work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3866,"",Reading,2006-05-24 00:00:00 UTC,"But to give a right view of this mistaken part of liberty, let me ask, ""Would any one be a changeling, because he is less determined by wise considerations than a wise man? Is it worth the name of freedom to be at liberty to play the fool, and draw shame and misery upon a man's self?"" If to break loose from the conduct of reason, and to want that restraint of examination and judgment, which keeps us from choosing or doing the worse, be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only freemen: But yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad already. The constant desire of happiness, and the constraint it puts upon us to act for it, nobody, I think, accounts an abridgment of liberty, or at least an abridgment of liberty to be complained of. God Almighty himself is under the necessity of being happy; and the more any intelligent being is so, the nearer is its approach to infinite perfection and happiness. That in this state of ignorance we short-sighted creatures might not mistake true felicity, we are endowed with a power to suspend any particular desire, and keep it from determining the will, and engaging us in action. This is standing still, where we are not sufficiently assured of the way: Examination is consulting a guide. The determination of the will upon enquiry is following the direction of that guide: And he that has a power to act or not to act, according as such determination directs, is a free agent: Such determination abridges not that power wherein liberty consists. He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging. He ceases not to be free, though the desire of some convenience to be had there absolutely determines his preference, and makes him stay in his prison.",,10017,I've included twice: Prison and Fetters. Not explicitly a metaphor. Interacts with previous discussion to become low-grade figuration.,"""He that has his chains knocked off, and the prison doors set open to him, is perfectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes; though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 17:32:25 UTC,II.xxi.55
3866,As it Were,"Searching in Pastmasters for ""as it were""",2006-09-27 00:00:00 UTC,"But however it be in knowledge, I think I may truly say, it is of far less, or no use at all in probabilities. For, the assent there being to be determined by the preponderancy, after due weighing of all the proofs, with all circumstances on both sides, nothing is so unfit to assist the mind in that, as syllogism; which running away with one assumed probability, or one topical argument, pursues that till it has led the mind quite out of sight of the thing under consideration; and forcing it upon some remote difficulty, holds it fast there, intangled perhaps, and as it were manacled in the chain of syllogisms, without allowing it the liberty, much less affording it the helps, requisite to show on which side, all things considered, is the greater probability.",2011-05-26,10023,"•Note the Lockean qualification ""as it were.""
","""[N]othing is so unfit to assist the mind in that, as syllogism; which running away with one assumed probability, or one topical argument, pursues that till it has led the mind quite out of sight of the thing under consideration; and forcing it upon some remote difficulty, holds it fast there, intangled perhaps, and as it were manacled in the chain of syllogisms, without allowing it the liberty, much less affording it the helps, requisite to show on which side, all things considered, is the greater probability.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 19:35:53 UTC,IV.xvii.5
3866,"","Searching ""clog"" in Past Masters",2011-07-27 03:29:25 UTC,IV.xvii.4,,18998,"","""Tell a country gentlewoman that the wind is south-west, and the weather lowering, and like to rain, and she will easily understand it is not safe for her to go abroad thin clad, in such a day, after a fever: She clearly sees the probable connexion of all these, viz. south-west wind, and clouds, rain, wetting, taking cold, relapse, and danger of death, without tying them together in those artificial and cumbersome fetters of several syllogisms, that clog and hinder the mind, which proceeds from one part to another quicker and clearer without them; and the probability which she easily perceives in things thus in their native state would be quite lost, if this argument were managed learnedly, and proposed in mode and figure.""",Fetters,2011-07-27 03:29:39 UTC,""
7036,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""chain"" in HDIS (Drama)",2011-07-27 20:13:54 UTC,"CLARINDA
But now let's hear it--
Song.
How wretched is the Slave to Love,
Who can no real pleasures prove;
For still they're mixt with pain:
When not obtain'd, restless is the desire.
Enjoyment puts out all the fire,
And shows the Love was vain.
It wanders to another soon,
Wanes and Encreases like the Moon,
And like her never rests:
Brings Tides of Pleasure now, and then of Tears;
Makes Ebbs and Flows of Joys and Cares,
In Lovers wavering breasts.
But spight of Love I will be free,
And triumph in the liberty
I without him enjoy.
I'th' worst of Prisons I'll my Body bind,
Rather than Chain my free-born mind,
For such a foolish Toy.
