Date: 1726, 1729

"Let us Instance in a Watch--Suppose the several Parts of it taken to Pieces, and placed apart from each other: Let a Man have ever so exact a Notion of these several Parts, unless he considers the Respects and Relations which they have to each other, he will not have any thing like the Idea of a...

— Butler, Joseph (1692-1752)

Date: 1729

"You have seen those Engines that raise Water by the Help of Fire; the Steam you know, is that which forces it up; it is as impossible to see the volatile Particles that perform the Labour of the Brain, when the Creature is dead, as in the Engine it would be to see the Steam, (which yet does all ...

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

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: 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."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

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)