work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5206,"",Reading,2011-03-06 19:43:53 UTC,"In the arts and sciences which have least connection with the mind, its faculties are the engines which we must employ; and the better we understand their nature and use, their defects and disorders, the more skilfully we shall apply them, and with the greater success. But in the noblest arts, the mind is also the subject upon which we operate. The painter, the poet, the actor, the orator, the moralist, and the statesman, attempt to operate upon the mind in different ways, and for different ends; and they succeed, according as they touch properly the strings of the human frame. Nor can their several arts ever, stand on a solid foundation, or rise to the dignity of science, until they are built on the principles of the human constitution.
(I.i, p. 11)",,18207,"","""The painter, the poet, the actor, the orator, the moralist, and the statesman, attempt to operate upon the mind in different ways, and for different ends; and they succeed, according as they touch properly the strings of the human frame.""","",2011-03-06 19:43:53 UTC,Chapter I. Section 1.
5345,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-09-29 17:03:27 UTC,"[...] Some men are distinguished by an uncommon acuteness in discovering the characters of others: they seem to read the soul in the countenance, and with a single glance to penetrate the deepest recesses of the heart. In their presence, the hypocrite is detected, notwithstanding his specious outside; the gay effrontery of the coxcomb cannot conceal his insignificance; and the man of merit appears conspicuous under all the disguises of an unassuming and ungainly modesty. This talent is sometimes called Common Sense; but very improperly. It is far from being common; it is even exceedingly rare: it is to be found in men who are not remarkable for any other mental excellence; and we often fee those who in other respects are judicious enough, quite destitute of it.
(I.i, p. 39)",,19238,"","""Some men are distinguished by an uncommon acuteness in discovering the characters of others: they seem to read the soul in the countenance, and with a single glance to penetrate the deepest recesses of the heart.""","",2011-09-29 17:03:27 UTC,"Part I, Chap. i"
5345,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-09-29 17:38:58 UTC,"[...] For it is easy to write plausibly on any subject, and in vindication of any doctrine, when either the indolence of the reader, or the nature of the composition, gives the writer an opportunity to avail himself of the ambiguity of language. It is not often that men attend to the operations of the mind; and when they do, it is perhaps with some metaphysical book in their hands, which they read with a resolution to admire or despise, according as the fashion or their humour directs them. In this situation, or even when they are disposed to judge impartially of the writer, their attention to what passes in their own mind is but superficial, and is very apt to be swayed by a secret bias in favour of some theory. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between a natural feeling and a prejudice of education; our deference to the opinion of a favourite author makes us think it more difficult than it really is, and very often leads us to mistake the one for the other. Nay, the very act of studying, discomposes our minds a little, and prevents that free play of our faculties from which alone we can judge with accuracy of their real nature. Besides, language, being originally intended to answer the obvious exigencies of life, and express the qualities of matter, becomes metaphorical when applied to the operations of mind. Thus we talk metaphorically, when we speak of a warm imagination, a sound judgement, a tenacious memory, an enlarged understanding; these epithets being originally and properly expressive of the qualities of matter. This circumstance, however obvious, is not always attended to; and hence we are apt to mistake verbal analogies for real ones, and to apply the laws of matter to the operations of mind; and thus, by the mere delusion of words, are led into error before we are aware, and while our premises seem to be altogether unexceptionable. It is a favourite maxim with Mr LOCKE, as it was with some ancient philosophers, that the human soul, previous to education, is like a piece of white paper, or tabula rasa, and this simile, harmless as it may appear, betrays our great modern into several important mistakes. It is indeed one of the most unlucky allusions that could have been chosen. The human soul, when it begins to think, is not extended, nor inert, nor of a white colour, nor incapable of energy, nor wholly unfurnished with ideas, (for if it think at all, it must have some ideas, according to Mr LOCKE's definition of the word), nor as susceptible of any one impression or character as of any other. In what respect then does the human soul resemble a piece of white paper? To this philosophical conundrum I confess I can give no serious answer.--Even when the terms we use are not metaphorical, the natural abstruseness of the subject makes them appear somewhat mysterious; and we are apt to consider them as of more significancy than they really are. Had Mr HUME told the world in plain terms, that virtue is a species of vice, darkness a species of light, and existence a species of non-existence, I know not what metaphysicians might have thought of this discovery; but sure I am, no reader of tolerable understanding would have paid him any compliments on the occasion.
