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Date: 1742 [see first edition, 1733]

"The Mind, like a Tabula rasa, easyly receives the first Impression; and, like that, when the first Impression is deeply made, it with Difficulty admits of an Erasement of the first Characters, which in some Minds are indelible"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

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Date: 1734

"Speaking according to natural philosophers, 'tis a clear case, that wit is a generative power, and, if we may so say, becomes pregnant, and brings forth; moreover, as Plato affirms, wants a midwife to deliver her"

— Huartes, John

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Date: 1734

Wit "has the Power and natural force to produce and bring forth within it self a Son, which the natural Philosophers call NOTION, or Idea, or, as it has been accounted, the word of the spirit."

— Huartes, John

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Date: 1734

"We see and feel these limbs, and this flesh of ours; we are acquainted at least with the outside of this animal machine, and sometimes call it ourselves, though philosophy and reason would rather say, it is our house or tabernacle, because we possess it, or dwell in it: it is our en...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1734

"A surprising Phænomenon of nature is this, that the soul of man, which ranges abroad though the heavens, and the earth, and the deep waters, and unfolds a thousand mysteries of nature, which penetrates the systems of stars and suns, worlds upon worlds, should be so unhappy a stranger at home, an...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: January 1739

"I know that the fear of the civil magistrate is as strong a restraint as any of iron, and that I am in as perfect safety as if he were chain'd or imprison'd."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: January 1739

"In general we may remark, that the minds of men are mirrors to one another, not only because they reflect each others emotions, but also because those rays of passions, sentiments and opinions may be often reverberated, and may decay away by insensible degrees."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: January 1739

"In that case resemblance converts the idea into an impression, not only by means of the relation, and by transfusing the original vivacity into the related idea; but also by presenting such materials as take fire from the least spark."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: January 1739

"I shall therefore observe, that as the mind is endowed with a power of exciting any idea it pleases; whenever it despatches the spirits into that region of the brain, in which the idea is placed; these spirits always excite the idea, when they run precisely into the proper traces, and rummage th...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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Date: January 1739

"An idea assented to feels different from a fictitious idea, that the fancy alone presents to us: and this different feeling I endeavour to explain by calling it a superior force, or vivacity, or solidity, or firmness, or steadiness."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.