Date: 1748, 1777

"By means of it alone we attain any assurance concerning objects, which are removed from the present testimony of our memory and senses."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748

"What, what is virtue, but repose of mind, / A pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm?"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"Ten thousand great ideas fill'd his mind; / But with the clouds they fled, and left no trace behind."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"When in the Hall of Smoke they congress hold, / And the sage berry, sun-burnt Mocha bears, / Has clear'd their inward eye: then, smoke-enroll'd, / Their oracles break forth mysterious as of old."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"But more he search'd the mind, and roused from sleep / Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"His soul was fair, / Bright as the children of yon azure sheen!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"O who can speak the vigorous joys of health! / Unclogg'd the body, unobscured the mind."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"But here, instead, is foster'd every ill, / Which or distemper'd minds or bodies know."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"Let godlike reason, from her sovereign throne, / Speak the commanding word 'I will!' and it is done."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748, 1754

"[T]his Perception is not a Creature of the Mind, but a Ray emanating directly from the Father of Lights, a fair genuine Stamp of his Hand, who impressed every vital and original Energy on the Mind"

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)