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this I think you will allow , that a discourse should "be like an organized creature , haying a body of its own , neither headless nor footless , but having a middle , and extremities , fitted to one another , and to the whole / * Without doubt / * But does anything of this kind appear in your friend ' s discourse ?—look , and you will find it yery like the inscription which they ascribe to Midas the Phrygian , which might be read either backwards or forwards without altering the sense / ' You are
now only laughing at the discourse / ' Let us then , in order not to offend you , let alone this oration , although it seems to me to contain a variety of examples , by the consideration of which one might be improved . Let us pass to the other discourses : for in them too there were some things worth observing to those who are considering Discourse . There were two discourses ; the one in disparagement , the other in eulogy of love / ' There were / ' We affirmed that love was a sort of madness : did we not V < We did—and said that there are two
sorts of madness ; one coming from human disease , the other from a divine influence . This last we divided into four kinds : viz ., prophetic inspiration * [ here , for the first time , the very word inspiration , or afflaim { kirnrvoia ) is used , ]—' the origin of which we ascribed to Apollo ; x mwUco ^* eligious , ( rcXeoruci ? , ) to Bacchus ; poetic , to the Muses ; and finaTIyTtCaToT which we are speaking , the inspiration or enthusiasm of Love / * We did . '— Let us now try whether we can catch the manner €
in which our discourse changed from blame to praise . ' What do you mean ? ' 'To me it appears , that all the rest of what was said , wash reality no more than sport ; but that if one could obtain by art , the power or capacity of these two kinds of operations , which in this instance we have performed by mere chance , it would be not unpleasant / * What things ? ' * To collect together a multitude of scattered particulars * and viewing them collectively , bring them all under one single idea * and thereby be enabled to define , and so make it clear what the thing is which
is the subject of our inquiry . As , for instance ( in our own case , ) what we said ( whether it was well said or ill ) with a view of defining love : for this vfas what enabled the subsequent discourse to be clear , and consistent with itself / ' You have described one of the two operations which you spoke of ; what is the other V * To be able again to subdivide this idea into species , according to nature , and so as not to break
any part of it in the cutting , like a bad cook . Thus ., for example , our two discourses agTeed in taking for their subject , insanity of mind : but in the same manner as the body has two parts , which are called by the same name in all other respects , but one called the left side and the other the right * so our two discourses , taking insanity as one single idea t existing in us . one of them cut down on the left side , and continued subdividing
* «)•« . This word signified originally , Form . The use of the word idea in modern metaphysics , is derived from this application of it by Plato . He means by it * the notion of what is common to an entire cla * t > or what I ^ ocke called an abstract idea . But Plato fell into the all-but-universal mistake , of supposing that these abstract ideas had an independent existence ; that they were real objective entities , and even that the Ideas of things were the exemplars after which the Divine Being made the things themselves . This notion , of the independent existence of abstract ideas , is frequently combated by Aristotle , but was revived by his followers under the altered name of lubotantial form * , and the same error under ft variety of denominations has been continued down to the present day * t The word here is ifl # f , form or species : substantially the same word as ffl" >
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636 Plato ' s Dialogues ; the Vhadrus .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1834, page 636, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2637/page/32/
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