"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occasions thereby increases and strengthens itself by degrees, till at last it acquires such a consistency (if I may so call it) as makes it subsist as long as the Machine itself. A Stock of Images having been thus acquired, they each have their respective little Cell or Lodge, where they go and hide."
— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)
Author
Date
September 10, 1726
Metaphor
"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occasions thereby increases and strengthens itself by degrees, till at last it acquires such a consistency (if I may so call it) as makes it subsist as long as the Machine itself. A Stock of Images having been thus acquired, they each have their respective little Cell or Lodge, where they go and hide."
Metaphor in Context
I now proceed to Memory, which is nothing but the same Imagination acting without the assistance of exterior Objects. To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occasions thereby increases and strengthens itself by degrees, till at last it acquires such a consistency (if I may so call it) as makes it subsist as long as the Machine itself. A Stock of Images having been thus acquired, they each have their respective little Cell or Lodge, where they go and hide. Yet we must not suppose that they are continually in their Retirement; they would become useless if they were so. But on the contrary, great Numbers of them are always going to and fro; and if one of them chances to go by the Cell or Lodge of another which has the least real or imaginary conformity with it, out pops the retired Image, and immediately joins the wandering one. This never so obviously happens, as when a new Image is introduced into the Brain, who as soon as he appears, occasions great Commotions among all the old Inhabitants who either have, or think they have, any resemblance or relation to the new Comers.
(pp. 186-7)
(pp. 186-7)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Dennis Todd's Imagining Monsters (University of Chicago Press, 1995), 137.
Citation
At least 4 entries in ECCO and ESTC (1726, 1729, 1734).
The Dublin Weekly Journal ran from 3 April 1725 to 25 March 1727.
Text from James Arbuckle, A Collection of Letters and Essays on Several Subjects: Lately Publish'd in the Dublin Journal. In Two Volumes (London: Printed by J. Darby and T. Browne, 1729). <Link to vol. 2 in Google Books>
Republished as Hibernicus's Letters: or, a Philosophical Miscellany (London: Printed for J. Clark, T. Hatchet, E. Symon, 1734). <Link to ECCO>
The Dublin Weekly Journal ran from 3 April 1725 to 25 March 1727.
Text from James Arbuckle, A Collection of Letters and Essays on Several Subjects: Lately Publish'd in the Dublin Journal. In Two Volumes (London: Printed by J. Darby and T. Browne, 1729). <Link to vol. 2 in Google Books>
Republished as Hibernicus's Letters: or, a Philosophical Miscellany (London: Printed for J. Clark, T. Hatchet, E. Symon, 1734). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
07/08/2013
