work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5085,Blank Slate,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-12 00:00:00 UTC,"Now this is the first and hardest point of wisdom, when it is once learned and imprinted on the heart, O what docility is in the mind to more, what readiness to receive what follows? It makes a man a weaned child, a little simple child, tractable and and [sic] flexible as Christ would have all his disciples. A man this emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride, being blotted out, the soul is as a Tabula rasa, an unwritten table, to receive any impression of the law of God, that he pleases to put on it; and then his words are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge, Prov. viii. 9. then i say it is not difficult to understand, and to prove what is the good and acceptable will of God, Rom. xii. 2. Eph. [end page 41] v. 10. ----17. It is not up unto heaven, that thee shouldest say, who shall ascend to bring it down? [...]
(pp. 41-2)",2011-06-05,13680,"","""A man this emptied and vacuated of self-conceit, these lines of natural pride, being blotted out, the soul is as a Tabula rasa, an unwritten table, to receive any impression of the law of God, that he pleases to put on it; and then his words are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge, Prov. viii. 9. then i say it is not difficult to understand, and to prove what is the good and acceptable will of God, Rom. xii. 2. Eph. v. 10. ----17.""",Writing,2011-06-06 11:36:48 UTC,""
6462,"",Reading in ECCO,2008-10-06 00:00:00 UTC,"Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan. Thy prophane history of Tristram Shandy is as it were an anti-gospel, and seems to have been penned by the hand of Antichrist himself; it tends to excite laughter, but you should remember that the wisest man that ever was, that the great king Solomon himself said of laughter "" it is mad,"" and of mirth ""what doth it?"" Sterne! (for brother I can no longer call [end page 2] thee, though I look upon the clergy of the Church of England as my brethren, when they discharge conscientiously the duties of their function) Sterne , apostate Sterne! if Solomon was now alive, he would not put the question ""What doth mirth."" Thy book would fully shew him, that mirth is nearly akin to wickedness, and that the tickling of laughter is occasioned but the obscene Devil.
(pp. 3-4)",,17186,"","""Oh, Sterne! thou art scabby, and such is the leprosy of thy mind that it is not to be cured like the leprosy of the body, by dipping nine times in the river Jordan.""",Disease,2011-08-25 16:02:47 UTC,""
7182,"","Reading Jonathan Lamb, Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989), 21.
",2012-01-30 17:00:40 UTC,"Thus much for this comparison of Job's, which though it is very poetical, yet conveys a just idea of the thing referred to. --""That he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not""--is no less a faithful and fine representation of the shortness and vanity of human life, of which one cannot give a better explanation, than by referring to the original, from whence the picture was taken.-- With how quick a succession, do days, months and years pass over our heads? -- how truly like a shadow that departeth do they flee away insensibly, and scarce leave an impression with us? -- when we endeavour to call them back by reflection, and consider in what manner they have gone, how unable are the best of us to give a tolerable account? -- and were it not for some of the more remarkable stages which have distinguished a few periods of this rapid progress we should look back upon it all as Nebuchadnezzar did upon his dream when he awoke in the morning; he was sensible many things had passed, and troubled Job's comparison, like a blooming flower smit and shrivelled up with a malignant blast. In this stage of life chances multiply upon us, -- the seeds of disorders are sown by intemperance or neglect, -- infectious distempers are more easily contracted, when contracted they rage with greater violence, and the success in many cases is more doubtful, insomuch that they who have exercised themselves in computations of this kind tell us, ""That one half of the whole species which are born into the world, go out of it again, and are all dead in so short a space as the first seventeen years.""
(II, 73-5)",,19549,CROSS-REFERENCE: Locke Essay II.x.4.,"""With how quick a succession, do days, months and years pass over our heads? -- how truly like a shadow that departeth do they flee away insensibly, and scarce leave an impression with us?""",Impressions,2012-01-30 17:02:04 UTC,""
7696,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-09-28 20:08:40 UTC,"Whenever this shall be executed, it is to be looked upon as the work of true genius; but when fallen short of, as often happens, it is to be deemed the impotent effort of the hard-bound brains of low plagiaries, whose memory is filled with the shreds and ill-chosen scraps of other mens wit.
