Conceit

Use in the book

The soul must be disentangled from people's conceits and customs if it is to recover clear apprehension. Here the word names received mental constructions that interpose between the person and the world. IV.7 isolates one especially destructive conceit: that a little knowledge is sufficient. That opinion licenses neglect of wisdom while people devote great effort to trades and possessions. Traherne answers it by making happiness a subject worthy of sustained labour. The diagnosis concerns an idea's consequences rather than merely its owner's temperament. A mistaken conception can regulate a whole life even when no one consciously boasts of it.

Places to read

1. III.5Human conceits belong among the inherited distortions from which childlike perception must be freed.
2. IV.7The conceit that little knowledge is enough excuses neglect of wisdom.

In this edition

Read “conceit” primarily as opinion or conception. Automatically substituting “arrogance” loses the specific intellectual error in IV.7.

Use in the book

Thought, interpretation and expectation

Democritus’s profound conceit is deep thought, paired with excellent wit. Elsewhere conceit names a particular interpretation rather than a general capacity. In consolation against adversity, circumstances ebb and flow with our conceit: their effect depends upon how we understand and apply them to ourselves. Burton adds “in some sort” before saying that prosperity and adversity are in our hands, a qualification to preserve beside the strong maxims that follow.

The imagination chapter gives mental conceptions bodily force. A strong conceit or apprehension can, Burton says, remove disease as well as produce illness. A good conceit is favourable expectation; the ensuing discussion makes strong imagination and belief the proposed explanation of apparent charm cures. The account attributed to Pomponazzi moves through humours, spirits and blood, and the next paragraph emphasizes a patient’s confidence in a practitioner. These passages distinguish the mental idea, its supposed bodily mechanism and the object in which confidence is placed. They do not independently validate the reported cures.

Fearful expectation can likewise shape an alleged outcome. In the China report attributed to Ricci, Burton says fear and conceipt cause a prediction to come true. His immediately preceding Latin concerns making the prediction credible; the English makes a stronger causal claim. The continuation supplies sickness on the foretold day as the example. Keeping the two formulations distinct is more precise than treating them as identical proof of fulfilled prophecy.

A conceit may also provide consolation. Burton says Epicurus, in severe pain, comforted himself with a “conceit of immortality,” then describes joy in his philosophical discoveries. The original marginal quotation likewise emphasizes remembered discoveries. The supplied note leaves open whether immortality concerns enduring fame; this entry cannot turn the phrase into a verified Epicurean belief in an afterlife.

“In conceit” marks the difference between imagined status and actual action. In Burton’s tale of competing applicants for a church post, the excellent scholar is a suitor only in imagination: he makes no application, lacks influence and money, and receives the post through the bishop’s unsolicited choice. The phrase does not mean that he is boastful or conceited.

Mental content, persistence and consent

The verb conceit describes taking an idea into the mind. A person imagining many dangers after a social error makes an elephant out of a fly once he conceits it. But the later recurrence of a conceit need not be voluntary. Burton attributes to Mercurialis the claim that an idea once entertained may return insistently despite efforts to get rid of it. The sweeping reference to all melancholy sufferers belongs to the reported account; the repeated emphasis on unwilling thought is the relevant distinction.

Treatment seeks to divert attention from vain conceits, empty fancies, along with terrors and fixed thoughts, “if it be possible.” The sufferer’s subsequent objection that advice is easier to give than to carry out complicates any simple command to stop thinking. Burton offers contrary actions, changes of attention and persuasion while admitting how powerful entrenched imaginings become.

The religious consolation makes the distinction between mental content and assent still sharper. Execrable conceits are terrifying notions that the sufferer abhors. Burton’s explanation combines disordered imagination and bodily humours with demonic suggestion, but his practical conclusion distinguishes an unwanted thought from a settled willing of it. Even partial assent is qualified when the person later rejects the thought; the advice not to become excessively distressed is explicitly conditional upon the suggestions not pleasing the sufferer. These historical explanations should not obscure the passage’s attention to compulsion and consent.

