On Women in Johnson's Dictionary | For those interested in Gender

Hi all—

For those interested in gender, Johnson's complex entry on "woman" from his Dictionary (1755)

Woman [wifman, wimman, Saxon]

1. The female of the human race.

--The man who hath a tongue is no man, 
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.  Shakespeare

--Thou dotard, thou art woman-tir'd unroosted
   by thy dame Parlet Here. Shakespeare's Winter's Tale.

--Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible, 
Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.   —Shakespeare

--And Abimelach took men-servants and women-servants.   --Genesis

--O woman, lovely woman, nature form'd thee
To temper man; we had been brutes without thee.   --Otway

--Woman are made as they themselves would choose, 
too proud to ask, too humble to refuse.   --Garth

--Women in their nature are much more gay 
and joyous than men; whether it be that their 
blood is more refined, their fibres more 
delicate, and their animal spirits more light; 
vivacity is the gift of women, gravity that of men.   --Addison. 

Desire and Love from Johnson's Dictionary

Hi all—

For those of you who need it, I just updated the sources for Johnson's Dictionary (1755), Chamber's Cyclopaedia (1728), and Ripa's Iconologia, an English translation (I also noted some potentially relevant images from Ripa for various papers in case of interest, and included Figure #s to make it a bit easier).

Since Johnson's Dictionary can be a beast, here's a few tidbits. He usually includes a definition, with quotes below to illustrate. (He often uses the quotes he chooses to try to inculcate, or teach, readers morality, so don't be surprised if they're a little...tame...in relationship to what we've been seeing...

***

DESI'RE. n. [desir Fr. deseo, Ital., desiderium, Lat.] With eagerness to obtain or enjoy.

  --"Drink provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance." Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

--Desire's the vast extent of human mind
   It mounts above, and leaves poor hope behind. Dryden.

--Desire is the uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the absence of anything, whose present enjoyment carries the idea of delight with it. --Locke.

--It is in a man's power only to observe what the ideas are that take their turns in his understanding, or else to direct the sort, and call in such as he has a desire, or use of.   --Locke.
   

To DESI'RE. v.a. 

1. To wish; to long for; to covet.
       --Thou shalt not desire the silver or gold. Deutr. vii. 25

2. To express wishes; to appear to long.
      --Jove beheld it with a desiring look. --Dryden. 

3. To ask; to intreat.
   --Sir, I intreat you home with me to dinner. /—I humbly do desire your grace of pardon; / I must        away this night. Shksp. Merchant of Venice.

DESI'RER. n. One that is eager of any thing; a wisher.
    
DESI'ROUS adj. Full of desire; eager; longing after; wishing for.

  --The same piety which maketh them that are in authority desirous to please and resemble God by justice, inflameth every way men of action with zeal to do good. Hooker.

--Be not desirous of his dainties; for they are deceitful meat.  Prov. xxiii. 3.

--Men are drowsy and desirous to sleep before the fit of an ague [a sickness], and yawn and stretch. Bacon's Natural History. No. 296.

--Adam the while,
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flow'rs a garland. Milton's Paradise Lost

--Conjugal affection
Prevailing over fear, and timorous doubt
Hath led me on, desirious to behold
Once more thy face. Milton's Agonistes. 

***

LOVE, v.a.
   1. To regard with passionate affection, as that of one sex to the other. [heteronormativity, even in the 18th-C :)]
    "Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love.
     —It is to be made all of sighs and tears;
       It is to be made all of faith and service;
   It is to be all made of fantasy,
   All made of passio; and all made of wishes;
   All adoration, duty and obedience;
    All humbleness, all patience, all impatience;
    All purity, all trial, all observance. —Shakesp. As you like it.

   --I could not love I'm sure
     One who in love were wise.        —Cowley

   --The jealous man wishes himself a kind of deity to the person he loves; he would be the only employment of her thoughts.      —Addison's Spectator No. 170

2. To regard with the affection of a friend. (quotes omitted)
3. To regard with parental tenderness.
4. To be pleased with.
    —Fish used to salt water delight more in fresh; we see that salmon and smelts love to get into rivers, though against the stream.  --Bacon's Natural Hist. No. 703. 
     --He loved my worthless rhimes.      --Cowley
5. To regard with reverent unwillingness to offend.
      --Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart. Deut. vi. 5.

