"But in this we are much kinder to our sense than to our intellect; for in order to assist the former we use glasses and spectacles of all kinds adapted to our deficiency of sight, whereas in the latter we are so far from accepting the assistance of mental glasses or spectacles, that we often strain our mind's eye, even to blindness, and at the same time affirm that our sight is nothing less than perfect"
— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall
Date
1754
Metaphor
"But in this we are much kinder to our sense than to our intellect; for in order to assist the former we use glasses and spectacles of all kinds adapted to our deficiency of sight, whereas in the latter we are so far from accepting the assistance of mental glasses or spectacles, that we often strain our mind's eye, even to blindness, and at the same time affirm that our sight is nothing less than perfect"
Metaphor in Context
Invention then is in truth pretty much the same with having eyes and opening them [Page 2] in order to discern the objects which are placed before us. But the eye here made use of must be the mind's eye (as Shakespear, with his peculiar aptness of expression, calls it) and so strictly just is this metaphor, that nothing is apparently more frequent than a perverse shutting of this mental eye when we have not an inclination to perceive the things offered to our internal view. I know not likewise, why a short-sighted mind's eye should not be as good an expression as a short-sighted body's eye. But in this we are much kinder to our sense than to our intellect; for in order to assist the former we use glasses and spectacles of all kinds adapted to our deficiency of sight, whereas in the latter we are so far from accepting the assistance of mental glasses or spectacles, that we often strain our mind's eye, even to blindness, and at the same time affirm that our sight is nothing less than perfect.
(pp. 1-2)
(pp. 1-2)
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "eye" in HDIS (Prose)
Citation
2 entries in ESTC (1754).
See Fielding, Sarah and Jane Collier, The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable, 3 vols. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1754). <Link to ESTC>
See Fielding, Sarah and Jane Collier, The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable, 3 vols. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1754). <Link to ESTC>
Theme
Mind's Eye
Date of Entry
04/21/2006