Ingenuity and amusement

Conceited writing need not be vain writing. Writers are conceited in their inscriptions when they invent ingenious titles. Burton’s conceited tale from Poggio is an amusing story introduced among reports about sexual abstinence and illness, with an invitation to add it “if you please.” That wording and the comic source distinguish its literary status from the surrounding medical consultations.

Conceited discourse is inventive conversation. Conceipted scoffers are witty jokers, in a description which allows cheerfulness and severe melancholy to alternate. In the remedies through good company, conceits are clever sayings, grouped with pleasant conversation and merry tales. Their usefulness is qualified by proper understanding or seasonable application, and the preceding marginal explanation excludes insulting mirth. Thus the family can name engaging expression and a beneficial diversion as well as troubling mental content.

Conceiving, forming and bringing forth

The title-page verses tell the reader to “Conceive the rest” from the symbols already described: infer their further meaning. When Burton describes the style as it was first “conceived,” the act is mental composition; when imagination “conceives” strange shapes in sleep, the faculty is inventing images. The original Latin margin “concipiuntur interna mente” similarly describes forms of beauty conceived within the mind, contrasted with reception through eyes and ears. Burton’s loosely grouped Platonic references do not warrant treating this as an exact conclusion of Plato.

The objects and subjects matter in the less obviously intellectual uses. “True conceived words” are sincerely meant words in the attributed story of Beroaldo’s recantation about marriage. In an original Latin marginal account of recreation, “concipiat” has the tired mind gathering new strength. In the catalogue of supposed witchcraft, women who fail to “conceive” fail to become pregnant; the alleged supernatural cause remains part of Burton’s historical report. A cloud that may “conceive a Rain-bow” instead figuratively brings forth a rainbow, within consolation that distinguishes inward repentance from completed action.

The actual vanity sense

Burton’s disclaimer of self-conceit after praising Democritus already uses the familiar sense of undue self-regard. The chapter on self-love expands it: an overweening opinion of one’s gifts makes people admire and flatter themselves and suppose everyone else values them equally. Self-conceit is then a swelling, figured as tympany, that accompanies claims to be uniquely wise, rich or excellent. The fault comes from the excessive estimate and its self-directed object, not from the mere occurrence of a mental conception.

Related entries

Imagination; Apprehension; Wit; Judgment; Charms; Fear; Religious melancholy; Will and nill; Fond (future article)

