36 Metaphors for philosophers

Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:'I assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay assemblies every night.'

" "This," said a philosopher, who had heard him with tokens of great impatience, "is the present condition of a wise man.

A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep Christmas, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two friends to dinethis is a fact!

THE PHILOSOPHER'S PUBLIC LIBRARY Suppose a philosopher had a great deal of money to spendthough this is not in accordance with experience, it is not inherently impossibleand suppose he thought, as any philosopher does think, that the British public ought to read much more and better books than they do, and that founding public libraries was the way to induce them to do so, what sort of public libraries would he found?

"The first philosopher," they said, "had become the first divine."

The next step was, to make the receiving these pensions subject to an oath, which the selfish philosopher, who can coldly calculate on, and triumph in, the weakness of human nature, foresaw would be a brand of discord, certain to destroy the sole force which the Clergy yet possessedtheir union, and the public opinion.

The first independent political philosopher of the modern period was Nicolo Machiavelli of Florence (1469-1527).

Such a stupidity or wantonness had seized upon the most raised wits that it might be doubted whether the philosophers or the owls of Athens were the quicker sighted.

The philosopher, Blossius, of Cumae, was his friend.

And such for the most part are your princes, potentates, great philosophers, historiographers, authors of sects or heresies, and all our great scholars, as Hierom defines; "a natural philosopher is a glorious creature, and a very slave of rumour, fame, and popular opinion," and though they write de contemptu gloriae, yet as he observes, they will put their names to their books.

What interests the philosopher is the particular premises on which the free-will he believes in is established, the sense in which it is taken, the objections it eludes, the difficulties it takes account of, in short the whole form and temper and manner and technical apparatus that goes with the belief in question.

Pythagorasfor those old Grecian philosophers were the fathers of all wisdom and knowledge, in mathematics and empirical sciences as well as philosophy itselfstudied medicine in the schools of Egypt, Phoenicia, Chaldaea, and India, and came in conflict with sacerdotal power, which has ever been antagonistic to new ideas in science.

Of all the writers who have thoroughly examined antique art, Victor Cousin would seem the one with whom Delsarte had most in common, if this eminent philosopher were not a contemporary of the master and had not attended his lectures, his artistic sessions and his concerts.

A theoretical philosopher is one who can supply in the shape of ideas for the reason, a copy of the presentations of experience; just as what the painter sees he can reproduce on canvas; the sculptor, in marble; the poet, in pictures for the imagination, though they are pictures which he supplies only in sowing the ideas from which they sprang.

What interests the philosopher is the particular premises on which the free-will he believes in is established, the sense in which it is taken, the objections it eludes, the difficulties it takes account of, in short the whole form and temper and manner and technical apparatus that goes with the belief in question.

"A philosopher is a thoughtful middle-aged person who puts off enjoying life until it's too late to begin.

The philosophers of Greece were the tutors of Roman nobility.

What interests the philosopher is the particular premises on which the free-will he believes in is established, the sense in which it is taken, the objections it eludes, the difficulties it takes account of, in short the whole form and temper and manner and technical apparatus that goes with the belief in question.

The philosopher was now sixty-nine years of age, and notwithstanding the respect in which he was held, the world cannot be said to have dealt kindly with him.

Another Pythagorean philosopher whom he admired and whom he quotes was Sextius, from whom he learnt the admirable practice of daily self-examination:"When the day was over, and he betook himself to his nightly rest, he used to ask himself, What evil have you cured to day?

A philosopher who associates with the vulgar is neither an oracle nor a guide.

The great philosopher and scientist, Roger Bacon (1214-1294), who was centuries in advance of his time, was a Franciscan friar.

Had not all the true philosophers been celibatesDescartes, Leibnitz, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Kant?

" An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time was his estate; an estate, indeed, which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labours of industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negligence, to be over-run with noxious plants, or laid out for shew, rather than for use.

CÆSALPINUS, Italian natural philosopher, born at Arezzo; was professor of botany at Pisa; was forerunner of Harvey and Linnæus; discovered sex in plants, and gave hints on their classification (1519-1603).

36 Metaphors for  philosophers