"Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a spaniel ranges the field, till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the alphabet, to start a rhyme."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)


Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Andrew Crooke
Date
1651, 1668
Metaphor
"Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a spaniel ranges the field, till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the alphabet, to start a rhyme."
Metaphor in Context
Sometimes a man knows a place determinate, within the compass whereof he is to seek; and then his thoughts run over all the parts thereof, in the same manner as one would sweep a room, to find a jewel; or as a spaniel ranges the field, till he find a scent; or as a man should run over the alphabet, to start a rhyme.
(I.iii, p. 13)
Provenance
Reading. Found again in Martin Kallich, "The Association of Ideas and Critical Theory: Hobbes, Locke, and Addison" ELH 12:4 (1945): 290-315.
Citation
At least 6 entries in ESTC (1651, 1652, 1668, 1676, 1678, 1681). Dutch translation in 1667. Proscribed in 1683 at Oxford. Important later editions of 1750 and 1839.

Text from Past Masters, drawn from the 1843 Molesworth edition.

See also Leviathan, or, The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes (London: Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1651). <Link to EEBO-TCP>

Reading Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1994).
Date of Entry
07/25/2011
Date of Review
01/28/2012

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