Date: September 10, 1726
"To explain this, we must consider that the first Image which an outward Object imprints on our Brain is very slight; it resembles a thin Vapour which dwindles into nothing, without leaving the least track after it. But if the same Object successively offers itself several times, the Image it occ...
preview | full record— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)
Date: 1727
"To see a Fool, a Fop, believe himself inspir'd, a Fellow that washes his Hands fifty times a-day, but if he would be truly cleanly, should have his Brains taken out and wash'd, his Scull Trapan'd, and plac'd with the hind-side before, that his Understanding, which Nature plac'd by Mistake, with ...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1732
"Gorgias hath gone further, demonstrating man to be a piece of clock-work or machine; and that thought or reason are the same thing as the impulse of one ball against another."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1734
"Mean-time the Body, which we study to soak in Pleasure like a Sponge, is of it self but a mere dead Husk, and drops off at last: and a Man reckons upon it no farther, than as a Machine for bringing him Pleasure, and would sometimes be content to change it for another Body, if he could, and does ...
preview | full record— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)