",,19033,"","""I'th' worst of Prisons I'll my Body bind, / Rather than Chain my free-born mind, / For such a foolish Toy.""",Fetters,2011-07-27 20:13:54 UTC,"Act IV, scene iv"
3620,"","Searching ""chain"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-01-11 21:58:20 UTC,"Fierce was the flame, and strong the happy heat,
Which on the Pilgrim's chafed Soul did beat:
Quick beat the pulses of his Noble breast,
High was the Tyde of LOVE, which still encreast
Its scalding waves, so that he thought he shou'd
Have lost his Life in that delicious Flood.
Such were Love's Ardors, he could scarce forbear
His fettering flesh, his free Soul's chaines, to tear:
How oft he mounted nimbly from the ground,
As if his Soul some passage thence had found:
How was he griev'd to see he leap'd in vain,
To see his Body bring her down again!
O how he wished that his Soul might be,
Now from the shackling gives of Flesh set free,
That she might spread her spacious wings, and fly,
Th'row the wide Welkin of Æternity,
Unto th' illustrous Throne of Christ, and there
Among the Crowned Saints new cloath'd appear:
But chiefly that she without Letts might move
In the vast Ocean of Æternal LOVE.
For whilst that Flesh her freedom did restrain,
The more her pleasure was, the more her pain,
To be deny'd her Liberty, that she
Engulphed was not in that endlesse Sea:
Streams could not now content her; the Abysse
Of Love alone, must now compleat her Blisse.
O happy Souls which in such Flames do move
And frying, thus LOVE'S blessed Martyrs prove.",,19445,"","""Such were Love's Ardors, he could scarce forbear / His fettering flesh, his free Soul's chaines, to tear.""",Fetters,2012-01-11 21:58:20 UTC,""
7475,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-18 16:21:53 UTC,"'Madam, it is no small demonstration of the entire Resignation which I have made of my Heart to your Chains, since the secrets of it are no longer in my power. I confess I only took Florence in my way, not designing any longer Residence, than should be requisite to inform the Curiosity of a Traveller, of the rareties of the Place. Whether Happiness or Misery will be the Consequence of that Curiosity, I am yet in fear, and submit to your Determination; but sure I am, not to depart Florence till you have made me the most miserable Man in it, and refuse me the fatal Kindness of Dying at your Feet. I am by Birth a Spaniard, of the City of Toledo; my name Hippolito di Saviolina: I was yesterday a Man free, as Nature made the first; to day I am fallen into a Captivity, which must continue with my Life, and which, it is in your power, to make much dearer to me. Thus in obedience to your Commands, and contrary to my Resolution of remaining unknown in this place, I have inform'd you, Madam, what I am; what I shall be, I desire to know from you; at least, I hope, the free discovery I have made of my self, will encourage you to trust me with the knowledge of your Person.'
(pp. 38-9)",,20936,"","""Madam, it is no small demonstration of the entire Resignation which I have made of my Heart to your Chains, since the secrets of it are no longer in my power.""",Fetters,2013-06-18 16:21:53 UTC,""
7476,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-18 21:28:27 UTC,"If a Man has not power over his own Life, over what has he any?--Nay, 'Tis plain, and allow'd by all, that he gives this Power away, which he cou'd never do, if he never had it, when he enters into civil Society, or forms any Government and submits himself thereto--and grant but that, how can it be unjust to throw that away which is better lost than kept? Does any one think it cruel, inhumane or wicked to cut off a Leg or an Arm when 'tis Gangreen'd or Mortify'd, when 'tis painful or dangerous, or useless?--My Body is no better than the Legs, and Arms, or rather Crutches of my Soul--Why shou'd it be a Crime to throw those Crutches away and go alone, especially when they are troublesom or rotten? Can it be a Fault to chuse a better for a worse, and don't all the thinking World agree that this state we are now in, is but a Slavery to sence, a bondage to dull matter, which tedders us down like our Brother Brutes, where we are not only exposed to want and misery, but to all the Insults and Abuses possible to be inferr'd, and impossible to be avoided. Why then shou'd I not pull up the stake, or get my Lock and Chain off, and scamper away in the interminable Fields of the invisible World.--That Region of Spirits, Reason, Ease, and Rest--Cleombrotus, Empedocles--O how I envy you--who one rusht through the Fire, t'other through the Water to reach Immortality o' t'other side on't. Those were envious Fools who fault the Sicilian Philosopher for plunging into Ætna, pretending he only did it for vain Glory to be accounted a God--No--'twas not that he might be so accounted, but so be--at least as like one as possible--Impassible, immaterial, and wear out endless Durations as those above,
In undisturb'd and Everlasting Ease.