(I.ii.9, pp. 156-59)",2012-02-27,19242,META-METAPHORICAL,"""Thus we talk metaphorically, when we speak of a warm imagination, a sound judgement, a tenacious memory, an enlarged understanding; these epithets being originally and properly expressive of the qualities of matter.""","",2012-02-27 16:04:51 UTC,"Part I, Chap. ii, Sect. 9"
5345,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-09-29 18:12:25 UTC,"[...] Is it possible to imagine, that any course of education could ever bring a rational creature to believe, that two and two are equal to three, and that he is not the same person to-day he was yesterday, that the ground he stands on does not exist? could make him disbelieve the testimony of his own senses, or that of other men? could make him expect unlike events in like circumstances? or that the course of nature, of which he has hitherto had experience, will be changed even when he foresees no cause to hinder its continuance? I can no more believe, that education could produce such a depravity of judgment, than that education could make me see all human bodies in an inverted position, or hear with my nostrils, or take pleasure in burning or cutting my flesh. Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good? If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how they come to be universal: the modes of sentiment and behaviour produced by education are uniform, only where education is uniform; but there are many truths which have obtained universal acknowledgement in all ages and nations. If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how men find it so difficult, or rather impossible, to lay them aside: the false opinions we imbibe from habit and education, may be, and often are, relinquished by those who make a proper use of their reason; and the man who thus renounces former prejudices, upon conviction of their falsity, is applauded by all as a man of candour, sense, and spirit; but if one were to suffer himself to be argued out of his common sense, the whole world would pronounce him a fool.
(II.ii.1, pp. 258-60)",,19246,"","""Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?""",Impressions,2011-09-29 18:12:25 UTC,"Part II, Chap. ii, Sect 1"
5345,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-09-29 18:17:23 UTC,"[...]If, while you learned wisdom from the former, your heart exulted within you, and rejoiced to contemplate the sublime and successful efforts of human intellect; perhaps it may now be of use, as a lesson of humility, to have recourse to the latter, and, for a while, to behold the picture of a soul wandering from thought to thought, without knowing where to fix; and from a total want of feeling, or a total ignorance of what it seek, mistaking names for things, verbal distinctions and analogies for real difference and similitude, and the obscure insinuations of a bewildered understanding, puzzled with words, and perverted with theory, for the sentiments of nature, and the dictates of reason. A metaphysician, exploring the recesses of the human heart, hath just such a chance for finding the truth, as a man with microscopic eyes would have, for, finding the road. The latter might amuse himself with contemplating the various mineral strata that are diffused along the expansion of a needle's point, but of the face of nature he could make nothing: he would start back with horror from the caverns yawning between the mountainous grains of sand that lie before him; but the real gulf or mountain he could not see at all.
(III, pp. 481-2)",,19248,"","""A metaphysician, exploring the recesses of the human heart, hath just such a chance for finding the truth, as a man with microscopic eyes would have, for, finding the road.""",Optics,2011-09-29 18:17:23 UTC,Part III
7486,"",Reading in C-H Lion,2013-06-27 03:25:57 UTC,"Neither fertility nor regularity of imagination will form a good genius, if the one be disjoined from the other. If fertility be wanting, the correctest imagination will be confined within narrow bounds, and will be very slow in its operations; there can be no penetration or copious invention. If regularity be absent, an exuberant invention will lose itself in a wilderness of its own creation. There is a false fertility, which arises from a disordered and irregular fancy. As the same idea bears some relation to an infinite number of other ideas, the associating principles may lead us, after a very few steps, to such ideas as are connected with the last that was present, yet have no connexion either with the former ones, or with the main design. A man, therefore, who follows any association, however trivial or devious, that hits his fancy, may show a great deal of imagination without displaying any real genius. The imagination produces abundance of glaring, brilliant thoughts; but not being conducive to any fixt design, nor organized into one whole, they can be regarded only as an abortion of fancy, not as the legitimate progeny of genius. A multitude of ideas, collected by such an imagination, form a confused chaos, in which inconsistent conceptions are often mixt, conceptions so unsuitable and disproportioned, that they can no more be combined into one regular work, than a number of wheels taken from different watches, can be united into one machine. Were it necessary to produce instances of a fruitful imagination unproductive of true genius, we might find enough among those pretenders to poetry, who can, through many lines, run from one shining image to another, and finish many harmonious periods, without any sentiment or design; or among those pretenders to science, who can devise a hundred experiments, coinciding in all their material circumstances, without a view to any conclusion, and without advancing useful knowledge a single step. Such imagination is like a tree so overcharged with fruit, that no part of it can come to full maturity.
