work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5657,"","Reading Donald Greene's The Politics of Samuel Johnson, 2nd ed. (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1990), 2. Found again searching in C-H Lion.",2006-09-18 00:00:00 UTC,"There was as great a storm of wind and rain as I have almost ever seen, which necessarily confined us to the house; but we were fully compensated by Dr Johnson's conversation. He said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, merely by having the knowledge of a few forms, and being furnished with a little occasional information. He told us, the first time he saw Dr Young was at the house of Mr Richardson, the author of Clarissa. He was sent for, that the doctor might read to him his Conjectures on Original Composition, which he did, and Dr Johnson made his remarks; and he was surprised to find Young receive as novelties, what he thought very common maxims. He said, he believed Young was not a great scholar, nor had studied regularly the art of writing; that there were very fine things in his Night Thoughts, though you could not find twenty lines together without some extravagance. He repeated two passages from his Love of Fame--the characters of Brunetta and Stella, which he praised highly. He said Young pressed him much to come to Wellwyn. He always intended it, but never went. He was sorry when Young died. The cause of quarrel between Young and his son, he told us, was, that his son insisted Young should turn away a clergyman's widow, who lived with him, and who, having acquired great influence over the father, was saucy to the son. Dr Johnson said, she could not conceal her resentment at him, for saying to Young, that 'an old man should not resign himself to the management of any body.' I asked him, if there was any improper connection between them. 'No, sir, no more than between two statues. He was past fourscore, and she a very coarse woman. She read to him, and, I suppose, made his coffee, and frothed his chocolate, and did such things as an old man wishes to have done for him.'
(pp. 323-4)",,15110,•Greene thinks this narrow fellow is Lord North.,"""He [Johnson] said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, merely by having the knowledge of a few forms, and being furnished with a little occasional information.""","",2013-06-26 18:37:25 UTC,"Thursday, 30th September"
5642,"",Reading in Google Books ,2012-01-31 18:57:08 UTC,"4. We frequently meet with a distinction in writers upon this subject, between things in the mind, and things external to the mind. The powers, faculties, and operations of the mind, are things in the mind. Every thing is said to be in the mind, of which the mind is the subject. It is self-evident, that there are some things which cannot exist without a subject to which they belong, and of which they are attributes. Thus colour must be in something coloured; figure in something figured; thought can only be in something that thinks; wisdom and virtue cannot exist but in some being that is wise and virtuous. When therefore we speak of things in the mind, we understand by this, things of which the mind is the subject. Excepting the mind itself, and things in the mind, all other things are said to be external. It ought therefore to be remembered, that this distinction between things in the mind, and things external, is not meant to signify the place of the things we speak of, but their subject.
There is a figurative sense in which things are said to be in the mind, which it is sufficient barely to mention: We say such a thing was not in my mind, meaning no more than that I had not the least thought of it. By a figure, we put the thing for the thought of it. In this sense external things, are in the mind as often as they are the objects of our thought.
(I.i.4, 15)",,19564," Book I, Chapter i Explication of Words. META-METAPHORICAL throughout this opening...","""Thus colour must be in something coloured; figure in something figured; thought can only be in something that thinks; wisdom and virtue cannot exist but in some being that is wise and virtuous.""","",2012-01-31 18:58:13 UTC,"Book I, Chapter i"
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"
5642,"",Reading in Google Books ,2012-01-31 19:03:45 UTC,"The theory of Democritus and Epicurus, on this subject, was not very unlike to that of the Peripatetics. They held, that all bodies continually send forth slender films or spectres from their surface, of such extreme subtilty, that they easily penetrate our gross bodies, or enter by the organs of sense, and stamp their image upon the mind. The sensible species of Aristotle were mere forms without matter. The spectres of Epicurus were composed of a very subtile matter.
(I.i.10, 26)",,19568,"","""They held, that all bodies continually send forth slender films or spectres from their surface, of such extreme subtilty, that they easily penetrate our gross bodies, or enter by the organs of sense, and stamp their image upon the mind.""",Impressions,2012-01-31 19:03:45 UTC,"Book I, Chapter i"
5642,"",Reading in Google Books ,2012-01-31 19:05:09 UTC,"Modern Philosophers, as well as the Peripatetics and Epicureans of old, have conceived, that external objects cannot be the immediate objects of our thought; that there must be some image of them in the mind itself, in which, as in a mirror, they are seen. And the name idea, in the philosophical sense of it, is given to those internal and immediate objects of our thoughts. The external thing is the remote or mediate object; but the idea, or image of that object in the mind, is the immediate object, without which we could have no perception, no remembrance, no conception of the mediate object.
