id,dictionary,theme,reviewed_on,metaphor,created_at,provenance,comments,work_id,text,context,updated_at
11793,Impression,"",,"""My Sight, will keep her in my Mind, / Preserve the deep Impression made,""",2005-05-15 00:00:00 UTC,"Searching ""mind"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Poetry)","",4490," No; from my grateful Heart
Her Image ne'er can part.
Each Place she visited and lov'd,
Whate'er she prais'd or disapprov'd;
Persons and Things which she held dear,
But most her Picture, ever near
My Sight, will keep her in my Mind,
Preserve the deep Impression made,
As if they were by her Last Will design'd
To Guarantee my Reverence for her Shade.",Stanza V.,2009-09-14 19:36:15 UTC
22731,Impressions,"",,"""But whatever may be the physical cause, one thing is evident, that this aptitude of the mind of man, to receive impressions from feigned, as well as from real objects, contributes to the noblest purposes of life.""",2013-09-16 03:07:39 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"To a dry philosopher, unacquainted with theatrical entertainments, it may appear surprising, that imitation should have such an effect upon the mind, and that the want of truth and reality should not prevent the operation of our passions. But whatever may be the physical cause, one thing is evident, that this aptitude of the mind of man, to receive impressions from feigned, as well as from real objects, contributes to the noblest purposes of life. Nothing conduces so much to improve the mind, and confirm it in virtue, as being continually employed in surveying the actions of others, entering into the concerns of the virtuous, approving of their conduct, condemning vice, and showing an abhorrence at it; for the mind acquires strength by exercise, as well as the body. But were there no opportunity for this sort of discipline, but from scenes of real life, the generality of men would be little the better for it, because such scenes do but rarely occur. They are not frequent even in history. But, in compositions where liberty is allowed of fiction, it must be want of genius, if the mind is not sufficiently exercised, till it acquire the greatest sensibility, and the most confirmed habits of virtue.
(pp. 19-20)","",2013-09-16 03:07:39 UTC
22736,"","",,"""A weak motive makes some impression: but, in opposition to one more powerful, it has no effect to determine the mind. In the precise same manner, a small force will not overcome a great resistance; nor the weight of an ounce in one scale, counter-balance a pound in the other.""",2013-09-16 03:12:48 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"A COMPARISON instituted betwixt moral and physical necessity may possibly throw additional light upon this subject. Where the motives to any action are perfectly full, cogent and clear, the feeling of liberty, as we showed before, entirely vanishes. In other cases, where the field of choice is wider, and where opposite motives counterbalance and work against each other, the mind fluctuates for a while, and feels itself more loose: but, in the end, must as necessarily be determined to the side of the most powerful motive, as the balance, after several vibrations; must incline to the side of the preponderating weight. The laws of mind, and the laws of matter, are in this respect perfectly similar; tho', in making the comparison, we are apt to deceive ourselves. In forming a notion of physical necessity, we seldom think of any force, but what has visibly a full effect. A man in prison, or tied to a post, must remain there. If he is dragged along, he cannot resist. Whereas motives, which, from the highest to the lowest, are very different, do not always produce sensible effects. Yet, when the comparison is accurately instituted, the very same thing holds in the actions of matter. A weak motive makes some impression: but, in opposition to one more powerful, it has no effect to determine the mind. In the precise same manner, a small force will not overcome a great resistance; nor the weight of an ounce in one scale, counter-balance a pound in the other. Comparing together the actions of mind and matter, similar causes will, in both equally, produce similar effects.
