work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4495,"",Reading,2011-03-31 22:02:45 UTC,"Cri. Moschon, for instance, hath proved that man and beast are really of the same nature: that consequently a man need only indulge his senses and appetites to be as happy as a brute. Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another. Cimon hath made noble use of these discoveries, proving as clearly as any proposition in mathematics, that conscience is a whim, and morality a prejudice; and that a man is no more accountable for his actions than a clock is for striking. Tryphon hath written irrefragably on the usefulness of vice. Thrasenor hath confuted the foolish prejudice men had against atheism, showing that a republic of atheists might live very happily together. Demylus hath made a jest of loyalty, and convinced the world there is nothing in it: to him and another philosopher of the same stamp, this age is indebted for discovering, that public spirit is an idle enthusiasm which seizeth only on weak minds. It would be endless to recount the discoveries made by writers of this sect.
(p. 51)",,18277,"","""Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another.""","",2011-03-31 22:02:45 UTC,Dialogue I
7509,"","Reading Dennis Todd's Imagining Monsters (University of Chicago Press, 1995), 137.
",2013-07-08 19:49:43 UTC,"I now proceed to Memory, which is nothing but the same Imagination acting without the assistance of exterior Objects. To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occasions thereby increases and strengthens itself by degrees, till at last it acquires such a consistency (if I may so call it) as makes it subsist as long as the Machine itself. A Stock of Images having been thus acquired, they each have their respective little Cell or Lodge, where they go and hide. Yet we must not suppose that they are continually in their Retirement; they would become useless if they were so. But on the contrary, great Numbers of them are always going to and fro; and if one of them chances to go by the Cell or Lodge of another which has the least real or imaginary conformity with it, out pops the retired Image, and immediately joins the wandering one. This never so obviously happens, as when a new Image is introduced into the Brain, who as soon as he appears, occasions great Commotions among all the old Inhabitants who either have, or think they have, any resemblance or relation to the new Comers.
(pp. 186-7)",,21523,"","""To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occasions thereby increases and strengthens itself by degrees, till at last it acquires such a consistency (if I may so call it) as makes it subsist as long as the Machine itself. A Stock of Images having been thus acquired, they each have their respective little Cell or Lodge, where they go and hide.""",Impressions and Rooms,2013-07-08 19:53:17 UTC,""
7593,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-08-16 17:18:18 UTC,"This Hypothesis, of a new suppos'd Class of Spirits, would lead me into a great many useful Speculations; and I might remark with great Advantages from it, upon the general Indolence, which it is evident has so fatally possess'd our Men of Wit in this Age. To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with the Bottom upward, may be set right, and his Memory plac'd in a right Position; To this unscrew'd Engine talk of Spirits, and of the invisible World, and of his conversing with unembodied Soul, when he has hardly Brains to converse with any thing but a Pack of Hounds, and owes it only to his being a Fool, that he does not converse with the Devil! who if he has any Spirit about him, it must be one of these indolent Angels I speak of; and if he has not been listed among the Infernals, it has not been for want of Wickedness, but for want of Wit.
(p. 43)",,22207,"","""To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with the Bottom upward, may be set right, and his Memory plac'd in a right Position; To this unscrew'd Engine talk of Spirits, and of the invisible World, and of his conversing with unembodied Soul, when he has hardly Brains to converse with any thing but a Pack of Hounds, and owes it only to his being a Fool, that he does not converse with the Devil!""","",2013-08-16 17:18:18 UTC,Chapter IV
7622,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-08-18 04:37:08 UTC,"Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does often wear it out before its natural period.
But to come to the highest Region in Man. The Mind, or Understanding, is consider'd as a Principle of Light or Discerning; as the Senses and Affections are supposed to be blind. The Mind sees the Order and Value of Things, their Relations, and Properties; and this either by immediate Intuition, like the bodily Eye, or by a sort of Process, which considers one thing after another; and so is called both Reasoning and Reason.
(pp. 70-71)",,22329,"","""Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does often wear it out before its natural period.""","",2013-08-18 04:37:08 UTC,""