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
7738,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-10-16 17:01:53 UTC,"But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees. It must be admonished by reproof, and allured by kindness. Its liveliest advances are frequently impeded by the obstinacy of prejudice, and its brightest promises often obscured by the tempests of passion. It is slow in its acquisition of virtue, and reluctant in its approaches to piety.
(p. 127)",,23012,"","""But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees.""",Empire,2013-10-16 17:01:53 UTC,Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper in the Education of Daughters
5063,"",Reading,2014-03-04 03:35:35 UTC,"But here a caution is necessary against the most fatal of errors in those automaths, those self-taught philosophers of our age, who set up genius, and often, mere fancied genius, not only above human learning, but divine truth. I have called genius wisdom; but let it be remembered, that in the most renowned ages of the most refined heathen wisdom (and theirs is not Christian) ""the world by wisdom knew not God, and it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believed."" In the fairyland of fancy, genius may wander wild; there it has a creative power, and may reign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras. The wide field of nature also lies open before it, where it may range unconfined, make what discoveries it can, and sport with its infinite objects uncontrouled, as far as visible nature extends, painting them as wantonly as it will: But what painter of the most unbounded and exalted genius can give us the true portrait of a seraph? He can give us only what by his own, or others eyes, has been seen; tho' that indeed infinitely compounded, raised, burlesqued, dishonoured, or adorned: In like manner, who can give us divine truth unrevealed? Much less should any presume to set aside divine truth when revealed, as incongruous to their own sagacities. --Is this too serious for my subject? I shall be more so before I close.
(pp. 37-9)",,23443,INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY?,"""In the fairyland of fancy, genius may wander wild; there it has a creative power, and may reign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras.""",Empire,2014-03-04 03:35:53 UTC,""
7863,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2014-04-08 02:21:56 UTC,"On considering political Societies, their Origin, their Constitution, and their Effects, I have sometimes been in a good deal more than Doubt, whether the Creator did ever really intend Man for a State of Happiness. He has mixed in his Cup a Number of natural Evils, (in Spite of the Boasts of Stoicism they are Evils) and every Endeavour which the Art and Policy of Mankind has used from the Beginning of the World to this Day, in order to alleviate, or cure them, has only served to introduce new Mischiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Besides this, the Mind of Man itself is too active and restless a Principle ever to settle on the true Point of Quiet. It discovers every Day some craving Want in a Body, which really wants but little. It every Day invents some new artificial Rule to guide that Nature which if left to itself were the best and surest Guide. It finds out imaginary Beings prescribing imaginary Laws; and then, it raises imaginary Terrors to support a Belief in the Beings, and an Obedience to the Laws. Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings of our Minds. The Body, or as some love to call it, our inferior Nature, is wiser in it's own plain Way, and attends it's own Business more directly than the Mind with all it's boasted Subtilty.
(pp. 3-4)",,23767,"","""Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings of our Minds.""","",2014-04-08 02:21:56 UTC,""