Date: May 10, 1704

"Yet this is the first humble and civil design of all innovators in the empire of reason."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1706

Reason may still keep "its Throne, but it nods a little"

— Farquhar, George (1676/7-1707)

Date: March 16, 1696/7; 1708

"I fansy I pretty well guess what it is that some Men find mischievous in your 'Essay': 'Tis opening the Eyes of the Ignorant, and rectifying the Methods of Reasoning, which perhaps may undermine some received Errors, and so abridge the Empire of Darkness; wherein, though the Subject wander deplo...

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: June 2, 1694; 1708

"He is now five Years old, of a most towardly and promising Disposition bred exactly, as far as his Age permits, to the Rules you prescribe, I mean as to forming his Mind, and mastering his Passions."

— Molyneux, William (1656-1698)

Date: From Thursd. Sept. 8. to Saturd. Sept. 10. 1709

"For ordinary Minds are wholly governed by their Eyes and Ears, and there is no Way to come at their Hearts but by Power over their Imaginations."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: From Tuesday May 23. to Thursday May 25. 1710

"This is Conquest in the Philosophick Sense; but the Empire over our selves is, methinks, no less laudable in common Life, where the whole Tenour of a Man's Carriage is in Subservience to his own Reason, and Conformity both to the good Sense and Inclination of other Men."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Saturday, May 26, 1711

"It is thus with the State of the Mind; he that governs his Thoughts with the everlasting Rules of Reason and Sense, must have something so inexpressibly Graceful in his Words and Actions, that every Circumstance must become him."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Friday, February 15, 1712

"He might have longer wandered in the Labyrinths of Vice and Folly, had not Emilia's prudent Conduct won him over to the Government of his Reason."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: February 27, 1712

"On the other hand, without any Touch of Envy, a temperate and well-govern'd Mind looks down on such as are exalted with Success, with a certain Shame for the Imbecility of human Nature, that can so far forget how liable it is to Calamity, as to grow giddy with only the Suspence of Sorrow, which ...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: w. 1702-1713, 1989

"[I]f reason from the throne be gon / The madd affections bear their master on"

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)