Date: 1641

The common view is that the mind is like "a wind or similar body"

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

The mind is a craftsman, the body his tool

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblan...

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1641

"If you do not accept this, then you must untie the knot which in your view must be binding us with adamantine bonds and preventing our mind from soaring above every kind of body."

— Mersenne, Marin (1588-1648)

Date: 1641

Gravity is coexistence with a heavy body in the same way that the mind is coextensive with the body

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

The "I" is not present in the body as a sailor is in a ship but is joined and intermingled with it

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

"You may say that you occupy the citadel in your brain and there receive whatever messages are transmitted by the animal spirits which move through the nerves, and sense-perception thus occurs there, where you dwell, despite the fact that it is said to occur throughout the body."

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1644, 1647

"The brute beasts, who have only their bodies to preserve, are continually occupied in looking for food to nourish them; but human beings, whose most important part is the mind, should devote their main efforts to the search for wisdom, which is the true food of the mind."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1644, 1647

A 'clear' perception is analogous to an object "present to the eye's gaze" that "stimulates it with a sufficient degree of strength and accessibility"

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1644, 1647

"But the fact that we feel a pain as it were in our foot does not make it certain that the pain exists outside our mind, in the foot, any more than the fact that we see light as it were in the sun, makes it certain the light exists outside us, in the sun."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)