Date: 1718

"Epicurus, that it [sperm] is a Fragment torn from the Body and Soul."

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)

Date: 1718

""Lausippus and Zeno, [sperm] 'tis a Body, and it is a Fragment of the Soul."

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)

Date: 1718

"Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle, that the Spermatick Faculty is incorporeal, as the Mind is which moves the Body, but the effused Matter is corporeal."

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)

Date: 1747

"The figures, which must actuate her, remain / As yet quite uncollected in the brain; / Exterior objects have not furnish' yet / Th' ideal stores which Age is sure to get."

— Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (1661-1741)

Date: 1747

"But the wild passions, once broke loose, to check / Surpass'd his pow'r, or the slack'd reins recall."

— Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (1661-1741)

Date: 1747

"And where's the boasted liberty of man? / Chang'd are his lords indeed; and tyrant Lust / Usurps the just supremacy of Heav'n."

— Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (1661-1741)

Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788

"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."

— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)