"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."
— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)
Date
1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788
Metaphor
"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."
Metaphor in Context
Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony; that the objects we apprehend as having a real existence, are those which are invariably presented to us in the same manner; that the mode in which they present themselves has no dependence upon our will or inclination; that, of course, our ideas, instead of being the causes of things, are only particular effects, which become less similar to the objects themselves, in proportion as they are rendered more general; and, lastly, that mental abstractions are only negative beings, which derive their intellectual existence from the faculty we possess of considering objects, without regarding their sensible qualities.
(II.v, pp. 67-8)
(II.v, pp. 67-8)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "testimony" and "senses" in ECCO-TCP
Citation
Text from Natural History: General and Particular, by the Count De Buffon, Translated Into English. Illustrated With Above 260 Copper-Plates, and Occasional Notes and Observations by the Translator (Edinburgh: printed for William Creech, 1780-85).<Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
09/18/2013
