Date: 1666

"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1666

Elocution is " that art of clothing and adorning that thought so found and varied, in apt, significant, and sounding word."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1737

"I say, I see it was so evenly carried without Prejudice, (whether it were a true Accusation of the one part, or a Practice of a false Accusation on the other) as shewed plainly that his majesty's Judgment was tanquam tabula rasa, as a clean Pair of tables, and his Ear tanquam janua aperta, as a ...

— Holles, John, Earl of Clare (ca. 1565-1637)

Date: 1756

"This heart is become a mere rasa tabula; you must help it to the [GREEK CHARACTERS], you must lay in it the foundation of natural religion, (i.e. "the dictates of common sense, for natural religion, according to Mr. H. is nothing else,) if you would raise the superstr...

— Patten, Thomas (1714-1790)

Date: 1794

"When fibrous contractions succeed other fibrous contractions, the connection is termed 'association'; when fibrous contractions succeed sensorial motions, the connection is termed 'cassation'; when fibrous and sensorial motions reciprocally introduce each other in progressive trains or tribes, i...

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"Whereas a due exercise of the faculties of the mind strengthens and improves those faculties, whether of imagination or recollection; as the exercise of our limbs in dancing or fencing increases the strength and agility of the muscles thus employed."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"If our recollection or imagination be not a repetition of animal movements, I ask, in my turn, What is it? You tell me it consists of images or pictures of things. Where is this extensive canvas hung up? or where are the numerous receptacles in which those are deposited? or to what else in the a...

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"In like manner the irritative ideas suggest to us many other trains or tribes of ideas that are associated with them."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"And as these irritative ideas make up a part of the chain of our waking thoughts, introducing other ideas that engage our attention, though themselves are unattended to, we find it very difficult to investigate by what steps many of our hourly trains of ideas gain their admittance."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1794

"In like manner with these sensitive sensual motions, or ideas of imagination, are associated many other trains or tribes of ideas, which by some writers of metaphysics have been classed under the terms of resemblance, causation, and contiguity; and will be more fully treated of hereafter."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)