(I, pp. 136-7)",,20969,"","""Why then shou'd I not pull up the stake, or get my Lock and Chain off, and scamper away in the interminable Fields of the invisible World.""",Fetters,2013-06-18 21:28:27 UTC,""
7476,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-19 01:40:58 UTC,"Towards the end of which Chapter Evander confesses his Wit has a little run away with him; so ungovernable a thing is towring Fancy, when not hand-cufft by powerful Reason, flying out against Learning, beloved Learning, at so Satyrical a rate as almost makes his heart bleed to read it, when he thinks he has been so unkind to that which has been so kind to him.--But after he has thus broken its Head, he gives so clever and kind a Plaister, that any one wou'd be glad to be so wittily abused, to have so good amends made him.--See pag. 107.
(II, pp. 12-13)",,20988,"","""Towards the end of which Chapter Evander confesses his Wit has a little run away with him; so ungovernable a thing is towring Fancy, when not hand-cufft by powerful Reason, flying out against Learning, beloved Learning, at so Satyrical a rate as almost makes his heart bleed to read it, when he thinks he has been so unkind to that which has been so kind to him.""",Fetters,2013-06-19 01:40:58 UTC,""
7496,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-30 16:11:13 UTC,"Upon this consideration the divine Law-giver made the Crime equal, as well in reference to the Man as the Woman, the Crime being alike, so long as the transgression of a Duty which is equal is the same. Men perhaps in this particular imitate your Grandees, who deny submission to the Law, denying to be subject to this Law of Dishonour, as superiour to Women, by whom it was enacted. Wise men therefore, as they condemn this Opinion, in relation to Princes, so they reject it in the particular of married men. Hence it follows, that not being under any Obligation, they shew the Law to be vain, in regard that partial or particular Laws never oblige in common Interests. Thus the Lawyers determin it, by whom a Woman is acquitted, tho' married, that meerly for Love surrenders her Body to another. An evident consequence, which removes those rigorous Impositions of Scandal from marry'd men, who permit that liberty, since no man can be absolv'd, to the prejudice of the Party interested. And therefore I would not have you be so rigorous in condemning your Friend, very judicious in not contending always to keep the Keys of his Wives Lock, for fear her Reputation should run a gadding. Nor would a man be willing always to be breaking his Brains to chain up the free will of his Wife, which, as some Opinions hold has a free dispensation from above. By my Faith, I should always chuse to converse with Gentlemen of this humour, and should profess my self to be their humble Servant. He that has any Sence, is of this opinion; and he that will live without disturbance, confirms the same by Experience, imitating those great men, who are the Exemplars of a quiet and happy Life. He that cannot bring his Brains to conform to this opinion, let him forbear marrying: Nor let him be a Slave to the Humour of the blind Vulgar, which when they undertake to be your Guides, lead ye into Precipices. If you are not satisfied with my Reasons, excuse the weakness of my Wit, and the misfortune of a Truth, which cannot be made publick, because all men are so blind, as not to see it. Excuse my Rashness, in presuming to contradict ye, and when you acknowledge this Boldness to be an Effect of my Confidence, assure your self, that as I preserve the Memory of your Favour to confide in it, so it is my Care to maintain my Obligations. In conformity to which, being desirous to serve ye, I shall attend your farther Commands.
(pp. 318-20)",,21321,"","""Nor would a man be willing always to be breaking his Brains to chain up the free will of his Wife, which, as some Opinions hold has a free dispensation from above.""",Fetters,2013-06-30 16:11:13 UTC,""
7507,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-08 13:38:45 UTC,"AMANDA.
I told you, Sir, I shou'd appear a Riddle to you: But if my Heart will give me leave, I'le now unloose your fetter'd Apprehension--But I must first amaze you more--Pray, Sir, satisfy me in one particular--'tis this--What are your undissembled thoughts of Vertue? Now, if you can, shake off your loose Unthinking Part, and summon all your force of manly Reason to resolve me.
(V.i, p. 89)",,21506,"","""I told you, Sir, I shou'd appear a Riddle to you: But if my Heart will give me leave, I'le now unloose your fetter'd Apprehension.""",Fetters,2013-07-08 13:38:45 UTC,"Act V, scene i"