"For though the nature of what we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions."
— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Andrew Crooke
Date
1651, 1668
Metaphor
"For though the nature of what we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions."
Metaphor in Context
The names of such things as affect us, that is, which please and displease us, because all men be not alike affected with the same thind, nor the same man at all times, are in the common discourses of men of inconstant signification. For seeing all names are imposed to signify our conceptions, and all our affections are but conceptions, when we conceive the same things differently, we can hardly avoid different naming of them. For though the nature of what we conceive be the same, yet the diversity of our reception of it, in respect of different constitutions of body and prejudices of opinion, gives everything a tincture of our different passions. And therefore in reasoning a man must take heed of words which, besides the signification of what we imagine of their nature, have a signification also of the nature, disposition, and interest of the speaker, such as are the names of virtues and vices, for one man calleth wisdom, what another calleth fear, and one cruelty, what another justice; one prodigality, what another magnanimity; and one gravity, what another stupidity, &c. And therefore such names can never be true grounds of any ratiocination. No more can metaphors, and tropes or speech; but these are less dangerous, because they profess their inconstancy, which the other do not.
(I.iv, §22, p. 21-2)
(I.iv, §22, p. 21-2)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 6 entries in ESTC (1651, 1652, 1668, 1676, 1678, 1681). Dutch translation in 1667. Proscribed in 1683 at Oxford. Important later editions of 1750 and 1839.
Text from Past Masters, drawn from the 1843 Molesworth edition.
See also Leviathan, or, The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes (London: Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1651). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Reading Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1994).
Text from Past Masters, drawn from the 1843 Molesworth edition.
See also Leviathan, or, The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil by Thomas Hobbes (London: Printed for Andrew Crooke, 1651). <Link to EEBO-TCP>
Reading Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 1994).
Date of Entry
01/09/2004
