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"I prove it thus: The mind has no doubt a faculty of comparing objects or ideas; but it is found invariably to judge and act from a preponderancy to that action or opinion which is the most suited to yield it satisfaction present or future: but if this preponderancy depends entirely on the organisation of the body, and the complete effect of all the combinations of ideas and sentiments which have been produced or impinged upon it from its first acquaintance with external objects, since it was a sheet of white paper, as Locke compares it to, at its first entrance into this world."

— Author Unknown

Author

Author Unknown

Work Title

The Repository or Treasury of Politics and Literature (Number CXV) [from Public Ledger. Thursday, January 30, 1770. No. 3148. Of Genius]

Place of Publication

London

Date

January 30, 1770, 1771

Metaphor

"I prove it thus: The mind has no doubt a faculty of comparing objects or ideas; but it is found invariably to judge and act from a preponderancy to that action or opinion which is the most suited to yield it satisfaction present or future: but if this preponderancy depends entirely on the organisation of the body, and the complete effect of all the combinations of ideas and sentiments which have been produced or impinged upon it from its first acquaintance with external objects, since it was a sheet of white paper, as Locke compares it to, at its first entrance into this world."

Metaphor in Context

If we suppose mankind to be produced simply with a mind that is capable of receiving impressions from external objects, and equal in that faculty where the organisation of the body is similar, then all human agency, the whole series of concatenation of cause and effect, of virtue and happiness, of vice and misery, must be as fatal and necessary as the phenomena of the material world. I prove it thus: The mind has no doubt a faculty of comparing objects or ideas; but it is found invariably to judge and act from a preponderancy to that action or opinion which is the most suited to yield it satisfaction present or future: but if this preponderancy depends entirely on the organisation of the body, and the complete effect of all the combinations of ideas and sentiments which have been produced or impinged upon it from its first acquaintance with external objects, since it was a sheet of white paper, as Locke compares it to, at its first entrance into this world. If, I say, these are the only possible causes for the preponderancy and choice, man is a machine, he is a glorious machine, but still he is but a piece of mechanism, not responsible for his actions, probably not immortal, if matter is not indestructable; and, in short, he is truly to be called the riddle of the world.
(I, p. 249)