page 2 of 4     per page:
sorted by:

Date: 1730

"Now, if such a complex being were in nature, how would that spiritual Soul act in that Body, that in its first Union with it (excepting some universal Principles) is a rasa Tabula, as a white Paper, without the Notices of Things written in it?"

— Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715); Anonymous

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

If the mind is corporeal it must be composed of infinite parts: "Which then can claim dominion o'er the rest, / Or stamp the ruling passion in the breast"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

"Our reason judges better than our eyes"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

"This then's the first great law by Nature giv'n, / Stamp'd on our souls, and ratify'd by Heav'n"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

"Such then is God, a spirit pure refin'd / From all material dross, and such the human mind."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

"Ev'n from this dark confinement with delight / She [the mind] looks abroad, and prunes herself for flight; / Like an unwilling inmate longs to roam / From this dull earth, and seek her native home."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: 1761, 1790

"Whence can this very motion take its birth? / Not sure from matter, from dull clods of earth; / But from a living spirit lodg'd within, / Which governs all the bodily machine"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

preview | full record

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"But admitting a spiritual substance to be dispersed throughout the universe, like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, and to be the only inherent subject of thought, we have reason to conclude from analogy, that nature uses it after the same manner she does the other substance, matter."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

preview | full record

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"She [Nature] employs it [spiritual substance] as a kind of paste or clay; modifies it into a variety of forms and existences; dissolves after a time each modification, and from its substance erects a new form."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

preview | full record

Date: w. 1755, 1777

"And does any thing steel the breast of judges and juries against the sentiments of humanity but reflections on necessity and public interest?"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

preview | full record

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