Date: 1712
"Can the dissecting Steel the Brain display, / And the august Apartment open lay, / Where this great Queen still chuses to reside / In Intellectual Pomp, and bright Ideal Pride? / Or can the Eye assisted by the Glass / Discern the strait, but hospitable Place, / In which ten thousand Images remai...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1713
"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."
preview | full record— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)
Date: 1713, 1734
"You cannot say objects are in your mind, as books in your study: or that things are imprinted on it, as the figure of a seal upon wax."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1723
"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1723, 1725
"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1725
"He must be a Master of the Science; and be able to lead a Reader, knowingly, thro’ that Labyrinth of the Passions, which fill the Heart of Man, and make him either a noble or a despicable Creature."
preview | full record— Gally, Henry (bap. 1696, d. 1769)
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)