HKB
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Often appears with: fate, destiny, and necessity · the passions and the emotions · the nature and attributes of God · swoon and grief · houyhnhnms vs yahoos · exile, wandering, and banishment · eternity · creation from nothing · building a boat
Usually: argument (1) · reflection (1) · confronting death (1) · sudden reversal of fortune (1) · detachment (1) · lament (1) · resignation (1)
“When I came to myself, he told me “that he concluded I had been dead;” for these people are subject to no such imbecilities of nature.” Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Nations of th · observation
Locke claims something must exist from eternity, since imagining a time of nothing producing real existence is the greatest absurdity; rational creatures must conclude eternal existence.
15. II. Secondly, Because one Particle alone of Matter cannot be cogitative. If all matter does not think, I next ask, Whether it be ONLY ONE ATOM that does so? This has as many absurdities as the other; for then this atom of matter must be alone eternal or not. If this alone be eternal, then this alone, by its powerful thought or will, made all the rest of matter. And so we have the creation of matter by a powerful…
Gulliver laments the Houyhnhnms’ advice as if it were unavoidable reason, faints, then promises to build a boat, flee the Yahoo land, and possibly benefit England by praising Houyhnhnms’ virtues.
no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised, or exhorted; because no person can disobey reason, without giving up his claim to be a rational creature. I was struck with the utmost grief and despair at my master’s discourse; and being unable to support the agonies I was under, I fell into a swoon at his feet. When I came to myself, he told me “that he concluded I had been dead;” for these…