id,comments,provenance,dictionary,created_at,reviewed_on,work_id,theme,context,updated_at,metaphor,text
18997,"",Searching in Past Masters,Beasts,2011-07-27 03:21:30 UTC,,4050,"","Section 45. Transferring of Thoughts
",2011-07-27 03:21:41 UTC,"""Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getting upon a mill-horse whilst he jogs on in his circular track would carry a man a journey.""","Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our passions take possession of our minds with a kind of authority, and will not be kept out or dislodged, but, as if the passion that rules were, for the time, the sheriff of the place, and came with all the posse, the understanding is seized and taken with the object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to be alone considered there. There is scarce any body, I think, of so calm a temper who hath not sometime found this tyranny on his understanding, and suffered under the inconvenience of it. Who is there almost whose mind, at some time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not so fastened to some clog, that it could not turn itself to any other object? I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind so as to hinder its vigour and activity in the pursuit of other contemplations, and advances itself little or not [at] all in the knowledge of the thing which it so closely hugs and constantly pores on. Men thus possessed are sometimes as if they were so in the worst sense, and lay under the power of an enchantment. They see not what passes before their eyes; hear not the audible discourse of the company; and when by any strong application to them they are roused a little, they are like men brought to themselves from some remote region; whereas in truth they come no farther than their secret cabinet within, where they have been wholly taken up with the puppet, which is for that time appointed for their entertainment. The shame that such dumps cause to well-bred people, when it carries them away from the company, where they should bear a part in the conversation, is a sufficient argument that it is a fault in the conduct of our understanding, not to have that power over it as to make use of it to those purposes and on those occasions wherein we have need of its assistance. The mind should be always free and ready to turn itself to the variety of objects that occur, and allow them as much consideration as shall for that time be thought fit. To be engrossed so by one object, as not to be prevailed on to leave it for another that we judge fitter for our contemplation, is to make it of no use to us. Did this state of mind remain always so, every one would, without scruple, give it the name of perfect madness; and whilst it does last, at whatever intervals it returns, such a rotation of thoughts about the same object no more carries us forwards towards the attainment of knowledge, than getting upon a mill-horse whilst he jogs on in his circular track would carry a man a journey."
22966,"",Searching in Google Books,"",2013-10-13 17:26:52 UTC,,7711,"","",2013-10-13 17:26:52 UTC,"""I hop'd therefore, as I said, to have seen you, and unravel'd to you that which lying in the Lump unexplicated in my Mind, I scarce yet know what it is my self; for I have often had Experience that a Man cannot well judge of his own Notions, till either by setting them down in Paper, or in discoursing them to a Friend, he has drawn them out, and as it were spread them fairly before, himself.""","[...] For I am in doubt, whether it be fit for me to trouble the Press with any new Matter; or if I did, I look on my Life as so near worn out, that it would be Folly to hope to finish any thing of Moment in the small Remainder of it. I hop'd therefore, as I said, to have seen you, and unravel'd to you that which lying in the Lump unexplicated in my Mind, I scarce yet know what it is my self; for I have often had Experience that a Man cannot well judge of his own Notions, till either by setting them down in Paper, or in discoursing them to a Friend, he has drawn them out, and as it were spread them fairly before, himself. As for Writing, my ill Health gives me little Heart or Opportunity for it; and of seeing you, I begin now to despair: And that which very much adds to my Affliction in the Case, is, that you neglect your own Health on Considerations, I am sure, that are not worth your Health; for nothing, if Expectations were Certainties, can be worth it. I see no likelihood of the Parliament's rising yet this good while; and when they are up, who knows whether the Man you expect to relieve you, will come to you presently, or at all? [...]
(pp. 209-210)"
22969,"",Searching in Google Books,"",2013-10-13 18:37:40 UTC,,7714,"","",2013-10-13 18:37:40 UTC,"""But I perfectly agree with you concerning general Theories, that they are for the most part but a sort of waking Dreams, with which, when Men have warm'd their own Heads, they pass into unquestionable Truths, and then the ignorant World must be set right by them.""","The Doctor, concerning whom you enquire of me, had, I remember, when I liv'd in Town, and convers'd among the Physicians there, a good Reputation amongst those of his own Faculty. I can say nothing of his late Book of Fevers, having not read it my self, nor heard it spoke of by others: But I perfectly agree with you concerning general Theories, that they are for the most part but a sort of waking Dreams, with which, when Men have warm'd their own Heads, they pass into unquestionable Truths, and then the ignorant World must be set right by them: Though this be, as you rightly observe, beginning at the wrong End, when Men lay the Foundation their own Fancies, and then endeavour to suit the Phœnomena of Diseases, and the Cure of them, to those Fancies. I wonder, that after the Pattern Dr. Sydenham has set them of a better Way, Men mould return again to that Romance Way of Physick. But I see it is easier and more natural for Men to build Castles in the Air of their own, than to survey well those that are to be found standing. Nicely to observe the History of Diseases, in all their Changes and Circumstances, is a Work of Time, Accurateness, Attention and Judgment; and wherein if Men, through Prepossession or Oscitancy, mistake, they may be convinced of their Error by unerring Nature and Matter of Fact, which leaves less room for the Subtlety and Dispute of Words, which serves very much instead of Knowledge in the learned World, where methinks Wit and Invention has much the Preference to Truth. [...]
(pp. 223-4)"