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Date: 1657

Fancy is "The roving, pregnant, busie, teeming sence."

— Poole, Joshua (c.1615–c.1656)

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Date: 1664

"The fancy, memory, and judgment are then extended (like so many limbs) upon the rack; all of them reaching with their utmost stress at nature; a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never fully be comprehended, but where the images of all things are always present."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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Date: 1682

"Our Passions are nothing else but certain Disallowable Motions of the Mind; Sudden, and Eager; which, by Frequency, and Neglect, turn to a Disease; as a Distillation brings us first to a Cough, and then to a Phthisick."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

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Date: 1688

"Here's Cavities, says one; and here, says he, / Is th' Seat of Fancy, Judgment, Memory: / Here, says another, is the fertile Womb, / From whence the Spirits Animal do come, / Which are mysteriously ingender'd here, / Of Spirits from Arterious Blood and Air: / Here, said a third, Life made her fi...

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

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Date: 1691

"Trade is the very Life and Soul of the Universe, which, like the Vital Blood in the Body, Circulates to the Health, and well-being of the whole, and when by the failure of Industry, there is a stop put to Commerce, it often proves as fatal to the Body Politick, as the stagnating of the Blood doe...

— Blount, Thomas Pope, Sir (1649-1697)

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Date: 1691

"Can it be a Fault to chuse a better for a worse, and don't all the thinking World agree that this state we are now in, is but a Slavery to sence, a bondage to dull matter, which tedders us down like our Brother Brutes, where we are not only exposed to want and misery, but to all the Insults and ...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1691

"And shou'd an Evangelist, with an Angel at his Elbow, have told me that Goddess of my Soul had so much as one speck of Deformity, one single Mole, either in Body or Mind, I shou'd have said--By your leave, Mr. Evangelist,--I must suspend my Faith."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1692

"Suspence that torture of the Mind, / Long had our Thoughts in doubts dark Cave confin'd"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

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Date: 1700

"Her Night-gown hanging loose, discover’d her charming Bosom, which cou’d bear no Name, but Transport, Wonder and Extasy, all which struck his Soul, as soon as the Object hit his Eye; her Breasts with an easy Heaving, show’d the Smoothness of her Soul and of her Skin; their Motions were so langui...

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

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Date: 1700

"What does the World think of this holding up the Buckler, they put but a bad Construction upon it, and say that his Conscience is Ulcerated, that you cannot touch any String, but it will answer to some painful place."

— Brown, Thomas (bap. 1663, d. 1704)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.