Date: 1699

"We do plainly perceive that our Bodies are clogs to our Minds: And all the use that even the purest sort of Body in an Estate conceived to be glorified, can be of to a Mind, is to be an Instrument of local Motion, or to be a repository of Ideas for Memory and Imagination."

— Burnet, Gilbert (1643-1715)

Date: 1734

"If it is for the most part but a Magazine of Trash, the Gift itself is still to be esteemed; and a Man has his own bad choice to blame, for making such a Collection."

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1734

"But what shall we think of this odd Treasury, which retains things during a certain time, and then loses them, even before the Infirmities of Age come on? We say a thing has dropt out of our head: (where does it drop?) and it drops in again when we least expect it. What Corners do those Images l...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1734

"The question is, how this Familiarity arises? and how the Cabinet comes to be sensible of any thing that's put into it? A Scritore knows nothing of the Papers which the careful Banker locks up in it? Or a Glass, tho' it may be said to receive the Image of a Beau, and he really sees somewhat of h...

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1742, 1777

"The heart, mean while, is empty of all enjoyment: And the mind, unsupported by its proper objects, sinks into the deepest sorrow and dejection."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1742, 1777

"With what resources is [the mind] endowed to fill so immense a void, and supply the place of all thy bodily senses and faculties?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1777

"Nothing is more free than the imagination of man; and though it cannot exceed that original stock of ideas, furnished by the internal and external senses, it has unlimited power of mixing, compounding, separating, and dividing these ideas, in all the varieties of fiction and vision."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1754

"The Mind still pushing onwards and increasing its Stock of Ideas, ascends from those to an higher Species of Objects, viz. the Order and Mutual Relations of Minds to each other, their reciprocal Affections, Characters, Actions, and various Aspects."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Into this common Storehouse are likewise carried all those Moral Images or Forms which are derived from our Moral Faculties of Perception, and there they often undergo new Changes and Appearances, by being mixed and wrought up with the Images and Forms of Sensible or Natural Thing."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)