Date: 1729

"The Brain of an Animal cannot be look'd and search'd into whilst it is alive. Should you take the main Spring out of a Watch, and leave the Barrel that contain'd it, standing empty, it would be impossible to find out what it had been that made it exert itself, whilst it shew'd the Time"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"The main Spring in us is the Soul, which is immaterial and immortal"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1729

"What is it, that superintends Thought in them? where must we look for it? which is the main Spring?... I can answer you no otherwise, than Life."

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1731

"And therefore, as he observeth out of Aristotle, 'as it is absurd to say the Soul Weaves,' (or indeed the Body either, Weaving being a mixt Action of the Man and Weaving Instruments) so it is absurd to say that the Soul alone doth Covet, Grieve or Perceive: these things proceeding from the Compo...

— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)

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."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"Cimon hath made noble use of these discoveries, proving as clearly as any proposition in mathematics, that conscience is a whim, and morality a prejudice; and that a man is no more accountable for his actions than a clock is for striking."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1733

"I have formerly suggested, that the best Similitude I can form of the Nature and Actions of this Principle upon the Organs of its Machin, is that of a skillful Musician playing on a well-tun'd Instrument."

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1733

"The most difficult Problem in all the Animal OEconomy, is, to give any tolerable Account of Muscular Action or Animal Motion. The Similitude of a Machin put into Action and Motion by the Force of Water convey'd in Pipes, was the readiest Resemblance the Lazy could find to explain Muscular Motion...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1734

"We see and feel these limbs, and this flesh of ours; we are acquainted at least with the outside of this animal machine, and sometimes call it ourselves, though philosophy and reason would rather say, it is our house or tabernacle, because we possess it, or dwell in it: it is our en...