"Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind?"
— Griffith, Richard (d. 1788)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for E. and C. Dilly, 1762.
Date
1762
Metaphor
"Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind?"
Metaphor in Context
In one of his definitions, he says, "that beauty and ugliness are strictly confined to objects of sight; but that by a figure, or licence or speech, they are often applied to other things; as a beautiful proposition, a beautiful [end page 177] theorem, &c. but that this can be only by supposing such things described on paper, so as to become "visible."
What a philosophy is here! Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind? His Lordship's distinctions here, and in other passages, upon the same subjects, appear to me rather more ingenious, than just.
(p. 177-8)
What a philosophy is here! Is the beauty of truth, or moral actions, or the deformity of falsehood, or vice, capable of being represented on paper, or on any other plain, except the rasa tabula of the mind? His Lordship's distinctions here, and in other passages, upon the same subjects, appear to me rather more ingenious, than just.
(p. 177-8)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "tabula rasa" in ECCO
Theme
Blank Slate
Date of Entry
10/12/2006
