Date: 1771, 1776

"The mind untaught / 'Is a dark waste, where fiends and tempests howl; / 'As Phebus to the world, is Science to the soul."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1774

"Imagination is still more inventive in all its other operations. It can lead us from a perception that is present, to the view of many more, and carry us through extensive, distant, and untrodden fields of thought. It can dart in an instant, from earth to heaven, and from heaven to earth; it can...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"As acuteness of smell carries a dog along the path of the game for which he searches, and secures him against the danger of quitting it, upon another scent: so this happy structure of imagination leads the man of genius into those tracks where the proper ideas lurk, and not only enables him to d...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"Often, however, the bye-roads of association, as we may term them, lead to rich and unexpected regions, give occasion to noble sallies of imagination, and proclaim an uncommon force of genius, able to penetrate through unfrequented ways to lofty or beautiful conceptions."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is only judgment constantly exerting itself along with fancy, and often checking it and examining its ideas, that produces by degrees a habit of correctness in thinking, and enures the mind to move straight forward to the end proposed, without declining into the byepaths which run off on both...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"If we lose sight altogether of the beaten road of memory, we shall be in danger of missing our way in the winding paths of imagination. So bold an adventurer will come at last to regions inhabited only by monsters."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"Relations which we are accustomed to follow in the train of our thoughts, are like roads with which we are acquainted, and in which we therefore pursue a journey without any concern, hesitation, or deviation."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"It is judgment that perceives when imagination deviates from the paths which lead to the end proposed; it is owing to this perception, that imagination is recalled from its wanderings, and made to set out anew in the right road; and it is the frequent exercise of judgment in this employment, tha...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"In these several ways which have been mentioned, in fitting men for applying their ideas to different purposes, in leading imagination into different tracks, and in bestowing on it different kinds of regularity, judgment is active in diversifying the forms of genius."

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1776

"Hence the strange parade he makes with regions, and recesses, hollow caverns, and private seats, wastes, and wildernesses, fruitful and cultivated tracks, words which, though they have a precise meaning as applied to country, have no definite signification as applied to mind."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)