Date: 1770
"What is it to which a wise man will pay more attention, than to his reason and conscience, those divine monitors by which he is to judge even of religion itself, and which he is not at liberty to disobey, though an angel from heaven should command him?"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"Thus we talk metaphorically, when we speak of a warm imagination, a sound judgement, a tenacious memory, an enlarged understanding; these epithets being originally and properly expressive of the qualities of matter."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"When Reason invades the rights of Common Sense, and presumes to arraign that authority by which she herself acts, nonsense and confusion must of necessity ensue; science will soon come to have neither head nor tail, beginning nor end; philosophy will grow contemptible; and its adherents, far fro...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"The word 'sentiment' has, of late years, been much used by some writers, to signify, not a formed opinion, notion, or principle, (which seems to be the true, and the old English sense), but an internal impulse of passion, affection, fancy, or intellect, which is to be considered rather as the ca...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"We are informed by Father MALEBRANCHE, that the senses were at first as honest faculties as one could desire to be endued with, till after they were debauched by original sin; an adventure, from which they contracted such an invincible propensity to cheating, that they are now continually lying ...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"Why should not our judgments concerning truth be acknowledged to result from a bias impressed upon the mind by its Creator, as well as our desire of self-preservation, our love of society, our resentment of injury, our joy in the possession of good?"
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"The captious turn of an habitual wrangler deadens the understanding, sours the temper, and hardens the heart: by rendering the mind suspicious, and attentive to trifles, it weakens the sagacity of instinct, and extinguishes the fire of imagination; it transforms conversation into, a state of war...
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1770
"A metaphysician, exploring the recesses of the human heart, hath just such a chance for finding the truth, as a man with microscopic eyes would have, for, finding the road."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1774
"Like a mirrour, it [memory] reflects faithful images of the objects formerly perceived by us, but can exhibit no form with which it is not in this manner supplied. It is in its nature a mere copier; it preserves scrupulously the very position and arrangement of the original sensations, and gives...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
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...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)