work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5586,"",Reading,2005-07-25 00:00:00 UTC,"To account for this, and other phenomena of Memory, by intermediate causes, many authors, both antient and modern, were fain to suppose, that every thing perceived by us, whether a thought of the mind, or an external object, every thing, in a word, that we remember, makes upon the brain a certain impression, which, remaining for some time after, is taken notice of by the mind, and recognized as the mark of that particular sensation or idea; and that this sensation or idea, thus obtruded upon us anew, gives rise to remembrance. They supposed further, that attention to the thing durable; while that, to which we slightly attend, makes but a slight impression that soon wears out. When the brain itself is disordered, by disease, by drunkenness, or by other accidents, these philosophers are of opinion, that the impressions are disfigured, or instantly erased, or not at all received; in which case, there is either no remembrance, or a confused one: and they think, that the brains of old men, grown callous by length of time, are, like hard wax, equally tenacious of old impressions, and unsusceptible of new. Many plausible things may indeed be said, for solving the difficulties above mentioned, if we will only admit this theory. But it must, notwithstanding, be rejected; and that for several good reasons.
(II.i, p. 10)",2012-01-28,14913,•See also previous entry: Beattie denies metaphors of impression that would have the brain impressed. He later takes frequently about the mind and memory being impressed. Compare with Descartes and Berkeley on mind/brain impression. USE IN ENTRY. INTEREST.,"Some philosophers ""think, that the brains of old men, grown callous by length of time, are, like hard wax, equally tenacious of old impressions, and unsusceptible of new.""",Impression,2012-01-28 18:20:07 UTC,Chapter II. Phenomena and Laws of Memory. Section I.
5586,"",Reading,2005-07-25 00:00:00 UTC,"The human brain is a bodily substance; and sensible and permanent impressions made upon it must so far resemble those made [end page 10] on sand by the foot, or on wax by the seal, as to have certain shape, length, breadth, and deepness. Now such an impression can only be made by that, which had solidity, magnitude, and figure. If then we remember thoughts, feelings, sounds, as well as things visible and tangible, which will hardly be denied; those sounds, thoughts, and feelings, must have a body, and, consequently, shape, size, and weight. What then is the size or weight of a sound? Is it an inch long, or half an inch? Does it weigh an ounce, or a grain? Does the roar of a cannon bear any resemblance to the ball, or to the powder, in shape, in weight, or in magnitude? What figure has the pain of the toothach, and our remembrance of that pain? Is it triangular, or circular, or of a square form? The bare mention of these consequences may prove the absurdity of the theories that lead to them.
(II.i, pp. 10-11)",2012-01-28,14914,"•I've included twice: Footprint and Wax
•See also previous entry. Beattie prepares to deny metaphors of impression here. Rhetorical questions used to make case. USE IN ENTRY. INTEREST.","""The human brain is a bodily substance; and sensible and permanent impressions made upon it must so far resemble those made on sand by the foot, or on wax by the seal, as to have certain shape, length, breadth, and deepness""",Impression,2012-01-28 18:18:16 UTC,Chapter II. Phenomena and Laws of Memory. Section I.
5345,"",Searching in Google Books,2011-09-29 18:12:25 UTC,"[...] Is it possible to imagine, that any course of education could ever bring a rational creature to believe, that two and two are equal to three, and that he is not the same person to-day he was yesterday, that the ground he stands on does not exist? could make him disbelieve the testimony of his own senses, or that of other men? could make him expect unlike events in like circumstances? or that the course of nature, of which he has hitherto had experience, will be changed even when he foresees no cause to hinder its continuance? I can no more believe, that education could produce such a depravity of judgment, than that education could make me see all human bodies in an inverted position, or hear with my nostrils, or take pleasure in burning or cutting my flesh. Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good? If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how they come to be universal: the modes of sentiment and behaviour produced by education are uniform, only where education is uniform; but there are many truths which have obtained universal acknowledgement in all ages and nations. If those judgments be not instinctive, I should be glad to know how men find it so difficult, or rather impossible, to lay them aside: the false opinions we imbibe from habit and education, may be, and often are, relinquished by those who make a proper use of their reason; and the man who thus renounces former prejudices, upon conviction of their falsity, is applauded by all as a man of candour, sense, and spirit; but if one were to suffer himself to be argued out of his common sense, the whole world would pronounce him a fool.
