Date: May 10, 1704

"It would be a mighty advantage accruing to the public from this inquiry that all these would very much excel and arrive at great perfection in their several kinds, which I think is manifest from what I have already shown, and shall enforce by this one plain instance, that even I myself, the auth...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"'It is certain,' said he, 'some grains of folly are of course annexed as part in the composition of human nature; only the choice is left us whether we please to wear them inlaid or embossed, and we need not go very far to seek how that is usually determined, when we remember it is with human fa...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Besides, the eyes of the understanding see best when those of the senses are out of the way, and therefore blind men are observed to tread their steps with much more caution, and conduct, and judgment than those who rely with too much confidence upon the virtue of the visual nerve, which every l...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"The reason of which is easy enough to apprehend, for the frenzy and the spleen of both having the same foundation, we may look upon them as two pair of compasses equally extended, and the fixed foot of each remaining in the same centre, which, though moving contrary ways at first, will be sure t...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Now he that will examine human nature with circumspection enough may discover several handles, whereof the six senses afford one apiece, beside a great number that are screwed to the passions, and some few riveted to the intellect."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"By Arguments they could not convince me, for I was able to show greater absurdities in their Religion than they could prove in mine; and particularly, in their Doctrine of Transubstantiation; Against which I argu'd several ways: As, First from the Testimony of our Senses , viz. of seeing, feelin...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"Thus the belief of Transubstantiation is inconsistent with the Belief of these Miracles; for if we believe them we must allow the Testimony of Sense to be a sufficient proof of them; But if we believe Transubstantiation we must renounce our Senses , and deny them to be a certain proof of any thi...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"For it is liable to many of the same absurdities with the Romish Doctrine, about the Eucharist; First, because it denies the certainty of our Senses in the proper objects, and consequently destroys their great Evidence of the Christian Religion, from the Miracles wrought in confirmation of it, w...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"Some think that the notion of God is imprinted on the Hearts of all Men by nature; others deny that there is any such Idea of a God in the Minds of Men by nature."

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)

Date: 1704

"The Natural Power of Conscience, which reproves and torments a Man for the heinous Crimes he has committed, tho' the Person be above the fear of human Punishment, or the Crime be committed so secretly, as to escape all natural means of discovery; in which Cases Conscience by its Sentence does, a...

— Psalmanazar, George (1679?-1763)