"But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter."
— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Author
Place of Publication
London and Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell, A. Donaldson, and W. Creech
Date
w. 1755, 1777
Metaphor
"But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter."
Metaphor in Context
But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter. She employs it as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form. As the same material substance may successively compose the bodies of all animals, the same spiritual substance may compose their minds: Their consciousness, or that system of thought, which they formed during life, may be continually dissolved by death; and nothing interests them in the new modification. The most positive assertors of the mortality of the soul, never denied the immortality of its substance. And that an immaterial substance, as well as a material, may lose its memory or consciousness, appears, in part, from experience, if the soul be immaterial.
(p. 591)
(p. 591)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 6 entries in ESTC (1777, 1779, 1780, 1784, 1793, 1800).
First published in the posthumous Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. In Two Volumes. By David Hume, Esq; ... . Containing Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand: and A. Donaldson, and W. Creech, at Edinburgh, 1777). <Link to ESTC>
Unpublished 1755 version owned by National Library of Scotland serves as copy text in Reading Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, rev. ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).
First published in the posthumous Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects. In Two Volumes. By David Hume, Esq; ... . Containing Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand: and A. Donaldson, and W. Creech, at Edinburgh, 1777). <Link to ESTC>
Unpublished 1755 version owned by National Library of Scotland serves as copy text in Reading Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, rev. ed. (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987).
Date of Entry
03/08/2011
