Date: 1734

"Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does ...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1734

"How shall the Wheel of the Imagination that's continually in motion, be either stop'd or regulated?"

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1733-4

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"A trivial good may, from certain circumstances, produce a desire superior to what arises from the greatest and most valuable enjoyment; nor is there any thing more extraordinary in this, than in mechanics to see one pound weight raise up a hundred by the advantage of its situation."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741

"But to make use of the allusion of a celebrated French author, the judgment may be compared to a clock or watch, where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish the smallest differences of time."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741

"This is easily answered by a familiar instance: in every jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole composition."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1741

"This is easily answered by a familiar instance: in every jack there is a meat-roasting quality, which neither resides in the fly, nor in the weight, nor in any particular wheel of the jack, but is the result of the whole composition. So, in an animal, the self-consciousness is not a real quality...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1742

"Like many subordinate artists, employed to form the several wheels and springs of a machine: Such are those who excel in all the particular arts of life."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1743

"Though grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are green; / Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent; / Folly sings six, while Nature points at twelve."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"That thought is the machine, / The grand machine that heaves us from the dust, / And rears us into men!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)