Date: 1734
"Besides the five Senses, the Naturalists generally speak of a Sensorium, or common Sense, which they reckon the ground of all Sensation, or a Medium, as it were, for modifying the Impressions and conveying them to the Mind."
preview | full record— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)
Date: 1745
"The infant Mind is ductile like Wax; you may stamp a fair or ugly Impression upon it, Error or Knowledge, Indolence or Application, Virtue or Vice."
preview | full record— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)
Date: 1751
"A weak motive makes some impression: but, in opposition to one more powerful, it has no effect to determine the mind. In the precise same manner, a small force will not overcome a great resistance; nor the weight of an ounce in one scale, counter-balance a pound in the other."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757
"Time, that wears out the trace of deepest anguish, / As the sea smooths the prints made in the sand, / Has past o'er thee in vain."
preview | full record— Home, John (1722-1808)
Date: 1757
"Since, therefore, the mind of man appears of so loose and unsteddy a contexture, that, even at present, when so many persons find an interest in continually employing on it the chissel and the hammer, yet are they not able to engrave theological tenets with any lasting impression; how much more ...
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1762
"Some emotions, by hurrying the mind from object to object, accelerate the succession. Where the train is composed of connected objects, the succession is quick. For it is so ordered by nature, that the mind goes easily and sweetly along connected objects. On the other hand, the succession must b...
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1762
"The mind can bear a quick succession of related ideas. But an unrelated idea, for which the mind is not prepared, takes time to make a distinct impression; and therefore a train composed of such ideas, ought to proceed with a slow pace."
preview | full record— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)
Date: 1770
"Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1774
"Because the impression is made quickly, it does not follow that it is strong: a susceptible memory, like a soft body, receives some impression at once, and because this impression is perceivable at once, we are at no pains to deepen it, we allow it to continue slight: when the memory is, as it ...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"Sometimes these perfections are united: the memory is of such a happy temperature as may be compared to wax, which receives the seal easily and strongly when it is melted, and immediately hardens and suffers it not to be effaced."
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)