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"Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings of our Minds."

— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Author

Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)

Work Title

A Vindication of Natural Society

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for M. Cooper

Date

1756

Metaphor

"Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings of our Minds."

Metaphor in Context

On considering political Societies, their Origin, their Constitution, and their Effects, I have sometimes been in a good deal more than Doubt, whether the Creator did ever really intend Man for a State of Happiness. He has mixed in his Cup a Number of natural Evils, (in Spite of the Boasts of Stoicism they are Evils) and every Endeavour which the Art and Policy of Mankind has used from the Beginning of the World to this Day, in order to alleviate, or cure them, has only served to introduce new Mischiefs, or to aggravate and inflame the old. Besides this, the Mind of Man itself is too active and restless a Principle ever to settle on the true Point of Quiet. It discovers every Day some craving Want in a Body, which really wants but little. It every Day invents some new artificial Rule to guide that Nature which if left to itself were the best and surest Guide. It finds out imaginary Beings prescribing imaginary Laws; and then, it raises imaginary Terrors to support a Belief in the Beings, and an Obedience to the Laws. Many Things have been said, and very well undoubtedly, on the Subjection in which we should preserve our Bodies to the Government of our Understanding; but enough has not been said upon the Restraint which our bodily Necessities ought to lay on the extravagant Sublimities, and excentrick Rovings of our Minds. The Body, or as some love to call it, our inferior Nature, is wiser in it's own plain Way, and attends it's own Business more directly than the Mind with all it's boasted Subtilty.
(pp. 3-4)