Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"should it be granted me then that there is or may be such a machine or Gig in every mans head; that thus works and mills his Ideas, yet it may be questiond perhaps after all, what it is that can give it its first motion."

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"Now the cortical part of the Brain being allowd to be exceding vascular; a quantity of this nervous fluid may be taken up and conveyd to the brain, by the coroted and vertebral arteries, and so set the machine a working; or it is possible to be, that the air received by the mouth, the ear, the N...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: w. c. 1759-1791

"I will be the Director of no mans opinion but he who is anatomically acquainted with the processus Zygomaticus, the processus Hyloides, or the processius mammillaris; will easily grant me all this may be performd by the air that is received by the ear, or mouth only; so that it is reasonable to ...

— Pratt, Jermyn (d. 1791)

Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can't prevent the shock--at least it imposes upon our s...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"The Body is the Machine which the Soul actuates and directs to perpetrate its Desires, so that the [GREEK CHARACTERS] as Paul stiles him, the Man whose Soul is unconverted is by the Darkness of his Understanding, the Preposterousness of his Will and the Disconcertedness of his Faculties and ment...

— Hammond, William (1719-1783)

Date: 1761, 1790

"Whence can this very motion take its birth? / Not sure from matter, from dull clods of earth; / But from a living spirit lodg'd within, / Which governs all the bodily machine"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

Date: 1762

"Ils sont sourds, en effet, à la voix intérieure qui leur crie d’un ton difficile à méconnaître: Une machine ne pense point, il n’y a ni mouvement, ni figure qui produise la réflexion: quelque chose en toi cherche à briser les liens qui le compriment; l’espace n’est pas ta mesure, l’univers entie...

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)

Date: 1760-1761, 1762

"However, I found their conversation more vulgar than I could have expected from personages of such distinction: if these, thought I to myself, be Princes, they are the most stupid Princes I have ever conversed with: yet still I continued to venerate their dress; for dress has a kind of mechanica...

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)