work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5642,Etymology,Reading,2012-03-01 17:28:16 UTC,"With regard to the mind, men in their rudest state are apt to conjecture, that the principle of life in a man is his breath; because the most obvious distinction between a living and a dead man is, that the one breathes, and the other does not. To this it is owing, that, in ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul, is that which properly signifies breath or air.
(I.iii, p. 47)",,19615,"","""To this it is owing, that, in ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul, is that which properly signifies breath or air.""","",2012-03-01 17:28:28 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:30:06 UTC,"To omit many ancient systems of this kind, Des Cartes, about the middle of the last century, dissatisfied with the materia prima, the substantial forms, and the occult qualities of the Peripatetics, conjectured boldly, that the heavenly bodies of our system are carried round by a vortex or whirlpool of subtile matter, just as straws and chaff are carried round in a tub of water. He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion. By such conjectures as these, Des Cartes could account for every phænomenon in nature, in such a plausible manner, as gave satisfaction to a great part of the learned world for more than half a century.
(I.iii, p. 47)",,19616,USE IN ENTRY,"""He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion.""",Rooms and Throne,2012-03-01 17:30:31 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:32:45 UTC,"There is no subject in which men have always been so prone to form their notions by analogies of this kind, as in what relates to the mind. We form an early acquaintance with material things by means of our senses, and are bred up in a constant familiarity with them. Hence we are apt to measure all things by them; and to ascribe to things most remote from matter, the qualities that belong to material things. It is for this reason, that mankind have, in all ages, been so prone to conceive the mind itself to be some subtile kind of matter: That they have been disposed to ascribe human figure, and human organs, not only to angels, but even to the Deity. Though we are conscious of the operations of our own minds when they are exerted, and are capable of attending to them, so as to form a distinct notion of them; this is so difficult a work to men, whose attention is constantly solicited by external objects, that we give them names from things that are familiar, and which are conceived to have some similitude to them; and the notions we form of them are no less analogical than the names we give them. Almost all the words, by which we express the operations of the mind, are borrowed from material objects. To understand, to conceive, to imagine, to comprehend, to deliberate, to infer, and many others, are words of this kind; so that the very language of mankind, with regard to the operations of our minds, is analogical. Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it. When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived. It is evident, that these notions are drawn from some similitude conceived between body and mind, and between the properties of body and the operations of mind.
(I.iv, p. 54-5)",,19617,META-METAPHORICAL.,"""Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it.""",Impressions,2012-03-01 17:32:45 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:33:55 UTC,"There is no subject in which men have always been so prone to form their notions by analogies of this kind, as in what relates to the mind. We form an early acquaintance with material things by means of our senses, and are bred up in a constant familiarity with them. Hence we are apt to measure all things by them; and to ascribe to things most remote from matter, the qualities that belong to material things. It is for this reason, that mankind have, in all ages, been so prone to conceive the mind itself to be some subtile kind of matter: That they have been disposed to ascribe human figure, and human organs, not only to angels, but even to the Deity. Though we are conscious of the operations of our own minds when they are exerted, and are capable of attending to them, so as to form a distinct notion of them; this is so difficult a work to men, whose attention is constantly solicited by external objects, that we give them names from things that are familiar, and which are conceived to have some similitude to them; and the notions we form of them are no less analogical than the names we give them. Almost all the words, by which we express the operations of the mind, are borrowed from material objects. To understand, to conceive, to imagine, to comprehend, to deliberate, to infer, and many others, are words of this kind; so that the very language of mankind, with regard to the operations of our minds, is analogical. Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it. When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived. It is evident, that these notions are drawn from some similitude conceived between body and mind, and between the properties of body and the operations of mind.
(I.iv, p. 54-5)",,19618,META-METAPHORICAL,"""When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived.""","",2012-03-01 17:33:55 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:35:28 UTC,"When a man is urged by contrary motives, those on one hand inciting him to do some action, those on the other to forbear it; he deliberates about it, and at last resolves to do it, or not to do it. The contrary motives are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales of a balance; and there is not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy between body and mind. Hence the phrases of weighing motives, of deliberating upon actions, are common to all languages.
(I.iv, p. 55)",,19619,META-METAPHORICAL. INTEREST. Reid calls this the best possible analogy for the mind!,"""The contrary motives are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales of a balance; and there is not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy between body and mind.""","",2012-03-01 17:35:28 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:37:03 UTC,"When we find Philosophers maintaining that there is no heat in the fire, nor colour in the rainbow: When we find the gravest Philosophers, from Des Cartes down to Bishop Berkeley, mustering up arguments to prove the existence of a material world, and unable to find any that will bear examination: When we find Bishop Berkeley and Mr Hume, the acutest Metaphysicians of the age, maintaining that there is no such thing as matter in the universe: That sun, moon, and stars, the earth which we inhabit, our own bodies, and those of our friends, are only ideas in our minds, and have no existence but in thought: When we find the last maintaining that there is neither body nor mind; nothing in nature but ideas and impressions, without any substance on which they are impressed: That there is no certainty, nor indeed probability, even in mathematical axioms: I say, when we consider such extravagancies of many of the most acute writers on this subject, we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain. But we ought to consider, that the more closely and ingeniously men reason from false principles, the more absurdities they will be led into; and when such absurdities help to bring to light the false principles from which they are drawn, they may be the more easily forgiven.
(I.vi, p. 66)",,19620,"","""I say, when we consider such extravagancies of many of the most acute writers on this subject, we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain.""","",2012-03-01 17:37:03 UTC,Chapter 6. Of the Difficulty of Attending to the Operations of Our Own Minds