Date: 1664

"That is to say, it is only the latter figures which should be taken to be the forms or images which the rational soul united to this machine will consider directly when it imagines some object or perceives it by the senses."

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1664

"I should like you to consider, after this, all the functions I have ascribed to this machine -- such as the digestion of food, the beating of the heart and arteries, the nourishment and growth of the limbs, respiration, waking and sleeping, the reception by the external sense organs of light, so...

— Descartes, René (1596-1650)

Date: 1667

"For, though Man's Soul, and Body are not onely one natural Engine (as some have thought) of whose motions of all sorts, there may be as certain an accompt given, as those of a Watch or a Clock"

— Sprat, Thomas (bap. 1635, d. 1713)

Date: 1678, 2nd edition in 1743

"But as for that prodigious paradox of Atheists, that cogitation itself is nothing but local motion or mechanism, we could not have thought it possible, that ever any many should have given entertainment to such a conceit, but that this was rather a meer slander raised upon Atheists."

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Let us but consider a little the Receptacles of Images, the Regions of Imagination, the curious formation in all the Instruments of Sense; to which we may add the activity and subtlety of the Spirits, the delicate Contexture of the Nerves, the various Articulations of the Voice, the Harmony of F...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"No less inquisitive have they been about the first Principle of Life, which sets the Wheels of this curious Engine on Work."

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For, though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind, cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them; yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind, and all that may be observed ther...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"By which way one may prove any thing, and it is but supposing that all watches, whilst the balance beats, think; and it is sufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my watch thought all last night."

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"Thirdly, Let us hence duly learn to prize and value our Souls; is the Body such a rare Piece, what this is the Soul? the Body is but the Husk or Shell, the Soul is the Kernel; the Body is but the Cask, the Soul the precious Liquor contained in it; the Body is but the Cabinet; the Soul the Jewel;...

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)

Date: 1696

"Imagine two clocks or watches which agree perfectly ... Put now the soul and the body in place of these two clocks; their accordance may be brought about by one of these three ways."

— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)