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Literary notes about underlie (AI summary)

The word "underlie" is frequently employed in literature to convey the idea of a foundational layer that supports or gives rise to a more visible or immediate phenomenon. In some instances, it is used in a literal, physical context, as when geological layers beneath rock formations are described ([1], [2]), or when Thoreau envisions the sleepers beneath the railroad as the hidden underpinnings of infrastructure ([3]). In other works, the term adopts a more abstract sense, suggesting underlying causes or principles that inform thoughts, emotions, and even the human condition. For example, Helen Keller reflects on fundamental facts of existence that underlie physical reality ([4]), while Freud and Nietzsche explore the less tangible, psychological or moral conditions beneath dreams and conflicting desires ([5], [6]). Similarly, sociological and philosophical texts examine the deep-seated sentiments or conditions that underlie ideas and beliefs, whether it's the emotional substrate of our constructs ([7]) or the universal human condition described by Emerson ([8]). Even in logical discourse, as seen in Dewey's work, "underlie" denotes the basis that upholds conclusions ([9]). Collectively, these examples illustrate how the term bridges the concrete and the conceptual, serving as a linguistic tool for exploring both the physical foundations and the deeper, often unseen forces at work in our world.
  1. —Though not always recognised as a separate subdivision of the Wenlock, the Woolhope beds, which underlie the Wenlock shale, are of great importance.
    — from Paradise Lost by John Milton
  2. —We come next in descending order to that division of Primary or Palæozoic rocks which immediately underlie the Devonian group or Old Red Sandstone.
    — from Paradise Lost by John Milton
  3. Did you ever think what those sleepers are that underlie the railroad?
    — from Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
  4. I decided that there was no reason, except my deplorable ignorance of the great facts that underlie our physical existence.
    — from The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
  5. A much worse confusion seems to underlie the assurance that back of every dream one finds the "death-clause," or death-wish.
    — from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
  6. "The antagonism of these two attitudes and the desires that underlie them.
    — from The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
  7. Inversely, sentiments underlie all our ideas; they smoulder in the dying embers of abstractions.
    — from Introduction to the Science of Sociology by E. W. Burgess and Robert Ezra Park
  8. In strict science, all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness.
    — from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  9. (1) The premises are called grounds, foundations, bases, and are said to underlie, uphold, support the conclusion.
    — from How We Think by John Dewey

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