Date: c. 1603

"But do you suppose, when all the approaches and entrances to men's minds are beset and blocked by the most obscure idols -- idols deeply implanted and, as it were, burned in -- that any clean and polished surface remains in the mirror of the mind on which the genuine natural light of things can ...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1605, 1640

"By which wordes he declares, not obscurely, that God hath framed the Mind of Man, as a Mirror or Glasse capable of the Image of the universall world, and as joyfull to receive the impressions thereof, as the eye joyeth to receave light; and not only delighted in the beholding, the variety of thi...

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1605, 1640

"For the mind of man is far from the nature of a clear and equal glass, wherein the beams of things should reflect according to their true incidence; nay, it is rather like an enchanted glass, full of superstition and imposture, if it be not delivered and reduced."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1615

"The eyes are the discouerers of the mind, as the countenance is the Image of the same; by the eyes as by a window, you may looke euen into the secret corners of the Soule: so that it was well sayde of Alexander ... that the eyes are the mirror or Looking-glasse of the Soule."

— Crooke, Helkiah (1576-1648)

Date: 1620

"[A]s an uneven mirror distorts the rays of objects according to its own figure and section, so the mind, when it receives impressions of objects through the sense, cannot be trusted to report them truly"

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1620

"And the human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolours the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it."

— Bacon, Sir Francis, Lord Verulam (1561-1626)

Date: 1641

A geometrical argument fills the mind and allows one to see everything at a single glance

— Mersenne, Marin (1588-1648)

Date: 1641

A calm mind, free from the hurly-burly of external things, may fix its gaze on itself

— Arnauld, Antoine (1612-1694)

Date: 1641

"Now if we are to become aware of something, it is necessary for the thing to act on the cognitive faculty by transmitting its semblance to the faculty or by informing the faculty with its semblance. Hence it seems clear that the faculty itself, not being outside itself, cannot transmit a semblan...

— Gassendi, Pierre (1592-1655)

Date: 1651

"Attraction is a ministering faculty, which, as a loadstone doth iron, draws meat into the stomach, or as a lamp doth oil; and this attractive power is very necessary in plants, which suck up moisture by the root, as, another mouth, into the sap, as a like stomach."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)