Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"But as for that prodigious paradox of Atheists, that cogitation itself is nothing but local motion or mechanism, we could not have thought it possible, that ever any many should have given entertainment to such a conceit, but that this was rather a meer slander raised upon Atheists."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"That Vital Sympathy, by which our Soul is united and tied fast, as it were with a Knot, to the Body, is a thing that we have no direct Consciousness of, but only in its Effects."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"For though the Geometrician perceive himself to make Lines, Triangles and Circles in the Dust, with his Finger, yet he is not aware, how he makes all those same Figures, first upon the Corporeal Spirits of his Brain, from whence notwithstanding, as from a Glass, they are reflected to him, Fancy ...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"Now as we have no voluntary Imperium at all, upon the Systole and Diastole of the Heart, so are we not conscious to our selves of any Energy of our own Soul that causes them, and therefore we may reasonably conclude from hence also, that there is some Vital Energy, without Animal Fancy or Synaes...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"So that Cogitation is in Order of Nature, before Local Motion, and Incorporeal before Corporeal Substance, the Former having a Natural Imperium upon the Latter."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)