"EVERY object which makes any impression on the human mind, is constantly accompanied with certain circumstances and relations, that strike us at the same time."
— Blair, Hugh (1718-1800)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London and Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech
Date
1783
Metaphor
"EVERY object which makes any impression on the human mind, is constantly accompanied with certain circumstances and relations, that strike us at the same time."
Metaphor in Context
EVERY object which makes any impression on the human mind, is constantly accompanied with certain circumstances and relations, that strike us at the same time. It never presents itself to our view, isolé, as the French express it; that is, independent on, and separated from, every other thing; but always occurs as somehow related to other objects; going before them, or following after them; their effect or their cause; resembling them, or opposed to them; distinguished by certain qualities, or surrounded with certain circumstances. By this means, every idea or object carries in its train some other ideas, which may be considered as its accessories. These accessories often strike the imagination more than the principal idea itself. They are, perhaps, more agreeable ideas; or they are more familiar to our conceptions; or they recal to our memory a greater variety of important circumstances. The imagination is more disposed to rest upon some of them; and therefore, instead of using the proper name of the principal idea which it means to express, it employs, in its place, the name of the accessory or correspondent idea; although the principal have a proper and wellknown name of its own. Hence a vast variety of tropical or figurative words obtain currency in all languages, through choice, not necessity; and men of lively imaginations are every day adding to their number.
(Vol. I, Lecture XIV, pp. 333-4)
(Vol. I, Lecture XIV, pp. 333-4)
Categories
Provenance
ECCO-TCP
Citation
29 entries in ESTC (1783, 1784, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1793, 1796, 1798). See also Heads of the Lectures on Rhetorick, and Belles Lettres (1767, 1771, 1777) and abridgments of the lectures as Essays on Rhetoric (1784, 1785, 1787, 1789, 1793, 1797, 1798).
See Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. By Hugh Blair (London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech, in Edinburgh, 1783): <Link to ESTC>. See also Dublin edition of same year in ECCO-TCP: <Link to Vol. I><Vol. II><Vol. III>. Revised and corrected for second edition of 1785.
Reading Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005). Text based on second edition of 1785.
See Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. By Hugh Blair (London: Printed for W. Strahan; T. Cadell; and W. Creech, in Edinburgh, 1783): <Link to ESTC>. See also Dublin edition of same year in ECCO-TCP: <Link to Vol. I><Vol. II><Vol. III>. Revised and corrected for second edition of 1785.
Reading Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, eds. Linda Ferreira-Buckley and S. Michael Halloran (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2005). Text based on second edition of 1785.
Date of Entry
11/18/2013
