Date: 1712
"Tell us, Lucretius, Epicurus, tell, / And you in Wit unrival'd shall excel, / How thro' the outward Sense the Object flies, / How in the Soul her Images arise. / What Thinking, what Perception is, explain; / What all the airy Creatures of the Brain; / How to the Mind a Thought reflected goes, / ...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
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: 1730
"Learning! that mazy Cobweb of the Brain, / That renders all the Avenues / Of Truth, that in itself is plain, / Impervious and abstruse, / Perplex'd and intricate, / By that false Engine of our Mind, Debate."
preview | full record— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)
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)
Date: 1733-4
"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1743
"Though grey our heads, our thoughts and aims are green; / Like damaged clocks, whose hand and bell dissent; / Folly sings six, while Nature points at twelve."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744, 1772, 1795
"Passion's fierce illapse / Rouzes the mind's whole fabric; with supplies / Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers / Intensely poiz'd, and polishes anew / By that collision all the fine machine: / Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees / Incumbering, choak at last what heaven design'd ...
preview | full record— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)
Date: 1751
"If any Man hath found out a Kind of Motive which doth not affect himself, he hath made a deeper Investigation into the 'Springs, Weights, and Balances' of the human Heart, than I can pretend to."
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)