ascent, and determines it to run against the natural stream of its thoughts and conceptions.""","",2011-03-07 17:58:35 UTC,"Book II, Part iii, Section 8"
4611,"","Reading John Richetti's Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume (Cambridge, MA; London, England: Harvard UP, 1983): 190.",2013-10-12 02:18:43 UTC,"The same system may help us to form a just notion of the happiness, as well as of the dignity of virtue, and may interest every principle of our nature in the embracing and cherishing that noble quality. Who indeed does not feel an accession of alacrity in his pursuits of knowledge and ability of every kind, when he considers that, besides the advantage which immediately result from these acquisitions, they also give him a new lustre in the eyes of mankind, and are universally attended with esteem and approbation? And who can think any advantages of fortune a sufficient compensation for the least breach of the social virtues, when he considers that not only his character with regard to others, but also his peace and inward satisfaction entirely depend upon his strict observance of them; and that a mind will never be able to bear its own survey, that has been wanting in its part to mankind and society? But I forbear insisting on this subject. Such reflections require a work apart, very different from the genius of the present. The anatomist ought never to emulate the painter; nor in his accurate dissections and portraitures of the smaller parts of the human body, pretend to give his figures any graceful and engaging attitude or expression. There is even something hideous, or at least minute, in the views of things which he presents; and it is necessary the objects should be set more at a distance, and be more covered up from sight, to make them engaging to the eye and imagination. An anatomist, however, is admirably fitted to give advice to a painter; and it is even impracticable to excel in the latter art without the assistance of the former. We must have an exact knowledge of the parts, their situation and connexion, before we can design with any elegance or correctness. And thus the most abstract speculations concerning human nature, however cold and unentertaining, become subservient to practical morality; and may render this latter science more correct in its precepts, and more persuasive in its exhortations.
(III.iii.6)",2011-03-06,22933,"Reassigned to 1740 printing. Record created on 2011-03-06 19:19:56 UTC
Record last updated on 2011-03-06 19:19:56 UTC
",""The anatomist ought never to emulate the painter; nor in his accurate dissections and portraitures of the smaller parts of the human body, pretend to give his figures any graceful and engaging attitude or expression. There is even something hideous, or at least minute, in the views of things which he presents; and it is necessary the objects should be set more at a distance, and be more covered up from sight, to make them engaging to the eye and imagination. An anatomist, however, is admirably fitted to give advice to a painter; and it is even impracticable to excel in the latter art without the assistance of the former.""","",2013-10-12 02:18:43 UTC,"Book III, Part 3, Section 6"