Date: 1651, 1668

"Potent men, digest hardly any thing that setteth up a power to bridle their affections; and learned men, any thing that discovereth their errors, and thereby lesseneth their authority: whereas the common people's minds, unless they be tainted with dependance on the potent, or scribbled over with...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"In sum, the discourse of the mind, when it is governed by design, is nothing but seeking, or the faculty of invention, which the Latins called sagacitas, and solertia; a hunting out of the causes, of some effect, present or past; or of the effects, of some present or past ca...

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Date: 1651, 1668

"Again, from thence, his thoughts run over the same places and times, to find what action, or other occasion might make him lose it."

— Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

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)

Date: 1651

"By the apprehensive power we perceive the species of sensible things present, or absent, and retain them as wax doth the print of a seal."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651

"This common sense is the judge or moderator of the rest, by whom we discern all differences of objects; for by mine eye I do not know that I see, or by mine ear that I hear, but by my common sense, who judgeth of sounds and colours: they are but the organs to bring the species to be censured; so...

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651

"Memory lays up all the species which the senses have brought in, and records them as a good register, that they may be forthcoming when they are called for by phantasy and reason"

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651

When common sense rests, "The phantasy alone is free, and his commander reason: as appears by those imaginary dreams, which are of divers kinds, natural, divine, demoniacal, &c., which vary according to humours, diet, actions, objects, &c., of which Artemidorus, Cardanus, and Sambucus, with their...

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651

"This litigation of senses proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which they should come; this stopping is caused of vapours arising out of the stomach, filling the nerves, by which the spirits should be conveyed"

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)

Date: 1651

"Voluntary, the third, or intellective, which commands the other two in men, and is a curb unto them, or at least should be, but for the most part is captivated and overruled by them; and men are led like beasts by sense, giving reins to their concupiscence and several lusts."

— Burton, Robert (1577-1640)