(p. 2)",,22885,"","""Whenever this shall be executed, it is to be looked upon as the work of true genius; but when fallen short of, as often happens, it is to be deemed the impotent effort of the hard-bound brains of low plagiaries, whose memory is filled with the shreds and ill-chosen scraps of other mens wit.""","",2013-09-28 20:08:40 UTC,""
7696,"","Searching ""camera obscura"" in ECCO-TCP",2013-09-28 20:09:51 UTC,"Squire Groome is no national characteristic of England, but a general representative of any person of the three kingdoms, who likes horse-racing, drinking, &c. preferably to any other happiness; but why he should be the type of the English nation, I cannot see, and therefore leave it to the very jumbling author to explain in the best manner he can; for objects receive strange aspects, as they pass through the camera obscura of his intellect.
(p. 6)",,22886,INTEREST. ,"""Squire Groome is no national characteristic of England, but a general representative of any person of the three kingdoms, who likes horse-racing, drinking, &c. preferably to any other happiness; but why he should be the type of the English nation, I cannot see, and therefore leave it to the very jumbling author to explain in the best manner he can; for objects receive strange aspects, as they pass through the camera obscura of his intellect.""","",2013-09-28 20:09:51 UTC,""
7741,"",Reading in ECCO-TCP,2013-10-26 20:17:41 UTC,"It has frequently happened, that a book has been by the public in general looked upon as the thing--and has notwithstanding been thought a very bad thing by judicious critics--but this has never happened to any thing of mine--whatever I write will by all the world be allowed to be the thing; and if any one should take upon him to assert, that this meditation is not the thing, I must beg leave to tell him that he has no taste--but this is a digression from my subject--no matter for that, a digression is quite the thing in a history, and surely it must be much more so in a meditation. What's a meditation, but a collection of the reveries of a mind; and what is of a more moving nature than the mind--so far from thinking in train, it flies from one subject to another, with a rapidity inexpressible--from meditating upon the planetary system, it can with ease deviate into a meditation upon hobby-horses, tho' there does not appear to be any considerable connexion between the ideas--and yet Hobbs has affirmed, that thoughts have always some connexion.
(pp. 9-10)",,23070,"","""What's a meditation, but a collection of the reveries of a mind; and what is of a more moving nature than the mind--so far from thinking in train, it flies from one subject to another, with a rapidity inexpressible--from meditating upon the planetary system, it can with ease deviate into a meditation upon hobby-horses, tho' there does not appear to be any considerable connexion between the ideas--and yet Hobbs has affirmed, that thoughts have always some connexion.""","",2013-10-26 20:17:41 UTC,Meditation Upon the Thing.
7741,"",Reading,2013-10-26 20:18:45 UTC,"THOU art not to learn, oh, reader! or else thy knowledge is very confined, that Momus once upon a time, proposed in a council of the gods, that every man should carry a window in his breast, that his most secret thoughts might be exposed to all others, which would prevent men from having it in their power to impose upon each other. Alas! what needs such a glass?--cannot a man of common discernment discover the thoughts and characters of men? No sooner do I fix the organ of vision, which to me answers all the purposes of the above-men-tioned glass; no sooner, I say, do I fix my organ of vision upon a person who is introduced to me, but I immediately see whether he thinks me a rogue, or an honest man, a man of sense, or a fool. At every sentence he utters the expression in his face, shews me what he will say next--Thus nature has done what Momus required; and to the great confusion of rogues, their faces are constantly telling tales of them. Sir, your most humble servant, says Mr.--I look in his face, and see he means, Sir, I don't desire to be troubled with you--Sir, says another, any thing that lies in my power you may command--I look in his face, and see he means, if it was in my power to serve you, I would be very loth to do it--An author sometimes, with an indolent air, says,--that thing I wrote is wretched stuff--'twas wrote in such an hurry--I look in his face, and see that this being interpreted signifies, what I write in a hurry is better than the most elaborate compositions of others. Oh! you ignorant, who are imposed upon by the words of designing men, who afterwards cheat and deceive you--Your misfortunes are intirely owing to your not having learned to read God Almighty's hand-writing, though surely the characters he writes must be very legible. How often does a fellow by the hand of nature, marked, quoted, and signed to do a deed of shame, find means to pass himself upon the unwary for a mirrour of integrity, by no other secret but that of frequently using the cabalistical words, honour, virtue, reputation--wherefore, oh! reader, mark, and take the caution that I give thee here, if thou art not an adebt in physiognomy, if thou hast never learned the art of decyphering countenances, lay down this as a rule, and regulate thy conduct by it. Whenever the phrases, a man's honour should be dearer to him than his life, whatever touches my reputation touches my soul, &c. are frequent in the mouth of any man, draw this conclusion, and depend upon it 'twill never fail--'tis a conclusion, which my own experience has always confirmed--a conclusion, easily supported too by abstract reasonings--Well, but, Sir, let us hear your conclusion; why, Sir, 'tis that the man described above is, saving your presence, a rogue.