LOVE: n. (only some quotes included)

1. The passion between the sexes.
2. Kindness; goodwill; frinedship.
3. Courtship
--Demitrius made love to Nedar's daughter Helena and won her soul. —Shkpr Midsummer Night's Dream.
—The enquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, the preference of it; and the belief of truth, the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
4. Tenderness; parental care.
5. Liking; inclination to; as the love of one's country.
6. Object beloved.
   --Open the temple gates until my love.   --Spenser.
  --To live with thee, and be thy love.       —Shakespeare
7. Lewdness.
    --He is not lolling on a lewd love bed, but on his knees at meditation. --Shakspr. Rich. III.
8. Unreasonable liking.   
9. Fondness; concord.
10. Principle of union.
12. A word of endearment.
13. Due reverence to God.
14. A kind of thin silk stuff.

LOVE SICK, adj. Disordered with love; languishing with amorous desire.

    --See, on what shoar inhabits purple spring,
     Where nightingales their lovesick ditties sing. —Dryden. 

    --To the dear mistress of my love sick mind. 
       Her swain a pretty present has design'd.    —Dryden's Virgil

   --Of the reliefs to ease a lovesick mind,
     Flavia prescribes despair.                         —Granville 

   

A Few Useful Databases for Research in History of Mind

A few more useful databases for research & exploration...


The Mind is a Metaphor: a searchable database of metaphors of mind. Examples that can be quickly set in immediate context, and parsed by period, metaphor type (government, body, liquid, etc...), and other things...

Reading Experiences Database: a collection of descriptions by readers from 1450-1975. (Searchable by title, author, genre, gender, age, date, class, spoken vs. silent, etc...

Gutenberg online copies of our texts: In thinking ahead about papers, don't forget to do a basic word search for key terms you're interested in to start locating passages and give yourself a comprehensive sense of its use. Then, be sure to go back and find the page number for in-text citations.

Robinson Crusoe

If nothing here...

OTHER SOURCES TO CHECK:

Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, or Moral Emblems (English translation)
Iconologia, Open Library
   Samples on Love:
    Force of Love (Fig. 125)
    The Original of Love (Fig. 213)
    Love Reconciled (Fig. 262)
    Conjugal Love (Fig. 62)
    Seraphic Love (Fig. 15)

    Samples on Reason
      Dominion Over Oneself (Fig. 102)
      A Rational Soul (Fig. 17)
      Reason (Fig. 255)
      Science (Fig. 269)
   
   Other Relevant Images
     Curiosity (Fig. 80, pg. 20—doesn't show up when searching curiosity :)
     Melancholy (Fig. 59)
     Avarice, for those interested in Greed (Fig 108).
     Luxury, for those interested in  Economic Consumption (Fig. 199)
     Prosperity (Fig. 252)
         
   
Chambers, Cyclopaedia, or a Universal Dictionary of Arts & Sciences (1728):
http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/node/88
OR http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/HistSciTech/Cyclopaedia

Johnson's Dictionary (1755): partial versions or google books are searchable online, but can be hard. Either they don't have everything or they're hard to "parse" digitally with the 18th-C "s" looking like an "f."
Johnson's Dictionary (abridged) on Google Books (no quotes from the dictionary, but basic definitions)
Johnson's Dictionary | (Searchable Version Online but very Partial in what was Transcribed)

*For the whole, go to ECCO via MSU libraries, as described in the Metaphors of Mind/ECCO assignment, search for Samuel Johnson's Dictionary from 1755 (there may be more than one volume). Searching here will give you lots—and lots more than you'd like sometimes—but if you need materials, this is the best way to get the whole...

 

For an Introduction to the Enlightenment...

Hi all—

For anyone who would like more grounding in 18th-C or Enlightenment thought, here are a few ideas:

1) Skim the Intro to The Portable Enlightenment
2) Skim Part I of The Enlightenment: Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy

To Square a Circle | The Circle of the Brain Cannot Be Squared

"The Circle of the Brain cannot be Squared" 

--Margaret Cavendish

To Square a Circle: British Idiom, "To do something incredibly difficult, potentially impossible."

In Math: Squaring the Circle (Mathematically)

Squaring the circle is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge. More abstractly and more precisely, it may be taken to ask whether specified axioms of Euclidean geometry concerning the existence of lines and circles entail the existence of such a square.

