"Any object alarms the mind, when it is already prepared by darkness, to receive impressions of fear."
— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Place of Publication
Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed by R. Fleming
Date
1751
Metaphor
"Any object alarms the mind, when it is already prepared by darkness, to receive impressions of fear."
Metaphor in Context
THE strongest and most familiar instance of our natural propensity to dread unknown objects, is the fear that seizes many young persons in the dark; which is a phaenomenon that has not been accounted for, with any degree of satisfaction. Light disposes the mind to chearfulness and courage. Darkness, on the contrary, depresses the mind, and disposes it to fear. Any object alarms the mind, when it is already prepared by darkness, to receive impressions of fear. The object, which, in the dark, is seen but obscurely, leaves the heated imagination at full liberty, to bestow upon it the most dreadful appearance. This phantom of the imagination, conceived as a reality, unhinges the mind, and throws it into a fit of distraction. The imagination, now heated to the highest degree, multiplies the dreadful appearances to the utmost bounds of its conception. The object becomes a spectre, a devil, a hobgoblin, something more terrible than ever was seen or described.
(pp. 312-3)
(pp. 312-3)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in ECCO-TCP
Citation
At least 3 entries in ESTC (1751, 1758, 1779).
Lord Kames, Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion: in Two Parts. (Edinburgh: Printed by R. Fleming, for A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, 1751). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Lord Kames, Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion: in Two Parts. (Edinburgh: Printed by R. Fleming, for A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, 1751). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
09/16/2013
