work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3406,Blank Slate,"Reading Neal Wood's ""Tabula Rasa, Social Environmentalism, and the 'English Paradigm'."" Journal of the History of Ideas 53:4 (1992): 647-68.p. 658.",2005-06-22 00:00:00 UTC,"8. Another thing necessary, is the rooting out from the consciences of men all those opinions which seem to justify, and give pretence of right to rebellious actions; such as are: the opinion, that a man can do nothing lawfully against his private conscience; that they who have the sovereignty, are subject to the civil laws; that there is any authority of subjects, whose negative may hinder the affirmative of the sovereign power; that any subject hath a propriety distinct from the dominion of the commonwealth; that there is a body of the people without him or them that have the sovereign power; and that any lawful sovereign may be resisted under the name of a tyrant; which opinions are they, which, Part II. chap. 8, sect. 5-10, have been declared to dispose men to rebellion. And because opinions which are gotten by education, and in length of time are made habitual, cannot be taken away by force, and upon the sudden: they must therefore be taken away also, by time and education. And seeing the said opinions have proceeded from private and public teaching, and those teachers have received them from grounds and principles, which they have learned in the Universities, from the doctrine of Aristotle, and others (who have delivered nothing concerning morality and policy demonstratively; but being passionately addicted to popular government, have insinuated their opinions, by eloquent sophistry): there is no doubt, if the true doctrine concerning the law of nature, and the properties of a body politic, and the nature of law in general, were perspicuously set down, and taught in the Universities, but that young men, who come thither void of prejudice, and whose minds are yet as white paper, capable of any instruction, would more easily receive the same, and afterward teach it to the people, both in books and otherwise, than now they do the contrary.
(II.ix.8, p. 183)",2012-04-15,8697,"Note, D. Johnston in The Rhetoric of Leviathan connects this with Hobbes' other paper metaphor (the common people's minds, like ""clean paper"" (89). ","""[T]here is no doubt, if the true doctrine concerning the law of nature, and the properties of a body politic, and the nature of law in general, were perspicuously set down, and taught in the Universities, but that young men, who come thither void of prejudice, and whose minds are yet as white paper, capable of any instruction, would more easily receive the same, and afterward teach it to the people, both in books and otherwise, than now they do the contrary.""",Writing,2012-04-15 20:35:53 UTC,"Part II, Chapter ix"
3586,Materialism,Reading MacDonald's History of the Concept of Mind (317).,2003-10-10 00:00:00 UTC,"Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so manywheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, and artificial reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or the let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation.
(Introduction, §1, p.3-4)",2009-06-10,9275,•REVISIT and sort out the allegory of the Commonwealth.,"""For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life?""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,Opening paragraph of Introduction
3586,"",Reading,2004-01-09 00:00:00 UTC,"When a man, upon the hearing of any speech, hath those thoughts which the words of that speech, and their connexion, were ordained and constituted to signify, then he is said to understand it, understanding being nothing else but conception caused by speech. And therefore if speech be peculiar to man (as for aught I know it is), then is understanding peculiar to him also. And therefore of absurd and false affirmations, in case they be universal, there can be no understanding, though many think they understand them, when they do but repeat the words softly, or con them in their mind.
(I.4, §22, p. 21)",2009-06-10,9276,"","""And therefore of absurd and false affirmations, in case they be universal, there can be no understanding, though many think they understand them, when they do but repeat the words softly, or con them in their mind.""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,"Part I, Chapter 4, ""Of Speech"""
3586,"",Reading,2004-01-09 00:00:00 UTC,"The names of such things as affect us, that is, which please and displease us, because all men be not alike affected with the same thind, nor the same man at all times, are in the common discourses of men of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our conceptions, and all our affections are but conceptions, when we conceive the same things differently, we can hardly avoid different naming of them. For though the nature of what we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions. And therefore in reasoning a man must take heed of words which, besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification also of the nature, disposition, and interest of the speaker, such as are the names of virtues and vices, for one man calleth wisdom, what another calleth fear, and one cruelty, what another justice; one prodigality, what another magnanimity; and one gravity, what another stupidity, &c. And therefore such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can metaphors, and tropes or speech; but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy, which the other do not.
(I.iv, §22, p. 21-2)",,9277,"","""For though the nature of what we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions.""","",2011-07-25 14:09:42 UTC,"Part I, Chap. 4, ""Of Speech"""
3586,"",Looking through old notes,2005-03-24 00:00:00 UTC,"This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself), we call imagination, as I said before; but when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory. So that imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names (2.3).",2007-04-26,9278,"•Cross-reference: Locke's ""elegaic"" description of impressions that are laid in fading colors.","""This decaying sense, when we would express the thing itself (I mean fancy itself), we call imagination, as I said before; but when we would express the decay, and signify that the sense is fading, old, and past, it is called memory.""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,II.3
3586,"",Looking through old notes,2005-03-24 00:00:00 UTC,"When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain the image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. […] IMAGINATION therefore is nothing but decaying sense, and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking"" (2.2).",,9279,•Cross-reference: Burnet's interest in Motion. He tries to catch Locke out as a kind of Hobbist.
•Keywords are not here present.,"""When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,II.2
3586,"",Looking through old notes,2005-03-24 00:00:00 UTC,"When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain the image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. […] IMAGINATION therefore is nothing but decaying sense, and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking"" (2.2).",,9280,•Cross-reference: Burnet's interest in Motion. He tries to catch Locke out as a kind of Hobbist.
•Keywords are not here present,"""And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,II.2
3586,"",Looking through old notes,2005-03-24 00:00:00 UTC,"When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain the image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. […] IMAGINATION therefore is nothing but decaying sense, and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking"" (2.2).",2007-04-26,9281,•Keywords are not here present. INTEREST.,"Imagination is a ""decaying sense:"" ""And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c""","",2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,II.2
3586,Materialism,"Looking up OED ""impression""",2005-05-20 00:00:00 UTC,"Nature (the art whereby God hath made and governs the world) is by the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part within, why may we not say that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so manywheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the artificer? Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work of nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, and artificial reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants by which the parts of this body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble that fiat, or the let us make man, pronounced by God in the creation.
(Introduction, §1, p.3-4)
",2009-06-10,9282,•REVISIT and sort out the allegory of the Commonwealth.,"""For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin CIVITAS), which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment (by which fastened to the seat of sovereignty every joint and member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular members are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, and artificial reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war, death.""",Impression,2009-09-14 19:34:05 UTC,Opening paragraph of Introduction
3406,"",Searching in Past Masters,2012-04-15 20:34:56 UTC,"8. There is a fault of the mind called by the Greeks [Amadia], which is INDOCIBILITY, or difficulty of being taught; the which must needs arise from a false opinion that they know already the truth of that which is called in question. For certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the evidence is unequal of what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatsoever should be in right method, and right ratiocination delivered unto them. But when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in their minds; it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over. The immediate cause therefore of indocibility, is prejudice; and of prejudice, false opinion of our own knowledge.
(I.x.8, p. 48)",,19689,I find a third... Not cited elsewhere?,"""For certainly men are not otherwise so unequal in capacity as the evidence is unequal of what is taught by the mathematicians, and what is commonly discoursed of in other books: and therefore if the minds of men were all of white paper, they would almost equally be disposed to acknowledge whatsoever should be in right method, and right ratiocination delivered unto them. But when men have once acquiesced in untrue opinions, and registered them as authentical records in their minds; it is no less impossible to speak intelligibly to such men, than to write legibly upon a paper already scribbled over.""",Writing,2012-04-15 20:34:56 UTC,"Part I, Chapter x"