Date: c. 1603

"By your vague inductions you took men's minds off their guard and weakened their mental sinews."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: c. 1603

"When, however, you gave out the falsehood that truth is, as it were, the native inhabitant of the human mind and need not come in from, outside to take up its abode there; when you turned our minds away from observation, away from things, to which it is impossible we should ever be sufficiently ...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1607

"Now for the body, as well it leuils at it: for those who distemper and misdiet them selues with vntimely and vnwonted surfeting, who make their bodies the noysome sepulchers of their soules, not considering the estate of their enfeebled body what will be accordant to it, not waighing their compl...

— Walkington, Thomas (b. c. 1575, d. 1621)

Date: 1615

"The 12 signs of the Zodiac, by the Astrologers elegantly depictured in the body of a man, I pass over with silence: for these are things ancient and commonly known, as being sung in the corners of our streets: we choose rather to meditate of more sublime and profound matters, and to bend the eye...

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1615

"From the brain, turn the eye of thy mind to the gates of the Sun, and Windows of the soul, I mean the eyes, and there behold the brightness of the glittering Crystal, the purity and neat cleanness of the watery and glassy humors, the delicate and fine texture of the Tunicles, and the wonderfull ...

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1641

"I am not that structure of limbs which is called a human body. I am not even some thin vapour which permeates the limbs - a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I depict in my imagination; for these are things which I have supposed to be nothing."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

"And whenever my preconceived belief in the supreme power of God comes to mind, I cannot but admit that it would be easy for him, if he so desired, to bring it about that I go wrong even in those matters which I think I see utterly clearly with my mind's eye."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1641

"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblan...

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1644, 1647

A 'clear' perception is analogous to an object "present to the eye's gaze" that "stimulates it with a sufficient degree of strength and accessibility"

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1649

"I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans owne Conscience, thereby to salve State sores; to calme the stormes of popular discontents, by stirring up a tempest in a mans owne bosome."

— Charles I (1600-1649); Gauden, John (1605-1662)