Date: September 10, 1726
"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...
preview | full record— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)
Date: 1729
"What Numbers of learned Fools do we not meet with in large Libraries; from whose Works it is evident, that Knowledge must have lain in their Heads, as Furniture at an Upholder's; and the Treasure of the Brain was a Burden to them, instead of an Ornament!"
preview | full record— 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...
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1732
"Trace it to the fountain-head, and you shall not find that you had it by any of your senses, the only true means of discovering what is real and substantial in nature: you will find it lying amongst other old lumber in some obscure corner of the imagination, the proper receptacle of visions, fan...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1734
"But what shall we think of this odd Treasury, which retains things during a certain time, and then loses them, even before the Infirmities of Age come on? We say a thing has dropt out of our head: (where does it drop?) and it drops in again when we least expect it. What Corners do those Images l...
preview | full record— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)
Date: 1734
"The question is, how this Familiarity arises? and how the Cabinet comes to be sensible of any thing that's put into it? A Scritore knows nothing of the Papers which the careful Banker locks up in it? Or a Glass, tho' it may be said to receive the Image of a Beau, and he really sees somewhat of h...
preview | full record— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)
Date: May 6, 1736
"To express this to us by Similitudes both just and beautiful; some Philosophers compare an human Soul to an empty Cabinet, of inexpressible Value for the Matter and Workmanship: and particularly, for the wonderful Contrivance of it, as having all imaginable Conveniencies within, for treasuring u...
preview | full record— Denne, John (1693-1767)
Date: 1748, 1754
"Into this common Storehouse are likewise carried all those Moral Images or Forms which are derived from our Moral Faculties of Perception, and there they often undergo new Changes and Appearances, by being mixed and wrought up with the Images and Forms of Sensible or Natural Thing."
preview | full record— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)
Date: 1761
"After the cursory view of Nature, which was concluded in my last Lecture, it may not be amiss to examine our own faculties, and see by what means we acquire and treasure up a knowledge of those things; and this is done, I apprehend, by means of the senses, the operations of the mind, and the mem...
preview | full record— Telescope, Tom [pseud.]
Date: 1765
"A Man's House may be so fill'd with Furniture, that he shall want Room to stir; and a Man's Head may be so stuff'd with other People's Thoughts, that his own shall be stifled."
preview | full record— Anonymous