(pp. 55-9)",,23071,"","""THOU art not to learn, oh, reader! or else thy knowledge is very confined, that Momus once upon a time, proposed in a council of the gods, that every man should carry a window in his breast, that his most secret thoughts might be exposed to all others, which would prevent men from having it in their power to impose upon each other.""",Rooms,2013-10-26 20:18:45 UTC,Meditation Upon Momus's Glass.
7741,"",Reading,2013-10-26 20:20:37 UTC,"PEACE be with the manes of that charitable author, who to the great relief of his brethren, first invented that admirable expedient of digressing from the matter in hand--nothing can be more convenient to a writer, who is hereby enabled to quit his subject, when it excites any disagreeable idea in him--when he has said so much of it that he begins to grow weary of it, or has so little to say of it, that he cannot fill the quantity of paper proposed by any other method--but who amongst the critical tribe shall be so audacious as to wagg his tongue against digressions, which have been enobled by the practice of the ancients, whose authority is of so much greater weight in critical matters, than that of the fathers in religion. The satires and epistles of the excellent Horace may be looked upon as a collection of digressions, and oft with a truely poetical licence, the bard digresses in a digression. Oh! the agreeable, desultory manner of digressions to the reader, no less agreeable than the writer, since neither the former or the latter care to be at the trouble of a continued attention. Talk not then you pedants of your method, cite not the stagerite in praise of lucid order--The rambling Montagne, who wrote from the ebullitions of his heart, will be read and admired, when all the dry didactic dissertations of the schools shall be forgotten. Oh, happy methodists! (though your sect derives its name from method) your discourses consist entirely of digressions, and those so unconnected, that at the end of the sermon 'tis impossible to tell what it turned upon. Digressions too take place in philosophy; and oft we find the mind of a philosopher turns aside in a curve, flies off in a tangent, or springs up in a spiral line. Nature itself delights in digressions, and so little is she pleased with a sameness in things, that no two objects exactly alike can be seen.
(pp. 60-3)",,23072,"","""Digressions too take place in philosophy; and oft we find the mind of a philosopher turns aside in a curve, flies off in a tangent, or springs up in a spiral line.""","",2013-10-26 20:20:37 UTC,Meditation Upon Digressions.
