work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context 4136,Personal Identity,Reading,2003-11-06 00:00:00 UTC,"Thus it may appear how far a lover by his own natural strength may reach the chief principle of philosophy and understand our doctrine of two persons in one individual self. Not that our courtier, we suppose, was able of himself to form this distinction justly and according to art. For could he have effected this, he would have been able to cure himself without the assistance of his prince. However, he was wise enough to see in the issue that his independency and freedom were mere glosses and resolution, a nose of wax. For let will be ever so free, humour and fancy, we see, govern it. And these, as free as we suppose them, are often changed we know not how, without asking our consent or giving us any account. If opinion be that which governs and makes the change, it is itself as liable to be governed and varied in its turn. And by what I can observe of the world, fancy and opinion stand pretty much upon the same bottom. So that, if there be no certain inspector or auditor established within us to take account of these opinions and fancies in due form and minutely to animadvert upon their several growths and habits, we are as little like to continue a day in the same will as a tree, during the summer, in the same shape, without the gardener's assistance and the vigorous application of the shears and pruning knife.
(p. 83)",2012-04-24,10616,•Shaftesbury's take on personal identity. A matter of animadversion and pruning. ,"""So that, if there be no certain inspector or auditor established within us to take account of these opinions and fancies in due form and minutely to animadvert upon their several growths and habits, we are as little like to continue a day in the same will as a tree, during the summer, in the same shape, without the gardener's assistance and the vigorous application of the shears and pruning knife.""",Garden,2012-09-26 18:04:36 UTC,"Part I, Section 2"