updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2011-12-21 18:31:24 UTC,15001,"A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself and, regarded for itself, is to be valued incomparably higher than all that could merely be brought about by it in favor of some inclination and indeed, if you will, of the sum of all inclinations. Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose--if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all means insofar as they are in our control)--then, like a jewel, it would shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself. Usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add anything to this worth nor take anything away from it. Its usefulness would be, as it were, only the setting to enable us to handle it more conveniently in ordinary commerce or to attract to it the attention of those who are not yet expert enough, but not to recommend it to experts or to determine its worth.
(4:394, p. 50)","","""Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature, this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose--if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all means insofar as they are in our control)--then, like a jewel, it would shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself.""",5613,,Reading,2003-08-14 00:00:00 UTC,"• Reading: my reading group preparation (for Fichte)
•Moving toward the proposition that the highest good is a will that is good in itself.
•Nature may be the will's stepmother?
•The simile is extended in what follows: usefulness is this jewel's setting. The setting attracts notice to the jewel and allows us ot handle it more conveniently.",Section 1,""
2009-09-14 19:42:31 UTC,15002,"Hence everything empirical, as an addition to the principle of morality, is not only quite inept for this; it is also highly prejudicial to the purity of morals, where the proper worth of an absolutely good will--a worth raised above all price--consists just in the principle of action being free from all influences of contingent grounds, which only experience can furnish. One cannot give too many or too frequent warnings against this laxity, or even mean cast of mind, which seeks its principle among empirical motives and laws; for, human reason in its weariness gladly rests on this pillow and in a dream of sweet illusions (which allow it to embrace a cloud instead of Juno) it substitutes for morality a bastard patched up from limbs of quite diverse ancestry, which looks like whatever one wants to see in it but not like virtue for him who has once seen virtue in her true form.
The question is therefore this: is it a necessary law for all rational beings always to appraise their actions in accordance with such maxims as they themselves could will to serve as universal laws?
(4:426, p. 77)",Dreams,"""One cannot give too many or too frequent warnings against this laxity, or even mean cast of mind, which seeks its principle among empirical motives and laws; for,human reason in its weariness gladly rests on this pillow and in a dream of sweet illusions (which allow it to embrace a cloud instead of Juno)""",5613,2003-10-23,My reading group preparation (for Fichte),2003-08-28 00:00:00 UTC,•Another personification. What to do with my protocol? Ignore it when the personification is complex enough to merit inclusion?,Section II,""
2013-06-04 16:43:39 UTC,15076,"Whilst our minds are taken up with the objects or business before us, we are commonly happy, whatever the object or business be; when the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable.
(p. 22)",Wandering,"""[W]hen the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable""",5640,,"Searching ""mind"" in Liberty Fund OLL",2005-08-18 00:00:00 UTC,"","Book I. Preliminary Considerations, Chapter 6. Human Happiness",Inhabitants
2011-05-27 14:09:31 UTC,15077,"The advancement, consequently, and discovery of truth, is that end to which all regulations concerning religion ought principally to be adapted. Now, every species of intolerance which enjoins suppression and silence, and every species of persecution which enforces such injunctions, is adverse to the progress of truth; forasmuch as it causes that to be fixed by one set of men, at one time, which is much better, and with much more probability of success, left to the independent and progressive inquiry of separate individuals. Truth results from discussion and from controversy; is investigated by the labours and researches of private persons. Whatever, therefore, prohibits these, obstructs that industry and that liberty, which it is the common interest of mankind to promote. In religion, as in other subjects, truth, if left to itself, will almost always obtain the ascendancy. If different religions be professed in the same country, and the minds of men remain unfettered and unawed by intimidations of law, that religion which is founded in maxims of reason and credibility, will gradually gain over the other to it. I do not mean that men will formally renounce their ancient religion, but that they will adopt into it the more rational doctrines, the improvements and discoveries of the neighbouring sect; by which means the worse religion, without the ceremony of a reformation, will insensibly assimilate itself to the better. If popery, for instance, and protestantism were permitted to dwell quietly together, papists might not become protestants (for the name is commonly the last thing that is changed),* but they would become more enlightened and [end page 413] informed; they would by little and little incorporate into their creed many of the tenets of protestantism, as well as imbibe a portion of its spirit and moderation.
