Date: 1727

"Homer's Notion of the State of the Dead, was something like the ancient Philosophy of the Aegyptians, which gave the Soul a Shape like the Body, and that it was only a Receptacle of the Mind; the Mind they made to be the sublime and superior Part, and that only."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"It were easie to confute these weak pretences to Chance and Incident, and to show the necessity of an intelligent Being; but that is not my work: I am not upon the Reality of such an intelligent Being, but the Reality of its ordinary and extraordinary actings, the Agents it employs, and the mann...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"But 'tis easily solv'd, by answering that it is but a seeming Contradiction, for both the Apparitions are visible, only not to the same Optick Powers; the Apparition in Dream is visible to the intellectual sight, to the Eye of the Soul; and the Day-light Apparition is visible to the common ordin...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"And from hence also it is evident that Dreams are sometimes to be call'd, and really are, Apparitions, as much as those other visible Apparitions which are seen when we are (as we call it) broad awake; that Apparition is to the Eyes of the Soul, and as it is so, it may be seen as well sleeping a...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"But as it might be a kind Messenger from another part of the invisible World, where his approaching Fate was known, and who having given him this Notice, left his Reformation in his own Power, and laid the Necessity of it before the Eyes of his Reason, as well as of his Conscience, and that afte...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"Sure, said I, my Cousin M-- D-- must have the clearest Conscience in the Universe, he has not the least Scar upon his Inside."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"But I mistook my Kinsman most extremely, for on the contrary, his Soul is blacker than Negro Sancho, the Beauty of Africa; he boasts himself of the most harden'd Crime, defies Heaven, despises Terror, and is got above Fear by the meer force of a flagrant Assurance."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"It is without Doubt, that Fancy and Imagination form a world of Apparitions in the Minds of Men and Women; (for we must not exclude the Ladies in this Part, whatever we do) and People go away as thoroughly possess'd with the Reality of having seen the Devil, as if they convers'd Face to Face wit...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1733

"The thinking Sculpture helps to raise / Deep thoughts, the Genii of the place: / To the minds ear, and inward sight, / There silence speaks, and shade gives light:"

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737) [pseud. Peter Drake, a Fisherman of Brentford]

Date: 1737 (also 1738, 1743, reprinted 1754)

"Curst with such souls of base alloy, / As can possess, but not enjoy, / Debarr'd the pleasure to impart / By av'rice, sphincter of the heart, / Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares, / Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs."

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737)