Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Arles, France, 3 Febr. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 576), p 25
1880s, 1889
“And for Incoherent Speech, it was amongst the Gentiles taken for one sort of Prophecy, because the Prophets of their Oracles, intoxicated with a spirit, or vapor from the cave of the Pythian Oracle at Delphi, were for a time really mad, and spake like mad-men; of whoose loose words a sense might be made to fit any event, in such sort, as all bodies are said to be made of Materia prima.”
The Third Part, Chapter 36, p. 226 (See also: Glossolalia)
Leviathan (1651)
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Thomas Hobbes 97
English philosopher, born 1588 1588–1679Related quotes
The History of Oracles, and the Cheats of the Pagan Priests (1688)
Context: So that at length the Priests of Delphos being quite baffled with the railleries of those learned Wits, renounced all Verses, at least as to the speaking them from the Tripos; for there were still some Poets maintain'd in the Temple, who at leisure turned into Verse, what the Divine fury had inspired the Pythian Priestess withal in Prose. It was very pretty, that Men could not be contented to take the Oracle just as it came piping hot from the Mouth of their God. But perhaps, when they had come a great way for it, they thought it would look silly to carry home an Oracle in Prose.<!--pp. 221-222
“The boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are made by men.”
Book III, Ch. 6, sec. 37
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)