Date: September 17, 1726

"I Need not expatiate upon other Characters; for I have too good an Opinion of your Readers, to doubt of their beginning now to be sensible that most Men speak and act but from a fortuitous Concourse of Images, or a Train of them stored up in the Brain."

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: September 17, 1726

"I have now, Sir, laid open to you the Faculties of the Mind, and shewn that those of most Men consist but in a mechanical Operation, as well as those of other Animals."

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1727

"Old Men view best at a distance with the Eyes of their Understanding as well as with those of Nature."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1727

"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ide...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1728

"So if we have confused Sensation strengthning and fixing our private Desires, the like Sensation joined to publick Affections is necessary, lest the former Desires should wholly engross our Minds: If weight be cast into one Scale, as much must be put into the other to preserve an <...

— Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746)

Date: 1728

"'Tis true indeed, that there are few Tempers to be found, wherein these Sensations of the several Passions are in such a Ballance, as in all cases to leave the Mind in a proper State, for considering the Importance of every Action or Event."

— Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746)

Date: 1728

A peevish, pettish temper "disarms the Heart of its natural Integrity; it induces us to throw away our true Armour, our natural Courage, and cowardly to commit our selves to the vain Protection of others, while we neglect our own Defence"

— Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746)

Date: 1728

"At our Birth the Imagination is intirely a Tabula Rasa or perfect Blank, without any other Materials either for a Simple View or any Other Operation of the Intellect"

— Browne, Peter (d. 1735)

Date: 1728

"With respect to the simple Perception of Mere Sense he is still upon the same Level with Brutes; he is altogether Passive; he retains all the Signatures and Impressions of outward Objects, but in the very Order only in which they are stamped; with Transposing or Altering, Dividing, or Compoundin...

— Browne, Peter (d. 1735)

Date: 1728

It is by the senses that "the Ideas of external sensible Objects are first conveyed into the Imagination; and Reason or the pure Intellect ... operates upon those Ideas, and upon them, Only after they are so lodged in that common Receptacle"

— Browne, Peter (d. 1735)