(II.ii.1, pp. 258-60)",,19246,"","""Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?""",Impressions,2011-09-29 18:12:25 UTC,"Part II, Chap. ii, Sect 1"
5642,"",Reading in Google Books ,2012-01-31 19:02:22 UTC,"Aristotle taught, that all the objects of our thought enter at first by the senses; and, since the sense cannot receive external material objects themselves, it receives their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the matter of it. These images or forms, impressed upon the senses, are called sensible species and are the objects only of the sensitive part of the mind: But, by various internal powers, they are retained, refined, and spiritualized, so as to become objects of memory and imagination, and, at last, of pure intellection. When they are objects of memory and of imagination, they get the name of phantasms. When, by farther refinement, and being stripped of their particularities, they become objects of science; they are called intelligible species: So that every immediate object, whether of sense, of memory, of imagination, or of reasoning, must be some phantasm or species in the mind itself.
(I.i.10, 25)
",,19567,CROSS-REFERENCE. See Reid in Essays (on touch).,"""Aristotle taught, that all the objects of our thought enter at first by the senses; and, since the sense cannot receive external material objects themselves, it receives their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the matter of it.""",Impressions,2012-01-31 19:02:22 UTC,"Book I, Chapter i"
7486,"",Reading in C-H Lion,2013-06-27 18:36:48 UTC,"There are chiefly four perfections of which memory is capable. These are rarely united in the same person; and the prevalence of one of them, or the manner and degree in which they are united, produces very great diversities in the memories of different persons. Some of the perfections of memory arise from the strength with which separate perceptions are remembered, others from the ability of remembering their connexions firmly.--It is a perfection of memory to be susceptible, to receive an impression quickly: it is likewise a perfection of memory to be tenacious. Both these perfections arise chiefly from a fitness for remembering separate perceptions: but they do not always go together; nay, they who commit a thing quickly to memory, generally forget it soonest. This may seem to contradict the maxim, that perceptions originally strong, are firmly remembered. But it is perfectly consistent with it. Because the impression is made quickly, it does not follow that it is strong: a susceptible memory, like a soft body, receives some impression at once, and because this impression is perceivable at once, we are at no pains to deepen it, we allow it to continue slight: when the memory is, as it were, of a harder contexture, the impression is not made without continued labour, it is deep before it can be at all taken notice of, and therefore it is permanent. Sometimes these perfections are united: the memory is of such a happy temperature as may be compared to wax, which receives the seal easily and strongly when it is melted, and immediately hardens and suffers it not to be effaced. Of these two perfections, the former is in its nature and principles most congenial to genius; but the latter is at least equally subservient to its operations; for no perception can be suggested by fancy or applied to any purpose, except it be remembered.--It is a perfection of memory to be distinct, to exhibit things in their proper form and order: it is also a perfection to be ready, to call to mind easily and quickly such ideas as we have occasion for. Distinctness relates to such things as are in our view together; readiness, to such as make their appearance in succession. They are inseparable, and always take place almost in the same degree. They arise from the same principle, from a natural aptitude to retain the relations of things. The memory cannot indeed be distinct, except the several separate perceptions be well retained; the omission of one part or member would destroy the harmony of the whole: but distinctness arises immediately from a lively remembrance of their connexions; if this were wanting, all the particulars would lie jumbled in confusion. It is, in like manner, when the connexions of things are strongly perceived, that some of them introduce others readily. If in some cases there be distinctness of remembrance without readiness of recollection, the defect in this latter virtue is owing to the weakness and inactivity of imagination, failing to exert itself at the proper time. In proportion to the degree in which these perfections of memory are possessed, they must render the energies of genius the more perfect, and likewise affect the form of its productions, so far as it employs in them materials borrowed from memory. Confusion in a work may proceed from indistinctness of remembrance, as well as from irregularity of imagination: not only feebleness of imagination, but also slowness of recollection, may render a work both laborious and meagre. Besides these defects, confusion and slowness, which are directly opposed to the excellences of memory now under consideration, there is an imperfection which bears a relation to both these excellences, which seems to resemble them, but in truth only mimics them; I mean, the remembrance of things merely by rote, when a person can run over things exactly, in their observed order, and be certain of recollecting any part of them by thus running over them, but can remember nothing, if he be put out of that train. In this case, the separate perceptions are faintly impressed upon the mind, their experienced connexions strongly; and these are the only connexions which influence it, the relations conferred by imagination have none; the subject likewise is not clearly understood. These being the causes of this peculiarity of memory, it can seldom be found along with genius, or indeed with a great degree of any of the intellectual powers.
