"I can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little objects around me, in no other way than by transporting myself, at least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real proportions."
— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London and Edinburgh
Publisher
Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh
Date
1761
Metaphor
"I can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little objects around me, in no other way than by transporting myself, at least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real proportions."
Metaphor in Context
As to the eye of the body, objects appear great or small, not so much according to their real dimensions as according to the nearness or distance of their situation; so do they likewise to what may be called the natural eye of the mind: and we remedy the defects of both these organs pretty much in the same manner. In my present situation, an immense landscape of lawns and woods, and distant mountains, seems to do no more than cover the little window which I write by, and to be out of all proportion less than the chamber in which I am sitting. I can form a just comparison between those great objects and the little objects around me, in no other way than by transporting myself, at least in fancy, to a different station, from whence I can survey both at nearly equal distances, and thereby form some judgment of their real proportions. Habit and experience have taught me to do this so easily and so readily, that I am scarce sensible that I do it; and a man must be, in some measure, acquainted with the philosophy of vision, before he can be thoroughly convinced how little those distant objects would appear to the eye, if the imagination, from a knowledge of their real magnitudes, did not swell and dilate them.
(text from OLL; cf. Liberty Fund edition; cf. p. 210 in 2nd ed.)
(text from OLL; cf. Liberty Fund edition; cf. p. 210 in 2nd ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
9 entries in the ESTC (1761, 1764, 1767, 1774, 1777, 1781, 1790, 1792, 1793, 1797).
Text from The Theory of Moral Sentiments. By Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. 2nd ed. (London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh, 1761). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
Reading Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984).
Text from The Theory of Moral Sentiments. By Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. 2nd ed. (London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; and A. Kincaid and J. Bell, in Edinburgh, 1761). <Link to ESTC><Link to Google Books>
Reading Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, ed. D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1984).
Date of Entry
06/19/2014
