Date: 1766

"They suppose the same domineering pride and ingratitude to be the basis of his character; but they are also willing to believe, that his brain has received a sensible shock, and that his judgment, set afloat, is carried to every side, as it is pushed by the current of his humours and of his pass...

— Hume, David (1711-1776); with Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Walpole

Date: 1767

His existence is now at last in no danger of comminution, but then his powers are absolutely gone and quite evaporated. In a word, he is as dry and empty as a beer barrel after it has been some time set a-broach to a drunken mob at a general election."

— Campbell, Archibald (bap. 1724, d. 1780)

Date: 1767

"Very different ideas however are excited in the minds of some, from those excited in the minds of others, even by the first of these, which may be said to be the original fountain of our knowledge, though the ideas produced by it are conveyed by organs common to human nature; and still more diff...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"On the other hand, the too liberal use of IMAGERY even in Poetry (besides that obscurity which it occasions to the ordinary class of Readers, as well as that fatigue which the Imagination experiences from its excessive glare) so disgusts the mind with the perpetual labour of tracing relations an...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Imagination is that faculty whereby the mind not only reflects on its own operations, but which assembles the various ideas conveyed to the understanding by the canal of sensation, and treasured up in the repository of the memory, compounding or disjoining them at pleasure; and which, by its pla...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1771

"He thinks nothing more absurd than the common notion of Instruction, as if Science were to be poured into the Mind, like water into a cistern, that passively waits to receive all that comes."

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1771

"Now as our Feet in vain venture to walk upon the River, till the Frost bind the Current, and harden the yielding Surface; so does the SOUL in vain seek to exert its higher Powers, the Powers I mean of REASON and INTELLECT, till IMAGINATION first fix the fluency of SENSE, and thus provide ...

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1772

"No inference can give a juster idea of Des Cartes's doctrine of automata, than Mr. Regis's comparison of some hydraulic machines, to be seen in certain grottos and fountains, that serve as ornaments to the splendid mansions of the great; where water exerts itself by the disposition of the pipes,...

— Anonymous

Date: 1774

"Genius implies likewise activity of imagination. Whenever a fine imagination possesses healthful vigour, it will be continually starting hints, and pouring in conceptions upon the mind.

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)

Date: 1774

"The largest river takes its rise from some small fountain; issuing from this, it rolls its streams over a long extent of country, and is enlarged during its course by the influx of many rivulets derived from springs no more considerable than its own, till at last it becomes an impassable torrent...

— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)