(II.ix, pp. 269-272)",,21205,"","""Because the impression is made quickly, it does not follow that it is strong: a susceptible memory, like a soft body, receives some impression at once, and because this impression is perceivable at once, we are at no pains to deepen it, we allow it to continue slight: when the memory is, as it were, of a harder contexture, the impression is not made without continued labour, it is deep before it can be at all taken notice of, and therefore it is permanent.""",Impressions,2013-06-27 18:36:48 UTC,""
7486,"",Reading in C-H Lion,2013-06-27 18:38:23 UTC,"There are chiefly four perfections of which memory is capable. These are rarely united in the same person; and the prevalence of one of them, or the manner and degree in which they are united, produces very great diversities in the memories of different persons. Some of the perfections of memory arise from the strength with which separate perceptions are remembered, others from the ability of remembering their connexions firmly.--It is a perfection of memory to be susceptible, to receive an impression quickly: it is likewise a perfection of memory to be tenacious. Both these perfections arise chiefly from a fitness for remembering separate perceptions: but they do not always go together; nay, they who commit a thing quickly to memory, generally forget it soonest. This may seem to contradict the maxim, that perceptions originally strong, are firmly remembered. But it is perfectly consistent with it. Because the impression is made quickly, it does not follow that it is strong: a susceptible memory, like a soft body, receives some impression at once, and because this impression is perceivable at once, we are at no pains to deepen it, we allow it to continue slight: when the memory is, as it were, of a harder contexture, the impression is not made without continued labour, it is deep before it can be at all taken notice of, and therefore it is permanent. Sometimes these perfections are united: the memory is of such a happy temperature as may be compared to wax, which receives the seal easily and strongly when it is melted, and immediately hardens and suffers it not to be effaced. Of these two perfections, the former is in its nature and principles most congenial to genius; but the latter is at least equally subservient to its operations; for no perception can be suggested by fancy or applied to any purpose, except it be remembered.--It is a perfection of memory to be distinct, to exhibit things in their proper form and order: it is also a perfection to be ready, to call to mind easily and quickly such ideas as we have occasion for. Distinctness relates to such things as are in our view together; readiness, to such as make their appearance in succession. They are inseparable, and always take place almost in the same degree. They arise from the same principle, from a natural aptitude to retain the relations of things. The memory cannot indeed be distinct, except the several separate perceptions be well retained; the omission of one part or member would destroy the harmony of the whole: but distinctness arises immediately from a lively remembrance of their connexions; if this were wanting, all the particulars would lie jumbled in confusion. It is, in like manner, when the connexions of things are strongly perceived, that some of them introduce others readily. If in some cases there be distinctness of remembrance without readiness of recollection, the defect in this latter virtue is owing to the weakness and inactivity of imagination, failing to exert itself at the proper time. In proportion to the degree in which these perfections of memory are possessed, they must render the energies of genius the more perfect, and likewise affect the form of its productions, so far as it employs in them materials borrowed from memory. Confusion in a work may proceed from indistinctness of remembrance, as well as from irregularity of imagination: not only feebleness of imagination, but also slowness of recollection, may render a work both laborious and meagre. Besides these defects, confusion and slowness, which are directly opposed to the excellences of memory now under consideration, there is an imperfection which bears a relation to both these excellences, which seems to resemble them, but in truth only mimics them; I mean, the remembrance of things merely by rote, when a person can run over things exactly, in their observed order, and be certain of recollecting any part of them by thus running over them, but can remember nothing, if he be put out of that train. In this case, the separate perceptions are faintly impressed upon the mind, their experienced connexions strongly; and these are the only connexions which influence it, the relations conferred by imagination have none; the subject likewise is not clearly understood. These being the causes of this peculiarity of memory, it can seldom be found along with genius, or indeed with a great degree of any of the intellectual powers.
(II.ix, pp. 269-272)",,21206,USE IN ENTRY,"""Sometimes these perfections are united: the memory is of such a happy temperature as may be compared to wax, which receives the seal easily and strongly when it is melted, and immediately hardens and suffers it not to be effaced.""",Impressions,2013-06-27 18:38:23 UTC,""
7492,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-28 16:22:36 UTC,"LORD RANDOLPH.
When was it pure of sadness! These black weeds
Express the wonted colour of thy mind,
For ever dark and dismal. Seven long years
Are pass'd, since we were join'd by sacred ties:
Clouds, all the while have hung upon thy brow,
Nor broke, nor parted by one gleam of joy.
Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish,
As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand,
Has past o'er thee in vain.
(Act I, p. 8)",,21270,"","""Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish, / As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand, / Has past o'er thee in vain.""",Impressions,2013-06-28 16:22:36 UTC,Act I