Date: 1748, 1749

"Is there any further occasion, to prove that man is but an animal, made up of a number of springs, which are all put in motion by each other; and yet we cannot tell to which part of the human structure first set her hand. If these springs differ amongst themselves, this arises from their particu...

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1748, 1749

"The body may be consider'd as a clock, and the fresh chyle we may look upon as the former of that clock."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: 1751, 1777

"We may as well imagine, that minute wheels and springs, like those of a watch, give motion to a loaded wagon, as account for the origin of passion from such abstruse reflections."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"The sympathy, therefore, or consent observed between the nerves of various parts of the body, is not to be explained mechanically, but ought to be ascribed to the energy of that sentient being, which seems in a peculiar manner to reside in the brain, and, by means of the nerves, moves, actuates,...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1751

"The bodies of brute animals are actuated by a principle of a like kind with what is placed in man, but greatly inferior with regard to the degrees of reason and intelligence which it possesses: in the more perfect brutes, this principle is plainly intelligent as well as sentient; and their actio...

— Whytt, Robert (1714-1766)

Date: 1759

"The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"The first turn of mind has at least all the beauty which can belong to the most perfect machine that was ever invented for promoting the most agreeable purpose: and the second all the deformity of the most aukward and clumsy contrivance."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"He might perceive a beauty of this kind in prudence, temperance and good conduct, and a deformity in the opposite behaviour: He might view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well contrived machine, in the one case; or with that sort of distaste a...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"He might view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived machine, in the one case; or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the other."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)