Date: 1748, 1749
"The human body is a machine that winds up its own springs: it is a living image of the perpetual motion."
preview | full record— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)
Date: w. c. 1759-1791
"And this in some measure accounts why there are some heads so strange and whimsical, without any fixed Ideas at all, some exceedingly heavy and confusd; some working and whirling along with amazing rapidity, depending in a great measure upon the different movements of the machine as it works and...
preview | full record— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)
Date: w. c. 1759-1791
"should it be granted me then that there is or may be such a machine or Gig in every mans head; that thus works and mills his Ideas, yet it may be questiond perhaps after all, what it is that can give it its first motion."
preview | full record— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)
Date: w. c. 1759-1791
"I will be the Director of no mans opinion but he who is anatomically acquainted with the processus Zygomaticus, the processus Hyloides, or the processius mammillaris; will easily grant me all this may be performd by the air that is received by the ear, or mouth only; so that it is reasonable to ...
preview | full record— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)
Date: 1774
"If it were not employed in this, genius must go on like a mere machine, and a person should have no power over it after it were once set in motion."
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1785
"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1790
"Their view calls off his attention from his own view; and his breast is, in some measure, becalmed the moment they come into his presence. This effect is produced instantaneously and, as it were, mechanically; but, with a weak man, it is not of long continuance."
preview | full record— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)