(pp. 413-4)","","""If different religions be professed in the same country, and the minds of men remain unfettered and unawed by intimidations of law, that religion which is founded in maxims of reason and credibility, will gradually gain over the other to it.""",5640,2011-06-26,"Searching ""mind"" in Liberty Fund OLL",2005-08-18 00:00:00 UTC,"•Footnote gives, ""*Would we let the name stand, we might often attract men without their perceiving it, much nearer to ourselves, than, if they did perceive it, they would be willing to come.""","Book VI, Chapter 10. Religious Establishments and Toleration",Fetters
2009-09-14 19:42:42 UTC,15078,"Of forms of prayer which offend not egregiously against truth and decency, that has the most merit, which is best calculated to keep alive the devotion of the assembly. It were to be wished, therefore, that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; and that nothing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle. Upon this principle, the state prayers in our liturgy should be fewer and shorter. Whatever may be pretended, [end 253] the congregation do not feel that concern in the subject of these prayers, which must be felt, ere ever prayers be made to God with earnestness. The state style likewise seems unseasonably introduced into these prayers, as ill according with that annihilation of human greatness, of which every act that carries the mind to God, presents the idea.
(pp. 253-4)","","""It were to be wished, therefore, that every part of a liturgy were personally applicable to every individual in the congregation; and that nothing were introduced to interrupt the passion, or damp the flame, which it is not easy to rekindle.""",5640,,"Searching ""passion"" in Liberty Fund OLL",2005-08-18 00:00:00 UTC,"",Duties Toward God,""
2009-09-14 19:42:43 UTC,15080,"The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remembering and retaining, is obvious and is to be found in all languages; it being natural to express the operations of the mind by images taken from things material. But in philosophy we ought to draw aside the veil of imagery, and to view them naked.","","""The analogy between memory and a repository, and between remembering and retaining, is obvious and is to be found in all languages.""",5642,2009-06-15,"Reading Christopher Westbury and Daniel C. Dennett, ""Mining the Past to Construct the Future: Memory and Belief as Forms of Knowledge."" in Memory, Brain, and Belief. Ed. Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2000. p. 11.",2009-09-14 19:42:43 UTC,•INTEREST. Meta-metaphorical. Reid points up metaphors of mind but then claims we should be able to do without them. REVISIT. USE. FASCINATING.,"",""
2009-09-14 19:42:45 UTC,15091,"I. Rules for rendering the Mind a tabula rasa, on which the hand of Nature is to write by observation and experiments: [end page 178] and for expelling the prejudices, which have retarded the progress of the useful Sciences and Arts.
Prejudices--
--common to the species
--peculiar to every individual
--from verbal distinctions
--from the authority of systems of Philosophy
(pp. 178-9)",Blank Slate,"""Rules for rendering the Mind a tabula rasa, on which the hand of Nature is to write by observation and experiments: and for expelling the prejudices, which have retarded the progress of the useful Sciences and Arts.""",5645,,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-13 00:00:00 UTC,"",Part III,Writing
2013-06-26 18:37:25 UTC,15110,"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)","","""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.""",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,•Greene thinks this narrow fellow is Lord North.,"Thursday, 30th September",""
2012-01-31 18:55:10 UTC,19563,"There is a natural order in the progress of the sciences, and good reasons may be assigned why the philosophy of body should be elder sister to that of mind, and of a quicker growth; but the last hath the principle of life no less than the first, and will grow up, though slowly, to maturity. The remains of ancient philosophy upon this subject, are venerable ruins, carrying the marks of genius and industry, sufficient to inflame, but not to satisfy, our curiosity. In later ages, Des Cartes was the first that pointed out the road we ought to take in those dark regions. Malebranche, Arnaud, Locke, Berkeley, Buffier, Hutcheson, Butler, Hume, Price, Lord Kames, have laboured to make discoveries; nor have they laboured in vain. For, however different and contrary their conclusions are, however sceptical some of them, they have all given new light, and cleared the way to those who shall come after them.
(Preface, 5)","","""In later ages, Des Cartes was the first that pointed out the road we ought to take in those dark regions [of the mind].""",5642,,Reading in Google Books,2012-01-31 18:55:10 UTC,"",Preface,""
2012-01-31 18:58:13 UTC,19564,"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)","","""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.""",5642,,Reading in Google Books ,2012-01-31 18:57:08 UTC," Book I, Chapter i Explication of Words. META-METAPHORICAL throughout this opening...","Book I, Chapter i",""