"They wou'd new frame the Human Heart; and have a mighty Fancy to reduce all its Motions, Ballances and Weights, to that one Principle and Foundation of a cool and deliberate Selfishness."
— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Egbert Sanger
Date
1709, 1714
Metaphor
"They wou'd new frame the Human Heart; and have a mighty Fancy to reduce all its Motions, Ballances and Weights, to that one Principle and Foundation of a cool and deliberate Selfishness."
Metaphor in Context
Modern Projectors, I know, wou'd willingly rid their hands of these natural Materials; and wou'd fain build after a more uniform way. They wou'd new frame the Human Heart; and have a mighty Fancy to reduce all its Motions, Ballances and Weights, to that one Principle and Foundation of a cool and deliberate Selfishness. Men, it seems, are unwilling to think they can be so outwitted, and impos'd on by Nature, as to be made to serve her Purposes, rather than their own. They are asham'd to be drawn thus out of themselves, and forc'd from what they esteem their true Interest.
(pp. 116-7; p. 54 in Klein)
(pp. 116-7; p. 54 in Klein)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A complicated publication history. At least 10 entries in ESTC (1709, 1711, 1714, 1733, 1744, 1751, 1757, 1758, 1773, 1790).
See Sensus Communis, An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend. (London: Printed for Egbert Sanger, 1709). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
See also "Sensus Communis, An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO, most from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
See Sensus Communis, An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend. (London: Printed for Egbert Sanger, 1709). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO>
See also "Sensus Communis, An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour in a Letter to a Friend" in Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. In Three Volumes. (London: John Darby, 1711). <Link to ESTC>
Some text drawn from ECCO, most from Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Lawrence E. Klein (Cambridge: CUP, 2001). Klein's text is based on the British Library's copy of the second edition of 1714. [Texts to be collated.]
Date of Entry
07/09/2013
