- “As a result, objectivity was not distorted.

”
- “His professions and displays of humility, and his exhibition of theoretical innocence all
complemented each other in the establishment and….”
- “Such an author gave the signs of a man whose testimony was reliable.
- Averred: To assert or affirm with confidence; clear in a positive or peremptory manner; to allege
as a fact.
- Prolixity: Long-windedness, an excess of words.
- Obviate: (1) to remove (a need or difficulty), “the presence of roller blinds obviated the need for
curtains. (2) Avoid or prevent (something undesirable), “a parachute can be used to obviate
death”
- Assent: (noun) the expression of approval or agreement, “a loud murmur of assent”. (verb) “The
Prime Minister assented to the change”
- Vehemently: in a forceful, passionate, or intense manner; with great feeling, “he vehemently
denied any suggestion of improper conduct”.
- Transgressed: “what uses of language could be taken as indications that an individual had
transgressed the conventions of the community?”
- Itinerant: travelling from place to place, “an itinerant figure who worked to bring Protestants
together.
- “Finally, we shall point to the integrity of Hobbes’ perspective.”
- Idiosyncratic: peculiar or individual, “she emerged as one of the great, idiosyncratic talents of
the nineties”
- Prolix: using or containing too many words; tediously lengthy, “he found the narrative too prolix
and discursive”
- Colligate: be or cause to be juxtaposed or grouped in a syntactic relation, “and that singular
conception of ‘bonds’ invented to colligate the facts of ‘valency’ or ‘atomicity’
- Philozoic: love of animals
- Indolency: a state of repose in which neither pain nor pleasure is experienced
- Indolent: wanting to avoid activity or exertion; lazy, “they were indolent and addicted to a life of
pleasure”
- Salubrious: health-giving; healthy, “odours of far less salubrious origin”
o (of a place) pleasant; (of a place) not run-down, “an over-priced flat in a none too
salubrious area”
- Avarice: excessive or insatiable desire for wealth or gain
- Unctuous: excessively flattering or ingratiating; oily, having a greasy or soapy feel, “he seemed
anxious to please but not in an unctuous way”
- Apophatic: (of knowledge of God) obtained through negating concepts that might be applied to
him
- Accretion: growth or increase by the gradual accumulation of additional layers or matter “the
accretion of sediments in coastal mangroves”; a thing formed or added by gradual growth or
increase, “the city has a historic core surrounded by recent accretions”; the coming together and
cohesion of matter under the influence of gravitation to form larger bodies, “during the later
stages of accretion the outer 100 km or so of the Moon melted”
- Excursus: a detailed discussion of a particular point in a book, usually in an appendix; a
digression in a written text or speech
- Laconic phrase: a concise or test statement, especially a blunt or elliptical rejoinder. It is named
after Laconia, the region of Greece including the city of Sparta, whose ancient inhabitants had a
reputation for verbal austerity and were famous for their often pithy remarks, “On the evening
of Guy Fawkes’ Night, 1673, for instance, he laconically recorded…”
- Portmanteau: a large travelling bag, typically made of stuff leather and opening into two equal
parts; a word blending the sounds combining the meanings of two others, for example motel or
 brunch, “While it is true that seventeenth-century doctors sometimes used this term [scurvy] in
a portmanteau fashion to describe all manner of skin conditions….”
Riven by/with: divided because of disagreements, especially in a violent way, “it was a
community/nation/family riven by hated”

“What was the concatenation of circumstances that led to John Hooke’s suicide, however, is
hard to be certain”.

“despairingly observing that ‘this is the way in England: hardly has the ink dried of a sentence
fulminated by parliament than the king annuls it… yet it all happens without exciting disgust’”
p.18

‘no nation in Europe is more haughty and disdainful, nor more conceited in an opinion of its
superior excellence’. Inclined ‘to adore all their own opinions, and despise those of every other
nation’.

‘as the sea tumbles perpetually about the country, so their brains do fluctuate in their noddles
[heads], which makes them so variable and unsteady’

‘it seems to me, every moment, I have been transferred to the antipodes’

To foreign observers ‘such constant motion must appear incredible and excite laughter at such a
long comedy which must infallibly be turned, one day, into a tragedy’ – can replace 2 nd half with
‘while I….’

‘my nearest neighbour, being in straightest friendship with me, shall rigorously put to death a
free sovereign prince and my natural mother, alike in estate and sex to her… and touching her
nearly in proximity of blood’

- Ch4 Hellenistic natural philosophy: “If we had never been molested by alarms over celestial and
atmospheric phenomena, nor by the misgiving that death somehow affects us, nor by neglect of
the proper limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need to study natural philosophy”
p.77