Date: 1705, 1714, 1732

"Laws and Government are to the Political Bodies of Civil Societies, what the Vital Spirits and Life it self are to the Natural Bodies of Animated Creatures"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1705, 1714, 1732

"I believe Man (besides Skin, Flesh, Bones, &c. that are obvious to the Eye) to be a compound of various Passions, that all of then, as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turns, whether he will or no."

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1705, 1714, 1732

"How strangely our Passions govern us!"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1754, 1762

"The two ruling passions of this parliament, were zeal for liberty, and an aversion to the church; and to both of these, nothing could appear more exceptionable, than the court of high commission, whose institution rendered it entirely arbitrary, and assigned to it the defence of the ecclesiastic...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1705

"At length a Court of Conscience is erected by the Mind, where all particular Acts are scrupulously examined, by reason of these frequent Variances of the Souls, the Animal Spirits, as being too much, and in a manner perpetually exercised, and being commanded here and there contrary ways, and alm...

— Beaumont, John (c.1640-1731)

Date: 1759

"They are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance seems to have misled several very eminent authors, to draw up their systems in such a manner, as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1710, 1714

"As cruel a Court as the Inquisition appears; there must, it seems, be full as formidable a one, erected in our-selves; if we wou'd pretend to that Uniformity of Opinion which is necessary to hold us to one Will, and preserve us in the same Mind, from one day to another."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

Date: 1797-8, 1799

"Consciousness of an inner court in the human being ('before which his thoughts accuse or excuse one another') is conscience."

— Kant, Immanuel (1724-1804)

Date: Saturday, Aug. 3, 1754; 1756

"It is justly remarked by Horace, that what is conveyed to our Notice through our Ears, acts with a more feeble Impulse upon the Mind, than Objects that pass through the Organs of Sight, those faithful Evidences in a mental Court of Judicature."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: 1782

"In this view of the case perhaps that species of detraction, which a court of law will not denominate a libel, in a court of conscience and in the eye of Heaven shall amount to murder. I had almost forgot to add that Castillo was a poet."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)