work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6238,"",Reading. Reviewing old notes.,2006-03-02 00:00:00 UTC,"MY reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. Odd, out of the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, and ways of feeling. In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country gentlemen, in King John's days. I know less geography than a school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of these great divisions; nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terrae Incognitae. I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of them at sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness- and if the sun on some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the West, I verily believe, that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four great monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, floats as first, in my fancy. I make the widest conjectures concerning Egypt and her shepherd kings. My friend M., with great painstaking, got me to think I understood the first proposition in Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the second. I am entirely unacquainted with the modern languages; and, like a better man than myself, have ""small Latin and less Greek."" I am a stranger to the shapes and texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers- not from the circumstance of my being town-born- for I should have brought the same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen it ""on Devon's leafy shores,""- and am no less at a loss among purely town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes.- Not that I affect ignorance- but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching. I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation with so little discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre a stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company; everybody is so much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.-",,16530,•I've included twice: Mansions and Cabinet,"""Not that I affect ignorance- but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching""","",2009-09-14 19:47:11 UTC,""
6238,Wunderkammern,Reading. Reviewing old notes.,2006-03-02 00:00:00 UTC,"MY reading has been lamentably desultory and immethodical. Odd, out of the way, old English plays, and treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, and ways of feeling. In everything that relates to science, I am a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or country gentlemen, in King John's days. I know less geography than a school-boy of six weeks' standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges into Asia; whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of these great divisions; nor can form the remotest conjecture of the position of New South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the first-named of these two Terrae Incognitae. I have no astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or Charles's Wain; the place of any star; or the name of any of them at sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness- and if the sun on some portentous morn were to make his first appearance in the West, I verily believe, that, while all the world were gasping in apprehension about me, I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity and want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess some vague points, such as one cannot help picking up in the course of miscellaneous study; but I never deliberately sat down to a chronicle, even of my own country. I have most dim apprehensions of the four great monarchies; and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, floats as first, in my fancy. I make the widest conjectures concerning Egypt and her shepherd kings. My friend M., with great painstaking, got me to think I understood the first proposition in Euclid, but gave me over in despair at the second. I am entirely unacquainted with the modern languages; and, like a better man than myself, have ""small Latin and less Greek."" I am a stranger to the shapes and texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers- not from the circumstance of my being town-born- for I should have brought the same inobservant spirit into the world with me, had I first seen it ""on Devon's leafy shores,""- and am no less at a loss among purely town-objects, tools, engines, mechanic processes.- Not that I affect ignorance- but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching. I sometimes wonder, how I have passed my probation with so little discredit in the world, as I have done, upon so meagre a stock. But the fact is, a man may do very well with a very little knowledge, and scarce be found out, in mixed company; everybody is so much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I dread so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an hour with a sensible, well-informed man, that does not know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort.-",,16531,•I've included twice: Mansions and Cabinet,"""Not that I affect ignorance--but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and I have been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities as it can hold without aching""",Rooms,2009-09-14 19:47:11 UTC,""
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Man is a godlike being. We launch ourselves in conceit into illimitable space, and take up our rest beyond the fixed stars. We proceed without impediment from country to country, and from century to century, through all the ages of the past, and through the vast creation of the imaginable future. We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in the flight of an eagle.
(p. 9)",2013-06-04,16579,"•I've included twice: Prison and Eagle
•I've deleted the duplicate entry (#16580). — 2013-06-04","""We spurn at the bounds of time and space; nor would the thought be less futile that imagines to imprison the mind within the limits of the body, than the attempt of the booby clown who is said within a thick hedge to have plotted to shut in the flight of an eagle""",Animals and Rooms,2013-06-04 15:19:02 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"We never find our attention called to any particular part or member of the body, except when there is somewhat amiss in that part or member. And, in like manner as we do not think of any one part or member in particular, so neither do we consider our entire microcosm and frame. The body is apprehended as no more important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he [page 10] dwells. The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the ""stranger at home."" On set occasions and at appropriate times we examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take account of the muskets, the swords, and other implements of war it contains, but for the most part are engaged in the occupations of peace, and do not call the means of warfare in any sort to our recollection.
