Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)

"The power which the mind evidently has of moving the various parts of the body by nerves inserted in the muscles is truly wonderful, seeing the mind neither knows the muscles to be moved, nor the machinery, by which the motion in it is to be produced: so that it is as if a musician should always...

— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)

Date: 1775

"[T]here may be a farther difference in the constitution of the nerves belonging to the different senses, or there may be so many circumstances that affect or modify their vibrations, that they may be as distinguishable from one another, as different human voices sounding the same note; and proba...

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: 1776

"If you really then think that, every process, termed mental, in man, is in fact nothing more than so many distinct nervous vibrations, then I readily grant that matter may think, for undoubtedly every stretched cord, when touched, will vibrate; and I will farther grant, that a fiddle, in that se...

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1777, 1810

"When thus, by prospect, and by thought, / My mind to harmony is wrought; / Already conscious of the rising strain, / The path to Knighton I regain."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1780, 1781, 1788

"Thy simple diction, free from glaring art, / With sweet allurement steals upon the heart, / Pure, as the rill, that Nature's hand refines; / Clear, as thy harmony of soul, it shines."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1784

"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1785

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: "as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Who then that has a mind well strung and tuned / To contemplation, and within his reach / A scene so friendly to his favourite task, / Would waste attention at the chequer'd board, / His host of wooden warriors to and fro / Marching and counter-marching, with an eye / As fixt as marble, with a f...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"I thought to see Dan. Pope a swan, / After his soul had done with man; / And many a tuneful soul, in love, / Cooing soft couplets in a dove; / Huge elephants I thought to find / The lodgings of the learned mind; / Pindar's pure soul in Eagle mould, / And Gray's on the same perch of gold; / Hammo...

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1785

Silence is the "Refuge of tender hearts must fear mixing "With the mad multitude, where passions fell, / And strangers to their bosom, enter wild, / Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar / On the soft music of according souls!"

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)