"We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools."
— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed and Sold by Dryden Leach
Date
1711
Metaphor
"We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools."
Metaphor in Context
Phil.
I have asserted already, that the Soul consists in thinking, of which matter is incapable, and do not say the Spirits that think, but the Spirits, that are employ'd in the act of thinking: We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools.
(pp. 128-9)
I have asserted already, that the Soul consists in thinking, of which matter is incapable, and do not say the Spirits that think, but the Spirits, that are employ'd in the act of thinking: We must consider the Soul as the Skill of an Artificer, whilst the Organs of the Body are her Tools; for as the Body and its most minute Spirits are wholly insignificant, and cannot perform that Operation which we call thinking without the Soul more than the Tools of an Artificer, can do anything without his Skill, so the Soul cannot exert her self without the assistance of the Organick Body more than Artificers Skill can be put in execution without the Tools.
(pp. 128-9)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
5 entries in ESTC (1711, 1715, 1730).
Mandeville, Bernard. A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions vulgarly call'd Hypo in Men, and Vapours in Women; in which the Symptoms, Causes, and Cure or Those Diseases are Set Forth after a Method entirely New (London: Printed and Sold by D. Leach, 1711). <Link to ECCO>
Mandeville, Bernard. A Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions vulgarly call'd Hypo in Men, and Vapours in Women; in which the Symptoms, Causes, and Cure or Those Diseases are Set Forth after a Method entirely New (London: Printed and Sold by D. Leach, 1711). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
04/10/2012
