Flesh in the Age of Reason (105 page)

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Authors: Roy Porter

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Mechanical Operation of the Spirit, The
158
–9,
164
,
469

misanthropy
303

Modest Proposal, A
(1729)
149

on political greatness
156
–7

on religion
156
,
157
–8,
159

satires
278
,
460

‘Strephon and Chloe’ (1731)
150

Struldbrugs
427

Tale of a Tub, A
(1704)
148
,
156
–7,
377
,
464

on women
149
–50,
150
–51,
166
see also
body; identity/self; mind; man/

human beings; soul

Swinden, Tobias,
Enquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell, An
(1714)
100

Swynfen, Dr
172

Sydenham, Thomas
28
,
121
,
122

tabula rasa
8
,
147
,
375
,
423
–4

Tamburlaine
6

Tatler
113
,
237

Taylor, Edward
372

Taylor, Jeremy,
Holy Dying
(1663)
212

Tedworth, drummer of
89

Temple, William
149
,
191

temporal life
23
,
24

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord,
In Memoriam
(1850)
473

Tertullian
4
,
36

theatre, evils
272
–3

thiness, fashion for
240
–41,
242

Thirty Years War (1618–48)
307

Thomas Aquinas
37

Thrale, Henry
172

Thrale, Hester
104
,
172
,
173
,
175
,
178
,
188

Tillotson, John
101
,
131

Timaeus
31
,
32

time, Christian model
34

Tindal, Matthew,
Christianity as Old as the Creation
(1730)
101

Toland, John
362

Tory Party
467
–8

traducianis
165
–6

Trinitarianism
361
–2,
363

Tristram Shandy
(1759)
121
,
194
,
254
,
283
,
304

appearance & reality
299
–300

baptism
289

body/mind relationship
294
–6,
297
–9,
302
–3

chance/fate
296
–7

conception & birth
288
–9

education
289
–90

health
287
,
290
–92,
292
–3

hobby-horses/monomania
293
–4

homunculus and
286
,
288
,
291

hypochondria
290
–92

identity/self
300
–301

imprinting, doctrine of
301
–2

and Locke
301
–2

man, interiority of
304

man, paradox of
294

medicine
292

physiognomy
297
,
300

Walter, model for
160

see also
Sterne, Laurence

Trosse, George
274
–6

Life of the Reverend Mr George Trosse, The
(1714)
276

Trotter, Thomas
235
,
403

Essay… on Drunkenness
(1804)
400
–401

View of the Nervous Temperament
(1811)
404

Tryon, Thomas
250
–51

Tucker, Abraham,
Light of Nature Pursued
(1768)
219
–20

Tuke, Samuel,
Description of the Retreat
(1813)
318

Turgot, Anne Robert
8

Tyburn riots
224

Tyers, Thomas
174

Underwood, John
220

Unitarianism
363

utilitarianism
10
,
83
,
349
,
368
,
424
,
471

Vanhomrigh, Esther (Swift’s ‘Vanessa’)
150

vegetarianism
238
–9,
242

Vesalius, Andreas
133

Viagra
16

Victoria, Queen
105

Vitruvian Man
244
–5

Vitruvius,
De Architectura
244
–5

Volta, Alessandro
215

Voltaire (
pseud.
François Marie Arouet)
44

Candide
(1759)
171
–2,
173

Dictionnaire Philosophique
244

Walpole, Horace,
Castle of Otranto, The
(1765)
283

Walpole, Robert
151

Walton, Isaac
191

Watt, Gregory
415

Watt, James
375
,
379
,
413
,
415

Watts, Isaac
17
,
94
,
104
–5

‘Death and Heaven’ (1722)
105

soul
168

Waugh, Evelyn
196

Weber, Max,
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, The
(1904–5)
6

