"[A]n immoderate desire to please contracts the faculties, and immerges, to borrow the idea of a great philosopher, the soul in matter, till it becomes unable to mount on the wing of contemplation."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Joseph Johnson
Date
December 1790
Metaphor
"[A]n immoderate desire to please contracts the faculties, and immerges, to borrow the idea of a great philosopher, the soul in matter, till it becomes unable to mount on the wing of contemplation."
Metaphor in Context
Have ye not heard that we cannot serve two masters? an immoderate desire to please contracts the faculties, and immerges, to borrow the idea of a great philosopher, the soul in matter, till it becomes unable to mount on the wing of contemplation.
(p. 54)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France. (London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1790).

2 entries in ESTC (1790). Anonymous, first edition appears in December of 1790 <ESTC>. Second edition, with MW's name on the cover, published December 14 <ESTC>

Reading The Vindications. eds. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2001). [Based on the 2nd ed.] See also edition at the Online Library of Liberty <Link to OLL>.
Date of Entry
12/02/2009

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.