Date: 1764

"But the anatomist of the mind cannot have the same advantage."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: w. 1764, 1953

"My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1764

"No: if you will be a true member of this church, you must give up your reason, and even the testimony of your senses too; as appears notoriously in the affair of transubstantiation."

— Murray, James (1732-1782)

Date: 1765

"Nature has stamped an original impression on certain minds, which Education may greatly alter or efface, but seldom so entirely as to prevent its traces being seen by an accurate observer."

— Gregory, John (1724-1773)

Date: 1766

"YOU see already, my dear patron, by the date of my letter, that I am arrived at the place of my destination; but you cannot see all the charms which I find in it; to do this, you should be acquainted with the situation, and be able to read my heart. You ought, however, to read at least those of ...

— Hume, David (1711-1776); with Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Walpole

Date: 1766

"They suppose the same domineering pride and ingratitude to be the basis of his character; but they are also willing to believe, that his brain has received a sensible shock, and that his judgment, set afloat, is carried to every side, as it is pushed by the current of his humours and of his pass...

— Hume, David (1711-1776); with Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Walpole

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Formerly my mind was quite a lodging-house for all ideas who chose to put up there, so that it was at the mercy of accident, for I had no fixed mind of my own. Now my mind is a house where, though the street rooms and the upper floors are open to strangers, yet there is always a settled family i...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Meth...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1766-1769, 1956

"This family! this landlord, let me say, or this landlady, as the mind and the soul are both she. I shall confuse myself with metaphor. Let me then have done with it."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1767

"He is now reduced to the greatest want and beggary, he is become a meer tabula rasa, a sheet of blank paper, a page of perfect inanity."

— Campbell, Archibald (bap. 1724, d. 1780)