In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (π) is a transcendental, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. It had been known for some decades before then that the construction would be impossible if pi were transcendental, but pi was not proven transcendental until 1882. Approximate squaring to any given non-perfect accuracy, in contrast, is possible in a finite number of steps, since there are rational numbers arbitrarily close to π.

Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Willis, and the Circle of the Brain

A Portrait of Margaret Cavendish (1661–1717)

"True it is, Spinning with the Fingers is more proper to our Sexe, then studying or writing Poetry, which is the Spinning with the braine: but I having no skill in the Art of the first (and if I had, I had no hopes of gaining so much as to make me a Garment to keep me from the cold) made me delight in the latter; since all braines work naturally, and incessently, in some kinde or other; which made me endeavour to Spin a Garment of Memory, to lapp up my Name, that it might grow to after Ages: I cannot say the Web is strong, fine, or evenly Spun, for it is a Course peice; yet I had rather my Name should go meanly clad, then dye with cold. . . "

_________________________________________________________________________________

A Portrait of Thomas Willis (1621-1675) and the Frontispiece of his Cerebri Anatome of 1664

The Circle of Willis:
Basic Info from Wikipedia
Medical Overview of Circle of Willis

_________________________________________________________________________________

More for the Curious...


On Cavendish
From The Atomic Poems of Margaret (Lucas) Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, from her Poems, and Fancies, 1653, an electronic edition. Edited with an introduction by Leigh Tillman 
Partington

"In Cavendish's atomic theory, all matter is composed of four elements, either in a pure form or mixed in various ratios. The four elements are fire, earth, air, and water, and they are comprised of atoms of different shapes. Fire's atoms are sharp; earth's are square and flat; air's are long, straight, and hollow; and water's are round and hollow. The longer atoms, fire and air, are more active than the squatter atoms, earth and water. Fire atoms are the most active, earth, the least. All of the atoms have the same weight and the same amount of matter, but they vary in size or shape. When the atoms join together in harmonious unity, they form various parts of the natural world. However, if the joined atoms begin to disagree and fight, illness or change occurs.

Atoms are closely related to health for Cavendish. Not only does sickness result from squabbling atoms, she also supposes that duration of life depends on how tightly the atoms are packed together. Vegetables are packed most loosely, animals more tightly, and humans tightest of all. A loose atomic structure, therefore, is undesirable. However, loose atoms do have their uses: loose fire and air atoms in the brain result in a nimble, creative mind (loose earth and water atoms cause dullness and sleepiness). Motion determines which atoms will be where, and how tightly they are packed --she compares motion to a shepherd, and atoms to sheep. Atoms also cause human diseases, such as consumption, and human emotions,such as melancholy.

Again, unity and harmony are the keys to happiness. A healthy atom dances, while Motion directs the steps. Cavendish's system is a cooperative, unified system, where dissention causes illness, earthquakes, and death. Considering the political and religious upheaval in England during this time, her insistence on unity seems all the more wistful. She ends her series of poems with some speculation on motion, which she considers the life of all things, and infinity, which we've seen is dangerous ground.

***

On Willis

Selections from James P.B. O'Connor,
Thomas Willis and the background to Cerebri Anatome
J R Soc Med. 2003 March; 96(3): 139–143. PMCID: PMC539424

HOW DID WILLIS INVESTIGATE THE BRAIN?

Willis recognized the importance of method in studying the brain. The first (and longest) chapter ofCerebri Anatome was devoted to an account on how best to analyse the brain and nerves, since previous anatomists were let down by ‘flawed techniques’, producing artifactual results. Several approaches were used in conjunction to prepare material for the lectures and for Cerebri Anatome. Work on the material was a collaborative effort between Willis, Richard Lower, Thomas Millington and Christopher Wren, who had all worked together in Oxford during the Commonwealth.

The practice of autopsy was commonplace by the mid-seventeenth century in England. Willis dissected bodies of deceased patients, adding information to the animal dissections that he performed13. He seems to have directed most of the dissection, performed by Lower in the back rooms of houses and inns. Wren and Millington were frequently present ‘to confer and reason about the uses of the parts’. The brain was approached from below and removed from the skull before being sliced from the base upwards, in contrast to traditional methods of in situ dissection. The specimens were then examined through a magnifying glass and drawn by Wren14.

