work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3866,"","Reading; found again, reading P. B. Wood, “Hume, Reid, and the Science of Mind” in Hume and Hume’s Connexions, ed. M.A. Stewart and J.P. Wright (University Park: The Pennsylvania State UP, 1994), 130.",2003-09-15 00:00:00 UTC,"Thus the Ideas, as well as Children, of our youth, often die before us: And our Minds represent to us those Tombs, to which we are approaching; where though the Brass and Marble remain, yet the Inscriptions are effaced by time, and the Imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our Minds, are laid in fading Colours; and if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. How much the Constitution of our Bodies, and the make of our animal Spirits, are concerned in this; and whether the Temper of the Brain make this difference, that in some it retains the Characters drawn on it like Marble, in others like Free-stone, and in others little better than Sand, I shall not here enquire, though it may seem probable, that the Constitution of the Body does sometimes influence the Memory; since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas, and the flames of a Fever, in a few days, calcine all those Images to dust and confusion, which seem'd to be as lasting, as if graved in Marble.
(II.x.5)",2012-01-28,9966,"•This is a metaphorically rich chapter! Even more entries follow this paragraph!
• Calcine and engraving? Is this a mixed metaphor? Does this make sense? Yes, it looks like it... Marble can be calcined. But then, why the as if?
•OED gives for calcine: ""1. v.t. a Reduce by roasting or burning to quicklime or a similar friable substance or powder""
","""I shall not here enquire, though it may seem probable, that the Constitution of the Body does sometimes influence the Memory; since we oftentimes find a Disease quite strip the Mind of all its Ideas, and the flames of a Fever, in a few days, calcine all those Images to dust and confusion, which seem'd to be as lasting, as if graved in Marble.""",Impressions and Writing,2012-01-30 20:00:58 UTC,II.x.5
3866,"","Reading Arthur A. Cash, ""The Sermon in Tristram Shandy."" ELH 31:4 (1964): 399.",2012-06-12 20:34:32 UTC,"12. Thirdly, probabilities, which cross men's appetites and prevailing passions, run the same fate. Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous man's reasoning, and money on the other; it is easy to foresee which will outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud-walls, resist the strongest batteries: And though perhaps sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them. Tell a man passionately in love, that he is jilted; bring a score of witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress, it is ten to one but three kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies, Quod volumus, facile credits; What suits our wishes, is forwardly believed; is, I suppose, what every one hath more than once experimented: And though men cannot always openly gainsay or resist the force of manifest probabilities that make against them, yet yield they not to the argument. Not but that it is the nature of the understanding constantly to close with the more probable side; but yet a man hath a power to suspend and restrain its inquiries, and not permit a full and satisfactory examination, as far as the matter in question is capable, and will bear it to be made. Until that be done, there will be always these two ways left of evading the most apparent probabilities.
(IV.xx.12)",,19792,"","""Earthly minds, like mud-walls, resist the strongest batteries: And though perhaps sometimes the force of a clear argument may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm, and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them.""",Empire and Impressions,2012-06-12 20:34:32 UTC,IV.xx.12