(pp. 169-171)","",2013-09-16 03:12:48 UTC
22737,"","",,"""His mind is passive in receiving impressions of things as good or ill: according to these impressions, the last judgment of the understanding is necessarily formed; which the will, if considered as different from the last judgment of the understanding, necessarily obeys, as is fully shown; and the external action is necessarily connected with the will, or the mind's final determination to act.""",2013-09-16 03:13:32 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"THUS far then we have advanced in our argument, that all human actions proceed in a fixed and necessary train. Man being what he is, a creature endowed with a certain degree of understanding, certain passions and principles, and placed in certain circumstances, it is impossible he should will or chuse otherways, than in fact he wills or chuses. His mind is passive in receiving impressions of things as good or ill: according to these impressions, the last judgment of the understanding is necessarily formed; which the will, if considered as different from the last judgment of the understanding, necessarily obeys, as is fully shown; and the external action is necessarily connected with the will, or the mind's final determination to act.
(pp. 179-180)","",2013-09-16 03:13:32 UTC
22738,Impressions and Mirror,"",,"""His mind does not receive the impression of the moral world, in the same manner, as wax receives the impression of a seal. It does not reflect the image of it, in the same manner, as a mirror reflects its images: it has a peculiar cast and turn given to its conceptions, admirably ordered to exalt virtue, to the highest pitch.""",2013-09-16 03:15:14 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"BUT this is not all. These discoveries are also of excellent use, as they furnish us with one of the strongest arguments, for the existence of the Deity, and as they set the wisdom and goodness of his providence, in the most striking light. Nothing carries in it more express characters of design; nothing can be conceived more opposite to chance, than a plan so artfully contrived, for adjusting our impressions and feelings to the purposes of life. For here things are carried off, as it were, from the straight line; taken out of the course, in which they would of themselves proceed; and so moulded, as forcibly, and against their nature, to be subservient to man. His mind does not receive the impression of the moral world, in the same manner, as wax receives the impression of a seal. It does not reflect the image of it, in the same manner, as a mirror reflects its images: it has a peculiar cast and turn given to its conceptions, admirably ordered to exalt virtue, to the highest pitch. These conceptions are indeed illusive, yet, which is wonderful, it is by this very circumstance, that, in man, two of the most opposite things in nature, are happily reconciled, liberty and necessity; having this illustrious effect, that in him are accumulated, all the prerogatives both of a necessary and free agent. The discovery of such a marvelous adjustment, which is more directly opposed to chance, than any other thing conceiveable, must necessarily give us the strongest impression of a wise designing cause. And now a sufficient reason appears, for suffering man to make this surprising discovery. The Almighty has let us so far into his councils, as to afford the justest foundation, for admiring and adoring his wisdom. It is a remark worthy to be made, that the capacities of man seem, in general, to have a tendency beyond the wants and occasions of his present state. This has been often observed with respect to his wishes and desires. The same holds as to his intellectual faculties, which, sometimes, as in the instance before us, run beyond the limits of what is strictly necessary for him to know, in his present circumstances, and let in upon him some glimmerings of higher and nobler discoveries. A veil is thrown over nature, where it is not useful for him to behold it. And yet, sometimes, by turning aside that veil a very little, he is admitted to a fuller view; that his admiration of nature, and the God of nature, may be increased; that his curiosity and love of truth may be fed; and, perhaps, that some augurium, some intimation, may be given, of his being designed for a future, more exalted period of being; when attaining the full maturity of his nature, he shall no longer stand in need of artificial impressions, but shall feel and act according to the strictest truth of things.
(pp. 216-8)","",2013-09-16 03:15:14 UTC
22739,Impressions,"",,"""Nor is the lively impression, even in this case, the cause of belief, but only the occasion of it, by diverting the attention of the mind, from itself and its situation.""",2013-09-16 03:16:18 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"SOMETIMES, indeed, belief is the result of a lively impression. A dramatic representation is one instance, when it affects us so much, as to draw off the attention from every other object, and even from ourselves. In this situation, we don't consider the actor, but conceive him to be the very man whose character he assumes. We have that very man before our eyes. We perceive him as existing and acting, and believe him to be existing and acting. This belief, however, is but momentary. It vanishes, like a dream, so soon as we are rouzed by any trivial circumstance, to a consciousness of ourselves, and of the place we are in. Nor is the lively impression, even in this case, the cause of belief, but only the occasion of it, by diverting the attention of the mind, from itself and its situation. It is in some such manner, that the idea of a spectre in the dark, which fills the mind, and diverts it from itself, is, by the force of imagination, converted into a reality. We think we see and hear it. We are convinced of it, and believe the matter to be so.
