"Man is a Creature of so mixed a Composure, and of a Frame so inconsistent and different from Itself, that it easily speaks his Affinity to the highest and meanest Beings; that is to say, he is made of Body and Soul, he is at once an Engine and an Engineer."
— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Jacob Tonson
Date
1701
Metaphor
"Man is a Creature of so mixed a Composure, and of a Frame so inconsistent and different from Itself, that it easily speaks his Affinity to the highest and meanest Beings; that is to say, he is made of Body and Soul, he is at once an Engine and an Engineer."
Metaphor in Context
Man is a Creature of so mixed a Composure, and of a Frame so inconsistent and different from Itself, that it easily speaks his Affinity to the highest and meanest Beings; that is to say, he is made of Body and Soul, he is at once an Engine and an Engineer: Tho' indeed both that Body and Soul act in many Instances separate and independent of each other: For when he Thinks, Reasons, and Concludes, he has not in all that Work the least Assistance from his Body: His finest Fibres, purest Blood, and highest Spirits are as brute and distant from a Capacity of Thinking as his very Bones; and the Body is so mere a Machine, that it Hungers, Thirsts, Tastes and Digests, without any exerted Thought of the Mind to command that Operation: which when he observes upon himself, he may, without deriving it from Vapour, Fume or Distemper, believe that his Soul may as well Exist out of, as in that Body from which it borrows nothing to make it capable of performing its most perfect Functions. This may give him hopes, that tho' his Trunk return to its native Dust he may not all Peristi, but the Inhabitant of it may remove to another Mansion; especially since he knows only Mechanically that they have, not Demonstratively how they have, even a present Union.
(Chap. II)
(Chap. II)
Categories
Provenance
Reading Dennis Todd's Imagining Monsters (University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 138.
Citation
Richard Steele, The Christian Hero: An Argument Proving that no Principles but those of Religion are Sufficient to Make a Great Man. (London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1701). <Link to ECCO>
Nineteen entries in ESTC. Text from 1755 printing in Google Books (to be checked and corrected against earliest printing).
Nineteen entries in ESTC. Text from 1755 printing in Google Books (to be checked and corrected against earliest printing).
Date of Entry
07/08/2013