(pp. 9-10)",,16581,"","""The body is apprehended as no more important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he dwells""","",2009-09-14 19:47:20 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"We never find our attention called to any particular part or member of the body, except when there is somewhat amiss in that part or member. And, in like manner as we do not think of any one part or member in particular, so neither do we consider our entire microcosm and frame. The body is apprehended as no more important and of intimate connection to a man engaged in a train of reflections, than the house or apartment in which he [page 10] dwells. The mind may aptly be described under the denomination of the ""stranger at home."" On set occasions and at appropriate times we examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take account of the muskets, the swords, and other implements of war it contains, but for the most part are engaged in the occupations of peace, and do not call the means of warfare in any sort to our recollection.
(pp. 9-10)",,16583,•I've included twice: Governor and Fort,"""On set occasions and at appropriate times we examine our stores, and ascertain the various commodities we have, laid up in our presses and our coffers. Like the governor of a fort in time of peace, which was erected to keep out a foreign assailant, we occasionally visit our armoury, and take account of the muskets, the swords, and other implements of war it contains, but for the most part are engaged in the occupations of peace, and do not call the means of warfare in any sort to our recollection""",Inhabitants,2009-09-14 19:47:21 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Hence arises the notion, which has been entertained ever since the birth of reflection and logical discourse in the world, and which in some faint and confused degree exists probably even among savages, that the body is the prison of the mind. It is in this sense that Waller, after completing fourscore years of age, expresses himself in these affecting and interesting couplets.
When we for age could neither read nor write,
The subject made us able to indite.
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light by chinks that time hath made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser, men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Thus it is common with persons of elevated soul to talk of neglecting, overlooking, and taking small account of the body. It is in this spirit that the story is recorded of Anaxarchus, who, we are told, was ordered by Nicocreon, tyrant of Salamis, to be pounded in a mortar, and who, in contempt of his mortal sufferings, exclaimed, ""Beat on, tyrant! thou dost but strike upon the case of Anaxarchus; thou canst not touch the man himself."" And it is in something of the same light that we must regard what is related of the North American savages. Beings, who scoff at their tortures, must have an idea of something that lies beyond the reach of their assailants.
(p. 11)",,16587,"","""Hence arises the notion, which has been entertained ever since the birth of reflection and logical discourse in the world, and which in some faint and confused degree exists probably even among savages, that the body is the prison of the mind""","",2009-09-14 19:47:21 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Man is in truth a miracle. The human mind is a creature of celestial origin, shut up and confined in a wall of flesh. We feel a kind of proud impatience of the degradation to which we are condemned. We beat ourselves to pieces against the wires of our cage, and long to escape, to shoot through the elements, and be as free to change at [page 100] any instant the place where we dwell, as to change the subject to which our thoughts are applied.
(pp. 99-100)",,16607,•Haven't searched past here (Essay 6 and following remain).,"""The human mind is a creature of celestial origin, shut up and confined in a wall of flesh""","",2009-09-14 19:47:25 UTC,Essay V. Of the Rebelliousness of Man
7027,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-07-21 13:53:42 UTC,"Your system teaches us, that we are partly mortal and partly immortal; or are both mortal and immortal at the same time. Hence it is common for believers in an immortal soul, to speak of their mortal and immortal part, and that at death the immortal part has taken its flight to God in heaven, or has sunk into hell beneath. But I ask, is the mortal part animated by the immortal? If this be true, there is no death in the case. Death is only the removal of an immortal soul from dead matter, which many have considered merely as a clog to the soul. And if the man is as complete without the body, as he is without the house he resides in, the immortal soul ought to be thankful when it gets quit of the body. And instead of believing in or hoping for a resurrection of it from the dead, the soul ought to pray and hope that such a thing may never take place. And if the man, the immortal soul is complete without the body as you affirm, there is just as little propriety in raising it to punish it after the resurrection, as in punishing the house in which a man commits murder. In fact, Sir, if this doctrine of yours be true, the judge ought to condemn the immortal soul to be hung instead of the body, for the body was no more to be blamed for the murder, than the dagger is with which the horrid deed was done. But your doctrine of an immortal soul is not only at war with the principles of the Bible, but with that of reason, justice, and common sense.
(pp. 352-3)",,18955,"","""And if the man is as complete without the body, as he is without the house he resides in, the immortal soul ought to be thankful when it gets quit of the body.""","",2011-07-21 13:53:42 UTC,""