work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4514,Blank Slate; Negated Metaphor,"Reading Maclean's John Locke and English Literature, (1962), p. 23. Found again searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO; and again.",2005-03-27 00:00:00 UTC,"Therefore I take the Mind or Soul of Man not to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all Impressions, as a Rasa Tabula, or white Paper; and 'tis so framed by its Maker as not to be equally disposed to all sorts of Perceptions, nor to embrace all Propositions, with an Indifferency to judge them true or false; but that antecedently to all the Effects or Custom, Experience, Education, or any other contingent Causes, as the Mind is necessarily ordained and limited by its Creator to have such and such appointed Sensations or Ideas raised in it by certain external Motions of the Matter or Body to which it is united, and that while the Organs are good and sound it cannot have others, so 'tis also inclined and almost determined by such Principles as are wrought into it by the Creator, to believe some Propositions true, others false; and perhaps also some Actions good, others evil.
(pp. 105-6 in 1733 ed.)",2006-10-10,11853,•I've included twice: Tabula Rasa and Paper.,"""I take the Mind or Soul of Man not to be so perfectly indifferent to receive all Impressions, as a Rasa Tabula, or white Paper.""",Writing,2014-02-07 16:42:17 UTC,"Essay IV, sec iii"
4711,Blank Slate; Lockean Philosophy; Innate Ideas; Negated Metaphor,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-10 00:00:00 UTC,"5. These animal Sensations, Appetites, and Instincts therefore, as they are natural and necessary, must be innate, or co-eval and co-existent with the Animal or sensitive Creature itself, since one cannot conceive of an Animal, or any animal Life and Motion, without them. In this, therefore, I am forced to differ from that great Philosopher and Master of Reason, Mr. Locke, who denies and argues against all innate Ideas in general, and of every Kind: He supposes the Soul originally to be as a rasa Tabula, or Blank without any Impression, or distinguishing Character at all, which would be either nothing, or nothing that we can conceive or form any Notion or Idea of; but a Man or his Penetration, and Strength of Judgment, could not but see some Defect in his Reasoning, and that the Word Idea here was too general; and therefore, in prosecuting the Argument, he silently changes the Term Idea for Principle, and then proves very clearly, that we have no innate Principles, Perceptions of Truth, or Judgment of Reason, or no innate Ideas of Reflection: All this is acquired gradually by Observation and Experience, and by comparing one Thing with another, in the several Relations, Reasons, and Proportions of Things. In these Acquisitions and Improvements of Reason, Understand [end page 73] ing, and Judgment, Men are vastly different according to their different Capacities, Opportunities, Attention, and Degrees of Application; and nothing of all this is innate or born with us. In almost every Thing else, I must own Mr. Locke as my Master, and the first Guide and Director of my Understanding: But as this justly celebrated Philosopher, in this Case, might seem to have used the Word Idea in its most general Acceptation, so as to include all the original, simple Impressions of Sense, Appetite, and Instinct; I thought it necessary to remove such a Difficulty or Prejudice, lest the Authority of so great a Man, mistaken and misapplied, might lead others into Error, and darken and perplex, instead of clearing up the Truth to them. It would be equally contrary to Experience, and the present Constitution of Nature, either to suppose, that the Ideas of Sense, Appetite, and Instinct are not innate, or that the Perceptions of the Understanding, or the Judgments and Conclusions of Reason are so.",,12427,•Rich passage. Postcolonial issues as well: savage as blank slates
•Author reverses the argument of innatists who claim blank slate can't account for diversity.
•I've included twice: Tabula Rasa and Blank,"""In this, therefore, I am forced to differ from that great Philosopher and Master of Reason, Mr. Locke, who denies and argues against all innate Ideas in general, and of every Kind: He supposes the Soul originally to be as a rasa Tabula, or Blank without any Impression, or distinguishing Character at all, which would be either nothing, or nothing that we can conceive or form any Notion or Idea of.""",Writing,2009-09-14 19:36:58 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:08:51 UTC,"III. Use all Diligence to acquire and treasure up a large Store of Ideas and Notions: Take every Opportunity to add something to your Stock; and by frequent Recollection fix them in your memory: Nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the Memory like a frequent Review of its Possessions. Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject. This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it habitual and more easy to the Inhabitants to take in many of those painted Scenes with a single Glance or two.
(pp. 239-40)",,23371,"","""Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject.""",Coinage,2014-02-05 22:08:51 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:19:47 UTC,"What an unknown and unspeakable Happiness would it be to a Man of Judgment, and who is engaged in the Pursuit of Knowledge, if he had but a Power of stamping all his own best Sentiments upon his Memory in some indelible Characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable Paragraph and Sentiment of the most excellent Authors he has read, upon his Mind, with the same Speed and Facility with which he read them? If a Man of good Genius and Sagacity could but retain and survey all those numerous, those wise and beautiful Ideas at once, which have ever passed through his Thoughts upon any one Subject, how admirably would he be furnished to pass a just Judgment about all present Objects and Occurrences? What a glorious Entertainment and Pleasure would fill and felicitate his Spirit, if he could grasp all these in a single Survey, as the skilful Eye of a Painter runs over a fine and complicate Piece of History wrought by the Hand of a Titian or a Raphael, views the whole Scene at once, and feeds himself with the extensive Delight? But these are Joys that do not belong to Mortality.
