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Date: April, 1778

"How then can we represent, by a sensible image, the mind as a theatre to its own actings? Let us conceive a spacious saloon, in which our thoughts and passions exert themselves, and let its walls be encrusted with mirrour, for the purpose of reflection, in the same manner that rooms in voluptuou...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: April, 1778

"Were the grand idea of the theatre of conscience in its full extant, and with all its enjoyments to be constantly in our contemplation, we should not forfeit the higher approbation of ourselves, who are really judges for the paultry, inattentive, and transient plaudits of others."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: April, 1778

"That the merited applause of mankind is highly valuable, and a great immediate incitement to act well, I certainly agree: and therefore to return to the image of the mind as a theatre, I would not have it close as an amphitheatre; but open to the inspection of the world."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: April, 1783

If human souls are of an essence pure, / How fix ideas in them to endure? / And if material, canst not thou, Monro, / The little cells of our ideas show?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: April, 1783

"When we talk of a storehouse of our ideas, we are only forming an imagination of something similar to an enclosed portion of space in which material objects are reposited. But who ever actually saw this storehouse, or can have any clear perception of it when he endeavours by thinking closely to ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: April, 1783

"As, however, his penetration could not but see that all this is absolutely incompatible with a spiritual substance which mind is, he, immediately without any interruption or preparation whatever, proceeds very quietly, though most effectually, to contradict what he has been assuming, and to anni...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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Date: 1791

"His mind resembled the vast ampitheatre, the Colisaeum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgment, which like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives then b...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.