Date: 1734

"But what Texture of the Brain is sufficient to perform all the various Operations they assign to it, Sensation, Reflection, Wishing, Loving, Hating? Of what figure are the Cells for Poetry, and those for Mathematicks? And what Lodgings of the Brain are Honesty and Knavery to be found in?"

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1736

"And by their Means it becomes a delightful Store-house of the richest Truth and most valuable Knowledge."

— Bernard, Thomas (1684/5-1755)

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...

— Denne, John (1693-1767)

Date: 1737

"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"I shall therefore observe, that as the mind is endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases; whenever it despatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

Personal identity may be like a church, "which was formerly of brick, fell to ruin, and that the parish rebuilt the same church of free-stone, and according to modern architecture."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741

"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But Words and Things which he lately spoke or did, they are immediately forgot, because the Brain is now grown more dry and solid in its Consistence, and receives not much more impression than if you wrote with your Finger on a Floor of Clay, or a plaister'd Wall."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"But in the middle Stage of Life, or it may be from fifteen to fifty Years of Age, the Memory is generally in its happiest State, the Brain easily receives and long retains the Images and Traces which are impress'd upon on it, and the natural Spirits are more active to range these little infinite...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)