Wedgwood, Josiah
375
,
377
,
379

Wedgwood, Tom
379
,
404
,
415

Wesley, John
Primitive Physick
(1747)
229
,
230

Whichcote, Benjamin
84
,
131

Whiggery
130
,
131

Whiston, William,
Eternity of Hell, The
(1740)
101

White, Charles
215

Whole Duty of Man, The
183

Wilberforce, William
403

Williams, Anna
179

Willis, Thomas
55
–6,
57
,
60
–61,
62
,
80
,
162
,
222
,
317
,
351

Cerebri Anatome
(1664)
55
–6

De Anima Brutorum (1672)
56

nervous system, concept of
309

Pathologiae Cerebri
(1667)
56

soul, rational
57
–60

Winslow, Jacques-Bénigne
215

Winstanley, Gerrard
81

Winterreise
10

witchcraft
see
supernatural phenomena

Wollstonecraft, Mary
220
,
226
,
284

early years
264

Female Reader, The
(1789)
266

and Godwin
420

Mary, a Fiction
(1788)
265
,
282

misogyny
269
–70

role of women
267
–8

Thoughts on the Education of Daughters
(1787)
265
–6,
268
–71

Vindication of the Rights of Men, A
(1790)
266

Vindication of the Rights of Woman, A
(1792)
258
,
266

women

appearance & cosmetics
252
–3,
268
–9

civilizing influence
260
,
262
–2

education of
263
–6,
265
–6,
268

eroticized
266
–7

female perspectives on
257
,
258
,
262
–4

identity/self-hood
257
,
263
–4,
265
,
271
,
282

madness in
317

male perspectives on
258
–62

masturbation
270
–71

roles
259
–60,
260
–61

romanticization
268

Woodforde, Parson
235
,
236

Wordsworth, William
7
,
10
,
242

Excursion, The
(1709)
394
–5

Prelude, The
(1850)
283
,
394

Wren, Christopher
469

Xenophanes
140

Xenophon
131
,
281

Yorick, Parson
240
,
253
–4,
283

York Asylum
318

York Retreat
318

Young, Edward,
Night Thoughts
(1742–5)
470

youth, cult of
242
,
243

*
This absence of any notion of a disembodied soul, or a heaven or hell, was widely noted by enlightened freethinkers, who exploited it in various ways in their attempts to discredit Judaism, Christianity or religion in general.

 

*
The fascinating but complex philological issues raised by soul-language cannot here be discussed. But it should be remembered that the soul underpins a whole series of symbols. The chief of these symbols is
breath
, and all its derivatives. The etymology of the Latin word
animus
is in itself related to ‘breath’ and ‘air’ as principles of life.
Animus
is the intellectual principle and the seat of desire and the passions, and corresponds to the Greek
anemos
and the Sanskrit
aniti
, meaning ‘breath’. Its properties are intellectual and emotional and its range male, while the
anima
is the principle of inhaling and exhaling air and its range is female. Without claiming to teach a complete and coherent system of anthropology, St Paul distinguishes within the individual spirit (
pneuma
), soul (
psyche
) and body (
soma
). If Thessalonians 5: 23 is compared with 1 Corinthians 15: 44, it will be seen that it is the soul
psyche
which vitalizes the human body while the spirit
pneuma
is that part of the individual which is exposed to a higher level of life and to the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. It is the latter which is to benefit from salvation and from immortality and the latter which grace makes holy. However, its influence should be radiated by the psyche throughout the body and consequently throughout the individual as a whole, that is, the body which lives and moves in this world and will be resurrected in the life to come.

 

*
Such issues (especially the implication of sex in sin) inevitably posed the question of the propagation and transmission of the soul: when and how did man get his soul? Augustine’s insistence on its spiritual nature made it hard for him to uphold, along with Tertullian, the doctrine of physical traducianism. Nevertheless, he did link Original Sin with procreation, which was suggestive of the idea that the infant’s soul came in some way from the parents’ copulation. His solution to this ever-delicate problem was what he might call spiritual traducianism: the soul of the child came from the soul of the parent. Thus, the transmission of Original Sin was explained, and the spirituality of the soul safeguarded.

 

*
Coleridge was derisive because he was a demanding patient and also an erstwhile materialist himself.

 

*
Such views were possible because Locke played down the Fall; he resolutely insisted on the capabilities of human understanding. The Christian God could be known, as could nature and nature’s laws. Locke was no sceptic; he sought not to deny truth, its pursuit or its attainability but to set it on a sound footing.

 

*
The Sadducees, it will be remembered, were the influential Jewish group who denied the reality of spirits.

 

*
Swift had a terror of ageing – and rightly so as he did indeed grow senile.

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