"Nothing is more void of real improvement and instruction to the mind, and more fulsom, than heaps of quotations, and tedious disquisitions what opinions such and such men were of, in relation to matters properly determinable only by right reason and Scripture."
— Browne, Peter (d. 1735)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for William Innys and Richard Manby
Date
1733
Metaphor
"Nothing is more void of real improvement and instruction to the mind, and more fulsom, than heaps of quotations, and tedious disquisitions what opinions such and such men were of, in relation to matters properly determinable only by right reason and Scripture."
Metaphor in Context
I here appeal to the reader whether, as our author confesseth this to have been his first fault in medling with Schoolmen; he is not bound in conscience to keep his promise, that it shall be the last of the kind. To induce him to be as good as his word, I shall observe to him; that men of sence in the present age are already surfeited of treatises full of curtailed, perverted, mistranslated, misapplyed and impertinent quotations: and begin to nauseate them, as temperate and sober men do the dishes that are served up with a very little substantial food; but stuffed with forcemeats, and brimful of unwholesom and pernicious sauces. Nothing is more void of real improvement and instruction to the mind, and more fulsom, than heaps of quotations, and tedious disquisitions what opinions such and such men were of, in relation to matters properly determinable only by right reason and Scripture; and inquiries how far they at first maintained those opinions, or how far they receded from them afterwards. Whereas the stating any of those opinions of importance distinctly and fairly; explaining them clearly and fully; and producing the best reasons and arguments for or against them either from our selves or others, with that brevity and perspicuity which may save men the irksome trouble of frequently raking over a large dunghill before they find one jem; would be of real service to mankind in general, as well as to the more polite part of them in particular.
(pp. 163-4)
(pp. 163-4)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Alciphron: In Focus
Citation
Only 1 entry in the ESTC (1733).
See Peter Browne, Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human (London: Printed for William Innys and Richard Manby, 1733). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Berkeley, George. Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher: In Focus. ed. David Berman (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).
See Peter Browne, Things Divine and Supernatural Conceived by Analogy with Things Natural and Human (London: Printed for William Innys and Richard Manby, 1733). <Link to ESTC>
Text from Berkeley, George. Alciphron, or The Minute Philosopher: In Focus. ed. David Berman (London and New York: Routledge, 1993).
Date of Entry
02/17/2004