Willis followed the Galenic tradition of describing parts of the body and then suggesting a use to account for their appearance. In Cerebri Anatome, Willis repeatedly cites the similarity in structure between man and animals and the differences in ‘uses’ as evidence of an immaterial God-given soul.

Cerebri Anatome refers to some rudimentary experimentation, although in 1660 the nature of an ‘experiment’ was not rigorously defined. Willis had formerly collaborated with Robert Boyle, whose discourses on the nature of experimental philosophy had been adopted by the Royal Society as the way of obtaining knowledge. Wren used microscopy to analyse brain specimens. Wren and Lower performed dye injections, and these were the basis for Willis's discovery of the flow of blood in the cerebral arteries. Most famously, injection studies on animals immediately after death demonstrated that blockage of just one of the four main cerebral arteries would not lead to apoplexy.

Willis backed up his morbid anatomy and experimental philosophy by recalling case histories from living patients. It was in this way that ‘the circle of Willis’, referring to the arterial supply at the base of the brain, was described (Figure 3). On other occasions, Willis embellished his empirical data with unsubstantiated speculation, incorporating theories on the compensation of matter and the action of the ‘spirits’. Medical practice in the latter half of the seventeenth century was still largely a mix of empiricism and theory, with no clear division between the two.

Figure 3

Christopher Wren's famous depiction of the base of the human brain as published in Cerebri Anatome [Reproduced by permission from Hughes JT, Thomas Willis 1621-1675: His Life and Works, RSM Press, 1991]

Go to:

BRAIN AND SOUL

The nature of the soul was intensely debated during the Restoration. The relation of man's immortal soul to the body and universe was questioned since new philosophies had thrown doubt on the number of components of the soul and their sites of operation. The answers had a profound bearing on the doctrine of the Resurrection, an issue that dominated theology in the second half of the seventeenth century. In England, natural philosophy grappled with William Harvey's claim that the soul was a property of the blood—a notion derived from Aristotle, who saw the heart as the prime mover. Continental philosophers held different views: van Helmont located the soul in the pylorus and Descartes favoured the pineal gland. Henry More doubted whether a soft, curd-like substance such as the brain could allow for higher faculties4.

In his earlier work in Oxford, Willis had modified the theories of Aristotelian elements, the Paracelsian concept of active particles, and a version of Gassendi's atomism. He created a system composed of five elements (spirits, sulphur and salt which were active, as well as earth and water which bound the others together), from which all matter was derived15. Although Willis rejected the Galenic doctrine of the four humours, he did little more than change the emphasis, still concentrating on imbalances and the non-naturals.

In chapter ten of Cerebri Anatome Willis described a three-component soul. Like Harvey and the Paduan school, he argued that a vital soul, the flamma vitalis, acted within the blood. A sensitive soul arose from the vital soul, formed by the procreation of spirits in a ‘double fountain’ of arteries supplying the cerebrum and cerebellum in a parallel neural circulation of spiritus. Both vital and sensitive souls were, according to Willis, to be found in man and beast alike. They were responsible for basic biological functions such as sensation and motion, as well as some higher functions including knowledge and simple reasoning. In addition, man alone had an immortal soul for higher thought, will and judgment. Though immaterial it operated on the brain. Willis claimed that the ‘rational soul variously moves the sensitive’, using it as a vehicle9. His view of the functioning body, and the anatomy of the brain and nervous system, was formed by his understanding of the nature of the soul.

Hi all—

Welcome to our blog site for ENG 364, "Literature and Mind!"

(Once you send me the web address to your personal blog I'll post the link on our central page...)

Until then, a few ongoing sites of interest to share. Soon, a few images.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/

Milestones in Neuroscience Research

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/hist.html

Pre-History of Cognitive Science Web (Carl Stahmer, UC Santa Barbara)

http://www.carlstahmer.com/cogsci/index.php

Cognitive Science on Cogweb (UCLA)

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/index.html

History of Neuroscience

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/psychology/courses/1010/mangels/neuro/history/history.html

Narratology

http://www.uni-koeln.de/~ame02/pppn.htm

Narratology and Story

http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-921/story.htm

The Edge (Ramachandran on Mirror Neurons, Dehaene on Signatures of Consciousness, etc.)

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dehaene09/dehaene09_index.html

best,
NP