Places to read

1. unnumbered preliminary matterConceive directs the reader to infer meaning from the animal symbols
2. · paragraph 9deep thought in the portrait of Democritus; self-conceit is disclaimed immediately after
3. · paragraph 10self-conceit as inflated self-regard
4. · paragraph 3ingenious book titles in the defence of Burton’s title
5. · paragraph 21–23conceived as first mental composition, within Burton’s claims about revision
6. · paragraph 17–19imagination conceives shapes and constructs new forms
7. · paragraph 40–44conceive as become pregnant, within attributed witchcraft claims
8. · paragraph 16an amusing Poggio tale amid medical anecdotes; read Subsection 4 Retention and evacuation as causes, and how they act · paragraphs 15–17
9. · paragraph 21strong idea or impression and alleged bodily effects; read Subsection 2. The power of imagination · paragraphs 20–25
10. · paragraph 26favourable expectation; continue through the charm-cure and patient-confidence discussion at Subsection 2. The power of imagination · paragraphs 27–29
11. · paragraph 19overweening opinion of one’s gifts; continue through self-conceit figured as swelling at Subsection 14 Self-love, vainglory, praise, honour, excessive applause, pride… · paragraphs 20–21
12. · paragraph 9fear and imagination in the prediction report; read Subsection 7. A collection of other events that cause melancholy: the death of… · paragraphs 8–10
13. · paragraph 27conceit as a verb for taking an idea into one’s mind
14. · paragraph 36a conceit recurring against the sufferer’s will
15. · paragraph 19inventive discourse and qualified pleasantness; continue through Subsection 3 Particular symptoms from the influence of stars, parts of the… · paragraph 20
16. · paragraph 8witty scoffers amid alternating mood; read Member 2, Subsection 1 Symptoms of head melancholy · paragraphs 7–9
17. · paragraph 5–7concipiat as gathering new strength, distinguishing wholesome recreation from abuse
18. · paragraph 3empty fancies as objects of diversion; read Member 6 Subsection 1 Disturbances of the mind corrected Through the… · paragraphs 2–4 and the practical objections and answers at Member 6 Subsection 1 Disturbances of the mind corrected Through the… · paragraphs 9–15
19. · paragraph 31clever sayings in timely, non-insulting merriment; read Subsection 4 Cheerfulness, merry company, and pleasing sights as remedies · paragraphs 30–32
20. · paragraph 16–18Epicurus’s consoling thought of immortality, with its precise referent unresolved
21. · paragraph 19interpretive judgment in consolation; read Member 3 Against poverty and want and other such adversities · paragraphs 18–20
22. · paragraph 17–22the imagined suitor who does not apply, within Burton’s explicitly framed tale
23. · paragraph 37–39concipiuntur, forms conceived within the mind; qualified Platonic attribution
24. · paragraph 45–50true conceived words as sincerely meant words in Beroaldo’s recantation
25. · paragraph 7–9cloud conceiving a rainbow as figurative generation, with desire and action distinguished
26. unwanted religious notions; continue through the distinctions of assent and consent at Treatment of despair through medicine, good counsel, consolation, and so on · paragraphs 27–35

In this edition

“Conceited tale” becomes “amusing tale”; the modern sentence moves Poggio’s name into the phrase. “Strong conceit or apprehension” becomes “strong idea or impression,” while “good conceit” becomes “favourable expectation.” “Conceipt” in the prediction passage becomes “imagination.” “Conceited in discourse” becomes “imaginative in conversation”; “conceipted” is “witty” within “witty scoffers”; and “vain conceits” becomes “empty fancies.” The last phrase does not accuse the sufferer of vanity.

Other choices mark further senses: “profound conceit” is “deep thought,” the consolatory conceit is “judgement,” and conversational conceits are “clever sayings.” The pride passage’s “over-weening conceit” is “inflated opinion,” while self-conceit remains recognizable as excessive self-regard. The body’s incredulity and the marginal Latin’s credulity are kept distinct by the edition; this textual disagreement cannot be erased in an account of belief’s supposed effects.

“Conceive” becomes “Infer” in the preliminary verse, while “as it was first conceived” becomes “just as it first came to me,” making the author’s role explicit. The pregnant sense remains “conceive”; the figurative rainbow becomes “bring forth.” The Latin “concipiat” and “concipiuntur” are represented here through the editorial translations of original marginal quotations, not silently taken from the modern body.

conceit · local use 1

Printed “conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Imaginative belief offered as the effective power behind alleged charm cures.

Context: Burton invokes Pomponazzi for a humours-and-spirits mechanism; the body and Weyer marginal quotation differ over incredulity/credulity.

Source: original body

Source wording: a strong conceit and opinion alone

conceit · conceipt

Printed “conceipt” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Imagination or expectation joining fear in the alleged fulfilment of a prediction.

Context: Burton’s English strengthens the preceding Latin claim about credibility into an alleged causal outcome; the China generalization remains attributed.

Source: original body

Source wording: fear it self and conceipt, cause it to fall out

conceit · local use 2

Printed “conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

An idea that recurs insistently after being entertained.

Context: Mercurialis is quoted for a sweeping claim; the continuation stresses involuntary recurrence, not chosen belief.

Source: original body

Source wording: What conceit they have once entertained

conceit · conceits · local use 1

Printed “conceits” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Clever sayings or playful inventions in pleasant talk.

Context: The proposed benefit depends on proper understanding or timely application, following a warning that mirth be free of insult.

