Date: 1664

"First, therefore we affirm, that this thin and spirituous matter, which is called the Animal Spirits, is the immediate Instrument of the Soul, in all her operations both of Sense and Motion."

— Power, Henry (1623-1668)

Date: 1664

"So that when she has locked up the doors of this Laboratory the Body, she may be busie in augmenting, repairing, and regenerating all the Organs and Utensils within, and painting and plaistring the Walls without."

— Power, Henry (1623-1668)

Date: 1664

"These things being thus premised, may it not be probable enough that these Spirits in the other World, shall onely be the Soul's Vehicle and Habit, and indeed really that [GREEK], mentioned by the Apostle; by a vital re-union with which, it may supereminently out-act all that ever she was able t...

— Power, Henry (1623-1668)

Date: 1665

Minds are "like smooth paper never writ upon, / When folded up, by some impression / Marks will remain it never had before, / And ne're return to former smoothness more."

— Howard, Sir Robert (1626-1698)

Date: 1665

"The like frailties are to be found in the Memory; we often let many things slip away from us, which deserve to be retain'd; and of those which we treasure up, a great part is either frivolous or false; and if good, and substantial, either in tract of time obliterated, or at best so overwhelmed a...

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

Date: 1665

"Thus all the uncertainty, and mistakes of humane actions, proceed either from the narrowness and wandring of our Senses, from the slipperiness or delusion of our Memory, from the confinement or rashness of our Understanding, so that 'tis no wonder, that our power over natural causes and effects ...

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

Date: 1665

"The Understanding is to order all the inferiour services of the lower Faculties; but yet it is to do this only as a lawful Master, and not as a Tyrant."

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

Date: 1665

The understanding "must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which is laid up in the Memory; but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Idea's, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon."

— Hooke, Robert (1635-1703)

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

"O truly royal! who behold the law, / And rule of beings in your Maker's mind; / And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw, / To fit the levelled use of humankind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)