"When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it"

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)


Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Andrew Crooke
Date
1651, 1668
Metaphor
"When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it"
Metaphor in Context
When a body is once in motion, it moveth (unless something else hinders it) eternally; and whatsoever hindreth it, cannot in an instant, but in time and by degrees, quite extinguish it. And as we see in the water, though the wind cease, the waves give not over rolling for a long time after, so also it happeneth in that motion which is made in the internal parts of a man, then when he sees, dreams, &c. For after the object is removed, or the eye shut, we still retain the image of the thing seen, though more obscure than when we see it. […] IMAGINATION therefore is nothing but decaying sense, and is found in men and many other living creatures, as well sleeping as waking" (2.2).
Provenance
Looking through old notes
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).
Date of Entry
03/24/2005

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.