Source: original body

Source wording: pleasant discourse, jests, conceits, merry tales

conceit · local use 3

Printed “conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Interpretive judgment through which circumstances please or displease us.

Context: Burton’s consolatory application of the preceding Terence verse qualifies self-command with in some sort.

Source: original body

Source wording: ebbe and flow with our conceit

conceit · conceits · local use 2

Printed “conceits” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Unwanted mental notions or suggestions, here of disturbing religious content.

Context: Burton explicitly describes compulsion and later distinguishes the occurrence of thoughts from settled consent.

Source: original body

Source wording: many such horrible and execrable conceits

conceit (verb)

Printed “conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Take an idea into one’s mind.

Context: The conditional closes a description of magnifying a social mistake into many imagined dangers.

Source: original body

Source wording: if once they conceit it

conceit of immortality

Printed “conceit of immortality” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

A consoling thought of lasting existence or remembrance; precisely what immortality denotes here remains uncertain.

Context: Burton attributes this to Epicurus in pain; the same sentence and marginal quotation emphasize joy in philosophical discoveries, not an established doctrine of an afterlife.

Source: original body

Source wording: solaced himself with a conceit of immortality

conceited

Printed “conceited” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Ingenious or fanciful in devising a book’s title.

Context: Burton combines reports from Gellius, Pliny and Seneca while defending his own title; the supplied note qualifies that combination.

Source: original body

Source wording: very conceited in their inscriptions

conceited · conceipted

Printed “conceipted” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Witty or inventive in joking.

Context: Burton’s English gloss follows a separately translated Latin claim; merriment is compatible with subsequent renewed melancholy.

Source: original body

Source wording: oftentimes scoffers themselves, conceipted

conceited in discourse

Printed “conceited in discourse” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: conceited in discourse

Citation convention

Ingenious or imaginative in conversation.

Context: A reported blood-related symptom profile pairs this with wit and mirth; pleasantness is qualified by the condition not being far advanced.

Source: original body

conceited tale

Printed “conceited tale” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

An amusing or witty story.

Context: The tale is an optional addition to reports about sexual abstinence and illness; it is not independently verified clinical evidence.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: To these you may adde, if you please, that conceited tale of a Jew, so visited in like sort, and so cured, out of Poggius Florentinus.

Modern rendering, Modern wording: To these you may add, if you please, that amusing tale in Poggio of Florence, of a Jew afflicted in the same way and thus cured.

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: Whole sentence, preserving the optional invitation, description, claimed cure and source attribution.

Supplied or implicit wording: Poggio’s name is moved within the modern sentence; no extra source attribution is assigned to conceited alone.

conceive · Conceive

Printed “Conceive” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Infer or understand from what has already been shown.

Context: Imperative addressed to the reader of the engraved-title explanation; the animal symbols supply the material for the inference.

Source: original body

Locator qualification: Source record identifies these leaves as unnumbered; plain numerical passage labels are scan numbers.

Source wording: Conceive the rest by that’s afore

conceive · conceived

Printed “conceived” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Formed or first composed in the mind, here the wording and style of the book.

Context: Burton’s claim to unrevised composition belongs to his authorial self-presentation, qualified by his wish to revise and retract in the surrounding paragraphs.

Source: original body

Source wording, Original wording: as it was first conceived

Modern rendering, Modern wording: just as it first came to me

Alignment convention

Alignment convention

Supplied or implicit wording: Modern to me makes the author as experiencer explicit; the original passive leaves its agent unexpressed in this clause.

conceive · conceives

Printed “conceives” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Forms or invents mental images.

Context: The grammatical subject is imagination, an inner sense; the sleeping faculty constructs strange forms rather than necessarily perceiving external things.

Source: original body

Source wording: conceives strange, stupend, absurd shapes

conceive · local use 1

Printed “conceive” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Become pregnant.

Context: Women are the understood subject of not to conceive; witches are the alleged agents causing reproductive harm in Burton’s catalogue. Bodin and the neighbouring authorities are reported, not independently validated.

