Date: c. 1603

"Just when the human mind, borne thither by some favouring gale, had found rest in a little truth, this man presumed to cast the closest fetters on our understandings."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1604

"How are the Soule and Body, Spirite and Flesh coupled together, what chaynes, what fetters imprison a spirituall Substance, an immortal Spirit in so base, stinking; and corruptible a carkasse?"

— Wright, Thomas (c. 1561-1623)

Date: 1607

"Whose soule by his selfe ignorance (not knowing what repast was most conuenient for his body) was pent vp and as it were fettred in these his corps as in her dungeon."

— Walkington, Thomas (b. c. 1575, d. 1621)

Date: 1615

"But by spirits we understand the primary and immediate instrument of the soul, which the Stoicks calleth 'the Band which tyeth the soul and the body.'"

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1652

"I speak now in relation between the Oppressor and the oppressed; the inward bondages I meddle not with in this place, though I am assured that, if it be rightly searched into, the inward bondages of the mind, as covetousness, pride, hypocrisy, envy, sorrow, fears, desperation and madness, are al...

— Winstanley, Gerrard (bap. 1609, d. 1676)

Date: 1652

"Ne're tell us that you wanted origanical dispositions, for you plainly have recourse to the sensitive powers, and must needs subscribe to this, that al knowledg comes flourishing in at these lattices. Why else should not your Candle enlighten you before? who was it that chained up; and fettered ...

— Culverwell, Nathanael (bap. 1619, d. 1651)

Date: 1678

"But Fancy, I think, in Poetry, is like Faith in Religion; it makes far discoveries, and soars above reason, but never clashes, or runs against it. Fancy leaps, and frisks, and away she's gone; whilst reason rattles the chains, and follows after."

— Rymer, Thomas (1641-1713)

Date: 1682

"If it so happen, that a Man be ty'd up to Business, which he can neither loosen, nor break off; let him imagine those Shackles upon his Mind to be Irons upon his Legs: They are Troublesome at first, but when there's no Remedy but Patience, Custom makes them easie to us, and Necessity gives us Co...

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: 1682

"The Body is but the Clog and Prisoner of the Mind; tossed up and down, and persecuted with Punishments, Violences, and Diseases; but the Mind it self is Sacred, and Eternal, and exempt from the Danger of all Actual Impression."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: 1682

"The Body is but the Prison, or the Clog of the Mind; subjected to Punishments, Robberies, Diseases; but the Mind is Sacred, and Spiritual, and Liable to no Violence."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)