Date: 1729

"[W]hat the Women excel us in then, is the Goodness of the Instrument, either in the Harmony, or Pliableness of the Organs, which must be very material in the Art of Thinking, and is the only thing that deserves the Name of Natural Parts"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"So that all we can know of this Consciousness is, that it consists in, or is the Result of, the running and rummaging of the Spirits through all the Mazes of the Brain, and their looking there for Facts concerning ourselves"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"But the Seeds of every Passion are innate to us and no body comes into the World without them"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"The Soul, whilst in the Body, cannot be said to think, otherwise than an Architect is said to build a House, where the Carpenters, Bricklayers, &c. do the Work, which he chalks out and superintends."

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"But as to the mysterious Structure of the Brain itself, and the more abstruse Oeconomy of it, that he knows nothing; but that the whole seems to be a medullary Substance, compactly treasur'd up in infinite Millions of imperceptible Cells, that dispos'd in an unconceivable Order, are cluster'd to...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"The main Spring in us is the Soul, which is immaterial and immortal"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"What is it, that superintends Thought in them? where must we look for it? which is the main Spring?... I can answer you no otherwise, than Life."

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"Among the helluones librorum, the Cormorants of Books, there are wretched Reasoners, that have canine Appetites, and no Digestion."

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1748, 1749

Wherefore a soul of clay, capable of discerning at one glance, the relations, and consequences of an infinite number of ideas, that are difficult to apprehend, would be evidently preferable to a heavy and stupid soul, formed of the most precious elements."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)