Literary notes about essence (AI summary)
Writers deploy the term "essence" to pinpoint the core, unchanging quality of a thing, whether discussing nature, art, or the human soul. In philosophy, essence is often treated as the intrinsic substance that defines existence, as seen when Spinoza explains the endeavor of being in terms of a being’s fundamental nature [1, 2, 3, 4] or Hume refers to a necessary quality underpinning necessity itself [5]. In literature, it can capture the distilled spirit of an object or experience—as when Verne reduces a mountain to its core identity as a volcano [6, 7] or when Tolstoy describes love and life in terms of their essential qualities [8, 9]. This linguistic device also extends to broader ideas, such as the very essence of community or art which is seen as more real than mere appearance [10, 11]. Thus, across genres and eras, authors use "essence" to articulate a deeper, often ineffable truth residing beneath the surface of phenomena.
- Proof.—The endeavour, wherewith everything endeavours to persist in its being, is defined solely by the essence of the thing itself (III.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - Proof.—The nature or essence of the emotions cannot be explained solely through our essence or nature (III.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - Wherefore God's existence and God's essence are one and the same.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - Proof.—God is the cause, not only of the existence of this or that human body, but also of its essence (I. xxv.).
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - Now this is the very essence of necessity, according to the foregoing doctrine.
— from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume - In essence, this mountain was a volcano.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - In essence, heat creates the different densities that lead to currents and countercurrents.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man’s consciousness.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - I experienced that feeling of love which is the very essence of the soul and does not require an object.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - This is the merit and distinction of art: to be more real than reality, to be not nature but nature’s essence.
— from Views and Reviews: Essays in appreciation: Literature by William Ernest Henley - For this is the very essence of community—which is inconceivable as a property of things which are perfectly isolated.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
