Date: 1714
If we imagine a "machine whose structure makes it think, sense, and have perceptions" enlarged to the size of a mill, upon "inspecting its interior, we will only find parts that push one another, and we will never find anything to explain a perception"
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1714
"There is an infinity of past and present shapes and motions that enter into the efficient cause of my present writing"
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1714
Souls, "in general, are living mirrors or images of the universe of creatures."
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1714
Each "mind [is] like a little divinity in its own realm."
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1714
"But when a monad has organs that are adjusted in such a way that, through them, there is contrast and distinction among the impressions they receive, and consequently contrast and distinction in the perceptions that represent them [in the monads] (as, for example, when the rays of light are conc...
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1705, 1714, 1732
"Laws and Government are to the Political Bodies of Civil Societies, what the Vital Spirits and Life it self are to the Natural Bodies of Animated Creatures"
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1705, 1714, 1732
"I believe Man (besides Skin, Flesh, Bones, &c. that are obvious to the Eye) to be a compound of various Passions, that all of then, as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turns, whether he will or no."
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1705, 1714, 1732
"The Chief Thing, therefore, which Lawgivers and other wise Men, that have laboured for the Establishment of Society, have endeavour'd, has been to make the People they were to govern, believe, that it was more beneficial for every Body to conquer than indulge his Appetites and much better to min...
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1705, 1714, 1732
Some may make "a continual War with themselves to promote the Peace of others" and aim at "no less than the Publick Welfare and the Conquest of their own Passion"
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1705, 1714, 1732
"That these two Passions, in which the Seeds of most Virtues are contained, are Realities in our Frame, and not imaginary Qualities, is demonstrable from the plain and different Effects, that in spite of our Reason are produced in us as soon as we are affected with either."
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)