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A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 3 (of 10) From "The Works of Voltaire - A Contemporary Version" François-Marie Arouet (AKA Voltaire)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1824 edition. Excerpt: ... stoning the poor stranger; and, after having duly performed that murderous ceremony, they resume fighting upon the everlasting subject of the nails and little finger.* FANCY. Fancy formerly signified imagination, and the term was used simply to express that faculty of the soul which receives sensible objects. Descartes and Gassendi, and all the philosophers of their day, say that " the forms or images of things are painted in the fancy." But the greater part of abstract terms are, in the course of time, received in a sense different from their original one, like tools which industry applies to new purposes. Fancy, at present, means " a particular desire, a transient taste: " he has a fancy for going to China; his fancy for gaming and dancing has passed away. An artist paints, a fancy portrait, a portrait not taken from any model. To have fancies is to have extraor- dinary tastes, but of brief duration. Fancy, in this sense, falls a little short of oddity (bizarrerie) and caprice. Caprice may express " a sudden and unreasonable disgust." He had a fancy for music, and capriciously became disgusted with it. Whimsicality gives an idea of inconsistency and bad taste, which fancy does not; he had a fancy for building, but he constructed his house in a whimsical taste. There are shades of distinction between having fancies and being fantastic; the fantastic is much nearer to the capricious and the whimsical. The word fantastic expresses a character unequal and abrupt. The idea of charming or pleasant is excluded from it; whereas there are agreeable fancies. We sometimes hear used in conversation " odd fancies," (des fantasies musquees); but the expression was * This happy illustration is very pleasantly employed in, Candide.--T. VOli....