(p. 253-4)",,23379,INTEREST,"""What an unknown and unspeakable Happiness would it be to a Man of Judgment, and who is engaged in the Pursuit of Knowledge, if he had but a Power of stamping all his own best Sentiments upon his Memory in some indelible Characters; and if he could but imprint every valuable Paragraph and Sentiment of the most excellent Authors he has read, upon his Mind, with the same Speed and Facility with which he read them?""",Impressions and Writing,2014-02-05 22:19:47 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:22:59 UTC,"So for Instance, in Children; they perceive and forget a hundred Things in an Hour; the Brain is so soft that it receives immediately all Impressions like Water or liquid Mud, and retains scarce any of them: All the Traces, Forms or Images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed up again, as though you wrote with your Finger on the Surface of a River or on a Vessel of Oil.
(pp. 255-6)",,23381,"","""So for Instance, in Children; they perceive and forget a hundred Things in an Hour; the Brain is so soft that it receives immediately all Impressions like Water or liquid Mud, and retains scarce any of them: All the Traces, Forms or Images which are drawn there, are immediately effaced or closed up again, as though you wrote with your Finger on the Surface of a River or on a Vessel of Oil.""",Impressions and Writing,2014-02-05 22:22:59 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:26:40 UTC,"On the contrary, in old Age, Men have a very feeble Remembrance of Things that were done of late, i.e. the same Day or Week or Year; the Brain is grown so hard that the present Images or Strokes make little or no Impression, and therefore they immediately vanish: Prisco in his seventy eighth Year will tell long Stories of Things done when he was in the Battle at the Boyne almost fifty Years ago, and when he studied at Oxford seven Years before; for those Impressions were made when the Brain was more susceptive of them; they have been deeply engraven at the proper season, and therefore they remain. But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall.
(p. 256)",,23384,INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY. REVISIT.,"""But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall.""",Impressions and Writing,2014-02-05 22:26:40 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:38:15 UTC,"When you would remember new Things or Words, endeavour to associate and connect them with some Words or Things which you have well known before, and which are fixed and established in your Memory. This Association of Ideas is of great Importance and Force, and may be of excellent Use in many Instances of Human Life. One Idea which is familiar to the Mind connected with others which are new and strange, will bring those new Ideas into easy Remembrance. Maronides had got the first hundred Lines of Virgil's Æneis printed upon his Memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the Order and Number of every Verse from one to a hundred in Perfection, but the Order and Number of every Word in each Verse also; and by this Means he would undertake to remember two or three hundred Names of Persons or Things by some rational or fantastic Connexion between some Word in the verse, and some Letter, Syllable, Property, or Accident of the Name or Thing to be remembered, even tho' they had been repeated over but once or twice at most in his Hearing. Animanto practised much the same Art of Memory by getting the Latin Names of twenty two Animals into his Head according to the Alphabet, viz. Asinus, Basilicus, Canis, Draco, Elephas, Felis, Gryfus, Hircus, Juvencus, Leo, Mulus, Noctua, Ovis, Panthera, Quadrupes, Rhinoceros, Simia, Taurus, Ursus, Xiphias, Hyæna or Yœna, Zibetta. Most of these he divided also into four Parts, viz. Head and Body, Feet, Fins or Wings and Tail, and by some arbitrary or chimerical Attachment of each of these to a Word or Thing which he desired to remember, he committed them to the Care of his Memory, and that with good Success.
(pp. 273-4)",,23393,"","""Maronides had got the first hundred Lines of Virgil's 'Æneis' printed upon his Memory so perfectly, that he knew not only the Order and Number of every Verse from one to a hundred in Perfection, but the Order and Number of every Word in each Verse also.""",Impressions and Writing,2014-02-05 22:38:15 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:41:16 UTC,"Let every thing we desire to remember be fairly and distinctly written and divided into Periods, with large Characters in the Beginning; for by this Means we shall the more readily imprint the Matter and Words on our Minds, and recollect them with a Glance, the more remarkable the Writing appears to the Eye. This Sense conveys the Ideas to the Fancy better than any other; and what we have seen is not so soon forgotten as what we have only heard. What Horace affirms of the Mind or Passions may be said also of the Memory;
Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus,& qua
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.
Apply'd thus in English:
Sounds which address the Ear are lost and die
In one short Hour; but that which strikes the Eye
Lives long upon the Mind; the faithful Sight
Engraves the Knowledge with a Beam of Light.
(pp. 276-7)",,23395,"INTEREST. Print logic and Eisenstein's claims are seen here with a vengeance, no? USE IN ENTRY?
Also, REVISIT: Are the lines from Horace Watt's translation? Does he bother them? SHould the metaphor of engraving get its own entry?","""Let every thing we desire to remember be fairly and distinctly written and divided into Periods, with large Characters in the Beginning; for by this Means we shall the more readily imprint the Matter and Words on our Minds, and recollect them with a Glance, the more remarkable the Writing appears to the Eye.""",Impressions and Writing,2014-02-05 22:42:10 UTC,""
7846,"",ECCO-TCP,2014-03-12 21:00:06 UTC,"Child.
May I Father! Then I'll get it all without Book.
Fath.
It is not so much the getting the Words by Heart, Child, as getting the Word of Life wrought in your Heart.
Child.
How is that Father?
Fath.
Why, Child, to have the Spirit of God which wrote that Word, print it in your Mind, and give you Understanding both to read and obey it.
(p. 29)",,23678,"","""Why, Child, to have the Spirit of God which wrote that Word, print it in your Mind, and give you Understanding both to read and obey it.""",Impressions and Writing,2014-03-12 21:00:22 UTC,""