Date: 1745
"Soon as his Breast receiv'd the potent Ray, / Whate'er possest it, instantly gave way; / As in the Wood before the Lightning's Beam, / Perish the Leaves, and the whole Tree is Flame."
preview | full record— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)
Date: November 10, 1750
"Is it that a long commerce with the world does indeed corrupt the heart; and extinguish by degrees those sparks of light, those inclinations to good, which were implanted in our minds?"
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: 1765
"Modern philosophers give them other fine names and Julius Scaliger, in particular, used to call them "seeds of eternity" and also "zopyra"--meaning living fires or flashes of light hidden inside us but made visible by stimulation of the senses, as sparks can be struck by steel."
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)