(I.i.10, 26)",,19569,"","""Modern Philosophers, as well as the Peripatetics and Epicureans of old, have conceived, that external objects cannot be the immediate objects of our thought; that there must be some image of them in the mind itself, in which, as in a mirror, they are seen.""",Optics,2012-01-31 19:05:09 UTC,"Book I, Chapter i"
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:26:53 UTC,"There are other opinions that appear to be universal, from what is common in the structure of all languages, ancient and modern, polished and barbarous. Language is the express image and picture of human thoughts; and, from the picture, we may often draw very certain conclusions with regard to the original. We find in all languages the same parts of speech, nouns substantive and adjective, verbs active and passive, varied according to the tenses of past, present, and future; we find adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. There are general rules of syntax common to all languages. This uniformity in the structure of language, shows a certain degree of uniformity in those notions upon which the structure of language is grounded.
(I.ii.7, p. 44)",,19614,"","""Language is the express image and picture of human thoughts; and, from the picture, we may often draw very certain conclusions with regard to the original.""","",2012-03-01 17:26:53 UTC,Chapter 2. Principles Taken for Granted
5642,Etymology,Reading,2012-03-01 17:28:16 UTC,"With regard to the mind, men in their rudest state are apt to conjecture, that the principle of life in a man is his breath; because the most obvious distinction between a living and a dead man is, that the one breathes, and the other does not. To this it is owing, that, in ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul, is that which properly signifies breath or air.
(I.iii, p. 47)",,19615,"","""To this it is owing, that, in ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul, is that which properly signifies breath or air.""","",2012-03-01 17:28:28 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:30:06 UTC,"To omit many ancient systems of this kind, Des Cartes, about the middle of the last century, dissatisfied with the materia prima, the substantial forms, and the occult qualities of the Peripatetics, conjectured boldly, that the heavenly bodies of our system are carried round by a vortex or whirlpool of subtile matter, just as straws and chaff are carried round in a tub of water. He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion. By such conjectures as these, Des Cartes could account for every phænomenon in nature, in such a plausible manner, as gave satisfaction to a great part of the learned world for more than half a century.
(I.iii, p. 47)",,19616,USE IN ENTRY,"""He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that she dispatches these animal spirits, as her messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the body, as there is occasion.""",Rooms and Throne,2012-03-01 17:30:31 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:33:55 UTC,"There is no subject in which men have always been so prone to form their notions by analogies of this kind, as in what relates to the mind. We form an early acquaintance with material things by means of our senses, and are bred up in a constant familiarity with them. Hence we are apt to measure all things by them; and to ascribe to things most remote from matter, the qualities that belong to material things. It is for this reason, that mankind have, in all ages, been so prone to conceive the mind itself to be some subtile kind of matter: That they have been disposed to ascribe human figure, and human organs, not only to angels, but even to the Deity. Though we are conscious of the operations of our own minds when they are exerted, and are capable of attending to them, so as to form a distinct notion of them; this is so difficult a work to men, whose attention is constantly solicited by external objects, that we give them names from things that are familiar, and which are conceived to have some similitude to them; and the notions we form of them are no less analogical than the names we give them. Almost all the words, by which we express the operations of the mind, are borrowed from material objects. To understand, to conceive, to imagine, to comprehend, to deliberate, to infer, and many others, are words of this kind; so that the very language of mankind, with regard to the operations of our minds, is analogical. Because bodies are affected only by contact and pressure, we are apt to conceive, that what is an immediate object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in contact with it, and make some impression upon it. When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived. It is evident, that these notions are drawn from some similitude conceived between body and mind, and between the properties of body and the operations of mind.
(I.iv, p. 54-5)",,19618,META-METAPHORICAL,"""When we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think that these must be some image in the mind of the thing conceived.""","",2012-03-01 17:33:55 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis
5642,"",Reading,2012-03-01 17:35:28 UTC,"When a man is urged by contrary motives, those on one hand inciting him to do some action, those on the other to forbear it; he deliberates about it, and at last resolves to do it, or not to do it. The contrary motives are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales of a balance; and there is not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy between body and mind. Hence the phrases of weighing motives, of deliberating upon actions, are common to all languages.
(I.iv, p. 55)",,19619,META-METAPHORICAL. INTEREST. Reid calls this the best possible analogy for the mind!,"""The contrary motives are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales of a balance; and there is not perhaps any instance that can be named of a more striking analogy between body and mind.""","",2012-03-01 17:35:28 UTC,Chapter 3. Of Hypothesis