7741,"",Reading,2013-10-26 20:21:42 UTC,"OH! thou that canst to nonsense procure veneration, mysterious concatenation of ideas the most remote, how extensive is thy influence, and how great thy power! To thee the great owe all their distinction. His lordship fluttering in brocade may possibly not be a more respectable personage, than the porter that stands at his door, yet where e'er he goes, obsequious crowds with reverence bow before him--what can this be owing to? to the magic of a title--the ideas of worth, honour, and every kind of excellence, have, by undiscerning mortals, been connected with a title, and nothing can better prove the force of the association of ideas, as there are in nature no things more distinct than a title and real worth. The officer that struts and swears with an air of boldness and freedom, as naturally excites in the breast of each beholder the idea of courage, yet frequent experience has proved to a demonstration, that a cockade is not an infallible sign of that quality. The mind has with equal capriciousness attached the idea of grace to certain pieces of lawn properly disposed upon black. Thus is the idea of courage annexed to a habit of one colour, the idea of grace to an habit of another colour, and, what seems still more surprizing, each particular species of learning is denoted by a particular habit, thus a black gown and a square cap are infallible signs, that the person to whom they belong is a logician, metaphysician, mathematician, and a perfect master of the literae humaniores. The idea of profound knowledge in all the various branches of physic is annexed to a long wig, the idea of reports, cases, and all the quirks of the law to a quoif, and the idea of a talent for poetry to a ragged coat. Strange and unaccountable are the combinations which this extravagant coupling of ideas gives occasion to--the sagacious Locke informs us of a gentleman who could never dance except there was an old trunk in the room with him; and I myself know a dramatic poet that can never write, except one of the panes of his window be broken. But, alas! the influence of this fantastic power begins before we come into the world; and if the mother should happen to have too strong an imagination, 'tis ten to one but the child is born with the head of a dog. By this happy term, association of ideas, we are enabled to account for the most extraordinary phaenomina in the moral world; and thus Mr. Locke may be said to have found a key to the inmost recesses of the human mind.
(pp. 76-80)",,23073,"","""By this happy term, association of ideas, we are enabled to account for the most extraordinary phaenomina in the moral world; and thus Mr. Locke may be said to have found a key to the inmost recesses of the human mind.""","",2013-10-26 20:21:42 UTC,Meditation Upon the Association of Ideas.
7741,"",Reading,2013-10-26 20:23:59 UTC,"ONCE engaged in sublime and and elevated speculations, I cannot bring myself down to meditate upon sublunary things. A race of intelligent beings, called Monades, engage my attention--here somebody will probably be inquisitive to know what these Monades are--the great philosopher of Germany will inform you, Sir, they are beings which seem to hold a medium between body and spirit, consciousness of their unity, forms their essence, and by their knowledge of eternal truths, they are members of the everlasting city of God. They are called Monades from the Greek adjective μονας, which signifies alone, as every smatterer in Greek knows, as well as Leibnitz him. But what is this etymology founded upon?--why, Sir, 'tis founded upon this, every Monade has a right to say, I am myself alone. But here you'll ask me what right had Leibnitz to create such beings? what proof could he give of their existence? Lord! Lord! what a restraint you would lay upon philosophers. If you deny them the privilege of framing hypotheses, you reduce them to a level with other men. What proof could Descartes give in favour of his vortices and subtile matter? yet to these he owes his reputation as a philosopher. The fancy of a philosopher should be as unconfined as that of a poet or a painter. By scrupulously following phaenomina, he reduces himself to the rank of a mechanic. Commend me to Flud and Paracelsus, who have devised aerial beings enough to people a new creation. But to return to our Monades, they are, says Leibnitz, mirrours of the universe, and so indeed are men too, though they reflect its parts very imperfectly. Men too are mirrours that are liable to be sullied in reflecting the objects by which they pass, and, like other mirrours, they are subject to be broken, in both which articles 'tis possible they are surpassed by Monades. There is reason to think, that these beings have some intercourse with mankind, and 'tis not impossible, that our dreams may be suggested by them. 'Tis likely too that we owe to them those impulses, and that glimmering insight into futurity, which so many have experienced. Not to mention the daemon of Socrates, 'tis well known that Descartes in all his undertakings had some foreknowledge, whether the event would be favourable to him or not. I shall add but one instance more, and that is Ozanam the mathematician's prediction, concerning his own death, which was fulfilled a few days after, exactly in the manner he had foretold it. Here I doubt not but the critics will accuse me of credulity and superstition, but what care I? this is an atheistical age, and whoever believes any thing out of the common road is sure of being stigmatized as superstitious--nay, there are certain persons who call themselves moral philosophers, who look upon every man as superstitious who believes the Christian religion.
(pp. 87-91)",,23074,"","""But to return to our Monades, they are, says Leibnitz, mirrours of the universe, and so indeed are men too, though they reflect its parts very imperfectly. Men too are mirrours that are liable to be sullied in reflecting the objects by which they pass, and, like other mirrours, they are subject to be broken, in both which articles 'tis possible they are surpassed by Monades.""",Mirror,2013-10-26 20:24:08 UTC,""