Date: Friday, April 21, 1727
"For though it is generally believed that few Statesmen are much afflicted with this terrible Inmate; yet, upon a careful Inspection of human Nature, I find it to be a vulgar Error; and am fully satisfied that, notwithstanding the outward placid Behaviour and smiling Aspect of t...
preview | full record— Caleb d'Anvers [pseud. for Nicholas Amhurst, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath]
Date: 1727
"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ide...
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1728
"SENSORY, or Sensorium Commune, the Seat of the Common Sense; or that Part where the sensible Soul is supposed more immediately to reside."
preview | full record— Chambers, Ephraim (1680-1740)
Date: 1728
"All these Things shew evidently, that the Soul resides immediately in that Part of the Brain wherein the Nerves of all the Organs of Sense terminate: we mean 'tis there it perceives all the Changes that happen with regard to the Objects that cause them, or that have been used to cause them; and,...
preview | full record— Chambers, Ephraim (1680?–1740)
Date: 1729
"We have a faint Image of these Operations in Hawking: For Memory may be justly compar'd to the Dog that beats the Field, or the Wood, and that starts the Game; Imagination to the Falcon that clips it upon its Pinions after it; and Judgment to the Falconer, who directs the Flight, and who governs...
preview | full record— Dennis, John (1658-1734)
Date: January, 1730
"Reason and prudence sit not at the helm, in such a mind, to guide and steer the vessel of its body; but wild fancy and imagination, irregular lust and passion, drive it on the destructive rocks of folly, vice and presumption."
preview | full record— Anonymous
Date: 1731
"Feeling is nothing but the Impulse, Motion, or Action of Bodies, gently or violently impressing the Extremities or Sides of the Nerves, of the Skin of other parts of the Body, which by their Structure and Mechanism, convey this Motion to the Sentient Principle in the Brain, or the Musician."
preview | full record— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)
Date: 1731
"And therefore it [the soul] is not present with it only as a Mariner with a Ship, that is, meerly Locally, or knowingly and unpassionately present, they still continuing two distinct Things; but it is vitally united to it, and passionately present with it. And therefore when the Body is hurt, th...
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: 1731
"But Sense is of that which is without, Sense wholly gazes and gads abroad, and therefore doth not know and comprehend its Object, because it is different from it."
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: 1731
"To have not only Reason degraded and dethroned, but even Sense it self Perverted or extinguished, and in the room, thereof boisterous Phantasms protruded from the Irrational Appetites, Passions and Affections (now grown Monstrous and Enormous) to become the very Sensations of it, by means whereo...
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)