Date: 1779
"A man's natural inclination works incessantly upon him ... The force of the greatest gravity, say the philosophers, is infinitely small, in comparison of that of the least impulse: yet it is certain, that the smallest gravity will, in the end, prevail above a great impulse; because no strokes or...
preview | full record— Hume, David (1711-1776)
Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788
"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."
preview | full record— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)
Date: [1782]
"I have already mentioned the BRAIN as the Capital Organ of all Sensation, and from it the Nerves all originate."
preview | full record— Martin, Benjamin (bap. 1705, d. 1782)
Date: [1782]
"I must now further observe to you, that the Brain is also the Seat or Residence of the MIND or SOUL of the Animal.--That it is the Grand Emporium of all Intelligence, and of all Ideas and Species of external Objects presented there by the Nerves."
preview | full record— Martin, Benjamin (bap. 1705, d. 1782)
Date: 1794
"The mind is not a rasa tabula, though, at the same time, it must be allowed, we gain no actual knowledge of the latent ideas which it possesses, but as they are awakened by reflection and experience."
preview | full record— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)
Date: 1794
"The rasa tabula will not allow us to have mental ideas."
preview | full record— Sullivan, Richard Joseph, Sir (1752-1806)
Date: 1794
"Emporium, a market-town; but metaphorically applied to the brain, which is the seat of all rational and sensitive transaction."
preview | full record— Quincy, John (d. 1722)