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Date: 1592

"Thine eye the glasse where I behold my hart, / mine eye the window, through the which thine eye / may see my hart, and there thy selfe espye / in bloudie colours how thou painted art."

— Constable, Henry (1562-1613)

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Date: c. 1603

"But do you suppose, when all the approaches and entrances to men's minds are beset and blocked by the most obscure idols -- idols deeply implanted and, as it were, burned in -- that any clean and polished surface remains in the mirror of the mind on which the genuine natural light of things can ...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

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Date: 1615

"The eyes are the discouerers of the mind, as the countenance is the Image of the same; by the eyes as by a window, you may looke euen into the secret corners of the Soule: so that it was well sayde of Alexander ... that the eyes are the mirror or Looking-glasse of the Soule."

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

Internal and external sensation, "These alone, as far as I can discover, are the windows by which light is let into this dark room: For methinks the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light, with only some little openings left, to let in external visible resemblances, or i...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"Would the pictures coming into such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them"

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

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Date: 1701, 1704

"The application of our Thoughts to other Subjects is like looking upon the Rays of the Sun as it shines to us from a Wall, or upon the Image of it as it returns from a Watry Mirrour, but this is looking up directly against the Fons veri lucidus, the bright Source of Intellectual Light a...

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

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Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712

"The Pineal Gland, which many of our Modern Philosophers suppose to be the Seat of the Soul, smelt very strong of Essence and Orange-flower Water, and was encompassed with a kind of Horny Substance, cut into a thousand little Faces or Mirrours, which were imperceptible to the naked Eye, insomuch ...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

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Date: 1715

"Speech was given to Man as the Image and Interpreter of the Soul: It is anime index & speculum, the Messenger of the Heart, the Gate by which all that is within issues forth, and comes into open View."

— Bulstrode, Richard, Sir (1610-1711)

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Date: w. 1740, 1748

"Thirsting for Knowledge, but to know the right, / Thro' judgment's optick guide th' illusive sight, / To let in rays on Reason's darkling cell, / And Prejudice's lagging mists dispel."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

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Date: 1767, 1784

"The curious structure of these visual orbs, / The windows of the mind; substance how clear, / Aqueous, or crystalline! through which the soul, / As thro' a glass, all outward things surveys."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

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