Male Female Imagination on Superphysics

The Imagination of Men and Women

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The imagination of women

We have given some idea of the physical causes of the disorder of men’s imagination in the other part; we shall try in this one to make some application of these causes to the most general errors that may be called moral.

The Animal Spirits

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The animal spirits ordinarily go into the traces of the ideas that are most familiar to us, which causes us not to judge things soundly.

I have explained the changes that occur in the animal spirits, and in the constitution of the fibers of the brain, according to the different ages.

Why People Prefer to follow authority

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Studious persons are the most subject to error

The differences found in men’s manners of living are almost infinite. There is a very great number of different conditions, different employments, different offices, different communities. These differences cause almost all men to act for entirely different purposes, and to reason on different principles. It would even be rather difficult to find several persons who had entirely the same views in the same community, in which individuals should have only one spirit and the same designs. Their different employments and their different connections necessarily put some difference in the turn and manner they wish to take, in order to execute even the things about which they agree.

Two harmful effects of reading upon the imagination

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This false and servile respect that people show toward the ancients produces a great many very harmful effects, which it is useful to point out.

The first is that, by accustoming them not to make use of their own minds, it gradually renders them truly incapable of doing so. For one must not imagine that those who spend their whole lives studying the works of Aristotle and Plato are making much use of their intellect. Usually, they devote so much time to reading these books only in order to absorb the opinions of their authors; their main goal is to know exactly what those thinkers believed, without troubling themselves much about whether those beliefs are actually true or valid — as we shall demonstrate in the next chapter. Consequently, the knowledge and philosophy they acquire is properly speaking a knowledge of memory, not of understanding. They learn only facts and historical accounts, not evident truths; and they are historians rather than genuine philosophers.

Students usually fixate on an author that their goal is to discover what that author believed rather than what is actually true

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is another fault of great consequence into which students commonly fall: they become obsessed with a single author. If there is anything true or valuable in a book, they immediately go to extremes — everything in it is true, everything is good, everything is admirable. They even take pleasure in admiring passages they do not understand, and demand that everyone else admire them as well. They take pride in the praise they lavish upon these obscure writers, because they thereby convince others that they understand them perfectly; this becomes a source of vanity, and they consider themselves superior to others simply because they believe they can make sense of some vague statement by an ancient author — or even by someone who perhaps did not fully understand himself. How many scholars have strained their minds to clarify obscure passages in the works of philosophers, and even of ancient poets! And how many brilliant minds still delight in analyzing the exact meaning of a single word or the opinion of some author! But it is right to provide some proof of what I am saying.

The Preoccupation of Commentators

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This excessive preoccupation appears far more strange in those who comment on some author, because those who undertake this work—which seems of itself scarcely worthy of a man of wit—imagine that their authors deserve the admiration of all men. They also regard themselves as making but one person with them; and in this view, self-love plays its part admirably well. They skillfully give praise with profusion to their authors, they surround them with clarity and light, they overwhelm them with glory, knowing well that this glory will reflect back upon themselves. This idea of grandeur not only elevates Aristotle or Plato in the minds of many people, it also impresses respect for all those who have commented on them; and such a one would not have made the apotheosis of his author if he had not imagined himself as enveloped in the same glory.

Those who invent new systems

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We have just examined the state of mind of those scholars who defer entirely to the authority of certain authors. There are others, however, who take the opposite approach. These people never respect established writers, no matter how highly regarded they may be among the learned. If they once admired them, they have long since changed their minds; instead, they set themselves up as authorities. They want to be known as the inventors of some new theory, so as to gain a reputation in the world; and they believe that by saying something that has never been said before, they will surely find admirers.

Effeminate and Superficial minds

Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What we have said so far seems sufficient to explain generally the flaws of imagination among scholars and the errors to which they are most prone. Since these are almost the only people who take the trouble to seek truth, and since everyone else relies upon their judgment, we might well bring this second part to a close here. Nevertheless, it is useful to say a little more about the errors of other people as well, so that we may be warned against them.