Common Courtesy in Eighteenth-century English LiteratureIn one of his Idlers, Johnson indicated the problems involved in such an achievement as follows: "As a question becomes more complicated and involved, and extends to a greater number of relations, disagreement of opinion will always be multiplied: not because we are irrational, but because we are finite beings, furnished with different kinds of knowledge, exerting different degrees of attention, one discovering consequences which escape another, none taking in the whole concatenation of causes and effects, and most comprehending but a very small part, each comparing what he observes with a different criterion and each referring it to a different purpose. "Where, then, is the wonder, that they who see only a small part should judge erroneously of the whole? |
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Page 29
... nature . " He often prompts himself , moreover , to pay polite attention to specific groups in his audience : to natural scientists and the Royal Society , to the clergy and the Stillingfleetians . He is even planning to show some ...
... nature . " He often prompts himself , moreover , to pay polite attention to specific groups in his audience : to natural scientists and the Royal Society , to the clergy and the Stillingfleetians . He is even planning to show some ...
Page 34
... nature itself to be such an intermittency as that which each individual mind actually suffers to ( b ) confidence in the continuous existence of nature in the omniscient awareness of God ; and partly as a rhetorical practice , that is ...
... nature itself to be such an intermittency as that which each individual mind actually suffers to ( b ) confidence in the continuous existence of nature in the omniscient awareness of God ; and partly as a rhetorical practice , that is ...
Page 151
... nature . " Johnson adds : from Milton's " wonder - working academy , I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent for knowledge . " Again we should recognize skepticism within skepticism . There may have been a man ...
... nature . " Johnson adds : from Milton's " wonder - working academy , I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent for knowledge . " Again we should recognize skepticism within skepticism . There may have been a man ...
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acknowledges actually agreement allows apparent argument asserts attention Author believe Berkeley Boswell common sense concern Consider continually conversation course courteous courtesy critics described discourse discussion doubt effect enforces epistle Essay established evident example existence experience explains expression figures finally further give hope human Hylas ideas imagine immediately indicated individual instance intellectual Johnson judgment kind knowledge learned least letter literary Lord matter meaning mind nature never notice objects observed occasion once opinion particular passage passive philosophers poem poet polite Pope Pope's position possible practice present Press question quotes Rambler readers reason recognizes reference remarkable represented respondent seems Shandy share social society sometimes Sterne style suggests things thought throughout tion Toby's topics train Treatise Tristram truth turn uncle understanding universal writing