Date: 1698

"This Proposition, then, say we, is such, that our Understanding no sooner opens its Eye, to take a View of it, but it must assent to it, because of the Self-evident Identification of its Terms; whose Self-Evidence we do therefore make our Rule."

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"Nay, it must be such as may be produc'd openly, by the Asserters of any Truth; that, by alledging It, they may be able to convince others, that what they maintain is a Real Truth, and not some Phantastick Conceit of their own; without which, their Clear and Distinct Perception is Invisible, and ...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"And, my Reason is, because, unless Men take Principles along with them, to guide their Thoughts right, and keep an Attentive Eye to them, while they thus Meditate; 'tis to be fear'd, their long Meditating will, by its frequent Dints, so imprint and fix what you have told them, in their Brain; an...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"Lastly, As this pretended Necessity of Explicating, and Meditating, quite degrades yours from being the Genuin, First, and, consequently, the Right Rule of Knowing Truth; so it abets ours, and gives it a Clear Title to be such a Rule, since the Self-evidence of those First Truths, express'd by I...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"This, I say, was evidently the Tenour of his Discourse; because, did not those Reasons of his, against the Sufficiency of our Senses to give us this Information, conclude; but that, notwithstanding all those Reasons could prove, the Senses might still imprint on our Mind those First Notions, his...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: 1698

"For, in case those Impressions on our Mind could have been made by means of the Senses, as aforesaid; then those Impressions, or Notions, being the Immediate Foundation, on which is built all our Knowledge, could not be call'd, or resembl'd to Rubbish; nor compar'd to a Hole, to lay the Foundati...

— Sergeant, John (1622-1707)

Date: May 16, 1699

"All others have a right to be followed as far as I, i.e. as far as the evidence of what they say convinces; and of that my own understanding alone must be judge for me, and nothing else."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1699

"I justified my use of the word Spirit in that Sense from the Authorities of Cicero and Virgil, applying the Latin word Spiritus, from whence Spirit is derived, to the Soul as a thinking Thing, without excluding Materiality out of it. To which your Lordship replies,*That Cicero, in his Tusculan Q...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1708, 1714

"The Human Mind and Body are both of 'em naturally subject to Commotions: and as there are strange Ferments in the Blood, which in many Bodys occasion an extraordinary discharge; so in Reason too, there are heterogeneous Particles which must be thrown off by Fermentation."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1708, 1714

"They are certainly as ill Physicians in the Body-Politick, who wou'd needs be tampering with these mental Eruptions; and under the specious pretence of healing this Itch of Superstition, and saving Souls from the Contagion of Enthusiasm, shou'd set all Nature in an uproar, and turn a few innocen...

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)