Date: 1783

"To account for this, and other phenomena of Memory, by intermediate causes, many authors, both antient and modern, were fain to suppose, that every thing perceived by us, whether a thought of the mind, or an external object, every thing, in a word, that we remember, makes upon the brain a certai...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"When the brain itself is disordered, by disease, by drunkenness, or by other accidents, these philosophers are of opinion, that the impressions are disfigured, or instantly erased, or not at all received; in which case, there is either no remembrance, or a confused one."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

Some philosophers "think, that the brains of old men, grown callous by length of time, are, like hard wax, equally tenacious of old impressions, and unsusceptible of new."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"The human brain is a bodily substance; and sensible and permanent impressions made upon it must so far resemble those made on sand by the foot, or on wax by the seal, as to have certain shape, length, breadth, and deepness"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"And thus, the subdivisions of the several heads of his harangue, and even particular sentiments in each subdivision, might be imprinted on his mind by a similar mode of arrangement"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"Traders often revise their books; to see whether every thing be neat, and accurate, and in its proper place. Students, in like manner, should often revise their knowledge, or at least the more useful branches of it; renew those impressions on the Memory, which had begun to decay through length o...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1783

"If the mind is not vacant, Attention will be painful, and interrupted, and the Memory slow to receive any durable impression"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1785

One may "make certain impressions upon the mind of a certain person, whom a certain set of men have been doing their utmost to betray into his grandfather's errors."

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

Date: 1785

"Aristotle taught, that all the objects of our thought enter at first by the senses; and, since the sense cannot receive external material objects themselves, it receives their species; that is, their images or forms, without the matter; as wax receives the form of the seal without any of the mat...

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

"When we speak of making an impression on the mind, the word is carried still farther from its literal meaning; use, however, which is the arbiter of language, authorises this application of it."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)