"Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell
Date
1776
Metaphor
"Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind."
Metaphor in Context
In one of the examples of the unintelligible above-cited, the author having once determined to represent the human mind under the metaphor of a country, hath revolved in his thoughts the various objects which might be found in a country, but hath never dreamt of considering whether there be any things in the mind properly analogous to these. Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind. With equal propriety he might have introduced all the variety which Satan discovered in the kingdom of darkness,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death;

or given us with Othello,

------All his travel's history
Wherein, belike, of antres vast and desarts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
'I had been his hent to speak.

So much for the immoderate use of metaphor, which, by the way, is the principal source of all the nonsense of orators and poets.
Provenance
Searching "metaphor" in Chadwyck-Healey Literary Theory Database
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1776).

The Philosophy of Rhetoric. By George Campbell, 2 vols. (London: Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, 1776). <Link to ESTC>
Theme
Meta-metaphorical
Date of Entry
08/29/2005
Date of Review
12/02/2009

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.