Source: original body

Source wording: not to conceive

conceive · local use 2

Printed “conceive” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Bring forth or produce, figuratively.

Context: The cloud of sin is the subject and a rainbow the object in consolatory imagery. May expresses possibility; repentance disperses the cloud, while the paragraph distinguishes inward desire from action.

Source: original body

Source wording: this cloud may conceive a Rain-bow at the last

concipere · concipiat

Printed “concipiat” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Gather or acquire, here new strength.

Context: The tired mind is the subject in a purpose clause about innocent recreation; health and enjoyment are contrasted with profit and gambling’s abuse.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: novasque vires ad subeundos labores denuo concipiat

Modern rendering, Modern wording: and gather new strength for undertaking its labours afresh

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The whole second purpose-clause predicate is aligned, including the enclitic -que as and; the governing so that and subject occur earlier.

Edition note: independently checked against supplied marginal quotation and its editorial translation, not the modern body

concipere · concipiuntur

Printed “concipiuntur” (Latin; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Are formed or conceived within the mind.

Context: Passive description of forms of beauty in the original Latin margin; it is distinguished from reception through eyes and ears. Burton’s loose attribution to Plato and inference through Valesius do not establish an exact Platonic definition.

Source: original marginal quotation

Source wording, Original wording: aut concipiuntur interna mente

Modern rendering, Modern wording: or conceived within the mind

Alignment convention

Alignment scope: The passive Latin clause is rendered with are shared from the first English clause, Forms of beauty are received; the subject remains forms of beauty.

Edition note: independently checked against supplied marginal quotation and its editorial translation, not the modern body

good conceit

Printed “good conceit” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Favourable expectation or confidence.

Context: Burton contrasts restoration with the preceding harmful bodily effects; medical claims remain historical.

Source: original body

Source wording: Fancy alone, and a good conceit

in conceit

Printed “in conceit” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

In imagination only, without actually applying.

Context: In Burton’s expressly introduced tale, the scholar makes no formal suit but receives the prebend through the bishop’s initiative.

Source: original body

Source wording: a suitor in conceit

overweening conceit

Printed “over-weening conceit” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

An excessively favourable opinion of one’s own gifts and worth.

Context: Burton describes self-admiration as an inward active cause, distinguished from being influenced by others.

Source: original body

Source wording: an over-weening conceit we have of our good parts, own worth

profound conceit

Printed “profound conceit” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Deep thought or understanding.

Context: Burton describes Democritus’s intellectual gifts, within a reported biography.

Source: original body

Source wording: excellent wit, profound conceit

self-conceit · local use 1

Printed “self-conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

An inflated view of one’s own merit.

Context: Burton disclaims this while comparing his secluded scholarly life with Democritus.

Source: original body

Source wording: pride, or self-conceit

self-conceit · local use 2

Printed “self-conceit” (English; lemma). Attestation: word form.

Citation convention

Inflated self-regard, imagined as bodily swelling.

Context: The swelling metaphor belongs to a critique of claims to exclusive wisdom, wealth and excellence.

Source: original body

Source wording: puffed up with this Timpany of self-conceit

strong conceit or apprehension

Printed “strong conceit or apprehension” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

A forceful idea or impression said to affect bodily condition.

Context: Burton invokes Valesius for the possibility of removing illness, before describing fearful impressions as causes of illness.

Source: original body

Source wording: a strong conceit or apprehension

true conceived

Printed “true conceived” (English; phrase).

Citation convention

Sincerely meant, qualifying words of recantation.

Context: Burton describes Beroaldo’s recantation of earlier hostility to marriage; the following first-person narrative is Beroaldo’s attributed story, not Burton’s autobiography.

Source: original body

Source wording: with true conceived words

vain conceits

Printed “vain conceits” (English; phrase).

Citation key, Printed form, Source wording: vain conceits

Citation convention

Empty or groundless fancies from which treatment seeks to divert attention.

Context: Burton reports calming and diversion as remedies, qualified here by if it be possible.

Source: original body