Date: 1748, 1754

"A very slight Inspection into human Nature suggests to us, that no kind of Objects make so powerful an Impression on us as those which are immediately impressed on our Senses, or strongly painted on our Imaginations."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"[W]ere the Mind entirely under the Direction of Sense, and impressible only by such Objects as are present, and strike some of the outward Organs, we should then be precisely in the State of the Brute-Creation, and be governed solely by Instinct or Appetite, and have no Power to controul whateve...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Into this common Storehouse are likewise carried all those Moral Images or Forms which are derived from our Moral Faculties of Perception, and there they often undergo new Changes and Appearances, by being mixed and wrought up with the Images and Forms of Sensible or Natural Thing."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"The sensible Beauty, or Good, is refined from its Dross by partaking of the Moral, and the Moral receives a Stamp, a visible Character and Currency from the Sensible."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

When studying Human Nature it is important "to have deeply imprinted on our Mind that GRADATION of Senses, Faculties, and Powers of Enjoyment formerly mentioned, and the Subordination of Goods resulting from thence, which Nature points out, and the Experience of Mankind confirms."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"For, being now destitute of that Counter-poise which held them at a due pitch, they grow turbulent, peevish, and revengeful, the Cause of constant Restlessness and Torment, sometimes flying out into a wild delirious Joy, at other times settling into a deep splenetic Grief. The Concert between Re...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"The Mind is out of Frame, and feels an Agony proportioned to the Violence of the reigning Passion."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Little Objects, mean Company, mean Cares, and mean Business cramp the Mind, contract its Views, and give it a creeping Air and Deportment."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"But when [the mind] soars above mortal Cares and mortal Pursuits, into the Regions of Divinity, and converses with the greatest and best of Beings, it spreads itself into a wider Compass, takes higher Flights in Reason and Goodness, and becomes God-like in its Air and Manners."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)