Date: 1733

"May not the sentient Principle have its Seat in some Place in the Brain, where the Nerves terminate, like the Musician shut up in his Organ-Room? May not the infinite Windings, Convolutions, and Complications of the Beginning of the Nerves which constitute the Brain, serve to d...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1734

"How shall the Wheel of the Imagination that's continually in motion, be either stop'd or regulated?"

— Forbes of Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord (1678-1762)

Date: 1737

""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"For such is the unsteadiness and activity of thought, that the images of every thing, especially of goods and evils, are always wandering in the mind; and were it mov'd by every idle conception of this kind, it would never enjoy a moment's peace and tranquillity."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The vividness of the first conception diffuses itself along the relations, and is convey'd, as by so many pipes or canals, to every idea that has any communication with the primary one."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The attention is on the stretch; the posture of the mind is uneasy; and the spirits being diverted from their natural course, are not governed in their movements by the same laws, at least not to the same degree, as when they flow in their usual channel."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"I have already observed, in examining the foundation of mathematics, that the imagination, when set into any train of thinking, is apt to continue even when its object fails it, and, like a galley put in motion by the oars, carries on its course without any new impulse."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"The thought slides along the succession with equal facility, as if it consider'd only one object; and therefore confounds the succession with the identity."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)