(pp. 226-227)","",2013-09-16 03:16:18 UTC
22742,Impressions,"",,"""It has been urged in support of the above doctrine, that nothing is present to the mind, but the impressions made upon it, and that it cannot be conscious of any thing but what is present.""",2013-09-16 03:18:56 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"IT has been urged in support of the above doctrine, that nothing is present to the mind, but the impressions made upon it, and that it cannot be conscious of any thing but what is present. This difficulty is easily solved.
(p. 259)
","",2013-09-16 03:18:56 UTC
22743,"","",,"""Tho' an impression is made upon the mind, by means of the image painted upon the retina, whereby the external object is perceived; yet nature has carefully concealed this impression from us, in order to remove all ambiguity, and to give us a distinct feeling of the object itself, and of that only.""",2013-09-16 03:19:52 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"AND here a curious piece of mechanism presents itself to our view. Tho' an impression is made upon the mind, by means of the image painted upon the retina, whereby the external object is perceived; yet nature has carefully concealed this impression from us, in order to remove all ambiguity, and to give us a distinct feeling of the object itself, and of that only. In touching and tasting, the impression made at the organ, is so closely connected with the body which makes the impression, that the perception of the impression, along with that of the body, creates no confusion nor ambiguity, the body being felt as operating where it really is. But were the impression of a visible object felt, as made at the retina, which is the organ of sight, all objects behoved to be seen as within the eye. It is doubted among naturalists, whether outness or distance is at all discoverable by sight, and whether that appearance be not the effect of experience. But bodies, and their operations, are so closely connected in place, that were we conscious of an organic impression at the retina, the mind would have a constant propensity to place the body there also; which would be a circumstance extremely perplexing, in the act of vision, as setting feeling and experience in perpetual opposition; enough to poison all the pleasure we enjoy by that noble sense.
(pp. 265-266)","",2013-09-16 03:19:52 UTC
22745,Impressions,"",,"""To this end, the Author of our nature has done two things. He has established a constancy and uniformity in the operations of nature. And he has impressed upon our minds, a conviction or belief of this constancy and uniformity, and that things will be as they have been.""",2013-09-16 03:21:49 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"IN a word, as the bulk of our views and actions have a future aim, some knowledge of future events is necessary, that we may adapt our views and actions to natural events. To this end, the Author of our nature has done two things. He has established a constancy and uniformity in the operations of nature. And he has impressed upon our minds, a conviction or belief of this constancy and uniformity, and that things will be as they have been.
(pp. 305-6)","",2013-09-16 03:21:49 UTC
22746,Impressions,"",,"""Grand objects make a deep impression upon the mind, and give force to that passion which occupies it at the time.""",2013-09-16 03:22:43 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7674,"AGAIN, where the new and unknown objects have any thing dreadful in appearance, this circumstance, joined with our natural propensity to dread unknown objects, will raise terror even in the most resolute. If the evils, dreaded from such objects, are known neither in quality nor degree; the imagination, being under no restraint, figures the greatest evils, both in kind and magnitude, that can be conceived. Where no immediate harm ensues, the mind, by the impulse it has received, transports itself into futurity, and imagines the strange forms to be presages of direful calamities. Hence it is, that the uncommon phaenomena of nature, such as comets, eclipses, earthquakes, and the like, are, by the vulgar, held as forerunners of uncommon events. Grand objects make a deep impression upon the mind, and give force to that passion which occupies it at the time. The above appearances being uncommon, if not altogether new, dispose the mind to terror; which, aided by the emotion arising from the grandeur of the objects, produces great agitation, and a violent apprehension of danger.
(pp. 311-312)","",2013-09-16 03:22:43 UTC