(I.iii, pp. 49-50)",,21170,"","""A multitude of ideas, collected by such an imagination, form a confused chaos, in which inconsistent conceptions are often mixt, conceptions so unsuitable and disproportioned, that they can no more be combined into one regular work, than a number of wheels taken from different watches, can be united into one machine.""","",2013-06-27 03:25:57 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 16:51:27 UTC,"It may be observed in general, that Genius is neither uniform in the manner, nor periodical with regard to the time of its appearance. The manner depends upon the original constitution and peculiar modification of the mental powers, together with the corresponding organisation of the corporeal ones, and upon that mutual influence of both, in consequence of which the mind receives a particular bias to one certain object, and acquires a talent for one art or science rather than another. The period depends sometimes upon a fortunate accident encouraging its exertion, sometimes upon a variety of concurring causes stimulating its ardor, and sometimes upon that natural effervescence of mind (if we may thus express it) by which it bursts forth with irresistible energy, at different ages, in different persons, not only without any foreign aid, but in opposition to every obstacle that arises in its way.
(pp. 27-8)",,21359,"","""The period depends sometimes upon a fortunate accident encouraging its exertion, sometimes upon a variety of concurring causes stimulating its ardor, and sometimes upon that natural effervescence of mind (if we may thus express it) by which it bursts forth with irresistible energy, at different ages, in different persons, not only without any foreign aid, but in opposition to every obstacle that arises in its way.""","",2013-07-01 16:51:27 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 16:56:23 UTC,"As true Taste is founded on Imagination, to which it owes all its refinement and elegance; so a false and depraved Taste is often derived from the same cause. Fancy, if not regulated by the dictates of impartial Judgment, is apt to mislead the mind and to throw glaring colours on objects that possess no intrinsic excellence. By this means it happens, that though the principles of a just Taste are implanted in the mind of every man of Genius, yet, by a neglect of proper cultivation, or too great an indulgence of the extravagant ramblings of Fancy, those principles are vitiated, and Taste becomes sometimes INCORRECT, and sometimes INDELICATE. The only method left in such a case, is to compare the sensations of Taste with the objects that produced them, and to correct the errors of this sense by an appeal to the dictates of Reason, in the points where its authority is legitimate; by which means Taste may attain JUSTNESS and ACCURACY, as by the former exercise it may acquire SENSIBILITY and REFINEMENT, in those minds where its principles are implanted in any considerable degree.
(pp. 68-9)",,21365,"","""Fancy, if not regulated by the dictates of impartial Judgment, is apt to mislead the mind and to throw glaring colours on objects that possess no intrinsic excellence.""","",2013-07-01 16:56:23 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 16:57:52 UTC,"Some persons possess such force and compass of Imagination, as to be able by the power of this faculty to conceive and present to their own minds, in one distinct view, all the numerous and most distant relations of the objects on which they employ it; by which means they are qualified to make great improvements and discoveries in the arts and sciences. The mind in this case has recourse to and relies on its own fund. Conscious of its native energy, it delights to expand its faculties by the most vigorous exertion, Ranging through the unbounded regions of nature and of art, it explores unbeaten tracks of thought, catches a glimpse of some objects which lie far beyond the sphere of ordinary observation, and obtains a full and distinct view of others.
(pp. 73-4)",,21367,"","""The mind in this case has recourse to and relies on its own fund.""","",2013-07-01 16:57:52 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 17:08:23 UTC,"First, in the invention of INCIDENTS. Some incidents are so obvious, that by a natural association of ideas, they instantly occur to the mind of every one possessed of ordinary abilities, and are very easily conceived. Others however are more remote, and lie far beyond the reach of ordinary faculties; coming only within the verge of those few persons, whose minds are capacious enough to contain that prodigious croud of ideas, which an extensive observation and experience supply; whose understandings are penetrating enough to discover the most distant connections of those ideas, and whose imaginations are sufficiently quick, in combining them at pleasure. It is this kind of incidents which original Genius delights to invent; incidents which are in themselves great as well as uncommon. Let it not however be supposed, that the invention even of these is a laborious employment to a Writer of this stamp; for it is the prerogative of a great Genius to think and to write with ease, very rarely, if ever, experiencing a barrenness of Imagination. He has nothing to do but to give scope to the excursions of this faculty, which, by its active and creative power, exploring every recess of thought, will supply an inexhaustible variety of striking incidents. A facility, therefore, of inventing and combining such incidents in composition, may be regarded as one characteristical indication of a Genius truly Original.
(pp. 127-9)",,21373,"","""Others however are more remote, and lie far beyond the reach of ordinary faculties; coming only within the verge of those few persons, whose minds are capacious enough to contain that prodigious croud of ideas, which an extensive observation and experience supply; whose understandings are penetrating enough to discover the most distant connections of those ideas, and whose imaginations are sufficiently quick, in combining them at pleasure.""","",2013-07-01 17:08:23 UTC,""